The Virgin's Daughter (Tudor Legacy #1)(13)
Lucette opened it. The dagger Dominic had given her for her fifteenth birthday lay within it, an eight-inch blade inside its beautiful sheath. She could feel the weight of it in her hand, remembered the hours spent learning to use it with Dominic’s patient teaching.
“No easily hidden blades for France?” she asked. “The entire household will know what is in this casket before I’ve been in Blanclair a day.”
“Good. I want them knowing you are well armed. Besides, Carrie told me she had already packed a bodice dagger at your request.”
Lucette braced herself for questions, but Dominic clearly found nothing unusual in a young woman arming herself before traveling. After all, it was he who had taught her caution.
She swallowed against memories and noted that the dagger was not the sole item in the casket.
“A letter for Renaud LeClerc?” Lucette asked. “Aren’t you afraid I might read it before handing it on?”
“You have only to ask if you’re interested in its contents.”
She hated it when he was reasonable. And Dominic Courtenay was always reasonable. “Unless you’re offering to sell me to one of Renaud’s sons at a reduced rate, I can’t imagine what interest I might have.”
“I hope you’ll mind your tongue better among those who have no reason to indulge you.” Dominic never had to raise his voice to make it bite.
She felt herself flush. “I apologize. Of course whatever you have written to the vicomte is your business. I shall gladly deliver it into his hands, and hope that neither dagger will have need to be used during my sojourn.”
With a thrill of nerves, she pondered that weapons might be a much more practical accessory than Dominic had any cause to guess. This was no intellectual exercise she was walking into. Kingdoms were at stake. Lucette rested her fingertips on the sheathed dagger and wondered. Would her nerve hold if it came to its use? She had never stuck a blade in anything more dangerous than a dead deer.
With a decisive snap, she closed the lid and re-placed the casket on the sideboard. When she moved away, Dominic stopped her with a hand on her shoulder. “Be careful, child. You tend to think that you are indestructible—rather like your mother. But there are men in this world who will not share that view. You have lived protected in England, what with the queen’s affections turned your way. Some of that will carry with you, but perhaps not enough. It is time for you to be wise, Lucie, and not simply to trust that others will see you as you see yourself.”
And how do I see myself? she nearly asked. For that was the heart of her conundrum, was it not? That she had no fixed point of identity. When one could not be absolutely certain of one’s father, how was one supposed to know where she fit in the world?
26 May 1580
Pontefract Castle
To Her Most Gracious Majesty Queen Elizabeth,
As befits the first and most humble of your subjects, Your Grace, I send my love and thanks for your gracious care. The days at Pontefract pass with little wit and pleasure, being so far from your glorious court, but I trust my studies are pleasing to Your Grace.
As requested, I have enclosed the draft of a letter to His Majesty James VI of Scotland. I trust that it will meet with your approval and that of your government. If there is aught else I can do for Your Grace, no doubt you will inform me in due course.
Your most loving daughter,
Anne Isabella
Torn between irritation and amusement, Elizabeth tossed Anne’s letter on the small table set to the side of her throne and raised an eyebrow at Burghley. “Well,” she said drily, “one cannot say the Princess of Wales lacks for spirit.”
“One would expect no less from your daughter.” Burghley indicated the enclosure, the draft letter to James of Scotland. “And one cannot fault the correctness of her missive to the Scots king.”
“No, it is the very model of reserve and maidenly submission. What a shock for James should he indeed make her his wife and discover only afterward my daughter’s true character.”
“Has King Philip protested your plans toward James of Scotland?”
“Philip has done nothing but protest every plan I have ever made for Anne. I have no doubt I shall hear little but criticism while the Spanish are here this summer. So long as he confines himself to words,” she said, with a significant glance at Burghley.
He grunted acknowledgment. “The household guards at Pontefract are on alert, and Walsingham has eyes inside the household. The greatest threat to the princess at present is boredom.”
“There will be little time for her to be bored once Philip is here and she returns to court.”
“Your Majesty, do you intend to keep her at court after the king’s visit? She is of an age to be of some use to you, besides her natural gifts of adornment.”
Elizabeth drummed her fingers on the arm of her gilded throne, an outlet for her instinctive displeasure. This was not the first time Burghley had broached the subject. And considered dispassionately, the Lord Treasurer was quite right. At eighteen, she herself had been an active member of her brother’s court. But then, her brother had been three years younger, and neither of them had been doing much actual ruling at that age.
Anne, however, was Elizabeth’s heir and, in due course of time—a very long course of time, Elizabeth trusted—would herself rule England. The weight of Burghley’s arguments rested on the fact that Anne should be as prepared as possible and not always kept at one remove from the center of government and power.