Before my eyes the surface of the mirror rippled and was still. I blinked. It was tiredness, nothing more. I had risen very early this morning and had kept up with the hunt all day. And when others rested in the afternoon I’d taken the salve to Melchior. I was tired. That was all.
I closed my eyes.
‘A great King of France is in this room.’
The words echoed in my head. Had Nostradamus spoken again? I opened my eyes. The surface of the mirror was calm. I saw my own eyes, the pupils huge and dark. My gaze moved to the frame, embossed silver with a complex spiralled design.
‘A great King of France is in this room.’ Nostradamus raised his hands above his head; his moonstone ring shone dully on his finger.
‘Two persons joined in holy bond,
Two realms,
One—’
He stopped.
‘One what?’ Catherine de’ Medici asked him.
‘There is one here whose purpose is yet to be determined.’ Nostradamus gazed around him. His eyes were as milk-white as the moonstone ring he wore on his forefinger. ‘I cannot see clearly.’ Drained of energy, the old man sank into his chair.
‘We were talking of a way to bridge differences,’ Catherine de’ Medici pursued him. ‘That means between Catholic and Protestant. ‘ “Two realms joined . . .” ’ She mulled over his words. ‘I know!’ She rose to her feet. ‘Two realms. Two persons! I can see it, even if you do not!’
Nostradamus lifted his hand feebly. ‘You do not have the gift,’ he said.
‘Elizabeth of England!’ Catherine de’ Medici cried. ‘My son will marry the Queen of England.’
My father played an incorrect note on his lute. He quickly picked up the tune again and kept his eyes concentrated on the strings.
‘Send for Throckmorton, the English ambassador!’ Catherine ordered. ‘Tell him to bring a picture of his sovereign, Queen Elizabeth!’
This was momentous. Protestant England and Catholic France united! Was this what Nostradamus had meant when he’d uttered those words?
The prophet looked confused. He began to shake. Without heeding any protocol I went to the sideboard and brought him a glass of water. He took it from me. As his fingers touched mine his hand twitched as though stung. He stared at me. ‘Mélisande,’ he whispered.
‘The Queen of England?’ King Charles questioned his mother. ‘Is she not much older than I?’
‘Your majesty,’ Nostradamus began to protest.
Catherine de’ Medici waved him into silence.
‘It is clear. It makes perfect sense. Our two kingdoms will become one. Then we will be stronger and able to resist the might of Spain, which seeks to surround us with its conquests in the Netherlands. A marriage of France and England will heal the wounds of division that rend us apart. We will unite and so will these two religions, and followers of both will find favour.’
The door opened and the very bewildered English ambassador, Throckmorton, was admitted, bearing a miniature of his queen.
In haste Queen Catherine took it from him. ‘Look!’ She thrust the likeness under the nose of her son. ‘Do you think this woman would make a suitable consort for you?’ Then, recalling our presence in the room, she called out to my father. ‘Minstrel! You have recently come from the land of England. Do you deem her queen worthy enough to be a match for my son?’
We had met Elizabeth of England. Her grandeur and majesty were awesome. She would gobble up this stripling boy as a lizard does a stick insect.
My father looked up. ‘The Queen of England has great majesty,’ he said in an even voice. ‘Indeed . . . Yes.’
‘She seems a handsome enough woman,’ Charles said reluctantly. ‘If you so wish it, my beloved mother.’
Throckmorton had the stunned look of a man whose house ceiling has fallen in upon his head. Whether by dint of the wine he had consumed that evening, or by the fact that the proposal was so unexpected and, to his mind, preposterous, he could not take it seriously. And perhaps in the genuine belief that this was one of the japes that Catherine de’ Medici was wont to play on people to amuse herself, he reacted in a most natural but catastrophic manner.
The English ambassador laughed.
Chapter Twelve
BY THE TIME ambassador Thockmorton realized his mistake, there was no way he could retrieve the situation.
‘O gracious Queen,’ he improvised. ‘I have suffered a headache these last three days, and my thoughts lack clarity.’
‘You are dismissed, sir,’ Catherine de’ Medici told him icily.
Throckmorton, now fully aware of the gaffe he’d made, sought to make amends. ‘Your majesty’ – he directed his entreaty towards King Charles – ‘forgive me, I thought only, only . . . ahem, my own queen is of an age, and you are . . .’ He stopped as he saw the pit opening before him. He could not now rescue the situation without denigrating one or other of the parties involved. He began to cough. ‘I fear I have eaten something, a piece of bread, perhaps . . . It has lodged in my throat.’ Throckmorton covered his mouth. ‘If I may retire to my own lodging and speak with you again tomorrow.’ The hapless man backed from the room.
‘It is he who sticks in my throat!’ Catherine de’ Medici was incandescent with rage. ‘And I will spit him out!’ She strode up and down the king’s bedroom, striking her fist into the palm of her hand. ‘How dare he mock me! How dare he try to thwart my good intentions!’
‘It is of no importance.’ The king tried to console his mother. ‘We can easily make another match for me.’
‘Don’t you see he has offended your person? Has offended all of us?’ Catherine de’ Medici ceased her pacing and gave Charles and the rest of her children a fierce and condescending stare. ‘Do none of you appreciate the significance of statecraft? Can you not foresee the ends we strive for?’ When she received no reply she moaned in despair and tore the veil from her head. ‘Why is it that everyone misinterprets what I try to do?’
Her children sat upright in their chairs. I saw that all of them, especially the Princess Margot, were very scared of their mother. The girl’s face was stricken and had become palest white. She sat without moving, more cowed than a servant in the presence of a cruel master
‘I will have revenge on that odious toad and his heretical queen,’ Catherine de’ Medici declared.
Gaspard Coligny coughed.
But the queen regent did not hear him or chose to ignore him, such was her passion. Coligny must have felt it wiser not to point out that if Elizabeth of England was a heretic, then so too was he, and also the young Prince of Navarre who sat at the king’s table.
Catherine de’ Medici took her seat and resumed eating. Although she had already consumed much food she now ate more, and quickly; stuffing all kinds of sweetmeats into her mouth simultaneously. This seemed to calm her and she tried to restart the conversation, but everyone at the table was subdued and disinclined to join in.
Very soon Nostradamus begged to be excused, saying he needed to rest to enable him to make further prognostications for the queen. Leaning heavily on his silver walking stick, he went out by the way we had entered. However, when Gaspard Coligny and the Prince of Navarre stood to depart the queen insisted that they left as they had arrived, secretly.
King Charles, who by this time had drunk many glasses of wine, made a protest about this. ‘Am I not king in my own kingdom,’ he demanded shrilly, ‘that my invited guests are unable to come and go when and how I say?’
‘It would be unwise, my lord’ – his mother’s manner changed dramatically as she sought to coax her son to do as she thought best – ‘and you are not an unwise king. It would be foolish to openly antagonize the house of Guise too much. Remember they have a large force of men-at-arms and command the loyalty of the citizens of Paris and much of Catholic France.’
‘Sire, I have no mind to run the gauntlet of the men of your outer bedchamber,’ Prince Henri quipped. ‘And in any case I rather like secret passages. Don’t you recall
’ – he turned to the Princess Margot – ‘how we played in one as children at the château of Blois?’
Margot nodded happily, the colour at last coming to her face. Impulsively she ran forward to embrace her cousin and laid her head on his shoulder.
Henri laughed and teasingly tugged at her hair. I saw that he had referred to this childhood memory to relieve the strain and I also saw that, unlike Catherine de’ Medici, the Prince of Navarre was a natural diplomat.
King Charles fussed and complained but in the end did as his mother wished.
A curtain by the king’s bed was pulled aside to reveal a hidden door. It led indirectly to an outer courtyard where horses waited for Prince Henri and Gaspard Coligny. In this way it was hoped that the Guise family would not be alerted to their presence in the palace and the fact that they’d had a private audience with the king.
King Charles embraced his cousin and bade him farewell, saying, ‘Good Prince, my cousin, I wish that we could dispense with the differences that keep us apart.’
But they were different in more than religion, I thought. Although younger than Charles, Prince Henri had thick curly hair and already the beginnings of a beard. The king’s hair was sparse and lank. Taller than his cousin, he was thinner and appeared stooped beside the stockier figure of Henri. Their clothes too contrasted wildly. Prince Henri’s formal dining clothes were plain grey while Charles wore yellow silk slashed at arm and leg to show froths of lace. A diamond sparkled in one ear and more jewels shone from his finger rings and from around his neck. But rather than displaying majesty he appeared foppish beside the solid build of the younger man.
‘I would hope to spend more time together,’ Prince Henri agreed. ‘I enjoyed our hunt with my leopard today.’
At the mention of the hunt King Charles became more animated. ‘It was a glorious kill.’ He looked to where Paladin and Melchior stood by the table, both impassive. ‘I would so much love to hunt again with such a peerless beast.’
Prince Henri glanced at Coligny, who gave an almost imperceptible nod of his head. I wondered later if what followed had been rehearsed in advance.
‘My dearest cousin,’ said Prince Henri. ‘Why not keep the leopard whilst you are in the south of France?’
‘A splendid idea!’ Gaspard Coligny interposed smoothly. ‘The leopard and the boy would serve you well on your hunting days, sire, as you make your royal progress. Then at some future date, when you are travelling north towards Paris, we might arrange for the leopard to be returned.’
Tears of joy spilled down King Charles’s cheeks. ‘So we will meet and hunt together again!’ He hugged his cousin in gratitude.
When Prince Henri and Coligny had finally gone, the king declared his intention of retiring to his bed. He dismissed us and made to call for his valets.
‘I will stay a while longer,’ his mother told him. ‘We must speak further.’ Her eyes glittered as she seated herself once more at the table.
With relief my father, my sister and myself quitted the king’s bedchamber. I do not know exactly what was in my father’s mind for I did not ever have the opportunity to ask him, but I knew that for myself I was heartily glad to leave that place of intrigue and deceit.
Chapter Thirteen
BY NOON THE following day the whole court was aware that the Huguenot Prince of Navarre and Admiral Gaspard Coligny, the unofficial leader of the French Protestants, had dined privately with King Charles the previous evening.
‘Everyone knows,’ I told Chantelle, as we practised our repertoire in the garden with my father the next afternoon. ‘It is the main topic of conversation, from kitchen cellar to bedroom ceiling.’
‘I wish you would not speak like that, Mélisande,’ my father tutted. ‘Such expressions make you sound like a gossiping washerwoman.’
‘I’m sorry, Papa,’ I said. ‘But how can it be that everyone has heard that which the queen regent desired to be kept secret?’
‘You have much to learn about the ways of court life,’ my father replied. ‘The king cannot piss in his chamber pot without the world knowing its contents two minutes later.’
‘Armand says every noble has a network of spies,’ said Chantelle.
‘And even the spies have spies,’ my father laughed. He stood up and looked out to the north-west. ‘In that direction, beyond Toulouse, lies the Isle of Bressay. When you are married, Chantelle, and secure with Armand, I will take Mélisande away so that she may have some respite from this polluting atmosphere.’
There was a sound of rapid horse’s hooves followed by yelling from the courtyard at the main gate. My father went over to the wall and looked down. ‘Yet another messenger bearing ill tidings, I’ll warrant,’ he said gloomily.
Suddenly we heard the loud tones of the Cardinal of Lorraine. ‘Outrage!’ he shouted. ‘In God’s Holy Name! This is sacrilege!’
There was the clatter of more horses and then women wailing and sobbing. Chantelle and I hurried to see what had caused the commotion. Escorted by some peasants and farm workers, a group of nuns had arrived. Their habits were bloodied and torn. Their wimples had been pulled from their heads and their poor shaved skulls exposed to show bruises and cuts. They huddled together, crying in the most pathetic manner, bursting into even louder sobs as several carts trundled behind them into the courtyard, bearing the dead bodies of the remainder of their community.
‘Holy Mother!’ Chantelle blessed herself.
Men and women came running from the palace. The Cardinal of Lorraine hurried towards the nuns and blessed them, giving comfort to each in turn. Then he gathered up his robes and clambered into the first cart. Ignoring the pools of blood, he began to bestow the Last Sacrament of the dead on the bodies that lay there.
A few minutes later, the Duke of Guise came cantering from the direction of the stable yards at the head of a column of soldiers. They were fully armed and paused only to confer with the cardinal before galloping headlong out of the main gate.
My father furrowed his brow and murmured to himself, ‘It will go ill with any Huguenot who crosses their path this day.’
It was evening when the soldiers returned. We were playing quietly behind the king’s chair during dinner in the main hall when the door crashed open. The duke’s soldiers dragged in two men and flung them into the middle of the room, where they fell upon their knees.
‘We have captured two murdering heretics,’ the Duke of Guise declared, ‘and brought them here for the judgement of the king.’
King Charles half rose from his seat. ‘This is an impertinence,’ he said. ‘I am at dinner. I will convene a judgement tomorrow. Or . . . or when it suits me . . .’ He tailed off.
His mother plucked at his sleeve. He tried to shake her hand away but she persisted. ‘At least pretend to listen to them.’ She mouthed the advice to her son.
The king was feeble in his body and not fit to stand unsupported. He settled back in his chair. ‘I will hear what you have to say,’ he said, and signalled for us to stop playing.
The Duke of Guise listed the men’s offences.
‘These men are Huguenots,’ he said. ‘Today is Sunday. We espied them at worship with some others in a barn in a field. Huguenots are not permitted to worship on the Sabbath day. Also, they are only allowed to come together for prayer within their own homes and they were in a public place. This place is in close proximity to the Convent of the Child of Hope, where the good sisters were butchered and violated.’
‘The barn where we worship is on my own property more than twenty miles away from the Convent of the Child of Hope.’ From his position on his knees one of the prisoners spoke out. ‘I donate grain to the sisters there. I would no more harm them than I would my own wife and children. My own wife and children,’ he added, his voice breaking, ‘that your soldiers murdered without mercy.’
‘Twenty holy nuns have been slaughtered!’ The Duke of Guise raised his voice. ‘This man has blood on his sleeve.’
‘That is where
you wounded me with your sword, sir. It is my own blood that you see. Can you bring the nuns here and ask them if we were the men who assaulted them?’
The Duke of Guise went forward and struck the prisoner across the face. ‘How dare you make demands, you filthy cur! Do you think we would bring holy women, women whom you have violated, into your presence? Your very request is shameful and indicates your guilt.’
At this point the other prisoner, a lad of about fifteen years, spoke up. ‘We are innocent,’ he said. ‘But may I remind you: “Vengeance is mine sayeth the Lord”?’
‘We do not seek vengeance.’ The Cardinal of Lorraine now stood beside his nephew. ‘The Catholics of France seek justice. The king’s justice.’
The king gave his judgement the next day. The two prisoners were to be burned at the stake.
All courtiers and foreign dignitaries were compelled to attend. Throckmorton, the English ambassador, was made to occupy a seat close to the queen regent. Catherine de’ Medici had dressed as if for a great occasion of state, with a necklace of heavy jewels and a full-length cloak of white ermine furs draped about her person. Her widow’s dress of black taffeta was relieved with a wide collar of stiffened white lace which rose up behind her headdress to frame her face, giving her a most majestic appearance. The executioner from Carcassonne had been summoned. This man’s reputation was one of extreme cruelty, and he displayed it that day in the courtyard of the palace of Cherboucy. He did not strangle the men mercifully before their burning, but disembowelled them where they stood tied to the stake before setting the torch to the bonfire. Their groans and screams could be heard above the noisy chatter of the crowds. My father made Chantelle and me stand well back among the people who jostled for a good view of the executions.
‘I do not think anyone believes these men to be guilty of attacking nuns,’ I whispered to my father. ‘Why then does the king condemn them to death?’
‘Most likely the king’s mother, Catherine de’ Medici, will have advised him to do this to appease the Catholic faction who believe her to be in collusion with Protestants,’ my father whispered. ‘Perhaps it is also to show Throckmorton, the English ambassador who offended her, what she is capable of. It may even be because her son’s frail health will deny him his hunting over the next few days and she thinks he needs some other diversion to occupy his mind.’
The Nostradamus Prophecy Page 6
