Under a Starlit Sky

by EM Castellan

  He tensed against me. “That’s the problem, isn’t it? I’ve done nothing to deserve that trust, that love.”

  Exasperation pushed me to my feet. “Will you stop saying that?”

  Fighting against his insecurities was like bailing out a skiff in the middle of a storm. No matter how many times I repeated reassurances, he always circled back to the belief that he didn’t deserve the good in his life, and that it should be taken away soon. It didn’t help that both the Queen Mother and the king worked against me, pushing the boat further at sea at every turn.

  I paced the length of the bedroom, my feet bringing me to my desk, where the letter to my mother waited, unfinished. It sparked an idea in my mind.

  “Since you’ve told your mother about the baby,” I said, “I want to tell mine. I want us to go see her when the rains stop.”

  Surprise at my sudden shift in mood flickered across his features, but he nodded. “As you wish.”

  If his mother couldn’t tell him what he needed to hear, maybe mine would.

  * * *

  After spending the winter at the convent that had sheltered us in my youth, my mother was back in Paris for the warmer months and staying at the Palais-Royal. Sunshine bathed the small palace where Philippe and I had been wed fifteen months ago, but the windows were shut in the salon that my mother had chosen to receive us.

  “It’s because of the noise,” she said with a wrinkled nose as a servant handed out teacups. “If I’d known, I would have stayed somewhere else.”

  Banging and shouting resounded outside to illustrate her words, and she winced. The servant left, and Philippe grabbed a piece of cake off a porcelain plate before moving to the window to peer at the gardens below.

  “What’s going on here?” he asked.

  “The king is having a little house built at the back of the gardens,” my mother explained, disdain all over her features. “Now, one could wonder why he has need of such a dwelling hidden in the heart of Paris, but I won’t be repeating gossip in your presence.”

  Straight-backed and pale in her black mourning clothes, she sipped her tea with a prim air. Mimi, who I had brought along, sat in her lap, and she petted her distractedly.

  “It’s for Louise, isn’t it?” Philippe asked, craning his neck to see the construction site in the distance. “He’s building the house in case he needs to send her away from court.”

  I suspected he was correct. It made sense for Louis to have a contingency plan should the revelation of his liaison turn into a full-blown scandal. Philippe bit into his cake and resumed his seat, unflappable in the face of his brother’s plans. I swallowed some of my tea, but my throat and lungs were tight in the room’s stuffy atmosphere. My mother surveyed me with a critical eye.

  “You don’t look too well. Have you been eating? And taking the cordial I sent you?” She looked at Philippe, her sharp gaze turning accusatory. “Do you look after her at all?”

  “Mother.” I interrupted her embarrassing line of questioning before my husband choked on his cake. “I’m expecting a child.”

  Her expression froze, then lit up. A smile broke across her thin lips, and she put down Mimi to embrace me. “Oh, my sweet girl. What wonderful news.”

  I sank into her arms, welcoming the reassuring touch. She pulled back a fraction to kiss my hair and extended her hand to Philippe to draw him into our fold. He stiffened for a heartbeat, before allowing her to grab him. He wrapped his arm around my shoulders and kissed my temple. Time slowed, the three of us suspended outside of constraints and fears. This is it, I wanted to say to Philippe. This is what family is supposed to be.

  He was the first to break away from the embrace, pulling us back into the reality of construction noises and cooling tea.

  “How did it go with the magicien?” my mother asked as she resumed her seat and lifted Mimi into her lap again. “I always heard it makes it difficult when the expecting mother is a Source.”

  My being a Source had always been one of my mother’s constant causes for worry. She feared I would be used for my magic and ultimately destroyed by it. A positive aspect of my life at French court had been to show me that a Source could do more than live in perpetual fear.

  “The spell was a bit of a struggle,” I replied, “but all in all, it went well.”

  “And how are you feeling?” my mother went on. “I heard you cough when you came in, and you look awfully pale.”

  “I’m all right,” I lied. There was no use worrying her, and admitting the truth would only lead her to spend the next months sending me every potion and doctor she came across.

  “And you.” She turned her dark gaze to Philippe, who was drinking his tea and stopped moving at the sudden attention. “I must say one hears all sorts of rumors about you. It would be reassuring to know they’re not true.”

  And here she was, the former queen of England and now Queen Mother to the English king. Politely blunt and protective of her family to a fault. Philippe put down his cup, either to keep his countenance or to gather his thoughts, I wasn’t sure. In the end he held her stare.

  “There haven’t been rumors only about me.”

  I stiffened. Snapping back was his usual way to defend himself, but it was my mother he was talking to. I loved them both too much to see them argue. Yet my mother remained as composed as ever.

  “I know two things about my daughter,” she said, the meaning behind my husband’s words clear to her. “She loves you, and she would never do anything that could jeopardize her marriage.” Her resounding support nearly brought a smile to my lips, until she added: “Unfortunately, I can’t say I know the same about you.”

  Philippe’s jaw tightened, and his gaze turned hard. “I suppose you don’t know me well.”

  “Arguably,” my mother replied, unperturbed. “Hence my request for reassurances.”

  Philippe’s mouth pressed into a thin line. Sensing the tension in the room, Mimi whined and I stretched out my hand to soothe her with a caress. It gave me an instant to collect my wits despite the thumping of my heart.

  “Let’s not dwell on what happened in the past,” I said. “We came here to talk about the future, Mother.”

  She gave me her gracious queenly smile, which didn’t quite reach her eyes. “Of course, sweetheart. What else did you want to talk about?”

  I launched into a description of the new palace at Versailles to steer us away from the dangerous waters of rumors and accusations. My mother prompted me with questions, and after a while, Philippe rejoined the conversation with a few remarks on the king’s upcoming entertainment. My pulse settled, and the tension in my neck relaxed.

  We’d avoided an argument, but the heart of the matter remained. Lorraine was still at court, a constant shadow cast over any plans we made for the future. And I still didn’t know how to dispel it.

  CHAPTER XVIII

  We can’t stop death, Fouquet had said.

  Not magiciens. Not kings.

  And so death came for Anne d’Autriche at last.

  White clouds chased each other in the pale sky as her coffin arrived at the Saint-Denis basilica. A large crowd greeted the procession in silence, throwing flowers onto the cobblestones and the casket’s fleur-de-lis velvet cover.

  Inside the tall white building, the black-clad French court filled every pew, as murmurs and quiet sobs rose under the gothic arches of the high-ceilinged church. The heady smell of incense saturated the air, and I had to press my handkerchief against my nose to keep from coughing.

  Pale and tense, Philippe stood by the bier and nodded at a whispered word from Bishop Bossuet. In his brother’s absence, the overseeing of the ceremony rested on his shoulders, and the weight of it all carved lines around his mouth and smeared dark shadows under his eyes. The priest left him to take his place behind the pulpit. For an instant Philippe’s attention snagged on the coffin, and a lost expression fleeted across his face. Then he lifted his gaze and caught my stare, which drew him to me like a magnet. Hi
s gloved hand gripped mine, and the service began. The choir sang a hymn, seconded by the congregation. Bossuet spoke next, and the funeral unfolded, comforting in its predictability.

  Marie-Thérèse, Olympe, and my mother occupied the front row next to us with the Spanish ambassador. A little farther behind, D’Artagnan acknowledged me with a respectful nod, quiet tears running down his cheeks. How odd it was to think that he and the Queen Mother had known each other for decades. How even stranger the notion that they’d once been as young as I was. What had Anne dreamed of then? I wondered. Before the birth of her sons, before the loss of her husband, before the regency, before the Fronde, before the death of Mazarin, before Louis the Sun King? A Spanish princess brought to France at fourteen to marry a man who never showed any interest in her, what had her first years at French court been like? Would anyone care to remember it?

  Philippe shifted on his feet as the assembly sang another hymn, nearly drowned out by the organ. He had let go of my hand, but held his leather-bound prayer book in a stiff grip. I rested my fingers on his forearm, which he acknowledged with a mirthless smile.

  His mother’s passing was a tremendous blow, of course, but I knew what added to his inner turmoil: for the first time in his life, people looked to him for decisions and instructions. Indeed, a few days ago, Louis had fallen apart at the news of Anne d’Autriche’s imminent death. He had fainted as she received the last rites, and from then on it was Philippe who stayed at their mother’s bedside until the end, Philippe who dealt with the wake and the funeral arrangements, Philippe who rose from his bed to face the court each day, while Louis remained in his apartments and hid behind protocol to avoid his own mother’s burial.

  By his own admission, my husband didn’t mind doing all this for his family, but I knew him well enough to guess what grated him in this situation: everyone’s heartfelt compassion for the king’s bereavement. Even as we filed into the basilica earlier today, courtiers talked about Louis’s behavior with sympathetic nods and earnest understanding. Who could blame the king for grieving his beloved mother? What son wouldn’t react the same way? Meanwhile, Philippe’s brave front was taken for granted and his own loss ignored by most. Even in death, Anne d’Autriche appeared to have one son, and a spare child who could be relied upon to fulfill whatever duty was required of him at the time.

  Bossuet’s sermon dragged on, so my mind wandered as my attention drifted along the crowd. Louise, her rosary tight in her grasp, had her head bowed and her eyes closed. Nearby, the Comte de Saint-Aignan stared at the stained glass windows, lost in thought. Lorraine sat next to him, magnificent in black clothes, his face a mask of neutrality.

  To my surprise in this time of crisis, Philippe hadn’t run to him, but sought my company instead. Perhaps with a child coming he did mean to salvage our relationship, or he simply looked for the reassuring stability that our marriage provided in his upended life. In any case, this brief separation gave me hope that the reveal of Lorraine’s treachery wouldn’t hit him too hard.

  Another hymn swelled under the vaulted ceiling of the church, drawing me back to the present and bringing an end to the service. The bishop stepped aside, and a ripple of anticipation ran through the crowd. My heartbeat sped up too, despite the solemnity of the moment.

  In spite of her condition as a woman, Anne d’Autriche had been a magicienne too. And in the kingdom, no one with magic was led to rest without a final spell.

  A hush fell over the assembly as the court magiciens and Sources stepped out of their pews to gather in the transept. The Comte de Saint-Aignan, Prince Aniaba, Lorraine, and the artist magiciens from Versailles joined hands around the casket with an unfamiliar man that I assumed came from Paris.

  Olympe and I stayed in our seats, but we exchanged a glance. Her eyes were red from weeping, but her gaze was sharp. I had planned on this moment, and last night I had met with her to explain how I intended to use it as an opportunity. The loss of her mentor and her exclusion from the present magical ceremony rendered her combative, and her desire to protect Louis and to find herself in his good books again had done the rest. She’d agreed to my plan.

  By the Queen Mother’s coffin, the magiciens mixed with the Sources. Lorraine stood between the count and the short, portly man in old-fashioned mourning clothes I had never seen. Olympe shot me a pointed look. She’d noticed the stranger as well.

  All the men around the casket assumed stern frowns and earnest focus. Then the Sources said the spell, Lorraine’s voice clearer than the others’.

  A flicker of light appeared above the coffin, like a star winking into existence in the vast expense of the universe. The audience held a collective breath, mesmerized by the spectacle. Within moments the light turned brighter and grew into a glittering shape suspended midair above the transept. The tiny brilliant dots coalesced into the form of a small golden tree, with roots hanging in thin air and leafy twigs wavering in an invisible breeze. The tree flourished and matured before our eyes, casting a shining light all around its strong branches and sturdy trunk. The sweet fragrance of magic took over the smell of incense under the vaulted ceiling, and the unnatural warmth of a hot summer day spread along the pews. But soon a gust of magic wind dispersed the leaves and dissolved the branches into nothingness. The trunk twirled and turned back into innumerable specks of light that merged into a glowing orb. The sphere of magic hung above the casket like a bubble, its size shrinking until it was a tiny fleck of light again, which slowly lost its brightness before disappearing.

  The crowd released a collective breath in the silent stone building. Next to me, Olympe was weeping again. Philippe’s expression was stone-cold, his gaze lost on something ahead of him.

  The magiciens and Sources gave each other congratulating nods. The symbolic spell was an easy one, but for a royal funeral they still must have felt the slight pressure of their distinguished audience. Feet shuffled and noses were blown as the courtiers relaxed and the bishop walked up the aisle to signal the end of the service. Later today the Bourbon family vault in the basilica’s nave would be opened and the Queen Mother’s coffin lowered next to Louis’s ancestors.

  As people filed out of the church, Philippe sat back down. I gave Olympe a conniving look.

  “I’ll be back in a moment,” I whispered into my husband’s ear.

  His reaction to my announcement was minimal, and I let him assume I was going to speak with the bishop or the English ambassador, as could be expected of me under the circumstances. Instead, I linked arms with Olympe, who wiped her eyes with an embroidered handkerchief and followed me down the side aisle.

  The magicien Lorraine had lent his magic to for the tribute spell made his way out ahead of us, cutting a brisk path through the crowd. I kept a close eye on his black wig and stout figure, and ignored the sympathetic members of the assembly who tried to stop me along the way. Both Olympe and I had our handkerchiefs over our noses, and anyone would assume we were too grief-stricken to speak with them.

  We trailed the stranger to the square outside, where a chaos of carriages now awaited courtiers eager to return to Versailles. Our quarry made for a simple one-horse vehicle at the mouth of a side street, and we hurried after him among the throng of mourning-clad people too busy chatting to notice us.

  “Ready?” Olympe asked, her expression purposeful.

  I squeezed her hand to signal my agreement, and she grabbed the magicien’s arm.

  “Divulgue,” I said under my breath.

  A sliver of my magic ran from my core to Olympe’s, and a veil of gleaming magic layered over our vision.

  “What…?” The magicien halted with his foot on the carriage footboard, his plump face reddening at the unexpected impediment on his progress. “What’s the meaning of this?”

  The spell took hold, and to Olympe’s eyes and mine, his words took literal shape. They danced out of his mouth in a ribbon of golden letters that spelled out his question.

  “Do forgive us,” Olympe gave him a sacc
harine smile. “We only want to speak with you for an instant.”

  With the authority of a woman who seldom didn’t get her way, she pushed him inside his carriage and we crowded in after him. My pulse thumped against my temples. We didn’t have long: the spell wouldn’t last more than a couple of minutes, and we would be missed within the same amount of time.

  “Who are you?” the magicien asked, more flustered by the second. “What do you want? I don’t have any money. I’ll scream!”

  All his words tumbled out of his mouth like a torrent of gilded letters and floated up under the dark ceiling where they dissolved.

  “You’ll do no such thing,” Olympe replied, her eyes blazing. “If you don’t know who we are, then it doesn’t matter. We only want you to answer our questions and let you on your way.”

  A survey of our clothes made him relax a fraction. In our fine mourning outfits, we didn’t look like robbers, and as women, he likely surmised we couldn’t be such a threat to his personal safety.

  “What questions?” he asked, unaware of our invisible spell that turned his speech into magic. It was a peculiar enchantment that I had found in my now-lost grimoire. An old yet simple truth spell that allowed the spell casters to see whether someone spoke true or not. As long as the magicien’s words came out of his mouth in golden tones, he was telling the truth. Should the letters turn black, he would be lying to us.

  “You performed today’s spell with the Chevalier de Lorraine,” Olympe said.

  Puzzlement crossed his features and sweat ran down his temples. “Well, yes.”

  “You reside in Paris, don’t you?” Olympe went on. “What’s your magical line of work?”

  “Yes, yes, I do.” The man’s voice shook at the fierce intensity of her questions, but his answer was truthful. “I perform mainly illusion spells, at parties and in the salons. Is that why you want to speak to me? Do you need an enchant—”

  “I ask the questions,” Olympe snapped.