by EM Castellan
Now he was starting to make sense. The Fronde rebellion that had taken place when we were children had been led by nobles, and nearly ended with Louis’s death before his mother and the cardinal had managed to smuggle him out of the Louvre in the middle of the night. I could see how he’d want to protect himself against a repetition of such events.
“So you want to turn Versailles into your royal residence?” I said, to show him I was following.
He nodded. “A palace that would be my own.”
“I see,” I said, although I still failed to comprehend how magic and I came into this plan. “A palace away from Paris, away from the nobles, where you’d be safe—”
“No, you don’t understand.” He stood back up and gestured at the clearing like it was a stage where he would conjure up a play with actors and sets out of thin air. “Imagine it, Henriette. The most beautiful, the most grand, the most dazzling palace anyone’s ever seen. A palace that I built, so everyone knows it as mine. A palace so striking, everyone knows of my power and never dares to question it.”
There was something fascinating and terrifying in his sudden feverish enthusiasm. I let him speak, unsure what to reply.
“But.” He held up a finger as he turned back to me. “The nobles live there, too. They’re not in their houses in Paris, stopping by the royal palace when they feel inclined to do so and plotting against the crown the remainder of the time. Using magic for their own benefit. No, they’re at the palace, too. Their access to magic controlled. Trapped in it like in a gilded cage.”
It had never occurred to me how much we had in common until he said those words. Nobles had killed my father, driven my mother and me, disgraced and destitute, out of our country. If anyone could relate to Louis’s need to keep them under control, it was me. I left my seat on the tree trunk to join him.
“How do you keep them there?”
“Rebellions require three things,” Louis replied. “Time, money, and motive. So we take away all three. We use entertainment to draw the nobles to the new court, where we give them time-consuming occupations. We entice them to spend their wealth on clothes, parties, and gifts. And then we put an end to their ambition by handing to them what they think they want: titles, favors, small spells. We make them fight among themselves for those. And once we’re finished, we limit their access to magic and they never, never, dare going against the crown again.”
Flushed and with gold flecks sparkling in his eyes, he stopped, seeking approval in my gaze. I stared at him for a second, speechless. My father had taken arms against his enemies and lost. But Louis had devised a far more subtle approach, one that might just work beyond anyone’s wildest dreams. Save for one little detail.
“How are you going to do it?” I asked. “Pay for it all?” As the questions left my lips, and a smug smile stretched his, the answer hit me. “You’re going to use magic.”
He spread his arms wide. “Of course.”
Then a second realization struck me, one so tremendous I had to sit down on the trunk again, my legs shaking under me.
“You want to do it yourself.”
In all the kingdoms of Europe, kings and queens relied on powerful Crown magiciens to strengthen their rule. And even if they had some magic themselves, none were gifted enough to use it to any threatening extent. A balance of power of sorts. Until now.
To my absolute surprise, Louis knelt before me and took both my hands in his. “I want us to do it together.”
I opened and closed my mouth several times, the implications of what he was saying too momentous to fathom all at once.
“What about Fouquet?” I managed to ask after a moment.
Louis already had the most powerful magicien in his service. He didn’t need to practice magic himself.
He dropped my hands, too agitated to remain still for any length of time. “I will rely on him, of course. But he’s nearly fifty already. And yes, his power has no equal today. But what about in ten years, when he starts getting old? What about when he dies? I’ll be in my thirties and, God willing, with decades of life still ahead of me. That’s when I’ll need power, more than ever. I want to be ready for it.”
Ready for it, thanks to me. All of a sudden my corset made it hard to breathe, and the sunshine blinded me, sweat blooming along my skin. Mimi’s barks echoed, loud and grating, and the clearing spun around me.
“Henriette, you’ve gone pale.” Louis’s cold fingers pressed against my forehead, and his arm wrapped around my waist. “Are you all right?”
I swallowed, my tongue parched, and shook my head until my vision cleared. “It’s the heat. I’m sorry. I’m just feeling faint.”
Louis chuckled. “Right. For a second here I thought it was me who’d made you feel ill.”
I pasted a smile on my face to hide the truth. “Never.”
And, as he led me back to my carriage, allowing me to lean on him more heavily than was proper, I wanted my reply to be true. I understood his plan, and I did think it was a brilliant one. I had shared his vision at Versailles, with the gilded palace, lush gardens, hall of mirrors, and fireworks throughout the years. No one understood his instinctive need for safety and the scope of his dream better than I did. Yet Philippe’s warning pounded at the back of my mind.
He won’t intend to do you harm. But one day, he’ll need to use your magic for France, for the Crown, for his subjects. And he’ll forget you’re fragile.
Part of me wanted to help Louis make his dream come true. But the other part screamed reminders of what it would cost me if I did. Shaping such an idea into reality would require a tremendous amount of power. One that would surely rob me of my health, and, ultimately, my life. Was this why this gift had been bestowed upon me? So I would help bring about the greatest king the country had ever seen? Was I being selfish and narrow-minded for second-guessing my role in this?
Or was I right in following my mother’s advice and trying to preserve my own life and safety? Wasn’t being a princess, marrying out of duty, and always doing what was expected of me enough already? How could I be asked to sacrifice anything more?
By the time we reached the carriage, I had managed to work myself into a state, and tears ran down my cheeks.
“She felt unwell,” Louis told Athénaïs as they all helped me inside, Mimi jumping in after me.
I didn’t try to contradict him between my sobs. My fit surprised neither my king, my lady, nor my guards, and it was somewhat a relief not to have to justify myself to any of them. Soon, Louis rode off and my carriage rolled along the shortest path back to the château. Athénaïs kept an arm around my shoulders and a handkerchief in her hand.
“Don’t tell Philippe,” I said between ragged breaths. “Don’t tell him I was with the king when it happened.”
The last thing I needed was facing my husband’s temper. I already had one impossible choice to make and one brother to deal with today.
“I won’t.”
Athénaïs’s eyes were sincere. She would relay everything to Olympe, I had no doubt, but not to Philippe.
The road became rougher under our wheels as we reached Le Nôtre’s work site. There the carriage came to a sudden halt, and an eerie silence enveloped us. Athénaïs leaned out the window to call to our driver.
“What’s happening?” The driver’s reply was too muffled for me to hear, and Athénaïs clucked her tongue in annoyance. “Can’t you go around?” A longer response, and this time Athénaïs paused before saying, “Just get us back home as soon as you can.”
She sat back at my side with a reassuring smile that didn’t reach her eyes.
“What’s wrong?” I sniffled, my heart setting off to a frantic beat again at her hesitation. In the end she went for an honest reply.
“Someone’s died. Work has stopped, and the guards have barred this road. But we should be allowed to go through very soon.”
A horrible sense of foreboding descended on me, and getting the next words out was a struggle.
/> “Who died?”
And somehow, Athénaïs’s answer didn’t come as a surprise.
“Le Nôtre’s Source.”
CHAPTER VIII
“Will someone please take this dog away?”
The Comte de Saint-Aignan threw his hands up and a long-suffering sigh escaped him as Mimi padded across the stage, her tail wagging. Laughter rippled among the crowd gathered in the gallery turned into a makeshift theater for today’s rehearsal. Half the court was here, many of them up on the wooden platform, ready to perform the Ballet of the Seasons the king had commissioned. But as the afternoon sun beat against the drawn indoor shutters of the long gallery, few advances were being made in the artistic department.
“I’m so sorry.” Athénaïs scooped up Mimi from the stage and gave the count a quick curtsy. “I’m afraid I got distracted and the little devil escaped me.”
In a shameless display, she batted her dark eyelashes at the poor magicien in charge of the court entertainment, who wiped his sweaty forehead with a wide handkerchief and muttered something about time being of the essence. Her skirts swishing around her, Athénaïs breezed away, Mimi in her arms. Because of her recent arrival at court, she was one of the few ladies who hadn’t received a royal invitation to take part in the ballet, so she made a point of attending each rehearsal and ensuring everyone noticed her there every day.
By the orchestra, Monsieur Lully cleared his throat and raised expectant eyebrows at the count standing in front of the stage. “Monsieur le Comte! Shall we?” The Italian superintendent of the royal music spoke fluent French, but whenever irritation got the better of him, the faintest hint of an accent gave his consonants a southern inflection.
“Yes.” The count pocketed his handkerchief and dropped half his papers in the process. “Oh dear.” The young man at his side bent down to retrieve the fallen sheets of music while the count gestured at those of us onstage. “Shall we start again at Madame’s entrance?”
A chorus of sighs and shuffling feet followed as the courtiers playing Flora, goddess of flowers, and her gardeners moved out of the way to leave only my ladies and me onstage. Deemed the only one able to be the king’s dance partner in a ballet, I had been asked to be the goddess Diana. Louise and the rest of my ladies were nymphs, while Louis was Spring. Although I didn’t relish being the center of attention yet again, I did enjoy the opportunity to spend entire afternoons dancing with Louis.
Rehearsals had started three days ago, and they’d kept us so busy, he and I hadn’t had any time to discuss his plans for Versailles and my magic again after our walk in the forest. Following the death of Le Nôtre’s Source, the king had ordered we all focus on the ballet. At first his decision had struck me as quite heartless—a poor woman had just been assassinated after all—but its cleverness had become obvious: Rather than letting gossip and panic spread among the courtiers like amid the birds of an aviary, the king gathered all of them in one place, ensuring their safety and giving them something else to talk about. The only one who suffered as a result was the Comte de Saint-Aignan.
“Would … would His Majesty join Madame?” he asked Louis, who stood on a platform by a window where his tailors fitted him with his costume.
His arms spread wide and green fabric dangling off his slender frame, he gave the count an apologetic smile. “Can you manage for a while without me? I’m afraid I can’t quite move just yet.”
It was said more than nine hundred costumes were being made for this ballet alone, giving work to all the craftsmen and magiciens in the region.
“Right,” the count said. “Right, of course, Your Majesty.” Under his wig, sweat beaded on his brow again. He turned to the orchestra. “Can we … can we have Madame’s dance, then?”
“Diana’s dance!” Lully announced, raising his cane in signal.
In his late twenties, he had dark hair held in a tail and a no-nonsense attitude that clashed more often than not with the poor count’s perpetual panicked state.
“Just the ending!” the count cried before the orchestra could launch into the required part. “We’re only practicing the spell.”
Lully rolled his eyes at the box-beamed ceiling, muttered a curse in Italian, and gave the plaster stag heads mounted on the wall a look that suggested he wished the magicien’s skull were among them.
Then he tapped his cane on the parquet floor, and violin music swelled along the gallery, quieting the crowd for a moment. As the notes formed the rhythmic melody of Diana’s theme, I moved around the stage, twirling, clapping, and pausing with my nymphs in practiced harmony. Louise’s face was a mask of concentration, but I suspected mine showed my delight. I didn’t mind repeating these moves all day, and I couldn’t stop the grin tugging at the corners of my lips.
The movement finished, and I sank into a graceful sitting pose amid my ladies, turning to where Flora and the gardeners were to make their entrance. Some polite applause greeted my finish, and Louis bowed his head at me in approval. My heart pounding, I wrenched my gaze away from him before it betrayed me, and caught sight of a black-clad silhouette at the back of the crowd.
Quiet and discreet, Louis’s man Moreau slunk among the courtiers with his arms crossed and his golden eyes darting everywhere. Since the demise of Le Nôtre’s Source, which it turned out he had tried—and failed—to prevent, he was never far away. Louis had told him what I was, and although the news of this small betrayal of my trust hadn’t pleased me at first, I now saw its advantages. Moreau’s watchful presence helped put me at ease when the threat against Sources seemed both omnipresent and invisible. The king had ordered Moreau to lead an investigation, but the witnesses to both murders appeared reduced to blubbering fools thanks to some as yet unidentified spell; and there was still no clue as to who was behind the killings, how many they were, and if they were the same people who had operated in Paris before. None of this helped to settle my fears, and Moreau’s concern was a small solace in a sea of bad news.
“Attention,” someone warned.
The call brought my gaze back to the count and his assistant. The young man used to be the king’s Source, but he now worked with the court magicien. From an outsider’s point of view, this gesture made Louis look benevolent: He’d given up on the services of his Source to help a man who’d lost his.
But I was well aware this timely reallocation of magical resources also paved the way for my arrival. Since our walk in the forest, I had played my conversation with Louis over and over again in my mind, without getting any further than the first time. I wanted to help him, but I couldn’t bear to sacrifice myself in the process. I just didn’t love him or France enough.
A hush fell over the courtiers, and I forced my focus back on the stage. The count and his Source linked hands, closed their eyes, and whispered a spell. At once, fog rolled in from the sides onto the stage, from which blades of grass, colorful flowers, and small butterflies sprang. The mist settled, leaving the set covered with green moss, bright blossoms and buzzing insects, ready to welcome Flora. The music started again, and the next scene unfolded. I stole a glance at the count’s Source, then.
The young man ran his hand through his thick hair and gave the magicien an approving nod, the both of them happy with their spell. Sweat beaded on his dark skin, and he took a seat to survey his work, but there was no trace of dizziness or pallor on his face. With a pang of jealousy, I wished my body were as healthy as his, able to withstand spells.
“You were perfect.”
His costume half-sewn, Louis rested his forearms on the edge of the stage while Flora and her gardeners whirled amid the magically created meadow.
“You’re too kind.” I blushed under his scrutiny.
The remnants of the magic used for the spell shimmered off the stage, reflecting in his eyes. My attention drifted down to his lips, tipped into an inviting self-assured grin, and I resisted the pull toward them.
As if on cue, roaring laughter erupted at the end of the gallery, and Philippe app
eared with Armand on his arm and a pack of courtiers in their wake.
“Fear not, ladies and gentlemen!” Philippe announced. “The grape pickers have arrived!”
A chair crashed onto the floor as the group made its way toward the stage, their loud voices covering the music that died upon a tired signal from Lully. We had yet to rehearse the autumn tableau, yet to their credit, Philippe and Armand were both in costume, ready for the grape harvest.
“Your Highness!” The count advanced to meet him, his hands flapping in distress at the interruption. “We’re working on the spring tableau at the mo—”
“Yes, yes.” Philippe waved his protests away, his narrowed eyes scanning everyone onstage. All of a sudden, I became very aware of how close Louis and I were positioned. “But you’ve all been rehearsing this bloody springtime for three days,” Philippe went on. “And I’m here now. So how about a bit of autumn drama for a change?” His entourage roared its approval, and he turned to Louis, giving an exaggerated bow. “If my brother will allow it, of course.”
Too flustered for words, the count shot the king a pleading look. In a smooth motion, Louis peeled himself from my side and gave Philippe a tight smile. “Of course. I would hate for that wonderful costume of yours to go to waste.”
The gibe hit home, as some of the courtiers tittered. Philippe’s bravado faltered and anger flashed in his eyes. His costume, a riot of green ribbons, brown fabric, bird feathers, grapes, gems, and lace, didn’t resemble a grape picker’s outfit in any shape or form. For a tense second, I thought he would snap back at his brother, but he schooled his features and clapped his hands twice instead.
“You’ve heard His Majesty. Off the stage, springtime.”
I made to stand up to follow my nymphs down the steps, but strong fingers wrapped around my wrist.
“Allow me.”
Louis didn’t give me time to refuse him. In a display of possessiveness no one present could have missed, he held me by the waist and plucked me off the stage, before setting me down on the gallery floor. Teetering on the brink of catastrophe between my king and my husband, I mustered all my self-control to handle things without hurting anyone’s feelings. Under the courtiers’ watchful gazes, I thanked Louis for his help, slipping out of his grasp in a rustle of silken skirts, and walked over to Philippe.