“My darling, I don’t see how any of this could be of interest to your future husband unless you wish to put him to sleep.”
But Isabella could not be reined in once she had the bit in her teeth. “Since the builder had been ordered to make the ship as grand as possible, he had added extensive carvings above the waterline; he had given a wide flat bottom to make it ride high in calm seas. He had given it tall masts. But the sailing master was unfamiliar with such a design. He packed on sails to make the ship look more impressive. And there, just off the coast, on a fine sunny day, in front of several thousands of the king’s subjects, the ship hit a light cross wind, flipped over, and sank without a trace.”
Madame Bouchard sat motionless, like one of the mummified saints at the cathedral. Isabella was afraid her teacher still didn’t understand the point she was trying to make.
“His pride, you see? Wouldn’t it be better to ask him those questions that guaranteed he would not make such a mistake?”
Madame Bouchard was blinking, coming back to life.
“Of course, it would never be necessary for me to tell my husband such things after he had had a ship built.”
“Precisely,” Madame Bouchard said.
“I would have informed him of the importance of good planning when he first mentioned the idea of building a ship, and then he could be very proud of himself.”
Madame Bouchard was speechless again.
“And confident,” Isabella added, hoping to please her.
But Madame Bouchard, quivering from the tip of her nose like Isabella’s uncle Pierre, who died of palsy, stood without another word and left the room.
Lying in her bed now, on her wedding day, Isabella wondered what had ever happened to Madame Bouchard. She hoped her old teacher was still alive. She hadn’t looked healthy at all that last time they saw each other.
What if her betrothed, Prince Edward, son of Longshanks—what a peculiar name; did his subjects dare use it openly?—was a sullen man, suspicious, always watching others for the thoughts they kept hidden, as he hid his own? She had observed many of that kind of man in the courts of France, and surely there were many like that here. It would not surprise her, but she would be disappointed. She had met the prince but once, and that at a distance, nodding to him from opposite sides of a U-shaped table at a dinner given in her honor to welcome her. The prince and his friends had sat on one side and the princess, with her attendants from France and the new ones now provided her from the English court, had sat on the other. The center table was empty; Longshanks was in Wales, someone had said, advising his military advisors.
The prince was a slender young man with fine features. She had not spoken to him except to curtsey and say, “The pleasure is all mine, m’lord,” after he had said he welcomed her with great pleasure before sitting down to start the meal. But she had watched from the corner of her eye while exchanging whispers with Nicolette. She had noticed young Edward had a quick smile, though he kept watching his friends as he smiled as if he needed their approval. A strange habit in a prince.
Isabella of France lay there in her English bed and thought on all these things without opening her eyes.
Nicolette, moving soundlessly by her bed on her way to tend the fire, thought, What a strange girl this princess is, frowning in her sleep on her wedding day.
She sponged her body in warm water scented with the petals of roses brought live all the way from Italy. She put on new undergarments, and a whole flock of attendants, chattering with excitement, dressed her for the wedding. Yards and yards of fabric, light as air, bleached white, wrapped around her shoulders and flowed to the floor; a royal blue bodice hugged her wait; tiny gold chains adorned her shoulders and a necklace of diamonds embraced her throat. Two more attendants brushed her hair, plaited and coiled it, then placed the veil, falling like a cloud from her head to her waist. Nicolette oversaw it all, inspecting each button, each chain, each buckle; snapping instructions; making adjustments; and always beaming.
The attendants kept flapping; it seemed the more beautiful she became, the faster they worked, until finally Nicolette clapped her hands together loudly and said, “It is done!” They all stopped and looked at the glory they had created, a princess they would all be proud to serve.
Isabella turned to the polished silver mirror and studied herself. She barely recognized the reflection. It was rare for royalty to show gratitude—servants were expected to do no less than their best, and appreciation was thought to ruin them—but Isabella turned to the women who had dressed her and said, “Thank you. I… thank you.”
It seemed to embarrass them. Nicolette stepped forward and commanded, “Tell them we are ready.”
The attendants snatched up all their spare cloth, their shears, needles and pins, and hurried out; but as the last one was leaving Isabella said, “Wait. Tell them I need a few more minutes. Just a few. Alone with Nicolette.”
The last attendant curtsied and was gone.
“Last-minute nerves?” Nicolette asked.
“No, I…”
“Well, what is it?”
“I need… to speak with you.”
“Of course. What about?”
“I… we must talk.”
“You just said that! Please, Isabella! Would you stop this fidgeting? Don’t you understand we have the whole country waiting? What could you possibly need to talk about now, enough to keep the king, the prince, the elite of the entire kingdom standing around scratching their noses?!”
“Sex.”
At that moment another attendant knocked on the outer door and called, “M’lady, please! We are all ready!”
“Tell them to wait!” Nicolette shouted, then snatched the door open and barked even louder. “We are not ready!” She slammed the door and spun around to face Isabella. Nicolette’s features were frozen for some moments in a blank stare as she tried to consider what to do next while concealing her concern. It only made her appear to Isabella to look panicked.
But then Nicolette shrugged and moved to Isabella, taking both her hands in her own. “Now,” she began with the patient tone of a grandparent speaking to a confused child, “haven’t we talked about such things many times before?”
“Yes, we have, of course we have. But you were always telling me how it came about. How you met, the first glance and then the second one, the one with real meaning, the brushing past each other, the sudden kiss in a dark corner of the palace corridor, the rendezvous—”
“Yes! Yes! Exactly! Exactly!” Nicolette’s head kept nodding and nodding.
“But you’ve never told me about the actual thing. The actual thing itself.”
“The thing. The thing. The actual thing itself,” Nicolette repeated, and then, when there was another knock at the door, she bawled at the top of her lungs, “We are not ready!”
Nicolette began to pace. “The thing. Yes, of course. The actual thing itself… Weren’t you listening when I told you all my stories?”
“I was Nicolette, I was listening! But I need to know exactly what to do!” Isabella felt her own rising panic and was angry at herself for it. It was not like her to lose her head this way; whatever was the matter? She liked to be in control; and with her intellect coupled with her position of privilege, she always had felt in control of every situation. But now she was about to step into a secret, intimate place, about which she knew absolutely nothing. And no one would tell her not even Nicolette! Suddenly Isabella began to suspect that her friend may have lied when she was described her many romantic liaisons.