Fires of Delight

by Vanessa Royall

  “Enschuldigung,” she said, hiding her face with her hands. “Enschuldigung sie, bitte.”

  It seemed to be some sort of an apology, in a language Selena did not know.

  “I’m sorry for intruding upon you,” said Selena in English. “Are you all right?”

  The girl stopped crying, and regarded Selena with interest.

  “You’re English?” she asked.

  “No. Scots. My name is Selena. I couldn’t help but wonder what is troubling you so.”

  “I have not seen you here before,” said the girl, still in English but with a heavy trace of guttural accent.

  “I’ve just arrived. I’ll be a guest for a short time.”

  The girl showed signs of starting to cry again. Whatever troubled her seemed monumental indeed.

  “Come, sit down with me,” said Selena, taking her hand. They walked over to a nearby bench and took seats in the warm sun. The girl was rubbing her eyes, looking miserable. Selena asked the obvious question: “What causes a lovely child like you such woe?”

  She feared that perhaps someone the girl knew had died, in which case there was little but words she could offer, or that an episode of early love had suddenly turned sour. That would be a lot easier to treat. A little time, a new beau…

  “Thank you for being so kind to me,” the girl said, in French now. She dried her eyes on her sleeve. “It is just that I learned a bit of awful news this morning from the Queen. You see, I am Francesca of Austria, niece of Marie Antoinette.”

  Now Selena understood. The tongue in which Francesca had initially spoken was German. She debated whether or not a curtsy of obeisance was in order, and decided it would be a bit ridiculous since she and the princess were already conversing. Moreover, the girl was preoccupied with something far more important than protocol.

  “Yesterday the world was bright,” said Francesca, with the somber portentousness of youth, “but today it is as black as a pit.”

  “And tomorrow it may be bright again,” observed Selena.

  “Oh, no! You see, I was on my way from Austria to England for my betrothal to Prince William, one of the King’s sons. The best one! But now I must stop here for God knows how long. Aunt Marie informed me that the situation is too dangerous for further travel. She said I might be kidnapped. But I miss William so, and if I do not reach London, he may change his mind. He may decide upon someone else…”

  She began to cry again.

  Selena, regretting that she did not have a handkerchief, pondered the princess’s words. She had been chosen to marry Prince William of England, for whom the warship that had killed Royce Campbell had been named. The world was not only small, but webbed with mysterious filaments of time and chance. Her heart went out to the girl, however, separated as she was from the one she loved. Selena herself had suffered enough such separations to know full well the bleak aloneness, the feeling of pointlessness and impotence such trauma engendered.

  “Nothing lasts forever,” she said feebly.

  It was the wrong thing to say. “That’s what I’m afraid of,” replied Francesca, crying harder.

  “Oh, dear,” thought Selena. “What I meant is that this political travail must end sometime.”

  “But what if that’s too late?”

  The victims of woe have an answer for everything, and each answer contributes to their misery.

  “Are you unsure of William?” asked Selena, trying another tack. “Because if-that’s true—”

  “No. Oh, no. We love each other more than any two people have loved each other from the beginning of time.”

  “Of course,” agreed Selena.

  “I’ve loved him ever since I met him last month in Salzburg—”

  “Last month,” said Selena.

  “—and I simply must get to London for our betrothal. But Aunt Marie and Uncle Louis will not permit me to go just now.”

  “They are thinking of your welfare.”

  “No. If they were then they’d find a way to get me to England.” She managed to stop crying. “So I’ve made a plan,” she said conspiratorially.

  “May I ask what it is?”

  “You won’t give me away?”

  “I swear it.”

  Francesca glanced over her shoulder to see if anyone was around. So did Selena. She saw the Molines and Martha Marguerite coming out of the palace and onto the terrace, but they were still quite a distance away.

  “I’m going to go on my own,” the princess confided. “I’m going to disguise myself as a commoner, perhaps as a peasant or some such, and make my way to England.”

  Selena, who knew something of what the world was like, and who knew too the incendiary situation in Paris, was aghast. For all her spirit and resolve, Francesca was an innocent young girl, cosseted and protected since birth by the vast embracing comforts of privilege. The world outside Versailles would chew her to pieces, and if anyone found out that she belonged to the royal family, she would be doomed.

  Yet Selena also had the shrewdness to judge that the princess was strong-willed enough to carry through with her disastrous scheme. If I try to convince her that she’ll fail, Selena reasoned, I’ll only augment the stubbornness of her intent.

  “May I make a suggestion?” she asked carefully.

  There wasn’t much time, for the Molines and Martha were coming toward them.

  “What is it?” asked the girl.

  “I may be able to help you,” said Selena, quietly and quickly. “Can you wait until dinner this evening before you set about your plan to leave?”

  “Why should I?”

  “Just until I can consult with a few people—”

  “But you promised not to tell!”

  “And I won’t. But I may be able to acquire information that will make things easier for you.”

  Selena had no idea what this information might be, nor whom to consult. But the ploy sounded plausible, and she wanted to protect the princess from herself.

  Francesca thought it over. Perhaps in a lucid, rational part of her mind, she was aware of the danger in the plan she’d proposed.

  “All right,” she agreed. “I guess I can wait until this evening. Traveling at night will be safer anyway.”

  Good lord, Selena thought. Safer at night?

  Martha and the Molines reached them then, the eyes of the couturiers opening wide as they recognized Francesca.

  “Your Highness!” exclaimed Marc, dropping to one knee.

  The imposing Zoé curtsied nervously, like a girl.

  Martha Marguerite followed suit. She did not know who Francesca was, but the presence of royalty demanded its due.

  After some brief chatter, the princess departed with a cool, impressive display of hauteur. One could not have guessed that, only moments earlier, she’d been crying her eyes out.

  “Do you know who that was?” Zoé asked Selena, looking after the departing Francesca in awe. “She may very well be the Queen of England one day!”

  “And I designed that frock of hers,” said Marc happily. “It becomes her, don’t you think?”

  Martha, by now aware of the girl’s identity, stared at Selena respectfully. “Whatever did you talk about?” she asked.

  “Oh, not a great deal. This and that.”

  “My dear, one does not speak of ‘this and that’ with a princess of the blood.”

  “Nevertheless, that is what we did.”

  Not entirely convinced of this, the three joined Selena in a walk through the stunning gardens.

  “If we could stop time now,” Martha said whimsically, “if we could just stop it now and never go on another moment, I vow I’d be absolutely content.”

  The Molines agreed. But Selena said nothing. Across the countryside, between the spires of little churches and over the roofs of peasant huts, she heard the measured, implacable chant of the approaching mob, not pleading but demanding, “Bread! Bread! Bread!”

  Presently, as the foursome strolled, Zoé took Selena’s arm and
guided her away from Marc and Martha Marguerite.

  “My dear,” she said, “are you ready?”

  “Ready for what?”

  “It is all arranged,” whispered Zoé excitedly. “This evening we will first dine, and then the ball will commence. The banquet will be intimate, just ourselves and the monarchs and a few others. But at the beginning of the ball, to which a great number have been invited, certain honored guests will be announced.”

  “Yes. So?”

  “After these people have been presented and just as the dancing begins, you will retire from the ballroom for your assignation with the King.”

  “My assignation with…” exclaimed a startled Selena. Zoé had alluded to something like this back in Paris, but Selena had heard nothing more about it, and was glad that she hadn’t. “What on earth gives you the idea that—?”

  Madame Moline looked hurt at first, then angry.

  “Don’t tell me that you are going to be difficult, you silly goose! After all the trouble I went through. Why, if you play your cards right, His Majesty may actually follow through on his promise.”

  “What promise?”

  “Selena, I had thought that you were canny. I hope to God I have not been mistaken. You see, Martha has told me of your desire to return to Scotland. You have a home there, or some sort of castle, to which you want to repair. But, as I gather, this is impossible because you are considered persona non grata by George III—”

  “All of that is true,” said Selena, exasperated. She had no idea why her problems should be of interest to Zoé Moline.

  “Well,” said Zoé, “I have mentioned this to the King. If he likes you, if you please him, he told me that he might be inclined to offer a word in your favor.”

  “And that ‘word’ will mend my fences with England and win me the return of Coldstream Castle? To whom will he make these felicitous remarks about me?”

  “The British diplomat, Lord Sean Bloodwell!” exclaimed Zoé triumphantly. “It is said that Lord Bloodwell has great influence with the English monarch.”

  Dressing for dinner that evening, Selena was vexed and distracted. Although she had informed Zoé that she had no intention of going to bed with the King, Madame Moline had brushed aside the declaration as if it were a puerile quibble which Selena would soon reconsider.

  What would Sean think of me, Selena asked herself, if he learns that I have attempted to sleep my way back to Coldstream Castle? The very idea was preposterous! If I must be with His Majesty, she decided, trying to select an appropriate gown for the occasion, I will simply have to level with him and tell him that a great mistake has been made.

  Which is unlikely to make him happy, she realized bleakly.

  Marc Moline had made so many garments for her that choosing just one proved impossible, especially in her current mood of perplexity and unease. So she closed her eyes, reached out, and grabbed the first dress, on its hanger in the wardrobe, that touched her fingertips. It was just the thing to suit her state: a striking but rather somber jet-black gown. “Ah, you should see the way it sets off your hair and coloring!” Marc had exulted. It was bare at the shoulders and back, beaded at the bodice, and with a skirt sufficiently voluminous to dance in, should anyone ask her.

  At this moment, she did not care if anyone did or didn’t.

  She put on the gown, applied makeup, a touch of rouge, and then brushed her hair. It was difficult to concentrate. The mob of women and men dressed as women had arrived at Versailles, swarming all around the palace walls, held back by the army and the Royal Guard. Their numbers and the dull menace of their ceaseless cry for bread upset her with their implied suggestion of imminent violence. She stepped toward the window and looked out into the twilight. There were thousands of demonstrators amassed along the walls, shouting and shaking their fists in promise of mayhem. Selena could not believe that the King and Queen were actually going forward with their plan for a dinner and a dance. It seemed an added affront to those desperate people outside. Perhaps the monarchs thought, if only they proceeded as though things were as always, the crowd would go away. Perhaps they thought, in some dim recess of the autocratic brain, that the mob deserved only the contempt of casual arrogance.

  Or perhaps—just perhaps—Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette were simply not thinking at all.

  Watching the increasingly more troubling scene, Selena saw how the Guard officers rode their horses up and down the line of demonstrators, exhorting their troops who were trying mightily—and thus far successfully—to keep order. Then a woman suddenly slipped between two soldiers and ran toward the palace wall. She was caught and wrestled to the ground, then returned to her frantic companions.

  One woman. But she had reached the wall.

  Selena felt the ghost of a premonition awaken and stir far back in the corners of her mind.

  But no. This was Versailles. It was impregnable.

  Wasn’t it?

  Beyond the mob, in the distance, sat General Lafayette on his white stallion, and behind him, at rest, waited the troops of the National Guard he commanded. They were making no effort whatever to aid the army.

  Selena knew enough about politics and political authority to conclude that Lafayette was very sure of his ground. He was waiting for something. Her premonition grew stronger. Fate was out there in the gathering darkness, waiting too upon this October night.

  There was a knock on her door. Selena, thinking it was Chloé come to summon her to dinner, pinched her cheeks, bit her lips, and gave her shining hair a final brushstroke. “Come in,” she said.

  Zoé Moline entered, all bubbly and gay. Her face fell when she saw the dress Selena had chosen. “That?” she mourned. “After my husband outdid himself to make you so many dresses much better suited to this occasion?”

  “This is the one I have decided upon,” snapped Selena, in a tone that brooked no disagreement.

  “Well, all right. But wait a moment before we go down to the banquet. I wish to tell you certain things that will aid you in giving pleasure to His Majesty.”

  She’d decided that Selena had come to her senses, and would offer no protest when Louis XVI sent for her.

  “As you know,” Zoé babbled, “His Majesty was impotent until he had surgery. But since that time he has been, shall we say, making up for earlier deprivation. He enjoys pleasure in all ways, sometimes, I do declare, in the Greek fashion. Do you know what I mean?”

  Selena did, but the fashion did not appeal to her at all.

  “Well, a woman with your looks surely knows the ways,” Madame Moline rattled on. “Just do whatever he wishes. And mind, he likes a jolly bedmate. He likes to laugh.”

  “Then perhaps I shall tell him some jokes,” said Selena dryly, moving toward the door. “For example, what do they call a king who has lost his head?”

  “Why, I don’t know,” replied Martha, somewhat uncertainly. If this were a joke, Selena seemed quite grim about it. “What do they call a king who has lost his head?”

  “Dead,” said Selena.

  Outside, the women chanted.

  “Bread! Bread! Bread!”

  16

  Walpurgisnacht

  On the way to one of the more intimate dining rooms at Versailles, so vastly different from the stupendous halls designed for banquets of state, Zoé Moline was in a stew. Did not her protegé, this straight-eyed, straight-talking Scots exile appreciate the honor that was being bestowed upon her? Oh, it was true that in a pleasure-loving court such as this of Louis and Marie Antoinette, just as with the English Stuarts and the Russian Romanovs, barriers of blood and rank were frequently honored in the breach. Even if possessed by mere commoners, a great artistic talent, a cardinal’s hat, a ready wit, or a pretty face and a provocative behind, were more than sufficient for admission. But—fumed Zoé as Selena walked along beside her—this lofty, violet-eyed Scotswoman would not even be here were it not for Marc and me, were it not for Madame LaRouche’s lineage!

  Well, when she got
into the bed with His Majesty, she had just better roll whichever way he wished, and do what she was born for!

  It occurred to Zoé, briefly, that perhaps Selena was truly in a state of romantic love vis-à-vis her absent fiancé, Monsieur Beaumain, a condition which might make it difficult for her to consider bedding another man. But the King was not simply another man, and anyway no intelligent woman of the modern age would pause to think twice about such a tedious scruple.

  Zoé hoped His Majesty would want Selena in the Greek way. It would be a good experience for the girl.

  And—thinking of something else—why didn’t His Majesty confront and disperse that awful horde of rabble shrieking their fool heads off outside the palace? The whole situation was disgusting, that was what it was!

  All that yowling could ruin the whole evening.

  Upon reaching the dining room, Selena and Madame Moline were shown in and seated at a rather small round table, on which gold plate and crystal shimmered like the chandeliers overhead. Save for their royal majesties, the other guests were already present: Monsieur Marc, Martha Marguerite, the Princess Francesca looking anxious and wan, and a beak-nosed, dull-eyed naval officer with a duelling scar down his left cheek. He was introduced to Selena as Captaine Jacques Pinot-Noir. She was seated between Captaine Jacques and the princess. Captaine Pinot-Noir eyed the new arrival concupiscently; Francesca tugged at Selena’s sleeve.

  “Have you learned anything that will help me get out of here?” she whispered.

  Selena was just about to fabricate a reply when a splendid steward appeared at the door to announce: “Ladies and gentlemen, His Royal Majesty, King Louis, and Queen Marie Antoinette!”

  Everyone stood.

  Selena had read the ancient legends. Her idea of a true monarch was King Arthur. And except for the unfortunate fact that she’d been British, Elizabeth Tudor seemed the paragon of a queen. Oh, Marie Antoinette was attractive enough, fair as to coloring and features, with a high forehead and good hands, but she had a vapid, inconsequential air about her that was unappealing. It was true that she’d had to enter this marriage as a pawn in the greater political schemes of Europe, and it was true that, as a foreigner, she was unpopular. But a queen, thought Selena, could at least carry herself as such.