of the handsome Russian encule. The coppery, bitter taste of humiliation and failure.
The king had said nothing when she returned to Paris with her report of the Russian’s escape. He had said nothing when he sent her back to her “legitimate” duties as fille d’honneur to Princess Madeleine, her ostensible reason for being at Court in the first place. There she had languished for months, walking with the other ladies in the gardens, reading to the princess, dancing at banquets. Fending off the advances of useless, arrogant courtiers.
They could do her no good, those perfumed popinjays who pressed their kisses on her in the shadows. Only one man was useful here, King François himself. And he maintained his distant politeness, merely nodding to her when they happened to pass in the garden or the banquet hall.
Marguerite knew the whispers, that she and the king had been lovers who were estranged now that he was involved with the Duchesse de Vendôme. If they only knew the truth! They would never believe it. Not of her.
She scarcely believed it herself, in these days of quiet leisure in the princess’s apartments. Had she truly ever been sent to the far corners of Europe, to defeat the enemies of France? Had she once used her wits, her hard-learned skills, to find a secret victory over those who would defy the king? It did not seem possible.
Yet at night, alone in her curtained bed, she knew it was true. Once, she had had adventures. She had won a place for herself in the wider world. Had one mistake, one instant’s miscalculation, cost her all she worked for?
It had made no sense to her that she would be dismissed in only a moment, when now more than ever her special skills were needed. Since the king’s humiliating defeat against the forces of the Holy Roman Emperor at Pavia, since his two sons were sent to Madrid as hostages, dark days had descended on France. Her enemies were becoming ever bolder.
Marguerite knew she could be of use in these new, dangerous games. Why, then, was she relegated to dancing and card playing? All because of the Russian, damn his unearthly blue eyes!
But those days seemed to be at an end. She held the king’s note in her hand, so tightly the parchment pressed her rings into her skin. It was time for her to redeem herself.
As she climbed the narrow, privy staircase, the sounds of hammering and sawing grew louder, more distinct, shouting of the king’s new mania for building. Since his return from Spain in defeat, François had thrown himself into a frenzy of remodelling, of making his palaces ever grander.
Fontainebleau, one of his favourite castles thanks to the seventeen-thousand hectares of forest ripe with deer for hunting, was his latest focus. Since the Christmas festivities, so muted without the presence of the Dauphin and his brother, work was begun in earnest. The old keep of St Louis and Philipe le Beau was being demolished, replaced by something vast and modern.
Marguerite lifted the hem of her velvet skirt as she stepped over a pile of rubbish. A shower of stone dust from above nearly coated her headdress, and she hurried to the relative safety of the great gallery.
This was one of the few rooms in the place to be almost finished. A long, echoing expanse of polished parquet floor swept up to walls of pale stuccowork, inlaid dark wood in the panels of the boiserie. A few of the many planned flourishes of floral motifs, gods and goddesses, fat little Cupids, were in place, with blank spaces just waiting to be filled.
At the far end of the gallery, leaning over a table covered with sketches, was King François himself. He was consulting with one of the Italian artists brought in to take charge of all this splendour, Signor Fiorentino, and for the moment did not see her. Marguerite slowed her steps, studying him carefully for any sign of his thoughts and intentions. Any hint that she was truly forgiven.
François was very tall, towering over her own petite frame, and was all an imposing king should be, with abundant dark hair and a fashionable pointed beard. His brown eyes were sharp and clear above his hooked Valois nose, missing nothing. After Pavia and his captivity, he seemed leaner, more wary, his always athletic body thin and wiry.
But his famous sense of fashion had not deserted him. Even on a quiet day like this, he wore a crimson velvet doublet embroidered with gold and silver and festooned with garnet buttons, a sleeveless surcoat of purple trimmed with silver fox fur to keep the chill away. A crimson cap sewn with pearls and more garnets covered his head, concealing his gaze as he bent over the drawings.
“There will be twelve in all, your Majesty,” Fiorentino said, gesturing toward the empty spaces on the gallery walls. “All scenes from mythology, of course, to illustrate your Majesty’s enlightened governance.”
“Hmm, yes, I see,” Francois said. Without glancing up, he called, “Ah, Mademoiselle Dumas! You surely have the finest eye for beauty of any lady in my kingdom. What do you think of Signor Fiorentino’s plans?”
Marguerite came closer, peering down at the sketches as she tucked the king’s note into her tight undersleeve. The first drawing was a scene of Danaë, more a stylish lady of the French Court in a drapery of blue-tinted silk and an elaborate headdress than a woman of the classical world. But her surroundings—broken columns and twisted olive trees, her attendants of fat cherubs and even more fashionable ladies—were very skilfully drawn, the scene most elegant.
“It is lovely,” she said. “And surely the dimensions, the way the scene is framed by these columns, make it perfect for that space there, where the afternoon sunlight will make Danaë’s robe shimmer like a summer sky. You will use cobalt, signor, and flecks of gilt?”
“You are quite right, your Majesty! The mademoiselle has a most discerning eye for beauty,” Fiorentino said happily, clapping his paint-stained hands. Perhaps he was just glad he wouldn’t waste expensive cobalt.
“Bien, signor,” the king said. “The Danaë stays. You may commence at once.”
As the artist hurried away, his assistants scurrying after him, François smiled at Marguerite. Try as she did to gauge his thoughts, she could see nothing beyond his courtly smile, the opaque light of his eyes. He was even better at concealing his true self than Marguerite herself.
“Shall we stroll in the gardens, Mademoiselle Dumas?” he asked lightly. “It is a bit warmer, I think, and I should like your opinion on the new fountain I have commissioned. It is the goddess Diana, a great warrior and hunter. A favourite of yours, I believe?”
“I would be honoured to walk with you, your Majesty,” Marguerite answered. “Yet I fear I know little of fountains.”
“Egremont will loan you his cloak,” he said, gesturing to one of his attendants, who immediately presented her with his fur-lined wrap. “We would not want you to catch a chill. You have such important work, mademoiselle.”
Important work? Was this truly a new task, then? A chance for the Emerald Lily to emerge from hiding? Marguerite was careful not to show her eagerness, settling the cloak over her shoulders. “Indeed, your Majesty?”
“Oui. For does my daughter not depend on you, since the death of her sainted mother? You are her favourite attendant.”
“I, too, am very fond of the princess,” Marguerite answered, and she was. Princess Madeleine was a lovely child, charming and quick-minded. But she was hardly a challenge. She could not offer the kind of advancement Marguerite’s ambition craved. The kind she needed for her own security. She thought of the stash of coins hidden beneath her bed, and how they were not yet enough to gain her a vineyard, a life, of her own.
