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A Novel
by Allegra Goodman
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I was wicked, just as Damienne said. My hems were ragged because I climbed rough tower stairs to see the view. Fearsome, ancient, pierced with arrow slits, our north and western towers were built upon a cliff to command and to defend the country. From there, I could see my villages, orchards, vineyards, and the green river winding, spanned by a stone bridge. As for my slippers, I had ruined them at the stables where I ran to see the horses. Damienne would hurry after me, although she wasn't fast, and stand calling to the grooms for help. Then, thoughtless as I was, I hid. I slipped behind the water troughs and stable doors—but in the end, I followed her inside.
"God's will," Damienne murmured now, because I was her constant care. She combed through a drop of oil and bound my hair so tight that my eyes widened. "Don't touch." Damienne adorned me with a circlet of pearls and held up a glass.
I laughed at the sight of myself, wide-eyed, silver stiff.
"Don't you understand?"
I didn't, but I tried to humor her. Putting on a solemn face, I stepped carefully to meet my guardian. My nurse helped me with my skirts as we took the stairs.
Down echoing passageways and through a gallery, we walked to the great hall, long as a church's nave and high as heaven. This was my hall as it had belonged to my mother's family, but I came here seldom because the place was grand, and I was small.
I knew as little of the château's public rooms as I did of my farms and vineyards, for, like all my property, they were mine in name only. Maids did exactly as I asked. I had three, Françoise, Claude, and Jeanne, but a housekeeper managed the girls, and she reported to my guardian's steward. Men worked my fields, but I knew nothing of them. The steward collected tenants' rents and brought these to my guardian. To him came the profit from my orchards and my meadows. To him the fruit of my vines, the apples from my trees, the walnuts harvested in autumn. These were his due. As I entered the hall, my guardian waited with an air of ownership, greeting me as though I was the guest.
Grand places were familiar to this man, but I glanced eagerly at vaulting windows and tapestries of nobles and their servants hunting. Just behind my guardian, I saw deer leaping and men murdering a stag.
"Come here, little one," my guardian said.
Curtseying, I saw Damienne's hands shaking. I noticed because I had not seen her tremble before.
My guardian was my father's cousin, Jean-François de la Rocque de Roberval, and he was a great man because he had been the King's boyhood friend. My father had been greater still, or so Damienne had told me. As for my mother, she had royal blood. However, my guardian had the advantage because he was living.
Roberval was a voyager who sailed across the seas to defend France from English ships. For this, he was well-loved at home and feared abroad, and famous everywhere. His face was pale, his doublet black, but his eyes were bright, clear, penetrating blue. His beard was peppered gray and narrowed foxlike at the chin. He sat at a dark table and kept a thick book close at hand, along with a decanter filled with wine. On his table, I saw a goblet shining like a diamond and, even better, an ebony cabinet, fitted with compartments, tiny drawers and doors.
Turning to a secretary at a smaller table, my guardian said, "Is this my cousin?" He did not know me because he had never asked for me before.
"She is," the secretary said.
My guardian looked me up and down. He studied me dispassionately, the way a man looks at a kitten he might keep or drown. "How old are you?"
"Nine, my lord."
He said, "A likely child."
I thought, Likely for what? But my nurse had taught me well. I held my tongue.
My guardian told his secretary, "She is small for her age." This was not true, but no one contradicted him. "She will have to grow. Come closer," Roberval told me, and I stood before him, close enough to touch his cabinet. How I wanted it! The little drawers were perfect for my hands. How I wished my guardian would give this toy to me! He who was the keeper of all things. This cabinet was fashioned as a miniature palace. Its façade was carved with pediments and pillars framing drawers inlaid with ivory. What did my guardian keep inside? Jewels? Papers? Holy relics?
Excerpted from Isola by Allegra Goodman. Copyright © 2025 by Allegra Goodman. Excerpted by permission of The Dial Press. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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