Bitter Greens (45 page)

I hurried to Angélique’s side. ‘You should be in bed.’ I draped my shawl about her to hide the ugly stain spreading across the back of her gown. ‘That’s enough dancing for one night.’

‘She preached at me.’ Angélique watched Françoise smiling in the King’s arms as he danced down the room with her. ‘She told me I risked my soul’s salvation by being with the King. I said to her, “Do you think throwing off a passion is as easy as taking off a chemise?” Yet it seems to be so for him, doesn’t it? He never cared for me at all.’

‘Let us get you to bed,’ I said unhappily.

As obediently as a small child, she followed me down the hall and let me tuck her up in bed. I brought her a hot brick wrapped in flannel and some old rags to help staunch the bleeding, and I did not call the doctor.

In April, the King made Angélique the Duchesse de Fontanges and gave her a rich pension. At last, she was entitled to sit in the presence of the Queen. It gave her little pleasure. She received the court’s congratulations from her sickbed at her sister’s convent. She rallied long enough to make another appearance at court in May but it was to be her last. Slowly, she faded away. In the summer of the following year, Angélique died. She was only nineteen.

Many at court believed that Athénaïs had poisoned her. The Marquise kept her head high and continued to try to influence affairs of state, but the King no longer visited her or allowed her any moments alone with him. Françoise ruled the court in all but name.

I don’t believe that Athénaïs poisoned poor Angélique. I hope that she did not. All I can say with any surety is that Athénaïs was never able to bear the dark again. All night, she kept the candles burning, and if the wind ever blew out the flame she would scream in terror until someone came with tinder and flint to light her candles again.

Words. I had always loved them. I collected them, like I had collected pretty stones as a child. I liked to roll words over my tongue like a lump of molten honeycomb, savouring the sweetness, the crackle, the crunch. Cerulean, azure, blue. Shadowy, sombre, secret. Voluptuous, sensuous, amorous. Kiss, hiss, abyss.

Some words sounded dangerous. Pagan. Tiger.

Some words seemed to shine. Crystal. Glissade.

Some words changed their meaning as I grew older. Ravishing.

Charles had always seemed a rather ordinary name, as common as a duck. I was wrong. Charles was an enchanted name, a shibilant like chalice and chain and hush, charm and charred and flush. As he bent his dark head to kiss my throat, I would sigh his name.
Charles
. As he stroked his hand down my thigh, I would sough,
Charles, Charles
. As he swirled his tongue in my most secret, soft and hidden places, I would sob,
Charles, Charles, Charles
. And now it was the sound of sorrow, loneliness and loss.
Charles, my love, where are you?

We were married, you know.

Not simply a holding of hands and a vow to be true, though Charles and I did that too. No, we were married by a priest in a church, the light of candles falling on our faces as we swore to have and to hold from this day forward, till death us do part. My sister was there to witness
us pledge our troth, weeping with relief into her handkerchief. Nanette wept beside her, and Marie’s little daughter – my niece, whom I had never seen before – carried flowers and stared at me with curious dark eyes.

We really believed we had outwitted them all. ‘You can do anything,’ I had told him, ‘as long as you’re bold enough.’

Charles was my one true love, the one I had been dreaming of all this time. Ah, if only I had waited! If only I had been patient. If I had been the good, pious, respectable maiden everyone had wanted me to be, maybe they would have left us alone. If I had smelt of roses, instead of the lingering reek of scandal and sorcery and sex, perhaps I would now be an old married woman with a horde of little Charleses and Charlotte-Roses running about, instead of a lonely middle-aged woman locked up in a tumbledown old convent in the middle of nowhere.

Yet would Charles have fallen in love with me if I had been pious and respectable? Would we have had those mad giddy months of dancing at Marly, hunting in the forest at Fontainebleau and sneaking off to make love in the garden at Versailles? Would we have had those few days when the King himself called me ‘Madame de Briou’ and it seemed I had at last found that little corner of the world to call my own?

I refused to have any regrets. If I had not seen death and been so determined to seize life with both hands, if I had not tried to steer the craft of my own life, if I had not learnt how to give and take pleasure, if I had not been so determined to love with all the force of my being, would Charles have fallen in love with me at all?

I do not think so.

‘What shall we do today, Charles?’ I asked, joining my lover in the courtyard at the Palais de Versailles. ‘It’s a beautiful day.’

‘I can see you wish to ride,’ he said with a brief smile, indicating my forest-green riding habit with one hand.

‘I thought we could have a picnic,’ I said. ‘The forest is so lovely in autumn, and soon it will be too cold to sit on the ground … or lie, as the case may be.’ Charles did not respond to my impish grin, and I frowned. ‘Is anything wrong?’

‘Let us go for a ride in the forest. We can be private there.’

‘Very well,’ I said, a little daunted by his demeanour, which seemed cold and preoccupied. ‘I’d love a gallop!’

Soon, we were cantering down the smooth turf under the thick gnarled branches of ancient oak and beech trees. Crimson and orange leaves swirled up under the horses’ hooves and spread a spectacular canopy overhead. A red squirrel darted up a tree like a streak of fire.

‘This is wonderful!’ I cried. ‘How I love being out in the woods! I wish we could ride on forever.’

Charles smiled, but it was not his usual carefree grin. He looked pale and strained. I reined my horse in. ‘Charles, what’s wrong? Something is wrong.’

He dismounted and cast his reins over a broken branch protruding from a fallen log nearby. He then held up his hands to help me down. I unhooked my leg from my pommel and let him lift me down. He held me close for a moment, then stepped away, drawing me down to sit on the log.

I resisted. ‘What is it? Has someone died?’

‘Ma
chérie
, there is something you should know. The King … the King has signed a new law, revoking the Edict of Nantes.’

The earth seemed to rock under my feet. ‘What?’

‘You heard me. It’s now illegal to be a Protestant. All Huguenots must convert to Catholicism or risk death by burning. All Protestant churches will be pulled down. All Protestant schools will be closed. Bibles and psalm books will be burnt.’

‘This must be a jest.’

‘I’m sorry,
ma chérie
. I came as soon as I heard.’

‘He cannot do such a thing!’ My legs felt so weak I put my hand out, seeking support.

Charles caught it, drawing closer so I could lean against his shoulder. ‘He has. It’s done. He signed the new edict this morning.’

‘But there are hundreds and thousands of Huguenots in France! They will all migrate. They’ll go to the Netherlands, or Germany, or somewhere. Half the artisans and merchants in France will go! Does he know what he is doing?’

‘It is now against the law for any Huguenot to migrate, or leave France. Anyone caught trying to leave will be sent to the galleys, or imprisoned, all their possessions confiscated. Anyone who helps them to escape will be sent to the galleys.’

‘He can’t do that!’

‘He can. He has.’

‘But Charles … what are we all to do?’

He was silent a moment. ‘I cannot make any suggestions for the rest of your family, but I have a solution for you, which I hope you will like.’

I hardly heard him, unable to think for the sudden hammering of fear in my ears. I was remembering all the stories: Huguenot babies spitted and cooked over fires; Huguenot women gang-raped and then killed; Huguenot churches burnt down with all their parishes locked inside; Huguenots tortured and enslaved …

‘You could marry me,’ Charles said.

‘What?’

‘You could marry me. Won’t you, Charlotte-Rose? I love you and I want to keep you safe.’

‘But we cannot marry,’ I said stupidly. ‘Marriages between Catholics and Protestants are against the law. Our children would be declared illegitimate.’

‘You’ll have to convert,’ Charles said.

I simply could not understand what he meant for a moment. My head felt as if it was stuffed with lambswool, and my feet and hands were cold and heavy and strangely far away from the rest of my body. Gradually, the meaning of his words soaked through, and I felt a heady rush of anger.

‘I can’t! Don’t you realise? My mother … my family …’ In those few words, I tried to tell him everything.

Charles was speaking quickly. ‘As my wife, they will not dare touch you. I’ll be able to keep you safe. The King will be pleased with you. He’ll make sure you are not bothered too much. He’ll probably pay you some kind of compensation.’

‘I can’t, I can’t.’ I broke away from him and ran to where my horse was grazing. Somehow, I managed to get up into the saddle, hitching my long riding skirt up above my knees. I wheeled my mare about and spurred her into a gallop.

‘Charlotte-Rose!’ Charles called.

I kept on riding. Now, the glorious autumn display seemed like the fires of the heretic’s pyre, the very flames of hell.

Sometime later, I at last reined in my sweat-lathered mare. I had lost my hat, my hair hung half over my face, and my skin was scratched with twigs and brambles. I was panting and in tears.

What should I do? What should I do? I did not want to burn. I did not want to try to flee, hiding in some empty beer barrel, or in a cart of straw, to be stabbed by some overzealous soldier or dragged out by my hair. Where would I go? How would I live?

I stood in a clearing among a stand of beech trees, leaves as red as rubies, branches black as jet. It was sunset, and shafts of richly coloured sunlight struck through the delicate pillars of the tree trunks, as if through the lancet windows of a cathedral.

Fragments of psalms and sermons rang through my mind.
Let God arise, let his enemies be scattered, let them that hate him flee before him. As smoke is driven away, so drive them away; as wax melteth before the fire, so let the wicked perish at the presence of God. But let the righteous be glad; let them rejoice before God: yea, let them exceedingly rejoice.

Where were the righteous now?

My mother had always said that the afflictions sent against us, the elect, were signs of God’s good will towards us, that they were a test of our faith, and that by taking the cross upon our shoulders and following Jesus Christ we would be rewarded with salvation. Yet how could anyone endure such terrible persecution?

I say to God, my rock, why have you forgotten me?

I had lost God long ago. I had lost my mother, my father, my family. I had nothing left but the love that had bloomed between Charles and me like a snowdrop unfurling through snow.

He wanted to marry me.

Heat rushed up my cheeks. I felt my eyes fill with tears. I was too weary to try to mount my horse again. I grasped her reins and began to walk back through the forest, regretting my madcap flight, regretting I had hesitated even for a second.

Charles found me some time later, stumbling along in the twilight, footsore and exhausted. I dropped the reins and ran towards him, seizing him about the waist. ‘I’m sorry … of course I’ll marry you … of course.’

He clasped me close, bending his head to kiss my mouth. I kissed him back passionately, my knees weak, my head spinning.

‘You taste of salt,’ he said a little while later. ‘Like a mermaid.’

‘You taste divine. Like manna from heaven. Are we truly getting married?’

‘We might need to elope,’ he answered rather shakily. ‘My father’s … rather difficult.’

I could understand why his father would be horrified at the idea of Charles marrying me. Apart from the fact that I was a Huguenot, apart from my lack of dowry, apart from my scorched reputation, there was the insurmountable chasm of the eleven years between our ages. I was thirty-five; Charles was not yet twenty-four. He would not come of age for another twenty months.

‘I’d love to elope. I can think of nothing I’d rather do. When shall we do it?’

He laughed and kissed me again. ‘If we could get the King’s permission …’

I bit my lip. The days when Athénaïs could crook her little finger and the King would come running were long gone. She had lost her sumptuous apartments at Versailles and was now relegated to the third or even the fourth carriage in any procession of the King’s. Françoise, the Marquise de Maintenon, was now the favoured mistress. Some said she was even the King’s secret wife, having married him at midnight in a clandestine ceremony some time after the Queen’s death. She now had the most magnificent rooms at the palace, across the hall from the King’s, at the top of the grand staircase.
The King spent all his free hours there. He had taken to wearing plain brown clothes like a bourgeois, without any rings or diamond buckles or jewelled pins, and he frowned on all those
divertissements
he had once loved.

Yet Françoise, like me, had been born into a Huguenot family, even though she was now so devoutly Catholic. She had been trying to save my soul for a decade. If I spoke to her …

‘He who never undertook anything never achieved anything,’ I said, quoting one of my mother’s favourite proverbs. ‘I will talk to the Marquise de Maintenon. If anyone can convince the King, she can.’

It took some doing.

Gone were the days when one could stand and gossip with the Marquise de Maintenon over a cup of hot chocolate. It was almost as hard to get an audience with her as it was with the King.