Before Versailles (21 page)

She heard voices, the sound of footsteps. Sweet Mary, she thought, was his majesty’s council meeting without him? Had they come down to look at the books, to find some answer to some important question raised? Would they enter and find her here? She dropped the half-cleaned pen among its brothers, wiped her fingers on the back of the paper, waved it back and forth frantically to dry, then pushed up the great square front of the cabinet. She pushed in the slats, turned its key. Folding the paper, she slipped it into the pocket sewn in her skirt that usually held food for the dogs or horses. Looking once more around the chamber, she saw she’d left a drawer in a low cabinet opened. She pushed it closed with her foot.

“What are you doing?” a voice said.

She froze.

“I repeat, what are you doing?”

Louise turned. Dressed in black from head to foot except for an enormous collar edged in lace, a somber, square-faced man frowned at her. Mister Colbert.

“Well?” Colbert’s voice was frosty.

“I-I was looking for maps. Lieutenant d’Artagnan assured me it was all right. Forgive me. I had no intent to disturb—”

“Maps? Of what?” Cold, very dark eyes added her up and found her sum lacking.

“Of-of the countryside. I like to ride, you see, and I don’t know where I am or where I’m going, and I thought, that is, I was told by a, er, a servant, there was this chamber of books, and I thought …” Floundering, Louise stopped, exhausted with her explanation atop her actions of the last hour.

“Did you find what you wished?”

Louise pointed toward the framed map. “I found a map there.”

Colbert looked from her to the map on the wall and back again.

“Why is there ink on your fingers? What have you been writing?” His voice was very sharp.

Let the ground open up and swallow me, thought Louise. She took a deep breath, said, “I-I tried to draw the map. I was afraid I would-would forget it.”

“You brought paper and ink with you?”

Turning her terrible deep red, she had passed the point of being able to summon up one more lie. She pointed toward the ornate cabinet. Colbert walked to it, turned the key, pulled down the square, and looked for a long time at its insides. Please let him not see the fingerprint, Louise prayed to herself, please, please, please.

Colbert turned. “Give me what you wrote.” He held out his hand imperiously.

“I know I took a piece of his majesty’s paper.” Confessing, babbling, holding the paper out, Louise couldn’t stop a single word that fell out of her mouth. “I meant no harm. I was just afraid that I wouldn’t remember the names. I can be stupid that way. Please don’t tell his majesty. Please. I’ll pay for the paper. I have some coins saved. I meant no harm.”

Every line of his body stiff, Colbert unfolded the paper, looked it over, turned it to its other side, went to the window, and held it to what light the evening still held. The door opened, and Louise shrank back. If it were his majesty, she would die, just curl up and die right here on the rug.

“I thought to light the candles,” a footman said, but Colbert sent him on his way with a curt, “No.” He held the paper out to Louise with two fingers as if it were offensive, and Louise took it, backed away, stumbled into one of the pile of pillows, found her balance, and left the chamber in a whish of skirts and panic.

Colbert remained at the window, looking out at the courtyard, where servants scurried to set up a supper given by the Duke de Beaufort tonight. The duke, an elderly illegitimate son of the king’s grandfather, had rebelled against the queen mother and the cardinal once upon a time but was tamed now, one hoped. Would that all were. Colbert watched footmen hang lanterns from iron stands, his mind moving over and about the young woman he’d discovered in this chamber. Lucky for him he’d come in to borrow a book. He hadn’t the education, the finesse, of those of noble birth, and he spent spare moments reading so that he might at least equal those around him in knowledge. She played the part of timid dolt well, well enough to be believable. She came from the Orléans’s princesses, her stepfather having been chamberlain to now-deceased Prince Gaston d’Orléans, brother of the king’s father, Louis XIII. Prince Gaston, believing he should be king, had been a double-dealing dog if ever there was one, in constant rebellion or constant plotting against and sometimes with the queen mother. His daughter, La Grande Mademoiselle, had once fired a cannon at royal troops, but banishment to her estate had soon tamed her, and these days, she pranced around court like a tame pony.

If memory served him, this maid of honor had a brother, who was not at court, who lived back on their country estate, which meant the family had little or no money to spare, else he would be at court, also. No money to spare made people vulnerable to the desires of others. Madame de Choisy had been her advocate, Madame de Choisy, who excelled in intrigue and double-dealing herself, and was among those—was there anyone who was not?—the Viscount Nicolas called friend. Was the girl a spy for the viscount? Sent to peek and pry or even catch the king’s eye? There was a lovely glow about her that would make a man look twice. Lying, or the innocent she seemed to be? One never knew at court. Never.

He opened the door. There stood Lieutenant d’Artagnan giving evening orders to musketeers. Colbert called him in, and a few questions verified the girl’s story.

“She could very well be a messenger for this writer of the Mazarinades,” said Colbert. “A pretty girl is allowed much leeway.” There was a pause as the two men eyed each other. The king trusted each of them, but neither was yet completely certain of the other.

“I’ll have her watched,” said Colbert.

“I’ll make certain she’s followed,” said D’Artagnan.

They spoke at the same time, and their words fell over one another.

We sound like the chorus of a damned Greek tragedy, thought D’Artagnan. That sweet little wildflower an intriguer, I won’t believe it. If it’s true, I’ll eat the feathers in my hat and leave court, because, by God, its treachery is too much for me.

T
HE NEXT DAY
, sunrise barely an hour old, Louise walked down the road that ran along one side of the carp pond to the stables. The morning mist hung suspended over the pond, and in the distance, beyond the stables, the mist blanketed the meadows and moors. There would be vapor on the forest floor wetting the ferns and priest’s-heart, and the birds would be singing chansons as they darted from tree to tree. She could hardly wait.

Seeing her, grooms smiled and bowed their heads. They liked her. She knew a good horse when she saw one, and she could ride the most unruly. An elderly groom, sitting down because a horse had kicked him in the back and he’d healed crooked, drank a morning cup of warmed, watered wine.

“Miss de le Baume le Blanc,” he said, bowing his head. “Off again this morning, I see.”

“Yes. Most of your grooms are from around here?”

“All of us.”

“Well, then.” Louise tipped over an empty bucket with her shoe, sat down on its upturned bottom, took the map from a pocket. The groom squinted at it, unable to read, while Louise explained the marks.

“Here’s Paris, and here’s Fontainebleau. Is there more I should know about, other estates, other castles?”

“There’s a château about there,” said the groom, pointing with a gnarled finger. “The Duke de Choisy owns it now.”

Louise took a tiny piece of broken coal from her pocket and marked where he touched. So, she thought, that’s where I begin. “Anything else?”

He tapped at a point above the Choisy château. “The Viscount Nicolas be building something here.”

Louise made another mark.

His finger moved to the east. “There’s a small monastery hidden by forest near the viscount, makes honey sweet as your young eyes and good wine. Vow of silence, the fathers don’t speak.”

Louise made another mark. “What else?”

“Farms here and there. Forest all the rest.”

To his delight, Louise drew some small trees. He took the handkerchief from around his neck and handed it to her to clean her hands of coal dust and called for his son.

“My youngest,” he said to Louise. “You will accompany Miss de le Baume le Blanc on her ride this morning,” he ordered importantly. “Saddle Violet for her.”

“I love Violet,” said Louise.

“It’s done, Father,” said the youth. “I brought down the saddle when I saw my lady walking up the road.”

“How did you know to saddle Violet?” asked his father.

The young man smiled.

“In spite of his impudence, he’s a good boy,” said the elderly groom.

“I know I’m in safe hands. Thank you.” Louise walked over to the open stable doors to wait outside for the youth to bring the horse.

The old groom allowed himself to watch her. There was nothing like a pretty girl to make a man’s morning. And this one had a smile as pure as an angel’s. His son walked by leading the horses for her and himself. He grinned at his father, and even though the old groom frowned, inside he laughed. What young man wouldn’t want to spend the morning gallivanting through the woods following a beautiful young woman instead of mucking out stalls or helping overly plump countesses into their sidesaddles?

A
N HOUR OR
so past noon, Choisy chatted idly with a friend in a palace garden that was famous across Europe. It was suspended in the water of the carp pond, close enough to be an extension of the courtyard it faced, but approachable, except for one footbridge, only by boat. The whim of a Medici queen, whose Renaissance background made her tastes fanciful, it lay several yards on a stone and brick bastion separate from the outermost edge of the fountain courtyard and was literally in the pond, surrounded on all sides by water. This suspended garden—four large parterres, closely cropped shrubs or massed flowers outlining the swirls and arabesques so loved by the previous generation and still admired by this one—rose several feet out of the water. The court liked nothing better than to walk down the dividing paths in the dusk, delighting in the flowers, enjoying the breeze, leaning over the garden’s brick wall to admire their image in the water below or throw food to the carp, as the water around them captured and cooled the summer’s heat.

Choisy saw Louise hurrying up the road from the stables and stopped his conversation mid-sentence. He ran through the garden and across the footbridge and into the fountain courtyard and looked her up and down when she, out of breath and panting, stopped in front of him. He was so angry he almost couldn’t speak.

“Need I ask where you have been?” he demanded.

“No.”

“You’re continuing your search, aren’t you?”

“I’m late. I don’t want to argue.”

She went into the pavilion rising tall behind them, and Choisy walked back to his friend, who had come in from Paris with La Grande Mademoiselle and was as vain and proud as any peacock in the queen’s garden.

“That looked like a lovers’ quarrel. This new fashion for loving women is more than I can understand,” the friend said. His name was the Chevalier de Lorraine; he belonged to a distinguished family and was a particular friend of Monsieur’s. “Surely you know the old saying: True love is like ghosts—something everyone talks of but scarcely anyone has seen. Am I witnessing true love? Do be still, my own beating heart.”

“Be quiet,” said Choisy.