The Lady and the Unicorn (17 page)

Marie-Céleste began to cry. She grabbed her basket and ran.

‘Pick that up!’ the lettuce man shouted.

I scooped up the lettuce — leaves falling from it — and tossed it on top of the others before running after her. When I caught up, Marie-Céleste was red in the face from running and crying at the same time. ‘Why did you name her that?’ I shouted, grabbing her arm.

Marie-Céleste shook her head and tried to pull away from me. A crowd was gathering — in a market anything is entertainment. ‘You going to hit her again?’ a woman jeered. ‘If you are, wait till my daughter comes back so she can get a look.’

I pulled Marie-Céleste away from the crowd and into an alley. Sellers had thrown their rubbish there — rotting cabbage heads, old fish, horse dung. A rat ran off as I pushed her past the festering pile.

‘Why did you call my daughter that?’ I said in a lower voice. It was strange using the word daughter.

Marie-Céleste looked at me wearily. She had stopped crying. Her doughy face looked like a bun with two currants pressed into it, and her dark hair dangled loose from her cap. I wondered why I had ever wanted to bed her.

‘I told Claude I would,’ she said. ‘I was so grateful to her offering to set me straight with the mistress. But then she didn't — when I spoke to Dame Geneviève she swore Mademoiselle hadn't said a thing. Mistress thought I'd run off and that was that. So the baby has Mademoiselle's name for nothing, after all I done for her when she was a girl. Lucky for me I got another place, with a family on the rue des Cordeliers. The Bellevilles. Not so rich as the Le Vistes, but they'll do. They even entertain the Le Viste ladies sometimes.’

‘The Le Viste ladies come to you?’

‘I stay well out of sight when they do.’ Marie-Céleste had recovered herself now. She looked around the alley and smiled a little. ‘I never thought I'd end up in an alley again with you.’

‘Which Le Vistes visit? Only Dame Geneviève, or does she bring her daughters?’

‘Usually Claude comes with her,’ Marie-Céleste said. ‘There's a daughter her age she likes to see.’

‘Do they come often?’

Marie-Céleste furrowed her brow like the old woman she would become one day. ‘What do you care?’

I shrugged. ‘Just curious. I've worked for Monseigneur Le Viste, as you know, and wondered what his women are like.’

A cunning look came over Marie-Céleste's face. ‘I suppose you want to come and see me there, don't you?’

I gaped at her, amazed that she was flirting with me after all that had happened. But then, she could be useful to me. I smiled and brushed a feather from her shoulder. ‘Might do.’

When she reached over and pressed her hand against me, my groin grew hard very fast, and her face suddenly looked less doughy and more rosy. She took her hand away just as quickly, though. ‘I've to get back. Come and see me one day.’ She described the house on the rue des Cordeliers.

‘Maybe I'll come when the Le Vistes are visiting,’ I added. ‘Then I can have a look to satisfy my curiosity.’

‘If you like.
En fait
, they're visiting the day after tomorrow — I heard my mistress say.’

It was too easy. Once Marie-Céleste had left, swinging her basket as she went, I wondered for a moment what she meant to get from this, apart from a moment's pleasure between her legs. But I didn't think for long. I would see Claude Le Viste and that was enough.

Of course it was too easy. Marie-Céleste was not as forgiving as that.

The Belleville house was indeed not as grand as the Le Vistes'. There were two levels and glass in some of the windows, but it was squeezed in among other houses, and some of the timber was rotting. I studied it while I waited across the road for Marie-Céleste, wondering if I would see Claude go in. I didn't know how I could get her on her own. There would be her mother and Béatrice about, as well as the ladies of the house. And there was Marie-Céleste — I might have to plough her just to be rid of her. I had no plan but to keep my wits and look about. At the least I would try to see Claude for a moment to arrange another meeting. I'd even paid a man to write a note for me — Claude would be able to read it even if I couldn't. The man had smirked at my words, but he'd written it. Men will do most things if a coin or two is the reward.

Marie-Céleste opened the front door and peeked out, then beckoned to me. I ran across and slipped inside. She led me through one room, then another where tapestries were hanging — though it was too dark to see them properly — then back through the kitchen where the cook glared at me as he squatted by a pot on the fire. ‘Don't make noise or there'll be trouble,’ he growled.

I couldn't remember if Marie-Céleste had been noisy when she opened her legs, but I played along, leering at him as we went out the back door. ‘Idiot,’ the cook muttered.

I didn't have time to understand the warning behind that word. As I stepped into the back garden, I heard a sound behind me and took such a blow to my head that I saw stars. I staggered, and couldn't even turn around to see my assailant before I was kicked in the back and fell to the ground. Then he began kicking me in the side and head. I managed to look up through the blood trickling into my eyes and saw Marie-Céleste standing with her arms crossed. ‘Mind the laundry,’ she said to the man I couldn't see. It was too late — the sheet behind her was spattered with blood.

I got enough breath back to groan before the man kicked it out of me again.

It was strangely quiet, with only the sound of thumps and Marie-Céleste's shoe crunching the ground as she shifted from one foot to the other. I was curled up in a ball, trying to protect my innards and take the blows on my back. After one or two kicks to the head everything went black for a time. When I woke I heard a high-pitched whine, like a rabbit caught in a trap. Why is Marie-Céleste making that noise? I thought. ‘Be quiet,’ Marie-Céleste hissed, and I realized the sound came from me.

‘Kick him in the balls,’ Marie-Céleste said to my attacker. ‘Kick him so he'll not get anyone else with child.’

The man aimed a kick in my knees to uncurl me and flatten me on my back. As he readied himself for the
coup de grâce
, I closed my eyes. Then I heard the creak of a window shutter swinging out. I opened my eyes and looked up into Claude's face peeking over a window sill high above me. Her eyes were wide and clear. She looked like a strip of tapestry.

‘Arrêtez
!’ Marie-Céleste yelled. The man paused, looked up, then in a flash was gone. I had not thought someone could disappear so fast. I did see enough of his face, though, to recognize the Le Viste steward. Watch my back, indeed. He had always hated me — enough, apparently, to risk his position. Either that or he fancied Marie-Céleste himself.

‘What's happened? Is that you, Marie-Céleste?’ Claude called. ‘And — ’ she started — ‘Nicolas?’

Other faces appeared by Claude's — Geneviève de Nanterre, Béatrice, Madame and Mademoiselle de Belleville. It was so peculiar seeing their heads huddled together peering down at me — like birds in a tree looking at a worm — that I closed my eyes again.

‘Oh, Mademoiselle, a man has attacked Monsieur!’ Marie-Céleste cried. ‘I don't know where he came from — he just jumped on him!’

The pain of my blows suddenly struck me everywhere. Despite myself I groaned. I could taste blood.

‘I'll come down,’ Claude said.

‘No, you won't,’ her mother said. ‘Béatrice, go and help Marie-Céleste tend to him.’

When I opened my eyes the heads were gone save Claude's. She gazed down at me. It was very quiet. We smiled at each other. Looking at her face was like seeing blue sky through the leaves of a tree. Then she disappeared suddenly, as if she had been pulled away from the window.

‘Don't you say a thing,’ Marie-Céleste hissed. ‘You was visiting me and he tried to rob you.’

I lay still. I would gain nothing from telling Béatrice what had really happened — if I did Marie-Céleste might tell Béatrice we had a daughter, and she would tell Claude. I didn't want Claude to know.

Béatrice appeared with a bowl of water and a cloth. She knelt by me, took my head in her lap, and began mopping the blood from my face. Just the moving of my head made me feel queasy and I had to close my eyes.

When Marie-Céleste repeated her story about a man setting on me and trying to rob me, Béatrice said nothing. That made Marie-Céleste frantic — she began to spin a more and more complicated web, with grudges and purses of money and friends of brothers and angry words. She got herself into a terrible tangle.

At last Béatrice cut her off. ‘How did the man get in the house? He must have known someone here.’

Marie-Céleste started to speak, but finally understood that words were her enemy and went silent as if someone had just stuffed a rag in her mouth.

Béatrice opened my tunic and pressed her cloth on my shoulders and chest, making me wince and moan. My cries loosened Marie-Céleste's tongue again. ‘Don't know what that man was doing —’

‘Go and get some clean water,’ Béatrice interrupted. ‘Some warm water.’

As Marie-Céleste ran inside someone must have appeared in the doorway behind me, for Béatrice turned her head. ‘Ask if they have any leopard's bane. If not that, then a handful of dried daisies or marigolds in the warm water will help.’

Whoever it was made a movement and was gone.

‘Was that Claude?’ I asked. I could barely move my lips.

When Béatrice did not answer I opened my eyes and looked up into her brown eyes that filled so much of her plain face.

‘No,’ she said. ‘It was the daughter of the house.’

I could not guess if she was lying. Turning my head, I spat from my mouth two teeth. They missed Béatrice's blue moiré skirt and bounced on the ground.

‘What have you done to get such a beating?’ Béatrice asked softly. ‘Whatever it was, you probably deserved it.’

‘Béatrice, put your hand in my pocket.’

Her arched, painted eyebrows made even higher arcs into her forehead.

‘Please. There's something there I want you to deliver.’

She hesitated, then reached in and pulled out the note from my doublet. There was blood on it.

‘Give it to Claude.’

Béatrice glanced behind her. ‘You know I can't do that,’ she whispered.

‘Yes, you can. Please. She would want you to. You are her woman,
non
? You must do what's best for her.’ I gazed deep into her eyes. Women have often said my eyes are what they like best about me. Just as well it wasn't my teeth.

Béatrice's face softened, her chin tucking into her neck and her nose flaring. She said nothing, but stuffed the note up her sleeve.

Marie-Céleste came back then with a bowl that smelled of flowers. I closed my eyes and let her and Béatrice wash me. Another time I would have enjoyed the attentions of two pairs of women's hands on me, but now I was so sore that I just wanted to sleep to escape the pain. Madame de Belleville appeared briefly to order that men be called to cart me home. I was drifting to sleep when she turned her harsh voice on Marie-Céleste.

I was abed three days before I could move properly again. My joints were stiff, my eyes black, my nose swollen, and a rib was cracked so that a sharp pain flashed through me when I tried to move. I stayed in bed and drank beer but ate nothing, and slept much of the day, though at night I lay awake cursing at the pain.

I was waiting for Claude to come. On the fourth day I heard steps on the stairs, but it was not she who opened the door. Instead Léon Le Vieux stood in the doorway and surveyed the cold, dirty room — the girl from Le Coq d'Or had not yet come up to light the fire and clear away the food she'd brought me the day before. Léon does not usually visit me, but sends a messenger to fetch me to his house. I struggled to sit up.

‘You've been a naughty lad, haven't you?’

I started to protest, then stopped. Léon seemed to know everything — there was no point in lying to him. I lay back. ‘I did take quite a beating.’

Léon chuckled. ‘Get some rest now. You need to be well soon — for your pains I'm sending you on a pilgrimage.’

I stared at him. ‘What? Where?’

Léon smiled. ‘Not south, but north. To see a Brussels relic.’

GENEVIÈVE DE NANTERRE

Claude would not look at me as we walked back to the rue du Four. She strode so fast that she almost trod on a sweeper boy who was clearing the street of dung and rubbish. Béatrice hurried after her. She is smaller than Claude, who takes after her father in size. Another day I would laugh to see Béatrice trotting after her mistress like a little dog. Today I did not laugh.

I stopped trying to keep up with my daughter and walked at a more sedate pace with my ladies. Soon they were far ahead, giving much trouble to the groom sent along to escort us to and from the rue des Cordeliers. He ran back and forth between the two parties, but didn't dare ask Claude to slow down, nor me to speed up. He did speak to Béatrice, but it had no effect — by the time we reached the Porte St Germain Claude and Béatrice were out of sight.

‘Leave them,’ I said to the groom when he came back to us. ‘They're not far from the house anyway.’

The ladies clucked their tongues. Indeed it must have seemed strange. For the past year I've kept Claude under close guard, yet now I was letting her out of my sight just as the man I was guarding her from came to the very house we were visiting. How could Claude have arranged such a meeting under our noses? I couldn't quite believe it, even though I had recognized Nicolas des Innocents the moment I saw him flat on the ground, his face bruised and bloodied. I was shocked at the sight, and had to stand very still so that Claude wouldn't see me flinch. She too had not moved, as if to hide what she felt. And so we two had stood side by side and still as stones, looking down on him. Only Béatrice had buzzed about like a bee worrying flowers. It was a relief to send her down to him.

I was tired of thinking about Claude. I was tired of caring what happened to her, when she clearly didn't care herself. For a moment I was even tempted to push her into the painter's arms and shut the door on them for good. Of course I couldn't do so, but I let her and Béatrice disappear ahead of us and half-hoped she would do it for me.

When we got back the steward told me that Claude had gone to her room. I went up to my own chamber and sent for Béatrice, one of my ladies sitting in her place with Claude.

When Béatrice came in she dropped to her knees by my chair and began to speak before I could say a word. ‘Madame, she says she knew nothing of Nicolas des Innocents being at the rue des Cordeliers. She was as surprised as we when she saw him out there, and in such a state. Claude swears by Our Lady that she's had no contact with him.’

‘And you believe her?’

‘She can't have, or I would know. I've been with her all these months.’

‘At night as well? You must sleep.’

‘I never fall asleep before her. I pinch myself to stay awake.’ Beatrice's eyes were as wide as I've ever seen them. ‘And when she falls asleep I tie a silk cord around her ankle so that she can't get up without my knowing.’

‘Claude knows how to untie knots.’ I was rather enjoying Beatrice's anxiety. Clearly she feared for her position.

‘Madame, she has not seen Nicolas. I swear to you.’ Béatrice reached into her sleeve and pulled out a piece of paper. There was blood on it, as well as on her sleeve and her bodice. ‘Here, perhaps this will tell us how it came about. He gave this to me to give to her.’

I took the paper and carefully unfolded it. The blood was dry now.

Mon Amour —

Come to me — the room above Le Coq d'Or, off the rue St Denis. Any night, as soon as you can.

Ça c'est mon seul désir.

Nicolas

The scream tore my throat out. Béatrice fell backwards in fright, scrambling away from me as if I were a boar about to charge. The ladies all stumbled to their feet.

I couldn't help it. Seeing my own words — for I knew at once that he was echoing me — written on a bit of bloody paper in a crude hand, by some drunkard sneering in a tavern, was too much to bear.

Claude would pay for it. If I couldn't have
mon seul désir
, I would be sure that she didn't either.

‘Go and wash your dress,’ I said to Béatrice, crumpling the paper. ‘It looks slovenly.’

She stared at me, then pulled her dress around her with shaking hands and got to her feet.

When she was gone I said to my ladies, ‘Come change my dress and do my hair. I am going to see my lord.’

I had not said a word to Jean about the troubles with our unruly daughter over the past year. I knew what he would do — throw my words back in my face and blame me for not looking after Claude well enough. He is not close to Claude or his other daughters — though perhaps he is softer with Jeanne — but she is his heir, for better or worse. Certain things are expected of her, and it is up to me to make her ready. If Jean knew the truth — that Claude would prefer to lose her maidenhead to a Paris artist than preserve it for her husband — he would beat me, not her, for not having taught her obedience.

Now I had to break my silence. What I proposed to do with her would require his consent — the very consent Père Hugo had counselled me against the year before.

Jean was in his chamber with the steward, going over the household accounts. It was a task I was meant to do, but Jean preferred to be in charge, as he does in all things. I curtsied low beside the table where they sat. ‘Monseigneur, I would like to speak with you. Alone.’

Jean and the steward both jerked their heads and frowned, as if they were puppets being worked by the same man. I kept my eyes fixed on the fur collar of Jean's gown.

‘Can't it wait? Steward's been out and we've only just sat down.’

‘I'm sorry, Monseigneur, but it is urgent.’

After a moment Jean said to the steward, ‘Wait outside.’

The steward nodded as if he had slept badly and his neck was stiff. I rose as he did. He bowed briefly to me and left us.

‘What is it, Geneviève? I'm very busy.’

I would have to tread carefully. ‘It's about Claude. She is to be betrothed next year, as is proper, and you will decide soon — or perhaps you have done so already — who will be her lord and husband. I've begun preparing her for her new life — teaching her how to keep herself and wear her clothes, to handle servants and household matters, to entertain and dance. She is doing well in all of these things.’

Jean did not speak but tapped a finger on the table. His silence often has the effect of making me use more words to try to fill it. Then he just looks at me, and all that I have said feels like the words of a jester in the market.

I began to walk up and down. ‘There is one area, however, where she needs more guidance than I can give her. She has not yet truly absorbed the ways of the Church, of Our Lady and Our Lord Jesus Christ.’

Jean flicked his hand. I know that impatient gesture, have seen it when men speak to him of things that matter little to him. Claude's indifference to the Church may well stem from her father's — he has always dismissed its importance to his soul, and has been concerned only for its power over his King. To him priests are simply men to make deals with, Mass a meeting place for Court business.

‘It's important for a noblewoman to have strong faith in the Church,’ I said firmly. ‘She must be spiritually as well as physically pure. Any true nobleman will expect that of her.’

Jean scowled, and I wondered if I had gone too far. He does not like to be reminded that some don't think him truly noble. I remembered then the shock I had felt when my father told me I would be betrothed to Jean Le Viste. My mother had locked herself in her chamber and cried, but I was careful not to show how I felt at being linked to a man whose family bought its way into the nobility. My friends were kind to me but I knew that they laughed behind my back and pitied me — poor Geneviève, a pawn in her father's games with the Court. I never knew what Father won by giving me to Jean Le Viste. Certainly Jean won — the support of my father's family was the making of him. It was I who lost. I had been a happy girl, not so different from Claude at her age. But years with a cold man ground away my smiles.

‘Make your point,’ Jean said.

‘Claude is restless and can be difficult at times,’ I said. ‘I think it would do her good to stay in a convent until her betrothal.’

‘A convent? My daughter is no nun.’

‘Of course not. But a stay there will help her to know the value of Mass, of prayers, confession, communion. Now she mumbles her prayers, the priest says she makes up her confession, and I'm not sure she always swallows her communion — one of my ladies thought she saw Claude spitting it out in the cloisters after Mass.’

Jean looked scornful, and I resorted to something closer to the truth. ‘There is a wildness in her that no husband will like to see. I fear it will bring her harm. The convent will settle her. There is one outside of Paris at Chelles where I'm sure the nuns can help her.’

Jean shuddered. ‘I've never liked nuns. My sister became one.’

‘She won't become a nun. She'll be safe there and can get up to no mischief. The walls are very high.’

I should not have added that last part. Jean sat up straight and knocked a piece of paper to the floor. ‘Has Claude been going out alone?’

‘Of course not,’ I said, reaching for the paper. He got to it before me, his knees cracking. ‘But I think she would like to. The sooner she's married the better.’

‘Why don't you keep a closer eye on her rather than imprison her with nuns?’

‘I do watch over her carefully. But there are distractions in a city like Paris. And this would be a way of completing her religious education as well.’

Jean picked up a quill and made a mark on the paper. ‘People will think you can't control your daughter, or that there is something wrong with her if you have to hide her away.’

He meant that she might be with child. ‘It is not wrong for a lady to stay in a convent before her betrothal. My grandmother did, and my mother too. And Claude may visit us occasionally, for some of the Holy Days — the Assumption of Our Lady, All Souls' Day, the Advent — so that people may see there's nothing wrong with her.’ I could not keep the scorn from my voice.

Jean just looked at me.

‘Or we could bring the betrothal forward if you prefer,’ I said quickly, ‘if you have finished your talks with the man's family. Do it now rather than next spring. The feast may not be so grand with less time to prepare, but that doesn't matter.’

‘No. It won't look right to rush her marriage so. And the tapestries won't be done until next Easter.’

Those tapestries again. I had to bite my lips to keep from spitting. ‘Is it really necessary for the tapestries to hang for the betrothal?’ I tried to sound offhand. ‘We could have it at Michaelmas when we've returned from d'Arcy, and give Claude the tapestries as a wedding gift later when they're ready.’

‘No.’ Jean threw down the quill and stood. ‘The tapestries are not a wedding gift — if they were they would have the husband's coat of arms in them as well. No, they are celebrating my position at Court. I want my new son-in-law to see the Le Viste coats of arms in them and be reminded of what family he is marrying. So he will never forget.’ He went over to the window and looked out. It had been sunny earlier but it was starting to rain now.

I was silent. Jean glanced at my stony face. ‘We could bring the betrothal back a month or two,’ he said to placate me. ‘Isn't there a betrothal day in February?’

‘The Feast of St Valentine.’

‘Yes. We could have it then. Léon Le Vieux told me the other day that the Brussels workshop is a little behind in making the tapestries. I'll send him to chivvy them along by cutting off two months — that will get them working harder. I've never understood why tapestries take so long to make. It is just weaving, after all. Bits of thread wound in and out — even women can do that.’ He turned from the window. ‘Send Claude to me before you take her to the convent.’

I curtsied. ‘Yes, my lord.’ When I straightened I looked him in the eye. ‘Thank you, Jean.’

He nodded, and though he didn't smile at me, his face softened. He is a hard man, but he does listen to me sometimes.

‘Who will she marry, Monseigneur?’ I asked.

He shook his head. ‘That is my business and not for you to be concerned with. Worry about the bride instead.’

‘But — ’

‘Since you did not give me a son, I must choose one.’ He turned away then, and the tender moment was lost. He was punishing me for having only daughters. I could weep but I'd already used up my tears over that.