Isola

Chapter 3

3

This time when my guardian summoned me, I knew to be afraid, for I understood that he would determine when I should be wed, whether or not I was fifteen.

My gown was olive green with a square-cut bodice edged with gold. My slippers were gold-trimmed as well, and on my finger, I wore my ruby ring. Adorned like this, I walked with Damienne into the great hall, and I imagined what I might say. If I must go, then let me wait a little longer. If it must be now, then let me take Madame D’Artois and Claire. I thought, Do not marry me off just yet; do not send me away alone—but pleading might annoy him. I knew I mustn’t beg.

In the great hall forested with tapestries, Roberval was working at his table. Close by sat a new secretary, a youth with fair hair and dark eyes, but I scarcely glanced at him.

“Cousin.” Roberval stood to greet us, but I held back until he beckoned me. When I presented myself, he looked me up and down. “You are not so little now. How old are you?”

“Thirteen, my lord.”

His eyes were quick, his face ruddy as though he had been riding. On the table, I saw two books and the decanter red with wine. There was my guardian’s cabinet with its miniature drawers and pillars, its pediments, its facade trimmed with ivory, but I no longer wished for it. My own life was what I hoped he’d grant me.

“You have grown tall,” my guardian observed.

This was true, but I did not feel tall in that vast room, and I thought it best not to appear so. Humbly, I bent my head.

“Can you read?”

“Yes, my lord.”

“And can you write?”

I nodded.

“Can you play?”

“A little.”

“Speak up.” He stepped around the table.

I glanced at Damienne, who stood waiting by the door. My impulse was to run to her, but I held still as my guardian approached.

He took my right hand in his, and I felt his flesh, cold and dry. “What is this?” He slipped the ring from my fourth finger, and my hand was naked.

Without thinking, I hid both hands behind me. “It is my ring.”

“Who gave it to you?”

“My mother left it to me.”

He took my treasure to examine in a shaft of sunlight. Square cut, bracketed in gold, my jewel shone wine red.

I knew that Roberval could keep it; I had no way to stop him. He might slip my mother’s gift into his cabinet or wear it on his little finger. He might do anything—but he stepped toward me again. “Hold out your hand.”

I hesitated, unsure what he intended. To possess me? Pledge me to another? Strike me? I shrank back, and, frowning, he took my hand himself. Then turning it palm up, he dropped my mother’s legacy. My fingers closed around the ring.

“She is too young,” my guardian told his secretary. “Write and say my ward is still too young to leave this house.”

I let out a long breath as Roberval gave Damienne a heavy purse for me. “In two years,” he told his secretary. “We shall see.”

—

I walked with Claire on paths scattered with petals. “I am afraid of him, but he is generous,” I told her.

“What did he give you?”

“A purse of gold and a letter granting me two years.”

Claire considered this. Then she said, “I wonder if he will ever make a match for you.”

“What do you mean?”

Her face was modest and her voice was sweet, but Claire was quick. “Perhaps he doesn’t want to pay your dowry.”

I turned to look at her. “But he must.”

“I think—” said Claire.

“You think what?”

“He is an adventurer.”

“Only in service to the King.”

“He is a speculator.”

I was puzzled. “He is rich at the King’s pleasure.”

Claire said, “Long may he continue to be.”

“What are you suggesting?”

“I beg pardon,” Claire said immediately.

But I was troubled to hear her speak this way, as though my guardian’s prospects were unsure. I knew that in good time, I should wed one whose fortune matched my own. While I did not want to marry soon, it was quite another thing to hear Claire wonder if the day would come at all. “Why wouldn’t he pay my dowry?” I said. “It’s not his money he would spend. He would use mine.”

“I do not know how great men think,” Claire excused herself—and yet I knew she listened to her mother, and her mother listened to the servants. Madame D’Artois collected news of court and traced my guardian’s movements in France.

Standing in my garden with its clipped trees, I demanded truth, not deference, although Claire’s sleeves were trimmed with ribbon, mine with gold. “Tell me what you know.”

With bent head, Claire murmured, “We will have tenants.”

“What do you mean?”

“Your guardian has mortgaged this estate.”

“You mean my estate?”

“Yes. He has mortgaged it to a large family.”

“But how? What family?”

“The Montforts. They are merchants.”

“Merchants!” I knew what merchants were, and they seemed to me no better than the men who came to paint and plaster. “What rooms will they have?”

She whispered, “Our own.”

“That’s impossible,” I said. “Where will we go?”

“The north tower.”

I shook my head. Not the north tower with its ancient rooms, its spiders and cold floors. “We can’t live there. That can’t be true.”

But so it was. My guardian, who had left for court, displaced us. His orders came to us by messenger. Invisible, he made this change.

I looked to Damienne as she protested softly, This isn’t good. It isn’t right. But maids came to pack our linens anyway. She could not stop them, nor could Madame D’Artois. With all her languages and learning, my teacher could not restore me. Nor could I countermand my guardian’s decision. The servants took their orders from the steward. And this was a strange, lonely knowledge. There was nothing we could do.

Servants lifted boxes and small chairs. They carried our carved chests but left our beds and hangings for the newcomers. My maids would have left our portrait of the Virgin, except I snatched her. I said that she was mine, and so we kept our altarpiece.

“Give me patience,” Damienne muttered as she shut our virginal.

We did not trust servants with our books, so Madame D’Artois carried them while I held the gilt cage with my finch fluttering within.

“We will take the kneeling cushions,” I told Claire.

“I’m not sure we are allowed,” she said.

“Bring these,” I told the maids, and they obeyed but did not look at me. “Francoise,” I said. “Claude. Jeanne?” They did not answer but cast their eyes down. Then I saw that I had lost the girls’ allegiance. The maids would seek favor from my guardian’s tenants now—for the girls belonged to the house, and the house no longer belonged to me.

“I think the tower will be temporary,” Claire whispered as we climbed the stairs. “Until he has more funds.”

“But why would Roberval need funds?”

“Because he had reversals.”

“How do you know?” I began, and then I said, “Why can’t he find funds somewhere else? Doesn’t he hunt with the King?”

“Shh!” Damienne warned, because the maids were walking just ahead.

“Never speak that way in front of servants,” she chided when we were alone.

“What does it matter now?” I asked. We were sitting together on the uncurtained bed in my new chamber. The walls were rough; the floors were bare. “He’s sent me here and wronged me.”

“Hush. Your guardian will overhear,” said Damienne.

“He is not in the house. He’s hardly in the country.”

“He will find you out. Great men hear everything.”

—

North light was cold and gray; our rooms were small. We had our cushions and needlework, our instrument and portrait of the Virgin, but we could not see the priest except when he came up to us. My chapel belonged to the Montforts now, and so we prayed in our tower. At night we shivered in our beds.

Cast off without comforts, Claire and I walked up and down on the chill mornings. Our hands were stiff when we tried practicing.

“I can’t play like this,” I said.

“Come and read,” said Claire.

“Not lessons,” I groaned.

“Then what will you do?” asked Damienne, who busied herself sweeping.

“I have something,” said Madame D’Artois, and from the box where she kept her own things, she drew a volume with a cracked binding.

“You never showed me this,” Claire said.

“You are old enough now,” said her mother, our teacher. Soft with use and age-spotted, the book was worn, but its words were wonderful. This volume by Christine de Pizan described noblewomen building their own city. Three ladies, named Reason, Rectitude, and Justice, came to their authoress in a dream and told of valorous women—proof against those who called us foolish, fickle, weak. Although the tales were brief, each served as a brick in a citadel of stories.

Here we read of Griselda, who obeyed without complaint. Hypsicratea, who fought alongside her lord in battle and then followed him to live in wilderness. Zenobia, the huntress. Camilla, raised in wilderness by her exiled father. Deborah, the judge. Dido, the Queen. Julia, Caesar’s daughter. And here we read of wives brave as well as good. Daughters wise as well as chaste. We learned of queens and saints, inventors and sorceresses. Each day we talked together of these women and their city—and sometimes, we pretended that our own tower was a citadel of ladies. “You are Reason,” I told Claire. “And your mother will be Rectitude. And Damienne can be Justice.”

“Then who will you be?” Claire asked.

She smiled at my answer. “None of those, so I must be the authoress.”

Alas, these stories could not delight us always. Words could not warm our bodies or restore me to my former place. Our book’s best examples were difficult to follow. How was it possible to live like Circe without magic? Or triumph like Thamaris without an army? We had no soldiers or enchantments, only my guardian and his luck, for good or ill.

“Seafaring is a cruel game,” Claire said. And this was true. Pirates might find you. English might board you. Even if they did not, there was the weather, and what then? Tempests rose, and waves breached the strongest hull. Salt water would seep in and sink your vessel with its casks of wine, its spices, and its chests of gold. We sat near my window and looked down at summer fields. Small as ants, the farmers seemed to us, their wagons acorns—but the prospect did not delight me as it had before.

“What right has Roberval to mortgage my estate?” I said.

Claire answered in a hushed voice, “He needed funds.”

“Why?”

“My mother says your guardian lost a kingdom in his ships.”

“And yet he lives.”

“Yes. He waits upon the King.”

My guardian followed the King’s progress to beg for a commission. A word, a fair wind, funds to start, and Roberval might sail again—but we had no news of him.

—

In August, the garden was warmer than our rooms. Walking there, we turned our faces to the sun, and we saw gnats and mayflies. How like ourselves, said Madame D’Artois. How frail every living thing. Roses shatter; winged insects live a single day. She said, Do not depend on anything but providence, and she told us parables of those I called the deadly virtues—patience, humility, and diligence.

“Not deadly,” Claire protested.

“Of course they are,” I told her.

She said, “But they are the qualities we require most.”

I retorted, “I’ll be patient when the chateau is mine again.”

Without humility, I watched tenants fill my house. Without patience, I saw the family’s servants overrun our halls; their horses crowding stables and stone court. Madame Montfort was young and delicate, but her husband strode heavily in what had been my rooms. He had two sons by his first wife, now dead, and these young men, Nicholas and Denys, were tall and richly mounted, raucous, bold. From the window, we saw them riding, and when they galloped, dust rose in clouds. When they passed us on the path into the garden, the young men glanced at us imperiously.

As for the Montfort daughters, there were two little girls called Suzanne and Ysabeau and two young ladies called Louise and Anne. The little ones were children of Madame Montfort. The young ladies were daughters of Montfort’s first wife—but Madame Montfort held these stepdaughters close, for she was loving, and they were just about her age. Often I glimpsed the three together, and I saw how Madame Montfort dressed Louise and Anne in silk and pearls.

“Might you befriend them?” Claire suggested.

But I was proud and answered, “Not while they are sleeping in our beds.”

This new family commandeered my stables, scratched my furniture, and, as I imagined, bent my silver knives. “Who are they?” I complained to Claire as we sat at our work. “They have no title and no history.”

She looked up as she pulled her needle through. “They are rich enough to buy both if they choose.”

Vanity, vanity, taught Madame D’Artois. Everything we treasure has a price. And everything we have will slip away. She told us we were dust and our lives brief as grass. We might understand this if we were truly wise—but I lacked wisdom.

In autumn, the maids did not come up to tend our fires. In the evenings, we lacked candles. We read our book in fading light, and when it was too dark to see, we closed the volume and left our ladies in their city.

The days grew short, and I lived enviously. From my tower window, I watched men arrive in black and silver livery, heralds on horseback, and wagons bearing trunks—all this for the wedding of the Montforts’ daughter Anne.

I saw a man riding a white horse decked in silver, and I knew this was Anne’s bridegroom, princely, straight-backed, shining in a silver-trimmed cloak. How beautiful he was. How rich. What jewels Anne would have! The linens she would bring to her new house, the silver, the hangings—everything she owned would be adorned.

I turned to Claire and said, “I wish that I could marry.”

She looked surprised. “You dreaded leaving home before.”

“It’s hardly my home anymore.”

Claire reasoned, “Marriage might be worse.”

“Not if my husband prospered.”

“A man might prosper and yet injure you.”

I retorted, “As my guardian does me.” For at fourteen, I began to understand what Claire had hinted and her mother would not say. My guardian had speculated on my inheritance, and if his fortunes did not change, I would have no dowry, no connections—no place at all, at home or in the world.

—

When winter came, the music master left. My bright-eyed finch took chill and died. In the garden, only sticks and thorns remained of roses, and I railed to Claire and stamped my foot because I thought I knew what hardship meant. “We have nothing, and we will have nothing.”

“We have books and music,” Claire reminded me. “And food to eat and wine to drink.”

Now, despite my temper, I began to laugh. “Of course, you suffer better than I do.”

“Not at all.”

“And you are modest about your suffering too.”

“We might fare worse,” she said.

“We live like pensioners, and it isn’t right!”

“Who can say,” Claire ventured, “what any of us deserve?”

Wonderingly, I asked, “Will you take orders?” for I saw how she prayed and bent her will to every circumstance. “You would be a perfect bride of Christ.”

“I have no dowry,” she demurred.

I seized on this. “I’ll pay for you, I swear. If my guardian leaves me anything at all, I’ll bring your dowry to the convent.”

“Do not swear it,” she said, because it was wrong to make oaths you could not keep.

But I was certain, and I knew my mind. I whispered, “Roberval might drown.”

“God forbid,” she murmured.

God take him, I insisted secretly, for young as I was, I imagined that if Roberval was lost at sea, we might live just as we pleased. “We will come with you, Damienne and I. We will start our own order, Sisters of Claire, and all around our cloister, we will build high walls. We will adore the Virgin, and sew and walk together, and never let men in.” This was my noble plan—noble on Claire’s behalf—but my guardian did not die, and he had his own ideas for me.