Courtesan (62 page)

Henri went to her, took her in his arms and began softly to laugh. “Can this be? My own beautiful Diane falling victim to the words of a man skirting the bounds of heresy?”

“Do not make light of it, Henri, please. There is more than one voice of doubt at Court that has been silenced by this man’s words. They say Monsieur Nostradamus is rarely wrong.”

“He is vague,
m’amie.
He molds the prophecy to the event, just like that fortune-teller in Cauterets, do you remember?”

“She predicted I would have a third child and that I would come to have great power.”

“If you had read Nostradamus’s work, what I tell you would be imminently clear. He also predicted doom in combat, and you can see very well that France is at peace. We are celebrating a wedding. Does it look to you as if there is any danger of combat in Paris?”

“That is a matter of semantics. I don’t know, perhaps the Queen is right. Perhaps it would be better if you did not joust today.”

“Not you too! How can you ask that of me,
m’amie,
when I have had the armor made especially to honor you? I want to ride for that honor, as I did all those years ago, when I was just a boy. It is the very same field in which I shall ride today. It is an anniversary of sorts, do you not think? I was a child then; no more than ten, but you found something worthwhile in me even then. You alone made me a King. I want to wear your scarf on my lance, so that all the world shall know that our love is stronger, more impenetrable than ever. How can you deny me that?”

She looked at the winsome expression on his face; the one so capable of seducing her to whatever end he desired.

“Well, can you?” he asked again.

“I suppose there is nothing I can say. . .”

T
HE DAY WAS HOT,
and all of Paris sweltered in the heat of the tightly packed courtyard of Les Tournelles. The jousting had lasted all day with matches between François de Guise and Charles de Brissac and François de Montmorency and Admiral Coligny. The royal heralds called out each new contest with the accompanying fanfare of trumpets. Finally, as the afternoon sun began to pale, it came time for the King to joust. His match had been saved until the last to arouse the crowds.

The Queen sat in one tribune looped in blue silk and stamped with gold fleurs-de-lys. Beside her were the Dauphin, Queen Mary, the Duc de Savoy and her astrologer, Gauier. Diane had her own tribune beside the Queen. Hers was draped in black with small white crescents and the royal emblem in the center worked in diamonds. She was flanked by her daughter, Diane de France, the Cardinal de Lorraine and the Princess Marguerite. Other galleries had been assembled for the King’s distinguished guests and members of the Court, who now sat soaked with sweat in the unrelenting late-afternoon sun.

As the sunset stained the western sky, the heralds finally called out the King’s entrance from his pavilion. Everyone rose to their feet. Trumpets blared as Henri’s horse cantered proudly into the lists. This was the third day of tournaments and the crowd had waited patiently for their Sovereign. Now, at the prospect of the magnificent spectacle which lay before them, there exploded a frenzy of adulation. The crowds tossed flowers toward him from the stands as His Majesty rode Compère, a magnificent Spanish stallion belonging to the Duke of Savoy.

Henri sat proudly in his saddle in his new suit of armor, gleaming against the sunset. His helmet was plumed with feathers of black and white. A black banner bearing their emblem ran across his breastplate. He waved to the crowd and the diamonds on the black trappings of his horse shimmered in the sunlight.

The two riders met in the center of the field and then converged on Diane’s tribune. It was not until they had both reached her, their visors open, that Diane and those around her tribune heard the announcement. His Majesty’s opponent would be the new Captain of the Scots Guard, Gabriel de Montgommery, Jacques’ son!

The face of the warrior before her now had once long ago belonged to Jacques de Montgommery. Diane was so surprised by the young man’s uncanny resemblance to his father that she held a hand over her mouth. He was tall and thin, as his father once had been, with the same honey-colored hair and soft, almost feminine features. Gazing at him took her back to a young man who had wagered her a coin that he knew the will of the King better than she. It brought her forward to the memory of a weary, aging nobleman held captive in the bowels of a Paris prison.

Diane’s heart stopped as both men saluted her. She could not speak. Her lips, parted by fear, formed a tiny breathless gasp. Seeing the son of her former lover, his eyes tinged with what she knew was hate, filled her with fear. Was this to be revenge by the son for what had happened to the father? She longed to call out to stop the match, but Henri was too invested in the romance of the pageantry that he had created to honor her. He waved to the crowds and they cheered even more wildly.

“I ride for the love of you!” he declared to Diane but loudly enough for all to hear.

As the crowds cheered and hung over the barrier, their daughter tossed him a white rose, Diane’s favorite flower. It was yet another symbol of her parents’ great love. He held it up to the crowds in one silver gauntleted hand. Henri led his horse a few steps closer to the stands so that he could take the black silk scarf that he would sport on the end of his lance.

Diane looked at him, his beautiful dark eyes crinkled into a smile. He was happy. He was doing what he loved best in the world. She could insist and he might comply, but she could not ask him to do that. Reluctantly, she surrendered the scarf. First he kissed it, then placed it on the tip of his lance. The deafening applause rose to a crescendo.

Damn Catherine for frightening me like this! I can think of nothing but those vile prophecies. I have only to make it a little while longer and it shall all be over.

Henri looked at her again. Once the scarf was secured, he put his hand over his heart and smiled at her. Then he closed his visor and galloped onto the field.

She leaned uneasily into her seat between her daughter and the Cardinal de Lorraine.

“It shall soon be over,” she whispered and clutched her pearl rosary. “Pray God.”

T
HE LANCES WERE LEVELED
and the two horses lunged at one another in a swirl of dust. Shadows of the two mighty steeds lengthened across the vast yard. The crowds fell silent as no man managed to fell the other. Montgommery was a worthy opponent, not so easily unseated as the King had hoped. The two men circled the field to the sound of thunderous clambering hooves and returned to their places.

Henri readied himself again. He was hot and tired. He could feel the sweat run down his chest beneath his armor. It was not so easy as it had been in his youth. But he must do this. He must do it for Diane. Henri dug his jeweled spurs into the horse. He gripped the jeweled pommel. Again they charged. Two silhouettes approached one another on the steadily darkening field. Again the cheers and shouts of the crowd rose up. Suddenly he felt his body jerk backward with a powerful force; his neck snapped forward and then back, but there was no pain. It had been a sharp blow to his breastplate. He held tight to the pommel. He began to reel in his saddle, but he held fast as they passed one another. As he recovered, the crowd roared their praise.

“Thank God,” Diane muttered as she clutched her rosary, knowing that now it was finally over.

Henri rode to the end of the field where Montmorency sat in the judges’ box. He raised his visor. “Have a fresh lance brought for me,” he said. “I shall have one more go at the little bastard before the day is through.”

“But Your Majesty, the rules are clear. This marks the end of the match.”

“The deuce it does! I am King and I say we shall go once more!”

He was becoming obstinate, but Montmorency had been on such tenuous ground lately that he dare not push the King too hard. He left the judges’ box and walked down beside his mount.

“Your Majesty knows full well you are not yourself today,” he whispered, looking up at Henri.

“But how shall it look to everyone if I do not win? I have dedicated this match to Madame Diane.”

Before Montmorency could reply, Henri turned his horse away and trotted back out onto the field.

“A new lance, Monty!” he shouted without lowering his visor and trotted back to his place on the field.

“Good Lord, what is he doing?” Catherine muttered.

“It would appear that His Majesty wishes to go another round,” replied the Duke of Savoy.

“He cannot! He must not. He is tired. Can no one see that? He must be made to stop!”

“And who would have the courage to insist that he did?”

“You shall do it!” she said, turning to her eldest son. “François, call your father. Remind him of my dream. Beg him not to run again!”

The pallid young Dauphin stood beside his mother.

“Do it, boy! Do it now! There is no time to spare!”

D
IANE SHIFTED IN HER SEAT
as another lance was brought for the King. Even though the sun had nearly set, the air was still warm and thick with flies. She opened her fan and began to wave it before her face, trying desperately not to think of the prophecy or of Gabriel de Montgommery. But there was one coincidence even she could not ignore. She had heard the verse.

The young lion will overcome the older one.
The words of the prophecy echoed back at her. . .On the young man’s shield, God help them all, was the face of a lion.

“Soon,” she muttered. “It shall be over soon.” Tonight she would scold him for being so obstinate and for insisting on another round when it was so warm and so late.

The two men, poised in opposition, readied their horses again. Their lances were lowered. Henri had refused to receive a message from the Queen through his son. He could not afford to break his concentration, not when he was feeling like this. He was dizzy and he had not managed to steady himself completely after Montgommery’s blow. He began to falter again, and he leaned more heavily on the pommel of his saddle. The Queen sprang to her feet and the crowds were hushed. Montmorency and François de Guise stood and began to move toward the field but the King waved them away. Then the two horses charged full speed at one another. Dust blew in a great cloud around them.

Diane felt her heart stop. She sat motionless, not even breathing as both men shattered their long lances against one another nearly at the same moment. Henri’s fell from his arm, as it should. Montgommery’s did not. Instead, the splintered end of the long wooden weapon, which had broken against the King’s breastplate, flew upward. It caught on Henri’s unlatched visor, which he had lowered but forgotten to fasten, and large jagged splinters of wood plunged full force into Henri’s right eye.

Diane leaned against the Cardinal and watched in horror with the rest of the Court. Blood sprayed from his visor as he faltered on the still-charging horse. He then grasped the braided mane and began to fall.

“Oh, dear God, no. . .Henri, no. . .”

She could not move. She could not breathe. The sense of alarm spread through her before the comprehension. Then, all around was white, blinding light. No sound.

Guise and Montmorency rushed forward, both jumping across the barrier catching the King as he fell. They helped him to the ground. A great flood of frenzied onlookers rushed onto the field. The hushed cries and the incredulous moans echoed through the pewter sky for their beloved Sovereign. The Dauphin fainted into the hands of his new wife, the Queen of Scots. Catherine cried out and gripped the arms of her chair as Henri was lain in the dusty yard.

“The prophecy!” she wailed. “The prophecy!”

When she saw that he lay motionless on the ground, Diane rose from her chair and began to scale the railing of her tribune trying to get to him. Halfway over the wall, her foot caught in the black velvet banner. Tears streamed down her cheek as the Cardinal de Lorraine rushed from his seat, his own face stricken with horror, and helped her from an instinct born of twenty years of service. He held her hand as he jumped down onto the field, not knowing how to stop her. The shocked crowd surged around her and she was swallowed up in the sobs and cries; their shoving arms and legs all clambering toward the King. As she struggled, she felt her gown tear. Someone stepped on her train. Her headdress was being pulled from behind. An elbow plunged into her ribs. As though pulled by the strong current of a great wave, she felt herself steadily consumed.

“Please, let me pass!” she cried, but her voice was lost to all of the other sounds of terror.
This cannot be! It cannot!
Tears filled her eyes and streaked down her face so quickly that she could barely see.

“Let me pass, I command you!”

Her heart crashed against her rib cage and she began to strike out at the people around her with the aimless fury of a madwoman. A scream clawed in her throat and she cried out to everyone, and to no one.

Then, before her on horseback, she saw that a royal guard was trying to clear a path through which they might carry the King from the field. She could see him struggling to part the frenzied crowd.

“You there! Guard!” she shrieked. “Help me get to the King! It is I, the Duchesse de Valentinois!”

But her words were in vain. The guard never looked at her; never acknowledged her cries as anything more than one of the collective grieving howls of the other anonymous masses who swirled around him. Then the crowds surged again, pushing her farther and farther from the path. The harder she struggled to advance, the farther away she was pulled. She was crying now, blinded by her tears, but finally, through the sobbing and the whispers of horror, she saw Henri’s lifeless body, pulled from his armor and soaked in blood, pass before her.

“Oh. . .oh, dear God in Heaven, let me by. . .I beg you, please! You must let me by. Do none of you know who I am?”