Threads of Silk (17 page)

Fabien turned onto his side, looked down at his bloodied clothing, and tried to raise himself. The bloody floor made his hand slip, and he went down again. A moment later he opened his eyes to a pair of small red leather boots with gold spangles. Through blurred vision he looked up at one of the Queen Mother’s twin dwarves. So they had returned with Guise’s soldiers.

Fabien looked past the dwarf. Four soldiers faced him with drawn swords.

The dwarf shook his bountiful black ringlets.

“Ta, ta, Monseigneur. You should be duly ashamed of your trusting spirit. You turned your back on the serpentine comte, believing him a true brother at heart.” He bent over Fabien and wagged a finger at him. “You should have thrust him through when you had your point on his neck. But — alas! Her Majesty wishes to see you, as I said several days ago. We cannot have you delivered to Fontainebleau a corpse now, can we? Therefore my aim with the brass urn was excellent, was it not?” He straightened to his full height. “I could have sent my dagger through the comte’s heart, but he is still needed by Her Majesty.” He looked over at Maurice, whose chin slumped upon his chest, his arms extended outward from his sides. The dwarf shook his head again.

“The comte may have headaches for the next few days. I shall send him one of my herbal teas to help.” He chuckled, then turned and spoke to someone — no, to several. Guise’s soldiers had invaded the corridor, obviously having overcome his own men-at-arms. The dwarf gave an order: “Stop the rambunctious Marquis de Vendôme’s bleeding. Then hold him in the name of the king.”

“What about the mademoiselle?” an insolent voice demanded. “I was told to bring her as well.”

“Search every chamber. She is here. I saw her loveliness but yesterday. The Queen Mother wants her most unaltered. Put the marquis in chains. We will ride out tonight.”

Foes

MARQUIS
FABIEN
DE
VENDÔME,
WEAKENED FROM THE WOUND IN
his side, felt heavy chains binding his wrists behind him as he walked between armed guards across a familiar stone arcade that in his memory was both hallowed and nefarious. He thought it ironic that he should end up in the very Amboise castle courtyard where two thousand Huguenots were murdered by axmen at the behest of the Queen Mother and the Guises nearly two years ago. It was here that he had vowed to strike against Spain’s wars of inquisition, and it was here that he would answer for sinking the Duc of Alva’s galleon and several smaller vessels bringing soldiers and weapons to reinforce their massacre of Protestants in Holland.

He looked toward the royal stand with fringed canopy, the Queen Mother in her usual black gown with severe coif to the right of King Francis, and the Cardinal de Lorraine and Duc de Guise just behind and to the left of him. Francis looked unusually tired and pale, his young shoulders slumping.
Reinette
Mary was not present. Beside the Duc de Guise stood the infamous Duc of Alva, Spain’s chief war general for the inquisition and spokesman for King Philip of Spain. He was here to protest France’s failure in the eyes of Rome and Spain to rid the land of its Huguenots. This was the man Fabien was sure would rejoice to have his head on a platter to carry back to Spain.

“What better gift for the Duc of Alva than my capture?” Fabien murmured to the guards. “I am in bonne company — where is the dungeon with Prince Louis de Condé?”

The guards looked uncomfortable but kept silent.

Fabien stared at the royal assemblage. His staunch gaze crossed with Duc de Guise, who glowered self-righteously, then with the Duc of Alva, who looked victoriously smug. His black eyes raked Fabien.

A pity you were not aboard your fancy galleon when we sent it to the
bottom!

RACHELLE’S
HEART SLAMMED AGAINST HER RIBCAGE.
Where is he
? her thoughts screamed.
Where is Fabien
?
What have they done with him?
Did they surrender her beloved to the infamous Duc of Alva?
Please,
Lord, anything but that! I cannot live and endure the thought that Fabien
is a galley slave on Alva’s ship!

Royal guardsmen and soldiers serving Duc de Guise appeared in number in the courtyard at Amboise castle. Beneath a canopied platform, the Queen Mother sat still. The breeze ruffled her coif and the black hem of her skirt. She reminded Rachelle of a winged black carrion crow ready to swoop down upon her prize.

Beside the Queen Mother, the young king, thin, pale, and looking ill, slumped in his throne, vulnerable between the two dominating figures standing beside him, the militaristic Duc de Guise and his brother, the Cardinal de Lorraine. They were
smiling
!

Rachelle clamped her hands into fists until her nails dug into her palms, fully aware of the guards at her elbows. She stood a short distance from the royal platform, a prisoner with Andelot and Gallaudet. While escaping the Bourbon palais château they had been overtaken in the woods by a band of Guise’s soldiers and brought here to Amboise, where they’d been told Fabien was being held a prisoner of the king.

They were amused! The duc and cardinal were laughing and exchanging what appeared to be glib remarks with a dark-haired Spaniard with hawkish features and a short pointed beard. This must be the notorious Duc of Alva, the terror of the Dutch Protestants. Her heart throbbed as she read their victorious smiles. The cardinal, in spotless white and crimson, turned his head and spoke to Alva. He was here to collect the prize who had sunk his galleon and to haul Fabien away in cruel chains as a gift to King Philip of Spain.

Again Rachelle scanned the courtyard with anxiety eating at her heart.
Where was Fabien?

SEATED ON THE PLATFORM
over the courtyard, the Queen Mother tightened her fingers around the armrests of her royal chair and fixed her gaze below, where soon the marquis would be brought before the king for judgment.

The marquis had showed boldness and resolve in marrying the Macquinet belle couturière, but now, along with piracy against Spain, he must pay for his rash actions.

If only my weak son possessed some of the marquis’ stubborn determination.
Then I would not need to worry about the Guises manipulating
the throne of France.

Duc de Guise, standing at the elbow of her son, fumed, for as Catherine knew, he wanted no delays where the marquis was concerned. Guise would be pleased to see the marquis dead —
just as he had seen the
marquis’ father dead at Calais?
She heard him muttering into his ginger-colored beard and beginning to pace about the platform at the delay. She would have liked to make some barbed retort to him, for she despised his rigid self-righ teous ness, but dared not. They were too powerful for her to openly oppose. She must move behind the scenes on shoeless feet, keeping her feelings toward him and the cardinal a smiling mask, just the way she had kept herself seemingly humble and unknowing when her husband had openly scorned her in public while honoring his mistress.

Just thinking of these humiliations made her angry. She forced herself to put them from her mind and fixed her gaze on Cardinal de Lorraine standing behind the king. The cardinal wore his familiar scornful little smile, as though bored by an inconsequential fuss. The Duc of Alva, all in black, stood in austere silence, the essence of Spanish pride. His hands dripped with Protestant blood. Since his severe master wanted this infamous “corsair” marquis brought to Spain, there would be no relenting of Alva’s purpose unless she thought quickly to counteract his plans. If Alva had his way, the marquis would soon be a galley slave on his way to Madrid.

Duc de Guise leaned down toward Francis and spoke in a low urgent voice that Catherine could just barely hear.

“Do you not see, sire, that to be rid of such a dangerous messire in France is to your benefit?”

This constant chipping away at the ailing young Francis was wearing him down.

“I do not see that Marquis de Vendôme has done me harm.” Francis’s voice rose in its usual soft nasal twang caused by a breathing problem from which he had long suffered.

“Sire,” came Cardinal de Lorraine’s scornful tone, “sinking Spanish galleons is both a harm and an affront to all France.”

“If the marquis did sink the Duc of Alva’s galleon . . .” Francis ventured.

“There is no question of that, sire. The marquis boasts of it,” Duc de Guise said in an impatient voice.

Francis and the marquis had been friends since they were boys, and Catherine was aware of the king’s reluctance to move against him. She was not supposed to know, but even her daughter, Princesse Marguerite, had sent a secret message to Francis asking that he not turn the marquis over to the Duc of Alva. Marguerite had once thought to begin one of her many flirtations with the marquis, but he had been wiser than most.

While the duc and cardinal were speaking to the Duc of Alva, Catherine leaned her head toward Francis.

“Remember, my son: with the Bourbon Prince Louis in the dungeon, and his brother Prince Antoine under palais arrest, sending the marquis to Spain might be the final stroke that provokes a religious civil war from their Huguenot serfs. Remember also who it is that becomes stronger if the Bourbons become weaker in France.”

“If I do not do as the duc and cardinal advise, Madame Mother, there may be war with Spain. I do not see how I can prevent turning the marquis over to Alva,” Francis whispered.

BELOW THE PLATFORM, NOT
far from where Rachelle stood under guard, a disturbance erupted among the soldiers coming from the castle. Her tormented gaze sought Fabien.

Just then, she heard a racket, followed by a bellow from a horn. Maurice, garbed in a crimson and black tunic, was followed by five guards roughly escorting a prisoner to a place just below the platform.

Rachelle stood a mere twenty feet to the side so that her full gaze fell upon the prisoner. She sucked in a tormented breath.
Fabien!

The king’s guardsmen were on either side and behind him, and there was blood on his face and on the side and front of his ripped tunic. A stab wound from Maurice’s treacherous rapier?

Rachelle could see that he’d opposed his enemy in a laudable battle. He wore that resolute expression she knew so well and had come to respect and love. Viewing the garment he had worn as her bridegroom torn and bloodied was almost more than her heart could endure.

She fought back tears. Despite his rugged stance and unbowed head, she could see that he was suffering. He appeared to lose his balance for a moment, and she cried out in alarm. At once her voice arrested his attention, and his head swerved in her direction. For an agonizing moment their eyes met and held.