Виктория Холт - Madame Serpent

Francis smiled at the sullen face before him and gave the boy’s shoulder a not unkindly slap. Let us be friends, Francis was saying. After all, you are my son. The long bright eyes were even a little wistful. He was rather big strong-looking boy.

But Henry looked away from his father, back into his childhood and there he saw the gloomy shadow of a Spanish prison.

It was Francis’s nature to forget what was unpleasant; but Henry forgot his friends― nor his enemies. He turned from the affection his father was offering him. There was one person in the world― and only one― whom he could love and trust.

At the jousts next day, he rode into combat, defiantly and proudly displaying the black-and-white colours of Diane de Poitiers.

THE ENTIRE court was laughing at Henry’s passion for Diane. He, with a wife of his own delectable age, to fly from her to the bed of a woman more than twenty years his senior! It was like the opening of one of Boccaccio’s tales or something from the Queen of Navarre’s Heptameron.

When Catherine heard it, she was so moved that it was necessary for her to shut herself into her own apartments, She felt furiously angry. The humiliation of it! The whole court laughing at Henry, his mistress, and his poor, neglected wife!

When she looked at herself in the mirror she scarcely recognized herself.

Her face was the colour of a tallow candle, and the only brightness was the blood where her sharp teeth had bitten the flesh of her lips. Her eyes were cruel with hatred. She was an older Catherine now.

She walked up and down her room, murmuring angry words to Henry, to Diane. She was imploring the King to send her back to Italy. ‘Sire, I will not stay here to suffer this humiliation.’

Then she laughed aloud at her folly, laughing bitterly until she flung herself on to her bed weeping.

It is the humiliation of it, she told herself.

She kept repeating that with a vehemence which shook her.

I should not otherwise care. And why should she care? Many a Queen had suffered similar humiliation before her. Why should she care?

It is because she is so old. That is what makes it so humiliating. There was a voice within her that mocked her. But, Catherine, why should you care? You have no children. Perhaps now you will have none. There will surely be a divorce and you will be sent back to Rome. Ippolito is in Rome, Catherine. Ippolito is a Cardinal.

But the voice within was mocking her. Think of it, Catherine. Think of the joy of it. Reunion with handsome Ippolito! I will not think of it. It is wrong to think of it. She was pacing up and down again; she was at her mirror; she was laughing; she was weeping.

Courage, said her lips. You must go among the people of this court; you must smile at Diane; you must never show by a look or a gesture how much you hate her, how easy it would be to take a dagger and plunge it into her heart, to drop a poisoned draught into her cup. She hardly knew the sad and cruel face which looked back at her. They thought her cold, these fools. She― cold! She was white-hot with hatred, maddened by jealousy.

She was a fool to her eyes to the truth.

“What do I care for Ippolito?’ she asked of her reflection. ‘What was my love for him? A pleasant girl-and-boy affair, without passion, without jealousy; while in me these two now burn. No, not Ippolito. It is not he whom I love.’

She laughed suddenly and loudly.

‘I could kill her,’ she murmured. ‘She has taken him from me.’

How many jealous women had said those words, she wondered; and looking into those passionate Italian eyes, she answered herself: ‘Many. But few have really meant them. I love Henry. He is mine. I did not ask to marry him. I was forced to it. And now, I love him. Many women have felt this jealousy, and many have said: I could kill her. But they have said it different. I mean it. I would kill her.’

Her mouth twisted grimly. ‘If she were dead,’ she whispered close to the mirror so that her breath made a mist on the glass, ‘I would make him wholly mine. I would show him love and passion such as he never dreamed of, for in me a furnace of desire is smouldering. If she were dead, he would be with me.

We should have children to the honour of the land― his land and mine.’

She pressed the palms of her hands together, and in the mirror she saw a woman with murder in her eyes and a prayer on her lips.

It had needed this tragic sorrow to awaken her, to bring to life the real Catherine. In this moment of revelation, she knew herself as she never had before. How pale the face, how set the features! Only the blazing eyes spoke of murder. The world should see those eyes as mild, expressionless. The true Catherine should hide behind shutters, while the false smiled on the world.

* * *

How easy it was to make resolutions; how difficult to keep them! Often she must shut herself away, feigning a headache so that she might be alone with her tears. People were saying: ‘Poor little Italian! She is not strong. Perhaps this accounts― with Diane― for her inability to get children.’

One day, having heard some light remark concerning her husband and his mistress, she felt her emotions too strong for her. She made her way to her apartments, told her women to leave her as she wished to rest, and when she was alone, she lay on her bed and sobbed quietly like a child.

What could she do? Good Cosmo and Lorenzo Ruggieri had given her perfumes and cosmetics; she had taken a love potion.

They were no use. Diane had more potent magic. And when Henry did come to her, he was awkward and apologetic. ‘My father insists that we should get a child,’ he had said, as though it were necessary to make excuses for his presence.

Why did she love him? He was slow-witted and by no means amusing. It was incomprehensible that he should be in her thoughts all day and haunt her dreams by night. He was certainly courteous and kind, so anxious that she should not know their intercourse was distasteful to him that he could not help showing quite clearly that it was. By all the laws of human nature she ought to have hated him.

What could she, who was young and untutored in the ways of love, do to win him from the experienced woman who had taken had no friends whose advice she could ask. What if, as she rode out with the Petite Bande, she told her troubles to the King? How sympathetic he would be! How gracious! How angry his son for his lack of courtesy! And then, doubtless, he would, with embellishments, tell the story to Madame d’Etampes; and the two of them would be very witty at her expense.

There was no one to look after Catherine’s welfare but Catherine herself.

She must never forget that. That was why she must hide these bitter tears, and no one must ever know how passionately, how possessively she loved the shy young boy who was her husband.

Alarmed, she sat up an her bed, for she could hear footsteps approaching the room. There was a timid knock on the door.

She said in a cold and steady voice: ‘Did I not say I was not disturbed?’

‘Yes, Madame la Duchesse, but there is a young man here― Count Sebastiano di Montecuccoli― who begs to be allowed to see you. He is very distressed.’

‘Tell him he may wait,’ she said. ‘I am busy for a while.’

She leaped from the bed, dried her eyes, and dusted her face with powder.

She looked at her reflection anxiously. It was impossible to eliminate all signs of her passionate weeping. How stupid it was to give way to the feelings! One should never, in any circumstances, be so weak. Sorrow and anger were emotions to be locked away in the heart.

Ten minutes had passed before she had the Count brought to her. He bowed low over her hand; then he lifted his sad eyes to her face.

‘ Duchessina,’ he said, ‘I see that this evil news has already reached you.’

She was silent, annoyed that he should have noticed the traces of grief on her face, and, having noticed them, been tactless enough to refer to them. But what evil tidings did he speak of?

As she continued silent, the young man went on: ‘I thought it my duty, Duchessina, to carry the news to you. I know your strong feelings for your noble cousin.’

Her feelings were under control. Was it only where her husband was involved that they got the better of training and her natural craft?

She had no idea to what the Count referred but she said with the utmost calm: ‘You had better tell it to me, Count, as you heard it.’

‘Oh, Duchessina, you know the condition of our beloved city, how its sufferings are almost unendurable under the tyrant. Many have been driven into exile, and these, with others, met together in secret. They decided to send a petition to Emperor Charles begging him to free Florence from Alessandro.

Duchessina, they selected your noble cousin, Cardinal Ippolito de’ Medici as their ambassador.’

‘And Alessandro’s secret spies discovered this. I know. I know.’

‘He got as far as Itri. He would have embarked there for Tunis.’

‘And they killed him.’ Catherine covered her swollen eyes with her hands.

‘My poor noble cousin. My dearest Ippolito.’

‘It was in his wine, Duchessina. His death was terrible, but quick. He did not suffer long.’

For a few seconds she was silent; then she said: ‘Would there were some to avenge him.’

‘His servants were mad with grief, Duchessina. Italy mourns the great Cardinal. Florence is desolate.’

‘Oh, our poor country, Sebastiano! Our poor suffering country! I know how you feel. You and I would die for our country.’

‘And count it an honour to do so,’ said the young man earnestly.

She held out her hand and he took it. She was excited by a sudden thought which had come to her, conscious of that strange force which warned her of great events. Standing before her was a man whose eyes glowed fanatically when he spoke of his country.

‘Yes, Sebastiano,’ she said, ‘for the sake of your country you would gladly die a thousand deaths. There are men like that. Not many― but I think that you are one of them. If you were, your name would be remembered throughout Italy forever, my dear Count, with reverence.’ Her eyes glowed and the Count, looking at her, wondered how he could ever had accepted the general opinion that she was insignificant.

‘There have been times,’ she went on, ‘when I have been privileged to see into the future. I fancy I see something now. One day, Sebastiano, you will be called upon to do great deeds for our country.’

She spoke with such conviction, her eyes glowing almost unnaturally, that it seemed to the young man as if some power spoke through her. He stammered:

‘My lady Duchess, if that should be, I should die happy.’

Catherine withdrew her hand, sighing.

‘Ah well,’ she said. ‘you and I must live our lives as wisely as we can. But we will never forget the land of our birth.’

‘Never!’ he declared fervently.

She walked away from him, speaking quietly, as though to herself. ‘I am married to the son of a King― but the second son. The Dauphin is not strong, and I have wondered― as the Holy Father wondered― whether God has destined me, through my children to bring glory to Italy. My children!’

Her voice broke suddenly. ‘I have no children. I had hoped―’ she felt her control snapping. She burst out: ‘My husband is enamoured of a sorceress. They say she is a wrinkled old woman but appears as a young and beautiful lady. Life is strange and the ways of Fate are incomprehensible. You comfort me― there is nothing you would not do to serve me and Italy. If ever I were Queen of France, I would not forget― though I know you seek no honours.’

‘I seek only the honour of serving our country, Duchessina.’

‘You are good, Count; you are noble. We will both remember our country― always. We are strangers in a strange land, but never forget Italy. Stay and talk with me awhile. How good it is to speak our native tongue! You may sit, my lord Count. Speak to me of Italy― in Italian. Talk of our beloved Arno and the groves of olives― and the blessed sunshine―’

But it was she who went on speaking; and as she talked, it was not Ippolito― once so well-loved― whom she saw in her mind’s eye; it was Henry, his eyes shining for Diane, shame-faced and apologetic for his wife.