To Serve a King Read Online Free PDF

exhaustion, or revulsion. She had watched with implacable neutrality as the woodsman held the small furry animals, as the young girl sobbed while exterminating them. Nor had she praised Geneviève as the young woman endured hours of lectures and mind-altering persuasion, completing each new assignment with ease, as she translated the most complex of ciphers, as she slaughtered and butchered animals without a second thought.
    Elaine reached into the pouch once more. The locket hung on a long golden chain of delicate links that tinkled together as her aunt dropped it into her palm.
    “Open it,” the elderly woman commanded.
    On each side of the open oval locket were the pictures of two faces, at once familiar, undeniably related.
    “Your grand-mère and the woman who raised you. If any should question your lineage and your allegiance, we are the patent of your heritage.”
    Geneviève stared at the small painted faces; the physical likeness was undeniable. She wondered if their temperaments were the same as well, if her father was the same type of person as her aunt.
    It had not taken Geneviève long to understand that the coldness of this woman’s heart ran to her very core; it was not an assumed state adopted in order to coax more work from the child. It was who she was. This woman had found little chore in teaching the child to have an emotionless demeanor, for she owned it completely. As a curious adolescent, Geneviève had tried to find out how Madame Elaine came to be who she was, but no matter how tentatively she broached the questions, no response was ever forthcoming. Geneviève would leave knowing as little about her aunt as when she came.
    “Take the last one out yourself.” Her aunt held the black bag out and Geneviève took it, squaring her shoulders against the shiver. She clasped the small square shape her fingers found and brought it forth.
    She knew the face at once.
    “Who is it, Geneviève?”
    “It is the king, François I.” Geneviève heard it herself, the slightest tinge of distaste in her voice.
    “You cannot react like this, girl.” Old and dying though she may be, the noblewoman could still bark a forceful command.
    Geneviève assessed herself, finding her shoulders and shapely top lip curling upward. With an inward breath, she relaxed both.
    “Who is in the picture, Geneviève?”
    “He is the king,” she repeated, her voice ringing with respect. “François I.”
    “ Whose king is he?”
    Thrusting her chin up, Geneviève looked her aunt square in the eye. “He is my king. My one and true king.”
    For a moment the women’s gazes locked, the teacher’s scouring the student’s. All of a sudden, the old woman broke the connection and her body slithered down the pillows. All strength had left her. Her job done, her life’s work complete, there was nothing remaining to hold her to this world. She would wallow in her illness until death came calling.
    Geneviève waited, hating herself for the expectancy she felt in her heart, for one word of fondness to mark this leave-taking. Her aunt closed her eyes and turned her head toward the windows. Chiding herself for her foolishness, Geneviève turned toward the door.
    “You will tell him, won’t you?” The voice faltered and its vulnerability stopped her, drawing her back.
    “Madame?”
    “Tell Henry, make sure. Tell him I have done my duty well.”
    That the parting words between them would be of King Henry came as no surprise to Geneviève.
    “He will know, ma tante . As do I.”
    On the seat across from her, Carine bubbled with excitement, leaning out of the open window to stare at the pale green meadows of spring as they rushed past.
    “It is all like a dream, is it not, mam’selle? I cannot believe I am leaving. I have never left town in the whole of my life.”
    Geneviève gave her a silent, indulgent look in reply, but her hands, clad in lambskin leather, clenched tighter on her lap. She wouldn’t tell her maid that she had