The Confessions of Catherine de Medici

by C. W. Gortner

  As autumn neared, La Rochelle resisted every attempt to bring it down, and again I sent out terms for peace. We were running out of money. I would accept none from Spain, despite Philip’s offers, while the Huguenots had an endless supply from England.

  Elizabeth Tudor had become a serious participant in the outcome of our war. She now held Mary Stuart in imprisonment, after Mary made a disastrous second marriage and the suspicious death of her husband led the Protestant lords of Scotland to revolt against her. She fled to England to throw herself on Elizabeth’s mercy; horrified, Elizabeth put her under guard. I couldn’t summon much sympathy for her; Mary’s fate was of her own making, yet seeing as Elizabeth had seen fit to support Coligny and I needed her to desist, I sent a letter reminding her that Mary was still an anointed queen. I hoped to alert her to the fact that she’d best attend to the trouble in her own realm, rather than abet traitors in France. My tactic worked. Within days her ambassador waved Elizabeth’s ubiquitous flag of truce, requesting that I offer the English queen a marriage proposal. I smiled. She knew such diplomatic exercises could take years, given the age difference between her and my sons. She’d prolong her consideration, accept my gifts and blandishments, while Coligny would soon find his coffers depleted of her gold.

  I immediately called the Council to session. I anticipated Monsignor would cajole me to accept Spain’s assistance rather than court the heretic of England; I was prepared to counter with a letter of credit from my Florentine bankers.

  But when I entered the chamber, I found Charles waiting there with Birago.

  I looked at them in puzzlement. Charles said in a broken voice, “Maman, we’ve word from Spain. My sister Elisabeth, she … she has miscarried and …”

  I held up my hand, stopping him. Without a word, I staggered back to my apartments, where sunlight burned. Dropping at my prie-dieu, I lowered my head and waited for the deluge.

  Nothing came. Not a single tear.

  All I could remember were the hours after her birth when I’d held her, spellbound, her enormous eyes fixed on me as if I was everything she wanted to see. I could still feel her perfect skin, smell her clean infant’s scent, and touch the wispy tendrils of her dark Medici hair …

  Lucrezia came to me, her eyes red from weeping. “His Majesty says he’ll cancel the Council session and institute forty days of official mourning,” she said.

  “No.” I forced myself to rise. Behind her in my rooms I saw my dwarf Anna-Maria crying into her handkerchief. “No,” I whispered. “Tell him I’ll be there. I just need a moment …”

  It was then that I remembered the ravens at Bayonne. Elisabeth had called them omens and she had been right. She had given Philip of Spain two daughters, and no son.

  When I returned to the Council chamber, it was full. The lords stood in unison. With a voice that scarcely trembled I said: “God has seen fit to take my daughter. Our enemies should not be quick to rejoice, however, or suppose my anger over their betrayal will lessen. Philip of Spain is a widower, as grief-stricken as we, but in need of a wife, for he has his succession to consider.”

  I turned to Monsignor. His soft face was suffused with triumph; he had longed for this day, to witness me so sundered by loss that I’d entrust Charles and the kingdom to his safekeeping. Though he must despair over his Stuart niece’s misfortune, Mary remained a viable bride, promising the crown of Scotland to any Catholic prince who cared to rescue her. That prince could never be Philip. He must remain tied to us lest he decide he’d had enough of my equivocation and invaded our war-racked country.

  No matter how much I wanted to give up I could not.

  “I want my daughter Margot to take her sister’s place,” I said. “And you, Monsignor, will present my proposal in person to King Philip. To prove my constancy, I’ll accept four thousand of his men to aid us in our war against the Huguenots. But that is all I am willing to concede.”

  I drew up my chair. “Now, gentlemen, we must find a way to level La Rochelle.”

  That night, I extinguished all the candles and sat on the floor. I waited a long time, an eternity, it seemed, but grief found me, as it always did.

  The world went black. I saw and felt nothing more.

  Until the vision.

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  A BEARDED MAN GALLOPS ACROSS A BURNT PLAIN ROILING WITH dying and wounded soldiers. It is the throes of a battle nearing its end; cries shatter against the black whorl of the sky. The man’s horse is panting, its flanks flecked with spume. He looks over his shoulder, digs his spurs into the animal’s ribs. From the melee, another rider races toward him, clad in gold armor, a sword bright as a razor in his gauntleted fist. Relentless, he slashes at figures in torn white tunics. His blade seems to strike a thousand places at once, beheading a man here, thrusting another through the chest there, disemboweling a charger and sending its rider tumbling to the ground. But he is intent on the one who eludes him, who even now begins to vanish into the haze.

  “Traitor!” The man in gold screams. “You will die! You will die for France!”

  I struggled to open my caked eyelids. When I succeeded I found a group of shadowy figures crowded about my bed. A hand pressed a chamomile-soaked cloth to my brow; I cracked my mouth open to talk. My voice issued hoarse, raw. “Water … I need water.”

  “God save her, she’s talking!” Lucrezia bent over me.

  “Of course I’m talking,” I muttered. “Did you think I was dead?”

  The people about the bed assumed identities: Anna-Maria, her head only reaching the height of my daughter Margot’s waist. Dark shadows ringed my daughter’s blue-green eyes, as if she hadn’t slept in weeks.

  “You look terrible,” I muttered.

  Margot gave a weak smile. “And you’ve begun to recover.” To my bafflement, Lucrezia started to cry. “We thought we had lost you,” she whispered, grasping my hand in hers.

  I frowned. Anna-Maria nodded; with a start, the pain of Elisabeth’s death crashed over me. For a second I wanted to close my eyes and fall back into oblivion. But I couldn’t; I had to organize our new expedition against La Rochelle, see to the envoys and ambassadors who seemed to always be a half step behind me. I had to—

  I went still, looking at the somber faces. “How long have I been here?”

  Lucrezia put a goblet of water to my lips. “More than a month.”

  “A month!” I pushed her hand aside. “That’s impossible. What happened?”

  “A fever.” Lucrezia took away the goblet and rinsed the cloth in a basin at my bedside. She returned it to my forehead; it felt cool, flooding my parched senses with the tang of the herb. “A tertian fever. We found you on the floor in your rooms. The physicians could do nothing. They bled you, but you didn’t wake. We’ve been taking turns watching over you. Oh, my lady, the sweat came out of you like rivers, cold as ice. Yet you didn’t move. It was like a living death. When you started speaking just now … we thought it was the end.”

  “What did I say?”

  “You spoke of a battle, of a rider fleeing and a man in gold. It sounded like …” Her voice trailed off into silence.

  I could feel the scores on my arm from the bleedings. I didn’t tell them that what I had was no ordinary fever but rather a recurrence of my childhood ailment. And with it had come my gift.

  A crash at the door jolted everyone about. “Is she awake? Is she speaking?” Charles came to my bed, his brow smudged with powder from the latest armory he’d set up in the Louvre. He leaned over me, his person pungent with smoke. “Maman, is it true? Did you see it?”

  I looked past him to see Margot peering behind his shoulder. She must have slipped out to fetch him. “What,” I said, “am I supposed to have seen?”

  “Their defeat!” His voice trilled. “We attacked La Rochelle. Birago and I organized everything while you were ill. Philip’s Spaniards joined us. We blockaded the city and routed the Huguenots. They run for their lives.”

  “Gold armor,” I whispered. “
Henri had gold armor. I gave it to him. Dio Mio, is he …?”

  “He’s fine. He went after Coligny; he followed him for miles on horseback. He told Guise he’d made you a promise. But Coligny got away.” Charles paused, staring at me. “You saw it, didn’t you? Did you also see the constable? He’s dead. He died on the field, fighting to protect Henri. We had him buried in St. Denis, close to Papa. The constable always loved Papa. I did right by putting him there, didn’t I?”

  Montmorency: Coligny’s uncle. I saw him as he’d been on the day I first met him in Marseilles: a titan, blocking out the sun. He’d been my friend and foe, veteran of three reigns and staunch defender of our faith, which he’d put above himself. Now, like so many others, he was gone. I couldn’t say I was deeply saddened by his death, not after what he’d done with the Triumvirate, but I felt the weight of the years as I never had before, every link with my past severed so that I seemed to stand alone, with a surfeit of memories no one else shared.

  Overcome by lassitude, I said, “Yes, you did right. I didn’t see him. I didn’t know.” I felt myself slipping away, this time into dreamless sleep. “Forgive me. I’m so tired.”

  Charles kissed my cheek. “Rest, then. And don’t worry. The war is over. Soon we can issue a pardon and go back to living as we were.” He patted my hand. “Oh, I almost forgot. Happy birthday, Maman. We must celebrate when you feel better.” He turned and swaggered out.

  Margot stood still, regarding me with an almost fearful look in her eyes.

  “My birthday,” I mused, “my fiftieth.”

  As I drifted off, I didn’t know how I felt about the fact that Coligny still lived.

  Once I left my bed we announced an amnesty, allowing the Huguenots exercise of their religion in designated towns and occupation of four cities, including La Rochelle. The settlement also pardoned all rebel leaders. I chose to make an occasion of it by honoring Birago’s efforts on our behalf with the title of chancellor.

  I then disbanded our army. My son Henri came home from the front. He looked fit as ever, triumphant from his first foray into blood-soaked manhood. He was accompanied by Guise, broad-shouldered and golden as a god. They were like opposite sides of a coin: one dark, the other light; exploding upon the court like comets, bringing raucous antics in their wake.

  I was pleased. My sons had taken initiative during my illness and done their Valois blood proud. None could say they weren’t everything a prince of France should be.

  As for Coligny, no one knew where he’d gone into hiding. I did not rescind the price on his head but I let it be known he was included in the general amnesty, providing he refrained from any further acts of treason. Though he’d been defeated, he still had his brethren’s respect and I didn’t want more trouble from him.

  Instead, I set myself to building a future where he no longer had a place.

  “Philip says no to Margot.” I glanced at the dispatch in hand. “Monsignor claims he did his utmost to persuade him, but it seems Philip is too full of sorrow over Elisabeth to consider another wife at this time. However, he does agree to Charles’s betrothal to his sixteen-year-old cousin, Isabel of Austria.”

  I looked up in triumph at Birago. “Spain will stay married to France. Our Austrian envoy has sent a miniature of the bride for Charles to see. I trust you’ve already spoken to him?”

  Birago rustled in the satin box on my desk, the gold chain of the chancellorship slung about his concave shoulders, adding authority to a bony face carved by years of tireless service. As I watched him hold up the small gold-framed painting, I was overcome by sudden remorse. This stalwart Italian of mine had never strayed from my side and he had paid the price. I often forgot that he had never wed, that I knew nothing of his private life. To me, he lived in an industrious world regulated by quill and parchment, fulfilling his duties and overseeing a vast underworld of spies and intelligencers, striving to keep me and France safe.

  “Such white skin and blond hair,” he mused. “She’ll make a lovely bride.”

  “Indeed,” I remarked. “Well, perhaps now that we’ve seen to Charles we should go about finding you a bride, yes? There must be some lady at court who’s caught your fancy.”

  He smiled, exposing his brown teeth. “I fear I’m too old for such things.” I detected a melancholic note in his voice, and before I could say more, he added, “I have spoken with Charles about the marriage and he had one essential requirement: that she be unassuming. In other words, he said, as unlike his sister Margot as we can find.”

  I laughed. “Charles does adore Margot, but I agree with him: one of her is quite enough. And Isabel fulfills his requirement, according to our envoy. She’s of strong Hapsburg stock, virtuous and pious. She’ll give him no trouble and many healthy sons, God willing.”

  Birago replaced the painting in its satin box and I turned to gaze out the window to the Tuileries, where workmen were converting the barren soil into an Italian grotto. Distant hammering sounded from the Hôtel de Cluny, which I’d ordered demolished so a new palace could be built in its place: my Hôtel de la Reine. Building had become my latest passion. Since my illness, I’d been obsessed with it. Birago said it was because architecture exalted the soul, but I believe that in truth it gave me something tangible to revel in, a visible display of my power.

  “What of the Princess Margot?” Birago asked, wincing as he righted himself. “It’s disappointing that Philip won’t have her, but there are always other alliances.”

  I nodded, going to my chair to caress old Muet; as she nuzzled my hand with her nose, still spry at twelve years, I heard Nostradamus as if he whispered in my ear: You are two halves of a whole. You need each other to fulfill your destiny.

  I paused. My heart did a slow tumble in my chest. “What about Navarre?” I looked at Birago, who regarded me as if I’d spoken in a foreign tongue. My voice quickened with excitement. “Margot and he are both nearing their eighteenth year; they’d be perfect for each other. When Jeanne dies, he’ll become king of Navarre, and remember, Coligny exalted him as a Huguenot savior. But if we marry him to Margot, he cannot go to war against us, and Huguenot and Catholic will be united through their persons. They are cousins, after all; they share the Valois blood through Jeanne’s mother, François I’s sister, and Margot will bear him Valois heirs.”

  Birago rubbed his chin pensively. “It’s an interesting solution, but I doubt our Catholic lords or Rome would ever approve. Monsignor says His Holiness is so keen to eradicate heresy he would excommunicate all Protestant princes, including Jeanne of Navarre. Marrying Margot to Jeanne’s son will not be viewed as the act of a true Catholic queen.” He gave me a cynical wink. “And we’ve had enough accusations about your lack of religious zeal already.”

  “Bah!” I waved my hand. “I don’t care what they say about me! But what if Navarre would agree for all children born of the marriage to be raised Catholic?” I was convinced now, the idea shining like a beacon. Surely this was what Nostradamus had meant. With Navarre as my son-in-law I could both protect and mold him, depriving the Huguenots of a royal figurehead to rally behind and forcing both sides to lasting compromise.

  “In time,” I went on, “we might even persuade Navarre himself to convert. He’s young, impressionable; and if he and Margot live here, at court with us, who knows what we might achieve? At the very least, Navarre won’t take a stance against us.”

  “All well and good,” said Birago, “but what about Coligny? Do you think he’ll agree?”

  The mention of his name darkened my mood. “I hardly see how his opinion matters either way,” I retorted, yet even as I declared my defiance I braced myself for Birago’s next words.

  “His opinion matters greatly,” Birago said, “as you well know. He may be disgraced and unwelcome at court, but he still holds great standing with the Huguenots and he’ll protest any arrangement that binds Navarre to the Catholic cause. He also holds tremendous influence over Queen Jeanne, whose approval you’ll need to conclude th
e marriage.”

  There was nothing I liked less than being reminded of my limitations. “Leave her to me,” I said. “As for Coligny, every Catholic in France would leap to earn the reward I put on his head, if I give the word. He’s in no position to gainsay me. He owes me his life.”

  “I’m relieved to hear it. I feared you might still nurture affection for him.” He met my eyes with a knowing look I couldn’t avoid. “After all, not too long ago you were still … friends.”

  “That was before he broke his word and nearly brought us to ruin. Whatever affection I had for him is gone.” As I spoke, I pushed aside my doubt. I would always retain a remnant of emotion for Coligny; it was unavoidable, after everything we had shared. But never again would I let passion cloud my reason.

  I passed my hands over my skirts, eager to start my plan. “We mustn’t tell anyone save Charles. I’ll need his consent, of course, but I don’t want word getting out until I return from Chaumont. Is that understood?”

  “Yes, madama. My lips are sealed.” He did not need to ask why I wished to consult Cosimo.

  “Are you certain? There must be something.” I paced the observatory at Chaumont as Cosimo examined Nostradamus’s chart, my stomach empty and my back and buttocks aching from the ride in my coach from Paris. All I wanted was a roast pheasant, a goblet of claret, and to rest my bones in the bedchamber readied for me.

  “I see only the marriage with the Austrian.” Cosimo raised sunken eyes.

  In his forties, he’d grown emaciated, moved with the furtive scuffle of a hermit, and had developed a disconcerting tic, his left shoulder twitching in tandem with a quiver in his cheek. The château itself also felt abandoned, the many rooms and halls shuttered, the staff I’d appointed to serve him dismissed. The smell of mold was so pervasive, Lucrezia had set herself to lighting fires in the hearths and dusting the mantels, while I climbed the stairs to the observatory, where Cosimo spent his waking hours.