Médicis Daughter

by Sophie Perinot

  “It was only five thousand men, and I did not finance them.”

  “Not that imprudence—the greater one. You rely too much on one not worthy of your trust.”

  She does not say the name. She does not need to.

  “It is an impossible thing for a mother to see her child in danger and not act. I have devoted my life to preserving and promoting my sons. I have sacrificed much to that exercise, expending my own funds in the crown’s defense, going without sleep, traveling in all weathers to be with Your Majesty or your armies. Yet you prefer to lean upon one who formerly opposed you.” She shakes her head slowly. “It is too much. I must beg leave to withdraw from Court.”

  “You would leave me?” Charles is all agitation. “Where would you go?”

  “To Italy. Am I not always called ‘that Italian’ by those who demonize me?” She draws a kerchief from her sleeve for effect. And His Majesty is affected.

  “Whosoever calls you that within my hearing shall have his tongue cut out. There is no question of you being displaced, in my heart or at my council table. And there can be no question of you quitting France.”

  Mother is not pacified—or at least pretends otherwise.

  “As I am Your Majesty’s humble subject, I will obey and remain within the kingdom’s borders, but I leave for Montceaux today.” She sweeps off.

  Charles tries to display a look of indifference. “Women!” He laughs but the sound is high-pitched and nervous. “Let us go and admire the roses.”

  The King of Navarre offers me an arm. Before we join those trailing His Majesty, my cousin looks in the direction of Mother’s retreat. “I do not believe any letters could do Her Majesty justice,” he says. “She must be seen to be fully understood.”

  * * *

  “A woman is not safe in the streets.” Henriette breezes into my antechamber where Charlotte and I are ensconced tête-à-tête for the morning. When Mother traveled to Montceaux we were left behind. I use my freedom to avoid my cousin, whose awkward attempts at playacted wooing are as tiresome as they are useless, and to do as I like with my friends.

  “Surely it is too early for the pickpockets and cutpurses to have arrived for my wedding,” I say.

  “Those I would know how to deal with,” Henriette replies. “Alas, the avenues are thick with Protestants swaggering about, armed and unwilling to suffer the slightest inconvenience or insult.” She puts her hand on the hilt of an imaginary sword and struts across the room before collapsing into a chair and accepting the glass from Gillone. “It is a horrible spectacle.”

  “Too bad Charles did not take some of them with him when he ran after Her Majesty.” My brother rode out this morning, able to maintain his feigned nonchalance over Mother’s absence for only a single day. The admiral must be bereft. He thought, I suppose, he had liberated the King. What a fool.

  “That would have been very good of His Majesty, particularly if he had taken the King of Navarre, n’est-ce pas?”

  “You read my mind.”

  “I will read it further.” Henriette winks. “You may be sorry that gentleman was left behind, but you are delighted that Guise remains in Paris.”

  “He does?” I did not know this, and “delighted” is an understatement.

  “I do.” Henri saunters in. He has never been in my apartments in daylight before, never entered them openly by the main door. There is something thrilling about the bold nature of it—thrilling and arousing.

  Charlotte makes room beside me.

  “Her Grace is quite right”—Henri scowls where I expect him to smile—“the heretics are unbearable. The people of Paris will not tolerate it. If the Protestants continue in such a manner, some of them will be run out of town before the month is out.”

  “Do not think of the month being out,” I chastise him. Do not think of my wedding being past. “Do not think of the Protestants with their odd ways and odd smells. Think only of me.” I pat my knee. Henri smiles and stretches out on the settle, laying his head in my lap.

  Looking into my face, he says, “Yes, let us be happy.”

  “How is little Henri?” I ask, twirling his hair about my fingers. Oddly, while I hate Henri’s wife, I cannot help taking an interest in his children. Perhaps because he delights in them so. His second son is just over a month old and has a rash, thanks to the insufferable heat.

  “Improving.”

  “He would be better still if you would send him out of this sweltering city,” Henriette remarks. “And you would be better if you sent his mother with him.”

  I take pride in the fact that although the Duchesse de Guise is Henriette’s own sister, my friend’s first loyalty is to me.

  “Perhaps after the wedding,” Henri replies.

  For an instant I think he means my wedding and I am stung by his casual tone.

  “My wife can hardly absent herself from her youngest sister’s nuptials,” he continues, making it clear that he speaks of the upcoming marriage of Marie de Clèves.

  “I too will be traipsing out to Blandy to witness that heretical marriage rite,” Henriette replies. “Poor Marie, only days away from becoming the Princesse de Condé. But perhaps I ought not to pity her: marrying Protestants is the fashion this season.”

  “It is a fashion I do not care for.” Henri’s voice is thick with disgust.

  “Yet another matter, Duc, on which we disagree.” The familiar and unwelcome voice startles me. My cousin stands in my doorway. How I wish, despite the stifling heat, it had not been left open!

  Snatching my fingers from the Duc’s hair, I feel acutely embarrassed. Apparently Henri does not, for he leaves his head in my lap, merely turning it so he can see my cousin better.

  “Do we agree on anything?” he asks quietly.

  “I believe we agree that my soon-to-be wife is the loveliest of women.” The King of Navarre smiles; then meeting my eyes, he says as if nothing were amiss, “I am going to play tennis and wondered if you wished to watch, but it is clear you are occupied.”

  My face burns. I find I do not know where to put the hand that played in the Duc’s curls. “I can come if you like.” Why did I say that?

  “No, no,” my cousin replies, with a magnanimous wave of his hand. “You will have ample occasions to watch me beat my gentlemen at sport while your present form of entertainment is coming to an end.” Then he is gone.

  I sit stunned, but Henriette throws back her head and laughs. “My goodness, that was exciting. I would not have thought the King of Navarre capable of such self-possession, such detachment! Whatever else we think of him, we must applaud that.”

  Henri sits up, looking at Henriette with disbelief. “He is a coward. He ought to have challenged me.”

  “Yes, that would have been politic.” Henriette looks nearly as disbelieving as Henri.

  “Defense of one’s honor is not a matter for prudence.”

  “That is a definite and unequivocal philosophy, but not one likely to lead to a long life or increased offices.”

  “What about you?” Henri turns to me. “Do you find something to admire in the King of Navarre’s display?”

  “Indeed not. I have yet to find anything admirable in the gentleman.” I say this because I would not side with Henriette against my Duc, but it is not entirely true. If I were honest, I would have to admit to being impressed by my cousin’s ability to make us all look foolish in a situation where he might have been expected to do so. He showed an admirable control of his temper. Unless the sight of the Duc and myself in such an intimate position simply did not raise his ire … The thought both unsettles and nettles me. I want to banish it. Want things to return to the easy way they were before my cousin entered. But the mood is spoiled. This, I realize, is my fate. The King of Navarre will be every day more and more present in my life, in my apartments, in my thoughts. He, or the specter of him, will intrude unexpectedly, making conversations awkward and matters between Henri and me uneasy.

  “What shall we do now?” Char
lotte asks, trying to break the tension.

  “Pray the papal dispensation fails to arrive,” Henri says grimly. “Because if it comes, I will be pledged to kill two heretics instead of one.”

  * * *

  Charles and Mother return reconciled, helped in their rapprochement by the fact His Majesty’s council met at Montceaux without the admiral. The king’s commanders—Montpensier, Nevers, Cossé, and Anjou—spoke with one voice for peace, reinforcing Mother’s position, and Charles, unaccustomed to standing up to so many, declared he has no intention of going to war with Spain. So, for the moment, mother beams at him and leans upon his arm as she ordinarily leans upon Anjou’s.

  But while the two appear at peace, all the world else becomes increasingly less so. The heat is partly to blame. Who can be civil in the oven Paris has become? But it is more—it is as Henriette said: there is something about the sight of so many Protestants strolling about both the halls of the Louvre and the avenues of the city as if they were in every manner equal to the Catholics that roils those of the true faith. Priests speak from their pulpits against the “invaders” even though doing so brings the wrath of Her Majesty down upon them.

  Within the Court, Anjou and his gentlemen pick fights with my cousin’s men. Every sport becomes serious. Tennis draws blood. Wrestling resembles combat. As in the city, Mother does what she can to quiet mounting tensions. And when she has limited success, she acts to assure they will be of the shortest possible duration, having Charles declare all official business suspended during the events of my wedding, and that two days after those celebrations his entire household will quit the city for Fontainebleau, seeking better air for the Queen Consort.

  I weep daily. Last evening I began to cry while in bed with Henri, rendering him so agitated that I feared he would take his dagger and charge through the rooms of the Louvre in nothing but his shirt, seeking my cousin. His lack of control frightened me. Even as I would avoid marrying the King of Navarre if I could, I cannot quite wish him dead. Beyond my moral compunctions, the death of my cousin at Henri’s hands would mean a death sentence for my love in turn. I soothed my Duc and made him swear to me he will not be rash or violent. I cannot, however, keep him from hating, nor from brooding. When we are in company, Henri’s eyes are constantly on the King of Navarre.

  “Did I not know the odious duty fell to me, I might think the Duc charged with the King of Navarre’s seduction,” Charlotte jokes from behind her hand.

  We are in the King’s apartment, four dozen ladies and gentlemen—the choicest members of my brother’s household and my cousin’s—allegedly enjoying an evening together. My cousin plays dice with the King. Guise walks the perimeter of the room staring at him.

  “Were that the case, softer looks might serve Guise better. In fact, they might serve him better now, if you could persuade him to them, Margot,” Henriette says. “It has taken His Grace full long to be restored to royal favor; it would be foolish for him to harm himself there by offending a prince your mother and brother wish embraced.”

  I shrug, then curse myself for doing so, as the gesture reminds me of my cousin. “I cannot make Henri other than he is. As he loves me, he cannot bear the King of Navarre.”

  “Well, he will have to bear him, just as you have had to bear my sister,” Henriette replies.

  The King of Navarre cries out triumphantly and receives a slap on the shoulder from one of his friends, a man I see him with constantly. Is it the Seigneur de Pilles? I can never remember the names of his gentlemen, perhaps because I do not care to know them. My cousin rises. Charlotte sighs and does likewise.

  “Wish me luck,” she says before gliding off to fuss over him.

  “She is a fool to ask me to wish her luck. I have none myself,” I say.

  “You do not need luck, for you have beauty and talent.” Leaning over between Henriette and me, my brother François holds out a lute and smiles. “Will you play for me?”

  Taking the instrument, I smile back at him. “Of course.”

  François takes a seat on the floor before me. I begin to play and sing softly. Like a siren’s call my voice draws Henri. He stops just behind me and rests a hand on my shoulder possessively. The Prince de Condé says, “Cousin, you miss the performance.”

  My cousin turns from Charlotte, with whom he has been whispering. Not understanding Condé’s meaning and seeing me with the lute, he says, “Apologies, Mademoiselle, do you play for us?”

  “I play for whoever will listen.”

  “What an agreeable woman.” Condé smiles, but there is no warmth in it. “The Duchesse de Valois is not particular. She will entertain all comers.”

  Henriette draws an audible breath and puts a hand on my leg. Henri’s hand tightens on my shoulder, but it is François who comes to my defense. Springing to his feet he says, “What do you insinuate, Sir?”

  The King of Navarre touches Condé’s arm.

  The Prince ignores him. “Come outside and I will be explicit.”

  “Gladly, Sir, only let us first send for our swords so that once you have done I may make quick work of you.”

  The Protestant gentleman I have come to recognize as Seigneur de Pilles laughs, doubtless because François is untried in combat and the Prince a veteran of the wars. That laugh is a mistake. Enraged, François spins, looking for the source. When he cannot identify it, his eyes come to rest on Charles. “Brother, were these Huguenots not your guests I would slay them all and leave none to make light of Valois honor or ability.”

  “And I would gladly help you.” Henri’s voice over my shoulder is soft, but not so soft that the King or the Prince de Condé fail to hear it.

  “I do not like your chances,” Condé replies. “We are as many as you, and none of us have surrendered.” This last, an open jab at Anjou and the tale that he killed the Prince’s father only after that gentleman was his prisoner, draws gasps.

  Anjou, who until now leaned in a corner with Saint-Mégrin enjoying the unfolding spectacle, moves to join François, clapping his arm around my younger brother’s shoulder in a rare show of unity. “When we send for the swords, brother,” he says, “perhaps we should see if there is an ass in the stables.”

  Condé takes a step toward Anjou but only one before Charles jumps to his feet. “What is wrong with all of you?” he shouts. “Are you so fond of dying? Fine, but mark this: I am king. You die when and where I command, not here and not now.” He looks back and forth between the would-be combatants. The King of Navarre again touches Condé’s sleeve, this time to effect. The gentleman steps back. Charles nods in approbation, then looks piercingly at Anjou and Alençon. François moves to join Guise behind me. Anjou gives Condé one last sneer and saunters back toward Saint-Mégrin.

  “I am tired of Frenchmen killing Frenchmen,” the King proclaims. “The admiral is right: I must send you all to fight the Spanish, if only so that I may have peace.” Throwing himself back into his seat, he picks up his glass, drains it, and then holds it out for Marie to refill.

  In the corner Anjou gives a little smile. I know what he is thinking: here is something to tell Mother that will remove Charles from her favor again.

  Condé stalks to where several Protestant gentlemen were, until the disruption, playing cards. He taps one on the shoulder and that gentleman quickly makes way for him. “Deal,” the Prince says. The sound of cards being shuffled breaks the silence.

  “That is right,” Charles says, “let us return to more pleasurable pastimes.”

  Crossing to where I sit, my cousin gives me a smile. “It seems I have been negligent in my attentions this evening and look where that brought us. If you will play again, my attention is entirely yours.”

  I have no desire for my cousin’s attention but nor do I wish the evening to devolve further into unpleasantness or violence. So I smile and take the lute up from my lap. As I begin to play, Henriette vacates her seat. “This place is yours, Sir,” she says to the King of Navarre. Then, moving to Guise’s side
: “Brother, you must take me for a turn. We are both, I think, overheated.” I feel the Duc’s hand leave my shoulder.

  As he and my friend stroll away, my cousin says, “With so many Henries it is easy to become confused, so I will be plain. I am not my cousin Condé who would defame you. Nor am I your brother who plays everyone to his own end. But just as I would not have you mistake me for them, do not mistake the Duc de Guise for me—I am the man who will, in less than a week’s time, be your husband.”

  “Sir, I am under no illusion to the contrary. It is that thought which keeps me awake nights.”

  * * *

  There is a rumor that, with my ceremony of betrothal and wedding mere days away, the papal dispensation has not arrived. My heart is light. My feet have wings as they carry me in search of Charles. I must know the truth. I am nearly running when I round a corner and come upon my cousin, sans doublet, shirt open at the neck.

  “You look very happy,” he remarks, stopping to bow and forcing me to stop by doing so.

  I am stuck for a response. I am happy, but the source of my happiness is hardly something I can disclose without seeming cruel.

  I notice he is smiling and take my inspiration there. “You also.”

  “I’ve just left your brother Anjou blaming the heat for his loss to me at tennis.”

  I smile at the thought of this.

  “Can it be we are sharing a moment of enjoyment?” My cousin’s voice is playful. “I believe we are. Well, then, I will seize the chance to say I hope it will be the first of many.”

  I do not share his hope, but again, I do not wish to be contrary to no purpose. “I would be glad to see you happy.” It is true. My cousin is far from my favorite person, but he becomes more likable as he becomes more familiar. And unlike many I might name, he has never deliberately sought to harm me. “And I am very glad you beat Anjou.”

  “Soundly,” he assures me, his voice both confident and teasing.

  I applaud lightly. “The more soundly the better.”