“Then King Louis was not responsible for King Charles’s death either?”
“Oh, no. No one knows who killed him. I myself suspect the Italians. They are experts in the use of poisons, you know.”
“If you knew so much about the king’s death at the time,” Guy said, humoring her, “why did you not speak out?”
“Do you think me a fool?” she repeated. “I said I knew nothing of any of it, and they believed me because I had been in the Popyncourt household only a short time. They let me go and I came back here, to Master Popyncourt’s lands.”
I exchanged a look with Guy. Sylvie seemed harmless enough, but she also appeared to be somewhat simpleminded.
“You came back here, even knowing that Jumelle would be your new master?” Guy asked.
She tapped the side of her nose. “I let him think he’d bought my silence. And then, once word came that you and your mother were dead, there was no reason for him to worry about what I knew.”
“Her story makes sense,” I told Guy after Sylvie had gone off to roust the other servants and give them orders concerning fresh linens and hot food. “Parts of it, at least. I suppose that, years later, Alain Jumelle heard my name in connection with Longueville’s.”
I was remembering that Ivo had told me he wrote home regularly but rarely had any reply. I remembered, too, how he had looked at me after he’d received a letter from his father. I wondered what it had said about me.
“I’d not have thought young Ivo capable of murder,” Guy said.
“A reluctant killer.” I frowned, considering. “It was only when I said, in his hearing, that I would return to France, even without King Henry’s consent, that he acted to stop me.”
“Do you suppose Alain Jumelle had you confused with your mother, too? And yet, why would they suppose Longueville would take an old woman for his mistress?”
I stared at a tapestry showing a hunting scene. The border was filled to bursting with flowers in a multitude of varieties. “She would have been only a year or two older than he. And nothing else explains King Louis’ contention that Jane Popyncourt should be burnt. If Maman had conspired to cause King Charles’s death, as Alain Jumelle made King Louis believe, then that would have been her fate.” I shuddered at the thought.
Guy wrapped his arms around me. “You are safe now.” Turning me in his arms, he lowered his head and kissed me. “Safe with me.”
I came to believe him when days turned into weeks and no one troubled us. Guy consulted a man of law and brought formal suit against Alain Jumelle to claim not only my inheritance, but reparations in the form of the other half of the property. While we waited for the outcome, Guy instructed me in the proper management of a country estate. During the warm summer nights, he taught me other things.
It was late July before our peace was shattered by the arrival of an urgent message from Beaugency.
FROM MY MANOR house to Dunois Castle in Beaugency was but a few hours’ ride. We arrived less than a day after receiving word that the duke was on his deathbed. Longueville had not been wounded at the battle of Marignano, but he had fallen prey to that other battlefield killer, the flux. His recovery had been slow and incomplete, with frequent relapses, each one draining his strength more than the last. A year after the French victory over Milan, his defeat at the hands of this insidious illness seemed imminent.
I’d not have recognized my former lover. His skin had a ghastly grayish pallor. His once luxuriant black hair lay in dull, lank clumps and some of it had fallen out. His physicians had been dosing him with tincture of gold given in wine, but it did not appear to have done him any good.
Longueville looked first at Guy and then at me. He managed a faint, ironic smile. “Would you have come to see me, Jane, if I were not dying?”
“Your Grace, you must not talk that way!” Tears sprang into my eyes, blinding me. I had never loved this man, but for what we had shared and lost, I grieved. I moved to the side of his bed and took one of his thin, wasted hands in mine. “You are young yet and strong. You must not lose your will to live.”
He snatched his hand away and his voice turned querulous. “Spare me your pity! I am neither a child nor a fool.”
Behind me, I heard Guy move closer. He did not touch me, but just having him near gave me strength. “You asked us here for a reason,” I reminded the duke.
It had come as a shock to realize that Longueville knew I was in France, but it had not taken much thought to understand how. By filing a lawsuit against Alain Jumelle, I had brought myself to the attention of the local gentry, and Beaugency was not that far distant from my father’s holdings. I wondered how exaggerated the story of our takeover of the manor house had become.
Ignoring me, Longueville now turned to Guy. “I have sent for a lawyer to make my will. You will receive nothing.”
“I did not expect anything, Your Grace. I have never expected anything.”
“And that is why you have been so valuable to me.” His voice grew fainter with each word and his eyes drifted closed.
“He needs to rest now,” a hovering physician whispered.
I started to move away, but clawlike fingers curled around my wrist, preventing my retreat. I looked down into the duke’s dark eyes and froze at the cold calculation I saw there.
“I have news for you, Jane. The king wants to meet you.”
My mouth went dry. “King François?”
More death rattle than laugh, the sound he made contained nothing of humor or goodwill. His grip tightened and he tugged me closer, until my face was only inches from his and I could smell the fetid stench of illness on his breath.
“I told him all about you, Jane, what you like, how talented you are. He likes to hear such tales from his friends. He likes it when they share.”
A chill passed through me and I felt my face blanch.
“He knows how you won permission to leave England, too.” Another dry, rattling cackle issued from his thin, cracked lips. How had I ever thought that mouth appealing? “A warning, Jane. He will want to know what it was like to bed King Henry.”
I sensed rather than saw Guy’s shock. Too late to silence Longueville, I stood immobile, my hand still held prisoner in his, as he pounded more nails into my coffin.
“Give King François every detail, Jane. And then demonstrate what you did for one king to the other. Do that, and he will be inclined to be generous with you. He likes his mistresses lively but submissive. A few weeks, a few months, and you will have earned his gratitude. Your father’s lands, jewelry, mayhap even a wealthy courtier for a husband.”
When the duke had finished showering me with unwanted advice, I tugged my hand free. He lacked the strength to hold me. He watched me back away from him, his smile a death’s-head, and I wondered if this had been his idea of petty revenge because I had turned to Guy and not to him. It did not matter. When I reached the door, I fled.
Guy followed me out, his face grim. He took care not to touch me. “Is it true? Were you King Henry’s mistress?”
“Guy—”
“Answer me!”
I wanted to tell him the truth, but did I dare? Guy did not want to hear that I had bartered my body for passage out of England, but would he be any happier with the knowledge that I had agreed to gather intelligence against France? And how could I explain the king’s failure to bed me without breaking my solemn oath never to reveal my mother’s parentage?
I could lie.
I was beset by a terrible temptation. I could claim the king of England was well nigh impotent and repeat that story to the king of France if he should ever ask.
Drawing in a deep breath, I met Guy’s eyes. “I have had only two lovers in all my life and have no desire ever to take a third.”
The hard lines of his face softened. When he took my arm, his grip was firm but gentle. We left Dunois Castle and the village of Beaugency riding side by side. During the journey home, I told him everything, even the name of my mother’s father.