To Serve a King (11 page)

Anne had little fear of other women, women whose beauty boasted naught more than feminine flirtations and feminine wiles. Beside her, they would pale in comparison; a second sun never shone as bright as the first. But this woman, this Diane de Poitiers, was different and it was her novelty Anne feared most, as the sun fears each day to fall to the moon.

Diane’s paternity—the daughter of the seigneur de Saint Val-lier, who had colluded with Bourbon in the greatest act of betrayal perpetrated against the French crown—fed Anne’s revulsion. Her devotion to François would not waver; his enemies were her enemies, as were their enemies’ children.

“She is rallying the most devoted to her cause and they are putting more and more pressure on the king with each passing day. Yet I know deep down he is sympathetic to the Lutherans and Calvinists. At the very least he is open to them. His own sister has told me so.” Anne pushed her plate away, more than half her food
uneaten, rubbing at her head with a moue of pain. “I worry the king is himself unsure of his position on the matter. He is by birth and education a Catholic, and yet he possesses such a liberty of spirit, such a curious intellect, he is like a wondrous child who looks upon all new things with indulgence. How much he is loved for his generous thinking and yet how ridiculed for the same.”

Geneviève thought, as did so many of François’s critics, that such ambiguousness sounded like the symptom of an irresolute mind.

“Queen Marguerite, the king’s sister, is your good and stalwart friend. There you have a potent ally,” Sybille placated.

“Yes, and Diane has the constable by her side. It’s as if we play a game of chess, each with our own powerful pieces. Who moves them with the most mastery will win.”

Geneviève nibbled at her own repast in complete silence, refusing to intrude on the revealing, intimate dialogue, not daring to ask for the jam, out of reach across the table.

“Cousin, you have proven yourself her superior time and again. This latest challenge will be no different.”

Anne bestowed a look of gratitude upon Sybille. “How the woman can proclaim she is the most pious while a mistress—and to a man, a child, twenty years her junior—is beyond my understanding. The hypocrisy is so symptomatic of her beliefs.”

The door to the chamber opened. Arabelle and Jecelyn curtsied as they entered, the lightness of one in stark relief to the darkness of the other. Geneviève felt her wariness rise with Jecelyn among them, her feelings of unease in this woman’s presence, though unexplained, returning with the morn.

“The king comes, madame,” Arabelle announced as she approached.

Anne’s smile changed her entire face; gone were the wrinkles of worry chasing her beauty away, the gloominess replaced with a glow.

François arrived at the door before Anne stood, but she jumped
at the sight of him, crossing the room with a quick, light step. The king wore a simple doublet of brown silk braided in gold, a yellow shirt of linen and lace showing through the slashings. His simple golden chain of office held amber stones that matched his eyes, and in his brown velvet toque he wore a hawk’s feather.

He held her small hands in his large ones, leaning down over them, kissing one then the other with the most temperate caress. His eyes held hers fast, bound by unfettered devotion.

“I am off to council but needed a glimpse of you to start my day,” he spoke with soft tenderness.

“And my day is brighter for it,” Anne replied.

There was little mistaking the affinity between them, one begun well over a decade ago in those festive, heady days following François’s release from the Spanish prison. He had chased her then with the same dogged determination as the hound did the fox. How strange it was that they had François’s own mother to thank for their meeting.

Louise de Savoy, the powerful woman who had ruled France as regent during her son’s captivity, cared little for François’s first choice of lover, had indeed made the comtesse de Châteaubriant’s existence a misery in her son’s absence. Louise had been only too willing to offer him a tantalizing distraction, bringing her new maid of honor with her to greet her son upon his release. Little did Louise realize that she would be introducing her son to the woman who would become—if the heart were the regulator of relationships for royals—the king’s true mate. Anne’s role at court remained unsurpassed, as did the place she held in François’s heart; she lived at the very center of both, the fiery molten core of king and court.

“I will see you soon at chapel?” François asked, brushing her cheek with the back of his hand.

Anne’s eyes fluttered at his touch. “Of course.” She would be wherever he asked her to be. Unlike the queen, Anne accompanied the king everywhere, his wife in all manner of life, save legal.

*  *  *

Afternoon rain brought a quiet to the castle. With the king again sequestered with his council, the women were free to amuse themselves in whatever manner they chose. Anne took to her bed, the pain in her head needing the curtains to be drawn and a tincture of valerian root to be ingested. Their mistress attended and on her way to slumber, Arabelle and Geneviève tiptoed from the somber chamber, gently closing the door behind them.

They perched themselves together on one of the vacant settees like birds on a roof, as quiet as the other half dozen of Anne’s ladies scattered about the room. Some read, while others, like Ara-belle, worked upon their embroidery.

“We haven’t had much chance to talk since your arrival, Gene-viève,” Arabelle said as she threaded her needle with deep turquoise floss. “I believe you said your aunt raised you?”

“
Oui,
she did,” Geneviève responded with unintended curt-ness.

“Were your parents away at court?”

“My parents are dead,” Geneviève reported, devoid of emotion. Her foot tapped impatiently upon the floor and her eyes flicked to the door.

“Oh,
mon Dieu
. I am so sorry.” Arabelle reached to give Gene-viève’s hand an affectionate squeeze.

Geneviève shrugged off the sympathy as she retrieved her hand. “It is of little consequence. I was very little when they died. I remember them not at all.” She told the lie with ease, pushing down the gurgitation of anger that always rose in her at the thought of her parents’ demise, and the man responsible for it.

Arabelle gazed at Geneviève with eyes round with compassion. “I’m sure your aunt was a loving substitute.”

Geneviève fought the urge to laugh. “My childhood was all it needed to be.”

Arabelle recommenced her work, an expectant silence falling upon them. Geneviève twitched in her seat. It was proper for her
to ask after Arabelle’s life, to return the interest, but she had no patience for pleasantries.

“Would it be acceptable to return to my rooms?” Geneviève whispered. Her mistress’s continued bed rest was a vital part of her plans, and she took extra care not to disturb her. “I would like to write my aunt and tell her I have arrived safely and been welcomed warmly.”

“Of course, of course,” Arabelle assured her, a furrow of concern forming between her eyes. “There are many of us here to attend our mistress. Have not a care.”

“Go along with you,” Jecelyn chimed in, her skirts puffing up as she flounced down upon the seat beside Arabelle, in the warmed place Geneviève had vacated. “I will keep her good company. There is nothing you can do for the duchesse that we cannot.”

The woman offered a counterfeit smile with her overly sweet sentiment.

With a cynical glance at her, Arabelle urged Geneviève on with a genuine smile. With relief and no pause to examine the reasons for Jecelyn’s politeness, Geneviève rushed from the room, rounding down the spiral staircase, skirts flying out behind her, quick steps echoing up into the high stone circle of the stairwell. But once at the bottom, she caught herself up short. Where did she begin to look for a man in a palace she knew nothing about?

It was midafternoon and the court was at its leisure, not at the hunt nor involved in any other sport. Where would a nobleman who was not a member of the king’s council be? Where would a gentleman pass his leisure time? The idea burst upon her and she spun left, making a run for the great hall.

Fires burned in the giant stone recesses along the far wall, warding off the chill of a rainy spring day, but the crackle was no more than a simmering undercurrent, the low murmur of a babbling brook behind the cries of the forest animals.

Knights, soldiers, pages, and men of all sorts filled the long wooden tables in the hall, a serving girl or two scattered in the mix.
Their riotous calls ebbed and flowed as cards were slammed down in defeat, as a chess bishop took the life of a queen.

Geneviève stood on the perimeter searching the faces, bearded and clean shaven, common and regal, but she found no familiar features. Granted, her male acquaintanceship at court was limited, but she should be able to find one of the men from her company the previous evening.

A young serving boy passed, a tray heavy with mugs and a pitcher balanced upon splayed hands, frantically serving a court confined indoors.

“Excusez-moi,”
she said, stopping the young man with an outstretched hand.

“Mademoiselle?” He tarried but did not halt.

Geneviève skipped beside him. “Have you seen Baron Pitou, or perhaps the marquis de Limoges?”

The young man’s face scrunched up with thought. “I know not of a Baron Pitou and the marquis is no longer at court. I saw him leave myself this very morn.”

“The baron is new to court,” Geneviève explained, hoping to jog the lad’s memory with more information, though she had very little to give. “Tall and young, with wavy blond hair and blue eyes.”

The boy did stop then, his gaze scanning the vast room. “I’m sorry, mademoiselle. Perhaps you might ask at the stables. The lads there know every man by their horse.”

“An excellent suggestion.” Geneviève sent him on his way.
“Merci.”

For a few moments more, she searched the sea of faces, but found neither Baron Pitou, the duc de Ventadour, nor any of the men she had met. She left the room as swiftly as she had entered, making for the stables, stopping in her rooms long enough to gather her cloak and throw it about her shoulders. In a determined rush, she found her way through the maze of the palace’s first floor and out to the stables.

The smell of wet horse clung to her nostrils and she held her hand against her nose in a vain attempt to hinder its assault.

“Excuse me, young man?” From the door of the vast wooden outbuilding she called to the first squire she glimpsed within, unable to push herself across the boundary and farther into the odorous, airless interior.

“Has Baron Pitou come for his horse today?”

“Who, mam’selle?” The rugged man wiped the dirt and sweat from his face with a ragged cloth.

Geneviève repeated the name and his description as well, but once more she received an unsatisfactory and surprising response.

“I know of no such gentleman. And if he is in residence, he did not come by horse.”

With a silent, frustrated curtsy of thanks, Geneviève turned away disappointed.

“Try at the laundry,” he called after her. “The maids there might help. They clean all the rooms. Perhaps they would know of your gentleman.”

Geneviève waved her thanks, enthusiasm once more ignited by possibility.

Back in the castle, Geneviève begged directions, running the distance of the ground floor to the opposite end. But in the cavernous, steamy chamber, she found no satisfaction. Blazing a crooked path through the rows of women bent over the pools of hot water and scrubbing boards, beneath the tents of drying sheets, she queried them all. But not a one of them had heard of Baron Pitou, cleaned his rooms, nor changed the linens on his bed. It was as if he never existed.

Downtrodden, Geneviève began the trek back to the far wing of the castle and her rooms, refusing to give up the search, peeking into every open door, no matter how intrusive or discourteous her behavior may be.

The colors flashed by—greens, yellows, and blues blurring in her peripheral vision like a fleeting landscape glimpsed from an
open carriage window—so vibrant they stopped her in her tracks, and she sidled back, tipping to the right to peek in the open portal.

Wearing a slate-colored smock, the artist caressed the canvas with his brush, the scene he rendered so vivid Geneviève thought to jump in and run across the beckoning meadow.

“Come in, mademoiselle. I would not mind.”

His greeting startled Geneviève; she lowered her head, chagrined like the child caught filching another’s toy, but she did not retreat.

“
Bonjour,
monsieur.” She stepped across the threshold. Though small, as petite as her own, the room was elegantly appointed with polished mahogany furniture upholstered in auburn velvet, clean rushes upon the stone floor, a warm fire dancing in the small grate, and everywhere paintings lay propped against every available space.

He turned, and his lopsided smile came as warm as any welcome could be. His long, thin face, topped by a dashing chapeau and punctuated by a prominent, arched nose, was much younger than she expected, unattractive yet affable.

“Good day to you, mademoiselle …?”

“Gravois, Geneviève Gravois.” She dipped a fine curtsy.

“Mademoiselle Gravois.” He bowed low, his brush waving the air with a graceful flourish. “I am Lodovico Rinaldi Ribbati,
molto lieto
. It is so very nice to make your acquaintance.”

“And you, Signor Ribbati.”

“Ack, no, no!” The young man turned his twinkling, deep brown gaze back to his work with a shake of his shaggy-haired head. “Call me Lodovico,
per favore
. I hear ‘Signor Ribbati’ and I think my father is here. It makes me want to run away.” He laughed and leaned toward her. “He is not a very nice man.”

Geneviève smiled with delight at his candid chicanery. “Perhaps you should paint him unbecomingly then.”

Lodovico laughed. “Oh, I have, mademoiselle, many times.”

His dexterous movements upon his canvas continued unabated
as they spoke and Geneviève looked on in wonder at such a gift; it was as if he possessed two brains, each able to function on a different task.