The King's Eye

Chapter 6

 My lashes felt heavier than lead on my eyelids as they weakly fluttered open to the light peeking through the curtains. Anne lay in her bed beside me snoring, her hand hanging from the bed as she smothered her own face with a pillow. I kept retracing my memories from the night before, wondering if I had imagined it all. Maybe it would have been better if I had dreamed it. I couldn't stop thinking of running into his majesty in the maze. At the party. He had wanted to ask me for this life risking favor the entire time? No. I shook my head back and forth gently, my hair rubbing against the pillow uncomfortably,

Jacques. Was Jacques a spy? My chest tightened. I wondered what his curly hair would feel like running through my fingers. The thought of his fingertips grazing the arch of my back again made my breath catch.

And Francis, who despite her majesty's warnings, seemed gentle and remarkably well mannered. Kind even. At least he had until he mentioned the pamphlet. That treacherously explicit depiction that somehow ended up...being true... My chest tightened further.

I was to marry a traitor for the crown and country. I was to work directly for his majesty. Bring. Them. To. Their. Knees. Echoed in my head again, the queen's words more clearly venomous, but maybe that was my mind playing tricks on me. I was to work for the Queen. The adultress Queen...

The door to Anne and I's shared room opened gently, but I remained still in my bed, my eyes going up and down the lines of fabric that adorned the ceiling and bunched in the middle in an attempt to calm myself. Our assigned dressmaid's lite steps walked over to the window and flung the curtains open, letting the light in. I slowly sat up to meet the maid from the night befores gaze. "The king," she whispered, looking over at Anne to make sure she wasn't awake. A loud snore confirmed it and she sighed. "The king needs to see you."

I looked at her hands. Last night she had been carrying bloodied sheets. "Why?" I looked at Anne as I whispered. She was the lightest sleeper I had ever met and if she were to awake to a conversation like this I wouldn't know where to begin.

"He has called all of his Les Oreilles to meet with him over breakfast." Her eyes looked me up and down. "Are you not working as an eye for the crown?"

I nodded. It wasn't a dream after all. Swinging my legs over the side of the bed, I quietly walked across the wooden floors and grabbed my usual dress from the reading chair in the corner of the room, still keeping a watchful eye on Anne. Her face was still smothered in the pillow as she lay face down in her bed. Her snores loud and obnoxious. I may have been jealous of her looks and natural flattery, but I prided myself in the fact I did not sleep in the same manner as her. Like a drunkard after a long night.

The maid handed me my corset and pannier before helping me tie it. "We must hurry." She whispered, fastening the last of my dress in place. "Follow me."

"Are you a part of Les Oreilles?" I asked the strawberry blonde as she shoved my shoes in my hand outside of the now closed bedroom door. She wasn't risking waking Anne, either.

"You will find a good many of the palace's staff are," the corner of her mouth tugged upward on one side. "His majesty provides us with roofs over our heads and helps us send money back to our families," her shoulders shrugged, "so it's worth the risks." The plain tone made it obvious she didn't want to discuss it further.

We walked past several doors before she used all of her strength to open another hidden passage, the door reverberating against the parquet flooring of the hall as it dragged. When she closed it behind us I thought I may need to help, the last pull to close the door making her heave. Tucking a loose strand of her hair back into her bonnet and wiping her hands on her apron, she gestured to walk on down the hall.