1574
The king of France dies raving and angry, his lungs and then his mouth filled with blood. Like kings the world over, his death is not a private affair, but witnessed, and then whispered about.
His death was not unexpected, precisely. And yet when it is announced, Petrus reels. He stands among the other courtiers, all of whom were waiting for news of the king’s condition, and has to put out a hand to steady himself against the wall. As if he were drunk, or ill himself. This king who never cared for him, who seemed mostly indifferent to his presence among his courtiers, his death sets everything adrift. Just as his elder brother’s did nearly fifteen years ago. Just as his father’s did the year before that.
The king’s elder brother had died, only a year after being crowned, of an infected ear. Also not entirely unexpected, for he had been sickly all his life. But terrible nonetheless, that entire year since King Henri’s death like the gray days of winter; and then his son stumbling into the afterward so quickly behind him. And terrifying, every solid edifice of Petrus’s life since he came to France suddenly full of fissures that spider-webbed up and up and out and out until it seemed there was no possible way they would not all come plummeting down.
The dead king’s younger brother will no doubt be recalled from Poland, where he has been king for scarcely a year. Petrus thinks of him as he was as a child—the favorite of his mother, spoiled, petulant, merry with spite. Though neither of his elder brothers had developed their father’s affection for the hairy court oddity, they had at least generally ignored him; King Charles had even used Petrus’s mind to his advantage, making him official reader to the king for the rare occasions that His Majesty’s mind turned to history, philosophy, poetry. But this new king, as a child, was like the boys on Tenerife, poking at Petrus with words and sometimes with his sword, the tip of it tapping lightly against the front of Petrus’s doublet. Where are you going, Werewolf? Don’t you know we burn your kind in France? It mattered not that Petrus was near manhood when the little prince was born; princes have nothing to fear, and no reason for humility.
The news shakes Catherine hard. “What will we do?” she says. She picks bits from the roll and makes soft doughy balls of them between her thumb and forefinger.
“Do?” He shifts Madeleine’s weight.
“Will the new king want us here?”
Oh. He smiles. “I have been here through the rise and fall of three kings; and the queen mother values us. This new king is her favorite son; I cannot imagine he will not want us here, especially now we’ve produced such a marvel as this petite belle.”
But Catherine does not look reassured. She frowns, dropping bits of roll onto her plate; and for all that they have been shifting nearer and nearer to one another since their daughter’s birth a year and a half ago, he finds that he does not understand her mind well enough to know what she is thinking.
The new king is crowned at Reims. Petrus thought Catherine—never before privy to a king’s formal entry into a city—might be overwhelmed by the pomp of it all, with the crowds pressing on all sides and the absurdity of young girls clothed like ancients, symbolic of Concord and Peace, their hands trembling as they handed the new king the city’s keys, as if the trading of one king for another might mean a true end to the bloodshed among the Catholics and Huguenots. But Catherine merely frowns, eyes watchful.
The court, with the new-wed king and queen, travels then to Lyons, the city of Catherine’s birth, of her whole life before coming to court; and it is here that his wife goes quiet. Usually so patient, she snaps at Madeleine, who, now two years old, is wild with sudden strength and energy; but after the snapping, Catherine presses her hands to her face, shuddering. Petrus chews his lip, words eluding him; at last, he touches a hand to her back, feeling the jut of one shoulder blade through the fabric of her gown like a broken wing.
She smiles dutifully for the actual entry into the city, a city Petrus has not seen since the last king’s own entry here during the years-long tour he and his mother embarked upon when he was still just a boy-king, not even half-grown. It is not quite spring, but the red roofs of the buildings glow, reflecting their warmth onto the gray waters of the Saône.
As is often the case when the court goes on progress, the best rooms in noble households and inns get snatched up, first by the royal family and then by their favorites, leaving the dregs for everyone else. Their chamber is cramped and smells strongly of vinegar from the common room below; but at least they are not relegated to sleeping rough in the countryside beyond the city. With Madeleine clutched tight in her arms, Catherine looks around the room, taking in the window, sludged with countless other sleepers’ fingerprints and nose prints, and the bedstead, which sags toward the middle, as if someone too heavy for the frame slept upon it last. The linen is frayed and rumpled, either hastily laid over the mattress or else not disturbed since the last sleeper left.
“No doubt there are fleas,” she says. Her voice is strange and high, as if it might break to pieces at any moment. Madeleine squirms on her hip, trying to get to down, but Catherine only holds her more firmly.
The common room downstairs was nearly deserted when they arrived, but it will likely be overfull by dinnertime. “Are you hungry?” Petrus says. “We might do well to eat early, before the crowds descend.”
She shakes her head, a short, staccato burst. “I want to—” she says, and then stops, jaw working hard, as if chewing over tough meat. “Can we—venture out?” she says at last, and gestures vaguely toward the street.
His brows come together; his own jaw tightens. He thinks of the stares; the jeers. The dead rat that was hurled at him once in the streets of Paris, with a cry of Loup-garou!—werewolf—from the hurler’s mouth. He looks at Madeleine, her soft improbable face peering out eagerly from under her white coif, and imagines her snatched from his very arms, taken aboard a ship, sold at a market. His knees tremble, his arms burn with imagined emptiness.
“Please?” Catherine says. She is not looking at him now, but at the smeary view from the window. “I thought—my home. I could show Madeleine—”
He thinks of that long-ago letter from her father. He knows that she keeps it in a leather pouch in her trunk; he has seen her, once or twice, take it out, tracing the words she cannot read with one finger, before folding it with tender care and putting it away again. Her father never wrote back after Petrus finally penned a letter that Catherine dictated, informing him of his grandchild’s birth, asking how he had fared during the massacres. He thinks of his own yearning, long ago locked away, for the beaches and mountains of his boyhood; for the chance, just for a moment, to look upon Isabel and Manuel once more. A bruise blooms under the skin of his chest, and he breathes out.
“Of course,” he says. “Yes.”
She knows the way. This surprises him, though he supposes it should not. He had imagined her caught like a butterfly under a glass before she came to court, waiting to be released into matrimony. But her feet move unerringly down one street and then another, faster than he has ever seen her walk. He carries Madeleine, whose mouth hangs open over her teeth, and tries to ignore the startled looks of passersby.
He is unused to so much teeming humanity, for it has been years since he ventured into the streets of Paris with Nevers and some of the other court foster-sons, in search of women and drink; and he did so then only reluctantly, and after dark, when the thick pooled shadows helped to disguise his appearance. People here jostle one another as they walk. Carts pulled by horses and donkeys push their way through the narrow cobbled streets. He remembers running all on his own through the streets of Garachico; how he grew used to ignoring the looks and calls of other people. Court life has softened him; being around so many people who are accustomed to the presence of human marvels has made him forgetful. He braces himself for stones, cupping his hand around the back of Madeleine’s head, though she bucks and struggles against him.
“Papa’s largest warehouse is on this street,” Catherine says, pointing up ahead. Her breath comes quickly, and her eyes are everywhere at once, as if they cannot possibly see enough; as if they fear they will never see these things again. They linger on the anchored ships with their tall masts, where sailors call to one another as they unload their cargo and the water slaps softly against the hulls. But when they reach the building that she says ought to house her father’s warehouse, it bears another man’s name and symbol.
She stops, staring up at the sign, swinging lightly in the wind, the chains creaking. And then, without a word, she walks on. It is not until they have put some distance between the warehouse and themselves that she says, too brightly, “You should see the city on market days. It’s an unimaginable crush at the Place du Change—but so exciting. If we ever have the chance, we should come back for the fairs; Madeleine’s eyes will be as big as mine were when I came to court.” And she offers him a small smile, touching their daughter’s cheek, pressing her palm there as if to anchor herself.
At last, they reach a street with fine tall houses pressed wall to wall, the illusion of their stern and elegant facades a little broken by their painted brightness, each building splashed with yellow or pink. Catherine wets her lips, her breast rising and falling. Then she points with her chin.
“This way.”
Petrus follows, keeping his face averted from those they pass and Madeleine turned so that only the back of her coifed head is visible. Catherine’s footsteps are halting now until at last they drag to a stop in the middle of the square before a house with a high arched doorway and great mullioned windows. He tips his head back, looking up and up, eyes widening at the sight of so much expensive glass.
After she has knocked, Catherine’s fingers tighten around his arm. They wait for one breath; two; and then one of the double doors is opened by a narrow, hump-shouldered woman wearing a limp white apron over her brown skirt. Her eyes, gray as the skies above, widen and fill when they fix upon Catherine, and her arms spread to either side, readying for an embrace.
And then she spies Petrus, and her mouth sticks halfway between open and closed, her arms still lifted, as if the sight of him has turned her to stone.
“Marie! Oh, Marie!” Catherine says, either oblivious to the other woman’s fright or trying to shove past it. She releases Petrus’s arm while he concentrates on breathing evenly, on keeping his expression unthreatening and open, and throws herself upon the shorter woman, arms wrapped tight around her thin shoulders. “I was so afraid you would not be here,” she whispers.
The servant’s eyes are still fixed, wide and astonished, upon Petrus, but she says, “Yes, ma petite, I am still here, thanks be to God. But—” She draws back a little, though her hands still hold fast to Catherine’s upper arms. Her eyes hold a question.
“We are here for the new king’s entrée to the city,” Catherine says, and then looks over her shoulder; and her smile is so wide and guileless, Petrus’s temples ache with it. “Marie—this is my husband, Monsieur Gonsalvus. And this is our daughter. Petrus—Marie is—well, she is our cook, but she has looked after me all my life, and after Maman died—” She smiles still, but tears wet her cheeks. “I have missed you so,” she says, pulling the other woman toward her once more.
Marie takes her eyes from Petrus just long enough to close them; and her face, too, is wet. When she opens them again, she looks only at Catherine.
“Are you well?” she says, an intensity to her tone that belies the ordinary words.
“Yes—yes,” Catherine says. “And you? Are you well?” But there is a sudden uncertainty to her tone, and she steps back, just a little, and catches her tears with her palms, swiping them from her cheeks.
The servant glances quickly at Petrus, and then away. She takes her apron into her hands, twisting the fabric between her fingers.
“Marie?” Catherine says. She leans a little to one side, peering over the other woman’s shoulder to the darkened entrance to the house. “May we—may we not come inside for a moment?”
Marie shakes her head, and the lines of her face draw down and down. “This is not . . . you don’t know then?” she says.
Catherine takes another step back, quicker this time. Her ankle rolls as her foot lands sideways in the shallow trough of the cobbled gutter. Petrus grasps her arm to steady her, and then keeps his hand in place when she leans against him, something seeping, like a runnel of water, slow and gentle between their two sides.
“What do I not know?” she says, voice steadier than her feet.
“Your father—does not live here anymore. He . . .” Marie holds up her hands. Calluses from her work stripe her palms; a dab of creamy sauce is hardening to a crust beside the knob of her wristbone. “A Monsieur du Roux bought the house for his family, and let me stay on. Monsieur Raffelin was kind enough to tell him I am a good cook, a good worker.”
His wife puts a hand to her lips, as if to hold some ugly sound inside. “Where is Papa?” she asks around her palm.
Another head shake. “I do not know. I have heard nothing of him since he sold the house. I have hopes that he has found a new—a new venture. But I do not think he remained in Lyons.”
Catherine’s gaze is vague and fixed upon the shadowed entranceway to the house. Marie hesitates, then comes forward, putting a hand on Catherine’s arm, peering up into her face.
“I must return to my work—Madame du Roux is very particular about mealtimes. I am so sorry—ma petite, I am so sorry I cannot ask you to come inside. I wish—”
But she shakes her head.
Catherine swallows loudly enough that Petrus hears; she puts a hand over Marie’s on her arm, and squeezes the servant’s fingers. Then she glances at Madeleine, and at him; he tries to return her look with steadiness, though he is acutely aware of the other people coming toward them down the street, who might see him, and of Marie, who has pricked him with a half-dozen furtive glances.
“We’ll leave you be,” Catherine says, releasing the servant’s hand and shifting just enough that Marie’s own hand drops away. When Marie cringes away at the cut of her voice, Catherine says, “No—I am so glad to have seen you—so glad you are well. I lo . . .” She rubs the back of her hand over her mouth. “Thank you, Marie. I will miss you terribly. What is served at the king’s table is nothing to your fine cooking.”
Marie hugs herself hard and stands watching them as they retrace their footsteps up the street. When they round the corner, he and Catherine both glance back; Marie raises a hand and then lets it fall, limp as defeat, back to her side.
Catherine is quiet all the way back to the inn, and eats little of the stew the innkeeper sets before her, though it has been hours since their last meal and the stew smells richly of herbs, and it leaves Petrus’s lips slicked with meat juices.
He chews slowly, watching her between bites. Uncertainty niggles, bothersome as the strings of tough stew meat that catch between his teeth. Her home was much grander than he had expected, even knowing that her father was draper to the queen. For all that he has only ever seen her in palaces until today, he cannot imagine her there—cannot imagine her life. The surety with which she strode through the streets of Lyons. The way she looked up at the sky, squinted against the sun, followed the flight line of the seabirds. She was entirely unfamiliar to him; a person with a history. Not the silent young woman who refused to look upon him; not the mother of his child. Someone else.
He thinks of the letter, so long ago now, that came from her father, and wishes he had seen the lie tangled up within its words. There had been nothing solid, no particulars—only vague assurances of his well-being, his happy expectations. Even its brevity should have made it obvious that there was no good news to tell.
In their room, she sinks upon the mattress—thick with lumps and likely riddled with crawling things—as if her legs cannot hold her any longer. Madeleine, tired out from a long day of wide-eyed watchfulness, is half-sleeping already; she snugs against Catherine’s side, eyelids closing.
Petrus lights a candle with the stub given him by the innkeeper. The light flickers, as if from a draft, casting shadows on the dingy walls that dash and menace. He settles beside Catherine in his clothes—they roll tipsily together from the cant of the mattress, though she only shifts Madeleine into the circle of her arm and slumps a little farther down—and watches the shadows dance, thinking vaguely of devils or Isabel’s girlhood spirits.
He is halfway toward sleep, uncomfortable as the bed is, when she speaks.
“Our marriage was meant to save him.”
He opens his eyes. “What?”
“It was meant to save Papa from ruin. I thought—I thought with my dowry paid, and his debts cleared, he might . . .” One hand goes to her brow, pinching. “But I see now that I was very stupid. For people have long memories; of course it would not be so easy to start again. Of course he would need to sell my—to sell his home—in order to start again.”
Petrus is silent.
“It is why I agreed to it. At least—partly. He would be saved. But I was the only one saved.”
His voice comes out rustily. “Saved from what?”
“The convent. Or . . . no, there is nothing else. Without a dowry, who would have me? Even peasants must have dowries; and the men who might have married me before were not peasants.”
She goes quiet, and Petrus swallows down a sudden bitterness, like stems of parsley.
Then her voice comes again. “She did not even want to know Madeleine.”
“What do you mean?”
“Marie.” In the thin, shifting light, she is washed of all color. “She hardly looked at her. I told her—I told her Madeleine was our daughter, yet she hardly looked at her.”
Tiredness sinks upon him then, mires him where he lies. Even his chest moves only faintly with his breath, as if his lungs cannot be bothered to expand fully. “It must have been a shock,” he says, though all he wants to do is close his eyes and let this exhaustion pull him swift away; to be a twig like those he dropped from bridges into rivers as a child, rushed off by the water so quickly that he sometimes could not spot them again when he raced to the bridge’s other side. Unable to—and not expected to—steer his own way.
A restless movement of her hand. “I told her—she knew. She knew who I was going to marry.” A sound that is caught in the filaments between a laugh and a sob. “I told her.”
He would sigh, were he not so tired. “There is knowing,” he says, “and there is seeing.”
She shakes her head, hard enough that the bedstead judders. “But—”
Impatience rises, displacing a little of the tiredness. “You would not look at me,” he says, voice rising like his feelings. His head snaps to face her; his hands become fists without his intending them to. “As much as I could tell, you pretended I did not exist—”
In the candlelight, her tears look obscene. They crumple her face like cast-off paper, and glisten all down the creases. “I didn’t—”
“You did.”
Catherine covers her eyes, as if she cannot abide the sight of him; and then she yanks her hand back down. “It was not—I thought I could make her ordinary, I thought—”
He cannot tell what his feelings are—disgust or shame, pity or fury—but they are tearing him to bits. He pulls at his hair until it hurts.
She is weeping now, great ugly, gulping cries that the residents of the other rooms cannot help but hear. Madeleine stirs between them, and Petrus raises himself onto his elbow, rubbing her chest and belly, his gaze fixed on his wife’s shuddering form even when their daughter moans in her sleep.
With a clear effort, Catherine calms herself, pressing her palm to her nose and mouth until she is sucking in breath more slowly. When at last her hand falls away, she looks across to him; eyes steady, mouth pinched.
“I had the keeping of her, you understand,” she says. Her hand goes to her empty belly. “If she did not come out . . . like other infants . . . I would be blamed. Not least of all by myself.”
He eases himself back down; lies quietly for a time with the bruising of her words.
“And now?” he says at last.
She lies flat as well, and takes one of their daughter’s hands lightly in her own. Madeleine’s is limp with sleep, the fingers curled in toward the palm. “Now,” she says, “I hate anyone who does not look at her. Even the woman who stood in for my mother after her death.”
Her eyes flick, gleaming, to his. He takes Madeleine’s other hand, and they lie there for a time, atop linen that smells of some other traveler’s sweat, listening to the hum of voices from the tavern room below.
Then he says, “Tell me about your father.”
The sound she makes hurts him, just under the jut of his left ribs. “I cannot talk about Papa right now. Someday—soon—but not now. I cannot . . .”
With his thumb, he feels the pin-size scoops in the soft flesh of Madeleine’s hands, just at the base of each of her knuckles. The hair on her hands is much sparser than his own.
“Then tell me . . . about Marie.” And when she is silent, chewing at her cheek, he says, “Or your house. Tell me about your house. It looked very fine.”
Her smile is a tremulous thing. “It was. It is. I—” She shifts a little toward him. “Oh, I shall miss it. I do miss it. The ceiling in the dining room—all painted in blues and golds—not so fine as anything at Fontainebleau, of course, but . . .”
He smiles a little, though the candle is guttering and he is not certain she can see it.
Soft, he says, “Tell me more.”