I can imagine my brother’s curses at such a turn of events. Mother draws herself up fully in her chair.
“But we have broken their momentum,” the messenger adds quickly. “There are not enough of them to carry the day, and surely the next report to Your Majesty will say the Protestants are on the run.”
“That is the news we want, and woe betide the man who brings me other tidings.”
I wonder if the soldier is thinking that he would rather die fighting than bring the next dispatch; that would certainly be my thought were I in his boots.
“With Your Majesty’s leave, I will return to the field.”
Mother nods curtly. The youth flees. As the door closes, Her Majesty stands, pacing to the same window that, just a short while ago, she made me leave. “God’s blood!” she says, striking the sill, “was it too much to ask His Majesty’s huge army to destroy twenty-five hundred men? I might kill so many myself, because I have the spleen for it. The constable did not.”
“Will Your Majesty go to see him?” the Duchesse d’Uzès asks.
“No. Excuses from a dying man are no more palatable than those from one who will live awhile longer.” Turning, Mother sits back down behind her desk and sighs. “But, as I am a Christian, I will send a note saying I am grieved by his injury and pray he will recover.”
“Anjou has the spleen for fighting,” I say.
Mother lays down the pen she has just taken up. I tense, ready to be told my opinion is unwanted. Instead she smiles. “Henri has all my best parts, and I shall see he has the opportunity to use them against the King’s enemies from this moment on.”
At dusk Anjou arrives, sweaty and angry.
“Men, animals, time—all lost,” he says after briefly stooping to kiss Mother. “And for what?” Pouring himself a glass of wine, Anjou flops into a chair, heedless of the grime he imparts. “It will horrify you, I am sure, but I must report that our positions at darkness are changed insignificantly from what they were at first light—by a matter of yards, not miles.” Throwing back the entire content of his glass, he wipes his mouth with the back of his hand. “I rode into the city with Charles.”
“Where is the King?” Mother asks.
“Down in the courtyard, kicking a groom.”
So Charles has surrendered to his black temper as a result of this reverse. I shudder at the thought of such a mood, which may linger for days and punish many more than the hapless groom.
“Have you word of the constable’s condition?” Henri asks, kicking some mud off his boot onto the carpet.
“When he is dead, word will come from the Rue Sante Avoie,” Mother replies with no discernible emotion. “And whatever you think of his conduct today, you will show appropriate respect at his passing. After all, it does no harm for he who comes next to praise he who went before where that predecessor is dead and no threat.”
“Meaning?”
“Your brother will be naming you lieutenant general.”
A broad smile illuminates Henri’s face.
“And I will give the Duc de Guise a command under my brother.” Charles stands in the doorway. Unlike Anjou’s, his attire is pristine save for the toe of his right boot, where I distinctly detect traces of blood. I see also that the knuckles of his right hand are split and bleeding, though he appears entirely unconscious of the fact. “Guise fought splendidly, something which, sadly, distinguishes him from many. We may have God on our side, but Condé and Coligny have braver men.”
I am sure he does not mean—cannot mean—to disparage our brother. But Anjou’s smile fades.
Charles, having moved into the room, looks down at one of Mother’s dogs curled up by the leg of her worktable, and I have the horrible presentiment he will kick it. Mother must think the same, for she says, “Your Majesty, if you need to kick something, pray limit yourself to furniture. I will not take kindly to violence against my animals.”
“I do not need to kick something. I need to kill something.”
“You did not kill the groom, then?” Mother asks.
“I do not believe so. Perhaps I should go and finish him.”
“Do as you like.” Mother’s reply would horrify many but not me. She knows Charles and so do I—where he is opposed, there he will surely go. If he returns to the courtyard and kills the boy now, it will be in spite of Her Majesty’s response, not because of it. The King remains where he stands and I begin to relax. And then, with a perversity I cannot understand, Anjou draws his dagger and offers it to Charles.