Sense of Touch: Love and Duty at Anne of Brittany's Court

by Rozsa Gaston

  Marie de Volonté came forward, then Nicole. She smiled sweetly at the younger girl. She would win, she knew. Or so she told herself. It was a trick her father had taught her; to have courage and be bold, and always believe that luck was on one’s side. It hadn’t always been, but she liked believing it was likely to be. It worked more often than not for her father in business, although it hadn’t worked so well in his home life.

  Marie stared back, looking unsure.

  “Here, darlings.” Clotilde had wrapped the end of her surplice around the flower stems, to conceal them. She held out two pale yellow marguerites between the two girls. “Who will go first?”

  “I will,” Marie and Nicole chimed simultaneously.

  “My lady?” Clotilde asked, turning her head to the queen.

  “Let the little one go. She spoke up first, no?”

  Nicole stayed strong inside as the younger girl smirked at her. She had been smirked at before as well as done her share of the smirking. She could withstand a little pressure. “Go ahead,” she agreed.

  A gracious and unflappable exterior was the name of the game at court. Intrigues and liaisons occurred only beneath the silky-smooth cover of diplomatic correctness. Not only did the courtiers’ jobs depend on it, but so did their marriage prospects, and sometimes their lives. Nicole was a fast learner. Without a one-hundred-percent noble background like the other maids of honor, she had to be.

  Marie reached out and touched one of the flowers.

  As she did, Nicole nodded her head ever so slightly, as if to say, “good.” It was a maneuver she had learned at cards to confuse her opponents.

  The younger girl hesitated, looking at her uncertainly.

  Nicole gave her a wide smile, as if to say, “Go ahead; take it.” Inside she told herself she would win. She loved horses, the day was warm and bright, and she itched to be outside, to see and feel the sun on her face and hands and to smell the vital, healthy aroma of a thoroughbred. Would he be spirited? Would he be biddable? Excitement coursed through her at the thought of approaching the new stallion. He would be as unsure of his new surroundings as she had been when she first came to court.

  Marie shifted her hand and took the second flower instead. Pulling it out, she smiled at the sight of its long stem.

  “Now you,” Clotilde instructed, turning to Nicole.

  Nicole reached out and slowly pulled the second flower from Clotilde’s hand. Its stem was long. Very long indeed. The murmur of the ladies grew louder as it became clear that Nicole’s stem was longer than Marie’s by over a thumb’s length.

  “You will go, then, Nicole,” Jeanne de Laval said, laying a hand on her shoulder. “The trainer who has been sent should be at the stables already. Go change into your oldest surplice and cover your hair.”

  “Yes, Madame,” she curtseyed.

  She turned to Marie to ease the younger girl’s disappointment. She knew what it was like not to win, although she never dwelt on it; except when thoughts of her mother stole over her in the night’s deepest hours. At those moments, her body ached with sorrow; she had taken comfort from the sight and sound of Marie’s sleeping form next to her. “I’m sorry you lost, Marie. You can go next time, all right?” she offered.

  “Someone else will decide that. Not you,” Jeanne de Laval corrected Nicole. Nevertheless, Marie’s face brightened, and she looked less downcast as she inclined her head ever so slightly.

  Thirty minutes later, Nicole was outside, on her way to the stables. Happy to be away from the hot-house atmosphere of the court, she breathed in the smell of late summer. All around her, nature was peaking, ripe for harvest. Yellow and orange flowers and fruit-laden trees lined both sides of the path from chateau to stable, a carnival of colors waving and nodding as Nicole skipped down the path. She passed the worksite of the queen’s new garden, being laid out at the far end of the castle grounds. Workmen hammered and measured as the sounds of Italian phrases and oaths rang through the air. The king had brought back a team of skilled workmen, under the direction of a master garden designer from Naples he had found on his last campaign.

  The season was portentous for the queen. She had delivered Charles Orland in October. Then Charles, his brother, in September the year after Charles Orland had died. He had lived for three weeks. What heaviness must lie on her heart at this time for her, Nicole thought. She now knew that, no matter how promising the start of a pregnancy seemed, bringing forth a healthy living babe and keeping it alive was not guaranteed. Madame de Laval had told her it was frequently the worst pregnancies that produced the healthiest babies. Nicole prayed for a truly uncomfortable one for her queen so that she might give birth to another dauphin, or, for that matter, to any child who lived to adulthood, male or female.

  Nicole crossed herself and prayed that her own time to become a wife and mother be delayed awhile longer while she enjoyed the fresh fruits of being fifteen, healthy, and at the queen’s court. Already she had been granted one reprieve, when the suitor chosen for her the year before had unexpectedly died. She hadn’t minded in the least. He had been ancient, over fifty years of age, her uncle had told her.

  “Down, Petard, down. Stop him. Show him the carrot,” a male voice rang out. Youthful authority resonated in its tones. Drawing closer, she spotted a magnificent black horse rear up on hind legs and whinny, then gallop away.

  “Go on, brave one,” she called to the horse. “Don’t come back just for a carrot. He can do better than that.”

  “Who do you think you are?” the owner of the voice demanded, swinging around and scowling at her. As she watched, a parade of expressions chased themselves across the youth’s face. He looked furious, and then his angry stare became simply a stare, and finally, a gaze she couldn’t fathom.

  “I am the queen’s lady, sent down to help break in her horse. She was to come herself, but she is engaged, so she sent me instead,” Nicole replied, looking down her nose at the youth.

  “She sent you to do what?” The youth wiped his hands down the sides of his leggings.

  “To help the man from Agen who is to break in the horse.” The queen hadn’t really specified “to help,” but Nicole loved horses, and she wanted to be a part of taming this one.

  “I am he.” His gaze was level, his expression assessing, as his eyes locked onto her. Were they green? Blue? She couldn’t tell.

  “You? You are a boy.” She drew herself up to her full height of just over five feet. Who was this youth? She had expected a man.

  “I am nineteen, Mademoiselle.” The youth blushed. “Do you take me for a boy?”

  She studied him. Perhaps he wasn’t a boy any longer. His voice was deep and his forearms broad, with downy hair on them.

  “They sent you to break in this horse? I am surprised they sent someone so young,” she said cheekily, although she was younger than the youth before her by four years.

  Taking the counteroffensive to hide vulnerability was a game she had picked up at court. Her queen played it best of all. Nicole had seen the spark in the king’s eye when the queen needed something from him. She had been at Charles VIII’s mercy when they had first met, but she had soon enough turned around the situation so that it was the king who endeavored to give Anne whatever she desired when she fixed him with that certain glance that rattled his composure and set his loins on fire. Nicole didn’t know exactly what that meant, but the moue of Madame de Laval’s mouth when she spoke of such things to the older ladies of the court informed Nicole that this was business between a lord and his lady, and if the lady had her wits about her, she made sure the transaction held an outcome favorable to her interests. Anne of Brittany was one such woman. Nicole wanted to be, too.

  “It was the king’s trainer who was supposed to come. But he had an accident and was unable to, so he sent me in his place.”

  “An accident? What happened?”

  “Lady, it was nothing too serious. A horse he was training took it to mind to step on his toe. The horse was heavy a
nd would not get off.”

  Nicole laughed then clapped a hand to her mouth. She could just see a large animal staring down a man trying to break it, with its hoof firmly upon the man’s foot just to let him know it wouldn’t be wearing a saddle anytime soon.

  “I am sorry. I do not mean to laugh, but it sounds so funny.”

  “It was funny, my lady.” The youth’s grin took her by surprise. It was wide, stretching almost ear to ear, indicating perhaps a broad capacity to be amused. Or to be happy. “I was there when it happened. I had to push the horse off of Jeannot. He will be alright, but he is hobbling now. He will not forget his new mare anytime soon.” The youth smoothed the side of one thigh with his hand, as if to protect himself from encroaching horses.

  “Perhaps she was putting him in his place.” She crossed her arms in front of her chest to let the youth know that she would be capable of such a job, should the occasion arise.

  “Do you think so?” he replied, his eyes scanning her face. They were grayish green, she decided, like the moss under certain trees in a thick forest. The stable-hand had disappeared into the barn.

  She blushed, ashamed of herself for staring at the youth so directly. He was handsome, with shaggy, blondish-brown hair that fell into his face.

  “I am Philippe de Bois, Mademoiselle.” He bowed slightly then swept his hand toward the paddock. “Why don’t you sit in the staging area so Petard cannot hurt you?”

  “I am Nicole St. Sylvain. And Petard will not hurt me. I want to get to know him. I will stand here and be fine.” Ignoring his suggestion, she leaned against the fence and hooked one foot onto its lower rail. It felt good to move the muscles of her body under the golden September sun. Court life was constrained, behavior circumscribed by rules and protocol. There were times she craved the outdoors, the wind in her hair, the grass beneath her bare feet. So rarely did she get a chance to run and play the way she had as a child. She was fifteen already, but childhood years were not so far behind that they did not beckon still.

  “Petard. Come here! Come meet the lady,” Philippe called out to the stallion on the far side of the enclosed paddock. The horse snorted and dug the ground with both forefeet in response.

  “Petard has a lively name. Is it apt?” she asked, referring to the explosive firecrackers that were used to breach doors or walls, mostly during sieges.

  “Very. His hobby is to come at anyone who tries to tell him what to do.”

  “A sound policy. Sounds like your Jeannot’s mare followed it. I wish the rest of us could do the same.”

  The queen, along with Nicole’s father and uncle, had been looking for a suitable husband for her since the year earlier, when she had matured. After the first candidate had died, Nicole had been given a few months’ reprieve. Now a second candidate loomed on the horizon, but she did not know any details. She shuddered, thinking of what might lay ahead for her, as surely as one season followed another.

  The husband part wasn’t so bad; it was the childbearing part that terrified her. What the queen had endured already as a young mother was more than Nicole could bear to imagine. Yet who was she to not follow Her Majesty’s example into marriage and motherhood? The queen had invited her to court as a maid of honor in order to groom her for a suitable marriage to a man of rank. There was no way around her duty to serve and follow her, acquiescing to whatever choice of husband the queen approved for her.

  She touched the indent at the base of her throat, noticing how intently the youth gazed upon her.

  If she did manage to have children successfully, and keep them alive, she would feel so terribly for her queen, who had failed time and again. Her happiness would be at her sovereign’s expense. That is, unless Anne of Brittany, Queen of France, managed to bear a child and keep it alive. Nicole would do whatever she could to resist embarking on marriage and motherhood until the woman she admired most had her own child to raise. If only there was some way she could help her to keep one—just one—alive.

  She sidled closer to the beautiful black horse, but didn’t attempt to attract its attention.

  “Be careful, my lady. He does not take kindly to those who try to force him to do their will,” Philippe warned.

  “Then I will not.” Did he take her for a man? She was grown enough to know that a woman’s path to getting her way never involved force. Wit was more suitable.

  “Excuse me?”

  “I will not play into his hands. So to speak.”

  “Then what will you do?” The youth studied her curiously, whether because he truly sought her answer or simply liked what his eyes rested upon, she wasn’t sure.

  “The opposite of what he expects.” Another technique she had learned at court. When in doubt, confuse the opposition. In this case, not just the horse, but the youth in front of her, too. The way his eye color changed but his expression didn’t when he looked at her intrigued her. Her insides tumbled like acrobats warming up the crowd at a jousting tourney.

  Philippe de Bois’s eyebrows rose as his eyes widened in surprise. “I already tried the carrot. Will you try another food?”

  “No, silly boy; food is what he expects. I’ll give him food for his soul,” she brashly remarked.

  “A horse does not have a soul,” he protested, his eyes now greenish-blue in the golden September sun.

  “Who knows which of God’s creatures have souls and which do not? Do you?” She tried to look haughty as she stared him down.

  Philippe’s gaze turned faraway, as he considered her question. “Not really. But it is what the church teaches.”

  “The church is created by men to serve men’s idea of God. That tells you how limited it is, does it not?” Nicole tipped her chin and slit her eyes, the better to study the color of the youth’s eyes without being obvious about it. Now they shone gray, almost transparent.

  “I would not dare to say.” As he spoke, his eyes lingered on her. A warm breeze lifted the edges of her headdress, matching the restlessness she felt inside.

  “Do you think a creature as beautiful as this one lacks a soul?” Nicole pressed him.

  “I do not know, my lady.”

  “So since we do not know, I will appeal to his ears,” she declared.

  “His ears?” Philippe studied her doubtfully.

  “Ladaa Ladiii ladaa,” Nicole began to sing. She hummed as if to herself, privately, neither making eye contact with the horse nor Philippe. She hummed as if she were one of the Earth’s tiny creatures basking in the late summer sun. She hummed as if she were the speck of a hidden babe clinging to the side of the queen’s womb.

  Then, she began to walk slowly down the length of the fence, sliding the fingers of her left hand over the top of the rough-hewn railing as she went.

  Petard stopped pawing the ground and pricked up his ears. She noticed immediately out of the corner of her eye, but didn’t respond. Why should she? Petard was a male animal which would come to her sooner or later, as invariably as fall followed summer. It was simple. Since spring of the year before, she was no longer a girl. Nature had informed her, but also the glances of the men at court. She was a fully grown woman, a force of nature with which to be reckoned.

  Moving her shoulders ever so slightly from side to side, she felt the warm sun bore into her shoulder blades. Just as Philippe’s eyes were doing, she sensed.

  “You’ve calmed him down, my lady,” the youth remarked.

  “Shhhh.” She incorporated the “Shhhh” sound into her tune, singing a shushing sound until it became a whistle.

  At the sound of the whistling noise, Petard took a few tentative steps in her direction.

  Idly, she moved away and went over to the feed stall, where she bundled together a stack of hay and brought it back to the fence. She laid it gently on the ground and pushed it under the lower rail toward where the horse stood. At no time did she make eye contact with the stallion. Why should she? She had better things to do: enjoy the warmth of the morning sun on her skin and the knowledge that t
he half-man/half-boy’s gaze was glued on her. It was power of some sort; power she had only recently acquired. She didn’t quite know what to do with it, but she would learn. Perhaps this youth in front of her would help her figure out how to wield it.

  Continuing on her way, she rounded the corner of the fence and trailed her hand along its top rail. By the time she had gotten to its end, Petard was at the hay pile, chewing her gift to him thoughtfully, ears still perked to hear her song.

  “That is the way to do it, until we make friends,” she sang, eyeing Philippe. The shadow of a beard dusted his jaw line; tightly coiled muscles under his leggings announced he was well on his way to manhood.

  “And it is working,” Philippe said, eyeing her back. His voice was low.

  “And it cannot be rushed if you know what I mean,” she continued in song form.

  “It is hard not to rush when you are nineteen,” Philippe admitted, sounding rueful.

  “It is hard not to rush when you are fifteen, too,” Nicole sang out.

  The horse stopped eating and picked up his head to watch them. He appeared to be trying to figure out what they were saying. Nicole was trying to figure it out, too. Philippe de Bois seemed to be saying something to her without words, and, unable to stop herself, she was saying something back to him, equally wordlessly. As much as she had felt her power over the youth a moment before, she now felt herself being powerlessly drawn to him.

  “My lady!” One of the houseboys ran down the path toward her. “My lady, you’re needed at the keep.”

  “What is it? Is the queen alright?” Nicole cried, thinking immediately of her queen’s possibly delicate condition.

  “No. I mean, yes. Not that. It’s Lady Jeanne. She said you must come back and change your clothes for something. Someone is coming; I forget who she said.”