Before Versailles (16 page)

Catherine snatched them herself and left the antechamber, her skirts swirling around her.

“Poor Louise,” said Fanny to the others.

But Catherine wasn’t looking for a maid of honor to thrash; she had someone else in mind, and she found him in the chamber Monsieur had given him, a long, open room, comfortable and beautifully furnished, not in one of the attics, but on the same floor as the royals were housed, a gesture of great favor from the brother of the king.

Catherine opened the door without knocking. Writing, her brother sat at a table, a furrow between his brows, and he lifted his head to see who it was and stood to greet her.

“Your conduct last night was unprecedented!” she burst out. “What on earth is wrong with you! You are so fortunate, so loved, and so perfectly capable of ruining everything for a whim. You stop it right now, or I’m going to Father. I mean it.”

To summon up their father’s reprimand was something neither ever wanted, not because their father was cruel, but because he was the most honorable man either of them knew.

“Abominable,” Catherine continued, “charging in on Madame like that, like a bad actor portraying a betrayed husband. Do you fancy yourself in love with her? Is that it?”

He tilted his head to one side. “Are you of all people going to lecture me on the conduct of betrayed husbands, Catherine? I can only wait with bated breath.”

But she wasn’t to be sidetracked. “I didn’t sleep a wink last night. What kind of fool are you, Guy?”

“I should be on his majesty’s council.”

“And so you embarrass him as he talks with Madame? If you want a place on the council, you misstepped three years ago. I thought us blessed that his majesty didn’t imprison you then—”

“For what? We were looking toward what could happen if he did die. There were no plots, no cabals, just an asking and receiving of advice. I’ll remind you that Monsieur was in the front row weeping with joy at the thanksgiving service for his majesty’s recovery!”

“You press your luck too far, you always have! You can no longer treat him like some rival you have the right to question. He’s changing, right before our eyes. I see it if you don’t. You were offensive last night. Dangerously so. If Monsieur doesn’t mind what his wife does, neither should you!”

“I mind for Monsieur.”

“It is none of your affair who the king admires!”

“It is my affair when it is my prince and my friend’s wife!”

“Monsieur will be out of love in another few weeks. You know that better than anyone. We both know who he really loves.” She was in dangerous territory, but Guy didn’t lose his temper.

“That being so,” he said, “his majesty should have the decency to wait until Monsieur indicates boredom. I see no sign of such.”

“What of Madame? What about what she wishes?”

“Her wish should be to satisfy her husband in all ways. It’s a wife’s only duty.”

Catherine made a sound of disgust and threw the dogs’ leashes at him. “What a hypocrite you are! I can’t bear it!” The leashes hit him in the mouth and dropped to the floor. “Take those to the queen’s garden and give them to Miss de la Baume le Blanc, who is there with those damned dogs. Take a walk around the garden and think about what you’re doing. I’d hate to see you banished from court. You know how I am. I won’t come to visit you in exile!” She slammed the door shut behind her as Guy rubbed the place on his face where the leashes had hit.

Downstairs, he stood in one of the garden gallery’s huge open arches, the view spreading out before him, Louise playing among shrubs and statues with the dogs. Her shoes were off, and she was running like a child, but he was thinking about the past, of a moment when it had looked as if the world was going to be placed in his hands. He’s dying, that was the word that had come. Louis had journeyed to a battlefield and fallen down with a fever, and the fever didn’t lessen. The queen mother and Cardinal Mazarin rushed to his bedside. Louis, the miracle birth, the God Given, was wasting away. Priests chanted prayers outside the bedchamber. Last rites were prepared as he burned with fever for fourteen days. Important officials and courtiers began to call upon the heir to the throne. You must receive them, Guy advised. Philippe was torn between grief, amazement that the crown might be his, and terror of the responsibility, for while Louis had been trained in every way, Philippe had been trained in none. And then, Louis recovered, and he was furious, as if his only brother had planned treason. Not true, Guy had defended. There was never a plot to take the crown, Guy said, only, God forbid, to receive it, and God did forbid, your majesty. Long live the king.

What Louis didn’t forgive was that Guy had known what to do.

The maid of honor had a stick and had clearly taught the spaniels, little beggars, disobedient and spoiled, to fetch. She had a way with animals, he’d noticed. One could see it in the response of any horse she rode. He watched her reward the dogs with bits of food from her pockets. What lady keeps food in her pockets? thought Guy. He stepped out from the shade of the gallery and into the strong sunlight and called to her.

“My sister insisted I bring these to you. Is she as haughty with you as she is with me?” he asked, smiling a little. There was something of an angel about the pure lines of her face.

She bent over to put silken cords around the spaniels’ necks and murmured, “Thank you.”

Comfortable in his arrogance, Guy considered her. Common, his sister sniffed, but perhaps the correct word was uncommon. Her hair was a pale butter color he liked, thick and shining with life where it had come unfastened from its pins. She wore a slim, fitted jacket for horseback, blue braiding at seams that flared downward to her slim hips. The outdoors look of her, the hoyden style of her hair, her face shining from running, suited her.

My hair, Louise thought. She began to repin it. “My mother always says I can’t stay neat for a second.” She spoke nervously and felt stupid the minute she opened her mouth. This Count de Guiche made her feel wary.

“You’ve been riding?” Guy asked.

“Yes.”

“And where did you go?”

“Oh, here and there.”

She isn’t about to tell me, thought Guy. She doesn’t like me. He felt amused, but also, suddenly, angry. He’d had enough of headstrong women for one day. “How long have you had a limp? Is your leg healing from something?”

Louise felt the onset of her terrible, staining blush heat her neck. “I fell from a horse when I was young.”

“I’ve embarrassed you. Forgive me, I would never have known if I hadn’t seen you running like a peasant in stockinged feet.” He picked up one of her shoes to examine it, pulled out the special little wooden block that evened Louise’s legs, examined it coolly before putting it back in place.

Louise snatched the shoe and put it on her foot. “No shoes on,” she heard herself saying. “My mother would be so ashamed. I take you from Amboise, she says, but you keep the dirt of it under your fingernails.”

Guy took one of her hands, examined it. “Quite clean. Your fingernails, I mean.”

“Yours aren’t.”

Startled, Guy looked at his hands.

“Is that ink? Writing love letters, count?”

“Dozens.”

“Don’t send one to me.” She and the dogs ran toward the gallery.

Little adder, thought Guy. Well, he liked that, too. Did she think she couldn’t be seduced? If he wished, he could wrap her, and any maiden like her, around his finger. The only question was, did he wish? Do you love Madame? his sister had asked. If to feel a certain, wrenching ache every time he looked at her was love, then yes. He wanted her. Was that love?

T
HE PALACE OF
Fontainebleau was huge, its center an ancient keep that had since multiplied and sprawled and spread out various branching arms that splayed in all directions and were connected by the length of expansive galleries or the vast width of courtyards or the tall stateliness of ornate gatehouses. It was the custom to build townhouses along the back walls of courtyards or at their corners or on the outskirts of the royal gardens, and in these lived courtiers who held high positions in the court or were greatly favored or ministers who carried the threads of the kingdom’s policy in their hands and memories. One townhouse, built in the reign of the previous king, had housed a great innovator and visionary of the state, one Cardinal Richelieu, who had served the kingdom until the day of his death. Now it housed another man considered important to the kingdom.

The Viscount Nicolas stood before a long pier glass in a chamber on an upper floor. Turning this way and that, he surveyed himself wearing a new jacket, his quicksilver mind upon the conversation he was holding but also playing upon other things. Pier glass was expensive; only the Venetians made this surface whose silvering showed a man precisely what he looked like, and they extracted a pretty penny for their expertise. We should make it, Colbert had said earlier today. Colbert was an old enemy who had, unfortunately, not been entombed alongside Cardinal Mazarin. The man was obsessed with manufacture. And how would we do that? Nicolas had asked him, feeling irritated and wary, but also interested. Steal their secret, was Colbert’s reply. Well. Colbert might have the liveliness of a block of winter river ice, but there was certainly a clever brain frozen inside, but then the cardinal wouldn’t have amassed the fortune he had with an idiot managing the figures in his ledgers, would he?

Nicolas ran his eyes over the cut of his short, tight jacket and drew his brows together, but it wasn’t the jacket which displeased. His majesty insisted that a ledger now be kept again, but Nicolas made no attempt to enter correct figures. He couldn’t have if he’d tried. One didn’t finance war and more war and then a wedding between princes by meticulous addition and subtraction. Cardinal Mazarin had understood such. He had never asked how Nicolas had amassed funds; he had just held out his hand for them. Hopefully, once his majesty was past this first heady rush of ruling, he’d do the same.

Nicolas slapped his abdomen. With the death of Mazarin, forty had become old compared to the age of the king and his set of friends, but he looked well for an old man. He nodded at the image in the mirror, and the man sitting in a chair in a corner took Nicolas’s nod for dismissal and stood.

“A moment more,” said Nicolas. “No detail is too small. Is he still his mother’s boy? What does he say in private about the cardinal? Does he gamble? How much? What’s his favorite dish? Does he water his wine? Who are his favorite friends? His most trusted servants? Who has he loved? For how long? Does he take laudanum to sleep? Has he a favorite color? A favorite hunting dog? A favorite mount? There is no detail too small to be of interest. Do you understand?” He had spies in the king’s household, but not enough, he had decided.

A knock on the door interrupted. Nicolas indicated the man could go and waited to see who his secretary would announce next. The whispered name surprised him, but only for a moment. After all, she’d warned him she’d call.

Olympe pulled back the hood of her cloak and untied her mask. A lady who didn’t wish to be recognized always wore a small, dark, silk mask over her eyes. Nicolas considered her carefully. She was one of the stars in the sky of court, and as far as he could ascertain, she had no conscience of any kind.

“Will you have some refreshment?” he asked.

She shook her head. Little niceties weren’t her style.

“How, then, may I be of service to you, my dear countess?”

“I want to be moved from her majesty’s household. His majesty would never forgive me if I asked it, so you must arrange it for me.”

He was astonished. “But, countess, your position is the highest there is! You won’t earn the sinecure you do now anywhere else. Nor have the importance you possess, and, if I may say so, deserve.” There had been near slaughter for positions in the new queen’s household. Had she forgotten?

“His majesty has stopped asking me to plan entertainments for the court, hasn’t asked since they came to Fontainebleau. She’s doing it for him now.” The “she” was said with a sneer.

Of course, thought Nicolas. This was about the new Madame. “She is the second lady of the kingdom.”

“But she isn’t the queen! It’s the queen’s duty to plan entertainments! And if not hers, mine! I ought to have seen it at Easter. That’s when he first began to honor her. And I can’t join in now when they go to swim in the river—everybody’s going, you know. I can’t go unless her majesty does, and there is no chance of that happening. Oh, trust a Spaniard to make getting out of bed in the morning a religious ritual! Her majesty doesn’t even mind that her sister-in-law takes her place. She’s glad to be relieved of the responsibility. She is glad to leave the entertainment of court to someone else. What a fool! Move me to Madame’s! Say you’ll do it!” Olympe turned obsidian-colored eyes directly to his in appeal. “I’ll be ever so grateful. There’s nothing I have, nothing that I wouldn’t give you.”

She left no doubt about what generosity entailed, even leaning forward a little so that he would see her breasts, not that one could miss breasts in the fashion of this day.