Written on Silk

by Linda Lee Chaikin

  Nothing,” he said again quietly. His steady gaze met hers, and his determination, though gently spoken, was clear.

  Yes, she understood.

  Rachelle felt tired, her rage now gone, with discouragement rushing in to fill the vacuum.

  “Rachelle, I am sorry,” he said quietly. “If I could help Monsieur Arnaut take his shipment to England, I would do so, for your sake, but there is no time. Your father is a wise man. He will find another ship once he understands that Bertrand will not be joining him. I have a notion he is not a novice in this enterprise.”

  Footsteps approached in the outer salle. Fabien looked toward the archway.

  Gallaudet stood there, fair in color and calmly unreadable, though he must have understood the emotional tension that crackled in the chamber.

  “Excuse me, Monseigneur, but the horses are ready. The time grows short.”

  “I shall be there in a moment,” the marquis told Gallaudet.

  Gallaudet bowed his head and stepped out of sight into the outer corridor of the salle.

  Fabien was leaving. Who knew if he would ever come back? A sense of panic swept over her. Everything she loved and needed was slipping through her fingers.

  Rachelle looked desperately at Fabien.

  He watched her, his gaze troubled, but remaining firm.

  “I shall see you when I return. I cannot promise when that will be, for after we attack the Spanish galleons, we sail for the coast of the Americas, toward St. Augustine, Florida. I promised Admiral Coligny, as I told you at Amboise. I am sure your work with silk will keep you productive and give you satisfaction. Au revoir, Rachelle,” he said softly.

  She turned away refusing to answer, tears dampening her cheeks, her heart so heavy it ached. She heard him hesitate, but her escaped sob did not force him to relent. She felt his thoughtful gaze, and she had the impression that he was analyzing her. At the moment her physical fairness was her least important asset.

  She heard his footsteps departing. The sound filled her soul with unbearable loneliness, and as he reached the doorway, she whirled and ran after him.

  “Fabien!” She snatched his sleeve. Their gazes met, and she came to him.

  Swiftly he embraced her, his kiss leaving no doubt of his internal struggle. She clung to him in hope.

  As swiftly as he had embraced her, he released himself from her grasp and strode through the archway and across the outer salle to the front door.

  Rachelle, her face wet with tears, followed him. “Fabien!”

  The front door opened and shut firmly in haste, as though he no longer trusted his determination.

  Rachelle gave a cry of defeat and stood leaning into the archway, her head pressed against the frame.

  You threw yourself at him and lost . . . Lost him, and his respect. Oh, Rachelle, you played the fool!

  A Question of Poison

  ANDELOT DANGEAU BENT LOW IN THE SPANISH SADDLE ON THE MUSCLED golden bay belonging to Marquis Fabien de Vendôme, and headed toward the king’s stable yard at the Louvre Palais in Paris. Behind a low rise, a thin blue reflection betrayed that he was galloping straight into a wide pool of water. Saints! Something else to thwart him. Andelot leaned forward, pressing his weight into the stirrups. A warning shout rose among the dust from a nearby group of footmen and young pages, all garbed in the colors of the royal houses they served.

  Andelot felt the muscled bay tense beneath him, then rise gracefully, as though extending wings. Scaling the pool, the horse landed on steady hoofs, showing training par excellence by the marquis. Andelot grinned and leaned over the saddle, patting the strong, sweating neck. Then, irritated shouts, followed by running feet. He eased the horse into a slow prancing half-circle to face an aggravated audience.

  “Ho! A thousand devils,” shouted a page, who by his manner announced his authority. “Do you wish to smother us all, peasant?” He waved his cap with exaggerated indignation to fan away settling dust from his satin-housed shoulders. He strode up, golden pom-poms on the tips of his slippers bouncing. He had gleaming amber hair and wore satin with silver fripperies. His hand rested on his scabbard. As he looked up at Andelot, his belt tinkled precociously with silver bells.

  Andelot noticed an emblem on the page’s silver-and-green uni-form: the insignia of Madame-Duchesse Xenia Dushane, the Huguenot duchesse related by blood to the Macquinet family of Lyon, the very woman to whom he had been sent.

  The page’s green hat glittered with a large yellow gemstone, undoubtedly a gift, showing favor from the duchesse. The silver tassels on his sleeves twirled proudly in the breeze.

  “Who is this madman, the new manure boy?”

  “Put him to work posthaste!” shouted a pudgy young footman, grinning. “Bring a shovel for messire.”

  Laughter coalesced on the springtime breezes. Andelot glanced from one young face to the other, setting his mouth grimly. He was in no mood for a jocular display after the recent terror he witnessed at the castle of Amboise, where two thousand French Huguenots — those “of the religion” — were tortured, then beheaded until blood ran deep in the courtyard. In his mind’s eye he could still envision the grotesque headless corpses in the river Loire. Surely, it had aged him ten years.

  He dismounted, setting his dusty boots on firm ground again. “Monsieur,” he said to the Dushane page. “See to the feeding and care of Marquis de Vendôme’s horse, s’il vousplaît, and conduct me at once to the appartements of Duchesse Dushane, your madame.”

  “Messieurs,” the page spoke to his fellows in training, “this pestilent fellow nearly rides us down, choking us with dust, and then deigns to give us orders.”

  Andelot felt the chief page’s contemptuous scrutiny upon his soiled brown cloak and serf’s cap. Andelot had once been destined to serve on the Cardinal de Lorraine’s personal staff, and he would have worn the special scholar’s wardrobe which would have earmarked him at Court as the cardinal’s favorite, but his future was altered overnight after the boy, Prince Charles, revealed that Andelot had hidden in the courtyard during the mass beheadings. There still remained the small chance that he might enter the Corps des Pages, but that too appeared unlikely.

  I should have gone to sea with Marquis Fabien, he thought dourly.

  “I am Page Romier, in ser vice to Madame-Duchesse Dushane.”

  In a feeble gesture of appeasing the page, Andelot removed his cap from his brown curly hair and bowed his head. “Honoré. But hasten, I beg of you, for the sake of my mount to feed and give him drink.

  This horse was loaned to me by Marquis Fabien de Vendôme until he returns.”

  “Hurrah, ho! A jest, surely. Where did you steal this magnificent horse, mon serf, eh? Not from Marquis Vendôme, I assure you, for he would have trounced you in a moment.”

  Laughter chortled. Andelot wrestled with his disgruntled mood. He carried a missive for the duchesse from one of the most powerful and feared men in France — le Cardinal de Lorraine — and except for short pauses to graze and water Fabien’s horse, he had not rested since departing the fortress of Amboise in Touraine. His bones felt heavy with weariness, and hunger gnawed at him.

  Andelot narrowed his gaze at the grinning young messieurs gathered in a half circle around him. As though I am a court jester, he thought, his temper simmering.

  “If someone does not feed and rub down this horse,” he said fiercely, “you will one day answer to the Marquis de Vendôme himself, I promise you that! He has told me to take care of the golden bay until he returns to — ” He stopped. No one was to know he had left France until his absence became glaringly apparent.

  “The dusty serf speaks boldly, does he not?” Romier gestured toward the pond. “Go. Rinse yourself off, serf. This is the palais of the King of France!”

  Andelot watched the page turn his pristine back against him and saunter away in the direction of the main palais.

  His heart thudded in his ears. If I had a sword, I vow I would draw it now and call this pompous donkey out
. Am I not wearied with being treated as a beggar all my life? It is men such as he that tempt me sorely to do all I can to become like the cardinal!

  An older man, forking hay nearby, paused, and looked the horse over while leaning on his pitchfork.

  “With so grand a horse as this serf rides, think thrice about what you do, Romier,” he called to the page. Then he inclined his gray head toward the golden bay. “This handsome brute I have seen before. Sure of it. He belongs to the Marquis de Vendôme, as the young serf says.”

  Serf!

  A younger stable boy with a broken front tooth stepped forward and took the reins from Andelot. “I, too, remember him. He’s not one to be forgotten, messire. I will see to him at once.”

  “Merci, ami.” Andelot smiled.

  Andelot watched the boy leading the majestic animal away to be pampered.

  Page Romier had paused and was looking back at Andelot. Doubt now colored his lean face. He tweaked his pointed nose. “So then, if what you boast of is true, and I am not yet the least so convinced, just where is the Marquis Vendôme?”

  Hah, even if I could tell you, you would not believe me.

  Andelot walked up to Page Romier. “I am Andelot Dangeau. I have urgent business with Madame-Duchesse Dushane.”

  Andelot handed over a preliminary missive edged in Church crimson with fanfaronnade.

  Romier gave him a glance as he read what Andelot knew was a directive from the cardinal ordering the page to take Andelot to the duchesse. Page Romier scowled his utter dismay.

  “Why did you not tell me the cardinal sent you?”

  “You did not give me opportunity.”

  “Are you perchance, then, blood related to the Comte Sebastien Dangeau?”

  Andelot smiled with prolonged satisfaction. “Oui, I am his neveu . Does not le cardinal say so?”

  “You speak well there. But if this is not genuine — ” he shook the paper at Andelot — “the cardinal will have the forger’s head.”

  It was time for Andelot to add a bit of scorn. “The risk, messire, will be yours, I assure you, if I am hindered from delivering this lettre as so ordered by the cardinal.”

  Who is also my kinsman, Andelot could have added. However, he did not wish to parry his opponent too far into a corner, for the truth was, that after the recent rampage of horrors against the Huguenots at Amboise, at the urging of the Guise brothers, the cardinal and the duc, Andelot’s kinship with the House of Guise did not shine as wondrously as it once had when he first learned he was related to them by blood.

  Romier rubbed his nose and studied him anew, seeming to reconsider.

  “So be it. Upon the cardinal’s insignia, I will admit you to an audience with my madame. Come, I will see you are brought to Comte Sebastien’s chambers as soon as your boots are wiped.”

  “Did you say Comte Sebastien’s chambers? Non, I must speak with Madame-Duchesse immediately.”

  “Madame-Duchesse is now at the comte’s chambers. And, if messire does not object unduly,” he said in a veiled and dry tone, “we will also shake the dust from your riding cloak.”

  Andelot gave a stilted bow. “As you wish. Merci.”

  ASHORT TIME LATER INSIDE THE LOUVRE, Andelot waited in the blue and gold salle of his oncle Sebastien Dangeau’s appartement. Sebastien had served on the privy council of the Queen Mother, Catherine de Medici, until his recent arrest and imprisonment over his involvement in the Huguenot rebellion at Amboise.

  Andelot glanced about the chamber as he waited for his audience with Duchesse Dushane, recalling how he had visited Sebastien here on several occasions when Andelot was younger and attending monastery school.

  He admired once more the many treasured tapestry hangings from royal French worthies of the past. The Aubusson rug was worn in a few places but retained its comely heritage. All the chairs were upholstered with multicolored brocades that had a predominance of blue with threads of crimson artfully woven throughout the heavy cloth. The low settees and various cushions for sitting were all tasseled the color of gold. The wooden arms and backs of the chairs were meticulously carved into semblances of grape clusters and vines with petite flower petals, stained pink. A long table he remembered well, boasted the royal Valois oriflamme adopted by the renaissance king, Francis I. He walked across the chamber for a closer look.

  I should like to live in a grand place like this with servants to do all my bidding . . . and if I had not displeased le cardinal —

  At the sound of footsteps approaching, Andelot turned as a serving-maid hurried in from the back of the appartment. She must have been a maid of lower status, or a cleaning woman, for her garments were ignoble, and her hands were knobby and had pink blotches, he supposed from years of cleaning. He noticed how the woman twisted and pulled on her hands. Some inward agitation most certainly gnawed at her which was reflected in her teary eyes as well. Surely the poor woman had been crying for some time.

  She took him for a person of import, despite his common clothing, for she curtsied, not once, but twice.

  “Oh, Messire, I fear Madame’s ladies cannot come to you now, for they are all at the bedsides of Mesdames Henriette and Madeleine, praying, as they have taken grievously ill.”

  Henriette was grandmère to the Mesdemoiselles Macquinet. Madeleine was Oncle Sebastien Dangeau’s wife. The news was troubling.

  “Ill? Both mesdames?”

  “Oh Messire, I had naught to do with their illness, I swear it, Messire, though I confess I helped with the petit déjeuner, baking the bread. It is — was — the fruit. Oui, it must be the fruit, for what else could it be? I assure you, both mesdames ate of the fruit two days ago.”

  She dropped her face into her palms, and her stooped shoulders shook.

  Andelot threw a glance toward the closed doors leading off to the other chambers. Was this news of their illness worthy of his alarm, or was this serving woman overwrought?

  “Ill from eating fruit? What manner of fruit was it?”

  She shook her head with a small, defensive whimper. “Just some petite apples held over from last autumn’s harvest, Messire. That is all. Just some apples. Oh, it was la grande madame, as they call her, the silver-haired couturière from her Château de Silk in Lyon, who first took ill. Ah, it is dreadful. She arrived some weeks ago from Chambord to help her granddaughter, Madame Madeleine, who was enceinte. The bébé, she was born in March. We were all here. Then, two days ago, Grande Madame donned herself in most magnifique clothes and went out by carriage to buy some gifts for bébé Joan. Afterward she stopped at the fruit market to buy some rosy apples.”

  The serving woman’s eyes watered over again and dribbled down the creases in her cheeks. “By sunset, after eating the fruit, Grande Madame was oh so ill. Her sickness was dreadful to hear — all the night she was ailing at her stomach — oh, there was naught any of us could do to stop it. She grows weaker by the day and such a kind woman too, Messire, undeserving of such suffering. She gave me lace for a new dress — and her granddaughter, Madame Madeleine, is sick also! Madame-Duchesse Dushane is vexed. She has called her own docteur — he has come several times since yesterday.”

  Andelot frowned, for the illness sounded far worse than he first guessed.

  “This news is most evil, Messire. Perhaps a curse is upon us? I have heard the writings of Nostradamus, warning of dark omens and curses.”

  “Do not think of it,” he said.

  The mention of such things brought to mind the chilling atmosphere of the occult at Amboise. He tried to block from his mind the secret laboratory where young Prince Charles Valois had brought him above the Queen Mother’s chambers.

  He paced across the Aubusson rug. If only Marquis Fabien had not left France! His authority as a Bourbon gave him open doors into the court that few others possessed. Oncle Sebastien had once been a great asset for the family, but not now. There was the duchesse, of course, but she was already doing all she could.

  He felt sorry for the woman; she reminde
d him of the peasant woman in whose charge he had been until his tenth birthday, after which Sebastien had brought him here to the outskirts of Paris to a monastery school.

  When the serving woman hurried away, he went to one of the front windows, moved aside the blue and gold hangings, and peered below to the main courtyard.

  Sick . . . sick unto death . . . ?

  Unrest rattled the door of his mind. There was something he should remember . . . He shook his head. So much had happened recently — so much death.

  The royal court was not presently in residence here at the Louvre, but they were in the process of making a move to the forest tranquility of Fontainebleau, to one of the royalty’s favorite hunting châteaus. The court rarely remained in Paris during the heat of summer, due to its unhealthy air. Those courtiers not going to Fontainebleau even now were making plans to return to their own estates. As always, however, they remained prepared to join royalty at the snap of a finger should the king or Queen Mother call for them.

  Paris kept up its hum of activity with coaches rattling in and out of the gate, and guards in almost constant patrol in the courtyard. Andelot watched the flash of red and blue uniforms, the glint of their casques in the sunlight holding his attention.

  I should have begged the marquis to let me go to sea with him. He and Nappier could teach me some swordsmanship. What good to remain here in France? My future is small. I shall never become the scholar as I had hoped.

  Andelot sighed. While others loathed the study of books, history, and languages, he was fascinated. He might yet be forced to return to the Château de Silk and work again with silkworms as he had done when a boy. What else was there for him in Paris? The Corps des Pages — ah, that was but a dream, a vague promise of the past, for Cardinal de Lorraine was now angry with him.

  Andelot turned from the window, rubbing the back of his neck, frowning. Prisons . . . poisons . . . What was it that he should remember? There was something . . . something stirring at the back of his mind, calling to him, something he had wanted to mention to Marquis Fabien before he rode out, but in the rush of departure he had let it slip from his mind.