Threads of Silk

by Linda Lee Chaikin

  “Even the stable workers wash their faces and scrape the mud and manure from their shoes long enough to listen near the windows or on the porches.”

  Bertrand added, “If France is won, it will be won by the common man. The most encouraging news we could hear is that the Geneva Psalter is being sung in the stables, in the cooking rooms of the châteaus, and by serving women as they scrub and polish floors.”

  Madame Clair wrote to Rachelle: “Even if we are not able to accomplish all we had hoped for in this conference, it will be a victory for the truth of Christ, for while the great nobles may reject our message, the maids, servants, stable boys, and blacksmiths hear the word gladly and turn to Him with open hearts. We may not win the royal palais, but we are winning the kitchens.”

  In those early days of the colloquy, Rachelle received the first reports from Cousin Bertrand, who discussed all that had happened with her and Fabien after dinner.

  “Many of the nobles in the audience listening to Beza are the same people who watched the Huguenots die at Amboise. Now they are accepting Bibles and many of them are becoming Huguenots themselves. You see how the blood of the martyrs is not in vain?”

  “I am missing everything,” Rachelle said, fuming.

  Fabien went out of his way to spend the evenings with her and Bertrand and included secret information that she would not have received even if she had been able to attend.

  During those days came the prominent men and women that upheld the Protestant and Catholic interpretations of Christian teaching. They gathered each day in the Dominican monastery dining hall for moderated discussions and debates on subjects as far-reaching as the supremacy of the pope, whether or not the Mass was biblical, the spiritual meaning of the broken bread and cup, rituals, relics, and religious traditions. Beza insisted the Bible alone was the true foundation for judging all other religious traditions and teaching; Cardinal de Lorraine insisted that besides the Bible, the Mother Church itself decided what was truth.

  “Minister Beza asked if a sinner was made perfectly righ teous through Jesus Christ alone. Or were works necessary, such as baptism and others,” Fabien relayed to Rachelle.

  “What did the cardinal say to that?” she asked.

  “What you would expect. That works were an essential part of salvation. The debate was still raging when I left. Some of the highest-ranking bishops grew so angry with Beza they shouted at him and walked out, shaking the dust off their feet against him.”

  The next day she learned that the bishops who had walked out returned.

  “Primarily to spy — not on the Huguenots, but their own bishops,”

  Fabien said.

  “I’m surprised there are a number of bishops who desired to break away from Rome’s control.”

  “They wish to form a national church of France,” Cousin Bertrand said. “It would enable them to end the burnings, reach out to the Huguenots, and unify France.”

  “If only these Catholic bishops were in control instead of Cardinal de Lorraine and the papal legate,” Rachelle said.

  “The cardinal threatened the bishops with heresy if they pursued these ideas with the Huguenots.”

  “Which shows how meaningless heresy can become, when left to religious leaders like Cardinal de Lorraine,” Fabien said.

  “The cardinal uses the term just to silence those bishops who may oppose his ambitious agenda.”

  “Did you notice Duc de Guise walk out in a temper?” Bertrand asked. “The look on his face can keep one awake at night.”

  Rachelle listened, encouraged as Fabien told of a discussion between the ministers from Geneva and the cardinal and some of his bishops.

  “At last the cardinal agreed to see for himself what the first five hundred years of the early Christian church did with the doctrines under discussion. The Huguenots came with manuscripts and ancient texts, but the cardinal didn’t show up. The bishops that did come lacked even one authoritative church writing in which to appeal. Their only source of authority was what the popes had already declared.”

  “If only Protestant and Catholic alike would turn back to the Bible for the answer to all things,” Bertrand said. “There is too much reliance on what men say, even men of faith. Let us go straight to the Word. Then revival will sweep in like a warm, refreshing wind of God.”

  THE QUEEN MOTHER ARRIVED in Paris from the Poissy Council with her youngest daughter, Princesse Marguerite, much later that evening than she had planned. She was in a foul mood with both her daughter Marguerite and the serpent-tongued Spanish ambassador. As the Queen Mother’s grand coach came through the front gate into the courtyard of the Louvre palais, she ordered the guards to not make a stir over her arrival.

  “I wish for no fanfare this night,” she ordered.

  “Just so, Your Majesty.”

  The coach moved on toward the palais. She and Marguerite were both exhausted from the long day of religious bickering. She would relish casting both Catholic and Huguenot out of France!

  She curled her fingers on the lap of her dark skirts. Her spy inside the Spanish ambassador’s own retinue had been sending her copies of Chantonnay’s lettres to his master, King Philip, for some time, but they were becoming incriminating, fomenting fires of outrage in Philip’s fanatical mind.

  Catherine was vexed over the ambassador’s latest lettre, in which he reported that she was permitting heretical prêches in the Huguenot’s chambers at court.

  While daily walking down the corridors or entering a salle, Huguenot voices are heard singing Psalms set to music. Imagine! Singing! They spend their time gathering into little conclaves and singing. When I registered a protest to the Queen Mother, she pretended she knew nothing about it, but she lies. To my face she swears she hates Admiral Coligny and the other Huguenot leaders and that she wishes they were dead. Even so, each night I see Admiral Coligny and his brothers enter her private chambers, where they sit with her and talk for an hour like close amis until she retires to her bedchamber. Then the admiral and his brothers go down to the lower salle and have friendly discussions with others of their mind-set. They toast the king, and then finally go off to their own bedchambers. It is all revolting, as Duc de Guise has said to me in private. Cardinal de

  Lorraine insists something will be done about them. I even saw King Charles and his puppyish amis sneaking off to Admiral Coligny’s bedchamber at midnight to awaken him and tease him as though he were his père. The king pretended to arrest him and carry him off to his dragon’s lair — and the admiral played along! Outrageous! That the king loves this Huguenot admiral is dangerous. As Duc de Guise assured me, something will be done to stop this friendship. If not, France will go the way of Germany and England.

  Catherine narrowed her gaze as she stared out the coach window, hearing horse hooves clattering over stone. That crafty jackal. Ah, what I would like to do with him.

  Then, uneasy in the company of those who plotted as she did, she wondered and worried. And just what could Duc de Guise mean that “something will be done”?

  Philip had also lamented the Poissy Colloquy and demanded to know why she was embracing the vipers to her heart? He feared she was no longer a Catholic and this grieved him to sleeplessness. For if it was so, then her lapse put her regency at grave risk. Rome fully agreed with him and also lamented her unwise and questionable behavior. Why must there be so many Huguenots at court?

  Yes, Catherine was alarmed.

  Why must that somber admiral continue to urge war against Spain? His compassion for the Hollanders would be his own death. She could not sit by and have him meddling with the will of Charles. Coligny had actually talked Charles into agreeing to send soldiers to help the Protestants.

  Coligny will continue to meddle, and if he does not listen to me and stop, he must be removed. Yes, the admiral is in danger. The colloquy is not proceeding as I had hoped it would.

  Marguerite was sighing again and the whining prickled Catherine’s fraught nerves. She turned her head sh
arply. Marguerite had displayed her stubborn streak all the way from the castle at Saint-Germain-en-Laye, pleading that she not meet the “barbarian Navarre.” Marguerite complained of everything about the young prince, from his ill Gascon manners to his “unhealthy” odors. There would be a small divertissement to reacquaint her troublesome daughter to Jeanne of Navarre’s son Prince Henry, and one would think the plague had struck.

  “Cease! I will hear no more of this talk, my daughter. You will marry Navarre. I will not have Philip of Spain claiming Navarre on the southern border of France. Already Spain promises Antoine much for its surrender. But, my child, with Jeanne and Antoine’s princely son married to you, the royal daughter of France — Spain will not dare interfere, for young Navarre would lead an army of many thousands of Protestants into the Netherlands. Ah, yes!” She gave a brief satisfied chuckle at gaining one up on Philip.

  Catherine grew stern again. She reached across the plush seat and caught firm hold of her daughter’s wrist until she saw Marguerite wince.

  “And,” Catherine snarled in a low whisper, “if I see you sneaking off with the ‘other Henry,’ that scheming son of Duc de Guise, I shall have you whipped again. You will not portray yourself a loose woman in front of the fanatical Huguenot Jeanne of Navarre. She already looks askance at you. And you will wear the modest gown Rachelle made you, just as I told you. The pink one.” She reached her fingers beneath Marguerite’s chin and pinched playfully. “You look so sweet and innocent in pink, ma petite.”

  Marguerite gave her a sly glance.

  A brief time later Catherine left her daughter at her chambers and then entered her own appartement quietly, not wishing to be disturbed.

  Madalenna curtsied as she entered, then went about lighting the candles, her hand shaking. Catherine watched her as she threw off her cloak and coif.

  “Have you been stealing my bonbons?” Catherine mocked. “Why are you so nervous, my petite cat?”

  Madalenna bowed again and licked her lips. “No, Madame, no bonbons, I swear it — ”

  “Do not be foolish. I was teasing you. Something is disturbing you.

  What is it? Or is it my unwanted return?”

  “No, Madame, I am most pleased you have returned.”

  “Then speak.”

  “The holy league is meeting in the state council chamber, Madame.”

  “Ah?” Alert, growing tense herself now that she understood, she swished a hand at Madalenna. “No more candles. Very good. You have done your work well. You may go now. And Madalenna — ”

  The girl turned, her dark eyes wide. “Yes, Madame?”

  “I may give you your bold request to go home to Florence to visit your relatives.”

  Madalenna stared at her. She twisted her fingers together. She curtsied again.

  “We shall see — perhaps after the colloquy,” Catherine said.

  “Madame, I am most grateful.”

  “Then run along.”

  When she was gone, Catherine stood pondering.

  So, the mighty holy league has become the “council of four.” They were the scheming Guise brothers, Maréchal de Saint Andre, and the recent fourth — Prince Antoine de Bourbon. Once again they were meeting in secret.

  Swiftly now, she took the key at her wrist and unlocked her door to her closet and entered, relocking it. She removed her end of the listening tube from concealment in the wall and held it to her ear. In the council chamber, the other end of the tube hung behind the arras where she’d had it installed years earlier by the Ruggerio brothers. It had served her well these years.

  And what was she to learn now?

  She listened intently. There were voices and the scraping of chairs across the floor as they settled themselves.

  She came alert, all mockery disappearing as she listened. The Cardinal de Lorraine said in his laconic voice that somehow dripped with cynicism: “It is intolerable, messieurs. Her intervention in matters of religion threatens France. We must act. If we do not, Cardinal Ferrara informs me that Rome will have Spain act for us. If they cannot depend upon us, then they will find bolder, more dedicated leaders on whom they can depend. So what will it be?”

  Duc de Guise’s voice came, short and ill-tempered: “It is my suggestion, as it has been for some time, that we get rid of her. I have told her that if she is not loyal to the true religion, then I will not serve her regency.”

  Catherine’s breath came quickly as she tried to catch every word.

  Surely they were not speaking of her?

  “Then do so. Remove her from the regency,” Antoine said.

  “Now, messieurs, listen to me,” Saint Andre said. “Why not rid ourselves of her by drowning her in the Seine? It could be easily accomplished without discovery, I assure you, for I believe there is no person in all of France who would take the trouble to investigate the Queen Mother’s disappearance.”

  Catherine’s mouth slipped open. She stared at the wall as the one candle flickered like the eye of a serpent.

  There came the scraping sound of a chair again as though someone had jumped to his feet.

  “I will have no part in that!” Antoine cried.

  “Then let us discuss the other woman who is equally as dangerous.

  Monseigneur, it is your wife, Jeanne of Navarre,” the duc said.

  “Yes, I have given you the orders from the papal legate and Spain,”the cardinal said. “This is most painful, Antoine. It grieves us as it does you. But she must be arrested as a state prisoner at the earliest possible moment.”

  “She is staying here in Paris for that debacle of heretics at Poissy,” the duc said. “Now is the time we must move. She must not leave Paris.”

  Catherine’s fingers tightened on the tube. So, the Duc of Alva had told her the facts as he knew them. Jeanne was to be caught and trapped for the Inquisition.

  “It sometimes becomes compulsory, for the sake of true religion, to comport ourselves in a mode that is abhorrent to us,” the cardinal said.

  Catherine could not hear Antoine’s answer, but the duc said: “Then every one of us consents to a warrant to be issued for the arrest of Jeanne of Navarre on a charge of heresy.”

  A moment later the silence was broken as the cardinal said, “This, Monseigneur Antoine, is an act worthy of you! May God give you a good and long life.”

  “So be it,” Duc de Guise said.

  The council ended.

  Catherine stood holding the listening tube in silence, hearing herself breathing.

  So they wish to throw me in the Seine, do they? And they intend to turn Jeanne over to the inquisitors — to suffer the rack and many other horrible tortures — ah, but knowing that stalwart Huguenot as she knew Jeanne, the Queen of Navarre would never recant.

  Catherine concealed the listening tube and returned into her main chamber. She left only one candle burning as she paced slowly, methodically across the rug, her steps soundless. Outside her window Paris was dark, but the lamps burned in the courtyard and the torches sputtered in the wind.

  She went over to her desk, sat down, and drew the golden inkwell toward her. She dipped the quill into the ink and addressed her message to Marquis Fabien de Vendôme at Saint-Germain-en-Laye.

  Danger and Providence

  THE BUSY SEPTEMBER DAYS SCURRIED BY. THE FROSTY NIGHTS AND SUNNY days touched the leaves in the Laye Forest with the tints of flame and gold. On one such evening when Fabien did not return from Poissy as usual, Rachelle paced the salle de sejour, her green silk skirts swishing about her ankles.

  Rachelle rubbed her forehead as if removing the unanswered questions that were lodged there. Could Fabien have been detained?

  “Oh, Mademoiselle Rachelle, the last I saw of the marquis, he was walking with Gallaudet toward their horses,” Nenette said.

  What if something has gone wrong? Just then the door opened and Fabien entered, handsome in the black velvet with gold. Rachelle hurried toward him, and Nenette gathered up the spool of lace she’d been windi
ng and ducked out of the chamber.

  “Is all well?” Rachelle asked quickly.

  He held her close, kissing her thoroughly. “It is now,” he said with a smile.

  She reached up with both hands and removed his hat, tossing it aside on the chair.

  “You are learning my lazy habits,” he said, kissing her again tenderly.

  “How do you feel, chérie?”

  “The same answer, mon amour; now that you are here I feel better.”

  “Seriously.”

  “I feel as if I am, well — enceinte,” she said. “At least the sickness is as Madeleine always said it was, in the mornings. I feel stronger in the evenings.”

  He frowned. “I do not argue with destiny, but this is the wrong time for you to feel unwell. Tell me the truth; can you journey a long distance?

  It will of necessity be in haste and an ordeal.”

  She forced a smile and kissed his chin. The thought of travel on the rough roads made her queasy again. “You worry about me too much. Surely thousands of women have endured a long journey while in my happy condition.”

  “Thousands of women do not belong to me, but you do. You say you are happy about this pregnancy?”

  “To carry your child?” she asked with arched brow. “Mon amour, how could I ask for anything more than to love and be loved by you and to have that love, with God’s blessing, give us a child?”

  He drew her head against his chest, his fingers playing softly with her hair. “I think it will be a girl. I shall have the most belle daughter in all of France.”

  She lifted her head and met his warm blue gaze.

  He smiled. “I mean in England.”

  “In France! France! At Vendôme! If only — oh, to give birth in the bedchamber where Duchesse Marie-Louise de Bourbon bore you.”

  He hugged her tightly. “My sweet, any bed with you will be wondrous, even an English bed.”

  She laughed. She took his hand and pulled him toward the sofa. “Tell me all the news. Is something wrong?”