by Jane Feather
Henry looked down at him and laughed, clapping the old man boisterously on a frail shoulder. "Roland, you're an old woman. It'll take more than a few drops of rain in a summer storm to bring me to my knees." He flung his arms wide as if he would embrace the tempest.
An arrow of lightning, vivid white, hurled itself at the ground behind the king. It touched with a dazzling flash of bright light. A poplar tree split, opening slowly like a peeled fruit before it crashed to the ground, the sound lost in the violent bellow of thunder immediately overhead. The air was filled with the stench of scorched earth and burning wood.
"My liege!" Men ran from the tent, seizing the king by his arms, dragging him under the rough protection of canvas.
"Indeed, sieur, it is madness to expose yourself in such fashion," the duke of Roissy chided. King Henry encouraged free speech from his close companions and it never occurred to the duke not to speak his mind.
"One bolt of lightning could bring an end to everything." He gestured toward the city walls beyond the tent, speaking with an edge of anger. "You are king of France, my liege. No longer mere Henry of Navarre. We are your subjects and our fortunes rise and fall with yours."
The king looked rueful. "Aye, Roissy, you do well to take me to task. That strike came a little too close for comfort. But in truth the heat has tried us all sorely these last days and there's something irresistible about defying such a spectacular display of the elements… Ah, my thanks, Roland."
He took the towel handed him by the old man and vigorously rubbed his head and beard dry, before stripping off his shirt. He rested a hand on Roissy's shoulder and raised one foot and then the other for a servant to pull off his muddied boots, before peeling off his sodden britches and drawers.
Naked, he strode across the beaten-down grass floor of the tent to where a flagon of wine stood on a table. He raised the flagon to his lips and drank deeply, before wiping his mouth with the back of his hand and regarding his assembled court with an air both quizzical and faintly mocking.
"Gentlemen, gentlemen, you're looking at me as if I were a freak in a traveling circus. When have I ever done anything without good reason? Gilles." He snapped his fingers at his servant, who hurried over, his arms filled with dry garments. Henry shrugged into the proffered shirt, clambered into clean drawers and britches, his movements swift, clean, economical. He sat on a stool, extending his leg to the servant who eased stockings and boots over the royal feet.
"Let us to table, gentlemen. I intend to leave at dawn." The king rose as soon as his boots were laced and gestured to the table where bread, cheese, and meat accompanied the flagons of wine.
"You are going to England, then? Despite our advice?" Roissy made no attempt to disguise his anger.
"Aye, Roissy, I am." Henry stabbed at the joint of beef with the point of his dagger, hacking off a substantial chunk. "It's time to go a-wooing. I would have me a Protestant wife." He carried the meat to his mouth then gestured with the point of his knife to the other stools at the table.
The invitation was a command and his companions took their places, only Roissy holding back for a second, before sitting down and reaching for the wine flagon. "My liege, I beg you to reconsider. If you leave here morale will suffer. The men will lose heart in the enterprise and the citizens of Paris will gain heart," the duke said finally.
Henry tore at a quartern loaf of barley bread. "My dear Roissy, as far as the men are concerned I will be here. As far as the Parisians are concerned, I will still be at their gates." He gave the duke a sweet smile that didn't deceive any of his audience. "You, my friend, will substitute for me. We are much of a height, you will wear my cloak in public, we will put it about that my antics in the rain this evening have made me a trifle hoarse and feverish, so I will in general keep to my tent and any strangeness in my voice will be explained." He shrugged easily and crammed bread into his mouth.
Roissy took another swig from the flagon. That crazy dance in the rain was thus explained.
"I have absolute faith in you, Roissy," Henry continued, his voice now grave. "You will know exactly how to conduct the siege just as if you were me. We have it on good authority that the city will not yield before winter and I will be back in plenty of time to receive its surrender."
Roissy nodded dourly. Their spies in the city had given them ample evidence of the burghers' steadfast refusal to yield up the keys while there remained an edible rat alive in the city sewers. The city still had some grain supplies, but when those could not be replenished by the new harvest, then matters would grow grim indeed.
"If you wait overlong in England, my liege, you may find the return crossing impossible to make before spring," he demurred.
"I'll not protract my wooing of this maid," Henry stated. "If she be as comely as her portrait and not doltish… and if she be willing…" Here he chuckled and even Roissy couldn't disguise a grim smile at the absurd idea that any girl would refuse such a match.
" Then," Henry continued, "I will conclude my business with Lord Harcourt with all speed and return by the end of October to put in train my divorce from Marguerite, which should, I think, take place before my coronation?" He raised a questioning eyebrow in the direction of his chancellor.
"Undoubtedly, my liege," the man agreed, taking out a scrap of lace from his pocket and dabbing at his mouth with a fastidious gesture that seemed out of keeping with the rough surroundings, the coarse fare, the uninhibited manners of his fellow diners who, like their king, were soldiers before they were courtiers and sported wine-red mouths, grease-spattered jerkins, dirt-encrusted fingernails.
"Who will accompany you, sieur?." Roissy made no further attempt to dissuade his king; he'd do better to save his breath to cool his porridge.
"Deroule, Vancair, and Magret." Henry pointed at the three men in turn. "I shall take your identity, Roissy. Since you will be taking mine." He frowned and all traces of lightheartedness had vanished, he was once more the implacable commander.
"We shall change clothes and I shall wear your colors and bear your standard. It's imperative that no one but the girl's family know the true identity of her suitor. The duke of Roissy will be visiting Elizabeth's court, while his sovereign continues to lay siege to Paris. The queen herself must not suspect for a second the true identity of the French visitor. She professes to support my cause, but Elizabeth is as tricky as a bag of vipers."
He leaned back, his thumbs hooked into the wide belt at his waist as he surveyed his companions. "I doubt even her right hand knows what her left is doing, and if she thought that Henry was not besieging Paris, there's no telling what she might deci
de to do with the knowledge."
"Exactly so, my liege." Roissy leaned over the table, his tone urgent. "Consider the risks, sieur. Just supposing you were discovered."
"I will not be, Roissy, if you play your part." The king reached for the flagon of wine and raised it to his lips again. "Let us drink to the pursuit of love, gentlemen."
Chapter Eleven
Miranda was awakened the next morning by the sound of her door opening. "I give you good morning, Miranda." Maude came over to the bed, her face pale in the gloom.
Miranda hitched herself up in the bed and yawned. "What time is it?"
"Just after seven." Maude hugged herself in her shawls. "It's so cold in here."
"It's certainly cheerless," Miranda agreed with a shiver of her own, glancing toward the window. It was gray and overcast outside. The clouds must have rolled in over the river soon after she'd gone to sleep. "It looks like it's going to rain."
Maude examined her with undisguised interest. "I'm sorry if I woke you, but I had the strangest feeling that perhaps I'd dreamed you, and you wouldn't look in the least like me when I saw you again."
Miranda grinned sleepily. "And did you?"
Maude shook her head with something approaching a smile. "No, you're just the same as last night. And I can't get used to it." She stretched out a hand and lightly touched Miranda's face. "Your skin feels just like mine."
Chip bounced onto the coverlet with his own morning greeting and Maude obligingly scratched his head. "What happens today?"
"No one's told me." Miranda kicked off the covers and jumped out of bed. She stretched and yawned.
"Your body's not like mine," Maude observed almost critically. "We're both thin, but you have more shape."
"Muscle," Miranda responded. "It comes from acrobatics." She bent to pick up the finery she had so carelessly discarded the previous evening, saying guiltily, "I suppose I'd better wear this again. I should have hung it up, it's all creased now."
"Leave it," Maude said casually. "The maids will pick it up and press it. Wait here and I'll fetch you a robe." She disappeared with a speed that was most unusual, reappearing within minutes with a fur-trimmed velvet chamber robe.
"Put it on and we'll go back to my chamber where there's a fire and Berthe is heating spiced ale. I have to be bled today, so I have the spiced ale first to keep up my strength."
"Why must you be bled? Are you ailing?" Miranda thrust her arms into the robe. The silk lining caressed her skin and she ran her hands in a luxurious stroke over the soft velvet folds that floated around her bare feet. There were certainly compensations for life in a cocoon, she thought as she followed Maude from the room, Chip perched on her shoulder.
"I have to be bled to prevent falling sick," Maude explained with a grimace. "Every week the leech takes at least a cup from my foot so my blood doesn't get overheated and give me fever."
Miranda stared at her. "How can you bear it? Bleeding is worse even than purging."
"It's not very pleasant," Maude agreed, opening the door to her own chamber. "But it's necessary if I'm not to fall ill."
"I should think it's more likely to make you ill," Miranda observed.
Maude didn't respond to this ignorance. She moved to the settle drawn up against the blazing fire and sat down, thrusting her feet in their thin slippers as close to the flames as possible, saying with a careless gesture, "This is Miranda, Berthe. I told you about her last night. Lord Harcourt is employing her to take my place, but we're not sure quite why or what good it will do me in the end."
The elderly woman stirring the fragrant contents of a copper kettle on a trivet over the fire looked up. Her pale eyes widened and she dropped the wooden spoon. "Holy Mother! May the saints preserve us!" She struggled to her feet and bobbed across to Miranda. Only then did she see Chip. "Oh, my Lord. It's a wild animal!" She recoiled in horror.
"Chip isn't in the least wild," Maude assured. "He won't hurt you."
Berthe looked far from convinced, but her reaction to Miranda far surpassed her fear of the monkey. She reached up to clasp Miranda's face between both hands. "Mary, Mother of God! It's hard to believe one's eyes. It's my babe to the life."
Miranda was growing accustomed to this reaction and made no response.
"It's either the work of the devil or the work of God," Berthe muttered, stepping back to get a better look. "It isn't natural, that's for sure."
"Well, there's no need to fret about it, Berthe," Maude said with a touch of impatience. "Is the ale ready? I am in sore need of warming."
"Oh, yes, my pet. Yes, you mustn't get chilled, running around at this hour of the morning." Tutting, Berthe returned to her kettle, but she kept glancing up at Miranda, who had drawn up a stool a little away from the blazing heat of the fire. "Sainted Mary! Maybe it's heaven-sent," the old woman continued to mutter. "If you've come to save my pet from the evil they would do her, then it's assuredly heaven-sent."
Miranda took the mug of ale handed her by Berthe with a word of thanks, and gratefully buried her nose in the fragrant steam.
"Berthe, I would like coddled eggs for my breakfast," Maude announced. "Since I no longer have to live on bread and water, thanks to Miranda."
"Thanks to milord Harcourt, I would have said," Miranda amended. "He was the one who wouldn't have you coerced."
"I'll fetch them directly, my pet." Berthe hauled herself upright with alacrity. Then she frowned. "But the leech is coming to bleed you and the eggs may overheat you. It's best to eat light before bleeding."
Maude's mouth turned down at the corners. "I'm feeling quite strong today, Berthe. I'm certain the leech will only need to take a very little blood."
"Maybe he shouldn't come at all," Miranda suggested, looking up from her ale.
Berthe ignored this interjection. She bent over Maude, laying a hand on her forehead, peering into her eyes. "Well, I don't know, my pet. You know how suddenly you begin to fail."
"I don't feel in the least like failing, and I want coddled eggs," Maude declared crossly. "And if I don't get them I shall quite likely fall into a fit."
Miranda stared in surprise and more than a degree of disapproval at this display of petulance. However, it seemed to have the desired effect, because Berthe with a cluck of distress hastened to the door.
Maude smiled as the door closed behind her nursemaid. " That's good. Sometimes she can be very obstinate and I have to bully her a little."
Miranda made no comment, merely returned her attention to the spiced ale, which was really very good.
"Why are you frowning?" Maude asked.
Miranda shrugged. "I don't know. I suppose because it was suddenly very uncomfortable to watch someone who looks just like me behave in such an unpleasant fashi�
�on."
"What can you know of my life?" Maude demanded. "Of how confined and constricted it is? Of how no one except for Berthe cares a groat what happens to me? Only now, when Lady Imogen can see a use for me, they start to take notice of me. But it's not me they're interested in. It's what I can do for them." Maude's eyes burned, her cheeks were flushed, her whole body upright and pulsing with all the energy of anger.
Miranda was startled, not by Maude's words but by the heartfelt passion that she recognized as if she herself had been speaking. Suddenly she saw Maude's life as clearly as if she herself had lived it. Immured in this vast mansion, sickly, because what else was there to be, without friends or companions of her own age, without any real sense of the vibrant world beyond the walls. Her life held in abeyance all because someone someday expected to have a use for her.
Wouldn't she too learn to rely on petulance, defiance, opposition? Miranda thought. Maude knew that she was merely tolerated by the people who had responsibility for her and her reaction had been to defy and oppose. It must have given her some sense of satisfaction, some sense of purpose. At least life in a convent was something she could fight for as a viable alternative to the life her family had designated for her.
Before she could respond, however, Berthe returned with a footman, bearing a laden tray, whose contents he set upon the table, casting a curious glance at Miranda, who didn't look up from her unseeing stare into the fire.
