The Devil's Queen: A Novel of Catherine De Medici (36 page)

Satisfied, she nodded, dismissing him as if she were the monarch and not he, and began to move away haltingly on her crutch.

Henri called softly to her, “Will you be . . . ?” Awkward, he let the question trail.

Diane did not turn back to look at him. “I will be recuperating in my quarters adjacent to the Queen’s.” The words were frosted, a rebuke.

Henri heard the rejection in them; his shoulders slumped as he turned away. Diane moved toward me and the spiraling staircase that led to my wing, while my husband went in the opposite direction and disappeared quickly. Her progress was slow and her focus on the coordination of the crutch with her step. She did not see me hidden in the shadows, waiting for her to pass. I meant to gloat, to revel in the dark joy that my rival had finally tasted a sip of the bitter draught I had swallowed for so many years. Yet when our gazes met—hers startled, mine knowing—I saw only myself, wounded and unloved.

She must have glimpsed compassion in my eyes, for her own expression softened. She bowed as best she could before continuing on at her painfully
slow pace. Pinned carefully at her throat to hide the slackening skin beneath, the diamond caught the lamplight and flashed.

By late December, I knew I was pregnant again and decided to share the happy news with my husband on Christmas Day. That morning, I went to the royal nursery accompanied by Jeanne, Diane, Madame Gondi, three ladies-in-waiting, and a male attendant. This entourage was required to carry all the gifts for the children, including a large rocking horse with a horsehair mane. As always, Jeanne was eager to accompany me to the nursery, as she longed for children of her own.

The day had dawned grey and cloudy; the château’s tall rectangular windows overlooked a bleak courtyard of brown grass edged by bare-limbed trees. But the nursery’s reception chamber was cheery: Scores of candles burned, their flames dancing in the windowpanes and on the marble floor; a massive Yule log blazed in the hearth. A long table was heaped with glazed chestnuts, walnuts, apples and figs, and little pastries.

The children greeted us with enthusiastic cries. François was not quite seven, with a domed forehead and wide-set, dull eyes; he was smaller than his five-and-a-half-year-old sister, Elisabeth, who was a sweet, dainty child. The two rushed to me as the wetnurse went to fetch the infant Charles from his cradle.

Eight-year-old Mary, the little Scottish Queen, remained at a distance, her expression wary. She was already quite tall, and her imperious manner made her seem far older than she was; many who saw her playing with François thought they were separated by several years. On that day she wore her hair up, several times braided and coiled and wound about with dark pearls. A tartan shawl was fastened to her chest with a round silver brooch. She reminded me of myself at that age—yearning to be a careless child, free with my affections, yet knowing that my life was threatened by those who hated me.

As I bent down to embrace François and Elisabeth, Mary called out to Diane, “
Joyeux Noël,
Madame de Poitiers! What word from my dear uncles?”

“They are riding with the King, Your Majesty,” Diane said, smiling. “But they will join us within the hour.”

“Good.” Mary sighed and presented herself to me for the unwanted kiss.
“Joyeux Noël, Madame la Reine.”

“
Joyeux Noël,
Mary,” I replied. It troubled her, as it always did, that I did not address her by her title, but I preferred to remind her that she was a child, and not yet Queen of France.

The governor of the nursery, Monsieur d’Humières, emerged from one of the children’s chambers. A small, quick man given to emphatic gestures, he hurried into the room and bowed.

“
Madame la Reine,
a thousand pardons, but I received word that His Majesty suffered a minor fall during the hunt. He wished for you to know that he and the brothers Guise will be late as he is meeting now with the physician.”

Mary’s face fell. Poor, infatuated François tried to comfort her, but he often stuttered and could manage only a pitiful repetition of the first sound in Mary’s name: “M-m-m-m—”

She silenced him with a kiss.

I did my best to distract the children with the presents. François received his first, a wooden sword copied after his father’s real one, with a painted gold hilt. I gave him stern direction as to its careful use, knowing all the while that it was only a matter of time before someone received a minor injury. Elisabeth’s rocking horse was so popular that the children argued over who should ride it first.

Then came Mary’s present. Jeanne held the large wooden box, with holes drilled along the sides, and had remained at a distance so that the children could not hear the scratching and thumping. But as she stepped forward, a distinct whine emanated from the box’s interior, causing Mary’s sallow face to light up. The girl hurried to remove the top and freed the little black-and-white spaniel pup within.

She took it into her arms and beamed at me. “Thank you, thank you! May I keep it here, in the nursery?”

I smiled back. “You may indeed.”

The rocking horse and sword were abandoned in favor of the dog. François had to be shown how to pet it gently; Elisabeth was timid, so I showed her how the puppy could be coaxed to sit nicely for a bit of apple.

During this happy domestic scene, Mary’s governess began conversing loudly with one of her peers in the doorway of Charles’s bedroom. I paid little attention to the stream of guttural consonants and trilled
r
’s.

Monsieur d’Humières approached her and her companion and hissed, “Stop this rude behavior! Go present yourselves to the Queen!”

I ignored it all. Since their arrival, the Scots had proven loyal only to Mary and resentful of the due owed my husband and me; their behavior sometimes brought the members of our separate courts to blows.

Madame Fleming replied in tortured French: “I cannot be silent; I am proud, Sir, to announce that I have conceived a child by the King.”

I had been offering a piece of apple to the puppy; at that, my arm fell to my side. I caught Diane’s gaze, then Jeanne’s, and saw from their sickened expressions that they, too, had heard.

Monsieur d’Humières murmured something in a low, scandalized tone.

By this time, Madame Fleming had entered the room, her faint smile one of smug defiance. Diane had once been pretty, but Fleming was a golden-haired work of art, a radiant, emerald-eyed goddess in a green satin gown, with a shawl of blue and green tartan pinned at her shoulder.

“Madame la Reine,”
she said sweetly and bowed very low. “I have heard a rumor that you are with child. If so, I understand your joy, for I, too, am pregnant by His Majesty.”

Jeanne let go a hiss of outrage. Diane was too stunned to emit a sound. Fleming tossed her head, gloating.

Monsieur d’Humières had come into the main chamber, his wildly gesticulating hands filling the air like a scattering flock of birds. “How dare you! How dare you, Madame, insult the Queen! Apologize at once!”

I gestured for Madame Gondi to attend the children and rose. With Diane close behind me, I caught Fleming by the elbow and guided her back to the nearest bedroom.

Once inside the door, I said, my voice low and not particularly pleasant, “It shows incredibly poor taste to discuss such matters in front of the children. You are an unmarried woman, and your condition is nothing less than scandalous.”

Fleming did not cower. She was tall, as were all the Scots, and she gazed down her pretty nose at me with contempt.

“You speak of scandal,” she said. “Yet you visit the children with the King’s former lover.”

Former lover . . .
Diane gaped, incensed, at the words.

“You will regret that remark,” I said evenly. “And you are never to speak of your condition in front of the children again, or you will have me to deal with—and I am not so easily influenced as His Majesty.”

Fleming retorted, “Mary, Queen of Scots, is my sovereign, Madame. I answer only to her.”

Diane stepped forward and slapped Fleming swiftly, resoundingly. Fleming shrieked and pressed her hand to the offended cheek.

“Forgive my outburst,
Madame la Reine,
” Diane said, glowering at the startled governess, “but I will not suffer such heinous impertinence toward my queen.”

“You are forgiven,” I answered, my gaze fixed on the governess. “Madame Fleming, you are correct: You are Queen Mary’s subject. But I am her guardian, which makes me your employer. I would counsel you to remember that.”

I turned my back to her and called for Monsieur d’Humières, who appeared, groveling. Fleming, her eyes filled with tears from Diane’s stinging blow, her tongue bristling with Scottish curses, hurried out of the room toward the common chamber and the children.

I said, “Monsieur, please make sure that she goes to her own room and remains there until I give orders to the contrary.”

“At once, at once, Your Majesty,” he said, and the three of us returned to the common nursery.

In keeping with her abysmal judgment, Fleming had gone directly to Mary, and as the puppy and the other children quailed, stormed, and wept in front of her. Mary at first stroked the puppy in her arms, but as Fleming continued her tirade, Mary grew quite still, her expression darkening.

When Diane and I approached, with Monsieur d’Humières preceding us, the governess fell silent. Mary scowled at us.

“How dare you,” she said, her voice low and shaking. “Madame de Poitiers, how dare you strike Miss Fleming! Apologize at once!”

“There is no need for an apology,” I countered firmly. “Your governess gave ample provocation. Madame Fleming, go to your chambers and await word from me.”

Mary bristled. “She will do nothing of the kind. I want her to stay here.”

I studied the tableau—the furious girl, the weeping governess, François frightened into hiccups, Elisabeth hushed—and sighed. “Mary,” I said, “there can be no winner when two queens argue. But you are still a child, and I your guardian.” I turned to the agitated Monsieur d’Humières. “Monsieur, please escort Madame Fleming to her room.”

“No!” Mary cried. She hurled the puppy to the floor with such vehemence that the poor thing yelped.

Elisabeth picked the little dog up and saw that it was not hurt. The temperamental act—involving as it did an innocent creature—set my teeth on edge. I whirled on Mary, ready to chastise her, but she let go a torrent of words.

“She will do as
I
say! I am twice queen, and born to it—not a commoner, a merchant’s daughter who made a match far beyond her station!”

Thus I learned how I was perceived—by the Scots and by the Guises, who were waiting for the moment their niece would take the throne of France. Suddenly fierce, I stepped up to Mary and, gazing deep into her hostile little eyes, said very softly, “Yes, I fought my way up from a lower station—all the more reason for you to fear me, my spoiled girl. I
will
win.”

Her lips pursed at that, but she recoiled without answer. I turned to Elisabeth and said, “The dog is now yours.”

In the end, I summoned one of my own guards to escort Fleming to her room and prevailed upon Monsieur d’Humières to confine Mary to her own chamber. When my husband at last arrived in the nusery with the Guises, limping on his bandaged ankle but cheerful, I allowed Mary to come out so long as she agreed to behave.

Madame Fleming’s name did not surface in the conversation. But several times during that long morning, I caught Mary studying my face, her eyes narrowed by a yearning for vengeance.

Given the unpleasantness in the nursery, I waited to share my news with Henri; that evening, I invited him to my chambers.

He arrived limping on a crutch, thinking that I had invited him to my bed despite his injury. Once the door was closed, I took him into my arms and returned his kiss. He smelled of wine and was flushed from having drunk more than usual, most likely to dull the pain from his ankle.

When I drew back from the embrace, I said, “Henri, before we become distracted . . . I have both happy and unhappy news to share with you.”

He tensed at once. “Well, then. Let me hear the unhappy news first.”

“The happy is better first this time, I think. I am pregnant again, dear husband.”

As eager as I was to tell him, I was also reluctant. Each time he had learned I was carrying a child, Henri had forsaken our marriage bed, underscoring the reality that he had relations with me solely to produce heirs.

He grinned, teeth flashing against his dark beard, and wrapped his arms around me. “Once more you delight me. And what a good mother you are; I saw, in the nursery, how well the children behave.”

He kissed me repeatedly—I giggled at the tickle of his wiry beard—then I pulled away and grew solemn.

“Ah,” he said. “Now the unhappy news?”

“Now the unhappy,” I confirmed. “Janet Fleming is pregnant as well.”

His eyes widened with shock in the instant before he turned his embarrassed gaze downward. He dropped his arms and took a step back.