‘What about Belbigny?’ the Earl of Norfolk asked. ‘You do not mention him, yet I see him at the end of the table.’ He indicated the tall, dark-haired man.
‘No, no. He is here...’ the Queen paused, delicately, picking at a loose thread on her linen napkin ‘...on other business. It’s a shame, he’s a skilled commander, but unfortunately, at the moment, he has other things on his mind.’ She sighed, staring out over the bobbing heads of the crowded hall.
‘I heard what happened to his family,’ the Earl replied. ‘His father was in charge of a garrison on the border, is that right? The whole family was slaughtered in the conflict?’
‘It was worse than that. The conflict had supposedly finished and a truce had been established, but someone held a grudge against Lussac’s father, returned to the garrison with a group of soldiers and fired the whole place.’
‘I had no idea.’
‘He will travel with us; he hopes to find someone who can shed light on the identity of whoever killed his family. I don’t suppose you have heard anything?’
The Earl of Norfolk shook his head.
‘Then let’s not speak of it further. I don’t want him to hear, not a breath of it.’ Beneath Isabella’s long white fingers, the gemstones on her rings winked in the candlelight as she crumbled a bread roll to tiny bits, scattering them across her silvered plate.
Thomas studied the man at the end of the table covertly, leaning back in his chair, sipping idly from his goblet. Lussac felt the touch of his gaze and turned, pinning the Earl with his hard, dark stare. Thomas raised his goblet in salute, noting the hollowed-out eyes, the lean, ravaged features. What a waste, he thought to himself, as he switched his attentions to Isabella once more. There’s a man who suffers, tortured by what happened to his family. But what man wouldn’t suffer after what he had been through?
Chapter Five
Gradually, the evening stretched into full night. The knights, noblemen and their ladies, the peasants in service to the Earl of Norfolk, pushed back from the tables, having eaten their fill of roasted meat, braised vegetables and crusty bread; servants scurried around, scooping up the debris. Trestles were pushed back against the circular walls of the great hall, clearing a large space in the middle of the swept stone floor. Bereft of the safety of their table, Isabella’s ladies stood in a miserable huddle, forlorn figures in their silks and satins, gaudy butterflies against the plainer attire of the peasants. Noting their plight, Isabella summoned them up to the high dais, where she ordered more benches to be placed behind her so her women could sit in relative comfort.
Through the curtained doorway, a group of musicians entered, setting themselves up with their instruments to one side, backs against the wall. Most of them looked like they hadn’t bathed in a year, a motley collection of scruffy itinerants, with ragged, drooping clothes, missing teeth and lank, greasy hair.
‘Christ in Heaven,’ Philippe whispered to Lussac, ‘where did the Earl find this lot?’
But then they began to play. And the music was beautiful: haunting, lilting, building slowly in rhythmic beats, faster and faster, until the sound reached a dramatic crescendo. A troupe of acrobats ran into the hall, running, cartwheeling, somersaulting, contorting their bodies with amazing flexibility, fast and skilled. Their costumes were fashioned from bold reds and yellows, fitted braies and tunics that allowed them to bend and stretch with ease. The watching crowd gasped in awe at the acrobatic feats, roaring with approval at each daring manoeuvre. Even the Queen, not known for praising any sort of entertainment, was smiling, turning and nodding with approval at the Earl.
The acrobats ran to the middle of the hall, gathering together to form a human pyramid: three men at the bottom, then two climbing up, one man vaulting deftly to the very top. His head was on a level with the wrought-iron chandelier that hung with chains from the ceiling. One by one, he extinguished the candles, pulling the waxy sticks from each holder and tossing them to a companion down below.
As the chamber plunged into dappled shadow, the crowd shifted, a palpable tension running through the room, a ripple of expectation. Isabella looked about her, an expression of curiosity on her face. The triangular formation of six acrobats moved carefully as a group to the other chandelier, dousing the flickering light once more. Now the hall was in darkness, lit only by the flickering firelight and the few candles set into stone niches around the walls.
The crowd began to stamp their feet, chanting; it seemed they had the advantage over the royal guests and knew what to expect. The noise of the chanting rose, swelled, filling the hall.
‘What are they saying?’ Philippe leaned forward, intrigued.
‘They’re chanting in Latin,’ Lussac narrowed his eyes, trying to decipher the words from the jumble of noise. ‘It sounds like silver...silver bird?’ He shrugged his shoulders, sprawling back into his oak chair.
A sliver of light appeared in the doorway. A momentary hush fell upon the crowd; they held their breath, collectively. Then the roars and shouts returned, louder this time, insistent. The slip of light moved inwards, transformed into a figure, a girl dressed from head to toe in a white-satin garment, the top half of her face covered by a white, leather mask. Every inch of the satin was covered with tiny beads, faceted so they caught the light, shimmering in the dusky shadows of the hall. Tiny, sparkling beads even decorated the outside edges of her mask. Every movement, every fraction of movement was accompanied by a rippling, twinkling sparkle from the costume.
‘I’ve never seen anything like it before,’ Isabella breathed out, stunned, her eyes transfixed upon the pearly figure.
The girl raised her arms and the crowd went wild, the music hitching faster, dominated by a repeated drumbeat. Cut in a bell shape, the sleeves flowed downwards from her outstretched arms, like the spread wings of a bird.
‘Silver bird!’ Philippe thumped the table triumphantly. ‘Now I understand. You were right, Lussac. What a wonder she is, eh?’
Lussac’s piercing blue eyes studied the figure, the slender curves, the diminutive stature. His heart kicked up a beat. Despite her masked face, the maid looked remarkably familiar. Was it her, the girl from the forest?
From her demure, gentle entrance, the girl sprang into action, somersaulting in a series of forward flips to the pyramid of acrobats. As her hands hit the floor, her feet lifted upwards in precise, fluid harmony, travelling over to arch her spine in a graceful curve. Placing one small foot on the bent knee of her companion, she climbed the human pyramid to the chandelier. Hooking one leg over the iron loop, she held herself upright, balancing strongly on her hands and arms whilst the acrobats beneath tumbled away in all directions. The audience applauded them heartily as they ran out of the hall, laughing and waving, tumbling and springing.
She waited until the last man had exited, before swinging her body down, sharply, held on to the chandelier by her bent legs. The metal circle swung with her slight weight. In the time it had taken her companions to leave she had attached a short rope around one ankle, tying the other end to the chandelier. Her arms swept out, then one leg came down, forming a right angle with her other leg. She began to spin, slowly at first, then faster, faster, the magnificent cloth of her costume flowing around her like shining phosphorus.
‘Good Lord,’ Philippe jumped out of his seat, ‘she’s going to fall, that rope’s not going to hold her...’
‘I think she will be fine,’ Lussac reassured him drily. He was certain now of the girl’s identity and hated the way his heart tripped faster with the knowledge. The waif in the forest who had hoped to outsmart him with a jittery combination of bravado, luck and agility. Serving girl, indeed!
Half of Isabella’s ladies had covered their faces with their hands; they couldn’t watch. The rest of the audience stared upwards, open-mouthed, hearts thumping with anticipation. The girl spun faster and faster until her body became a glittering blur up in the rafters, before she stopped