“You must do as my uncle says, François,” insisted Mary. “He knows. He is wise and you must do as he says.”
François nodded. It must be right; Mary said so; and, in any case, he wished to please Mary whatever happened. He hoped he would remember what to say.
“‘We are anxious to solace your old age…’”
He repeated the words until he was sure he knew them by heart.
MARY KNEW that the carefree days were over. Sometimes, at night, she and François would lie in each other’s arms and talk of their fears.
“I feel as though I am a ball, thrown this way and that,” whispered the King. “All these people who profess to love me do not love me at all. Mary, I am afraid of the Cardinal.”
Mary was loyal, but she too, during the last weeks, had been conscious of a fear of the Cardinal. Yet she would not admit this. She had been too long in his care, too constantly assured of his love and devotion.
“It is because he is so clever,” she said quickly. “His one thought is to serve you and make everything right for us both.”
“Mary, sometimes I think they all hate each other—your uncles, my mother, the King of Navarre…. I think they all are waiting to tear me into pieces and that none of them loves me. I am nothing but a symbol.”
“The Cardinal and the Duke love us both. They love me because I am their niece and you because you are their nephew.”
“They love us because we are King and Queen,” asserted the King soberly. “My mother loves me because I am the King; she loves Charles because, if I die, he will be King; she loves Elisabeth because she is Queen of Spain. Claude she loves scarcely at all, because she is only the wife of the Duke of Lorraine. Margot and Hercule she does not love as yet. They are like wine set aside to mature. Perhaps they may be very good when their time comes, and perhaps no good at all. She will wait until she knows which, before she decides whether or not she loves them.”
“She loves your brother Henri very much,” Mary reminded him. “Yet he could not be King unless you and Charles both die and leave no sons behind you.”
“Everybody—even my mother—must do something sometimes without a reason. So she loves my brother Henri. Mary, how I wish we could go back to Villers-Cotterets and live quietly there. How I wish my father had never died and that we were not King and Queen. Is that a strange wish? So many would give everything they have in order to wear the crown, and I… who have it, would give away all I have—except you—if, by so doing, I could bring my father back.”
“It is your grief, François, that makes you say that. Papa’s death was too sudden.”
“It would be the same if I had known for years that he was going to die. Mary, we are but children, and King and Queen of France. Perhaps if my father had lived another ten or twenty years we should have been wiser… perhaps then we should not have been so frightened. Then I should have snapped my fingers at the Cardinal. I should have said: ‘I wish to greet my uncle, the King of Navarre, as befits his rank. I will take no orders from you, Monsieur le Cardinal. Have a care, sir, or you may find yourself spending the rest of your days in an oubliette in the Conciergerie!’ Oh, Mary, how easy it is to say it now. But when I think of saying it to him face-to-face I tremble. I wish he were not your uncle, Mary. I wish you did not love him so.”
“I wish I did not.” The words had escaped her before she realized she was saying them.
There were items of news which seeped through to her. The persecutions of the Huguenots had not ceased with the death of Henri, but rather had increased. The Cardinal had sworn to the Dukes of Alva and Savoy on the death of Henri that he would purge France of Protestants, not because the religious controversy was of such great importance to him but because he wished to be sure of the support of Philip of Spain for the house of Guise against that of Bourbon. He was eager now to show Philip that he would honor his vow.
This persecution could not be kept from the young King and Queen. The Huguenots were in revolt; there was perpetual murmuring throughout the Court. Never had the prisons been so full. The Cardinal was determined to show the King of Spain that never would that monarch find such allies in France as the Guises.
There was something else which Mary had begun to discover. This uncle who had been so dear to her, who had excited her with his strange affection, who had taught her her duty, who had molded her to his will, was hated—not only by her husband, but by many of the people beyond the Court.
Anagrams were made on the name of Charles de Lorraine throughout the country as well as in the Court. “Hardi larron se cèle,” was murmured by daring men as the Cardinal passed. “Renard lasche le roi!” cried the people in the streets.
Prophecies were rife. “He will not live long, this Cardinal of Lorraine,” said the people. “One day he will tread that path down which he has sent so many.”
Great men, Mary might have told herself, often face great dangers. Yet she could not fail to know that beneath those scarlet robes was a padded suit, a precaution against an assassins dagger or bullet. Moreover the Cardinal had, in a panic, ordered that cloaks should no longer be “worn wide,” and that the big boots in which daggers could be concealed should be considerably reduced so that they could accommodate nothing but the owners feet. Every time Mary noticed the new fashions she was reminded that they had been dictated by a man who dispensed death generously to others while he greatly feared it for himself. It was said that the Guises went in fear of their lives but, while the Duke snapped his fingers at his enemies, the Cardinal was terrified of his.
He is a coward, decided Mary with a shock.
The fabric of romance which she had built up as a child in Scotland and which had been strengthened by her first years in France was beginning to split.
She was vaguely aware of this as she held the boy King tightly in her arms. They were together—two children, the two most important children in France, and they were two desolate lonely ones. On either side of them stood those powerful Princes, the Guises and the Bourbons; and the Valois, represented by Catherine the Queen-Mother, Mary feared more than either Guise or Bourbon.
THE COURT was moving south on its journey toward the borders of France and Spain. With it went the little bride of Philip of Spain, making her last journey through her native land. At each stage of the journey she seemed to grow a little more fearful, a little more wan. Mary, to whom she confided her fears, suffered with her in her deep sympathy.
Francois’s health had taken a turn for the worse. Abscesses had begun to form inside his ear, and as soon as one was dispersed another would appear. Ambrose Paré, who was considered the cleverest doctor in the world, was kept in close attendance.
Mary herself suffered periodic fits of illness, but they passed and left her well again. Her radiant health was gone, but if her beauty had become more fragile it was as pronounced as ever. There was still in her that which the Cardinal had called “promise”; there was still the hint of a passionate depth yet to be plumbed, and this was more appealing than the most radiant beauty, it seemed, for in spite of her impaired health, Mary continued to be the most attractive lady of the Court.
They had traveled down to Chenonceaux, that most beautiful of all French châteaux, built in a valley and seeming to float on the water, protected by alder trees. The river flowing beneath it—for it was built on a bridge—acted as a defensive moat. It had always been a beautiful castle, but Diane had loved it and had employed all the foremost artists in France to add to its beauty. Henri had given it to her although Catherine had greatly desired it; and the Queen-Mother had never forgiven this slight. One of her first acts, on the death of her husband, was to demand the return of Chenonceaux. In exchange, she had been delighted to offer Diane the Château de Chaumont, which Catherine considered to have a spell on it, for she swore that she herself had experienced nothing but bad luck there, and while living in it had been beset by evil visions.