Courtesan (36 page)

“Damn him! Damn the boy!”

“He is young, Your Majesty. His head is easily turned. That too shall pass.”

“They have made a mockery of me in my own Court! He cannot undo that!” François began to pace back and forth in the small area near the fireplace; quick, heavy steps. “But I. . .I will have the last laugh, in the manner of your Marie! I will give him a new wife, to be sure. But he will not get his whore!”

“If I may venture a thought,” the Cardinal began carefully. “Having been witness myself to the depth of the Dauphin’s conviction here today, it is my firm belief that a second marriage would only serve to complicate the situation that has developed.”

François de Guise, from his post on the other side of the room, had heard the entire exchange. He turned his head sharply in the direction of the King as his uncle proceeded to undermine the foundation of the delicate plan that would see his sister, Marie, made Dauphine. He moved to speak but was stopped by the sight of his brother who, with one glance, rendered him still. They both waited and listened.

“So what would you have me do?” the King asked. “Sanction the trollop to marry my son after all?”

“On the contrary, Your Majesty. I would keep things precisely as they are. Give him time. She is a woman who has turned the head of a boy. It was not so long ago was it, my friend, for us to recall the artful and persuasive power of a mature courtesan?”

The King smiled a reminiscent smile. The Cardinal followed with his own chaste grin. As he smiled, the Cardinal de Lorraine could feel his nephews bristle from across the chasm of the vast salon. Charles pretended to play another round of cards with the King’s daughter, Marguerite, yet the older and wiser Cardinal knew that nothing had been lost on either of his ambitious nephews. But this was not a game. This was the honor of the family. He paced himself, knowing his thoughts and his words must be exact. He inhaled deeply. He let it out. Yes, timing was everything.

“But, your Marie. What of the match for her?”

“Well, Your Majesty, we certainly must put matters of our kingdom over our own personal ambitions. It also occurs to me that we are missing the greater issue in all of this. Perhaps there needs to be a stronger persuasion toward an interaction between the Dauphin and Dauphine. . .for the duty of perpetuation’s sake, of course. He certainly does not seem willing to fulfill his duties toward his wife without encouragement. That would seem to me a far more efficient means of getting an heir than that of replacing a wife. After all, he does not have to love her. He must only bed her. If such a thing were possible; a limited interaction between husband and wife, then your son would have his paramour, France would have its heir, and all would be satisfied.”

“Oh, I do absolutely agree. Perhaps you know that she is not my favorite among us, but Madame Diane is a wise woman,” grinned Anne d’Heilly, with a single knowing eyebrow raised. “I am confident that once he goes to her and tells her that there is no way for them to marry, she shall encourage him in the proper direction.”

“What makes you so certain?”

“Well, after all, when she realizes that the only alternative to the Dauphine is younger and more beautiful than she, there is little doubt that you shall have all of the assistance you require in getting an heir.”

The King looked at his mistress and then back at the Cardinal. “Of course you are right. Both of you,” he conceded. “All along I have been looking to unseat the poor unfortunate victim in this, when I should have gone to the source to rectify the problem.”

His Majesty had once again begun to tire from the excitement. He was still not himself. His eyelids began to droop over sleepy eyes, and he slumped in the large velvet chair. Anne stood.

“Perhaps a rest would be in order,
mon amour
?”

“I do not need a rest! I am not a child,” he scoffed.

“And if I join you?”

“Bribes! Always bribes, woman, to get what you want from me!”

“And such a lovely bribe it is,” said the Cardinal with a democratic smile.

“D
EAR
L
ORD,
U
NCLE.
Why the deuce did you do such a thing? With one word you have undone everything we have tried to do!”

The Cardinal de Lorraine walked along without shrinking from the accusation brought about by François, his eldest nephew. The three Guises walked in a line down the vaulted corridor that led away from the King’s apartments. The Cardinal established their even pace as he fingered the gold cross that rested at the center of his very thin chest.

“Do you play chess, my boy?” he asked François.

“No.”

“Well, perhaps you should learn.”

“You can speak to me of games after all our work? You have ruined it; ruined everything, and just when Marie was so close.”

“Nonsense. She was close only to alienating all of us. In chess you must look ahead, not just to the immediate move by which, at any given moment you are faced, but to your next move. . .and your next. His Majesty is ill, François. He will not live forever, and had you not allowed your ambition to rule your senses, you would recall that one day very soon, young Henri shall be King. Now, I ask both of you, can you truly imagine that we should propose our niece as an obstacle to the Dauphin; barring him further from the woman with whom at the moment he fancies himself madly in love? No, no, my boy! Diplomacy, like chess, is an art. No, the Guise shall render no barriers to that divorce!”

“But what about Marie? You as much as promised her this marriage.”

“Ah, not to worry! She will make just as splendid a Queen for Scotland as she would have made for France, or have you forgotten that the Scottish King is once again in search of a wife? Ah yes, I see that you have. Remember, my boy, not just the immediate move, but the next and the next! Meanwhile, in this complex game, we shall begin casting our support discreetly toward the Dauphin. Only in rather minor ways at first, of course, so as not to upset the delicate balance between the old regime and the new. The goddess of the moon may well teach us all a few things about that.”

This final comment made Charles, the second son of the house of Guise, the one who most closely understood his elder’s ambitions, stop in the corridor and look up in utter surprise.

“What does mythology have to do with any of this?”

A sage smile passed across the Cardinal’s face, his white beard glistening like snowflakes in the afternoon sun.

“You will remember, my boys, the goddess of the moon was Diana. You doubt me, I see. Never the matter, you will discover it for yourselves soon enough. Whatever you may believe now, listen well. There is a new moon rising, and when this Diana makes her ascent, and I fear it shall be soon, she will undoubtedly eclipse all with whom we now find favor. We must be very, very careful; very sure of ourselves. If we can accomplish these things, rest assured, as we have for a great many years, the mighty Guise shall remain favored by the highest house, no matter what the obstacles.”

“But you told His Majesty that you believed the Dauphin’s liaison with her to be a passing affair,” said the elder nephew.

“I told His Majesty what he wanted to hear. Remember, my boys, for the sake of the family, first diplomacy. Always diplomacy.”

I
T WAS HOT
and no one could recall it ever being so unbearable, even for August. The air was still, wet and unrelenting, and the flies were more numerous than the courtiers. Diane lay half naked on top of her bedcovers in a loose-fitting shift of white cambric cotton. There were two blue silk ties near her breasts. She touched one of them gently and lay her head back against the pillows.

“I cannot keep this child. How can I?”

She thought that she had whispered the words to herself, but with the sound of them, Hélène looked up from her place by the window, as though she had been roused from a nap. Diane smiled back at her. This had been an unbearably difficult pregnancy thus far, and now with the heat, she was not certain at all how she would manage the remaining three months.

She felt like a prisoner in her own body, just as she was a prisoner in the King’s Court. As her feet continued to swell and her belly grew, she felt less certain of risking public ventures. It took far too much energy and effort to keep up the pretense, and if it should fail, not only she but Henri too would be ruined. Gradually, she began to turn down invitations to play cards with the Cardinal’s niece, Marie de Guise, and she no longer attended even the King’s weekly banquet.

It is an impossible situation. It is not safe for a child of ours in this world, in this climate that is so against Henri; so against the two of us. It will be a bastard and I. . .even worse. What is between us is called criminal by nearly everyone. How can a child ever rise above that? And how unfair of me to ask it to try.

All of her life Diane had been honored and respected. She had been born to a noble family; wife to a great man. Her blood was royal, owing to a connection her family claimed to Louis XI. Yet, since she had come to Court, she had fought daily to retain that respect, which thanks to Anne d’Heilly’s mysterious disdain of her, little now survived. Her liaison with Henri, now widely known, threatened her standing further still. She had few friends at Court any longer. . .and many enemies. She knew that if she acknowledged this child, a child born of an adulterous affair with someone half her age, she would lose everything. She had seen it too many times to doubt it. She would be nothing more than a noble mistress. . .a courtesan.

But this child would face a worse fate than a loss of honor. He would be ridiculed. Maligned. The progeny of a scandal. Henri was not yet King. He did not have the power to protect his own child or his lover from that sort of scorn. Henri’s pride over his impending fatherhood prevented her from discussing the matter further with him. Each time they were together, he was brimming with plans and ideas for his child’s future. He said nearly every day that his greatest desire was to be a better father to his child than his own father had been to him. Diane had not been able to bring herself to destroy his happiness. Not yet. But she must consider it. Henri was required once again to return to the front. He would be at Court only a few days more. Plans must be made. Her future. The child’s future. . .their child. . .She ran a hand across her swollen belly. . .yes it was
their
child, no matter what became of it.

There was a knock at the outer door. Diane looked over and nodded to Hélène as she covered herself with a sheet. Hélène rose from her chair by the open window to answer it. Henri stood before her in a formal pose, one hand at his side cupping the handle of his sword, the other thrust behind his erect back. After a moment, he passed her and came into the room.

“Leave us,” he said.

When they were alone, he looked at Diane with distant, defeated eyes. “I cannot divorce her.”

He tossed his cape onto the floor and began to pace the sitting room of her apartments. Diane came from her bed and saw the rage inside of him; the bitter frustration.

“He will have me marry Marie de Guise if I reject Catherine. It is all a game to him. Damn him! And you know I will have no other wife if it cannot be you!”

Once he had said the words, Diane turned from him, pushing down the weight of her own private disappointment. She walked toward the window that faced the garden. There was a long silence between them before she said anything. When she spoke it was without turning around.

“I want you to bed with your wife,” she quietly said.

“I will not! That is an obscene suggestion when you know I can be with no one but you.”

“You can, and you must.”

Diane turned back around and leaned against the windowsill. Even across the room she could feel his surging power, the power he possessed over her. The firmly chiseled face. The muscled arms. It was difficult for her to look at him and not be weakened.

“How can you ask such a thing when I am sickened by the very thought?”

He moved swiftly toward her, wrapping her in his arms to assure her. She let him hold her for only a moment and then broke from his grasp. “But, I adore you,
M’amie.
I live for you. . .only for you!” he uttered with pleading clouded eyes.

She was resolute.

“You are Dauphin now,” she said. “You have a responsibility to France to beget an heir.”

“What of my responsibility to you?! To our child?”

“Chéri,”
she said, reaching out to touch his bearded face. “Catherine is your wife. Pretending she does not exist will not rid you of your duty to her.”

Henri did not listen. He clutched at her with an open, raw desire, as though forcing her now could somehow make the duty to that Italian stranger disappear. Catherine was the enemy, but it was Diane who felt his rage. When he kissed her, it was with rough thrusts, pushing his tongue inside her mouth, biting at her lips. She tried to pull away, but he clutched her more tightly, branding her mouth and neck with angry, tortured kisses. He was not gentle. His urgent passion had already overcome him. Bound by his arms, with his heart pounding against her tender breasts, her own desire began slowly to surge up. She surrendered, and molded to him. After a moment, he scooped her into his arms and carried her to the open bed. They fell together onto the white linen, joined by their arms and Henri’s furious kisses. He raised her silky shift and tore away his stockings.

“It is so unfair. . .” he muttered, still kissing her. “I worship only you. . .only you!
Tu es ma vie, m’amie. . .toute ma vie
. . .” He kissed her throat and bit the soft fleshy skin of her breasts as he whispered the words and the despair into her soft shining hair.

“God help me, somehow, no matter what it takes, someday I shall make you my Queen!”

T
HEY LAY IN SILENCE
on the rumpled sheets, the rest of the bedding tossed to the floor. The room was completely dark but a cool breeze blew across their wet bodies from an open window near the bed. The distant sounds of the banquet below washed across them. They were naked now. Flesh against flesh. Henri was curled up beside her, his thigh wrapped over hers, his head resting on her breast, his hand tenderly stroking her round belly.