Courtesan

by Diane Haeger

  Paré looked at her again in disbelief. Had he not seen it himself, he would never have believed it. The mighty Duchesse de Valentinois nursing her great rival, the Queen of France!

  “You really should get some rest, Madame. At the very least, take some time to refresh yourself. I am told that His Majesty draws very near.”

  Diane looked up at him with tired eyes. “No, Monsieur. But I thank you for your concern. I said I would stay with her and I mean to stay.”

  When Henri came through the double doors to the Queen’s bedchamber later that afternoon, Diane was hunched over the bed, her head in her arms. She had finally fallen asleep. Paré rose and bowed to the King. He watched His Majesty’s startled face when he saw her so disheveled and asleep near the Queen.

  “We all tried to convince her to rest, Your Majesty, but she would not leave the Queen’s side.”

  Henri drew near and ran his gloved hand gently across the back of her head. To have done this, for him. . .for France. He bent down and kissed the top of her head, and then slowly drew back the bedcurtains. Paré watched, with singular fascination, His Majesty shrink from the sight of his wife. She was still covered with dark red blotches and small blisters so that the features of her face were nearly unrecognizable. He lowered the drape again and looked back at his physician.

  “What is her condition?”

  “Her tongue has been bled, Your Majesty, and the swelling has begun to go down already. It is a good sign. I will know more by nightfall.”

  Satisfied for the moment that the Queen was not going to die, Henri instructed the physician to inform him immediately of any change. Then, he bent down and, as carefully as if she were a child, took Diane into his muscular arms, and carried her from the Queen’s apartments.

  THE NEXT MORNING when Diane woke, Henri was already gone. She had a vague recollection of him carrying her to bed and a vague image, as though she had watched it through a filmy piece of silk, that he had made love to her. Only the memory of his voice was clear.

  “I do not deserve you. . .” he had whispered over and over, his face wet with grateful tears. “There is no way to repay such kindness.”

  As her mind slowly rose back to consciousness, she tried to sit up, but her head and limbs were heavy. She looked across the room to the small crystal clock on the table. Eight o’clock. She looked toward the windows. They had been covered with a heavy cloth to create the illusion of darkness. Still, there was enough of a space between the strips of heavy velvet to know that it was morning. Again she tried to lift her head from the pillows. With some effort she managed to balance herself on her elbows. Her beleaguered body and heavy eyes were drawing her back to sleep, but she fought it.

  She called out for Hélène but no one came. After another moment Diane swung her feet to the side of the bed and looked down at them. She was bare, and once freed of the heavy bedcovers she began to shiver. She could not recall the last time she had eaten. Had she had anything since the Queen had arrived at Joinville? That had been four days ago. Or was it five?

  Across from her bed, a long mirror framed in gold was fastened to the wall. She looked at herself, and for the first time she saw the dark circles beneath her crimson eyes, and the lines, now more pronounced, near her mouth. She ran a hand across her face as though she might wipe away the image. The Queen! I must see the Queen! How long have I been asleep? If the Queen has died in the night. . .

  She tossed a fur-lined wrap over her shoulders and called out again to Hélène. This time the door opened and a long shaft of light pierced the darkness.

  “Where have you been? I have been calling and yet you did not answer.”

  “The King gave me the strictest instructions not to wake you.”

  “But I must return to the Queen! I must change her dressings! Quickly. . .get me a gown!”

  She bolted from the bed ignoring her throbbing legs and head. Hélène drew near and looked at her mistress with calming eyes. “The crisis has past, Madame. The swelling has gone down and some of the blisters have begun to scab. Monsieur Paré says the Queen will live. The King is with her now.”

  Diane looked at her, disbelief clouding her tired eyes. “It is true,” Hélène said. “I have just come from her room. His Majesty said that if you are well enough, he shall meet you in the gardens for breakfast. I am to summon him when you are dressed.”

  It was over. The crisis had passed. Diane sank back onto the edge of the bed, and for the first time since the Queen was stricken, she realized what had really passed between them. She had not considered her own health or the advantage of Catherine’s death. She had merely acted by an instinct that fifty years of living had woven into the fabric of who she was. No matter what the consequences, she could no more have turned her back on the desperately ill Queen than she could have ignored one of her own children. She was glad to have done it. No matter what the future held for the three of them.

  WHEN CATHERINE OPENED HER EYES, Henri was by her side.

  “You are looking much better,” he whispered.

  She studied him as though the image before her now was just another manifestation of the violent fever. While under its spell, she had seen all manner of twisted, contorted shapes and figures.

  “It was very kind of you to come, Henri,” she replied, her dry throat cracking from the strain of her first words. Henri reached over to the table beside the bed, took the goblet of water and helped her drink from it. When she had enough, she lay her head back on the pillow, never breaking her astonished gaze from him.

  “Why have you come?”

  “You are mother to my children, and you are my wife. I am not so much without a heart as you may think,” he replied. “Are you in need of anything?”

  There was something she wanted to ask, but she was not at all certain that she could bear to hear the reply that she knew in her heart he would give her. Catherine closed her eyes for a moment, trying to gain her strength. When she opened them again she looked at him directly.

  “Who was it that attended me after Lucrezia and Marie left for Fontainebleau?”

  Henri waited a moment, filled with an awkward mixture of thoughts. Once, long ago, he would have uttered Diane’s name without thinking; with bitter hauteur designed to hurt her. But through their years together, things had changed. He no longer despised his wife. He no longer felt the need to wound her with the reality of his love for someone else.

  “I am told that Cardinal de Châtillon has remained by your side from the very first.”

  Catherine looked at him, knowing what he had omitted. The concern in his eyes nearly brought her to tears. It was the first bit of tenderness between them.

  “I would like to see the Duchesse de Valentinois,” she said. “Would you arrange it?”

  “Are you certain?”

  “Yes, very. But first I must rest. I am very tired. Leave me now, please. And have her brought to me after noontide. I shall be ready to face her then.”

  AS THE CHURCH BELL struck half past twelve, Diane walked alone into the Queen’s bedchamber. In her absence, it had been filled once again with concerned nobles and ladies-in-waiting brought back from Fontainebleau. Catherine was propped up in her bed against a spray of claret-red pillows, the color of which drew attention to the fading blotches on her heavily jowled face and neck. Her dark hair was long around her shoulders, spilling over onto her white nightgown.

  When Catherine saw her, she dismissed everyone and waited until the room was clear. Diane paused at the foot of the bed. All four curtains, which had warmed and hidden the Queen, were now tied back against the dark carved posts. A window was open and a gentle breeze had begun to clear the stale air.

  “Please, Madame. . .sit down,” the Queen said, motioning to the chair beside her bed. “You have spent a great deal of time in that chair these last few days.”

  “Not really so much, Your Majesty.”

  “Your modesty is more difficult to bear than I had anticipated,” she said, avertin
g her eyes. “Let me speak before my courage abandons me.”

  “Very well.”

  “I know that it was you. You stayed with me when the others were afraid. Though I could not say it then, even in the worst of it, I knew that you were there. You were kind to me, Madame. I would not have expected that.”

  “Perhaps I would not have expected it of myself, before you were taken ill,” she whispered.

  There was another long silence during which Catherine seemed to be searching for words. “I owe you my life, Madame. But you know I shall never be able to give you what you want. I shall never give up the fight to win him from you.”

  “Nor I the fight to keep him,” Diane replied.

  The two women gazed at one another, a soft kindred spirit borne between them in spite of their fierce rivalry.

  “You know I am not at liberty to like you, Madame. I can find nowhere in the annals of history that a Queen condescended to befriend her husband’s. . .mistress. I can certainly not find that kind of strength inside myself to set such a precedent; no matter what kindness you have shown me.”

  Diane nodded softly.

  “. . .but I do commend your vigilance, and I thank you sincerely for your bravery.”

  Diane saw the difficulty with which Catherine’s words had been delivered and she smiled a tired smile. “And I suppose, never has a mistress found the strength to befriend the wife of the man whom she loves. I cannot help but understand Your Majesty’s position.”

  “Do you suppose. . .that just perhaps, if we had met under different circumstances, Madame, that we might one day have become friends?”

  “It is not likely we shall ever know the answer to that, Your Majesty,” Diane said. “But had things been different, I know I should have liked that very much.”

  IN THE SPRING OF THE FOLLOWING YEAR, Henri found a new contentment in life. There had been a victory for France and Germany over the Emperor at Metz, and the taking back of Calais seemed possible as well. He had made peace with his old demons. The trials between them, now over, had only served to strengthen the bond between him and Diane. After his return from the battlefield, together they celebrated the marriage of their daughter Diane de France to Orazio Farnese, Duke of Castro.

  After twenty years, Henri had also managed to find a comfortable balance between his mistress and his wife. His royal coffers were full. The French people, long since eased from the burden of François I’s heavy taxation, were happy. And the victory at Metz had set him free of the long-standing anger he felt for having been imprisoned by the Emperor.

  He believed that building was the symbol of this new life and now that work was finally complete at Anet, he had turned his attentions toward several other projects. At Chenonceaux Diane was having a bridge built from the back of the chateau that would span the river. It would provide a way for them to easily ride together on the richer side of the forest. He had approved plans for the old ballroom at Fontainebleau to be redesigned in her honor, with frescoes and magnificent paintings all in the theme of the goddess Diana. There would also be a wing at the newly renovated Louvre to honor the love of his life.

  “I have a surprise for you tonight,” Henri teased as he helped her fasten a rope of pearls around her throat.

  “I wish you wouldn’t, Henri. You spoil me.” She laughed.

  He ran his hands slowly down her shoulders and then kissed the milk-white skin of her neck. “There is nothing I live for more than to do precisely that. Besides, it was something I promised you a long time ago, and now it seems the perfect time to present them.”

  “Them?” she repeated with another little laugh. She turned around and saw the startled look on his face. His lips were parted. His graying temples and beard shimmered in the candlelit room.

  “You look absolutely magnificent,” he declared as his eyes swept over the length of her gown.

  And so she did. Despite all of the jewels that through the years he had bestowed upon her, she still preferred a plain black ball gown and a simple strand of pearls. Tonight she wore black silk from Navarre with a wing collar stiff behind her neck and edged in fine white lace. Around her waist was a white satin cord entwined with a silver chain. As always, she wore two rings that he had given her; one which marked the fallen prospect of their marriage so many years ago, and another that reaffirmed his love for her.

  Henri had arranged for a small supper to be held in the library. To this private affair, only the King and Diane’s most intimate circle of friends had been invited. Hélène, Princess Marguerite, Saint-André and his wife, Guise and Anne d’Este, the Cardinal de Lorraine, and the Dauphin and Mary Queen of Scots.

  Henri and Diane proceeded together down the elegant hall paneled in warm walnut wood. It was draped in tapestries from Bayeux, and dotted with urns in the classical tradition. He had chosen to have the supper there because it was a comfortable room which held many of Diane’s most prized possessions. On the floors, in the wainscoting and in the marble and stone was their emblem. It had been emblazoned amid two mottos: Donec totum impleat orbum and Sola vivit in illo (alone she lived in him).

  There were books, all bound in red Moroccan leather and set in long walnut cases. Some of the most rare volumes of the world were there, and several of those had been reworked in a black and white tooled binding. They too had been stamped with the official emblem. Around their friends were the works of Dante and Petrarch, a copy of The Songs of the Troubadours and several beautiful translations of Latin poems. Most conspicuous among them was the volume of Oppian’s The Chase that Henri’s father had given her on her first day back at Court, nearly eighteen years before. It was here in a place of prominence, so that she would never forget the price she paid for what she now had.

  The aroma of Henri’s favorite hors d’oeuvres swirled around the room. There were Perigordian truffles, Roquefort cheeses, cakes made of pine nuts, marzipan biscuits, figs and the best Bordeaux wine. The sounds of laughter from their guests, who were already seated, warmed the richly paneled room. As they passed through the opened doors together, everyone bowed and fell silent.

  “Please go on! Enjoy yourselves!” Henri motioned, and squeezed Diane’s hand.

  The Dauphin and Queen Mary came up to them before they even had a chance to call for a goblet of wine. François could not hide the anxious look on his face and his father could not help but smile at the young man his son had become.

  He had been a frail child and was still slight for his age. Only in the past two years had he begun to show any real signs of surviving to manhood. Mary was his complete opposite. Dynamic and bright, they made a balance. She was fiercely protective of him and did her best to mask his weaknesses. It was obvious to everyone that they adored one another. Henri was pleased that they did. Their marriage, when it was time, would be far easier to command and to bear than his daughter Diane’s had been. François approached his father now with an intensity of purpose that Henri recalled of himself at that same age.

  “Good evening, Your Majesty,” he said and bowed before his father. Then he turned to Diane. “. . .and Madame.”

  Diane smiled down at the boy whom she had raised, charmed by this new intensity. “And good evening to you, Your Highness. Are you enjoying yourself?”

  “Oh, very much! Mary. . .the Queen and I were riding most of the afternoon. It really is so beautiful here. . .so free.”

  Then, as though he had come from the shadows, François de Guise and his wife appeared behind the royal children and hovered around them like doting parents.

  “Do they not make a charming couple, Your Majesty?” asked François, his bony face fighting a smile.

  “It would seem that two children could not be more well matched,” echoed Anne de Guise.

  Diane watched Mary blush and lowered her head at her uncle’s blatant attempt as intermediary on her behalf.

  “Careful, François my old friend, your ambition is showing,” laughed the King as he patted Mary’s head. He then excused himself a
nd swept farther into the room, still clutching the hand of the Duchesse de Valentinois.

  “Great Zeus!” Guise raged as he tore the little girl from the Dauphin’s side and marched her across the room by the shoulder. “How long will he make me wait? The Constable is likely to move in with a choice of his own if I do not have the King’s assurances before long. Mary, have you been doing your part to endear yourself to His Majesty and the boy? Oh, of course you haven’t! If you had, I would have your future secured by now. He is considering someone else for the Dauphin. I know it! He must be. That can be the only reason for this delay.”

  Guise had good reason for concern. There was far more at stake with the prospect of a marriage between his niece and the first son of the King than the future of Scotland. There was the future of his family and his own position in France to consider. Montmorency had protested vehemently against such a match, seeing the power and position it would bring to the Guises, and he had taken every opportunity to persuade the King against it.

  Several extravagant courses were lain before the guests who finally made their way to the long oak table beside the fire. Carnations and roses in an elegant silver bowl served as the centerpiece. The linen beneath it was perfumed. As they settled in to dine, a group of musicians began to play the King’s favorite music.

  Great plates of roasted turtledove, pheasant and quail were followed in a procession by sweet cup custard, sugared capons and wine from every region of France. It was not until after the King’s guests had eaten enough, were proffered perfumed toothpicks and sat comfortably amid the fragrant smoke spewed from a large silver vessel to aromatize the room, did Henri stand. He held up a goblet and waited for his guests to quiet. As he did, a line of servants laid before each guest a goblet made of rare crystal and etched with gold. Each was filled with a thick anise brandy.