“In such an instance I will do my best to escape, for I know I shall have no visitors at Vincennes.”
“That is right,” I reply, trying to match his bravado. It is yet another of the day’s lies, for, without understanding why, I know I would descend to the dungeons to see him were he taken.
Gillone returns. “You grow accustomed to your husband, I think,” she says as she helps me change.
“Go to sleep if you like,” I tell my shadow. “God and I are not finished.” I return to my prie-dieu. The rise and fall of voices—sometimes angry—punctuates my devotions. The tapers burn down and the room, dim to begin with, becomes dark. I pray on. So lost am I in my thoughts and mumbled words that I do not hear the door open.
“You do not sleep.”
My cousin stands on the threshold, a light in his hand and his valet de chambre beside him.
I feel suddenly embarrassed—worried that Armagnac will think I wait up for my husband, and half expecting that same husband to mock my devotion. Instead he says, “Shall we withdraw awhile longer?”
“No, no.” I stand. “You must be exhausted, and I am content to rest.”
“My man…” he says awkwardly.
“Perhaps he would be comfortable at the foot of the bed?”
Armagnac bows, fully and without reservation. I find myself smiling at him. Why not? He is the first of my husband’s companions not to temper his show of respect for me with thinly veiled disgust.
Climbing into bed, I wait. Unlike last evening, my cousin does not bounce. As he slides beneath the covers he says, “God grant you rest, Madame.”
God does not. I seem to have lost the capacity for rest. Did it leave me when Henri did, climbing down the ladder in his wake and creeping away in darkness? I have not slumbered decently since the night we parted. Tonight I am not entirely sure I desire sleep. My sister’s admonition that this is not a night for bed weighs upon me, leaving me with the sense I ought to listen for sounds of trouble. For quite a while all I can hear are the voices of my husband’s gentlemen. But at last even they fall silent. I make up my mind that some rest is necessary, but when I close my eyes I see Pilles’ four hundred in the courtyard, Henri’s face as he shook me, Mother’s unnatural smile, Charles’ wild eyes through the crack in the door, and I am wide awake once more, my heart racing. I am determined to see dawn break. More than once I claw my way back from the brink of sleep before, at last, losing consciousness.
I awake with a start. My cousin sits upright beside me. “What was that?” he asks.
“What was what?”
He shakes his head in the moonlight that filters through my shutters. “Something woke me, I am sure of it. All the more sure because it woke you too.”
Rising, he goes to the nearest window and opens the shutters. The room is flooded with light from the nearly full moon. My cousin peers out.
I struggle to a sitting position. Both of us are silent, ears straining. Nothing. Not a sound. Very quietly I feel, gingerly, for my small clock made by the Horloger du Roy at Blois. Unable to see its face, I slide to the other side of the bed and hold it out to my cousin. “What time is it?”
He takes the timepiece and angles it to take advantage of the moon. “Just gone four.”
“A strange hour for a noise sufficient to wake a man who sleeps as soundly as you. Perhaps you had a dream.”
He shrugs, sets the timepiece on the nearest table, and strikes a light. I watch in surprise as he begins to dress.
“Where are you going?” After all the rumors and my sister’s hysterics, I do not like the idea of my cousin wandering about the Louvre in the dark.
“I am awake and not likely to slumber again.” He peers at me. “You have circles beneath your eyes and I think will sleep better alone. So I will gather my men and play tennis.”
“You are mad. This is not the hour for sport, nor the occasion for it. The Court is agitated and God knows what will happen next.”
He shrugs. “As far as I can see, nothing is happening. And nothing will happen unless we press His Majesty. So I will play until the King is awake. Then those of us so deputized will present our petition.”
So nothing has changed. Perhaps I ought to argue with him further, but I have not the energy. My cousin is right, I am tired. Bone-tired. Not just from lack of sleep. I am tired of being worried when he is not.
While the King of Navarre finishes dressing Gillone wakes. “For God’s sake,” I tell her after my cousin and his valet take their leave, “bolt the door and go back to your rest. We will not stir until I am sought by some person of importance. Her Majesty eschewed my services last evening; she can do without them ce matin.” Sliding down between the covers, I close my eyes. My cousin is right: my bed does suit me better without him in it.