Donna Russo Morin

by To Serve A King

  The woman’s wraithlike skull fell to her chest as if struck, her chin lolled against her breastbone.

  Arabelle gasped. Anne and Jecelyn stepped back in fear.

  “What is this?” Geneviève asked, and turned to the women behind her, but they shook their heads and shrugged their shoulders. They leaned forward, realizing the low, rumbling hum came from the mystic, from deep in her throat; it was the sound of the devil crying out from the depths of hell.

  All of a sudden, as if revived, Arceneau’s head jerked up. Her eyes rolled in their sockets till they latched onto the face in front of her.

  “Beware!” A deep male voice came from out of the small skeletal mouth of the mystic, and for the first time Geneviève shook with palpable fear. No matter the talent of this fraud, a voice could not be so altered by any human means. This was the voice of someone—or something—else.

  Geneviève put one hand on the back of her chair; she had had enough, she was done with this, and turned to bolt. The cold digits felt like bones as they strangled her other hand, as the frigid fingers of Madame Arceneau reached across the table, latched on and pulled.

  “Oomph!” Geneviève cried as the table stabbed her in the ribs, as the force yanked her upper body across the table. Her face was no more than inches from that of the mystic. Geneviève shuddered to see the blankness of the woman’s face, as if she were no more than a vessel for the truth, a blank canvas awaiting the painter’s brush.

  “There is a beast around you, one that could consume you,” the guttural voice groaned at her. “You must beware.”

  The last syllable spoken, a last rattling gasp of air emitted, and the woman collapsed into unconsciousness, slithering out of her chair and onto the floor with a dreadful thump.

  Anne pitched herself forward to grab for her. “Help me,” she cried.

  Arabelle and Jecelyn jumped round, helping the duchesse pull the mystic to her feet. Dragging her across the room, they laid her upon the small blanket-covered cot in the opposite corner.

  “A drink, Geneviève. Get her a drink, quickly.”

  Geneviève stood, confounded, slack-jawed, and dazed. Her mistress’s order loosened the blight of fear clutching her and she shook it away. She searched the mayhem of the room, found jug and ewer, jumped to it, and splashed whatever liquid the jug held into a dented and scarred mug. Crossing to the bed, she held it out to Anne, keeping her distance from the mystic.

  Anne tipped the mug to Madame Arceneau’s lips, clear fluid drizzling out from her gaping mouth. The woman swallowed, coughed, and sputtered. With a deep breath, her lids fluttered and her eyes opened.

  For one pregnant moment, she stared at the faces bent over her.

  “What has happened?” She tried to sit up, but her eyes began to roll once more and her head wobbled precariously upon her shoulders.

  “Lie back, madame,” Anne insisted with a gentle push. “It would seem as if your … reading for Mademoiselle Gravois has left you ill.”

  The cold stare of the mystic found Geneviève over Anne’s shoulder. In silence, the mystic studied her. A faint flush of color brushed across her cheeks. “I remember it not at all.”

  “It is of little concern,” Anne told her with a pointed glance at Geneviève and the other women; there would be no mention of the confounding incident in front of the mystic. “We will leave you now to rest. But I will send my physicians to attend you at once.”

  “There is no need, Duchesse. I have everything I need here.”

  “Be that as it may,” Anne countered, shooing the other women from the room with her waving hands, “I will feel more assured if I hear from them.”

  “As you wish,” the mystic conceded, sounding tired as the group crossed the threshold and Anne closed the door behind them.

  Out in the passageway, every bulging eye lit on Geneviève.

  Arabelle reached out and took her hand. “I am so sorry, my dear.”

  Geneviève cringed. “There is no need to be sorry, Arabelle. It is all folderol.”

  “We will seek the advice of another,” Anne continued, as if she had not heard Geneviève besmirch the powers in which she so deeply believed. “I am sure Catherine will allow us an audience with her mystic. I hear he is a great power.”

  “It is not necessary, madame,” Geneviève assured her.

  Anne rushed down the corridor, pulled up, and turned, a pointed finger thrust at Geneviève. “No, there is a need. Rest assured you will be protected. The king will see to it.”

  Geneviève would not argue with such vehemence, but gave a small nod in thanks. As Anne stalked off, Geneviève caught Jece-lyn’s intense scrutiny and averted her gaze. There was nothing in her depths she wanted this vindictive woman to find.

  The tapers were nothing more than nubs in their pewter and bronze candlesticks, and yet the release of sleep had not blessed her. Geneviève thrashed in her bed as she had all night, the linens no more than a tangled, knotted mess. She sat up and threw them off in frustration. She quit the bed and its dissatisfaction with a huff. The generous chamber she had been so grateful for when she had arrived at the château had become a confining prison cell, and she needed to escape it. She threw a laced silk cloak about her shoulders, pulling its concealing hood over her jumbled blond hair, and flung open her door.

  Out in the dark corridor, Geneviève pulled up, hovering by her door, looking down the long, abandoned passageway, thinking twice about wandering the castle in the middle of the night. The silently plodding pages had extinguished most of the wall sconces, as they did most nights, but here and there a few lone flames cast weak and wavering light. She could fell great beasts with a single arrow shot, gut and clean them, cipher and decipher the secrets of a nation, and yet fear of darkness remained hidden in her depths, as if she were that small child, abandoned by parents so cruel as to die, unloved by an aunt who claimed filial connection but offered no affection.

  Geneviève pushed herself away from her door and crept along the hall in her thin slippers. She needed a drink, a powerful draught of heavy wine or brandy to slay the beast of her thoughts, to quiet it long enough to allow her some peace and somnolence. Perhaps she would find a poultice left on the stove to steep, to ease the pain splitting her head in two.

  She found no one in the kitchen save two scullions, asleep in the ashes of the hearth, but gratefully located a full bottle of eau de vie and, though fruitier than her tastes preferred, she threw back a large gulp, satisfied by the immediate trail of warmth burning from throat to gullet. Geneviève made to steal away, thought again, turned and grabbed the whole bottle off the stained sideboard, and slipped out of the quiet room, the low crackling fire the lone witness to her thievery.

  As she crested the landing of the second flight of stairs, the effects of the powerful beverage struck her; the tingle of relaxation nipped at her fingertips. She longed for her chamber now, and the small goblet that would bring her another portion of the fluid. Geneviève turned to the right—and froze.

  The scuffling step came from back around the bend. All her senses were alert. She dare not turn, dare not stay, and she began to move forward once more. But the shuffling continued, inching closer. If the footsteps belonged to another insomniac, Geneviève mused, he or she would make no great pains to keep their presence concealed—might, in fact, look for company when a night’s somnolent embrace refused them.

  Geneviève drew closer to the next corridor, the one leading to her chamber. She could not allow her pursuer to follow her there.

  Geneviève slowed her pace, as if she strolled without a care, humming a lulling tune low in her throat. She put her hand in her pocket and withdrew it, opening her clasped fingers.

  “Oh dear,” she murmured idly, looking down at the tile floor in front of her as if she had dropped something. She bent her knees and squatted down, her nightgown and cloak ballooning around her. In their concealment, she reached beneath the fabric and pulled her dagger from the sheath strapped to her leg. With the s
mall weapon hidden in the palm of her hand, she rose again and continued on, turning the corner that would take her to her room.

  Once beyond the edge of the wall, Geneviève threw herself flat against the stone and waited, allowing herself no more than a shallow breath, fearing to give her presence away. The furtive footsteps grew closer. She braced her left hand on the wall, raised the right with its drawn dagger.

  Like a hunter intent upon its prey, Geneviève caught the scent of the body, one of muskiness and herbs, before she saw it. Every muscle clenched in readiness. The form crept round the bend. Geneviève stepped out and grabbed. A half second of fumbling, a squelch of surprise, and she grabbed a throat, squeezed and pushed, forcing the hooded form back against the wall. With her left forearm against the interloper’s neck, Geneviève pinned the intruder to the stone with the tip of her dagger.

  Two cold, bony hands fought against her, but they struggled ineffectually.

  “Who are you?” Geneviève hissed and, with the dagger still in hand, used her palm to push back the concealing hood.

  She gasped at the pale face, the white eyes gleaming out at her, releasing the tension of her hold in shock. Madame Arceneau lunged forward, trying to take advantage of the opportunity. Geneviève recoiled and pushed back again, thudding the mystic’s head against the wall, holding the tip of her weapon to the woman’s vein-threaded throat. The sharpness of the miseri-corde—a battlefield weapon used to end the life of a mortally wounded enemy with merciful swiftness—nipped at the thin skin.

  “What do you want of me, woman?” Geneviève felt the creature of hate and anger that lived in her raise its head, so quiet it had been of late. This woman and her strange eyes brought it out like a randy chevalier in a roomful of virgins.

  “I’ve come to tell you the truth.” The childish voice struggled through the hold upon her throat.

  Geneviève felt her upper lip curl in revulsion. “Truth. What truth?”

  “Your truth.”

  Geneviève pushed the small woman harder against the wall. “Then tell me if you dare.”

  The mystic bared her teeth at Geneviève. “You are the beast I saw. I know you are up to no good.”

  A flash of fear and revelation squeezed at Geneviève’s gut, but she swallowed it back. This woman was nothing if not clever; those eyes may not see the future, but they saw everything else, and the rest she inferred. But inferences were not enough to be hung upon.

  “Tell me, old woman, what will I do?”

  Madame Arceneau lowered her inhuman gaze to stare down at the dagger point sticking into her ribs. “You will kill.”

  Geneviève sniggered from between clenched teeth. “That is not a particularly intuitive assumption at this juncture. Now is it, madame?”

  “Not me,” the soothsayer sneered with impatience. “Another. One of high importance.” She leaned into the dagger, taunting, her face closing toward Geneviève’s. “A royal.”

  Geneviève felt her teeth gnash and the ache in her jaw as the muscles hardened. “And what’s to stop me from killing you now … from silencing you and your nonsense forever?”

  “It is all written down and entrusted to my greatest ally.” The fin of flesh hanging from the center of the fortune-teller’s throat wobbled as she spoke. “It will be delivered to the duchesse should I meet with an untimely demise.”

  Geneviève’s hand squeezed the handle of the dagger until it shook. Visions of the woman’s slit throat oozing her life’s blood were brilliant in her mind’s eye. She lowered the weapon.

  “What do you want?”

  “Money,” the mystic said with a sickening smile, “and a home of my own, one on the rue de Turenne.”

  Geneviève raised her eyes to the coffered ceiling. “You’re mad. I have no such funds, no such influence at court to get you such things.”

  Madame Arceneau would tempt fate and Geneviève’s hesitation no longer. She stepped away from the wall, sliding off down the dim, empty corridor like a ghostly specter wafting along on its nightly haunting. “Then you had better find a way.”

  Geneviève threw the empty bottle against the stone of the hearth, where it crashed and shattered into pieces. All its fluid gurgled in her gut and her head swam with its intoxication. But there would be no sleep for her tonight. The words of the mystic haunted her, screaming in her head until she longed to pull her hair from its roots if it meant they would leave her alone. The fear and anxiety refused to release her, making her sick as it rung all breath from her lungs.

  She paced a worried circle from door to bedside and back again, looking at the treasures she had strewn upon the cold linens. The jewels the kings had given her were all she had of any worth and yet she didn’t know if they would garner her enough to placate the blackmailing mystic.

  Geneviève dropped to her knees by the bed, laying her head against the soft mattress, rubbing her forehead back and forth as if rubbing away the pain and worry. The thought of their loss was more than material, and it sickened her.

  As the sneaking, slithery light of dawn smudged the leaded glass of her window, Geneviève stared beyond it, startled to realize she did not know which jewel she would miss more.

  20

  It is far safer to be feared than loved.

  —Niccoló Machiavelli (1469–1527)

  The brown and brittle grass crunched beneath the horses’ hooves as the troupe rode out, hats pulled low against the glare of the sun, the cacophony as loud as the crackling of a massive fire. Geneviève burned with her own frustration and disappointment; the eager anticipation of the king’s falcon hunts was dampened by the augury following her like the long shadow that rushed over the sun-dried ground behind her. She found no joy in this day. Her doubts and fears plagued her as they had for more than a week, ever since the night the mystic had hunted—and haunted—her; all else seemed trivial and meaningless.

  Fifty or so birds were tethered today; most rode on the arms of the falconers, the bells on their legs jangling, their eyes covered by the pointy white caps. Others rode upon the wood bar and leather strap contraptions the falconers braced against their bodies as they walked behind the mounted cortege. On each litter, these men carried three or four falcons, all belled and capped.

  The assemblage reached the vast meadow and those on horse quit their mounts. The tall oak and maple trees lining the perimeter of the field stood lush and motionless in the breezeless air. The nobles gathered round the falconers, grateful for the lack of wind that might dare pull the birds of prey away once released.

  Geneviève stood on the outskirts of the anxious circle; Anne and many of the other ladies of the king’s little band gathered deep inside near the king, but nothing impelled her to join them. The sweat poured down the slim line of her spine and she longed to rid herself of the heavy hunting costume, longed to jump her horse and ride, to feel the wind pull her hair out to stream behind her and to jiggle her cheeks with its cleansing force.

  Clad in full red regalia, the grand master of the hunt stomped into the small space at the center of the circle and raised his arms. The crowd quieted, breath held in expectancy.

  “Release!” he cried, and the birds were launched, the flapping of their wings furious in the quiet. Feathers flew off their powerful bodies with the force of their ascension, and tumbled down like snowflakes onto the crowd below. Like a living cloud, the birds rose into the air as one. Then, as if in a choreographed dance, they broke apart, each hunter intent upon finding its own prey. Like the falcons, the courtiers scattered, small groups following their own particular birds or those upon whom they had placed a wager.

  Geneviève followed not a one, finding the opportunity in the chaos to escape. She ran off to the outer east edge of the field, gathering her skirts and crouching low beneath the branches of an evergreen, finding a small chamber within a grove of redolent pine. She kicked at the brown needles carpeting the floor, as if they alone were responsible for her angst. A fallen birch lay across a clearing in the middle
of the grove, and Geneviève sat upon it, oblivious to the tacky sap covering the thick trunk like frosting upon a cake and sticking to the back of her skirt.

  Jolly voices and laughter found their way through the leaves and branches, but she ignored them, perching her elbows on her knees and dumping her head into the basket of her hands.

  As she had for days, she worried about the extremes of her life…. So much had gone as planned, and so much had happened that she had never foreseen. It could have been the greatest moments of a life well lived, and yet it held more threat and fear than any life should ever know. She could no longer see the path in front of her; it had become muddied and dense with prickly bushes. She held her future in the balance of her choices, and yet she could not decide how to proceed. The vagaries pulled at her from all sides and she felt ripped apart by them, felt the hot tears of them in her eyes, and hated herself for her weakness.

  “What is it, Geneviève? What has happened?”

  With a gasp, Geneviève pulled her face from the shelter of her hands and found Sebastien on the other side of the copse. How like the soldier he was, to make his way through the thicket undetected.

  She rubbed at her face as if to wash it. “Nothing, Sebastien. I am fine.” She pushed errant strands of pale hair from her face and forced her shoulders up.

  Sebastien stepped toward her with a small smile and a shake of his head, a lock of his shiny black hair falling upon his forehead as he looked down on her. “You may look as beautiful as ever, but you do not look fine.” He stood beside her and she raised her grief-stricken eyes. His brow furrowed at her distraught expression and the smile vanished. “May I sit by you?”

  Geneviève nodded and turned back to the sun-dappled ground.

  “Talk to me, Geneviève,” he said, his whisper thick with sympathy and tenderness.

  His commiseration added fuel to her gnarl of discontent.

  “I am a bit fatigued today.”

  “It is not only today.” He took her hand from her lap and captured it in both of his, holding it atop his knee as if he held a fragile bird fixed on flight. “You have been distracted for days. I’ve never seen you like this.”