The Shadow Queen A Novel (11 page)

Broad-shouldered with curling long hair, His Majesty stood out from his companions, a striking young man, both graceful and manly. I could understand why he was often likened to Apollo, god of the sun. Although changed by kingship and maturity, I recognized in him the boy I had seen in Poitiers. He had that same poise, but now I saw self-consciousness in it, as if he were the one onstage.

I scanned the other loges to see who else I might recognize. Monsieur, the King’s comely brother, and their cousin La Grande Mademoiselle in an enormous hat. It was only as the curtain started its slow creaking ascent that I glimpsed someone sitting with a group in a loge on the right. A young woman with blond curls and unusually big eyes.

“Claudette—it’s time!” Madame Babette called out behind me, and I turned quickly away, my thoughts in disorder.

I FOUND MOTHER
with all the other players, many of them pacing, murmuring their lines.

“What if I can’t hear the prompter?” Her voice, normally deep, came out in a squeak.

It
was
a problem. The prompter’s chair, usually set in a wing downstage, was now set way at the back because of all the machinery. “You know Medea’s lines well,” I assured her, adjusting her hairpiece.

I was nervous enough myself. I was worried about my own flight out over the audience as Cupid. My mother’s gauzy gown was small on me. What if men could see my legs? I’d managed being in the flying machine through the three rehearsals—but over a crowd? I felt like up-heaving just thinking of it … and what if I did?

Monsieur la Roque came to the end of his director’s greeting. I heard the fast twelve blows struck by his worn red-velvet-covered staff, followed by three slow ones, signaling that the play was about to begin.

“Here we go,” young Brécourt said at the creaking ascent of the painted curtain. The audience cheered the magnificent set.

Mother looked up at me, her eyes wide with fright. For a heart-stopping moment, I feared she would not go on. “Tell me again what Nicolas said,” she whispered.

“That you have a God-given talent, Maman.”

She stared at me for a long moment. I nodded and gently nudged her forward.

She strode menacingly to the candles and shrieked, silencing the crowd.

CHAPTER 19

M
y flight as Cupid was to be the first “miraculous” sensation of the show; it was critical that it go perfectly. I double-checked my harness and discovered one buckle loose.
Ay me!
I was rechecking everything when Madame Babette gave me a deep-red rose. “Monsieur la Roque wants you to throw it down to the King.”

“And manage the bow and arrow as well?”
All
while flying through the air?

She shrugged, straightened her wig, and rushed off.

A thorn cut into the palm of my hand. Zounds: now I was bleeding. At least I wasn’t in my courses. Trembling, I bent my knees, waiting for the cymbals to sound—waiting for the machinery to hoist me up and out.

The cymbals sounded and I pushed off—but nothing happened. I fell forward, my knees dragging on the boards. Deus! I put the bow and rose in one hand, and was trying to pull down my skirts when I was jerked violently into the air.

Ah! the audience gasped.

Oh!
I exclaimed as I was twirled out over the pit and around … once, twice, rising up ever higher, until I was level with the first-tier loges, swooping past the richly adorned courtiers. Ahead, coming on quickly, was the King. I grasped the rose with my right hand and tossed it neatly into his loge as I flew by. A cheer went up. Everyone was loving it!

On my next sweep by His Majesty’s loge, a moustached valet held up the rose. Holding it to his heart, he winked at me as I flew by.

A wink!

Suspended, no longer circling, I set a tin arrow in my bow. My gaze settled on the young woman I’d briefly glimpsed before. She turned her face up to me, her blue eyes luminous. Deus! Cupid’s arrow slipped from my grasp.

Someone in the pit grabbed it, triumphant. I was swirled away and down, landing with a thud. I quickly bowed out to laughter and applause, my heart pounding.

“What happened?” Monsieur la Roque demanded.

“I don’t know,” I said, unbuckling my harness. But I did. It was
her.

SHAKEN, I QUICKLY
got out of my costume and settled onto my perch beside the stage gate. Everyone’s eyes were on His Majesty, but my eyes were on her. She was seated beside her father, the Duc de Mortemart, the humorless man who had practically had us all arrested years before in Poitiers. I recognized him by his girth and thin moustache. With them was a young nobleman and several older men and women.

She was as lovely as I remembered, her hair arranged in locks that had been feathered, giving her a light, angelic look. She held her fan with the painted side facing out. Now and then she fluttered it quickly, charming the young nobleman with a languishing glance.

As the performance came to an end, the audience exploded with applause, hoots and cheers, a thunder of stomping boots. I watched as her party rose, noted the way she held up her skirts, turning out the inside of her wrists. The young man helped her adjust her shawl around her shoulders and she smiled up at him. Her father, at the door of the loge, waved his walking stick, motioning them to hurry. She dipped her head respectfully and, with an exquisitely graceful passing curtsy, preceded the young man out the door.

Madame Babette popped up behind me. “I can’t take my eyes off of him either.” She sighed.

“I know,” I said, feigning to be enchanted by the King.

MOTHER FELL INTO
my arms, wobbly with relief.

“I’ll meet you down in your dressing room.” There was a surprise for her there: a basket of beignets. “I need to let Gaston in backstage.” He’d been sorting the door-take in the office. (Putting coins in order by size was something he could do well.)

Gaston was waiting for me at the gate. I let him in behind the curtain, where some of the players still lingered. “Mother’s down below,” I told him, but he stopped, dumbstruck, gazing somewhat fearfully at the sets, as if he might be swallowed up, struck by lightning. “Come,” I said with a smile, nudging him out of his enchantment.

We found Mother sitting on a stool in her dressing room eating a beignet. She opened her arms wide to embrace us.

Oh,
Gaston sang with a fearful vibrato, which made us laugh.

“That was my worst,” she said, licking her fingers clean before taking off her wig and shaking out her sweat-soaked hair.

I clapped a fur hood on her to protect her from the cold. “You were excellent,” I insisted, untying her laces and helping her into her red and yellow dressing gown. “It went well.” Nothing had caught fire and no ushers had been murdered.

Monsieur Pierre appeared with sweetmeats. “You are a queen of the stage!” he told Mother, sweeping off his hat. “You must play tragedy—
real
tragedy,” he said, lowering his voice conspiratorially. “I’m writing a new play, a tragedy that would be perfect for you to star in.”

I looked from the playwright to my mother, not believing what Monsieur Pierre had just said. Zounds! If only Father could be here now.

“Monsieur Pierre!” someone called out, and he disappeared before we could even respond.
Well,
I sighed. What a day.

There was a peremptory rap on the door. Before we could say “Come in,” a big, extravagantly ruffled man made a rude entrance.

“I wish to speak to Monsieur la Roque,” he said with a frown. “Where might I find him?”

The Duc de Mortemart! I dropped into a respectful reverence.

Fortunately, the great man showed no sign of displeasure. Quite the contrary! “Madame des Oeillets,” he said, addressing my mother, “His Majesty was entertained by your performance.”

“I am honored,” Mother said, pulling her wig back on. I slipped a fur cape on over her dressing gown for the sake of warmth (and modesty).

A young woman appeared behind the Duke: his
daughter.
“Monseigneur,” she said, her voice soft, “His Majesty is speaking to Monsieur Corneille about it now.”

“Is Monsieur la Roque with him?” the Duc de Mortemart demanded.

“The director?” she asked.

“Oui, he was,” said a nobleman beside her. Tall and exactly proportioned, he was the young man who had been sitting with her in the loge. He was wearing bright silks, a lace collar, and high boots with the studied nonchalance of the young.

“He’s to show us the machinery,” the Duke said impatiently.

Appearing suddenly in the door was the brutish young Louvois. “His Majesty, I’m sure, would enjoy a private viewing. I will inform His Majesty now.”

I was alarmed to see Louvois, knowing his nasty reputation. My princess gave her beau a mocking look, rolling her big eyes.

“It’s Monsieur la Roque we await, Monsieur Louvois.” The Duke regarded the florid-faced young man with impatience. “But he’s in attendance on the King, who, you should know, showed no interest in the machinery when it was discussed.”

“But—” Louvois’s little eyes blinked. “If—”

“Leave it be, young man! Unless, of course, you wish to annoy His Majesty. Has your father not taught you anything?”

The princess turned her head away and smiled.

I wasn’t sure what was going on; it appeared that young Louvois wished to court the King’s favor, but was being held in check by his superior.

“No need for La Roque, Messieurs,” Mother offered brightly. (As Medea, she’d become brazen!) “I’d be delighted to show you our secrets myself. The door to the understage is close by.”

“Pathetic,” I heard my princess say under her breath, watching as Louvois waddled after my mother and the two men. I wondered if she’d heard the stories I had; stories that portrayed Louvois not so much pathetic, as dangerous.

“You do not wish to join them, Mademoiselle? The machines are rather interesting,” I added, folding Mother’s shawl and placing it on the trunk, my hands trembling. “If grimy and forbidding,” I prattled on, talking without purpose.

“Some other day, perhaps—when Monsieur Louvois is not of the party,” she added with a smirk. She stepped into the room, pressing a scent ball to her nose. “For some reason I seem to know you.”

“I am Claude des Oeillets. I played Cupid tonight.”

“I
loved
that. No, from before, but I can’t recall.”

“We met … a very long time ago,” I admitted with a curtsy. How was it possible to have such a perfect face? It was in the blood, surely, in the refinement and breeding of the noble race. “Mademoiselle,” I added. I wasn’t sure how I should address her; the Mortemarts were such high nobility. She was Mademoiselle de Tonnay-Charente, I recalled—but might she be titled now? “Near Poitiers—my family was camped by a cave.”

“Ah! The magical cave in the fearsome wilds. I remember thinking it a fantastical adventure, like something out of a storybook.” She laughed, a musical note that came from deep in her throat, charmingly trilling. “I also recall seeking a means to kill my loathsome governess.”

I dipped my head. “And I failed to fulfill my promise.”

“Indeed—you owe me,” she said with a mocking frown.

She took off a fur-lined glove and ran her fingers over the decorative stitching on Mother’s gown. Her nails were long, pointed, and tinged with gold. She wore a cluster of emeralds set into a gold band on her middle finger. “Is this your handiwork?” she asked. “I have urgent need of a seamstress.”

It took only a moment to register what was being offered. “It would be an honor to serve you, Mademoiselle,” I said, making a shaky but deep and heartfelt reverence.

CHAPTER 20

U
p by candle the next morning, I brushed out my hair with bran flour and, shivering with the unseasonable cold, braided it with a long yellow ribbon, coiling the braids tightly and covering them with a starched white cap.

By the thin light of dawn, I could see that it had snowed. Even so, I decided to wear my summer cloak, the only one that wasn’t patched. I took up the carrying basket I’d prepared the night before. Lined with hemp, it held my precious tools—a bone case of brass pins and needles, silk and metal threads, iron scissors and long-bladed shears.

The Mortemart estate was on the other side of the river, in the parish of the Saint-Sulpice church. I would have liked to hire a litter, but I had only earned sixteen sous the night before—and the players nothing at all. The King had rewarded the troupe handsomely, but the debts were high and needed to be paid off first. I would call on Monsieur Martin that evening, explain that it would be a while yet before we would be able to pay him back for the money he’d so kindly advanced—money we’d needed to pay for Mother’s rich costumes. I would give him two of her complimentary tickets to appease.

It took time to find the street the Mortemart residence was on, and once there I felt I was in another realm: the air was fresh after the frosting of snow, which made everything quiet. Above the high walls I could see the branches of great oak trees, the tips of dark pines cloaked in white.

I walked up and down the rue Saint-Guillaume several times before identifying the emblem with the coiled snake over a carriage gate entrance. The courtyard behind the ironwork gates was large: a six-horse carriage stood at the ready, the driver sitting atop smoking a pipe as two footmen in white livery brushed off the snow.

There seemed to be only one entrance. I pulled the bell rope. Three men in blue cloaks—the concierge and two guards—came to the gate.

“Mademoiselle de Tonnay-Charente is expecting me.”

“For what purpose?” the concierge demanded, his breath billowing.

“I am a seamstress,” I said, praying he wouldn’t demand guild identification.

The concierge nodded to one of the guards, who sprinted across the courtyard toward the entrance.

I blew into my cupped hands to warm them. I feared I would be shown in with chattering teeth, my cheeks chapped and reddened, my eyes and nose running. Just as I was about to expire of the cold, one of the guards and a maid appeared. The guard fumbled with a big iron key and the creaking gate slowly opened. “You may enter,” he said. Ushering me into the realm of the blessed.