Judith Rock - Plague of Lies

“You’d swear to it?” La Reynie followed the square-built servant with his eyes.

“With pleasure.” Charles went back to watching Lulu.

The younger Polish ambassador, wearing a long-coated Polish suit of tawny silk, led Lulu onto the dance floor. As they made their honors to the king, Lulu smiled. Briefly and sadly, but it was still a smile and given to her father. Then she and the Pole made their honors to each other and she had a faint grave smile for him, too.

Well, Charles thought, his hopes rising, maybe all really was going to be well. Or at least well enough. The pair danced a lively bourrée , a miracle of fleet precision and ease, and Charles suspected that the ambassador had spent more time practicing than negotiating. As his feet and Lulu’s wove the dance’s balanced symmetry, the pink ribbons and gold lace on her headdress fluttered, and the ambassador smiled happily as his tawny silk coat rippled and swirled around his legs. The Duc du Maine had taken off his mask and was biting his lip as he watched his sister. Charles looked at the king, wondering what he felt as he watched his daughter dance for the last time. As though Louis felt Charles’s eyes on him, the royal gaze lifted to the balcony and rested on Charles for the briefest of moments. With a nod so small Charles couldn’t be sure he’d seen it, the king turned his attention back to the dancers, leaving Charles wondering if he’d just been thanked for his small part in Lulu’s acceptance of her fate.

When the bourrée ended and Lulu and the Pole had bowed and curtsied to the king, all the dancers rose and formed two facing lines for the buoyant contredanse that signaled the ball’s end. As the lines advanced and retreated and the couples whirled and wound their way up and down, Charles felt himself relax a little. The ball was over. Nothing had happened.

“They’ll set up a buffet now,” La Reynie said, when the contredanse had ended and the half dozen other people who’d been watching from the balcony were filing out into the gallery. “The musicians will play and the salon will be thronged with people milling and eating. I think you should go down, maître , and continue watching from there. I’ll stay up here and we’ll have each other in sight.”

Charles agreed and made his way from the balcony toward the stairs. And came face to face with Michel Louvois, the king’s minister of war. Louvois’s round black bulk seemed to radiate anger as he stared at Charles, then shouldered him aside and went toward the balcony where La Reynie was. Charles forced himself to walk sedately to the stairs, berating himself for how much he wanted to run, for how much he feared the war minister.

The stairs took him down to the north vestibule. A steady wind swept across the floor, and as he went into the salon , it seemed to get stronger. It was oddly disturbing, this wind blowing his cassock against his knees in a closed, crowded room, as though a storm must be raging outside, though at sunset the sky had been limpidly clear. Watching for any sign of Montmorency-and for Lulu, Conti, and Margot-he pushed politely through the crowd, feeling a growing need to keep Anne-Marie under his eye as well. As he passed near Mme de Maintenon, who was complaining indignantly about the wind, he caught sight of Lulu.

She was standing with her father near the royal armchair, hands folded demurely at her waist, eyes downcast, listening to him. La Chaise, still standing behind the chair, was watching her. The king’s brother and sister-in-law and the Dauphin watched and listened avidly. The ambassadors had drawn a little aside and were talking quietly to each other. As Charles made his way along the north wall, he saw Lulu lift her eyes, smile, and say something that brought an answering smile and nod from the king. She curtsied and went to a table in the corner where a crystal pitcher and a single gold cup stood waiting. As she started to pour a stream of wine dark as blackberries, a wandering, chattering pair of elderly women blocked Charles’s view. He sidestepped them and saw that Lulu stood now with bowed head, hands clasped at her bosom. He took advantage of a gap in the crowd to get nearer, and saw that she was fingering the blue-stoned ring Montmorency had given her, the one with a lock of his hair in it. Charles wondered suddenly if she cared more for Montmorency than he’d imagined. Had she hoped, in spite of everything, that he’d come for her? The ring’s blue stone opened and a deep sigh shuddered through her as she bent lower over the cup. Then she turned, and Charles saw the searing hatred in her eyes as she looked at her father, the same hatred he’d seen at the ball at Versailles. It was gone almost instantly, leaving her face a mask of submission as she carried the cup to the king.

“Lulu! Lulu, no!” But Charles’s voice was lost in the swelling chatter and music. He fought through the oblivious crowd to reach her. She lifted the cup briefly to her lips. Then she offered it to her father, who took it, smiling at her.

“ Sire! Don’t drink it!” Charles leaped like an attacking wolf, slapped the goblet from the king’s hand, lost his footing, and fell at Louis’s feet.

Chaos broke out and the music stopped. Cries of outrage filled the salon. Lèse-majesté! He assaulted the king’s majesty! Take him, hold him! It’s a Jesuit plot, a Huguenot plot, it’s the English! It’s the poisoner, I saw the cup! I saw a knife in his hand! Take him!

Charles lay utterly still, not daring even to speak lest the sword points pressing through his cassock and drawing warm trickles of blood under his shirt should press even harder. He had fallen with his head turned toward Lulu, and he looked through the forest of shoes and stockings for her pink-gold skirts. Then rough hands pulled him to his feet.

Guards from the vestibules held him and a hedge of sword points surrounded him, reflected candlelight running like fire along the blades. Pike-wielding guards and horrified gentlemen with drawn swords flanked the king, who was staring at the fallen cup and the wine splashed like blood across the floor. La Chaise was bent over the spilled wine, watching a fluffy white dog with red ribbons on its ears lapping eagerly at the puddle. Slowly, Louis turned his head to look at Charles.

“Regicide!” Michel Louvois, the war minister, raised his court sword from the hedging circle to Charles’s throat. “Now we know you for what you are!” His chins quivered with satisfaction. “You see, Sire! I was right about him. A Huguenot sympathizer, spreading his damnable creed at Louis le Grand, plotting-”

A deep, furious voice growled, “Don’t be a fool,” and a lace-cuffed hand shoved Louvois’s sword point away from Charles’s throat. La Reynie pushed past the war minister to the king. With a quick glance at La Chaise, he went down on one knee. “Sire, there was an attempt on your life, but not by Maître du Luc. Without him, you would be dying now. Look.”

He pointed, and a gasp went up from the royal family and others close enough to see. The fluffy white dog stood with its head down, heaving miserably. Suddenly it crumpled onto its side, shuddered, and lay still. A woman began to wail, but the others who had seen fell abruptly silent, and the frozen horror of their silence spread through the salon .

“Sweet wine, Sire,” La Reynie said softly. “Everyone close to you knows you like it. Sweet wine to cover a bitter taste.”

Only the king’s eyes moved as he looked from the dog to La Reynie to Charles. “Let the Jesuit go.” The guards took their hands away and stood at attention as Charles got slowly to his feet.

Louvois, protesting, made to secure him again, but Charles wrenched himself away.