Our queen has announced that she will not appear today, which has led to a loud grumbling among those who came with a hope to see her. Never mind that she has left word that all who come are to be fed—not only on these premises, but given food to take home to their families. Still, they raise blackened fists into the air and curse her generous heart.
“Thinking she’ll buy our love with the scraps from her table.”
Bertrand is right: I’ve never known this level of hunger or despair. Some of the men and women lingering in the courtyard might be mistaken for corpses abandoned there, if not for the curses they manage to utter at the nobles who pass by. They do not beg, though. No man sits with his cap upturned; no woman asks aloud for food. It seems they subsist on anger and pride.
Midstep, I feel a small tug on my skirt and look down into the wide brown eyes of a child. His hair is a tangled mass of golden curls, his face pinched but beautiful. He gives me a shy smile, revealing tiny teeth with spaces wide between them.
“C’est belle,” he says, tracing a tiny finger—no wider than new-spun wool—along my patchwork patterns. I can see why he would find it so beautiful. What he wears is little more than a rag draped over his shoulder. A shirt, really, tattered and torn at the hem so as to clearly reveal his gender. The woman who might be his mother is nearby, listless in watching the child.
“Merci beaucoup.” I reach for his curls, which are soft, despite the rest of his dirty appearance. “Your hair is pretty, too.”
The woman comes closer and draws him to her own threadbare skirt. “Do you think Her Majesty would want him?”
“Want him?” The question is so shocking I can only repeat it.
“I know he wouldn’t be one of them, but she just lost her boy. Mine’s about the same age. She could have him, might bring her some comfort. And I can’t—”
“Madame!” I look to the boy, who is too entranced by the pattern of my skirt to give any comment, if he could even understand. “You mustn’t . . .”
But already she is walking away. I pick the boy up; though his mother says he is the same age as Louis-Joseph, who was seven years old, this child weighs nothing, even less than Louis-Charles, who is only four. I walk swiftly to catch up with her, not wanting to frighten the boy by running, and I clutch at her shirt the same as he’d clutched at my skirt, though the gentleness in my touch is for fear that the garment will dissolve in my grasp.
“Wait,” I say, holding both the mother and the child. “Wait here, and I’ll bring you something to eat. Have you eaten yet today?”
Her eyes answer. They are utterly without color, the bones in her face sharp beneath her skin.
“And while you wait . . .” I dig into my pocket and produce a length of yarn, its ends tied in a knot. I look to the mother. “You know how to play cat’s cradle, non? You played when you were a little girl?”
Something sparks, and she nods, lips a silent seal.
I loop the yarn in a simple pattern and hold it out to her. She hooks her fingers, so crusted with dirt I can hear them scrape against the wool, and takes it from me in a new configuration. The boy looks on, fascinated.
“You know,” I say, “I was playing cat’s cradle with this very string with the young dauphin just this morning. Stay here, teach your son, and I’ll be back. Will you wait for me?”
Stunned, and maybe confused, she nods again, then sits down right in the middle of the bustling courtyard, bids her son sit in front of her, and begins the game.
Now I run.
In the children’s apartment, their table is set for lunch. Rather, they’ve finished, based on the dirty dishes scattered about, and nobody’s bothered to clear up. Today, this works in my favor. I dig through the sideboard and find a cloth, fold it into a smaller square, and fill its center with all I find on the table. Bread, fruit, cheese, pastries. I tie the corners together in a bundle and am about to rush back to the courtyard when another thought occurs.
A wreath hangs on the door to Louis-Joseph’s room, and I allow only a single breath of hesitation before opening it and stepping into the gray light from curtains drawn against the sun. I’ll need more light to complete my errand. I step to the drapes, but before I can pull them open, a voice bids me, “Stop.”
Familiar as it is, I jump at the sound and spin to see her curled upon his bed.
“Forgive me, Your Majesty.” I forget altogether to curtsy, but it is only the two of us here in the shadows.
“They won’t let me speak of him. We royals, we are not to associate ourselves with death, you know. This idea of immortality, one king’s life passing into his heir. One breath to the next. We are not to allow the shadow to linger. We are not to—what is the word?”
“Faire le deuil,” I say. To mourn.
“That is it. They’ve taken everything from me. Everything. And all I’ve tried to do is be a good wife. And a good mother. And a good queen—but how? When God himself is against me? Starving my people. Stealing my children. No wonder they hate me.”
She is dressed, still, in her nightclothes. Her hair, loose and long, spreads against the silk pillow. I set the bundle of food down on the floor, walk over, and kneel at the bedside, her face inches away. I tell her about the woman in the courtyard, her hunger and weakness, and her boy.
“He is beautiful, madame. Golden hair and big brown eyes. And the mother, she asked me if . . . if you would want to take him. She knows you lost your son, and she is willing to give her son to you.”
“All the better for her boy,” the queen says. “Not out of affection for me.”
“There has to be some affection, wouldn’t you say? Some trust? If she is willing to give up her child? Anyway, I’m here to fetch some food for them, and I thought—if you wouldn’t mind—the boy is practically naked. I thought, if there were some clothes. Something he could wear.”
I realize I am in the midst of confessing to the theft of the dead dauphin’s clothing, but she doesn’t seem to mind. Instead, she sits up and says, “Bring them to me.”
“Here?”
“No, to my chambers. Take what you want from here and bring them to me.”
She leaves, and with renewed purpose I rifle through all the clothing that will never be worn again. His formal ceremonial clothing has already been either stored or destroyed. Here I find all that has been forgotten—plain wool breeches, shirts of dark linen to hide stains of play and illness. Much of it seems never to have been worn. I finally settle on a simple complete suit, including a little coat. I can tell it is too large for the boy right now, but it should fit for a year or more, and well I remember wearing the same clothing through several ages.
I’m relieved to find the woman and child exactly where I left them, though my cat’s cradle ring is now dangling from the boy’s mouth. Quickly I explain that the queen will have an audience in her private chamber, and that they are to follow me. Inexplicably, this announcement sparks nothing in the woman’s eyes, and I wonder if she fully understands what I propose. Still, she follows without question, leaving me to manage carrying both bundles—the clothing and the food—while also keeping the boy safe beside me.
When we arrive at the queen’s chambers, Bertrand stands guard, eyeing me with more suspicion than he affords my ragged companion.
“What’s happening, Renée? First she sneaks away, and now . . .” He shifts his gaze to the woman next to me.
“The queen has asked for her,” I say. “May we pass? I can explain everything later.”
He steps aside, and I’m puffed with pride, knowing the man charged with our queen’s safety will bend to me.
She waits in her antechamber, poised on her settee as though she were receiving a peer. She’s donned a simple day dress and has her hair tucked up in a cap, looking, I’m sure, nothing like this woman believed a queen to be. The little boy is drawn to her immediately, responding to her beckoning gesture, but the woman holds back, eyes fixed on the ornate carpet.
All aspects of protocol
and manners are set aside for the moment. I make no introduction, as the woman remains stone silent when I ask her name, and the queen abandons all formality.
“I lost two sons,” she says, skipping all the niceties of polite conversation. “The first to death. The second to the state. Because they do that, you know. Take him away. Give him a title and a purpose other than playing at his mother’s feet. So, my good woman, cherish what you have here. He is a beautiful boy. Pray that he has a long life. That he will grow up to have an honest trade. What is his name?”
“It can be what you want it to be, madame.”
For a moment, it seems the queen might, in fact, take the boy. She touches his dirty face and studies it, as if gauging how it will appear in portraiture. The artists could simply touch their brushes to Louis-Joseph’s eyes, shading them to this dark chestnut brown, adding hints of burnished gold to his hair. This boy who could, like a weed, thrive on nothing—imagine the strength he could bring to the throne. Why had no one thought of this before? It is clear that she wants to embrace him, to take him in her arms and draw him into her lap, and I know if she does, he’ll never leave the palace again. With visible restraint, she takes her hand away and withdraws into the public persona befitting her station.
“Take him home, madame. I will not take a child from his mother. But come back—send him back when he is of age, and I will see—”
“He won’t live that long, madame.” She is desperately brave, for even she must know better than to interrupt the queen.
“I’ll see to it that you have food. See? The girl there already—”
“Food today is not food tomorrow.”
“If you are alive tomorrow, come tomorrow. If the next day, come again.”
“Oui, madame,” she says obediently. She takes both bundles from me, her face unchanged from the moment I first saw her in the courtyard. The boy has remained silent throughout this exchange, the soggy string clutched in his fist.
I’m told to escort her out to the courtyard, and I do not meet Bertrand’s glance as we leave. The walk from the queen’s chambers is just as silent as the walk to them, though my steps are heavier, bereft of hope. Somehow I know this woman will feed her son but not herself. I know, too, that she will not return when the food is gone. In a few days’ time, all will be as it was before the boy ever reached out to my skirt. For her, at least. I, on the other hand, am forever changed. My love for my queen has been magnified tenfold, as has my frustration with her people. Bertrand may guard her person, but as long as I am able, I will guard her heart.
L’épisode 22
Laurette
* * *
PARIS
* * *
Laurette awoke to pounding on the door. She’d come back to bed after spending the dark hours of the morning standing in line for bread, only to be turned away like the twenty women in front of her when the supply was depleted. Marcel was leaving when she walked through the door, vowing to return with something before the end of the day.
“Ouvrez! Ouvrez!”
She knew the knocking was a leftover politeness from better days. The door had only a flimsy twig of a latch, and they had no right at all to lock it. Marcel had handed Monsieur Jaunir, the yellow-toothed, pock-faced landlord, a small stack of coins the day he walked Laurette over the threshold. She’d not witnessed another such transaction since.
“He’s one of us,” Marcel soothed whenever she voiced her trepidation. “A brother won’t throw another into the street.”
But the fist slamming into the door seemed quite capable of doing just that.
“Ouvrez! Ouvrez la porte!”
Laurette sat, knees pulled up to her chin, hoping to be still and small enough to disappear in the dimness. Marcel would be unperturbed by the situation, using his tongue as currency to secure another month. Or week, or day. She knew better than to plan for any longer range. Not for her life, or for the life growing within. Two months along, she figured. More experienced with the birthing of lambs than babies, her crude calculations predicted a child born midwinter.
A child still unknown to its father.
The pounding increased in volume and ferocity as the shabby wood bowed with the impact. She couldn’t cower forever, and Jaunir showed no signs of going away, so with little choice she unfolded from the bed shouting, “Arrêtez! Arrêtez!” between blows. She pushed the latch to the side and opened the door, stepping away lest Jaunir’s fist make a final statement.
Instead, the man himself stormed in. “Where is your man?” He looked around the space as if it afforded a place to hide, then to her when it was clear she was alone. The leer on his face suppressed any notion she had of telling the truth—that she had no idea where Marcel was, nor of when he would return.
“He’s due back any moment. Five minutes,” she said. “Just going to fetch some breakfast from a friend.”
“That’s a lie.” He kept his feet planted but loomed closer with each word. He must have been substantially fat before the famine, because his jowls sagged like empty water skins on each side of his face, turning each pockmarked dint into a tiny pocket. “He left hours ago, caught up with that rabble—”
“Then why are you looking for him here?” Her head swam with hunger and fear, but she forced her body to steady itself under his threatening posture.
Jaunir smiled, grunted something that must have been intended for a laugh, and held out a grubby hand. “Your rent, mademoiselle. Now.”
“Marcel has all of our money.”
“Does he? Then he must have some empty pockets now, am I right?”
“He’ll be back this afternoon, I’m sure of it. Or better—” she took a step to the side—“I can go find him. Stop him before he spends it all elsewhere. Give you what we can.”
Jaunir mirrored her step. “What you can give me is all that I’m owed.”
“I can’t.” She held his gaze. “Not right now.”
“You underestimate yourself.” His meaning could not have been more clear as the empty hand, once reaching for rent, filled itself with flesh barely concealed by her nightdress. Revulsion roiled within her, and she looked away, hoping to prevail upon some hidden good nature. Instead he released her, turned, closed the door, and slid the latch back into place.
A fear like none she’d ever known quickened, entwining itself with her weakness, threatening to take her legs away. “S’il-vous plaît, Monsieur Jaunir,” she said, forcing a tone of calm respect, as if entering any civilized transaction. “My husband—”
“Will be pleased that his woman has taken down what he owes by half.” He bent to bury his hot breath in the hollow of her shoulder, his hands immediately gripping the tender flesh of her thigh.
“Monsieur,” she pleaded, abandoning all pretense of strength, “s’il-vous plaît, Monsieur Jaunir.” But the weakness in her voice seemed only to fuel his intentions. Laurette looked to the window as her only escape, the inevitable injury or death in her fall a welcome alternative to the fate that awaited in this room. Finding some reserve, she pushed against him. “Non!”
“Slut!” He moved his grip up to her arms. “This is my room, isn’t it? My bed. You are here at my pleasure, and now you are here for my pleasure. Fight me, and I’ll take it all as what you owe and throw you out after.”
Laurette felt the edge of the bed up against the backs of her legs. She fought her own paralysis as violently as she did his ardent pursuit, flailing and twisting, anything to keep her body in motion, his target deflected. Screaming would do no good—hadn’t she herself heard cries from women at all hours of the day and night? “Desperate men take desperate action,” Marcel had said by way of explanation. “We’ve been taught to victimize our own.” No one would come to her rescue. Only she could defend her honor and her body, though neither seemed deserving. Then a source of strength, as small as the second heart beating within her, grew to life. Resisting and evading his manipulations, she found a pocket of space and an unguarded moment to buck ag
ainst him, bringing her knee up for a sharp, satisfying collision. Cursing, he fell away, giving her time to leap up and stand above his writhing figure.
“I’ll not let you have me nor harm my child.” Child. It was her first time to say the word aloud. Jaunir’s face registered a passing disgust, but even he seemed unwilling to rape a pregnant woman.
“Get out,” he said, his voice no more than a wheeze at first. “I mean it. For good.” He made his way to the door with an ungainly step. Opening it, he turned. “I’ll be back within the hour. If you’re still here, I won’t be so forgiving.”
“I—I have to wait for my . . . for Marcel.”
Jaunir spat at her feet. “Then you’d better hope he returns before I do. And that he finds a way to take care of his family. From the looks of it, you and that bastard both will be dead before the week’s end. Just as well you’ll be out of my hands.”
When he was gone, Laurette felt her body turn to sand and fell heavily to the floor, her head pressed against the sour mattress. Her ears rang with her silenced scream, and she pounded her fist against the floor, welcoming the pain. Only after, her emotion spent, did she hear the sound coming from the street. Great shouts growing louder in a unified refrain. Summoning strength, she crawled to the window, peeking just above the sill to see a wave of humanity moving in a single direction.
“À la Bastille! À la Bastille!”
Surely Marcel must be among them. With a remaining tremor in her hands, Laurette dropped her linen shirt over her head and tied her skirt around her waist. A single bag of rough canvas would have to hold all their belongings, of which there were few: her hairbrush, a stub of a candle, their one cup. Marcel had a leather portfolio of his amassed papers—pamphlets, newspaper clippings, meaningless scribbles on cheap, thick paper in what she recognized as his hand. In an action heretofore forbidden, she untied the string holding the papers secure and laid it open wide. The stack within was untidy, and as she gathered the loose papers scattered beyond it, she took them up, laying them one atop the other. The back of her mind remained conscious of Jaunir’s threatened imminent return, but the luxury of this rebellious moment stilled time.
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