The Confessions of Catherine de Medici

by C. W. Gortner

  I started, meeting his penetrating stare and remembering the gush of blood and tissue, the cloths and nightdress curling to cinders in my hearth. A fist closed about my heart.

  “I … I cannot fail,” I finally whispered. “I must have a child.”

  He gave a solemn assent. “We shall examine the portents together.” He removed a dove from one of the cages overhead and with an expert twist of his fingers snapped its neck. Setting the twitching white-feathered body on the table, he took up a dagger and disemboweled it. I winced at the smell of its intestines spilling out, at the sight of its dark blood staining his hands as he peered at its organs. After a thorough examination, he looked up at me with a smile and proclaimed, “I see no impediment to your ability to bear children.”

  Overwhelming relief weakened my knees. I sighed, leaning my hands on the table. Then I heard him add, “The loss of one doesn’t mean there will not be others.”

  I went still. I lifted my gaze to his. “You … you know? You saw it?”

  He shrugged. “It is my gift. I see what others cannot. And I also must tell you to be patient, my lady, for your time has not yet come.”

  I let out a raw laugh. “How much more patient can I be? I’ve been in France seven years and I’ve nothing to show for it. That woman is to blame; she knows how much I suffer and she revels in it. By all rights, she should die.” I yanked the vial on its chain from under my collar. “I have the means in this vial your father gave me years ago. I just need the opportunity.”

  He arched his brow. “You must not. Everyone would suspect.”

  “I don’t care. Henri would grieve for a time and then resign himself. There’d be an end to it.”

  “Or he’d heed the rumors and never touch you again. The French already think every Italian is a poisoner at heart. And whatever is in that vial might leave a trace. No, my lady. Much as you long for her death, that is not the way.”

  I wanted to shout at him in frustration, not because I thought I’d ever actually poison Diane but because he had dared to point out the consequences of an act I needed to believe I could commit. In my distress over the child I’d lost, whose existence I could never reveal, I blamed her. I believed she deliberately kept Henri from my bed; in my darkest hours I almost believed she’d made an unholy pact to expel that malformed being from my womb and thus leave me beholden to her for my very survival.

  “Fine,” I grumbled. “Find another way. But do it fast. I don’t have all afternoon.”

  Cosimo had already moved to his shelves and was reaching for a small wooden chest. “She is of no consequence,” he said, opening the chest. “I’ll give you six protective amulets to wear under your clothes to deflect her evil and a skin lotion to attract him. When he next comes to see you, I will send you an elixir: half for you, half for him. Above all else, do not lose hope.”

  “If hope were seed,” I said, taking the items from him, “I’d be mother to an entire nation.”

  He smiled. “One day, that is exactly who you will be.”

  • • •

  I applied the lotion, affixed the metal amulets to my petticoats. I straightened my hair with hot irons and ordered new gowns by the dozens, anticipating word of Henri’s return from the front and plying the duchess with questions about the war’s progress. It all sounded much the same as any war, with the Imperial army entrenched and our officers blasting them with cannon, and it made me impatient, for I needed Henri back at court if I was to try the elixir on him.

  Then fate struck again.

  Gentle Madeleine died, a victim of Scotland’s harsh climate and her own tender lungs. François locked himself in his rooms and refused to see anyone. I spent my days with Marguerite, comforting her as best I could. We were in mourning again, but François had no alternative but to heed James V’s request for another bride. The Scottish alliance was crucial and the Guises wasted no time in proffering their daughter, Marie. That she too could lose her life in Scotland meant nothing; here was a chance to advance familial interests. The marriage took place by proxy, and soon after, weary of a war neither could win, Charles V and François signed a treaty.

  Henri was recalled home.

  At Fontainebleau, I prepared to receive him. I’d been drinking my drafts on schedule and organizing my rooms for weeks. I now paced, clad in crimson and rubies, attuned to the door. I’d sent Anna-Maria out to discover his whereabouts, electing to remain out of sight during the welcoming celebrations. The last thing I wanted was to look the frantic wife, the first to throw her arms about her husband as he entered the courtyard.

  Feeling my ladies watching me, as they always did when they sensed my disquiet, I slid my hand to my pocket. When I felt the tiny bottle Cosimo had sent, I smiled. He’d promised its potent blend would make Henri think only of me. I’d drunk my half this morning. All I had to do now was slip the remaining half into his wine. Prodded into action, nature would do the rest.

  My women sewed. I’d been less than even-tempered since learning of Henri’s return and was about to apologize when the clatter of heels reached me. I straightened in my seat.

  Anna-Maria burst in. “His Highness is coming! But I overheard in the gallery that—”

  I ignored her. “I’ll hear the gossip later. Sit down. Henri must think we didn’t expect him.”

  “But Your Highness must—”

  “Later.” I pointed to her stool. With a desperate glance at the others, she sat.

  Anxiety roiled inside me. It had been eight long months since we’d last seen each other. How would he find me? Would the elixir work? Would I conceive again?

  Boisterous laughter preceded a group of men. I espied Henri’s close friend and companion-in-arms Francis de Guise among them. He was still too thin and tall, but now his angular features—which would have been handsome had he not carried himself with such rigidity—were marred by a raw scar that cut down his cheek and puckered the left side of his mouth into a perpetual sneer.

  “My lords,” I said warmly, “how delightful to see you at long last. Welcome home.”

  As the men bowed low, Henri stepped from their midst. I almost didn’t recognize him. He wore a plain brown doublet, his gaunt features half-covered by a thick beard, his eyes nested in deep shadow. In his somber regard, I found a maturity instilled by months of watching his fellow soldiers die for France. My husband had gone to war and returned forever marked by it.

  “Would you care for some wine?” I asked as he gave me a brief kiss on my cheek.

  “I no longer drink wine,” he replied.

  I faltered. If he no longer drank wine, how would I give him the elixir? Its taste was bitter; he’d notice it in water. I searched for some reason to insist he take a goblet when I saw him lock eyes for an instant with Guise. My stomach sank as Henri returned his inscrutable gaze to me.

  I reached for his hand. “I’m so happy you’re back,” I said. “I missed you. If you like, we can sup together tonight. I’ve so much to tell you.”

  “I’m afraid that’s impossible.” He withdrew his hand. As he moved to his men, I thought he hadn’t said no, hadn’t said he would not come later. The elixir wouldn’t spoil. I could wait.

  It wasn’t until they left that I remembered Anna-Maria. “What is this news you couldn’t wait to tell me?” I asked, trudging to my chair.

  “It’s but a rumor,” Lucrezia interposed, indicating Anna-Maria had at some point told her.

  I paused. I looked at my women. I waved all of them save Lucrezia out.

  “It’s Henri, isn’t it?” I asked her. “Out with it. What has he done this time?” I steeled myself for the recounting of some venality with Diane. Instead, Lucrezia said, “It seems that while at war His Highness … well, he committed an indiscretion. The long hours on the front … like any man he sought some comfort. They say she was a young peasant girl, whom he visited only a few times. It would have ended there, only now she is with child. She claims it is his.”

  My hands clutched my dres
s; I felt a dull crunch, something wet against my thigh. The bottle of elixir in my pocket: crushed. “Does he … does he acknowledge her claim?” I asked haltingly.

  “Yes.” Lucrezia paused. “I fear there’s more.” She met my eyes. “La Sénéchale has requested that if the child is a boy, it be brought to her after its birth so she can raise it.”

  I thought I wouldn’t be able to contain the sick feeling inside me. I waved Lucrezia out and then doubled over on my chair, my stomach heaving. Nothing came out. I tasted foulness, but it was as if my horror and disbelief had become a part of me.

  I knew that now I must sacrifice everything if I was to survive.

  In August 1538 the peasant woman bore a girl. She was given a stipend and allowed to keep the child, as Diane had no interest in raising a female. But while my husband’s mistress may have failed to get her hands on a child of his, I was not relieved. The very fact that Henri had sired a bastard invigorated the whispers at court of my continued barrenness, as there could be no doubt now as to who was to blame for our failure.

  Every day that passed pushed me closer to the inevitable. Henri did not visit my bed or even see me for days on end, and I began to suspect that Diane actively campaigned against me, to destroy the little bit of pleasure Henri and I might find in our marriage. My sole comfort and protection was the king, whose professed love for me had not changed.

  In the year of my twenty-third birthday and eighth anniversary of my arrival in France, François moved to the Château of Amboise. Perched on a promontory overlooking the Loire, Amboise boasted spacious gardens and elaborate wrought-iron railings; a favored residence, François had spent years embellishing it, and here he announced a new plan he’d hatched to wrest Milan from Charles V.

  “The constable thinks I should offer my twelve-year-old niece Jeanne d’Albret, daughter of the king of Navarre and my sister Marguerite, to Charles V’s heir, Philip of Spain,” he told me as we strolled in the gardens. From the far end came muted roars and the musty odor of three lions he kept caged there, a gift from the Turkish sultan that he’d not quite known what to do with.

  “In exchange,” he went on, “Charles can deed Milan to me and Jeanne will deed Navarre to Philip, once she inherits. Charles will leap at the chance; he believes his family, the Hapsburgs, hold the superior claim to the realm, while the current rulers, the d’Albrets, are usurpers. My sister Marguerite is the king of Navarre’s widow; she’ll be less than pleased at the prospect of handing over her daughter to Spain, but I don’t intend to actually let Charles keep Navarre. I just want him to think I do, so I can get Milan.” He nudged me. “What do you say, ma petite? Can we hoodwink that Hapsburg serpent?”

  “I don’t see why not,” I said. “It’s an excellent plan and I’m sure your sister will understand.”

  He sighed. “You don’t know Marguerite. We used to be close, but after she wed and moved to Navarre, she changed. Her late husband, the king of Navarre, was a Huguenot sympathizer and she’s become involved with their so-called cause.” His mouth twisted; it was the first time he’d mentioned aloud the troublesome Protestant cult to me. “She patronized that antichrist Calvin for a time; rumor has it, she’s even raised her daughter as a Huguenot, God help us.” He paused. “You can be of assistance, ma petite. I’ve asked that Jeanne visit us; perhaps you could persuade her to embrace our Catholic faith. It’s not as if a girl of twelve will know any difference.”

  “I’d be honored,” I replied, thinking it would also help me to be of some actual political use.

  Jeanne arrived a month later. Small in stature and thin, with the elongated Valois nose and narrow almond-green eyes, only her shock of red hair and spattering of freckles denoted her paternal blood. She stood on my threshold with her sharp chin lifted, dressed head to toe in unbecoming black.

  I went to her. “My dearest child, come in. We’re so happy to see you.”

  Jeanne stared at my prie-dieu. “I cannot,” she said, in a high nasal tone. She stabbed with her finger at the statue on my small altar. “That is idolatry.”

  I chuckled. “I am of the Roman Catholic faith; it is how we worship.”

  “Well, I am of the Reformed faith and we are forbidden to look upon graven images.”

  “She is not a graven image,” I said as I saw my sister-in-law Marguerite stiffen. “She’s the Madonna of Assisi, venerated for her kindness to cripples and sufferers of other deformities.”

  “She’s a statue. Calvin says that the cult of saints and veneration of statues must be abolished, for that is not what our Savior preached.”

  God save us, the child was an avowed heretic. I chuckled again to disguise my consternation, not so much with her words, which sounded much as I imagined, but rather with her conviction. What in heaven had Queen Marguerite been teaching her daughter? And how was I to counter it?

  “Christ’s mother was a woman of flesh like any other,” Jeanne continued. “The worship of her cult derives from old pagan customs.”

  Marguerite lunged to her feet. “How dare you utter such vileness!”

  Jeanne stuck out her lower lip. I let out an uneasy laugh. “She recites what she’s been told, much as we might recite Brantôme. She doesn’t understand the half of it.”

  “I do.” Jeanne narrowed her eyes. “I also know why I’m here. They want me to wed a papist Spaniard, but I’ll die first. I’m a child of God and you are fools who kneel before a cross.”

  As my women gasped in unison, I gripped her thin shoulder. “Enough. No more talk of religion, yes?” I propelled her forth toward an empty chair near me. My ladies flinched as if she might impart her contagion. With a searing glare at her, Marguerite marched out.

  I hadn’t expected such piety from my sister-in-law. But Marguerite had no intention of indulging a Calvinist nor would she ever. I was less dismayed because I could see how the child reveled in her effect on others; nevertheless, as I labored to mold Jeanne to conformity, I gained valuable insight into the new religion that most Catholics detested and feared.

  To my surprise, once I grasped its doctrinal digressions, I found that the Huguenot credo was not all that different from my own. But Jeanne clung fervently to her faith and I made no progress in my attempts to convert her. Not that it mattered; upon hearing his ambassador’s account of her, Charles V refused to even consider Jeanne as a bride for his son.

  Enraged, François sent Jeanne packing back to Navarre and plunged into a foul mood, intolerant of everything and everyone. I felt my own trap closing in. Given his present state, how long would it be before some conniving courtier suggested to the king that maybe the way to Milan could be bought through a new wife for Henri?

  My stay of execution was at an end. I had to seal my pact with my own private devil.

  I arranged for the meeting to take place at night in my rooms. I’d feared Diane might refuse or make an elaborate show of her arrival, but she came without fanfare. One minute I was pacing, rehearsing lines that tasted like soot; the next, the door opened and she stood on the threshold in a hooded cloak. Reaching up a white hand, she swept back her hood to reveal that sphinxlike face. She wore a dark blue gown, a rope of rare black pearls entwined about her alabaster throat.

  Her voice was cultured, the voice of a courtier. “I was surprised by your summons.”

  My smile felt sharp on my lips. “Oh? It’s not as if you’ve lived unaware of me, madame.”

  She inclined her head. “Indeed. Your candor is refreshing.”

  “Good. Then let me be even more candid: I believe it is time we became better acquainted, seeing as you’re so close to my husband.”

  Her eyes flickered. For a second, I glimpsed something dark, soulless. Face-to-face with that unblemished skin, staring into those cold blue eyes, I wondered how such a reptilian being could keep my husband enthralled. “I fear you are mistaken,” she said carefully. “While I am privileged to call His Highness my friend, I assure you I do not share his every intimacy.”

  A
satisfied thrill went through me. Regardless of what they did in private, she clearly didn’t want any public impropriety. I’d overestimated her. She wasn’t as confident as she appeared. Like me, she was treading water. She knew that once Henri became king she must consign herself to the shadows or come out in the open as my rival.

  I drew out the moment before I decided to ignore her evasion and cut straight to the mark. “I’ve summoned you because I think you’ll understand my concern. You see, I believe His Majesty may soon have no other alternative than to annul my marriage.”

  A vein in her temple twitched. “Are you certain? I’ve heard the king bears you much love.”

  “His love is not in question,” I replied, more sharply than I intended. “However, no amount of it can cure me of this bane that so many believe I carry.” I paused, thinking of the secret charred in the hearth, only a few paces from where we sat. “I refer to my lack of a child, madame,” I added. “While His Majesty does love me, not even he can defend me forever. After all, I am expected to bear a son. If I cannot, then it would be best for all concerned if I did retire to a convent, where a woman of my unfortunate predicament ought to be.”

  Her eyes narrowed. I had struck a nerve, perhaps the only one she had. She couldn’t evade her encroaching age; she had limited time to fulfill her ambitions and she depended on me, the complacent wife. Another might not be so willing to stand aside and let her have her way.

  “I regret this matter has so perturbed you,” she said, and she rose gracefully to waft to the window alcove, where she patted the cushions as though I were a pet. I perched beside her; she had no discernible scent, as if she were made of marble.

  “I assure you, such situations are not uncommon,” she said. “I wed my late husband in my adolescence and didn’t bear our first child until my twenties. Some women need time to mature.”

  My hands coiled in my lap.

  “Nonetheless,” she went on, “this being such a delicate matter, perhaps you would allow me the privilege of putting your concerns to rest?”