Spy for the Queen of Scots

by Theresa Breslin

  A man’s voice in the outer chamber.

  Duncan was almost in the room! Would he merely grip my hands to capture me and lead me to the summerhouse, as Mary had decreed? This would be the proper way to play the game, and I should submit and meekly follow him. But perhaps – perhaps, as we were alone, he might put his arms around me. I could make a show of trying to struggle free. I trembled in pleasurable anticipation.

  Footsteps approached across the wooden floor.

  Silence.

  My heart dipped. He might not think to peep behind the curtain. Should I let out a squeak of pretend fear to alert him to my presence? I was just about to do so when the voice spoke again, very quietly. ‘In here?’

  It was not Duncan.

  ‘Yes. Now shut the door. We must be private.’

  Two people. Neither of them my playmates from the game.

  One voice, the man’s, I didn’t know, but the other – the one that had given the order – I did recognize, and my heart began to beat in alarm.

  It was the Queen of France, Catherine de’ Medici!

  Chapter 2

  FEAR FLOODED THROUGH my body.

  The significance of the single royal initial on the desk and chair was suddenly obvious. I had strayed into the private study of the Queen of France!

  No more than the thickness of the curtains separated me from being discovered. Catherine de’ Medici was fiercely protective of her status and punished those who didn’t respect it. I’d intruded into her personal room without express permission! I could be whipped. Maybe banished in disgrace.

  I should let her know of my presence in her study. I should . . . But I could not move.

  ‘You expressed an interest’ – Queen Catherine spoke slowly and deliberately to the other person in the room – ‘in some of the . . . medicines that I keep for special use.’

  She was speaking Italian but I could understand that language, for my mother had spoken it to me when I was a child.

  ‘Majesty,’ the man replied humbly; although he too spoke Italian, he was not a native speaker. ‘I thought it was you who summoned me to—’

  ‘I have a substance’ – the queen didn’t let him finish – ‘which may be of interest to you. In Florence it was a sure method to get rid of’ – she hesitated and emphasized the next word – ‘vermin. It leaves little trace of its presence within the body; merely some mottling on the neck that’s likely to be confused with measles. I am talking here of animals . . .’ Then she paused, as if in afterthought, ‘However I expect it would have the same result on humans.’

  In the gap between the curtains I could see into the room. They were standing in front of the panelling at the fireplace. The queen lifted the hem of her skirt and, using her foot, pressed down upon a certain floorboard. There was a click, and the door of a secret cupboard within the panelling opened.

  Catherine de’ Medici took out a flat box and raised the lid. ‘Let me bring it nearer to the light that you may see more clearly.’

  They were so close now that I could hear them breathing!

  ‘There,’ she said as she held the box next to the lamp. ‘It resembles sugar crystals and is sweet, but with an aroma and taste similar to mint. A liberal amount is needed, else the . . . creature will only sicken and may recover. Although,’ she mused, as if to herself, ‘sometimes the use of continuous small doses is more effective, for if a person is frequently indisposed, then they are less able to meddle . . .’ She tailed off.

  ‘I could sweeten the dessert of any unwelcome visitor,’ the man laughed.

  ‘Quite what you do with it, sir,’ Queen Catherine said coldly, ‘is your own business.’

  ‘Of course, majesty. I beg your pardon.’

  ‘It is true’ – the queen’s voice was loaded with what sounded like artificial regret –‘that there are guests at my court who do mightily outstay their welcome. They are often in the company of my future daughter-in-law, whose welfare it is my duty to mind, and their conversations, as reported to me, are somewhat critical of our state. I have noted Mary Stuart’s half-brother, her illegitimate half-brother, Lord James Stuart – the eldest of many such brothers her kingly father managed to sire before his untimely death . . . he may be kinsman of yours?’ Between the first sentence and the last her tone had become nasty and suspicious.

  ‘No!’ The man reacted in terror. ‘Countryman, yes, but only of my Scottish grandmother. The Stuarts are no true kin to me. And I do not share their ways of thinking.’

  ‘That is indeed reassuring.’ Queen Catherine mellowed in approval. ‘For one wonders if the influence of a man like Lord James Stuart over a young and vulnerable girl is quite benign. Mary’s own mother will rule Scotland very well as regent until Mary comes of age and I see no good reason why Lord James Stuart should interfere in royal business. But now, to the matter in hand.’ She snapped down the lid of the box and handed it to him. ‘I allow you to have this substance only because I have heard that you are a person who wishes to develop skills as an apothecary.’

  ‘Yes, indeed, indeed I do.’

  ‘Therefore, to that end’ – the queen took a roll of parchment from a drawer in the desk –‘I now gift to you a house with some land adjacent to the Palace of Fontainebleau where you may grow herbs and other plants for the benefit of mankind.’ She paused. ‘I will, naturally, be very interested in your work, in hearing of whatever new and interesting preparations you concoct . . . that might be useful to me.’

  ‘Majesty, I thank you. Most humbly and gratefully. I am very conscious of the honour you bestow and your generosity to me. I will be your obedient servant for life. This I swear.’ The man hesitated. And then, stuttering, he spoke once more. ‘M-majesty . . . I would serve you in any way I am able.’ Again he stumbled over his words. ‘Any – anything I might do to please you . . . anything at all. If you but give me the command.’

  ‘There are commands,’ Queen Catherine spoke carefully, ‘that a monarch is not able to give.’

  ‘Ah.’ The man’s reply was barely audible.

  ‘I will arrange a role for you as a visiting apothecary at court. A person who can come and go at will. We will rarely be together but a good servant knows the unspoken wish of their master and does not hesitate to carry it out.’

  ‘Yes,’ he replied. ‘I think I understand.’

  ‘You are dismissed.’ The queen waved him away. The man slipped both parchment and box inside his tunic and withdrew.

  For what seemed like an age I stood there quaking.

  I could hear nothing. Perhaps if the queen had departed it might be safe for me also to go? I put my eye to the gap. Catherine was leaning her forehead against the mantelpiece, gazing into the dead ashes in the grate. She roused herself and murmured, ‘As a mother and a queen, is it wrong to try to safeguard one’s children?’ She heaved a great sigh. ‘I protect them for France . . . and I protect France for them.’

  There was a tap on the door to the outer room.

  ‘Majesty,’ a courtier announced when she bade him enter, ‘the king awaits your presence as he would walk with you in the gardens.’

  Catherine’s voice was pleased as she answered him. ‘Inform his majesty I will be with him at once.’

  For several minutes after the queen left the room I stayed behind the curtains. I was petrified of moving but knew that I couldn’t remain in hiding for ever. I gathered my courage and made ready to leave. Before doing so, I glanced down into the yard below.

  He was there! The man who’d been in the room with Queen Catherine. There must be a private staircase leading from her apartments to the service yard so that messengers could come and go at her bidding without the rest of the court being aware of their presence.

  His horse was being brought by a groom who held his stirrup as the man took the reins. Just before mounting he raised his head and glanced up in my direction.

  I leaped back from the window, but I knew that I was too late. He had seen me!

  Chapter
3

  WRENCHING THE CURTAINS apart, I ran out of the queen’s study.

  I fled through the next larger room and into the upper corridor. At one end the cluster of courtiers had been joined by a group of nobles, and Catherine de’ Medici was among them. Their backs were to me. I spun round and began to hasten in the opposite direction.

  What had happened in that small study? What had I witnessed?

  During my early years in the distant northern kingdom of Scotland, I’d heard of the infamous Queen of France, Catherine de’ Medici. Credited with bringing recipes for perfumes from her own country of Italy to France – to the extent that the French were becoming known for their skill in blending fragrances – she’d also acquired a reputation in another art: that of mixing substances to make poison. And, it was said, being devious, had rid herself of many enemies by this method. My mother, who was herself Italian, smiled when these stories were repeated at the Scottish court.

  ‘The French don’t like the Italians,’ she’d told me. ‘There is always discord between countries whose borders meet, like here with Scotland and England. But also, the French prize royalty very highly and Catherine de’ Medici is not of the blood royal so the French nobles spread gossip and ill rumour about her. She’s a daughter of the Medici family of Florence who are bankers to the world. King Henri was contracted to marry Catherine de’ Medici, partly because she was the niece of a Pope and therefore nobility of a sort, but it was mainly for her dowry and the loans that could be secured from her family to finance French wars. Catherine was very young when she arrived in France. She fell hopelessly in love with her new husband, Henri. But he doesn’t care for her in that way and has, in fact, a long-standing liaison with a Duchess, Diane de Poitiers, who is established in the court as all but his wife. Catherine pines for the king’s attention and is ruthlessly ambitious for her children.’ My mother’s face became thoughtful and she murmured to herself, ‘I suppose to live like that for so many years, constantly humiliated because your husband openly favours another, could drive a woman to desperate measures.’

  How I wished that my wise mother were alive and that I could run to her as I used to when I was troubled and lay my head on her lap and pour out all my fears and worries. But she died when I was nine, and my father, being on active duty as an army commander in Scotland, thought it best that I return to France to be looked after as a ward of the court. Mary Stuart, in kindness to me, for our mothers had been close, drew me into her circle of companions. And, as we were of the same age, during the last six years I had been her playmate and was now her bosom friend. So now, out of loyalty and love, I must calm myself so that no upset over this morning’s events reached her.

  I forced myself to walk more slowly and tried to clear my mind and think sensibly as my mother would have advised. The rumours about Queen Catherine were lies. The man in her room, whoever he was, was an apprentice apothecary. She was mentoring him. I knew that she sponsored the sciences and had discussions with like-minded people. That was it. He was an apothecary who had found favour with the queen. The snippets of conversation I’d heard were meaningless. I shouldn’t be afraid. Not for Mary Stuart, nor for those around her. My imagination was conjuring something from nothing.

  Nothing.

  There was no danger to anyone within the court, no plots, or intrigue. What I had seen meant nothing.

  Nothing, I told myself. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing.

  Arms grabbed me from behind. I screamed in panic.

  ‘I have you!’

  I struggled frantically, but to no avail: I was held fast in a firm grip. A giddy swoon engulfed me. Blood thundered in my head.

  ‘You must pay a penalty!’

  It was Duncan Alexander. He wound his arms around my waist and, in a voice of teasing menace, spoke into my ear: ‘What suitable forfeit should I ask of you?’

  ‘Horrid man!’ I cried out. I swivelled round, slapping his face, and pushed him away. ‘Stupid, horrid man!’

  He sprang back from me in shock, putting his hand to his cheek, where I had drawn blood with my nails. ‘I only meant . . .’ he stammered. ‘I thought you wanted . . .’

  I didn’t know whether I was going to faint or have a fit of hysterics. Instead I burst into tears and ran off.

  The calls and laughter of the other young men and girls came to me from a distance. I needed to get away. Beyond the hall were the servants’ stairs. I stumbled down them and ran towards the stable yard behind the castle. I would go and be with the horses, for I always found their presence soothing.

  There was a lane beside the grooms’ quarters. If I took that less direct route then, for a minute or two, I would be out of sight of both castle and stables. It would give me time to recover. I stopped and leaned against the wall. My whole being was shaking. I tried to collect myself and went on.

  Someone stepped from a doorway ahead of me. The figure of a man. The same man who had been in the queen’s apartment. The man to whom she’d given the strange sugar crystals.

  ‘Oh!’ I coughed nervously. ‘I am going to the stables.’

  I dipped my head and made to walk past. He moved to block my progress.

  ‘Sir?’ I looked up, feigning surprise.

  He surveyed me. ‘What is your name?’ he demanded.

  ‘Lady Ginette.’ My voice cracked as I said it.

  ‘Lady Ginette,’ he repeated. ‘I will not forget that name . . . Ginette.’ He pronounced it in a most unpleasant manner.

  ‘Sir,’ I said, searching my mind as to how I might make him believe I hadn’t been in Catherine de’ Medici’s rooms until after he’d left. ‘I – I was playing a game, and when I saw the queen join her courtiers in the corridor, I ran into her study by mistake. I fear I lost my way.’

  ‘It is not good for a maid to lose her way,’ the man said. He took my chin in his fingers and held it firmly. ‘Not good at all.’

  He was very close to me. I felt my eyes drawn to his tunic, to the place where he’d hidden the box the queen had given him.

  He followed my gaze. ‘Ah,’ he said. His free hand slid to his belt, and the next moment the point of a dagger was under my chin. ‘Such a pretty dress you wear, Ginette. Red. A colour that shines brightly. A colour that flashes from a window nook. Red,’ he repeated. ‘A very distinctive colour . . . like blood.’ He loomed over me. ‘Blood that might flow from a scarred face . . .’

  I whimpered in dread.

  ‘ . . . or gush from a cut throat.’

  He was going to kill me!

  ‘There you are!’ a light voice exclaimed.

  The man released his grip on my chin and slid his dagger up his sleeve as Mary Stuart came down the lane towards us.

  ‘Monsieur, the Count of Cluny, you have found my best companion!’ she addressed the man.

  Immediately he stood back and made a formal bow to Mary. ‘Your majesty,’ he said. ‘Anything to be of service to the future Queen of France.’

  ‘Come along, Jenny,’ Mary said. ‘Everyone awaits you. They believe you to be hiding inside, but I thought: Jenny loves horses so much that she might go to the stables. It was my idea. And I was right!’ She gave an exclamation of delight.

  I almost fell into her arms as she reached out to take my hand.

  ‘Sir Duncan Alexander has gone into the most tremendous sulk. He refuses to be the huntsman any more, Jenny. I told him that he would lose the game if he didn’t capture everyone, but he professed not to care. He said he’d found all the others and he wouldn’t search for you.’ She took my hand and drew me to her. ‘But I’m surprised Duncan didn’t see you leaving the castle, for you stand out so vividly in that dress.’

  Mary chatted on, unconscious of the tension in her audience. ‘Red suits you, Jenny.’ She gave the Count of Cluny one of her lovely smiles. ‘Don’t you think?’

  ‘Oh, I agree,’ the count purred in reply. ‘I do so agree. Red is a most . . . noteworthy colour.’

  ‘We bid you adieu, sir,’ Mary said. S
he turned to go ahead of me, and so she didn’t hear what I heard. The sentence the Count of Cluny uttered next came in a sibilant whisper, following me as I hurried after her, the words coiling round my brain.

  ‘Yet,’ he hissed, ‘one should be careful. For red can signify blood . . . and death.’

  Chapter 4

  THUS, A FEW weeks later, at the beginning of April, when Mary mentioned that I might wear red for her Betrothal Ball in Paris, I refused.

  ‘But it’s a colour that accentuates your looks, Jenny,’ she said.

  I shook my head. As soon as I was able, after the game of Hide and Chase in the Castle of Blois, I’d given away my beautiful crimson dress. Wearing red had brought me no luck in my hoped-for friendship with Duncan Alexander and had put my life in danger. I was convinced that if I ever wore red again, then disaster would befall me.

  We were in the long sewing rooms in the attics of the Louvre Palace, and Mary, the four Maries and I were viewing bolts of cloth and opening packages containing embroidered stockings, scented gloves, exquisite lace and gold tissue. To satisfy the needs of the royal household for the forthcoming nuptials a vast amount of material had been ordered from all over Europe and beyond. Eastern silks via the Venetian trade routes, taffeta from Spain, English linens and fringed scarves from Savoy were laid out ready for inspection by the bride.

  ‘I have been practising some new hairstyles,’ said Marie Seton, examining an elaborate perruque, ‘and I intend to have your majesty’s headdress dripping with every ornament possible!’

  ‘Indeed,’ Marie Livingston agreed. ‘Arms, fingers, ears, neck festooned with jewellery.’

  ‘There’s a surfeit to choose from,’ I remarked, for Mary owned a vast collection of jewels, with unique pieces like her golden belt studded with rubies, large enamelled buttons worked as flower heads and beaded with tiny diamonds as dewdrops, and a parure of pearls, dark as damsons, that was the envy of every queen in Europe.

  ‘Francis has sent me so very many tokens of his devotion,’ added Mary: ‘rings and necklaces, brooches, earrings . . .’