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

by Jeanne Kalogridis

  Another shout came: Tenez! At the same instant, a ball sailed past me, prompting me to turn and look behind me at the sprawling lawn. A surge of nausea seized me; I put my hand to my eyes, and when I drew them away, a mass of naked, mutilated bodies lay piled upon the grass.

  I was too stunned to do anything but stare at them. They wavered in the light, then vanished in the wake of running footsteps coming from the direction of the gallery.

  I turned to see six-year-old Henri of Navarre, a racquet in his hand. He had stopped several arms’ lengths away, to stare, his eyes stark with fear, at the very spot where I had seen the corpses.

  I motioned to him, and he began to run away.

  “Henri, wait!” I cried.

  He paused, allowing me to draw close enough to speak to him.

  “You saw them, too, didn’t you?” I asked, amazed. “You saw them . . .”

  He looked over his shoulder at me; his face abruptly crumpled, and he ran back into the gallery.

  The minute I returned to the palace, I called for Ruggieri.

  When the magician sat before me, pale and ageless, I said, “Henri’s death was not the end of it. My dreams brought me to France not only for his sake: There are more who will die, thousands more, unless I take action. We must discover what I am to do.”

  Ruggieri’s gaze did not meet mine. He stared beyond me and said, “The lives of your sons were bought with the blood of others. Surely you do not mean to slay a thousand men so that a thousand more might not die.”

  “Of course not,” I snapped. “But I am already doing everything that I can, on a practical level, to prevent war between the Catholics and the Huguenots. You are the magician, the astrologer; you are my adviser. Surely you know of something more that can be done—short of shedding blood.”

  “I told you before that talismans avail little in the face of overwhelming catastrophe. Eventually, the stars will have their way.” He inclined his face gently downward, strangely diffident. “I have studied those stars recently; they have changed since the day I gave you the pearl. I had thought that . . .” An emotion I had never seen in him—guilt—rippled over his features. “Your husband’s death should have put an end to your dreams, Madame. It should have put an end to the blood. The impact of one child upon the future was, I thought, safe, but three . . .”

  The words of the prophet echoed in my memory:

  The tapestry of history is woven of many threads. Let even one be exchanged for another that is weak and flawed, and the veil will tear—and blood be loosed, more blood than you have seen in any dream.

  Madame la Reine, these children should not be . . .

  “No,” I whispered. “I am a mother who loves her children. What are you saying? That I should blame my sons? That I should lift my hand against them? Surely you are not, Monsieur, for if you were, I would lift my hand against you.”

  His head was bowed; in the cant of his shoulders, I read sorrow and defeat.

  “You want me to kill them, don’t you?” I whispered. “You’re asking a mother to destroy her own children . . . Damn you. Damn you to Hell!”

  Ruggieri drew in a long breath and leveled his gaze at me, his expression mournful, urgently tender. “The time will come, Catherine. And if you fail to do what is necessary, there will be unspeakable carnage. It may already be too late.”

  “How dare you speak so vilely to me,” I said, my voice trembling as I got to my feet. “How dare you speak so of my children. If you will not help me in the manner I desire, perhaps the time has come for you to leave my employ.”

  He rose. The sadness left his features, replaced by the elegantly composed mask. He bowed, the consummate courtier.

  “As you wish, Madame la Reine,” he said.

  By the following morning, I had convinced myself that my memory of our conversation was faulty, that Ruggieri was not capable of saying such awful things. I had misunderstood him, certainly. When I sent for him again, my courier returned to say that his apartments were already vacant, and his serving woman did not know where he had gone.

  I blotted Ruggieri’s impossible words from my mind and turned it to more practical concerns. I worried that rumors of the young King’s poor health might have circulated and alerted Bourbon that the moment had come for him to rally his followers and march upon the palace. Happily, he arrived only three days after my summons—in the company of his valet and two lesser nobles, no more.

  On the threshold to my cabinet, Bourbon balked when the guards there informed him that his friends would have to remain outside. I sat behind my closed door and listened to his vehement curses: Subtlety and self-possession were traits he lacked.

  Yet when he calmed—and the door to my office was opened—he smiled brightly at me and bowed with an unctuousness verging on the comical. He doffed his velvet cap, revealing a goodly number of white hairs and his fluffy grey hairpiece. He wore more jewelry than I: a gold earring studded with diamonds, a ruby pendant, and several glittering rings.

  “Madame la Reine!” he said. “I stand ready to be of service. What shall I do to please you?”

  I held out my hands to him. He was the husband of Henri’s cousin Jeanne and the father of little Navarre, though—involved with scurrilous politics and women—he rarely saw them. On the occasions we met, we treated each other as family.

  “Come,” I said, “and sit with me. It has been so long since we have spoken.”

  He took my hands eagerly and kissed the back of each one, then settled happily into his chair. I smiled also, but it faded quickly. I was too hollow after Henri’s death to waste time with pleasantries. My tone turned serious.

  “I have heard, Monsieur, that the Protestants have grown disaffected. That there was a meeting at the port of Hugues, and that the overthrow of the Guise brothers was discussed.”

  His eyebrows lifted in surprise; the fine skin of his brow wrinkled easily into a dozen shallow creases. For a moment he stared, quite speechless, at me, then stammered, “Ah, Madame la Reine . . . Ah. It is nothing personal, you see. It is only that my rights, as First Prince of the Blood, must be protected.” He paused and, in a pitiful attempt to switch the subject, said, “On my arrival here, I inquired after His Majesty and was told he is indisposed. I am sorry to hear this; is he unwell?”

  “He is troubled,” I said, “by the actions of the Huguenots. By the thought that men would conspire to take up arms against him—”

  “Not him!” Bourbon waved his hands as if to ward off the very idea. “No, Madame la Reine! I would rather die than act against the King!”

  “But you would lift your sword against Grand Master Guise, whom my son himself appointed, and against his brother, the Cardinal of Lorraine, whom my husband named Grand Inquisitor. Is that not treason, Monsieur?”

  Bourbon’s eyes widened in dismay; whatever he had expected from me, it was not this. “No! Madame, I beg you, it is not!”

  “How is it not?” I demanded.

  “We do not take up arms against the King. But we wish to show, most emphatically, that the Guises have overstepped their bounds.”

  “You would show His Majesty,” I said, my voice growing lower and ever more dangerous, “with arquebuses. With swords and cannon. You would shed blood, to force him to oust the ministers he and his father chose. That is not loyalty, Monsieur de Bourbon. That is treason.” I rose, forcing him to rise with me.

  “No! I swear before God!” He wailed and wrung his hands. “Madame la Reine, please listen to me—”

  “I have heard enough,” I said coldly. “Step aside so that I can call the guards.”

  At that, he fell to his knees—blocking my path—and quivered, a weak, disgusting thing.

  “For the love of God!” he shrieked. “What must I do to convince you? I will order them all to disband. I will disavow them. Only tell me what His Majesty wishes, and I shall do it, to prove that I am loyal only unto him.”

  I sat down. I slid open my desk drawer and drew out a piece of par
chment covered in a copyist’s perfect script. Bourbon could disavow the Huguenots all he wished—but he was only a figurehead. The rebellion could easily continue without him.

  “Get up,” I told him, “and sign this.”

  He pushed himself to his feet and peered uncertainly at the paper. “Of course, Madame la Reine. Only what is it?”

  “A legal document surrendering your rights to the regency in the event of King François’s death,” I said, “and transferring them to me.”

  Revelation dawned in his eyes as he stared down at the writing; the color returned to his cheeks and increased to a full-out flush. He had been played, and he knew it. “The regency?” he whispered, then more loudly said, “Do not tell me our young King is seriously ill.”

  I answered nothing. I did not want to call for the guards to haul him to prison—but I would, if necessary, and Bourbon sensed it. Beneath my ruthless gaze, he began to fidget. Wretched creature, I thought. God help France if you ever become King. I found it hard to believe he had produced such a fine son.

  I dipped a fresh quill in the inkwell and proffered it across the desk.

  He stared at it as though it were a scorpion. Yet after a long moment, he took it, and asked, “Where shall I sign?”

  I pushed the parchment toward him and pointed to the spot.

  He leaned over and scribbled rapidly: the A and B were huge, dramatic, looping. Afterward, he sat back with a long sigh of self-loathing.

  I took the document and waved it a few times to dry the ink before setting it back into the drawer. Then I stood, prompting him to do the same.

  “Your Highness,” I said, as though finally remembering that I was speaking to a prince. “Your heroic act of self-sacrifice shall not go unmarked. When the time comes, I shall tell everyone how you have put the good of France far above your own.”

  We both knew, of course, that neither of us would mention this again—I, out of the need for secrecy; Bourbon, out of a sense of shame.

  Even so, I continued warmly: “Please stay with us awhile at Blois. You are among family here, and ever welcome.”

  He murmured barely coherent phrases about his gratefulness for my hospitality, about his pressing need to return to Paris. I offered him my hand and repressed a shudder when his lips touched my flesh.

  I did not need Cosimo Ruggieri, I told myself. I had just averted a potential war using my wits, and nothing else. Yet after Bourbon had sidled out the door and closed it behind him, I lowered my face to the cool, smooth surface of my desk and sobbed.

  After my meeting with Bourbon, I made my way down the winding staircase that led to the King’s apartments. The Duke of Guise was bounding up the steps and was so distracted that we nearly collided. He was gasping, his native arrogance overcome by blind panic; in his eyes, I saw the death of dreams.

  Abandoning protocol, he seized my arm. “Madame la Reine! We have been searching everywhere for you! Doctor Paré needs you to come to the King’s bedchamber at once!”

  We flew. I kept pace with Guise on the stairs and pushed past the solemn assembly in the corridor to enter the royal antechamber. I was met by Doctor Paré’s bleak, weathered face. Mary stood beside him, a wide-eyed wraith with a twisted kerchief in her restless hands—waiting, all this time, for me and for her uncle the Duke of Guise, who put his arm about her shoulder.

  Doctor Paré did not waste time with pleasantries; he was a man unimpressed by titles and, certainly, by Mary, Queen of France. He understood that a mother’s love trumped that of a political wife and so addressed himself to me.

  “His Majesty has worsened, Madame,” he said. “Within the last two hours, his fever has risen sharply. The infection has spread to his blood.”

  I closed my eyes. I had heard the same words from Doctor Paré before, when they had sealed my husband’s doom.

  “What does it mean?” Mary demanded. “What must be done now?”

  “There is nothing more I can do,” the doctor told her. “It is a matter of hours now, at most a day or two.”

  She lunged at him; the motion caused me to open my eyes just as she was raising her hands to claw the doctor’s face. The Duke of Guise struggled to hold her back as she screamed, “He cannot die! You must not let him!”

  While the Duke and Doctor Paré did their best to calm her, I went into the sickroom to sit vigil beside my son. François lay with his eyes tightly shut and crusted, his cheeks flushed an unhealthy violet hue. A heavy fur throw had been drawn all the way up to his chin; even so, his teeth chattered. I crawled into bed beside him and wrapped my arms around him, pressing my body against his in an effort to warm him. I remained there even after a calmer Mary entered and sat nearby. Her face hung over us, a wan and anxious moon.

  There is little more to tell. François never came to himself, though at times he groaned with pain. At the end, his body convulsed pitifully, again and again. He fell still to the sounds of Mary’s whispered recitations of the Ave Maria and Pater Noster, and when he let go his last rattling breath, citrine pus streamed from his nostrils.

  Only then did I open my arms and climb slowly from the bed. Mary had given up praying to gape with horror at her husband’s body; she remained limp and unresisting as I embraced her, only long enough to whisper in her ear: “Go home to Scotland now. I promise you, it will be safer for you there than here.”

  I left François to Mary and the Guises’ hysterical ministrations and went off to find my surviving children. The prescient governesses had dressed the children in black and assembled them in the nursery. Charles was sitting impassively watching Edouard, Margot, and little Navarre throw a tennis ball for the spaniel, who fetched it, safely beyond Charles’s reach. At the sight of me, Charles glanced up, scowling.

  “Is he dead, then? Is François dead, and am I King?”

  I could only nod. Edouard threw his arms around Margot as she and little Henri began to cry, while Charles’s lips curved in a self-satisfied smirk.

  “You see?” he told Edouard. “I am King, after all, and now you shall have to do everything I tell you!”

  At the sight of the children’s tears, I had been on the verge of loosing my own, but Charles’s words drew me up short.

  “No, he doesn’t,” I corrected him. “You are King in name only, Charles. It is I who rule France now.”

  Thirty-four

  After François’s death, Mary wisely sailed home to Edinburgh. In an effort to tighten their loosening grip on the Crown, the Guises formed an ultra-Catholic group dedicated to eradicating the Huguenots. Because of Antoine de Bourbon’s reconversion to Catholicism, his wife, Jeanne—Queen of the now-Protestant kingdom of Navarre—separated from him. Although she remained at Court, the growing political tension caused her to avoid my company.

  Bourbon’s younger brother Louis, the Prince of Condé—a man of more impressive constancy—took his place and proved an able leader alongside Admiral Coligny. Protestantism continued to spread. Many intellectuals at Court—all sincere, rational people—were drawn to it; I therefore failed to sense the enmity growing beyond the palace walls.

  The Guises threw themselves wholeheartedly into their zealous anti-Huguenot campaign. One Sunday the Duke of Guise was riding through the countryside when he heard the distant singing of psalms. With his entourage of armed guards, he discovered the source: a barn, packed with Huguenots worshiping in secret.

  Under French law, heresy was punishable by death—a technicality that my husband and his father had often chosen to overlook. But Guise loosed his guards upon the singers, slaughtering seventy-four innocents and leaving a hundred more savaged but alive.

  The Huguenots took revenge swiftly. Catholic Paris remained at peace, but battles were fought in the countryside. Condé and Coligny led the Huguenots, Guise and the inconstant Bourbon the Catholic royalists.

  For a year, fighting was fierce. I argued in favor of negotiation, but Guise, a popular war hero, argued strenuously against it and garnered enormous support. Resigned,
I went to rally the troops; when I walked the ramparts, old Montmorency scolded me: Did I not realize the terrible danger I had put myself in? I laughed, not knowing that, just outside the walls, Antoine de Bourbon had taken an arquebus shot to the shoulder while relieving himself beneath a tree. He died shortly thereafter, leaving his nine-year-old son, Henri, King of Navarre.

  His widow decided that it was time for her and her son to return permanently to the tiny country Henri now ruled.

  “No tears,” Jeanne warned sternly, as I embraced her in the instant before she boarded the coach.

  I obeyed and kissed her solemnly, and put my arms around little Henri.

  “Whatever frightening things you see,” I whispered into his ear, “you mustn’t be afraid. They appear in order to guide you. Write to me about them if you wish, and I will try to help.”

  As I pulled back, he nodded shyly. I put a copy of Italian poetry into his hands—Tasso’s Rinaldo, a fine adventurous romance for a precocious boy—then stepped back as the Queen and her son boarded the carriage.

  Bourbon was not the only loss suffered by the royalists. The Duke of Guise once again distinguished himself in war by capturing the Huguenot leader Condé in battle—only to die a few months later outside Orléans, shot in the back by Gaspard de Coligny’s spy.

  I used the opportunity to prevent further bloodshed. Over the protests of Guise’s family, who craved revenge, I negotiated with the rebels. In exchange for Condé’s release and a limited right to worship, the Huguenots laid down their arms. I appointed Guise’s son Henri to his late father’s position of Grand Master and welcomed the Huguenots back to Court. During those years of peace, my children grew.

  Margot became a high-spirited creature with dark, glossy ringlets and expressive features. When she smiled, her dark eyes came alive and made otherwise sensible men swoon. Supremely healthy, she adored riding and dancing, and proved herself a prodigy at mathematics.