The Hidden Evil

CHAPTER ONE ~ 1554“Pour le nom de Dieu, shut the door!” a man exclaimed angrily from the fireplace, as the wind swept boisterously into the room, whistling down the backs of the four gallants sitting with their legs stretched out before the pot room fire. “I must apologise, messieurs, if I intrude,” a voice replied sarcastically. The four young men sprang hastily to their feet. Framed in the door of the low-ceilinged inn was a resplendent figure in a velvet doublet flashing with jewels, a plumed hat set jauntily on the side of a dark head and high boots that oddly enough seemed not to have encountered any of the mud that made the inn yard almost a quagmire. “Your – Your Grace!” one of the young men stammered. “We did not expect to see you here.” “I did not expect to be here myself,” the Duc de Salvoire answered him, closing the door behind him and crossing towards them as he drew off his embroidered gloves. “You too are meeting the ship coming from Scotland?” one of the young men hazarded respectfully. The Duc shook his head. “Nothing so adventurous,” he said. “I have been staying at Anet and I am on my way to join the King in Paris. However, Her Grace the Duchesse de Valentinois requested me to carry a message for her to the Convent of The Poor Sister who do live in this God-forsaken place, only the Lord they worship so devoutly can know why!” Unconsciously, from force of habit, the Duc took the best chair and seated himself in the most comfortable place by the fireside. A vague gesture of his hand, wearing a huge emerald ring, indicated that the others might be seated and they settled themselves, but without the comfortable relaxed abandon with which they had been enjoying the warmth of the fire when His Grace arrived. Now, a little tense and on edge, they sat down politely in their chairs, their faces turned towards him as they waited for him to speak. They were four of the most staid and sensible young men of the Court, the Duc noted and guessed it was the Duchesse who had had the good sense to choose such a band for the mission that they had been entrusted with. ‘She never fails,’ he thought with a little smile and wondered what other King’s mistress had the wisdom and the good sense or Statesmanship of Diane de Poitiers, who for ten years had virtually been the Queen of France. As if the trend of his thoughts somehow communicated itself to the young men sitting round him, one of them asked, “Were you sorry to leave Anet, monsieur?” The Duc smiled and the twist of his lips seemed for a moment to remove the tiredness and the boredom from his eyes. “One is always happy at Anet,” he said. “The Duchesse and the King have built together a house of love which is without its equal in the whole world.” Just for a moment his listeners looked surprised. They were not used to hearing such warmth in the Duc’s voice. He was known to be bitter and cynical. Crossed in love so the story went, when he was only a boy of seventeen, he had vowed never to let his heart run away with him again. In fact he was known on one occasion to say, “I have no heart, only a brain, which is far more reliable.” Almost as if he regretted having spoken so warmly and in such a manner, the Duc’s next question was spoken in the hard bored tones that habitually characterised him. “You speak about meeting a ship from Scotland?” he enquired. “Or was that merely an excuse to hide some nefarious smuggling across the English Channel? I am told that the Ports of Brittany are filled with English gold.” One of the young men laughed. “There is nothing you do not know, is there, Your Grace? It is true that smuggling is on the increase, but it is all in the French favour and so who are we then to discourage a good customer, however unsavoury he may seem when he is not putting his hand in his pocket?” “You have notyet answered His Grace’s question, Gustave,” another gallant interposed. “We are here, your Grace, to meet the new Gouvernante to the young Queen of Scots.” The Duc raised his eyebrows. “Indeed! I was not aware that we had to send to Scotland for one. Can it be that there is no one of education and intelligence in France?” “I agree,” Comte Gustave de Cloude said quickly. “It is almost an insult that we should have to send abroad to what by all accounts must be a barren and barbarous land for someone to instruct the future bride of the Dauphin. But it’s said that the little Queen herself took such a distaste for Madame de Paroy that she insisted on her dismissal.” “Insisted?” the Duc asked softly. “A child of thirteen or is it fourteen years.” “That is what they say, your Grace,” the Comte replied. The Duc smiled. “A will of iron at that age. Oh, well, perhaps France can use it. She should be a good mate for the young Dauphin.” There was a moment’s silence. Everyone in the room was thinking the same thing, that the weak fragile boy with his strange blood disease would need a strong resolute wife if he was to rule the greatest, richest and most civilised country in the world. Then with a change of mood the Duc broke the silence almost harshly. “For all that I consider it an insult,” he said. “Must we have some pock-marked, long-nosed, carrot-headed Scotswoman spoiling the look of our Palaces? A plague on her! Let us hope that the ship from Scotland has foundered and we shall be saved from the Gouvernante from the North.” As he finished speaking, his voice echoing around the small black-beamed room, there was a gust of air which seemed almost to lift the chairs from under the listeners and a young voice, cold, icy and yet clear as a mountain stream, said, “I regret to inform you, monsieur, that your wish has not been granted. The ship has not foundered but has docked safely.” There was a moment of stupefaction and five faces turned towards the speaker. Then the wind seemed literally to blow her into the room and some unseen hand from outside pulled the creaking door to and left her amongst them. Hastily, with a sudden exclamation, the Comte Gustave de Cloude sprang to his feet. “The ship has docked? We were not told,” he exclaimed. “We should have been on the quay! What has happened to the visitors from Scotland?” “Most of them have retired to their rooms,” the girl answered. She was indeed but a girl. About seventeen or eighteen, the Duc decided, rising slowly and with some dignity when the other men present were already on their feet. He looked at her and then met a pair of vivid blue eyes staring into his with undisguised hostility. She was very small, no big-boned Scotswoman here, but the little curls, which had been whipped up by the wind round her white forehead, were undoubtedly red-gold in colour. Never, the Duc thought in astonishment, had he ever seen skin that had such a crystalline purity about it so that it appeared almost transparent. “The party has – has retired!” the young Comte was stammering. “This is ‒ disastrous, mam’selle. My friends and I were to have met them and welcomed them to France on behalf of the King.” The girl turned her eyes from the Duc towards the Comte. “There was no one on the quay,” she said, “so we walked to the inn.” “And. Mistress Sheena McCraggan,” the Comte questioned, “is she upstairs? Could you not persuade her to see me for one moment that I might proffer my apologies and deliver to her personally the messages that I carry on behalf of His Majesty?” “You may deliver them if I can just come nearer the fire,” the girl replied. “My feet are soaked through. I had no idea that France could be so muddy.” “But – but, mam’selle, you cannot be – ” “I am Mistress Sheena McCraggan,” the girl said with a little touch of dignity that was almost incongruous because she was so small. There was an audible gasp and then a silence which was only broken by the Duc saying suavely, “Mistress McCraggan, may I welcome you to France? If we seem somewhat at a loss, it is merely because we expected someone older.” “I heard what you had expected, monsieur,” Sheena said severely, turning her face away from his so that he could only see the tip of her tiny straight nose and the clear line of her little chin. The young gallants could scarcely prevent a smile showing on their lips. They were so used to the Duc’s harsh tongue that it was an odd experience to see him rebuffed, especially by a girl who seemed scarcely out of the schoolroom. They made way for Sheena to come to the fire. She held out her hands towards the blaze and then with a gesture completely simple and without a trace of coquetry in it she undid the ribbons of her wet bonnet and pulled it from her head. Just for a moment it seemed as if the sun had come out in the dingy room. Contrary to any woman’s hair they had ever seen before, Sheena’s head was covered with tiny, dancing curls, golden red, which sparkled in the firelight and seemed to make a halo that framed her little pointed face and oval forehead. “Mam’selle, allow me – ” The young men sprang eagerly to bring forward a chair, to put a cushion into the back of it and to take her cloak, gloves and bonnet from her. “A glass of wine, mam’selle? You will need it after your journey.” “Thank you, but I would rather have chocolate if that is possible.” “It shall be procured immediately.” One of the gallants hurried away, another knelt down and drew her small buckled shoes from her feet. “Your shoes are soaking,” he said. “I will find a chambermaid and get them dried unless it is possible to unpack a part of your luggage and find another pair.” “There will be time for them to be dried,” Sheena answered. “Father Hamish, who has accompanied me, will not be able to travel for a few hours yet. He was terribly seasick and so was his manservant and my lady’s maid. We must give them a little chance to rest. They have had no sleep for days.” “But you, mam’selle, you did not mind such a tempestuous sea?” “I enjoyed it,” Sheena answered. “My home is on the sea and I am very used to being out in all weathers, sailing or fishing with my father. But I was not expecting it to be so cold.” She held her feet out towards the blazing fire. They were very small, beautifully shaped feet but clad in thick knitted stockings. And now, almost for the first time, they realised how plainly and almost poorly dressed she was. She wore a gown of homespun wool with no jewellery and undecorated by silk or satin or any of the frills and furbelows that were commonplace amongst the great ladies of France that men noticed them only where they did not exist. “Tell us about your voyage, mam’selle,” someone hazarded as if he was interrupting an awkward silence. “There is really nothing for me to tell,” Sheena replied, “except that the sea was very rough from the moment when we left Inverness. Nevertheless the ship brought us here safely. It is a fine ship, built in Scotland as only the Scots can build ships.” Now there was a defiant note in her voice. She looked across the hearth to where the Duc was sitting watching her, a faint smile on his lips which seemed to her almost a sneer. She thought to herself that she had never seen a young man’s face that should have been handsome so ruined by lines of cynicism and boredom. He was just the type of man she most disliked, she thought. The type she dreaded to meet at Courts and in the company of Kings. The type that had made her exclaim to her father, “I will not go! What use would I be in a Palace surrounded by clever people who have nothing to do but to seek their own amusement?”