Waters of Versailles (2 page)

Installing the first throne had been a mess. Bear and Bull had ripped into walls and ceilings, filling the royal dressing room with the barnyard stench of their sweat. But King Louis had exercised his royal prerogative from the first moment the throne was unpacked, even before it was connected to the pipes. So, it was an even trade—the king had to breathe workmen's stench, and Bull and Bear had been regularly treated to the sight and scent of healthy royal bowel movements.

The Grand Chamberlain steepled his fingers. “Plumbing is not required. Just the throne.”

“I cannot imagine the royal household wants a second throne just for show.”

The Grand Chamberlain sighed. “See for yourself.”

He led Sylvain into the cedar-scented garderobe. A rainbow of velvet and satin cushions covered the floor. The toilet gleamed in a place of honor, bracketed by marble columns. Something was growing in the toilet bowl. It looked like peach moss.

The moss turned its head. Two emerald eyes glared up at him.

“Minou has been offered a number of other seats, but she prefers the throne.” The Grand Chamberlain looked embarrassed. “Our well-beloved king will not allow her to be disturbed. In fact, he banished the courtier who first attempted to move her.”

The cat hissed, its tiny ivory fangs yellow against the glistening white porcelain. Sylvain stepped back. The cat's eyes narrowed with lazy menace.

A wide water drop formed in the bend of the golden pipes above the toilet. The drop slid across the painted porcelain reservoir and dangled for a few heartbeats. Then it plopped onto the cat's head. Minou's eyes popped wide as saucers.

Sylvain spun and fled the room, heart hammering.

The Grand Chamberlain followed. “Send the second throne immediately. This afternoon at the latest.” The request was punctuated by the weight of gold as he discreetly passed Sylvain a pouch of coins.

“Certainly,” Sylvain said, trying to keep his voice steady. “The cat may prefer the original throne, however.”

“That will have to do.”

When he was out of the Grand Chamberlain's sight, Sylvain rushed through the royal apartments and into the crowded Grand Gallery. There, in Versailles' crowded social fishbowl, he had no choice but to slow to a dignified saunter. He kept his gaze level and remote, hoping to make it through the long gallery uninterrupted.

“Sylvain, my dear brother, why rush away?” Gérard clamped his upper arm and muscled him to the side of the hall. “Stay and take a turn with me.”

“Damn you,” Sylvain hissed. “You know I haven't time for idling. Let me go.”

Gérard snickered. “Don't deprive me of your company so soon.”

Sylvain had seen his friend the Marquis de la Châsse in every imaginable situation—beardless and scared white by battle-scarred commanders, on drunken furlough in peat-stinking country taverns, wounded bloody and clawing battlefield turf. They had pulled each other out of danger a hundred times—nearly as often as they'd goaded each other into it.

Gérard's black wig was covered in coal-dark powder that broadcast a subtle musky scent. The deep plum of his coat accentuated the dark circles under his eyes and the haze of stubble on his jaw.

Sylvain pried his arm from Gérard's fist and fell into step beside him. At least there were no pipes overhead, no chance of a splattering. The gallery was probably one of the safest places in the palace. He steered his friend toward the doors and prepared to make his escape.

Gérard leaned close. “Tell me good news. Can it be done?”

“My answer hasn't changed.”

Gérard growled, a menacing rumble deep in his broad chest.

“I've heard that noise on the battlefield, Gérard.” Sylvain said. “It won't do you any good here.”

“On a battlefield, you and I are on the same side. But here you insist on opposing me.”

Sylvain nodded at the Comte de Tessé. The old man was promenading with his mistress, a woman young enough to be his granddaughter, and the two of them were wearing so much powder that an aura of tiny particles surrounded them with a faint pink glow. The comte raised his glove.

“I wonder,” said the comte loudly, as if he were addressing the entire hall, “can Sylvain de Guilherand only make plain water dance, or does he also have power over the finest substances? Champagne, perhaps.”

“Ingenuity has its limits, but I haven't found them yet.” Sylvain let a faint smile play at the corners of his mouth.

“Surely our beloved king's birthday would be an appropriate day to test those limits. Right here, in fact, in the center of the Grand Gallery. What could be more exalted?”

Sylvain had no time for this. He nodded assent and the comte strolled on with an extra bounce in his step, dragging his mistress along by the elbow.

The doors of the Grand Gallery were barricaded by a gang of nuns who gaped up at the gilded and frescoed ceiling like baby sparrows in a nest. Sylvain and Gérard paced past.

“You don't seem to understand,” Gérard said. “Pauline is desperate. It's vulgar to talk about money, but you know I'll make it worth your effort. Ready cash must be a problem. Courtiers rarely discharge their obligations.”

“It's not a question of money or friendship. The north wing roof won't hold a reservoir. If the king himself wanted water in the north wing, I would have to refuse him.”

“Then you must reinforce the roof.”

Sylvain sighed. Gérard had never met a problem that couldn't be solved by gold or force. He couldn't appreciate the layers of influence and responsibility that would have to be peeled back to accomplish a major construction project like putting reservoirs on the north wing.

“Pauline complains every time she pisses,” said Gérard. “Do you know how often a pregnant woman sits on her pot? And often she gets up in the night? The smell bothers her, no matter how much perfume and rose water she applies, no matter how quickly her maid whisks away the filth. Pauline won't stop asking. I will have no peace until she gets one of your toilets.”

“Sleep in a different room.”

“Cold, lonely beds are for summer. In winter, you want a warm woman beside you.”

“Isn't your wife intimate with the Marquise de Coupigny? I hear she keeps a rose bower around her toilet. Go stay with her.”

“The marquise told my wife that she does not cater to the general relief of the public, and their intimacy has now ended in mutual loathing. This is what happens when friends refuse each other the essential comforts of life.”

“I'll provide all the relief you need if you move to an apartment the pipes can reach.”

“Your ingenuity has found its limits, then, despite your boasts. But your pipes reached a good long way yesterday. I hear it was a long siege. How high were the d'Arlain battlements?”

“You heard wrong. Annette d'Arlain is a virtuous woman.”

“Did she tell you the king's mistress named her toilet after the queen? Madame pisses on Polish Mary. Pauline is disgusted. She asked me to find out what Annette d'Arlain says.”

Two splashes pocked Sylvain's cheek. He looked around wildly for the source.

“Tears, my friend?” Gérard dangled his handkerchief in front of Sylvain's nose. “Annette is pretty enough but her cunt must be gorgeous.”

Sylvain ignored his friend and scanned the ornate ceiling. The gilding and paint disguised stains and discolorations, but the flaws overhead came to light if you knew where to look.

There. A fresh water stain spread on the ceiling above the statue of Hermes. A huge drop formed in its gleaming centre. It grew, dangled like a jewel, and broke free with a snap. It bounced off the edge of a mirror, shot past him, then ricocheted off a window and smacked him on the side of his neck, soaking his collar.

Sylvain fled the Grand Gallery like a rabbit panicking for its burrow. He ran with no attention to dignity, stepping on the lace train of one woman, raking through the headdress feathers of another, shoving past a priest, setting a china vase rocking on its pedestal. The drone of empty conversation gave way to shocked exclamations as he dodged out of the room into one of the old wing's service corridors.

He skidded around a banister into a stairwell. Water rained down, slickening the stairs as he leapt two and three steps at a time. It spurted from joins, gushed from welded seams, and sprayed from faucets as he passed.

The narrow corridors leading to Sylvain's apartment were clogged with every species of servant native to the palace. The ceiling above held a battery of pipes—the main limb of the system Bull and Bear had installed two years before. Every joint and weld targeted Sylvain as he ran. Everyone was caught in the crossfire—servants, porters, tradesmen. Sylvain fled a chorus of curses and howls. It couldn't be helped.

Sylvain crashed through the door of his apartment. His breath rasped as he leaned on the door with all his weight, as if he could hold the line against disaster.

Bull and Bear knelt over a pile of dirty rags on the bare plank floor. Sylvain's servant stood over them, red-eyed and sniffling.

“What is this mess?” Sylvain demanded.

His servant slowly pulled aside one of the rags to reveal Leblanc's staring face, mottled green and white like an old cheese. Sylvain dropped to his knees and fished for the dead man's hand.

It was cold and slack. Death had come and gone, leaving only raw meat. All life had drained away from that familiar face, memories locked forever behind dead eyes, tongue choked down in a throat that would never speak again.

The first time they met, Sylvain had been startled speechless. The old soldier had talked familiarly to him in the clipped rough patois of home and expected him to understand. They were on the banks of the Moselle, just about as far from the southern Alps as a man could be and still find himself in France.

Sylvain should have cuffed the old man for being familiar with an officer, but he had been young and homesick, and words from home rang sweet. He kept Leblanc in his service just for the pleasure of hearing him talk. He made a poor figure of a servant but he could keep a tent dry in a swamp and make a pot of hot curds over two sticks and a wafer of peat. He'd kept the old man close all through the Polish wars, through two winters in Quebec, and then took him home on a long furlough. Sylvain hadn't been home for five years, and Leblanc hadn't seen the Alps in more than thirty, but he remembered every track of home, knew the name of every cliff, pond, and rill. Leblanc had even remembered Château de Guilherand, its high stone walls and vast glacier-fed waterworks.

Close as they'd been, Sylvain had never told the old man he was planning to catch a nixie and bring her to Versailles. Under the Sun King, the palace's fountains had been a wonder of the world. Their state of disrepair under Louis XV was a scandal bandied about and snickered over in parlors from Berlin to Naples. Sylvain knew he could bring honor back to the palace and enrich himself in the bargain. The fountains were just the beginning of his plan. There was no end to the conveniences and luxuries he could bring to the royal blood and courtiers of Versailles with a reliable, steady flow of clean, pure water.

She'd been just a tadpole. Sylvain had lured her into a leather canteen and kept her under his shirt, close to his heart, during the two weeks of steady hard travel it took to get from home to Versailles. The canteen had thrummed against his chest, drumming in time with hooves or footsteps or even the beating of his heart—turning any steady noise into a skeleton of a song. It echoed the old rhythms, the tunes he heard shepherds sing beside the high mountain rills as he passed by, rifle on his shoulder, tracking wild goats and breathing the sweet, cold, pure alpine air.

Sylvain had kept her a secret, or so he'd thought. The day after they arrived at Versailles, he'd snuck down to the cisterns, canteen still tucked under his shirt. A few hours later, Leblanc had found him down there, frustrated and sweating, shouting commands at the canteen, trying to get her to come out and swim in the cisterns.

“What you got there ain't animal nor people,” Leblanc had told him. “Kick a dog and he'll crawl back to you and do better next time. A soldier obeys to avoid the whip and the noose. But that little fish has her own kind of mind.”

Sylvain had thrown the canteen to the old man and stepped back. Leblanc cradled it in his arms like a baby.

“She don't owe you obedience like a good child knows it might. She's a wild creature. If you don't know that you know nothing.”

Leblanc crooned a lullaby to the canteen, tender as a new mother. The little fish had popped out into the cistern pool before he started the second verse, and he had her doing tricks within a day. Over the past two years, they'd been nearly inseparable.

“Ah, old Leblanc. What a shame.” Gérard stood in the doorway, blocking the view of the gawkers in the corridor behind him. “A good soldier. He will be much missed.”

Sylvain carefully folded Leblanc's hands over his bony cold breast. Bull and Bear crossed themselves as Sylvain drew his thumb and finger over the corpse's papery eyelids.

Gérard shut the door, closing out the gathered crowd. Sylvain tried to ignore the prickling ache between his eyes, the hollow thud of his gut.

“Sylvain, my dear friend. Do you know you're sitting in a puddle?”

Sylvain looked down. The floor under him was soaked. Bull dabbled at the edge of the puddle with the toe of his boot, sloshing a thin stream through the floorboards while Bear added to the puddle with a steady rain of tears off the tip of his ratted beard.

“I don't pretend to understand your business,” said Gérard, “But I think there might be a problem with your water pipes.”

Sylvain barked a laugh. He couldn't help himself. A problem with the pipes. Yes, and it would only get worse.

-4-

Sylvain had rarely visited the cisterns over the past two winters. There had been no need. The little fish was Leblanc's creature. The two of them had been alone for months while Sylvain fought the summer campaigns, and through the winter, Sylvain had more than enough responsibilities above ground—renovating and repairing the palace's fountains, planning and executing the water systems, and most importantly, doing it all while maintaining the illusion of a courtly gentleman of leisure, attending levées and soirées, dinners and operas.