The Hostage Queen (38 page)

‘Now we’ll go on to Senlis,’ Navarre urged. ‘Come, we’ll have good sport.’

Guise agreed, but once in the forest it was easy to give him the slip and for Navarre to ride ahead and take a different path with his men. Once out of sight of Guise and the guards, he dug his heels into the flanks of his horse and rode hard, not stopping until they had crossed the Loire.

Here he reined in his tired horse, lifted his eyes to the heavens and cried, ‘Thanks be to God for my deliverance. They were the death of my mother at Paris; they murdered the Admiral and all my noblest servants. And they would not have done much better by me if God had not preserved me. I would not return there if they dragged me.’

But at this poignant moment, when he was at last a free man, Henry of Navarre added in his usual jocular fashion, ‘I only regret Paris for the sake of two things I left behind. The one is the Mass, the other is my wife. As for the first, I must try to do without it. But as for the latter, I cannot do without her, and would wish to see her again.’

‘He has gone without saying goodbye,’ Margot mourned to Madame de Curton. ‘Did he say farewell to his mistress?’

‘I know not, my lady.’

‘I did not even hear him go, but then we occupy separate beds, although in the same room.’

Margot was deeply thankful that he was safe, yet oddly sorrowful at his departure. With both brother and husband now gone, she was quite alone.

The next day the King strode into Margot’s privy chamber in a rage such as she’d never seen in him before. She’d grown used to Charles’s tantrums, but lazy, indolent Henri could rarely summon the energy to disagree with anyone, let alone lose his temper.
The King spent hours each day lying on a divan, lazily drinking sherbets, since he never touched wine, fondling or teasing his lap dogs into a frantic excitement.
Lately, though, his behaviour had been growing ever more erratic, and now he was beside himself with rage, shouting and abusing her, calling her all manner of names.

He was quite convinced that she had played a major part in the Princes’ disappearance. ‘My own sister has betrayed me!’ he roared. ‘It would give me great pleasure to kill you here and now.’

Margot cowered before him, shaking with terror, expecting the blow to fall at any moment. It might well have done so had not the Queen Mother intervened. Catherine had always balked at murdering the nobility, and certainly stopped short of disposing of her own family. Now she urged her son to be calm.

‘Let us take a moment to consider, my son. You might well have occasion for your sister’s services at some time in the future. Just as it is prudent not to put too much confidence in friends, lest they should one day become our enemies, so it is equally advisable to conduct ourselves in like manner towards our enemies, if we hope they may one day become our friends. It will be punishment enough to lock the girl in her room. Post guards at the doors of her apartments by all means. Hold her hostage, as she deserves.’

Margot attempted a protest at this indignity. ‘I have not spoken with my husband. He did not visit me when I was recently indisposed, nor did he even take leave of me when he left court.’

‘That is nothing,’ Catherine scoffed. ‘It is merely a trifling difference between man and wife which a few sweet words conveyed in a letter would set to rights. Once he has regained your affections, he has only to write and beg you to come to him, and you would set off at the first opportunity. This is what the King my son wishes to prevent.’

Henri grudgingly allowed himself to be soothed and calmed, and to accept these less radical measures. But his anger simmered on beneath the surface as he glared at Margot, his long Italian eyes hard and unforgiving.

By way of retaliation he ordered the murder of her former lady-in-waiting Madame de Thorigny, whom he had earlier dismissed from her household for an alleged unseemly relationship with her mistress. He sent a party of men to kidnap the poor woman. They took her from her house, bound her arms and legs, and carried her to the Seine where they were about to throw her in the surging river when a troop of soldiers came upon them and rescued her. She would live to tell the tale, but it was a salutary warning to Margot, filling her with fresh fear.

‘The King will not be satisfied till he has my head on the block,’ she sobbed to Madame de Curton. ‘I am done for. There will be no peace for me here. They will hold me as hostage until I can follow my husband to freedom.’

Life for Margot fell to a new low, far worse than the years of incarceration she’d endured when they’d all three been held in the Louvre following the St Bartholomew’s Eve massacre. She was confined to her own apartment with guards posted at the door to prevent her from leaving, and apart from the ever faithful Madame de Curton, rarely saw a single person. Not the Queen Mother, nor even Queen Louise, who found the feuding and intrigues at court very trying and had little sympathy for her sister-in-law. Margot did not have the same rapport with Henri’s Queen as she had enjoyed with Charles’s, Elisabeth of Austria, who was now back home at her father’s court. Nor did many friends dare come near, in case they too might be accused of being complicit in the Princes’ escape.

‘It is ever thus, Lottie. When one is successful and admired in court, everyone wishes to be your friend. Adversity is solitary, while prosperity dwells in a crowd.’

Margot filled the long lonely days with reading the classics, writing letters, and applying herself to her religious devotions.

‘You make me proud,’ said her old governess. ‘You are showing great fortitude, turning these days of persecution into an opportunity for further study.’

Margot smiled. ‘I trust my love of literature and philosophy will save my sanity. Science conducts us, step by step, through the whole range of creation, until we arrive, at length, at God. Misfortune prompts us to summon our utmost strength to oppose grief and recover tranquillity.’

She was also engaged in secret correspondence with her husband. How Madame managed to spirit these letters in and out of the palace, she did not know and dare not ask, yet her loyal companion somehow achieved this seemingly impossible task without their being discovered.

Navarre wrote first, begging Margot to forget their differences, and be assured that he did wish to love her and have her as his true wife, as soon as she was able to come to him. His kind words brought tears to her eyes and, ever generous, her feelings towards him softened and Margot forgave him his indiscretions. If no one else cared for her, not the King her brother, nor even her own mother, at least she still had a husband who would welcome her back into his arms.

‘Now that he is at a distance from his Circe, Madame de Sauves, perhaps he is listening to good advice. His eyes have been opened and he has discovered the plots and machinations of our enemies. Our continued disagreement can only be the ruin of us both.’

Until they could be together, he urged her to keep him informed of the state of affairs at court, and with her brother, which did generate a small doubt in her mind.

‘Does he truly love me, Lottie, and want me to join him in Béarn, or am I more use to my husband as a spy here in Paris?’

Madame de Curton wisely ventured no opinion on the subject.

Margot began to sense a growing fear in her mother, and the King, that she might ultimately seek revenge for her prolonged incarceration, which caused her some amusement. In a bid to gain her much longed for freedom she prudently insisted that nothing was further from her mind.

‘I would never prefer my own good to the welfare of my brothers and the State, to which I am ready to sacrifice myself. I want nothing more than peace, and would do all in my power to bring that about.’

But Margot’s hatred of Henri continued unabated. Her brother claimed to have only her interests at heart, yet whenever she pleaded, with tears in her eyes, that she might join her husband in Béarn, he refused to consider it.

‘You will remain a hostage until Alençon, who you so favoured, returns to court.’

Her younger brother came later in the year, accompanied by Bussy and a small army of his most notable gentlemen, and the King made a great show of receiving them with all generosity, as if he loved him dearly. Anyone watching the pair embrace would never have thought them capable of plotting against each other. But then Henri had realized the political necessity of at least a show of reconciliation.

The country was rife with rumour that the charismatic Guise was the people’s choice as king, that they were turning against the Valois. This sickened and enraged him, and in a fit of pique, Henri broke with tradition and ascribed himself as leader of the Catholic League, a typically dramatic and unnecessary gesture. He went further by reminding Alençon of his duty as a Son of France who would one day wear the crown, offering him support to win a Catholic crown in the Low Countries rather than a Protestant one, for the sake of the House of Valois and of France.

Alençon instantly abandoned the Huguenots and the
Politiques,
changed sides once again, and likewise joined the League.

Margot remained under house arrest, although no longer so closely confined to her apartments. Many still turned their backs as she walked by, reluctant to acknowledge friendship with the notorious Queen of Navarre, or even speak to her. Only one old friend risked the displeasure of the King by reaffirming his support, and that was Guise.

Seeing her standing alone one morning at the back of the room during the King’s lever, he came up behind her and gently pinched her waist. Margot let out a tiny squeal, and then, realizing who teased her, couldn’t help but turn and laugh up at him.

‘I’ve missed you,’ he said, keeping his voice low and his eyes on the King.

The royal bedchamber was
strewn with flower petals, the bed gilded and decorated with cloth of silver. Henri lay back upon crimson satin pillows in his white satin manteau-de-nuit, richly adorned with silver spangles. The chief valet was carefully removing the mask that had been soaked in perfumed oil to protect His Majesty’s face while he slept, in order to offer him a collation of sweetmeats before he rose. A second valet-de-chambre was standing before the fire airing a shirt worked in exquisite needlework.

‘It was by your own folly that we separated.’

‘But that is all in the past, and of no account,’ he said dismissively, half turning
away as if fascinated by the way the valet was now removing the King’s embroidered night gloves and massaging his long white hands.

Margot cast a sideways glance up at him through her lashes.
She remembered well the warmth of his skin, the scent of leather and sandalwood about his person. So strong, so masculine, in marked contrast to the ceremony they were now witnessing with her effeminate brother.

A shirt was
being slipped over the King’s head, the high collar set upright, then the doublet was pulled on, so close fitting that it took two valets to set it properly in place and fasten it. Silk stockings came next, puffed, slashed breeches, and a pair of shoes, small and dainty enough for a woman rather than a king.

‘You expect me to forgive you when you treated our love so shabbily, falling at the feet of that harlot de Sauves?’

‘You forgave your husband and brother, why not your lover?’

Margot sighed with exasperation. What was it about that woman? A harlot indeed, who, under the edict of the Queen Mother, had been ordered to plot and cause mischief where she could. Yet Guise was as handsome and as desirable as ever. There was something in his eyes even now, in the way his look challenged her, that she found impossible to resist. To see him about court and not be able to speak to him was painful enough; to have him press so close was robbing her of any sensible thought.

‘You and I should talk,’ he murmured, in that throaty tone that set her pulses racing.

‘Not here. You must be mad to even attempt it in such a public place.’

The valets were decking Henri out with perfumed gloves, handkerchief, rings, chains, a mirror that hung from his girdle along with a delicate lace fan, pomander and comfit boxes. Last of all, they carefully set his Polish-style hat with its decorative plume upon the royal perfumed hair.