The Devil's Queen: A Novel of Catherine De Medici (52 page)

Yet the night before, I had fallen into a dream filled with thousands of innocent screams. I woke terrified and spent the rest of the night in feverish thought: How was I to avert more war between Huguenots and Catholics?

Reason brought the solution: My daughter Elisabeth’s marriage to Philip of Spain had ended a war lasting two generations. Marriages of diplomacy were often used to make friends of former enemies. But Charles, with his surly temperament, was likely to insult or even harm a Protestant bride. Edouard had the mental suppleness to woo such a woman and win her. And Elizabeth of England seemed the only candidate worthy of him.

Henri and I had married when we were both fourteen: Charles was now twenty, and Edouard nearly nineteen. As a mother and a queen, I had been patient, but I could wait no longer.

I wandered out onto the balcony. Below, the courtyard was dappled by fireflies and a hundred lamps nestled in the boxwood mazes; moonlight glinted off the spray from the fountain. I closed my eyes and thought suddenly of my husband—how handsome he had looked when he had stood beside that very fountain, a young soldier returned from war.

A rustle below prompted me to open my eyes. In front of a low hedge, two dark masculine forms moved stealthily toward each other. Their fingers touched, and one man pulled the other into a hard embrace. Their faces merged for a lingering kiss. The smaller man pushed himself free and began to whisper—too faintly for me to hear, but the cadence held shame and sorrow.

The other listened, then spoke his piece, low, reasonable, yearning. He fell silent, and the pair stood still as statues—only to lunge at each other in the next instant.

The tall man led his fellow to a low hedge and swung him about so they faced the same direction. The smaller looked over his shoulder to protest but, at his lover’s touch, bent forward at the waist, his cap tumbling onto the lawn as he rested his elbows upon the clipped hedge.

The tall man slipped behind him and fumbled with clothing. A thrust of the hips, and the shadowed forms merged again into a single, many-limbed silhouette. The bent man let go a sharp sensual cry of pain; his partner clapped a hand over his mouth. As the bent man clawed at the hedge, the taller rode him.

I should have left them to their passion, but I was frankly curious. Viewed from the outside, their encounter seemed no different from that between a man and a woman. The rhythm of the act was the same: a trot, then a canter, then full gallop. At the end, the rider gripped his mount’s hips and reared back, his face inclined toward the moon, and let go a ragged gasp.

The tall rider staggered backward; his paramour straightened and covered his face with his hands.

The tall man took him in his arms and spoke gently until the shorter had composed himself. They parted with a kiss before walking briskly back toward the building.

I retreated into the shadows as the smaller man neared. The torchlight by
the entrance glinted off his face—his fine, smooth, clean-shaven face with its dimpled chin. Lignerolles put a hand to his dark hair, realized that he had forgotten his cap, and sprinted back toward the hedge to fetch it.

The taller man continued on. As he passed by the torches, I saw his face quite clearly, with its long, straight nose and black eyes that glittered like the diamond pendants hanging from his ears.

My Edouard, my precious eyes. I was not scandalized, only sad to know that the royal House of Valois was in danger of dying.

Hours before dawn, a guttural roar expelled me from my bed. Madame Gondi heard it, too, and came rushing out from the closet. The shouting grew closer, and soon I recognized the King’s voice.

“Bitch! Whore! How could you have betrayed me?”

A thud and a woman’s incoherent screams followed. By the time I peered out my antechamber door, Charles was in the corridor, dressed in silk leggings and an undershirt. He clutched Margot’s arm, and when I opened the door wider, he flung her at me.

“Go to your mother, whore!” he screamed. “Tell her how you have shamed us!”

Margot fell to her knees and grabbed my hands. She wore only her cotton nightgown, her hair falling down her back in unfettered waves. “He has finally gone crazy,
Maman
! Help me!”

I smoothed back a dark, errant lock at her cheek and saw that the shoulder of her gown had been torn. Beneath, the red, swelling skin bore marks in the shape of my son’s upper jaw.

I glared at Charles. “You have hurt her!”

“Tell her why!” he commanded her, and when she remained silent, he struck the back of her skull.
“Tell her why!”

She let go a wail; I put an arresting palm in the King’s face.
“Stop!”

Margot wept into her hands, utterly undone. “He spies on me,
Maman
. He watches me in my bed!”

“Because you are a whore!” Charles roared. “Because there was a man in your bed, and you were fucking him!”

He grabbed the hair at the nape of Margot’s neck and pulled her head backward to expose her throat. Lightning fast, he reached for a slender, gleaming object at his waist. His eyes shone with the same inhuman light I had seen at the hunt, when the entrails of the hare had dangled from his teeth.

“You don’t understand—I love her.” He waved the dagger a finger’s breadth above Margot’s tender skin. “At least, I did—until she betrayed me! Was it your first time with a cock between your legs, my sister? Did it hurt? Or did you revel in it, like a whore? Tell the truth! It was Henri of Guise, wasn’t it?”

“It was no one,” Margot sobbed.

As Charles lifted the dagger, I shielded Margot with my body and struck his arm. The dagger clattered to the marble floor and skittered toward the doorway.

He twisted Margot’s hair tightly and jerked her backward; she screamed and hit the floor. Charles raised the long, thick ribbon of hair in his fist like a trophy.

Margot pressed a palm to the back of her head; it returned covered in blood. I tried to push her brother away.

Swift as an asp, he struck out; the blow landed on my jaw and sent me reeling. I fell, my skull striking hard marble. For a moment, I was winded, paralyzed—yet aware of someone coughing hoarsely, uncontrollably.

I sat up. Margot was pressing both hands to the back of her bleeding head; Charles was hunched over, retching blood-speckled phlegm onto the floor even as he staggered toward the fallen dagger.

I stumbled toward my son; he reached the dagger first and shot me a gloating glance before bending down to retrieve it.

At the instant his fingers closed around the hilt, a bootheel slammed his wrist to the floor. I looked up to see Edouard, still in the clothes he had worn to the reception.

“
Maman,
Margot—my God, he has hurt you!” Edouard spotted the long, dark hank of hair—one end sticky with blood—on the floor and winced as though it had come from his own head.

“I found a man in her bed!” Charles shouted. “She was fucking him, I know it!” He began again to cough.

Edouard stared down at the dagger with dawning horror. “You meant to kill them . . .”

“Get off my damned hand!” Charles wheezed. “I command you, as your King!”

Edouard abruptly reined in his emotions. “I’ll lift my foot when
you
let go of the dagger, Charles.”

“But there was a man in Margot’s bed! Guise, I know it was Guise! Now get off my hand!”

Edouard folded his arms resolutely and remained still until Charles’s fingers slowly uncurled and let the dagger drop.

Edouard bent down and picked up the weapon, then lifted his foot; Charles crawled away to sit on the floor.

“I’ll have your head for this,” he croaked.

I hurried to Margot’s side and pressed a kerchief to her scalp; her shoulders and hair were soaked with blood. She had stopped trembling, and her tone was challenging. “There was no man in my room!”

“Lie all you wish,” Charles said, “but I know what I saw.”

“What
did
you see?” Edouard asked softly.

“Margot, in her nightgown,” Charles said. “And beside her, a naked man crawling out the window.”

“You didn’t see his face?” I asked. “How do you know it was Guise?”

“I . . .” Charles grew flustered, then defensive. “
Maman,
you saw the way he was flirting with her last night!”

“And you didn’t look out the window to see where he went?” Edouard pressed. “Or were you too busy jumping to conclusions?”

Charles huffed indignantly. “Margot blocked me from seeing who it was!”

“Charles,” I said reasonably, “if Guise despoiled a royal princess, it would cost him his head. However besotted he might be with Margot, he wouldn’t be so stupid.”

“For God’s sake,” Margot added irritably, “I detest the man!”

“Tell all the lies you want,” Charles hissed. “I’ll uncover the truth soon enough.” He glowered up at Edouard. “As for you . . . Before God, one day, I
will
kill you.” With that, he turned his back and strode off.

I let go an exhausted sigh. When Margot and Edouard believed my gaze
to be focused on their departing brother, they shared a look: hers, grateful; his, comforting.

In that fleeting instant before their expressions grew fraternal, there was something else on their faces, something calculating and unmistakably conspiratorial.

I told myself that I had been mistaken about Edouard and Margot plotting together. Margot’s ladies insisted that nothing untoward had happened in her bedchamber, but the single complicitous glance between brother and sister haunted me: I could not risk Margot becoming pregnant, and certainly could not risk her marrying a radical anti-Huguenot like Guise.

There was one obvious solution, for the good of my daughter and a united France. After the ugly encounter with Charles, I wrote a letter to my friend Jeanne, Queen of Navarre.

Why must we fight? Please come visit us, knowing that you are loved as family. I pray you are well, and happy; please reply quickly.

Her answer arrived several days later.

We are well, and as happy as those can be who are denied the freedom to worship God. Henri is a man now, as brave in battle as his namesake, your husband. He is morally strong and honest—traits that are sadly uncommon at the French Court—and devoted to the Protestant cause. He greets you and says that he hopes to see you again someday.

But he also says that such a day will not come until Protestants enjoy total freedom of worship.

I also penned a letter to Gaspard de Coligny, the Huguenot leader and nephew of old Montmorency. I was not surprised by Jeanne’s refusal, but I was delighted by Coligny’s reply:

We have no choice but to trust each other. Let me be the first to foster goodwill by putting my life in your hands.

No doubt you have formed an opinion of me based upon the reports of others; you will find that the reality is very different. I yearn to prove to you that His Majesty has no more devoted servant than I.

Admiral Gaspard de Coligny came to the Château at Blois in mid-September, when the oaks and poplars had just begun to turn, giving the valleys a golden cast. The morning his carriage arrived, I was sick with fever. I had tried several times to stand and be dressed, but my legs kept giving way.

A messenger from Edouard brought news that the Duke of Anjou, too, was unwell. The thought that Charles might receive the Huguenot leader alone unnerved me. The day before, the King had thrown a tantrum upon learning of Coligny’s visit.

I pointed out that the late Prince of Condé had attempted to capture us—Gaspard de Coligny had openly disapproved of the act. The King would not be jollied, however.

When I received Edouard’s message that he was ill, I changed our careful plans. A chaise longue and two chairs were placed beside my bed, and I settled, chattering with fever, beneath my blankets.

Edouard appeared early, in a dressing gown of lavender velvet and accompanied by a little dog with an opal collar. He was so weak that two attendants half carried him to my apartment. We rehearsed what we could say to reconcile Coligny and the King.

After a few hours, the Admiral was announced, and I sent for the King. Charles returned a message that he would not come, but I replied with another saying if he did not want Coligny under his roof, he should be brave enough to tell the Admiral so in person.

My strategy worked. Charles appeared soon afterward, lower lip thrust out in a pout, arms folded. Once he was settled into his chair, I gave the signal for our guest to be admitted.

Gaspard de Coligny entered. He was a short man, lean but thick of bone, with a swordsman’s powerful shoulders. Half a century of soldiering had weathered his handsome face. His pale hair was cropped short; his chin beard had been brushed out to give it a downy appearance. He sported no jewelry; his worn black doublet was better suited to a country priest than a nobleman, and his square cap was of plain brushed cotton. Yet his manner and movements were those of a man who expected the world to grant his every desire.