Bitter Greens

by Kate Forsyth

  ‘What is he doing?’ I asked Charles.

  ‘He’s touching them, to cure them. They have the King’s Evil. Scrofula, you know.’

  I gazed at the King as long as I could, astonished to see him touching so many poor, sick, deformed people. I had always thought that the King believed the suffering peasants would simply disappear if he ignored them long enough. Out of sight, out of mind. Yet here he was, laying his hands upon them, breathing in their tainted breath, allowing their cringing infected eyes to meet his. It shook me somehow, making me feel tearful and off-balance. I clutched Charles’s arm and let him lead me out of the church.

  The queue of sufferers stretched all around the square and down the street. There were hundreds and hundreds of them, standing patiently in the rain, some holding sacks over their heads. I wrenched my eyes away and hurried with Charles and Nanette to where his carriage waited, hoping he would think the wetness on my face was rain.

  UNDER SIEGE

  Versailles, France – December 1686 to January 1687

  On a chilly evening not long after Christmas, with mist wrapping the trunks of the trees in cotton wool and a faint star hanging low on the horizon, I went out of the palace to meet Charles in the courtyard. We planned to go to a musical soirée being held at one of the private residences in the town. Charles had a two-seater sedan chair waiting for me.

  ‘Don’t you look a picture?’ he said, handing me into the chair. ‘Though I’m going to have to run along behind the sedan. There’s not room in there for me and you and your dress.’

  ‘Our gowns are getting rather ridiculous. They’re going to have to widen all the doorways soon, so we don’t need to go through them sideways.’

  ‘They’ll have to raise the ceilings too. That thing on your head just keeps getting higher and higher.’

  ‘I’ll have you know it’s the absolute height of fashion.’

  ‘Oh, you are most amusing.’ Charles managed to squeeze himself in beside me, though I had to loop my train over my elbow and fold my skirt out of the way.

  ‘I’m so glad you think so. I do try.’

  ‘Aren’t I a lucky man, marrying a girl both witty and pretty?’

  ‘Oh, compliments will get you everywhere.’

  He tried to kiss me, but, what with my billowing sleeves and lace headdress and the jolting of the sedan chair, he only managed a peck somewhere around my ear. ‘If I was the King, I’d outlaw those things,’ he complained.

  I laughed at him. ‘The King has tried, but for once we ladies of the court will not obey. Soon, our fontanges will be three feet tall!’

  ‘I’ll have to send instructions to the chateau carpenters at Survilliers to modify the old place. I can’t have my wife banging her head everywhere she goes.’

  ‘I love hearing you say that. Say it again.’

  He quirked one black eyebrow. ‘Banging?’

  I hit him with my fan. ‘No! I mean calling me your wife.’

  ‘Oh, that. You like that, do you?’ He squeezed closer, sliding one arm about my waist and whispering in my ear. ‘My wife. My wife.’

  I pretended to swoon and moan, and he gave my earlobe a little nibble and then kissed the pulse below. ‘I’m sorry about my father,’ he said. ‘Can you believe he still refuses to give us permission?’

  ‘It’s been a year,’ I said. ‘How can he continue to deny us when the King himself has given us permission?’

  ‘He’s a stubborn old goat.’

  ‘Maybe you should have gone home for Christmas, like he wanted you to.’

  ‘I told him I will come home when I can bring my chosen wife, and I meant it.’

  ‘So who’s the stubborn old goat?’ I said teasingly.

  ‘He needs to learn that I am a man now and will not be scolded like a child.’ Charles’s strong jaw was thrust forward in a way I knew well. I caressed it with one gloved hand.

  ‘Perhaps if you’d gone home for Christmas, you could have talked with him, made him understand.’

  ‘There’s no talking with my father. He’s utterly determined to get his own way in everything.’

  I sighed. ‘So what are we to do?’

  ‘We just need to wait till I’m twenty-five.’

  ‘When will that be, my cabbage?’ I asked teasingly, although I knew very well just how old he was. The twelve years between us was a problem I gnawed at constantly, like a hungry dog with a stolen bone.

  ‘Not till April,’ he answered gloomily.

  ‘Oh, well, it’s not so long. I was afraid you’d say in five years’ time!’

  ‘I’m not that young!’

  ‘But such a sweet little baby face,’ I crooned.

  He pushed me back into the corner of the sedan chair, squeezing my breasts with his big hands. ‘The earliest chance I get, I’m showing you just how much of a man I am!’

  ‘I can hardly wait,’ I said and kissed him on the corner of the mouth. Slowly, I let my lips wander towards his ear. He sighed and stroked the cloth of my bodice with his thumb. I felt my nipple harden, even through all the layers of whalebone and cloth. He turned his mouth to mine, and I smiled and wound my arms about his neck. Our kiss deepened.

  ‘I’m glad you didn’t go away for Christmas,’ I whispered. ‘Thank you.’

  The sedan chair jerked to a halt. Charles took a moment to kiss me again, before opening the door and climbing out. He then turned to hand me out. I eased out one high-heeled slipper, holding my skirts down firmly with both hands, before venturing out the other foot and ducking my head down to my knee as I wiggled forward. Sedan chairs were very difficult to get in and out of decorously while wearing a ruffled mantua and a high lace fontanges.

  ‘Don’t mind me. I’m happy to get a glimpse of your ankle any day,’ Charles said.

  ‘I’m sure the sedan-carriers would be pleased too,’ I retorted.

  The red winter sun had slipped down behind the tall houses of Versailles, and the only light shone from a lantern hung above the front door of the chateau. Our breath puffed white in the cold air. Charles offered me his arm and we went towards the steps, chatting gaily together.

  Suddenly, two men ran out from behind the wall. Cloaked and hooded, they seized Charles by the arms, dragging him away from me. I screamed and caught the arm of one of the attackers, but he pushed me away roughly.

  Charles struggled to get free, but they had a sack over his head and were wrestling him towards a large travelling coach half-hidden by the wall. I flew at the men, hitting them over their heads with my muff, kicking at their shins with my sharp-pointed slippers.

  Again, I was shoved away, so hard I stumbled and almost fell. ‘Putain!’ one of the men jeered at me.

  I recovered my balance and ran again to try to stop them. This time, the hooded man slapped me. I fell, sprawling. The men heaved Charles into the coach. I heard his muffled cry and the slam of the coach door. Then a whip cracked, and six horses heaved the coach forward, breaking into a gallop. The wheels clattered over the cobblestones. The coach teetered sideways as it veered around the corner, crashed back down on all four wheels and accelerated away. I ran after it but saw only its dark square shape racing along the road out of the town.

  I ran back towards the house, calling for help. I found that people were already spilling out, alerted by my screams and the yells of the sedan-carriers, who had seen the entire scene.

  ‘Why did you not help?’ I cried.

  The sedan-carrier held up his hands. ‘They looked like they meant business, mademoiselle. Not much use me getting my head kicked in, was there?’

  I was helped inside the townhouse, almost incoherent with shock and fear. Madame Moreau, the lady of the house, took me to a small parlour and brought me a cool damp cloth for my cheek, and some hartshorn for my nerves.

  ‘But who could do such a thing? Why? Where have they taken him?’

  ‘I imagine they were men employed by Monsieur de Briou, mademoiselle,’ Madame Moreau said. ‘I hear he is most disapprov
ing of this match between you and his son, and swears it will not go ahead.’

  I looked up at her in astonishment. ‘Surely he would not kidnap his own son!’

  ‘By all accounts, Claude de Briou is a severe and autocratic man. He’s the president of the sovereign courts, you know, and rules them with an iron fist.’

  ‘But to seize Charles like that! To be so … so violent … so rough.’ Tears rose in my eyes again, and I cradled the cool cloth against my burning cheek.

  ‘I believe Monsieur de Briou has commanded his son to break off the engagement and leave Versailles several times, and Charles has always refused.’ Madame Moreau poured me a glass of ruby-red wine. ‘It is his right,’ she said. ‘Charles is still legally under his dominion.’

  ‘He turns twenty-five in April!’

  ‘Well, then, you must just hope that Charles remains steadfast in his regard for you until then.’ She rose to her feet again. ‘I’m sorry, my dear, I must attend to my guests. Shall I order another sedan chair for you? You’ll wish to return to your quarters.’

  I nodded, my lips pressed together. Anger seethed in me. How dare Charles’s father do such a thing! How dare he kidnap and imprison his own son!

  I went back to the palace and sought out anyone who I thought might be able to help me, but no one could – or would – offer any assistance. Claude de Briou, Baron de Survilliers, was a rich and powerful man, and the law, so everyone kept telling me, was on his side. The crime was committed not by the father but by the son – in persisting in an engagement of which his father disapproved.

  ‘He’ll escape,’ I said. ‘He’ll soon be back, just you see.’

  New Year’s Eve came and went, and I began to lose heart. I could not help remembering the awful outcome of the affair with the Marquis de Nesle and feared that Charles was being so threatened and coerced that he too would seek to drown himself in his despair. Or, even worse, be persuaded to give me up. I could not sleep or eat, no matter how Nanette coaxed me. She brought me all my favourite childhood fare: duck confit, cassoulet, poule-au-pot, apple and Armagnac croustade, Christmas pudding made from crushed chestnuts and cream and a dozen eggs. I tasted no more than a few mouthfuls of any of it.

  ‘You’re too skinny, Bon-bon,’ she scolded me. ‘Men like some meat on their bones.’

  ‘You speak from experience?’ I answered, rather cruelly, because Nanette was both as skinny as a church mouse and had, as far as I knew, never had a lover.

  ‘You’ll fade away to nothing.’

  ‘I’m just not hungry.’

  Nanette folded her lips together and took the feast away, probably giving it to some poor family in the town, if I knew my Nanette. I wrapped my softest shawl around me and went back to staring into the intricate red heart of the fire, longing for Charles to return.

  In mid-January, Françoise had some news for me. ‘He is being kept at the family’s chateau in Survilliers until he swears to throw you over,’ she told me, looking grave. ‘By all accounts, he is being recalcitrant, and so his father has locked him up in his bedroom. He’s not even allowed out into the garden in case he should seek to escape.’

  ‘That’s barbaric!’ I cried.

  ‘Monsieur de Briou has sworn he will not allow his son out until he has made a sacred oath to marry as he is bid.’

  I paced back and forth, my stiff skirts swaying. ‘But it’s so unfair. We love one another!’

  ‘When has love ever had anything to do with marriage?’ Françoise replied wearily. ‘There is nothing you can do but submit, Charlotte-Rose. Write to Charles and tell him you release him from the engagement.’

  ‘I won’t! His father has no right.’

  ‘He has every right,’ Françoise replied. ‘You think you two are the first lovers in the world to be forced to give each other up? It’s a worn-out tale, I’m afraid. Duty to one’s family and to the custom of society must come first.’

  I refused to listen. I went to my room and rang imperiously for Nanette. She came in a hurry, looking anxious.

  ‘Pack for me tout de suite!’ I commanded. ‘I am going to Survilliers.’

  ‘Oh, Bon-bon! Should you? It is so far, my cabbage. How will you get there?’

  ‘I’ll hire a carriage,’ I said. ‘You must come with me, Nanette. I cannot travel alone.’

  ‘But how will you pay for it? You’ve spent nearly all your wages this quarter already.’ She twisted her bony hands together.

  ‘I’ll pawn my pearls,’ I cried. ‘Charles will buy them back for me once he’s free again.’

  ‘Oh, Bon-bon, is this wise? There could be bandits. The coach could break down and we’d be stranded. And what do you possibly think you can do once you get there?’

  ‘I’ll think of that on the way!’

  It was an abominable journey to Survilliers.

  Between Versailles and Paris, the road was reasonably well cared for, but once past the capital we might as well have been driving over the fields. We had to change horses twice, and both Nanette and I felt that every bone in our bodies had been rattled loose from our joints. When we finally arrived in the small village of Survilliers, it was all we could do to stagger into the inn and beg for some beds.

  The next morning, I was woken by the hideous clamour of a farmyard rooster. I groaned, pulled my lumpy feather pillow over my head and tried to dive back down into sleep. The incessant clucking, quacking, mooing and squealing made sleep an impossibility, though, so at last I rose and called Nanette, who soon came back with a simple breakfast of fresh hot croissants and the worst coffee I had ever tasted. When I had eaten, Nanette helped me dress in my most becoming winter gown – a rich dark crimson, the colour of old wine, and trimmed with luxurious black fur – and together we sallied forth to spy out the land.

  The chateau at Survilliers was misnamed. A more accurate word would have been ‘fortress’. It was a grim, old, grey structure with a moat, a barbican, crenellated battlements, arrow slits, murder holes and every other possible defence that a suspicious-minded medieval architect could conceive. It loomed over the village, being built on the only hill for miles, with a dark and dank-looking forest stretching out on either side.

  I girded my loins, so to speak, and walked quickly up the road to the castle, Nanette trotting behind, looking more worried than ever. Though I stared up at the windows, I could see no sign of anyone within. I imagined Charles confined to a stone cell, as cold and malodorous as my cell at the Bastille had been. Fresh anger surged in me.

  I crossed the drawbridge over the moat, which was not green and stinking like I had imagined but really rather pretty, with water lilies floating in it. At the far end of the drawbridge was an enormous wooden door, studded with thick iron bolts and reinforced with iron struts in the shapes of wheels and arrows. Cut into this massive door was a smaller door, for mere mortals to pass through. I used the heavy iron knocker to bang on the door, my stomach feeling quite unnerved by all this medieval grandeur.

  Some time later, the door was opened – not by a thug in chain mail with an iron mace in one hand, but by an urbane-looking man who stood with both eyebrows raised, asking in some surprise, ‘Can I help you?’ His small beard was neatly clipped into a point, which was rather out of date, but otherwise he was dressed completely normally in a heavy wig, a silk lavender coat, tight black satin breeches over clocked stockings, and a beribboned cravat.

  ‘May I see Monsieur de Briou, please?’ I asked sweetly.

  ‘I’m sorry, the Baron is currently not in residence,’ he replied.

  ‘I beg your pardon, I meant the younger Monsieur de Briou. I believe he is here?’

  ‘Yes, mademoiselle, he is here but not, I’m afraid, accepting visitors. You will excuse me …’ He began to shut the door.

  I lunged forward, catching hold of his silken sleeve. ‘I am sure he will see me.’

  He gave a cold austere smile and brushed my hand away. ‘Monsieur de Briou is not free to choose who he will hobnob with, mademoi
selle.’ He spoke rather nastily, and I pressed my lips together. Nanette gave a little hiss of disapproval.

  ‘Indeed? How strange. Why don’t you ask him if he will receive me? I’m sure he’d be delighted.’

  ‘My apologies, mademoiselle. If you will permit?’ He continued to close the door.

  ‘Perhaps I could write a note?’ I called, but he shut the door in my face.

  ‘What a rude man!’ Nanette said. ‘How dare he speak to you in that way? Hobnob indeed!’ Her bony face was so screwed up with disapproval she looked as if she was chewing walnuts.

  ‘This is not going to be easy,’ I said, drawing my mantua around me against the winter chill and walking away from the castle with as much dignity as I could.

  ‘Will we go back to Versailles now?’ Nanette asked. A simple Gascon soul, she had always hated the royal palace, but now her voice was filled with yearning.

  ‘Give up so easily? Not I!’

  Nanette sighed.

  I spent the day wandering about the countryside, viewing the castle from all different angles. It seemed impregnable. I had been angry with Charles for not escaping and galloping post-haste back to me days ago, but now I realised that he truly was imprisoned, and all my will was bent towards rescuing him.

  When Nanette and I got back to the inn, my satin shoes and the hem of my gown were besmirched with mud, and we were hungry, weary and chilled to the bone. I walked through the inn door, only to pause with surprise. This morning, the public bar had been empty of all but a somnolent cat. Now, it was crammed with people, who all turned and stared at me with curious eyes.

  ‘News travels fast,’ I said in an undertone to Nanette, crossing the bar with my head held high.

  ‘It always does in the country,’ she replied.

  ‘I will need a private parlour,’ I said to the innkeeper, as haughtily as I knew how. Seeing his two daughters peeping around the edge of the door to goggle at me, I added, ‘And a parlour-maid. Tout de suite!’