“You warned me not to retire. The time for warnings is past. I do not ask you to tell me everything you knew or when. I beg you to divulge only one thing: What plans were made for my husband and where should I search for him?”
My sister starts to cry. I have a mind to shake her, but there is no need. The Queen Consort says, “I do not know what was or is planned for the King of Navarre, but he is in Charles’ apartment.”
I do not even pause to thank her. Pushing past Claude, I slide the bolt, drag the door open, and plunge back into danger.
I pray under my breath every step of the way to Charles’ apartment. Pray as I watch men fall under the swords of others. Pray as I see a servingwoman dragged off screaming by men whose eager eyes recall the look I faced when Guast attacked me. Pray as I trip over something that turns out to be a severed arm. Once I leave the more public areas of the palace, I pray for two things: admittance to Charles’ rooms, and that I will find my cousin there alive. I cannot say why the last seems with every step more important, but it does.
Restraining both my fear and my urgency, I rap softly at the private door. It cracks and I see the Baron de Retz.
“Your Majesty?” He seems both confused and concerned.
“Let me in.”
The confusion grows.
“I was told to let no one pass.”
“I am no danger to the King, as you well know. But left out here, I myself am in peril. Will you tell my brother you denied me if I am found injured or worse?”
I have him. He lets me pass into Charles’ wardrobe. I have the distinct sense that I will have trouble going further.
“Sir, the Queen Consort and my sister the Duchesse de Lorraine are in that lady’s apartment. They are unguarded. I fear for them.” I do not need to feign terror, for after the sights I have seen, I remain terrified. “If I swear on my honor to fasten the door and let none enter, will you go and find some members of the King’s guard to assign to their protection?”
He eyes me for a moment. What he sees is hardly threatening: a woman barely dressed, streaked with blood, armed with nothing but a dagger. I offer him this last item deliberately. He shakes his head no, unwilling to insult me by that level of distrust. “I will go.”
As soon as the door is secure, I move to Charles’ bedchamber. It is deserted save for his old nurse, who stands close to a crack in the door to the outer chamber. At the sound of my footfalls, she turns, her face white as death. Well, it might be, for like my cousin she is of the so-called reformed religion.
“Is the King of Navarre within?” I ask in a hushed voice.
“He is. Do you come for him?”
I nod.
“God be praised.”
I touch her arm to reassure her as I move past.
“Go cautiously,” she whispers. “The Queen Mother is with them.”
Heaven help my husband. I swing open the door and there he stands, leaning heavily on the back of a chair. He appears uninjured, but his clothing suggests a struggle. The eyes, which find mine, are quite wild—or so I think, until I gaze into Charles’. My brother, pacing before my cousin, turns to look at me as if he is not quite certain who I am. His face shows that familiar but disturbing mix of lividity and petulance that marks his rages. Is his current mania spent? As I contemplate the question, a throat is cleared. Mother, seated with appearance of tranquillity, seeks my notice. Her eyes are eerily calm.
I walk directly up to the King of Navarre and do something I never expected to do in my life: kiss him on the mouth. “Husband, thank God you are safe.”
My cousin looks at me as if to say, Am I?
I see the same question in Charles’ eyes. This is not heartening.
“Your Majesty”—I leave my cousin and embrace my brother—“I am also profoundly grateful to find you unharmed. Though it be the Lord’s day, the halls are filled with evil; there is violence and death everywhere.”
“Good Catholics need have no fear,” Mother says, “though I suppose a few may fall doing the Lord’s work, and the King’s.”
Taking the hands that Charles worries before him, I ask gently, “Is this your work, brother? I do not believe it. I thought you were the king who struck medals for my wedding to celebrate the peace.”
“I wanted peace, Margot”—he squeezes my hands—“but they would not let me have it!”
He does not say who “they” are. Perhaps the Protestants’ boldness these last days made them seem dangerous to Charles, as I warned my cousin it might. Or perhaps my brother means someone else entirely. Or perhaps he has gone mad. The last thought makes me cold.
As I watch, his expression moves from sad to seething. “If I am not to have my dear père, then I want none of them. If I am not to have peace between my Catholics and Protestants, then only Catholics shall remain!”
Holy Mary.
“What has become of the admiral?”
Charles pulls away but does not answer.
“His Majesty and I have just seen his head,” Mother says.
My stomach lurches, and I see my cousin wince at the casual way in which Her Majesty references the dismemberment of the great man.