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As the church bells in Cognac began tolling, the local priest came to tell Louise they announced the passing of the dauphin. Louise sought the Château chapel at once. Kneeling on the cold stone floor in front of the altar on which the priest had already placed lit candles to mark the grievous news, she bowed her head and offered a quick penitential prayer for having doubted Friar Francis.
Then she considered the effect of the dauphin’s death on her family. As the holy friar had promised, the Lord had brought her son one step closer to the throne. She did not dare pray that the king and queen would have no more sons, but she did not regret that Charles-Orland had died. It was God’s will, after all. One could not question God’s will. Now Carlo’s cousin, Duke Louis d’Orléans, was dauphin again. It was time to foster closer relations with him and his crippled wife.
On that thought, she rose and went to see Carlo. She found him in his library. Soon they were discussing their arrangements to attend the funeral.
“I must attend but you need not. I shall set out as soon as I learn where it is to be held,” Carlo said.
Louise contemplated the possibility. “But what about the Christmas court? Will you attend? I must serve my time as lady-in-waiting from Candlemas until Lady Day and how I hate the idea of leaving the children.”
“If we attend the dauphin’s funeral and Christmas court together, I will arrange with the king to postpone your court service until next year,” Carlo said.
“Then let us do that.” Louise kissed his cheek, grateful to avoid six weeks of subservience to the woman she detested.
* * *
COUNTESS MARGUERITE sat before the fire in the solar, blowing on her fingers in their half gloves. “It is so unwise of you to depart in this weather.” She hugged her shawl tighter, inched her stool closer to the flames and raised her voice. “Louise! Are you listening to me?”
“Maman Marguerite, I regret the necessity as much as you. I wish it were not so, but you know we must. King Charles—and Queen Anne especially—will never forgive us if we do not attend the dauphin’s funeral.” Louise perspired in her layers of travelling clothes—a long-sleeved linen shift, high-necked kirtle, and woollen overdress—topped by a felted wool cape lined with squirrel fur. “Carlo has placed heated bricks inside the carriage, and we will reheat them at each change.” She pulled on fur mittens. “I promise we will travel only during daylight hours, which at this time of year will mean lengthening our trip by several days but will keep us and our horses safe.”
Going to her mother-in-law's side, she kissed on her on the forehead. “You must know I do not want to leave you, my sweet daughter, or my precious César, especially at this Christmas season. We will return as soon as possible. But I must go.”
“The king can do well enough without Carlo. I need my son more than he does and besides, he is not well. He wrote that he was abed with a catarrh for a fortnight after Michaelmas and his chest has always been weak.” The Dowager Countess huddled closer to the fire, clutched a mug of hot cider, and shivered as a gust rattled the wooden shutters. “He should not travel in this cold. My old bones tell me it will snow before nightfall, for it is unseasonably cold even for December.”
Hiding her impatience, Louise leaned down and hugged her. “I shall send Carlo up to say his farewells before we set off.”
She was as good as her word. As she waited for him, she checked that their carriage contained the comforts to help pass the day. Then she took a brisk walk around the courtyard, for she did not relish being cooped up for the hours ahead. The heavy sky loomed, and she wondered if her mother-in-law might be right that it would snow. It looked dark enough.
Carlo reappeared, and they climbed into their iron-wheeled conveyance driven by three sturdy pairs. Their convoy made a din in the silent countryside. Louise had limited their company to a minimum for their first day’s journey. Four carriages followed with their personal attendants, four additional wagons contained the clothing, household goods and furnishings they required along the way, and a guard of twenty-four travelled with them for protection on the journey.
The first few hours passed pleasantly enough. Because of his mother’s comments, Carlo’s hacking cough worried Louise, but it was dry, and he got cross when she mentioned it. Their feet resting on heated firebricks enclosed in cast-iron boxes swathed in thick felt, and themselves wrapped in blankets they played chess and cards, read to each other, picnicked on cold meats and bread, and napped.
Louise awoke abruptly, disoriented and shocked. Something smothered her, blocking her sight. She shoved as hard as she could, trying to scream, but her mouth was full of fabric. Then she heard Carlo’s voice and, as her senses returned; it came to her that Carlo was straddled half over her. She stopped struggling as he shifted. Some of his weight eased from her body, and she could breathe again. She still lay in a heap, her back against the seat of the carriage on which she had been sitting. The carriage front rose at a sharp angle above her and shuddered as if in a high wind. Outside, horses and men screamed. Feeling Carlo shift beside her, she turned her head toward him.
The yelling and shouting of men and the shrieking of terrified horses continued unabated outside.
“Louise, are you hurt?” Her husband’s voice cracked.
“Carlo! You are bleeding!”
“Louise, do not move.”
“What happened?”
The longer Carlo still leaned on Louise, the heavier he felt. Her back hurt as he pushed her against the base of the seat. Someone needed to take control of the frightful racquet outside and the jerky movements of their vehicle before it was too late.
“Can you move, Carlo?”
“I am trying.” Most of the weight that had still been crushing her lightened. She could move her head enough to watch him claw himself upward to grab a leather strap.
“Grab my hand, Louise.”
As they shifted their weight to the back, their carriage tilted forward with a jerk until it was almost level. They heard a cheer from outside and someone on Carlo’s side tried to wrench the carriage door open. That was when Louise noticed its frame had twisted.
“Help me!” Louise recognized Jean de Saint Gelais’s voice. The next moment, the door popped open, and several men grunted and fell backwards. Cheers mingled with sigh of relief.
“Thank the Blessed Virgin that She has averted a disaster,” Louise said as she scrambled from the damaged carriage.
Their problems were far from over, though. The first few planks of the bridge across the river had collapsed as the lead pair of horses stepped onto it. Some of the carters had scrambled down and now reported only they and a couple more were rotten. If they were replaced, the bridge would be usable.
They all gave thanks to their Saviour that the banks of the stream had not been steep, so the horses had survived, but the lead horses had bucked and sprained their tendons. They would need special care, and what Carlo would do with them was a decision for later. Right now, the grooms were calming the remaining horses. The skilled men among the entourage must repair the carriage sufficiently to make it usable, rearrange and hitch the horses into teams again, and the bedraggled convoy must make it to the closest village. To make matters worse, it started to snow.
Carlo handled the catastrophe with an aplomb that made Louise proud. Since they were still within his lands, he knew everyone and every hamlet, and he took charge with authority yet without arrogance. It took several hours to sort out their many problems, but he was methodical. He sent for men to salve and wrap the injured horses’ legs and take them to the nearest stables. Carters arrived to take the carriage for repairs, and masons and carpenters came with tools and materials to fix the damaged bridge. By the time all was sorted, it was dark, and Carlo had been outside in the wet, cold weather for five hours. A nearby peasant offered them his family’s smoky cottage for the night and crowded into his neighbour’s. Louise did not complain aloud, for everyone else shivered inside the travel tents they set up swiftly and kept warm with fires built from whatever dry wood they could salvage.
* * *
BY MORNING, CARLO’S dry cough had turned phlegmy.
Shivering in her heavy, damp clothing reeking of smoke, Louise reluctantly suggested they return to Cognac. “When we learn that the court has arrived at Amboise, you can set out with a small company and ride fast. We will send a courier ahead to explain,” she suggested, mindful of her mother-in-law’s fears.
“My cousin would take it ill,” Carlo replied after a bout of coughing. “Besides, if you attend the funeral and the Christmas Court, we will not lose you to the queen’s service.”
She was relieved to let him convince her for she hated leaving her children and only enjoyed the court for the gossip.
“Today I shall ride,” he said. “Take Lady Anne in the carriage with you.”
“But Carlo, your cough already sounds terrible. And look at the clouds. It will snow soon.”
“Do not fuss me, Louise. I will not go through another day like yesterday. If I had been riding, I am sure the accident would never have occurred. I would have seen the bridge would not hold us.”
When he spoke in that tone, Louise knew there was no point arguing. But she could not hide her relief when they arrived before the storm at their own manor in Chateauneuf-sur-Charente that evening.
Although people crowded every space in the manor—attics, outbuildings and stables—everyone found a warm place to sleep that night. The next morning, Carlo’s cough was worse, and he was hot to the touch, but he insisted on rising. He spent the day tramping around with the seneschal discussing the repairs needed before winter set in for good, as well as law cases that he needed to review or rule upon.
By evening, he no longer had an appetite and did not argue when Louise insisted he retire to their bedchamber. She ordered a fire built up in the massive fireplace and called their doctor to him. After the physician permitted them to wait until the following day for a bloodletting, she prepared a mustard pack for his chest and gave him a draught of opium-laced cough syrup to send him into a deep sleep. He tossed and turned, moaning in his dream-induced slumber, and awoke heavy-eyed and hoarse. Nor did he object when she pointed out that the mix of snow and freezing rain made travel perilous and that another day of rest would benefit everyone in the party. The bloodletting weakened him, and his throat hurt, so he ate nothing more than broths and drank the herbal teas she persuaded him to swallow.
Louise nursed him day and night. He was necessary to her place in life, and she did everything in her power to restore him to health, sleeping on a pallet beside their bed, dozing when he did, bathing his burning body, adding layers of blankets as he shook and complained of cold, and applying her herbal skills to prepare remedies. Morning and evening, she and the physician consulted about his symptoms and treatments.
Nothing helped. Day by day he worsened, coughing up phlegm that went from greenish to murky yellow and then bright with blood. It pained her to watch him arch his back in pain as he coughed, and the shallow rise and fall of his chest, and laboured breathing. He fell more and more often into delirium. From a ruddy warrior, he melted into a yellow skeleton before her eyes.
As the days passed, Louise made the practical arrangements. One messenger she sent to his mother saying they were staying in Angoulême because Carlo was ill. She sent back half their entourage to ease the crowding in the manor and dispatched another messenger to Amboise to excuse them from attending the funeral and Christmas court because of Carlo’s serious condition. She wondered if the queen believed her.
Carlo’s steady wasting away despite her ever more desperate efforts brought back nightmare memories of the time when her mother lay dying, and she had been powerless to help. Shunted aside by the adults who took no notice of her, she had hidden in the dark corners of her mother’s room as nurses, doctors, Maman’s attendants, her Papa and finally the priest came and went whispering together, plying Maman with treatments that made her cry and moan and emit foul stenches. Although Maman begged them to let her die in peace, they pinched her nose until she opened her mouth and stroked her throat until she gagged. Louise stuffed her skirts into her mouth so no one could hear her sob as she hid. The memory of that helplessness surfaced as she dozed near her husband, powerless again. She needed him to protect her and her children from the men who would want to control her life when he was gone. Her own tears awoke her more than once. How she hated to show such weakness.
St. Sylvester’s Eve, 31 December 1495, she could no longer deny the obvious. Her husband would not survive this attack. Calling his valet, she sent him to bring the priest and the sacraments to hear Carlo’s last confession and administer the last rites. She would ask him to stay for the night, for Carlo would want him by his side.
After the valet left, she went to her husband’s side. He was dozing but awoke when she touched his face.
“Louise.” His voice was thick, and he had to stop to take a shallow breath. “You have blessed me with your care. I love you,” He smiled at her. Lipless, and wheezing, he did not resemble the charming man she married.
Although she shuddered, she knew his words came from his heart. Blocking her nose against his stink, she bent and kissed his brow wanting to shout, Don’t leave us. We still need your protection.
Instead, she said, “I love you too, dear Carlo. I have sent for the priest. Will you allow me to wash you and change your night shift?”
“It is time, then?” Tears sprang to his eyes. He tried to lift an arm but could not. “Thank you, yes.” It was a whisper.
She left the room while the priest conducted Carlo’s last confession. Her eyes adjusted to the dark of the corridor that was lit only by a single torch on the wall. Now she breathed the sharp, cold air outside the bedchamber for the first time in over a sennight, heard the creaks of the old building, and the faint murmurs of voices through the door. Everything felt strange, as if the world had become a different place while she had been incarcerated inside Carlo’s chamber. She prepared herself to face it. It was a relief when the priest opened the door and called her back in.
“Say your final goodbyes,” he instructed her, “and then I shall say a mass.”
Louise took his last whispered messages for his mother, children, and even his mistresses. Then she sat by him and held his hand as the priest prayed.
She kept her mind rigidly on the words of the mass until she heard the death rattle from Carlo’s congested lungs. For a time, she continued to hold his hand before crossing herself, rising, and gently pulling the sheet over Carlo’s lifeless form. Then she thanked his chaplain, who had drawn a cross on Carlo’s forehead the moment before she covered his lifeless eyes.
“I will have some of our men take his body to the chapel for embalming now,” she said. “The carpenters have worked all night to ready a rough coffin. We will leave tomorrow to bring him back to Cognac. I must bring him to his mother. And I must dispatch another courier to the king informing him of his cousin’s death.”
The priest drew a cross on her forehead. “Daughter, you did everything a wife and nurse could do and more. Return home and grieve, as we shall here, for a kind and generous lord.”
Louise focused her eyes on her husband’s body, but her thoughts moved forward to the future. They came to rest on her son, the pivot of her universe. He was now Count d’Angoulême. She rolled the words in the mouth, savouring their richness: Count François d’Angoulême, Second Prince of the Blood. One step closer to his destiny. It was some comfort in this adversity. That led her to think about the queen who had just lost her little Charles-Orland.
She imagined that, like her, Anne would rather have lost her husband than her son. If that had happened, Anne would be regent at this moment. Louise thanked God for his mercy. To bow to Anne and her son when Friar Francis had promised that Anne would bow to François. . . it did not bear thinking of. Louise shuddered. Yet it could still happen.