by Karleen Koen
“He still loves you,” she said, stroking curls. “How could he not? It’s his conscience. Let him lie with his worthiness for a while. It’s a lonely bed. He’ll be back.”
This hurts, thought Henriette. This hurts so much.
LOUIS TOSSED THE reins of his horse to a servant and walked through the dark gardens until he had reached the grotto.
“Leave me,” he told his musketeer. He went into the grotto, and finding a corner, he sat down on the floor and leaned his head against the cool tile and stone walls. The only sounds were of the trickling water nearby, of the wind sighing in the trees. He closed his eyes, and guilt came with its hammer and tongs. He let it say every ugly word. He was a boor, a flirt, an unfaithful, lying, sneaking bastard, that last, perhaps, in more ways than one. She was lovely and kind and dear, and he did love her, just not the way he’d thought, and he’d really hurt her in not knowing sooner. His confessor said that God had transmuted lust into purity, that now he loved in the way a brother should, that he had been tempted and tested, and that he had triumphed, but he hadn’t asked for his love to change. It simply had.
And he’d hurt his brother, been happy to do so. God, he thought, when some of the pummeling had slowed, and he could wearily crack open his eyes. He stared out into the dark. How did one live life without hurting others? That’s what the saints, the church, preached over and over again. How did one do it?
He left the grotto, stole into his palace like a thief, and walked down silent hallways. In the chamber of books, he stood motionless, his thoughts stalking ahead of him to the viscount. He sold one of his offices to give you the million. He is no longer attorney general of the Paris Parlement, so Colbert had whispered at some point during this long night. In the web and tangle that was precedent and right, it meant trying Nicolas in court would be easier. Now the viscount no longer had the right to be tried by his peers, members of a parlement that had rebelled into open warfare only a few years ago. Was the viscount so arrogant that he threw away his best safeguards? Was he so certain of his place, his weapons on his island? Was one of the cards in his deck the knowledge that Louis might not be the son of a king? The confidence selling the office showed made Louis shudder. He went to his cabinet, pulled down its heavy square, found the lettres de cachet against Madame de Motteville and her daughter, brought them to a candle and lit each, holding the paper carefully until it had charred enough to burn his fingers. He wouldn’t arrest Madame de Motteville or her daughter. It had been a hollow threat. Did that make him a hollow king?
The boy was out of sight, but not out of mind. He knew who the boy’s father had been, but who was his own? And when would D’Artagnan return?
Chapter 28
HE MARSHALL DE GRAMONT IS HERE,” ONE OF HIS SECRETARIES told Louis.
Louis took a deep breath. He wasn’t looking forward to this interview. “Send him in.”
He stood out of respect for the man entering this chamber, a marshall of France, one of the kingdom’s officers of the crown, serving at the king’s discretion. Sons did not inherit this honor. It was singular and usually lifelong. The marshall, lean and commanding, bowed. His loyalty to the crown had never wavered. He’d commanded armies and given funds. He was an intrepid warrior.
“Thank you for coming so promptly. I’m afraid that today I give with one hand and take with the other, sir.” Louis handed the marshall a letter closed with heavy wax seals. “I have an important favor to ask of your son-in-law and his father, the Prince de Monaco, a favor no one, not even you, must know of.”
“I will send my son with this at once.”
Louis cleared his throat. “That is not possible. I must deliver news unworthy of the love and respect I bear your family. Your son has insulted Monsieur.”
The marshall’s head jerked back a moment, and Louis watched him summon his resources to hear what Louis would say. This was a man of enormous pride and honor. It was one of the reasons Louis trusted him, his fidelity to conducting his life in an honorable way. He handed the man a paper describing Guy’s conduct and waited as the older man read the words there.
The marshall refolded the rectangle of paper when he’d finished reading. There was only the sound the paper made as its stiff edges met one another, then he said, “I am desolate that a member of my family should behave so.”
“As am I.”
“An apology will be forthcoming, your majesty.”
“I am not owed an apology. My brother, a child of France, is.”
The marshall held both letters out to Louis, who took only the one describing Guy’s conduct.
“I will resign from my office this afternoon—” the marshall began.
“Never,” said Louis. “I depend on you. I always will. For your son—perhaps an absence from court for a time?”
The marshall looked down at the sealed letter in his hand, the red of the wax dried out solidly where the heavy metal of the seal had pushed melted wax upward. “Since you allow me the honor of continuing to serve you, I would deliver this to the Prince de Monaco myself.”
“That would please me. It is of vital importance to me.”
The Marshall de Gramont bowed himself from the chamber, his face stiff, his eyes lowered.
“FATHER!”
Guy stood up and at once bowed, and Catherine dropped into a deep curtsy.
The marshall stepped forward and slapped Guy across the face as Catherine gasped.
“You were unspeakably disrespectful to Monsieur!”
His father’s hand a red imprint on his face, Guy replied, “It is impossible to disrespect Monsieur, sir. There is nothing to respect.”
“He is a child of France, and you are to accord him the courtesy that goes with that position, which will begin with an immediate apology to him. It is not a request.”
Guy looked around the park in which he and his sister stood, a desperate expression crossing his face as bonds of duty tightened themselves. He was his own man in all ways but this. “I will apologize, to please you.”
“Your reasons for doing what is honorable impress me not at all. You are to leave Fontainebleau and go to Paris and remain there until I say otherwise. Today.”
Catherine and Guy stared at their father with dismay. It was as if he had banished Guy to a remote island where there was no food and water or people. They revered their father as the head of their family, and both were slightly afraid of him, yet both loved him as they did no one else in the world.
“What your mother and I have heard even in Paris about your conduct toward the maids of honor is scandalous. You dishonor them, also. I send you away for your own sake,” the marshall said. “In spite of the fact I see nothing of myself in you, you are my son, and I won’t have you ruined.” He regarded this child of his, passionate, handsome, proud, whom life had graced with all things.
Guy held out his hand. “Father—”
The marshall turned, didn’t look back as he walked away. His authority was such that Guy would obey. He knew it, and Guy knew it, but Catherine ran after her father.
“Father, please,” she begged. “Wait, listen to me—”
The marshall didn’t pause, so she was forced to trot beside him. Without looking at her, he said, “In my pocket is a letter from his majesty to your father-in-law and to your husband. I can only trust that your conduct is not described, Catherine. There would be nothing you’ve done that would make his majesty ask for your removal from court, is there?”
Catherine stopped where she was, pressed her hands to her mouth, didn’t answer.
The marshall saw her involuntary gestures. “I am singularly blessed in my children. I have risked my honor to tell you this, to prepare you if you need to make amends with your husband.” He put out his hand, as if he would touch her face, but he stopped himself. “Ah, Catherine,” he said, “you were always my heart, a wild and foolish heart. I pray you haven’t made too much inconvenience for yourself.”
She knelt before him, and he gave
her his hand, and she kissed its knuckles before he resumed his march toward the palace.
His majesty had written a letter to the Prince de Monaco, thought Catherine, her mind flying in every direction to remember if her conduct had been that indiscreet. Would her husband recall her? She’d die if he did, absolutely die.
PHILIPPE RAN THROUGH antechambers, never minding the curious looks sent in his direction. He threw open a door without knocking, and Guy, standing at a window in his chamber, a fully packed trunk at his feet, glanced at him.
“I was waiting for you.” Guy turned back to the view out the window.
“You don’t have to leave! I’m not angry. I never was.”
“My father commands it.”
“I’m overriding his command!”
“You may not do that.”
“But I can! I am!” Philippe fell to his knees, held out his arms. “Don’t leave. I’ll go to your father; I’ll change his mind.”
“His mind doesn’t change, my prince.”
Philippe grabbed one of Guy’s hands. “Stay for one more day. I’ll go this afternoon to your father. I’ll explain—”
“What? That it is permissible to treat a child of France the way I treated you? Even I am disgusted by what I did.”
“Whatever I allow is permissible. You are my dearest confidant, and I would be lost without you. I would be—”
“And will you change your brother’s mind, too?”
“My brother’s?”
“It was he who summoned my father, who pointed out—quite rightly, I suppose—that my most recent behavior was disrespectful to a prince.”
“But I don’t care! It’s over and done with. What we do between ourselves is our affair. His majesty knows that.”
And when Guy didn’t respond, Philippe began to plead, “Don’t go!”
“Get up off your knees. You know I hate it when you beg.”
Philippe stood, tears rolling down his face. “I feel like I am holding onto my wits with my bare hands, that any moment I am going to explode and there would be nothing left of me. You mustn’t leave me!”
“I have to. I’m in love with your wife, you know. That makes me dangerous.”
“I don’t care. Take her! Just don’t leave me!”
“At this moment,” Guy said, “I despise you. A proper man would call me out!”
“But I’m not a proper man.” Philippe had begun to sob. “I never have been, have I? I’m just silly, useless Prince Philippe who loves you with all his heart. Don’t leave—I don’t mind if you love her. Everyone else loves her, too. I’ve married a little paragon. Isn’t that hilarious, Guy? Philippe the sissy, Philippe the queen, Philippe the half-man, is married to the most desirable woman at court! A waste for both of us—”
Guy had stepped back against the window. His face looked wild, as if he would have jumped out the window, if he could.
Philippe threw his arms around Guy. “We’ll go have a bottle or two of wine, and laugh at this. I’m over her. I thought I loved her, but I don’t! Let me have an heir, and she’s yours. I give her to you. Just don’t desert me, my friend, my beloved, don’t leave me here among the jackals—”
Guy slapped him across the face. “How dare you speak so about the woman I love? You aren’t worth the lace on one of her sleeves. You’re nothing! A worm! A coward! A despicable creature that we all laugh at among ourselves.”
“Don’t—”
“Don’t what? Speak the truth? Are you not even man enough to hear truth?”
“You’re saying this because you’re angry. You’re always cruel to me when you’re angry—”
“And sometimes when I’m not, yes? And you always take it! Have you ever thought about killing me for my conduct?”
“I never think about hurting you.”
Some of his despair conveyed itself to Guy, who took a moment to find command over all that was in him, a mixture of anger, sadness, reproach, and disgust. “Don’t love me,” he said, his hard, handsome eyes staring past Philippe at some distant speck, some future in which Philippe played no part.
“One doesn’t choose whom one loves, does one?”
Guy laughed, the sound was bitter. “Apparently not, since I’m in love with your wife.”
“It’s because I’m not on the council, isn’t it? I’ll demand he give me a place, and you’ll be by my side—”
“You never made him afraid of you. He doesn’t respect you. He made a fool of you with his flirtation with your wife. Now, no one respects you!”
Words were in Philippe’s throat, begging words. I know you loved me once upon a time, he wanted to say. I can wait until you do so again. “I love you so,” he whispered and could only watch as his friend, his beloved, his true heart shook his head in contempt and walked past him out the door, out into the hall, and even though Philippe knew he shouldn’t, knew it would only bring more harshness, he ran after him. He threw himself on Guy’s back. “Stay!”
Guy unclasped Philippe’s clinging hands and let him drop with a thud.
“Oh my darling, don’t leave like this—”
But Guy walked on down the hall. My heart is breaking, Philippe thought. It is splintering into pieces right here inside of me, and I shall die with the pain of it. He put one hand to his chest and leaned against the wall, breath jagged and cruel. I am a despicable thing, he thought, a thing nobody can love.
Footmen gathered around him, none of them daring to touch him, and one of them ran to find the Chevalier de Lorraine.
Philippe gasped like a fish thrown on shore. Prince, heir, child of France. None of that matters, he thought, because I am despised, a faggot in the eyes of the people I love most in the world.
“Go! Leave him to me. Be gone. All of you!” The Chevalier de Lorraine waved a handkerchief at the footmen. Carefully, as if Philippe were ancient porcelain that would shatter at the least touch, he took him by the hand.
“Come, my darling,” he said, as soft, as kind, as honey-voiced as any mother soothing a distraught, grieving child. “Come with old friend Lorraine, now. There’s a good boy, a good prince.” And he led him away—Philippe stumbling and sobbing—away from eyes and ears to someplace quiet, and he stayed with him while Philippe wept, and held the chamber pot for Philippe to spit his guts into afterward, and when that was done, he dipped his handkerchief in scented water and wiped Philippe’s mouth with it.
“That’s a good boy,” he repeated to Philippe’s white, desolate face. “The best boy in the world.”
HE FOUND LOUIS in one of his chambers in the midst of a meeting of the ministers, as well as Colbert. Papers were spread over a table, and they were absorbed in their task. Collection of taxes, thought Philippe.
Louis looked up and saw his brother’s face. A miscarriage, he thought, Henriette’s had a miscarriage. He stood and reached out his hand.
“How dare you send one of my household from court!”
Louis flinched. Philippe was shrill. He was going to throw one of his tantrums. The men in the chamber hurriedly gathered papers, bowed themselves out as quickly as possible.
“It wasn’t your place to do so! He’s my dearest friend!”
“You let him treat you like a lackey!”
“It’s my place to decide how I’m treated!” I sound like a screaming Paris street queen, thought Philippe. It was as if he stood above himself and watched the creature below who shouted.
“It’s my place to decide, as king of this realm,” said Louis. “It’s my court. Everyone here is here because I wish it! And I no longer wish the presence of the Count de Guiche!”
“But I do!”
Louis went to a drawer, wrenched it open, brought back a piece of paper, began to read the words on it. “—the count then demanded that the prince lick his boots, and the prince crawled to him on hands and knees and did so. ‘The bottoms, too, said the count’—” Louis stopped, looked at his brother. “Must I read more? Because there is more if you wish to hear it.”<
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Philippe didn’t answer, and Louis noticed the bruise forming on his face. “What’s that?” he demanded. “Did he hit you? By God, I’ll have him thrown in the Bastille if he so much as laid a finger on you!”
“He didn’t like my sobbing. I sobbed like a girl. I begged and wept and went on my knees.” Relishing the fact that he was repelling his brother, Philippe knelt the way he had before Guy. “That’s the child of France I am. I would lick his boots and more any day of the week. I have!” He smiled.
Louis held up a hand to blot out the sight of Philippe’s face. He could find no love for his brother in this moment.
“Bring him back. I am begging you!”
“No.”
Philippe put fists to his eyes and began to moan. The sight of it was so like the boy that for a moment Louis couldn’t move. Doors swung open, and a musketeer, one hand on his sword, ran forward, but Louis stopped him with a gesture. He knelt down. Philippe sounded like some wounded beast for which there was no respite. In desperation, Louis put his arms around his brother, and in the surprise of that, Philippe became silent.
Louis stroked his brother’s hair, curlier, thicker than his, always. There were so many ways that Philippe was more beautiful than he was. His heart was kinder; he was the first to see a jest, the first to sense another’s sadness. He loved Philippe, and yet he always hurt him. Some of it was intentional, some not. The weight of that behavior felt crushing. He kissed Philippe’s forehead, held him tight. “Don’t weep, my brother, my dear one. Don’t weep. It breaks my heart. I love you. Don’t weep.” He said the words over the pain in his chest, the constriction in his throat.
“You took my wife from me.”
Guilt pummeled. “I didn’t! I haven’t! There is nothing between us that shouldn’t be. I’m guilty only of admiring her too much. I apologize for that.”
“You lie.”
“I don’t. I swear it on my unborn son’s heart.”
“Bring him back!”
