Виктория Холт - Queen Jezebel

‘No, my darling. Remember that the King is jealous of your superior powers. Let me go alone and I will tell you every word that passes between us.’

‘Mother, you will not allow me to be sent to that barbarous country?’

‘Did I send you to England? Have you forgotten my indulgence to you when you so ungallantly refused the Queen of England?’ Catherine burst into laughter. ‘You insulted her and she might have gone to war with us on that account. You know what a vain old baggage she is. I shall never forget that wicked suggestion of yours that if you married the Earl of Leicester’s mistress, it would be fitting for Leicester to marry yours. You are quite mischievous and I adore you for it. How could I endure my life without you near me to make me laugh? Was it not all but intolerable when you were away at the wars? No, my darling, I shall not allow him to send you to Poland . . . or anywhere else which is away from me!’

He kissed her hand while she touched his curled hair, gently because he did not like it to be disarranged.

Charles, the King, was in that part of the Louvre where he enjoyed being—the apartments of Marie Touchet, the mistress whom he loved.

He was twenty-two, but he looked older, for his face was wrinkled and his skin pallid; he had not had eight consecutive days of health in his life; his hair was fine but scanty, and he stooped as he walked; he was, at twenty-two, like an old man. Yet his face was a striking one and at times it seemed almost beautiful. His wide-set eyes were golden brown, and very like his father’s had been; they were alert and intelligent, and when he was not suffering a bout of madness, kindly and charming; they were the eyes of a strong man, and it was their contrast with that weak, almost imbecile mouth and receding chin that made his face so unusual. Two distinct characters looked out of the King’s face; the man he might have been and the man he was; the strong and kindly humanist, and the man of tainted blood, bearing through his short life the burden which the excesses of his grandfathers had put upon him. Each week the trouble in his lungs seemed to increase; and as his body gave up its strength, it became more and more difficult for him to control his mind. The bouts of madness became more frequent as did the moods of melancholy. When, in the dead of night, he would feel that frenzy upon him, he would rise from his bed, waken his followers, put on his mask and go to the lodgings of one of his friends; the pack would catch the young man in his bed and beat him This was a favourite pastime of the King’s during his madness; and the friends he beat were the friends he loved best. So it was with the dogs which he adored. In his sane moments he shed bitter tears over the dogs which, in his madness, he had beaten to death.

He was in a continual state of bewilderment and fear. He was afraid of his brothers, Anjou and Alençon, but particularly of Anjou, who had his mother’s complete devotion. He was well aware that his mother wanted the throne for Henry and he was continually wondering what they plotted between them. At this time he was sure that the pregnancy of the Queen was a matter which caused those two much concern.

He was afraid also of the Guises. The handsome young Duke was one of the most ambitious men in the country; and to support him there was his uncle, the Cardinal of Lorraine, that sly lecher whose tongue could wound as cruelly as a sword; there were also the Cardinal’s brothers, the Cardinal of Guise, the Duke of Aumale, the Grand Prior and the Duke of Elboeuf. These mighty Princes of Lorraine kept ever-watchful eyes on the throne of France, and they never lost an opportunity of thrusting forward their young nephew, Henry of Guise, who, with his charm and nobility, already had the people of Paris behind him.

But there were some whom the King could trust. Strangely enough, one of these was his wife. He did not love her, but his gentleness had won her heart. Poor little Elisabeth, like many another Princess sacrificed on the altar of politics, she had come from Austria to marry him; she was a timid creature who had been terrified when she had learned that she was to marry the King of France. What must that have suggested to her? Great monarchs like Charles’ grandfather, Francis the First, witty, amusing and charming; or Henry the Second, Charles’ father, strong, stern and silent. Elisabeth had imagined she would come to France to marry such a man as these; and instead she had found a boy with soft golden-brown eyes and a weak mouth, who had been kind to her because she was timid. She had repaid his kindness with devotion and now she had amazed France by promising to become the mother of the heir to the throne.

Charles began to tremble at the thought of his child. What would his mother do to it? Would she administer that morceau Italianizé for which she was becoming notorious? Of one thing the King was certain: she would never willingly let his child live to take the throne. He would put his old nurse Madeleine in charge of the child, for Madeleine was another whom he could trust. She would fight for his child as she had tried to fight for him through his perilous childhood. Yes, he could trust Madeleine. She had soothed him through the difficult days of his childhood, secretly doing her best to eliminate the teachings of his perverted and perverting tutors—but only secretly, because those tutors had been put in charge of him by his mother in order to aggravate his madness and to initiate him into the ways of perversion; and if Catherine had guessed that Madeleine was trying to undo their work it would have been the morceau for Madeleine. Often, after a terrifying hour with his tutors, he had awakened in the night, trembling and afraid, and had crept into the ante-chamber in which Madeleine slept—for he would have her as near him as possible—to seek comfort in her motherly arms. Then she would rock him and soothe him, call him her baby, her Chariot, so that he could be reassured that he was nothing but a little boy, even though he was the King of France. Madeleine was a mother to him even now that he was a man, and he insisted on her being at hand, day and night.

His sister Margot? No, he could no longer trust Margot. She had become brazen, no longer his dear little sister. She had taken Henry of Guise as her lover, and to that man she would not hesitate to betray the King’s secrets. He would never trust her absolutely again, and he could not love where he did not trust.

But there was Marie—Marie the dearest of them all. She loved him and understood him as no one else could. To her he could read his poetry; he could show her the book on hunting which he was writing. To her he was indeed a King.

And then Coligny. Coligny was his friend. He never tired of being with the Admiral; he felt safe with him, for although some said he was a traitor to France, Charles had never felt the least apprehension concerning this friend. Coligny, he was sure, would never do anything dishonourable. If Coligny intended to work against him he would at once tell him so, for Coligny had never pretended to be what he was not. He was straightforward; and if he was a Huguenot, well then Charles would say that there was much about the Huguenots that he liked. He had many friends among the Huguenots; not only Coligny, but Madeleine his nurse was a Huguenot, and so was Marie; then there was the cleverest of his surgeons, Ambroise Paré; there was his dear friend Rochefoucauld. He did wish that there need not be this trouble between Huguenots and Catholics. He himself was a Catholic, of course, but he had many friends who had accepted the new faith.

One of his pages came in to tell him that his mother was approaching, and Marie began to tremble as she always did when she contemplated an interview with the Queen Mother.