Daughter of Silk (7 page)

Rachelle strained to hear the hushed voices in the front chamber while she quickly finished with her hair. Perhaps it was Comte Sebastien coming to inform them of the messire in the mask. Sebastien, highly positioned in the Queen Mother’s council, would know much of what was happening at Chambord and elsewhere.

Rachelle was adept at discerning people’s moods by voice inflection and when, a few moments later, Grandmère’s became taut, Rachelle set her comb down on top of the blue and gold marble vanity table and went to the closet doorway. She peered into the main chamber.

Rachelle expected to see Sebastien or another visitor and was sur- prised when the only two people standing in the middle of the chamber were Grandmère and Idelette. Rachelle entered and glanced about.

“Did I not hear someone at the door?”

Grandmère and Idelette turned to look at her. Rachelle felt her ten- sions rise. How pale Grandmère had become. Her black moiré dress emphasized this. Idelette’s lean face with its noble bone structure looked as though she had applied two circles of pink rouge.

“What is wrong?” Rachelle asked.

Grandmère lifted the fine silver chain from her shoulder on which was hung a round looking-glass and fingered it absently.

“Ma cousine, Duchesse Xenia Dushane has sent her page Romier.

We three are to come to her chambers for tea at once.”

Rachelle lifted her brows. She would have expected Grandmère to be pleased, for it was not often the duchesse called for their company in a spirit of bonhomie.

“
Allons bon!
”
Grandmère said. She paced the rose-colored Aubusson

rug, the tall, square heels on her pointed black shoes making no sound as they sank into the heavy pile. “At such news as this I despair.”

Rachelle exchanged a questioning glance with Idelette.

“Despair? Over tea with le duchesse? Did you not tell us you were pleased when we arrived at Chambord and discovered she was here?” Rachelle asked, confused.

“But yes, yes,
pardon,
Rachelle ma cherie, I have not explained.” She

lowered her voice. “It is not Madame Duchesse, but le Duc de Guise and the cardinal of whom I despair.”

“La duchesse is assured of coming trouble,” Idelette said. “Her page has informed us of certain concerns she has.”

“We are to go to her chambers tout de suite,” Grandmère said. “And on the way we must show ourselves of casual countenance, as if thinking of naught else but having tea with her.”

A short time later Rachelle and Idelette walked with slow and digni- fied carriage close behind Grandmère, who led the way through the salle on the south end of the palais chateau. Approving heads turned their way as they passed. Bows from the many messieurs passing them in the salle came like tossed blossoms to sweeten their path. Rachelle was pleased she had taken time before tea to freshen herself and don a clean, becom- ing frock. She cast casual glances here and there in the hope of meeting Marquis de Vendôme, but fair fortune did not call upon her.
It is trouble that comes to knock
, she thought.
Allons bon! Not him. Anyone but that messire!
Rachelle saw the young Comte Maurice Beauvilliers, the blood nephew of Sebastien, looking toward them from where he stood on the upper gallery near a stairway. His gaze found her and attached itself.

“It is Monsieur Maurice,” Idelette whispered toward Grandmère. “What should we do now? How can we ignore him?”

“Say nothing. Leave this to me,” Grandmère hissed back. “It is your fault, Rachelle,” Idelette said.

“My fault!”

“Oui. He is always looking at you. He has romantic plans, I promise you.”

“Fie! I cannot endure the pestilent conceited fellow.” “Shh, both of you,” Grandmère warned. “He is coming.”

Maurice Beauvilliers overtook them and paused ahead in their path with a sweeping bow.

“
Bonjour
, Madame, Mademoiselles.”

“
Bonjour
,” they echoed.

“Monsieur le Comte,” Grandmère said, “your Oncle Sebastien left his hat in our chambers yester evening when he called. I have not seen him this day but wish to speak with him. Will you mention it when you see him?”

His inky brows shot up. “Fate! It was I, Madame, who was going to request such information from you
belles
ladies.” And his languid pearl gray eyes wandered first to Idelette, then to Rachelle. “I am seeking mon oncle. One wonders where he has gotten himself.”

“Ah, then we have foiled one another,
bonne
sir. If you will pardon us we must be on our way. Merci, Monsieur-Comte, bonjour.” With a nod of her silver head she was moving on her way.

Rachelle smothered a smile.

“Did Sebastien truly leave his hat?” Idelette asked.

“Oui. Most assuredly, ma petite. It is black satin with a peacock made of red and green gems.”

At the far end of the salle they came to a curving stairway, and at the top, on either side of the gallery, priceless tapestries in burgundy, blue, and gold caught Rachelle’s attention. When she reached a painting of King Francis I, grandfather of the present boy-king Francis II, which was displayed in a place of prominence, she slowed her ascent, her emo- tions awakened by the sight. She wondered what Grandmère and Idelette might be thinking as they too looked up into the face of the past king.

The painting caught the light from the upper diamonded windows. Rachelle noticed the king’s eyes were too close together and looked falsely humorous with a touch of sly mirth on his arrogant face. His hawklike features and sensuous lips bore, in the f lickering March sun- light, an enchanted look as though he had just come awake from a spell in the magic forest. This, Rachelle reminded herself, was the king who was hailed for introducing the French Renaissance, who had brought Leonardo da Vinci from Italy and established him in the Chateau de Clos near the king’s own castle of Amboise. Rachelle had heard how Francis I never wearied of da Vinci’s company, and da Vinci was said to have died in the king’s arms.

As Rachelle beheld the artist’s masterpiece of the king, she did not remember Francis Valois the
man
of kingly elegance or civilized kind- ness, but saw him for quite another legacy: a selfish, ravenous character who had thrust the tortuous f lame to the faggots of persecution against French Protestants, burning them at the stake in order to pacify intoler- ant Spain. Rachelle remembered from her childhood the stories Maman had told her and Idelette of how Francis I had vented his wrath against Jacques Lefèvre d’Étaples, who had first translated the Bible into French, and who was hunted as a heretic until he escaped with naught but his life to Strasbourg. This beau Renaissance king with his smiling little eyes,

his long nose, and his passion for art, beauty, and literature, had also made it necessary for John Calvin to f lee France for his life.

Rachelle raised her head and continued climbing the stairs, lifting her skirts as she went, meeting the painted laughing eyes with her own calm and quiet confidence.

Here I am, sire, in one of your many chateaus— the niece of one of the

lovers of Scripture whom you killed. You are gone too— you await the day when you must come before the Judge of all men to answer for your rule over the French people. What will you tell him? That you blessed France with great paintings but murdered the true Sovereign’s children?

Rachelle thought of the quiet trips to the Lyon square with her par- ents and Grandmère to remember the day of the burnings. Even John Calvin had written from Geneva to the five martyrs encouraging them for the ordeal that awaited them.

Now, fresh sparks of persecution were about to reignite the com- mencement of the demonic dance once again throughout France.

Duchesse Xenia Dushane was a secret ally of the Huguenots and an amie of the Bourbon leaders, Prince Louis de Condé and Admiral Coligny. Rachelle knew her to be a woman of esteem within the inner echelons of court life and one of those privileged few of high title who belonged to the Queen Mother’s afternoon
cercle
. Accordingly, la duch- esse possessed much knowledge of the happenings at court. On a number of occasions she had warned Huguenot nobles of the dangers hatched at court to destroy them.

Rachelle and Idelette arrived with Grandmère at la duchesse’s cham- bers where tea was waiting. Grandmère entered first, introduced by the page Romier. Rachelle and Idelette followed, each curtsying in turn to the distant kinswoman from the Dushane family of La Rochelle, a Huguenot bastion and the town for which Rachelle had been named.

Of recent days la duchesse had been obliged to use a cane as some malady had weakened her, for which she was being treated by the king’s own physician. She was several years younger than Grandmère, and both Dushane women wore a crown of silver hair, but their likeness ceased there. Madame Dushane was large boned and tall, and her f lesh was firm, for until her illness she was fond of riding, hunting with the king’s royal party, and walking in the woods with her retinue.

She pushed herself up from her
chaise longue
, favoring her weight on the black cane sprinkled with red gems. Her white cat, Pandy, leaped away from where it had been lying on a red settee and escaped the nui- sance of guests by slipping behind the gold satin draperies.

“Ah, Henriette, ma petite cousine, bonjour.”

“Bonjour, and may it please Madame Duchesse to soon find herself in fine fettle again.”

Madame’s eyes were brown and lashless, her angular nose pleasantly aristocratic, and Rachelle noted that she had marvelously retained her teeth, which were white and polished. When she smiled, her nose inevi- tably crinkled in a most
bon vivant
way that never failed to pull a smile from Rachelle no matter her mood.

La duchesse, after greeting Grandmère and dismissing her atten- dants, turned full scrutiny upon Idelette and Rachelle. Rachelle was never certain whether she passed Madame’s inspection. It was Comtesse Claudine Boisseau whom she favored these years, for Claudine was of closer blood and in line to inherit. Rachelle was pleased when, on this occasion, her great-aunt took special notice of her.

“Ça alors!
But you have matured into a woman in your own rights

now, Rachelle. I am pleased to have been reminded of it, seeing you again. Not to say how Comtesse Claudine oft reminds me of it and says you are of no silly mind and worthy of serious camaraderie.”

“Merci bien
, Madame Duchesse.”

Duchesse Xenia then made kind remarks about Idelette and how she reminded her of her mother, Madame Clair. She lowered herself into a chair and signed them to be seated opposite her with a marble table between, holding sweetmeats and hot and cold refreshments of tea and honeyed lemon water.

Rachelle grew tense, wondering what would be said. The duchesse, she noticed, had weary marks of faintest violet beneath her eyes and her cheeks sagged.

“I could but wish your daughter, Clair, were here now, Henriette. I could always depend on her cool head when action was needed. And where is she now, Geneva, is she not? And with Arnaut?”

Grandmère lowered her voice. “Arnaut will soon return to Lyon with Bibles in the forbidden French language and copies of Calvin’s
Institutio Christianae Religionis.
Clair wished to attend him this time.”

“A worthy endeavor. My prayers are with them. The Huguenot households in France need doctrine, for they are like restless children tossed to and fro, weighed down with religious traditions that do pre- cious little to break the binding chains. Even so, the danger Clair and Arnaut place upon themselves on these secret journeys terrifies me. And petite Avril?” she asked of Grandmère.

“My youngest granddaughter remains at the Chateau de Silk under care of our family governess.”

La duchesse nodded her approval. “It is a grave time in the history of Christ’s body, his true church. One wonders what will become of us all here in France.”

“Madame Duchesse, our Lord has encouraged us to fear none of those things that shall come upon us. With his strength girding our minds, and his assured amour warming our quavering hearts, we shall yet be his overcomers,” Idelette said. “If God is for us, who can prevail against us?”

A tender smile spread across the older woman’s face. “Fitly spoken, ma cherie, yes, fitly spoken.” She lifted a white hand sparkling with jew- els in Idelette’s direction.

Rachelle watched her sister respond as was the custom, by standing and approaching to offer a brief kiss.

“You bring me bonne cheer, Idelette. With young Huguenots such as yourself and Rachelle to lead the Reformation on its continuing way, we shall indeed overcome our national trial.”

Idelette lowered her head. Grandmère, too, looked tenderly pleased. Rachelle knew her sister had meant every word. A prick in her own heart made Rachelle uneasy. She was not as knowledgeable as Idelette who studied the French Bible every morning and evening before bed. Even here at court, in the very nest of serpents, Idelette read the Scriptures, which if it were known, could mean imprisonment in the Bastille or even death, especially now with the arrival of Cardinal de

Lorraine. Yet her sister persisted, and none could quell her.

“Here,
mignon,”
la duchesse said to Idelette, suddenly removing a pearl ring set in gold from her little finger. She placed it on Idelette’s palm.

“Oh, but Madame Duchesse, I could not —”

“A mere token of my affection.”

Idelette dropped a curtsy and murmured her delight.

Rachelle looked on. Such actions as la duchesse had just taken were oft done at court by members of the highest nobility, who sometimes were extravagantly generous with those who pleased them in some way which they deemed should be publicly rewarded. Since Duchesse Dushane was a great-aunt through marriage, her presentation was all the more venerable, so Rachelle believed.

Idelette took her place again. Rachelle noticed that she avoided look- ing her way. Idelette embarrassed easily when praised.