Before Versailles (14 page)

“He walked me from the hallway out of courtesy. He’s very polite.”

“You pleased him. I saw it in his expression. He’s incredibly rich, and he’s kind. If you have the opportunity—”

“Oh, be quiet.” Louise turned on her side away from Fanny. “I have to get up early tomorrow.”

“Going riding with Choisy again? I was angry at him for making the king look my way when he pinched me and made me squawk like some idiot parrot, but I’ve forgiven him, for he knows all the gossip. Guess what he told me. His majesty was in love before he married the queen!”

“With whom!?” Louise was stirred out of drowsiness.

“With Marie Mancini, a younger sister to the Countess de Soissons. The queen mother and Monsieur wouldn’t have it. They said a king of France must wed a great princess.”

“Where is this Marie Mancini?”

“Hidden away somewhere. Choisy says she marries a prince who lives in Rome and goes away forever this month.”

“I wonder if his majesty minds.”

“He can have anyone he desires. I doubt he thinks of it now.”

But what about her? Louise thought she spoke the words, but she couldn’t be certain because without meaning to, she’d fallen asleep; surely these were dreams of green forests and a weeping bride and gleaming wolves’ eyes and her father and mother walking hand in hand toward a little girl that must be her, only she was asleep far away from the home of her childhood, and it couldn’t be, could it? What big teeth the wolf had.

L
OUIS STOOD BEFORE
an immense fireplace in another wing of the palace. He’d seen his young court to their bed; all that waited was for him to go to his wife’s bedchamber, climb in beside her sleeping form. The chamber in which he stood had been the king’s bedchamber, but not for a hundred years. Now it was vacant and mostly empty, used for performances by the acting troupes Louis or his brother patronized. Atop the mantel was a marble statue of his grandfather, Henri IV, riding a charger—both man and horse almost life-size—part of the decor of the fireplace, so distinctive, so grand that everyone in the palace called it the fine fireplace. Louis’s grandfather wore a crown of laurel, and on each side of him, there were the beautiful female figures so beloved of sculptors, one representing clemency, the other peace. His grandfather had been every inch a king, large in life, in war, in love, in rebuilding the kingdom. Reared Protestant, he’d converted to Catholicism to take the crown. Paris is worth a Mass, he’d said. At a famous battle, he’d told his gathered army, if you lose your standard bearers, rally to my white plume: you will find it on the road to victory and honor.

The road to victory and honor. Stirring words. A road Louis wished to travel. He wished to make this grandfather proud, to equal or surpass him. His hand rested against the pocket in which lay the small, folded Mazarinade. There was so much to do. The immensity of the task before him, bringing the kingdom to order, to prosperity, to pride, seemed—now that he had a fuller picture—more than he, Louis, God’s anointed, God’s given, as he’d been styled at his birth, but still he was only a man, could bear. Trade was in ruins. The treasury was in ruins. The innate respect that should be given God’s anointed had eroded. There were enemies, always. He felt the outline of the note. Seen and unseen. This grandfather forever captured in marble had been assassinated. But there were many ways to die. His own father had been dead inside his soul years before he breathed his last.

God and the saints, let me accomplish something, he prayed, staring up at this marble figure who had accomplished much, who had lived with a zest that was legend even to this day. Let me live, truly live, in this life I’ve been given. Prepare a table before me in the presence of mine enemies. Anoint my head with oil, Sacred One. I need Thee. At this moment, his responsibilities, the decisions he must make, seemed enormous. She’d kissed him again. He loved his brother’s wife.

Chapter 6

ELLE’S WET NOSE ON HIS HAND WOKE HIM
. L
OUIS OPENED HIS
eyes, kissed his wife’s cheek, and followed his valet and dogs to his own bedchamber. He slipped into his own bed, the dogs with him, for an hour’s sleep, then bed curtains were opened, and his day began. Sitting up, he recited prayers and the rosary, his confessor with him. Servants and other, lesser valets swarmed about as he sat on his close stool. He walked into an antechamber to begin dressing. Courtiers—some gentlemen of his household, some not—bowed, and Louis was pleased to see Guy, even with their confrontation of the night before, there.

“La Grande Mademoiselle comes today,” chirped his brother.

This was one of their cousins.

Philippe held the cloth with which Louis would dry himself after rinsing his mouth and washing his face and hands, and he found he couldn’t look his brother in the eye, but Philippe, who loved ceremony, who loved the fact that as the king’s brother, as heir until a son was born, he took precedence during all ritual, didn’t notice, but chattered on about their cousin’s arrival from Paris and the day’s hunt.

“Will you ride your new horse?” Philippe asked. The horse was a gift from the King of Spain and only recently arrived. So proud were the Spanish of their horses’ bloodlines that they did not sell them outside their kingdom. “He’s fiery,” continued Philippe, without waiting for an answer, looking around at those gathered. “I went to the stables yesterday and saw him. He’s going to be a beast to ride.”

Horseflesh and Spain’s horses, the best in the world, took over the conversation until Louis’s chaplain entered, and everyone knelt for more prayers. Beginning to dress afterward, this courtier handing him his shirt, another his breeches, a third his stockings, yet another his boots, he was soon ready. He sat down for his hair to be combed, and Guy approached. Louis nodded in a friendly way.

“You want a navy, I’m told,” said Guy. “Will you do me the honor to give me command of one of the first ships?”

That was Guy. Ever direct. And nosing around for what might be happening. Talk about a navy had been only yesterday. “If one is ever built,” Louis answered.

“It will be, sir. The Viscount Nicolas has alchemist in him. I swear he can make gold from lead. If it weren’t for him, I’d be in rags.”

“Gone through your allowance?”

“Two years ago.”

“Me too,” said Louis, and then they both laughed, boys suddenly, amused and lighthearted, old friends who’d grown up together in bad times and good.

“I’ve another request, sir.”

“Only one?”

“Monsieur. He lives to be of service to you. It’s his right as a prince of the blood to have a place on your council.”

“I think I have no need to be reminded of the rights of princes of the blood. Or how they have too often abused them.”

“He’s loyal to you.” Guy flung out an arm, taking in the day, the sunshine streaming through a tall window, the courtiers and musketeers around them. “You are king of France, my lord. Your least whisper is our command. Make a place for him, I beg you. It would be the finest thing you’ve ever done.”

His temper snapped. “My finest moment was not arresting you three years ago!” He shook his head, and his valet stepped back. He walked into the bedchamber, where fine hats, feathers curling like nested birds on wide brims, were laid out for him to choose. In the antechamber, courtiers began to disperse. A hardy few would join the king on his early morning’s ride, but many of them would go back to bed. That would change one day soon; only fools would be absent. A chance to catch Louis’s eyes, to be seen by him, to speak to him, would be worth the price of gold, but not yet. The cardinal’s reign, the old way of doing things, still hung over court.

Philippe walked up to Guy. “Well?”

“I made him angry,” Guy answered.

“It won’t last,” answered Philippe.

“He brought up his deathbed. He doesn’t forget, and I don’t think he forgives us.” Visiting his soldiers on a battlefield several years ago, Louis had fallen ill. For two weeks, his life had hung in the balance.

“Oh, dear.”

“You did what was proper,” said Guy. “It was thought he was dying. Don’t be ashamed of acting the king. Your blood is as royal as his. If his child doesn’t live or is a girl, you’re still heir. Do you ride out with him this morning?”

“Back to bed for me.” Philippe smiled, knowing everyone, even Guy, envied him the wife asleep in that bed.

“Fortunate man. I didn’t see her beauty before,” said Guy.

“And that,” Philippe grinned—he was smaller than Guy and Louis, finer boned, but no less handsome—“is why I’m married to her and you are not. I’ve always had an eye for beauty, hidden or no.”

“She would never have married me.”

“How quickly you forget her plight. She might have leapt at the chance. Your family is distinguished and honorable enough. Your sister is married to a crown prince.”

“But would I have desired her then, when she was desperate?” Guy shook his head. “Probably not. I like what I can’t have.”

“As do I,” Philippe said, very softly, but if Guy heard him, he ignored him and walked away, his arrogant, just-this-side-of-insolent surety trailing behind him like a cloak.

In the bedchamber, Louis stared down at a hat. He’d been berating himself for letting Guy see that old actions still rankled. But in among white feathers around the brim of the handsomest hat, the red wax of an unmarked seal shouted out. He put his hand out to grasp the small, folded note. Even before he opened it, he knew what it was, another Mazarinade.

“I
WANT TO
go north,” said Louise.

“I don’t want to go at all. This is fruitless, and I didn’t go to bed early, and I cannot believe I allowed myself to be talked into this,” answered Choisy.

Dawn had lit the day in cool gold and rose hues some time ago, and other than servants, grooms, and dogs, Louise and Choisy seemed to be the only ones up. In the saddle, a groom following, they turned their horses toward the towering palace gatehouse that led to the village and then the forest beyond. Carts filled with lettuces, cabbages, carrots, beans from outlying farms lined up before the kitchen buildings. Chickens roosted here and there on the carts’ sides, not knowing that today was very likely their day to be served before the king. Wrapped securely in a black cloak so that he resembled a dark butterfly or bat, wings folded tight, a man walked past on foot. He raised a broad, pale face to Louise and Choisy as they trotted past him and touched his hat in respect to Louise.