Courtesan (21 page)

“Shall we go, Madame, and join the others?” Charlotte finally asked, uncomfortable from the long hours they had spent on the bare wooden benches.

“You go on ahead,” Diane replied. “I should like to sit here a little while longer.”

Charlotte looked back to the place on the field that held her mistress’s attention. Prince Henri stood there alone, still in full armor. His helmet was in his hand, and he was stroking the black nose of his snow white horse. Then she looked back at Diane.

You do not think I know, but I do,
she thought.
I see it in your eyes every time you look at him. Every time he looks at you. Dear girl, he is but a boy. . .God help you both for what you are about to do.

“M
IGHT
I
HAVE A WORD
with Your Majesty?”

Montmorency deftly maneuvered a place beside the King, Anne d’Heilly, and their entourage as they strode toward the entrance to the chateau on a flagstone path.
I must protect the boy,
he thought.
Not only from those self-seeking opportunists who would marry him so carelessly to a commoner, but now too from a middle-aged harridan.

“What is it, Monty?” the King beamed, fresh from his victory, his wet arm draped around Anne d’Heilly’s elegant beaded gown.

“It concerns the Prince Henri, Sire.”

“Oh, really, Montmorency! Can this not wait?” Anne snarled and reached over protectively to brush a wet strand of hair from the King’s brow.

“Anne is right,
mon ami
. I have just defeated the boy; taught him a lesson. Can I not revel in it a while longer before you bring me news of more trouble?”

“But Your Majesty, it is of the utmost importance,” he persisted.

“Very well then. The rest of you go on ahead. I shall only be a moment.”

He waited until those who had circled around him had gone in through the carved stone entrance before he turned back to the Grand Master. “Very well then, Monty, what is it?”

“Your Majesty is aware that the boy and I are close.”

“Yes. Yes.” He waved. “What of it?”

“Well, I find it is most distressing to report, Your Majesty, but I have been witness to a return of his sour temperament of late.”

“You tell me nothing that I have not seen myself. Yet, it was only a couple of weeks ago, back at Fontainebleau, when his tutors reported to me that he had much improved.”

“Indeed, Your Majesty. He was much changed, until the other day.”

“And what do you speculate has been the catalyst?”

“Perhaps this is no more than a phase. You know how common it is in young people to volley between ecstasy and despair. At any rate, I should like to propose a holiday for the Prince, with your permission of course; get him away from Court for a while. A change of climate would certainly divert his attentions from whatever, or whomever, appears to be troubling him.”

The King lowered his brows until he was frowning. Then he began to smile. “Are you suggesting, my dear Montmorency, that the boy has found himself a tart?”

“That I cannot say, Sire. But if it is a young girl who is the cause of his malaise, then the change of scene should all but cure it. If you also find it necessary to make a marriage between him and the Pope’s niece, this obstacle, whatever it is, can only stand in the way.”

The King appeared to be considering the matter. He put his hand up to his neat triangular beard and began to stroke it. “Perhaps it would be in order,” he said, and then thought a moment longer. “So be it. We will send the Prince and his companions to. . .to Cauterets!”

“A brilliant idea, Your Majesty. I know you shall not regret this. There is nothing like a mineral spring to ease the pangs of adolescence. I shall organize it at once.”

“You do that, Montmorency. And bring me a list of suitable companions who might accompany him. Yes, perfect,” he said, and then added with a sneer, “But in the meantime, I shall be the one to select his chaperone, and old friend, you have given me a splendid idea! I believe that I have just the candidate.”

“I
WOULD LIKE TO SPEAK
with you about my son, Prince Henri,” the King began as he offered Diane a seat in the long, cold hall called the council chamber.

The vaulted room was paneled in rich wood and furnished only with the long council table, twelve chairs around it, a cabinet by the window and a tapestry near the fireplace. François was seated at the other end of the table between Philippe Chabot and Anne de Montmorency, a sea of empty chairs away.

“I understand from the Admiral here that you were very modest in our conversation last evening,” the King began. “He tells me that the boy seems to have taken quite a fancy to you. No doubt it is a maternal sort of attachment, he was so young when his mother died. No one since the Queen seems to have been able to do what you have accomplished in a matter of weeks,” he said, and then snapped his fingers. One of the liveried servants, who stood silently by the door, advanced and filled his silver goblet with wine.

“He actually seemed to be coming around until recently, something near to being civilized, or so We are told,” he continued. Diane shifted in her seat. “Montmorency here seems to think there is a woman involved.” She began to feel faint. Her mouth was dry. “On the Grand Master’s sage counsel, and in an attempt to revive the boy’s most recent heightened spirits, We have arranged a holiday for him at Cauterets. Do you know the place?”

Diane cleared her parched throat. “Cauterets, yes. Mineral baths in the Pyrénées, is it not?”

“Precisely. Well,
ma chère,
We shall come straight to the point.”

He beckoned for another glass of wine and motioned that one was to be poured for her as well. Diane was grateful for anything to wet her throat. She was not certain she would be able to speak again if he asked her anything else.

“We would consider it a great service to your country if you, along with your attendants of course, would agree to attend the Prince on his holiday, as chaperone. We shall be sending his companions Saint-André, Brissac, Guise and Bourbon along with his staff. We have thought perhaps you, as well, might benefit from a change of scene.” He leaned forward. “Time to consider and reflect,” he added, punctuating his remark with a sly grin.

Diane’s eyes widened and she turned from the King so that he was unable to see her flush. Montmorency bit his lip wanting to burst forth his objection. This was not at all what he had intended.

“We are aware,” the King continued, “that the prospect of escorting a group of young people, no matter how lovely the destination, is not particularly enticing in and of itself; which is why I am prepared to offer you an inducement.”

Diane looked back toward the King to see his lips turned in an uneasy smile. “Your Majesty,” her voice cracked. “Such a thing is hardly necessary in my service of the Crown.”

“We are certain that it is not. Just the same, Madame, We would feel better about the entire affair if you would accept a small token for your troubles.” He stood, then strode over to the oak cabinet set between two of the long windows. He took a small book from inside. “We recently had to take a small chateau on the Cher river called Chenonceaux into Our possession for unpaid debts to the Crown. This was among its possessions.”

He handed it to Diane. She fingered the delicate pages of the tiny prayer book beneath the inlaid leather binding. “It is yours if you will do Us this one small favor.”

“It is a travesty that I should come to have such a personal and intimate article,” she murmured as she contemplated the intricate scrollwork of inlaid gold. “The owner must miss it very much.”

“I am certain that Monsieur Bohier would not think so at all, since surrendering it along with his other belongings saved him from complete ruin, or a far worse fate,” Chabot snapped in a harsh nasal tone.

She wanted to object. She wanted to tell His Majesty that it was she from whom his son should escape. But she could not risk it. If she attempted to confess the truth now, an accusation would surely fall back on her from this surly Admiral who now sat picking food from his teeth with his fingers.

Montmorency wanted to object as well. He fought his own urge to stand and silence the King, explaining that there had been a great mistake. But he could not. He had no proof of his suspicions against her, only a raging feeling inside himself that their friendship, if it was allowed to continue, would somehow harm the Prince.

“Very well, Your Majesty,” Diane recanted. “I shall prepare my things at once.”

“Splendid,” he grinned. “You leave by morning’s light.”

T
O THE NOBLES
it was called “taking the cure” at Cauterets.

For many years it had been the site of healing for the infirm and aged, with eleven sulphur springs bursting forth from the rich earth. It was also an exclusive mountain resort for the aristocracy set in an idyllic mountain village with the snowy peaks of Vigne-male in the background.

At the mention of the excursion by Montmorency, Prince Henri had sprung back to life like one of the King’s painted jesters. The trip was long and arduous; up steep inclines and around sharp bends into the sheer cliffs of the Pyrénées mountains. But the weather favored them, and a light spring breeze urged them onward. To pass the time they sang songs and took turns reading from
The Canterbury Tales,
the medieval English story about an unlikely troop who travel together on a pilgrimage of their own.

After they had reached the inn, Henri lay sprawled on the embroidered counterpane on his bed. His arms cradled his head as he stared up at the ceiling. The room was rustic with low black wooded beams that Jacques, being the tallest, had to duck beneath as he moved about.

“How many here know who we are?” Henri asked and kicked off a shoe onto the floor. “Well, I suppose the proprietor and his wife, since one of the King’s men made the arrangements.”

“Can you stop the word from spreading?”

“I do not understand, Your Highness.”

“It is quite simple. I wish to be anonymous here.”

“That would seem most unwise, Your Highness. For security’s sake.”

“It is so beautiful. So pure. I feel so alive; as though I have never lived before,” he said, and bolted from the bed toward the window which opened onto a sloping meadow and snow-capped mountains in the distance. “Just look at that!” Henri cried, beckoning his friend toward the window. Both of them looked down onto the meadow below. Like the one through which they had just come, it too was blanketed with green clover and bright red poppies, all swaying rhythmically in the breeze. In its midst, a shepherd boy, followed by his flock of sheep, called out softly for a lost kid. Henri leaned against the wooden casement of the window trying to catch his breath.

“I want to be like that, Jacques.” He pointed back out the window. “No worries. No cares. If only for a little while.” He looked up from the window and his sad eyes persuaded even his most stalwart friend.

“I shall see what I can do.”

“I have not had an official portrait done in years. I know no one will recognize me if I have your help. See the guards as well. Tell them to wear their own attire. No uniforms,” Henri called out as Saint-André headed for the door. “Oh, and have Guise tell the others as well. It will be like an adventure!”

T
HE HEAVY COPPER
dinner bell sounded just as Henri and his companion were descending the narrow, spiral stone steps toward the small dining room. The cool breath of dusk blew in through two open windows which looked onto the stone courtyard. The breeze blew the thin gauze curtains and caused the candles in their wall sconces to sputter.

The common rooms of the inn were not unlike the Prince’s room. The beamed ceilings were low and dark and there were only a few candles to light them. Copper pots and ladles hung from the open beams and clanged together gently in the breeze. The inn was not elegant. It was musty and rather old, but the people came for the springs, not for the accommodations. It was thought to be very smart among the privileged class to come to Cauterets, and while there, to live a novel spartan existence. It was all the rage to purge one’s body of the excesses of nobility in the pure mountain air before returning to the comforts of their opulent lives.

Diane was already sitting on one of the long wooden benches between Hélène and François de Guise when Jacques and Henri came down the stairs. Everyone looked up casually, but it was Diane who blinked hard at the sight of the young Prince in coarse wool pants long around his calves, and a shepherd’s surcoat with a long black hood hanging down between his shoulders. His dark eyes sparkled as he came into the room.

“I hope we are not late. I am famished,” he said as a short, stout woman with a red cotton bonnet lumbered past him with a steaming iron pot of soup. The other guests looked up from their conversations at the communal table but paid little attention to his entrance. Henri glanced around the room and, feeling that he had been sufficiently disguised, smiled.

Around the courtly entourage was an oddly matched set of guests. There was the white-haired judge from Lyon who rarely spoke but instead, when he desired something, repeatedly tapped his cane on the wood floor. There was a newly married couple from Rouen, a banker and his wife from Paris, and the village priest who regularly took his meals at the inn.

“It is so lovely here!” Henri exclaimed with a hearty smile. “I can scarcely wait for the baths!”

He sat down on the bench across from Diane and broke off a large hunk of bread from a crusty loaf in the center of the table. The same stout woman returned from the kitchens, clanging dishes and whistling to herself as she set the assortment of food on the bare wooden tables.

“Where did Your Highness get those awful garments?” Brissac muttered, his hand hiding his mouth to disguise the shock of the sight.

“I paid the shepherd for them,” he whispered, “and I shall thank you all to remember my name is Henri, simply Henri, or you shall spoil all my fun.”

The old woman then set a large steaming tureen in the center of the table and slammed down a large clay jug of malmsey.

“À votre santé!”
she wheezed and everyone nodded to her as the old judge from Lyon leaned in and greedily filled his bowl first.

“So nice to have new faces among us. From where do you people hail?” asked the priest, Père Olivier, as he took his turn and scooped up a spoonful of the stew. Everyone exchanged a quick glance, all of them afraid to speak contrary to the wishes of the Prince.

“From Paris,” Diane calmly replied and then took a sip of wine.

“So have you all come for the baths, or are you here to see the travesty?”

“What do you mean?” Henri asked as he took a bite.

“My little church in the village that those blasphemous swine got their hands on.”

He brushed a piece of bread around in the stew and when it was soaked, he tossed it to the large dog beneath his feet.

“People have been coming from all parts to see it; some others from Paris not long ago. Natural curiosity, I suppose. Never thought God would allow it to happen to His house. Sacrilege is what I call it. Ought to burn it to the ground instead of keeping it as it is, in shambles. There’s just the shell left now. Some of the people want to rebuild. . .But. . .I don’t know.”

Diane’s face faded to ashen. Her smile was gone. “Someone burned a house of God?”

“Burned it down to nothing. We saw it yesterday,” the young bride chimed in and then stifled her comment upon seeing Diane’s grave expression. She coughed nervously and raised her goblet.

“Not just any someone, Madame. The Lutherans did it,” the priest explained. “They’ve been only too glad to claim responsibility.”

“But why? I know they take issue with the papacy but what on earth does that have to do with a house of the Lord up here in the mountains?!”

“They left placards afterward saying,
THIS HOUSE STANDS FOR WHAT A FEW MEN BELIEVE.
They broke a stained-glass window that was nearly two hundred years old. The sacred altar was scavenged. There were sheep feeding from it like a trough, when I finally found it at a little place in the valley.”

“And why do you not report such criminals to the King?” asked Jacques as he leaned over his steaming earthen bowl.

“The King, you say?” he asked with a disdainful chuckle. “God bless His Majesty, but the poor bastard’s no better than the rest of them. His own sister’s one of their worst! You know she leads a whole colony of them from her palace in Navarre!”

“But there must be something that can be done!” Diane interjected.

“I am afraid not, dear lady. Yes, I am out of a parish, to be sure, but I am never out of my faith. I hold vespers each day in the meadow across from the remains of our church, and I hear confessions in the village in a room behind the butcher’s house. It is not what I would have wanted but it was God’s will and for now we make do.”

“I would like to see it tomorrow,” Henri said, as he pushed the spoon around his bowl.

“Oh, but why?” Jacques asked, leaning in toward the Prince. “It is bound to be disheartening, and there is very little you can do.”

“I simply want to see it.”

“I shall go with you,” Diane announced, her voice low and resolute.

After the last of the stew had been consumed and the remaining bread thrown down for the dogs, the young bridegroom, who said his name was Michel, pulled a reed pipe from the pocket of his doubtlet, and began to play. His young bride, with corn-colored hair and a quiet, oval face, gazed at him adoringly. Everyone else sat back on the benches to listen. He played a hypnotic piece that tangled with the soft breeze that blew through the open windows.

Only when it was safe and the others were relaxed did Henri’s eyes begin to wander toward Diane. He gazed at her hair and watched the way the light played off the loosely braided strands. He watched her eyes, sparkling blue, focused intently on the young musician. He swallowed hard as he marked with his own eyes the contours of her breasts behind the tightly fitted bodice of her black satin gown. God, she was beautiful, he thought, longing for tomorrow.

T
HE NEXT MORNING,
Henri held Diane’s hand as they made their way through the clover, down the steep incline of the meadow. They walked into the valley, then onto the cobbled streets at the entrance to the village. The lane on which they found themselves seemed like a continuation of the fields. There were flame-lit poppies, irises and bright yellow primroses inextricably braided into the gardens and window boxes of each tiny thatched house.

The town was crested by enormous, gentle green trees that rustled and tossed stray leaves onto the stones. There were other dashes of color on the narrow twisted village lane. A purple drape before a window, a young woman’s yellow kerchief; and everywhere, the intoxicating scent of flowers. They had walked only a short distance through the village when Diane gripped Henri’s hand and came to a halt.

“Dear God,” she uttered, staring straight ahead, forcing Henri’s eyes to follow hers. There, at the end of the lane before them, were the charred remains of the church that Père Olivier had described.

They slowly advanced with neither of them breaking their gaze. They looked in silent horror at the blackened frame, like a grotesque skeleton; the carved archway that once held the doors, the soot-covered stone belfry, and the tumbled tombstones which lay beside it.

“Are you certain that you want to go on?” Henri whispered, overcome himself by the enormity of the destruction. She nodded and they continued to advance, their hands linked.

They walked slowly over the charred ruins that were once pews, communion rails and crumbled walls. Diane genuflected and made the sign of the cross in the direction of the place where the altar had once stood. As she did, she saw beside her shoe in the ashes the imprint of a small crucifix. Like everything else around them it had been reduced to ashes so that only the outline remained.

“God, forgive them,” she uttered, “for they know not what they do.”

Diane and Henri faced one another for a long moment where words have no place. As they stood wide eyed, gazing around at a manner of devastation foreign to them both, Henri saw, through the fallen timbers, a dirty-faced man hauling beams from the ashes. Henri charged at him, his eyes filled with rage. Both men sailed into a billowing pile of soot as rotted boards came crashing down around them.

“I ought to kill you myself!” Henri raged and landed a blow to his jaw. The stranger moaned and sank beneath Henri’s firm grip. He did not struggle.

“Please, Henri, let him go!” Diane screamed as she ran after him.

“Dirty, rotten bastard!”

Diane strained and pulled at Henri’s meager shirt. “Please, Henri! Listen to me! This is no way to settle it!”

Finally he heard her. The Prince, still dressed as a shepherd, stepped back and brushed off his hands that had become blackened in the fray. “Of course not. You are right,” he muttered, his breath quickened by the tangle. The man staggered to his feet, blood dripping from the side of his mouth. He faced Henri. “Are you responsible for what has become of this great house of God?”

The man wiped his face with the back of his dirty sleeve and left a streak of blood across his cheek. “No. But I mean to say that I am glad it happened.”

The stranger with the matted black hair and the defiant eyes spat into the ashes. Henri grabbed him by the shirt once again.

“Where is your respect, man? Can you not see where you are?” he seethed.

The man’s face was hard. This time he did not flinch, but flicked Henri’s fists from his soiled shirt, as one would rid oneself of a bothersome pest. Again their eyes met. “It does not look like much of any place at all; at least, not now.” His lips stretched into a sarcastic smile.