The Hostage Queen

by Freda Lightfoot

  ‘You know that I remain loyal to the reformed faith,’ he assured her now, as he had done many times in the past.

  In truth he had no strong feelings either way. Henry felt no passion for religion, couldn’t quite understand this fanaticism of hers. For some reason he could always see the other point of view, and certainly wouldn’t risk his life for a doctrine. Since he was brought up to be a Huguenot, both by his mother and his tutor, Gaucherie, then that is what he was, but he could just as easily have been a Catholic. Wasn’t there but one God? What did it matter how He was worshipped? Why was one way right and another wrong? And why did Catherine de Medici see the Protestant faith as a threat?

  Jeanne listened with increasing alarm to the tale he was telling her. Some mischief had been hatched at that chateau amidst the semi-tropical, hot-house atmosphere of the Bay of Biscay. But she gave no indication of these thoughts to the young prince.

  ‘You should join the hunting party, my son. The fresh air will bring the colour back to your cheeks, grown pallid by court life, I fear.’

  Henry returned her warm embrace, basking in her approbation, yet he was equally eager to be out in the sunshine, as a certain dairy maid had caught his eye. He knew his mother was afraid he would grow up to be a licentious libertine like his father. Henry thought she might well be right, but why should he care? He loved women, whatever their age or class, whether court ladies or peasant girls. And if the desire to make love was in his blood, wasn’t that better than making war? He strode from her privy chamber feeling proud of his achievement. Not such a country clod, perhaps.

  Margot was bubbling over with happiness, not only because she would be with Guise back in Paris in a few short months, but Madame de Curton had smilingly informed her that she was, after all, to be spared marriage with a madman. The meeting at Bayonne had not been the success Catherine had hoped for, and the talks with Alva had ended in failure so far as the marriage proposals were concerned. Since these joyful tidings Margot had thrown herself wholeheartedly into the dancing and merry-making, even if it was only at the provincial Court of Nérac.

  She thought the town pretty enough with its red-roofed galleried houses, and she loved to walk in the Queen’s gardens along the banks of the wide River Baïse with its stone bridge and ancient mill. Today she was out following the hunt, riding lazily along the forest trails of the Landes de Gascogne, the tall oak and pine seeming to go on for ever. Margot kept to the back of the main party on her white palfrey, simply enjoying the freedom and the cool breeze in her hair, when Henry brought his horse to her side and challenged her to a gallop.

  There was nothing Margot loved more than a dare and normally would have welcomed any adventure to break the tedium, yet she hesitated. She hated to be outshone, and this high bred horse was trained to amble with a smooth gait over long distances. Beautiful as the animal was, she certainly wasn’t made for a fast gallop.

  ‘I think not. Pray ride with the other silly young boys, if you are bored.’

  ‘Don’t tell me you’re afraid you might lose?’ he teased.

  ‘I am afraid of nothing, certainly not an oaf like you.’

  ‘Or are you nervous that you may get lost?’

  ‘Of course not.’

  ‘If so, you need have no fear. This is my country. I know it well. And everyone knows me.’

  ‘Every peasant, I dare say.’

  Henry smiled. ‘Indeed, and every farmer, every woodsman, every milkmaid. Have you not heard them hail me? They call me noste Enric.’

  ‘Our Enric?’ Margot scornfully mimicked. ‘No doubt because no one else would ever lay claim to you.’

  ‘Not even you?’

  ‘Particularly not me! I’d sooner die than . . .’ The words were no sooner out of her mouth than a wild boar suddenly charged out of the undergrowth in front of them, startling both Margot and her horse. Cursing, she fought with the reins to bring the skittish animal back under control while desperately attempting to maintain her seat in the saddle.

  Henry put back his head and laughed, but when he reached out to grab the reins and help steady her mount, she turned on him like a spitting cat.

  ‘I can manage perfectly well, if you please. Unlike the countless pretty girls who fawn at your feet, I need assistance from no one, least of all from you.’

  This seemed to amuse him all the more. ‘I’m thankful to hear it, since a Princess of France must surely be both brave and steadfast, although she must of course obey her husband, once she has one. If you were my wife, that would most certainly be the case.’

  Cheeks flushed bright pink, and not simply from the effort of bringing her mount back to a steady gait, Margot responded sharply. ‘Only if a husband were worthy of respect, which you would not be. I should never do as you ordered me. Fortunately, I never shall be your wife, so the point will not be put to the test.’

  ‘We may yet be obliged to consider the possibility, since you are back on the market. Would you not care to be my Queen?’

  ‘No, I would not! Your clothes are outmoded, your manners worse than a peasant’s, and your breath smells of garlic.’

  Henry laughed. ‘Of course it does, I’m a Gascon.’

  ‘That does not mean you must be quite so vulgar.’

  But he was no longer listening to her. One of her mother’s Escadron Volant trotted her horse by them at precisely that moment, a pretty brunette with green eyes. Henry instantly lost interest in their sparring and galloped off in pursuit of the girl. Margot was furious. How fickle that boy was.

  The moment she was alone Jeanne reached for quill pen and ink, wasting not a moment in sending a message to warn her fellow leaders of this threat.

  Condé she knew to be ambitious, brave and cunning, a military genius, and as a Bourbon Prince more than ready to claim the throne were King Charles to be deposed. Hump-backed he may be, but far from repulsive in either appearance or character. For all his brilliance he had a weakness for women, who responded easily to his charm and his merry blue eyes. Such antics did not endear him to Coligny, the Admiral, who considered his colleague morally unstable, being himself of a more serious nature.

  Jeanne would consider any threat to the leaders’ safety as tantamount to a declaration of war.

  She wrote and dispatched the letter with all speed before returning to the entertainment planned for her guests.

  Looking about her, Catherine remarked, ‘There are so many nobles here that every evening in the ballroom I could fancy I was still in Bayonne, if only I could see the Queen, my daughter. And everybody dances together: Huguenots, Papists and all, so smoothly that it is impossible to believe that they are as they are. If God willed that they were as wise elsewhere as they are here, we should at last be at rest.’

  ‘We would indeed, Your Majesty,’ Jeanne agreed, but both queens knew this to be a dream that neither would see fulfilled.

  Gaspard de Coligny read the letter from Jeanne in his beloved rose garden at the family home, the Château de Châtillon-sur-Loing. He was a sober, kindly, family man who loved his wife, his children, and his garden almost as much as he did his religion and his country. He’d enjoyed a pious and simple upbringing with his three brothers: Pierre, who had died young, Odet who had become a cardinal, and Andelot whose career was very much parallel to his own.

  He had no love of war and no appetite for torture, unlike some of the generals, nor did he tolerate insurrection within the ranks: no pillage, robbery, loose women or dice games. He made stout laws for his troops and did not flinch at ensuring they were kept, considering himself tough but fair; a solemn and ruthless advocate of justice, as well as a ferocious foe on the battlefield. Because of this, his men honoured and followed him.

  Coligny read the Queen of Navarre’s warning with the kind of stoic indifference one would expect from an old soldier. Later in the day he received another message from the Queen Mother, which troubled him more.

  ‘Her Majesty is demanding that you go to court and take part in a r
econciliation with the Guises,’ Téligny informed him, his tone brittle with anxiety. He was the son of a respected Huguenot family and a young soldier whom Coligny had taken into his home for training in arms and the art of diplomacy.

  ‘Does she indeed?’

  The Guises had seen him as their enemy ever since the murder of the head of their house, Francis, Duc de Guise, two years ago in 1563. The murder had been committed by one Poltrot de Méry, a Protestant who had sworn he was Coligny’s agent, no doubt under torture as he’d later retracted his confession. Despite there being no sound evidence the Guises remained convinced of Coligny’s guilt. Paris too was ready enough to believe the charge, being Catholic and passionate in their support of Francis’s son, the dashing young Henri of Guise.

  Poltrot had been swiftly and publicly despatched, torn into four parts by strong horses whipped to north, south, east and west, but Coligny had so far escaped unharmed, if still an object of loathing to the Guises.

  Now he could not help but wonder what game the Queen Mother was playing by demanding this reconciliation. Clearly she saw the enmity between the two families as a danger to the nation’s peace, and perhaps to the King. But one could never be sure with Catherine that she might not be playing a double game: that she wished for the appearance of peace between them, while at the same time with her serpent’s guile she made other plans.

  ‘Have I not sufficiently demonstrated my innocence by proving the money I paid to Poltrot was for a horse?’

  ‘The Guises claim to possess an incriminating letter.’

  ‘Yet they have never produced such a document, because it does not exist.’

  ‘They must see that you are not the kind of man to involve yourself in treachery. You are upright and honourable. Why do they not remember how friendly you once were with Francis?’

  A wistful sadness crept over the older man’s face as he smiled in recollection. ‘Indeed, that is so. Did I not keep him well supplied with the pick of the crop of my best melons?’

  ‘It would be unwise for you to go to court, Monsieur.’

  ‘My relationship with the King has ever been a good one,’ Coligny demurred, while privately acknowledging Charles was weak with little power. ‘And the Queen Mother depends upon me to negotiate a union between His Majesty and Elizabeth I. As Admiral I am also responsible for strengthening the royal navy. She relies entirely upon my service.’

  Téligny remained obdurate. ‘I still do not recommend you answer her call. The court is a dangerous place at this time for those of our faith, and for you in particular. Does not the Queen of Navarre’s letter warn you to take extra care?’

  Coligny rested a gentle hand upon the young man’s shoulder. ‘I welcome your support, Téligny, as always, but you know as well as I that if the Queen Mother summons me to court, I must obey.

  Leaving Henry with his mother for a short visit, the court journeyed on through western France, through Bordeaux and Nantes, accompanied by a large body of men, which proved wise as they were frequently heckled and jeered by Calvinist fanatics in this very Protestant region. By November they reached Angers, and from there they sailed up the Loire, stopping at various chateaux en route, including the Queen Mother’s favourite, Chenonceau, till they reached Moulins, where the planned reconciliation was to take place.

  Catherine hoped this might be the day to act on the promise she’d made to Alva. She would welcome the opportunity permanently to separate Coligny’s clever military brain from those able shoulders of his.

  But there were too many of them, and they came well armed, bristling with suspicion. There would be other opportunities but today she must smile and dissemble, and keep the peace amongst these dangerous rivals.

  She watched with interest as they warily circled each other. Coligny and the Prince de Condé on the one side, and the entire Guise family, including Anne d’Este, widow of Francis of Guise, on the other. The two families had not been in the same room together for months, convinced as they were that the man really responsible for the murder of the head of their House was Coligny, and not Poltrot.

  The greatest amongst the Guises now was the Cardinal of Lorraine, that sly old fox who spent far more time with his many mistresses than reading the scriptures. His nephew, the handsome young Henri d’Guise, was largely ignoring his Bourbon rivals as he sat whispering with Margot.

  These powerful men thought themselves so grand, so supremely important; the Guises with their eye on the throne arrogantly challenging her power. Coligny determined to oppose the orthodox religion of the realm. She meant to teach them all a little humility.

  Catherine curled her lips into a practised smile. ‘My dear friends, it is good to see you all gathered here together. Without question we all mourn the death of your leader, the great Francis of Guise, victim of a cruel and cowardly act. But for the sake of France we must strive to banish this resentment that exists between your two houses. My one wish is to see you reconciled.’

  Charles said, ‘We wish to officially acquit our dear friend Coligny of any part in the great warlord’s tragic death. Let us see this matter settled.’

  There was a short, tense silence as nobody spoke, nobody moved.

  ‘Come now, Cardinal,’ Catherine urged. ‘We require you to offer a kiss of reconciliation, of forgiveness for the ill feeling between you, which a man so pious as yourself should have no difficulty with. Think of it as necessary for the good of our nation.’

  ‘I bow to your greater wisdom, Madame,’ the Cardinal dryly responded, ‘since you always put the good of the nation before your own.’ With these insincere, ambiguous words, and beneath the cold, watchful gaze of the Queen Mother, he stepped forward towards his bitter rival.

  Coligny stood pale faced, his hand on his sword, carrying out the order with obvious distaste. When it was done, both men stepped quickly away from each other. It was a theatrical display which fooled no one.

  Catherine next turned to the Cardinal’s nephew, the young Henri, Duke of Guise. Face flushed with youthful defiance, he refused point-blank to play the game.

  ‘You ask too much. I cannot betray the memory of my father, not even to please Your Majesty.’

  Catherine considered the heartfelt passion in the boy’s face, his rigid stance with his hand on his sword, as was Coligny’s still, and knew she had lost. She noted how the rest of his family stood proudly behind him, emphasizing by their very stance that although their great leader was dead, they nonetheless had a fine replacement in the form of his son. The meeting had turned into a farce. For all her efforts, her clever acting and dissembling, nothing had been achieved.

  Henri and Margot walked hand in hand in the park. ‘How could I betray my father’s memory? You know how I loved him, how I have sworn to take revenge for his murder.’

  Margot pulled Henri down on a grassy sward to hold him in her arms, breathing in the warm scent of his skin, loving him, swearing her complete support as emotion overcame him over the loss of the father he loved so dearly.

  ‘You are right, my love. How could you risk it? I thought you so brave to stand up to my mother the Queen like that. It was unfair of her to attempt this nonsense of a reconciliation. The order certainly did not come from the King. Charles has far too much sensitivity.’

  The young man dashed the tears from his eyes, embarrassed by this show of weakness. ‘I hate Coligny. The coward should own up to his crime. Poltrot was but a half-witted youth of twenty, clearly acting under orders. My father didn’t stand a chance. He wasn’t even wearing his usual coat of mail, and was shot in the back by an arquebus.’

  ‘I remember that my mother offered her finest surgeons, sitting by his bedside at the camp until he breathed his last,’ Margot said, combing her fingers through Guise’s fair curls as she leaned against the hard strength of his shoulder.

  ‘Poltrot said Coligny had offered him one hundred écus to do the job. What price is that for a life? My father’s life, for pity’s sake! A hero, a warlord.’ Too agitated
to sit still, the hot-headed young man broke free from her embrace to stride back and forth in a fury of impatience. ‘I know Coligny swore on his life that he did no such thing, that he was innocent, but I do not believe him. He is a liar! The plot came directly from him. He freely admitted that Poltrot was one of his men, but it is no defence to say that he would never have trusted the gibbering fool to carry out such a task. The fellow’s very idiocy might have been considered a defence.’

  Margot frowned. ‘I am sure you have every right to be angry, my love.’ Whatever the rights and wrong of the case, Margot wished he would stop ranting and railing, and hold her in his arms.

  Guise swung about, fists clenched, eyes burning with hatred. ‘And do you know what else he said? That although he was innocent, he nevertheless regarded the duke’s death as the greatest benefit which could have befallen the kingdom, God’s Church, and in particular his whole House. What kind of remark is that to make about my father?’

  ‘Despicable!’

  ‘It fills me with rage to think of it. I’d rather run the blackguard through with my sword than kiss his cheek.’

  ‘You can kiss mine.’

  He looked at her lovely face, at the glittering promise in her chestnut eyes, then put back his head and laughed. Gathering Margot tightly in his arms, he kissed her cheek, her lips, her hair, the smooth silk of her throat. ‘At least I have you. Know that I love you, Margot.’

  Warmth spread through her as sweet as honey. ‘I know it. I carry your love in my heart every day.’

  ‘They may allow us to marry in time; we can still hope.’

  ‘There is always hope, and I shall ever love you.’

  ‘And one day – one blessed day – I shall have my revenge on Coligny.’

  ***

  Part Two

  LOVE AND WAR