Under a Starlit Sky

by EM Castellan

  I cast a quick glance around to check that our exchange was enough to satisfy curious courtiers and to spread reassuring gossip. Acknowledging that the king’s attention was now set on his beloved sister-in-law, the remaining courtiers gave us space, allowing Louis and me to slowly make our way out of the chapel and whisper the rest of our discussion.

  “You’re pale as a ghost,” Louis said, reproach in his eyes. “I praise you for wanting to attend mass, but I can send Bossuet to you at the Tuileries if you wish to have a private service.”

  I waved his reprimand away. “I’m afraid I needed to see you urgently.”

  His stern expression turned even darker. “I thought I made myself quite clear. It’s better if you’re not my Source anymore. My decision is final, and I wish you’d understand it.”

  His censoring tone stung—I always strived to not be difficult, and he made it sound as if I were being a demanding child—but I ignored it to focus on the more important matter at hand.

  “Something happened,” I said. “I had to speak with you. It’s about magic.”

  He let out an annoyed sigh. “All right. I have a few minutes before the council. We can go to my apartments.” A look back let him see Marie-Thérèse still deep in conversation with the bishop and Louise busy with a couple of young ladies. His grip on my arm tightened. “Let’s go now.”

  He whispered a few orders to the nearest musketeer, who dashed away. Louis led me down the large marble staircase and steered around the courtiers lingering in the corridors leading to his apartments. On our way we walked by the Queen Mother’s set of rooms, and the oddity of her absence at mass struck me then.

  “Is your mother all right?” I asked. “She wasn’t at the service.”

  Louis’s expression remained inscrutable. “She hasn’t been feeling well. She receives Communion in her chambers now, except on Sundays.”

  I cast him an alarmed look at the news. Philippe hadn’t mentioned anything to me, but I hadn’t seen him in a couple of days, now. I would have to ask him for details, as Louis’s severe face clearly meant to prevent further questioning on the matter, and we were arriving at his apartments.

  Beside the usual guards standing at attention by the gilded doors, a young man waited in an impressive red-and-green outfit with intricate gold embroidery. His blond hair fell around his shoulders in waves when he bowed to the king.

  “Your Majesty sent for me?”

  His accent was suave and sophisticated, and as he straightened, he gazed at me with dramatically blue eyes. He was the most handsome man I had ever seen, which was probably a sacrilegious thought to have when standing at the Sun King’s side.

  “Madame,” he bowed again.

  Louis gestured irritably. “Yes, thank you for coming. Have you two been introduced?”

  The man flashed an amused smile, as if privy to some information I ignored. “I’m afraid I haven’t had the pleasure yet, Your Majesty, as Her Highness has been unwell.”

  “So,” Louis said most informally as he ushered us inside his antechamber with renewed impatience, “Henriette, this is the Chevalier de Lorraine. Lorraine, may I present to you my sister-in-law, Henriette d’Angleterre, Duchesse d’Orléans.”

  “Delighted,” I said as an automatic reply while my mind raced to remember where I had heard that name before. Then it struck me: he was the newcomer Athénaïs had mentioned the other day, the one with the face of an angel whom everyone thought clever and charming. What was he doing here?

  Louis ordered the doors closed as Lorraine’s gaze remained on me, a brazen smile still floating on his lips, now verging toward impertinence. I remained composed to hide my confusion and waited for Louis to give me leave to sit down on one of the silk sofas in the parqueted small room. But the king, either oblivious to my weak state or eager to get this conversation over with as promptly as possible, clasped his hands together in front of him and raised an inquisitive eyebrow at me.

  “What was it you wanted to say?”

  This time, I couldn’t help but shoot a puzzled look toward Lorraine.

  “I’m sorry, but I assumed we would have a chance to talk in private…?”

  Louis dismissed my concern with a wave of his hand. “Lorraine is my new Source. You said you wanted to talk about magic. Whatever you have to say, he needs to hear it too.”

  It was only my deeply embedded good manners that prevented me from gaping then. Of course, Louis had mentioned he’d already found a new Source. It had simply never occurred to me that I would find myself introduced to this person in such an offhand manner, as if everything Louis and I had shared over the past few months amounted to nothing.

  Magiciens don’t care about their Sources. They just use them.

  My mother’s warning tugged at my mind, a timely reminder of Louis’s attitude. He was a king, and he was a magicien. Someone such as him couldn’t let their feelings get in the way of their grand plans. I had been useful to him once, but I wasn’t anymore. He had no qualms replacing me and no interest in sparing my feelings when doing so.

  So I swallowed my surprise and my pride, and addressed both young men as if talking about magic in front of a stranger was the most normal thing to do.

  “Something happened yesterday. I mentioned to the Comte de Saint-Aignan the portal spell he used at Fontainebleau last summer for the game of hide-and-seek, and he had no recollection of it. Then I looked up the spell in the grimoire, and the page for the spell is blank. As if the spell has … disappeared.”

  Silence greeted my words. Louis’s brows pulled into a slight frown, his features stern, while Lorraine’s smile widened. At last the latter burst into a hearty laughter.

  “What an extraordinary story!”

  He shook his head in mirthful disbelief and turned to the king, who appraised me with a mix of concern and gravity. He released a sigh.

  “Henriette, what on earth are you talking about?”

  Both their reactions stopped me short. When I had rehearsed this conversation in my mind, Louis and I had been alone, and he had been ready to trust my judgment. It occurred to me only now how fantastic my revelation might sound to one unprepared for it.

  “I think someone somehow made the spell disappear,” I explained. “Maybe to prevent others from using it, or maybe—”

  “But, Your Highness, portal spells don’t exist,” Lorraine interrupted.

  Flabbergasted by both his audacity and his claim, I turned to Louis for support as heat rushed to my face.

  “Of course they do,” I insisted. “The count used one last summer at Fontainebleau. And Fouquet used one—”

  Louis’s look of utter incredulity stopped me from saying another word. He hadn’t been present for the game of hide-and-seek, and neither had he been here at the Vaux-le-Vicomte grotto when Fouquet had created portals to move around the place. We’d never cast a portal spell together, and from his expression, he did believe no such enchantment existed. My resolve faltered. What was happening? Why was I the only person who seemed to recall this spell?

  “So you think there was a spell,” Louis said, his tone reasonable. “And the count can’t remember it and it’s gone from that spell book you say you have?”

  His patient reply gave me heart. He wanted to believe me.

  “Yes,” I said. “That’s why I thought you ought to know about it. If someone is making—”

  He held up his hand to stop me. “That spell book, where is it? Did you bring it with you?”

  My chest deflated. Of course I should have expected him to ask for proof to support my claim. But between my trepidation and my silly arrogance, I hadn’t thought to bring it.

  “It’s at home,” I said. “At the Tuileries.”

  He nodded at Lorraine, who had remained quiet but still looked at me as if I were the most entertaining creature he’d ever encountered. Dislike rose in me, a vague instinct that I seldom felt in anyone’s presence. A protective feeling that whispered warnings in my ear.

 
“I’ll send someone to retrieve the book,” Louis announced, “and I’ll study it with Lorraine.”

  His confident reply distracted me from my suspicious train of thought. Louis would see the blank page and understand something was wrong. He would investigate, and the threat would be dealt with in the efficient manner that was his trademark. My heart rate settled, making me aware of how rapid my pulse had been until now.

  Louis took my arm and led me toward the door. “Now, I want you to go home and rest, Henriette. You’re obviously exhausted, and it’s not helpful for you to come to court and get yourself into such a state.”

  For a heartbeat his concern for my health warmed my chest, then a thought occurred to me that doused this feeling with cold.

  “You … you do believe me, don’t you?”

  To my dismay, he avoided my gaze. “I think you believe what you’re saying, and I don’t want you to worry about it. As I said before, you don’t need to think about magic anymore. You need to focus on getting well.”

  I pulled my arm out of his grasp to face him, consternation tightening my throat as I replayed his last sentences in my head. “I’m telling the truth. You’ll see for yourself the page is blank.”

  Again, he let out a resigned sigh. “Henriette, I’m asking you to go home. You’re unwell, and you’re upset, I understand. Whatever your feverish mind has made you think is real, you’ll soon see it’s not true and nothing to worry about.”

  This time, I gaped. Not only did he not believe me, but he also thought me unbalanced. He grabbed both my hands in his and held them to his chest in a display of emotion he seldom resorted to.

  “I care about you deeply; you know that. But you’ve gone through more than enough these past few months, some of it my fault. Fouquet, Versailles … I’ve asked too much from you, and you couldn’t manage. There’s no shame in that. You have your limits, like any woman. I should have seen it sooner.”

  My limits? Like any woman? Blood rushed to my cheeks again, as my temper rose at last. He thought me hysterical. Delusional. Just like the count, he didn’t remember the portal spell, and he thought I was telling this story either to earn back his favor or because I was ill and weak.

  I opened my mouth to protest, but my body chose this moment to betray me and confirm his suspicion. A coughing fit tore through me, so violent Louis had to let me sit down this time, and servants were called in with water and linens. My lungs on fire, it wasn’t long before tears streamed down my face unchecked, and my whizzing breaths vibrated under the gilded ceilings like a whistle.

  More people crowded the antechamber, and a couple of my ladies were brought in to help take me home. As Louis gave orders and undefined silhouettes moved around me like puppets on a strange stage, the golden head of Lorraine appeared stark against the light of the window. His features cast in shadows, his striking blue eyes stared at me, two burning lights in the chaos that held in them a mix of delight and contempt.

  The Angel, the courtiers called him, as if as a praise. But angels were righteous, vengeful, and uncompromising creatures. And this one seemed to quite enjoy my fall from grace.

  * * *

  In a scene that was becoming distressingly familiar, Philippe found me dozing in bed when he came home that afternoon. Rushing to my bedside, he sent away my lady and the maid who’d been looking after me and surveyed me with an anxious expression.

  “They said you went to mass and fainted afterward when you were talking to Louis. Is that what happened?”

  Remorse squeezed my weakened chest. I had promised him to be reasonable and to look after myself, yet we still found ourselves in a situation that caused him anxiety and guilt.

  “I thought I was well enough,” I said in a low voice, so that I wouldn’t spark another coughing fit. “And I wanted to speak with Louis.”

  His lips tightened in worry, and he pressed my fingers between his. When he spoke, his voice was very gentle.

  “But you had a fever and you weren’t making much sense, were you?”

  Louis had spoken with him, then. Yet it wasn’t embarrassment that turned my cheeks a deeper red, but the renewed anger at how quickly Louis had dismissed my claims as nonsense and swept under the carpet months of shared trust.

  “It was just a misunderstanding,” I said. “When Louis has the grimoire, he’ll see what I said was true.”

  A shadow of hesitation crossed Philippe’s face, making me pause. By now Louis should have the spell book in his possession, and I expected a letter from him before tonight. But Philippe’s tone was still soft as he replied.

  “My love, the servants searched the bookcase in your salon from top to bottom. There was no grimoire. In fact, they searched your entire apartments. I even lent my help, although everyone knows how useless I am at anything. We couldn’t find it.”

  This time, I remained speechless. I had left the grimoire on its shelf last night, I was certain of it. Someone had removed it. Just like someone had made the portal spell vanish. They knew I knew, and they were erasing all traces of their deeds, using the fact I was ill and alone to make my claims easier to dismiss.

  And I could have borne it, if Philippe had not kissed me on the forehead then and tugged my hair behind my ear with a caress.

  “Forget about it,” he said. “Just get better, all right?”

  Of all people, he was the one whose opinion mattered. And even if I could still read love in his eyes, I also saw pity and concern there, and it was what brought tears to my eyes. They welled up and fell so quickly that within seconds I was sobbing, and Philippe climbed onto the canopy bed to lie at my side and wrap me in his arms.

  “No, no, no, my love, don’t cry,” he begged. “Please don’t cry. You’ll get better, and you’ll do magic if you want, and you’ll go swimming and horse riding and all those things you like even though I don’t know why. It’ll all be all right again, you’ll see.”

  My chest heaving with sobs, I hid my face in my hands, but he pulled them away and wiped my cheeks with a silk handkerchief that smelled of his perfume. He kissed my temple and repeated soothing words, until at last my breathing slowed and the tears stopped.

  Maybe he was right. As today’s events had proven, I was in no state to deal with any of this yet. So maybe I ought to forget about it all for now, until I was better.

  “There,” Philippe said with another kiss as my fit subsided. “Let’s ask the maid to bring in that horrid dog of yours, and I’ll stay so you can go to sleep and not worry about anything.”

  His effort at teasing made me smile, and soon enough a maid opened the door for Mimi. Philippe lifted her onto the bed, and her tail wagged in delight as I petted her and encouraged her to lie at my side. Philippe resumed his position atop the bedcovers next to me, his arm firmly tugged around my shoulders.

  “Now rest,” he said, his tone still teasing. “As your husband, I command you.”

  I nestled against him, my body relaxing at last in that safe embrace.

  “I missed you,” I whispered against his chest as my eyelids closed, already heavy with sleep.

  If he replied, I drifted off before I could hear it.

  * * *

  I couldn’t have said what woke me up. A floorboard creaking, Mimi jumping off the bed, or the opening door letting in a sudden draught. Or simply an emptiness at my side where Philippe’s reassuring form had lain moments before.

  I blinked drowsiness away and stretched, my foggy mind slowly registering my husband’s absence, my dog’s alertness, and my bedroom’s darkness. The door stood ajar, faint light coming in through the gap as the soft sound of receding footsteps resonated from my antechamber. Whether because of the fever or the exhaustion, it didn’t occur to me to call out. Amid my twirling thoughts, only one jumped out at me.

  Philippe was leaving. I had to stop him.

  Throwing my blankets aside, I staggered out of bed. Dizziness struck me for a heartbeat, but I gritted my teeth and pushed through the mist clogging my thoughts and
slowing my gestures. Barefoot and in my nightgown, Mimi trailing after me with her tail wagging, I tiptoed through my salon, where a single candle burned on the windowsill and a maid on duty sat slumped in an armchair, fast asleep. The urgency of my quest made me overlook the situation, and I hurried through the rest of my apartments like a ghost in the obscurity.

  Once in the corridor outside my rooms, the cold marble floor under my feet startled me for only an instant before voices and light ahead caught my attention. People were talking in the main hall, their presence drawing me like a moth to a flame. My legs still unsteady, I used the stuccoed wall for support as I made my way along the hanging paintings of Louis and Philippe’s ancestors.

  I was halfway along when light-headedness forced me to a stop by the portrait of a sour-looking gentilhomme in military uniform. Ahead in the entrance hall, the flickering candlelight illuminated two figures: Philippe’s familiar silhouette and a blond man in a hard-to-forget red-and-green outfit.

  Lorraine. What was he doing here in the middle of the night?

  My knuckles white against the wall in my effort to remain steady and standing, I forced my feet to move closer. A couple of steps forward allowed for the two men’s conversation to reach my ears.

  “I had to wait until she was asleep.” Philippe’s soft tone, apologetic and slightly muffled as he put on his coat. “She’s terribly unwell. I couldn’t just leave her like this.”

  “You’re too kind.” Lorraine’s reply, drenched with sarcasm. “What are servants for, if not to look after tiresome wives?”

  My heart hammered against my ribs, almost drowning the sound of their voices. The familiarity of the exchange triggered a sense of foreboding in me.

  “Well, are you ready to go?” Lorraine, impatient now as Philippe arranged his long hair around his shoulders. “Will you stop fussing? It’s three o’clock in the morning, no one is going to see you, let alone judge your appearance, I promise you.”

  “You are going to see me.” Philippe, teasing and with a smile in his voice.