THE LOVE OF THE PEOPLE.
François I surveyed the adoring crowds on either side of the road: men, women, and even small children, waving, smiling, cheering. Each of his subjects willing to put aside the work of the day to stand in the sun, sometimes in the rain, to wait for hours, just to catch a glimpse of him. All the rigors, all the hardships of rule, became a willing price to pay.
Royal processions were tedious affairs, and the council members were constantly urging him to limit the practice. His ministers whined that processions were taxing on his subjects, unwilling to admit that it was they who disliked the people. How ludicrous. The populace lived for these events. If not, why were they here? Each of them would remember for the remainder of their lives the day they saw the king.
And the king would remember them—their love, their devotion. That was why, unlike that malformed troll Emperor Charles, François always rode on an open horse, not in a closed carriage. This was the figure of the man a people would want as their monarch—tall, powerful, virile, with fine, well-shaped calves.
They would turn out just to see his clothes. François took pride in the knowledge that he had totally altered the way a gentleman would appear. No longer could Italians mock the French for slovenly form or brutish garb. He had confounded the devious Italians by first borrowing from their manner of dress, and then improving on it. Doublets, until recently mere vests, were cut to fit tightly across the chest and were emblazoned with embroidery of brilliant color, then finished with slashed silk sleeves. Tights were now of silk—to accentuate those calves—and fitted with balloon shorts in contrasting color. The king, even in warm weather, wore a velvet plumed hat and a silk, fur-trimmed cloak draped insouciantly across his broad shoulders. So much had this manner of dress been copied in court and by gentlemen across France that François had instituted laws restricting by rank the amount of silk with which a lady or gentleman could be adorned. Thus François was assured that only when the king was in view could the people see elegance in its full flower.
Of course, although he rarely mentioned it, he knew it was the women who stared at that flower the most intently, each of them allowing herself the fantasy of sharing the royal bed. And François did occasionally pick a particularly comely maid out of the crowd, then sent a trusted servant to fetch her after the royal procession had passed. He would have to go behind the back of his mistress, of course—mistresses, actually—but an assignation with a commoner held sufficient satisfaction to be worth an occasional snit.
François also enjoyed these rides because, through all the waving and smiling, they afforded him a rare opportunity to think; a time when he could not be hounded by ministers, council members, or an army of supplicants. Today, as always, he was thinking about Charles. The Belgian turd. About Charles and about religion.
Catholic or Lutheran, he wondered. Which would the people prefer? Or, more accurately, against which would they rebel? As for himself, he saw little to choose between them. The Lutherans were appealing because they had no established order to overcome. But that very established order made the Catholics attractive for keeping a restive populace in line. If he went with the Lutherans, he could count on the support of the German princes, but he then ceded the pope to Charles. Something of a waste after taking the trouble to marry off his son Henri to that Medici runt, Catherine. But if he went with the Catholics, he might be betting against the future.
There was always England and Henry to consider, of course. With that bastardized religion he seemed to be promulgating, Henry would, as always, try to dance in between, although the image of the boarlike king of England dancing was difficult to conjure up without mirth. But England grew increasingly weak under Henry’s incompetent rule and, as Charles would never forgive him for divorcing his cousin, Catherine of Aragon, Henry seemed to have little choice but to curry favor with France.
So for the moment, François concluded, let the Catholics and Lutherans hurl brickbats at each other. The competition served him well—the mere act of hurling weakened them both, made each eager, even frantic, for a royal ally. Beda, that old fool, had come to him before he left Paris with the silly notion that the Lutherans were hatching a plot to bring down Christianity itself. Something about Genesis. What nonsense. Such desperation. Bring me proof, syndic, he had said, and Beda had claimed to be gathering that proof.
Bring down Christianity. Why would the Lutherans want to do that? They were Christianity too, or at least they were the last time he looked. Still, he had let Ory ride behind him in the royal procession, demonstrating a commitment to the Inquisition the king did not feel. But he would stop short of a commitment to Ory, just as he would stop short of a commitment to Marguerite.
Ah, his, sweet, beloved, hopelessly naïve sister. He did adore her. It was unfair to Marguerite to make her a pawn in this game, but, after all, what were women for? She had even entered into not one but two marriages to help her brother, the king, consolidate power. If he ultimately allowed both religions to coexist, she would be happy; if he chose one over the other, he would find a way to make it up to her.
Yes, let them play off one another, each offering more and more in turn, bidding up the price for the favor of the king. He could—and would— swing this way and that, relying on his reputation as a capricious child to render his vacillation convincing. François laughed softly to himself, realizing that the crowds would think he was pleased with them. But François was laughing at the irony—not ten men in Europe would have thought the French king a master of diplomacy. He might be able to play this game indefinitely.
François’ attention was suddenly drawn away from royal virtue to the other of his great interests. She was just ahead to his right, small and olive skinned, with large eyes. Quite lovely. Virginal almost. Well, perhaps not completely virginal, as she was standing with a man who seemed to be her husband. The king gave the young wench his most alluring gaze.
What? Was she looking back? Usually, the women he ogled on the route dropped their gaze out of modesty or intimidation. Looking the king in the eye was, after all, technically a crime. But this one met his eyes straight on. There was nothing sexual in her response. Or was there? Her look was even, without fear. Unafraid of the king? François felt a response in his loins.
Then François noticed the husband noticing the king’s attention. Oh, he was trying not to let on that he noticed, trying not to let his anger show. But François was far too experienced with men whose women were about to share his bed not to know the look. This one was a tradesman, some sort of laborer perhaps. It would be an easy matter to have the soldiers slit his throat and deliver the girl to him in Amboise. Yes. The thought gained appeal. Let her try to stare him down in the royal bedchamber, stripped of her rags and thrown across his bed.
François was about to signal to the captain of the guard, but then stopped. He felt himself sigh. Perhaps not. The king was feeling generous today. What’s more, the scene after his last dalliance three days ago had been particularly energetic. He had barely had time to move his head out of the way of the flying vase.
Ah, well. Let the laborer have her. She would be quite something for a tradesman to satisfy. François rode on. In ten years she would be a hag anyway.
Chance. Accident of birth. One man capricious, juvenile, yet omnipotent on Earth; another pious, questing, and an outcast. What had the magisters to say about that? About blind fortune? Where was luck covered in Scripture? Only in admonitions to bear any injustice, to accept that bad luck was not luck at all but part of God’s plan. Like Job. Yet whom did that interpretation serve? Only the powerful. The powerful did not need to question luck, only revel in it.
Amaury had stood at the front of the crowd and watched as the king approached. He had never seen François before, although images of the king graced coins, buildings, and churches all over Paris. The king was as large as his legend, more than six feet high, and thick of chest. Although he was now past forty, François had not in the least gone to fat. The beard for which he was famous was flecked with gray, but his small, darting eyes, the set of his large jaw, and even the protracted, Valois nose exuded the energy of youth. He was Broussard expanded by an order of magnitude.
The first line of foot soldiers passed and François had almost come even to where he and Vivienne stood. He and his putative wife were cheering and waving with the rest as the king surveyed his subjects, basking in affection he did not seem to know was coerced. Amaury noticed when the king’s gaze settled on Vivienne. He kept cheering but felt a rush of anger and possessiveness, as if Vivienne really was his wife. The king kept his eyes on her, his brow slightly furrowed, as if trying to decide something. Finally, François seemed to smile to himself and his gaze left Vivienne, which infuriated Amaury all the more.
Amaury wanted to grab her by the wrist, turn, and force his way back through the crowd. But that, he knew, was not possible until the remainder of the procession had passed. And there would be two miles of it.
Once François had moved on, the soldiers lining the route relaxed. The cheering also stopped and, in turn, participants in the procession felt neither the need nor the inclination to glance toward the crowd. Members of the retinue would pass in order of protocol: first the king’s guard, then barons, then minor nobles, then churchmen—all Catholic, of course—and finally, bourgeoisie who served the royal household. Trailing the luminaries were foot soldiers and an immense train of wagons and carts.
As the endless parade trudged along, Amaury peered at the sky, trying to estimate how much of the day would remain when he and Vivienne could finally leave. He had become almost totally distracted until, glimpsing the churchmen, he noticed a familiar face. Amaury was noticed as well.
Ory held his glance for only a second, but Amaury knew, even in that brief time, that the Inquisitor wanted something. He either had information to transmit or a question to ask. But how could Ory have known Amaury would be here? He had sent no reports to the Inquisitor.
Amaury turned to Vivienne to discern if the eye contact had been noticed. She was looking at him, her face placid. She seemed oblivious to the exchange. “How much longer do we have to remain?” she asked.
“When the wagons appear, we can probably slip away,” he replied.
Eventually, the wagons approached. Amaury glanced about at the soldiers guarding the route. They seemed to have begun to drift away as well. Amaury decided they could now safely make their escape. But, just he turned to lead Vivienne through the crowd, he bumped into a soldier.
Amaury began to blurt out an excuse for their early departure, a claim that his wife was ill, but the soldier tottered into him before he could speak. The man was drunk.
“Pardon, monsieur,” he muttered, grasping Amaury by the arms for support. Trying to right himself, his hands slipped down.
But the soldier was not drunk. As his hand reached Amaury’s side, he quickly passed a fragment of paper. When Amaury had secured it in his hand, the soldier, still tottering, plunged on through the crowd.
The message was from Ory—that was certain. And, judging from the size of the paper in his hand, it was also brief. He must read it quickly and Vivienne could not know. Once they had passed through the crowd, there would be scant opportunity to be unobserved.
Vivienne was behind him, so Amaury chanced unfolding the note and, placing his hand in front of him, shielded by his body, he looked down.
The message was indeed brief. On the paper was simply the notation “1:1.” Amaury quickly crumpled it and let it fall at his feet to be trod over by the spectators. When he and Vivienne emerged from the throng, they walked quickly to retrieve their wagon and leave Tours.
Ory’s message may have been brief, but it was hardly cryptic. The Inquisitor was telling him that the object of whatever conspiracy the radical Lutherans were hatching had been narrowed down from the book of Genesis to its first passage, 1:1, “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.”
How, Amaury wondered, astounded, could anyone disprove that?