Mistress of the Sun

by Sandra Gulland

  “First thing in the morning,” Gautier said. “His Majesty will be riding to Val-de-Galie, a village to the southwest. The going is apt to be rough, so only the hardiest riders have been invited.” He tipped his hat to Petite, as if to congratulate her. “There is a château there, a rather primitive hunting box, but sufficient for a stay of two days’ duration.”

  Two days with Louis? (Two nights.) “But what about my duties here?” Petite asked.

  “Madame is to be purged in the morning, and will not require attendants for several days.”

  Petite glanced at Clorine, then turned away. She didn’t want her maid to know about her relationship with Louis. “Thank you, Monsieur, but I’m afraid I couldn’t consider it.” It made her want to weep. “A ride through rough terrain would be too difficult for my maid.”

  “There’s sure to be a baggage wagon I could go in,” Clorine said, protesting.

  “The keeper’s wife is in residence at the château, Mademoiselle,” Gautier pressed. “She could attend you.”

  “The keeper’s wife will do fine. My maid will stay here,” Petite announced, avoiding Clorine’s eyes.

  “Very well.” Gautier doffed his hat. “I will await you at dawn in a carriage in the courtyard, at the end of rue de Chartres. A horse will be held for you at the porte Saint-Honoré. From there a small party will set out to meet the King at Saint-Cloud. If I may make one suggestion, Mademoiselle?” Gautier cleared his throat. “Of those going down on horseback, you will be the only female, which might excite public curiosity. Therefore, it would be advisable for you to dress as a man.” He held out the parcel, wrapped in linen. “It’s a gentleman’s riding ensemble. I am informed that you ride astraddle. There’s a hat and wig, as well as a pair of jackboots.” He bowed and closed the door behind him.

  Clorine sniffed the clothes suspiciously and laid them out on the bed. Petite recognized Lauzun’s red cloak and his leather doublet with a missing button. She pulled on one of the high boots. “At least they’re small enough,” she said.

  Clorine snorted, her shoulders hunched.

  “You heard what Gautier said.” Petite pulled on the wig and looked at herself in the clouded looking glass. “It’s a primitive hunt camp. It’s best this way, really.” She took off the wig—it was itchy. She hoped it wasn’t lousy.

  “I don’t mind so much being left behind.” Clorine used a corner of her apron to wipe her cheeks. “What I mind is you lying to me!”

  Petite was dismayed to see her maid’s tears.

  “You don’t want me there.”

  Petite sat down, deflated. She’d been entirely taken up with her own concerns. She hadn’t considered how Clorine might feel. “I’m sorry, Clorine. It’s because…” But no—she could not speak the truth.

  Clorine sat down opposite, her hands on her thighs. “It’s because you’re hiding something, Mademoiselle,” she said with an accusing glare. “And I know what it is.”

  “What do you mean?” Petite asked anxiously.

  “I can’t believe Gautier would be such a cad.” Clorine hit her thigh with her fist.

  “But he’s not.”

  “Has he bedded you?”

  Petite almost laughed.

  “He treats you like a lady?”

  Petite nodded.

  “He’s pledged his troth?”

  Petite had to find a way out of this treacherous conversation. She could not reveal the truth, but she did not wish to lie, either. “I can’t marry, Clorine.”

  Clorine stood and paced. “Of course a man as noble as Gautier would require a dowered bride.”

  Petite’s silence was a falsehood, she knew, but not as great as a spoken deception.

  “The King shows you favor—it would be foolish not to use that to some profit,” her maid announced, inspired. “Maybe when you’re out riding, for example, you could mention to His Majesty how nice it would be to have a brooch for your hat, maybe a diamond one like Madame Henriette wears. Or a jeweled riding crop, something you could sell or exchange for paste without the King knowing. He’s easily fooled, I’ve noticed. Then, before you know it, you’d have your dowry. You wouldn’t need much, just enough so that Gautier could honorably marry you. But first you must swear to me…”

  Petite regarded Clorine apprehensively, unsure where this was leading.

  “Swear that you will not allow Gautier to bed you until after you are married.”

  “I swear,” Petite said, relieved, both hands pressed against her heart.

  CLORINE INSISTED ON accompanying Petite to the courtyard the next morning, carrying the leather portmanteau. “But I’m a man, remember?” Petite said, trying to take the case from her maid. It felt strange to be wearing breeches and high boots. It reminded her of the times she had helped her father in the barn, dressed in her brother’s castoffs.

  “There he is,” Clorine said, spotting Gautier snoozing in a coach, his mouth hanging open. She turned to Petite with a glowing look. “Your betrothed.”

  The dance master sat up and feigned to be wakeful as they approached, straightening his wig. Petite handed her portmanteau up to the driver and made a swaggering sort of step onto the running board, climbing into the coach without assistance. She nodded to Gautier, and then looked off into the distance, pretending a masculine indifference. The clouds to the east were a radiant pink.

  Clorine wagged a finger. “No shenanigans—”

  “Don’t worry, Clorine,” Petite said, cutting her off before she said more.

  “Remember what I said about the King,” Clorine called out as they pulled away.

  “What did your maid say?” Gautier asked, thick of hearing. “Something about the King?”

  Petite nodded, but did not speak. They were heading west along rue Saint-Honoré. They slowed to make their way through a herd of bleating goats, heading to market.

  Gautier fussed to open his snuffbox. “Mademoiselle de la Vallière, may I presume to ask you a question?”

  “Certainly, Monsieur,” Petite said, adjusting the hat. It tended to slip down over her brows.

  “Does your maid know about His Majesty?”

  Petite stared out the carriage window: one of the goats had fallen behind and was helping itself to apples on a cart. How much can I tell him? she wondered. She felt she could trust him. Indeed, Monsieur le Duc de Gautier was the only person she could talk to about Louis. “I don’t want her to know,” she confessed. “She would not approve; she’s a woman of principle.”

  “Mademoiselle…” Gautier’s tone was fatherly. “I’ve had the pleasure of knowing you since you were a girl, and I wish you to know that I consider you to be a woman of principle yourself. Your…your situation is complex. His Majesty had to marry for reasons of State—but what of his heart?” He inhaled a pinch of snuff and sneezed. “Just because he is King does not mean he doesn’t have yearnings like any other man—perhaps even more so because of his vital spirit, his noble race. It’s not healthy for a man to be starved in this way. The sacrifice of your virtue is a worthy act, but not one that many people would understand.”

  “I do not see it as a sacrifice,” Petite said, her voice thickening. “I hold the King dear.”

  “I know. Unlike other ladies of the Court, you are free of ambitious intent,” he said as they approached the porte Saint-Honoré, a fortress-like structure with turrets. “It speaks well of His Majesty that he has chosen you.”

  The stench of the moat filled the air, in spite of the chill. Pressing a scented cambric cloth to his nose, Gautier addressed the guard, who, seeing the royal insignia on the coach door, Gautier’s sword and the gems in his hatband, waved him through without even looking at his papers, much less the forged ones Gautier had had made up for Petite as “Monsieur” de la Vallière.

  Their credentials unquestioned, they clattered over the moat into an open area congested with horses, riders, carts and coaches.

  Petite recognized Lauzun sitting a bay and Azeem helping two laborers load
a wagon. A page in the King’s livery was holding a horse’s reins—her horse, she guessed. It was Poseidon, a powerful and stubborn barb. He required a strong hand. “Are you riding down with us, Monsieur?” she asked Gautier as their coach pulled into a clearing.

  “No, that’s for you young ones. I’ll be following behind in the baggage wagon—to protect it.” Gautier mocked a threatening expression. “Need help down?” He reached for his walking stick.

  “No, thank you,” Petite said, jumping out as soon as the coach rolled to a stop. The driver handed down her bag.

  “I didn’t recognize you,” Azeem said in a low voice, taking Petite’s portmanteau and putting it in the wagon.

  “Good.” Petite spat into the weeds for effect.

  “Well done. That was disgusting.” Lauzun grinned down at her from his horse.

  “Good morning, Monsieur Lauzun.” Petite kept her voice intentionally low-pitched. “I can take him now,” she told the page, gathering up the stallion’s reins. She pulled the saddle pad smooth and tightened the girth. It was a workmanlike running saddle, well used. She clasped hold of a hunk of mane, put her left foot in the stirrup and threw her right leg over. How much easier it was not to be encumbered by skirts.

  “I imagine that type of saddle is new to you,” Lauzun said.

  “Not entirely,” Petite said, checking the length of the stirrups. Lauzun’s jackboots came up over her knees. “But as a girl I mostly rode bareback.”

  “Ah, like a Roman emperor.”

  “Like a pagan, my mother said.” Petite laughed.

  Lauzun looked her up and down, his forehead furrowed. “I didn’t think my leather doublet looked so good.”

  With Azeem in the lead, Lauzun and Petite set out to meet up with the King’s party at Saint-Cloud. They made their way along the fetid moat and turned east at the river, already busy with boats and barges. The rising sun sparkled on the water. The river looked like a long silver ribbon edging meadows, farms, groves of bare walnut trees. A flock of pigeons perched on the roof of a dovecote.

  “Go on ahead,” Lauzun commanded Azeem, slowing his horse to a walk. “Tell His Majesty we will be at the pavilion as expected.” The gentler’s horse broke into a hand-canter and disappeared around a bend.

  “That’s the village of Chaillot.” Lauzun pointed his riding whip at gardens on the hill to their right. “That convent’s fairly new—Sainte-Marie, I think it’s called, Sisters of the Visitation.”

  Four nuns were tending the large garden. Petite thought of the stone hovel she had built as a child—her “convent”—remembered the happy moments she had spent there, caring for wounded animals as she hummed hymns to herself, talking to God (her best friend).

  A bell rang for morning Mass, and then other bells joined in, a chorus. Petite thought of her aunt Angélique. Right now she would be singing in choir, a lovely way to begin the day. And then Petite thought, cringing, how her aunt would feel were she to see her now, riding to meet her lover, the King.

  “The hunting is supposed to be good in the woods there to the west. I’ve heard talk of boar and hart,” Lauzun said, picking up a trot. “Some say they’ve seen wild horses in the hills behind.”

  “Runaways, likely,” Petite said, surveying the wooded hills. She thought of Diablo. Perhaps he had simply run off. Perhaps her father had opened his stall and then fallen.

  After a time, the high road veered away from the river, entering a forest. The footing was good and the horses broke into an easy canter, weaving in and out between the carts and foot passengers, cows and even a flock of sheep. Petite held her horse back behind Lauzun’s big bay, reveling in the pleasure of the early-morning ride, the smell of the woods, the birdsong, the steady rhythm of the horses’ hooves.

  They came upon the river again and stopped to water their horses. Ahead was the arched stone bridge to Saint-Cloud. At the top of the hill, above the winding streets of the village, Petite could see the white walls of the château, one wing covered with scaffolding. Like every royal residence, it was undergoing renovation.

  As they crossed the bridge, Petite spotted the gentler on his horse on the opposite bank, near a pavilion.

  “His Majesty won’t be long,” Azeem called out as they neared, pacing his horse back and forth, its hot breath misting.

  “Jingo! There he is now,” Lauzun said.

  Four men on horseback could be seen making their way down the hill, Louis in the lead. He sat his horse proudly, his legs dangling loose out of the stirrups. He was riding Courage, a hunter with a large, round chest.

  Following Lauzun’s example, Petite made a seated reverence, taking off her hat and pressing it to her heart.

  Tipping his cocked hat, Louis smiled at her with his eyes, his right hand holding the reins, his left hand on an embroidered bandolier, the rapier hanging high at his hip. He was wearing a worn green-leather tunic that reached to his knees.

  Behind Louis were three trusted companions: the Duc de Chevreuse, the Marquis de Dangeau and the Duc de Beauvillier. In casual dress, they would be taken for a party of noblemen setting out for a day’s hunt. They regarded Petite knowingly, but with respect.

  Louis set out at the lead. At the château gate they were joined by two armed guards. They followed the post road west, climbing steadily uphill. Petite fell to the back, in front of the gentler and the guard who brought up the rear. Listening to their easy chatter, she kept her eyes on Louis. Twice he turned to catch her eye.

  After a few hours, they stopped at an inn on the outskirts of a village. Petite dismounted and tied her horse’s reins to a hitching post. Louis, Lauzun and the men circled around to the back of the inn. The gentler and the guards turned their backs, relieving themselves by the road. Petite paused, unsure, then ducked into a thicket of bushes.

  Emerging, she saw three of the men going into the inn and followed them inside. The hall was full of trestle tables lined with travelers eating from wooden bowls. The place smelled of sour beer and seared meat. The men of the King’s party were standing beside a table in the corner.

  Petite heard Lauzun’s voice from behind. “Your Majesty, the men have—”

  “Criminy, it’s the King,” a man cried out, and suddenly there was a great scraping of stools and chairs as everyone stood, bowing in a chaotic fashion. An old woman beside the fire was helped to her feet.

  “Be seated,” Petite heard Louis command.

  Lauzun cleared a path for the King to the corner table, and people slowly returned to their bowls of mutton and pitchers of slow beer, the buzz of conversation filling the room once again.

  Lauzun spotted Petite and gestured to the chair beside the King. Louis held out his hand, palm up, summoning her. Pressing her wide-brimmed hat to her heart, she sidled through the crowd and into the empty place.

  “I’m having the stable boy beat the stuffing in my saddle,” Lauzun was saying.

  “Your horse is galled?” Louis asked.

  “Damn nearly,” Lauzun said. “His withers are wrung.”

  “My withers are wrung too,” Louis said with a sidelong glance at Petite. He pressed his thigh against hers.

  Petite took a slow and careful breath as the serving girl placed a tankard of beer and a bowl of stewed beef in front of her.

  THE ROAD CONDITIONS were passable until they left the high road, circling back onto a rutted laneway heading east. The terrain turned scrubby, marshy in the valleys, the road washed out in two places. The first flooded stretch was shallow, posing no difficulty, but at the second, the horses balked.

  Louis studied the torrent of water, then spoke to Lauzun, who nodded and turned his horse. “His Majesty suggests you lead the way across,” he told Petite. “He thinks you might be able to get Poseidon to go over.”

  Petite walked her horse to the water’s edge. It was December; the water was cold, but not icy. She pressed her horse forward, but he reared up. She turned him in circles, stung him sharply on the flank with her crop and spurred him on again.
He flattened his ears but surged into the water. “Good fellow,” she said, stroking his neck. Midway, the ground fell off. She was relieved when at last he gained purchase and struggled up onto the bank.

  “There’s only the one deep spot in the middle,” she called back, but Louis was already across, his horse scrambling up behind her onto the bank.

  “Ride beside me,” he told her once everyone was safely across. The men fell respectfully behind, at a distance.

  They entered a wood, crossed a valley and climbed a hill.

  “A boar bog,” Petite said, pointing off to the left.

  “My father hunted here when he was only six,” Louis said. “He bagged a levret, five quail and two partridges.”

  Petite whistled.

  Louis regarded her with astonishment. “I didn’t think women could do that.”

  Petite whistled again, then laughed. “Race?” Her horse surged ahead, galloping as if the Devil was at his heels.

  Breathless, with their horses lathered, they crested a hill. Below, in a marshland clearing, was a château. Close by was a church and a huddle of poor houses: a small village. Smoke rose from one of the château chimneys.

  “It’s so isolated,” Petite said, gazing out across the low forested hills.

  “Does that disturb you?”

  “I love it.”

  “I thought you would.” He reached for her hand.

  THE HUNT CHTEAU was like a fairy tale house: slate roof, wroughtiron balconies, marble courtyard and a little dry moat. Made of red bricks and white stone, it reminded Petite of the château at Blois, but in miniature, and all of a piece.

  “Welcome, Your Majesty!” A stout, red-faced man with a drooping mustache cried out greetings, waving his hat about in a confusion of etiquette. “We were told that the road was washed out.” He held the reins of Louis’s horse as the King dismounted. “We feared you might not get across.”

  “Nothing stops this rider,” Louis said, indicating Petite.

  “Get this young man’s horse,” the stout man called out to a boy sprinting across the cobblestones.