“I will find Charlotte.”
I am moving through the halls with a lighter step than in many days when I hear it—a wild, croaking cry, then another. They ring in such a way as to suggest they come from the courtyard. My blood runs cold. Rushing to the nearest window, I peer out. An enormous crow sits on the cobblestones below. Raising his head, he meets my eyes, then sounds again. Birds begin to fall from the sky—no, not fall, plunge—down into the courtyard with a great flapping of wings. I stand transfixed. Soon there are too many to count, yet more arrive. Unlike the first bird who drew me to the window, these are silent, eerily so. When there is no more room on the ground, birds perch on outcroppings in the architecture. One lands on the ledge outside the window where I stand. It tilts its head and considers me with its beady black eyes. I open my mouth to say I know not what, and he opens his black beak, issuing something very like a scream. His cry is but a beginning. The moment he makes it, his fellows join him in a concert of shrieking, groaning, and howling.
I have the wild thought that these are the souls of my husband’s men come back to the scene of their murders. I want to run but I cannot move—cannot turn away or even raise my hands to cover my ears. I am aware of movement around me. People stream to the windows as they did on the day Pilles brought his four hundred. Within moments the cries of the crows are joined by the wailing of ladies. I feel a hand on my shoulder. Someone leans forward until his lips nearly touch my ear. “‘And shall not God avenge His elect, which cry to Him day and night?’” The voice is my husband’s.
I begin to tremble, for I believe I hear the cries of the dead, and I am certain God must. My cousin, moving beside me, puts his arm about me and pulls me close against his side. There is a great commotion. The King arrives with Mother at his elbow.
“You see,” she says as Charles looks down upon the cloud of screeching birds. “They are only crows. There was no need to send your guard into the streets.”
So Charles too mistook the cries for human.
The King looks at my husband. “Make them stop!” His shrieking sounds very much like the birds’.
“Your Majesty, if I could, I would, for they frighten my wife. But the birds of the sky are no more my subjects than yours.”
“It is an omen.” Anjou sidles up to the King. “I told you it was a mistake to leave any alive.”
The Duc de Guise, standing just behind my brother, nods.
“Henri,” I say, “I have heard and seen enough.”
It takes my cousin a moment to realize I speak to him—takes him far longer to react than it takes Guise. At the sound of his shared Christian name applied to his hated rival, the Duc blanches and his hand twitches across the pommel of his sword. He casts my husband a look of pure hatred.
As my cousin turns me from the scene, his arm still about me, I realize I have made a misstep. Much as I wanted to pain Guise, I ought not to have left him so long with the false impression that I have been intimate with my husband. The thought clearly feeds Guise’s hatred, making him more dangerous. As we move through the crowd, I spot Charlotte, whom I sought in the first instance. I mouth the words “Henriette” and “Come.”
Despite the distance, I can still hear the birds in my apartment. The others must be able to as well, but, like me, they studiously avoid remarking on the fact. We three ladies draw together and put our arms around one another—a unit as we have not been since the violence began. Then Henriette notices that Charlotte and I are crying.
“Come, my beloveds, there have been enough tears already. Where we three are together there ought to be smiles, or at very least schemes.”
“The latter is what I had in mind,” I reply. “Charlotte, you and the King of Navarre have been too long apart.”
My friend, who had been drying her tears, begins to weep again. “I fear we will be parted more permanently. Her Majesty declares I am no longer to see him.”
She has forgotten that my cousin never knew of the Queen’s sanction. I cannot see his face from where I stand, but Charlotte can. Whatever she sees brings horror to her eyes. She covers her face with her hands and sobs. The King of Navarre turns his back on my friend.
“The time has come for truth,” I say, putting a hand on his shoulder. “At least between the four of us. If we can be honest with each other, then we shall have a great advantage over those others who go about the Court.” I take a deep breath. “The Baronne was set upon you by my mother, just as I married you by her will. But what does that signify?”