Reign of Madness (9 page)

8.

31 October anno Domini 1496

O
ur horses thundered through the dripping woods outside Malines. The wet undergrowth whistled beneath the bellies of the greyhounds bounding beside us. Men shouted, bridles jangled, and the bells on our falcons’ legs jingled merrily. Starbursts of gray mud splattered against my yellow skirts as I wedged myself more firmly against the jolting seat of the pillion. I tightened my grip on the reins, though I had but one hand to do so; a hooded falcon dug into my thickly gloved left wrist.

Philippe’s mother had died like this.

So my husband had reminded me before we took to our horses that morning, eleven days after our wedding feast. His falconer was setting a bird to my hand—a peregrine, with wings and back the shining gray of cold charcoal. Blinded by its hood, it turned its head from side to side, as if to see who I might be.

My husband stroked the bird’s smoothly feathered wings. “My mother had a falcon just like this one, is that not so, monsieur?”

The falconer, a leather-faced man whose hooked nose and chin nearly met over his toothless mouth, responded in French strongly flavored with Flemish. “
Oui, Mijnheer
. The bird caught three ducks before your mother
la duchesse
fell, God rest her soul. It was a very fast bird.”

He guided the creature onto my wrist. It took hold, the pressure of its talons painful even through my heavy glove. “She is well trained, Mevrouw,” he said to me. “She will not give you trouble unless she thinks you are weak.”

I looked up in panic. I was terrified of her. She would know this?

Philippe ran his hand down the bird’s dark wing. “Mother was not expected to hunt the day that she died. She was great with child, and she would not have gone riding, even though the King of France had organized the hunt, had it not been for the Archbishop of Cambrai. After Mass that morning, the fool had given her a Book of Hours that contained an illustration of her hunting with her hawk while Death, bony and grinning and swinging a mallet, hunted her. Silly friar, he should have known she would take that as a challenge. There was a reason her father was known as Charles the Bold—and Mother inherited all of his fire.”

“My mother killed a bear,” I said. “With a javelin. Outside Madrid. Last year.”

“What? Well. That’s the spirit.” He gave his falconer’s back a friendly thump, then mounted his horse. “Make sure her bird doesn’t escape.”

Now our group galloped through a muddy field stubbled with the remains of the harvest. With a whoop, my husband urged his steed faster, slime slinging from the horse’s hooves. Our party met his challenge with cries of delight, quickening our pace and loosing our own storm of muck. Blinking away the flying debris, I moved to wrap my reins more tightly around my free hand and thus startled my bird, causing her to fly up in protest. Her jesses halted her flight, jerking her back to my wrist, and in turn rocking me in my seat. My heart jumped as I fought to regain my balance.

Aliénor de Poitiers, the Viscountess of Furnes, one of the Burgundian ladies assigned to me by my husband, slowed to shout at me. “Are you well?” Her hood blew back on her shoulders, exposing a tumble of blond curls and a smudge of mud on her cheek. She glanced toward the party racing ahead of us. None of my Spanish ladies had come with us. It being the Vigil of All Saints’ Day, they preferred to stay home and pray—it made a fine excuse for Beatriz to tackle the latest translation at which she was toiling. In truth, I had seen little of her and the rest of my Spanish ladies since my wedding, as much company did I keep with my husband. Save for Beatriz, who was of commoner birth and less rigidly formal, they clung to their Spanish habits as I sampled the delights of the Burgundian court. I had to adapt to Burgundian ways—it was that or lose my husband’s interest.

“Yes, I’m well!” I shouted. “Go on!”

The dogs began barking with excitement. Our group was nearing the river—the destination of our eager scramble. It was there that our birds were to find good prey.

“Are you sure?” the Viscountess asked.

“Go! I’ll catch you.”

She took no further urging. Off she galloped, her blond curls whipping in the wind.

My unhappy falcon pranced upon my glove, jingling the bells on its legs, the short white-and-gray-striped feathers of its muscular thighs ruffling as they caught the breeze. I cautiously trotted forth. Alone, and at a manageable speed, I was able to marvel at the flat wet landscape, crossed by reedy streams and checkered with fields and forests, all made dark and mysterious by the gloomy sky. Though the Meseta, which stretches across so much of Castile, is dry and stony, the skies are wide and high and the purest sapphire blue, their brilliance set off by white puffs of clouds. I missed the bright broad skies, but not so much that my husband’s caresses could not cure me.

Hoofbeats thudded behind me. I looked over my shoulder to see a gangling steed upon which rode an equally gangling young man, his long limbs bouncing as he neared. Hatless, beardless, and wearing tunic and buskins, he looked to be a peasant’s son, near my years in age.

My falcon hopped on my wrist, causing me to tip forward. I cried out and locked my feet against the planchette.

The long-limbed peasant’s son rode up beside me. “Do you have her?” he called over the sucking of our horses’ hooves in the mud.

I looked sharply to see if he might be mocking me, but his eyes were bright with friendly curiosity. A grin lit his wide and bony face as he gained my side. Bold, this fellow was, approaching an
archiduchesse
this way. Perhaps he was a huntsman’s varlet, there to collect from the brush any birds our falcons might take, though that hardly excused his impropriety.

Near the river’s weedy edge several furlongs ahead, my husband abruptly pulled up reins. Men scattered to avoid a collision. He shouted to his falconers, who unhooded their birds, untied the leather jesses, then cast the birds up from their wrists. Bells tinkled from the legs of the falcons as they soared into the sky.

The youth chirruped to his horse as if to join the rest of the party. Feeling much the outsider, I found myself anxious not to lose his attention.

“My brother hawks,” I called, trying to keep up.

He slowed and raised his brows, waiting for me to finish.

Beaters ran forward at the river, pounding their drums. Five ducks winged up from behind a stand of cattails, their alarm palpable as we approached the party.

“He hunts, too,” I said, “with all manner of dogs.”

The falcons circled high overhead, the melody of their bells faint here on earth. “Very well for your brother—”

Suddenly one of the falcons tucked in its wings and dropped like a dart toward the low-flying ducks. With an abrupt
ching
of bells, feathers burst from the back of a duck.

I gasped.

The falcon circled back and snatched the falling duck from the air. The fowl’s feet dangled limply as the falcon flapped back toward its master.

The youth turned to me. “As I was saying, very well for your brother, but what about you?”

With a whistle from its handler, the falcon dropped the duck. The dead fowl plummeted to a thicket on the other side of the river.

The varlet’s bold address disconcerted me. “Should you not retrieve the duck for your master?”

The carelessly beautiful Viscountess of Furnes brought her horse back to ours. “You have caught up.” The smile on her sweetly bowed lips was not for me. “Dear Hendrik, so chivalrous you are, assisting the ladies. You do love your tales of King Arthur. Did he keep the dragons at bay, Your Grace?” she asked me.

She was flirting with this varlet at the expense of caring for me? No one would have ever treated my mother thus. “Yes,” I said. “But who is going to get the duck?”

“Get the duck?” The girl blinked at me. The smudge on her face had dried, calling attention to the impossibly creamy skin of her dimpled cheeks. She broke into laughter. “Hendrik, I do believe the Archduchess thinks you are a varlet.”

The stately madame de Hallewin, my husband’s former governess and now, at his orders, my chief lady, dropped back to join us. “What’s this?” Her features were as perfect, serene, and cold as those of a marble Madonna.

The Viscountess smiled merrily. “Madame la Duchesse has promoted our Hendrik to a huntsman’s boy.”

“I did not actually—” My falcon lifted her wings.

“You had better watch your bird,” said madame de Hallewin.

“Whisper to your falcon like this”—the Viscountess put her lips to her own bird’s hood—
“Hendrik is a bird boy.”

I wished to ride off, splattering great pats of mud upon their skirts draped so handsomely over the sides of their steeds, but instead I sat on my horse, feeling lonely and ridiculous.

“Look,” said Hendrik, “a heron has been flushed.”

Smiling, the ladies turned as a heron rose from its hiding place in the reeds and languidly flapped along the river, its pearl-gray wings gracefully skimming the water.

At the riverbank, my husband shouted something to his men, then unhooded Delilah and released her from his wrist. The great white bird shot after the heron, which, sensing its pursuer, sharply altered its course and lifted toward the clouds.

“It’s going to dive!” exclaimed the Viscountess.

High above the nearest trees, the heron drew in its wings and dropped toward the river in a spiral. Delilah mirrored its fall, each of her own spirals closing the gap between them until she slammed into the heron and broke its back. When the heron tumbled earthward, Delilah shot forth and snatched it in her talons. Faithful as a dog, she flew to Philippe and dropped the great limp bird at his horse’s feet.

A cheer went up from the ladies and gentlemen. I found that I was lightheaded.

Philippe rode back to me, Delilah on his arm, her powerful yellow beak open to regain her breath.

“Puss! Where were you? What did you think of our catch?” He kissed his falcon on the snow-white peak of her head.

I struggled to smile. “Well done, Monseigneur. Well done, Delilah.”

“Hendrik!” Aliénor sang out. “Are you not going to fetch the duck from the brush?”

Philippe looked between us, smiling good-naturedly. “What?”

The Viscountess brushed at her cheek, which retained a charming stripe of mud. “Her Grace the Archduchess thinks Hendrik is a huntsman’s varlet.”

Hendrik shrugged. “I didn’t mind.”

Philippe burst into laughter. “My Lady Wife, allow me to introduce Hendrik, Count of Nassau-Breda. At least, he will be when his uncle dies. Besides me, he’s the ranking gentleman of our party. And quite a little shit, I might add. What took you so long to get here?”

“I was in Louvain.” Hendrik moved to get down from his horse.

“Bothering your head with books.”

Hendrik shrugged again, then bowed to me. “I wish to kiss your hand, Your Grace.”

“You can do that later.” Philippe hopped down from his horse, gave the reins to a gentleman, then opened his free arm to me. “Come, wife, and see the
curée
.”

His falcon’s eyes were large for her head and bright with intelligence. She craned toward the bird on my wrist, who, though heavy enough that my arm was growing weary from holding her, was only two-thirds Delilah’s size.

“Hold her away from Delilah,” said Philippe. “They’ll get along as long as they’re not too close. They know each other.”

I held out my bird, then stepped within my husband’s embrace. With his arm around me, and inhaling his familiar musky scent, I could be led to a hanging, for all I cared. In a rush of gladness, I rose and kissed his cheek, something my formal mother would have never done to my father in public.

“That’s my Puss. Did I tell you the Spanish custom for hanging out the conjugal sheets?” he asked Hendrik. “You should have seen the lad on the street as we were putting them out. I wager he’d never seen a naked archduchess.”

Hendrik glanced at me. I had not been naked when we flew the sheets—I had worn my robe at my husband’s bidding. But I put my arm around my husband now, unashamed of anything he would say or do. If it enhanced his story to have me appear naked to my subject, I would hold my tongue. He was lord of this land and I was his lady, and I cared not a fig what other people thought, as long as he loved me.

Arm in arm, we approached the falconer, who was kneeling in the long wet grass next to the dead heron. The bird lay on its side, its long pale legs, tough as saplings, stretched out uselessly beneath its slender body. Tufts of plumage, a glowing gray above, the velvety white of fresh cream below, ruffled in the wind.

“Make sure Delilah gets the heart,” Philippe said as a crowd gathered around us. “She does not work for no pay.”

“Oui, Mijnheer
.
”

The falconer rolled the limp bird onto its back and plunged a knife into its pale breast. He cut along the bone, then, as if opening a large oyster, pried it apart, reached in, and
slash, slash,
cut out the heart. He held up the smooth, fleshy orb.

“Here! Let me feed her.” The Viscountess put out her gloveless hand.

With a nod from Philippe, the falconer slid the lump onto her palm.

She held the organ before Delilah’s beak, as curved and sharp as a sultan’s scimitar. I was not the only one who drew in a breath. The bird could snap off her fingers in a single bite.

Delilah snatched the heart, and with two shakes of her head tossed it down her gullet.

Philippe exhaled. “Pieter, give Delilah the legs, too. You,” he told the Viscountess, “save your fingers.” He smiled knowingly. “I am certain they can be put to better use.”

Some in the hunting party chuckled.

The Viscountess gazed at him, then spread her palm, smeared with the blood of the heron’s heart. “I am dirty.”

“We cannot have that.” Philippe put Delilah on the ground to let her hop to the severed legs now lying upon the grass. “Here.” He offered the Viscountess his sleeve of white brocade, hanging from behind his heavy gauntlet.