Mistress of the Sun (39 page)

Louis nodded. “You never mentioned a comfit.”

“I had an herbalist test one,” she said, taking the woolen shawl from the arm of the couch and draping it around her shoulders. “It contains chamaepitys, an abortive.”

Louis tilted his head to one side. “So you think that maybe that was why…?”

“Yes: why I lost the child.”

“And this is what you thought I wouldn’t want to hear?”

“Louis, Athénaïs gave me that comfit.”

He stiffened. “Are you suggesting she intentionally gave you something to make you abort?”

Petite nodded slowly. “Yes,” she said. “A poison that near killed me.”

“That’s absurd,” he said, standing.

“Louis,” Petite said, looking up at him, imploring. His face had rounded over time. His eyes, once inquiring and curious, had taken on a hard certainty. He wore his authority like a mask. “Athénaïs came at me with a knife,” she said evenly, trying to stay calm. “You were there. How can you say it’s absurd?”

“Athénaïs has rages,” he said, pacing now. “She’s a passionate woman—but blowing up in a temper is not the same thing as giving someone poison.”

“Louis, please listen to me. She’s practicing black magic—”

“Have you lost your senses?” His lips turned down with ironic contempt.

“
—on
you!”

“You are not to speak of such things, do you understand? I
forbid
it!” He raised his fist—a threat—then pressed it against his forehead in frustration. “You
must
abide,” he said, his voice tremulous. “Athénaïs loves you like a sister.”

Petite made a noise through her nose, a sound of contempt.

“Oh, for God’s sake, you make her sound like a devil.” The door slammed shut behind him.

Petite sat for a time in the silence, her trembling fingers resting on the cold marble top of her vanity. She heard the voice faintly sing, “…and with fear and trembling stand.”

It’s over
, she thought. The finality of that realization gave her strength. There was only one path now, and she knew the way.

She stood and picked up the small blue jar, opened it. It was
dry, as dry as the single leaf on the twig wedged into the mirror frame. She broke off the leaf and crumbled it. Then she opened her wooden keepsake box and withdrew the moth-eaten scarf. She used it to dry her tears before throwing it into the fire.

T
HE NURSERY WING
of the Colbert household was even more chaotic than usual. There was to be a Mardi Gras fete at the house that afternoon, and the children were in a flurry of anticipation. Madame Colbert asked her daughter, eleven now, to take the toddler and two girls upstairs to listen to their brothers at their singing lessons, and quiet suddenly descended upon the sunny nursery littered with crowns, masks and lacy petticoats.

“You look handsome, Monsieur l’Admiral,” Petite told her son. The three-year-old stood self-consciously in his costume: the cap, breeches and cape of an admiral. She shook Tito’s hand formally. He appeared anxious about his sudden promotion into the adult world.

“Watch, Mother,” Marie-Anne called out. She twirled about the room in her faerie costume, then staggered to a halt. She frowned down at her feet, and shifted them into a more orderly third position.

“Quiet now, Mademoiselle Marie-Anne,” Madame Colbert said. “You’ll wear yourself out before the party.” Marie-Anne ran to her, clutching Madame Colbert around her ample waist. “Would you like to tell your mother what you did yesterday?” Madame Colbert asked, clucking like a pleased mother hen.

“You tell,” the girl said.

“Marie-Anne allowed us to put her on a pony,” Madame Colbert boasted.

“The one that bites,” Marie-Anne said.

“Oh, only nibbles,” Madame Colbert said, smiling down at the child. “And only now and then.” She stroked the girl’s head. “A bit fearful,” she mouthed to Petite.

“What did you say?” Marie-Anne looked up at Madame Colbert.

“What did you say, Madame Colbert,” Madame Colbert instructed.

“What did you say, Madame Colbert?” Marie-Anne grinned up at her, the fingers of one hand in her mouth.

“I said that you are riding quite well,” Madame Colbert said, taking the girl’s hand out of her mouth.

“You did not. Madame Colbert.”

“I love your costume,” Petite told her daughter.

“It sparkles,” Tito said, solemnly watching.

“With diamonds,” Marie-Anne said.

“Not real diamonds,” Madame Colbert told her.

“What are you going to be?” Marie-Anne asked her mother, sucking on her fingers again.

“What are you going to be,
Mother
,” Madame Colbert said.

“I’m going to be an angel,” Petite said.
Was going to be.
“Are you cold, Monsieur l’Admiral?” she asked little Tito. The child was bent over double, rubbing his bare lower legs. It seemed strange not to see him in a long gown and traces.

“No,” he said.

“That means yes,” Madame Colbert whispered, taking a seat and pulling Marie-Anne onto her lap. She shifted to make room for the boy as well, her arms encircling them both. “Such
big
babies now.”

“Jeanne’s baby Albert is one year old,” Marie-Anne announced, leaning back against Madame Colbert’s soft bosom.

“One year, two months.” Madame Colbert beamed at the mention of her first grandchild. “And fat as a quail.”

“Poupée is married now and will have babies too,” the girl said.

Madame Colbert raised her brows. “That’s what we pray for.” The second eldest Colbert daughter—nicknamed “Doll”—had married only a month before.

“Mother is married,” Tito said.

“She’s not,” Marie-Anne said.

“She is,” the boy persisted. “To our father the King.”

“No.” Marie-Anne was insistent. “She’s like a…a
strumpet
.”

“Marie-Anne!” Madame Colbert shook the girl. “What a thing to say.”

Petite put her hand on Madame Colbert’s arm. “Please.” It had happened so quickly. She looked into her children’s faces. They were too young to understand. “I want you both to know that I love you
very
much…and that you have nothing to be ashamed of.”

“The finest mother in the world,” Madame Colbert exclaimed, and—seeing that Petite was in danger of weeping—she ushered the two children into the care of a nursemaid. “There now,” she
said, joining Petite at the window. “How about I ring for a hot cordial?”

“Thank you, but no—I must be going.”

“Yes, of course—there’s the masquerade ball tonight. I confess that I rather prefer staying home with the children.”

“I take great comfort in your care of them, Marie,” Petite said, tearfully embracing her. She could hear the older boys’ voices in their singing lesson, the laughter of children, footsteps on the floor above. “They couldn’t have a finer home.”

P
ETITE PEEKED IN
at the children before leaving. She blew them a kiss, then left, in tears. She wasn’t far from where Diablo was stabled. She needed to see him, to steady her nerves.

Diablo nickered as Petite approached his corral, a small enclosure of stone walls. She leaned on the railing. He was aging, but he still looked good as he ambled over to her. He allowed her near—to groom and care for him—but he remained wild at heart. He would not let her put a halter on him, much less allow her to back him. It broke her heart to see him caged…and soon, if the master of the horse had his way, he would be ignobly sacrificed for public amusement.

“I’m sorry,” she said, cupping his whiskery muzzle, “I don’t have anything for you.”

S
HE TOOK THE RIVER ROAD
back in order to avoid the Mardi Gras
procession. The sun would soon set. Courtiers would be dressing for the ball—the first since Henriette’s death. It would be a sad affair without her.

Petite stopped to watch the boats, the river traffic.
Gone to the river.
What had happened that early morning long ago? It disturbed her that she still could not recall. What she could remember—and all too vividly—was feeling so desperately miserable that she no longer wished to live.

And now? Now, if anything, she was even more desperately miserable. She headed for her rooms at the palace.

“I
WILL NOT BE GOING
to the ball,” Petite announced to Clorine. Her maid was dressed as a fine lady in the topsy-turvy spirit of the day, with five patches on her cheeks. “So put away my costume.” The feathered wings were propped over the back of a chair and her gown was spread out on the daybed.

“Are you not well?”

“I am not.”

At Petite’s request, Clorine made her a mug of a steaming herbal concoction and dressed her for bed. “Thank you,” Petite said, lying back on the pillows. Clorine lingered at the door with a candle lantern in her hand. “Thank you for everything, Clorine,” Petite said, closing her eyes.

She lay in the dark, listening to the night revelries, the drunken Mardi Gras brawls.

Waiting.

After the night watchman called out eleven of the clock—after she could be sure that Clorine had retired and was fast asleep—she opened her bed curtains and, taking the night candle, groped her way to the withdrawing room. Draped in a thick woolen shawl, she put some sticks on the embers and used the flame from her candle to light two others. She felt her way to the escritoire and took out a sheet of her best paper, the squid ink, a good quill.

Dear Clorine.

She paused, considering. It was not farewell. Clorine would do her laundry, bring her food and books. She would have her (or her mother, or Madame Colbert) bring the children to see her several times a week. Later, when the time was right, she would begin negotiations with Gautier and arrange to provide Clorine with a handsome dowry. But this was far, far into the future.

The future.

She was stepping into a great unknown, and she thought for a moment of throwing the letter into the fire. Instead, she wrote out her intentions, sprinkled sand on the ink and shook the paper clean.
Now it’s set
, she thought. She folded the paper and placed it on the felt cover of her escritoire, exactly in the center.
For Clorine
, she wrote in a careful hand.

Should I write a letter to Louis?

She loved him—still—but she did not love the man he had
become. Had Athénaïs worked a spell on him? Or had he always been thus, and she blinded? Had she herself been under some type of enchantment?

No, she would not write. She was too angry, too bereft, her love for the man he had been still burning in her.
Amor indissolubilis.
Would she ever see an altar flame without thinking of him? Without thinking of her willing surrender, her passion?
Their
passion.

She pulled away from the desk and went to the fireplace, adding three small sticks to the flames. Then she pulled a rocking chair up close to the fire and sat rocking, indifferent to the Mardi Gras revelry in the gardens below, waiting for the sun to rise, for the long night to be over. She knew what she wanted now: to be free of sin. To be free of the Court, of Athénaïs…and yes, of the King.

I can’t live without your love
, she had told him, recalling the last time she had run…run to her death, run for her life.

A
T THE FIRST HINT
of light, Petite dressed and gathered up what remained of her treasures: her rosary and locket, the worn copy of Saint Teresa’s
Life.
She put on her hooded fur-lined cloak and opened the door, wending her way down the dark halls and cold, echoing stairs.

The street was littered with festive refuse. A man sprawling belly-up in an alley moaned. Three men in costume called out to
her: “Hey, girl, over here.” One thrust his buttocks at her and tumbled over with the effort.

She headed toward the stable yards.

D
IABLO STOOD AGAINST
the red light of dawn. Petite thought of when she had first seen him, standing at the edge of a woods.
Sing ye!
He had that beauty still.

She had to get him out of the city—but how? He watched warily as she climbed up onto the stone wall. She kicked off her platform mules and let them drop. Then, crouching, she pushed open the gate. As Diablo bolted, she slipped onto his back, clutching mane and straddling him, her legs tight around his girth. He bucked, but she held on. “Easy, boy,” she whispered, half laughing. It felt wonderful to be on him. “Ho, boy!” she said as he bucked down a narrow alley, heading north. “Ho,” she repeated when he shied at a cat. Heading onto Rue Saint-Honoré, she sat back, her skirts bunched up around her thighs, and pressed him forward into a canter. He was skittish, but he surged down the cobbled street, ducking vegetable carts and laden water-carriers. Early-morning workers stood well back, watching in awe. An old woman waved her cane, cheering. At Saint-Roch cathedral, Petite guided Diablo into the Rabbit Warren and toward the river.

Diablo raced down the river road, picking up speed, his strong legs coursing. The air was cold and fresh, the dawn light sparkling on the gray water. The city wall, the porte de Conférence, was
ahead. The barrier was down, and there were two coaches and a line of people waiting to go through, waiting for their papers to be checked. “Go,” she whispered, clutching mane.

People cried out, fell over, scrambling to get out of their way. Diablo dodged an old couple and surged over the high barrier.
Sing ye!

Ahead: the long road along the Seine, the road to Chaillot. The river on one side and the farms and woodlands on the other rushed by in a blur. Petite sat back. Diablo slowed to a relaxed canter. It hadn’t been a dream.

“Ho, boy,” she said, grinning, and he eased to a walk. She guided him to an isolated hillock, then halted. She fell forward onto his neck, feeling his warmth, smelling his clean horse scent. She recalled being a girl and lying thus, recalled thinking of what a miracle it was, such trust. Now they were both older, and both of them scarred. Both in need of rescue, salvation.

She was anxious about discovery, but she didn’t want to rush. She needed time, if only a moment—a moment to last for eternity.

Grasping his mane, she slid down off his side. He was free now. He could run—yet he stood. He turned his head to her. His eyes—now blue, now dark, now flashing a hint of red—were all-seeing, all-knowing. No, it hadn’t been a dream. She pressed her forehead to his.
Am I doing the right thing?
she asked herself, her eyes stinging.
Yes,
her heart answered.