Written on Silk

by Linda Lee Chaikin

  Arnaut was of a mind to send Rachelle home to the château to be with Idelette and allow their mother to come to Paris. Madeleine was doing well under the docteur’s care and, as Rachelle had expected, she wished to stay in Paris where her husband, Sebastien, remained incarcerated in the Bastille. Rachelle saw improvement in Madeleine as she fought to renew her strength. It was when she held her bébé to her breast that she would say what burned in her heart.

  “I must regain my strength. I must live for Joan. Sebastien and I must both live. Oh, Rachelle, if the Lord does not help me, what shall I do without my husband? I do not want to lose him. I wish we could escape France altogether and begin a new life at Spitalfields. Cousin Bertrand seems to think it a place of God’s refuge.”

  Rachelle paid scant attention to these words of leaving France, deeming them the utterances of a fearful mother and wife fighting to survive.

  “Madeleine, tell me; what could have happened to the gloves you and Grandmère wore?”

  Madeleine, with dark hair and eyes like Rachelle, moved uneasily on her pillow.

  “They did not fit me. One of the women must have taken them away.”

  “And Grandmère’s as well?”

  “I do not know. Rachelle, I do not like to think of it.”

  Madeleine still claimed she did not believe the gloves were poisoned, but that some bizarre sickness had struck them and claimed Grandmère’s life due to her age. Rachelle sensed this was preferable to Madeleine because the alternative was so starkly wicked she did not wish to consider it.

  “If only I could free Sebastien, then we would go away.”

  “Where would you go?”

  “Anywhere but France!” She looked down with furrowed brow upon the sleeping Joan.

  Rachelle shook her head. “This is our home, our beloved country, ma soeur.”

  Madeleine sighed wearily. “You might think differently if it were your Marquis de Vendôme in the Bastille.”

  Rachelle, seated on the edge of the huge bed with its pale green canopy, straightened her back.

  “He is not my marquis and never shall be. He told me so at Calais.”

  Madeleine looked surprised, then repentant. She was the protective older sister again and reached over to squeeze Rachelle’s clenched hand.

  “I am sorry, Rachelle; I did not know. I was afraid something like this might happen. Many mademoiselles have tried to capture him and failed — where you succeeded. And though he is young and adventuresome, he may yet decide to settle down and marry. The Bourbon family, however, will never — ” She stopped abruptly.

  Rachelle stood and changed the subject. “Even if Sebastien were released, how could he leave Court?”

  “What? Do you think he will ever be one of the Queen Mother’s counselors again? It does not seem possible.”

  Rachelle said no more on the matter.

  “Have Père and Madame Xenia been able to gain an audience with King Francis yet? The lettre from Marquis Fabien is possibly our only hope.” Madeleine cupped the head of her bébé and studied her sleeping face with tenderness.

  Rachelle loathed disappointing her. “Non. The cardinal claims the king is ailing again.” She added with cheer, “But we not will give up.”

  DURING THOSE UNCERTAIN AND trying days and nights, while Rachelle remained with her sister, their father worked tirelessly on behalf of Sebastien, obtaining lettres of request for pardon from many tolerant Catholic nobles in good grace with the Queen Mother and the young king.

  Duchesse Dushane traveled to her estate near Fontainebleau in Orléans to also seek an audience with King Francis that she might deliver the marquis’ lettre to either him or Mary, but she also was foiled.

  “The ever watchful Cardinal de Lorraine has forbidden her an audience,” said Rachelle. “Rather than turn the lettre over to the cardinal, who might burn it, it remains undelivered. She expects to try again with the Queen Mother.”

  “Then I shall go to Fontainebleau myself,” Madeleine said, her dark eyes bright with desperation.

  Rachelle laid a hand on her arm. “You are not strong enough and you know it. Let Père and Madame continue to work at this.”

  In a last desperate attempt, Rachelle wrote to Princesse Marguerite Valois pleading with her to intercede with the Queen Mother, but there was no reply, not even from the usually generous Marguerite. Only later did Rachelle learn that Marguerite was in one of her moods of depression because there was talk again of her marrying Henry of Navarre, and this time the talks were growing more serious.

  A few days later, Rachelle knelt before Grandmère’s open trunk, rearranging her sewing equipment and preparing for the inevitable journey home to Lyon. She was not eager to depart, for she wished to locate the glove makers in Paris, but she’d delayed, waiting for Andelot to have a free day from his training in the Corps des Pages. He had, upon their return from Calais, given lettres from the marquis to the duchesse. The duchesse had, at the request of the marquis, called for the master of the Corps des Pages and introduced Andelot, giving him the marquis’ lettre of recommendation. Andelot was accepted into the school, but to protect him from the ire of the cardinal, Andelot would not wear the Bourbon colors and coat of arms of the marquis, but the green and silver of the duchesse.

  Rachelle’s jaw set with determination as she perused the familiar sewing items for the first time since Grandmère’s death, packing only those that would be important to other generations in the Macquinet-Dushane family. She handled the special needles, the gold thimble, and Grandmère’s chatelaine. She had brought these with her, intending to do some creative sewing for Madeleine and the bébé.

  “Now it is all over,” Rachelle murmured to the empty chamber. “How little we knew at Chambord that we would never again work together as Daughters of Silk.”

  But was it over? her conscience asked in the stillness. Rachelle considered all the rigorous training she had undergone since a small child and how it would be lost if she failed to apply what Grandmère had entrusted to her. She and Idelette were the recipients of family trade secrets. The work they had such affection for would continue as long as they pursued it and passed on what they knew to their own daughters and the next generation of silk growers, weavers, designers, and grisettes.

  She held the gold thimble in her hand as though clasping a ruby.

  It was not over. Had not Princesse Marguerite and the Queen Mother already said the Macquinets would make Marguerite’s wedding trousseau? The Queen Mother . . .

  Rachelle clutched the gold thimble in her fist.

  I am a Macquinet Daughter of Silk, and I will go wherever my work takes me, as Grandmère taught me.

  Later, when Rachelle had the trunk ready for traveling, she left the chamber and met her père Arnaut, who approached with a lettre in hand.

  “Daughter, your mother has written requesting you to come home, and I am in agreement with her and the young James Hudson. He is getting anxious about the gown for Her Majesty of England. He must have it cut, sewn, and garnished in four weeks so that he may leave for London. His father wrote of his urgent need for James to return.”

  Fortunately, Madame Clair had written that she wished to come to Paris to spend time with Madeleine and petite Joan when Rachelle left. She had yet to see her granddaughter and was most desirous of doing so.

  Locating the glove makers would need to wait. Remembering the gown and the work to be done brought Rachelle an unusual sense of purpose. It was almost with relief that she agreed to go home to the château, home to her silk, and show Idelette the belle new lace she had brought from Languet’s shop in Calais. She wondered how her sister was recovering. There had been no correspondence from her, but only from Madame Clair.

  Rachelle believed that her mother wanted to come to Paris now because she expected Sebastien’s death. Madeleine would need her more than ever.

  Meanwhile, Arnaut and the duchesse continued their endeavors to gain Sebastien a pardon from the king. Secretly, Rachelle di
d not entertain much hope. Sebastien must answer for the charge of treason against the king and also for heresy.

  On the following day, Rachelle left by coach for Lyon, escorted by two of the duchesse’s guards. She smiled and waved at her father through the coach window as the horses trotted across the court and through the main gate past the Seine. Soon they were on the road to Lyon and home — home to her silk, to the task at hand, to create a belle gown for another queen, a Protestant queen who opened her gates to persecuted Huguenots from France.

  As the long journey of several days began, Rachelle settled back in the leather seat and closed her eyes. She would think about nothing except silk. She must devote herself entirely to the gown until it was finished. But even while she pictured the silvery dress with pink feathers, the burning violet-blue eyes of Fabien haunted her and brought a familiar feeling of loss to her stomach. She tightened her mouth and stared grimly out the window at the passing Paris scenery without actually seeing it. Where is he now? Will he think of me at all?

  He would be gone for a year or longer. An eon compared to the time they had known one another.

  Only one amour burns in his heart at present, and that is the desire to fight the treacherous, persecuting Spaniards.

  THE BASTILLE

  EVERY PART IN HIS BODY SCREAMED WITH PAIN. Was it he — Comte Sebastien Dangeau — who was screaming, or was he hearing others?

  Screams filled his mind and ears day and night. The pain never stopped. He was somewhere in the torture area of the cavernous dark dungeons below the Bastille where torches weaved their serpentine shadows on dank stone walls. Rats crawled, cockroaches watched stealthily. The stench was putrefying. The sound of fires hissing in the hearths and chains rattling convinced him he was living a demonic nightmare from whence he would awaken to the fresh wind and sunshine of a Paris afternoon. There was no escape. The only true escape was death — into the arms of Christ.

  Here in the torture chambers, the lowest acts that could be inflicted upon a man or a woman were practiced on murderers, traitors to the king, and those of the religion.

  Sebastien was on the rack again; had he ever left it?

  Somewhere a fire blazed, with an array of red hot pincers, tongs, and pokers, ready as needed for wretched victims. All the while he heard religious chants, saw various men in robes with long sad faces walking slowly about in the shadows of the dank stone walls, offering the crucifix for kissing.

  Sebastien’s throat was parched. His lips were blistered, his tongue so heavy he could hardly speak. He had long abandoned hope for a dribble of water. Death would come soon with blessed release. The jasper walls of the Father’s house were waiting, and angels would welcome him in the name of the One who had conquered death, Jesus. How precious that name — his only hope.

  His Presence was there amid the excruciating pain. The pain was as unbearable as his mental anguish: the temptation to succumb. Wonderful relief was promised if he simply did as asked.

  The anguish in his knee was unrelenting. He had fainted so often that he could not be sure he was awake or dreaming. His left hand had been crushed in the iron glove. He could not even remember how long ago his knee had undergone its ruin. An hour ago? A week, a month?

  At first they had not tortured him. They hoped for his cooperation in giving the names of every Huguenot at Court who might have been privy to the Amboise plot under Seigneur Renaudie. Weeks went by in the filthy cell until the day they led him away after he refused to recant.

  That had been the beginning. Accused of treason, of concealing enemies of His Majesty, he had been questioned for hours, and days.

  “I know nothing . . . I was not involved . . . I know no one at Court disloyal to the king . . . I am loyal to King Francis . . .”

  Then a different inquisitor arrived, wearing robes. He began asking Sebastien in an exceedingly kind voice if he wished to see his belle wife, Madame Madeleine, and his newborn daughter named Joan.

  Other robed men stood around him with lamentable faces holding candles and crucifixes.

  “Would Comte Sebastien Dangeau prove his loyalty to the mother Church by kissing the blessed crucifix? By undergoing all religious ceremonies? By attending Mass?”

  This question was repeated . . . and repeated . . .

  “Would Comte Sebastien Dangeau confess his heresy, repent, and attend Mass to prove his total submission to what is absolutely required for salvation?”

  The lead questioner with large, sad brown eyes took a handkerchief from his robe and touched the tears away from the corners of his own eyes. “You must remain on the rack, Comte Dangeau. It is the only way. But that is the beginning. There is the thumbscrew, the red hot spikes and pincers, the slicing of the tongue in two, the maiden coffin of spikes — but messire, why go through this when your well beloved Madeleine has given proud birth to your first child? Do you not wish to see them? What you must do to gain your release is as nothing. Recant your heresy, and attend Mass daily. Do so and you may walk from here free to rejoice at the bedside of Madame Madeleine and your daughter. If not, Madame will join you here for like questioning.”

  Sebastien heard little of this, so great was his pain. Salty sweat dripped onto his eyes; his blurred vision tried to focus.

  “Messire Sebastien, he that has suffered in the flesh has ceased from sin. No suffering for the moment is of apparent value, but afterward, when your soul is saved because of it, and the soul of Madame Madeleine, and your enfant daughter baptized — the anguish will prove to have been of utmost deliverance. You will see — unless you fail to understand the truth and embrace it, proclaiming heresy.”

  Sebastien shut his eyes. He gritted his teeth so hard he tasted blood.

  “God, non, God help me!”

  “He will help you, messire, once you recant the diabolical lies propagated by Calvin and Luther. The bébé may also be taken away, messire, and raised apart from heresy in the monastery. But you and madame will never see her again. What will you do? We have no more weeks to delay, messire. Shall I give the order to send guards to your appartements in the Louvre palais for your wife?”

  “Non, non, I beg of you, not my wife, s’il vous plait, not Madeleine — ” Tears ran down his cheeks.

  “You know what you must do, messire.”

  Sebastien wavered; for a moment the peace he had known at various times came again, and he felt new strength refreshing his spirit.

  But then . . . He thought of Madeleine on the rack; Madeleine, with all her tenderness, and his mind was filled with a rush of terror.

  If I had only to think of myself, I might endure to the end, but I must live to see my wife and bébé escape to England. If I die, Madeleine might be arrested and brought here — unthinkable!

  Sebastien heard his own voice coming like the wail of a sick creature:“I — I will do all you say, Monseigneur — oui, all you say.”

  The man in religious garb smiled benignly. “You are becoming a wise man, Comte Sebastien.” He lifted a hand toward the guards and nodded to the other robed men.

  “Release the ratchet, loosen his chains, feed and water him, bathe him, and tend his hand and knee. There is cause for rejoicing; Comte is now prepared for the religious ceremony. I will send word to Cardinal de Lorraine.”

  The Announcement

  CHTEAU DE SILK, LYON, FRANCE

  THE SCARLET BLOSSOMS ON THE BOUGAINVILLEA VINE ALONG THE WALL of the garden held tenaciously under the gusts sweeping down from the hills and through the grove of mûreraies.

  The château did not welcome Rachelle home as the haven of security and purpose as it had in the past, not without Grandmère. Less than a year had passed since Rachelle and Idelette first left with Grandmère as her grisettes in training for Paris and then on to Chambord Palais to work on gowns for the Reinette Mary Stuart-Valois and her sister-in-law, la Princesse Marguerite. Less than a year . . . but for Rachelle, it seemed that more had happened to alter her life than in all the earlier years combined.

>   How could one’s life change so drastically? Like gusts of wind that rushed unexpectedly to shake, to tear, to leave scattered in ruin! Why did God permit it? Her family was serving the Lord! Why had not the pain and loss come to the wicked?

  Her conscience smote her. Cousin Bertrand would look at her with his brilliant dark eyes and tell her she was distrusting God’s purposes:

  “ ‘The Lord hath his way in the whirlwind and in the storm,’ the prophet Nahum told us. But would ruin prevail? Non. And the winds came, and the storm beat upon that house, and it fell because it was not founded upon a rock.

  “The rock is Christ, Rachelle. Though the mountains shake, though they be carried into the midst of the sea, He is our solid foundation. He said He was going away to prepare a place for His disciples, and would come again to bring us to where He is. For we look for a city which has foundations, whose builder and maker is God.”

  Rachelle drew in a breath and pushed open the wide, lattice double doors into the spacious atelier, and went to her work as she did each morning after her petit déjeuner.

  It was in this chamber that several generations of Dushane-Macquinets had jealously guarded family silk secrets for what at the time was called the “new cloth,” although silk was hardly new in the distant East from where the silk filaments had first made their way into Europe by the caravan trade route called the Old Silk Road.