Bitter Greens

by Kate Forsyth

  ‘Is that brushing?’ I asked.

  He drew the ends of my hair away, winding it about his wrist and then about his arm. ‘It’s like a rope,’ the Marquis whispered. ‘So soft and yet so strong.’

  Suddenly, he yanked on my hair, pulling my head back, my back arched like a cat stretching. I cried out.

  ‘I would so love to touch you there,’ he murmured, sliding his fingers into the cleft between my buttocks. ‘I’d so love to be on top of you. Can I just …’

  Before I could say a word, he sat astride me, all his weight on the base of my buttocks. Dragging on my hair so tightly my spine was bent like a bow, he pressed himself against me, his other hand seizing my breast. He was naked from the waist up. He must have taken off his shirt without me realising. I felt the bag of spells squashed against my back and tried to break free, repulsed.

  ‘No,’ I cried. ‘Stop! Enough, enough!’

  He would not let me go. Keeping a tight hold on my hair, he let go of my breast and plunged his hand down between my legs, lifting me up and jamming me against his penis, straining against the silk of his breeches. If he had been naked, he would have been inside me. As it was, I could feel my body being wrenched open.

  ‘Stop! You’re hurting me. You promised.’

  He threw me down on the bed, saying savagely, ‘Yes, only your hair, only brushing.’ He took the brush, dragging it through my hair so hard it brought tears to my eyes. His hand pushed me down so firmly my face was squashed into the pillows. I could not breathe. I flailed, trying to break free. Then he took the handle of the brush and thrust it between my legs, jabbing it just inside the lips of my vagina. I froze, feeling his hand heavy on my head, the cold hard end of the brush threatening to impale me. For a moment, we rested there, me not daring to move, him panting into my neck. Then he hurled the brush away.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘You should not tempt me so much.’

  I grasped the sheet to my breasts. ‘You’re right. We should stop.’

  ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘This must stop.’ He got up, drawing his shirt on again.

  ‘Only till our wedding,’ I said.

  He jerked his head. ‘Yes. Till our wedding.’

  For three days, he stayed away from me. I was tense with anxiety. What if he had changed his mind? What if the wedding plans had fallen through? Nanette had heard the servants gossiping about how the Marquis’ cousin, the Grand Condé, had told him he must end things with me or risk being cast out of the family. I felt I could not bear it if all my plans came to naught, and I wondered if I had miscalculated. Perhaps if I had let him have his way with me … But then why would he marry me, I told myself, if he had got what he wanted for nothing.

  I was asleep in bed on the third night when I heard a soft scratching at the door. I scrambled up and ran to open it, dressed only in my nightgown. The Marquis was leaning against the wall, wearing only a shirt and breeches, a candle in one hand.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I shouldn’t have done it.’

  ‘It’s all right. It’s my fault. I shouldn’t have let it go so far.’

  He pushed at the door, stepping in. I stopped him. ‘Better not.’

  He drew me towards him, his eyes on the slight swell of my unfettered breast beneath my nightgown. ‘I cannot stop. I’ve tried. Don’t make me stop.’ He kissed me on the mouth, backing me into the room. I pushed both hands against his chest, but I could not stop him. He put the candle down on the table and seized me by the hair, kissing me, grasping my bottom so I was brought up hard against him, feeling his urgent need. ‘I love you, you know that. I’ve told the whole court we are to marry. My God, I’ve even defied the head of my family. You cannot deny me now.’

  ‘We’ll be married soon,’ I said desperately.

  ‘No, I want you now. I can’t wait any longer.’

  ‘No. Please. No.’

  I shouldn’t have said ‘please’, the word he had said to me so often. For he had me back on the bed in seconds, tearing away his shirt, wrenching at the fastening of his breeches, his arm across my throat. He was too strong, too fast. I had only time to gasp a breath before he had ripped my nightgown away.

  As he drove into me, again and again and again and again, the satin bag of spells banged against my chest, making me gag with the smell of decay and rotting herbs. The stench filled my nose, my throat, my stomach, as he emptied himself into me. When he collapsed against my breasts, the bag was crushed between us, a heavy stinking lump that seemed to brand my skin, a burning pin to impale me.

  BLACK MAGIC

  Versailles, France – June 1678

  I found it hard to get out of bed the next day.

  My body hurt all over. My mouth was puffy and torn, there were dark bruises on my neck and breasts and wrists and thighs, and when I sat on my chamber pot I felt like I was passing acid instead of urine.

  It is your own fault, I told myself. You gave him the bag of spells. You wore the perfume he said would drive men crazy with love. What did you expect?

  Yet tears rolled slowly down my cheeks. I washed myself carefully with my softest flannel, hid my torn nightgown at the bottom of my chest and found myself another one, the softest and most voluminous one I owned. I pulled all the sheets off the bed and thrust them out of sight, then crawled under my eiderdown, too ashamed to ring for Nanette and ask her to remake the bed. I lay there, occasionally sniffing and wiping my eyes with the back of my hand.

  It’ll be different when we’re married. He was only so rough because you teased him so much, I told myself. But I had not forgotten that moment when he had threatened to jam the handle of my brush up inside me. Perhaps he did not realise how much he hurt me, I thought. Perhaps it is the black magic, driving him to be cruel. Perhaps if I get rid of the bag of spells, he will be gentle with me again, and call me ma belle, and tell me how much he loves my mouth.

  Nanette soon came scratching at my door, and I told her I was sick. She made up my bed for me with fresh sheets, then brought me broth and well-watered sweet wine to drink, and a cloth soaked in lavender water. She would have combed my hair for me, but I flinched at the touch of her hand. She went away, her face in a knot of worry. I slept for a while. When I woke, she brought me a hipbath and a train of footmen carrying jugs of hot water, and I sat in the bath, my knees pressed to my chin, until the water was cold. She washed my hair for me, telling me stories about when I was a little girl and the funny things I’d say, and all the naughty things I did. I turned my head and rested my cheek on my knee and almost smiled. She gave me a jar of comfrey salve to dab on my cuts and bruises, and a foul-tasting herbal concoction to drink, and said not a word except, ‘There, my Bon-bon, there, my little cabbage, is that better?’

  I loved Nanette so much.

  When the water was too cold to sit in, I got up and let Nanette towel my hair dry. She would have passed me my nightgown, but I shook my head. ‘Court dress, please, Nanette.’

  She looked anxious. ‘You won’t go out?’

  ‘I think I must.’

  She helped me dress in one of my new gowns and coiled my hair around the hot poker till it was a mass of long tight ringlets, pinned back above my ears. I painted and powdered my face, carefully concealing the bruises on my neck, then coloured my mouth with carmine. Carefully, I placed a black velvet patch on my chin, to the left. I am discreet, that patch said. Finally, I clasped the jet necklace that the Marquis had given me around my neck. At the end of a string of tiny exquisite jet beads hung a tiny carved rose, black as my hair. ‘My dark rose,’ he had called me. I picked up my fan of ostrich feathers and rather unsteadily made my way through the corridors to the King’s salon.

  I felt small and cold and afraid. Worst of all, I felt fragile, as if I could be easily broken. I had always prided myself on my strength. Mademoiselle de la Force. Dunamis.

  I came into the Venus Salon and looked for the Marquis. My lover. My ravisher. He was not there.

  The Venus Salon was where the court ga
thered in the evening and waited for the King to appear. Between heavy pillars of dark veined marble were gilded panels and frescoes. Far above, gods and emperors and ancient heroes gestured and fought among a panoply of clouds and smoke. Even though the King was at that moment signing letters in his cabinet room – his routine being so precise that anyone in France could glance at a clock and know exactly what the King was doing at that moment – a massive statue of Louis XIV brooded over the crowd in the guise of a Roman emperor. Footmen stood stiffly with trays laden with foaming goblets and plates filled with tiny delicacies, such as sautéed scallops, salt cod and caviar on potato pancakes, basil palmiers, and roasted brie with gooseberries. The air was sweet with the scent of tall vases of flowers and bowls piled high with the King’s favourite oranges.

  I drank a little, ate a little and gazed at the paintings, all the while wondering where the Marquis could be, and what I should say to him when he came. I did not have to wait long to find out.

  ‘Mademoiselle, I am so sorry. You must be devastated,’ Françoise said.

  I turned to her and raised my eyebrows.

  ‘Can it be you do not know? Oh, I’m so sorry. I do not want to be the one to break the bad news.’

  ‘Bad news?’ With an effort, I kept my voice steady.

  ‘The Marquis de Nesle. The Grand Condé has taken him to Chantilly. He says he will not let the Marquis return to court until he has repudiated you.’

  I felt a giant hand squeeze my throat so I could not breathe or speak. Sickness roiled in my stomach.

  ‘Are you well?’ Françoise asked anxiously. ‘You’ve gone quite white. Here, take a sip.’

  I gulped at my silver goblet of champagne. I wanted to faint, or scream, or run, or smash something.

  ‘It is because I am poor,’ I said.

  She said nothing, though her fine dark brows contracted together.

  ‘What does it matter to them?’ I continued. ‘They are rich. They are powerful. Why can they not allow me some small measure of happiness? I may not be rich or powerful, but I’m nobly born, I’m clever.’

  ‘Nothing is more clever than irreproachable conduct,’ Françoise answered coolly.

  I cast her an angry look, even as I acknowledged the truth of what she said. She certainly seemed to have managed her affairs most adroitly, being now the Marquise de Maintenon with her own chateau.

  Rumour insisted that the King wanted to take Françoise as his mistress and she continued to refuse him, which was astounding. I had not managed to hold off the Marquis; how could she possibly hold off the King? The King had only to remark it was a shame that an avenue of ancient trees blocked the view from his window and his host would have every single tree cut down overnight.

  What the King wanted, he got. If it was a noblewoman he desired, the King would be discreet, sending a lackey with a note ordering the woman to come to him at an appointed time. If it was a serving-maid, he’d simply ruck up her skirts, have her against the wall and then saunter off, swinging his cane while she tidied her skirts and went back to scrubbing the floor. I could not believe that he would allow Françoise of all people to hold him off – a woman born in a prison, a woman who worked in his household as a governess. Yet neither could I believe the rumours that she was actually a procuress for him, finding him sweet young virgins from the country to deflower. She was too neat, too devout, too cool and calm and collected.

  ‘I am sorry to be the one to tell you,’ Françoise said. ‘They left this morning. I thought you must have known.’

  I shook my head. I could not stay in the overheated salon; I could not bear the glances and murmurs, or Françoise’s pitying face. I put down my goblet so abruptly it clanged against the wooden table, splashing wine, and hurried away. I shoved my way through the crowds of laughing ladies in their heavy full-skirted brocades and high-heeled shoes, past knots of men bewigged and beribboned and bejewelled, nearly overturning a footman with a silver tray laden with delicacies. I barged past a group of gawping peasants in wooden sabots and coarse woollen jackets, come to stare at the court, as was their practice every night, and made it through the gilded panelled doors. Down the Ambassador’s Stairs I ran, and through the crowded antechamber, where hawkers shouted and thrust their goods into my face: fans, lengths of delicate lace, bowls of ripe purple figs, trays of sugar-dusted marzipan, carved wooden puppets, baskets of mushrooms, coils of bright ribbons, painted snuffboxes, embroidered handkerchiefs, ripe pears, garnet earrings. I thrust my way past them, crying, ‘No, no!’ and managed to get out through the front doors.

  Outside, it was as bright as day. Torches flared smokily at each corner of the courtyard, and people turned to stare at me curiously as, gasping and stumbling, I ran towards the gardens. But there was no place of quiet or darkness even there. People were everywhere, dancing on the lawns, promenading on the walkways, poling gondolas along the canals, pissing in the occasional dim corner. Violinists played, trumpeters blew their horns, and fireworks banged and roared overhead. No matter where I ran, I could find no quiet place to hide and weep and rock with fear, till finally I slipped into the shadowy Grotto de Thétys. I crept behind the statue of Apollo’s horses, sinking to my knees and hiding my face in my hands.

  Of all the fears and miseries batting their nasty wings inside my skull, the one that banged most insistently was the thought: Please don’t let them look inside the bag of spells.

  A week of unendurable suspense followed. I felt as if every eye was watching me, every flutter of a fan hid a mocking smile, every whisper was of my name.

  I had no one I could confess my fear to. Athénaïs had retreated to Clagny in preparation for the birth of her tenth child. Françoise was so holier-than-thou it made me sick to my stomach. Liselotte was too much of a gossip. My sister was too far away. Only Nanette knew, and she was horrified to the depths of her superstitious peasant soul.

  ‘Bon-bon, you naughty wicked girl! How could you do such a thing? No good comes of meddling with witches. The devil will come to take your soul. Oh, that I should live to see you in such disgrace. You’ll have to go home to Cazeneuve.’

  But that I was determined not to do. Not even to escape Nanette’s scolding.

  Then the Marquis de Nesle returned to court from Chantilly, in the train of his cousin Louis de Bourbon, the Grand Condé. I was too afraid and humiliated to leave my rooms, so I sent Nanette to the kitchens to discover what the servants were saying. She dutifully reported back that the Marquis de Nesle was said to be in despair but had promised his cousin to never consort with me again.

  ‘The bag of spells?’ I asked anxiously. ‘Any word?’

  Nanette winced and looked away. ‘There is much talk that he was bewitched,’ she admitted, ‘but that the spell is broken and he is free.’

  I paced my rooms, in an agony of indecision and remorse, and, I must admit, humiliation. Soon, I heard the faint sound of music and laughter. There was to be a masked ball that night, I remembered, to celebrate the birth of Athénaïs’s latest son, to be named Louis-Alexandre. Nearly all of Athénaïs’s seven children to the King were named either Louis or Louise, with their second names chosen to flatter.

  Athénaïs would, of course, be present at the ball – even though her baby was less than a day old – for the King would not permit anything to stand in the way of his own pleasure, not even the pain and exhaustion of childbirth. If I went to the ball – cloaked and masked – I could hear, perhaps, what the gossips were saying. I could, perhaps, see the Marquis. I could, perhaps, manage to speak to Athénaïs.

  I acted on the thought. Within moments, I had called Nanette, found myself a mask and a cloak, changed my dress, concealed my striking blue-black hair behind a froth of feathers and silk flowers, hidden the marks of my tears behind thick white powder, reddened my lips and placed three patches on my face for courage. I seized a fan, drew on my high-heeled dancing slippers and was out the door and on my way before Nanette had much more than a chance to say, ‘But Bon-bon!�
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  The ball was being held in the gardens, with merry laughing courtiers being ferried about by sedan chairs, their dwarves running alongside, turning clumsy somersaults and handsprings. It was impossible to guess who anyone was, for all wore extravagant masks. In just a few bewildering moments, I saw a troubadour with a lute, a jester in motley, a maiden who seemed to be made all of flowers, a man in a golden robe with a mask of gold, a knight in full armour, a fat man dressed as a baby, and a young girl dressed as a Siamese princess. One woman was dressed as a shepherdess, with a small bleating lamb tied to her with a silken ribbon; another was dressed in white fur, despite the heat, with a white cat’s mask and pink velvet ears. All the servants were painted white and dressed in white robes, pretending to be statues. Candles floated down the Grand Canal, and lanterns were strung through the trees, casting a golden light into the night.

  I wandered here and there, listening to snatches of conversation. For a long time, I heard nothing. I felt sick and weary, my feet aching cruelly. Then I heard my name.

  ‘… Mademoiselle de la Force …’

  ‘Have you not heard the news? No one can talk of anything else.’

  I recognised the German-accented voice and, legs trembling, went close to the group, accepting a goblet of champagne from a white-painted impassive-faced servant.

  It was the Duchesse d’Orléans speaking, my old friend Liselotte. I had hardly spoken to her since the time I had seen her laughing at Michel’s story of my proposal of marriage. Even though she wore a mask of peacock feathers and a gown so heavy with jewels she must have been close to fainting in the heat, she could not disguise her portly figure, her round red face or her guttural accent.

  ‘The Grand Condé tricked him into his carriage and whisked him away to Chantilly, determined to break him of this absurd engagement to Mademoiselle de la Force,’ she boomed.

  ‘So it was true, they really were engaged?’ someone asked.