The Medici Mirror

by Melissa Bailey

  I stood up abruptly and positioned myself with the camera in front of the mirror. I wanted to get a clear, full picture of its overall size and shape and then close-ups of its surface and the corners with the letter markings. The candle flames rose tall and straight, steady in the absence of any draughts through the room, and cast a consistent glow over the mirror’s surface. For a few minutes I snapped away until I was satisfied that I had produced at least some passable images. Then I went to pick up the candles and head back up the stairs. I stopped for a moment to look at the mirror as I had when I was last here. But this time I simply scanned its surface. The green shoes suspended over its left-hand corner, the note, white against the darkness, the faded lettering. Then I headed swiftly for the staircase. I needed to get back upstairs, I told myself, needed to get back to the task of designing the new factory layout.

  A smaller voice inside me also whispered quietly. I needed to leave that darkness behind.

  12

  Chateau de Saint-Germain-en-Laye

  July 1550

  CATHERINE WALKED SLOWLY through the darkening palace, her bare feet moving quietly over the parquet floors, amidst the settling shadows. Evening was approaching but she had only recently risen from her bed. She wore a richly embroidered dressing gown, the faint rustle of its black and gold silk, dragging along the floor behind her, the only sound that betrayed her presence. After a few minutes she was tired, out of breath, and paused to regain her composure. She could feel her body, bloated and heavy beneath the gown. Her fifth child, Charles-Maximilien, had been born only a few days earlier and she should have been resting. But she would not miss this spectacle for the world. She smiled at the thought of it and set off once again, her still-swollen feet bearing her closer to her destination. As she moved, she could feel herself almost salivating, so desperate was she to taste the humiliation of Henri’s mistress. At the same time she wanted to wallow in the teasing delight of anticipation, to savour each and every moment of it.

  Reaching an intersection she turned left and moved along the passageway. Before she reached the end of it she stopped. The entrance to the apartment was just around the corner. She listened intently, but she could hear nothing from the corridor beyond. Yet something told her to remain still, to wait. And then it came. Her smell. The odour of musk and rose-water, faint but present nonetheless. The King’s mistress was there, just around the corner, sitting silently in wait. Catherine smiled and retraced her steps. Taking a key from the pocket of her gown she unlocked a nearby door and slipped through it. She found herself in a part of the palace that she had never visited before, an old storage room next to the apartment of Lady Flemyng, the Scottish governess. Lit candles had been placed upon the furniture that was there and a chair filled with cushions leaned against the far wall. So Catherine’s ladies had been here already. She crossed the room, careful not to make any noise, and sat down. Instantly she felt relief, her limbs suddenly unburdened of her weight. Then she looked for the small hole that she had requested should be made in the wall.

  Finding it, she moved her eye to the opening to take a look. The gesture triggered a memory that flashed unbidden across her mind. Her husband together with his older mistress. White limbs, slim and languid, intertwined with those of Henri, red lips, the sound of pleasure and passion and abandonment. She closed her eyes but she could still hear their decadent noise. It had been a long time, perhaps seven years, perhaps more, since she had spied upon this woman last. And yet the image which came uninvited into her mind was still so fresh, their unfettered noise so familiar. She opened her eyes and sat quietly for a moment chastising herself. This was no time to indulge in persecutory daydreams. This was a time to take consolation, to revel in the bitterness that her rival must now swallow.

  Catherine returned her eye to the hole and focused on the corridor beyond. She blinked a couple of times until she could make out a woman’s shadowy form sitting outside the doorway of the apartment. A smile played once more on Catherine’s lips. Her hunger for the debasement of this woman was acute. But, as so often, she swallowed down the wanting and waited. Silence reigned. Catherine listened for sounds from the adjacent room. She could hear nothing but her heart twisted darkly in her chest as she imagined her husband together with Janet Flemyng, all flaming hair, pale skin and indiscreet laughter. She felt her jealousy bite, hot, black and poisonous as she pictured the scene. Yet this was nothing to endure, compared with the older mistress’s continued dominance in all things.

  Catherine looked upon the figure in the growing darkness of the corridor. That woman’s composure was legendary and she looked serene in her present stillness. But Catherine knew that, in this moment, even she must be consumed with jealousy, with fear of this younger beauty who challenged her long-established pre-eminence. Catherine longed to see the mistress’s eyes, to see the anguish reflected there, to see her share the emotions that ate the Queen of France alive day after day. In that moment, as Catherine looked through the hole in the wall, all her jubilant hatred was directed at this woman.

  The sound of a door opening stirred both women. Catherine saw her rival stand, ready to confront whoever emerged from the room next door. For a moment there was the sound of two men deep in conversation. Then a subdued silence fell over the corridor. Catherine kept her eye firmly on the woman.

  She heard a man’s voice, the King’s, finally pierce the silence. ‘Duchess, what are you doing here?’ His tone was full of surprise and embarrassment. Catherine knew that he imagined his mistress to be at her palace at Anet. He was unaware that when news of his dalliance had become known she had returned to Saint-Germain.

  ‘I could ask the same of Your Majesty,’ the woman uttered sharply in reply.

  Catherine heard Henri mumble indistinctly, catching only the words ‘talking to the governess’ and ‘there was nothing evil in it’, and she smiled at the lame retort. She watched the woman, imagining the anger and mortification broiling inside her, and the urge to laugh out loud, to clap her hands and revel in the Duchess’s pain, was almost too much to bear. But she contained herself.

  The Duchess, however, could keep her composure no longer. Her voice was high and strained as she diverted her venom towards the King’s companion, the Constable of France. ‘Montmorency, how you disgrace yourself and betray your friends at Court. How could you encourage the King in this dishonourable liaison?’ The Duchess took a breath and continued, her tone savage, ‘It is not only shameful but impolitic conduct as you jeopardise the union of the King’s son. He is to marry the child who has that woman for a governess. And now, after all, she is being raised by nothing better than a whore . . .’

  She railed into the darkness while Catherine watched, eyes wide, transfixed by the display, only half listening to the spitting words of admonishment. She had never seen the woman lose control of herself, never heard her raise her voice. She heard the King’s muted attempt at appeasement but it seemed only to fuel his mistress’s fervour. Catherine drank down her incandescent fury, her hurt and betrayal. She smelled the Duchess’s fear and inhaled it deeply. Slowly the insults diminished and the heat of the argument subsided.

  ‘I wish neither to see you again in my path,’ the Duchess declaimed in a parting shot to Montmorency, ‘nor should you address a single word to me in the future.’ With that she stalked away down the corridor, pursued by the King and, a few paces behind him, by the flustered Constable.

  Silence seeped back into the vacuum left by the Duchess’s loud, angry words. For a long moment Catherine continued to stare through the hole in the wall. Then, abruptly, she turned and slumped into the chair. Her body was on fire and she experienced a brief moment of relief as she felt the plump comfort of the cushions beneath her. Then, as she sat alone in the quiet of the candlelit room, a tear slid slowly down her cheek.

  For this victory was a small one. She knew that now. No doubt it had been sweet to witness the mortification of the Duchess, but the sweetness was short-lived. It was not enoug
h. It would never be enough. For that woman would suffer only a fraction of what Catherine suffered every day. The Duchess’s pain would be transitory. The King, embarrassed by the exposure of his errant conduct, would reconcile with her and his dalliance would be forgiven. The woman’s supremacy would ultimately remain untouched. In the end, it had all been for nothing.

  Catherine rose, a bitter taste in her mouth. She breathed in deeply and then exhaled, trying to expel the sourness of her breath, and moved across the room towards the doorway, extinguishing the candles as she went. She was destined, it seemed, to be always thwarted, always defeated by that woman. There had been a time when, after the birth of her first child, she had fantasised that her own growing power and influence over the King might prove sufficient to dislodge the mistress from her position of authority. But it had not been so. With time the Duchess’s influence, rather than waning, had only increased. Catherine felt her stomach churn with fury at the thought of it.

  As she approached the far wall, she caught sight of her reflection in a mirror hanging there. She saw a face, swollen, thick about the neck and jowls, protruding eyes, fat lips. Her eyes widened as she studied herself and then, with a swift movement, she blew out the last candle in front of the mirror.

  Standing in the darkness, she wondered whether it was in fact her face that she had seen. It did not seem to be hers. It was so far from the image that she longed to have – indeed, that she did have of herself. She thought of Henri’s beautiful mistress again, supreme to the end, and imagined her reflection in the darkened glass.

  The dull aching rage rose once more in her stomach. And as Catherine stepped out into the quiet night of the corridor she knew that, above all things, she would not rest until the Duchess was dead.

  13

  ON MONDAY MORNING I arrived at the Shoreditch office well ahead of time for my meeting with Richard and Tara. I had to admit that I wasn’t in the mood for it at all. But Richard loved to have regular project meetings even if there wasn’t much progress to discuss. It was no doubt something to do with good management that I didn’t even begin to understand. I preferred to just get on with it. Except that at the moment I didn’t even want to do that. Since my nightmare, I was even more preoccupied than before with the underground room.

  As I sat at my desk, half-heartedly catching up on admin, I saw Tara on the opposite side of the floor. She smiled and made her way over.

  ‘Hi,’ I said with as much enthusiasm as I could muster as she came to a stop in front of my desk.

  ‘Hi yourself,’ she said raising an eyebrow at me. ‘Are you all right? You look shattered.’

  ‘And Richard’s meeting hasn’t even begun yet.’ I gave her a wry look. ‘Seriously, though, I haven’t been sleeping well.’

  ‘Yeah? I’m sorry.’ And Tara smiled in such a sympathetic way that my usual barriers to sharing information gave way. Before I knew it I was giving her the abbreviated version of my nightmare.

  ‘Ophelia’s take on it was that it was all to do with the underground room and the things in it. They’d all become stored uncomfortably in my subconscious and chose this way to re-emerge.’ I looked at Tara hopefully, wondering if she would agree. But instead I saw a frown cross her face.

  ‘Wait a second,’ she said, raising her hand. ‘Just wait one second.’

  I stared at her, waiting as instructed, wondering what was suddenly wrong.

  ‘So you told Ophelia about the underground room?’

  I nodded, not understanding.

  ‘You told her.’ The statement, no longer a question, still sounded like a challenge.

  I nodded, more slowly this time, starting to grasp why she was becoming irate.

  ‘When you specifically asked me not to tell anyone?’ Then, lowering her voice, ‘And one person in particular.’

  I looked at Tara’s face, her blue eyes narrowed, lips tight and thin. She was clearly furious.

  ‘Yet you get to tell some random woman you met in the park a few days before.’

  ‘Well, it’s not quite like that . . .’ I stopped, realising that this probably wasn’t the best approach to take. ‘I’m sorry, I wasn’t thinking.’

  Tara glared at me before turning on her heels and taking off in the direction of her desk.

  I watched her stride away, feeling several sets of eyes upon me: people who had no doubt overheard the exchange. As I looked down, embarrassed, shuffling papers around my desk, I felt a stab of guilt. She was right to be angry. Without a second thought I had told Ophelia about the room and its contents and yet I had sworn Tara to secrecy on the subject. More than that, I had implicitly asked her not to mention it to Richard, who, it was looking increasingly likely, was the one person she might want to talk to about it. As I thought about it now, I couldn’t work out why I’d done that. It didn’t make any sense. And yet, if I was honest, I would still have preferred that he didn’t know. I contemplated the matter for a few more minutes but it didn’t become any clearer. What was obvious, however, was that I needed to clear the air. I got up and headed over to Tara’s side of the office. I would make a heartfelt apology. I would grovel and get things back on an even keel. I would say that she could tell whoever she wanted to about the room. But when I reached her desk it was empty.

  Half an hour later, I was sitting opposite Richard in his office. He was telling a story about something that had happened at the opera with his wife, a story that he clearly found highly amusing. But I was tense, preoccupied and only listening vaguely. I turned in my chair and looked again at the clock above the door. It was probably the fifth time I’d done it since I entered the room. Tara was fifteen minutes late for the meeting and there was still no sign of her. I felt a burgeoning guilt and, simultaneously, given the tenor of Richard’s tale, growing annoyance with him on her behalf.

  Before he’d reached the punchline, the door of his office swung open and Tara made her entrance, striding across the room, her cheeks flushed and expression purposeful. If anything, she looked more driven, more beautiful than usual. Anger obviously became her. I noticed that Richard abruptly abandoned the story of his wife and busied himself instead with the papers on his desk. As Tara sat down in the chair next to mine, she refused to meet my eye.

  ‘So how’s it going?’ Richard said, looking from one to the other of us, smiling that easy smile of his.

  ‘Fine,’ I said neutrally.

  ‘Fine,’ Tara echoed.

  ‘You’ve had a few initial thoughts, I understand.’

  As I talked Richard through the first drawings I’d done and the potential designs I had in mind, I noticed Tara’s left foot tapping impatiently against the office floor. I imagined her blue eyes flashing with barely contained rage. To try to defuse the situation I resorted to platitudes. ‘Tara has had some great ideas, too,’ I added.

  Richard smiled. ‘That’s excellent.’

  Tara nodded but didn’t speak.

  We talked through some more ideas. Richard suggested that I should have a word with various people in the office about new designs they were working on, and just as I thought that the meeting would wind up without major incident, Tara spoke.

  ‘Perhaps we should also ask Ophelia for her thoughts. After all, she is privy to quite a lot of information.’ For the first time, Tara turned and glared at me.

  The look wasn’t lost on Richard and the smile faded slowly from his face. ‘Who’s Ophelia?’

  ‘It doesn’t matter,’ I said, closing my eyes and trying for a second to pretend this wasn’t actually happening. ‘It’s irrelevant. Anyway, talk to me about the time frame. What are we really looking at in terms of drawings for a client meeting?’

  Richard, clearly confused, looked from me to Tara and then back again. Deciding it was better to drop the issue, he indicated that we had three to four weeks to work up decent preliminary designs. ‘Does that sound doable?’

  I nodded. ‘That sounds fine.’

  ‘Tara?’

  ‘Sure, that’s g
ood. I can finish the inventory and help Johnny work up his drawings. As long as he doesn’t give me too much extraneous research to do.’ And she turned and gave me that look again.

  Before I could react, Richard was on it. ‘Tara, that’s enough.’ He didn’t raise his voice and yet it rang with authority. His smile had faded and he’d grown stern and challenging. I doubted that even Tara in her provocative mood would carry on now. ‘Is there a problem here?’ he continued.

  I watched him, filled with something akin to admiration. He just wasn’t one of those men you wanted to butt up against. You felt it instinctively. If you took him on you would lose. Even if you didn’t lose the actual argument you would nonetheless lose something more intangible, more precious. There would be a withdrawal of collaboration or respect or approval. Somehow the contemplation of that was even worse than not winning the argument. It was invariably easier to back down.

  Tara studied him for a moment, weighing up her options, and then her attitude simply evaporated. ‘No, Richard,’ she said, ‘There’s no problem, just a misunderstanding. I apologise.’

  ‘Good, I’m glad to hear it. There’s too much at stake here to allow personal issues to get in the way.’ He laid stress on the word ‘personal’ in a way that wasn’t lost on me.

  The meeting continued for another ten minutes or so, but I could hardly focus or keep a thought in my head. Tara was the first to jump up and exit the room and I would have happily followed if Richard hadn’t cornered me.

  ‘So, interesting meet.’ He was smiling and had regained his usual cool demeanour but I knew that underneath he was still bothered by Tara’s outburst.

  I nodded and shrugged my shoulders. ‘It’s nothing, Richard.’

  ‘Maybe,’ he said in a way that implied he didn’t think so at all. ‘But you shouldn’t let her talk to you like that, Johnny. It’s unprofessional.’