The Medici Queen aka The Devil’s Queen

Epilogue

I dreamt again that night.

I dreamt of Charles’s imminent death, of the coughing and the fever, of the blood-soaked sheets that were changed almost every hour. Knowing that my own actions had hastened his final agony, I lay sobbing beside him in the bed, my arms around him as he whispered his final words: Ma mere… Eh, ma mere…

I dreamt, too, of Edouard, of the madness, deceit, and cruelty he no longer hid once he ascended the throne and stripped me of all power. I saw the brutality, the executions, the murders, the hatred he provoked until the people turned on him and he met his untimely end disemboweled, fittingly, by an assassin’s blade.

I dreamt of Henri, King of France and Navarre, who-for the sake of peace-became a Catholic so that he could be crowned properly in a cathedral, saying, Paris is well worth a Mass. I saw Huguenots and Catholics reconciled and a country united, ruled at last by a canny monarch who put the welfare of its citizens before his own, a ruler so beloved by his subjects that they dubbed him Henri the Great. I saw a France at peace and prosperous.

I did not dream of blood. I woke grief-stricken yet relieved, with prayers of contrition on my lips.

I reported this all to Ruggieri the next afternoon, after he had arrived with his paltry belongings to settle into his new apartments at the Louvre. Clad in a plain black doublet and matching ruff, he seemed incongruous with the gilded walls, the delicate, feminine furniture, and the pale blue brocade curtains, pulled back to admit the waning light. Like me, he had slept little since the massacre on Saint Bartholomew’s Day; at the sight of his exhaustion, I insisted he sit beside me in the antechamber while his valets thumped about in the bedroom, unpacking his things.

“I have done my best to make amends,” I said softly. “But I cannot bring back all the innocents who have perished. And I cannot bear to watch my beloved sons-monsters though they may be-die. I have had more than enough sorrow for one life. Let me die, too, Cosimo.”

He tilted his head to regard me somberly. Such an ugly face, yet as a shaft of light from the window penetrated his black eyes, I saw how very beautiful they were.

“Your time has not come, Catherine,” he answered. “You have set things aright-and now you and I must live many more years to ensure that they remain so. Navarre still faces many obstacles.”

Sickened by the thought, I turned my face from him and closed my eyes. I soon opened them again as something soft and warm brushed against my cheek. Ruggieri had risen from his chair to kneel beside mine; his fingers hovered, tender and unsteady, in the air between us.

“Do not give up hope,” he said. “I promised you many years ago that I would see you through all challenges. I will remain always at your side.”

“But I am damned, Cosimo,” I said sadly.

“Then we are damned together, Caterina Maria Romula de’ Medici.”

I gazed at him, remembering the words he had uttered on the day the harlot died. His affection and loyalty had been deeper and more constant than those of Aunt Clarice, of my husband, of my own children. Just as I had been willing to risk everything for my Henri, so Cosimo had been willing to risk everything for me. At the thought, my dark, faltering heart opened.

“Only ever out of love,” I whispered.

“Only ever out of love,” he repeated solemnly, and his hand began again to reach for me.

I caught it in my own, drew him to me, and kissed him.