The Confessions of Catherine de Medici

by C. W. Gortner

  I flung myself around him, rushing now to the doors. As I squeezed through them, I was relieved to see five of our royal guards posted outside Charles’s bedchamber. Their expressions were impassive, yet as I neared I saw one’s hand tremble as he gripped his halberd. These men were Swiss mercenaries, hired and paid well to serve the king alone; they’d obviously been standing here protecting my son and listening to the horrors taking place in the Louvre.

  They parted and let me into the antechamber. Birago was slumped on a chair, his head in his hands. He looked up, his eyes filled with sadness.

  “Are they here?” I asked, my voice a mere thread.

  He motioned to Charles’s bedroom, where I’d left my son what seemed like a hundred years ago, asleep and in his care. “Guise and his men came,” Birago said, and he spoke as if in a trance. “He ordered me out. His Majesty was in a rage. I begged him to stay calm, but when Guise told him they were keeping him inside for his own protection, it … it unhinged him. He started shouting he’d never take orders from a Guise again, that he’d see him dead first.”

  Birago regarded me helplessly. “Madama, he was like a man possessed, yelling that he’d kill Guise and every other Catholic who dared harm his Huguenot guests. Then Margot ran in. She said Navarre and Hercule were trapped in their rooms and about to be killed. Guise tried to stop her, but she struck him across the face and begged Charles to save her husband. She was so frantic that Charles ordered that Navarre and Hercule be brought here, to his rooms.”

  As Birago spoke, the will that had propelled me through the palace drained away. “They’re safe,” I heard myself whisper. “Thank God, they’re safe.”

  Birago forced himself to rise. “Navarre’s suite, his friends and attendants—I think they are dead. Navarre had blood on him when they brought him here, and he was crying. He accused Charles and you of instigating a massacre to force him to convert. He said Coligny had been right all along, that you’d contrived to set Guise loose to kill every Huguenot in France.”

  His words knotted like rope about my throat. “But he’s alive?” I said, and as Birago nodded I turned to put my hand on the door. It was unlocked. I stepped into the bedchamber.

  Charles’s hound rested in front of the door. As the candlelight from the antechamber spilled in around me, it snarled. Hercule huddled near the alcove, his pitted face splotched with tears. When he saw me, he drew his knees up to his chest, his eyes bulging in fear.

  I looked to the bed. Charles reclined against the carved headboard with Navarre in his arms. He held a dagger to Navarre’s throat. Navarre watched me approach, his sleeve torn at the shoulder. Even on his black doublet, I could see blood glisten.

  Margot appeared from the shadows. “Are you happy now?” she said, and I turned to meet her eyes, filled with rage. “You did this. You turned my wedding into carnage.”

  “I … I did nothing,” I said. “You know, I am not to blame.”

  “Yes, you are. You wanted Coligny dead and now we all have his blood on our hands.”

  “Be still,” I hissed at her, and I turned back to Charles. “My son, please. Let him go.”

  Charles shook his head, pressing on the knife. A trickle of blood oozed down Navarre’s throat. My son shuddered. “He must convert or he will die. Guise will kill him.”

  “No, listen to me. He shares our blood; he is Margot’s husband. Guise will not hurt him.”

  Charles coiled his arm tighter about Navarre, his blade so near to the throbbing vein in Navarre’s neck I had to stop myself from lunging at the bed to save him. “Guise told me he’d come for him,” my son quavered, his voice thick with tears. “He said he was a heretic and must atone for everything his kind has done to us. I must save him; he must renounce his heresy.”

  I took another step. The hound growled, showing its teeth. “He will,” I said. “I promise you. He’ll do whatever you ask of him. Just let him do it freely.”

  Charles hesitated. As his grip wavered, the knife scratched an erratic line on Navarre’s flesh. He let out a gasp. Charles whispered, “He must say it.” His other hand cupped Navarre’s chin. “Say it! Say it or I’ll slit your throat before Guise does!”

  Navarre looked at me—in his eyes I saw such hatred and powerlessness I almost couldn’t bear it. “Do it,” I said to him. “For the love of God, convert to save yourself.”

  His throat convulsed. He uttered, “I … I abjure all others save Rome. I am a Catholic!”

  As Charles sagged, the dagger falling from his fingers, I leapt forth to pull Navarre away. He staggered from me into Margot’s arms. She held him, weeping as I’d never heard her weep before, as if our entire world had shattered.

  I said, “You’ve no reason to fear. I will protect you.”

  Navarre’s bitter smile contorted his mouth. “Like you protected the thousands who have died? Madame, though you may wish it so, this night will never be forgotten.”

  I met his icy eyes. I didn’t speak. I had achieved what I’d sought from the moment I decided to wed him to my daughter. He would live as a Catholic prince; his children would be born Catholic, raised Catholic. I had safeguarded our future, deprived the Huguenots of a royal leader.

  But I knew I had lost him, perhaps forever.

  THIRTY-TWO

  THREE DAYS LATER, WE GATHERED IN NOTRE DAME TO CELEBRATE Navarre’s conversion. As he knelt before the altar to accept the Host proffered by a gloating Monsignor, I stared at Navarre’s back, not wanting to see the triumphant smiles of the Catholic peers and courtiers who’d survived the night already being recorded in infamy as the Massacre of St. Bartholomew.

  As horrified as I was, I did my best to present an impassive facade, unwilling to display any shame or fear over what I’d done. The very peace I had struggled to obtain through Margot and Navarre’s union hovered on the brink of disaster; France was in more danger than ever before, and so I labored without cease, nailed to my desk penning explanations to England, the Low Countries, and other Lutheran powers, even as I received their thunderous condemnations alongside gleeful congratulations from Rome and Spain.

  Outside Notre Dame, Paris was a city awash in blood. Once the slaughter had begun, few bothered to note who was Catholic or Protestant. The populace took advantage of the moment to strike at each other with impunity and hundreds of innocents were caught in the mayhem. Bodies floated like debris down the Seine; alleyways and bridges were littered with corpses. Fear of plague loomed like a specter, and as those who survived fled with whatever they could carry, I ordered mass graves dug outside the city walls, where the dead were dumped, quicklime slathered over them to hasten decay.

  My son Henri came to me, haggard and apologetic. I listened in silence as he related how he, Guise, and their men entered Coligny’s town house and caught the Huguenot lords unaware. As these men died fighting to protect their leader, Guise stormed up the staircase. He yanked Coligny from bed, stabbing him multiple times before he flung him out the window. Drenched in blood, Guise, triumphant, looked down on the cobblestoned street below as one of his retainers hacked off Coligny’s head. Guise then hung it from his saddle like a trophy and rode through the streets, inciting the mob. Any Huguenot not hidden behind fortified doors fell to the Catholic wrath, executed in a frenzy of hatred and violence.

  “I swear to you, I tried to stop it,” Henri said, his voice trembling. “But the secret orders Guise left in the Louvre were in effect and his retainers had started killing those not wearing the armband. I didn’t know what to do. It was a nightmare I could not escape.”

  I nodded. I didn’t have the strength to berate him. I had never seen him like this; at least he showed remorse, his terrified expression proof he’d not willingly engaged in slaughter. His youth and inexperience had misled him. In his zeal, he’d gone further than he should have.

  “You went against my wishes to connive with Guise,” I said quietly, “but you are not to blame. This was my mistake. I should never have tried again after we first fail
ed to kill Coligny. Go now. Watch over Navarre and see to it that Guise departs Paris at once. He’s to stay away until I decide otherwise. He has gone too far.”

  After my son left, Birago arrived, gaunt with exhaustion from his attempts to control the chaos. He informed me that Huguenots throughout France were bolting across our borders into Geneva. There, I’d been branded as Queen Jezebel. Printed pamphlets declaimed every vile rumor told of me: I was the Italian serpent, a monstrous being who’d schemed with Spain to exterminate their faith. When once I might have been outraged, quick to protest my innocence, I told Birago to do nothing. Let all the calumny fall upon me, if it would absolve my sons.

  As for Coligny, my lack of feeling toward his savage death was too private to admit to even my intimates. Alone at night in my rooms, as I heard the servants scrubbing the corridors outside my doors, I kept waiting for grief to overwhelm me, for a pain so visceral it would thrust home the enormity of my guilt. I feared my heart had turned to stone, calcified by strife and betrayal until I could no longer feel a thing. When I learned that Coligny’s mutilated body still hung on the makeshift gibbet where Guise had left it, I had it taken down and his head brought to me.

  Only after the soldier parted the burlap sack and stepped away, leaving me to gaze at the lifeless face, cleansed of gore so that it resembled a wax rendering of someone I’d once known, did the ice inside me crack. I saw no trace of the dangerous vitality I’d once loved and come to fear, no recognition in that frozen expression of the pride I’d reveled in. I reached out a quivering hand to trace his cold white lips, twisted forever in a grimace of pain, and my anguish welled up, like flame in my throat.

  I turned away. “No,” I whispered. “Dio Mio, no …”

  Lucrezia waved the soldier away and gathered me in her arms, holding me as I rocked back and forth, repeating the denial over and over again. I knew then that something in me had died with him and I would never be the same. There was nothing left of the girl I’d been, nothing of the naïve adolescent who’d first come to France. He had been there from the beginning; he had known my innocence. Of everyone in my life, only he had touched the person I hoped to be.

  Now he was dead, by my command.

  I sent his body to Châtillon for burial and ensured his widow and children received a pension for his years of service, though he’d died a traitor, his property forfeit to the Crown. It was my atonement, my final gift to him—the only way I knew how to say farewell.

  Now, as I watched Navarre make his way back to us, his stony expression unrevealing of the price he’d paid for his life, I could restrain myself no longer in public. I felt it build inside me—an eruption of exhaustion, anxiety, and relief so overwhelming that when he reached our pew and sat beside Margot, who turned bitter eyes to me, I threw back my head and laughed aloud.

  I was still a Medici and I would survive.

  • • •

  We moved to St. Germain, leaving the Louvre to its ghosts. I fretted over Charles, who’d suffered an attack of fever. Dr. Paré examined him and reported that while serious, the fever would abate. However, Charles had told him he could not sleep. Paré recommended a daily dose of diluted poppy and that we keep my son as free from overstimulation as possible, for Paré believed he was suffering a nervous affliction brought on by the recent events.

  Navarre came with us; outwardly, he was not a captive. He’d renounced his heresy, and while Henri kept close watch over him he seemed resigned. He had his own apartments; he rode daily, practiced archery, and even spent time with Margot. She must have told him Charles was ill and to my surprise he took to visiting my son. Several times Birago told me that Charles and Navarre had spent the afternoon gambling and laughing like friends. It was such an odd development that my suspicion got the best of me and I made an unannounced visit, to determine for myself the extent of this newfound friendship.

  I found them seated at a trestle table, drinking wine and playing cards while Margot and Hercule were nearby, heads together. Since the massacre, my youngest son had cleaved to her, slavishly grateful for her intercession that night, which he believed had saved his life, though it was doubtful that he’d been in any real danger.

  At my entrance, they both froze. Charles looked up sharply.

  “Isn’t this nice?” I said brightly, my voice sounding too loud in the closed room.

  Margot’s expression turned to stone, as it always did these days when she saw me. I ignored her as I stepped to the table where Charles sat in his fur-trimmed robe, pale and shrunken opposite Navarre’s robust person. Looking at Navarre’s compact muscularity, the high color in his face and thick red-gold goatee he sported, I had the sudden presentiment that I’d made a mistake. I had fought to save him because of a vision years ago, because Nostradamus had warned this prince was vital to my destiny. What if I was wrong? Navarre was still a Huguenot at heart; I had no delusion that an enforced conversion at knife point had purged him of his faith. In time, I’d told myself, he would fully embrace his conversion; but as I saw his easy smile at my appraisal, I wondered if instead I nurtured another menace to the safety of France.

  I flicked my hand at the stack of coins at his side. “It appears you’re winning.”

  He shrugged. “I wasn’t until today.”

  “No, he wasn’t,” said Charles, with febrile enthusiasm. “But today, fortune is with him.” He and Navarre locked eyes across the table. “Isn’t it, my friend?”

  “Indeed.” Navarre reclined in his chair, taking up the goblet at his side. “His Majesty is generous. Another king wouldn’t so freely allow someone like me to win.”

  I sensed a laden undercurrent in their words. I shot a penetrating look at Margot. She had her hand on Hercule’s; both watched me with intense interest, like hounds awaiting the command to leap at their prey.

  I returned my gaze to Charles. “Don’t lose too much,” I muttered, and I reached to his brow, for he looked unnaturally flushed all of a sudden. As I touched him he flinched, and I felt heat rising off his skin. “You have a fever,” I said. “Remember what Paré advised: you mustn’t overexert yourself. I think you’ve done enough gambling for today.”

  Charles started to protest; instead, Navarre rose. “Your mother is right,” he said, and he gave my son a tender smile. “I wouldn’t want you to fall ill on my account, cousin. Perhaps we can play again tomorrow, after you’ve had a good night’s rest?”

  As I heard the compassion in his voice, my heart lurched. He sounded as if he truly cared for Charles. “We can’t tomorrow,” Charles said.

  “We’re going hunting at Vincennes, remember?”

  Navarre paused. “Oh, yes. I’d forgotten.”

  I forced out a chuckle, dropping my hand to Charles’s shoulder. “I don’t think it’s wise to spend the day on horseback until this fever abates, yes?”

  “But I promised!” Charles jerked from me. He stood awkwardly, yanking the voluminous folds of his robe about his slender frame. Beside Navarre, he looked like a child in a king’s garb; even his voice was petulant. “I’m better and I want to go hunting. I’m sick of being shut inside.”

  “We’ll see,” I repeated, and I said to Navarre, “If you feel the need for exercise, my lord, there’s no reason Henri can’t take you. I’m sure Margot can see to Charles’s diversion for one day. Can’t you, my dear?”

  I heard my daughter mutter, “Do I have a choice?”

  I smiled. “Good, then it’s settled. Tomorrow Henri will take Navarre to Vincennes and if Charles feels better by the evening, we can all sup together as a family.”

  Navarre met my stare. I saw nothing in his regard, not a single emotion I could identify, as if his eyes were made of opaque glass. “I’d be delighted,” he said.

  As soon as he left with Margot and Hercule and I saw Charles to bed, I returned to my rooms and summoned Henri. He arrived rumpled from being awoken from his afternoon nap.

  “What is it?” he asked, sensing at once my tension.

&nbs
p; I paced my chamber, trying to make sense of the inexplicable dread inside me. I told him about my visit. “It was almost as if they were plotting something.”

  He laughed. “If it were up to Margot I’d have no doubt. She despises us because we made a mockery of her wedding vows by killing her Huguenot guests—as though she ever cared a fig for heretics. But poor Charles just wants to make amends. He feels terrible about that night; after all, he forced Navarre to convert. Besides, what can Navarre do to us? The Huguenots are routed and running for their lives. And Navarre is no Coligny.”

  I retorted, “He could still turn against us!” and then I bit my lip, regretting this admission of my private fear. But it was done now, so I added, “I know he’s Margot’s husband. He owes us his life and I’ve no evidence against him, but I don’t want him so close to Charles.”

  Henri nodded. “What would you have me do?”

  I considered. “Take him hunting tomorrow as planned, but make the day long enough that you’ll have to stay overnight in the Château of Vincennes. Birago will take care of the rest.”

  His eyes widened. “Maman, you’re not going to …?”

  “No,” I said sharply. “Of course not. I don’t want him killed. But I must be sure he won’t turn against us either. I’ll keep him under guard in Vincennes for a time. Margot can join him there; once he gets her with child, then we’ll know his loyalty.”

  Henri grazed my cheek with his lips. “To Vincennes it is.”

  • • •

  I waited out the next morning in my study, attending to my correspondence even as my thoughts kept drifting. Finally, after several hours in which I barely finished two letters, I rose to take my midday meal when Birago rushed in.

  “You must come at once,” he panted. “His Majesty has taken a turn for the worse!”

  We raced to Charles’s room. It looked as if a fierce wind had blown through it, chairs and tables thrown about, platters knocked from the mantels and coffers overturned. I stared, dumbstruck, at Paré as he forcibly held my son down by his shoulders. Charles thrashed on the bed, red-flecked foam gurgling from his mouth.