Courtesan

by Diane Haeger

  If she would ever lose her royal lover to another, it would be to a woman like that. She felt able to compete with the Sénéchale’s beauty; even her intelligence, now that she was Duchesse d’Etampes. But Diane had one advantage no gift from the King could ever match. The blood coursing through her veins was not noble. Her heritage had not been bought. She had chosen not to heed Anne d’Heilly’s earlier warning to leave the French Court. For that sin above all others, noble blood or not, Diane de Poitiers was now about to pay, and dearly.

  “Answer the door,” she commanded her maid when she finally heard the knock.

  Jacques de Montgommery entered the chamber and stopped only a few feet from the door. He was dressed in a brown doublet edged in gold. His cape, trimmed in ermine, was clasped near his throat with a gold buckle. His stockings were the color of honey; the color of his hair.

  “Why, Captain, you must forgive me. I had completely forgotten I had called for you,” she said with a feigned note of sincerity. After no more than a moment standing at her toilette table, her eyes fixed on him, she turned and walked toward the large, heavily draped bed in the other corner of the room near the fire. The silk dressing gown fluttered around her ankles as she moved.

  “I was just about to settle in for a rest,” she said, excusing her revealing attire. “But, do come in now that you are here. I will send for some nice mint tea.”

  Montgommery stepped cautiously into the heavily scented chamber. He had been summoned to her apartments before but always when the King was present; and always when she was fully clothed.

  “That will be all, Mademoiselle de Colliers,” she said. The servant bowed her head and left the room. Now they were alone.

  “You need not bother about the tea on my account,” he said, removing his tilted toque and awkwardly clutching it at his waist.

  Anne smiled at him, showing her perfectly straight white teeth. He was attractive in his own way, she thought. Yet she was at a loss to define how he had his choice of the ladies at Court, as Philippe Chabot had said. He was tall and thin with thick blond hair. His delicate features were covered by only a wisp of a beard and neatly trimmed mustache. She found his genteel mannerisms not at all to her liking. But that was not the point of it.

  “Ah, well then, we will dispense with the tea. Perhaps you would prefer something stronger?”

  Without waiting for a reply, she advanced to a small table in the center of the room. It was oval shaped and ornately carved, covered with a rectangular piece of tapestry that touched the tiled floor at each end. On top were several glass decanters on a silver tray. “I have claret, of course, but the anise wine is far stronger.”

  She took a goblet in her hand and looked at him. Montgommery shuffled a few tentative steps closer to her, his toque still clutched in both hands. He did not like being alone in the favourite’s apartments. If the King were to see him there, and she in her underclothes, his future would be ruined.

  “Please sit down.”

  Anne motioned him toward a velvet-cushioned armchair near the fire, then she sat beside him in a matching chair. They sipped their wine but did not speak. She made no move to begin a conversation nor to explain why she had summoned him. As the moments passed and he sipped the strong anise wine, he began to forget about the King, and about Diane. He had never been this close to Anne. She was splendid. Such delicate small bones; such fine small features. His eyes drifted down to her rosebud mouth. As she lowered the small crystal goblet, a drop of the amber-colored liquid glittered there. Half dazed, he looked away. Behind her was the open bed; the bedcurtains half drawn, the pillows and counterpane already rumpled.

  “It is a lovely chateau. . .do you not think?” he said at last, and swallowed hard.

  “No, I do not think so at all. I think that it is hideously small and I am frightfully bored.”

  Her lower lip turned down into a pout and Jacques was mesmerized by the sensuality of her face. He could not tear his eyes from her lips; so wet and full. So forbidden. Anne watched his eyes grow hungry as she licked each lip; first the top, then the bottom. . .slowly, seductively. She leaned forward, pushing her full breasts through the lace edge of the dressing gown. He let his eyes stray from her mouth, down over her figure. She could see the hunger in him. Ah, yes, this revenge would be sweet. So sweet. Just as she moved to stand, the door to her chamber flew open and the King’s guard, Christian de Nançay, strutted in.

  “Well, there you are! I have been looking everywhere for you, man!” he said, advancing toward his fellow guard, Montgommery, who, thinking it was the King, had sprung to his feet the moment the door had opened. Anne stood beside him only partially dressed. Nançay glared at Montgommery. At Anne. Then at the tossed bedcovers behind them. He saw the half hidden flush of desire on both their faces.

  “The King has returned and I am certain, Captain, that he shall have need of you as I am just off of my duty. After all, that is why you’ve come along to Chenonceaux, is it not, to attend His Majesty?”

  “You had better leave. But I have enjoyed this time with you immensely,” Anne said in the same bewitching tone with which she had begun to seduce him. “And later, if you would like, we can continue. . .where we left off.”

  Nançay lunged at her when Montgommery had gone.

  “So, did you bed him?”

  “When will you learn that what I do does not concern you?”

  “Does not concern me? How can you say such a thing when you know I am mad about you?”

  “Oh, how you disgust me when you snivel, Christian,” she said in a throaty growl, then sat down on her bed. “I take whom I want, when I want, and that pleading of yours does nothing to endear yourself to me.”

  “Then you were with him! Oh, Jésu! will it never cease? First you test me with the Admiral and now with my fellow guard! Why, in the name of God, when I adore you and you can have me?”

  “I can also have the King of France and that has not stopped me! As for you, His Majesty was not in need of another guard here at all, was he? You made that up so that you could come bounding in here to spy on me!”

  She slid beneath the bedcovers and lay back on the pillows. After a moment, she looked up. There was utter distraction in Christian de Nançay’s handsome young face.

  “If it helps, mon cher, I will tell you that I did not bed with him. Yet. All that we had shared before you charged in here was some anise wine.”

  The Captain knelt beside her bed. He tried to take her hand but she refused to give it. “Everyone knows that you despise her, but must you do this? Must you really go through with something so drastic just to spite Madame Diane?”

  “It is the only way I can truly have my revenge on her and it is an opportunity I shall not miss! Besides,” she said, beginning to smile, “I had never noticed what a truly attractive man Montgommery is. Now, do be a dear and let me get some rest. I shall not want to miss a moment of this evening after all.”

  COMPARED WITH THE splendor exhibited at the more magnificent chateaux, supper at Chenonceaux each evening was a simple affair. There were no elaborate plays or costumed servers; no masked dances or ceremonial Pavane entrances. There were only sounds of the lute and harp played together by a boy and girl from the village.

  To entertain the guests, the melodious strains of their instruments mingled with the throaty call of the frogs up from the river. The sounds and the simplicity made Diane think of Cauterets. The open windows and the fresh breeze reminded her of the inn. They reminded her of Henri. But that was another world. Another time. She closed her mind to it and looked around the table at the King’s other guests.

  Across the table, between Anne and François de Guise, sat a strikingly attractive boy with blond curled hair who, despite his youth, wore the cassock of an archbishop. He had the same long nose as Guise and the same lanky build, but his eyes were less brooding and his features were less pronounced. There was no mistaking the fact that they were brothers. He laughed easily at something Anne said, the
n leaned back in his chair, fingering his chin, too adolescent to be bearded.

  “That is Charles de Guise. He is Archbishop de Rheims,” whispered the Princess Madeleine, with an awkward half smile when she noticed Diane looking at him. “It is one of the most important Church offices in France.”

  “He is terribly young to be an archbishop.”

  “His uncle is the Cardinal de Lorraine,” she replied, as though no further explanation would be required.

  Diane nodded toward the Princess but said nothing further. Instead, she sipped from a globlet of red wine and watched as the petite bande hung on his every word and laughed a little too boldly at his humor. She watched Anne d’Heilly lower her chin and flutter her eyes as he spoke. She watched Catherine de Medici, in her satin puffs and velvet ruffles, lean awkwardly toward him, not knowing quite how to flirt.

  As the evening progressed, she listened to him speak of literature, architecture and of philosophy with the confidence and ease of a much older man. Princess Marguerite, beside her, compared him in giddy whispers to Mercury, the god of eloquence. He has managed to charm everyone here, she thought. He shall go as far as he chooses at the Court of France. It would be many years and a great deal of maneuvering between them before Diane would realize just how right her instinct had been.

  AFTER THE MEAL HAD been cleared, the King rose to leave, but bid his guests to stay and enjoy themselves. He announced as his excuse for retiring, to a new and waiting chambermaid, that the hunt the next day would commence at an early hour. Once the King had gone, the rest of the guests returned their attention to the table, contentedly sipping their brandy and listening to the young Charles de Guise’s discourse on the writings of Plato.

  As the night progressed, the candles flickered in their pools of melted wax, and the embers of the fire glowed a pale orange. Each hour’s passing saw another guest retire. As the sun began its pale pink ascent, Diane found herself alone at the dining table with the Archbishop. She sat fingering an empty goblet and listening with singular fascination as he spoke about his favorite subject, the wisdom and elegance of the early Greeks. His large brown eyes lit up and the thoughts flowed from his tongue with the perception and verve of a master. Finally, neither of them could ignore the rising sun through the same open window from which they had seen the stars. As the early morning mist turned slowly to a gentle spring rain, she finally felt tired.

  “I have so enjoyed this,” said Diane after a yawn. “But I must have a few hours sleep so that I shall be fresh today for the King’s hunt.”

  Charles de Guise smiled. He looked as fresh and rested as if he had just risen from a nap.

  “I do thank you for indulging me for as long as you have. It is a rare thing to find a woman who will truly listen to talk of the great masters.”

  “Well then, I shall say good night,” she said as she stood.

  He stood beside her. “I shall be honored to escort you to your room, if, of course, you shall permit me.”

  As they climbed the dimly lit staircase, a steward went behind them, snuffing out the remaining candles with a long, silver wand. The smell of burning wax trailed them and mingled with the crisp scent of early morning rain. The sound of voices and laughter came from the room next to hers. She was tired. For a moment she thought it sounded like the King. Then she remembered. Jacques had been given the room next to hers. She stopped in front of the long, closed wooden door. Charles de Guise stood beside her. Again there was laughter. Then the voice of a woman.

  “Madame, it really is not proper,” he whispered with a curious smile as she pressed her ear to the door.

  The laughter inside was followed by soft little noises. Sexual noises. Again the man’s voice. Diane put her hand to the round iron handle.

  “I really must object if you mean to open it,” he said.

  Diane turned to him, her face pale and her lips parted.

  “It is my fiancé’s chamber, Your Excellency.”

  “All the more reason, Madame, not to look.”

  Diane turned back toward the door, ignoring the remonstrations, and slowly turned the handle. She pushed open one side of the heavy double doors as Charles de Guise made the sign of the cross.

  “God help us,” he murmured as he peered in behind her.

  They were stopped by the sight of two naked bodies pressed together on top of the bed, each writhing with the rhythm of the other. Diane stood motionless. The man was Jacques. She stood unable to tear her eyes away as he worked himself furiously on top of the woman. Her legs were wrapped tightly around his buttocks as it rose and fell. After a moment, the woman turned her head toward the door. Diane let out a small, impotent cry when she saw that it was Anne d’Heilly.

  Not her. Not Anne! Her knees began to give way beneath her. She thought she would faint. Charles de Guise clutched Diane at the shoulders just as Jacques looked up.

  “Diane! Oh, dear Lord, no!”

  He shouted her name and tore himself from Anne’s body. He stumbled onto his knees and then bolted naked from the bed, continuing to cry out her name in long, pleading breaths. He ran through the door after her, trailing the rumpled bedcover behind him and trying to cover himself with it as he ran. Anne simply laid there shamelessly, on the stark linen sheet of Montgommery’s bed, smiling her cat smile. Slowly she ran her fingers down the glistening milky white flesh of her breasts and then turned toward the door, where Charles de Guise still stood, looking at her.

  IT HAD RAINED while she slept. Soft rain; gentle rain; cleansing the air of the foul rancor of deceit. Diane lifted a hand to her eyes and brushed the back of her knuckles into them to wipe away the little crusts of sleep. She sat up. The rain had stopped. The air was crisp. A faint gold ray of sun came through her window. It had been the sun across her cheek that had roused her. Drops that had landed on the roof now fell onto the casing around her window and then down past the glass. Drip. Drip. It was quiet except for that sound. Finally quiet.

  She had not admitted Jacques to her room to explain himself this time, though he had pounded relentlessly on her door throughout the early hours of morning. She had finally fallen asleep with a velvet bed pillow wrapped around her ears to drown the sound of his pleading. Always his pleading. She hated that. Not long after it had begun, Hélène had urged him from the other side of the door to retire, trying to warn him that he risked waking the King, but he would hear none of it. He was moaning like some half-crazed animal, sometimes yelling, and then in turn there was that awful pleading to be heard echoing down the dark corridor.

  All Diane wanted now was to blot out the world and its cruelty. Just when she thought that perhaps she had begun to rise above the deceit and the ugliness, once again she found herself drawn down into the dark and seamy mire. She had not changed. Nothing had changed. It was still the same scandalous Court and she was still the same vulnerable woman.

  THE KING LED HIS CORTEGE of ladies, courtiers and groomsmen through the deep forest away from the chateau. Jacques de Montgommery was noticeably absent from them, but no one inquired of Diane as to where he might be. Chenonceaux was a small chateau. His pleading strains outside her door had been missed, it seemed, by only His Majesty and the chambermaid with whom he had spent the night in the servants’ quarters, in the attic.

  The King’s sorrel-colored stallion was draped with a jeweled blanket of red and gold and was weighted down by jewels around the trim and along the bridle. His doublet of gold silk matched the blanket on which he rode. He was content. He had a beautiful mistress, a pious Queen, and a string of lusty young girls to content him. As he tore through the forest, trailed by the thundering hooves of the other mounted horses, he laughed and tossed back a joke to his groomsmen. The country air put him at peace. He was miles from the war, the Reformation and the problems that plagued his realm.

  After a stag had been scouted, the King was called to approve it by the size of the prints left behind in the meadow grass. He then ordered the groomsmen to go ahead and corner the a
nimal, and ordered that the dinner tent be pitched in an open meadow. It was a giant tent, round in shape and of fabric striped in light blue and gold and peaked at the center. One by one, the priceless Turkish carpets were lain to cover the damp ground and the paintings were hung by cords from the frame of the tent. The china and silver was then brought from large wicker baskets and set out on the carved-oak dining table.

  Diane was among the last riders to arrive at the camp. As she neared the area where the other horses were tied to a moss-covered tree she felt another hand on her bridle. There was no one around but Anne d’Heilly.

  “Madame de Poitiers, have you not neglected to pay your respects to me this morning? You know that as Duchesse d’Etampes, I am now your superior.”

  “I have no respect to pay you. . .Madame,” she said and turned away from Anne’s icy emerald glare. “Now, kindly let go of my horse.”

  “How does it feel, Madame?” Anne badgered, refusing to surrender the bridle.

  “I have no idea what you are referring to.”

  “How does it feel to have the man you love stolen away from you?”

  “So that is why you did it? Because you thought I wanted the King?”

  “Why else?” she asked, the cold fierceness of a deliberate act defining her face.

  Diane was about to say, in a reflexive response, that she did not want the King and that she never had. She was about to tell her she could have Jacques de Montgommery too, for all that he had meant to her. The first words had even formed on her lips. Then she thought better of it. Anne had humiliated her. She had tried to wound her much more deeply than that, but it had failed.