Mistress of the Sun

  “There’s not so much blood as before,” Clorine said, changing her bandages. “So that’s good.”

  “So that’s good,” Petite echoed, sinking back onto the bed.

  “Sleep. I said your prayers for you,” Clorine said, pulling the curtains.

  Petite stared long into the dark, her hands on the slack skin of her empty belly.

  ATHÉNAÏS JOINED PETITE after Mass the next morning. “How are you doing?” she asked, taking Petite’s elbow as they climbed the marble stairs.

  “Thank you,” Petite said, stopping at the top landing, taking a breath. Outside, in the courtyard, a military band was practicing.

  “I thought you looked a little weak last night,” Athénaïs said.

  “I get dizzy now and then.” Petite made a smile. “It’s that time of the month,” she lied.

  “I know what you mean,” Athénaïs said as they reached Petite’s chamber. “In fact, I brought you a little something.” She reached into her basket and withdrew a small earthen bottle stoppered with wax. “A tonic,” she said. “It’s a remedy that has worked well for a number of ladies.”

  Petite read the label: the handwriting was small, delicate.

  “I take it with brandy—lots of brandy,” Athénaïs laughed, showing her pretty teeth. “Do you mind if I sit down for a moment?”

  “Forgive me.” Petite pulled out a chair for Athénaïs, next to her toilette table. “I neglect my manners.”

  “Remember when I used to call you little sister?”

  “That was long ago.”

  “Long, long ago,” Athénaïs said. “Before I married.”

  And had two children, Petite knew. She longed to talk to Athénaïs about such things, but that part of her life was hidden. The other—the false part—was in the light. “Your husband, how is he?” she inquired.

  “Off on some adventure somewhere.” Athénaïs waved her hand through the air. “I only know of his doings because of the men who arrive with mémoires—their ‘reminders,’ as they so delicately put it. Threatening demands for payment of his gambling debts is what they really should be called—but I don’t wish to burden you with my woes.” She leaned forward and placed a gloved hand lightly on Petite’s shoulder. “Louise, I want you to know that you can speak freely to me.”

  Petite looked into Athénaïs’s sapphire-blue eyes. She was one of the Court’s great beauties, but it was her wit that Petite liked—as well as her generous heart. She had always been kind. “I don’t know what you mean,” Petite said, guarded yet.

  “Yes, you do,” Athénaïs said with a teasing smile. “I’ll be honest with you. I think it’s cruel what they’re making you go through.”

  They. Petite looked away.

  “Most everyone knows what’s going on,” Athénaïs said in a low voice.

  But surely not everything, Petite thought. Many knew about her relationship with the King, but nobody knew about the babies: the two that had died, much less the one she’d just given birth to, practically in the Queen’s own room. “Even I don’t know what’s going on, Athénaïs,” she said with an evasive smile.

  Athénaïs smiled kindly, her hand on the bottle. “Just drink this and lie down.” She peeled off the wax plug, sniffed the contents and handed the bottle to Petite. “Go ahead. It’s sweet. You’ll like it—you don’t have to drink brandy with it.” She laughed. “But seriously: it helped me recover after I birthed. It’s only natural for things to be wobbly for a time.”

  She does know, Petite thought—with both chagrin and relief. “Thank you,” she said, taking a sip.

  That night, Petite slept like the dead, dreaming of her father in a field of horses, of Charles and Filoy. She woke weeping to the sound of trumpets, announcing the King’s return.

  A FEW DAYS LATER the Court set out: bed frames, toilette tables, clothing trunks, kitchen implements, dishware, utensils, bed curtains and linens loaded onto ninety-two carts. Paris held unhappy memories of the Queen Mother’s death—and work was being done on the Louvre, in any case—and so Louis had decided to settle the Court in Saint-Germain-en-Laye for the winter. Petite was relieved. It felt like a new beginning.

  “You’re not to lift a thing,” Clorine told her on packing day, taking a basket of hats out of Petite’s hands and putting it down. “You’re going to kill yourself at this rate,” she scolded, wrapping the statue of the Virgin in small linens and tucking it into the basket. “Sit down. Better yet: lie down.”

  “Don’t forget this,” Petite told Clorine, prying the brittle branch from the mirror. The continual round of functions at Vincennes had exhausted her—the military review, two theatricals, the never-ending gaming tables. Even her morning and evening prayers were fatiguing.

  “Or this,” she said, handing Clorine her keepsake box. Her rosary she tucked into her poke. Someday soon she would feel herself again. Someday soon she would see the child she had birthed.

  THE COBBLED PATHS of Saint-Germain-en-Laye were carpeted with golden leaves. Petite kicked them up listlessly as she walked to the new château where Monsieur and Madame Colbert were housed, along with their throng of lively children. Along with Petite’s baby girl.

  Mist rose off the river. Her teeth chattered as she pulled the bell rope at the door. Louis had named their baby Marie-Anne, after his mother, and arranged for her to reside with the Colbert household. She was reported to be small, somewhat frail—she’d birthed early, Blucher said—and Louis had worried that the infant would not have adequate care in a servant’s home. Petite was relieved: she didn’t think she could survive another infant death.

  A maid led her up the stairs to the nursery. The doors opened on a familiar familial scene: Madame Colbert sitting in a rocking chair tatting lace in a large, sunny room bustling with children.

  Madame Colbert shooed her noisy brood away and stood smiling as the nursemaid presented Petite with a tightly swaddled infant. The baby’s screams were piercing, and her tiny face was red—a monkey face, Petite thought.

  “She’s fussy,” Madame Colbert said, taking the baby and rocking her vigorously. “There there, sweet Marie-Anne,” she cooed until the infant quieted. “Hold her now, quick—before she begins again.”

  “I think I should be going,” Petite said, backing away. Her head was hot and her heart cold.

  “I don’t think you are well, my dear.”

  “I’m fine,” Petite said.

  “I’m fine,” she repeated to Clorine on her return to her room in the old château.

  “You have heat in your head,” Clorine said, pressing her hand against Petite’s brow. “I’ll send for Monsieur Blucher.”

  “Don’t.” Petite didn’t want to see the surgeon, didn’t want to reveal that she suffered pain in her nether region, that spells of inexplicable weakness came over her now and again. “There’s a rehearsal this afternoon for the new ballet.”

  “I’ll send word that you have a fever.”

  “But His Majesty will be there.” Petite held onto the bedpost for support.

  Clorine banged the candlestick she was polishing down on the side table.

  Petite turned. “What was that?”

  Clorine clasped her hands. “Mademoiselle, I do not sleep for worry. You don’t have a father, your mother has disowned you, and your brother is something of a gay-blade, so it falls to me to say.” She took a breath. “This is no way to live, all this secrecy, all the time pretending that you’re not with child, that you’re not in childbed, that you haven’t just given birth.”

  Petite teared. “I know, but—”

  “All the time pretending that everything is perfectly fine,” Clorine ranted on, “that your two boys didn’t die all of a sudden, like that.” She snapped her fingers for effect. “A nice young woman like you should have a husband to look after you, children you can boast of. You should marry a highborn man. I’m sure the King could arrange it.”

  “Stop.”

  “A man such as Monsieur le Duc de Gautier would
be so very—”

  “Clorine, I forbid you to say another word on this subject!” Petite said. “I love Louis. You know that.”

  “But the King?” Clorine pressed her point. “Do you love the King?”

  PETITE WAS BROUGHT back to her room in a litter. “She collapsed,” Gautier told Clorine, wringing his hands. “Right in the middle of blocking. We hadn’t even started going through the steps.”

  “I’m fine,” Petite insisted, staggering toward the bed. Dream images were coming into her head, one upon the other in a frightening rush—of a man in a wooden mask, of her two boys riding away on a White, of a ramshackle coach without wheels. She collapsed on her bed, weakened by the memory of so many losses—her father, the two boys, Diablo.

  Monsieur Blucher ordered Petite bled from the foot and prescribed weekly purging. “You are not to move from this bed without my permission, Mademoiselle.”

  Petite groaned.

  At the door, the surgeon paused to have a word with Clorine. “She births with difficulty. She must abstain from—” He cleared his throat. “I will not mince words: another pregnancy could…”

  Kill her.

  ALL THAT GRAY winter, Petite did everything as prescribed: refrained from congress, endured bleedings, purges and enemas, downed vile teas and medicinal concoctions. Every other afternoon, Louis came dutifully to see her. She asked him about the ballet rehearsals, the hunts, the military preparations. She inquired of the news, their daughter, the Dauphin’s health. Louis would answer, and then sit looking out the window, drumming his fingers.

  Petite understood. His love could not follow her into grief. He was of the sun, not the moon. Vainly, she tried to entertain him. Sometimes they would lie side by side, listening to the birds, the wind. Aware of his frustration, Petite offered means of giving relief. It wasn’t healthy for a man to go without release.

  “It’s not the same,” he said.

  “I would understand if you lay with another woman. The Queen is with child, and I…” Her spells of weakness baffled her. She had always prided herself on her strength, her prowess. She’d been his wilderness companion, his queen of the hunt, as bold on horseback as any of his men. Now she was one of the fallen—weak, weary and unsteady on her feet.

  ATHÉNAÏS CAME OFTEN to visit. As Petite did needlework, her friend filled her in on the Court gossip. The Queen had consulted her astrologer. She was all in favor of a war with Spain—her native country—to claim “her” Netherlands. All the men talked of now was war, complaining that it was impossible to buy a good mount now, much less find canvas suitably heavy for making a tent. They neglected to mention the money they’d had to borrow to outfit themselves, the heirloom silver they’d had to sell. They were even consulting soothsayers, she reported. Thanks to a spell a sorceress had given the Marquis de Louvroy, he had inherited the five hundred livres he needed for a suit of armor.

  “One needs to be careful about such things,” Petite cautioned. Outside, someone was beating a kettledrum.

  “Indeed,” Athénaïs said, raising her goblet of mulled wine, as if in toast. A number of ladies had been to see Madame la Voisin, she reported, the sorceress in Villeneuve-Beauregard, outside the Paris walls. The fortune-teller gave Mademoiselle de Nogaret a charm that appeared to have worked, because the Marquis de Santa-Cruz was now madly in love with her. “But it was his son she yearned for.”

  Petite laughed. “Isn’t Madame la Voisin the woman Nicole went to?”

  “Most everyone goes to her,” Athénaïs said, playing with the key that hung from a pendant (her good luck charm, she claimed).

  “Nicole got something called ‘passion powder’ from her, I recall.” The packet was still in Petite’s keepsake box.

  “She’ll have no need for such powder now,” Athénaïs said with a laugh. It was rumored that Nicole had joined a convent, become a lay nun.

  “Nicole said Madame la Voisin practices dark magic.”

  “Nonsense. She’s a dumpy little woman. I went to her myself not long ago,” Athénaïs confessed.

  “You went?”

  “But not for passion powder, I regret to say. How dreary married life is, to be reduced to going to a woman like that for help regarding financial matters.”

  And then came the more personal confidences: Athénaïs’s husband was in debt again. She was going to have to sell some of her jewelry to pay off his gambling losses. “Plus, he’s convinced that I’m having a tryst with—” Athénaïs stopped, making an arch smile. “No—I want you to guess.”

  “Lauzun?” The ugly little man was rumored to have pleasured practically every woman at Court.

  Athénaïs gave a look of disgust. “No—Philippe.”

  Petite smiled wanly. “Doesn’t your husband know…?” It was obvious that Louis’s brother preferred men.

  “I told him, but he thought it a ruse I’d fabricated to throw him off the scent.”

  There was a scuffle of feet in the entry, the sound of spurs clinking on stone.

  “His Majesty,” Petite said, her heart lifting.

  “I’ll be off, then,” Athénaïs said with a wink.

  Petite checked her face in the glass. Because of her fragile health, Louis had refrained, for the most part, but now she was stronger. They’d begun to have relations—in spite of the pain she experienced, and her puzzling want of desire.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  AT THE END OF MARCH, Louis set up a military camp on the Plaine d’Houilles for three days, not far from Saint-Germain-en-Laye. The Court ladies set out, thrilled by the prospect of sleeping in tents and eating like soldiers.

  “Glory,” Petite’s sister-in-law Gabrielle whispered as their carriage crested a hill. There, before them, was a city of linen tents neatly grouped in rectangles with wide turnpiked “streets” running between. A line of horses stood picketed at the edge of a parade ground. The officer tents could be seen beyond, at a distance from the line of kitchen campfires. Still farther was an artillery park surrounded by carts.

  Soldiers cheered to kettledrums as the parade of carriages rolled into the camp, coming to a halt in front of a large, colorful tent with flags flying over it—the camp “palace.” A carpet was rolled out and two footmen in livery jumped to hand the ladies down.

  The tent filled as more women arrived, crowding into the canopied rooms hung with crystal chandeliers. The officers paused to eye the ladies, then turned back to their companions to talk of weapons, armor and horses. Louis paced before his generals, speaking of maneuvers and munitions. He’d acquired a warrior look, his skin bronzed by the sun.

  Petite bowed along with all the other courtiers. He glanced her way, but did not see her.

  “Turkey carpets, even,” Gabrielle said, assessing the rich trappings.

  “It may be lined with Chinese satin, ladies, but it’s still a tent,” Athénaïs said, squashing a beetle with her toe.

  The next morning, the richly attired women mounted horses and rode out to the parade ground to witness a review. The colors were unfurled as a military band began to play. A battalion of foot soldiers and volunteers marched onto the parade ground, the sun glinting off pikes and sabres. Eyes straight ahead, they passed in front of Louis, who, astride a black charger, watched intently. He didn’t smile or frown, but now and then said something to his secretary, who stood by taking notes.

  Hundreds of men on horseback—small scruffy nags, for the most part—charged whooping onto the field, waving flintlock musketoons in the warm spring wind. One horse bolted, one reared and yet another was left behind entirely, refusing to move. The ladies laughed as a groom ran out and whipped it forward. Once the dragoons had their horses (more or less) in formation, Louis gave a signal and cannons discharged. Horses shied and the women screamed, holding their gloved hands over their noses, complaining of the smell of gunpowder.

  “A stirring sight, would you not agree?”

  Petite turned in her saddle to see Athénaïs, prettily mounted on a pony. “Inde
ed,” she said, although in truth the war fervor concerned her. This was no longer a game, a show. Many of these men—boys, in fact—would not return to their families. And Louis? He longed to be in battle, she knew, to be in the thick of it, prove his worth.

  “You’re pale, darling—are you unwell again?”

  “I’m fine, thank you,” Petite said, embarrassed to admit that she’d tried Nicole’s passion powder herself the week before. Although the remedy had revived her “interest” (briefly), it had also made her ill. She dared not complain. A want of spirit annoyed Louis, she knew, who didn’t care for infirmities. It pleased him to be surrounded by energetic individuals with vigorous spirits—especially now, now that he courted glory.

  PETITE WAS RELIEVED to return to Saint-Germain-en-Laye, to the comfort of her room overlooking the river—the comfort of her bed. The canvas walls of the tent had made it difficult to retch without people overhearing. It was just an ague, she concluded, but it persisted, and persisted—and by Good Friday of Holy Week she knew why.

  A sharp rap at her door startled her awake. “Come in, Clorine,” she called out groggily. The spring sun was bright, dappling the cushions. She’d fallen asleep rereading Saint Teresa’s Life.

  “His Majesty is here to see you.”

  Petite sat up, feeling for her slippers. Usually Louis didn’t call until after his midday meal. She checked her face in the looking glass, slapping her cheeks to give them color. She was resolved to tell him—and her news would not be welcome, she knew.

  Now? PETITE THOUGHT, listening to the steady beat of Louis’s heart. Should I tell him now?

  She was lying chastely by his side, fully clothed. Lent was over, yet Louis continued to abstain. She understood: soon he would be leading his men into battle, and he must refrain from sin, in order to be spiritually pure—in case…