“By force? Would they lay hands on us? Oh, Francis, are we safe in this castle?” exclaims Mary, clasping her hands. “Will our guards defend us? Are the walls manned? Is the town faithful? Are there plenty of troops to guard the bridges?”
As she speaks, Mary trembles so violently that she has slid from her chair and sinks upon the ground, clinging to Francis in an agony of fear.
“Courage, my reinette! rise up, and sit beside me,” and Francis raises her in his arms and replaces her on her chair. “Here we are safe. This conspiracy is not directed against us, Mary. The people say my mother and the Guises rule, not I, the anointed King. The Huguenots want to carry us off to Paris for our good. Pardieu! I know little of the plot myself as yet; my mother refused to tell me. Anyhow, we are secure here at Amboise from Turk, Jew, or Huguenot, so cheer up, my lovely queen!”
As Mary looks up again further to question him, he stops her mouth with kisses.
“Let us leave all to the Queen-mother. She is wise, and governs for us while we are young. She loves not to be questioned. Sweetest, I am weary, give me a cup of wine; let me lie in your closet, and you shall sing me to sleep with your lute.”
“But, Francis,” still urges Mary, gently disengaging herself from his arms as he leads her away, “surely my uncles must be in great danger; a conspiracy perhaps means an assassination. I beseech you let me go and question them myself.”
“Nenni,” answers Francis, drawing her to him. “You shall come with me. I will not part with you for a single instant. Ah! mignonne, if you knew how my head aches, you would ask me no more questions, or I shall faint.”
Mary’s expressive face changes as the April sunshine. Her eyes fill with tears of tenderness as she leads Francis to a small closet in a turret exclusively her own,—a chinoiserie, quaint and bright as the plumage of a bird,—and seats him, supported by a pile of pillows, on a couch—luxurious for that period of stiff-backed chairs and wooden benches.
“Talk to me,” says Francis, smoothing her abundant hair, which hung in dark masses on her shoulders as she knelt at his feet, “or, better still, sing to me, I love to hear your soft voice; only, no more politics—not a word of affairs of state, Mary. Sing to me those verses you showed to Ronsard, about the knight who leapt into a deep stream to pluck a flower for his love and was drowned by the spell of a jealous mermaid who watched him from among the flags.”
Mary rises and fetches her lute. All expression of fear has left her face. Reassured by Francis and occupied alone by him, she forgets not only the Huguenots and the conspiracy, but the whole world, beside the boy-husband, who bends lovingly over her as she tries the strings of her instrument. So let us leave them as they sit, two happy children, side by side, bathed in the brief sunshine of a changeful day in March, now singing, now talking of country fêtes, especially of a carrousel to take place on the morrow in the courtyard of the castle, in which the Grand Prieur is to ride disguised as a gipsy woman and carry a monkey on his back for a child!