Chapter 18

In her bedchamber, securely barricaded behind thick castle walls, Catherine de Medici skeptically turned from one side to the other in front of her full-length mirror. The woman who was staring back at her seemed oddly alien.
This was not the first time she was wearing this burgundy dress, and yet she hardly recognized herself in her own reflection. The elegant robe with its matching jewelry - now strangely ill-fitting with her dramatic weight loss - a subtle makeup on tanned skin, her carefully coiffed hair - all this usually contributed to make her feel regal and comfortable in her own skin. But this lay in a past now. A past that felt like a whole eternity away.
A past where she had been a different person. Imperfect, maybe, yet still intact.

But now, observing the woman in the mirror, Catherine couldn't help but admit to herself that she had changed over the past year.

She had turned into a weak person, dependent on other people. Dependent on the help of her servants, dependent on her healer's skills and dependent on Henry and his goodwill towards her. The latter put her in a state of panic on a regular basis.
She hated the image her husband had to have of her now. And she hated herself for having allowed him to see her in that bad light in the first place.
But what outrightly shocked her was the realization that Henry apparently had fallen in love with this stranger. And like so many days in the past week, she wondered once again what exactly it was, that he was seeing in her?
A weak woman, marked by life.
Was this the reason why it was so easy for him to fall back in love with her? Because they were no longer on an equal footing? Did her husband even enjoy feeling superior to her?
Or did he pity her? Maybe it was her unfortunate situation that had re-opened his heart for her.
Catherine de Medici shuddered at that thought.

There had never been a time when Catherine had felt so help- und useless before. Not even when she had arrived at French court to marry the King's second son - several decades ago. She may have been a young and insecure woman in a foreign country back then, but at least she had known who she was.

Her severe injury had changed the dynamic between them and created an imbalance. The moment she had realized that Henry's love was tied to her weakened condition, she had withdrawn from him. For although she loved Henry Valois with all of her heart – after all, he was the love of her life - she couldn't allow herself to be drawn into this new reflection. She was already struggling hard enough to maintain her façade at court, to make the nobles and servants believe that she was okay. Roughened up maybe, but far from broken.
The temptation to surrender to her ill-fated condition was strong. But she hadn't dared to completely succumb to it. At least not yet.

And accepting Henry's love, who always assured her that his feelings for her would never change, even in the event Nostradamus could not help her, would make it far too easy to give in. Catherine had the impression that, unlike herself, Henry wouldn't do anything to win back the old Catherine. For it was not her old and strong self that he had fallen in love with anew, but the person she had become after the failed attempt on her life.

Catherine was tired of the endless struggles, the excruciating pain and the uncertainty, but to simply accept her fate without a fight, was not in her nature. Though her reserves of strength weren't inexhaustible either. The constant pain, her daily exercises with Nostradamus, were driving her to the brink of tears on some days. Her effort to restore her old self literally sucked out all her energy, draining her more and more. Not to mention the strain to hide her agonies and problems from the world.
How easy would it be to surrender to Henry's persuasiveness, to lose herself in his arms and just transmit the burden on her shoulders over to him. But such behavior would have been an admission to the stranger in the mirror. An acceptance of her new and weakened constitution. And she was not yet ready to surrender to this weak woman who stared back at her from the mirror.

Nostradamus, her faithful friend, her seer and healer, worked feverishly to find a way to neutralize the poison that still raged through her veins. With moderate success, as Catherine found. He was also making a concerted effort to physically get her back on her feet and to restore at least some of the mobility in her arm. A painful, frustrating path back to some normalcy, Catherine was treading with growing frustration. The small, barely measurable progress was overshadowed by setbacks that kept throwing Catherine back and sometimes even made her question her healer's methods. She trusted Nostradamus, probably more than anyone else in her life, but the slow progress robbed her of any remaining motivation.
In addition, the admonishing words her seer addressed her with on a nearly daily basis did not help Catherine to look to the future with renewed optimism.
For besides the poisoning and the paralysis of her arm, he was concerned about her poor condition in general. Especially about the weight loss she had suffered as a result of the attack and her lengthy recovery period.

Nostradamus had instructed the kitchen to prepare especially nutritious and fortifying meals for Catherine, and quite obviously he had instructed her entire household to count every bite she took. A fact that was driving Catherine slowly but surely insane. She loved food with a passion that was actually indecent for a woman, but the overprotective concern of those around her was even chagrining her enjoyment of delicious food.

But more than the interference in her eating habits, did Nostradamus' warning to not risk a pregnancy in her weakened state get to her. In his eyes, the chance of carrying a healthy child to term was most likely impossible. She would be risking not only her own life, but that of an unborn child as well. These words had shocked Catherine.
Throughout their lives, the two of them had always shared an open, almost unsparing relationship, and the concern in the bearded man's eyes had been alarming. Catherine had always known that with coming age the time would come when she would be too old to bear any more children. Despite this knowledge, Nostradamus' warning had pained her. It was one thing if nature put a stop to further motherhood. But if that fact had been willfully brought about by the assassins and the person behind this cowardly assault on her life, Catherine felt robbed of one more thing.

These bastards had taken so much from her, and despite Henry's strenuous search and bounty he had put out on their heads, they still were enjoying a carefree life in freedom, while she found herself trapped in a weakened body where she slowly saw all chances dwindle of ever experiencing anything like normalcy.

When Catherine could no longer bear the sight of her self-image, she slowly turned away from her reflection. With the weight of despair on her shoulders, she went over to the window to blankly stare out into the yard. Gray clouds had covered the evening sky, bathing the horizon in dim light. First raindrops left small dark trails on the ground, harbingers of the rainstorm that was yet to set in. While staring outside, the raindrops got thicker and the wind angrily tugged at leaves and branches of the trees that lined the alley.
Except for a coach and its driver, the forecourt was deserted.

While Catherine let her gaze slid aimlessly over the world outside, her now hated reflection manifested itself in the glass pane, drawing her attention back to the stranger in front of her. Battling against her self-loathing, she watched a single tear escape the corner of her image's eye, rolling down her cheek with unhurried slowness.

Just when Catherine de Medici was about to turn away from her image in disdain, did she notice a movement outside. The back gate was swinging open and Diane de Poitiers rushed towards the carriage waiting in the courtyard. A strong gust of wind tugged at the azure robe Henry's former mistress was wearing and ungraciously blew her hood down, revealing the other woman's shiny dark hair.
Not much of the woman's arrogant posture was left to witness. Likewise, her steps lacked her usual sway that was so characteristic of her. Catherine doubted that her changed posture was due to the increasing rain, but rather to her banishment from the court.

As Diane moved out of her sight, the Queen of France moved from her observation post to another window to watch her eternal rival's departure. This was not the first time Diane de Poitiers was forced to turn her back on the royal residence and Catherine did not hold her breath to wait for a sense of relief that would certainly never set in. She had seen her husband's mistress return far too often for her to get her hopes up.
What at least gave her some satisfaction, however, was the small, unmarked coach, already showing it's age, that would take Diane away from here. Usually Henry provided the mother of his bastard with one of his royal carriages, which promised greater comfort. Not so today. Her husband was also conspicuous by his absence. Clearly, Henry had decided to forgo biding his farewells to Diane in person this time.

With her healthy hand, Catherine brushed a curl from her forehead that had come loose from her hairdo that was softly tickling her skin. All the while never leaving her eyes off Diane. She didn't know why she was unnecessarily torturing herself. Why she allowed the past to haunt her as it had many times before, once again questioning her place in Henry's life.
Instead of getting into the carriage, Diane tugged her hood back over her head to protect herself from the rain while letting her eyes wander over the courtyard as if in search for something. Or someone.
Was she waiting for Henry?
Did she expect him to stop her or at least to be seen off by her lover? The mistress' gaze flitted to the stables in restlessness, then toward the servants' quarters. Was it just Catherine's imagination or did Diane seem nervous?

Out of curiosity, Catherine got up on her tiptoes to increase her field of vision, but she couldn't spot anything unusual. Minutes passed while nothing happening. Just when Catherine was about to leave her position at the window and turn her attention to more important matters, she discovered a gaunt man hurrying towards Diane de Poitiers. Something about the man's posture made Catherine's blood run cold. A violent shudder went through her whole body while the hair on the back of her neck raised up in alarm. She knew this man, in fact she was absolutely certain that she had met him before. With her heart pounding wildly in her chest and with her breath held, Catherine de Medici stared outside, watching a conversation between Diane and this man that seemed to get more and more heated by each passing minute. Diane's growing anger, however, seemed to bounce off him without effect. Suddenly, Diane's gaze turned upward and wandered along the window panes. At the level of her bedchamber, the other woman's eyes lingered. Then she said something to the man, prompting him to look up at her direction as well.

Involuntarily, Catherine took a step back as if she feared they might spot her. In fact, she thought she could feel the man's eyes burning her skin throughout the glass. A burning sensation, she had already experienced in the past. Back then, in the woods.
"Dear Lord!" The Queen of France cried in recognition, startled, as the small, blurry pieces of the puzzle finally came together in her mind's eye to form a complete picture. Adrenaline rushed through her nerve tract, speeding up Catherine's heartbeat and triggering a slight tremor in her injured hand. This tremor soon gripped her entire body, prompting Catherine to take another step back. With shaking fingers, she pressed her functioning hand against her rib cage, as if this helpless gesture could stop her heart from literally jumping out of her chest.

As if stuck, Catherine just stood there - unable to move - while her thoughts kept on spinning in her head. Then, in a flash, the Queen of France snapped out of her motionlessness.
She gathered her skirts and she ran.
She ran as fast as she had never run before in her life.
Past her guards, who stared at her in bewilderment, past servants and nobles alike, down the narrow steps of a spiral staircase, along another corridor, until she finally reached the heavy doors through which Diane de Poitiers had stepped just minutes before.
Out of breath and with her heart wildly hammering in her chest, she yanked the door open and rushed out into the twilight.

The rain, that had even become heavier meanwhile, whipped into her face, but Catherine couldn't care less. She kept on running towards the carriage that slowly started to move off.
She watched the coachman urging the horses into a fast trot. Catherine mobilized all her remaining strength to catch up with the vehicle.
Halfway up the tree-lined approach road, Catherine finally stopped in defeat. Panting heavily while holding her arching side, her eyes were still fixed on the progressively smaller getting black spot in the distance. Her dress was drenched by rain and stuck to her body in the most uncomfortable way, as did her hair that had come undone. The rain was still running down her face in torrents when a particularly big drop caught up in her left eyelash, blurring her vision. Exhausted and finally giving in to her despair, Catherine de Medici sank to her knees and let out a bloodcurdling scream.

Happy Easter! I hope you're all safe and fine. Apologies for the long wait. I'm still there, just drowning in work. I hope you like this new chapter. Thanks so much for reading and for your previous reviews. This means the world to me.