Scotland, monsieur,” Sheena said, straightening her back and looking at him full in the face for the first time since their exchange of hostilities, “we put duty first and comfort a very long way behind.”
His lips twisted at the corners and she had the impression that she had made no more impact upon his sensibilities than if she had been a fly brushing itself against his velvet coat.
“Very commendable, mam’selle,” he said. “Commendable indeed. We must all admire your persistence and, of course, your devotion to duty.”
The sarcasm in his voice was so obvious that Sheena could not help but retort. Her fiery Scottish temper, never very well controlled, flashed for a moment like lightning across her eyes.
Then she said in a tone as icy as that which she had used when she first came into the room,
“I think, monsieur, that I shall fare best without your praise, for words from a twisted tongue are often dangerous to those who have serious and important work to do.”
.Even as she spoke, Sheena was half-frightened at the challenge of her voice as well as of her words. In that moment her eyes met the Duc’s and they stared at each other,
The shabbily dressed girl with dishevelled curls and wet feet held out to the flames, and the aristocrat with his magnificent attire, flashing jewels and tired cynical eyes.
It was war between them and they both knew it. War, inescapable, deadly and pitiless. A war in which one or the other must ultimately be the victor.
As if the other people present realised that something momentous was taking place, no one spoke. Then very slowly the Duc rose to his feet. For a moment he stood towering above Sheena, his head almost seeming to touch the ceiling.
Then he swept her a magnificent and exaggerated Court bow.
“Your servant, mam’selle,” he said. “We shall meet in Paris.”
Still in silence he turned and walked from the room and the door closed behind him.
Sheena did not move, She knew that something strong, tempestuous and frightening had gone, leaving the room curiously empty.
She suddenly felt very tired and very alone.
CHAPTER TWO
They were nearing Paris.
Sheena bent forward in the coach to stare about her with wide eyes at the fine Châteaux which they passed from time to time and the cultivated fields which lay on either side of the road as far as the eye could see.
Every mile that she travelled to her destination made her realise her own inadequacy and the poverty of her appearance. She had not expected anything so luxurious or so comfortable as the coach sent by the King to convey her from the little fishing Port to Paris.
“We shall travel at great speed,” one of the gentlemen in her escort had said to her and, after the rough roads in Scotland and the uncomfortable hard coaches that had been her lot until now, Sheena could hardly believe it possible that horses could move so quickly or that she could lie back in such comfort against the coach’s padded cushions.
Her knees were covered with a rug of velvet lined with fur and she thought wryly that it was incongruous that anything so delicate should be required to cover the coarseness of her gown.
She had felt so elegant when she had left her home in Scotland for she had sat up half the night struggling with the old seamstress of the village to achieve what she then imagined was an exceedingly fashionable wardrobe and worthy of the girl who had the privilege of waiting upon the Queen of Scotland.
Now she felt that she looked nothing but a laughing stock.
But she could only compare her own possessions with those of the young gallants who accompanied her. As they rode on either side of the coach, the silver accoutrements on their horses’ harness glittered in the sunshine, their cloaks of velvet and satin billowed out behind them in the wind and the ostrich feathers on their caps waved with every single movement that they made.
‘I must look like a servant girl,’ Sheena whispered to herself.
Then defiantly her little chin went up.
Her blood was as good as theirs if not better and the blood of Scotland was being shed at this very moment in the defence of her Queen.
Yet at seventeen it is hard to be resolute in the face not of adversity but of plenty. Sheena did not miss the way that at every inn at which they stopped the ostlers ran forward to change the horses, the innkeeper bowed low to the ground and the maidservants curtseyed.
She was travelling in a Royal coach, she was under the protection of the King of France, and therefore she was treated with a respect which was akin to reverence. It was something she had never known before in her whole short life in the barren Castle in Perthshire.
The Priest, who had been her companion on the sea voyage, had gone no further. He was journeying to Calais to join the English Garrison there and to bring back the homesick bored troops news of their homeland.
Sheena and Maggie were all alone and Maggie with her high cheekbones, sharp, angular features and bright inquisitive eyes, was somehow something strong and familiar to which she could cling almost desperately in her apprehension of what lay ahead.
“Dinna fuss yoursel, ma wee bairn,” Maggie said, sensing what Sheena was thinking, “You’re as good as they are, nay even better. All they’ve got that you haven’t is money and what has money brought them but laziness and corruption?”
“You cannot say that, Maggie,” Sheena responded, laughing, although she felt more like bursting into tears. “We have not seen the Court. We must not judge until we have been there. The King has been very kind to us. Look at this wonderful coach and our escort. He could do no more if we were the Queen herself and not just a troublesome addition to her household.”
Maggie snorted.
“Fine feathers! Men dressed up like women in silks and satins and diamonds. I’d rather have a mon who can wear a plaid and knows just how to wield a claymore. Pah! ’Tis doubtful I am if any of this crowd will fight for Her Majesty.”
“Hush, Maggie! Hush!” Sheena urged her.
“They’ll no understand us,” Maggie said scornfully.
“Look at that house,” Sheena breathed in admiration as they swept past a great Château standing back from the road with a garden of ornamental lakes and fountains playing.
There were swans, black and white, swimming on the silver water and it all seemed to Sheena as if the whole scene was out of some Fairytale.
She thought a little wistfully of her own home, the ramparts crumbling from old age, the doors and staircases sadly in need of repair and the rooms furnished shabbily and without any comfort.
Everything here in France appeared to have been newly painted. Even the villages they passed through seemed clean and the people thriving and prosperous. She had heard many tales from the Elders in Scotland of the extravagance of the French Monarchs, how Francis I, the father of the present King, had taxed his people unmercifully to pay for his war with Spain
