My hands itch to slap the false regret off her long face.
The queen sets her quill down with an audible click. “That is unacceptable. One of my dearest and most trusted advisors was killed in the attack.”
“We do not know that, Your Majesty. He may have simply died of apoplexy.”
“Perhaps,” the queen says, unconvinced. “Has there been any word from the pope yet on the dispensation?”
The regent’s moue of disappointment is as false as her earlier regret. “Not yet, no. But the bishops continue to assure me that all is in order and it is simply a matter of the paperwork to be completed and delivered.”
“Let us hope you are right. And speaking of Church matters, has the Princess Marguerite reached her father’s holdings yet? I wish to write to her and was not certain where to send my message.”
My stitching forgotten, I study the regent’s face closely. She does not so much as twitch an eyelash. “I do not believe she has reached him yet. But you may give your message to me, and I will see that she gets it.”
“That is a very kind offer,” the queen says, although she has no intention of taking the regent up on it. With well-disguised relief, she turns her attention to a flutter of commotion at the far end of the room. The king’s chamberlain enters, bows to the attendants, then makes his way over to our end of the room, where he bows to the regent and then the queen. “Your Majesty, the king requests that you join him for a walk through the palace gardens this afternoon.”
The queen’s face brightens at the invitation. “Please tell His Majesty I would be honored to join him.”
As the chamberlain leaves to take the queen’s response to the king, the queen glances up at the regent. “If you will excuse me, Madame, I must get ready for my lord husband.”
Unable to interfere with a request from the king, the regent inclines her head in acknowledgment, but not before I see how very much she hates this intimacy between the king and queen that by its very nature excludes her.
?Chapter 53
Genevieve
efore I leave the castle never to return, there is someone I must say goodbye to.
With my heart thudding in my chest, I head to the nursery. Two women sit near the fire, a small child just learning to walk toddling on the carpet between them. The child points and makes an unintelligible sound. One of the women turns her head.
Jeanne’s face softens when she sees it is me. “Genevieve.” She rises gracefully, steps around her young daughter, and comes to greet me. “I am glad you’re here,” she says simply. No questions or remonstrations for not having come sooner. She takes my hand gently in hers, and I let her. She gives it an encouraging squeeze before leading me to a spot on the other side of the room where a small wooden cradle sits, just beyond reach of the fire.
My heart beats louder, my mouth growing dry.
“Here she is,” Jeanne says softly, squeezing my hand again before withdrawing. She scoops up her daughter and shoos the nurse out of the room.
I am alone with the babe.
I look down in the cradle, for the first time laying my eyes on Margot’s daughter.
The infant is asleep, her long lashes lying against a round cheek that looks impossibly soft and pink. On her head is a smattering of fuzzy down, the same dark red as Margot’s.
A sharp pain lances through my chest. For so long, I’ve felt nothing but a hollow, aching emptiness where she used to be. But seeing this small creature who already has so much of Margot to her is like lifting the heavy iron grate to the oubliette and letting all the pain come flooding out.
Breathless with the ferocity of it, I kneel on the floor, careful not to jostle the cradle and wake the sleeping babe. But I must gasp, or sob, or perhaps it is something inside the babe herself that causes her to open her eyes just then.
Margot’s eyes.
For a moment—an all too brief and dizzying moment—Margot and I are twelve again and snuggled up in bed, the thrill of our new adventure keeping us from sleep. Indeed, we are so giddy with it, it is all we can do not to giggle and wake the others.
The babe blinks her big solemn eyes, and it is clear she is not Margot at all, but her own self. Her mouth starts to pucker, and her small hand flails. Without thinking, I reach down and hold my finger out. She grabs it with a grip that is surprisingly strong for a three-week-old babe. “Good girl,” I whisper fiercely. “Take what you want.” I know she has been christened and baptized in the Christian faith, but Mortain’s blood also flows in her veins.
Would Margot want her to know Mortain? For all that she turned her back on Him, she was desperate for the blessings of the Nine near the end.
Yes.
The answer comes up from deep in my gut, as swift and sure as an arrow. I open my mouth to promise to come back for her, then stop. I do not know if that is a promise I can keep.
But it is all the more reason to ensure the convent is still there when she is ready to learn about those parts of herself.
I squeeze her fingers. “I will come back for you. Someday. At least long enough to tell you who you truly are.”
I surprise myself—and the babe—by leaning down to place a tender kiss upon her brow. “For all the ones your mother would have placed there—had she lived. For I’ve no doubt she would have showered you with them.”
And with that, I shove to my feet and hurry from the room.
* * *
It takes no time at all to arrange my own death. The Charente River runs just outside the palace gates. Making sure the sentries see me leave, I follow the wall to the first bend, which is just out of view of the guard tower. It is a small strip of bank, not nearly large enough to launch an attack from, but just the right size for sitting morosely and staring into the dark water as it rushes by.
I bring an old cloak, a nearly empty jug of wine, and a large, flat stone. When I am out of sight of the guards, I use the stone to flatten a spot along the mushy bank so that it looks like something—a body—slid down into the water. Next I lay the jug on its side and leave the cloak in a heap, anchoring it in place with the stone so it will not get washed away before it is found.
There. I step back and admire my handiwork. They will wonder if it was an accident or choice. A shiver dances across my shoulders, and I say a short prayer for the Genevieve who has fallen in the river. The Genevieve who, despondent over the death of her best friend—her only friend—has allowed herself to be swept away.
That is when I realize yet another way Maraud can be of use to me. The regent gave Angoulême clear instructions to keep the prisoner hidden. She implied she would place all the blame for his treatment squarely on the count’s head. Angoulême could end up in a great deal of trouble. Well and good. If he wishes to meddle in my life, then I have found a way to meddle in his. And he will not like it. Not one bit.
But it is the least he deserves for leading Margot to her fate.
?Chapter 54
Sybella