Mistress of the Sun (21 page)

“I heard that
poisons
were found in his house,” Claude-Marie said.

“That’s doubtful,” Athénaïs said.

Petite listened quietly, her thoughts in turmoil.
I’m not the dupe he imagines
, Louis had said. She understood why the minister of finance had been arrested. The senior aristocrat had mistakenly assumed that he could carry on in the corrupt ways of the past. His arrest was just—Petite believed that—yet it was unnerving.

“His wife is under arrest as well. She was sent to Limoges—”

“In her condition?”

“—with only fifteen louis-d’ors in her purse, poor thing.”

“Everyone’s property was confiscated—Fouquet’s wife’s, his sister-in-law’s. Vaux, of course.”

“Even Suzanne du Plessis-Bellièvre was arrested, her correspondence seized.”

Petite was horrified to imagine Fouquet’s bumbling spy in prison.

“Imagine what His Majesty will do when he reads through
Fouquet’s
correspondence,” Henriette said weakly, stretched out on her bed as Nicole and Petite fanned her.

At this, a number of women paled, and in the days that followed, several quietly left Court, anxious, no doubt, to destroy all traces of an association with the former minister of finance.

L
OUIS RETURNED ON
the ninth of September to a different world, his Court no longer gay. Now everyone courted solitude. Devotional prayers and pilgrimages to shrines had taken the place of evenings at the gaming tables.

He was a different king now, in any case. He had shown his strength, punished corruption—yet peace did not reign. With the confiscation of Fouquet’s correspondence, a truth had been revealed that shocked even him. It was as if a rock had been lifted, revealing a teeming underground world of trysts and treasonous dealings.

Turbulent weather ruined crops all across the land, and a famine was predicted. Fear tightened purses, and suddenly money was scarce. As the Queen’s belly grew, Petite and Louis lay twined, his cries of release drowned by horrendous storms.

T
HE
Q
UEEN’S LABOR
began in the early hours of All Saints’ Day, a good omen. The château came alive with torchlight, courtiers rushing to the Queen’s chamber to witness the birth.

Clorine, up by candle, helped Petite into her gown, pinning her braids up under her nightcap. Petite poured some water into a china bowl and rinsed her hands, running them wet over her face.
She felt sluggish, heavy on her feet.
O Mary, may his baby be well
, she prayed.

Eight days earlier, she had persuaded Louis to forsake their clandestine afternoons in Gautier’s chamber until after the birthing. He needed to prepare for Confession, take Communion, commend his soul to God. So much had gone awry, she feared the worst. The fall weather had been stormy, ruining the harvests throughout the land. It was only the first of November, and already peasants were starving, swarming at the gates.

When had the gods stopped smiling on them? Had it been with the arrest of Fouquet—the arrest and ruin of Fouquet’s wife, his brothers and sisters, his friends and supporters, his innumerable spies?

Had
that
been the turning point? Or had it been earlier, Petite wondered, taking up a candle—when they had become sinners? Or earlier even still? She’d had a dream of monsters swimming in dark waters.
Gone to the river.
Had a demon put that in her thoughts? Was the Devil following her even now?
O God, I beg you: the Queen is innocent.

“Pray, Clorine,” she said at the door. “Pray for the Queen.”

“Wait,” Clorine said, taking the simple rosary hung over the betony statue of the Virgin. “You’ll need this.”

T
HERE WAS QUITE
a congestion in the antechamber to the Queen’s rooms. Petite spotted Athénaïs, leaning against a pillar. “Are you all right?” Petite asked, alarmed by how pale Athénaïs looked.

“It’s stifling in there.” Athénaïs smiled wanly.

The Queen could be heard screaming.
Mercy.

“Les douleurs de l’enfantement,” Athénaïs said, raising her eyes to the ceiling. “It’s not going well for her.”

Petite followed Athénaïs into the dark and airless birthing chamber, packed with courtiers staggering about in a sleep-deprived state, wigs askew. She scanned the crowd, looking for Louis. She spotted him sitting in an armchair to one side of the Queen’s bed. The Queen was writhing in agony as the midwife, a stout woman of middle age with a pockmarked face, applied steaming cloths to her great belly.

“The baby’s posterior presented first,” Athénaïs whispered, pressing her way through the loudly praying courtiers.

Petite’s heart sank. Women died from such a birthing.

“The midwife almost had apoplexy. One of the Queen’s maids fainted and Claude-Marie upheaved. Everyone’s dropping like flies.”

Petite saw Yeyette and Philippe, but where was Henriette? “I should see to Madame.”

“She’s already retired,” Athénaïs said over the Queen’s piercing screams. “She couldn’t take it.”

Petite held back.

“Don’t worry—Nicole is with her. Stay: we may need you. You’ve foaled horses, haven’t you?” she asked with a wink.

Petite followed Athénaïs through the crowd to the Queen’s bed. Louis looked up, startled to see her. Petite lowered her eyes and
made a deep reverence to the Queen, now silent and panting.

She looks like a girl
, Petite thought,
like a mere child with a giant belly.
Her face was flushed, her eyes bulging. She clutched her amulet, the dried heart of the deer that had been slayed on a hunt. The midwife, her hands soaked in oil of white lily, was stroking, kneading, pushing and plying her—trying to turn the infant around.

O Mary, I implore you.
Petite clasped her rosary.

“The baby has turned, Your Majesty,” the midwife announced at last. The welcome news reverberated throughout the crowd.

But even so, challenges remained, Petite knew. The Queen was practically a dwarf and the baby locked within. The midwife gave the Queen an enema, but it failed to widen the birth canal. Eel liver powder failed to alleviate her pain. A sneezing powder only produced convulsions. Even ergot fungus did not give the exhausted Queen sufficient strength to push the baby out.

But strength for yelling? Yes, this the little Queen had aplenty. Petite was in awe of her vocal strength, the violence of her expression. The timid young woman threw herself violently from side to side with amazing vigor, her screams rattling the horn window panes. “No quiero dar parto, quiero morir!” she cried out in Spanish with each contraction. I don’t want to give birth, I want to die!

“Hold her down,” the midwife barked at Athénaïs, who appeared senseless with fear.

“Santa Virgen!” the Queen cursed in Spanish, shaking free.

“Get her to drink this.” The midwife thrust a glass of milky substance into Athénaïs’s hands.

Athénaïs spooned some into the Queen’s mouth but the Queen spat it back in her face.
“Quiero morir!”

Petite placed her hand on the Queen’s damp, cold forehead and turned to Louis. He looked terrified. “Your Majesty,” she said softly, “perhaps it would help if
you
told her that this fluid will ease her pain.”

Louis stared at Petite, dumbfounded. “Esto facilitará tu dolor,” he repeated, standing over his wife.

“Touch her,” Petite whispered. “It will calm her.” The King’s holy touch.

Louis placed his hand on the Queen’s shoulder and she quieted…but dangerously so, her breathing becoming irregular.

As priests approached, droning sonorously, Athénaïs spooned the liquid into the Queen’s mouth.

She stopped breathing.

One second, two seconds, three seconds…

Everyone stared. Had they lost her?

Then the Queen gasped, as if drowning.

The midwife was checking the Queen’s pulse when her assistant called out. There it was—a slippery, bloody infant emerging from between the Queen’s legs. The nobility craned their necks to see the genitals.

Louis lowered his head, praying.

“A prince, Your Majesty,” the midwife said, deftly cutting the cord.

“Glory to the Father, to the Son and to the Holy Spirit,” Louis prayed out loud, taking his naked and squalling son in his hands.

Petite blinked back tears and joined with all the courtiers as they echoed the King, “As it was in the beginning, is now and ever shall be, world without end.”

“Amen,” the courtiers said, falling to their knees. “O Lord, let us rejoice.”

“Un príncipe sano, Your Highness,” Athénaïs whispered to the Queen, who lay weeping in a pool of blood. “A healthy prince.”

“Gracias,” the Queen whispered, then fainted dead away.

The squalling baby was cleaned, wrapped, blessed yet again and presented to the King. The great balcony doors were opened to a riot of cheering, ringing bells and fire rockets. The courtiers parted, heads bowed, hats pressed over their hearts, as Louis stepped out onto the balcony with the infant in his arms. A prince!

Amen, my love
, Petite prayed silently, weak with relief.

T
HE WEATHER THAT
C
HRISTMAS
season in Paris was wet and gray. A chill came off the dank stone walls of the Tuileries Palace that no amount of burning wood could ease. Petite’s garret room was so cold, the water in the wash basin froze. Clorine had to jab it with her finger to break the film of ice. She was adding salt rocks to it when there was a familiar tap-tap at the door.

Gautier stood in the dim hallway, a wall sconce candle illuminating his lively eyes. He was wrapped in layers of wool, bringing to mind a swaddled baby. “I must be quick,” he said, closing the door behind him to keep out the cold. Under his arm he clasped a cloth-wrapped bundle. “I’ve come to deliver His Majesty’s invitation to Mademoiselle de la Vallière to join a hunting excursion in the country.”

Clorine frowned. “In this weather?”

“When?” Petite asked. She’d had little chance to see Louis since the birth of the Dauphin and the Court’s return to Paris. Gautier had been assigned a room next to one of the Queen Mother’s valets, so meeting there hadn’t been a possibility.

“First thing in the morning,” Gautier said. “His Majesty will be riding to Val-de-Galie, a village to the southwest. The going is apt to be rough, so only the hardiest riders have been invited.” He tipped his hat to Petite, as if to congratulate her. “There is a château there, a rather primitive hunting box, but sufficient for a stay of two days’ duration.”

Two days with Louis? (
Two nights.
) “But what about my duties here?” Petite asked.

“Madame is to be purged in the morning, and will not require attendants for several days.”

Petite glanced at Clorine, then turned away. She didn’t want her maid to know about her relationship with Louis. “Thank you, Monsieur, but I’m afraid I couldn’t consider it.” It made her want to weep. “A ride through rough terrain would be too difficult for my maid.”

“There’s sure to be a baggage wagon I could go in,” Clorine said, protesting.

“The keeper’s wife is in residence at the château, Mademoiselle,” Gautier pressed. “She could attend you.”

“The keeper’s wife will do fine. My maid will stay here,” Petite announced, avoiding Clorine’s eyes.

“Very well.” Gautier doffed his hat. “I will await you at dawn in a carriage in the courtyard, at the end of rue de Chartres. A horse will be held for you at the porte Saint-Honoré. From there a small party will set out to meet the King at Saint-Cloud. If I may make one suggestion, Mademoiselle?” Gautier cleared his throat. “Of those going down on horseback, you will be the only female, which might excite public curiosity. Therefore, it would be advisable for you to dress as a man.” He held out the parcel, wrapped in linen. “It’s a gentleman’s riding ensemble. I am informed that you ride astraddle. There’s a hat and wig, as well as a pair of jackboots.” He bowed and closed the door behind him.

Clorine sniffed the clothes suspiciously and laid them out on the bed. Petite recognized Lauzun’s red cloak and his leather doublet with a missing button. She pulled on one of the high boots. “At least they’re small enough,” she said.

Clorine snorted, her shoulders hunched.

“You heard what Gautier said.” Petite pulled on the wig and looked at herself in the clouded looking glass. “It’s a primitive hunt camp. It’s best this way, really.” She took off the wig—it was itchy. She hoped it wasn’t lousy.

“I don’t mind so much being left behind.” Clorine used a corner of her apron to wipe her cheeks. “What I mind is you lying to me!”

Petite was dismayed to see her maid’s tears.

“You don’t want me there.”

Petite sat down, deflated. She’d been entirely taken up with her
own concerns. She hadn’t considered how Clorine might feel. “I’m sorry, Clorine. It’s because…” But no—she could not speak the truth.

Clorine sat down opposite, her hands on her thighs. “It’s because you’re hiding something, Mademoiselle,” she said with an accusing glare. “And I know what it is.”

“What do you mean?” Petite asked anxiously.

“I can’t believe Gautier would be such a cad.” Clorine hit her thigh with her fist.

“But he’s not.”

“Has he bedded you?”

Petite almost laughed.

“He treats you like a lady?”

Petite nodded.

“He’s pledged his troth?”

Petite had to find a way out of this treacherous conversation. She could not reveal the truth, but she did not wish to lie, either. “I can’t marry, Clorine.”

Clorine stood and paced. “Of course a man as noble as Gautier would require a dowered bride.”

Petite’s silence was a falsehood, she knew, but not as great as a spoken deception.

“The King shows you favor—it would be foolish not to use that to some profit,” her maid announced, inspired. “Maybe when you’re out riding, for example, you could mention to His Majesty
how nice it would be to have a brooch for your hat, maybe a diamond one like Madame Henriette wears. Or a jeweled riding crop, something you could sell or exchange for paste without the King knowing. He’s easily fooled, I’ve noticed. Then, before you know it, you’d have your dowry. You wouldn’t need much, just enough so that Gautier could honorably marry you. But
first
you must swear to me…”

Petite regarded Clorine apprehensively, unsure where this was leading.

“Swear that you will not allow Gautier to bed you until after you are married.”

“I swear,” Petite said, relieved, both hands pressed against her heart.

C
LORINE INSISTED ON
accompanying Petite to the courtyard the next morning, carrying the leather portmanteau. “But I’m a man, remember?” Petite said, trying to take the case from her maid. It felt strange to be wearing breeches and high boots. It reminded her of the times she had helped her father in the barn, dressed in her brother’s castoffs.

“There he is,” Clorine said, spotting Gautier snoozing in a coach, his mouth hanging open. She turned to Petite with a glowing look. “Your betrothed.”

The dance master sat up and feigned to be wakeful as they approached, straightening his wig. Petite handed her portmanteau
up to the driver and made a swaggering sort of step onto the running board, climbing into the coach without assistance. She nodded to Gautier, and then looked off into the distance, pretending a masculine indifference. The clouds to the east were a radiant pink.

Clorine wagged a finger. “No shenanigans—”

“Don’t worry, Clorine,” Petite said, cutting her off before she said more.

“Remember what I said about the King,” Clorine called out as they pulled away.

“What did your maid say?” Gautier asked, thick of hearing. “Something about the King?”

Petite nodded, but did not speak. They were heading west along rue Saint-Honoré. They slowed to make their way through a herd of bleating goats, heading to market.

Gautier fussed to open his snuffbox. “Mademoiselle de la Vallière, may I presume to ask you a question?”

“Certainly, Monsieur,” Petite said, adjusting the hat. It tended to slip down over her brows.

“Does your maid know about His Majesty?”

Petite stared out the carriage window: one of the goats had fallen behind and was helping itself to apples on a cart.
How much can I tell him?
she wondered. She felt she could trust him. Indeed, Monsieur le Duc de Gautier was the only person she could talk to about Louis. “I don’t want her to know,” she confessed. “She would not approve; she’s a woman of principle.”

“Mademoiselle…” Gautier’s tone was fatherly. “I’ve had the pleasure of knowing you since you were a girl, and I wish you to know that I consider you to be a woman of principle yourself. Your…your situation is complex. His Majesty had to marry for reasons of State—but what of his heart?” He inhaled a pinch of snuff and sneezed. “Just because he is King does not mean he doesn’t have yearnings like any other man—perhaps even more so because of his vital spirit, his noble race. It’s not healthy for a man to be starved in this way. The sacrifice of your virtue is a worthy act, but not one that many people would understand.”

“I do not see it as a sacrifice,” Petite said, her voice thickening. “I hold the King dear.”

“I know. Unlike other ladies of the Court, you are free of ambitious intent,” he said as they approached the porte Saint-Honoré, a fortress-like structure with turrets. “It speaks well of His Majesty that he has chosen you.”

The stench of the moat filled the air, in spite of the chill. Pressing a scented cambric cloth to his nose, Gautier addressed the guard, who, seeing the royal insignia on the coach door, Gautier’s sword and the gems in his hatband, waved him through without even looking at his papers, much less the forged ones Gautier had had made up for Petite as “Monsieur” de la Vallière.

Their credentials unquestioned, they clattered over the moat into an open area congested with horses, riders, carts and coaches.

Petite recognized Lauzun sitting a bay and Azeem helping two laborers load a wagon. A page in the King’s livery was holding a horse’s reins—her horse, she guessed. It was Poseidon, a powerful and stubborn barb. He required a strong hand. “Are you riding down with us, Monsieur?” she asked Gautier as their coach pulled into a clearing.

“No, that’s for you young ones. I’ll be following behind in the baggage wagon—to protect it.” Gautier mocked a threatening expression. “Need help down?” He reached for his walking stick.

“No, thank you,” Petite said, jumping out as soon as the coach rolled to a stop. The driver handed down her bag.

“I didn’t recognize you,” Azeem said in a low voice, taking Petite’s portmanteau and putting it in the wagon.

“Good.” Petite spat into the weeds for effect.

“Well done. That was disgusting.” Lauzun grinned down at her from his horse.

“Good morning, Monsieur Lauzun.” Petite kept her voice intentionally low-pitched. “I can take him now,” she told the page, gathering up the stallion’s reins. She pulled the saddle pad smooth and tightened the girth. It was a workmanlike running saddle, well used. She clasped hold of a hunk of mane, put her left foot in the stirrup and threw her right leg over. How much easier it was not to be encumbered by skirts.

“I imagine that type of saddle is new to you,” Lauzun said.

“Not entirely,” Petite said, checking the length of the stirrups. Lauzun’s jackboots came up over her knees. “But as a girl I mostly rode bareback.”

“Ah, like a Roman emperor.”

“Like a pagan, my mother said.” Petite laughed.

Lauzun looked her up and down, his forehead furrowed. “I didn’t think my leather doublet looked so good.”

With Azeem in the lead, Lauzun and Petite set out to meet up with the King’s party at Saint-Cloud. They made their way along the fetid moat and turned east at the river, already busy with boats and barges. The rising sun sparkled on the water. The river looked like a long silver ribbon edging meadows, farms, groves of bare walnut trees. A flock of pigeons perched on the roof of a dovecote.

“Go on ahead,” Lauzun commanded Azeem, slowing his horse to a walk. “Tell His Majesty we will be at the pavilion as expected.” The gentler’s horse broke into a hand-canter and disappeared around a bend.

“That’s the village of Chaillot.” Lauzun pointed his riding whip at gardens on the hill to their right. “That convent’s fairly new—Sainte-Marie, I think it’s called, Sisters of the Visitation.”

Four nuns were tending the large garden. Petite thought of the stone hovel she had built as a child—her “convent”—remembered the happy moments she had spent there, caring for wounded animals as she hummed hymns to herself, talking to God (her best friend).

A bell rang for morning Mass, and then other bells joined in, a chorus. Petite thought of her aunt Angélique. Right now she would be singing in choir, a lovely way to begin the day. And then Petite thought, cringing, how her aunt would feel were she to see her now, riding to meet her lover, the King.

“The hunting is supposed to be good in the woods there to the west. I’ve heard talk of boar and hart,” Lauzun said, picking up a trot. “Some say they’ve seen wild horses in the hills behind.”

“Runaways, likely,” Petite said, surveying the wooded hills. She thought of Diablo. Perhaps he had simply run off. Perhaps her father had opened his stall and then fallen.

After a time, the high road veered away from the river, entering a forest. The footing was good and the horses broke into an easy canter, weaving in and out between the carts and foot passengers, cows and even a flock of sheep. Petite held her horse back behind Lauzun’s big bay, reveling in the pleasure of the early-morning ride, the smell of the woods, the birdsong, the steady rhythm of the horses’ hooves.

They came upon the river again and stopped to water their horses. Ahead was the arched stone bridge to Saint-Cloud. At the top of the hill, above the winding streets of the village, Petite could see the white walls of the château, one wing covered with scaffolding. Like every royal residence, it was undergoing renovation.

As they crossed the bridge, Petite spotted the gentler on his horse on the opposite bank, near a pavilion.

“His Majesty won’t be long,” Azeem called out as they neared, pacing his horse back and forth, its hot breath misting.

“Jingo! There he is now,” Lauzun said.

Four men on horseback could be seen making their way down the hill, Louis in the lead. He sat his horse proudly, his legs dangling loose out of the stirrups. He was riding Courage, a hunter with a large, round chest.

Following Lauzun’s example, Petite made a seated reverence, taking off her hat and pressing it to her heart.

Tipping his cocked hat, Louis smiled at her with his eyes, his right hand holding the reins, his left hand on an embroidered bandolier, the rapier hanging high at his hip. He was wearing a worn green-leather tunic that reached to his knees.

Behind Louis were three trusted companions: the Duc de Chevreuse, the Marquis de Dangeau and the Duc de Beauvillier. In casual dress, they would be taken for a party of noblemen setting out for a day’s hunt. They regarded Petite knowingly, but with respect.

Louis set out at the lead. At the château gate they were joined by two armed guards. They followed the post road west, climbing steadily uphill. Petite fell to the back, in front of the gentler and the guard who brought up the rear. Listening to their easy chatter, she kept her eyes on Louis. Twice he turned to catch her eye.