“Mistress Sheena McCraggan,” she said, speaking with a pronounced Italian accent. It is good to see you here. We are delighted that you could come.”
Sheena rose and then the Queen exclaimed with delight,
“You are pretty and your hair is red! That is good, very good.”
Sheena was astonished at her words, but hurried to express her thanks.
“It is indeed gracious of Your Majesty to send me this magnificent gown,” she said. “I had not expected such kindness or indeed such a generous gift. It is difficult for me to find words to express my pleasure and my gratitude.”
“There will be more. Yes, there will be more,” the Queen said. “You are very small, so it was difficult to find you something to wear until the gowns that I have ordered for you will be ready.”
“You have ordered yet more gowns for me, Your Majesty!” Sheena exclaimed. “It is an overwhelming gesture. Why should you be so kind?”
“You are grateful, that is all we wish to hear,” the Queen replied with a soft pat on her shoulder.
Her hand was heavy with rings, but Sheena could not help noticing that her fingernails were not particularly clean and she smelt slightly musty beneath the waves of heavy perfume which she had enveloped herself with.
“You are pretty, very pretty,” the Queen remarked with some satisfaction. “A little later we must have a talk, just you and I together.”
“It will be a great honour, Your Majesty,” Sheena answered, feeling again that sense of bewilderment and astonishment.
“But now I have someone waiting for me,” the Queen told her.
She turned and then one of her Ladies-in-Waiting, a plain gaunt woman, said quietly,
“He is here, Your Majesty.”
“Good! Good,” the Queen exclaimed with some delight. “We must not keep him waiting. Goodbye, Mistress McCraggan.”
She gave Sheena her hand and smiled as she swept down into a deep curtsey. Then she went from the room followed by her Ladies-in-Waiting.
And Mary Stuart and Sheena were left alone.
“Pouf! This place stinks!” Mary Stuart said in a whisper. “Let’s get out.”
They hurried almost guiltily down the stairs to the entrance.
Sheena was trying to find words to praise the Queen with for her kindness, but somehow it was difficult to know what to say.
“I will wager that was the Queen’s new necromancer whom she was so excited about,” Mary Stuart said as they reached the open air.
Sheena looked puzzled.
“Oh, did you not know?” Mary Stuart asked her. “That is all she is interested in, fortune-tellers, astrologers, crystal-gazers. She has dozens of them around her. I used to think it was rather fun to consult them, but they were all wrong in what they told me. Besides there was something nasty about them.”
“Why should Her Majesty be interested in such things?” Sheena asked.
“Because – ” Mary Stuart stopped. “I suppose because she is Italian,” she finished.
Sheena felt it was an evasive answer and not exactly the truth. Mary Stuart thought there was another reason for the Queen’s preoccupation, but at the moment she was not going to tell her what it was.
“It was very very kind of her to give me this gown,” Sheena said earnestly, feeling that some expression of loyalty was required of her and yet not quite certain why she must be so positive about it.
“Of course it was,” Mary Stuart agreed. “I wonder if the stars or the crystal suggested it? Or was it her own idea?”
“I think it was her own idea,” Sheena asserted loyally.
“More than likely,” Mary Stuart said. “More than likely. And I don’t suppose it will be long before you find out the reason for it.”
Sheena longed to ask her more, but she knew that it would be useless.
Then she thought that there was only one person who would tell her the truth – the Duc.
But with a toss of her head she told herself that she would not humiliate herself by asking him any questions.
CHAPTER FIVE
As Sheena came from the Apartments of Mary Stuart, a gentleman approached her.
“May I introduce myself to you, mam’selle?” he asked with an elaborate bow. “I am the Marquis de Maupré and Her Majesty Queen Catherine has particularly requested that we be acquainted.”
Sheena curtseyed, thinking that he was one of the best-looking men she had ever seen.
She then corrected the impression, as she realised that he was older than she thought and there was something slightly repellent, although she could not explain what it was about his smile.
“Her Majesty has spoken of you so warmly,” he went on. “In fact she told me that I must look for one of the loveliest young women I have ever beheld, so that it was not too difficult to recognise you on sight.”
Sheena dropped her eyes. She had an instinctive distrust of those who paid very fulsome compliments. Although she had now been at the French Court for over two weeks, she still found it difficult not to blush and look confused when she received admiration expressed in the flowery extravagant language that was the fashion amongst the Court gallants.
“Her Majesty is very kind,” she murmured.
“She is more than that,” the Marquis replied. “She has your welfare very deeply at heart, mam’selle.”
Sheena looked surprised. She was already extremely grateful to the Queen for the lovely gown that she had sent her. Nevertheless she still found it difficult to imagine just why Queen Catherine should single her out for so much favour unless it was to show her devotion to the little Queen of Scotland.
It was with a slight sense of perplexity that she heard the Marquis continue,
“Her Majesty is right. We are indeed fortunate that you should choose to visit us from your country so far away in the North. And yet to me you look more like the sunshine and warmth of our Southern shores rather than the bleak and windy coldness of the North.”
“People are usually much mistaken about Scotland,” Sheena responded in defence of her beloved country. “It is indeed very cold in the winter, but in the summer it can be warm and sunny and ever since I was a child I have bathed in the North Sea.”
“If only I could see you,” the Marquis murmured. “You must look like Aphrodite rising from the waves.”
Sheena turned away a little impatiently. This sort of compliment bored her. She knew the ladies at Court revelled in listening to their praises, put on, as her old Nanny would have said, ‘with a bucket of butter’. And yet she felt sometimes as if the insincerity of it all would make her cry out in protest at the scented and effeminate young men who had nothing else to do but write verses about emotions that she was quite sure they were incapable of feeling.
“Your pardon, monsieur,” she said to the Marquis, “but I have things to do, so if you will excuse –
He interrupted her.
“No, no, don’t go,” he pleaded. “I must talk to you. It is of the utmost import.”
There was no doubting that his tone seemed urgent and sincere, so she let him lead her to one of the seats along the corridor placed beside a window overlooking a formal garden.
“As I have already told you, Her Majesty has spoken of you so warmly that I felt that you could not help but return a little of her affection,” he said.
Sheena glanced at him and then looked out at the garden. She had been long enough at the Court to realise that, under the fulsome polite surface of all the compliments and courtesy, there existed a bitter and vengeful battleground.
Those who served the Queen loathed with fanatical hatred the very beautiful Duchesse de Valentinois, who, it was quite obvious, held the King in the hollow of her hand.
She might be eighteen years older than Henri, she might have long passed her fiftieth year, but she was still the most beautiful woman in France and without any question at all she was the most powerful.
Sheena, ready to condemn the illicit liaison because of the
puritanical manner in which she had been brought up and in the strict standards of morality that prevailed in her father’s house and in those of his friends, found it difficult not to admire the Duchesse for the brilliant way that she handled everybody and everything including the King himself.
Everything in her part of The Palace and everything that appertained to the State and Government of the people with whom she came into contact, ran smoothly and efficiently. Sheena would have been very stupid indeed if she had not realised that the Statesmen and the Politicians, when they left the Duchesse’s presence, were satisfied and ready to go on serving the King with a loyalty that could not have been extracted from them if they had not known that the policy propounded to them was both right and just.
“She is a great woman,” she heard the Cardinal say to an ancient and venerable Courtier with a long beard.
“She is more than that,” the old man replied beneath his breath. “She is a great Queen.”
The Cardinal had not contradicted him but smiled and Sheena, who had been standing near them and overheard the conversation, moved away puzzled and perplexed.
How could the Church, she wondered, recognise anything so wrong and illegal as the Duchesse’s relationship with the King?
And yet the longer she stayed here at The Palace, the more she realised how hopelessly ineffectual the Queen herself managed to be. She seldom came out of her apartments and when she did the contrast between her dowdy appearance and the elegance and freshness of the King’s mistress was almost farcical. As for conversation, the Queen’s only enthusiasm was for the predictions and prophecies of her astrologers and necromancers.
Sheena learnt that the Duchesse rode out every morning as soon as dawn broke, that she bathed daily in cold water and ate sparingly of the rich dishes that loaded the King’s table.
The Queen, on the contrary, took no exercise. She was growing fat and her skin was very sallow. She ate enormously and it was often obvious to the most impartial observer that she was badly in need of a bath.
‘Nevertheless she is his true wife,’ Sheena had told herself, not once but a dozen times, in an effort to convince herself that her sympathy must lie with the Queen.
“You are too young to contend with the intrigues of Palaces,” the Marquis was saying in her ear and with a jerk she brought her thoughts back and tried hard to listen to what he was saying.
“I am not concerned with The Palace or its intrigues,” Sheena answered sharply. “I am here to serve Mary Queen of Scotland, my own Queen, and frankly I am interested in nothing else.”
“But your own Queen is to become our Queen too,” the Marquis said. “And therefore you cannot help but realise the dangers and difficulties that lie ahead.”
He glanced over his shoulder as if to be sure that no one was listening.
“What has that arch-witch said to you?” he asked in a low voice.
Sheena opened her eyes wide.
“I do not know who you are talking about.”
“I think you do,” he replied. “Who but the woman who has bewitched and enslaved the King? Are you not sorry for him? A young man caught in the web of a very old but very wily spider.”
“I imagine the King can look after himself,” Sheena answered coldly.
“On the contrary,” the Marquis contradicted. “A man is always wax in the hands of a clever woman and the King had no chance. She ensnared him when he was but a babe in the cradle. When he was a little boy, she accompanied him on the fateful journey to Spain, when he and his brother were sent there as hostages to be bullied and ill-treated. Heaven knows what wiles she used to make him remember her, but on his return he went to her side and has never left her since.”
Sheena said nothing. She was wondering what purpose the Marquis had in telling her all this, most of which she knew already.
“Cannot you understand,” the Marquis said in a little above a whisper, “that he must be saved for the sake of France?”
“How can that concern me?” Sheena enquired.
“Perhaps you will find a way where we have failed,” the Marquis replied. “Talk to him. Let him realise there are other women in the world besides the Duchesse. You are young, you are gay, you look like spring itself. Bring a little of the sunshine into his life, young dancing sunshine, and dim the last gleam of the old sun that should long since have set.”
Sheena gazed at him with a sudden distaste.
“I think, Monsieur Le Marquis,” she said coldly, “that it would be far better if I did not concern myself with things outside my special duties.”
She rose as she spoke, holding herself stiff and upright, but conscious of how much taller he was than she and that her voice trembled a little from nervousness.
He too rose to his feet.
“The Queen will be distressed,” he said. “I think she relied on your sympathy and your understanding of her almost intolerable situation. She is lonely and without many friends.”
Sheena’s heart was touched. She could never bear to think of anyone being unhappy.
“I assure you, monsieur,” she replied quickly, “that I am deeply grateful to Her Majesty for her kindness to me, for the beautiful gowns she has given me and the fact that she has invited me several times to her Apartments. I would not have her think me ungrateful.”
“That is all I think she asks of you,” the Marquis said. “A little gratitude and perhaps a little friendliness. May I tell Her Majesty that you will call on her this afternoon at half-past three?”
“I will endeavour to do so,” Sheena answered, “unless my own Queen should require my presence.”
“I feel sure that Queen Catherine can rely on you,” the Marquis smiled.
He paused. Sheena curtseyed and moved away. As she turned, she had a last glimpse of his face and she had the feeling that he was somehow pleased with the way the interview had gone rather than, as she had expected, being cast down and annoyed at her uncompromising attitude.
‘What does it all mean?’ she asked herself. ‘Why had he chosen to talk to her? And why had he been so insistent on her placing herself on the Queen’s side in the battle between the two most important women in the country?’
It was all ridiculous, she thought. What could she do one way or the other? She did not want to take sides and, apart from that, she could not help but feel, although it was wrong to do so, that the Queen must be in many ways to blame for losing her husband to the beautiful and clever Duchesse.
She thought the same later in the day as she walked through The Palace to the Queen’s Apartments. Where the Duchesse ruled there was freshness, open windows and great vases of fragrant flowers. The Queen’s part of The Palace was airless, dusty with incense and other strange haunting perfumes that made Sheena feel uneasy. There were no flowers, only a mass of lit tapers even in the daytime.
The Queen was wearing a huge mass of jewels, badly chosen and ill assorted, so that it was difficult to admire them because they detracted one from another.
Her gown was embroidered too and it seemed over-fussy after the classical beauty of the Duchesse’s white-and-black dresses, which were not only exquisitely made but spotless.
The Queen was alone with her favourite Lady-in-Waiting seated by a large fire which made the room almost unbearably hot.
Sheena curtseyed low and the Queen put out a hand and laid it on her shoulder.
“I am so glad to see you, child. The Marquis said he was not quite certain whether you would come, but I was hoping that you would contrive to leave your young Mistress for a short while so that we could become better acquainted.”
“Your Majesty is so very gracious,” Sheena answered, trying not to think even to herself that the Queen’s hand was too heavy for her age and that the huge dish of sweetmeats by her side was responsible for the rolls of fat under her chin. She had given birth to her tenth child nearly a year ago and her figure was ungainly and misshapen from her frequent pregnancies.
“Be seated, Mistress
McCraggan,” the Queen commanded. “I wish to talk with you.”
Sheena seated herself nervously on a low chair.
“The Marquis has told me of the kind things you have said about me,” the Queen went on. “I am touched that someone from so far away should understand so clearly all that I suffer and endure in this great Palace, which is really little more than a prison.”
Sheena looked startled. The Marquis, she thought wryly, must have embroidered very considerably anything she had actually said and have invented the rest.
The Queen clasped her hands together.
“Oh, Mistress McCraggan, I am so unhappy and so miserable. In fact, if it were not for my dear devoted friend here,” she then indicated her Lady-in-Waiting, “I would often wish myself dead.”
“No, madame, you must not say that,” Sheena protested. “You have so much to live for.”
“What have I to live for?” the Queen asked. “My children? The Duchesse de Valentinois chooses their Nannies and Tutors and she directs the Royal kitchens to serve up only the food she considers good for them. I am not allowed to interfere in anything. The moment my baby is born she takes charge of it, in fact it becomes hers.”
She spoke with such bitterness that Sheena could not help feeling a pang of sympathy for the unfortunate woman.
Impulsively she put out her hand.
“Your Majesty! We would all help you if we could.”
“It is witchcraft!” the Queen said, dropping her voice to a low whisper. “Witchcraft! She is old, but the Devil has made her young. Where are her wrinkles? Where is the thickening of her body, the greying of her hair? Only witchcraft can keep age at bay and the fact that the Devil himself possesses her soul.”
Sheena took a deep breath.
She did not believe in such things. They were nonsense, of course, and yet it was hard not to feel that there must be something in what the Queen said.
“Sometimes,” the Queen continued, “I have felt the King groping towards me like a child who is afraid of the dark. Yet always, before I can speak, before he can free himself even for a few seconds from her spell, she pulls him back. He has gone and I am left alone with only fear and misery as my companions.”
The Hidden Evil Page 7
