Mistress of the Sun

by Sandra Gulland

  Backstage, however, it was bedlam. Gautier, dressed as a fawn, counted heads. “Where’s Pierre?”

  “Answering the call of nature,” Monsieur Philippe, in mask, called out, adjusting his brother’s crown of wheat.

  Dressed in a toga as the goddess Ceres, His Majesty patiently stood as his makeup was applied.

  “My quiver!” Madame Henriette searched through her basket of props.

  Nicole, who was helping with makeup, handed her mistress the clutch of silver-tipped feathers.

  Petite, standing with the nine other nymphs, all dressed in green tissue spangled with silver, heard Gautier call out, “Première entrée.”

  “That can’t be us.” Henriette adjusted the silver crescent on her brow.

  Nicole thumbed through the script. “No, first come the fawns, and then Diana and the nymphs.”

  “Blessed Virgin, watch over me,” Henriette said, signing herself. “At least I don’t have to descend from the heavens.”

  “Like me,” said the King, and everyone laughed.

  Petite glanced at him over her shoulder. It was hard not to smile at the image of a muscular goddess with a mustache.

  The deep voices of the chorus boomed out—“Who, in the night…”—followed by an angelic voice singing of echoes that spoke of love, followed by the chorus’s booming refrain, and then applause, more cheers, Lauzun’s famous donkey braying and the clumping boots of the fawns crowding back offstage.

  “Entrée, second act,” Gautier called out, trying to straighten one of the tree branches.

  “That’s us,” Henriette said, taking a place in the wings, her nymphs lining up behind her, each holding a basket of flower blossoms to throw at the feet of their goddess mistress.

  “Your bow, Your Highness.” Nicole rushed to give Henriette her prop.

  Henriette arranged herself prettily on the fern-covered throne on the platform. Then the curtain parted, the music began and Henriette’s ten nymphs danced a minuet around her.

  By turns, each of the dancers went to the center for a solo. Petite, second to last, grew faint with nerves watching as Madame de Gourdon stumbled and Mademoiselle de Méneuille forgot her steps. Her left leg began to tremble—would it hold?

  Hearing someone from the wings whisper her name, she turned to see the King give her an encouraging smile. Heart pounding, Petite stepped to the center of the stage.

  THE MORNING AFTER the performance was still and sultry. A midday collation in the woods had been planned, but Henriette, touchy-headed, informed her ladies that they would be leaving early in order to go to the bathing pond before joining the King and his men. She sent Nicole and Petite down to the courtyard to make sure that everything had been packed.

  “Madame’s in a glout,” Nicole said, handing a hamper of drying cloths to the wagon driver.

  “Likely it’s because of her condition,” Petite said, checking the list of provisions. The Princess’s courses had not come, and it was thought that she might finally be with child.

  “I think it’s because of the performance yesterday.”

  “But it went so well,” Petite said. Hemp line, tapestries, drying cloths, carpets, bathing costumes: it looked as if everything was in order.

  “Somewhat too well. Claude-Marie says she’s jealous because you got applause for your solo.”

  “Everyone was applauded,” Petite said, folding up the list and tucking it into her waistband.

  “Yes, but the King cheered you,” Nicole persisted.

  Petite smiled. He had, and most enthusiastically. She glowed to think of it. “It’s not like that.” She glanced toward the entrance. There were voices in the stairwell. “I like horses, the King likes horses. That’s all.”

  “He likes dogs, you like dogs. He likes to hunt, you like to hunt. He likes to dance, you like to dance. He likes—”

  “Hush!” Petite whispered, as Henriette emerged, followed by Athénaïs, Claude-Marie and several other maids.

  Two footmen in gray livery stepped forward to hand Henriette into the head coach along with Athénaïs, Nicole and Claude-Marie. Petite, standing by, was ceremoniously handed into the second coach with two maids-in-waiting from the Queen Mother’s household and a chambermaid. Petite took note: Was she being shunned? Usually she rode with the Princess.

  At the bathing hole, valets laid carpets over the grass and strung tapestries from the branches for privacy. Nicole helped Henriette out of her gown. Petite held out the long gray bathing costume, but the Princess pointedly turned her back.

  I’ll take care of it, Nicole mouthed, taking it from Petite.

  In the maid’s tent, her cheeks burning, Petite stripped down to her shift. Angrily, she stomped past the women sitting by the water’s edge and sloshed into the shallow water. Little fishes darted over the stones.

  “Little sister?” It was Athénaïs, sitting in a rock hollow.

  “Madame la Marquise, I didn’t see you.”

  “I prefer this to sitting on sand-heaps.” Athénaïs checked to make sure that her hair was tucked into her blue turban. Gems sparkled on two fingers. “I commend you on your performance last night. Madame Henriette must be pleased.”

  “Not exactly,” Petite said, glancing skyward. There were dark clouds on the horizon to the west. How much should she reveal? “She’s annoyed with me.” She lowered her voice so that it would not carry.

  “Of course. You were applauded.”

  “Henriette invited me to perform because she likes the way I dance.”

  “Ah, you are such an innocent.” Athénaïs smiled, but with sympathy. “We speak a different language here at Court—ce pays-ci, we call it, as if it were another country entirely. And it is. One must learn the fine line between doing something well, and doing something to great applause, which is the exclusive domain of a prince or princess. Why do you think only the son of a prince may be the dealer at Basset? Certainly it’s not because he has the talent for it. It’s because dealer is the lucrative role. Lucrative is the magical word: everything turns on it. It is the cipher that makes all things clear.”

  “This was only a dance performance.”

  “Do you not see the connection?” Athénaïs regarded Petite indulgently. “The King’s regard is highly coveted. Why? Because it is lucrative. A woman of Court, even a princess, will do anything to get his—” She paused for effect, smiling coquettishly. “His friendship.”

  “You make it sound dangerous,” Petite said.

  TRUMPETS BLARED AS Madame’s three carriages pulled up to a forest glade. Horses whinnied and the men cheered. Tables had been set up on the grass under a canopy. The men had just arrived themselves. They had yet to put a hart to bay, but were nonetheless enlivened. Hounds barked excitedly. Five violinists standing off to one side played a mournful melody at odds with the liveliness of the occasion. The King caught Petite’s eye. She made a passing reverence and looked away.

  Madame Henriette was shown to the place of honor to the right of the King, her husband Philippe on his left. Then the ladies of the palace were shown to their places. Nicole gave Petite a look of chagrin as Henriette’s valet led Petite to a chair at the far end of the table, the lowliest spot—farthest from the King.

  Butlers stepped forward with dishes of scented water so that the ladies could clean their hands. Petite, aware of her lowered status, made sure to wait until everyone had placed their serviettes on their shoulders before placing hers.

  The food was rich, the wine abundant. Everyone drank to His Majesty’s health, and then to the health of the absent queens, who were spending the day at a convent. As the musicians launched into a lively sarabande, they drank to the health of Madame and Monsieur, and then again to that of the King. The King threw a bone to the hound sitting on the grass beside him—the dog named Mitte—and a valet stepped forward to clean his fingers. He dried his hands on the damask napkin and sat back.

  The sky darkened and the corners of the canopy flapped. There was a sudden loud crack of
lightning. At the ominous roll of thunder, the King stood. Suddenly there was pouring rain and another sharp clap of lightning. Pages ran to check on the horses while varlets gathered their hounds. Women screamed as a gust of wind tipped over the table, splattering wine and scattering bones. Quickly, the King and his brother helped Henriette into her coach and struggled to fasten the leather window coverings against the rising storm.

  At yet another flash of lightning and thunderous roll, Mitte ran whimpering into the woods, her tail between her legs. Petite caught the end of the dog’s leather lead.

  “Easy,” she called out as the hound pulled her pell-mell into the brambles. Yanking on the lead, she brought the terrified dog to a halt. The rain was coming down heavily. Pulling the dog close, she pushed through some bushes into a thick clump of trees.

  The copse was dry at the center. Petite, soaked through, sank onto the pine needles. The trembling dog licked her chin. “Easy, girl,” she said, stroking her head.

  “Mitte!”

  It was a man’s voice—hard to hear over the howling wind.

  “Mitte!”

  The dog whimpered. “She’s in here,” Petite called out, but she was silenced by more thunder.

  She heard branches breaking, and a man’s head appeared. “Your Majesty!” Petite tried to rise, but she was hemmed in.

  “Mademoiselle de la Vallière? And my dear Mitte.” The King stooped and embraced the terrified creature. “She has always been frightened by thunder,” he said, stroking the dog’s soft ears. “What a storm.” His features were illuminated by a flash of lightning.

  Petite untied her neck scarf and handed it to him. “Your Majesty?”

  “Thank you,” he said, wiping his face and then handing the kerchief back. “It’s dry here,” he said, feeling the ground.

  “Yes,” Petite said, shifting to give the King room. It was tight for two, especially with a nervous hound. There was a strong scent of wet dog, rain and something more, a pleasant floral perfume—jasmine, she guessed.

  The King held the dog between his knees. His elbow touched Petite’s arm, his knee her thigh. She drew her elbows in tight and crossed her arms. All was in violent motion but for this one still refuge. All was still but for the beating of her heart.

  The King turned to look at her. “Your hair.”

  Petite put her hands to her crown. Her scarf had fallen off in the rush into the woods. She felt exposed, her head uncovered, her hair tangled and wet.

  “It’s golden,” he said, his expression one of surprise and dawning recognition. “Now I know where I’ve seen you before.”

  Petite was confused. He saw her daily: at the hunts, in rehearsals, at Henriette’s evening gatherings.

  “I can’t tell you how many times I’ve looked at you and wondered why you seemed so familiar—and now I know,” he said with a smile of satisfaction. “You were the girl chasing the runaway horse in the park at Chambord.”

  Petite felt a deep blush spread over her face.

  “You’re that girl—”

  Petite bowed her head without reply.

  “—the goddess Diana.”

  Was this a jest?

  But the King’s voice was ardent. “I’ve often thought of you since, the way you appeared in the meadow like some young goddess with long golden curls, the proud way you sat your horse.”

  His eyes were a soft hazel, his lashes long. How well Petite knew his face: his chiseled nose and rounded chin, his broad forehead, full lips.

  “Are you chilled?” he asked.

  “No.” A violent crack of lightning made her jump.

  “Yet you tremble.” He paused, then reached out his hand, lightly touching her chin.

  “I’m fine, Your Majesty,” Petite said, briefly meeting his gaze.

  They were sprinkled with a sudden shower of rain from the branches above. Like a baptism, Petite thought, as he leaned toward her.

  The dog licked her hand. Petite pulled back, her heart beating violently.

  “I apologize,” he said.

  The dog whimpered. The King stroked Mitte’s long ears gently, first one and then the other. His fingers were long and fine—a musician’s hands. He wore no rings.

  Petite touched his hand.

  He turned toward her. It was so dark now, she could hardly make out his eyes. The rain was coming down harder, the wind howling. They were in their own little world.

  Petite felt his breath on her cheeks, fragrant with wine. Her heart stopped, and then raced.

  The King’s lips touched hers very lightly. Then he put one hand on her shoulder and pressed his forehead against hers.

  Again, Petite prayed, holding her breath. She wanted to taste him. “I’ve never been kissed, Your Majesty,” she said, her breath coming now in gasps. “I’m not sure how to go about it.”

  He ran his fingers through her hair and bent over her, holding the back of her head in one hand. He was strong; Petite felt cradled within him. She felt his lips, his rough chin, and then his tongue, soft against her teeth. She felt flooded with warmth. The dog whimpered again, the storm howled, but there was only this, this one magical touch. A moan of pleasure sounded—her own.

  Chapter Eighteen

  NEVER AGAIN, Petite vowed, wringing the rainwater out of her hair into a blue glass jar. On leaving their forest nest, she had snapped a small branch off the tree—the one they had leaned against, the one that had sheltered them—and this she stuck into her looking-glass frame. Three leaves, one for each swooning kiss.

  Never again. She laid her kerchief out flat on the tabletop—the kerchief he’d used to dry his face—and placed the blue jar of rainwater on top of it. These were her relics, this her reliquary.

  Dear Mary, Mother of God, you know how weak I am, give me strength in my frailty.

  Clutching her father’s rosary, Petite prayed before the statue of the Virgin until her knees ached. She was still chaste, yet she felt entirely undone. O Mary, give me strength. Never again kiss him, never again look into his eyes. Never again feel his strong, gentle fingers in her hair. O Mary!

  Never again. Never again. Never again.

  The next morning, Petite did not attend Madame Henriette or join in the Court festivities. “I just don’t feel well,” she told Clorine. The very thought of facing Her Majesty the Queen made her stomach tighten.

  “I’ll get the surgeon,” Clorine said.

  The surgeon, a man with terrible breath and no front teeth, pronounced Petite at death’s door. He bled and purged her, charging four deniers. Then Petite had no need to pretend: now she truly was ill and far too weak to rise.

  On the third day, Gautier called. He stood outside the door for some time, talking to Clorine.

  “He’s such a gentleman,” Clorine said after he left. “I think he might be just a little stuck on you.” She handed Petite a worn leather volume. “He said this is for you. He said he was given to understand—and that’s exactly how he put it, given to understand—that you liked poetry. Thoughtful, don’t you think? It’s unlikely, I know, given his status, but maybe he’d forgo a dowry. Such things do happen from time to time.”

  “Clorine, I’m not going to marry the Duc de Gautier,” Petite said, taking the book. If the King wished to send her a personal message, Gautier would be the man he would trust to do so.

  “He’s highborn.”

  “Gautier is not going to ask for my hand, I assure you,” Petite said. It was a lovely little volume covered in tooled leather: Idylls, by Theocritus, in translation. She adored bucolic poetry. Then she saw that a note had been tucked into Idyll four, “The Herdsman.” She slipped it under the covers so that Clorine wouldn’t see.

  When Clorine finally left to get water from the courtyard well, Petite withdrew the folded paper. It wasn’t from Louis, as she had feared (and hoped), but from Gautier. The King wishes to see you, he wrote in a spidery hand. Privately.

  O Mary.

  On Clorine’s return, Petite handed her the book. “I�
�m too ill to read poetry,” she announced. “Return this to Monsieur le Duc, with my regrets.”

  PETITE HAD THE STRENGTH to refuse the King, but she could not control her thoughts. At night she dreamt of him and woke to thoughts of him, imagining that they were back in the forest. The storm passes, and she and the King emerge into sunlight. The Queen has died—or something—and he’s not really King anymore. She calls him Louis, and he calls her Louise. He takes her hand and they walk into the wild, where a wandering priest unites them. They come upon an abandoned forester’s hut, and there they make a home. He takes her into his arms…

  O Mary!

  Petite prayed on waking and continued praying throughout the day, all the time worrying about a fluttering in her heart and other inexplicable changes. Her buds ached and her lower place had become maddeningly sensitive. She was concerned about a discharge. At first she’d thought it was her ordinaries come early, but the fluid was clear. She had some frightful disease, no doubt.

  “Look at the lovely bouquet the Duke brought you,” Clorine said. The scent of carnations filled the room. “He’s going to make an offer for you any day,” she said. “Mark my words.”

  ON THE FIFTH DAY, Clorine handed a small parcel to her mistress. “It’s another book from Monsieur le Duc—but a romancy, he called it, by that Scudéry woman, easier to read than poetry, he said, especially when one is ailing. He thought it might be diverting. I do love the old-fashioned words he uses, don’t you? He’s a highborn man through and through. He’s an older gentleman, true, but he’s young at heart. He’d make an excellent husband for you.”

  Petite nodded distractedly, thumbing through the pages as Clorine chatted on. No note?

  She sank back into the pillows, gazing at her relics—the jar of rainwater, the scarf, the branch of three leaves, one for each kiss. Never again.

  Maybe it was true, what the loathsome surgeon had said: maybe she was at death’s door.