The Shadow Queen A Novel (19 page)

“I tried to tell Floridor that, but …” He shook his head. “We used to care about art; now all that matters is the door take.”

“It’s because of the competition from Monsieur Molière,” I said, stopping Gaston at the door. “Would you like something to eat before you go back for another load?” He had been working so hard.

“Oui, sit here,” Monsieur Pierre said, standing.

“Please, Monsieur Pierre, stay. It’s such a pleasure to see you,” I said, pulling up a bench.

“Stay, do,” Mother said. “We’ll talk of art and be restored.”

Monsieur Pierre sat back down. “Sit beside me then, Gaston. I’ve yet to hear your news. I have a boy about your age. Are you in an apprenticeship yet?”

Gaston looked at me, bewildered.

“Not yet,” I said, chagrined. If ever.

RACINE WAS PRESENT
at the first business meeting of the Easter break. He was smiling, which made me uneasy. My suspicions were confirmed when Floridor announced that the wildly popular actress Thérèse du Parc—the so-called “Marquise”—would agree to leave Molière’s troupe if she could join us.

The players responded dubiously. Thérèse du Parc had learned her trade as a rope dancer on the streets of Lyon. She was alluring—a draw, no doubt—but mainly because of her legs, which she allowed the audience to glimpse when making her famous leaps. The players of the Bourgogne were respected for serious tragedy, not acrobatics.

“At full share?” one of the players asked.

Floridor glanced down at his notes. “And with an advance of five hundred livres.”

Five hundred!

“I intend for her to perform one of the lead roles in the play I’m writing now.” Racine’s voice could hardly be heard.

I exchanged a concerned look with my mother.
Alix
was the troupe’s lead actress. Did we really need another?

“
Andromaque,
” Floridor said, clarifying, “which we’re to perform this autumn.”

“I’m in favor,” big Montfleury said with passion. “It will be another blow to Molière.”

“SHE CAN’T PERFORM
tragedy,” I assured Mother, walking home through the spring slush. “I don’t think you have to worry.”

“She’s young and beautiful—and I’m neither.”

“She’s thirty-four, Maman.” Privately, I thought it wasn’t a bad notion to introduce a younger player into the Bourgogne. Mother, at forty-seven, was younger by far than Floridor, who was fifty-nine, and Montfleury, who was an astonishing sixty-eight. The Bourgogne was an aging company (despite which young Racine drove the players hard, disdainful of their frailties).

“That’s young,” Mother said, touching her cheek. She’d recently resorted to using a much-touted face cream in hope of a fair-as-lilies complexion. Fortunately, she stopped using it because it made her skin raw. (I’d since learned that people who used the cream were being called Les Écorchées, skinned alive!) “Men go crazy over her,” she said.

“And now, apparently, Racine,” I said.

Mother stopped.
Non.

I made wide eyes.
Oui!
Why else would he cast her in a lead role?

“She’s so much older than he is.”

“But wealthy,” I said with a smirk, ever suspicious of Jean Racine’s motives.

CHAPTER 33

T
he great exodus of the King and Court began toward the end of May, riding to war in Flanders. Leading an army of thirty-five thousand, His Majesty’s intention was to lay claim to the northern lands that had been legally promised him by the King of Spain when he married the King of Spain’s daughter—lands Spain was now not willing to give up. The Righteous War, it was called.

“I’ve never seen anything so fine,” Thérèse du Parc exclaimed in Mother’s dressing room. She’d glimpsed the King’s glass coach “filled with women,” escorted by hundreds “and
hundreds
” of horsemen, the King himself riding—

“Sword in hand,” I recited drearily—for Thérèse had already told the story three times.

“Seeing His Majesty up close makes me faint,” Thérèse said, feigning a swoon.

Like all women, it seemed.

“Without the Court, Paris is a desert.” She missed her fanatics, the ardent noblemen who bought expensive seats on the stage so they could gaze at her heaving bosom and fine legs. Now the only noblemen in Paris were gray-bearded and stooped.

In spite of Thérèse’s tiresome airs, I’d come to rather admire her: she had a wonderful singing voice and she worked hard at her craft.

Or, rather, was pushed by Jean Racine to work hard. “Du Parc!” I heard him call out imperiously. “Get up here!”

THE COURTIERS’ RETURN
enlivened the city once again. Much to Mother’s intense displeasure, Thérèse du Parc proved to be a popular draw (and not a bad actress, in fact); she was clearly a profitable addition to the troupe. Our hard times were far from over, however. Just after we began to see a return on Racine’s
Andromaque,
disaster struck. In the second week of December, big Montfleury, vigorously proclaiming his lines during the mad scene in Act V, ruptured a blood vessel in his neck and collapsed on the stage, the men in the pit jeering at him to rise. I led Mother and Gaston quickly away, shielding them from the tragic sight, but even from below we could hear the big man’s dying gasps.

Floridor canceled our next performances, the troupe too stunned to perform.

“The play is cursed,” Mother said. Rumor was that Molière had paid a witch to cast an evil spell on
Andromaque
because we’d stolen Thérèse du Parc away from his troupe.

“Yes, but cursed by Racine,” I said, finding the pincushion I was looking for in Gaston’s line of objects. He cried out in protest as I retrieved it; I gave him a cross look. “He pushed Montfleury far too hard.” Proclaiming Racine’s intensely emotional verse had brought on Montfleury’s death. (Ironic, I thought, considering that Montfleury had been the one to so ardently champion Racine’s work.)

No sooner had the Bourgogne regained momentum in the new year than we suffered yet another blow: Thérèse du Parc announced that she wouldn’t be performing for a period of time. “I need to be away a spell,” she said, mumbling something about her health.

“There’s nothing wrong with her health!” Mother later scoffed.

I knew better. “She’s with child.” As the one who had to keep letting out her costumes (richly adorned gowns given to her by noble admirers—gowns that eclipsed the ones I could provide Mother), I had suspected for some time. “And my guess is by you-know-who.” Racine was often in her dressing room. I couldn’t understand what Thérèse saw in him—she had her pick of suitors, and noble ones at that.

Having suffered through such calamities, the troupe was greatly cheered to be invited to perform for the King at Saint-Germain-en-Laye. It was only a one-performance engagement, but His Majesty paid handsomely, covering costs and feeding players in style. To be commanded to make what players called “a voyage” to play for the King was the answer to every troupe’s prayers. This had been an especially enjoyable excursion, even if I did have to play the part of the dog. (I was both relieved and disappointed not to have glimpsed Athénaïs in the audience.)

The troupe met back in Paris the next morning, groggy, boisterous, some ill and others still drunk from celebrating the King’s approval of the play. Floridor stood to address us. There was something serious in his demeanor, his face dark with shadow as he waited for silence. He arranged his ruff, pausing gravely before informing us that he had sad news: “Thérèse du Parc will not be coming back—”

There were a few muted exclamations. Had she decided to return to Molière’s troupe?

“I am grieved to inform you that she died last night.”

There was a stir, and then gasps.

My mouth dropped open in incredulity.

“We’re closing down until further notice,” I heard Floridor say. “Even Molière’s troupe has canceled performances, out of respect.”

There was a hum of surprise.

“Fortunately,” he continued, “she was able to renounce the stage before passing.”

“Merci Dieu!” someone cried out in the silence that followed.

The next morning, Thérèse’s body was displayed in her rooms on the rue de Richelieu. She looked like a girl in her big, expensive coffin, dressed in one of her gaud-glorious theatrical costumes. She’d died giving birth, it was whispered. Leaving, I glanced across the street at the door opposite, wreathed in black: Racine’s modest abode.

The procession to the cemetery the next day turned into a mob scene. Racine was almost unrecognizable, his face puffy. As the coffin was lowered into the ground, he let out a heart-wrenching cry, causing even me to weep.

IN THE DAYS
that followed, I went about my chores in a daze. It was a relief not to have to rush off to the theater for meetings, rehearsals, and performances every day, but at the same time I felt at a loss. Even the diversion of walking the newly cobbled streets of Paris by night—ablaze now with the light of three thousand lanterns—failed to cheer. Mother took up knitting her hideous shawl and I resumed pacing the creaking floorboards, worrying about how we would manage, worrying (as always) about money. To keep Mother in spangles and feathers, to keep our rooms heated, I took whatever jobs I could find: cleaning out a charnel house, hiring on as a professional mourner following funeral processions, tending a stinking tavern in the late-late hours—fending off drunken customers on more than one occasion. We’d been years in the theater. Mother was a great success, and yet we seemed not much further along than before.

The magical transition from sordid to grand was, in truth, a meager living. Repairing costumes and performing the occasional walk-on part in travesty earned me little. There were times when I longed, in truth, for a
respectable
life, like those of the blessed who sat in the loges. A life where it would not be assumed I was a whore just because I worked for the theater. A life where I would not have to carry a dagger in my skirts to ward off attackers, coming and going from the theater at all hours. I was weary of working long hours for only a few sous, weary of juggling debts, making do with a cup of parsnip soup and a trencher of bean-flour bread for a meal.

Was this to be my life? Forever scrambling to make ends meet, looking after Mother and my helpless brother, only to die an old maid?

ON THE SEVENTEENTH
of January, a gloomy Thursday, Gaston climbed the stairs laden with buckets of water from the river. He put down his load and handed me a folded piece of paper. “For.” He pointed at me.

I examined the sealed envelope. The handwriting—which spelled out my name—was schooled, feminine.

Inside, was a gold louis (heavens!), folded up in a scrap of paper. It wasn’t a letter; it was a map, awkwardly drawn, indicating a place on the rue l’Échelle, next to a lace shop not far from the Louvre. Two blunt sentences were written below the sketch:

Do not fail me.

Do not speak my name.

And no signature whatsoever.

CHAPTER 34

T
he house on the rue l’Échelle was modest. At one time the ground-floor rooms had been a lace shop, but now the shop sign listed, attached only at one corner. Soot-covered snow was piled at the door. I looked to find a bell, but there was only a tarnished brass knocker. I dusted snow off the lion’s head and let it drop: once, twice, three times. I looked up at the windows above. Surely there had been a mistake.

The shutters opened and an old woman peered down. I slipped back the hood of my cloak to reveal my face.
I
am wanted here.
(But why?)

The shutters closed. I was almost through my second Ave Maria when I heard the sound of bolts and latches. The door creaked open. It was the old woman, a bent-over hag with whiskers hanging from her chin. Her withered hands hung in front of her crisp linen apron.

“I am Mademoiselle des Oeillets. I was sent for.”

She lifted her thin upper lip to reveal one long but surprisingly white tooth. She drew the door back, and I entered a dark corridor. I followed her up a narrow set of stairs and down a dark hall to a door, which opened onto a large room of surprising opulence. A Turkey carpet, two Japon cabinets, a massive pendulum clock: everything conveyed luxury.

The woman motioned me to wait and went shuffling off.

I stood by the fire, warming my hands. I heard pricking sounds and looked behind me. A black cat was pulling its nails on the carpet.

I heard a woman’s scolding voice. “You fool! Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Madame de Sconin, you were—”

A masked woman entered the room wearing a fur-lined morning robe over a chemise. It was clear she was heavy with child. Her golden hair was loose, hanging down over her shoulders.

I curtsied, perplexed. Athénaïs?

“Go, in heaven’s name,” the woman commanded the hag, who slouched out of the room. “And close the damn door!” she cursed, throwing the bolt. “Mort Dieu.” She took off her mask.

It
was
her.

I was struck by her fatigue, the lines in her extraordinarily perfect face. She was younger than I was, not yet even thirty—but she looked older than that, worn. And out of humor, certainly, scowling as she reached for a chair.

I stepped forward to lend a hand. “I can manage it,” she said crossly, using the back of the chair for support. “I feel like an upturned turtle most days.” She sat down, pulling her shawl around her shoulders. “It’s not the first time, but I can never get used to it.”

She’d married years ago. Of course she would have children.

“This one poses a problem, however, which is why I’ve summoned you.” She frowned up at me. “Sit, Claude, for God’s sake. I’ve a rather shocking proposition to make, and I think it best you not be standing.”

I lowered myself onto a tapestry-covered footrest. I wondered if I could take off my gloves, which were damp from the snow. I felt light-headed. I had never expected to be summoned again.