History's Great Queens 2-Book Bundle: The Last Queen and The Confessions of Catherine de Medici (65 page)

My breath drained from my lungs. My knees crumpled under me.

On the floor, with my face in my hands, this time I grieved as a Florentine.

I
N FLORENCE WHEN A LOVED ONE DIES, WE SET OUT FEASTS. WE
invite our relatives, neighbors, and friends to eat and recount our times with the departed. We tell tales, some humorous, others sad, but always with the aim of keeping our loved one with us awhile longer. We allow the celebration of life to assuage our grief and guide us toward the future that awaits us.

I wasn’t permitted any of this. No sooner did le Balafré and Monsignor institute our official forty days of mourning than I was obliged to assume my cloister in the Hôtel de Cluny, that crumbling old palace where royal widows confronted the vacuity of their lives. It was an archaic custom, designed to ensure the queen wasn’t pregnant, for this could upset the established succession, particularly if she later gave birth to a son. Henri and I had not been together for weeks before his death; I knew I was nearing the end of my time of fertility, but none of this mattered. The Guises had ordained that I must bow to the custom and I had to submit.

Sequestered in rooms draped from eaves to floor in white, I donned the black mourning of Italy in defiance, taking the broken lance as my emblem even as my every move was reported by attendants handpicked
by Monsignor. I should weep and wail against my fate; question God’s will and my own helplessness before it, until pummeled by grief, I’d accept the inevitable and seek solace in a well-appointed convent or rural house. After all, I was no longer queen. Mary Stuart had assumed my place; and no doubt my crest was already being dismantled from the walls to make way for hers. I had a pension and my estate; like other royal widows had done before me, my time had come to retire from the world.

No one expected anything more of me.

And I considered it, long and hard. It would be so easy to do. I had Chenonceau. I could grow old among my vineyards and fruit trees and never look back. Why shouldn’t I seize what little happiness I had left? Had I not sacrificed enough for duty? Unlike the duchesse d’Étampes, who’d died in poverty at Diane’s hands, unlike Queen Eleanor, who had left France after my father-in-law’s death, unloved and unwanted, I could walk away from court and forge a new life for myself, unfettered by struggles that no longer concerned me.

Only the thought of the Guises’ ceaseless ambition, of their hounding of my son as he huddled terrified of the unknown gave me incentive. I would not sit out my widowhood in safety while they ruled in my child’s name. I had borne their insufferable dominion long enough; the time had come for me to stake my place at my son, our new king’s, side.

If I did not fight for him, who would?

I stood, cast aside my veil. The sight of my face for the first time in weeks brought the ladies to a standstill. The sole personal attendant I’d been allowed, my Lucrezia, smiled.

“Your Grace,” one of them inquired. “Do you feel unwell?”

“On the contrary.” My voice was hoarse from disuse. “I am both fit and hungry. Please see that I’m served some meat today. I’ve a craving for it.”

“Meat?” she gasped. Broth, bread, and cheese were all widows should eat; widows were frail and meat incites the blood.

“Yes. And be quick about it. While I dine, you can pack my belongings for transfer to the Louvre. Send a messenger to tell my son, the king, that I am on my way. A poor mother I would be to deny him solace at this trying time.”

Thus did I cut short my mourning and took leave of the Hôtel de Cluny.

• • •

The world had changed. Overnight, the Tournelles had been abandoned to its ghosts, while the Louvre blazed with light from torches mounted on its facade, spilling liquid gold over laughing courtiers who, days ago, were full of grief. A fete was obviously in progress.

Lucrezia and I shifted through the crowds. Few noticed me, cloaked as I was, and music assaulted my ears as I climbed to the second floor and my apartments, where my household awaited. Anna-Maria rushed to hug me; Birago took me gently by the arm and led me to the table. Though he looked thinner than usual in his scarlet Florentine robe, his concern for me furrowing his angular brow, his presence was a reassuring reminder that I still had friends.

That night as we dined, he related that Monsignor the Cardinal and his brother, le Balafré, had seized control of the government, overseeing the Council, the treasury, and the military, and sending out proclamations announcing as much. They’d made themselves regents in deed, if not by title, usurping my son’s rights as king.

“But François is fifteen,” I protested. “He’s of legal age to rule. How could they do this?”

“He let them,” said Birago. “He signed a paper giving them power to oversee his administration, but I don’t think he understood what he signed.” He paused, lowering his eyes in obvious discomfort. “Le Balafré has taken him and Mary Stuart hunting in the Loire Valley, claiming they needed time away from court.”

I sat stunned, even as my fist curled about my goblet. I wanted to hurl it across the room. I should never have gone into cloister; in doing so, I’d given the Guises the opportunity to make themselves de facto rulers. François was scared and impressionable; of course he’d signed a paper handing over the realm to them. He knew nothing of ruling and the Guises had been right there to ensure he didn’t need to learn.

“There’s one more thing,” Birago said, switching to Italian, which he did when he had something private to impart. I loved hearing our language in his cultured voice, though the news was not good. “Monsignor instituted an edict against the Huguenots. The constable argued against it, saying the burning of Frenchmen would damage the king’s reputation, but the cardinal would not heed him and sent him from court. His
nephew Coligny also left but told me before he did that he hoped you might receive him when you returned.”

I was sorry Montmorency had left, for I needed everyone who opposed the Guises. I was also intrigued that Coligny had foreseen I would return. After all these years, he apparently still remembered me. Did he ever recall our afternoon in Fontainebleau, when we’d discussed Machiavelli and the Huguenots? He’d shown himself as someone who viewed the world without delusions of grandeur. Perhaps he could be the ally I needed to oust the Guises from power.

“I would like to see him,” I said at length. “Do you know how he can be reached?”

“Letters can be exchanged, but I must warn you, rumor has it Coligny favors the Huguenots, that he attends their sermons and reads their books. Some even say he’s converted to their faith.”

“Well, rumors are not fact.” I refilled my goblet. Strangely enough, I didn’t feel fear, though it was to be as I’d suspected—a battle to the death with the Guises for control over François. I had done battle before, I told myself. I battled Diane for years. And like her, the Guises had no idea how far I was willing to go to protect my children.

After my meal, I penned my missive and entrusted it to Birago. “Deliver this and then let it be known I wish to visit my children at St. Germain, as a loving mother should.”

Birago nodded, a knowing smile on his lips.

My children were under the care of their governors, Madame and Monsieur d’Humeries, and my sister-in-law, Marguerite, who was due to leave for Savoy. She and I shared a final supper together, after which I gave her the dented brazier in which we’d concocted my potions. “Take it, and whenever you burn the lavender, think of me,” I said, and we embraced.

Henri’s death and the absence of Diane (for she’d been a constant, if nothing else) had not affected my children as much as I’d feared. I found Hercule and Margot playing with toys, oblivious to the tragedy that had made their elder brother king. Even my eight-year-old Henri seemed untroubled, insisting that I let him show me his latest deck of hand-painted cards. He was well advanced in his studies, his tutor informed
me, and excelled in all outdoor activities. Looking at his slim, lean frame, I couldn’t help but think fate had played a horrid trick in making François my firstborn. Henri had suffered least from Diane’s pernicious influence and would surely have made a better king, despite his youth.

I wasn’t so reassured by my nine-year-old Charles, however. He demonstrated a deep sensitivity over the loss of his father, crying so disconsolately that I had to choke back my own tears as I assured him Papa was in heaven now, watching over us. Charles looked too thin and sallow, and I devised a new diet for him, rich in red meats and legumes.

Elisabeth was also pale and thin, but she had not succumbed to her grief, informing me she’d met with the Spanish delegation to tell them she would travel in December to Spain. She’d been spending time with Claude, now wife to the Duke of Lorraine, and they’d found consolation in each other. I didn’t look forward to saying good-bye to Elisabeth in a few short months but she insisted that her father would want her to go.

I took refuge from the sorrow of losing her in my own plans. Several days after my arrival in St. Germain, I received an answer to my missive. Three short lines:
In two days, at dusk in the gardens. If I don’t arrive by nightfall, leave. I’ll send word
.

“Yes,” I told Birago. “Tell him I’ll be there.”

I stood under the palace’s shadow, the fading sun bloodying the sky. Wind buffeted St. Germain’s turrets, sweeping away the pall of smoke that hung over Paris. My advice to Monsignor had been ignored. His edict against the Huguenots was now in effect and in less than two weeks over one hundred heretics had met their fiery end in Paris.

The terror had begun. Birago informed me that hundreds of Huguenots fled for the relative safety of the south, desperate to escape the cardinal’s agents, who rounded them up like cattle. Time was running out. If I didn’t put a stop to them, Monsignor and le Balafré would turn France into their private realm, murdering our subjects and silencing any noble who dared contest them.

I was anxiously looking toward a distant cluster of elms when he appeared on the path.

He moved confidently, a man of medium height clad in a black doublet,
his red-gold beard framing his mouth. He was forty, my age, yet his expression seemed much older as he bowed before me. “Your Grace, may I offer my deepest condolences?”

“Thank you, Seigneur. I’m grateful you could come.”

I was suddenly aware of my extra weight, of the strands of graying hair whipping about my face in the wind. I’d never allowed the shape-shifting reflection in my mirror to taunt me; like many wives I’d let myself grow complacent before my time. Now I felt the startling desire to be looked upon as a woman and I was ashamed by it. My husband had been dead little over a month. How could I wonder if I held some attraction for a man I’d met a handful of times?

“Madame, it is I who am grateful,” he said. “I feared you wouldn’t wish to see me.”

I frowned. “We are friends, are we not? I know time has passed, but I’ve not forgotten your kindness to me when I first came to this realm or your services to my husband over the years.”

He smiled. “We were much younger then.”

I was caught aback by something in his tone, almost like a reproach. Had he not remained in Paris to see me? “I believe it was you, my lord, not me, who chose to keep his distance,” I reminded him. “I’d have received you at court.”

He bowed his head. “True. Your Grace knows that I never liked the court.”

“I do.” I paused. “Even so, you are here now.” I regarded him in the silence that ensued.

He had changed, hardened in some indefinable way. He seemed wary, as if he’d learned it was best to conceal one’s emotions. He was still attractive, even more so, in fact, as his age had finally caught up with his premature sobriety and lent him presence.

But my gift didn’t stir. I didn’t feel anything from him at all.

Doubt overcame me. What was I doing, meeting in secret with him? If the Guises found out, I’d risk whatever clout I had left, accused of plotting treason with a suspected heretic.

As if he could read my mind, he said, “If you have any cause to regret this arrangement, I will leave at once, without any dishonor.”