"Yes." Lucrezia paused. "I fear there's more." She met my eyes. "La Senechale has requested that if the child is a boy, it be brought to her after its birth so she can raise it."

I thought I wouldn't be able to contain the sick feeling inside me. I waved Lucrezia out and then doubled over on my chair, my stomach heaving. Nothing came out. I tasted foulness, but it was as if my horror and disbelief had become a part of me.

I knew that now I must sacrifice everything if I was to survive.

In August 1538 the peasant woman bore a girl. She was given a stipend and allowed to keep the child, as Diane had no interest in raising a female. But while my husband's mistress may have failed to get her hands on a child of his, I was not relieved. The very fact that Henri had sired a bastard invigorated the whispers at court of my continued barrenness, as there could be no doubt now as to who was to blame for our failure.

Every day that passed pushed me closer to the inevitable. Henri did not visit my bed or even see me for days on end, and I began to suspect that Diane actively campaigned against me, to destroy the little bit of pleasure Henri and I might find in our marriage. My sole comfort and protection was the king, whose professed love for me had not changed.

In the year of my twenty-third birthday and eighth anniversary of my arrival in France, Francois moved to the Chateau of Amboise. Perched on a promontory overlooking the Loire, Amboise boasted spacious gardens and elaborate wrought-iron railings; a favored residence, Francois had spent years embellishing it, and here he announced a new plan he'd hatched to wrest Milan from Charles V.

"The constable thinks I should offer my twelve-year-old niece Jeanne d'Albret, daughter of the king of Navarre and my sister Marguerite, to Charles V's heir, Philip of Spain," he told me as we strolled in the gardens. From the far end came muted roars and the musty odor of three lions he kept caged there, a gift from the Turkish sultan that he'd not quite known what to do with.

"In exchange," he went on, "Charles can deed Milan to me and Jeanne will deed Navarre to Philip, once she inherits. Charles will leap at the chance; he believes his family, the Hapsburgs, hold the superior claim to the realm, while the current rulers, the d'Albrets, are usurpers. My sister Marguerite is the king of Navarre's widow; she'll be less than pleased at the prospect of handing over her daughter to Spain, but I don't intend to actually let Charles keep Navarre. I just want him to think I do, so I can get Milan." He nudged me. "What do you say, ma petite? Can we hoodwink that Hapsburg serpent?"

"I don't see why not," I said. "It's an excellent plan and I'm sure your sister will understand."

He sighed. "You don't know Marguerite. We used to be close, but after she wed and moved to Navarre, she changed. Her late husband, the king of Navarre, was a Huguenot sympathizer and she's become involved with their so-called cause." His mouth twisted; it was the first time he'd mentioned aloud the troublesome Protestant cult to me. "She patronized that antichrist Calvin for a time; rumor has it, she's even raised her daughter as a Huguenot, God help us." He paused. "You can be of assistance, ma petite. I've asked that Jeanne visit us; perhaps you could persuade her to embrace our Catholic faith. It's not as if a girl of twelve will know any difference."

"I'd be honored," I replied, thinking it would also help me to be of some actual political use.

Jeanne arrived a month later. Small in stature and thin, with the elongated Valois nose and narrow almond-green eyes, only her shock of red hair and spattering of freckles denoted her paternal blood. She stood on my threshold with her sharp chin lifted, dressed head to toe in unbecoming black.

I went to her. "My dearest child, come in. We're so happy to see you."

Jeanne stared at my prie-dieu. "I cannot," she said, in a high nasal tone. She stabbed with her finger at the statue on my small altar. "That is idolatry."

I chuckled. "I am of the Roman Catholic faith; it is how we worship."

"Well, I am of the Reformed faith and we are forbidden to look upon graven images."

"She is not a graven image," I said as I saw my sister-in-law Marguerite stiffen. "She's the Madonna of Assisi, venerated for her kindness to cripples and sufferers of other deformities."

"She's a statue. Calvin says that the cult of saints and veneration of statues must be abolished, for that is not what our Savior preached."

God save us, the child was an avowed heretic. I chuckled again to disguise my consternation, not so much with her words, which sounded much as I imagined, but rather with her conviction. What in heaven had Queen Marguerite been teaching her daughter? And how was I to counter it?

"Christ's mother was a woman of flesh like any other," Jeanne continued. "The worship of her cult derives from old pagan customs."

Marguerite lunged to her feet. "How dare you utter such vileness!"

Jeanne stuck out her lower lip. I let out an uneasy laugh. "She recites what she's been told, much as we might recite Brantome. She doesn't understand the half of it."

"I do." Jeanne narrowed her eyes. "I also know why I'm here. They want me to wed a papist Spaniard, but I'll die first. I'm a child of God and you are fools who kneel before a cross."

As my women gasped in unison, I gripped her thin shoulder. "Enough. No more talk of religion, yes?" I propelled her forth toward an empty chair near me. My ladies flinched as if she might impart her contagion. With a searing glare at her, Marguerite marched out.

I hadn't expected such piety from my sister-in-law. But Marguerite had no intention of indulging a Calvinist nor would she ever. I was less dismayed because I could see how the child reveled in her effect on others; nevertheless, as I labored to mold Jeanne to conformity, I gained valuable insight into the new religion that most Catholics detested and feared.

To my surprise, once I grasped its doctrinal digressions, I found that the Huguenot credo was not all that different from my own. But Jeanne clung fervently to her faith and I made no progress in my attempts to convert her. Not that it mattered; upon hearing his ambassador's account of her, Charles V refused to even consider Jeanne as a bride for his son.

Enraged, Francois sent Jeanne packing back to Navarre and plunged into a foul mood, intolerant of everything and everyone. I felt my own trap closing in. Given his present state, how long would it be before some conniving courtier suggested to the king that maybe the way to Milan could be bought through a new wife for Henri?

My stay of execution was at an end. I had to seal my pact with my own private devil.

I arranged for the meeting to take place at night in my rooms. I'd feared Diane might refuse or make an elaborate show of her arrival, but she came without fanfare. One minute I was pacing, rehearsing lines that tasted like soot; the next, the door opened and she stood on the threshold in a hooded cloak. Reaching up a white hand, she swept back her hood to reveal that sphinxlike face. She wore a dark blue gown, a rope of rare black pearls entwined about her alabaster throat.

Her voice was cultured, the voice of a courtier. "I was surprised by your summons."

My smile felt sharp on my lips. "Oh? It's not as if you've lived unaware of me, madame."

She inclined her head. "Indeed. Your candor is refreshing."

"Good. Then let me be even more candid: I believe it is time we became better acquainted, seeing as you're so close to my husband."

Her eyes flickered. For a second, I glimpsed something dark, soulless. Face-to-face with that unblemished skin, staring into those cold blue eyes, I wondered how such a reptilian being could keep my husband enthralled. "I fear you are mistaken," she said carefully. "While I am privileged to call His Highness my friend, I assure you I do not share his every intimacy."

A satisfied thrill went through me. Regardless of what they did in private, she clearly didn't want any public impropriety. I'd overestimated her. She wasn't as confident as she appeared. Like me, she was treading water. She knew that once Henri became king she must consign herself to the shadows or come out in the open as my rival.

I drew out the moment before I decided to ignore her evasion and cut straight to the mark. "I've summoned you because I think you'll understand my concern. You see, I believe His Majesty may soon have no other alternative than to annul my marriage."

A vein in her temple twitched. "Are you certain? I've heard the king bears you much love."

"His love is not in question," I replied, more sharply than I intended. "However, no amount of it can cure me of this bane that so many believe I carry." I paused, thinking of the secret charred in the hearth, only a few paces from where we sat. "I refer to my lack of a child, madame," I added. "While His Majesty does love me, not even he can defend me forever. After all, I am expected to bear a son. If I cannot, then it would be best for all concerned if I did retire to a convent, where a woman of my unfortunate predicament ought to be."

Her eyes narrowed. I had struck a nerve, perhaps the only one she had. She couldn't evade her encroaching age; she had limited time to fulfill her ambitions and she depended on me, the complacent wife. Another might not be so willing to stand aside and let her have her way.

"I regret this matter has so perturbed you," she said, and she rose gracefully to waft to the window alcove, where she patted the cushions as though I were a pet. I perched beside her; she had no discernible scent, as if she were made of marble.

"I assure you, such situations are not uncommon," she said. "I wed my late husband in my adolescence and didn't bear our first child until my twenties. Some women need time to mature."

My hands coiled in my lap.

"Nonetheless," she went on, "this being such a delicate matter, perhaps you would allow me the privilege of putting your concerns to rest?"

I wanted to wrap my hands about her alabaster throat, but at least she'd spared me the worst. She had relieved me of the need to further abase myself.

"I would be indebted to you," I managed to utter.

She patted my hand, stood, and glided to the door, where she paused to look over her shoulder. "I've heard it said you rely on amulets, potions, and the like. You'll find you have no further need. Providing you leave the details to me, I promise you will soon give Henri a child. It will be a glorious day for all of us, I think."

She sailed out, leaving me full of rage and loathing but also an unsettling sense of relief.

"Madame la Dauphine is with child!" Word raced through Fontainebleau, causing matrons and widows to rise with an agility they'd not displayed in years, whispering the news to daughters and daughters-in-law, who rushed into the gardens to inform husbands and lovers.

"Madame la Dauphine is pregnant! La Medici has finally conceived!"

From my window I watched them. The court had gloated for weeks over Henri's nightly passage to my rooms; what they did not know was that Diane had orchestrated everything. She ordered special drafts to strengthen my blood and his vigor and provided us with a chart detailing the best positions for conception. I'd straddled Henri and ridden him to climax; lain on my back with my legs in the air as he slid inside me. He'd taken me on my side and on my knees; we enacted everything I'd once seen in that forbidden book Marguerite purloined from the king's collection and I stole every bit of pleasure I could in the process, acting the bawd for my husband and his mistress, for she'd told us that only the heat of our ardor would ripen my womb.

And every time, as Henri plunged and I cried out, I tried to avoid looking toward the shadows just beyond the bed, where she stood with her eyes fixed on us, directing our movements with precise, scythelike lifts of her fingers ...

When I suspected our efforts had yielded fruit, I waited for the first nausea and weeks of malaise to pass before I sent word. She dispatched a midwife to examine me, who poked and prodded before proclaiming me both pregnant and fit.

Now the king came to me asking breathlessly, "Is it true, ma fille?" and I smiled, hiding deep within my revulsion at what I had done to accomplish this moment. "Yes, it is. I am with child."

"I knew you wouldn't disappoint me! You'll lack for nothing. Ask and you shall have it."

The moment he left, Henri entered with Diane. I stared at her as he kissed me awkwardly and let her step forth. She smiled. An enormous new diamond hung on her bodice.

"We are overjoyed," she said, and she draped something cool about my neck.

I reached up: it was her rope of black pearls.

TEN.

THE GROUNDS OUTSIDE FONTAINEBLEAU CONGEALED UNDER January ice and snow; inside, my chamber was an inferno, hearths and braziers lit to a feverish pitch.

I'd felt the first pangs in the early afternoon, and my birthing room, draped in heavy arras, had become a world apart, dominated by women. Crouched on the stool with its wide hole, I writhed, pummeled by pain, oblivious to the smell of my own blood and urine.

"Push, Your Highness," Diane hissed in my ear. "Push!"

I tried to speak, to order her out, but the pain came at me with such force I felt I might crack in two. I howled. All of a sudden, a vast emptiness filled me. I felt a viscous gush of fluids and the rim of a basin shoved between my thighs to catch the afterbirth.

Through a haze of my own sweat, I gazed at Diane. She conferred with the midwives. Taut silence descended. I struggled to stand, my body throbbing. "Is it ... is my child ...?"

Diane turned around. She held the wailing babe swathed in white velvet. "A boy," she purred and she swept out with my newborn son, Henri's heir, pressed to her breast.

I collapsed against my pillows. I was safe. At long last, I had delivered my savior.

The next two years were fraught with trials. We fought a war that couldn't be won, depleting the treasury and enraging the people. Riots greeted each new tax imposed to outfit our armies and everywhere Francois turned he found reports that Lutheran preachers infiltrated the realm from the Low Countries to incite his people to seek solace in the Protestant faith. Destitute and in precarious health, he signed his final treaty with Charles V.

At court, I awaited the outcome of my second pregnancy. Since the birth of my son, christened Francois in honor of his grandfather, Henri had been visiting my rooms at regular intervals, prompted by Diane. Our carnal union remained passionless, but as though a sluice had opened, the time we spent was enough to conceive our next child.

Though I knew I'd struck a devil's pact, I had safeguarded my future.

In April 1545, after a mere three hours of labor, I gave birth to my daughter Elisabeth. She proved disappointing to those hoping for another son, but I was overjoyed and insisted on assuming full charge of her during her first months of life.

She was perfect, with her smooth Valois complexion and liquid-black eyes. I spent hours crooning over her, promising her everything I'd never known: safety, comfort, parents who would always care for her; with her dreams in my hands I found solace from the tumult of the world outside.

Unseasonal blizzards had dumped enough snow to bury entire villages and the abscess that had plagued Francois since Madeleine's wedding erupted anew. While he took to his bed, I fashioned a cocoon in my apartments, where I brought my young children to be with me.

It was the first time I'd had my two-year-old son to myself. Little Francois suffered from terrible ear infections, screaming for days until our doctors dosed him with opiates. Diane had used the excuse of his ill health to dominate his care, but she always retired to Anet for the winter, loath to expose her skin to wind or frost, and I hoped to bind my son to me while she was away. My initial joy in his auburn curls and faunlike grace was undermined, however, by the realization that he didn't know who I was. He regarded me as if I were some mistake, flinching when I took his chin in my hand and said, "Mama. I am Mama." I pointed to Elisabeth, cradled in Lucrezia's arms. "That is your sister, Elisabeth."

He screwed up his mouth. "Deeane! I want Deeane!"

I closed my ears to his wails, enduring his tantrums because he was my child, my son.

One frigid evening as I sat with Elisabeth and watched him mutilate one of my lutes, word came that the king wished to see me. I went to Francois's apartments to find the fire in his great hearth ebbing, platters of food and goblets piled on the sideboard. Something was wrong. He never suffered laxness in his servants.

Then I smelled the odor.

He sat by the window, his black velvets accentuating his gauntness. The seals of a parchment he held rattled as he looked at me. "Henry Tudor is dead." He dropped the parchment to the floor. "He succumbed three days ago, eaten alive by that ulcer on his leg. He'd grown big as an elephant, striking at ministers and disposing of intimates easy as you please. His last wife, the sixth one-she's lucky to survive him." A bitter smile crossed his lips. "His ten-year-old son has been crowned Edward VI. Hard times ahead: I hear Edward's maternal uncles already fight over the right to rule as regent in his name."

I genuflected in respect for the passing of a sovereign, though I thought the world would be a better place without Henry VIII in it, his sordid life having repelled us for over a decade.

"He was fifty-five," Francois went on. "Three years older than me. I remember when we first met years ago. He was tall, golden, and rich as Croesus; he could have charmed devils from the pit." He chuckled. "That old snake Charles is the wise one. He refuses to go as we do, rotting on our thrones. He says he'll enter a monastery when he grows too ill to rule and divide his empire between his brother Ferdinand and his son Philip: Austria and the German duchies for Ferdinand; Spain, the New World, and the Low Countries for Philip. A pretty picture, calculated to cause me as much misery as possible-though he must have heard that I too cannot live much longer."

I stepped to him. "Don't say that. You just need to rest and recover your strength."

He held up his hand. "You've never lied to me before. Why start now? I am dying. I know it and so do you. You have a sense for such things."

I averted my eyes. The smell was stronger the closer I came to him, a terrible reminder I couldn't bear to face. How could I live in a world where he no longer existed?

He said softly, "Ma fille, why do you look away?"

"Because ... I cannot bear to hear you speak like this." My voice caught. "You will not die."

"Oh, I will, and sooner rather than later." He clucked his tongue. "Now cease your tears. I've something to say to you."

I wiped my eyes, sitting beside him.

"Henri will be king," he began, "and you, queen. It's the cycle of life: the sun sets, the moon rises. Only such a moon I leave France! To think that of my sons, the one least like me, the one I've never understood, is the one who'll inherit my crown-it's almost too much to believe."

"I'm certain that Henri loves you," I said. "You are his father. How can he not?"

He sighed. "Loyal Catherine, will you defend him forever? It is your duty, eh, your obligation as his wife. But I needn't feign something I do not feel." He paused. "Yet perhaps Henri can learn to be a good king with you at his side. I've watched you these past years and you never concede defeat. You have the heart of a ruler, Catherine de Medici, and it shames me to think there was a time when I almost heeded my Council's advice to set you aside."

"Your Majesty did as you thought best," I murmured, thinking of how close I'd come to that disaster and what I had done to protect myself from it. "I would not have protested."

"I know. And I also know now that my son doesn't deserve your devotion. I hope one day he'll prove worthy of it." Francois fixed his gaze on me. "But do not let devotion blind you. Beware that woman of his, that Senechale. She'll take everything if you let her. She'll force you to act the brood mare while she rules Henri and the court."

It was the first time he'd spoken of Diane. Her name sounded obscene on his lips.

"And his friends the Guises," he added. "You must watch them, as well. They'll seek to wield power through Henri. They aim high; I wouldn't be surprised if one day they sought to rule France itself." He turned to his desk, took a scroll, and set it in my hands. "This is for you."

I unrolled the paper. I looked up at him in disbelief.

"I confiscated it years ago from a creditor," he said. "I don't recall the wretch's name. I never got around to restoring it, though it's a lovely place. The chateau sits by the river Cher, next to gardens and an old vineyard. It's called Chenonceau. It is yours now, to do with as you please."

My own chateau, deeded to me by the man I had grown to love as a father. It all became horribly real. He was dying. Soon he would be gone and I would never see him again. I would never laugh with him; never ride the hunt at his side, never share his delight for painting, music, and architecture. He would be dead and I would be alone, without his protection.

The pain was visceral, squeezing off my breath. "I am unworthy," I whispered.