by Rock, Judith
He plunged through a small door and came out on wooden planking. From its live throbbing, he guessed that it was built over churning gears and wheels. To his left, what sounded like the groaning rumble of all the mill wheels in France smote his ears. Other feet were pounding behind him now and he redoubled his speed, feeling as though his heart were about to burst out of his chest. Below him, on his right, was a long, lower level of flooring and at its end, the river, racing westward under the moon like a fat silver snake. He could see them clearly now. Montmorency jumped down to the lower wooden level, held up his arms, and caught Lulu as she jumped. They ran hand in hand along the boards toward the river end of the Machine.
“Lulu! Montmorency! Stop!” Charles’s feet pounded over the planking, which narrowed suddenly to nothing in front of him. The first of the guards was closing on him and he turned furiously. “No,” he roared, “stay back! Let me bring them in.”
It was his old battlefield voice, and it worked. The last-come guards skidded into their fellows, and they all stopped where they were. Knowing he had only moments before they followed him, Charles gathered his cassock and jumped to the lower level. Ahead of him, Lulu and Montmorency clambered over a low wooden barrier and ran to a rail where the Machine thrust farthest into the river. They stopped beside an opening that led lower still and looked over the rail. Lulu shook her head at Montmorency and darted to her right and out of Charles’s sight.
“Wait!” Charles bellowed, leaping the barrier.
Montmorency was still leaning over the rail, looking up and down the river and wailing, “There’s no boat, Lulu, you said there was a boat!” He turned, saw Charles nearly on him, and flung himself to the right, blocking the way Lulu had gone. His sword was out and leveled at Charles. “Stay back,” he shouted over the Machine’s roar. “Let us go.”
“Not into the river, you fool!”
“We’ll find another boat, stay back!” The boy’s face was grim and hard. Not a boy’s face any longer.
The guards were at Charles’s back now, their torches blotting out the moonlight. Someone tried to push him out of the way and he whirled and shoved back savagely, sending the man to the floor and only then realizing it was La Reynie.
“If they try to swim for it, they’ll drown in the currents,” Charles shouted at the lieutenant-général and the rest. “Let me talk to them.”
The guards started past him, but La Reynie yelled, “Hold where you are, give him a chance!”
Montmorency had disappeared now, too, and Charles, hands open and visible, went to the right, the way Lulu had gone, and found the pair standing together on a small piece of decking at the side of the Machine.
“Come back with me,” he pleaded over the noise. “The king will be merciful. Please, come back with me.”
“Merciful?” Lulu’s laughter was as silvery as the moonlight on the heavy ropes of pearls around her shoulders.
Montmorency had an arm around her, his sword still pointed at Charles. “We’ll marry, we’ll go somewhere else. England. Italy. Somewhere. Let us be.”
“Think! You have no boat, no horse. The king’s guards are here behind me. You cannot go anywhere from here. Come back with me and retrieve what you can for yourselves.” Charles was remembering Louis’s gray stunned face. He’d seen shock and disbelief and anger there, but not the rage that drives revenge. There’d been too much pain for that. The rage might come later, but it was a chance worth taking. “I think you won’t get worse than exile. Even you, Lulu. In exile, you’d still be alive.”
Lulu looked out over the racing water and shook her head.
“Lulu,” Charles said, “I know your secret. I’ll help you. I’ll—”
She looked over her shoulder. Her slight smile was piercingly sweet. “I’ve lived in my father’s prisons long enough. And you don’t know all my secrets.”
She stood on tiptoe, one hand resting on Montmorency’s shoulder, and kissed him. Charles took advantage of the moment to step closer. As Montmorency bristled and warned him off with his sword, Lulu pushed herself up onto the rail. Before Charles could cry out, she seemed to spread satin wings in the moonlit air, and the Machine’s roar swallowed the splash of her fall.
“Lulu!” Montmorency flung a leg over the barrier, fumbling to throw off his cloak.
Charles lunged, got both arms around him, and pulled him backward. “No! She’s gone. There’s nothing you can do!”
Montmorency struggled fiercely. “Then I’ll die with her, that’s all I want, let me go!”
They shouted the same words at each other, like responses in a hellish liturgy, until Montmorency finally stopped struggling and they wept together, huddled in the roar of the water wheels.
“Charles.” A hand gripped Charles’s shoulder. “Charles. Get up now. Come, I’ll help you.”
Blinded by tears and wondering dimly at La Reynie’s calling him by his Christian name, Charles let the lieutenant-général help him to his feet. The two of them lifted Montmorency and steadied him, one on either side.
Numbly, Charles wiped his face on his cassock skirt and, half carrying Montmorency, they made their way back to the path along the river, the guards following. Down on the bank, a huddle of men were shaking their heads and gesticulating, and looking out at the place where Lulu had gone into the water.
La Reynie saw Charles looking and said, “Those are the men who run the Machine. Can you manage Montmorency? I’ll go and see what they’re saying.”
Charles walked Montmorency slowly to the riverside path and spoke to one of the torch-carrying guards, who went for horses. La Reynie came back from talking to the Machine operators. He shook his head.
“They say the currents where she went in are too treacherous for any hope of finding her. And too strong. She’s probably been carried downriver, but she went in so close to the Machine that she could be—” He swallowed and sighed. “Come, let’s get Montmorency back to the chateau.”
The guard had brought horses for all of them. They helped Montmorency mount, but he slumped dangerously in the saddle.
“You’ll have to get up behind and steady him,” La Reynie said to Charles. “I don’t think he can ride alone.”
The guard, also mounted, led them up the slope. Charles rode with an arm around Montmorency’s waist, listening to the fading noise of the water wheels moving the river from where God had put it to where the king wanted it. The wind had died and the clouds had passed by. Charles let his head fall back and looked up at the moonlit sky powdered with faint stars, but for once, the stars failed to comfort him. His mind circled around and around a single question: Where had she gotten the poison?
Chapter 23
When they reached Marly’s entrance court and dismounted, Montmorency was better able to walk. The three of them, followed by the guard, made their slow way in without speaking.
As an elderly footman hovered, the guard took charge of Montmorency, and La Reynie said quietly to Charles, “I will tell the king what happened. But he will want to question you, too. And him.” He jerked his head grimly at Montmorency, who was staring indifferently at the vestibule floor.
Charles nodded in silence.
La Reynie looked at him worriedly. “Are you—can you see him now? Do you need something to drink?”
“I’m all right.”
The footman conducted them to the anteroom of the king’s apartments, where the Duc du Maine and Anne-Marie de Bourbon, both with pale faces and reddened eyes, stood close together against the red damask wall. They watched solemnly as the dirty, sweat-soaked men came in behind the footman, who stopped short when he saw them.
“Your Highness, shouldn’t the child at least go to her bed?”
Maine lifted his chin. “Madame de Maintenon gave us permission to stay. To find out what has happened to my sister.”
“As you wish, Your Highness.” The footman bowed to Maine. He went to the inner door, spoke to the footman who answered, and withdrew.
Anne-M
arie launched herself at Charles and fastened both fists in his cassock. “Where is Lulu?”
Charles looked helplessly down at her and shook his head. “I’m sorry.”
Maine burst into tears. Anne-Marie’s lips quivered and she bit them hard. “She’s dead?”
He nodded, and she let her hands fall and drew in a shuddering breath. She went to Montmorency, who still stood blankly in the middle of the room, and took his hand.
“I am sorry, monsieur,” she whispered, looking up at him with full eyes. “You were her true knight.”
Montmorency seemed not to hear her. He sank onto a footstool and put his head in his hands.
Another footman came with wine. Charles drank deeply. When some of his wits had returned, he said to Anne-Marie, “I know you loved her.”
“You tried to stop her going! You tried to bring her back,” Anne-Marie lashed out at him, still standing beside Montmorency. “Why couldn’t you just let them go?”
“Lulu tried to kill the king.”
The little girl’s dark eyes flashed. “The king drove her to it. She pleaded and begged for weeks, for months, and he cared nothing for her suffering, nothing!” She glanced at the door that led deeper into the royal apartments. “And I don’t care if he hears me. I hate him, I hate fathers!” She began to sob. The horrified Duc du Maine led her to a chair by the wall, patting her back and trying to hush her.
The lieutenant-général drained his wineglass and sat down gratefully. “Your Highness,” he said to Maine, when the little girl had quieted, “some questions, if you please. And forgive my not getting up, if you will. I am three times your age and very tired.”
“Of course, monsieur,” Maine said, becoming his usual politely anxious self. “Don’t trouble.”
“Was it you who took the Comte de Fleury’s mémoire from his rooms?”
“Yes. My sister—Lulu—” he swallowed hard. “She wanted to know what was in it about her. And I took her silver box. But Fleury’s book is gone.”
“Yes, we know where the book is. Don’t worry about that.”
At the mention of the box, Anne-Marie had raised her tear-drenched face and was looking warily at La Reynie.
Charles watched her thoughtfully. “What I am wondering,” he said, to no one in particular, “is where Lulu got the poison. Which I assume she’d had for several days, at least. Because I also assume she used it on the footman Bouchel. For refusing to help her out of the trouble that was partly his doing.”
Anne-Marie and Maine froze, but La Reynie’s head snapped around. Charles said nothing and waited.
“The poison was in her silver box when I brought it back from Fleury’s room,” Maine said dully.
“But she thought it was only a love philtre, I swear it! We all did, maître.” Anne-Marie got up from her chair and came across the room to Charles. “Everyone knew that old Fleury used love charms. He even wrote about it in his mémoire.” Sudden color came and went in her face. “He said he had a love philtre to make some court woman give in to him. We thought that was what the little packet in the box was—his love philtre. Lulu wanted to keep it, but she was afraid someone would find it in her room. So she put it—” She looked quickly at Charles and away. “Where she could get it when she wanted it.”
Suddenly, Charles understood. “And then she started praying in front of Madame de Maintenon’s reliquary,” he said softly.
Anne-Marie said nothing. Charles was silent, too, remembering the night Lulu had quarreled with Bouchel and run to the dark chapel. He’d stood in the chapel doorway and heard a small metallic sound. He’d found Lulu bent over the altar where the reliquary stood, and she’d shown him a supposedly dropped earring to explain the sound he hadn’t asked about. The sound that must have been the reliquary chamber in the cross snapping shut.
“What do you mean?” La Reynie said brusquely.
“I think she hid the little packet there,” Charles said. “In the reliquary. And when Bouchel said he’d done all he could to help her, she went to get her ‘love philtre.’”
Anne-Marie nodded. Her hazel-gold eyes were wide and pleading. “She thought it would make Bouchel do more to help her.” Her voice dropped to a whisper. “She cared about him. She never meant to kill him.”
The Duc de Maine sighed. “When she realized what she’d done, something changed in her.” He bit his lip, trying to find the words he wanted. “I think she felt already damned because Bouchel died—so it didn’t matter anymore what she did.”
La Reynie’s face was noncommittal as he watched Maine. “Why would Fleury have put poison in the silver box?”
“Lulu and I read some of the mémoire together. Fleury hated his rich nephew. He thought the nephew’s money should by right have come to him. He wrote that the omens told him it would very soon be his. And poison is called inheritance powder, isn’t it? Fleury was always horribly in debt.”
“So when Bouchel died,” La Reynie said, “she knew what she had and decided to use it on her father.”
And I thought I was helping her, Charles thought bitterly, helping her accept her marriage. I encouraged her so earnestly to trust that God would not abandon her, even if her father had. She saw the use of the role I offered and played it, seeming to be what I wanted her to be. And I was eager to be deceived.
The door to the king’s reception room opened and La Reynie was summoned.
“He’ll want to see you in a moment,” La Reynie said hurriedly to Charles. “Say as little as you can. Answer his questions. Nothing more.”
He disappeared into the inner apartment, leaving Charles with the grieving children. Anne-Marie sat down on the floor beside Montmorency, and the Duc du Maine kept a wary eye on them both. The guard, who had tried to keep the little girl away from his captive, caught Charles’s eye and shrugged. Coping with Anne-Marie de Bourbon, Charles thought, was going to be beyond most men.
Seeing that there was an untasted glass of wine beside Montmorency, Charles got up and put it into his hand. “Drink, monsieur.”
The young man obediently swallowed the wine. “If you hadn’t come after us, she wouldn’t have died.”
“Others also came after you. You had no hope of getting away.” Charles pulled Anne-Marie to her feet. “Your Serene Highness,” he said gently, “please leave us for a little.” She studied him for a moment and went to sit on a footstool beside Maine. Charles turned his gaze on the guard. “If you will be so good as to stand in the doorway?”
The guard hesitated and then withdrew to the passage door. Charles knelt on the blue-and-gold carpet beside Montmorency. “Listen,” he said softly and urgently. “There’s not much time. The king is going to call us in, and before I have to face him, I must know whether you’ve been helping the Prince of Conti get letters from the eastern border.”
“Letters?” Montmorency looked at him blankly. “I wrote letters to Lulu. The Duchess of Tuscany gave them to her.”
“No other letters passed through your hands?”
“No. Why should there be other letters?”
“Did you know that Lulu had the poison?”
“What poison?”
Charles realized with a shock that Montmorency had not been in the salon. “Haven’t you heard what we’ve been saying here?”
Montmorency shook his head, staring again at the floor.
Charles shook him by the arm. “Listen to me. Lulu tried to poison the king before she ran tonight. That’s why you were followed so quickly. Did you know she was going to do that?”
Horror washed the grief from Montmorency’s eyes. “Poisoned the king?”
“Tried to. She failed.”
“No! I didn’t—I would never—no, she wouldn’t! He’s her father.” He looked at Charles incredulously. “He’s the king!”
Charles sighed with relief. This poor dull knight seemed to have forgotten his own loud denunciations of Louis. His only treason had been to fall in love with the king’s daughter and try to rescue her from th
e king’s will. Stupid. Beyond stupid. But Charles hoped the king would not require Montmorency’s death for it.
“When you speak with the king,” Charles said, “answer his questions truthfully. Don’t defend yourself. Don’t accuse him of anything. Do you understand?”
“I didn’t know about the poison.” Montmorency’s eyes filled again with tears. “I loved her.”
“I know you did.”
The door to the royal reception room opened. “Maître du Luc.”
Charles’s heart missed a beat. He stood up and followed the expressionless footman into the king’s reception room, whose damask walls and hangings were of an even deeper red than the anteroom’s. In the candles’ dim glow, they made Charles think uncomfortably of blood. The king sat behind a small desk. La Chaise stood beside him and La Reynie stood in front of him. Charles stopped short of the desk and bowed. La Reynie stepped slightly aside and nodded at Charles to take his place.
The king’s eyes were hooded, as though what he wanted to say were written on the ebony inlaid surface of his desk. “I am told that my daughter took her own life.”
Unsure of what to say, Charles was slow to respond. Louis looked up, and Charles saw that the blue-gray Bourbon eyes were looking into deep darkness, the darkness of his daughter’s hatred and self-murder and damnation.
“She jumped into the river, Sire, but she may have meant to swim; she may not have known how strong the current was.”
“She knew. She saw the Machine built. She knew how the current ran.”
Charles bowed his head. There was nothing to say to that.
“Did she speak to you before she jumped?”
“Yes, Sire.”
“Tell me what she said.”
Charles felt as though he, too, were about to jump fatally. “She said that she did not want to live in—in a prison.”
The king frowned. “Prison? She thought I would imprison her?”
Charles hesitated. “Yes, Sire.”
“What else? You are not telling me everything. Speak!”