Madame Serpent

by Виктория Холт

  There was a lump in her throat; it was born of pity for poor ignorant little girl from Italy. If only she could have been as wise as the present Catherine, what a lot of misery she would have saved herself!

  But here was Francis, the hero of the occasion, bowing before his mother, and begging for the honour of her hand in the dance.

  She smiled at him.

  ‘Come, my dear Dauphin, let us dance.’

  All eyes were on the four of them now― the King and Mary; herself and Francis. On such occasions as this she felt that she took her rightful place in the land.

  ‘You are looking well, my son,’ she said, for indeed he was.

  ‘It is the happiest day of my life,’ said the bridegroom.

  ‘You are fortunate, my son. You love your wife. It is a wonderful thing― providing, of course, that there is love on both sides.’

  The boy looked at her with pity. He understood. She was thinking of her love for his father, and his father’s for his mistress. Poor Maman! He had never thought of her ‘poor Maman’ before.

  But his own life was so wonderful that he could not brood on the sadness of others. Catherine saw how his eyes followed his dazzling young wife round the ballroom.

  She laughed.

  ‘It is with Mary that you should be dancing, my son.’

  ‘Maman, tell me this: did you ever see anyone more beautiful?’

  ‘No. I do not think I have. But I will tell you something, Monsieur le Dauphin. Your sister Margot may yet outshine her.’

  ‘Nay, Maman, that would not be possible.’

  She smiled, glad to see him happy, for he was her son. Let him enjoy his happiness, for she was convinced he could not live very long. He could not do so, for he had to make way for Charles and then for Henry. He must not do so!

  Just after four o’clock in the afternoon that ball was over, for the party must now make its journey across the Seine to the Palais de Justice for the day’s final festivities. The King and the Princes rode on beautiful prancing horses, the Queen and Mary Stuart in litters, while the Princesses rode in coaches, the ladies-in-waiting on white palfreys; and everywhere were rations of rich cloth splashed lavishly with the golden lilies of France.

  Supper was served in the Palais de Justice, and the civic authorities had decorated the place so fantastically, so magnificently, that people said it was comparable with the Elysian Fields. Each course was accompanied by the sweetest music, and, as the banquet progressed, merriment increased, and there a much lively conversation and gay laughter.

  Yet another ball followed.

  The Vidame de Chartres sought out the Queen. Catherine had caught the general excitement; the wine she had drunk made her flushed and excited; she seemed to see the world in more beautiful colours than ever before, and hope was high in her heart.

  Her eyes never left the King, who too seemed excited and happier, so that he looked younger and reminded her of their earlier days together.

  While he lives, thought the Queen, I shall continue to need him. Nothing else can seem important to me while his love is given elsewhere. ‘What a lovely Queen the little Scot will make!’ she said.

  The Vidame answered. ‘There is a lovely Queen now on the throne.’

  His eyes were bright; he had drunk too freely.

  Catherine laughed at the flattery, but she was not displeased.

  She kept the Vidame at her side. She allowed him to her hold hand overlong in the dance, and she was sure that it was noticed.

  Did Henry notice? She fancied so.

  He respected her because of her prompt action over Saint-Quentin. Would he learn to desire her because the Vidame de Chartres was showing them all that he thought her an attractive woman?

  She danced with the King; she danced with the Dauphin; and her only other partner was the Vidame.

  When they returned to the Louvre after the ball, Catherine looking into her mirror, saw that her eyes were brighter, cheeks flushed. Hope had made her look ten years younger, She wondered if the King would come to her. She imagined a little scene in which he upbraided her for her conduct with the Vidame. Happily, in her thoughts, she answered him: ‘Henry, can it mean that you are jealous?’

  She scarcely slept that night; even in the early hours of the morning, she was still hoping that he would come.

  But, as so many times before, he did not do so. Yet hope stayed with her.

  * * *

  ‘One wedding begets another,’ said Catherine to her eldest daughter.

  Poor little Elizabeth! How small she looked. She was only fourteen― so young to be married.

  Catherine had sent for the girl that she herself break the news.

  ‘My dearly beloved daughter, I wish to speak to you of your marriage.’

  The girl’s big dark eyes were fixed on her mother’s face.

  I grow soft, thought Catherine; for she was feeling uneasy, remembering a long-ago occasion when a girl of about this one’s age was summoned to the presence of the Holy Pope who wished to talk to her about a marriage.

  ‘Yes, my gracious mother?’

  ‘You knew, did you not, that when Francis married, it would be your turn next?’

  The child swallowed hard. ‘Yes, gracious mother.’

  ‘Why, you must not look sad, for this is great and wonderful news. Here is a fine marriage for you.’

  The young girl waited. Who was it? She was thinking of the young men she knew. It might be one of the Bourbons, because they had royal blood. On perhaps one of the Guises, who had lately become more than royal. There was the son of the Duc de Guise― young Henry. A rather frightening but entirely exciting prospect. Young Henry was going to be his father all over again.

  ‘Oh, Maman, ’ she burst out suddenly, ‘do not keep me in suspense. Who is it? Who?―‘

  ‘You are going to Spain, my child. You are going to be the wife of his August Majesty, King Philip of Spain.’

  The girl grew white, and looked as though she were about to faint. To Spain!

  Miles away from home! To the King of Spain. But he was an old man.

  ‘You do not seem sensible of this great honour, my daughter.’

  ‘But, Maman, ’ whispered Elizabeth, ‘it is so far from home.’

  ‘Nonsense!’ said Catherine, forcing out her loud laugh. ‘Think, my child, you will be a Queen― Queen of what many would say was the greatest country of all. Just think of that!’

  ‘But I do not want to go.’

  ‘Not want to be Queen of Spain?’

  ‘No, Maman. I wish to stay a Princess of France.’

  ‘What! And be an old maid like your Aunt Marguerite?’

  ‘Well, she also is going to be married now. Why cannot I wait until I am as old as Aunt Marguerite?’

  ‘Because, my dear, it is ordained that you should marry the King of Spain.’

  ‘I hate the King of Spain.’

  ‘Hush! Is this what you have to say after all my care in bringing you up, in guarding you, in teaching you what is expected of a princess?’

  ‘He is an old man.’

  ‘He is just past thirty.’

  ‘But he is married to the Queen of England, Maman.’

  ‘You surely knew that the Queen of England is dead?’

  ‘But I heard he was to marry the new Queen of England.’

  ‘Then you, who have listened to gossip, must now listen to good sense. You, my dear daughter, are to marry King Phillip.’

  ‘ Maman― when? ‘

  ‘Oh, it will be arranged soon, never fear.’

  ‘But that is what I do fear. Will he come here― for me, or shall I be sent to him?’

  ‘You will be married here in Notre Dame just as Francis was.’

  ‘So― he will come for me?’

  Catherine smoothed the hair back from her daughter’s brow. ‘Why, what airs you give yourself! Do you think the mighty King of Spain would make such a journey merely for a wife? No; you will be married by proxy. The Duke of Alva
will take the King’s place. You enjoyed Francis’s wedding, did you not?

  Well, now it is your turn.’

  Elizabeth threw herself at her mother’s feet. ‘Oh, Maman, Maman, I do not want it. I cannot go. I do not want to leave my home for that old man.’

  Catherine, softened, drew the girl up to her; she led her to a couch and sat with her arms about her; and, sitting thus, she talked to her as she had never before talked to any of her children, except Henry. She told her of her own childhood her ambitious, scheming relative, the Pope of Rome; she told of the Murate, and how the people had shouted for her to thrown to the soldiery; and she told finally of her coming to France― how she had dreaded it, and how she had grown to love it.

  The young girl listened, and was, in some small measure, comforted.

  ‘But Spain is where my father went,’ mourned Elizabeth. ‘He was a prisoner there. There he spent his most unhappy years.’

  ‘My dear,’ said Catherine, ‘it is not for us to choose, but to obey.’

  ‘Yes, dear Maman.’

  ‘We have all suffered as you think you do now. It may be you will find the King of Spain such another as I found your father. There is not a better man in the whole world than your dear father, and yet I felt towards him once as you now feel towards King Philip.’

  ‘I hope so, Maman, but I am filled with foreboding.’

  Catherine embraced her daughter tenderly; she also was uneasy.

  * * *

  The King came into the Queen’s private chamber, and she dismissed her attendants.

  ‘I wish to speak to you, Henry.’

  He turned towards her so that the sun shone full on his face. aged since the Siege of Saint-Quentin; he was passing his prime. Catherine reminded herself that his splendid youth had been spent on Diane, and bitter resentment flared up within her.

  ‘It is about Elizabeth,’ she said.

  He looked relieved. ‘Elizabeth,’ he repeated.

  ‘She goes about tight-lipped and pale. I am afraid she will be ill. She has never been very strong.’

  ‘It is an ordeal for a child to be told suddenly that she is to married,’ said Henry gently. ‘It can be upsetting.’

  He was thinking of the day, long ago, when he had been told he was to have an Italian bride.

  She went to him, for she found herself unable to keep away him; she slipped her arm through his. ‘We understand Henry, do we not?’

  ‘Indeed we do.’

  She pressed his arm. ‘And some of us learn that it is not so bad as we thought it might be.’

  ‘That is so.’

  She laughed, and laid her cheek against his sleeve. ‘We have been fortunate, Henry.’

  Now he was uneasy; was he reminded of those days when she forsaken caution and begged that he return some of the fierce, demanding affection that she gave him?

  He has not changed, she thought wretchedly.

  But he must feel differently towards her. In the old day he had thought her a nonentity; now he was aware that she could be strong, could sway his ministers.

  Saint-Quentin was between the past and the present.

  She stood stiffly beside him. ‘There is no comfort we can offer our daughter then?’

  He shook his head. ‘Poor child!’ he murmured.

  ‘She will get over it. She is frightened because she young.’

  ‘She will get over it,’ he repeated.

  ‘As others did― before her.’

  He moved towards the door. She said desperately: ‘Henry, I have heard whisperings.’

  He stopped short, waiting, and she laughed lightly. ‘You will be amused. Of whom do you think?’

  ‘I have no idea. Not― not―’ He turned to her and looked at her in horror, so that she felt her heart leap. He continued ‘Not― Elizabeth?’

  She laughed again, this time bitterly. ‘Oh no, not our daughter. The whisperings concerned none other than myself.’

  ‘You― Catherine! What do you mean?’

  ‘You may have noticed that foolish young man — young Francis de Vendôme―’

  Henry looked puzzled. ‘What of him?’ he asked.

  ‘He has been dancing attendance on me rather much of late.’

  Henry looked grave. ‘Young Vendôme!’ he said. ‘It will be well to take care. Those Bourbons are a shiftless lot. Depend upon it, he is after something.’

  How maddening he was! It had not occurred to him the young man might be seeking a love affair with the Queen. Henry made it quite clear, when he said the young man was after something, that he meant an appointment at court.

  Catherine felt it was foolish to persist, but she could not rid herself of the hope in her heart. ‘There are some who think the young fool is― in love with me.’

  Henry looked astonished. ‘Oh, I shouldn’t think so. You should take care. A shiftless, crafty lot these Bourbons― forever seeking some advantage at court.’

  ‘I wish I could be sure that you are right,’ she said angrily.

  Out his thoughts were elsewhere and he did not perceive her anger.

  When he left her she paced up and down her chamber. He was indifferent to her. The position had not changed as far as his love was concerned; he tolerated her now as he had tolerated her always. He respected her a little more, that was all; she did not want his respect.

  Very well, she would encourage Monsieur de Vendôme! She would indulge in a light flirtation. She would make people talk.

  Then perhaps Henry would take notice. There should be nothing more than a public flirtation; she had no desire for more; there was only one man she desired, and she knew there could be no other. But the only way she could endure her life is by hoping, by continuing to dream that one day he would turn to her.

  She was interrupted by a knock on her door, and on bidding whoever was there to come in, a page entered with a letter for her.

  She looked at it, and her heart beat faster, for she saw that it was in the handwriting of Nostradamus and had come from Provence, where he now was.

  She dismissed the page and settled down to read what the astrologer had written.

  She read and re-read the letter, and as she did so she was conscious of a sense of foreboding. Nostradamus confessed that he had been hesitating about writing to her, but he had come the conclusion that it was his duty to do so. He had been having very disturbing dreams lately and the central figures of these dreams were the King and Queen.

  There was a dream he had had some years before, and he been so impressed by it that, at the time, he had written it down. This dream now kept recurring. In the dream he saw lions fighting; they fought twice. One of these lions was young and the other was older; the old lion was overcome, and the young lion gouged out the eye of the old lion, who suffered cruelly and died. That was the recurring dream.

  Catherine, who believed fervently in the powers of her astrologers and their gift for seeing future events, pondered this deeply. Nostradamus hinted that the older of the two lions was the King, for the King’s escutcheon bore the figure of a lion. Nostradamus was certain that the King was in some sort of danger. He begged the Queen to watch closely that no calamity might befall him.

  Deep melancholy filled the Queen, for if Nostradamus had seen the old lion die, and the old lion represented Henry, and if this was a vision of the future, there was nothing on the earth that could save the King. If it was written in his destiny that the King must die, then would the King die.

  Who was the young lion? Spain? Or England? Impossible. Neither could be called young. It might be that the lion not Henry, but France. That was more likely. France was in danger. The first clash might be that disastrous outbreak war which had resulted in the siege of Saint-Quentin and had ended in the Treaty of Cateau-Cambrésis. There was no doubt that the signing of that treaty had been a great blow to France, de Guise was against it, and he had said that in signing such a treaty the King had lost more in a day than he would have done in twenty years of reverses in the field.
With a stroke of the pen, the King had surrendered the Italian conquests of the last thirty years. This marriage of Elizabeth’s and of the King’s sister Marguerite to the Duke of Savoy were a result. The King was weary of the Italian wars, and he was longing to get his good friend the Constable released from captivity. They had driven the English from French soil; let that satisfy France. Henry had declared that Italy was a snare which had entrapped French treasure and French lives since the days of his father and Charles V.

  And yet― there was great mourning throughout France because of this treaty. It could be called the first clash, and from it the old lion had emerged licking his limbs.

  What next, Catherine asked herself. Spain? Or England? She said nothing of the dream of Nostradamus, but she felt gloom about her. Elizabeth was like a pale ghost going about the palace; she had lost her laughter, and her smile was a mockery of what it had once been.

  Catherine saw a good deal of the Vidame de Chartres, allowed him special privileges, let him sit beside her during her cercles, listened with apparent pleasure to his gallantries.

  But as preparations went on apace for the Spanish marriage, Catherine could not ward off the sense of impending doom.

  * * *

  From outlying districts people were coming into Paris. People were dancing in the streets and there were sounds of revelry all along the Seine. From the great buildings, flags and banners fluttered in the breeze― the flags of France and Spain.

  It was a great day when Alva marched into the city, his five hundred men about him, clad in black, yellow, and red. The Parisians were disappointed in the Duke, though― a solemn man, all in black. On his right rode the Count Egmont, and on his left the Prince of Orange. These men were watched with suspicion. It was such a short time ago that they had led armies against Frenchmen. It was hard for bewildered men and women and to understand the exigencies of government, the plots and plans of Kings.