History's Great Queens 2-Book Bundle: The Last Queen and The Confessions of Catherine de Medici (51 page)

The duchess added, “I thought you knew. It’s not uncommon for men of Henri’s age to become infatuated with older women, but in time the interest fades. Indeed, once you get with child by him, he’ll forget about her.” Her voice edged with a hint of spite. “She’ll be a crone by then, in any event.”

I stiffened. “How many years older is she?”

“Oh, she’s at least forty-three. She hides her age well, I’ll grant her that, but she’s still a widow with two grown daughters. Some say she’s attractive; I can’t for the life of me understand the appeal. Always dressed in that dreadful black and ugly coif—cold, she is, cold and hard. François says she has coins for eyes. He doesn’t approve of her hold on Henri.”

“What is her name?” I whispered, afraid to know, as if hearing it would make her materialize before me.

“Diane de Poitiers, widow of the seneschal of Normandy. We call her la Sénéchale.” She arched her brow. “I gather you also don’t approve.”

“Approve?” I spat before I could stop myself. “He has no right! How can I get with child if he spends all his time in his mistress’s bed?” As soon as I spoke, I wished I could snatch back my words. I had offended her. After all, she too was a royal mistress.

The duchess contemplated me for a long moment. Then she said with clipped precision, “Men will dally; and as women, we must endure. But no man should place dalliance above duty. Unlike our Sénéchale, I have always known my place. The king has had his children and wants no more; his marriage to his second queen, Eleanor, is one of strictly political convenience. But your marriage is a different matter. As François’s second heir, Henri is expected to sire sons. This cannot continue. I’m afraid we must speak with His Majesty.”

“Oh, no! Please.” I was overcome by panic. I felt my entire future hinged on keeping my virginity a secret. “I don’t want anyone else to know … It … it is humiliating.”

“I don’t see why. No one thinks you’re to blame.”

I struggled to control myself. I had the feeling that the duchess had her own reasons for disliking the Sénéchale; perhaps she too saw a future already before her, a time when she would be too old for the king to care about her. No matter the case, it wouldn’t serve me to play the helpless virgin, not when I might find the assistance I needed through her influence.

“Couldn’t you help me some other way?” I ventured. “I’m certain that if Henri and I could spend some time together, he’d come to see the error of his ways.”

She paused, eyeing me. “Yes, perhaps he would,” she said. “And as women, we must stick together, yes?” She smiled. “We’ll start with a new set of gowns. Your Italian dress is very distinctive, but you must look entirely French now. I’ll also have you ride the hunt with us, as an honorary member of our Petite Bande. You do ride, don’t you?”

“I do,” I said quickly. “I like riding.” In truth, I had never ridden a hunt, but I had brought a splendid gold and leather saddle from Florence with me and I thought it would stand out.

“Good. Riding
la chasse
with us is sure to bring you notice.”

“And that’s good?” I asked, for I wasn’t sure if it was the kind of notice I should aspire to.

She tossed her head, laughing. “Nothing could be better! You have
Madame d’Étampes on your side, my dear, and if there’s one thing I excel at, it’s how to win a man.”

I was thus initiated into the king’s intimate circle. It took several weeks to get my new gowns fitted, and in the meantime I began practicing my riding every day on a docile mare, using my Florentine saddle, which had a higher ridge and shorter stirrup length than customary in France and thus, Madame d’Étampes informed me, allowed me the extra advantage of being able to hike up my skirts to show off my ankles. “You do have lovely legs, my dear,” she remarked. “And the gentlemen always appreciate a hint of thigh.” She trilled laughter; I think she enjoyed grooming me, seeing me as some special project she undertook for the king.

Finally I was taken with the Petite Bande to the hunt.

I didn’t like it. The hounds barked incessantly, the men drank too much too early, and the women vied with each other for attention. I also learned to stay far from the actual killing, for the celebrated
chasse
was just an organized massacre, with grooms setting up nets in a circle while wranglers beat the bushes with rods to scare up quail, pheasant, rabbit, and other creatures and send them bounding into the nets, where, defenseless, they fell to the gleeful thrust of spears and arrows shot by the ladies on their mares. The animals’ agonized cries and their blood soaking the ground nauseated me; I didn’t understand how otherwise sophisticated people could delight in such savagery. I would have preferred to ride with the king in honest pursuit of hart or boar, but women weren’t allowed, though in my saddle I could ride as hard and fast as any man. Disregarding the calluses on my hands and on my buttocks (for these hunts consumed hours) I spent the time perfecting my horsemanship skills while the women sated their bloodlust, until one morning I set heels to my mare and spurred after the king.

I was rewarded by his astonishment, and his men’s staring disapproval, when I came to his side. “Let me ride with you today,” I said, and he looked at me before he nodded. “You’d best know how to use that bow,” he said, and he spurred his stallion forth, his hounds baying as they caught scent of prey. I followed, reveling in the sensation of the forest rushing past me, laughing aloud when a low branch snagged my
riding cap and tore it from my head. Leaning in my saddle against my mare’s powerful neck, I urged her on, determined to keep pace. And there, on the edge of a clearing, I saw the hounds corner a young doe, her ears flattened against her exquisite head, her expressive eyes distended in fear as she bucked at the circling dogs with her hooves.

François beckoned me. His men were about him, yanking at their lathered steeds and watching me with disdain. “She’s yours,” said the king. “Do her proud.”

I met his eyes. I didn’t want to kill that valiant beast fighting for her life; my heart resisted even as I took up my bow and fitted the arrow. I waited until the doe rose on her hindquarters to evade a lunging dog. I closed my eyes, let the arrow fly. I heard the men gasp. The taut silence was broken by the houndsmen shouting at the dogs to stay put; when I opened my eyes I saw the doe dead on the ground, my arrow protruding from her chest.

I turned to François, who gestured for me to dismount. Cutting off the doe’s right ear, he took its bleeding edge and drew it down my cheek, the blood still hot. He handed me the ear. “Though you pitied her,” he said, “you did not hesitate. That is the way of life,
ma petite
. Sometimes we must strike first, before we are struck in turn.”

He turned to his men with an ebullient laugh. “My daughter-in-law has brought me pride this day! She hunts as well as any man, and better, I think, than many of you.”

As the men returned his laughter with halfhearted enthusiasm, I glowed. That day, I rode back to the château with the king at my side, the doe’s blood dry on my face and her ear weighting my belt pouch. By the time I arrived, the court had gathered in the courtyard. I smiled when I glimpsed the disbelief on the ladies’ faces as they saw me riding beside François with dried blood on my face; now they actually had something to talk about, though I wasn’t so naïve as to believe I was any safer. While I could now ride the hunt with the king, I was still a barren wife; and after the dauphin, Henri was next in the line of succession.

I had to bear sons to secure the Valois line. If I failed, like the doe whose life I had taken today, I too could be brought down.

I therefore contrived to be seen as often as I could, hoping to gain further notice and perhaps entice one of the ever-present gossips to send word to Henri that his wife, the duchess, was becoming quite the presence
at court. I cajoled Marguerite to the galleries, the halls, and the gardens, where we sat with our women arranged about us in all their decorative profusion.

After weeks without a sign of him, I felt like a fool, dressed to the teeth and looking all the more desperate for it. I’d have killed a thousand does rather than endure the ladies who paused to greet me with predatory smiles and the gentlemen with their exaggerated bows, all of whom no doubt went on to whisper behind their hands that la Medici was trying especially hard these days to appear as though she hadn’t just stepped off the boat. Honorary member of the Petite Bande or not, in their eyes I was still the foreigner who’d had the luck to snare a prince—though how long I’d keep him was debatable, considering he preferred the company of his mistress.

It was then that my hatred for Diane de Poitiers took root in my heart. I had not even seen her, but if I could have I’d have poured the vial of poison Ruggieri had given me into her goblet. She had tainted my new life, turned it into something fearful, and there was nothing I could do to thwart her. One afternoon as I sat ensconced in my uncomfortable finery, a book sent to me from Florence in my hands, enduring the courtiers’ barbed regards even as I feigned to be immersed in the pages, I realized I could bear no more. I came abruptly to my feet.

Marguerite turned to me. “Catherine, are you well?” she said, even as she looked toward an approaching group of courtiers, the type she liked to engage in banter to prove her intellectual superiority.

“I’m restless, is all. I think I’ll walk awhile.”

She moved to accompany me; I stopped her. “You mustn’t disappoint your friends. They’ll cry to heaven if you don’t stay and humiliate them with your knowledge.”

She smiled. “Are you sure you’ll—”

“Naturally,” I said before she could say anything else, and I went down the gallery to the far doors, moving as fast as I could in my stiff brocade.

As soon as I was out of sight, I ripped the crescent hood laden with seed pearls from my head, tore off my starched ruff, and threw them aside, not caring that they’d cost a good sum. I undid the silver-tipped laces at my collar and shook out my hair from its confining net, letting it
tumble over my shoulders. Tucking my book into my pocket, I made for the terrace.

Peace. Peace and quiet was all I wanted right now, my uncertain future be damned.

Skirting the artificial lake, I moved into the unkempt part of the palace grounds, where the manicured knot gardens faded into a dishevelment of chestnuts, willows, and ferns. There were meandering paths here, dappled with sunlight. I heard birdsong, the rustle of leaves; I saw the fiery dart of a startled fox. I’d almost forgotten how beautiful France was outside the glittering artificiality of the court.

I’d explored this area once before with Marguerite and now sought a clearing we’d found, where the grass grew thick. I thought I’d lie there awhile and read. But I must have taken a wrong turn somewhere, because I found myself in a copse of silver beech. Fontainebleau wasn’t surrounded by walls; I could get lost in the woodlands, and so I paused.

It was then I espied a figure moving ahead of me among the trees.

He wore a cream-colored doublet and leather breeches, with riding boots that reached to his thighs. His head was uncovered, his thick tawny hair ruffled as he moved with his chin down, hands clasped behind his back. He seemed so engrossed in thought that I started to step back, lest I disturb him. A twig cracked underfoot, unnaturally loud in the silence.

The man froze. He turned. We stared for a long moment at each other before he bowed. My heart gave a pleasant start. It was the constable’s eldest nephew, Gaspard de Coligny.

We walked toward each other. Though I hadn’t seen him since my nuptials, I remembered him well and it crossed my mind that our chance encounter might be misinterpreted if witnessed by others, given the court’s licentiousness. I shrugged. Who would see us here? And if they did, perhaps it would reach Henri’s ears and rouse his pride, as even he, for all his neglect of me, wouldn’t want the court saying his wife had taken to walking alone with other men.

“Forgive me if I startled Your Highness,” he said. His voice was deep but low, his simple apparel and faint growth of beard a refreshing lack of vanity rarely seen at court.

“Oh, not at all,” I replied, and to my ears I sounded a little breathless.
“I’m glad of you. I thought I was lost.” As I met his piercing pale blue eyes, I was aware of my loose hair, the open chemise at my throat. I felt heat rise in my cheeks. “I was beginning to think I might end up lost in the forest,” I added, with a laugh. “I fear I’ve turned myself quite around.”

His smile was gentle. “You’re a few steps away from the formal gardens. There’s little forest left on this side of the château. Most of it was destroyed to build His Majesty’s great gallery.”

“Where his Italian paintings hang? Oh, that’s a pity—though it is a beautiful gallery.”

“It is,” he said, but I sensed he did not share the king’s passion for art. The silence that settled between us was not awkward. Rather, I found his presence comforting, as if we’d known each other a long time and didn’t require meaningless chatter. At length, he said, “Whenever I come to court, I try to come here, to think. I’ve just arrived and already I find the noise and crowds of people distracting. I’m not used to it.”

It was true that I hadn’t seen him at court at all. “Do you not come often?”

He shook his head. “Since my father died, I’ve too many obligations at my estate in Châtillon. But my uncle, the constable, would like nothing better if I took up residence here, of course, to further the family name, as sons of noblemen should.”

“I was sorry to hear of your father’s passing,” I said.

He inclined his head. “Thank you. He was a good father. I still miss him.”

“You’re lucky to have known him,” I said. “My parents died within a week of my birth. I never had a chance to feel their love for me.”

In the resulting quiet, I looked away. What had possessed me to say something so intimate to someone I scarcely knew, for all his kindness?

He said softly, “I’ve heard of your trials in Italy. You are brave indeed to have gone through so much at so young an age. It cannot have been easy to then leave everything you’ve known behind for a foreign land.”