trouble. Rachelle had returned before midnight with the marquis and was asleep in her chamber but would soon be called to account.
Charlotte slipped away silently.
Catherine crossed her chamber to the door and turned the key in the lock. She moved slowly and regally toward Margo.
“You fool. It is not shame enough you behave the Jezebel of France? And with whom but the House of Guise? Our enemy. And of all times — during the King of Portugal’s visit to the palais!”
Margo stood, hands clasped together, head bowed, trembling. Catherine walked toward her, her eyes slits of rage.
“Harlot! I was on the verge of arranging your marriage with a nephew of Philip, uniting a bond between France and Spain. And you, wanton daughter, turn us into fools as you run off into the woods to beg favors of Henry de Guise like some prostitute on the street. “Oh Henry, mon amour,” she mocked her daughter’s voice, “I want you so. I am yours, Henry. Lie with me, Henry, lie with me in the weeds and bushes.” Catherine sneered and backhanded her across the face, her rings bruis- ing her daughter’s cheek.
Catherine took another step toward her as Margo stepped back. “Ah! Our cunning Monsieur de Guise has found the Princesse of France as wanton as the lowest of peasants. Princesse? Harlot! You have ruined everything I worked for!” She slapped her again on the other side of the face. Margo reeled, catching herself on the couch.
“Within an hour, talk of your rendezvous with Guise will sweep the palais, and the King of Portugal will hear of your wanton ways. Marriage! Bah! Should he marry a whore? And with the House of Philip zealous fanatics for Rome? Nay, I tell you there will be no contract now. King Philip will not allow it even if he were to overlook your whoredoms.”
And with these scornful words, Catherine f lung Margo from her with all her strength.
Margo lay stunned on the f loor, more dazed with fear than pain. Whenever her mother was in a cold, ruthless rage, Margo became paralyzed.
Catherine went to the door of her closet and gestured to someone inside. A moment later an attendant came out wearing a black-hooded cloak with eyeholes. The jeweled whipping cane in Catherine’s chamber was taken from its place and handed with fanfare to the mock execu- tioner. Catherine lifted her hand for the phantom to proceed.
“Beat some sense into this Jezebel who dares to call herself a prin- cesse of France! Do not touch her face. No one will see any marks but Henry de Guise.”
She had been beaten many times since a child, but never like this.
She begged for mercy, to no avail.
“Do you think Monsieur de Guise loves you?” Catherine demanded. “But non. Le Cardinal de Lorraine told him to seduce you so it would be impossible for you to marry the King of Portugal!”
The cane whacked again and again, bruising and cutting.
“Henry, mon amour,” Catherine mocked. “ ‘Do you love me too, mon petit Henry?’ . . . ‘Ah, I cannot do without you, Margo. And especially do I love all you bring me — the possibility of the throne of France!’ ”
“You lie,” Margo whispered through her parched throat. “Henry does love me.”
“You little fool.”
The cane came down again and again. Margo was coming in and out of consciousness.
Catherine took her by the shoulder sleeves of her gown and dragged her to a couch. The burgundy silk and cloth of gold ripped, stained with blood.
“You dare to throw yourself at the feet of a Guise who threatens to take the throne from the Valois family?”
In a sudden rush of fury, she grabbed the cane from the mock execu- tioner and struck her until Margo fainted.
The black-hooded figure came up and kicked Margo several times. “Enough!” Catherine breathed. “She would not be the first disobe-
dient child to die from a royal beating, but I have not given her up yet. There is still a chance I can arrange a marriage.”
Catherine unlocked her door and beckoned to Madalenna. “Have the princesse taken to her chamber. If word of any of this becomes gos- sip, I shall have every last one of you thrown into the dungeons. Tell them I said so.”
“Y-yes, Madame.” “Be quick about it.”
“Oui, Madame!” Madalenna scampered to fulfill the Queen Mother’s wishes.
Rachelle came awake to find Louise de Fontaine bending over her with a contorted face and fearful eyes.
“Wake up, Rachelle, it is Marguerite. The princesse was beaten by the Queen Mother. She is yet unconscious, and her wounds are most dreadful to see.”
Rachelle heard the pity in Louise’s whisper but knew it came not for love of Marguerite, but for fear of Catherine de Medici. Rachelle sprang from bed and put on her chemise, following Louise from her closet into the princesse’s main appartements. As they passed an antechamber they saw Charlotte was up and yawning, ordering the serving girls to make tea. Her blonde hair looked too neat to have just awakened.
Louise whispered, “It was Charlotte de Presney, the Queen Mother’s spy, who betrayed Marguerite and Monsieur de Guise.”
Rachelle suspected Charlotte, but was uncertain. “Have you proof, Louise?”
“Non. But who else among us? We all love the princesse, though her ways are often immoral.”
Rachelle knew Charlotte had been privy to all of Marguerite’s plans to meet Henry de Guise on the south bank.
Louise took hold of Rachelle’s arm, her eyes alarmed. “Charlotte despises you even more than she does the princesse. Surely she has betrayed you and the marquis taking Marguerite on the butterf ly boat. Oh, Rachelle, what can you do to protect yourself?”
“My protection, Louise, is the will and mercy of my Savior, Christ. If God allows me to be punished, then I will but continue to trust him.”
Louise shook her head in amazed doubt. “You Huguenots are besot- ted with foolishness. Run away. Go back to Lyon. The Queen Mother may decide to forget hunting you down.”
“When I go home to the Chateau de Silk, I will go with royalty’s leave. I have a future to think of. But how did you know I was a Huguenot?”
“Petite sotte,” she said affectionately. “Every one of us knows you are of the forbidden religion. The princesse knows too. I think even the Queen Mother knows.”
“And Charlotte de Presney?”
Louise glanced back over her shoulder. Charlotte was pouring tea and now and then glancing in their direction. Louise’s eyes hardened. “That one knows everything. You can be sure she knows you are a Huguenot.”
Rachelle could do nothing except add that to her other list of worries to pray about. She entered Marguerite’s chamber where the older nurse, Madame de Vigne, was bathing her wounds.
At first sight of Princesse Marguerite Valois, Rachelle’s heart twisted with shock, then anger. She moved quickly to the side of her bed and knelt, taking her hand and bringing it against her cheek. She closed her eyes against the tears and prayed ardently for Margo. Margo the sinner, Margo the wanton, as so many called her.
Poor Margo, though a princesse, was a slave. Enslaved to her infatu- ations, undisciplined and seeking love through immoral excursions, she would not find the true love she craved. First, it was one galante. When he proved imperfect, she sought another to make her happy, to ease her boredom. She was now totally consumed with Monsieur Henry de Guise. Even if Guise actually did love her, Rachelle believed it was the love of Christ that Marguerite needed to give meaning to her shallow life. Only he could forgive her, embrace her, accept her, clothe her nakedness in his righteous robes, and make her holy and presentable to his Father God. Only Jesus Christ, who was wounded for their transgressions, could bathe her corrupt wounds and make her a true princesse.
“Oh, Margo,” she whispered, forgetting for a moment that she spoke not to a friend but to royal rank.
Marguerite’s eyelids opened. She took her hand away from Rachelle and laid it on her shoulder.
“M’amie, I — I was caught. Caught, and the mock executioner beat me with the royal cane . .
. B-but Henry, mon amour, does love me, even if my mother denies it.”
“Yes, Princesse, do not talk now, I beg of you. You must rest and get well again.”
“The burgundy silk gown is . . . ruined. She ripped it off me — it is stained with my blood.”
“Oh, Princesse — ”
“You may be called to her,” she warned in a hoarse whisper. “Do not try to protect me. Blame me for everything, understand? I forced you to go with me on the boat.”
“But — ”
“Non, listen, I know what I am doing, though all of you think I am a fool. There is little more they can do to me except kill me, and my mother will not do that, for she now will want me to marry Henry of Navarre, that Huguenot. They think I do not know. I too have spies. So blame me for what happened. I am to blame, truly. Spare yourself her rebuke. When I can, I will try to send you home to Lyon where you will be safe. That is what Fabien wants me to do.”
Rachelle nodded. “I understand, Princesse. Do not worry about me.”
“I will do my best on your account, but I can promise nothing. It is Catherine who rules — and le Cardinal de Lorraine.”
Rachelle thought of her interaction with the cardinal and concealed a repulsive shudder. She nodded. She understood.
“Then go and prepare yourself. She may call you soon.”
But, surprisingly, the Queen Mother did not call Rachelle to her state chambers. It seemed that concern over Marguerite’s wayward excursion of the night before was set aside as heralds brought news to the castle that Bourbon princes of the blood were even now at Blois and riding to Amboise for the state council meeting.
The meeting was much on the mind of Andelot Dangeau. He won- dered what had happened to Marquis Fabien. After telling him they would speak of important news, Fabien had not returned to the chamber last night even though Andelot had heard from Gallaudet that he had escorted Rachelle back to the castle. Andelot tried to get Gallaudet to
talk, but the fair young man from Normandy refused to impart any other information except —“Marquis Fabien de Vendôme has ridden toward Blois to intercept his kinsmen, Prince Louis de Condé and others.”
“Intercept them? Why so? Is there trouble I know nothing about?” “There is always trouble, Monsieur Andelot. My monseigneur will
surely explain to you when he comes back.”
“And when will that be?” Andelot asked, feeling frustrated. He was always bewildered, kept in shadows. Besides, he had some things he had intended to tell Marquis Fabien. The journey into the soothsayer’s labo- ratory with Prince Charles, for one thing. And the vials of poison — what else could they be? — was another important matter he wished to tell him. The poison worried Andelot. He could not sleep at night won- dering why the Queen Mother wanted the poison, and who it was that troubled Catherine de Medici the most. He hoped it was not himself, Rachelle, or Marquis Fabien!
As for Andelot’s important meeting with le Cardinal de Lorraine, which Fabien had warned him last night not to attend, Andelot felt relieved his decision was not needed. One of the cardinal’s attendants came to Fabien’s appartements while it was yet dark and told him the meeting was once again to be delayed.
Sleepy eyed and discouraged, Andelot murmured to himself after he closed the door upon the black-clad churchman. “It is just as well it is delayed again. For now I know not what is happening. For a toss of coin I would pack my satchel and return to Paris for school, even if it means leaving mon cousine’s fancy horse here at Amboise and walking.”
But Andelot would not walk to Paris. He would see the cardinal after all, and the king, for another summons arrived within the hour.
King Francis II sat in a chair when Andelot entered and bowed before him. “Your Majesty.”
The Guises were there, moving boldly about the royal chamber as though they and not Francis were king. Andelot was surprised by the indifference showed to the seventeen-year-old boy-king. The duc gave orders; the cardinal had a certain sneer about his mouth and speech that
made unkind jests at Francis’s expense because he stammered. Andelot was shocked.
Andelot acknowledged his kinsmen, le Duc de Guise and the car- dinal. The duc seemed preoccupied. He paced the f loor between the window overlooking the courtyard and the open balustrade where the breeze blew in and moved the gold fringe on the edge of the royal chair where Francis sat, or rather, slumped. He was pale and the line around his small mouth was drawn tight. He suffered from the sickness called poison of the blood, as Andelot had learned from Marquis Fabien. Whatever poison of the blood was, the English called it a French sick- ness; the French called it an English sickness. Andelot suspected it was handed down through intermarriage of so many of the royal families. The present king’s grandfather Francis I had suffered from it, though not as grievously perhaps, and so had his Medici grandfather in Florence.
Andelot wondered why he was privileged to be here in the presence of the king and the two Guises. He was not long in finding out. The cardinal walked over to him with that smile of his. A smile Andelot was beginning to know, and the more he knew it, the less he liked it. There was something most lecherous about a man who was unholy portraying holiness. The crimson and white, the beautiful gold cross, the bright ruby and emerald rings laid in thick gold . . .
“Well, Andelot. Last night I called you a cousine. Today I affirm that it is so. You are the son of a Guise.”
Andelot looked from the cardinal to the duc who did not look pleased.
“I was told by Comte Sebastien that I was the son of his younger brother Louis Dangeau.”
“So you are,” le Duc de Guise stated crisply. “Louis was a Guise, a cousine, rejected by the family.”
Andelot hesitated. “Then my maman? Who was she, Monsieur le Duc?”
“Your mother was a foolish and stupide belle dame who ruined Louis. She died of fever at Flanders during the last war with Spain. I was there. I tried to help her once she sent word to me she was about to give birth to Louis’s child. She was at a medical tent on the field. When I arrived you were already born, but she had died. We, the cardinal and
I, agreed it was best to turn you over to the care of a nurse. Sebastien worked through his wife, Madame Madeleine, to arrange for this at Lyon where his family is located.” He turned his back.
Andelot’s throat was parched. Matters were not much different than what he had already been told except that Louis had been a Guise — and out of favor with the Lorraine family.
“My père was out of favor because he married my maman, Monsieur le Duc?”
The cardinal was examining his long, slim white fingers f lashing with jewels. The duc looked impatient.
“She was a hoyden, perhaps much like — ” he bowed toward King Francis — “Marguerite Valois. Your pardon, sire, but it is so. Just as it was not my son Henry who is to blame for her abandoning the King of Portugal at the masque, but your sister.”
Francis looked down at his lap in total submission to his oncles. Andelot did not press for more information. The more he learned,
the more unpleasant the circumstances of his birth grew. It was enough, presently, that he was alive, here, and a Guise — of sorts.
“And now we have some news for you,” the cardinal said. “You qual- ify for training in the Corps des Pages. After your training, if you excel, you may be elevated to serving as my page. Are you pleased, Andelot?” Andelot bowed. “Very pleased, Monseigneur.” He had a suspicion he would never be permitted to call these two powerful men cousines. The truth was, he doubted if he could bring himself to do so. The more he
saw of them, the more uneasy he became.
The cardinal patted him on the shoulder with another smile. “Now, we must not detain the king with family affairs. You are here in his pres- ence, Andelot, because you are needed to serve King Francis on a certain matter. I am sure you will be honored to serve His Majesty?”
Andelot glanced from the cardinal’s wily smile to the sober-faced
duc, then to King Francis. He liked Francis . . . Andelot bowed toward him.
“I will do whatever His Majesty requires of me.”
The young king nodded and smiled faintly, but he looked nervous and kept fidgeting. The scene was most unflattering, and Andelot was disappointed. Francis was more of a boy than he himself.
“Tell the king what your cousine by marriage, Marquis Fabien de Vendôme, has been doing recently?” le Cardinal de Lorraine said.
Andelot came wide alert now. He saw the sharp, interested eyes of the duc, the smile of the cardinal encouraging him, and the uncomfort- able, almost nervous glance of King Francis. It was a time for caution.
“What Marquis has been doing, my lords? I have not seen him today, Monseigneur le Cardinal,” Andelot said.
“What of yesterday, then?”
Andelot delayed for time. Why such interest in Fabien? “The masque
. . . he was most attentive to Mademoiselle Macquinet.”
“Yes, yes, Andelot, we are aware, but what are the marquis’s interests beyond Mademoiselle Macquinet? He has ambitions, surely, that he dis- cusses with you?”
“I must confess the marquis does not talk much with me, Monseigneur le Cardinal. I have been alone most of the time I have been here at Amboise, and at Chambord before that.”
“Oh, come, come. You need not be afraid to share the little secrets that Fabien must share with his mon ami?”
“He shares nothing, I assure you. Except, perhaps . . .” “Yes?” The cardinal’s eyes latched hold of him.
Andelot rubbed his chin and tried to look as innocent and boyish as he could. “He has mentioned taking me on a visit to his père’s lands and estate at Vendôme that we might ride and hunt together, Monseigneur le Cardinal. That is all.”
Le Duc de Guise looked impatient and began pacing. He was a man of strong military bearing, and the scar on his face taken in battle made him appear more so. The glittering eyes were also restless as they seemed to give up on Andelot.
“Desist,” he told the cardinal. “He knows nothing.” He paced and then turned to the king. “Sire, men seek your life and that of the young queen.”
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