Henri retrieves his sword and buckles it on, then pauses. “I am going.” He looks at me expectantly.
I am aghast and panicked. Part of me wants to beg for forgiveness and repent of my decision. But the larger portion is tired of being pushed, of being offered love only on the condition that I behave as someone else wants me to. My mother has always loved me thus, and my brother Anjou. Now this man who has proclaimed countless times that he loves me for myself alone wrings my heart for his ambitious purposes. I might forgive him that, but in doing so he vindicates my mother, whose cruel taunts that the Duc loved me only for my connection to the King have never been entirely forgotten.
“If you leave me tonight, Henri—if you abandon me alone with your bitter words and unjust accusations—do not look for a welcome tomorrow.” The words come out less forcefully than I would like, but the fact that they come out at all is miraculous.
Turning, he stalks toward the window. For a moment, just before he reaches the sill, I see him hesitate. I hope he will turn back, but he does not. Opening the shutters, he drops the ladder and is gone as quickly and as silently as a specter.
Indeed, in the first moments after his departure, I wonder if our encounter really took place. Perhaps it was all a frightful dream and Henri has yet to arrive for our tryst. I will it to be so, my eyes fixed on the night sky beyond the shutters he left thrown wide. The damp of a tear rolling down my cheek disabuses me of that happy notion. Sinking to the floor in a pool of my own silken gown, I cover my face with my hands and weep.
The Duc has come. The Duc has gone. I have turned away the man I loved but could not marry for the man I have married but will never love.
CHAPTER 19
August 21, 1572—Paris, France
The sun glinting off the armor of the gentlemen waiting to enter the lists hurts my eyes. Banquets, balls, tournaments, I am sick of them all. Nearly as sick of them as of the heat.
Sitting between Mother and the Queen Consort on a balcony erected to give us an excellent view, I find myself desperate to avert my eyes as my brothers advance to be recognized by the crowd. They have Henri with them—one of the favored few. All the King’s men are “disguised” as Amazons, and while I might ordinarily find this humorous, my present situation makes mirth impossible. The heart of my bargain with the King of Navarre became meaningless last night. Seeing Henri accepting the approbation of the crowd is a painful reminder of how alone I felt when I awoke this morning—how I could not smell him on my person—and of the fear I experienced that this condition might not be temporary. So I turn my eyes upon my husband, dressed as a Turk. As this is more spectacle than tournament, he is destined by choreography to lose, yet he smiles at me and gestures to my colors, which he wears on his arm. I try to smile back and, failing, move my gaze to the balcony opposite where it is drawn to Henri’s mother, the Duchesse de Nemours, who is fanning herself. As I look at her, thinking how Henri has her mouth, blood begins to drip from the hand with which she holds her fan.
I gasp.
Mother looks at me strangely.
I put my hands on the railing before me, breathing deeply in an attempt to collect myself. With breath comes the smell—blood. I know the odor from the chase. Surely I cannot smell the Duchesse’s blood from this distance! I stare down to the area below. The mock combat has not yet begun, yet to my eye the ground is crimson. Where does the blood come from? I look at those around me to gauge their reaction, but all smile, clap, or hoot as called for by the theatrical prologue of the gentlemen. None seem shocked or frightened. I look down into the lists once more. The blood is gone. I sway in my seat, clinging yet more tightly to the rail. As soon as I am steady again, I force myself to look across at the Duchesse de Nemours. It is as I suspected, there is no blood upon that lady either.