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  To E, K, and C,

  Never let any person’s will

  supplant your own,

  nor anyone’s advice override

  the dictates of your

  conscience.

  Not even mine.

  PART ONE

  Si jeunesse savait …

  (If only youth knew…)

  PROLOGUE

  Summer 1562—Amboise, France

  In my dreams the birds are always black.

  This time when I wake, breathless and frightened, I am not alone. Hercule, perhaps disturbed by nightmares of his own, must have crawled into my bed while I was sleeping. I am glad to have his warm little body to curl around as I try to go back to sleep. No, he is no longer called Hercule, I remind myself sternly. Since his confirmation he is François, the second of my brothers to bear that name. The older, other François was not my friend or playfellow but rather the King of France. He has been dead nearly two years.

  My nurse claims it is because King François II died young, and my father King Henri II died tragically before him, that large black birds fill my nightmares. She insists images of weeping courtiers clothed in somber black etched themselves upon my youthful mind and were turned to birds by my overactive imagination.

  I know she is mistaken, but I bite my tongue.

  My brother Henri was equally mistaken. When we shared a nursery at Vincennes, he teased me that the birds were crows, noisome and noisy but, à la fin, harmless. They were not crows then, nor are they now. Crows with their grating clatter have never frightened me. Besides, my birds are silent. Silent and watchful. And always one is larger than the others. This one stares at me with beady eyes as if she would see into my very soul. I recognize my mother, Catherine de Médicis, Queen of France, even if none to whom I relate my dreams ever see her.

  Putting an arm around my brother, I pull him close and smell the summer sun in his hair. I recall this night’s vision—the birds arrived out of the northern sky, swooping over Amboise. The one in the lead was so large, she obscured the sun. Lower and lower they flew, until they came to rest on the spire of the Chapel of Saint-Hubert.

  My mother is coming. Even as I close my eyes and my thoughts blur, I know it. I am as certain as if I had received a letter in her own hand declaring it.

  The next morning, standing at the limestone parapet in the château garden, I feel rather smug. My gouvernante laughed when I said Her Majesty was coming, but crossed herself when the messenger arrived, proving me right. Madame kept giving me strange looks all the time she was fastening me into one of my best gowns—the one Monsieur Clouet painted me in last year, all heavy cream silk and pearls. Looking down to make certain my hem did not become dirty as I ran here, I realize my beautiful dress has grown short.

  Never mind, I think, Mother is coming! Pushing myself up on my tiptoes, I rest my arms on top of the wall and look over—experiencing a familiar mixture of awe and apprehension. On the other side everything falls away precipitously. Below, the calm, green Loire winds past, giving way to the deeper and more varied green of the trees on its opposite bank. To the left, the river is traversed by a bridge as white as the wall I lean upon. My eyes follow the road across that bridge. I can see a long way, and just before the road dissolves into shimmers of light I see movement. Can it be Mother’s party?

  A motion closer at hand draws my attention. François followed me when I snuck out, and now he is trying to pull himself up onto the wall to see better. My stomach clenches. The drop from the top to the rooftops below would surely break his body to pieces should he go over. Grabbing my brother around the waist, I try to haul him back, but he clings tenaciously to the stone.

  “Let go,” I command.

  Whether in response to my demand or under the pressure of my tugging, François’ fingers release and we tumble backwards into the dry dust of the path. My youngest brother is slight of build, but at seven he is still heavy enough to knock the wind out of me. He scrambles up indignantly, heedless of the fact that he finds his footing in my skirts.

  “I am not a baby.”

  “You are certainly behaving like one!” I shriek, looking at the dirty marks upon my gown. I can only imagine how the back of me—the part sitting in the dirt—looks. I feel like crying and my face must show it, for François’ expression changes from defiance to guilt.

  “I am sorry, Margot.” He drops his eyes and nudges the path with his foot.

  “Help me up.” I reach out, unwilling to turn onto my knees and do further damage to my dress.

  Taking my hands, François throws his weight backwards. For a brief, perilous moment I am lifted. Then my brother’s feet slide from under him and I drop back to the ground as he lands there himself. At that precise moment, I spot my gouvernante, the Baronne de Curton, running toward us with my nurse and François’ following. Madame’s face is as white as my dress, or rather, I think, fighting the desire to laugh, considerably whiter given the state of my once lovely gown.

  “What would Her Majesty say to see une fille de France in such a position!” Madame picks up François and sets him on his feet. He—wisely, to my way of thinking—scurries to his nurse, who has paused a few yards away, panting. “You are too old for such behavior.”

  This is a familiar phrase, and the only one that annoys me more is “You are too young”—something I seem to hear with equal frequency. I am too old to play the games I used to play with François. I am too young to join my mother and her ladies at Court. What, I wonder, am I of an age to do? I know better than to raise such a philosophical point under present circumstances.

  I allow Madame to help me up. She circles me, shaking her head. “You must change. Her Majesty cannot see you like this.”

  A flurry of movement and burst of sound attract our attention. A group of figures emerges from an archway at the far side of the garden. The livery of the servants and the exceedingly fine dress of the handful of gentlemen and ladies proclaim the unwelcome truth. Whether we are ready for her or not, Mother has arrived.

  The sight of her—gliding forth from amidst her companions, dismissing them by gesture—sets me trembling, and not merely because of the state of my gown. François, breaking from his nurse, takes refuge behind me. But I am too old for such behavior, and if I tried to dart behind Madame I doubt she would willingly shield me. I give a quick shake to my skirts and square my shoulders. Madame shoos François from behind me and urges us into motion. I try to walk smoothly so that I will appear to float as Mother does, but my sliding only stirs up dust, causing my gouvernante to hiss, “Pick up your feet.”

  Then I am face-to-face with Mother. Her eyes are as dark and as searching as those of the bird in my dream. And for a moment, while Madame and the nurses curtsy and murmur, “Your Majesty,” I am frozen by her gaze. A none-too-gentle nudge from Madame frees me. I make my own reverence, then, straightening, take François’ hand, not so much to reassure him as
to fortify myself.

  “Baronne de Curton”—the black eyes sweep over François and me from head to toe—“I presume from the grandeur of my children’s attire that my courier arrived. Given that you knew I was coming, I cannot, then, account for the state of that attire.”

  Madame dips her head. I hear her draw breath. I wish I could find mine. Wish I could say that it is all François’ fault for climbing where he ought not. But my voice has flown. So instead I bite my lip so hard that it hurts, to punish myself.

  “Abject apologies, Your Majesty. I am mortified.” My gouvernante bows her head lower still, and guilty tears prick the corners of my eyes.

  Mother stands silent, perhaps to let each of us fully feel our faults. At last, when I do not think I can bear another moment of her scrutiny, she speaks. “I will see the children later. Make certain they are in better order.” Then, without a single word to François or me, Her Majesty moves past our little party, to take a seat by the same wall we just left.

  * * *

  As the shadows lengthen, I am dressed once more in a selection of my best things. The time has come for François and me to be brought before the Queen. I am desperate to make a better impression than I did this morning. Madame is equally eager. As we walk to Her Majesty’s apartment she makes me practice the Plutarch I plan to recite—twice. And when we stop before Mother’s door, she straightens my necklace and wipes some mark that only she can see from François’ face.

  Satisfied, Madame raps and opens the door without hesitation at Mother’s summons. Her step does not falter as she crosses the threshold, while my feet feel as if they are made of lead.

  “Your Majesty, the Prince and Princess,” Madame says, offering a nod to Mother’s venerable maid of honor, the Duchesse d’Uzès.

  Mother regards us with a look of appraisal.

  “François, have you been obedient and applied yourself to your lessons?”

  My brother makes a solemn little bow. “Yes, Madame.” Our mother rewards his display with an inclination of her head. Then she turns her eyes to me.

  “Margot, you are such a pretty child when you are not covered in dirt.”

  I feel my face color, and make a low curtsy by way of reply—far easier than finding my voice.

  “It pleases me to see both children in health.” Mother offers the Baronne an approving nod. “The thought of them here, safe, where the air is pure and free from both the infection of war and the creeping illness of heresy, was a great consolation to me while I attempted to talk peace with the Prince de Condé.”

  At Mother’s mention of the notorious heretic commander Madame crosses herself. I mimic her gesture.

  “I trust there are no French prayers here,” Mother continues.

  “No indeed, Your Majesty!”

  “Good. I have rooted out whatever there was of that nonsense in my Henri.” Her eyes shift back to me. “Does it please you to know that, when you see your brother next, there will be no need for you to hide your Book of Hours?”

  I nod. I am pleased. Pleased to have Mother’s attention, and pleased that my brother will no longer be inclined to cast my books on the fire. While we were living in company, he burned more than one. He gave me a book of Huguenot prayers to replace them, but I gave that to Madame and prayed daily that he would turn away from heresy. I was not sorry when his transgressions came to Mother’s attention, though I was sorry for the beating he got as a result.

  “The Lady Marguerite is very pious,” Madame says. These are surely meant to be words of praise; why, then, does she shift from foot to foot? “But…” Her voice trails off and she clasps and unclasps her hands.

  “Yes,” Mother urges. The eyes upon me harden.

  “Your Majesty,” Madame’s voice drops as if she will tell something very secret, “the Lady Marguerite knew you were coming. Knew it before the courier arrived.” She crosses herself again.

  “She knew?”

  “Yes…” Madame’s voice fades. I can hear her swallow. “During our morning lessons she told me she was waiting for you.”

  Mother’s eyes sparkle. “So, Margot, it seems you are a daughter of the Médicis as well as the Valois.”

  I do not understand. Nor, it appears, does Madame. She looks entirely bewildered.

  “I foresaw your father’s death,” Mother says, looking me in the eye. “I dreamt of his face covered with blood. I begged him not to enter the lists on the day he was mortally wounded. He would not listen.” There is tremendous sadness in her voice, but then the corners of her mouth creep upward, almost slyly. “Some fear the gift of premonition. But I tell you, daughter, never fear what is useful to you.” Mother intertwines her fingers before her and her smile grows.

  “Mark my words, Baronne, I will find a crown for this one, as I did for her sister the Queen of Spain. There will be no need to settle for a Duc as we did for Claude.”

  I have but imperfect memories of my sister the Duchesse de Lorraine, but I know that she had a sweet temper and a deformed leg. Apparently the former mattered less than the latter when it came to making a match for her. I find this both surprising and interesting.

  I wonder if this talk of my future means I will be allowed to return to Court with Mother. I am too young to be married, but surely I could learn many things—both from observing Her Majesty and from her retinue of great ladies. Henri is at Court; why not me? I open my mouth to ask, then close it again.

  “Have you something to say, child?” The question stuns me. Nothing, not a breath, not a twitch, escapes Mother’s attention.

  “I…” The permission I would seek lies on the tip of my tongue. Instead I hear my voice say, “I have prepared a recitation for Your Majesty’s pleasure.”

  “Well then, go on.”

  Frustrated by my own timidity, I will myself to ask the question, but the moment has passed. I have been bid recite. Obedience and training take over. Almost without volition, the well-rehearsed Plutarch pours smoothly from me like wine from a cask. My mother’s glance never leaves my face. When I am finished, I stand, hands clasped, waiting for her verdict. Perhaps if she praises me I might raise the topic of Court.

  But no words of praise come, at least not for me. Instead, the Queen’s attention turns to Madame. “The effects of your tutelage show well in the Princess. I think, perhaps, she may be ready for more rigorous study.”

  “A tutor at her age, Your Majesty?” Madame seems mildly shocked, and her reaction rankles me. I know that I am clever.

  “Yes. To secure a crown Margot’s looks and family name may be enough, but to be useful to us once she is crowned, more will be required. To be a queen, a disciplined and developed mind is essential.”

  And like that our audience is over. Mother merely waves her hand by way of dismissal and, as Madame shepherds us toward the door, picks up a piece of fruit from a bowl on her table.

  Well, I console myself as I am tucked into my bed, perhaps I will manage to find the courage to ask about Court tomorrow. When I awake in the morning and learn the Queen has gone—departed without taking leave of François or me—I hide and cry bitter tears.

  CHAPTER 1

  Winter 1564—Fontainebleau, France

  “Dear God, the cold!”

  It must be the hundredth time my gouvernante has uttered these words, or something very like, in the last three days.

  “It was also cold in Amboise,” I reply, trying to keep my voice cheerful while repressing an urge to kick Madame in the shins as she sits across from me in the coach. How can she think of the cold at a time like this?

  “There were fires at Amboise, Your Highness, and chimneys that drew properly.”

  When we stopped at Nemours last evening, Madame was nearly smothered, thanks to an ill-maintained flue. Well, she can hardly blame me: I wanted to continue on to Fontainebleau, as it could not be more than another two hours’ ride. Madame, however, insisted we stop. She wanted me freshly dressed and looking my best for our arrival at the château, for my
arrival at Court.

  Court—since word came a fortnight ago that I was summoned, I have thought of nothing else. I am going to join the Court, and the Court ensemble will depart upon the largest royal progress ever undertaken.

  Drawing back a tiny corner of the heavy drapes that cover the window, so as not to seem disrespectful of Madame’s comfort, I devour the landscape. The views on our trip have been dominated by rivers—first the Loire and then the Loing—but we are surrounded by woods now, the royal forest of Fontainebleau. Most of the trees are leafless in the gray winter light, but I can imagine them clothed in green, just as I can imagine a royal hunting party like those my brother Henri and I used to watch at Vincennes. I can almost see the riders in their dazzling attire moving between the trees; hear the snorts and pawings of the horses, and the barking of the dogs. I do not need to imagine the stag, for suddenly, juste à côté the road, a magnificent animal appears.

  “Look!” I cry. But Madame and the other ladies are too slow. Before their heads turn, the stag is gone. Never mind—there will be more of interest to be seen, much more. I remain eyes out the window and mute, letting the conversation of my companions flow over me like water over stone. For a time I forget the scenery and think of my younger brother. How François cried when he discovered that he would not make the progress. He was told he is too young for such exhausting travel and too imperfectly recovered from a bout of smallpox that nearly killed him just short of a year ago. He insisted he was neither. Then, late on the night before he left for Vincennes, where he will stay, he woke me to say he thought the pox was to blame for his exclusion.

  “It is because I do not look right,” he said, tears streaming down his scarred face. “They are afraid I will scare the horses and ruin the pageants.”

  I told him not to cry, that no one would be frightened of him. To lie in such a situation cannot be a sin. In truth, the damage illness did to my once comely brother is shocking. Deep pits mark his face, and his nose remains misshapen. And part of me wonders, and feels guilty for doing so: Is he right? Has Mother left him behind because he would spoil the tableau that all murmur she wishes this progress to paint—a picture of the House of Valois triumphant and firmly in command of a France at last at peace? Surely one scarred little boy would not be the ruination of all her plans. No, I must believe he was left for his own good.