Excerpt
Isola: Reese's Book Club
1I never knew my mother. She died the night that I was born, and so we passed each other in the dark. She left me her name, Marguerite, and her ruby ring, but no memory of her. I did not know my father either. When I was one year old, he was killed fighting for the King at Pavia. Then I was rich, although I did not know it, and poor, although I did not know it. I was heir to a château in Périgord with its own villages, vineyards, and sunny fields, but I had no parents, aunts, or uncles living. Servants surrounded me, but I had no sisters or brothers, and so I was alone.
My nurse, Damienne, was my first teacher. She was an old woman, at least forty, and her hair, once red, was faded like old brick. Her eyes were shrewd but tired, and all around her mouth her skin was creased in little lines like unpressed linen. My nurse was stout, her stomach soft, her bosom pillowy. When we lay down to sleep, she held me close as though I were her own—and if I was not her child, then certainly she belonged to me, for she had served my family since she was a girl.
She said my father had been noble, not just in name but on the battlefield. When his horse was killed under him, he fought on with sword and pike until an archer shot him in the neck. Wounded, my father fell, but his men broke off the arrow’s shaft and bore him away. In his tent, even as a surgeon cut out the arrowhead, my father demanded to return to fight. “Take me back,” he gasped while his blood streamed out in rivulets. I imagined his blood ruby red.
As for my mother, she had been a beauty. My eyes were green, but her eyes had been greener. My hair was amber brown, but hers had been gold like winter wheat. My mother’s hands were elegant, her fingers long. When she played the virginal, her notes were perfect, but her modesty was such that she performed only for her own ladies. As a girl, my mother had been gentle and obedient—but my nurse would do her best with me.
Damienne fussed, but she was kind. When I tested her, she forgave me. Only on great occasions did my nurse lose patience. The first time my guardian visited, Damienne’s sharp words startled me. After a messenger summoned me downstairs, my nurse scolded, “You aren’t fit to be seen! Your slippers are disgraceful.”
“How are they disgraceful?” I asked, as she helped me into silver sleeves.
My nurse sat me down hard and I slumped, offended, but she did not relent. “Sit straight! Do not let your back so much as touch your chair.”
“Why not? What will happen if I touch my chair?”
“No questions.”
“Why?”
“Oh, for God’s sake.”
My nurse could not read, but she had taught me how to pray. Our Father. Our Mother, Holy Mary, full of Grace. At first, I imagined my own parents as I intoned these words, but Damienne stamped out this childish heresy. You did not pray to your own father and mother but to the Father and Mother of the world, the King and Queen who reigned in heaven. And so, I understood that while I belonged to the Lord and to the Virgin, they did not belong to me. This was true of my inheritance as well. Because I could not govern my own lands, I had a guardian, and he would manage my estate until my marriage. I was already betrothed and would wed at fifteen if I lived.
If I didn’t, I might go to heaven. My soul would float above the tallest towers. I would not know hunger or suffer from the cold, and I would hear the angels singing. This was what I learned, but when I wondered, Why not die and fly to heaven now? Damienne said for shame. It was wicked to ask, and what made me think a wicked child could go? One with needlework so poor and lice crawling in her hair? Even now when I must look a lady, Damienne found nits.
“Terrible.” She pulled them off like tiny burrs. My mother hardly had lice in comparison—but she was herself an angel. I imagined her lice were little angels too.
I was wicked, just as Damienne said. My hems were ragged because I climbed rough tower stairs to see the view. Fearsome, ancient, pierced with arrow slits, our north and western towers were built upon a cliff to command and to defend the country. From there, I could see my villages, orchards, vineyards, and the green river winding, spanned by a stone bridge. As for my slippers, I had ruined them at the stables where I ran to see the horses. Damienne would hurry after me, although she wasn’t fast, and stand calling to the grooms for help. Then, thoughtless as I was, I hid. I slipped behind the water troughs and stable doors—but in the end, I followed her inside.
“God’s will,” Damienne murmured now, because I was her constant care. She combed through a drop of oil and bound my hair so tight that my eyes widened. “Don’t touch.” Damienne adorned me with a circlet of pearls and held up a glass.
I laughed at the sight of myself, wide-eyed, silver stiff.
“Don’t you understand?”
I didn’t, but I tried to humor her. Putting on a solemn face, I stepped carefully to meet my guardian. My nurse helped me with my skirts as we took the stairs.
Down echoing passageways and through a gallery, we walked to the great hall, long as a church’s nave and high as heaven. This was my hall as it had belonged to my mother’s family, but I came here seldom because the place was grand, and I was small.
I knew as little of the château’s public rooms as I did of my farms and vineyards, for, like all my property, they were mine in name only. Maids did exactly as I asked. I had three, Françoise, Claude, and Jeanne, but a housekeeper managed the girls, and she reported to my guardian’s steward. Men worked my fields, but I knew nothing of them. The steward collected tenants’ rents and brought these to my guardian. To him came the profit from my orchards and my meadows. To him the fruit of my vines, the apples from my trees, the walnuts harvested in autumn. These were his due. As I entered the hall, my guardian waited with an air of ownership, greeting me as though I was the guest.
Grand places were familiar to this man, but I glanced eagerly at vaulting windows and tapestries of nobles and their servants hunting. Just behind my guardian, I saw deer leaping and men murdering a stag.
“Come here, little one,” my guardian said.
Curtseying, I saw Damienne’s hands shaking. I noticed because I had not seen her tremble before.
My guardian was my father’s cousin, Jean-François de la Rocque de Roberval, and he was a great man because he had been the King’s boyhood friend. My father had been greater still, or so Damienne had told me. As for my mother, she had royal blood. However, my guardian had the advantage because he was living.
Roberval was a voyager who sailed across the seas to defend France from English ships. For this, he was well-loved at home and feared abroad, and famous everywhere. His face was pale, his doublet black, but his eyes were bright, clear, penetrating blue. His beard was peppered gray and narrowed foxlike at the chin. He sat at a dark table and kept a thick book close at hand, along with a decanter filled with wine. On his table, I saw a goblet shining like a diamond and, even better, an ebony cabinet, fitted with compartments, tiny drawers and doors.
Turning to a secretary at a smaller table, my guardian said, “Is this my cousin?” He did not know me because he had never asked for me before.
“She is,” the secretary said.
My guardian looked me up and down. He studied me dispassionately, the way a man looks at a kitten he might keep or drown. “How old are you?”
“Nine, my lord.”
He said, “A likely child.”
I thought, Likely for what? But my nurse had taught me well. I held my tongue.
My guardian told his secretary, “She is small for her age.” This was not true, but no one contradicted him. “She will have to grow. Come closer,” Roberval told me, and I stood before him, close enough to touch his cabinet. How I wanted it! The little drawers were perfect for my hands. How I wished my guardian would give this toy to me! He who was the keeper of all things. This cabinet was fashioned as a miniature palace. Its façade was carved with pediments and pillars framing drawers inlaid with ivory. What did my guardian keep inside? Jewels? Papers? Holy relics?
My guardian saw me staring, but he did not rebuke me. “Would you like to see?”
I met his eyes, delighted as he beckoned me. He drew me in so I could examine gold-touched finials and fluted columns, marquetry doors, and then—with a flick of his finger, the bottom drawer sprang open.
Starting back, I nearly jumped into his arms.
Amused, he asked, “What do you see?”
“Gold,” I whispered, gazing at the open drawer, brimful with écus. I had never known a cabinet like this or seen such money.
“Take these for clothes and lessons.” My guardian gathered coins for Damienne.
Damienne murmured thanks and began to back away, but my guardian spoke to me again. “What do you play?”
“Nothing, my lord.”
“No instrument at all?”
“No.”
“Can you write?” I hesitated, and he said, “Can you write your name?” I nodded, although I did it poorly. “Can you read?”
“Words I know, my lord.”
