La Chaise, unfortunately, found his voice. “Of course it wouldn’t. You are talking like a fool. Go back to Louis le Grand and stay there. The girl is going to Poland and if you lift a finger to stop her, you will be guilty of treason. Come. I will find you a carriage.”
Montmorency was a head taller than La Chaise, and as he glared at the king’s confessor, his considerable bulk seemed to grow. For the first time, Charles saw a man’s anger showing hard and bright behind the boy’s yearning.
“I am not going back. I have leave to be here.”
Charles had the feeling that if La Chaise had not been a cleric, Montmorency might have invited him out to the garden to settle the matter. But then the façade of Montmorency’s new manhood wavered, and the boy showed through. “Leave me alone!” He dodged clumsily around La Chaise and made for the doors.
“Dear God,” La Chaise muttered. “We have to get him out of here. Do you realize what he’s flirting with?”
“I realize who.”
“Don’t you start playing the fool. Montmorency is the perfect dupe, and the girl will use him if she can. If he goes on talking about challenging the king’s plans for her-or, God forbid, actually makes a move to challenge them-we’ll be blamed nearly as much as he will, because we’ve educated him.”
Charles snorted. “No one has educated Montmorency, believe me-” Something hit his shoulder and he turned sharply, jostling La Chaise, who spilled wine down his cassock. A thin middle-aged woman stood in the alcove’s archway, frowning up at him.
Chapter 9
Sweeping her fan from side to side like a sword and frowning-which made several of her star-shaped beauty patches collide over her nose like an ominous planetary conjunction-the woman pushed her way between Charles and La Chaise.
Openmouthed, La Chaise watched her green gown and bright yellow wig disappear into the crowd. “Blessed Saint Roch.” He turned to stare at the alcove. “Did she come from in there?”
“She must have,” Charles said, wondering why La Chaise had invoked a plague saint.
“So she was in there all the time, in there with the two of them.” La Chaise stood on his toes, trying to see over the mass of talking, eating courtiers. “You’re taller; can you still see her?”
Catching sight of the yellow ringlets, Charles nodded. “She hasn’t gone far, she’s talking to someone. Who is she?”
“Her Royal Highness Marguerite Louise, Grand Duchess of Tuscany. Known as Margot. She’s the king’s cousin, and twelve years ago he sent her, much against her will, to Italy to marry Cosimo de Medici. She has fought constantly against her husband and the marriage, and Louis has finally permitted her return to France. All of which makes her the very last person who should be anywhere near Mademoiselle de Rouen just now.” La Chaise finished his wine in one gulp and put down his glass on the little table where Charles’s own untasted wine and food still waited. “I will find Montmorency and make sure he goes back to Paris. You engage the Grand Duchess of Tuscany in talk. Stay with her. If you can’t stay with her, watch her. And for God’s sake, keep her away from Lulu. Do not let the duchess out of your sight until she is in her carriage and the carriage is turned for Paris. When you’ve seen her carriage pass the gates, report to me.”
When Charles didn’t move, La Chaise said grimly, “I know I am not your religious superior. I know you are only a scholastic. But I am asking you to help me. You say you are loyal to the king. Prove it now.”
Since the only possible answer to that was agreement, Charles nodded and waded into the crowd after the bobbing yellow wig. His path crossed the duchess’s near a door into the gallery. She was carrying a half-empty glass of dark red wine and swaying happily on her high heels. Some of her thickly plastered beauty patches had come unglued in the heat and landed like black shooting stars on her bare bony shoulders. She checked for a moment when she saw Charles and then greeted him loudly, spilling wine down his cassock as she tried to kiss him.
Courtiers around them egged her on. “Ah,” someone sang out, “the Grand Duchess of Tuscany is a veritable Venus tonight, and who can resist her?”
Sighing inwardly, Charles fended her off. “May I be of service, madame? May I escort you to a seat?”
Margot laughed in his face. “Do I look so tired? Is Venus ever tired? Or are you too tired, poor celibate stick?” She regarded him, head to one side. “We might go back to that pretty little alcove and find a cure for your-limpness.”
That brought delighted gasps and caws of merriment, and Charles felt himself turning as red as his tormenter’s wine.
“Shall we walk out into the gallery, Your Royal Highness? It is cooler there and will stop your face from losing its celestial beauties.”
The apt double entendre made the listening courtiers eye Charles with new respect. He stepped aside so that Margot could precede him through the door and followed in the wide wake of her summer-green skirts, praying fervently that Jouvancy would be well enough in the morning to ride in a carriage back to Paris and get them out of this place.
Not only was the gallery cooler, but it was nearly deserted and quieter, except for what Charles took at first for the sound of an indoor fountain, then realized was an unseen man pissing in one of the small dark gallery alcoves. A few couples sat on scattered benches or strolled, whispering together, along the black-and-white tile. Charles led Margot to a bench, and as she sat down and spread her skirts, he bent to look more closely at the bench’s soft luster in the light from the wall sconces.
“Silver?” he said incredulously.
“Of course, silver. Whatever my dear cousin Louis wants, he must have.”
“And you?” Charles said boldly, sitting on the bench’s end. If he had to dog her steps, he might as well find out all he could about her. “It seems you’ve gained what you wanted in coming back to France.”
She drained her glass. “Yes. And it took twelve miserable years of my life. How long do you suppose it took Louis to get this?” She slapped a hand down on the gleaming silver and hiccupped.
“Not twelve years,” Charles said, knowing that was his next line in this script. “Do you dislike your husband so much, then?”
She gave him a wide, gap-toothed smile. “I loathe Cosimo de Medici. I loathed him on sight. I loathed the very thought of going to Italy and marrying him. But what did that matter to Louis?”
“A hard fate for a woman,” he said, both because it was the truth and also to see how she might respond.
“You may well say so.” She glanced sideways at him. “And now I must watch poor little Lulu go through it all. And Poland is much farther away and will be harder to escape than Italy was. But perhaps her little prince will be less disagreeable than Cosimo. So ugly, Cosimo, and I always dislike ugly men. I wouldn’t even bother sitting here with you, if you were ugly.” She tapped him on the chest with her closed fan. “You are not ugly at all, are you, mon cher?”
“Whatever else I am, I am a cleric, Your Highness,” Charles said quietly.
“Whatever else you are, you are a silly young prude,” she mocked, “and you will have to account to the bon Dieu for such waste.” She hiccupped again and turned her head toward the sound of another man making use of an alcove. “Ah, the sweet sound of flowing water. Always it calls to my own water. And, alas, I cannot make use of an alcove. Help me up, mon cher.”
Charles stood quickly and pulled her to her feet. Her skirts swept her empty glass from the bench, and it shattered on the floor.
“No, no, we must not be indelicate,” she laughed, as Charles made to accompany her. “You cannot escort me to la chaise de commodité-the real one, I mean, of course. I have no desire to meet the other one any more often than I must.” Giggling drunkenly, she wove her way down the gallery.