The Medici Queen aka The Devil’s Queen

anything but your displeasure.”

She lifted her chin, composed and regal once more, and told Montmorency, “You have served the King badly and disgraced his friends. Do not cross my path again, Monsieur, or speak another word to me, for I will not hear it.”

Montmorency-outraged, yet biting his tongue-looked to the King for support. Henri averted his eyes and gave the Grand Master a short, dismissive nod.

A muscle deep in Montmorency’s great square jaw twitched, just above the line of his beard, but he was a man of grace and self-control. He left quickly, his gaze downcast so that he would not have to see Diane gloat.

I remained motionless in the corridor; when Montmorency passed me, he started, but I put a finger to my lips. He could well have alerted Henri to my presence, but he was still angry at Diane and perhaps hoped she might say something to further provoke my hatred. He continued on, leaving me to listen alone.

After Montmorency’s departure, Diane spoke first, raw and uncertain.

“Do you love her?”

Henri’s countenance displayed the same contrition I had seen when he had first confessed his love for Diane.

“No,” he whispered. “No, of course not.” His voice rose to a murmur. “It was purely… purely the flesh, nothing more. And I am ashamed. I had hoped to be able to end it before I hurt anyone. Before I hurt you. But now I can only beg for your forgiveness.”

Diane cooled in the face of the King’s groveling. “Do not ask my forgiveness, Sire. Ask the forgiveness of your dear friends the Guises, and of little Mary.”

He hesitated. “Promise you won’t say anything to the Guises.”

She studied him a long moment, then answered slowly, “I will say nothing to anyone if you promise that this crime will never be repeated.”

He let go a long sigh at the thought of abandoning such pleasure, then squared himself and met her gaze directly. “I swear before God it will not.”

Satisfied, she nodded, dismissing him as if she were the monarch and not he, and began to move away haltingly on her crutch.

Henri called softly to her, “Will you be…?” Awkward, he let the question trail.

Diane did not turn back to look at him. “I will be recuperating in my quarters adjacent to the Queen’s.” The words were frosted, a rebuke.

Henri heard the rejection in them; his shoulders slumped as he turned away. Diane moved toward me and the spiraling staircase that led to my wing, while my husband went in the opposite direction and disappeared quickly. Her progress was slow and her focus on the coordination of the crutch with her step. She did not see me hidden in the shadows, waiting for her to pass. I meant to gloat, to revel in the dark joy that my rival had finally tasted a sip of the bitter draught I had swallowed for so many years. Yet when our gazes met-hers startled, mine knowing-I saw only myself, wounded and unloved.

She must have glimpsed compassion in my eyes, for her own expression softened. She bowed as best she could before continuing on at her painfully slow pace. Pinned carefully at her throat to hide the slackening skin beneath, the diamond caught the lamplight and flashed.

By late December, I knew I was pregnant again and decided to share the happy news with my husband on Christmas Day. That morning, I went to the royal nursery accompanied by Jeanne, Diane, Madame Gondi, three ladies-in-waiting, and a male attendant. This entourage was required to carry all the gifts for the children, including a large rocking horse with a horsehair mane. As always, Jeanne was eager to accompany me to the nursery, as she longed for children of her own.

The day had dawned grey and cloudy; the chateau’s tall rectangular windows overlooked a bleak courtyard of brown grass edged by bare-limbed trees. But the nursery’s reception chamber was cheery: Scores of candles burned, their flames dancing in the windowpanes and on the marble floor; a massive Yule log blazed in the hearth. A long table was heaped with glazed chestnuts, walnuts, apples and figs, and little pastries.

The children greeted us with enthusiastic cries. Francois was not quite seven, with a domed forehead and wide-set, dull eyes; he was smaller than his five-and-a-half-year-old sister, Elisabeth, who was a sweet, dainty child. The two rushed to me as the wetnurse went to fetch the infant Charles from his cradle.

Eight-year-old Mary, the little Scottish Queen, remained at a distance, her expression wary. She was already quite tall, and her imperious manner made her seem far older than she was; many who saw her playing with Francois thought they were separated by several years. On that day she wore her hair up, several times braided and coiled and wound about with dark pearls. A tartan shawl was fastened to her chest with a round silver brooch. She reminded me of myself at that age-yearning to be a careless child, free with my affections, yet knowing that my life was threatened by those who hated me.

As I bent down to embrace Francois and Elisabeth, Mary called out to Diane, “Joyeux Noel, Madame de Poitiers! What word from my dear uncles?”

“They are riding with the King, Your Majesty,” Diane said, smiling. “But they will join us within the hour.”

“Good.” Mary sighed and presented herself to me for the unwanted kiss. “Joyeux Noel, Madame la Reine.”

“Joyeux Noel, Mary,” I replied. It troubled her, as it always did, that I did not address her by her title, but I preferred to remind her that she was a child, and not yet Queen of France.

The governor of the nursery, Monsieur d’Humieres, emerged from one of the children’s chambers. A small, quick man given to emphatic gestures, he hurried into the room and bowed.

“Madame la Reine, a thousand pardons, but I received word that His Majesty suffered a minor fall during the hunt. He wished for you to know that he and the brothers Guise will be late as he is meeting now with the physician.”

Mary’s face fell. Poor, infatuated Francois tried to comfort her, but he often stuttered and could manage only a pitiful repetition of the first sound in Mary’s name: “M-m-m-m-”

She silenced him with a kiss.

I did my best to distract the children with the presents. Francois received his first, a wooden sword copied after his father’s real one, with a painted gold hilt. I gave him stern direction as to its careful use, knowing all the while that it was only a matter of time before someone received a minor injury. Elisabeth’s rocking horse was so popular that the children argued over who should ride it first.

Then came Mary’s present. Jeanne held the large wooden box, with holes drilled along the sides, and had remained at a distance so that the children could not hear the scratching and thumping. But as she stepped forward, a distinct whine emanated from the box’s interior, causing Mary’s sallow face to light up. The girl hurried to remove the top and freed the little black-and-white spaniel pup within.

She took it into her arms and beamed at me. “Thank you, thank you! May I keep it here, in the nursery?”

I smiled back. “You may indeed.”

The rocking horse and sword were abandoned in favor of the dog. Francois had to be shown how to pet it gently; Elisabeth was timid, so I showed her how the puppy could be coaxed to sit nicely for a bit of apple.

During this happy domestic scene, Mary’s governess began conversing loudly with one of her peers in the doorway of Charles’s bedroom. I paid little attention to the stream of guttural consonants and trilled r’s.

Monsieur d’Humieres approached her and her companion and hissed, “Stop this rude behavior! Go present yourselves to the Queen!”

I ignored it all. Since their arrival, the Scots had proven loyal only to Mary and resentful of the due owed my husband and me; their behavior sometimes brought the members of our separate courts to blows.

Madame Fleming replied in tortured French: “I cannot be silent; I am proud, Sir, to announce that I have conceived a child by the King.”

I had been offering a piece of apple to the puppy; at that, my arm fell to my side. I caught Diane’s gaze, then Jeanne’s, and saw from their sickened expressions that they, too, had heard.

Monsieur d’Humieres murmured something in a low, scandalized tone.

By this time, Madame Fleming had entered the room, her faint smile one of smug defiance. Diane had once been pretty, but Fleming was a golden-haired work of art, a radiant, emerald-eyed goddess in a green satin gown,