Queen's Own Fool (5 page)

“Go on,” the queen whispered.

“The kind sisters told me the Lord had saved me for some purpose, though they did not know what it might be. They asked if I had other family. I told them only my uncle, the famous entertainer Armand Brufort. So they gave me into the care of a priest who was on his way to Paris. When we reached the city, it was filled with mummers and troubadours, for the dauphin had just been married to the young Queen of Scotland, and ...”

I stopped suddenly and raised my fingers to my mouth. “Oh, Madam—that queen was
you!”
I dropped a deep curtsy.

She laughed, tucked the linen in her sleeve, then put her hands on my shoulders, drawing me up. “So, Nicola, you were at my wedding! ”

“Not exactly
at,
Your Majesty. Any more than a flea is
at
a dog's nuptials.”

“Oh, dear girl, what a teller of tales. And a wit as well. Two souls in a single breast. But tell me, how did you and the priest find your uncle in all the crowds?”

“We asked every mummer and juggler and beggar we could find. There were so many of them! I lost count after a hundred.”

The queen laughed at that. “But you
did
find him at last.”

“Yes, Your Majesty. We were directed to a small square on the north bank of the Seine, and there someone pointed out Troupe Brufort. Pierre was performing, with five clubs.”

“Ah, the handsome dark-eyed rascal. So he has come up in the world since. Seven clubs now. I am well impressed.”

For a moment I was speechless. That any of us in Troupe Brufort could impress the queen.

“And your uncle opened his arms to you?”

“Oh no, Majesty. At first Uncle paid no attention to the priest. You see, clerics rarely have money to give to performers, and for this reason alone Uncle despises them.”

“Clearly your uncle knows the wrong clerics,” said the queen. “The ones I know are very rich indeed. But do go on, little teller.”

I needed little urging. A story must come around to its proper end. This my mother had told me often when I was impatient with a tale. Her stories always finished with “Happily ever after,” but my own story did not.

“The priest,” I continued, “was forced to tug on Uncle's sleeve to get his attention.” I tugged on my own sleeve to demonstrate. “And when Uncle finally noticed, he did not know me, having seen me last when I was four. He said he already had enough mouths to feed, and we should go away.”

“So—it always comes down to money,” said the queen.

“Oh, no, Your Highness. Not with everyone. Papa liked to say:
A good heart outlasts a big purse. ”

“Your papa must have been a very smart man.”

“He was a cobbler, Your Highness,” I said.

She sat down on the stone bench and spread her skirts about her like scallop shells. “At least you knew him,” she said. “My own father died in a faraway place six days after I was born.”

“I am sorry. Oh—may a peasant feel sorry for a queen?”

She shook her head. “It does not matter. I had a better father in the old King of France, God rest his soul.” For a moment she was quiet, remembering. Then she smiled. “Tell me the rest, child. Your story touches me, here.” She put a hand over her heart.

“Well, the priest reached deep into his own pocket and pressed some coins into Uncle's hand. Uncle Armand counted them and then said to me, ‘Can you dance, girl?' So with a nod of encouragement from the priest, I tried a few steps of the tarantella my papa had taught me.

“‘I suppose you will do,' Uncle said grudgingly, ‘though we will have to see if we can pretty you up a bit.' ”

“You are pretty enough,” the queen said to me. She put her head to one side as if considering.

I blushed again. Thankfully it was too dark for her to see.

“Hai letto l'Orlando Furioso?”
the queen asked suddenly in Italian, then put it into English. “Have you read
The Mad Orlando?”

“I cannot read at all, Majesty.”

She seemed astonished. “You can speak two languages but read not even one? How appalling. Are all peasants like that?”

“All the ones I know,” I said. “But I
can
count the coins we get in the hat.”

The queen laughed, but not in a mean way. “I am sorry you cannot read, Nicola. There is so much beauty in the written word.”

I waved a hand at the darkening garden. “With so much beauty all around, why waste your days staring at paper and ink?”

The queen paused for a moment as though giving this idea serious thought. “But what about writing letters to the people you care about?” she asked. “And to read the letters they send back? I who have not seen my mother since I was eight years old hear from her almost every day through letters.”

“The folk I care about I see every day. As for the others ...” I hesitated. “I do not think they deliver letters to heaven.”

The queen sighed. “Talking to you is like playing a game of riddles, Nicola. Do you know any riddles?”

I confessed that I did not, hoping that would not disappoint her. I was not even sure what a riddle was.

“Let me try one on you then,” the queen said. “My governess, Madam de Parois, taught me this. First I walk on four legs, then on two legs, and in the end I walk on three legs. What am I?”

Is a riddle some sort of test?
I thought hard before answering, “You are a dog who dances badly before a king.”

The queen looked baffled and her mouth pursed. For a moment she looked like the old widowed queen. Then she smiled and any resemblance disappeared. “Oh, no, that is not the answer.”

“Then what is?”

She clapped her hands again. “The answer is
a man!”

“A man?” I shook my head. “No. I do not think so.”

“You do not think so? I, the queen, tell you it is so and you, a peasant, say you do not think so?” She turned her head slightly, looking at me out of the corner of one eye. “I will explain it to you as Madam de Parois explained it to me. It is simple: A man goes about on all fours as a baby. Then he grows up and walks on two legs. Finally, as an old man, he needs a stick—his third leg.”

“That is cheating, Your Majesty!” I told her, surprised at my own boldness. “A stick is not a leg. And no amount of saying so can make it true. If I wear a hat and call it a crown, that does not make me a queen.”

She did not seem to mind my boldness. If anything, she was intrigued and amused by what I had just said. “Then why did you think the answer was a dog?”

“You were walking on four legs just as all dogs do,” I explained, “but then the king ordered you to dance on your two hind legs to entertain his court.”

“But why do I have three legs in the end?”

“Because you found walking on two legs too difficult to do. You stumbled and knocked over the king's wine cup, so he had one of your legs cut off as a punishment.”

The queen wrinkled her nose, as if smelling something bad. “That is a very gruesome answer, but it is also very clever. I think it is much better than the one Madam de Parois gave. Though I do not think kings are quite as cruel as you make them out to be.”

“Perhaps not all kings,” I admitted, “but it is what Uncle would do if he were king. Why—he beats us with his cane if we fall or make a mistake, or talk out of turn, and we are
family.
Imagine what he would do to a dog!”

“I do not think my Francis would ever beat anyone, let alone cut off a leg,” the queen said reproachfully. “Perhaps you are wrong, and kings are kinder than showmen.”

“I sincerely hope so, Your Majesty, for a whole country lies at the king's mercy, not just a few hungry children.”

We both fell silent for a long moment, though I doubt our thoughts were the same.

Just then, as if he had an uncanny knack of knowing when people talked about him, Uncle appeared. His brow was still furrowed with rage. And because I was standing, he saw only me with the moon on my face, and not the queen sitting in shadow.

“So, it is not enough that you humiliate me in front of the king,” Uncle Armand said, his voice loud and menacing. “You must also lead me a merry chase around the palace to make me look the fool.” He made a low sound in his throat, almost like a growl. “You will pay for that, you little idiot, now and for days to come.”

At that the queen stood, and she towered a full head over me. Her face was a royal fury. I do not think Uncle could have recoiled back any more fearfully if he had found a lion in his path.

He bowed and made abject apologies. “Please forgive my niece's insolence, Majesty. If I had known she was going to trespass, I ...”

“Yes, I think you
are
the kind of man who would cut off a dog's leg for stumbling,” she said. “So it is a good thing you are not a king.”

At that Uncle's jaw hung slack, for of course he had no idea what she was talking about.

The queen's face suddenly got a sort of sly look. “I believe you were paid money to take Nicola into your charge,” she said.

Uncle nodded dumbly.

“How much would you take, then, to give her up?”

“Give her
up?”
Uncle repeated, his normally deep viol voice rising almost to a squeak, like a badly-tuned pipe.

The queen reached into her sleeve and produced a purse, which she offered to him. Uncle took it hesitantly, then pulled it open. His eyes grew wide when he saw how much was inside.

“That is what we were intending to pay you tonight,” she said. “I will double it if you will release Nicola into my service.”

“Majesty,” Uncle stammered, still fingering the coins in the purse. “You ... you do me great honor.”

“I do you no honor at all, Monsieur Brufort,” the queen replied, “but I will not see you pull the petals from the prettiest flower in my garden. Does that suit you, Nicola? Will you stay with me, telling me stories and giving the king some joy? Perhaps this is what your nuns meant when they wrapped you in warm blankets—that the Lord saved you for
me,”

I thought for a moment of the troupe, and especially of Pierre. I wondered briefly how Annette would perform without me. Who would keep time to Bertrand's piping? Or help push the cart? I wondered if any of them would even miss me.

I thought of them all for a moment.

But only a moment.

“Yes,” I breathed. I was more than Marie-in-the-Ashes. I was the captive of the Queen of Elfland herself.

“Come then, Nicola,” Queen Mary said, leading the way back to the palace. Then turning she called over her shoulder, “You will have the remainder of your money before you leave, Monsieur Brufort.”

Uncle bowed to her, but it felt as if he were bowing to me, too. I straightened my shoulders and nodded majestically back at him, but he took no notice. Instead he was counting the coins.

And seeing him counting, I could not help but wonder exactly how much I was worth.

To Uncle.

To the young queen.

6

FAREWELLS

T
here was just enough time for me to go and collect my few belongings before Uncle took his family away. When I got to the forecourt where we had left the cart, they were all there but Uncle, who had gone back to receive his second payment from the queen's serving woman.

As I took my little sack out of the cart and set it on the ground, I told them about the queen and the garden.

“Magic!” Annette said, her eyes wide with awe. “Ah, Nicola—you will live happily ever after, just like Marie-in the-Ashes.”

“A fairy tale,” Nadine said with a sniff.

“But
this
tale is true,” I said, suddenly realizing I needed to convince myself as well.

Nadine's mouth was pinched, and a little line I had never noticed before showed between her eyes. “The queen is toying with you, Nicola. Nobles are like that. Passionate about something one moment, forgetting it the next. Tomorrow you will be out on the streets, and this time without the family.”

Only Pierre seemed genuinely hurt that I was going. He stared up at the stone wall of the palace as though he could see through it to the royal apartments beyond.

“Not even the queen can just buy someone like that,” he protested. “You are not a slave.”

“It is my
freedom
she has bought,” I told him. “Freedom from hunger. And from constant travel. And from Uncle's cane. It is what I want, Pierre.” I put a hand on his arm, pulling him from the others before adding: “You could stay here, too.”

“I do not think the queen would pay much of a price for me.”

“She said she thought you handsome and she was impressed with your skill. I could ask her. With what she has already paid, she could have us both—quite a bargain!”

He smiled but it did not go as far as his eyes. “Nicola,” he said softly, “Father cannot afford to give away the entire family.”

“Uncle did not
give
me away,” I reminded him.

He grunted, and stared again at the wall.

“Pierre,” I said quickly, “listen to me. It will not be long before you are old enough to start your
own
company.”

“I am fourteen—that is old enough already,” he said. “Father began Troupe Brufort when he was even younger than I am now. ”

“Well,” I said, more brightly than I felt, “there will be other festivals, other royal occasions. I am sure the queen will send for you. ”

“I think not,” said Pierre. “Queen Mary does not like Father.”