The Shadow Queen

  “How tragic to be a humorless man,” Father said amiably at the landing, but I could see the worry on his brow. Our plan had failed.

  I put the slapstick back in the satchel. “I’m sorry, Father.”

  “Nil desperandum,” he said philosophically. Never despair. “You were magnificent, Claudette. A triple! I didn’t know you could do that.”

  We emerged into the enormous guardroom. The dogs were sleeping on a sunny patch of stone, the table ravaged. Father headed for the doors, but I lingered, snatching a few of the remaining beignets. At least we would not return to Mother and Gaston empty-handed.

  “Do you do enchantments?” It was a girl’s voice, directly behind me.

  “Excusez-moi?” I concealed the beignets before turning around.

  “I asked if you do charms.” The girl spoke French with a refined aristocratic inflection, somewhat archaic. I guessed her to be ten or eleven, a few years younger than I was. Her long, golden curls were tied up with extravagant silk ribbons, framing an astonishingly pretty face. Spots of pink had been painted on her cheeks and her enormous sapphire-blue eyes were lined with kohl. She looked like a heavenly creature.

  “Certainly,” I stammered, disconcerted by her noble bearing. An elderly woman, a governess by her dress, hovered about ten paces back.

  I glanced toward the doors. Father was talking with a guard and seemed in no hurry. “And tricks of the tumbling kind,” I said.

  “I make faces.” The girl blew out her cheeks and extended her neck, widening her eyes to make the face of a ghoul.

  “That’s magnificently ugly,” I told her, and made a wide grimace in return.

  “You have good teeth,” the girl said, miming my frightening grin.

  We were like animals, courting.

  “I live in a magical kingdom,” the girl boasted.

  “I live in a magical cave.”

  “Oh,” she breathed. “With bats?”

  I nodded, of course.

  “Do you do magic there?” she asked, switching to schoolgirl Latin.

  “Vere,” I responded in Latin.

  “Then you must know how to cast spells.”

  “Why?” I asked with a mysterious look.

  “I want to kill my governess,” she said, in whispered French this time.

  I laughed.

  “I do not jest.”

  I saw Father’s silhouette in the doors, the light of the sun behind him. His hands were on his hips: he was ready to go. I gestured that I would be right there. “All I can offer is a chant,” I said, to appease, dictating a nonsense rhyme I’d used once in a performance:

  We put out the light,

  We render its death,

  Violent light, the light is dead.

  “Ring a bell before you say the words,” I added, bowing and slipping away.

  “WE’RE IN LUCK,” Father told me outside on the wide stone steps. “There’s to be a hanging soon—it would be a good crowd to play to. I found out where to go to get permission. Who was that girl?”

  “I don’t know,” I said, looking out across the square. Flags flew from a château slightly down the hill. That would be where the members of the royal family were staying: the King, his brother, and the Queen Mother. I felt awed to be so very close. So close, and yet impossibly far. I had dreamt of playing before the royal family, dreamt of a purse of gold. “She wants to kill her governess.”

  Father guffawed. He was still laughing as we left through the city gates.

  CHAPTER 3

  Gaston sang out when he saw me, throwing up his arms to be lifted. I made our rubbing-nose greeting and he giggled, lightening my spirits.

  He’d been lining up objects in order by size outside the rocky cave entrance—a pile of rocks, Mother’s hat, one of my socks, a wooden stirring spoon. His “projects,” we called them. It was a curious diversion, but it gave him great satisfaction, and at least we always knew where to look when something was missing.

  “They refused us?” Mother was indignant.

  “He,” Father said. “Monsieur le Duc de Mortemart.”

  “I think he was unwell,” I said, letting Gaston down. From too much in the way of spirits, I suspected. “The sound of my slapstick nearly killed him.” The thought made me smile.

  “We can always perform at the market in town,” Father told my mother, reassuring her. “There’s going to be a hanging.”

  “I have a surprise,” I said, to change the subject. I didn’t like performing at executions; Gaston didn’t sleep well after.

  Mother stepped forward as I withdrew my treasures, four sugary beignets. I tossed one in the air and twirled, catching it behind my back.

  “Claudette, you didn’t.” Father’s tone was scolding. We are players, not scavengers.

  “They were going to the dogs,” I said in protest, shamed.

  LATER THAT AFTERNOON, Father and I returned to the pond where we’d seen the tracks. We hid in the bushes on either side, he with his knife and spiked club, me with the pistol, a heavy flintlock that tended to shoot left of the mark.

  I got out the horn and shook out some black powder. Only three lead shots left. I opened the pan cover and tipped powder from the flask, filling it carefully to the brim: too much and it might explode—I’d seen the handless soldiers. I closed the pan, blew on it, and gave it a whack to make sure there was no powder on the surface. Finally, I tipped a shot into the end of the barrel, used the ramrod to push it in and pulled back the spanner until the serrated wheel caught, checking to see that the flint was held securely in the beak of the cock piece.

  Then I waited, nestling into a place between some tree roots, the flintlock supported by a branch, listening to the busy insect world, the birdsong, the wind-rustled leaves … listening for a stealthy approach through the grass. Making myself invisible.

  A twig’s crack sparked me alert. A young buck appeared between two oaks, his eyes black pools. His antlers were spikes, not yet branched. He wasn’t big, but his meat would be tender.

  I took aim, allowing for the quirks of the old firearm, and braced myself for the kick-back.

  The shot rang out across the valley. Father spun on his heels, his knife in one hand and his club in another. A bloom of red appeared on the hart’s chest as he thrashed to the ground.

  “Bravo!” my father cried out as he drove his knife into the animal’s heart: a mercy.

  FATHER AND I washed in the pond before hauling the carved-up carcass up the hill on the waxed cloth that doubled as our stage backdrop. I took the antlers, as well, for Gaston to play with.

  Mother had a good bed of red coals going in the fire pit, and in time we were rewarded with the divine smell of roasting meat. She cautioned me to eat slowly, not to gorge, but I couldn’t resist.

  In the gloaming, we saw a cloud rise in the air, particles of dust set alight by the setting sun. Bravo’s ears pricked forward.

  “No horses or pack mules,” Father said, tilting his head. His eyes were going, but his ears were still good.

  “Boys,” I said as they came into view on the path below. Young ones in broad-rimmed hats. I could see their bobbing heads, rag bags hanging from poles over their shoulders. There were about twenty of them, I guessed, their hobnailed boots clattering on the stones. Gaston protested as I held him back.

  “Welcome,” Father said, his hand on his knife.

  “Hail,” the boys chimed sweetly.

  “I am Pilon,” said a boy at the head, stepping forward.

  He was a thin-faced country lad, tall as a haymaker’s rake, with a heart-shaped birthmark on his cheek. He spoke a local patois mixed with some French that was difficult to understand, but through gestures and mime we were able to communicate.

  They were from villages near Bordeaux, to the south, he informed us, and they were headed for Paris. They had been contracted by their parents to begging organizations for the winter.

  “Remember, Nicolas?” Mother asked my father, her voice tender. “We used
to see beggar boys swarming into Paris every fall. Winter Swallows they were called.”

  Pilon nodded. In exchange for what they earned begging, they would be taught the catechism, given food and a bed. In the spring, they would return to their families to work the fields.

  There are wolves in these parts, he warned us. Werewolves. They had seen evidence of one by the river.

  “Louléerou,” one of the young Swallows said in the language of the Périgord, his eyes round with fear.

  Loups-garous. I glanced at Mother. The moon was nearing full. Some men were known to be strangely overcome by a fit at such a time, jumping out a window and plunging into a fountain or well, emerging covered with fur and running on all fours.

  “Sleep with us tonight,” Mother suggested.

  “And eat,” Father added, offering to share our bounty.

  By the firelight, the boys’ cheeks glistening, I did a clown skit, delighting them with my tumblings. Their laughter echoed across the dark valley.

  OUR CAVE WAS full that night with sleeping children. I woke in the dark to comfort one of the youngest, who was weeping softly into his ragged knapsack. It was his first time away from his family: that much I could understand. I longed to reassure him, tell him how grand Paris would be, the wonders he would see there. I feared for him, in truth, well knowing the dangers that lay ahead, the greed of city fleshmongers for young boys.

  Sleep, I gestured, and the innocent closed his eyes. I made a sign of the cross over him, my knight’s blessing.

  CHAPTER 4

  Morning dew covered everything with sparkling glisten. Clouds blanketed the river valley; I looked out over a vast white plain. A hawk circled, gliding.

  “We’re in Heaven, sweet-love,” Mother said, stacking sticks on the embers.

  “Amen,” Father said, breaking up fall-wood for the fire.

  Gaston crawled out of the cave wrapped in wool.

  “A loup-garou!” I tossed him giggling into the air.

  Pilon and his tribe emerged, their bundles tied.

  “You must eat before you go,” Father offered, hauling down the remains of the carcass from the high branch of a tree.

  As we sat by the crackling fire sucking on bones, I noticed Bravo tip one ear forward. I looked down the path. Riders on horseback emerged from the blanket of cloud.

  Father stood beside me, squinting. We weren’t as isolated as we had thought.

  “Five riders on horseback,” I said. “Two riding sidesaddle.” And wearing full face masks. Women, then—with a small escort.

  “Aristocrats,” Father said uneasily.

  I looked behind me, but already the Swallows were scurrying the carcass out of sight. Our cave was likely on some mighty lord’s land.

  “It’s not a hunt party,” Father said. “I don’t hear dogs.”

  The group disappeared behind a rock outcropping, then reappeared. One of them proceeded up the path while the others stayed behind in the shade of an oak.

  “A mere child,” Father said with relief in his voice.

  Her golden curls gave her away. “It’s the girl I was talking to in the guardroom of the Palais.” She was wearing a red jacket over a matching skirt, topped by a tiny man’s hat. (Charming.) Her black pony’s mane was tied up in ribbons, its leathers studded with silver.

  I smoothed my apron and tossed back my long braids, regretting not having coiled them up properly under a cap.

  The girl whipped her horse sharply and it leapt into a canter. “Stop,” she commanded when she reached our cave, her voice muffled by her mask.

  The Swallows approached, mewling, holding out their hands. Pilon whistled a warning and they disappeared into the bushes, fast as squirrels.

  The girl’s horse stood, its muscles quivering to dislodge a fly on its neck. It pawed a hoof in frustration and was rewarded with a thwack from the girl’s bone riding rod. I stepped forward and brushed the fly away. “Mademoiselle.” I curtsied. Four fingers of exquisite lace showed at the wrists of her jacket. I’d never seen such finery—not up close.

  She tipped up her mask. “You said you lived in an enchanted cave.” She regarded the site with disdain.

  “Enchantment is by nature invisible, Mademoiselle. How may I serve you?”

  “I must speak to you—alone.” She glared at Father, who was hovering. He tipped his battered hat and backed respectfully away. “My governess didn’t die,” she hissed, pointing her riding rod back at the elderly woman among the group of riders. “I recited the words and rang the bell, just as you said. I need something stronger. I need poison.”

  “Such costs a great deal,” I said, ever willing to prolong fantasy (the heart of the player’s craft), though unsettled by the girl’s seriousness.

  “I don’t have coin. I’m not allowed.”

  I was surprised—even I had two deniers.

  I felt Gaston’s little hand at my fingertips.

  “A dwarf-boy?” the girl asked with interest. “I asked my father to buy me one, a black one.”

  “This is my brother,” I said.

  Gaston stared, humming in puzzlement. “Can you bow to the princess, Turnip?” He swooped off his cap. (Well done!)

  “I’m not a princess,” the girl informed me. “I am Mademoiselle de Tonnay-Charente, third child and second-eldest daughter of the Duc de Mortemart.”

  I curtsied again, even lower this time. I knew an opportunity when it presented itself. “Your father, the esteemed Duc de Mortemart: is he not the gentleman who arranges entertainments for the royal family?”

  She dipped her chin.

  “There will be no need for coin, Mademoiselle. Persuade your father to put our names forward as players before His Majesty and the Court. If we are hired to perform, I will have something for you.”

  LATER THAT DAY, as Mother and I were boiling bones and beans, a man came cantering up the hill, his horse in a lather. He wore embroidered livery of the old school, clearly of the Court.

  “We might as well be on the high road,” Father said with a sigh.

  I hurried Mother and Gaston into the cave, then peeked out. The man leaned down to hand a scroll to my father, then turned his horse and clambered down the rocky slope.

  Father sauntered back, examining the parchment. He raised a fist in a cheer.

  Good news? We emerged into the light.

  “We’re to perform!” He did a jig, waving the document in the air. “For the King.”

  Zounds. I’d promised poison.

  “And the Queen Mother?” Mother pressed her hands to her cheeks.

  “Everyone!” Father kissed her tenderly on the forehead, as if she were a child.

  “Will they pay?” I asked, ever the practical one.

  “A goodly amount, no doubt … eventually.” He looked back down at the paper, squinting, holding it out at arm’s length. “We’re to stage The Cid.”

  “All of it?” The Cid was Corneille’s greatest play—the greatest play ever written. “But we’re only three players,” I said, mentally counting off the characters: four women, seven men, possibly more. There was a page as well, I recalled. Might Gaston be able to manage that role? I doubted it.

  “We’ve performed it many a time,” Mother said.

  “True,” Father said, “but that was before.”

  Before … Back when we’d been a full troupe, before Courageux and the others had forsaken our craft in favor of a bed and a crust of bread.

  We squatted by the fire to puzzle it through. Most of the scenes had no more than three speaking characters at a time, so with changes of costumes and the occasional use of narrative summary, we might just be able to do it. “It’s the King’s desire,” Father said. It might as well be God’s command: the King was God on earth.

  “The hard part will be casting,” Mother said. “If I play both the heroine and the Infanta, what will happen in the final scene, when both appear?”

  “Claudette could play the Infanta,” Father said, scratching the scenes
out in the dirt with a stick. He himself could play the governess by binding up his beard and using a mask. “That isn’t done in serious theater, but we’re going to have to be inventive.”

  “I’m to play the princess?” Being tall—tall as a unicorn, Father liked to say—I usually performed in travesty, as a man.

  “A tall Infanta will be majestic,” he assured me. “But you’ll also play the Count, of course—opposite me for the duel.”

  Father and I always played the fight scenes, which audiences loved. We were nimble and strong, and we knew our moves well.

  “Or we could simply not perform the duel,” Mother suggested. “It’s not in the text.”

  Gaston cried out in protest, clapping his knees.

  “The King will love it,” Father said.

  WE HUDDLED AROUND the campfire, wrapped in patched blankets and remnants of fur as I read The Cid out loud. Slowly I turned the worn gray pages of the precious play-script, copied from a copy of a copy. Father had taught me to read so that I could prompt them through their lines. The Cid had been one of my first accomplishments.

  My parents didn’t need much prompting for The Cid, however. Fifteen years before, they had been members of the Marais theater troupe in Paris for the play’s opening run. Father had the part of one of the minor nobles and Mother the Infanta’s governess.

  Father mimed being struck by Cupid’s arrow when he’d seen Mother for the first time.

  “You wooed me with beignets,” Mother said, flushing. They’d taken the stage name Oeillets after the carnations she’d worn in her hair when they were wed.

  “I knew your weakness,” Father said with a sly smile.

  THE MOON THAT night was full and bright. This dark brightness that falls from stars, I whispered, reciting my favorite line from The Cid.

  I pulled our costumes out of the wood trunk and spread them on some rocks to air: my harlequin costume, Father’s nobleman garb, Mother’s bodice and skirts. The rent in her sleeve would have to be mended, I noted.

  I went through the masks, hats, vests, ruffs, and veils—with these we could create a variety of characters.