Judith Rock - Plague of Lies

“Well, you may be sure,” Jouvancy said triumphantly, “that in our own small way, we are doing what we can at Louis le Grand to help gird the loins of France.”

La Chaise looked at him in surprise. “Oh, yes?” he said, half smiling. “And with what are you girding her loins, mon père ?”

“With our rousing August ballet. It’s called La France Victorieuse sous Louis le Grand . I chose it to proclaim the strength of our realm and our Most Christian King in the face of our enemies. Our students performed it several years ago, but Maître du Luc is revising it to make it more current, so that it fits with what is happening now.”

Charles bit his tongue.

“ France Victorious under Louis the Great ,” La Chaise said meditatively. “Yes, that’s good. Perhaps I can contrive to mention that tomorrow morning.” He peered at Jouvancy. “I must let you go and rest, but first, let me briefly explain what will happen tomorrow after the king’s Mass. From the chapel, we will go to Madame de Maintenon’s antechamber and wait there until we are called into her reception room. Some of the royal children will be there, and an assortment of courtiers. We will go over the ceremonial procedure in detail tomorrow, but the crux of it is that you, Père Jouvancy, should present the reliquary directly into Madame de Maintenon’s hands-unless it is too large or heavy?”

“No, no,” Jouvancy said, “it is only about the height of two spread hands.”

“Good. After she takes it from you, she will thank you and the Society of Jesus, and everyone will admire the gift. Then she will give the signal for the three of us to retire. And then it will be dinnertime. What I went to confirm just now is where we will eat. I am happy to tell you that we are invited to the Duc de La Rochefoucauld’s table. A very good table indeed. He is a friend of Madame de Maintenon’s and pleased by your gift.” La Chaise smiled at Jouvancy and stood up. “For now, let us get you settled in your own chamber for a little more rest. Besides the door from this chamber, there is also a door into the gallery. You will find a latrine in the corner of the gallery to your left.”

Jouvancy began to struggle out of his chair, and Charles went quickly to help him.

“Oof! I feel as stiff as a new boot,” he said, holding to Charles’s arm as he slowly straightened. “Will you get our saddlebags, maître ?”

La Chaise took his place at Jouvancy’s arm, and Charles went to the anteroom for the saddlebags. As he hefted them over his shoulder, what sounded like thunder crashed and echoed out in the gallery, and women began to scream.

Charles left the saddlebags and ran out into the gallery. A huddle of courtiers blocked the way, crowding around the staircase he and Jouvancy had come up. Some were trying to get closer and some were already retreating, staring at one another, hands pressed to their mouths. Two young women turned hastily and hurried in Charles’s direction, the linen and ribbons of their fontange headdresses quivering as they leaned close and whispered avidly to each other.

“…old Fleury,” he heard, as they came closer.

He stopped where he was. The Comte de Fleury? Surely not. Surely not the same Comte de Fleury he’d known as a soldier.

“Well, no one will miss him ,” the other woman said, half laughing. “None of the young serving maids, anyway. Dear God, the man was a lecher!”

“Such an undignified way to die, though.” The first woman’s mouth puckered in a moue of distaste, quickly smoothed away as she saw Charles. “But may God receive his soul,” she said loudly. Both women crossed themselves and disappeared, giggling, around the corner.

Charles pushed his way to the front of the crowd and looked down at the man sprawled at the foot of the marble stairs. It was the same Fleury, and from the way he lay, it was clear that he’d broken his neck in his thunderous plunge down the stairs. Charles stared down at the man’s dead, empty eyes, remembering… It had been ten years ago, in April 1677, outside the defeated city of Cassel in the Spanish Netherlands. He’d pleaded with the Comte de Fleury for the lives of three terrified common soldiers. The oldest was eighteen. It had been their first battle, and they’d fled in terror through the broken bodies of friends and enemies. Caught and brought back to face their commanding officer, they’d cowered, weeping, beneath the hanging ropes already strung in a tree. Charles had begged the Comte de Fleury to give them a second chance, but he was a hard and arrogant commander and had hanged them then and there. He’d nearly hanged Charles, too, for interfering.

A courtier bent over Fleury, searching uselessly for signs of life, straightened, and took off his white-plumed hat. “He’s gone.”

The young footman Bouchel, standing white-faced at the foot of the stairs, slowly crossed himself. The men in the crowd of courtiers removed their hats with a decent show of respect. But one laughed and said, “Well, our poor dear Conti will never collect those gambling debts, anyway! And at least Fleury’s nephew can stop shaking in his boots, now that the old man won’t be after his money anymore.” That got muffled laughter and knowing looks, but the courtier standing beside the body shook his head reprovingly.

“Trying to reach the latrine, I think, poor soul,” he said, and Charles realized that Fleury was without coat and hat and that his brown breeches were partly undone. The smell of bowels was thickening the air, and vomit streaked the front of the dead man’s linen shirt.

Bouchel swallowed and nodded. “I was up there putting a pot under a ceiling leak. I saw the old-I saw him run out of his room toward the stairs.”

“Ah, yes, he lived up above,” someone said, jerking his head at the ceiling, “and the latrine up there is closed. They’re making it into a lodging.”

Someone else groaned. “That one, too? So we’ll have even more-nuisances-left in the gallery alcoves.”

A hand gripped Charles’s shoulder and Père La Chaise said, “Go to Père Jouvancy. He’s lying down and should stay in his bed, he doesn’t need to come and see this.”

Charles pulled himself together and stepped back, and La Chaise took his place at the front of the crowd. As Charles started back to the chamber, someone said, with the carrying diction of an actor, “I wonder, though, why the poor old thing didn’t just use his chaise de commodité ?”

Charles spun on his heel and saw a young man in a gold-trimmed coat and a frothy wig nearly as golden as the trim smiling brightly into La Chaise’s face.

“A good question,” La Chaise answered evenly. “Though from the smell of him-if, of course, it’s him I smell-I’d say his chaise de commodité might well be full.”

“Oh, well said, Père-ah-La Chaise.” A small man in russet satin grinned, lynx-eyed, over his shoulder at the crowd and raised a ripple of stifled laughter.

Ignoring the insults, La Chaise turned to Bouchel. “Did you see him fall?”

“No, mon père .” Bouchel jerked his head at the stairs. “But as I said, I saw him come out of his room, and he was groaning as if he might die. And I know there was water on the floor-from the leak, you understand. He must have slipped as he started down the stairs.”

La Chaise nodded and looked again at the body. “We have to get this body out of the palace. And quickly.” By tradition, a king of France could not stay in a building with a corpse.

Bouchel nodded. “Shall I go for the Guard?”

“Yes. And then for Monsieur Neuville. When the Guard has Fleury in the mortuary, the physicians will have to look at him to confirm how he died.” La Chaise’s dark gaze swept across the courtiers. “Did any of you see the Comte de Fleury earlier?”