Threads of Silk (19 page)

LIKE A RAT IN A TRAP!

Marquis Fabien’s first response to his captivity and the treacherous triumph of Maurice and the Queen Mother was rage. He came alert again as the guards hauled him across the courtyard toward the dungeons. He fought his captors every inch of the way as they struggled to haul him into the stone cell beneath the Amboise castle. He managed to break free of their grasp. His fist smashed the first jaw that came within reach. They jumped on him, wrestling him to the floor.

“Where is Maurice! I will tear him limb from limb!”

Someone ran up shouting orders. “I am his docteur! Careful, he is bleeding.”

“Docteur, the marquis is going mad!”

Fabien felt some strong vapors held by the docteur over his nose and mouth, and after a short struggle he sank into a strange oblivion.

When he opened his eyes, he was in a dim cell with one small high window with bars. A candle flickered on a small table. He was lying on a low mattress feeling hot — then damp and chilled. He clamped his jaw to keep his teeth silent. Rage surged through him again with the memory of Rachelle.

Fevered, with a persistent and sickening pain in his side, he tried to get to his feet, but his head throbbed and the cell began to sway as though he were aboard a vessel in a storm.

He spied the docteur, a gaunt figure with high cheekbones, mixing something in a cup. In Fabien’s fevered condition, he saw him as the offender responsible for his woes. He glared and fumbled a hand for his sword.

The docteur’s grim gaze measured him. “Messire, if you are expecting to find your rapier, you are more feverish than I anticipated.” He walked over, looked down at Fabien, and extended a cup. “Here, drink this. You will need it. I intend to clean debris from your wound. Infection has already begun. You are fortunate, nonetheless. The blade missed your vital organs. Next time, messire, if there is a next time, do not turn your back on Comte Beauvilliers.”

“Next time I will kill him.”

The docteur held the cup to his lips. Thinking it wine, Fabien gulped willingly, then gagged and knocked the cup away.

“Slime!” He spat out the last gulp angrily and again tried to get to his feet.

The docteur raised himself up with grave dignity. “Marquis, it is a valuable herbal medicine that I discovered during my travels to Istanbul.”

“Istanbul — mille diables!” Fabien said with scorn, trying to get up.

“Do not be a spoiled patient.” The docteur motioned calmly to the guards to subdue Fabien. “This will be painful, messire.”

“Spoiled! I am not afraid of pain. It is not the pain that riles me. I want to know what they did with the marquise!”

“Messire?” The docteur looked down at him as though he thought Fabien were delirious.

“What did they do with my wife?”

“Do you not mean
Mademoiselle
Macquinet?”

“I mean
my wife
, Marquise Rachelle de Vendôme! We were married at my palais. If anything happens to her, I will get free and kill them!”

“Ah. She was taken under guard with Andelot Dangeau to Fontaine- bleau. Your belligerent page — I believe his name is Gallaudet — has also been subdued at last with something to make him sleep, such as I will give you. He is below you — ” he pointed to the floor — “in the dungeon. I will be treating his injuries after I have finished with you.”

Fabien’s anger calmed. So, then Rachelle was with Andelot. He felt a little assuaged. They would both be held at Fontainebleau. Gallaudet was alive. He would be taken care of. Fabien slowly laid his head back down and stared evenly up at the docteur.

“When will I see the Queen Mother?”

The docteur shook his head. “Of that, Messire, I have no such knowledge. I hardly know of Her Majesty.”

Fabien gave a hard laugh. “You will.”

“I am new at court, having ended my long medical travels in the East. I was recommended at court by the royal surgeon, Ambroise le Pare, the king’s personal physician. And now, I will need to treat this infection or you shall surely succumb to it.”

Fabien gave a nod of assent.

Weary, his mind growing lazy from the effects of whatever he had swallowed, he was now noticing how sick and exhausted he was. He closed his eyes, and his thoughts drifted into a listless fog.

SCORNED

November found the leaves on the deciduous trees about Fontainebleau preparing for an autumn of crimson and gold. Rachelle kept track of the days since her arrival at Fontainebleau. Three weeks had passed. The chill that had settled over her heart made it seem as though it was already winter. She was locked in her chamber with none permitted to call upon her except Madame Trudeau, the older maid sent by the Queen Mother.

Rachelle spent her long days and nights of isolation wondering about Fabien. She touched her wedding ring, remembering those final moments on the stairway in Vendôme. She feared the ring would be taken from her. She’d seen the humorless Madame Trudeau looking at it with no favor in her bleak eyes. Rachelle stood from the gilt brocade chair where she’d been praying. She heard footsteps in the outer corridor, then the familiar rattle of the key in the lock. The heavy ornate door opened boldly and her keeper entered in her usual heedless manner. This time she was not alone. A young girl tottered behind her, carrying the evening tray.

“Your dinner, Mademoiselle — ”

“Merely set it on the table, Thérèse. No need to prattle on in this fashion.” Madame Trudeau folded her hands in front of her long black skirts.

“Oui, Madame.”

“I am sure Mademoiselle Macquinet does not wish to be interrupted in her meditation.”

Rachelle ignored the impertinence. Madame Trudeau was a distant relation to the Comtesse Françoise Dangeau-Beauvilliers, Maurice’s mère. As such, she would be loyal to her kinswoman and in sympathy with her unhappiness over Maurice’s discontented spirit.

Rachelle had tried to get Madame Trudeau to talk whenever she came to her, eager for news about Fabien as well as Andelot and Gallaudet, but the older woman retained a distant demeanor. No doubt this was why she’d been chosen to be her keeper. This afternoon, however, the woman seemed to linger. When the maid had accomplished her duties and departed, Madame Trudeau stood near the closed door. Whatever little appetite Rachelle had was spoiled by the woman’s presence. Her face was angular and white, her eyes perfectly round and dark, like two polished wood buttons.

“Did Comtesse Beauvilliers send for you to come to court recently, Madame?” said Rachelle.

“Mademoiselle, I have been my kinswoman’s most trusted lady since before you were born. I have also seen you about on many occasions and was at Chambord when you and your Grandmère were couturières for Princesse Marguerite and Reinette Mary Stuart. I was also at Amboise during the treasonous act of the Huguenots and saw them justly beheaded. That you have not seen me heretofore may speak more of your giddy behavior than of my absence.”

“Madame, I have never been giddy, as you suggest. Had I been so, Her Majesty would not have chosen me to become Princesse Marguerite’s maid-of-honor.”

“A noble position, Mademoiselle, which you disgraced by fleeing to Lyon without leave of Her Majesty or the princesse.”

She could not easily deny it, at least the part about fleeing to her home, the Château de Silk in Lyon. She might have told her that she now had a far greater blight upon her, that of having Madalenna catch her spying upon the Queen Mother at the quay in Paris. Madame Trudeau, evidently, had not learned of this. Rachelle was waiting for the Sword of Damocles to fall on her, but as yet she had not even been called before the Queen Mother. Rachelle’s lingering anticipation made it all the more stressful — that, and worrying and wondering about Fabien.

“You seem to know a good deal about me,” Rachelle said.

She glanced at Rachelle. “Comte Maurice speaks incessantly of you.”

Rachelle ignored that. “You do not like me. Surely it isn’t because I fled the blood orgy at Amboise. Princesse Marguerite, too, was sickened by it, and if the truth were known, so too, the Comtesse Françoise.”

“That is beside the fact,” she said stubbornly.

“And it was Françoise’s son, Maurice, who brought me from Amboise to Vendôme.”

“So now it comes out that he saved you. Yet it is widely known you reward Maurice with open contempt.”

Rachelle answered abruptly. “
I
treat Maurice with contempt! He who was defeated honorably in a duel by the marquis, then stabbed him when his back was turned — after the marquis spared Maurice’s life.”

“Lies, Mademoiselle. Who told you such?”

Why was Madame Trudeau so defensive of him?

“The Queen Mother’s trusted dwarves spoke to us of what happened after I fled. Following my wedding vows, I had to save myself from this same Maurice whom you defend as honorable!”

Madame Trudeau’s lips rounded in a patronizing smile. “Comte Maurice has quite another story, Mademoiselle. You are his fiancée and he had a gallant right to do as he did. I am sure the marquis’ pride had much to do with the story of backstabbing.”

“I am not now, nor have ever I been, Maurice’s fiancée. I have promised him nothing of my heart or my loyalties, ever. And I am now married to Marquis de Vendôme. Nothing Maurice says will change that.”

“Do not be so certain, Mademoiselle.” With a secretive smile, she turned toward the door. “That Bourbon ring on your finger will not secure your future if the king wishes it differently.”

Alarmed and indignant from her words, Rachelle followed her to the door.

“What do you mean by that? I am married. That cannot be changed.”

Madame Trudeau shrugged her narrow shoulders. “I have already spoken too much. It is best I say nothing more.”

“I wish to see my kinswoman, Duchesse Dushane.”

“It is the order of the Queen Mother that you see no one except me, Mademoiselle.”

“Then do take her a lettre from me, I beg of you.”

“I am not under Her Majesty’s leave to carry messages.”

“At least tell me about my
husband
.” She said the word proudly. “Is Marquis de Vendôme still being held at Amboise? Has he recovered from his injury?”

Her eyes hardened. “Mademoiselle, it has not yet been decided whether you have a husband or not.”

Rachelle clenched her fists. “I am a married woman. I am Marquise de Vendôme!”

“A lofty title, Mademoiselle, if it is true, but I have not yet been told by the Queen Mother to address you as thus. My orders remain the same. Adieu.”

She departed without a backward glance. Rachelle heard the sound of metal on metal in the sturdy lock.