The Shadow Queen

by Sandra Gulland

  From far off, I heard splashing and the low rumble of men talking. The light of a single lantern appeared, drawing near. A rowboat was making its way up the street, furnishings and crates piled high in the bow. Two men sat perched in the stern, one holding the oars, the other a lantern.

  “Messieurs?”

  They looked up. They could not see me in the dark.

  “I heard a noise.” I did not have to speak loudly to be heard.

  “The bridge,” one of them answered.

  “The Pont Marie gave way,” said the other.

  Goodness: the bridge?

  “Two arches out—and all the houses on it.”

  Gone? I thought of Madame Catherine: she, her husband, and children lived on that bridge, over the jewelry shop. I felt sick at the thought that the kindly woman might have perished—but then gasped with foreboding. Had Gaston sought shelter with her?

  DAYS LATER, I woke to bells ringing. I fumbled open the shutters. The morning light was bright, the air cutting and cold. And there, far below, was the street, its cobbles dislodged. A muddy boat sat stranded. People were clustered around a bonfire at the corner, a man and a woman dancing on the stones as a boy played a fiddle.

  And then I saw him, his lilting walk. He was with a tall, thin boy. “Gaston!” I screamed.

  “Gaston?” Mother pressed behind me, weeping for joy.

  I cried out again, and this time he looked up.

  The boy, his companion, disappeared down an alley, fast as a whippet.

  “Don’t move,” I yelled down. Don’t. Move.

  CHAPTER 13

  Gaston winced as we embraced him. “You’re bruised?” There was an ugly welt on his cheek. “What happened!”

  He pressed his forehead against mine.

  “Where does it hurt?” He was favoring one arm.

  “Men,” he stuttered with difficulty. “Mill.”

  I caught my breath: I recalled the face of one of the roughs Gaston had won against, recalled his threatening look as he’d slunk off with his companions. “It was that gang of boys, Gaston, wasn’t it.”

  He mimed their tight fists, a kick.

  “I’m so sorry!” I raged at my stupidity. He’d been attacked—and it was my fault. I’d set him up to play against strangers, knowing they would think him dim, knowing they would lose. I’d played them for fools and taken their money, not thinking of their outrage. Not thinking that it was not the knightly thing to do. And then I’d abandoned Gaston to chase after a foolish dream. Merci Dieu, he hadn’t been killed! “Who was that boy you were with?”

  “Friend,” he sang.

  No matter how I questioned, that’s all he could reveal. Clearly, he’d been looked after, but how he’d managed to survive would have to remain a mystery.

  WE HEADED DOWN the rue Vieille du Temple. Deep gashes in the street were filled with stagnant water, rich with the stench of waste. The sky was dark from the fires set to cleanse the air with smoke.

  The drink shop at the corner of the rue Vieux Chemin de Charenton was filled with refuse, the kegs ruined. Dogs growled over meat rotting in a butcher’s shop. We passed the mud-filled trimmings shop where I had seen my princess in what seemed like another lifetime.

  A shoemaker was piling his ruined wares in front of his shop. He pulled out a pair of men’s red-heeled boots that he thought might fit me. (Me of the big feet.) “Made for a courtier,” he said, “once upon a time.”

  In such heels, I felt like a giant. With a playful cry, I hefted Mother up over my head and carried her screeching down the street like a performing muscleman. Gaston giggled and clapped. He was with us again; he was safe. We had emerged into another world, pestilent and wrecked, yet joyful with deliverance.

  A CROWD WAS gathered on the quay, staring at the now-placid river, its banks piled with garbage.

  “God have mercy,” Mother whispered, signing herself … for half of the Pont Marie was gone.

  I stared incredulously at the gap. How many houses had fallen away? Twenty? At least. I thought of the lives lost, thought of all the men, women, and children who had tumbled into a watery grave as they slept. I thought of the fortune-teller, Madame Catherine. Dead now.

  Carriages of the curious passed by, their eyes wide with wonderment. A somber group of masked men in hooded cloaks and swinging large brass crosses cried out that the flood had been a sign of God’s displeasure, a punishment for our sinful ways. Nearby, a stand was doing a brisk business selling hot chestnuts and beer. Already, carnival stalls were being set up in preparation for Mardi Gras. Not even devastation could stop Parisians from reveling in Fat Tuesday, the festival of indulgence before Lent. No: for Mardi Gras there would be nothing but celebration—and why not? People had lost their lives to the raging torrent. The survivors had cause to dance.

  IN THE MORNING, our stale, hard bread long gone, I made to crumple its news-sheet wrapper for the fire. Then—Thank you, Father—I laid it out flat. It was yellowed and brittle, a playbill of a theatrical performance, The Triumph of Peace.

  At the Marais Theater.

  The Marais was the theater my mother and father had performed in, the one Monsieur Martin said had burned down. The date of the production was past, but not that long past. More important, the location was revealed: “rue Vieille du Temple, across from the Capuchin monastery.”

  Our rue Vieille du Temple? Not far.

  AT THE CORNER of the rue Vieille du Temple and the rue de Thorigny, the cobbles emerged dry and clean from beneath a skin of slimy mud, a realm untainted by the flood. Ahead, on the left, people were camped—the bewildered newly homeless. Tents and haphazard shanties filled a courtyard where children laughed and played. A nun in sandals moved slowly from one tent to another, distributing alms-bread out of a basket. By her rough garb, I knew her to be a Poor Clare—a Capuchin.

  I turned, knowing what I would see. The tall, narrow building had a slightly peaked roof. A gaudy sign hung over the door: Le Théâtre du Marais. Tears came to my eyes recalling Father talking of this theater with such reverence. It was smaller than I’d imagined, and not nearly as grand.

  The area in front of the theater was slippery with mud, the stench from an open cesspit across the road heavy in the air. The door was bolted shut. A painted sign informed me that the theater was closed until after Lent. A smaller sign below was apparently intended for the troupe: there was to be a general meeting on the twelfth just after Terce, the bells for morning prayer.

  I made a note: three days.

  CHAPTER 14

  On Thursday, the twelfth of February, I headed back up the rue Vieille du Temple. A chill breeze puffed up now and then, sending scraps flying. The river had held to its banks, but the air still reeked and there were heaps of rubbish everywhere.

  My plan was to talk to the director of the troupe, offer myself and Mother as loge attendants, asking only three sous a day for the two of us. (Plus a meal, ideally.) Gaston could work odd jobs for free. That way we could keep an eye on him—and perhaps he’d even learn something.

  Of course, three sous a day would never be enough. The key would be getting Mother taken on as a player eventually, and thus entitled to a cut of the take.

  Approaching the theater, I held back, watching as people entered for the meeting. Some had the lean look of players, others were laborers, thick in their ways. A few lingered around a vendor selling venison pasties and burnt wine. One tight, consoling circle had formed around a woman relating a tearful account of flood rescue and loss.

  An older woman in a man’s wig emerged from the theater. “It’s too chill to keep these doors open,” she scolded, kicking away a wooden prop. “Everyone in.” Her demeanor was affable, at odds with her gruff words and the curious nature of her costume. (Mother might not appear daft in such company.)

  As the last of those lingering outside disappeared into the theater, I stepped forward.

  “Are you here for the meeting?” the woman in the wig asked, looking up at me sideways.
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  “Not exactly.” I was tempted to curtsy, as one would to someone in such an ostentatious hair piece, however laughable. No doubt it kept her head warm. I edged my foot in front of the door, to prevent it from being closed in my face. “I’m to talk to someone about employment.” As if it had already been arranged.

  “Now? Best hurry then,” she said, and I slipped in behind her. She nodded toward the closet where tickets were sold. There, an old man sat hunched over a plank table, sorting piles of coins by the light of a candle. “Monsieur Pierre?”

  He looked up, squinting. I guessed he might be as old as fifty. He had tufted eyebrows and a high forehead. A thick black moustache almost covered his lips. He was dressed in black with a crumpled white collar—an accountant, I surmised, by the look of him, some kind of clerk. A humble, dull, settled sort of man.

  “There’s a woman here to see about employment.”

  “Send her to Monsieur la Roque, Madame Babette,” he said, not even looking up, pulling on the tuft of hair under his lower lip.

  “Bonjour, Monsieur,” I said, boldly stepping forward nonetheless. I slipped off the hood of my cloak and edged into the cubicle. A coal-filled brass brazier was set on the table, giving off a welcome heat. A half-empty flagon of milk was perched on a shelf. “I’m of a theatrical family—between my mother and me and my strong brother, there isn’t any stage work we haven’t done.” I was talking too fast; I coached myself to slow down. “My mother and I could be loge attendants, but we can also help build, sew, paint sets. I can do sums, read; I know how to prompt.” The room smelled of cheese and garlic, which sharpened my hunger. (How long had it been since I’d eaten cheese?) I feared my stomach would growl.

  “The troupe has all the hands they need,” he said, returning to stacking coins.

  “I can juggle.” I looked around the tiny chamber for objects I could use to demonstrate.

  “The Marais does not perform farces anymore.” On the word farces he revealed a hint of a stutter, the way Gaston sometimes did.

  “We will work for a mere sou or two,” I persisted, already lowering my price. “You would not regret it, I promise you.”

  “We employ too many as it is.” He rolled a stack of coins into a square of cloth and placed it in a wood box, tapping it in to fit.

  “My mother is a wonderful actress,” I pressed on. “She performed here, at this very theater.”

  “I advise you not to tell false stories, Mademoiselle,” he said tiredly. His eyes were watery but bright. “This theater has been closed off and on for some time.”

  “Monsieur, I speak the God’s truth! It was a long time ago, around the time that the King’s cousin was publicly baptized.” I didn’t know the year, but I recalled Father saying that La Grande Mademoiselle had been nine at the time, and had screamed with laughter when dunked. Gaston, as a child, had to be distracted with a reenactment of the story the few times he was bathed—it was the only way we could get his hair wet.

  “Your mother must be of an age,” he said with a bemused expression, putting the box into a trunk and locking it with an iron key, which he pressed into the side of his boot.

  How old was Mother? It shocked me to realize that she must be nearing forty. “She played in the very first performances of The Cid, Monsieur.” There, I had said it, said it all. “She worships the work of the Great Corneille … as I do,” I added, shy about revealing a matter so tender to my heart. “As does everyone, of course,” I said, abashed now. (And flailing.)

  “Which part did your mother play?” he asked, testing me.

  “Leonora, the Infanta’s lady-in-waiting, Monsieur. She talks of that performance often.” Well—at least Father had.

  “Then she would have known who played the Infanta, I should think.”

  I felt my cheeks and neck flush. “Mademoiselle Beau …” Something to do with a building. “Beauchâteau,” I said, relieved when the name jumped into my head. (Thank you, Father!)

  “And Rodrigue?”

  What a question! “The great Montdory, Monsieur.”

  He pressed his thumb into the cleft in his chin. “What color is your mother’s hair?”

  “Red,” I said uneasily; women with red hair were regarded with suspicion. “And my father played one of the minor nobles,” I added. But which one—Don Arias, Sancho, or Alonzo?

  “Are you certain of that?”

  I could hear people laughing in the foyer, both men and women. “Don Sancho,” I said, taking a wild guess. “He talked of the great crowds, all the benches and chairs that had to be put on the stage to accommodate them all, Monsieur Corneille applauding. It was the most wonderful moment of my father’s life,” I said, my voice catching. “He’s passed on now.”

  “Nicolas de … Vin?”

  I stared.

  “But he changed his name … to something—” He twirled his right hand in the air. “Something flowery.”

  Was it possible this man knew my father?

  There was a light tap at the door, which swung open. A dignified man with a neatly trimmed white beard divided into points stood holding a sheaf of papers. He was big-chested, his ancient embroidered doublet too small for him. “We’re about ready, Monsieur Pierre.” His voice was husky, loud.

  “As you say, Monsieur la Roque,” Monsieur Pierre said with a groan, struggling to his feet. I wondered if I should help him, but the bearded man stepped forward.

  There were quite a few people in the entry now. Several followed Messieurs Pierre and La Roque through a door into the theater. A gong sounded three times and then everyone began to file in, finishing whatever crusts of pastry or mugs of hot wine they had in their hands.

  “Coming?” the woman in the wig said.

  CHAPTER 15

  I trailed inconspicuously behind a group of men, stagehands and carpenters I guessed, by their dress. We filed into the rows of the amphitheater. I slid onto the bench behind them, as if I belonged.

  The space under the roof let in a little light. A few candles in one of the hanging candelabras helped illuminate the parterre, which was partially full of trunks and sets. For fear of ruin by the flood, no doubt—yet miraculously untouched, it appeared. On the sides were the tiers of curtained loges for the wealthy. The empty stage was a dark, inviting presence. The floor appeared to be raked.

  The bearded man named Monsieur la Roque strode to the center of the parterre and turned to address the assembly. He had a commanding presence. I decided that he must be the troupe’s director. “Before we begin, I believe we should give thanks to the heavens that our theater was spared.”

  A murmur swept through the crowd. It was a large troupe. I would look for another showplace possibility, something smaller, more at the street level, perhaps in the fairgrounds I’d heard of. I’d been foolish to think we could start so grandly.

  “I’ve set up a board in the entry. If you are in need, post a note. We are a family, we look after one another.”

  The woman who had been weeping outside let out a sob, but then laughed, apologizing.

  Monsieur la Roque smiled gently, pulling on one point of his white beard. “I think you will all agree that the sooner we open our doors to the public, the better.”

  There was some applause and even a few cheers.

  “The first fortnight of performances have been decided. We shall open with Brécourt’s False Death—”

  Everyone turned to smile at a blond young man, who I took to be the playwright. He grinned and tipped his hat. He was sitting beside an older woman, who gave him a kiss on the cheek.

  “—then three others, all of which are staples of our repertory, so will require little in the way of rehearsal.” Monsieur la Roque paused before saying: “But not long after we thought we should open with the Paris premiere of The Golden Fleece.”

  More applause, cheers, and a thunder of boots this time.

  He smiled, waiting for everyone to quiet. “For those of you who are unfamiliar with the play, it’s a rather ama
zing extravaganza, a tragedy about Medea—”

  “Bravo!” several called out. I laughed along with all the others—the evil sorceress Medea was a popular subject.

  “—a queen torn between erotic and political power.”

  Oh! people sighed.

  But more important, Monsieur la Roque went on to explain, this was to be a “machine play,” produced with special effects—players flying through the air on clouds, monsters coming alive. “However—” Monsieur la Roque waited patiently for a chance to be heard. One side of his beard was longer than the other, I noticed, from him pulling on it. “Such spectacles cost. We’ll have to go into considerable debt.” He threw up his hands. “It’s a gamble.”

  “We like to live dangerously,” a woman called out with enthusiasm, a sentiment that seemed to be shared.

  “So long as we survive,” Monsieur la Roque said. He had the look of a man who had endured. “As you no doubt know,” he went on, “His Majesty has hired the Italian machinist Vigarani to construct a theater in the palace that will be capable of producing machine plays as well. But Vigarani is behind schedule, so if we work hard and keep on track, we will be the first company in Paris to offer a spectacle of this magnitude”—he held up his hand for silence—“made possible by our very own Keeper of Secrets.” He gestured to a man sitting at the front. “The remarkable Denis Buffequin.”

  A burly, short man with a black patch over his left eye stood, made a perfunctory bow, and sat back down, flushing brightly. I wondered what a Keeper of Secrets did.

  “There will be substantial work required to prepare,” Monsieur la Roque continued. “Our scheduler will talk to you all, but first, the moment you’ve all been waiting for, the man who needs no introduction.” He made a dramatic and fulsome bow. “Monsieur Pierre.”