Read 1636: The Cardinal Virtues Online
Authors: Eric Flint,Walter H Hunt
Tags: #Fiction, #Alternative History, #Science Fiction, #Action & Adventure, #General
1636: The Cardinal Virtues (32 page)
He affected as much diffidence as he could summon, and was not surprised at all; it seemed to annoy her.
“Ah.
Cardinal
. So good you could join us.”
“It is my pleasure, madame. Though it could have been effected in a far more comfortable manner.”
“
Your Majesty
, if you please.”
“
Your Eminence
, if
you
please,” Tremblay said. “If we are going to insist on titles, Highness.”
Marie did not seem happy with the repartee, but answered, “Oh, very well,
Your Eminence
. I am sure that you would have come to my
Palais
by invitation, but I preferred to have this little chat in private.”
“And the Sieur de Saint-Brisson was more than willing to offer accommodation. Very well, Your Majesty. You have . . . summoned . . . me, and I am here. Of what shall we
chat
?”
“My son is in need of some very specific answers to some very difficult questions, and I intend to obtain them. It is clear to me that you have been at the center of intrigues against him from the moment he returned to France, so you will be able to oblige me.”
“You flatter me, Your Majesty,” he answered.
“No,” she said, “I do not. In fact, I would be happy to drop you into the Seine. But I also do not underestimate you.”
Tremblay did not respond.
“You do not seem afraid.”
“You do not frighten me, as I have told you. And death does not frighten me either.”
“Have I mentioned death?”
“You mentioned dropping me into the Seine. Even if I could swim, the effluence of thousands of chamber pots would probably kill me.”
“You try my patience with your badinage. Very well, answer me this: where is Cardinal Richelieu, whose creature you are?”
“At the right hand of the Father, I trust.”
“So he is dead.”
“As far as I know. Since you have suborned former members of the Cardinal’s Guard, it seems foolish to conceal that a funeral mass was held in Luçon for him some time ago, which many of the former Guardsmen attended.”
“Was there a body?”
“It would have been an unpleasant sight: the cardinal was mortally wounded—along with your son the king—in April. The body is long since buried.”
“If he is truly dead.”
“I have no reason to believe otherwise,” Tremblay said. “But I do not know. I was not there when he died—or when he was attacked. With your son the king.”
Marie leaned forward, staring at him. “You are very fixed on that moment, Your Eminence.”
“Should I not be? All of our lives were changed by that base attack. Yours—mine—the queen’s—”
“Marguerite?”
“Anne.”
“She is no longer queen,” Marie said. “She is a traitor, and likely a harlot—the baby she carries with her is not by Louis. It cannot be. He is—he was—”
Tremblay waited for her to complete the sentence. If he was not in discomfort—from the ropes, from the stool, from the need to use a chamber pot—he might have waited all night.
“He was the Most Christian King of France, Your Majesty. He was your son, and she was his wife, and he is most certainly dead by the hand of a brutal assassin.”
Marie de Medici was a hard woman, Tremblay knew. She had come to France thirty-five years ago and had witnessed the murder of her husband, suffered indignities when she was removed as regent, lost a struggle of wills with Richelieu, and been forced into exile . . . and now, at last, having seen her estranged son murdered and her favored one brought to the throne, was being reminded what that meant.
Tremblay knew the assassin who had killed Louis: his own half-brother, son of Henry IV but not of Marie. He wondered if she had been complicit—or if not, if she even realized who had done the deed. If so, she was frighteningly ruthless; if not, he could even find some sympathy for her after all this time, after all she had done.
“I do not need to be instructed on that subject,” she said at last.
“The cardinal, even if alive, has fallen, Your Majesty. I do not follow his orders any longer. Those that fear that he has engineered some great and dangerous plot are afraid of their own shadow. It seems to me that France has greater threats than the ghost of Cardinal Richelieu.”
She stood up and smoothed her skirts, then walked around the table to stand before him. “Do you know where the harlot queen is, your Eminence?”
“I know that she was in Amiens,” he said. There was no point in dissembling.
“She is in Cambrai,” Marie said. “She has been received with all due ceremony by the archbishop, in the company of—among others—the duc de Vendôme, my—stepson.”
Tremblay could not keep surprise from his face. “Vendôme? But he is—”
“Yes? He is
what
, exactly?”
He killed your son
, Tremblay thought.
And my master.
“He was . . . in attendance on King Gaston.”
“Apparently he has chosen another side. He was never to be trusted, just as you are not to be trusted.”
“Meaning—”
“Meaning,
Your Eminence
”—and this time she coated the title with particular scorn when she spoke it—“that you can be assumed to be telling lies at every turn. But don’t worry; there are ways of extracting the truth.”
“You would not dare harm a prince of the church. Hauling me here, even binding my hands, is a matter of indignity—but physical harm to a priest seems beyond you.
Your Majesty
,” he added, trying to match the scorn he had heard.
“I rather suspect you’re right,” she said. “But I don’t think it will come to that. Guard,” she said, raising her voice slightly, “bring in the other prisoner.”
The door swung open and two of the former Guardsmen manhandled another man into the room. Tremblay swiveled himself around on the stool to see.
Between two of his captors was the bound figure of Jean d’Aubisson, who had not been treated as gently as Tremblay himself.
From over his shoulder, he heard Marie de Medici say, “I’m sure this fine young man will tell us everything he knows. Or
you
will, to save him.”
Chapter 42
Cambrai
When he arrived in Cambrai, Pieter Paul Rubens was not completely sure what to expect.
It had been some time since he had been in this part of the Low Countries. The infanta had impressed upon him the gravity of the mission—what mission recently had
not
been pregnant with significance?—but this was interesting enough, if only because he could view his own work in the church of Saint-Géry. It was twenty years since he had painted “La Mise au Tombeau” under the patronage of Albert, with his dear departed wife Isabella Brant as the model for Mary Magdalene. The course of his life and career had not brought him back to the city since.
He came through the gate without fanfare or reception. As with painting, so with diplomacy: it was important to study the subject, to see the setting and judge the light, before beginning to prepare the palette. Cambrai itself was not revelatory—it was a walled city like any number of other walled cities: full of churches, smells, thieves, and alleys with light and dark—a framework for memories and a breeding ground of new ideas. Without official recognition as the emissary of the archduchess, Pieter Paul Rubens was a face in the crowd, far more an observer than an object of observation.
Three hours after his entry into Cambrai he went into the archiepiscopal palace to present his credentials. The archbishop’s clerk was standoffish until he looked at the name on his warrant, then advanced through surprise to eventually achieve obsequiousness. He was taken at once to the private apartments and was presented to the cleric Jules Mazarin, who was the personal representative of Isabella’s niece, the French queen Anne.
“Mynheer Rubens,” Mazarin said. “My mistress is very pleased to hear that you are in Cambrai.”
They had taken seats on a bench in an atrium within the grounds of the archiepiscopal residence attached to Saint-Sulpice. The last few days had been typical late-spring weather in the Low Countries, but today it was fine and clear; the carefully tended trees provided pleasant shade, there was a gentle breeze, and the sounds and stink of Cambrai were muted and distant.
“Not pleased enough to greet me personally.”
“If you feel slighted,” Mazarin answered, “please accept my apologies. It was thought best that I receive you first.”
“It takes more than that to slight
me
,” Rubens said.
“I am gratified to hear it.”
“Would you prefer to conduct this interview in French?” The cleric nodded; his Dutch might be good, but this was a diplomatic negotiation, and Rubens was equally comfortable in that language. “May one be so bold to ask what position you occupy in Her Highness’s household?”
“We have not advanced to the point of having titles, Mynheer—Monsieur—Rubens. We are all at the
lever
and the
coucher
.”
“I appreciate that the queen has a . . . smaller entourage. I am merely curious to know how you come to be a part of it.”
“I don’t know why it’s important.”
“It is a detail. Details matter.”
“I assume that Her Grace provided you with a list of questions. It would be helpful if I was aware of what she would like to know.”
“The archduchess charged me with some general instructions, not any list. I am trusted to develop my own questions.”
“Regarding my role in the queen’s household.”
“There have been rumors . . .”
“Eh,
oui
? What sort of rumors?”
“Monseigneur Mazarin. You may bear a clerical collar but you, like myself, are a man of the world. Suddenly, their Majesties are blessed with the gift of a child—just as the king is murdered and the queen flees the country.”
“I sense that there is some accusation at the end of your analysis.”
“No—not truly. It is merely a sketch, not a full portrait. I just find it all suspicious. So indeed does Archduchess Isabella, and His Majesty the king in the Lowlands. I realize—they realize—that blood ties are a matter of responsibility and of honor, but welcoming your mistress at the court in Brussels is a
political
statement. There is an enthroned and crowned king in Paris, and while he accords no status to your mistress—”
“To the queen. You seem very hesitant to use that expression, Monsieur Rubens. Is that not how Her Majesty is called at the court in Brussels? I remind you that she is an infanta of Spain as well.”
Rubens looked away at the gardens, a bucolic refuge for the archbishop and his guests. Somewhere, behind some wall, was Anne of Austria, the widow of King Louis XIII of France. If all that he had heard was true, she was truly an aggrieved party: neglected, denigrated, denied what queens most desired: status, honor . . .
children
. . . and at the moment that she would have had all of the first two because of the blessing of the third, a cruel and violent act took her husband away.
What should she have done? She had been in seclusion awaiting the birth of the royal child. She could have traveled to Paris, played the part of the widow, garnered sympathy and found protection. Surely there was one strong voice to speak on her behalf.
Except . . .
The archduchess—an infanta herself—had made something very clear to Rubens before sending him on his way.
Anne claims that Gaston is a usurper,
she had told him.
She bases this claim on the assertion that her son is the legitimate heir of Louis. That means that this infant is the king of France, not the schemer who sits on its throne.
Before we acknowledge that as truth, we must be very sure of the ground we stand on.
Very
sure.
She had fixed him with her fierce, flinty gaze.
Do you understand, Pieter?
He understood.
“If the lady’s child is true issue,” he said, “then Her Grace will ask an uncomfortable question—when was it conceived? When did the king lay with his wife?”
“You’re really asking that question.”
“Yes. I really am.”
“I cannot say for sure.”
“That’s not really good enough, Monseigneur—”
“I cannot say
for sure
,” Mazarin repeated, interrupting Rubens. “But to the best of my knowledge, the king shared the queen’s bed on the night of August the twenty-fifth, the Feast of Saint Louis at the Château de Saluce during their progress to Fontainebleau.”
Mazarin looked directly at him, the assurance of truth animating his personality and features. It was a piece of information that Rubens had not possessed, and that Archduchess Isabella had also not known.
“She will swear to this, I presume.”
“On any copy of Scripture or holy relic you choose, monsieur. She will attest to it on her honor as a mother, as a queen, and as a scion of the House of Hapsburg. She will assert it today and tomorrow and as long as she draws breath. Her Grace the archduchess of the Low Countries may choose to ignore it, dismiss it, or set it aside for the sake of political expediency, but it will not make it less true. Will that be sufficient for your mistress to do the right and proper thing—or must we seek succor elsewhere?”
Pau
“I still think this is unnecessary,” Brassac said to Turenne.
“I understand your confidence in your personal honor, monsieur,” the marshal answered. “But you and Monsieur Servien will be much safer in the company of Colonel Maddox and her Rangers. They have served their purpose here, as my advance guard and scouts. I think deploying them as an escort for you now is a good use of their particular talents.”
“Surely you still need advance guards and scouts.”
“Not as much as you need them.”
“And again, I disagree as to the need.”
“Monsieur le Comte.” Turenne rubbed his forehead. “Your informant in Paris says that the cardinal de Tremblay has gone missing—in the
city
, where your Company is strongest. There is some chance that Monsieur Gaston is on the lookout for the Company’s superior. I feel obligated to protect you the best I am able.”
“In the countryside?”
“
Especially
in the countryside. Maybe not within a day’s ride of Pau, but certainly beyond that. Everyone with anything to gain or lose will be choosing sides, and if anyone believes that you have chosen a side opposing theirs, monsieur, they will not hesitate to do violence to you.” Turenne held up his hand as Brassac began to reply. “They will not respect your rank or your pedigree, nor will they take the time to make further inquiry.”
“You think civil war is imminent?”
“No,” Turenne said. “I think it is already here.”
