The Devil's Queen: A Novel of Catherine De Medici (2 page)

But I had no chance to speak, for he continued. “I do not wish to seem an ogre, Madame, mentioning my own sorrow with you here dressed in mourning; I do so only to explain that I understand the nature of your grief. I recently learned that you mourn the loss of two little girls. There is no greater tragedy than the death of a child. I pray that God will ease your grief, and the King’s.”

“Thank you, Monsieur de Nostredame.” I changed the subject quickly, for his sympathy was so genuine, I feared I might cry if he said more. “Please.” I gestured at the chair set across from mine, and the footstool that had been placed there expressly for him. “You have suffered enough on my behalf already. Sit down, and I will tell you when the children were born.”

“You are too gracious, Your Majesty.”

He eased himself into the chair and settled his affected foot onto the little stool with a faint groan. He propped the cane next to him so that it remained within reach.

“Do you require paper and pen, Monsieur?”

He tapped his brow with a finger. “No, I shall remember. Let us start with the eldest, then. The Dauphin, born the nineteenth of January, in the year 1544. To cast a proper chart, I need—”

“The hour and place,” I interrupted. Having a talent for calculation, I had already taught myself to cast charts, though I did not entirely trust my
own interpretations—and I all too often hoped they were wrong. “No mother could ever forget such a thing, of course. François was born at the Château at Fontainebleau, a few minutes after four o’clock in the afternoon.”

“A few minutes after . . . ,” he echoed, and the finger that had thumped his brow began instead to massage it, as if he were pressing the fact into his memory. “Do you know how many minutes? Three, perhaps, or ten?”

I frowned, trying to remember. “Fewer than ten. Unfortunately, I was exhausted at the time; I cannot be more precise.”

We did not speak of the girls, Elisabeth and Margot; under Salic law, a woman could not ascend the throne of France. For now, it was time to focus on the heirs—on Charles-Maximilien, born the twenty-seventh of June at Saint-Germain-en-Laye, in the year 1550, and on my darling Edouard-Alexandre. He was born the year after Charles, on the nineteenth of September, twenty minutes past midnight.

“Thank you,
Madame la Reine,
” Nostredame said, when I had finished. “I will give you my full report within two days. I have already done some preparations, since the dates of the boys’ births are widely known.”

He did not move to rise, as would be expected. He sat gazing on me with those clear, calm eyes, and in the silence that followed, I found my courage and my voice.

“I have evil dreams,” I said.

He seemed not at all surprised by this strange outburst.

“May I speak candidly, Madame?” he asked politely. Before I could answer, he continued, “You have astrologers. I am not the first to chart the children’s nativities. I will construct them, surely, but you did not call me here to do only that.”

“No,” I admitted. “I have read your book of prophecy.” I cleared my throat and recited the thirty-fifth quatrain, the one that had brought me to my knees when I first read it:

The young lion will overcome the old, in
A field of combat in a single fight. He will
Pierce his eyes in a golden cage, two
Wounds in one, he then dies a cruel death.

“I write down what I must.” Monsieur de Nostredame’s gaze had grown guarded. “I do not presume to understand its meaning.”

“But I do.” I leaned forward, no longer able to hide my agitation. “My husband the King—he is the lion. The older one. I dreamt . . .” I faltered, unwilling to put into words the horrifying vision in my head.

“Madame,” he said gently. “You and I understand each other well, I think—better than the rest of the world understands us. You and I see things others do not. Too much for our comfort.”

I turned my face from him and stared out the window at the garden, where Edouard and Margot and little Navarre chased one another round green hedges beneath a bright sun. In my mind’s eye, skulls were split and bodies pierced; men thrashed, drowning, in a swelling tide of blood.

“I don’t want to see anymore,” I said.

I don’t know how he knew. Perhaps he read it in my face, the way a sorcerer reads the lines of a palm; perhaps he had already consulted my natal stars, and read it in my ill-placed Mars. Perhaps he read it in my eyes, in the flash of knowing fear there when I uttered the thirty-fifth quatrain.

“The King will die,” I told him. “My Henri will die too young, a terrible death, unless something is done to stop it. You know this; you have written of it, in this poem. Tell me that I am right, Monsieur, and that you will help me to do whatever is necessary to prevent it. My husband is my life, my soul. If he dies, I will not want to live.”

I believed, those many years ago, that my dream had to do only with Henri. I had thought that his violent end would be the worst that could possibly happen to me, to his heirs, to France.

It is easy now to see how wrong I was. And foolish, to have been angered by the prophet’s calm words.

I write what God bids me, Madame la Reine. His will must be accomplished; I do not presume to understand its meaning.

If God has sent you these visions, you must strive to discover why He has done so. You have the responsibility.

I had a responsibility to keep the King safe, I told him. I had a responsibility to our children.

“Your heart misleads you,” he said and shuddered as if gripped by invisible talons. When he spoke again, it was with the voice of another . . . another who was not altogether human.

“These children,” he murmured, and I knew then that even the darkest secret could not be hidden from him. I pressed a palm against the bloodied pearl at my heart, as if the act could conceal the truth.

“These children, their stars are marred. Madame la Reine, these children should not be.”

The day I met the magician Cosimo Ruggieri—the eleventh of May—was an evil one.

I sensed it at daybreak, in the drum of hoofbeats on the cobblestone street in front of the house. I had already risen and dressed and was about to make my way downstairs when I heard the commotion. I stood on tiptoe and peered down through my unshuttered bedroom window.

Out on the broad Via Larga, Passerini reined in his lathered mount, accompanied by a dozen men at arms. He wore his red cardinal’s robes but had forgotten his hat—or perhaps it had fallen off during the wild ride—and his white hair stood up in wisps like a coxcomb. He shouted frantically for the stablehand to open the gate.

I hurried to the stairs, arriving at the landing at the same moment as my aunt Clarice.

She was a beautiful woman in that year before her untimely death, delicate as one of Botticelli’s Graces. That morning found her dressed in a gown of rose velvet and a diaphanous veil over her chestnut hair.

But there was nothing delicate about Aunt Clarice’s disposition. My cousin Piero often referred to his mother as “the toughest man in the family.” She deferred to no one—least of all to her four sons or to her husband,
Filippo Strozzi, a powerful banker. She had a sharp tongue and a swift hand, and did not hesitate to lash out with either.

And she was scowling that morning. When she caught sight of me, I ducked my head and dropped my gaze, for there was no winning with Aunt Clarice.

At the age of eight, I was an inconvenient child. My mother had died nine days after I was born, followed six days later by my father. Happily, my mother left me enormous wealth, my father, the title of Duchess and the right to rule Florence.

Those things prompted Aunt Clarice to bring me to the Palazzo Medici to groom me for my destiny, but she made it clear that I was a burden. In addition to her own sons, she was obliged to raise two other Medici orphans—my half brother Alessandro and my cousin Ippolito, the bastard of my great-uncle Giuliano de’ Medici.

As Clarice stepped alongside me on the landing, a voice drifted up from the downstairs entry: Cardinal Passerini, acting regent of Florence, was speaking to a servant. Though I could not make out his words, the timbre of his voice conveyed their message clearly: disaster. The safe and comfortable life I had shared with my cousins in our ancestors’ house was about to disappear.

As Clarice listened, fear rippled over her features, only to be replaced by her customary hardness. She narrowed her eyes at me, searching to see if I had detected her instant of weakness, threatening me in case I had.

“Straight down to the kitchen with you. No stopping, no speaking to anyone,” she ordered.

I obeyed and headed downstairs, but soon realized I was too nervous to eat. I wandered instead toward the great hall, where Aunt Clarice and Cardinal Passerini were engaged in strenuous conversation. His Eminence’s voice was muffled, but I caught an impassioned word or two uttered by Aunt Clarice:

You
fool
.

What did Clement
expect
, the idiot?

Their conversation centered on the Pope—born Giulio de’ Medici—whose influence helped keep our family in power. Even as a child, I understood enough of politics to know that my distant cousin Pope Clement was at odds
with the Holy Roman Emperor Charles, whose troops had invaded Italy; Rome was in especial danger.

Abruptly, the door swung open, and Passerini’s head appeared as he called for Leda, Aunt Clarice’s slave. The cardinal was grey-faced, his breath coming hard, the corners of his mouth pulled down by agitation. He waited in the doorway with an air of desolate urgency until Leda appeared, at which point he ordered her to bring Uncle Filippo, Ippolito, and Alessandro.

Within moments, Ippolito and Sandro were ushered inside. Clarice must have come to stand near the doorway, for I could hear her say, quite clearly, to someone waiting in the hall:

We need men, as many as will fight. Until we know their number, we must tread carefully. Assemble as many as you can by nightfall, then come to me.
A strange hesitancy crept into her tone.
And send Agostino to fetch the astrologer’s son—
now.

I heard my uncle Filippo’s low assent and departure, then the door closed again. I remained a few minutes, trying vainly to interpret the sounds emanating from the chamber; defeated, I wandered toward the staircase leading to the children’s rooms.

Six-year-old Roberto, Clarice’s youngest, came running in my direction, wailing and wringing his hands. His eyes were squeezed tightly shut; I barely caught him in time to stop him from knocking me down.

I was small, but Roberto was smaller still. He smelled of heat and slightly sour sweat; his cheeks were flushed and tear-streaked, and his girlishly long hair clung to his damp neck.

At that instant the boys’ nursemaid appeared behind him. Ginevra was a simple, uneducated woman, dressed in worn cotton skirts covered by a white apron, her hair always wrapped in a scarf. On that morning, however, Ginevra’s scarf and nerves were undone; a lock of golden hair had fallen across her face.

Roberto stamped his foot at me and emitted a scream. “Let me
go
!” He struck out with little fists, but I averted my face and held him fast.

“What is it? Why is he frightened?” I called to Ginevra as she neared.

“They’re coming after us!” Robert howled, spewing tears and spittle. “They’re coming to hurt us!”

Ginevra, dull with fright, answered, “There are men at the gate.”

“What sort of men?” I asked.

When Ginevra would not answer, I ran upstairs to the chambermaids’ quarters, which overlooked the stables and the gate that opened onto the busy Via Larga. I dragged a stool to the window, stepped onto it, and flung open the shutters.

The stables stood west of the house; to the north lay the massive iron gate that kept out trespassers. It was closed and bolted; just inside it stood three of our armed guards.