The Shadow Queen A Novel (34 page)

“You do not know this woman? Are you sure?”

She was visibly shaking. “What was your question, Monseigneur? It’s possible, Monseigneur, oui, I know her.”

THERE FOLLOWED ANOTHER
man—the Bird Catcher!—who was fortunately unable to identify me. I was beginning to feel hopeful, when I was shown in yet again.

A large man in a thread-worn cassock turned to look me over. He had the nose of a drinker and a mean squint. It was the wall-eyed priest.

“State her name,” Louvois commanded.

“Abbé Guibourg,” he said.

His voice—that curiously beautiful but terrifying voice—was the same.

“
Her
name,” Louvois persisted wearily.

The priest turned one wandering eye toward me. I bit my lip to still the quivering.
Dominus Satanas.
Lord Satan.

“She’s the one I was telling you about,” he said slowly.

“Her
name.
”

There was a long moment of silence. I could hear workmen clanging on stone. I could not bear to look at him, but dared not avert my eyes, lest I be thought guilty.
Was
I guilty? I’d encouraged a ritual that involved a death, an innocent sacrificed. The memory clung to me like a curse.

“Mademoiselle Claude des …
Oeillets,
” the priest said.

I WAS RETURNED
to my closet, shaken. I cringed as the door clanked shut behind me. I felt as if a pit-fall trap had opened under me, plunging me into Hell. How could he have known my name?

I thought of Madame Catherine and the day of her execution. Dressed in white and bound by rope, she’d been lifted onto a tumbrel. Children raced after her like excited monkeys. Approaching the Place du Grève, a dog had started to bark, the big yellow mongrel biting at the hooves of the horses—her dog, Noël. A horse caught its head with a kick. I heard its howls of pain and witnessed, to my horror, Madame Catherine struggling, falling, and screaming. The dog, trampled, gradually ceased to whimper. Madame Catherine pushed the confessor away, hurling his cross into the crowd.

She was strong in her rage; she surprised me. It took four executioners to drag her out of the cart. They clamped her to the stake with iron bands. She spat at them as they piled sticks and straw all around her.

A fury.

And now I stood accused. I squeezed my eyes tight, praying for strength. I longed for one of those improbable theatrical devices I often mocked, the
deus ex machina,
gods descending from the clouds to save the heroine.

O Mother! O Father!

Nil desperandum.

Father’s wonderfully familiar voice came back to me. I was surely lost to him now, no longer his Good Knight Claudette. I thought of the innocence of my childish vow, my pure intent. I hadn’t known, then, that there was no such thing as one true path, hadn’t understood, then, that good and evil could be so intertwined, like a braid.

Father! What would you have me do?

Tell the truth.

I bowed my head. I can’t.

Are you innocent?

I don’t know.

You’re not sure?

I went along. The powders, the drops, the charms … they did no harm, but as for that last—I don’t even want to think of it.

Was it your doing?

I pressed a fist to my lips. I’d encouraged Athénaïs. I inquired on her behalf. I had even pushed for it, given evil counsel. It would never have happened had it not been for me.

The guard opened the door.

The room was empty this time, but for Louvois, a clerk, and several guards. “We have all we need,” Louvois said, standing as the clerk helped him on with his cloak. “You will be informed when the trials resume, Mademoiselle.”

I was to go to trial?
No!

“A guard will return you to Paris, but do not consider fleeing,” he informed me with a smirk, “for that will only reconfirm your guilt. We will always know where to find you—you
and
your idiot brother and daughter.”

I reached out my hand in a pleading gesture—a gesture Mother had used onstage to great effect. “Monseigneur, I am innocent, I
swear.
You must hear me out!”

Louvois made an impatient motion to the guards: Take this woman away.

CHAPTER 57

A
breathless trembling came over me. How had my accusers known my name? I thought of going to a lawyer, but who would dare oppose the Marquis de Louvois, the most feared man in France?

I counted my coins: I had just enough for a coach to Versaie.

THE PLACE D’ARMES
in front of the château was teeming with workers, gangs of husky masons, glaziers, joiners, and carpenters. The sound of chisels tapping filled the air. A choking dust made everything look hazy, deceptively soft.

The driver let me down at the second set of gates. I stood, getting my bearings. So much had changed. Balconies and sculptures had been added to the original château and the windows looked bigger. An enormous new wing was under construction. Workmen swarmed up out of the ground like ants, building something underground—barracks for the royal troops, I surmised.

I approached the guards at the gate, relieved to recognize one of them.

“Good afternoon, Mademoiselle des Oeillets.”

It reassured me to be recognized, greeted as a familiar. “Is Monsieur Breton on duty this quarter?” Praying that Xavier was.

THE NOISE OF
construction reverberated throughout the cold marble halls. The King’s rooms were crowded with guards, soldiers, servants, and citizens. Finally I spotted Xavier, studiously working at a table in a crowded antechamber, oblivious to the commotion.

He stood up, clearly shocked to see me. We nearly collided making obsequious gestures.

I tucked a stray hair behind my ear. I’d begun to go gray and no longer colored my hair with henna, no longer plucked and primped. I looked like a bumpkin, no doubt. “Forgive me for interrupting.” I felt my cheeks burning. It had been years since I’d last seen him, years since we’d stood side by side in Athénaïs’s rooms, pretending not to hear the sounds of passionate congress behind the doors. Even so, it seemed we’d never been apart. “How have you been?” His hair was brushed into a charming peak over his forehead. He’d gained weight, but still looked handsome.

He cleared his throat, making a sweeping motion over the papers that covered the desk. “Oh—”

“You’re busy, I’m sorry.” It was wrong to impose on him after all this time.

“It’s only inventories of His Majesty’s wardrobes—lists of what needs repair. Tedious work.” The lines around his eyes crinkled when he smiled. “How’s your—?” He glanced around. There were people milling about.
Daughter,
he mouthed. After I’d left Athénaïs’s service, the King had stopped providing financial support for Sweet Pea and Xavier’s visits to Suisnes had ceased.

“She’s well.” I could have said more—so much more—but it was not the time … or place. “I must have a word with His Majesty …
privately.
” I reddened, fearing how he might interpret my request.

“I’m afraid that’s not possible.”

Were all doors closed to me now? But of course, I realized with horror: I was suspected of trying to murder the King! “
Please,
Xavier, I—”

He put up his hands. “It’s only because His Majesty is having a treatment, Claudette.”

Of course: an enema, a bleeding, a purge—

I took a shaky breath before saying, under my breath: “I’m in trouble.”
Serious
trouble.

He looked at me for a long moment. “It’s cold, but might it be refreshing to walk in the gardens?”

“How about the Labyrinth?” I suggested.

WE WERE ALONE,
hidden by tall hedges. Even in the cool of late November, the air was scented from the blooms of the trees in the Orangery nearby. I traced Cupid’s words, etched in stone, with the tip of my finger.
With this ball of string, I’ll know how to find my way.
If only it were true, I thought, thinking of my complex entanglement.

“Shall we?” Xavier said, motioning to a bench.

“I’d prefer to go farther in.” More hidden from view.

At the third fountain, we sat down. A blackbird, preening its dark feathers in the water, was indifferent to our presence.

Xavier leaned forward, resting his forearms on his legs. “I’m sorry, but I’m afraid I can’t be long. His Majesty will be—”

“I won’t keep you: it’s about the Affaire.” The Affair of the Poisons, people called it.

He dipped his head.

“Some of the prisoners at Vincennes—suspected poisoners—claim to know me, claim to have had dealings with me.” I struggled not to burst into tears. The enormity of the charges was overwhelming. I thought of the pain of the fire. Such a horrible way to die! “I’ve even been accused—” I paused.
Dare
I tell him? “I’ve been accused of plotting to murder His Majesty.”

Xavier reeled back. “I’ve not read that.”

What
had
he read? “I would never do such a thing! You
know
that! I only ever wished to please His Majesty. He has been generous with me. Why would I want to harm him?” I was pathetically pleading. I knew I sounded ridiculous.

Xavier put his hand on mine, to calm. “Tell me.”

Could I trust him? In the years since I’d left, I’d become accustomed to being with people who spoke from the heart—but this was not the case at Court. “I did go often to Madame Voisin, in disguise, to pick things up …”

“Love powders.”

I flushed. Might he assume they were for my own use? “And liquids, which—which I put in His Majesty’s wine.” Such an admission could cost me my life! I pulled the hood of my cape snug around my neck.

He tugged on his bushy moustache. “Fortifiers, we call them.”

“You knew?”

“His Majesty’s valets are privy to the most intimate details of our sovereign’s being. It’s our job to know.”

“Was the King aware?” The blackbird flew off, startling me.

“Oui et non: in a manner of speaking.”

The never-ending charade of Court life. I thought of all our secrecy, making sure His Majesty was not present when the liquid—the “amatory assistant”—was put in his goblet. Yet he’d known all along!

“There is one other thing which I … I hesitate to mention.” The words out, I had to proceed. “I accompanied someone to a ritual involving a priest.”

“A Black Mass.” He whispered the words so softly I hardly caught them.

Ay me. He knew about that as well?
Oui,
I mouthed, with a hint of a nod. “But I was only attending,” I stuttered tearfully, my heart fluttering wildly.

“Madame de Montespan.”

Swear never to betray a trust.
I held my silence.

“You don’t have to say, Claudette. I’ve read the reports.”

Reports! Then did His Majesty know as well? Confusion came over me like a palsy. “That’s why I left Madame’s service,” I said, letting out a deep breath. “And now …” My leather-gloved hands failed to cool my cheeks. Now
I
was to burn! “I am innocent of these charges.”

“Then you need not fear.”

He had such faith, it made me want to weep … weep, and rage. “You know, of course, what my going to trial would entail,” I said. “If convicted, I would be required to make a full public confession at the doors of Notre-Dame.” Madame Catherine had had to do so. I signed myself, weakened by the memory. “I doubt very much that either Madame de Montespan or His Majesty would want such intimate details made public.”

Birdsong, wind. From far off the sound of string instruments.

“You would do that?” he asked with a tone of incredulity. As if I were impugning the Crown!

I was close to tears, close to keening like the prisoners in the Hôpital Général. The Court was a world unto itself. Versaie was far from Paris, far from the smoke of the pyre. Had Xavier ever even been to a burning? Had he ever seen one up close? “Why—in the name of all that’s holy—why would I
not
?”

“Because you are a loyal subject?” he offered, lowering his voice, “and a good woman.”

I shuttered back tears. Oui: the Good Knight Claudette.
Do what is right, whatever the cost.
But it was so much more complex. Was I to protect the guilty, so that the innocent suffered? “I have a daughter, Xavier, a brother in my charge. I vow to you now: if I go to trial, I
will
make sure that all is revealed.”

Church bells rang: both close and far away.

“Meet me back here before the lighting of the lamps,” he said, standing.

CHAPTER 58

S
haken, I walked to the market. I had broken a trust. Worse, I had threatened harm to His Majesty: an act of treason. I bought a wedge of rabbit pie—a leftover from the King’s table the day before, “almost fresh.” (Or so it was claimed.) It was rancid, but I ate it, washing it down with sour wine. Then, heart aching, I bought a tin spinning top for Sweet Pea at a toy stall. A thin maid from Athénaïs’s staff recognized me, then looked away.

Where could I hide?

The little church in the village was dark as a dungeon and cold as stone. I bought a candle and lit it, but I couldn’t even summon a simple prayer. I sat shivering for some time in the silence.

I HEADED BACK
to the Labyrinth as the sun was starting to set. Xavier stood as I approached, his hat covering his heart. I felt dizzy, as if on a precipice.

“You will never be brought to trial, Claudette.”

Would I be imprisoned then without a hearing? That happened often enough. A letter signed by the King—the dreaded
cachet
—could lock a person away, never to be heard from again. I was shaking. He helped me to lower myself onto a cold bench.

“I delivered His Majesty’s order to Louvois just now,” he said, baffled by my mute response.

“What does that mean?” I asked finally, taking a breath.

“It means you have nothing to fear.” He held out his hands as if making an offering. “His Majesty understands that a public trial would not be in his best interest.”