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

by Jeanne Kalogridis

  François accepted the necklace without question and swore that he would neither speak of it nor show it to anyone, including Mary.

  The next morning, I was urgently summoned to the King’s chamber. It was early—I had not yet finished dressing and hurried my ladies in order to respond promptly.

  Henri’s antechamber was decidedly masculine, paneled in wood and furnished in brown velvet and gold brocade. Over the mantel was the gilded relief of a salamander, the emblem of Henri’s father, François I. In front of the cold hearth, Henri stood waiting, silent and motionless, until the valet departed.

  His lips were taut with contained rage, his eyes narrowed with fury. He was a very tall man, and I a very small woman; I sank into a low curtsy and stayed there. “Your Majesty.”

  Such a long silence followed that I at last dared to lift my gaze.

  Henri was holding out his hand. In his open palm lay the necklace with the ruby and copper talismans I had given François.

  “What is this, Madame?”

  “A simple charm, Your Majesty,” I answered smoothly. “For the Dauphin’s good health.”

  “I will not have my son involved with this—this filth!” He flung it into the empty fireplace. “I will have it burned!”

  “Henri,” I said quickly, rising, “it is a harmless thing. It is a good thing, made according to a science based on astronomy and mathematics.”

  “It is a heinous thing,” he retorted. “You know how I feel about such things. For you to give this to our son . . . !”

  I bristled. “How can you believe that I would give my own child something harmful?”

  “It’s that magician of yours. He’s poisoned your mind, made you believe that you need him. Let me warn you now, Catherine, that things will go more easily for you if you dismiss him today, now, rather than later!”

  “I have no intention of doing so,” I said, indignant. “Do you threaten me, Your Majesty?”

  He let go a long, unsteady breath and calmed himself; dark earnestness replaced his anger. “Two months ago, I petitioned the Pope so that I might organize a French Inquisition.”

  I froze.

  “Last week, His Holiness granted my petition. I appointed Charles of Guise as head. Can you imagine, Madame, how I felt when the good Cardinal dropped that thing”—he gestured in disgust at the fireplace—“into my hand? How he must have felt when his frightened niece Mary brought it to him?”

  Mary, crafty Mary; I should have known that François could hide nothing from her. “So what will you do, Henri? Will you bring your wife before a tribunal for questioning?”

  “No,” he said. “But if you were wise, you would tell your magician that the King’s Court is no longer a safe place for him.”

  Heat rose to my cheeks. “Were you to arrest him, would that not bring ugly attention to me? Would it not start rumors that would only harm the Crown?”

  “There are ways to do it without implicating you,” he replied coldly. “You have been advised, Madame.”

  I called Ruggieri to my cabinet that afternoon. I did not give him leave to sit—there was no time—but held out a velvet purse filled with gold ecus.

  “The King has organized an inquisition; you will be one of its first victims. For my sake, take these,” I said. “Ride far from Paris and remain a stranger wherever you go. There is a carriage waiting at the side entrance. The driver will help you gather your belongings.”

  Ruggieri clasped his hands behind his back and turned his face from me. There were no windows in my tiny office, but he seemed to find one, and looked far beyond it at a distant scene.

  “For your sake, I cannot go,” he said, then settled his arresting gaze back on me. “Matters grow dangerous, Madame la Reine. The King’s fortieth year is upon us.”

  “There is no war,” I said lightly. I set the velvet purse upon my desk, midway between us. “And if war comes, I will not let Henri go. You know this, Monsieur. Do not test me.”

  “I would never do so,” he replied. “But consider this: There can be battle even when there is no war.”

  “What are you saying?” I demanded. “Do you tell me now that your magic was worthless?”

  He remained maddeningly calm. “Every spell—no matter how powerful—has its limits.”

  A thrill coursed down my spine. “Why do you hurt me?” I whispered. “I’m trying to help you.”

  “And I you. For that reason, I will not leave until the very moment my life is threatened.”

  I made my eyes, my voice, my bearing hard and imperious. “I am your Queen,” I said. “And I command you to go.”

  With unspeakable rudeness, he turned his back on me and strode to the door, then paused to glance over his shoulder. I caught a flash of wildness in his eye, of the Devil I had seen more than thirty years before, when someone in a hostile crowd had grazed me with a stone.

  “And I am Cosimo Ruggieri. Devoted to you, Caterina de’ Medici. I will not desert you until forced to do so.”

  He left, closing the door softly behind him.

  I did not speak to Ruggieri for days; his words and his insolence rankled me at the same time that they provoked my worry, for him and for Henri. In the interim, I was not without my spies, who kept close watch over the King and the Cardinal of Lorraine.

  Late one summer night, my sleep was disturbed by a knock at my chamber door and the movement of a flickering lamp. I murmured drowsily and turned my face away from the light.

  At the feel of fingertips upon my arm, I opened my eyes to see Madame Gondi, her face golden in the lamp glow, still in her nightgown, a shawl thrown over her shoulders.

  “Madame la Reine,” she hissed. “You must wake up! They are coming for him!”

  My body woke instantly; I swung my legs over the edge of the bed and sat, my bare feet dangling. My mind did not respond quite as quickly.

  “What is it?” I murmured. “What has happened?”

  “The officers of the Inquisition. They are sending men to seize Monsieur Ruggieri—at dawn, if not sooner!”

  I willed myself to consciousness. “I must go to him myself and warn him,” I said. I knew Ruggieri would listen to no one else.

  Madame Gondi’s eyes widened in horror. “But, Madame . . .”

  “A carriage,” I said quickly. “One without the royal crest. Have it brought to the rear of the palace, then come help me dress.”

  The light cast by the carriage’s dual lamps was too feeble to dispel much of the darkness on that moonless night; the street was silent save for the clatter of our horses’ hooves against stone. Madame Gondi rode with me, at her insistence. Like me, she had dressed all in black and veiled her face; it hovered above her body, indistinct and ghostly behind the gauze.

  We did not ride far; Ruggieri lived on the street hemming the western side of the Louvre. Our carriage came to rest along a row of three-story narrow houses, crammed side by side. After a moment of stealthy exploration, the coachman found the correct number, 83, then fetched me from the carriage. I stood beside him at the entrance as he knocked, persistently but discreetly.

  After a time, the door cracked open, and a wizened old woman, her uncovered hair in a long white braid, scowled through the slit above the flame of a candle.

  “For love of Jesus and the weeping Virgin,” she hissed. “What breed of mannerless bastard dares disturb decent folk at such an hour?”

  “I wish to see Monsieur Ruggieri.” I stepped into the wavering arc of light cast by the flame and lifted my veil.

  “Your Majesty!” Her mouth gaped, revealing a dozen jagged brown teeth. The door swung wide.

  I turned to the coachman. “Stay here,” I said.

  I passed over the threshold. The old woman was still kneeling, in such a state of shock that she crossed herself repeatedly with one skeletal hand while carelessly clutching the candle in the other, far too close to the disheveled braid that fell onto her bosom. I leaned forward and gently pushed the braid out of harm’s way, causing h
er to start.

  “Is Monsieur Ruggieri still abed?” I asked softly.

  She nodded, stricken.

  “Do not wake him, then,” I said, “but lead me to his door.”

  The sweep of candlelight revealed nothing to indicate a magician’s lair—only sparsely furnished, unremarkable rooms, punctuated randomly by stacks of leather-bound books, some open. The smells of mutton, raw onions, and charred wood emanated from the kitchen.

  The old woman halted in front of a closed door. “Shall I knock, Your Majesty?”

  “No,” I said. “I’ll wake him.” I shot her a pointed look. “We shall require privacy.”

  I refused the candle and waited until she retreated down the hallway, then entered the bedchamber and closed the door behind me.

  The curtains had been drawn, leaving the room utterly dark. Disoriented, I paused, drawing in the scents of male flesh, rosemary, and frankincense, my imagination manufacturing a thousand hideous things that might be lurking here, in a magician’s bedchamber. In the stillness, I heard not the deep, restful breath of slumber but quick, muffled gasps. I sensed movement, the sudden looming of a figure toward me.

  “Ser Cosimo,” I whispered.

  “Catherine?” The figure halted its approach. Quick footsteps followed, muffled by the carpeted floor, and a match flared as Ruggieri lit the lamp at his bedside.

  His black hair fell tangled about his face; his nightshirt revealed a sprig of dark hair at the neck. His trembling left hand gripped the hilt of a double-edged long knife, the shorter version of a knight’s sword.

  “Catherine,” he repeated, gasping. “My God, I might have killed you!” He laid the knife down on his mattress.

  My words tumbled out in Tuscan, our native tongue. “Cosimo, must I explain why I have come?” And when he, still overwhelmed, did not answer, I added, “They’re coming for you before daybreak.”

  He bowed his head and studied the carpet as though it contained an unutterably poignant message. His mouth worked but could not find the proper words. At last he said, “You will need me.”

  “If you stay, it will only hurt us both,” I said. “What would happen to me if you were imprisoned? Or burned alive?”

  He looked up at me and, for the first time, had no answer.

  I fumbled for the pocket sewn into the folds of my skirt and produced the velvet purse, heavier now than it had first been. “Take this,” I said. “A horse awaits you on the street. Tell no one where you are going.”

  He reached for it. I loosened my grasp, thinking he would take it—but he let it drop and instead closed his hand over mine, and pulled me to him.

  “Caterina,” he murmured in my ear. “You think yourself evil. I tell you, you are better than them all. Only the strongest, most loving heart is willing to face darkness for the sake of those she loves.”

  “Then you and I are kindred souls,” I said. On tiptoe, I pressed my lips to his scarred cheek and was astonished to find the skin there soft and warm.

  He brushed the backs of his fingers against my face. “We will meet again,” he said. “Soon. Too soon.”

  He bent down to retrieve the purse. I turned and did not look back.

  As the old woman with the candle approached, I covered my face with the veil so that she could not see me weeping.

  If Henri noticed Ruggieri’s disappearance, he said nothing of it to me. I suspect he was relieved that I had been spared seeing the magician brought before the Inquisition.

  Once François of Guise saw his niece safely married to the Dauphin, he returned to battle in the north and snatched the town of Thionville from King Philip’s grasp. My cousin Piero rode at his side—and fell during the attack, his chest shattered by lead shot from an arquebus. He lay bleeding to death in Guise’s arms, and as Guise, ever the good Catholic, begged him to pray that Jesus would receive him into Heaven, Piero answered irritably:

  “Jesus? What Jesus? Don’t try to convert me at this late hour! I am only going where all those who have ever died go.”

  I wept as Guise, heartbroken by Piero’s heresy, relayed the story of my adored cousin’s death. I felt at that moment that I had lost everyone I had ever loved in my old life: Aunt Clarice, and now Piero; even Ruggieri had vanished.

  But the victory brought good news as well. Grieving over the recent death of his wife, Queen Mary—whose attempt to revive Catholicism in England was being swiftly overturned by her half sister and successor, Elizabeth—and financially exhausted by constant wars, King Philip of Spain was at long last ready to make peace. This brought Henri great hope, for he was eager to free his old mentor, Montmorency, from Spanish prison.

  Philip offered this: If Henri agreed never to launch another war to seize Italian properties, France could keep Calais and the other northern towns, and Montmorency would be freed. To secure the treaty, our thirteen-year-old daughter, Elisabeth, would marry Philip. After months of deliberation, Henri at last agreed.

  I rejoiced that our greatest enemy should now be our friend, and that all cause for war was extinguished—for His Majesty, King Henri II, had entered his fortieth year.

  Thirty-one

  Elisabeth was married on the twenty-second of June, 1559, at Notre-Dame Cathedral. King Philip chose not to appear for the wedding. “The Kings of Spain,” he wrote my husband, “do not go to their wives; their wives are brought to them.” Instead, he sent a proxy, the dour and elderly Duke of Alba, Fernando Alvarez de Toledo. Don Fernando and his entourage arrived without pomp, in such plain black clothing that Henri was at first affronted, until the ambassador convinced him that this was simply Spanish custom.

  We politely ignored the Spaniards’ austerity and proceeded with a ceremony almost as lavish as that of the Dauphin and Mary, Queen of Scots. Grand Master Montmorency was given a prominent place in the procession. He was white-haired now, stiff with age and gaunt in the wake of his imprisonment, but bright with joy to be home in the presence of his King.

  On the wedding night, my ladies and I undressed my nervous daughter. She lay down upon the great bed, and I drew silk indigo sheets over her naked body. We ladies retreated; as I stepped out into the antechamber, I passed the Duke of Alba, Don Fernando, clothed in a black doublet, with one legging rolled up to expose a thin white calf.

  The King appeared in order to watch an ancient ritual: Don Fernando lay down beside our daughter, rubbed his bare leg against hers, then got up and left the room. The marriage between Elisabeth and King Philip had just been legally consummated.

  A week of celebrations followed: parades and spectacles, banquets and masked balls. Through them all, my husband and Montmorency rarely left each other’s side. Finally, the tournaments began. For the jousting lists—the lanes for the horses—workmen had lifted the paving stones from the rue Saint-Antoine in front of the Château des Tournelles, a palace in the heart of the city. They had also built tall wooden stands on both sides of the street for the nobler spectators and draped them in banners bearing the royal arms of France and Spain.

  Henri was invigorated by the return of his old friend and relished the thought of participating in the joust, perhaps eager to dispel the notion that, at forty, he was no longer the athlete he had been in his youth. Many a warm day before the wedding, he spent hours engaging in mock tourneys astride his new, magnificent stallion named Le Malheur, Disaster, a wedding gift from his former enemy, the Duke of Savoy.

  I, too, had recently turned forty, and the festivities left me exhausted. I did not appear at the first two days of jousting but waited until the third day, when His Majesty was to enter the lists.

  The afternoon before, the day turned abysmally humid, and evening brought violent rains, ending all outdoor revels. My bedchamber was hot, and I, strangely anxious; despite my weariness, I resisted sleep. The chambermaid opened the drapes, and and I stood staring out at the dark courtyard, listening to water crash against stone.

  When the rain finally eased, I fell into an uneasy dream: I stood again on the
scorched battlefield, gazing at the setting sun. In the near distance stood a man, his body dark against an incandescent sky. I saw his silhouette with dazzling clarity—the ridges of armor at his shoulders, the edges of the breastplate covering his heart. His helmet trailed plumes of black and grey.

  Catherine, he called.

  I ran to him. How can I help, Monsieur? What am I meant to do?

  Suddenly he lay wounded. As I knelt beside him, shadowy forms hovered over him, invisible hands lifted the helmet from his head. With it came gushing blood; beneath that crimson spring, a man’s lips formed a single word.

  Catherine, he said and died.

  I woke to the sound of my whispered scream, and a grey and sultry dawn.

  On that last morning of June, I sent a letter to the King before either of us had dressed. At the same time, I tried to reason with my fear: We had ransomed Henri’s life, had we not? But how old had the prostitute been? How many years had we purchased? My mind, normally so swift at mathematical calculation, tried to count them and failed.

  If you love me, I wrote my husband, forgo the lists today. I know you scoff at such things, but God has sent me an evil dream. Perhaps I am foolish; if I am, what harm can it do to set my mind at ease? Do this one thing, and I shall be ever grateful and ask for nothing more.

  I did not mention the astrologer Luca Guorico’s warning, or the words of Nostradamus; certainly, I dared not write Ruggieri’s name. I sent the letter knowing that Henri would not heed it; he had spent more time in recent days in the Guises’ presence than in mine, as they planned the strokes of the new French Inquisition. His reply came within the hour:

  Have no fear on my account, dear wife. You ask that I withdraw from the tournament for love of you; I beg you, for love of me, to put your fears aside and cheer me on today. Tradition bids me wear a certain lady’s colors of black and white, but I will also wear your color, green, next to my heart. This evening, when I return victorious, greet me with a kiss. It will seal our private pact that from this day forth, you will put aside all superstition and trust in God alone.