Rachelle, a
grisette
from the Chateau de Silk in Lyon, was yet under
the supervision of the grand couturière herself, Henriette Marie Loiselle Dushane, otherwise known to Rachelle as her adored grandmère, a dainty widow in unrelieved black satin, with silver hair and sparkling dark eyes. Rachelle knew her to be no easy mistress with the needle, nor did Rachelle wish her to be otherwise. It was her desire to follow in her steps.
Rachelle stood on the terrace of the royal chambers facing Princesse Marguerite and her ladies-in-waiting. Her wine velvet pincushion with her initials,
R.D.M
., was strapped to her wrist with a black velvet band, while a pair of specialized Dushane scissors swung from the chatelaine. Her measuring strip draped about her slender neck. She took the widths
of sheer burgundy silk, draped gently over the cloth of gold, and with trembling fingers allowed it to fall gracefully over Marguerite’s dark hair. The garment settled softly around her feet, shimmering.
“Ooh . . .” came the sigh of the ladies-in-waiting.
“C’est magnifique,”
Marguerite purred, holding a section of the silk to her cheek. “It is perfect. La, la, Rachelle, you will always do my gowns. I insist. You and your famous Grandmère.”
“Merci, Mademoiselle Princesse.” Rachelle curtsied, dipping her head and offering a quick thanksgiving to God. “But the work, it is not yet finished. If it please my lady princesse, I would measure now for the hem and the addition of the Brugesse lace.”
Marguerite stepped onto the small stool, and Rachelle knelt to smooth out the folds on the bottom of the gown.
Marguerite spread her arms gracefully, lifting her face toward the March breeze and allowing the sparkling material to f loat. “Monsieur Henry should see me now,” she whispered, drama in her voice. “Ah, but he is not here . . .”
Her ladies uttered sounds of sympathy.
Rachelle admired Grandmère’s embroidery work on the burgundy silk. The tiny gold rosebuds were sewn with a secret stitch Grandmère had perfected at the Macquinet Chateau de Silk, and Rachelle was deter- mined to master the stitch as well. She was already practicing on leftover sections of silk. Each section of crafted rosebuds left a glittering mound of gold thread, yet the silk material around it lay smooth and unpuck- ered, a most difficult technique to master. Rachelle could only marvel. Not even Maman could make a perfect rosebud, and Maman too was a seasoned couturière.
The gown shimmered with Princesse Marguerite’s every movement. Diamonds could be added to the bodice after the gown was finished, but only under the watchful eye of a guard. Rachelle had no desire to handle the diamonds. A tale had circulated at court of a certain grisette, who during the reign of King Francis I, had stolen rubies meant for the queen’s bodice. The grisette, believed to have swallowed them, was sent to the Bastille. Rachelle shuddered, imagining what had befallen the woman. As for Marguerite’s gown, Rachelle was of the opinion that any addition of diamonds would add little to its beauty, but the princesse insisted on jewels, jewels, and more jewels.
To Rachelle, Grandmère represented the heart of the family silk enterprise, for she had carried with her all of the prized secrets of silk weaving, when as a Dushane, she had married into the Macquinet fam- ily, who had been their competitors.
Rachelle was thrilled when Grandmère had first been summoned to court by Queen Regent Catherine de Medici to design and oversee the intricate cutting and sewing of gowns in the new shades of Macquinet lav- ender blue, rosy pink, and the deep burgundy that was Rachelle’s favor- ite. This newer cloth had been developed in Lyon, known for the finest silk weavers in France, a matter of which Rachelle was most proud.
Princesse Marguerite desired a dozen new gowns, and eighteen-year- old Mary Stuart of Scotland, the new Queen of France through her recent marriage to seventeen-year-old King Francis II, wanted two gowns and a farthingale. The queen regent, Catherine, however, wore naught but black since the death of her husband.
Rachelle shuddered suddenly. She remembered what Grandmère told her and her sister Idelette after meeting with the Queen Mother in her state chambers. Catherine, after asking Grandmère questions about silk in general, had then casually inquired about its possibilities as a medium.
“I have heard of a certain deadly poison being used in silk undergar- ments in the twelfth-century Moslem East by harem women wishing to remove a dangerous foe. Is this so, Madame Henriette?”
Grandmère, the emissary for the Dushane-Macquinet Chateau de Silk at court, had confessed to the Queen Mother she had heard such things but knew naught how such murders of ancient times were com- mitted. Afterward, Grandmère returned to the Macquinet chamber looking troubled. She had commented: “Remove a dangerous foe, she said, I vow! Such liberty these royal persons take with the French lan- guage. Her study of my person after I deliberately interchanged the word
murder
gave me a tingle, I assure you. Murder, or if you prefer, assassina- tion, continues unabated in the courts of Europe, not merely among the Moslem Turks.”
Rachelle was helping with the cutting and sewing of the princesse’s gowns while Idelette, more advanced than she, was assisting Grandmère with Mary of Scotland, now Queen of France, everyone’s
charmante
darling — except the Queen Mother’s.
The Macquinet women, entitling themselves the Daughters of Silk, had departed Lyon two months earlier by
calèche
and wagon for the jour- ney to the Louvre Palais in Paris. However, soon after their arrival the boy-king’s health had so deteriorated that the doctor had advised the royal family to leave the unhealthy air of Paris in search of fairer weather in the French countryside, where fragrant greenery and f lowers adorned the region of Touraine.
So once again the Daughters of Silk had overseen the tedious packing of their supplies, which included large rolls of various cloths wound on smooth ash wood lined with velvet to protect the filaments, and they had traveled to Blois.
Rachelle and Idelette had assisted the younger grisettes-in-training to pack the Genoan velvets, the brocades with interwoven threads of gold or silver, and of course, the Dushane-Macquinet silk. They had car- ried lace of every variety: ivory Alençon with tiny rosettes, the heavier Brugesse so wonderfully used for ruff les and clusters in diagonal shapes, the princely Burgundy style used for softer draping of waterfalls at the throat, and edging that was gathered on cuffs.
So also had many of the sewing and design instruments journeyed with them in wagons, for Grandmère insisted the equipage used at court was not as fine as her own.
The large trunks were a sight to behold and always thrilled Rachelle. They were embossed, either in gold or silver, with the famous name Dushane-Macquinet emblazoned with artistic f lair.
Upon their arrival here at the Chambord palais chateau, she had been amused to see wondrously garbed servants bearing the trunks on their shoulders in a long, somber train as though they carried the remains of a king. “A f lurry of trumpets would be a pleasant touch,” Rachelle had whispered with a subdued laugh to Idelette.
Each of the Daughters also carried a personalized hand case: Grandmère’s was gold-embossed Italian leather; Idelette had chosen a deep rose brocade; and Rachelle, who had recently received the
hon- neur
of becoming a full-f ledged grisette before departing Lyon, had cho- sen the burgundy velvet out of a secret infatuation for the good-looking Marquis Fabien de Vendôme, born of the princely Bourbon blood.
Each of their names was inscribed in gold on their small case, which contained all manner of sewing equipment. Rachelle and Idelette were
in the process of earning additions to their treasure of special needles, pins, cutting instruments, and spools of colored silk thread — some from Italy, Spain, and the Netherlands.
Presently, as she knelt before the stool where the princesse stood in pose, Rachelle considered her work as anything but
elegante
. She was perspiring beneath the direct sunlight which blazed down unspar- ingly. Her undergarments were binding tightly about her middle, and an annoying section of her thick auburn hair had come loose from its pins to hang across her damp cheek and neck while she stooped, bent, and crawled around the princesse, gauging the hemline on the draping cloth of gold for accuracy. She slipped her highly sharpened Italian pins into the cloth of gold as sparingly as possible so as not to leave marks. It would be to her shame if she snagged a single filament of this costly material with one of her pins.
Rachelle was paying scant attention to Princesse Marguerite’s maid- of-honor, Madame Charlotte de Presney, who stood near the balustrade, peering below and commenting on an arrival in the courtyard.
“Le Duc de Guise just rode through the gate from Paris. Ah, what a worthy retinue rides with him,” Charlotte de Presney was saying in her indolent voice.
“I care naught except if the duc’s son is with him, ah my darling Henry de Guise,” Marguerite said. She snapped her fingers at one of the ladies to hand her a sweetened glass of lemon water.
“The duc brings a stranger, Princesse. How curious, I promise you. The stranger hides behind a mask.” Charlotte leaned against the balustrade.
Rachelle, interested, glanced toward Charlotte.
“Your
joie de vivre
will soon return, Princesse, for I see your mon- sieur Henry de Guise among his father’s entourage.”
Marguerite gave a shriek at the name of her lover and jumped down from the stool, spilling some of the lemon water.
Rachelle groaned. Did any splash onto the dress?
“And why did you not tell me at once?” Marguerite rushed toward the balustrade to see for herself. Rachelle, gritting her teeth, scrambled after Marguerite in desperation, trying to keep the half-pinned hem from dragging.
“You did not tell me Monsieur Henry is here? Perhaps you have designs upon the prince yourself, Charlotte?” Marguerite accused her in a warning voice.
“Monsieur Henry de Guise is loyal to you, Mademoiselle Princesse. I am sure of it . . . just as loyal as you are to him,” Charlotte said too quietly.
Rachelle held her breath. She watched the princesse’s dark eyes turn upon Charlotte, then f lash with molten rage. She reached over, cuffed her, and grabbing her earlobe between her thumb and forefinger, she drew Charlotte toward her.
Rachelle winced along with Charlotte.
Marguerite glared as she pinched Charlotte’s earlobe. “Careful, little fox, or I will have you beaten.”
An uneasy hush descended over the ladies.
Charlotte, stoic as always, gave a submissive curtsy to the princesse.
She then turned her attention once again to the courtyard.
Rachelle, having made certain that the silk was neither stained with lemon water nor the hem stepped upon, stood with Marguerite’s ladies at the balustrade. Her gaze sought the masked rider, but neither he nor le Duc de Guise was in sight.
“Ah, but how
galant
is Monsieur Henry,” Marguerite crooned. “Look
how tall he is. And that golden beard, look how it curls just so and shines with just enough auburn to make him look angelic.”
Rachelle pressed her lips together to keep from laughing. Angelic!
That varlet?
“See how Monsieur Henry looks up toward your chambers?” Louise de Fontaine told Marguerite.
She is trying to please the princesse
.
Marguerite, clasping her bejeweled white hands together in exagger- ated happiness to make her ladies laugh, sighed deeply and dropped a f lower over the rail. Henry doffed his hat, and a page ran to retrieve the f lower and take it to him. He lifted it to his nose and held it high toward Marguerite. Rachelle wondered what the Queen Mother would do if she saw this forbidden display?
“Look, ladies — Marquis Fabien de Vendôme. But how
beau
he is
appearing this day,” Louise said.
“He is always so,” another replied.
Rachelle’s heart tripped for the first time at the mention of Marquis de Vendôme. Her gaze sought him across the way where he stood on the opposite balustrade, but he was not looking in their direction.
It was true, Fabien de Vendôme was by far the handsomest man at court, exceeding Henry de Guise. The marquis had captured Rachelle’s interest from the first moment she saw him. Yes, his
savoir faire
had been, and was, impeccable. But then, after the death of his father, he had been raised for some years at court with the present King Francis II and Mary of Scotland.
Marquis de Vendôme appeared oblivious to the ladies watching him, including Princesse Marguerite, and instead stared below into the courtyard.
Rachelle took in Fabien’s virile build, housed in velvet and rubies, the handsome features, and fair hair. It was no marvel to her that most every woman at court was aware of him. Someone of high title such as he would surely marry a future duchesse. Perhaps a princesse? Rachelle was related to a dowager duchesse, but she was not in line to inherit. The title would rightly go to a blooded niece.
“Athenais has already conquered the marquis’s heart,” Louise said with an exaggerated sigh.
Athenais
? Rachelle wondered. She had heard her name before, but
not her family name, nor the region of France from whence she came.
Charlotte de Presney clicked her fan open and swished it rapidly.
Rachelle glanced at her and saw that her painted mouth was tight.
“If Athenais is spreading such lies as you have just spoken, Louise, then she deserves Marquis de Vendôme’s scorn, and so do you for repeat- ing such rubbish,” Charlotte said. “I did not see Monsieur Fabien paying Athenais any undue attention last night at the play, I assure you.”
The play! Rachelle recalled thiswith renewed disappointment. She had thought Marquis Fabien would attend, and she had been right, he had.
When the invitation arrived for the Macquinets, Rachelle had sug- gested the three don their silk gowns and go, but Grandmère had gently refused Rachelle’s plea.