The Unicorn Hunters: A Novel(2)
It was only after Anne, smiling, had watched her sister go that she noticed something amiss in the courtyard.
A string of unfamiliar horses was being led to stabling; an unfamiliar equerry stood by the horse-troughs. A loud blend of strange voices echoed in the Guardhouse. Who had come? A glimpse of banner or shield, tabard or surcoat, might tell her, but rain hovered still, cold and close, blurring the world like a painter’s fingertips. Whoever had come, it could not be her messenger. Her messenger was riding alone, in secret.
She and Jean de Rieux exchanged wary glances as they passed into the castle proper.
Her bastard half-brother, Henri, Baron of Avaugour, met Anne in her garderobe, a private chamber above the oratory, where she entertained her intimates and read documents, sewed and gossiped with her maids-of-honor. The light was gray near the windows, rosy near the fire, wavering in places from the interplay of rain and firelight. Rugs and wolfskin and tapestry softened the stone. Every courtier with a reason to wait upon the duchess was already in the room, passing news in low voices. Henri scythed straight through them all, a high, outraged color on his handsome face.
When Anne was crowned, some had whispered that it was a shame the duke’s only son could not inherit the duchy. Anything, they said, would have been better than giving the realm to poor Francis’s barely grown daughter. Henri just laughed at those people. “Lord,” he’d told Anne, “who’d want it? All those papers to read. Treaties and accounts and letters. And old men talking. You like it, you unnatural creature. They think you live only to frolic, but they don’t see the look in your eye when you preside over that council.”
Anne did like it. Although sometimes she envied Henri, whom God had made tall and broad, a knight and a man. Any or all of those attributes would have made her life much easier.
She crossed the garderobe and planted herself beside the hood of the enormous stone fireplace, nodding at the reverences of a dozen courtiers. “Tell me your news, brother. Who has come? I saw the horses below.”
De Rieux followed them to the fireplace, his mouth downturned and worried. Her council was scattered about the room: Clever, jolly Dunois, whose father was the famous Bastard of Orléans. The Comte de Comminges, and Montauban, her chamberlain, catlike and wary and intensely loyal. They all drifted unobtrusively nearer, while her maids-of-honor raised a chorus of chatter to mask their conversation.
“La Trémoille is here with a grand escort and messages from the French court,” said Henri, low. “He has had word via diviner and rode from the garrison at Saint-Aubin-du-Cormier. I think he is come to insist upon the French marriage with no further delay.”
Anne went very still. Her mind instantly darted back to the day of her coronation. She had been too young and red-eyed, her father newly buried.
“I will not marry the king of France,” she had told De Rieux. She knew—everyone knew—that if she were to wed the king of France, there would be no more Brittany. Only France, from the Rhine to the stormy sea. “I promised my father.”
“What choice do you have?” De Rieux had rejoined, with some justice. Her father had lost a war over this very question, and died in the aftermath. Brittany was a fair green jewel rich with the wealth of the sea, and France was ten times its size and coveted it. Brittany was also Anne’s bridal portion, and would go to her husband when she married. Of course France wanted her.
“I will make myself new choices,” she had said then.
And she had. She was sure of it. Her secret messenger from Flanders was carrying Brittany’s salvation even now, sewn up hidden in his saddle-skirt.
“They must have found out,” whispered De Rieux.
Anne’s mind was racing. She said, “Perhaps. Or perhaps not. He would have brought soldiers if he knew, and he has only his escort, hasn’t he?”
“But why else would he have come now?” murmured Montauban.
They were all worried, and she did not blame them. If France laid bare her plans too soon, she would be deposed. Or taken away and married forcibly. She was finding it hard to draw a full breath.
“I can think of a few reasons,” said Dunois, brows drawn together. “But I like none of them.” He took a gasping draught of his spiced wine.
“He has not said why he is here, only asked for audience with the duchess,” said Henri.
Her brother had no head for statecraft. He liked jousting and expensive horses and a well-cut doublet. But he was an easy, kindly man, her father’s mistress’s son.
Anne’s rising heartbeat seemed to shake her whole body; she forced her voice to mildness. “We’ll find out soon enough. Give him my utmost respect and say we honor our cousin of France and wait upon his noble general’s convenience.” She’d given standing orders to treat anyone from the French court with an exasperating degree of servility. She cast a speculative glance at her brother. “Henri, go and put on something more expensive. That vulgar hat with the ostrich plume. I want him to think you have ambitions and have spent all your money.”
“What?”
“Now,” said Anne. “Quick. He’ll probably come in here any moment, when he gets the summons. Hates delays. Don’t you remember? And another thing—” She whispered in his ear.
“I don’t understand,” said her brother dubiously.
“No need,” said Anne. She said it cheerfully, but the firelight kept wanting to go sideways in her vision, to remind her of the stabs of light that roared from besieging cannon. The first time she had seen La Trémoille was from the wall of that very castle. He had been directing the French army that was methodically laying siege to their battlements. Her father had pointed out the three blue eagles of his standard, noted the bombards being drawn into position to fire.