Before Versailles

by Karleen Koen

  MARIE’S HANDSOME CONFESSOR led vespers. An acolyte with a voice like a silver bell had been borrowed from a nearby nunnery to sing for them.

  “What is that prayer?” asked Anne. Its Latin words flew up the vaulted ceiling and cascaded back down into their ears and hearts.

  “I have lately become enamored of Saint Hildegard,” answered Marie.

  “O most radiant Mother, Mary, star of the sea, sweetest of all delights—pray for us …” the acolyte sang in Latin, her voice one of shivering purity, the prayer a repeating chant of drawn-out syllables, her voice rising up and down a scale of notes.

  “Charming,” said Anne. “I must tell the queen.”

  “You must take the acolyte to court and have her sing for her majesty.”

  “O most sweet and most loving Mother, authoress of life, you birth light, as God breathes you …” sang the acolyte.

  But the one for whom all this soothing loveliness was planned wasn’t present. She was in her bedchamber with a vile headache brought about by the trip, Catherine had explained. And Marie had watched Anne twitch with irritation.

  Catherine knelt now with them. A handsome thing with a carnal, cool look to her that no man could find unpleasing, thought Marie. It was said her cousin, the captain of the king’s guard, was wild for her. The viscount was to be named chancellor, Anne told her, but said nothing of the man named Colbert. He was a rising star, Marie’s young husband told her.

  Later, as the lovely twilight flirted with its promise of dark, she went to the chambers that held Henriette and found her sitting in a chair staring moodily out at the fading light. Marie curtsied low.

  “Have you all you need, highness? Is there anything I may order for you?”

  She saw that bowls of food sat untouched on an enameled tray on a nearby chest. The duchess considered the young woman brought here so that some sense and decorum might be argued into her. Friends wrote that Henriette had brought a lightness and festivity to the court that his majesty much enjoyed. What an inept, blind fool the queen must be.

  Marie pushed the shutter on one side of the window open even more. “Do you smell it?” she asked. “Jasmine. Once I would bathe in nothing but jasmine water, and men who loved me swore they knew when I’d walked through a room by the fragrance of jasmine that lingered behind.”

  Catherine was drawn, she could see, but it wasn’t for her that Marie was setting her lure.

  “I’ve heard you carried on affairs with six men, two of them dukes,” said Catherine.

  “Oh, hardly that. But I did manage three, and they were all dukes.”

  Catherine laughed.

  Marie stepped back from the window, the soft summer night. She curtsied again to Henriette. “I am honored that you visit my house. The queen mother is an old friend, and you, I hope, will be a new one. I’ve heard nothing but praises sung about you, and now I see they didn’t say enough.”

  “Not from the queen mother, I imagine. I blush to think what she’s said of me to you.” Henriette was brittle, defiant, chin lifted, eyes sparking, ready to do battle.

  “But what can be said, except that you are lovely and so of course the king desires you.”

  Marie was so matter of fact, so without blame, that some of the stoniness left Henriette’s posture. She met the old duchess’s eyes, worldly wise, smiling, crystalline, clear. “Which she doesn’t like.”

  “She doesn’t like mess and bother.” These days, thought Marie.

  “I can’t command someone’s heart.”

  “Of course not.” Marie reached out her hand and touched a strand of thread that made up the heavily embroidered draperies of the bed. “You see the blue picked out there in the flower? Your eyes are that same shade. Remarkable. No wonder he’s fallen in love. He cannot help himself. Might I sit down just a moment? I’m tired after my walk in my gardens. Now you really must walk them tomorrow. Every ache, every care will be scattered by the sight of them. I have a rose bush said to be a hundred years old, and my jasmine, well. I’ll have my servants cut some for you. We’ll make a special bath for you. We’ll put the tub right here, at the windows, and you can look out on the trees and sky as jasmine-scented water is poured over you. Delightful, no?”

  Less sullen, but still wary, Henriette gave a short nod of her head.

  Marie smiled to herself. First lure taken. “I so wish you to have the most pleasant of visits in my home. I so wish you to visit me often, to bring your young, fresh face and ways for my old eyes to feast upon, but I wouldn’t be a friend to her majesty if I didn’t speak plainly. I ask you, in the quiet that is my garden at its best, in the beauty, which will only be heightened if you grace it, that is my chapel, if you will think about the kingdom, the king, if it, if he, can bear this scandal, for the scandal will be large. You are, after all, a princess of France, and you must consider your position.”

  “I’ve done nothing wrong!”

  “Of course you haven’t.” Marie agreed, warmth in the smile that accompanied her words. “You’ve simply been your charming self. Do we blame the rose for its beauty or alluring fragrance?”

  “Are you going to lecture me about sinning? I know the queen mother told you to!”

  “Sin. What a distasteful word. Let he who is without sin cast the first stone. If loving you makes his majesty a better king, then whatever sins are committed are mitigated by circumstance, no? Perhaps his majesty needs your love to be all that he must be. Perhaps your duty is to love him. I do not know that. Such is between you and his majesty. But not for the world’s eyes. Never for the world’s eyes. That is foolish and ill bred and will bring down a wrath that might break you into pieces. You’re far too charming to be smashed to pieces.” She touched Henriette’s arm, lightly, with one cool fingertip. “You’ll be the one blamed, not his majesty. I hope you understand this.”

  “So you tell me to deny his love?”

  “I’ve never been one for denial of love. I will tell you a secret.” She was silent a moment, and both Henriette and Catherine leaned forward in anticipation, and again, Marie smiled inside. “I was not always discreet, nor, as you know, faithful. There are ways to do what we will or what we must, and the rest of the world knows little.”

  “What are you saying?” asked Catherine.

  “I’m saying that my hidden loves were the most alluring of the many I enjoyed. I am saying that Madame is foolish to believe she may openly enjoy the love of the king of France. It is a slap in the face to all that is proper. What she does, however, in secret, is quite another matter.” Marie stood up. “It takes a great deal of wisdom to be discreet, to pretend one thing while feeling another. Perhaps, for all Madame’s beauty and charm, she hasn’t wisdom, which would really be too bad.”

  Marie looked around the chamber, as if ascertaining that it was as welcoming as possible. Both Henriette and Catherine were silent. She could see that her words were burrowing inside them, and she felt a caressing delight at her skill.

  “Well, now.” She walked to an enormous arrangement of flowers and pulled from it one small, drooping, almost invisible leaf. “That’s that. We’ll speak no more of such dull matters as sin and duty. You are simply my most welcome guest. I leave you to this sweet night, highness. My château, my gardens, my chapel, my flowers are all yours. I so hope you enjoy your stay with me. I am honored to have your presence in my home, honored to meet the woman who has taken the court by storm.”

  “I don’t feel well.” Henriette blurted the words out, like a child talking to its nursemaid.

  “Yes, a headache, you said.”

  “And the smell of the food. It made me ill.”

  “Did it? How unconscionable of my cook. He will be most distraught to know he did not please you. He will fall on a kitchen knife, but he’s so fat it won’t hurt him.”

  The thought of a distraught, fat, suicidal cook made Henriette smile.

  “What a lovely smile,” said Marie. “No wonder all adore you. I’ll have some barley water sent.
It might soothe your stomach, and if there is a child growing, it will nourish him.”

  “A child?” Henriette said the words blankly.

  “At your age, the ills of a stomach are usually traced directly to the beginning of an heir.” She paused at the door. “There is one more thing. At some point during the visit, it might be wise—it would certainly be discreet—to hint to her majesty that your behavior has been perhaps too exuberant and that there is regret. Whether one does regret or not is quite another thing. Good evening, my lovely ones. Sleep well. You must come to chapel tomorrow and hear the prayers sung. There’s an acolyte whose voice is sheer heaven.”

  “If she thinks I will apologize to Queen Anne, she’s wrong,” Henriette said once she was alone with Catherine.

  “An heir,” said Catherine. “That would be wonderful. Monsieur so wants an heir. And when one is pregnant, making love with another is made safer.”

  Henriette shook her head, and Catherine was silent. After Henriette had rinsed her mouth and her servant had loosened her tight top and placed her in a nightgown and she lay on the bed, she stared down at her body. Was she carrying a child? She felt triumph at that. A princess’s primary duty was to bear children to inherit. She’d done her duty and quickly, even more quickly than the queen. Where else did duty lie? Was it to Monsieur or was it to the king? She truly wanted to please them both. How amazing the Duchess de Chevreuse was. She’d never been spoken to in such a frank way before, as if she were an experienced woman, as if her mind might be sharp and nimble, her choices complex and subtle, not easily made. If there were no scandal, that did not mean there was no love. It simply meant there was discretion. She lay upon her pillow and thought about that word for a long time, the scent of the gardens’ jasmine lulling her.

  Chapter 16

  THÉNAÏS HAD NEVER SEEN A FACE AS WRINKLED AS THIS woman’s, La Voisin she was called. The eyes were black stones, no light in them; the hands were dirty, the nails long arcs of yellow that grew over the ends of shriveled fingers. Wishing with all her heart that she’d not begged to come along, she made certain her cloak was fastened all the way to her feet, that the small silk mask she wore over her eyes was secure, that the cloak’s hood was pulled over her head so that her face was in shadow.

  Behind her was the carriage that had brought them out of the palace and onto the road to the outskirts of Paris. Inside the carriage waited the Viscount Nicolas, who had decided at the last moment to join them. She and Olympe had been rushing through a courtyard, and there he was. Do you still see your witch today? he had asked Olympe, and she’d nodded, and the next thing Athénaïs knew they were in his carriage, and he was part of the adventure. She’d much rather he had not been. She didn’t want anyone to know she was doing this, but there was nothing she could do about his presence.

  Taut and attentive, masked also, Olympe sat in an elegant embroidered chair placed in an overgrown garden as if it belonged there. Casting bones inside a circle, the witch knelt on the ground. Olympe watched her every move. The witch sighed.

  “No?” exclaimed Olympe. “I won’t believe it!”

  “It’s not your fate.”

  “I’ll give you more gold. Try again,” ordered Olympe.

  The witch threw the bones three more times. She stood and walked in a larger circle that included Olympe and Athénaïs, too, and Athénaïs saw the witch’s stone eyes on her. She shivered. The witch went back to her bones and threw them once more.

  “No,” she announced to Olympe, “no matter what you do. Love potions, spells, nothing will bring his love the way you wish.”

  “Can I hurt she whom he loves?”

  The witch barked a laugh. “Always.”

  “How?”

  “Come down on your knees beside me.”

  Olympe obeyed. Athénaïs was both repelled and fascinated. The witch took a little clay figure from a pocket in her gown and set it down in the dirt of the circle.

  “That’s her,” said the witch. “I’ll need something of hers—a hair, a ribbon she’s worn, a glove. Send it soon. Tell the spirits what you want.”

  “Curse this one his majesty loves. Make her womb barren, her woman’s place dry and unpleasing to him. Make her life a sorrow. If she bears a child despite my curse, let it die or at best, be a girl,” said Olympe.

  “I beg in the name of …” and then the witch said names Athénaïs had never heard before, names of ancient and dark spirits, and Olympe repeated each one of them.

  “Curse the name of Christ Jesus and spit six times,” the witch instructed.

  Athénaïs felt another shiver go up and down her back. Was she going to be asked to curse the name of the Christ? Well, she wouldn’t do it.

  “Does the golden-haired one desire anything?” the witch asked, without looking toward Athénaïs.

  Athénaïs’s heart began to beat. The cloak covered her hair. There was no way the witch could know its color. “A husband.”

  “I’ll speak alone with her.”

  Olympe was displeased.

  The witch made a gesture outward as if to include invisible presences all around them. “The spirits speak to La Voisin. I’ve something for him in the coach. You’ll give it to him with La Voisin’s compliments? And tell him to go to his island. Tell him La Voisin sees trouble if he does not.”

  The flesh on Athénaïs’s arms prickled. No one had spoken of the viscount, who had remained in the carriage. She turned to look at it. His crest was painted on the door. Athénaïs felt better. The witch wasn’t all-seeing, after all, just observant.

  Olympe held out her hand, and the witch put a glass vial in it. It was filled with what looked like white dust.

  “Tell him it will lessen the melancholy humors that haunt him at night. Tell him it comes from the new world, to inhale a few pinches … no more.” As Olympe walked to the carriage, the witch looked inquiringly at Athénaïs. “A husband, is it?”

  “Yes, please.”

  “Did you bring La Voisin coin?”

  “Of course.” She opened her gloved hand, and there were two. The house behind the garden looked abandoned; its window shutters were missing slats of wood, and some of them hung at crazy, odd angles, as if a storm had torn them from their hinges. Did the creature live there?

  La Voisin’s dirty hand hovered like a bird of prey, snatched, and the coins were gone. “There’ll be one for you.”

  Athénaïs was disappointed. “Aren’t you even going to cast the bones?”

  “I don’t have to. You were almost all they’d talk of. Don’t be telling her in the carriage, now. She won’t like it. She’ll curse you, and her curses are strong.”

  “What do they say?”

  “That you’ll have a husband, a fine, handsome one, but he won’t be the first that offers for you. There is more than a husband in your fate. You’re going high, girl, like the falcons in the sky, but there’s a price.”

  I knew it, thought Athénaïs. “What price? I don’t have any more coins.”

  “You have to do as she did.” La Voisin pointed toward the carriage. “You have to curse the one who has his heart now; send me something of hers separate from she in the carriage, something from your own hand a-stealing.”

  La Voisin held another clay figure. Athénaïs stared at it. Could she do this? Curse Madame? And even as she was asking herself the questions, she was stepping into the circle.

  “May his love for her wither. May he look on others, not her.” She didn’t dare name her own name. Besides, the witch had spoken her destiny. She repeated words the witch told her to say, old and evil names. She was cursing Christ and spitting. She stepped out of the circle, the clay figure held tightly in her hand. “When will I have my good fortune?”

  “Some day.”

  Athénaïs turned on her heel, angry at the answer and guilty for what she’d just done.

  “The husband will be jealous,” La Voisin called to her. “You’ll have to watch that.”

  The coachman o
pened the carriage door and Athénaïs stepped up the little step into the carriage, into the middle of a tirade from Olympe.

  “… stupid old hag!” Olympe was saying.

  “Perhaps she’s wrong,” Nicolas soothed.

  “She’s never wrong! What did she tell you?” Olympe asked, but Athénaïs shook her head, not wanting to speak about it in front of the viscount.

  The carriage gave a lurch forward. Nicolas shook out the white powder on the back of his hand and brought it to his nose and inhaled it. “Ah,” he said after a moment. He leaned back against the leather of the seat, closed his eyes, and smiled. Eyes closed, he licked his lips.

  “Do you like it?” Olympe asked.

  “Very much. Tell your hag I’ll send her a bag of gold.”

  “What does it do?”

  “It reminds me I can’t fail.” He opened his eyes, head still leaned lazily back against the carriage seat. “And it makes me want to kiss beautiful women.”

  “She said beware. She said there was trouble for you. You ought to go and ask her yourself,” Olympe told him.

  “Another time, perhaps.”

  “It isn’t fair!” Olympe continued. “Her majesty must know.” She shook her fists in exasperation. “I forgot to curse the Princess de Monaco!”

  Nicolas stopped looking so sleepy. “And why would you do that?”