Child Royal. D. K. Broster

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СКАЧАТЬ 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,” observed Madame Diane with her pursed smile, “would in M. de Graeme be disloyalty.”

      So Ninian, standing there, answered questions, attempted a description of his Queen, and gave by request some details of the voyage and its stormy nature.

      “There was also a mention in M. de Brézé’s letter,” said the King, “of the Queen of Scotland’s having been saved—he says not by whom—from some savage dog which was about to attack her. Upon a sea-voyage that has a strange sound!”

      Not knowing whether this were a question or a mere comment, and uncertain in any case what to reply, Ninian was silent; but Madame Diane, whose eyes had never ceased to study him, remarked: “Your Majesty forgets that M. de Graeme has just told us that he was only for a brief space on board the Queen’s galley, nor was he of her train.”

      “That is true, m’amye,” said Henri, turning towards her. “However, wherever this incident took place the child was, thank God, unharmed.—Tell me now, Monsieur de Graeme——”

      The door opened rather smartly. “The Princess of Navarre craves an immediate audience, your Majesty,” said the usher in a hurried voice.

      And without waiting to learn whether her request was granted or no the suppliant appeared almost at the same instant, swept forward, and entirely regardless of the Archer standing there, began with but a dipped curtsy to the King her cousin:

      “Here is a fine to-do, your Majesty? That tiresome Antoine—what hare do you think he has started now? Why, that our marriage may not be held valid because of that contract to the Duc de Cleves when I was a child! And my mother——”

      The King’s face grew dark, for he had set his heart upon this union.

      “What nonsense!” he said sharply. “It is well known that your former marriage was annulled. Vendôme must——”

      “Her Majesty the Queen of Navarre,” announced the usher once more.

      Only then, as he perceived his aunt bearing down upon him, did the King give Ninian the signal to withdraw. And Ninian, as he left the room was sure, from the expression of the royal authoress, that it was her prospective son-in-law’s scruples rather than her daughter’s wishes which had her support.

      And he had for a moment a clear picture of that marriage ceremony eight years ago at Châtelherault, when the twelve-year-old and entirely recalcitrant bride, in her heavy cloth of gold and ermine, had suddenly declared herself unable to walk to the altar where the Duc de Clèves awaited her. King Francis had bidden the Constable de Montmorency carry her there; and Ninian, in the King’s guard, had with his own eyes СКАЧАТЬ