“May I?” I ask, holding my hand outstretched.
“But, of course,” says Chrétien.
It’s heavier than I was expecting. I remember picking up a pair of ballet shoes once—the kind for dancing pointe—and being surprised how heavy they were for something that looks so dainty. It’s the same with this shoe. I so want to try it on, but no way am I asking a grieving man if I can wear his dead wife’s slipper, so I just run my fingers down the inside where it’s covered in satin and hold it up to catch more moonlight.
“Seeing the slipper, I can just imagine her as she was,” says Chrétien. He’s got a tiny smile on his face. “Objects can do that, I suppose. Ground one … tie one to what is no more.”
Not what Dr. Gwyn would recommend, exactly. I say nothing.
Chrétien asks me if I am ready to hear more of the story of the cinder girl.
I look over and nod, yes.
“Shall we sit?” he asks, gesturing to the floor.
I settle with my back to the wall behind us and the pool of water before us and Cinderella’s shoe in my hand. Chrétien begins.
“Once upon a time,” he says, “in the days before prince Louis was crowned king, and while he yet lived in some fear of never becoming king, there was a loyal minister called Mazarin who advised him that he must always, always, act the part of the king he hoped to become.
“And, to this end, his chief minister planned a grand fête, a great party, to which all the nobles of the land were commanded. And the chief part of the entertainment was to be a ballet of eight hours—”
“Eight hours?” I ask, interrupting the tale. “Are you sure you got that right? Eight like huit in French?”
Chrétien nods. “His majesty performed in ballets of twelve and thirteen hours upon other occasions.”
I try to imagine a flash mob lasting for hours. It would be cool, but I honestly can’t imagine who would have that kind of dedication.
Chrétien clears his throat and continues. “Within the ballet would be demonstrated the triumph of Reason over Ignorance, of Order over Destruction, Light over Darkness, and above all, in the person of the prince who would become king, of Divinely Ordained Rule over the land of France. And the land of la France was to be symbolized in the person of a most radiant and lovely woman, who would join the king-to-be in a brilliant dance at the end of the ballet.”
I stare at a thin mist rising off the water and try to imagine what Chrétien is describing.
“When the day came for the ballet to be presented, the nobles believed, as the prince sought they should, that the part of la France was undertaken by a boy dressed in woman’s clothing, as was considered then most proper. However, the part was danced in truth by Marie-Anne, for the prince declared he would not disgrace la France by having the embodiment of the nation poorly danced by anyone else.
“Marie-Anne danced the role to perfection, but when the ballet was concluded at the stroke of midnight, she shed her fine garments and her golden slippers and arrayed herself in the ordinary garments of a member of the servant class so that no one should know the part had been played by a woman and not a boy. For this would have been a revelation both dangerous to herself and compromising to his majesty.
“His majesty the prince was dismayed, however, not to find Marie-Anne following his triumphant ballet, especially when, to a person, the nobles of France asked who had so regally portrayed la France in the ballet. But Louis, rather than voicing his dismay at the disappearance of the girl, would not remark upon her at all. Rather, he shook his head and replied, I am France; is it seemly you should demand any other?”
I grin. I actually ran across a similar saying of Louis Quatorze: “L’etat, c’est moi.” Roughly, “I am the nation.”
“But in his own heart,” continues Chrétien, “the prince was distressed that Marie-Anne had so thoroughly hidden herself from him, both that night and in the days that followed. He advertised throughout the players and singers who had performed with him, declaring he must speak to the danseur who portrayed la France. Only a few of Marie-Anne’s closest associates knew the truth: that ‘he’ was a girl.
“After several days, seeing that the prince Louis was not to be turned from his search for Marie-Anne, the master of properties of the dance told Marie-Anne to put on her finest gown and her pair of golden dancing slippers and instructed her to go to the prince that evening. This she did, and in the way of a young man whose passion is enflamed, the prince took Marie-Anne is his arms that night and made her all manner of promises, which, in the way of a young man, he kept not.
“But when he learned, months later, that Marie-Anne was no longer well enough to dance, being grown large with his child in her belly, Louis took pity upon the girl and made promises which he was more able to keep. He told her that her child should not lack a father, nor should she lack a husband, if that were acceptable to her.
“And she said a husband possessing a kind heart would be most acceptable, and she agreed to be married to whomever her lord the prince deemed best.”
“You,” I say softly.
“Yes,” says Chrétien. “Myself.”
“So, the cinder girl was, uh, with the prince,” I say. “She just didn’t stay with the prince.”
Chrétien shrugs. “Monsieur Perrault, when he wrote down the fairytale, married them in his story. But, in truth, such a marriage would have been the death of the prince’s hopes to rule and unite la France. And France was his first and deepest love. He loved Marie-Anne only in passing, as a man loves a beautiful woman for a night of plaisir, of pleasure.”
“A one-night stand,” I murmur. I stare at the shoe in my hand. Cinderella’s slipper. “That is so the opposite of romantic. I’m glad your friend changed the story when he wrote it down.”
Chrétien laughs. “And I am glad my lord the king thought me worthy to be husband to a woman of such extraordinary gifts.”
“I guess that was nice of him, considering the times you lived in. I don’t remember hearing of any other kings who found husbands for the girls they knocked up.”
“It was unusual,” agrees Chrétien. “My father tells me Louis Quatorze legitimized as many of his bastard children as he was made aware of and married them to princes and princesses of Europe, to secure lasting alliances.”
“Huh,” I say. “That’s more than my dad ever did. No Christmas presents, no child support, and definitely no arranged marriages to foreign royalty.”
Chrétien looks puzzled, uncertain whether to laugh or not.
“Just me trying to turn everything into a joke,” I murmur. I grab a pebble off the floor and throw it into the water.
Plink! And then silence.
“Your father, you spoke of him to me one other time,” says Chrétien.
“I did?”
“When I told you my father only learned of my existence in my fifteenth year of life, you asked me how that had come to pass.”
I very much doubt I said “come to pass,” but I let Chrétien continue without me interrupting.
“And then you seemed to recollect yourself and declared my father must have been like your father in that regard.”
“It is seriously hilarious to hear you try to repeat what I said.”
“But, why?”
“Because I don’t speak like a seventeenth century French courtier,” I say.
Chrétien looks disappointed. “I have made the endeavor, upon repeated occasions, to render my speech more acceptable to the modern ear. But I seem doomed to failure in this regard.”
I try not to laugh at him, which results in this snorting kind of laugh bursting out of me. And then Chrétien is laughing, too, and our laughter is this warm thing that makes the moment stick in my head like it’s already past and I’m remembering it far in the future. And I want to so much. Remember today, remember Chrétien, remember our laughter.
“Perhaps we should return,” says Chrétien at last. “The moon has traveled already far this night.” He po
ints to where the shaft of moonlight spills in silver glory upon a stone in the water which I hadn’t noticed before.
“Can we take the shoe back, to show Sam?” I ask.
Chrétien’s brows contract briefly, but then he smiles. “But, of course.”
I rise, tucking the slipper in a pocket in my sweater. I’m dead-tired, and I know if we ripple, that feeling will disappear along with my flesh and bones. Besides, it’s one more chance to hold hands with this remarkable boy. Man. Whatever.
“Chrétien, how old are you? I mean, if you subtract out the years spent invisible.”
He smiles. “I believe, Mademoiselle, that I exceed your own age by two years.”
I whistle, long and slow. “You were a dad at, what, seventeen?”
“Sixteen,” he tells me. “Nearly seventeen, though,” he adds with a grin.
“That’s just way too young,” I say.
Chrétien laughs softly, but he doesn’t contradict me. And I wonder, as he places his hand in mine and ripples us away, how old my own dad was when he hooked up with my mom. Maybe my dad was young and scared and didn’t have a king commanding him by royal decree to stick around.
It doesn’t excuse him, but, still, it makes me think.
Chrétien races us back to the cottage. The sky overhead shows no sign of dawn, which is nice because I might actually get a couple hours of sleep this way. Everything’s dark and quiet inside the tiny farmhouse. We come solid beside the couch where Will does his noisy sleep-breathing. Sam has curled up beside him sometime in the night. This is saccharinified, but it sort of makes my heart hurt at the same time.
What if having Li genes means I’m not the sort of person who gets to have someone in my life? Someone who sticks with me? None of the aunties are married. One was, but it ended in divorce while they were all still back in Hong Kong. Ma’s never seen anyone as far back as I can remember. The Li women are strong and independent, which I admire. But, except for Ma with her cats, they’re also alone. And I don’t want that for me.
I stumble back past Sam’s room. The moon is low in the sky now and it pours through Sam’s window onto that cold empty bed. I shiver and tumble into my own bed, next door. I need to think of something nice so I don’t have bad dreams. I close my eyes and think about the pool of water underground. About the whisper of moonlight filtering through those holes in the ceiling. About how the crumbling walls made something in me sigh with longing. I pull the shoe out of my pocket and run my thumb along the slippery satin lining.
And just before I fall down into a deep sleep, I remember I’ve seen that slipper somewhere before.
Chapter Fifteen
THE POISONING PRINCESS
Everyone lets Gwyn sleep in the next morning, for which I can tell you Gwyn is grateful. Very grateful. I am starving when I wake up, though. I’m still dressed from last night, so all I have to do before I devour all the consumables in the farmhouse is slip into some shoes.
My new red shoes.
A smile tugs at my face when I remember Chrétien putting the shoe on my foot back in the village of Vieilles Dames. And no, the parallels between his actions and those of the prince in Cinderella are not lost on me.
I shake my head. I have got to get over this boy. I slide my foot into the other shoe, hopping while I get the stubborn back unfolded. And that’s when I remember where I saw that golden slipper before.
I stroll out to the kitchen.
“She’s awake,” says Will.
“Starvation will do that to you,” I mumble. “Food. Now.”
Chrétien, rising, brings a platter of croissants to me.
I don’t bother with butter or jam. I wonder if rippling makes you hungrier than usual. But no, I decide, it’s probably just living in the same place as Chrétien that makes me hungrier than usual.
I tear off a fluffy piece of croissant watching his backside as he returns to his seat next to Sir Walter. Unavailability notwithstanding, that boy is a feast for the eyes, especially wearing the jeans Sam and I made him buy yesterday in Carcassonne. The French have definitely improved upon the American art of framing the derrière in denim. Or it could be Chrétien’s derrière is simply exceptional all on its own. I shove the remainder of the croissant in my mouth.
“Coffee,” I mumble through my mouthful. “Please.”
Sam is already on it, passing me a heavenly bowl of half hot milk, half coffee, half sugar. Mathematically impossible, but delicious. I smile and sigh my thanks to Sam.
Then I turn to Will. “Can I borrow your computer?” I ask.
Will slides the computer in front of me, and I attempt to reconstruct a trail I followed earlier. I find the article on “Her Most Christian Majesty, the Dowager Queen of France, Anne of Austria.” (And people complain about spelling my name!)
There it is: “Did Louis XIV’s Religious Mother Poison Her Son’s Lovers?”
I scan through the article, looking for the link I clicked last time. The first one’s a dead end: I don’t need to know more about the sexual intrigues of Louis’s younger brother, thanks all the same. The second link I try takes me to a page I can’t read because it’s written in German. I’m pretty sure I didn’t have to use Google translate on the article I’m remembering.
I find the right link on my third try: “The Queen’s Trophies: New Evidence Against the Poisoning Princess?” Well, considering they didn’t even bother to get her title right, this may not be the most reliable of articles.
“What’s that?” Will asks, leaning into my personal space.
“Stop breathing down my neck,” I grumble. “That’s what Sam’s for.” Which earns me a piece of croissant, tossed at me by heretofore-mentioned Sam. Huh. My language is getting Chrétien-ized. That is disturbing. I prefer to be laughed at for my wit, not my word choice.
“This is interesting,” says Will, who has ignored my request to breathe elsewhere. “Disturbing if it’s true, but interesting, too.”
I shoulder him a few inches back. “Dude.”
“I take it you’re looking at something history-related?” asks Sam, looking over Will’s shoulder from his other side.
Will grins. “You so get me.”
“I don’t get you,” says Sam, “but I know you. Either it’s historical or you’ve developed a crush on Gwyn. Seriously, give her some room, Will.”
Will sighs dramatically and nestles his head onto Sam’s shoulder instead.
“Please,” I mutter. “Order me some chemo, stat.”
“Chemo?” asks Sam.
“The saccharine around here is reaching carcinogenic levels.”
Sam kisses Will on the mouth.
I roll my eyes to the ceiling. “Are you kidding me?”
“What are you reading about?” Sam asks.
Will’s head pops back off her shoulder. “It’s a conspiracy theory kind of thing about Anne of Austria, Louis the Fourteenth’s mom.”
I read the first line out loud. “A newly-discovered box of treasures with a clear trail back to Queen Anne of France (1601-1666) lends possible support to the rumor the queen may have had a hand in the demise of her son’s lovers.”
Across the table, Chrétien snorts in indignation. “Who dares suggest such a thing?”
“Those who find it too great a trouble to publish their findings in rigorous academic journals,” says Sir Walter.
“The article is nothing but ‘may haves’ and ‘possiblies,’” says Will.
“The imaginings of someone in pursuit of what I believe you call a ‘quick buck,’” says Sir Walter.
“But look at this,” I say. I point to the picture that is the whole reason I wanted to find the article in the first place.
“The shoe?” asks Sam.
I nod. But then it occurs to me I don’t have Chrétien’s permission to share the story he told me. I mean, for me, it’s an interesting story. For him, it’s a tragedy. A possibly fresh tragedy.
“Chrétien, maybe I should talk to you about this,” I
say quietly.
“Come on, Will,” says Sam. “Let’s find out how walking feels on that leg of yours today.”
I smile at her, grateful for her kindness and her psychic powers.
Chrétien sits down beside me, curious.
“I didn’t want to mention the story you told me,” I murmur softly. “Not without your permission.”
A soft inhale of breath at my side. His hand clenched into a fist. He looks at the picture, considers the article.
“This is preposterous,” he says, his contempt clear. “A fantasy spun of deceit.”
Sir Walter’s head inclines to one side, and his right eyebrow lifts. French for, “Tell me more,” if I had to hazard a guess.
Chrétien’s mutterings switch to French and I catch a lot of “never” and “good queen” and “horrible journalists.”
Sir Walter rises and crosses to our side of the table.
“Ah,” he says, once he’s looking over our shoulders. “Is that not the slipper worn once upon a time by your fair wife?”
The picture on the screen shows “a single golden shoe, a jeweled comb, a snuff box, and an ivory busk-bone, among other things,” according to the article. The writer claims the queen, who was very pious, kept these things to remind her to pray for her sins. Which does sound a little bogus, if you ask me. I mean, commit murder, repeatedly, and then keep trophies so you don’t forget to ask for forgiveness?
Chrétien looks distressed now. He’s got both his hands in tight fists and he’s running his thumbs back and forth along his folded knuckles. I feel awful.
“I’m sorry, Chrétien,” I whisper.
“Not at all, Mademoiselle,” he says. He straightens and seems to collect himself. “I would be a fool to be disturbed by mad imaginings such as these.” He turns to me, smiling. “As for the slipper of gold, you were correct. That box, wherever it lies, contains the twin of the shoe you last night held within your own hand.”
“Why’d you only keep one of them?” I ask Chrétien.
He smiles sadly. His gaze falls on the table, but it looks to me like his mind is far, far away. “There was ma mère, my mother, to be provided for when I chose to no longer remain … in the realm of the visible. I wished to keep something of Marie-Anne’s always with me, but I left its mate with my mother. I told her, should she grow desperate, that la reine, the dowager queen, would ransom the slipper for the sake of Madeleine.”
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