It would have been easy, then, to lie down and let sorrow blot out all else. Yet one small ray pierced the growing gloom: the thought of my children. For their sake, I rose from my bed, suddenly desperate to tell them gently of their father’s last hours and to offer what comfort I could. I demanded fresh clothing, so emphatically that my ladies quickly obliged me.
They produced a new dress of white silk damask studded with pearls, with a high ruffed collar of starched white lace. It was a pristine creation, an exquisite mourning gown for a French queen, with a matching hood and a veil of white gossamer. The seamstresses had no doubt worked long, feverish days since Henri’s mishap to complete it.
I spat on it and ordered them to take it away. I called for my gown of plain black silk, the one I had worn when the twins died. But before I could put on my slippers or lower the dark veil, I heard a high-pitched, anxious call in the antechamber.
“
Barefoot, I moved as quickly as shock allowed into the next room, where my darling eight-year-old Edouard stood in the doorway leading to the corridor. He was slender, with the Valoises’ long torso and limbs, and his father’s shining black eyes. His expression was one of pure panic.
“My precious eyes,” I said. “My sweet child, what is it?”
“The Duke of Guise and the Cardinal,” he said, his cheeks stained with tears. “They have told Francois to meet them downstairs. He is to bring Mary, Charles, Margot, and me. They are going to take us all away. They said not to tell you, that they must speak to Francois alone now that he is King.” His eyes narrowed; he was capable even then of understanding intrigue. “I don’t trust them,
My fingers dug into the sides of his shoulders. “When? When are you to meet them?”
“Now,” he replied. “At the entrance leading to the western gate.”
I gripped his hand. Together, we dashed from my apartments, down the spiraling staircase leading to the ground floor. On the landing, I almost collided with Montmorency. The old man was so stricken by his master’s death that he did not react at all to the fact that I had been running at full tilt down the stairs.
In a voice as dull as his bloodshot eyes, he said, “I came to inform you, Madame, that the vigil in the King’s chamber will commence tomorrow, at nine o’clock. You must rest well tonight, for the coming days will be long ones for you.”
He referred to the mourning vigil kept by all French queens: Tradition bound me to spend the next forty days at the Chateau des Tournelles, secluded in a darkened room beside my husband’s embalmed body.
But I had vowed to protect Henri’s sons. “I cannot stay,” I answered quickly. “The Guises are taking Francois away. I must go to him.”
He drew back, for love of Henri offended, but I had no time to explain. I squeezed Edouard’s hand, and my son and I ran down the stairs, through the vast, echoing reception halls to the chateau’s western entrance.
Outside, a carriage waited at the edge of the driveway. The sinister-eyed Cardinal of Lorraine, Charles of Guise, was holding the Dauphin’s elbow as my son ventured the high step into the carriage. The Duke of Guise, Mary, and my two younger children were waiting to follow them in.
Thunder rolled in the distance. Francois, skittish at storms, jerked and almost hit his head upon the carriage ceiling as he climbed inside. A cold drop of rain stung my cheek, then another.
“Francois!” I cried-sharply, but as the others turned to face me, I forced the muscles in my face to ease. “Here is the missing Edouard,” I called calmly, as if the Guises themselves had sent me to look for him. “And I shall come, too.”
The Guise brothers’ eyes widened with shock, but they dared say nothing. For an instant, Mary looked at me as though I were an asp that had just stung her, then composed herself and nodded a somber greeting. She was lovely and fresh despite the heat, a glittering vision in her white wedding gown.
She referred, of course, to my dead husband, but I pretended not to understand.
“That is precisely what I intend,” I answered, with a nod at Francois. “As I promised his father I would do.”
She said nothing more but stood silently as the Duke of Guise moved to one side of the carriage door and his brother the Cardinal moved to the other. They held out their hands to me.
“Please,
“I am no longer Queen,” I told him. “That lot falls to Mary now.”
I stood my ground, holding Edouard’s hand, and waited until the Guises helped their niece-Mary, Queen of France and Scotland-into the coach, to sit beside her husband the King. At last the Guises turned to me.
By then the rain had begun to fall in earnest, slicking the pavement and bringing an abrupt chill to the summer air. I thought of Aunt Clarice-ragged and trembling, yet utterly determined on that frantic ride from the Palazzo Medici-as I set my bare foot down on the wet cobblestone and took the short walk away from the Chateau des Tournelles, away from Henri and my heart, away from everything past.
PART VII
Thirty-two
The Guises’ carriage took my children and me to the Palace of the Louvre. Francois, Duke of Guise, and his brother Charles, Cardinal of Lorraine, wanted desperately to separate me from my son-now Francois II, King of France-so that he would refuse my advice and listen only to them and to Mary, whom he adored. But I would not leave Francois, and when he asked sweetly whether he might speak privately with the Cardinal and the Duke, I surrendered myself to such earnest-if calculated-paroxysms of weeping that he was too frightened to desert me.
I feared for him on more than one account. The strain of his father’s suffering and death had left Francois physically debilitated: even in the carriage, he laid his head upon Mary’s shoulder and moaned feebly at every lurch. He was dizzy, he said, and his ear had begun to pain him.
Nevertheless, Francois tried his best to understand my words about the necessity of a smooth transfer of power. By nightfall, I had convinced my son to establish a regency council whose decisions bore a weight equal to those of His Majesty. I was to share power with the Guises, who had moved into Diane’s and Montmorency’s apartments after throwing the former occupants’ belongings out onto the Louvre’s paved courtyard.
Old Montmorency-too late realizing that it honored Henri more to save his kingdom than to sit with his dead body-came to the Louvre the following day, and offered his services to Francois. My son thanked him stiffly, then haltingly recited a cruel speech written by the Guises: Montmorency was too old to be of use, and his position of Grand Master now belonged to Francois, Duke of Guise. The new King suggested Montmorency retire to his country estate.
In the days after my husband’s death, many faces changed at Court: old Montmorency, a reliable fixture, was gone; the young Scotsman, Captain de Montgomery, could not be found. Diane de Poitiers retreated to her home at
