Mistress of the Sun

by Sandra Gulland

  “I think he’s a girl,” the boy said, studying Petite as she dismounted.

  “I think so too,” Louis said with a laugh. “Messieurs, please pay your respects to Mademoiselle de la Vallière,” he announced, swiping off Petite’s hat and wig, allowing her golden curls to fall to her shoulders. “Mistress of this château.”

  THE CHTEAU WAS more than a simple hunting box, as Gautier had described it, but small nonetheless. Petite was surprised, in fact, when the keeper’s wife—Madame Menage, a hunched-over woman—informed her that there were twenty-six habitable rooms.

  “Although not much in the way of furnishings,” Madame Menage said, “and that suits me fine. I’m the only woman here year-round, not even a chambermaid.” She spread a toilette over a table and set a tin bowl of water on the cloth. “Will you need help dressing?”

  “No, thank you.” Petite had thought to pack a sensible gown that laced up the front.

  “Maybe I should have put finer linens on the bed,” Madame Menage said, lighting a candle, “but my instructions are to take you to the King, so I didn’t think he would be coming here to do his courting.”

  “No, I don’t think so,” Petite said, flushing. “But perhaps you could take me to him now.”

  LOUIS TOUCHED THE small of Petite’s back. “These were my father’s rooms,” he said, holding a lantern aloft. He was wearing a squirrellined green velvet gown—his father’s, he told her—which smelled disagreeably of wormwood. “And this was his study.”

  It was a dark room, taken up largely by a billiard table covered with a patched cloth. Louis held up the lantern the better to show her the leather-topped writing desk at the far end. Along the near wall were two trunks, with a smaller chest stacked on top.

  Near the door was a four-pillared game table, bone chess pieces arranged on a chequered board, ready for play. The knight was the head of a unicorn, Petite noticed, intricately carved. She had the urge to pick it up, feel its weight.

  “Your father must have liked to play,” she said, glancing over the games stacked on a shelf: backgammon, trou-madame, chess, tourniquet, renarde, moine, spillikins.

  “I don’t think of him as a playful man,” Louis said, leading her into the next room, the bedchamber, “but how would I know?” A fire burning in the grate threw off little heat. He placed his hand on the back of her neck, his fingers lightly caressing.

  The moon cast a cold light through the leaded windows. Petite looked up at Louis, his high cheekbones outlined by shadow. She longed for the familiar security of his arms.

  “He died when I was four.”

  “That’s young to lose a father,” Petite said with sympathy, leaning into him.

  “He wanted to die here, in this bed,” he said, nodding toward the massive four-poster structure, draped in green damask curtains. “But he breathed his last at Saint-Germain-en-Laye.”

  Petite was relieved. She didn’t like the thought of sleeping in a deathbed, especially a historic one.

  “So he didn’t get his wish,” Louis added, his tone sad now, “although he did manage to hold on until the fourteenth of May, the day his own father died.”

  Louis’s grandfather, Henry the Great. How often had her father told her stories of “the gallant Green”? It awed Petite to think that Louis had this celebrated king’s blood. There was much of Henry the Great in him, she thought: his forthright manner, his courage, his goodness.

  “It’s best to die in a bed,” Petite said, thinking of her father, lifeless on the stable floor. She wanted to ask Louis how he felt on May fourteenth, whether he feared Death on that day, but she wasn’t sure how he might take it. “Are there any ghosts here at Versaie?” Every village had its ghost, every château.

  “You’ll have to ask Madame,” Louis said with a laugh. “Although I doubt it. Nobody but a member of the royal family is allowed to die here.”

  How comforting, Petite thought, to be able to rule such things, to be so…so godlike. She recalled the stories she’d been told, of Louis curing the Evil with a touch. How wonderful (and scary) it must be to have such power, the power to heal suffering.

  “Have you ever seen one?” she asked.

  “Only once. My father’s ghost, at Saint-Germain-en-Laye, but in the new château by the river.” He smiled, recollecting. “In the room in which I was born, in fact. It was long past nightfall. My brother and I were having a fight with pillows, feathers everywhere. Our father appeared and told us to go to sleep.”

  “How like a father,” Petite said, laughing with him. She would love to see her father again, even if he scolded her. “Did he look real to you?”

  “Yes, strangely—though we could see through him.”

  “Just as people say.”

  “And then he vanished—a very proper apparition.” He threw up his hands. “But then, of course, we couldn’t sleep at all,” he said, closing the shutters and pulling the drapes against the night spirits. “This thing stinks.” His voice was muffled as he pulled the green gown up over his head. He threw it into a chest and shut the lid.

  “You don’t feel the chill?” Petite asked, her voice thick with love-longing. He was down to his under-linens and already in a manly state.

  “I rarely do,” Louis said, opening the bed curtains and sitting down, testing the stacked fustian mattresses. He held out his hand. “Hot-blooded, I guess,” he said with a teasing smile.

  Petite kicked off her mules and sat beside him. She wondered if she would be staying the night.

  “May I undo your laces, Mademoiselle?” he asked, gently tugging on the silken cord. It knotted, and they groaned.

  “Here,” she said, untangling it, her bodice falling open.

  He pulled her to him, into the bed.

  PETITE WOKE IN the dark room, curled naked around Louis, her cheek on his chest. She listened to his slow breathing and nuzzled into him. He moaned and turned, pressing against her, one hand cupping her breast. She felt him harden against her buttocks. She was wet still, slick with seed. They fell into a slow rhythm.

  “I love you, Louise,” he rasped, clasping her breathlessly. They fell into sleep enjoined, and woke twined in each other’s arms.

  PETITE RODE WITH Louis and his men the next morning. He smiled to see her sitting Poseidon so proudly. The stallion arched his neck.

  Louis motioned Petite to come forward, to ride at the front with him. The men backed up their horses to give her room. He gave a signal and they all set out, ambling at first, then trotting and cantering.

  Entering an open plain, Louis’s horse lengthened into a hard gallop. Petite crouched over Poseidon’s neck, pressed him forward. Soon they had outdistanced the others. Racing back to the château, Petite won by a length.

  “She’s a devil,” Louis said, handing his reins to the gentler.

  “He’s not even damp, Mademoiselle,” Azeem said, feeling the horse’s chest. “If you wish, we could—” He nodded toward the fenced-in arena.

  “I’ve asked Azeem to teach me how to stand on a horse’s back—while it’s moving,” Petite told Louis. “He used to train trick riders.”

  “This I’d like to see,” Louis said, leaning on a fence rail.

  “So far I can only do it at a walk.” Petite opened the gate and led the stallion in.

  “First I just lunge him, Your Majesty,” Azeem explained, fitting the horse with a snaffle bridle and cavesson, and then a surcingle around his chest with leather loops sticking up—something Petite could hold onto if needed. “To get him going smoothly,” he explained, removing the reins. He raised his hand and the horse moved to the perimeter. “Walk.” Azeem raised his right hand and Poseidon circled. Azeem sent a wave through the lunge line and the horse stopped.

  “You’ve got him listening nicely,” Petite said, studying the gentler’s method.

  “He’s strong-willed,” Azeem said. “One must assert authority.”

  “Like with my kingdom,” Louis said, and they laughed.

  Azeem sig
naled the stallion to come to him. “Ready, Mademoiselle?” he asked, tightening the surcingle, checking to see that it wasn’t rubbing the horse’s withers. “It’s best without boots and stockings.”

  Petite glanced down at her feet. Her corset stays prevented her from bending over.

  “Allow me,” Louis said, kneeling to unfasten her buckles and slipping off each boot and stocking. He held one naked heel and looked up at her—teasing. His hands were warm on her skin. Desire inflamed her; they hadn’t coupled since morning. Petite smiled and poked him with her toe, but he was strong; she couldn’t topple him.

  “Azeem, how does one gentle such a woman?” Louis made a playful swipe for Petite, but she dodged him.

  “Your Majesty, I believe you know that very well,” Azeem said, leading the horse to the rail.

  Petite started out at a walk, kneeling on Poseidon’s back and holding onto the leather loops on the surcingle. The stallion’s pace was steady and his back broad, so that soon she could stand without holding on.

  “Isn’t this boring to you?” she asked Louis, but a sideways glance made her lose her balance. She grabbed mane, and he laughed.

  “Stand on the rail this time, Mademoiselle,” Azeem said. “As the horse comes by, step on.”

  Petite landed steadily. “Well done.” Louis applauded.

  “This is the easy part,” she said.

  She progressed quickly through the walk and trot.

  “Mademoiselle, I believe you are ready for the canter,” Azeem announced.

  “I don’t think so,” Petite protested, yet climbed back onto the rail. Poseidon’s gaits were vigorous.

  The first time Poseidon went by, she held back and missed.

  “You have to jump sooner,” the gentler said. “I’ll tell you when.”

  Louis nodded: You can do it.

  This time, Petite got on as the horse cantered by.

  “Bravo!” Louis called out.

  Petite clutched the handles for balance. The trees were a blur. She tried to straighten, but she kept losing her footing. Twice she nearly fell off. “I can’t,” she called out to Azeem, lowering herself onto the horse’s back, her legs encircling his chest. “Ho, boy,” she said, slowing him to a trot, and then a walk. “It’s hard,” she said, discouraged, thinking of the Romany woman of her youth. She’d made it look like the most natural thing in the world—and the most wondrous.

  “It takes time,” Azeem said. “You did well.”

  “I’ve never seen anyone even try to do that,” Louis said.

  THEY DID NOT SLEEP very much that night, so great was their pleasure. Even so, they rose shortly after dawn, mounting their horses and riding into the untamed wasteland. Midday, over a repast—and love, always love—Louis asked Petite question upon question: Did you and your father hunt wolf? bear? unicorn? He was astonished that a boar could be taken on foot, amazed that one good dog could put a hart to bay, that a hare or woodcock could be felled with a well-aimed stick. He wanted to know how her childhood home had been organized, how many cooks they’d had (only one?), how many equerries (none!), how many horses (only five?), what they ate, and when. Petite felt she was an exotic foreign country, and he her explorer.

  As their horses grazed, she told him about her family, her father and her aunt, Sister Angélique. And then she told him about Diablo.

  Louis sat up. “He was truly wild?”

  “He was more than wild,” Petite said. He was possessed.

  “A horse in the wild is a beautiful thing,” Louis said reflectively.

  Yes, Petite thought. She loved nothing better than to watch a horse galloping across an open field, tossing its head and bucking, its long tail flowing in the wind. “He taught me the language of horses.” She felt she could tell Louis anything—anything but bone magic. She didn’t want to tempt the Devil near.

  They set off yet again, exploring marshes, swampy meadows, pits of sand. Petite pointed out the wildlife, the birds especially, for she knew most everything by its call. The place was teeming with game. “It’s a hunter’s paradise,” she said, dreading the thought of returning to the city the next day.

  “Our paradise,” he said, clasping her hand.

  Here, they could roam free.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  “WE’RE GOING TO SEE my mother,” Petite informed Clorine on New Year’s Day. It was about time. She had not been to see her since the Court had returned to Paris. Madame Henriette had been sick with child, so Petite had been busy—but today, the first of the new year, all the attendants had been given the afternoon off. “I’ll hire a hackney for us,” she said, counting out coins. They could walk, but it was bitter, and the lanes would be icy. As well, after fall storms had ruined the harvest, starving peasants had been flocking into the city; one had to be careful.

  Clorine tugged on her earlobe. “Do you have a gift for her?”

  Petite looked over the items she had laid out on her trunk: six brass hairpins, a trinket box, a scent bottle of eau de Chypre—items to be given to Nicole, Athénaïs and Henriette later that evening. In a book stall by the river, she’d found a translation of Xenophon’s The Art of Horsemanship to give to Louis. It would have to wait until they had a moment alone—which seemed impossible in Paris, where people were always watching (the queens especially, and their minions).

  “I’ll give her my gauze shawl,” Petite said, “the green one.” It had been part of her nymph costume for the ballet at Fontaine Beleau that summer.

  They wrapped warmly and set out, well muffed, to a stand of cabriolets. After close inspection, Petite engaged a one-horse open carriage, settling with the driver on a price. The cab was without a head, and not many would venture out in such cold without a cover, so he reluctantly agreed to half the usual rate. The nag looked more like a sumpter mule than a carriage horse, but the driver swore she was sound, so Petite and Clorine climbed in. Yelling out to people to clear the way, he cracked his whip. The old mare took fright, very nearly running over a man in a long matted wig before settling back to a reluctant walk.

  “Here we go,” Clorine said excitedly, holding onto her hood.

  It took forever to cross over the river; the bridge was congested with coaches and dog carts. Once on the other side, the clanging of the iron and wood cartwheels was deafening. On all sides, hawkers reached out to them, selling their wares: caps, songs, shawls, pies…Beggar children were everywhere, swarming for a coin.

  “I have a knife in my basket,” Clorine confided, looking about uneasily.

  At long last, they joined the line at the city gate. Clorine handed Petite a bit of cheese and bread, but Petite tossed it to a child in rags, who bit into it hungrily.

  Petite was relieved when they finally gained entrance to the Palais d’Orléans. It was much as she remembered it: new (as palaces went) and stately. She found it hard to believe that she’d left for Court only seven months before. Much had happened in that time. She had much to be proud of—and much to hide.

  The driver yelled out “whoa, whoa” as the nag headed for the horse trough at a distance from the entrance. As soon as the wheels stopped rolling, Clorine climbed down. Petite handed her their basket, but did not alight. She was apprehensive, suddenly, of seeing her mother. Chastity, humility, piety: these words had been drummed into her as a child.

  “Need a hand?” the driver asked, picking at his teeth with a dirty nail.

  “No, Monsieur,” Petite said, resolutely jumping down.

  The butler at the entrance sent a torch boy to see if Petite’s mother was receiving. The boy returned huffing and puffing—“Yes! she said”—and they headed down the long gallery and up the winding stone stairs into the turret.

  At the door, Petite paused. Inevitably, there would be a discussion about finding a husband for her. “Clorine, don’t say anything to my mother about Monsieur le Duc de Gautier,” she whispered. “It’s privity for now—and you know how my mother talks.” The secrecy and subterfuge seemed never-ending, o
ne falsehood leading to another, and another.

  Clorine nodded conspiratorially.

  Françoise opened the door herself and gave Petite a vigorous embrace. She’d become rounder since Petite last saw her. “What a surprise,” she exclaimed, fussing with her coif and tucker.

  Petite kissed her mother’s powdery cheek, inhaled her vanilla scent, unexpectedly moved. Her mother’s face was lined with wrinkles.

  “Pity the Marquis isn’t in,” Françoise fussed, but noting with interest the mouche on Petite’s chin, the fashionable details of her gown (the wide chemise sleeves runched with ribbons, the long, pointed stomacher).

  “Yes,” Petite said, but relieved. She’d not brought her stepfather a gift.

  Françoise sent her maid for posset and sweetmeats and they settled in the chairs by the fire, exchanging news: Petite’s duties at Court (not too demanding), the weather that summer (hot and stormy), the Marquis’s health (dropsical), a letter from Jean (bored in Amboise and short of money).

  “I almost forgot.” Petite glanced back at Clorine, standing by the shuttered window. “The basket?” She reached in for the shawl. “For you—for the new year.”

  “I love it,” Françoise said, holding the thin tissue to the light, “but where will I wear it?”

  “Wear it now,” Petite said, arranging the fabric around her mother’s shoulders. “It looks pretty on you.”

  Françoise stilled Petite’s hand with her own. “You should not be spending money on fripperies, Louise. How much have you saved toward your dowry?”

  “A little,” she lied, feeling the blood rush to her cheeks. Surely her mother could see right through her, could sense, with a mother’s instinct, the momentous change that had taken place in her daughter, know that she was no longer a girl, but a woman—and a fallen woman at that, a woman who knew what it meant to swoon in her lover’s arms.

  “Your brother has been looking out for a husband for you.”