The Shadow Queen A Novel (29 page)

Three days after Easter Sunday, we heard the boom of cannon. Athénaïs put down her cards. His Majesty was riding to war—without bidding her farewell.

In the months that followed, she put on a brave front. In any case, there was a great deal to do finishing the house and park. The King sent word through his Minister of Finance that he would pay for whatever she requested—and so she spent lavishly. She received visitors, even the Queen. Her sister and several friends came to stay with her. She took the soothing waters at Bourbon and devoted herself to good works.

Yet at night she woke in terror, plagued by a dream that she’d lost all her hair.

Bishop Bossuet—handsome, virile, full of God’s grace, and one of the tribe we knew to be her enemy—came with messages from His Majesty. “The day of Pentecost approaches!” he announced with the flare of a tragedian. He led Athénaïs in prayer; she repeated the words after him with tears in her eyes. A great performer at the pulpit, Bishop Bossuet failed to recognize Athénaïs’s own skill at illusion. Indeed, I believe she convinced him of her devotion—but as soon as he left, we began to plan her move back to Versaie in anticipation of the King’s return.

IN THE HEAT
of a blooming July day, the King and Court returned from war, the noise and dust and general commotion unendurable. Athénaïs had changed her gown three times, and the ornaments in her hair twice. I’d given her an opium pill and lemon balm for nerves, but it hadn’t helped. The Church had agreed that His Majesty could be allowed to call on her at Versaie, but only so long as she was chaperoned by an army of frowning virgins. (A plague of ancients, yet again.)

I prayed that the talisman Athénaïs wore tucked under her skirts would have the desired effect. “Madame Catherine vowed that it would,” I assured her. It was a small silver medal—on one side was engraved the goddess Athena, on the other Venus flanked by demons. (A medal forged with human and goat blood, Madame Catherine had informed me. How do you get human blood? I’d asked, but she’d only laughed.)

Athénaïs wept on seeing His Majesty, bowing deeply before him. Even I thought her heart must be in it. His Majesty, his own cheeks glistening, led her immediately to her bedchamber and firmly closed the door against the crowd.

I glanced at Xavier. I was awed (if not a little uneasy, I admit) by her easy victory. Athénaïs clearly had the King entirely under her control.

HIS MAJESTY BECAME,
once again, a daily caller. Athénaïs glowed with triumph. The virgin chaperones had been banished and the religious advisers thwarted. Xavier and I stood in attendance outside the closed door of Athénaïs’s bedchamber. Louvois, Bishop Bossuet, and all their tribe—which Athénaïs and I now derisively referred to as the Company Faction—had lost the battle, true, but we knew that the war itself was far from over.

Ever vigilant, Athénaïs listened carefully to all that was said—and not said—at her popular salon. I did as well. As a mere attendant (and therefore invisible to the noble guests), I was able to observe. My years of training in the theater—the close study of gesture and voice—equipped me to interpret even the smallest motion: the flutter of an eye revealing a lie, the flick of a tongue across an upper lip indicating desire, the legs-spread stance of domination. I paid special attention to Louvois: his perspiring discomfort, his constant fussing with his wig and ribbons, the way he averted his eyes. “He’s hiding something,” I reported to Athénaïs.

The next afternoon, Xavier and I were startled by her raised voice, and the King bursting out of her bedchamber in his small linens. Athénaïs followed, waving a parchment in her hand. “You coward!” she exploded. “I
demand
an explanation.”

His Majesty turned to face her, hands on his hips and his elbows out.

She shook the paper in his face. (Deus!) “Say something, you miserable creature!”

I rushed to close the windows.

“Calm yourself, woman,” the King commanded, his voice low.

“How could my brother not be on this list!” she demanded.

Two maids and a butler appeared; Xavier and I quickly waved them away.

“Louvois made it; it’s his list, not mine,” the King said as Xavier helped him on with his breeches. “An error, no doubt.”

She scoffed. “Then send for him!”

I lowered my eyes; it mortified me to see His Majesty humiliated.

“Now? But the Secretary of State is—”

“Now!”
Athénaïs turned on her heels, slamming the bedroom door behind her.

I followed after her nonetheless; she had need of me.

It took a moment for my eyes to adjust to the gloom. I saw her slumped over her toilette table, her head on her hands, her shoulders heaving.

“Madame?” I put my hands on her neck, pressing my thumbs into her spine, caressing.

She raised her head and handed me the paper. It was a list of seven men—generals to be named Marshals of France, honored for exceptional achievement in battle. “I found it in His Majesty’s leather jerkin.”

“I see.” Her brother Vivonne’s name wasn’t on the list, in spite of having distinguished himself in the recent war in Flanders.

“A rather conspicuous omission.”

“Perhaps it was simply Louvois’s error, as His Majesty said.” I wondered if Athénaïs always went through His Majesty’s garments.

“Hardly!” she said, wiping her nose. “I will
not
stand for it!”

XAVIER ANNOUNCED THE
Secretary of State for War. Louvois was a big man, and if he weren’t so pathetic, he’d be scary. He stood at attention in front of Athénaïs and the King, looking uneasy.

The King handed the list to Louvois and cleared his throat. “It’s your list of the generals to be honored with a baton.” A Marshal of France wore seven stars, and received a star-studded blue baton inscribed, in Latin:
Terror belli, decus pacis.
Terror in war, ornament in peace. “There must be some mistake: Madame de Montespan’s brother Vivonne is not included.”

Louvois stared at the list and then back up at Athénaïs and the King. He seemed flummoxed. “Forgive me, Your Majesty,” he stuttered, “but—”

“But
what,
you ignorant fool!” Athénaïs exploded. Standing beside her, I felt the spray of her spittle.

“I will have your brother put on the list, Madame,” Louvois said without looking at her.

“Admit that this was an intentional omission, Monsieur—
on your knees
!”

Louvois turned a violent shade of red. I feared he might have an apoplectic fit.

“Admit it! Admit that you did this to
spite
me! Admit that you are constantly looking for ways to thwart me and my family!”

His Majesty put his hand over hers. “Enough.”

“Don’t ‘enough’ me! Open your eyes. This man has evil intent.”

But the King wasn’t listening. Louvois was his “miracle worker” on the fields of battle—Athénaïs was powerless against him. “That will be all, Louvois,” I heard His Majesty say wearily, excusing the Secretary of State before Athénaïs gave full vent to fury.

CHAPTER 49

T
hat winter, I missed my courses for the first time. I attributed this to fatigue—constant nights accompanying Athénaïs to balls, feasts, and entertainments, followed by long hours at the gaming tables. At dawn, I’d often still be up with her, calming the anguish that followed a staggering loss.

It was easy enough to blame my irregularity on exhaustion, but when there was still no sign the second month, I began to wonder. Was it possible? Surely not. I’d just turned thirty-seven. Perhaps it was the change coming on early. Certainly I felt haggish, tired in my bones, weary as a twice-told tale. Maybe it was different for a woman who had never had a child, caused her to age early.

I sent a note to a midwife—a woman the maids talked of—and arranged to meet in her room near the market in Saint-German-en-Laye.

Madame Audouin was young—I took her for a girl. Even so, she spoke with authority: I wasn’t going through the change. Au contraire: I was with child. “If you wish it to be otherwise,” she offered in response to my look of incredulity, “I can help—but you’d have to act quickly. If you wait, you won’t have a choice.”

“No, no, thank you,” I said, standing. How could it be, after all this time? I’d assumed I was conveniently barren.

“Perhaps you should sit for a moment,” Madame Audouin offered soothingly.

“I’m fine,” I said, giving her a coin and stepping into the chill wind.

A THOUSAND TIMES
I resolved to “fix it” … and a thousand times I changed my mind. It was a miracle, surely, I thought, sitting through the church Jubilee celebrations, the once-every-half-century year in which all sins were forgiven. I marveled at my fullness, my aching breasts. Was
this
not forgiven? Even my profound fatigue now seemed a blessing.

As the world around me became loud and boisterous, preparing for yet another war, I grew quiet: I had a secret.

“You’re mysterious these days,” the King’s valet Xavier said, “glowing. You must be in love.” He said this with a brave tone.

I play-punched his shoulder. Yet he was right: I was. In love with the child growing within me.

PACKING FOR THE
Court’s voyage north (following, ever following the King’s unrelenting battles with the Dutch)—I wrenched my back and had to spend a week in bed, fending off Athénaïs’s doctor. I dared not let him near lest he perceive my condition.

Lying in my little bed, feeling the delicate flutter in my belly, listening to Athénaïs screaming at the maids, the page boys, her chefs, I tried to think of ways I might get out of my predicament. I dreaded telling her—yet I knew I must. Once Lent was over, she would begin drinking again.

But telling Athénaïs during Lent proved difficult. She was preoccupied with preparations for the voyage, subjected to the habitual enemas and bleedings recommended before travel. She was often in turmoil, and I knew it would be unwise to bring up anything troubling at such a time.

Yet I couldn’t put it off. “Madame, I have something to tell you,” I finally announced as we returned from Easter Mass.

“About Brinvilliers?”

“No,” I said, taken aback. Daily, Athénaïs had been sending me to the market for the latest sordid detail regarding Madame de Brinvilliers’s confessions to sodomy, incest, and murder. Athénaïs had become obsessed with the story of this Parisian noblewoman—“
new
nobility” it was always noted (as if that explained the woman’s perversion)—the daughter of an administrator who had married into the Gobelins tapestry family, Madame de Brinvilliers had confessed in lurid detail to poisoning her father, her brother, her lover, and countless others, and to perfecting her deadly art as a volunteer at a charity hospital.

“No, it’s nothing to do with the poisoner,” I said, surveying the room, checking to make sure that the fire irons were well out of reach. “I’m afraid I’m not going to be able to go north with you.”

“How is that!”

“I’m with child,” I said bravely.

“You jest.” She sounded more amused than angry.

I pulled my skirts around my hips, revealing my little belly.

“There are things one can do to fix it.”

“I saw a midwife. She said it was too late.” A half-truth.

“This is frightfully inconvenient,” she said, rubbing the back of her neck. “Do you know who the father is?”

“I’ve only ever had congress with His Majesty!”

“Ah, my virtuous suivante.” She rolled her head from side to side. “Damnation.” She sighed as I stepped in to massage her shoulders.

“Damnation,” Jolie echoed.

“Well … His Majesty’s valet will take care of everything. He’ll find a home for it.”

It.
“What about His Majesty?” Shouldn’t he know?

“Goodness, Claude, we must not burden him with such a matter.”

“Of course not, Madame,” I said, gently easing the tension I could feel in her muscles.
I’m sorry,
I started to say—but didn’t.

THAT EVENING, XAVIER
arrived to speak with me. “I’ve been informed of your condition. It will be placed with a family in the country.”

It
again.

He paused, swallowed, his Adam’s apple bobbing. “I am required to inform you that His Majesty will never recognize it, nor in fact even be informed of it. Paternity cannot be proved.”

I understood that Xavier was only doing his job, but even so, I was offended. “I don’t expect anything from His Majesty. Only tell me, will the baby be placed … not too far away?” My tone struck me as pathetically beseeching. Being with child had unnerved me, rendered me unexpectedly emotional.

“It is best you not have anything to do with it,” Xavier said, yet with tenderness. “I’m sorry, Claudette,” he said, reaching out to touch my shoulder.

I stepped back, away.

ATHÉNAïS, THE KING,
and all the Court set out, the long train of carriages and wagons and cavalry disappearing in a cloud of dust. I collapsed amid the wreckage of departure: the gowns and shawls not taken, the abandoned fans, skirts, bodices. But for the six girls who did the dusting, three kitchen staff, five gardeners, and the guard permanently stationed at the entry, I was alone. Even Gaston thought I’d gone north with the Court. I was invisible.

ON THE DAY
of the Marquise de Brinvilliers’s gruesome execution, I gave birth to a strapping big girl.

My little one,
I cooed, which made the midwife laugh.

“That’s no ‘little one.’ It took two swaddling cloths just to bind her,” Madame Audouin said, handing me the red-faced wailing infant, tightly ensconced in linen.

“Sweet pea,” I said, overwhelmed with an emotion that I knew beyond a doubt was love.

For a full month, I reveled in the luxury of being a mother, nursing my beautiful baby, waking with her in the bed beside me, sniffing and petting her. Singing to her.

I knew it was not to last. On a sultry July day, I heard the rumble of wagons, the carts loaded with regal furnishings, the beds, curtains, and kitchen implements sent on in advance of the Court’s arrival. My life in seclusion was over.