The Courtesan by Susan Carroll

Author:Susan Carroll
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction
ISBN: 9780345484642
Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
Published: 2005-07-26T04:00:00+00:00

Chapter Fifteen

The gossip spread from the corridors of the Louvre to the lowest taverns in the city. There had not been tidings of such startling and scandalous nature since France’s beloved Princess Margot had been married off to that Protestant oaf, Navarre.

During the next few weeks nothing else was talked of but the miraculous return of Nicolas Remy. The man known as the Scourge, enemy to all loyal Frenchmen and devout Catholics everywhere, had somehow survived the St. Bartholomew’s Eve Massacre.

But as wondrous as that was, it was completely eclipsed by the more startling fact that upon his return, the Scourge had not been arrested. He was to be welcomed back at court under the blessing of no less a personage than Queen Catherine herself. The matter was much discussed in the shops, the streets, and the marketplaces. The wiser of the Parisians shook their heads over it, muttering that the ways of the Dark Queen were very devious. The general consensus was that Monsieur Le Scourge had best watch his back.

Attired in her usual somber black, Catherine lingered by the windows of the king’s antechamber. She had an excellent view of the hive of activity taking place in the courtyard below, the rasp of saws, the banging of hammers as carpenters labored nonstop to construct the lists and the stands in time for the morrow’s festivities. Pennants already fluttered in the breeze, stirring in Catherine unwelcome memories of another tourney held long ago to honor the marriage of her daughter Elizabeth to Phillip of Spain. Three days of costly celebrations, culminating in that fatal joust on the last day.

Despite the fact that his hair had turned to gray, Catherine’s husband had cut a fine figure in his armor, sporting the colors of his lady. Not her colors of course, Catherine reflected grimly, but those of Henry’s beloved mistress, Diane. Powerful and strong as ever, Henry had defeated each opponent, one by one, until he faced the young Comte de Montgomery.

If Catherine closed her eyes she could still see that last terrible charge, the two horses thundering toward each other, the two armored figures coming together in a mighty clash, lances breaking against shields, the wood splintering. Henry reeled, slipping over the pommel of his saddle, and tumbled to the ground, blood spilling from his visor where the shard of lance had pierced his brain.

A freak accident, no one to blame, but the king of France was dead. Catherine remembered weeping until her eyes were red. It was the last time she ever recalled crying for anyone. Her tears had owed as much to guilt as grief. Nostradamus had warned her. The great seer had predicted Henry’s death long before the event and Catherine herself had had a dark premonition only that morning.

So why had she not tried harder to stop Henry from entering the lists? Had some dark secret part of her welcomed the death of her husband, the chance to finally seize the power so long denied her? Catherine still didn’t know, but she supposed it hardly mattered now.

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