She did make an impression. She had exquisite bone structure, near-translucent skin, and almond-shaped eyes. Her nose was long, a Guise nose; her mouth showed perfect little teeth. Robust health was evident in her slim body, which had gone stiff at my appearance.
I chuckled. “The question should be, my dear: Who are you?”
She passed her gaze over me. “I am the queen of Scotland and the Isles, of course.”
“Is that so? And what if I told you, queen of Scotland and the Isles, that I too am royal?”
She scoffed. “You can’t be. I’ve already met His Majesty and Her Grace.”
My smile vanished. Diane. She thought Diane was queen.
My children watched as I stepped closer to Mary. “So you’ve met the king and queen. Tell me, my dear, what do you think of them?”
“They’re beautiful, as a king and queen should be.”
“Indeed.” I looked at my son. “Do you find the queen of France beautiful, my prince?”
He cringed. “Mary,” he whispered, “this lady, she … she is—”
At that moment a disheveled young woman rushed in. She brought with her the smell of fresh-cut grass and roses, her fiery red hair tossed about a flushed face, her voluptuous figure squeezed into a far too ornate azure gown. She came to a halt, gasped, and dropped into a curtsy.
Mary went still.
“Please, rise,” I said. “You must be Janet Fleming, our queen of Scots’ governess.”
Janet Fleming stood. “I am, Your Grace,” she murmured, “to serve you, Your Grace.”
Mary lifted her stunned eyes to me. “You … you are …?”
I nodded and embraced her. “Now,” I said in her ear, “now you’ve met the queen.”
She shuddered in my arms. I drew back. “Go on,” I said. “Continue with your games.” I moved to the door and then I paused. “You didn’t answer my question, my dear.”
“Question, Your Grace?” She had recovered her poise with remarkable alacrity.
“Yes. Do you find me beautiful, as a queen should be?”
She replied without hesitation. “Of course. All queens are beautiful.”
It was a devious answer. But it gratified me all the same.
The following year, I bore my fourth child and second son, Charles. A month overdue, he was a small babe, unusually quiet. Still, he bore a strong resemblance even in his infancy to his father; and my husband, who held himself aloof from the nurseries, took an immediate fancy to him, charmed by Charles’s delighted gurgles whenever he showed up. Henri’s fondness for our new son also meant Diane swooped in to take charge of Charles’s household arrangements, insisting he needed two nursemaids because of his size, as well as extra attendants. Once more I was ignored, though I’d just given birth, and my hatred of Diane almost choked me.
But like me, she was about to discover the price she must pay.
I’d retired early from the evening banquet and sat before my dressing table, where Lucrezia brushed out my hair. Anna-Maria came to my door. “Your Majesty, Madame de Valentinois is here,” and without leave, Diane pushed past her.
“Leave us,” I told my women, and I turned to her. “Madame, I was just about to retire.”
Her mouth twitched. “I had to see Your Grace. It’s horrible. Horrible!”
I rose at once. “What is it? What has happened to my children?”
She shook her head. “They’re fine. I’ve just come from their apartments and they sleep like angels. I’m not here about them. I’m here about that harlot who watches over them.”
I paused. This was an unexpected turn of events. “Whom do you refer to: Madame d’Humeries or Lady Fleming?”
“Lady Fleming, of course. I’ve discovered she and the constable are lovers.”
I couldn’t contain my burst of laughter. “Handful the Fleming is, no doubt, but not even she would bed a man old enough to be her grandfather.”
My pointed barb regarding age went unnoticed; I refrained from adding that I rather liked Janet Fleming and the children adored her, for she was never averse to hiking up her skirts and joining them in a game of hide-and-seek or getting down on her knees to hunt for a lost toy.
“It is true,” Diane spat. “Janet Fleming consorts with him. Friends of mine, trusted friends, have seen her sneaking in and out of his apartments. It cannot continue. Think of the scandal should her harlotry become public.”
Much as I hated to admit it, she wasn’t being hysterical. Sexual indiscretions had a way of mutating at court. Anyone with a grudge against the Guises (and there were plenty) might use the indiscretion to cast calumny upon Mary, who would one day wed my son. I had no doubt Diane knew what she was talking about where Janet Fleming was concerned; after all, she had her spies and I’d experienced for myself how much she liked to watch in the bedroom, but I doubted Montmorency was involved.
I kept my thoughts to myself, however, enjoying the sight of her in a frenzy over another woman’s immorality. “It must be stopped! And Montmorency must be banished.”
“He does what is in most men’s nature, madame.” I consulted my fingernails. “Surely you don’t suggest that I should reprimand him for indiscretion in his private affairs?”
She waved her hand. “No, no. Monsignor will shoulder that task. Only he and his brother le Balafré require His Majesty’s consent to send Montmorency away and …”
I looked up. “Yes?”
“Well, His Majesty must first be persuaded of the gravity of the matter.”
“And you want me to inform him? If so, I should remind you that I could not do so unless I’d seen this indiscretion for myself—which of course is out of the question.”
She leaned to me, teeth bared. “It’s not as out of the question as you might think. They meet tonight in Montmorency’s chamber. I know how to catch them in the act.”
I felt as if she’d spewed acid on me. I considered ordering her out. I did not because if Lady Fleming was engaged in a carnal affair, I needed to know. Nothing must blemish my son’s bride. Besides, if I was right and Montmorency wasn’t the culprit it would give me the perfect opportunity to prove Diane wrong. She’d be in my debt for a change, and I’d make certain to exact a hefty price.
“Very well,” I said. “Allow me a moment to change, yes?”
We slipped down the corridors like errant schoolgirls. Should we be espied creeping through the palace, the entire court would be abuzz by morning, and I giggled at the thought. Diane still harbored a loathing of any public attention, promulgating her role as chaste adviser to the king and loyal attendant to me even as the court dubbed her the king’s whore behind her back.
She unlatched the door to a deserted chamber that smelled of smoke and dust. Gliding to the alcove, she knelt, her face white in the moonlight. She pulled the carpet back, exposing a hole drilled in the floorboard. Light flickered in the room below. As muffled laughter reached us, she waved me forward. I heard a man’s voice. Overcome by curiosity, I got down on my hands and knees and pressed my eye to the hole.
A woman slipped past my view. I assumed she was Lady Fleming, which she confirmed when she neared the candle by the bed and shook out that wealth of fiery Scottish hair. She began undoing her stays with languid seduction. A disembodied hand reached out, yanking the bodice from her. I felt a tingle in my own loins at the brusque impatience of that gesture, watching mesmerized as her plump breasts were revealed.
Warmth rose in me as I saw Janet Fleming put a finger in her mouth, moisten it, and begin toying with her nipples. This was lust. This was what I’d never share with Henri, what I had never experienced. At that moment I wanted to be her, oblivious to everything but my pleasure.
“Come here,” I heard the man say, his voice thick with desire.
“Can you see them?” Diane hissed in my ear.
I shook my head. Janet had shifted out of my view. I heard clothing drop, groaning as skin slid against skin. Then Janet fell upon the bed, her legs arching. The man stood
before her, taut buttocks flexing. That well-toned flesh didn’t belong to Montmorency, who was in his fifties, I thought; and as the man yanked Janet to him by the ankles, I suddenly recognized him.
With a stifled gasp, I flung myself back.
Diane scowled and thrust her eye to the hole. Her shock erupted from her in a drawn-out wail. I doubt they heard her, pounding and thrashing as they were. When she looked up to meet my eyes, her face resembled a pared skull.
The errant lover was none other than our own Henri.
Within days, Birago brought me the gossip flying through court. I stayed out of the fray and delighted in Birago’s accounts of how everyone spoke of nothing else, speculating that Montmorency—upon noticing Henri’s wandering eye whenever he visited the nurseries to see Charles—had sought to destroy Diane’s influence over the king by facilitating the encounters with Janet Fleming. Diane had been through a similar debacle with the Piedmontese and shown discretion. This time, however, she was five years older; the veneer of a chaste friendship between her and Henri was long tarnished, and she set her spies to uncovering every sordid detail, thus making the event glaringly public. She compounded it by insisting on Janet’s return to Scotland. Chastened and embarrassed, Henri agreed. This left Diane free to vent her wrath on Montmorency, who stormed from court declaring he’d not be ordered about by a “strumpet.”
I laughed until my sides ached, even as I felt a pinch of jealousy over Henri’s infatuation with the blowsy Scottish governess. Though I didn’t relish his infidelity, the fact that Diane appreciated it even less was cause enough for rejoicing.
Then Henri himself came one night to see me. To my surprise, he didn’t try to pretend nothing was amiss but rather grumbled outright that he didn’t appreciate being made to look a fool. “It isn’t as if I gave her a title! It was but a romp. God knows, my father did worse in his time and no one reproached him for it.” He paused, looking at me. “Were you upset?”
I sat straighter in my chair; it was the first time he’d ever thought to ask me about my feelings. I didn’t want to think of his reaction should he discover my part in this fiasco, until I realized he never would, because Diane—hypocrite that she was—would never tell him. The last thing she’d ever admit was that she’d gone so far as to spy on him through a hole in the floor.
“No,” I said at length, “but the children are another matter. They loved Janet Fleming.”
He sighed. “Yes, I didn’t consider them.” He paused again. “It really didn’t upset you?”
I had accepted that he would never understand the complexity of my heart, the futile envy and hurt born of the knowledge that he would never grab me by the ankles.
So I made myself shrug with deliberate indifference.
He set aside his goblet. He had removed his doublet; under the lacings of his chemise I could see the dark hair of his chest. I looked down at my embroidery as I heard him say, “Catherine, I wish others were as understanding as you.”
His hand cupped my chin. He leaned over, set his bearded lips to mine. He had never kissed me like this before: a firm union of our mouths that speared fire straight to my feet. I found myself drawing stifled breaths as his tongue probed mine and his hands wandered to my breasts, undoing my robe and peeling it back from my shoulders. I gasped as he gathered me in his arms and brought me to the bed, where he set me on the mattress, gentle as the evening light.
He removed his clothes until he stood naked before me. I had never looked upon him in his entirety before, not as I did then, and I never would again. But for that one time he was all I ever wanted to see—proud and tall, the taut musculature of his youth softened by the years.
He whispered, “Tonight I want to make love to my wife.”
That night, I discovered passion as it is meant to be. There was no obligation hovering over us, no watchful mistress, none of the unfamiliarity of strangers committing the most intimate of acts. There was just us; and it was the one time our desire met, collided, and became one. For the most intoxicating of hours, I reveled as Janet Fleming had—a woman in every sense of the word. He stayed with me that night; his arms wrapped about me as I slept with my head on his chest, lulled by the strong beat of his heart.
It was mid-December. Together, we conceived my most beloved child.
FOURTEEN
AFTER A FEW SHORT HOURS OF LABOR AT OUR CHERISHED PALACE of Fontainebleau, I held for the first time my third son, my Henri-Alexander, titled duc d’Anjou.
I adored him from the moment he was put in my arms. It wasn’t just that he resembled the Medici, with his long-lashed black eyes and olive skin. There was something else, a palpable bond not severed by his release from my womb. I cradled him for hours; to my women’s dismay, I even let him suckle my breast, though he had a nursemaid. Lucrezia thought it was unseemly that I should be seen giving my child teat like a peasant, but I did not care.
I wanted only to be with him.
The following year was one of the happiest I could recall, though 1552 was a year of war, with the outbreak of serious hostilities over Milan once again setting us to raise troops in Italy’s defense against the Hapsburg emperor Charles V. This time, however, before Henri left for the front, in the hall in the presence of our entire court he took me by the hand and declared, “In my absence, I entrust the queen, my wife, with the affairs of this realm. She is to rule over you, her decisions as respected and adhered to as if they were my own.”
Tears filled my eyes as he turned to me and murmured, “You’ve earned this, wife.” It was an honor few queens of France had ever enjoyed, and as I gazed past him to the court, I caught sight of Diane rigid at her table, her face leached of color. Beside her, Monsignor glared. Now they knew I was not someone they could insult anymore, and this unexpected triumph made up for the years of ignominy I had been forced to endure.
That evening in my rooms, Henri spoke to me of my duties. “Rely on the Council to guide you but remember you are the regent, not the other way around. Be firm, Catherine,” he added with a smile, “as you so often are with me.”
Then he took me to bed and made love to me with the familiarity of an old friend.
I took my regency seriously. I met with the Council, held audience with ambassadors, and set our idle ladies to packing supplies for the front. At night, I wrote to Henri, detailing everything, even as the war that had begun with such high hopes turned against us. The Milanese, who had begged for our help, resisted our incursion, and together with his son, Philip of Spain, Charles V dispatched an impressive counterforce that soon drenched the soil of Milan with French blood.
Three months after he’d departed at the head of a vast army to wrest Milan from the Imperial yoke, Henri returned to France haggard and gaunt. More than half of the men who had gone were either wounded or dead, and we had emptied our treasury.
“I must sue for peace,” he told me. “If we don’t, Charles and Philip will crush us. I’ve failed. Milan will never be ours again.”
I sat at his side. “You must do what is best for France.”
He nodded wearily and dispatched our envoys to the Hapsburg court. While terms were debated, word came that Charles V, beset by gout, had decided to abdicate, bequeathing Austria, Flanders, and the German provinces to his younger brother, while Spain, Netherlands, and the New World went to his son, Philip II, who wed the late English king’s sister, Mary Tudor.
I bore my final children in the next two years. In May 1553, my daughter Margot was born; followed a year later by my fourth and last son, Hercule. Both came into the world under Taurus, a sign capable of equal ardor and treachery.
When I was thirty-six, I met Michel de Nostradamus.
Famine and poor weather beset the south along with a virulent outbreak of plague, which created a mass influx of peasants from the countryside into our cities. I read chilling reports from our lord mayors that entire cities were garrisoned to stop the plague from entering, the citizens trapped within and reduced to foraging for
food as best as they could, while mass graves were dug.
Like everyone else, the thought of plague turned my blood cold; while we had not had a case at court since I’d come to France, all it took was one. Entire dynasties had been wiped out and so I instituted strict hygienic measures in my children’s apartments, insisting that every floor be covered with carpets, not lousy rushes, and that linens be laundered three times a week. I suspected the plague was spread by filth; rats in particular horrified me, and I paid outrageous sums to stock our kitchens, the stables, and other outbuildings with cats.
When word came to me of a doctor who traveled the plague-stricken areas treating the sick with pills he concocted from rose petals, I was immediately interested. Michel de Nostradamus, I was told, was a converted Jew who had published a discourse on treating the plague. He’d lost his wife and now made his home in Provence; to my surprise, he was also considered a gifted seer.
I went to talk to Henri. “I’d like to invite him to court.”
He reclined on a couch as our court physician, Ambrose Paré, dressed his thigh. He’d suffered a flesh wound during sword practice, and while not grave, the injury was inflamed. My husband clenched his teeth as Paré applied a poultice and started wrapping the wound in a fresh bandage.
“Michel de Nostradamus is a doctor,” I said. “He can assist Dr. Paré with your leg.”
Paré glanced at me in weary gratitude. Henri was not an ideal patient. He hated being inactive and had already reopened the wound twice by insisting on riding.
My husband scowled. “If he can help, summon him. I’m tired of bandages and poultices.”
“Thank you.” I kissed his brow and went to dispatch my summons.
Weeks passed without a reply. In the fall, we made our habitual move to the red-brick and stone Château Blois in the Loire Valley, where I had refurbished my apartments with new wainscoting and tapestries. Here, I spent hours overseeing my household affairs.
One afternoon without warning, Michel de Nostradamus walked in.
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