The Shadow Queen A Novel (16 page)

I, therefore, stand guilty and condemn myself, even were I to be pardoned.

I beg you to assuage his family’s sorrow, in any way possible.

Pray for me, as I will pray for you.

I remain yours forever.

Alexandre de La Trémoille, Marquis de Noirmoutier

I rolled the letter back up tightly, then wound the ribbon and knotted it.

I remain yours forever.

Yet he owed
me
his life.

I lay for some time with my confused and angry thoughts. I felt lumpish and ugly, a tall freak in shabby rags.

ATHÉNAïS THREW ALEXANDRE’S
letter into the fire. “You didn’t warn me!”

“Leaving the country saves his life.” I trembled, but not at my presumption (which was great). I’d risked everything—

“And ruins
mine.
” She spat into the flames, convulsed.

I was caught in a web of confusion. I had tried to prevent the duel, but had been ignored. I’d sheltered Alexandre at grave risk to me and my family. And now
I
was blamed! Like winged Icarus, I had flown too close to the sun, and like him, I had been burned.

“Au revoir, Mademoiselle,” I said coldly, my heart twisted. She had resolved to forget Alexandre, and I resolved to forget them both. I didn’t belong in their world. My “princess” had been a fantasy of my childhood, a talisman against my own bleak world, a treasured fable of a perfect life. But there was no such thing, I now knew.

She cursed me as I left.

I walked all the way back to our meager room, past the gates of the wealthy, past the Abbaye de Saint-Germain-des-Prés, only glancing at the trees that concealed the dueling field. I picked up my pace nearing the river, stomping carelessly through puddles of refuse, fuming and chafed—but also, inexplicably, bereft.

Crossing the Pont Neuf, I ignored the whores, the pleading children, the evil Bird Catcher with his clutch of sad and pretty boys. I paused for breath at the statue of Henri IV—at the very spot where Alexandre was to meet the traveling players only the day before.

Nearby, a small crowd surrounded a man with a pockmarked face, hovering over a fire on a grate. I’d seen him several times before. “Ask a spirit,” he called out. “Ask it anything!” A woman handed him a coin. She wanted to know where her husband had gone. The pocked man wrote her question on a note, enclosed it in a ball of wax, and threw it on the fire. Then a note appeared in his hand. “The spirit says he’s in a tavern, Madame,” he told her, and everyone laughed.

A cutting wind blew across the gray water. I blinked back tears and pulled my hood down over my eyes. Shivering, I walked on, plunging my hands under my cloak, where I suddenly felt—with some satisfaction, I confess—the hard weight of Alexandre’s timepiece. I’d not given it to Athénaïs, as I’d intended.

I checked to make sure nobody was close—thieves on the Pont Neuf were thick as stars—and took it out of my poke, weighing the object in my mittened hand, calculating its worth.

I SOLD ALEXANDRE’S
timepiece for a handsome sum and found Gaston a helper, someone who actually began to have some success teaching him things. I considered paying for a healer like the one Madame Catherine had mentioned, as well, but Gaston proved mysteriously fearful. In any case, his ever-patient helper was making progress: he could do up a button! Her fee—a livre a week—was considerable, but it was worth it, and it freed Mother and me to work with the troupe.

In spite of my resolve and the demands of my life, I would now and again be irresistibly moved to go back over the river, making the long trek to Athénaïs’s home. I never lingered, or even slowed: I didn’t want to arouse the suspicion of the guards at the gate. I would just walk by as if going about my business, my eyes darting through the iron gate. Once I saw one of her little dogs doing his business in the gravel, attended by a frowning maid. Another time I saw a delivery of an entire cow carcass, skinned, befooted, and beheaded. But never Athénaïs herself.

My compulsion shamed me. I feared I was under an enchantment. I paid a cunning woman to make an amulet for me to wear, to break the spell. For a time this seemed to help. It helped, too, that events conspired to capture my attention. We were—without knowing it at the time—in the early stages of that great disruption: the War of the Theaters.

A
CT
III
W
AR OF THE
T
HEATERS

(1662, Paris)

CHAPTER 28

H
eading out to a meeting at the Marais, Mother and I stopped to borrow Monsieur Martin’s copy of the weekly verse gazette,
La Muze historique.
We arrived at the theater flush with excitement. The editor Loret had written about
Sertorius
in glowing terms—“You can’t praise the actors too highly,” he’d written, with a special mention of Mother’s wonderful performance!

“Did you see what Loret said?” I asked Madame Babette on entering. She was leaning on a sweep, staring into the pit. Monsieur la Roque and some of the players had pulled benches around the coal brazier for warmth. It looked like they’d opened the liquor case. They were sharing a jug, yet they did not seem to have a festive manner. “In
La Muze
?” I said, showing her the news sheet. I had scanned it for mention of the duelists, but there was nothing.

Madame Babette nodded dolefully. “Molière’s troupe is going to produce
Sertorius
as well,” she said with a tone of defeat.

I glanced at Mother and then back at Madame Babette, more confused than alarmed. “But the play hasn’t been published yet.” Once in print, a play was public property, available for any troupe to stage—but not before. This was not a written law, but it was respected nonetheless.

“Monsieur Molière is the King’s favorite these days. He seems to think he can do anything.”

“But how could he even get the script?” There was only one complete copy, and the prompter locked it away safely each night. The players were given only their lines and cues, no more.

Madame Babette screwed up her face. “Well—Brécourt and La Thorillière …”

I took note of the players present: Brécourt, La Thorillière, and their wives were usually the first to arrive at meetings, blaze the fire, and set out the benches—but I didn’t see them.

“
They’ve
signed with Molière,” Madame Babette said.

Mother let out a yelp.

“Their wives too?” Sacré coeur. It would be a challenge to perform
Sertorius
without them—and then it struck me. “You think they
stole
the prompt copy?”

“Monsieur la Roque checked. It’s still locked away.” Madame Babette shrugged her shoulders. “But they could have committed it to memory.”

“In this short time?”

“Well—there are four of them.”

A betrayal! “How is Monsieur la Roque taking it?” La Thorillière’s wife, Marie, was his daughter.

“Hard.”

I felt sickened. The troupe was like a family. Were we to be torn apart?

“Not that
I
would mind getting paid,” Madame Babette added as Monsieur la Roque gestured us forward.

THE MEETING WAS
adjourned shortly after, everyone dazed. The wonderful notice in
La Muze historique
only made us feel worse.

Breath misting, Mother and I walked back to our room.

“I have faith,” she whispered to her little Virgin, stringing her up on a hook.

I wish I did, I thought, building up the fire and filling the cauldron. Had I heard a knock? I went to the door, the iron skimmer in my hand.

“That’s quite a climb up your stairs,” Monsieur Pierre said, leaning against the wall, catching his breath.

“We’ve something outrageous to tell you,” Mother said, joining me at the door.

“It
has
been a day,” he said, stepping into the room.

Did he know? I lit a pine-scented taper, uncomfortably aware of the stench of the communal latrine. “Please, have a seat, Monsieur,” I said, pulling a wood chair away from the wall. I noticed mouse droppings in the corner and made a note to set out traps.

“You aren’t going to believe it,” Mother said, flinging a tattered shawl around her shoulders and sitting down beside the great playwright.

I perched on the windowsill. I could feel a cold draft coming through. I wished I could talk to Monsieur Pierre privately, without my mother’s emotional exclamations.

“Molière stole Brécourt and Étiennette,
and
La Thorillière and Marie,” she went on. “All four of them.”

Monsieur Pierre raised one bushy brow.

“And he’s going to produce
Sertorius
—with
them.
”

Monsieur Pierre cleared his throat, pulling on the patch of hair under his lower lip. “I know. I’ve been talking to Josias Floridor.”

This puzzled me. Floridor was the leader of another rival troupe, the Bourgogne. What did
he
have to do with it?

Monsieur Pierre put his hand over Mother’s. “One of their leading players wishes to retire and they are in need of a replacement. I’ve been asked to inquire.”

“But surely you wouldn’t want me to leave the Marais—”

“For your own sake, Alix, you must seriously give it thought. Floridor is a remarkable tragic actor.”

Indeed. He’d even traveled to London and been a success there, I’d heard. Nonetheless, it was said he remained a perfect gentleman, without the blunt manners of the English. His gestures, manner, and posture were said to be natural and unstudied; some claimed he was the best player in the entire world.

“Floridor and I first worked together … oh, mon Dieu, fifteen years ago? Where does the time go? It was the year I joined the Académie Française, so, oui, fifteen. We’re very close—he’s godfather to one of my sons, in fact. He leads a fine company and you would learn from them … and they’re going to produce
Sertorius
as well—”

The Bourgogne
and
Molière’s troupe? In addition to the Marais?
Three
troupes performing the same play? I was dumbfounded.

Monsieur Pierre put up his hands. “To tell you the truth, I think the Bourgogne production might be the finest of the three—but only if you are in it, Alix.”

“Monsieur Pierre, if I were to leave the Marais, what would happen to our beautiful production?”

He let out a long, sputtering breath. “With the loss of four players and the two rival enactments, the Marais is going to have to reconsider its repertoire.”

“Do you think they will close down
Sertorius
?”

He shrugged. “Likely.”

I pressed my hand to my forehead, feeling suddenly faint. We’d invested so much. Would we ever recover the loss?

Mother stood and paced. “I couldn’t leave the Marais.”

“Alix! You must consider! They’ll be reduced to performing farces again, just to survive. Your talent—your
great
talent—will be wasted.”

Plus there would be no money in it. I would have to let Gaston’s tutor go—just when he was starting to make progress.

“I met Nicolas on that stage,” Mother protested. “His spirit is there.”

“The spirit of Nicolas is with
you,
” Monsieur Pierre said (surprising me).

“Maman, he’s right,” I said, taking advantage. The Bourgogne was considered the best troupe in the land for tragedy. “About joining Floridor’s company,” I added, to clarify. The geography of the afterlife and the whereabouts of my father’s spirit were not subjects I wished to delve into.

Mother sat back down, deflated.

“One other thing,” the great playwright said, his big hands flat on the table. “As you know, I’ve been thinking of writing another tragedy—this one about Sophonisbe.”

“The warrior queen,” Mother said with a glint of a smile.

We had talked of Sophonisbe’s story before, the three of us, talked of its rich potential. There had been other plays about the African queen, but none that had portrayed her accurately: none that showed her cruel nature.

“The heartless queen,” I said, recalling telling Sophonisbe’s story to Athénaïs, remembering her glee at the Queen’s wickedness, her big eyes alight. I clasped the amulet. The memory pierced me.

“I intend to write her story this winter in Rouen,” Monsieur Pierre said. “I told Josias that I would offer it to the Bourgogne—and that I had you, Alix, in mind for the title role.”

An honor, truly! “Would the Bourgogne give Maman a full share?” I asked. In spite of her major roles, Mother still had only a half share at the Marais.

“Absolutely,” Monsieur Pierre said, standing. “Perhaps you should go and discuss things with Floridor. Why not tomorrow?”

CHAPTER 29

T
he Bourgogne was an old building, built nearly a hundred years before the Marais. It claimed to be the first public playhouse in the country, in fact. It was less well located than the Marais, near the meat and vegetable markets at the junction of the rue Mauconseil and the rue Neuve de Bourgogne, two horribly congested and noisy streets. Even so, it was closer to the Court and attracted a better class of clientele.

“We are flattered that you should wish to join our company,” Floridor said, bowing over Mother’s hand. He had a flexible carrying voice and the fluid, dignified presence one expected in a tragic actor.

Mother glanced at me, perplexed.

“My mother is undecided, Monsieur,” I said, somewhat disarmed by his noble air and the unexpected sweetness of his manner. He was a man of birth and quality, yet he wasn’t pompous in the least. Indeed, he looked somewhat comical in an ancient ruff and sagging breeches.

“Of
course,
” he said, gracefully bowing us through to the grande salle. In spite of his advanced years, he had a superb physique and excellent carriage. “Have you ever been to our theater, Mesdames?”