A Candle For d'Artagnan

by Chelsea Quinn Yarbro

  Mazarin faltered. “I don’t know. I was certain that it was all settled. Buon Dio, Richelieu was sent word two months ago that the last barrier had been surmounted. He sent an official letter acknowledging the news.” He clasped his hands on the pectoral crucifix that hung on his habit.

  “Well, you know what the Pope is like, and you have been at the Papal Court,” Olivia said in her most reasonable way. “If this is more of what we have seen before, it is only a last effort to bargain.”

  “Bargain,” Mazarin repeated darkly. “That the Church should be reduced to a marketplace.”

  “Or a tribunal,” Olivia added for him. “But that is the nature of the Church, or it has been for as long as I can remember.” She put her hand on his sleeve. “Let me send a few letters for you, clandestine, of course. Perhaps I can find the place where the opposition is weakest. A nudge there will bring the whole thing down. It’s just like blowing up a castle.”

  Mazarin grinned at her analogy. “You have no respect, Madame.”

  “No, not respect,” she said, her eyes growing oddly serious. “I have respect in plenty. But I do not have awe. Not a jot. Not for any of the absurdities we turn to monuments.” It was not entirely true, but she wished it were.

  “You must be a trial to your confessor,” said Mazarin, letting himself chuckle once. “What does he recommend for your obduracy?”

  “Nothing. I don’t mention it,” said Olivia, her shrug slow and unconcerned; already she was thinking of the letters she would have to write and how best to have them carried without attention. This was one time it would not do to use Mazarin’s couriers.

  “What do you mention, then?” asked Mazarin. “There must be enough heresy in this library to keep half a dozen confessors busy with penances.” He indicated one set of shelves with a number of enormous, ancient texts chained to the case itself. “It must have been difficult to obtain those.”

  “Yes, it was,” said Olivia, finding it embarrassing to look at her greatest treasures.

  “And they are all questionable—at least questionable.” There was far more curiosity than blame in Mazarin’s tone but his dark eyes had an underlying doubt that made Olivia answer him.

  “Have you ever considered,” she said distantly, “all the books that have been destroyed in the name of faith? Why is the first test of faith the destruction of learning?”

  “Only the zealous believe that,” said Mazarin at his very smoothest. “The Church has been … mistaken in the past, at times when the foundations of Christianity were being shaken by every enemy of God and man that walked the world. We have come to know that there are lessons we must learn, if we are to bring the world to Christ.”

  “Oh, yes; bring the world to Christ,” said Olivia. “I have an old, old friend who is in the New World with Spaniards who claim to be doing precisely that. They are on a holy mission, or so it is claimed.”

  “They are,” said Mazarin, puzzled at the strange direction their words had taken.

  “Poor Christ, having to bear the burden of so many ventures and so many activities and so many terrible things down the years since He died. Do you think He would approve of what is done in His name, Abbe? Do you think He could have read those books, and if He could, that He would have cared what was written in them? Do you think He would have wanted them burned if He disagreed with them—He, who embraced lepers and pardoned whores? Might not He take the side of the book instead of the torch?” She recalled the first Christians she had known, before she had died, and how completely unlike the later Christians they were. “Do you think a man who built houses in Judea would understand why it was necessary for the Church to go into the world and bring all people under her wing, in His name?” She cocked her head and looked at him. “Well, Giulio?”

  “You pose arguments even the greatest Doctors of the Church cannot answer in agreement. I am an Abbe, and a worldly man after my faith. How can I speak to you of these matters, but to advise you not to think of them at all, for they can endanger your belief and your place in Heaven.” He looked from the books to Olivia. “I wish I had not seen them. I do not want to know anything more about them.”

  “Why is that?” Olivia asked, taking care that there was no hint of accusation in her question.

  Mazarin took a deep breath before he answered. “Do you ever pose such questions to your confessors?”

  She smiled sweetly. “Certainly not. What could a confessor do but insist I burn the books and spend the night on my knees? I will not destroy those books, and there are better things to do in the night: I tell them of the dreams I have.” That was not entirely accurate: she told of the dreams she brought to sleeping men, which was a different matter. “I lust in my dreams, Giulio.”

  “Because you are a widow,” said Mazarin, comfortable now that they were once again in more comprehensible areas. “A husband could be found, if—”

  “No,” said Olivia sharply. “No husband. I have said before I do not want to marry again. Once was enough.”

  “It has been a long time,” Mazarin ventured. “A suitable match would be very different now.”

  Olivia brought her heel down on the floor. “And when my husband had all my estates in his hands, what then? He could sell off all my stock—stock that I have been at pains to improve for years and years—or give it over to managers who would not handle the animals well. As a wife, there would be no recourse for me, would there? It would be my husband’s to command as he saw fit, and be damned to what I might want.” She looked critically at Mazarin. “Ask the Queen if you doubt me.”

  But Mazarin had already held up his hands in good-natured surrender. “Don’t tax me further, Olivia, I beg you. You are too skilled for me.”

  She made herself smile at this. “From a diplomat, I gather this is some of your diplomacy.” Before he could object, she said, “Promise you will not think of husbands for me again.”

  “And you will continue to confess your dreams?” asked Mazarin lightly.

  “Certainly,” said Olivia. “Unless I take a lover.” She read shock in Mazarin’s face, and went on in a different tone. “Oh, come. You are not surprised I would consider a lover, are you? You heard rumors in Rome, of course. I deny the most outrageous of them, but not every one. Look at me. I am not so sunk in years that I do not know the joys of the flesh, and if it can be done without hazards and with honor, I will taste them again.” She wondered briefly if Niklos was listening, and what he thought. “I would be overjoyed to find a lover, my friend, if he were seeking me.”

  “What an odd turn of phrase.” Mazarin lifted his hands once more. “I cry you mercy,” he said, amusement making his eyes bright. “I will not dispute with you. If it suits you to take a lover, then do so with my blessing; I rely on you to be discreet for your own sake if not for mine. You are part of my embassy and there are certain—”

  “I know,” said Olivia, her voice less serious than her eyes. “I will not embarrass you. It would not serve my purpose, nor yours. And it may be that there will be no lover, and we have spoken in vain.” She reached for a bell that stood on her writing table and gave it a single ring before setting it down again. “Come. The garden is very nice just now, and the doors open onto the terrace. There is rosemary in pots all along the walkways. We will have refreshments out in the air, where it will be more difficult for the servants to listen without being noticed.”

  “As you wish,” said Mazarin. “But if you are so uncertain of your servants why should you employ them?”

  “Magna Mater! if I dismissed every servant I ever caught at a keyhole, there would be only Niklos to take care of the house. And the reason he does not listen is that I tell him everything.” She started to open the door, but saw distress in Mazarin’s expression. “Servants are as curious as anyone, Giulio, and they can be excused for their interest in the household they serve. It is not done for spite or for gain, or not very often. I would as soon lessen the temptation for those who cannot resist their inquisitive
natures.” She looked up as she stepped onto the terrace, her eyes on the horizon where a few clouds gathered. “Do not be worried about Niklos, Abbe. Niklos knows all my secrets and has known them for … for more years than I like to remember, and he has never used them against me. If he will show such honor to me, what have you to fear?”

  As Mazarin stepped through the door, he sighed. “You may be too trusting, Madame. But if you insist that the fellow is reliable, I will take your word, at least for now.” He saw that a marble table had been placed on the terrace with two marble chairs brought up to it with bright cushions lying on their seats to make them comfortable. “Ah, a good Roman trick,” said Mazarin, nodding to the cushions.

  “Yes, a Roman trick,” Olivia agreed, thinking back to her youth and the cushions she had carried to the Ludi Maximi at the Flavian Circus. “Pray, select one.” She stood back so that her guest would not be influenced in his choice.

  “This one,” said Mazarin, choosing the chair that gave him a view of a small section of the distant walls of Paris, the terrace being on the north side of the chateau and affording limited sight of the city. “On days like this, with the windmills all turning, it is quite wonderful to see. They are like enormous butterflies, aren’t they? I have always been taken with these windmills.”

  Olivia was not so captivated by the windmills, but said, “They are very distinctive.” She indicated the fields that lay due north. “When the Seine followed the ancient course, where the old northeastern city walls stand now, have you thought what this place was like then?”

  “It was not Paris,” said Mazarin, dismissing it entirely. “It was not even a garrison for the Legions of the Caesars; it was nothing more than a collection of huts at the edge of a swamp.” He slapped his hand down on the green-and-white mottled surface of the marble table. “You see, I know a little of its past. Paris is tidier about her past than Rome is.”

  “You have been studying,” said Olivia with a little surprise. She would have gone on, but there was a sound and Meres appeared with a large tray in his hands. “You come in good time,” she said, signaling her lackey to bring the tray forward. “What have you got for our distinguished guest?”

  Meres put down the tray and bowed to Mazarin, then to Olivia. “Fresh bread, fresh fruit, honey just from the hive, butter less than a hour out of the churn, a brandied compote, aged wine, cream, mincemeat in crusts, and goat cheese.” He bowed again and offered fresh-laundered linen napkins bigger than saddlepads.

  As Mazarin took his, he watched Olivia refuse with resignation. “You still do not eat with your guests, fearing an impropriety,” he said as he cut some of the cheese and gave his attention to the bread that was still warm to the touch.

  “It would not be well-mannered of me to share a meal with you alone, and you know it,” said Olivia, deliberately making light of this social stricture. “It is one thing to be a part of your suite, but another to be the object of gossip that would compromise you as well as me. There is already speculation that we might be more than we are to each other, and there is no reason to justify that assumption by our behavior. Which is another reason to eat here on the terrace.” She reached for the wine and filled the single cup. “It is a very good vintage, or so I am told. I had it brought from Senza Pari.”

  Mazarin paused in the act of buttering a slap of bread. “You miss your estate, do you not?”

  “It seems a part of me,” said Olivia quietly. “I have lived there so long…” When she did not continue, Mazarin took a generous swig of wine to wash down the bread and cheese and said to her, “You were there more than twenty years, weren’t you? No wonder it is so important to you.”

  “Yes, more than twenty years. And … it goes back in the records to the time of the Crusades.” The first time she had seen it, after that arduous journey, it seemed to her to be the most beautiful estate in the world. Senza Pari had been smaller then and its walls stouter to keep out invaders, but she had loved it then and she loved it now. “The holdings were smaller when … my family first acquired it. But we prospered and the estate has grown.”

  Mazarin did not answer immediately. When he did, he put his food aside so that he could stare at her directly. “It was not my intention that you would have to be gone from it for a long time, but I fear it may take more time than we first assumed for my situation here to be made secure.”

  “I am entirely at your service, Abbe,” she said with nothing more than a hint of a sigh. “If you look over toward the duck pond, you can see the geese I have recently purchased.”

  “Geese.” Mazarin took another generous slice of bread. “You have an excellent cook. And I will not trespass further in the matter of your Roman estate.” He sniffed at the compote, his nose wrinkling. “A very strong scent.”

  “Last year’s fruit,” said Olivia, as if that and not the brandy accounted for the smell. “The cook here likes to keep busy during harvest.”

  “A commendable virtue in a cook,” said Mazarin. “I brought two of mine from Rome; one is doing very well, the other is so homesick that he cannot do a simple batter without weeping into it. I am at a loss to know what to do with him.”

  “Send him home,” suggested Olivia, a little surprised that so obvious a solution would have eluded Mazarin.

  “That is something of a problem,” said Mazarin after chewing bread-and-cheese thoughtfully. “I brought him here at the request of his family and he would be in disgrace if he were to be sent back to Rome. Since I am not displeased with his cooking, only his melancholy, I do not know what is best to do.”

  Olivia considered the problem, delighted to have something so minor to occupy her thoughts for a change. “Why not arrange for an advantageous post for him, with one of your Cardinal friends. That way his return would hardly be disgraceful, since it would move him nearer the Papal Court—”

  Mazarin gestured to her to stop. He drank more wine, swallowed and said, “That is the problem. He cannot be sent to the Papal Court. He would not … be completely welcome there.”

  “Oh?” Olivia’s hazel eyes glinted with wicked humor. In the distance she could hear the honking of geese and the whinny of yearlings playing in the fenced field behind the stables. “Whose bastard is he?”

  It was with tact and difficulty that Mazarin answered. “His mother was the—”

  “His mother was? Was? What happened to her?” Olivia was interested now, and made no attempt to hide this. “How did she die? since she must be dead.”

  “She … took her own life, not long after the boy was born. There was fear of scandal, you see. The family kept her confined, as they had before the baby was born, but she obtained a vial of poison and drank it. No one knows who gave her the poison. For the sake of the household it was said she was mad, and she might have been.” Mazarin put down his cup and looked directly at Olivia. “The boy is not only the nephew of a certain high-ranking Cardinal at the Papal Court, which is embarrassment enough, he is also his half-brother.”

  “Ah,” said Olivia. “No wonder you brought him here. And you have him with you so that everyone can forget this? You are a most adept diplomat, Giulio, I have said so before, but it bears repeating.” She leaned back in her hard stone chair, the cushion providing no support for her shoulders. “You have a difficult problem, there is no doubt.”

  “And one I am at a loss to deal with,” said Mazarin. “I’ve spoken to Richelieu, but he cannot act in this case. He does not want the cook in his household, not with so much opposition to him building up in Rome, and his position so precarious. If he were to take in this cook, it would be regarded as a deliberate insult by the Cardinal in question, and—”

  It would have been easy to laugh, Olivia realized. Such exaggerated care to avoid affronting a man whose father had impregnated his sister. Olivia stifled her own heartfelt desire to suggest that the Cardinal’s father was the one at fault and deserved the odium of the Papal Court, not its protection. But that, long and bitter experience had taught h
er, was not possible. She frowned at the nearest pot of rosemary. “What is it the cook misses most, do you know?”

  “I have spoken with the boy once,” said Mazarin. “He is cold all the time. He says that he can never learn French. He wants to be with people he can understand.” He wiped his fingers before cutting more bread and smearing butter and honey over it. “This is excellent fare.”

  “Thank you,” said Olivia, her manner a bit distracted. “He wishes to be among those who speak Italian.” She tapped the marble with her finger. “Those who speak Italian.” With that she lapsed into a silence that lasted a short while. “What of the south of France? What of the Genovese holdings? They are clients to Spain, but surely that is no difficulty for you. What of Nice? It is not Rome, but there are Italians. Surely someone there would be pleased to have this cook.”

  “Nice?” repeated Mazarin. “I had not considered Nice, or Genova, or the south.” He finished his bread. “I know a fellow there; his uncle is in Orders in Rome. He might be the very man to take on this boy.” He gave Olivia an appreciative smile. “You see, you are more apt at this game than you know. I should have come to you weeks ago.”

  Olivia shrugged. “Abbe, I am no able negotiator, and the endless games of diplomacy exhaust my patience.” She started to rise, then sank back on the cushion. “As long as we are out here, is there anything else of a delicate nature you would like to discuss, or shall I signal Meres to take these things away?”

  This time Mazarin made a deliberate display of helping himself to another bit of cheese and then filling his cup with the last of the wine. “There are one or two minor matters that it would probably be best to speak of now.”

  “One or two minor matters,” said Olivia in a politely disbelieving tone. “Go on. I am curious to know what these matters are.” She folded her hands like a schoolgirl and waited while Mazarin composed himself.