Authors: Sophie Perinot
Médicis Daughter
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To E, K, and C,
Never let any person’s will
supplant your own,
nor anyone’s advice override
the dictates of your
conscience.
Not even mine.
Summer 1562—Amboise, France
In my dreams the birds are always black.
This time when I wake, breathless and frightened, I am not alone. Hercule, perhaps disturbed by nightmares of his own, must have crawled into my bed while I was sleeping. I am glad to have his warm little body to curl around as I try to go back to sleep. No, he is no longer called Hercule, I remind myself sternly. Since his confirmation he is François, the second of my brothers to bear that name. The older, other François was not my friend or playfellow but rather the King of France. He has been dead nearly two years.
My nurse claims it is
because
King François II died young, and my father King Henri II died tragically before him, that large black birds fill my nightmares. She insists images of weeping courtiers clothed in somber black etched themselves upon my youthful mind and were turned to birds by my overactive imagination.
I know she is mistaken, but I bite my tongue.
My brother Henri was equally mistaken. When we shared a nursery at Vincennes, he teased me that the birds were crows, noisome and noisy but,
à
la fin,
harmless. They were not crows then, nor are they now. Crows with their grating clatter have never frightened me. Besides, my birds are silent. Silent and watchful. And always one is larger than the others. This one stares at me with beady eyes as if she would see into my very soul. I recognize my mother, Catherine de Médicis, Queen of France, even if none to whom I relate my dreams ever see her.
Putting an arm around my brother, I pull him close and smell the summer sun in his hair. I recall this night’s vision—the birds arrived out of the northern sky, swooping over Amboise. The one in the lead was so large, she obscured the sun. Lower and lower they flew, until they came to rest on the spire of the Chapel of Saint-Hubert.
My mother is coming. Even as I close my eyes and my thoughts blur, I know it. I am as certain as if I had received a letter in her own hand declaring it.
The next morning, standing at the limestone parapet in the château garden, I feel rather smug. My
gouvernante
laughed when I said Her Majesty was coming, but crossed herself when the messenger arrived, proving me right. Madame kept giving me strange looks all the time she was fastening me into one of my best gowns—the one Monsieur Clouet painted me in last year, all heavy cream silk and pearls. Looking down to make certain my hem did not become dirty as I ran here, I realize my beautiful dress has grown short.
Never mind, I think, Mother is coming! Pushing myself up on my tiptoes, I rest my arms on top of the wall and look over—experiencing a familiar mixture of awe and apprehension. On the other side everything falls away precipitously. Below, the calm, green Loire winds past, giving way to the deeper and more varied green of the trees on its opposite bank. To the left, the river is traversed by a bridge as white as the wall I lean upon. My eyes follow the road across that bridge. I can see a long way, and just before the road dissolves into shimmers of light I see movement. Can it be Mother’s party?
A motion closer at hand draws my attention. François followed me when I snuck out, and now he is trying to pull himself up onto the wall to see better. My stomach clenches. The drop from the top to the rooftops below would surely break his body to pieces should he go over. Grabbing my brother around the waist, I try to haul him back, but he clings tenaciously to the stone.
“Let go,” I command.
Whether in response to my demand or under the pressure of my tugging, François’ fingers release and we tumble backwards into the dry dust of the path. My youngest brother is slight of build, but at seven he is still heavy enough to knock the wind out of me. He scrambles up indignantly, heedless of the fact that he finds his footing in my skirts.
“I am not a baby.”
“You are certainly behaving like one!” I shriek, looking at the dirty marks upon my gown. I can only imagine how the back of me—the part sitting in the dirt—looks. I feel like crying and my face must show it, for François’ expression changes from defiance to guilt.
“I am sorry, Margot.” He drops his eyes and nudges the path with his foot.
“Help me up.” I reach out, unwilling to turn onto my knees and do further damage to my dress.
Taking my hands, François throws his weight backwards. For a brief, perilous moment I am lifted. Then my brother’s feet slide from under him and I drop back to the ground as he lands there himself. At that precise moment, I spot my
gouvernante,
the Baronne de Curton, running toward us with my nurse and François’ following. Madame’s face is as white as my dress, or rather, I think, fighting the desire to laugh, considerably whiter given the state of my once lovely gown.
“What would Her Majesty say to see
une fille de France
in such a position!” Madame picks up François and sets him on his feet. He—wisely, to my way of thinking—scurries to his nurse, who has paused a few yards away, panting. “You are too old for such behavior.”
This is a familiar phrase, and the only one that annoys me more is “You are too young”—something I seem to hear with equal frequency. I am too old to play the games I used to play with François. I am too young to join my mother and her ladies at Court. What, I wonder, am I of an age to do? I know better than to raise such a philosophical point under present circumstances.
I allow Madame to help me up. She circles me, shaking her head. “You must change. Her Majesty cannot see you like this.”
A flurry of movement and burst of sound attract our attention. A group of figures emerges from an archway at the far side of the garden. The livery of the servants and the exceedingly fine dress of the handful of gentlemen and ladies proclaim the unwelcome truth. Whether we are ready for her or not, Mother has arrived.
The sight of her—gliding forth from amidst her companions, dismissing them by gesture—sets me trembling, and not merely because of the state of my gown. François, breaking from his nurse, takes refuge behind me. But I am too old for such behavior, and if I tried to dart behind Madame I doubt she would willingly shield me. I give a quick shake to my skirts and square my shoulders. Madame shoos François from behind me and urges us into motion. I try to walk smoothly so that I will appear to float as Mother does, but my sliding only stirs up dust, causing my
gouvernante
to hiss, “Pick up your feet.”
Then I am face-to-face with Mother. Her eyes are as dark and as searching as those of the bird in my dream. And for a moment, while Madame and the nurses curtsy and murmur, “Your Majesty,” I am frozen by her gaze. A none-too-gentle nudge from Madame frees me. I make my own reverence, then, straightening, take François’ hand, not so much to reassure him as to fortify myself.
“Baronne de Curton”—the black eyes sweep over François and me from head to toe—“I presume from the grandeur of my children’s attire that my courier arrived. Given that you knew I was coming, I cannot, then, account for the state of that attire.”
Madame dips her head. I hear her draw breath. I wish I could find mine. Wish I could say that it is all François’ fault for climbing where he ought not. But my voice has flown. So instead I bite my lip so hard that it hurts, to punish myself.
“Abject apologies, Your Majesty. I am mortified.” My
gouvernante
bows her head lower still, and guilty tears prick the corners of my eyes.
Mother stands silent, perhaps to let each of us fully feel our faults. At last, when I do not think I can bear another moment of her scrutiny, she speaks. “I will see the children later. Make certain they are in better order.” Then, without a single word to François or me, Her Majesty moves past our little party, to take a seat by the same wall we just left.
* * *
As the shadows lengthen, I am dressed once more in a selection of my best things. The time has come for François and me to be brought before the Queen. I am desperate to make a better impression than I did this morning. Madame is equally eager. As we walk to Her Majesty’s apartment she makes me practice the Plutarch I plan to recite—twice. And when we stop before Mother’s door, she straightens my necklace and wipes some mark that only she can see from François’ face.
Satisfied, Madame raps and opens the door without hesitation at Mother’s summons. Her step does not falter as she crosses the threshold, while my feet feel as if they are made of lead.
“Your Majesty, the Prince and Princess,” Madame says, offering a nod to Mother’s venerable maid of honor, the Duchesse d’Uzès.
Mother regards us with a look of appraisal.
“François, have you been obedient and applied yourself to your lessons?”
My brother makes a solemn little bow. “Yes, Madame.” Our mother rewards his display with an inclination of her head. Then she turns her eyes to me.
“Margot, you are such a pretty child when you are not covered in dirt.”
I feel my face color, and make a low curtsy by way of reply—far easier than finding my voice.
“It pleases me to see both children in health.” Mother offers the Baronne an approving nod. “The thought of them here, safe, where the air is pure and free from both the infection of war and the creeping illness of heresy, was a great consolation to me while I attempted to talk peace with the Prince de Condé.”
At Mother’s mention of the notorious heretic commander Madame crosses herself. I mimic her gesture.
“I trust there are no French prayers here,” Mother continues.
“No indeed, Your Majesty!”
“Good. I have rooted out whatever there was of that nonsense in my Henri.” Her eyes shift back to me. “Does it please you to know that, when you see your brother next, there will be no need for you to hide your Book of Hours?”