Catherine lifted the little boy in her arms. That was enough. Perhaps now he would not be so foolish. Perhaps he would think of the torture chambers every time Mary Stuart flashed those bright eyes of hers his way.
‘Charles, Charles, my dearest son. My dear, dear boy, your mother is here to protect you. She would let no harm come to you. You are her Prince, her son. You know that.’
He buried his head against her. ‘Yes, Maman. Yes, Maman.’
His hand curled round the stuff of her sleeve as a baby’s curls, tightly, for protection.
‘There, my little one,’ she soothed. ‘Nothing shall happen to you, for you are my little Prince, and I shall be proud of you. You would never be a traitor to your brother, would you? You would never be so wicked as to desire another man’s wife – and he your own brother!’
‘No, Maman, no!’ He was shivering now. She had averted the fit. That was the way she preferred to do it. It was not pleasant to see him lose his reason.
She soothed him; she laid her cool hand on his forehead; she made him lie on her bed, and she sat beside it holding his hand.
‘Have no fear, my son,’ she said. ‘Do what your mother tells you, and she will see that no harm comes to you.’
‘Yes, Maman; I will.’
‘Always remember that, Charles.’
He nodded while Catherine wiped the beads of sweat off his forehead. She sat beside him until he was calm.
She was thinking what a difficult task lay before her. She must dupe the arrogant Guises and the vacillating Bourbons; but she must not neglect to guide her children’s footsteps in the way they must go. She could not guess which task would be the more arduous – the fooling of the rival houses or the controlling of her Valois brood.
Francis was preparing for a day’s hunting. He was feeling wretchedly ill, but he was happy. He enjoyed hunting when Mary was to be of the party, for whenever Mary was with him he was happy. He never tired of looking at her, of telling her how beautiful she was; and that made them both very happy.
He wished he could escape from his mother and the Cardinal and be alone with Mary all the time. He wished that his father – his dearly beloved father – was alive. He would like to kill the man who had killed his father. He, Francis, did not want to be King; he had been so much happier when he was Dauphin. Then there had been little to do but dance and play and be with Mary. Now that he was King, he was never free from the attentions of his mother and the Cardinal.
He was afraid of his mother; he was afraid of the Cardinal. They were both, he knew, so much cleverer than he would ever be. He had to obey them both, and as they did not always wish him to do the same thing, that was very difficult. The Cardinal sneered openly at him, saying those clever, cutting things which hurt more deeply than Francis would admit. He would have liked to have banished the Cardinal, but Mary called him her darling uncle; and the Cardinal was always thinking of things which would please Mary; he could not banish one of Mary’s uncles.
As for his mother, he would have liked to tell her to do everything she pleased, for he was sure she knew much more about governing France than he did. But always at his elbow was the Cardinal, with his thin, beautifully formed features and his cruel mouth letting fall those unkind words.
The Cardinal came in unceremoniously, even as he was dressing himself for the hunt, and with an imperious gesture dismissed the King’s attendants. Francis would have liked to protest, but if he did so he would stammer and stutter, and the Cardinal had already mocked stammerers and stutterers, so that Francis was almost afraid to speak in his presence.
‘We leave in half an hour, Sire,’ said the Cardinal.
Francis said: ‘I do not know if the Queen will be ready.’
‘The Queen must be ready,’ said the Cardinal testily.
‘There … there is plenty of time,’ stammered Francis. ‘The Prince of Bourbon shall be met half an hour’s ride from the palace.’
‘Nay, Sire, we shall not meet the Bourbon, hunting to-day.’
‘Not … But … But he is on his way. I … I had heard that he was.’
The Cardinal of Lorraine studied his long white fingers. ‘Sire, the Bourbon rides this way. He comes with a humble following because he has some notion that he is important to the King of Spain and it is well that the spies of that monarch should not know of his movements. Therefore he rides to court like a poor gentleman.’
Francis did not laugh. He hated to hear people ridiculed, and Antoine de Bourbon was of higher rank than the Cardinal. He hated the sly, handsome face of the Cardinal; he hated the drawling voice.
‘Then we must meet him if he rides this way,’ he said.
‘Why so, Sire?’
‘Why? Because it is courteous. More than that, it is our custom. Do we not always meet those who come to visit us … out hunting … as if by accident?’
‘If the visitor is important, yes.’
‘But this is the Prince of Bourbon.’
‘Nevertheless, he must learn that he is of no account.’
‘I cannot do this, Monsieur le Cardinal. I will not be guilty of such ill manners towards my kinsman.’
The Cardinal sat smiling at his long white hands until Mary joined them. She was flushed and laughing; the young King was enchanted afresh by the beauty of his wife.
‘You are ready, my love?’ she asked. ‘Why do we wait?’
Francis hurried to her and kissed her hands. ‘We but waited for you.’
‘Alas, dear niece,’ said the Cardinal, ‘you will not ride the way you chose. The King has given orders that we must ride south to greet the Bourbon.’
Mary looked from her husband to her uncle. She took her cue from the Cardinal as always.
‘Oh, Francis, but I did not want to go south. I had made other plans. There is something I wished to show you on the north road.’ She grimaced charmingly. ‘And the Bourbon! He wears earrings. He is a fop and a fool, and he tires me so. Francis, please, let us pretend we have missed him. Let us ride the other way. Yes, Francis … darling … to please me.’
Francis murmured: ‘We will go where you lead us, my love, my darling.’
And the Cardinal looked on, smiling benignly at his beautiful niece and her little King.
Antoine was only a few miles from the Palace of Saint-Germain. He was thinking of the new status which was his since the death of King Henry. He was a Prince of the Blood Royal, and young Francis was only sixteen. In such cases it was necessary to have a strong and influential Privy Council, and naturally he, on account of his rank, should have high office in it.
He thought pleasantly of what he would do for the persecuted Protestants for whom he and his brother felt such sympathy. He felt proud, contemplating that all over the country Protestants would look to him as their leader; they would rejoice when they heard that he was at court. He could almost hear their cries: ‘Vive le Bourbon! Let us make him our leader. All our hopes rest in him!’
He had talked of this with Jeanne before he had left home, for his wife was fast growing in sympathy with the Reformed Faith; she would soon come out into the open. It was not that she was afraid to announce her belief; she did not fear the enmity of the Guises and Philip of Spain; it was the honour which she felt was due to her father that prevented her from making her feelings known just yet.
Oh, Jeanne, he thought, how I love you! How I admire you, my darling! You are more than a woman … more than a wife. I am even glad of the profligate life I led before I met you, because my dealings with those light women whom I knew at that time have taught me to appreciate you more.