In the Shadow of the Sun

by EM Castellan

  I caught up with him in the dark corridor, the servant who’d fetched him lighting the way with a candlestick.

  “What’s happening?”

  Our footsteps echoed in the empty hallways as I trotted alongside him to keep up with his fast pace.

  “Armand sent for me,” Philippe replied. His somber tone bore no more trace of drunkenness.

  We rushed upstairs and once we reached his apartments, he bypassed the servant and walked straight into the main bedchamber. A couple of candles lit the room, casting gloomy shadows along the walls and keeping Armand’s silhouette in darkness. He sat at the end of the four-poster bed with his shoulders slumped and his shirt open.

  Philippe knelt before him to grab his hands. “What’s wrong?”

  I slipped on a piece of fabric on the ground, catching myself just in time. Armand whispered his reply, so I bent down to retrieve the abandoned cloth and hand it to the servant still hovering by the door. Then I stopped mid-gesture. The fabric was wet. It was a cravat, and it stained my fingers red.

  I gasped just as Philippe turned to the valet. “Fetch a magicien.”

  “I don’t want a bloody magicien.” Armand pushed Philippe’s hands away. “I asked for you because I didn’t want one.” The light caught his profile as he moved, and my heartbeat quickened. Blood ran down the side of his face and from his nose.

  “What happened?” Philippe said, his voice rising with his anguish. “Did you get in a fight?”

  He reached for Armand but was shoved away again.

  “I fell down the stairs,” Armand said, his tone dripping with sarcasm. “No, wait. I ran into a door. I fell off my horse. I went bear hunting. Which one sounds better?”

  Philippe shot me a pleading look, so I snapped at the valet:

  “Fetch water and clean linen.”

  “You brought a nurse.” Armand chuckled. “How kind.”

  The servant gone, I swallowed my disquiet and joined Philippe’s side. Armand sniffed, and wiped some of the blood on his face with his shirtsleeve. Tears rolled down his cheeks without him seeming to be aware of it.

  “Why don’t you lie down?” I said in the gentlest tone I could muster. The smell of wine wafted off him, and I wasn’t sure of his reaction.

  He shook his head and winced. “No, no, not happening.” He held his arm against his chest, and I was now close enough to hear the wheezing sound each of his breaths produced.

  “Does your chest hurt?” I asked. “Do your ribs?”

  Once, when I was little, I had fallen off a tree and broken my rib. It was still the most painful injury I had ever sustained.

  Armand grimaced. “My professional opinion would be that everything hurts, right now.”

  Philippe’s eyes widened. “You need a magicien.”

  “No!”

  We both jumped, but I was the first to recover. “Don’t shout,” I said, “and don’t be rude. We’re trying to help you.”

  Armand snorted. “How generous of you two. When it’s obvious your lives would be so much better if I weren’t here at all.”

  “Don’t say that,” Philippe replied, his voice growing louder too. “You know it’s not true.”

  A small part of me considered contradicting him, but in my heart I knew he was right. Our lives wouldn’t be better in Armand’s absence. Simpler, perhaps, but by no means free of problems.

  The valet reappeared with a basin and fresh linens. I dismissed him after he put them down on the bedspread.

  “Let me clean you up,” I said.

  Armand surveyed me with an eye closed and his head titled to the side. “She’s so pretty, darling. How did you get such a pretty wife?”

  “A misunderstanding,” Philippe replied, and his offhand witticism stung.

  Clamping down on my mounting emotions, I dipped the tip of a towel in the water and wiped some of the blood off Armand’s cheeks and nose. He winced but let me work, his hands secure in Philippe’s grip and his eyelids hooded by alcohol.

  “I tried to kiss her, you know,” he told my husband all of a sudden. “She said no.”

  I dismissed the memory of the theater with a shrug. “What can I say? I’m a prim Englishwoman. I don’t let strange men kiss me, unless they’re my husband.”

  Philippe threw me the oddest look, while Armand snorted. The sound turned quickly into a moan.

  “Stop moving,” I said, more gently.

  He obeyed, his posture still stiff.

  “Will you tell me what happened?” my husband asked. “There was obviously a fight.”

  Armand rolled his eyes. “Yes. A fight. Definitely. You should see the other guy.”

  Confusion pulled Philippe’s eyebrows together. “You didn’t fight anyone?”

  I soaked the cloth in the water and gave him a meaningful look. Surely he wasn’t going to make Armand spell it out when he was obviously trying to salvage the last shreds of his dignity? I extended my hand to clean his neck but he threw his head back to avoid my touch.

  “Oh, just leave me alone!”

  “Who did you fight, Armand?” Philippe said, louder too. “Just tell me.”

  My temper snapped. “He didn’t fight anyone. He was beaten up.”

  Silence fell on us like an icy draught. Philippe blanched, and turned a horrified gaze on Armand, who sniffled and patted my knee.

  “Pretty and clever. She’s a keeper.”

  “Who…” Philippe’s breath hitched. “Who did this?”

  “Who do you think?”

  Anger swept over Philippe’s face. “Your father?”

  “The Duc de Gramont—” Armand’s voice rose as if he were addressing a crowd, “isn’t most pleased with the company his son keeps, and he was intent on making his point understood.” He raised a shaky index finger like a drunken judge willing to drive his point home. “I did mention we hadn’t been intimate with one another in four months, yet somehow he still wasn’t impressed.”

  I didn’t have time to process his last remark. Philippe stood up, as if he’d been slapped. “He did this to you because of me?”

  But Armand shook his head and caught his arm before he could move away. “He did this, my darling, because of me. Because his son and heir isn’t behaving the way he thinks proper. So—” He pushed himself to his feet to look Philippe in the eye, swaying slightly. “He’s sending me back to Paris tomorrow, where I’m tasked to find a wife with the utmost alacrity.”

  “He’s sending you back to Paris?” Philippe said. “He can’t!”

  Armand patted his chest. “Oh, he can, my darling. And he is.”

  “Fine.” Philippe crossed his arms. “Then I’m going to kill him. Problem solved.”

  I shook my head at the empty boast and let out a sigh, which Armand echoed.

  “As tempting as patricide is, my darling knight in shining armor, I’m going to have to refuse.”

  “What if I speak to my brother?” Philippe’s tone was turning pleading again.

  Armand barked a laugh. It brought on another grimace, and he sat back down on the bed. “Your brother isn’t going to intercede on my behalf. No, my new plan is to do everything my father says. I don’t want him dead, because I don’t want his title and charges yet. And I don’t want him disgraced by the king, because then I’d never inherit said title and charges.” He wrapped his arms around his stomach. “Besides, I won’t stay in Paris forever. Just enough time to make him think I’m a changed man, completely worthy of his trust and name. All will end well, you’ll see.”

  Despite his earlier protests, he lay back on the bed, and for a moment his labored breathing was the only sound in the room.

  I turned to my husband and whispered, “Do you want me to fetch a doctor, at least?”

  But Armand heard me. “No doctor, no. I want my father to look at me tomorrow and see what he’s done. Ruined my beautiful face for at least a week. Philistine.”

  I looked to Philippe for confirmation, and he gave a resigned nod. “Thank you. I’ll
just stay with him.”

  I knew to recognize when I was dismissed, and I didn’t protest. If Armand was indeed leaving the next day, I could find it in my heart to let them have this moment to themselves. So I gave Philippe’s arm a gentle squeeze, grabbed a candlestick, and left his apartments.

  Then I ran into Louise in the corridor.

  CHAPTER XIII

  Louise bumped into me with a little cry.

  I let out a gasp, my instinct the only thing that drew my arms back and prevented me from setting fire to our gowns with my candlestick.

  “What—?”

  She didn’t let me speak. To my shock, she drew back and snapped: “Out of my way.” Upset strangled her voice and she didn’t meet my gaze. After a couple of steps she regained her balance and made to carry on along the corridor, but my own temper flared.

  “Mademoiselle de La Vallière!”

  I seldom used what my mother called “the royal tone,” but if one of my ladies thought she could behave this way with me, she was sorely mistaken. Louise stopped short in her tracks, surprise wiping her features blank.

  “Your … Your Highness?”

  “What on earth do you think you are doing?”

  Her face crumpled and she dissolved into tears, and regret at losing my temper tore through me. I rushed to her side.

  “What’s wrong? What’s happened?”

  She hiccupped, for a moment too distraught to speak. A quick survey of her clothes and skin allowed me to think she wasn’t physically hurt, but her state of distress was enough to send my pulse racing.

  “I need to see the king,” she said between two sobs.

  Confusion settled my heart for an instant. “But … weren’t you with him?”

  She shook her head. “The queen felt unwell, so he was called back to the château and I stayed at the canal. But I need to see him now.”

  “Well, if he’s with the queen—”

  She gripped my arm, her red-rimmed eyes intense. “No, you don’t understand, I have to see him. You have to help me!”

  My annoyance resurfaced. I liked to think of my ladies-in-waiting as my friends, and I wasn’t an absolute stickler for formalities, but the hour was late, I was tired and feverish, and my patience was running thin.

  “Whatever is the matter with you?” I pulled my arm back. “I don’t have to do anything. The king is with his pregnant wife. He shouldn’t be disturbed, and if you really think he should, you are going to have to convince me first.”

  Louise’s jaw went slack, then more tears spilled down her cheeks. She buried her face in her hands. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I just don’t know what to do—”

  Her behavior was so uncharacteristic that compassion squeezed my heart. She was my friend, after all, and I couldn’t possibly leave her in this state. I had to know what had brought on this fit, and I had to take her away from prying eyes and ears. I turned to the two guards by Philippe’s door, who stared ahead with impassive expressions.

  “Would one of you accompany us to her rooms?”

  One of the men took a step forward and gave me a nod. I handed him the candlestick and linked my arm with Louise’s.

  “Come on.”

  I steered her down the corridor and gave her my handkerchief. She blew her nose in a manner that would have made my mother frown, her breathing still ragged.

  “Oh God,” she said. “I’m going to hell.”

  “Of course not. Don’t be silly.”

  Our high-heeled shoes hit the parquet floor and resonated along the near-empty hallways like a desynchronized staccato.

  “But I am,” she went on. “What have I done? I should have never … I’m sinful and this is my punishment…” Her soliloquy turned into a whispered prayer, and I was relieved to reach the end of another corridor and the door to her rooms.

  “Would you wait outside?” I asked the guard. “I won’t be long, and I might need you to fetch someone.”

  The man gave his assent while Louise fumbled with her key. In the end I had to grab the candlestick and unlock the door myself to let us both in. Louise’s rooms resembled all the courtiers’ private quarters, with a middle-size bedchamber and a service room attached. The indoor shutters stood open onto the starry night, and the aroma of lavender and fresh linen floated in the air. Louise collapsed onto her bed while I lit the sconces around the room, casting elongated dark shapes on the bare walls and turning the crucifix above her bed into a menacing shadow.

  I sat on the bed next to her, my stiff muscles eager to relax, and took her hand. “Will you tell me what happened?”

  She straightened up and wiped her face with my handkerchief, before pulling a folded paper from her dress pocket.

  “After the king left, the Comtesse de Soissons approached me with this.”

  My brows pulled together into a frown, I unfolded the letter Olympe had given her. The few lines it contained sent my heart hammering against my rib cage. The letter was from Fouquet. It offered Louise twenty thousand pistoles and the promise to look after her. I shot her a horrified look.

  “He thinks you’re a courtesan?”

  But she shook her head. “That’s what I thought at first, but the countess said I misunderstood. He wants me to be his spy.”

  “He wants you to spy on Louis? Why?”

  Louise retrieved the letter and folded it up again. “He knows Louis is working on his magic skills. He wants to find out why. And he knows Prince Aniaba isn’t his Source.” She let out a sigh. “From what the countess said, it sounded like they think I’m his Source.”

  Of course they would. My thoughts churned, putting together the pieces of the puzzle. Fouquet was the Crown Magicien. He would feel threatened by Louis’s attempt at mastering powerful magic. And our decoy had worked: He assumed Louise was his new Source. Now he wanted to recruit her to find out what exactly the king was up to.

  “So that’s why you’re upset?” I asked. “Because Fouquet and Olympe think they can buy your allegiance?”

  She nodded, fresh tears filling her eyes. “But that’s not all. When I said no, I would never do this to my king, she threatened me.”

  My grip on her tightened despite myself. How dare Olympe scare my lady? How weak and tame did she assume I was, that she thought she could behave in such a way toward a member of my household without consequences?

  But that was a point, wasn’t it? The Queen Mother had said so herself. Everyone liked me, because they believed I was this mild-mannered, sweet girl who never got cross or raised her voice, and who wasn’t a threat to anyone.

  “What did she say?” My voice came out steadier than my inner turmoil suggested.

  Louise fiddled with the letter. “She made it sound as if Monsieur Fouquet would harm me if I didn’t do what he wanted. She said there were more than one way to make use of me.”

  A nagging sense of foreboding descended on me, and I leaned forward. “More than one way to make use of you? As a spy or as a Source?”

  “That’s the thing. She gave me the impression he would use the fact I was a Source to harm me.”

  Cold sweat spread all over my skin. “You think—?” The words stuck in my throat, and Louise gave another nod.

  “The way she spoke … It made me wonder if Monsieur Fouquet might be the one who killed those Sources.”

  I was off the bed and at the door before she’d even finished her sentence. “Fetch Monsieur Moreau,” I told the guard. “Right now!”

  I returned to Louise’s side, trepidation warming my body again. If the Crown Magicien was the one behind the murders, and possibly behind the attack against the royal family, we had to know for sure as soon as possible. He was way too powerful to ignore as a threat.

  “But why would he kill Sources?” I thought aloud. “What does he have to gain?” I stood up, too restless to sit still, and paced the room before Louise’s wide eyes. “Maybe it’s part of his plan. Killing Sources means fewer magiciens have access to magic. Perhaps by dispatching the co
mpetition, he’s trying to make himself indispensable at court. And he’s found out the king is working on increasing his magical power, so he attacked him too.”

  “But,” Louise said, her voice still weak, “he was here during the attack. He’s the one who stopped it. He’s the one who saved you.”

  “Maybe his spell got out of hand?” I opened my palms in a questioning stance. “Maybe he only meant to harm the king, then his spell targeted the whole royal family in the vicinity?” That would explain why Philippe and Anne d’Autriche had been spared: They’d been too far away from the spell. And Fouquet had come out of it all looking like a hero.

  “That’s a lot of maybes.” Louise sighed.

  The door flew open, and she jumped. Moreau marched into the room, murder on his face. “Madame, what happened? Are you all right?”

  I held up my hands in an appeasing gesture. “I’m perfectly all right.”

  To my surprise, the king strode in behind him, his jaw clenched and his golden gaze fierce. Louise gasped and threw herself into his arms.

  “Oh, thank God.”

  Louis wrapped her into a tight embrace that made my heart skip a beat in disappointment. He really cared for her. He’d never held me like this, and likely never would. The realization pinched my heart for an instant. But Louise resumed her sobbing into his chest, and he raised an eyebrow at me. “What’s happening?”

  I pushed from my mind the jealous thoughts I had no place having and cleared my throat.

  “Louise was approached by one of Fouquet’s agents tonight,” I said. “We think he’s the one who’s behind the murders and the coup.”

  Louis paled in the candlelight, and Moreau’s expression turned calculating.

  “Explain,” the king said.

  * * *

  I had never attended a war council in the king’s apartments, but the impromptu meeting that was taking place was how I imagined it. The magical clock on the mantelpiece had just struck midnight in a shower of golden specks and birdsong, and I hid a yawn behind my hand. Five of us sat around the table in the flickering candlelight, with all the doors closed and the king’s most trusted musketeers posted outside.