A Plague of Lies (38 page)

“Making up time,” La Reynie said. “Whatever other treachery is afoot, pray we get there in time to at least stop Montmorency running off with the girl. If that happens, hell will be nothing to the consequences.” He swore as the carriage rounded a curve and he slid across the seat into Charles. “My apologies,
maître
.” He pulled his coat straight. “There’s been no time to tell the relatively good news I have for you. Your Lulu did not poison Bouchel. One of my court spies learned that Bouchel was helping the Prince of Conti get the reports about our border fortifications. I’ve thought for some time—and so has Père La Chaise—that Conti has a spy in Louvois’s entourage inspecting French fortifications along the eastern border. Though Louvois has returned, the inspections continue. And the spy is still with the inspectors. No, I won’t tell you who he is. We’re giving him a long rope so he can hang himself more thoroughly.”

Charles frowned. “I got to know Bouchel a little at Versailles. You know he looked after Père La Chaise. I never saw sign of any hostility toward the king.”

“He would have made sure you didn’t. And maybe he had none, I don’t know; maybe he was only helping Conti for the money. But I do know that Bouchel’s father was a mason at Versailles when the place was first being built. His father fell from a wall and the overseer forced him back to work, though his leg was badly hurt. The leg made him unsteady and he fell again. That time he broke his neck. Not long after, the king came to inspect the building, and the mason’s mother—Bouchel’s grandmother—spit in Louis’s face and called him a murderer. The king had her flogged. I’ve been told that Bouchel grew up hearing the story.”

“Blessed Mary.” Charles winced. “I would surely hate the king for that.”

“It seems that when Conti heard the story, he saw that he could make use of Bouchel. Bouchel in turn recruited one of the king’s couriers, a young man his own age, whose family is from the village and who knew the story of Bouchel’s father and grandmother. This courier is the one who carries the spy’s letters from the border to Troyes, where he disappears into the old town and passes the letters to someone else. Then someone else brings them to Paris. To the Grand Duchess of Tuscany, it seems. Possibly through your Montmorency.”

“Or his tutor,” Charles said suddenly. “Montmorency could not leave the college or receive anything unexamined. But the tutor could.”

“Yes. While I waited for you, I sent two men to arrest Père Vionnet for questioning. So. The chief of my court spies thinks that Bouchel was killed because Conti is about to change the letters’ route. And that the footman not only knew too much, he was growing greedy for more pay. For his work and for his continued silence.”

“Which is now assured,” Charles said sadly. He was thinking that if Bouchel had demanded more money, it might have been for Lulu. “Well, that’s very good news about Lulu, anyway. That she didn’t kill poor Bouchel.”

The coach leaned precariously as they rounded a corner, and La Reynie clutched at the straps hanging from the carriage roof. Charles braced himself on the seat, wishing more every moment that he were on horseback, though the miles seemed to pass like single footsteps as they hurtled through the bright June evening. He’d never traveled much by carriage and never so fast. Trees, fields, houses, people whirled by so fast, they made his head
spin. To his relief, the carriage slowed as the driver pulled the horses to a trot and then to a resting walk.

“What would happen between France and Poland if Lulu did run off with Montmorency?” Charles said. “Would King Louis lose the Polish king’s goodwill?”

La Reynie shrugged. “I don’t know. Jan Sobieski is nobody’s fool. He might be able to see past the antics of two idiot children. In which case, he’d shrug and look for another bride for his son.”

“They’re not idiots. Not even Montmorency. I’ve always found him dull-witted, but he truly cares for the girl. And she is certainly bright enough. But no creature thinks clearly when it’s struggling in a trap.”

“So your sympathies are with those two, are they?” La Reynie said sourly.

“Far more than they are with the king’s greed for glory and power.”

“You’d better hope I didn’t hear that. The king is the head of France’s body. He is responsible for France’s wealth and glory and power.”

“And he’s selling his people, including his daughter, to get it.”

The horses began to trot again, and La Reynie bounced nearly to the roof of the carriage as the wheels hit what felt like a boulder.

“Even if the boy’s not intentionally passing letters,” he growled, “he commits treason if he rides off with the girl. And if he does, for two
sous
, I’d leave them to get on with it and take the consequences.”

“There’s always the possibility that Montmorency may not come near Marly. God send he doesn’t.”

La Reynie slapped his wig straight after another bounce. “Maybe he’s gone home to his terrifying mother. Or to Siam. Someplace where I have no jurisdiction.”

“If he does try to take the girl, and is caught, what will happen to him?”

“If he’s only being used with regard to the spy’s letters, he might only be exiled. If he’s working with Conti—he could lose his head.” The
lieutenant-général
lurched against the side of the carriage. “At the moment, damn him, I wish he’d already lost it!”

“Falling in love isn’t a crime,” Charles said sadly, trying to shield his injured shoulder from another collision with the gold brocade carriage wall.

“For the
bon Dieu
’s sake! You sound like every idiotic young man since Adam. I thought you were past that sort of thing.”

“Montmorency’s
actions
are wrong, yes. What he feels for the girl is not. How could it be? He isn’t married. He—”

“She is. Almost.”

“Against her will! She doesn’t want the marriage and she’s damnably trapped!”

“Her father has the right to impose his will. Every father does.”

“And if his will is destroying his child?”

“Oh, it’s like that, is it? No authority, no order, only womanish feeling. Pah! You sound exactly like my son!”

La Reynie put out a hand to fend off the front carriage wall. For a long moment there was only the thud of trotting hooves and the rattle of the much-tried carriage.

“Gabriel?” Charles said carefully. He knew La Reynie had a son, but it was the first time the
lieutenant-général
had spoken of him voluntarily.

La Reynie’s big shoulders rounded suddenly, as though something hurt inside him. “I am too harsh, he says. He wants none of my rules. None of my—my life. He says he will go to Rome. And not return.”

“I’m sorry,” Charles said inadequately.

La Reynie crossed his arms over his chest and frowned at his rumpled brown coat sleeves. “So what will you say when you’re a priest? And some fool like Montmorency or Gabriel comes to you? Will you say, oh certainly, by all means, flout the commandment, no need to honor your father?”

“Scripture also says that the sins of the fathers will be visited on the children.”

“And so will yours be visited on them when you’re Père du Luc and guide them wrong!”

Suddenly they were glaring at each other from opposite corners of the coach. Charles turned his head away and closed his eyes, leaning back against the thick brocade upholstery. The horses’ trot on a smoother stretch of road was making the carriage rock pleasantly now… The carriage lurched and he sat up in alarm.

“We’re nearly there,” La Reynie said, glancing at him. “You’ve slept.”

The carriage rolled to a stop and Charles put down the window glass and peered out. They were stopped at a tall, tree-shadowed, heavily guarded gate. La Reynie lowered the glass on his side and spoke to a pike-carrying guard.

“Has a young horseman passed through the gates recently? Henri de Montmorency?”

“No,
mon lieutenant-général
,” Charles heard the guard say. “No horseman has come in since noon.”

“You’re sure?”

“Yes,
mon lieutenant-général
.”

“If Montmorency does come, say nothing about my being here or asking about him. Let him pass but send me word.”

The guard nodded smartly, the gates opened, and the carriage crossed an arcaded circular court. Then Charles nearly fell forward as they began to go steeply downhill.

“The chateau is at the bottom of this slope,” La Reynie said. He turned on the seat to face Charles. “You heard what the guard said? Montmorency is not here.”

“Yes, but I can hardly believe it. Are there other ways in?”

“I suppose he could go through the forest. There are paths. But then he’d have to climb the garden wall. Without being seen and taken by a guard. The guards are nearly as thick here as at Versailles. Otherwise, though, Marly is different. It is private, not open for public gawking. Officials, like me, can get in on emergency business. Otherwise, entrance is strictly at the king’s invitation.” La Reynie braced an arm on the front wall against the incline. “I know of at least one visit Montmorency has made here. So he may know a way through the forest. But if he breaks in over the wall, that will not endear him to the king.”

Charles looked out his window again and saw that they were near the bottom of the steep
allée
. The chateau was directly ahead. The last of the long evening’s sun lay across its front and Charles exclaimed in surprise. “The red pillars—they’re Languedoc marble, from my home region. What an incredible front the place has!”

Beside him, La Reynie merely snorted.

The sunlight gleamed on the chateau’s gold balustrade, its gold sculpted figures and vases, its golden pediments and window panels, all picked out against brilliant royal blue walls. The carriage stopped at a second, smaller gate and was passed
through. Charles, still gaping out his window like a tourist, gasped in astonishment.

“It’s all paint! There are no pillars, it’s just a flat wall, there’s nothing there but paint!”

“Yes. Illusion.” La Reynie bent his head and stepped down from the carriage as a lackey held the door open.

Charles clambered from the carriage and stood gazing at the chateau’s
trompe l’oeil
front. “Do you suppose they intend the irony? That it’s all only an illusion?”

“Illusions can be very durable.” La Reynie led the way into the royal chateau of Marly.

Chapter 21

L
a Reynie stated his business to the footman who’d let them in.

“I’ll take you to the king’s apartments,
monsieur
,” the footman said. “We have a grand ball this evening, but His Majesty is still in his private rooms.”

La Reynie nodded at the glazed doors on the vestibule’s other side. “You can wait in the
salon
,
maître
. That’s where the ball will be. I shouldn’t be long.” And as the footman turned away, he added under his breath, “Keep your eyes open.”

Charles went through the glazed doors into the
salon
. For a moment he simply stared. The enormous room was octagonal, with identical glass-paned doors at the four points of the compass, and identical cavernous fireplaces topped with mirrors on the angled sides. Corinthian pilasters studded the ground floor walls and caryatids looked down from the next level. Between the caryatids were tall windows with balconies, but the windows were dark and seemed to open from an inner corridor. The only natural light came from roundel windows near the top of the walls. Now that the sun was behind the hills, servants were lighting the wall sconce candles, and the mirror-polished parquet floor was doubling and giving back the little flames.

Otherwise, the
salon
was deserted. But muted voices and what Charles recognized as the click of billiard balls came from the south vestibule, and he went to see who was there. As he opened the glazed doors and looked in, the men engrossed in the billiard game ignored him. Several had shed their coats, and they were all watching hawk-eyed as the Duc du Maine sighted intently along his cue and struck a ball. When it went wide, the watchers shouted in triumph. Maine shrugged and smiled. As he moved aside for the next player, he caught sight of Charles.