* * *

Francis the King was very frightened. Why could they not leave him alone? He wanted nothing but to be happy with Mary. He did not ask much – only that he might ride with her, dance with her, give her fine jewels, hear her laughter. It was so pleasant to be a young husband in love; so frightening to be a King. There were so many who wanted to rule France: his mother, Monsieur de Guise, the Cardinal of Lorraine, Antoine de Bourbon, Louis de Bourbon … If only he could have said: ‘Very well, here is the crown. Take it. All I want is to be left at peace with Mary.’

But that could not be done. Unfortunately, he was the eldest son of his father. Oh, why had dearest Papa died? Why had there been that terrible accident which had not only robbed him of a father whom he loved and who had made him feel safe and happy, but had put a crown on his head!

And now there was fresh trouble. Here at Amboise they had been kept like prisoners. The Cardinal sneered at him; the Duke ordered what he should do. Oh, that he might be free of Mary’s uncles! Men sought his life, he was told. He must be wary. They had caught some men in the forests surrounding Amboise, and these men had said they would talk to none but the King. He had been lectured and drilled as to what he must do. His mother had told him; the Guises had repeated their instructions. He was to give these men a crown piece each and be jolly and friendly to them while he asked sly questions and found out who had sent them to Amboise.

He knew that while he talked to the men, his mother would be listening through a tube which connected her room and his. He knew that the Cardinal would be concealed somewhere or other and that, if he made a false step or failed to get what they wanted, he would have to face the scorn of the Cardinal, the anger of the Duke, and, worse still, the coldness of his mother, which he dreaded more than anything.

The men were brought in; they bowed low over his hand.

He tried to appear bluff as he had been coached, but it was no good. ‘Fear not, my good men,’ he said shyly; and he thought that by the sound of his voice it was they who should be telling him not to fear.

He gave them the money.

‘Tell me, what were you doing in the forests?’

They smiled and exchanged glances. They liked his youth and his shyness. What was there to fear? If he was the King, he was only a poor, delicate boy.

‘We came to rescue you, Sire,’ they whispered. It was apparent that the boy was uneasy; it seemed obvious that he would be nothing loth to escape from the rule of the Guises. With his stammering shyness he had won their confidence, and in a little while they were telling him that they had been sent from Geneva and that very shortly their leaders would join them.

The King hoped they would succeed; it was a genuine hope, for he could imagine nothing worse than the captivity he now endured under the control of the Duke and the Cardinal.

‘Fear not, Sire,’ whispered the leader of the men. ‘There are forty thousand men on the way to your help.’

They thanked him for his graciousness; they kissed his hand with affection, it seemed; and Francis was very sorry for them and longed to warn them that they had been overheard.

They were taken as they left the castle, and for weeks afterwards their heads – with those of many others who had been rounded up in the forest – adorned the crenellations of the castle.


* * *

All the children, except Hercule, were summoned to the balcony. They dared not refuse to obey the order. They must sit with the ladies and courtiers while they watched the massacre of Huguenots in the courtyard.

Francis felt sick; he could not endure it. Mary covered her face with her hands. Charles watched in horror; later he would go back to his tutors, who would talk of what had happened until he would scream and fall into one of his fits. Margot turned pale; it hurt her to see young and handsome men cruelly pinioned, pale from the dungeons, bleeding from the torture chambers. Margot could not bear to look at the blood, and there was blood everywhere. She wanted to scream: ‘Stop! Stop!’ Her brother Henry looked on with indifference; he did not care about anyone but himself and his pretty friends. But Henry of Guise was thrilled by the spectacle; he always took his cue from his father, and the massacre of Huguenots was organised by the Guises; therefore it was right.

Francis of Guise exchanged approving glances with his son, the hope of his house. Henry’s eyes showed how he adored his father, and there was contentment and understanding between those two. But the Duchess, Henry’s mother, disgraced them all by covering her face with her hands and weeping.

‘What ails you?’ asked the Queen Mother, herself calmly watching the spectacle.

‘This piteous tragedy!’ cried the Duchess of Guise hysterically. ‘This shedding of innocent blood … the blood of the King’s subjects. Oh, God in Heaven, terrible days are before us. I have no doubt that a great disaster will fall upon our house.’

Duke Francis angrily led his wife away, and Henry was ashamed of his mother.

Later, as the massacres continued day after day, the Duke grew more cruel, as though in defiance of anything Fate could do to him. Everywhere was the sickening stench of blood and decaying flesh; when the children went about the grounds they would be faced with the sight of men’s bodies hanging from the battlements. They watched men, fresh from the torture dungeons, tied in sacks and thrown into the Loire.

Neither Catherine nor the Guises attempted to stop the children’s witnessing these terrible sights. Duke Francis knew that his son Henry would be hardened by them as he wished him to be hardened; Catherine knew that her Henry was quite as indifferent to the sufferings of others as she was herself. As for the rest of the children, it was to the Guises’ advantage as well as that of Catherine that the King and his brother Charles should be weak, and it was in fact Francis and Charles whose nerves were racked by the horrors.

The bloody days went on and it seemed to the children that their beloved Amboise had taken on a new aspect. They thought of the dismal dungeons in which foul things were done; the beautiful battlements could not be dissociated from ghastly corpses which had once been men; the sparkling river was now the grave of many.

Francis cried when he was alone. It hurt him to go out and see how people shrank from him. When he approached he saw startled village women hustle the children into the safety of their cottages.

‘Here comes the King!’ they cried. ‘He is sick, they say, and only keeps himself alive by drinking the blood of babies.’

‘They hate me! They hate me!’ sobbed Francis. ‘They should be told that it is not I who do these terrible things.’

Once, with a sudden spurt of courage, he threw himself against the Cardinal and, when he felt the suit of mail beneath the Cardinal’s robes, he knew that this man, too, was afraid.

The Cardinal lived in terror of assassination. He had altered the fashion in men’s clothes that it might not be easy to hide weapons about their persons. Cloaks were no longer wide, boots were smaller, that daggers might not be secreted in them.

He is a coward, thought Francis; and he cried: ‘It is because of you my people hate me. Would to God you would take yourself away from here!’

The Cardinal only smiled, for if he was afraid of an assassin, he was not afraid of the King.


* * *

In the little court at Nérac there was great consternation. A letter had arrived for the King of Navarre from the King of France. Antoine opened it and read:MY UNCLE, – You doubtless will remember the letters which I wrote to you touching the rising which lately happened at Amboise, and also concerning my uncle, the Prince of Condé, your brother, whom many prisoners accuse vehemently; a belief which I could not entertain against one of my blood.

Antoine’s eyes skimmed the page, his hands trembling. He read on:… I have decided to investigate the matter, having resolved not to pass my life in trouble through the mad ambition of any of my subjects. I charge you, my uncle, to bring your brother, the Prince of Condé, to Orléans whether he should be willing or not, and should the said Prince refuse obedience, I assure you, my uncle, that I shall soon make it clear that I am your King …’

Jeanne watched her husband as he read, saw the change of colour in his face, and she was afraid for him.

So much had happened during the last year that she had been forced to adjust her picture of him, but he was still her beloved husband, in spite of the occasional bickering between them. Their personalities were quite opposed, one to the other; he was so weak, and he could never make up his mind; she was strong, and once she had made up her mind, for good or ill, she found it difficult to swerve.

She had made him King of Navarre, but she was bold and independent and herself ruled the province. She had sharply reproved him for what had happened when he had gone to court and had been so rudely treated by the Guises. She had explained to him the peril in which he had put himself, herself, their children and their kingdom. She had seen that the Prince who could work with the Queen Mother was the one who would have the largest say in state affairs. He had hesitated, and the Guises had got there before him.

There had been coolness between them for a short while, but the heat of Jeanne’s temper always faded quickly; and Antoine, though he changed his mind again and again, was still her beloved husband. They were lovers yet, and if he needed guidance from her, her help in his career, she must only thank God that she had the strength to give it.