Chapter 12

THE FEAST OF ST. ANTOINE, FRIDAY, JUNE 13, 1687

The sun was barely up and, though Jouvancy had announced that he was well enough to travel, the day was already not going well. La Chaise had returned from the night’s vigil by the king’s bed. He was hardly through the door before he asked Charles where Lulu had gone from the gambling the night before. On hearing she’d gone to Bouchel’s room, he’d poured himself watered wine in a grim silence.

When his glass was empty, he said, “Well, it could be worse. Thank God she chose Bouchel. He’s good-hearted and absolutely trustworthy. He would never do anything to anger the king, no matter how much the girl offered him. But now that we know she’s done that, she must be watched every moment so that she doesn’t try it again—with him or anyone else. You will have to stay, Maître du Luc, and finish what you’ve begun.”

And that had landed La Chaise in a furiously polite argument with Père Jouvancy. Charles, the prize in the argument, stood at the window eating bread and cheese, and praying hard that the battle would not make Jouvancy relapse again, at least not before he won.

“I cannot return without him, mon père.” Jouvancy’s words were courteous, but his face was red with anger. “If you need a Jesuit to help you, you must send to the Professed House.”

La Chaise, whose eyes were hollow with exhaustion after a night at the king’s bedside, looked as though he’d like to make Jouvancy walk on his knees to Jerusalem. “But mon père, Maître du Luc knows the situation, and he has won the girl’s trust.” Ignoring Charles’s protest at that, he went on: “What’s more, she seems to like him. Could you not leave him here until Sunday afternoon?”

“I strongly object. You need an older man for this. You told me yourself how this girl behaves. And Maître du Luc is not only young and well favored, he is a mere scholastic. He should not be tangled in these matters.”

Charles chewed his bread and tried to look as mere as possible.

“He’s helped me all the while you’ve been ill,” La Chaise said, obviously clinging to his patience, “and has come to no harm. On the contrary, I imagine he has learned quite a bit that will one day be useful to him. I need him, I tell you. It is essential to prevent the girl doing anything to upset the Polish ambassadors and the marriage negotiations. The fear that the king has been poisoned already has them talking of withdrawing. I can see in their faces that they’re wondering if Poland wants a princess from a court that would poison its own king! Louis needs the marriage agreement to be quickly concluded and the marriage made.”

Jouvancy softened a little. “Is he very ill?”

“Very ill, during the night. He is a little better this morning.”

“And his doctors truly think he’s been poisoned?”

“Yes.” La Chaise leaned both hands on the table, which brought him eye to eye with the little priest. “Everyone who was anywhere near the buffet last evening has spent the night being interrogated. Even I was questioned, because I served him from the buffet table before anyone else ate. I tell you again, we simply cannot afford more scandal here.”

“You were questioned?” Jouvancy’s smooth forehead creased with worry, and he glanced at Charles. “I did not realize—then perhaps—”

“But, mon père—” Ignoring his better judgment’s warnings, Charles swallowed the last mouthful of bread and waded into the fray. “If one so much as turns pale here, everyone cries poison. Last night the king looked precisely as you did weeks ago when you were taken ill in the rhetoric classroom, and his symptoms were exactly like yours. You know that no one poisoned you at Louis le Grand. Why should we not think that Louis was merely ill with this contagion so many have had?”

Jouvancy and La Chaise, suddenly a united front in the face of this insubordinate outburst, hushed him.

“And I think that Mademoiselle de Rouen may be growing more reconciled to the marriage,” Charles said anyway.

The two priests glared at him, and La Chaise refilled his wineglass and sat turning it in his hands. “She was at the king’s bedside last night,” he said thoughtfully. “Until Madame de Maintenon sent her to get some rest. That she was there speaks well for her, I admit.”

“And she’s been praying in front of our reliquary, which Madame de Maintenon has put on a side altar in the chapel for her benefit,” Charles put in doggedly.

To Charles’s surprise, no one hushed him a second time. Père Jouvancy looked pleased at the news of the reliquary, and La Chaise looked thoughtful.

“That seems a good sign,” the king’s confessor said consideringly, “that she’s praying. A young girl asking the help of a holy virgin is very appropriate. Last night, she joined me in praying for the king.” He rubbed a hand over his face. “Very well. You two can return to Paris. I will arrange for one of the Franciscans who cares for the chapel to keep a watch on the girl there. And Bouchel can—” He looked at Charles. “No, perhaps not Bouchel, after what you told me. Not that the boy would step out of his place. But Lulu has obviously stepped out of hers in asking him for help, and I’ll give her no more chances to take that further. The oldest of her ladies can be persuaded to extra vigilance.” He sighed. “I will take it on myself to help keep Lulu away from the Duchess of Tuscany at the evening entertainments tonight and tomorrow.”

Charles’s heart lifted, and he took an involuntary step toward the door.

But La Chaise shook his head. “I only ask one thing,” he said to Jouvancy. “That you, mon père, take your ease for the remainder of the morning. You have never yet seen the gardens, and I propose that you and I spend the morning there. While you, Maître du Luc, pay a farewell visit to Mademoiselle de Rouen and perhaps have a last consoling talk with her. After you see her, we three will dine together. And after that, Bouchel will find you a carriage, mon père. You say you can manage both horses, Maître du Luc?”

“I can.”

“Then go and find Mademoiselle de Rouen. She is likely with her mother, Madame de Montespan, this morning.”

Telling himself that a morning was not long, and that there would be a leisurely and solitary ride at the end of it, Charles went to Madame de Montespan’s door. He’d learned that one never knocked on a palace door, but instead scratched lightly at the glossy white paint with a fingernail. The composure of the manservant who opened the door was almost as glossy as the paint, but when Charles said that Père La Chaise had sent him, the man’s eyes widened.

“The king?” he whispered. “Is he—”

“A little better, I’m told.”

The servant admitted Charles inside and went to announce him. Left alone in the anteroom, Charles turned in a slow circle, frankly gaping. Between classical pillars, the thickly carved paneling was a riot of fat, naked baby angels hovering like butterflies among botanically impossible leaves and flowers. The walls’ flat spaces gleamed with polished marble and on the ceiling, a mostly naked Venus lay on a rosy cloud. Swans paddled in the air around the goddess, and doves fluttered as well, though Venus had eyes only for the hulking Adonis with Louis’s face.

When Charles was ushered into the next room, he found Madame de Montespan, Lulu, and Margot sitting together. So much for keeping Mademoiselle de Rouen away from the Duchess of Tuscany, Charles thought. Lulu’s mother was dressed in loose blue silk and sitting decorously on a sturdy chair, a cloud being unlikely now to support her weight. In spite of her size and her aging, she was beautiful. The lines of silver in her curling blond hair only made it shine more, and her fat lent a spurious smoothness to her dazzling skin. Her eyes were the bluest Charles had ever seen…

“Were you looking for me, Maître du Luc?” Lulu’s voice was small and sad, and Charles saw that she was bent over a lacy pile of sewing in her lap.

“Forgive me, mesdames.” Charles inclined his head to Madame de Montespan, hoping she hadn’t noticed his staring. “I’ve come to say that the king, God be thanked, is better.”

Margot laughed. “Good for my cousin. And even better to have the news from such a handsome courier.”

Charles willed himself not to blush. “I am surprised to see you here so early in the day,” he said to her.

“Oh, I stayed last night. One could not leave when the king was so ill. One feared—many things.”

“Thank you for coming to tell us he’s better,” Lulu said softly. “I was very anxious for him.”

She kept her head down, curled in on herself like a small animal protecting its soft parts, and Charles wondered unhappily if his talks with her had created this subdued sadness. Had his effort at “counsel” only quenched the life in her?

“Besides my errand here,” he said, “I was also looking for you.”

She smiled a little and started to say something, but male laughter came suddenly from behind her. The Duc du Maine put his head around her chair. “Bonjour, maître. I was reading to them. But since I am not handsome, they don’t want to see me, only to hear. Or perhaps it is that I am too handsome and will distract them from their sewing, only they don’t like to say so.” His sister laughed suddenly and reached down, trying to pinch him. Maine ducked aside and pulled his cushion out so he could sit beside her.

Madame de Montespan put her own sewing aside on a low stool and said to Charles, “Did the king send you to me?”

“No, madame. It was feared you would be worrying, if you’d had no recent word.”

“Oh. I no longer worry. He has others to worry over him now.” She blinked slowly, waiting to see what Charles would do with that.

The Duc du Maine said quickly, “Shall I read again, madame? Or perhaps Maître du Luc would read to us. Or—”

“Of course he doesn’t want to read, Louis, don’t be a child.” Margot twitched an apricot taffeta shoulder at Maine and patted her yellow wig. “Let him tell us exactly how the king is faring.”

“Sleeping, I think,” Charles said carefully. “The last I heard, he was no longer spewing.”

“So now all that is left is to find the poisoner.” Madame de Montespan’s eyes were still fixed on Charles. “Is that the real reason they sent you here? To charm me into admitting I poisoned him?”

Charles’s jaw dropped. “Did you?” he blurted, before he could stop himself.

The other two women and Maine recoiled as though he’d dropped a dead rat on the blue-and-rose carpet, but Mme de Montespan only smiled.

“I ask your pardon, madame,” Charles stammered, wanting to kick himself.

“Oh, you are delicious.” Margot’s caw of delight drowned his apology. “Of course she didn’t poison him. But no doubt there are those saying she’s at it again.”

“No doubt, Margot,” Madame de Montespan returned, in a voice like fermenting honey. “And no doubt they are saying it of you, as well. After all, Italy is the land of poisoners, and you lived there for years. Everyone says you tried to poison your husband.”

“The bon Dieu knows I wanted to! But only because Cosimo was trying to poison me. And I’ve no reason at all to harm dear Louis now that he’s let me come back to France.”

With sudden energy, Lulu stabbed her needle through the white silk in her lap. “If he was poisoned. Everyone cries poison here if you eat a green apple and spend the day on your chaise de commodité. I’m sure he’s just ill. Like old Fleury was.” She glanced up at Charles. “Like you and the other Jesuits were, too—and why would anyone poison you?”

The older women exchanged looks. “Why anyone would poison you in particular, mon cher, I cannot imagine,” Margot said to Charles. “Or that little priest your companion. But your Père La Chaise is altogether another question. We all know who might poison Père La Chaise.”

“She wouldn’t!” Maine cried, clambering awkwardly to his feet. “You know she wouldn’t, Madame de Maintenon is the best, kindest woman in the world!”

His mother’s slow blue gaze found him and he bit his lip.

“Besides you, I mean, madame, you know you are always first!”

His mother said nothing. With a miserable glance at Lulu, he limped to a side table and fingered the hothouse apricots heaped there in a gleaming silver bowl.

“Why might she poison Père La Chaise, Your Highness?” Charles said to Margot.

“Because they hate each other,” Lulu said wearily. “Everyone knows that. But she wouldn’t poison him because the king wouldn’t like it. No one has poisoned anyone! Unless God poisoned the Comte de Fleury—it’s easy to imagine God seeing that the Comte de Fleury was poisoned for his sins. At least, that is what everyone is saying!” Lulu shifted a little in her chair and looked up at Charles through her long, pale lashes. “You said you were looking for me, maître.” Her small hand went to her throat, fingering a gold cross that hung from the tight circle of pearls around her neck.

“To see how you were faring, Your Highness. After the talk we had yesterday. And also to take my leave. We are going back to Paris today.”

“Oh, no, you mustn’t leave!” Margot trilled.

“Lulu has told us about your talk,” Maine said, gravely regarding the crystal vase of rosy peonies beside the fruit bowl. “I should be glad that you’ve helped her to accept her duty as a king’s daughter.” He took a peony from the vase and came back to his sister’s chair. “But I will miss her sorely when she goes to Poland.” He tucked the flower into her hair.

Lulu let go of the little cross and reached up a hand to him. As he brought it to his lips, she said, “I will miss you, too, Louis.” She drew her hand away. “As you see, maître, you did help me.” Changing expressions flitted across her face like cloud shadows. “What could be more resigned than sewing bridal linen?”

Margot picked up the sheer ivory linen in her lap and shook it out, revealing a lace-trimmed chemise so finely woven that it rippled like silk. She dangled it enticingly, making it jump as though it were alive, her eyes sparkling maliciously as she watched Charles.

A wave of anger swept through him at the woman’s taunting, but he said lightly, “I have sisters, Your Highness. I have seen a chemise before.” He forced a smile and started to invite Lulu to the chapel for one last conversation. But Madame de Montespan forestalled him.

“It is nearly dinnertime, maître, and I am sure you don’t wish to be late at the table you are gracing.” She held out a smooth white hand.

Lulu looked daggers at her mother, but Charles accepted the dismissal. When he only bowed over her hand—without kissing it—she shrugged slightly and then gave him what seemed like a real, though brief, smile.

“Thank you for receiving me, Madame,” he said. “I am glad to have met you.” He bowed slightly to Margot. “Your Royal Highness.” To Lulu, whose mouth was trembling with disappointment, he said, “I am glad you are turning your attention to being a bride. I—” He stopped as she bent her head and a shower of tears broke through her control and fell on her sewing. He looked helplessly at the pale slender neck and the white ribbons trailing on either side of it from her headdress. “God can bring good out of what seems like the blackest misery,” he said softly, as though no one else were in the room.

She dried the tears with a handful of lace from her lap and looked up. Her face was so set and bleak that Charles caught his breath in pain, as though her sore heart beat suddenly in his own chest.

“Lulu—” He stopped, realizing he’d used the nickname he had no right to use, but no one chided him. “Obedience can begin bitterly. As yours begins. But, with time, it can grow sweet. I know this for myself, and it is hard learning. But it can happen.”

Margot snorted loudly, but Charles ignored her. In Lulu’s case, obedience growing sweet seemed more than unlikely, but unlikely was not the same as impossible.

She nodded slightly, and her hand went to the cross again. But her miserable expression didn’t change.

“God go with you.” Charles turned toward the door, but she called him back.

“Maître.” It might have been the king looking at him. Her illusionless Bourbon eyes were as dry as though she’d never in her life wept. “I am my father’s daughter. I can do what I must as ruthlessly as he does.”

Charles found no answer to that. But as he crossed the antechamber dedicated to love, he looked back at the salon. Margot looked at Mme de Montespan, and the two resumed their sewing. Lulu took up her scissors and cut her needle free of the white cloud of lace. Charles suddenly saw the women as the ancient world’s three Fates, those daughters of the gods who spun the thread of a man’s life, fixed its length, and cut it off. He went out into the passage, trying to remember the ancients’ other name for the Fates. It came to him as he climbed the stairs in the south wing. They’d been called Daughters of the Just Heavens.