The traitor's way

by S. Levett Yeats

“How can that be?” was the reply; “the amnesty is over.”

“They might use Marcilly as a living effigy for the Prince—he would do well for a proxy,” said the jester; and then amid the buzzing I caught another speech that made me burn. It came from the red lips of Isabel de Limeuil.

“So that is de Vibrac! What was that story about him and——” I did not hear the rest, although I could guess; and with an inward curse at the tongue of scandal, that seemed to be able to stretch across space and time, I followed the physician and Jean into the King’s chamber, the huissier, in violet and gold, closing the door after us, shutting out the buzzing voices, and the prying eyes of the restless crowd in the ante-room.

“Lights! I want more light!” The breeze, as it sweeps through my open study window, and past the dark, shaking curtains, seems to bring with it the thin, high voice of the King; and as I write these lines, I can see before me that room, in bright, glaring light—a light that almost pained the eyes to look upon, and yet was but twilight to the dim sight of that poor, dying boy, who stared at us from his proppings of cushions, and who was now on the threshold of that long, dark night, that, with God’s mercy, was to bring with it a morning, brilliant with the splendor that the eye of man has not seen, glorious with the glory of the infinite star-lands of Eternity.

But what caught us, what arrested our attention, so that it could not linger for a moment on the rich and luxurious room, so that we hardly saw the group before us, so that we but seemed to realize, as though it were an angelic thing of air, the figure of a woman standing at the bedside, and looking with infinite compassion and tenderness on the pain-worn face beneath her, was that face itself. There it was, shining out white and pallid from the white pillows, with that one red spot on the forehead, the crimson seal of that terrible sickness, of that awful disease, which showed itself in the last stages of Francis’s illness, and which, even if he had lived, would have placed him among those whom men set aside from themselves as accursed by God, among those whom man may pity in his heart, yet never look upon without horror and loathing.

There are those who deny the story, and, in truth, the King died before the new sickness had developed. Its presence was unsuspected by all except two—even the Queen, Mary of Scotland, who now stood bending with sweet, pitiful eyes over her husband, did not dream of it; but René knew, and Catherine knew, and I knew when I saw, for it had come upon a man so in the Sicilies, when I served there with Ponthieu, and it was not to be mistaken.

To my mind the King might have lived, but for that scar on his forehead. He died, as we know, of a pain in the ear, as Bentivoglio mockingly said, and the phrase has become a byword.

There is, however, a chapter of history that has yet to be told, but he who writes it must first learn the secrets that lie locked up in the hearts of the dead, for Catherine is gone and René sleeps his last sleep.

Ay! I can picture it all—the hopes, the fears, and then the dread certainty. Then comes the struggle between the love of a mother and the pride of race. It is a choice between unspeakable shame and death that hides all things. The Queen-Mother and René are alone together with the King. He sleeps, and the lights that ever blaze within the room burn on that red splash, the mark of the Unclean. The eyes of Catherine meet those of René, and the man of science knows that the choice has been made—that pride has conquered love.

“It must be now,” she says, and then, with head held high, and dry, burning eyes, the Medicis steps from the room.