The Last Valois

The Last Valois
Chapter 1

Bar-sur-Aube, France, 1780


“What’s the news?” asked the farmer’s wife across the counter, and the draper’s girl leaned on an elbow, putting a dent in the smooth yards of fabric folded before her.

“You haven’t heard?”

“Why, no! I don’t think so!” replied the farmer’s wife.

“There are two runaway princesses,” said the draper’s girl with a giddy arch to her eyebrows, “lodged in the Red Head Inn.”

“Rubbish!” cried the farmer’s wife. “Nonsense, indeed. Princesses, here? Princesses, at the Red Head Inn? You’ve been misled, cherie, because I can’t believe you’d invent such a lie.”

“It isn’t a lie! You should see for yourself. Ask anyone, it’s true. They claim that they’re the lost daughters of the old, dead Baron who lived here, at Fontette. Say they’re the last surviving descendents of Henri II, the last Valois.”

“Has anyone checked?” asked the farmer’s wife in a whisper. “Maybe it’s all been made up out of their heads, or with a little help.”

“Don’t you remember a Baron living around these parts? Papa reckons that he does, says that he remembers an old Baron, a stout and forbidding sort of man, who had a lilywhite son. There wasn’t much fortune left to the family, but they kept themselves going by serving in the military, Papa says. But this lilywhite son, he was too good for that, but none too good for the maidservant. When his papa died, the lilywhite son married the chit and squandered the money. He had three children and was penniless. One night, they all disappeared to Paris. And nothing more was heard of them, until these two young ladies appeared.”

“But is it them?” demanded the farmer’s wife. “I wouldn’t be too surprised if they weren’t two worthless daughters of some beggar or some toothless laborer. They heard some tale and came tramping to Bar-sur-Aube thinking us fools enough to believe them.”

“That’s very uncharitable. You’re the only one who’s expressed any doubts about them, everyone else seems convinced that they are who they say they are.”

“Well, good for everyone else, then, they can have pudding tonight for supper! As for me, I’m not so gullible.”

“There’s no reason to think it isn’t them,” said the girl, leaning back and looking rather insulted.

“Like I said,” was the dampening reply, “I don’t just sit by and let people tell me what to believe. When you’ve gotten to be my age and have nine children of your own, perhaps you’ll learn the art of disbelieving people.”

“If I ever get to be your age and have nine children,” said the draper’s girl crossly, “I’ll hang myself.”

*****

Dinner was sitting on the table, but Monsieur Jacques Claude Beugnot was indifferent. He had sat down at the meal with every intention of eating; had in fact, come with a ravaging hunger. But when he overheard the maids talking in the other room, his curiosity was stoked, and when his curiosity was stoked, it ruined his appetite. It was like a very bad flu that needed to be cured by knowledge instead of by teas and physics.

“And they say they are Valois,” he stated, punctuating with his unused fork. He tapped it against his plate.

“What, Valois?” said his father, who had not been paying any attention at all as his son recited the stories going about the town. He had been reading the newspaper in the deepest of reveries as his son spoke to the otherwise empty table.

The younger Beugnot nodded vigorously.

“I heard that they ran away, that they are orphans and have come back for their patrimony.”

“Well, now,” said the elder Beugnot, sputtering on his coffee. He dabbed at his mouth. “That does ring a bell. It was at least fifteen years ago, maybe longer, that I was taken on a walk by the parish priest. I was paying my tithes, and he said he had a cause he wished me to donate to. So what does the man do? He tramps me right across the town, through a field, towards the old chateau. It wasn’t to the chateau that we were headed, though, but to a little ramshackle hut nearby. I asked what in the world might be there, hoping to God that it wasn’t a human being. When we got closer, I was horrified to be told that not only was it a human being, but three of them, and all of them children, living in that lean-to. It would have been a pitiful home for pigs. The priest told me very soberly that these were the abandoned children of the former master of the chateau, who had lost everything and died. He told me, ‘these children, monsieur, are surnamed “de Valois”’. You can imagine my surprise. I was persuaded to part company with several francs, having more than enough myself and feeling pity for the children.”

“Were the children very thin and dirty?”

“I don’t know, the priest refused to open the door, saying the sight was too pitiful.”

The younger Beugnot raised his eyebrows with a sarcastic smile.

“Then why did he bother to take you to it?”

“Devil knows,” shrugged the elder Beugnot. He sipped his coffee. “Come to think of it, anything could have been in that shack, but I believe his tale was true. I recall the family ‘de Valois’. Descended from the wrong side of the blanket, as it were.”

“But legitimized at some point, I take it?”

“Oh, yes, but everyone knows the truth of the matter anyway. You know how it works.”

“So these girls are descended from kings and they are staying at that rat-infested pile, the Red Head Inn? It’s a pit of garbage and refuse, not to mention crawling with whores and cutthroats.”

“You’re far too passionate,” observed the elder Beugnot very critically, his lips pressed together in distaste. “It doesn’t become you.”

“I dislike disorderliness.”

“Hear, hear,” agreed his father, taking this explanation as a good enough excuse for a moment of passion. And without seeming to harbor an ounce of curiosity about the matter at hand, he returned to his newspaper and his coffee.

Upon hearing his father’s tale, though, the younger Beugnot’s curiosity rose to a fevered pitch. His dinner quite ruined, he left his plate barely touched, put his cloak over his shoulders, directed that his horse be readied. He paced around outside the front door in the crisp afternoon air as he waited, his mind whirling with thoughts of the princesses. His imagination, having a rather rosy outlook in general, produced images of two of the most lovely creatures that God had ever produced. They were kind, intelligent, and humble for they had met with misfortune in their lives and had been taught that nothing comes without a certain amount of effort.

He for his part had never actually had to expend very much effort in anything. He had been brought up in the wealthiest and most respected household in the town, in the entire region. His father was a magistrate, and had appointed one of the most stringent tutors that money could buy; but Beugnot had been endowed with an ease of intellect that didn’t allow for any such rigors to try him overly much. He’d always been rather surprised to hear other people complain of Latin and Greek, of learning Euclid and the theories of Pythagoras and Archimedes. When he had set to learning the subjects, they had seemed like parts of his own mind that had gone missing. Even when he had advanced as far as the law, his inquiring and ready mind was well pleased to soak up the knowledge. It was an especial elixir to his rather inflated pride that what learning he got would go a very long way in making him better than other men, in knowledge, in power, and not least of all in money. His father was a magistrate and made a tidy sum that was far more than a man of his humble tastes needed.

Which was just as well, because the younger Beugnot had expensive enough tastes for the both of them and hadn’t quite achieved the means of paying for them himself. His father’s fortune was more than enough to pay for long stints in Paris, where he diverted himself in the most expensive hotels, theaters, shops, cafes. He would shop extravagantly, coming away with another waistcoat when he already had a dozen, and forgetting that he had a pair of gloves to match until after he’d already bought a second pair. He hired carriages when he thought anyone would be looking, and rode his horse—the prettiest bit of chestnut brown horseflesh that could be found—when he felt like appearing heroic. He rode with just as much ease and elegance as he did everything else.

His ease and good luck weren’t entirely confined to lineage and wits; he’d been supremely gifted in looks, mostly by his dearly departed mother, whom he only had a vague recollection of. He was tall and had a tight, athletic chest, but not a very broad one for that would have been unfashionable. His face was perfectly formed, if not on the Roman ideal then on the Gallic one of grace and elegance and a little hauteur. It was lucky that, since the wearing of wigs was becoming terribly passé, Beugnot had a head of fine brownish hair that was a shade between wheat and sunshine. It complimented his rather sharp features and made them seem far more friendly than they would otherwise have right to appear.

It was his place, he thought, as the preeminent young man of the town, to find out about these young princesses. He saw it as a duty that fell upon him by default. His father could not demean his position by looking into such affairs, and was far too busy to take much notice anyway. There were a few other men of note in the town, but they were too old to be of much use in such a situation, since it was a younger man’s errand. And the women of the town, he felt, were altogether unfit to make the first approaches to these princesses. It was a man’s place to seek them out and offer some kind of welcome and to find out, for the town’s sake, everything about them. This, he had determined, as a sort of codicil to his all-consuming curiosity.

When the horse was ready, he snapped at the footman to bring it around to the front door and stop standing around like an idiot. But his curiosity prompted him to hurry out the door and meet the footman halfway. He took the reigns, gave a curt nod to the footman.

“I’m off to find out about those princesses,” he reported. “If Father should ask, let him know that I shan’t be gone very long.”

“The princesses, monsieur?”

“Yes, yes, haven’t you heard about them?”

Beugnot did not wait to hear the answer; he did not really care much whether the footman had heard of the princesses or not. It wouldn’t satiate his curiosity. He gave his horse a good kick in the side and cantered to the gates, which were swung open. From there, it was swift gallop down the lane and towards the water, where the town was situated against the bank. He leaned close over the horse’s neck, feeling the heat against his chest and the cooling air across the back of his neck. It seemed to be the incarnation of the blazing sun and the coming blue-black night. He gave the horse a good tug when they had passed to the other side of the town.

“Ha!” he cried, and the horse came to an uneasy trot. It had been enjoying the wild gallop, enjoying the stretch of its limbs. Beugnot patted it absently as they came along the Red Head Inn. He gave the horse a click of the tongue and a gentle tug on the reigns, and it came to a stop just by the wood fence that hemmed in a muddy yard surrounded by a few poplars and then by a woods that stretched far to the north. Beugnot leaped down from his horse. He tied him to the slat of the fence that had been needing paint for at least five years, and frowned. The seedy little tavern made him rather uneasy; he was perfectly aware of the sort of personages who frequented this tavern and was not keen on the idea of leaving such a fine horse just standing around. But, as Providence had graced him on so many other points, he felt that it would have been injudicious of Providence to abandon him now.

He stepped into the tavern and was accosted by the stench of it. He was not the sort of young man to disdain disreputable establishments; he was in fact quite well acquainted with many a house of liquor or of ill repute. But just because a building sold liquor or women was no reason why it ought to stink so much of pigs and dirt. It was filthy. The dirt floor had little puddles everywhere, the contents of which Beugnot had no intentions of thinking on. There were a few weary people sitting around the tables. They were the broken-down people who had no work or families. One man, a respectable-looking man, seemed to have gotten lost and found himself in a rather shady institution, judging by the nervous look in his eyes.

The publican was sitting with the front legs of his chair lifted, his back against a wall. He was lazily smoking a pipe and watching a pink-faced girl carry a tray full of wine to one of the tables.

“Oui, monsieur?” asked the publican, gazing up at Beugnot with some suspicion. He was not accustomed to seeing Beygnot’s sort entering his tavern; it wasn’t often that a man in a fitted waistcoat and jacket appeared in his tavern, looking like he’d just come from the fashion houses in Paris. “Can I do something for you?”

“I hear that two young ladies recently arrived here and took up rooms,” said Beugnot, falling back onto his professional voice in a moment of anxiousness. He seemed rather stern to the publican, who glowered.

“If they did, it isn’t any of your business, Monsieur Beugnot.” The publican knew the young man at sight, as did everyone in town. “I have every right to house anyone I please to in my own tavern, without you knowing anything about it.”

“The young ladies are here?”

“I never said there were any such girls.”

Beugnot finally caught the undertone of the publican’s intent. He took a few coins from his pocket and laid them in the publican’s hand.

“Supposing that they were here . . . “ Beugnot suggested

“I wouldn’t think they’d be here at such an hour as this,” said the publican. “Ladies like that would most likely be taking a walk in the pretty woods if they were to have taken rooms in a place like this. Might think themselves a bit above such surroundings.”

“Might they have gotten far by this time?”

“I would imagine they’d like to be getting back sometime soon for their supper, but I wouldn’t take a chance to guess where they might be, just that they are likely to be out there somewhere.”

The publican regarded his monetary duty to be fulfilled and sat back quite comfortably in his hair.

Beugnot glanced twice at his horse’s shape through the grimy window.

“And if my horse should disappear,” said Beugnot, “I will be certain to make you regret it, monsieur.”

“Why, it wouldn’t be my fault. I don’t want your horse.”

“Yes, but I could make it awfully uncomfortable for you, you know, what with my father being a magistrate and me so well-versed in the law.”

“Yes, well, I won’t let any thieves ride off with your horse,” the publican grumbled unwillingly. But Beugnot was certain of the effectiveness of his method; a good threat was worth ten times as much as a plea or even a bribe.

So he set out into the forest, a set of purplish trunks and browning leaves, as the sun dipped lower and lower. The earth was pungent with a gentle rain that had fallen in the morning, and the smell of oak was strong as he crushed the leaves where he walked. There were flashes in his mind of hours in his boyhood spent building mountains out of leaves and leaping into them as his little dog yapped. Pleasantly, he lost himself in the sharp reminiscences.

A few cottages pressed up against the trees, but it was peaceful. The places had a feeling of breathless solemnity. The intrusion of humanity was dull and half-hearted, done with a yawn.

He didn’t realize how far he had gotten from the tavern and from the town until he heard the bells far away in the church, striking the hour and reminding him that his supper would be waiting for him and that night was not far now. He turned back, feeling distinctly disgruntled. His appetite wouldn’t suffer for long; it never did, despite the injury done it by his curiosity. But he would certainly suffer pangs of curiosity until he met these two princesses.

He was surprised by a singsong laugh through the trees as he came near the edge of the town. Wheeling around, he saw the tail end of a green cloak flowing through the air from tree to tree. The figure darted and laughed, away from the white hands of another creature, a creature followed by a fluttering blue cloak of its own. He stood as still as a statue.

“Le flor, c’est la mienne!”

Beugnot was startled by the sight of the two forms twisting in and out amongst the tree trunks. He crossed himself. The motion was enough to draw the attention of the creature carrying the flower. She stopped, her eyes as surprised as Beugnot’s had been. She was flushed, breathless, the smile still alive on her lips but the sprit of fun quickly draining from her eyes. The other creature came to a halt, her blue eyes following the other pair.

“Mon dieu,” she said in a soft exclamation.

“We’ve raised a ghost.”

Beugnot’s reverie was snapped. The two girls were as surprised as he was. He studied them briefly as they panted and stared back, their eyes wide with fright at the motionless statue that fixed them with intense eyes like a specter. One girl was tall, round, and blonde, with the sweet look of a child about her face though she was certainly over twenty years of age. But it was the other girl, older, graver, darker, who interested him. She seemed to have been blasted out of some diamond mine and left in glittering glory in the middle of the forest. She had not quite been cut and polished yet; she showed signs of being rough about the edges, but nonetheless, despite her wayward chestnut hair, her untouched face, her untrained waist, she had an immense amount of potential. The look in her eyes, the same blue as the twilit the sky, was enough to convince anyone of her value. He had a suspicion of who she was; he was flooded with excitement.

Gathering himself, Beugnot smiled.

“I have come across two dryads, it seems,” he said, slowly and deliberately.

“Dryads indeed, and the dryads have encountered a spirit,” replied the dark-haired young lady. “We’ve raised the shade of a rakish young man, Marianne, by our play. I think if we go away quietly he will go away quietly, too.”

“He looks to be of flesh and bone to me,” replied the blonde girl. “And blood.”

“I think there is one way to tell, Marianne.”

The dark-haired girl strode up to him, extending the flower that she held. Bowing to her, he took the flower from her pretty fingers, then took the tips of those fingers and brushed them with his lips.

“I’ve never touched a nymph before,” he said, tucking the flower into a buttonhole on his lapel.

“I’ve never offered a flower to a ghost.”

“You should have; he would have forsaken heaven for your sake. You could raise a good many dead men by your magic I think. Or are you a cruel forest spirit?”

“I am a tease, Monsieur Ghost, but never cruel. But what about you? Ghosts have no substance, no place on Earth. I gave you my flower. What am I to do when you go back to heaven or hell and take my flower with you?”

“When I go to heaven or hell, mademoiselle, I will wait for you there with it. I would never steal a flower from a dryad.”

“I am no dryad, but you must be a ghost. You came upon us so silently.”

“I didn’t mean to be silent.”

“It was probably our fault, we were making such a lot of noise. But I still think you’re otherworldly. Does my preternatural visitor have a name?”

“Only an earthly and natural one.” He bowed again. “Jacques Claude Beugnot, mademoiselle.”

She curtsied.

“Jeanne de Valois de St-Remy, monsieur. Enchantè.”

At the name Valois, his demeanor loosened, his limbs unstuck and his stunned mind began to work again. He had found the girl with no trouble at all, found her in the forest. From his vantage point, it seemed like the greatest of luck; just like everything else. He had found his Mademoiselle de Valois; now he simply had to find out everything about her.