She knew she was not likely to learn much of use tonight. Everyone was on their best, most guarded behaviour, despite the flowing wine. They, too, were unsure of their surroundings. Unsure of the enemies’ real strength. In a few days, when everyone had settled into long days of delicate negotiations and longer evenings of revelry, when enmities and flirtations had both sprung to full flower, she would be better able to gauge the atmosphere. Better able to take full advantage of rivalries and passions.
Tonight she could only observe, perhaps begin to collect precious droplets of gossip.
An acrobat in motley livery and bright bells performed a series of backward flips along the aisle between the tables, followed by a gambolling troupe of dwarves and trained dogs. Pages poured more wine, carried in yet more platters of fine delicacies. Marguerite laughed at the antics, nibbled at what was put before her, yet always she watched. Watched and listened, as the voices grew louder and the laughter heartier as the night went on.
King Henry, she saw, betrayed no hint of ill will toward the queen. Indeed, he was all solicitude, making sure her goblet was full, that she had the choicest morsels of venison and capon. He laughed heartily at his fools’ jests, and listened intently when Wolsey murmured in his ear.
Princess Mary, the proposed bride of the Duc d’Orléans, sat by her mother, pale-faced and bright-haired, small for her age in her fine white brocade gown. She seemed shy and serene, speaking only to her mother, or to the Spanish ambassador in perfect Castilian Spanish.
The Spanish party across the aisle were not as raucous as the English, but neither were they so dour. They talked and jested just as everyone else did, led in conversation by a pretty woman of near Queen Katherine’s age, a lady with a ready smile and soft brown eyes. As Marguerite watched, the lady laughed gently, holding out her goblet for a man seated next to her to refill.
He leaned forward, illuminated by the rich amber glow of the candelabra. His loose, long hair, golden as the summer sun, fell forward like a curtain, and he swept it back over his shoulder in one smooth movement. His profile, sharply etched as an ancient cameo, was limned in the light.
Marguerite gasped, and shook her head hard, certain she was dreaming! That she had imbibed too much of the fine Alsatian wine and was imagining things. She squeezed her eyes tightly shut.
Yet when she opened them, he was still there. The Russian. Laughing boldly, and just as beautiful as that night in Venice. The fallen angel she had vowed to kill if ever their paths crossed again. There he was, mere steps away, in the last place she ever expected.
She banged her goblet down on the table so violently that vivid red wine splashed over its etched lip, spilling on to her fingers. Bright spots, like blood, bloomed on the white damask cloth.
“The bold cochon,” she muttered roughly.
“Are you ill, Mademoiselle Dumas?” Father Pierre asked solicitously.
Marguerite shook her head. “I am quite well, thank you. Merely tired from the journey, I think.”
“Perhaps a bit more wine will help,” he said, gesturing to one of the pages.
As the boy refilled her goblet, Marguerite surreptitiously studied Nicolai Ostrovsky. He did not appear to have noticed her yet. He sat there laughing and jesting with his companions, making sure the lady had the finest sweetmeats on her plate.
He was certainly far better dressed than in Venice! Or at least more elaborately so. Nor was the motley he wore to walk the tightrope in the Piazza San Marco in evidence. He was clad in a fine silk doublet of dark red trimmed with dull gold braid, his only jewel a single pearl in one ear, half-hidden by that shining golden hair.
What game did he play now?
She would just have to find out. Very soon, before he found her out first.
Chapter Five
The palace was quiet as Marguerite slipped out of her chamber, muffled in a hooded cloak. It was surely somewhere near morning, for the banquet and recital had gone on for long hours. And it was no easy thing to persuade hundreds of courtiers to retire! But all was silent now, almost eerily so in the purple-blackness of deepest night. The only sounds, so soft they were almost imperceptible, were the shuffles of the pages who slept on pallets outside doors, the whispers of Claudine’s maids in their truckle beds.
Marguerite crept down the narrow back stairs, lit on her way by the smoking torches set high in their sconces. She had changed her heeled brocade shoes for soft-soled leather boots and left off her cumbersome petticoats, tucking her skirts into a kirtle to keep them out of her way. Her progress was swift as she dashed down the stairs and out into the gardens.
She had bribed one of the pages into telling her where the Russian was lodged, but it was in a section of the palace off one of the other courtyards, behind the Spanish apartments. She hurried along the twisting pathways, so crowded only that afternoon but now completely deserted. Only the stars and the moon, like tiny crystals in the violet velvet of the sky, watched her progress. The darkened windows of the buildings were blank, turning away from her actions as they had so many others in the past. The doings of humans were swiftly gone, those windows seemed to say, and of no interest at all. Only bricks and mortar, and the river beyond, were eternal.
Or perhaps it was all her own fancy, Marguerite thought, her own imagination taking strange flight. Well, she had no time for fancy now. This was the moment for action.
She had not expected to see Nicolai Ostrovsky again so soon in her life, to have him dropped before her like a ripe prize plum. She had watched him throughout the banquet and during the recital in Henry’s fine new theatre, observing him closely while staying out of his sight.
How very careless he seemed, how caught up in laughter and jokes, the doings of his own companions! How had he ever survived his life of travel and intrigue? She had heard tell of how deftly he moved through the treacherous Courts of Venice, Mantua, Naples, Madrid. Yet he seemed to take no notice of the danger swirling around him.
He could not be so careless and still live, Marguerite knew that well. He and she were two of a kind in many ways, making their way in a cold world with only their wits, their blades, their good looks—their ability to pretend, to be all things to all people. But in his eyes she saw no flicker of awareness, no tense watchfulness like she always felt in herself. And she had watched him very closely all evening.
She finally had to conclude he had indeed taken no notice of her, and that was all to her advantage. Seldom had she found a task so easy. And now it was near to completion. She saw the wing housing the Spanish party just ahead, its silent brick hulk slumbering peacefully.
She slowed her steps, automatically rising on to the balls of her feet as she rounded a marble fountain. The faun poised at its summit stared down at her knowingly, her only witness as she slid the dagger from its sheath beneath her skirt. The hilt was cold and solid in her grasp, a stray beam of moonlight dancing down the polished blade. She was so close now…
Suddenly, a hand shot from behind the fountain, closing like a steel vise on her arm. Startled, Marguerite opened her mouth instinctively to scream, but another hand clamped tight over her lips. She was jerked off her feet in one quick movement, dragged back against a hard chest covered in a soft silk doublet.
Marguerite twisted in that steel trap of an embrace, kicking back with her heels. She managed to work her hand free, and stabbed out with her blade. The sound of tearing fabric echoed loudly in the cold, silent night, but she felt no solid thud of dagger meeting flesh.
“Chert poberi!” her captor cursed roughly. His grasp slid down to her wrist, squeezing until her fingers opened and the knife fell to the pathway.
Of course. She should have known. The Russian. Had she not been sure no one could be as careless as he appeared?