by Rozsa Gaston
“Something? Someone? Are you daft?” she scoffed at the houseboy.
“I think it is a craftsman, my lady. The one who is to deliver designs for the tapestries the queen is having made. A courier came a short time ago and told us he is due midday.”
“What business do I have with this?” Nicole asked crossly.
“Lady Jeanne says all the demoiselles are to gather in the main hall so the artist can choose who he will sketch for the designs. Whoever he picks will be the lady of the tapestry and will end up with a fine husband.”
Behind her, Nicole heard Petard snort, as if with laughter. Whirling around, she addressed the horse.
“Shut your snorter, you brute. I will be back soon enough, and you will miss my songs in the meantime.” Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Philippe de Bois stifle a laugh.
“Tell Lady Jeanne I will be there shortly. Go!” She waved the boy away with an imperious hand. Court life had taught her much. She could act docilely when the occasion required, and, when it didn’t, she acted with authority. She was being trained to become a noblewoman, after all; her queen was her example. Once her father and uncle had succeeded in marrying her well, she would be noble in title and duty-bound to be in behavior as well. Until then, she had some time.
“Duty calls, my lady?” He looked at her slyly. This time his eyes flashed silver, mirroring the scattered clouds overhead, one now passing in front of the sun.
“I suppose it does.” She didn’t doubt she would be evaluated carefully for the role. Both her father and uncle were anxious to see her married well, soon. On her mother’s side, Nicole had inherited noble blood, but her mother was dead and her father came from the merchant class. Michel St. Sylvain was intent on rising further as quickly as possible, most immediately through marriage of his daughter to a titled man well-allied to the king and queen.
“The life of a woman differs from the life of a man, does it not?” Philippe asked, his mobile mouth looking as mischievous as his eyes looked grave.
“But our lives are similar, in that we are both young, yet neither of us know how many more days we have, although it is likely we have fewer than we think,” she countered. “Do you know that, too?”
“I know, and I do not care. Do you?”
“I know I care about living fully while I am alive.” She wasn’t sure why she said that, but the breeze lifted up the edges of her headpiece as if in agreement.
“I’d guess you do that well.” Again, that broad smile; a merry slash across his handsome face.
“And you?” Cheeky youth.
“I care about doing a good job for the king’s household so I can keep my position.”
“And if the king were to switch you to the queen’s court for awhile?’ She wouldn’t mind helping Philippe to continue training Petard, if he were to remain at Amboise.
“I would gladly go where the king places me.”
“Ahh.” A thin plan began to hatch in Nicole’s mind, much like the tiny living being she hoped was hatching at that moment in the innermost chamber room of the queen.
“Will you come again when you are free?” Philippe looked uncertain, just a bit downcast.
“I might. As the queen bids, of course,” she loftily replied. A shiver ran down her spine.
“I will let the stable manager know how well you calmed Petard,” he mentioned as he stroked the horse’s jet-black mane.
“I am not always so good at calming creatures,” she confessed.
“No, I imagine you are better at rousing other types of creatures.”
“Yes. I am,” she agreed, then caught herself. What did he mean? Like rousing the ire of little Marie de Volonté? Or some other type of rousing? The downy hair on her arms stood up as she contemplated the unknown. “How would you know?”
“Only a guess, my lady,” Philippe replied, his face inscrutable, as if he were holding back something, she knew not what.
“A curious one, then.” Her head spun in confusion. She had no idea what was being said or how to respond. Best to exit quickly. “Goodbye!” she called then turned and ran lightly up the path toward the chateau. Behind her she heard Petard whinny in protest at her departure. Was it the late summer breeze that had tickled her as Philippe spoke or had it been the teasing words coming from the youth’s mouth?
Feeling ten times lighter than she had on her way down to the stable-grounds, she vowed to return as soon as she could escape royal and household duties. Before she thought to stop herself, she turned one last time.
Philippe de Bois stood rooted to the ground, staring at her.
She giggled and fled up the path.
“We are traveling to Paris tomorrow. Go and prepare your things.”
“Madame, how long are we staying?” Nicole twisted her hands before her. She had rarely ventured beyond the castle walls since arriving at the queen’s court three years earlier.
“Several weeks, ma chère. Your uncle has arranged for you and a few others to have your likenesses sketched in preparation for the tapestries he is having made for the queen.”
“Will Her Majesty accompany us?”
“No, my dear. She will stay here for now.” Jeanne de Laval raised her eyebrows. “Perhaps if she feels well enough, she will accompany the king to Grenoble when he leaves for Milan, and then stay in Lyon for awhile.”
“Paris, Madame! I have never been!”
“It is a big, dirty city. You must stay very close and not think to explore it,” Jeanne de Laval scolded.
“I cannot wait!” Nicole’s thoughts raced. She would see Paris . . . France’s most glorious city, many said. The queen did not, but she had a horror of dirt. Exacting and orderly, noise, confusion, and bad smells did not appeal to her. She had enjoyed being crowned Queen of France in the basilica of St. Denis outside Paris, but had been relieved to return to Chateau d’Amboise to oversee the renovation plans on the king’s childhood home that Charles VIII had begun to please his new bride.
Madame de Laval frowned. “I believe your father has arranged for you to meet someone there. You must pack your best gown.”
“My favorite one? The dusty rose one?” Whoever this someone was, she hoped he wouldn’t be a doddering old man, like the last one had been. Fortunately he had doddered into his grave before the marriage contract had been fully hammered out. She shuddered, thinking of being in bed next to a body covered with wrinkly, paper-thin skin. It was loathsome to contemplate. She would make sure such a thing did not come to pass.
“No, ma chère; this is not about your favorites anymore. This is about your future. It is important to represent yourself and your family well. You will pack the blue one with the gold braiding and red insets.”
“But that one is so uncomfortable!” Her formal gown was heavy, weighing her down when she wore it. She shifted from one foot to the other, remembering how light she had felt just moments earlier under the gaze of the shaggy-haired youth back at the stables.
“Get used to it. It will prepare you for married life.” Madame de Laval motioned to the staircase. “Now, go and pack.”
“Madame, if married life is so tedious, why should I desire it?” Nicole asked petulantly.
“There are hidden compensations.” Madame de Laval’s mouth gave a twitch as if some secret thought had just pulled at it from the inside.
Nicole’s eyes widened. “What do you mean, Madame?”
“There is only one way to find out.” Her eyes formed into narrow slits as she assessed her.
“Do you mean what goes on between a man and a woman?” Nicole’s mind wandered back to the stable-yards and the broad shoulders of Philippe de Bois. Her insides contracted as she thought of their sturdy suppleness, their probable power. She had never noticed a youth’s shoulders before.
“Shhh. Just know that married life is not altogether unpleasant.” Madame de Laval had been widowed for several years. It was whispered at court that she was pursued by the much younger Duke d’Agincourt who came to C
hateau d’Amboise every few months. It had been noted that Madame de Laval and the duke frequently rode horses together, disappearing for hours at a time whenever he visited.
“So that is what you mean!” Nicole cried.
“This is not a topic to speak of here and now.” Madame de Laval’s mouth formed itself into a prim line.
“Madame, just give me a sign that that was what you meant. A secret sign.”
“Enough. You will do as I say.” The older woman looked stern, but Nicole knew better. Madame de Laval had many sides to her, some of which perhaps only the Duke d’Agincourt was able to fully appreciate.
“Of course, Madame.” Nicole curtsied then leaned toward Madame de Laval’s beautiful, dignified face. “Just touch the key on the chain at your waist, and I will know you mean the private world of husband and wife,” she whispered into the older woman’s ear as she straightened herself up again.
“Cheeky girl, get upstairs and start packing. Now.” Madame de Laval pointed imperiously to the stairway.
Nicole scuttled up the stairs, then paused at the top and looked back.
Madame de Laval gazed up at her, a small smile playing on her lips. Her right hand dangled at her side then slowly slid to the key that hung from the chain at her waist. As Nicole watched, the older woman closed her fingers firmly around it.
CHAPTER TWO
Negotiations
“Do not move your head, Mademoiselle. Please stay as you are,” the artist ordered.
As Nicole tried to sit still for the man sketching a few paces away from her, the door to the room opened. Her father and Uncle Benoit entered with a third man, standing near the doorway.
Swiveling her head back to where it had been, she moved only her eyes to take in the men at the door. Her uncle and father framed the stranger, who wore traveling clothes and a hat with a crest she didn’t recognize—a nobleman then. Knowing her father, no one less than a wealthy, titled candidate would be considered as a possible husband for her. Her father’s family was ambitious, but not yet arrived at the social station to which they aspired. Michel and Benoit St. Sylvain had made considerable money in the cloth-weaving business, but they were merchants, lacking in titles. Nicole herself was a noblewoman in her own right, but only on her mother’s side. Her beautiful and loving mother was no longer alive, unable to lobby for a good match on her daughter’s behalf. Nicole’s father and uncle had both married well; they intended for their children to do the same.
Swiveling her eyes back to the men, she saw the stranger with them glance at her.
Electricity streaked ran up her torso, closing her throat as the image of Philippe de Bois’s arms, taut and slimly rippled with muscles above the elbows, flashed before her. Were the arms of all men much the same? Even if they were, there were other parts that were not; those were the parts that most interested her.
The brain, for example. She swayed the tiniest bit, saddened at the thought of not being able to explore further what might be in Philippe de Bois’s brain. With his eyes changing color with every new thought that came to him, she imagined there was quite a lot in there she’d like to know about.
“Be still, Mademoiselle,” the artist interjected sharply. “That is, if you can, just for a minute longer,” he followed more gently as the three men in the corner stirred.
Nicole glanced toward them again. Was this the man now under discussion to be her husband? If so, did she have any say in the matter?
She knew the answer. Even the queen herself had had no say in her marriage to Charles VIII. All she had been able to influence was its outcome, which she had done masterfully at the tender age of fourteen. Not only had she succeeded in not losing control of Brittany, but in having the crown of Queen of France placed on her head within two months of her marriage to the king. Charles VIII had not been required by law to do so, but had crowned her Queen consort of France with alacrity and pride. Why? Because, already, he loved her so. His captive bride Anne had turned the tables on him and captured his heart.
From late summer to the fall of 1491, Charles VIII and his army had laid siege to Rennes, Brittany’s second most important city, after Anne’s birthplace of Nantes. With the intent to annex Brittany to France, the siege had gone on for three months until the people of Rennes began to starve as the Treasury of Brittany emptied out.
At age fourteen, Anne was Duchess of Brittany; she had inherited the title from her father, Duke Francis II, who had died three years earlier. Anne had a small number of loyal Breton troops to defend the besieged city, to which she added mercenary troops.
But after a month, funds ran out with which to pay them and the mercenaries began to loot and misbehave. Faced with enemies both inside and outside the city walls, Anne of Brittany had no choice but to come to terms with her besieger.
The young king, camped on the outside of Rennes’s city walls knew this as well as Anne did within. To soften her hard stance against him, he sent for his older French cousin, Louis, Duke d’Orléans, to come to Rennes to parlay with the duchess. Preferring not to humiliate the young, but unbowed and anything but humble, ruler of Brittany, Charles asked his cousin to find a way to come to terms that preserved the honor of both sides.
The twenty-one-year-old king had heard much about Anne of Brittany over the years. He had received diplomatic missives from her more than once categorically refusing to hand over her Breton lands to him, although it was evident that such a small country with a young girl at its head was going to have to ally itself, if not cede hegemony, to one of its larger neighbors, either France, Spain, England, or the Holy Roman Empire on France’s eastern border.
Louis d’Orléans was only too happy to assist. Since siding with Anne’s father, Duke Francis, against French troops that had invaded Brittany in the Battle of St. Aubin of July 1488, he had been imprisoned by the king’s older sister and regent, Anne de Beaujeu, at a castle in Montils-les-Tours in France, three days’ ride to the east of Rennes.
Overjoyed to be sprung from prison after three long years by the king himself, who was now of an age to take control of his own kingdom from his older sister, Louis entered the city gate of Rennes alone and unarmed to accomplish his delicate diplomatic mission. He had been a long-time admirer of the young duchess within, whom he had met when she was seven years of age and he twenty-two and married. Now, seven years later, Louis suggested to Anne a way out of her predicament that would transform her from captive to queen: marry Charles VIII of France. It was a brilliant idea, but only Anne could seal the deal by agreeing to it, then ensuring that Charles VIII was willing too. Both were already betrothed, a minor obstacle frequently overcome by royals when a more politically advantageous match arose. Louis d’Orléans remonstrated with Anne and her counselors for several days, until, finally, she agreed to meet with the young French king. Already she knew that marriage with no one less than a head of state or the son of a head of state was her future. She needed to see for herself whether this particular head of state would do.
It had been Anne herself who had noted the gleam in Charles’s eyes at their first fateful meeting. With a savvy borne of three years of playing her Breton advisors against one another, in order to maintain her leadership over them all, she had quickly realized her powers of attraction over the not-terribly-handsome twenty-one-year-old monarch with an imposingly royal aquiline nose and short, squat stature. Anne was short, too; petite and graceful, with a limp she had kept secret from all but a handful in her royal Breton household. Endowed with beauty, brains, and courage, and an unusually thorough education, she agreed to begin negotiations to become Charles VIII’s wife, not prisoner, ensuring that Brittany would be allied, but not annexed, to its larger, more powerful neighbor France, on favorable terms. There was no other way out.
With no sons, Anne’s father, Francis II, Duke of Brittany, had raised his eldest daughter to rule. The Duchy of Brittany was not bound by Salic Law, as was the kingdom of France. Females could inherit in Brittany if the male line di
ed out. In Anne’s case, she was the eldest of two sisters; at age eleven she had inherited the Duchy of Brittany upon her father’s death.
By the time Charles VIII laid siege to Rennes, Anne had ruled over Brittany for three years. She already thought like a statesman. Surrender of her beloved land to France was unthinkable to her. Fortunately, Charles VIII thought not only like a statesman but also like a man. Instead of being angered, he found himself impressed with Anne’s refusal to hand over her city and her country to France. By the end of their first meeting, he had fallen for the regal and authoritative fourteen-year-old duchess, who offered herself in place of her country in order to save it.
Marriage terms had been hammered out, led by Louis d’Orléans, with a team of notaries and lawyers. They included the complete withdrawal of French troops from Breton soil, the succession of Brittany to whichever of the two outlived each other, and, if it were Anne, her subsequent remarriage to no one of less stature than the king, meaning another king. Interestingly, that king would be Louis d’Orléans himself, should he be free to marry, and if Anne and Charles produced no sons.
All these terms were brokered in a matter of days in utmost secrecy. Speed was of the essence, before word got out that Anne and Charles were both about to break their betrothal contracts: Anne to Maximilian of Austria, and Charles to Maximilian’s daughter, Marguerite. Such a double insult to both father and daughter would enrage the emperor-elect to the Holy Roman Empire. It would be talked about all over Europe with much shaking of heads and more than a few sniggers over the folly of Maximilian leaving his betrothed alone to defend her lands from invaders. Many would say he had gotten his just deserts.
After an all-night session of painstakingly preparing the marriage documents with their extensive stipulations, shortly after sunrise on December 6, 1491, Anne, Duchess of Brittany, and Charles VIII, King of France, were joined in marriage at the Castle of Langeais, a half-day’s ride to the west of Amboise where Charles made his home.
