Part 9 (1/2)

But Antoine kept his distance; he did not approach the King, but stood midway between him and the door.

'Why don't you speak?' cried Francis. 'Speak! Speak! Why don't you defend yourself?'

Then Antoine spoke. 'There is nothing I would gainsay if my King declared it to be so.'

'You mean ... you mean ...' spluttered Francis. He half turned towards the door which led to the antechamber. They were waiting in there for the signal, for the cry he was to give: 'Help! Help! a.s.sa.s.sin!' But how could he give it while Antoine kept so far away? It would so obviously be a trick. The man waiting outside the door Antoine's man would come in and see what had happened. He must lure him on. But he did not know how.

'Sire,' said Antoine quietly, 'you are distraught. Have I your leave to retire that you may send for me when you are feeling better?'

'Yes ... yes ...' cried Francis. And then: 'No, no. You coward! You traitor ...'

But Antoine had slipped through the door.

'Come back! Come back!' screamed Francis. 'I ... I didn't get a chance.'

A door was opened, but it was not the one through which Antoine had departed. It was that of the antechamber.

On one side of the King stood the Duke, the terrible scar standing out on his livid face, and the eye above it watering, as it did when he was angry. On the other side of the King stood the Cardinal.

They both carried daggers, and for the moment Francis thought they were going to use them on him, as they could not on the King of Navarre.

The Duke did not speak, but Francis heard the words which came through the Cardinal's thin lips.

'Behold the most lily-livered King that ever sat upon the throne of France!'

Antoine had agreed to accept the Lieutenant-Generals.h.i.+p and that Catherine should be Regent of France. Mary Stuart was a spy who was watching every action of the Queen Mother and reporting it to her uncles. So there seemed nothing to be done but wait for the death of Francis; and the sooner it came, the sooner would that power for which she longed be Catherine's.

The poor little King was growing gradually weaker. Catherine herself prepared many potions for him, but these did not seem to improve his health, but rather to make him more feeble. She herself spent much time in his apartment, braving, as she said to some, the jealousy of her little daughter-in-law. 'But,' she would quickly add, 'I understand that. They are lovers, but when a boy is sick it is his mother who should be at his side, and the King is but a boy.'

One day Francis complained of a pain in his ear. He cried out in agony, and then only his mother's herbs and drugs could soothe him. These sent him into deep sleeps which gave him the appearance of a dead man, but it was better that he should be thus, all agreed, than that he should be conscious and suffer such pain.

Mary, frightened, her pretty face marred with the signs of weeping, cried out: 'This cannot go on. These doctors are fools. I will send for Monsieur Pare. He is the greatest doctor of all.'

Catherine took her daughter-in-law by the shoulders and smiled into her face. 'No doctor can help him. All we can do is ease his pain.'

'We must save him,' said Mary. 'We must do everything possible to save him.'

'I will not have Monsieur Pare here. The man is a Huguenot. There will be those to say we plot in the palace.'

'But something must be done. We cannot let him die.'

'If it be G.o.d's will, then, my daughter, we must accept it.'

'I will not accept it!' sobbed Mary. 'I will not!'

'You must learn to bear misfortune like a Queen, my daughter. Ah, do not think I cannot understand your sufferings. I know full well how you feel. Did I not suffer so myself? Did I not see the husband I loved as you love Francis did I not see him die in agony?' She wiped her eyes. 'Yet I loved him as you love Francis, but I would not have had him kept beside me to suffer.'

Frightened, and angry at the same time, Mary flashed out: 'He would not have suffered beside you, Madame, but beside Madame de Valentinois.'

Catherine smiled. 'You are right. You see, I suffered far more than you, my child, for your husband has been a faithful husband. I suffered in so many ways.'

Mary looked with horror into the face of the Queen Mother, realising what, in her anguish, she had said. She dropped on her knees and wept. 'Madame, forgive me. I knew not what I was saying.'

'There,' said Catherine. 'Do not fret. It is your anguish as a wife that makes you forget the bearing of a Queen. You need rest. I shall give you something to drink. It will help you to sleep. Wait. I will get it myself, and then I shall hand you over to your women. Rest ... and perhaps when you wake, our dearest little Francis will be a little better.'

'You are good to me, Madame,' muttered Mary.

And obediently she drank the warm, sweet liquid. Catherine called Mary's women and said: 'See that she rests. She is overwrought. She suffers deeply.'

Catherine sat by the bed and watched her son in his drugged sleep, and as she sat her thoughts moved onwards.

Little Charles on the throne! A boy of ten! Her fingers were ready now to seize the power for which they had been itching during the humiliating years.

How long would Francis live? Another day? Two days?

His ear was puffed and swollen; he was moaning softly. That meant that her drugs were loosening their hold upon him.

Catherine seemed calm, but inwardly she was furiously angry.

Mary had arranged with her uncles that Ambroise Pare should be brought to the bedside of Francis. The Guises were very ready to give their sanction to this request. Pare was a Huguenot, but he was reckoned to be the greatest surgeon in France since he had performed a clever operation on the Count d'Aumale by extracting a piece of lance which had entered beneath the eye and gone through to the back of the neck. This had happened before Boulogne during the war with the English; the Count had lived and regained full health after the operation, and the cure had seemed something like a miracle. The Catholic Guises were ready to overlook Pare's faith, for it mattered not who saved Francis as long as he was saved.

Pare had examined the King's ear.

Catherine said: 'Monsieur Pare, I have the utmost faith in your judgement. I beg of you to tell me privately what you have found.'

'I will know also,' said Mary imperiously.

'My daughter, I am his mother.'

'But I,' said Mary, 'am his wife.'

Catherine shrugged her shoulders and had the room cleared until only she, Mary and Pare remained.

'Mesdames,' said Pare, 'the King's condition is grave. I do not think he can last the night.'

Mary covered her face with her hands and began to sob.

He continued: 'There is a malignant abscess in the ear. It is full of evil humours that are entering his blood and poisoning it.'

'Oh, my son, my little King!' moaned Catherine. 'Only a few hours then, Monsieur? Only a few hours of life left to my little son?'

'Madame, if the abscess were lanced ...'

Mary stared at him wildly; Catherine's eyes glittered.

She said sharply: 'I will not have my son tortured, Monsieur, with your lancings. I will not hear him scream in pain. He has suffered too much in his short life. I would have him die quietly and in perfect peace.'

'I was about to say, Madame, that if the abscess were lanced ...'

Mary flung herself at the feet of the surgeon and kissed his hand. 'There is a chance? Monsieur Pare, there is a chance to save him?'