The Medici Queen aka The Devil’s Queen

from the Netherlands and present Charles with the captured banner of Spain. How can I listen idly to this blatant affront to my King?”

My fan stilled. “He is a traitor,” I said softly, “and he will soon pay for his crimes against our King, and yours. But not today, Don Diego. Today, we will celebrate my daughter’s wedding.”

The intrigued tilt of the ambassador’s head indicated that he could guess very well what I had not said, and that it would be to his benefit to forget our conversation.

“Thank you, Madame la Reine,” he said and kissed my hand. “In that case, I must apologize for interrupting your joyful day.”

I was tempted to go and hear Coligny’s boasts for myself but decided against it: I did not want to be seen reacting to his arrogance. I sat in my chair listening to the music for the rest of the evening, until most of the guests had left.

Near the end of the revels, an exhausted Navarre approached me. “Tante Catherine,” he asked, “might I have a private word?”

“Of course.” I patted the empty chair beside me. “You are my son now.”

He sat down and handed me a small velvet box and a letter. “These are from my mother. She asked me to give them to you after the wedding.”

I took them from him. The sealed letter was addressed to me in Jeanne’s careful hand; I knew it well, from all the many lists of demands we had shared with each other during the marriage negotiations.

“I will read this later, in private,” I said and slipped it inside my sleeve.

I opened the dusty little box. Nestled inside, against white silk that had yellowed with age, was a brooch made from a large, perfect emerald surrounded by clusters of diamonds.

“This is exquisite,” I murmured. “And it must be worth a small fortune. But I never saw your mother wear it.”

“Nor did I,” he admitted. “I don’t know how she came by it, but she wanted you to have it. Her gentlewoman told me she wrote the letter on her deathbed.”

“Thank you,” I said, touched, and kissed him upon the cheek. He flushed with charming shyness; I took advantage of the moment to speak frankly.

“So,” I said, closing the box, “will you be going with the Admiral to the Netherlands after the celebrations?”

His eyes widened before he caught hold of himself and frowned. “No,” he said firmly. “I must apologize for him, Madame la Reine. He has overstepped his bounds. I have made my opinion known to him, yet he ignores me.”

“What would that opinion be?” I asked.

Henri’s expression hardened. “It is mad to bait Spain; it can bring only disaster. We are just recovering from years of war. Now is the time to recover and rebuild, not tear down.”

“Well put,” I said, though I did not believe he had meant any of it.

The smiling Cardinal de Bourbon, with Margot and Charles in tow, approached us and leaned down to speak into my ear.

“The time has come, Madame la Reine.”

I led Margot upstairs to her own chamber, outfitted as a bridal suite, with satin indigo sheets and pale blue velvet hangings. With my ladies, I dutifully scattered handfuls of walnuts over the antechamber floor. Then I helped my daughter undress and settle beneath the silk sheets. As she pulled the top sheet over her breasts, tears slid down the sides of her face. I embraced her tightly.

“My darling,” I whispered, “you will be happy, and this marriage will bring us peace.”

She was too overcome with emotion to answer. I went out to the antechamber to find the Cardinal and Edouard looking troubled.

“His Majesty refuses to come witness the consummation,” Edouard said irritably. “He insists I do so in his stead.”

The Cardinal was shaking his head. “This is unheard of,” he said. “The King must sign the contract as a witness, to verify that the act took place.”

“And he will,” I told the Cardinal and turned to Edouard. “Tell him that he must come!”

“I did, Maman,” Edouard said. “He refuses to listen.”

I let go a sound of pure exasperation. “Where is he?”

“In his bedchamber. I tell you, he will not come,” Edouard said.

I was already out the door. I found His Majesty huddled in his bed with the sheet pulled up, fully dressed in his wedding garb.

“Get up, Charles,” I said.

“I won’t do it,” he whined. “You don’t understand, Maman. No one understands me… no one, except Margot. And now this-this Huguenot bastard means to take her from me.”

“Don’t be a child,” I said. “Get up. The Cardinal is waiting.”

Tears came to his eyes. “Everyone is trying to take her away from me. Edouard, Henri… and now you. Don’t you see, Maman? I love her…”

I slapped him so hard that his skull struck the headboard.

“How dare you!” he snarled. “How dare you touch the person of the King!”

I moved to strike him again, but he raised an arm defensively.

The words tumbled out of me. “We all must do things we despise, my son-but I would remind you that your sister is not your wife. She belongs to another man-rightly so-and you will now behave as a good brother ought, and do what tradition demands.”

A spasm of grief contorted Charles’s face; he let go a wracking sob. “I want to die,” he gasped. “No one else can abide me… no one else is kind to me, because I am so wretched. What will I do without her?”

“Your Majesty,” I said, “you speak as though she is lost forever. You forget that she is, even now, under your roof-and she will likely remain here for years to come. Now that Henri’s mother is dead, he will spend little time in Navarre.”

Charles looked up at me, his face damp; mucus had collected on his dark mustache. “You are not lying to me?”

“I am not lying,” I said, without trying to hide my irritation. “Charles, if you ever speak of her again as though she were anything more than your sister… I will do worse than strike you. Now get up, and perform the duty all French kings have performed before you.”

In the end, he came with me to the antechamber and went, trembling, to sit beside the Cardinal while Henri and his bride performed the nuptial act. The Cardinal later confessed to me that Charles had spent the entire time with his hands over his eyes.

When the King emerged from Margot’s bedchamber, he looked down at me with red, swollen eyes. “By God, I will kill him,” he whispered. “I will kill him, too…”

Three days of nonstop festivities followed-although the more vigorous entertainments, including the joust, were canceled after too many of the participants fainted in the merciless heat. On the last day, the twenty-first, Edouard reported to me that he had witnessed a confrontation between Coligny and the King outside the tennis gallery. Coligny had demanded an audience; Charles had stalled him, saying, “Give me a few more days of celebration, mon pere-I cannot think with all these parties going on.”

“If you will not see me sooner, then I shall be obliged to leave Paris,” Coligny reportedly responded. “And if I do, you will find yourself embroiled in a civil war rather than a foreign one.”

The comment prompted Edouard, as Lieutenant General, to station troops at strategic points around the city, ostensibly to keep the peace between the Guises and Coligny. It also worried me that our victim might quit the city too soon-but the Admiral had responded with an emphatic affirmative when I asked him later that day whether he would attend the Council meeting on the following morning. Poor fool; he actually believed he still could sway us.

Late in the evening, against the backdrop of distant music and laughter coming from the final masked ball,