Mistress of the Sun (25 page)

Louis, standing with his mother and wife, glanced Petite’s way. Petite put a gloved finger to her chin, meaning.
Later, my love.
That night, in disguise, they would be free to meet. It would be their last encounter before the long sacrifices of Lent.

That evening, Petite (dressed as Pierrot) and Nicole (as a milk-maid) helped Henriette into her costume as Claude-Marie and Yeyette sat by entertaining them with stories of pagan revelries of times past—the illicit trysts, the secret groping and meddling. The evening inevitably gave way to madness, they warned, an orgy of eating meat and sating fleshly desires, for on the morrow everyone began a regime of fasting, chastity and prayer.

The two pious queens would not be attending (of course), and had cautioned Henriette, who was close to eight months along. Philippe had even forbidden his wife from going, but Henriette could not bear the thought of missing the best ball of the year. She’d been feeling much better, she claimed, “thanks to laudanum,” so her plan was to sneak in disguised in the voluminous black hooded cloak of a Domino, a common costume worn by both men and women. “My husband will never know,” she said, instructing her attendants not to hover lest her entourage betray her.

Petite pulled on her mask and hung back from the others before entering the thronged ballroom, slipping in behind a party of hussars. The assembly was already a riot of loose manners, men and women gorging at a table littered with bones as footmen in velvet gowns carted in heaped platters and maids dressed as hussars ran about filling mugs of wine. Off to one side, a butcher was carving a black-roasted sheep and a heifer. The night was young, but the musicians were already playing the vigorous risqué dance called “Shaking of the Sheets,” the dancers twirling like tops.

Petite made her way to one side, the better to watch—the better to look out for Louis. She saw a Domino—Henriette? she wondered. It was hard to be sure, for there were many. She was mistaken, she realized, when the figure disappeared into the shadows with a man dressed as a sultan. Taking their pleasure? It was not a night to be venturing into dark corners unannounced.

She felt someone grip her elbow.

Alarmed, Petite turned to see a tall man dressed as a master falconer. A feathered half-mask covered his eyes. “You were supposed to be a Trojan.” She smiled, faint with relief.

Louis led her into a narrow passageway and pulled her into a dark chamber. She heard the sound of the bolt. “Wait,” she laughed as he pulled at her clothes, found skin. She suspected he’d been drinking.

“Help me with this.” He tugged at the sash that held up her costume bloomers.

“Are you sure, Louis?” If only there were a candle, a hint of light. She ran her finger down his face to his mouth, and reached for a kiss.

He thrust his tongue into her. He tasted of spirits. “Quick.”

With difficulty, Petite pulled the cord free and, holding onto Louis for balance, managed to step out of the wide costume pantalons. It was cold, and the room smelled of urine. She had been longing to see him, but had not imagined it like this.

She stood in the dark, the skin on her bare arms rising up in goose bumps. She couldn’t see Louis, but he was close: she could hear him breathing, hear fabric rustling. Such dark frightened her; she imagined the Devil lurking, imagined him pinching her ankles, her neck. She startled when Louis tugged on her arm.

“I put my cloak down,” he whispered.

Holding onto his hand, she knelt, feeling for the cloth. “I found
it,” she said, lying down. Her buttocks were on the cape, but her head was on the stone floor.
This is miserable
, she thought.

Someone was trying the door, but the bolt held. “Don’t worry,” Louis said, lying down over her.

She wound her legs around his back. The stones cut into her spine in spite of the cape.
If I moan and thrash
, she thought,
it will be over sooner
…but then her moans were real.

“Mon Dieu,” Louis said with a gasp as Petite convulsed. He collapsed and rolled off her. “You’re a devil.”

A devil.
Petite lay on the floor, staring into the dark. Waves of pleasure surged through her still. A tear tickled down her cheek into her ear. She reached for Louis’s hand, for reassurance. Mislove, it was called. Sinful love.

P
ETITE SLIPPED BACK
into the ballroom alone. Still weak, she leaned against a stone pillar, watching the revelry. She recognized Nicole dancing with a big man dressed as Henry the Great.

She felt dizzy, as if she’d just emerged from a dark cave—a cave of licentious desire.

They had performed unnatural acts. He’d held her down as he spent, called her his whore. She had imagined that it was not Louis but the Devil himself…and yet even this had inflamed her.

La petite mort, it was called. Indeed. She had died several times over, shortening her life by a minute each time.

In the morning I will repent, pray and fast
, Petite thought.
In the
morning I will go to Confession
, she decided as Nicole approached. Confess to insatiable desire.

“Where have you been?” Nicole demanded gaily, slurring slightly. “It’s a little early in the evening to be disappearing.”

“I’ve been here,” Petite lied, refraining from saying that it was a little early in the evening for Nicole to be so tipsy. “Have you seen Henriette?”

Nicole made mysterious wide eyes. “Well…Philippe is over there.” She pointed to a couple dancing. “Pretty, isn’t he?”

Philippe often dressed as a woman, but this ensemble was exquisite, the bodice of black silk set low at the shoulders and adorned with parchment lace. “Is that Armand de Guiche he’s with?” Petite asked.

“Not exactly.” Nicole pointed her fan at the Domino and sultan Petite had seen earlier. “That’s Henriette…and that’s Armand de Guiche she’s with,” she whispered behind her fan. “He’s the sultan.”

Petite was shocked—although she realized she shouldn’t have been. Armand de Guiche was a regular attendee of Henriette’s evening entertainments, his kohl-lined eyes following her every move.

“I’ve been taking their letters back and forth,” Nicole confessed.

“Nicole, you already have two transgressions,” Petite said with alarm. One for being drunk at Mass and the other for sneaking out after curfew. “You must stop intriguing. You’re going to end up banished.”

“Promise not to tell Ludmilla,” Nicole said, suddenly sober.

T
WO DAYS LATER
, Louis lay beside Petite in Gautier’s chamber. It was the second day of Lent, and they had made a vow to abstain. It wasn’t easy being together thus, but for Petite it was better than being apart. They chastely embraced as they talked of his son, of his horses and dogs, of the financial reforms he was attempting to make, the duel trial, Henriette’s health (his concern about the quantity of laudanum she took, her high and low spirits).

“She’s cheerful when Armand’s around, I’ve noticed,” he said. “Sometimes I wonder…”

Petite held her breath. Armand de Guiche was being dangerously open in his passion for Henriette.

“Why are you flushing?” he asked, studying her face.

“No reason.” Petite smiled—falsely, she feared. She had no talent for dissembling.

“Do you know something?” he asked teasingly. “You’re red as a pulpit cushion.”

Petite faced the wall.

“Louise, you must tell me if you know.” He turned her toward him. “Do you?” He was not teasing now.

“Louis, I can’t.”

“You know something—and you’re not going to tell me?” He sat up. “Are you serious?”

She did not answer.

“Henriette is the King of England’s sister,” he said evenly. “What she does is not a private matter. It’s of national concern.”

“Louis, I promised I wouldn’t,” Petite said, not meeting his gaze.

“And this promise—to who-knows-who—is more important?” he demanded, his voice rising and his jaw muscles clenched.

Petite was dismayed. Didn’t he understand?

“If you loved me, you’d tell,” he said, standing, his hands on his hips.

Petite smiled, hoping to soften the mood. His voice was cold and commanding, his tone imperious—threatening even. “Of course I love you,” she said, sitting on the edge of the high bed, “but I made a promise.”

“You defy me?”

“I’m not defying you.”

“Yet you refuse to tell me.” He stood before her, his arms crossed, staring down at her. “I
command
you to tell me.”

“Louis, don’t be like that.”

“I am
King
, Louise.” He stood for a long moment staring at her, his face muscles quivering. Then—with an expletive—he banged the wall with his fist. Two framed prints fell to the floor. He kicked one, sending it flying. It shattered against the wall.

“Louis, don’t!” She had never seen him give way to rage. He was always so contained, so controlled—so masked. But now, suddenly, he looked like the Devil himself. She fell to her knees and began to pray, her eyes clenched shut.
O Mary.

“Damn you!”

She watched Louis in horror as he took up a silver candlestick and raised it—as if to strike her. “In the name of God,” she whispered, instinctively cowering. The blow could kill her.

Louis threw the candlestick against the curio cabinet with all his might. Artifacts and curios fell to the floor: shells, stones, bones. He stood in the wreckage, breathing heavily. “Whore,” he said under his breath, then rushed from the room, slamming the door behind him.

Petite curled up on Gautier’s bed, sobbing. She didn’t know what to do. Soon Gautier would return.
Mercy—the room.
Shakily, she got to her feet and began picking things up, but she was too stunned to think. How could Louis have said what he said? He might have struck her. She closed her eyes, but his angry face was always before her. He did not love her. There was no love in him. She wept again as she reached for her clothes, her silly hat-maker disguise hanging on a wooden peg next to Louis’s butler cloak. He’d stormed out without a thought to caution.

The meal bell ran. Soon Gautier would come back. She put on her cloak. Thank God for the veil, the mask. She’d leave the costume—she wouldn’t be needing disguises anymore.

Anymore.

Petite pressed her forehead against Louis’s cloak. It smelled of cinnamon comfits. What would become of her now?

She gathered her courage and left Gautier’s room, wending her
way back to her chamber under the eaves, lowering her head as she passed others. At last, she arrived at her door.

“Zut!” Clorine exclaimed when Petite removed her mask. “What’s wrong?”

“I’m ill,” Petite said, thankful that Nicole was not there. She headed for the safety of her bed.

“You look white as curd,” Clorine said worriedly.

“I just need to rest.” Petite’s voice broke. “I’ll be fine.” She flung her bed curtains closed and pressed her face into her pillow. Whore, he had called her. Dream images flooded her, one upon another: of a death mask, a swampy room, a masked figure holding a cross. She
was
a whore. The Devil was within her.

I
T WAS NOT YET DAWN
when Petite sat up in bed. She’d heard the night watchman call out six of the clock. She had not slept at all. In an hour or so the sun would rise, and the world with it.

She sat on the edge of her bed for a moment, waiting for her eyes to adjust, waiting until she could make out the three sleeping forms, dimly illuminated by the light of the night candle. The night before, she’d heard the maids making up their beds, heard Nicole stumbling in from the gaming tables, heard Clorine setting the door and shutter locks, then parting Petite’s curtains to look in at her, heard her worried sigh.

Outside, a dog was barking and a rooster crowed. Shivering, clenching her jaw to keep her teeth from chattering, she put on the
clothes Clorine had set out: a chemise, a bodice, two petticoats, a skirt, thick wool stockings. As quietly as she could, she took her hooded cloak down off the peg. She grabbed her boots and tucked them under one arm. She felt for a taper in the basket on the shelf and knelt to flame it on the embers. Nicole snorted in her sleep and turned, mumbling. Silently, Petite unbolted the door and crept out.

In the dark passage, Petite set the taper in the tin wall sconce and put on her boots, fumbling with the buckles, her fingers numb with cold. She felt for her wool mitts in the sleeve of her cloak and, after a few poor attempts, managed to get them on properly. Clasping the candle first with one hand and then the other, blowing on her mitts to warm her fingers with her breath, she headed down the passage to a stairwell that opened onto the garden. It was bolted, but from within, and unguarded.

There was a guard at the garden gate, however. She’d not thought to bring her identification papers, her pass, so she lied, telling the sleepy attendant that she served Madame Henriette and that the Princess had a sudden hunger for the gingerbread and liquorice-water sold by a vendor in the market. “You know how it is when a woman nears childbed.”

“But it’s not yet dawn,” he said, holding a torch to her face.

“The Princess never sleeps,” she said with a sigh. He was young, just a boy.

“You should have a footman with you. It isn’t safe.”

“It’s not far,” Petite assured him. “Let me through. I must hurry.”

“Take my dog with you.” He whistled, and a mastiff appeared, yawning.

“If you insist,” Petite said uncertainly.

She took the dog’s lead, and the guard opened the gate. “Thank you,” she said, and headed down the narrow cobbled street, still littered from the Mardi Gras revelries. At the first corner, she let the dog go free, shooing him back to the palace. Then, holding her candle before her, tipping it so that it did not drip candle grease onto her mitt, she headed for the river.

As she neared the water, she stopped, overcome with sobs. She stumbled, unable to see.
Whore.

The sky was lightening; the surface of the river shimmered pink, flecked by the rising sun. She blew out the candle. There weren’t many boats out yet. Charred bits of wood floated on the surface. Gulls cried, circling above.