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

by Jeanne Kalogridis

  “Well, Mary certainly is pressing her luck, isn’t she?” Charles asked blithely. “Plot after plot . . . and all of them discovered. I tell you, she’ll wind up losing her head.”

  With that, he walked off with the Admiral. I remained with the Guises for a few more minutes, trying vainly to undo the damage.

  The affair lasted well into the night. At one point, I spied Coligny taking the air on the balcony overlooking the courtyard, and went to him.

  The balcony was blessedly cool, quiet, and deserted. Coligny leaned against the railing, his expression faintly troubled as he stared out at the dark horizon. At the sound of my footsteps, he turned and forced a smile.

  “So serious, Admiral,” I said cheerfully. “I had hoped that this evening would be a relaxing one for you.”

  He laughed. “Old soldiers can never completely relax, Madame la Reine. It is one of the costs of battle.”

  “A pity,” I said, “for you are truly safe among us here.”

  His tone grew wry. “One would not think so, looking at the Duke of Guise.”

  “He will learn to call you friend. I am determined to reconcile your followers and ours—so much so, that I have come to ask a favor.”

  He lifted his golden brows, pleasantly expectant.

  “Contact Jeanne of Navarre,” I said. “Tell her that I must see her here at Court to discuss the marriage of my daughter Margot to her son, Henri.”

  His expression resolved into one of mild surprise. “Are you serious, Madame?”

  “Quite.”

  “You must understand,” he countered, “that my followers warned me against coming to Court. The Queen of Navarre has even more reason to be cautious. Were she killed, she would leave behind a country and a young son.”

  I let go an honest sigh. “Jeanne has less reason to fear for her safety than you do. I wouldn’t marry Margot to her son in order to harm her.”

  “An excellent point,” he allowed. “But do I, Madame la Reine, have reason to be concerned for myself?”

  “No,” I answered emphatically. “The Duke of Anjou has arranged for fifty bodyguards to attend you and transferred a sizable sum to your bank accounts. I hope it reassures you that I am serious about peace.”

  He tilted his head. “Does His Majesty know about the marriage plans?”

  “Marital arrangements are women’s work. But nothing will be finalized without the King’s approval.”

  “I see.” He looked back out at the night; when he turned to me, his expression was resolute. “If you wish to be a friend to us, consider this: the Spanish are murdering our fellow Protestants in the Netherlands. I need five thousand soldiers to show Philip that France will not permit the slaughter of innocents.”

  If I sent French soldiers to the Netherlands, King Philip would consider it an act of war. His army was larger and stronger than ours; we would be quickly defeated. But I kept my features bland, my expression agreeable.

  “I should like to discuss it more with you once Margot and Henri are married,” I said easily. “First, however, I need you to send a message to Jeanne.”

  “Very well, Madame la Reine,” he said. “I am your servant.”

  We returned to the reception, I resting my fingers lightly on his solid forearm. He had aged well, save for his balding crown. Although I didn’t trust him, I appreciated his intelligence and poise.

  As soon as we walked inside, Charles hurried toward us.

  “There you are, mon père!” he exclaimed. “The Florentine ambassador is eager to meet you. Come!” He took Coligny’s hand and drew him into the crowd.

  I proceeded to lose myself in a dozen conversations with as many luminaries. The hour was late by the time I found myself chatting with the Spanish ambassador, Alava, a potbellied, unctuous soul. He was in the midst of relaying an anecdote about my former son-in-law, Philip, when we heard a sudden furious shout.

  “Liar! Liar!”

  I turned. Beside the gurgling fountain, Henri of Guise stood, his body shuddering with barely contained anger. Coligny, an arm’s length away, uttered a measured, inaudible reply.

  Whatever he said inflamed Guise, who struck out with the back of his hand; Coligny staggered. Guise would have struck him again, but Edouard saw the attack and caught Guise’s arm. The young Duke struggled as Edouard held him fast.

  “Poltrot de Mére was your spy!” Guise shouted, his face flushed with rage and drink. “Do you expect us to believe you didn’t order him to kill my father? I demand satisfaction!”

  Charles arrived, red-faced and angry; he would have lunged at Guise himself, but the Admiral waved him away.

  “I do not duel.” Coligny’s breath was coming quickly, but his voice and expression were tightly controlled. “God frowns on gambling, whether it be with lucre or with lives.”

  “Coward!” Guise roared. “Hide behind your piety, if you wish, but you will pay for your crime!”

  “If I die too soon,” Coligny answered coolly, “it will be defending the right of men to worship God—not defending myself from scurrilous charges.”

  His Majesty seized the huge ruff at Guise’s neck. “You would be wise, Monsieur,” Charles snarled, “to be a friend to the King’s friend . . . lest I label you my enemy.”

  Guise’s eyes went wide. Charles pushed him back into the arms of his uncle, the Cardinal. As he marched past Guise with Coligny in tow, Charles hissed:

  “And if you come near my sister again, I shall kill you with my bare hands.”

  Thirty-Seven

  The next morning, I went early to the King’s chambers, expecting to find him abed; to my surprise, Charles was in his cabinet. I would have gone in unannounced, but the guard stopped me at the door.

  “Forgive me, Madame la Reine, but His Majesty gave orders he was not to be disturbed. Admiral Coligny is with him.”

  “Tell the King I am here,” I commanded, “and that I must speak to him at once, privately.”

  The young Scot reluctantly knocked upon the door. Charles cursed the poor man roundly and would have sent me away, but I heard Coligny reasoning with the King. Eventually the Admiral emerged from the cabinet and—after bowing to me—strode away.

  My irate son sat at his desk, its surface cleared save for a document that had been overturned to hide it from curious eyes. Charles rested his fist on it and glowered across his desk at me.

  “This had best be urgent, Maman.”

  “It is, Your Majesty,” I said. “I came to tell you that the Admiral is going to ask Jeanne of Navarre to visit us.”

  “Ah,” he said, bored. “Well, that’s no reason to interrupt our meeting.”

  “No,” I allowed. “I’m inviting Jeanne in order to arrange a marriage between her son and Margot.” I was confessing my plan to Charles now because he was infatuated with Coligny and his Huguenot friends and thus, for the first time, likely to approve it.

  “Well, I suppose it’s a good match,” he said, with surprising mildness. “Henri is after all a king.”

  “Wonderful!” I hesitated. “I’ve also come for another reason, Charles. I must warn you about Coligny.”

  He clapped his hands over his ears. “I will not hear it! He is a good man!”

  “He’s also a persuasive man,” I said loudly. “And I’ve discovered the reason he came to us: He wants soldiers to fight the Spanish in the Netherlands.”

  As I spoke, Charles put his palm upon the mysterious document, firmly, as though he feared I might take it from him.

  I looked down at it. “May I inquire as to the contents of that document?”

  “I am a man now, Maman. I don’t have to tell you everything.”

  “But you do,” I retorted. “I’m your senior councillor—and you can take no formal action without your Council’s approval.”

  I snatched the document from him. It was a royal order authorizing the deployment of five thousand troops to the Netherlands under the command of Admiral Coligny. I should have known within the first few min
utes of meeting Gaspard de Coligny that he was determined to drive a wedge between me and my son—yet I was surprised and furious, and lost my temper.

  “Fool!” I brandished the document at Charles. “This is tantamount to a direct attack on Spain! Do you know what will happen if Philip retaliates?”

  “We will defeat him at last,” Charles said; his eyes held a madman’s gleam.

  “No!” I shouted. “We will be the ones defeated. Spain’s navy is unmatched; she has more soldiers at her command than we do.”

  “But the Admiral—” Charles began to protest.

  “The Admiral wants to see us trapped in a losing war—because if our soldiers are busy fighting the Spanish, there will be no one left to protect you from the Huguenots. They could destroy us. They could set their own leader on the throne!”

  Charles’s features hardened into a sullen mask. “Coligny loves me as a son. He would never do such a thing.”

  I rolled up the incriminating decree and leaned forward.

  “If you value Coligny’s word over mine, then I am no longer of any use to you. Send troops to the Netherlands, and I will retire from the government. I will not stay to see the House of Valois fall!”

  Fear flashed in Charles’s eyes. If I abandoned him, the truth—that he was incapable of governing—would become resoundingly obvious to all.

  “Don’t leave, Maman!” he said, suddenly penitent. “I won’t send the troops.”

  “Indeed you won’t,” I said, straightening, and tore the paper to pieces. The shreds fluttered into a pile on the King’s desk.

  I walked out, still furious with Coligny but pleased with the way I had played Charles. Foolish woman: I was happy over winning the battle. I did not realize that I had already lost the war.

  The old year passed, and a new one, 1572, took its place. I was happy, in those days before the maelstrom, because I thought I had convinced Charles not to trust Coligny, because I thought my daughter’s marriage to Navarre would bring peace to France. I was happy, too, because early spring brought Jeanne to Blois.

  An hour after her arrival, I went to her guest apartments; when the attendant answered the door, I lifted a finger to my lips and slipped inside the antechamber. As I stole toward the inner room, Jeanne called out: “Who knocked?”

  I hurried to the threshold. “No one at all, Madame.”

  She was standing over a basin, frowning into a mirror as she patted her cheeks dry with a towel. Her French hood and ruff collar had been removed, leaving her in the unstylish black gown favored by Huguenot women. When I spoke, she glanced up, startled, then broke into a broad smile.

  Almost ten years had passed since we had set eyes on each other. Jeanne’s hair was frankly grey, and deep lines had insinuated themselves into her brow and around her mouth. More ominously, she had lost so much weight that her features were skeletal; the effect was not helped by her consumptive pallor.

  But her green eyes were still full of life. They brightened at the sight of me, and she set down the towel and genuflected. “Madame la Reine,” she said graciously.

  I bowed, low and humble. “Madame la Reine.”

  We held our poses an instant, then rose laughing and embraced. She was frail and feather-light in my arms.

  “Catherine!” she said. “I thought I might be uncomfortable seeing you again, but it is as though the last decade never happened.”

  “I am so glad that you’ve come,” I answered honestly.

  “All of your reassurances that I would be safe made me smile,” she said. “I’ve never believed the rumors that you eat little children.”

  “You haven’t dined with me yet,” I countered, with mock darkness, and we laughed again.

  Supper was as cordial as I dared hope. Charles called Jeanne Cousin; Edouard kissed her on the lips. Her eyes widened at her first glimpse of his sartorial excess, and she pulled away from the embrace coughing—partly from consumption but also from the overwhelming scent of orange blossom, which Edouard had applied liberally that night.

  Fortunately, it was Jeanne’s opinion of Margot I most cared about, and my daughter did not disappoint me. She appeared in a gray gown of smart but modest cut and had forgone face paint, with the effect that she looked freshly scrubbed.

  “Margot!” Jeanne exclaimed, as my daughter curtsied respectfully. “What a beautiful woman you have become!”

  Margot lowered her lashes as though embarrassed by the compliment. “We’re so honored by your visit, Madame la Reine! I’m glad for the chance to see you again—I was so young when you left that I should like to know you better, as my mother speaks of you so fondly.”

  The meeting continued in convivial fashion. Jeanne presented Margot with a present from Henri: a modest-size diamond pendant. My daughter displayed delight at the humble gift, and Edouard rushed to fasten it around her neck.

  Over the course of the evening, Margot showed herself to be demure and well-versed in the poetry written by Jeanne’s mother, the late Marguerite. Only one sour note was struck: When Jeanne inquired what Margot knew of the Huguenot faith, my daughter grew somber.

  “Enough to know that I am at heart a Catholic,” she answered, “and will remain so until I die.”

  Jeanne fell silent, and the conversation lagged until I asked how Henri most preferred to spend his time.

  “I can answer you in three words,” Jeanne said. “Riding, riding, and riding. He doesn’t like anything that he can’t do astride a horse.”

  We all laughed politely, and Jeanne smiled, but a crease had appeared between her eyebrows and remained there for the rest of the evening. She retired early, begging exhaustion. At the first chance after supper, I took Margot aside.

  “What possessed you to become, overnight, an ardent supporter of the Church?”

  “You never asked,” she said, with sudden heat. “You never ask me anything, Maman, because it doesn’t matter what I think! I won’t go to Navarre! I won’t live among oxen and dress like a crow!”

  Tears filled her eyes. There was more she wanted to say, but she could not bring herself to give it voice. Guise, I thought with amazement, she is in love with him. Why else would she have displayed such uncharacteristic enthusiasm for her faith?

  I moved to put a hand upon her shoulder, but her face crumpled and she lifted her skirts and ran away.

  I did not follow. Only time—and Henri, perhaps, if he was as kind a man as he had been a boy—could help her.

  I spent the rest of the evening with Charles in his downstairs study, trying to undo the damage wrought by Coligny. It grew late, and I left for my chambers.

  I climbed the spiraling outdoor staircase, shivering at the March chill. On the landing I stopped to catch my breath and stared out at the courtyard, remembering an instant, decades past, when I had paused on the first floor of the same palace to see the Duchess d’Etampes cavorting naked with King François. I was recalling my terror of repudiation when muted voices brought me back to the present.

  I looked up. The staircase was hemmed by ornately carved railings; through them, I glimpsed the arms and averted faces of two figures, indistinct in the darkness, on the landing above. Their voices floated down, the words incomprehensible, though the emotions—the woman’s tearful rage, the man’s determined calm—carried easily.

  Unpleasant scenes between romantically entangled courtiers were common, but I had no patience for them. I was on the verge of clearing my throat and pressing onward when something—the timbre of the young woman’s voice, perhaps, or the man’s placating gesture—held me fast.

  I watched as the woman loosed a stream of heated words, her fingers spread in hopeless anger. The man—tall, composed—grasped her hand and, curling it in his own, pressed it to his lips. She stopped to listen as he spoke, softly, reasonably—but when he finished, she pulled something from her neck and cast it from her.

  It fell, softly striking the landing below her—an arm’s length from my feet. The man pulled her to him, and they kis
sed fiercely. I leaned down, grateful for their distraction, and picked up the glittering object from the stone.

  It was the diamond necklace Jeanne had given Margot.

  I closed my fist over the gem and looked up, riveted; by then, the embrace was over. Margot hurried inside to her chambers; the man began to descend the stairs. Panicked, I slipped from the landing inside the square archway and drew back into the shadows.

  The man made his way rapidly down to the very place I had been standing and paused there. At the instant he arrived in full view on the landing, I closed my eyes.

  I remained motionless and sightless for the long minutes he slowly walked the course of the landing, looking for the missing gift. At last he muttered a curse and proceeded farther down the stairs.

  Only then did I open my eyes, but it had not been enough to shield me from what I could not bear to know. In the cold air lingered, unmistakable and cloying, the fragrance of orange blossom.

  For hours I grappled with what I had witnessed. My mind, I decided, had tricked me: I had been so certain I looked upon quarreling lovers that I had injected passion into a kiss that had been only fraternal. Edouard, after all, was far too taken with his gentlemen to fall in love with a woman, least of all his sister.

  But I grew more devoted than ever to seeing Margot married off to Henri—and I didn’t care if she spent the rest of her life in backward Navarre.

  The negotiations began early the next morning. The fire had already warmed the council room, and the open curtains admitted the feeble sun. Jeanne wore the same plain dress of Huguenot black. Her smile was not so bright as when I first saw it; she settled into the chair with a sigh, already exhausted.

  I suggested that we begin by writing down the points we deemed important. When it was done, we exchanged papers. Jeanne’s contained no surprises: Henri was to hold fast to his faith, and Margot was to convert so that they could be married in a Protestant ceremony in Navarre. The couple would spend most of the year there.