‘Do you still wear it?’ I asked.
‘That would hardly be appropriate,’ she said bitterly. ‘Catherine made me give it back to the King for safekeeping. She said he would return it and I could wear it again when I had fulfilled its promise. So you see why the men are no threat to me. It is the women I fear.’
‘What do you mean?’
She laid a hand flat across her abdomen. ‘What do you suppose? Ten years of marriage and no Dauphin. I have done everything humanly possible, but it seems all the saints are deaf to me.’ Her face pinched, as if with a sharp pain. ‘And what of Catherine – are you close to her?’
I hesitated. ‘I think Catherine would gladly see me dead, Your Majesty. Except for the rare occasions when she finds I can be useful to her.’
‘Hm. That makes two of us, then.’ She turned her attention to a loose thread in her sleeve. ‘Since the King’s brother the Duke of Anjou died last summer I feel I have been teetering on the edge of a precipice, waiting for her to push me. I am no longer useful, you see.’
I looked at her, beginning to understand. ‘You think the King wants a new wife?’
‘For himself, I don’t think Henri would cast me off. He feels too guilty. But she controls everything. She will not see the House of Valois lose the throne without a fight. I knew it had begun when Ruggieri pronounced his new prophecy. So I wondered if Henri had said anything to you?’
‘His Majesty did not mention any prophecy,’ I said. She watched me with a clear, level stare.
‘Nothing you say will go beyond this room. I will give you my word, if you will do the same.’ She pointed at the wall, tracing a circle around her with her finger. ‘Day after day I am trapped here, knowing there are plots being woven all around me, and no one will tell me anything. Do you know how that feels?’
‘I know what it is to feel friendless,’ I said. She regarded me for a moment and nodded; her eyes suggested she was struggling with her desire to confide in someone. ‘What did this new prophecy say?’ I prompted, gently.
‘That the King would have a son within the year.’
‘But that speaks in your favour, does it not? If one believes Ruggieri truly has a divine gift,’ I added, in a tone that made my own view clear.
‘He did not say it would be with me,’ she said. ‘He predicted a son born to a fertile union – those were his exact words. It was carefully ambiguous. But I know, because Balthasar told me in confidence, that around the same time Catherine held a private audience with the Papal nuncio. I am sure it was to discuss the possibility of annulling my marriage.’
‘You think she would do that?’ I was surprised not by the suggestion of Catherine’s stratagems but by how astute the Queen was in guessing at them.
‘No, I don’t,’ she said, shortly. ‘I think such a process would be drawn-out, diplomatically fraught and expensive. Catherine would not want that. And why should she go to all that trouble when there are easier ways to remove me?’ She toyed with her cuff again. ‘Then she sent that Circe woman to join my household. To spy on me, I supposed at first. She would not have been the first. I thought then it had begun. And I have been so ill these past weeks, I feared she was already practising against me. I had good reason to believe it, too.’
She pressed her lips together and turned back to the window. I watched her, the pent-up agitation making her thin frame quiver with nervous energy. It was impossible to know how far her fears were exaggerated by loneliness and her sense of isolation at court, but with Catherine de Medici, everything she was saying sounded entirely plausible.
‘But – if you will forgive me, Your Majesty, you are looking better. I pray that your health is returning.’
She glanced at me over her shoulder. ‘I thank you. Yes, I feel a little more like myself these past couple of days.’ She gave a short laugh. ‘Coincidence, isn’t it – that woman dies and immediately I begin to recover. Perhaps the priest was right after all.’
‘What?’ I fought to keep my voice level. ‘Which priest?’
‘I don’t know. I received a letter, almost a month ago now. Anonymous, of course. But the author said he had good intelligence that Circe meant me harm. He spoke of the confessional, so I assumed it came from a priest. And the de Châtillon girl was silly and superstitious enough that she would seek absolution for murder even before she committed it.’ Her fingers moved to pick at the beads on her belt. ‘No doubt you think I am full of absurd fancies. But if you lived as I do, knowing Catherine, you would be afraid for your life too. Don’t be deceived by these clothes—’ she held out the fabric of her skirt – ‘I am a prisoner awaiting execution like any in the Bastille. So I am pleading with you to tell me if Henri has said anything to you that would confirm my suspicions. Because I would go quietly – you can tell him that. To a convent, if he wished it. There is no need to kill me.’ I could hear the desperation in her voice, even as she tried to keep her face stoical.
‘Dio mio,’ I said forcefully. I had misunderstood everything from the beginning. ‘Your Majesty.’
‘Yes?’ She looked at me expectantly.
‘No, I meant—’ I could only stare at her, wondering how I could have made such an obvious mistake. All along, I had assumed that
