The Confessions of Catherine de Medici (21 page)

I spun to him. “How dare you? You speak treason!”

He eyed me in disdain, dispelling any doubts I might have had about his nature. “Madame,” he said, “we have the realm’s welfare to consider. His Majesty’s wound could be mortal.” He spoke without any discernible emotion, as though Henri were some cur trampled by his coach.

My rage, never far from the surface where the Guises were concerned, rose to suffocate me. I was about to order him away when Paré said, “Monsignor, the wound is grave, yes, but not necessarily mortal. We must first remove the shard before we can determine the exact damage.”

Cold spread through me. I had foreseen peril but had never imagined it would touch Henri. I turned away from Monsignor’s calculating stare. “We must do everything we can,” I said to Paré and I could not keep the panic from my voice. “His Majesty’s life is in our hands. Perhaps I should summon Nostradamus. He helped heal my husband before.”

“That was a flesh wound on his leg,” Paré said gently. “Skilled as he is, Nostradamus is not a surgeon. Moreover, it would take too much time for him to get here and the shard must be extracted as soon as possible, before corruption sets in. I’ve operated before on the battlefield, but I’ll need a model first, to experiment on.” He paused. “I need heads, Your Grace. As many as can be gotten.”

“Execute ten prisoners and bring the doctor their heads,” I barked at Monsignor.

The cardinal drawled, “May I suggest that one of those heads be Captain Montgomery’s?”

I rounded on him. “It was an accident. We don’t kill men for accidents.”

“Montgomery is a Huguenot. It’s no coincidence that he challenged my brother first. His Majesty has been a foe of the heretics; this was an act of Huguenot revenge.”

I stepped so close to him I could smell the expensive musk on his robes. He disgusted me with his limpid air and manicured hands, the ease with which he clothed his monstrous heart. “Don’t try me again,” I warned. “Go. Do as I bid. Now.”

I didn’t give a fig for Montgomery, but he would not die to suit Monsignor. As the cardinal swept out into the gallery, where I heard courtiers clamoring for news, Paré gave me a sad look. I couldn’t bear to see the doubt on his face; so I left him and went into Henri’s chamber. Pulling a stool by the bed, I sat and took my husband’s hand.

He would live. He must.

The disembodied heads yielded no definitive answers, and Paré decided to trim the shard first, to facilitate curing the wound. The flesh about the injured eye was ugly, inflamed, and fearing the onset of corruption I sent a letter by urgent courier to Nostradamus’s home in Salon, begging for assistance. While I waited for his response, I anchored myself at Henri’s
bedside, accompanied by my sister-in-law Marguerite and my Elisabeth. He drifted in and out of awareness; every time he woke, he found me there. I bathed his face and throat with rosemary water; I smiled and spoke in a cheerful tone. I never let him sense my dread or the fear that tightened about me like a noose.

By the third day, he was feverish and restless, his skin the color of sand. Nostradamus had returned word that he’d come at once if I needed him, but to his great sorrow, as Paré claimed, he was not a surgeon and could only offer his advice. In his letter he enclosed a recipe for a poultice he thought might help. Henri’s eye was now a swollen morass and his attendants had to forcibly hold him down so Paré could change the soiled dressings and apply the poultice. Despite her resolve to stay with me, Elisabeth looked faint, so I sent her away with Marguerite, insisting they both rest.

Marguerite returned as soon as she’d seen my daughter to bed. Paré had finished and coils of fetid gauze sat in a basin at his feet. I smelled a rank odor that raised the hairs of my nape—the smell of pus, hallmark of a rancid wound. Icy sweat beaded Henri’s brow. He’d thrashed like an animal, bellowing in pain; now he lay so still I feared the worst.

I whispered to Paré, “He’s barely moving. Isn’t there something else we can do?”

He murmured, “I fear the shard may have penetrated His Majesty’s eye and pierced the protective membrane of his brain. The poultice may help with the outside corruption, but if the shard goes any deeper …” His voice faded into a laden silence.

“What about the operation?” I said. “As soon as the swelling goes down, you can remove the shard, yes?”

He shook his head. “It would require trepanning the skull and at the moment His Majesty is too weak. Perhaps after we’ve seen some improvement from the poultice, or perhaps it might not be necessary at all. He might recover on his own.”

“With a shard in his eye?” I stared at him. “Are you telling me this is all we can do?”

Paré gave a forlorn nod. I turned to my husband. Blood and pus had already started to seep through the new bandage. As I reached for his hand, his uninjured eye opened, with a startling suddenness. I leaned close to his parched lips.

“Marguerite,” he whispered, “her … wedding … See to it.”

Behind me, I heard a desperate sob escape Marguerite. I didn’t need to look at her to know that she too had succumbed to despair.

At midnight, Monsignor married Filbert of Savoy and Marguerite. There was no celebration. I embraced each of them, my voice as weary as my appearance, and returned to Henri.

Outside his doors, the struggle for power commenced. I knew it was happening. I knew the Guises and their sycophants met in closed rooms, drawing up alliances to safeguard their power. I paid their machinations no mind, not because I didn’t care or rail within at their cruelty, but because I couldn’t do anything to stop it, even if I’d had the strength.

My husband, with whom I’d lived for twenty-six years, was slipping away from me. All I could do was watch, helpless to defend him from the enemies within and without.

One by one, they came to say farewell. Our son François entered the room clutching Mary’s hand, an immature fifteen-year-old boy and seventeen-year-old girl, whose sheltered existence had been shattered. With tears coursing down his face, François babbled that he didn’t want to be king; he didn’t want his father to die. Mary took him in her arms, meeting my eyes in silent fear. I wondered if the Guises had been at her already, terrifying her with a list of her future responsibilities as queen, to ensure she’d look first to them for counsel, before me.

Pale but composed, Elisabeth kissed Henri farewell and went to be with my younger children, whom I’d ordered to the Louvre. Charles wept that he wanted to see Papa and rejected all consolation, clinging to the hunting hound puppy that Henri had given him. I refused to let any of them be subjected to the sight of their father crying out in agony; I shrieked at Paré and he dosed Henri with enough opiate to fell a horse.

Still, he did not die.

He fought like the soldier he’d always been, even as the fever escalated. He did, at times, rally, gasping that a proclamation announcing his son François II’s accession be sent out. I loved him then more than I ever had before. He had lived like a king and would die like a king, ensuring as best he could that France did not perish with him.

I was with him at the end, on a July afternoon of savage beauty. He’d been delirious, muttering incoherent words. As I knelt beside him, he turned his head and gazed at me with lucidity, the fever releasing his body so he might return to it one last time.

His cracked lips opened. He mouthed one word: “Catherine.”

Then he closed his eyes. And he left me.

I surrendered his corpse to the embalmers, who would remove his heart and seal it in the alabaster casket by our unfinished tomb in St. Denis. I gave him up to the lamenting servants who’d attended him for years, to Constable Montmorency, who stood guard at his deathbed, and to the overseers of his funeral, the Guises, who donned white with premeditated haste.

I returned to my rooms through corridors that still rang with his footstep. My women rose in unison, eyes red from weeping. Lucrezia reached out. Something in my gaze stopped her. She must have seen that if I felt her touch, if I felt any touch, I would crumble.

I moved alone into my bedchamber. It seemed as if I’d been gone a hundred years. All my possessions were here: my Venetian silver brushes with the entwined HC on their handles, vials of perfume and unguents, my children’s portraits on the walls. I saw it all, registered it in my mind, and still I felt like I’d stumbled into a foreign place.

Blinded by tears, I pressed my hand to my mouth.

Then I heard a rustle, the clack of heel, and turned to see her emerge from the shadows by the bed. Had she thrown a dagger, I couldn’t have moved. Diane returned my stare. A ruby throbbed at her chest, affixing her long black cloak to her shoulders. In her hands was a silver casket.

“I’ve brought you these.” She set the casket on my dressing table, opened the lid with a flourish. Nestled within on crimson velvet were diamond pendants and rings, pearl earrings, ruby brooches, and emerald necklaces. “I return these for delivery to the queen of France.”

“Puttana!”
I struck her with all my might. She staggered back, my imprint livid on her cheek.

She lifted her chin. “You’ve no doubt dreamed of doing that for years. I’m honored I can provide you with this final service.”

My breath came in bursts, my hands clenching again as I prepared to do what I’d indeed always dreamed of—rip apart that unearthly mask and see if she bled like everyone else.

“You could have me arrested,” she said, “but I don’t think His Majesty would approve.”

“You’re not fit to speak his name!”

“I do not speak of Henri. I speak of our new king, François II. I’ve been a mother to him. If need be, he’ll protect me.”

Henri’s body was being desecrated at that very moment by embalmers and she stood here declaring her immunity as if it were a virtue. I knew then that she’d never loved him. She was incapable of it. She was as lifeless as her pantheon at Anet.

“Madame,” I said in a low voice, “I might see you impaled on the highest turret this very hour, and no one, not even my son, would be able to stop it.”

Her eyes widened. I saw then what I longed for: fear. Fear of me. And then all the rage and hatred, all the murderous intent, vanished. She was nothing to me now.

I took a step back. “But I won’t. Instead, I command you to leave court this very hour.”

“I had no intention of staying.” She moved past me, regal even in defeat. But she would carry the brand of my fingers on her skin till her dying day. The imprint would fade but the sting would remain—a reminder that I too had exacted payment in full.

She halted at the door. “I have another service to render, one I think you’ll appreciate. The intrigue and conspiracies, the bribing of favors, the constant plotting and quest for safety—I leave it all to you. No one is more deserving of it; no one will do with it what you can.” Her lips curved in an icy smile. “But it’s not as easy as you think. To be a woman alone in this world requires every weapon you possess, every last bit of strength and endurance. You cut away pieces of yourself without realizing it, until you have everything and nothing at the same time. It’s all yours now, to do with as you will.”

She turned to the door. “Madame,” I said. “You do not have my leave.”

Her hand paused on the latch.

“You once took something of mine that was not yours. Now I want it back.”

“He is gone,” she hissed. “I cannot breathe life into the dead.”

“You are presumptuous. He was always mine. He’ll be entombed in our sepulcher, where one day I shall lie beside him, as his wife and queen. You, on the other hand, will be nothing. So don’t try me. I am the king’s mother. One word and you’ll end up worse than any of your rivals.”

She glared. “What do you want? Say it so I can go. I tire of this game.”

“Chenonceau. You will sign over the deed before you leave.”

Laughter erupted from her. “Is that all? Take it. Convert it into a haven for your widowhood. I still have Anet. It was mine by my first marriage and Henri deeded it to me again, in case a day like this came. He knew you well, madame. He knew you for the merchant’s daughter you are.”

She lifted the latch, thinking as always that she’d had the last word.

I had an inspiration. Wrenching open my dressing-table drawer, I pulled out a coin pouch and flung it at her feet. “Here is my payment. You’ll see you’ve made a profit, which is the only thing you ever cared about.”

She met my stare before she retrieved the pouch. Then she left without a backward glance.

My breath drained from my lungs. My knees crumpled under me.

On the floor, with my face in my hands, this time I grieved as a Florentine.