it ruled, Capricorn.
Seeing this, and meditating on all the wounds this day had pricked, I decided to commit a forward and impetuous act. I left my chambers and went to my husband’s. I did not plan what I wanted to say; I only wanted to offer comfort, perhaps distract him with pleasant talk. In truth, I hoped that such comfort might bring him again to my arms.
By then it was late afternoon, but Henri was not in his chambers; his valet claimed to have no knowledge of his whereabouts. After charging the man to send word when his master returned, I returned to my cabinet.
I dined alone and afterward, told Madame Gondi that I wished to be notified when Henri had retired. Hours passed, but I refused to be undressed; by then, I began to worry.
It was very late when I got word that he had gone to his apartment. Concerned, I went and knocked upon his door.
A different valet answered and was astonished to find me standing there; Henri was inside, his collar undone and leggings removed. He was exhausted, though his mood was more pleasant than it had been earlier. When he saw me in the doorway, fully dressed, his eyebrows lifted with alarm.
“Catherine! Is everything all right?”
At least now he was willing to look at me.
“All is quite well.” I turned to the valet. “Monsieur, please wait outside until I call for you.”
After a nervous glance at Henri, who nodded, the valet stepped into the corridor.
My husband gestured for me to sit beside him. I did, and could not help noticing how strong the lines of his face had become, beautifully framed by his dark beard, and how perfectly his black eyes reflected firelight. Simply being alone with him, and so close, disarmed me, made me remember the day he had taken me on the floor in front of the fireplace. I looked down at my hands and felt a rush of warmth rising from the base of my spine.
“I didn’t mean to disturb you at such a late hour. Forgive me,” I said. “I only wanted to say that I know how very difficult today must have been for you.”
“Thank you,” he said, with a very faint note of impatience. He was tired and eager for me to leave; he held a kerchief, which he kept squeezing.
I realized it might end right there, and so I said boldly, “I’ve missed you, Henri. I’ve been so worried; I can see you haven’t eaten and fear you might make yourself ill.” I did not ask after the ring, for I did not want to put him on the defensive too soon. “I am… I wanted… Might I embrace you? Simply as a member of the family, to show my affection and concern?”
He rose, too quickly. “Of course, Catherine,” he said and began to avert his eyes out of nerves.
He was very tall. I wrapped my arms about him and pressed my cheek against his chest. I kept the embrace gentle and closed my eyes, hoping my own ease would relax him-but I soon snapped them open again.
He stank of lily of the valley.
Aghast, I pulled away. He was dressed in the same clothes he had worn to the execution: a black doublet with black velvet sleeves-slashed, so that the white satin of his undershirt could be pulled through. White, like Madame de Poitiers’s underskirt. On the table beside him sat his black velvet cap, with a single grey feather-to match the grey band on Madame’s hood.
“Her,” I whispered. “You have been with
His face colored crimson. He stared at the floor, too ashamed to look up at me; he opened his palm to reveal a wadded kerchief, white silk edged in black, embroidered with a large
“You,” I said, “you who hated your father because he was unkind to the Queen. Now you are obliged to hate yourself.”
“I didn’t want it to happen, Catherine,” he said softly; his voice trembled. “I didn’t ever want to hurt you.”
“She means to use you,” I said savagely. “Now that you are Dauphin, she surrenders her virtue to you. She lures you.”
“No.” He shook his head. “She loved me when no one else did. Loved me, and Francois, as if she were our mother, even after Father gave us over to the Spaniards. When she heard that Francois had died, it nearly killed her. She loved him as I did. She understands what it was for me to lose him, more than anyone else.”
My voice grew ugly. “A mother does not comfort her son by spreading her legs.”
His head jerked as if I had struck him.
“Out of kindness to you,” he said hoarsely, “I resisted temptation as long as I could. We both fought it… until grief finally broke us. Today was the first time we sinned, and God has already punished me by sending you here, so that I might see how I have hurt you.” For the first time, he looked hard into my eyes. “I tried so very hard to love you, Catherine, but she had my heart long before you arrived. I know it’s sinful-and if I am damned for it, then I am damned. But I cannot live without her anymore.”
As I stood speechless, he fetched an item from his dressing table and pressed it into my palm: the talisman ring.
“Take it,” he said. “It is a foul superstition and ungodly. I should never have agreed to wear it.”
I curled my fingers over the unwanted gift. A blade would have caused less pain; I bled tears and could not stanch their flow. Unwanted, unlovely, I had only ever had my dignity, and now that was lost, too.
I whirled about and ran sobbing back to my apartment, and did not stop crying even when Madame Gondi sent the ladies of the chamber away, even when she kissed the backs of my hands, even when she put her arms around me and wept, too.
From that day forward, Henri wore only Diane’s colors, white and black. Perhaps envious of his son, His Majesty, bored and lustful, summoned his mistress to be near him-against his doctors’ advice.
The morning after her arrival, I rode with the Duchess d’Etampes and her inseparable companion, the dimpled Marie de Canaples. The latter had grown plumper, while the Duchess, in her lover’s long absence, had grown thinner and sharper. As I approached the stables, the two ladies were murmuring furtively, heads together; at the sight of me, they broke apart quickly. The Duchess smiled at me with lips pressed tightly together, as if she had swallowed a dove; Madame de Canaples grinned at me with her sharp little fox teeth. Our conversation during that ride was strained, with both women coy and distant. When the ride was over, I walked away while the two of them whispered and laughed behind me before I was even out of their sight. I knew I would not go with them again.
I was fool enough to think that they shunned me because they had heard of my tearful encounter with Henri-no doubt the news was all over Court about my husband’s affair with Madame de Poitiers, and I last to discover it.
But there was more behind the Duchess’s sly smirk. I should have listened more carefully to Madame Gondi’s cryptic statements, as she dressed me for supper, that there were those in Court who whispered against me. I see now that she was trying to warn me, but I waved away her words.
That evening, the King hosted a small banquet at the chateau, attended by many members of the Guise family. The Guises were descended from the royal House of Anjou, with a distant claim to the throne. It behooved the King to maintain good relations with them; that night, he entertained the Duke, his wife, and their daughters, Renee and Louise. Renee was still young, but Louise was a dark-eyed beauty of marriageable age. Young Charles, who had begun the previous year to notice women, was clearly smitten by her.
As soon as was courteously feasible, I retreated to my chambers, too disheartened to indulge in after-dinner chatter. To distract myself, I continued the work I had begun on Henri’s natal chart. In time, my anguish eased and I grew lost in concentration. I remained at the task late into the night, stopping only long enough to let Madame Gondi and a lady of the chamber undress me and brush out my hair.
I sat at the little desk in my cramped cabinet and studied Henri’s nativity. He was an Aries-a headstrong sign ruled by Mars-and his ascendant was, like mine, Leo, a clear marker of royalty.
My focus that night was the Fifth House of our nativities, the House of Children. I hoped to find happy news there, the promise of heirs. But in Henri’s case-and eerily, in mine as well-the house was barren of planets and fell under the zodiacal sign of Scorpio, ruler of secrets and lies, of things buried, of the darkest magic.
This crushed the fragile hope I had been nursing for the past several hours. Not only were there no signs of children but that area of our lives was ruled by deceit and dark forces. I grew frightened and tried to convince myself that I had misinterpreted the ominous nature of Scorpio in relation to the Fifth House. I had brought Agrippa’s writings to Lyon and decided to consult one of his books in the hope that I could ferret out something to
