Before Versailles

by Karleen Koen

  “No.”

  “I beg you!”

  “It isn’t fitting. He may not act the way he does.”

  “That’s why you hate him, isn’t it? Not because he sometimes treats me badly. You hate him because he doesn’t bow to you.”

  Louis dropped his hold, stood. “Leave my presence.”

  Slowly, as if it were a very difficult thing to do, as if he had to think about each gesture the way an old man would, Philippe stood. “He won’t bow deeply enough for you, will he?” His voice was hoarse. “You won’t rest until you’ve broken us all, will you? Well, congratulate yourself, brother. I am broken.”

  “Get out! Now!”

  When the door shut, Louis sat down in a chair. God forgive him because he didn’t know when he was going to be able to forgive himself. God forgive him, he had loved Henriette. It was only by the mercy of God that they hadn’t taken it farther than they had. How much the boy resembled Philippe, as much as the boy resembled him. Another brother whom he sent away, the boy who must disappear so that his presence couldn’t threaten Louis’s throne. Tangled webs. A phrase from an English play that his cousin, Charles of England, had spoken of to him was in his mind: what a tangled web we weave when we practice to deceive. The web just kept growing larger.

  It always would, wouldn’t it?

  COMPLETELY ALONE, LOUISE still sat in the stall of a confessional in the chapel of the palace. Above the altar, marble angels were trapped in flight. Figures of saints stood majestic and silent and grand in their alcoves. The ceiling vaulted to a crescendo of oval paintings each adorned in gilt interlocking frames; it was beautiful and cold, as cold as the stone and marble that made it glorious. Louise had just been able to make out the shadow of the priest to whom she’d confessed on the other side of the grate. Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned in thought if not in deed, she’d told the priest. I am thinking of surrendering my virginity.

  His words had been small, hard pebbles. Fornication is a sin in the eyes of God. Your virginity is your crown, the crown you bring to your husband, the honor you owe as a daughter of God. Let not silken, lustful, deceitful words and admiration lead you astray. You would become a Magdalene, a whore not worthy to kiss the hem of the garment of Christ.

  A fit of lust, she thought, blinking when she finally stepped into the bright sunshine of a courtyard. A whore? Is that what I am? The words didn’t seem right, though of course they must be. Would she become a whore for his majesty? When he touched her, the touch didn’t seem sinful. Is that what they were, filled with sin when what she experienced was a radiance that he should love her, he who was so gallant and noble and lonely, the sun of the court, whose sadness she sensed when he stood near enough? To the prince, like an altar fire. The motto of her house singing in her blood. She was so drawn to him that she could not have backed away to save her life. Within were deep, wordless shifts moving her forever and irrevocably out of girlhood and into destiny, where one day her name would be written in books of history. Young and lithe and troubled, she ran across the empty courtyard to the buildings beyond.

  On her bed lay a small object wrapped in silk. When she opened it, she found the diamond bracelets. Wear them so I see that you care for me, I beg, said the note, and it was signed, “L.” She traced the loop of the L with her finger but didn’t place the bracelets upon her wrists. What was going to occur was inevitable, but she had to wait just a bit longer because it was large, the largest thing that had ever happened to her, and on some incoherent, wordless level, she knew it and must give herself time to catch up with it.

  Chapter 29

  ’ARTAGNAN WAS BACK. HE WAITED IN THE GARDEN GROTTO, and Louis almost embraced him he was so glad to see him.

  “Separate cells, the mask still on, as you ordered,” D’Artagnan reported. “I regret to inform you that the abbot died on the journey. We found him on the floor of his carriage and buried him as best we could on the side of the road.”

  Louis’s mind flew to the Holy Father in Rome. Already he had much to account for. What concessions would the Pope demand?

  “Go to Paris and visit your wife, lieutenant, for in three days I send you back. Here are your orders.” Louis held out a paper. “This is in my own hand. No one else has seen it. Burn it after you’ve read it. I want a messenger sent on each step of the way to inform me of your progress. You understand me, lieutenant?”

  Fatigued beyond words, D’Artagnan slapped his gloved fist to his chest and bowed. There wasn’t a shred of the boy in the countenance of the young man standing before him. Long live the king.

  Louis remained in the grotto. One more meeting, and then he was free to return to the long canal where his court was gathered in the moonlight. He heard steps, and one of his musketeers held up a lantern so that the Chevalier de Lorraine could find his way in the dark.

  “You were very kind to my brother in his distress today,” Louis said.

  “Your brother has my deepest regard.” Lorraine was like a hornet with its stinger at the ready, and Louis could hear in his voice that he would do combat for Philippe with words, if not swords, and he was glad that Philippe had some champion. “I thank you for your kindness to him, and I give you my blessing.”

  Eyes narrowed, Lorraine stared hard in his direction, attempting to see his face better in the darkness, to sense his meaning, but Louis didn’t want his face seen. “I give you both my blessing,” Louis said. Lorraine could digest those words to whatever meaning he wished. “Good night.”

  “Sire, your generosity in this—”

  “Good night, chevalier.”

  Louis stepped so far back that he was hidden completely by the shadows, and then he watched his brother’s friend, very likely one of his brother’s lovers, bow formally and follow a musketeer out into the garden, into the pines an ancestor had planted to cool the grounds and delight the eye and gladden the heart. Louis walked the long way around the pond, past the stables, to reach the landscape canal. He wanted night air on his face. Ahead, Henriette had ordered servants to place lanterns along the banks of the canal, and the lanterns twinkled into the dark, and his courtiers were gathered in small clusters among the lights. Lully played the violin, as only he could—Henriette was one of his favorite people—and the notes hung sweet and long, like the sounds newborn stars would make. He saw his fair-haired talisman sitting with Choisy. Over the sudden, rapid beating of his heart, he could feel something inside himself ease. Here was home.

  He sat down beside her, and Choisy moved away. They were collecting the lanterns, making a wide circle with them, and Lully had moved close to the circle, and people were dancing in it, the women with their skirts like gauzy, night moths’ wings. He saw she didn’t wear the bracelets, and he felt awkward and thick-tongued; he could sense her nervousness and knew she was going to speak about what he’d asked of her. He tried to steel himself for any answer.

  “You do me such an honor to say you love me,” she began.

  What did this mean? Was this a gentle no? Why didn’t she wear the bracelets?

  “I think I have always loved you. I will—I will do whatever you wish of me.”

  He put his hand on her arm, and she stopped speaking. “Go to our bench by the golden gate as soon as you can,” he told her.

  He went to the circle, watched the dancing for a while, stepped in the circle and danced a measure with Henriette. They were like tense strangers to each other.

  “You desert me all evening, sir,” she said. “I see that is my fate.”

  Louis looked for but didn’t see his brother. “Monsieur is not here?”

  “He is not in the best of moods.” Henriette met his eyes. “I am so unhappy.”

  “Will you talk with my confessor?” She frowned, but he plunged on. “He is helping me with my despair; perhaps he might help with yours.” How awkward and stiff I am, thought Louis, like some scripture-quoting fool, some dévot. She was staring at him as if she no longer knew him, and he motioned for someone to take
his place in the dance. It was true. She didn’t know him. He was someone else now. Catherine loomed before him as he made an attempt to escape into darkness, to go to Louise.

  “My brother is most distraught.”

  “I am desolate.”

  “He means no harm. His temper is too hot. I would be so grateful if you would welcome him again.”

  “Your father must make that judgment, not I.”

  “A word from you to our father would facilitate all.”

  “Am I so powerful?”

  “Of course you are. Everyone is talking about La Grande Mademoiselle’s absence, wondering what she did to offend you. No one wants to offend you.”

  “He was rude to Monsieur.” Something in his eyes made her drop her own, fall into a curtsy, and allow him to pass. Later, she would think about it and wonder what it was. And in a few years, as the court grew accustomed to his courteous but absolute will, she would find it alluring.

  “See that no one follows me,” he told his musketeer.

  There she was.

  “Go away, but not too far,” he ordered the musketeer. He offered his hand to Louise, led her inside his gatehouse to a door that was his own special entrance to the palace. He shut that door, and they were in near total darkness, except that upon a landing above them torches flamed to light his way. He could hear Louise’s quick breaths. “I’m going to kiss you.”

  He meant to be gentle, to be tender, and he began that way, but then passion pushed him harder. He didn’t want to stop, but he had to make her a promise, he had to say what was in his heart. Almost drunk with the taste of her, he lifted his head. “I vow I will always be true to you. I vow you will always be in my heart.”

  He meant it. He couldn’t yet know the difference ten years would make, even five, couldn’t yet know the temptations that would be thrown at him—temptations no man would be able to resist. He still thought a man’s heart retained its boyish essence. He didn’t realize that power and adulation and self-will hardened hearts in ways that he could not—at twenty and two—imagine. All he knew was that he adored her, the way she tasted, the way she smelled. He kissed her long throat, her hands. He knelt in front of her in the dark and lay his head at the stomach of her gown.

  “No one must know,” she whispered. “I couldn’t bear it if people knew. Promise me that.”

  He opened the door and drew her back out into the gatehouse, where there was some light. His musketeer disappeared into a shadow. He led her under a torch, so that its light showed every angle of her face. “You’re certain—”

  “Yes.”

  She trembled, but she met his eyes straight on. There was no artifice about her, no flirting shake of the head, just shaking breaths and an oddly direct stare out of those half-lavender eyes. “Trust me. Will you trust me?” he asked her.

  “Yes.”

  And then he led her back into his entrance, only left the door open so that better light might spill in, and they sat down together on the first step of the staircase, arms intertwined. They had agreed to love one another. Each was filled to the brim with words and feelings, but both were too shy, too inexperienced, to say what was in their throats, and gradually a peace came over them so that no words were necessary. It was enough to sit with arms around the other and know that love was alive, acknowledged, amazingly returned, and that this was just its beginning.

  “I rode in the woods yesterday,” she said. “I felt that joy was coming to me, that your love was true.”

  He had no words to answer that.

  “I must leave now.”

  He helped her to her feet, nodded his head to his musketeer to escort her back to the canal. He wanted to sit alone for a time. She placed her honor in his hands, promised herself with no bargains about jewels or gifts or what might be hers in return. Her lack of artifice dazzled him. She put no impediments before him, save those of secrecy. No one must know, she said. And no one would. She would be his treasured secret, the holy relic to which he would go for the love his soul so craved. When he had been crowned at fifteen, there had been hours of ceremony and prayer to prepare him for what lay ahead. Battles. War. Peace. Work. Negotiation. Duty. Unworthiness everywhere. Every man and every woman’s heart stained by ambition promising fealty with lips but without intent.

  Not hers. She promised nothing she would not do.

  Suddenly, his practical mind threw out something that made him jerk as if he had been kicked by a horse. I don’t have a place to make love to her, he thought. I am the king of France, and I have nowhere to take her, for his own bedchamber could not be used, nor hers. How would he arrange that? Who would he trust? God, he wished he were older, more worldly, but he wasn’t, and neither was she. And that, for a very long time, would be the most beautiful part of their love, its tender young loving kindness binding them together like tendrils of ivy, lithe and nimble and so very greenly strong.

  LOUISE WALKED WITH Fanny back toward the landscape canal.

  “Did you ask him to allow the count back at court?” Fanny had been weeping on and off since Guiche had gone away.

  “I can’t quite yet, Fanny. It—it isn’t the right moment.”

  “But you’ll ask him?”

  Louise took her hand. “When the time is right.”

  Just ahead of them were the others, laughing and dancing. Louise stood at the edge of the group. There were always going to be other people’s desires, needs, upsets hovering on the edges of their love, weren’t there?

  CATHERINE HAD SLIPPED away from the others for a time.

  Nicolas watched her dress, shadow playing over her as she moved about his bedchamber. The light from the candles caressed her creamy flesh in precisely the places he so enjoyed caressing. “How long do you expect to be gone?” he asked her.

  “As long as it takes to convince my husband I am a loyal wife.”

  Nicolas smiled that she found no irony or shame in the statement. She was, in fact, frowning as she concentrated on tying garters that held up the stockings that encased her fine legs.

  “How does your brother do?” The news that the Count de Guiche left the court had swept through it like a raging fire early in the day, had sent one of Madame’s maids of honor weeping on Nicolas’s doorstep to beg his help.

  Catherine made a face, and Nicolas was reminded again of the coolness of the younger courtiers, whose hearts were so bloodless. Catherine was concentrated now on her life. Her brother was on his own. “You’ll write?” he asked.

  “If I can.” She walked to the bed, turned her back, and he pulled tight the laces that would tie her top in place. He could see that in her mind she was already miles away, already at the seacoast court of Monaco charming her husband. Her cousin, a wild young captain in the king’s guard, was escorting her. “Is it wise to travel with Péguilin as escort?”

  She turned around to smile at him. “He insisted I not travel alone. Are you jealous?”

  “Always.”

  She looked over her shoulder as she opened the door. “Good.”

  Putting on a robe, Nicolas poured himself some wine, opened letters, his mind idly running over the fact of the Count de Guiche’s exit from court, over Louis’s ruthlessness in that. La Grande Mademoiselle was now absent from court. No one knew why, but he intended to find out. Words scrawled on the page before him suddenly caught his attention. The letter was from his Jesuit friend.

  My dear viscount,

  I thought you would want to know monks from the burned monastery were ordered to colonies across the sea, have already departed on their journey. The archbishop who arranged it happens to be a friend to me. It’s said they engaged in treason. And I thought they made only wine. There is word, unverified, that the abbot and other prisoners are in the fortress of Pignerol. I thought this would be of interest to you …

  Was he in danger? Could it be possible? He blew out candles and lay in bed, no longer soothed by the aftermath of lovemaking. His mind was restless, probing, keen. And the next day,
when he learned D’Artagnan had met with the king, then disappeared again, he knew without a doubt that someone was maneuvering like a rat behind the walls.

  He was thinking on that when his secretary told him he had a visitor. It was Fanny de Montalais, again, as drooping and red-eyed as she’d been yesterday.

  He settled her in a chair, offered her a small goblet of wine, watched her swallow it back. His instinct about people told him this one missed little; she was too bright and observant.

  She held out a letter. “Will you, can you, see that this gets to the Count de Guiche?”

  “Of course.” He poured more wine into her goblet. “I do have a small price for my help, however. Tell me what it is you’re keeping secret.”

  Her eyes became big. He sat back quietly, at his ease, waiting.

  “The king and Madame are no more,” she whispered.

  Yes, he knew, but he acted surprised. “Is there someone else?”

  She stood up and bolted out the door.

  So, thought Nicolas, there is. He’d find out who. A steely wariness grew in him. What else was his majesty hiding? And why?

  HE WAITED SEVERAL days before he traveled into Paris. Word from his sources at the Bastille said there was no record of a group of monks having been brought in or dispersed as prisoners. A call upon the governor of the Bastille produced the same answer. None of Nicolas’s persuasion or threats changed the governor’s response. He stood in the dirt of the street and stared for a time at his carriage horses before continuing on the tasks he’d set himself this day. There was a beseeching letter from La Grande Mademoiselle asking him to intercede with his majesty. Tell him I never wrote them, she begged. Wrote what, precisely?

  It was easy enough to find Guy, killing time, brooding and dangerous, in rooms at his father’s townhouse. The chamber in which he received Nicolas was littered with sheets of paper. Nicolas moved several from the cushion of the chair. It looked like poetry, love poetry, quite bad.