The Reluctant Queen (2 page)

But the game was obliged to be put on hold, for next day a courier came galloping into Nérac with the astonishing news that Queen Margot, accompanied by her mother Catherine de Medici, was travelling south to rejoin her husband. She had already reached Sarlat and would be with him in a matter of days.

A hazy summer heat hung over the French countryside as the cavalcade set forth on its long journey south. It was as extravagant and glorious as any of Catherine de Medici’s undertakings, meant to impress the local populous and prove the power and magnificence of the House of Valois. Following close behind the Queen Mother’s coach came her daughter’s splendid litter. With its carnation velvet lining, and gold embroidery decorated with designs of the sun, it was a glittering testament to her status as Queen of Navarre.

After two long years of separation, Margot was at last to be allowed to join her husband.

She was accompanied on her journey by her chancellor, Pibrac, her secretary, treasurer, doctor, clerks, saddlers, bakers, grooms, chaplain, confessor, apothecaries, maids-of-honour, masters of the royal wardrobe, all manner of people who were loyal to and dependent upon her. She was loved and adored by many, not least Madame de Curton, her faithful old governess and servant, now first lady of the bedchamber, who had been more of a mother to her than her own had ever been.

‘We will make a good life in Béarn,’ Madame constantly reassured her.

‘I know it,’ Margot agreed. ‘How can I fail with you by my side?’

Overjoyed as she was to be free, and to escape the confines of the Louvre where the Queen her mother, and her brother King Henri Trois, had kept her prisoner for so long, Margot headed south with conflicting emotions of nervousness and excited anticipation.

Henry of Navarre had never been her choice of husband. Margot had known him since childhood as they were also third cousins, but she’d always thought him a country bumpkin, a clumsy oaf with grubby feet, garlic-tainted breath and a fickle heart. Yet he was undoubtedly good natured and easy going, amiable and friendly, a man with intelligence and wit. He was also a man who had cheated death by playing the fool. Margot herself had saved his life more than once, and had ultimately assisted in his escape from the Louvre, where he too had been held under house arrest for four long years; ever since their marriage in that never-to-be-forgotten summer of 1572.

As Henry was a Huguenot and Margot a Catholic, their marriage had been entirely political and intended to bring peace to the realm. Yet within days of what had become known as the Blood Red Wedding, the massacre of St Bartholomew had taken place, and thousands of innocent souls had been murdered. It was a legacy to blight any marriage.

On his return to Béarn, Henry had written frequent letters to the Queen Mother, requesting his wife be allowed to join him. But would he still welcome her? Would he even want her?

In spite of the difficulties between them, Margot was a natural optimist, and loved nothing more than a new adventure. She had great hopes for her future in Béarn, and saw no reason why she couldn’t win over the people of her husband’s court, even if they were sober Calvinists.

Everywhere they stopped along the way, the people were enchanted by the beauty of the young Queen, and by her eloquence and wit when she addressed them. Margot was twenty-five and fully aware that she was at the peak of her beauty, with flawless white skin, firm bosom and a slender, swanlike neck for which she designed beautiful décolleté gowns. She never failed to enchant, dressing in silver brocade or her favourite orange-gold. The peasants would gaze at her as her litter passed by, as if they looked upon a goddess.

And if she had not yet won her husband’s heart, quite against all the odds they had formed a certain bond, a friendship which had remained reasonably solid through some testing times. Distance had softened his most annoying habits, and there would surely be the opportunity now to develop that friendship further, once they were reunited.

Of course, he was not the most faithful of husbands, and they had quite early on reached an agreement upon the nature of their marriage. Margot herself had taken lovers, out of pride and retaliation, at least at first. First, there had been La Molle who had met with a tragic end, and then Bussy d’Amboise, a most impudent, mischievous knave who had amused her greatly.

Shortly after their departure from Paris, a message had reached Margot informing her that he had been killed. She’d wept copious tears for her one-time lover, the man who had helped her plot and plan her brother Alençon’s escape from the Louvre. And he had brought such pleasure into what would otherwise have been a dull life without his audacious wit to make her laugh, and his sexual romps to excite her.

Sadly, he’d been caught by a cuckolded husband in the wife’s bedchamber, attacked by a dozen of his men and thrown out of the window to his death. Poor, foolish Bussy.

But Margot’s true affections lay not with her husband or either of these entertaining lovers, but with Henri de Guise. He had been the love of her life for as long as she could remember, and, as the coach rumbled on, she turned her thoughts back to their last meeting.

They had lain together in their favourite trysting place in a quiet part of the Louvre, making love for one last time. Margot had been distressed that in future the space in her bed would be occupied by another, even if that man were her own husband. Would he not feel like a stranger, an intruder?

Guise had lifted the heavy curtain of her dark hair to kiss her slender neck and asked how she could bear to leave him for a Huguenot Prince?

‘Because he is my husband, and I would be a true wife to him,’ had been her very right and proper reply, which had amused him greatly.

‘Ha, an impossibility! The fellow drives you to distraction with his many amours. Am I not a better man than he?’

Margot had explained how she had no choice but to go. ‘I can stay no longer in this hot house of intrigue and danger. I need to be free to live and breathe and not be constantly checking my own shadow.’

They’d talked for some time, and made love with a desperate, burning passion. Then he’d captured her face between his two hands and sworn his undying love for her. ‘I too would feel happier if you were safe. But not a day will go by when I will not yearn for you.’

Despite its softness, his last kiss had been filled with both passion and love. When it was done, he’d gazed deep into her eyes. ‘Go in peace, my Queen of Hearts, and remember my promise to you. Should you ever be in need of my help, I am yours.’

This was a fresh beginning for Margot, a new dawn, and although she could call on her lover if the need arose, she most of all must depend upon herself.

The Queen Mother was feeling old. She was travelling with her daughter not out of love or even affection, but to see her safely restored to her husband and take up her rightful role as Queen of Navarre. She had a second, more important mission, to bring peace to France, and Catherine kept up her spirits as best she may while secretly dreading the many months of travel and hardship she faced.

She was fifty-nine, a large woman, her girth increasing with age, and bore the characteristic long Valois nose, double chin, slightly bulging eyes and a full mouth. She suffered from gout and rheumatism, although her energy was as boundless as ever; and was sometimes so stiff from travelling in her coach that she would take to riding a mule, so long as one could be found strong enough to bear her weight.

‘How my son the King would laugh to see me,’ she would chortle, still able to laugh at herself.

Dressed in her customary black, she was today wearing a gown with wide wing sleeves, a bodice pointed at the front and rounded at the back, and a white ruff encircled by a high black collar. It was much adorned with beadwork and jewels, and a black mantle hung from her shoulders. A peaked widow’s hood covered most of her hair which had once been black and was now largely grey, although she sometimes wore a peruke. Unlike the English Queen Elizabeth I, she did not pluck her eyebrows, nor widen her brow, but she did like a touch of rouge on her cheeks to brighten skin kept fashionably pale with a white lead paste.

Catherine was never less than elegant, even magnificent in her dress, but she was just a little envious of Margot’s youth and beauty.

‘My daughter, you look splendid,’ she acidly commented as Margot prinked and preened herself for the dinner to be held that evening by some local lord, who would no doubt near bankrupt himself in his attempt to impress.

‘Madame, I am wearing only the dresses and ornaments I brought with me from court, for when I return there I shall not take them back with me, but shall simply arrive with scissors and materials, which I shall have made up in the current fashion.’

Catherine gave her loud booming laugh. ‘Why do you say that, for it’s you who sets and invents the fashions, and wherever you are, the court will copy them from you, not you from the court.’

But the Queen Mother was more concerned with winning over the south, a haven for Huguenots, than worrying about finery. Her entourage largely replicated those of her daughter’s, plus a small
cabinet
, her old friend the Duchess d’Uzès, and the Cardinal of Bourbon, as Catherine never stopped working or wasted a moment. The long hours in the coach were filled by reading State papers and signing documents.

She’d taken something of a risk by accompanying her daughter on this journey, but hoped that Navarre would not refuse to talk with her. He surely wouldn’t wish to risk offending the King of France, and he did seem surprisingly anxious to have his wife returned to him. Catherine hoped that Margot would bring her husband back to the rightful church, which might then help to solve all their problems.

If Margot failed in this mission, she’d brought along Charlotte de Sauves, who had once entranced Navarre and could likely do so again. The Queen Mother never travelled anywhere without her bevy of beautiful women from her flying squadron, her
Escadron Volant
. Under Catherine’s careful instructions de Sauves had seduced both Margot’s husband and her brother, the Duke of Alençon, in an attempt to set one against the other, as well as cause friction between man and wife. There’d been a certain amount of conflict created yet the ruse had sadly failed to effectively divide this dangerous triumvirate.

Shrewd and clever as she was where politics were concerned, human nature had ever been a mystery to Catherine de Medici.

But if Henry had tired of de Sauves then Catherine had others in her squadron, including a young Cyprian beauty, Victoria de Ayala, known as Dayelle, who would be sure to enchant him. Of Greek birth, she had escaped from Cyprus in 1570 when the island had been taken by the Turks. Catherine’s late son Charles IX had saved the girl and her brother by paying for them to come to France; the boy entering the service of the Duke d’Alençon, and the girl joining Catherine’s
Escadron Volant
. One or other of these delectable ladies would help her to persuade her son-in-law to sign the peace agreement she so badly needed.

Catherine de Medici was a woman used to getting her own way, and with her own particular methods of ensuring that she got it. It amused her that rumours were bruited abroad that she had even disposed of her son-in-law’s own mother, Jeanne d’Albret, with the aid of a pair of poisoned gloves. True or not, those who had dared to seriously challenge her, such as Coligny the Huguenot leader, Lignerolles, who had done much harm to her favourite son’s health with his ascetic practices, and others, had not lived to tell the tale.

Henry of Navarre was secretly most eager to see his wife again. Despite their squabbles and their differences, Margot held a fascination for him which he found hard to resist. Not simply because of her beauty but also for her fire, her spirit, her sense of adventure and her
joie de vivre
. He could not deny that she was warm and spontaneous, generous and loving. There was some magnetism about her, some indefinable charisma. It did not surprise him that she was the darling of the court, and it was perhaps a pity that he could not seem to love her as a husband should. Nevertheless, such sentiment was not essential in a royal marriage, and he still found her extremely attractive and was more than ready to welcome her back to his bed.

He suspected the people of Béarn, however, may have a different view of their new queen, certainly the more narrow minded Puritans amongst them. Some already spoke of Margot as the Papist Temptress, or the Whore of Babylon.

But then they were not any more trusting of him, their king, since he had been obliged to turn Catholic in order to save his own skin. He’d reiterated his devotion to the Protestant faith of his upbringing on his return, in order to regain his kingdom, yet the people lacked confidence in his loyalty. It perhaps did not help that at his own court here in Béarn he employed adherents to both faiths among his staff. He saw that as enlightened. What was so wrong in tolerating the religious beliefs of others, of allowing people to worship God in whatever way they chose? Others, sadly, took a different view.

In reality neither side trusted him. The Catholics were his enemies, and the Huguenots lived in constant fear of a new massacre. Thankfully, he still had the support of Condé, who was in the north, Turenne, always by his side, and Damville, whose skills as a soldier were beyond question.

Catherine had asked him to meet them at Bordeaux, but he had wisely declined. Henry of Navarre refused to venture far from his own lands, where he felt safe, and many Catholic towns naturally refused to grant him leave to enter. His Queen, and his mother-in-law, would instead be met by the Marechal de Biron, the King’s General at Guyenne: a fierce, uncompromising soldier who liked to pretend he was a Protestant but remained Catholic at heart.