“Is something going on?” Mother asked, turning to follow my gaze.
“I’m trying to hear.” I watched over her shoulder as I gathered the thin gauze of her gown, securing the folds with pins. “La Roque said he’s had word from Brécourt—something to do with Étiennette.” Brécourt’s wife, the actress who played Medea. “She won’t be able to perform. She’s with child—”
“That shouldn’t stop her.”
I nodded. “But she’s bleeding, in danger.”
“Mercy.”
“She must keep to her bed.”
“A calamity,” Mother hissed.
Indeed! Étiennette’s understudy had quit two days before because she up-heaved whenever she rode the flying dragon, which was required in Act V.
And then I saw the disaster for what it really was. I put away my pins.
“THINK OF HOW much trouble it could save you,” I argued. “Here you have a new Medea, ready to begin.”
Monsieur la Roque and Monsieur Pierre exchanged a glance.
“Mademoiselle Claude,” Monsieur Pierre began, not unkindly, “the casting of Medea is crucial to the success of this entire production.”
“Maman did well in Brécourt’s play—” I began.
“She played a maid,” Monsieur la Roque cut in. “A walk-on—and in only two scenes.”
Yet had garnered applause with only that! “All I ask is that you give her a chance. I promise it will be worth your time.”
“But that’s just it,” Monsieur la Roque said with exasperation. “We don’t have time. Alix would have to learn the lines and then if she can’t perform—well … We will have lost days finding a replacement.”
“One hour,” I said. “Just give us the lines for one hour. Mother memorizes faster than anyone I’ve ever seen.”
“But—” Monsieur la Roque was losing patience with this debate, I could see.
“Very well: one hour,” Monsieur Pierre interjected. “Have her learn the second scene in Act Two. But are you sure you want to—”
“She will surprise you, Messieurs,” I said. “Trust me.”
I HAD TO tell Mother that the purpose of her reading was only to help Monsieur la Roque and Monsieur Pierre find someone to replace Medea. “They aren’t certain which scene to have the actresses perform for them,” I said, trying to sound casual. It was a half-lie, and not even a credible one at that, but it would be justified if my plan worked. “So it’s important that you do it as well as you can …”
“This is for Monsieur Pierre?”
I nodded. “And Monsieur la Roque, to give them some idea of how challenging the scene is.”
Mother looked confused, but nonetheless stepped into the empty dressing room I had claimed for us. Father, we’re going to need your help, I thought, opening the stack of parchment: Medea’s lines, with the cues inked in.
Mother worked with an intensity of focus that amazed me. She could hardly write her name, much less read, yet she had a profound ability to commit lines to heart. As I read the script to her, she used the memory techniques Father had taught us so long ago, tricks the ancients had developed to commit a script to memory. To memorize a line, she imagined a palace of many rooms, imagined the words within it. In no time at all, all I had to do was say the cue line and she would change into the evil Medea, her face contorted, her eyes bulging, the veins in her neck taut and throbbing.
“Bravo,” I whispered, shocked at her transformation.
“Bravo, indeed,” said a man’s husky voice from behind me. I turned to see Monsieur Pierre in the doorway, Monsieur la Roque one step behind him, both of their faces filled with enchantment.
“OF COURSE, NOW that your mother is Medea,” Monsieur la Roque told me the next morning, “you’ll have to be Cupid.”
Ay me. The flying machine! “Of course,” I said, my palms damp.
CHAPTER 18
Shortly before The Golden Fleece was scheduled to open, there was a fire at the Louvre. The blaze raged until a priest arrived with the Sacrament, at which point the fire immediately went out (which surprised me: I’m not entirely a believer). The Queen Mother’s apartment had been saved, but the Petite Gallerie and the palace theater—still under construction—were destroyed. The theater for machines, which would have rivaled our own.
“And to think that we had nothing to do with it,” Madame Babette said, but nobody laughed.
It was said that the blaze had started in the theater. Spectacle plays were risky, without a doubt. The machines themselves required a lot of light—a lot of candles. Monsieur la Roque held a special meeting to discuss our apprehension, and it was decided to double the number of Capuchins in the bucket brigade. But what about the concerns of the public, so close on the eve of the fire? The troupe considered postponing the opening, but that, too, would bring bad luck, so we opted to persevere, and entrust our fate to God.
Then—as if we weren’t fretful enough!—Monsieur la Roque informed us that the King would be coming to see our production.
“Could you repeat that, Monsieur la Roque?” someone called out from the stage, where players had gathered for the first of the three rehearsals.
“You heard me,” La Roque said with a grin.
The King? Players cheered and hooted; some even danced. Everything—everything—hinged on royal approval. If His Majesty enjoyed the show, we would be well rewarded.
Mother looked stricken. This was her first big role … and she was to play it before His Majesty?
THE DAYS THAT followed were lunatic with preparation. I ran from one task to another: making final alterations to Mother’s gown; shaking out the chair covers in the loges; arranging flowers in vases here and there. It was said the King loved flowers.
The King!
AT THE FINAL rehearsal, everything—merci Dieu—went smoothly. I marveled at the effects. Thunder and lightning! Iris seated on a rainbow in a garden, Juno flying about. Hypsipyle floating on a river on a conch shell drawn by dolphins. In the fifth act, we all applauded as Medea (brave little Maman) appeared flying on the back of the dragon, and fought—in the air—with two winged Argonauts.
It awed me to see how a set could magically change—at once—from a palace of horrors into a wilderness, awed me to think that Buffequin and his hands managed this all from below stage. Setting the trolleys under the stage in motion, they were able to make all eight wing flats change in an instant—a palace into a garden, a garden into Heaven, Heaven into Hell.
No wonder players are accused of witchcraft, I thought, marveling at the effect. “You know it’s not actually magic,” I told Gaston.
TRUMPETS SOUNDED THE approach of the royal party. La Roque and a delegation of players rushed out to greet His Majesty at his carriage. They escorted the King and his entourage to their loges, torches in hand.
“His Majesty is comely,” Madame Babette reported back. The braziers on either side of the parterre had been raging all morning, but even so, the theater was cold. “The attendants have taken up almost all of the third tier.”
Mercy me. Only the loges in the first tier had been reserved for His Majesty. But of course the King traveled with an entourage—his courtiers, attendants, and guards, in addition to members of his family. (With the exception of his Spanish wife, who rarely attended such performances, likely because she did not understand French.)
I hated to think what condition the top tier would be in. Well, it was too late to do anything about it now, I thought, as people noisily filed into the pit. Hopefully, with the presence of His Majesty, there would be some semblance of order: no knife fights or muggings. Recently, an elderly porter had been killed in a tussle with an unruly drunk, a horrifying experience that had sobered us all.
Backstage, I listened nervously to the hum of the audience. As Mother prayed in her tiny dressing room, I stole to the stage gate. From this position I had an excellent view of the King in the first-tier loge, the one closest to the stage on the left. He was in the company of several yo
ung noblemen and attendants. I recognized a portly man with a florid, brutish face who often pressed himself upon young actresses, trying to bribe his way into their chambers. The son of Le Tellier, the Secretary of State for War, he seemed to think he had the right, boasting that he would inherit his father’s powerful position one day. Louvois was his name, I recalled. La Roque had put us on notice not to allow him near. He was known to be ruthless, a young man of hasty temper, even given to violence if not accorded the favors he sought. It was rumored he’d snapped the neck of one young woman’s cat when she refused him! I was somewhat surprised to see him in the familiar company of the King. I wondered if his sinister ways were known to his peers.
Broad-shouldered with curling long hair, His Majesty stood out from his companions, a striking young man, both graceful and manly. I could understand why he was often likened to Apollo, god of the sun. Although changed by kingship and maturity, I recognized in him the boy I had seen in Poitiers. He had that same poise, but now I saw self-consciousness in it, as if he were the one onstage.
I scanned the other loges to see who else I might recognize. Monsieur, the King’s comely brother, and their cousin La Grande Mademoiselle in an enormous hat. It was only as the curtain started its slow creaking ascent that I glimpsed someone sitting with a group in a loge on the right. A young woman with blond curls and unusually big eyes.
“Claudette—it’s time!” Madame Babette called out behind me, and I turned quickly away, my thoughts in disorder.
I FOUND MOTHER with all the other players, many of them pacing, murmuring their lines.
“What if I can’t hear the prompter?” Her voice, normally deep, came out in a squeak.
It was a problem. The prompter’s chair, usually set in a wing downstage, was now set way at the back because of all the machinery. “You know Medea’s lines well,” I assured her, adjusting her hairpiece.
I was nervous enough myself. I was worried about my own flight out over the audience as Cupid. My mother’s gauzy gown was small on me. What if men could see my legs? I’d managed being in the flying machine through the three rehearsals—but over a crowd? I felt like up-heaving just thinking of it … and what if I did?
Monsieur la Roque came to the end of his director’s greeting. I heard the fast twelve blows struck by his worn red-velvet-covered staff, followed by three slow ones, signaling that the play was about to begin.
“Here we go,” young Brécourt said at the creaking ascent of the painted curtain. The audience cheered the magnificent set.
Mother looked up at me, her eyes wide with fright. For a heart-stopping moment, I feared she would not go on. “Tell me again what Nicolas said,” she whispered.
“That you have a God-given talent, Maman.”
She stared at me for a long moment. I nodded and gently nudged her forward.
She strode menacingly to the candles and shrieked, silencing the crowd.
CHAPTER 19
My flight as Cupid was to be the first “miraculous” sensation of the show; it was critical that it go perfectly. I double-checked my harness and discovered one buckle loose. Ay me! I was rechecking everything when Madame Babette gave me a deep-red rose. “Monsieur la Roque wants you to throw it down to the King.”
“And manage the bow and arrow as well?” All while flying through the air?
She shrugged, straightened her wig, and rushed off.
A thorn cut into the palm of my hand. Zounds: now I was bleeding. At least I wasn’t in my courses. Trembling, I bent my knees, waiting for the cymbals to sound—waiting for the machinery to hoist me up and out.
The cymbals sounded and I pushed off—but nothing happened. I fell forward, my knees dragging on the boards. Deus! I put the bow and rose in one hand, and was trying to pull down my skirts when I was jerked violently into the air.
Ah! the audience gasped.
Oh! I exclaimed as I was twirled out over the pit and around … once, twice, rising up ever higher, until I was level with the first-tier loges, swooping past the richly adorned courtiers. Ahead, coming on quickly, was the King. I grasped the rose with my right hand and tossed it neatly into his loge as I flew by. A cheer went up. Everyone was loving it!
On my next sweep by His Majesty’s loge, a moustached valet held up the rose. Holding it to his heart, he winked at me as I flew by.
A wink!
Suspended, no longer circling, I set a tin arrow in my bow. My gaze settled on the young woman I’d briefly glimpsed before. She turned her face up to me, her blue eyes luminous. Deus! Cupid’s arrow slipped from my grasp.
Someone in the pit grabbed it, triumphant. I was swirled away and down, landing with a thud. I quickly bowed out to laughter and applause, my heart pounding.
“What happened?” Monsieur la Roque demanded.
“I don’t know,” I said, unbuckling my harness. But I did. It was her.
SHAKEN, I QUICKLY got out of my costume and settled onto my perch beside the stage gate. Everyone’s eyes were on His Majesty, but my eyes were on her. She was seated beside her father, the Duc de Mortemart, the humorless man who had practically had us all arrested years before in Poitiers. I recognized him by his girth and thin moustache. With them was a young nobleman and several older men and women.
She was as lovely as I remembered, her hair arranged in locks that had been feathered, giving her a light, angelic look. She held her fan with the painted side facing out. Now and then she fluttered it quickly, charming the young nobleman with a languishing glance.
As the performance came to an end, the audience exploded with applause, hoots and cheers, a thunder of stomping boots. I watched as her party rose, noted the way she held up her skirts, turning out the inside of her wrists. The young man helped her adjust her shawl around her shoulders and she smiled up at him. Her father, at the door of the loge, waved his walking stick, motioning them to hurry. She dipped her head respectfully and, with an exquisitely graceful passing curtsy, preceded the young man out the door.
Madame Babette popped up behind me. “I can’t take my eyes off of him either.” She sighed.
“I know,” I said, feigning to be enchanted by the King.
MOTHER FELL INTO my arms, wobbly with relief.
“I’ll meet you down in your dressing room.” There was a surprise for her there: a basket of beignets. “I need to let Gaston in backstage.” He’d been sorting the door-take in the office. (Putting coins in order by size was something he could do well.)
Gaston was waiting for me at the gate. I let him in behind the curtain, where some of the players still lingered. “Mother’s down below,” I told him, but he stopped, dumbstruck, gazing somewhat fearfully at the sets, as if he might be swallowed up, struck by lightning. “Come,” I said with a smile, nudging him out of his enchantment.
We found Mother sitting on a stool in her dressing room eating a beignet. She opened her arms wide to embrace us.
Oh, Gaston sang with a fearful vibrato, which made us laugh.
“That was my worst,” she said, licking her fingers clean before taking off her wig and shaking out her sweat-soaked hair.
I clapped a fur hood on her to protect her from the cold. “You were excellent,” I insisted, untying her laces and helping her into her red and yellow dressing gown. “It went well.” Nothing had caught fire and no ushers had been murdered.
Monsieur Pierre appeared with sweetmeats. “You are a queen of the stage!” he told Mother, sweeping off his hat. “You must play tragedy—real tragedy,” he said, lowering his voice conspiratorially. “I’m writing a new play, a tragedy that would be perfect for you to star in.”
I looked from the playwright to my mother, not believing what Monsieur Pierre had just said. Zounds! If only Father could be here now.
“Monsieur Pierre!” someone called out, and he disappeared before we could even respond. Well, I sighed. What a day.
There was a peremptory rap on the door. Before we could say “Come in,” a big, extravagantly ruffled man made a
rude entrance.
“I wish to speak to Monsieur la Roque,” he said with a frown. “Where might I find him?”
The Duc de Mortemart! I dropped into a respectful reverence.
Fortunately, the great man showed no sign of displeasure. Quite the contrary! “Madame des Oeillets,” he said, addressing my mother, “His Majesty was entertained by your performance.”
“I am honored,” Mother said, pulling her wig back on. I slipped a fur cape on over her dressing gown for the sake of warmth (and modesty).
A young woman appeared behind the Duke: his daughter. “Monseigneur,” she said, her voice soft, “His Majesty is speaking to Monsieur Corneille about it now.”
“Is Monsieur la Roque with him?” the Duc de Mortemart demanded.
“The director?” she asked.
“Oui, he was,” said a nobleman beside her. Tall and exactly proportioned, he was the young man who had been sitting with her in the loge. He was wearing bright silks, a lace collar, and high boots with the studied nonchalance of the young.
“He’s to show us the machinery,” the Duke said impatiently.
Appearing suddenly in the door was the brutish young Louvois. “His Majesty, I’m sure, would enjoy a private viewing. I will inform His Majesty now.”
I was alarmed to see Louvois, knowing his nasty reputation. My princess gave her beau a mocking look, rolling her big eyes.
“It’s Monsieur la Roque we await, Monsieur Louvois.” The Duke regarded the florid-faced young man with impatience. “But he’s in attendance on the King, who, you should know, showed no interest in the machinery when it was discussed.”
“But—” Louvois’s little eyes blinked. “If—”
“Leave it be, young man! Unless, of course, you wish to annoy His Majesty. Has your father not taught you anything?”
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