Abbeville, October 1514
“Pah! This English Princess is bringing us English weather as her dowry!” Francis spits the words out at the same time as a mouthful of muddy rainwater kicked up by the mount of his dripping standard-bearer.
His shouted half-jest reaches the ears of his companion, Thomas de Foix, Lord of Lescun, whose lips twist into a wry smile.
“Not far now, Your Grace!” he roars back, but before he can say any more, he is cut off by a sickening, tearing crack from behind them.
Acting on instinct, Francis wrenches his horse to a standstill and spins in the saddle.
The next few moments seem to happen at half speed.
A great bough falls from a tree, thundering to the ground so close to Claude’s litter it hits the guard leading the mules bearing it, dashing him from his saddle.
Maddened by the noise, the rain and the wind, and suddenly free of the man fighting to control them, the mules bolt in various directions, kicking their way free of the traces as they do so.
Claude’s cushioned litter can’t withstand the turmoil and it turns over, tossing the four-and-a-half months pregnant Duchess out into the road in an undignified heap.
Terror courses through Francis. Pregnancy aside, Claude has never been strong. Indeed, she was sick with an ague not even a fortnight ago. It’s only her strong sense of duty to her father that has got her here at all. And now –
Without fully realising what he’s doing, Francis has thrown the reins of his terrified horse at the nearest burly guard and plunged into the melee behind him.
He crashes to his knees beside Claude’s prone figure, leaning over to strike his palm sharply against her cheek, trying to slap her back into wakefulness.
“Claude? Claude? Can you hear me,
ma Cherie?”
“Get her to the convent! The nuns will look after her!”
Suddenly, Thomas materialises at his side, bawling instructions above the howling wind. It is a shocking breach of protocol, but Francis doesn’t have time to care about that. He merely nods and snatches Claude up into his arms.
She moans and stirs as he lifts her, her eyelids fluttering, and, for a moment, hope flares in his breast. If she can move like that, then, most likely, she hasn’t broken her neck. Or her back.
The convent of Abbeville, their chosen shelter for the night, is no more than half a mile away. If all had gone well, then, even in this tempest, they’d have been there in minutes. Yet, running there with Claude in his arm, the rain lashing down around them, Francis swears the great stone building seems to melt into the distance like a desert mirage.
By the time he is finally close enough to hammer on the porter’s gate, shouting hoarsely for help, Claude has gone limp and unmoving in his arms. She has ceased to make any sound at all, despite how much he must be jostling her.
Francis’s heart catches in his throat. He’s seen enough hunting and jousting accidents to know that silence is never a good thing. Not with injuries as severe as Claude’s doubtless are.
And that’s before he hands her over to Sister Ursula, who has charge of the infirmary. The portly nun tries to hide the fear in her face, but Francis isn’t blind. He can see the blood seeping into the crisp, clean linen as clearly as she can.
At some point in proceedings, Claude has begun to miscarry their first-born child.
