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

by Rozsa Gaston

  Surprising her, his face was serious, his eyes only one color for once, the color of steel.

  “I am due to take up my post in Carcassonne before Advent,” he said shortly. With the toe of his pointed shoe, he kicked the dry dirt of the ground.

  “You cannot leave! We’ve only just found each other,” she cried.

  He pulled her toward him, crushing her to his chest. “What can I do, my love? What can any of us do but obey the orders of those who rule over us?”

  “We are no longer children to obey the dictates of our parents,” Nicole protested. “Just follow your heart. What do you wish for, Philippe?”

  His eyes swept hers, looking less grave. “Spoken like my one true love.” Then his tone turned serious again. “You know I wish us to be together. But how?” he murmured, stroking her hair as she clung to him.

  “Can you not find a way?” she cried. The vital, bracing scent he had had two years earlier was still there. She wanted him now, before their racing blood cooled with age. God knew her own blood had not. Not one jot.

  “My lady, there is your position to think of.” He paused, looking at her sternly. “I am no longer a horse-trainer, but neither am I a nobleman.”

  Nicole stepped back, peering up at him in the golden afternoon sun. “What do I care if you are a nobleman or not? What do you mean?” she demanded.

  “I mean that you must care about your position. You are noble by birth on your mother’s side, and now by marriage,” he reminded her. “You must not step down from the position fortune has put you in.”

  “A fig for my position,” she remonstrated, ripping a solitary leaf clinging to a nearby tree and crushing it in her fingers. “We are free to be with each other at last. What are you worried about?”

  “I worry about you and I worry about your daughter. One day she will come of age, and you will wish to find a suitable man for her. One of noble birth.” His words bit into her; she couldn’t deny their wisdom. Even she herself couldn’t think anything otherwise.

  “Why are you talking of such things so far off in the future?” she asked. Yet he was right. As much as it meant nothing to her what rank her next husband held, as long as it was Philippe, it meant a great deal to her to see her daughter married well one day, at a level appropriate to her station in life. Blanche bore Gerard d’Orléans’ noble name. If she was to bear any other name, Nicole wished it to be noble, too. Anything less would be a disservice to her child, something no good mother would willingly allow. How could she pretend to be an exception?

  “My love, listen.” Philippe took both of her hands in his. “Blanche is almost eighteen months old.”

  Nicole trembled to hear Philippe pronounce the name she had given her daughter. It was the first time she had heard Blanche’s name come from his mouth. He said it so well, so measuredly, as if it was important to him.

  “In another dozen years you will wish to make a match for her,” he continued. “A good match.” He gazed at her, his eyes shining but serious.

  “How is it you know all this?” she asked. He had remembered their carefree conversations on the hillside those summers before. He knew exactly how old Blanche was. Her stomach tightened. What else did he remember?

  Philippe grabbed her wrist and pulled her to him, looking down at her, the green of his eyes shot through with gold. “I know you well, ma chère. I remember everything. How could I forget?”

  Nicole’s throat tightened. “Then, my love, what is to be done?”

  “My darling, if only you could make me into a nobleman, I would marry you in an instant. There is nothing more I desire. But I don’t want you to lower your daughter’s social station because of me. That would not be what—what—”

  “What good mothers do?” she asked, silently agreeing with him.

  “What good parents do,” he breathed back, then crushed her to him in an embrace that told her all she needed to know.

  “My lady Nicole!” a voice rang from the other side of the garden.

  Quickly they separated, and Nicole moved from behind the bushes to see Cook gesturing to her.

  “Yes, Cook?” The princess. Please, God, let the princess be alright.

  “They need you back there.” Cook pointed behind her with one thumb.

  Nicole’s heart leapt into her throat. “The babe?” She couldn’t bear one more infant loss for her queen. It was as Philippe had said; Anne of Brittany represented all of them. She is the spectacle of us. Her joys, her losses, belonged to every one of them who served her.

  “The princess is fine, my lady. ’Tis the queen who wants you. She sent one of her ladies, who found me instead.”

  “I’m coming.”Thank God it was the queen who needed her, and not the little one. If anything happened to Princess Claude after she and Philippe had worked so hard to save her, Nicole would never feel comfortable moving ahead with plans to be with him. Her joy would be at the expense of the queen’s loss; it would be unthinkable. The queen’s happiness was hers, and her own happiness belonged to the queen. That was the way of it and Nicole knew there could be no other way. In her heart of hearts, she didn’t want it any other way. Her life was one small thread of a tapestry, in exactly the right place to support its design. She just needed to figure out how to sew in Philippe’s thread next to hers.

  Nicole bent her head as she picked up her skirts to glide back to the queen’s quarters. She didn’t wish to share her thoughts with Cook, knowing what a mind-reader her dear old friend was.

  “You can tell the doctor to come out, too,” Cook commented as Nicole brushed past her. With a chuckle, the older woman reached out and gave Nicole a playful pinch on the arm.

  Despite herself, Nicole broke into a giggle. Nothing could be kept secret at court for long. Apparently nothing between her and the visiting assistant physician from the South could be either. She was glad the queen had asked for her. She needed to speak with Anne of Brittany, Queen of France, as much as the queen needed to speak with her.

  “What can I give you for saving my little one?” the queen asked, greeting Nicole with a warm smile. Usually Anne of Brittany maintained a certain hauteur with her ladies of honor, but after the battle they had waged together to save the princess’s life, her reserve with Nicole had relaxed. The queen’s eyes shone as she looked directly at Nicole. Unmistakably, gratitude lay in them.

  Nicole stared back at her. There was something her sovereign could do for her, but was it too much to ask? Philippe had been clear. He would not marry her if by doing so he would reduce her social station or that of her daughter. As much as she wanted Philippe far more than she cared about maintaining her rank as the widow of a nobleman, she agreed with him that Blanche’s future was at stake.

  Nicole was still her parents’ daughter and her queen’s lady of honor. Neither her father, her long-dead mother, nor her queen would be pleased with Nicole reducing her family’s social rank by marrying a commoner. Her daughter’s marriage possibilities would be diminished. Nicole couldn’t pretend that such an action wouldn’t matter, because it would. No matter how in love she was with Philippe, her duty was to her daughter.

  Something else was at stake too: Philippe’s pride. Nicole knew that Philippe would not wish to present himself to her as a partner unless he could be her peer.

  Nicole’s mother had told her more than once that it was unwise to neglect the pride of a man. She hadn’t fully understood what her mother had meant, but now she did. If she were to be Philippe’s wife, her job would be to nurture and tend it. As well as she knew him, she sensed he would not rest comfortably year after year with the thought that he had brought to the marriage table a reduced status in life for his wife. As much as she might say to him it meant nothing to her, it meant something to him. And because it meant something to him, she needed to consider his feelings carefully.

  Above all, both of them needed to consider Blanche. Apparently, Philippe already did. Nicole loved him even more, to see how seriously he took the future
of the young girl who had arrived on Earth just three quarters of a year after he and she had parted and she had married Gerard d’Orléans. As Cook had observed countless times, women were great mysteries to everyone, most of all to themselves. It appeared that Philippe de Bois respected the mystery.

  “A ruby necklace? Or a bolt of silk for a new gown ?” the queen asked, breaking into her thoughts.

  “Your Majesty, it is not jewels or gowns that I desire,” Nicole said slowly, hardly daring to hope she could be within reach of her heart’s desire.

  “Then tell me what it is. I can see by your face that there’s something, so out with it.” The queen looked at Nicole expectantly.

  “It’s not something. It is someone,” Nicole began. She must tread carefully, but quickly. The queen was receptive; she wouldn’t be for long. Nicole knew her sovereign liked tying up loose ends; soon enough she would have Nicole’s future tied to a new husband. She needed to make her appeal now for the only one she wanted, but the risk was great. If the queen declined her direct request, that would be the end of it.

  “Ohhh. And who may that someone be?” Queen Anne fingered the braided belt at her waist. It was knotted together in the style of the Order of the Cord she had founded, in which she had enlisted the young ladies she had chosen to bring to her court as maids of honor. Nicole, with her half-noble, half-common background, had been lucky to be one of them. Her father’s discreet financial assistance with the queen’s tapestry commission had further tipped the balance in favor of the noble side of Nicole’s equation. Who was she to tilt it the other way? She was nothing if not her parents’ only living child, her mother’s daughter, and her queen’s subject. Her identity itself would be in question if she took steps to lower it. Every shred of reason she possessed told her she mustn’t willfully move down in the social order. Yet every fiber of her being told her she was meant to be with the man who owned her heart.

  She took a deep breath. “Your Majesty, it’s Philippe de Bois.”

  “Who?”

  “The assistant physician, my queen. The one who worked with me to save the princess’s life.”

  “Is he unmarried?” As always, Anne of Brittany cut to the chase.

  “He is.”

  “Is he or has he just told you he is?” the queen probed, looking at her skeptically. She took a direct interest in the marriages of all her ladies of honor, be they maids or widows. She knew the right questions to ask and she didn’t hesitate to ask them.

  “He has told me he is unmarried, and I believe him,” Nicole cried. How could her queen question such a thing? Then she realized her sovereign was using her head, while she had lost hers the minute Philippe had re-entered her life.

  “I shall make inquiries,” the queen replied. “Meanwhile, do not get too hopeful. We shall see.”

  “Yes, Your Majesty. I can hardly wait to find out myself,” she breathed out, taking the queen’s cue. It was what a good courtier did.

  “Nicole, you are like a young filly these days. Do you not remember how unwilling you were the last time the king and I married you off?”

  “Do you remember, Your Majesty, that I told you once that my heart was with another?”

  “I remember you mooning after some youth a few years’ back.” The queen looked at her questioningly. Hers was not a mind that focused on small details such as the sentimental lives of her courtiers. Hers was a big-picture intellect, as large as the tapestries on the wall behind her; the ones she had commissioned but hadn’t thought out how to pay for. Such details were for others, not for born rulers such as her.

  “He is a man now, back from Milan where he studied medicine,” Nicole continued.

  “Was he not a horse-trainer sent up from Agen?” the queen asked, her back to her. She straightened a corner of the tapestry on the wall of the large receiving room then turned to Nicole with a frown that indicated she thought her suit dismissible.

  “Yes, Your Majesty.” Nicole’s heart raced as she struggled to formulate the words that would soften the queen’s heart. “He has risen in position since that time, and is free to marry. And now I am free to marry, too.” Nicole loved her sovereign queen, but she knew her weak points as well as her strong ones. Anne of Brittany, Queen of France, was born to rule, not to fuss over details. Sensitivity wasn’t her strong suit. Knowing how to make a decision then seeing that it got done was where she excelled. Nicole prayed she’d make the one she also wanted this time: not to marry her to a man she would grow to love, but to one she already did.

  “But is this man of noble rank, ma chère?” the queen pressed, one eyebrow rising.

  “Your Majesty, I do not care. The ones who did were my father and uncle, and they are now dead.” Both Michel and Benoit St. Sylvain had succumbed to an outbreak of pestilence that had raged through Paris the winter before, the same one that had visited Blois the summer before Princess Claude had been born.

  “It is not just whether you care,” the queen chided. “You must think of your children, present and future.” Her words echoed Philippe’s, making Nicole’s stomach churn. To be opposed by enemies was difficult but expected; to be opposed by two of the three people she loved most was unbearable.

  “My daughter is already noble, and future children—” Nicole blushed. Her resolve strengthened at the thought of a future with Philippe. Now was her moment. She must seize it before the queen married her off to yet another nobleman she didn’t love, or Philippe disappeared to Carcassonne, far to the South. “My sovereign, I would give my soul to have children with the man I love,” she blurted out. Or at least try to create them as frequently as possible.

  “Get a hold of yourself, Nicole. You talk like a lovesick girl. You must think with your head, not your womb,” the queen replied, waving her hand in a gesture of impatience.

  “You are right, Your Majesty.” Nicole peered intently at her queen, her mind racing to formulate the words to argue her case. “This man has risen far from keeper of horses to assistant court physician at Carcassonne. You have the power to make him rise farther.” She willed her queen to take the bait. Anne of Brittany was not hugely receptive to romantic appeals. But she was a deft master at the game of upward mobility, and Philippe de Bois had already exhibited skill in that area.

  “But—” the queen hedged. She looked impatient, as if she thought her courtier had lost her mind to be besotted over a man of such lowly rank.

  Quickly, Nicole made her move. “Your Majesty, did you not say when you were expecting the princess that if any one of your ladies save your coming babe from harm or death, you would grant her one request, no matter what she asks?” It was the moment to pin the queen to her promise of the spring of 1499, when she had visited Amboise with her new husband, Louis. She had been in the first blush of newly-married love, with a babe on the way. Now Nicole had just saved the child Anne had borne of that love. Perhaps never again would there be such a time when the queen was so heavily in her debt.

  “My darling, I cannot make water into wine. Neither can I make one of common birth into a nobleman.” The queen’s rosebud mouth formed into a moue of disapproval. Her expression was disdainful, as if she thought Nicole had very bad taste.

  Summoning her courage, Nicole gave her a level look. Of course, she could. It was done all the time. Anne of Brittany, Queen of France, had a healthy ego. It was time to appeal to it. Nicole prayed for inspiration, her eyes straying from the queen’s face to the wall behind her.

  “Your Majesty, I see your tapestry behind you,” she said, referring to the massive lady and unicorn tapestry she had posed for years earlier. It had been her father and uncle who had paid the balance on the set of tapestries the queen had commissioned after the cost had gone far over the amount King Charles had authorized her to spend. Queen Anne had been in debt to Nicole’s family more than once.

  The queen glanced at the massive tapestry.

  “And so?” she asked brusquely. Perhaps she was a trifle embarrassed, reminded that she ha
d needed financial assistance from Nicole’s family. “I know that’s you in the design. So does everyone. Your father was trying to attract the eye of a good suitor by using you as the model, and I gave him permission to do so.”

  “My lady, the banner next to my image bears the device of my uncle, Benoit St. Sylvain.”

  “Your point?” The queen looked sharply at Nicole.

  Nicole raised an eyebrow. “My lady, you know even better than I how he came by our device.” For once, she had succeeded in gaining her sovereign’s total attention.

  Benoit St. Sylvain had bought it. It wasn’t the first time it had been done. Nicole was putting her own family’s reputation on the line, but she would wager all to win permission to marry Philippe. She had done her duty, and married to please her family members and her queen. This time, she wished to marry to please herself if she had any chance to do so. Now was her moment to convince the queen while her sovereign’s thoughts briefly lingered on her debt to Nicole’s family, as well as her long ago promise to her ladies of honor.

  “Your uncle was a smart man, Nicole. He knew how to get what he wanted,” the queen noted.

  And so do I, with you as my example.“So does Philippe de Bois,” Nicole said aloud. “He looked after the king’s horses in Milan. Then because of the king’s notice of him, became learned in healing arts. Then, he gained a court appointment. Now he has helped save your daughter’s life.”

  “We have recognized both him and you for doing so. What else do you want?” The queen cocked her head and narrowed her eyes at Nicole. Philippe de Bois, assistant physician to the court of Carcassonne, and Nicole St. Sylvain had been jointly awarded the honor of saving Princess Claude of France’s life in a ceremony conducted the week before by the king and queen. The queen herself had been grateful beyond words to Nicole for saving the life of her daughter with her unorthodox methods.

  Nicole summoned every bit of courage she possessed. She would reach beyond what was reasonable, for her heart’s desire. The queen had asked her what she wanted. She would tell her.