The Shadow Queen

by Sandra Gulland

  At a pond fringed with reeds, I showed Gaston how to stir up the shallows and scoop the leeches up with a spoon. I held the tin as he slipped each wriggling dark body in. The leeches had long brownish stripes down their backs and speckled underbellies.

  By the time the sun was high, we had caught thirteen, one as big as my thumb. Gaston hummed a tune as we headed back to the camp; I wished for his lightness of heart.

  Mother washed Father’s wound and then patted it gently dry. I showed Gaston how to pick a leech up by the middle and hold its small end to the inflamed area.

  “But not on my eye,” Father joked.

  Gaston laughed with delight to see Father draped in leeches.

  Then we all watched, entranced, as the slimy creatures fattened and began to drop off.

  MOTHER SET UP the Virgin with her relics: the corn-husk doll, the chipped cup, the key. The dried carnations I put under my father’s pillow of straw to keep bad dreams away. That night he did not suffer pain. Mother knelt by the Virgin and prayed, offering thanks for the miracle.

  “Don’t waste your time.” His voice sounded thick, as if his tongue were swollen.

  I looked at Mother’s little Virgin propped in the corner. Her eyes were cast down, avoiding my gaze.

  And indeed, the next morning Father was feverish again and distressingly weak. He’d developed a harassing cough in the night, bringing forth a rust-tinged froth.

  “Don’t worry,” he said, touching Mother’s hand.

  I insisted she stay with him while Gaston and I went to a nearby village market to perform. We were sorely in need of money for a healer.

  GASTON AND I passed through the village gates and made our way to the market. I found a spot near the fountain. Heart heavy, I tumbled and juggled and made a clatter with the slapstick. Then I played the wood flute while Gaston hummed. Perhaps our poor spirits showed, because people gave us a wide berth.

  I reminded myself of my parents’ teaching: invention, especially when things go wrong. Father insisted that we were players, not beggars, yet I was desperate to save him. I covered my clown costume with my cloak and told Gaston to stand silently by my side as I held out the cup, crying in a plaintive voice, “In God’s name, help us, I beg you, we’re orphans.” It was not chivalrous to beg—much less lie—but this was no time for a knight’s scruples.

  The bells rang for evening prayer; it was time to head back. I lingered, watching the well-dressed families enter the glow of the church. We’d gotten a meager three deniers—not nearly enough for a healer, but enough for a prayer.

  The village priest stood inside the church door, welcoming his parishioners. He frowned when he saw me and put out his arm.

  I was barred?

  He made the sign of the cross in front of my face—as if I were a devil! “You’re a player.” Gesturing at the costume just visible beneath my cloak.

  “We go into churches all the time,” I protested. As players, we couldn’t take Communion, but we liked the singing, and some churches had wonderful organs.

  “You mock the Eucharist in feigning to choose what you feel.” He was short, but righteousness seemed to inflate him. “Only Christ has the power to choose what He feels, only Christ can choose to suffer. And He chose for us! A player will never cross the threshold of this sacred realm, and especially not your”—he sneered down at Gaston—“your idiot boy, son of the Devil.”

  I spat in his face.

  I STOOD OUTSIDE the church doors, stunned by what I’d just done, anger still coursing through me. I crouched down beside Gaston. My thoughts were turbulent, both furious and dejected. I must learn to dissemble, not give way to choleric passions. “That was a bad thing I just did.” I’d been taken over by a demon, surely. Perhaps the priest was right.

  Gaston hummed, sucking his dirty thumb, his eyes tearing.

  “I’m sorry,” I said. He gave way to tears as I embraced him. Had he heard what the priest said? Had he understood? “Come, Turnip, we’re going back home,” I said, wiping his cheeks and taking his hand.

  Home: a stone hovel.

  I looked back with longing and anger at those within the church: warm, well-fed, blessed. How easy it must be, I thought, to live in the realm of the chosen, to fatten in the certainty of Heaven.

  CHAPTER 8

  Mother was weeping when Gaston and I returned to where we were camped, tearing at her hair like a madwoman. “Nicolas is not getting better,” she wailed, covering her face with her hands.

  Gaston began to cry again, frightened to see Mother in such disarray.

  “You must go back to town, get the priest,” she said, gripping my arm. “Nicolas must renounce. If he doesn’t, he—”

  “I know, Maman.” If a player didn’t renounce the stage before he died, he would go to Hell. “But I will not speak to that priest!” Ever! Wrath and remorse surged through me, stirring up my blood.

  And then I realized what it was that my mother was saying: Father was dying? I rushed to the hut, stooping to squeeze through the entrance. “Father?” I felt his foot—uncovered—and heard him faintly moan.

  The stench of the infection was suffocating. I must not up-heave! I turned to the opening, for control, then crawled back. I could see him better now, the light of the setting sun illuminating his face. One side was swollen. His eyes, sunken into his skull, were bright.

  I reached for his hand—so hot! Mother is right, I thought with swooning dizziness.

  “Claudette,” Father said, strangely matter-of-fact and without difficulty. “Tell me a story,” he said. “Something funny.” His smile was grim, but sweet.

  I can’t, I thought. “You tell one,” I said, lighting a rush candle. “Tell me a story about the glory days.” A story about the time before the wars and famine—a story of long, long ago, before theaters had to close because there wasn’t even flour to powder a player’s face. A story of the golden time before all that. “Tell me of the Great Corneille,” I said.

  “He applauded me,” Father said, brightening.

  “I didn’t know that,” I lied. My parents regarded the playwright as practically a saint.

  “I think he rather fancied Alix,” he added with a weak chuckle that made him cough. “Your mother has a talent for the stage,” he said, recovering, “a God-given gift, I swear.” He paused to catch his breath. “Oh, Lord,” he groaned, but the convulsion passed and he was still.

  Too still, I thought, fear chilling my blood. “I’m going to get Mother to sit with you,” I told him, crawling toward the opening. I felt sick at the thought of facing that priest—after what I’d done!—yet I knew I must. If Father didn’t formally renounce the stage, he would spend eternity in Hell, suffering pains worse than being torn apart by a pack of wolves.

  “Don’t disturb your mother,” Father said.

  “Someone needs to be with you.”

  “You’re here.”

  “But I have to go into the village, Father.” I would have to be repentant: that would be the hard part. But I could do it. I was repentant! I would play the part truly, with all my heart.

  “Whatever for?”

  “If you don’t … if you …”

  “It’s dark,” he said patiently. As if I wasn’t talking any sense.

  “I know. I’m not a child.”

  “Verily, Claudette, you are not, but I have authority over you. I forbid—” He swallowed and tried to lick his lips. “I forbid you … to leave my side.”

  “You must renounce!” I cried, weeping now.

  He was silent for a time. “You think I’m dying.”

  I did not answer.

  “I see,” he said with a defeated tone. “Well—” He stopped, gasping for air like a drowning man. “I guess I’m not much of a player then,” he said finally, recovering.

  I clasped his burning hand. He was dying, and he knew it. This somehow made it true. “I spat at him, Father.”

  “At a priest?” His voice incredulous.

  “Oui,” I
admitted, ashamed.

  He chuckled meekly.

  So I did have a funny tale for him after all. “He wouldn’t let me into the church.” And called Gaston son of the Devil. I dared not tell my father that. “I wanted to say a prayer for you.”

  “The ruffian,” Father cursed, his breath labored again. “He’ll be the one to burn in Hell.”

  I saw Father’s rosary in the blankets and offered it to him.

  “You’re going to have to have more sense, Claudette,” he said, running the beads slowly through his fingers. His breathing had calmed. “Your mother—she loves you and Gaston so much, but she’s … she’s not always strong. You may have to be the one to look after her and our sweet little fool. I’m sorry.”

  I heard an owl hoot in the silence.

  “Promise me,” he said.

  I didn’t answer right away. I knew that this was a sacred moment, knew that my words would have to be true. “I promise,” I said at last. To never betray a trust. To do what is right, whatever the cost.

  “Once the wars are over, go to Paris,” he said, closing his eyes. “Look for Courageux.”

  I remembered Courageux. He’d been a member of our little troupe, a funny man who played the buffoon.

  The rosary slipped out of Father’s grasp, slithering into the grass bedding. “Paris,” he said with a long sigh. “It was always my dream to see Alix play there again.”

  He fell silent. I leaned forward, my hand on his chest.

  “I’m going to rest now,” he said.

  I retrieved the rosary and laced it between his fingers. His breaths came fitfully for a time, and then stopped.

  ACT II

  THE TRAVESTY PLAYER

  (1660, Paris)

  CHAPTER 9

  The room was dark and smelled of rat—but we could live with that. Anything to get out of the cold. Approaching Paris, we’d walked the river ice.

  From the look of the blackened bricks, the fireplace smoked, but at least there was one. There was even a swing hook over the grate. The storage closet would be just big enough for Gaston to sleep in—soon he would be fourteen, too old to share a bed with his mother and big sister. And although the chicken butchery in the courtyard would be smelly, we might be able to get cheap meat from time to time, poultry not good enough for the market, but fine for our cauldron.

  “I’ll take it,” I told Monsieur Martin, setting my cracked leather valise on the rush-strewn floor. We’d been living near Rennes when peace had finally been proclaimed, working on the country estate of an impoverished noble—Mother hired on as a necessary woman emptying chamber pots, I at the looms, Gaston cleaning the soot-clogged chimneys. It was a miserable existence, the steward cruel, and so, with our New Year’s gifts of coin in hand, we’d set out for Paris, wending our way slowly across the war-ravaged fields on oxcarts and hay wagons, once even riding in the undercarriage of a post chaise. Everyone, it seemed, rich and poor alike, was swarming back into the city.

  “That will be three months in advance,” Monsieur Martin said, appraising me in a way I’d come to know rather too well. A woman of twenty-and-one, I was considered attractive in spite of my height, my small breasts and big feet.

  With a theatrical show of despair, I sat down on the valise and looked up at him. A man gained ground by pressing a point; a woman by a show of submission. “One month, Monsieur?” I flashed my excellent teeth. We’d once been so desperate I’d considered selling them. The toothless rich were willing to pay handsomely.

  My other treasure was my virginity, and I’d thought of selling it too, years back, to the steward’s hunchback son. I had refrained, holding out—I told myself—for a higher bidder. Now I fancied myself ruler of an impregnable realm.

  Impregnable, indeed! I was wearing every bit of clothing I owned: three chemises (one flannel, two with long sleeves), four skirts (one of heavy wool and another quilted felt), two bodices, three fichus, and two caps. Plus my father’s old leather jerkin and two pairs of wool socks I’d knit myself, layered under his boots. Plus mitts, a hooded cloak, and a thread-thin lavender shawl, for ornament. Even so, I was cold. I pulled the shawl snug around my neck.

  “Two,” Monsieur Martin said. He was misproportioned, only his right arm muscular—from swinging a mallet, I guessed—a stonemason by the look of his hands.

  I took off my mitts and felt through the side-slits of my many skirts to the leather coin sack underneath. I pulled it out onto my lap, working the stiff lace. I frowned looking over the coins, counting, feigning difficulty with this simple task. I had more coins in my valise, but we would need them to buy bread, wood, and ale. We’d been warned that the water in Paris would make us violently sick, even when boiled and filtered through sand. “I have only enough for one month, Monsieur, but I will be a good tenant.” Not mentioning Mother and Gaston.

  “You seem like a nice enough girl.” He leaned in, no doubt assuming I was setting up for trade.

  I put out my hand, palm up—the universal pleading position, players call it. “One month?”

  Monsieur Martin’s hand on my shoulder was heavy. He could snap my neck should he choose. He roughly caressed my wrist as he took the coins. His nails were as black as his two teeth.

  “It’s agreed then,” I announced in a carrying voice.

  The door creaked open and Gaston peeped in, his blue eyes bright. He sang a hopeful, questioning note. His voice, yet to change, was high-pitched, that of a girl. Short, with chubby cheeks, he looked younger than his years.

  Monsieur Martin stared, taken aback.

  “This is my brother, Gaston,” I said, stepping aside for him to edge into the room with our horse-hide traveling trunk and carpetbag. I motioned for him to put them down beside the dismantled table.

  I heard shuffling footsteps. “And our mother, Madame des Oeillets,” I said as Mother entered the room, panting from the climb.

  “Mercy sakes!” she exclaimed breathlessly. Her plaits had come loose, giving her a wild look.

  “The Widow des Oeillets,” I added, although she did not look the part. She was wearing two frilly mobcaps and her dressing gown was on upside-down over her cloak. Its empty arms trailed after her like a noblewoman’s train. Father’s death years before had shaken her, beyond repair I feared. She’d become unsettled.

  “Enchantée, Monsieur,” she said, bending one leg and dipping with the extravagant air of a great lady. Gaston, unsure, tried to mime her.

  “How many are you?” the landlord demanded.

  “Only three, Monsieur,” I assured him, with a watchful eye on Mother, who was now trying to prize open the leather trunk. “We’re clean, quiet, and—”

  “Weary me no more!” I heard Mother mutter as she wrenched open the trunk and started pulling out the contents, spreading them over the rushes: her small linens and patched stockings, a stained chemise. “Let me creep into the silence of the night to weep.”

  Clean, quiet—and just a little mad, I thought with chagrin, glancing apologetically at our new landlord.

  “Madame, isn’t that a line from The Cid?” he asked, stepping forward.

  Mother looked up, bewildered.

  “You’ve seen the play, Monsieur?” I asked, hoping to distract him.

  “Three times—at the Petit-Bourbon.”

  I handed Gaston the leather bucket and gave him a denier to get water from a carrier. Eagerly he clambered out, clunking down the narrow stairs. “Are there many theaters?” I asked Monsieur Martin. One of the first things I planned to do now that we were in Paris was to try to find Monsieur Courageux, as Father had suggested. Our former troupe player might be able to help us find employment.

  “Non, hélas! And now there is talk that even the Petit-Bourbon is to be taken down. The Bourgogne is said to be one of the best, but it’s some distance from here and costful I’m told. There used to be another one, the Marais, but it burned.”

  Wasn’t the Marais the theater my parents had played in? I looked over at Mother, but
she was still rummaging through the trunk. I cringed to see the mess she was making.

  “It’s a pity. The Petit-Bourbon is a fine theater,” Monsieur Martin went on, ebullient now. “I also saw Cinna there, but The Cid is my favorite. There hasn’t been a new Corneille play since the great playwright retired.”

  “Ah, here she is,” Mother exclaimed, lifting up the tiny wood statue of the Virgin.

  “My mother played in The Cid,” I said, judging from Monsieur Martin’s enthusiasm that it was safe to reveal our background. “In the original production.”

  “You’re a player, Madame?” the landlord asked, his voice awed.

  “No, Monsieur,” Mother said, standing, looking around for a place to set the Virgin. “I’m decidedly not.”

  “The Cid, Maman—you had a part in the original production.”

  “It was only a small part,” Mother said, setting the Virgin in a corner and placing trinkets at her feet: the rusty key, a dried carnation, the chipped teacup.

  “Not that small a part,” I said, crossing my arms. We’d had to sell our costumes in Nantes, the slapstick, tin crown and wood sword at a country fair near Saint-Nazaire. Stories of the glory days were all I had left. “You played Leonora—”

  “The Infanta’s lady-in-waiting?” Monsieur Martin pressed his wool cap to his heart. “Do you wish to live in the land of dream?” he recited in falsetto.

  “Non! I will compose myself—in spite of my grief,” Mother answered, giving the Infanta’s correct response. (Though her wits had scattered, her memory for verse remained wondrous.)

  “Would you happen to know of a player named Courageux, Monsieur?” I asked on impulse.

  Monsieur Martin shook his head, his mouth downturned.

  I was about to ask if he knew of any charity schools (for Gaston), but I was silenced by a woman’s sharp voice calling up the stone stairwell.

  “Ah, it’s the boss—my wife.” He turned at the door. “I’ll send my boy up with wood.”

  “Thank you, Monsieur!” I said, but already he was gone, whistling down the stairs.