The Devil's Queen: A Novel of Catherine De Medici (27 page)

It was done unremarkably, without any whiff of the unworldly. I repeated the ritual of lighting the incense and invoking Gienah for seven nights, at forty-three minutes past midnight. I had worried that I might not remember to rise at the appointed time, but in fact, I could not forget.

Within two weeks, Alessandro Farnese was elected Pope and took the name Paul III. If his election caused King François a moment’s unease, His Majesty never showed it but treated me as warmly as ever. On the last day of October, the Eve of All Saints, we shared lunch and a spirited conversation about the works of Rabelais, and whether they were heretical. My heart was light that afternoon when I went to the stables, ready to ride with the King and his band.

As I neared, the ladies—except for Anne—were hurrying back to the château, their faces drawn with fear. Marie de Canaples gestured frantically; I didn’t understand until later that she had been trying to warn me.

At the stables, grooms were leading agitated horses back to their stalls. A trio stood near the entry: Grand Master Montmorency, the Duchess d’Etampes, and the King. The Duchess was silent and distraught, Montmorency dignified and immovable, his gaze downcast.

The King was roaring and slashing the air with his riding crop. As I approached, he turned it on one of the grooms, who was not moving fast enough to suit him; the lad let go a cry and picked up his pace.

I stopped a short distance away. The Duchess’s eyes widened as she, too, made a surreptitious attempt to wave me off.

“Nothing!” the King screamed, spraying spittle. He slashed the air again, then turned his whip on the ground, sending tufts of grass flying. “She brings me nothing! Nothing! She has come to me naked, that girl!”

I recoiled; the movement caught François’s eye. He whirled on me, his stance challenging.

“Stark naked, do you understand?” His voice broke with ugly emotion. “Stark naked.”

I understood completely. I curtsied low and full, then turned and walked back toward the château with as much dignity as I could feign.

Mésalliance:
the French use the word to describe an ill-conceived royal marriage. It was on every courtier’s lips, every servant’s, though no one dared utter it aloud to me.

The French people had tolerated me but never loved me. I had been for them a necessary evil—a commoner who had promised, but failed, to bring gold to fund a bankrupt nation, and the troops to fulfill François’s dreams of Italian conquest. It would be so easy to put me aside; after all, I had yet to bear children.

Madame Gondi, my able and eager spy, now confessed the truth: The French loved the Florentines for their art, their fine cloth, their literature—but they hated us as well. Backstabbers, they called us, poisoners whose inherited penchant for murder made us dangerous even to our families and friends.
Many at Court were eager to see me gone; before my arrival, many had vowed that they would rather have their knees broken than bow them to the child of foreign merchants.

But I loved Henri desperately; I had found a life in France and couldn’t imagine another, especially now that Florence was no longer mine.

The next morning, I went to Mass with the King and followed him to his lunch. In the afternoon, I went, head up, chin lifted, to the royal stables.

King François was there, and the thin, elegant Duchess and plump Marie de Canaples. They all smiled at me, but their warmth had cooled to a distant politeness. Once again, I had become inconvenient.

Soon Henri’s ring with the talisman of Corvus was ready. I decided to present it to him one evening after we had lain together. Henri rose from the bed and pulled on his leggings. I sat upon the bed watching, still naked, with my hair falling free to my waist.

Before he could reach for the bell to summon his valet, I said, “I have a gift for you.”

He stopped and gave me a curious little half smile. I moved quickly to my cupboard, produced a little velvet box, and handed it to him.

His smile widened and grew pleased. “How very thoughtful of you.” He opened the box to find the gift, wrapped in a swatch of purple velvet.

“A ring,” he murmured. His expression remained carefully pleased, but a slight line appeared between his eyebrows. It was a very plain gold ring with a small onyx—an unremarkable piece of jewelry, more fit for merchant than for a prince. “It is handsome. Thank you, Catherine.”

“You must wear it always,” I said. “Even when you sleep. Promise me.”

“To remind me of your devotion?” he asked lightly.

Foolish girl, I did not respond smiling and teasing, as I should have to convince him, but hesitated.

A shadow fell over his face. “Is this some sort of magic?”

“There’s nothing evil in it,” I countered quickly. “It will bring only good.”

He held it to the lamplight, his expression suspicious. “What is it for?”

“Protection,” I said.

“And how was it made?”

“I did it myself, so I can swear that it isn’t evil. I used the power of a star; you know how I like to follow the heavens.”

A corner of his mouth quirked in a skeptic’s smile. “Catherine, don’t you think this is superstitious?”

“Indulge me. Please, I only want to keep you safe.”

“I’m young and healthy. I don’t want to hurt your feelings, but this is nonsense.” He put the Raven’s Wing back into the box and set it on the table.

“I’ve dreams about you,” I said, with unhappy urgency. “Many dreams, worrisome ones. Perhaps God sent them. Perhaps God sent me here, to see you safe. Take the ring, Henri, I beg you. I went to great trouble to make it.”

He let go a sigh. “All right. I’ll wear it, if it gives you that much comfort.” He retrieved the ring, slipped it onto his finger, and held his hand to the lamp. “I suppose it can do no harm.”

“Thank you,” I said and kissed him, deeply relieved. My job was done; whatever happened to me from that moment on no longer mattered. Henri was now safe.

One year bled into the next. The King grew increasingly distant, and the Duchess and her ladies began whispering into each other’s ears in my presence. The simple act of my walking into a room abruptly sealed speakers’ lips.

In October of 1535, the Duke of Milan died without an heir, leaving his city ripe for the plucking. Even without papal assistance, King François could not resist so succulent a plum. He sent his new army toward Milan.

In retaliation, Emperor Charles invaded Provence, in France’s south.

The King was desperate to fight against the Imperial invaders himself, but Grand Master Montmorency convinced him otherwise while delicately avoiding mention of the fact that the last time the King had led his troops into battle, he had been captured. To everyone’s relief, the King appointed the experienced, cautious Montmorency as Lieutenant General, to take charge of the armed forces.

But François wished to be near the fighting, the better to advise. In the
summer of 1536, his elder sons went with him, and so did I, followed by a skeleton Court. We stayed first in Lyon, then went to Tournon, then down to Valence, in the Midi, as the French call the Mediterranean-like south, moving at a safe parallel with the fighting.

The Dauphin remained in Tournon to nurse a slight case of catarrh—an excessive precaution, but the King was adamant. Young François made a joke of it, of course, and left me laughing as our carriages rolled away.

At Valence, I rode alongside Madame Gondi through forests of pine and eucalyptus and inhaled the scent of wild lavender crushed beneath the horses’ hooves. I never rode long or ventured too close to the banks of the Rhone, where the mosquitoes were thickest. The sun and river conspired to leave the air ruthlessly sultry. We stayed at an estate set atop a promontory, with sweeping views of the valley and river. In the late afternoons, as the heat was breaking, I sat with my embroidery in the vast reception chamber adjacent to the King’s quarters, perched upon a window seat overlooking the river.

The King spent long hours in his cabinet conferring with his councillors and, surprisingly, Henri. He and his father remained recluses, eating in private, forgoing audiences, even missing Mass; the Cardinal of Lorraine, one of his councillors, would interrupt the long sessions to grant the King absolution and administer the Sacrament.

This manner of life continued for a week, until the morning I woke in my bed to hear heart-wrenching keening. I threw on my dressing gown and ran downstairs toward the source.

At the reception chamber near the King’s apartment, I paused on the threshold to see the Cardinal of Lorraine. Though it was barely dawn, he was already dressed in his scarlet robe and skullcap, but he had not shaved; the first rays of the sun glinted off the grey stubble on his cheeks. At my approach, he turned, his gaze dulled by horror.

Beside him, the King was on his knees near the edge of the little window seat where I liked to embroider, dressed in only his nightshirt and dressing gown, his hair uncombed. He reached up suddenly to clutch his skull, as if to crush the misery there, then just as quickly let it go and pulled himself up onto the velvet cushion. There he knelt, his arms spread to the river and the sky.

“My God,” he cried. “My God, why could you have not taken me? Why not me?”

He collapsed in a storm of tears.

I began to weep myself. This was not a commander’s regret but a father’s sorrow. Poor sweet Madeleine, I thought; she had always been so sickly. I began to move toward His Majesty, but the Cardinal sharply waved me off.

Still bowed, the King lifted his head just enough for his words to be understood. “Henri,” he groaned. “Bring me Henri.”

The Cardinal disappeared, but his mission was unnecessary. Within seconds, Henri appeared of his own accord, fully dressed and ready for a dire emergency; he, too, had heard the King’s cries. He walked over the threshold, our shoulders brushing, and shot me a questioning gaze for which I had no answer.

At the sight of the King doubled over in misery, Henri rushed to his side.

“What is it?” he demanded. “Father, what has happened? Is it Montmorency?”

He put his hand upon the King’s shoulder, and the old man reared up onto his knees.

“Henri . . .” The King’s ravaged voice was quaking. “My son, my son. Your older brother is dead.”

François, my smiling, golden-haired friend. The room whirled; I caught the edge of the doorway and let go a torrent of involuntary tears.

“No,”
Henri snarled and lifted an arm to strike his father. Before the blow could land, the King seized his son’s forearm and held it fast. Henri strained against his father’s strength until both were trembling. Abruptly, Henri dropped his arm and began to shriek. “No! No! You can’t say such things! It’s not true, it’s not true!”

He reached for a nearby chair and overturned it with such force that it skittered across the stone. He reached, too, for a large, heavy table, and when he could not upend it, he fell to the floor.

“You can’t take him,” he sobbed. “I won’t let you take him . . .”

I ran to him and gathered him into my arms.

He was limp. In his eyes was a shattered vacancy, a fathomless despair—a look I had seen only once before. His spirit had broken, and I did not have the means to mend it.

I guided him to his father and retreated to the threshold to give them their privacy. I was a latecomer, an interloper in terms of their grief.

Once the King had calmed enough to speak, he said, “My son. You are the Dauphin now. You must become as good as your brother François was, and as kind, so that you are loved as much as he was. You must never give anyone cause to regret that you are now the first heir to the throne.”

At the instant I heard it, I thought only that His Majesty was cruel and unthinking to say such things to Henri at this time of terrible sorrow. How could one speak of political matters when one’s own son was dead? Indeed, I thought so for some days, until after we had laid poor François to rest in a temporary tomb.

Until one afternoon shortly thereafter, when Madame Gondi was speaking of some trivial matter and addressed me as
Madame la Dauphine.

The sound of it stole my breath—not because I craved the power that would come when I was Queen, nor because I feared it, but rather because I realized that the astrologer and magician Cosimo Ruggieri had, from the very beginning, been right about everything.

I penned another letter to Cosimo Ruggieri, explaining my new circumstances and asking him to join me at Court to serve as my chief astrologer, though I had little hope. Ruggieri was dead or mad, but I had nowhere else to turn. With increased power came increased vulnerability. Like Henri, I felt there were few I could trust. One was Ruggieri, who had long ago proven his loyalty to me.

I was uneasy, and rightly so.

I saw the details of young François’s death as straightforward, but the King and many of his advisers and courtiers thought otherwise.

Left behind at Tournon, François had appeared to recover quickly from the catarrh. He’d felt so well, in fact, that on one of the hottest afternoons of that miserable August, he had challenged one of his gentlemen of the chamber to a strenuous game of tennis. The Dauphin had won handily.