I recalled that there was an old custom that any white beast or albino belonged to the king. The white hart or stag was the
ancient symbol of kings; swans were reserved for the royal table, while a coach pulled by white horses was a sign that the occupant was connected to the royal family.
Louise, too: that white, white skin, reserved for the king alone.
I took all the^strawberries the man had, and divided them in two. One half I would serve plain; the other I would make into ice cream, with a little white pepper, for the king’s pleasure alone.
The day of the feast arrived - or rather, the first day, as the celebrations were to last the better part of a week. Flags fluttered from every point and turret of the castle; fanfares were blown, and everywhere you looked soldiers paraded in ceremonial display. There were exhibitions of horsemanship to entertain the guests, and a mechanical statue that sang. It was not Versailles - the castle was too much of a castle to be completely elegant, and the atmosphere was altogether more like a rural fair than the formal, choreographed ceremonies of France - but there was no mistaking the majesty of the occasion. The frescos on the ceiling of the Great Hall might not be dry, but it was vast, and it was painted, and as the thousand noble guests walked through the carved doors you could see them looking up and wondering at it.
And then Louise made her entrance.
The gown she wore that day was remarkable. It fitted her like a glove, and indeed her waist was so slender that a pair of gloved hands could almost have encircled it. The cloth was sown with a delicate pattern of diamond shapes; the skirt and bodice were separate, in the new French style; the skirt itself had a split at the side, so that as she walked one slender leg could be glimpsed amongst the folds of drapery, which was swept up to one side and pinned with a brooch. Only her hair - that unruly thicket of dark curls was not French in the least: it was not pinned up under a hat, but simply parted in the middle. It was as if she were saying: From now on I will be the arbiter here. I will copy what I want, and you will copy me.
The king bowed and led her to his table, which was separate from the others on a little raised dais. The queen was nowhere to be seen.
Shortly before I was due to serve the ice cream, one of the stewards came over. ‘This is to go into the ice,’ he said. ‘At the king’s command.’ He opened a small velvet poufh, and shook something out of it into my palm.
It was written on the menu that stood by each guest: For the kind’s pleasure alone: one plate of white strawberries and one plate of ice cream.
But it is not written how it happened: the blast of trumpets, the shout of the heralds, a sudden hush: all eyes on me as I walked, at the head of a solemn procession of servants, towards the figures at the topmost table.
My eyes made contact with hers, I believe, as I bowed low over the damask. But with that lazy eye, it was hard to be sure.
I stepped back. The king reached into the platter of crushed ice on which the bowl of strawberries rested and pulled out the end of a fine chain. He pulled again, and this time it swung free; laden, pendulous, heavy with flashing nuggets of what looked like ice: ice that suddenly caught flame in the glow of the candles.
A necklace of white diamonds, the stones as big; as strawberries, dripping in his fingers as he lifted it from its icy womb.
Only now did I notice that her neck had been left bare in preparation for this moment. As he fastened it there, whispering something only she could hear, I could imagine the goose-skin on her shoulders and collarbone from the jewels’ cold; the soft, almost velvet texture her skin would have beneath his hands.
She looked at him, adoring yet bashful, and then she turned to smile at the whole room: an innocent delighted, the happiest girl in the world. Instinctively, they applauded her, many of them rising to their feet as they did so; and if there were a few, like Rochester and Buckingham, whose claps were just a httle slower.
a little more cynical, it was swallowed up in the general buzz of approval.
For the kind’s pleasure alone.
And even I - courtier, confectioner, accomplice to my own heartbreak - even I put my hands together, and called a cheer I did not feel.
4
-■<
1 '
*
.^.:-'- -.y- : - . •/--.: .* '
- ;>-.
<
; -fV - . •
A^ i:;. ' ‘s -'v . -vAA;;^ v.:A,
■■■: .:■ ■ ' -'a V;
/ . '.Ani- A' A'-.* ., u;:U
• •-' !A.-5 . ' , \
■■ \ :'Au^A
>
>NS-..
PART FOUR
Tt was universally reported that the fair lady was bedded one of these nights, and the stocking flung after the manner of a married bride; I acknowledge that she was for the most part in her undress ail day, and that there was fondness and toying with that young wanton; nay, it was said that I was at the former ceremony; but it is utterly false.’
Diary of Sir John Evelyn, September, 1671
i i
"v-n >V'sr^;. tiids
/ • •''-U;..'W.QimK>^ .
Louise
It is done. I lie in the royal bed, wet with the king’s seed. Anointed by the Lord’s anointed. My thighs bloody, streaked. My maidenhead mingled with the fluxions of his desire.
The blood of Louise, spilled so that Louis might have Dutch blood spilled in the Netherlands.
In a daze, in a bed, words spilling around my head. I am a burning fortress, a ransacked village, scorched earth.
‘Please, do not cry, my love,’ he croons. ‘My love, my dearest love.’
Please Louise.
I am done, dishonoured, fallen. I am Eve, Magdalene, the Whore of Babylon, the wanton Ludy lately come from France the pamphleteers have always said I was. My precious honour plundered, stained along with the bedsheets. I am, quite literally, shattered.
But mostly what I think is—
Really?
All that fuss, for this? Are you sure?
Oh, of course it hurt. I was expecting it to hurt. But the first time it was over so fast that I scarcely had time to tell myself that it was not as bad as I had been expecting.
But perhaps that is the nature of his famous skill as a lover? Is it like being a surgeon - if you can saw an arm off in under a minute, patients will beat a path to your door?
I lie here, unable to move, all my limbs sawn off, scattered around the room where he has thrown them. Charles the surgeon, wiping the sweat from his forehead with the back of his hand.
Yes, he does take his wig off. Underneath, his stubble is turning grey. No, he does not kick out the lapdogs. Thank God the
three be has brought to Newmarket were too small to jump up into the bed. All night I heard them snuffling beyond the curtains.
Charles the surgeon was a lot slower with the second operation than the first. Perhaps he tires. His fingers on me, cold with seed, working between my legs. Why is he doing that, inside? Does it somehow prepare the way?
Sawing, sawing, sawing away.
I think of Aretino, all those pictures I studied so carefully in preparation for this night, trying to understand what would happen. I even made notes. But there is no chance whatsoever of me doing anything of that nature now. Nor, thankfully, does he seem to expect it. It is all I can do to lie here without sounding winded, much less squat or kneel or any of those other contortions.
‘My love, my love,’ he says, flopping into me again. And again. Squashing me. I think with sudden envy of the mechanism of a clock, cool and mechanical and clean.
With a groan he anoints me a second time. A sudden shuddering in his legs. The first time I thought it was some kind of fit, that I had killed the king. This time it is less alarming. But hardly less unpleasant.
Seven hundred years of loyal service to France. For this.