Written on Silk (27 page)

M
ARQUIS
FABIEN
STOOD GAZING
at Rachelle as she ascended with her head high and her back straight. She looked more belle than ever, though she wore but a simple traveling cloak of blue with a fur collar. Her dress was also plain — the color of mourning, it covered every inch of her skin and throat. Her thick auburn-brown hair lay tumbled about her shoulders from traveling. He had accidentally touched it, and even now, his senses could feel its softness on his hand. Her paleness, due to so much recent sorrow, touched his heart, but her defiant eyes when he had caught hold of her, left him infuriated.

“Mille diables!”
He breathed, feeling angry and turning on his heel, his boots sounding on the hardwood floor. He snatched up his cloak and strode to the back of the house and down the steep stone steps to the small court past the geraniums.

“Gallaudet!” he demanded.

The lithe, muscled page, fair of head and calm, appeared at once.

“Where have you been?” Fabien demanded with impatience. “Do I need to shout for all to hear?”

“Non, Monseigneur. I beg pardon. I was just — ”

Fabien waved a hand. “Never mind. We are returning to my ship.”

“Now? But I thought Andelot Dangeau wished to see you and — ”

Fabien’s steely gaze met Gallaudet’s.

“Just so!” Gallaudet said.

Reaching the street, Gallaudet turned and went for their horses and began to round up the Bourbon men-at-arms loitering about an eatery.

Fabien looked back toward Languet’s shop. A strange fury burned in his belly so that he realized he was apt to make a fool of himself if he remained in his frustration.

Rachelle was behaving most unreasonably. First, she had pleaded with him to stay; now she refused him with cool disinterest!

He was using sound judgment in leaving France. A year’s absence would do him — and her — good. His feelings were getting out of hand — impossible to make sense of. He would not marry her.

I will not think of her!

T
HE
R
EPRISAL
, MOORED AT
the docks, was being loaded, sharing her narrow berth with storm-battered ships from the sea routes. Several tall-masted ships were arriving, fine ships, carved and gilded, sliding through the water, with gulls wheeling in their wake.

The workers on the wharves swarmed noisily. Fleet schooners maneuvered between the ships, unloading their massive holds, hauling off casks of Spanish olive oil, cloves, and cinnamon from the Caribbean.

French wine and crates of delicate Bruges lace were waiting on the docks to be loaded as workers staggered beneath iron-hooped bales while horse-drawn wagons added to the chaos.

“Marquis Fabien! Wait!”

Fabien heard the familiar voice shouting behind him and halted his horse. He turned in the saddle and looked over his shoulder. Andelot was clinging precariously to one side of the step-bar of a wharf taxi-wagon, waving at him with a free hand.

Fabien’s temper eased at the sight of the young man he had all but adopted as his petit frère, though Andelot, no more than five years younger than Fabien, was swiftly becoming a comely young messire to be reckoned with. Fabien had long ago guessed that Andelot was infatuated with Rachelle, but he had paid scant attention. Now he no longer thought the notion amusing and measured Andelot more seriously as the taxi-wagon rattled closer.

Fabien swung down from the saddle and turned his reins over to a lackey who led the horse off to the wharf hostler. Fabien watched as Andelot jumped from the wagon and trotted up, breathless and grinning.

“Marquis! But it is bonne to see you again, I swear it. I meant to speak with you at Languet’s shop, but I was too late. I came just in time to see you riding away. Are you soon to sail?” His eyes searched the harbor. “Which fine ship is yours, Monseigneur?”

“How did you escape the eye of your kinsman, the cardinal? I would have wagered you to be under his supervision and ready to leave for the university by now. Or would you be pleased to sail with me?” Fabien threw an arm around his shoulder and walked with him toward the ship.

But the unexpected thoughtful gleam on Andelot’s face told Fabien that he might be taken seriously.

“Sainte Marie! But you have indeed changed, Andelot, mon bon ami.”

“I vow, Marquis, you surely entice me to abandon Paris, for I am much dispirited. There is to be no university, for Cardinal de Lorraine has disowned me.”

“So soon? Then you have a tenfold reason for rejoicing,” Fabien said. “What is the cause?”

Andelot glanced at him cautiously. “You are the cause, Marquis. He demands I give up my friendship with you and the House of Bourbon.

There will be no Tutor Thauvet, no great university. I was to first have entered the Corps des Pages, but now the door will be bolted tight against me.”

“Since I appear to be the stumbling block, mon ami, I will take oversight of your schooling myself.”

“Ah, but I did not mean to suggest — ”

“I would have suggested it sooner, except for your call to Chambord to meet your unexpected new kinsmen, the Guises. As for the School of Pages, if I were at Court, I would sponsor you and place you under the training of Gallaudet. But as I am not likely to be at Court for a year or longer, you need to be placed now. Let me consider what noble house you would do well under. In the meantime, you will come aboard to see the
Reprisal
.”

“The name is most bonne, Marquis, and very telling!” Andelot grinned. “And you are most generous, a better ami no man could have. I have been thinking that I should like to sail as your valet.”

“I do not need a valet aboard a buccaneering ship.”

“A cook, then.”

“Non,” he said gravely. “The food will be terrible enough without your assistance. Andelot, mon ami, you have the heart of a scholar, and a scholar you shall be if I have anything to say about it. Besides, I want you to keep an eye on the mademoiselle’s safety.”

“Mademoiselle?”

“There is only one,” Fabien said, looking at him gravely.

“Ah, oui . . . Mademoiselle Rachelle.”

There was an uncomfortable silence as they walked until Andelot asked, “What did you think about the gloves, Marquis?”

Fabien turned his head. “Gloves?”

“She did not tell you?” Andelot sounded stunned.

Fabien stopped on the wharf. “Tell me what?”

Andelot stared at him, a frown deepening over his brows. “Nor about Oncle Sebastien either?”

“What about him? He is gone, since the massacre of Amboise.”

“Ah, Marquis Fabien, then there is much I need to explain and tell you. It concerns the reason we have accompanied Pasteur Bertrand here to Calais. If this was only about him and his cargo of forbidden books, neither I nor Mademoiselle Rachelle would have need to come.”

Fabien again grew sober. “Come, then. We best talk in my cabin.”

F
ABIEN
AND
ANDELOT
CONTINUED
along the wharf with Fabien frowning to himself and wondering why Rachelle had not shown more reasonableness with him. So her affairs were her own?

They stepped onto the gangplank, sloping up to the
Reprisal
, and despite the mood that pervaded, Andelot was enthused over all he saw as they walked around the deck and then into the captain’s cabin.

“A ship that will make a name for itself, Marquis, I can feel it. I think I should give you this blessed cross the traveling monk gave me a few years ago. It comes from Rome, from the Vatican. The pope blessed it.” He reached inside his tunic. “If you hang it in the cabin it will bring protection in case you run into a storm or come up against a Spanish fleet.”

“I think you better keep it. You may yet have dealings with the cardinal from which you need to be delivered. He may be pleased to see you wearing it.”

Andelot nodded thoughtfully. Fabien opened his cabin door. He smiled. “Duck your head, the doorframe is low.”

“Marquis Fabien, sometimes I do not think you truly are a Catholic.”

“Now why would you think that? I have said as much before, many times.”

“True, but — ”

“Even Mademoiselle Rachelle believes I am, as does her Huguenot cousin, Bertrand. It is the reason the Macquinets are cautious of me, I assure you.”

“If you are leaning toward Geneva, then you ought to tell them, for her parents and Pasteur Bertrand would warm to you.”

“And that would please you, mon ami?”

“Bien sûr — ” He stopped, looked at him, and turned his mouth wryly.

“What will you have to refresh yourself?”

“A cup of ale, s’il vous plaît.”

Fabien grimaced.
Ale, the petit noir of serfs and slaves
. He opened the cabin door. “Gallaudet! Tell Percy in the cook’s room. Make it ale.”

Gallaudet returned with cups and a foul appearing ceramic jug.

Fabien gestured with disdain. “This, what is it?”

“Ale, Monseigneur. As you said. It is the jug Percy gave me.”

“I wager he does not think his time worthy of washing jugs?”

“He says washing the jugs will ruin the brew, Monseigneur.”

“Did he! Can anything ruin so disgusting a brew? Then again, perhaps that is why it ferments.”

Gallaudet smiled and poured. He bowed, handing it with smooth deference to Fabien. “Monseigneur.”

He and Andelot raised their cups.

“To the owner of the
Reprisal
! Happy hunting, Monseigneur!”

Fabien returned the bow. He toasted. “Devastation and ruin to Spain’s galleons!”

“So be it!” Gallaudet said.

“To the bottom of the sea!” said Andelot.

Fabien took a mouthful, then pushing open the cabin door, rushed to the rail and spat it out.

F
ABIEN
PONDERED
ANDELOT’S
DARK
news of Sebastien’s imprisonment. The salle de la question! That Sebastien would be brought before the inquisitors overshadowed all else. He was alive, yes, but for how long?

“The Cardinal de Lorraine said this, you are certain, Andelot? Sebastien will face questioning by Rome’s inquisitors?”