The Wild Queen (9 page)

I was always a hearty eater, but on that day I forced myself to eat sparingly as I eagerly awaited the frittered pears that had been denied me since the beginning of Lent six weeks earlier. An array of tarts and pastries and other sweets appeared—oranges from the Holy Land, preserved figs, apricots in syrup—but no frittered pears. I was disappointed but said nothing. Later, after the banquet had ended, my mother, pale and shaken, explained the reason.

“Someone wished to do you harm and poisoned your frittered pears,” she said, still tearful. “The plot was discovered in time, thanks be to a merciful God. The chief conspirator has fled, and his fellow conspirator is in irons. But for your safety you will remain deprived of your favorite dish until the villain has been caught and punished.”
Someone wished to poison me?
I was shocked. Why would someone try to murder me? I was only eight years old. I had many questions, but my mother offered only vague answers. “It really had nothing to do with you,” she said, trying to ease my fear. “Someone with a bitter grudge against the royal family of Scotland believed that the best way to harm us all was to harm you. He changed his name, joined the Scots Guard, and came to France. Then he befriended one of the cooks, who knew your favorite dishes.”

“Not Chef Matteo!” I gasped. “Matteo would never try to harm me!”

“No, not Monsieur Panterelli. It was someone else in the kitchens. Monsieur Panterelli somehow uncovered the plot and accused him.”

I thought of Matteo's assistant, the dour-faced Lucas. I would not soon forget the way he glared at me. “Where are they now?” I asked. “The cook and the guardsman?”

“The man in the kitchens has been caught, and the guardsman who escaped will soon be caught as well,” she assured me.

“What will happen to them?” I asked, not wishing to be put off. I was not worried, but I was indeed curious.

“They will be punished,” she said. “There is no further danger. You must not worry.” She would say no more.

Later I learned that the guardsman had been seized as he fled to Scotland; he was brought back to France, where he was tortured, hanged, and quartered. Lucas may have suffered a similar fate, for I did not see him again in the kitchens. I could not easily put the incident out of mind. Would there be others who wished to harm me? But those worries did not hinder me from begging Matteo for frittered pears.

***

When the court departed from Amboise late in the spring and moved to Fontainebleau, I found out why I had not seen Lady Fleming since before Easter.

“The king sent her away,” La Flamin told me between sobs. “Everyone knows she is expecting a child. The king is the father, and he made her leave.”

I scarcely knew what to say. Everyone at court was talking about Lady Fleming. Queen Catherine and Madame de Poitiers had banded together and insisted that the Scottish woman not continue to embarrass the court. I took La Flamin's hand and told her sympathetically, “It will be difficult for you to be without your mother. But you must console yourself that when this is over, she will be back with you and all will be well again.”

Marie Fleming looked at me, her lip trembling. “All will not be well again, Madame Marie. My mother humiliates me.”

Now I truly did not know what to say. I shook my head and ran off to find Sinclair, my source of all court gossip.

“Lady Fleming likes to put on airs,” my nurse reported smugly. “And she has not the sense of a cat. Went about boasting that it's the king's child swelling her belly, and her a grandmother herself! You knew that, didn't you? That she has grown sons back in Scotland who've presented her with children of their own?”

I nodded as though I knew all about it. Maybe I had at one time, but I had been gone from my old home for so long that I had forgotten much of whatever I had once known.

Sinclair prattled on about Lady Fleming. “With my own two good ears I heard her say, plain as I'm telling it to you now, 'I have done all that I can, and God be thanked, I am with child by the king, for which I count myself both honored and happy.' Her exact words, I heard them from her own lips, said not just to me but to anyone willing to listen.”

Sinclair helped herself to a bit of bread and spread on a thick layer of fruit conserve. “Where has Lady Fleming gone?” I asked impatiently. “And what will I do now for a governess?” I had not loved her, not the way I did Sinclair, for as governess Lady Fleming had too often seemed preoccupied with her own comfort and not sufficiently concerned with mine. But I had known her since I was born, she was my mother's friend and familiar to me, and now that she had disappeared, I missed her. And I understood why La Flamin felt humiliated.

“Gone to a convent herself, most likely,” said Sinclair with pursed lips. “Madame de Poitiers is not likely to want her back at court, and the king will do whatever the duchess says, just as he always does, poor fool.” Sinclair could not understand why I liked the duchess as much as I did. “As to a new governess,” sniffed Sinclair, “you'll likely find out soon enough.”

F
OR THE NEXT FEW MONTHS
my mother traveled all over France, accompanied by her Scottish court. I was often with her. In June, both courts moved to Châteaubriand, a royal palace near Nantes. The English ambassador arrived in France with the purpose of reminding King Henri once more that Edward VI, who had succeeded his horrible father, Henry VIII, as king of England, desired me as his bride. King Henri refused, explaining to the ambassador, as he had done many times in the past, that I was to marry the dauphin. Then one jolly evening King Henri and the English ambassador arrived at a solution, agreeing that Princesse Élisabeth would make an even better match for fifteen-year-old King Edward. This seemed to please everyone. Even Princesse Élisabeth liked the arrangement, though it would not have mattered if she had not.

A series of fêtes was organized to celebrate the future union. During the day the noblemen engaged in archery, tennis, and wrestling in the open fields while the ladies looked on, wretchedly uncomfortable in the formal court dress that the occasion required. The feasting was put off until midnight, and we dined by moonlight at banquet tables set up under the trees with the benefit of a cooling breeze. On some nights torches were lit, and the men went hunting for red deer, the party going on into the small hours of the morning.

Rumors of an outbreak of plague in the region of Nantes brought an end to the celebration, and people fled to other parts of the country. When it seemed safe to do so, Maman resumed her progresses, but she had begun to speak about returning to Scotland. Such talk never failed to distress me.

I pleaded with her not to leave. “Dearest Maman,” I begged, “stay with me here! You belong in France, do you not?” I was sure I would eventually be able to persuade her if I just kept at it long enough and strongly enough. She put me off with a smile and soft words, but as the bright greens of summer were fading, she silenced me firmly.

“Ma chère
Marie,” she said, “let me explain something to you. You are the crowned queen of Scotland, and one day you will return to rule the country in which you were born. Until that day comes, it is my duty to protect your interests there, to keep peace among the jealous clans, and to prevent the English on our border from resorting to harsh measures, as they have done in the past. I would prefer to remain here with you, my son François, my mother and brothers and other relatives. Everything I know and love and cherish is here in France, but my duty is in Scotland. And
your
duty, my dear child, is to savor every moment we have together for as long as I am here, and to carry on bravely when I am gone.”

This was not what I wanted to hear. For a moment I wondered if I might not order my mother to stay. I was the queen, was I not? I took precedence over her, did I not? But in the end I understood, and I stopped pleading and tried to do as she asked.

In September, as summer drew to a close and the long days grew shorter, I accompanied my mother to Amiens, where my brother lived in the château he had inherited from his father, the first duke of Longueville. My mother had lived there during her first marriage, and François had been born there. Her visit to her old home and to François was to be my mother's last before she boarded a galley in Rouen for the voyage back to Scotland.

François was not yet sixteen, but he welcomed us with great style. There were banquets at which my mother's Scottish courtiers were served the simple fare they preferred, meat and fish without the delicate sauces favored by Queen Catherine. No strange vegetables made an appearance.

We passed the evenings with music. My mother danced exquisitely. She played the lute and sang the songs she had sung to each of us when we were small children. François was kind and affectionate to me, exclaiming that I was growing fast and would no doubt someday be as tall as my mother. “And surely as beautiful,” he added, making me blush. When the weather was fine, the three of us rode out into the countryside to enjoy a picnic served in a pretty grove of trees near the River Somme. It was as though we three had lived together all our lives.

One day, as we dined by the river, the weather changed suddenly and dramatically. Dark clouds swept in and covered the sun like a blanket, the air turned cool, and a cold rain began to fall. Our servants scrambled to gather up the remains of our meal, and we rushed back to the château, but not before we were all thoroughly drenched and chilled.

My mother and I changed quickly from our wet garments into dry clothes and were soon cozily warming ourselves by a fire. While we waited for François to join us, I showed my mother the needlepoint I had begun working as a gift for him under Queen Catherine's attentive gaze. I pointed out his coat of arms, a yellow shield with a red chevron and a blue fish, traced onto a piece of canvas for me by the king's official embroiderer.

“I hope to finish it for his birthday,” I confided.

“François's birthday is the thirtieth of October,” Maman reminded me. “And you still have a great part of it to do.”

“I know,” I said. “I work on it as often as I can.” I hurried to put it away before my brother arrived and spoiled my surprise.

But an hour passed, and part of another, and still François did not join us. Puzzled, my mother sent a servant to inquire. The servant returned and reported, “Monsieur the duke is unwell, madame,” he said. “He has taken to his bed with a fever.”

“Unwell?” My mother was on her feet in a moment and hurrying out of the chamber. When I rose to follow her, she said sharply, “Wait here, Marie, I beg you.”

I obeyed, but my mother did not return. I sat alone, working on my brother's gift without fear of discovery. It grew late. Servants lit candles and drew the draperies. At last my brother's steward came to tell me that I was to have my supper with several members of the Scottish court.

“Where is my lady mother?” I asked, unhappy at being deserted. “And my brother?”

“Your mother is with the duke your brother,” he said.

“Is my brother ill?”

The steward hesitated.
“Oui,
Madame Marie, he is ill. Very ill. His physician is attending him.”

“I wish to see him,” I said.

“Your lady mother has given express instructions that you may not see him. She fears that you might then fall ill, as he has.”

I nodded, pretending to agree, and accompanied the steward to the small dining hall where some of the Scottish court had gathered. They all rose respectfully. I signaled them to be seated. The meal began. The Scots quickly forgot about me and began talking among themselves in the language that had been mine until I was forced to learn French. I understood them, but the words no longer came easily to my lips.

As soon as the meal was finished, I ran from the hall. Whether my mother wanted me to or not, I was determined to find her and my brother. And because no one was paying any attention to me, I succeeded.

François, pale as death, lay in his bedchamber surrounded by somber physicians and priests. My mother knelt beside the bed holding his hand. I pushed past the small crowd and went to kneel beside my mother. “Why are you here, Marie?” Maman demanded in a hoarse whisper. “I gave orders that you were not to come.”

“I know,” I said simply. “But I am here.”

François groaned and moved his head. A surgeon held a basin and watched my brother's blood flow into it from his arm. Tears rolled down my mother's cheeks, and she wiped at them impatiently. “He is dying,” she said in a voice roughened by sorrow and weeping.

For three days and nights my mother did not leave my brother's bedside. Too despairing to protest, she permitted me to stay with her through the long hours of his suffering. Food was brought to us. I ate with scarcely diminished appetite, as usual, but my mother swallowed hardly a mouthful. She dozed for a few minutes at a time on a pallet made up for her, but she was fiercely adamant that I must sleep in my own bed in my rooms in a separate wing of the old castle. She promised to send for me if there was any change in my brother's condition.

But she did not. On the morning of the fourth day my mother met me at the door of his chamber. She was very calm. “I have borne four sons,” she said, “and I have lost four. Your brother awoke during the night and cried out. I rushed to him. He died in my arms.”

My brother's body was removed and a funeral arranged. Again, as with my grandfather's funeral, I was not permitted to attend in person but was represented by a proxy—one of the old Scottish gentlemen took my place. I did not understand why I was being kept away. Was I somehow the cause of the death of everyone my mother loved? Was I being punished? And if I was being punished, what was my sin? The idea came to me during this particularly somber time that perhaps being a queen of not one country but two carried with it a special curse.