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Charmes?’
    ‘You strike a hard bargain.’
    ‘And twenty thousand gold crowns.’
    ‘Twenty thousand gold crowns! Where shall I find them?’
    ‘You will have time to find the money. I should advise you to agree. Ransoms have a habit of increasing with the years. I am being lenient. You must admit. It is because of the respect I have for an artist.’
    When the Duke had gone René considered the matter. He wanted to be with his family. He longed to see the children. It was true that little Yolande would doubtless be expected to join the Vaudémonts. Well, that was the sort of thing that happened to girls.
    He agreed and very soon after was speeding on his way to join his family.
    ###
    After René had been warmly greeted by his family both Isabelle and her mother considered the terms of his release and declared that they were very harsh.
    In the nursery, Theophanie was fuming.
    ‘A nice state of affairs,’ she said. ‘A little mite like my Yolande to go off and live with strangers. Her cousins they may be, but it’s not right. It’s not right at all. And Agnès. Who would have believed that? A Maid of Honour eh, to the Queen. I reckon she’ll be pining for her nice place in my nurseries before very long. Agnès at Court! I can’t see it. I can’t see it at all.’
    But the real tragedy was of course the departure of Yolande.
    It was a mercy, she muttered to herself, that the child was so young...too young to realize. She was only four years old, poor mite. She was asking a great many questions about her new home.
    ‘As if I could tell her,’ mourned Theophanie.
    Margaret looked on with wide eyes. ^
    ‘Why is Yolande going away?’
    ‘Because she’s going to be betrothed.’
    ‘What is betrothed?’
    ‘Married, in time.’
    Theo, shall I be betrothed?’
    ‘You certainly will, my lamb.’
    ‘Is it a good thing to be?’
    ‘It’s sometimes very good...for others,’ added Theophanie bitterly.
    The boys were interested. ‘You’ll have to go one day, Margaret,’ they taunted her.
    Yolande was half sorrowful, half proud. She was after all the centre of the activity. She had to have new clothes and was given special lessons on how to behave.
    It was particularly hard that she should have to go now that their father was home. When Margaret pointed this out to Theophanie she said somewhat mysteriously: ‘Well, it’s just because...’
    And try as she might Margaret could get no more out of her.
    In due course Yolande went away and Margaret missed her very much although her father was with them again and that made life very pleasant. He had changed. There was a scar on the left side of his forehead which was where the arrow had struck when he had been captured by the Maréchal de Toulongeon which was the reason why Yolande was no longer with them.
    René was very different from their mother. He liked to be with them. He would paint and sing and read poetry and that was very interesting. He talked to them all about how he had been captured and had painted on glass in the Château of Dijon; he was entirely frank with them and he was giving them all an interest in music and poetry.
    ‘It is well enough,’ said the Dowager Duchess Margaret who was with them. ‘They will be cultivated; but we must not forget that they must learn other things besides an appreciation of the arts.’
    Margaret was fond of her son-in-law but she was now and then exasperated with his attitude. He was a considerable artist it was true; his poetry and music gave pleasure to the entire household and even the youngest pages would listen entranced when René sang his own compositions in the great hall after dinner.
    ‘But what of this ransom?’ demanded the Dowager Duchess of her daughter. ‘Fine poetry and paintings are not going to pay that, are they? And will Burgundy wait much longer?’
    There was an additional disaster. The Maréchal de Toulongeon had added his claims to those of his master Burgundy.
    He was the one who had