The Confessions of Catherine de Medici

by C. W. Gortner

  “You should have tried harder.” I folded the letter, shoved it in my gown pocket.

  “Easy for you to say,” she retorted. “I’m sick of trying with him! He treats me like chattel. The moment you left, he went back to his wine and his hunting and refused to grant me a single sou for my expenses. I’ll not stand for it. I am his wife, his queen.”

  I regarded her in disgust. “You haven’t changed a bit. Your youngest brother is not yet buried and you think only of yourself. If Navarre refused to come, you should have stayed.”

  She sat upright so fast she sent water sloshing over the sides of the tub. “Don’t you dare use Hercule against me!” To my disbelief, tears started in her eyes. “He was the only one who loved me. None of you cared about him; none of you lifted a finger to save him. You let Henri send him off to England and now he is dead. This is your fault. It’s always your fault! Before your family, before God and everything else, you put France first and look at where it’s gotten us!”

  I was stunned into silence by her cruelty, and her uncanny echoing of my own guilt.

  “I did everything I could,” she went on, emerging from the tub. “I told Navarre you’d make him heir if he came to Paris and heard mass. I begged him in Hercule’s memory to put aside our differences and what did he do? He laughed at me. He’s always laughing, acting the merry monarch for all it’s worth.”

  Snatching a towel, she wrapped it about herself. “I’ve had enough of him. I stayed at his miserable court and smiled until my teeth hurt. I endured his ministers’ insults and their solemn dirges, played the dutiful wife while he slept with every slut he could find before taking a mistress from among my own women. He’s heartless. He sent me to the border without so much as a farewell; his guards didn’t accompany me past Provence. They let me ride through France with my few attendants like a widow. He can rot for all I care. I’m never going back to him.”

  I arched my brow. Grieving or not, here was the Margot I knew—the defiant and foolish woman, heedless of anything that did not touch her own self-interests.

  “I think not,” I said. “In fact, I suggest you not make yourself too comfortable, for as soon as our official mourning is over, I’m taking you back to him myself.”

  I didn’t wait for her response, turning around to stomp out. I should have known Navarre wouldn’t budge from his citadel, that he wouldn’t risk becoming our prisoner again or falling prey to Guise. But if he didn’t come to me, then I would go to him.

  I had a crown to offer, and no matter what the cost, he must convert and accept it.

  I ensured Hercule’s funeral was lavish in the extreme; Margot sobbed as the coffin was lowered into the vault, but within days she was entertaining guests at my hôtel, the candles and laughter burning far into the night, defying her dramatic assertions of grief.

  Finally, the end came to our forty days of mourning. Henri and Louise were scheduled to open the court at the Louvre and I went to the hôtel to escort Margot to the festivities. I found her in black velvet and a ruff so high and wide it framed her head, her bodice sheared at the shoulders, nearly exposing her bosom. Ropes of pearls hugged her throat; her eyes were lined in kohl, her lips rouged scarlet.

  “You look like a harlot,” I rebuked. “Cover yourself this instant.”

  She glowered, grabbed a length of diaphanous shawl. Throwing it about her shoulders, she paraded out to the waiting coach, leaving me to trudge behind.

  In the Louvre, beeswax tapers shed golden light over the courtiers. The hall wasn’t nearly as crowded as I’d expected; our ongoing penury and the instability of our succession had sent many of the nobles bolting to their estates. But as Margot and I took our places by the dais I glimpsed several Catholic lords, their bearded mouths barely concealing their sneers.

  Tension hung in the air, palpable as the smoke rising from the hearths and smell of roast boar being served. As a page ladled meat onto my platter, my stomach lurched and I pushed the plate away. Lifting my gaze to the court, I caught sight of a lone figure standing in the shadows under the pilasters, his scarlet cloak draped across his broad shoulders.

  With a start, I found myself staring at Guise.

  I’d not seen him since the massacre. Against the red of his cloak, his doublet was a dark velvet skin molded to his muscular torso, his white-blond hair cropped close to his scalp, like a soldier’s, his lean face proud. At thirty-five years of age he had fulfilled the dangerous promise of his paternal blood, though he exuded a sensual vitality his father, le Balafré, had lacked. I could understand why my daughter had grieved over him, and as I thought this I glanced at Margot.

  She reclined in her chair, a smile on her lips. My heart began to pound. I glanced to the dais, where Henri sat with Louise; in her finery she was pale and remote as a shadow, a rosary dangling from her wrist. My son caught my stare; following my gaze over the sea of courtiers toward the pilasters, he went rigid, all color draining from his face.

  I tried to eat, but the meat tasted like raw wood as I felt Guise’s eyes bore at me. Margot chattered with a lady at her right, reaching again and again to the decanter to refill her goblet, pretending she didn’t know her former lover was in the hall even as her gaze slipped furtively to him. I sensed something between them, an unspoken communion of intrigue. I sat on the edge of my chair as Henri rose to his feet. Hercule’s death had endangered the Valois bloodline, which had ruled for nearly two hundred years, and Henri and I had crafted his careful speech.

  Clad in his purple mantle and sapphire coronet, he spoke with fluid elegance, his voice echoing into the hall as he declared his sorrow over Hercule and the need to continue to heal the realm of discord.

  “And let my foes thus take note,” he concluded, and I saw his eyes focus on Guise. “I’ll broach no dissension in this trying time. France must come first, above all else. In that spirit”—he gestured to Margot—“I hereby appoint my sister’s husband, my cousin and namesake Henri of Navarre, as heir-apparent to the throne, providing he agrees to the terms I shall set and until such time that Her Grace my queen gives birth to a son, God willing.”

  The court responded with fervent applause. Just as Henri started to sit, Guise stepped forth.

  “Your Majesty,” he declared, with a ringing command that brought everyone to a halt. “We rejoice in your willingness to put your kingdom first, but I fear France requires a stronger solution than your choice of an heir.”

  Henri froze. I stood quickly. “My lord duke, we’ve just announced our—”

  “Madame, I am not deaf,” he interrupted. He walked purposefully to the dais. When he reached it, he withdrew a parcel from within his cloak. I couldn’t take my eyes off his large veined hands, which had stabbed Coligny and thrown him from a second-story window.

  Guise brandished the parcel. “I have here pleas from the lord mayors of cities that share a border with Navarre. He raids them with impunity, removing our Catholic officials to replace them with heretics. While we mourn the loss of our dauphin, he’s seen to it that every city surrounding his realm answers only to him.”

  I shot a look at Margot. She returned my stare, her eyes cold as onyx.

  Henri did not move, did not speak, his stare on Guise. I saw something come over his face: a hardness that made his jaw clench and drew back his lips to show his teeth.

  “Your Majesty,” Guise went on, “Navarre plays you for a fool. He will never agree to your terms. When he takes your throne, he intends to unleash heresy upon us all.”

  When Henri finally spoke, his voice was icy. “You should know better than most how easy it is to falsify evidence where there is none. If this is true, why haven’t I heard of it before now?”

  “I only received the news myself a few days ago from a trusted source.” Guise’s measured calm frightened me. Unlike le Balafré, he had learned self-control. “I came at once to warn you, but it is a long ride from my estate in Joinville. However, if you doubt, read them for yourself.” He set the bundle on the da
is. “You’ll see that we can never have peace while Navarre lives. He threatens our faith and the stability of—”

  Henri cut him off with a lift of his finger. “You should refrain from saying anything more, lest you go too far. You are fortunate you are not under arrest, given your past deeds.”

  I saw Guise’s jaw edge under his beard. “You think wrong of me. I am your loyal subject, but now is the time for action, not words. We must finish what we started.”

  “And you,” Henri said, “sound more like your father every day. You should tread carefully henceforth. I’ll suffer no Guise to rule my kingdom.”

  In the silence that fell I could hear my own anxious breathing.

  “I do not seek to rule France,” Guise said softly. “I seek to save her.”

  Henri flicked his hand. “I will read these letters. Until then, I command you to return to your estates and stay there. I’ve been patient thus far, but even I have my limits.”

  Guise turned and exited the hall, the spurs of his boots clanking in the hush. As Henri retrieved the parcel and stalked into a nearby antechamber, I snarled at Margot: “Come with me.”

  As soon as we entered the antechamber, Henri spun to Margot. “Is it true? Has your husband played me false?”

  “How would I know?” She smoothed a crease in her sleeve. “I’m not with him at the moment, am I?”

  “Then how did Guise find out about this?” He thrust the parcel at her. “How is it that he knows what I do not?” He paused. His eyes turned to slits. “It was you, wasn’t it? You knew Navarre would seize those cities but didn’t say a word to us. No, you told your lover instead.”

  She arched her brow. “Did you think I’d help you, after you let them take Guise from me?”

  He stared at her, trembling; for a terrible moment I thought he would strike her. He dropped the parcel at her feet. “Because you are my sister,” he said, his voice quivering with rage, “I’ll not punish you as you deserve. But you’re hereby banished from my court. You’re not to stay in Paris another day nor return to Navarre.” He looked at me. “See to it.”

  He walked out. I turned my eyes to Margot. In that instant, I truly felt as though I could hate her. “Did you plot with Guise against us?”

  She tapped the parcel with her foot. “Read for yourself; the letters are mine.”

  “Dear God,” I whispered, “why?”

  She smiled. “Hercule is dead. I don’t care who inherits, so long as we perish.”

  I stepped back from her, from the calculated malice in her eyes. I heard Cosimo’s words, haunting in their prophecy: But the barren seed that is your family—they are damned.

  And as if she could hear them too, Margot lifted her chin, in triumph.

  January came upon us in a maelstrom of wind and snow. Bundled up in sable and wool, I stood in the courtyard to see Margot off. She would be taken to the Château of Usson in Auvergne—an isolated manor that could be well guarded, the only place besides the Bastille where she could do, or come to, no harm. She did not say a word when informed.

  She emerged from the palace flanked by guards and moved toward her palfrey. I watched her mount the wood block and swing onto her saddle with graceful ease, her strength apparent in her every gesture as she took up the reins and turned to me.

  I felt all of a sudden as if I might weep. I did not want to understand her; I did not want to know how this chasm had opened between us. But I did. She loved with her soul; she’d given herself entirely to the man we had denied her. It did not matter whether Guise would ever appreciate her sacrifice. What mattered was that she had never forsaken him.

  “Remember who you are,” I said to her. “Remember, the blood of kings flows in your veins.”

  She gave me a bitter smile. “How can I forget? It’s my bane.” Kicking her heels into her palfrey, she cantered off, the guards close behind.

  Within moments she had vanished into the swirling snow.

  The harsh winter gave way to famished summer and a drenching autumn. Even as the harvest again moldered in the fields and riots broke out in Paris over the price of bread, Birago’s network of informants sent daily reports of Catholic lords congregating at Guise’s estate, of retainers being summoned and weapons stockpiled—all paid for by Philip of Spain. From the opposite side of the country came equally disquieting news, of more cities overtaken by Navarre, of thousands of Huguenots rallying to his standard and the seizure of every piece of artillery from every castle he could overtake. War was imminent, a war to the death; and trapped in my rooms as rain heaved against my windows, I penned letter after letter, asking Navarre to meet me before it was too late.

  One evening as I sat with my fingers raw from holding my quill I heard the door open. I looked up to see Henri. He’d retreated to Vincennes following his humiliation in the Louvre; though we met weekly with his Council, he had not visited me alone since that incident.

  “Do you know why he despises me?” he asked.

  I regarded him with bleary eyes. “Yes. He thinks you plotted to kill his brethren and friends. Though we saved his life, he’s never forgiven us for that horrible night.”

  “No, I mean Guise.” He stepped inside. His shoulder-length hair was tied back from his arresting face; as he neared his thirty-fifth year, his features had grown more defined and angular, like a Valois, though his eyes remained pure Medici: expressive, long-lashed, and exquisitely black. Birago had told me he’d been training daily with his sword and bow and riding for hours every afternoon in the forest; it showed in his taut stance.

  “I loved him once.” His face turned supple in the candlelight. “When we went to fight together against the Huguenots that first time, we ate together, shared the same pavilion; we were more than friends. He was my brother, the brother I’d never had in François, Charles, or Hercule. He watched over me every moment; he claimed he would die before he let anything harm me.”

  He gave a soft laugh. “I fell in love with him. How could I resist? He was beautiful as a god, fierce as a pagan. He was everything I wanted to be.” He paused at my desk, ran his long fingers along the chipped walnut edge as if he were recalling a lover’s skin. “When I finally got up the nerve to tell him, he was horrified. Oh, he hid it well. He said all the right things, that he was honored but unworthy, but I saw the loathing in his eyes. He could scarcely contain it. I could have ordered him to my bed, I could have taken him on his knees like a dog; but I knew that even so, if I wasn’t his prince, he would have killed me. Only then did I realize how unworthy he truly was. He took something that was precious to me, sacred, and with one look he made it shameful. I vowed I would never love again, never be vulnerable to another’s disdain.”

  He lifted his hand to his throat, as though he could still feel the pain. “And I never did. None of the others, not even my poor Guast, ever equaled the passion I had for him.”

  He leaned to me. Still in that low, intimate voice he said, “I’m finished with it. I want you to find a way for us to be rid of him. Find it soon, before I find it myself.”

  He reached into his doublet, took out an unsealed paper. “From Navarre: he agrees to meet, providing you go to him. He’s received all your letters and says he doesn’t want war any more than we do. Tell him, if he converts I’ll make him my heir and send him Guise’s head.”

  I started to reach out. Before I could touch him, he drew back and left me.

  I reached the citadel of St. Brice in the Huguenot territory of Cognac in mid-December. I had ridden through a frozen landscape of skeletal trees festooned with icicles, the glacial wind barely stirring the drifts of snow at the roadside, but Navarre greeted me in the courtyard dressed in his habitual wool doublet, only he now sported a black cap with a bristling white plume. I was struck by the sight of it, recalling it was the same cap I’d seen him wearing in my vision, so long ago.

  He smiled at my scrutiny. “So my enemies can mark me better in battle,” he quipped, and he leaned to me, his breath warm as he kissed
my lips. While the cold had penetrated my bones, he exuded heat like a kiln.

  “Tante Catherine,” he said. “I didn’t realize until now how much I’ve missed you.”

  I allowed myself a smile. “And I see that you, my lord, have not changed.”

  “Oh, I’d not say that.” He thrust out his chin. “Look here: courtesy of Guise and his Catholic League. I didn’t have a single white hair in my beard before they challenged me.”

  He spoke carelessly, but I heard iron underneath. With a smile I said, “Then it seems we’ve much to discuss,” and let him lead me into the house and a private chamber, where he allowed me to warm myself in front of the fire with a goblet of mulled wine. Then we launched into battle. He had developed his diplomatic skills, I noticed at once; none of my offers moved him to concede an inch. He behaved as though he truly did not care whether he forfeited all.

  Finally, I hit my fist on the table. “Enough. We’ve been sitting here for over two hours, going around the same immutable point. You know I cannot arrest Guise. He is too powerful; every Catholic in France would turn against us.”

  Navarre reclined in his chair with a curious half smile. “He is only powerful because in allowing him to continue unchecked, you lend him authority. What do I gain by agreeing to your requests, save for a lifelong vendetta with Guise, who is clearly resolved to destroy me?” He rose to refill his goblet. “Besides, I think if you had true peace, you wouldn’t know what to do with yourself. I, on the other hand, am sick of conflict. I wouldn’t wage war again if I had the choice.”

  As he turned back to me, I thought of the irony that this one man, whose accession could only mean my sons had failed, might be the answer to everything I strived to give France. Had Nostradamus been right? Had I saved him because he was, in fact, my legacy?

  The time had come to find out. I now faced my final gambit.