Courtesan

by Diane Haeger

Her tone became more insistent. “What I would like is for you to agree that it is a proper name, and to know that you approve.”

  “Then I approve.”

  “Good.”

  Catherine settled back against the pillows and fingered the white linen sheets that were folded at the point where her belly, only yesterday, had held a child. Henri freed his hand from hers and looked across the room. He could not quite make out the time on the clock on the small table near the foot of the bed, but he was certain that an eternity had passed. When he looked back at the Queen, he could see something was building in her dark smoky eyes.

  “You come to me like this only grudgingly and already you want to leave to go to her?”

  “Catherine, please, do not begin it all again.” He sighed.

  “But I have given Your Majesty what you desired; what the kingdom desired. Together we have a son who is heir to the throne, and two daughters more. She is not Queen, I am. Why can you not leave her now?”

  Henri sprang from the chair. He loomed over her, his brows fused with anger. “I have three daughters, Madame. You forget Diane de France. And you know that what you ask is impossible.”

  His words were so simple, so direct, that there was no possibility that she could refute them. But as he reached the foot of the bed, intending to punctuate what he had said with a swift exit, he suddenly remembered the gift which he had brought for her. He turned around and thrust the black silk bundle at her.

  “It is a strand of pearls,” he said coldly. “I was informed that you admired those that Madame Diane received from His Holiness.”

  Her eyes were filled with tears as she held up the costly necklace. “Please, Henri. I ask only for a chance. Would you at least consider what I have had to say?”

  “There is nothing to consider, Catherine. Nor will there ever be. I am sorry.” His duty to his wife thus disposed of, he turned and strode toward the open bedchamber door.

  “Then I shall pray for your immortal soul,” she called after him.

  “You need not pray for my soul, Madame,” he replied without turning around. “For it is worth nothing if it means a lifetime without the woman I love.”

  It was not until he was gone from her sight that she hurled the gift at the open door. The string broke and the floor was washed with small white beads.

  “YOUR MAJESTY! What is it?” Montmorency asked, narrowly missing the white spray of pearls across the room. He had rounded the corner to her bedchamber just as the Queen had screeched a profanity at the disappearing King, and tossed the pearls. The moment she saw the Constable, Catherine’s thick face softened.

  “Oh, my dear friend!” she said in a gentle voice and extended her hand across the bedcovers. “Please forgive me. I have just had a visit from the King. It did not go as I had hoped.”

  “So I gathered,” he replied as he moved toward the heavy poster bed. When he reached her side, he bowed and added, “Your Majesty,” acknowledging her in a more reverent tone. The formal part of his salutation past, he stood again and leaned over to kiss her hand. “You look splendid, Madame. Childbirth does agree with you.”

  “That it does; but it appears to be the only thing that I can do for him that she no longer can.”

  Montmorency eased into the chair that had been occupied by the King only moments before. Then he handed her the small silver chest, hoping it would create a distraction for her anger.

  “A gift for me?”

  “Just a small token of my great esteem.”

  She opened it with the excitement of a child and gazed down at the rosary. “Oh Anne, it is lovely. Thank you.”

  The curves of his lips straightened, forming one thin bloodless line, as he bristled at the sound of his given name. He allowed no one to address him that way, no one but the Queen. Long ago she had said she liked it, made a habit of it, and that was that.

  “Oh, Anne,” she cried. “I simply do not know how I am to endure this! I want that woman out of his life, but it seems that I am powerless to do anything about it! I thought for so many years if I simply waited, if I were patient, one day he would grow tired of her. Everyone told me so. But it seems that the older she gets, the greater her hold on him becomes!”

  “There are many here who seek to dominate our King, Your Majesty, not the least of whom is his mistress,” he managed to whisper before catching the eye of Piero Strozzi who was listening with great interest. “Perhaps, Your Majesty, we could speak more freely in private,” he suggested, and then leaned back in his chair, indicating with his posture that he meant to say nothing more in front of an audience.

  Catherine waited until the loose pearls were gathered up by two of her ladies before she dismissed them. Strozzi was the last to leave the bedchamber, turning to give the Queen one last opportunity to change her mind; but she did not see him.

  “I see this domination of His Majesty in a structural way,” he began again once they were alone. “Something not unlike the composition of a house. To carry it further then, each usurper of your rightful power would be a foundation stone. And to topple that house most expediently, one would be well advised to begin with the foundation.”

  “Go on.”

  “I shall be blunt, if Your Majesty shall permit it.” Catherine nodded her approval and then blew her nose into a lace handkerchief. “The Guises are in favor with the King’s mistress. That much is common knowledge, and I need not point to the magnitude of power the Duchesse de Valentinois wields at this Court. Already they have managed to marry their brother, Claude, to her daughter. Your husband saw to it that Charles de Guise was named Cardinal at the tender age of twenty-three. Now they are encouraging His Majesty to bring their niece, Mary, the little Scots Queen, here as a wife to your son. I tell you, the Duchesse and the Guises are a strong power base; very like the foundation of a house. I believe now that if we do not act, they may very well one day control us all!”

  “But what can we do?” the Queen asked, now sitting upright in her bed.

  “We must begin in stages. As one builds a house, so shall we demolish it. The first stone shall be the Guises.”

  Catherine had not given up her fantasy of poisoning Diane, but she must admit, this was cleaner. Simpler. Montmorency was an expert in things of which she knew nothing. He did not like Diane or the Guises any more than she did, but the King would never suspect him of any wrongdoing. She knew that it was not wise to be involved in a plan to ruin those whom the King loved, but Catherine was desperate. She had the grave misfortune, along the way, of having fallen in love with her husband. It was far more disheartening since she knew that he did not now, nor would he ever, love her in return. But what her heart and her mind told her were two distinctly different things. The love she bore him was fueled by fantasy; the fantasy that if somehow she could remove the threat, then, just perhaps, she could make him love her.

  HENRI HAD LEFT the Queen’s apartments half an hour earlier than he had planned. The meeting had angered him; not only because she had insisted on bringing up the issue of Diane, but because when he looked at his wife now, he saw his greatest weakness there, weakness of the flesh. At the age of twenty-nine, Henri’s body was hard, and his drive was intense. During the day he spent countless hours riding, fencing and playing jeu de paume; but none of these activities ever totally quelled the desire. At night, it would possess him completely until he found release with Diane. As each year passed, the need for her body grew stronger; and she was still a perfect lover. There was no fantasy, no act that she denied him, unless it was time for him to attend to his duties with the Queen. Then she would lock herself away, rewarding him again only after he had fulfilled his obligations to his Crown. She knew him, and she understood his duty better than anyone.

  “I wish you to see to the drafting of a proclamation,” he said to Antoine de Bourbon, who had waited for him outside the Queen’s apartments.

  “I wish to bestow a home as a gift for faithful service to the Crown. . .something of that nature. Sa
int-André can help you with the wording and all of the legalities. But you are to understand that it must be a formal declaration deeding the property. There must be no way it can be seen as a gift. It is payment for service rendered to the Crown. There must be no way that it can be removed. Is that clear?”

  “Indeed, Your Majesty.”

  “I leave tomorrow to begin toward Italy. Tell Saint-André that the proclamation is to be delivered as a gift after I have gone so that no word is leaked of it beforehand.” They began to walk again, proceeding through a large doorway and down a spiral staircase.

  “What is the property, Your Majesty?”

  “Chenonceaux.”

  Bourbon looked up at the King, unable to mask his surprise. “And the recipient, Sire?”

  “Why, Madame Diane, of course,” Henri replied with a smile.

  DIANE WAS EVEN EARLIER to the council chambers than was the King. She was sitting at the long table in a carved armchair, her back to the door. She was dressed in a heavy black-velvet gown with white collar and cuffs, poring over a volume on foreign affairs. When she heard Henri enter in the company of two of his secretaries, she stood and curtsied to him.

  “Your Majesty,” she said with the same respect she always showed him in public. Henri took her hand. Then, to her surprise, he kissed her with such abandon that her cheeks burned. She lowered her head to hide their blush.

  “Where were you?” he whispered. “When I woke, you were gone.”

  “I was with the Queen,” Diane cautiously replied.

  “I have just come from there. Catherine did not mention you.”

  “You did not really expect that she would, did you?”

  “Perhaps not. But damn her! She could at least make an attempt to live amiably with us. When was it that you saw her?” Henri waited for her to sit, then sat beside her. Diane lowered her head again and took a breath.

  “It was in the night, chéri; while she was in the final stages of her labor. It was a difficult birth, far more difficult than the last two. Her ladies came to me and I am glad they did not wake you. Apparently they still believe me possessed of some kind of imaginary power, because they pleaded with me for a potion to help the Queen. Both Mademoiselles Bonajusti and Cavalcanti were most humble. I know they feared for Her Majesty’s life. Fortunately, not long after I arrived, your daughter was born.”

  He ran his finger along the curve of her cheek and said in a tone just above a whisper, “I shall spend the rest of my life repaying your kindness, you know. Even then, I fear, it shall never be enough.”

  The chamber doors were opened again and a flurry of activity engulfed the firelit room. Saint-André, Guise, Bourbon, Marck and the Cardinal de Lorraine were issued in and took their seats around the King and Diane. The new Cardinal, Charles de Guise, just returned from Rome, followed them in his new crimson cassock and biretta. Montmorency was the last to make an entrance in a costume of purple velvet, edged in gold. When everyone was settled, Robert de La Marck stood.

  “The issue at hand is the Scottish situation,” said Diane’s son-in-law.

  “Your Majesty,” said François de Guise, “the problems there have escalated dramatically. The Scottish troops have suffered heavy losses against the English, who are at this very moment attempting to claim our little niece, Queen Mary.”

  “It is not safe for her there,” his brother agreed. “The English know we oppose a marriage between her and the young King of England. That puts her life in immediate danger. Just two months ago, English troops sought to take the child from the Scots with the support of eighteen thousand men.”

  “Your Majesty, the people in Scotland are pleading with us to intercede,” noted the Cardinal de Lorraine to further his nephew’s ambitious cause. “They will do as the French will them, to avoid an alliance with England.”

  “Would your sister agree to allow the child to be raised in France?” asked the King, rubbing his thumb and forefinger along the line of his beard.

  “Our sister’s foremost concern is for the child,” François replied.

  As Diane leaned back in her chair, she watched in silent fascination as the two brothers weaved their intricate plan upon the King. Perhaps it was because she had not wanted to see it, but she had never seen their ambition so apparent as it was today. In her early years at Court, her opinion of them had been colored by gratitude. They had both been kind to her. She could not afford then to see beyond their courtesy. There had been far too many other dragons to slay.

  But many things had changed. Their intentions were clear. Since Charles had become Cardinal de Guise, undoubtedly they would seek a Dukedom for François. They already had the marriage of her own daughter Louise to their younger brother Claude. Now they meant for little Mary to marry the Dauphin. If they were to achieve that, there would be no limit to their power. Bringing the little Queen to France was the pièce de résistance in their master plan and yet, like the growth of a cancer, even Madame Diane, with all of her influence, was powerless against the slow, insidious growth of the house of Guise.

  YOU GAVE HER CHENONCEAUX? How could you, when you promised it to me?”

  Catherine had stormed onto the jeu de paume court where the King had just positioned himself to receive a serve from Jacques de Saint-André. Henri was dressed all in white, with a wide-brimmed straw hat to shield the sun from his eyes. On the sidelines, a collection of courtiers were brought to a hush at sight of the Queen. She came to a sudden stop at the edge of the court, her hands placed firmly on her wide hips. Henri lowered his racket and faced her.

  “Who, Madame, is your informant?”

  “My informant?” she repeated, and gave a wounded little laugh. “You dare to ask me such a thing when you promised Chenonceaux to me?”

  Henri strutted across the court until they were facing one another, then put his hand on her shoulder.

  “I think it would be more appropriate if we discussed this matter privately. Perhaps this evening.”

  “And why is that? So that you can justify it somehow? So that I will not be able to contest it? So no one will know that you preferred to give a chateau to your courtesan, rather than to your Queen! I wanted that house, Henri, and you knew it!”

  He had never seen her like this. The onlookers hung on her every word, convinced that by fortune, they were being made privy to the makings of a great scandal. But just as they were beginning to enjoy the rare ravings of the usually submissive Queen, Montmorency and a collection of guards moved in from the sidelines and began to escort them back toward the chateau. When they had gone, Henri dropped his racket to the ground. He wondered who it was that might have told her. No one had known but Saint-André and Bourbon, and he trusted them both.

  “Jacques, do you know about this?”

  Saint-André moved from the opposite side of the rope toward the King and Queen. “No, Your Majesty. I am afraid I do not.”

  “Oh, do not look to blame him!” the Queen raged. “It is fully your doing. Did you not think that I would find out one day in some manner or other? So tell me, perhaps I shall learn from it. What did she do to get you to give it to her instead of to me?”

  Now she was wailing. Her swollen face was flushed red, and her words were disjointed. Italian. French. Then back to Italian. He looked over her shoulder at Saint-André. He simply shrugged. Henri tried to calm her anger by telling her that on the same day that he had arranged the deed for Chenonceaux, he had conferred upon her the gift of the Barony of Tour en Auvergne. That domain had once belonged to her grandmother, and he had thought it would please her to have it returned.

  “And so you thought you could simply give me anything else to quiet me? Perhaps you have forgotten that Chenonceaux is property of the Crown. It is not yours to give and no deeds or gifts, no matter how you disguise them, will ever alter that fact!” Only then did she take a breath before she added, “I warn you, Henri, tread lightly with me. I am no longer your puppet.” In her anger she had gone too far. She saw the rage
building in his eyes.

  “Do you dare to threaten me, Madame?”

  Their eyes were locked. Neither moved. But then, as she stood facing him, Henri began to see the pain behind the anger; the pain that he alone had caused her. His compassion for her startled him.

  “Catherine, please, you can have any other place you like. There is a large chateau on a bluff overlooking the valley. It is called Chau-mont and it is an exquisite chateau, far grander than Chenonceaux. Please, let me give it to you. I would really like to do that for you.”

  “I want only Chenonceaux.” Her tone once again was cold and resolute. She said the words in Italian because she knew that it would anger him.

  “Well, you cannot have it!” he replied in French. “It belongs to Madame now, and no matter what you thought I said, it was always meant for her.”

  Henri left the jeu de paume court before she could protest further. He knew if he stayed to reason with her, she would only begin to weep, or worse, to threaten Diane and neither prospect was he prepared to face without the use of violence against her.

  HENRI DID NOT ARRIVE at Saint Germain-en-Laye until after midnight, and although he was tired from the long ride, he was glad to know that he had left Catherine and her tears behind him. He had not planned to leave until morning, but he could not bear to look upon her sad, puffy face another moment. It made him angry. Everything about her made him angry, and the fact that, seven months after the birth of Princess Claude, she again carried his child was like salt in a raw wound.

  Surrounded by his entourage, he mounted the steps toward the royal nursery, and began the long walk down the torch-lit corridor. The six-year-old Queen of Scots was now installed here and with Diane, who was returning from Anet the following morning, he had planned formally to greet her.

  “Please, Your Majesty, allow me to wake the servants and ready the children if you mean to see them tonight,” Montmorency argued.

  “That will not be necessary. I only want to look in on them. No sense in rousing the staff for that.”