from the editor's desk
Review of ‘The Queen’s Apprenticeship’ by Tracy Ryan
The Queen’s Apprenticeship. Tracy Ryan. Yarraville: Transit Lounge, 2023. RRP $32.99, 376pp, ISBN: 9781923023031.
Rachel Watts
No change but for this deepening, growing, till one day I should be journeyman and then at last master, like a story that is read from one side of the book to the very other. But that is not how stories work. The pattern is not reliable and change comes as it will. (336–337)
It is 1534 and the Queen of Navarre reads the story of a journeyman’s daughter, a story of being denied and targeted because of her gender, of being cast out, and striving to create her own future. The Queen’s Apprenticeship focuses on the life of Marguerite, the sister of Francois I of France, and later Queen of Navarre, through a tumultuous time of conflict, religious reform and persecution. Threaded through this broadly true account is the fictional story of Jehane/Josse Poulain, the journeyman’s daughter from Lyon who, after being assaulted and forced out of her family home, dresses as a boy on the road to pursue her own opportunities. The novel thus captures the experiences of gender and social change in the halls of power and on the roads of the French cities and countryside, in an occasionally dizzying number of voices, written works and anecdotes.
Marguerite’s life is oriented around supporting and protecting her younger brother Francois, who, while not the son of the reigning king, is his heir apparent. Marguerite looks out for Francois alongside her ambitious mother, Louise. From boyhood, Francois is thus ensconced in a bubble of privilege and protection, and when he ascends to the throne, the three grow into a powerful Trinity. As King, Francois’ impulsiveness and womanising are accommodated, as is that of the men of his court. Louise, likewise driven to consolidate wealth and power for her family, takes devious action, using everything from persuasion, to poison, to Marguerite’s body or her hand in marriage as tools to eliminate obstacles and rivals. Marguerite, driven by her faith and a deep sense of ethical conduct, struggles to account for the behaviour of her family, even if, because of love and loyalty, she is unable to condemn them. She also finds she is unable to protect herself from unwelcome sexual advances and assault—often instigated by her mother—in the name of power. She is shown going to desperate lengths, including raking her face with her own fingernails before attending a tryst arranged by her mother with the nobleman Bonnivet:
If her face meant something to Bonnivet, then let him be repelled. Nothing else had worked. Her own flesh was the only thing she had power over…
Still with one hand on her face, he drew her close and murmured into her ear, the other hand sliding down her back to her waist. She tried to get free, but he tightened his hold. What he wants is not me, she thought. He wants the sister to the King’s heir! (58–59)
Interspersed through accounts of Marguerite life are passages from journals and poetry, and a fictional account of Marguerite reading Jehane’s story. We learn of Jehane’s assault and exile from her family home and see her go on the road as a boy called Josse. As Marguerite reads, she marvels at the similarities of their experience of assault and the differences of their experiences of class. That Jehane can write at all is due to her disguise as Josse, which leads to her apprenticeship to a printing house. This makes for a complex reading experience, with multiple voices and timelines asking the reader to contextualise and synthesise the work as they read. The mirroring of the experiences, desires and socials limitations of two women from vastly different degrees of privilege and power allows Ryan to tell a story that is both focused and achieves great breadth. The depiction of 1500s French society is not limited to the halls of Marguerite’s many castles: we also see the straw bedding and dark corners that Jehane/Josse bunks in, and we see the people she meets along the way, most of whom are protective of her disguise. Jehane’s fictional story also gives Ryan the power to limit the cast of characters and control the timeframe of her novel. This allows her to contrast the slower, biographical narration of Marguerite’s life in an aristocratic political context, with the engaging and energetic narration and tighter story of Jehane.
Jehane also allows Ryan to directly explore themes of gender, social prejudice and the limitations and expectations placed on women from all walks of life. It is here where we see the limitations on women’s opportunities to earn income as well as their limited access to education. Jehane’s story starts by acknowledging this when she reflects upon her father’s occupation as a journeyman printer and his subsequent death in a fire at the printhouse. Jehane wants nothing more than to follow in his footsteps, which her mother directly tells her is impossible due to social expectations placed upon her gender.
‘You could marry a printer, but you can’t do it by yourself. No girl goes into trade as a printer, apprentice or otherwise—only into women’s work.’
‘The widow Pernette has a workshop.’
‘Because of her late husband who was a master—that is different. She may continue his business.’
‘Which proves it can be women’s work.’
My mother sighed and turned her face from me. Since my father’s passing, we had circled the same problem many times and never arrived at an end. I felt the urge to strike out somewhere, to walk away the hot sensation of wrong. (4)
Jehane also allows us to see the consequences of the consolidation of wealth and power by noble people, through the poverty, anger and plague that tears through the French countryside as she journeys from her home in Lyon to Paris. In Marguerite’s story, the noble characters move from castle to castle in response to outbreaks of disease. In Jehane’s, people die in their hundreds and their bodies are dragged in bags and left outside town walls as a warning. Through Marguerite, the reader sees the thinkers and writers advocating for Reformation; through Jehane we see the ways radicals are imprisoned and burnt to death. Ultimately, Jehane sacrifices herself and is imprisoned in the place of another. In desperation Jehane writes to the Queen of Navarre seeking her intervention and Marguerite requests an account of the life of the ‘queer apprentice from Lyon’, which is the story that runs through the novel.
Ryan’s novel navigates a wealth of historical material to reveal a story of a principled and bold woman, a reformer and advocate. The account of Marguerite de Navarre is nuanced, and though Marguerite’s tendency to introspection slows the narrative and may frustrate the reader, the scope of the plot pushes through years of political manoeuvring, war and plague before finally arriving at the immense bloodshed of religious reformation and retaliation. While the pacing may be inconsistent at times, Ryan’s blended historical fiction evokes her themes of gender, privilege, and the drive for reform at the heart of the tale.
Rachel Watts is a writer of literary and speculative fiction and short, creative non-fiction. Her writing has been published by Westerly, Island, Kill Your Darlings, The Big Issue and more. Her manuscript ‘In the Morning I Rise’ was shortlisted for the 2020 Penguin Literary Prize.
