Written on Silk

by Linda Lee Chaikin

  Rachelle’s heart beat faster as she walked about the room, touching the familiar, but receiving no solace.

  “You were once the cheeriest chamber in the château. You were the heart of Macquinet silk, of its daughter couturières and grisettes in training. And now!” she whispered vehemently.

  The atelier, with its treasures, had become gloomy. Alas, how the needles that once smiled, and the cutting instruments that once purred with busy satisfaction, were silent. The bolts of silks and brocades shimmering like liquid jewels sat adorning the long velvet-lined shelves. The intricate laces from Alençon, Bruges, and Burgundy were all in their proper place. She and Avril had wound those very bolts of lace with great care onto the waxed ash spindles. Rachelle looked about, painfully aware of deep wounds and losses.

  “They might as well be wrapped with horse hair.”

  Yes, everything appeared the same but nothing was the same.

  Rachelle’s gaze took a survey of the half-finished gowns and frocks, then stumbled at Avril’s pink birthday dress.

  She thought of all the lessons on the careful cutting of patterns, the secret flawless sewing — even the discussions between her mère and grandmère with Père Arnaut over the correct way of feeding the mulberry leaves to the silkworms. How they had argued over the care of the cocoons! But beneath it all, bonhomie had reigned supreme. She thought of Père joking with Grandmère, for he had looked upon her as his mère because his own had died when he was a child. How Mère would laugh at their antics and tell Arnaut to stop teasing Grandmère.

  Yet Grandmère had enjoyed it.

  She thought of the benign prattle and competitive girlish bickering between her, Idelette, and Madeleine before she married Sebastien, over who would be allowed to work with Grandmère on a special design.

  Now, for the first time, Rachelle understood Madeleine’s willingness to leave France in search of a new dream . . . Because the first dream was now an old dream that had perished.

  And now — one ruthless rape and Idelette was with child.

  Her sadness boiled into rage, and she began to tremble. What right had the Duc de Guise to ride here from his duchy in Lorraine robed in self-righteous judgment and heap abuse upon so-called heretics? Yet, while the duc rendered his justice in the name of God, his own followers raped and pillaged? The “Sword of the Lord,” Guise had declared himself.

  Non, Rachelle thought, but murderers, with eyes full of adultery.

  She tried to focus her mind on the problems at hand, but each time she collected her thoughts, fresh gusts of fear and rage struck her. In a burst of outrage she hurled her pincushion across the room at the mannequin. The blank form without a face of compassion stared back, unmoved by her demonstration as the pincushion landed silently on the floor and the mannequin’s white periwig glistened in the sunlight like a deceptive halo.

  She walked over to the window, resting the side of her head against the frame and fingering the lace curtain. There must be some way out, some reason for these severe testings that were shaking her to the core of her soul. God had not abandoned them. She would never believe so.

  “It is never so dark that God cannot deliver.” How often had she remembered hearing Cousin Bertrand say that?

  She pressed her palms to the sides of her temples, closed her eyes, and tried to focus on the Lord’s wisdom and unending love. What had Cousin Bertrand said in the lettre he had secretly left for her in Calais before he had gone away?

  Rachelle went over to her table and desk and rummaged through her drawer where she kept some special things meaningful to her, things she liked to read during a break from her work. There were verses copied down from the family Bible and some lettres. She found the one she wanted and skimmed Bertrand’s words until she came to where he had encouraged her with the story of Lazarus becoming sick and dying while the two distraught sisters, Mary and Martha, sent urgent word to the Lord to please come:

  “Come quickly, come now, Lord!

  Yet He told His disciples, ‘I am glad for your sakes that I was not there.’

  “And ma chère Rachelle, remember how the Lord permitted his disciples to pass into a great tempest of the sea . . . ‘and his disciples came to him, and awoke him, saying, Lord, save us: we perish. And he saith unto them, Why are you fearful, O ye of little faith?’

  “And remember, ma chère, the apostle Paul went hungry, was shipwrecked, imprisoned, beaten, and stoned, yet he wrote: ‘Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us.’ He was persuaded that nothing that touches us when our pathway leads into a dark valley shall be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus.”

  Entrapments

  FONTAINEBLEAU

  DATHERINE DE MEDICI WAITED RESTLESSLY INSIDE HER STATE CHAMBERS at Fontainebleau for her spy Madalenna to return from the errand given her earlier that day. Catherine’s mind, like a restless bird soaring to and fro and unable to find a perch of rest, mulled over one more time how the duc and the cardinal were meddling with the Valois throne of France.

  The chamber, haunted by the remnants of past kings and with gold and blue frescoes and silk and brocade draperies of gold, was now occupied by the Queen Mother, who paced incessantly on the ivory carpet of crimson floral, her stiff black gown and her coif in contrast.

  That accursed family! For too long the Guises had plagued her life. She despised them. The-righteous duc! The lecherous hypocritical cardinal! If only I dare poison them.

  She felt a small shiver run through her. She dare not use poison again. There were whispers . . . She must avoid being recognized during her walks near the wharves to her secret apothecaries, the Ruggerio brothers, from Florence.

  Catherine often disguised herself, and when in Paris, would leave her appartements in the Louvre by a secret way and walk to their shop on the wharf. She enjoyed being in disguise, and afterward would loiter in the marketplace to hear what the Parisians were saying about the Queen Mother. She took perverse enjoyment in this secrecy as she also did in her listening devices at Court. “That Italian woman,” the Parisians called her, “the foreigner.” It was clear they did not think well of her. But the Duc de Guise, ah, the wondrous le Balafrey, as they called him! Their brave military general and hero. Some even said that if Francis was King of France, then the Duc de Guise was King of Paris.

  No. She dare not attempt using poison on either the duc or the cardinal lest she be suspected. There must be some other way. An assassin, yes. And how Machiavellian to have the assassination blamed on some irate Huguenot. She chuckled. Ah, yes, her time would come. She must have patience. And if not a hapless Huguenot, then perhaps the formidable Marquis Fabien de Vendôme?

  She began her rapid pacing as her thoughts jumped to the problem at hand.

  Upon successfully eliminating the Huguenots at Amboise, the duc and the cardinal had convinced her son Francis to summon the Bourbon princes of the blood, Louis de Condé and his brother, Antoine, the King of Navarre, here to Fontainebleau to answer for the Amboise rebellion of March.

  Catherine sealed her lips tightly. This was a bold and audacious move on the part of the Guises against royal blood. Foolish Francis could not see that Mary’s oncles were using him to strengthen their own hold on the throne!

  She was going to need all of her subtlety in the weeks and months ahead to counter the intrigue the Guises were weaving to gain control of France. If they were successful in removing the Bourbons, who were next in line for the throne after the Valois, what would be their next move? Le duc was even now scheming to have his son, Henry de Guise, marry her daughter, Princesse Marguerite.

  I will not allow it. If there is to be no marriage with Spain — then there will be one with Henry of Navarre!

  Her lip twitched involuntarily. Not that she cared about the Huguenots, but without her little Huguenots at Court, there would be practically nothing to keep the Guises from storming the palais and seizing the throne.

  She drummed her fin
gers along the top of the tallboy. How to prevent the duc and the cardinal from ruling France through her inane son Francis and his wife — that Mary Stuart? Catherine sneered at the thought of Mary’s coquettish ways. What an error to have ever allowed Francis to take the niece of the Guises for his queen. Did I not have the foresight to oppose it? Ah, but Henry, my husband, insisted because of his lust for Diane de Poitiers. Poitiers, that witch! I would have poisoned her if I could have gotten by with it, but Henry would have suspected. He knew enough to blame me secretly for the death of his brother, the dauphin. It was Poitiers who had wanted Francis to take Mary as his queen, and Henry had done as his aged mistress desired.

  Catherine thought of her rival, Diane, whom she had tolerated for twenty years until Henry was killed in the joust. Afterward she had gotten even for the woman’s disrespect to her all those years.

  And I will rid myself of Mary Stuart as well.

  Ah, that would demand all of her wit as a student of Machiavelli, the protégé of Lorenzo de Medici, her father, back in her youth in Florence, Italy. Machiavelli had written:

  A prudent Prince cannot and ought not to keep his word, except when he can do it without injury to himself; or when the circumstances under which he contracted the engagement still exist. It is necessary, however, to disguise the appearance of craft and to thoroughly understand the art of feigning or dissembling; for men are generally so simple and weak that he who wishes to deceive, easily finds dupes.

  Catherine nodded. She had learned her political lessons in the de Medici palace in Florence — and in her oncle Clement’s Vatican.

  She had duped them all here in France, playing the Huguenots against the Guises, and the Guises against the Huguenots for as long as it served her purpose.

  She heard the pattering of footsteps and turned. It was the Italian girl she had taken with her from Florence when Catherine’s uncle, Pope Clement, brought her to France in his own papal ship to marry Henry Valois. Madalenna was her slave, just as the dwarves she kept.

  Madalenna’s dark eyes, seemingly empty, stared at her.

  Catherine frowned impatiently. Sometimes the girl seemed deaf and dumb! “Well? Have you anything to report?”

  “Oui, Madame. La Reinette Mary is on her way to see her oncle, Duc de Guise, in his private chambers.”

  “Is she! Ah! The petite fleur! And is she belle and sprightly in her chère petite ways to bring a smile to her scheming oncle’s face?”

  Catherine curled her lip.

  “She seemed well, Madame.”

  “Saints be praised. And what of our even more saintly cardinal? Is he at his most devoted prayers, or waiting with le duc to scheme against me and my royal house?” Her voice ascended in anger.

  Madalenna moistened her lips. “Le cardinal waits with le duc, Madame. They both await Reinette Mary.”

  “Go, then. Continue to watch. I want to know immediately if anyone enters the private chambers of my son, the king.”

  “Oui, Madame!”

  As soon as Madalenna left, Catherine walked through her bedchamber with the gold initials C M emblazoned on the wall. She entered her private closet and unlocked a small, secret compartment. So, Mary is on her way to see her two oncles.

  Disguised listening tubes had been installed in the compartment through the ingenuity of Rene and the Ruggerio brothers. She had used this mode of spying for years and had even managed to spy on her husband, King Henry II, when he was in the company of his mistress, Diane. Catherine patiently brought her ear near the tube for Duc de Guise’s chamber. She did not need to wait long before his voice could be heard —

  “Ah ma chère Mary, the king’s summons has been delivered to Antoine de Bourbon in Navarre.”

  “Will Antoine come, Oncle?”

  “He will have no choice. He must come and bring Louis with him, or stand in rebellion against the king.”

  “What should Francis do, mon oncle?” came Mary’s soprano voice.

  Catherine ground her teeth under her breath. Do? Do? I will tell you what a king would do. He would not permit your oncles to rule him through you!

  The Duc de Guise spoke: “The House of Bourbon . . . a danger to our house . . . they must be removed . . .”

  His voice lowered, and though Catherine slowed her breathing, straining to catch his syllables, the conversation was garbled.

  Catherine listened in a trance. Then she heard the words that most filled her with hatred.

  “And what shall I do, continue to spy on Catherine?” Mary asked.

  “Yes, watch her. Report back to me her movements. She cannot be trusted. She is too friendly with the Huguenot Admiral Coligny and the Bourbons.”

  The voices faded as they must have moved across the chamber. A moment later Catherine replaced the plug on the listening tube and closed the secret compartment. She stood in chilled silence. Too friendly with the Huguenots, was she? What did that fool Guise know about what she was doing? She was merely leading them on for the appropriate final kill! We shall also see about our little Bourbons Louis and Antoine! So they needed to be removed? We shall see, my fine arrogant Duc de Guise!

  Catherine sat down at her desk and wrote a brief message to Sebastien to come to Fontainebleau.

  AHANDSOME COACH-AND-FOUR RATTLED along at a fast clip across wet cobbled streets on a gray twilight evening traveling away from Paris and the Louvre, far away from the infamous Bastille where Sebastien had been recently imprisoned; away from its putrefying stench, from its pain and human suffering. Forward! Onward toward Fontainebleau château-palais in Orléans. Make haste, for the Queen Mother has called for you, race past the king’s royal forest for hunting his stags — past the gardens and trees, see the gray doves fleeing safely to the hills. Ah, do not look back, Sebastien, do not remember your months in the dungeon and underground torture chamber. One faux pas and you will be taken there yet again. Watch your step when you are at Court, keep your facial expression submissive and benign, do not let them guess how you plan your escape from France with Madeleine and Joan.

  He grasped hold of his emotions. His frenzied mind pointed ahead:there — you see it at last. Fontainebleau, palais of French kings and queens. Ah, how the massive structure gazes out upon the less fortunate in complacent satisfaction, like Mother Babylon boasting to her foes: “I sit a queen and am no widow. I shall never see sorrow.”

  Comte Sebastien’s elegant attire, his elaborately equipped coach, his uniformed footmen and pages, including his newest page in training, his neveu, Andelot, all announced him as a nobleman of prestige and authority as his entourage swept past the villagers on the country road leading away from Paris.

  And so he was, at least outwardly.

  I am Comte Sebastien Dangeau, a member of the privy council to the Queen Mother, Catherine de Medici, he repeated to himself, trying to subdue his trembling, but the reminder of his freedom did little to strengthen his bones. He scoffed at the noble impression he was making on the poverty-burdened serfs and shopkeepers eyeing him as some great one as he drove past.

  I am powerless, and I know it. His weakness reached down to the deepest crevices of his soul.

  His useable hand trembled; his crushed hand felt pain anew, but he knew the suffering was mostly in his mind. Though it had been over two months, lingering images jabbed their fiery pitchforks into his mind.

  Fontainebleau, fifty kilometers from Paris, was looming closer, the door to his luxuriant chambers would soon open to him like a lover’s embrace. “Come out of the stormy persecution. Are you not a courtier of renown once again?”

  Fontainebleau, isolated in the pleasant countryside of Orléans, with its old oaks and pine trees, with the river Seine nearby and the moonlight reflecting on its waters, was a hunting lodge, a château, and a palais. But among the stately forest trees, the trill of birds, and the innocent eyes of the doe — there were also loathsome dungeons where the condemned were kept without hope. Sebastien felt his heart quicken in nervous fear. No matter how he str
uggled to overcome these emotions, they returned to haunt him.

  His fellow Huguenots had met such horrifying deaths back in March at Amboise. He shook his head. They were dreadfully forsaken, though not of Christ. Even in their sufferings, they had called out, saying His Presence was near.

  I need to depend on Christ more. When this fear overtakes me, I must remember Him. He is there to help, as Madeleine reminds me.

  The sudden unbidden tears springing from Sebastien’s eyes surprised and angered him. Men were not to show such emotion. The salty drops poured down his cheeks. He brushed them away in a gesture of self-loathing, feeling his rough skin with deep creases. He shut his eyes and pulled his pristine handkerchief from beneath the lacy cuff of his blue and burgundy coat.

  His conscience flogged him yet again: I am a coward. I surrendered to the inquisitor’s wishes while better Huguenots than I died in faithfulness to Christ.

  The carriage lurched in a sporadic gust. Twilight settled, making the coach darker. From outside, he heard his smartly uniformed coachman shout at the peasants to scatter. They always gathered outside the gates of the royal residences seeking coins. Sebastien heard the long whip hiss and snap several times, clearing a path.

  His thoughts continued to race along with the drumming hooves.

  He moistened his dry lips.

  He knew he would never recover from his injuries. The pain in his twisted knee relentlessly taunted, Remember the Bastille? You may be taken there again. The dungeon waits if you refuse to comply.