The inner courtyard glittered with frost; torches had been lit in the wall brackets, chasing shadows into corners. The King still had my cloak; in the bitter air I felt the lack of it, but I could hardly ask to go back now. We were almost at the far side when a young woman appeared from our right with silent steps and planted herself in our path. By her clothes and hair it was clear she was a gentlewoman; she wore a crescent hood and huddled into a thick fur cape. She addressed my guard.
‘This man is to come with me.’
He frowned. ‘My instructions were to take him to the Tuileries.’
‘Your instructions have changed.’ She was as brisk and imperious as a dowager duchess, though I guessed she was not yet out of her teens. ‘We will see him delivered to Queen Catherine shortly. Go on,’ she said, shooing him away with a flap of her hand, ‘about your duties. This is not your responsibility now.’
His eyes flitted anxiously between us. ‘Will you be safe alone?’ he asked.
‘I’m sure I can fight her off if she tries anything,’ I said. The guard grinned; the girl’s expression remained stony.
‘We will be perfectly fine,’ she said. ‘Come along.’
The guard looked back to me, shrugged, and returned the way he had come. ‘You. Italian. Follow me,’ she said, setting off towards the adjacent wing.
‘Where?’
‘You’ll see. No more questions. Remember your place.’
TWENTY-THREE
She led me up a staircase and through a series of lavishly furnished rooms until we came to a door at the end. The girl knocked and was summoned by a female voice; I found myself ushered into a circular chamber in one of the towers. Queen Louise stood by the fire, her eyes fixed on the flames. I dropped immediately to my knees.
‘Your Majesty.’
‘You can get up,’ she said, in her soft voice, with its oddly flat intonation. ‘Thank you, Charlotte. You may leave us.’
I stood as the girl closed the door behind her, to find myself alone with Henri’s wife. I had barely spoken to her, even in the days when I was a regular visitor to the court; she had tended to keep to herself, and showed a marked suspicion of anyone the King favoured. Not without reason, I thought. She had been pretty in her youth, though never with the striking beauty that turned heads; she still had her looks, but the years of increasingly extreme treatments for her childlessness had faded her. She appeared drained; at thirty, the lines around her eyes gave her a look of permanent anxiety, though I noted that she had more colour in her cheeks than when I had last seen her on the night of the ball. She crossed the room, skirts susurrating behind her. Her gown was exquisite; shimmering green silk embroidered with silver thread and sewn all over with seed pearls, but she seemed ill at ease inside it, as if she had been made to dress up as a queen for a costume ball. I noticed, as she approached me, that her fingers were constantly in motion; plucking at the cloth of her cuffs, the rosary at her belt or the dry patches of skin on the backs of her hands.
‘Did you see my husband?’ she asked, without preliminary.
‘I did, Your Majesty.’
‘How is he?’
‘The physician is treating him now. He is weak but not in danger. I believe if his spirits recover, his body will follow.’
She nodded, wrapping her arms around her narrow ribs as she crossed to the window. ‘I heard she had sent for you. He would not see me. Nor any of his advisors. He would not even see Catherine.’
‘Perhaps he wanted some peace.’
She whisked around, her eyes darting over my face, trying to assess me.
‘Are you close to my husband?’
I hesitated. ‘I was his tutor for a time, in the art of memory.’
‘I remember. He used to shut himself away for hours with you in the library. Ruggieri said you were teaching him black magic.’
‘I hope Your Majesty knows that is not true.’
‘Oh, I am inclined to believe you. Every word that man speaks is a malicious lie.’ She said this with unexpected vehemence. ‘But Henri confides in you, I think?’
‘On occasion, he has done me that honour.’ I could not gauge the direction of her questions. ‘But we are not – intimate, Your Majesty.’
‘I did not mean that. Though I would not much care if you were. I am not afraid of his mignons. Does that surprise you?’ Before I could answer, she continued, ‘Henri’s sins are his own business. You know he designed my wedding dress and insisted on arranging my hair himself for the ceremony? Hours, he spent. Twenty minutes before I walked to the altar he was still fiddling, sewing precious stones on to my bodice while I was wearing it. Do you think I did not understand him then?’ She cracked a dry smile. ‘It was a work of art, though – see for yourself.’ She gestured to the wall behind me.
I turned to see an imposing portrait of Queen Louise posed in one of the great rooms of state in her wedding finery, ten years younger with a sparkle of hope in her eyes, though still outshone by the brilliance of her gown, so crowded with gems that it looked rigid as armour. But the detail that caught my eye was the pendant she wore around her neck in the portrait: a gold medallion engraved with the symbol of a dolphin.
‘You look radiant, Your Majesty,’ I said, with a small bow. ‘That is an unusual necklace, in the picture.’
A shadow crossed her face. ‘Catherine had it made by Italian goldsmiths for Henri to present to me on our wedding day. As a symbol of my duty to give him a Dauphin. Not especially subtle.’
I looked back at the painting. Of course – Dauphin meant
