‘I don’t understand, Your Grace. What possible reason would I have to lie?’
‘Do you have a habit of avoiding questions?’
‘Only when I’ve no wish to answer them.’
She laughed then plumped her lips. ‘But, just between us, tell me why are you here, really?’ She murmured the words, leaning forward into an area that bordered on the intimate. Sebastian was delirious, overwhelmed by the heat, her scent and colour and closeness and above all her voice. The words were on the tip of his tongue and he felt the relief of finally being able to unburden himself. Her mouth was so close, her eyes so open. Then he flinched at the thought. It was a dream, and dreams signified hope and hope brought nothing but misery. She didn’t care about him. She was using him and he was letting himself be used. Instead, he leaned back in his chair, shook his head and smiled.
‘There’s a question I’ve been meaning to ask, if it’s not too impertinent, of course. But your dislike of the cardinal, it’s well known. I’ve never understood why you hate him so.’
Sensing resistance, she winced with displeasure. She wasn’t used to being refused – least of all by a court dwarf – and when she spoke again, the voice had altered; it was no longer placid, its flow quickening into a sharper pace.
‘I would have thought it was quite apparent. The man seeks only power. He’s tearing the country apart.’
‘You know that’s not true. His only wish is to unite France.’
‘Oh, I’ve no doubt of that . . . but under whom?’
‘The King, of course.’
‘And who controls the King?’
Sebastian paused. He knew she was trying to turn him, but struggled to retaliate, deadened by the heat. All his words seemed to be mixing together, the thoughts boiling away before they could form. ‘We’re at war. We need to pull together if we’re going to survive.’
‘I’m not questioning the war, simply the cardinal. The man’s a monster, can’t you see? He’s no servant of God, just a blackmailer – pure and simple. That army of spies he has. Everyone’s too frightened to speak. Yes, he might be keeping the country together, but only through fear. And what’s the point in that? Forcing his rule on people is only going to make them hate it all the more. He’s not uniting the country, he’s destroying it.’
‘I don’t see that he has any choice. You earn the people’s love through prosperity and peace, not in the middle of a war.’
Chevreuse became ugly with disdain. ‘But why fight at all? Why not just put this damned war behind us? The Queen is Philip of Spain’s sister. We should be allies . . . or consider the prospect at least.’
Sebastian was about to reply that she was blaming the wrong man, that it was the King’s war and not the cardinal’s, but checked himself instinctively. To insult Richelieu was dangerous, but to insult the King was treason. And so he found himself trapped. With every response, his answers were becoming more contorted as she penned him ever tighter into his corner. He needed to escape it all: the heat, the light, the scent, the voice. To find peace and solitude, to remember who he was. Changing the subject out of desperation, he blurted out the first thing that came to mind – her voice.
‘Your accent, it’s from Picardy isn’t it?’ The question was half-hearted and he expected it to be ignored. Her reaction, however, was dramatic. Visibly flustered, she snapped upright and drew her dress around her, wrapping herself in its folds.
‘You must be mistaken.’ The stream was gabbled, without its former flow. ‘I grew up in Brittany. I’ve visited Picardy only once and then only for two days.’
She was lying. He knew the dialect well, primarily through Père Jean, who had spoken a particularly robust version of it. Incredulous, he asked again. ‘Are you sure? You had a governess or childhood friend, perhaps?’
She was not enjoying the conversation and drew it to a rapid close. ‘I’ve already told you, I know nothing of the place. Anyway, I have an appointment with the Duchess de Joyeuse, so I must wish you good day.’
Mystified, he thanked her for her time and left. It seemed a strange thing to be embarrassed about, no more than a rural softness to her vowels. Not that he gave it any thought once he reached the cooling shade of the stairwell. Delighted to be free of the place, he was hardly going to question why.
Outside, in the open air, Sebastian could finally reflect on what had just taken place. Now he understood Richelieu’s fear of Chevreuse. The woman possessed a terrifying charm. That one brief moment when she leaned towards him, the closeness of her had been almost narcotic. Even now, recalling the memory, he closed his eyes and breathed in its warmth. The only thing that had saved him was his appearance. If he had been merely ugly rather than grotesque, he might have started to hope – and then he realised why it was he whom Richelieu had chosen to send.
* * *
Sebastian was skulking in a holly bush, trying to avoid prickles and suppress the pain in his thighs. He had been crouched there all morning, observing the Queen from a distance in the hope of some signal or clue. Knowing better than to return to the cardinal with nothing, he had spent much of the previous four days squatting in the dark, peering through keyholes, once even hiding inside a dog kennel. The experience was made worse by the conversation he had to endure: principally the latest fashions, who was in the King’s favour, any handsome new faces at court, and who was sleeping with whom. In short, a world that didn’t extend beyond the palace walls. At least they were pleasant to look at: so made-up, bewigged and frilled that it felt as if he was watching a play rather than real life, though it was third-rate drama – no more than banal pastiche.
The finale didn’t come until that afternoon, when he found a rather more comfortable spot in the Jardin des Tuileries, from where he was able to watch them meander among the rose gardens, pools and elms. Chevreuse and the Queen were both in white taffeta, their long skirts spilling in folds around their feet. As the hours trickled by, his mind began to wander, giving him the peculiar impression that he was staring at angels – the serenity of the gardens, the whiteness of the dresses, the sunbursts through distant cloud above. A tiny Eden, self-contained, where these women idled in fantasy, oblivious to the miles of squalor and dung beyond the palace walls. Then he noticed a detail out of place. All the woman were picnicking and yet Chevreuse hadn’t sat down. In fact, she had been standing the whole afternoon. It was a hot day and she was clearly tired, supporting herself on a tree while looking wistfully at the ground, occasionally forgetting herself and bending down before snapping upright again. Something was keeping her on her feet. His first thought was that she was injured, but she didn’t appear to be in pain. Besides, if she was hurt, why would she be standing at all? Then he noticed something odd about her dress. The pattern of ripples was irregular, the disturbance of flow like a stone in a stream. It was only late in the day that he realised what it was, when she bent particularly low and he saw a point jut from beneath the fabric. She was hiding something in her petticoats. It was square and flat and the size of a folded sheet of paper. There could be no other explanation. What else would be worth spending an entire day on her feet for?
However, as with many discoveries, it simply gave rise to further questions – principally how to take possession of it. Not only was she a duchess, she was also lady-in-waiting to the Queen. Having her searched was out of the question. Also, considering its location, he had no way of stealing it. The most he could do was follow and hope.
* * *
Observing Chevreuse made a pleasant change from crouching in bushes and picking his way through thorns. When not with Anne, she spent almost all her time at her house by the Rue de Grenelle, allowing Sebastian to watch from the comfort of a nearby inn. As she rarely left the house, he was forced to draw his conclusions from her seemingly endless stream of visitors – a ragbag assortment to say the least. Some were male and well dressed – most likely admirers. Others looked shabbier and frayed at the edges – presumably tradesmen or spies. There were wo
men too, a few of whom he recognised from court, as well as numerous servants despatched on chores and tradesmen trying their luck. Once her husband even appeared at the house, though judging by the brevity of the visit it was out of civility rather than love.
Most of the time there was nothing to look at except the building itself. Over time, he came to learn all its quirks. To begin with, it had seemed bland and unoriginal – a cube of square-cut stone. But slowly he started to see varieties in its greys: the darker shades at the base, where the blocks were wetter and sheltered from the bleaching effect of the sun, and the speckling of the topmost floor, which had evidently been mined from a different quarry. There was the lintel over the rightmost, second-storey window – skewed like some lazy eyelid. Most of all he enjoyed the colour of the facade as it changed with the ending of the day, the stones merging from afternoon yellow into sunset pink before the purpling of dusk and the abyssal blue of night.
On the fourth day, a surprise: the Spanish ambassador. Instantly identifiable from his dress and the point of his beard, he was trying to look inconspicuous and had dispensed with the usual coach and regalia. There could only be one reason for his presence. His master had sent him to pick up the letter in person to ensure absolute safety. A wise decision. Anyone else the cardinal could have ordered to be searched, but arresting a diplomat was too dangerous, the repercussions too great. So, having ruled out any chance of obtaining the letter directly, Sebastian decided on the alternative – to follow the clothes that held it, if only to confirm his suspicions before chancing anything too bold.
* * *
Winter in Paris was hard, long and cold, but worst of all were the windless days, when the smoke that poured from streetfuls of chimneys would gather into a vast, choking cloud that hung over the city, still in the dead air. The dangers were obvious and people would walk quickly, avoiding strangers and dark places, the fog catching their clothes, its tendrils like grasping fingers losing their grip. Even indoors there was no escape, and the vapour would wisp through cracks and keyholes, suffocating the candles and congealing the air.
Unable to see the house from the inn, Sebastian was forced to wait in the street, holding a handkerchief to his mouth as he gazed out from beneath an eave. The stream of visitors had slowed to a dribble and he spent most of his time shrouded in the half-light, surrounded by high and narrow walls that dissipated into the fog. His world was reduced to sound: the clip of a hoof on cobblestones in distant alleyways, the occasional drunken roar from the tavern, the chittering of invisible birds – all incongruous beside the unchanging nothingness. Unearthly, as though he was already dead and cast into limbo, only able to pick out echoes of the world left behind.
The laundress visited twice weekly, arriving at the side entrance with a handcart piled high with clean, folded clothes. After delivering these inside, she would be rewarded with an equally substantial sack of stinking laundry, which she would then dump back onto her cart before returning the way she had come. Due to the bulky load, she travelled slowly and Sebastian was able to follow at a leisurely pace as she trundled her way down the Rue Saint-Honoré and over the Pont Neuf. It wasn’t until they reached the Seine that the view finally opened up before them, the space unfurling as he saw the cloud drifting over the river. Looking up, he had the sense of standing beneath an ocean of air. Cloudy light above, diluting an already muted sun and giving way to undersea yellows and greens before the oily sludge at city bottom, the darkness thickening with the drop. Occasionally he would see the chink of a house, its windows like chewed coral, as the woman struggled onwards, leaning forward as she battled her load. After a long and exhausting hour, she finally reached the Rue des Lavandières and the respite of her hovel, fronted by its washing board and barrel.
Drained from her journey, the woman tipped out the sack by the river, oozing fabric onto the bank, the silks faded in the twilight, broken by the occasional glint from a thread or sequin. Sitting nearby, she rubbed her feet and stared at the river with weary eyes before eventually rousing herself and returning to work, airing the dresses and bodices on a line while stuffing the hosiery to soak in the barrel. He watched them go in item by item: stockings, knickers, chemises and finally petticoats. All were unremarkable and it wasn’t until right at the end that he caught a glimpse, a large pocket stitched above the knee and buttoned tight – more than enough to hold a document.
His suspicions confirmed, Sebastian left for the Louvre, eager to escape the street and return to the sanctuary of his room. Then, a few hundred yards beyond the Porte de Nesle, he was distracted by a swirl of movement in the stillness and looked up to see four figures approaching. Something about them seemed familiar, perhaps their shape or voices, or maybe their gait. He continued to squint as he neared but their forms wavered in the murk and he couldn’t unpick one from another. Then at the point of recognition he stopped. The lace and the flounce. It could only be Cinq-Mars. What he was doing there, God only knew. Returning from some brothel or card game, no doubt. Alongside him were two friends and he was holding the leash of a large Alaunt. At almost the same time the marquis halted and stared back with incredulous delight. The dog was barking and straining at its lead, a mass of muscle and teeth. A second or so passed before the inevitable.
Cinq-Mars glanced down at the dog and then released it. The animal bolted forward at speed and Sebastian ran for the one visible shelter, a time-riddled shack by the river wall with a splintered but closable door. Within a few strides, he realised he wasn’t going to reach it; the creature was virtually on him and his only hope was to grab something to hand. Noticing a broken rod in the dirt, he snatched it just as the dog crashed into him. Managing to deflect the blow, he ducked and fended the creature off as best he could, stabbing and screaming defiance, only for the stick to snap after a couple of thrusts. Then, as he turned to run, the dog knocked him over. He could feel its heat on his body as it lunged for his neck. Rolling away, he flailed for something to protect himself, grabbing a shard of wood and swinging in a wild arc. The response was immediate, a piercing yelp and spurt of wetness on his face. Opening his eyes, he caught a flash of thrashing head and an eye leaking muck, which rapidly disappeared somewhere to his right. Stunned, he stared at the empty space left behind before hearing the yell of approaching voices and remembering Cinq-Mars. Instantly he scrambled upright and fled – not once looking back.
The fog turned out to be his saviour. In daylight he would never have had a chance, but in the gloom it was impossible to follow even someone as slow as him, and after zigzagging across the street, behind a building, down an alleyway and beneath the third wagon to his right, he waited, panting and trying not to cough as the putrid air lodged in his throat. Then, after twenty minutes of dreading every passing footstep, he felt his fear subside into relief and finally boredom. And so, with a final check of the surrounds, he nosed his way back out onto the cobbles, taking a long detour back to the palace, just in case.
* * *
Checking the letter was still safe in its pocket, Marie de Chevreuse took her seat beside the Queen for dinner. Exhausted from standing all day, she cursed her feet and forced a smile. The Comte de Soissons was staring at her again. He was handsome enough but she wasn’t in the mood. Too tired to speak, she closed her eyes and listened to the conversation around her. It was nothing new – snatches of yesterday’s rumours interspersed with the odd, cheap quip. At least there was entertainment to provide some distraction: first the acrobats and tumblers, followed by the dancers, then the dwarfs. Finally, a magician, who went around the table performing card tricks and making various items disappear.
The food was endless: pottages thick with meat and barley, quail, swan, blackbird, plates piled high with fruit, printed jellies, creamed fish that had been moulded into a gigantic fleur-de-lis, the usual profusion of sausage and black pudding, and a swollen capon, dripping juice. All of which she picked her way through, brushing away the flies and moths, finally making her excuses and escaping for
some fresh air. It was only upon standing up that she sensed something was wrong. She could feel a breeze on her shins and thighs, an unexpected chill. Instinctively she reached for the letter and felt nothing. Then she looked down at the pocket and saw a slash of beige running down the front of her dress, flaring at the hem. Mystified, she prodded tentatively with a forefinger. The material yielded to the touch, widening until she could see the petticoat beneath. It was then she realised the cloth had been slit from top to bottom. She fled, horrified, to a nearby room, slamming the door behind her before scrabbling her way through her skirts, pulling them apart like petals down to the final layer where the pocket hung, buttonless and empty, a limp square of cloth. It was gone.
* * *
After leaving the dinner table, Marie de Chevreuse retired to the Queen’s apartments, pale and tear-stained. She began by undressing, removing every reminder of what had happened and leaving a trail of splintered colour across the floor. Then, once she had scrubbed herself down, she put a drop of belladonna in each eye and dyed her hair with orris root. Ruffling through the wardrobe, she opted for defiance, a blaring skirt of red organza topped by a silver bodice. As she looked at herself in the mirror, a different woman stared back at her, and she puckered her lips into a kiss and examined herself from a variety of angles. Once satisfied, she called for a footman. The door opened a few moments later.
‘The dwarf who performed tonight – bring him to me,’ she commanded without looking round.
She had enough time to try on a short, pleated ruff and read an overlong and turgid letter from her husband before the footman returned and announced that Sebastian Morra had arrived.
Still dressed in the same harlequin costume from his act, the dwarf looked ridiculous – a sour-faced monstrosity. Worse still, he didn’t have the decency to look guilty and stared her in the eye. Instructing the servant to leave with a curt thank you, Chevreuse waited for the door to close before making her fury apparent. When the change came, it was stark, her arms locked and lips twisted into a sneer.
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