The Queen Mother returned to her tent where Mathilde was waiting.
“Sit down, ma’am, so I can undo your hair.”
Although she had her back to her maidservant, Mathilde felt, instinctively, that all was not right.
“Tell Mathilde, she may help you,” the woman spoke, and Catherine did, indeed, want to tell Mathilde, her trusted confidant over the decades. She hung her head, trying to gather her thoughts before giving an explanation – this matter was quite different to discussing the chateau gardens or the latest scandal in Paris.
“Since the first cannons fired, I have not been able to rid my mind of the atrocities we inflicted on the Huguenots on Saint Bartholomew’s Day. That man with the lifeblood ebbing from his severed arm…then, the man rendered sightless from our soldier’s dagger…and, wo
