Mistress of the Sun (18 page)

“Easy,” she called out as the hound pulled her pell-mell into the brambles. Yanking on the lead, she brought the terrified dog to a halt. The rain was coming down heavily. Pulling the dog close, she pushed through some bushes into a thick clump of trees.

The copse was dry at the center. Petite, soaked through, sank onto the pine needles. The trembling dog licked her chin. “Easy, girl,” she said, stroking her head.

“Mitte!”

It was a man’s voice—hard to hear over the howling wind.

“Mitte!”

The dog whimpered. “She’s in here,” Petite called out, but she was silenced by more thunder.

She heard branches breaking, and a man’s head appeared. “Your Majesty!” Petite tried to rise, but she was hemmed in.

“Mademoiselle de la Vallière? And my dear Mitte.” The King stooped and embraced the terrified creature. “She has always been frightened by thunder,” he said, stroking the dog’s soft ears. “What a storm.” His features were illuminated by a flash of lightning.

Petite untied her neck scarf and handed it to him. “Your Majesty?”

“Thank you,” he said, wiping his face and then handing the kerchief back. “It’s dry here,” he said, feeling the ground.

“Yes,” Petite said, shifting to give the King room. It was tight for two, especially with a nervous hound. There was a strong scent of wet dog, rain and something more, a pleasant floral perfume—jasmine, she guessed.

The King held the dog between his knees. His elbow touched Petite’s arm, his knee her thigh. She drew her elbows in tight and crossed her arms. All was in violent motion but for this one still refuge. All was still but for the beating of her heart.

The King turned to look at her. “Your hair.”

Petite put her hands to her crown. Her scarf had fallen off in the rush into the woods. She felt exposed, her head uncovered, her hair tangled and wet.

“It’s golden,” he said, his expression one of surprise and dawning recognition. “
Now
I know where I’ve seen you before.”

Petite was confused. He saw her daily: at the hunts, in rehearsals, at Henriette’s evening gatherings.

“I can’t tell you how many times I’ve looked at you and wondered why you seemed so familiar—and now I know,” he said with a smile of satisfaction. “You were the girl chasing the runaway horse in the park at Chambord.”

Petite felt a deep blush spread over her face.

“You’re
that
girl—”

Petite bowed her head without reply.

“—the goddess Diana.”

Was this a jest?

But the King’s voice was ardent. “I’ve often thought of you since, the way you appeared in the meadow like some young goddess with long golden curls, the proud way you sat your horse.”

His eyes were a soft hazel, his lashes long. How well Petite knew his face: his chiseled nose and rounded chin, his broad forehead, full lips.

“Are you chilled?” he asked.

“No.” A violent crack of lightning made her jump.

“Yet you tremble.” He paused, then reached out his hand, lightly touching her chin.

“I’m fine, Your Majesty,” Petite said, briefly meeting his gaze.

They were sprinkled with a sudden shower of rain from the
branches above.
Like a baptism
, Petite thought, as he leaned toward her.

The dog licked her hand. Petite pulled back, her heart beating violently.

“I apologize,” he said.

The dog whimpered. The King stroked Mitte’s long ears gently, first one and then the other. His fingers were long and fine—a musician’s hands. He wore no rings.

Petite touched his hand.

He turned toward her. It was so dark now, she could hardly make out his eyes. The rain was coming down harder, the wind howling. They were in their own little world.

Petite felt his breath on her cheeks, fragrant with wine. Her heart stopped, and then raced.

The King’s lips touched hers very lightly. Then he put one hand on her shoulder and pressed his forehead against hers.

Again
, Petite prayed, holding her breath. She wanted to taste him. “I’ve never been kissed, Your Majesty,” she said, her breath coming now in gasps. “I’m not sure how to go about it.”

He ran his fingers through her hair and bent over her, holding the back of her head in one hand. He was strong; Petite felt cradled within him. She felt his lips, his rough chin, and then his tongue, soft against her teeth. She felt flooded with warmth. The dog whimpered again, the storm howled, but there was only this, this one magical touch. A moan of pleasure sounded—her own.

N
EVER AGAIN
, Petite vowed, wringing the rainwater out of her hair into a blue glass jar. On leaving their forest nest, she had snapped a small branch off the tree—the one they had leaned against, the one that had sheltered them—and this she stuck into her looking-glass frame. Three leaves, one for each swooning kiss.

Never again.
She laid her kerchief out flat on the tabletop—the kerchief he’d used to dry his face—and placed the blue jar of rainwater on top of it. These were her relics, this her reliquary.

Dear Mary, Mother of God, you know how weak I am, give me strength in my frailty.

Clutching her father’s rosary, Petite prayed before the statue of the Virgin until her knees ached. She was still chaste, yet she felt entirely undone.
O Mary, give me strength.
Never again kiss him,
never again look into his eyes. Never again feel his strong, gentle fingers in her hair.
O Mary!

Never again. Never again. Never again.

The next morning, Petite did not attend Madame Henriette or join in the Court festivities. “I just don’t feel well,” she told Clorine. The very thought of facing Her Majesty the Queen made her stomach tighten.

“I’ll get the surgeon,” Clorine said.

The surgeon, a man with terrible breath and no front teeth, pronounced Petite at death’s door. He bled and purged her, charging four deniers. Then Petite had no need to pretend: now she truly was ill and far too weak to rise.

On the third day, Gautier called. He stood outside the door for some time, talking to Clorine.

“He’s such a gentleman,” Clorine said after he left. “I think he might be just a little stuck on you.” She handed Petite a worn leather volume. “He said this is for you. He said he was given to understand—and that’s exactly how he put it,
given to understand
—that you liked poetry. Thoughtful, don’t you think? It’s unlikely, I know, given his status, but maybe he’d forgo a dowry. Such things do happen from time to time.”

“Clorine, I’m not going to marry the Duc de Gautier,” Petite said, taking the book. If the King wished to send her a personal message, Gautier would be the man he would trust to do so.

“He’s highborn.”

“Gautier is not going to ask for my hand, I assure you,” Petite said. It was a lovely little volume covered in tooled leather:
Idylls
, by Theocritus, in translation. She adored bucolic poetry. Then she saw that a note had been tucked into Idyll four, “The Herdsman.” She slipped it under the covers so that Clorine wouldn’t see.

When Clorine finally left to get water from the courtyard well, Petite withdrew the folded paper. It wasn’t from Louis, as she had feared (and hoped), but from Gautier.
The King wishes to see you
, he wrote in a spidery hand.
Privately.

O Mary.

On Clorine’s return, Petite handed her the book. “I’m too ill to read poetry,” she announced. “Return this to Monsieur le Duc, with my regrets.”

P
ETITE HAD THE STRENGTH
to refuse the King, but she could not control her thoughts. At night she dreamt of him and woke to thoughts of him, imagining that they were back in the forest. The storm passes, and she and the King emerge into sunlight. The Queen has died—or something—and he’s not really King anymore. She calls him Louis, and he calls her Louise. He takes her hand and they walk into the wild, where a wandering priest unites them. They come upon an abandoned forester’s hut, and there they make a home. He takes her into his arms…

O Mary!

Petite prayed on waking and continued praying throughout the day, all the time worrying about a fluttering in her heart and other inexplicable changes. Her buds ached and her lower place had become maddeningly sensitive. She was concerned about a discharge. At first she’d thought it was her ordinaries come early, but the fluid was clear. She had some frightful disease, no doubt.

“Look at the lovely bouquet the Duke brought you,” Clorine said. The scent of carnations filled the room. “He’s going to make an offer for you any day,” she said. “Mark my words.”

O
N THE FIFTH DAY
, Clorine handed a small parcel to her mistress. “It’s another book from Monsieur le Duc—but a romancy, he called it, by that Scudéry woman, easier to read than poetry, he said, especially when one is ailing. He thought it might be
diverting.
I do love the old-fashioned words he uses, don’t you? He’s a highborn man through and through. He’s an older gentleman, true, but he’s young at heart. He’d make an excellent husband for you.”

Petite nodded distractedly, thumbing through the pages as Clorine chatted on. No note?

She sank back into the pillows, gazing at her relics—the jar of rainwater, the scarf, the branch of three leaves, one for each kiss.
Never again.

Maybe it was true, what the loathsome surgeon had said: maybe she was at death’s door.

I
T WAS IN THE
margin on the eleventh page that Petite saw it:
Please
,
I must see you. L.
She pressed the book to her heart. Then, with an effort of will and a prayer to the Virgin, she handed the volume back to Clorine. “Return this to Monsieur le Duc de Gautier, with my regrets.”

E
VENTUALLY
,
OF COURSE
, Petite had to rise. There was a limit to how many purgings and bleedings a healthy young woman could endure.

“You look like a ghost,” Clorine chided, trying to entice her to eat a little of the cake she’d gotten the cook to make in honor of Petite’s seventeenth birthday.

“Thank you, Clorine, but I just can’t.” The linsey-woolsey bed gown hung from her thin shoulders.

There was a knock on the door. Petite turned to see Nicole with four oranges in her hands.

“When are you coming back?” Nicole demanded. “I’ve had to take over reading
Don Quixote
to Madame and I’m tired of it.” She gave Petite the fruit. “I stole them from Henriette’s table,” she said, pleased with herself. “She’s not angry at you anymore, by the way.” She turned to see if Clorine could hear. “I suspect the Princess has
another interest
,” she hissed, her black eyebrows arched suggestively. “She even asked after you. Are you dying, or what?”

“I’m ill,” Petite said, confused. She was relieved that Henriette was no longer angry, but what did Nicole mean by “another interest”?

Nicole put her hand on Petite’s forehead. “You must have caught a chill in that storm. You came back soaked through.” She regarded Petite with enquiring eyes. “The King, as well, and both of you rather flushed. Where did you go off to, anyway?”

“Clorine?” Petite got her maid’s attention. “See if there’s a bowl I could use—something to put these oranges in. Listen,” she told Nicole as soon they were alone, “I don’t want you saying anything about the King, not in front of my maid.”

“So something did happen. Mon Dieu, I don’t believe it.”

Petite put her hand on her friend’s arm. “It was only a kiss, but you can’t tell anyone.” Well…three kisses. Three swooning kisses.

Nicole put her hands over her heart. “The King kissed you?”

“Promise, Nicole. It’s never going to happen again. You’re not to say a word.”

“We need a code. How about Prince Chéri. No, too obvious. How about Ludmilla? I’ll say, ‘Have you seen Ludmilla?’ And you’ll know who I really mean.”

“Except that there will be no further need to speak of her,” Petite said, as Clorine returned with a cracked wooden bowl.

“Alas, my dear friend, I must return to my duties, to tiresome Señor Quixote,” Nicole said, rising. “Take care of yourself and get well. There seems to be some sort of ague going around. Ludmilla looks rather unwell herself.”

“Ludmilla is no concern of mine,” Petite said, seeing Nicole out before she could say more.

“Who is Ludmilla?” Clorine asked as soon as the door slammed shut.

“Nobody you know,” Petite said. She startled at yet another tap-tap on the door. She hoped it wasn’t Nicole again.

“Zut. Now that must be the Duke.” Clorine stepped out, but returned immediately. “Just as I thought,” she said. “He desires a word with you, Mademoiselle.”

“Tell him no,” Petite said weakly.

“You’ve lost a stone, but I can pad you out.”

“That’s not the reason.”

“Don’t you ever want to get a husband?” Clorine grabbed Petite by the shoulder. “Get out there—and be nice.”

M
ONSIEUR LE
D
UC
de Gautier tipped his hat and bowed his head. Mademoiselle de la Vallière had been a mere minikin of a girl when he’d first known her at Blois, four years before. Now she was a young woman, slim and graceful as a flower…a delicate wild-flower, as he thought of her, out of place amongst the exotic flora of the Court.

He looked up and down the dimly lit hall and leaned in toward her. “His Majesty has asked me to speak to you on his behalf,” he whispered. He put up one hand. “Please, Mademoiselle, just hear me out. Will you not agree just to talk to him?”

“
No
, Monsieur.”

“Mademoiselle, His Majesty has not slept or eaten in days.” The King, whose appetite was legendary! At one meal, it wasn’t uncommon for His Majesty to consume three or four bowls of different soups, several platters of spiced, strong meats, plus a plateful of cakes—but now he wouldn’t take even a bowl of soup. On retiring, he usually took iced orange-flower water—but even this he had refused. His doctor was worried. “Please, Mademoiselle?” Gautier was prepared to beg if he must.

She shook her head.

“He’s wasting away,” he persisted. “He hasn’t attended Council meetings or gone out hunting. He is suffering, I tell you.” Tears came to her beautiful azure eyes. How like an angel she was. Gautier sensed her weakness: she was in love. “He asks only for a few words with you.”

“Would you be present?” she asked.

“Trust me.”

S
EEING THE
K
ING
privately was not an easy matter—his was a public life—so it was arranged that he and Petite would meet in Gautier’s room. “Today at four of the clock,” Gautier told Petite, providing her with a dressmaker’s cloak. Dressmakers were often to be seen coming to his quarters due to the theatrical productions he directed. He gave Petite a diagram showing the way. The château was a labyrinth; one could easily get lost.

Petite set out as arranged, in disguise. She’d had to lie to Clorine, had told her that she was going to Henriette’s, that all the ladies would be dressed as menials, that it was just another fanciful notion the Princess had come up with, one of her crazy ideas. “You know how she is.”

Clorine had frowned, puzzled, but returned to mending Petite’s riding overskirt.

“I’ll be back soon, to change for the evening,” Petite said, pulling her hood on at the door. She listened for footsteps, voices, the rustle of skirts, and slipped out, hurrying down the narrow stone steps. At the first landing she turned left, heading down a passage lit by torches.
I am going to meet the King
, she thought.

She stopped by a narrow window to examine Gautier’s drawing. It shook in her gloved hands. No, she was going the wrong way. She reversed her direction, making a passing reverence and lowering her eyes as she met a party of noblemen. At the next stairwell, at the statue of Venus set into an arched alcove, she turned left, and then right, and then…there it was: a door with a small brass plate bearing Gautier’s name.

She paused before knocking; it was not too late. She could turn back.
“O Mary,”
she whispered, and the door opened before her, as if thrown wide by the Devil himself.

“It’s you.” Gautier looked relieved.

Petite didn’t remove her hood until she was safely inside and the door shut behind her. The shutters had been closed; it was dark in
the room, only three candles burning. It took a moment for her eyes to adjust. The chamber was small, but tastefully furnished. A bed hung in pale blue brocade took up most of it. Petite set her wicker basket on the floor and took off her gloves.

“I got lost,” she said, unbuttoning the cloak, starting with the big wood button at her neck.

“His Majesty should be here soon,” Gautier said. “I’m sorry that I don’t have a chair for you to sit on. May I offer you a dish of veal broth?”

Petite shook her head, leaning against a curio cabinet for support.

“It’s refreshing, flavored with mint.”

“Thank you, but no, Monsieur.” She didn’t want to have to use the necessary.

There was a light knock at the door. Petite closed her eyes. If she started to feel dizzy, she would lower her head, breathe deeply.

The King entered, disguised as a seller of sheet music, wigged, cloaked and hooded. He’d shaved off his mustache. “What do you think?” he asked, holding out his arms. “I even have some good songs.”

“Nobody recognized you, Your Majesty?” Gautier asked, wiping his brow.

“Not even the Duchesse de Navailles,” the King said, taking off the wig and shaking out his hair.

Mercy.
Superintendent of the maid-attendants? Petite pressed her hands against her pounding heart.

“Your Majesty, by your leave, I will go now.” Gautier placed the song sheets on a small escritoire under the window. “Open the shutters when you wish me to return.”

Petite looked at Gautier in horror. He’d lied to her. “I’m going with you,” she said, reaching for her cloak.

Gautier stepped in front of the door, his hand on the iron latch.

“You promised,” Petite said.

“Mademoiselle de la Vallière, please.” The King’s voice was gentle. He held his hat in his hands like a penitent. “I don’t mean to alarm you. Truly, I only wish a moment with you.”

Petite shook her head. She remembered her mother’s caution, to never be alone with a man. But her mother hadn’t said anything about kings.

“Just to talk,” the King persevered. “Nothing more: on my honor.”

He smiled at Petite and warmth filled her. She nodded consent to Gautier, who quickly slipped out of the room, closing the door behind him.

And then there was silence. Petite didn’t know where to look, what to say. She shifted from one foot to the other. She was in a room alone with the King, a man she had kissed—and most willingly.