‘Charles is too young,’ said the Duke of Guise, smiling affectedly. ‘You know this yourself. Your behaviour forces us to consider that you have become infected with the heresy of the Huguenots and that you now wish to see your son, who was a loyal Catholic, dead, and replaced by a heretic.’
Catherine’s face grew blank, studied and hard. ‘Us? When you say us, you mean yourself and the cardinal, your brother! It is well known that both of you have something to gain from my son’s death, namely the throne, which the house of Lorraine covets through an ill-conceived notion that it is the rightful heir of the house of Charlemagne! I warn you, you had best take care that the court does not hear how it is in this room! For how many are faithful to you? How many will run to the princes of the blood when they learn that Orleans is arming itself against you and your brother? You might find yourselves stepping onto the scaffold that you have so hastily prepared for Louis of Conde!’
A tremble seemed to pass through the entire party. The doctors and nobles left the room one by one, and this meant that Chavigny and his master were alone with the Queen Mother, Catherine de Medici. When she noticed Chavigny hanging in the shadows, she said to Nostradamus, ‘Who is that young man? Is he yours?’
‘Oh!’ His master turned around, as if Chavigny were an afterthought. ‘That is my secretary Jean-Aymes de Chavigny of Beaune. Chavigny, come, let the queen get a look at you!’ Nostradamus waved an impatient hand in his direction, and Chavigny walked reluctantly into the light and dropped down to his knees before the Queen Mother. He realised that he was shaking a little, for his heart was pounding. He was conscious of his road-soiled attire, of his unruly hair dripping rainwater on the flags at his feet, his possibly bleary eyes and undoubtedly scrubby jaw.
‘Your majesty,’ he said.
‘Get up, sir! You look pale from your long and arduous journey. The question is,’ she said to Nostradamus, ‘is he discreet?’
Nostradamus nodded. ‘He has a doctor’s degree in law and theology and his small time as the Mayor of Beaune, in Burgundy, was salubrious. He is learned and vain like all young men and stubborn-minded at times. I tell him he should drink more to loosen himself and I do what I can to encourage him to enjoy life a little, for he is far too serious. He has a good hand for writing though – and, I think, a heart to match. He thinks he is a poet, but his poems are clumsy.’
Thus was his life summarised for the Queen Mother in five easy sentences. Chavigny made the best of it and bowed his head even lower. His poems were clumsy?
But the Queen Mother had already turned away from him and returned to her son’s bedside. ‘You heard what Ambroise Paré proposes,’ she said. ‘He means to cut my son’s head open.’
‘This is often done in battle, madame, when there is fluid in the brain. But if I may, it will do nothing to prevent the course of this disease.’
She passed a hand over her rounded face, over those bulging eyes. She was not a beautiful woman and yet she was graceful in her gestures and this affected an image of beauty. ‘I think I read it in one of your quatrains.’ She looked at him with a sudden frailty. ‘The first son of the widow of an unhappy marriage . . . before the age of eighteen will die. Tell me, were you speaking of my son, the king? Tell me plainly.’ She cried suddenly, ‘Do not spare me!’
Nostradamus shook his head and made a squint, for his eyes were bad. ‘The future is not set like . . . like quince jam, your majesty. I only see one possible outcome out of many alternatives. Like a garden where there are many divergent paths . . .’
She turned away, thoughtful. It was long before she spoke again, and when she did, her words were quiet. ‘When my son dies, France will hang in the balance. He fell to the charms of the Catholic Guises and married that woman, but the Cardinal de Lorraine, her uncle, uses black magic to kill him because he wants the throne. I know this because Cosimo Ruggieri, my own sorcerer, has turned against me. He is in possession of a copy of the book of Pope Honorius, which he brought with him out of Florence.’ She looked at Nostradamus with a significant eye. ‘Surely you must know what this means?’
Nostradamus faltered. He put a hand to his chest absently, as if such a thought had seized his heart and made it pause. ‘The grimoire, written by that black pope, the pope who made a pact with the Devil?’
‘Yes. I need not tell you that there is no hope for my son. But Francis must not die before de Montmorency arrives, do you hear me? Did you not see how keen the Guises are to put me in a dungeon? It was I, you see, who alerted de Montmorency of my son’s condition and of his Protestant nephew’s imprisonment.