But on the day the Dauphin was due to leave for Valence, Henry came to the apartment. She was lying on her bed feeling tired and heavy-eyed. How she wished that she had been up, her hair neatly braided, herself perfumed and elaborately gowned.
He came and stood by the bed, and he was almost smiling, as if he had completely forgotten their last encounter.
‘Good day to you, Catherine.’
She held out her hand and he kissed it, perfunctorily it was true, but still he kissed it.
‘You look happy, Henry. Is the news good?’ Her voice was flat, she was setting a firm guard over her feelings.
‘For the armies, it is bad,’ he said. ‘But for myself, good; for I think I may shortly be joining my father in Valence.’
‘You― Henry― to go with the Dauphin?’
‘Francis has taken to his bed. He is sick. He cannot leave yet to join my father.’
‘Poor Francis! What is wrong?’
‘Very little. I have hopes that my father may command me to take his place.’
‘He will doubtless wait a day or so. What ails your brother?’
‘He has been playing tennis in the sun. He played hard and was thirsty, and, as you know, he drinks only water. The Italian fellow took his goblet to the well and brought it back him full. He drank it all and sent the man back for more.’
Catherine lay very still, staring at the carved goddesses and angels on the ceiling. ‘Italian fellow?’ she said slowly.
‘Montecuccoli. You know, Francis’s Italian cupbearer. What does that matter? The heat and the water made Francis feel ill, so he retired to his rooms.
My father will not be pleased when he hears the news. He will upbraid him for drinking water.’
Catherine did not answer. For once, when Henry was with her, she was scarcely aware of him, for she could see nothing but the fanatical eyes of Montecuccoli.
* * *
The whole court was mourning the death of the Dauphin. None dared carry the news to Francis, who, in Valence, knew only that his son was sick.
The shock was overwhelming. The young man had been alive and well only a few days before. True, he was not exactly virile, but he was strong enough to play a good game of tennis. His death was as mysterious as it had been sudden.
The court physicians agreed that his death must have been due to the water he drank. All those about the young man had been shocked by his preference for water, which he drank immoderately, while he rarely took a drink of good French wine. He had been overheated and told his Italian cupbearer to bring him water.
His Italian cupbearer!
Now the court had begun to whisper. ‘It was his Italian cupbearer, you see.’
The King had to be told, and it fell to the lot of his great friend the Cardinal of Lorraine to break the news; but eloquent as the Cardinal was― and never yet had he been found at a loss for a word― he could not bring himself to tell the King of the terrible tragedy. He stood before his old friend, stammering that the news he had was not very good.
Francis, crossing himself hastily, and thinking immediately of his eldest son whom he knew to be ill, said: ‘The boy is worse. Tell me. Hold nothing back.’
He saw tears in the Cardinal’s eyes and commanded him to speak.
‘The boy is worse, Sire. We must trust in God―’
His voice broke and the King cried out: ‘I understand. You dare not tell me that he is dead.’
He stared at those about him in horror, for he knew that he guessed correctly.
There was silence in the room. The King walked to the window, took off his cap, and, lifting his hands, cried: ‘My God, I must accept with patience whatever it be thy will to send me; but from whom, if not from Thee ought I to hope for strength and resignation? Already hast Thou afflicted me with the diminution of my dominions and the army; Thou hast now added this loss of my son. What more remains― save to destroy me utterly? And if it be to do so, give me warning at least, and let me know Thy will in order that I may not rebel against it.’
Then he began to weep long and bitterly, and those about him wept in sympathy and dared not approach him.
In Lyons, the whispering campaign had started. Catherine was aware of it first in the looks of those she passed on the staircases and in the corridors.
People did not look at her, but she knew they looked after her when she had passed.
Madalenna brought her the news.
‘Madame la Duchesse, they are repeating that his cupbearer was an Italian.
They say that had they not let the Italians into their country, their Dauphin would be alive today.’
‘What else do they say, Madalenna? Tell me everything― whatever it is they say you must tell me.’
‘They that there is another Dauphin now― a Dauphin with an Italian wife.
They say the future Queen of France will be an Italian. They ask if it was the Italian count who killed the Dauphin.’
It was not long after that when Count Sebastiano di Montecuccoli was arrested.
* * *
Against his father’s order, Henry rode to Valence. Francis was inclined to be indulgent in his sorrow. Now he must look at this son, whom he could never love, in a new light. Henry was the Dauphin now. He was precious. Francis could not help feeling that some ill luck was dogging him and he trembled for his remaining sons.
‘Foy de gentilhomme!’ he said to Henry. ‘Methinks I am unluckiest man in France― my army defeated and my Dauphin dead!’
Then the soldier in Henry spoke. ‘Your army is not defeated yet, Father, and I am here to try to prevent that. You have lost one son, but you have another who stands before now.’
Then Francis embraced the boy, dislike temporarily forgotten.
‘Pray, Father, allow me to join Montmorency at Avignon.’
‘Nay!’ cried Francis. ‘I have lost one son. I must guard well what remains.’
Henry would not let the matter rest there and after a while he succeeded in persuading his father to let him join Montmorency.
And then it was that Henry formed his second friendship, and one almost as strong as that he felt for Diane.
Anne de Montmorency was as stern a martinet as ever commanded an army, and a devout Catholic, most punctilious where his religious duties were concerned. Henry thought him like an avenging angel; and the soldiers― abandoned, vicious as they were― were terrified of him. Food might be short and pay not forthcoming, but Montmorency never relaxed that wonderful discipline which was the admiration of all who experienced it. God was on his side, he was sure; violent he was; cruel in the extreme; and the boldest trembled before him. He had no mercy on delinquents. There was not a morning when he omitted to say his Paternosters, and hardly a day when he would not have a man tortured, hanged, or run through with a pike for a breach of discipline. Indeed, it was when he said his prayers that he seemed to grow more vicious. He would stop muttering them and shout, ‘Hang me that man!’ or ‘Run your pike through that one!’
There was a saying in the army, ‘Beware of Montmorency’s Paternosters.’
To young Henry this man seemed wonderful. As for Montmorency, he so delighted to see the young Prince instead of the King that he could not hide his relief, and made much of the boy. Ever since Pavia the Army had been afraid as soon as the King entered midst. Francis was unlucky, they said; the saints had decreed that he should be defeated in war. Moreover, Henry was without that bombastic nature which characterized so many of his rank; he wanted to be a good soldier and was ready to place himself entirely under Montmorency’s command.
But Francis did not delay his coming. Very soon after Henry’s arrival in Avignon, the King followed his son there.
This time Francis was not unlucky, and France was saved― through force of arms. The imperial troops, owing of Montmorency in destroying towns and villages as he retreated, were starving and dying in thousands. There was only one course open to them― retreat.
Should he pursue the fleeing Span
iards and their mercenaries? wondered Francis; and he hesitated as he had done so before. He wanted to get back to Lyons, to look into this matter of the death of his eldest son, to discover if the rumours that he had been poisoned contained any truth.
So there was a temporary lull in the fighting.
Henry said when he took leave of Montmorency: ‘You can be sure that whatever happens I am, and shall be all my life, as much your friend as any man.’
Montmorency kissed the boy on both cheeks. Henry was learning what a vast difference separated a Duke from Dauphin, a second son from the heir to the throne.
* * *
In his prison cell, Montecuccoli awaited the coming of his torturers. He had spent the hours in his dark cell praying that he might have the courage for the ordeal through which he knew he must pass.
How easy it was to imagine oneself a martyr! How tedious the reality! To see oneself going boldly and defiantly to execution for the love of one’s country― that glorious. And the reality? Humiliating torture that carried a man to the gates of death, and cruelly brought him back to life that he might make the journey again and again, that he might learn how his poor body lacked the strength of his spirit. In place of that loud, ringing tone, ‘I will not speak!’ there must be groans and screams of agony.
Sweat ran down the handsome face of Montecuccoli, for men had come into the cell now and the doctor was there to examine him, and discover to what lengths they might torture him without killing him and destroying the only means of discovering the truth of the Dauphin’s death.
Chairs and tables were brought into the cell while the doctor conducted his examination; with a horror that made him want to retch, Montecuccoli watched two shabbily dressed men bring in the wedges and the planks.
‘How is his health?’ asked a businesslike little man who seated himself at the table and set out writing materials.
The doctor did not speak, but Montecuccoli knew the meaning of the grim nodding of the head.
After a few minutes the doctor went out to an adjoining to wait in case he should be needed during the torture.
A tall man in black now approached the Count. He said: ‘Count Sebastiano di Montecuccoli, if you refuse to give satisfactory answers to the questions I shall ask, it has been decided that it will be necessary to put you to the torture― ordinary and extraordinary.’
Montecuccoli trembled. He knew the meaning of this. He understood what the planks and wedges meant; they were to make what was known through the country as The Boot; and into The Boot his legs would be packed; then the torture would begin.
While they were preparing him there was a commotion outside the cell, and as a tall figure, in clothes that glittered with jewels, came in, all those in the cell stopped what they were doing to bow low. The King looked incongruous in that dark chamber of horror. Francis looked grave; for his times, he was not unkind, but he had suffered deeply at the loss of his son and he had vowed that he would do everything in his power to avenge the murder; he had, therefore, come in person to hear a confession wrung from the lips of the man he believed to have murdered the boy.
‘Is everything in readiness?’ he asked, taking the chair which was immediately brought for him.
‘Sire, we but await your commands to proceed.’
The executioner, whose face was the most brutalized it had ever been the young Count’s misfortune to behold, bound him with ropes; and when this was done the man’s two assistants each fitted a leg into a boot, and the cords about them were tightened by means of a wrench.
‘Tighter!’ growled the executioner; and the Count was in sudden, excruciating agony, for so tightly were his legs compressed that all the blood was thrown back to the rest of his body. He screamed and fainted. When he opened his eyes, the doctor was standing over him, applying vinegar to his nose.
‘Here is a good beginning!’ chuckled the executioner. ‘Lily-livered Florentines! They paint pretty pictures, but they faint before the torture begins!
Better speak up, boy, and save our King another moment in this cell.’
There must be a wait, the doctor said, before the wedges were driven in, for it would take several minutes before the circulation was normal. Francis brought his chair closer to the young man and talked to him not unkindly.
‘We know, Count, that you acted under instructions. You are a foolish young man to suffer for those who should be where you are now.’
‘I have nothing to say, Sire,’ said Montecuccoli.
But Francis continued with the attempt to persuade him to speak until it was declared time to drive in the first of the two wedges.
‘On whose instructions,’ said the tall man in black, ‘did you give the Dauphin poison?’
Montecuccoli shook his head; he would not speak.
One of the men was ready at the Count’s knees, the other opposite him at his ankles; the cases in which the legs had been placed were so tightly bound that they would not give. There was a sickening crunch as the bones were crushed to make room for the wedges.
Montecuccoli swooned.
They brought him round with vinegar and asked the question again. The third and fourth wedges were driven in, and Montecuccoli knew, as his pain-crazed brain sought to cling to reason that he would never walk again.
‘Speak, you fool!’ cried the man in black. ‘You’ve had the Question Ordinary. It’ll be the Extraordinary next. Speak. Why shield your masters?’
The physician was bending over him, nodding in his grim and silent way.
The Count was young and healthy; the continuation of the torture would, he thought, very likely not kill him. He could be questioned to the limit today; if that failed to wring an answer from him, the water torture would be tried later.
Montecuccoli’s mind had one thought now; it was to save his tortured body more pain. He was reminding himself as he seemed to sway between life and death that he had achieved that which he had set out to do. Thanks to him, France would have a Medici Queen. If he implicated her, he would have killed and suffered in vain. Yet these people would not believe him innocent! They had found poison in his lodging; that, and the fact that he was an Italian, was sufficient to mark him as guilty in their eyes. He dared not implicate Catherine and Catherine’s astrologers, but if they persisted in the greater torture he did not know how he could endure it, for what he had suffered so far was the Ordinary Question― the driving in of four wedges only. The Extraordinary would be the driving in of four more. He yearned to be a martyr; he yearned to die for Italy; but how could he endure this continued agony? His body was weak with suffering; he could feel his resistance weakening also.
The King had folded his arms and was sitting back; he did not take his black eyes from the Italian’s face.
The men were ready with the fifth wedge.
The King held up his hand. ‘Speak!’ he said gently. ‘Why suffer this? You will speak in the end.’
Montecuccoli opened his mouth. He sought for words, but nothing, for his brain was numbed.
The King shrugged his shoulders. The man was ready with the first wedges of the greater torture.
Agony― horror― pain engulfed the Count. If only it were death, he thought.
Then he raised his hollow eyes to the bright ones of the King and began to talk.
* * *
Catherine, alone in her apartment, felt ill with anxiety. They were torturing Montecuccoli. What would he say? How could he, suffering exquisite torture, stop himself from implicating her? What when they took Cosmo and Lorenzo Ruggieri? Those two― clever as they were― could never endure torture.
Confessions would be wrung from them as well as from the Count.
They would blame her. The whole country was ready to blame her. What would they do to the Dauphine who had inspired murder?
What a fool this man was! What a stupid, blundering fool! Did he think to kill the Dauphin and have no questions asked? She had not meant him to kill the Dauphin. It was not ambition that had prompted he
r to speak to him. She saw now how easily he had misunderstood. The fool, to think he could so lightly remove the heir to the throne of France.
And now― she was Dauphine; if she passed through this trouble, she would be Queen of France. A miracle indeed! But it had gone wrong somewhere. She had asked for love and she had been offered a crown.
Already they were suspicious of her. From Duchess to Dauphine through the mysterious death of the King’s eldest son! They were whispering of her, watching her, suspecting her, only waiting for the condemnation which they felt must come, once the Italian Count had been put to the torture.
What would they do to her? Of a surety she would be banished from France.
They would not keep an Italian murderess in their country.
Oh, Montecuccoli, you fool! You and your silly martyrdom! Where will that take you now? Where will it take me? She looked at her pale face in her mirror. If I lost Henry now, she thought , I should pray for death; for in truth, I do not care to live without him. ――――――― The court gathered together for a great spectacle. All highest in the land would be present. Stands were erected the royal pavilion was hung with cloth of gold.
Catherine, in her apartments, heard the shouts outside her window. She dressed herself with great care. Her dress was studded with pearls; her corsage rich with rubies. How pale she was! Her thick skin, beautiful in candlelight, looked sallow in the glare of the sun. She had changed in the last few weeks and the change was there in her face. It was subtle, though; none would see it but herself. There was craft about the lips, hard brilliance in the eyes. She realized what agonies she had suffered when she had heard Montecuccoli had been arrested, what terrible fears had beset her when she had heard they were torturing him. But the saints had been merciful to Catherine de’ Medici. They had put wisdom into the mind of the suffering man. He had invented a good story that was not too wild to be convincing; and so he had saved Catherine. He had told the King and his torturers that he had taken instructions from Imperial generals, and that they had had their instructions from a higher authority. He had even given the names of the Imperial generals. That was clever, for how could the French touch Spanish generals! He had also said that his instructions were to poison all the sons of the King and the King himself. Very clever. Montecuccoli was not such a fool.
Madame Serpent Page 13