She does not say the name. She does not need to.
“It is an impossible thing for a mother to see her child in danger and not act. I have devoted my life to preserving and promoting my sons. I have sacrificed much to that exercise, expending my own funds in the crown’s defense, going without sleep, traveling in all weathers to be with Your Majesty or your armies. Yet you prefer to lean upon one who formerly opposed you.” She shakes her head slowly. “It is too much. I must beg leave to withdraw from Court.”
“You would leave me?” Charles is all agitation. “Where would you go?”
“To Italy. Am I not always called ‘that Italian’ by those who demonize me?” She draws a kerchief from her sleeve for effect. And His Majesty is affected.
“Whosoever calls you that within my hearing shall have his tongue cut out. There is no question of you being displaced, in my heart or at my council table. And there can be no question of you quitting France.”
Mother is not pacified—or at least pretends otherwise.
“As I am Your Majesty’s humble subject, I will obey and remain within the kingdom’s borders, but I leave for Montceaux today.” She sweeps off.
Charles tries to display a look of indifference. “Women!” He laughs but the sound is high-pitched and nervous. “Let us go and admire the roses.”
The King of Navarre offers me an arm. Before we join those trailing His Majesty, my cousin looks in the direction of Mother’s retreat. “I do not believe any letters could do Her Majesty justice,” he says. “She must be seen to be fully understood.”
*
“A woman is not safe in the streets.” Henriette breezes into my antechamber where Charlotte and I are ensconced tête-à-tête for the morning. When Mother traveled to Montceaux we were left behind. I use my freedom to avoid my cousin, whose awkward attempts at playacted wooing are as tiresome as they are useless, and to do as I like with my friends.
“Surely it is too early for the pickpockets and cutpurses to have arrived for my wedding,” I say.
“Those I would know how to deal with,” Henriette replies. “Alas, the avenues are thick with Protestants swaggering about, armed and unwilling to suffer the slightest inconvenience or insult.” She puts her hand on the hilt of an imaginary sword and struts across the room before collapsing into a chair and accepting the glass from Gillone. “It is a horrible spectacle.”
“Too bad Charles did not take some of them with him when he ran after Her Majesty.” My brother rode out this morning, able to maintain his feigned nonchalance over Mother’s absence for only a single day. The admiral must be bereft. He thought, I suppose, he had liberated the King. What a fool.
“That would have been very good of His Majesty, particularly if he had taken the King of Navarre, n’est-ce pas?”
“You read my mind.”
“I will read it further.” Henriette winks. “You may be sorry that gentleman was left behind, but you are delighted that Guise remains in Paris.”
“He does?” I did not know this, and “delighted” is an understatement.
“I do.” Henri saunters in. He has never been in my apartments in daylight before, never entered them openly by the main door. There is something thrilling about the bold nature of it—thrilling and arousing.
Charlotte makes room beside me.
“Her Grace is quite right”—Henri scowls where I expect him to smile—“the heretics are unbearable. The people of Paris will not tolerate it. If the Protestants continue in such a manner, some of them will be run out of town before the month is out.”
“Do not think of the month being out,” I chastise him. Do not think of my wedding being past. “Do not think of the Protestants with their odd ways and odd smells. Think only of me.” I pat my knee. Henri smiles and stretches out on the settle, laying his head in my lap.
Looking into my face, he says, “Yes, let us be happy.”
“How is little Henri?” I ask, twirling his hair about my fingers. Oddly, while I hate Henri’s wife, I cannot help taking an interest in his children. Perhaps because he delights in them so. His second son is just over a month old and has a rash, thanks to the insufferable heat.
“Improving.”
“He would be better still if you would send him out of this sweltering city,” Henriette remarks. “And you would be better if you sent his mother with him.”
I take pride in the fact that although the Duchesse de Guise is Henriette’s own sister, my friend’s first loyalty is to me.
“Perhaps after the wedding,” Henri replies.
For an instant I think he means my wedding and I am stung by his casual tone.