Courtesan (9 page)

The King advanced and opened it. Inside were several volumes that he took out and set aside as though searching for just the right one. Diane stood silently beside him gazing around the vast, tomb-like chamber. The frescoed ceilings were edged in gold. Masterpieces ran the length of the walls. She recognized the one in the place of prominence. It was Anne d’Heilly, painted as Danaë by Primaticcio.

“Ah ha! I have found it!” the King exclaimed finally and thrust forth a large claret leather-bound volume, delicately tooled in gold. Dusting off the cover with a brush of the back of his hand, he then handed it to Diane. It was a rare copy of Oppian’s
The Chase,
in the original Greek. As she slowly turned the pages, edged with gold leaf, her heart raced.

“Where did you find such a thing?” she asked, barely able to speak.

“I am the King of France,
ma chère,
” he replied as if nothing else need be said.

Diane fingered the pages of vellum; a fine lambskin cloth. Each of them bore one of four hundred miniatures, brilliantly illuminated in shimmering shades of red, blue and gold.

“It is exquisite.”

“Beauty seeks beauty. Consider it a gift,” he replied. Their eyes met. The King covered the hand that held the book with his own hand. As she had the day before, Diane pretended not to notice his advance.

“Oh but, Your Majesty, it is so rare. I could not possibly—”

“Please take it. It would give me great pleasure. After all, you are quite correct. It is rare, and that would make the refusal of such a gift all the more insulting.”

As Diane closed the book and looked up, her eyes shimmering with excitement, the King again met her gaze. Slowly then, he withdrew his hand from hers. “I am the fortunate beneficiary of many precious manuscripts such as these,” he added in a softer voice. “There will be others. . .if you become interested.”

It was not clear whether he was referring to the books, or to himself as the point of interest, and Diane was certain, as she gazed into his liquid amber eyes, that the ambiguity had been intentional.

L
ATER THAT AFTERNOON,
Diane, Charlotte and Hélène took the longest path back to her apartments after vespers. The sun still shot its muted shades across the horizon, but now there were clouds, as though there might be rain. Diane had wanted to show her servants some of the detail of the chateau she remembered.

Blois was a castle rich in history. It had been built in the thirteenth century by the counts of Châtillon. It was here that Joan of Arc had stopped to have her soldiers take Holy Communion. King François’ first wife, Claude, had been raised here. When he became King, he had enriched it in the Italian manner, for his love of her. Then she died, and he seldom liked to come here anymore.

The three women strolled across the open courtyard, laughing and chatting, heading toward the distinctive exterior staircase which was, in itself, a work of art. This architectural and artistic innovation was the talk of France, and Diane was anxious for them to see it.

The staircase was a spiral-shaped incline, and at each landing there was an area that looked down on the common below. But they were not only stairwells. From them, courtiers and nobles had often stood, as from a balcony, for jousts and plays set down in the courtyard.

As they rose to the steps of the third level, they could hear the sound of laughter coming toward them from the hidden landing above. Then a woman’s voice, shrill and chatty. It was Anne d’Heilly. Diane remembered the voice, and the hostile eyes that had gazed at her from across the room the night before. But it was too late, though she had considered it, to turn the other direction and avoid her. Just as the thought passed across her mind, Anne d’Heilly turned the corner onto the landing where she stood with her two ladies.

She stepped down in a full gown of green brocade edged in gold. The collar and the cuffs of her sleeves were faced with sable. Her head was adorned by a hood edged in gold. She was followed by a train of courtiers and attendants all laughing with the same wicked laugh as she.

“Madame La Sénéchale, what great fortune!” she said, smiling her acid smile, and laughing with her friends, having addressed her with the title she well knew Diane did not wish to be addressed. “We were just speaking of you.”

A chill raced from Diane’s spine and blossomed on her face as she gazed into the contemptuous green eyes. The courtiers behind her engaged in a collective muffled snicker.

“Monsieur Sourdis here was just telling us something that he had discovered in his work for the King. A fact little known, I am sure, and one that I found truly fascinating.”

Diane and Anne studied one another like two prowling cats as Anne played at civility. “Did you know, Madame, that on the very day that you were being married, I was being born?” Anne d’Heilly smiled with satisfaction and glanced around again as she said it. “Can you imagine such a coincidence? It truly surprised me, since you certainly do not look to be so much older than I.”

Diane looked around her at the sea of vengeful faces all hoping to humiliate her; all in the name of their mistress’s insecurity. She considered her words carefully, but there was no choice but to say them; not if she hoped to survive here.

“Then, Monsieur Sourdis,” she began, looking over at Anne’s accomplice. “I am afraid you are mistaken. His Majesty’s valet had mentioned to me only last night at supper that Mademoiselle is twenty-six. That would make her five at the time of my wedding.”

She forced the tone of her voice to remain stable, even though her throat had gone completely dry and her legs were in danger of giving way. She then turned her head toward Mademoiselle d’Heilly with as much confidence as she could enlist and added, “It was a natural error in calculation.”

“I am certain. A simple mistake.”

Their eyes remained locked in a sustained combative stare. After a moment, Anne lifted her skirts as if to proceed down the stairs. Before descending, however, she turned and looked again at Diane. Her green eyes shimmered with the same hostility they had from the moment of their first introduction.

“Well. It is apparent that I have underestimated you, Madame. Age has only sharpened your mind. I would not have expected that. It is comforting to know what I may anticipate when I am older.”

Diane stood a moment on the landing trying to catch her breath after Anne d’Heilly and her entourage had passed by. Charlotte, who had gripped Hélène and held her in the corner of the landing, still pinched her arm to prevent her from speaking out against the attack. Diane looked over the stone balustrade and down onto the courtyard. Her cheeks still burned. She watched them laughing and whispering as they went through the garden and into another wing of the chateau.

The King’s mistress had implied volumes more than she had said. Never had Diane expected such hostility by returning to Court.
Such unbelievable. . .such petty childishness!
In all of the time she had attended the former Queen, she had always been welcomed. She had made friends with both the former Queen and the King’s former
favourite
. But things were very different now. Everyone seemed to want to remind her of that. Anne d’Heilly obviously mistook her presence here as a threat to her own security with the King.

If only she knew that I detest his wandering eye and his indiscriminate appetite. What a mockery he makes of love! If only I could tell her how a man like that sickens me and would never share my bed. Never!
But of course, she could tell Anne d’Heilly nothing. To calm the royal
favourite
’s fears, Diane would need to risk insulting the King, and it was not worth that. At least not yet.

A
NNE D’
H
EILLY SMILED
like a cream-filled cat as she lounged on a spray of red and green silk pillows spread about the floor near the fire. The rooms of her apartment were filled with the same group of people who had attended her earlier that morning on the grand staircase. A young boy played a tune on the lute as a gentle mist appeared outside and the bright morning skies darkened for rain.

“Very well, Monsieur Vouté, read us another!” she commanded as she took a sip of spiced Madeira wine from a large silver jewel-encrusted chalice.

Jean Vouté was a Court-appointed poet but was considered by everyone to be her personal jongleur; for he had made his way at Court by writing verses exclusively to flatter and please the King’s young mistress. He had done his job well, but not by flattery alone. The slim little man, with squinted eyes and a pointed chin, possessed the uncanny ability to surmise the situation with the skill of a politician, and then never failed to act upon it.

Vouté stood and faced Anne as well as Philippe Chabot beside the roaring fireplace. He bowed cordially to the one on whose grace he depended. She nodded back.

“If it please you, Mademoiselle, I have composed a little trifle for your enjoyment. It is a poem about a woman. One well past her prime. . .” He looked around the room and nodded as he spoke. “I call it ‘The Wrinkled One.’”

A smile broadened slowly across Anne d’Heilly’s little cherry mouth. “Please continue.”

He read the words slowly, punctuating each line with his own distinctive flair. As he read, each face in the salon, one by one, broadened. Their smiles were evil, brought on by thoughts of an impetuous act that is about to be undertaken against another. When he had finished reading the verse, the King’s mistress clapped her hands together in wild adulation, her mouth open in a wide laughing smile.

“Oh, bravo, Monsieur Vouté! Simply brilliant!” she squealed. “I think this is a work to be shared!”

“My thought exactly,” Chabot concurred. “If you will permit me, I have taken the liberty of having it written down for the enjoyment of. . .others.”

As he said the word “others,” their eyes met. So did their mirrored grins. “Splendid idea, Philippe. I am certain there will be someone on whom these words will have a particular significance. Perhaps if you were to make several copies available, the appropriate people would be certain to have an opportunity of reading it.”

The message was clear to both Chabot and Jean Vouté, who stood nearby. Then Anne reached down to her chest and removed a large diamond and ruby brooch from her gown. “You have done well, Jean. Take this for your trouble.”

“My most humble thanks, Mademoiselle,” Vouté said, and bowed dramatically with a sweeping hand before him. He took the brooch in his long reedlike fingers and then pressed it to his lips. “I shall treasure it always.”

“All right, enough of this. All of you, out, out, out!” Her countenance changed quickly and she cast her guests from her chamber like troublesome pets. “I would like to rest a while before I take supper.” The crowd of lounging courtiers disappeared quickly and without incident. All but Philippe Chabot.

W
HEN THE DOOR
to her chamber had closed and the last person had gone, the Admiral drew near to her. Gently he brushed up behind her, the velvet of his doublet against the silk of her gown. She grimaced as he grazed her neck with his wet lips.

“Oh, Philippe, please! Do stop that. I am simply not in the mood.”

“But when will you be in the mood,
mon amour
? You have made me wait such a long time for the return of your favor.”

Anne turned toward him and began to run her small nimble fingers beneath the acorn-colored doublet, and then across his shirt. “You know the King is here today. It is impossible.”

He embraced her with the timid persistence of an eager child and again grazed her neck with his lips. “Oh but I want you so,” he moaned.

Anne lifted his head from her neck and kissed him. Her tongue outlined the curves of his lips and then entered his mouth. He moaned and, as he did, Anne dropped to her knees before him and began to lower his stockings. The moan became a long gasp with the progress of her touch. As she lowered his trunk hose over his buttocks, his penis sprang forth and her kisses turned to gentle, rhythmic licking.

“Oh, do not stop. . .” he begged with breathless whispers, but after a moment she looked up into his eyes with cold conviction and rose to her feet.

“Now that is only a taste,
mon cher,
of what is in store for you,” she declared as she straightened her skirts. “But to get what you want, my dear Philippe, you must first help me get what I want.”

“Oh, yes. . .anything!” he murmured, his face strained with the pain of unfulfilled passion.

“Good. Then bring me a plan to rid us of that woman, and I shall gladly finish what I have started.”

R
ETURNING FROM
morning prayer
,
Diane could hear Hélène’s laughter and Charlotte’s throaty chortle as she neared her apartments. Their happy sounds flooded the entry to her apartments as she opened the door.

“Oh, mistress, you must read this!” Hélène giggled as she ran toward her, and thrust forth a sheet of rolled parchment. Diane took it in her own hands and unrolled it. Her face filled with the blood of anger as she read the words.

“Where did you get this?”

“It was on the doorstep when we returned from our meal in the kitchens,” said Charlotte.

Hélène and Charlotte looked at one another, then both looked back at Diane. “There was another just like it on your writing table,” Hélène added. Before she could finish her sentence, she felt the sharp pinch of Charlotte’s thick fingers on the skin of her forearm pressing her to silence once again.

“We thought it would please you, Madame, to read something with a bit of humor to it,” said Charlotte. “If we have acted inappropriately, I take full responsibility.”

Both women hung their heads like great broken stalks as Diane looked back at the parchment to read the rest of the verse.

“This is her doing,” she muttered as she read the words. “She means to insult me by these verses.”

“You, Madame?” Hélène asked, her softly knitted eyebrows closing in a frown. “Why, that simply cannot be. It is called ‘The Wrinkled One.’ It is about someone old and ugly, which, if you will permit me, certainly does not describe you.”