Courtesan

by Diane Haeger

  “Oh, my merciful heaven!” Anne said, raising a hand to her lips, doing her best to muffle a snicker. The King tossed her a sharp stare and she released her hand quickly, back down to her side.

  Montmorency glanced at Henri. His lips were pursed tightly and his eyes were open now, but cast upward. Henri looked as though he were going to be ill. Catherine remained prostrate on the floor before the King. No one said a word. After a moment he bent down and clutched her arm, drawing her onto her knees.

  “Here, here, ma chère, let me help you.”

  “You will forgive her,” said the Pope. “She has spent most of her life in the convent. She has not had the attention to protocol that I would have wished for her.”

  “On the contrary. We are most humbled by this reverent and charming display.”

  She was still on her knees when she spoke. “It is my great honor, Your Majesty, that I am in your presence. It is, however, a dream far greater than I could have imagined, that I am to become your daughter.”

  Her voice was deep for her young age; almost husky, and her French was awkward. But both had a certain charm that captured the King.

  “And her Latin is far better than her French,” the Pope interjected to excuse the poorly constructed phrase.

  “Do not worry,” said the King, as he drew her up to her feet and chucked her gently beneath the chin. “She will learn soon enough.” Still clutching her tiny hand in his own, the King led her to his left. “Chérie, this is my son, the Dauphin. One day he will be King. I should like the two of you to become friends.”

  “It would be an honor,” she repeated and curtsied fully.

  The Dauphin smiled and then nodded. “The King led her further to his left.

  “And this. . .” said the Pope. “This will be your husband. Henri, may I present my dear niece, Caterina Maria de Medici.”

  Henri looked at the Pope who beamed at her as if she were his own child. He then looked at the rakish grin splashed across his brother’s face and at Montmorency’s studied gaze. Once again she curtsied. He searched in vain for something pleasant to say, but as he looked into her bulging, watery eyes his mind went blank.

  “Perhaps we could all use a bit of wine now,” suggested Montmorency as he put a comforting hand, once again, on Henri’s shoulder. Henri looked away from the Medici girl and helplessly back toward the King.

  “Splendid idea,” said His Majesty.

  One of the Papal guards, who held a long jeweled halberd, ushered the group from the grand salon into a cavernous dining hall. But Henri could not move. He watched the Pope kiss Catherine and take her arm as they walked from the room. His heart sank. As Montmorency turned to join the others, Henri gripped his shoulder.

  “Please, Monty. . .mon vieux,” he whispered urgently. “I beg you, find me a way out of this!”

  Montmorency turned and faced the pained expression that he had seen so often on Henri’s face. “I am sorry, my son, there is nothing more that I can do.”

  “IN NOMINE PATRIS, et Filii et Spiritus Sancti. . .”

  Great fingers of light through the massive stained-glass windows washed the nave of the cathedral with muted colors as Henri and Catherine prepared to take their final vows. Diane daubed the perspiration from her brow with a blue silk handkerchief as she watched the tiny girl in the magnificent gown of white and gold brocade. The gown was accented with the jeweled portion of her dowry for France. Her waist was belted in gold with eight large balas rubies set off by a diamond in the center. At her throat she wore a string of eighty pearls and a pendant set with large diamonds, emeralds and rubies. Her short fingers were covered with rubies, diamonds and gold.

  Diane gazed through the glitter at the plain little face; the dark eyebrows and the large nose. A pang of regret rose from her heart. She tried to quiet it. She felt a trickle of sweat between her breasts beneath the layers of heavy damask. Then she shivered. It would soon be over. She had only to bear a few more moments. She steadied herself with a hand on the back of the pew before her as Henri and Catherine turned, and knelt on two silver priedieux at the altar.

  The Pope gave the nuptial benediction himself, bestowing greater solemnity to the event. He blessed the golden ring and held it up to the Lord. Diane made herself watch as Henri slipped it onto the girl’s finger. The Pope was then helped to one side, owing to his ill health. But he beamed broadly through his long beard as the Cardinal de Tournon said the final portion of the Mass. He then raised his hand to make the sign of the cross and announced that by God’s holy ordinance, Henri de Valois and Catherine de Medici were man and wife.

  THE KING AND THE POPE walked arm in arm, and whispered to one another as they led the new couple and a collection of drunken courtiers up the sweeping stone staircase. There was no choice left to either the bride or the groom; the two elders were anxious to see the union consummated and now led the pathway to that ultimate end. Behind them came Queen Eleanora, François’ Spanish wife; the Dauphin, Montmorency, Admiral Chabot and the Cardinal de Lorraine as though it were a party. The air was thick from so many bodies pressed so closely together in the stairwell, and Henri felt as if he would choke. But his thoughts were arrested when the entire procession came to a halt at his apartment doors.

  As he stopped, Henri was forced to face the King. François planted his arms firmly on Henri’s shoulders. It was a sign between gentlemen signaling that the other must now engage in his duty, no matter how distasteful. He swiftly pulled his son to him and kissed each cheek. He then took Catherine’s trembling hand in his own, raised it to his lips, and kissed it.

  “Madame La Duchesse,” he began, “tonight you become a permanent part of this house, and nothing shall please Us more than when you are fat with Our first grandchild!”

  The crowd, who had long since abandoned decorum, peeled with laughter and whistles. The King and the Pope exchanged a sideways grin. Clement patted the King’s back. Henri glared at the two men who had conspired to ruin his life, and he watched as Clement kissed his niece. He then made the sign of the cross before them.

  “Now, my children,” he said in slurred French, “to your jousting!”

  Glad to be free of the callous Court, Henri took Catherine’s small, moist hand and led her into his apartments. There, the Cardinal de Lorraine blessed the nuptial couch as Ippolito de Medici swung a smoking censer past the bedcurtains, filling the room with hallowed incense. Beside the bed, Catherine’s attendants waited to undress her.

  “Go with your ladies,” he instructed. “I shall join you shortly.”

  “As you wish,” she replied and followed her aunt and her cousin into the dressing room.

  When they had gone, Henri turned to his boyhood friend with frantic eyes. “Brissac, please, has there been any word or any message from Madame de Poitiers? Anything at all?”

  “I am sorry, Your Highness. I inquired as you requested and I was told that she left the banquet shortly after your departure. I am bound by honesty to tell you that she left with Jacques de Montgommery.”

  “Damn her!”

  Henri took a deep breath and blew it out, as though trying to recover from a blow.

  “So be it. Help me out of this thing, will you. If it is jousting they want then, by God, it is jousting they shall have!”

  CLEMENT, A PACE BEHIND François, lumbered back down the long staircase toward the sound of the music and laughter in the large grand salon. The festivities were still active despite the presence of the first blush of sun that had begun to ascend through the long casement windows. When the King entered the hall he grabbed a spilled silver goblet from one of the long tables and banged it against the wall to gain attention. The noise ceased. The musicians stopped playing.

  “We are most pleased to announce,” he began, in a deep, ceremonial tone, “that we have gone together to ensure the consummation of the marriage between Our new daughter and the son of France.”

  “And we have come back to report,” the Pope continued for him, “that
the Duc and Duchesse d’Orléans jousted valiantly!”

  Shouts and cheers of laughter rose from the throngs of remaining drunken nobles who sat sprawled among the lavish furnishings. Pope Clement raised an empty chalice that he too had taken from the table.

  “May Almighty God bless them both now, and may my niece be with child before I take my leave from France!”

  In a corner, Diane sat alone sipping a cordial, trying in vain to numb herself. She had left Jacques at the door to his apartments. She had said she would be only a moment, promising to return to him. But she had wanted to hear it; needed to hear that it was really done between them.

  Diane had returned to the banquet hall, not expecting the news to pierce her the way that it had. She let the pain pass through her, and then managed to smile. She had served her purpose well. She had helped a shy young Prince into manhood; readied him for a wife. Someday he would take her aside and thank her for having known when to walk away. He had said he loved her, but what could he know of love when he was so filled with the aimless ardor of adolescence? It would have been easy to confuse the two. Her only regret, now that it was over between them, was that for a moment, she too had allowed herself to forget how to distinguish between love and desire.

  THE MORNING DEW on the leaded windowpane blew across Henri’s cheek with a gust of the salty ocean breeze. His eyes opened and he was with Diane. He could feel the warmth of her body next to his. He moved to touch her. Then he remembered. Outside, the sound of horses, their hooves on cobbled stones, the shouts of the stable masters woke him from dazed half slumber. Next to him, Catherine slept bundled in a small heap beneath the layers of white muslin, so that all he could see was the gold tassel and the top of her white nightcap. He grimaced when the image of what he had done with her returned to him.

  Last night he had been beyond anger. Beyond pain. The wine he had drunk had seen to that. He had taken it out on this girl whom he had seen only twice in his life, and to whom now, he was forever bound. All of the weeks of confusion and defeat had reached a violent crescendo in her small, chaste body. He was certain that he had hurt her. He had not been gentle, as if he could force the memory and the pain of Diane further back in his mind, with each violent jabbing thrust. When it was over, he had rolled away, and turned a deaf ear to her sobbing. He hadn’t the strength to deal with her anguish, as well as his own.

  The sounds outside drew Henri out of bed. He moved to a small window and turned the brass handle. It opened onto the courtyard. Two horses, yet without riders, were saddled and packed. A group of guards mounted on royal stallions waited nearby in the early morning mist. Henri shook his head trying desperately to ward off the effects of the wine that he had drunk. As he gazed out of the opened window he finally saw Hélène, Diane’s maid, emerge from the villa in a traveling cloak and hood. After another moment, Diane followed.

  Henri put a hand to his forehead and brushed back a dark curl. She was leaving Court without even saying good-bye. Once again he felt utterly helpless. All of his life he had been helpless; a puppet.

  “He says, raise your leg, little puppet,” he whispered. “And so I do. . .I always do. . .”

  He was first a marionette for his father, and now for his country. This marriage to the little Florentine girl, which he had just irrevocably consummated with a degrading performance for his father and the Pope, was the most dramatic example of his position. For reasons to which he was not privileged, he had been married to a merchant’s daughter and told nothing more than that he must do it for France.

  More than pain now, he felt bitter rage. It was rage at a system that he was not permitted to understand, and yet that had the power to keep him from the only happiness he had ever known. He watched in silence as Diane, dressed in a black velvet gown, cloak and hood, was helped onto her horse by one of the equerries. Henri extended his hand past the glass, and with his finger traced the outline of her body, as she took the leather reins and stroked the horse’s dark mane. Then, following the lead of the King’s guard, she clicked her heels, and followed the guides out of Marseilles, and out of Henri’s life.

  ANNE D’HEILLY BURST through the open doors to the King’s council chamber and entered the inner sanctum without bothering to knock. Her shoes, the latest style from Venice, with small cork soles and covered in blue velvet, echoed beneath the matching blue gown, as she swept across the tiled floor toward the long mahogany table. It was the conseil privé; the larger gathering of nobles on matters of state, and so the room was packed full of the King’s advisors. Everyone was there but Chancellor Duprat, who had died the previous year following a long illness.

  The King’s private chamber at Saint Germain-en-Laye was vast, with high arched ceilings, newly frescoed in pastel shades. On the walls were large, gold-scalloped wall sconces and long mirrors between a series of small paned windows. Golden light poured through them, across the room on one side, leaving the other side in the shadows. Seeing Anne, the King rose from the carved high-back chair at the head of the table.

  “What is it, mon amour?” he asked.

  The other men of the council thrust back their chairs and stood in deference to the woman now elevated to Duchesse d’Etampes. The King had recently arranged for the marriage of his favourite to a noble but impoverished courtier. He then gave them the Duchy of Etampes as a way of bestowing greater power and respect upon the woman who continued to share his life.

  “It is that blasted husband you’ve given me!” she screeched. “He wants more money to keep quiet. Always more money! He has sent word that he cannot live on the stipend you pay him.”

  A smile broke across François’ face, curling his mustache upward, as if to say, is that all? He came out from behind the table and took her hand.

  “Well, gentlemen, as you can see, Our attentions are required elsewhere. The matter that we were discussing has been concluded, has it not?”

  Chabot cleared his throat. Antoine du Bourg, the new Chancellor of France, sat back down and began to collect his papers. Anne de Montmorency was the only one who dared to raise his head in the direction of the King.

  “Then we are to proceed?” he asked.

  “Yes. Increase the troops to forty thousand but hold them as they are until after Christmas. Also, I wish word be sent to my sons at the camp that they are to be at Amboise for the holiday. It is time I see them again.”

  “Are we at war then?” asked Anne in a careless sing-song tone as she rolled a large gold and ruby ring on her middle finger.

  François chucked her beneath the chin with a single finger like a naughty child, and slipped his arm about her tightly corseted waist. “That is nothing for you to worry your pretty head about, mon amour. Come, we shall speak of your new husband and see what it will take to quiet him.”

  “Your Majesty! Your Majesty!” Triboulet came rushing in through the open door in his wildly colored costume. “There is a band of reformers posting signs all around the village below us!”

  The King turned his head and stared down at his jester, annoyed by the interruption. “What do you mean, they are posting signs?”

  “Against the Church, Your Majesty. Condemning the hypocrisy and the greed of the Catholic Church! I’ve just come from town. I’ve seen them myself! There is a huge band of them and they are angry!”

  François looked around at his collection of unmoving advisors, his eyes narrowing with anger. “Well! What are you all just sitting there for? Is this why I pay all of you, to sit and do nothing?”

  “But Your Majesty said just last week, in the presence of the Queen of Navarre, that free expression was to be tolerated in France!”

  “Free expression, not heresy, Monsieur du Bourg, was espoused in the presence of Our sister! Now do something! Do something at once!”

  The King’s inconsistent religious policies were only one sign of his discontent. The year after his son’s marriage in Marseilles had been a difficult one for him. The second year marked a further series of disappoint
ments. One by one, his carefully laid plans were falling down around him. The Pope had waited in France following the marriage of Henri and Catherine, in the hope of seeing his niece with child. François too had prayed for signs of conception, which would have solidified this misalliance; a union, highly unpopular with the Court and the French people. Finally, Pope Clement had returned to Rome without the news he sought. Within ten months of the marriage, he was dead. All of François’ hopes of the Italian provinces that he had been promised died with the Pontiff. No Genoa, no Pisa, and no Milan.

  The new Pope, who had taken the name of Paul III, refused to honor the secret contract between the two men, terming it “clandestine.” He believed that it was not in Italy’s best interest to support such claims. The final blow to the King had come when the papacy ordered the return of the jeweled portion of Catherine’s dowry. The jewels were not Clement’s personal possessions, it was argued, but rather articles of the Holy See, and therefore had not been his to give.

  The King of France had surrendered his pride and his son with that marriage, in the hope of regaining Milan. In return, he had gained an exceedingly unpopular daughter-in-law, who after nearly two years, still was not pregnant.

  Exercising great determination, he had managed to look forward, nursing his wounds in hopes of a second powerful marital alliance. Philippe Chabot had just returned from England where he had proposed to Henry VIII a marriage between that King’s eldest daughter, Mary, with François’ third son, Charles. But that too had proved to be a phantom goal. Henry VIII would agree to such a match, now that he was married to Anne Boleyn and he had declared his daughter, Mary, by his previous Queen, a bastard on one condition. His requirement for such a marriage was that both the bride and groom agree to renounce all claim to the English throne. They must also acknowledge Anne Boleyn’s future children as the only rightful heirs.