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On the third anniversary of their marriage, Sir Francis Crawford of Lymond and Sevigny and his wife Philippa Crawford received a visitor to their estate. She was young and unwed, and so traveled in the company of several members of the court of King Francis, all esteemed knights of the realm and respectable to a man. “Nobility of the sword, that's what I am,” remarked Sir Hislop, recently risen to a grudging position in the Second Estate, “and don't say anything about the relative might of the pen.”
Their retinue made several stops as it meandered towards the rough, washed out hills of Lothian. At the estate of Adam Blacklock, Hislop introduced his charge to, he claimed, the only decent people he knew. “And what about me?” she remarked, one black eyebrow raised.
“You certainly appear decent, mademoiselle,” Hislop assured her with cheer. “But I'm suspicious of your destination.”
Kate Blacklock took her in with warmth. “It's good to know Lymond is consistent in his tastes,” she remarked brightly, causing Catherine d'Albon, daughter of the Marechal de Saint-André, to sputter around her cherry preserves. “You and Philippa might be sisters.”
“I hope not,” said Catherine, with more honesty than she intended. “I would not give my sister to that man.”
The corners of Kate's lips lifted. “And what about your daughter?”
“I am unmarried. I have no daughter.”
“Two statements often, but not always, in correlation with one another,” acknowledged Kate peaceably. One did not call her Mistress Blacklock, not when one was known to her through her daughter. “But you dodge the point neatly. Ah! Gramercy! You are as perfect as she said you were. And you waited two years to visit. I am, of course, the sole object of your attentions in Scotland.”
This sharp, uncomplicated woman appealed to Catherine, who was more complicated than she wished to be. She reached for rusty simplicity, ill-used at the court of Catherine de Medicis. “You might as well be,” she said, “for you mistake my friendship with your daughter. I have not spoken to her since M. de Sevigny broke off our engagement. I am here on impersonal matters.”
“You are aware,” said Kate, “that M. de Sevigny does not engage with the world on an impersonal level anymore. In fact he is exceedingly personable. He won an award for it, alongside the one for prosaic speech.”
Catherine smiled. “I did not say I was here to see M. de Sevigny.”
“Ah! I see. You are a Calvinist."
This, finally, caught the self-contained young woman off guard. “Why do you say so?”
“Because you are French, and you are in very desperate trouble or you would not have come. And because my daughter is adept at solving certain issues of reputation.” Kate raised a scruffy black brow at her. “I know of your history with Francis, my girl, but I must make you aware he is a dear friend of mine. Nonetheless, he has enough difficulty controlling his own reputation, and can hardly help anyone else's. You're aware, I assume, that he is not a Calvinist himself, despite the rumors.”
“I am,” said Catherine. Her mother had asked him if he was, and Catherine had hushed him before he might speak. She thought then he would have an answer. Now, she didn't think so. He had other crosses upon which to die. “And I would be surprised if your daughter was one. But you mistake me. I did not say I was here for myself.”
“Ah,” said Kate knowingly, “a meddler. Carry on: Artemis and Apollo await.”
It was not, thought Catherine as she approached the estate of Lymond a week later, a comfortable analogy. But one could not find a more suitable one. One hovered on his golden hair and deftly musical fingers, her sure-footed grace and the way the moonlight cast her sharp face in silver. Catherine had known M. le Comte de Sevigny and Philippa Somerville very well in the short time she shared with them. She did not think she would know the Lord and Lady of Lymond.
They greeted her at the gates, immaculate in their twin slate damask. Sevigny was unsmiling, and Philippa’s face was fixed in a ceramic smile. Catherine found it easier to meet Sevigny’s eyes. She nodded, fixing the reins on the saddle.
“We expected you yesterday,” he said, helping her down. “I hope you didn’t encounter trouble on the road.”
She hadn’t sent word of her visit. “Just rain. Thank you, my lord. My lady, it’s an honor.”
Philippa returned her curtsy, smile unmoving. “It is us who are receiving the daughter of a Marshal.”
A jab? You couldn’t know, not with Philippa. Even before. “Your courtesy is keeping you from a reunion. Sir Hislop, I believe you were once acquainted.”
One faint blond eyebrow lifted. “ Sir Hislop? It appears I am behind the times. And they even let you near Mademoiselle d’Albon. Good grief. Danny, it’s good to see you.”
Hislop had dismounted too and approached long enough to clasp Sevigny’s outstretched hand. “Good to see me! By God, my lady, you’ve left him a desperate man for company.”
That frozen smile warmed just a mite. “Danny. You look well.”
“I look like I’ve been on the road since the border, which in fact I have. What are you still doing here, Philippa? Haven’t you tried for another divorce?”
Two sets of eyes met, blue and brown. Two heads turned to Catherine, who hadn’t moved an inch. She knew Hislop. Possibly, she knew him better than the Crawfords by now. He had come far since his days of mercenary adventure, but he did not needle where there was no flesh to wound. One had to trust his instincts.
Philippa said, “It wouldn't be the same without Catherine in the crosshairs. Come inside, won't you?”
Dinner was served cold. Catherine shivered despite the furs Sevigny gifted her to protect against the Scottish chill, and wished her mission had allowed her a carriage for her own clothes. The servants produced a fine mead halfway through the main course, however, and warmed it on a brazier right there in front of her. She gulped it down more quickly than she should have.
It was all very cordial. As her mouth occupied itself with small talk to fill in the three years since they had seen one another, her mind thought of Louis and wondered how he was faring. If he were arrested or worse, then surely Sevigny would have found out at once and told her. Asking was out of the question.
They retired after dinner to a velvet-lined study, leaving Hislop and the rest of Catherine’s small party to their own devices. Sevigny asked after her mother, which was kind, and her father, which was not. “M. le Maréchale has been working closely with de Guise,” she said, the mead warming her cold stomach. The soft plush of her armchair threatened to draw her into it, but she maintained an iron posture.
“Ah,” said Sevigny.
Philippa said, “It will kill him. De Guise plays with fire.”
“Which Saint-André knows,” followed Sevigny, “but he is a man drawn to strength.”
“He will not recover from the loss of Henri. And neither will de Guise.”
“The only question,” finished Sevigny, concluding one thought shared between two minds, “is whether de Guise is assassinated before your father. Saint-André might be saved that way.”
Philippa’s head moved an inch, chin tilting towards her husband even as her eyes stayed fixed on Catherine’s staid face. “But you know all that.”
“I know all that,” agreed Catherine, who had not spoken to her father since Christmas. “The loss of Henri was a stark blow to my father.”
Sevigny’s lids drifted closed over cornflower eyes. “He sent us neuer no schame, ne schenchipe in erthe. Bot euer it the ouerhande of all other kynges. And like Arthur, he was Catholic.”
It was Catherine’s instinct to glance at the door. She did not suppress it in time.
“You are safe,” assured Philippa, “at least from the ears of eavesdroppers. Of course, Francis and I are raging Catholics ourselves, and certain to send you to the auto-da-fé.”
The two of them were seated at opposite ends of the divan, the perfect portrait of modesty. One pictured them in bed together, maintaining infallible eye contact all throughout. There would be no hand-holding, no caresses, and no words. Any vocalizations would be synchronized and timed so as not to distract from the art of the thing.
Something tight crawled up Catherine’s throat. An irrational fear that Philippa could see the topic of her thoughts settled over her, and she sought to distract. “In fact, there has already been one attempt on de Guise that was found out, and another I know of that wasn’t. You remember the hunting incident in ‘56— the incompetents have since been weeded out. But de Guise is cunning.”
“De Guise makes enemies like other men make love: with ill-advised abandon,” said Sevigny, confirming Catherine’s suspicions regarding his departure from France. “But you cannot be here for your father’s sake. Let me guess: de Navarre.”
“You mistake her,” said Philippa, with a cheery smile to her husband that faltered when it returned to Catherine’s face. “Catherine does nothing by half measures. She is here for his brother.”
Damn her. In the candle-dark, Catherine saw Sevigny’s slack eyes widen. “Condé? My God, Catherine. Didn’t you read the words inscribed on John Calvin’s gate? Lasciate ogne speranza, voi ch’intrate’ .”
“You forget. Qui si convien lasciare ogne sospetto; ogne viltà convien che qui sia morta ,” countered Catherine. She tried not to feel defensive of Louis de Condé and failed. You couldn’t say: he’s a good man. You could, but shouldn’t say: and who are you to judge a younger brother who raises arms to spite the elder? “My mother is uninvolved, by the way. She doesn’t know of our acquaintance.”
“And to what end are you acquainted?” asked Philippa salaciously.
Probe all you like, Philippa, there’s nothing to find. “To the liberation of France from an ancient hegemony.”
“So you’re an idealist.”
“I am not. I’ll have you know I don’t care for John Calvin.”
“No, it would take a saint,” murmured Sevigny.
“Foolishe, madde and phrenetike,” quoted Philippa acerbically. “You are leading the monstrous regiment to a lost cause. I don’t know why you came.” And she stood abruptly.
Quietly, as his wife busied herself with unlocking the door, Sevigny said, “It is good to see you, Catherine. If you’ve put your faith in Louis de Condé, then he will have a good friend in you. Any man should be honored to claim you as such.”
So he had seen to the heart of her issue, which was: Louis de Condé was going to die, and Catherine d’Albon did not want him to. It was no less immature than that. If he were to be disfavored before the Conspiracy was underway, he would die in short order. Now here was Catherine, begging at Philippa’s door for guidance.
“You speak kindly,” said Catherine. She wanted to cry, but wouldn’t. Philippa had left out the door without another word. “Thank you for receiving me, my lord.”
“My God, Catherine, you can call me Francis.” His thin, scarred hands flung themselves into the air as though the strings holding him in place had snapped with his wife’s departure. “We were to be married. I had hoped you would find a better husband in my absence. Or at least a better man.”
Retirement had softened him just as it had sharpened Philippa. Or perhaps, Catherine thought with some alarm, he saw in her a kindred soul. “Alas, when it comes to men, I am cursed only to get along with the husbands of my close friends.”
“And when it comes to women?” asked Francis mildly. “No, ignore me.”
“Pardon?” said Catherine with rancor, and then recalled his sister. Recalled certain comments on the part of Danny Hislop, made only in her hearing. One did not discuss such matters even behind closed doors, but then again, one did not leave Francis Crawford unchecked. She found herself replying. “Alas, when it comes to women, I am cursed only to get along with the wives of my close friends. Eléonore, I’ll have you know, is even sharper than Louis, and is owed responsibility for his conversion. They are madly in love.”
“What fun for them. And you?”
Catherine tried to guess what he was driving at and failed to think of a single friend of his to whom she might make a suitable bride. All reasonable options exhausted, she moved on to unreasonable ones. “Is this about Sir Blyth? I hardly think I could replace your sister.”
For one tiny moment, Francis stared at her in slack-jawed mystification. Then his head tilted back and a burst of crystalline laughter escaped him. “Jerott? You think I’m— Catherine, that man can barely look at a woman without reaching for the bottle. He’ll be a widower until the end of his days, if the Lord has mercy on us. No. Am I not allowed to inquire after your happiness for your own sake? We are, in your words, close friends.”
They might have been. If she wasn’t desperate, they might also have been strangers. Now she wasn’t sure what they were. “You and I might be, perhaps. I appear to have angered your wife.”
“Philippa had borne worse shocks than your continued religious convictions,” said Francis mildly. “She will recover.” He settled back against the divan, eyes perusing the ceiling boards. “You might not.”
“You think I don’t know the danger is real.”
“That is a disservice to her respect for you. That you don’t care frightens her. She does not believe in causes.”
“And you?”
Francis was silent. Then he said, “If I should, what would it matter? If I believed, and loathed that belief? A man can devote himself to the destruction of the cause that ensnares him.”
She thought: you risked everything to return to Scotland fifteen years ago, and then spent a decade pretending it didn’t mean anything. “So can a woman. I work towards a type of destruction which, I believe, would benefit its subject.”
Considering, Francis said, “You know that your cause would survive Condé’s death. It might even, perhaps, spring forth in greater force from it.”
That was the horrible truth that had dawned on Catherine these last years and which she died her best to ignore. “And must I be only my cause?”
“You love him. Lord have mercy.”
“Not as a woman loves a man.”
“I think,” said Francis Crawford, “that a woman can love a man in more diverse ways than ever you have considered. You should retire, Catherine. We can speak more tomorrow, when Philippa has tabled her spite.”
But Catherine could not sleep. The rich brocade of her bed suffocated her and still the cold crept in, cloying and implacable. Eventually she rose, pulled her new furs around her, and slid out into the hallway.
The winding stone corridors led her down to the first floor, where a servant hovered behind her until she commended him for his attention but she didn’t need anything, thank you. After that she was alone.
She had hoped, in a childish and foolish way, that her friendship with Philippa would resume as if it had never cut off. Despite her disclaimers to Kate Blacklock, she had envisioned Philippa receiving her with that wicked little smile and hands pressed into her own, that if either of them were to treat her coldly it would be Sevigny, who had all the warmth of an adder. In her furthest flights of fancy, she had dared hope that they might treat her with an explanation for their disappearance from her life three years ago, and she would recover the warmth of their friendship.
She had not expected to be wandering their castle late at night, alone and unable to sleep for the cold.
The sound of music broke her from her reverie. Someone was playing the spinet, tightly and without a shred of emotion. Francis. Since he had been kind to her earlier that evening, she followed the sound in the hopes it led to more conversation.
It led to a half-open door, and Catherine was through it before she realized it was Philippa at the spinet, not Francis, Philippa who was dressed in a loose shirt and men’s pants and was playing with only a single candle for light.
She meant to back out the way she had come, but the sight struck her in her place. Catherine had seen Philippa in various states of undress during their cohabitation, but never had she looked as scandalous as she did now.
Right as she made up her mind to sneak back out the door, the music stopped. Without turning, Philippa said, “Well, come on in. Generally we use small pieces of wood for doorstops, but you are giving them a run for their money.”
Catherine closed the door behind her. “I’ve angered you.”
“Angered me?” Philippa spun around on the bench, regarded her for a moment, and then one hand shadowed her face in a startling imitation of her husband’s mannerisms. “No. No, you’ve done nothing. You’ve never done anything, Catherine, but unfortunately it’s me you’re dealing with.”
“I don’t think I’ve ever successfully dealt with you.”
An ugly snort cracked Philippa’s mouth into a small smile. “Not for lack of trying. Come, sit.” She picked up the candle and strode with masculine efficiency to the couch in the center of the room. “I’ve been thinking about your issue.”
“I rather thought you’d given me up for a fool.”
Philippa looked startled. “A fool? For caring what happens to your friend? The best kind of fool, then.”
“You stormed out in the middle of the conversation,” pointed out Catherine, unsure where this new, brighter Philippa had come from, and whether she was here to stay.
“You must forgive me. I’m the same kind of fool.”
They were sitting at either side of the couch. Catherine scooted forward by a foot so she could see Philippa’s face better. That smooth porcelain was cracking around the eyes. “You said you’ve been thinking.”
Philippa’s mouth twisted. “I would be lying to you if I said I had not followed the details of your Conspiracy. I have certain contacts, particularly among intellectual circles, who keep me abreast of— no matter. It is my instinct not to trust Avenelles.”
Pierre des Avenelles was the Parisian lawyer at whose home prominent Huguenots met. Catherine had long distrusted him herself, and along with Eléonore had urged Condé to stay distant from him. “I feel the same. I haven’t been to any of his meetings.”
“I would highly suggest you continue to avoid them. He was the informant on a certain scandal of indiscretion during his time at school, and I see no reason why he should have changed his habits.” Catherine hadn’t known that, and she saw the man at least once a month. Philippa, as far as she knew, hadn’t even been back to France since 1558. “Aside from that, I think you may have less of an issue that you fear. It is clear to some of us who follow certain whispers of doctors that the king will die soon.”
Alarm thrummed in Catherine’s chest. “Are you certain?”
“He is more ill than the Queen Dowager lets on.”
Were Francis to die, the supremacy of de Guise and Lorraine would falter. Hope beamed through the clouds at Catherine. “I don’t know how you know this, Philippa. I’m the one at court.”
One of her lips lifted. “Yes. Sometimes it is not an advantage. Catherine, I’m sorry.”
“What?”
“For leaving you.”
Even in her wildest fantasies, Catherine had not foreseen an apology. She sat mutely.
“I can’t— I can’t tell you what happened, not quite. Not yet. But you deserved better. I’m sorry. So is Francis.”
“Do you know what it is,” Catherine managed, her voice steady, “for your closest friend to betray you with the man you are to marry?”
Philippa’s head ducked. “It wasn’t like that.”
“No? That evening at the dance? Philippa, I was going to let him— I was determined to—”
“Were you looking forward to it?”
She gaped. “Well, it doesn’t exactly have any bearing on the matter! We were to be married!”
“There you go, then. It wasn’t like that with us either. Isn’t.”
What she was saying was not to be said. “I don’t understand.”
“Don’t you? Wouldn’t you like to be married to your best friend?”
Many thoughts passed through Catherine’s brain at once. “You haven’t given him an heir.”
“That’s unrelated, as it happens. I can’t. Fortunate, isn’t it? No one questions it.” She sighed, and scooted towards Catherine so only a handful of inches separated them. “We tried, at first. Once I had— recovered. It wasn’t bad. In fact it felt quite good. But it’s Francis. I can’t explain it, Catherine, but he is a man and I am a woman and I love him, and yet we were not meant to be lovers. Spouses, yes, but not lovers.”
One crystalline point clarified itself. “I spoke with Francis after you left and he made a strange comment about— about women I love.”
Philippa squeezed her eyes shut in a momentary portrait of the woman Catherine had known three years ago. “No. No, he didn’t. Francis…”
“He can’t have been saying—”
“He was.”
“But everyone knows he’s a rake.”
“Yes, he’s rather had enough of it.”
“And you?” She shouldn’t have said that. It was a foolish, desperate thing to say, and anyone other than Philippa would have her killed for it. But Catherine’s heart was battering at her ribcage, and the words forced their way out.
Philippa’s dark eyes fixed hers very seriously. “I rather think I haven’t begun to get started.”
She didn’t know which one of them moved first. But soon Philippa’s hands were carding through her hair, loose and unbound as it was for sleeping, and the collar of Philippa’s shirt was hanging open too low and Philippa’s mouth was on hers. Catherine had never kissed anyone, not for real. Once Louis had kissed her because he and Eléonore agreed she deserved for someone to do so, and they had promised that in the event of either Louis or Eléonore’s death, she would look after the other. But it had been a chaste kiss, and there was much between the two of them to which she was not privy.
She was currently being privy to quite a bit with Philippa, whose hands had descended to her waist and were tipping her backwards onto the couch. Catherine’s fantasies of this reunion had not even considered this eventuality, this secret daydream of her younger self, suppressed and hidden.
A thought crossed her mind and she broke the kiss. “Oh,” she gasped, as Philippa’s mouth continued down her neck, nipping at sensitive skin, “I always rather did think Francis’ sister looked quite a bit like him.”
Philippa paused. “What? Marthe?”
“I mean— Jerott Blyth never seemed suited for the married life— and one must say like attracts like—”
Philippa began to shake in silent giggles. “Jerott? I’m on top of you and kissing you and you’re thinking about Jerott? Catherine, I’m offended.”
Now she was laughing too. “Poor Jerott. Fortunately, I’m not like him.”
“No?”
“No,” said Catherine, heedless for one beautiful night of the future. “I get what I want.”