"Your father is dead, they say," murmured the Princess softly; "but in his time he must have been a man of wit." "He taught me all I know," Claire assented, "and he died in the service of the Faith and of the King of Navarre." "It is strange that I should never have met him," said Catherine. "I have heard say he was on mission to my brother." "On secret mission," said Claire; "we came often to the camp by night, and were gone in the morning." The Princess looked at her junior in great astonishment. "Then you have seen camps, and men, and cities?" she asked eagerly. "And you, courts!" answered Claire, on her part not a little wistfully. A shudder traversed the slender body of the Princess. Her lip curled with disgust. "You speak like a child," she answered hotly. "Why, I tell you, on the head of my mother, you are safer and better in a camp of German _reiters_ than in any court in Europe. But I forgot--you, at least, can pick and choose. You were not born to be only a pawn in the chess-play. If you do not wish to marry a man, you have only to say him nay. You are not a princess. I would to God I were not!" "What is the plot against your brother?" said Claire, willing to turn her companion from black ideas; "perhaps I can help. At least, I have with me one who, though they name him 'fool,' is yet wiser than all the men I have met, excepting only my father." "And they name this marvel--what?" demanded the Princess. "Jean-aux-Choux--the Fool of the Three Henries." Mistress Catherine clapped her hands almost girlishly, forgetting her accustomed dignity. "I have seen him," she cried; "once he came to Nerac, where he pleased the Reine Margot greatly. She is a judge of fools!" "Our Jean is no fool, really," said Claire, "but born of my nation, and a learned man, very zealous for the Faith." "I know--I know," said the Princess; "I have heard D'Aubigné say of him, that folly made the best cloak for unsafe wisdom. As to the design against the King, it is this. Before the Duke of Guise comes to the Parliament, the Valois will first invite my brother to a conference--not here in Blois, but nearer his own lines--at Poitiers, perhaps, or at Loches. The Queen-Mother, the Medici woman, though sick and old, has gathered many of her maids-of-honour. She will strive to work upon my easy brother with fair words and fair faces, in the hope that, like Judas, he will betray his Master with a kiss!" "I had not thought there could be in all the world such--women!" said Claire. "After all, our Scottish way is fairer--and that is foot to foot and blade to blade!" "Even the Valois dagger in the back is better," said the Princess; "but this Italian woman is cunning, like all her fox-brood of Florentine money-lenders! How shall we foil her? It is useless speaking to my brother. He would only laugh, and bid me get to my sampler till he had found a goodman of my own for me to knit hose for!"