Courtesan

by Diane Haeger

  François smiled his same devilish, thin-lipped smile as a wealth of ambassadors, courtiers and nobles surrounded him to congratulate him on his victory. Across the court, he caught among the ladies, the willing eye of the woman with whom he had spent the previous night. The Comtesse of something-or-other, he thought. She stood out easily amid the other ladies with whom she pretended to converse. She was striking, though he had remembered her as more slightly built. And she had looked younger than she now appeared, layered in her eggshell blue silk and her smart French hood. When she saw that she had caught his eye, she smiled and slowly lowered her head. The King returned the nod.

  Two young pages, both of noble families, stood before him. One had been given the honor of holding a large silver bowl while the King splashed water onto his face to cool himself. The other, François de Guise, the newest page to the King, offered him an embroidered towel. His Majesty liked the boy, and so chose to honor him with his thanks. Guise blushed.

  “Barre!” the King shouted.

  The First Gentleman hurried toward the Sovereign through the sea of brocade gowns and ermine capes.

  “Did you see that Mademoiselle d’Heilly received her trinket?” the King inquired, though careful to exhibit only minimal interest as he gazed once again in the direction of the noble woman with whom he had spent the previous night. Again she smiled. Again he nodded. His afternoon diversion had been arranged. One of the pages took away the silver bowl. Young Monsieur de Guise, who had offered him the towel, now advanced with a jeweled, almond-colored velvet cape. He lay it gently across the King’s shoulders.

  “Most assuredly, Sire,” Barre replied. “I am told by her senior-most attendant that she squealed with delight as the jeweler bore it to her on a velvet pillow.”

  “And the note, Barre. What of the note?”

  “As you commanded, Sire, he inscribed a sweet lilting verse professing your undying affection and most sincere apology.”

  “My love, Barre! My undying love! Anne will not let me off so easily with this one of last night. The lady was devastatingly beautiful and Mademoiselle d’Heilly becomes very jealous if they are, any of them, nearly so beautiful as she. What was her name again?”

  “The Comtesse de Sancerre, Sire.”

  “There you see, Monty? My taste is not always for servants and whores. We suspect, however, that she was ‘arranged’ for Us.”

  “The Comte and Comtesse de Sancerre are the invited guests of Chancellor Duprat, Sire. Certainly Your Majesty’s charms enticed the lady beyond that.”

  “Yes, indeed,” he agreed. “We still do rather well with the ladies, do We not?”

  “Your Majesty’s charms are unrivaled.”

  He smiled and then beckoned with his long arm the return of his new page, François de Guise.

  “Come closer.” He motioned to the boy whose face was beset by deep black eyes and a tousle of russet hair. The stalk-thin boy, all arms and skinny legs, was here in a place of such honor as a favor to the Cardinal de Lorraine, the boy’s uncle. It was the cleric’s great fortune also to be counted among the King’s closest friends. He shielded the boy with his arm so their discourse would not be overheard, much as he had done earlier that morning with Barre. “We have a little job for you to do,” he said, walking Guise away from the others. “Late this afternoon, after my appointments are concluded, you are to bring to my bedchamber that young maid I met earlier this morning. I believe her to be in the employ of the Comtesse de Sancerre.”

  “But Sire. . .”

  The King ignored his objection. When he looked back his amber eyes glittered with resolve. “And if she is unwilling, you are to pay her. . .whatever it takes. Do you get my meaning?”

  His dark eyes widened over a large hawkish nose and a long exaggerated chin. “But, Sire, Grand Master Montmorency, to whom I report, gave me the strictest order about—”

  “Boy,” the King cut him off. “Your family is much loved at this Court, and with that in your favor, your ambitions will take you as far as you please. But you must learn one rule above all others. You must never circumvent the wishes of Your King for those of his subordinates. Do we understand one another?”

  “Indeed, Your Majesty.”

  “Splendid. I am so glad.”

  “I shall arrange it at once.”

  “And François, my boy, I needn’t remind you that you are to say nothing of this to the voice of my conscience over there,” he added, indicating Montmorency.

  HER SERVANTS WOKE to the sound of the coach wheels on courtyard gravel. They stretched, straightened their gowns and headdresses, and waited silently for the door to open. A string of pages waited, dressed in blue doublets and puffed trunk hose with red velvet slashes and bright red hose.

  The first person Diane saw as she stepped from the cabin was the Grand Master, Anne de Montmorency. Graciously, but with a little too much affectation, he strode before the line of servants and extended his own hand to help her down.

  “Welcome back, Madame La Sénéchale,” he said in a rough, sober voice from behind the neatly pointed silver beard. His steel blue eyes were cast upon her, yet looked through her, as though she were not there.

  “Le Sénéchal was my husband, Monsieur Montmorency. I think it will be much simpler from now on if people were to address me by my birthright, simply as Madame de Poitiers,” she replied in Montmorency’s same tone of formality. Then she waited as the two women of her household were helped to the ground.

  Montmorency bristled but extended his arm to her anyway as they passed through an arched doorway into the chateau. There was an immediate and instinctive dislike set about between them at that moment. It was one which both of them, for civility’s sake, tried to disregard.

  “The King, of course, shall want to know,” he began again as they walked, “if the transportation that he extended to you was pleasing.” The deepening of his antagonistic tone made it clear that her comfort was no concern of his. His inquiry was nothing more than a matter of protocol.

  “Quite pleasing, Monsieur,” she lied as they entered the hallway of the chateau’s new wing. An elegantly dressed young woman waited in the shadow of a carved oak staircase. When she saw Diane, she lowered her head.

  “This is Mademoiselle Doucet,” Montmorency said without looking at either the young woman or at Diane. “She will be your attendant during your stay.”

  The young woman lifted her head and looked at Diane. Her face was plain and her hair was a dull ash-colored blond, but she was wrapped in enough silk and fur to have been mistaken for one of the King’s daughters.

  “Monsieur, as you can see, I have brought my own ladies. They are all I shall need to attend me.”

  Montmorency screwed his angry face tighter and leered at Charlotte and Hélène. Both of the women were clothed in rich fabric but nothing near the style or fashion of the young woman’s gown.

  “Due respect to you. . .Madame. . .de Poitiers,” he said, putting the emphasis on her family name. “But His Majesty has graciously appointed you Mademoiselle Doucet. As you undoubtedly can see, she is entirely more well suited for the. . .demands of life at Court.”

  “You may thank His Majesty for me, Monsieur, but explain that I prefer the company of my own attendants.”

  “You will find that independence to such a fault is rarely seen as flattering by our most benevolent King, Madame.”

  “Nor, if I recall correctly, is impudence. . .Monsieur de Montmorency.”

  His eyes locked with hers. Neither moved. Then he broke the deadlock with a courteous bow. “Will you at least permit one of my men to show you to your accommodations then?”

  “But of course, Monsieur.”

  A tall blond guard came forward and bowed. Diane and her ladies then followed the young man down the hall toward a stairway, leaving the Grand Master alone and scowling.

  The mahogany stairway, shaped like a twisted vine, led to a long, narrow gallery capped by a high vaulted ceiling. They followed the page
down a smaller shadowy hallway ablaze with thick tallow candles in mounted braziers. Diane swept down the damp hall disguising her fears of uncertainty with a purposeful gait as Hélène and Charlotte followed behind her.

  “I shall get through this,” she whispered to herself. “I must get through this.”

  After an hour had passed, she received word from the King. As Hélène and Charlotte began to stuff the two armoires with their mistress’s gowns and nightclothes, she was informed that His Majesty had been made aware of her arrival. He was most anxious to see her. As soon as she was rested and properly attired, he instructed her to send word through one of her ladies and he would give her an immediate audience.

  She shuddered as Charlotte unlaced the travel-worn black damask mourning gown in which she had journeyed and Hélène silently draped her in the modest black gown which she had chosen for her meeting with the King. Diane had forgotten the feeling one had when faced with the magnificence and the enormity of Court. It was that same feeling now which crept up her spine like a warm, slow death. I cannot leave now, she thought again. I have come this far. Now, I must face him.

  FOLLOWING THE KING’S VICTORY at jeu de paume, he adjourned to the audience chamber where he would hear anyone who had business with the Crown. Both the destitute and the nobility could attend these more public hearings called “pleadings of the door.” The name of the ceremony was given due to the proximity from which most of the subjects (unless they otherwise found favor with the King), were forced to speak.

  Montmorency advanced past a large wall of windows. Against the heavy leaded panes, fresh flakes of snow fell like feathers from an open pillow slip. On a dais carpeted with crimson velvet at the far end of the vast hall, was the King’s throne. It was covered by a canopy of blue silk peppered with small gold fleurs-de-lys. The King sat there in a doublet of gold satin beaded with lapis, rubies and jade. Through the slashings of the shirt sleeves (the fashionable practice of inflicting vertical cuts along the fabric to expose the color and textures underneath), was another shirt of red. It matched to perfection the feathered toque which tilted to just the right angle over his neatly bearded smile. François, who was fascinated by Italian fashions, had his tailors copy for him that country’s most current styles.

  Near the King, a cortège of his intimates joked to help him progress through the tedium of the day’s ritual. A silver cord in the center of the room marked the place through which no man, except those few intimates, might pass. The large vaulted doors at the end of the room were pressed full of those few who would attempt it.

  As Grand Master in charge of the King’s household, it was his duty to inform His Majesty that among those who had business with the Court and were ready to be received was the Grand Sénéchale de Normandie, Diane de Poitiers.

  “She shall be first,” he replied and tossed a devilish look at the courtiers around him.

  Although he tried to concentrate on the next few names proposed to him, François’ mind wandered. It wandered to romance. It wandered to lust. It wandered to the memory of Diane. He felt a rush of excitement akin to a child, at the anticipation of seeing her again. He remembered her well. He would be willing to wager that she had not changed. There was something timeless about her. Hers was not a raw, savage beauty, nor even a particularly seductive one. Her beauty was due to elegance. At times he remembered her appearing almost regal. She was a strong-looking woman. He remembered that too because it was an unusual attribute for a woman of her breeding. He thought of the long, firm limbs. . .the fine thin neck. He had heard rumors that she bathed naked in cold river water to preserve her youth. He shifted in his seat impatiently.

  His first wife, Queen Claude, had enjoyed her company enough to have conferred upon her the honor of Lady-in-Waiting, whenever she was at Court. Diane and her husband, Louis, had been regular fixtures in royal society; before Claude’s premature death; before his own imprisonment in Spain. Before he had been forced to take his enemy’s sister, Eleanora, as his second wife. But all of that was a lifetime ago. So much had changed. Diane. . .He rolled her name around in his mind. Elegant Diane, enigmatic. . .strong. He loved the challenge of it. Yes, he was anxious to see her. Once again, things were beginning to look interesting.

  “MADAME DE BRÉZÉ, La Grande Sénéchale de Normandie. His Highness, King François I.” The scribe called out the introduction in a high stiletto voice.

  As the King looked up, Diane de Poitiers strolled across the floor, costumed in an austere black velvet gown with a high lace collar. Her blond hair was gathered into a net under a black cap from which one small pearl glistened.

  “Your Majesty,” she said, curtsied, and then rose up to look directly at him.

  François was breathless. He wondered how he could have forgotten the details of her; the long line of her nose, her slim, pink lips and the cool, graceful bearing of a Dorian statue. She drew men unintentionally; the King of France was no exception. He stood on the dais, descended the three stairs and held out his arms to her.

  “Ah, yes. At last you have arrived! Come. You may embrace Us.”

  Diane advanced cautiously and surrendered to his arms as they closed tightly around her. She winced as she felt his huge hands fondle her buttocks through the folds of black velvet, as if it were the most natural thing in the world for him to do.

  “How good it is to see you again, ma chère Madame. You have been sorely missed by this Court. How long has it been?”

  “Five years, Your Majesty.”

  “Impossible! Oh, could it be? I fear, though I can scarcely believe that it was, before the Queen’s death?”

  “My deepest sympathies.”

  “It was a great loss,” he said with appropriate remorse. “But now she is with God. And on that same sorrowful note, We were equally saddened to hear of the death of Our dear Louis. He was a friend and a humble servant of the Court. We shall mourn his death with you for a very long time.”

  “I thank you,” she replied, lowering her eyes with her own competitive look of regret. This time when she looked up at him, she did not release him from the gaze of those shimmering blue eyes. They were almost hypnotic, and he sought to break the spell that he felt by summoning a steward and taking another sip of spiced wine.

  Although she no longer wore the azure blue gown that had been so vivid in his memory, her mourning black seemed strangely more appropriate. The color against her alabaster skin was stark and dramatic. She was nothing at all like any of the women after whom he had spent his life lusting. She did not flirt, nor did she tease. To his total amazement, she wore none of the compulsory cosmetics or perfumes indispensable to a woman of breeding at her age. Yet, despite the fact that the flower of her extreme youth had passed, he knew that she would not have benefited by such contrivances had she used them.

  “Well, now. Shall we really give them all something to gossip about?” he whispered with a cruel smile, as he leaned toward her.

  Diane’s confident expression faded. “Must we?” she whispered, but he did not reply.

  “I cannot say, however,” he began again in a louder more commanding voice, “that I honor your father’s passing in the same way that I honor the death of your husband. I understand from the jailers at the Conciergerie that he died peacefully. Surely there is some solace for you in that.”

  So it had begun. The topic was inevitable, though she had not expected the need to face it so early upon her return. She had dreaded this event for days. It had nearly prevented her from returning to Court at all, and now he was making sport of it. Yet, perhaps the way he was speaking would put an end to the gossip, once and for all. Better to face rumor directly from the King, she considered, than behind both of their backs. She faced him, summoned a stoic expression and prepared to speak as loudly as he had.

  “Though I loved him, Your Majesty, it is no secret to anyone that my father was a disgrace to his family and to his country in those last years. It is not easy for me to speak of him other than to say
that his sins would have been forever borne by his children and our children after that, were it not for the gracious lenience of our great King.”

  “Your dear Louis informed Us, not long before his own death, that your father was not of sound mind during those years; that he died not knowing his own name or yours. We are a most Christian King, and We do feel sympathy for that.”

  “Here he goes again,” Duprat mumbled to Guise, the inexperienced page who stood enthralled beside him.

  “It was not difficult to see the embarrassment that his illness brought to a family so great as yours,” the King continued. “We found the knowledge of that, and your father’s incarceration, to have been punishment enough. His sentence of death seemed no longer to have been necessary. . .so I overturned it. It was as simple as that.”

  “Ha!” whispered Montmorency to the Cardinal de Tournon. “If he feels compelled to expound like this, then why does he not tell all of those groveling hordes at the door why he really pardoned her father?!”

  The dimly lit hall which had been filled with pleas and shouts toward the King before Diane’s entrance, had now been rendered completely silent by this uncommon exchange. Everyone knew the story of how His Majesty had suddenly pardoned Jean de Poitiers as he stood on the hanging platform, convicted of treason.

  “Well!” exclaimed the King with a good-natured smile. “We would say that is quite enough of that dreary business! Now that we understand one another, we shall speak of it no more!” Then he leaned toward her and cupped his hand around his mouth. “That should keep all of the gossip mongers going for a while,” he whispered, and sat back straight in his throne. “So then, Madame, if you are amply restored from your journey, you would do Us a great honor if you would consent to dine with Us this evening. We are giving a banquet to honor Chancellor Duprat. Surrounding him with beautiful women will be the best gift that We could give him.”

  “I should be honored, Your Majesty.”