The only saving grace of it all had been that the new-crowned duchess was a mere slip of a silly child, a puppet on an all-but-bankrupt throne. Charles was young and much given to amorous intrigues; the crown was distracted by wars in Burgundy, and it did not seem so very risky to wait for the girl to grow up a little. She would be less likely to die in childbed.
But now La Trémoille meant to wash his hands of Brittany. Hewished never to see another raincloud so long as he lived, wished never again to ride while soaked to his shriveled skin. He wanted to go enjoy his lands and titles, the gifts of a grateful France. Then he meant to raise fresh troops to go and fight a fine plundering war far away in sunny Pavia.
The duchess must marry. She is past old enough, and Charles is crowned king. It must be now,Marguerite had written him. Marguerite of France was the king’s elder sister, his regent before he came of age. The cleverest woman in Europe, the most powerful. Even after Charles’s coronation, she kept a knowing hand on the reins of state. She shared entirely La Trémoille’s views on the danger of leaving Brittany half-conquered.You will go to Nantes and set this marriage in motion. You will frighten them if you must.
With these injunctions echoing in his mind, very grand in a new doublet, Guillaume de La Trémoille went to wait upon the duchess of Brittany, prepared to terrify her and her council if they proved in the least resistant to this imminent and necessary French marriage.
A repast was laid out already on long boards in the duchess’s garderobe. She did not receive all her court here; this was a meal for her intimates. She got smartly to her feet when he made his bow and greeted him with touching shyness.
La Trémoille’s heart sank at the sight of the food: all sugared fruits and marchpane. A meal for a spoiled child. At least she was pretty. Perhaps Charles of France, also something of a fool, would like her. They could be fools together and leave the business of governing to others.
Breathlessly, the duchess encouraged him to try the delicacies, and when he had choked some of them down, she asked timidly, “Monseigneur, have you messages for me?”
La Trémoille shoved the last of the sweets away. “Madame, I am come on behalf of the crown of France, which greatly desires to settle with all dispatch the alliance between Charles the king and his beloved subject Anne of Brittany. I am empowered to do all that is required to facilitate this longed-for union.”
“Oh,” she said, looking tentatively down the table, as though expecting someone to chide her. “I suppose—it’s only—I fear…” She trailed off, biting her lip.
La Trémoille followed her gaze, suddenly alert. He and Marguerite had discussed the likelihood that someone in the Breton court, holding particular sway with the duchess, would delay the French marriage in hopes of a bribe. Was there such a person?
“But not so fast, sister,” said a ringing voice a few places down the table. “You have forgot the unicorn.”
This man, perhaps. A great handsome knight by his clothes, brawny arms crossed over a straining doublet and wearing upon his head the most vulgar heap of dyed ostrich feathers La Trémoille had ever seen.
“Oh—Henri,” said the duchess, looking uneasy. “The general does not care about unicorns.”
This must be the Breton bastard, the eldest child, knighted by the duke and created Baron of Avaugour. Rumor said Francis had got the boy on the old French king’s castoff mistress. A bastard must always be chewing at the doors of power, and a royal bastard doubly so. What would he want for a bribe? La Trémoille almost forgot the duchess, staring at this upstart. “What unicorn?” He was expecting the commission of some tapestry or other nonsense thing.
“Oh,” said the duchess confidingly. “It is only that we have had word that a unicorn has been sighted. In Brocéliande.”
All around the table, voices seemed to drop; the nameBrocéliandeitself breathed out dark mystery. Men told wild tales of that ancient forest. That the fair-folk, the korriganed, had lived long in its shadows. That an unwary traveler might stray into the Lost Lands, only to vanish forever, or return a century hence, still young while his whole world had spun out from under his feet. And they also did say, with more force than mere rumor, that Brocéliande was one of the last, best places for men to hunt unicorns.
A unicorn was the noblest and rarest prey in Christendom. The fire-drakes, if ever they had lived, had not been seen in living memory, and one could not hunt sea-drakes. Sea-drakes hunted men. Atleast, that’s what seamen said when ships did not come back. But now and again, one heard credible tales of a unicorn. Like his master the king, La Trémoille loved to hunt. “A unicorn, you say?”
The duchess threw a diffident glance at her brother. “We had a message from Trécesson. A lymerer with his dog, seeking stags for his master, came upon the beast in Brocéliande. Four days ago—or was it five? I thought—I mean, we thought—that perhaps we should try to hunt it. While I am—” She stumbled over the words, going modestly pink.
La Trémoille knew what she was trying to say. To hunt a unicorn required two things. The first was a virgin of high birth and unimpeachable virtue, for bait. And the other was a hunt so extravagant that the mere dazzle of it would tempt the vain beast near.
What better bait for a unicorn than this beautiful, high-born fool? And what nobler quarry for a man than a unicorn? La Trémoille hesitated, remembering his orders. Then he said, “It would be a fine thing, to hunt a unicorn.”
In a hectoring voice, Henri of Avaugour answered, drinking his wine, “Then why do we speak of marriage? Even the breath of coming unchastity might ruin all—it is said that unicorns know these things, Monseigneur.”
The duchess was blushing even more furiously, biting her lip.
La Trémoille considered. Just the chance of it fired his blood. A living unicorn, at bay…“A small delay before negotiations begin might be possible,” he said at last.
A small, odd smile came to Henri of Avaugour’s lips. “I knew you were wise, Monseigneur.”
The bastard was probably still holding out for a bribe, thought La Trémoille. Well, an estate in France could be found for him. But let it be a wretched estate.
The duchess, still scarlet, said, “I shall make of the unicorn’s horn a wedding present to the king of France. You shall take the hide, God willing, for all the world to marvel at, Monseigneur.”
Her look was soft, earnest. And when she put out her hand to be kissed, he did so with less than his usual coldness.
They got rid of La Trémoille at last. The general had unbent considerably at the thought of hunting a unicorn, though he stared daggers all the while at poor Henri. He even ate some marchpane, though he grimaced, and drank his cup of wine—Anne had made sure it was the sweet kind that gave you a headache—and then took his leave. The servants came in his wake to draw the cloth and clear away the boards and trestles. Soon there would be proper feasting in the great hall.
Anne finally gave in to the fit of laughter that had been trying to burst out of her all that while. When she looked up, wiping her eyes, Henri was grinning too, still wearing that ridiculous hat, and that started her off again. She said, “Let us hope the feast tonight contains a few bearable dishes; one cannot subsist on marchpane.”
“Lord, how do you do it? One moment my sister is there, and the next there is a ninny blushing on cue. And yon Frenchman’s no fool, yet he swallowed that nonsense about future unchastity.”
