Mistress of the Sun

by Sandra Gulland

  Pretending authority, Petite entered an open door. She stopped within, her eyes adjusting to the dark. Horses of all sizes and colors peered over the gates of the lay-stalls that lined the walls. Had she ever seen so many? The stables at Blois seemed small by comparison. She listened to the horses’ rhythmic munching, the rustling in the straw, inhaled their familiar scent. Home. There was even a switch on the wall to keep witches from riding the horses at night.

  Petite felt rather than heard the steady beat of a horse’s hooves. She stepped through an arch into a circular arena. In the center, a black man—a Moor, she gathered, from his headdress—was working a dappled stallion, which cantered the perimeter. It was a young gray: it would turn white as it aged, but it was not a true White.

  The Moor slumped and the horse turned to face him, its ears up-pricked. The Moor took three steps toward the horse with one arm extended, and the horse twirled and cantered on. He put his other hand out, and the horse stopped.

  The horse ambled up to the Moor, its head low, a submissive grazing posture. The Moor stroked the horse’s neck and slipped a halter over its ears, then turned toward the gate with the horse at his shoulder. He was a slender man. His collarless tunic and britches were of the same cloth, the color of a summer sky. A fringed carpetbag was tied to his waist. Had Petite seen him somewhere before? There was something familiar in his manner.

  “Can I help you, Mademoiselle?” he asked, bowing his head in the Moorish manner, with his hands crossed over his chest.

  A small gold cross hung from a chain around his neck. The cross stirred up faint recollections of a Moor, Romas, Diablo. She had been with her father. “Are you a gentler?” she asked hesitantly. “Did you ever travel with the Romas?”

  “I am Azeem. Do I know you?” he asked, his teeth white and straight.

  “Years ago, north of Tours, my father bought a white stallion.”

  His eyes widened. “Are you…?” He held out his hand, palm down, to indicate a child’s height.

  Petite nodded.

  “That horse was crazed,” he said, touching the cross.

  Petite started to say something about bone magic, but dared not. “He settled…over time.”

  “Truly?” he asked, sounding incredulous.

  “He was a wonderful horse, but after my father died, he—” Disappeared. Petite took a careful breath. “He ran off.”

  “I thought I saw him once,” the Moor said, tying the gray to an iron ring. “But I was mistaken.”

  “I know.” Diablo would be about fifteen years old by now. Some horses lived to be older, but that was rare. “It’s unlikely he’s still alive,” she said sadly, turning at the sound of spurs on the cobblestones.

  The master of the hunt entered the arena. “Do you require assistance, Mademoiselle?” he asked, taken aback by her presence.

  “No, Monsieur,” Petite said with a reverence.

  “Have thirty-two mounts ready for one of the clock, seven for ladies,” he commanded the Moor, snapping his riding whip against the gate and disappearing.

  “Do you ready the horses for the hunt?” Petite asked Azeem.

  “Generally, yes. Will you be riding this afternoon with Madame and the King?”

  Henriette and the King—their names alone rekindled Petite’s anger. “I’d hardly call it riding,” she said. Yet another boring walk on some old stale. “I would love to ride this horse,” she said, stroking the stallion’s neck. He had a raw energy, matching her mood.

  “He’s not a suitable mount for a lady.”

  “I rode Diablo.”

  “You rode Diablo?” He regarded her with astonishment.

  “He was my horse.” It seemed a fable to her now.

  THE HUNT WAS rigorous. Chasing down a hart, the King and his men rode through bogs and fields, thickets and vines. Petite’s skirts got well splattered with mud.

  After the last kill, the party headed back to the château, the King in the lead. Coming upon a meadow, he raised his left hand, signaling a race. His horse leapt into a hard gallop and the whooping men thundered after him, hats flying.

  Petite held the gray in check. She was riding sidesaddle, and in any case, it wasn’t befitting for women to race against men—and especially against the King. “Easy, boy,” she said, burning with annoyance. Why should she care about what was befitting? The King certainly didn’t. Anger filled her yet again, thinking of his base deception.

  “Get out of the way,” a man called out behind her and thundered past, dirt clots flying.

  The gray pranced in place, tossing his head. Petite longed for the wind in her face, that heady surge of power—but most of all she wanted to prove that she was not to be toyed with. She loosened the reins and leaned into her horse’s neck. “Go!”

  The gray surged across the meadow, pounding down a long, straight alley and jumping wide over a creek. Three men by a stone wall yelled warning: a rider was down. Petite picked her spot and her horse flew over. She could see the men galloping in a clump ahead, three stragglers trailing out behind. She kicked her stallion into a hard gallop. He raced across the field, passing one rider after another. Petite gave herself up to the joyous sound of pounding hoofbeats, the muscular strength of a racing horse. Mort Dieu, she was flying! She let out an unladylike whoop. Sing ye!

  The King on his black hunter was lengths ahead. She passed him in a blur, galloping into the lead—into unknown territory.

  She sat back, slowing her horse to a hand-canter. She was in the lead, but she did not know the way. She glanced back over her shoulder. The King and his men had slowed their horses and were turning into the woods. Lauzun stared at her. Frowning, he shook his head.

  Petite waited until the men had passed, then turned to follow, the glory of her triumph turned sour.

  THE COURTIERS CROWDED into Henriette’s chamber fell silent when Petite entered.

  “There she is,” the Princess informed a tall man in the King’s livery.

  He sauntered across the room to meet her. “Mademoiselle de la Vallière, the King has summoned you,” he announced in a deliberately loud voice.

  A soft murmur was heard throughout the room. Nicole, standing behind Henriette, gave Petite a look: uh-oh.

  “What is this about?” Petite asked, following the servant out.

  He turned at the stair landing and grasped her rudely by the elbow. “You have humiliated the King: men have been beheaded for less.”

  Petite shook free. “Just tell me what’s expected, Monsieur.”

  “An apology—to begin with,” he said with a mocking smile.

  The antechamber to the King’s cabinet was small—a dark, unfurnished room smelling strongly of dogs. Two hounds curled by the fireplace got up and stretched. One sniffed at Petite’s mules. The King’s attendant shooed it away with his boot, rhyming off instructions. “If you have any sense—which you clearly do not—you will grovel,” he concluded, turning on his heel.

  Petite stood for a time, watched by the hounds. So. She would be banished. Her mother would be less than sympathetic, she knew. She didn’t relish the thought of having to live once again with her stepfather, listening to him go on (and on) about his hippo-tusk teeth.

  The door to the inner chamber opened. Petite was comforted to see that it was kindly Gautier, her former dance master.

  “The King will see you now, Mademoiselle de la Vallière,” he said with a worried look.

  Petite stepped inside. The King was sitting by the chimney, in the circle of light from the fire, a milk-colored dog curled on a cushion at his feet. He was dressed in dark silks and velvets, an ornamental sword propped against the arm of his chair.

  Petite made the obligatory reverence. “Your Majesty, I owe you an apology,” she said as she had been instructed, dropping her eyes.

  “Come forward, Mademoiselle.”

  Petite took five hesitant steps. She was reassured to see two Swiss guards standing in the shadows: she and the King were not alone.

 
“I remember you,” the King said.

  Petite met his eyes. Did he? Was it possible he recalled meeting her in the meadow at Chambord two years before? She’d grown. Her hair was braided and coiled now and covered with a cap.

  “Aren’t you the girl who danced the bourée?” he asked, contracting his brow.

  “I am, Your Majesty,” Petite said, both disappointed and relieved. She noticed that he had a blemish on his chin, like any young man of two-and-twenty.

  “You ride well,” he said with a smile. The lean hound got up, her belly drooping with teats. She put her chin on the King’s knee and wagged her tail. “Women don’t usually ride with such authority,” the King said, stroking the hound’s ears. “Where did you learn?”

  “From my father, Your Majesty. He liked a good race.” Petite didn’t know how to interpret the King’s tone. He did not sound angry—if anything, there was admiration in his voice.

  “Did your father teach you to dance, as well?”

  “No, Your Majesty. I was taught at Blois, under the direction of Monsieur le Duc de Gautier.”

  “My Gautier?” he asked, surprised.

  “Yes, Your Majesty.” The hound sniffed Petite’s hand. Petite stroked the silky head, felt the moist nose in her palm.

  “Her name is Mitte,” the King said with affection.

  “She’s a good-looking hound, Your Majesty.” Her eyes were large, intelligent.

  “I can hardly see you there in the shadows.” The King held out his hand, but Petite stepped back. “Do I frighten you?” He sounded puzzled. “Have I not shown you favor?”

  There was a long silence.

  “You must answer me,” he said.

  “Forgive me, Your Majesty, but I would have to speak truthfully.” Petite felt blood rushing into her cheeks. “And I am reluctant to do so.”

  He shifted in his chair, his eyes fixed upon the fire. “Truth might be amusing,” he said finally, looking up, meeting her gaze. “For a change,” he added with an ironic smile, his left eyebrow raised.

  Petite sensed something sad in him. “Your Majesty, with respect, I have reason to believe that although you have, as you put it, shown me favor, you have done so with…” She summoned her courage, reminding herself that she was the descendant of a man who had ridden beside Jeanne d’Arc. “With false intentions,” she said.

  The King sat back. “And why, pray, would I do that?”

  Petite stepped forward, into the circle of light. She didn’t want the guards to hear. “In order to deceive the Queen Mother, Your Majesty,” she said, her voice low. “Because it is your brother’s wife you court, and that makes the Queen Mother unhappy. It’s better for her to think you court me.” She put a hand on the back of a chair to steady herself. Her heart was pounding! “That way you can call on Madame Henriette as often as you like without your mother suspecting.”

  Petite waited uneasily for the King’s response. She had spoken, and now she would be banished…or worse.

  “You are as fearless in speaking your mind as you are on the back of a horse,” the King said finally. “And frankly, I commend you.”

  Petite looked up. She was not to be banished?

  “And I regret to say that you are not mistaken,” he went on. “I love my brother’s wife—but as a dear friend and sister. My mother…she’s of an age when men and women did not have friendships, and she would not understand. It is true that Henriette and I contrived this ruse so that we might continue to enjoy each other’s company unfettered. It was something of a prank, but in retrospect, I see that it was not an honorable thing to do. Please accept my apology.”

  Petite stared at her slippers, worn at the toe. She had had the impudence to accuse the King. It seemed an unnatural, unholy thing. “Your Majesty,” she said, “I am a Vallière. My family is humble but loyal. Our family motto is Ad principem ut ad ignem amor indissolubilis.”

  The King grimaced. “My Latin is not as good as it should be, I confess.”

  “For the King, love like an altar fire,” Petite recited, her cheeks heated. “Eternal.” She glanced up and met his eyes.

  He sat rapt, stroking his mustache. “Will you be riding with us tomorrow, Mademoiselle?” he asked, tilting his head.

  “If you wish,” Petite stuttered.

  “You see,” said the King, reaching for the bell rope, “I enjoy a good race too.”

  Chapter Seventeen

  PETITE RODE WITH the King and his men the next afternoon, a small party of twenty-three. The King gave a signal and they set out, ambling, then trotting and cantering down the wide allées, across blooming meadows, jumping streams, fences and bogs.

  The dogs almost immediately scented the leavings of a hart, a deer of good size. The varlets set off into the bush, the braying running-hounds pulling at their leashes, following the scent, the King and his men thrashing after them through the woods. The splendid buck was finally put to bay, and the King gave it a clean coup de grâce.

  I’m the only woman present, Petite realized. The stag had drawn them into a thicketed corner of the park, and the ladies of the palace had chosen not to follow for fear of scratches and mud.

  At the unmaking that followed, the veneur who had flayed the hart got the shoulder and the head varlet the hide. Mitte, the King’s best hound, was ceremoniously awarded the stag’s head. Growling, her long tail wagging, she worried her prize as the other running-hounds got their share.

  The King watched his dogs with pleasure.

  “Award Mademoiselle de la Vallière a foot,” he told the veneur, who hacked off a hoof and handed it up to Petite.

  “Thank you, Your Majesty,” Petite said, hanging the bloody trophy from her waist.

  IN THE WEEKS that followed, Petite rode with the King and his men almost every afternoon. She astonished them, riding in close behind the hounds and proving to be steady, fearless and strong, as good with a spear as any man. In a race, it was sometimes Petite who pulled into the lead, and sometimes the King. The courtiers could not keep up.

  Petite returned from the hunts smelling of horses, her boots muddy, her curls in disorder. Yeyette and Claude-Marie regarded her uneasily. What sort of girl was she?

  Evenings, in Henriette’s sitting room (the “withdrawing room” it was called at Court), the King often had a word for Petite. She was allowed to join in as the men discussed the day’s kill, the strengths and weaknesses of the various horses, the King’s dogs. Henriette watched with a puzzled reserve.

  The weather turned gloriously balmy: clearly, the gods were smiling. When there wasn’t a hunt, there was a rehearsal, and every evening feasts and festivities, followed by moonlight carriage rides through the park. Even when the moon was a sliver, Henriette and her revellers would set out into the park for an excursion. Much amusement could be had under cover of night.

  “I think we have a visitor,” Nicole told Petite as their carriage headed back to the château after a midnight ride.

  Petite looked out the coach window. A tall bay horse was keeping pace. Its rider tipped his hat, his face illuminated by the coach’s torchlight. “Your Majesty?” Petite asked, surprised.

  “How are you this evening, Mademoiselle de la Vallière?” the King asked.

  “I am well,” Petite answered self-consciously. “And you, Your Majesty?”

  He nodded. “I thought the rehearsal went well today.”

  “Yes. Your solos especially.” The performance was to be held in six days.

  “I wish I could agree. I thought yours was remarkable.”

  “Thank you!”

  “What did you think of the hunt yesterday?”

  “In all honesty?”

  “That’s what I’ve come to expect from you.” There was a smile in his voice.

  “My falcon was excellent, and my palfrey obedient, but in truth, hawking…It isn’t my favorite.”

  “It was requested by the ladies.”

  “Yes. They were pleased with it, especially Madame.”

&n
bsp; “But you prefer something more vigorous, I take it.”

  “I admit I do.”

  “I’m planning a boar hunt after the Feast of Saint Michel. My dogs should be well trained by then.”

  “I saw evidence of a solitary yesterday, Your Majesty, down by the first marsh. There were fairly large tracks by a wallow.”

  “That must be the boar my hunt master is keeping an eye on. He’s in his fifth year. Perhaps you could show me where you saw the tracks. We’re hunting stag tomorrow.”

  “I’d be happy to.”

  The King tipped his hat, spurred his horse and cantered off, causing the coach horses to surge.

  “Well, now,” Nicole said, unfurling her fan. “That was interesting.”

  “I didn’t think you found hunt-talk all that engrossing.”

  “So that’s what you call it? Hunt-talk?”

  THE MORNING OF THE performance dawned cloud-free thanks to the daily Masses commissioned by Henriette in favor of good weather. Everyone was in a flurry of last-minute preparation, rehearsing lines, going over steps, making adjustments to their costumes. Henriette broke into tears at the least provocation, and her chamber was a riot of fabric scraps and ribbons.

  Outside, everything was just as chaotic. The gardens swarmed with workers installing torches to light the avenues. Carpenters hammered and sawed, putting the finishing touches to the outdoor stage by the carp pond, decorating it with tree branches to create the illusion of a wilderness. Gautier ran from place to place, frantically attending to the problems that inevitably arose immediately before an important event, special Masses or no: the vertical track for the clouds kept jamming, and the great velvet curtain that had just been installed was too short.

  Nonetheless, at eight of the clock, trumpeters announced the Queen and Queen Mother. The great brass gong was struck and thirty-two pages set thirty-two stage torches alight. The musicians took up their instruments, Monsieur de Lully raised his baton, and the hastily lengthened curtain rose as the chorus of shepherds sang out: “Who, in the night…”