Chateau of Echoes

“Severine.”

“Severine-?”

It was impossible not to catalogue the emotions as they crossed his face. “That’s perfect.”

Just perfect.

5

After I’d cooked for my guests and Severine had finished serving them, Cranwell came back down with Lucy for an evening walk. They returned as we were putting away the last of the dishes.

He rapped on the kitchen door, startling me. It wasn’t the normal entrance for guests.

Severine let him in. Lucy barked at her.

“I hear you’re the expert on Alix de Montot.”

“The expert!” Severine laughed. “This is me.”

Cranwell pulled out a stool for her and then one for himself. “What was she like?”

“What was she like?” Severine gave the slightest shrug. “Who can say?”

“I mean, was she… a daredevil? A prude? A tomboy?”

“I do not know these words, but you are asking me of her character?”

“Yes.”

“Her character…” Severine thought a moment, a slight ‘v’ appearing on her forehead between her eyes, just pronounced enough to make a person want to lean over and smooth it away. “This is difficult, you know, because she is not of our age. This is the problem of history. You see, we cannot expect that a woman in the fifteenth century would be the same person in the twenty-first century. The society are different and they affect the behavior of each person. You understand this, yes?”

Cranwell nodded.

Sitting at my desk behind them, I decided to get a head start on the next week’s menu.

“For her century, she was… I do not know how you say this, ahead of her time?”

“Yes.”

“She was educated. She wrote very much. She had her own thoughts…”

“You mean she thought for herself?”

“Yes. This is what I mean.”

“Thoughts that were not common?”

“Maybe thoughts that were common for a man to think, but not for a woman.”

“That sounds modern. Advanced.”

“Yes, but we find this is because she is not taught.”

“You just said she was educated.”

“Yes. Educated. But not… she was mal elevee.”

The silence stretched and I couldn’t help but interject. “She was poorly raised.”

“Yes. That is the one!” Severine turned and smiled her thanks at me. “She was poorly raised, so she does not know what is expected of her.”

“In what way?”

“As a woman. As a wife. She knows how to read and write and do the maths, but she cannot manage a chateau. She knows nothing of food or of servants. She does not do broderie or sing or play music. And of life, she does not understand that she does not have choices, and so she thinks and makes as if she does.”

“So, she’s ahead of her time, but she’s also behind it.”

“No. Behind it would be no education. It is that she is not…”

Again, I intervened. “She’s not socialized.”

“Yes. Not socialized.”

“So did she not want to get married?”

“No. She did. She knew she must because she was a woman, but she did not know what this meant.”

“You mean leaving her home?”

“This she knows. She does not know, by example, about sex. She does not understand what a correct wife does.”

“So what does she do?”

“Nothing.”

“Nothing?”

“Nothing.” Severine sighed. “This is complicated. You could perhaps read my notes and the journals and understand the marriage better.”

“But what about the history? In her era, Brittany was not a part of France.”

“This is correct. Many parts of the republic of today were not ruled then by the King of France. They owed fealty to the king, but the lands had their own kings or rulers. Brittany was one of the most powerful, but there were many others.”

“Exactly what was ‘France’ then?”

Severine shrugged. “It is hard to know, but normally we say Normandy, Champagne, Poitou, Langedoc, Dauphiny, Touraine, and the area around Bordeaux to Cahors.”

“And Alix’s family came from this France?”

“Yes. Her father’s family from Touraine, near Chinon. Her mother’s family comes from Provence, from the land of a different king, King Rene.”

“Was Brittany friendly with France?”

Severine sucked air between her teeth. “Yes. But she is also friendly with England.”

“And England and France hate each other.”

“Yes. The Hundred Year War is not long over. Not even ten years.”

“So Alix’s marriage is strategic.”

“Yes. And this is correct for her family.”

“Was her family close to the king?”

“They are related. Cousins, but not close.”

“And Brittany, did it have a king?”

“No. In Bretagne we have the duke. The duc de Bretagne. He is the king.”

“The family Alix married into, were they close to the duke?”

“Yes. They are cousins also, but more close than the family of Alix to the king.”

“Is it possible then that Alix could have been a spy?”

“A spy?! I do not think so. There is nothing we have to say this.”

“But is it possible?”

“I do not think a spy.”

Again I turned from my cookbooks to interject. “Cranwell writes fiction Severine. Les romans d’espionnage. He’s not writing a story about Alix. He’s writing a story about a girl of Alix’s time. Is it possible such a girl could have been used by her father to get information on Brittany’s relationship with England?”

Cranwell sent me a grateful look over his shoulder.

“Yes. Yes, this is possible.”

The way things sounded, Severine and Cranwell might talk late into the night. So I went upstairs and left them alone. The sooner he got the information he needed, the sooner he would leave. I craved my solitude, and it had been lacking that day. I decided to take him out in the forest the next day and trot him around the boundaries of the old estate.