“ONE OF THE OTHER THINGS they have at Versailles is physicians.” The voice emerged from a grate in the back of the coach.
“Oh, but we have those in abundance aboard our ships, my lady.”
“You have barbers. You have consulted them for months, and still cannot sit down! I am speaking of physicians.”
“It is true that barbers make a specialty of the other end of the anatomy from that which concerns me,” said the man on the perch. “Nature, though, offers her own remedies. I have packed my breeches with snow. At first it was shocking, intolerable.” He had to wait now, for some moments.
“You laugh,” he went on, “but, my lady, you do not appreciate the relief that this affords me, in more ways than one. For not only does it relieve the pain and swelling aft, but also, a similar but not so unpleasant symptom fore, which any man would complain of who went on a journey of any length in your company…”
Two of the women laughed again, but the third was having none of it, and answered him firmly: “The journey is not so long, for those of us who can sit down. The destination is a place where wit is prized, so long as it is discreet and refined, and does not offend the likes of Madame de Maintenon. But these sailorly jests of yours shall be immense faux pas, and shall defeat the whole purpose of your coming there.”
“What is the purpose, my lady? You summoned me, and I reported for duty. I supposed my rôle was to keep my godson amused. But I can see that you disapprove of my methods. In a few years, when Jean-Jacques learns to talk, he will, I’m certain, take my side in the matter, and demand to be flung about; in the meantime, I am dragged along in your wake, purposeless.” He gazed curiously out to sea; but the train had turned inland, and the object of his desire was rapidly receding into the white distance. He was hopelessly a-ground.
“You are forever fussing over your ships, Lieutenant Bart, wishing that you had more, or that the ones you have were bigger, or in better repair…”
“All the more reason, my lady, for me to jump off of this unnatural conveyance and return to Dunkerque post-haste!”
“And do what? Build a ship with your own hands, out of snow? What is needed is not Jean Bart in Dunkerque. What is needed is Jean Bart at Versailles.”
“What purpose can I serve there, my lady? Pilot a row-boat on the King’s reflecting-pool?”
“You want resources. You compete for them against many others. Your most formidable competitor is the Army. Do you know why the Army gets all the resources, Lieutenant Bart?”
“Do they? I am shocked to hear this.”
“That is because you never see them; but if you did, you would be outraged at how much money they get, compared to the Navy, and how many of the best people. Let us take Étienne de Lavardac as an example.”
“The son of the duc d’Arcachon?”
“Do not affect ignorance, Lieutanant Bart. You know who he is, and that he knocked me up. Can you think of any young nobleman with stronger ties to the Navy? And yet when war broke out, what did he do?”
“I’ve no idea.”
“He organized a cavalry regiment and rode off to war on the Rhine.”
“Ungrateful pup! I’ll work him over with the flat of my cutlass.”
“Yes, and when you are finished you can go to Rome and poke the Pope in the eye with a stick!” suggested the smaller of the Countess’s two assistants.
“It is a splendid idea, Nicole—I shall do it for you!” Bart returned.
“Do you know why Étienne made such a choice?” asked the lady, unamused.
“All I know is, someone needs to teach him some more manners.”
“That is exactly wrong—someone needs to teach him less. For he is generally agreed to be the politest man in France.”
“He must have forgot his manners at least once,” said Jean Bart, pressing his face to the grate and peering at little Jean-Jacques, who had his face buried in his mother’s left breast.
“Nay, for even when he impregnated me he did so politely,” said the mother. “It is because of this sense of honor, of decorum, that he, and all the other young Court men, prefer the Army to the Navy.”
“Hmm!”
“At last I have rendered you speechless, Jean Bart, and so I’ll take this rare opportunity to explain further. Every man at Court professes his loyalty to the King, indeed does little else but prate about it from sunup to sundown, which pleases the King well enough in times of peace. But in time of war, each and every man must go out and demonstrate his loyalty with deeds. On a battlefield, a Cavalier may attire himself in magnificent armor and ride forth on a brilliant steed to engage the foe in single combat; and what is better, he does so in full view of many others like him, so that those who survive the day can get together in their tent when it is all over and agree on what happened. But on the sea all is different, for our dashing fop is lumped together with all of the other men on the ship, who are mostly common sailors; he lives with them, and cannot move from place to place, or engage a foe, without their assistance. To order a gang of swabbies, ‘charge your cannon and fire it in the general direction of yonder dot on the horizon,’ is altogether different from galloping up to a Dutchman on a rampart and swinging your sword-blade at his neck.”
“We do not fire at dots on the horizon,” huffed Jean Bart, “however, I take your meaning only too well.”
“You, because of your recent exploit, are a shining counterexample to this general rule; and if we can get a physician to patch up your arse so that you can sit down at dinner and regale some Court ladies with the story—preferably without resorting to profanity or any other ribald elements—it shall translate directly into more money for the Navy.”
“And more Court fops to adorn my decks?”
“That comes unavoidably with money, Jean Bart, it is how the game is played.” And then she was banging on the carriage ceiling. “Gaetan! Over there, I see what looks like a new powder-magazine, let’s go have a look.”
“If my lady wishes to review all of his majesty’s new coastal fortifications,” said Jean Bart, “it is a thing more easily done from the deck of a ship.”
“But then I don’t get to interview the local intendants, and learn the gossip behind the fortifications.”
“Is that what you were doing?”
“Yes.”
“What did you learn?”
“That the chain of interlocking mortar emplacements we viewed this morning was financed by a low-interest loan to His Majesty’s Treasury from Monsieur le comte d’Etaples, who melted down a twelfth-century gold punchbowl for it; and at the same time he improved the road from Fruges to Fauquembergues so that it can carry ammunition-carts even during the spring thaw; and in return the King saw to it that an old lawsuit against him was delayed indefinitely, and he got to hold a candle one morning at the King’s levée.”
“It makes one wonder what fascinations may be connected with yon powder-house! Perhaps some local Sieur cashed in his great-grandpère’s ruby-set toenail-clippers to pay for the roof!” exclaimed Jean Bart, to stifled gurgles from Nicole and the large woman inside.
“Next summer, when Baltic timber is stacked to three times your height around the shipyard of Dunkerque, we shall see then if you are still mocking me,” said she who was not amused.
“I BEG YOUR PARDON, mademoiselle; but this sound that you are making, ‘yoo-hoo! yoo-hoo,’ has never been heard before in his majesty’s stables, or anywhere else in France that I know of. To the humans who live here, such as myself and my lord, it is devoid of meaning, and to the horses, it is a cause of acute distress. I beg you to stop, and to speak French, lest you cause a general panic.”
“It is a common greeting in Qwghlmian, monsieur.”
“Ah!” This brought the man to a hard stop for several moments. The stables of Versailles, in December, were not renowned for illumination; but Eliza could hear the gentleman’s satins hissing, and his linens creaking, as he bowed. She made curtseying noises in return. This was answered
by a short burst of scratching and rasping as the gentleman adjusted his wig. She cleared her throat. He called for a candle, and got a whole silver candelabra: a chevron of flames, bobbing and banking, like a formation of fireflies, through the ambient miasma of horse-breath, manure-gas, and wig-powder.
“I had the honor of being introduced to you a year ago, along the banks of the Meuse,” said the gentleman, “when my lord—”
“I remember with fondness and gratitude your hospitality, Monsieur de Mayet,” said Eliza, which jerked another quick bow from him, “and the alacrity with which you conducted me into the presence of Monsieur de Lavardac on that occasion—”
“He will see you immediately, mademoiselle!” announced de Mayet, though not until after they had watched a second candelabra zoom back and forth a few times between the stall where they were standing, and one that lay even deeper in the penetralia of the stables. “This way, please, around the manure-pile.”
“TRULY, MONSIEUR, YOU ARE SECOND to none in piety. Even Father Édouard de Gex is a wastrel compared to you. For in this season of Christmas, when all go to Mass and hear homilies about Him who lived His first days in a stable, Étienne de Lavardac d’Arcachon is the only one who is actually living in the same estate, and sleeping on a pile of hay.”
“To piety I can make no claims whatever, mademoiselle, though I do aspire, at times, to the lesser virtue of politeness.”
They had fetched out a chair for her to sit on, and she had accepted it, only because she knew that if she didn’t, Étienne would be too stricken with horror to speak. He was squatting on a low stool used by farriers. The floor of the stall had been strewn with fresh straw, or as fresh as could be had in December.
“So Madame la duchesse d’Arcachon explained to me, when I arrived at La Dunette yester evening, and found that you and your household had moved out of it; not merely out of the house, but the entire estate.”
“Thank God, we had received notice of your approach.”
“But the purpose of my sending that notice was not to drive you out to his majesty’s stables.”
“No one has been driven, mademoiselle. Rather, I am lured hither by the prospect of assuring your comfort at La Dunette, and preserving your reputation.”
“That much is understood, monsieur, and deep is my gratitude. But as I am to be lodging in an outlying cottage, which cannot even be seen from the main house, and which is reached by a separate road, your mother is of the view that you may stay at home, even as I lodge at the cottage, without even the most censorious observer perceiving any taint. And I happen to agree with her.”
“Ah, but, mademoiselle—”
“So firm is your mother in holding this view that she shall be gravely offended if you do not return home at once! And I have come to deliver the message in person so that you can be under no misapprehensions as to my view of the matter.”
“Ah, very well,” Étienne sighed. “As long as it is understood that I am not being driven from here by what some perceive as its discomforts and inconveniences—” and here he paused for a moment to glare at several Gentlemen of the Bedchamber and other members of his household, who were fortunate enough to be hidden in darkness “—but, as it were, fleeing in terror of the prospect that my conduct is, in the eyes of my mother, other than perfect.”
Which was somehow construed as a direct order by his staff; for suddenly, hay-piles were detonating as liveried servants, who had burrowed into them for warmth, leapt to action. Great doors were dragged open, letting in awful fanfares of blue snow-light, and illuminating a gilded carriage, and diverse baggage-wains, that had been backed into nearby stalls.
Étienne d’Arcachon shielded his eyes with one hand, “Not from the light, which is nothing, but from your beauty, which is almost too great for a mortal man to gaze upon.”
“Thank you, monsieur,” said Eliza, shielding her own eyes, which were rolling.
“Pray, where is this orphan that some say you rescued from the clutches of the Heretics?”
“He is at La Dunette,” said Eliza, “interviewing a prospective wet-nurse.”
THE QUILL SWIRLED and lunged over the page in a slow but relentless three-steps-forward, two-steps-back sort of process, and finally came to a full stop in a tiny pool of its own ink. Then Louis Phélypéaux, first comte de Pontchartrain, raised the nib; let it hover for an instant, as if gathering his forces; and hurled it backwards along the sentence, tiptoeing over i’s, slashing through t’s and x’s, nearly tripping over an umlaut, building speed and confidence while veering through a slalom-course of acute and grave accents, pirouetting though cedillas and carving vicious snap-turns through circumflexes. It was like watching the world’s greatest fencing-master dispatch twenty opponents with a single continuous series of maneuvers. He drew his hand up with great care, lest his lace cuff drag in the ink; it inflated for a moment as it snatched a handful of air, then flopped down over his hand, covering all but the fingertips that pinched the pen, and giving them an opportunity to warm up. Twin jets of steam unfurled from Pontchartrain’s cavernous elliptical nostrils as he re-read the document. Eliza realized she’d stopped breathing, and released her own cloud of steam. As she emptied her lungs, her dress hugged her suddenly around the waist while relaxing its grip on her thorax. Some milk leaked out of her breasts, but she had anticipated this, and swathed herself in cotton. It was most unusual for a virgin, who had merely adopted an orphan, to lactate. She smelled like a dairy. But the room was so cold that no one could smell anything but dust and ice.
“If you would, my lady, verify that I have not erred in setting down the principal.” He withdrew his left hand from its warm haven between his thighs and gave the page a one-hundred-and-eighty-degree rotation. Eliza stepped forward, trying not to push a vast front of milk-scent before her, and rested her hands on the marble tabletop, then drew them back, for the stone jerked the warmth from her flesh. Her arms were tired. Walking here through the corridors of the palace, she had had to lift up her skirts—heavy winter stuff—lest they drag in the human turds that littered the marble floors. Most of these were frozen solid, but a few were not, and in the dim galleries she could not see the steam rising from these until it was too late.
Those corridors, and the divided, subdivided, and sub-sub-divided apartments that crowded in on them, were Versailles as it was. The wing where Monsieur le comte de Pontchartrain, contrôleur-général, had his offices, were Versailles as it was meant to be, meaning that the rooms were spacious, the windows many and large, the floors turd-free. Pontchartrain sat at a table with his back to an arched window that looked out over the gardens. His bony ankles, protected only by silk stockings, were crossed, like a pair of sticks being rubbed together. The sun was on his back. His periwig cast an Alp-like shadow across the table, and the document. The amount of money that Jean Bart’s corsairs had taken from Eliza, and that she was loaning to the Treasury, was written out on the page, not in numerals but in words; and so large was the amount that, fully expressed to all of its significant digits, it spread across three lines of the document, and had forced the Count to dip his quill twice. It was like a chapter of the Bible; and as she read it, her mind was invaded by any number of memories of the deals she had arranged, the people she had met, the nights she had gone without sleep as she had accumulated this fortune. These recollections, which were of no utility to her now, and which she did not desire, simply leaked out. Milk was leaking out of her breasts, she could feel a leaky period coming on, she’d been suffering loose stools, she needed to urinate, and if she kept thinking about these things any more, tears would leak from her eyes. She had a passing phant’sy that she ought to go round and fetch Jean Bart from whatever salon he was regaling with corsair-tales, and put his nautical mind together with that of some corset-maker, and get them to invent some garment, some system of stays, laces, rigging, lashings, and caulk that would wholly encase body and head, and keep all unwelcome fluids and memories where they belonged.
; But it was not available just now. She felt the warmth of the sun on her face; or maybe that was the gaze of the contrôleur-général. “The amount is correct,” she announced, and hitched up her skirts in the rear with her cold hands and tired arms, and stepped back until her face was protected in shadow.
“Very well,” said the Count in a gentle voice, like a kindly physician, and rotated his large brown eyes toward an aide, who for the last several minutes had been edging closer and closer to a fireplace at the other end of the room. Pontchartrain dipped his quill, set it to the page, and executed a lengthy series of evolutions, moving his arm from the shoulder. A vast mazy PONTCHARTRAIN took shape at the base of the page. The aide bent forward and countersigned.
Pontchartrain rose. “I hoped that my lady would consent to join me for some refreshment, while…” and he glanced at the aide, who had moved into the Count’s place at the table and was busying himself with a panoply of wax-pots, ribbons, seals, and other gear.
“I would gladly do so, or eat rocks, for that matter, if it is to happen near the fireplace.”
The Count offered the Countess his arm and together they glided to the pagan spectacle that answered to the name of fireplace here. Two chairs had been set out; both were armchairs, for the guest and the host were of equal rank. He got her settled in one of them, then picked up a log with his own two hands and threw it onto the fire; not a wholly normal thing for a Count to do, and presumably a coded gesture, meant to convey to Eliza that the Count did not mean to stand on ceremony. He dusted his hands together and then polished them with a lace handkerchief as he sat down. A maid shuffled forward on cold and unresponsive feet, worried her hands out of her sleeves, and poured coffee, sending up gales of steam.
The Confusion: Volume Two of the Baroque Cycle Page 15