Conspiracy

by Stephanie Merritt

  The King’s private oratory was tucked away in a corner on the first floor, adjoining the royal apartments. Outside the door we found two weary soldiers, a white-haired man in the robes of a physician and Balthasar de Beaujoyeux, pacing and twisting his hands. He had an unusually frayed air about him, as if he hadn’t slept, and his collar was awry.

  ‘Thanks be to Our Lady that you have come, Bruno. We didn’t know what else to do, save force the door, but if he is in a fragile state, who knows what that might cause him to do? We think he has a dagger in there with him. Her Majesty says you may be able to bring him back to himself. You’re our last hope.’

  ‘So I understand. Has he spoken at all?’

  ‘Only once, and that was to say that if we break the door down, he will cut his own throat.’ He passed a hand over his close-cropped hair. ‘I have been here all night. His chaplain has tried to reason with him, and a couple of his gentlemen, as well as his mother. No one can move him.’

  ‘He has not taken food or water in over two days,’ the physician said, his face grave. ‘I feel bound to point out he will die sooner or later if we do not intervene.’

  Balthasar clasped his hands together and closed his eyes. His anguish appeared genuine, and I began to grasp the severity of the situation. Anyone who had spent time with Henri was familiar with the way his moods pitched between extremes, often calculated to win attention, but in his most violent dark episodes he was more than capable of harming himself. His attendants knew it; they also knew that their own livelihoods – and perhaps even lives – were in jeopardy if the King did not rally. There were no more Valois sons left.

  ‘Call to him,’ Balthasar urged, gesturing to the door.

  I knocked firmly. ‘Your Majesty. It’s Bruno.’

  Silence.

  ‘I have some news that will interest you, Your Majesty,’ I called, in what I hoped was a buoyant tone. ‘Touching the matter we discussed before.’ I did not miss the way Ruggieri’s sharp eyes brightened with interest.

  Still no answer, but a faint shuffling from inside. Encouraged, I tried again.

  ‘I have made progress. In the business of the priest. But I need your advice.’

  The movement stopped and the room fell silent again.

  ‘Keep trying,’ Balthasar hissed. He pressed his fist to his lips; it seemed he was praying under his breath.

  ‘Your Majesty, I think I have answers, but they are only for your ears. Please let me speak to you.’

  The shuffling began again, to no obvious purpose. At least he was still alive in there, I thought. Just as it seemed we would have to admit defeat and risk forcing the door, I heard the rattle of a key in a lock. I held my hand up to prevent anyone else coming closer.

  ‘Bruno alone,’ said the King’s voice from within, hoarse but menacing.

  ‘On my oath, Your Majesty.’

  The door opened a fraction of an inch. Balthasar sent me a questioning look, gesturing to the guards; I shook my head and slipped through the gap. The door was slammed and locked almost before I had whisked the hem of my cloak inside.

  I could have been forgiven for thinking myself back inside the oubliette at the Conciergerie. The small room was almost completely dark and at once both cold and stuffy, rank with the smell of unwashed bodies and human waste and overlaid with a more sinister odour, the faint scent of decay. The windows had been covered with thick black cloth, the only light burned from two fat tallow candles on the altar, where I saw the source of that strange, sepulchral smell: a row of human skulls, some with the earth of the grave still clinging to them, had been lined up in the place of a chalice or crucifix. The King backed away to lean against the altar, watching me like a beast cornered in its lair. He was naked from the waist up, shivering, his chest and shoulders scored with red lashes. His cheeks looked sunken and his eyes unnaturally bright, but though he appeared worn down by his extravagant display of emotion, I was relieved to see that he did not seem to be on the brink of death. I approached him cautiously, trying to calculate which words might best draw him out.

  ‘Your Majesty.’ I took off the cloak I was wearing, knelt beside him and draped it around his shoulders. He did not protest. The smell rising from his body was feral. ‘I understand how hard it is to lose someone you care about, but—’

  ‘You understand nothing.’ His voice emerged hollow and flat. He wrapped his arms around his knees. ‘I deserve to be punished. I beg God’s forgiveness but all I see is endless night. He has turned His face from me.’

  ‘You cannot blame yourself,’ I said gently.

  ‘But I killed her,’ he said frankly, looking at the floor. A long silence unfurled. I balled my fists tightly, concentrating on the knuckles of my thumbs while I tried to steady my thoughts. I had not expected this confession. It had been my immediate fear on the night of the ball, but in the heat of the discoveries about Léonie and Guise I had all but forgotten the idea. No wonder Catherine was so determined the girl’s murder should not be investigated. I wondered if she had guessed from the beginning.

  ‘Why?’ I asked.

  ‘You should not have said what you said, Bruno. About Circe intending me harm. You knew nothing about it.’

  I shifted position; my knees were beginning to ache. I knew I needed to navigate this carefully; Henri was quite capable of trying to shift the blame by claiming I had encouraged him to murder.

  ‘I was thinking only of Your Majesty’s safety. I believed she was part of a plot against you. The priest Lefèvre believed it too, and wanted to warn you.’

  ‘But you did not know the whole truth,’ he said again, more forcefully this time. ‘She would never have harmed me, I would swear to it. Now she is dead.’ He hugged himself, rocking back and forth. ‘And it is all my doing. And Ruggieri’s.’

  ‘Ruggieri?’ I sat back against the altar, trying to comprehend. The old sorcerer was robust for a man of seventy, but I could hardly believe that he had the strength to subdue a young woman for long enough to strangle her with a scarf. ‘Was it he who—’

  ‘It does no good to talk of this now.’ Henri rubbed both hands over his face. ‘God will punish me. He has told me.’ He tapped his temple and dropped to a whisper. ‘I have heard His voice in here, saying He will tear my kingdom from me and scatter it among my enemies.’

  I looked at him. If he were not the King, someone would have given him a good slap by now. I had to fight back an urge to shake him myself. He had just admitted to killing a young woman, and now he was sitting here in his own filth like a sulking child, pouring forth biblical laments as if he had not brought it all about himself.

  ‘He won’t have to if you persist in this course, Your Majesty,’ I said, losing patience. ‘If you don’t come out, dress yourself and rule like a sovereign, you will throw your kingdom to Guise and the League with your own hands, and there will be civil war. Another massacre, perhaps. Is that what you want?’

  Henri blinked at me. He seemed taken aback by my tone. ‘But how can I be absolved for what I have done?’

  ‘You could atone by discharging the duty God has placed on your shoulders as King of France. Do your people not deserve that? And trust in God’s mercy.’ Strange, I reflected, how easily all the pat answers of faith tripped off my tongue when they were useful.

  ‘But I loved her, Bruno,’ he whimpered, his fingers scrabbling at my sleeve. ‘And I have brought about her death as surely as if I had opened her veins myself.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ I grew still, holding my breath.

  He frowned at me, puzzled. ‘That it was I who killed her, in the end, as surely as if I had held the knife in my own hand. I drove her to it. I was too quick to credit your theories – I accused her of treason. I spoke cruelly to her – told her I knew everything she was planning. She broke down, swore she was loyal, begged my forgiveness.’ He shivered violently. ‘The look she gave me when she danced for me, Bruno – it cut me to my heart. I meant to find her and take back my heated words but I was to
o late. She took her life, convinced I thought she had conspired against me, and I can’t forgive myself.’

  ‘Wait.’ I knelt up again so I could make him look me in the face. ‘Is that what you believe?’

  ‘How could it be otherwise? Why are you staring at me like that?’

  ‘Because …’ I hesitated, allowing my breath out slowly. Relief sluiced through me. ‘Your Majesty, Léonie did not kill herself. Whatever the physicians told you.’

  His eyes widened and his mouth fell slack. ‘What are you saying?’

  ‘She was not killed with a knife, nor by her own hand. She was strangled, with a scarf. Someone murdered her,’ I said, to clarify, since he was still gaping at me as if I were speaking another language.

  ‘Who? Why?’

  ‘I don’t have those answers yet. But I believe it was as I told you – because of her part in a conspiracy against you.’

  Henri doubled over, pressing his thumbs into his closed eyes; he stayed like this for a few minutes. I crouched beside him, one hand resting on his arm.

  ‘Why did you mention Ruggieri?’ I asked.

  He raised his head and looked blearily at me. ‘Because it was he who said – oh, no matter now. I can hardly credit it. I will find whoever did this and have him tortured.’ He sounded more robust already. With a concerted effort he shook off my hand and reached for the edge of the altar, pulling himself unsteadily to his feet. ‘So she did mean to kill me after all,’ he murmured.

  ‘I fear so, Your Majesty.’

  ‘And they all lied to me. My mother swore stone-faced she had died by her own hand.’ His expression hardened. ‘You were the only one who told me the truth, Bruno.’ He leaned heavily on my shoulder and heaved a sigh that juddered through his bones.

  ‘I think your mother was trying to protect you,’ I said. ‘She wanted to spare you a scandal.’

  ‘I’ll give her a fucking scandal.’ He lurched towards the door.

  ‘Your Majesty,’ I caught him by the arm. ‘You are weak – for the sake of your health you should not exert yourself until you have taken some food.’ While Catherine would no doubt be pleased to see her son emerge, I suspected she would not consider my intervention successful if he exploded out of the oratory spitting accusations in her face, and I could say goodbye to my chance of studying the Hermes book.

  He shoved me away with unexpected force. ‘Exert myself? I tell you this, Bruno – I am sick of being manipulated by women. Damn them all. Never again.’ He took another staggering pace towards the door, uttered a small, sharp cry, teetered for a moment and crumpled to the floor like a marionette dropped from a height. My heart caught in my throat; if Henri had died here alone in my company, there was no way out for me but the scaffold. I shook myself, checked his breath and pulse, muttered a prayer of thanks and unlocked the door.

  ‘He fainted, I think from lack of food,’ I said to the anxious faces gathered outside. ‘He should see the physician now.’ I noticed that Ruggieri had disappeared.

  Balthasar nodded, flinching slightly at the smell creeping out from the open doorway. ‘You go in, do not waste time,’ he urged the doctor. ‘I will send for water and lights.’ He looked at me uncertainly. ‘What did you say to him?’

  ‘He unburdened himself of his distress at the death of the girl. In his weak state he was overcome by emotion and passed out.’

  He eyed me warily. ‘I hope you have not made him worse.’

  ‘I did what I was asked to do. The door is now open and the King is alive.’

  ‘Well, this guard had better take you back to the Tuileries so you can report to Catherine. She will want to know everything the King said. Will he rally, do you think?’

  ‘I am sure of it. It is not the first time, after all.’

  ‘No.’ He sighed. ‘It is Catherine who suffers most through all this. I know we should not question the Almighty’s ways, but one can’t help wishing over and over that He had seen fit to send her better sons. She has worn herself out in the service of France – she deserves an easier life in her old age, poor lady.’

  I could not help thinking that Balthasar’s image of Catherine was heavily romanticised, but it was not the time to contradict him.

  ‘I’m sure the Almighty has His purposes,’ I said blandly.

  ‘I don’t know if that is a comforting thought or not.’

  ‘Depends whose side He is on.’

  He pursed his lips. ‘Yes. If only He had thought to make that clearer. Sometimes I wonder if He doesn’t just look down on our petty strife and laugh.’ His face turned sombre again. ‘It is probably blasphemy even to think that.’

  ‘Don’t worry – I don’t think it counts if you blaspheme to a heretic.’

  He gave me a tired half-smile. ‘Go on, you had better not keep her waiting.’

  One of the soldiers gestured towards the corridor; I inclined my head to Balthasar and followed the man out.

  The inner courtyard glittered with frost; torches had been lit in the wall brackets, chasing shadows into corners. The King still had my cloak; in the bitter air I felt the lack of it, but I could hardly ask to go back now. We were almost at the far side when a young woman appeared from our right with silent steps and planted herself in our path. By her clothes and hair it was clear she was a gentlewoman; she wore a crescent hood and huddled into a thick fur cape. She addressed my guard.

  ‘This man is to come with me.’

  He frowned. ‘My instructions were to take him to the Tuileries.’

  ‘Your instructions have changed.’ She was as brisk and imperious as a dowager duchess, though I guessed she was not yet out of her teens. ‘We will see him delivered to Queen Catherine shortly. Go on,’ she said, shooing him away with a flap of her hand, ‘about your duties. This is not your responsibility now.’

  His eyes flitted anxiously between us. ‘Will you be safe alone?’ he asked.

  ‘I’m sure I can fight her off if she tries anything,’ I said. The guard grinned; the girl’s expression remained stony.

  ‘We will be perfectly fine,’ she said. ‘Come along.’

  The guard looked back to me, shrugged, and returned the way he had come. ‘You. Italian. Follow me,’ she said, setting off towards the adjacent wing.

  ‘Where?’

  ‘You’ll see. No more questions. Remember your place.’

  TWENTY-THREE

  She led me up a staircase and through a series of lavishly furnished rooms until we came to a door at the end. The girl knocked and was summoned by a female voice; I found myself ushered into a circular chamber in one of the towers. Queen Louise stood by the fire, her eyes fixed on the flames. I dropped immediately to my knees.

  ‘Your Majesty.’

  ‘You can get up,’ she said, in her soft voice, with its oddly flat intonation. ‘Thank you, Charlotte. You may leave us.’

  I stood as the girl closed the door behind her, to find myself alone with Henri’s wife. I had barely spoken to her, even in the days when I was a regular visitor to the court; she had tended to keep to herself, and showed a marked suspicion of anyone the King favoured. Not without reason, I thought. She had been pretty in her youth, though never with the striking beauty that turned heads; she still had her looks, but the years of increasingly extreme treatments for her childlessness had faded her. She appeared drained; at thirty, the lines around her eyes gave her a look of permanent anxiety, though I noted that she had more colour in her cheeks than when I had last seen her on the night of the ball. She crossed the room, skirts susurrating behind her. Her gown was exquisite; shimmering green silk embroidered with silver thread and sewn all over with seed pearls, but she seemed ill at ease inside it, as if she had been made to dress up as a queen for a costume ball. I noticed, as she approached me, that her fingers were constantly in motion; plucking at the cloth of her cuffs, the rosary at her belt or the dry patches of skin on the backs of her hands.

  ‘Did you see my husband?’ she asked, without preliminary.

&
nbsp; ‘I did, Your Majesty.’

  ‘How is he?’

  ‘The physician is treating him now. He is weak but not in danger. I believe if his spirits recover, his body will follow.’

  She nodded, wrapping her arms around her narrow ribs as she crossed to the window. ‘I heard she had sent for you. He would not see me. Nor any of his advisors. He would not even see Catherine.’

  ‘Perhaps he wanted some peace.’

  She whisked around, her eyes darting over my face, trying to assess me.

  ‘Are you close to my husband?’

  I hesitated. ‘I was his tutor for a time, in the art of memory.’

  ‘I remember. He used to shut himself away for hours with you in the library. Ruggieri said you were teaching him black magic.’

  ‘I hope Your Majesty knows that is not true.’

  ‘Oh, I am inclined to believe you. Every word that man speaks is a malicious lie.’ She said this with unexpected vehemence. ‘But Henri confides in you, I think?’

  ‘On occasion, he has done me that honour.’ I could not gauge the direction of her questions. ‘But we are not – intimate, Your Majesty.’

  ‘I did not mean that. Though I would not much care if you were. I am not afraid of his mignons. Does that surprise you?’ Before I could answer, she continued, ‘Henri’s sins are his own business. You know he designed my wedding dress and insisted on arranging my hair himself for the ceremony? Hours, he spent. Twenty minutes before I walked to the altar he was still fiddling, sewing precious stones on to my bodice while I was wearing it. Do you think I did not understand him then?’ She cracked a dry smile. ‘It was a work of art, though – see for yourself.’ She gestured to the wall behind me.

  I turned to see an imposing portrait of Queen Louise posed in one of the great rooms of state in her wedding finery, ten years younger with a sparkle of hope in her eyes, though still outshone by the brilliance of her gown, so crowded with gems that it looked rigid as armour. But the detail that caught my eye was the pendant she wore around her neck in the portrait: a gold medallion engraved with the symbol of a dolphin.