Musketeer's Daughter:Unanswered Riddle

Chapter 1: Stolen Dream

Author's note: Musketeer's Daughter is still in initial stages of beta reading. You're welcome to add thoughts of your own ! :)

Renaissance France

She watched her breath crystalize along the textured glass and fade with the last light. “I will never be free, will I?” Pushing from the chilled window, Ysabeau tucked a golden brown curl into the chignon at her neck. Her père’s new home once offered reprieve; from the strong hearth to the heavy brown shutters over the windows to the grand garden without, but now, the walls held no more contentment. While her spirit remained chained to mundane tasks, her heart bore wings.

It was all Ysabeau could do to hold tight to her dreams the day her mère abandoned her, and with her père always guarding the king, she found her only comfort: The sword. Without both parents present, what other choice did she have but to stay and tend the manor with their few servants? And the gardens? And . . . Mathieu?

Then there was the bearded man who haunted her waking moments as ghosts among the jagged headstones at the church.

A harsh shiver scattered Ysabeau’s thoughts, forcing from her a mournful sigh. Too long had her sorrow given chase. She pushed from her all adverse thought and focused upon the sight of the setting sun. The lush valley beyond stretched golden beneath the dancing rays caught between lazy clouds. When such beauty ought to free her heart, it only weighed her further.

“Just another day.” She heaved a trembling sigh and wend her way through the manor into the eventide, but not without her makeshift sword.

                                              

The packed dirt crunched beneath her boots. Because of the forbidding nature of her woes and imagined adventures, she loved to torture herself by sharing them with Dupré. “At the least he could never share my secrets.” She thought callously of Mathieu and his loose tongue. The day he wagged it, she had lost her most precious possession: her père’s retired sword. Her père had thrown the biggest of outbursts, swearing upon his wife’s sweet grave that Ysabeau would learn her place. But learn her place she would not.

Why go down, tame as a dove, when she could fight alongside her valiant père protecting the King? Why?

“Dupré?” she whispered as he lifted his great head from the pungent hay as she thought of Père. “Andrién says that the King needs him this fortnight.” The horse snorted with the toss of his mane. “Do not look at me like that.” She forced his lofty glare by gently pushing his nose down with her palm. “You cannot have forgotten the vow you took?” Ysabeau considered him, glanced about her shoulders and when found no one about, said in a lowered voice, “Do not cast judgment upon me. I shall call mon père by his Christian name until the day he gives me back my sword.”'

Dupré grunted.

She brandished her makeshift sword, nothing more than a smooth branch carved by her skilled hand, and slid it into her sash with lithesome expertise. “Yes, I know, sticks work just as well I suppose.” After securing the saddle, she sprang onto his back with ease, her legs gripping his broad ribcage. It was so unlike the ladies Andrién always saw at court with their sidesaddles and ridiculous gowns. “Do not tell him how I mount you or he will take you away, too!”

With one powerful thrust of her body, the great horse leaped from the stall, down the stable, and out into the cool night.

Before they could get far, a shadow holding a swinging lamp stopped them. “Whoa, there, Dupré.” The lamp cast a honeyed glow, setting the blond wisps of its owner into a fiery corona. The ambience warmed the blue of his eyes.

Ysabeau had found him quite alluring until she learned of his relation. The night Andrién revealed to her of his son’s existence had destroyed her tender soul. Mathieu was her half-brother. It was this very moment that she had come upon two painful truths at once: Andrién was married to someone else—his jaunts as the King’s Gardes de la Manche only the portion of his hated absence—and the ruined possibility of ever loving Mathieu.

“Get out of my way, Mathieu.”

His eyes narrowed, scanning Andrién’s old uniform she wore as well as the stick lodged through the sash about her waist. “Pretending again, are we? Ysabeau, you know you should not be doing these things. If Papa—.”

“Hush!” Ysabeau hissed, her eyes flying into round discs as she cast a glance for Marie. “Hush or she will hear us.”

Mathieu inhaled until his strong chest bulged. Slowly, his breath released. In a soft voice, he said, “If Papa should ever hear of this!”

She straightened in her saddle and whipped out her makeshift sword, pointing it at his heart. “I shall behead you, silly boy.” When his lips quivered into a smile, she scowled. “You think I jest? Have you already forgotten my oath?”

Her brother lowered the lamp; the light accented his strong jaw. “That was a long time ago.”

“And because of your childishness, I lost my sword!” The reigns ached in her fists. How she hated him for telling Andrién.

Mathieu’s face hardened with anger and he marched forward, causing the flame to sizzle for a moment. “What did you expect? For me to hide behind my door every time he set foot into the manor? The wound you inflicted was inevitable.” He scoffed.

“Do not say it.” Ysabeau stiffened at the sight of Mathieu’s softening expression.

“Besides,” a little grin curved his lips, “it was never yours to claim.”

“Because of you I cannot use a real sword. Because of you I cannot ride Dupré. Because of you, I cannot go with Andrién any longer!”

Mathieu stood there in silence, his tight gaze assessing her. “I know you are not fond of me. It is not my fault I happen to be your frère when you so wished I was not, but we are no longer children.”

His callous prompting of their relation as well as the mention of her once loving him, humiliated her. She snapped her face aside, pretending to study the fading light with interest. She would never allow him to see her unshed tears. “I was almost one, but you sabotaged what chance I had!”

“You fool yourself, silly fille! You would never become part of the King’s guard, Papa or no. It is only a man’s right to protect His Majesty, and that sword is rightfully mine as it should be for any son.”

“It was my dream and you stole it away!” Ysabeau could no longer control the hot rush of tears as she scowled at him. “I hate you!” She urged her horse forward with a shriek.