Playing for Love

Prologue: A Little Girl

On a busy street in Paris, in the early years of the 17th century, people milled about with their daily lives. There were calls of greeting and distant yells from the market one street over echoing down the pavement with the many footsteps. The clouds rolled drearily overhead, promising rain but not yet dampening anyone's day.

Through this scene walked a little girl.

The girl walked hand in hand with her mother, face turned down but eyes darting up with every other step. The stone houses that sat neatly on either side of the road were far nicer than she was used to. They seemed like monsters, ready to swallow her up. The other children back home had told her stories of things like that. She'd yet to see proof they were wrong.

Her mother had always told her to stay away from this part of town and now they were marching straight through like it was nothing. The girl took every chance she could to study it: the fine stones, the pale colors, the fine clothes. She always looked back down before she could be scolded.

If she'd looked longer, she might have noticed her mother couldn't bear to look at her.

They reached a new section of town and the girl stumbled, startled.

Here, the houses were three, four, five times as big and there was no yelling of merchants or running of street urchins. Here she had to tip her head far, far back to see the sky. Here was not a place for the neat but plain clothes she and her mother wore.

"Madeleine, don't dawdle."

"Yes, mama."

She started walking but looked around, searching for the stares that always came when Mama talked. Her mother came from across the Channel, from England. Madeleine had never been there. She hoped to see it someday but Mama told her it wasn't anything different from the streets of Paris, except for the language. That seemed special enough to Madeleine. She liked to show off her English to the other children and some of them had taught her words of their own, from the foreign merchants who came through town.

Their long walk came to a stop and a moment later they were walking into the back door of the grandest house yet, up the stairs, and into a set of rooms. Madeleine shrunk back as they walked through every door but her mother pulled her along, urging her to look up now, trying to keep her own voice calm.

"Look, my darling, a bookcase already full of stories. And a window to see the street: you'll be able to hear the sounds of Paris any time you like... And the bed, my Madeleine! Look! Your favorite shade of blue. Isn't that wonderful?"

Madeleine's eyes grew bigger with amazement and panic and confusion, her tiny body not quite sure how to deal with any particular one of these feelings. So she said nothing, just nodded obediently, smiled, gripped her mother's fingers tighter and tighter until they both turned at the sound of the door opening again.

"Catherine?"

A man's voice followed by the man himself, a finely dressed gentleman with short greying hair and beard. He was very different from Madeleine's mother: very serious and tall and commanding. But when Madeleine looked at her mother, her mother was smiling at the man.

"I've brought her, your eminence," Mama said. Madeleine stared. "Madeleine, this is your father. Go let him have a look at you."

Madeleine looked between her two parents and then dropped the hand to walk forward obediently, studying the man as he studied her. He reached out as she neared him, gripping her chin and turning her face side to side. Madeleine blinked up at him, hoping he wasn't as stern as he seemed.

"What is your name, child?" The man said.

"Madeleine Ashdown." She said, clearly and politely like her mother had always taught her. "Your em... eminence."

He nodded in approval and Madeleine smiled.

Her mother approached and wrapped her arms around the little girl, kneeling beside her to do so. "You're going to stay here with your father now, darling. He's going to give you everything you've wanted! An education, treats, a warm home! Isn't that wonderful?"

Madeleine continued smiling. It seemed to be what was expected.

"It was wise of you to bring her to me." The man said. "I can see that she is indeed mine... Though she would have benefitted..." his voice was like steel. "From growing up here from birth."

Mama stood and bowed her head meekly, a gesture Madeleine would be using quite often over the next decade. "My apologies, your eminence. I wasn't sure you would accept her."

This was a lie. Mama had admitted that much the day before. But Madeleine didn't have time to dwell on this as her mother's arms wrapped around her again, and she was embraced so tightly that she couldn't breathe.

"Be a good girl, darling."

And her mother walked out the door.

Her father turned to her.

"A maid will be up to help you bathe and dress as your station demands." He said.

Then he walked out the door as well.

Madeleine wouldn't see her father again for a month.

She wouldn't see her mother again at all.