The Hostage Queen

by Freda Lightfoot

  Charles was the one causing her the greatest concern. The events of last week seemed to have changed him, even while he claimed to have no recollection of them. He was so deathly pale he looked like a walking ghost, frequently crying out that ghosts in fact visited him in his sleep. He suffered horrendous nightmares in which he would leave blood on his pillow from biting his own tongue in agitation, or he would wake screaming that bodies were falling on him. His periods of gloom were growing darker, his excitable moments all the more manic, his demented mind seeming to slip further into an abyss from which she could not save him.

  He’d even taken to travelling to every execution, once attending a hanging where he’d reportedly held a lighted torch close enough to see the agonized expressions of the victims. It was as if, once awakened, his lust for blood could never be quenched.

  Nor had it been satisfied in the country at large, as the massacre spread and the atrocities accelerated, rather than diminished. The carnage, pillage, rape, and brutal murder continued unabated. Catherine never enquired how many thousands died, or whether they were Catholic or Huguenot, for both factions suffered appalling losses. She really had no wish to know. It was said that in Paris the number killed amounted to more than two thousand, and there would no doubt be many thousands more in the cities around France in the coming days and weeks.

  It was perhaps unfortunate that the events of Saint Bartholomew’s Eve had got so out of hand, that more ‘frogs’ had been killed than she had quite bargained for. But many of these people were little more than peasants and so of no consequence.

  Catholics had been of the firm belief that permitting heresy to live in their midst was like nurturing a disease in the body of Christ, and had grasped the opportunity to purge the infection. They believed in one religion for France, that society would collapse if cobblers and women could debate the meaning of the Bible.

  Those in the lower classes had adopted a more prosaic view. The price of food, fuel, and shelter were now so high that it was difficult for the populous to make ends meet. Homelessness and poverty were increasing, and they had been ready enough to take their hostility and resentment out against any who seemed more comfortable than themselves, seeking scapegoats for their misery.

  Yet Catherine was strangely content. She had never felt so at ease with herself. The relief that she’d finally achieved her goal was a deep and abiding satisfaction.

  Coligny was no more, and his wife, the wonderful Jacqueline, was now held in prison. The woman could stay there till she rotted, so far as the Queen Mother was concerned. The Admiral’s estates had been razed to the ground, his goods and chattels confiscated, everything he owned destroyed.

  ‘Coligny’s sons went to view his body on the gibbet, at least what remained of it,’ Charles told his mother over supper one evening, the massacre being the one topic of conversation.

  ‘Indeed?’

  ‘The fifteen-year-old sobbed, apparently, while the seven-year-old stood frozen, too shocked even to cry.’

  Catherine reached for another chicken leg, and shrugged. ‘Children are very adaptable.’

  Margot said, ‘Word has it that some of the Huguenot leaders escaped. Guise pursued one on his horse but had to abandon the chase, the other man’s mount being faster. Yet he hotly denies being responsible for the massacre. Can that be so, Mother?’ she guilelessly enquired, eyes wide with innocence.

  Catherine did not trouble to answer.

  Charles was still obsessed with the blood and gore. ‘I heard of a young boy being discovered beneath the rotting corpses of his parents and siblings. Someone passing by heard his cry and released him. What must it have been like for him, lying in all that blood and pus, perhaps being nibbled by rats?’

  ‘It is a story to warm the heart, dear brother, not to dwell on its more unsavoury aspects,’ Margot gently scolded him. ‘I believe that Merlin, Coligny’s chaplain, also lived,’ she announced, earning herself a glare of disapproval. ‘They say he escaped over the rooftops then hid in a barn where he was nurtured by a hen who laid an egg into his hand.’

  ‘What nonsense you do prate,’ Catherine snapped. ‘Enough of this chatter; I have work to do.’ And with that she abruptly left the table.

  A day or two later while the court was at dinner there came a terrible sound – a deep-throated kacking and screeching from above – and the whole room darkened. Many of the ladies cried out in terror, and even the gentlemen felt the hairs at the back of their neck lift.

  Margot hurried to the window, the King and Queen, and the rest of the courtiers quickly followed, and what they saw left them speechless with fright.

  The sky was black with ravens, their four-foot wingspan seeming to touch tip to tip as they wheeled and dived, their shaggy jet feathers and hooked bills bringing a chill to every person present. They hung in the air like an ominous cloud of doom before settling in huge, squawking numbers upon every rooftop and pedestal of the Louvre.

  ‘Dear God, they come as predators, to scavenge in this city of the dead.’

  ‘It is an evil omen,’ groaned Charles, completely unhinged by the sight.

  That night the King suffered his worst nightmare yet. Little more than two hours after he’d retired, he came running from his room to rouse Navarre and the gentlemen of his bedchamber. ‘Can you hear them?’ he cried. ‘Can you hear them crying and groaning, howling and blaspheming? They have risen from the dead to come and extract their vengeance upon me.’

  It took all three of his favourite ladies – Margot, Elisabeth and his nurse – to settle him that night.

  ***

  Part Four

  LOVERS AND LIARS

  1573–1574

  1573

  MARGOT WAS WALKING along the passage from her husband’s apartments to her own chamber when an arm suddenly hooked about her waist, and with a small squeal of alarm she found herself pulled behind an arras into an ante room. Before she could draw breath to protest, a mouth had closed over hers in a long, demanding kiss. Quite unable to move, being trapped between the unforgiving door and the powerful breadth of a man’s chest, she succumbed completely to the pleasure of it. But then it was a truly wonderful kiss.

  When she was finally released, she gave the perpetrator of this outrage a sharp slap across his handsome face, even though she’d known instantly that it was Henri of Guise. How could she not, having savoured the delicious taste of his lips more times than were quite proper in a young girl?

  Entirely unconcerned by her reaction, he put back his fine head with its cut of close-cropped curls, and laughed. ‘I thought you’d avoided me long enough, my pretty, and that it was time we got re-acquainted.’

  Margot straightened her gown, flustered by the warm flush of excitement on her cheeks. ‘And you thought that was the way to go about it, did you?’

  He smiled at her, a molten power in his liquid, dark-eyed gaze. ‘I needed to gain your attention.’

  ‘You have most certainly achieved that.’ She laughed suddenly, tremulous, nervous, and as delighted as he by the encounter. But then, instantly ashamed of herself for this apparent betrayal, Margot scowled crossly at him. ‘I should not, by rights, even be speaking to you. I will admit that I do not believe all the rumours I hear about the Princes of Lorraine, but nevertheless we are enemies now, you and I.’

  ‘Never!’

  ‘Tis true. You not only perpetrated that vile deed upon the Admiral and God knows how many other unfortunates, but seem set to treat my husband in a like manner.’

  ‘I have done nothing to make you think so, nor is it my choice that Navarre has been incarcerated, though perhaps it may be for his own good while tensions still run high. In any case, I wish the man no harm, I swear it.’

  She considered his expression with serious appraisal, wondering if he spoke the truth. ‘Would that I could believe you.’

  He grinned as he reached for her, his hands instinctively capturing her neat waist, before daringly brushing the tips of his fingers over
the silken smoothness of her deliciously white breasts above the low neckline of her gown. ‘I hope we are not about to have one of our squabbles. That would be tiresome. I have always valued you as a woman of opinion, Margot, but it is so long since I held you in my arms that I can hardly bear to look at you without wanting to possess you.’

  She felt half giddy with desire, her need for him so strong it was almost a physical pain in her heart. Even so, she slapped his hands away. ‘I do believe you innocent of at least some of the crimes charged against you.’

  Guise leaned both hands upon the door, trapping her between it and himself. ‘Only some? And if I swear I never laid a finger on your husband’s precious leader, for all I welcomed his death as my father’s murderer, would you believe that?’

  Margot looked him straight in the eyes. ‘I might.’

  He pushed himself off and half turned from her. ‘Let me tell you, darling Margot, that following the massacre, the position of the Princes of Lorraine has become increasingly hazardous. Ever wary of the designs of the Queen your mother, I asked the King to vindicate the House of Guise in the sight of the people, begging him not to shrink from his responsibility in the bloody mischief of that night. And Charles, in the presence of his parliament, has acknowledged that we were the instruments and not the originators of the massacre.’

  Her brown eyes upon him softened somewhat at these words, her voice barely above a whisper when she spoke. ‘I am glad to hear it, and suspected that may well be the case, knowing my mother, and my brother Anjou, as I do. Nevertheless, we are on opposite sides now. You cannot deny it.’

  His brow puckered with concern. ‘I never thought to hear you say such a thing. You and I, Margot, are trapped by our own destiny, pawns in a much greater game, of which we have but limited control. I do not deny that I am a faithful adherent of the Roman Catholic Church, devoted to my faith. It is also true that I consider the dogmas of Luther and Calvin to be too radical and revolutionary for my taste. A positive curse upon society. The death of the Reformationist leaders was unfortunate but necessary. They had presumed to revolt against the established church.’

  Margot’s eyes opened wide. ‘You think it was lawful therefore to have them killed?’

  ‘I do, since they were likewise traitors to the State, but the killing was never intended to accelerate as it did.’

  ‘How could it not when the oppressed grow hungry for vengeance?’

  ‘The Queen Mother believed the danger could be contained.’

  ‘My mother is fond of convincing herself of facts that are indisputably flawed. And is it not true that your own maternal grandmother, Renée of France, was a Huguenot?’

  Guise had the grace to flush. ‘She did show leanings in that direction, it is true.’

  ‘Leanings? Do not dismiss me as some light-minded fool, Henri. I know she was a firm friend of Calvin all of his life, and of my own late mother-in-law, Jeanne d’Albret, and Gaspard Coligny.’

  The Duke was looking increasingly uncomfortable. ‘I believe she was a friend of Coligny’s mother; that may be so.’

  Margot set her hands on her hips. ‘And still surrounds herself with Huguenot friends, I am told. Come, admit it, your own grandmother is a Reformationist to her very soul, so much so that her husband once charged her with heresy and dispatched her to a convent to think on her sins. I have heard the tales. And did not your father Francis, her own son-in-law, so strongly disapprove of her “leanings” that he once laid siege to her in her château? Is that not so?’

  He was irritated now, annoyed that she dared to challenge him on this personal family matter. ‘A man cannot be held responsible for the choices made by his forebears, whether Protestant or Catholic. I am responsible only for my own.’

  ‘And you choose an extreme rather than a tolerant viewpoint?’

  ‘You may well think so.’

  ‘My very tolerant husband certainly does.’

  He suddenly pulled her into his arms. ‘Margot, my love, why do we quarrel about doctrine and religion? Navarre would be the first to see the folly in that. I wish to hear you tell me that you have missed me, that you have pined for me these last two years while we’ve been apart. Did you think of me when that new husband of yours bedded you? Was he the great lover he claims to be, or did he pale by comparison?’

  Margot was laughing again, their quarrel forgotten. How could she not be amused and entranced by him, even when she was infuriated by his intransigence. Did she not understand him, heart and soul? Ambitious and arrogant he may be, but not for a moment did she believe Guise to be cruel, or heartless. And she loved him still, she could not deny it.

  ‘But how can we ever now be friends?’ There was a wistfulness in her voice as his lips tracked a delightful progress along her throat and behind her ear. As for his hands . . . Oh dear, she dare not even consider what his hands were doing.

  ‘I was hoping,’ he murmured, as he began to unlace and untie various ribbons and bows, ‘that we could be very much more than friends, now that we are both safely wed. Whether or not my grandmother or your husband are Huguenot needn’t be too much of a barrier, need it?’

  Margot pursed her lips, feigning anger, before lifting them to be kissed. Even so, when the kiss was over she gathered his invading hands between her own and pushed them away with a small sigh of reluctance.

  ‘Would you have me break my wedding vows, and so soon?’

  Guise could not suppress a grin. ‘You must know that noste Enric is unlikely to make a faithful husband.’

  Margot stiffened, gathering her pride about her. ‘I have no reason not to believe that his fancy for chasing lightskirts is over, now that we are wed. Our marriage is turning out rather better than I had hoped, as a matter of fact.’

  He gave a scornful bark of laughter. ‘You say I must not treat you as a fool, yet surely you, more than anyone, Margot, must be aware that marriage is about politics, not love.’

  ‘Can I not hope for both?’ she snapped with haughty grandeur.

  ‘If you do, then you are bound to be disappointed. When your new husband grows bored and reveals his true colours, and you are ready to be loved as you deserve, I will be waiting.’

  He pulled open the door, about to depart, but she halted him with a flash of temper. ‘And why would I turn to my husband’s enemy for love?’

  Guise regarded her with barely restrained patience. ‘Because you know me better than that, Margot. I do not deny my flaws of pride and a degree of ambition. I own to having the insensitivities of a hardened soldier. I am also a devout Catholic. But I swear before God I am no murderer. Remember that, my love, when your marriage turns sour.’

  Margot remained steadfast in her support of her husband. She visited Navarre every day in his apartment, often spending her nights with him. He was allowed some freedom of movement, but only within the confines of the Louvre, and with an escort. The King expected her to urge him to convert, and she did so willingly in order to save his life, as she was doing now.

  ‘Enric,’ she pleaded. ‘Why will you not? Why lay yourself open to danger? You have never claimed to be a zealot in the matter of religion.’

  ‘I am not quite without scruples, Margot. They killed my people. Besides, I cannot abandon my cousin Condé. He is a man of great integrity if somewhat rigid in his morals. He still bears a grievance against your brother Anjou for having killed his father at Jarnac, and is adamant that he will not take the Mass.’

  ‘I can only sympathize, yet I hear that his wife has readily agreed.’

  ‘Dear Lord, does he know?’

  ‘Not yet, and I have no wish to be the one to tell him.’

  ‘Indeed, I would not advise that you did. Marie was never a strong advocate of the reformed faith, having accepted it only on their marriage, but he will hear no word against her. He adores the silly minx.’

  Condé had married Marie de Cleves only a few days before Margot and Navarre’s own marriage. She was a captivating beauty with a lively,
flirtatious personality, and the young Prince de Condé had fallen entirely under her spell. Unfortunately, he was not the only one to do so.

  Margot hesitated before relating the rest of her tale. ‘I’m afraid your cousin’s resentment against my brother can only increase. Anjou is apparently besotted with the Princess, and has paid excessive court to her, visiting the Hôtel de Nevers, where she took refuge, for many hours each day. They say that the young bride finds her new husband alarmingly severe and reserved, constantly chastising her. Anjou, on the other hand, is all charm and flattery. She is apparently ready to declare herself a penitent, anxious to be returned to the bosom of the Holy Mother Church. Devout Catholic though I may be, I cannot but suspect that her ardour has a more earthly root.’

  Navarre was deeply disturbed by this news, for the sake of his beloved cousin if not for himself. But Margot proved to be entirely correct and a ceremony did indeed take place early in September, with the lovely new bride kneeling on a velvet cushion and tearfully renouncing the religion she had so recently embraced. The Cardinal de Bourbon pronounced the absolution, and afterwards Marie partook of the Holy Eucharist.

  Catherine herself informed Condé of his wife’s defection. Even then he might have remained firm in his resolve had not the Duke of Nevers revealed the attentions being paid to his beautiful new wife by the Duke of Anjou.

  Obstinacy dissolved in the face of passion. Condé agreed to take instruction in the Catholic faith at the monastery of Saint-Germain des Pres, where his uncle, the Cardinal de Bourbon, was abbot. The ceremony was performed the following day, and his freedom granted by the King.

  Navarre held out for only a few days longer. Weary of confinement and desperate to return to Béarn, he finally accepted the Mass. Why should he not? Did he not believe in tolerance?

  In the weeks following, gossip at court concerning Anjou and the Princess de Condé was rife, as was that regarding Margot and Guise, for all the new Queen of Navarre declared her innocence. Margot longed for Guise, ached for him with every fibre of her being, yet felt her new husband deserved her loyalty more, and her distrust of Anjou remained obdurate.