The Secret of the Glass

by Morin, Donna Russo

  THE COURTIER’S SECRET

  A Kensington Trade Paperback on sale at your favorite bookstore.

  One

  “Are you ready, my dear?” Uncle Jules asked, his voice muffled by his protective headgear.

  Jeanne nodded her head, and her own helmet, nothing more then a tin plate with peepholes, wobbled precariously.

  With his own nod, Jules raised his sword before his face, aiming it straight up, like a finger pointing to the heavens, and bowed slightly but respectfully to his niece; the graceful move revealed a glimpse of the swordsman’s prowess. Jeanne mirrored her uncle’s salute and waited, willing her lungs to work, to breathe deeply in and out.

  “En garde!” Jules barked.

  Jeanne straightened her sword arm out from her waist and dropped into a crouch. Her left arm hung high in the air behind her head, the forearm gracefully bent and the wrist curled. The right arm poised half-extended, protecting the waist with the elbow and the chest with the wrist. Her quad muscles quivered with strain and exhaustion, her biceps and triceps burning their rage as she held this precarious pose for the tenth time that morning. The sound of her own breathing echoed back to her as it bounced against the crudely constructed helmet, and she smelled the remnants of the peach she’d eaten for breakfast on the vapors.

  Her uncle moved. Left foot over right; she followed his provoking pattern.

  “Come at me, girl. Come and get me,” Jules bellowed at her, teasing her with the tip of his fine rapier.

  She moved as instructed, changing her footwork to a sequence of aggression.

  “Bon, bon, good, good,” her uncle encouraged her. “Now advance!”

  Lifting the toes of her front foot, she curled her foot up to swiftly step forward with both feet.

  “Advance!”

  Same move again.

  “Advance, advance!”

  Again, twice, first step, a quick one.

  “Bon. Now get ready to go in for the kill!”

  Jeanne felt sweat drip down her forehead, felt it burn as it rolled into her eyes, but she dared not spare a second to wipe it away. More sweat slipped slowly down her spine, tickling her blood-engorged skin, but she dared not take a moment to brush it off. The pain in her forearm burned red hot, the muscles controlling her grip on the pommel refusing to give way. Another parry, another thrust, and she moved a step closer.

  The loud clangs as the long, thin rapiers came together time after time echoed in the hollow, stone room, and she inhaled the musty scent of the creeping dark mold growing where the groundwater seeped in. The old empty chamber in the basement of the grand chateau of Versailles became a void in time, place, and sound. Their bodies were all that existed here, and the small sounds they made became part of the training. Jeanne knew what to listen for, the right ssshing that told of a good slash, a deep grunt from her uncle; now she had him on the run. If he grunted more than she did, it was a good day, like today. A feint, a parry, and she pressed him almost to the wall.

  Today, she thought. Maybe today I will win for the first time.

  Jeanne’s thoughts allowed the smallest grin to tickle the corner of her mouth. Parry, thrust, lun—

  The gong of the chapel bells clashing above their heads vibrated through the entire room.

  Jeanne and Uncle Jules froze in place.

  “Is that—” she began.

  “The chapel calls!” her uncle cried, pulling off his headgear, releasing his long white mantle of hair.

  “I am lost!” Jeanne threw off her own helmet. Her chocolate brown hair spilled about her shoulders as the headgear hit the ground with a resounding thump.

  She threw her sword to her uncle, who deftly caught it by its grip. “Our secret, mon oncle?”

  “You need to ask?” Jules looked at his niece askance.

  With a small smile and a slight shake of her head, Jeanne took off for the door at a run.

  “Tomorrow, dear man, yes?” she called to him over her shoulder.

  “Of course, ma petite.” Jules waved and smiled with fondness at her quickly retreating form.

  Down the hall and around two corners, up one flight of stairs and down three hallways, to the latrine she ran. From the basement of the main building, the small one that had been Louis XIII’s hunting lodge, to the back side of the south wing, just one of the expansions of his son, Louis XIV, she flew. She loosened the small ribbons and strings holding her costume together as she ran. Jeanne Yvette Mas du Bois thanked the good Lord she had spent so much of her childhood in this labyrinth of a castle; she knew every inch of it. Already short of breath, her lungs groped for air as she cursed this most ridiculous of castles. It was 1682, for goodness’ sake. There had been over two decades of renovation work, and there were still only a limited number of privies, and most of those all on this side of the massive mansion.

  In the abandoned corridor, she reached the latrine, closing the door behind her, and instantly felt trapped; it was no more than a box in the wall containing a wooden bench with a crudely covered hole from which emanated the foulest of odors. Holding her breath, she threw back the lid, retrieving the bundle of clothes tied to the underside.

  Jeanne sloughed off the old knickers, shirt, and bucket-top boots that once belonged to her brother, bundling and tying them beneath the lid. Her chest heaved as she gasped for breath depleted by the long and convoluted trek.

  Millions of louis had been spent on Aubusson and Gobelins tapestries but hardly enough privies for half the population living under the glorious roof, and all of them so far away that accidents occurred every day. Uncountable were the drunken nobles or lost visiting diplomats urinating, defecating, or vomiting in any private corner of the mazelike corridors, staircases, or window embrasures in their fruitless struggle to make it to the latrines or a chaise percée in time. The drunks were the worst, their inebriated state dissipating any inhibitions for public elimination. They behaved quite raucously about the whole endeavor. Jeanne found their obnoxious laughter as disgusting as their hygiene habits.

  Somehow, the chateau remained clean; accidents disappeared quickly at the hands of the thousands of servants indentured for just such service. Louis XIV insisted Versailles, now La Maison du Roi as well as the seat of France’s government, be kept immaculate, not the norm for government and public buildings. An adult response to the squalor he had lived in as a child in the Louvre.

  Almost dressed, Jeanne felt the feminine and frilly stockings and undergarments of a wealthy young noblewoman soak up the sweat still flowing from her invigorated glands, and stick to her skin. Her own musky, womanly scent hovered around her, but she could do nothing about that now. To not appear, as she must every morning, at the King’s Chapel Royale, would be to provoke certain misfortune, and there remained but a minute since the first gong of the bell.

  Still lacing up the front of her bodice, Jeanne kicked open the door, banging it harshly against the hallway wall. In the empty corridor, she ran; the hard heels of her bow-festooned shoes clanked against the hard wood floor and the lacy fontange on her head bounced with each step. Up two flights of turning stairs, she emerged next to the Hall of Battles on the ground floor and flew through the door leading out into the crowded courtyard, instantly blinded by the blazing light of the hot August sun reflected off the white marble outer walls of the chateau. It would be unseemly to run, but she walked as fast as possible, her practiced smile firmly in place as she greeted the multitude of people milling about.

  Back into the building, the north wing now, through the small corridor filled with courtiers and commoners—there for a glimpse of their sovereign—quickly to the door of the chapel.

  Mon dieu! The King led the precisely contrived procession up the aisle; the ducs, marquises, and comtes were across the threshold, and the barons stood poised to enter. She had missed her place! She was the daughter of the Comte de Moreuil, Gaston du Bois—she must enter before the barons. To break this code of conduct, one imposed by the King himself, could bring th
e harshest of punishments.

  There was no hope for it; she must do what she must. Wringing her hands, Jeanne bit her full bottom lip, lowered her large chocolate brown eyes, dipped her head, and pushed past the barons and their wives, tight-lipped women who scowled at her. Jeanne knew she would be the juiciest tidbit on the tip of every wagging tongue today, gossip being the second most preferred pastime of the courtiers, just a step behind currying favor. She slipped into the pew where her mother and father sat, but thankfully the Comtesse de Cordierer and her daughter separated them.

  The King, now firmly ensconced in his tribune, took no notice of her late arrival, but the same could not be said for her father. She dared not turn or glance in his direction, for the ire in his eye would surely burn her to the quick. Afraid to look at him, she felt the heat of his wrath surround her like a shroud. Mademoiselle Le Thibault, the comtesse’s daughter, stared at them, wide eyes bouncing back and forth between Jeanne and her father, a spectator at a highly entertaining game. Jeanne clenched her jaw, the muscles flexing under the fine facial skin, angry with herself for giving one such as this fodder for her lurid mill. She did her best to still her wringing hands and twitching foot; taking deep breaths of the incense-laden air, Jeanne felt herself relax.

  Father Herbert, the parish priest of Versailles, took his place at the balustrade font, vestments of mulberry tenting over his vast paunch, tall mitre giving the false impression of height. Raising his arms wide as if to embrace the entire congregation, he launched into his sermon with a booming voice.

  “The people of the noble land of France must thank God and the King for the greatness in which we reside. It is by their power and by their hand that we grow and prosper with such exuberance.”

  He made no reference to the pope or to Rome; no priest serving the crown had any desire to spend the rest of his days in the Bastille. No, this sermon would serve no more purpose than to praise the King. Louis was a champion of Gallicanism, the purely French movement whose intent meant to diminish papal authority and increase the power of the state, specifically the power of the Sun King.

  “Look around you, I pray, for in these very walls is built the power of our great sovereign.”

  The chapel stood as a paradigm of Louis’ affluent dominance: the gold-gilded scrollwork, the beautiful caryatids and atlantes sculptures, and, most especially, the altar painting. Almost as long as the wall upon which it sat, Meal at the House of Simon the Pharisee had come as a gift from the Republic of Venice in 1664, a testament to just how far reaching Louis’ fingers of power stretched.

  Louis XIV sat tall in his velvet seat, large dark eyes raised innocently to the heavens, lids fluttering prettily now and then as the priest spoke so eloquently of him. A small, shy smile upon his face reflected the innocence of a child being praised. It was no secret the King loved to hear himself lauded. No matter the true sagacity of sincerity, words of homage thrilled him to no end. The expostulating priest banged his fisted hand on the pulpit before him, voice rising to a near screech.

  “We must do whatever our King and our Lord ask, for to serve them is our only purpose in this mortal life.” The priest’s face turned red with intensity as he culminated his sermon.

  Louis slumped in his high-backed armchair, shoulders falling forward; clearly disappointed the ingratiating sermon had ended, he lowered his face, the self-deprecating grin fading from the corners of his mouth.

  Jeanne’s hands, poised peacefully on her lap during the service, began once more to wring themselves like a washerwoman wrings a drenched cloth. In her mind she cursed the brevity of the thirty-minute service. Looking down the pew, she peeked to her left and caught a glimpse of her father’s countenance. Her throat caught as she swallowed the burst of saliva. Her father’s facial skin burned crimson red, as if all the blood in his body now congealed under his thin, white carapace. From his brow to the hairline of his white wig, a dark vein pulsed with each rapid beat of his heart, and his jaw clenched repeatedly as if his face pulsed.

  A loud growl rose from Jeanne’s stomach, not from hunger but from the painful knot of foreboding that twisted within her so tightly. She knew what lay in store, knew with assurance that it would be terrible, for she had suffered her father’s wrath many times. She couldn’t avoid the storm heading her way, but she could try to outrun it.

  Jeanne gathered her wide, long silk skirts about her and rushed from the pew, jostling a rotund duchess who stood in the aisle blocking her passage. The prim, powdered woman squeaked in protest, but Jeanne paid her no heed. With a small, sharp turn of her head, Jeanne saw her father push past her mother, the comtesse, and her daughter, meaningless obstacles standing between him and his prey. Jeanne quickened her own steps, trying to decorously outrun him, but he would not be deprived. He came upon her with a few long strides of his short legs and grabbed her roughly by the arm. He spoke not a word but flew down the aisle, teeth bared in an angry snarl disguised as a smile, his daughter in tow. Jeanne curled her spine, slumping, knowing how much it infuriated her father that she stood an inch above him. He yanked her along like a recalcitrant two-year-old, her humiliation mounting at the hundreds of shocked faces they passed.

  Since May and the court’s official move to Versailles, the population had grown exponentially; close to ten thousand people now lived within these resplendent walls. The vast but crowded hallways were crammed with courtiers, commoners, and peasants, some hoping for a chance to petition the King, others merely hoping for a glimpse of him. Past all these speculative and scrutinizing eyes, Gaston pulled Jeanne like a dog on a leash.

  Through one gilded and jeweled salon after another, Gaston marched swiftly along, feet pounding the marble and dark wood floors below, as if, with each step, he crushed them, or his daughter. The long curls of his high, white wig flew about behind him like a banner proclaiming his importance. Jeanne ran to keep up with him, but her heavy skirts and the many layers of taffeta and silk that lay beneath them made it difficult to take long strides.

  Gaston’s grip on his daughter’s upper arm tightened as they perambulated through the palace. She felt the clutch of his hand squeezing her muscles, flattening them to a thin layer of flesh. She felt the pressure of each of his fingers through to the bone, like daggers pressing against her, threatening to puncture her by sheer force.

  Jeanne heard her father’s heavy breathing close to her ear and smelled the wine on his breath. Her own lungs began to burn. Encased in the tightly tied bodice and petticoats, she could take only short, shallow inhalations, and they weren’t enough to fuel the physical strain she suffered.

  With just a few more steps, they were through the Buffet Room and on the staircase leading to the uppermost floor. At the top, the trapped August heat hit them. Père yanked her down the long corridor to the entrance of their suite. Wrenching the door open to the dark, low-ceilinged hallway, Gaston launched his wretched daughter from him. Jeanne landed on the small foyer’s floor on her knees.

  Jeanne turned frightened eyes up to her father and loosened the dark hair falling across her face, rubbing the arm where she still felt the pressure of his gouging fingers.

  “Go to your room,” Gaston growled, his voice like the rumble of a wild animal.

  “Oui, mon père,” Jeanne whispered as she scrambled to her feet. Her legs tangled in the folds of her skirts and she fell again to her knees, the ache of broken blood vessels quickly rising to the surface of her skin. Afraid to turn and look at her father, she tried again, successfully gaining her feet. With three quick steps she made it to her bedroom door, entered the room, and closed the portal. With backward steps she reached the bed she shared with her sister and sat down. Jeanne stared at the door, expecting her father to come crashing through it at any moment. She could not stop the shaking of her legs or her hands. Jeanne pulled her legs up, wrapping her arms around them, and curled her body into a ball as if to stave off the assault she knew would soon come. Slowly rocking on her curved buttocks, she waited and prayed. />
  He paced back and forth in the small room that served the Du Bois family as salon, study, and dining room, crossing the carpet of maroon and gold, arms flaying the air about his head. Adelaide Lomenie Mas du Bois sat as still as possible on the small upholstered chair, silently suffering her husband’s outburst. Adelaide kept her mouth tightly shut, so tight her lips paled, all blood wrung out of them with the force of compaction. To open them would be to suffer much worse than a verbal lashing.

  “It is not enough that she should return here in shame, but that she should flaunt her misbehavior in front of the entire court is an outrage.” Gaston’s face glowed purple, almost black under the white, powdered wig, and spittle flew from his mouth. “I should have begged Mère-révérend Robiquet to keep her at the convent, or begged the King for the money to keep her there.”

  Jeanne heard every word her father said, every growl he made; the almost paper-thin walls did nothing to contain the vocal volcano. She grimaced, recalling the chagrin and terror she’d felt when she had returned to Versailles a few days ago, turned out of the convent where she had spent seven years—seven years of living hell. The salivating tongues of the courtiers dripped with delight at the scandal of the dreadful behavior that had prompted her removal, humiliating her father even more.

  “She is a disgrace to my family, to me, to the King. The whole world knows my daughter has the tongue of the devil, speaking to the nuns as if she were their equal, or worse, their better. Now they know she has the soul of the devil as well. They see for themselves that her behavior is no better than the filthy peasants who beg at the gates.”

  “She is young, Gaston.” Adelaide spoke timidly, golden eyes sheepishly lowered.