Plague of Lies (9781101611739)

by Rock, Judith

  Heels echoed on the chapel floor, and Charles turned from his unsuccessful praying to see who had come in. It was the Prince of Conti, and Charles watched him go briskly to a side altar where, instead of kneeling, Conti went up the two small steps and bent over the altar. Something about the man’s intent stillness brought Charles to his feet. Most courtiers were said to be up to their ears in gambling debts, and a wild suspicion that Conti was stealing the gold and jeweled candlesticks went through his mind. Telling himself that he was growing as insane as the rest of Versailles, Charles went quietly across the chapel. But Conti’s hearing was as good as his own.

  “Bonjour, maître.” The young man turned and came quickly down the altar steps. “You see how our good Madame de Maintenon has honored your gift.” He gestured gracefully at the altar, and Charles saw that Jouvancy’s gold-and-lapis reliquary stood between the candlesticks.

  “She wants it to be seen here before she takes it to Saint Cyr,” Conti said, smiling.

  Chiding himself for labeling everything the man said as mockery, Charles said, “I am glad to see it here, Your Serene Highness. Our college is indeed honored. Have you come to pray to Saint Ursula?”

  “Of course! I assure you, I have a great devotion to Saint Ursula and her companions, the eleven thousand pious virgins.” Conti grinned at Charles.

  “Commendable,” Charles replied, who couldn’t help but think that the handsome young prince might indeed be devoted to virgins, but probably not in the way presently under discussion.

  “I was perhaps not listening closely at the presentation—but I do remember the priest saying that the bone inside the cross is a finger.”

  Charles nodded.

  “So one might pray here for—direction, shall we say? That the holy saint will point the way? To the speeding of one’s purposes?”

  “Depending on the purposes you wish to speed, Your Serene Highness.”

  “But of course.” Conti laughed and put a hand on Charles’s sleeve. “Are you always so righteous?” He squeezed Charles’s arm. “What a shame,” Conti sighed. “You might be very—ah—entertaining if you were a little more—unrighteous, shall we say?” He sauntered away, giving Charles a regretful glance over his shoulder as he went through the chapel door.

  Charles’s hands twitched, and he had an unholy urge to throttle the man.

  “Point him toward something he’ll trip over, Holy Virgin,” he suggested to St. Ursula, and went in search of Lulu.

  He didn’t find her until the late-morning Mass, when he saw her in the train of courtiers gathering in the Hall of Mirrors to follow the king to the chapel. The gray day had taken the magic out of the Hall of Mirrors’ light, but the crowd had brought its own glitter in its bright, shimmering clothes and gold-set jewels. Lulu, dressed in gray silk and straw-yellow lace, seeming as quenched as the day’s light, stood beside a silver-potted orange tree, twisting one leaf after another from its branches. The king came from his counsel room, accompanied by the Polish ambassadors, and paced toward the chapel, everyone making a deep reverence to the royal presence and moving slowly after him. Louis glanced at Charles as he passed and gave him a slight nod of acknowledgment. Dismayed at being singled out, Charles belatedly whipped off his formal bonnet and bowed his head. And remained staring at the carpet. Had the king’s look meant that he knew of the plan to quiet Lulu, and approved? Among the many things Charles did not want, the attention of Louis XIV was high on the list.

  He looked up just in time to step into the flood of courtiers behind Lulu and her women. When the king and his retinue, including La Chaise, turned aside to go up into the royal gallery facing the altar, Charles crowded into the nave with the rest and found an unobtrusive place to stand near a wall. The Mass began, but he was too taken up with deciding how to approach Lulu to do any better with his devotions than he had earlier. When the service ended, he jockeyed for position in the moving crowd, trying to keep the king’s daughter in sight. As he passed through the chapel door, fortune—or perhaps St. Ursula—smiled on him and Lulu dropped her prayer book, which slid on the shining marble floor and came to rest at his feet. Charles swooped on it, pretending not to notice that one of her women had bent to retrieve it, and straightened with it in his hand.

  “Your Highness?” He stepped around the affronted attendant and bowed, holding out the prayer book. “Allow me to restore this to you.”

  The girl’s pale, somber face lightened. “Oh, it’s you.” She nodded at the listening woman, who took the book from Charles. “Thank you, maître.” She hesitated and then said, “Will you walk with me?”

  Surprised by the invitation, and even more surprised that it was given without coquetry, Charles nodded. As she gestured her women to make room for him to walk at her side, Charles saw that Anne-Marie, the Condé child, was among them, cuddling her little black dog. He smiled at her, somehow reassured by her presence, and fell into step with Lulu.

  “Are you going to your dinner, Your Highness?” he asked.

  “Not yet.” She sighed. “Shall we walk outside? The rain has stopped.”

  “As you please.”

  She led him to a door opening onto the gravel that led to the gardens. As he opened the door for her, she dismissed her women with a wave of her hand. The one carrying the prayer book started to object, but Lulu talked over her.

  “Surely you can trust me with a cleric! Leave us. Not you, Anne-Marie, you may come.”

  Gathering her gray skirts, Lulu swept through the door, and little Anne-Marie ran to keep up with her. Charles bowed gravely to the startled attendants, did his best to shut the door without seeming to close it in their faces, and followed. Lulu’s subdued quiet had vanished and she strode across the puddled gravel, indifferent to the little girl’s anxious warning of wet shoes and splattered hems. The vitality that made her seem twice as alive as other people swirled around her like a whirlwind. Feeling a little like a foolish chicken chasing a hungry fox, Charles caught up and kept pace with her. She flashed him a look, and in the harsher outdoor light he saw the shadows under her eyes and how pale she was.

  “Aren’t you also going to tell me it’s too wet, that I should go in?”

  “No.”

  “Are you so eager to be alone with me, then? You weren’t yesterday.”

  “We’re not alone. And no, I’m not eager to be alone with you.”

  She spun to face him in a spray of water. “That is an insult!”

  “I imagine you don’t often receive truthful answers.”

  For a moment he thought she might slap him. Instead, she burst into tears and Anne-Marie looked reproachfully at him. Charles, certain that the tears were a ploy, said nothing. Lulu drew a small transparent handkerchief from the little bag hanging at her waist, wiped her eyes, burst into fresh sobs, and stumbled away from him along a garden path. Maybe not a ploy, Charles decided, and went after her, smiling reassuringly at Anne-Marie, who was at Lulu’s heels with a fresh handkerchief. Lulu stumbled again, and he caught her arm to keep her from falling. She mopped her face with the little girl’s handkerchief and stood catching her breath and staring down at the path. Charles thought she looked like a beautiful but bedraggled young bird, flown from the nest too soon and lost, and his heart suddenly went out to her.

  “I would suggest we sit somewhere,” he said, “but it’s too wet.”

  “You can go back,” she said drearily. “Anne-Marie and I will come to no harm here. You can tell my women where I am, if it makes you feel better. The old one will be hanging by the door still. She never wants me to have a moment away from her. Ever since this betrothal, I can hardly ever get away from my guards.” Her eyes slewed sideways to Charles. “But sometimes I used to.”

  “Would you care to walk more, then? Instead of going back to your guards? It’s not quite the same as being alone, but you could pretend I’m a tree.” He grinned at the little girl. “Anne-Marie could be a bush.”

  Anne-Marie eyed him. “And what would he be?”
she said, holding up her dog.

  “Um—still a dog, I think. Dogs are often better company than people. So you are alone, Your Highness, except for a tree, a bush, and a dog.”

  Lulu was laughing in spite of herself. “You are nearly as tall as a tree.”

  The three of them followed the path quietly, the dog running ahead. The sky was beginning to clear, and the day was promising the thick heat that followed summer rain. But the air was clean and sweet, and Charles was glad to be outdoors. They wandered for some minutes without speaking, Charles letting Lulu choose their direction. She turned aside beneath a rose arbor, and when they were all under it, she reached up and pulled at a tangle of branches, showering them with glistening raindrops. Anne-Marie shrieked and covered her little blue lace and ribbon fontange, but Lulu threw her head back and laughed, suddenly shining with life again.

  “There! Now you’re all as wet as I am!”

  Charles took off his bonnet and shook the water from it. “You seem to feel better. Crying often does that, I find.”

  Both girls looked at him curiously. Anne-Marie, walking now on Charles’s other side, said, “Do you cry, too?”

  “Everyone does.”

  “My father doesn’t.” Lulu’s tone was suddenly venomous and the words spilled out. “He’s never miserable, he only makes other people so. Especially women.” She stopped in front of Charles and faced him. “Do you know what he said when his first daughter was born? His only legitimate one. It was—oh, thirty years ago, and she soon died, but of course, he didn’t know she would and he had all the bells rung in Paris and bonfires lit. And when they asked him why he did that for a girl, he said that a daughter was something to celebrate because she would make a valuable marriage connection with some other prince. That’s all a daughter means to him.” She spat impressively into the gravel.

  “It may be true that some fathers care less for daughters, but God doesn’t make that distinction.”

  “Oh, no? Priests talk enough about Eve’s daughters and all the evil we’ve brought into the world.”

  “The story doesn’t say Eve shoved the apple down Adam’s throat. I imagine he gobbled it down and asked for another.”

  “And then blamed Eve when his belly hurt!” Lulu laughed, in spite of herself.

  “Of course he did!” Charles said, laughing, too.

  Anne-Marie, digging a thinly shod toe in the wet gravel, was watching them so somberly that Charles wondered if the little princess ever let go of her dignity long enough to behave like a child.

  “Margot’s husband was just like that,” Lulu said disgustedly, taking Charles’s arm and beginning to walk again. “The Duchess of Tuscany, I mean. You probably don’t know her. Anyway, her husband blamed her for his bellyache when he didn’t like the marriage he and my father forced her into!”

  Charles let her hold on to him, not wanting to disturb the growing confidence between them. “The Duchess of Tuscany was with you in the little alcove last evening, wasn’t she?”

  “How did you know that?”

  “She came out after you and Monsieur Montmorency left.”

  “Oh.”

  Charles decided to seize the moment and hoped she wouldn’t take offense. “Your Highness, I beg you not to encourage Monsieur Montmorency. He is very much in love with you. But you must not—” He searched for words, but there was no other way to say it. “You must not use him.”

  Lulu made a dismissive noise. “At least he doesn’t want me to go to Poland! Is it my fault he throws himself at my feet whenever he can get away from your school and come here? Which is hardly ever. Anyway, you needn’t worry, I’ll probably never see him again.” A fleeting smile brightened her face. “Last night Margot kissed him, and you should have seen him blush! I wish Margot were here all the time. She’s the only one who really knows how I feel. Her marriage was so terrible—her husband tried to poison her, did you know that?”

  Charles shook his head.

  “Of course, he said she tried to poison him first.”

  “Did she?”

  “Of course she didn’t. It’s always the Italians who poison people.”

  Not always, Charles thought, remembering suddenly that in the Paris poison scandal that had rocked France a few years back, it was Lulu’s mother, Madame de Montespan, who had been accused of trying to poison the king. Though nothing had come of the accusation. But since he was thinking about poison…

  “Is the Grand Duchess of Tuscany acquainted with your mother?”

  “Of course. Though they don’t like each other much. They don’t have much in common.”

  Except poison, Charles thought, if rumor was to be believed. Which it usually wasn’t.

  Lulu leaned closer, her eyes suddenly sparkling with glee. “Do you know what Margot did in the convent where my father makes her live in Montmartre? No? Well, the mother superior was trying to keep her from going out so much—Margot comes here often to gamble. And Margot got her pistol—”

  “Pistol?”

  “Perhaps ladies have them in Tuscany, I don’t know. Anyway, she got her pistol and grabbed a hatchet from somewhere and chased the mother superior through the convent until the poor woman relented! Now Margot leaves when she pleases!”

  “I can imagine she does,” Charles murmured, hoping that hatchets and pistols would not be much in evidence at the Polish court, since Lulu seemed so charmed by Margot’s example.

  Lulu dropped his arm and sighed. “But I’ll never come back from Poland.”

  “Your Highness, why does this marriage seem so terrible to you?”

  “Because the Polish prince is nothing but a child! And he—he can’t—” Fresh tears ran down her face, and she wiped angrily at them with her hand.

  “A child? What do you mean?”

  “He’s ten years old. Oh, there’s an older brother, but the Polish king has other plans for him. What good is a little boy to me?”

  “Not much,” Charles said injudiciously, appalled at this piece of news. For the ten-year-old husband, as much as for the sixteen-year-old bride. “Or not much good yet,” he made himself add. “Children do grow up.”

  “I’ll be old before then! When he’s my age, I’ll be almost twenty-two!”

  “Hardly old.” Charles made a face at her and said confidingly, “Though I myself am so old, perhaps my opinion hardly matters.”

  “You? You don’t look old. What age are you?”

  “Twenty-nine, Your Highness. One foot in the grave, I fear.”

  She laughed a little. “I never knew Jesuits were so amusing. First you are a tree and now you are pretending to have one ancient foot in the grave.” She sighed, gazing at him. “I wish you were Jan Sobieski’s second son!”

  “Not a drop of Polish blood in my veins, I fear,” Charles said lightly, and widened the space between them. The dog turned from nosing through the wet grass and jumped up on him with muddy paws.

  “No, Louis!” Anne-Marie tried to pull the dog away as Charles leaned down to fondle its long black ears.

  “No matter, the mud’s the same color as the cassock.”

  Lulu suddenly scooped up the dog, cradling him as though he were a baby, and buried her face in his fur. For a moment, she was so still she seemed not to breathe. Then she put him down, picked up her gray skirts, and ran down the arbor path like a small fierce storm.

  Anne-Marie glared at Charles. “You shouldn’t make her run. She’s been feeling ill.”

  “She doesn’t seem ill. Although she does look pale.”

  “Yes.”

  Charles and Anne-Marie found Lulu beside a fishpond with a small dolphin spouting water in its center. Standing at its rim, she was taking crumbs from a pocket under her skirts and throwing them to the fish. With a sense of girding his loins, Charles decided that it was time to do what he’d agreed. Though he was even less sure now whether doing it was a good or a bad thing.

  “Your Highness, there is something I would like to say to you.”

>   “What?” she said, without turning.

  Charles went to the pond’s edge. “I would like to see you find a measure of peace in this marriage the king is demanding of you. So that some good can perhaps come from it, though you dread it now. You were never meant to be a darkling, angry soul!”

  Behind him, he heard Anne-Marie catch her breath. He looked over his shoulder and she nodded eagerly at him. But Lulu’s stare was cold.

  “So that’s why you’re willing to walk with me? Not for the pleasure of my company, but to ‘help’ me stop being inconvenient?”

  “Your company is more pleasure than I expected. I would like to help you for you yourself. No one else.”

  She shrugged, but a wary hope showed in her eyes. “Everyone else only wants me out of the way. Because I smoke and flirt and swear and—” She bit her lip and grabbed a handful of her skirts and shook the soaked hem’s straw-yellow lace trimming at him. “I ruin my gowns, I run away from my tedious women… such very grave sins.”

  Charles said nothing, and the three of them walked on. The path opened suddenly into a long vista down the newly dug lake. Unlike the bank where the gardener’s body had lain, this bank was already covered in thin grass and the piles of dirt had been removed.

  Wondering again at the lake’s vast size, Charles said, “Where does all the water come from?”

  “The Machine brings it,” Anne-Marie said. “Haven’t you ever seen it?”