Written on Silk

by Linda Lee Chaikin

  Antoine must have heard the disturbance, for he appeared, wearing a twisted look of shock. She kept her cool distance.

  “Your Majesty, I beg to be Louis’ guard,” Antoine cried. “There is no need for the dungeon. We have come freely, and freely we will stay until our reputations are cleared of this wicked lie of treason hurled against us.”

  She need not reply, for she was not ready to move on her private plans as yet. Duc de Guise and the cardinal, who had also entered her private chamber, looked triumphant.

  They think matters have gone as they have planned, and they are very smug.

  King Francis mustered a stern royal expression while he stood beside the cardinal. But even then it was the duc who spoke for him.

  “Your brother, Louis, is under arrest,” the duc told Antoine coldly. “He is thoroughly implicated in the rebellion at Amboise against the king. He will stand trial, and if found guilty, will be condemned to die.”

  Ah yes, you are most anxious for his death, are you not? His removal puts you closer to the throne.

  Antoine too was under arrest but was at liberty to wander the corridors and gardens. Catherine had her reasons for leaving him here at Fontainebleau where, on secret occasions away from Duc de Guise, she might walk with Antoine alone. Sometimes a serpent did not wish to kill its victim, but keep it alive as needed.

  ASHORT TIME AFTER Prince Condé was arrested for treason, Catherine quietly made the decision to have him taken from the Orléans prison at Fontainebleau and moved by night to the more secure dungeons of Amboise. Her reason for doing so was due to a whisper that reached her by way of Madalenna that the Guise faction was plotting to have Condé assassinated in the dungeon before the trial, rather than risk his being declared innocent and set free. This proved their true goal: to remove the Bourbons in order to strengthen their own rights to the throne. This would put her position at risk. Francis was getting older, and Mary would come into maturity and reign as Queen of France. Where would that leave her as the Queen Mother? Mary did not like her. She never had, even when Mary was a spoiled schoolgirl under tutorage in the palais when Catherine’s husband was alive as king. And Mary would still be dominated by the cardinal. And my son, Francis, is moving from me, trusting me less by the day as Mary and her oncles fill his mind with treachery against me . . . Ah yes, I know.

  No, the petit galant Prince Louis Condé must be kept sealed within the dungeon away from assassin’s plots.

  If anyone shall devise an assassin’s plot, it will be my sovereign right for the gloire de la France!

  Catherine made many visits to see him, oftentimes ordering a stool brought in for her to sit and converse with him pleasantly for an hour or so. She took pleasure in whispering promises to him that he would live.

  On a certain afternoon not long after one such visit with Condé, Catherine sat in her royal bedchamber at Fontainebleau looking over the correspondence brought to her on a gold laver by her chamberlain. While she enjoyed melons from the garden, one of her favorite foods, she leafed through the envelopes from far and near, and came upon a lettre sent to her by Sebastien’s inane sister, Comtesse Francoise Dangeau- Beauvilliers, the doting mère of the conniving Maurice Beauvilliers.

  Now what could this fluttering woman want from her?

  Catherine read the lettre with contempt. Once again the comtesse was flattering Catherine and begging help for her son.

  How many pleas for favors of one kind or another had there been through the years? The woman was wearisome with all her schemes to promote Maurice to a high position at Court. Catherine mused that she might arrange to promote Maurice if she thought she could use him. He was easily bought, and she would have little trouble training him as her petit monkey on a chain. Would Maurice be a bon assassin?

  No. Maurice was undisciplined and would easily talk under threat of torture and incriminate her. She best remain committed to her plan of using Marquis Fabien to rid her of the Duc de Guise. If only she could lure him back to Court. Fie! He had slipped out of France before she could snag him to her cause. And where was he now? Sinking Spanish galleons! Ah yes, she knew. And perhaps I could offer him “protection” from the wrath of Spain in return for his cooperation in the elimination of the Guise plague.

  In the lettre, Francoise wept over her poor petit Maurice who was stricken in amour over the belle Mademoiselle Rachelle Macquinet. He had even taken to his sick bed, pining for her presence. Ah, but her son would not eat, nor could all the chère mademoiselles in or out of Court console his woeful heart. She feared her son might waste away to nothing, so aggrieved was he. Therefore it was her prayer that Her Majesty, the bonne Queen Mother, would aid her in solving her dilemma.

  The comtesse had first appealed to Princesse Marguerite to recall Mademoiselle Rachelle to Court, but while the princesse had been sympathetic, she affirmed that Rachelle was home with her family at the Château de Silk in mourning over the death of her grandmère and her petite sister. But now, Comtesse Francoise affirmed, Princesse Marguerite was concerned about her wardrobe for the upcoming journey to Spain and was anxious for Rachelle’s return. So would the Queen Mother appoint Comte Maurice to escort Mademoiselle Rachelle to Paris?

  Catherine hardened her lips. What effrontery this woman had! She sneered and tossed the lettre aside.

  Her eye caught the particular lettre she was waiting for, from her personal spy, Monsieur d’Alencome, the French Ambassador to the English court of Queen Elizabeth.

  Catherine, who always carried a personal dagger on her person as a caution against assassins, used the gold-handled knife to open the seal. She read:

  Your Majesty,

  In regard to your last lettre, I have now received confirmation from a lofty source on the subject of which you recently inquired as to its accuracy. I am told by a personage of grand position who is near the English queen that Marquis de Vendôme’s ship, Reprisal, is due to anchor at Portsmouth to take on supplies before voyaging on to Florida within the next two weeks — even one Fort Caroline as founded by the Huguenot Admiral Coligny. The information I have received confirms that le marquis will journey from Portsmouth here to St. James Palace with some of the queen’s privateers who are to be commended for sinking the war galleons of Duc d’Alva near the Netherlands.

  Awaiting your further instuctions.

  Your servant for la gloire de la France,

  Monsieur Ronsard d’Alencome,

  French Ambassador to the English Court

  Catherine tapped her finger against the side of her temple as she leaned back in her gilded royal chair. Her mind schemed. She had intended to gain the ser vice of the marquis, but her women of the escadron volante had utterly failed her in this matter. She had grown so impatient with Madame Charlotte de Presney that she had dismissed her from Court upon learning that the marquis had slipped through her clutches and left France. The last she had heard of Charlotte, she was at her husband’s estate, soon to have a child.

  Ah, but la belle des belles, Rachelle Macquinet. Maurice was not the only monsieur interested in her charms. Catherine had seen the fire in Fabien’s eyes when he looked at the daughter of silk.

  Catherine smiled as a cunning thought filled her mind. Ah yes. There was a way to use this passion for her purposes.

  She looked over at the missive that the Spanish ambassador, Chantonnay, had flaunted before her earlier that morning. He had told her with self-righteous glee in his dark eyes that the Duc d’Alva himself was on his way from the Netherlands to see her over the sinking of his galleons.

  Alva! That incorrigible iron-booted commander! When Alva arrived, he would show his scorn with such veiled threats, that she would have to assure him of her deepest loyalty to Spain and its wise and religious King Philip. Alva would behave aggrieved. Ah yes, he would tell her that his morbid, sullen master of Spain might be forced to invade France and depose the House of Valois and replace it with the House of Guise if she did not urge her son, the king, to move with greater strength ag
ainst France’s heretics.

  Ah! If I did not need that audacious beau marquis, I would dispose of him in a moment!

  She snatched up Duc d’Alva’s missive and crumpled it into a wad. He demanded her son, the king, send Duc de Guise to destroy the French privateers joining forces with the English queen’s heretic corsairs. But he wanted Marquis de Vendôme alive and transported to Madrid.

  Her lip curled downward. Ah yes, King Philip would assuredly think up some horrific treatment for the marquis. But that must not happen; he was too useful to her.

  It would not be a light thing to excuse the marquis’s buccaneering ventures. Spain was also angry that the Huguenot Admiral Coligny and Queen Jeanne d’Albret of Navarre, defenders of the Huguenot middle class, walked freely. Rome, too, wanted them put to death.

  But now was not the time to move against the stalwart admiral. At present she needed the Huguenots.

  If they want Coligny and Jeanne’s heretical heads on the religious platter, they would need to arrange for her daughter Marguerite to marry the chief son of King Philip. She would make this clear to Philip’s emissary when she went to Spain next year.

  At present, Catherine’s main interest was in securing her rule and the rule of the Valois sons, and that meant the meddling of Duc de Guise must end.

  She threw the wadded missive from Duc d’Alva into the hearth. How her hand itched to use poison against this most feared and hated enemy.

  And yet she could not risk using poison again so soon, or could she? She must go to Paris and visit the Ruggerio brothers. Perchance they now had what Cosmo long promised her, a new poison that left no trace.

  She paced.

  The various parts of her plan were here before her — and would bring the primacy she craved — if she could merely arrange them in the right order. Patience and time were needed, she had little of either. Under the present circumstances it would be difficult to bring Marquis Fabien back to Court. And she must not threaten him. Not yet.

  Marriage.

  Quite suddenly, Catherine laughed gustily. She pushed her kerchief to her mouth to silence her amusement, her shoulders shaking.

  Francoise’s lettre was not to be scorned after all. The request that her son, Maurice, marry Rachelle may hold the means by which to bring the marquis back to France, and to his knees, whereupon his hope of survival would depend upon his secret ser vice in the matter of the Duc de Guise. If any cause would bring him to her in submission, it would be the threat of losing Rachelle in marriage, or even a possible arrest for heresy and the fiery stake . . . Yes, bien sûr! Oh why had she not thought of this sooner?

  Catherine went quickly to her writing closet and dipped her golden quill into the inkwell.

  First she wrote her summons to Rachelle. She must come at once, bring all her silk equipage, and begin Marguerite’s wardrobe for use in Spain next year. Sebastien’s neveu, Comte Maurice Beauvilliers, would be sent by Catherine to escort her here safely.

  She would not yet tell Rachelle about the threat of marriage to Maurice. This would only upset the Macquinet family. She could easily tell them it was the right of the king to arrange Rachelle’s marriage, and none could intervene. But why make problems now? It was sufficient that Marquis Fabien and Comte Maurice both knew.

  Next, she wrote a missive to Comte Sebastien ordering him to see that her wishes in regard to Rachelle were carried out without delay. Then she wrote Marguerite:

  My daughter, I know how much you want the Macquinet couturière, Rachelle, to set her full attention to your wardrobe for our upcoming journey to Spain. I am sending a summons to Comte Sebastien, through his neveu Maurice Beauvilliers, to arrange for Rachelle’s journey from Lyon to Fontainebleau.

  Catherine struck the gong. Almost immediately Madalenna appeared.

  “See that these missives are delivered tout de suite.”

  “Oui, Madame.”

  After Madalenna left, Catherine again dipped her quill into the inkwell and wrote a lettre to another of her daughters, Elisabeth, the Queen of Spain, to let her know that she and Marguerite intended to visit her in the future.

  Give my most honoré greeting to my son-in-law, His most Christian Majesty, King Philip , she concluded. Her lip curled with secret malice. That carnivorous reptile, she thought.

  I would enjoy seeing the look on the marquis’ handsome face when he learns that the Macquinet belle des belles may be given in marriage to Comte Maurice Beauvilliers.

  Far Horizons

  CHTEAU DE SILK

  THE SWEET ESSENCE OF LATE-BLOOMING FLOWERS DRIFTED UPON THE MIDafternoon breezes as Rachelle walked through the mûreraie orchard on her way to the silkworm hatcheries. Red-breasted birds were trilling in chestnut trees lining the path of rich brown loam beneath her slippered feet. Her fine-woven linen dress of cool blue cotton billowed softly.

  The workers were on ladders, men, women, and girls, pulling leaves from the white mulberry trees and placing them in large softly woven baskets dangling from branches, to be carried to warehouses where other workers chopped them for the silk larvae.

  When she neared the outbuildings she saw Arnaut with Madame Clair near the “nurseries” where the larvae were hatched. Inside the buildings the “silkworm mothers” were spoon-feeding the chopped leaves to the larvae. There were many thousands of pastel-hued silkworm cocoons that filled the tiny dry cubicles set in wooden frames.

  Most of the cocoons would not be permitted to hatch, since emerging moths would damage the cocoons that provided the unbroken filament for the finest silk thread. To transform the cocoons into silk, they were soaked in hot water to release the sticky sericin, or roasted, and then spread out to dry. Other workers were in the delicate process of unwinding the cocoons. The individual silk thread was so fine, that as many as a dozen cocoons were needed, sticking them together to form one long thread and wound together, to fill each reel. From there it was taken to the weavers’ huts with special looms and woven or knitted into a variety of textures and designs. The dying and tinting was an art in itself.

  Madame Clair was sitting in an open calèche, in discussion with Arnaut, when Rachelle joined them.

  “It will not be an easy operation to accomplish, for the ship must sail at the right time, while the eggs are in incubation. If they hatch before we arrive at Canterbury, the larvae will die without enough of the right mulberry leaves. Then there is the trip by wagons to Spitalfields from London. Hudson assures me there is land to buy outside London that will make a very nice plantation for sericulture.”

  Clair frowned. “This will be difficult, and you will be gone for several months at least, and with Idelette . . . I do not see how I can possibly go with you as you wish.”

  “Idelette insists she is in fine stead for the journey. Many a woman has taken a voyage while enceinte.”

  Rachelle had heard all this before. She was aware that her père was considering the preparation of a shipment of mulberry tree cuttings, silkworms, and eggs to take to London. He was also concerned about the growing persecution in France, and he felt an urgency to build a stronger alliance with Cousin Bertrand at Spitalfields.

  “We cannot transport the château de Silk to England,” Clair said wearily. “We do not even know if our tree cuttings and the silkworms will thrive in England’s weather.”

  “That is what concerns me most.” He looked thoughtfully around them at the beloved estate, and Rachelle felt a pang as she saw the sadness in his face.

  “If we should ever be forced to leave Lyon . . .”

  “It will never be the same, Arnaut. The château is our family’s lifeblood.”

  “True enough, but we must plan for the worst, Clair. The day may come when we will be forced to seek safety, at least for a time,” he said when her face bore grief as she looked back toward the white château.

  “We were all born here,” she said, “and to leave with naught but cuttings and some larvae is most dismaying.”

  “It may not come to anything th
at drastic yet, mon amour. It is a precaution. After what happened to Avril and Idelette, and then Sebastien — I would be unwise if I did not take heed of Bertrand’s suggestion to gain land in England.”

  “What does Bertrand think of England’s climate?” Clair asked dubiously. “So much fog, and the cold.”

  “Spitalfields is a small, but growing weavers’ center, but England has much farmland where the mulberry trees may flourish. We must try.”

  Rachelle kept her peace. Arnaut must indeed be troubled about the future if he was thinking of moving the growth and harvesting of silk cocoons to England. What did this mean for the family?

  “Bertrand has mentioned Admiral Coligny’s colony in Florida,” Arnaut said thoughtfully. “Bonne climate, to be sure. But such a voyage would be a great endeavor, and we could not be certain of success. If I left on such a journey, I would be gone for over year.”

  “How would you keep the silkworms alive?”

  Arnaut sighed and shook his head. “It could be done, but it would be most difficult.”

  At the mention of Florida, Rachelle became alert. “Admiral Coligny has tried to start several colonies in the Americas. The marquis spoke of them to Bertrand when he was here.”

  Rachelle felt her père’s alert gaze.

  Her tone indifferent, she said, “I believe there was also a colony somewhere in the Caribbean, or was it the West Indies?”

  “Excellent climates, I hear. There is no ice or snow in Florida or the West Indies.” He lapsed into thoughtful silence, staring off into the distance as though he could see these faraway lands.

  An uncomfortable expression crossed her mère’s fair face. “But so very far away, Arnaut,” she said in a tired voice. “It is across the world, is it not?”

  Arnaut smiled at her gently. “England is closer, and their queen accepts Huguenots.”