Courtesan (38 page)

“Diane!” he called out as he ran, his cape fanning out behind him. He opened one door and then the next, shouting her name, “Diane! Diane!” The commotion brought Mademoiselle Terre Noire, Diane’s housekeeper, from behind a closed chamber door, her arms loaded with bedding. She did not recognize Henri as the future King of France.

“Monsieur, I beg your pardon, but Madame is indisposed. . .” she said and protectively barred the door.

“Where is she?” he charged.

Before she could reply, he leapt at the woman, toppling her to her knees. Disarmed by his force, the woman managed only to point weakly with a crooked finger toward a large curved door behind her. Without knocking, he flung it open and burst inside. Dawn had not yet broken. The rest of the room before him was dark except for one comer that blazed burnt umber from the fire. At the sight of him, Hélène bolted from her chair beside the bed. She did not bow to him or acknowledge his true identity, because of the midwife who was still at the foot of the bed.

“Thank God you’ve come,” she said, touching his arm. Her cheeks were pale, tear-stained. Her round eyes were bloodshot from lack of sleep. Henri looked over at Diane. She moaned as the midwife touched her.

“What is it? What is wrong?”

“It is the child. The midwife says it is turned the wrong way and she is not of a proper knowledge to take it from the belly.”

Henri rushed toward the bed. “Can you not do something?”

“I am sorry, monsieur, but she is in God’s hands now,” the old woman replied.

“God’s hands?” he repeated the words. He looked at the two helpless faces before him; one young, one old. Henri flung himself onto the bedside and took Diane’s hand. He squeezed it to try and rouse her. She did not know he was there.

“Hélène, bring me a cool cloth!” he said and ran his hand across her forehead, brushing back the wet curls of hair from her face.

“I am sorry,
chéri,
” she whispered, her eyes opened to a half dazed stare. She tried to smile. “I am sorry but. . .I can go no further.”

“Of course you can!” he said, pushing a smile past his own worried expression. “You must! I will not go on without you.” He pressed her hand to his chest. “We can do it! You know that together we can do anything!”

Diane closed her eyes again. She was tired. The dark circles beneath her eyes. The shallow cheeks. She was bathed in perspiration and her skin was white; the white of death. He forced the thought of her death from his mind. On the table next to the bed was Hélène’s rosary. Blue-speckled beads. A silver crucifix. Henri took it in his other hand and closed his eyes.

So then I am to be punished. Punished for Catherine. Punished for not loving her.
He shook his head. He had never been able to see Catherine for the sight of Diane. She was his obsession. She was the only thing in the world.
I cannot lose her. Without her I am nothing. I am lost. Yes, God, I will do anything. Anything!
In that moment it was clear what must be done. What he must do. He gripped the rosary tighter between his thumb and forefinger.
Let them live! God in Heaven, I beseech you, let them live and Catherine shall have me. . .and a child. . .I shall make her my wife in more than our names!

In that moment when one promises anything to change the course of fate, Henri made his pact with God; a pact that he knew would change his life and Diane’s forever.

A
S THE GRAY MUTED
light of the winter morning filtered through the leaded panes of the east window, Diane delivered Henri’s child. A daughter. Sobbing without shame as he took the screaming, bloody infant from the midwife, Henri wrapped her tiny body in a blanket and took her to his chest with trembling hands. Diane looked up at him with a weary smile and a half-dazed look of contentment. In the end, the child had come without the aid of a surgeon, and everyone, including the midwife, had been mystified.

Henri brought the child to his lips and kissed the soft down on the top of her head. Hélène wiped the tears from her own cheeks as she and Mademoiselle Terre Noire wrapped their arms around one another.

“Dear Lord, thank you,” Hélène whispered.

They backed away from the bed and retired with the midwife to chairs near the fire. After a moment, Henri placed the baby girl onto Diane’s bare breast. Almost instantly she ceased crying and opened her eyes. They were blue; the same deep blue as her mother’s. Henri looked in awe at them as Diane placed the child to her nipple and let her nurse. Henri sat down on the edge of the bed.

“If I had lost you,” he whispered, “my life would have been over. I just never thought I would come so close.”

T
HE CHILD WAS BLOND
like her mother, with the same wide blue eyes. For the two weeks of Diane’s convalescence, she was rarely out of her father’s arms and they were rarely out of Diane’s company. When Diane was strong enough, they began to take walks around the grounds. One morning, two days before they were to return to Court, they walked out across the vast lawn, quilted winter white, their gloved hands joined and their heavy leather shoes crunching in the thick layers of freshly fallen snow. In his other arm, Henri held his daughter, burrowed beneath the folds of his black velvet cape. Here at Anet, they were a family. There was nothing in the world Henri wanted more. There could never be another time again like this; time with just the three of them. He took in a deep breath and let the cold winter air sting his nostrils as he tossed back his head.

“Oh! It is beautiful here!” said Henri with a wide-mouthed smile. “So far from all of it; so far from all of them.” He squeezed her hand tighter as they walked down the few steps that led to a courtyard. Past a frozen pond. Past a stone lion perched on a pedestal, forever posed just ready to roar as the snow fell around him. From the bottom step Henri spun around and kissed her nose, which was red with the cold. It made him smile.

“Ah! I feel so good here. And with you beside me, I am complete.”

Henri’s words made her think of Montgommery. Another winter. Another lifetime. She thought of relating how much he had detested Anet; wanted her to sell it. She was so glad Henri felt as she did. But as the words formed on her lips she thought better of telling him. For all of his growth and his maturity, he was still young. Still volatile. Montgommery brought back a time between she and Henri that she was not anxious to recall. It had meant pain and uncertainty for them both.

“Wherever I am, I think I shall always want to return here,” she heard herself say instead.

“Then indeed you shall. It is your home. I have never known a place like this. A real home. All of the King’s palaces are nothing more than showpieces for the monarchy. But this. . .” He pulled away from Diane and opened his arm to frame the scene. “This is truly a home. . .and it is one that I shall be honored to share for as long as you will have me.”

They walked down along the frozen pond and Henri lifted the blanket to peer in at his daughter. He ran a finger along her cheek and covered her back over with the cape.

“She’ll need a name, you know,” he said.

“I had not thought about it.”

“You know, there can only be one name.”

She looked at him.

“Her name is. . .it must be, Diane.”

“Henri, that would be impossible! The King will know—”

“The King will know only that I adore you. He can make of that what he will, but he knows that we have long been friends. It would be most natural for me to do it.” She shifted her head from side to side as though she were looking for someone. Her brows arched with the look of hesitation. She took in a breath and then looked back at him.

“I think we risk too much.”

“Please. . .do this for me,” he pressed. His dark eyes glistened in the reflection of the snow. “If she can have nothing else of her mother, then I want her to have this one connection with you. Please.”

E
NCIRCLED BY AN ENTOURAGE
of royal escorts and covered with a canopy of magenta silk, Henri and Diane rode beside Hélène and a wet nurse through Touraine. A cutting winter wind slashed against them as they wound their way slowly up the private cobblestone road that led to Amboise.

Hélène held the swaddled infant in her arms, covered in a tapestried blanket. The child’s head and body were wound tightly in white cloth to help keep her warm. Beside her rode a wet nurse from the village of Anet waiting to fulfill her duty, to feed the royal child. She was brought along at this early stage to help perpetuate the ruse that the child had no mother. A message had been dispatched to Court. A child, it was said, named Diane had been born. The issue of Henri, Dauphin of France and a Piedmontese peasant named Filippa Duca. The child had been conducted to the Chateau d’Anet where Madame Diane had graciously received the Dauphin and his entourage. She was now accompanying him on his return.

The small party was trailed by the Dauphin’s personal infantry of guards who rode in precise military cadence. As the gates were opened and the entourage passed through them into the courtyard, the deception would officially begin with Montmorency. The Grand Master, now the celebrated Lieutenant-General, stood firm-footed in the Gothic arch of the doorway. He was flanked by François de Guise, Charles de Brissac and Jacques de Saint-André. The King had sent no one of his own entourage down to meet his son. But these bold slights no longer affected him. Henri had long ago grown accustomed to his father’s indifference.

“Are you absolutely certain that this is what you want?”

He whispered the words to Diane as he brought his horse to a halt with a tightening of the reins.

“No, Henri, I shall never be certain. But to protect that precious life, I know of no other way.”

Saint-André and Brissac smiled across the courtyard at them. Guise waved an eager hand out from beneath his cape. Montmorency, the more stoic, stood motionless in a long ermine vest and shirt of gold silk with his hand behind his back.

A wave of fear passed through Diane as she looked at him. Time had only served to sharpen his features. The full dark hair that was once only touched with gray had now been consumed by silver waves. His appearance was cold and hard, like steel. He was the great unmoving General.

Jacques and François took the small flight of steps two at a time and came out into the courtyard, but Montmorency maintained his place beside the door. Henri took Diane into his arms to help her down. He was gentle with her; tender well past the point of friendship. The exchange between them was not lost on Montmorency.

So it has begun again,
he thought, looking out at them.
Scandalous!
It was not so much that he minded the boy taking a paramour; that was inevitable. It was simply the particular paramour of whom he disapproved. She was too beautiful, too ambitious and far too bright to really care for a morose young man like Henri. But what was worse, when Montmorency was so inclined to admit it to himself, he believed that she threatened his own standing with the Dauphin, a position that had taken him a lifetime to cultivate.

He looked at her again, standing in the courtyard, whispering something to Hélène, who was once again holding the child. He thought that Diane de Poitiers looked almost regal in her black velvet gown, the décolletage low and pressed flat against her breasts, her neck draped with elegant pearls. Imagine, a courtesan accompanying her lover with another woman’s child! She was shameless! Would she stop at nothing to possess the Dauphin completely? Montmorency stifled an urge to throttle her to death. Instead, he pushed forth an uncomfortable smile and moved on down the three stone stairs into the courtyard with the others. Henri advanced toward Montmorency at a half-running pace.

“Welcome home, Your Highness,” Montmorency offered, in an appropriately humble tone. The two old friends embraced. Henri held the General close to his chest and slapped his back affectionately.

“Oh, it is good to see you!” he said with a jubilant smile. He pulled Montmorency out at arm’s length to look at him and the two men smiled at one another. After a moment, Henri turned toward Hélène, who stood behind him with the child.

“Monty, my friend, may I present to you my daughter,” he asked, and offered up the tightly bound infant. Montmorency faltered. He had eleven children of his own; four sons and seven daughters, but still he was awkward with them. His function had always been to beget them, not to handle them. Nurturing made him uncomfortable. It was women’s work. Masking his reluctance, Montmorency leaned over and pulled back the blanket from around the child’s face, as one might peer at a delicate piece of art. He was met by a blond wave of hair and deep blue eyes. The smile began to form on his lean lips before he looked up. When he did, he found Diane standing back discreetly beside Hélène and Saint-André, but her face was full of tender concern.

“She is a beauty, Your Highness,” he finally said to Henri, and then took the infant into his own arms with such swiftness that it made Diane flinch. He brought the baby to his lips and kissed her head. Again he looked up at Diane to see if it had affected her. “Do you not think she is beautiful, Madame?” he asked with half a smile.