Before Versailles (58 page)

P
HILIPPE RAN THROUGH
antechambers, never minding the curious looks sent in his direction. He threw open a door without knocking, and Guy, standing at a window in his chamber, a fully packed trunk at his feet, glanced at him.

“I was waiting for you.” Guy turned back to the view out the window.

“You don’t have to leave! I’m not angry. I never was.”

“My father commands it.”

“I’m overriding his command!”

“You may not do that.”

“But I can! I am!” Philippe fell to his knees, held out his arms. “Don’t leave. I’ll go to your father; I’ll change his mind.”

“His mind doesn’t change, my prince.”

Philippe grabbed one of Guy’s hands. “Stay for one more day. I’ll go this afternoon to your father. I’ll explain—”

“What? That it is permissible to treat a child of France the way I treated you? Even I am disgusted by what I did.”

“Whatever I allow is permissible. You are my dearest confidant, and I would be lost without you. I would be—”

“And will you change your brother’s mind, too?”

“My brother’s?”

“It was he who summoned my father, who pointed out—quite rightly, I suppose—that my most recent behavior was disrespectful to a prince.”

“But I don’t care! It’s over and done with. What we do between ourselves is our affair. His majesty knows that.”

And when Guy didn’t respond, Philippe began to plead, “Don’t go!”

“Get up off your knees. You know I hate it when you beg.”

Philippe stood, tears rolling down his face. “I feel like I am holding onto my wits with my bare hands, that any moment I am going to explode and there would be nothing left of me. You mustn’t leave me!”

“I have to. I’m in love with your wife, you know. That makes me dangerous.”

“I don’t care. Take her! Just don’t leave me!”

“At this moment,” Guy said, “I despise you. A proper man would call me out!”

“But I’m not a proper man.” Philippe had begun to sob. “I never have been, have I? I’m just silly, useless Prince Philippe who loves you with all his heart. Don’t leave—I don’t mind if you love her. Everyone else loves her, too. I’ve married a little paragon. Isn’t that hilarious, Guy? Philippe the sissy, Philippe the queen, Philippe the half-man, is married to the most desirable woman at court! A waste for both of us—”

Guy had stepped back against the window. His face looked wild, as if he would have jumped out the window, if he could.

Philippe threw his arms around Guy. “We’ll go have a bottle or two of wine, and laugh at this. I’m over her. I thought I loved her, but I don’t! Let me have an heir, and she’s yours. I give her to you. Just don’t desert me, my friend, my beloved, don’t leave me here among the jackals—”

Guy slapped him across the face. “How dare you speak so about the woman I love? You aren’t worth the lace on one of her sleeves. You’re nothing! A worm! A coward! A despicable creature that we all laugh at among ourselves.”

“Don’t—”

“Don’t what? Speak the truth? Are you not even man enough to hear truth?”

“You’re saying this because you’re angry. You’re always cruel to me when you’re angry—”

“And sometimes when I’m not, yes? And you always take it! Have you ever thought about killing me for my conduct?”

“I never think about hurting you.”

Some of his despair conveyed itself to Guy, who took a moment to find command over all that was in him, a mixture of anger, sadness, reproach, and disgust. “Don’t love me,” he said, his hard, handsome eyes staring past Philippe at some distant speck, some future in which Philippe played no part.

“One doesn’t choose whom one loves, does one?”

Guy laughed, the sound was bitter. “Apparently not, since I’m in love with your wife.”

“It’s because I’m not on the council, isn’t it? I’ll demand he give me a place, and you’ll be by my side—”

“You never made him afraid of you. He doesn’t respect you. He made a fool of you with his flirtation with your wife. Now, no one respects you!”

Words were in Philippe’s throat, begging words. I know you loved me once upon a time, he wanted to say. I can wait until you do so again. “I love you so,” he whispered and could only watch as his friend, his beloved, his true heart shook his head in contempt and walked past him out the door, out into the hall, and even though Philippe knew he shouldn’t, knew it would only bring more harshness, he ran after him. He threw himself on Guy’s back. “Stay!”

Guy unclasped Philippe’s clinging hands and let him drop with a thud.

“Oh my darling, don’t leave like this—”

But Guy walked on down the hall. My heart is breaking, Philippe thought. It is splintering into pieces right here inside of me, and I shall die with the pain of it. He put one hand to his chest and leaned against the wall, breath jagged and cruel. I am a despicable thing, he thought, a thing nobody can love.

Footmen gathered around him, none of them daring to touch him, and one of them ran to find the Chevalier de Lorraine.

Philippe gasped like a fish thrown on shore. Prince, heir, child of France. None of that matters, he thought, because I am despised, a faggot in the eyes of the people I love most in the world.

“Go! Leave him to me. Be gone. All of you!” The Chevalier de Lorraine waved a handkerchief at the footmen. Carefully, as if Philippe were ancient porcelain that would shatter at the least touch, he took him by the hand.

“Come, my darling,” he said, as soft, as kind, as honey-voiced as any mother soothing a distraught, grieving child. “Come with old friend Lorraine, now. There’s a good boy, a good prince.” And he led him away—Philippe stumbling and sobbing—away from eyes and ears to someplace quiet, and he stayed with him while Philippe wept, and held the chamber pot for Philippe to spit his guts into afterward, and when that was done, he dipped his handkerchief in scented water and wiped Philippe’s mouth with it.

“That’s a good boy,” he repeated to Philippe’s white, desolate face. “The best boy in the world.”

H
E FOUND
L
OUIS
in one of his chambers in the midst of a meeting of the ministers, as well as Colbert. Papers were spread over a table, and they were absorbed in their task. Collection of taxes, thought Philippe.

Louis looked up and saw his brother’s face. A miscarriage, he thought, Henriette’s had a miscarriage. He stood and reached out his hand.

“How dare you send one of my household from court!”

Louis flinched. Philippe was shrill. He was going to throw one of his tantrums. The men in the chamber hurriedly gathered papers, bowed themselves out as quickly as possible.

“It wasn’t your place to do so! He’s my dearest friend!”

“You let him treat you like a lackey!”

“It’s my place to decide how I’m treated!” I sound like a screaming Paris street queen, thought Philippe. It was as if he stood above himself and watched the creature below who shouted.

“It’s my place to decide, as king of this realm,” said Louis. “It’s my court. Everyone here is here because I wish it! And I no longer wish the presence of the Count de Guiche!”

“But I do!”

Louis went to a drawer, wrenched it open, brought back a piece of paper, began to read the words on it. “—the count then demanded that the prince lick his boots, and the prince crawled to him on hands and knees and did so. ‘The bottoms, too, said the count’—” Louis stopped, looked at his brother. “Must I read more? Because there is more if you wish to hear it.”

Philippe didn’t answer, and Louis noticed the bruise forming on his face. “What’s that?” he demanded. “Did he hit you? By God, I’ll have him thrown in the Bastille if he so much as laid a finger on you!”

“He didn’t like my sobbing. I sobbed like a girl. I begged and wept and went on my knees.” Relishing the fact that he was repelling his brother, Philippe knelt the way he had before Guy. “That’s the child of France I am. I would lick his boots and more any day of the week. I have!” He smiled.

Louis held up a hand to blot out the sight of Philippe’s face. He could find no love for his brother in this moment.

“Bring him back. I am begging you!”

“No.”

Philippe put fists to his eyes and began to moan. The sight of it was so like the boy that for a moment Louis couldn’t move. Doors swung open, and a musketeer, one hand on his sword, ran forward, but Louis stopped him with a gesture. He knelt down. Philippe sounded like some wounded beast for which there was no respite. In desperation, Louis put his arms around his brother, and in the surprise of that, Philippe became silent.

Louis stroked his brother’s hair, curlier, thicker than his, always. There were so many ways that Philippe was more beautiful than he was. His heart was kinder; he was the first to see a jest, the first to sense another’s sadness. He loved Philippe, and yet he always hurt him. Some of it was intentional, some not. The weight of that behavior felt crushing. He kissed Philippe’s forehead, held him tight. “Don’t weep, my brother, my dear one. Don’t weep. It breaks my heart. I love you. Don’t weep.” He said the words over the pain in his chest, the constriction in his throat.

“You took my wife from me.”

Guilt pummeled. “I didn’t! I haven’t! There is nothing between us that shouldn’t be. I’m guilty only of admiring her too much. I apologize for that.”

“You lie.”

“I don’t. I swear it on my unborn son’s heart.”

“Bring him back!”

“No.”

“I beg you!”

“It isn’t fitting. He may not act the way he does.”

“That’s why you hate him, isn’t it? Not because he sometimes treats me badly. You hate him because he doesn’t bow to you.”

Louis dropped his hold, stood. “Leave my presence.”

Slowly, as if it were a very difficult thing to do, as if he had to think about each gesture the way an old man would, Philippe stood. “He won’t bow deeply enough for you, will he?” His voice was hoarse. “You won’t rest until you’ve broken us all, will you? Well, congratulate yourself, brother. I am broken.”

“Get out! Now!”

When the door shut, Louis sat down in a chair. God forgive him because he didn’t know when he was going to be able to forgive himself. God forgive him, he had loved Henriette. It was only by the mercy of God that they hadn’t taken it farther than they had. How much the boy resembled Philippe, as much as the boy resembled him. Another brother whom he sent away, the boy who must disappear so that his presence couldn’t threaten Louis’s throne. Tangled webs. A phrase from an English play that his cousin, Charles of England, had spoken of to him was in his mind: what a tangled web we weave when we practice to deceive. The web just kept growing larger.

It always would, wouldn’t it?

C
OMPLETELY ALONE
, L
OUISE
still sat in the stall of a confessional in the chapel of the palace. Above the altar, marble angels were trapped in flight. Figures of saints stood majestic and silent and grand in their alcoves. The ceiling vaulted to a crescendo of oval paintings each adorned in gilt interlocking frames; it was beautiful and cold, as cold as the stone and marble that made it glorious. Louise had just been able to make out the shadow of the priest to whom she’d confessed on the other side of the grate. Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned in thought if not in deed, she’d told the priest. I am thinking of surrendering my virginity.

His words had been small, hard pebbles. Fornication is a sin in the eyes of God. Your virginity is your crown, the crown you bring to your husband, the honor you owe as a daughter of God. Let not silken, lustful, deceitful words and admiration lead you astray. You would become a Magdalene, a whore not worthy to kiss the hem of the garment of Christ.

A fit of lust, she thought, blinking when she finally stepped into the bright sunshine of a courtyard. A whore? Is that what I am? The words didn’t seem right, though of course they must be. Would she become a whore for his majesty? When he touched her, the touch didn’t seem sinful. Is that what they were, filled with sin when what she experienced was a radiance that he should love her, he who was so gallant and noble and lonely, the sun of the court, whose sadness she sensed when he stood near enough? To the prince, like an altar fire. The motto of her house singing in her blood. She was so drawn to him that she could not have backed away to save her life. Within were deep, wordless shifts moving her forever and irrevocably out of girlhood and into destiny, where one day her name would be written in books of history. Young and lithe and troubled, she ran across the empty courtyard to the buildings beyond.