by Rozsa Gaston
“Can you not use your great power and influence as our queen and queen of the king’s heart to find a drop of noble blood somewhere in this man’s bloodline?” Nicole asked, with a confidence inspired by the woman who stood before her. Inside, she felt anything but calm, but she needed to use her head to appeal to the queen’s healthy ego.
Anne of Brittany, Queen of France, scrutinized her. Nicole sensed she was finally talking her sovereign’s language. The queen was businesslike in her approach to life, including love. The business of raising Philippe de Bois yet another step in the social order was a project she could sink her teeth into. And she owed Nicole. She had just said so herself.
“Your Majesty, you, above all others, know how to get things done,” Nicole continued, dropping her voice. She knew her sovereign. The queen took pride in her management skills, both over Brittany and in overseeing all manner of building and artistic projects, using Italian workmen and techniques that her first husband and then her second one had brought back from each of their Milanese and Neapolitan campaigns.
The queen also took pride in having won the hearts of both her husbands. Nicole knew how satisfying it was to feel that sort of power, even more exhilarating to occasionally exercise it. It was like flexing a muscle, or washing a man’s hair, feeling him helpless and vulnerable beneath one’s hands.
She trembled, thinking of Philippe.
“Above all others? Even the king?” The queen looked disapproving, but also slightly pleased. Perhaps more than slightly. The way she straightened her back told Nicole she felt at ease standing above all others, despite her diminutive size, as a woman born to rule should feel.
“Especially the king, Your Majesty. The king is king of us all, but you are the queen of the king.” Nicole looked directly into her queen’s eyes, willing her pride to swell at such a compliment. Anne of Brittany had practiced her charms on Charles VIII, and had fully succeeded in their effect on Louis XII. Everyone knew King Louis was besotted with his wife, even more so than the former king had been.
A moment passed. Then two. The queen’s eyes lifted to the magnificent tapestry on the wall of the woman with the unicorn then down again to Nicole.
“What do you see in this tapestry here?” she asked, surprising Nicole with her question. A smile played on her lips.
Nicole studied the tapestry before answering. She sensed her answer would decide whether the queen would help her or not.
The design showed a young noblewoman with flowing fair hair, holding a long blue pole with a banner attached in one hand and the horn of an elegant unicorn in the other. The unicorn looked up at the woman admiringly.
A thought flashed into Nicole’s head. The woman in the tapestry wasn’t her at all. It was the queen. Nicole had been the model who posed for the design. But it was the queen for whom the artist had created the tapestry, per her commission. For the first time, Nicole realized the inspiration for the scene depicted was the queen herself.
“Your Majesty, I see a woman who holds her kingdom in one hand and her king in the other,” Nicole answered boldly, hoping she was not overstepping herself by suggesting the queen held power over the king. All of France knew she did, but the queen might not wish to have this pointed out to her. Then again, she might. Have courage and be bold. Nichole stood tall and waited, holding fast to the phrase she had often heard her father use when toasting a new business venture with his brother.
The queen studied the tapestry, unspeaking. Then she turned, her face a smooth, marble mask. Finally, she broke into a smile, as if pleased with herself.
“Tell me, how is it that this Philippe de Bois has a name with a particle in it?” She referred to the ‘de’ that preceded ‘Bois.’ “Is it that he comes from a long line of woodsmen?” Anne of Brittany’s laugh trilled clear and high. It sounded like a silver bell, the sort that rang at the conclusion of a marriage ceremony.
Nicole thought quickly. The queen had cast her a line. She had no idea which of his ancestors had added the ‘de’ but undoubtedly it gave Philippe’s surname a noble ring. Adding a ‘de’ was a trick used by many a merchant family that aspired to the ranks of the nobility. It meant nothing except when the ‘de’ was there to indicate land ownership, the basis of anyone’s claim to noble roots.
“Your Majesty, it is possible that he comes from a line of landowners of some forests down South,” Nicole ad-libbed.
“Landed blood, perhaps?” The queen’s mouth twitched. She was either mocking her or deep in thought.
“Quite possibly, Your Majesty.” Nicole held her breath.
“If he was of noble stock, his parents would have made sure the world knew of it,” the queen observed.
“His parents are dead. He’s been orphaned since boyhood, looked after by Jeannot of Agen, who ran the stables down there.”
“Ahh, Jeannot of Agen, and, before that, of Nantes.” The queen’s face lit up. “He ran the stables for my father when I was a girl. He, too, was an orphan.”
“An orphan, Your Majesty. Think of it!” Nicole cried from her heart. How well the queen knew what it meant to be an orphan, she who had lost her mother at age nine, her father at age eleven, and her sister and only sibling, Isabeau, one year later.
“He was good with the horses, so my father favored him. After his parents died, he took him on as his ward,” the queen remarked, fingering the lower border of the tapestry.
“My queen, you know then what a good man Jeannot was. He looked out for Philippe, but there was only so much he could do.” Thank God he sent him to Amboise in his place so that we might meet.
“So there was no one to see to his interests when he was young, other than the stable-manager.” The queen looked thoughtful.
“Your Majesty, there was no one at all, other than your husband, good King Louis, who noticed Philippe’s talents in Milan and sent him to study medicine.” Nicole’s blood raced to think that the queen knew of Jeannot from childhood. It would warm her heart to protect the interests of his ward, just as Jeannot had been a ward of her own father, Duke Francis of Brittany.
“So my husband set him up for a profession,” the queen mused. A puzzle had been handed her; she loved puzzles, but only ones worth working on. Had Nicole convinced her that this one was?
“As you can set him up for a social position,” Nicole added.
“I told you before, I cannot change water into wine,” the queen parried. The crease in her forehead told Nicole she was deep in thought.
Nicole took a long breath. This was her last chance. “Your Majesty, in this case, you may find wine in the flask already,” she said, keeping her voice low but clear. As a good courtier, she would suggest, then let her sovereign lead.
“Might I?” The queen fingered the knotted cord of her belt. Nicole knew that gesture. It meant Anne of Brittany was working something out in her formidable brain.
“Your Majesty, with your talents, you might discover noble roots for Philippe’s family name.” The queen respected strength. Anything less she would see as weakness, to be tossed away.
Holding herself tall, Nicole closed her eyes and saw her queen’s image as the petite but proud fourteen-year-old ruler of Brittany, defending her besieged city of Rennes from the king of France while she charmed him into handing over his heart to her.
“Wait for what I find out, and we shall see,” the queen finally said.
“Yes, Your Majesty.” Nicole knelt and took her sovereign’s hand, laying it on her forehead. The queen was the type of person who got things done. Nicole didn’t doubt she wouldn’t wait long for whatever outcome was decided. “And thank you.”
“Don’t thank me. Thank my babe for putting your stable-boy on the map.” With a wave of her hand, Anne of Brittany, Queen of France, indicated their conversation was over.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Love’s Tapestry
“She knew Jeannot?” Philippe’s voice caught in his throat as he uttered the name of the man who had been like a fathe
r to him. They stood just inside the door of Nicole’s bedchamber, facing each other in the candlelight. Philippe had slipped in without a sound, but Nicole had been waiting. She had known he would come. The start of Advent was less than a fortnight away. Their remaining time together was short. Unless something was done.
“Yes,” she breathed. “Her face lit up when I mentioned him. You should have seen her!”
“I hope we will have occasion to speak of him before I go back,” Philippe mused.
“Don’t talk of going back! Your life is here with me!” she cried, pummeling his chest. And Blanche.
“A man’s life is where his appointment takes him,” he corrected her, gently taking her wrist and kissing it.
“Then let us find you an appointment here,” she argued.
“That is easier said than done,” he observed.
“So let us work on the doing!” she cried.
“My love,” he reached out and squeezed her shoulder, steadying her. His eyes were opaque, veiled. Did a trace of sadness shadow them? “Tell me more of what she said about my master.”
“She said he was a favorite of her own father’s in Nantes.”
“You mean the good Duke Francis?” he asked, referring to the queen’s long-dead father, Francis II, Duke of Brittany.
“Yes! She said he liked your Jeannot, and when his parents died, he took him on as ward because he handled the horses so well.”
“Jeannot told me that Duke Francis had a love of horses,” Philippe said, his face wistful.
“And so does his daughter, our queen. Think of how much she loved Petard!” The stallion was no longer alive, but he had been among the queen’s favorites of all the horses in both of her husbands’ stables.
“Aye. She must have gotten it from her father,” Philippe agreed, breaking into a smile at mention of Petard.
“If it wasn’t for your Jeannot sending you to Amboise in his place, I would never have met you,” Nicole cried.
“’Tis strange, because Jeannot hadn’t wanted me to go. It was I who convinced him.”
“Why did you want to leave home?” she asked, one finger tracing the line of his collarbone. It was unbearable to think she would no longer be able to touch him in just a few short weeks. Twice before, he had been yanked from her life. It couldn’t happen again.
“I was ready for something—for something different.” His muscles rippled under her touch.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean I wanted to not be treated like a boy anymore. With Jeannot master of the stables in Agen, there was no chance for me to become master there myself.”
“A boy has to leave home to become a man, doesn’t he?” Nicole remarked. She knew so little of boys. But she could imagine if they were to turn into men, they would need to set out on their own.
“Maybe he does.” He paused. “There was something else, too.”
“What was it?” she asked, remembering her own feelings of that summer. At age fifteen, something new had fluttered inside her, with no clear direction; until she spotted Philippe and her feelings had flown toward the youth with mutable eyes.
“I felt new things. But I didn’t know what they were.” He looked at her. “You know.”
“I know! Oh yes, I know exactly.” How well she remembered the excitement of that spring. She had yearned for something, but had had no idea what. Then Philippe had come along, and all of her unmoored longings had merged into a single quivering focus.
“So I wanted to learn more, but how could I, with Jeannot and all the men around watching me, making jokes and putting the kitchen girls in my path, watching to see what a fool I would make of myself?” he said wryly.
“We all make fools of ourselves at that age! I could barely talk when I first met you,” she exclaimed.
“Your memory serves wrong, my lady. You did most of the talking, while I was doing the looking.” His eyes glinted in the candlelight.
“I was looking, too, Philippe.” All the fire and energy she’d felt at age fifteen was back, racing through her veins. She laced her hands around her true love’s neck and drew his face down to hers.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
The Queen’s
Decision
After mass the following Sunday, Nicole trailed the royal retinue out of the chapel. The early December day was mild, the sun warm on her face. Marie de Volonté walked at her side, serene and content. Her son had been born a few months earlier. Nicole was grateful to God that He had spared the life of her friend’s husband, Guillaume de Montforet, who had suffered a broken leg but nothing more the day of Gerard’s death. She was also grateful for whatever part she had played in convincing Marie to keep her babe when she had thought to thwart its journey to the world the winter before.
If only Nicole could feel as happy for herself as she felt for Marie. But Philippe was due to take up his post in Carcassonne within the week. It hung heavy over her, like a looming specter waiting to whisk away her happiness, as it had been whisked away from her before.
“A ma vie,” she whispered under her breath. “To my life” wasn’t just her queen’s motto. Nicole had taken it as her own. Now she clung to it in hopes that the queen would understand and respond.
“Nicole, come walk with me,” Queen Anne commanded.
“Yes, Your Majesty,” Nicole exclaimed, hastening her step to join her. Her heart panged as she saw the queen limp, then catch herself.
Nicole was one of the few who knew of the queen’s hip deformity. She had assisted with her sovereign’s wardrobe and toilette for years and had seen with her own eyes that one of Anne of Brittany’s hipbones rested higher at the base of her torso than the other. The petite queen’s slightest of limps was only evident when she was tired or thought no one watched. Whenever Nicole saw it, love for her sovereign squeezed her heart.
“Your physician friend . . .” the queen began.
My love. “Yes. Philippe.” Nicole trembled. Whatever her sovereign decided, she would be hard-pressed to challenge. She was under obligation to her queen for her position at court and her good marriage. But beyond duty, Nicole loved and respected her. She would have no choice but to submit if the woman she most admired dismissed her petition.
“Philippe de Bois,” the queen continued.
“Your Majesty!” Nicole’s heart flopped like a fish to think of the queen’s words to come. “Did you find out something about him?”
The queen frowned, and looked at Nicole thoughtfully. “It is not entirely good.”
“What do you mean, my lady?” She was taken aback. Whatever it was, Philippe was the love of her life. That she knew already and was powerless to change, whatever the news might be.
“I mean he has lived a strange life,” the queen remarked.
“How so, Your Majesty?” Alarm quickened her blood.
“He was in Milan for almost two years, is what I heard.”
“Yes. He studied medicine there at the bidding of your good husband, King Louis.”
“Yes, my lord is a good husband.” The queen smoothed her hands down over her hips, looking fresh and fully in love. Perhaps the king had been an especially good husband the night before. “But that is what your stable-hand-turned doctor has not been,” she mused.
“Your Majesty, I don’t understand.” Cold beads of sweat broke out on Nicole’s forehead. Foreboding clawed at her.
“He has not been a good husband,” the queen replied.
“My lady, what do you mean?” Nicole’s heart froze. She would die if she found out he was married. He had told her the widow had wed another. Was there another woman to whom he had bound himself? To be so near yet unable to finally come together would be too cruel. Yet the woman before her had borne more, and she was Nicole’s role model. Squeezing her hands together as if to crush any bad news, she prayed she would not be asked by God to follow in her sovereign’s footsteps.
The queen’s face was stern. “He has not been a husband at all,” she spelled
out.
“My lady, that is good news, is it not?” Nicole’s knees wobbled from relief.
“A man of no experience is hardly a fit partner for a widowed mother.” The queen pursed her lips.
“Your Majesty, he told me this history himself, and he had his reasons.”
“What were they?” The queen’s eyes searched hers.
Nicole blushed. Heat crawled over her face.
“Ahhh. I gather there was one in particular,” the queen observed.
“Yes, my lady.” Nicole looked at the ground. “He was devastated when I married Gerard.”
“You must think carefully, my dear. Marriage is not romance. Marriage is a contract that only works well when partners are equally yoked,” the queen counseled her.
“Yes, Your Majesty.” With a sinking heart, Nicole realized the queen had made the same point that Philippe had. It was true. Marriage between her and Philippe wouldn’t work unless they came together as equals. If Philippe remained a commoner, he would feel less of a man at Nicole’s side, with endless stares and whispers from those at court judging him a nobody. And Nicole would feel a certain sting each time a candidate for her daughter’s hand slipped away, once Blanche’s stepfather’s social background was examined and found wanting. She prayed the queen had hit upon a way to raise Philippe in rank.
“I question trusting a man who has studied to become a doctor. It is such a useless profession,” the queen continued.
“Your Majesty, his skills were formed from healing horses.” Well Nicole knew the queen’s loathing of physicians. She blamed them for not saving Charles Orland or knowing what to do when her newborns had died, one after the other.
“Now, handling horses is a practical skill.” The queen’s eyes lit up at the mention of one of her favorite subjects.
“He is a man who learned the healing arts from living creatures, not from books,” Nicole exclaimed. The queen loved books, but when it came to arranging marriages, she looked for practical skills along with assets.