Chapter 19
Henry poked at his food absentmindedly. He was only listening to Francis and Mary's playful banter with half an ear. With each passing minute it became more and more difficult for him to follow their conversation, his thoughts spinning in circles, as they had the days before. Spinning so wildly that Henry couldn't bear the dizziness any longer. His eyes wandered over to the empty chair by his side. Since her return to the French court, Catherine's seat had remained empty far too often. Just as today. His wife had sent her excuses and even though he hated not having her by his side, Henry couldn't bring himself imposing his will upon her by forcing her to join the audiences or their family dinner. Something he swore to himself to never do again and certainly not after everything that had happened to her. Even if it broke his own damn heart.
"Hasn't Catherine returned from her ride yet?" Mary asked, whose gaze had followed Henry's and was now resting on the Queen's deserted chair as well.
"Her ride?" Henry said flabbergasted, not able to hide his bewilderment.
"Well yes, I saw her leaving this morning. I'm so glad that she's feeling better at last."
The smile on his daughter-in-law's lips died once she became aware of Henry's petrified expression.
"When was that? Was she alone?" he asked indignantly, while the gnawing feeling of uneasiness crept up his spine, making the king of France shudder.
"At elevenish maybe? And she wasn't alone. More than a dozen soldiers were escorting her. Your right-hand man included." Both Mary and Francis eyed him warily. The expressions on their faces changing from irritation to growing concern, while an ice-cold band of fear slowly wrapped itself around Henry's chest. Had Catherine vanished once again?
A sense of terror of unimagined magnitude gripped his heart and prompted it to skip a beat.
"Father?" Francis had risen from his chair and slowly moved toward him. He, too, seemed alarmed now.
"Do you think she left me? Again?" Henry's voice lacked its natural power and authority, it rather sounded like that of a frightened little boy.
"Left you? Why would she do that? She has only just returned. And besides, I thought the two of you two have reconciled?" Francis' question and the insinuation it implied unleashed a sense of indignation in Henry.
"We did!" he clarified with vehemence, chastening his son with an angry glare.
"Well, then I'm sure Catherine will be back rather sooner than later," Mary hurried to reassure him with a tentative smile on her lips. A rather poor attempt to convey confidence. A sentiment Henry couldn't share.
Even though he knew neither Catherine's true state of health nor Nostradamus' assessment of her chances of recovery, he for sure knew that Catherine could not possibly muster the strength for a ride of several hours. Unless the novice had accompanied her.
"Was that nun with her?" Henry asked, addressing Mary.
"No, Florence wasn't present." Before the Scot could even finished her sentence, Henry was at the door, his untouched meal forgotten. Without a word of explanation, the king of France stormed off in the direction of the small chamber where the girl from the convent of Saint Pierre de l'Almanarre resided.
His unannounced appearance startled the young woman.
"Your Majesty!" she greeted him, obviously intimidated by his unexpected appearance. Henry took a deep breath in a pointless attempt to soothe his nerves and to abstain from yelling at the poor girl, even though he felt the strong urge to literally shake the truth about his wife's whereabouts out of the novice.
"When did you last see Catherine?"
It relieved and unsettled him at the same time to know that the novice was here and not accompanying his wife.
"Early this morning. I helped her majesty bath and dress before she left for Annet. Did something happen?" the girl asked anxiously while the blush on her cheeks gave way to pallor.
"That's what she said? She's going to Annet?" Annet was several hours away from court, and what's more important, it was the residence of his former mistress, whom he had sent back there only a few days ago. What in three devils' names could Catherine ever want in Annet?
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"Your Grace, don't you think it's wise to push yourself you way you're doing? We shall take a break." Cedric, Henry's closest friend and advisor, her self-proclaimed protector who had joined Catherine and her soldiers at the very last second, gave his horse spurs to close the gap between his stallion and her chestnut mare.
"No, we'll keep going," commanded the Queen of France between clenched teeth, ignoring the telltale trembling of her left hand. The pain, however, that raged through her efferent pathways with the ferocity of thousands and thousands of knifes she could no longer ignore. Nor the leaden fatigue she was unable to fight. And yet Catherine steadfastly refused to give in to her body's inadequacies. It wasn't little more than sheer willpower that kept her upright in the saddle. At the bottom of her heart, Catherine knew that she could no longer physically endure this forced march, yet stubborn determination prevailed over reason.
"As you wish, your Majesty," Cedric's bass clanged through the veil of exhaustion, his voice seemed close and yet from a distance, almost as if her senses were shrouded in cotton wool.
"How long until Annet?" Catherine asked, each word that passed her lips a tremendous effort.
"About an hour, I would say," Cedric replied, and she felt his reproving gaze rest on her.
"We would still reach Annet before nightfall, even if we take a short break," Henry's friend pointed out at her.
But Catherine shook her head. She feared, no she knew, that if they were to pause now, she would never be able to muster the energy to continue their journey. Not to mention her inability to mount her horse without assistance. Thus she banished that thought from her mind, her gaze stubbornly directed on the road ahead of them.
Her eyes searched the horizon for Annet's battlements, but apart from freshly tilled fields and the thatched roofs of farmhouses, Catherine couldn't spot anything in the distance.
"Only one hour," she muttered in a desperate attempt to sugarcoat her predicament. Ever since she had seen Diane with that scar faced man, one single emotion had dominated her entire world of thought. Hate. Hate for the man who had crippled her and murdered her soldiers in cold blood. Loyal men who had been by her side for years, trying to protect her.
That's what drove her to the point of complete exhaustion. She needed clarity. Clarity about Diane's role and her ties to that evil man. Clarity whether it was her husband's mistress who had hired the scar faced man and his accomplices to murder the queen of France.
This theory would also explain Diane's reaction. For unlike most people at court, Henry's whore had not reacted with surprise but with profound shock when they had unexpectedly been faced with each other. Diane's reaction had been that of a person who had just seen a ghost. And the longer Catherine was thinking about it, the more plausible it seemed to her that this was exactly what had happened to Diane. She had come face to face with one whom she believed was dead. Maybe even one whom she thought she had sent to the kingdom come herself?
It had been this consideration that had finally led her here. With trembling limbs, exhausted and without an idea of what exactly she was going to do once they've reached Annet. Catherine only knew that she could not waste another minute, not even another second to get to the bottom of this and even her fear of coming up against the scar faced man could curtail her need for clarity and revenge.
The mere necessity to devise a plan of action gave Catherine the energy she needed to endure the rigors of the last remaining hour on horse. It diverted her thoughts from her weak, pain-ridden body and toward the confrontation ahead of her. Cedric, who had given up on his effort to persuade her to take a break, was riding beside her in silence. His gaze, however, which kept on gliding over her dispraisingly, spoke volumes. Catherine ignored his silent protest. Secretly, however, she was relieved to have the level-headed man by her side. She did not fear Diane, nor the confrontation with her. The idea of running into the scar faced man, however, made her shiver. She was no fool. She had been no match for the man back then, at a time when she had been physically fit and healthy. In her present state, she would just shatter into a million little pieces, once confronted with him. A fate Cedric and her soldiers would hopefully avert.
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"Faster!" King Henry Valois looked over his shoulder, shouting at his soldiers while chasing up a steep lift. Flakes of foam came off his stallion's mouth and spray-coated the animal's sweaty neck. A blooming valley of meadows and pastures, crossed by blue shimmering streams lay before him once he crossed the hilltop, but Henry wasted no time soaking up the picturesque scenery as he usually did, but jerked at the reins to steer his horse toward a narrow path that led into the valley.
Although he knew how exhausted their horses had to be, Henry still did not dare to slow down his pace. For the nagging feeling of bad foreboding had clawed its way into his chest, swelling with each mile they covered, slowly but surely suffocating him. His instincts he had learned to rely on over the past few months drove him to this breakneck haste.
Henry did not have to be a clairvoyant like Nostradamus claimed to be to recognize the harbingers of imminent disaster. He sensed the danger that lay heavily in the air, hell, he could almost taste its stale bitterness on his tongue.
A danger that threatened Catherine - the woman he loved.
And even the thought that Cedric had joined his wife could not appease him, no matter how much he trusted his loyal friend with his very own life.
Henry wondered, not for the first time since his departure, what exactly had prompted Catherine to set off headlong, at that even without informing him for Annet, his former mistress' domicile. And what role did Diane play?
It was no secret that these two women weren't friends, but he had assumed that they had learned to tolerate each other over the years. Nowadays, he was ashamed to think of the sacrifices he had demanded from his wife, while he maintained not only his mistress Diane but also other, more trivial playmates under Catherine's watchful eye throughout his life. Sacrifices that from now on would be a thing of the past. How exactly he was going to convince her to grant him another chance was still a mystery to Henry, but despite his cluelessness, he was determined to win Catherine back. This time for good!
But first he had to catch up with her and bring her back. Whatever it was that was pulling Catherine to Annet - things with Diane were over and done with, and he had misleadingly assumed that his wife was currently preoccupied with other problems than the whereabouts of his deposed mistress - but with each passing second, the sense of impending doom swelled inside his chest. And within the last few hours, that little spark of unease had grown into a balefire of fear that threatened to devour him alive.
He knew how the old Catherine de Medici tended to solve problems, and under normal circumstances this trip would certainly not have put him on alert. But their current circumstances were anything but normal. Catherine wasn't herself. Begad, she was far from being a broken woman, a fact Henry was thankful for, but neither was she her old, indestructible self, capable of bringing the devil to his knees on a good day.
The Catherine he had recovered in that secluded convent had been a softer, more vulnerable version of her former self, though she was as pigheaded and stubborn as ever. The thought alone that she had even defied certain death and a poisoning that was still causing her agony coaxed out a sad smile on Henry's lips. His Catherine was a fighter. Finding her had opened his eyes and made him realize how strong and fearless his Medici wife was. And how beautiful.
Henry was sure that no other woman on earth would have been able to defiantly stand up against fate the way she had, let alone cheat death time and again and against all odds.
Ever since finding her, Henry had felt a very special connection to his wife, and it was this connection that was making him aware of the sense of impending doom. He didn't know what she was up to, he didn't know her motives, but he knew for certain that Catherine would never have gone through the rigors of a ride of several hours for frivolous reasons. Not in her condition. And he knew that there were still men lurking out there, seeking Catherine's life.
He had to find her, find her fast!
It's been soooo long since I last posted anything. Mea culpa. I don't know what to say - well - life happened, I guess.
If there's still anyone outside who's interested in Cathry and my stories - I hope you have a good time reading this new chapter.
