Twilight of a Queen (15 page)

Catherine found herself afoot, alone in the middle of the field, trembling with grief and rage
.

“I did it for you as well. You know that, Catherine.” Evangeline’s quiet voice echoed from somewhere behind Catherine
.

She spun about to glare at her erstwhile friend. “You betrayed me.”

“No, I saved you. You already were acquiring a reputation as a witch, an Italian skilled in poisons. If Diane had died, you would have been the first one suspected and I feared not even your position as queen could have saved you from the king’s wrath. To say nothing of the damage to your soul. Daughters of the earth were meant—”

“To heal, not to harm. Oh, yes, I have heard it all before from you,” Catherine sneered. “You were always so concerned about being the noble Lady of Faire Isle; you forgot what it was like to feel the pain of a mere woman devastated by her husband’s infidelity. But I taught you what that was like, didn’t I, my dear Evangeline?”

“Yes, you did,” Evangeline agreed sadly. “But I forgave you.”

“Damn your forgiveness. I never wanted it.” Catherine spun away from her, muttering. “What does any of it matter anymore? Henry and his whore are both long dead. So are you.”

“As you will be soon.”

Catherine shivered and shook her head in fierce denial
.

“You must not be so frightened of death, Catherine. It is natural—”

“Don’t give me any more of your mystic nonsense
about the cycles of life and returning my bones to our mother earth, my spirit at peace. I don’t want your cursed peace.”

“Yes, you do, Catherine.” Evangeline’s hand came to rest gently on her shoulder. “And there is still time for you to find it. Turn away from the darkness and become the queen you always wanted to be.”

“And just how am I supposed to do that? I am too old, too worn down. It is too late.” Despite her agonized protest, she groped for Evangeline’s hand, only to close upon air
.

The litter came to an abrupt halt, jarring Catherine awake. She blinked as she regained her surroundings and realized her mouth was hanging agape. She wiped the drool from her chin, disgusted with herself for nodding off in the middle of the day like any pathetic old woman.

But she had not been sleeping well of late, her dreams haunted by the ghosts of her past, sometimes her dead husband and his mistress, sometimes her dead children, sometimes all the bloodied, accusing faces of the Huguenots she’d had massacred that long ago St. Bartholomew’s Eve.

But mostly it was Evangeline who stalked her dreams, like some nagging angel, urging Catherine toward peace, the eternal rest she so dreaded. Perhaps it was that more than anything else that disturbed Catherine’s slumber, the fear if she closed her eyes, this might be the time she never awakened.

She straightened her ermine collar, composing herself as her retainers came to help her from the litter. Pain lanced through her body as she stepped down, the boning in her bodice creaking in protest, or maybe it was her knees.

The ache in her joints was all but unbearable these days
and she had no longer a drop of Xavier’s magic elixir to ease her pain. When she had consumed the last of the potion in January, a great depression of spirits had settled over her. The past winter had been a succession of gray miserable days without the handsome rogue about to charm her with the bold color of his tales. Or the sight of his hard-muscled body swaying to the pulse beat of the drum as Xavier sunk deeper into his mystical trance.

He had been absent from her court for months now, more than enough time to complete his mission by her reckoning. She feared that she had been the one put into a trance, mesmerized into believing she had found a true necromancer at last. Likely he had betrayed her like so many others she had trusted before.

Or perhaps Xavier had tried to abduct Megaera and the present Lady of Faire Isle had proved too much even for a corsair as bold as Xavier. Ariane was not the saint her mother had been. If she had taken Megaera under her protection, Catherine imagined that Ariane could wax quite ruthless in the girl’s defense. Ariane had even had the temerity to threaten Catherine once in her own apartments in the Louvre.

The Louvre … the white walls of the palace rose up before Catherine, the glazed windows gleaming in the sunlight, flooding her with memories.

As a young woman, she had loved dancing as much as riding. Oh, the fetes, the pageants, the masked balls she had helped plan. But as Catherine crossed the courtyard, these memories were dimmed by others less pleasant.

Her gaze dropped to the paving stones. Nearly sixteen years had passed, the courtyard had been scoured countless times,
and still Catherine fancied she could see the bloodstains from that hot August night.

St. Bartholomew’s Eve, the night Catherine had woven a dark magic, provoking her mad son, Charles, to order the massacre of the Huguenots gathered in Paris, men, women, and children alike. She was not a cruel woman, Catherine assured herself, only a pragmatic one.

The Huguenots had become such a threat to her power, to the stability of France itself, they needed to be dealt with once and for all. But the violence had gone beyond even what Catherine had intended, the mobs of Paris rampaging out of control for nearly three days, blood spilling and the corpses piling up even in the courtyard of the Louvre itself.

And all for what? Catherine reflected bleakly. The massacre had achieved nothing but the making of martyrs. The new religion continued to spread like the plague, the civil war waging on, draining the royal treasury and swelling the power and popularity of the opportunistic duc de Guise as he championed the Catholic cause.

Catherine swayed slightly on her feet, suddenly feeling so wearied of it all. Her glance flickered wistfully toward the cool green of the gardens and the soft burbling fountains and she longed to lose herself in the winding paths.

She had designed those gardens, along with the new wing of the palace, incorporating much of the dazzling architecture of her Italian homeland. She had done the same for Chenonceau and many other of the royal residences.

So much beauty she had brought to France and she feared she would be remembered for none of it. Only for the bloodstains in this courtyard.

“Turn away from the darkness, Catherine.” Evangeline’s
voice whispered through her mind. “Become the queen you always wanted to be.”

Impossible. Not while she was this weak and worn down, but if she could but recover some of her youthful strength and power … Her one hope was laying her hands upon Megaera, wringing from that wretched girl the secrets of the
Book of Shadows
.

“Xavier, don’t fail me.” Catherine breathed the silent prayer that had sustained her all these months as she followed her escort into the Louvre.

The main salon was crowded as it too often was these days, thronged with disgruntled petitioners and disenchanted courtiers. The king’s chair as usual remained empty. The crowd would have swarmed Catherine with their pleas and complaints had not her guards held them at bay.

Steeling herself against each pain-wracked footfall, Catherine trudged up the sweeping stair to the second floor, her breath coming in short gasps. She felt as weighted down by disappointment as by her voluminous black silk skirts.

So her son was still neglecting the affairs of his kingdom, making more enemies he could not afford. Catherine had urged Henry until her voice was hoarse, begging the king to make himself more accessible to his subjects.

Henry had even eschewed the royal custom of dining in public, retreating more and more to his private apartments while his kingdom slipped away into the hands of the duc de Guise.

Henry had always been more headstrong than her other sons, but there had been a time when Catherine could reason with him. Now her voice went as unheard as
when she cried out in her dreams. Even those rare times when they still worked together on correspondence, she and Henry sat at separate desks in the council chamber, scarce addressing a word to each other the entire day.

As Catherine approached her son’s private apartments, she wondered with dread which version of Henry she would encounter today. The one who liked to paint his face and dress like a woman in violet silk trimmed with red ribbons. Or the one who donned a monk’s robes and sang the Miserere, flagellating himself to the point of ecstasy.

When Catherine was admitted to the royal antechamber, she found neither. The king was clad in black velvet, his doublet embroidered with silver death’s-heads. Tiny silk skulls adorned his shoes as he paced the room like an edgy wolf.

As she noted the hectic flush on Henry’s cheeks, the agitated gestures of his hands, Catherine’s heart sank. She felt she almost would have preferred the rouged and perfumed Henry in his violet gown.

“The Dowager Queen, Your Grace.”

As Catherine was announced, she winced, forcing her knees into a stiff curtsy. The king came to an abrupt halt, sunlight from the tall latticed windows spilling across his face, revealing every deep carved line.

How old and thin he looked for a man of only seven and thirty years, Catherine thought in dismay, this remaining son who was all that stood between her and oblivion.

A woman who had given birth to four sons should never have had to feel this tug of fear. But her oldest, Francis, had been a sickly youth, the next in line, Charles, both sickly and insane. Neither had held the crown for long. Her
youngest, Hercules, had lived but long enough to prove a nuisance, envious of his older brothers, forever scheming and plotting rebellion.

It had been to Henry that Catherine had looked to secure her dynasty and power in France. By far the favorite of her children, Henry was most like her with his sallow Italian looks and ruthless cunning. But years of dissipation had taken their toll.

Concealing her dismay behind a smile, Catherine extended both hands to him. “My son.”

“Madam,” Henry replied, coldly ignoring her outstretched arms.

Catherine dropped her hands awkwardly back to her side. “I trust I find Your Grace well.”

“Well enough for one whose heart was nearly cut to the quick by an assassin’s blade.”

“Henry!” Catherine’s breath left her in a rush of alarm. “You were attacked? You have been harmed?” She closed in on him, running her hands anxiously over the front of his doublet.

Henry impatiently stilled her roving fingers. “Not me, my beloved friend, D’Epernon.”

“He is dead?”

“No, he managed to defend himself. The blade only pierced his arm.”

“Oh, thank the bon Dieu,” Catherine murmured, but she had to lower her gaze to conceal her disappointment. D’Epernon was one of Henry’s foppish friends, those painted mignons whose presence at court only further blackened her son’s reputation and whose greed was a constant drain upon the royal treasury. D’Epernon’s death would
have been no great loss in Catherine’s eyes. Indeed, she would have accounted it a blessing.

But she managed to summon up a commiserating tone. “Poor D’Epernon. It is most unfortunate. Paris has become such a dangerous place, rogues and cutpurses to be found in every quarter.”

“This was not the work of any common thief, but an attack of a skilled assassin.”

The man could not have been all that skilled or he would have succeeded, Catherine was tempted to point out dryly, but she could tell from her son’s flushed features that Henry was in a dangerous mood.

The king prowled the antechamber, his hands clenched into fists. “I have no doubt who sent this assassin. The insidious hand of the duc de Guise is behind this attack on my dear friend.”

“You have proof of that?” Catherine asked.

Henry paused in mid step to glower at her. “No, the villain who attacked mon cher ami escaped, but I will have him hunted down and tortured until he confesses who hired him.

“Not that I require any confession. Who else besides de Guise could be behind such a thing? The bastard is determined to destroy all those I love, to break my spirit, and destroy my sanity. Whittling away at my kingdom, my honor, my reputation.”

Henry’s voice rose higher with every word. He snatched up a piece of parchment from his desk and thrust it under Catherine’s nose.

“Just look at this scurrilous pamphlet they have been circulating in the streets.”

Catherine reared back, her vision blurring as she squinted at the paper, but without the special lenses manufactured for her by her Italian glassmakers, she had no hope of deciphering the words on the page.

Henry snatched it back and read aloud in a voice quivering with rage. “A true account of the military exploits of our dread lord King Henry III of France.”

He opened the pamphlet and spat out the single word engraved on the next page.

“Ríen.”

“Nothing,” Henry all but roared. “They accuse me of accomplishing nothing, my victories at Moncontour and Poitiers long forgotten while all glory and praise go to de Guise.”

“Henry, I have told you so often. Ignore these ridiculous pamphlets. I could shelve an entire library with the nonsense that has been written about me. This is nothing but the work of some foolish—”

“It is the work of that damned de Guise.” The king rent the pamphlet in two, flung it down, grinding the pieces beneath his shoe. “He incites the people of Paris to mock me at every turn. Have you heard what they are calling me? The King of the Island of Hermaphrodites.”

Then you might be wise to burn your gowns and petticoats, Catherine reflected. Once she would have dared voice the thought aloud, but there was a growing violence in her son that rendered her wary. His eyes glittered in a way that reminded her uneasily of her second son.

Catherine had often had to brew potions to calm Charles and hold his mad fits at bay. But it had been a long time since Catherine had visited her secret workshop. Failing
eyesight, unsteady hands, and a faulty memory made it dangerous to attempt to concoct anything.

But it scarce mattered. Henry would not have taken anything brewed by Catherine. Her son had grown increasingly suspicious and mistrustful of everyone, most particularly his mother.