"You may call him, my child, many names, for he had many honours; now you had best call him—the Heretic," he said dryly.
CHAPTER XIII
THE COMING OF ALVA
Rénèe le Meung moved about the fine apartments of the Princess in Breda Castle, sorting clothes, arranging bags and boxes, and packing the long coffers that were to be carried into the courtyard and there loaded on the baggage mules.
Alva was coming; he had already sailed from Carthagena.
And William of Orange and his household were leaving the Netherlands for Germany, there to take up residence with his mother and Count John in the castle of Dillenburg.
As Rénèe moved about her task, she vividly recalled how she had left Germany, that hot, weary day of the feast in Leipsic, when she had moved about among Anne's things as she was moving now, folding away the bridal dresses, locking away the bridal trinkets with the sound of the joy bells in her ears and the flare of the joy fires reflected in the window-panes.
She recalled how she had crept into the gallery overlooking the great hall and had seen the Prince and Princess seated side by side on the gold couch, receiving the homage of the maskers, and all her own fatigue and distaste, the close perfumed air of the Town Hall, and the rich scents of the feast.
She had been reluctant to leave Germany, which had been a peaceful refuge, and to return to her own country, which for her was dark with horrible memories; and now she was not sorry that this Brussels life had ended—a life of magnificence, which she had only glimpsed from behind the windows of Anne's apartments; a life of great affairs and tremendous events, which she had only heard of from the mouths of pages and servants; a life of continued service, of self-denial, of submission to caprice and tyranny.
Now it was over, and she would go to Dillenburg, where every one was Protestant, and be near the Prince's mother and sisters, who perhaps would be kind to her and notice what she was doing for Anne.
Her starved heart was greedy for kindness and praise.