“My name, Monseigneur?”
“They say they have had dealings with you.”
A chill came over me. “Monseigneur, respectfully, I believe there must be some mistake.”
“The mistake is in jumping to conclusions.” He made a tent of his fingers. His rings glittered with diamonds—gifts from the King, no doubt.
I smiled submissively. (Gritting my teeth.) I’d always gone to Madame Catherine disguised as a man and under a false name. There could be no way—
“The Voisin girl—” Louvois riffled through the pages in the file, settling on one. “She has stated that you came to see her mother on a number of occasions.”
Fear alerted me to play my part well. “I did consult Madame Voisin,” I admitted in an intentionally confessional tone, “but only once, to get my fortune told.”
Details made a fiction true. Who had told me that? Ay me. Father.
“This was … oh?” I looked upward. “Twenty years ago? She had a stand on the Pont Marie, before it was swept away by the flood. I was curious to know my future. She read my hand and told me I would marry, which I never did, so it was four sous wasted.”
But Louvois wasn’t listening; he was going through the papers in the file. Why were there so many? “And then there is the statement of Madame de Villedieu. She claims to have been your friend for more than fifteen years.”
“That’s interesting, Monsieur—Monseigneur—given that I don’t know Madame de Villedieu,” I said in all truthfulness.
“This was before you joined Madame de Montespan at Court.”
I caught my breath at the mention of Athénaïs’s name.
“You were mentioned by another prisoner as well. Monsieur Lesage, sometimes known as Monsieur du Buisson, or Monsieur Adam Coeuret.” He stared at me.
“I do not know this man,” I said with more emotion than was wise. Whatever I said must come from intentional devising. I must await my cue.
“He’s a charming sort of charlatan, a man of many tales, many lives.”
“A man of many lies!” I said heatedly, in spite of my resolve.
Louvois smirked. (Finally: a response.) “And then there is the statement by a priest—Abbé Guibourg.”
I had never heard the name.
“A man whose eyes go—” Louvois pointed his two fingers in opposite directions.
A sick feeling came over me: I remembered. I shook my head.
“No recollection? Nothing at all?” Louvois leaned forward; he was enjoying himself. “Curious, don’t you think, given these testimonials”—he thumbed through the papers—“made under oath, accusing you of procuring poisons for Montespan, partaking in an amatory Mass.”
I felt tears pressing. It was all there, in that thick file. How was that possible?
Louvois crossed his arms and sat back. “You even stand accused, Mademoiselle, of plotting to poison His Majesty.”
Deus! “On my life,” I cried out, “put me before these people and you will see: they do not know me!”
CHAPTER 56
There were two carriages in the courtyard, as well as six guards on horseback. Louvois and two clerks climbed into the coach at the front. A guard handed me up into the smaller, mud-spattered coach and then climbed in beside me. I sat looking out the window as we pulled onto the rue de Richelieu, en route to the fortress at Vincennes, where many of those suspected of dealing in poison were being held.
The guards riding alongside made a clatter. People stopped to gawk. I averted my eyes, knowing what they must think: that I was under arrest, that I was being taken to Vincennes … to prison.
I wiped away tears. Hundreds had been executed. That summer a woman had been sent directly from a hearing to the torture chamber, only to burn on the pyre the very next day.
The guard beside me shifted, leaning his head against the window. I was going to confront my accusers, I reminded myself—not be locked up.
Outside the city walls, we headed into open country. The horses were fast, the roadway covered with leaves. Soon, the towers of Vincennes appeared above the treetops. We stopped on the bridge over the moat as the massive doors opened. The coaches entered the vast courtyard and rolled to a stop in front of the fortress. There were cries from above. I looked up to see faces in the barred tower windows, both men and women, their hands reaching out. Madame Catherine had been held in this prison.
“Don’t be stirring them up,” the guard warned.
Following Louvois and his two clerks, the guard escorted me over another fetid moat and into the fortress. We descended narrow stone stairs. A thick stench permeated the air—the smell of people in chains. We entered one chamber and then another and another, finally coming to a large, dank room with benches in front of a plank table. A fire was smoldering; even so, it was cold. We were in the dungeons.
I was put in a dark chamber. A guard reappeared with a candle for the wall sconce. It illuminated a stained chamber pot set in a corner. “Merci,” I said, gripping my trembling hands. Why was I being treated like a prisoner? The stench brought back memories of the flood—and Gaston’s frightening imprisonment.
After a time, I heard men’s voices, the clanking of chains, creaking benches. The door opened. Come out, the guard motioned.
I emerged into the room. Louvois was seated at the trestle table, his two clerks standing by, backed by five guards. Before him on a bench was a misshapen man in a matted, mud-red wig. Slowly, he turned to stare at me.
I vaguely recalled his pockmarked face. Then it came to me: he’d been a magician on the Pont Neuf. One of his tricks was to write a request to the “Spirit” on a note, which he enclosed in a ball of wax and threw into a fire. Then he would somehow bring forth the note with an answer from the “Spirit” scrawled on it. I had watched his act several times, trying to figure how it was done, but he was swift with his hands, and I could never devise the deception.
“Do you know this woman?” Louvois’s nails made a scratching sound on the table.
The man stared at me, looking me up and down. I could not understand why there were no other women present. Why was I the only one? To be fair, a number should be present and the accuser should be asked to identify one.
“I do,” he said.
I pulled in my chin, surprised.
“She’s Mademoiselle Claude des Oeillets,” he said, grinning at Louvois.
THE SECOND TIME I was brought out, there was a woman on the bench, and she was unable to name me. The third time, it was Madame Catherine’s daughter, Marie Marguerite. Her eyes were wild in her small face, her nose and chin inflamed with pustules. Not long before her mother had been burned alive at the stake, and now the girl was herself in chains. She’d had a wandering wit at the best of times, and now … now she was verily lunatic, I feared, watching as she stuttered and gasped, trying desperately to answer Louvois’s questions: “No, Monseigneur, no, this is not the woman, Monseigneur, no, it was another, a short woman who came with the Englishman who spent his seed into a vial mixed with her monthly blood, the man who vowed to murder His Majesty.”
“You do not know this woman? Are you sure?”
She was visibly shaking. “What was your question, Monseigneur? It’s possible, Monseigneur, oui, I know her.”
THERE FOLLOWED ANOTHER man—the Bird Catcher!—who was fortunately unable to identify me. I was beginning to feel hopeful, when I was shown in yet again.
A large man in a thread-worn cassock turned to look me over. He had the nose of a drinker and a mean squint. It was the wall-eyed priest.
“State her name,” Louvois commanded.
“Abbé Guibourg,” he said.
His voice—that curiously beautiful but terrifying voice—was the same.
“Her name,” Louvois persisted wearily.
The priest turned one wandering eye toward me. I bit my lip to still the quivering. Dominus Satanas. Lord Satan.
“She’s the one I was telling you about,” he said slowly.
“Her
name.”
There was a long moment of silence. I could hear workmen clanging on stone. I could not bear to look at him, but dared not avert my eyes, lest I be thought guilty. Was I guilty? I’d encouraged a ritual that involved a death, an innocent sacrificed. The memory clung to me like a curse.
“Mademoiselle Claude des … Oeillets,” the priest said.
I WAS RETURNED to my closet, shaken. I cringed as the door clanked shut behind me. I felt as if a pit-fall trap had opened under me, plunging me into Hell. How could he have known my name?
I thought of Madame Catherine and the day of her execution. Dressed in white and bound by rope, she’d been lifted onto a tumbrel. Children raced after her like excited monkeys. Approaching the Place du Grève, a dog had started to bark, the big yellow mongrel biting at the hooves of the horses—her dog, Noël. A horse caught its head with a kick. I heard its howls of pain and witnessed, to my horror, Madame Catherine struggling, falling, and screaming. The dog, trampled, gradually ceased to whimper. Madame Catherine pushed the confessor away, hurling his cross into the crowd.
She was strong in her rage; she surprised me. It took four executioners to drag her out of the cart. They clamped her to the stake with iron bands. She spat at them as they piled sticks and straw all around her.
A fury.
And now I stood accused. I squeezed my eyes tight, praying for strength. I longed for one of those improbable theatrical devices I often mocked, the deus ex machina, gods descending from the clouds to save the heroine.
O Mother! O Father!
Nil desperandum.
Father’s wonderfully familiar voice came back to me. I was surely lost to him now, no longer his Good Knight Claudette. I thought of the innocence of my childish vow, my pure intent. I hadn’t known, then, that there was no such thing as one true path, hadn’t understood, then, that good and evil could be so intertwined, like a braid.
Father! What would you have me do?
Tell the truth.
I bowed my head. I can’t.
Are you innocent?
I don’t know.
You’re not sure?
I went along. The powders, the drops, the charms … they did no harm, but as for that last—I don’t even want to think of it.
Was it your doing?
I pressed a fist to my lips. I’d encouraged Athénaïs. I inquired on her behalf. I had even pushed for it, given evil counsel. It would never have happened had it not been for me.
The guard opened the door.
The room was empty this time, but for Louvois, a clerk, and several guards. “We have all we need,” Louvois said, standing as the clerk helped him on with his cloak. “You will be informed when the trials resume, Mademoiselle.”
I was to go to trial? No!
“A guard will return you to Paris, but do not consider fleeing,” he informed me with a smirk, “for that will only reconfirm your guilt. We will always know where to find you—you and your idiot brother and daughter.”
I reached out my hand in a pleading gesture—a gesture Mother had used onstage to great effect. “Monseigneur, I am innocent, I swear. You must hear me out!”
Louvois made an impatient motion to the guards: Take this woman away.
CHAPTER 57
A breathless trembling came over me. How had my accusers known my name? I thought of going to a lawyer, but who would dare oppose the Marquis de Louvois, the most feared man in France?
I counted my coins: I had just enough for a coach to Versaie.
THE PLACE D’ARMES in front of the château was teeming with workers, gangs of husky masons, glaziers, joiners, and carpenters. The sound of chisels tapping filled the air. A choking dust made everything look hazy, deceptively soft.
The driver let me down at the second set of gates. I stood, getting my bearings. So much had changed. Balconies and sculptures had been added to the original château and the windows looked bigger. An enormous new wing was under construction. Workmen swarmed up out of the ground like ants, building something underground—barracks for the royal troops, I surmised.
I approached the guards at the gate, relieved to recognize one of them.
“Good afternoon, Mademoiselle des Oeillets.”
It reassured me to be recognized, greeted as a familiar. “Is Monsieur Breton on duty this quarter?” Praying that Xavier was.
THE NOISE OF construction reverberated throughout the cold marble halls. The King’s rooms were crowded with guards, soldiers, servants, and citizens. Finally I spotted Xavier, studiously working at a table in a crowded antechamber, oblivious to the commotion.
He stood up, clearly shocked to see me. We nearly collided making obsequious gestures.
I tucked a stray hair behind my ear. I’d begun to go gray and no longer colored my hair with henna, no longer plucked and primped. I looked like a bumpkin, no doubt. “Forgive me for interrupting.” I felt my cheeks burning. It had been years since I’d last seen him, years since we’d stood side by side in Athénaïs’s rooms, pretending not to hear the sounds of passionate congress behind the doors. Even so, it seemed we’d never been apart. “How have you been?” His hair was brushed into a charming peak over his forehead. He’d gained weight, but still looked handsome.
He cleared his throat, making a sweeping motion over the papers that covered the desk. “Oh—”
“You’re busy, I’m sorry.” It was wrong to impose on him after all this time.
“It’s only inventories of His Majesty’s wardrobes—lists of what needs repair. Tedious work.” The lines around his eyes crinkled when he smiled. “How’s your—?” He glanced around. There were people milling about. Daughter, he mouthed. After I’d left Athénaïs’s service, the King had stopped providing financial support for Sweet Pea and Xavier’s visits to Suisnes had ceased.
“She’s well.” I could have said more—so much more—but it was not the time … or place. “I must have a word with His Majesty … privately.” I reddened, fearing how he might interpret my request.
“I’m afraid that’s not possible.”
Were all doors closed to me now? But of course, I realized with horror: I was suspected of trying to murder the King! “Please, Xavier, I—”
He put up his hands. “It’s only because His Majesty is having a treatment, Claudette.”
Of course: an enema, a bleeding, a purge—
I took a shaky breath before saying, under my breath: “I’m in trouble.” Serious trouble.
He looked at me for a long moment. “It’s cold, but might it be refreshing to walk in the gardens?”
“How about the Labyrinth?” I suggested.
WE WERE ALONE, hidden by tall hedges. Even in the cool of late November, the air was scented from the blooms of the trees in the Orangery nearby. I traced Cupid’s words, etched in stone, with the tip of my finger. With this ball of string, I’ll know how to find my way. If only it were true, I thought, thinking of my complex entanglement.
“Shall we?” Xavier said, motioning to a bench.
“I’d prefer to go farther in.” More hidden from view.
At the third fountain, we sat down. A blackbird, preening its dark feathers in the water, was indifferent to our presence.
Xavier leaned forward, resting his forearms on his legs. “I’m sorry, but I’m afraid I can’t be long. His Majesty will be—”
“I won’t keep you: it’s about the Affaire.” The Affair of the Poisons, people called it.
He dipped his head.
“Some of the prisoners at Vincennes—suspected poisoners—claim to know me, claim to have had dealings with me.” I struggled not to burst into tears. The enormity of the charges was overwhelming. I thought of the pain of the fire. Such a horrible way to die! “I’ve even been accused—” I paused. Dare I tell him? “I’ve been accused of plotting to murder His Majesty.”
Xavier reeled back. “I’ve not read that.”
What had he read? “I would never do such a thing! You know that! I only ever wi
shed to please His Majesty. He has been generous with me. Why would I want to harm him?” I was pathetically pleading. I knew I sounded ridiculous.
Xavier put his hand on mine, to calm. “Tell me.”
Could I trust him? In the years since I’d left, I’d become accustomed to being with people who spoke from the heart—but this was not the case at Court. “I did go often to Madame Voisin, in disguise, to pick things up …”
“Love powders.”
I flushed. Might he assume they were for my own use? “And liquids, which—which I put in His Majesty’s wine.” Such an admission could cost me my life! I pulled the hood of my cape snug around my neck.
He tugged on his bushy moustache. “Fortifiers, we call them.”
“You knew?”
“His Majesty’s valets are privy to the most intimate details of our sovereign’s being. It’s our job to know.”
“Was the King aware?” The blackbird flew off, startling me.
“Oui et non: in a manner of speaking.”
The never-ending charade of Court life. I thought of all our secrecy, making sure His Majesty was not present when the liquid—the “amatory assistant”—was put in his goblet. Yet he’d known all along!
“There is one other thing which I … I hesitate to mention.” The words out, I had to proceed. “I accompanied someone to a ritual involving a priest.”
“A Black Mass.” He whispered the words so softly I hardly caught them.
Ay me. He knew about that as well? Oui, I mouthed, with a hint of a nod. “But I was only attending,” I stuttered tearfully, my heart fluttering wildly.
“Madame de Montespan.”
Swear never to betray a trust. I held my silence.
“You don’t have to say, Claudette. I’ve read the reports.”
Reports! Then did His Majesty know as well? Confusion came over me like a palsy. “That’s why I left Madame’s service,” I said, letting out a deep breath. “And now …” My leather-gloved hands failed to cool my cheeks. Now I was to burn! “I am innocent of these charges.”
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