The Shadow Queen A Novel (10 page)

We’d only be paid a few sous a day, but it was a beginning. “To the future,” I said, raising my mug. We were to start at daybreak.

IN THE WEEKS
that followed, all the members of the troupe frantically prepared for the ouverture, the play-day after Easter when theaters opened their doors to the public. Much of the time was spent in meetings, I discovered. The troupe did everything together, and by consensus: this required patience. Mother and I weren’t voting members—these were the full-share players, the playwright and the director, who together made all the decisions—but even as part-time workers on the overhire list, we were allowed to observe. In this way we came to understand the workings of the troupe and got to know all the people involved, the players as well as baggage-men and wig-makers, dressers and scene-shifters, doorkeepers and stagehands, call-boys and prompters. I scratched their names on the back of an old playbill with a stick of burnt willow to help me remember.

Between watching Gaston (not always easy), trimming wicks and refilling oil lamps, finding props, mending costumes, and keeping loges tidy, there was a great deal to do. I watched over Mother to see how she was managing all this. She’d been in a dream world for a long time, a world of tears and shadow. Now suddenly she was surrounded by people—loud, expressive, sometimes rather eccentric people, people whose own humors were often out of balance. Amazingly, the world of the theater seemed to have restored her faculties to some extent. She was still charmingly witless, but now she seemed more her old self, lively and spunky. (Thank you, Father.)

As for Gaston, at first he was bewildered by all the commotion. I did my best to keep him close, watching what items he “took” for one of his curious trails of objects (watching that it wasn’t a player’s shoe or prop he borrowed). I tried over and over again to get him to understand that things belonged to people, and that just because an object—a hat, a feather, a valise—interested him, it was not acceptable to simply walk off with it. I explained his obsession to the players, who were fairly understanding, calling him Turnip and treating him as a pet.

Our first production, the play by Brécourt, drew only modest audiences. The young playwright was devastated, but the players assured him that it was not his play that was to blame—not at all! The problem was competition from a new troupe now performing in Paris, a troupe that had given a performance for the King and his new bride.

“New in town and they’re
already
performing for His Majesty?” one of the players said with a groan.

“That’s cause for concern.”

“We have enough competition from the Bourgogne.”

The Hôtel de Bourgogne, I gathered, was a long-established theatrical troupe that performed tragedies, serious fare.

“Ay, we don’t need another rival company to contend with.”

“Especially
now—
”

Now
with the costly production of
The Golden Fleece.
In addition to supplying all their own costumes—no small expense!—the players had invested a great deal in this machine play.

“Don’t worry about Monsieur Molière,” Monsieur la Roque assured everyone, trying to alleviate concerns. “His troupe is good at farce, but not much else.”

Even so, we fretted. A new machine play by the Great Corneille could be expected to be a success, but everything had to be perfect. It didn’t help that the flying system didn’t seem to be working. Buffequin, the Keeper of Secrets, was constantly adjusting it, constantly testing. I looked on in horror one afternoon as Mother was being strapped into the harness.

“Take me, instead,” I said (but felt ill at the thought). Gaston looked on, sucking his thumb.

Denis Buffequin regarded me with his one good eye. “Until I know for sure that it’s working, I need someone light in weight.”

“Don’t worry!” Mother said bravely, though I could see apprehension in her eyes.

I checked to make sure the buckles were secure and stepped back, making a silent prayer to Father.

Without warning, Mother was jolted into the air and swung out over the parterre. She went higher, higher, until—ye gods!—she was level with the benches of the Paradis. Gaston grasped my hand. I closed my eyes.

I heard a curse and the machinery came to a stop. Mother was suspended up in the air. I feared I was going to lose my stomach and make water at the same time.

“Just a moment, Madame des Oeillets,” Buffequin assured her. “We’ll have you down in a moment.”

“Must you?” Mother called down from above, spreading her arms and extending a pointed toe. “This is glorious!”

The players applauded and Gaston, smiling hesitantly, brought his hands together: once, twice.

I WAS FITTING
Mother for her gown when I noticed Monsieur la Roque run up to Monsieur Pierre, waving his hands in the air. I put down my case of pins. Did it signify alarm or foolery? The troupe had been working day and night in preparation for the opening of
The Golden Fleece
and everyone was becoming teethy.

I watched as La Roque talked with Monsieur Pierre, who frowned gravely, pulling on his chin tuft. Monsieur la Roque’s big-chested voice was often easy to hear, but there was a considerable clanging coming from under the stage, where Buffequin was working on one of the chariots that carried the side wing-flats.

“Is something going on?” Mother asked, turning to follow my gaze.

“I’m trying to hear.” I watched over her shoulder as I gathered the thin gauze of her gown, securing the folds with pins. “La Roque said he’s had word from Brécourt—something to do with Étiennette.” Brécourt’s wife, the actress who played Medea. “She won’t be able to perform. She’s with child—”

“That shouldn’t stop her.”

I nodded. “But she’s bleeding, in danger.”

“
Mercy.
”

“She must keep to her bed.”

“A calamity,” Mother hissed.

Indeed! Étiennette’s understudy had quit two days before because she up-heaved whenever she rode the flying dragon, which was required in Act V.

And then I saw the disaster for what it really was. I put away my pins.

“THINK OF HOW
much trouble it could save you,” I argued. “Here you have a new Medea, ready to begin.”

Monsieur la Roque and Monsieur Pierre exchanged a glance.

“Mademoiselle Claude,” Monsieur Pierre began, not unkindly, “the casting of Medea is crucial to the success of this entire production.”

“Maman did well in Brécourt’s play—” I began.

“She played a maid,” Monsieur la Roque cut in. “A walk-on—and in only two scenes.”

Yet had garnered applause with only that! “All I ask is that you give her a chance. I promise it will be worth your time.”

“But that’s just it,” Monsieur la Roque said with exasperation. “We don’t have time. Alix would have to learn the lines and then if she can’t perform—well … We will have lost days finding a replacement.”

“One hour,” I said. “Just give us the lines for one hour. Mother memorizes faster than anyone I’ve ever seen.”

“But—” Monsieur la Roque was losing patience with this debate, I could see.

“Very well: one hour,” Monsieur Pierre interjected. “Have her learn the second scene in Act Two. But are you sure you want to—”

“She will surprise you, Messieurs,” I said. “Trust me.”

I HAD TO
tell Mother that the purpose of her reading was only to help Monsieur la Roque and Monsieur Pierre find someone to replace Medea. “They aren’t certain which scene to have the actresses perform for them,” I said, trying to sound casual. It was a half-lie, and not even a credible one at that, but it would be justified if my plan worked. “So it’s important that you do it as well as you can …”

“This is for Monsieur Pierre?”

I nodded. “And Monsieur la Roque, to give them some idea of how challenging the scene is.”

Mother looked confused, but nonetheless stepped into the empty dressing room I had claimed for us.
Father, we’re going to need your help,
I thought, opening the stack of parchment: Medea’s lines, with the cues inked in.

Mother worked with an intensity of focus that amazed me. She could hardly write her name, much less read, yet she had a profound ability to commit lines to heart. As I read the script to her, she used the memory techniques Father had taught us so long ago, tricks the ancients had developed to commit a script to memory. To memorize a line, she imagined a palace of many rooms, imagined the words within it. In no time at all, all I had to do was say the cue line and she would change into the evil Medea, her face contorted, her eyes bulging, the veins in her neck taut and throbbing.

“Bravo,” I whispered, shocked at her transformation.

“Bravo, indeed,” said a man’s husky voice from behind me. I turned to see Monsieur Pierre in the doorway, Monsieur la Roque one step behind him, both of their faces filled with enchantment.

“OF COURSE, NOW
that your mother is Medea,” Monsieur la Roque told me the next morning, “you’ll have to be Cupid.”

Ay me.
The flying machine! “Of course,” I said, my palms damp.

CHAPTER 18

S
hortly before
The Golden Fleece
was scheduled to open, there was a fire at the Louvre. The blaze raged until a priest arrived with the Sacrament, at which point the fire immediately went out (which surprised me: I’m not
entirely
a believer). The Queen Mother’s apartment had been saved, but the Petite Gallerie and the palace theater—still under construction—were destroyed. The theater for machines, which would have rivaled our own.

“And to think that we had nothing to do with it,” Madame Babette said, but nobody laughed.

It was said that the blaze had started in the theater. Spectacle plays were risky, without a doubt. The machines themselves required a lot of light—a lot of candles. Monsieur la Roque held a special meeting to discuss our apprehension, and it was decided to double the number of Capuchins in the bucket brigade. But what about the concerns of the public, so close on the eve of the fire? The troupe considered postponing the opening, but that, too, would bring bad luck, so we opted to persevere, and entrust our fate to God.

Then—as if we weren’t fretful enough!—Monsieur la Roque informed us that the King would be coming to see our production.

“Could you repeat that, Monsieur la Roque?” someone called out from the stage, where players had gathered for the first of the three rehearsals.

“You heard me,” La Roque said with a grin.

The King? Players cheered and hooted; some even danced. Everything—
everything
—hinged on royal approval. If His Majesty enjoyed the show, we would be well rewarded.

Mother looked stricken. This was her first big role … and she was to play it before His Majesty?

THE DAYS THAT
followed were lunatic with preparation. I ran from one task to another: making final alterations to Mother’s gown; shaking out the chair covers in the loges; arranging flowers in vases here and there. It was said the King loved flowers.

The King!

AT THE FINAL
rehearsal, everything—merci Dieu—went smoothly. I marveled at the effects. Thunder and lightning! Iris seated on a rainbow in a garden, Juno flying about. Hypsipyle floating on a river on a conch shell drawn by dolphins. In the fifth act, we all applauded as Medea (brave little Maman) appeared flying on the back of the dragon, and fought—in the
air
—with two winged Argonauts.

It awed me to see how a set could magically change—at
once—
from a palace of horrors into a wilderness, awed me to think that Buffequin and his hands managed this all from below stage. Setting the trolleys under the stage in motion, they were able to make all eight wing flats change in an instant—a palace into a garden, a garden into Heaven, Heaven into Hell.

No wonder players are accused of witchcraft, I thought, marveling at the effect. “You know it’s not actually magic,” I told Gaston.

TRUMPETS SOUNDED THE
approach of the royal party. La Roque and a delegation of players rushed out to greet His Majesty at his carriage. They escorted the King and his entourage to their loges, torches in hand.

“His Majesty is comely,” Madame Babette reported back. The braziers on either side of the parterre had been raging all morning, but even so, the theater was cold. “The attendants have taken up almost all of the third tier.”

Mercy me. Only the loges in the first tier had been reserved for His Majesty. But of course the King traveled with an entourage—his courtiers, attendants, and guards, in addition to members of his family. (With the exception of his Spanish wife, who rarely attended such performances, likely because she did not understand French.)

I hated to think what condition the top tier would be in. Well, it was too late to do anything about it now, I thought, as people noisily filed into the pit. Hopefully, with the presence of His Majesty, there would be some semblance of order: no knife fights or muggings. Recently, an elderly porter had been killed in a tussle with an unruly drunk, a horrifying experience that had sobered us all.

Backstage, I listened nervously to the hum of the audience. As Mother prayed in her tiny dressing room, I stole to the stage gate. From this position I had an excellent view of the King in the first-tier loge, the one closest to the stage on the left. He was in the company of several young noblemen and attendants. I recognized a portly man with a florid, brutish face who often pressed himself upon young actresses, trying to bribe his way into their chambers. The son of Le Tellier, the Secretary of State for War, he seemed to think he had the right, boasting that he would inherit his father’s powerful position one day. Louvois was his name, I recalled. La Roque had put us on notice not to allow him near. He was known to be ruthless, a young man of hasty temper, even given to violence if not accorded the favors he sought. It was rumored he’d snapped the neck of one young woman’s cat when she refused him! I was somewhat surprised to see him in the familiar company of the King. I wondered if his sinister ways were known to his peers.