The Wild Queen by Carolyn Meyer Read Free Book Online Page A

vous promets,
" I said. I stared at my shoes, knowing it would be a hard promise to keep now that my friends were with me again.
    ***
    We now spoke French among ourselves with ease. None of my four friends called herself Mary anymore; we were all Maries.
    When I lived in Scotland with my mother, I had spent my days with the Four Maries for my companions. No one cared how we passed our time, and we ran about freely wherever we wished. But life at the French court was different. I was constantly surrounded by swarms of people. I was either at court with the king and queen and their children, the dauphin in particular, or visiting, or being visited by, my mother’s family, and I loved them all. I often saw my grandparents, as well as uncles and aunts. My uncle François, recently married to Anne d’Este, was a soldier. A long scar on his cheek gotten when he fought bravely in battle against the English had earned him the name Le Balafré— “the Scarred One.” Despite the scar, or maybe because of it, I thought him very dashing and handsome. His brother Charles was a churchman, cardinal of Lorraine. He was handsome too, but not as dashing.
    Twice each month I journeyed to Joinville to visit my grandparents at their château, a huge medieval fort on the River Marne only a day’s ride from Fontainebleau. My brother François, duke of Longueville, was usually at Joinville when I arrived on Saturday evening. I was happy to see him, and he always had some little surprise for me. He loved to draw, and the gift was often a sketch of a bird or a flower that had caught his eye. “It reminded me of you and of our mother,” he explained each time, “and so I had to draw it.”
    On Sunday after we had all heard Mass together in the chapel at the old château, we walked a short distance to the Château du Grand Jardin, a banqueting house surrounded by beautiful gardens that my grandfather had built as a place to entertain his guests. The Guise family gathered here for a fine meal, followed by dancing. My brother François and Grand-Père were my favorite partners. “You dance exquisitely,
ma petite
Marie!” my grandfather said, and his praise always delighted me. Sometimes Grand-Mère invited mimes to entertain us or itinerant troupes of actors to perform.
    But most important was the lively conversation among my Guise aunts and uncles and grandparents. My uncles asked me a great many questions about life with the royal family and seized eagerly upon whatever court gossip I could report. I always did my best to please them, but Grand-Père usually brought the questioning to an end.
    â€œEnough, gentlemen! Our lovely little queen is tired of such talk. Marie, I propose a visit to Grand-Mère’s apartments for a chat with her pretty birds—would that please you,
ma chère
?”
    Of course it would, and off we went together, my small hand in his large one.
    ***
    I was a keen observer and a curious child, though I was still too young to understand the meaning of most of what I saw and heard at court. I also knew instinctively that I must not ask direct questions about what interested me but must wait to be told. I still had many unanswered questions—about Madame de Poitiers, for instance. I noticed that she always dressed in black and white and that King Henri was very close to her and spent nearly every afternoon with her. She had a daughter who was about the same age as the king and queen. “The duchess’s daughter is in charge of the palace servants,” I heard Lady Fleming say, “and the duchess is in charge of the king.”
    What does that mean?
I wondered but did not ask. How could a duchess be in charge of a king? That would surely make her very powerful! When I repeated Lady Fleming’s remark to my uncles François and Charles, they laughed heartily Grand-Mère changed the subject quickly, asking about the Four Maries. I knew by