" She leaned backward in
the chair, very coarsely clad in brown, but knowing that her coloring
was excellent, that she had miraculously preserved her figure, and
that she did not look her real age by a good ten years. Such
reflections beget spiritual comfort even in a prison.
"Friend," the lean-faced man now said, "I do not come with such
intent, as my mission will readily attest, nor to any ruin, as your
mirror will attest. Instead, madame, I come as the emissary of King
Henry, now dying at Vincennes, and with letters to the lords and
bishops of his council. Dying, the man restores to you your liberty
and your dower-lands, your bed and all your movables, and six gowns of
such fashion and such color as you may elect."
Then with hurried speech he told her of five years' events: of how
within that period King Henry had conquered France, and had married
the French King's daughter, and had begotten a boy who would presently
inherit the united realms of France and England, since in the supreme
hour of triumph King Henry had been stricken with a mortal sickness,
and now lay dying, or perhaps already dead, at Vincennes; and of how
with his penultimate breath the prostrate conqueror had restored to
Queen Jehane all properties and all honors which she formerly enjoyed.
Pages:
246
247
248
249
250
251
252
253
254
255
256
257
258
259
260
261
262
263
264
265
266
267
268
269
270