Quentin had been sent there to do some work for the Abbey, and in that way the Queen, through Philippa, her maid of honor, had heard of Joan.
“I suppose it is a natural desire in a woman,” Master Edrupt said when they talked of the matter, “but somehow I would stake my head it is not the fashions she is after.”
Barbara his wife smiled but said nothing. She agreed.
When Joan had modestly shown her wares, and the little wooden court lady had smiled demurely through it all, the Queen dandled Marguerite on her knee and thoughtfully looked her over.
“The face is surely like the Princess of France,” she said. And Joan felt more than ever certain that there was a reason for this interest in poppets.
Later in the day she found out what it was. Quentin was carving other little lady-figures like those he had made years ago for Master Gay. He had also made the figures of a Bishop, a King, a Monk, and a Merchant; with a grotesque hump-backed hook-nosed Dwarf for the Jester. It looked as if a giant were about to play chess. Padraig, an Irish scribe who had made some designs for the Queen’s tapestry-workers, was using his best penmanship to copy certain letters on fine parchment. Giovanni, who had sprung up from somewhere, was making a harness-like contrivance of hempen cords, iron hooks and rods, and wooden pulleys. When finished it went into a small bag of tow-cloth; if stretched out it filled the end of a rough wooden frame. Joan began to suspect that the figures were for a puppet-show.
“It is time to explain,” Quentin said to the others. “We can trust Joan. She is as true as steel.”
Joan’s heart leaped with pride. If Milan had only honor left, her children would keep that.
“It is this, Joan,” Quentin went on kindly. “In time of war any messenger may be searched, and we do not know when war will come. King Henry desires above all things the peace of his realm. He will not openly take the side of the Lombard cities against Frederick Barbarossa—yet. But he will throw all his influence into the scale if he can. The Queen has hit upon a way by which letters can be sent safely to the courts of Brittany, France, Castile, Sicily, and even to Saxony, which is in Barbarossa’s own domains. Giovanni will travel as a peddler, with the weaver-boy Cimarron as his servant or companion, as may seem best. He will have a pack full of such pretty toys as maidens love,—broidered veils, pomanders, perfumed gloves, girdles—nothing costly enough to tempt robbers—and these wooden poppets of ours. We cannot trust the tiring-women in times like these, but he may be able to give the letters into the hands of the Queens themselves. No one, surely, will suspect a poppet. These gowns and wimples will display the fashions, and I had another reason for telling you to bring them all. If he cannot get his chance as a peddler he can hang about the court with a puppet-show. Now, look here.”
Quentin took the softly smiling poppet and began to twist her neck. When he had unscrewed the dainty little head a deep hole appeared in the middle of the figure. Into this Padraig fitted a roll of parchment, and over it a wooden peg.