Mistress of the Sun (28 page)

“I’ll go alone, in disguise—in your old clothes. People will take me for a servant.”

At last, Clorine relented, though she fretted. “Are you sure about this?” she asked as she tucked Petite’s curls under the crown of a bonnet.

“If I feel even a twinge, I will return.”

G
OING TO
M
ASS
regularly greatly improved Petite’s spirits and she continued to go out even when the November weather turned icy. On the twenty-fourth, a Friday, she went to Confession (“Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned. I am about to give birth to a bastard”), staying to pray two Hail Marys and three Our Fathers before taking Communion. She had been worried about going into childbed unconfessed. Women sometimes died in childbed, and she couldn’t help but fear what lay ahead. She’d begun to recall
the whispered stories of her youth, stories of deformed babies, of women torn asunder. She remembered hearing cries of women in terrible pain. The more pleasure a woman experienced during congress, the more pain she suffered giving birth—and Petite had certainly experienced pleasure with Louis.

It was past eight of the clock by the time Petite stepped out of the musty church into the bright winter light. Boys were playing noisily in the church square, kicking an inflated pig bladder filled with pebbles. She kicked it back to them and hurried on, taking care where she stepped: the frozen mud was slippery and she dared not fall.

As she neared the gate into the Palais Royale gardens, she felt a hand touch her shoulder. She turned to see a woman of middle age in a stiff figure-of-eight ruff and powdered wig, tightly frizzled and covered by a net of black beads.

Her mother.

At first Petite was confused. Was Françoise not in the country with Jean and his wife? And was it truly her mother? This woman had paled her face with white lead and painted her cheeks red. A servant girl Petite didn’t recognize hovered several feet behind, laden with parcels.

But yes, it
was
her.

“Forgive me, Madame,” Françoise said, taking in Petite’s condition, which was impossible to hide, even under her felt cloak. “I mistook you for my daughter.”

Petite backed away, nearly tumbling into a pit of sewage. She shook her head, not daring to speak for fear of discovery. She was masked as well as veiled—how could she be recognized?

Françoise glanced down at Petite’s boot, its thick sole. “Aye,” she said slowly, looking Petite up and down with a cynical smile. “You are
not
my daughter—for I have disowned her.”

And with that, she turned and walked briskly away, followed by the servant girl, who, smirking, stared back at Petite over her shoulder.

Petite stood watching until they disappeared around a corner.
Disowned.
She fought back angry tears. She thought of running after her mother, rebuking her, throwing herself into her mother’s arms. Begging mercy:
demanding
it. She was nineteen, and sinfully with child—yes—but Louis was her only link to the world, and he was so rarely with her. She had chosen her path, but it was not an easy one. Now especially, approaching childbed, she longed for a mother’s counsel and protection—but that was never to be.

Church bells rang. A beggar woman hobbled up to her, leaning on a stick. “A sou?” She poked her dirty fingers into Petite’s belly. “For a blessing on it.”

Petite shook her head, alarmed by the old woman’s evil eye.

“A curse, then?” the woman cackled as Petite turned away and hurried back to the safety of her hideaway house.

“You’re late,” Clorine exclaimed, opening the door. “What happened?” she demanded, helping Petite up the stairs.

The air smelled of jasmine. “I need to lie down,” Petite said, faltering.
Disowned.
She could still hear the contempt in her mother’s voice.

“Is there a problem?” It was a man speaking.

“Louis?” Petite asked, groping. Why was it so dark? She touched a wall, felt the flock-work design of the wall covering. “Thank God, you’re here.”

“What’s happened?” he asked. “Is it your time?”

“I don’t know, Your Majesty,” Petite heard Clorine say, from behind her. “She’s unsteady.”

Petite felt Louis’s hand on her arm, his reassuring strength. “Why is it so dark in here?” she asked, shivering. How could her mother have abandoned her?

“Dark?” Louis sounded close.

“I can’t see you,” Petite said, stumbling.

Louis held her steady. “What do you mean?”

Petite reached out her hand, ran her fingers over his face, felt his nose, his angular cheeks, the stubble on his chin. This was not the dark of night. This dark was deeper.

“It’s…it’s daylight,” she heard him say.

There was concern in his voice, and that frightened her.
Saint Michel, I pray to you, help me in this world of darkness, defend me against the spirits of wickedness.

“Come. Lie down,” he said, urging her forward.

Petite took a cautious step, and another, until she felt the bed at
her knees. She leaned over, groping for the pillows. Louis’s hand at her elbow, she let herself down.

“Louis, I can’t see a thing,” she said, her voice breaking.

W
ITH REPEATED BLEEDING
and herbal infusions, Petite’s vision slowly returned, but she suffered debilitating headaches and dizziness. Louis, alarmed by the episode, made her promise not to leave her hideaway until after the birth of their child. “You should not have been going out at all. Look what you risked.”

“Can’t you heal me?” Petite asked him in a moment of weakness. His touch alone cured hundreds of the Evil.

He smiled sadly. “My love, that’s for the people. I can’t really—” He shrugged and threw up his hands. “I’m mortal.”

She embraced him, not wanting him to see the disappointment in her eyes, the disillusion of her childlike faith.

He was with her when her labor began, four weeks later. It was the eighteenth of December, a Tuesday, and he was on his way to Saint-Germain-en-Laye for a hunt. As he put on his feathered hat, Petite grasped his arm, lowering herself onto a wooden chair.

The pain passed and Petite took a deep breath. She lifted her face for a kiss, but it happened again. She grasped her belly, muffling a cry.

“Your Majesty?” Clorine was at the door.

“I believe her time has come.” Louis knelt, taking Petite’s hands, waiting for her contraction to pass. “I have to leave you.”

“I know.” The hunt had been organized long ago; four foreign ambassadors would be awaiting him.

“I’ll send for Blucher,” he said, standing.

“Don’t worry,” she said, and then gasped as another wave of pain came over her.

C
LORINE STOOD BY
as Monsieur Blucher examined Petite.

“She will be some time yet,” he told Clorine, arranging his implements and positioning the birthing chair. “Call me when her pains come one upon the other,” he said, then listed all the things Clorine and the chambermaid were to do (stoke the fires, draw, filter and heat water, get vinegar from the cellar, melt unsalted butter, prepare the compresses, bandages and draw sheets, the wax cloths for binding the stomach and breasts). “But not before,” he said, plucking Pascal’s
Provincial Letters
from a side table and retiring to the sitting room.

Soon Clorine could hear him snoring. She looked over the syringes, the skein of linen thread, two strings of four-ply thread, a long sharp darning needle, a thin silver tube, two bottles—one labeled Ipecacuanha and another Kermes Mineral—bluntended scissors, a number of knives and, most chilling, a large metal hook (to haul the baby out if it died in the womb). There was even a vial of holy water, in case an emergency baptism was called for.

Clorine crossed herself and said a silent prayer:
may the baby be born straight, may my mistress survive.
Infants born on the third day after the new moon rarely lived.

“My rosary,” Petite moaned, writhing.

Clorine tucked the strand of worn wooden beads into her mistress’s clenched fist. She wished she’d had the gumption to ask the King for a garment he’d been wearing at the moment of conception. The smell would have helped draw the baby out.

P
ETITE HELD THE NEWBORN
to her breast. The labor had been shockingly painful, but as soon as she saw her baby, all was forgotten (and forgiven). A big and hungry boy, he latched on eagerly. Although the pains, mercifully, had not gone on long—only eighteen hours—it had been a difficult delivery.

“He’s handsome, just like his father,” Clorine said, checking to make sure that the pillow under Petite’s knees was keeping her legs well up.

Petite marveled, cupping the infant’s soft head. “Charles,” she whispered. Louis’s son. A ferocious love filled her…love, and fear.
Heavenly Father, protect this precious little one.

“Mademoiselle?” It was the surgeon, drying his hands on a cloth. “My instructions are to send the infant away before sunrise.”

Petite nodded, but clasped the baby to her, close against her breast.
My little prince
, she thought. He would be baptized in the morning, by his new “parents.” She thought to baptize him herself, with a spoon of wine and some garlic, as Henry the Great had been baptized—Henry the Great, her son’s great-grandfather…and
the grandson of her own dear father, as well. How proud he might have been—or shamed? Yes,
shamed.

Clorine went to the window facing onto the garden and parted the heavy damask drapes. “The sky is beginning to lighten now,” she said, turning to Petite with tears in her eyes.

This is too great a sacrifice
, Petite thought, caressing the baby’s fine hair with her lips and inhaling his sweet scent. The baby made a little chirping sound. Her heart would surely break.

T
HAT SPRING
, L
OUIS PLANNED
a weeklong festival at Versaie—“Pleasures of the Enchanted Island,” he named it. Ballets, comedies, tournaments and concerts would all unfold as part of an enchantment, a sorceress’s seductive allure. The evil witch would be vanquished in the end, of course—but only after everyone had fully enjoyed her temptations. Publicly, the event was to be in honor of the King’s wife and mother, the two queens—but secretly, “It’s all for you,” he told Petite. All for the mother of a fine son.

Charles had grown into a stalwart baby much given to smiles. He looked the image of his father, in truth. Petite had seen the infant only three times—twice during carnival, and then again during Lent—the clandestine meetings arranged through Madame Colbert. The last time Petite had seen him was the Saturday before Easter. That morning, Louis had confessed and communicated
before going to the Tuileries gardens to touch those infected with the Evil. The hundreds of desperate souls with grotesquely swollen necks had begun lining up the night before, anxious to be cured by the miracle of the King’s touch. Tickets had been sold in order to restrict the numbers, but even so the gathering had threatened to get out of control.

Petite watched from a distance, saddened by the knowledge that it was only a show. She was touched to tears by the innocence of the people, their faith in Louis’s godlike powers. The crowds made it easy for her to steal away unnoticed and wend her way hooded to the back entrance of the Colbert household, where, in an attic nursery, Madame Colbert and the nurse awaited, the baby in the nurse’s arms. It was never a long encounter—they had to be so cautious—and Petite suffered long after each time. She took care to appear cheerful while attending Henriette (which was required only occasionally now). Concealing her melancholy from Louis was harder, but tears distressed him, she knew.

In any case, Louis was preoccupied. Thanks to good harvests and the industrious work of Monsieur Colbert, the economy was healthy now, money flowing. Indeed, there was sufficient for grand fetes and ambitious building projects: the Louvre was being rebuilt and grand plans made for Versaie. “The Little Palace,” Louis was calling his hunting lodge now. “Soon to become an enchanted palace,” he added, unrolling a drawing of the Versaie grounds. He
relished building projects, poring over plans, considering every detail of design and construction.

Their wilderness paradise was rapidly changing. A menagerie had already been built to house rare species of birds and animals—not the fighting beasts kings of the past had kept for amusement (and which were still kept at the fortress of Vincennes), but exotic creatures such as ostriches, pelicans, Arabian ducks and Indian geese, hogs from the East Indies. As well, the road approaching the château had been leveled, the avenues lined with trees. Two new buildings were almost completed, forming an outer court—one for coaches and the other for kitchens. On the south side an orangery had been built to house the thousands of orange trees confiscated from Fouquet’s château at Vaux. Its roof formed a terrace overlooking the gardens, which now extended to the horizon. Louis loved nothing better than to sit among the orange trees, inhaling the sweet aroma. He often played his theorbo there.

Our Versaie
, Petite thought, one hand on Louis’s shoulder, looking at the drawings. It had been their secret for so long—the one place they could be free of prying eyes—and now the entire Court was invited. The new developments were dramatic, innovative, aesthetic, yet she could not banish a tinge of regret. She did not voice such thoughts: Louis took pride in the work. He was doing it for her, he said.

The festival in her honor was to be the finest ever experienced. Louis had recruited the greatest artists of the age—Périgny and
Benserade to write the madrigals, Lully the music, Molière to take charge of all the theatrical events, and Vigarani the spectacular effects. As they set to work to fulfil his vision, he himself saw to the buildings and grounds. Le Nôtre, designer of Fouquet’s gardens at Vaux, had been hard at work for some time supervising massive earth-moving machines called Devils.

Gautier, who was overseeing the festival, was beside himself with anxiety. “His Majesty is inviting six hundred, but everyone will arrive with at least one servant. Where am I to put them all? Where will they sleep? And what about the seventy-four actors and musicians, the clowns and stagehands? They will be bringing their servants as well,” he fretted, wringing his hat in his hands.

“There should be more room in the château once the stables and kitchens are completed,” Petite suggested, trying to calm him. “And you can put some people in the menagerie.” Modeled on Fouquet’s château at Vaux, the palace for animals was elegant.

“With the elephant?”

“Elephant?”

“And a bear. And a camel.” Gautier shook out his hat, punched it into shape and pressed it back onto his head. “His Majesty’s imaginings appear to have no limit.”

P
ETITE AND
G
ABRIELLE
rode down to Versaie in the gilded carriage and four that Jean had recently purchased. Clorine, along with Gabrielle’s chambermaid, footman and valet, had set out earlier,
at dawn, with all their trunks and bedding in order to ready their rooms, and Jean had gone down on horseback the day before, with his regiment. Petite looked forward to some time alone with her sister-in-law, who was so amiable.

“Is this your first time to Versaie?” she asked Gabrielle, shifting so that the whalebones in her corset didn’t dig into her flesh. She was thickening, her courses were eleven days late, and she was concerned that she might be with child again. Lovemaking had been different since the birth of baby Charles. She and Louis had had to abstain for long periods of time—for three months before the birth and for forty long days after, and then, in the days before Lent (yet another long period of abstinence), Petite had been tender, inflamed. Once Lent had passed and they were at last free of restraint, they’d not been as careful as they should have been.

Gabrielle nodded. “It’s rustic, I hear. A little wild.” Gabrielle was young, but not adventurous.

“It’s wonderful,” Petite said. All winter she’d longed for the wilds of Versaie.

Jean’s wife was giddy, but trustworthy. For Petite, it was a relief to have someone she could speak to freely. They settled into a long gossip: about Françoise (her heart-breaking refusal to even speak of Petite); baby Charles (now four months old and charmingly jolly); Gabrielle’s frustrating and so far futile attempts to have a child (and Petite’s attempts to avoid doing so); the change in Petite’s duties with Henriette (occasional daily attendance, when needed,
but basically she was now expected to appear with the Princess only at official events); various plots on the part of Court ladies to seduce Louis (fortunately unsuccessful); Louis’s growing frustration with the need for secrecy; the porcelain and jewelry Gabrielle had bought at the Saint-Germain fair; how lovely Athénaïs looked at Saint-Suplice holding the baptismal font at the conversion of a young Moor to Christianity, and how unfortunate she was in her marriage (her husband in debt again); Petite’s repeated attempts to stand a galloping horse (“Are you crazy?”).

The road had been vastly improved, but even so it took hours to get to Versaie, the coach pulling off four times to make use of the woods. They were all day on the road. Never had Petite seen such congestion, an entire Court en route, the coaches loaded down with trunks for the weeklong festival.

“It must be a very large château to accommodate all these people,” Gabrielle said as the horses slowed yet again to a walk.

“I’m afraid not.” It had been all Louis could do to persuade his tightfisted finance minister to furnish the guest rooms, much less provide the courtiers with wood and candles.

By the time they got to Versaie, the roads were too congested with coaches and horses to get close to the château, and Petite and Gabrielle had to walk. Petite got her sister-in-law settled in her chamber and went to find her brother. The château was crowded—and in chaos. Many appeared not to have a place to sleep.

She encountered Athénaïs on a stairwell. “Do you know where
my brother might be?” In the foyer she saw Henriette arriving with Philippe.

“No, but do you know where my husband is?” Athénaïs answered with a laugh, toying with the cross and small silver key that hung from a pendant on the stomacher of her bodice. “
Not
that I really want to know.”

“How could so many people be lost in such a small château?” Petite mused—then turned at the sound of Louis’s voice.

“Your Majesty,” Athénaïs said, bowing as he passed.

“Your Majesty,” Petite echoed, nearly tripping over her left boot.

“Careful,” Louis said, catching her by the arm. He smiled.

“Thank you, Your Majesty.”

“Our King is a gentleman, is he not?” Athénaïs said, making teasing eyes at Petite over her fluttering fan.

I
N SPITE OF THE
new construction, there was not room for everyone—as Gautier had predicted. Petite and her brother and sister-in-law had rooms, but many courtiers had to scramble to make sleeping arrangements in local cottages and stables while others decided to sleep in their carriages. Much grumbling could be heard.

All the actors, musicians, grooms, carpenters and workmen running about in a panic only added to the confusion. Nothing was going according to plan. Monsieur de Molière, rehearsing his actors in a stuffy attic, was frantic because the costumes had not
arrived. A large circle of grass—called a circus as in days of old—had been laid down at the entrance of the new Allée Royale for tilting at the ring, but they were one truckload short of sod. Four thousand torches were required to light the evening entertainments, but only three thousand two hundred had been prepared. The camel and elephant had safely arrived—finally—but the bear, heavily sedated, could not be woken from a deep sleep.

By the morning, however, discomfort had become a source of amusement. Most courtiers had found some form of accommodation, and those with the luxury of a dressing room shared with the less fortunate. Life at Court had become an adventure. What would their young King think of next?

Two hours before sunset, the courtiers gathered at the circus for the first of the enchantments—tilting at the ring. Already it seemed a scene from Mardi Gras, servants dressed as demons, fairies and ghouls. Beyond, near the edge of the woods, Louis and ten knights in armor attended to their horses. And beyond that were cages for the beasts.

No sooner had Jean’s page fitted him into his armor (new, black and forbidding) than trumpets and drums sounded.

“You’d better mount,” Petite said. Louis and three other knights were already in the practice ring.

Jean picked up his helmet and clanked toward his tall Castilian warhorse.

“Good luck,” his wife called out after him.

Jean turned and came back, breathless. “Gabrielle, I need your scarf,” he said, pulling off a leather gauntlet.

She drew a purple silk one from her ample bodice, kissed it and presented it to her husband. Jean tucked it under his coat of plates.

“Now I’ll win for sure,” he said, lumbering off.

Petite and Gabrielle headed toward the stands, where the ladies of the Court had gathered. Petite saw a woman wave them over: Athénaïs, indicating two velvet tasseled cushions beside her.

“Gabrielle just told me the good news,” Petite said.

Athénaïs regarded her plump belly with disgust. “And the Queen, as well—have you heard?”

“That’s wonderful.” Louis’s twice-monthly “sessions” with the Queen were strictly duty, and once the Queen was impregnated, he did not visit her bed; Petite liked having him to herself at such times. She thought of herself as Louis’s true wife, and the Queen as the wife of that other man, the King.

“And Madame, of course,” Gabrielle added, regarding Henriette, who was sitting with the two queens. The Princess was well along in a second pregnancy.

“A fruitful Court,” Athénaïs said as trumpeters entered through the foliage-covered arches set at the points of the compass.

“Indeed,” Petite said, with a worried thought to her own condition.

Louis entered dressed as a Greek warrior, mounted on a handsome Aragonese. Everyone cheered and he raised his hand. The jewels embedded in his ancient silvered breastplate threw off rays
of light. He tipped back his visor and saluted the Queen, and another cheer went up. Petite took off her red neckscarf and waved it—this was their sign. He noticed it and put his hand to his heart.

His horse reared up, and the crowd applauded—thinking it intentional—but Petite was concerned. His prize mount was only five years old and skittish still. Steadiness was what mattered at tilting.

The other knight-contestants entered on horseback, their long lances upright, silk flags declaring their rank attached below the tip. They passed around the circumference as the ladies exclaimed over the beauty of their horses, their armor, their plumes.

“There’s Jean,” Gabrielle exclaimed with an enthusiasm unbecoming her quality.

“Ahead of the dukes?” Athénaïs’s brows arched in surprise.

A man in pink satin climbed a ladder to hang the first and largest ring from a cross-beam opposite the judges.

Louis was the first to run at the ring. He circled his horse back to the starting line, a good distance away. The crowd hushed, and at the sound of a bugle, he lowered his lance and spurred his mount, which put down its head and bucked, then raced wildly down the course. Petite watched, her hands over her mouth, and was relieved when Louis finally got the horse under control. He sat back as he approached the post; the horse slowed, but it was fighting the bit. His lance steady, Louis caught the ring—and the crowd roared. Petite cheered along with all the others. She could
handle a boar spear with ease, but not a lance. Although the shaft was wood, it was heavy, almost forty hands in length.

Jean followed the princes. His horse was both fast and steady, and he held his lance straight.