Courtesan

by Diane Haeger

  “When it is safe for you to come, shall we meet at Chenonceaux?” he asked. “It has been much too long.”

  “I would like that,” she replied and then let him kiss her. The mist fell more heavily, then became a light rain. Diane shivered beneath her cape and the fur from her collar fluttered up around her face. Henri ran a gloved finger across the line of her jaw, to push away the fur, then he pulled her tighter, closing his eyes.

  “Great Zeus! This is difficult! You know I despise leaving you,” he whispered.

  “But it is the right thing to do.”

  “Yes, I believe that is true.”

  “Kiss her for me, will you?” she asked, not needing to name their daughter.

  “I will,” he said, and then he added, “Shall we bring her with us to Chenonceaux?” Diane could see his face light up even at the prospect. “Monsieur d’Humières tells me that she rides like a champion already, and there are such nice woods there. I know she would adore it.”

  “Well, we can scarcely bring one and not the others, if we do not wish to incite rivalry among them.”

  “Of course you are right. What would I do without you to keep me to my course?” he asked, laughing a vulnerable little laugh; one that only she would ever hear.

  “Alas, I fear we shall never know the answer to that!”

  “I love nothing more than to hear you say that,” he replied, and then the smile passed. “Come to me soon, m’amie,” he whispered. “You know that I shall be nothing until you are with me again.”

  “And I shall be nothing without you.”

  HE HAD BEEN both friend and bitter rival to François I. Now at the news of the death of Henry VIII, the French King wept. They had been contemporaries, both raised as warrior Kings. Both steeped in military tradition. They had done what they had done for the good of their countries. They were brothers. Henry in England, the Emperor Charles in Spain, and he in France. Forgotten now were the battles. The discord. Henry VIII’s break with the Church. Against the wishes of his ecclesiastical advisors, François had a Mass said for him at Notre Dame in Paris.

  The news had struck him profoundly, for he knew that it was an omen; a sign of his own mortality. All around him, people waited for him to die; waited for the new regime. In this purgatory between life and death, François found to his own surprise that he wanted desperately to live, if only for a little while longer. There was nothing like the prospect of death, he thought, to make one appreciate the precious, transitory spark that is life.

  As a drowning man grasps for the last remaining straw when all else about him is water, François clung to the few remaining faithful who were left to him. Desperate for support, he wrote to his sister, Marguerite, and asked her to come to France. But like her brother, the Queen of Navarre was also ill and could not risk the trip in winter’s bitter cold. The only one really left to him was his Anne, the woman he had loved and at times despised. So together with a small entourage as the month of March neared an end, they set out on a pilgrimage between the various royal estates, hoping to outrun death.

  Disregarding the bitter cold and the pain that plagued him, François traveled from Fontainebleau to Les Tournelles, then to Compiègne, to Villers-Cotterêts and to Chateau Madrid. But it was at Anne d’Heilly’s house in Limours that he realized the force which he had been trying to outrun was now about to kill him.

  When he was told that Henri, his last surviving son and heir was at Saint Germain-en-Laye, he instructed his guards to take him there. He made it only so far as a nobleman’s palace in Rambouillet before he collapsed. At the King’s request, word was dispatched immediately to Saint Germain-en-Laye, but no reply came. The Dauphin and Madame de Poitiers had taken the children to Chenonceaux.

  THE GLITTERING CHATEAU on the river Cher was beautiful in winter. When the gray sky was free of clouds, it was like a canvas onto which the delicate chateau was painted. Henri’s daughter Diane, who had just turned nine two months before, said once that Chenonceaux was her favorite place on earth because her father and Diane always seemed to be so happy there. She liked Madame Diane’s house at Anet almost as much, though it did not have the same beautiful gardens or the great willow trees that sloped down to the shore.

  She liked another piece of imagery. She told her father that when she was riding and looked back through the thick of trees, the way the house seemed to rise out of the water and shimmer against it at sunset was like a crown on the head of a great sleeping giant. Even though it was winter, there were the most magical sunsets there. While Catherine admonished her for possessing an overly indulged imagination, Madame Diane would always laugh with her at the images. They would ride through the woods envisioning together what the great giant would look like if he should wake and come up out of the water. It would have been a perfect holiday for Henri, the children and Diane, if not for one disjointed element: the presence of Henri’s wife.

  Catherine had arrived at Saint Germain-en-Laye the day before they were to leave for Chenonceaux. She announced then that she had come to see her children. Henri could not refuse her that. Nor could he find the words to object the following morning when she readied her entourage and her trunks and said she meant to join them at the little chateau on the river.

  One afternoon at Chenonceaux, when Diane had taken their daughter riding out into the forest, Catherine seized Henri’s solitude as a moment for herself. She stood in the doorway to the main drawing room on the first floor, watching him. He was sitting beside Francesco Primaticcio, his father’s Court painter, watching him put the finishing touches on an allegorical painting of Diane as Diana in the guise of the huntress. The house was quiet. There was only the sound of the wood crackling in the fire and the occasional creaking of floorboards on the landing above. There was a tranquillity here that Catherine liked. She had not felt it since she had left Italy, and to be given moments like this alone with her husband, she almost did not mind that she must share the house with his mistress. Catherine advanced slowly. He was facing the fire. His back was to her, and both men were staring at the haunting image on the canvas. It was definitely her husband’s whore, draped in flowing gauze and surrounded by cherubs and hunting dogs.

  “Lovely. Really, lovely,” she said, managing to sound sincere.

  Henri turned with a start and rose to his feet. “I did not hear you enter.”

  “I was just standing there a while, watching you, thinking how peaceful it is. . .how happy we are here.”

  Henri began to pitch from side to side as though any moment he might bolt from the room to get away from her. She had a way of making him feel as if they were both children again, facing one another for the first time in the Pope’s house in Marseilles. The anger. The resentment was all there when he looked at her.

  “Thank you,” he said, turning toward Primaticcio. “That will be all for today.” When the artist stood and began to pack his things, Henri turned back to his wife. “Would you like to sit down?”

  Catherine did not reply, but delicately slid her large brown velvet–sheathed body into the leather chair. Then she looked up at him. A smile broke across her thick lips and she motioned with her eyes that he should take the chair that the artist had just left. There was a long silence between them and Henri wanted to say anything to break it. He sat down and, in the silence, looked at her. Her wide-eyed gaze was repugnant to him; so loving and expectant.

  “So, how are you feeling?” he asked, struggling for the words that would be construed by his wife as pleasant.

  “I feel wonderful, Henri. Never so grand as when I am filled with your child.”

  Henri shivered. He hated it when she spoke as though there were something more between them than duty. She was still smiling; those cool black eyes of hers sparkling with her triumph over Diane. She ran a hand across her belly without changing her gaze.

  “You know, I can feel him already inside of me. I feel certain that God will see fit to deliver me of another son.”

  Henri smil
ed a weak smile and then sprang from his chair. He began to wring his hands as he walked toward the window, hoping that he would see Diane and their daughter nearing the chateau to rescue him from this. It seemed like hours that they had been gone. Catherine stood. He could feel her advancing toward him as he gazed out of the window. He heard the swish of her fat legs against her gown.

  “This is nice, having a bit of time to ourselves like this. . .an opportunity to speak privately.”

  Henri spun around ready to defend his relationship with Diane before Catherine could even utter a criticism, but the look on her face was so pathetic that he decided against it.

  “Yes, I suppose it is,” he conceded. But when she began to move toward him, he left the window and sat down at a small gaming table across the room. Despite the sincerity of her overtures, he was being stalked by a very clever fox and he knew it. “Have you had an audience with the children yet today? Elizabeth is almost totally recovered from infection, and they tell me François did ask for you.”

  “I have not seen them,” she replied without hesitation as she sat down beside him and picked up a deck of cards. “Shall we play?”

  Henri was indifferent to Catherine’s lack of maternal desire now. But once, after the birth of their daughter, Elizabeth, it had infuriated him. It seemed that she loved nothing so much as being pregnant, and yet once the children were born she wanted nothing to do with them.

  Humières, the children’s governor, often complained that, though she wrote to him inquiring of their progress, she rarely visited the royal nursery. She almost never wrote directly to her children. That first year after Elizabeth’s birth, Henri had considered approaching her, but he had thought better of it. His motivation was, as it always had been, for the sake of Diane. As official governess, she had come to develop a warm and tender relationship with each of his three children. In turn, they adored her as though she, not Catherine, were their real mother.

  Henri loved to watch her with them, poring over lessons or reading them stories. Her affection for them was as natural as if she had given birth to them all. When he saw that she was willing to accept his children as her own, he resolved to keep his silence; for in this, he was bound ever closer to Diane.

  He looked up again across the gaming table. The fleshy face and bulging dark eyes were directed toward him as Catherine waited for his reply to her request. There was still no sign of Diane or their daughter. So grudgingly, as though it were a supreme sacrifice, he agreed to play one hand.

  “You know, Henri, I do believe that I love it here better than anywhere else in the world. There is something nearly spiritual about this place; something that quiets the mind and fills the soul. Would you not agree?”

  He dealt her hand and looked up with a vague, disinterested stare. He finally nodded in reply, and looked back down at his own selection of cards. God, where was Diane? Would she ever return?

  “If I give you a son, my lord, will you give me this place as a gift, once you are King?”

  “What?” he muttered, hearing her clearly and yet, unable to believe what she had asked. He cast down his cards and looked up at her again.

  “I want you to give me Chenonceaux.”

  Henri felt an awful churning in the pit of his stomach at the mere thought that this nearly sacred place should one day belong to her. When he looked at her again, he saw that fixed black-eyed stare and knew that she was demanding a reply. His mind went blank. How could he answer that? How could he tell her no as boldly as he felt it? That he had all along intended it for Diane; for the woman he loved. How could he tell her that he had known that this place had been meant for his mistress alone, since the very first night he had spent there in her arms?

  “There really is no place on earth like it,” Catherine continued, undaunted. “And there are so many things I could do here. As a beginning, what would you think if we extended it across the river, enclosed the bridge and created a grand ballroom where we could entertain our Court?”

  “Are we to play cards here, or not?” he snapped. “And after all, what if it is not a son?”

  “But if it is,” she persisted, “if it is, it would be the perfect gift. Nothing could make me happier, after everything, well everything that has occurred between the three of us.”

  “A gift is something freely given, Catherine, not demanded.”

  She lowered her thick lower lip as a hint of an oncoming pout. The room fell silent once again; a long, interminable silence.

  “Good God, Catherine! We shall see, all right? We shall see!”

  HE COULD HEAR them as they gathered in the main vestibule. First Antoine’s whispers and then the echo of Diane’s laughter as he sat at the gaming table with Catherine.

  “Papa! Papa!” Henri’s daughter Diane ran into the room in her dark riding clothes and darted onto her father’s lap, disregarding the fact that she was far too old to do so. “Papa, we had the most marvelous time, we truly did! Uncle Antoine let me ride a big horse, the black one with the long white tail. And Uncle François raced me through the meadow, but I won!”

  Henri kissed his daughter and then looked up. François de Guise strode into the room and removed his riding gloves. Diane came in behind him, their faces flushed from the ride. He whispered something to her that made her laugh and Henri stifled a twinge of envy. Behind them were Antoine de Bourbon, Claude de Guise and Jacques de Saint-André. A whispered exchange followed between Guise and Saint-André as Hélène came in through one of the small side doors.

  “Ah, so there you are, ma fille!” Hélène said with a gentle smile. “They’ve kept you out well past time for you to rest.”

  “But I do not wish to rest. I am not in the least tired, and I have so much to tell Papa.”

  Everyone but Catherine chuckled at the child’s endearing protestations. The Dauphine stiffened in her chair and gently lay down her hand of cards. Her private moment with Henri was over. She glared jealously at the little girl. Only after her father insisted that Mademoiselle Gallet was right, and he promised to come and see her after supper, did she agree. Reluctantly she curtsied to the others and skipped down the hall, her small hand wrapped in Hélène’s.

  After she had gone, a young steward brought a tray of silver wine goblets and set them on a small oak table near the door. Another entered the room a few moments later, and lay down a tray of confits and small cakes.

  “Oh, splendid! I am famished!” Antoine smiled, as he bolted from a chair that was fixed beneath a large allegorical tapestry. Claude de Guise, the youngest brother, joined them and the two men began to bicker over who would win the few candied plums arranged in the shape of a crescent, on the outer edge of the dish. Catherine took a goblet of wine from a silver tray.

  “You know,” she said, directing her comment to Henri, “it really is not wise to indulge the child so. It will only serve to make her terribly petulant.”

  Diane sat tenuously in one of the leather chairs across the room, removing herself from the instant tension between husband and wife. François de Guise handed Diane a goblet of wine and then stood beside her. Everyone in the room looked at Catherine, who regretted instantly what she had been forced by envy to say. She knew that the little girl, named after his mistress, was Henri’s favorite child. That fact was no secret to anyone who had ever seen them together. Catherine fought frantically for something to say that would diffuse her objectionable remark.

  “So then, you had a pleasant ride,” she said. “The air appeared a bit too brisk for me.”

  To Catherine’s great surprise, it was Diane de Poitiers who now rescued her. “It was lovely, Your Highness,” she said. “The woods around here still have some green, and Mademoiselle Diane enjoyed it so much that I believe it made it that much more special for the rest of us.”

  Catherine looked around. Guise and Saint-André were nodding their agreement. “I understand just what you mean,” she agreed. Then the look of gratitude vanished. “I was saying that very thing to my hus
band before your return. I was telling him that the peace around here feels nearly spiritual. It is a place to which I know I shall never tire of coming. In fact, I beat His Highness at cards just now, and got him to promise this chateau to me; a gift for the birth of our next child.”

  “I said I would consider it!” Henri charged with a thundering voice of disapproval. “Jésu, Catherine! will you never learn to keep quiet?”

  Diane looked at Henri but said nothing. One of her many gifts that set her apart from the Dauphine, was having learned very early in life when to hold her tongue. She wondered, as she looked at him so full of pent-up rage, what Catherine might have done to extract such an agreement.

  He was tense. His eyes were charged and glittering; his face was pinched and white. It was to have been a special holiday, but nothing had gone quite the way he had planned it since their arrival. The primary problem was that the chateau was small. Diane knew that Henri did not relish sharing such familiar accommodations with his wife and his mistress. This was, after all, their sacred place, and Henri had meant their return to be special. They had so little time away from the rest of the Court. Away from Catherine. It was Catherine, however, who had installed herself in the largest suite on the ground floor; who even in these cramped quarters was at all times surrounded by her train of Italians, her own foods, her suite of ladies, and her two pet lap dogs. She had managed to make her presence known and felt at nearly every hour of the day.

  When a servant came to say that supper was now served, Catherine was the first to rise from her chair, wanting to escape the tension that she had created. But none of them ever made it into the dining hall. As they all began to walk toward the door, a messenger, visibly shaken and out of breath, came in from the corridor. He said he brought urgent news about the King.