On My Lady's Honor (All for one, and one for all) (25 page)

Once they were alone together, Sophie turned to Lamotte in distress.
 
He was more experienced that she.
 
She needed to hear what he had to say, to hear his advice on her dilemma.
 
“Can what Monsieur says be true?
 
Can the King have lied to me?”

Lamotte shrugged.
 
“It is no secret in the court that the King harbors an unnatural affection for his sister-in-law and that she does not welcome or return this affection.”

Of all things that Philippe of Orleans had claimed, Sophie had found this one the hardest to accept.
 
That a King could try to pervert the bonds of a family in such a fashion beggared belief.
 
“You know of this for certain?”

He shrugged one shoulder as he lay back on the sofa.
 
“It would be hard to ignore.
 
I have carried many a letter from the King to Madame la Duchesse and gotten naught but a door slammed shut in my face for the trouble.”.

She ceased her pacing and fixed his eyes with a steady gaze.
 
“So Monsieur speaks true.”

He nibbled on his bottom lip.
 
“I do not altogether trust Monsieur.”

Surely both of them could not be lying, or could the truth lie in a third direction?
 
“Why not?”

He screwed up his face in distaste.
 
“He openly confessed to us both that he dresses in women’s clothes.
 
What manner of man would so shamelessly flaunt his perversions?”

If the Duc was perverted for dressing in women’s clothes, the so was she for dressing in breeches like a man.
 
How could the one be condemned and not the other?
 
She did not consider either a perversion.
 
“A man who was not ashamed of the way God made him?” she suggested, her voice tart.

“The Devil more like it,” he muttered under his breath.

“Be it God or Devil who gave the Duc a liking for women’s gowns is no matter.
 
Have you no other reason to distrust Monsiuer le Duc?”

He shrugged.
 
“I do not like the man.
 
Did you not see the way he pawed at you, thinking you were a smooth-faced young boy?
 
He has an unnatural liking for young men.”

Sophie scratched her head.
 
Were men always this illogical and unreasonable?
 
“So you have no reason to distrust him other than that he dresses in women’s clothes and prefers boys to women?”

“Is that not enough to distrust a man?”

“No, it is not.
 
A man should be judged on his words and deeds, not on the clothes he wears.
 
You tell me that the Duc speaks truly of the King’s love for his wife, and truth is that the King has had her arrested and sent to the Bastille.
 
Why then should I not trust the Duc?
 
Why should I not go to England?”

“It is a long, hard journey to an unfriendly land where the winters are harsh, the women ugly, the food unappetizing and the wine positively evil.”

She raised her eyebrows at his flimsy excuses.
 
“I am a soldier.
 
I cannot expect to live a life of ease while I fulfil my duty.
 
Besides,” she added with a smile, “I care not if the women are ugly so long as the men are brave and fair to look upon.”

“The crossing will be rough this time of the year.”

“I am not afeared of the water.
 
God will keep me safe, if that is his will.”

“You have sworn your allegiance to the King of France.
 
As have I.
 
One cannot lightly toss such an oath aside.”

There was the rub.
 
She had sworn her allegiance to the King.
 
Should she serve him as she had sworn to, with due obedience, or should she break her troth to him for the sake of truth or pity?
 
Which way lay her duty?
 
Which way lay honor?
 
“You would not come with me then, were I to go?”

“We are Musketeers in the service of the King, not in the service of his brother, the Duc of Orleans.
 
Neither are we in the business of rescuing from prison those whom the King has deemed traitors to France.
 
I would counsel you to remain in Paris.”

She did not altogether agree with his arguments.
 
“If I ignored your counsel?
 
What then?”

“You are my wife.
 
I would chase after you and drag you back to Paris by your ears, if I must.”

“The King ordered the prisoner to be kept in darkness and isolation,” Miriame said idly, as she lounged on a pile of gold velvet cushions on the rich red Persian rug on the floor of Courtney’s chamber
 
“No candles.
 
No tapers.
 
No lights of any kind.
 
No letters.
 
No parcels.
 
No messages to be delivered.
 
No visitors except for the King himself.
 
Plain black bread and a small jar of water to be stuffed through the grating on her door only every second day.
 
Even her guards are forbidden to speak to her on pain on suffering the same fate as her.”

Courtney lay back on the sofa and buffed her nails with a piece of soft cloth.
 
“You’re making up stories.
 
How would you know that?”

“I read the letter the King wrote to the Governor of the Bastille.”

Courtney was not impressed.
 
“When did you do that?”

“In the coach.
 
There was enough moon to make out the letters, though the King does write in a remarkably ill hand.”

Sophie, perched in the window seat with her knees drawn up to her chin, stared at her in amazement.
 
“But it was sealed with the King’s seal.
 
Don’t tell me you picked the seal as successfully as you picked my pocket.”

Miriame took a blade out of her pocket and threw it in the air.
 
It somersaulted half a dozen times on its journey, light from the candles glinting off the highly-polished, wickedly sharp blade before the hilt dropped back into her hand as easily as if it belonged there.
 
She tucked it back it into her pocket with a grin.
 
“Nothing that a sharp knife could not slit through without leaving a mark.”

Sophie shook to think of the danger she had unwittingly been exposed to.
 
Was there no end to Miriame’s foolish risk-taking?
 
“What if the Governor had noticed.”

“He was roused from sleep in the middle of the night.
 
The night was dark enough, despite the moon.
 
I took a gamble that he would be too drunk from his carousing the previous night, or too confused from the orders he was being given, or simply too sleepy to notice.”

“What if he had noticed?
 
Then what would you have done?”

“What’s to worry about?
 
He didn’t see aught amiss.”

Courtney had finished her fingernails and had moved on to her toenails.
 
“That is not the point.
 
The point is, what shall we do about this request of Monsieur’s.
 
Should we rush to the rescue of the fair Henrietta, or stay quietly at home by the fireside and let her rot?”

Miriame tossed her knife in the air again.
 
“Will he pay us for our trouble?”

Sophie dismissed the question with a wave of her hand.
 
The issue was one of honor and faith and obedience, not of gold livres.
 
“Money is not important.”

Miriame threw a cushion at her.
 
“Not to you, maybe.
 
To me it is.”

Once a gutter rat, always a gutter rat
, Sophie thought to herself as she caught the cushion in mid-air and hugged it to her knees.
 
Miriame had the mind of a street-hawker, greedy for profit, and always would have.
 
“Yes, he will.
 
One thousand gold pistoles to pay for our journey, with as much again when we return.”

Miriame whistled between her teeth.
 
“Then I say we go, and go in style.”

Sophie’s loyalties were torn.
 
She wanted to do the honorable thing – but which way lay honor?
 
Lamotte had counseled her to stay out of mistrust of the Duc and fear that she might come to harm on the way.
 
Miriame counseled her to go and earn a few gold pieces.

Neither of them understood her confusion.
 
She did not know what to do.
 
“The King has accused her of treason.
 
Surely he would not imprison her so without good reason?”

Miriame laughed.
 
“Do not be so naïve.
 
Not everyone who is accused is guilty.
 
I know half a dozen people hanged for crimes they didn’t commit.
 
Of course,” she added after a pause, “they were guilty of plenty of other things.
 
Just not the things they were hanged for.”

Courtney finished her last toenail and tossed the cloth aside.
 
“My faith is with Monsieur in this matter.
 
I believe she is innocent of treason and that the King has jailed her for not succumbing to his advances.
 
I can see nothing here but the maliciousness of men who prey on those weaker than themselves.
 
I say we rescue her.”

Sophie still wavered.
 
“And our vows of loyalty to the King?
 
What of them?”

Miriame gave a great belly laugh.
 
“I’d break a vow to God himself for a thousand gold pistoles.
 
Breaking a vow to the King of France is no great matter.”

“Justice ranks higher with me than obedience,” Courtney said in a measured tone.
 
“I will break a vow to any man, be him the King himself, a thousand times over before I will go against my conscience and do a woman an injustice when it is in my power to right her wrong.”

Sophie felt the sun on her back as she sat in the window.
 
From that day forth, her conscience could not remain perfectly clear.
 
She had to make a choice between doing her duty and obeying her conscience.

Courtney was right, though.
 
She had no choice at all.

She jumped down from the window seat and stretched her legs.
 
They would be stiff and sore from hard riding soon enough.
 
“To England, then?
 
Tonight?”

Miriame pumped one fist in the air with a shout of joy.
 
“A thousand pistoles among us?
 
I am in Heaven.”

Courtney looked sadly at her newly-buffed fingernails.
 
Few things were harder on fingernails than riding in all weathers.
 
Their new shine would be lost in the first day’s travel.
 
“To England.”

Miriame looked at Sophie with a calculating air.
 
“Your new husband will not mind your sudden yen for English air?
 
Most wedded men would surely take it amiss were their wife to disappear on the sudden.”

Sophie sniffed.
 
“The Count has threatened to drag me back to Paris if I should go.
 
He is on guard duty tonight, so we shall have to leave before he returns home.
 
I shall endeavor to put him off the scent, but if I am not successful, we shall have to fight our way through him.”

Courtney gave a delighted laugh.
 
“I have been spoiling for a good fight for some days now.
 
I will look forward to seeing him try.”

Lamotte paced up and down outside the King’s chambers.
 
He had an uneasy feeling about him that he could not shake.
 
Sophie had said nothing more about going to England since he had threatened to drag her home again by the ears did she leave without his permission, but he did not trust her silence.

He stumbled over an uneven patch of flooring and righted himself again with a curse.
 
Damn the guard duty that kept him occupied that night.
 
If Gerard saw a soul in need of help, he could not be prevented from going to their aid, whether they deserved to be rescued or no.
 
Sophie was far too like her brother for comfort.