Queen Jezebel

by Виктория Холт

  She had written to Henry at once. ‘You must let me be told of your affairs. I do not ask because I wish to control them, but because, if they go well, my heart will be at ease, and if they go ill, it might be that I can help you in your trouble. You are my “All”, but even if you love me, you do not trust me as you ought. Forgive me if I speak frankly to you, but if you no longer trust me I have no wish to live longer. I have never greatly cared for life since your father died and I only cared to live that I might serve you and God.’

  But when she had written that, she had had to smile. There was only the smallest grain of truth in those words. He had wounded her deeply by his lack of trust, but she wanted fervently to live, even if she had to work against him to keep her power.

  Well, here were the rival camps—Henry and his darlings in one, Alençon, Margot, Bussy and Navarre in the other. It was like the old fight between the Bourbons and the Guises. That reminded her that she must not lose sight of Monsieur de Guise, for he was only temporarily in eclipse.

  The old stimulation was working within her. Discord between the two camps was to be the order of the day.

  ‘And as for you, Monsieur de Guast,’ she muttered, ‘make the most of your stay on Earth, for I do not think, little mignon, that you will enjoy it much longer!’

  * * *

  Du Guast was quick to realize that the person most to be feared in the opposite camp was Margot. He therefore planned to have her discredited so that it would be necessary to banish her from the court.

  An opportunity came when he knew her to be visiting the house, not far from the Louvre, in which she was accustomed to meet Bussy. Du Guast decided that if he could catch her and the young man there it would be possible to have them both banished.

  He had arranged that he and the King, together with Navarre and an attendant of du Guast, should be in that quarter of the town during Margot’s rendezvous with her lover. It was perfectly timed; the King’s coach drove slowly past the house, and du Guast’s man, primed by his master, said to Navarre: ‘There is a house which is owned by the brave Bussy. I’d wager you, my lord, that if you were to break in there now, you would find your wife with him.’

  Even the lazy provincial must make some show of indignation at such a suggestion; and the outcome was that the man who had made the remark so damaging to Margot must be challenged, which resulted in the whole party’s breaking into the house. There they discovered a disordered bedchamber; on the bed were black satin sheets such as Margot was known to favour; there was a heavy perfume in the air; but there was no sign of the lovers.

  ‘They have been here!’ cried the King. ‘We took too long in getting in. They have been warned and have flown.’

  Navarre, aware of the mocking eyes of the King and du Guast, took du Guast’s man by the throat and shook him. ‘You shall not,’ he said, ‘make accusations against my wife.’

  The King said languidly: ‘No violence, I beg of you. This is the perfume Margot favours. I do not like it. Do you, dear Louis? It contains too much musk. I should know it anywhere for Margot’s. There is not a doubt that she has been here; she was warned in time to get away.’

  Navarre shrugged his shoulders. It seemed absurd for him to protect Margot’s name and reputation when she herself took no pains to do so. Everyone knew that she was Bussy’s mistress; why make a fuss about discovering that they had met on a particular occasion?

  But the King, with du Guast at his elbow, was not going to let the matter pass. He now feigned fury at his sister’s conduct. He would, he said, severely reprimand her; and on his return to the Louvre he went straight to his mother.

  ‘I want your help,’ he said.

  Catherine smiled warmly, despite a conjecture that it could not be a matter of importance, since he came to her instead of going to du Guast.

  ‘It concerns your daughter.’

  ‘And what has Margot done?’

  ‘She behaves like a courtesan.’

  ‘That is not such a clever discovery, my son. Had you come to me, I could have told you all you wished to know of her conduct. I will speak to her, warn her to be more careful.’

  ‘I want you to be really angry with her.’

  ‘I will, if you command it.’

  ‘I do command it. I will have her sent to you at once.’

  ‘Tell me all that has happened. I must know all.’

  ‘We were riding through the streets when we passed the house where she was misconducting herself so shamefully.’

  ‘Who was with you?’

  ‘It was a party which Louis had arranged. We were going to call on Caylus.’

  Louis! thought Catherine. Monsieur Louis Bérenger du Guast! So this is your work!

  ‘Very well, my son,’ she said. ‘I will do as you say.’ And she thought: it might be that this will offer an opportunity. Who knows? It will be as well to look for it!

  * * *

  Margot, breathless from her hurried return to the palace, had hardly time to compose herself before she was told that her mother wished to see her at once.

  As she hurried to Catherine’s apartments, she came face to face with Henry of Guise. She became immediately excited, as she always did when she met him; she looked at him disdainfully, thinking: he has grown older since I loved him; he has become the father of several children. He is no longer young Monsieur de Guise even if he is still handsome.

  He smiled at her. She wished that he would not smile in that way. She remembered those smiles too well.

  ‘I was looking for you,’ he said.

  She was silent, her eyebrows raised, her eyes haughty, her expression cold.

  ‘I wanted to warn you,’ he went on. ‘Come in here.’

  He took her by the arm and drew her into a small chamber close by. She felt angry because she could not stop herself recalling other occasions when he and she had been together in other small rooms.

  He closed the door quietly and said: ‘The King is angry with you. Your mother is furious with you. Do not go to her yet. Let her anger cool for a while.’

  ‘It is good of you, Monsieur de Guise,’ she said, ‘to concern yourself with my affairs.’

  ‘I would always do that,’ he answered. ‘I shall always hope that you will allow me to help you when your affairs go not well.’

  She laughed. ‘How could that be? You have no place in my affairs.’

  ‘Alas! That is a matter of deep regret to me. Nevertheless, I can warn you when I see that you are in danger. That is a privilege I may still enjoy, though others are denied me. I ask you not to go to your mother now. You remember that occasion when your mother and Charles between them almost killed you?’

  ‘That is an occasion, Monsieur, which I have taught myself to forget, being deeply ashamed of it.’

  ‘But you should remember it—even if you forget your partner in that adventure. You should profit by it. And you should profit by it now.’

  She wished he would not speak to her in that tender voice. She knew that she had only to fling herself into his arms to join together the broken strands of that wild and passionate affair. What is the use of pretending, said his eyes, that any man can please you as I do, that any woman could please me as you do? Have done with this folly. Come back to me. Even now it may not be too late for that divorce. We will marry and rule France together.

  Now she saw his meaning clearly. Ambition first, love second, with Monsieur de Guise. What had she that Charlotte de Sauves had not? The answer was simple: royalty. She was a Princess of France.

  Bussy was a fine man, a very fine man, she assured herself, He was amusing, virile, passionate—a good lover; if he was not so completely devoted as Monsieur de la Mole had been, he was more amusing than the melancholy gentleman whose head she had forgotten even to look at for many months. She was happy with Bussy. She would never again love as she had loved Henry. of Guise perhaps, neither would she suffer again as she had suffered through him.

  She laughed. ‘Oh, come, Monsieur de
Guise, why do you pretend to be sorry? My brother is angry with me. My mother wishes to punish me. My younger brother hates my elder brother. We are a family working against itself. We are not like the family of Guise, are we? We have our passions, our jealousies, our loves, our hates. We lack the overpowering ambition of the House of Guise and Lorraine. Do you think I have not noticed you during these terrible weeks? Do not look so delighted with yourself. It was not your beauty that I, admired; it was your cunning. You strut through Paris—the King of Paris. The people almost kiss the hem of your robes.I have seen them. You are restrained. When they cry, “Vive le bon Duc de Guise!” you urge them to cry, “Vive le Roi!” But I know you well. I know what goes on in your mind. I know why you are so anxious for these poor people. I know why you offer them sympathy and alms. I have seen you shake a dirty hand with tears in your eyes. It is said that the great Duke of Guise never fails to take a man by the hand, be he Prince or beggar. He is familiar with all—a friend of the poor, yet the greatest aristocratin France.I have heard them. “Ah,” they say, “there is a true gentleman, before whom these Valois striplings are like strolling players!”And they weep for the great gentleman. They more than weep. They look up to him . . . hopefully, and they wonder when he is going to make himself the King in very truth.’

  ‘Margot!’ he cried in horror. ‘What do you mean? This is madness!’

  ‘Madness? You are right. Curb your madness, Monsieur, before it is too late. You aim too high, my lord Duke . . . in politics and in matrimony. Now, pray let me pass.’

  She went out smiling. She had alarmed him. She had left him wondering whether he had been too rash. Had others noticed his little game?

  Then she wanted to weep, and she whispered to herself: ‘No, others have not noticed. You have been very clever, my darling; and it is only Margot who notices, Margot who understands you so well that she is aware of everything you do while she pretends to ignore you.’

  She went to her mother’s apartment. Catherine dismissed her attendants and began to attack her daughter—not physically this time, but with words, which could not hurt; and in any case Margot was not listening; she could think only of Henry of Guise.

  * * *

  Du Guast was not satisfied with Catherine’s single reprimand. He wished Margot to be completely discredited, and to be recognized at the court as a loose woman who could bring only dishonour to any party she favoured. He wished everyone to know—and in particular the Queen Mother—that when he asked a favour of the King it must always be granted.

  There must therefore, du Guast assured the King, be more open reprimands.

  Henry went to his mother.

  ‘I cannot allow my sister to behave as she does. The whole of Paris talks of her wantonness. She should be banished from court.’

  ‘Paris has always talked,’ said Catherine. ‘They talk of you in pads, my son, and they talk in the same treacherous way as they do of your sister. Why, they even talk of a poor weak woman such as myself.’

  ‘You must speak to her again.’

  But Catherine was not going to do that even. to please Henry. Margot was no longer merely an impetuous girl. Margot was involved in the plots of her younger brother and her husband; she was shrewd and clever and must be treated with the respect such shrewdness and cleverness demanded.

  ‘Firebrands have inflamed your mind, my son,’ she said. ‘I do not understand people today. When I was young we talked freely with all the world, and all the well-bred men who followed your father and your uncles were seen in my rooms every day. Bussy sees my daughter in your presence and in her husband’s. What harm is there in this? You are unwise in this matter, my son. You have already offered her an insult which she will not readily forget.’

  Henry was astonished that she could appear to work for Margot against him. ‘I only say what others tell me,’ he said.

  ‘Who are these others?’ she asked. ‘People who wish to set you and your family by the ears!’

  That was said while there were attendants present; when Catherine was alone with her son, she had more to say on the subject.

  ‘It is not your sister’s morals that worry you. It is that swaggering lover of hers. He goads Alençon and feeds your brother’s ambition. It would be wiser to dismiss Bussy from court than your sister.’

  ‘I will do it. He shall go.’

  Catherine caught his arm and brought her face closer to his. ‘Use my sublety, my son. There are more ways of banishment than one. It would be easy for an assassin to pick Bussy out from a group. You know that because of a recent wound he wears his arm in a sling, and the sling is of beautiful silk, the colour of the columbine flower. That sling would make of him an easy target.’

  ‘You are right,’ said the King. ‘When there is a question of removing a nuisance, you always have the right ideas.’

  ‘Always remember that I work for you, my darling.’

  She thought: once I have rid myself of that odious du Guast he will be all mine once more.

  Catherine waited for news. What would follow the death of Bussy? It must be the death of du Guast, for all would believe that man to be behind the assassination, and Bussy had too many friends to allow his murderer to escape. No one would guess that the Queen Mother had anything to do with the affair, and she would enjoy comforting her beloved son when he mourned the death of his favourite.

  But matters did not go quite according to her plan.

  That night du Guast sent three hundred men of his Sardinian regiment to wait along the route which Bussy must take from his lodgings to the palace; these men were divided into groups so that it would be impossible for Bussy to escape detection by some of them. Bussy was with a few friends when a group of the soldiers attacked him; but Bussy was one of the finest swordsmen in Paris, and even through his arm was in a sling, he gave a good account of himself and left many of the soldiers dead. The scene was lighted only by flambeaux and, as one of Bussy’s followers had also hurt his arm and was wearing a sling of the same columbine shade, though not so elaborately embroidered as his master’s, it was an easy matter for the soldiers to mistake the one for the other; and when Bussy’s man had been run through and lay dead on the cobbles, they thought their work was done, and retired.

  Meanwhile the Louvre had been aroused by the return of one of Bussy’s men who had escaped at the beginning of the battle. Alençon was furious, and was preparing to go to the support of Bussy, when Bussy himself, wounded but by no means fatally, came running into the palace.

  Margot was there with Catherine and her brother, and, impetuously, before them all, Margot embraced her lover.

  ‘It was nothing,’ said Bussy. ‘Little more than a joust. They have killed some of us, but we have pinked twice as many.’

  This affair brought matters into the open. The King ordered the arrest of Bussy, and Alençon himself was put under closer restraint.

  Catherine now began to play her game very carefully. She offered sympathy and advice to Alençon. ‘The King is ruled by his favourite,’ she said, ‘and it is this favourite who is responsible for the trouble. You can guess that he is no more my friend than yours, for while he seeks to plague you, he leads the King away from me.’

  It seemed reasonable to Alençon and Margot that their mother might wish to help them, as she must hate du Guast as much as they did.

  To the King, Catherine said: ‘It was unfortunate that Monsieur du Guast’s men were not more careful. But at least you have Bussy and your brother under control. It would be better to banish Bussy. I will persuade Alençon to let him go, so that there shall be no more trouble between you and your brother.’

  She conveyed this to Alençon and he, guessing that if his friend remained in Paris some means of murdering him would be found. agreed to Bussy’s temporary banishment, although the loss of such a friend weakened his position considerably. As for Margot, she was furious to be robbed of her lover, and she blamed du Guast; she was determined that he should suffer for what he had do
ne to her.

  Catherine offered sympathy to Margot as well as to Alençon.

  ‘Bussy is a fine man,’ she said. ‘A most amusing gentleman. He is the best swordsman in Paris.’ To Alençon she said: ‘He would have been a good friend to you, my son, if you could have kept him with you. You know whom you have to blame for his banishment.’

  ‘Du Guast!’ said Alençon and Margot simultaneously.

  He grows too important,’ said Catherine. ‘He has cast a spell over the King. There will be no releasing His Majesty from the spell while that man lives.’

  ‘It would be well,’ said Margot, ‘if someone shot him as tried to shoot poor Bussy.’

  ‘Yes,’ agreed Catherine. ‘But such affrays often fail. Remember Monsieur de Coligny. And there is this affair of Bussy him_ self. There are better methods. Let us hope that one day this man will be strangled in his bed. There would be no mistake then. An assassin . . . secreted in his bedchamber, and while he sleeps . . . Why, it would not be known who had done the deed, and that is important when a man is such a favourite of a King.’

  Margot and Alençon were silent. They both understood. Catherine wanted du Guast out of the way, but, in view of the King’s devotion to the man and Catherine’s desire not to offend her beloved, she wished it to seem that she had had no hand in this murder.

  ‘It would assuredly be a pleasure to hear that he had been strangled in his bed,’ said Margot.

  Catherine left them together, to talk over, as she thought, this idea she had given them. She did not know that her son and daughter were busy with another plan.

  Alençon was not going to endure being kept in semi-captivity. He was impatient. Margot called in Navarre, and the three of them talked together.

  ‘It is very necessary,’ said Margot, ‘that you two sink your differences. Madame de Sauves is very beautiful, I grant you; but she is far more fond of Messieurs de Guise and du Guast than of either of you. Moreover, do you not see that du Guast has become her intimate so that he can discover all that he wishes to know about you? You are fools, both of you. You let that woman lead you by the nose.’