It does not take long. She and her maid come into the room, chatting about the charming necklace an admirer has given her and guessing its worth. I wait as the maid undresses her and brushes her hair. I block out the sound of their low murmuring voices as they talk of the recent Christmas festivities and what Madame Hivern will be giving François. Instead, I focus on Hivern’s spitefulness toward me since we first met and how cruel she is to Duval.
At last the maid leaves and I hear the rustle of covers as Hivern settles into her bed. Now, I think, just as surely as if Mortain had placed His hand on my back and pushed. I step out from behind the tapestry, take the candle laden with night whispers from the folds of my skirts, and approach the bed.
As my shadow falls across her, Madame Hivern starts, then sits up. "What are you doing in here?” Her voice is sharp with surprise, perhaps even fear. Ignoring her question, I hold the deadly candle against the small flame from the oil lamp on her nightstand until it catches. Slowly, I turn to face her. There is just enough light in the room that I can see the marque of Mortain upon her; a faint trickle of darkness begins just under her chin and trails down her throat. The marque spreads, like a bruise just beginning to form, across her neck and the swell of her chest that is exposed by her low-cut chemise. This comforts me greatly, for if Mortain has marqued her, then the convent’s order cannot be due to some trickery of Crunard’s.
“You are a spy, aren’t you?” Madame’s voice still holds a note of alarm. She looks younger, more vulnerable, without all her fine jewels and fancy headdresses.
“Some might call me that, but it is not what I am.”
She barks out a laugh. “I should have known Duval would not be taken with a mere maid.”
“My lord Duval is not taken with me at all,” I say tartly. "We merely work together. Our love and duty to the duchess give us much in common.” I realize I should move closer so the fumes from the candle can work more quickly, but my feet are leaden and reluctant to move.
"Whoever you may be, you are quite wrong if you think Duval is not taken with you. If there is one thing I know, it is men. And I certainly know my own son. He is smitten.”
“That is not so!” It is demeaning, this arguing with a victim while waiting for Death to claim her, and my voice is sharper than I intend.
She cocks her head to the side and studies me, as if we are simply having a tête-à-tête over spiced wine. “Ah,” she says, her voice full of wisdom nearly as old as Mortain’s. “You love him back.”
I grit my teeth but say nothing.
“I do not blame you for being distraught, Ismae. It is no comfortable thing, having your heart in thrall to a man, especially one such as Duval.”
I am unable to help myself. “How do you mean, one such as Duval?”
“One who will put duty and honor before everything, no matter the cost to him. Or you.”
Her words please me, for if even she says such things about him, it confirms what I myself have come to believe: that he is loyal and true to the duchess. “Too bad you do not hold your own honor so highly, madame.”
A delicate frown creases her brow. "What do you mean?”
“I mean that you are a traitor to the crown of Brittany, and for that you must die. Saint Mortain has willed it.”
She puts her hand to her forehead. “Is that why it grows warm in here?”
I am impressed that she does not faint or scream or cry out for help. “Yes, my lady. That is the poison beginning to work.”
“Poison?” Her face relaxes somewhat. “Thank you for that. I am not overfond of sharp things. Or pain.”
Her composure surprises me, as I have always thought her high-strung and overwrought. "Who besides François is involved in your plots and conspiracies?”
At her son’s name, she grows rigid with fear. “No! Not François! Do not lift your hand against him!” She rises up from the bed, crosses the distance between us, and grabs my shoulders. I wince as her slender fingers bite into my still tender wound. “It was me, all me. François wanted nothing to do with it. You must not kill him. Promise me!”
“I cannot make such a promise. If my saint bids me act, I must, but if François is innocent, Mortain will not raise a hand against him.”
She pushes away from me, her cheeks flushed. “Do not sit in judgment of us, stupid girl. You do not know what it is like, having your life run by men. Men who care not one whit for you beyond the pleasure you can bring them in bed or the pretty way you decorate their arms.” She clenches her fists. “You have no idea what it is like to have no choices, not one thing to call your own, not even your children.”
“But I do, madame,” I say softly. “I assure you, no woman has the choices you speak of. She cannot choose whom she marries or which family she is born into or even what her role in this world will be. I do not differ from you in that regard, only in what I did with what I was given.”
"What could I do when I was but fourteen and the aging French king decided he must have me in his bed at any cost? what choice did I have when he died? So I chose the duke. He was young and handsome and kind and, most of all, smitten with me. That power — the power to attract men — was the only weapon I had.”
To my horror, I find myself sympathetic to her.
“And once I’d borne children — do you know how hard it can be for a bastard? How dispensable they are? I tried to do all in my power to assure them some measure of respect and safety in their lives.”
Her words make me think of my mother for the first time in years. would that she had tried to protect me as well as Madame Hivern protected her children.
Madame Hivern shoves her golden hair out of her eyes and gives me a scornful look. “This love you feel for Duval is nothing to the love you would bear your child. Believe me in that, if nothing else.”
A child. Something I have never even allowed myself to think about. Knowledge wells up from deep inside me. If I did have a child, I would protect it and serve it with every breath I drew.
It hits me with the unwelcome force of a crossbow bolt: we are alike, Hivern and I. Both women, both powerless over our own fates. who is to say I would not have done exactly as she if I had been born into her circumstances? The life I would have led with Guillo spreads out before me, his offspring hanging from my skirts. would I have grown to love them? Protect them? Could I have done any differently than Hivern had?