“We just need a little more time.” And a little push to make Mazarin show his vile side. I moved to my table and wrote Mazarin a letter full of reassurances that I would obey him, that I trusted him to decide my future, and that I would never write to the king again. Lies, all. Then I dipped my quill into ink and wrote to the king, confessing love and adoration in the most affectionate terms.
I gave the cardinal’s letter to his courier.
Then I slipped the king’s letter to Terron, saying, “This letter should fall into the wrong hands.”
“Are you sure?” Terron asked.
It would cause a firestorm. “I am.”
* * *
Days later, Venelle paced my chamber like a caged cat. “Cardinal Mazarin has both of your letters.” She didn’t catch me hide my smile. “He calls you the most deceitful woman ever to live and breathe. He wrote to tell King Louis so in a scathing letter.” She stared at me. “Marie, I really would rather not be forced to travel all the way to Rome!”
She shouldn’t have admitted that.
* * *
King Louis sent me the scathing letter a week later. The cardinal had actually called me uncontrollable, ambitious, contrary, unreasonable, and worse, claiming I possessed not a single good quality. I read it to Hortense.
She frowned. “An ambitious woman makes weak men feel threatened.”
“The cardinal says he will resign and take me to Italy himself.” The final gauntlet.
“What did the king write back?” asked Hortense.
“He wrote Mazarin with rebukes for treating me harshly.” I looked both letters over. “But that is all the king shared.”
“Is this what you were hoping for?”
“My only choice was to force the matter or run.” Now either the king would send for me, or the cardinal would come for me.
* * *
That night I made my sisters drag my bedstead to the window so I could watch the hills. My very skin crawled. Half of me wanted to run to Brouage, and half of me wanted to run straight to the king. But I stayed. I waited. And I watched the dark horizon.
The king’s messenger rode down the hills at midnight. He was alone, guiding himself by a torch he held aloft. I leapt from my bed and met the man at the door. He handed me a short letter, panting. I read it while running back to my chamber.
Your uncle offered his resignation if I didn’t give final instruction in the matter of article twenty-three. I told him to be gone if he wished. Then, to prevent him from sending agents to accost you, I aimed to placate him by ordering him to keep article twenty-three with a postponed wedding date. It was an attempt to borrow time and be neatly rid of him, which rebounded in ways I failed to foresee. He altered the date, pretended this was my consent, then signed the article as if I had approved it. He dispatched an embassy to Madrid with the official offer of marriage before telling me. My love, I beg you to forgive me, for in trying to trick the man into letting me have you, he has signed my freedom away. I am beside myself, nay, I would rather fall on my sword than go through with this, and I beg you to tell me what you would have me do.
L
I didn’t drop to the floor and cry. I didn’t rage and tear out my hair. I grabbed the bell and rang it like hell for the servants. I called for Hortense and Venelle, Moréna and Marianne. Everyone ran in at the same time.
“Pack essentials. Call up the carriage. Do not wake Terron. We leave for Brouage immediately.”
Venelle put out her hand. “It is the middle of the night. Besides, we go nowhere without the cardinal’s permission.”
I must have looked frightful, all skin and bones in my shift, clinging to that letter. “The cardinal has bested me. He has the king’s marriage proposal signed and dated, and my security has dried up fast as the ink he used to forge the king’s signature.”
Venelle waved me off. “He is your uncle. He wouldn’t hurt you.”
“Clearly you haven’t known many Italians,” I said. “The cardinal has what he wants. He no longer needs to be good to me in order to appease the king. He will come for me. We flee for Brouage or you will be disposed in Rome with me.”
It took Venelle only a moment before jumping to action, packing and dressing.
I flashed gold coins to the servants. I promised them payment to conceal our destination from Mazarin’s men and follow us to Brouage with our belongings in a week. Moréna dragged my cassone to the courtyard. I ordered the coachmen to harness Trojan at the head of the team.
“Please,” begged Hortense, hugging a frightened Marianne as the driver whipped the horses into motion. “Wake Terron. They’ll never let us enter the citadel of Brouage alone.”
“We mustn’t make our uncle suspect Terron. He is my only link to King Louis.”
As we raced south of the city walls, we spotted torchlights moving down the hills toward La Rochelle. Venelle gaped in amazement, but I leaned from the window and screamed to the coachman, “Drive like the devil himself is at your back!”
CHAPTER 45
The coachman knew the way. We reached the salt marshes of Hiers-Brouage well before dawn, and the white walls of the citadel loomed along the moonlit bay. Lights gleamed from the watchtowers.
Hortense studied the angular demibastions of the hornwork and said, “There’s no way in.” She looked back the way we’d come, but I knew we hadn’t been followed.
I called to the driver, “Take us along the bay side to the Royal Gate.”
Hortense and Venelle exchanged doubtful looks, but the driver found the narrow archway tucked into the shadows of a curtain wall, and we soon halted. Our coachman pounded on the gate while we climbed from the carriage.
At last a door within the gate opened and a bearded man appeared, looking us over. The clink of keys hanging from his belt marked him as governor. “Be gone! We’re in the service of His Majesty, and we don’t welcome guests.”
Our coachman held his lantern aloft so the man could see me clearly.
I smiled. “But you will welcome me, for I come in His Majesty’s name.”
The bearded governor squinted. “Who are you?”
“My name is Marie Mancini.”
The man’s eyes widened. So it is true. Everyone, even in the farthest reaches of France, knows of me. He rubbed his face, considering. “Cardinal Mazarin’s niece.”
I shook my head and tossed him a gold ecu. “Today I am His Majesty’s guest. He will pay you and your men to house and protect me and my women.” I gestured to Venelle and my sisters. “But you’re to keep your fortress closed to Cardinal Mazarin.”
He weighed the gold in his hand. “Never thought I’d see the king’s woman at these gates.”
The king’s woman. Not queen. Not mistress. “What I am remains to be seen, sir, and depends on whether I have your protection.”
He nodded, stepped back. “Welcome to the citadel of Brouage.”
Soldiers showed us to quarters built for my uncle’s predecessor. Damp and unused, they were mostly unfurnished. While the soldiers dragged in floor pallets, I sat at the cold hearth and wrote a letter to the cardinal.
“Why write to him when we’ve barely escaped him?” asked Hortense.
“We are protected here, though not for long. The only way I can hope for better terms from the cardinal is to submit.”
“Does that mean you’ve truly given up?”
I held my quill over the foolscap and considered it. “I don’t know.”
* * *
Our servants arrived days later with Terron in the lead. The governor of Brouage asked my permission before admitting him.
“When the Cardinal’s Guards didn’t find you at La Rochelle, they left quietly,” Terron said to me as servants unpacked tapestries and carpets and bedding. “They feared a pursuit would be too public. You should have told me of your plans to flee.”
“I couldn’t implicate you because I need you to help free my brother. I’m not certain how long I can hold out here without reinforcements.
”
Terron shook his head. “Philippe won’t be released until the king is safely married, and that wedding has been postponed until spring.”
It was what I suspected he’d say, but I had to hide my disappointment.
“Word has gotten out that you’re here,” said Terron, tossing a packet of letters on the table. Most were to me from the king. Some were to Hortense.
“Tell Meilleraye to stop writing to Hortense. He may send his requests for her hand to the cardinal.” I paused. “I wrote to Mazarin agreeing to end my affair with the king.”
Terron seemed stunned. “The king is desperate to hear from you. You could still elope.”
I felt my soul rise up to the notion. Elope! “The king won’t risk losing his kingdom for me.”
Terron leaned close. “He is making plans to marry you in secret. You could sail from Brouage to Bordeaux to meet him. Will you do it if he sends for you?”
“If we elope, what will happen to the peace treaty? Tell me the truth. What does your cousin Colbert say?” I glanced at Venelle, who cast us a glance from where she stood unpacking linens.
Terron hesitated. “Without the marriage, there will be no peace.”
Why am I hesitating? “Forgive me, Terron, I must think it over.”
CHAPTER 46
The city of Brouage was mostly contained within the walls of the citadel itself, and it bustled with business. The market stalls and shops, run by soldiers and their wives, sold goods fresh off ships in the port. Venelle let us explore within the walls on our own, affording a confined sort of freedom. People went about their business and let us alone.
Few farms dotted the marshy horizon, but fishermen bobbed on the ocean, shell fishers dug on the shore, and men worked the interlocking salt ponds, raking damp salt beds and shoveling dry salt into barrows. New merchant ships drifted in and out of the port daily, sailing in from exotic eastern lands, trading for salt, and embarking to sell their treasures to the colonies of New France and Canada. Venelle let me ride Trojan down the shore and back once a day, instructing the soldiers to observe me from the watchtowers.
I lived for those rides—the salt spray in my face, the rush of the ocean falling into rhythm with the cantor of Trojan’s hoofs. It was the only time I felt at peace.
I kept my word to my uncle for once. I didn’t write to the king. For weeks I ignored the hollow sick feeling inside. I lost myself in the seaside rides and refused to give Terron an answer. The king’s letters arrived every day as his court crept south, finally settling in Provence to await the outcome of Mazarin’s negotiations. The weather cooled. Gradually the tone of the king’s letters changed from desperate to angry to pleading. Reading them robbed me of all hard-won peace.
* * *
“What is that?” cried Venelle at the doorway of our chambers after we’d been at Brouage a month.
Terron’s voice sounded. “A gift from the king to Mademoiselle Mancini.” He bent to deposit his bundle on the floor. It bounded across the chamber in my direction.
“A puppy!” I cried, scooping the little fur ball into my arms. She licked my face and hands. “Is she from Frippon’s litter?”
“Indeed. Just weaned.” Terron smiled proudly.
The leather collar around her neck had a silver plate engraved with the words I belong to Marie Mancini. I felt my heart both swell with joy and ache with longing. “Then I shall call her Frip.”
Terron knelt beside me as I inspected my new spaniel. He blocked Venelle’s view with his body and slipped me a letter. “You still haven’t given your answer.”
Ah, but the king hadn’t sent for me, either.
I reached into my hanging pocket and tossed Terron a different sort of letter, one Olympia had recently written to me. “Tell me why I should believe the king loves me when he has fallen into Olympia’s clutches.”
He looked the letter over. “The queen mother must have put her up to sending this.”
“Do you deny it?” I asked. “Can you honestly tell me the king doesn’t frequent her chambers, dine every meal with her, dance with her, and play cards with her for hours as she claims? Have they rekindled their affair?”
He hesitated. “I … I have heard rumor of it. He even offered her the position of dame d’honneur of the new queen’s bedchamber.”
I watched Frip gnaw the hem of my skirts. “The king keeps me hanging on to hopes, plying me with love letters and gifts, all while continuing his slow march to the marriage altar. He doesn’t want me for his wife. He thinks he’ll make me his mistress.” I took a breath. “But I am no Olympia. I won’t be his mistress.”
“Your uncle finalized the last of the articles of his peace treaty, though it won’t be ratified until the wedding. He is retiring to Provence with the court to wait.”
“The court will talk of my downfall. What humiliation.”
Terron leaned close. “Once Mazarin and his guards get to Provence, it will be more difficult for the king to arrange an elopement. Act. Tell the king you are prepared to meet him in secret.”
I shook my head. “Did my uncle tell you he offered to arrange a marriage for me? He suggested Lorenzo Colonna, prince of Paliano, Constable of Naples, the preeminent nobleman of Rome.” This match would finally ally France and Naples. A new Naples Plan that made me bitter. “Though I would prefer someone like the Prince of Lorraine so I could remain in France.”
Terron stood to go. “Decide. Before it’s too late.”
* * *
Terron left, and I peeked at the king’s letter. He longed to hold me, to kiss me, to receive a letter from me. He didn’t send for me. He was waiting for me to act. I knew King Louis couldn’t fulfill his destiny as a great king without peace. Did I really want to be the cause of death, destruction, pillaging, food shortages, and heartache for the poor French, whom my uncle had already extorted? Letting Louis marry Spain would heal his nation … though it would break his heart.
I carried Frip past the bastion fortifications and demilunes of the citadel, down to the shore. I walked beyond the busy port of Brouage until it looked like a harbor of model ships. I passed the interlocking salt ponds, where men stopped raking to watch me. I settled on a dune and thought for hours. Herons hovered on the breeze, and shorebirds poked the wet sand with their long beaks. Frip fell asleep in my lap, and I imagined my many cares washed away by the ebbing tide.
Though I had taught him much about how to be a noble king, my work in King Louis was not yet complete. But I am afraid to elope. Hadn’t my father predicted I would leave my husband? Sunset brought Venelle and the soldiers out to find me. I wondered, whether I married King Louis or not, was I was destined to hurt him?
CHAPTER 47
November 1659
Compacts and contracts of witches with devils and all infernal spirits or familiars are but erroneous novelties and imaginary conceptions.
—REGINALD SCOT, The Discoverie of Witchcraft
A week later, Marianne smacked her lips, eyes wide with delight as she handed a coin to the old sailor who ran a bakery within the walls of Brouage. In exchange, he handed her a few sugared candies from the holy land he’d traded for at the port.
She popped a nebât into her mouth. “Mmm!”
“You spend all your money on sugared candy,” said Hortense. “You’re going to get a stomachache again.”
Marianne wrinkled her nose at Hortense. “Marie will give me more money.” Had I been in the mood, I’d have laughed. I’d discovered how to keep Marianne from reporting my every last word to Venelle; she was cheaply bought.
Venelle had become so comfortable with our explorations within the walls of Brouage that Marianne could gorge herself on sweets every day. Today we strolled toward the little church for mass for wont of anything better to do.
But Hortense stopped at the opening of an apothecary shop. “There’s something I need.”
Curious, I followed her. Marianne trailed behind us, content with her candy. The scent of spices and tang
of tinctures permeated the air. Hortense poked around the shelves, studying labels, swirling jars of liquid, and occasionally uncorking bottles to take a sniff. Finally she grabbed a jar of dried bugs and held them out to me, triumphant.
“Cochineal,” I said. “Are you going to make rouge?”
She grabbed a block of wax wrapped in parchment, shaking her head. “It is for my lips. Isn’t it time I started dressing the part of a fine lady like you and Olympia?”
I studied my sister. When had she gotten so tall? Her breasts bulged at the décolletage of her bodice. Her face had lost its youthful chubbiness, and her skin glowed with vitality. I thought of Olympia’s special red and searched the shelves. I grabbed a bottle of rosewood oil. “This will soften the wax, which is what you want for lip paint. And it will balance out the rather nasty taste of the powdered bugs.”
“Will you teach me how to make it?”
“You know I will.”
She grinned, taking her prizes to the shopkeeper. Marianne counted out the candies in her hand, making sucking noises and ignoring us. I scanned the shelves, studying the many powders and dried flowers. As I turned a corner, I spotted a man in a turban. He grinned at me. The Arabian from La Rochelle. How did he get into Brouage?
Moréna!
“Tell your fortune?” His French was heavily accented.
I shook my head. “I know how to read palms.”
“You read the stars, too.” He reached into the front of his tunic and withdrew an old astrological almanac. “But not your own until now.” He handed the booklet to me.
I stared at the numbers 1638, then rifled through the pages. At last. An ephemeris from my birth year. A plan materialized. A way to find the answers I sought.
The man leaned in. “I can cast it for you.”
I studied him. “Thank you, but I must use my father’s methods. They were … unconventional.”
He gave me a slight bow and left the store. I gave him time before following.
“What did you find?” asked Hortense, cradling her parcel.
“You know me,” I said, tucking the book under my arm. “Always one to find something boring to read. Let’s not go to mass today. We should go back to our quarters and start mixing that lip paint.”
Enchantress of Paris Page 26
