“Did you and King Louis confront him last night?”
I shrugged, uncomfortable. “The king seems to have made his point without being direct.”
“And so the cardinal’s power over you and of me continues. I will never love.” She closed the drapes and got back into bed. “Mazarin has taught me to close my heart.”
I thought of how the king’s affection had brightened my world. “Don’t do that.” I climbed in beside her.
She turned her back to me. “It is the only way to ensure it doesn’t break.”
* * *
Hortense stayed in bed when I rose and didn’t get dressed that evening. I took my carriage to the queen’s antechamber alone, where the crowd had dwindled. Most of the Savoy party was already gone.
Madame Royale sat with the queen mother in the presence chamber. Though her eyes were puffy and red, she wore a huge smile. When she saw me, she held out a velvet tray, glittering with diamond earrings and a handful of jewels in gold and black enamel. “I told your uncle such parting gifts weren’t necessary, that I wouldn’t dream of preventing peace with Spain.” She waited for my polite nod before she finally moved on, showing everyone her trophies on her way out, waiting for courteous praises.
Princess Margherita followed her mother, pausing at my side. “She’s been crying all morning, a right royal fit. Your uncle had to offer consolation.”
“She seems well enough pleased. And you?”
She whispered, “Your uncle gave my mother more than jeweled trinkets. He gave her written promise that your king will marry me if he doesn’t marry the Spanish infanta.”
Beyond my line of sight, I sensed the queen mother watching. I fought to maintain composure.
Margherita went on, “Get me out of it, if you can. I have no wish to become your uncle’s subject. Nor to spend my wedded life groveling for my husband’s attention.”
I gave her a questioning look.
“When the king is in your presence, his face reveals his complete adoration of you.” She moved past. “No wife could rival that.”
She and her mother curtsied before backing from the door. I turned to the dais and saw the queen mother studying me. She never wanted King Louis to marry Margherita. She would quash me now. I approached her wishing Olympia and Hortense were by my side. I curtsied.
She didn’t smile.
“I am looking for my uncle.”
She sighed. “He is busy gathering gold and silver to send with Madame Royale, and he is cursing you for it. It seems you did your job a little too well.”
Does she suspect I warned Margherita? “Please forgive Hortense’s absence. She was too saddened by the departure of Savoy to join me.”
“I imagine you’re glad to see them go?” Her glare shook me. She’d always shown me the natural kindness of an older woman to a younger. Now her eyes said she recognized me as a feminine rival. Civility remained, but the tone and expression were meant to cut. In this one glance, I had become a woman.
I wanted to choke her. I wanted to tell her I knew everything about her affair with Mazarin. I wanted to scream secrets from the rooftops of Lyon that would damn her. Instead I played her game one better. I smiled an innocent smile, curtsied deeply, and said, “Me? I’m perfectly indifferent and ever at your service.”
It stunned her. She recovered quickly, carefully arranging her expression to one of contentment.
It didn’t matter if she believed my ruse. I now saw her for the adversary she was.
CHAPTER 27
The queen mother wished to show King Louis the mirror presented to Rinaldo … to draw him from the spell of Armida.
—MADAME DE MOTTEVILLE’S MEMOIRS
I suffered the queen’s antechamber for hours, but King Louis never appeared. Nor did my uncle. I went to bed as melancholy as Hortense. But in the morn, Moréna opened the window to reveal King Louis on his horse in the Place de Belle Cœur.
“Feel like riding out of Lyon?” he called up with a grin.
Philippe waved from his place behind the king with three other musketeers.
Moréna dressed me in a hurry, and my equerry readied Trojan. The king and I trotted through the city, over the Saône, and past the hill to the fields beyond.
“Race you to those ruins in the distance!” I cried, and heeled Trojan to a hard gallop before the king could answer. We beat him by an arm’s length. I laughed, breathless. King Louis helped me off my horse, and we collapsed in the grass below the stone arches of an ancient Roman aqueduct. He held me, and we didn’t care about getting grass in our hair or what the musketeers thought. Philippe kept them at a distance, and we lolled together, kissing and caressing, settling into a comfortable embrace, alone at last.
“Which Caesar do you think had these built?” he finally asked, staring at the stone arches.
“One that declared himself the greatest of all, no doubt.”
He laughed. “One day I will be called a great king. I will expand France and make it wealthy.”
I made a tisk sound. “Focus on improving Paris; clean the garbage off the streets and line them with lanterns to light at night. Install fountains so your people don’t have to drink dirty river water. Greatness cannot be accumulated in a coffer. It pours from here.” I pointed to his heart. “And is reflected in how you treat your weakest subjects.”
He thought on this for a long while, then changed the topic. “You were right. This escapade with Savoy was designed to force Spain into a treaty.”
“It’s pointless to seal a peace treaty with a marriage alliance. Your mother was once a Spanish infanta, and she’s been no instrument of peace these last decades.” I sat up. “You begged me never to leave your side. Cardinal Mazarin will try to separate us.”
“I can make him secure peace without the marriage.”
“He gave his written word to Madame Royale that you would marry Margherita if you don’t marry the Spanish infanta.”
King Louis sat up. “He wouldn’t do that without my consent.”
“Margherita told me herself.”
He waved me off. “To spite you.”
“To warn me.” I stood. “She sees Mazarin for what he is.”
He leapt to his feet. “Are you calling me a fool?”
“Do you want to marry me or not?”
He embraced me roughly and pressed his lips to mine in a fierce kiss. A fire rose within me, and I plunged into him. I ached to make him mine.
Instead I pushed him away. “You take my kisses, my trust, and offer nothing in return.”
He grabbed my arm, dragged me to his horse, and with one swift move threw me into the saddle. He mounted behind me and kicked his horse into a hard gallop. Philippe scrambled to grab Trojan, and the musketeers followed. King Louis didn’t wait. He drove his horse straight to the hill and the cardinal’s lodgings. Pages and guards rushed to greet him, but the king paid them no heed. He pulled me from his horse and marched me inside. Every sentry fell back for King Louis, who didn’t wait to be announced.
In my uncle’s antechamber, Colbert spotted us and dropped a stack of papers. He called out, “The cardinal is unwell!”
King Louis pushed through the doors to the cardinal’s bedchamber.
My uncle sat before a fire with his feet in a basin. He started, and water sloshed. “Majesty.” He lifted one swollen foot from the basin and made to stand for a proper bow. His bones are aching already, I see.
“No ceremony.” King Louis waved him down. “Did you promise my hand in marriage to Savoy if I do not marry Spain?”
The cardinal paused in his half-risen posture. He glanced at me, as if to say, You call this having control of the king?
The king went on. “Don’t look at Marie with blame in your eyes. What have you to say?”
My uncle fell back into his seat. “Madame Royale must have circulated that rumor to salvage the remaining shreds of Savoy’s dignity. Can you blame her? After you treated Margherita so coldly?”
“Your p
athetic trick at the Archbishop’s Palais proved you wanted Marie to take the blame,” said King Louis.
The cardinal held up his palms. “I am only guilty of doing my utmost to protect you. And secure an alliance that will bring you peace, new lands, and riches.”
King Louis seemed surprised. “You know I want peace, but I won’t marry Spain.” He cleared his throat. “I want to marry Marie.”
The cardinal didn’t seem to know what to say. “Majesty, you do me too much honor.”
“It is my right to bestow honor where I choose.” King Louis smiled at me. I forgot the tension in the room for a heartbeat, reveling in that smile. He turned back to my uncle and drew himself up to his full height. “So concede whatever terms you must, but write my marriage out of it.”
My uncle cleared his throat. “I will do my best.”
I couldn’t believe it.
“I won’t marry Margherita either.” said King Louis.
My uncle shrugged. “I never intended it.”
The king glanced at me. It had come too easy. I shook my head.
King Louis turned back to my uncle. “Promise you’ll let me marry Marie.”
My uncle pressed his chair with shaky arms until he came to a standing position, robes falling, half in the water. He bowed. “I would forfeit all I own before standing in the way of Your Majesty’s happiness.”
King Louis smiled broadly and turned to me. But Mazarin hadn’t promised. What could I do? With the cardinal still bowed low in his gouty footbath, I led the king out. Back through the sentries and Colbert standing agape, back out to his horse, where exasperated musketeers waited with Trojan. I dropped the king’s hand and signaled Philippe to help me onto my mount.
“Say something,” said the king.
“You asked me to go riding this morning. So let us ride. This meeting changed nothing.”
“I did what you wanted. Your uncle will clear the way for us to wed.”
I settled in my saddle and looked down. “My vow to remain at your side implies I will be loyal and honest. So I will tell you a truth. If you love me as deeply as you say, then the cardinal will be the cause of your greatest heartache.”
“How can you speak of your own guardian this way?”
“Because, my love, he is a liar.”
“He is clever and cunning, but he wouldn’t lie to me.”
I twisted Trojan’s reins around my hand until I thought they would cut right through my gloves. King Louis isn’t ready for the truth. He was a man to demand proof, and my proof was in Paris. “If I could prove he is deceitful beyond all doubt, would you denounce him?”
He kicked the gravel, startling the horses. “You’re right.” He mounted and took reins in hand. “We should stick to riding.”
* * *
Thus, we rode. Every day. Over frosty fields or snowy meadows. King Louis came to our quarters every morning, bursting in while we were still in our undress gowns, sending Madame Venelle into fits of the vapors. He waited until I dressed, then challenged me to a race over the bridges, through the squares, or across Lyon’s countryside. He riding with a heart full of faith, and me in possession of a half-victory.
King Louis ordered a collation every evening, saying, “Any excuse to keep you by my side instead of behind my mother’s table.” And so we never had to endure the cardinal’s patient glare at supper, and he no longer had to see the lines of worry creasing his mother’s brow as she watched him watching me while they ate.
Every night we danced at the Archbishop’s Palais or the Hôtel de Ville. Madame Venelle exhausted herself keeping our late hours and waking early to wait upon Hortense, ill and melancholy since Savoy’s departure. Venelle began to quit our night parties early with bleary eyes.
Thus we spent them unsupervised. In the darkest hours before sunrise, when we were full on oysters and honey mead and worn out with dancing, the king followed my carriage home with an escort of Philippe’s musketeers. He soon abandoned his horse and climbed into the carriage to kiss me and press against me and put his face beneath my skirts. Oh, the things I let him do to me and the things I did to him! I lost all resolve at the sensation of his fingers moving slowly inside me, moving me to the edge. I could forget everything on those slow rides back to the Place de Belle Cœur. Once, when the ride hadn’t been slow enough, I saw that Venelle was fast asleep in her bed, and quietly opened my window so the king could climb inside.
“What are you doing?” asked Hortense hazily.
“Go back to sleep and get some for me,” I whispered. “For I shall get none.”
We set fire to my bed that night, with his hand over my mouth to keep me from calling out in the height of pleasure. We broke one of my old pearl bracelets, and he crept out, using pearls to silence the frustrated musketeers. My body ached at the loss of his warmth.
When Venelle came into our chamber the next morning, I saw in her expression that she could smell it. She made sure the windows were locked fast from then on. She slept more lightly. She wore herself out checking on us in the middle of the night, groping along our bedsteads in the darkness. Once she tripped on my slippers and fell smack into me. I bit the hand that landed on my face, eliciting a scream that would have woken the dead.
“Stay out,” I told her. “Or I’ll bite you again.”
She grabbed a silk stocking to stanch the blood. “I won’t. I can’t. Your uncle commanded me.”
“To spy?”
“To ensure your safety.”
But I knew better.
In the evenings, when we breezed into the queen mother’s presence chamber so King Louis could kiss her cheek and she could pay her compliments, I thought I caught glimpses of the Spanish dignitary leaving. One day we stopped in Mazarin’s chambers so King Louis could sign some certificate and pick up a little velvet bundle.
“Did you smell foreign shaving water?” I asked as we left. “I swear I caught a whiff of scented Spanish leather.”
King Louis shook his head and handed the bundle to me. Inside the velvet folds was a new pearl bracelet. The king laughed at my surprised expression. He whispered that he longed to see me wearing nothing but that bracelet.
Soon, all of my dancing slippers had holes on the bottoms and we had lit every advent candle.
“Why haven’t you told him about his mother and Mazarin yet?” wailed Moréna as Christmastide ended. She eyed the open box of wax I used to make lip paints. “I will craft a wax figure of Mazarin and toss it in the river.”
“You will not.” I closed the box and put it in my cassone. “I need the king to develop a sense of independence. I can’t make demands and force my will when he must learn to exert himself.” But the edge of my worry had dulled from razor to butter knife.
The new year came and went, and we packed for our return to Paris. King Louis waited for me at the city gates, mounted on his horse. I wore my black velvet justaucorps trimmed in sable with a huge purple plume in my matching hat. We set out ahead of the long string of carriages for our vast journey home, talking of books and of fêtes we would have before the Lenten season. No other courtier dared brave the late January cold to ride horseback with us. They knew it would have been to no avail, for before we rode out, the king kissed my hand so lords and ladies peeking from heavy leather carriage curtains saw; he had no wish for any company save mine.
CHAPTER 28
Le Palais des Tuileries
February 1659
I held my parchment lace–covered overskirt out on each side and twirled in hop steps in the center of Monsieur’s masquerade ball at le Palais des Tuileries. King Louis looked on, one hand on his hip. The gold sequined half-mask he wore matched mine exactly, ending just above the broad smile he wore while watching me. The masks fooled no one but allowed the king to move freely in public. He nudged Lully, who often put aside his violin to dance with us. Now he nodded appreciatively at the glimpse of ankle flashing beneath my skirts. Lully leapt into step beside me on the dancing floor, adding flourish wi
th a flick of the wrist here, or holding a pose a beat longer there. I started to mirror him, and soon we had a crowd of onlookers.
The violinists ended their song. Lully and I collapsed into each other, giggling.
“You must dance in the Ballet de Raillerie this season,” he said.
I’d been hoping for this invitation.
As we’d reentered Paris at the first of February, King Louis had turned to me and said, “We have but one month until the Lenten season. What shall we do?”
“Have grand fêtes,” I’d said. “Banquets, balls, masquerades, and more balls.”
He’d laughed. “Then this will be the most spectacular carnival season the court has ever seen.” He’d lined up his courtiers at the Pavillon du Roi and issued a command: Entertain us. And so it was that every evening we’d feasted, and every night we’d danced. But every morning, while dressmakers and cobblers streamed in and out of Palais Mazarin to refresh my armament and let Hortense’s bodices out at the bosom, King Louis had practiced for this season’s ballet.
Mazarin had commissioned it, as usual, but he hadn’t given parts to his Mazarinettes. A purposeful omission. Mazarin spent most of his time locked up with Colbert in his private study, outlining demands for the treaty with Spain. Or plotting how best to dispose of me. Would it be the convent? Marriage to some foreign noble, so far away I’d never see the king again? I couldn’t know.
Nor could I obtain leverage to prevent my downfall. Every night when I returned home, feet throbbing from dancing, Mazarin or Colbert was in the study, quill scribbling and candles ablaze, blocking access to my uncle’s chest of letters. Mornings were the same. When I wasn’t home, Moréna always found someone there. Even Philippe traveled back and forth from the musketeer garrisons to work for Mazarin in hopes of gaining a moment to search. I must have my proof.
But for now I smiled at Lully, watching King Louis approach from the corner of my eye. “We must ask the king if I should take part in the Ballet de Raillerie.” Though I already knew what he would say. He’d been scheming ways to get me onto the stage all week.
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