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

by Jeanne Kalogridis

  A plate of cold pickled beef had just been set before me when I saw the Duke of Anjou glance up sharply; I followed his gaze.

  Marshal Tavannes was moving urgently through the crowd of waiting nobles. Of all those assembled, he alone did not smile, but was discreet enough to contain his shock so as to avoid catching the attention of those around him. I caught sight of his eyes—guarded, intense—and I knew.

  I forced myself to smile as he neared. He could not bring himself to respond in kind but bowed and asked permission to approach.

  He came to me first and leaned down to speak in my ear, so quietly that even Edouard could not hear him.

  Admiral Coligny had been shot in the arm. His men—some of them guards Edouard had given him upon his arrival at Court—had carried him to the safety of his lodgings at the Hôtel de Béthizy.

  The smile was still on my lips, frozen there by shock. “Is the wound fatal?” I whispered to Tavannes.

  “They think not, Madame la Reine.”

  “Who else knows?”

  “The Admiral sent two of his captains to inform the King immediately. I understand that Henri of Navarre is speaking to the King this very moment.”

  Tavannes said more, surely, but his words were muffled by an insistent, growing drumming in my ears, like that made by the hooves of approaching horses. I put a hand upon my son’s forearm.

  “Edouard,” I said softly. I rose and indicated that I wished Tavannes to accompany us.

  As we walked sedately through the great reception hall, nobles parted to let us pass. I lifted my skirts and did not look down; I did not have to. This time, I could feel the blood.

  Here is the story, pieced together from Marshal Tavannes’s report, as well as those of witnesses:

  Immediately after the Council meeting, Admiral Coligny went in search of the King. To his chagrin, Charles was in the tennis gallery, playing a set with Coligny’s brother-in-law, Teligny and—as luck would have it—the young Duke of Guise. Charles was embarrassed; Coligny, put out, since the King had promised to hear Coligny out as soon as the wedding celebrations were over. The Admiral demanded a private audience on the spot; when the King refused, Coligny grew outraged and strode off.

  He left by the Louvre’s guarded northern gate and made his way to the rue de Béthizy. Following him were four Huguenot captains and ten Scottish guards. As he neared the property owned by the Guises, he took from his pocket a pair of spectacles and a letter written by his young wife, who had recently given birth. He was reading it when he walked into the assassin’s sights. At that instant, he stopped in his tracks upon realizing that an inner binding in one of his shoes had come loose.

  Unaware of the binding, Maurevert fired.

  Simultaneously, the Admiral bent down to inspect his shoe.

  The ball tore through Coligny’s left arm and very nearly severed his right index finger, which hung, dangling, from a flap of flesh. The Admiral promptly fainted.

  His men closed ranks around him. All of them had heard the shot and agreed it came from the nearby property owned by the Guises. Three of them forced their way inside and discovered the smoking arquebus. By then, Maurevert had escaped.

  I was prepared to deal with the outcry following Coligny’s assassination, but I had never considered the possibility that he might survive the attempt.

  Edouard and I entered Charles’s antechamber to discover a dozen outraged Huguenots, clustered so tightly together that I could not at first see the King. At the sound of our step, the black-clad nobles turned and, upon seeing us, glared in disapproval even as they grudgingly made way to reveal Charles sitting at his desk, with Henri and Condé standing beside him.

  At the sight of us, Condé recoiled; Navarre was so preoccupied with the King that he appeared not to notice our arrival. Charles huddled in the chair, clutching his skull. Tears of rage ran down his cheeks, flushed scarlet after his vigorous tennis game.

  “Leave me!” he howled. “Leave me, I cannot think! Why does God torment me so?” He began to beat his forehead against the surface of his desk.

  Navarre glanced up and caught my gaze. He had too much self-possession to recoil as Condé had, but I saw mistrust and veiled fury in his eyes.

  “Madame la Reine,” he said, with distant formality. “Monsieur le Duc. You must help us. Admiral Coligny has been shot, and His Majesty has lost himself. But justice must be done! Now, before violence erupts!”

  “I am lost,” Charles agreed with a groan. “Too much trouble . . .” He squeezed his eyes shut and began to rock slowly back and forth in the chair. “I can bear no more!”

  “It is only the heat,” I said protectively. “The heat and the terrible shock.” I flicked open my fan and directed the breeze onto his face. “Dear Charles,” I said, “you must listen to me.”

  His eyes snapped open; he looked up at me with utter desperation.

  “Why do they torment me?” he moaned. “Please make them stop, Maman. Make them go away and die!”

  “I can make it stop,” I soothed, “if you will help Admiral Coligny.”

  “ “But what must be done?”

  “You must denounce the criminal who has committed this heinous act,” I said, glad to have Huguenot witnesses, “and make it clear that the Crown will not rest until he is brought to justice. There must be a full investigation.”

  Edouard sidled closer to us. “Coligny’s surroundings must be secured,” he said briskly. “I will clear all Catholics from the neighborhood surrounding the rue de Béthizy, to reduce the risk to the Admiral and his men. And I will send fifty of my best arquebusiers to surround the Admiral’s hotel.”

  “Yes,” Charles said, with a gusting sigh of relief, though his eyes were still wild. “Yes, see that it is done.”

  “Is there anything else, Sire?” I asked gently.

  “Yes.” Charles put his heels on the edge of the chair, knees bent, arms wrapped about his shins, and slowly rocked. “Doctor Paré . . .” The surgeon who had tried, and failed, to save my husband’s life now served as the King’s personal physician. “Send Paré to the Hôtel de Béthizy.”

  “It is done,” I said.

  Charles suddenly stilled and looked up at me. “I must see the Admiral, and beg his forgiveness for failing to protect him. I must let him know that I have not deserted him. Let us go now, Maman.”

  “I would ask only one thing, Your Majesty,” I said.

  He scowled up at me.

  “Permit the Duke of Anjou and me to accompany you.”

  It was of course too soon to hurry to Coligny’s side; Doctor Paré had yet to perform surgery on the wound. But by midafternoon, a party—Navarre, Condé, ten bodyguards, Anjou, the King, and I—had assembled near the Louvre’s northern gate. I also invited old Tavannes, who had heartily approved the assassination plot, yet possessed the nerve to accompany me and feign sympathy for Coligny in the midst of a crowd of Huguenots. Navarre was politely distant, Condé still too angry to say a word to us.

  I had suggested that we make the short walk to Coligny’s surroundings, as it would be good for the people to see our concern for the Admiral. In addition to Navarre’s guards, our group was accompanied by a dozen Swiss soldiers to protect the King.

  After two guards lifted the thick iron bar from the latch, a trio of grooms swung open the heavy gate. The soldiers surrounding the palace parted for us as we headed into the street.

  We soon left the Louvre behind and passed on to the overheated cobblestones of the rue de Béthizy, where scattered flocks of black-clad pedestrians caught sight of us and coalesced into a single wave, which surged toward us. Tavannes and Edouard instinctively flanked me, while Condé and Navarre did the same for the King.

  “There goes the Italian woman!” a man shouted, no more than five paces away. “She greets her friends in Florentine fashion: with a smile on her face and a dagger in her hand!”

  The mob roared in affirmation. A jumble of black linen and pale flesh loomed abruptly. On my left,
old Marshal Tavannes staggered; his shoulder struck mine and threw me off balance, against Edouard. The Swiss troops seized their halberds and leveled the shining blades at the onrush of angry spectators.

  “Do not harm them! Let them be!” I shouted; a fatal incident could easily provoke a full-scale riot.

  The King, Navarre, and Condé paused to look over their shoulders at us: The crowd had not touched them.

  “Let them pass!” Navarre shouted, and the black swarm receded.

  We began to move again, at a quickened pace, and arrived at the Hôtel de Béthizy without further trouble, though the crowd dogged us the entire way, their murmured curses forming a single ominous rumble.

  The outer perimeter of the hotel was patrolled by more than fifty restless men in black—some of them hard-bitten troops with unshaven faces, others well-groomed nobles. All of them greeted Navarre with courteous bows but had only sullen, stony glances for the Duke of Anjou and me. Ambassador Zuñiga had been right: They were all armed for war, some with long swords, others with arquebuses. The four men standing watch on the front steps sweated beneath heavy chest armor. Navarre ascended the steps alone and spoke to them; they moved aside to let us pass.

  Inside, a score of guards and noblemen choked a sunny, stuffy vestibule, some weeping, others ranting, all outraged. At the overpowering smell of unwashed flesh and of sausage scorched upon a nearby cookstove, I pressed my scented kerchief to my nose. The Huguenots reacted to Navarre with expressions of hope, gratitude, and respect; at the sight of Anjou and me, their faces turned away, lips twisted with disgust, as if they had just looked on something vomitous.

  We proceeded up the creaking wooden stairs to the second floor, the whole of which served as the Admiral’s vast, open bedchamber. Although the room was larger than my own bedchamber in the old, crumbling Louvre, its low ceiling gave the impression of more cramped quarters; the effect was enhanced by some fifty men who had congregated around their wounded leader’s bedside.

  Navarre led the way. His fellows parted willingly for him, with murmurs of gratitude, yet were it not for Navarre’s warning gaze, they would have hissed at me. We made our way to Coligny, in a bed of ornately carved cherrywood.

  The Admiral was markedly pale as he lay propped up by pillows. His right hand, cradled carefully in his lap, was heavily swathed in bandages; Doctor Paré had been obliged to cut away the dangling index finger while the patient was fully conscious, and Coligny was exhausted from pain and blood loss. His blond hair, dark with sweat, clung to his scalp; his eyes, narrowed with misery, did not brighten as we approached. Paré stood at the head of the bed, white-haired and leonine, his yellowed gaze protective. The windows had been shut for fear a breeze might bring a chill and hasten infection; the room was stifling. I could smell the blood.

  “Your Majesty,” the Admiral murmured at the sight of Navarre; when Charles stepped forward, Coligny repeated the phrase.

  “My father,” Navarre said softly and bent down to kiss the top of the Admiral’s head. “I have not ceased praying since I heard the news. Is the pain bearable? Is there anything the doctors can do to ease it?”

  “It is not so bad,” Coligny whispered, but his grey lips trembled. I had wanted only to kill him; I had not meant for him to suffer.

  “I have sent fifty bodyguards to you,” Navarre said, “so that you will be safe and can spare your own men to find and punish whoever has done this.”

  “Mon père!” Charles exclaimed. “May God himself strike me dead if I do not find the bastard who has done this to you, and see him drawn and quartered! Forgive me! If I had only listened to you this morning, this would not have happened. . . .” He began to sob.

  Coligny held out his left hand, the fingers spread and trembling; Charles clasped it.

  “There is nothing to forgive,” the Admiral whispered. “It is God’s will.” Relishing his role as martyr, he directed a feeble, beatific smile at my son.

  “I swear to you, mon père,” the King gasped, “I will not rest until you are avenged.”

  We have lost him, I thought as I stared at Charles; it had all turned upside down. Had Coligny been killed, the King would have grieved but ultimately accepted the death. Wounded, Coligny could play upon the King’s sympathy; the situation had grown more dangerous than ever.

  “My heart breaks to see you suffer, Admiral,” I said loudly as I stepped closer to the bedside. “His Majesty is right—a full investigation will be launched and the perpetrator brought to justice. I, too, have been praying all morning for your protection and recovery.”

  Coligny’s face lolled toward mine. “Have you?” he whispered.

  Though dulled by pain, his gaze bore through me. He knew, I realized. He knew and was determined to exact revenge, but I kept my head high and did not flinch beneath his scrutiny.

  Edouard sidled closer to the bed. “The perpetrator will be found quickly,” he said. “I, too, have sent men to help you—fifty of my finest arquebusiers. The street has been cleared of Catholics; you are surrounded by friends. Already we have launched our inquiry: As you know, the shot was fired from a property owned by the Guise family. We are attempting to locate the Duke for questioning.”

  Charles unclenched the Admiral’s hand. “Guise? Impossible! I was playing tennis with him this morning.”

  “We must not rush to conclusions,” Edouard replied calmly, “but we must examine all the possibilities.”

  “Admiral,” I asked, “what of your hand?”

  “Ah,” he said. “The finger . . . I wish the doctor’s scissors had been sharper. It took three attempts, but the finger is gone.” He paused as Charles, Edouard, and I groaned at the thought. “Forgive me, but I must request permission to speak to His Majesty in private.”

  Coligny, damn him, knew that we had no choice. I turned to Charles, floundering about for the right words to make him refuse the Admiral without revealing my guilt. There were none.

  Charles waved dismissively at Edouard, at me. “I’ll call for you when we are done.”

  I could do nothing save take Tavannes’s proffered arm and, with Edouard flanking me on the other side, turn my back to Coligny.

  We took three steps away from the bed and were obliged to stop. A giant with an arquebus slung by a strap over his shoulder stepped into my path and stared down at me, his tiny eyes full of loathing.

  “Make way for Her Majesty,” Tavannes snapped.

  When the giant did not yield, the old Marshal shoved him. Edouard immediately filled the gap, and we managed to push our way forward a few more steps—men in wrinkled black linen encircled us and began to close in. They did not genuflect to us royals; their glares revealed hatred, and their hands rested upon the hilts of their swords.

  One of them—a haggard man of thirty—approached us. He, too, had his hand upon the hilt of his long sword, and as he neared, Edouard tensed beside me. I touched the Dauphin’s arm in warning, lest he draw out a hidden dagger: We were outmanned and would quickly lose any fight.

  The Huguenot’s face was thin and sharp as a hatchet; when he spoke, his red chin beard wagged.

  “There will be Hell to pay for what you have done,” he hissed. His breath was so fetid, I turned from it.

  Someone behind him added, “God punishes murders.”

  A different man, with a goiter the size of a tennis ball on his neck, stepped forward to stand beside the red-bearded soldier. “We don’t need God.” His eyes were blue, like Coligny’s, and just as mad. “We will strike them down.”

  He swung an arquebus from his shoulder and nestled the stock against his chest. He took a step closer and touched the elbow of my sleeve with the barrel.

  Now they will kill us, I thought. I was furious with myself for not realizing how dangerous the situation had become.

  “Mannerless bastard!” Edouard shouted. “Touch the Queen’s person again, and I will kill you!”

  “Do you want war?” the red-bearded soldier hissed. “We will give you war!”
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  The owner of the arquebus cried out, “You lure us to your Catholic city, so you can slaughter us like swine! But we will kill you first!”

  “I married my daughter to one of your own,” I countered haughtily. “How dare you suggest that we would harm the Admiral! The King loves him as a father!”

  My voice must have carried. I heard Navarre’s shout; the men dropped their hostile gazes to the floor and withdrew as he hurried to my side.

  “Madame la Reine,” he asked, with disturbing formality, “did they harm you?”

  Edouard pointed. “He touched her with the barrel of his arquebus!”

  Navarre turned to the implicated man and drew his arm back to slap him; I caught his upraised arm.

  “Don’t punish him,” I said. “Feelings are running high enough.” I looked back in Coligny’s direction. “Please,” I said to Navarre, “will you escort me back to the Admiral?”

  When I arrived, Charles was sitting on the edge of the bed, his jaw set, his brows knit in a formidable frown. He looked up at me, his eyes narrowed with mistrust.

  “Your Majesty,” I said softly, “Admiral Coligny is surely exhausted. We must let him rest.”

  Charles was ready to contradict me, but Doctor Paré, who had been standing at the head of the bed, spoke up suddenly.

  “Yes,” he said. He caught my gaze and immediately looked away, as if afraid his own might be too revealing. “It is difficult enough for him, with all his men here. It would be best, Your Majesty, if he were able to be quiet for a time.”

  “Very well,” Charles said, with sullen reluctance, then turned to Coligny. “But I shall return soon, mon père. God keep you in the interim. You have all my prayers and my love.”

  “As you have mine,” I said to the Admiral.

  Coligny gazed up at me. He was trembling, his brow beaded with sweat, but I saw triumph in his eyes.

  Given the hostility in the streets, Edouard sent one of our guards to fetch a carriage. Navarre and Condé remained at the Hôtel de Béthizy, while the King, Anjou, Tavannes, and I rode back to the Louvre at a slow pace, our carriage surrounded by the guards who had accompanied us on our walk to Coligny’s lodgings.