Publisher: French Historical Fiction/Fiction de la renaissance Française
Series: Chronicles of the House of Valois
Page Length: 380 pages
Genre: Historical Fiction
Synopsis
Based on historical events and characters in sixteenth-century France, this timeless tale pits envy, power and intrigue against loyalty and the strength of women’s friendships.
Although the French court dazzles on the surface, beneath its glitter, danger lurks for the three women trapped in its coils as power shifts from one regime to the next. The story begins as Queen Anne lies dying and King Louis’s health declines. Their two daughters, Claude and young Renée, heiresses to the rich duchy of Brittany, become pawns in the game of control.
Countess Louise d’Angoulême is named guardian to both girls. For years she has envied the dying Queen Anne, the girls’ mother. Because of her family’s dire financial problems, she schemes to marry wealthy Claude to her son. This unexpected guardianship presents a golden opportunity, but only if she can remove their protectress Baronne Michelle, who loves the princesses and safeguards their interests.
As political tensions rise, the futures of Princess Renée and Baronne hang in the balance, threatened by Countess Louise’s plots.
Will timid Claude untangle the treacherous intrigues Countess Louise is weaving? Will Baronne Michelle and Claude outflank the wily countess to protect young Princess Renée? And can Claude find the courage to defend those she loves?
Excerpt
Thank you for inviting me to your blog to share a short excerpt from my novel The Importance of Pawns. The first piece comes from early in Chapter 1.
***
4 January 1514, Early afternoon
Château de Blois
Baronne Michelle de Soubise
Michelle de Soubise stood over the table cluttered with flasks and packets of remedies. When she opened the stoppered bottle of valerian, its woody odor penetrated the close air in Queen Anne’s bedchamber. She measured a dose.
When Michelle put the cup to the queen’s mouth, Anne wrinkled her nose. They eyed each other. She opened her lips and swallowed.
“You know I do not like medicine.”
“It is not a medicine, Milady. It is a restorative, to ease your pain.” Michelle’s voice was low and reassuring. Never would she admit to the queen that she gave her medicine. Queen Anne abhorred everything to do with doctors, blaming them for her children’s deaths.
“You always have a pacifying answer.” The queen smiled faintly, though pain lines creased her brow.
Michelle smiled back, repressing her sorrow. It was like pressing her tongue on a chancre to watch over the queen as she weakened and shrank. Although Queen Anne was only thirty-seven, she looked much older. Already her cheeks were sunken, her skin yellow and tight over her cheekbones and jaw. Only her enormous amber eyes fringed with long dark lashes hinted at her once great beauty.
Queen Anne should be in bed, but she would not stay there. A month ago, she had been bustling about, and still refused to admit how ill she was. So, she was resting fully clothed in her favorite armchair, her feet raised on a footstool. She shivered.
Michelle felt the queen’s forehead. It was clammy, despite the heat radiating from the logs crackling in the fireplace of her vast bedchamber. Michelle crossed to the four-poster bed
, the heavy canopy dressed in the queen’s colors, to pluck up an ermine coverlet. At least this new part of the Château de Blois was well-sealed from winter’s frigid draughts. The wainscoted walls insulated by the queen’s favorite silk tapestries brightened the space. Returning to her, Michelle draped the soft fur over the queen’s knees. Queen Anne winced.
“Bring those braziers close, Agnez.” When the chambermaid finished the sooty task, Michelle smiled a thank you.
“Stop bustling about, Mme. Michelle. Your fussing disturbs me.” The queen sounded querulous, a sign of her ill health.
Michelle sank to a stool beside the queen and smoothed her overskirt over her knees. “Would you like me to read aloud or to write a letter, Mme. la Reine? Or…?”
“Not yet.” Queen Anne leaned back and closed her eyes.
As the queen’s dame d’atour, her highest-ranking lady and only real friend, probably even closer than her husband, she was privy to Queen Anne’s deepest secrets. Perhaps only her confessor knew more. So, they both knew she was dying, although the queen had yet to admit it. But she had little time left and many hard decisions to make. Talking about them would help, Michelle thought.
The queen’s voice disrupted Michelle’s brooding. “The king keeps pressing me to agree to a date for Claude’s marriage. Now that she’s turned fifteen — and her monthly flowers have begun — he has become insistent. And after I am gone, I cannot prevent it. But what will I do about Brittany? How can I leave it to Claude when she is betrothed to Duke François?” She turned her head to Michelle, even that small movement sending a flash of pain across her face. “So, what do you advise, my wise friend?”
Michelle puffed out a breath of relief. Here was the opening she had been waiting for. Yet she was irritated, too. Brittany, always Brittany. “Dear friend, although I have waited to say so, it is time to turn your thoughts to your eternal life. Look at all you have already achieved for Brittany. Our homeland is now rich and peaceful. Please trust that our Savior knows best.”
“Do not rush me out of this world, Mme. Michelle.” Queen Anne’s voice cut sharp as a rapier. “You may not consider the future of Brittany one of my important final matters. I do.” She straightened in her armchair, flinching again. Michelle could see that her renes pained her much more than she would admit. “Listen to me.”
Those were the last words she spoke. The next moment she was writhing in agony. Ordering Agnez to bring two men servants to carry her to her bed and send for Dr. Nichel, Michelle managed to get the queen to swallow a dose of willow bark tisane laced with opium.
***
After the queen’s sudden relapse, Michelle sent a page flying to King Louis. By the time he arrived, Queen Anne was sleeping heavily from the dose of pain medicine.
King Louis, face lined with sorrow, stood at the foot of the queen’s bed, staring at his wife’s waxy face. She lay pale as a corpse under her embroidered coverlet.
Michelle touched her forehead. “She experienced an excruciating attack of the renal stone and is still fevered, but less so.”
Queen Anne stirred and began a high-pitched mumble.
This was a worrying symptom. “Agnez, fetch a jug of the filtered, cold water.” Michelle ordered. She poured a measure of clear water into a bowl, set two stoppered bottles on the worktable, added a measure from each to the bowl, and stirred. A fresh herbal aroma cleansed the stale air.
King Louis perched on the edge of the chair. “What are you preparing?” He leaned forward to sniff. “It smells of flowers.”
“It is a mix of lavender oil, spirits of alcohol and pure water — to reduce her fever and freshen her. She will sleep more calmly.”
“From what does she suffer?” King Louis insisted.
Believing he would rather hear the simple truth, she said, “I can list her symptoms, but is not your question: will she recover?”
“I shrink from any hint that she will not, yet...” He squared his thin shoulders. “The unsugared pastille then, if you please.” He stared at the floor.
“Her humors are imbalanced. For some time, I have suspected a bilious humor from the sour odors of her urine and breath, a sign of a renal disorder. The agony she suffered today suggest stones have lodged in the renal passages. Only our Savior can give a certain answer, but I know no remedy. My treatment today only served to reduce her pain.”
“Why did you not send for my principal physician to attend her? Is Loysel not learned?” King Louis sounded like an inquisitor.
“You know Mme. la Reine detests physicians. I have been ministering to her since she lost your last child two years past. She is resting quietly now, Sire, as you can see.” Michelle kept her voice low. “Dr. Loysel will bleed her, purge her, and prescribe stinking curatives of bats blood and snake excrement.” She sniffed. “The queen has neither the strength nor the blood for such remedies. My treatment — willow bark tea mixed with a drop of opium — reduces her pain and allows her to sleep.”
She picked up her notes from the bedside table and offered him the note pad — leather-bound scraps of vellum held together by string. “I have recorded all my treatments.”
King Louis swallowed and glanced at the notepad. “I must know she is receiving the best… the correct… treatment.”
“To be sure, the queen must have the best care.” Michelle hesitated. People could accuse even noblewomen of witchcraft these days and then torture and burn them at the stake for small acts. Whenever anything went wrong — a failed harvest, a sudden hailstorm, an outbreak of plague — the burnings started. With the queen so ill, Michelle would be safer if an infirmarian attended her. “Princess Renée’s infirmarian, Dr. Nichel, has seen her. But perhaps your Dr. Loysel, should attend her instead.”
King Louis considered this. “It is true that my wife blames the doctors for our infants’ deaths. And we both trust you...” He chewed his lower lip. “But I must be sure. She is precious to me.” He leaned over Anne and dabbed away a drop of sweat on her brow.
Michelle said: “Send for him, Sire. Let us hope he knows of cures of which I am unaware.” It was prudent to have him present. It should quell the inevitable rumors.
The king still looked troubled. “I will send him. Though, I doubt he... I have observed that my wife improves most in your care.”
“You are kind, Your Grace. In truth, the queen’s recovery is in the Lord’s hands only.”
Praise for The Importance of Pawns
“Love, revenge, deceit, valour, struggle and bravery. These are the keystones of Keira Morgan’s fascinating new novel, The Importance of Pawns. Historical fiction at its best.”
Where to Purchase
Amazon AU • Amazon US • Amazon UK • Amazon CA
Meet the Author
She also maintains a non-fiction website, All About French Renaissance Women, [https://www.keiramorgan.com] where she writes about the lives of Frenchwomen during the era. She plans to collect their biographies into a book.
Connect with Keira: Author Website • Website • Twitter • Facebook • Instagram
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