Before Versailles

by Karleen Koen

  THE INK ON the letter was dry now. Cinq Mars folded the paper into a small square. He wrote the Viscount Nicolas’s name across the square’s front and waved the paper back and forth to dry those words. Then he tucked the square into his sleeve and began the business of stoppering the ink and drying the tip of the quill. He put the ink and pen back into the drawer in which he’d found them, looked down at his hands. Ink stained a finger. He looked around the chamber. There was nothing with which to wash his hands. He licked the ink with his tongue, but he couldn’t remove all of it. They’d bring him food soon. He’d pray they didn’t notice anything. He went to the window, looked out into the courtyard, down upon the musketeers standing in groups talking. Where was he exactly? He had been blindfolded when he was put into a carriage at Pignerol, but now he was sure he smelled the sea. What was happening?

  Chapter 33

  ND THEN MY DWARF BEGAN TO CHASE THE PARROT, and where would he go but to Monsieur’s shoulder, and Monsieur would have laughed, but the parrot chose that moment to defecate, and Monsieur was unhappy, but Madame laughed,” Maria Teresa chatted in Spanish about her day.

  Where is she? Louis thought, looking among the courtiers gathered for an evening of gambling, but then he saw Louise, his secret in the bower, his heart of the rose. He placed his wife at a table to play cards. D’Artagnan’s last message said they were in Monaco. They were having to keep the boy drugged much of the time, and he was ill with it. D’Artagnan was worried for him.

  “I tell about bird,” Maria Teresa said to the ladies at the table.

  “Oh, it was too funny, your majesty,” said Athénaïs, all bright vivaciousness. “When it landed on Monsieur’s shoulder, he screamed, ‘Shit,’ and at first we thought it was his irritation with the bird. Little did we know he was being, in truth, literal.”

  Louis walked to Louise, who was playing hazard with several of her friends. He wasn’t going to rest well until he knew the boy had reached his final destination, a small island off Monaco, little on it but an old fortified monastery. He glanced toward his brother, but Philippe didn’t look at him. They hadn’t spoken to each other since their quarrel. Too many quarrels in the family. I didn’t write the Mazarinades, his cousin La Grande insisted in letter after letter. She was ready to swear any number of holy oaths upon her innocence. If not she, then who?

  “Does it please you to gamble, Miss de la Baume le Blanc?” he asked. He just wanted to hear her voice.

  “I always lose, your majesty.”

  He held out a coin. “Here. Perhaps this will bring you luck.”

  She took it, and their eyes met for a quick moment, then Louis walked around the room to give coins to all the maids of honor. He wanted to stay near her, but of course he couldn’t. When she began to draw a crowd because she was winning, he was unable to resist standing by her again.

  “What is the fuss all about?” he asked.

  “She can’t lose,” said Choisy.

  “I’m so happy. It’s unusual for me to win,” Louise said.

  Choisy watched as she pushed the pile of coins before her toward Louis, then, a sudden instinct rising in him, looked from her face to the king’s.

  “Take my pile of coins, sire. They’re yours. They began with your coin,” said Louise.

  “A gallant gesture,” said Nicolas, who was one of those watching the game.

  “If only all my court were so generous,” Louis said. “No thank you, ma’am. Have a pink gown made. I’d like to see you in pink, as pale as the roses—” he stopped, aware suddenly that he was likely betraying too much. “Enjoy your play,” and in another moment he was at his wife’s side. “Let me take you outside to see the stars.”

  “Like the summer roses in the queen’s garden,” finished Nicolas smoothly, his eyes moving from a retreating Louis to Louise and back again.

  Louise laughed, her laughter was so clear, so joyous, so heartfelt, that nearly everyone nearby found himself smiling.

  “Miss de la Baume le Blanc,” said Nicolas, moving to sit down right beside her, determined to follow this hunch that had taken hold of him. “Take my coin and make my fortune.”

  But Louise was already pushing back her chair, raking the coins into a napkin. “Play in my place, if you would, sir. I have good fortune enough.”

  OUTSIDE ON THE balcony, Louis stared at the sky for a long time without speaking, all the things he wished to accomplish there before him like the twinkling stars in the sky above, all the reasons why he might fail also there. Where was D’Artagnan? How was the Duchess Marie faring with his mother? Was the writer of the Mazarinades aware of the question of his birth? Or were the notes simply taunts that had a deeper meaning than the taunter realized? A small sniffle made him look down at his wife. “Dear one, why do you weep?”

  “Too many women.”

  His heart began to beat very fast.

  “Too many women, they flirt with you, always.”

  “Yes, women do flirt with me. I am, after all, king of France. But their flirtations don’t touch my heart. If I seem to flirt back, it’s because it’s fun. Nothing more. No one can take your place in my affections.”

  “I don’t flirt.”

  “Yes, but you’re very devout and serious, and I am frivolous and only a man, a man who has had the good fortune to be wedded to a saint. Dear saint, don’t despair of me.”

  “I am not a saint.”

  But he saw his words pleased her. He could see that she loved that he had compared her to one. “You are.”

  “Saints don’t feel jealousy.”

  “Then pray to have it removed for your sake and mine, my dear.” He walked her back inside and gestured to several of his friends to take her off his hands. Vivonne, who spoke Spanish well enough, came forward and smiled down like a lean wolf at Maria Teresa.

  “Tell me the story of your parrot today,” Vivonne said. “My sister said it’s a wonderful story, but no one tells it as well as you.”

  Louis leaned against the ornate woodwork of one of the walls and saw the Marshall de Gramont had returned. Thank God. He straightened, and Gramont made his way to him.

  “Your journey went well?” Louis asked him.

  “Just as you would desire, your majesty.”

  “You’ll come and tell me of it later tonight.”

  NICOLAS PLACED ANOTHER coin on the toss of the die, several piles of coins already before him. He was winning. Without seeming to, he watched the swirl of courtiers spin around Louis. So, the Marshall de Gramont was back from Monaco, was he? As he walked by, Nicolas called to him. “I’m winning, marshall. Come and sit beside me.” He pushed a neat column of coins he had won in the marshall’s direction. “I saw your son in Paris not long ago.”

  The marshall made a snorting, derisive sound. “My caged tiger.”

  “An apt description, sir. I invited him to Vaux-le-Vicomte. There’s plenty of forest where he may ride himself to exhaustion.”

  The marshall raised a goblet of wine in Nicolas’s direction. “If you can provide any means of exhaustion, you have my gratitude.”

  “I offered him a position in the Mediterranean fleet. I know the commander well. He could have a galley if he so wished.”

  “And his answer?”

  “He wasn’t interested. The offer remains open. To be of service to your family would honor me. How was your visit to Monaco?”

  “There must be some mistake. I’ve made no visit to Monaco. Look, viscount, you’ve won.” Gramont changed the subject smoothly. “My wife is beside herself about your fête.”

  “New gown?”

  “Three. She can’t decide which to wear.”

  “My humble apologies, sir. Shall I rescind the invitation?”

  “She’ll never speak to me again, and, alas, I am fond of her.”

  Louise walked by, arm in arm with Choisy. Was his majesty interested in this little meadow flower? wondered Nicolas. Where were all these people he paid to spy on the king, on his every word, on his eve
ry change of expression. His orders had been explicit. He’d put his best spy to turning over rocks about Louise de la Baume le Blanc. And his secretary wrote that there had been an unusual prisoner in the Pignerol fortress, one who screamed and cried and whom no one was allowed to see. It had frightened the guards, who claimed they’d heard the prisoner was so deformed he was a monster. And a small, select troop of musketeers led by the inestimable Lieutenant d’Artagnan had taken that prisoner and two others, a musketeer and a priest, away. And now the Marshall de Gramont lied about going to Monaco. Why? What game did his majesty play? What secret was so secret it could not be shared with his most important minister? Nicolas looked around the gallery. Moody faces, happy faces. Court was a wheel that kept turning, and those at the top balanced like acrobats to stay there, their drop depending on a king’s whim. He’d climbed high. He didn’t intend to drop.

  “MY BROTHER TELLS me yet again I’m a disgrace to the family honor,” Choisy said to Louise.

  “How upsetting for you. He doesn’t understand you. Perhaps you ought to leave court for a while, go live in the country, or go to England. Madame always speaks of her visit there with such joy. What’s the old saying: out of sight, out of mind?”

  “Speaking of family honor, what’s the state of yours these days? God, you’re blushing. Come with me.” He pulled her into a huge vestibule, tugged her toward a door, and, Louise protesting, pushed her into a chapel.

  “We shouldn’t be here,” she said. They were on the king’s balcony, where the royal family sat. Below them, on another floor, the chapel spread itself to the altar and back.

  “The last place anyone is going to be tonight is here. Sit down.”

  She was glad of the dim around them because she knew her blush had deepened. Her face felt like it was on fire. They sat in silence for a time.

  “Do you have a lover?”

  “No!”

  “Is your lover his majesty?”

  She strained her eyes at him in the dim, horror, upset, fear all playing at different moments across her face. “No! No! No!”

  “I knew it.”

  “You don’t know anything!”

  “Precisely how long do you think you may keep this a secret?”

  “Forever!” She threw the word at him. How dare he put his hands on this most precious part of herself.

  “Oh, so the relationship is chaste, is it?”

  She made a sound.

  “Can you keep carrying his child a secret?”

  Louise’s hands began to twist in her lap. These were not matters she wished to think about.

  “How long?” he demanded.

  For some reason, she didn’t lie. “A week.”

  “You think he loves you?”

  “Yes.”

  Dear God, she was in over her head, thought Choisy, and she had no idea how much so. “You have to be cunning about this, my so very dear cousin.”

  “Oh, I am. No one knows. We’re going to keep it a secret.”

  “What if you become pregnant?”

  She looked away to the altar, whose beautiful soaring angels made her writhe with guilt inside. “I’ll hide it.”

  “How?”

  “I’ll go away and then come back.”

  “Marry me, and I’ll take you to England.”

  “It’s the attention of men you want. How could I be happy in that?”

  “I can make love. I like making love to women—”

  She reached out and put her hand over his mouth to stop his words.

  “I offer you honor,” he said, pushing her hand away. “There’s no honor in what you do.”

  She stood up. “I’m going back.” She opened one of the huge chapel doors, and light from the chandelier in the vestibule framing her, said, “I’m honored that he has even looked at me.”

  How sweetly foolish you are, Choisy thought. They’ll hate you when they know. They’ll compliment you, but for something in return. One had to be a horse trader to be a good royal mistress. She handled horses like no one he knew, but he had few illusions about her ability to handle people. A myth was in his mind, a story from the ancient Romans, and the Greeks before them, the story of Icarus who had longed to fly, whose loving father to please him had built wings; and Icarus had flown like a bird but too close to the sun so that the wax holding the wings together melted, and he had fallen from the sky. Choisy went to the railing, and knelt, his eyes on the glorious altar below, and said a prayer for her.

  I WON’T GO back inside, Louise thought. She’d go outside, to the queen’s garden, and reach her chambers that way. Thinking about Louis, she walked across the gravel paths. Light showed from the gallery where everyone was gathered. The light, tingling smell of oranges seemed to be everywhere; she was approaching the orangery. It took a while before she realized she was being followed. She moved through an arch of the open-air gallery and stepped back against deep shadows made by one of the statues there. Between every arch leading outside and on the wall behind her were stags’ heads. This chamber was a monument to the love of the hunt. A musketeer, a young man, rushed through an arch. She could see him more clearly as he stepped into the pools of light the torches made.

  “Miss,” he called.

  She moved out of the shadows.

  “I escort you,” he said. “His majesty’s orders. My humble apologies if I frightened you.”

  She smiled then, her smile as wide, as beautiful as the quarter moon. Her beloved reached out to protect her. “Thank you. I welcome that. I’m going to my chamber,” and as they began to walk toward the oval court and the queen’s staircase, “I imagine you ought to tell me your name.”

  ANNE SIGHED AND drank her wine, staring up at the same stars that her son and daughter-in-law had stood under earlier in the evening. The Duchess Marie wore one down by simple graciousness. Anne felt exhausted from it all, no longer completely clear in her mind as to why it was foolhardy, except that it so clearly was. To take on the most powerful man in France, whose financial tentacles were wrapped around the foundation of the kingdom, was a fool’s errand.

  “So, you’ll fight against your son?” asked Marie, picking up the thread of an earlier conversation.

  “No.”

  “You’ll betray your son to the viscount and prevent the arrest? Doubtless, he’ll forgive you in time. Perhaps an exile for you, like your royal husband’s mother, but I do assure you exiles can be most wonderful. I do believe my best lover was a Dutchman, of all things.”

  “He’s wrong,” answered Anne.

  “He’s the king,” replied Marie, and once more she mentioned the island stockpiled with weapons and soldiers.

  “There’s been some misunderstanding,” said Anne. “He is going to tell my son about it all.”

  “And when might that be? When the king does as the viscount dislikes or offends him? People hold secrets because the conduct behind them is shameful.”

  Yes, thought Anne, thinking of her own secrets. I’d thought to be done with intrigues, and here I am in another one. If he fails … If he failed, she’d go on her hands and knees to the viscount for him or she’d sit atop a warhorse and lead a charge in Louis’s name. “My son has my loyalty, but surely there is a better way.”

  “And what might that be?”

  “Go to the viscount, speak with him, take away his island.”

  “And the viscount would walk away from his riches and power without a struggle?” asked Marie.

  “He would be allowed to keep something.”

  “Who decides how much? The viscount or his majesty?”

  “Oh, you tire me!”

  “Let’s go for a walk in my garden. One of my sons has sent a basket of plums that are crying to be tasted. There’s nothing better than plums ripened by sun, yes?”

  Chapter 34

  HROWING OFF COVERS, STANDING NAKED BEFORE A LONG WINDOW, watching the rise of the sun touch the cupola above the chapel, he knew what he was going to do. I’m going to Monaco, he thoug
ht. Henriette’s ballet was tonight. He’d leave as soon after that as possible. He’d make Colbert provide an excuse for his absence.

  Later, standing in one of his costumes for the ballet, Louis explained what he wished. “What reason for my absence? I can think of nothing.”

  Colbert pursed his lips. “A pilgrimage?” he suggested after a long pause.

  “For?”

  “Ah … the well-being of the dauphin and the queen.” Colbert continued slowly as he built the edifice of the story in his mind. “And the only person you will tell is Monsieur. You will go to him today and inform him you’re worried about the queen, that you’ve had a vision—no, a dream—that this is what you must do, that you must go as a simple traveler, in disguise, and pray before—”

  Colbert paused, his mind obviously rustling through its bins of random knowledge. Louis watched him in the pier glass, interested, eager even, to hear what he would say next. Philippe would be intrigued with the idea of a secret pilgrimage and touched that Louis trusted him. It might begin to heal the breach between them. And Philippe couldn’t keep a secret. He would tell someone, who would tell someone else, and by the time Louis returned, the story would be out.

  “You must go to Sainte-Baume, which is the cave where Mary Magdalene is said to have lived the last years of her life.”

  How fitting that he should mention the Magdalene. Louis turned so that he faced this man who had become so necessary to him.

  Colbert continued. “It is quite near Marseilles, which is quite near—”

  “Monaco,” finished Louis. He called out for the tailor, shrugged out of the costume, and sent the man away with it. “I know nothing of the Magdalene coming to France,” he said. “Tell me about this cave.”

  “It is claimed by some that she became a great advocate for the Christ after the resurrection and that because of her preaching, the king of Palestine had her banished by placing her in a boat and putting it out to sea. A boat, I might add, without sails or oars. It’s said she reached the shore of southern France. A favorite servant of my wife is from Provence and is a follower of the cult of the Magdalene there. The Magdalene is the patron saint of Provence. It’s said she preached and performed good works and converted the barbaric Gauls, which is what we were, sire, before we were Christians. The last years of her life she lived alone in a cave, and there is a shrine and a basilica built to hold her bones.”