Written on Silk by Linda Lee Chaikin

not object unduly,” he said in a veiled and dry tone, “we will also shake the dust from your riding cloak.”
    Andelot gave a stilted bow. “As you wish. Merci.”

    A SHORT TIME LATER INSIDE THE LOUVRE , Andelot waited in the blue and gold salle of his oncle Sebastien Dangeau’s appartement. Sebastien had served on the privy council of the Queen Mother, Catherine de Medici, until his recent arrest and imprisonment over his involvement in the Huguenot rebellion at Amboise.
    Andelot glanced about the chamber as he waited for his audience with Duchesse Dushane, recalling how he had visited Sebastien here on several occasions when Andelot was younger and attending monastery school.
    He admired once more the many treasured tapestry hangings from royal French worthies of the past. The Aubusson rug was worn in a few places but retained its comely heritage. All the chairs were upholstered with multicolored brocades that had a predominance of blue with threads of crimson artfully woven throughout the heavy cloth. The low settees and various cushions for sitting were all tasseled the color of gold. The wooden arms and backs of the chairs were meticulously carved into semblances of grape clusters and vines with petite flower petals, stained pink. A long table he remembered well, boasted the royal Valois oriflamme adopted by the renaissance king, Francis I. He walked across the chamber for a closer look.
    I should like to live in a grand place like this with servants to do all my bidding . . . and if I had not displeased le cardinal —
    At the sound of footsteps approaching, Andelot turned as a serving-maid hurried in from the back of the appartment. She must have been a maid of lower status, or a cleaning woman, for her garments were ignoble, and her hands were knobby and had pink blotches, he supposed from years of cleaning. He noticed how the woman twisted and pulled on her hands. Some inward agitation most certainly gnawed at her which was reflected in her teary eyes as well. Surely the poor woman had been crying for some time.
    She took him for a person of import, despite his common clothing, for she curtsied, not once, but twice.
    “Oh, Messire, I fear Madame’s ladies cannot come to you now, for they are all at the bedsides of Mesdames Henriette and Madeleine, praying, as they have taken grievously ill.”
    Henriette was grandmère to the Mesdemoiselles Macquinet. Madeleine was Oncle Sebastien Dangeau’s wife. The news was troubling.
    “Ill? Both mesdames?”
    “Oh Messire, I had naught to do with their illness, I swear it, Messire, though I confess I helped with the petit déjeuner , baking the bread. It is — was — the fruit. Oui, it must be the fruit, for what else could it be? I assure you, both mesdames ate of the fruit two days ago.”
    She dropped her face into her palms, and her stooped shoulders shook.
    Andelot threw a glance toward the closed doors leading off to the other chambers. Was this news of their illness worthy of his alarm, or was this serving woman overwrought?
    “Ill from eating fruit? What manner of fruit was it?”
    She shook her head with a small, defensive whimper. “Just some petite apples held over from last autumn’s harvest, Messire. That is all. Just some apples. Oh, it was la grande madame, as they call her, the silver-haired couturière from her Château de Silk in Lyon, who first took ill. Ah, it is dreadful. She arrived some weeks ago from Chambord to help her granddaughter, Madame Madeleine, who was enceinte . The bébé , she was born in March. We were all here. Then, two days ago, Grande Madame donned herself in most magnifique clothes and went out by carriage to buy some gifts for bébé Joan. Afterward she stopped at the fruit market to buy some rosy apples.”
    The serving woman’s eyes watered over again and dribbled down the creases in her cheeks. “By sunset, after eating the fruit, Grande Madame was oh so ill. Her sickness was dreadful to hear — all the night she