The Devil's Queen: A Novel of Catherine de Medici

by Jeanne Kalogridis

  Such was the case with a volume titled Les Prophéties, written by Michel de Nostredame—in the Latin, Nostradamus—a physician renowned for saving victims of plague. Monsieur de Nostredame’s work consisted of hundreds of verses—four-lined quatrains—each of which contained a prophecy. The references were oblique, arcane. I understood little of what I read until I reached the thirty-fifth quatrain.

  On a warm night in June, I was lying propped up against the pillows in my bed, uncomfortable and sleepless because of the weight in my belly and the relentless kicking of two pairs of little legs. I had chosen to give birth at the Château at Blois, and that night, the dank air rose from the Loire River, bringing with it the stink of decay. I had trouble balancing the heavy book on my swollen stomach and was about to give up the effort when I turned the page, and my gaze fell upon these lines:

  The young lion will overcome the old, in

  A field of combat in a single fight. He will

  Pierce his eyes in a golden cage, two

  Wounds in one, he then dies a cruel death.

  I sat up with a gasp, recalling the words penned by the great astrologer Luca Guorico:

  I must warn you urgently to avoid all combat in an enclosed space. Duels and single combat present the greatest peril, and could lead to a mortal blow to the head.

  Fear wrung my midsection like a sponge. I cried out at the sudden physical spasm and let the heavy book slide off my lap.

  The labor of childbirth had always gone easily for me, but the agony that gripped me now was malicious, dire and unknown. I climbed out of the bed, but when my foot touched the floor, pain felled me.

  I went down shrieking for Madame Gondi, for Jeanne, and, most of all, for Henri.

  I am stout in the face of pain, but this labor was so cruel and protracted that I thought I would die before the first infant was born.

  Jeanne sat beside the birthing chair, and Henri visited me at the beginning of the labor, gripping my hands when the pains worsened and encouraging me throughout the long morning and into the heat of the summer afternoon. We pretended that the added agony I experienced augured nothing ominous, that it was only because there were two children instead of one. My longest previous labor had endured ten hours—but when ten hours had passed, then twelve, without progress, our anxiety increased. When the evening lamp was lit, I was no longer able to maintain a cheerful front. Henri paced helplessly until I grew peevish and told him to leave. Once he had gone, I lost myself to the pain, barely aware of Jeanne’s soft, perfumed hands bearing cool compresses, of the midwife’s whispered instructions. I fainted, and woke to find that I had been spirited from the wooden chair to my own bed.

  The first infant, Victoire, arrived at dawn, almost thirty-six hours after the initial excruciating spasm. She was weak and grey, with a sickly mewl, but her arrival brought joy to Jeanne and the midwife, who thought that this signaled the end of my travail. But her birth brought only a glimmer of relief before the savage pain returned.

  I slid into delirium. I cried out for Aunt Clarice, for Sister Niccoletta, for my dead mother; I cried out for Ruggieri. I must have called out for Jeanne, for when I came to myself, she was clasping my sweaty palm.

  The hairline part at the center of the velvet drapes glowed with dying orange light. I felt the midwife’s rapid breath upon my legs, smelled a familiar perfume, heard soft weeping. I wanted to tell Jeanne that I was going to name the second girl for her but found I could not speak.

  The lamplight caught the curve of Jeanne’s cheek, turned the crimped curls at her temple into a glowing halo. Her voice was stern, as if she were explaining a hard fact to an unreasonable child.

  “Catherine, the midwife must remove the baby now, to save your life. Squeeze my hand, and yell if you must. It will be over quickly.”

  I gripped Jeanne’s hand. The midwife’s deft hands added to my anguish; I ground my teeth when her fingers found the unborn child inside me and remained silent when I felt that child turned.

  The midwife’s hands came together inside me, clutching little limbs. They moved swiftly, sharply; I heard—no, felt—the crack of tiny bones and screamed at the realization that the little girl was still alive, and they were maiming her, killing her, in order to save me. I flailed and shrieked and thrashed against those who wept as they held me down.

  I wailed at Jeanne that God was punishing me because I had purchased my children with the darkest magic. I begged her to let me die instead, to put things right; I begged her to go to Ruggieri, to have him undo the spell.

  I remember nothing more.

  The infant Jeanne died at birth as a result of the wounds inflicted by the midwife. I hovered in feverish limbo for two weeks, then rose from my bed to learn that Victoire, the twin who had survived, was dying.

  I went to my tiny, gasping daughter. For three days I sat in the nursery, holding her in my arms, staring into her pinched yellow face, feeling as though my heart were melting and spilling out all my love onto her. I whispered apologies into her perfect little ear; I begged for forgiveness. She breathed her last with her father standing close beside us.

  I sat motionless by the infant’s body for hours. No one, not even the King, disturbed me.

  In my sorrow, I did not see the pane of light that appeared when the nursery door was cracked open; I did not hear the feather-light tread upon the marble. But I sensed someone beside me and looked down at my elbow to see a little boy plucking my sleeve. It was Henri of Navarre, then two and a half years old, his round head covered with dark curls, his little brow furrowed with worry.

  “Tante Catherine,” he lisped. “Chére Tante, don’t be sad.”

  “But I must be sad,” I told him. “Your little cousin Victoire has died.”

  “Ah,” he said, considering this, and fidgeted a bit before adding: “But she didn’t know us, so she won’t miss us in Heaven.”

  I could answer only with tears.

  Stricken at the sight of them, he exclaimed with anguished sincerity, “Poor Tante! I can pretend to be one of the babies that you lost. And I promise to be very, very good.”

  I put my arms around him.

  “My little Henri,” I said. “My darling, my own.”

  Ruggieri and a thousand others sent condolences the following day, but I was of a mind to receive no one. Instead I summoned Madame Gondi to my cabinet and dictated a letter to Michel de Nostredame of Provence.

  During the weeks I awaited a reply, I began again to dream.

  Twenty-eight

  I received the great prophet Nostradamus as I would a dear friend or relative: informally, in the comfort of my antechamber. As the door swung open to admit him, I sat alone beside the cold hearth—I had dismissed everyone, even Madame Gondi—and forced a wan smile.

  He entered limping, leaning heavily upon a cane; evidently, God was more interested in relaying visions of an ominous future than in relieving gout. He was astonishingly unremarkable-looking: short, stout, and grey-haired, with an unfashionably long beard and drab, worn clothing rumpled by travel.

  “Madame la Reine,” he said, in the soft voice of a southerner; his face was round and fair, his eyes, gentle and devoid of self-importance. He had been born a Jew, but his father had converted to Christianity and adopted the most Catholic of surnames, in honor of the Virgin. He removed his cap and, balancing precariously on his cane, bowed; his thinning hair spilled forward to hide his face.

  “I am honored and humbled that you would summon me,” he murmured. “I pray to be of service to you and to His Majesty in whatever manner pleases you. Ask for my life, and it is yours.” His voice and hands trembled. “If there is any question of heresy or devilry, I can only say this: I have endeavored all my life to serve God alone, and wrote down the visions at His express bidding.”

  Madame Gondi had told me that he had been obliged to move from village to village in Provence to avoid arrest; I realized, with a surge of compassion, that he was terrified. For all he knew, he was walking into
an inquisitional trap.

  “I do not doubt that, Monsieur de Nostredame,” I said warmly, smiling, and extended my hand. “That is why I have asked for your help. Thank you for traveling such a distance, in your discomfort, to see us. We are deeply grateful.”

  He let go a shuddering sigh and tottered forward to kiss my extended hand; his hair brushed softly against my knuckles. As he straightened, he turned his head and caught sight of the window; he forgot his nerves entirely and grew very focused, very calm.

  “Ah,” he said, as if to himself. “The children.”

  Outside, on the sprawling grassy courtyard, Edouard and little Navarre were tearing after Margot, ignoring the warnings of the governess to slow down. It was midmorning, hot and sultry, yet strangely grey; dark clouds had gathered early over the river Loire in anticipation of a sudden August storm.

  I managed a faint smile at the sight. “His Highness Prince Edouard likes to chase his little sister.”

  “The two younger ones—the little boy and girl—appear to be twins,” the prophet said, his sloping brow furrowed.

  “They are my daughter Margot and her cousin, Henri of Navarre.”

  “The resemblance is remarkable,” he murmured.

  “They are both about three years old, Monsieur; Margot was born on the thirteenth of May, Navarre on the thirteenth of December.”

  “Tied by fate,” he said. He looked back at me with pale grey eyes that were very large and frankly piercing, like a child’s. “I once had a son,” he said sadly, “and a daughter.”

  I had heard of this: Renowned as a healer and physician, he was famed for saving many sick with plague—but when his own wife and children were stricken, he had been unable to save them.

  “Forgive me for mentioning my own sorrow, Madame la Reine, but I learned recently that you mourn the loss of two little girls. There is no worse tragedy than the death of a child. I pray that God will ease your grief, and the King’s.”

  “Thank you, Monsieur de Nostredame,” I said, then changed the subject quickly, so that I might not cry. I gestured at the chair across from mine, with the footstool placed there expressly for him. “You have suffered enough on my behalf. Please sit down. Shall I tell you when the children were born?”

  “You are too gracious, Your Majesty. Yes, that would be lovely.” He settled into the chair and propped his foot up on the footstool with a little groan.

  “Do you require pen and paper, Monsieur?” I asked.

  He tapped his forehead. “No, I shall remember. Let us start with the eldest, then.”

  I told him the specifics of the boys’ births. I did not give him the girls’, as, under Salic law, a woman could not ascend the throne of France.

  “Thank you, Madame la Reine,” Monsieur de Nostredame said, when we were finished. “I will give you my full report within two days. I have already done some preparations, since the dates of the boys’ births are widely known.”

  He did not make as if to rise, as one might have expected; he gazed at me with those clear, all-seeing eyes, and in the silence that followed, I found my voice.

  “I have evil dreams,” I said.

  He tilted his head—intrigued, but not at all surprised. “May I speak candidly, then, Madame la Reine? I am not the first astrologer to chart the children’s nativities. You already have this information, do you not? You called me here for another reason.”

  I nodded. “I’ve read your book,” I said and recited the thirty-fifth quatrain, about the lion dying in a cage of gold.

  His gaze grew clouded. “I write what God bids me, Madame la Reine. I do not presume to understand its meaning.”

  “But I do.” I leaned forward, no longer hiding my desperation. “My husband—he is the lion in the verse. I dreamt—” My voice broke.

  “Madame,” he said gently, “you and I understand each other well, I think—better than the rest of the world understands us. You and I see things others do not. Too much for our comfort.”

  I turned my face from him and stared out the window at the garden, where Edouard and Margot and little Navarre chased one another around green hedges beneath a hidden sun. I closed my eyes and saw instead a great scorched battlefield, where my husband thrashed, drowning, in a swelling tide of blood.

  “I don’t want to see anymore,” I said.

  “God does not give us that choice.”

  “The King will die,” I said, with faint heat. “That is the meaning of the thirty-fifth quatrain, is it not? My Henri is destined to die too young, a terrible death in war, unless something is done to stop it. You know this; you have written of it, in this poem.” I leveled my gaze at him. “And I have dreamt, since I was a small girl, that a man who cried out to me in French would die in a pool of blood upon a battlefield. I did not know who this man was until I met my husband.”

  “I am sorry, Madame,” he responded sadly. “If God has sent you these visions, you must strive to discover why He has done so. You have the responsibility.”

  “I have a responsibility to keep the King safe,” I said. “I have a responsibility to my children. And I have spent my life trying to understand, trying to learn what I am to do.”

  Monsieur de Nostredame lowered his gaze to the pattern on the carpet. His expression remained placid; he might have been praying.

  “Perhaps,” he suggested, “you are meant to do nothing. Perhaps you are meant only to write your visions down.”

  My tone grew brittle. “Or perhaps not all of your prophecies come true. Perhaps they are meant as warnings, just as my dreams are warnings, so that danger can be averted. Is that not possible, Monsieur?”

  He did not look up. His features had grown slack, his breathing slow and deep.

  “Ah!” he exclaimed, his eyelids fluttering. “How the blood wells! How it streams from his face!”

  “Yes,” I whispered, then more loudly: “Yes. But this danger can be avoided. The future can be changed, can it not?”

  “Yesterday, today, tomorrow,” he murmured, “all are the same in the Almighty’s eyes. Just as one cannot change the past, so one cannot change the ordained future.”

  My hands tensed upon the arms of the chair. “My husband has been warned that he could sustain a mortal wound in battle. His stars are instructive: If he avoids battle and does not lead his men into war, then he will be safe. This is the very basis of astrology, Monsieur. You must tell me whether war is coming again for France. You must tell me what can be done to stop it.”

  “War comes,” he said. “War always comes, and there is little you or I can do to stop it.”

  “But surely you know when,” I said. “When did you first have this vision of the two lions, Monsieur? Many years ago?” I told myself that it must have come before Ruggieri had cast the spell using the prostitute’s blood, before we had made Henri safe.

  “Five years ago,” Monsieur de Nostredame replied. “But even now, I see it with the eye of spirit. The prophecy holds.”

  “This cannot be true! Please, Monsieur . . . Henri is my life, my soul. If he dies, I would not want to live. You must tell me what more I can do.”

  His eyes snapped full open. His stare was wide and frank. “One does not thwart God, Madame.”

  “But God is merciful.”

  “God is just,” the prophet answered softly.

  “And He listens to prayer,” I countered. “Therefore, if one beseeches Him heartily enough—”

  “As Christ beseeched Him, in the Garden of Gethsemane?” His tone remained gentle. “Prayed to be spared a bitter death—knowing that crucifixion was inevitable?” He shuddered, then just as abruptly went limp in the chair. When he spoke again, it was with another’s voice.

  “These children,” he sighed. “Madame la Reine, their stars are marred. These children should not be.”

  I put a hand to my heart, where the pearl hung, and feigned anger. “What a horrible thing to say to a mother. What a cruel thing.”

  He ignored the lie. “The tapestry of
history is woven of many threads, Madame. Let even one be exchanged for another that is weak and flawed, and the veil will tear.” His eyes, now fire-bright, focused on me. “The veil will tear, and blood be loosed, more blood than you have seen in any dream. Reparations must be made.”

  I stared at him, sickened. No doubt, with the eyes of spirit, he saw her just as I did: the prostitute, her dull eyes wide at the touch of Ruggieri’s blade against her throat. Yet I could not bear to confess the truth aloud, even to him.

  I whispered, “I do not understand . . .”

  “You think that you are heartless, Madame,” he said. “Far from it. Beware of tenderness. Beware of mercy. Do not spare those who have your heart. Even so, restitution will not come easily. More blood will be spilled.”

  Restitution: He spoke of Henri and the children, I knew. He wanted me to abandon my loved ones. He wanted me to undo the spell. I rose abruptly, forcing him to emerge from his reverie, to fumble for his cane, to struggle to his feet.

  “Our audience is over, Monsieur,” I said coldly. “You are quite right—I have many astrologers and have no need of your services at this time. Please rest tonight at Blois before continuing on your way. May your journey home be pleasant, and may God protect you.”

  He looked on me with empathy so deep it broke my heart.

  “It was hard,” he whispered. “So hard, when I lost my wife and children. But it was God’s will, Madame. God’s will.”

  It was the man who spoke, not the oracle, but I could not bring myself to reply. Seething, imperious, I rang for Madame Gondi, then watched as she led the prophet away.

  I returned to my chair, lowered my face, and dug the tips of my fingers into my brow, my temples. I remained thus, my mind and emotions a swirl of confusion, until a peculiar instinct prompted me to rise.

  I went to the large window overlooking the courtyard where the children were playing. There had been some emergency: Edouard and Charles were shouting and pointing at a pile of rocks while the governess comforted wailing Margot. The situation must have been serious, for Jeanne herself had appeared on the grassy lawn and was kneeling beside her son, talking to him.