Plague of Lies (9781101611739)

by Rock, Judith

  “You’d swear to it?” La Reynie followed the square-built servant with his eyes.

  “With pleasure.” Charles went back to watching Lulu.

  The younger Polish ambassador, wearing a long-coated Polish suit of tawny silk, led Lulu onto the dance floor. As they made their honors to the king, Lulu smiled. Briefly and sadly, but it was still a smile and given to her father. Then she and the Pole made their honors to each other and she had a faint grave smile for him, too.

  Well, Charles thought, his hopes rising, maybe all really was going to be well. Or at least well enough. The pair danced a lively bourrée, a miracle of fleet precision and ease, and Charles suspected that the ambassador had spent more time practicing than negotiating. As his feet and Lulu’s wove the dance’s balanced symmetry, the pink ribbons and gold lace on her headdress fluttered, and the ambassador smiled happily as his tawny silk coat rippled and swirled around his legs. The Duc du Maine had taken off his mask and was biting his lip as he watched his sister. Charles looked at the king, wondering what he felt as he watched his daughter dance for the last time. As though Louis felt Charles’s eyes on him, the royal gaze lifted to the balcony and rested on Charles for the briefest of moments. With a nod so small Charles couldn’t be sure he’d seen it, the king turned his attention back to the dancers, leaving Charles wondering if he’d just been thanked for his small part in Lulu’s acceptance of her fate.

  When the bourrée ended and Lulu and the Pole had bowed and curtsied to the king, all the dancers rose and formed two facing lines for the buoyant contredanse that signaled the ball’s end. As the lines advanced and retreated and the couples whirled and wound their way up and down, Charles felt himself relax a little. The ball was over. Nothing had happened.

  “They’ll set up a buffet now,” La Reynie said, when the contredanse had ended and the half dozen other people who’d been watching from the balcony were filing out into the gallery. “The musicians will play and the salon will be thronged with people milling and eating. I think you should go down, maître, and continue watching from there. I’ll stay up here and we’ll have each other in sight.”

  Charles agreed and made his way from the balcony toward the stairs. And came face to face with Michel Louvois, the king’s minister of war. Louvois’s round black bulk seemed to radiate anger as he stared at Charles, then shouldered him aside and went toward the balcony where La Reynie was. Charles forced himself to walk sedately to the stairs, berating himself for how much he wanted to run, for how much he feared the war minister.

  The stairs took him down to the north vestibule. A steady wind swept across the floor, and as he went into the salon, it seemed to get stronger. It was oddly disturbing, this wind blowing his cassock against his knees in a closed, crowded room, as though a storm must be raging outside, though at sunset the sky had been limpidly clear. Watching for any sign of Montmorency—and for Lulu, Conti, and Margot—he pushed politely through the crowd, feeling a growing need to keep Anne-Marie under his eye as well. As he passed near Mme de Maintenon, who was complaining indignantly about the wind, he caught sight of Lulu.

  She was standing with her father near the royal armchair, hands folded demurely at her waist, eyes downcast, listening to him. La Chaise, still standing behind the chair, was watching her. The king’s brother and sister-in-law and the Dauphin watched and listened avidly. The ambassadors had drawn a little aside and were talking quietly to each other. As Charles made his way along the north wall, he saw Lulu lift her eyes, smile, and say something that brought an answering smile and nod from the king. She curtsied and went to a table in the corner where a crystal pitcher and a single gold cup stood waiting. As she started to pour a stream of wine dark as blackberries, a wandering, chattering pair of elderly women blocked Charles’s view. He sidestepped them and saw that Lulu stood now with bowed head, hands clasped at her bosom. He took advantage of a gap in the crowd to get nearer, and saw that she was fingering the blue-stoned ring Montmorency had given her, the one with a lock of his hair in it. Charles wondered suddenly if she cared more for Montmorency than he’d imagined. Had she hoped, in spite of everything, that he’d come for her? The ring’s blue stone opened and a deep sigh shuddered through her as she bent lower over the cup. Then she turned, and Charles saw the searing hatred in her eyes as she looked at her father, the same hatred he’d seen at the ball at Versailles. It was gone almost instantly, leaving her face a mask of submission as she carried the cup to the king.

  “Lulu! Lulu, no!” But Charles’s voice was lost in the swelling chatter and music. He fought through the oblivious crowd to reach her. She lifted the cup briefly to her lips. Then she offered it to her father, who took it, smiling at her.

  “Sire! Don’t drink it!” Charles leaped like an attacking wolf, slapped the goblet from the king’s hand, lost his footing, and fell at Louis’s feet.

  Chapter 22

  Chaos broke out and the music stopped. Cries of outrage filled the salon. Lèse-majesté! He assaulted the king’s majesty! Take him, hold him! It’s a Jesuit plot, a Huguenot plot, it’s the English! It’s the poisoner, I saw the cup! I saw a knife in his hand! Take him!

  Charles lay utterly still, not daring even to speak lest the sword points pressing through his cassock and drawing warm trickles of blood under his shirt should press even harder. He had fallen with his head turned toward Lulu, and he looked through the forest of shoes and stockings for her pink-gold skirts. Then rough hands pulled him to his feet.

  Guards from the vestibules held him and a hedge of sword points surrounded him, reflected candlelight running like fire along the blades. Pike-wielding guards and horrified gentlemen with drawn swords flanked the king, who was staring at the fallen cup and the wine splashed like blood across the floor. La Chaise was bent over the spilled wine, watching a fluffy white dog with red ribbons on its ears lapping eagerly at the puddle. Slowly, Louis turned his head to look at Charles.

  “Regicide!” Michel Louvois, the war minister, raised his court sword from the hedging circle to Charles’s throat. “Now we know you for what you are!” His chins quivered with satisfaction. “You see, Sire! I was right about him. A Huguenot sympathizer, spreading his damnable creed at Louis le Grand, plotting—”

  A deep, furious voice growled, “Don’t be a fool,” and a lace-cuffed hand shoved Louvois’s sword point away from Charles’s throat. La Reynie pushed past the war minister to the king. With a quick glance at La Chaise, he went down on one knee. “Sire, there was an attempt on your life, but not by Maître du Luc. Without him, you would be dying now. Look.”

  He pointed, and a gasp went up from the royal family and others close enough to see. The fluffy white dog stood with its head down, heaving miserably. Suddenly it crumpled onto its side, shuddered, and lay still. A woman began to wail, but the others who had seen fell abruptly silent, and the frozen horror of their silence spread through the salon.

  “Sweet wine, Sire,” La Reynie said softly. “Everyone close to you knows you like it. Sweet wine to cover a bitter taste.”

  Only the king’s eyes moved as he looked from the dog to La Reynie to Charles. “Let the Jesuit go.” The guards took their hands away and stood at attention as Charles got slowly to his feet.

  Louvois, protesting, made to secure him again, but Charles wrenched himself away.

  “Sire,” Louvois pleaded, “you are not yourself; you have had a terrible shock! You cannot let this man go—everyone knows La Reynie protects him, and you might do well to discover why!”

  “Not myself? I am entirely myself, Monsieur Louvois. But you forget yourself.” The royal words were full of warning. Louvois blanched and bowed.

  “Find her,” the king said to La Reynie. “My men are at your service.” He raked the gathered courtiers with his eyes and left the salon, taking the speechless Polish ambassadors and the rest of his shocked entourage with him. When he was gone and everyone rose from their bows and curtsies, the courtiers edged toward the doors in their turn, chattering a
nd staring at La Reynie and Charles as they went. La Chaise came to La Reynie. His face was the color of spoiled dough.

  “What do you want me to do?” he said.

  “Set whomever you can trust to watch the doors. If Montmorency shows himself, they must take him and hold him until I return.”

  Nodding, La Chaise looked at Charles. “We are deeply indebted to you, Maître du Luc.”

  Charles shook his head. “I was nearly too late. I failed her, I didn’t see her clearly enough. I wish—” He shrugged, out of words.

  “My failure is greater than yours. At least you saw her desperation.”

  He turned abruptly and went out the way the king had gone.

  As he moved, Charles saw that Anne-Marie de Bourbon was standing near the wall, watching and listening. Before he could go to her, La Reynie said in his ear, “Stay near me,” and called the guard captain, who had been waiting with his men for orders.

  La Reynie swiftly assigned half of them to search the chateau and its surrounding buildings for Lulu, and the other half to quarter the grounds. “I was in the balcony,” he told them. “I saw her leave by the north door. She can’t have gone far, on foot and dressed as she is. When you find her, bring her to me.”

  Anne-Marie whirled and ran for the north door. Ignoring La Reynie’s order to stay close, Charles went after her. He caught her arm as she started down the terrace stairs, toward the streaming torches that marked where guards were already searching.

  Charles shook the child slightly. “Where is Lulu, Your Serene Highness? We both know she left by this door.” He held out the leaf he’d picked up on the terrace earlier. “This dropped from your hair, I think, when we were talking before. I think it came from the place you found for Lulu to hide in. Did you know she planned to poison the king?”

  In the light of the torch mounted on the chateau wall, Anne-Marie’s face was as white and pinched as the king’s had been. “No.” She made no effort to free herself from his grip.

  “But you helped her escape.”

  “Yes.” The rising wind blew her ribbons around her face as she stared unflinchingly back at him, and he realized once more that she was as determined as her grandfather, the Great Condé, had been. But unlike the Condé, she would keep her word, once given, no matter what. And she would scorn a lie.

  La Reynie burst through the door. “Maître, I told you to stay near me; what are you—” He broke off, staring at the leaf on Charles’s palm. “What’s that?”

  Charles nodded toward Anne-Marie, cautiously letting go of her. La Reynie bowed hastily.

  “This leaf fell earlier from Her Serene Highness’s hair,” Charles said. “Like the ones we saw when she was dancing. She admits that she helped Lulu escape. I think the leaves came from the hiding place she prepared for Lulu.”

  Frowning, La Reynie took the leaf from Charles and held it up to the light. “It’s hornbeam. Have you hidden her in the berceau, Your Serene Highness?” But he sounded more puzzled than triumphant. “What good will that do her?”

  “She is not there,” Anne-Marie said disdainfully.

  “The berceau?” Charles said in confusion. “Cradle? How could she hide in a cradle?”

  “The berceau de charmille,” La Reynie said impatiently. “It’s a hornbeam arbor—more like a tunnel—that follows the Marly wall. She couldn’t hide there, not for long. But we’ll have to go and—”

  “Wait,” Charles said. “Your Serene Highness, you say that Lulu isn’t in the berceau de charmille. But you went there. Someone is or was there. Who?”

  She stared back at him like a statue. Until a dog began to bark in the distance and she turned toward the sound, her small face creasing with anxiety.

  “That’s your Louis barking, isn’t it?” Charles listened for a moment, to be sure of his direction. “Monsieur La Reynie, does the hornbeam hedge circle the whole property?” He pointed northeast, toward the barking. “There, too?”

  Catching Charles’s thought, La Reynie said, “It does.”

  Charles ran down the steps. La Reynie, shouting for guards to follow them, was on his heels.

  The wind drove thin clouds across the sky, but a half moon gave fitful light. The two men pounded across gravel, along paths, and straight across the planted parterres when there weren’t paths. The barking stopped, then grew louder, and Charles nearly fell over Anne-Marie’s little black dog. The dog ran around him and La Reynie in joyous circles and then back the way it had come, ears streaming in the wind. Charles raced after it, a trio of guards close behind, leaving La Reynie bent over and catching his breath. A flood of hurrying clouds quenched the moon, and Charles nearly ran facefirst into the hornbeam hedge. One of the guards held up his torch to show a manicured archway cut in the hedge a little way to their right. The guard cautiously stuck the torch through, low to the ground.

  “Can’t see anyone,” he said. “But I hear the dog in there. I can’t take my torch in, the whole tunnel might burn.”

  Charles went in. He could hear the dog off to his left, but he could see nothing beyond the reach of the torchlight at the entrance. Then, as the dog came running out of the green-smelling darkness, the torch flared a little in the wind and something small and bright caught Charles’s eye down where the dog had been. He went toward it, brushing his hand along the hornbeam at the level where he’d seen the thing.

  Behind him, the shrubbery rustled and La Reynie caught up with him, struggling for breath. “It’s like God’s pocket in here.”

  Charles suddenly felt broken branches and then empty space. “We’ve found it; she got out here, the hedge is broken. Is the wall beyond?”

  “Yes.”

  Charles’s fingers closed suddenly on what felt like a ribbon. From the brief torchlight glimpse he’d had of it, it was the pink-gold color of Lulu’s gown. “I’m sure she went out here. Her ribbon’s caught on the edge of the hole.”

  “Anne-Marie couldn’t have made a hole this size,” La Reynie said. “I doubt even both girls could have done it together—they’d scratch themselves too badly to go unnoticed.” He told the guard who’d come in behind him to have men comb the outside of that part of the wall and quarter the ground beyond. The man ran back through the hornbeam tunnel, and Charles and La Reynie squeezed through the broken place. Gritting his teeth against the ache in his shoulder as he pulled himself up, Charles gained the top of the six-foot wall and helped La Reynie up.

  Grunting and swearing, the lieutenant-général jumped heavily down into dew-wet grass on the other side. “I want to think she couldn’t get over this by herself, not in skirts. Even at her age. But that may be only my damaged dignity speaking.”

  “No.” Trying to ignore what hauling La Reynie up the wall had done to his own aching shoulder, Charles was looking intently across the fields and forest sloping away before them. “She didn’t. Montmorency is here, I’m sure of it.”

  Shouts made them look back along the wall. Guards with torches were running toward them.

  “A horse,” the nearest one called breathlessly. “A horse was tethered a little way along there.” He jerked a thumb behind him. “Left its droppings.”

  Charles and La Reynie looked at each other.

  “Can you tell which way it went?” La Reynie called back.

  “Toward the river, looks like.” The guard arrived, panting, his fellows at his back. “Started that way, at least.”

  The guards’ faces showed avid in the torchlight, and Charles thought that this was likely more excitement than any of them had ever seen. Not only an attempt on the king, but an attempt by a royal daughter, a legitimée of France.

  “Get horses,” La Reynie said curtly. “Go both ways around the Machine, down to the water.”

  “Are there boats?” Charles said. “Could they find a boat there?”

  “They could,” another guard said. “There’s a boat or two for inspecting the Machine. They couldn’t go downstream, there’s a dam, but they could get across to the other b
ank.”

  “The machine that brings water from the river?” Charles said.

  “That’s right. Huge thing,” the guard said, “fourteen paddle wheels pushing water up the Louveciennes hill to the aqueduct. For the fountains here at Marly, and at Versailles, too, it’s so close.”

  Charles was running before the man finished talking. The moon came and went, usually going just as he needed it. The ground began to slope downhill as he entered a belt of trees and velvet darkness. He smelled the horse before he saw it and swerved at the last minute, frightening both of them.

  “Lulu? Montmorency?” There was no sound but the horse’s blowing and snorting. Charles bent close and saw that it stood with its off foreleg lifted. He tried to lead it a few steps, and it nearly fell. Lamed and abandoned. Which meant that the fugitives were on foot now, too. He started running again, trying to stay upright as he slithered down an even steeper slope. Away on his right, he heard hooves and saw torches, as the mounted guards approached the river.

  Charles could hear rushing water now and ran toward the sound, caroming from tree to tree in renewed moonlight, using the trunks as handholds to keep himself from plunging headlong. A great roar smote his ears as he came abruptly out of the trees and saw gleaming water ahead of him. The noise was heart-stopping. The Machine, he realized, and started downhill beside a long wooden construction higher than his head. The horsemen and torches were at the bottom of the slope on a wider pathway beside the water.

  Someone reined in his horse and pointed, shouting, “There, look, there they go!”

  Holding their torches high, the guards looked out at the dark mass of platforms and throbbing machinery that thrust itself like a square peninsula into the water. Charles reached the bottom of the hill and pelted across the riverside path, past the dismounting guards, who were tethering their horses and looking for a way onto the vast, multileveled Machine.