by Diane Haeger
Henri had never loved anyone except his mother, whose quickly fading image consisted now of barely more than a few random memories. The sound of her laugh. The smell of her hair, freshly washed with camomile. Yes, he remembered her hair, but he could no longer remember her face, her touch or her love. What will become of my poor Henri? she had asked as she lay dying in her bed at Blois. She knew his father had no use for the boy then, nor would he ever. He was too consumed with his heir, the Dauphin; his François.
Since there were no extra crates or rags that were not needed in the running of the enormous kitchens, Henri looked around to improvise a bed for his little charge. He took a large wooden bowl from one of the cooks and set it at the opposite side of the raging kitchen fire. Then he began to remove his doublet and lined the bowl with his costly yellow silk shirt. Clothilde and Roland looked at one another but neither uttered a sound. Henri replaced the doublet on his bare back like a vest. The pronounced muscles of his arm swelled through the sleeveless jeweled vest, more in the manner of a laboring servant’s body than the son of a King.
After the pup had fallen asleep, he was placed near the fire at a distance from the other newborn dogs. Henri looked around the large basement kitchens now that the little creature had been secured, and he sighed. He felt his stomach grumble. All of this and his fight with the Dauphin, and now he was famished.
As Clothilde began to cut a warm cake and Roland went to fetch the sweet wine, Henri sat down on one of the long oak benches at a trestle table in the rear of the low-ceilinged kitchen. He ran his fingers through his hair and watched an old man with no teeth on the opposite side of the bench, rubbing laboriously at a large tarnished-silver urn. Another man sat a few feet away. He and a small barefoot boy plucked feathers from the carcass of a pigeon which the man held between his knees.
“He is a nice enough boy, do you not think?” Clothilde whispered to Roland as she lay three neat slices of cake on a chipped ceramic plate.
“For the son of a King, yes, I suspect he is.”
“Such a nice smile. . .but such terribly sad eyes.”
“THERE YOU ARE, you bastard!”
Henri yelled at Jacques de Saint-André and then charged toward him in the middle of the formal parterre. “Where have you been? The pox on you for hiding from me!”
“Oh, no games with me, Your Highness, not today. Jésu! I should flog you myself, instead of saving it for my father to do! The real question is, where have you been? You know, he has gone again to the King about you. God save you, will you never learn?”
“Learn to obey our Sovereign King? Let the devil take me first!” he said, and then spat on the ground. “Now come on, old friend, do not be cross. Why not play me a game of jeu de paume instead?”
“I am not in the mood, Your Highness. You really put me in a very unenviable position with my father over this, you know. He is angry and yet I must defend you.”
“Then do not defend me to him! I have told you that before, and I mean it. Despite what you all seem to think, you, dear friend, are not my keeper; and neither is your father. I swore when we returned from Spain that no man would ever do that to me again. Not even the King!”
They walked silently down between two neatly clipped rows of conical shaped yews to the edge of the lake. Two ducks cut a path across the undulating surface of the water and a chilly evening breeze began to stir around them.
Jacques was a patient and a gentle young man. The seven years difference in their ages had fostered in him those qualities. It had also made him the single one of Henri’s friends capable of understanding the torment and the rage. Just for a moment today, before he had seen Henri’s face, the dark eyes smoldering with their misery and their loneliness, he had forgotten.
He stood silently, watching Henri systematically remove his shoes, trunkhose and doublet, leaving nothing on but thin silk stockings, then step slowly into the icy spring water. It was still cold. Water carried plagues. This was dangerous. It too, like the frequent disappearances, was an open act of hostility. More than a swim, it was an act of aggression against everything that was decorous and proper behavior for the son of a King. Jacques knew that for now this was Henri’s only defense against his wounded youth. . .against a man who openly despised him. He sighed a bitter sigh of pity and, full of compassion, obliged the boy by steadying himself and following him into the water.
“Jacques, I want you to tell me something. Honestly. Have you ever. . .” Henri’s voice was uncertain. He paused a moment. “Have you ever had a girl?”
Jacques watched the ducks turn in the water and go back the way they had come. Then he looked at Henri, stiff as a statue and gazed back at the main house. “Once. The cook’s daughter at my father’s manor. But if you ever tell him, I’ll swear you made it up!” he defensively added, and then asked, “And Your Highness?”
Henri turned around and looked at Jacques who had managed to come into the lake so far as his knees. He stood, his arms wrapped around his chest, his cheeks and nose red with cold. Henri, who was up to the point of his thighs and completely oblivious to the cold, smiled at how humorous he looked. The sight made him relax. “No,” he confessed. “But I did see the Dauphin this morning. He was doing it with one of the King’s new whores down behind the stables.”
“No!” Jacques laughed. “And you watched? Henri, you devil!”
“It was strange. Ugly. In fact, degrading.” He began to wade back up to the point where Jacques was standing. His face, beneath dark curls, was intense. “What is it like? I mean, what does it feel like, to do it?”
“Great Zeus! Everything should feel as splendid. I would likely kill for another chance at it. Hopefully one day when I meet the right girl, all I shall have to do is ask. Lord, how I envy you! All the beautiful young girls at this Court and you have only to choose a willing partner to assist you.”
“I hate them.”
“You do not mean that.”
“All of them so puffed and painted. All smiling and squealing, and smelling of all sorts of potions. I cannot bear the thought of doing that with one of those little creatures. The thought of it turns my stomach.”
“Well! You certainly are not your father’s son!” He laughed again, but this time, nearly as soon as the words had left his mouth, he froze. His skin went ashen. “Oh, forgive me, Henri. . .sir. . .Your Highness. I had no place. Please, forgive me.”
“It is all right, Jacques, but if being his son means rolling around with some whore like a barnyard animal, then I would just as soon be the son of a bitch!” He walked past Saint-André and back up onto the grassy shore. After a moment he sat down amid the long spindly blades and began to dry himself with his elegant trunk hose.
“Jacques?”
“Your Highness?”
“How did you know what to do? When you did it, I mean.”
“Oh, you should not worry yourself about that. It comes as naturally to us as it does to those animals. You shall see. By my life, you shall see.”
No. Not Henri. He would see no such thing. He would not forge around on sweaty female flesh, whining and pleading for the pleasure. He did not intend ever to be that vulnerable. After all, they were really all like Anne d’Heilly. Different hair. Different eyes, perhaps. But inside they were all the same. They gave their bodies as payment for their jewels, their furs and their manors in the country. In return, they took men’s souls. He had been a victim of everything else in his life; he would not now fall victim to anyone so closely resembling his father’s prized mare.
By the time they rounded the corner of the formal courtyard, it was dark. The two friends crept silently through the entrance to the east wing, which housed the royal apartments.
Undaunted by the lateness of the hour, Henri’s groom bowed to the two boys, and then led the Prince into his dressing area where a silver basin of warm scented water awaited. Two other servants stripped off his doublet and his stockings, still moist from the lake. Jacques de Saint-André sat down on
a small stool as Henri allowed the page to wash his chest and back.
“Then I take it you are going to attend?” Jacques asked as Henri was then rubbed with a light musk oil.
“Attend what?”
“I was certain that you knew. The King is having a gathering in his private apartments after supper and has invited Father and me. Father of course is ecstatic to have finally been asked, even though the word is that the King again wants to discuss Machiavelli. It is bound to be embarrassing if Father attempts to outshine the King with regard to The Prince. They say His Majesty reads nothing else so much as he reads Machiavelli.”
“Ah, another opportunity for the old bastard to show how much he knows. How I despise those evenings. Sorry, old friend, but a lesson in Latin from your father would be a more welcome diversion.”
“Well, if you will not come for the King or me, at least come for the show.”
“Show?”
“Mademoiselle d’Heilly and Madame de Poitiers. It went on the entire time we were at Blois.”
There was a long pause before Henri finally said, “Yes, I had heard she was back at Court.”
“Indeed she is, and I shall tell you, it is like watching two cats. Or rather, a cat and mouse. It is most entertaining, if a little cruel on the part of Mademoiselle d’Heilly. Madame de Poitiers is not particularly bloodthirsty but she is quite beautiful, which makes it worth the sport.”
“Then she has not changed.”
“So you do know her.”
“I shouldn’t flatter myself. She let me wear her colors in my first tournament, some years ago.”
“How grand,” Jacques smiled and tilted his head back with a dreamy-eyed expression.
“On the contrary. I am certain that she does not even recall it. I was not eleven years old at the time, and yet I fancied myself in love with her.”
“How did you get the courage to ask for her colors when you were so young? I could only bring myself to ask my mother for hers at my first tournament.”
Henri shrugged his shoulders as the valet covered him with a red velvet robe. “I don’t know. She just had such a kind face. I saw her across the field. You must not laugh. . .but it was as if there was no one else there. I thought she was smiling at me, so I rode up before her dais and she gave me her scarf. I hardly had to ask. Her husband, an old man with a hump in his back and these volumes of white hair, was beside her. He only laughed at me, but she just said, ‘Ride well, kind sir. May God ride with you.’ Imagine that. ‘Kind sir.’ I was ten years old!”
“Well, she does remember you.”
Henri looked up, unable to hide his surprise. “How do you know that?”
“Your name was mentioned one night at Blois. She remembers you quite fondly, as a matter of fact. So, now that you know, will you not come to your father’s apartments tonight and keep me company? She is certain to be there and at the very least, it may well put a smile on that sorry face of yours.”
“I cannot, Jacques. The King would take it as a sign that I had forgiven him in some small way. No, mon ami. I would rather die than give him that.”
IT WAS PALE PINK; nearly dawn. Like the night they had met, Diane once again, if somewhat reluctantly, permitted Jacques de Montgommery to escort her from the evening’s debate back to her apartments. They strolled from the royal apartments in the east wing and out across the garden toward her own apartments in the west wing. Morning dew glistened on the shrubbery and the sun was just beginning to come up between the trees behind the lake.
“Perhaps you could tell me, Captain, if your intentions toward me are legitimate, as you say, why is it then that you did not defend me?”
Diane posed the question and her words tore into the seductive mood which the unconscionable Montgommery had subtly tried to cultivate between them the entire evening. He stopped only after they had passed back into the chateau, and then leaned against one of the marble pillars that lined the corridor. She stood before him and watched in the candlelight as a crooked smile broadened across the feminine, alabaster features of his face.
“I am a gentleman of honor, Madame. But I am not a fool.”
Diane spun around in anger as soon as he had said it, and marched quickly down the corridor away from him. He surprised even himself by following her.
“Now that is not to say that if you were to become my wife—”
This time it was Diane who stopped. She barred his words in mid-sentence with her own. “Your wife? Sir, you are walking in your sleep! That is, without a doubt, the most fantastic dream that I have ever heard.”
“Perhaps. But those widow’s weeds of yours will grow tiresome soon enough. Think on it, Madame. After all, you know that I do mean to court you.”
He was being pompous again. The confident tone, which was meant to seduce her, only irritated her more. She no longer cared why he had not defended her. She shook her head, and began wailing again.
“If you are a man of honor, as you say, then you are a man of your word and you promised there would be no more talk of that, if we were to remain friends.”
“So I did,” he conceded. “It is just so important to me that you know my position on this. Soon you will need to become more. . .realistic, shall we say. This is a Court for the young. Just look around you. You are a widow who, though the petals are sweet, has passed the bloom of youth. Not that I believe it, mind you, but that of course is what others will soon be saying, if you continue on here unmarried or unattached.”
“Of course.” She mocked her agreement with a forced smile. “And so being the gentleman that you are, you mean to rescue me from my impending dotage?”
“I will not have you make light of me, Madame. My position here as Captain of the Scots Guard is secure. I am well thought of. I can offer you a place by my side that will allow you to remain at Court long after the King tires of his impotent flirtations with you.”
“And just exactly how do you know he shall tire of me?” she asked, her hands now placed pointedly on her hips. “Perhaps I shall become his mistress.”
“No. Not you!” he said with confidence. “His Majesty is not your style. I should venture that you like a man all to yourself, which of course, you can never have with the King of France.”
“You are very sure of yourself, my dear Jacques. But you would be better served to be mindful of your tongue. You are not so young and desirable to look upon yourself that this manner of talk shall always be tolerated.”
By the time the conversation had concluded, they were at the head of the long dark corridor, still untouched by the early morning sun. Her apartments were before them. Montgommery paused and took a torch from the wall to light the empty pathway. He then handed it to Diane. She looked at the cold darkness through which she would pass, and then back at him.
“Since you appear so able to exist here alone,” he said, “you certainly can have no need of an escort any further. So, I shall here bid you good night. I ask only that you consider what I have said.”
Diane took the torch from Montgommery and proceeded to her apartments without looking back.
BEFORE DAWN, HENRI rushed back to the kitchens. Clothilde, Roland and the rest of the kitchen staff were already dashing about the dark aromatic chateau cellars, preparing breads, roasts and pies while the rest of the Court slept. Henri came down the long staircase which ended in one of the small kitchen anterooms used for storing grains.
He looked across the maze of other rooms to the place near the fire. To the left, near a cord of freshly cut wood, lay the tan-and-white-spotted dog wound around her pups, who were already nursing and pushing one another away from the bulging nipples. Across the hearth, alone in his makeshift bed, the wooden bowl and elegant shirt, was the little abandoned pup.
Henri neared and stood over the bitch and her brood of squealing newborns. He felt his anger rise. The contented mother lifted her head from the cushion and gazed up at him with a look of defiance. Or so he thought. Henri moved away from her and k
nelt beside the single puppy, cushioned by his shirt, at the other end of the fire. Its tiny chest heaved as he slept. Clothilde lumbered past him with a large pot of hot soup, the steam rising around the features of her heavy face. She shook her head.
“He don’t look good, Your Highness. Won’t eat a thing from the tip of the rag.”
Henri looked down again at the little animal who bore no resemblance at all yet to a dog, as he let out a tiny squeal, as though from some terrible dream. As he did, his small body began to tremble. Henri stroked the little animal with a single finger as its helpless whimper touched off in him a chill of sadness that came from his very soul.
“So alone,” he whispered, “so all alone.”
Clanging pots. Shouting. The scent of fresh morning pies and roasting meats. The walls dark and thickened with grease. Servants rushing about. All of them were symbols of the continuation of life. He looked back down at the animal and fluffed the shirt beneath him, hoping to provide him with more warmth.
“Best not get too attached to the little mongrel,” Roland urged as he passed beside the fire, his own heavy arms full of wood. “Clothilde doesn’t expect him to last the day.” Roland’s face was gentle, his words were honest. He put the wood down and put a large, coarse hand in comfort to the Prince’s shoulder. “I’m sorry, Your Highness. It’s just nature’s way.”
Henri could say nothing in reply. He could not bear to stay in the stifling, aromatic kitchen another moment. He felt the perspiration dripping beneath his shirt, his heart racing with a familiar panic. He felt as though he was in prison again, and he must escape. In a long-legged stride, he dashed back up the stone staircase that led to the east hall.
DIANE STROLLED ALONE down the Grand Gallery. She had been to vespers and then for a stroll in the smaller and less formal of the royal gardens. They had just begun to show the first colorful signs of spring. Even the constant irritation by the King’s mistress could not dissuade her from pleasure in that.
