The Devil's Queen: A Novel of Catherine de Medici

by Jeanne Kalogridis

  Your loving husband and most devoted servant,

  Henri

  When I received the message, my first impulse was to surrender to fear. My second was to calm myself, as there was little I could do: I had a responsibility to my daughter Elisabeth and her wedding guests, and there were many more functions that day requiring my attendance. I told myself that the storm had troubled my sleep and given me a bad dream, nothing more.

  I repeated this firmly to myself each time panic loomed. I stood calmly while my ladies dressed me in a gown of purple damask with a bodice of gold; I smiled at my reflection in the mirror, and at my attendants, until I could recall the joy I had felt upon hearing of the truce with Philip, until the gesture became faintly genuine.

  In that way, I survived the morning, and there were times as I looked at Elisabeth’s glowing young face that I forgot my worry and my heart brimmed with love.

  In the early afternoon, Elisabeth and the dour, unsmiling Don Fernando made their way to the stands and a special box constructed for the “bridal couple.” The rest of us royals headed to the Château des Tournelles. One of its second-floor balconies overlooked the lists where the King would meet his opponents.

  As I climbed the stairs to the second floor, anxiety seized me; my heart pounded so rapidly I could not catch my breath. I murmured an excuse to the others and walked across the landing to an open window to take in the warm, heavy air.

  While I stood gasping and clutching the windowsill, something moved in the corner of my eye, accompanied by a faint murmur. It drew me, and I stepped away from the window toward it and a tiny alcove hidden from view.

  In it stood Gabriel de Montgomery, captain of the King’s Scottish guard, twenty-nine years old and in his prime—tall and muscular, his dark auburn hair brushed back and face clean-shaven, the better to show the magnificent angular lines of his cheeks and jaw. His expression was intent as he gazed down at a young woman, dressed all in white, who whispered earnestly to him. As I neared, he jerked up his head and met my gaze with the wide, guilty eyes of a conspirator.

  Mary broke off in midwhisper and looked over her shoulder at me. Furtiveness glimmered on her features and resolved into a disingenuous smile.

  “Madame la Reine!” she exclaimed cheerfully. “I shall join you and the others directly. Captain de Montgomery has agreed most kindly to wear my colors today.”

  A lovers’ tryst, I thought, and felt hurt and sorrow for my son. But I said nothing—only smiled in return, greeted Captain de Montgomery, and returned to the others.

  We took our places upon the second-floor balcony to great fanfare, followed by the cheering of thousands. Every roof, every window was swarming with spectators, eager to see the King joust. I sat between Diane and the Dauphin, who was flanked by his duplicitous wife. The air was stifling and still, adance with the constant flutter of the women’s fans. François was so red-faced and breathless that Mary and I angled our fans discreetly to send him the breeze.

  The lesser nobles had finished their jousting the day before. This day, Friday, was reserved for the highest-born and the King. We cheered on dukes and counts as the trumpets blared and the riders bellowed Monjoie!— the French soldier’s victory cry—when they galloped down the narrow lists, separated only by a low fence designed to keep the horses from colliding. We sat so close to the combatants that the noise of the crowd failed to drown out the pounding of hooves and the crash of wooden lances against steel armor. Clods of flying dirt struck our skirts and slippers.

  Hours later, the heralds announced the King. He rode out from his pavilion on his gleaming chestnut charger, caparisoned in white and gold, and raised his lance to the roaring crowd. The sight of him, straight and strong in his gilded armor, made my heart swell; with the others, I rose and clapped and shouted my approval.

  Henri broke his first lance with his old enemy the Duke of Savoy, and unseated him on the first run. On the second, Savoy’s lance struck the King square in the chest, lifting him from the saddle into the air. Henri clattered to the ground and for an instant lay so motionless that I moved to rise. Diane lightly touched my forearm in a gesture of reassurance—and indeed, in the next breath, Henri rose and waved to the applauding onlookers. The third run ended with both men still mounted. The match was a draw—the perfect outcome, given that my competitive husband did not stomach defeat well but had no wish to endanger his reconciliation with Savoy.

  Henri’s second opponent was the Duke of Guise. Out of three runs, Henri was unseated once and managed to unseat Guise once, giving His Majesty another draw.

  By then it was late afternoon. The sun had slipped low and heated our west-facing balcony to a beastly degree; even Diane, who rarely perspired, was forced to mop her brow with her kerchief. I raised a hand to shield my eyes from the dazzling light and focused on the men below.

  The King’s last match that day was with Gabriel de Montgomery, Captain of the Scottish Guard. As it was the final run of the day, the crowd thinned, and several of the noble spectators in the galleries began to leave, hastened by the relentless heat.

  Diane was elegantly appointed in black velvet and white satin—the colors of the plumes upon my husband’s helmet and horse.

  “Let us hope His Majesty scores a win,” she said pleasantly into my ear. “Captain de Montgomery taunted him when he replied to the King’s invitation. He was eager to break a lance with His Majesty, he said, to see whether he jousted as well in his forty-first year as in his twenty-ninth.”

  I glanced at Mary, her fan pumping rapidly as she gazed down at Montgomery riding out onto field. The plumes upon his helmet were scarlet, his sleeves black, his lance striped in the same alternating shades. If he wore Mary’s color, white, I could not see it.

  The red of Mars, the black of Saturn.

  There can be battle, Ruggieri had said, even when there is no war.

  At that instant the Duke of Nemours, who had finished jousting for the day, joined us on the balcony to pay his respects to the Dauphin and his bride. Before he could bow to me, I took his hand and drew him close.

  “His Majesty has been unwell of late,” I said into his ear, “and this heat has surely undone him. Please, go to him. Tell him—no, beg him, for love of his wife, to forgo the last match and come to me.”

  Nemours, a gracious man two years older than my husband, bowed deeply and kissed my hand. “Madame la Reine, I shall not return without him.”

  I waited, breathless, until Nemours emerged from the Château des Tournelles to make his way across the field to the King’s pavilion, at whose entrance my mounted husband was just emerging. At Nemours’s signal, Henri bent low and listened; when the Duke had finished speaking, the King gave his swift reply.

  Nemours paused for the beat of a heart, then bowed and crossed the field alone. My husband reined in his handsome steed, Disaster, and guided him into the lists, opposite Montgomery.

  I sat frozen as the heralds announced the riders and the trumpets gave the signal for the charge.

  “Monjoie!” my husband roared, and Montgomery echoed him. The horses thundered down the lists, and when the wooden lances thudded against steel breastplates, the animals reared, shrieking. Both riders fell. Silent, I kept my hand pressed hard to my heart until Henri pushed himself to his knees. He returned to his horse, wobbling so badly at one point that a groom rushed out of the pavilion to aid him, but my proud husband pushed him away. Montgomery had risen quickly and already remounted.

  “Forgive me,” a voice said, and I glanced up to see the Duke of Nemours. “Forgive me, Madame la Reine,” he repeated. “I could not keep my promise. His Majesty bade me tell you: It is precisely for love of you that I fight.”

  I could not answer; I was too alarmed by the sight of Montgomery’s weapon: Its dull metal tip, designed to keep the lance from piercing armor or splintering into deadly shards, had fallen off. Surely Montgomery had noticed, too—but rather than return to his pavilion for a replacement, he guided his charger back to the
lists and faced the King. Behind him, his armor bearer noted the loss and called to him, but Montgomery seemed oblivious.

  By then, my husband had climbed back upon Disaster. So intent was he on victory that he unlatched and raised his visor and, wiping the sweat from his brow, shouted at Montgomery to come at him again.

  I stared spellbound, a dreamer unable to move my limbs, to find my voice. Henri lowered his visor but failed to heed the call of his armor bearer to latch it; Montgomery did not hear—or ignored—the hoarse cries of his own.

  The crowd, too, had marked the unshod lance, as had the trumpeters, who, despite the King’s shouts, were too distracted to sound the call. Diane again put her hand upon my forearm—in alarm now, not reassurance—but, like the spectators, grew hushed. In the dying light, the white of her gown bled to grey.

  The King, too impatient to wait for the trumpets, charged.

  I rose. The world was silent save for the battle yell Monjoie! and the drumming of hooves. Montgomery and Henri hurtled at each other, two projectiles, and collided.

  Separated by the low fence, the mounts collided at the shoulder and screamed. There came a loud crack like lightning: Montgomery’s lance dissolved in a firework spray of shards.

  But Henri did not fall.

  He reeled drunkenly and pitched forward, losing the reins, and feebly clutched Disaster’s neck. The horse carried him down the list until the King’s grooms ran out to catch the reins and guide the mount to an open area, where the earth had been torn by the lifting of paving stones and the pounding of hooves. Alongside François of Guise, white-haired Montmorency ran from the King’s pavilion. He cradled my husband’s shoulders and, with Guise’s aid, lowered Henri from the saddle to the ground.

  The young lion will overcome the old, in

  A field of combat in a single fight. He will

  Pierce his eyes in a golden cage, two

  Wounds in one, he then dies a cruel death.

  He was no royal lion, the Scotsman Gabriel de Montgomery, but he rode that day for young Mary, his Queen.

  Colors failed in the waning light. Against the reddening sky, dark figures worked to relieve my motionless husband of his armor. With the help of a valet, Guise pulled off the King’s gilded helmet: with it came a rush of blood. Captain de Montgomery staggered onto the scene and dropped to his knees.

  Shrill screams pained my ears: They belonged to Diane, to François, to hundreds of noblemen, thousands of commoners. Beside me the Dauphin swooned and pitched forward in his chair. Mary caught him, her face a mask as white as the gown she wore, but I could not stop to accuse her, or even to help my son. I ran from the balcony down the stairs to the palace entry and out onto the paved driveway.

  The black iron gate that led to the rue Saint-Antoine swung open. From the center of a swarm of onlookers, a small, grim procession emerged: Henri, bloodied and still, lay on a litter borne by Scottish guardsmen and flanked by old Montmorency and François, Duke of Guise. I pushed my way to my husband’s side and drew in a sharp breath.

  One end of a jagged wooden shard—thick as two fingers, and almost twice as long—protruded from King’s right eye socket; the other end had shattered his skull at the temple and forced its way through the skin just in front of his right ear. The globe of the eye had been punctured, leaving nothing of the white or iris visible, only a dark, congealing mass of blood. A second, smaller splinter emerged from his throat just beneath the jaw, and miraculously had bled little.

  I pressed my husband’s hand to my lips. He stirred at my touch and murmured faintly. My numbness fled, replaced by overwhelming horror and hope: Henri’s wound was grievous, his suffering unspeakable, yet Ruggieri’s magic had held. The King was still alive. As he came to himself, he waved for the litter to stop and demanded to be set upon his feet. Montmorency held him fast beneath the shoulders, and François of Guise held up his head; in this manner, my husband staggered over the threshold, a paragon of bravery.

  The Dauphin followed on a second litter, still in a faint from which he could not be roused. Mary walked beside him, a vision in white—the color of a queen in mourning—and started as the iron gate clanged shut behind her.

  Our sad party made its way up the stairs, to long-unused royal apartments; François was carried to a separate chamber, and his young Queen went with him. Henri was laid carefully upon the bed and his bloodied tunic cut away.

  Upon his chest, soaked with sweat and blood, was pressed an emerald kerchief, embroidered with gold fleurs-de-lis by my own hand. At the sight of it, I cried out, then took it and put it next to my heart.

  The next few hours were evil ones. The King’s doctor, Monsieur Chapelain, appeared and removed the smaller splinter from Henri’s throat, then probed the wounded eye to see whether he could dislodge the large shard. My husband would not cry out but could not keep from retching during the worst moments. The doctor afterward announced that the shard was fast situated and could not be removed.

  Afternoon faded tonight. I hovered at the King’s bedside, watching as Henri’s face purpled and swelled, as his blackened eye began to bulge with trapped blood. Pain left him senseless most of the time, but there were a few moments where he came to himself and spoke sweetly to me. I was only vaguely aware that Montmorency and François of Guise disappeared, replaced by the Chief Inquisitor, Charles of Guise, and the Duke of Savoy.

  At dawn, the aging Montmorency, grey-lipped and haggard, came to fetch me. He caught my arms gently and tried to coax me away, saying that I needed rest. I pulled free, stating loudly that I would never leave my husband’s bedside. My words drew Henri from his semidelirium; at his whispered insistence, I yielded and let Montmorency take me from the room. Out in the antechamber, I fell into his arms and we wept together, all differences forgotten.

  At my apartments, Madame Gondi awaited me, dressed and alert. I directed her to send for Ambroise Paré, the most famed surgeon in all France. I was convinced that Henri could survive with the proper surgery, so long as he did not yield to infection. Afterward, I dozed for an hour, and woke filled with dread.

  At midmorning I returned to the King’s chamber to find Montmorency and François of Guise with him. The swelling on the right side of Henri’s face had reached grotesque proportions, though the eye had been bandaged. Doctor Chapelain had worked throughout the night to keep the wound clean and drained, with some encouraging result: Henri had no fever.

  When I sat close at his bedside and called his name, he turned his face toward mine. I thought perhaps he knew me—but his remaining eye, glittering in the lamp glow, wandered.

  “The young captain,” he breathed, and I knew at once he spoke of the Scotsman who had dealt him the blow. “He must know I forgive him . . .”

  “Captain de Montgomery has fled,” old Montmorency answered, shooting François of Guise a dark look; the enmity between the two men was palpable. “No one can say where he has gone.”

  Later I would learn that the Guises publicly blamed the old man for the King’s injury, arguing that, as Grand Master, he was ultimately responsible for the King’s armor, and thus Henri’s unlatched visor. Montmorency, it seemed, was keenly desirous of questioning the now-missing Scotsman.

  “Ah!” the King said and closed his good eye; a single tear spilled from its corner and into his ear. “Diane . . . Where is Diane?”

  “Madame de Poitiers remains in her apartments,” the Grand Master answered. “She is indisposed, Your Majesty, and begs your forbearance.”

  I reached for Henri’s hand; he returned my grip with surprising strength. He would not die, I told myself sternly, looking at his long, well-muscled body beneath the white sheets.

  “I am here.” My voice caught, but I forced it to steady. “It is I, Catherine.”

  “Catherine!” he murmured. “Oh, Catherine, I thought you foolish, but there is no greater fool than I. Forgive me. Forgive me for it all . . .”

  I bent over my husband and leaned my cheek against his chest. The pulse the
re was the soft, rapid flutter of a bird’s wings. Tears spilled from my eyes onto the linen I felt as though I were melting into him, merging until there was nothing left of me—only his singular heart, beating wildly.

  “I blame you for nothing,” I said, “and so there is nothing to forgive.”

  “How I love you,” he whispered and began to weep silently. He wound his left arm around my shoulders and pressed me fast against him. I would have killed afresh for him then, would gladly have wielded the knife to shed more blood so that he, Henri, would not endure another second of pain.

  That was the one moment I try to remember of those terrible days: The rest was only suffering.

  The famed surgeon Ambroise Paré arrived the morning after. Even he was intimidated by so grisly a wound. By that time it had grown pustulant, and my husband feverish. The surgeon was frank: The shard was so firmly wedged into my husband’s skull that any attempt to remove it would be instantly fatal. Not removing it would inevitably lead to infection and death: In short, nothing could be done to save the King.

  I sent for the Dauphin, to ensure that he saw his father one last time. Montmorency returned, shaking his grizzled head: François had refused to come. I went to get him myself. Mary sat stone-faced in the Dauphin’s antechamber while my son sat cross-legged upon his bed, moaning and rocking and striking the wall with the back of his head. I pulled him to his feet and led him to his father.

  As the King turned his face toward our approach, François let go a wail: the right side of Henri’s face was so grotesquely swollen that the cheek had pressed against the side of his nose, pushing it to the left. His wounded eye—bandaged to permit the jagged shard to protrude two fingers’ width beyond his profile—stunk of rotting meat.