Child Royal. D. K. Broster
been at Turin when Ninian set out from Roscoff, but the news of the serious revolt in Bordeaux against the salt tax had decided him to return to France, and he had recrossed the Alps in the first week of September. Immediately he was in Dauphiné the Constable de Montmorency and François de Guise were despatched against the rebels, and the King joined the Queen and the Grande Sénéschale of Normandy, Diane de Poitiers, on the 21st at Ainay, thereafter descending the Rhone in a great barge to Vaise, near Lyons, and making his state entry thence on Sunday the 23rd.
And for the last four days the city on its twin rivers had been given up to a perfect orgy of fêtes, processions, mimic water-battles, and pageants—and these were not over yet. To greet its royal visitors it had bedecked itself everywhere, on archway, banner or obelisk with the device of Henri and his mistress, the intertwined H and D and the crescent moon, and with the motto Donec totum impleat orbem. Queen Catherine in her open litter had indeed glittered with jewels, while Diane rode modestly behind in her customary black and white, but it was upon Madame Diane (after the King) that the eyes of the cheering multitude were bent.
Many, indeed, looked with interest at the other Queen in the procession, the King’s aunt, Marguerite of Navarre, seated in a litter with her fascinating and strong-willed daughter Jeanne, a girl of twenty. And all Lyons knew why there rode by the side of the litter that handsome if unreliable cavalier Antoine de Bourbon, Duc de Vendôme, for he was the chosen husband of the Princess of Navarre—chosen, that is to say, by King Henri and approved by the young lady herself. Not a single smile, however, was Queen Marguerite, that erudite novelist, poetess, and protector of Huguenots, observed to throw to this bridegroom to be, for both she and her husband disapproved of the match, which, besides increasing the prestige of his house (just then sorely in need of this) would eventually give the Bourbon the crown of Navarre. And none of the good citizens of Lyons, none of its school of humanists, were seers enough to perceive that it was not only the crown of Navarre which hung upon this marriage, but that above the young couple was hovering impatiently the spirit of the unborn Henri Quatre, with two hundred and fifty years of Bourbon Kings of France to come pressing behind him.
“Yes, this has indeed been a noble reception of his Majesty,” observed Ninian’s friend and comrade Patrick Rutherford, yawning, however, as one who had had enough of it. “Did you not admire last Sunday, Ninian, the nymphs who came tripping forth from the artificial forest, and in particular her who, in the guise of Diana, led the tame lion on a silver chain?”
“Graham should have been with us at St. Jean de Maurienne on the outward progress to Piedmont,” said another archer. “There the town entertained his Majesty with the most curious and original device you ever heard of. As he entered he was met by a hundred men clad in the skins of bears, who followed him on all fours to the church when he went to hear Mass; and afterwards, making the noises proper to those beasts, climbed about the market place. His Majesty vowed that he had never been so diverted in his life, and gave them a large sum of money.”
“But Heriot has not told you,” observed Patrick Rutherford, “how they frightened the horses left tethered during Mass, and that some of the townspeople were injured by them.”
“Tell me,” said Ninian to him, dropping his voice, “why the burghers of Lyons are so set upon exalting Madame Diane above Madame Cathérine? Surely for the city fathers to kiss the Grande Sénéschale’s hand before that of her Majesty was little short of an affront?”
Rutherford shrugged his shoulders. “You know who is Sénéschal of the Lyonnais—M. de St. André. Madame Diane had only to inform him that she wished to see her authority recognised in the south-east and he took measures. . . . Whom are you looking for, my lad?”
For a royal page, jaunty yet languid, had just approached the group of Archers.
“Which of you three gentlemen is M. Ninian de Graeme?” he enquired. “You, sir? I am sent to tell you that his Majesty desires to see you at once.”
“For what reason, I wonder?” commented Patrick Rutherford; and Ninian put the same question to himself as he followed the messenger up the wide staircase to the first floor, where were the temporary royal apartments.
His two comrades on guard outside the door moved aside to let him pass and the gentleman usher announced him.
The wide, handsome, panelled room, bright with arabesques of painting on wall and ceiling, sumptuously furnished by the city of Lyons for its exalted occupants, enshrined, amid its rich colouring, only two figures, both in their habitual black and white—assumed by the one in memory of her husband, now nearly twenty years dead, and by the other because she always wore it.
The King’s back was turned when Ninian entered. But Madame Diane de Poitiers, Grande Sénéschale de Normandie—soon to be Duchesse de Valentinois—sitting upright and composedly at a table with a parchment spread before her, and an inkhorn and pen within reach, faced him as he advanced. If he had not already been familiar with them for years, he would therefore have had an excellent opportunity of studying those firm features, that dazzling complexion, so much extolled, which was supposed never to have known cosmetics, and that small, determined and slightly pursed mouth. This woman, nearly twenty years older than himself, for whom Henri de Valois’ affection had never wavered since as a youth of seventeen he had come under her influence (and he was now just upon thirty), was comely rather than beautiful, a woman of business rather than a siren, calm, capable and grasping to the last degree. The thought flitted through the Archer’s mind that probably the parchment under her hand was waiting for the royal signature, and was some grant conveying to her or to her kin still more of the public revenues. She wore her usual widow’s coif and a gown of black velvet with wide, white-furred sleeves. Smiling, she motioned to him to approach, and extended her hand over the small table for him to kiss.
As he did so, the King turned round, revealing his dark, melancholy countenance. He was wearing a doublet of rich black velvet under a sleeveless just-au-corps of white leather embroidered with two golden crescents clasped together by the H and D of his name and Diane’s. Tall and vigorous, an adept in all athletic pursuits and passionately devoted to the chase, he yet looked fully ten years older than his age. He had never shaken off the adverse conditions of his youth, the years of captivity as a boy in Spain, a hostage for his father, the brilliant Francis I, the knowledge that that father’s love was given to the elder brother who died untimely, and that father’s failure, after the first Dauphin’s death, to train him, sullen and inarticulate as he was, for the throne which he would inherit. Whatever he had learned, whatever awakening of the spirit had come his way, he owed to the fifty-year-old mistress beside him whose livery he wore, and whom that age of pseudo-chivalry and the Amadis de Gaule could quite comfortably view as merely his inspiratrice, but who undoubtedly had his heart, and to whom he was almost unwaveringly faithful—as he was to that other great influence of his life, the Constable Anne de Montmorency.
“I would have sent for you earlier, Monsieur de Graeme,” said the King, with the affable address which covered a capacity for occasional outbursts of dark fury, “had I known that you returned from Scotland in M. de Villegaignon’s squadron. I learnt of it but this morning from a chance remark of M. de Montgomery’s. I am naturally eager for further news of my dear daughter the Queen of Scotland, from one who has so recently been in her company.”
Conceiving himself censured, Ninian got out some excuse. He had no idea of His Majesty’s wish—he had ascertained that the royal courier had arrived at Turin from Brittany within ten days of the landing at Roscoff. The King cut him short.
“Nay, I am not blaming you,” he said pleasantly. “But I have sent for you now that Madame la Grande Sénéschale and I may question you about a child who is so dear to me. Did you make the voyage, Monsieur de Graeme—which I hear was sadly tempestuous—in the same galley as her Majesty?”
“No, sire, but I had the privilege of seeing her when we were in harbour in the isle of Arran.”
“Tell me of her then,” said the King, throwing himself into a chair. “I have here M. de Brézé’s letter full of her praises; no doubt but that you will echo them.”
“To do otherwise,”