She blinks sleepily. “Well, that’s good. I suspect everyone is tired of war.”
“But, Margot, think of what this means for us. It is possible the duchess was forced into the marriage against her will. Even if she wasn’t, the political action has moved from Brittany to France, where we are conveniently placed just as the convent planned. They will need us, Margot. I am certain the convent will be contacting us any day with instructions. Perhaps we will be needed to forestall the marriage. At the very least, we can tell the duchess all that we have learned of the regent’s moves against her so that she will know just how little the woman is to be trusted.”
Margot’s head lolls to the side as she considers me. “We, Gen? What do you think I will do with this news? Leap up from my birthing bed, grab a horse, and ride with you to the French court, waving our daggers to fend off all who would naysay the queen?” She laughs, three high, brittle notes. “There is no we in this game of yours. There is only you.”
“This is no game, Margot. The duchess will be at the French court in less than a fortnight.”
Margot leans forward. “But that is no guarantee the convent will call you. You are like some poor dog that does not know when to quit begging for scraps.”
“Very well.” My voice is stiff, guarded. “What would you like me to tell them when they do contact us?”
“Tell them?”
“About you. What shall I tell them about you, Margot? How would you like the story to go? Shall I say that you seduced the count? Or that he seduced you? Shall I say you got caught in a web of your own design? Or were in turn caught in a snare fashioned by Angoulême?”
“Do not act as if you have not had lovers before!”
“Of course I’ve had lovers. We both have.” In truth, she was my first lover and I hers, practicing our skills until we were ready to use them with those we knew less well. “But this is about turning your back on the convent and abandoning our sworn duty to them.”
She looks as if I have slapped her. Before I have a chance to feel guilty for that, she leans forward, her face contorted with spite. “Don’t you dare blame this on me. It was because of you that we were sent to molder in this rustic court.”
“That wasn’t my doing, but the regent’s!”
“If you had not thrown yourself at the king and caught his fancy, we would still be there, ready to aid the duchess upon her arrival.”
She is jealous, I realize. Jealous that I was the one who caught his eye, not her. “I did not throw myself at him,” I say between gritted teeth.
“No. You’re right. You did not have to throw yourself at the king. It was no doubt all those tricks you learned at your mother’s knee.”
Her words chase the air from my lungs. That she would throw the origins of my birth at me goes against all the convent’s precepts. Her face changes again, shifting to sly and knowing. “You worry the convent will be upset to learn of my fate? What makes you think they aren’t the ones who ordered me to do this?”
Her words are a swift, brutal kick to my gut and cause my entire body to flush with heat, then cold. I grip my knees with my hands. “Did they?”
The smug satisfaction on her face nearly causes me to retch. “Yes, they did.”
The enormity of the betrayal sends me reeling. That the convent had chosen her for such an assignment and not me is bad enough. But that she never mentioned they had contacted her is even more painful. “When did they tell you?”
She shrugs. “A few weeks before the count gave me the garnet necklace. That was no simple act of chance, Gen.” She says this as if I am some slow-witted child.
“How? How did they contact you?”
She looks down to arrange a strand of her hair. “In a letter. It was sent to the count, and he gave it to me.”
“Where is this letter?”
She snorts. “You think I kept it? I could not risk Louise finding it, so I burned it.”
“Were you ever going to tell me you’d heard from them? Or just keep it to yourself?” What I truly want to ask is Was there any word of me? Any action they wanted me to take? Any task they’d assigned to me? But I will bite my tongue clean off before letting her see how badly I hunger for that information.
“You didn’t need to know.” She avoids my eyes and adjusts the neckline of her bed gown.
I cannot help it—I reach out and grab her arm, forcing her to look at me. “That was never how things were between us. Why did you keep it from me?”
She pulls out of my grasp. “Because you turned into a sour old woman who refused to take any pleasure in what is all around us, and I was sick of it. Sick of your fake piety and your lofty airs. You act as if your eagerness to do the convent’s work makes you better than I am, but we both know just how false that is.”
“I do not give myself airs. I have been trying to stay strong. For you, for me, for the convent. For Mortain. I have been trying to do what was asked of us.”
“Doing the convent’s bidding was always more important to you than it was to me, Gen. You always cared more, while I hardly cared at all.”
Another brutal blow. “Why? Why would you not care?”
Her face twists with some ugly emotion I cannot name. “I think the more important question to ask yourself is why do you care so very much?”
Before I can answer, she leans back against her pillows, folds her hands, and rests them on her stomach. “It is because you had no place else to go, Gen. No other life to lead. But I did. I had many choices before me, while you had none.”
I can hardly catch my breath as she rips all remaining vestiges of our old friendship to shreds.
“Now I think you should leave. All this talk cannot be healthy for the baby.”
Slowly, stiffly, I rise to my feet. I want—desperately—to give her a chance to take it back, to say she is sorry. Anything but to leave it like this. But she says nothing.
“You are wrong,” I finally say, my face hot, eyes burning. “I had as many choices as you did. It is just that I have never seen shame in whoring nor understood the need to lie to oneself by dressing it up with silk and jewels.”
And with that, I take my leave.
?Chapter 14
anton, whore, tart, strumpet, harlot, abricot, camp follower, poule de luxe. Of all the names people gave my mother and aunts, whore was they one they chose to call themselves. It was honest, Yolanthe explained. Far better than being called a luxury hen.
All of them had choices. Not many—no woman does. Laundress, tanner’s wife, brewess, spinner, weaver, gong farmer. Was it truly better to shovel other people’s shit or spend your days up to your elbows in others’ piss than to be paid for a tumble?