A Plague of Lies (16 page)

Feeling deeply sorry for the child, Charles hurried through Père La Chaise’s antechamber. Resisting the urge to bolt the door behind him, he took a glass from the side table, filled it from the copper reservoir’s tap, and drank thirstily. With a sigh, he went into the adjoining room to tell La Chaise about the dead workman, but La Chaise was asleep in his armchair. On a wave of panic, Charles hurried past him into the adjoining room and pushed Jouvancy’s bed curtains apart. He let his breath out in relief. Jouvancy was sleeping quietly and there was faint color in his face. Charles closed the curtains and turned to contemplate his own bed. But La Chaise stirred in the next room and called out to him.

“I saw you come in,
maître
. No one has gotten past me, you need not worry.”

Reluctantly, Charles went back to the other room, closing the door between to keep from waking Jouvancy, and stood respectfully before the king’s confessor. “I am glad to hear it,
mon père
. He looks some better.”

“Yes. He ate a little bread and kept it down. Sit. We need to talk about this evening.”

“This evening?” Charles’s heart sank. The only evening he wanted was supper and prayers and bed.

“There is a ball this evening to honor the Polish ambassadors and Mademoiselle de Rouen. Unfortunately, I am bidden to attend. And so are you, in Père Jouvancy’s place. It begins at seven, and there will be festivities after, but we need not stay for all of that.”

“Why are we summoned to a ball?”

“To stand near the royal chair and remind the Poles that Louis is Europe’s Most Christian King. And I suspect that the invitation is also meant as a way of thanking us for giving the reliquary to Madame de Maintenon.”

Summoning resignation, Charles said, “Of course,
mon père
. Meanwhile, there is—”

“—the question of getting a little sleep before this evening. And also the question of our supper,” La Chaise finished firmly, smothering a yawn. “Bouchel is bringing us a roasted chicken from the town.” He started to get up from his chair.

“
Mon père
,” Charles said, “please, there is something I must tell you.”

La Chaise slumped into his chair again and regarded Charles without enthusiasm. “From your face, it’s something I don’t want to hear.”

La Chaise was clearly not in a mood to listen, and Charles decided there was no real reason to mention Lulu. Or Conti—at least, not yet. Charles kept his story brief, and about only the dead body. “The back of the man’s skull was crushed, it has to be murder,” he finished.

“At least he wasn’t poisoned. What does the Guard captain think?”

“That it was most likely a workmen’s quarrel.”

“Good.” La Chaise rubbed his head as though it hurt. “Anything more serious than that we do not need here just now.”

So a workman’s murder is not serious?
Charles just stopped himself from saying.

But it must have shown on his face, because La Chaise said impatiently, “I am not indifferent to the man’s death. But my point is that it probably has nothing to do with the king. If there is a threat to him, it will come from much closer at hand.”

“Meaning?” Charles hazarded.

“You do not seem to know your place,
maître
,” La Chaise said ominously.

“Is it not the place of any Jesuit to want to know the truth?”

“Knowing when to hold your tongue is also a virtue.”

“But if I know more of the truth, I will know better when—and with whom—to hold my tongue.”

La Chaise studied Charles for so long, he might have been weighing him in St. Peter’s scale to determine his entrance—or not—into heaven. He finally said, “Very well. For that reason, and that reason only, I will tell you. But if thereafter you do not hold your tongue when you should, it will be the worse for you when you return to Louis le Grand.” He sighed. “The most likely source of a threat to the king is the circle of young men who have gathered around the heir to the throne. They began courting the Dauphin, last winter when the king was ill, clearly hoping that he would die so that his timid and malleable son would become king. The intimates of a weak king are like pigs at an endlessly full trough. And they push ruthlessly to gain a place there before the feeding starts.”

On impulse, Charles said, “Is the Prince of Conti one of them?”

La Chaise’s eyes narrowed. “Why do you ask?”

“He—” Charles nearly said
happened along
, then didn’t, realizing
that he didn’t believe Conti had been there by chance. “He was there while I was waiting with the workman’s body. I also saw him earlier, with Mademoiselle de Rouen.”

Shaking his head, La Chaise frowned and said, more to himself than Charles, “Those two should not be together.” Then he caught himself and said, “What did he say about the body?”

“He seemed indifferent to it. But—I wondered if he’d been following me.”

“He well might.” La Chaise’s look was eloquent. “Stay away from him. For many reasons. He’s just been admitted back to court after a year of exile in Chantilly, with the old Condé, and the king is still none too sure of him, or of his loyalty. The man seems to have spies everywhere.”

“Here at court, you mean?”

“Yes, but not only here. Don’t be seen with him and don’t talk to him. Or about him.”

“What did he do to get himself exiled?”

La Chaise hesitated. “For one thing, a few years ago he wrote letters making fun of Madame de Maintenon and saying the king was only a ‘king of the theatre.’ The letters were intercepted. And two years ago, he fought briefly on the side of the Hapsburg Holy Roman Emperor against the Turks. The king considers the emperor a much more dangerous enemy than the Turks.”

Charles’s mouth fell open. No wonder Lieutenant-Général La Reynie wanted to know more about Conti. It was Charles’s turn now to hesitate as he remembered gossip he’d heard at Louis le Grand. “It’s rumored that our Most Christian King himself encourages the Musselmen to keep the Hapsburgs too busy fighting to turn west and attack us.”

“Kings weaken their enemies in any way possible.” La Chaise lifted his chin as though daring Charles to say more.

Charles took the dare. “So the rumor is true. And you are saying that ends justify means?”

“Sometimes, yes.”

“When the Prince of Conti fought on the Hapsburg side, was it at the king’s behest? To help keep the Hapsburgs occupied—and help them lose against the Turks?”

“Aren’t you forgetting that Conti was exiled from court for joining the Hapsburgs?”

“Exiled to the comforts of the Condé chateau at Chantilly. Hardly a dire punishment.”

“Is not exile from the king’s presence considered the worst punishment a nobleman can have?” La Chaise’s face warned Charles not to answer that question. “In any case, Maître du Luc, none of this is your business. Your business relative to Conti is to avoid him at all costs. And now, if you wish any rest, leave me, go to your bed. Evening will come soon enough.”

Deciding that obedience was the better part of valor at this point, Charles started toward the adjoining chamber. And turned back. “
Mon père
, I saw the new Prince of Condé just now in the corridor. He was—” Charles paused, but no euphemism came to his aid. “Barking.”

La Chaise grunted unhappily. “This Condé is peculiar even for that peculiar family.”

Sensing that La Chaise wanted to say more, in spite of the order to leave him alone, Charles drifted toward the adjoining chamber as slowly as he could. He was nearly in the doorway when La Chaise burst out, “That is another thing I worry about. The Bourbon lineage. Not one of the Princes of the Blood has the king’s ability to command respect, let alone his self-sacrificing devotion to duty.”

Charles turned and stared. “Self-sacrificing?! When has he ever—”

“Self-sacrificing,
maître
,” La Chaise said coldly, across Charles’s indignation. “I do not use words lightly. Something you should remember. The king works every day, most hours of the day. With his council, with his advisors, with his officers. He leaves no detail unchecked or unregarded. Not one!”

All of which seemed to Charles only what a king ought to do. “But he also sacrifices everyone and everything else to his own ends. To his blood-soaked
gloire
.”

La Chaise surged out of his chair, and Charles realized too late that he’d thrust his verbal knife not only into the king but into the king’s confessor, director of the royal conscience. And thereby director—at least in theory—of the royal actions. But it was too late to take back the words, even if he’d been willing to do so.

“Never,” La Chaise said between his teeth, “
never
say those things again. Not here, not anywhere. If you do and the wrong people hear you, I will not lift a finger to save you from the consequences. I will also see that your own confessor hears of your opinions. King Louis is God’s anointed sovereign, the king God Himself has given to govern France. King Louis is the mystical body of France. You and I and every soul in the realm are members of that body, and he is the head. Rebel against the king, and you rebel against God Himself.”

“I know that,” Charles said unhappily. His conscience was all too familiar with this particular moral struggle. “Of course I know he is divinely anointed, and that gives him his royal body—”

“Not only that. His birth also gives it.”

“But he also has a natural body, he is also a man like you and me. After all, he sins—if he did not, he wouldn’t need a confessor!”

“Of course he sins. But that natural sinning body is subsumed
within the anointed mystical body of the king. The royal body can do no wrong. None.” Seething with anger, La Chaise waited for Charles’s agreement. When it didn’t come, he strode to the window and rubbed his hands over his red face. “What is the matter with you?” He sounded almost afraid. “How did you ever become a Jesuit?”

“
Mon père
, I know that by blood and the holy chrism with which he was anointed in the cathedral at Rheims, the king is divinely sanctioned to rule.” Charles flung out his arms, pleading for understanding, even though La Chaise’s back was turned. “I am loyal to him—I
must
be loyal to him in order to obey God. But—but how can I not hate the suffering the king causes his people? His greed for
gloire
, for triumphs, for turning Europe into a blood-soaked battlefield, is ruining France. And didn’t the prophets criticize the kings in the Bible?”

La Chaise shook his head, still looking out the window. “You are not a prophet. You are also not a stupid man, so why do you talk like an idiot? Without making himself feared across Europe, the king of France cannot rule. Our enemies would overrun us—the Holy Roman Emperor, the Protestants, the Turks, the League of Augsburg countries. Do you not know how hated France is for its power? Do you not realize what will happen if Louis dies, as he could easily have done last winter? Who would hold France together? Who would protect it? Not the king’s heir, God help us. The poor Dauphin is not only terrified of his father, he cannot say boo to a goose. But he’s young and strong—he’ll live for years. In that time, if he were king, France could lose everything. Anything King Louis can do now to make France sovereign in Europe and feared across the world, he
must
do. And I must help him do it.” The king’s confessor rested his forehead against the window glass. “And I must somehow
help him save his soul at the same time,” he added, almost too softly for Charles to hear.

Charles was not one iota moved to agree with the king’s actions, as either mystical body of France or natural man. But he understood for the first time the danger looming beyond Louis’s death, whenever it came. And he understood much more of La Chaise’s impossible position and his struggle, saw that it was far more perilous than his own.

“I will pray for you both,
mon père
,” he said gravely.

“Do. God knows we need it.”

Chapter 8

C
harles thought he might faint from heat. He and Père La Chaise were standing together behind the king’s chair, looking over the outsized white plume on the royal hat, waiting for the ball to begin. Around the other three sides of the large
salon
, members of the royal family and the highest-ranking courtiers were settling in what was called the Ring, whose back rows were raised on wooden forms so that everyone could see and be seen. Lower-ranking courtiers stood wherever they could find room, crowded sleeve to sleeve and bare shoulder to bare shoulder, sweating in their layers of silk and wool and brocade and satin. The women’s painted fans beat the air like the bright, fragile wings of butterflies, doing about as much good toward cooling anyone. Charles smiled as he caught sight of little Anne-Marie de Bourbon, in a yellow gown with her dog in her lap, sitting in one of the Ring’s raised rows of chairs and swinging her feet, which didn’t reach the ground.