To Serve a King (22 page)

“After all these years, he continues to hold Milan over my head like a master teasing a dog with a hearty bone,” he said as she began to stroke his hair away from his worried face.

Having lost the territory in the Treaty of Madrid—a humiliation compounded by the disgrace, defeat, and his subsequent imprisonment at Pavia—reclaiming the birthright had been his lifelong obsession, one competing only with that of Hely herself. François craved all things Italian, a result and a symptom of his obsession, yet it permeated every facet of his life—his dress, his food, his home, and the art hanging on his walls.

Anne stared out the window as she caressed him. “And yet Charles knows he needs you. If the English king decides to ride out against him, the emperor will need you.” Her words supported François’s position, encouraged him to keep to his path, but to Geneviève her mistress sounded irked to speak them.

François’s eyes closed against the succor of her touch. “You are right, I do know, but it takes so long. The road stretches out in front of me by half as much as it does behind. That’s why …”

Anne looked down at him. “Why …?”

“Why I have asked Eleanor to help me.”

His wife’s name hung between them like the smell of spoilt milk; Anne’s lips curled in distaste.

“She is his sister, Anne,” he said as if by apology, and sat up to face her.

Geneviève dared a glance at the couple, shocked to see the
king’s face look so old, so weary with worry; she hardly recognized him as the man she had come to hate.

“I must use every weapon at my disposal. I’m sure you can understand. Our country needs this victory, but I will not—can-not—make our people suffer another war.”

He appealed to her devotion to nation, one as strong within her as him.

“Of course,
Majesté
, you are right, as always,” Anne conceded with courtly grace and acumen, the very kind in which she had tutored Geneviève. “We must do whatever it takes.”

The king smiled broadly, appeased, lowering himself back into his lover’s embrace.

“You have read something enlightening?”

Geneviève flinched at the question and spun to find Arabelle standing at her elbow. She looked at her in confusion.

Arabelle grinned, refusing to surrender the flimsy bond of friendship between them. “You appear a bit dumbfounded. I thought perhaps you had read something confusing.”

“Oh, ah,
oui
.” Geneviève played along and gazed down at the book in her hands, but she saw none of the words printed there. Her mind whirled with the words of the message she would write to her king, one filled with all she had learned. “It is some of the most intriguing I have read in a long time.”

Queen Eleanor held her head high as the king escorted her into the great hall; she looked like a different woman from the one Geneviève had seen in all the weeks since coming to court. As she must, the duchesse d’Étampes followed behind; François would abandon Eleanor as soon as the meal ended, but the notion did little to quash the mistress’s resentment. The queen preened, aware that the court—especially Anne—would know by now of her king’s request; she basked in the glow of her husband’s need.

No matter how triumphantly Eleanor strutted, her pudgy body encased in her dowdy gown, she could not eclipse her rival’s
beauty, looking more like Anne’s mother than a contemporary nigh on but ten years older. Anne glowed in pale jade silk, trimmed in creamy lace and pearls as was her crescent headdress; she looked every inch the greatest beauty of the realm, despite her features scrunched in a mask of displeasure. It would be a long, tedious banquet for everyone with Eleanor so smug and Anne so an-noyed—especially for the king.

When the musicians struck a
gaillarde
between the meat and fish courses, the entire room heaved a collective gasp as Eleanor took to the floor, none other than Montmorency as her partner.

“This cannot be happening,” Anne hissed under her breath to the ladies seated around her, Geneviève among them. She smiled at François as he caught her eye in obvious apology from across the room.

The growing rift between the king’s two most intimate coun-cilors—the two Annes—became more and more evident with each passing day. Many wondered who would emerge the victor and who would fall. Anne grabbed her jeweled goblet and drank the liquid in one long gulp.

“She is his pathetic puppet,” Anne continued to grouse. “Can she really believe this one event will change her status? The king uses her and she cannot see it.”

Jecelyn leaned toward her mistress, the very devil looking out from her black eyes. “She makes a fool of herself,” she jeered. “Look at her—she flounders like an ox.”

They watched the queen as she attempted the complicated steps, turns, and hops of the dance, but her bumbling brought the duchesse little ease.

“Shall we return to your room, madame, and take our entertainment there?” Arabelle suggested kindly.

Anne spun on her with fury. “I will not retreat. I will not surrender to … to … that,” the duchesse spit.

Arabelle’s tawny skin turned crimson and she hung her hood-covered head. “My pardon, madame.”

Geneviève felt Arabelle’s anguish. She had made the suggestion to be helpful; the lady-in-waiting was perhaps one of the kindest people Geneviève had ever met. There was no need for the fuming mistress to take her anger out on the devoted servant.

“Look at her, she can hardly breathe.” Geneviève threw out the insult at the queen, wanting only to divert the attention away from Arabelle.

“God’s blood,” Anne cursed, Arabelle’s misstep forgotten. “Ladies, take partners. Fill the dance floor, please. Fill the space so I might not see her.”

The women jumped. Arabelle, Jecelyn, Lisette, and others reached out to the first man they found, rushing onto the dance floor and forming a barrier around the queen and her partner.

Geneviève floundered, lost and unsure, searching the faces for someone familiar to partner, uncomfortable with the forward behavior of the ladies at court.

The powerful hand spun her around before she recognized the face of the man who brought her to the dance floor, imposing his lead with such mastery, she had no choice but to follow.

Geneviève found her footing and looked up, unable to keep all relief and delight from her features as she found the roguishly handsome face of Sebastien smiling down at her. Clamping down on her emotions, she found herself stepping a little lighter, hopping a little higher, as they pranced in the lively and strenuous routine.

“You are one lucky man.” The dashing blond youth approached his friend as he stepped off the dance floor and handed Sebastien a pewter mug of frothy ale, slapping him indelicately on the back.

Sebastien chugged down the quenching liquid, wiping white foam from the corner of his mouth with the back of his hand, and smiled at his companion. “Is that so, Dureau? And why is that?”

Dureau’s honey brown eyes flitted back to the dance floor,
caught and held upon Geneviève as she partnered the marquis de Limoges in a
courante
. Together the men watched with appreciative stares as she ran across the dance floor with the agility of an athlete, the light catching the auburn satin of her gown and her hood and the shimmering daffodil yellow of her hair, as she skipped beneath the chandelier. The fiddlers’ bows flew across the strings, the hautbois players’ puffed cheeks reddened, the drum beats raced. She smiled at her partner as they turned a particularly difficult maneuver, while Albret tripped, clearly besotted, and Se-bastien cringed a little at the sight.

“She is a great beauty,” Dureau said, nudging Sebastien with a pointy elbow. “And you seem to be her favored friend.”

Sebastien’s gaze never wavered nor did his mouth smile in reply. “She is striking, I grant you. But tell me this: Why and how does any woman come to shoot so well?”

“Did you not tell me she was raised in a manly household?” Another gallant had joined their ranks and the study of Geneviève.

“I did, Edgard,” Sebastien conceded. “But somehow it does not ring with great truth. Dureau here was raised in much the same way, and he couldn’t hit a dead stag two meters away.”

The trio of cavaliers laughed, but Sebastien’s smile faded away long before the others’.

“With all that is perfect and fine about her, there is something not right there,” Sebastien said with deathly seriousness. “I will make it my duty to keep a close watch on her.”

The two men by his side guffawed uproariously, their bawdy laughter drawing glances of curiosity from the surrounding men and sighs of desire from the women.

“I bet you will.” Edgard threw back a mug of spirits.

Sebastien tried to keep the sheepish blush from his face, but failed. “It is only logical,” he defended himself. “I already have an acquaintance with her.”

“Like I said,” Dureau teased, “you are her favorite.”

Sebastien cuffed him on the shoulder, and the man tripped as
the group swaggered from the room. “Be off with you then,” he said. “Let us play some cards so that I may take your money.”

Sebastien brought up the rear of the merry triumvirate as they left the hall in search of some private game. Tr y as he might, he could not stop himself from looking back, from taking one last glance at Geneviève.

The argument begun in his head some days ago grew louder, and he did not know which voice to heed: the one urging him to seduce her or the one insisting he keep to his duty.

15

Better to laugh than weep, then, if we can,

For laughter is the special mark of man.

—François Rabelais (c. 1494–1553)

T
hey filled the narrow pathway between the tall conical shrubs flanking both sides of the garden corridor like sentries at post, their bright afternoon gowns luminous against the evergreen. There would be no hunt or other sport to entertain them this afternoon; it was a day for deputations, and the king would be imprisoned in his public chamber all day—his gentlemen with him—giving audience to the people of the region, and listening to their appeals.

Anne had worn a path upon the hearth rug all morning, pacing like a caged animal, seething as the day for Eleanor’s meeting with her brother approached. The queen had departed three days ago to travel by horse to Marseilles; from there she and her entourage would travel upon a stately barge to Nice and attempt to convince Charles to meet with François. The importance of her errand eclipsed the joy of having the dowdy queen gone from court; if she was successful, who knew to what lengths François’s gratitude would take him? For Anne, the possibilities were not to be borne, and she had flung herself from the confines of the room, looking for any distraction available.

Like a general taking point as he besieged a battlefield, Anne
led her half dozen ladies through the symmetrically patterned gardens, oblivious to nature’s artistry, stomping upon the gravel and grass as if she were stomping on Eleanor’s head. The ladies had long since surrendered their attempts to divert her, and spoke amongst themselves in hushed whispers.

Geneviève followed obediently, Arabelle by her side, as devoted as ever, perhaps more. The door had opened a crack and Geneviève knew it, yet she did nothing to close it again. The fear and the worry assaulting her from every direction felt like the pummeling of fists, and though she knew her duty took precedence above all else, she needed the small succor of a friend. It could never be a true friendship, for such intimacy required a baring of the soul, and she guarded hers with a steely determination. But the isolation was no longer all encompassing, and for that, she was grateful. Geneviève could not deny the guilt she felt; it was the same when dancing with Sebastien, but she could not gate them out any longer. Her true king indulged himself, she rationalized; he would not begrudge her a little of the same.

The lovely but doleful procession passed through the archway shorn through the shrubbery, and entered the courtyard beyond, taken unawares as they stepped into the midst of a great brouhaha. A clamorous cluster of servants fussed around one man and his horse, packing his saddle bags, handing him his gear, readying his mount. Geneviève had never seen the man before; though no doubt of middle age, the man’s sharp nose, pointed chin, and over-long swath of gray hair spoke of preeminence, affording him a dashing air.

“What’s goes on here?” Geneviève asked Arabelle over the clip-clop of their heels upon the cobbles.

Arabelle turned her blue eyes to the man and shook her head. “I’m not sure. He could be one of the king’s
chevaucheurs
making ready. The king keeps these messengers forever on the move.”

Geneviève felt the tremble as it crested through her body. Questions about the French king’s messenger had come up twice
in her communiqués with England, so desperately did King Henry want to know the identity of François’s message riders. As much as they could surmise the nature of the discourse between France and Spain, England needed to know the details, needed to prepare if an attack was soon to be forthcoming. By cutting off the dispatches between the two sovereigns, such information might be gleaned firsthand.

“Do you know who he is?” Geneviève asked Arabelle and the miniature, mousy Lisette, who had joined them.

Once more Arabelle shook her head, but Lisette giggled. “I do not know him, either. Do you find him attractive? He is quite debonair.”

Geneviève smiled indulgently at the small woman. She had come to realize how deceiving this pocket-sized woman’s quiet demeanor was; in truth, Lisette was one of the most unbridled among them.

“No, not attractive,” Geneviève said, feigning nonchalance. “I merely find all the fuss curious.”

“Well, if he is a messenger, it must be quite an urgent dispatch to send him forth during the day. They most usually leave at night, when there is less chance he will be followed.”