Daughter of Silk Read Free Page B

developed in Lyon, known for the finest silk weavers in France, a matter of which Rachelle was most proud.
    Princesse Marguerite desired a dozen new gowns, and eighteen-year- old Mary Stuart of Scotland, the new Queen of France through her recent marriage to seventeen-year-old King Francis II, wanted two gowns and a farthingale. The queen regent, Catherine, however, wore naught but black since the death of her husband.
    Rachelle shuddered suddenly. She remembered what Grandmère told her and her sister Idelette after meeting with the Queen Mother in her state chambers. Catherine, after asking Grandmère questions about silk in general, had then casually inquired about its possibilities as a medium.
    “I have heard of a certain deadly poison being used in silk undergar- ments in the twelfth-century Moslem East by harem women wishing to remove a dangerous foe. Is this so, Madame Henriette?”
    Grandmère, the emissary for the Dushane-Macquinet Chateau de Silk at court, had confessed to the Queen Mother she had heard such things but knew naught how such murders of ancient times were com- mitted. Afterward, Grandmère returned to the Macquinet chamber looking troubled. She had commented: “Remove a dangerous foe, she said, I vow! Such liberty these royal persons take with the French lan- guage. Her study of my person after I deliberately interchanged the word murder gave me a tingle, I assure you. Murder, or if you prefer, assassina- tion, continues unabated in the courts of Europe, not merely among the Moslem Turks.”
    Rachelle was helping with the cutting and sewing of the princesse’s gowns while Idelette, more advanced than she, was assisting Grandmère with Mary of Scotland, now Queen of France, everyone’s charmante darling — except the Queen Mother’s.
    The Macquinet women, entitling themselves the Daughters of Silk, had departed Lyon two months earlier by calèche and wagon for the jour- ney to the Louvre Palais in Paris. However, soon after their arrival the boy-king’s health had so deteriorated that the doctor had advised the royal family to leave the unhealthy air of Paris in search of fairer weather in the French countryside, where fragrant greenery and f lowers adorned the region of Touraine.
    So once again the Daughters of Silk had overseen the tedious packing of their supplies, which included large rolls of various cloths wound on smooth ash wood lined with velvet to protect the filaments, and they had traveled to Blois.
    Rachelle and Idelette had assisted the younger grisettes-in-training to pack the Genoan velvets, the brocades with interwoven threads of gold or silver, and of course, the Dushane-Macquinet silk. They had car- ried lace of every variety: ivory Alençon with tiny rosettes, the heavier Brugesse so wonderfully used for ruff les and clusters in diagonal shapes, the princely Burgundy style used for softer draping of waterfalls at the throat, and edging that was gathered on cuffs.
    So also had many of the sewing and design instruments journeyed with them in wagons, for Grandmère insisted the equipage used at court was not as fine as her own.
    The large trunks were a sight to behold and always thrilled Rachelle. They were embossed, either in gold or silver, with the famous name Dushane-Macquinet emblazoned with artistic f lair.
    Upon their arrival here at the Chambord palais chateau, she had been amused to see wondrously garbed servants bearing the trunks on their shoulders in a long, somber train as though they carried the remains of a king. “A f lurry of trumpets would be a pleasant touch,” Rachelle had whispered with a subdued laugh to Idelette.
    Each of the Daughters also carried a personalized hand case: Grandmère’s was gold-embossed Italian leather; Idelette had chosen a deep rose brocade; and Rachelle, who had recently received the hon- neur of becoming a full-f ledged grisette before departing Lyon, had cho- sen the burgundy velvet out of a secret infatuation for the good-looking