To Serve a King (36 page)

Geneviève smiled and turned to her chore, the grin fading from her face like dusk’s last light. To Anne she spoke with conviction, but her own thoughts could not be more irresolute. Her plan had traveled so very awry; Lisette arrested, Anne in turmoil, and she to blame. She had ventured to distract any condemning finger from pointing her way, and she had brought destruction upon those she would least wish to harm.

They had held their heads high for hours—the king and his mistress—presiding over a subdued evening’s salon. But now all their guests had departed, words of encouragement spoken, uncertain glances denied. In word and deed, François and Anne had assured their closest confidants that there was no truth to the outrageous charges, and that all would be put to rights. Though certain in their own truth, the efforts had wearied them, none more than the king, and age had rampaged across his face through the long, horrifying hours of this day, leaving it ashen and flaccid.

Anne sat on her couch, her eyes encircled by plum-colored sockets of exhaustion, and stared out into nothing. The king lay with his head in her lap, accepting the succor that she so often offered him, as servants tidied the remnants of the evening with their guests, gathering up the half-empty goblets and the crumb-covered plates strewn haphazardly about the room. The cleaning women went about their chores in unobtrusive silence, nothing more than the clanking of silver and the swish of a broom revealing their presence.

Anne’s ladies sat in a circle around the king and the duchess—silent, vigilant, splendidly dressed guards on watchful duty.

“Did you ever suspect …” The king’s tremulous voice broached the question, all façade of strength surrendered in the safety of their intimacy, his niggling fear unable and unwilling to remain silent.

“No, never.” Anne was quick to slap at the suggestion, and her undeniable certainty slayed the dragon that was his trepidation. He reached a hand up into the air and hers found it. François clasped her hand to his chest, holding it dear to his heart with both of his.

In their unity against disaster, they formed a more perfect coupling, for that was indeed where true love lived—not in the moments of great passion and bursting joy, but in the strength with which it weathered any storm, no matter how harsh or violent.

Geneviève looked upon them with envy and wonder. How could these two of such notorious reputation find such love together? François may have strayed, taking lovers while having a wife and a mistress, but he always returned to her, his Hely. And if she had found forbidden passion in the arms of another, it was the king she craved, to whose heart she belonged. Did they possess a deserving nature she herself did not, that King Henry must not, for what this man and woman relished remained elusive to them both.

“I must allow the court to treat this situation as decisively as
they would any other,” François croaked. “I cannot impose any sort of intervention, though she may be one of your ladies.”

Anne nodded silently, a balled fist pushed hard against her lips. The Swiss Guards had transported Lisette to Paris that very afternoon, delivering her to the dungeon of the royal palace on the Île de la Cité, where the Parlement of Paris would hear her case. It was a thickly layered judicial conglomeration presiding over, among other indictments, all those brought against any persons on behalf of the king. They were his voice in court, though they did not often speak for him.

“There may be action I can take once they have completed their case,” François continued. “I will have some of my inner council looking into things as well, should it be required.”

“I pray such action will not be necessary,” Anne said from behind her hand. “Her innocence will win out. I am sure of it.”

“As am I,” François agreed. “In the meantime, you … we … must do all we can to dispel any notions of our own impropriety.”

Though he spoke of them both, there was no doubt he meant Anne. She looked down at him, finding his amber eyes intent upon her. “What do you propose?”

He pushed himself up with a stiff, achy movement, and shifted over to sit close by her side. “You must keep your appointment with King Henry. There can be n—”

“I cannot leave until I know she is free,” Anne argued doggedly, shaking her head with agitation. “I must be here should—”

“Of course, of course,” the king placated her, large hands clasping her face tenderly, thumbs stroking her flushed skin until she calmed. “I would never suggest otherwise. I propose that we continue to make plans, no more. It will remind everyone of your devotion and willingness to work on our behalf. I am merely asking you to continue on as if nothing had changed, as if all will be well.”

“All
will
be well,” she hissed, and struggled against his embrace.

François held her tighter, allowing her to rail against him, to
pound out her anger, frustration, and fear as she beat her small fists against his large chest. Her hands fell limply, all strength wrung out of them, her protests slurring to incomprehensible sobbing. The king pulled her to him, laying her head against his chest, stroking her head with the same loving succor she so often administered upon him.

“Of course,
ma chérie,
of course all will be well.” But to Geneviève and every ear who heard the words, the promise sounded like no more than a hollow echo of hope.

25

In me the fires abide.

—Mellin de Saint-Gelais (1491–1558)

T
he trial had begun, and the court whispered of it constantly. Talk of it seethed through the castle like the unrelenting hiss of steam. Riders were dispatched to and from Paris four or five times a day, returning with news brought to the king; yet every word found its way through the court, spreading with the same insidious contagion as an illness once breathed into life.

Like many others, Arabelle and Jecelyn had made their way to the great city, to hear for themselves the words spoken against their friend and colleague, leaving Geneviève, Monique, and Anne’s cousins to see to the duchesse and her needs. Geneviève could not have borne one minute in the stultifying air of the judicial chamber; every word spoken against Lisette would have pushed and twisted the dagger of guilt piercing her heart, a cutting reminder of her own hand in the fallacious charges against the woman. Yet she could not have been more torn apart than she was, far away though she may be. She held her breath with every new report, unable to alleviate the nausea grinding in her gullet, no matter how many steamed herbs she imbibed.

Anne kept herself frantic with plans and activities, hiding her
own desperate fear in action, and Geneviève was grateful for it. She left Sybille and Béatrice to the sewing and stitching, accepting every errand, running willy-nilly through the castle, borrowing hair notions from one comtesse, a jeweled and embroidered fan from another, anything to escape the duchesse’s abandoned, tension-filled chambers. But such frenzy was futile; every salacious report found her no matter how fast she ran; eventually, she heard every bit of news as the breathless riders plunged into the palace.

Geneviève wrapped the small pearl-encrusted drawstring pouch in soft gauze before retrieving it from the chamber of the comtesse de Freyne, guarding the delicate accessory with exceptional care.

The white-haired woman pretended to help, doing no more than tucking in a corner of the cottony material, leaning in close to whisper to Geneviève as they worked together on either side of the round claw-foot table. “Have you seen any of them?”

Geneviève looked up at her with a puckered brow. “Seen any of what, Comtesse?”

“Any of the papers?” The elderly woman’s cloudy blue eyes pierced her with vicious curiosity. “I’m sure you have been to her room. You would have seen the papers they accuse Lisette of possessing.”

Geneviève felt her mouth open and close like a gaping fish, her blatant shock feeding the woman’s hunger for scandal.

“You have not heard then? Oh, I am so sorry to tell you.” But the small pointy-toothed grin on the noblewoman’s face refuted her apologetic words. “It is said that substantial evidence was found in her rooms, messages passed between her and her foreign lover.”

Geneviève gnashed her teeth against such unsubstantiated condemnation. “Love letters are hardly treasonous, madame. If they were, most of the court would long have been imprisoned.”

The comtesse leered at her. “Perhaps, my dear, but where there is smoke …”

Geneviève tucked the package beneath one arm and dropped a curtsy before the malicious woman spoke again. “I thank you, Comtesse, as does the duchesse.”

She did not mean to let the door slam shut behind her, at least not consciously. Geneviève rushed back to Anne’s chambers as the echo of the crash chased her down the hallway. She hoped to deliver the latest dispatch to the duchesse before anyone else, someone who would be vicious in how they plied the propaganda. Geneviève rushed through the palace, the woman’s words a gauntlet she must hurdle, and she tripped on them. She had called Lisette’s lover a foreigner, and nothing else Geneviève had heard that day vexed her more. There existed no harsher a denunciation against Lisette than for her man to be from another land.

Geneviève dashed through the halls, bursting through the door, package in hand.

The reticence filled the room with dire gloom. Anne sat immobile on the green organza settee, Sybille by her side, one of Anne’s hands in both of hers. Facing them, perched upon a small petit-point hassock, Béatrice sat, leaning forward with elbows on knees to hold her cousin’s other hand. Silent tears ran down Anne’s face; they marred her beauty, but she cared not at all.

“You have heard then, about the papers found in her room?” Geneviève’s whisper barely cut through the oppression, so thickly did it permeate the chamber.

Béatrice nodded. “And of the man.”

Geneviève rushed forward and flounced down onto the floor, inveigling her way into their circle to cast her lot with this small group of apprehensive women. “What of him?”

Sybille shook her head as it fell to her chest, her bottom lip quivering. “He is an … an Italian.” She said the word as if it were the most licentious ever to pass from her lips.

Geneviève’s befuddled gaze rose to Anne’s face.

The woman’s pert nose stood out like a red cherry on her pale
visage; her delicate chin quivered. “He will be helpless to save her now. It is too soon after his son.”

Geneviève recoiled incredulously. “Do they infer a connection between Lisette and the Dauphin’s death?”

The Italian count, Sebastian de Montecuculli, had come to France in the retinue of Catherine de’ Medici, and had later come to serve as the young François’s secretary. He had also been convicted of the murder by poisoning of the king’s son, and had been executed for it in a most vicious manner, one in keeping with the king’s fury. Drawn and quartered, they hung the four parts of Montecuculli’s body at the four gates of Lyons, his head skewered on a lance and placed on a bridge over the Rhône. But there could be nothing to associate Lisette to that man or the heinous act; it had taken place three years ago.

“No connection would be needed,” Anne said with a calamitous monotone. “All know of the king’s unrelenting bitterness. If Par-lement should find her guilty, he cannot intercede. It would be an obvious act of favor and not of justice. They will expect him to be hideous with his punishment.”

“But there are hundreds of Italians at our court. Hundreds of noblemen have Italian mistresses. What of it?” Geneviève snapped.

“But the man did not make himself known to the court or to the king,” Anne bawled. “He kept his presence secret and she her involvement with him. Why?”

Béatrice rocked as she nodded. “It is always our secrets which give us away in the end.”

Geneviève flicked up a wary gaze, but saw nothing to fear except the words’ truth.

“We must have faith,” Sybille intoned with little of her own conviction. “And pray for God’s mercy.”

Anne nodded with a quaking sigh, rising to cross to her large writing table. “Let us continue our work, ladies.”

The three women shared a moment of concern, but they rose to their mistress’s command.

Long into the night, Anne had Geneviève fetching and carrying, copying plans and lists, and bringing them to the king for his approval, though they were of such little consequence the approval was unnecessary.

She returned once more to Anne’s chambers, this time finding it dark, a lone, three-branched candlestick casting a pale glow in the center of the room, leaving the ravenous gloom to devour the corners. Evening had fallen without fanfare, and a murky night reigned supreme. Béatrice slept curled upon a couch, Sybille slouched in a chair, and Anne was nowhere to be seen.

“We gave her a sleeping draught and put her to bed,” Sybille explained with a whisper. “Go to your room, Geneviève. Find some peace if you can.”

Geneviève nodded; there was nothing more any of them could do this day.

Her feet dragged as she passed through the deserted corridors toward her room, her head aching with disruptive thoughts. She had lost her purpose and the strength it gave her, no longer certain who she was. Perhaps only God should wield the sword of revenge, as the Gospel proclaimed, for look at the harm she had done by brandishing it herself. The need to avenge her parents pumped through her veins, but the part of her that wanted to forget, if not forgive, to live in untroubled peace, grew more insistent with each passing day. The dichotomy of desire fought inside her like a parasite intent upon assimilation of its host.

Geneviève reached her door, placed one hand upon its latch, and pulled away. She could not go into that room, could not be alone with herself and the voices in her head refusing to cease their prattling, could not lie quietly while the fight raged inside her, or she would surely go mad.