The Medici Queen aka The Devil’s Queen

Princess

October 1533-March 1547

Sixteen

Three days of celebration followed-banquets, jousts, and balls. My betrothed participated reluctantly in them all. I, too, participated with only half a heart. The thought that Henri was the man in my nightmare had terrified me, and I had no one to confide in, no one who might say, with a laugh, that I was tired and anxious and so had let my imagination run unfettered.

Queen Eléonore, my soon to be mother-in-law, served as my chaperone. Three years earlier, she had married François, as reluctant a bridegroom then as his son was now. Ravenous to plant the French flag in Italian soil, François had unwisely taken on the Emperor’s forces and suffered a catastrophic defeat at Pavia, where he was captured. He had purchased his freedom with hundreds of thousands of gold ecus and a promise to marry Emperor Charles’s widowed sister, Eléonore.

Like her brother, Eléonore was Flemish, fluent in French, and well-versed in Parisian culture and customs but altogether unlike the sparkling, sly-eyed women of her husband’s court. Her chestnut hair was worn in an unforgivably old-fashioned Spanish style: parted down the middle, plaited, and wound in two thick coils covering her ears. She was solid, thick-limbed, and graceless, her movements lumbering, her eyes bovine.

I liked her. Her silence, patience, and virtue were genuine. She had waited a short distance from her husband and his sons, and when King François brought me to her, she had gazed up at him adoringly. He did not so much as glance at her to acknowledge her presence and uttered with bored carelessness, “My wife, Queen Eléonore.” She had embraced me with unsullied sincerity and introduced me to King François’s daughter, ten-year-old Marguerite; another girl, thirteen-year-old Madeleine, was sick with consumption and home abed.

Early in the morning on the day of the secular ceremony-the third day of my stay in the palace on the Place-Neuve-Queen Eléonore came to my chambers as I was being dressed.

Her smile was kind and simple, her gaze steady. “You have no mother, Catherine. Did anyone speak frankly to you of the wedding night?”

“No,” I said, and at the instant I uttered it, realized I should have lied; I had no desire to listen to a lecture on the rudiments of sexual congress. I felt I had learned all I needed to know from my encounters with Ippolito.

“Ah.” She looked on me with gentle pity. “It is not such an unpleasant thing; some women, I hear, enjoy it. Certainly the men love it so.” She proceeded to tell me that I should insist that my husband not waste his seed but put all of it in the proper receptacle, and that I must lie flat afterward for a good quarter hour.

“It is important that you give birth as soon as possible,” she said, “for I think they do not love you until you give them a son.” I heard the wistfulness behind her words. François had adored his first wife, Queen Claude, the mother of his children, dead for almost a decade.

Eléonore placed her hand upon mine. “It will all go well. Before it happens, I will make sure that you take a little wine so that you are comfortable.” She patted my hand and rose. “You will have many sons, I know it.”

I smiled at the notion. My husband to be was not fond of me now, but I would have his children-a family truly my own, from which I would never be separated. And I would never, like poor Queen Eléonore, have to compete with a ghost.

The betrothal ceremony was a simple matter of signing the weighty marriage contract and standing silently beside Henri while the Cardinal de Bourbon intoned a blessing over us. We were taken then to the great hall where I had first been introduced to the King and his family. Henri and I were prompted to kiss, the signal for the trumpets; the noise made us both start.

A ball commenced. I danced with Henri, and the King, and then Henri’s brother, François.

It was clear that Henri and his older brother were close. The Dauphin’s presence usually provoked an honest smile from my bridegroom; from time to time they shared a secret joke told by a single glance. The golden-haired François-the Dauphin, I prefer to call him, to spare confusing him with his father-was more talkative than Henri and passionately loved books and learning. He also enjoyed history and explained to me the evolution of his title. Five centuries earlier, the first count to rule the region Vienne, in western France, bore the symbol of a dolphin upon his shield, hence becoming the Dauphin de Viennois. The name stuck, even two hundred years later, when the position fell to the eldest son of the French king.

As the Dauphin spoke engagingly to me, I sensed a faint discomfort that never left him except when he and his brother Henri were alone. His discomfort was greatest in the presence of his father, who never missed an opportunity to criticize his two older sons, or to praise his youngest-nor did Henri ever miss a chance to direct spiteful glances at his father. I wondered, as I glided beside the Dauphin in a sedate Spanish pavane, whether he was the king that the astrologer Ruggieri had seen in my moles. Perhaps I was marrying the wrong son.

That night, I returned to my temporary suite and Henri to his father’s palace. I was awakened three hours before dawn, when the women came to dress me. Seven long, tedious hours passed before I was ready and word was sent to the King.

On that day I suffered more glory than anyone ought. My poor skull was already laden with gemstones when one of the women set the golden ducal crown upon it, weighing so heavily I could scarcely hold my head up. Gold brocade robes, trimmed in purple velvet and white ermine and studded with rubies, hung from my shoulders. I dreaded the prospect of standing upright in them for hours.

At last King François arrived. His Majesty wore white satin embroidered with tiny gold fleurs-de-lis, and a cloak of gold. He was jubilant but, to my surprise, a bit nervous; when he saw my trembling, he kissed me and lied, saying that I was the most beautiful creature he’d ever seen.

Joking and laughing in an effort to jolly me, he led me down the stairs to the chapel erected near the Pope’s chambers, where the bulk of the nation’s wealth was displayed on the persons of three hundred guests. The sun’s rays streamed in through the great arched windows; at the altar, ten tall candelabra bloomed flame. Dazzled, I clung to the King’s thick forearm, matching my steps to his sedate pace.

Henri waited at the altar. At the sight of us, resentment rippled across his features. Whether it was directed at his father or at me, it didn’t matter: Henri hated the very idea of marrying me.

Before the King handed me off to his son, he kissed my cheek and whispered, “Remember, you are my daughter now, and I shall love you as such until the day I die.”

I stood on tiptoe to return his kiss and then went to stand beside my husband.

Henri was less grandly appointed than the King, but grand enough in a white satin doublet with black velvet leggings and black sleeves, slashed so that his white undershirt showed through. He, too, wore a ducal crown and cloak of gold.

At my approach, he hid his hostility. His carriage was graceful and proud, though he clasped his hands so tightly that the whites of his knuckles showed. When I came alongside him, he turned and knelt on the purple velvet cushion at the altar.

I did the same and stared up at Pope Clement. Captured in a pane of light, his face looked unhealthy and waxen, his lips grey; the white in his beard had overtaken the black. Yet his eyes were radiant. My match with Henri was his crowning achievement. I hated him for condemning me to live the rest of my life in a foreign land with a stranger who resented me for the very reason I resented him: We were pawns forced upon each other.

The ceremony was interminable, with much standing and kneeling and far too many prayers. My betrothed and I recited our vows in turn, and exchanged rings; Henri’s touch was cold. Pope Clement recited much Latin, scribed many signs of the cross over our heads, and then it was done. At his urging we turned, bright with relief, to face the crowd.

Henri scanned the first row of observers, anxious to catch someone’s gaze. Between Queen Eléonore and her stepdaughters stood a pale-haired noble-woman. She was not natively beautiful; it was her serene, elegant bearing and delicate bones that made her seem so. I had seen her before, mostly at my husband’s side, explaining the finer points of protocol to him. She was well past the age to be Henri’s mother, and I thought little of the eager look he gave her as we moved toward the aisle, little of the approving glance she offered in return.

But as we passed by, her expression seemed to shift, perhaps only a trick of the sun and candlelight reflected in hueless eyes. For an instant they seemed gloating, calculating, but as I looked sharply at her, her eyes softened and she glanced away, humble, servile.

Only then did I take note of her gown. She wore a widow’s colors, white and black: white satin for the bodice and undergown, black for the overskirt and the sleeves-slashed so that the white of her chemise showed through. White satin and black velvet, the very fabrics Henri had chosen for his wedding day.

A banquet followed the ceremony. The King’s family and I dined on a platform, the better to be seen by the hundreds of souls crammed into the great hall. Relieved of my heavy crown and cloak, I sat between Henri and the Dauphin. My new husband had few words for me but many for his brother; in François’s presence, Henri transformed into a laughing, affectionate youth.

The feasting began at midday and ended at dusk. I changed into a gown of green, my official color. Corsages of red velvet roses were fastened in my hair and on the black brocade mask that hid the upper half of my face. Weakly disguised, I returned to the banquet chamber, where a masquerade ball had already begun. I danced with the King and Dauphin-parrying verbally as if we did not easily recognize each other-and with my taciturn husband, who came alive only in the presence of his brothers or the blond widow.

I drank little wine that night. I was tempted, knowing what was to come, but reasoned that I would be better off if I were in full control of my emotions. I was apparently one of the few to come to that decision; by the time Queen Eléonore came to fetch me, the din in the great hall was so loud we did not speak, as our voices would have been lost in the roar. She led me out into the corridor, where an entourage of ladies waited. Some had accompanied me from Florence; others, including the elegant, fair-haired woman dressed in white and black mourning, belonged to Eléonore’s retinue. Her perfume, the essence of lily of the valley, preceded her person and lingered in the air behind her.

The ladies escorted me to Prince Henri’s chambers, which were chilly despite the snapping fire in the hearth. His great bed, supported by four posters of carved mahogany, had been covered with Isabelle d’Este’s fashionable ebony sheets. A thick fur coverlet was neatly folded at the foot. Rose petals, the last of the season, had been strewn by a careful hand upon the black silk.

The bed hangings-all venerable tapestries in shades of forest and scarlet, aglint here and there with thread of gold-displayed pastoral scenes in which women strummed lutes and danced and picked fruit from trees while wearing great tall caps pointed like narwhal tusks, reminders of the previous century’s fashion.

I stood next to the fire as the women coaxed me from my sleeves and bodice and skirts. Clad in my chemise, I remained still as the ladies picked gems, one by one, from my hair and brushed it out until it cascaded down my back. I was obliged to remain motionless a bit longer, as the black-and-white widow pulled my chemise up over my head.

I was naked as Eve in the sight of a half dozen strangers-I, to whom my own body was an unfamiliar sight, untouched since Ippolito’s embraces. I was still thin then, ivory kneecaps and hip bones straining against pale olive flesh. I pressed my right palm to my left breast, concealing my right breast beneath my forearm; with my left hand, I cupped the delta of thin golden brown hair at the juncture between my legs, and so I staggered awkwardly to the bed as the elegant widow pulled back the top sheet.

The black silk was so cold I shivered while the women arranged my hair upon the pillow and drew the sheet up so that it just covered my breasts.

The widow retreated. Queen Eléonore leaned down and pressed her lips tenderly to my forehead.

“It will all go quickly,” she whispered. “Don’t be afraid.”

She pulled the bed hangings together, leaving me in solitary darkness. The women retired to the antechamber; I heard their soft laughter as they scattered nuts onto the floor to mask the sounds soon to be made by the newlyweds.

All of Pope Clement’s yearnings for power, all of King François’s hopes for glory, all the glittering pomp of the past several months had been nothing but fantasy, a bright, hectic dream. Now stripped bare of my gems and silks, I woke to reality, wherein a homely, frightened girl waited in darkness for a sad, reluctant boy. I thought of Clement and François, full of wine and self-congratulation, and felt gnawing bitterness.

Footsteps came, followed by the creak of the antechamber door. His Majesty’s booming voice was so cheerful that it dispelled the solemnity the Queen had left behind.

“Greetings, ladies! We have come in search of my son’s wife!” His words were slurred.

Feminine voices replied, followed by a ripple of restrained laughter at the crackle of nuts beneath royal boots.

The bedchamber door opened as someone entered. On the other side of the bed hangings, fabric rustled, then sighed as it fell. The tapestries snapped open so suddenly I clutched the sheet at my bosom.

Henri stood nude at the bedside. Swift as a shot, he stretched out beside me and pulled up the covers, but not before the firelight revealed a long, slender torso punctuated at the groin by a thin tuft of ash brown hair. He did not look at me but stared straight up at the green velvet canopy above our heads.

Seconds later, King François entered. His head was uncovered, his hair tousled as he leaned heavily on the arm of the wizened, white-haired Cardinal de Bourbon. Both men were breathless from coarse laughter; the King paused at the sight of us naked children. Perhaps he also saw our mortification; his gaze softened as he withdrew his grip from the older man’s forearm. “Bless them, Eminence,” he urged the Cardinal softly. “Bless them, then be-gone. My word will be sufficient.”

The Cardinal took his leave. When he had gone, the King turned to his son.

“I remember too well my wedding night with your mother, how young and frightened we both were,” François said. “The law requires me to witness the coupling, but the instant it’s done, I’ll leave you in peace. In the meantime…” His voice dropped. “Kiss her, boy, and forget I am here.”

Henri and I rolled onto our sides to face each other; he set his trembling hands upon the rounds of my shoulders and pressed his lips against mine-a perfunctory, passionless kiss. He was as trapped within his resentment as I was within mine, yet one of us was obliged to break free.

I closed my eyes and thought of Clarice’s mouth blooming upon Leda’s, of Ippolito’s skillful tongue and fingers. I cupped Henri’s face in my hands as Clarice had Leda’s and pushed my lips against his, then delicately parted them with my tongue. He tensed and would have recoiled had my touch faltered, but I persevered until he responded with kisses of his own. As his confidence and mine increased, I rolled him onto me, slipped a hand between his legs, and felt the flesh there stir.

I sensed nearby movement and opened my eyes to see King François looming; he drew the bedsheet down until his son’s buttocks were exposed.

When Henri and I both looked up at this intrusion, the King dropped the sheet and stepped back, mildly chagrined.

“Don’t stop! I’m only making sure it’s properly accomplished. I will disturb you no more.” He moved away toward the hearth.

Henri’s cheeks went mottled scarlet. Because I was obliged, I reached between his thighs and stroked him until he grew again; and he was obliged, when he was ready, to part my legs and settle himself between them, as Ippolito had done so long ago, but there was no sweetness, no heat, no yearning.

At the moment of penetration, my resolve wavered and my body tightened; I cried out at the pain. Henri must have feared losing his confidence, for he began to pump wildly. I held on, gritting my teeth. Within a minute, his passion crested and he reared his torso backward, his eyes rolling up against his fluttering lids. Simultaneously, something warm trickled between my legs.

Henri pulled away and lay on his back, gasping.

“Well done!” King François clapped his hands. “Both riders have shown valor in the joust!”

I pulled the sheets up and turned my face toward the distant wall. After an all-too-audible whisper to his son that virgins were prone to weep after such events, the King left.

In the silence that followed, I knew that I should falsely compliment Henri on his lovemaking, yet exhaustion so overwhelmed me I felt I could not move; it was accompanied by a painful constriction of the muscles in my throat, the certain precursor of the tears the King had mentioned.

I lay silent, hoping that Henri would leave me to my self-pity, but he said, very softly, his gaze directed at the ceiling, “I’m sorry.”

“You didn’t hurt me, Your Highness,” I lied, without turning to look at him. “I cried out only because I was startled.”

“I wasn’t speaking of that,” he said, “although I’m sorry for that, too.” He paused. “I’m sorry that I haven’t been more pleasant. You’ve been so kind. My brothers and sisters like you very much, and so does my father.”

I stared at the tapestry bed hanging in front of me, at the play of the firelight on the threads of shining gold woven in among those of burgundy and forest green. “And you?” I asked.

“You’re charming,” he answered shyly. “Dignified, yet cordial. Everyone at Court is very impressed. But… I know I’m not as cheerful as my brothers, a fact that annoys my father. I’ll try to do better.”

“You need not apologize,” I said. “I know you didn’t want this match. I’m a foreigner, a commoner, and ugly…”

“Don’t speak of yourself in such a manner!” he exclaimed indignantly. “I forbid it. Your looks are pleasing enough; one doesn’t need to be pretty to be handsome.” His words were so honest and guileless that I was moved to roll over and face him.

“Oh, Henri,” I said, reaching for him, but I had moved too quickly. He flinched and recoiled in such involuntary disgust that I withdrew at once. His gaze met mine, but he didn’t see me: instead, he stared at something beyond me, something hideous. I saw the poorly veiled loathing in his eye and shrank from it.

How, I thought, shall I ever be able to tell you of my bloody dream, if you will not love me?

He dropped his gaze. “Please, I… I’m sorry, Catherine, truly I am. I’m just so very tired.”

“I’m tired, too,” I said tightly. “I think I would like to sleep.” I turned my back to him.

He hesitated-trying, perhaps, to think of the words to ease my hurt-then finally turned away. He lay awake for some time, but in the end, sleep took him.

Had there been a place within my new home to find solitude, I would have gone there; but the room where I had spent my last virginal days in the temporary palace was full of servants, the corridors full of revelers. Women stood watch in our antechamber; if I had risen, or stirred, they would have known. I remained all night where I least wanted to be-in Henri’s bed.

It was there, in the hours before dawn, that an ominous thought jerked me from a light doze.

Perhaps what Henri had seen, when he recoiled from me in disgust, was not his hated father or an unwanted marriage. Perhaps, with his innocence and sensitivity, he had looked beyond those things at the dark blot on my soul.

Seventeen

In the weeks that followed, Henri never came to my quarters or summoned me to his. He spent his time hunting, jousting, or playing tennis with his older brother. Many times I sat with the gentlemen of the chamber in the great indoor gallery and watched Henri and François. One brother would lift the ball high in his left hand and bellow: “Tenez! I have it!”-a warning to his opponent that he was about to smash the ball against the high stone walls. That either ever managed to avoid being struck by the madly ricocheting projectile-or braining one of the spectators-was a testament to his skill.

Young François, pale and golden in contrast to his dark brother, won the crowd’s affection and sympathies, grinning at his errors and bowing to the audience immediately after their commission. In his presence, Henri came alive. He was athletically gifted, while François was shorter, heavier, and not as lithe. Henri could easily have taken every game but often made intentional errors so that his brother could win.

When Henri was not engaged in sport, he spent a great deal of time with the blond widow from Queen Eléonore’s entourage. Young François, by contrast, liked to dine with his sisters and many days shared lunch with us.

On one such occasion, I asked him about the widow. She was Diane de Poitiers, wife of the late Louis de Brézé, a very powerful old man who had been the Grand Seneschal of Normandy. Her grandmother had been a de La Tour d’Auvergne, which made us second cousins. At the age of fourteen, Madame de Poitiers had come to Court to attend the King’s first wife, Claude. In the twenty years since, she had earned a reputation for dignity and temperance, dressing modestly and eschewing the white face paint and rouge used by the other women. A pious Catholic, she was scandalized by the infiltration of Protestants into Court.

“In which subject does she instruct my husband?” I asked François.

I speared a piece of venison-I had brought my own fork from Italy and still suffered the bemused glances of the French for using such an exotic implement-and paused before taking a bite.

Young François held his meat in his fingers and bit off a large chunk before answering. “In protocol, comport, and politics,” he said, chewing, his words muffled. “She’s quite good at all three.” He swallowed and shot me a curious glance. “You needn’t be jealous. The lady is famous for her virtue. And she’s a good twenty years older than Henri.”

“Of course I’m not jealous,” I said, with a little laugh.

François dismissed the thought with an easy smile. “You must understand, Henri was only five when our mother died. He had always been very attached to her, so the loss was particularly hard on him. Madame de Poitiers looked after Henri and tried to be like a mother to him. That’s why he looks to her for approval now.”

François was not the only dear friend I discovered in my new family. The King’s sister Marguerite, Queen of Navarre-that tiny country south of France and north of Spain, bordering the Pyrenees-lived at Court with her five-year-old daughter, Jeanne. Marguerite and I adored each other at first glance; our affection was strengthened when we discovered our shared passion for books. Marguerite was tall, warm, and sparkling, with such prominent cheeks that, when she smiled, they partially eclipsed her eyes.

Like her brother, she had been born in Cognac, not far from the central eastern coast, where Italian art and letters were properly appreciated, and she had insisted that King François bring the aging Florentine master Leonardo da Vinci to France and pay him handsomely-“even though,” she said, with gentle, rueful humor, “he was too old and blind to do much painting.” He had brought with him some of his best works-including a small, lovely portrait of a smiling, dark-haired woman, one of my favorites, which still hangs at the Château of Amboise.

“However,” Marguerite warned, “don’t believe the King when he tells you that Leonardo died in his arms. My brother likes to forget that he was not in Amboise at the master’s final hour.”

She also spoke with pride of her brother’s work to create the grandest, most complete library in Europe-housed at the country Château at Blois. I promised that at my first opportunity I would visit it.

Meanwhile, I settled into an ostensibly magnificent life. We quit Marseille’s sunny coastline for the country’s wintry interior as King François grew restless after a month or two in any one location.

Before I arrived in France, I had thought I lived in luxury, with my needs attended to by many servants, but my error was one of scope. In Italy, power was scattered and a ruler’s subjects few. The Sforzas ruled Milan; the Medici, Florence; the d’Estes, Ferrara; a hundred different barons ruled a hundred different towns. Rome lay under the authority of the Pope; Venice, under that of a Republic. But France was a nation with a single monarch, and the greatness of that fact struck me when I first traveled with François I’s Court-not so much a court as a city of thousands.

Most of the royal employees served in one of three domains: the chamber, the chapel, or the hostel. Under the first, the Grand Chamberlain supervised the provision and maintenance of clothing, the ritual of dressing the King, and all activities related to the King’s personal toilette. Its staff included valets, gentlemen of the chamber, cupbearers and bread carriers, barbers, tailors, seamstresses, laundresses, chambermaids, and fools.

The domain of the chapel, managed by the Grand Almoner, included the King’s confessor, dozens of chaplains, almoners, choirs, and the King’s reader.

The domain of the hostel, run by the Grand Master, fed the King and his enormous entourage. There were other lesser domains, including those of the stables, which encompassed the royal messengers; the hunt, which cared for the dogs and birds; and the fourriers, who faced the harrowing task of moving the Court and its belongings from location to location. In addition, there were councillors, secretaries, notaries, bookkeepers, pages, apothecaries, doctors, surgeons, musicians, poets, artists, jewelers, architects, bodyguards, archers, quartermasters, sumpters, and squires.

And these were only those who were in the King’s employ. There were also those who attended his family-his sister, children, and cousins-as well as the foreign dignitaries and ambassadors, and all of the King’s friends whose boon companionship pleased him.

I left Marseille in a sumptuously appointed carriage and turned to look at the winding caravan of wagons, horses, and heavy-laden mules behind me. Twenty thousand mounts, five hundred dogs, and as many hawks and falcons, as well as a lynx and a lion, traveled with our circus. We stayed at various lodgings-mostly the châteaus of nobles happy to entertain the Crown-until we made our way into the Loire Valley.

The royal Château at Blois was magnificent and contradictory. To one side stood a red-brick castle built by François I’s pre de ces sor, Louis XII, and inherited by his daughter, Claude. It was here that Jeanne d’Arc received a blessing from the Archbishop of Reims before leading her troops into battle. Claude had been fond of the property, and when she married François-thus securing his claim to the French throne-he added a modern four-story palace.

The palace was unlike Italian palazzi. The interior apartments were connected to all other areas not by corridors but by spiraling staircases. My first few days at Blois, I was constantly short of breath, but within a week, I was running up and down the steps without a thought. The King was so fond of spiral staircases that he had a massive, dramatic one-adorned with statues, in Gothic fashion-placed outside at the building’s center.

The King’s and Queen’s apartments were on the second floor-as was, in flagrant violation of tradition, that of François’s mistress, Madame d’Etampes. The children’s apartments were all on the third floor. Persons of lesser importance lived on the ground floor, where the refectories, kitchen, and guardroom were also located. Numerous outbuildings housed cardinals, clerks, courtiers, bookkeepers, doctors, tutors, and a host of others.

Night had fallen by the time I ate and saw my trunks unpacked. I was shown my spacious apartment, next to that of Henri’s sisters, by lamplight; the King was expected on the morrow and would take up residence in his. I was used to a bedchamber and antechamber, but now I had a bedchamber, an antechamber, a garderobe large enough to hold all my clothes as well as a sleeping servant, and a cabinet, a small, private office. On the brick over my bedroom fireplace was the golden image of a salamander-King François’s personal symbol-and beneath it, the motto Notrisco al buono, stingo el reo, “ I feed off the good fire and extinguish the bad.”

I dismissed all the French attendants and called for one of my own ladies-in-waiting, Madame Gondi, to undress me.

Marie-Catherine de Gondi was an astonishingly beautiful woman of thirty with prematurely silver hair and delicate black eyebrows. Her skin was flawless, save for a tiny dark mole on one cheek, near the corner of her lips. She was well-educated, intelligent, and possessed of a natural daintiness that held no whiff of affectation.

She was French but with a comforting difference: She had lived in Florence for many years before joining my entourage, with the result that she spoke fluent Tuscan. I was not of a mind to speak French that night, and her conversation was a comfort to me. After she undressed me, I asked her to read to me and gave her a copy of one of Aunt Marguerite’s poems, “Miroir de l’Ame Pecheresse, Mirror of a Lost Soul.”

She read for some time, and I sent her to bed as the poor woman was exhausted after a long day of travel. I was still restless and recalled what Aunt Marguerite had told me about the royal library. I wrapped myself modestly in a cloak and, lamp in hand, made my way onto the spiraling staircase that exited my apartment.

The layout of the château was confusing, but after several false starts, I found the staircase that led me to the library. The room was vast and as dark, on that moonless night, as a high-ceilinged cave. I held my brave little lamp close, my hand in front of me to prevent any immediate encounters with walls or furniture.

As I sensed a looming presence in the darkness, I reached out and felt the smooth edge of molded wood and silk-covered spines-a shelf of books. Eagerly, I moved closer and lifted the lamp, whose glow revealed a wooden case stretching from floor to ceiling; in the shadows, even more cases stretched back into infinity. The books were all of a uniform size, bound in different colors of watered silk. There were the obligatory editions of Dante’s Commedia, Petrarch’s Trionfi and Canzoniere, and of course Boccaccio’s Decameron.

There were also titles I had never seen before: a newly bound volume of Pantagruel, by Rabelais; Utopia, by Sir Thomas More, and an astonishing collection by Boccaccio, De claris mulieribus, On Famous Women.

I soon stumbled onto greater riches: a copy of Theologica Platonica de Immortalitate Animae, Platonic Theology of the Immortal Soul, by Marsilio Ficino. I pulled it down at once, of course, and might have stopped my searching right there, but my appetite was whetted. A chill coursed through me at the sight of De Occulta Philosophia Libri Tres by Cornelius Agrippa. I had just stumbled onto the King’s occult collection, and a lifting of my lamp revealed volume after volume on the subjects of astrology, alchemy, qabala, and talismans.

In my mind, I heard the magician’s voice: The Wing of Corvus Rising, from Agrippa, created under the aegis of Mars and Saturn. Instinctively, I lifted a hand to my breasts, between which the talisman hung.

It seemed to me that the sudden appearance of these works by Ficino and Agrippa was a providential indication: If Henri was the bloodied man in my dream, I needed all the secret wisdom I could find.

This notion filled me with an eerie excitement; I opened Agrippa’s book and began to read. I was so utterly carried away by the words that I did not hear the creak of the door, with the result that when the King himself appeared in the darkness-hair uncombed, nightshirt hid beneath a gold brocade dressing gown-I gasped as if I had seen a specter.

King François laughed; the yellow glow from the lamp in his hand had a ghoulish eff ect on his long face.

“Don’t be frightened, Catherine. My supper awakens me far too often now that I am grown old.”

“Your Majesty.” I shut the book and curtsied awkwardly. “I must compliment you on your library. I’m enormously impressed by your selection of titles. And I’ve barely begun to explore it.”

He lowered his lamp and grinned, pleased, then glanced at the books in my hand.

“Agrippa, eh? That manuscript is rare-it has yet to be formally published-but I was lucky enough to obtain one of the few copies in circulation. Quite esoteric choices, Neoplatonism and astrological magic, for a young lady. How do you find Agrippa?”

I paused. Many priests disapproved of such subjects; indeed, many argued that these topics were blasphemous. It occurred to me that, although the King might see fit to include such titles in the royal library, he might not necessarily approve of them-or of my taking them to read.

“I find it fascinating,” I said stoutly. “I am a student of astrology and related subjects, and fond of Ficino. In fact, I brought one of his works from Florence, De Vita Coelitus Comparanda.”

His eyes widened and lit up. “That would be the third volume-”

“Of De Vita Libri Tres, yes. I’ll write my family in Florence and ask for the first two volumes. And I shall make all three of them a present for your library.”

He lunged at me and kissed each of my cheeks in rapid turn. “My darling! I could ask for no better gift! But I cannot ask you to give away one of your own country’s national treasures.”

“I’m French now,” I said. To my mind, the House of Medici and the royal House of Valois were one and the same.

He embraced me with real warmth. “I will accept your generous gift, my daughter. But I would not see the books sent here, where we will be spending only a month or two. Have them sent to Fontainebleau, near Paris. You and I will be there by the time the books arrive, and thus will be able to enjoy them immediately.” He paused. “You needn’t read the books here, child; take them to your room and keep them as long as you’d like.” He moved back toward the shelves. “And now, some reading for me.”

Lifting the lamp, he squinted at the titles.

“Ah,” he said at last. “Here.” He drew a book from the shelf. The title was in French, the subject Italian architecture. “I’m of a mind to do more building at Fontainebleau.”

I moved to stand beside him and spied a treatise about Brunelleschi, who had designed the great dome for Florence’s cathedral. I retrieved the book from the shelf and opened it.

He turned his head sharply as he registered my interest. “So,” he asked, “you enjoy philosophy and architecture? Not generally subjects of interest for a woman.”

I must have blushed, given the sudden rush of warmth to my neck and cheeks. “It is Brunelleschi, Sire, and I am from Florence. But I should think anyone would be curious to learn how such a huge cupola stands without any visible support.”

He gave a toothy grin of approval. “Tomorrow, the third hour after noon, go to the royal stables and join me for a ride in the countryside.”

“Your invitation honors me, Your Majesty,” I said and curtsied again. “I won’t be late.”

By the time I finally drifted off to sleep in my bed, Agrippa’s book open on my lap, I had made a decision: If I could not win Henri, then I would win his father, in the hope of reconciling them-and, of course, reconciling Henri to me.

As Madame Gondi directed my ladies in dressing me the next morning, I asked her to find a French hood for me. I had been wearing my hair in the fashion of an Italian married woman, up with brooches, but all the French women had shoulder-length hoods-veils actually, affixed to stiff, curved bands of velvet or brocade, worn at midcrown over smoothed-back hair. I had told King François that I was now French, and the hood was a physical reminder of my first loyalty.

In a matter of minutes, Madame Gondi appeared with a white veil attached to a dove grey band. I felt odd wearing it, as if I were wearing a disguise at a masque.

The days at Court fell into a predictable pattern based upon the King’s movements. After rising, the King met with his secretaries and councillors. At ten o’clock, he went to Mass, and at eleven, he ate lunch in his reception hall. He was the sole diner, with nobles, petitioners, and servants standing in solemn attendance. Often, a bishop would read aloud to him from a text of His Majesty’s choosing. Afterward, the King held audiences or heard complaints. In the afternoons, he would emerge for exercise-a ride, a hunt, a walk, a game of tennis.

I shadowed the King that day in the hope of encountering Henri, but he and his older brother were off elsewhere.

By afternoon, the November sky held grey clouds that promised drizzle. Even so, my mood had brightened. My favorite mount, Zeus, a black-maned chestnut gelding, had traveled with me to France. I missed him, and the exercise, terribly. I also hoped that my husband might be among the riders.

But when I arrived at the stables at the appointed hour, Henri was not there. Nor was the Dauphin, nor young Charles, nor any of the gentlemen of the court. With the exception of the grooms-one of whom stood holding the reins of the King’s restless, large black charger-His Majesty was the only man present.

He was quite distracted by the five lovely women who accompanied him, all laughing and chattering like bright, beautiful parrots-save one, who had just stepped onto a small stool set before her waiting mare with the intent of ascending the padded, thronelike perch that was a French ladies’ saddle. Her back was to the others-a fact that tempted the King. He wound his arm around the waist of a different woman standing beside him and pulled her body against his in lascivious fashion, then, with incriminating deftness, slipped his hand inside her bodice and squeezed her breast. She displayed no embarrassment, even when she lifted her gaze and saw me.

“Sire!” she exclaimed, with mock reproval, and coyly slapped his hand. She was dark-haired and stout, with prim lips braced by dimples. “Your Majesty, you are a wicked man!”

“I am,” the King admitted cheerfully, “and only the kiss of a good Christian woman can save me. Marie, my darling, rescue me!”

Eager not to be seen by the woman settling on the saddle, Marie gave him a swift kiss on the lips and glanced pointedly at me.

I curtsied. “Your Majesty,” I said loudly.

Instantly, five pairs of feminine eyes marked my French hood.

“Daughter!” the King exclaimed, smiling, and took my hand. “How fashionable you look, and how French! Welcome to our little band! Ladies, this is my darling daughter Catherine. And these, Catherine, are Madame de Massy, the Duchess de Montpensier, Madame Chabot, and Madame de Canaples.”

I nodded at each of them in turn. Madame de Massy, perhaps eighteen and the most hesitant of the group, had milky blond hair and eyebrows so fine and colorless as to be invisible. Beside her, already mounted, Madame de Montpensier-a handsome woman with a square, masculine jaw-bowed politely in the saddle but could not entirely repress her smirk at my discomfort over finding the King with his hand in a woman’s bodice. Madame Chabot, wife of an admiral, smiled faintly as though bored and beyond it all. Madame de Canaples-Marie, as the King had called her-looked on me with smug, heavy-lidded eyes.

The King gestured at the woman who had been mounting the grey mare when I arrived. “And this is my beloved Anne, also known as the Duchess d’Etampes.” He glanced at her with a foolish, lovesick grin.

All of the women’s glances followed his, looking to Anne for a cue. The Duchess sat upon her little riding throne, her feet on the high footrest, which forced her knees to bend so that her skirts spilled down to cover her legs. Thus situated, she could not reach the reins but folded her gloved hands while a mounted groom came alongside and took the reins for her.

She was a fragile creature, tiny, with large golden brown eyes and rouged lips that were full and astonishingly mobile, curving easily in sly amusement, or twisting in contempt, or pursing in disdain. Her copper hair was crimped into soft, frizzy clouds at her temples and parted severely down the middle; the band of her French hood was of gold filigree fashioned to resemble a tiara. From her chin to the tip of her riding boots, she was swallowed by a high-collared coat of the same cut and fur as the King’s. She accepted his adoration as her due, with no more acknowledgment than a pleased sidewise glance.

When I neared, she turned her head deliberately to take me in, as a cat would prey, then swept her gaze over me: me, in my plain, shapeless cloak and my foolish French hood covering my very Italian hair; me, with my unforgivably olive complexion and bulging eyes.

“Madame de Massy,” I said politely, with a nod. “Madame Chabot. Madame de Montpensier. Madame de Canaples.” I turned to the Duchess and said, simply, “Your Grace.”

The Duchess’s lips tightened into a rosebud of a smile, as though she was struggling to repress a laugh at my thick accent.

“Your Highness,” she said, in a voice deeper than expected from so small a throat. “We are honored to have you ride with us this day.”

It was at that instant that my own horse, Zeus, was led out, snorting an eager greeting. I ran to him and stroked his dark muzzle, whispering of how I had missed him.

“Whatever is that?” the Duchess asked, with a nod at my sidesaddle.

The King more courteously echoed the question.

“My own design, Your Majesty,” I answered, “so that I might mount and ride in modesty and without assistance.” I demonstrated. “I put my left foot in a stirrup, here, and grasp the pommel…” With a small bound, I swung myself up onto Zeus and settled into place. The act permitted only the most fleeting glimpse of my calves, which were covered in white stockings. “I put my right leg around the horn, at the pommel. It holds my right knee fast, you see, so that I don’t fall.” I gathered up the reins and waved off the groom who wanted to take them.

“Brilliant!” said the King. “But surely you cannot ride as swift as a man.”

“Sire, I can.”

“Certainly when you ride at such speed, your legs will show,” said Marie de Canaples.

“A pity,” the Duchess said slyly, “to distract the King from such a fair face.”

Marie grinned; her eyeteeth were sharp, like a fox’s.

I flushed at the insult and looked to the King, but he offered no protection. Like the others, he was watching to see how I handled myself.

“Your Majesty,” I said pleasantly. “Shall we ride?”

The King led us south, away from the château and steep hills, toward the broad river.

Our pace was unbearably sedate. The women’s mares were content to be led by the grooms, but the King’s stallion and my gelding were straining at the bit. To ease the tedium, Marie told a story of how one devious young woman, new at Court, had invited her paramour to a great banquet. As her husband dined nearby, her lover crawled beneath the table and, hidden by her voluminous skirts, pleasured her while she ate.

We made our way onto the long wooden bridge across the river, which took several minutes to cross. I looked back over the river, its blue broken here and there by golden sandbanks, to see the houses and church spires and hills behind us, and the great white rectangle of the royal château dominating the city.

The King grew bored; his gaze was on the dense woods waiting on the other side. The instant we made it to the other shore, he broke into a trot. The grooms quickened their pace a bit, which caused the women to bounce in their saddles.

“Your Majesty!” the Duchess called after him, with overt irritation. “The doctor didn’t want you to ride at all today-you mustn’t overtax yourself!”

In reply, His Majesty gave a laugh that terminated in a small cough and grinned over his shoulder at me. “Catherine! Let’s see if you can truly keep up with a man!”

I grinned back at him and signaled Zeus with my heel.

I expected the King to lead me on a chase through the open meadow along the riverbanks; instead, he rode at a gallop straight into the thick woods. I drew in a breath and followed-ignoring, as he did, the women’s warnings. I rode headlong into the forest of bare-limbed beech, oak, and fragrant pine. Luckily, the trees were all a century or more old, with branches high enough that I was not immediately knocked from my mount. Even so, I had to lean low to avoid some of them-not an easy feat when one is astride a horse at full gallop.

King François whooped at the realization that I had given chase and urged his stallion to go faster. Reveling in the sting of cold air on my cheeks, I followed him through the thick of the woods-hares and birds scattering before us-until he swerved and broke clear to ride alongside a neatly tilled vineyard. I followed in close pursuit but, in the end, couldn’t catch him; Zeus’s stride was shorter than that of François’s huge charger. Even so, I refused to yield him more distance.

When he circled to retrace his path through the woods, I followed, encouraging Zeus to go as fast as he dared. I ducked at a low-hanging limb of a pine, then looked up to see the King veering sharply: The Duchess and the others had entered the forest and were heading directly toward us.

Immediately after his change in course, the King crouched low as the black charger surged upward over an obstacle.

The trunk of an ancient oak had split and fallen, blocking our way; the bare fingers of its upper limbs had caught on those of a neighboring tree, so that it hung high above the ground.

I saw the obstacle the second after it would have been possible to steer my horse away from the fallen limb and the nearby band of riders. I knew Zeus’s limits, and this pressed them sorely, but the time for decision was past: I had no choice.

The horse’s muscles strained beneath me; the spectators gasped. The fall happened, as falls do, so quickly that I had no time to be frightened. The world whirled as my body collided with Zeus’s lathered flank, the jagged edges of wood, the cold, damp earth.

For an instant I couldn’t breathe, then just as suddenly I was gulping in air.

King François stood over me, his long face made even longer by his gaping mouth. “Good God! Catherine, are you all right?”

The Duchess stood beside him, her mouth open in a tiny circle. The other ladies were still mounted.

My skirts were bunched up about my hips, exposing my petticoat, my stockinged calves, and my knee-length pantaloons of fine Italian lace, part of the exquisite trousseau chosen by Isabella d’Este. I made a sound of disgust as I pushed myself up and quickly rearranged my skirts.

The instant she realized I was unharmed, the Duchess said, in a low voice, “So. You did indeed distract the King from your pretty face. Such comely legs.” A ripple of repressed laughter made its way through the women on horseback behind her; humor glinted in the King’s eye, but he dutifully extinguished it.

I pushed the grooms’ proffered hands away as I got to my feet. Zeus stood nearby, breathing heavily but exhilarated after the fine run, his reins held by the youngest groom.

“I’m fine, Your Majesty,” I said.

I brushed dead leaves and splinters off my cape. The jagged limb, broader than my thigh, had caught my right shoulder, gouging the wool; had I been unprotected by the thick fabric, the branch would have torn open my gown to leave a serious wound. As it was, my shoulder ached from a bad bruise. My French hood had been pulled off completely; the punctured veil fluttered from the offending branch like a flag of surrender. One of the grooms fetched it like a trophy. It was torn, so I told him to hold it.

The King took my hand. “I can’t believe you tried to take that tree. You must be more careful.”

“My horse is a good jumper, Your Majesty,” I said. “Under better circumstances, he could have cleared it.”

A curious look came over him; he cocked his head, and the beginnings of a faint grin showed at one corner of his mouth. “You jump?”

“I do. Or at least I did, before coming here. Have you never seen a woman on horseback take a hedge?”

He gave a small laugh. “I didn’t know it was possible. Of course, my sister has always said that, given the opportunity, women would be better at the hunt than men.” He paused. “Perhaps I will have you accompany me on a hunt sometime.”

“Nothing would please me better, Sire.”

As we left, he rode next to me, and we made our way out of the woods at our original slow amble. The Duchess brooded silently, ignoring Marie’s attempts at conversation. We cleared the forest and made our way onto the open, grassy riverbank. The King led us back toward the bridge, but the Duchess resisted.

“Canter along the shore, Your Majesty,” she said, with feigned cheer, “and let us have a contest to see who can best keep up with you.”

The King turned back in his saddle to look at her. “Anne, don’t be foolish.”

The Duchess turned to the groom holding her mount’s reins and pointed. “Ride faster. There, along the banks.”

The groom looked uncertainly to the King, who gave no signal, then again at the Duchess before leading her horse away from the group at a steady trot.

“Come, Your Majesty!” she called. “Give us chase!”

“Anne,” the King said again, though she was already out of earshot. His expression was slightly pained as he spurred his charger and rode after her.

I would not compete directly with Anne; I followed slowly as the King broke into a canter and easily outpaced her mare. Once he had committed himself, he did so with boyish abandon.

“Faster!” she urged her groom. “Faster!”

The other women took up the cry. The most ridiculous of races commenced, with the Duchess well behind the King and the other women following, bobbing madly on their little thrones. The Duchess was not content with a brisk trot and insisted on more speed until the nervous groom finally broke into a canter. As he did so, she leaned forward to grasp her mare’s white mane.

The result was utterly predictable. I spurred Zeus into a gallop, arriving just as the groom noticed he was leading a riderless mount; the King, caught up in the moment, was still happily cantering away.

I let go a shout, dismounted, and hurried over to the Duchess. She lay on her side, her crimson skirts and petticoat hiked up to reveal thin white legs-and much more. When Madame Gondi had first come to serve as one of my ladies of the chamber, she had remarked on my pantaloons, not just their fine lace and embroidery but the fact that French women did not wear them at all. Now I saw the proof, as the Duchess d’Etampes pushed herself up and, finding that she was entirely exposed, pulled down her skirts. I repressed a smile; her hair was not naturally copper but dull brown like mine.

She was undamaged, with her hood still in place, but would not rise until she was sure that the King had marked her fall. As the others rode up, I offered her my hand.

“So,” I said loudly, “I see that you, too, have decided to distract the King from your pretty face.”

François and his ladies giggled. As Anne rose, her hand in mine, fury sparked in her eye, tempered by approval that my barb had cleanly hit its mark. To ease its sting, I murmured of her bravery and took care, as we rode back over the bridge toward home, to remain well behind the King so that the Duchess could take her place beside him.

For I suspected, even then, that if I fell out of Anne’s favor, I would fall out of the King’s, and lose everything.

Eighteen

That evening the King hosted an intimate family supper, which included his children; his sister Marguerite and her daughter, Jeanne; and the Grand Master-the stodgy, grey-haired Anné Montmorency, who was included in almost everything because he was trusted with the keys to the King’s residence. Queen Eléonore came with her most trusted lady-in-waiting-Henri’s tutor, Madame de Poitiers. My husband arrived late and shared a hostile glance with his father before taking his seat between his aunt Marguerite and me. I greeted Henri eagerly; in response, he averted his gaze.

The King began to speak: He had been quite impressed by my courage in attempting a difficult jump, and the grace with which I took my fall. He related the incident with some embellishment and a good deal of humor, describing in comic detail the Duchess’s desperate bouncing upon her saddle and subsequent fall-referring to her simply as “one of the ladies” so as not to embarrass the Queen.

Henri clearly understood which lady had been indicated, however, and while the others laughed at his father’s amusing tale, he frowned.

The King went on to describe my saddle and said that, with the urging of “one of the ladies,” he had ordered the Master of Horses to have several copies of it made “so that the women of the realm might keep pace with their king.”

Queen Eléonore, Madame de Poitiers, and Grand Master Montmorency all smiled with brittle disapproval but dared not appear unenthusiastic. But Henri scowled at the story; something deeply vexed him. I tried to divert him with talk of amusing things, but the more I spoke, the darker his mood grew.

After supper, I found him in the outdoor courtyard, lingering at the foot of the steps leading to our separate apartments, I hoped with the aim of speaking privately to me. After Queen Eléonore and the royal children had made their way past us up different staircases, I confronted him.

“Your Highness,” I said softly, “you seem displeased with me. Have I offended you?”

He was growing so quickly that each day brought fresh changes. He was already taller than the day we had met, and his jaw had grown longer and squarer, making his nose less prominent and his face almost handsome. His hair had been cut quite short, but he had let it grow since our wedding so that it now fell against the neck of his collar. Though his beard was still patchy, he had managed to grow a respectable mustache.

I expected him to flush and stammer and quickly take his leave. Instead, he turned on me with heat. “That harlot, that whore-how could you befriend her? She’s a viper, a vicious creature!”

Dumbstruck, I blinked at him. I had never before heard him speak in anger, or use harsh language.

“Madame d’Etampes?” I asked. “You think I am her friend now?”

“You rode with her.” His tone was cold, accusatory.

“The King invited me to ride. I didn’t seek her company.”

“You helped her up when she fell.”

“What was I to do, Your Highness?” I countered. “Spit on her as she lay?”

“My father is a fool,” he said, trembling. “He permits her to use him. You can’t imagine… At Queen Eléonore’s coronation, my father viewed her procession through the city streets from a great window, in full public view. And she”-he could not bring himself to say the Duchess’s name-“she convinced him to let her sit in the window with him and seduced him, made him do horrid, lewd things, while everyone-while the Queen, who passed by-watched.” He fell silent and glared at me.

“Are you telling me not to ride with His Majesty when he invites me? Are you giving me an order?”

He turned swiftly, with a jerk, and began moving toward the staircase. “No, of course not,” I called out after him. “An order would require you to be a husband. It would require you to care.”

I pressed my fist to my mouth to stifle the next angry word and ran up a different set of stairs to my apartments. Without a word to my ladies, I swept into my bedchamber, slammed the door, and fell onto the bed.

Only a few moments had passed when a knock sounded at my door. Thinking that it was Madame Gondi, I called sharply that I did not want to be disturbed.

But the voice at my door belonged to the King’s sister. “Catherine, it’s Marguerite. May I come in?” When I didn’t answer, she added softly, “I saw you with Henri just now. I might be able to help.”

I cracked open the door to avoid raising my voice. “There’s nothing you can do,” I said. “He hates me, and that’s the end of it.”

“Oh, Catherine, it isn’t that at all.” Her voice held such knowing compassion that I let her in. She led me over to the bed to sit on its edge beside her.

“I had no more say in this marriage than Henri did,” I said hotly. “But I don’t hate anyone for it. Of course, he’s handsome and I’m homely. I can’t remedy that.”

“Never let me hear you say such a dreadful thing again,” she said sternly. “You make a fine appearance. It has nothing to do with you-not in the personal sense.”

“Then why does he run from me?”

Marguerite drew in a deep breath, the better to tell a long tale. “You know that the Duchess of Milan was our great-grandmother. That’s why King Charles invaded Italy, and King Louis after him, to claim hereditary properties that rightfully belonged to France.”

I nodded. Like most Italians, I had been raised to hate the French kings for their incursions; now I was obliged to retrain my sympathies.

“It’s also the reason my brother invaded Italy nine years ago. It was a matter of honor.” She paused. “François is very brave, but sometimes foolhardy. When he was fighting Emperor Charles’s army at Pavia, he led a charge into the open. He thought the enemy was retreating, but he was badly mistaken. His men were all killed, and he was taken prisoner. He languished in Spain for a year, until an agreement was reached for his release.

“My brother had to agree to give up many things in order to win his freedom. One was the whole of Burgundy. Another was his sons-the Dauphin François and Henri.”

My eyes widened. “They were held prisoner?”

Marguerite’s expression grew distant and sad. “France languished badly in the King’s absence. And so he made many unpleasant concessions: to marry Charles’s widowed sister, Eléonore, to hand over Burgundy… and to hand over his sons.”

She fell silent. I recalled the morning I had awakened at Poggio a Caiano to see rebel troops on horseback lined up on the sprawling lawn. I thought about the night I had ridden with Ser Silvestro through the streets of Florence, jeered at by a hate-filled crowd.

Marguerite continued. “Henri was barely seven years old when he and the Dauphin took their father’s place as the Emperor’s prisoners. They were held in Spain for four and a half years. When he left France, Henri was a cheerful boy-a bit shy, and sometimes melancholy over his mother’s death, but generally happy. The imprisonment changed that. The King has often said that the Spanish must have sent back a different boy.”

“So his father’s desire for lands in Italy,” I said slowly, “led to the imprisonment of Henri and his brother. And our marriage took place because the Pope guaranteed the King those lands.”

Marguerite nodded sadly. “Perhaps now you understand why the King favors his youngest son, Charles. The Dauphin has forgiven his father, though he has not forgotten, but Henri has done neither. His hatred toward the King hasn’t eased with the passage of time; if anything, it’s grown worse, especially now that you two have married.” She sighed. “I know that this doesn’t make your situation any better, but perhaps understanding Henri will make it more bearable.”

I brought Marguerite’s large, smooth hand to my lips. “Thank you,” I said. “It’s already more bearable. And perhaps you’ve helped me to make it better.”

The next day, I put aside my wounded dignity. Early in the morning I asked Madame Gondi to locate a French ephemeris. I knew Henri’s birth date-the thirteenth of March, 1519, the same year I was born-and decided to chart his nativity myself so that I might better understand his character.

Afterward, I shadowed the King, following him to Mass at ten o’clock, standing in attendance at his lunch at eleven while listening to the bishop read from Thomas Aquinas. I didn’t do so merely out of the desire to grow close to the father in the hope of reconciling him to his son, though that was still part of my aim. I wanted to better understand the workings of government, to fathom the forces that shaped nations and separated children from their fathers.

During his lunch, the King spotted me and invited me to ride with him that afternoon. By three o’clock, I was at the stables and highly amused to see the Duchess sitting upon her mare, outfitted with a hastily constructed sidesaddle. The other ladies were forced to ride slowly, led by their grooms, but Anne and I trotted alongside the King, making plans for a future hunt. Though I cannot say she exuded warmth, she accepted me well enough to engage in lighthearted verbal parries. I was now a member of the King’s inner circle.

That evening, the family met again for dinner. Aunt Marguerite cast a knowing glance at me as she took her place. I sat beside her.

Henri was, again, a few minutes late. This time, his manner was subdued as he apologized to his father and quickly took his chair. I was greatly relieved when my greeting was kindly returned.

After supper, we made our way into the courtyard, lit by blazing torches upon the winding staircases that led up to our separate apartments. It was a cold night, very clear and quiet save for the murmurs of the other diners saying their good nights. Henri said my name, softly, and I turned to see him summoning his courage by averting his gaze toward the star-littered sky.

“I’m sorry, Your Highness, for my ill-considered retort last evening,” I said.

“You mustn’t apologize for anything, Catherine,” he said. His eyes were very, very black; I had thought, until that moment, that they were dark brown. “It’s I who am sorry, for all my selfish, unkind behavior since you have come.”

His sincerity unnerved me; I cast about for an appropriate reply. Madeleine’s sudden laughter floated down from the staircase above us as she and her sister made their way up to their apartment, accompanied by their little cousin, Jeanne. Behind us, Montmorency called to the King as they left the dining room.

Henri glanced quickly in both directions, then back at me. “May I accompany you to your chambers? I should like to speak to you alone.”

“Yes,” I said quickly. “Yes, of course, Your Highness.”

We climbed the stairs in awkward silence. Henri went only as far as my antechamber and seated himself near the fire. I gestured for all of my ladies to leave.

When we were alone, Henri cleared his throat and stared into the hearth. “I’m sorry for losing my temper. Madame d’Etampes manipulates my father shamelessly and has hurt many of her fellow courtiers. Last night, I was thinking only of my own feelings and did not take yours into consideration.”

“I am Catherine,” I said. “I am not Italy.”

He drew back, startled; his cheeks bloomed red. “I see that now. I have also seen how my father mistreats Queen Eléonore, how he ignores her, even though she greatly desires his attentions. When she enters a room, he acts as though she’s not even there.” He shook his head. “I don’t want to be cruel like him.”

“She is a foreigner, and unlovely,” I said, “and your father a victim of political circumstance. He didn’t want to marry her.”

“His own greed obliged him,” Henri countered with sudden heat. “His craving for Italian property-it’s an insanity with him. He bankrupted the royal treasury in pursuit of it; he almost died for it, at Pavia. Like a fool, he rode ahead of his men into the thick of battle.”

He turned his head away in an effort to hide his bitterness.

“Henri,” I said, “this anger will destroy you if you let it.” I paused. “I learned only yesterday of your imprisonment in Spain.”

He jerked his head back to face me. “And were you told, too, how my father betrayed us once he gave us to the Emperor? How he left his own sons to rot, to die, to be-” He broke off, bitter.

“No,” I murmured. “No. I was not told.”

Henri looked down at his hands and squeezed them into fists, then stared into the fire; a distant look came over him.

“They made the exchange at a river,” he said. “My mother was dead by then; only Madame de Poitiers came to say good-bye. She kissed the top of my head and told me that I would return soon, that she would count the days. My brother and I were put in a small boat. The Spanish were waiting on the other shore, but we couldn’t see them. It was early morning and the fog was thick, but I could hear the lapping of the water. Just as we pushed off, I glimpsed my father like a ghost in the mists, waving to us from the bow of a nearby ship. He was crossing at the same time.”

He let go a long, wavering sigh. “The Spanish treated us kindly at first. We stayed in the palace with the Emperor’s sister, Queen Eléonore. Then, suddenly, we were sent to live at a fortress, in a filthy little room with a dirt floor and no windows. If we uttered a single word in French, we were beaten; we were allowed to speak only in Spanish. When I had finally learned enough to ask the guard why we were being mistreated, he told me that my father had violated the conditions of his release. He had promised that, once he was freed, he would go to Burgundy to prepare it for a peaceful takeover by the Emperor’s forces.

“Instead, my father went to Burgundy and fortified it for war. He never intended to let the Emperor have it. Knowing this, he had surrendered me and my brother to the Spanish.”

I drew in a sharp breath. I saw clearly the political expediency of the act: how King François had gambled that the Emperor would not kill his sons, and how he saw that a vast Imperial stronghold in Burgundy-the very heart of the nation-would threaten all of France. Yet that made it no less horrifying, no less cruel. I rose from my chair and slipped to my knees beside Henri; I reached up for his clenched fist. He flinched, so absorbed in the memory that my touch startled him, but he let me take his hand and gently uncurl it, and kiss the palm.

“Henri,” I said softly. “We have much in common, you and I.” And when curiosity flickered in his gaze, I explained, “I spent three years a captive of the Florentine rebels.”

His lips parted as he blinked in surprise. “No one told me,” he said. “No one dares speak of my imprisonment to me, so perhaps they were afraid to tell me of yours.”

He seized my hand and squeezed it hard. He looked at me and for the first time saw me, Catherine, and not the Pope’s niece, the foreigner, the hateful obligation.

“Catherine, I am so sorry. I would not wish for anyone…” He trailed off. “Was it terrible?”

“At times. I was always afraid for my life. I was betrayed, too-by my own cousins, who escaped and left me behind, knowing I would be taken prisoner. One of them now rules Florence. But I can’t waste my time hating them.”

“I’ve tried not to hate my father,” he said, “but the sight of him fills me with such anger…”

“You need him,” I said gently. “He’s your father, and the King.”

“I know.” He dropped his gaze. “I hate him only because I love my brother so much. For the Spanish, tormenting the Dauphin was the same as tormenting the King, because they knew he would rule France someday. So they singled him out. They defiled him.” His voice broke on the last two words. “Sometimes there would be as many as five men-always at night, when they were full of wine. We were isolated, in the mountains, with no one to hear him scream but me.” He looked up at me, his face contorted, his black eyes liquid. “I tried to stop them. I tried to fight. But I was too small. They laughed and shoved me out of the way.”

He let go a hoarse sob. I rose, wound my arms about his shoulders, and kissed the top of his head as he pressed his face to my bosom.

His words were muffled. “How can people be so evil? How can they want to hurt others so badly? My gentle, good-hearted brother, he can forgive them all. But I can’t… And our father hates us, because each time he looks at us, he’s forced to remember what he’s done.”

“Hush,” I said. “Your brother François wakes each morning happy. He let go of his suffering long ago. For his sake, you must stop clinging to yours.”

He pulled back to look at me as I held his hot, damp face in my hands. “You’re like him, kindhearted and wise,” he said. He reached up and brushed my cheek with his fingertips. “So beautiful of spirit that all the other women at Court are hideous by comparison.”

I drew in a breath, voluntarily captive. I know not who moved first, but we kissed each other with sudden heat and fell by the fire. I lifted my skirts and petticoat; when I pulled off my pantaloons and flung them so carelessly that they landed on his head, he giggled.

This time when he took me, I was ready. I rode him with wild desperation, abandoning myself with spectacular result. No one had told me that women could gain as much pleasure as men from the sexual deed, but I discovered the fact that day, to my astonished delight. I suppose I cried out rather loudly, for I remember Henri laughing wickedly while I was in the grip of unbearable pleasure.

When we were spent, I rang for my ladies to undress me while Madame Gondi fetched one of Henri’s valets to do the same for him. After the servants departed, we lay together naked in my bed. I permitted myself to do what I had longed to do since coming to France: I ran my palms over the contours of my husband’s body. He was so very tall, like his father, with long, sculpted legs and arms. And he touched me-my breasts, and my legs, muscular and shapely-and pronounced them to be perfect.

“You are so brave and good,” he said. “You endured prison, and coming to France, a strange land, and have been patient with me…” He rolled on his side to face me. “I want to be like you. But there are times I think I’m going mad.”

“You’re unhappy,” I countered. “It’s not the same thing.”

“But I remember all the terrible things my brother went through-and I grow frightened that they’ll happen again. So frightened that I can’t trust anyone, that I can’t even speak kindly to you when I want to…” He looked away, haunted.

“It won’t happen again,” I said. “It’s past.”

“How do you know?” he demanded. “If Father was captured again-if something happened to François… It might not be the same thing, but it could be even worse.”

He fell back against the pillow, his eyes wide at the thought. I wrapped my arms around him.

“Nothing bad will happen to you,” I whispered, “because I won’t let it.” I kissed his cheek. “Let me give you children, Henri. Let me make you happy.”

The tension in his face dissolved, giving way to trust, and I dissolved with it. I laid my head upon his shoulder as he whispered, “Oh, Catherine… I could love you. I could so easily love you…”

He fell asleep in that fashion. And I, swooning with infatuation, reveled in the feel of his warm flesh against mine. Filled with blissful thoughts, I dozed.

In the middle of the night, I woke in a mindless panic and lifted my head from Henri’s shoulder to stare down at him. In the dimness, blood bubbled up from his face-the stranger’s face, the one from my dream.

Catherine. Venez a moi. Aidez-moi.

I understood my life’s purpose in that crystalline instant.

“I heard you far away in Italy, my love,” I whispered fiercely. “You called to me, and I have come.”

At the sound of my voice, Henri stirred and stared up at me with eyes that were black and haunting as the Raven’s Wing.

He slept the rest of the night beside me, but when I woke to the first light of morning, he was gone.

Nineteen

When I saw Henri had gone, I rose quietly, so as not to wake Madame Gondi, sleeping in the adjacent garderobe.

I had discovered three volumes on astrological magic by Cornelius Agrippa in the King’s library and brought them all to my cabinet. I went into the tiny office, lifted the first volume from the shelf, and began to thumb through it. I no longer believed in coincidence. Chance hadn’t presented me with the magician any more than it had brought me Henri-or Agrippa’s masterwork there upon His Majesty’s library shelf.

Until that morning I had been reluctant to try to create a talisman myself. I doubted the books contained all the information necessary for dealing with the intangible world. But the convergence of Henri’s need and the appearance of Agrippa’s tomes convinced me that I was destined to do this.

I found what I wanted in volume two: Corvus the Raven is a constellation near Cygnus the Swan. The Raven’s stars are ruled by morbid Saturn and bloodthirsty Mars; yet combined as they are in a star named Gienah, said Agrippa, they “confer the ability to repel evil spirits” and protect against “the malice of men, devils, and winds.” When the figure of a raven is drawn over the constellation, Gienah glitters in its wing.

The image required was that of the raven. The stone required was black onyx; the herb daffodil, burdock, or comfrey; the animal a frog-specifically, its tongue. On a night when Gienah was rising and favorably aspected to the Moon, the stone should be inscribed with a sigil, fumigated, and consecrated.

This was my task, then-to obtain a ring fitted to Henri’s finger, construct a raven’s image, collect the stone and herb and frog, and perform the ceremony. First, however, I needed to locate Gienah, track its movements, and determine when, over the next months, it rose conjunct the Moon.

I felt purposeful that day, believing that the bloody burden I had carried for so long would soon be lifted. I never dreamt that I was instead taking another step toward the heart of the magician’s sinister and ever-widening circle.

In the meantime, my fortunes bloomed while Florence’s withered. I received a letter from my dear cousin Piero. He lived in Rome now with his father, Filippo, and his brothers. They had been forced to flee Florence. Sandro, it seemed, had become a murderous tyrant and profoundly suspicious of his relatives-to the point of accusing Piero of plotting to seize control of the city. Others who had provoked Alessandro’s distrust had been executed or poisoned, or had simply disappeared.

It is a good thing you and Ippolito live some distance from him, Piero wrote, or you would not both still be alive. So many disaffected had left Florence out of fear or protest that there was talk of raising an army to retake the city.

I wrote Piero at once, inviting him to come with his family to France, as I longed to see them; in truth, I also wanted them to see me happy.

In King François, I had found the father I had always longed for. To my delight, he invited me to his morning meetings with his councillors, so that I might see how the business of the nation was transacted. I learned how the King worked with Parlement, the Treasury, and his Grand Council.

Every day at his lunch, the King bade me sit nearby, a special honor. When the King’s reader was silent, we conversed about His Majesty’s building plans for Fontainebleau, or about which Italian artisan he should hire for a particular project, or about a work of literature we both had read.

He was as affectionate to me as he was to his own daughters, whom he visited regularly. He would gather them both upon his lap, although they had grown too large to fit. When he sat smiling at us, I glimpsed the same bright, loving boy I had seen in my Henri. At the same time, he was ruthless in the council chamber; the well-being of the nation took precedence over any individual claim of the heart.

And though I heard often about his insatiable lust, he guarded his family from it, though there were times when I came up unawares to find him with his hand in a courtier’s bodice or up her skirts. Madame Gondi told me that when she had first come to Court, His Majesty had cornered her and caressed her, saying that he could not live without her love.

“Did you submit?” I asked, shocked.

“No,” she said. “His Majesty’s weakness is women, and when a woman weeps, he becomes utterly helpless. It’s how the Duchess d’Etampes controls him. And so I wept as I told him that I loved my husband and could not betray him. His Majesty accepted my explanation and retreated with an apology.”

Such stories troubled me, but I found myself making allowances for him despite myself, for I loved him dearly.

Best of all, I felt my love for Henri was requited. He now smiled shyly and met my gaze, albeit with endearing timidity. And he came often-though not often enough to suit me-to my bedchamber.

I was thoroughly enamored. I understood his pain now: His anger was born of protectiveness and love. If mention of an Italian campaign brought a flash of heat into his eyes, it was only because he worried about a coming war’s effect upon his brother.

The King finally publicly announced the full details of our wedding arrangement: Pope Clement had already paid half of the exorbitant sum agreed upon as my dowry; in addition, Clement and King François both proclaimed Henri to be Duke of Urbino by virtue of his marriage to me. Milan was to be ours, too, and Piacenza and Parma; His Holiness the Pope asserted our right to the territories and would supply additional troops to aid in the conquest.

In preparation, King François began to build an army.

Meanwhile, the Court followed the King northward from the Loire countryside to Paris. The city was not as sprawling as Rome, but it was ten times more crowded; the narrow streets were always congested, the half-timber houses crammed side by side. But spring brought enchanting, sweet-smelling blossoms and temperate weather, even though the sky, placid one moment, could release a sudden shower the next. The Seine, grey-green in gloom, quicksilver in sun, was too shallow to permit nautical traffic; some days revealed so many golden sandbanks I felt I could simply walk to the opposite shore. The river cut the city in half; in between nestled the island of Ile-de-la-Cité, home to the massive, magnificent cathedral of Notre-Dame and the ethereal, dainty Sainte-Chapelle, with its fiery circular windows of stained glass.

I could see their spires from the high, narrow windows of the Louvre. It was my least favorite royal residence-old and cramped, with tiny apartments. Over the centuries, the size of the Court had greatly increased, though the Louvre, on the Seine’s bank, had no room to expand. The only way to increase the number of chambers had been to decrease the size of each. It had only a token cobblestone courtyard instead of the vast green expanses found at the countryside châteaus.

The city itself I adored. Paris was not as sophisticated as Florence, nor as jaded. It emanated an excitement that attracted the best artists from all over Europe. There were many Italians, thanks to King François’s determination to bring the best artists, architects, and goldsmiths to France. Everywhere I went, I found scaffolding and at least two Italians arguing over the best way to decorate or rebuild a particular section of the old palace.

In my cramped cabinet at the Louvre, I drew the likeness of a raven in black ink upon white parchment. A Parisian jeweler had supplied a polished, faceted onyx; an apothecary furnished ground cypress wood, of the nature of Saturn, and the poisonous root of hellebore, ruled by Mars. I found an errand boy willing to kill a frog and cut out its tongue without impertinent questions. I placed it alongside the stone and incense in one of the compartments hidden in the wooden wainscoting near my desk, where it browned and withered.

I charted Gienah’s movements through the night sky and calculated when it would rise conjunct the moon. The most propitious time would not arrive for months.

Cosimo Ruggieri, then, had prepared my stone for me well in advance-weeks, or even longer. He had known all along that I would need it, and had merely been waiting for the opportunity to deliver it into my hands.

We did not remain long in Paris that spring of 1534. Like me, the King disliked the lodgings and soon forsook them for the Château at Fontainebleau, south of the city.

If the Louvre was the smallest royal residence, then Fontainebleau was certainly the largest. The massive four-story stone structure took the shape of an oval ring, with an interior courtyard. It was large enough to house a village and too small to accommodate King François’s Court; a west wing and connecting structure had to be built. François hired the famous Fiorentino to paint frescoes, framed by gilded molding, on the walls. Under the King’s direction, the château began to glitter, thanks to the famous goldsmith Cellini.

I summoned Cellini to my cabinet and presented him with a sketch of the golden ring, its heart empty to receive a stone. When it was done, I paid him handsomely and put the ring in the hidden compartment with the rest of my secrets.

As spring turned to summer and summer turned to fall, the King went hunting at every opportunity-accompanied by La Petite Bande, as he called us ladies. All of us now rode sidesaddle, and each woman showed her determination to keep pace with the King.

One afternoon in late September, we were in pursuit of a stag. I was happy that day, comfortable in my new life. The weather was exquisite with a comfortable breeze and sun, and I was laughing with Anne as we galloped together after the King.

Suddenly, a bell began to toll; someone of import had died. We called off the hunt and rode in, subdued and curious. The stable master had no idea what had happened.

I dismounted and walked back to my chambers, where Madame Gondi waited in the doorway. Her recent tears had washed away some of her face paint, leaving rivulets of pink beside the chalky white. The other ladies and the servants were all crying.

“What is it?” I demanded.

She crossed herself. “Your Highness, I am so sad to be the one to tell you. It is your uncle, the Pope.”

I was shocked and sorry, but I didn’t cry. It is a devastating thing for the faithful when a Pope dies, and he was also my relative. But I still resented his choice of his own illegitimate son, Alessandro, to rule Florence.

Once the shock had worn off, I grew uneasy. Clement had died with only half my dowry paid and none of his promises of military support to King François fulfilled. In the chapel, I prayed that his successor would be a friend to France and to me-but God, I knew, never heard me.

Seven nights after the Pope’s death, the moon rose with the star Gienah her close companion. At forty-three minutes past midnight, I went into my windowless cabinet and opened the hidden compartment with a key.

I had turned my desk into a makeshift altar, with a censer from the chapel in its center, in front of my drawing of the raven. After lighting the coal in the censer, I sprinkled the cypress wood shavings and the dried leaves of hellebore over it. Acrid smoke billowed out immediately. As my eyes streamed, I took up a jeweler’s awl and the polished onyx. On the stone’s backside I etched the sigil for Gienah, then held the stone up to the smoke and repeated the name of the star. Using one of Cellini’s fine pliers, I set the stone into the ring and applied pressure to the golden prongs until the gem was held fast.

It was done unremarkably, without any whiff of the unworldly. I repeated the ritual of lighting the incense and invoking Gienah for seven nights, at forty-three minutes past midnight. I had worried that I might not remember to rise at the appointed time, but in fact, I could not forget.

Within two weeks, Alessandro Farnese was elected Pope and took the name Paul III. If his election caused King François a moment’s unease, His Majesty never showed it but treated me as warmly as ever. On the last day of October, the Eve of All Saints, we shared lunch and a spirited conversation about the works of Rabelais, and whether they were heretical. My heart was light that afternoon when I went to the stables, ready to ride with the King and his band.

As I neared, the ladies-except for Anne-were hurrying back to the château, their faces drawn with fear. Marie de Canaples gestured frantically; I didn’t understand until later that she had been trying to warn me.

At the stables, grooms were leading agitated horses back to their stalls. A trio stood near the entry: Grand Master Montmorency, the Duchess d’Etampes, and the King. The Duchess was silent and distraught, Montmorency dignified and immovable, his gaze downcast.

The King was roaring and slashing the air with his riding crop. As I approached, he turned it on one of the grooms, who was not moving fast enough to suit him; the lad let go a cry and picked up his pace.

I stopped a short distance away. The Duchess’s eyes widened as she, too, made a surreptitious attempt to wave me off.

“Nothing!” the King screamed, spraying spittle. He slashed the air again, then turned his whip on the ground, sending tufts of grass flying. “She brings me nothing! Nothing! She has come to me naked, that girl!”

I recoiled; the movement caught François’s eye. He whirled on me, his stance challenging.

“Stark naked, do you understand?” His voice broke with ugly emotion. “Stark naked.”

I understood completely. I curtsied low and full, then turned and walked back toward the château with as much dignity as I could feign.

Mésalliance: the French use the word to describe an ill-conceived royal marriage. It was on every courtier’s lips, every servant’s, though no one dared utter it aloud to me.

The French people had tolerated me but never loved me. I had been for them a necessary evil-a commoner who had promised, but failed, to bring gold to fund a bankrupt nation, and the troops to fulfill François’s dreams of Italian conquest. It would be so easy to put me aside; after all, I had yet to bear children.

Madame Gondi, my able and eager spy, now confessed the truth: The French loved the Florentines for their art, their fine cloth, their literature-but they hated us as well. Backstabbers, they called us, poisoners whose inherited penchant for murder made us dangerous even to our families and friends. Many at Court were eager to see me gone; before my arrival, many had vowed that they would rather have their knees broken than bow them to the child of foreign merchants.

But I loved Henri desperately; I had found a life in France and couldn’t imagine another, especially now that Florence was no longer mine.

The next morning, I went to Mass with the King and followed him to his lunch. In the afternoon, I went, head up, chin lifted, to the royal stables.

King François was there, and the thin, elegant Duchess and plump Marie de Canaples. They all smiled at me, but their warmth had cooled to a distant politeness. Once again, I had become inconvenient.

Soon Henri’s ring with the talisman of Corvus was ready. I decided to present it to him one evening after we had lain together. Henri rose from the bed and pulled on his leggings. I sat upon the bed watching, still naked, with my hair falling free to my waist.

Before he could reach for the bell to summon his valet, I said, “I have a gift for you.”

He stopped and gave me a curious little half smile. I moved quickly to my cupboard, produced a little velvet box, and handed it to him.

His smile widened and grew pleased. “How very thoughtful of you.” He opened the box to find the gift, wrapped in a swatch of purple velvet.

“A ring,” he murmured. His expression remained carefully pleased, but a slight line appeared between his eyebrows. It was a very plain gold ring with a small onyx-an unremarkable piece of jewelry, more fit for merchant than for a prince. “It is handsome. Thank you, Catherine.”

“You must wear it always,” I said. “Even when you sleep. Promise me.”

“To remind me of your devotion?” he asked lightly.

Foolish girl, I did not respond smiling and teasing, as I should have to convince him, but hesitated.

A shadow fell over his face. “Is this some sort of magic?”

“There’s nothing evil in it,” I countered quickly. “It will bring only good.”

He held it to the lamplight, his expression suspicious. “What is it for?”

“Protection,” I said.

“And how was it made?”

“I did it myself, so I can swear that it isn’t evil. I used the power of a star; you know how I like to follow the heavens.”

A corner of his mouth quirked in a skeptic’s smile. “Catherine, don’t you think this is superstitious?”

“Indulge me. Please, I only want to keep you safe.”

“I’m young and healthy. I don’t want to hurt your feelings, but this is nonsense.” He put the Raven’s Wing back into the box and set it on the table.

“I’ve dreams about you,” I said, with unhappy urgency. “Many dreams, worrisome ones. Perhaps God sent them. Perhaps God sent me here, to see you safe. Take the ring, Henri, I beg you. I went to great trouble to make it.”

He let go a sigh. “All right. I’ll wear it, if it gives you that much comfort.” He retrieved the ring, slipped it onto his finger, and held his hand to the lamp. “I suppose it can do no harm.”

“Thank you,” I said and kissed him, deeply relieved. My job was done; whatever happened to me from that moment on no longer mattered. Henri was now safe.

One year bled into the next. The King grew increasingly distant, and the Duchess and her ladies began whispering into each other’s ears in my presence. The simple act of my walking into a room abruptly sealed speakers’ lips.

In October of 1535, the Duke of Milan died without an heir, leaving his city ripe for the plucking. Even without papal assistance, King François could not resist so succulent a plum. He sent his new army toward Milan.

In retaliation, Emperor Charles invaded Provence, in France’s south.

The King was desperate to fight against the Imperial invaders himself, but Grand Master Montmorency convinced him otherwise while delicately avoiding mention of the fact that the last time the King had led his troops into battle, he had been captured. To everyone’s relief, the King appointed the experienced, cautious Montmorency as Lieutenant General, to take charge of the armed forces.

But François wished to be near the fighting, the better to advise. In the summer of 1536, his elder sons went with him, and so did I, followed by a skeleton Court. We stayed first in Lyon, then went to Tournon, then down to Valence, in the Midi, as the French call the Mediterranean-like south, moving at a safe parallel with the fighting.

The Dauphin remained in Tournon to nurse a slight case of catarrh-an excessive precaution, but the King was adamant. Young François made a joke of it, of course, and left me laughing as our carriages rolled away.

At Valence, I rode alongside Madame Gondi through forests of pine and eucalyptus and inhaled the scent of wild lavender crushed beneath the horses’ hooves. I never rode long or ventured too close to the banks of the Rhone, where the mosquitoes were thickest. The sun and river conspired to leave the air ruthlessly sultry. We stayed at an estate set atop a promontory, with sweeping views of the valley and river. In the late afternoons, as the heat was breaking, I sat with my embroidery in the vast reception chamber adjacent to the King’s quarters, perched upon a window seat overlooking the river.

The King spent long hours in his cabinet conferring with his councillors and, surprisingly, Henri. He and his father remained recluses, eating in private, forgoing audiences, even missing Mass; the Cardinal of Lorraine, one of his councillors, would interrupt the long sessions to grant the King absolution and administer the Sacrament.

This manner of life continued for a week, until the morning I woke in my bed to hear heart-wrenching keening. I threw on my dressing gown and ran downstairs toward the source.

At the reception chamber near the King’s apartment, I paused on the threshold to see the Cardinal of Lorraine. Though it was barely dawn, he was already dressed in his scarlet robe and skullcap, but he had not shaved; the first rays of the sun glinted off the grey stubble on his cheeks. At my approach, he turned, his gaze dulled by horror.

Beside him, the King was on his knees near the edge of the little window seat where I liked to embroider, dressed in only his nightshirt and dressing gown, his hair uncombed. He reached up suddenly to clutch his skull, as if to crush the misery there, then just as quickly let it go and pulled himself up onto the velvet cushion. There he knelt, his arms spread to the river and the sky.

“My God,” he cried. “My God, why could you have not taken me? Why not me?”

He collapsed in a storm of tears.

I began to weep myself. This was not a commander’s regret but a father’s sorrow. Poor sweet Madeleine, I thought; she had always been so sickly. I began to move toward His Majesty, but the Cardinal sharply waved me off.

Still bowed, the King lifted his head just enough for his words to be understood. “Henri,” he groaned. “Bring me Henri.”

The Cardinal disappeared, but his mission was unnecessary. Within seconds, Henri appeared of his own accord, fully dressed and ready for a dire emergency; he, too, had heard the King’s cries. He walked over the threshold, our shoulders brushing, and shot me a questioning gaze for which I had no answer.

At the sight of the King doubled over in misery, Henri rushed to his side.

“What is it?” he demanded. “Father, what has happened? Is it Montmorency?”

He put his hand upon the King’s shoulder, and the old man reared up onto his knees.

“Henri…” The King’s ravaged voice was quaking. “My son, my son. Your older brother is dead.”

François, my smiling, golden-haired friend. The room whirled; I caught the edge of the doorway and let go a torrent of involuntary tears.

“No,” Henri snarled and lifted an arm to strike his father. Before the blow could land, the King seized his son’s forearm and held it fast. Henri strained against his father’s strength until both were trembling. Abruptly, Henri dropped his arm and began to shriek. “No! No! You can’t say such things! It’s not true, it’s not true!”

He reached for a nearby chair and overturned it with such force that it skittered across the stone. He reached, too, for a large, heavy table, and when he could not upend it, he fell to the floor.

“You can’t take him,” he sobbed. “I won’t let you take him…”

I ran to him and gathered him into my arms.

He was limp. In his eyes was a shattered vacancy, a fathomless despair-a look I had seen only once before. His spirit had broken, and I did not have the means to mend it.

I guided him to his father and retreated to the threshold to give them their privacy. I was a latecomer, an interloper in terms of their grief.

Once the King had calmed enough to speak, he said, “My son. You are the Dauphin now. You must become as good as your brother François was, and as kind, so that you are loved as much as he was. You must never give anyone cause to regret that you are now the first heir to the throne.”

At the instant I heard it, I thought only that His Majesty was cruel and unthinking to say such things to Henri at this time of terrible sorrow. How could one speak of political matters when one’s own son was dead? Indeed, I thought so for some days, until after we had laid poor François to rest in a temporary tomb.

Until one afternoon shortly thereafter, when Madame Gondi was speaking of some trivial matter and addressed me as Madame la Dauphine.

The sound of it stole my breath-not because I craved the power that would come when I was Queen, nor because I feared it, but rather because I realized that the astrologer and magician Cosimo Ruggieri had, from the very beginning, been right about everything.

Twenty

I penned another letter to Cosimo Ruggieri, explaining my new circumstances and asking him to join me at Court to serve as my chief astrologer, though I had little hope. Ruggieri was dead or mad, but I had nowhere else to turn. With increased power came increased vulnerability. Like Henri, I felt there were few I could trust. One was Ruggieri, who had long ago proven his loyalty to me.

I was uneasy, and rightly so.

I saw the details of young François’s death as straightforward, but the King and many of his advisers and courtiers thought otherwise.

Left behind at Tournon, François had appeared to recover quickly from the catarrh. He’d felt so well, in fact, that on one of the hottest afternoons of that miserable August, he had challenged one of his gentlemen of the chamber to a strenuous game of tennis. The Dauphin had won handily.

Afterward, however, he felt strangely winded. Thinking it was the heat, he ordered his Page of the Sewer, Sebastiano Montecuculli, to bring him a glass of cold water. Soon after drinking it, the Dauphin collapsed and fell ill with a high fever. Fluid filled his lungs. Pleurisy, one doctor said; the other had doubts. Neither could save him.

Perhaps it was because Montecuculli was Florentine, and had come to France as one of my entourage, but Henri could hardly bear to look at me and stopped visiting my chamber.

The King was desperate to blame someone for his suffering. Montecuculli was the convenient choice, poison the convenient charge-the man was, after all, Italian. When he was arrested and his belongings examined, a book on the properties of chemical agents-some nefarious-was discovered, along with a paper granting him safe conduct through Imperial strongholds. His death was inevitable.

Montecuculli was anxious for a swift execution instead of the torments reserved for those guilty of regicide, so he confessed his guilt immediately, claiming to be a spy acting on Emperor Charles’s orders, with his next target the King.

The seventh of October brought cloudless blue skies. I mounted the pine-scented steps of the hastily constructed dais behind Queen Eléonore and Diane de Poitiers; Marguerite-not quite thirteen then-followed me, plucking anxiously at my skirts. We had come to Lyon-close enough to Valence for the King to receive any important news of the war but far enough from the fighting to ensure everyone’s safety.

More than two hundred courtiers awaited us on the dais. All wore black-like the four coal-colored stallions, caparisoned in the same color, who paced anxiously in the empty plaza in front of us. Only Madame de Poitiers had diluted her black with an underskirt of white, and a grey band on her hood. To me it seemed that Madame was admitting to no fresh sorrow; the scent of her lily of the valley perfume, especially strong that morning, seemed an affront to the somber proceedings.

We royals-as well as Madame de Poitiers-had been provided with padded chairs at the very front of the crowd. We found our places but remained on our feet as we awaited the King and his two surviving sons.

Charles climbed the stairs to the dais first. He was fourteen; over the past year, he had sprouted in height until he stood only half a head shorter than the King. Like his late brother, he was golden-haired and blue-eyed, with a round, handsome face, a gift from his mother.

Behind him came his father. In the past two months, large shocks of white had appeared at the King’s temples; the hollows beneath his eyes had deepened. Rumor said that his insides were rotting, that he had developed an abcess in his privates. I prayed this was untrue, for I loved him so. Once he had mounted the steps and taken his chair, the King stared straight ahead but, blinded by grief, saw nothing.

In one sense I was relieved to be spared his gaze, for I feared it might have held recrimination. A fortnight earlier, an outraged Emperor Charles had responded to the charge that he had ordered the Dauphin’s assassination: “Had I wished to,” he declared, “I could easily have murdered father and son years ago, when both were in my possession.” His agents at the French Court spread the rumor that I, a power-hungry Medici, had persuaded Montecuculli to poison the Dauphin, with the full support of my husband.

King François loved me and did not believe this accusation, yet it pained him all the same. The day the rumor surfaced, he withdrew even further from me, avoiding my gaze and my questions, until I became for him the same mute, invisible creature I was now for my husband.

Henri, now the Dauphin, mounted the stairs last. His grief was so black, so pervasive, that he had refused visitors since his brother’s death. There was no cold light of vengeance in his eyes that morning, or even grim satisfaction, only uncertainty tinged with fresh grief. The thought of more suffering, more death, brought him no joy.

I did not smile as he stepped onto the platform but directed my most loving gaze at him. He saw it, and at once averted his eyes, as if he could not bear to look on me. The ring with the black stone, the Wing of Corvus, which he had faithfully worn every day since receiving it, was gone. His finger was bare.

Such tiny gestures-a shift of the eyes, the missing ring-left me crushed. I hung my head and did not lift it when little Marguerite, thinking I mourned her lost brother, squeezed my hand and told me not to be sad.

Once the King and the Dauphin were seated, the rest of us followed suit. A shout came from a guard in the plaza, one of the King’s kilted Scotsmen, who stood beside the four grooms with their restless black stallions.

In response to the summons, a solemn group walked into the center of the open. First came the scarlet-clad Cardinal of Lorraine and the Captain of the Scottish guards, consummately masculine despite his kilt and flowing auburn hair. Behind them followed two guards, who flanked a prisoner.

This was Sebastiano Montecuculli, the unfortunate soul who had set a glass of cold water into the Dauphin’s sweating hands. Montecuculli was a count, of considerable grooming, education, and intelligence. He had so charmed the Dauphin that the latter immediately offered him the only available position in his household, Page of the Sewer, which consisted of bearing the prince’s cup. I knew that if young François had been alive to see the cruelty visited upon his unfortunate page, he would have been horrified.

Montecuculli had been a handsome, lively man of some thirty years. Now he was stooped, his legs crooked, his gait stiff and halting from the iron shackles at his ankles and wrists. I would never have recognized him: His face had become puffed and purple; the bridge of his nose had been smashed flat. Whole handfuls of his long hair had been pulled out, leaving large patches of bare scalp encrusted with dried blood. His captors had left him only a nightshirt, stained with blood and excrement, to cover himself. It fell just to his knees; the slightest breeze lifted the hem to expose his genitals.

The Cardinal of Lorraine and the captain approached the dais as the guards dragged Montecuculli toward the King. The Page of the Sewer fell to his knees, partly in supplication, partly from weakness. In a loud voice, the Cardinal implored him to confess his sin.

Montecuculli had already retracted his earlier confession to the crime. When torture was applied, he confessed readily, but when it was removed, he disavowed all guilt. He looked to the King and tried to reach out with his trembling, shackled arms, but could not raise them.

“Your Majesty, have mercy!” His words were slurred and barely comprehensible, the result of the recent loss of many teeth. “I loved your son and never wished him harm! Before God and the Virgin, I am innocent and I loved him!” Sobbing violently, he fell forward onto the cobblestone.

Every face turned to the King. For a long moment, François sat motionless save for a muscle spasming in his cheek, then made a sharp downward motion with his hand.

The captain nodded to his men. The guards tried to pull Montecuculli to his feet, but the poor man’s legs had given way; he was dragged back to where the horses waited. As the guards pushed him down against the cobblestones, he began to shout:

Ave Maria, gratia plena, Dominus tecum…

His captors unfastened his shackles and stripped away his filthy nightshirt, revealing skin that was completely mottled in shades of red, purple, green, and yellow. Montecuculli continued to pray so wildly, so swiftly that the words ran together.

Mater Dei, ora pro nobis peccatoribus, nunc et in hora mortis nostrae…

Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death.

At the captain’s bidding, the grooms led the four stallions into position around the naked, supine man: north at Montecuculli’s right hand, south at his left, northwest at his right foot, southwest at his left. A leather strap-thick as my arm, corded and reinforced-was fastened to each horse’s harness by a series of heavy buckles. At the end of each strap was a collar of leather and iron.

When one guard first tried to set Montecuculli’s wrist into a collar, the unfortunate prisoner howled and bucked and flailed, requiring an additional two men to hold him down while four worked quickly to slip on the collars, tighten and buckle them securely: one at each wrist and one at each thigh, just above the knee. The Scotsmen finished their work and quickly receded to a place of safety with their captain.

One man-the executioner, with a long whip in his hand-stayed behind. Though he addressed the prisoner in a low voice, no doubt making the traditional request for forgiveness, Montecuculli was too tightly in terror’s clutches to stop screaming. The executioner lifted his head and called a command to the grooms, who mounted their horses. Each horse took a single step forward in one of the four directions, and Montecuculli, spread like a starfish, lifted slightly off the ground.

Beside me, little Marguerite began to weep softly.

The executioner-a handsome young Scot with a close-trimmed golden beard and emotionless expression-looked to the King. François let go a long breath and gave a slow, single nod.

The executioner moved out of the horses’ paths and as far away from the prisoner as he could, then struck the animals’ rumps with the whip. Urged by the lash and their riders, the horses took off at full gallop.

Marguerite buried her face in my lap and clutched my skirts, but I was compelled by position and by horror to watch.

Blood sprayed, crimson fireworks. In one second, two, Montecuculli’s arms had been torn off at the shoulders, his legs torn away at the groin, the large thigh bones yanked clear of the hip sockets. Momentum caused the abandoned torso to roll once, twice, before finally coming to rest faceup. What was left was a frightful, inhuman thing, spurting blood from each of four gaping holes edged by raw, jagged flesh. A strand of glistening intestine slid out from the largest of them as the torso convulsed against the cobblestones like a fish plucked from the sea.

He was alive. Montecuculli was still alive.

Not far off, the stallions had been reined in, and the riders and horses slowly returned, each dragging a limb behind them so the prisoner might see. One trotted up and positioned the bloodied stump of a still-twitching leg, with the ivory ball of the thighbone protruding from the top, next to the dying man’s face.

In the crowd of courtiers behind me, a man retched.

I sat still and composed, my hand upon little Marguerite’s shoulder as she sobbed into my lap. I watched every hellish, interminable second until Montecuculli stopped screaming, until his mutilated body stopped spasming, until his corpse stopped spewing blood.

When His Majesty, apparently satisfied, rose, I stood with the others. I looked at my husband and read in his features no less grief; if anything, this day had added to it. I stared hard, too, at King François’s expression. His was no longer the face of the loving father; it was that of a relentless ruler with a thirst for revenge that had yet to be quenched.

After the execution, the King went to Mass and took the Sacrament without hesitation. If he felt any compunction over the page’s death, it was not great enough for him to confess it.

After Mass, we all retired to our chambers. I went to my cabinet and continued my calculations for Henri’s nativity.

Saturn is a cold, brooding, dismal planet. It augurs burdens and loss, and fosters melancholy. A birth chart heavily marked by Saturn indicates an unhappy life and the early deaths of loved ones. Any planet that appears in the house or sign it rules will have its attributes greatly magnified. And my poor Henri’s Saturn appeared in the sign it ruled, Capricorn.

Seeing this, and meditating on all the wounds this day had pricked, I decided to commit a forward and impetuous act. I left my chambers and went to my husband’s. I did not plan what I wanted to say; I only wanted to offer comfort, perhaps distract him with pleasant talk. In truth, I hoped that such comfort might bring him again to my arms.

By then it was late afternoon, but Henri was not in his chambers; his valet claimed to have no knowledge of his whereabouts. After charging the man to send word when his master returned, I returned to my cabinet.

I dined alone and afterward, told Madame Gondi that I wished to be notified when Henri had retired. Hours passed, but I refused to be undressed; by then, I began to worry.

It was very late when I got word that he had gone to his apartment. Concerned, I went and knocked upon his door.

A different valet answered and was astonished to find me standing there; Henri was inside, his collar undone and leggings removed. He was exhausted, though his mood was more pleasant than it had been earlier. When he saw me in the doorway, fully dressed, his eyebrows lifted with alarm.

“Catherine! Is everything all right?”

At least now he was willing to look at me.

“All is quite well.” I turned to the valet. “Monsieur, please wait outside until I call for you.”

After a nervous glance at Henri, who nodded, the valet stepped into the corridor.

My husband gestured for me to sit beside him. I did, and could not help noticing how strong the lines of his face had become, beautifully framed by his dark beard, and how perfectly his black eyes reflected firelight. Simply being alone with him, and so close, disarmed me, made me remember the day he had taken me on the floor in front of the fireplace. I looked down at my hands and felt a rush of warmth rising from the base of my spine.

“I didn’t mean to disturb you at such a late hour. Forgive me,” I said. “I only wanted to say that I know how very difficult today must have been for you.”

“Thank you,” he said, with a very faint note of impatience. He was tired and eager for me to leave; he held a kerchief, which he kept squeezing.

I realized it might end right there, and so I said boldly, “I’ve missed you, Henri. I’ve been so worried; I can see you haven’t eaten and fear you might make yourself ill.” I did not ask after the ring, for I did not want to put him on the defensive too soon. “I am… I wanted… Might I embrace you? Simply as a member of the family, to show my affection and concern?”

He rose, too quickly. “Of course, Catherine,” he said and began to avert his eyes out of nerves.

He was very tall. I wrapped my arms about him and pressed my cheek against his chest. I kept the embrace gentle and closed my eyes, hoping my own ease would relax him-but I soon snapped them open again.

He stank of lily of the valley.

Aghast, I pulled away. He was dressed in the same clothes he had worn to the execution: a black doublet with black velvet sleeves-slashed, so that the white satin of his undershirt could be pulled through. White, like Madame de Poitiers’s underskirt. On the table beside him sat his black velvet cap, with a single grey feather-to match the grey band on Madame’s hood.

“Her,” I whispered. “You have been with her. Is that why you took off my ring?”

His face colored crimson. He stared at the floor, too ashamed to look up at me; he opened his palm to reveal a wadded kerchief, white silk edged in black, embroidered with a large D, and threw it, in admission, at the table.

“You,” I said, “you who hated your father because he was unkind to the Queen. Now you are obliged to hate yourself.”

“I didn’t want it to happen, Catherine,” he said softly; his voice trembled. “I didn’t ever want to hurt you.”

“She means to use you,” I said savagely. “Now that you are Dauphin, she surrenders her virtue to you. She lures you.”

“No.” He shook his head. “She loved me when no one else did. Loved me, and François, as if she were our mother, even after Father gave us over to the Spaniards. When she heard that François had died, it nearly killed her. She loved him as I did. She understands what it was for me to lose him, more than anyone else.”

My voice grew ugly. “A mother does not comfort her son by spreading her legs.”

His head jerked as if I had struck him.

“Out of kindness to you,” he said hoarsely, “I resisted temptation as long as I could. We both fought it… until grief finally broke us. Today was the first time we sinned, and God has already punished me by sending you here, so that I might see how I have hurt you.” For the first time, he looked hard into my eyes. “I tried so very hard to love you, Catherine, but she had my heart long before you arrived. I know it’s sinful-and if I am damned for it, then I am damned. But I cannot live without her anymore.”

As I stood speechless, he fetched an item from his dressing table and pressed it into my palm: the talisman ring.

“Take it,” he said. “It is a foul superstition and ungodly. I should never have agreed to wear it.”

I curled my fingers over the unwanted gift. A blade would have caused less pain; I bled tears and could not stanch their flow. Unwanted, unlovely, I had only ever had my dignity, and now that was lost, too.

I whirled about and ran sobbing back to my apartment, and did not stop crying even when Madame Gondi sent the ladies of the chamber away, even when she kissed the backs of my hands, even when she put her arms around me and wept, too.

From that day forward, Henri wore only Diane’s colors, white and black. Perhaps envious of his son, His Majesty, bored and lustful, summoned his mistress to be near him-against his doctors’ advice.

The morning after her arrival, I rode with the Duchess d’Etampes and her inseparable companion, the dimpled Marie de Canaples. The latter had grown plumper, while the Duchess, in her lover’s long absence, had grown thinner and sharper. As I approached the stables, the two ladies were murmuring furtively, heads together; at the sight of me, they broke apart quickly. The Duchess smiled at me with lips pressed tightly together, as if she had swallowed a dove; Madame de Canaples grinned at me with her sharp little fox teeth. Our conversation during that ride was strained, with both women coy and distant. When the ride was over, I walked away while the two of them whispered and laughed behind me before I was even out of their sight. I knew I would not go with them again.

I was fool enough to think that they shunned me because they had heard of my tearful encounter with Henri-no doubt the news was all over Court about my husband’s affair with Madame de Poitiers, and I last to discover it.

But there was more behind the Duchess’s sly smirk. I should have listened more carefully to Madame Gondi’s cryptic statements, as she dressed me for supper, that there were those in Court who whispered against me. I see now that she was trying to warn me, but I waved away her words.

That evening, the King hosted a small banquet at the château, attended by many members of the Guise family. The Guises were descended from the royal House of Anjou, with a distant claim to the throne. It behooved the King to maintain good relations with them; that night, he entertained the Duke, his wife, and their daughters, Renée and Louise. Renée was still young, but Louise was a dark-eyed beauty of marriageable age. Young Charles, who had begun the previous year to notice women, was clearly smitten by her.

As soon as was courteously feasible, I retreated to my chambers, too disheartened to indulge in after-dinner chatter. To distract myself, I continued the work I had begun on Henri’s natal chart. In time, my anguish eased and I grew lost in concentration. I remained at the task late into the night, stopping only long enough to let Madame Gondi and a lady of the chamber undress me and brush out my hair.

I sat at the little desk in my cramped cabinet and studied Henri’s nativity. He was an Aries-a headstrong sign ruled by Mars-and his ascendant was, like mine, Leo, a clear marker of royalty.

My focus that night was the Fifth House of our nativities, the House of Children. I hoped to find happy news there, the promise of heirs. But in Henri’s case-and eerily, in mine as well-the house was barren of planets and fell under the zodiacal sign of Scorpio, ruler of secrets and lies, of things buried, of the darkest magic.

This crushed the fragile hope I had been nursing for the past several hours. Not only were there no signs of children but that area of our lives was ruled by deceit and dark forces. I grew frightened and tried to convince myself that I had misinterpreted the ominous nature of Scorpio in relation to the Fifth House. I had brought Agrippa’s writings to Lyon and decided to consult one of his books in the hope that I could ferret out something to indicate a brighter future. There was a small library where we were staying, and my large trunk of books had been stored there. I slipped on my dressing gown and stole outside.

My apartment was on the third floor. A spiraling outdoor staircase connected it to a courtyard on the second floor, which housed the King’s and Queen’s apartments as well as the library. I hurried silently down the staircase, lamp in one hand. It was a still, clear, star-littered night in late November, with a huge waxing moon that cast shadows in my path. My dressing gown provided little warmth, and the stone banister was freezing beneath my bare hand; my teeth were chattering by the time I reached the second-floor courtyard.

I scurried through the large entryway, flanked by two tall junipers, and nodded to the guards, accustomed now to my nocturnal excursions. After several moments of digging through the library stacks, I was able to find the second volume of Agrippa. I tucked it beneath one arm and, with the lamp in my other hand, went back out into the night.

I did not get far. Before I moved past the junipers flanking the recessed entryway, I heard laughter floating through the still air. It came from the loggia that opened onto a terrace behind the King’s apartment; the terrace looked out onto the very stretch of courtyard I needed to cross.

Instinct prompted me to lower the lamp and wait in the junipers’ shadow. The laughter grew louder as a woman’s form, backlit by the moon, ran out onto the terrace.

A man’s voice called to her from the loggia. “Anne! Anne, what are you doing?” The King’s indignance was tempered by slightly drunken good humor. “It’s freezing cold!”

She spread her arms and whirled, a dark silhouette dressed in nothing but a chemise that ended above her hips; she was bare from the waist down. Her loose hair fanned out about her shoulders. “It’s wonderful! I feel revived! You had me sweating so.”

“Anne…” His Majesty’s voice turned petulant.

“François,” she mimicked, then laughed. “Come take me here, beneath the moon.”

He came to her-his black form tall and thick, hers small and spritelike-and lunged suddenly for her with a roar. She ran from him at first but let him catch her easily at the terrace’s edge. She put her palms upon the waist-high stone railing, facing it, with her back to the King.

“Your Majesty, claim your prize.”

He went to stand behind her, his hands on her hips, ready to enter her, but she pulled away, suddenly coy. “Only if you promise to heed my advice.”

He groaned. “Woman, don’t torment me…”

“Louise is a lovely girl, don’t you think?”

“You’re lovelier.” He put his hands around her waist and lifted her to her tiptoes in the hope of piercing her, but she wriggled around to face him.

“He’s been through so much sadness,” she said, suddenly serious. “He deserves a beautiful woman with royal blood.”

“Don’t vex me, Anne. I want nothing to do with the Guises. Henri’s cousin Jeanne-she’s almost of marriageable age, and brings with her the crown of Navarre. She’d be a much better match for him. But Catherine is a sweet girl. Give her time, and let’s not speak of this now…”

“It must be Louise,” she countered firmly. “She would give you grandchildren who would unite the Houses of Guise and Valois. No more struggles between them for the Crown…”

François sighed, a bit annoyed; his dark silhouette stilled. “This is very premature. I haven’t even made up my mind yet.”

“But you must repudiate her,” Anne said swiftly. “The people don’t like her, Henri can’t abide her… What does she bring you? Only disappointment.”

“Enough!” François commanded.

Their forms merged in a kiss, then the King abruptly turned her so that her back faced him and bent her at the waist. She clutched the stone railing as he pushed his way inside her and began to thrust.

She let go a little gasp, then a laugh; her breath rose and hung above her head, mist in the cold night air. “François! You’re like a bull!”

I blew out my lamp and averted my eyes. For agonizing moments I listened to their passion. Soon I began to shiver uncontrollably, not entirely from the cold.

Twenty-one

I didn’t read Agrippa’s book on astrology that night; my mind and heart were racing far too swiftly to concentrate on anything but what I had overheard. Instead, I lay awake, staring up at the tapestry canopy over my head.

Without children, without Henri’s heart, I had no defense and no supporters. King François would petition the Pope and have the marriage annulled on the grounds that I was barren. Mine would not be the first royal union to end in such a manner. I would be banished-to Italy, I supposed, though I could never return to Florence so long as Alessandro ruled.

And Henri-my beloved, faithless Henri-would no longer have me by his side to protect him, as I was meant to do. Without me, he would die just as he had in my dream, bloodied and helpless.

I was not on particularly close terms with God, given my hard early lessons that the universe is neither safe nor just. But I prayed to Him who ruled the stars and planets. I promised that if I could remain near my darling Henri, I would be willing to surrender anything, including every last scrap of my pride.

In the morning I rose exhausted but resolute and penned a short letter to His Majesty requesting a private audience. I would not, like my enemies, resort to a whispering campaign, going about to the King’s favorites begging for their support. François had called me his daughter; he had claimed to be my father and my friend. I would speak directly to him, or to no one at all.

The reply came quickly. The King agreed to see me directly after the morning ritual of his dressing.

I wore no jewels that morning, only black mourning for the Dauphin. His Majesty received me alone in his private cabinet, accessible only by royal invitation. It was cramped but handsome, the walls covered in carved panels of glowing cherrywood, some of which hid compartments for the storage of secret documents. A large mahogany desk dominated the room; on its polished surface rested a map-of Provence, where the fighting was, I supposed-but it had been scrolled so that I could not see what was marked there. Apparently I could not be trusted with state secrets.

François sat behind the desk. His long face was marked by excess, the cheeks heavy and ponderous, the eyes puffy. The white that had appeared in his temples upon the Dauphin’s death now glistened in his dark beard as well. He was dressed simply, for work and not pleasure, in a plain doublet of black.

“Catherine. Please, sit.” His mouth smiled, but his eyes were guarded.

“If it please Your Majesty, I will stand,” I said. I hoped my suffering would be over quickly.

“As you wish,” he said. Knowing what I had come to discuss-and thinking his position contrary to mine-he was consummately regal. He was prepared to behave as a king, to do what was best for France; to achieve that aim, he had abandoned even those of his blood to his enemies. I, a newcomer and foreigner, had no hope.

I abandoned all pretense. I said, “Your Majesty, I love you. And I love your son. I know I am a liability to you both now. And so…” My voice broke; I silently cursed myself for my weakness. When I had gathered myself, I looked up at François again. His expression was hard, cautious.

“And so I will not object to the repudiation. I accept that you must do what is politically expedient, and I harbor no resentment.”

His jaw went slack. My unexpected words disarmed him.

“I only ask…” The words caught in my throat, which tightened. I repeated the words, and when the barrage of tears came with them, I lowered my face to hide them and forced myself to continue. “I only ask that I be allowed to serve in whatever lowly capacity pleases you and your son. That I not be sent away. I would happily serve the woman who becomes Henri’s wife. If only I could stay…”

I sank to my knees; I covered my face and sobbed. I was humiliating myself, yet I did not care. I thought of Henri bleeding, dying because I had been sent away and had failed to save him.

When at last I looked up, sodden and gasping, François was standing rod-straight behind his desk. An intense emotion was filling him, slowly widening his deep-set eyes and quickening his breath-yet whether it was fury or fear or revulsion, I could not have said. I could only kneel, dabbing at my eyes and waiting for the storm to erupt. I huddled in self-hatred and burning resentment, that my fate was not my own, nor even God’s, but held in the hands of men: the rebels, the Pope, the King.

A muscle in François’s jaw twitched, as it had that bright October day when he had seen Montecuculli ripped apart.

“Catherine,” he whispered, and emotion-doubt and sadness, then resolution-played upon his features. He came around the desk and gently lifted me up by the shoulders.

“No saint was ever more humble,” he said. “May we all learn from you. It is God’s will that you be my son’s wife and my daughter. I tell you now that there shall be no more talk of repudiation in my Court.”

He kissed my cheek and took me in his arms.

Had I tried to manipulate him-had I gone to him and wept for pure show, and not meant my words with my whole heart-he surely would have sent me away, just as he would have if I had begged to remain Henri’s wife. But on the day we first met, His Majesty had loved me for my humility; he had only to be reminded of it.

I was safe-but only for a time. Until I bore Henri’s child, I was vulnerable. The Duchess would not easily surrender her campaign against me, and Louise of Guise was still so very young.

I was deeply relieved when King François chose to marry Jeanne to a German duke willing to pay an outrageous dowry; war was a costly business, and at that moment, François needed money more desperately than heirs. As a young woman, Jeanne was not pretty: Her nose was long and bulbous, her lips and chin too small. But her intellect was keen, like her mother’s, and her green eyes, slanting and thick-lashed, were strikingly beautiful. I bade farewell to her as she boarded the coach to Düsseldorf; I thought we would never meet again.

Perhaps uncomfortable that I would not soon be repudiated, Henri asked to join the fighting in Provence. The King refused him at first, saying he had just lost one son and would not risk another. But Henri was so determined that he prevailed and joined Lieutenant General Montmorency in the south.

While Henri was away, I had time to think clearly about my predicament. My husband was loyal by nature; now that he had given his heart and body to Diane de Poitiers, he would no doubt be repelled by the thought of sharing either with another woman. Yet if I were to conceive an heir, Henri would need to come to my bed frequently once he returned from the war.

Not long after my encounter with the King, I went to Queen Eléonore and asked if I might enjoy the company of her lady-in-waiting Diane de Poitiers for an hour.

The Queen consented graciously, though she and her entourage understood how very strange my request was. Madame de Poitiers and I were perfectly cordial to each other when our paths were forced to cross, but in all other instances we avoided each other, and everyone knew why.

Madame de Poitiers rode full astride, like a man, unashamed of her calves and ankles. Like me, she would not be led, and she held her reins with no uncertain grip. Her horse was white, perhaps chosen carefully to match her widow’s trousseau. It was a colorless sight on a day uncommonly cold for the Midi: Diane in her black and white, the grass frosted, the sky a burdensome grey. Despite the intemperate weather, I had asked her to ride. I led her away from the palace grounds and human ears. A groom followed at a distant pace, given the possibility of encountering a wild boar. When the time came for earnest conversation, I lifted my gloved hand so that he remained behind, and we women trotted off until he appeared no larger than a pea. I wanted no one to be able to read our faces.

Diane de Poitiers was not quite forty, and the gold in her hair was tempered by silver. But her skin was still firm-except around the eyes, where the troubled light revealed fine creases. Her complexion was even, without the broken veins or blotchiness that reveal a fondness for wine.

As I stared at her, struggling to perceive what qualities my husband so loved, her answering gaze was steady and calm. She was unafraid-balm, surely, for Henri’s fearful, uncertain soul. I despised her at that moment, almost as greatly as I despised myself.

I smiled at her and said easily, “Shall we speak?”

The degree of her smile matched mine. “Of course, Madame la Dauphine,” she replied. “Let me first thank you for the opportunity to ride. I have been eager for the exercise, but none of the other ladies will accompany me because of their belief that the cold is unhealthful.”

“The pleasure is mine.” My little smile faded. “We have much in common, Madame. A grandmother, and a love for riding. A love, even, for the same man.”

Her expression remained unflinching and serene as she faced me, waiting.

“Louise of Guise is a beautiful girl, isn’t she?” I continued. “So fresh and young. Any man would deem himself lucky to have such a stunning bride.”

“Yes, Madame la Dauphine,” she dutifully replied.

My black steed paced, impatient; I reined him in.

“But I’ve heard she is quick-tempered and somewhat demanding,” I remarked. “She would make a difficult wife, perhaps, for a husband to manage.”

“Yes, Madame. I’ve heard the same.” Her eyes were mirrors, reflecting me back to myself, revealing nothing of what lay beneath their polished surface.

“I have been told,” I said, “that I am patient. I have never enjoyed causing trouble for others. I only hope that my children are as agreeable.”

“I pray they are, Madame la Dauphine. And I pray that they are many.”

Her face, her eyes, her soft and gracious tone were unchanged, as if she had just remarked on the weather. She might have been utterly sincere or utterly false. I tried to imagine how someone who showed so little feeling could inspire such passion in my husband.

“I will have no children at all,” I said, “if my husband will not come to my bed.” I felt an exquisite tightening of my throat and waited until my composure was sure.

Perhaps she sensed my anguish; for the first time, her gaze wavered, and she looked beyond me at a copse of bare-limbed trees.

“If he will not come to me,” I said, “we both know that I shall have to leave.” My tone became candid. “I do love him. For that reason alone, I will never make things unpleasant for him or for those fortunate enough to share his affections-even if it breaks my heart. The Dauphin’s will must be respected.”

She eyed me, faintly frowning, a hint of cautious wonder in her gaze.

“A laudable attitude,” she said.

“Louise of Guise’s would not be so gracious.”

Nearby, the underbrush crackled, and a bevy of quail took flight. Crows settled on the silver branches and scolded the invisible culprit below. Our distant chaperone craned his neck, on the alert, but the disturbance was not repeated and the crows grew silent. Diane and I watched them for a moment before turning back to each other.

The faint lines that had appeared on her brow smoothed as she made her decision. “The House of Valois must have heirs,” she said, and for an unsettling instant I thought she referred to my inability to provide them and agreed with those who would repudiate me. But then she added softly, “He will come to your bed, Madame.”

“I have never taken my agreements with others lightly,” I said. “And I have heard that you are a woman of honor.”

“You have my word, Madame.”

We rode back to the palace without speaking. I was in no mood for idle conversation now that my humiliation was complete.

On the way, something feather-light and cold stung my cheek. I looked up at the threatening sky and saw what was, for the Midi, impossible: snow-flakes sailing down, white and soft and soundless.

In time, Henri returned from the war. As Dauphin, he was supreme military commander of the French forces in Provence, but aware of his inexperience, he consulted his lieutenant general, Grand Master Montmorency, on every maneuver. His deference paid off: Our army decisively defeated the Imperial invaders. As a result, Henri and Montmorency became close friends and were welcomed home as heroes. The King had nothing but praise for both of them.

The crucible of war had transformed Henri into a man and brought him confidence. It also left him determined to hide his affair with Madame de Poitiers no longer. He proudly wore her colors, white and black, and adopted as his emblem the crescent moon-symbol of Diana, goddess of the hunt.

But within days of his return, Henri appeared at my bedchamber door. He brought with him resignation, not joy, but neither did he bring resentment. Diane had surely told him everything; I think he was relieved that I would cause them no trouble.

His manner was removed but kindly. The sight of his body-utterly a man’s now, with a full, muscular back and chest-made me ache with longing. Each time I lay with him, I convinced myself that surely this time I would say or do the very thing that would win his heart; and each time he rose from my bed too quickly, I lay watching him, replete yet shattered. Never did pleasure bring so much pain.

A year passed, then two, three, four, and I did not conceive. I consulted the King’s astrologers and had dutiful intercourse with Henri at the recommended times. I uttered pagan chants and spells; Madame Gondi put a mandrake root beneath my mattress; I followed Aristotle’s advice and ate quail eggs, endive, and violets to nauseating excess. Following Agrippa, I made a talisman of Venus for fertility and put it beside the mandrake. All of it availed nothing.

Anne, the Duchess d’Etampes, began to whisper again into the ear of her lover and anyone else who would listen. The Court parted into two camps: those who supported the aging King and his devious paramour, and those who looked to the future and supported Henri and Diane de Poitiers. The Duchess was extraordinarily jealous; she perceived Diane as her rival and wanted to see her cast down. The best way to do so, she had decided, was to bring Henri a new wife-one headstrong and willful, who would not accept Henri’s mistress as graciously as I had. And if this caused harm to me, favored too well by the King, so much the better.

So I watched over the barren days and months and years as the smile His Majesty directed at me grew fainter, as the warmth in his eyes and embrace slowly cooled. The talismans, the physicians, the astrologers… all had failed. Yet in my mind I kept returning to the memory of the night my late mother had spoken to me. Her words had been uncannily accurate; as I could not trust the living, I decided to trust the dead.

I had been very ill the night that the magician had summoned her, so I could not remember the proper chants or gesticulations. I recalled only that Ruggieri had anointed us with what seemed to be old blood.

I saved some purplish black menstrual blood and, on a chilly day in March, 1543, in the privacy of my cabinet, I anointed my forehead with it, then pricked my finger with an embroidery needle.

Fresh blood was required, Ruggieri had said. The dead would smell it.

At my desk, I squeezed my finger, milking several fat red drops onto a small piece of paper. I dipped my quill into it and scratched out a message:

Send me a child.

I cast the paper into the hearth. The fire jumped as it caught and blackened at the outer edges, curling inward as the flame raced toward the center.

“Ma mere,” I whispered. “M’amie, je t’adore… Mother, hear my prayer and send me a child. Tell me what I must do.”

The ash fell onto the glowing logs; pieces of it broke off and whirled about before sailing up the flue.

I repeated my plea, staring into the writhing flames. I did not address myself only to my mother, to the dead, to God or the Devil. I spoke to whoever might answer. My heart opened until there was no separation between it and the power that fueled the universe. With my will, my desire, I clutched that power and would not let go.

Heaven-or Hell-opened in that instant. I knew not which. I knew only that I touched something; I knew only that my plea had been heard.

The next day, I followed the King’s movements until the afternoon, when I was required to hold audiences. As Dauphine, I had many petitioners, mostly Florentines asking for assistance. Enthroned, I listened to each sad tale.

The first was that of an elderly Tornabuoni widow, related to the Medici by marriage. She had lived in her deceased husband’s villa until Alessandro’s henchmen seized the property after illegally taxing her into bankruptcy; she had left the city with nothing. I granted her sufficient funds so that she could live comfortably in one of the better convents outside Paris.

There was also a banker with a wife and six children who had long ago worked as an apprentice to Uncle Filippo Strozzi, which had been enough to endanger his life. He had fled Florence with his family, leaving behind all his assets. I promised to find him work in the Treasury.

There were several others, and after a few hours, I grew tired.

Madame Gondi said, “I will tell the others to return tomorrow. But there is one, Madame-a rather strange-looking gentleman-who insists that he be seen today. He says that you know him and will be glad to see him.”

I had opened my mouth to ask the name of the impertinent beggar when revelation suddenly stole my voice. When it returned, I told Madame Gondi to bring him to me.

He entered wearing red and black, the colors of Mars and Saturn; he was fully a man now, but there was no meat on him, and his striped doublet hung upon his bony frame. His face was gaunt and sickly pale against his blue-black brows and hair. At the sight of me, he doffed his cap and bowed very low.

“Madame la Dauphine,” he said. I had forgotten how very beautiful his voice was, how very deep. “We meet again at last.”

I stepped down from my throne. When he rose, I took his cold hands in my own.

“Monsieur Ruggieri,” I said. “How I have prayed that you would come.”

Twenty-two

I immediately appointed Cosimo Ruggieri my court astrologer. He brought with him no belongings, as though he had materialized from the ether with no purse, no trunk, no wife, no family.

I led him at once to my cabinet. I asked after his past: He had left Florence for Venice and, on the day of his arrival there, had fallen ill with plague. From Venice he had gone to Constantinople and Araby, though he would not explain why or what had happened there. I told him of my joy at receiving, during my imprisonment, the volume of Ficino and the Wing of Corvus. I told him how my mother’s words had proven true, how a man named Silvestro had saved me from a hostile crowd. I shared with him the details of my self-education in astrology, and my efforts to cast nativities.

If anything in my long tale surprised him, he did not show it. Never once did he remind me of his prediction that I would become a queen.

At last I said, “I have had a recurring dream ever since you gave me the Raven’s Wing. I dream of a man with his face drenched in blood. He calls out to me in French. He is dying, and it is my duty to help him-but I don’t know how.” I lowered my gaze, troubled. “It’s Henri. I knew the instant I met him. I feel bound to protect him from a gruesome fate.”

He listened dispassionately. “Is that all? Only Henri, in your dream?”

“No,” I said. “There are others in the field-hundreds, thousands, perhaps, but I cannot see them. The blood… it swells like the ocean.” I lifted my fingers to my temple and massaged it, as if to work the memory loose and make it fall away.

“This is your destiny,” he said. “Yours is the power, Madame, to spill that ocean… or to stanch its flow.”

I wanted suddenly to weep. “But Henri… Some ill will soon befall him. If I can stop it, then perhaps the others won’t die. Tell me what will happen to him, and how I can stop it. You’re the magician-there must be spells to protect him. I tried; I made a talisman myself, another Wing of Corvus, but he wouldn’t wear it.”

“A simple talisman, a simple spell, could never be enough,” he said.

I flared. “It was enough for me, when I was in the hands of the rebels.”

“You faced danger of the sort that could be overcome, with the potential for a long life. But Prince Henri…” Regret flickered in his gaze. “His life will end too soon, in calamity. Surely you have read his stars.”

His words stole my breath. I had read the sinister signs, but I had never permitted myself to believe them.

“If simple magic will not do,” I persisted, “then what will? Exchange my life for his. You have the knowledge, surely.”

He recoiled from the suggestion. “I have the knowledge. But there are others in your dream, yes? What of them?”

“I don’t care,” I said, miserable.

“Then France will be torn apart,” he replied. “For they are as much your responsibility, as much a part of your fate, as Prince Henri is.”

“They are another reason, then, why I must stay,” I said. “But there are those at Court who intend to see me cast aside and Henri wed to another. He’ll be left unprotected without me. I must have his child. I must.” The muscles of my face hardened. “Only tell me what I must do to keep Henri alive, and to have his child.”

He considered this a long time before replying. “We cannot outwit fate forever. But we can bring Henri more years than he might otherwise have had.” He paused. “Is that truly your will? To bear the Dauphin’s child?”

It seemed a ridiculous question. “Of course. I would do anything. I already have done everything: I’ve made talismans, cast spells, worn disgusting poultices, and drunk mule’s urine. I know of nothing else to do.”

He considered this, then said slowly, “And the child must be the Dauphin’s.”

It was a statement, yet I heard the question buried in it, and my face grew hot. How dare you, I wanted to say-but this was Ruggieri, and propriety was immaterial. No secret was hidden from him, no topic too wicked to be broached.

I blushed and said, “Yes, it must be. He is my husband. And… I love him.”

He cocked his head at the desperation in those last three words. “I am sorry to hear this,” he said softly. “It complicates matters.”

“How so?”

“Surely you have studied your own nativity in regard to children,” he said. “Surely you have studied Prince Henri’s. Scorpio rules your Fifth House,” he continued, “and that of your husband. You are far too intelligent to miss the implications: barrenness-or, if you wish, lies and deceit. The choice is yours.”

“I won’t accept either,” I countered.

“There has to be a third way.” “There always is.” He leaned forward, his skin sickly pale against his blue-black hair. “But it depends entirely on what you are willing to do.”

Despite the crookedness of his nose and the pitting in his cheeks, his voice and manner were magnetic, intoxicating. Beneath an icy surface ran a hot current, one that would pull me under if I dared test it.

“Anything,” I said, “except to lie with another man.”

He nodded slowly. “Then I warn you, Madame la Dauphine, that to get blood, you must give blood.”

An unpleasant thrill coursed through me at his words: He spoke of the very darkest sort of magic. But I had always felt that my soul was already lost.

“I will give every last drop,” I said, “to save Henri.”

His gaze revealed nothing. “Ah, Madame. Here is where a strong will and a strong stomach are needed, for it is not your blood of which we speak.”

I resisted for weeks. I met with Ruggieri daily, consulting him on trivial matters and begging for instruction in the magical arts. As to the latter, he refused: I knew too little, and he too much; it was far safer for him to cast spells at my request.

“It is enough,” he said, “that one of our souls is imperiled.”

During those weeks, I lived in uneasy dread. Madame Gondi reported to me that the Guises-family of the nubile Louise-had met secretly with the King to discuss, again, the possibility of a marriage contract with Henri. It was almost enough to make me consider Ruggieri’s suggestion that I be impregnated by another man.

But even though Henri had betrayed me, I could not do the same to him. The House of Valois was mine now; and I longed for a son with Valois blood who would inherit the throne. I had found my home, and would not be taken from it.

In the end, I yielded to the unthinkable. In the middle of the night, I took up my quill and listened to the scratch of the nib as my hand wrote impossible, barbarous things.

I sent for Ruggieri early the next morning and met him in my cabinet. Behind the locked door, I handed him the paper, folded into eighths, as if that somehow decreased the enormity of the crime.

“I’ve thought it through carefully,” I said, “and these are my restrictions.”

The paper whispered in his fingers. He frowned at the message, then lifted his dark gaze from the page.

“If I follow them,” he said, “I cannot say what effect they might have upon the outcome.”

“So long as we meet with success,” I said.

He refolded the paper and slipped it inside his breast pocket, his gaze never straying from mine; his eyes were black, like my Henri’s, though they lacked any light. His lips moved faintly toward a smile.

“Oh, we shall meet with success, Catherine.”

I did not see his use of my given name as impertinence. We were equals now, after the grisliest of fashions. I had given Henri my heart, but only Ruggieri knew the evil it contained.

I trusted only Madame Gondi to make the arrangement directly with the Master of Horses. She ordered her own mount saddled and brought to the far side of the stables, where it could not been seen from the palace windows. A scandalous thing for a woman to be riding near dusk, alone; the Master no doubt assumed an illicit rendezvous was in the offing. He was not wrong.

Madame Gondi rode out of sight of the stables and past the gardens to the nearest copse of trees; beneath their shelter, she and I made the exchange. We both wore black; someone watching from a distance would think that the woman who rode into the woods was the same woman who rode out.

Hours earlier, morning had revealed the strangest of spring skies, troubled and overcast, with a diffuse coral glow where the sun should have hung; now, at dusk, that glow had slipped to the horizon. The air was cool and redolent of rain. I rode well beyond the woods; several times I reined my borrowed horse to a stop, thinking to turn around, but the thought of Henri spurred me on.

Eventually I came upon an unkempt vineyard flanked by an orchard of dying pear trees, their gnarled limbs speckled with feeble, struggling blossoms. On the outskirts of the orchard, a black figure held up a lantern. As I neared, I discerned Ruggieri’s face, phosphorescent in the yellow glow. He turned and walked slowly past the trees to a thatch-roofed cottage of crumbling brick. Candlelight shone dimly through cracks in the drawn shutters.

I dismounted; Ruggieri set the lantern on the ground and helped me down, catching both my hands in his. For an instant he stared at me, his complicitous gaze intent, searching for something he did not find.

He had not wanted me to come. I wasn’t needed, he said, and there was always the chance of danger, both magical and practical. I felt that his real reason was to spare me upset, and the revulsion of seeing firsthand what he was capable of, yet I had insisted. I did not want the crime I was about to commit to be distant, a mere tale without the attending visceral reality.

I did not want to be able to do such a thing again.

The sudden coldness in his gaze stole my breath; the talon touch of his fingers, separated though they were from mine by two layers of gloves, chilled me to the core. He was capable of acts worse than murder, and I was alone with him, where no one could hear my screams.

I thought to pull away, to jump onto Madame Gondi’s horse and ride off. But the magician’s eyes were powerful, compelling. With a dreamer’s languid helplessness, I followed him to the entrance of the cottage.

Ruggieri flung open the rotting portal to reveal a single room with a dirt floor half covered by a large piece of slate. The pale walls were covered in pigeon droppings, the hearth so long unused that greenish mold had sprouted from the bricks. Someone had painted a perfect black circle on the slate, one large enough to comfortably contain two men lying end to end. Unlit candles, each on a brass holder tall as a man, rested at four equidistant points on the circle’s circumference.

On a small table pushed against the wall beneath the shuttered window, a lamp revealed the room’s other contents: two stools, a shelf holding half a dozen books and several instruments, including a double-bladed dagger, a censer, a goblet, a quill, inkwell, parchment, and several small stoppered vials. A large pearl on a silver chain and a polished onyx lay beside the censer. The table and stools rested on the dirt floor, the shelf upon the slate, just inside the circle in front of one of the large candles.

A young woman with her back to us sat at the table. Her thick, waving hair-a gold so pale it was almost silver-fell heavily to her waist. She paid us no notice but continued to address herself to a roasted duck. Our shadows fell upon the wall near the table; the girl saw them, set down the half-eaten drumstick in her hand, and turned.

She was only twelve or thirteen years old. Her face was abnormally broad, and her blue eyes wide-set, tiny slanting almonds in a pale expanse. The bridge of her nose was flattened; the tip of her tongue protruded between her lips. At the sight of me she let go an agitated grunt and gesticulated at Ruggieri.

He shook his head and swept his arm in a downward, dismissive manner, but she continued to stare at me with a dull, clouded gaze. I had seen such children before, usually in the arms of older mothers.

“She is a deaf-mute,” Ruggieri said, “born an imbecile.”

He smiled sweetly at her and gestured for her to come to him. She rose and turned toward us, revealing breasts too ripe for one her age, pushed high above her tightly laced bodice to create the illusion of greater volume. These were set over a swollen belly, which strained so hard against the waistline of her gown that the seam had torn. She looked to be more than halfway through her confinement.

Sickened, panicked, I turned to Ruggieri. “She is too young!”

“How many years would you buy?” he challenged coolly. “She is a trained prostitute; her guardian used her for income until her pregnancy became obvious. Now she is outcast and wandering, and will certainly starve or be raped and murdered. Even if the child is born…” He let go a small sound of disgust. “What sorts of lives will they have if I put her back on the village streets? You told me that our use of her must come as a kindness. In her case, it will.”

I took a step away from him and thought of the girl’s slack face and vacant eyes. “I can’t do this,” I whispered.

Ruggieri’s black eyes flared; beneath his calm tone lay an undercurrent of coiled violence. “Leave if you must,” he said, “and your Henri will die before you can give him sons.”

I stood frozen, unable to answer.

By then, the girl had eaten most of the duck and turned her attentions on Ruggieri. Without preamble or finesse, she pulled up his doublet and wormed a hand down his leggings. He pulled away and caught her wrist.

“She is quite insatiable,” he said, studying her with perfect detachment. “She had just finished servicing one gentleman when I discovered her, and it has taken me a great deal of effort to avoid her advances.” He held the girl’s wrist tightly until she began to struggle, at which point he glanced over his shoulder at me. “Go stand inside the circle.”

I went to stand in the circle’s heart. A breeze had stirred, sending cold drafts through holes in the thatched roof and rattling shutters, yet I felt the sudden nauseating weight of suffocation.

Ruggieri let go of the girl’s wrist and smiled as he pinched her cheeks playfully. This relaxed her, though when he moved the plate of duck beyond her reach, she grew anxious. He sat down beside her, his arm about her shoulders, and lifted a cup of wine to her lips. Again and again he urged her to drink, which she did without hesitation.

Abruptly, the girl swayed upon the stool and would have fallen had Ruggieri not caught her. He gathered her up and carried her into the circle, where he laid her, limp as a corpse, onto the slate. Her eyes were open and glittering, her breath shallow and slow.

“Don’t move,” Ruggieri whispered hoarsely at me. “Don’t speak or in any way interfere. Above all else, do not step outside the circle.”

He pulled a metal basin and a folded sheet of yellowed linen from the shelf, then unfurled the cloth and dragged the girl onto it.

As he had on the night he had summoned my mother’s ghost, he unstoppered a vial and anointed his forehead and mine, then lit the censer on the bookshelf. Smoke streamed languidly up from the coals, carrying the resinous smell of myrrh and something earthier, deeper, faintly putrid. He lit the candles with the lamp, starting with the one behind the makeshift altar and proceeding clockwise until each bore a flame. Then he blew out the lamp.

By then the sky outside was dark; despite the draft, the filmy air blurred the edges of all objects, rendering the scene indistinct. Ruggieri’s cape and doublet merged into the blackness so that his face, alabaster against his beard and eyes, appeared to float.

It seemed unreal-the girl’s flaccid body at my feet, the curling smoke that veiled the candles’ glow, the magician’s tools upon the shelf-and the vastness of our crime a distant thing. Ruggieri took up a dagger-double-edged, black-hilted, wickedly sharp. Holding it in both hands, he plunged it above his head as if to pierce the sky and chanted loudly as he lowered it to touch the flat to heart and shoulders. He seemed to grow physically larger, all-powerful, more than human. When his eyes snapped open, fierce and focused and impersonal, I thought I looked upon a god.

Abruptly, he began to retrace the circle, above and parallel to the black line on the slate, pausing at each of the candles to slash a symbol with the dagger. At each candle, he thrust the dagger forward and boldly intoned a name, until he again stood in front of the altar.

He dropped to one knee beside the girl and slid his arm beneath her shoulders to prop her torso against his chest. When her head lolled forward, he wound her thick golden hair around his left hand and pulled her head back to expose her white throat.

The girl was still awake, wide-eyed at the sight of the knife. She whimpered; a shudder passed through her as she tried vainly to move her limbs.

Supremely commanding, infinitely assured, Ruggieri called out a foreign word, harsh and sibilant, then made a nick with the dagger beneath the girl’s ear. She moaned ferally as darkness streamed down her neck onto her collarbone and between her high, full breasts.

The magician thundered the word again.

The candles dimmed, then brightened; the smoke thickened and began to swirl. I fancied that a shape was forming within it, that something unspeakably cold and heavy and cruel had just entered the room, raising the hairs on my arms.

Ruggieri called out the term of the agreement: this woman’s life for Henri’s; her child for an heir.

Clutching the girl’s hair, Ruggieri maneuvered her throat over the basin and plunged the dagger’s tip into her throat, then made a swift, certain slash beneath her jaw to the opposite ear. The blood spilled out in a sheet, striking the basin with a tinkling sound. Ruggieri’s eyes narrowed at the spray, but his face was immobile, the corners of his lips pulled down by infinite determination.

It was how I should have killed the stableboy. I stared down at the blood. It did not frighten me as much as the knowledge that I could so casually command it, that I could look upon it and not be dismayed. The anticipation had been hard, but at the actual moment of the killing, I remembered how very easy it was. A flash of Ruggieri’s knife, and she was gone.

When the spilling stopped, he pulled the girl’s head up; it dropped back against him to expose the raw, gaping grin beneath the jaw. He let go of her hair and torso and let her drop lifeless to the floor. Her face was white as bone, her neck black with blood; her gaze was fixed on some far distant sight.

Ruggieri went down on both knees over her as if he meant to pray, but instead he slid the dagger beneath her tight bodice and pulled; the thin fabric ripped easily. She wore no chemise; her breasts were round and very firm, the skin a lovely lunar white, so translucent that one could glimpse a vein here and there leading to the large pink nipples. Her body, though unwashed, was young and perfect and plump.

Ruggieri smoothed a hand over her belly as if reading a map with his fingers. With the finesse of an experienced surgeon, he inserted the tip of the dagger beneath her breastbone and drew it neatly down over the mound of the unborn child to her pubis. The knife left a red stripe in its wake, which blurred as her gown absorbed the blood; there was less of it than I expected. He set the knife aside and tried to part the flesh with his fingers, but it did not yield easily because she wore a good deal of fat. He took up the knife again and cut more carefully. I covered my nose at the smell.

Amid a stew of quivering fat, raw muscle, and glistening entrails, something lay exposed: the curve of a tiny red skull, the corner of a purple shoulder smeared with birth cheese. Ruggieri worried his fingers deeper into the woman’s womb and pulled. The silent child emerged with a sucking sound, its bloodied cord intact. I could not see its face, and the magician did not clean it but set it aside on the sheet, a sad little unborn corpse with a great head and frail limbs, still connected to its mother.

At Ruggieri’s soft gasp I looked up. His hands disappeared again inside the dead girl, and when he lifted them up they bore a second red tangle of flesh and bone, this one smaller than the first. Again his hands disappeared, and again brought forth a child.

“Triplets,” he said, amazed. “Chance smiles on you, Catherine.”

Four lives to buy Henri’s, and three sons.

“Never again,” I whispered. “Never.”

The magician knew well what I meant; my words replaced his sudden lightness with something very dark.

“How often,” he said, “I have uttered those words myself.”

I remember little of the ritual afterward. Ruggieri applied a drop of the girl’s blood to the onyx, then a bit of blood from each child to the pearl. When the circle was broken, we left the bodies on the slate and Ruggieri lit the lamp. We sat on the stools while he explained that I must lie with my husband as soon as possible, then handed me the two tainted stones: The pearl was mine, the onyx Henri’s. I was instructed to hide the latter where my husband spent most of his time. I was to wear the pearl always, and never let it from my sight.

As the magician spoke, rain drummed on the roof and crashed against the stones outside. He opened the shutters just enough to admit the sound of a downpour and distant thunder.

“Madame Gondi’s horse,” I said, absurdly worried that it might get wet when my bloodied victims lay nearby.

“Stay,” Ruggieri ordered. “I’ll lead it beneath the eaves for shelter. You’ll need to remain here until the storm passes.”

He pushed open the door and disappeared into the darkness.

I stood at the window, though the night and rain blotted out sight and sound. He was gone for so long that a sudden paralyzing fear stole my breath: Something old and shrewd and evil waited outside in the darkness for me.

Cosimo Ruggieri was an inhuman fiend: I had just witnessed the proof. He had once said that he had protected me because it served his best interests; what might serve them now?

The rain crashed down harder. Childishly, knowing I could not be heard, I cried out to him. Ruggieri appeared upon the threshold abruptly, as though the utterance of his name had forced him to materialize.

Water pooled upon his shoulders; beads of rain coursed down his cheeks. I was still trembling and tried to cover my fear of him by sneering, “Poor man. Do you cry now, for her and her children?”

He stepped inside the door. The edges of his eyelids and nostrils were red; he was indeed weeping.

“Don’t tell me you feel remorse,” I said.

He looked up at me with a face I had never seen, one wearing Ruggieri’s features, but younger and haunted by many ghosts; in its eyes was self-loathing that verged on insanity.

“For no one else, Catherine,” he said hoarsely. “For no one else.” Words welled up and caught in his throat, bitter things he could not bring himself to expel.

I heard but refused to understand. I shook my head and backed away from him. “No. No, that isn’t true. This isn’t the first time you’ve done something so horrible. I heard of your crimes when I was only a girl.”

“When you were in the hands of the rebels,” he hissed, “how do you think I protected you? How do you think I knew of the danger that was coming?”

The talisman, I wanted to say. It was the talisman that kept me safe. I closed my eyes and felt it hard against my heart, hiding the wickedness that lurked beneath. I did not want to know what he had done to charge it.

He bowed his head; the words he had fought so hard to contain finally tore free. “Only ever out of love, Catherine.”

The girl’s mutilated body and those of her unborn children lay inside the circle, the candles extinguished. The lamplight chased away all sense of unreality, leaving behind a stark heaviness. Pierced to my bones, I sank onto the stool, the one on which the girl had sat as Ruggieri plied her with tainted wine.

Love.

Do not tell me that you did this for me. I understood suddenly how my husband would feel were I to confess my crime. The magician’s words, uttered more than a decade earlier, returned to me:

We are tied, Caterina Maria Romula de’ Medici.

Aghast, I said, “I love only Henri. I will forever love only Henri.”

His face was taut with grief, his voice shatteringly mournful.

“I know, Madame la Dauphine. I have read your stars.”

Twenty-three

The rain did not last long. Numbed, I rode back to the palace, stopping a short distance away to hand over the horse’s reins to Madame Gondi, who returned it to the stables. I said nothing to her, but even in the darkness, she must have read the horror in my bearing.

I went directly to my chamber, and did not go down for supper; I was still too shocked to be charming and talkative. I fastened the pearl pendant around my neck with trembling fingers.

Despite my disquiet, I needed to lie with Henri that night. I made a chambermaid wait while I penned a note urging my husband to come to my chambers immediately after supper, implying that some emergency had occurred.

One of the ladies undressed me to my chemise, then left while Madame Gondi brushed out my hair, still damp from the drizzle on my ride home. Her eyes held many questions, but she came and went in silence.

After a time, Henri knocked on my bedchamber door; I opened it myself. He hesitated on the threshold, his face sun-browned from the hunt, a slash of concern separating his brows. His eyes were easily read: He had not wanted to come, but Diane had sent him.

“Are you unwell, Madame la Dauphine?” he asked formally. He held his brown velvet cap a bit nervously in both hands.

Before his arrival, I had thought that my nerves would fail, that I would be unable lure him into a liaison. But at the sight of him, a surge of feral heat swept over me-wild and foreign, from someplace far outside me-carrying away with it all my notions of propriety and dignity. I wanted to devour him alive.

I put a finger to my lips and reached past him to close the chamber door.

He was embarrassed by my forwardness and eager to leave; I would not let him. Like the imbecile prostitute, I snaked my hand beneath the waistband of his leggings, found the flesh between his legs, and closed my fingers around it; with my other hand, I pulled his leggings down to the middle of his thighs.

I knelt before him and did something I had never done: I lowered my head and took his swelling flesh into my mouth, at the same time glimpsing a veil of waving golden hair where my own mousy brown should have been.

My actions caught him off guard. At first he tried to push me away, then held very still, and finally seized my skull and groaned as his cap fell to the floor, forgotten. His shaft was veined and purple and more swollen than I had ever seen it-like me, hardened by blood and ready to burst. I moved my mouth up and down, so fast that I cut my upper lip and tasted blood. I rose quickly on my toes, seizing Henri’s shoulders and pulling him down to kiss his mouth and tongue, to make him taste blood, too.

This time, he did not pull away. My madness infected him, and he lifted me off my feet into his arms, our tongues entwined, our bodies pressed so fast together that the effort made us tremble; so tightly, Ruggieri’s pearl burrowed painfully between my breasts.

I pulled back with a mighty sigh, then caught Henri’s hands and led him shuffling to the bed, his erect shaft an arrow pointing upward to lift the hem of his doublet. He waited for me to lie down as I always had; instead, I pushed him onto the bed and stripped away his leggings, then pulled off my chemise. I spread him like Montecuculli waiting for the final crack of the whip, then straddled him. I was wet and he slipped in easily; the emphatic pleasure of it made us both gasp.

The power that seized me was white-hot and inhuman; its sway allowed no resistance, no thought, no emotion save desire. It was coarse and ugly and beautiful; it bloomed with life and stunk of death. I was no longer Catherine, no longer in my chamber. The breath of a hundred men warmed my face, the touch of a hundred hands groped my breasts, my vulva; I was ablaze, unashamed. I wanted them all to pierce me. I desired the entire world.

I pinned Henri’s legs and pressed my mouth hard against his to taste death and iron. I ground my body against his; I sank my teeth into his shoulder and laughed when he cried out. I laughed, too, when he pulled me from the bed and pressed my face and breasts against the cherry paneling on the wall to impale me from behind.

It was tainted and impure and intoxicating. I reared against him, groaning, reaching behind me to dig my nails into his hips, to bring him deeper inside me. And when I could take no more-when desire had reached its loveliest, ugliest peak, he convulsed, crushing me against the wall, and roared in my ear. I screamed, high and shrill with unbearable pleasure, unbearable horror. For buried within this surfeit of mindless, pulsating heat was a tiny cold black center, one that contained the glistening purple skull of an unborn child.

Thought returned, in the guise of Ruggieri’s silent whisper:

Only ever out of love.

Henri pulled out his shriveling flesh. I felt the weight of liquid dropping inside me and realized it was his seed. For a moment, I considered letting it flow out and away, but its loss would have healed nothing. I staggered to the bed and lay down, protective of the fluid within my womb and repulsed by it.

Henri fell beside me on his stomach, his expression one of wonder and disbelief.

“Catherine,” he whispered. “My shy, innocent wife, what has taken hold of you?”

“The Devil,” I said flatly and did not smile.

He recoiled faintly at the darkness in my tone. He was unsettled, rightly so, but also entranced, and the next evening found him again in my arms. By then, I had given the charged onyx to Madame Gondi and instructed her to hide it beneath Diane’s mattress.

Three weeks passed, during which my husband visited my bedchamber nightly. Voracious, I flung myself at Henri every time he passed over my threshold. My appetite knew no bounds; I demanded that he penetrate every orifice, examine with his fingers and tongue every inch of my flesh, and I did the same to him. Alone with any man-Ruggieri, or a groom or page or diplomat-I would find myself suddenly overcome by blazing desire.

One morning, Madame Gondi was reading aloud my list of appointments for the day while Annette, one of the ladies of the chamber, was lacing my bodice. I was exhausted from my antics with Henri the night before. He had paid a great deal of attention to my breasts, and they ached so much that I scolded Annette to be gentler. The words had scarcely left my lips when I felt a surge of heat, followed by a chill and urgent nausea. I pressed my hand to my mouth and lurched toward my basin, but in midstep I stopped and retched violently. Just when I thought I was recovered, a fresh wave seized me and brought me to my knees.

A basin appeared near me, and I maneuvered myself over it to vomit repeatedly. Eyes and nose streaming, I looked up to see Madame Gondi crouching beside me. Her expression held no concern; to the contrary, she was grinning broadly, and it took me, stupid girl, long seconds to understand and smile back at her.

Our first son was born at Fontainebleau on the nineteenth of January 1544. It was late afternoon when he appeared; the winter sun had already set, and the lamps were lit, casting long shadows. His first wail was high and weak. I was not comforted until he was placed in my arms and I saw for myself that he was a normal infant, if frail. We named him after the late Dauphin and the King, who was pleased beyond description.

Such a strange and wondrous thing, to be a mother! With Clarice, Ippolito, King François, and Henri, I had never received constant affection. But nestling my tiny son against my bosom, I was filled with urgent tenderness, a love that defied all restraint, and knew that it was requited.

“Ma fils,” I whispered into the translucent little shell of his ear. “M’ami, je t’adore…” The words of endearment in a foreign tongue came easily to my lips, though I had never heard them uttered-only seen them written on parchment, in Cosimo Ruggieri’s hand.

Little François was beset by fevers and colic, though the French astrologers claimed that he would be a long-lived monarch, greatly loved by his subjects, and would have many siblings. I did not ask Ruggieri to cast his nativity; I knew he wouldn’t lie to please me.

I was deeply relieved. With my son’s birth, I had purchased the King’s loyalty and Henri’s gratitude; I had also hoped this would win his love, but he turned increasingly to Diane.

I swallowed my pride and took pleasure in my infant son and in the company of the King, who now lavished gifts on me as if I were his paramour. I spent most of my hours with His Majesty, learning all that I could of government.

I also met daily with Ruggieri, who presented me with a tiny silver talisman of Jupiter to put beneath the baby’s crib to bring good health. We never mentioned the murders or his earlier confession of love. At times I would laugh at his dry wit or smile, and the veil of his composure would lift fleetingly to reveal tenderness, but I always pretended not to see it.

Diane continued to make good on her promise to me: Henri visited my bedchamber faithfully. By then my wild ardor had cooled, but that did not stop me from conceiving again.

I was heavily pregnant when my dear friend, Jeanne, returned to Court. Her marriage to the German Duke had been annulled, in part because Jeanne had failed to conceive, but mostly because King François had failed to deliver on promises of military support. I was glad to see Jeanne again; she remained my constant companion and was at my side when I gave birth the following year to my daughter Elisabeth.

Elisabeth was sickly, like little François, and it was some time before we were certain of her survival. She was a docile, content infant who rarely cried; I held her in my arms as she slept and looked down on her sweet, placid face, finally able to believe that my crime was justified.

But the joy brought by Elisabeth’s arrival was dimmed by tragedy. The English had invaded the French region of Boulogne, and in the autumn of 1545, Henri’s younger brother had joined the battle. During a respite in the fighting, Charles and his companions had come upon a dwelling whose inhabitants had died of plague. Believing himself to be immortal, like so many youths, Charles entered the house fearlessly, mocked the piteous corpses, and used their pillows to playfully beat his men. Within three days he was dead.

His death stole the last of the King’s physical reserves. For many years, François had suffered from an abscess in his privates and infections of the kidneys and lungs; now he worsened dramatically, though grief did not permit him rest. For two years, he traveled compulsively through the countryside, hunting despite his illness; I rode with him. Near the end, he could no longer bear the pain of sitting in the saddle but followed the hunt in a litter. I ignored the chase and trotted slowly alongside, chatting with him while Anne and his band of fair ladies galloped ahead after the prey. Henri had gone to visit Diane in her château at Anet, leaving me to look after his ailing father, but there was nothing I would rather have done.

We moved from lodge to lodge. At Rambouillet, I was riding alongside François when he fainted in his litter. I instructed the pages to take him to his chamber and summon the physician. I expected him to rally; he had fallen desperately sick several times over the past year but had always recovered.

While the doctor was examining His Majesty, the Duchess d’Etampes stormed into the antechamber where I waited.

“What has happened?” she demanded. “Let me go to him!”

Anne was quivering, imperious, still enviably beautiful, but her indignance was born not of honest concern for François but of a selfish desire to ensure her protector still lived. Over the past several months, she and Diane had begun to exchange public insults while secretly lobbying against each other. The courtiers’ loyalties were shifting from the ailing King to the Dauphin, with the result that Anne’s influence had lessened. Rather than accept the inevitable change, she had grown frantically demanding.

The physician emerged from the King’s bedroom. The hair beneath his black velvet skullcap was white; bags of shadowed flesh hung under his eyes. I rose to my feet when he entered, but at the sight of his grief-dulled gaze, I sank back into my chair.

His voice broke as he relayed to me the results of his examination: François’s body could bear no more. Although the King was only fifty-two, infections had overwhelmed him. He was rotting from the inside out.

“You lie!” Anne hissed. “He has always recovered. You underestimate his strength!”

I turned to her. “Get out,” I said softly. “Get out, Your Grace, and do not set foot into this room until you are called for, else I will summon the guards.”

She gasped as though I had struck her. “How dare you,” she said, her jaw slack with outrage, but I heard uncertainty in her tone. “How dare you…”

“Get out,” I repeated.

She retreated as far as the corridor, muttering curses beneath her breath.

I ignored her and turned back to the sorrowful, rheumy-eyed doctor. “Are you certain?”

He nodded gravely. “I do not expect him to survive more than a few days.”

I steepled my hands, pressed them to my lips, and closed my eyes. “My husband must be sent for at once. He is at Madame de Poitiers’s château at Anet…”

“I will see that the Dauphin is notified, Madame,” the doctor responded kindly. “In the meantime, His Majesty has asked for you.”

I banished imminent tears and eased my taut, vacant expression into one more pleasant, then rose and went into the bedchamber.

François was propped up on the pillows, his face grey against the white linens. It was the end of a cold, damp March, and a fire roared in the hearth, leaving the room oppressively warm, yet the King shivered beneath many blankets. The curtains had been drawn and the lamps left unlit, to avoid paining his eyes, which cast the room in twilight. The lines in his brow conveyed misery, but he was altogether lucid, and when he saw me, he managed a wan smile.

I did my best to smile back, but he was not fooled.

“Ah, Catherine,” he said, his voice wavering and reedy. “Always so brave. There’s no need to dissemble; I know I’m dying. Cry if you wish, my darling. I won’t be frightened by your tears.”

“Oh, Your Majesty…” I clasped his hand. “I’ve sent for Henri.”

“Do not tell Eléonore.” He sighed. “I regret that I’ve treated her badly, especially when I see what you’ve endured.”

I averted my eyes. “It’s nothing.”

“Oh, but it is. Perhaps…” His face crumpled-in physical pain, I thought, until he opened eyes gleaming with tears. “Had I not sent him away to be the Emperor’s hostage, perhaps he would have grown to be a different man. But he is weak…”

His teeth began to chatter. I tucked the blankets tightly about him, then wrung out a towel from a basin of water and set the damp cloth upon his forehead. He sighed with relief.

“That woman…” His lip curled. “She rules him, and so will rule France. Henri has made the same mistake I did. Mark my words: She’ll seize all the power she can; she’s ruthless, and Henri too much a fool to see it.”

The speech exhausted him; he broke off, panting, until he could catch his breath.

“Don’t let Anne in here,” he said finally. “I have been such a fool.” He squeezed my hand. “You and I are alike. I see it in you. You’re strong enough to do what is best for the nation, even if it breaks your heart.”

“Yes,” I said, very softly.

He looked at me with wan affection. “Promise me, then. Promise me that you’ll do what is best for France. Promise me that you’ll keep the throne safe for my son.”

“I promise,” I whispered.

“I love you more than my own child,” he said.

At that, my composure broke and I sobbed openly.

The physicians bled the King with leeches and dosed him with quicksilver, but he worsened markedly. By morning, he did not know me. Toward the afternoon he grew lucid again and asked for a priest.

Henri arrived late that night. He and his father wished to be alone, without witness to their grief or final words to each other. The Duchess d’Etampes hovered silently in the corridor, her eyes wide with shock.

I sat on the floor in the King’s antechamber, my back pressed to the wall, and wept into my hands. François had been my protector and dearest friend. I remained huddled on the floor throughout the long night, listening to the rise and fall of Henri’s voice on the other side of the closed door. In the morning, the King’s confessor, the Bishop of Mâcon, arrived. I tried to see past the door as it opened, and glimpsed Henri’s haggard face, his black eyes raw with grief.

The King never called for me again.

When Madame Gondi came for me at noon, I was too weak to resist but let myself be guided to my room and washed and dressed in clean clothes. I could not rest, but returned to the King’s apartments and settled again on the floor near the entrance to his bedchamber. The Duchess d’Etampes again appeared, dazed and carelessly dressed and minus her white face paint and rouge. She did not dare speak to me, but held vigil in the corridor.

In the next room, Henri let go a heartbroken wail; I lowered my face into my hands and wept. The Duchess seemed strangely unmoved until the door to the King’s bedchamber opened and the red-eyed Bishop of Mâcon emerged. He turned to me, his head bowed.

“His Majesty the Most Christian King François is dead.”

I could not speak, but in the hallway, the Duchess d’Etampes let go a scream.

“May the earth swallow me up!” she wailed-not in grief but in terror. She had abused her power as the King’s mistress to harm many and insult all. Apparently she had thought that François would never die, that retribution from her enemies would never come-and now she was unprepared. I remember her dry-eyed panic well-how she clutched first her cheeks, then her head, as if to keep it from suddenly flying off, how she seized her skirts and ran away, her progress hobbled by her fine high-heeled slippers. It was the last time I ever saw her.

I sat down upon the cold floor a princess and rose from it a queen, but took no joy in the fact. As it would the Duchess, change would bring me catastrophe.