Chapter 42
42
I burst through the door and set the Queen’s gift on the table.
Dressed for bed, Claire’s mother held up her candle as I opened the casket to show a hundred écus. Two hundred. More.
Claire scarcely dared to look at all this treasure, but I raked the gold coins with my fingers as I recounted all I had done. I spoke of Roberval—but I did not repeat our whole conversation. I told of the Queen and my missteps and how I’d saved myself. And at last, I turned to Madame D’Artois and said, “I mentioned you.”
“Me?” Madame D’Artois asked in alarm.
“I said that you inspire me to teach. Now we shall found a school for girls.”
“It is too much,” said Madame D’Artois.
“But it is true. We will have our own establishment. And this is yours!” I gave Claire the leather pouch. “I told Her Majesty that you should be a bride of Christ—and here is your dowry.”
“Why did you ask for so much on my behalf?” said Claire.
“Because you deserve it.” Joyfully, I returned her ring.
Claire looked troubled. “I wish you had not asked anything for me.”
“You are too modest.”
“Not at all,” Claire said. “It isn’t right for me to take this treasure.”
“But why?”
“Because I cannot take orders in good conscience.”
“Truly?”
“I would not leave my mother,” Claire said. “And I would not part from you again—not even to worship seven times a day and fast each week.”
Then I laughed because only Claire could be so modest and so practical. To give up self-abnegation so that she could live with us instead. I said, “I thought you would devote yourself to prayer if only you had opportunity.”
But Claire said, “I would rather build the school and teach the girls to pray.”
By this, I knew she longed to join me in my enterprise. Indeed, when the Queen’s charter came, Claire read it a hundred times. With her mother, she touched the royal seal, and together we talked of leasing a house, and purchasing new books, and hiring servants. We would approach merchants with our charter. We would teach their daughters, and then bring poor girls within our walls.
“We must start out at once,” I said.
But Madame D’Artois was prudent, saying, “We cannot leave before the Queen.” And so, we waited.
We taught our little students as we had before, but they were distracted, watching from the window as the first wagons of the court departed.
“I wish Her Majesty would stay,” said Suzanne as she plied her needle.
“I wish the Queen would stay a year!” said Ysabeau, who did not consider what such a visit cost her father.
The girls sorrowed as all the music and color of the court began to fade, and Claire thought that, at this moment, the news of our departure might be too much for them to bear.
“We should wait until Lady Katherine finds new teachers,” Claire told me after lessons ended for the day.
“We cannot!” I objected. “We must travel while the weather holds. New teachers might not come until the autumn, and I would not risk muddy roads.”
“If we leave now, the children will have no one.”
“Dear friend,” I said, “you forget who these girls are. They will never lack companions.” I appealed to Claire’s mother. “We cannot delay.”
And Madame D’Artois agreed. “If we are to travel, we must leave before the rains. This will be a lesson for our students too—that everything must change.”
The next day it was she who told the children that in only two weeks, we would journey to Nontron to establish a new school.
“But why?” asked Ysabeau.
Suzanne demanded, “Who said that you could go?”
“The Queen herself,” I answered. “She commissioned us.”
“Her Majesty?” Suzanne said. “No, that cannot be.”
“You will have new teachers,” Claire assured the girls.
“We will not!” Ysabeau declared.
They brooked no explanation, nor did they understand why we would serve in any other place. Unaccustomed to losing anything they enjoyed, Suzanne frowned and Ysabeau would not practice her music. Tearfully, they stood at the window to watch the Queen’s horsemen ride away.
“We should excuse them,” I whispered to Claire. “We should give up lessons for the day.”
“It would not be right,” she answered. “Sit down,” she told the girls.
But they would not sit. They fretted and squabbled until they heard a knocking at the door.
This interruption changed their mood, and the children looked hopeful as their maid spoke to our visitor outside.
“Who is it?” Ysabeau asked when the maid returned.
“A messenger,” the maid said.
“Send him in, and we shall hear him!” said Suzanne.
But the maid said, “My lady, the message is for your teacher, Lady Marguerite.”
Then the girls sulked at the table. But I stepped outside the door to meet the messenger. Was he from the Queen? No. My breath caught as I saw Roberval’s man Henri.
“What is it?” I asked.
“I have come from your kinsman, Lord Roberval,” he said.
I answered, “I am sure he has no message for me.”
Henri ignored this. “My master congratulates you and wishes you Godspeed.”
For a moment, I was relieved. Politic, I thought, to send good wishes when the Queen favors me. But now Henri said, “Your cousin asks to be remembered.”
I started back, astonished. Was my guardian so bold or so indebted that he dared to ask for gifts? His arrogance unbalanced me. To claim kinship at this moment, without excuse or apology.
“He will be traveling again,” Henri explained. “If he can find the funds.”
I thought, Traveling if I will pay him. Begging and, at the same time, threatening. Perhaps my guardian has the King’s protection, but he has no new commission. Perhaps he has the Queen’s ear, but she has not paid him for telling her my story.
“I am to wait for an answer,” Henri said.
“I have none.”
“None at all?” Steadily, Roberval’s man gazed at me.
Now I began to waver. Clever as my guardian was, he might know my plans to teach. Cruel as he had proved, he might prevent me. I had a charter, but he might find a way. I considered what I would give for him to disappear. Ten gold pieces? Twenty? But Roberval would never settle. Given a little, he would take all—and even if he took everything, he would badger me. I knew this because he had taken everything before. “No,” I said.
“That is your answer?” I heard the challenge in Henri’s voice, a wolfish insolence.
But I did not yield. “Your master has often warned me not to play the fool, and I am taking his advice.”
“You wish me to say this?”
“Yes.”
“Is that all?”
“Tell your master that I do remember him.”
When Henri had gone, I lingered at the door. Although I had been firm, I felt unsettled, superstitious that my guardian would return to plague me. I worried, but the girls called me back to them.
Ysabeau said, “Why did that man speak to you?”
“Who sent him?” Suzanne asked.
And they were piqued when I did not explain.
The next day, the Queen’s carriage pulled away, and with it all the pomp and splendor of the court. Extra servants returned to their own villages. Minstrels and jesters rode and walked and danced away. The girls would not learn anything because, as Suzanne said, “What use is it when everyone has gone?” Nor would they listen when Madame D’Artois spoke of patience and forbearance. “If you were patient,” Suzanne retorted, “you would stay with us.”
It was Lady Katherine who bade us farewell graciously, sending her own maids to pack our trunks. She gave each of us a necklace with a pendant cross and helped me to procure horses and a guide and guard.
“You carry a treasure,” she said. “And you must not leave anything to chance.” In every way, the lady of the house was good to me. Indeed, she seemed to understand me now that I had means.
Lady Katherine’s stepdaughters were solicitous as well. Louise said, “I will not forget your tale. I assure you, I will tell it everywhere so that your fame precedes you.”
As for Anne, she said, “I wish that you would sell me your bear’s claw.”
“Alas,” I told her, “I cannot.”
“You may name your price,” said Anne. “And I will hold it dearer than all the treasures in my cabinet.”
I shook my head. “If I had bought or found this, I might part with it—but I won the claw in battle and must keep it.”
“As a prize?” Anne said.
“No. As a remembrance.”
I kept the claw in my pocket while maids packed my possessions. I hid this treasure, but when I was alone, I held it in my palm to remember my three buried on the island. To see them again in light and winter darkness. Closing my eyes, I said, Come with me. Teach me. Keep me. Closing my hand, I felt the claw’s point like a thorn.
—
On a bright September morning, we took our leave. I rode a chestnut, and Claire had a bay mare, and her mother’s horse was dappled gray. In the stone court, grooms helped us mount, but I scarcely needed their assistance; I sprang up so quickly.
Lady Katherine herself came down to see us off, and she brought her little daughters and told them to speak. “What do you say?” She turned to the girls.
They looked at the cobbles and said nothing.
“Come now,” she chided, but Suzanne would not say goodbye, and Ysabeau cried and hid her face.
Lovingly, we bade farewell to the children, but they did not respond.
“For shame,” Lady Katherine was scolding as we rode away.
Then Madame D’Artois said, “It is a pity.”
“Poor little ones,” said Claire.
“You always said how quickly they forget their teachers,” I reminded her.
“But I hope they won’t.”
“Oh, would you have them suffer, missing us? Surely you would not be so unkind.”
Then Claire smiled even as she shook her head, and we left the chateau, its towers and its gardens.
Where the road was wide, we rode three abreast, but where there was less space, I followed our guide, and Madame D’Artois and Claire followed me. Behind them walked pack animals with our luggage and, last of all, our guard. In this procession, we passed meadows and fields, forests and villages, no longer mine. We rode under autumn trees, and the colors were both old and new to me, oak leaves gold and green.
In vineyards, grapes hung heavy on their vines. In orchards, boys were shaking trees to harvest apples. I thought, We should have an orchard for our school, and a garden if we can. In the mornings, we would read and practice copying, but after our noon meal, we would take exercise. These were my plans. To walk and to teach music, needlework, and poetry. To study clouds and scripture, Psalms, and tales of great ladies. Goodness and mercy would be Claire’s subjects, virtues her mother’s lessons. As for me, I would teach our students to be unafraid. And I would do this not with books or recitations but by telling how I had lived.
I thought of winter’s ice, and I was grateful for the sun. I knit my fingers into my horse’s mane, and I, who had walked, felt blessed to ride. Approaching the river, I gazed upon the water and was glad of the stone bridge. Because the span was narrow, we crossed single file, and then we joined together on the other side.