I wait, my mind wandering nowhere, numb.
When the door opens next, Mother is not alone. A member of the Swiss Guard, his uniform streaked with grime and blood, pushes Armagnac before him.
“Sir, are you unharmed?” The question sounds absurd. It is absurd.
“Your Majesty, yes.”
Mother nods sharply. The guard shoves Armagnac forward so that he stumbles into my arms. “We leave within the hour.”
I close my arm protectively about my husband’s valet, pulling his head onto my shoulder. “Get out.”
The guard obeys at once, but Mother lingers.
“Is Navarre here?”
“Yes.”
“I wonder how long he will be content to live as a prisoner.”
“He has not yet decided for Vincennes.”
She laughs. “There are all kinds of prisons, daughter. Even should he return to the Church, he will not be at liberty. Nor, thanks to your show of disobedience, will you. Today’s outing will be your last for some time.”
“Madame, do you expect confinement in the Louvre to be a hardship to me? How so when I have never been free? My whole life has been directed by your will, my brother’s whims, and even by chance pieces of gossip—everything but my wishes. I have no wings for you to clip.”
As she departs I feel Armagnac’s shoulders shake as he begins to weep on my shoulder.
*
Just reaching my horse is horror enough. The halls of the Louvre have been cleared of the dead, but random garments and weapons left behind, along with the quiet that pervades spaces usually overflowing with people, are reminders of what has passed. As I emerge into the courtyard I am confronted by a figure sprawled where he fell, doubtless one of those unfortunate souls who threw himself from a window yesterday in a desperate bid for escape. I cannot see his face and that is just as well, because all the sadness I feel must be swallowed. Mother is watching. May I be damned if she sees me break.
A large party has assembled. Among them, just next to my mount, is Henriette. Looking past her, I see Henri. He gazes at me with a mixture of triumph and concern. Behind him a pile of bodies, some with pikes still in them, stands in the blistering sunlight as if it was composed of something more benign, like hay for the horses. Meeting the Duc’s eyes, I spit, then climb into my saddle.
“What was that?” Henriette asks under her breath, but I merely shake my head.
As we form up to pass through the gates, I spot Charles at our head with a pair of priests. We move into the road in a tight pack. We could not pass otherwise. The Rue Saint-Honoré is a broad thoroughfare, but it is greatly constricted by bodies, many of them, after so many hours, stripped naked. Yet pickpockets and scavengers have not given up hope of finding something of value. They look up at the sound of our horses’ hooves, and scurry off like rats at the sight of the Swiss Guard.
A small child in his nightshift lies at the side of the road just ahead. His hand is within a hair’s breadth of a woman’s, doubtless his mother, who was equally unable to save him or to retain his hand in death. I cannot take my eyes off those hands. As we pass, my head turns over my shoulder to see the pair of them. The effort of holding back my tears is physically painful. My chest burns. My stomach is hollow. I glance at Henriette but she looks straight ahead.
What monsters we are.
I try to keep my eyes from returning to the road, looking at the back of the King’s head, at the cloudless sky, at anything but the fallen—anything but the fallen or the large ceremonial cross carried by one of the priests. God has no place in this moment. Of this I am certain.
Guise pulls his horse alongside Henriette’s. “I suppose we ought to have thought of the stench and thrown more of them in the river. By tomorrow the odor will be unbearable.”
Anjou, riding just in front of me, laughs and turns back over his shoulder. “I have it on good authority that near the Pont aux Meuniers the river could hold no more bodies. One could traverse from bank to bank upon them without wetting one’s feet. But never fear, Guise, we shall send soldiers to clear what the thieves and the grieving relatives do not. And only think how much better Paris will smell this fall with cooler weather and fewer heretics to pollute it.”
The Duc smiles. I never thought to see Henri reduced to my brother’s level. Their conduct always distinguished them one from the other—with all of the good on Henri’s side—as did their antagonism. Yet here they are, joking together, and over what? The deaths of innocents.
“And how will you remove the stench from your persons?” My voice is low; I have not enough breath to speak more loudly and not enough self-control to stop shouting if I start. “No amount of the perfumes you favor, brother, will banish the scent of death from you. It will cling to you until you are a corpse yourself.”
“Spoken like a woman whose husband smells of dogs and garlic,” Anjou replies.