Courtesan (50 page)

“I shall destroy them all,” he muttered, “brick by brick. . .by brick. But not the Guises after all. Now it is Diane de Poitiers who shall be first.”

T
HE NEXT DAY,
after Diane arrived at Saint Germain-en-Laye, she and Henri went together to meet the Queen of Scots. Henri was awestruck by what a beautiful child she was. She had her uncle François’ long thin frame and his russet hair, which cascaded onto her tiny shoulders in large ringlets. It was held back at the top by a coronet of diamonds and emeralds. She was, however, the image of her mother, Marie, with the same green eyes and little rosebud mouth. Henri understood the moment he received her what a sacrifice it had been for the Dowager Queen Marie de Guise to surrender her little daughter. It was then that he vowed to himself that not only would she be accorded every privilege, she would be treated as his own child.

She came to the grand hall in the company of her own Scottish train. Around the dais where Henri sat beside Diane, François de Guise and his brother Charles stood with Antoine de Bourbon and the King’s sister Marguerite. Another group of courtiers stood at the back of the room, including the Venetian and Scottish Ambassadors. Mary walked the length of the grand hall with four young ladies-in-waiting and her Governess, Janet Stuart. . .Lady Flemming.

Henri bristled when he saw her again. He had hoped she would not come. Something unwelcome had stirred in him last night when they met. As he looked at her across the long crimson carpet, that same thing about her now both stirred and repelled him. He did his best to avoid her gaze.

“Your Majesty, it is a great honor.” Mary curtsied. She spoke in Scottish and Lady Flemming repeated her words in French.

Henri rose from his throne and took the three steps down the carpeted dais toward her. He then took the little girl into his arms and held her as though she were one of his own children.

“Welcome, my daughter. Welcome indeed. You are the very image of your mother. Do you know that?”

Again Lady Flemming interceded, translating the King’s words.

“My Uncle, His Eminence, the Cardinal de Guise, told me so just yesterday, although I confess I do not see the likeness, Your Majesty.”

The reply came first in Scottish, then in French. Henri saw the flicker of sadness in her young eyes at the reference to her mother, even before there could be a translation. He quickly sought to change the subject.

“So tell me. Are you finding your accommodations thus far here in France to your liking? I have had you installed with the Princess Elizabeth, as this is a big old place and I thought that at first you might enjoy the benefit of her company.”

Mary looked over at Elizabeth, and the two young children smiled at one another. “I thank you, Sir. Your daughter has been most kind.”

When there was a break in the conversation, François de Guise stepped forward. “Your Majesty, the Queen of Scots would also have me present the ladies of her train to yourself and Madame, if you would find it agreeable.”

The four young ladies-in-waiting and Lady Flemming advanced. The latter, whose gaze was openly seductive, never took her eyes from the King. As he tried desperately not to look at her, Henri only heard enough to know that each of the little servants to the Queen was named Mary. François de Guise attempted a bit of humor at the coincidence, but the King did not smile. Suddenly he wanted to be anywhere but there. Women, especially this many, made him ill at ease. He never had anything to say to them, nor anything in common with them. The exception to that had always been Diane de Poitiers.

“And this, Your Majesty, is Janet Stuart, Lady Flemming. She is the Queen’s Governess. And as you can see,” said Guise, “she is also the Queen’s interpreter.”

Janet advanced toward the King and curtsied. The gown she now wore was equally low, and equally seductive as the one she had been wearing the night before. This one was ash-gray. The square bodice was lined with delicate pearls.

“Your Majesty,” she said in a deep, smoky voice, and then rose from her curtsy.

“Well, Lady Flemming, please impart to Her Majesty for me that anything she needs or should desire are hers, and that I will look forward to many future meetings, hopefully of a more informal nature.”

“As will we both, Your Majesty.”

When Mary and her train had left the grand hall, Henri sank back down in his throne. His face was flushed and his heart was racing. He could not recall ever having felt so awkward as he did at this moment. As if Diane could hear what he was thinking, he put a hand over his eyes and waited for several minutes to collect himself before he spoke.

“Guise, do you know the convent at Poissy?”

“Yes, of course, Your Majesty.”

“I want the Queen’s four attendants sent there for schooling.”

“But, Your Majesty, they are the child’s only link with her homeland.”

“Precisely. They are also her only link with that barbarous and ill-sounding language she now speaks. She is a Queen, Guise, and with the four of them constantly by her side, she has no hope of ever mastering French.”

At this proclamation, there was a buzz of gossip set off among the crowd who had gathered at the back of the room.

“And her Governess, the Lady Flemming, Your Majesty? Is she to be relieved of her duty as well?”

The color rushed crimson into his cheeks. He tried to look casually at Diane. It would be for the best, he thought; better to cut the child’s ties completely with Scotland. Better for him.

Diane leaned over and whispered to him behind a gold ring. “Perhaps you should reconsider such a move,
chéri.
She is such a small child, who, if you proceed, will be completely alone. And after all, you could demand that the Lady Flemming speak nothing but French in Her Majesty’s presence.”

It was odd, he thought, that Diane should intervene now. She so rarely did until she was called upon. Henri shifted in his seat, feeling temptation’s heavy hand upon his shoulder, and the overwhelming guilt for the sensation.

But there were other thoughts; himself as a child, alone in a Spanish prison, not much older than little Queen Mary. He could see a little boy, as though from a distance, alone in the cold stone cell and cruel guards parading outside his door, parroting his cries for help. Deprived of even his brother’s company throughout the ordeal, he had even forgotten how to speak French. Perhaps Diane was right. To deprive the child of her last remaining security, when she was only five years old, was not only selfish, it was cruel. The very same action forced on him had created a wound, and then a scar from which he never would heal. He had been thinking of himself; of last night; of the dark, unsettling feeling that Janet Stuart had unleashed in him.

“Of course you are right,
m’amie,
” he said. “No, Guise. Lady Flemming shall not be relieved of her duty. But she is to be instructed that when she is the presence of Her Majesty, she is to speak only French. Oh, and Guise, see to it that they are both fitted with some new French designs. We simply cannot have them dressing like that in a civilized Court.”

T
WO DAYS AFTER
the King had left her at Fontainebleau, Catherine’s sitting room was darkened with long sheets of black silk. They had been applied to the windows of her apartments for her consultation. Luc Gauier, the Queen’s astrologer, had been there for less than an hour and already the room was filled with thick blue smoke. The aroma of candles, incense and Catherine’s pungent musk hung in the still summer air like a poisonous cloud, trapped by the long black drapes.

Gauier sat slumped-shouldered, with his eyes closed at one end of the long table. He wore a long, bright blue coat with flared sleeves and black felt cap. As his head rolled gently from side to side, he made a continuous low humming sound from the back of his throat. On the table before him, on pieces of stained parchment, were various sizes of circles and triangles. On the floor beside his chair, in a small pile of sand, he had fashioned the shape of a pentacle.

Catherine sat pensively across from the astrologer, as beads of sweat dripped from above her full lips. She had been instructed to say nothing. Gauier would speak only when he felt that the stars and the planets were properly aligned.

“There is a danger to the King. . .” he finally said. The words were low and garbled, almost inaudible. Catherine’s breath quickened as she leaned toward him, not daring to speak until she was told to do so.

“It will come in a form of combat. . .” Again he paused. Catherine watched his fists, which were placed on top of the table, clench and relax. She wiped the perspiration from her upper lip with a blue embroidered handkerchief. Finally, Gauier opened his eyes and looked down at the shapes fashioned on the parchment. He moved a candle closer and then looked over at the sand on the floor. “It will be a single combat. . .and he may die from this encounter.”

She felt a chill as beads of perspiration ran between her breasts beneath the heavy layers of silk and velvet. Then she began to go numb. She felt it first in her hands; then her arms, as it moved upward toward her throat. She was paralyzed with fear. Gauier looked at her directly, the signal that she was now permitted to speak. She licked her dry lips and swallowed, hoping to moisten her throat enough to bring the words from her mind.

“Can it be prevented?”

Once again, Gauier consulted the pentacle in the sand, then looked at the shapes on the table. “He must engage in no combat in the forty-first year. Then, if he passes through that year, I see that he will live to the age of sixty-nine.” Again he looked at the Queen with a glass-eyed stare as though he was completely unmoved by what he had said. Catherine was silent.

“Does Your Majesty wish to know anything further?” he finally asked. His tone was slow and even. He could just as easily have been conversing about Plato as predicting the death of her husband.

“Monsieur Gauier, you must repeat this to the King. You must warn him!”

“His Majesty does not believe. Such a move would be futile.”

“But he may believe if you were to tell him about your other prediction long ago concerning him; that you predicted he would become King long before his brother died. If you do that, then perhaps we have a chance to save him!”

“Your Majesty knows that we may not alter what is already written in the stars.”

“But you said there was a chance! You can do it. You must! You said combat. Clearly, if he does not do battle, he will survive. Is that not true?”

“The stars say that he
may
survive, Your Majesty. The direction of change in the heavens is not for me to decide.”

“Please, Monsieur! I shall pay you whatever you desire, but you must consult with His Majesty. He must be warned! God save us, he is your King! I cannot lose him now, I cannot!”

Gauier glanced around the room. He knew that the King was a great skeptic and he did not relish subjecting his gift of prophecy to such rigorous doubt. Still, she was the Queen and she had seen to a substantial commission for him, along with a very fashionable house in Paris. If he did not do as she asked, there would be no reason for her to retain him. After another moment’s reflection, the Queen’s astrologer agreed.

H
ENRI AGREED TO MEET
with Catherine after his fencing match in the courtyard, but he went to her apartments reluctantly. He did not believe in astrology, nor did he approve of the prophets who made their living from her by bending the truth to fit her fantasies. Still, he agreed. His reason was simple. She had managed to appeal to him, as she always did, when he was most weak. He felt badly about the slight over Chenonceaux and he saw this concession as a way to make amends. When Catherine explained to him that Gauier had made predictions that he must hear, Henri did not have the heart to refuse her. So now he would go and hear the ominous words of doom, consider himself warned, and thereby satisfy his wife and his guilt.

“So then, where is he?” Henri asked from the door. “He is late and I am very busy.”

“He will be here. That I promise you. Would you care for a cup of wine?”

Henri descended the two carpet-covered steps and strode into the Queen’s receiving room. Catherine was sitting alone at a small gaming table near a window. She wore purple satin edged in gold, loose around the middle to allow for her latest pregnancy. Around her neck she wore a collar of pearls with a large garnet pendant. Her frizzled black hair poked out from her cap, just above her forehead.

As the King advanced into the incense-laced center of the Queen’s rooms, one of her ladies came forward with a tray. In the center were two rare crystal goblets with white wine from Anjou. Henri sat down beside Catherine at the table. This, no doubt, would be used for their consultation with Gauier. To Henri’s surprise, there were no candles, no magic wands and no jars of powder or mysterious liquid arranged before them. There was only an ordinary deck of cards and their crystal goblets.

Henri settled into the chair that creaked as he moved, and he felt a small tug at his heart when he looked at her now, so carefully groomed for his visit. Yet, Catherine looked tired and she was heavier than he had ever seen her. He thought how the children that she carried seemed to dominate her body long before the time of their birth. Though her abdomen seemed swollen nearly to capacity, this child, their fourth, was not due for another four months.

“Monsieur Luc Gauier,” Lucrezia announced as the astrologer, in his long blue robe, hurried down the steps and into her chamber.

“Your Majesty,” he said, bowing before the King and his benefactress. In one hand he held a book of Egyptian hieroglyphics. In the other was an astrolabe, an instrument for observing the position of the celestial bodies.
The tools of his trade,
thought Henri smugly. Gauier is no different than the Queen’s confidant, Ruggieri, nor any of the other mystics who were now so popular at his Court. Again Gauier bowed to the King as he drew nearer to the table.

“Yes, yes. Now do sit down,” Henri said impatiently and then emptied his goblet in one swallow. “I understand from the Queen that you have something that you wish me to know.”

Gauier cringed at the King’s irreverent tone. He was making light of the situation. He fought the urge to take his prophecies and leave the cynical King to the winds of his own fate but the pleading eyes of the Queen forced him into the other chair.

“Very well then,” said Gauier and he leaned back, closed his eyes and took a deep breath. “Several days ago, I consulted with the Queen. It was at that time that I came to fear for Your Majesty’s safety. During our consultation, I saw that you are in danger. The stars confirmed my prediction.”

Henri made no attempt to conceal a snicker. The mystic looked up and stopped.

“Go on,” Catherine urged.

Again Gauier took a breath. “I see that there is danger to Your Majesty in combat. The danger shall come to you in a single combat, in an enclosed field, and it shall be cast upon you in your forty-first year.” Gauier looked up. For a moment, no more, he saw the King’s face freeze. His hands rested motionless on top of the table. The arrogant countenance had vanished. Gauier, who took it as a sign, continued. “If Your Majesty should survive it, you would live to be sixty-nine years old. That is, as it is written in the stars,” he said, gesturing toward the astrolabe. When he looked back up, the King’s countenance had changed again. Now there was a hard pinched expression on his face and his dark brows were fused in a frown. The skeptic had returned.

“That is preposterous and unfounded, Monsieur, and I strongly resent your inflicting yourself on the Queen like this and frightening her with your prophecies of doom!”

“Tell him, Monsieur Gauier, please tell him!”

“Very well, Madame, for you. But only for you. Your Majesty, this is not my only prophecy. I made another prediction in your regard some time ago. I foresaw that you would be King of France after your father.” Gauier leaned across the table toward the King and thrust a slip of parchment boldly at him. “Your Majesty shall see that I committed this prophecy to paper in the year 1536, well before your elder brother’s tragic demise.”

He watched victoriously as Henri lowered his eyes to study the paper. “As Your Majesty can plainly see, the document was not only signed and witnessed by the Queen, but also by Monsieur Strozzi and a number of other senior members of her household.”

Henri glanced at Catherine, her bulging black eyes pleading with him to believe the mystic. He looked back down at the paper once again. Gauier could not have known then that his brother François would die. In those years no one ever expected that Henri would one day be King. His body was rigid, his fists clenched on top of the table, but he fought to maintain the countenance of a King. What would Diane think if he now chose to follow the dictates of a soothsayer?

“Monsieur,” he finally said, “perhaps what you say is true. But it does not bother me to die at the hand of another, provided he is brave and valiant and that the glory for this life remain mine.”

Catherine looked at him; her eyes, as always, were brimming with tears but she could say nothing.

Seeing the grim expression on both of their faces, Henri stood and shook his head. “Now, Monsieur Gauier, if there is nothing else. . .”

When he could see that neither of them meant to reply, he quickly left the room.

A
FTER HIS REASON
had returned and he was away from Catherine, Henri dismissed the ominous predictions as nothing more than a stroke of fortune. Anyone could have written such a thing in hopes of elevating himself if it did later actually come true. In fact, the King reasoned, Gauier could have registered a number of predictions then produce the appropriate one when and if it was called for. After all, there were plagues. There were wars. It was not inconceivable that his brother could accidentally have died. The mystic, like everyone else, knew that. As he walked alone down the shadowy corridor, Henri convinced himself that the letter had been nothing more than the well-orchestrated plan of a masterful opportunist. The Court was full of them.

As to the prediction that he would one day die in single combat, Henri chose to fall back on the laws of France. The laws of his country had long prohibited a King’s participation in a duel. Such a fate was impossible. As he walked, Henri systematically argued away all of the fears that he had first felt in Catherine’s chamber. Mystics and prophets were in league with the devil. He had been wrong even to have listened to such an evil man, to have believed for a moment such nonsense. But as he walked, the ominous cloud of doubt surged up again, and he began to remember another time. Another place. It was Cauterets. The tiny inn and an old woman. Though Henri could no longer recall her face, her words had remained with him through the years. She had told Diane with the greatest conviction that she would bear three children when her marriage had given her only two. The daughter they now shared had been that third child.

But her last words had been most mystifying, and Henri had discounted them, believing that they related to her relationship with his father. Until now.
You have the power to lead; to change,
the old woman had said.
One day you will have more power than you can imagine,
over a great many lives. . .and it will come to you through your power over one who adores you.
Of course! It was he, not his father, who was that one!

Henri quickened his pace and then broke into a run. Diane was waiting for him in the chapel. Now he was desperate to see her. Together they would pray to God. That alone would wash away the evil feeling of doom that his wife’s mystic had hung over him.

H
ENRI’S CORONATION OATH
had been to drive heresy from the realm, and as
Le Roi très Chrétien,
he took the oath with gravity. Where his father had vacillated between sympathy for the Reformers to moves of unbridled harshness, Henri was unswerving in his faith. He was a devout Catholic, as were those in power around him. He believed that it was his duty to rid France of the threat posed by the Reformation that would divide not only the Church, but the country. Yet, despite his single-mindedness, the movement had grown. It was no longer simply the preoccupation of the ruling class, or dinner conversation for idle lords and ladies. The message had filtered down to the ranks of peddlers, cobblers and weavers. Secret meetings late into the night were held in every town of France and they had grown to such proportions that even the government was at a loss to stop them.

Yet he was not so plagued by the growth of the dissenters as he was by the accepted punishment for their heresy: death at the stake by burning. In Diane’s safe arms, the wounds of the past had begun to heal and Henri had grown into a gentle man. The notion of taking a man’s life in so savage a manner because of his beliefs disturbed him deeply. If he could understand, perhaps he could help to reunite the two factions which were slowly tearing France apart. Late into the night they spoke of it. He told Diane and the Cardinal de Guise that he wanted to speak with one of them; hear their claims. Perhaps with patience, he could come to understand what had driven them away from the Church, and just perhaps he could find a way to make them want to return.

“I want you to bring me a prisoner, Charles,” the King had said to Guise. “Someone unafraid to speak with me about his beliefs.”

“With all due respect, Your Majesty, that would be most irregular. Those people are the enemy, not only against you, but against God.”

“Well, something has got to be done to put an end to this. And after all, if I do not understand the enemy, how can I hope to win the war?”

Charles de Guise recalled the encounter with the King as he wound his way down the dark stone staircase into the bowels of the French prison. Here criminals and heretics waited together for their trials. Some waited for their executions, or simply for death to rescue them from the torment of their own excrement and the rancorous, infected cells.

Charles had little sympathy as he strode past the small black holes from which came the haunting moans and pleading cries of nameless, faceless men. He believed that they had sinned. They had earned their fate. He made the sign of the cross and moved along the dark and narrow pathway. Finally he reached an alcove where the guard kept a table, a lamp and some files on the men whom he guarded.

“No, no. These are all wrong!” he said, tossing the dossiers of several prisoners back onto the table. “I want someone less pronounced. These are all men of letters. If any of these men have their way, they will all but convince the King about their heresy, not dissuade him!” The Cardinal grabbed the stack of files from which the three had been chosen. The guard moved in with a torch so that the Cardinal could read. After a moment he selected one. A smile broadened on his thin face. “This one, yes this one. He will do perfectly.”

“But Your Eminence, he is nothing but a simple tailor. He ain’t fit for talking to the King!”

“Precisely, Monsieur. Quite precisely. Prepare him for His Majesty, and see that he has a bath. My men will be back in one hour to collect him.”

Guise turned around and began to walk back down the corridor which would lead him up to the rue Saint-Antoine and the fresh air of freedom. He lowered his head and quickened his pace until he was forced to stop. A line of prisoners chained together at the wrist were being transported from one place to another. The man who led them was discussing cell assignments with another guard, and the prisoners blocked his path. Charles tried to look away. The odor was vile. The men were filthy and depressing, and he was to have supper with Madame Diane when this disagreeable business was complete. But the men did not move, and he could not pass without brushing his crimson silk gown against their soiled brown rags.

Finally the Cardinal looked up again. It was an involuntary movement. He had not planned to meet the brutal stares of any of them, but the face of one, he was at a loss to avoid. He was two men back in the row of ten, but he was taller than the others and he held his head high, so that it would have been impossible not to see him. The man leered at Charles from behind a grimy brown face and white hair; his yellow teeth flashed a curious smile of recognition. He would have been any other anonymous prisoner had it not been for those eyes. They were familiar. For the instant that they stared at one another, Charles felt certain that he knew the man. But before he could place him, the guard returned, shouted something, and the queue of prisoners was issued down the hall.