‘Is it Your Majesty’s wish that I should begin at once?’

‘That is not possible.’ Catheine smiled slowly. ‘You must wait until the gentleman arrives in Paris. I should not like your courtship of him to be conducted by letter.’

‘But, Madame . . .’ began Charlotte, taken off her guard. Catherine raised her eyebrows. ‘Yes, Madame de Sauves? What did you wish to say?’

Charlotte was silent, her eyes downcast.

‘You thought I referred to a gentleman who is now in Paris who has just come to Paris?’

‘I . . . I thought that Your Majesty . . . had in mind . . . a

gentleman who is already here.’

‘I am sorry if I disappoint you.’ Catherine looked at her beautiful hands, kept young and supple by René’s lotions. ‘I do not wish your love affair to advance too quickly. I wish that you should remember while you court this gentleman that you are a dutiful wife. You must tell him that your respect for the Baron de Sauves, my Secretary of State and your loving husband, prevents your giving what he will, ere long I doubt not, be asking for with great eloquence.’

‘Yes, Madame.’

‘That is all. You may go.’

‘Your Majesty has not yet told me the name of the gentleman.’

Catherine laughed aloud. ‘A serious omission on my part. It is, after all, most important that you should know. But have you not guessed? I refer, of course, to our bridegroom, the king of Navarre. You seem surprised. I am sorry if you had hoped for Henry of Guise. How you women love that man! There is my daughter doing her best to refuse a crown, for Monsieur de Guise; and I declare you were almost overcome by excitement when, for a moment, you thought that my orders were to take him for your lover. No, Madame, we must make life easy for our young married pair. Leave Monsieur de Guise to my daughter, and take her husband.’

Charlotte felt stunned. She was by no means virtuous, but there were times when, confronted by the designs of the Queen Mother, she felt herself to be in the control of a fiend of Hell.


* * *

Sadness brooded over the lovely old Château of Châtillon. There should not have been this sadness, for in the castle there lived one of the happiest families in all France; but for the preceding weeks, the head of the house, the man whom every member of the great family revered and loved deeply, had been restless and uneasy. He would busy himself in his gardens, where now the roses were making a magnificent show, and spend many happy hours with his gardeners discussing where they should plant the new fruit trees; he would chat with the members of his family or walk through the green alleys with his beloved wife; he would laugh and jest with his family or read aloud to them. This was a home made for happiness.

But it was precisely because there had been such happiness that the anxiety was with them now. They did not speak to one another of that dear friend, the Queen of Navarre, who had recently died so mysteriously in Paris, but they thought of her continually. Whenever the court, the King or the Queen Mother were mentioned, Jacqueline de Coligny would cling to her husband’s arm as though, by so doing, she could keep him at her side and out of harm; he would merely press her hand and smile, though he knew he could not grant her mute request; he could not promise not to go to court when the summons came.

Gaspard de Coligny had been singularly blessed, but being beloved by the Huguenots, he must be hated by the Catholics. He now fifty-three years of age; ever since his conversion to ‘the Religion’, which had come about when he had been a prisoner in Flanders, he had been entirely devoted to it; he had sacrificed everything to it as now he knew that he might be called upon to sacrifice his happiness with his family. He did not fear the sort of death which had overtaken Jeanne of Navarre, but he was perturbed at the thought that his family might be left to mourn him. That was at the root of his sadness. He lived dangerously; he had faced death many times during his lifetime and he was ready to face it many more. Only recently he had narrowly escaped being poisoned at—he guessed—the instructions of the Queen Mother. He should not trust that woman; yet if he did not trust her, how could he hope for a solution of all the problems which beset him? He knew that the mysterious deaths of his brothers, Andelot, the Colonel-in-Chief of the Infantry, and Odet, the Cardinal of Châdlion, had probably been ordered by Catherine de’ Medici. Odet had died in London; Andelot at Saintes. The spies of the Queen Mother were everywhere and she poisoned by deputy. Yet if he were called to court, he must go, for his life belonged not to him, but to his party.

As he strolled along the paths of his garden, his wife Jacqueline came to him. He watched her with great tenderness; she was pregnant—a fact which was a great joy to them both. They had not been long married and theirs had been a romantic match. Jacqueline had loved him before she had seen him; like many a Huguenot lady, she had admired him for years, and on the death of his wife she had determined to comfort him if he would let her do so. She had made the long journey from Savoy to La Rochelle, where he had been at that time, and, touched by her devotion, the lonely widower had found irresistible that comfort and adoration which she had offered. It was not long after Jacqueline’s arrival in La Rochelle that Gaspard had entered into the felicity of a second married life.

‘I have come to see your roses,’ she said, and she slipped her arm through his.

He knew at once that some new cause for anxiety had arisen, for he could sense her uneasiness. She was never one to hide her feelings, and now that she was carrying the child she seemed more candid than ever. The way in which her trembling fingers clung to his arm set him guessing what had happened. He did not ask what troubled her; he wished to postpone unpleasantness, just for a little while.

‘Why, you saw the roses yesterday, my love.’

‘But they change in a day. I wish to see them again. Come. Let us go to the rose gardens.’

Neither of them looked back at the grey walls of the Château. Gaspard put an arm about his wife.

‘You are tired,’ he said.

‘No.’

He thought: it must be a summons from the court. It is from the King or the Queen Mother. Jacqueline will weep and beg me not to go. But I must go. So much depends on my going. I must work for our people; and discussions and councils are better than civil wars.

He had long dreamed of that war which was to mean freedom for the Huguenots of France and Flanders, the war which would bring freedom of worship, that would put an end to horrible massacres like that of Vassy. If he could achieve that, he would not care what became of him—except for the sorrow his death would cause his dear ones.

His two boys, Francis and Odet, aged fifteen and seven, came out to join them. They knew the secret; Gaspard realized that at once. Francis betrayed nothing, but little Odet could not stop looking at his father with anxious eyes. It seemed sad that fear and such apprehension must be felt by one so young.

‘What is it, my son?’ asked Gaspard of Odet; and even as he spoke he saw the warning glances of Jaqueline and his elder son.

‘Nothing, Father,’ said Odet, in his shrill boy’s voice. ‘Nothing ails me. I am very well, thank you.’

Gaspard ruffled the dark hair and thought of that other Odet who had gone to London and never returned.

‘How pleasant it is out here!’ he said. ‘I confess I feel a reluctance to be within walls.’

He sensed their relief. Dear children! Dearly beloved wife! He almost wished that God had not given him such domestic happiness since it broke his heart to shatter it; that he had not been chosen as a leader of men, but rather that he might give himself over to the sweeter, more homely life.

His daughter Louise, with Téligny, the husband whom she had recently married, came into the garden. It was a pleasure to see those two together, for they were very much in love; and Téligny, that noble young man, was more to Gaspard than a son, for Téligny, a staunch Huguenot, had become one of the most reliable leaders of the movement, a son-in-law of whom Gaspard de Coligny, Admiral of France and leader of the Huguenot cause, could be proud.

Jacqueline and the boys knew that they could no longer keep the secret from Gaspard.

Téligny said: ‘There are summonses from court.’

‘From the King?’ asked Gaspard.

‘From the Queen Mother.’

‘The messenger has been refreshed?’

‘He is eating now,’ said Louise.

‘My orders are to return to court as soon as possible,’ said Téligny. ‘Yours, sir, are doubtless the same.’

‘Later we will go and see,’ said Gaspard. ‘For the time being it is pleasant here in the garden.’

But the evil moment could not long be put off, and even as he dallied in the gardens, it was obvious to Jacqueline that her husband’s thoughts were on those dispatches. She was foolish, she knew, to think that they could be cancelled merely by refusing to speak of them or to look at them. Téligny had had his orders; her husband must expect similar ones.

And so it was. There was a command from the Queen Mother for him to come to court.

‘Why so gloomy?’ asked Gaspard, smiling at his wife. ‘I am invited to court. There was a time when I thought never to receive such an invitation again.’

‘I wish that you never had,’ said Jacqueline vehemently.

‘But, my dearest, you forget that the King is my friend. He is good at heart, our young King Charles. It is my belief that he is the most benign sovereign that ever mounted the throne of the fleur-de-lis.’