Médicis Daughter (41 page)

Charles raises a hand to his chin, clearly thinking. What monstrosities he considers: lying to officials of the Holy Church; marrying me off in a ceremony that—without the necessary dispensation—creates an alliance prohibited by canon law …

“Yes!” Charles jumps to his feet. “I will do it. Did I not promise Jeanne d’Albret as much? Did I not tell her that if
Monsieur le Pape
conducted himself too absurdly I would take Margot by the hand and marry her to our cousin Henri myself?”

“You did.” Mother nods, her face flushed with pleasure. “And I promise you I will not allow you to be embarrassed by His Holiness. I will instruct the governor of Lyons to detain all couriers from Rome until your sister’s marriage is sanctified.”

Charles laughs. “Do! It would be scandalous if a formal refusal arrived while my sister stood at the altar, or while she and my cousin were consummating the marriage.”

“Let us each make haste to do what we must to spread the word the dispensation is on its way, before Guise, Philip of Spain, or, God forbid, your sister hears and believes otherwise.”

Too late, Mother. I have heard the truth. Much good may that do me.
I let myself slide to the floor of my hiding place. The narrowness of the space pushes my knees to my chest. I rest my cheek upon them. I do not cry. I am too horrified for tears.

What course is open to me? Challenge Charles openly? To what end? A liar does not confess his transgression merely because he is accused of it. And to confront Charles is to risk something. Charles feels a genuine fondness for me. I will not squander his devotion by appealing to it fruitlessly. Having seen my brother’s face and heard the vehemence in his voice as he decried the Pope’s obstinacy, I know the matter of my marriage is beyond changing. Verily, I believe at this moment he would support a Protestant rite should it come to that. I shudder. If I am to be married against my will, I would at least have a Catholic ceremony. Anything else forces me into heresy. So I must let Charles’ lie stand and proceed with my wedding, pretending to believe in a dispensation I know does not exist.

I close my eyes, feeling empty, without ideas. Then Henri’s voice is in my head. He is telling me a battle tale. I am teasing him, because it took him two tries to win a city and he is insisting there is no shame in that, explaining how the lessons of a first defeat may help a commander to victory in the second assault. A very faint thought begins to take shape. There is another reason to make certain my dreaded wedding is a Catholic one. A marriage performed and later found unlawful due to an unexcused degree of consanguinity may be undone. This, insufficient as it may seem, is the hope I will cling to.

I must capitulate now in hopes of a victory later. But I will not surrender completely. I think back to the day that the King of Navarre arrived, to the promise I made him that he should never kiss more than my hand. To the promise I made Henri that I will not sleep with my husband. This is my next battle. I must find a way to keep my word and avoid being taken to wife. Today my cousin and I spoke as friends—that is what I will trade upon. The King of Navarre is smart enough to have realized by now that he has ridden into a nest of vipers. Perhaps he will see the sense in having at least one viper who can be counted upon not to bite him.

*   *   *

It is our last night before I am a married woman. Henri arrives full in equal parts of love and anger. He takes me as a man takes a city—fiercely and without mercy. There is a feeling of desperation in all that we do, in all that we say. And there are things I have promised myself not to reveal that weigh heavily upon me.

“Nothing will be different,” I say, rubbing his shoulders where he sits, naked and hunched on the side of my bed.

“Marguerite, do not treat me like a child or a fool. I am neither.”

“I do not.” I slip from behind him to sit beside him. “Ask yourself: What difference has the Princesse de Porcien made between us? None.”

“She is a woman. What rights does she have over me that she dare insist upon?”

“I have given you my word that there are some rights I will never grant the King of Navarre, husband or no.”

“So you have.” He puts his head momentarily in his hands, running his fingers through the sandy hair I love. When he looks up, his eyes are still despairing. “I believe you were in earnest in your oath. But what you intend and what Henri de Bourbon will allow…” His voice trails off.

I struggle to look unconcerned. But I have thought of this. My cousin does not seem a man full of temper, but he has more than once made clear he believes he will be my master once we are wed.

“I cannot understand His Holiness. He promised—” He stops short.

I have no doubt that the House of Lorraine worked behind the scenes to thwart my marriage. But if the Cardinal of Lorraine communicated with the Pope, why did my love not tell me? Perhaps he feared to raise my hopes.

“Never mind what anyone else promised.” I squeeze his hand. “We have each of us been betrayed by those who ought to have kept faith with us. So long as we do not betray each other, anything else can be borne.”

“Can it? Can I bear to attend your ceremony of betrothal and then see you paraded to the Archbishop’s palace tomorrow evening? How? How shall I stand outside as darkness falls, wondering which window is yours, knowing that no ladder will be lowered from it to guide me to you? And the following day … I cannot even speak of what comes next.”

I understand what he means. Did I not feel the same crushing grief on his wedding day? Yet, perhaps because I did and survived, he ought to take heart. He ought to be stronger. I find myself vexed by his complaints even as they move me. As I am the one currently facing unwelcomed vows, should not
he
be comforting
me
? I swallow the question just as I have been swallowing the words that would tell him the papal dispensation is a fiction.

“What would you have me do?” I ask. “If I refuse the marriage, I am dead to you. If I am not sick within a week and dying, I will be locked away until I am old.” I shudder at the thought of being bound to God against my will—of being turned into a black bird by a nun’s habit and then caged.

“Better a convent than the King of Navarre.”

I am stunned. I never asked this man to give up his future for me. In fact, I begged him to abandon me so that he might keep his prospects. Surely, I reassure myself, this is merely his anger and his exhaustion speaking. “Really, Henri?”

He looks away. For a moment we sit in silence and my discomfort grows. “No,” he says at last, returning his eyes to me and bringing one of my hands to his lips.

I exhale, although I did not realize I was holding my breath.

“They say your cousin will abandon his mourning for the wedding. Well, I will don the clothing of grief. It will be easy for you to see me as you look into the crowd of courtiers at Notre Dame. I will be the one clad in somber black.”

“Careful, Sir—” even at such a moment I cannot resist teasing him—“you may be mistaken for one of Navarre’s Protestants.”

He does not smile. “You cannot make me laugh this night, Marguerite. Are you like to laugh yourself?”

“No. But I will settle for not crying. We have hours left until you must leave. Let us not spend them sullen, singing dirges. Let us instead forget a future we cannot alter in an all-consuming passion that is as unchangeable.” I climb onto his lap and, leaning in, kiss him. It takes a moment, but first his lips and then his loins respond.

CHAPTER 17

August 18, 1572—Paris, France

I wake with a start. The sun streams into my room. No, not my room: a room belonging to His Grace the Archbishop. Dear God, I remember what day it is and wish I had been beyond waking—that my ladies had arrived to find me dead.

I begin to cry.

Gillone approaches with some trepidation, holding out a
surcote
for me to slip into. Behind her, framed by the window, the sun seems high. After struggling to sleep at all, have I slept away the last morning of my freedom?

“What is the hour?” I ask, wiping my eyes with my fists as if I were an
enfant
.

“Past eleven, Your Highness.”

Panic rises like bile in my throat.

“I’ve brought your breakfast.” The thought of eating—well, it seems impossible.

“How long?” I ask.

“Not two hours.”

In less than two hours the woman taxed with preparing me for my nuptial Mass will arrive. The thought of a dozen ladies buzzing around me, laughing and making merry, is unbearable.

My crushing longing of the night before returns. Having been paraded here by the whole of my family, I was left alone, and alone I lay awake. How I wanted Henri. If only I could see him now and be reminded that I still have something to live for. But I dare not ask for him. I will see him next in company he despises, for my love, owing to his offices, must accompany the King of Navarre’s cortege.

“I wish I could wear black,” I say to Gillone, remembering what Henri said of his day’s costume. I pull the
surcote
around me tightly as if it were the depth of winter and not a sweltering day in August. “Where is the wig?”

Gillone is stunned. Little wonder. I do not commonly wear wigs, not since Henri told me that he disliked them on me so long ago. Yet one arrived for my wedding. It, like everything else, was selected by Mother to create an image that serves her purposes.

Gillone opens a large leather case and lifts the
coiffure
out. Its pale-colored curls, extravagantly arranged, will do perfectly. They will help me assert and remember that it is Marguerite, Duchesse de Valois and Princess of France, and not Margot the woman, who weds the King of Navarre.

Sooner than it seems possible, servants arrive carrying my fine garments. Gillone helps me don the chemise with its elaborate lace-trimmed collar designed to frame my head. She is holding out my cloth-of-gold slippers when Henriette arrives.

Taking one look at my face, she says, “Your groom abandons mourning for his wedding day, but I see that here a pall remains.”

I begin to cry. I have lost count of my bouts of tears since waking.

Shaking her head, my friend says, “Well, it is better to weep now. Once you are dressed, your gown could be spoiled.”

“Good!” I reply viciously.

“Being unhappy is no reason to be unattractive. Remember, the Duc’s eyes will be upon you, doubtless far more often than your husband’s.”

Claude arrives with the Baronne de Retz. “Tell the others that they are not needed,” I command the Baronne. I desire as few witnesses as possible to my misery.

As she helps me into my bodice, so crusted with jewels that its weight might overwhelm a more fragile woman, my sister makes a feeble attempt to cheer me. “How marvelous this violet velvet looks against your skin.”

I cannot resist turning my eyes in the direction of my glass. I am a tribute to my brother’s kingdom—my gown so thickly embroidered with gold fleurs-de-lis that one might be forgiven for mistaking me for the Queen of France rather than the soon-to-be Queen of Navarre.

Led to the dressing table, I allow my mind to wander while the ladies apply my makeup and Gillone pins up my hair in preparation for covering it.

“Surely this will rouse her.” Henriette’s slightly mocking voice draws my attention. The Duchesse holds out a tray where a magnificent necklace rests. Enormous rubies and diamonds alternate along its length, and, intermittently, pearls as large as grapes hang like teardrops. “There is a tiara to match.” Henriette motions for the Baronne de Retz to open another box.

“Gifts from our brother,” Claude says quickly, as if she is worried I might think the objects come from my cousin. She need have no fear. I have seen my soon-to-be-husband’s taste in clothing and jewels. He has none. Such a heedless man could never have selected these things.

As she stoops to clasp the necklace around my neck, Henriette whispers, “It looks well with your gown, but just imagine how divine you would look wearing it
tout seul
. You must model it for Henri.” I know which Henri she means, but still I shudder at the idea that my cousin should ever see me naked.

Wigged and crowned I stand again while Gillone winds an ermine
couët
around me. The others wait, each holding a portion of my mantle with its enormous train. As they secure it at my shoulders, Mother enters.

“Daughter.” Her nod of acknowledgment is curt. Turning to Henriette, she demands, “Is she ready?”

I begin to cry. I cannot help it. I am doing what Her Majesty desires—marrying my loathsome cousin—still Mother has no word of love or comfort for me.

“Have you nothing to say, Madame, to your daughter on her wedding day?” I sniff.

“Stop crying,” she commands. “Half a million écus were spent to make you look the queen. Will you spoil the effect with a red nose?”

In the great gallery my train awaits. Charles looks oddly out of place standing at the head of a column of more than one hundred noblewomen. Many eyes are upon me, but most seem intent on taking in the details of my costume. Only those of the Queen Consort meet my own. She offers an encouraging smile. Mother leads me to the King, then takes her place. All around us there is a murmur of excited voices, yet my brother and I remain silent. Clarions are heard.

“It is the signal!” My sister Claude is not the only one to say it, but I hear her most clearly. Those ladies charged with carrying the train of my mantle rush to unroll it. Now my mother and sister are four ells behind me. Even if they were to offer me last-minute words of advice or encouragement, I could not hear them.

The doors of the hall swing open and ahead the outer doors of the palace stand open as well—a yawning chasm of pure, white light. As we begin to move forward, I can see nothing beyond this threshold. Can this be what a prisoner feels on the day of his execution? Dragged from a dark cell, seeing light, usually the symbol of all that is pure and good, and knowing it marks his doom?

Out I plunge, determined to make a good end. Determined that the tears I shed in my apartment will be my last until I am again in private.