The Italian Woman Read online

  About the Book

  When Catherine de’ Medici was forced to marry Henry of Orleans, hers was not the only heart broken. Jeanne of Navarre once dreamed of marrying this same prince, but like Catherine her future must bend to the will of King Francis’s political needs. And so both Catherine and Jeanne’s lives are set on unwanted paths, destined to cross in affairs of state, love and faith, driving them to become deadly political rivals.

  Years later Jeanne is happily married to the dashing but politically inept Antoine de Bourbon, whilst the widowed Catherine continues to be loved by few and feared by many – including her children. But Catherine is now the powerful mother of kings, who will do anything to see her beloved second son, Henry, rule France. As civil war ravages the country and Jeanne fights for the Huguenot cause, Catherine advances along her unholy road, making enemies at every turn …

  ‘An exciting tale and Jean Plaidy tells it with accurate knowledge’ Times Literary Supplement

  ‘An excellent story’ Irish Press

  ‘A penetrating and thoughtful study of Catherine de’ Medici’ Northern Daily Telegraph

  Jean Plaidy, one of the pre-eminent authors of historical fiction for most of the twentieth century, is the pen name of the prolific English author Eleanor Hibbert, also known as Victoria Holt. Jean Plaidy’s novels had sold more than 14 million copies worldwide by the time of her death in 1993.

  For further information about Arrow’s Jean Plaidy reissues and mailing list, please visit

  www.randomhouse.co.uk/minisites/jeanplaidy

  Praise for Jean Plaidy

  ‘Plaidy excels at blending history with romance and drama’

  New York Times

  ‘A vivid impression of life at the Tudor Court’

  Daily Telegraph

  ‘One of the country’s most widely read novelists’

  Sunday Times

  ‘It is hard to better Jean Plaidy … both elegant and exciting’

  Daily Mirror

  ‘Outstanding’ Vanity Fair

  ‘Plaidy has brought the past to life’ Times Literary Supplement

  ‘One of our best historical novelists’ News Chronicle

  ‘Spirited … Plaidy paints the truth as she sees it’

  Birmingham Post

  ‘An enthralling story of a grim period of history, told with

  rare skill’ Aberdeen Press and Journal

  ‘Sketched vividly and sympathetically … rewarding’

  Scotsman

  ‘Among the foremost of current historical novelists’

  Birmingham Mail

  ‘An accomplished novelist’ Glasgow Evening News

  ‘There can be no doubt of the author’s gift for storytelling’

  Illustrated London News

  ‘Jean Plaidy has once again brought characters and

  background vividly to life’ Everywoman

  ‘Well up to standard … fascinating’

  Manchester Evening News

  ‘Exciting and intelligent’ Truth Magazine

  ‘No frills and plenty of excitement’ Yorkshire Post

  ‘Meticulous attention to historical detail’ South Wales Argus

  ‘Colourful … imaginative and exciting’

  Northern Daily Telegraph

  ‘Effective and readable’ Sphere

  ‘A vivid picture of the crude and vigorous London of those

  days’ Laurence Meynell

  Further titles available in Arrow by Jean Plaidy

  The Tudors

  Uneasy Lies the Head

  Katharine, the Virgin Widow

  The Shadow of the Pomegranate

  The King’s Secret Matter

  Murder Most Royal

  St Thomas’s Eve

  The Sixth Wife

  The Thistle and the Rose

  Mary Queen of France

  Gay Lord Robert

  Royal Road to Fotheringay

  The Captive Queen of Scots

  The Medici Trilogy

  Madame Serpent

  The Italian Woman

  Queen Jezebel

  The Plantagenets

  The Plantagenet Prelude

  The Revolt of the Eaglets

  The Heart of the Lion

  The Prince of Darkness

  The French Revolution

  Louis the Well-Beloved

  The Road to Compiègne

  Flaunting, Extravagant Queen

  The Queen of Diamonds

  This eBook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.

  Version 1.0

  Epub ISBN 9781446411995

  www.randomhouse.co.uk

  Published by Arrow Books in 2006

  1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2

  Copyright © Jean Plaidy, 1952

  Initial lettering copyright © Stephen Raw, 2005

  The Estate of Eleanor Hibbert has asserted its right

  to have Jean Plaidy identified as the author of this work.

  This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

  First published in the United Kingdom in 1952 by Robert Hale Ltd

  Arrow Books

  The Random House Group Limited

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  www.randomhouse.co.uk

  A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

  ISBN 9780099493181 (from Jan 2007)

  ISBN 0099493187

  Contents

  Family Tree

  Chapter I

  Chapter II

  Chapter III

  Author’s Note

  CHAPTER I

  In her apartments at the castle of Plessis-les-Tours a little girl knelt on a window seat and looked disconsolately out on the sunlit grounds. The sunshine out there, she felt, made the castle itself more gloomy by contrast. She hated the place.

  ‘What am I,’ she said aloud, ‘but a prisoner?’

  The lady who was stitching industriously at her embroidery, her back to the window and to the little girl, that the best of the light might fall on her work, clicked her tongue in answer. She had no wish to enter into a discussion of her wrongs with Jeanne, for although the child was only twelve years old, her tongue was so quick that even her tutor had learned not to enter lightly into wordy battles with her, since, with her logic and quick wits, Jeanne had a way of coming out of such encounters victorious. As for Madame de Silly, the Baillive of Caen and governess of Jeanne, she knew herself no match for the child when it came to an argument.

  ‘I hear the wind howling through the trees in the forest sometimes at night,
’ went on Jeanne. ‘Then I think that perhaps it is the souls of those who died in torment before they could make their peace with God. Do you think that is what we hear, Aymée?’

  ‘Nonsense!’ cried Aymée de Silly. ‘You have just said it was the wind in the trees.’

  ‘It is a prison, Aymée. Can you not feel it? Too much misery has been suffered in this place for me to be happy here. Think of those prisoners of my ancestor. Think of the iron cages in which he kept them … so small that they could not move; and there they remained for years. Think of the men who have been tortured in this dark and miserable place. Look out there at the lovely river. Men have been cruelly drowned in that river. When I go out at dusk, I seem to see the bodies of men hanging on the trees, as they did all those years ago.’

  ‘You think too much,’ said Aymée.

  ‘How can one think too much?’ demanded Jeanne scornfully. ‘I am determined not to stay here. I shall run away and join my mother and father. Why should I be kept from them?’

  ‘Because it is the will of the King of France. And what do you think would happen were you to run away? If – which, seems hardly likely – you were to have the good fortune to arrive at your father’s court of Navarre, what do you think would happen? I can tell you. You would be sent back here.’

  ‘That might not be,’ said Jeanne. ‘If my father, the King of Navarre, were there, he would hide me, since he at least wishes me to be with him. I know it.’

  ‘But it is the will of your uncle that you should stay here. And have you forgotten that your uncle is the King of France?’

  ‘That is something Uncle Francis never lets anyone forget.’ Jeanne smiled, for in spite of her grievances against him, she loved her uncle. He was handsome and charming and always delightful to her; he was amused rather than angry when she pleaded to be allowed to join her parents, even though she knew it was his wish that she should remain where she was.

  ‘When I see the little peasant children with their mothers, I envy them,’ she said.

  ‘You do nothing of the sort!’ retorted Aymée. ‘You only fancy you do. Imagine your feelings, my child, if you were told tomorrow that you were stripped of your rank! How would you like that?’

  ‘Not at all. But all the same, I long to see my mother. Tell me of her, Aymée.’

  ‘She is very beautiful; she is respected and loved by her husband, the King of Navarre …’

  ‘And adored by her brother the King of France,’ interrupted Jeanne. ‘Do you remember that when I was very small, I used to make you repeat over and over again the story of how, when Uncle Francis was a prisoner in Spain, it was my mother who went to his prison in Madrid and nursed him back to health?’

  ‘I remember clearly,’ said Aymée, smiling.

  ‘But,’ went on Jeanne, ‘do you think that a woman should love her brother more than she loves her husband and her own child?’

  Aymée’s face was pink suddenly; she pursed her lips as she frequently did when challenged with a question she was going to refuse to answer. ‘Your mother is a great queen,’ she said. ‘She is the noblest woman in France …’

  ‘I know, dear Aymée, but that was not the point we were discussing. Should a woman love her brother more than her husband and her child? That was what I said. And you dare not answer it. My mother could have had me with her, had she insisted. Uncle Francis would have given way had she pleaded, for he can deny her nothing. But she loves him, and because she wishes to please him more than anything in the world, when he says: It is my wish that your daughter should be kept a prisoner at that most hateful, that most gloomy, that most miserable of all my castles … my mother answers: “Thy will be done.” She has no will but his. You yourself have said so.’

  ‘It is very right and proper that all his subjects should obey the King, and even the Queen of Navarre is a subject of the King of France.’

  Jeanne jumped down from the window-seat in exasperation. There were times when Aymée’s method of skirting round a difficult subject infuriated her. Jeanne was vehement by nature; her temper rose quickly and subsided at the same speed. But how absurd it was to pretend things were not as one knew them to be!

  ‘How I hate all insincerity!’ she cried.

  ‘And, Mademoiselle,’ said her governess sternly, ‘how I abhor such precocity! You know a good deal more than it is good for you to know.’

  ‘How can that be when all knowledge is good to have? Aymée, you make me angry when you keep up this pretence. I am loved by my father and mother; my uncle has nothing but my good at heart. And yet, all these years when I have longed to be with my parents, I am kept from them. Now you will try to pretend, will you not, that my uncle, the King of France, and my father, the King of Navarre, are the greatest of friends. Let us have the truth. They hate each other. They are suspicious of each other; and it is because the King of France suspects my father of trying to arrange a match between me and Philip of Spain that he insists on my being kept here, so that he himself may be sure that I am not given to his enemy.’ She laughed to see the dismay in the eyes of her governess. ‘Oh, Aymée, it is not your fault. You have done all you can to keep these facts from me. But you know how I hate pretence. And I will not have it here.’

  Aymée shrugged her shoulders and went on with her embroidery. ‘Jeanne,’ she said, ‘why not forget all this? You are young. You keep good state here. You have nothing with which to worry yourself. You are happy; and one day you will be able to join your parents.’

  ‘Listen!’ cried Jeanne. ‘I hear the sound of a horn.’

  Aymée rose and came to the window. Her heart was beating uncomfortably fast. It was a habit of King Francis when he was staying at Amboise to ride over to Plessis-les-Tours. Sometimes he came with just a few of his followers – a brief, informal call on his little niece. At such times Aymée was terrified, for Jeanne never seemed to remember that this magnificent and charming man, besides being her uncle, was also the King of France. She could be pert, disrespectful, and at times resentful. If the King were in a good mood he might be amused; but if he were not, who could know what might happen?

  ‘Is the court at Amboise?’ asked Jeanne.

  ‘That I do not know.’

  They stood for some seconds looking beyond the grass slopes to the trees of the forest; and then, as a group of riders emerged and came straight towards the castle, Jeanne turned to her governess. ‘The King’s court is at Amboise; and here comes the King to visit me.’

  Aymée laid a trembling hand on her charge’s shoulder.

  ‘Have a care …’

  Jeanne retorted: ‘If you mean, tell him that I am happy here and pleased with my state, that I like to be kept from my parents, then rest assured I shall not have a care. I shall tell no lies.’

  In the magnificent hall, the King greeted his niece. This hall brought back memories to Francis; here he, as Duke of Valois, had been betrothed to Claude, the Princess of France; he had not been sure then that he would ever sit on the throne of France. His sister Marguerite, dearest of all women as far as he was concerned, had encouraged him in those days. What would his life have been without Marguerite? He thought of that always when he looked at Marguerite’s daughter; and that meant that he must be fond of the child. He could not help but be fond of her for her own sake, since, with those blunt manners, that directness of speech, she was not without charm; and one grew weary of sycophancy. He wished, though, that Jeanne had inherited a little more of her mother’s beauty. He wished that he did not see in her a resemblance to that sly old villain, her father, the King of Navarre.

  She knelt before him and kissed his hand; and his lips twitched. He was remembering the tale Marguerite had told him of how this child had, in a fit of temper, once cut off the heads of the saints in her mother’s tapestry and substituted for them the heads of foxes. That was a crime which had amused both Francis and his sister.

  ‘Rise, child,’ he said. ‘You are looking well. The air of Plessis agrees with you.’
<
br />   He watched the flush rise in her cheeks. He enjoyed teasing her.

  ‘Indeed, Sire, it does not agree with me!’

  He was aware of Madame de Silly, trembling in the background, waiting in trepidation for what the child would say next.

  ‘You surprise me, niece. I was about to congratulate Madame de Silly on your healthy appearance.’

  ‘The air of Navarre – my native air – would suit me better, Sire.’

  ‘When you hear the good news I have brought you, you will cease to fret for the air of Navarre. I have ridden over from Amboise with the sole purpose of imparting this news to you. What would you say if I told you I had a husband for you?’

  Jeanne caught her breath in horror. ‘A husband … for me, Sire?’

  ‘I see that you are enchanted. That is well. You are growing up, my darling, and it is time we thought about a match for you. How does it appeal to you – the married state?’

  ‘Not greatly, Sire. Unless, of course, it were with some great King.’

  He frowned, and Aymée trembled. It would seem that Jeanne was daring to refer to the match her father wished for her – an alliance with the man who would one day be King of Spain.

  ‘You prize yourself highly,’ said Francis coldly.

  ‘Unless there were great honour in a marriage I should not care for it,’ said Jeanne. ‘Many husbands give honour to women not their wives, so it is necessary for a wife to make a marriage which brings her honour, since she may not receive it from her husband afterwards.’

  The King was always pleased with those who amused him; and the precocity of the child reminded him of his sister. His momentary displeasure disappeared, and he laughed aloud.

  ‘My dearest niece, I have no fear that you will be unable to keep Monsieur le Duc de Clèves under control.’

  ‘The Duc de Clèves!’ she cried. ‘What … do you mean, Sire?’

  ‘That he is to be your husband.’