Judith Rock - Plague of Lies

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At the gilded gate, the guards on duty asked their business. While Jouvancy explained, Charles stared balefully at the golden sun as big as a carriage wheel on the gate’s top, feeling already scrutinized by the Sun King’s personal surveillance. The guards let them pass into the wide green expanse that still lay between them and most of the palace buildings. Beyond was a second gilded gate that Charles hadn’t even seen till now. He shook his head, thinking that the scale of the place was so huge that some things were simply too big to be seen.

At the second set of gates, another guard questioned them and directed them to their right, across the smaller-but still enormous-court toward the palace’s south wing. Here there were no carriages, just strolling courtiers and clutches of pointing, gawking sightseers. When they finally reached the door, Charles dismounted and helped Jouvancy down from the saddle. Two grooms appeared seemingly from nowhere, one taking the horses’ bridles and the other removing the saddlebags. A young royal footman in a blue serge coat with red velvet cuffs and pockets hurried through the door, spoke sharply to the man with the saddlebags, bowed to the two Jesuits, and scanned the court beyond them.

“I’ve been watching for you, mes pères ,” he said, in a voice that rasped like an old file and consorted oddly with his comely face and warm brown eyes. “But I was told there’d be four of you.”

“Père Le Picart and Père Montville were detained in Paris,” Jouvancy replied. “They will be here tomorrow morning.”

“Then if you please, I will conduct you to Père La Chaise. He’s waiting in his chamber.”

Jouvancy gently removed himself from Charles’s supporting arm and drew himself up, wavering a little as he found his feet again after the ride. “We thank you,” he said, with a relieved sigh, and they followed the footman into the palace, trailed in turn by the lower servant with the saddlebags.

The footman led his little procession along a corridor, up a flight of marble stairs to the next floor, and to the left along another corridor. This one was so crowded with people coming and going that its black-and-white-patterned marble floor was hardly visible beneath the rustling, swinging skirts and cloaks. Stopping at a door at the courtyard end of the building, the footman scratched at the door with his little finger. A tall, solidly built Jesuit in his late middle years opened it. Charles, who had met him before, recognized him as Père La Chaise and inclined his head. Jouvancy did the same.

La Chaise returned the gesture. “Welcome, Père Jouvancy. Entrez , I beg you. But where are the others?”

Jouvancy again explained. La Chaise nodded slightly at Charles, stood aside for them to pass into a small anteroom, and turned to the footman.

“Thank you, Bouchel, see that your man leaves the bags there.” He pointed to a table standing beside a copper water reservoir.

The footman pointed imperiously in his turn and stood over the other servant as he deposited the bags.

Waving his guests through the anteroom into the larger chamber, La Chaise said to Jouvancy, “Please, sit. I know that you have been ill, mon père .” He pulled an upholstered, fringed chair forward and turned to a small polished table that held a silver pitcher and five delicate cone-shaped, short-stemmed glasses. Jouvancy loosed his cloak, handed it to Charles, and sat, groaning audibly as his hindquarters met the chair seat.

“It is a long while since I’ve ridden,” he said ruefully.

La Chaise laughed and handed him a glass of rich red wine. “This should help ease the pain-and build up your blood, too. Always necessary after illness, I find.” Returning to the table, he said to Charles, “Put the cloaks on my bed and bring the stool from beside the hearth.”

Charles folded the cloaks and laid them on the thickly blanketed and well-pillowed bed, whose red curtains were looped back and tied to its carved posts. When he had moved the small, cushioned stool nearer to Jouvancy, La Chaise held out a glass to him.

“It is a pleasure to meet you again, mon père ,” Charles said, bowing once more before he took the wine.

La Chaise again nodded slightly in return and gestured Charles to the low stool. Charles sat obediently. La Chaise poured his own glass of wine and seated himself in the other chair. Seen close up, the king’s confessor looked to be sixty or so. His fleshy face was lined, his dark eyes resigned and knowing. He had the air of someone long past being surprised by anything-only to be expected, Charles thought, from a man who had spent more than a decade as the confessor of Europe’s most absolute monarch. But Charles could see in him none of the bitter cynicism such a king’s confessor might have had. La Chaise’s eyes were knowing, but they were also warm.

Charles drank gratefully, realizing as the wine went down how hungry he was and wondering when something might be done about it. Jouvancy was giving La Chaise an account of his illness, and Charles let his eyes wander over the room, the first palace room he’d seen. Its small size was a relief from the massive scale of the exterior. The chamber’s ceiling was undecorated; its walls were plain wood paneling below and plaster above; and the two armchairs, the stool, the table, a tall cupboard beside the fireplace, a prie-dieu, and the bed were all its furnishings. The large window opposite the door had small wood-framed panes of clear, faintly bluish glass. Its interior shutters stood open and the late afternoon sun, coming and going now among gathering clouds, fell obliquely, lighting a patch of bare, dusty parquet floor.

Charles realized that he’d expected something more, something grander, even though La Chaise used this room only when events compelled his overnight presence at Versailles. Otherwise, the king’s confessor lived in Paris, in the Jesuit Professed House beside the Church of St. Louis. La Chaise was not outwardly a courtier; he wore the same plain black cassock, with a rosary hanging from its belt, that every other Jesuit wore, and rode horseback or hired a carriage when the king sent for him.

As though he’d been reading Charles’s mind, La Chaise said, smiling, “I see you wondering at my accommodations, maître . I fought hard to get the brocade taken off the walls and to keep the gaggle of palace artists from painting overfed angels on my ceiling. Which gained me a reputation with a few people for ascetic sanctity, and with a great many more for pretended sanctity and secret luxury, and for myself, one space at least in this palace where I can breathe.” He nodded toward a door beyond Jouvancy. “Your chamber is just there, through that door. It, too, is plain.”

Jouvancy gave him a tired smile. “We thank you.” Then he sighed and said, “ Mon père , I think I must go and rest soon, but before I do, may we know what the arrangements are for giving our gift tomorrow?”

“Of course, yes. You are certain that Père Le Picart and Père Montville will be here in good time?”

“That is their intention. They will take a coach after the first Mass.”

“Good. Then that leaves only…” La Chaise pursed his lips and tapped a foot, staring at Charles without seeming to see him. Then he nodded, as though agreeing with himself, and stood up. “There is one last detail still to settle. Pray excuse me and I will see to it-it will be faster than sending someone. I will return as quickly as may be.”

He strode from the room, leaving Charles and Jouvancy looking at each other. Jouvancy was pale and the shadows beneath his eyes had darkened.

“Perhaps you could sleep a little in your chair while he’s gone,” Charles said.

“Yes. Yes, perhaps I could. Forgive me, I am absurdly tired.”

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