The duchess of Brittany was counting on those ships. “If the wind changes, the fleet will be embayed.”
“The wind will not change,” said Maximilien, with a swift wrath that made the hound cringe to his belly. “Send word that I am delayed!” he told his diviner. “One night or three will make no difference.”
The diviner, face as neutral as diviners were trained to keep them, laid out the right cards in the right order and sent the message.
When Anne at last returned to her own chambers, following the chaos of the Triumphal Entry, she found Isabeau, uncharacteristically, sitting in the garderobe, not talking, embroidering a cloth with yellow flowers and staring into the fire.
“Are you all right?” There were a thousand things Anne needed still to do, and a dozen people waiting to dress her afresh, but first she went to kneel stiffly beside her drooping sister.
“Yes,” said Isabeau, poking busily with her needle. She didn’t quite look up. “I will soon be better with my needle than you. And Hawiz let me help turn out the coffers in the garderobe.” There were still fine things there; Anne had sold nearly everything of true value, but she must have dresses, of course. One of those coffers hid the palm-sizedmirror she’d gotten at Paimpont. Anne had thought of selling it too but it seemed a breach of the trust of the lady who gave it her. Even if she was anaon.
Isabeau wasn’t quite herself. Anne asked, “Were you frightened today?”
“No,” said Isabeau. “I’m all right.”
Anne didn’t fully believe her, but the current of her day still dragged her along, the people waiting, the clamor just outside her door, her unwanted guests from France. “We shall speak after supper,” she said, rising.
Isabeau agreed, and Anne, with doubt in her heart, let herself be sponged off, her hair arranged, a proper gown put on.
When they were tying her sleeves, Calyx came, flushed scarlet. He bent near and whispered that Maximilien had not left Flanders that day, and the next day looked uncertain.
Anne managed to keep the set of her lips calm, smiling. But she said, “Is he taken ill?”
“Highness, I do not know.” Calyx sounded distressed. “The message indicated the delay and then for some reason saidnightanddead.I do not know what that signifies. Some complex meaning that is difficult to convey by color.”
Anne’s lips were numb. He hadn’t left? When would he leave? How long could she deceive Marguerite? “Thank you for telling me,” she whispered.
And what if the king of the korriganed comes before Maximilien does?
She had no answer to that either.
“They are saying there was some contretemps at your Triumphal Entry,” Marguerite said at the banquet that evening. Anne still went about seeming blithe as a bird, but the tension had begun to tell. She could feel Louis of Orléans’s eyes upon her and had no appetite for her food. She made herself eat, and compliment Marguerite’s dress, which she did actually envy.
“Yes,” said Anne, smiling. “A broken pump, a panic in the crowd. All’s well that ends well.” She wished her councilors were better at dissembling; they were making pleasant conversation with the French delegation, but not a man among them was what she’d have called light-hearted. They all looked troubled. Dunois had exchanged stiff salutations with his cousin Louis of Orléans, and was now drinking steadily. Isabeau hadn’t come to the banquet at all. She was tired, she said. Isabeau was never tired.
“Some are saying,” said Marguerite, in her pleasant way, sounding half-amused, “that it is the first sign from this mythical korrigan-king.”
Anne realized she was breaking pieces of bread to no purpose. She hurriedly fed one to the dogs under the table and said, “My people delight in tales.”
Marguerite, elegant as an iris-flower, said, “Have you consulted with this stranger of yours? This man from Brocéliande that I have heard so much about?”
“Yes,” said Anne. “I sent for him after Nones. He is much grieved, but his memory is as impaired as ever.”
“Cousin,” said Marguerite. She sounded genuinely solicitous. “If it is not a hoax, then you are in grave danger.”Here it comes.“My brother the king is ready to take you this moment into his protection. With all honor.”
Anne returned her the most earnest look of which she was capable. “But, Madame, I shall come to no harm here. What korrigan—if indeed they exist—can touch me? No virtuous girl has ever been stolen by the korriganed. It is only the wicked. And I am confirmed in virtue.” She had changed her caul for a mere whisper of gauze over her half-plaited hair, held in place by the unicorn fillet.
“From what I hear, you very nearly came to harm today.”
Anne clasped her hands and let the tears just shimmer in her eyes. “No—I was never near harm. I was protected by God. And I must pray upon what you say. For I do not think that I should ever have touched a unicorn if God did not set great store by my virtue.”
Marguerite simply watched her with a steady, faintly unimpressed gaze. “Then perhaps you should join a convent.”
“I have asked the pope that very question,” Anne returned eagerly. “Do not worry, the message has already gone via diviner. We expect a reply imminently. Would you like some more wine? Or look—this is a wood-pigeon. I shall have more.”
The food was sand in her mouth, but she ate, and Marguerite took more wine yet said no more that night. But Anne did not think she had been much dissuaded. Nor that it would take much for the lady of France to abandon persuasion and bring force to bear instead. For Anne’s own good. And Maximilien of Austria had still not left his dead wife’s lands in Flanders to come to her in Nantes.
As a new-crowned duchess, Anne had been pleased with the throne they set out for her in her father’s council-chamber. It stood upon a dais, in a warm corner near the fire. Then she had realized that by placing her in that regal corner, the council had quite robbed her of the power of participating in, or even hearing, the debates held round the boards in the center of the room. She had ordered the great throne removed and sat herself, with dignity, in an ordinary chair at the head of the table. They had got the message.
