by Diane Haeger
“Your Majesty knows that we may not alter what is already written in the stars.”
“But you said there was a chance! You can do it. You must! You said combat. Clearly, if he does not do battle, he will survive. Is that not true?”
“The stars say that he may survive, Your Majesty. The direction of change in the heavens is not for me to decide.”
“Please, Monsieur! I shall pay you whatever you desire, but you must consult with His Majesty. He must be warned! God save us, he is your King! I cannot lose him now, I cannot!”
Gauier glanced around the room. He knew that the King was a great skeptic and he did not relish subjecting his gift of prophecy to such rigorous doubt. Still, she was the Queen and she had seen to a substantial commission for him, along with a very fashionable house in Paris. If he did not do as she asked, there would be no reason for her to retain him. After another moment’s reflection, the Queen’s astrologer agreed.
HENRI AGREED TO MEET with Catherine after his fencing match in the courtyard, but he went to her apartments reluctantly. He did not believe in astrology, nor did he approve of the prophets who made their living from her by bending the truth to fit her fantasies. Still, he agreed. His reason was simple. She had managed to appeal to him, as she always did, when he was most weak. He felt badly about the slight over Chenonceaux and he saw this concession as a way to make amends. When Catherine explained to him that Gauier had made predictions that he must hear, Henri did not have the heart to refuse her. So now he would go and hear the ominous words of doom, consider himself warned, and thereby satisfy his wife and his guilt.
“So then, where is he?” Henri asked from the door. “He is late and I am very busy.”
“He will be here. That I promise you. Would you care for a cup of wine?”
Henri descended the two carpet-covered steps and strode into the Queen’s receiving room. Catherine was sitting alone at a small gaming table near a window. She wore purple satin edged in gold, loose around the middle to allow for her latest pregnancy. Around her neck she wore a collar of pearls with a large garnet pendant. Her frizzled black hair poked out from her cap, just above her forehead.
As the King advanced into the incense-laced center of the Queen’s rooms, one of her ladies came forward with a tray. In the center were two rare crystal goblets with white wine from Anjou. Henri sat down beside Catherine at the table. This, no doubt, would be used for their consultation with Gauier. To Henri’s surprise, there were no candles, no magic wands and no jars of powder or mysterious liquid arranged before them. There was only an ordinary deck of cards and their crystal goblets.
Henri settled into the chair that creaked as he moved, and he felt a small tug at his heart when he looked at her now, so carefully groomed for his visit. Yet, Catherine looked tired and she was heavier than he had ever seen her. He thought how the children that she carried seemed to dominate her body long before the time of their birth. Though her abdomen seemed swollen nearly to capacity, this child, their fourth, was not due for another four months.
“Monsieur Luc Gauier,” Lucrezia announced as the astrologer, in his long blue robe, hurried down the steps and into her chamber.
“Your Majesty,” he said, bowing before the King and his benefactress. In one hand he held a book of Egyptian hieroglyphics. In the other was an astrolabe, an instrument for observing the position of the celestial bodies. The tools of his trade, thought Henri smugly. Gauier is no different than the Queen’s confidant, Ruggieri, nor any of the other mystics who were now so popular at his Court. Again Gauier bowed to the King as he drew nearer to the table.
“Yes, yes. Now do sit down,” Henri said impatiently and then emptied his goblet in one swallow. “I understand from the Queen that you have something that you wish me to know.”
Gauier cringed at the King’s irreverent tone. He was making light of the situation. He fought the urge to take his prophecies and leave the cynical King to the winds of his own fate but the pleading eyes of the Queen forced him into the other chair.
“Very well then,” said Gauier and he leaned back, closed his eyes and took a deep breath. “Several days ago, I consulted with the Queen. It was at that time that I came to fear for Your Majesty’s safety. During our consultation, I saw that you are in danger. The stars confirmed my prediction.”
Henri made no attempt to conceal a snicker. The mystic looked up and stopped.
“Go on,” Catherine urged.
Again Gauier took a breath. “I see that there is danger to Your Majesty in combat. The danger shall come to you in a single combat, in an enclosed field, and it shall be cast upon you in your forty-first year.” Gauier looked up. For a moment, no more, he saw the King’s face freeze. His hands rested motionless on top of the table. The arrogant countenance had vanished. Gauier, who took it as a sign, continued. “If Your Majesty should survive it, you would live to be sixty-nine years old. That is, as it is written in the stars,” he said, gesturing toward the astrolabe. When he looked back up, the King’s countenance had changed again. Now there was a hard pinched expression on his face and his dark brows were fused in a frown. The skeptic had returned.
“That is preposterous and unfounded, Monsieur, and I strongly resent your inflicting yourself on the Queen like this and frightening her with your prophecies of doom!”
“Tell him, Monsieur Gauier, please tell him!”
“Very well, Madame, for you. But only for you. Your Majesty, this is not my only prophecy. I made another prediction in your regard some time ago. I foresaw that you would be King of France after your father.” Gauier leaned across the table toward the King and thrust a slip of parchment boldly at him. “Your Majesty shall see that I committed this prophecy to paper in the year 1536, well before your elder brother’s tragic demise.”
He watched victoriously as Henri lowered his eyes to study the paper. “As Your Majesty can plainly see, the document was not only signed and witnessed by the Queen, but also by Monsieur Strozzi and a number of other senior members of her household.”
Henri glanced at Catherine, her bulging black eyes pleading with him to believe the mystic. He looked back down at the paper once again. Gauier could not have known then that his brother François would die. In those years no one ever expected that Henri would one day be King. His body was rigid, his fists clenched on top of the table, but he fought to maintain the countenance of a King. What would Diane think if he now chose to follow the dictates of a soothsayer?
“Monsieur,” he finally said, “perhaps what you say is true. But it does not bother me to die at the hand of another, provided he is brave and valiant and that the glory for this life remain mine.”
Catherine looked at him; her eyes, as always, were brimming with tears but she could say nothing.
Seeing the grim expression on both of their faces, Henri stood and shook his head. “Now, Monsieur Gauier, if there is nothing else. . .”
When he could see that neither of them meant to reply, he quickly left the room.
AFTER HIS REASON had returned and he was away from Catherine, Henri dismissed the ominous predictions as nothing more than a stroke of fortune. Anyone could have written such a thing in hopes of elevating himself if it did later actually come true. In fact, the King reasoned, Gauier could have registered a number of predictions then produce the appropriate one when and if it was called for. After all, there were plagues. There were wars. It was not inconceivable that his brother could accidentally have died. The mystic, like everyone else, knew that. As he walked alone down the shadowy corridor, Henri convinced himself that the letter had been nothing more than the well-orchestrated plan of a masterful opportunist. The Court was full of them.
As to the prediction that he would one day die in single combat, Henri chose to fall back on the laws of France. The laws of his country had long prohibited a King’s participation in a duel. Such a fate was impossible. As he walked, Henri systematically argued away all of the fears that he had first felt in Catherine’s
chamber. Mystics and prophets were in league with the devil. He had been wrong even to have listened to such an evil man, to have believed for a moment such nonsense. But as he walked, the ominous cloud of doubt surged up again, and he began to remember another time. Another place. It was Cauterets. The tiny inn and an old woman. Though Henri could no longer recall her face, her words had remained with him through the years. She had told Diane with the greatest conviction that she would bear three children when her marriage had given her only two. The daughter they now shared had been that third child.
But her last words had been most mystifying, and Henri had discounted them, believing that they related to her relationship with his father. Until now. You have the power to lead; to change, the old woman had said. One day you will have more power than you can imagine, over a great many lives. . .and it will come to you through your power over one who adores you. Of course! It was he, not his father, who was that one!
Henri quickened his pace and then broke into a run. Diane was waiting for him in the chapel. Now he was desperate to see her. Together they would pray to God. That alone would wash away the evil feeling of doom that his wife’s mystic had hung over him.
HENRI’S CORONATION OATH had been to drive heresy from the realm, and as Le Roi très Chrétien, he took the oath with gravity. Where his father had vacillated between sympathy for the Reformers to moves of unbridled harshness, Henri was unswerving in his faith. He was a devout Catholic, as were those in power around him. He believed that it was his duty to rid France of the threat posed by the Reformation that would divide not only the Church, but the country. Yet, despite his single-mindedness, the movement had grown. It was no longer simply the preoccupation of the ruling class, or dinner conversation for idle lords and ladies. The message had filtered down to the ranks of peddlers, cobblers and weavers. Secret meetings late into the night were held in every town of France and they had grown to such proportions that even the government was at a loss to stop them.
Yet he was not so plagued by the growth of the dissenters as he was by the accepted punishment for their heresy: death at the stake by burning. In Diane’s safe arms, the wounds of the past had begun to heal and Henri had grown into a gentle man. The notion of taking a man’s life in so savage a manner because of his beliefs disturbed him deeply. If he could understand, perhaps he could help to reunite the two factions which were slowly tearing France apart. Late into the night they spoke of it. He told Diane and the Cardinal de Guise that he wanted to speak with one of them; hear their claims. Perhaps with patience, he could come to understand what had driven them away from the Church, and just perhaps he could find a way to make them want to return.
“I want you to bring me a prisoner, Charles,” the King had said to Guise. “Someone unafraid to speak with me about his beliefs.”
“With all due respect, Your Majesty, that would be most irregular. Those people are the enemy, not only against you, but against God.”
“Well, something has got to be done to put an end to this. And after all, if I do not understand the enemy, how can I hope to win the war?”
Charles de Guise recalled the encounter with the King as he wound his way down the dark stone staircase into the bowels of the French prison. Here criminals and heretics waited together for their trials. Some waited for their executions, or simply for death to rescue them from the torment of their own excrement and the rancorous, infected cells.
Charles had little sympathy as he strode past the small black holes from which came the haunting moans and pleading cries of nameless, faceless men. He believed that they had sinned. They had earned their fate. He made the sign of the cross and moved along the dark and narrow pathway. Finally he reached an alcove where the guard kept a table, a lamp and some files on the men whom he guarded.
“No, no. These are all wrong!” he said, tossing the dossiers of several prisoners back onto the table. “I want someone less pronounced. These are all men of letters. If any of these men have their way, they will all but convince the King about their heresy, not dissuade him!” The Cardinal grabbed the stack of files from which the three had been chosen. The guard moved in with a torch so that the Cardinal could read. After a moment he selected one. A smile broadened on his thin face. “This one, yes this one. He will do perfectly.”
“But Your Eminence, he is nothing but a simple tailor. He ain’t fit for talking to the King!”
“Precisely, Monsieur. Quite precisely. Prepare him for His Majesty, and see that he has a bath. My men will be back in one hour to collect him.”
Guise turned around and began to walk back down the corridor which would lead him up to the rue Saint-Antoine and the fresh air of freedom. He lowered his head and quickened his pace until he was forced to stop. A line of prisoners chained together at the wrist were being transported from one place to another. The man who led them was discussing cell assignments with another guard, and the prisoners blocked his path. Charles tried to look away. The odor was vile. The men were filthy and depressing, and he was to have supper with Madame Diane when this disagreeable business was complete. But the men did not move, and he could not pass without brushing his crimson silk gown against their soiled brown rags.
Finally the Cardinal looked up again. It was an involuntary movement. He had not planned to meet the brutal stares of any of them, but the face of one, he was at a loss to avoid. He was two men back in the row of ten, but he was taller than the others and he held his head high, so that it would have been impossible not to see him. The man leered at Charles from behind a grimy brown face and white hair; his yellow teeth flashed a curious smile of recognition. He would have been any other anonymous prisoner had it not been for those eyes. They were familiar. For the instant that they stared at one another, Charles felt certain that he knew the man. But before he could place him, the guard returned, shouted something, and the queue of prisoners was issued down the hall.
The man and Charles’s memory of him faded back into the darkness as he climbed from the acrid-smelling pit, back to the world of the living. It was not until much later that evening, in the stylish house of the Duchesse de Valentinois, that the Cardinal would recall the identity of the prisoner with the haunting eyes.
DIANE’S NEW HOUSE in Paris was the sprawling, white stone Hotél d’Etampes on the rue Saint-Antoine. At Henri’s urgings, she had bought the grand estate of the former favourite for herself so that she could be near the palace and Henri.
Since their fear of poisoning, he had ceased to feel safe at the prospect of having his wife and his mistress housed together for any length of time. Catherine’s increasing involvement with alchemy and her association with poison mongers did little to allay his fears. When one of the King’s apothecaries informed him that a poison could now be produced, the effect of which was so gradual that it could kill and yet go undetected, he insisted on the move.
L’Hôtel de Graville, as L’Hôtel d’Etampes had been renamed, was a very stately and impressive old manor situated in the most fashionable area of Paris. It was on a long, tree-lined causeway in a strategic position between the royal palace Les Tournelles and L’Hôtel de Guise. Since Diane refused to let Henri purchase it for her, he had it completely furnished in black and white and provided a giant staff of servants to surprise her.
The Duchesse de Valentinois was still known as Madame Diane to her intimates, and the Court she held was a small one. She preferred the company of a few sincere friends to the vast gatherings of the previous reign. It was therefore considered a great achievement to be invited for a meal or an afternoon poetry reading. One’s importance to the Crown could be determined not only by position, but now by whether he dined at the palace, or at the L’Hôtel de Graville.
Charles de Guise sat with Diane and the King in her black and white dining hall. He leaned back, lay his head against the velvet-covered chair and watched a long wax taper slowly drip wax onto Madame Diane’s hand-embroidered tablecloth. He had drunk more than his usual share of wine this ev
ening, in an effort to stave off the sights and the odors of the Conciergerie. But still his mind was filled with it. Beside him, the King had just pulled Diane onto his lap, and now sat gazing rapturously at her. They were whispering to one another and for the first time in a long while, he hadn’t a care what they were saying.
Across from him, Saint-André and Bourbon engaged in a lively debate about Italian and French architecture; that much he could hear. Despite the fact that there were few things in the world Charles de Guise liked so much as the subject of architecture, he did not intervene. His mind was plagued by the identity of the mysterious prisoner he had seen that afternoon. Who could it have been? Did he really know the man, or had he just been reminded of someone?
After the meal was removed, everyone turned to the two large double doors stenciled in black with the royal emblem through which the heretic would now be brought. Henri had not meant for this interview to be taken as sport. He had hoped only to be enlightened about the Reformation. To his chagrin, his guests, nonetheless, were laughing and gossiping amongst themselves as though some drama were about to be performed. They seemed to care little that, in this room, the fate of a man’s life would soon be decided.
“Suddenly I wish this were over,” he whispered to Diane. “Though my intentions were constructive, I fear they have been all but lost on everyone else.”
“You can always cancel, chéri.”
“No. I have committed myself to hear the man out. I must see it through.”
The prisoner who was presented to the King was a small insignificant-looking man with a thin, bony face and small blue eyes. Still in chains, he stumbled through the door between two guards. What surprised everyone more than his appearance, was his manner. He was haughty and he possessed the confidence of an invited guest rather than a condemned man.
