Margot aside.
“What possessed you to become, overnight, an ardent supporter of the Church?”
“You never asked,” she said, with sudden heat. “You never ask me anything,
Tears filled her eyes. There was more she wanted to say, but she could not bring herself to give it voice.
I moved to put a hand upon her shoulder, but her face crumpled and she lifted her skirts and ran away.
I did not follow. Only time-and Henri, perhaps, if he was as kind a man as he had been a boy-could help her.
I spent the rest of the evening with Charles in his downstairs study, trying to undo the damage wrought by Coligny. It grew late, and I left for my chambers.
I climbed the spiraling outdoor staircase, shivering at the March chill. On the landing I stopped to catch my breath and stared out at the courtyard, remembering an instant, decades past, when I had paused on the first floor of the same palace to see the Duchess d’Etampes cavorting naked with King Francois. I was recalling my terror of repudiation when muted voices brought me back to the present.
I looked up. The staircase was hemmed by ornately carved railings; through them, I glimpsed the arms and averted faces of two figures, indistinct in the darkness, on the landing above. Their voices floated down, the words incomprehensible, though the emotions-the woman’s tearful rage, the man’s determined calm-carried easily.
Unpleasant scenes between romantically entangled courtiers were common, but I had no patience for them. I was on the verge of clearing my throat and pressing onward when something-the timbre of the young woman’s voice, perhaps, or the man’s placating gesture-held me fast.
I watched as the woman loosed a stream of heated words, her fingers spread in hopeless anger. The man-tall, composed-grasped her hand and, curling it in his own, pressed it to his lips. She stopped to listen as he spoke, softly, reasonably-but when he finished, she pulled something from her neck and cast it from her.
It fell, softly striking the landing below her-an arm’s length from my feet. The man pulled her to him, and they kissed fiercely. I leaned down, grateful for their distraction, and picked up the glittering object from the stone.
It was the diamond necklace Jeanne had given Margot.
I closed my fist over the gem and looked up, riveted; by then, the embrace was over. Margot hurried inside to her chambers; the man began to descend the stairs. Panicked, I slipped from the landing inside the square archway and drew back into the shadows.
The man made his way rapidly down to the very place I had been standing and paused there. At the instant he arrived in full view on the landing, I closed my eyes.
I remained motionless and sightless for the long minutes he slowly walked the course of the landing, looking for the missing gift. At last he muttered a curse and proceeded farther down the stairs.
Only then did I open my eyes, but it had not been enough to shield me from what I could not bear to know. In the cold air lingered, unmistakable and cloying, the fragrance of orange blossom.
For hours I grappled with what I had witnessed. My mind, I decided, had tricked me: I had been so certain I looked upon quarreling lovers that I had injected passion into a kiss that had been only fraternal. Edouard, after all, was far too taken with his gentlemen to fall in love with a woman, least of all his sister.
But I grew more devoted than ever to seeing Margot married off to Henri-and I didn’t care if she spent the rest of her life in backward Navarre.
The negotiations began early the next morning. The fire had already warmed the council room, and the open curtains admitted the feeble sun. Jeanne wore the same plain dress of Huguenot black. Her smile was not so bright as when I first saw it; she settled into the chair with a sigh, already exhausted.
I suggested that we begin by writing down the points we deemed important. When it was done, we exchanged papers. Jeanne’s contained no surprises: Henri was to hold fast to his faith, and Margot was to convert so that they could be married in a Protestant ceremony in Navarre. The couple would spend most of the year there.
I, of course, wanted Henri to convert to Catholicism and marry Margot in Notre-Dame. Given that Henri was King of Navarre, I was willing to let the couple spend half the year in that tiny country.
As Jeanne read my list, her expression grew cold and regal.
“He will not convert,” she said flatly. “This is not Catholicism; he was not born into his faith. He came to it through self-examination and God’s grace.”
“And Margot,” I said, “would be excommunicated if she renounced her faith. She would lose her royal status.”
“He will not convert,” Jeanne repeated. From the set of her jaw and the hardness in her eyes, I saw she was serious and so moved on to a different issue: where the couple should live.
“Henri will spend as little time as possible at the French Court,” Jeanne said, with the same air of finality.
“Being First Prince of the Blood and heir to the throne, Henri has a responsibility to the French people,” I argued. “He will wind up spending half the year in Paris anyway, so it hardly seems reasonable-”
Jeanne cut me off. “There is too much moral laxity here in Paris. God does not smile on ostentation, adultery, and drunkenness.”
“You cannot tell me, Jeanne, that every single soul at your court in Navarre is pure and devoted to God.”
She was silent for so long that I took offense. “Margot seems to be a fine young woman. Let her come live with us, then decide for herself whether our ways suit her.”
“Margot has already told me that she prefers to remain in Paris,” I said. “She is used to a sophisticated lifestyle. It isn’t fair to make her spend her days in a place so… provincial.”
She lifted her chin, haughty. “Provincial, perhaps, but not corrupt.”
“Have we forgotten so quickly that we are friends?” I asked. “Henri and Margot have known each other since they were children. They were born in the same year; she is Taurus, and he Sagittarius, so they are compatible.”
“Please do not inflict your astrology on me,” she said. “Deuteronomy, chapter eighteen: Witchcraft, sorcery, spells, and necromancy-all are an abomination to the Lord.” There was no sanctimony in her; she seemed tormented, on the verge of crying.
The hairs on the back of my neck lifted; I put a hand to the pearl at my heart. She had remembered, after all these years, what I had confessed in the agony of childbirth: that I had bought my children with the darkest magic.
We stared across the table at each other. “So you consider me damned,” I said hoarsely. “Jeanne, I was mad with pain when I cried out those things about Ruggieri…”
“I thought that you were raving-until I learned you had corrupted my own son.” Her features twisted with the effort to hold back tears. “I intercepted letters he tried to send to you, Catherine. You made him believe that both of you saw secret visions, of horrible, bloody things. I made him beg God for forgiveness and forbade him to speak of them again.”
I felt sickened, exposed. “If you look on me with such horror, why are you here?”
“I am here because I must protect my son’s rights as First Prince of the Blood.”
She spoke the truth: If she balked, I had only to petition the Pope to excommunicate her son. As a result, Henri would lose his right to the succession, which would fall to the Duke of Guise.
“And so you cut me to the quick,” I said. “You demonize me. You do not ask me what the truth is; you judge and send me straight to Hell.”
She wavered. “I’ve told no one what you said to me. And I never will.” She opened her mouth again, but I rose and silenced her with a gesture.
“I will hear no more,” I said heavily. “And I want no more of these deliberations.”
Thirty-eight
