‘You flatter me, Cardinal.’
‘Nothing, dear Madame, was farther from my mind.’
‘Then I will not flatter you, dear Cardinal. I will only say that the whole of France should take as an example the piety and virtue of such a man of God.’
She turned to greet another. She was thinking: One of these days that lecher shall take a goblet of wine, shall eat of roast peacock, or perhaps finger some beautiful jewel – and then, no more of Monsieur le Cardinal!
But what was the use of thinking thus? She must continually guard against her impulse to destroy these notable people. Francis of Guise was dead – let that suffice for the moment – for who knew what the result of his death would be?
If a member of the Flying Squadron became impertinent, if a minor statesman became intransigent, then the procedure was simple; but with these prominent men and women it was always necessary to work in secret, to approach the object by devious roads, along which it was imperative to leave no traces. She would have to postpone dealing with the Cardinal.
Coligny was approaching. Ah, there was a man who was as easy to read as a book. Now he was looking stern, and his cold features said quite clearly: It is no wish of mine to be here. I have no desire for the friendship of the Catholic Guises. I was commanded to come. I gave my word that I would come; so come I did.
‘Well met, Admiral,’ said Catherine. ‘It pleases me to see you here.’
‘I but obeyed your command, Madame.’
Catherine tried to infuse into her expression that deep sincerity which had been the object of the Cardinal’s jibe. But Coligny, that straightforward, honest man, was not the wily Cardinal. If the Queen Mother appeared sincere to him, Coligny would not doubt that she was so.
‘Forgive a weak woman’s desire for peace in her realm, dear Admiral.’
He bowed. ‘I have no desire at any time but to carry out your Majesty’s wishes.’
He passed on, and Catherine looked about her; she did not see the Duke of Aumale among the assembly, although she had commanded his presence.
She called to the Duchess of Guise: ‘Madame, I do not see your brother Aumale here.’
‘No, Madame. He is not here.’
‘Why not?’
‘Madame, he suffers from a fever.’
Catherine’s eyes narrowed. ‘A fever of pride!’ she said angrily. She beckoned young Henry of Guise to her side. How attractive he was! And how handsome! And what a man he would be one day!
‘I am grieved not to see your uncle Aumale,’ she said.
‘I am sorry that your Majesty should be grieved.’
‘A fever?’ she said.
‘Madame, you sent no express command to him.’
‘I said I wished your family to be present.’
‘Madame, he thought that, as your Majesty wished our family to be represented, you would only need myself and my uncle, the Cardinal.’
‘I wished Aumale to be here,’ said Catherine haughtily. ‘It is no good excuse to plead a fever.’
‘Madame,’ said the boy, ‘it is not pleasant for members of my family to show friendship to their enemies.’
‘Have a care, boy,’ she said. ‘I’ll have you thrashed if you give yourself airs. You are not yet a man, you know. A short while ago you were in the nursery. It would be well for you to remember that.’
Many watching eyes noticed the sudden heightened colour of the young Duke.
‘My dear Duke,’ continued Catherine more gently, ‘it would be well for you to remember your youth and the need for obedience.’
Henry bowed formally and left the Queen Mother.
It would not be a good policy, Catherine realised, to have the Colignys and the Guises sitting near each other at table; she had taken the precaution of ensuring that they were separated by other guests. And when the feast was over, Catherine rose to address the assembly:
‘Lords and ladies, you know that I have asked you here for a purpose this day, and my purpose is to put an end to evil rumour; for rumour is a foolish thing and when it is without truth it is an evil thing indeed. We mourn the untimely death of our dearly beloved Duke Francis of Guise, our greatest soldier, slain by the hand of a cowardly assassin. That in itself was a foul deed, and we offer to the bereaved family our sincerest condolence while we mourn with them for one we loved as our own brother. But the rumours which have circulated since his death have been as evil as that bloody deed, and there is one man among us here – one of our finest men, a man whom we all honour and revere – who has been accused of complicity in the murder of the Duke.
‘Lords and ladies, these rumours are evil. They are proved to be slanders. The assassin has confessed them to be lies; and for that reason I have brought together here my greatly respected Admiral of France and the one who has perhaps suffered more than any of us from this horrible deed. I mean, of course, Duke Francis’s son, Duke Henry of Guise, who is now the head of his house and who will, I know, bring it honour and glory as his father did before him. Admiral Gaspard de Coligny and Henry Duke of Guise, come forth.’
They stepped forward slowly towards the Queen Mother: the Admiral pale-faced, his mouth sternly set, the Duke with the rich colour in his face and his head held high.
Catherine stood between them. ‘Give me your hand, Admiral,’ she said. ‘And yours, my lord Duke.’
She placed their two right hands together. Henry’s was limp in that of the Admiral; his left hand rested on his sword.
There was silence while the two enemies faced each other and made it quite obvious to all that they had no liking for what the Queen Mother was pleased to consider a reconciliation. But Catherine had little understanding of others. Had she been in Coligny’s place, she would have made a great show of embracing Henry of Guise, hoping thereby to assure the spectators of her wish for friendship. If she had been Henry of Guise, she would have accepted Coligny’s embrace while she made her plans to destroy him. Catherine’s greatest weakness was her lack of understanding of others.
‘I would have you show us that you are friends, and that all enmity is forgotten in the kiss of peace,’ she said.
Coligny leaned forward to kiss Henry on the cheek, but the young Duke stood up straight and said, so clearly that all in the room might hear it: ‘Madame, I could not kiss a man whose name has been mentioned in connection with the tragic death of my father.’
Catherine would have liked to slap that arrogant young face, and to call to the guards to have him taken down to one of the dungeons where his proud spirit might be broken. But she smiled pathetically as though to say: ‘Ah, the arrogance of youth!’
She patted him on the shoulder and said something about his recent loss, and that he had shaken hands, which they would all accept as sufficient proof of his friendly feelings towards the Admiral.
There were murmurings throughout the hall. The ceremony had become a farce. Catherine knew it, but she would not admit it; and, looking at the tall, proud figure and the flushed face of that arrogant boy, she knew that as soon as Francis of Guise had been laid in his grave, there was another, made in his own shape, to take his place, to torment her, to give her cause for anxiety in the years to come.
That murmuring in the hall, Catherine knew, meant approval. It meant: ‘The Duke is dead. Long live the Duke!’
The King of France was happy; never in the whole of his life had he been so happy. He was in love, and his love was returned.
He had met Marie on one of his journeys through his realm. She was as young as he was, and as shy. She had not realised when she had first met him that he was the King of France; and that was what was so enchanting about the affair. She loved him, not his rank; and for the first time in his life the one he loved loved him.