Before Versailles (60 page)

C
ATHERINE HAD SLIPPED
away from the others for a time.

Nicolas watched her dress, shadow playing over her as she moved about his bedchamber. The light from the candles caressed her creamy flesh in precisely the places he so enjoyed caressing. “How long do you expect to be gone?” he asked her.

“As long as it takes to convince my husband I am a loyal wife.”

Nicolas smiled that she found no irony or shame in the statement. She was, in fact, frowning as she concentrated on tying garters that held up the stockings that encased her fine legs.

“How does your brother do?” The news that the Count de Guiche left the court had swept through it like a raging fire early in the day, had sent one of Madame’s maids of honor weeping on Nicolas’s doorstep to beg his help.

Catherine made a face, and Nicolas was reminded again of the coolness of the younger courtiers, whose hearts were so bloodless. Catherine was concentrated now on her life. Her brother was on his own. “You’ll write?” he asked.

“If I can.” She walked to the bed, turned her back, and he pulled tight the laces that would tie her top in place. He could see that in her mind she was already miles away, already at the seacoast court of Monaco charming her husband. Her cousin, a wild young captain in the king’s guard, was escorting her. “Is it wise to travel with Péguilin as escort?”

She turned around to smile at him. “He insisted I not travel alone. Are you jealous?”

“Always.”

She looked over her shoulder as she opened the door. “Good.”

Putting on a robe, Nicolas poured himself some wine, opened letters, his mind idly running over the fact of the Count de Guiche’s exit from court, over Louis’s ruthlessness in that. La Grande Mademoiselle was now absent from court. No one knew why, but he intended to find out. Words scrawled on the page before him suddenly caught his attention. The letter was from his Jesuit friend.

My dear viscount
,

I thought you would want to know monks from the burned monastery were ordered to colonies across the sea, have already departed on their journey. The archbishop who arranged it happens
to be a friend to me. It’s said they engaged in treason. And I thought they made only wine. There is word, unverified, that the abbot and other prisoners are in the fortress of Pignerol. I thought this would be of interest to you …

Was he in danger? Could it be possible? He blew out candles and lay in bed, no longer soothed by the aftermath of lovemaking. His mind was restless, probing, keen. And the next day, when he learned D’Artagnan had met with the king, then disappeared again, he knew without a doubt that someone was maneuvering like a rat behind the walls.

He was thinking on that when his secretary told him he had a visitor. It was Fanny de Montalais, again, as drooping and red-eyed as she’d been yesterday.

He settled her in a chair, offered her a small goblet of wine, watched her swallow it back. His instinct about people told him this one missed little; she was too bright and observant.

She held out a letter. “Will you, can you, see that this gets to the Count de Guiche?”

“Of course.” He poured more wine into her goblet. “I do have a small price for my help, however. Tell me what it is you’re keeping secret.”

Her eyes became big. He sat back quietly, at his ease, waiting.

“The king and Madame are no more,” she whispered.

Yes, he knew, but he acted surprised. “Is there someone else?”

She stood up and bolted out the door.

So, thought Nicolas, there is. He’d find out who. A steely wariness grew in him. What else was his majesty hiding? And why?

H
E WAITED SEVERAL
days before he traveled into Paris. Word from his sources at the Bastille said there was no record of a group of monks having been brought in or dispersed as prisoners. A call upon the governor of the Bastille produced the same answer. None of Nicolas’s persuasion or threats changed the governor’s response. He stood in the dirt of the street and stared for a time at his carriage horses before continuing on the tasks he’d set himself this day. There was a beseeching letter from La Grande Mademoiselle asking him to intercede with his majesty. Tell him I never wrote them, she begged. Wrote what, precisely?

It was easy enough to find Guy, killing time, brooding and dangerous, in rooms at his father’s townhouse. The chamber in which he received Nicolas was littered with sheets of paper. Nicolas moved several from the cushion of the chair. It looked like poetry, love poetry, quite bad.

“Wine for you? No? Well, forgive me if I drink yours for you.” Guy poured himself a goblet of wine, drank it down, turned to face Nicolas. “To what do I owe the honor of this visit?”

“The court is dull without you. I came to see how you do.”

“I am dull without court.” Guy poured more wine.

“Ladies are drooping and bereft everywhere. I bring greetings from a full half-dozen.” He began to reel off names, and Guy laughed. He gave Guy the letters from little Fanny de Montalais and watched Guy drop them on a table, uninterested. “I might, if it pleased you, speak with his majesty in another few weeks or so on your behalf.” Nicolas made certain his tone was offhand.

“I’m not sure it pleases me. I’m not made to be his lapdog, gelded and safe.”

“The commander of the Mediterranean is a good friend of mine. What about a command there if court has lost its luster? The coast is beautiful, the women even more so. The sea swarms with pirates from the Barbary Coast. It’s said they wear an earring in one ear and bow to Allah before they slit your throat.”

Guy’s eyes gleamed for a moment. Nicolas could see he was stirred by the idea, but he said, “So I would be your lapdog, rather than his majesty’s?”

It was close enough to the truth to make Nicolas smile. “Impossible. You are no man’s lackey. You are the son of a marshall of France, a born warrior like your father.”

“Correct, viscount, I am bred for war, not acting someone’s toady.”

Your insolence is invigorating, thought Nicolas. Everyone was too cautious these days, his majesty’s warrior cousins quiet on their estates, La Grande sobbing about her exile like an actress on the stage. It was good to see some of the old civil-war insolence. Nicolas could feel his own rise. “Monsieur sends his greetings.”

Guy didn’t answer, and Nicolas looked around at the litter of papers on the floor, on chairs. “You write the story of your life? Or moral maxims for us to live by, like the Duke de La Rochefoucauld? Let me see if I can quote my favorite correctly.” He paused. “ ‘We are never so happy nor so unhappy as we imagine.’ ”

“I write love letters.”

“Ah, so your heart ties you to court.”

“Yes.”

“May I be of service and take one back with me?”

“Would you? How kind.” Guy scribbled something across the top of a paper already dark with inky words, folded the paper, lit a taper to melt a stick of wax. It dropped onto the last fold, and Guy pressed a seal in the wax. He repeated the actions with yet another paper.

“Come to my estate and stay a while,” Nicolas suggested, taking the letters from Guy. “The countryside is magnificent, my horses are the finest in France, as is my cook. I am there but only to oversee workmen and the details for my fête. I seldom stay the night and would welcome your presence. I took the liberty of glancing at one of your love poems before I sat down. They might improve in Vaux-le-Vicomte’s air.”

Guy laughed.

Nicolas’s finger caressed the name written across the front of one of the letters. “Your sister isn’t at Fontainebleau, unfortunately.”

“Oh? Where is she?”

“Gone to Monaco.”

“As is my father.”

The marshall was in Monaco? Whatever for? thought Nicolas.

Looking Nicolas straight in the eyes, Guy said, “It would be a service to me if you delivered the letter addressed to my sister to Madame instead. It goes without saying that I wish no one to know.”

“Of course.”

So, thought Nicolas, stepping into his carriage a few moments later, the wind blows that direction, does it? Who had his majesty’s eyes these days? The other letter was for Fanny de Montalais. How opportune. She’d have to answer some questions in return for Nicolas delivering it. He smiled to himself at the way fate played to his advantage. He must make time to visit La Grande Mademoiselle personally and hear her sad tale and so learn more of this young majesty’s machinations.

He had one more stop to make before heading south to Vaux-le-Vicomte. He stood in a dark hallway idly slapping his gloves in one hand as he waited for a servant to tell the mistress of the house that he had arrived, then he followed the servant to a back parlor, where Madame d’Artagnan, proper young wife that she was, had just risen from an embroidery stand near a sunny window and was falling into a curtsy.

She was surprised, flustered, and impressed, all of which he never minded seeing. “Forgive my intrusion,” he said to her, at his silky best. “Will you tell your husband I’ve come to see him as he asked.”

“But he isn’t here, viscount. Did my servant tell you he was?”

“There must be some mistake. He wrote me to meet him today. He’s still on his journey, is he? Now where was it he went? Pignerol?”

“You know, then? No, he’s been there but is gone again. I just had a letter from him.” Her eyes moved to a paper on the mantel near the embroidery stand. “I am so distressed. He mentioned nothing of your calling on him in the letter. It isn’t like him to forget such a thing. Won’t you let me offer you wine? Please.”

Nicolas allowed himself to be persuaded to sit down, allowed himself to accept a goblet of wine, allowed himself to sip it and enjoy the sun in this parlor and the company of a young woman very impressed that he had come to visit her husband personally, very upset that her husband was not home, and very anxious that this oversight would not hurt her husband’s standing. With just a little prod here and there, she showed him the letter, and Nicolas was able to run his own eyes over it. It told him nothing, but then, D’Artagnan’s wife had told enough.

Nicolas chatted with her a while longer, admired the cushion cover she was embroidering, invited her to tour the tapestry works at Vaux-le-Vicomte, asked a discreet question here and there, and finally took his leave. She had no idea where her husband’s final destination was nor did she know anything about his mission.

In his carriage, he pondered what he’d just learned. What did it mean, D’Artagnan and Pignerol? What mission was he upon? Why had the king not shared it with council or at the very least with Nicolas himself?

“Are we going to Vaux-le-Vicomte, sir?” It was his secretary.

He nodded his head and closed his eyes. Some intrigue was in motion. Did he question his majesty directly? He had such an interesting new piece of information to consider. That bad poetry he’d picked up from Guiche’s chair wasn’t all poetry. On one sheet was a bit of an old Mazarinade. Nicolas certainly remembered the originals, filthy songs, pamphlets, treatises, all against Cardinal Mazarin and, often, the queen mother. Why would a wild young courtier write out a few lines from a decade-old Mazarinade? What did he do with such? Interesting.

“I’m going to Vaux-le-Vicomte. You’re not. I want you to leave for the fortress of Pignerol in all haste,” he told his secretary. “I want to know about the latest prisoners who graced its portals. Pay whatever you must to obtain the information.”

Chapter 30

N THE QUEEN’S GARDENS
, L
A
P
ORTE BOWED VERY LOW TO
present a key and a letter. Henriette’s dogs barked at him, and Louise knelt to pull them by their leashes and hush them.