Too late, Mother. I have heard the truth. Much good may that do me. I let myself slide to the floor of my hiding place. The narrowness of the space pushes my knees to my chest. I rest my cheek upon them. I do not cry. I am too horrified for tears.
What course is open to me? Challenge Charles openly? To what end? A liar does not confess his transgression merely because he is accused of it. And to confront Charles is to risk something. Charles feels a genuine fondness for me. I will not squander his devotion by appealing to it fruitlessly. Having seen my brother’s face and heard the vehemence in his voice as he decried the Pope’s obstinacy, I know the matter of my marriage is beyond changing. Verily, I believe at this moment he would support a Protestant rite should it come to that. I shudder. If I am to be married against my will, I would at least have a Catholic ceremony. Anything else forces me into heresy. So I must let Charles’ lie stand and proceed with my wedding, pretending to believe in a dispensation I know does not exist.
I close my eyes, feeling empty, without ideas. Then Henri’s voice is in my head. He is telling me a battle tale. I am teasing him, because it took him two tries to win a city and he is insisting there is no shame in that, explaining how the lessons of a first defeat may help a commander to victory in the second assault. A very faint thought begins to take shape. There is another reason to make certain my dreaded wedding is a Catholic one. A marriage performed and later found unlawful due to an unexcused degree of consanguinity may be undone. This, insufficient as it may seem, is the hope I will cling to.
I must capitulate now in hopes of a victory later. But I will not surrender completely. I think back to the day that the King of Navarre arrived, to the promise I made him that he should never kiss more than my hand. To the promise I made Henri that I will not sleep with my husband. This is my next battle. I must find a way to keep my word and avoid being taken to wife. Today my cousin and I spoke as friends—that is what I will trade upon. The King of Navarre is smart enough to have realized by now that he has ridden into a nest of vipers. Perhaps he will see the sense in having at least one viper who can be counted upon not to bite him.
*
It is our last night before I am a married woman. Henri arrives full in equal parts of love and anger. He takes me as a man takes a city—fiercely and without mercy. There is a feeling of desperation in all that we do, in all that we say. And there are things I have promised myself not to reveal that weigh heavily upon me.
“Nothing will be different,” I say, rubbing his shoulders where he sits, naked and hunched on the side of my bed.
“Marguerite, do not treat me like a child or a fool. I am neither.”
“I do not.” I slip from behind him to sit beside him. “Ask yourself: What difference has the Princesse de Porcien made between us? None.”
“She is a woman. What rights does she have over me that she dare insist upon?”
“I have given you my word that there are some rights I will never grant the King of Navarre, husband or no.”
“So you have.” He puts his head momentarily in his hands, running his fingers through the sandy hair I love. When he looks up, his eyes are still despairing. “I believe you were in earnest in your oath. But what you intend and what Henri de Bourbon will allow…” His voice trails off.
I struggle to look unconcerned. But I have thought of this. My cousin does not seem a man full of temper, but he has more than once made clear he believes he will be my master once we are wed.
“I cannot understand His Holiness. He promised—” He stops short.
I have no doubt that the House of Lorraine worked behind the scenes to thwart my marriage. But if the Cardinal of Lorraine communicated with the Pope, why did my love not tell me? Perhaps he feared to raise my hopes.
“Never mind what anyone else promised.” I squeeze his hand. “We have each of us been betrayed by those who ought to have kept faith with us. So long as we do not betray each other, anything else can be borne.”
“Can it? Can I bear to attend your ceremony of betrothal and then see you paraded to the Archbishop’s palace tomorrow evening? How? How shall I stand outside as darkness falls, wondering which window is yours, knowing that no ladder will be lowered from it to guide me to you? And the following day … I cannot even speak of what comes next.”
I understand what he means. Did I not feel the same crushing grief on his wedding day? Yet, perhaps because I did and survived, he ought to take heart. He ought to be stronger. I find myself vexed by his complaints even as they move me. As I am the one currently facing unwelcomed vows, should not he be comforting me? I swallow the question just as I have been swallowing the words that would tell him the papal dispensation is a fiction.