To Serve a King (29 page)

Though the king whispered his endearments, Geneviève heard them from her nearby perch, recognizing the contentment of well-served passion in his husky voice.

“Will you take a walk with me, dear Anne?” François asked. “The hydrangea is in full bloom and the sun has not yet reached the garden.”

Anne gleamed. “It will be my pleasure,” she purred. “Ladies, if you please.”

Though she had spent the night in the king’s arms, decorum called for chaperones when upon a public stage.

Arabelle rose, as did Geneviève and Lisette, and they formed a train behind the regal couple. Jecelyn joined them from the far side of the room, sneering as she passed close to Geneviève with a discourteous bump of her shoulder, the faint smudgy remnants of purple and green bruises visible beneath the layer of powder around her left eye. Sybille would remain in the chamber with Béatrice, who had yet to recover her full strength after weeks of battling the flux she acquired on their progress.

They strode through the golden gallery connecting the pavilions, the crowning glory of the most lavish palace in the land, with slow admiration. Breathtaking stuccowork skirted the long passageway marked by chandeliers and windows; this carved plaster and powder of marble were topped by frescoes painted directly upon the wall, image after image intended to glorify royal power and prestige. Everywhere were symbols of the king’s wisdom and courage, some drawn from antiquity, and always the salamander and the fleur de lis.

Passing out of the Cour du Cheval Blanc, the troupe entered the more pristine and formal back garden. Not as ostentatious as the Grand Parterre, nevertheless it embraced its visitors in nature’s calm stillness.

The king plucked a huge round blue blossom, a perfect ball of petals, from a bursting shrub and handed it to Anne. “I hope you will not be surprised to hear that I need your assistance,
ma chérie
.”

Anne accepted the gift and plunged her pert nose within its soft foliage. “You know there is nothing I would rather do than help you.”

François smiled, patting the delicate hand resting in the crook of his arm. “Then I wonder if you would be inclined to some travel?”

“You wish me to leave court, Your Majesty?”

“For a few days at most.” The king stopped and turned to Anne, her ladies hovering a discreet distance away. “It has come to my attention that England’s King Henry will be passing close to our border very soon. I would like for you to bring him my regards.”

“Has the meeting with the emperor fallen out?” Anne asked.

“No, on the contrary. Plans proceed beyond my expectations,” François explained. “But I would not be doing my due diligence to my people were I not to take every advantage, and pursue every opportunity as it rose up before me.”

“Does this have anything to do with your conversation with that man yesterday, that Nostredame?”

François raised his chin. “You know well I take advice from many quarters. He has offered some theories for me to ruminate upon, some prophesies to ponder.”

Anne searched her lover’s face, chewing on all said and unsaid.

“But …” Anne blinked her green eyes, pale in the bright light. “Me? You wish for me to take the meeting with Henry?” For years, the duchesse had been one of the king’s greatest advisers, on both domestic and foreign issues, but she had never conducted negotiations on her own.

“Do not look so surprised. The women of this nation have often brought about its greatest accomplishments in diplomacy. If it were not for the efforts of my mother and Margaret of Austria we might still be at war with the emperor, my children might never have been returned to me.” He shook his long head in naked adoration. “
La paix des dames
gave us the Treaty of Cambrai and the chance for this land and its king to heal.”

“If it is what you wish, then rest assured I will do my best.” Anne raised her chin and threw back her shoulders, but the gesture did not obscure the caution in her voice.

The king smiled with pleasure. “Then I will tell the council of it. I hesitated to do so until I had your accord.” François put his pawlike hands upon her small shoulders. “You are one of the most brilliant women I have ever met, Anne. You will handle yourself splendidly, I am quite certain of it. And you’ll find an additional treat upon arrival.” He grinned mischievously. “My sister will be waiting for you.”

Anne brightened. “Marguerite will be there?”

The king’s sister had forever been a stalwart supporter of the duchesse, for they were alike in both political and religious philosophies. It had been many months since the women had shared company and Anne would delight in a visit with the woman
who had helped raise the king, who was as devoted to him as she was herself.

“She learned as much of diplomacy as I. Marguerite will help lead you through any difficult moments, on that you can rely.”

Anne put her hands over his where they rested upon her shoulders, lifting up on tiptoes to nuzzle his nose with her own. “I won’t let you down, my liege. You will see.”

He wrapped his long arms around her small waist and pulled her against him. “You never do.”

“But you have already told the king you will make the trip, have you not?” Sybille strode beside Anne, as Arabelle, Jecelyn and Geneviève rushed to keep up. From the main wing of the château, they crossed the Cour Ovale to the small wing beyond. Here the lesser nobles made their homes and here, in the bleakest corner of the ground floor, Madame Arceneau awaited the arrival of her mistress.

“Yes, of course.” Anne begrudged the response.

“Then what possible difference could it make what Madame has to say about it?” Sybille huffed with a crass familiarity only a relative would dare.

Anne crossed the cobbles and entered the far building with the prowess of a gladiator rushing at the lion upon the Coliseum floor; no shortness of breath plagued the fit woman, as it did her cousin and Arabelle. Geneviève kept pace, invigorated by the physical exertion, feeling so very lazy after all these months at the pampered court.

“I know she will give me affirmation.” Anne turned a dour stare on her cousin as they plunged through the quiet corridor. “And I need to hear it.”

Geneviève thought it might be the first time she had ever heard an inkling of fear in Anne’s voice.

Anne knocked on the knotted wood of the small closed door
with three quick raps, showing little patience in the request for admittance.

“Come,” the distinctive voice called, and Anne needed little else. She flung the door open and stepped in.

“You are here, Madame Arceneau?”

The sinister shadows inhabited the room; it belonged to them, and they allowed the mystic access to it. Subdued golden candle flames cast wavering light, pale circles of illumination, and their fumes mixed with those of incense, spices, and something sinister and untamed.

Everywhere Geneviève looked there stood bottles of potions, jars of herbs, talismans and amulets of the soothsayer’s craft. It was difficult to find where to stand among the collection of mysterious objects.

From the farthest corner of the room, the aberrant, girlish squeak beckoned them. “I am here, Madame Duchesse.”

Anne crossed the room, stepping, nearly tripping, over the books and charts scattered upon the bare floor. Her ladies hurried after her, Geneviève reluctantly, as she tried to discern the strange markings on the stone beneath her feet. Black marks against gray granite formed the shapes of pentagrams, stars, and moons; a strange language formed incomprehensible sentences.

Without invitation, Anne dropped herself into the chair at the small table covered in the same maroon velvet Geneviève had seen on her first glimpse of the mystic. The woman appeared as pale as ever across the small expanse, a wraithlike face glowing from out of her looming hood; white eyes staring out from the translucent skin like two glowing crystals.

“Tell me of the days to come, madame, for I would know my path.”

Madame Arceneau fixed her gaze on Anne, but neither moved nor spoke in response to the demanding duchesse, as if she gazed into her soul rather than her eyes. Shifting slowly as though time held little consequence, unconcerned by her mistress’s tapping
fingernails upon the tabletop, the soothsayer reached into a hidden pocket of her cloak and pulled out her long, narrow deck of cards. As she splayed them out across the surface, their colorful and grotesque pictures formed a message, one for her eyes alone.

“You will be traveling soon,” she said with a rising lilt, as if she herself was surprised.

Anne looked back at her cousin with a supercilious glance. No one knew of the plan save the king, Anne, and her ladies. There was no possibility the mystic had heard of it from anyone.

“Correct, madame. Can you tell me how I shall fare on my journey?”

Madame Arceneau dealt three more cards, peering down at them as if from a distance. She shuffled the cards and dealt them again, grabbing small bits of herbs and tossing them over one shoulder, a pinch of powder over the other, and studied them once more.

“You will return with treasure, Duchesse.” The mystic looked up. “I see no more.”

“Hah!” Anne slapped her hands down upon the table and thrust to her feet as if shot from a cannon. “I knew it. I shall be successful,” she cried. “Nor will I make myself a joke of the court as the ill-mannered cow did.” Anne danced around the close room, untying the small pouch at her wrist and tossing it to the clairvoyant. “My thanks, madame.”

Arceneau offered a small dip of her head and hid the jangling purse away in a flash.

“Perhaps your ladies would care to hear of their future.”

“Oh, yes.” Annie laughed. “What a splendid idea. Arabelle, would you care to have your cards read by the gifted madame?”

Arabelle hesitated, but her eager smile spoke her truth. She sat in the chair Anne vacated and, within minutes, the visionary forecast a bright and sunny future full of love and children for her. Ara-belle rose from the seat, glowing with bursting confidence in the perfect days of her future.

“Come, Geneviève, it is your turn,” she said, holding the chair out.

Geneviève raised two hands and shook them. “No, thank you. I’m sure someone else would rather enjoy the opportunity.”

“Come, come, Mademoiselle Gravois,” Anne insisted. “I don’t believe I have ever seen you ask the advice of my mystic.”

Geneviève choked on a response. To call the drivel Madame Arceneau offered
advice
was kind but also blind, yet she would not overtly chide her mistress’s beliefs.

“Perhaps the young lady has no faith in my words,” Madame Arceneau said, the vaguest hint of a smile upon her hard-edged face.

Geneviève dared to gaze into the strange eyes and saw the challenge in them. She grabbed the back of the chair from Arabelle’s hands and dropped herself upon the seat, pulling closer to the table with a shriek of the wooden legs as they scraped across the stone floor.

“Tell me, madame, tell me all the wonderful things in my future.” Geneviève clenched her hands together and thumped them upon the table in front of her.

With an arrogant waggle of her head, Madame Arceneau took up her cards and shuffled them, pale eyes never leaving Gene-viève’s face. At last she dealt them out into a cross, and placed the deck by her side.

Geneviève waited—leg twitching beneath the folds of her heavy skirts—for the happily-ever-after tale of her life she was sure was forthcoming. She longed for the woman to look down at the cards, spew her nonsense, and end this travesty, but no such movement came.

The woman’s wraithlike skull fell to her chest as if struck, her chin lolled against her breastbone.

Arabelle gasped. Anne and Jecelyn stepped back in fear.

“What is this?” Geneviève asked, and turned to the women behind her, but they shook their heads and shrugged their shoulders.
They leaned forward, realizing the low, rumbling hum came from the mystic, from deep in her throat; it was the sound of the devil crying out from the depths of hell.

All of a sudden, as if revived, Arceneau’s head jerked up. Her eyes rolled in their sockets till they latched onto the face in front of her.

“Beware!” A deep male voice came from out of the small skeletal mouth of the mystic, and for the first time Geneviève shook with palpable fear. No matter the talent of this fraud, a voice could not be so altered by any human means. This was the voice of someone—or something—else.

Geneviève put one hand on the back of her chair; she had had enough, she was done with this, and turned to bolt. The cold digits felt like bones as they strangled her other hand, as the frigid fingers of Madame Arceneau reached across the table, latched on and pulled.

“Oomph!” Geneviève cried as the table stabbed her in the ribs, as the force yanked her upper body across the table. Her face was no more than inches from that of the mystic. Geneviève shuddered to see the blankness of the woman’s face, as if she were no more than a vessel for the truth, a blank canvas awaiting the painter’s brush.

“There is a beast around you, one that could consume you,” the guttural voice groaned at her. “You must beware.”

The last syllable spoken, a last rattling gasp of air emitted, and the woman collapsed into unconsciousness, slithering out of her chair and onto the floor with a dreadful thump.

Anne pitched herself forward to grab for her. “Help me,” she cried.

Arabelle and Jecelyn jumped round, helping the duchesse pull the mystic to her feet. Dragging her across the room, they laid her upon the small blanket-covered cot in the opposite corner.

“A drink, Geneviève. Get her a drink, quickly.”

Geneviève stood, confounded, slack-jawed, and dazed. Her
mistress’s order loosened the blight of fear clutching her and she shook it away. She searched the mayhem of the room, found jug and ewer, jumped to it, and splashed whatever liquid the jug held into a dented and scarred mug. Crossing to the bed, she held it out to Anne, keeping her distance from the mystic.

Anne tipped the mug to Madame Arceneau’s lips, clear fluid drizzling out from her gaping mouth. The woman swallowed, coughed, and sputtered. With a deep breath, her lids fluttered and her eyes opened.