by Rozsa Gaston
“You may not touch her,” the woman finally said. “Just a peek. Then be on your way.”
“Of course not. I will just do the king’s bidding.” God forbid that it got back to the king that she had spun this tale. She sucked in her breath, thinking of the trouble she would be in.
A knock came at the door. The nurse looked uncertainly at Nicole then went to answer it.
Quickly, Nicole moved to the side of the crib. Bending over she peered into the babe’s crib.
“What is that girl doing in here?” a voice angrily exclaimed from the doorway.
“She said the king sent her,” the nurse replied.
“I have just seen the king. Get her out of here!” The lady-in-waiting who had been guarding the door had returned.
Nicole felt the nurse’s meaty hand on her arm.
“Go now. The princess sleeps and mustn’t be disturbed.” Firmly, the nurse dragged Nicole away from the crib and toward the door. As they passed the lady-in-waiting, she reached out and slapped Nicole’s face.
“I told you to guard the door, not enter the room.”
“My lady, I thought you meant to guard the door from the inside.” The sting distracted her from what she had just seen. It almost felt good to hurt on the outside the way she did on the inside.
“You thought no such thing, cheeky girl. Go!” The noblewoman slammed shut the door behind her.
On the other side, Nicole quickly exited the queen’s chambers before Madame de Laval could catch sight of her and discover what she had been up to.
It wasn’t before she had escaped to the herb garden outside the kitchen that she was able to sit down on a bench and consider the tiny creature she had just viewed in her crib.
The princess had been very small. Her face had been almost as white as the linens against which she lay. Her eyes had been shut, her eyelids translucent. She had almost looked like a doll, but for one point: her face had been wizened. Nicole’s heart caught to think of it.
She knew almost nothing about newborn infants. But from what she understood from bits and pieces of conversation she’d overheard from the married ladies, babies were supposed to be noisy, sucking, red-faced creatures. Perhaps the little princess had just looked so fragile and pale because she was asleep. She shuddered, thinking of the other possibility. Perhaps the queen’s daughter had arrived in this world much too soon.
By vespers, the chapel bells still had not rung in honor of the princess’s birth; nor by complines, the hour when the royal household usually retired for the day.
Nicole couldn’t sleep. She needed to help her queen and if possible, the infant princess, although she had no idea how. To begin, she returned to the chapel after complines, and prayed.
Then she made her way to the queen’s doors, but was shooed away. Down in the kitchen, there was more activity at that hour than usual with women gliding by, their expressions worried, their mouths grim-set.
Nicole sat at the kitchen table, fingering her rosary beads. As she did, she felt her eyes close.
“Go to bed, my lady, “Cook’s voice jolted her awake. “There is nothing more to be done here. You will be of more use tomorrow if you have slept,” she told her. She motioned for Nicole to drink from the mug she’d put in front of her. “To help you sleep,” she explained.
Obediently, Nicole drained the mug then got up and slowly climbed the stairs to her chambers. On her way, she passed several female members of the queen’s household, all silent, some of them holding their rosary beads as they passed. None made eye contact with her.
As she drifted off to sleep, she prayed to God to protect the little princess. And to protect her queen who had borne so many losses at such a young age. Then she fell into a sound sleep and didn’t dream at all.
The next day, Nicole awoke with joy in her heart at the princess’s arrival and with it the start of spring. What time of year could be more propitious for a new life to enter the world? She pulled on her clothes and hurried down to the kitchen to hear how the queen and babe were faring. As she entered, she smiled at the noblewoman leaving, but her senior peer did not smile back.
Nicole’s heart froze. With it, her mouth formed itself into the tight neutral line she had seen on the faces of the women attending the queen after her delivery the day before.
Cook came over and hugged her. Her embrace was unexpected. When she released her and stepped back, her face told her everything. The gruff but kind Breton woman was not one to remain silent. If even she was at a loss for words, then surely what words were to come were not ones anyone wished to speak or hear.
Nicole gasped. “The babe?”
Cook shook her head, her mouth a tight line.
“But she was well-formed, wasn’t she?” She thought back to the babe’s wizened face and Madame de Laval’s silence, when she had asked her the same question. Other courtiers had said the babe was well-formed, but it was something courtiers said because it was what their sovereigns wanted to hear.
Cook continued to shake her head. “She came too soon.”
“Oh, God, what happened?”
“What usually happens to babes who arrive before they are due.” Cook crossed herself.
“Dear God, dear queen, dear princess. . .” Nicole felt as if her heart was breaking. How could it go so badly for the queen time after time? “What happened?” she asked again.
“The babe wouldn’t suck. She drifted off to sleep before midnight, and when the nurse checked her awhile later, she was gone for good, flown home to Heaven.”
“Oh, God.” Nicole couldn’t bear it. One minute here, the next gone forever. “How is the queen?”
Cook closed her eyes. “As you might imagine.”
“What can I do for her?” Nicole’s voice came out in a wail.
“You can take this hot drink to her.”
Nicole reached for it and turned to go, but Cook laid her hand on her arm and stopped her.
“You are young, my lady.”
“I’ve seen plenty,” Nicole replied. Now she had.
“You love her, don’t you?” Cook’s face was tender.
“I love her like no other,” Nicole said fiercely. “No one is as noble as she.”
“I know. So here’s my advice when you see her.” Cook stopped a moment and thought, her eyes faraway. They were remote; the eyes of a woman, not of a girl. “Don’t say anything. Don’t show a sad face. Whatever look is on her face, wear it, too. In such a way you will comfort her.”
“Cook, you would make a good courtier.”
Cook made a snorting noise and crossed her arms in front of her. “God saved me from such a false profession. I’d rather make real food to fill real stomachs.”
“Do you say my job is not important?” Nicole pulled herself up, staring down Cook.
“I say, my lady, that some were born to serve and others were born to serve those who serve.”
“And the king and queen?”
“The king and queen serve us all.” Cook crossed herself. “But you must be strong for her now. She can’t show sorrow and you mustn’t remind her of it. Do you understand?”
“I understand.” Nicole gave Cook a small smile. “Your words are as wise as your soups are delicious.” She needed to patch things up fast. Although her station was above Cook’s, it wasn’t entirely secure. If she didn’t marry into the nobility, her own half-noble roots would fall back into her father’s merchant status with her mother gone. Cook was the closest thing she had to a mother; she couldn’t afford to lose her love.
“Soon the queen will enjoy my soups again,” Cook said. “But today, let her grieve, and do not look her in the face. Just give her this.”
Nicole wondered at the strange line of her mouth she felt on her own face. It was a different configuration than the one she had worn waking up that morning: tighter, more tempered by worldly woe. The events of the past twenty-four hours had changed her. She would serve her queen by bearing her sorrows with her, while putting a g
ood face on it. As much as she felt useless to help the queen, she knew it was important to support her. Perhaps if there was a next time, Nicole could do more to ensure that the queen’s newborn lived.
On that inauspicious first day of spring, Anne of Brittany, Queen of France, did not appear. No one expected her to. Before anyone could ask where the king was, it was announced that he had gone out hunting. Not a good time for him to put on a good face either. The Princess Anne had been his first daughter born alive. She would be his last.
In the days that followed, the weather slowly warmed until finally the doors to the queen’s chambers opened again, the windows were unshuttered, and the sounds of early spring made their way into the royal rooms, along with Nicole.
Back to massaging her sovereign’s face and helping smooth her petite figure back into place, Nicole wore a new, more careful expression around the woman she admired most. Reflecting her sovereign’s composure, she worked quietly and told herself there would be another chance for the still-young queen: another live birth, and, hopefully with it, a child that lived beyond a day. With spring’s unfolding, Nicole reasoned, the queen’s misfortune could not possibly get worse.
Except that it did.
After twenty days of mourning, the queen emerged on the Saturday afternoon before Palm Sunday to accompany the king to a tennis tournament. In a hurry, and not wanting to bump into too many sets of sorrowful eyes and whispered asides, they took a discreet route to the courts, using the corridors through the underground cellars to make their way to the tennis grounds.
Nicole watched as they slipped through the cellar door from the kitchen, her heart full to see them on their way to spend an afternoon together. Both were still young, the king twenty-eight, the queen twenty-one. Hope would return, Nicole thought, watching the king put his hand on the small of the queen’s back. If the afternoon’s entertainment proved enjoyable enough, perhaps a seed would be planted that very night.
Soon after they left, a messenger arrived, requesting the king’s physician to come immediately. Someone had hurt himself on the tennis grounds. Nicole turned to Madame de Laval to ask why it was the king’s physician and not a lesser one being asked to attend.
“I don’t know, Nicole. I don’t know, but we shall soon find out.” Madame crossed herself as her handsome face settled into the same worried lines Nicole had seen on it the day the princess had died.
The afternoon passed uneventfully until the sky streaked with pale rose and blue, then deepened into indigo and purple.
Nicole shuddered as she sat with Marie de Volonté on the bench in the herb garden after supping in the kitchen. Something about those crepuscular shades seemed somber that evening. Perhaps it was residual grief from the passing of the newborn princess.
“Why is the queen not back yet?” Marie de Volonté asked. “The games must surely be over.” She looked pleadingly at Nicole, almost as if asking her to give an answer that involved no bad news. Marie was only just fifteen. She had seen too much already for one so young, with the recent loss of the queen’s daughter as well as the queen’s newborn son the summer before.
“I don’t know, Marie. Maybe they’re at a reception for the winners,” Nicole guessed. She was happy to think the king and queen were tarrying on their afternoon outing. Perhaps they were enjoying themselves for the first time since the death of their daughter.
“Then why was the court not invited?” Marie pressed.
“Who knows? Unless it’s because the king and queen don’t want the court all around them now while they heal from—from what has passed.”
Marie followed Nicole upstairs, where they readied themselves for bed. But as she tried to fall asleep, Nicole felt the same restless feeling she had felt the night the princess had died. Finally she drifted off.
From a deep, dreamless sleep she was awoken by voices in the courtyard. Men were shouting, barking orders as they carried someone into the outer courtyard. Peering out an upstairs inner window, she saw a form on a pallet being carried by four courtiers. She knew it must be someone important. Then she heard words that chilled her heart.
“Make way! Make way for the king!”
Frozen, she watched as the men struggled to mount the staircase with the pallet in hand. The figure upon it was indeed the king, but he lay motionless, his eyes shut. Feeling a small movement next to her, she turned and saw Marie de Volonté in her nightdress, staring down at the sight, her clear brown eyes wide with horror.
Quickly she hugged the younger girl to her.
“Don’t worry, little one. The king must have taken a fall. The doctors will take care of him,” she reassured her.
Marie de Volonté looked up at her with mournful eyes. “Do you think he lives?”
“Yes, little one. Of course,” Nicole told her, less certain than her words.
“As you thought the princess would live,” Marie said tearfully.
“Little one, what will be will be. It is not for you to worry.” She squeezed her sometimes-rival to her tightly. There were times to fight. There were times to comfort. This was a moment to comfort. Neither could bear the thought that the king might be in mortal danger.
Just before midnight, the bells of the chapel tolled. They rang slowly, letting members of the court and in the surrounding countryside know the news. Nicole and Marie de Volonté were already in the kitchen where they had heard already. Unable to sleep, they had dressed and slipped downstairs, where they had sat mute in one corner, ears perked, taking in the story of what had happened as various of the king’s men came into the kitchen for food and drink then left.
Charles VIII, King of France, was dead. On his way to the tennis courts, he had struck his head on a low-hanging lintel over one of the doorways in the underground passageway he and the queen had taken to avoid being seen. The force of the blow had knocked him out for a minute but he had recovered. They had continued on to the courts, where he had greeted his courtiers, made small talk, then fell to the ground unconscious. Never regaining consciousness, he succumbed an hour before midnight that same day.
For the next two days, the queen didn’t leave her rooms. Nicole heard in the kitchen that Anne of Brittany had refused all food, and was saying she wished to follow her lord and children to the grave. No one knew what to do or how to console her. In the space of three weeks, she had lost both her only living child and her husband. It was beyond unthinkable. Not yet fully recovered from the delivery and death of her daughter, the queen, in her bottomless grief, had no one to turn to as a peer. In the past, she had recovered from the deaths of each of her children with the help of her husband. But now it was the king himself, at the age of twenty-eight, who had followed his four sons and three daughters, three of them stillborn, to the grave. The date was April 7, 1498.
Within days, Charles VIII’s cousin, Louis, Duke d’Orléans, arrived at the Chateau d’Amboise to comfort the queen, make the necessary funeral arrangements, and secure his succession to the throne of France as closest male relative to the late king. Knowing Anne since her childhood, he was her only peer support as well.
Nicole had overheard Madame de Laval whisper to one of the other ladies that the Duke d’Orléans had offered to pay all expenses for the funeral of Charles VIII. Not only was the new king paying his respects to his predecessor, but he was providing practical support for Anne of Brittany, no longer queen upon the death of her husband. It was a generous gesture, one that immediately told the court that Louis d’Orléans wished to impress the late king’s widow, for reasons unclear.
Orders were given, and by Easter Sunday it was evident that the funeral of Charles VIII of France would be sumptuous indeed.
Soon a letter arrived by courier for Nicole. Her father and uncle would attend the king’s funeral and, at that time, would speak with her about plans for the summer ahead. The vague wording of the message informed her that a change might be in the works. Her intended, Gilles de St. Bonnet, had been the target of her father and uncle because
of his brother’s close connection with the late king. But with the Duke d’Orléans soon to be crowned Louis XII, King of France, would her male relatives wish to rethink their marriage plans for her?
Nicole’s insides tingled. There was nothing wrong with Gilles de St. Bonnet. But a change in prospective husbands would mean a reprieve from her wedding day. Perhaps fate would grant her another chance to see Philippe before that day closed in on her. After what she had seen with her own eyes regarding birth, she was in no rush to begin breeding. God alone knew what lay ahead for her on that score.
In the weeks that followed, Nicole tried not to show her high spirits at the thought that her father and uncle might have new plans in mind for her future. Her father was a good businessman, her uncle even better. She knew both were now evaluating the winds of change that blew across the court with the new king’s installation. She could only hope that whatever plans were being laid would take some time to come to fruition. Meanwhile, she would keep an ear to the ground and find out if Philippe de Bois was due back anytime soon.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Summer of
Uncertainty
Strolling down to the stables, Nicole peered ahead to see if Petard was in his paddock. The day was mild, with a pale blue sky overhead. A light breeze played with her headdress, and the birds chattering in the trees along her path seemed to be trying to tell her something. Looking at them more closely, she saw a mother bird feed food from her own mouth into her chick’s mouth. How sweetly the mother tended her child. Would that the man she might have her own child by one day be the man she loved to tend so closely.
Turning the final corner before the stables came in sight, Nicole spotted two men up ahead. One was middle-aged, the stable-yards manager. The other was older, and limped as he walked toward the paddock railing. Coming up behind them, she moved as silently as possible to catch their conversation before they became aware of her presence. It was a tactic she had learned at court. With every official word as studied as the expression one wore in front of others, the only way to learn any real news was to listen in on private conversations without making one’s presence known. That had been one of the side benefits of learning how to glide noiselessly when walking. It had been the queen herself who had taught Nicole that skill.