Courtesan (7 page)

Her arm still tightly bound by the King’s grasp, she found herself being led into the throngs of smiling, ingratiating courtiers who clambered to meet her. There was no hope of retreating. The grand hall was warm from the press of bodies, the smoking candles and the two blazing hearths.

Diane began to feel ill. She had not eaten all day and the faint smell of body odor that she had detected from the King when they met earlier had now matured into a pungent smell. The strong, musky perfume in which he was bathed did not mask it; rather it fused the two odors into a vile stench. Trying with difficulty not to choke, she lost herself in introductions to the remote and imposing Cardinal de Lorraine and the small, hawk-faced Admiral Chabot, who stood beside him.

“It is very rude of Your Majesty not to introduce me.”

The voice which came from behind, masked by the shifting sea of people, was shrill and brittle. Diane turned with the King. Before them stood a fragile looking young woman with long chestnut curls spilling out from an emerald-studded turban. Her eyes were bright green and were set off by the jewels on her gown and in her headdress. Her small body was made even smaller by the tightly corseted gown.

“Forgive me,
mon amour,
” the King said, turning fully around with an expression of surprise. “Diane de Poitiers, may I present Anne d’Heilly.”

At last. His Anne. She was young, and yes. . .every bit as pretty as they had said.
Diane smiled almost too graciously at such great fortune. She had clearly worried for nothing.

“I am honored, Mademoiselle,” Diane said as she nodded to the King’s
favourite.
The young woman’s suspicion was masked by a calculated smile.

“Charmed,” she replied to veil her instinctive sense of rivalry for anyone whose beauty paralleled her own. Then she linked her arm boldly with the King’s. As she did, she thrust forth her heavily jeweled hand, glittering with more emeralds, diamonds and gold than Diane had ever seen on any one person.

“His Majesty and I wish to welcome you, and hope your brief stay with us shall be a pleasant one.” The words were studied; spoken from her mouth, not her heart. Almost before the King could nod in agreement, she added, “Now come along,
chéri.
You have been absolutely ignoring the Cardinal de Tournon, and you know how petulant he becomes when he is left to his own devices.”

In one of those brief, yet fateful encounters where nothing of substance is said, yet everything of importance is conveyed, Diane had met the King’s official mistress.

As he was whisked away by Anne d’Heilly, the other courtiers who had surrounded Diane began to disband. She searched desperately for a familiar face, and finally she found it. In one corner of the room beside a marble pillar, was His Highness François II, Dauphin of France. He stood huddled with the Comtesse de Sancerre, with whom his father had spent the previous night.

The eldest son of the King of France was tall and his face was striking for so young a man. He had dark straight hair and a prominent patrician nose that rendered unmistakable the resemblance to his father. He wore a toque, trunk hose and doublet of mulberry velvet with snow white slashing. His sleeves were covered with rubies and sapphires.

His eyes had been roving searchingly about the room, only half concentrating on the much older woman who desperately sought his attentions. Those same eyes grew bright now with the recognition of Diane. He smiled. She nodded a smile in his direction. She pretended not to watch, but out of the corner of her eye she could see the young Prince whisper something in the woman’s ear and then begin to make his way toward her.

“Madame Diane!” he called out.

The other courtiers around her bowed as he neared them and opened his arms to her. Upon closer inspection, she could see youth and manhood joined on his face. Beneath small, clever eyes, he sported a neat, dusty beard amid the faint remembrance of adolescent pimples. Despite them, he was still a strikingly attractive young man. Like his father, he had the stately bearing of a King. Also like his father, he used it to his advantage. He had changed a great deal in five years. Time in the Spanish prison with his younger brother Henri appeared to have somehow strangely enriched his spirit, not broken it.

“His Majesty said that you would be returning to Court, but I had no idea it would be so soon! I am so glad that you had the courage to do it. Oh, do give us another hug! How is Françoise?” he inquired of her elder daughter.

“She’s growing into quite a young lady since the two of you played in the orchards behind Anet.” Diane smiled.

“Ah yes, hide-and-seek for hours,” he said in a voice thick and richly urbane. Then he began to laugh. “Mischief would hardly be the same without the little minx! Oh, I would so love to see her. Where is she now?”

“She is in the convent Filles-Dieu with her younger sister, Louise. I am pleased to say that they are both doing splendidly. And look at you! Your Highness has grown up as well. You are not the fair little boy who used to hide from the Queen behind my skirts.”

Montmorency’s fleshy wife, Madeleine, strained to hear their conversation.

“And your brothers?” she asked. “My Louise will certainly want to know about Henri and Charles.”

The Dauphin battled a disdainful smirk and a sarcastic tone. “I am afraid little brother Henri has been woefully bad, Madame. Father has sent him on to Fontainebleau to seek his punishment by spending time with our Spanish Queen. But there is Charles. See over there, by the fires.” He pointed.

Diane turned to see a chubby, flour-faced boy sitting on the hearth, stroking one of the hounds.

“Perhaps you would graciously consent to give him a turn. I am afraid he is too uncertain of himself to dance with any of the younger girls. But I know he would most definitely dance with you.”

His words, cast-off and thoughtless, startled her like a sudden shaft of lightning. She looked at the future King, so slim, young and exquisite before her. His youth, like his brother’s was a sharp reminder of her own age, and the time she had wasted.

A
FTER BEING COAXED
by the Dauphin to dance with young Prince Charles, Diane was breathless. They danced two Galliards, a long and strenuous dance full of strenuous kicks and hops designed for the most athletic. Diane then took refuge at one of the long tables. The room was bursting with music and laughter. She finally breathed a sigh of relief and began to bask in her own precious, if momentary, anonymity. As she sat with a goblet of wine, she watched a popular new form of the Galliard called the Volté, and waited for her breathing to return to normal.

Anne d’Heilly was more beautiful and much younger than she had imagined, she thought as she watched her dance with the English Ambassador. Diane was certain that they would never be friends, but she also felt happily absurd about her former suspicions. The King was just an unbearable flirt. He loved women. He always had. Of course, he had only been taking the liberty to which Kings grow accustomed. It had meant nothing more.

As she bit into a moist hunk of veal, Diane realized that she was ravenous. The table before her was covered with a virtual orgy of food. Meat pies were piled high on silver dishes; tureens were spilling with stew. There were capons and roasted partridge, giant plates of hare and venison, cakes made of pine nuts, sweet cup custards and marzipan. Every dish was set out for the guests on silver serving dishes; each one ornately appointed and turned. Servants, dressed in the same familiar blue and crimson uniforms, kept wine flowing from giant ceramic urns that they lugged about the room.

She swallowed the last bit of her meal with a sip of wine and leaned back in the high-backed crimson tapestried chair. When the meal was complete, each guest was presented with his own silver ewer of Damascus rose water and a fine embroidered linen napkin with which to wash. When the napkins were unfolded, each guest found imprisoned inside a little bird, all of which, for the further enjoyment of the guests, began to hop around on the table and peck at the plates and dishes.

At the same time, another new dance step was being shown to the King. He watched intently from his seat the
Branle des torches,
so named because as the steps progressed, the dancers passed torches between themselves. The rest of the room watched as the King studied the steps to the echoed sound of the trumpet, clarion, viols and lute. The courtiers were careful not to applaud or to condemn the step until the King had done so. He looked regal dressed in a doublet of red silk, the collar of which was braided in gold. His toque was brown velvet, plumed with one large white ostrich feather.

“He will not like it, you know.”

The voice of the man next to her came echoing out of his large silver chalice. Diane, who had not until that moment noticed him, turned to see who had addressed her.

“I beg your pardon?”

“The dance step, I mean. I have been watching His Majesty for a long time now. I have studied him at all of these affairs and I wager it will be too intricate for his liking,” he said as he tossed out a coin, which clinked as it hit his dinner plate.

He was a thin graceful man, costumed in a doublet of indigo velvet, the slashings of which showed a yellow shirt of linen and lace. His hair was light and curled around his forehead. It matched the vague, dusty beard which came to a point at the end of his chin. He could have been handsome had it not been for the lack of a rugged quality which Diane had always found appealing.

“Watch,” he said, directing her gaze back to the King’s table.

Before the King, a young page now twirled and hopped to the lute player’s tune, his torch leaving a streaming trail of light as he moved it. Just as the boy bowed at the dance’s completion, the King stood.

“Bravo, my boy! Come everyone, young Guise, the Cardinal’s nephew, has given us a new step to try! Lute player, the music!”

“One would hope, Monsieur, that you know your women better than your King,” she quipped, pulling the coin to her own plate and turning back to him.

“Most assuredly.” He smiled. “Allow me to introduce myself. I am Jacques de Montgommery, Captain of His Majesty’s Scots Guard.”

“And I am—”

“Oh, I know who you are. I am most honored to meet you, Madame La Sénéchale.”

“Ah, I see that my reputation precedes me.”

“I have heard only the most favorable things.”

“Then you have undoubtedly heard that I prefer to go by the name to which I was born, not by the title that was given to me when I married.”

He jutted out his lower lip and shrugged his shoulder as if, with his movements, to say,
whatever you like.
“And what might that name be?” he added as he picked a stray piece of meat from his red and yellow balloon sleeve.

“Diane. Diane de Poitiers.”

“Diane.” He rolled the name around on his tongue as though he were tasting it. “Lovely name.”

“Quite common really,” she replied, trying to negate his flattery.

“Ah, but the novelty is with she who bears it.”

“You flatter me, Monsieur.”

“I should consider myself fortunate to do so, Madame.”

“Do you manage to be so charming with everyone?” she asked, finding it difficult not to be just a little taken in by him.

“Only when I see something worth the effort. Ah, they are beginning the next Galliard. Please. . .you must dance with me.”

Standing beside him, she now saw what a tall lean man he was. He smiled a confident, effortless smile and he danced as gracefully as he spoke.

“The color becomes you,” he said, gazing down at her gown.

“It is black, Monsieur. A mourning costume. My husband has died only six months ago.”

“Still, Madame, with every color of the rainbow exhibited here tonight, these women look like peacocks while you are like a beautiful black swan.”

“Monsieur, you must agree not to flatter me so. It is not proper.”

As though he had not heard her, Montgommery clutched her wrist and whirled her around to the tune played by the quartet. It was only after the dance was over, and he had bowed his thanks to her, that he answered her remonstrations. “Ah, Madame, I know that you have been away a long time, but you may as well learn early on how things have changed here. The moralist cuts a poor figure in King François’ Court.”

Diane looked at him strangely, but he was no longer looking at her. She turned around to see what had averted his gaze. It was the King who was standing across the room, near Admiral Chabot. Although the Admiral was talking intensely to him, His Majesty appeared lost to the words, staring instead across the room at Diane. Anne d’Heilly, who was still clutching the King’s arm, watched His Majesty watch Diane. The forced smile which the
favourite
had worn earlier in the evening now faded as she nodded, pretending to be listening to the Admiral, but all the while, never breaking her gaze from Diane.

Montgommery, standing across the room from the King, could see the scene from its full perspective. His smile became a sneer as he fingered his yellow moustache.

“Well, well, well,” he muttered so only she could hear. “It appears that things are just beginning to get interesting around here.”

B
Y THE TIME
D
IANE
slid between her heavy damask bedcovers, it was nearly dawn. Her feet ached from dancing and her head was spinning from the wine.

There had been, in all, five interludes to the meal. Each time the lute player sounded a tune, the table was stripped of the meal. In place of the food, the tables became a stage and five different kinds of entertainment were enacted. There was a mystery play during which the guests were encouraged to guess the ending for the prize of a lock of His Majesty’s hair. Afterward, the food was returned and dancing recommenced. Another hour passed and the food was again cleared away. Four acrobats, dressed in multicolored costumes, leapt upon the tables to further entertain the guests. By the early hours of the morning, a young singer, whom the King had coaxed into asylum from Venice, took the stage.