The Italian Woman

by Виктория Холт

  * * *

  How annoying it was to have to deal with recalcitrant children!

  ‘What!’ cried the conceited little Hercule, Duke of Alençon. ‘You would marry me to the Virgin of England! Why, she is old enough to be my mother.’

  ‘And rich enough to be your wife.’

  ‘I tell you I will have none of it.’

  ‘You will have to be reasonable, my son.’

  ‘Madame, I would beg of you to reconsider this matter.’

  ‘I have already carefully considered it. Have you? Think! A crown … the crown of England will be yours.’

  He was wild, that boy, conceited, arrogant and a lover of intrigue. She took him to Amboise and kept him a prisoner there. One could not be sure what such a wilful boy would do to wreck his proposed marriage with the Virgin Queen.

  ‘And now that I have my little frog safe at Amboise,’ said Catherine to the King, ‘I must set about the marrying of Margot.’

  When Catherine received Margot in her apartments and told her who was to be her husband, Margot’s eyes blazed with contempt and horror.

  ‘I … marry Henry of Navarre! That oaf!’

  ‘My dear daughter, it is not every Princess who has the chance to become a Queen.’

  ‘The Queen of Navarre!’

  ‘Your great-aunt was a clever and beautiful woman – the most intellectual of her day – and she did not scorn the title.’

  ‘Nevertheless, I scorn it.’

  ‘You will grow used to the idea.’

  ‘I never shall.’

  ‘When you renew your acquaintance with your old friend, you will grow fond of him.’

  ‘He was never my friend, and I was never fond of him. I never could be. I dislike him. He is a coarse philanderer.’

  ‘My dear daughter! Then you will, I know, have some tastes in common.’

  Margot steeled herself to conquer her fear of her mother and to answer boldly: ‘I was prevented from marrying the only man I wished to marry. I therefore claim the right to choose my own husband.’

  ‘You are a fool,’ said Catherine. ‘Think not that I will endure any of your tantrums.’

  ‘I am a Catholic. How could I marry a Huguenot?’

  ‘It may be that we shall make a Catholic of him.’

  ‘I thought I was to marry him because he is a Huguenot, so that the Huguenots might fight with the Catholics against Spain.’

  Catherine sighed. ‘My daughter, the policy of a country may change daily. What applies to-day does not necessarily apply tomorrow. How do I know whether Henry of Navarre will remain Huguenot or Catholic? How do I know what France will require of him?’

  ‘I hate Henry of Navarre.’

  ‘You talk like a fool,’ said Catherine, and forthwith dismissed her daughter. She had no serious qualms about Margot’s ultimate obedience.

  Margot went to her room and lay on her bed, dry-eyed and full of wretchedness.

  ‘I will not. I will not!’ she kept saying to herself; but she could not shut out of her mind the memory of her mother’s cold eyes, and she knew that what her mother willed must always come to pass.

  * * *

  There was a constant flow of letters from Catherine arriving at Jeanne’s stronghold in La Rochelle.

  ‘You must come to court,’ wrote Catherine. ‘I long to see you. Bring those dear children – as dear to me as my own. I assure you with all my heart that no harm shall come to you or to them.’

  Jeanne thought of all those years when her beloved son had been withheld from her. What if she allowed him once more to walk into the trap! She could never forget what had happened to Antoine. He had been her dear and loving husband; their domestic life had been a joy; and then one day had come the summons to go to court; he had gone, and soon there were those evil rumours; quickly he had fallen under the spell of La Belle Rouet, as Catherine had intended he should. After that he had even changed his religion. It was as though the serpent’s fangs had pierced him, not to kill, but to infect him with that venom, that particular brand of poison which she kept for the weak. And Henry, Jeanne’s son, was young, and far too susceptible to the charms of fair women. What Catherine had done to the father, she no doubt planned to do to the son.

  Jeanne sat down and wrote to the Queen Mother:

  ‘Madame, you tell me that you want to see us – and that it is not for any evil purpose. Forgive me if, when I read your letters, I felt an inclination to laugh. For you try to do away with a fear which I have never felt. I do not believe you eat little children … as folks say you do.’

  Catherine read and reread that letter.

  They were enemies – this Queen and herself. They had been so from the beginning of their acquaintance. Always Catherine was aware of a vague hatred of this woman, which was outside the normal irritation which her character – so different from Catherine’s – always aroused in the Queen Mother. Always Catherine was aware of an uneasiness when she thought of Jeanne. She would like to see her dead; she was, in any case, one of those people who the Duke of Alva had declared must be removed; she was dangerous, and her death would give undoubted pleasure to the King of Spain. ‘I do not believe you eat little children … as some folks say you do.’ One day perhaps, Jeanne would see that Catherine could be as deadly as those words implied.

  But not yet. The marriage agreements had to be signed, and they must be signed by the Queen of Navarre, for she was the controller of her son’s fate.

  Well, the bait was surely big enough to bring Jeanne to court – marriage for her son with the daughter of the House of Valois, the King’s sister, the daughter of the Queen Mother. Surely that must attract even the pious Queen of Navarre.

  But Jeanne prevaricated. There were religious difficulties, she wrote.

  ‘That, Madame,’ answered Catherine, ‘is a matter that we must discuss when we are together. I doubt not that we shall come to a satisfactory arrangement.’

  ‘Madame,’ wrote Jeanne, ‘I hear that the Papal Legate is at Blois. I could not, you will understand, visit the court while he is there.’

  It was true, for the Pope had sent him; fearing a match between Huguenot Henry of Navarre and the Catholic Princess, he was now suggesting Sebastian of Portugal once more for Margot.

  But now Catherine fervently wished for war with Spain; she was fascinated by her dreams of a French Empire, and she wanted Coligny to lead France to victory. If she were to bring Catholics and Huguenots together to fight against Spain, the marriage between Henry of Navarre and Margot would help to bring this about.

  ‘Then come to Chenonceaux, dear cousin,’ she wrote to Jeanne. ‘There we will meet and talk to our heart’s content. Bring your dear son with you. I long to embrace him.’

  Jeanne’s nights were haunted with troubled dreams, and in these dreams the Queen Mother figured largely. Her very words seemed to Jeanne to suggest sinister intentions. She ‘longed to embrace’ Henry. What she had in mind was to lure him away from his mother, to draw him into the sensuous life of the court, to get her sirens to work on him … to turn him into her creature as she had his father.

  But the match with the Princess of France was a good one. Jeanne looked ahead into a hazy future. If, by some act of God, all Catherine’s sons died leaving no heir, well then, young Henry of Navarre was very near the throne, and a Valois Princess as his wife would bring him nearer.

  So at last Jeanne set out for the court, but she did not take Henry with her. Instead, she took her little daughter Catherine.

  She admonished Henry before she left: ‘No matter what letters arrive from the Queen Mother, no matter what commands, heed them not. Do nothing except you receive word from me.’

  Henry kissed his mother farewell. He was quite happy to stay behind, for at this moment he was enjoying a particularly satisfactory love affair with the daughter of a humble citizen, and he had no wish to leave her arms for those of the spitfire Margot.

  * * *

  Margot was dressing to meet the Quee
n of Navarre.

  ‘That puritanical woman!’ she said to her women. ‘That Huguenot! I despise them both – the woman and her son!’

  She painted her face; she put on a gown of scarlet velvet, cut low to expose her breasts. She would do all in her power to drive the good woman back whence she had come.

  Catherine glared at her daughter when she saw her, but there was no time to send her back to her room to change her appearance. And when Catherine saw that Jeanne had arrived without her son, she was not sorry for Margot’s defiance.

  Jeanne bowed low and received the kisses of ceremony. Catherine put her fingers under the chin of her little namesake and tilted the child’s face upwards. ‘My dear little god-daughter! I am delighted to see you at court, although I so deeply regret the absence of your brother.’

  Catherine was determined that there should be no discussions on the subject which Jeanne had come to talk about until the ceremonies were over. She was amused to see Jeanne’s disgust at the court manners, and the boldness of the women. She was amused to watch Jeanne’s contemplation of her prospective daughter-in-law; she was as amused at Margot’s sly determination to make herself as unacceptable as possible by flaunting her extravagant clothes and her loose behaviour with the courtiers. Catherine laughed to herself. She knew that Huguenot Jeanne was at heart an ambitious mother, and that for all her piety she would be unable to resist this dazzling marriage for her son. Jeanne would be ready to endure a good deal in order to put Henry a step nearer to the throne.

  The weeks that followed were painful to Jeanne, but full of amusement to Catherine, for Catherine delighted in prodding her enemy into anger. It was not difficult. The Queen of Navarre was notoriously frank. She said straight out that she disliked the licentiousness of the court, the masques and plays which were performed; these, Catherine told her, were done in her honour. But the plays were all comedies – for Catherine believed tragedies to be unlucky – ribald or risqué; and both the Queen Mother and her daughter slyly watched the effect of them on the Queen of Navarre.

  During the weeks that followed Jeanne’s arrival, Catherine was constantly urging her to send for Henry; but Jeanne was firmly against this, and would not be persuaded. Moreover, she could not hide her impatience at Catherine’s determination not to discuss the matter which had brought Jeanne to court; she could not hide her distrust of Catherine. Catherine smiled calmly at Jeanne’s impatience, but her thoughts were the more deadly for her calm.

  ‘Your son would have to live at court,’ said Catherine at length, ‘and I do not think we could grant him the right to worship in the Huguenot manner.’

  ‘But some people here do worship in that manner.’

  ‘Your son would be of the royal house … with a Catholic wife. And when the Princess Marguerite visits Béarn, she must be allowed to attend mass.’

  Several times Jeanne was on the point of leaving the court in very exasperation, until she realised that it was the Queen Mother’s wish that the marriage should take place, and that it was the mischievous side to her nature which compelled her to tease the Queen of Navarre.

  ‘I do not know how I endure these torments,’ Jeanne wrote to her son. ‘I am not allowed to be alone with anyone but the Queen Mother, and she takes a delight in plaguing me. All the time she is laughing at me. Oh, my son, I tremble at the thought of this court. There never was such licentiousness. It is not the fault of the King; he has his mistress installed in the palace in apartments close to his own, and he retires early on the excuse that he wishes to work on a book he is writing; but all know that he spends the time with his mistress. Others are not so discreet.’

  There was one private interview between Jeanne and Margot. Margot was cold and haughty, expressing no desire for the marriage.

  ‘How would you feel,’ asked Jeanne hopefully, ‘about a change in your religion?’

  ‘I have been brought up in the Catholic religion,’ the Princess said, ‘and I would never abandon it. Even,’ she added maliciously, ‘for the greatest monarch in the world!’

  Jeanne said angrily: ‘I have heard differently. It seems I have been brought to court on false reports.’

  Jeanne was made continually aware of the falseness of the court. They did not say what they meant, these people. They were completely without sincerity. They alarmed her, for when they smiled, she knew their smiles hid deadly thoughts.

  Coligny could help her very little. He was obsessed by his friendship with the King, with his plans for the conquest of Spain and the establishment of the Huguenot religion. He was, Jeanne felt sure, too trusting.

  Catherine was watching events outside the court, while inside she played with Jeanne. The Guises were growing restive. There was a personal element in the Guises’ annoyance. Coligny they looked upon as the murderer of Duke Francis; they had wanted Margot to marry Duke Henry.

  They now plotted with Spain. That accursed family! thought Catherine. They were always in the background of her life, foiling her schemes.

  France was battered by civil war; Spain was strong. There returned to Catherine that awful fear of Philip which never left her for long; and she knew that sooner or later he must be placated. What was he thinking in his palace in Madrid? His spies would have been watching her closely. They would report that Coligny was at court and that the Queen Mother was planning a marriage for her daughter with the heretic of Navarre! It was obvious to Catherine that she must show Philip that, in spite of outward appearances, she was still his friend.

  And so, listening to Jeanne, arguing, teasing, Catherine began to make plans. She would have to throw a very important personage to the King of Spain; she would have to carry out the first part of that pact which she had made with Alva at Bayonne.

  Of course, she had always disliked Jeanne. There had always been that uncomfortable knowledge that her existence meant no good to Catherine. Philip would be pleased to see the woman out of the way. He would know with certainty then that the Queen Mother worked with him.

  So while she talked with Jeanne her thoughts moved away from and beyond the marriage pact. She pictured the pact signed, Henry of Navarre at court bound to Margot, and then – the end of Jeanne of Navarre.

  The Ruggieri? They were too timid. René would be the best man.

  She must therefore get the contract signed, tie up the Prince, and make the marriage possible. Then she could proceed with her plans for war with Spain while she lulled Philip’s fears by removing the woman whom he recognised as one of his deadliest foes.

  Charles would be useful at this stage. His friendship with Coligny must be extended to the Queen of Navarre. Catherine spent much time with the King, explaining to him the part he must play.

  Accordingly he was seen a good deal with Jeanne; she was, he said, his dear aunt. He told her of his love for Coligny. He was very useful in subduing Jeanne’s fears.

  ‘If there should be any trouble with the Pope,’ said Charles, ‘we will get Margot married en pleine prêche.’

  And so, at last, Jeanne of Navarre signed the marriage contract between her son and the Princess Margot; and thus was Catherine free to go ahead with her plans.

  * * *

  The court had moved to Paris, and with it went Jeanne of Navarre.

  ‘There must be preparations for the wedding,’ said Catherine, ‘and you will wish to take advantage of all that Paris can offer you. I myself will take you to my best dressmakers, my own glove-makers, my parfumeurs.’

  Jeanne suppressed misgivings and went. Coligny assured her that this was a new dawn for the Huguenot Party, and that she could trust her son to adhere to his faith. She must realise that, pleasure-loving as he was, he was not weak as his father had been.

  Catherine was delighted to be in her beloved Paris. It was exhilarating to slip out through the secret passage, a shawl about her head, and enter the shop on the quay opposite the Louvre.

  René at once recognised her. He was delighted that it was to him that she came. For so long he had b
een the rival of the Ruggieri brothers.

  She asked to be taken into his secret chamber, and thither she was conducted immediately.

  ‘Monsieur René,’ she said, throwing off her shawl and putting on her regal dignity, ‘I have a commission for you. You must let me know if you are willing to undertake it.’

  ‘My greatest desire, Madame,’ he said, ‘is to serve your Majesty.’

  ‘Wait before you commit yourself, my friend. The person involved is of very high rank.’ She scrutinised the face of the man, but he did not flinch. She went on: ‘Her death must be brought about swiftly and subtly. There may be suspicion, however cleverly it is performed. There may be an autopsy. I would not wish you to undertake this until you have considered all that it may mean. I have come to you because I believe you to be more fearless than your fellows.’

  ‘Madame, I shall be fearless in your Majesty’s service.’

  ‘How do your experiments go, Monsieur René?’

  ‘Very well, Madame. I have a substance which can be inhaled through the nose or through the pores of the skin.’

  ‘That is not so very novel.’

  ‘But a substance, your Majesty, which, a few days after it is inhaled, will leave no deposit in the victim’s body, a substance which will aggravate any disease from which the victim may be suffering, so that if the body is opened after death, it would appear that he, or she, has died of this disease.’

  ‘That is interesting, Monsieur René. And if the victim were not suffering from some disease, what then?’

  ‘Death would come, but it would be impossible for any to find out the cause.’

  ‘That in itself would arouse suspicion. Tell me, have you tested the reliability of the substance?’