Courtesan

  “I would not have believed it if I had not seen it myself,” whispered François de Guise to his brother, Charles, as the King, the last to be seated, sat on the ceremonial dais not beside Catherine, but beside Diane.

  “I thought she only wore black,” Charles replied in Italian, hoping to make their conversation less conspicuous.

  “It would seem that there are some occasions when even she is willing to break from tradition.”

  “Oh, to know what the Queen is thinking just now,” Charles mused.

  “Or the Duchesse de Valentinois!”

  Charles looked over at his elder brother with an expression of real surprise. “Oh my, but you do not think that his mistress could have known anything about this, do you? Such a supposition would be scandalous, even for her!”

  “Of course she knew,” snapped François. “Do not be so naive! It was probably her idea. What better coup for the King’s courtesan than to outshine the Queen in the very same gown, and on the day of her coronation! His Majesty certainly is not bright enough to have thought up so complex a slight without her assistance. You know as well as I that she positively rules him. Actually, it is little wonder that something like this would have happened.”

  “Well, I still find it shocking,” Charles whispered as the ceremony began.

  “But you do know what they say. He always wanted her to be Queen. I know personally that it was going on years ago, even before the Queen arrived in France. Can you imagine, he was no more than a boy when it began between them. Perhaps with this daring display he is finally repaying her for her years of. . .instruction!”

  When she could tastefully manage a sideways glance at the King, Diane found him draped in heavy ermine and beaming with pride. His black eyes sparkled and he continued to fight a smile. She had never been more horrified.

  What must they think of me? To have the audacity to wear the very gown that the Queen is wearing for her coronation. . .it is simply too much! He has done this; he has switched the gowns, arranged my place here on the dais, all in an awkward and scandalous tribute!

  The ceremony was long and the cathedral was warmed by the month of July, but no one seemed in the least disinterested. Throughout the pews, courtiers and guests whispered sentiments of shock and surprise beneath the echoed tones of the Mass. Those who had been puzzled by the King’s intention to honor, so publicly, a Queen whom he did not love, were now enlightened to his purpose.

  Catherine sat quietly on her throne as the Latin words were uttered, never daring to look beside her at her husband and his mistress, who had managed once again to garner the attention that had been intended for her.

  As the Cardinal de Lorraine completed the Mass, Françoise de La Marck, Diane’s eldest daughter, moved from her place and walked up the five gold and crimson steps to the throne. The cavernous cathedral fell to a hush. Due to the weight of the Queen’s crown, provisions had been made for it to be removed for a period of time during the elaborate ceremony. Unbeknownst to Diane, the King had insisted that the honor of removing the crown go to her daughter, Françoise.

  Catherine, weighed down by layers of silk and jewels, gazed at the daughter of her rival with an impotent resignation. Then, in a move that was so bold, so completely blatant that even the Cardinal de Guise could not stifle a gasp, Françoise de La Marck made the move that the King had personally implored her to do. She carefully lifted the heavily jeweled coronet from the Queen’s head, and then solemnly placed it on a crimson velvet cushion that lay directly at her mother’s feet.

  In the foremost pew, François de Guise leaned toward his brother, Charles, his own thin lips parted in utter disbelief.

  “Now will you tell her about Montgommery?” he whispered. “Because if you will not, I promise you, I will!”

  AND DO YOU REALLY BELIEVE that with this plan, eventually we can win back Boulogne?” Henri asked Montmorency.

  “The English have only a garrison of five hundred men on the coast at Ambleteuse. We need only win that and then, it is just down the road to Boulogne, and to victory.”

  Henri leaned back in his velvet-covered chair and stroked the point of his dark beard. The two men sat alone in his private study at Les Tournelles. Long white tapers lit the room and spilled wax onto the desk and the map that was spread between them.

  Henri had long made clear his intention of winning back Boulogne, the strategic port city on the French side of the channel. Montmorency had told him that now with the English forces divided between France and Scotland, this would be the optimum time for victory. Besides Boulogne, the English spread into forts at five key points in the region, including Ambleteuse and Blaconet to the north. Hostilities between England and France had reached a fever pitch over the removal of the young Queen of Scots to the safety of France. If the sparring continued, war with England seemed imminent. Montmorency took this opportunity to propose an attack on the strongly garrisoned province of Boulogne, while the English were too highly diversified to defend it.

  “Well. . .Boulogne is ours. . .”

  “That it is, Your Majesty.”

  “. . .and I do mean to have it. Very well then. Yes, I am in accord with you, Monty. If you have faith that it will work, then I shall support you completely. We shall win back Boulogne or lose this realm trying. And I am going with you.”

  “Such a move is hardly necessary, Your Majesty.”

  “But it is necessary. I need to be away from all of this for a while. God, it has been so long, and I need to feel the dirt beneath my nails and the wind at my back. I am as much a warrior as I am a King!”

  Montmorency lifted his goblet toward Henri and then smiled. “Then we shall be honored to have Your Majesty lead us all.”

  THREE DAYS AFTER Henry left for Boulogne, Charles de Guise made his decision to divulge what he had seen in Paris. It was nearly nine o’clock and he stood beside Diane, at whose table he now regularly dined. He stretched his arms over his head, as though he were relaxed and satisfied. But beneath the crimson robes and calm exterior was great trepidation about what he must do to her.

  He liked Diane de Poitiers. He always had. Still, if he was going to do it, he must speak now while the King was away. He must set in motion the wheels, so that the most momentum could be gained before His Majesty’s return. It was cruel to inflict something so powerful into such an impenetrable bond, but he must think first of his family; he must think of himself.

  Over the past few years, Diane had become more cautious with them. Several times she had intervened with the King against them. With her gone from Court, there would be no one to obstruct the brothers’ rise to power but one man: Constable Montmorency.

  Although greed played a part in their ambition, something far more powerful motivated them. The brothers were aroused by the prospect of further glory for the house of Guise. Theirs was a proud house stemming from their claim to royal blood. They believed themselves descended from the Kings of Naples, Sicily and Jerusalem, and for all of their efforts, fate seemed, of late, to be resting in their corner. By the recent deaths of both their uncle, the Cardinal de Lorraine, and their father, the Duc de Guise, Charles and François had adopted the titles respectively. Such a turn of events had given each of them more power and more influence with which to challenge their last remaining rivals. The house of Guise was now completely in their very ambitious hands.

  “Madame,” Charles finally said. “I wonder if a walk in the moonlight would serve you as greatly as it would me, after so sumptuous a meal. I am afraid I shall not get a wink of sleep if I do not take a stroll before I retire. I should be ever grateful for your company.”

  It was not his custom to interrupt a conversation, and Diane looked curiously up at him from between the King’s sister and Hélène. “All right, Charles. If you like.”

  They walked out of the salon and into the garden. The night air was warm and filled with buzzing gnats and fireflies, and a quarter moon shimmered with the intensity of a full one.

 
Charles took in a deep breath as Diane slid her arm into his. His red robe, neatly pressed, brushed against the black velvet of her gown.

  “I wanted to thank you personally for that very generous gift to L’Hôpital de Saint-Gervais. They so desperately need assistance.”

  “The hospitals in Paris are sorely in need. It is my duty to help as much as I can,” she replied as they strolled between the neatly clipped hedges of the formal parterre.

  Charles saw that the incident with the tailor had changed Diane. There was a stronger urge than ever before, drawing her away from herself and in the direction of more altruistic concerns. She sought something that would bring distinction to the reign and meaning to her life. Despite the sketches and plans for Anet and Chenonceaux that required her attention, she forced herself to submit to tours of Paris hospitals. In those first few weeks after Henri’s departure, by her direct intervention, the Duchesse de Valentinois had managed drastically to decrease the amount of filth and pestilence that she had so shockingly uncovered.

  “I think, Madame, that you have begun to make a difference here in the city.”

  “For the people’s sake, I pray that you are right. But then you did not ask me out here to thank me, did you?” she asked as he bent to smell a rose.

  “No, you are right, Madame. That is not why I asked you out here.” He clasped his hands before him, as though in prayer, and then turned to face her. All of his movements were precise and considered. He was buying time to phrase the words the least painfully.

  “I have struggled for several weeks now with how I might inform you of what I have come to feel you must know. However, it is not with any sense of ease that I do so even now.”

  “Go on.”

  “Several weeks ago, when His Majesty assigned me the task of locating an imprisoned heretic with whom he might speak, I confess that I found more than I would have dreamed.”

  “I should much prefer Your Eminence to spare me your mysterious preambles. Say what it is you mean to say.”

  “Very well. I went to the Conciergerie, where I knew there was a group of men who had been taken in and tried for crimes against the Church. On that trip, I am sorry to say that I found someone other than the tailor. There was another man imprisoned there; one I recognized, but whom I could not place until just a day or two ago. It had been many years since I had seen him. . .since you and I had seen him together.”

  A frown changed her elegant face. Her brilliant blue eyes darkened. “I do not enjoy the mystery, Charles. Who was the man and why should you imagine it should be of any importance to me?”

  “The man in the Conciergerie, Madame, was Jacques de Montgommery.”

  She stepped back, stunned by the sound of the name she had not heard for sixteen years. She turned away from him and looked across a rolling lawn to a pond, shimmering in the silver light of the moon. Across the surface, two swans floated silently by.

  “Certainly there is some mistake.”

  “No, Madame. There is no mistake. I thought so myself at first because it had been quite a long time, so I took the liberty of confirming the man’s identity with the jailor.”

  “But why? What had he done to merit imprisonment?”

  “That, I do not know. The orders to detain him are vague. They make reference only to disgrace against France, his imprisonment and the subsequent confiscation of his property.”

  “In spite of what he allowed to occur at Lagny-sur-Marne, he was an honored military commander. How could such a thing happen?” Before the Cardinal could reply, she added, “I must see him!”

  “Do you think it wise, Madame? After all, if His Majesty were to discover. . .well, I was young then, but it was no secret how the King felt about the man who was his rival for your affection.”

  “I must see him, Charles. The King shall be my concern, not yours. You must take me to him at once!”

  IT WAS LATE, but a small group of guards flanked Diane and the Cardinal as they galloped through the darkened streets of Paris toward the Conciergerie. Once they arrived, Diane followed him down the narrow, winding stone staircase. It was dark, except for the glow of the torch which the Cardinal held to light their way. The air was old and stale, and it was difficult to breathe without the involuntary reflex of a spasmed cough.

  “This is the Duchesse de Valentinois and we have come to see prisoner 5012,” Charles announced to the same guard who had given him entry before.

  Diane lowered the hood of her cloak so that the guard could see her face. His large eyes widened when he recognized the King’s mistress, having been among the fortunate few to see her on the pathway to the Queen’s coronation.

  “Pardon me for saying so, Madame, but this is no place for a fine lady.”

  “The prisoner, Monsieur!” the Cardinal interceded.

  The guard led them, without further objection, down a dank corridor. There was a stale odor of water and urine. Diane covered her mouth and nose with her cloak until they came before a large iron-studded door. Guise lit the lock while the guard turned the large key that jangled at the end of a ring. When the door was opened, she looked back at Charles.

  “I want to see him alone. Please wait for me,” she said and took the torch into her own gloved hand. The large iron door swung open with a long, ominous creak and she was issued inside. Only when the door slammed behind her did she turn around to see the face of the man she had once, long ago, agreed to marry.

  Diane looked down upon someone barely recognizable to her now. He was huddled in the corner of the filthy dark cell on a bed of straw, dressed in garments which were neither brown nor gray, but somewhere between a dirty, faded hue of both.

  As she held up the torch, she could see that his once elegant waves of blond hair were now thick, matted and entirely white. He wore a rough beard and mustache that obscured his face, all but the eyes; those same shimmering eyes which had revealed themselves to Charles de Guise.

  She took a step back as he cast them upon her. The memory of their time together, when she had cared for this man, flooded to the forefront of her mind. As it converged with the sight of what he had now become, her face filled with horror.

  “Well, well, well. What is it that brings the good Duchesse de Valentinois out of her tower to see the likes of me?” he muttered in a graveled voice that had not been his when she knew him.

  “What has happened? Why, in God’s name, are you here?” she asked and moved a few urgent steps closer to him. The jewels around her neck glittered in the torch light. “Oh, never mind why,” she continued. “It is not important. I shall have you released at once.” She turned back toward the door until his words stopped her.

  “It will do you no good. You cannot change the order.”

  She turned back around. “Then by whose order are you here? I will go to them at once!”

  “You cannot intervene.”

  “I am a very powerful woman now. I can have you freed.”

  “You shall not like what you discover if you try.”

  “No matter what you have done, this is no place for someone like you.”

  Diane looked back down at him. His thin elegant face was withered beneath his beard. His skin was gray from lack of sunlight. She rushed to his side and knelt beside his cot. The yellow straw which covered the floor crushed beneath her heavy gown. The rancid smell of his unwashed flesh and his own excrement overwhelmed her and she forced herself not to cough through sheer determination alone.

  Montgommery gazed at her a long time with a new and curious look of contempt. Then he said, “You have done well for yourself, my beauty. Palaces, the Crown Jewels, a coronation even. Highly placed courtesan for nearly sixteen years. Quite a change from the unsure young woman I once knew. Yes, quite well indeed. Even if your rise to power meant the ruin of me.” Then he sat up and looked up at her with savage clarity. “I am here by the order of His Majesty, the King of France.”

  She sat back on her heels as the chill of shock coursed through her. “Yo
u cannot mean Henri. . .He could not—”

  “That he would, ma chère.”

  “I do not believe you!”

  “Believe what you will, but I speak the truth. He has sent me here for the worst sin against the Crown; for having once loved the woman he now loves. He wanted no one to remind him that another man alive had any part of you before he did.”

  Diane stood, fighting for her balance. “You have not changed, Jacques. You were a filthy liar then and you are even worse, an old pathetic liar now!”

  “And what does that make you? You went from being the whore of one King to the courtesan of the next! It would seem that neither of us has much improved.”

  His words were sharp. In defense, she leveled her palm across his cheek. The smack of flesh echoed in the empty cell. Jacques looked up at her with eyes now a faded dust blue. The door opened. Charles leaned in.

  “Madame, are you all right?”

  “Please leave us!”

  When they had once again closed the heavy door she turned back around.

  “I speak the truth,” he repeated. “And in your heart you know it. He hated me for ever getting near to your heart. I have made a great many mistakes in my life, Diane, but even for the worst of them, I did not deserve this fate. I had built a new life after you left me. I served the late King with distinction, and the moment his son ascended the throne and found the slightest provocation, it was all taken from me; my house, my property. . .even my honor.”

  Diane sat back on her heels. “Lagny-sur-Marne was a great loss for France. You were in charge.”

  “But I bid you, Madame, ask yourself. . .could it possibly have merited this?”

  “If I believe what you tell me,” she whispered as she moved again toward his cot, “then I surrender all that I have believed for nearly twenty years. I surrender my entire life.”