On My Lady's Honor (All for one, and one for all) (21 page)

This was hardly the way she had envisaged spending her wedding night when she was a young girl, still dreaming of her neighbor Jean-Luc’s brown curls and steady hand with the bow.
 
Then she had dreamed of her new husband’s kisses and caresses and longed for him to make her a real woman.

Lamotte had not been pleased when she had cut short the repast he had arranged for her in their apartments.
 
She herself had been sorry to leave the candied fruits and spiced jellies that he had brought in for her, but duty called.
 
She was a Musketeer – and the King must be guarded even on her wedding night.

Guard duty was a good reason to escape the apartments she shared with Lamotte.
 
He was too big and overpowering and he made her feel uneasy.
 
Now that they were married, he made her more uncomfortable than ever.
 
She could not have borne spending her wedding night in an uneasy silence, eating a splendid wedding feast with a heavy spirit and tiptoeing around the big hulk of a man who was now her husband in the eyes of man and yet would never be her husband in the eyes of God.
 

The angles of his face had sat in shadow while the bronzed muscles of his arms had gleamed in the dim candlelight.
 
He looked like a Viking of old as he sat cross-legged in front of the dainties on the low table, inviting her to partake of their wedding feast– a strong and proud warrior who owed his allegiance to nobody.

She would rather guard the King a thousand time over than be subjected to the temptation she had sworn to avoid.

Miriame lounged at her feet, a hip flask in her hand.
 
“I dunno why we have to guard the King anyway,” she grumbled, tipping the hip flask upside down and watching the last drop drip onto the dusty floor.
 
“Who are we supposed to guard him from anyway?
 
Discarded mistresses with poison in their eyes?
 
He’d have enough of them for sure.
 
Rumor is that he’s slept with every damn scullery maid in the palace, not to mention most of the Queen’s ladies as well.”

Sophie shrugged her shoulders.
 
“His enemies, whoever they might be.”

“Why should he have enemies?
 
Everyone loves him.
 
He’s the King.
 
The sun rises and sets in his glorious majesty.”
 
She spat on the ground beside her and ground the spittle into the dust with her heel.
 
“That’s what I think about Kings.”

The door in front of the creaked open a little ways and Sophie glared down at her friend.
 
“Be quiet, you fool, if you want to keep you head joined on to your neck,” she hissed.
 
“Someone’s coming.”

A little page boy poked his head around the door.
 
“The King wants to see one of you,” he squeaked.

Miriame stayed where she was.
 
“Tell the King he can go piss in the wind for---”

Sophie kicked her - hard.
 
“Tell the King that I am coming right away,” she said, hurriedly, to cover up Miriame’s insolence as best she could.
 
“In fact, I’ll come along with you and tell him myself.”

She heaved a sigh of relief as the door shut behind them.
 
Miriame had a hearty disrespect for authority and no sense of self-preservation.
 
Sometimes it felt dangerous to be her friend.

The King was seated in a tall-backed chair at a desk with his back to her, his quill pen scratching away as he wrote busily on the paper in front of him.

She swept a low back at his back, ending up on one knee.
 
“Gerard Delamanse at your service, Sire.”

He ignored her.

She waited on one knee for some minutes as the King scratched away, hoping she would not overbalance with a thud but not liking to get to her feet again without his permission.
 
Finally he laid his pen down on the desk, sprinkled sand over the paper to dry the ink, shook it off again.

With a hand that seemed to shake slightly, he folded the paper in two, dropped a blob of red wax on it from a candle on the desk to seal it, and pressed the imprint of his ring into the seal.

He turned around and handed the letter to Sophie without a word.

She took it as she knelt, and waited for further instructions.

The King ran his hand through his hair.
 
He looked older than she had imagined, Sophie thought to herself.
 
He was hardly a young man anymore.
 
His complexion was almost gray in its paleness, and his forehead was creased with a frown.
 
“The duties of a King are not always pleasant,” he said, addressing Sophie with an abstract air, “but they are duties none the less.
 
One cannot shirk what one must do simply because the doing of it revolts the soul.”

He fell silent again.

Sophie felt that some response seemed to be called for.
 
“No, Sire.”

The King gave himself a shake.
 
“I do not like what I have to do, but I must do it regardless.
 
Musketeer, you must arrest me a traitor and take the criminal to the Bastille.
 
The lettre-de-cachet I have given you is for the Governor of the Bastille.
 
Give both the letter and the prisoner into his hands and his hands only.
 
Take your fellow guard with you for safety in the streets.
 
Whatever you do, you must guard the prisoner well - kill the traitor if you must, but do not allow an escape.
 
Take care that none else may know of this.”

She was to be entrusted with an important and secret mission for the King.
 
Her heart leaped with excitement.
 
What a perfect chance had landed in her lap to win honor for the name of her brother.
 
She would destroy his enemies down to the very last one.
 
She would not fail the trust her monarch had placed in her.
 
“Yes, Sire.”

He turned to his pageboy.
 
“Go with the Musketeer and show him where the traitor resides.”
 
He looked down at her with a cold eye.
 
“Do not make a noise.
 
The Comte de Guiche is already fled beyond my reach.
 
I will not allow another bird to escape the noose I have prepared.
 
If the prisoner escapes, your life will pay the forfeit of your carelessness.”

She was happy to serve him with her life.
 
“Yes, Sire.”

Without another word, he waved her away.

Sophie roused a reluctant Miriame with the toe of her boot and the two of them followed the pageboy through the maze of winding corridors.
 
Sophie’s heart pounded in her breast.
 
She was about to arrest a dangerous traitor to the crown and must guard him with her life.
 
Maybe he would put up a struggle and she would have to subdue him by force.
 
She was not afraid.
 
With God and the King of France on her side, she would be sure to conquer him.

The pageboy stopped outside a carved wooden door.
 
“She sleeps in there.”

Sophie stopped dead.
 
“She?”
 
She was prepared to give her life in the service of the King, fighting his enemies in a desperate battle to the death.
 
She had not been prepared for the traitor to be a woman.

The pageboy nodded.

“Who is it?”

The pageboy turned his head to make sure there was nobody hiding in the shadows who might hear him.
 
“Madame Henrietta, the sister of the English King.”

Suddenly she thought she understood the reason for her mission.
 
She could hardly bear to be the means of punishing a woman for her loyalty to those she rightly loved.
 
What would a woman not do for the love of a brother,
Sophie thought to herself with a heavy heart as she reached out to knock on the door.
 
Even treason.

The pageboy stayed her hand.
 
“Shush,” he whispered.
 
“I have a key.”
 
He unlocked the door, pushed it open and melted back into the shadows.

Sophie tucked the letter into the inside of her jacket and the two of them shuffled their feet at the door, unsure of what to do next.

“I hope the King pays us a good bonus for doing his dirty work for him,” Miriame grumbled in a low whisper.
 
“I don’t like arresting sleeping women for nothing.”

“Do you think of nothing but your own profit?” Sophie hissed back at her.
 
“The woman is a traitor and must be dealt with.”
 
With a heart full of determination, mixed in equal amounts with trepidation, she squared her shoulders and marched in.

The first chamber was empty.
 
Sophie gave a cursory glance over the rich furnishings and made for the connecting door on the other side.
 

A young woman with disheveled curls peeping out from under her nightcap was sitting in the bed, a shawl around her shoulders.
 
She looked at the naked sword in Sophie’s hand.
 
“You have come to murder me?” she asked in a voice that did not waver at all.

Sophie shook her head.
 
She had to admire the traitor’s courage in the face of death.
 
“I have orders from the King to take you to the Bastille.”

The other woman sighed.
 
“It is the same thing.
 
Please, will you allow me to get dressed before you take me away?”

Sophie examined the room with a careful eye.
 
There was no obvious exit other than the door by which she had just entered.
 
“I shall wait in the antechamber for you while you dress.
 
Go quickly.”

The young woman gave a wan smile.
 
“I will not try your patience for longer than I must.”

Miriame was wandering around the outer chamber, picking up the dainty objects that littered the room, examining them closely, and putting them down again.
 
“Damn me if I couldn’t make a fortune flogging off this lot to old Malvoisin,” she muttered under her breath.
 
“And all of it just sitting here waiting to be nicked.
 
It’d be enough to tempt a saint to thievery.”

Sophie glared at her.
 
“Just remember that you are a Musketeer now, not a thief.”

“`Once a thief, always a thief,’ is my motto,” Miriame said with a grin.
 
“Lucky for your sense of honor that I value my skin to highly to steal from the royal family.”

Sophie barely had time to get impatient when the young woman appeared again, richly attired in velvets and jewels.
 
“You are going to the Bastille, not to a royal pageant,” she could not help exclaiming.
 
“Have you nothing more fitting to wear?
 
You will ruin your beautiful clothes.”

The young woman fingered the string of rubies around her neck.
 
“I am a princess of England and a Duchesse of France.
 
My brother is the King of England and my husband is the only brother of the King of France.
 
What care I for ruining a paltry velvet?
 
I shall go to my death with my head held high.”

A covered carriage was waiting for them in the street below.
 
Sophie could not help but admire the straightness of her back and the calmness of her demeanor as they clattered over the dark streets towards the cold, forbidding dungeons of the Bastille.
 
Her prisoner was a brave woman and not afraid to die for what she had done.
 
Whatever treason she had committed, she was reaping her just deserts with honor and bravery.

The governor of the Bastille was none too pleased to be woken at such an hour.
 
He stumbled into view, a sputtering wax candle clutched in his hand and his tasseled night cap hanging drunkenly over one eye.
 
“What do you want?” he grumbled through the iron grille.

Sophie stood to attention.
 
“I have orders from the King to deliver a prisoner to you.”

The governor grunted with displeasure.
 
“You didn’t need to have the sentry wake me up for that, you damn fool,” he said as he turned away again.
 
“Toss him to the guards and be done with him.”