Donna Russo Morin

by To Serve A King

  “There is a fine line between heretic and humanist,” François countered, conversation tipped with warning. “For every man who perpetrates an act of violence, there are ten others wanting nothing more than freedom of thought.”

  “But, Your—”

  “No more, Monty—no more on this today.” He held up a hand, his face closed and implacable. “I will ask for daily reports on any further acts of aggression and will revisit the topic if need be. Will that suffice?”

  “It would seem as if it must.” Monty sat back from the table, a withdrawal no less obvious than if he had walked from the room without dismissal.

  “Bon. Then I would like to ask if there is any further thought on the last communication with Spain.”

  “There have been no outward signs of friendship, Your Majesty,” the cardinal de Lorraine spoke up, but the acrimonious delivery of his report came as no surprise to anyone; his aversion to Spain was widely known.

  “It is true, Majesté.” The warbled reply came from none other than Galiot de Genouillac, the seventy-five-year-old hero of Marignano. Warrior, chevalier de l’ordre de Saint-Michel, and diplomat, François had made Genouillac the grand écuyer de France, one of the greatest officers of the crown; his advancing age did nothing to detract from the value of his advice. “The emperor is much less decisive than the king of England, though I trust neither at this point.”

  “But the Germans are forever asking for your assistance, Your Highness,” Monty reminded him. “They soon must be answered.”

  François’s gaze lit once more upon Genouillac, whose long, thick white beard brushed against the elder man’s chest as he shook his head.

  “I will make no pledge until I hear from Charles. His response will determine my own.” François rubbed at his high forehead; the joy with which he had entered the room but a few hours ago had dissipated, his troubles clear in the shadows now clinging so tenaciously to his long face.

  The morning’s bells began to peal and he could not have lent an ear to their sound with any more relief.

  “It is of the hour, messieurs. I have the need to pray on these matters.”

  “I knew tonight would be a joyous occasion.”

  But two steps into the salon of King François, Geneviève’s new friend Lodovico merrily accosted her. Out of his artist’s smock, clad in a maroon velvet doublet and trunk hose, he looked like the scrawny scarecrow of a wealthy farmer. Taking her hand, he tugged her toward the room’s far corner, beyond the mass of humanity clogging the center of the room, and the few empty chairs waiting there.

  “But … my duties.” Geneviève leaned away, trying to keep her place beside Arabelle in the entourage of the duchesse.

  “Have no fear, Geneviève,” Arabelle assured her, with a smile and a bob for the artist. “Here we are free to follow our own pursuits as long as we keep one eye on our mistress should she need us. I can think of no one better with whom to spend your inaugural evening at the salon than our Lodovico.”

  The artist doffed his toque and smiled at Arabelle. “I have always said you are as sweet as you are fair, mademoiselle.”

  Arabelle curtsied. “And you are as silly as you are talented.”

  Her friends laughed and Geneviève found it hard not to breathe the jovial air between them. She capitulated to Lodovico’s insistence and followed him on the winding path amidst the courtiers, huddled together in groups of twittering tête-à-têtes and jovial jocularity, or perched upon couches, partaking of the many delicacies served by pages armed with overflowing silver trays.

  No other reception room in the palace boasted such splendor as the king’s salon. Rich tapestries covered the walls and a tightly woven rush mat cushioned the floor. The finest furniture, the most glittering golden sconces, and the grandest sparkling silver candlesticks enveloped the visitors in its palpable embrace of luxury.

  Lodovico plopped Geneviève into a tawny golden armchair, grabbed two full goblets from a passing page, and flopped into the matching seat beside her, his plain face bubbling with amusement in the light of the triple-branched candelabrum set upon the claw-foot table between them. The sweetness of the beeswax melded sensuously with the deep ferment of the burgundy.

  “Did I not tell you what a magical place this is to be?” he asked with the unfettered enthusiasm of a child. Leaning toward her, he held a pointing finger discreetly against his chest and aimed it into the heart of the room. “Look there, at the balding man by the king’s side. That is Rabelais. And the round-eyed, bearded man who relinquished his chair for the duchesse? That is Marot himself.”

  The three men held the center focal point in the room, perched on intricately carved wing chairs placed before the hearth. All the room’s activity pulsed from this assemblage, the core of its vibrant energy, and though everyone held their own small conversations, they did so with an ear to their king.

  Geneviève tried to appear impassive, but her training failed her in the face of such great artists. “Who else?” she urged her guide on. “Who else is here?”

  Lodovico gave her a conspirator’s smile. “Well, there are Chabot and Montmorency, of course; Charles and Marguerite; and a member or two from the House of Guise, but they are only here to spy.”

  Geneviève choked on her own spittle.

  “To spy?” she managed to croak.

  “The Guises belong to the Dauphin and Diane,” Lodovico announced matter-of-factly, and once more Geneviève wondered how deeply the chasm ran through the king’s court.

  “Will they not be here tonight?” Geneviève asked. “The Dauphin and his mistress?”

  Lodovico raised one brow with comical skepticism. “It is a rare occasion indeed that they would spend a night of intimate entertainment with the king and the duchesse. Once upon a time, perhaps, but not very often of late.”

  Geneviève’s gaze roamed over the room. “I cannot help but notice that there are far more ladies than gentlemen.”

  “Oh, sì. It is the way the king is most comfortable,” Lodovico agreed. “After all, it is how he spent his childhood.”

  Raised by a strong, authoritative mother and a doting sister, François grew up surrounded by other women as well, his illegitimate half sisters whom his mother raised as her own. In the garden of the king’s life, he was the central stalwart fountain and women the flowers encircling him. If his years as a libertine had abated, his appreciation for feminine beauty and company had not.

  “He is finely attuned to the feminine sensibility but not softened by it.” Lodovico looked upon François with undeniable admiration. “He acknowledges all of their worth without losing any of his own.”

  Geneviève kept her beliefs to herself; she thought it imprudent to remark upon François as a master manipulator who mayhap found it easier to prey upon women than men.

  “Is it not said that even a stone has a divinity?”

  The outlandish statement rose above all others and the appreciative laughter that followed turned all attention in the room to François and his companions.

  “Ah, so it is true,” Marot chided the king in jest. “You have been reading the Cabala.”

  François chuckled. “I have been reading everything. Scholasticism allows us to study the beautiful words of the Bible, humanism reveals what the ancient civilizations of Greece and Rome have to teach us, and mysticism opens us up to possibilities beyond our world, beyond our very beings.”

  The room rumbled with a wide array of reaction. Astrology, alchemy, all fell under the purview of a modern day prince’s study, including the Cabala. Geneviève longed to ask Lodovico if such words on another’s tongue would not be labeled as heresy, but she kept her mouth shut.

  “Yes,” Rabelais agreed, rubbing his stubble-covered chin. “A stone may have divinity, but only a king can grant nobility.”

  The king shook a finger at the poet, but not without an accompanying smile. “I can make a noble, but only God makes a great artist.”

  “But you are an artist yoursel
f.” Accomplished as one of the great rhétoriqueurs à la cour de France, Marot had a great capacity for flattery, especially for his king. “Why do you not read us something of your latest work?”

  “Oh yes,” Anne agreed prettily. “Please do, Majesté.”

  “I would embarrass myself before such talent as we have here tonight,” François obfuscated with deftness, a nod for the men beside him, a wide-armed gesture to the room at large. “Here we have the best of poets, painters, and musicians. Mine is not a talent but an unrequited hope.”

  As if his words were the magic required to call them forth, a small gaggle of musicians rushed in through the door. At once, Geneviève recognized one of the Italian brothers. Eliodoro looked harried as he flung one arm to the back of the room, directing his quartet where to set up their instruments, while the other remained at his waist.

  “Ah, here is what we need.” François acknowledged them with a spirited call, pleased for the distraction, as if genuinely reluctant to speak of his own work. “Some music.”

  “Why were you so late?” the spinet player hissed as he passed Eliodoro. “We should have been here an hour ago.”

  Eliodoro sneered. “My damn brother, curse the day he was born. He took all my clothes. These are his. They are all I could find, but they do not fit.”

  “You jest?” The other musician stifled a snicker behind his hand.

  “Why would I joke of such a thing, Massimo? Look.”

  Here the drummer held up both hands and, without any movement or prodding, his pumpkin-shaped hose began to slip from his slim hips.

  Massimo’s eyes bulged as he cackled with laughter. Eliodoro looked sheepishly about, forcing Geneviève to turn her attention away.

  “I hear Alberto da Ripa will be playing tonight. He is an exceptional lutenist,” Lodovico said as the musicians began to play.

  But Geneviève heard little of his words or the music; her attention returned to the king and his new discussion.

  “I know you are frustrated by the silence of Spain, Your Ma-jesty. ” Chabot had replaced Marot by the king’s side as the poet stepped away to mingle with other guests. “I will ask our ambassador to endeavor to get a reading of the emperor’s mood.”

  François propped an elbow on the arm of his chair and put his chin in his hand as he leaned toward his friend and adviser. “It is indeed preying upon my mind more and more. He does neither of us any good by vacillating.”

  “There is no kindness waiting for you on that shore.” Anne spoke her mind with certitude, her opinion as valued by the king as that of any other minister. In truth, she was one of his most valued advisers, often taking her own chair in council chambers.

  Lodovico prattled at Geneviève, music played behind her, laughter rang out around her, yet she focused all her concentration on the king and his conversation. Her aunt had been clear: Any news of France and Spain was of the utmost concern to King Henry. So excited by what she heard, the hand with which she held the goblet trembled, and the liquid within rippled like a pond touched by a strong breeze.

  Dipping her lips for a drink, she braved a look at the group before the hearth. Her throat closed with a whispered gasp as her gaze locked with Anne’s, as the duchesse raised a finger and crooked it at her.

  Geneviève placed her goblet upon the table. “My mistress beckons,” she said to Lodovico, and stood.

  “Of course, cara mia, I will keep your seat.” He smiled at her as if nothing were amiss.

  On shaky legs, she crossed the room beneath Anne’s unwavering stare, her ears pounding with the sound of her own heartbeat as she approached the king and his royal entourage.

  “Monsieur le Roi.” Anne put a tender hand upon François’s forearm and he gave her his immediate attention. “I do not believe you have met my newest attendant, Mademoiselle Geneviève Gravois.”

  The king turned his gaze upon Geneviève, and though his eyes held a smile, she threw herself into the deepest curtsy, hiding her face with her posture and tilted headdress, as if he might see the truth of her with one glance.

  “You honor me, mademoiselle,” said the king with a lilt to his deep baritone, believing her deep obeisance equaled her respect. “Arise.”

  Geneviève thought she would be sick, and the horrific image of her vomiting upon the king of France sobered her. She rose with as much grace as she could muster and looked her enemy in the eye, her hatred lending her the strength she needed so desperately.

  “Well, what a beauty you are,” François remarked, and more than a few of the men around him tutted their agreement. With elbows propped and hands clasped across his velvet- and jewel-clad abdomen, he leaned forward with squinty-eyed intent. “Your eyes are violet, mademoiselle,” he said, as if he told her something she knew not.

  “Oui, Votre Majesté,” Geneviève replied, refusing to quail under such acute scrutiny.

  “I have seen such eyes once before.” The king no longer looked at her, but somewhere—some time—else. “I was a young buck, no more than a lad, and she was a magnificent beauty. Montlhéry, the Baroness de Montlhéry. Odette, I believe her first name was.”

  Geneviève stared at him, slack-jawed. “My grandmother.”

  The king laughed, but not in the least harshly, a stark antithesis to the piercing stare Anne bestowed upon her.

  “Why such a surprise?” the king asked. “Do you think me too feeble to remember my youth?”

  “No … no, of course not, Your Majesty,” Geneviève stammered with a spirited shake of her head. “I am surprised a relation of mine should be remembered at all.”

  The king’s faraway look returned but now with an irrefutable sparkle of pleasure.

  “Such a beauty as hers, and yours, is hard to forget. I believe the day I met her was the day violets became my favorite flower.”

  A thousand emotions coursed through Geneviève’s veins—repulsion, fear, hate, trepidation—she fought to respond as a devoted courtier.

  She dipped him her deepest curtsy once more. “You honor me and my family, Your Majesty.”

  It was the perfect rejoinder and the room twittered with talk of the wonderful new courtier arrived at the palace.

  “More wine,” Anne demanded of her.

  “Of course, madame.” Geneviève rushed to do her mistress’s bidding, fearing the duchesse’s wrath; she had never forgotten their first conversation nor the woman’s warning, and she had no wish to lose her important position at court because of the king’s philandering eye. She returned to Anne’s side in a flash, a jeweled goblet full of the sparkling yellow wine the duchesse preferred.

  “Merci, Geneviève.” Anne took the goblet from her hand, but took no sip. “You may leave us.”

  Geneviève bobbed and turned to leave.

  Chabot leaned in closer to the king and whispered something in his ear. François’s expression turned sour.

  “I have no money for war. If pushed, we cannot afford to respond.”

  Her instinct was to stop, to plant herself firmly at the royals’ feet and hear every word they next spoke. But she had received her dismissal, and, by force, must leave, or else incur Anne’s ire. Pulled in two directions, one foot turned one way, and one another. She tumbled with the grace of a crippled ox, toppling into the deft hands of Admiral Chabot himself.

  “Are you all right, mademoiselle?”

  “Yes, merci. My apologies, monsieur.” She braced herself against his strong arms and recovered her balance. “Pardonnez-moi.”

  The aging soldier released her without another moment’s thought, and Geneviève rushed away, certain Anne’s sinister glare punctured her back. She retreated to the anonymity of the far corner and her chair beside Lodovico.

  “You did well, my dear, very well indeed. Right up until the part where you almost fell onto the king,” Lodovico teased her, brandishing his lopsided smile and rubbing the back of her hand. Her head hung in her other hand and she peered at him through splayed fingers, embarrassment burning her cheeks.
/>
  “Do not be dismayed, Geneviève,” Lodovico begged her. “You have been forgotten already. Look.”

  Steeling herself, Geneviève peeked about the room. Her friend spoke nothing but the truth. The courtiers once more chatted boisterously, straining to hear their chatter above the growing din of people and music and clanging salvers as a wave of servants served a late supper. Not a one looked at her, not in interest or jest. Her gaze stopped at the door and held, captured with perplexed curiosity.

  Two men she recognized—the musician Giuseppe and the haut-bois player—and a delicate, dark-haired beauty beside them, leaned over the threshold, their bodiless heads peeking around the door’s frame. The men laughed with unrestrained glee; the young girl alone had the decency to hide her mouth behind a long, graceful hand. Geneviève felt a moment’s ire, thinking they laughed at her, until she followed their gaze and saw the true target of their mirth.

  Giuseppe’s brother conducted the small group of musicians in the corner, one hand marking the rhythm upon his tambour, the other leading the instruments through the song. With no hand left to keep them in place, his oversized hose slipped farther and farther down his legs. At the moment his genitals were about to be exposed to the room, he missed a beat, bending to retrieve his wayward garment, cheeks burning redder than his brother’s blood, which he longed to shed.

  Geneviève felt the giggle in her throat and the gratitude in her heart. Her anxiety had tried to get the better of her, but at its passing, she knew she had much cause for celebration.

  She offered her companion her brightest smile. “Would you get more wine, Lodovico? I believe my goblet stands empty.”

  The delighted painter clapped his hands together. “That’s my girl.” He jumped to his feet. “Let us enjoy all the abundance the king is willing to share.”

  “We would like the windows opened,” the king announced, as the air grew thick with the heat and odor of bodies at play. His desire became instant reality with a whoosh of balmy, fragrant air as the pages thrust open the heavy-framed casements.