Before Versailles (68 page)

“Belle,” he said, stroking the dog’s head, remembering when he’d been a boy, when he’d been so certain he’d break no sacred vows, when he’d been so certain hearts remained pure, “I shall be gone a while. Wait for me, my sweet. Promise you’ll do that.”

“S
O WHAT DID
you think of the ballet?” asked Catherine. She sat in Nicolas’s bed, a shawl and nothing more on her body as he fed her slices of melon.

“Quaintly sweet.”

“That’s damning praise. Did you think I danced clumsily?”

Nicolas leaned over and kissed the swell of a breast. “Nothing you do is clumsy. Dare I hope that the enthusiasm you’ve just displayed is because I was missed? And yet I see Captain Péguilin following you with his eyes like a loyal spaniel.”

She leaned back on her elbows, the shawl opening, her hips and breasts white and inviting, her legs long and tempting. “It was boring in Monaco. Captain Péguilin was boring. The gentlemen were without finesse. Why was Lieutenant d’Artagnan there? I’ve been meaning to ask.”

“What? You spoke with him?”

“I most certainly did not. I was informed by my father-in-law and my husband in no uncertain terms that it was a great secret and I wasn’t to tell a soul, but of course, you know. Tell me. I promise I won’t breathe a word about what is obviously king’s buisness—What have I said? Why are you leaving the bed?”

Abruptly pulling a loose nightgown on, Nicolas walked into another chamber, sat down at a table upon which lay papers and books, love letters and pleas for help. One of the royal tailors brought the news that his majesty made a secret pilgrimage. Trouble was brewing. Best to prepare.

I
T WAS RAINING
when Louis arrived in Monaco, his destination a private château belonging to Catherine’s father-in-law, prince of this kingdom, who waited for him.

The prince rose from his chair when Louis stepped into the salon, cloak dripping with rain. “Let me offer you dry clothing at once, sir, and food.”

This was an ally, a man old enough to be his father, who had signed treaties with Louis’s father. He’d expelled the Spanish from the garrisons they’d once occupied here, giving France a secure friend on her southeastern coast, and in reward, his sons had played in the gardens at Saint-Germain as Louis’s companions when he’d been a boy. Let them see the grandeur of this court, his beloved cardinal had said. Then no other will be able to seduce them completely.

“Lieutenant d’Artagnan?” asked Louis.

“Upstairs, sir.”

“Who is it?” D’Artagnan’s voice asked, when Louis knocked on the door.

“The king.” Once inside, he saw that the boy sat at a window, the iron mask upon his face. Louis took in the sight of a monk and said to him, “Out. Cinq Mars?”

“In another chamber.”

Your majesty, D’Artagnan wanted to say to Louis, I’m afraid for the boy. There were tales to tell, of having to knock the boy down, of the priest and D’Artagnan having to straddle the youth to pour even a bit of the wine down his throat, of him tearing off bandages, of the howling as they rode through the night, of his incessant rocking back and forth before the wine took effect. The boy was drugged now, but the expression on Louis’s face told D’Artagnan this clearly wasn’t the time to express concerns.

“You, also,” said Louis.

Perhaps it would never be the time, thought D’Artagnan. He walked out behind the priest.

Alone with the boy, who did not move, Louis said, “I don’t know what else to do. It’s for the sake of the kingdom. It’s possible I share your father, and no one must know. Our cousins, the Condés, they’re great warriors, proud of their bloodline, their closeness to the throne. They’ll fight me for the crown if they think their blood more worthy than mine. You’ll have the freedom to take off your mask once I have you settled. I’ll send furniture and hangings worthy of a prince, I promise.”

There was no indication from the boy that he’d understood or even heard.

“You’ll be treated with the honor you deserve,” Louis continued, going over in his mind all that must be accomplished in a few short hours. “I wish I might have known you,” he said. Perhaps one day, God willing, he would.

T
HE OLD
P
RINCE
de Monaco was silent, his eyes on Louis, who was walking the outside perimeter of a fortified monastery, vacant except for a handful of monks. It was an old medieval keep, a solid three-story square of stone, with small windows on its second floor and towers in its corners. It sat on the literal edge of the sea, a jut of dangerous rocks on its seaward side. Atop its ramparts, one could see the forest that covered the remainder of the island. Saints of the church had lived in it once upon a time, converted pagans, and been massacred by the Saracens. It had never revived after that, was a tiny outpost forgotten by the Vatican and by the prince himself most of the time, simply one of four islands on his coast, all small, all mostly uninhabited except by fishermen who made their living bringing their catch into the harbor to sell.

Dozens of questions had been flung at him by the young king of France on their short sail over: how bad were storms, when was the last time pirates had attacked, did the Pope show any hint of interest in the monastery, were the pirates in the Mediterranean as fierce as he’d been told? Now this king was looking at him with flickering eyes, eyes that bored into him, measured him, set him down again with a certain weight assigned to him, and the prince realized with a start that he’d been asked another question, a question he hadn’t even heard in his abstraction at the rapid, unexpected sequence of events that had begun with the secret visit of the Marshall de Gramont.

“Are you a man of honor?” Louis repeated the question.

“I am.”

“On your honor, no one must know you’ve done this for me. No one must know that I visited you. No one must know the importance I place upon this child. The boy is dear to me, more than that I cannot say, but I will tell you this, he has the beginnings of leprosy—”

The prince drew back in horror. No one knew how this frightful scourge spread, but everyone was certain of its contagion. He’d order every stick of furniture in the small château in which the youth had stayed burned. The carriages conveying the boy would be burned, too.

“—and his only servants will be the monk and the musketeer, though I will send others, but they will never see the child. He is to live on the top floor of the keep.” He can walk the rampart of the roof, thought Louis, take off the mask, turn his face to the sun and sky there, become brown and whole. “If you keep my secret, I will honor you. You and your son will become my greatest friends.”

The prince bowed. “I was yours before your words.” Curiosity as to the identity of the boy had died with the word leprosy. He followed Louis upstairs, up long flights inside a square tower, until they stood on the roof. The view was magnificent, great blue sea to three sides, the green of an island forest on the other.

Louis walked the length and breadth of the roof. His brother could be free here, could be treated as the beloved son of a queen.

I
N A BEDCHAMBER
of the prince’s château in Monaco, Cinq Mars held his breath at what he was witnessing. The king of France had gently unfastened the mask from the boy’s face, removed it, and was looking down at this half-grown, drugged, sleeping child. Cinq Mars watched as Louis smoothed the boy’s hair, his forehead. He watched in amazement as Louis gave the boy a quick kiss on the lips, then knelt beside him to pray.

What have I done? thought Cinq Mars. He had given the letter to the château’s stable boy, told him to take it to a merchant’s house, any merchant, and pulled the gold saint’s medal on its necklace at his neck as payment.

Louis held tight to his brother’s hand. Pray God this prince would be as happy and free as he could be. Pray God he would never wear the iron mask again. Pray God he, Louis, find the compassion to forgive his mother. Pray God his enemies did not learn of this child and use the scandal to wrest the throne from him. Pray God his own son did not suffer the affliction of this boy. Pray God forgive him for keeping it all secret still.

He stayed long on his knees, the prayers inarticulate after a time, more feeling than thought. When he was finished, he opened his eyes to find Cinq Mars watching him. “I don’t even know his name. What’s his name?”

“Prince Jules.”

Prince de Mazarin, he would have made him, had circumstances been different. Perhaps, when his mother died, he’d do so. Louis pointed to a leather portfolio. “In there, you will find papers making you guardian for this child. You are made a count, Count de Cinq Mars, for your services, and more than enough for a fine life will be yours, if you continue to care for him as you have in the past. I’ll want you to come to court once a year to report on him. Who in your family do you wish rewarded?”

Cinq Mars named his sister.

“I’ll see she has everything she needs and more. I’ll see her children are brought to court. Have you funds?”

There had been a chest of coins, but who knew where it was now. “No,” he answered.

Louis almost smiled. “Yes. A chest of coins was found among your belongings and saved. We are nothing if not thorough. My treasury is empty, and I never overlook an opportunity to fill it. It remains yours. He’ll have every luxury but that of company. You’re to live with him on the top floors of an old monastery nearby. I’ve told the Prince de Monaco that he has leprosy. The few monks who continue to live there will be terrified, and it will keep the curious too afraid to satisfy their curiosity. There’s a rampart roof where he may walk free and see the sun and rain. I don’t want the mask on his face again unless you deem it necessary.”

Louis took a ring from his finger; it was set with emeralds. “Send me this ring should there be trouble. If I receive this, I’ll come to you myself.” He turned to Father Gabriel, who was standing near the sleeping boy. “Can you write?”

The priest nodded.

“Write down the names of those in your family whom you would wish rewarded, and I shall do it.”

How determined he is, how thorough, thought Cinq Mars. Do I tell him about the letter?