“His Majesty the King!”
The guard threw open both doors for Louis. His Majesty hobbled in, favoring his gouty foot.
Lucien bowed to His Majesty; he acknowledged the greeting of Father de la Chaise and the profound salute of the marquis de Barbezieux. Louvois’ vindictive and brutal son succeeded his father as the King’s military adviser. Only once had he taken liberties when speaking to Lucien. In the face of the King’s sudden indifference to his interests, he proved he was not entirely stupid: he begged the Count de Chrétien for forgiveness — and intercession.
Father de la Chaise always behaved with perfect courtesy to Lucien, hoping, futilely, to convert him and save his soul.
M. de Barbezieux carried his tooled leather campaign desk, while Father de la Chaise carried the Pope’s gift, the reliquary, with great reverence.
Mme de Maintenon gasped. “Sire, the saint’s relic, it should be in the chapel, under guard —”
“Don’t you want to look at it, Bignette?” His Majesty asked. “Once Father de la Chaise takes it away, we will never see it except on the saint’s day.”
She made as if to rise from her chair, then sank back within its protection. Father de la Chaise brought the reliquary to her. She whispered a prayer.
“It is beautiful.” She bit off the last strand of flame-colored silk, and held out the tapestry to Father de la Chaise. “Father de la Chaise, my girls made this — you must take it, so it may lie beneath His Holiness’ precious gift.”
“That will be glorious, madame.”
Louis invited his advisers to sit at the council table. Father de la Chaise placed the domed cylinder before His Majesty. Louis idly caressed its chased gold sides and the pearls on its top.
“A rare gift from His Holiness,” Barbezieux said.
Lucien snorted with disgust. “The saint had no use for the relic... and His Majesty has no need of it. Or its cage.” He wondered what lunatic had first dismembered a body and enclosed it, bit by bit, in magic amulets.
Louis chuckled, then chided Lucien gently. “None of your atheistic wit, Chrétien. Innocent has made peace with me. I shall assume he means no insult with his cage.”
His Majesty called for Quentin, his personal valet, who tasted the wine, poured for Barbezieux and de la Chaise, then for Lucien, and finally, when His Majesty’s guests had also tasted the wine without being poisoned, for the King.
Barbezieux toyed with his goblet.
“Your health, Your Majesty.” Lucien drank, appalled by the young minister’s rudeness, amused by his discomfiture. He believes the slander, Lucien thought, that Mme de Maintenon poisoned his father. He fears the same.
His Majesty accepted the wishes for his health, then drank from his own goblet and settled into work.
“Chrétien,” the King said, “Brittany lacks a bishop. Were I to nominate one, His Holiness will invest him with the others, as soon as he signs the treaty. To whom do you wish the appointment offered?”
“To Nemo, Sire.”
His Majesty raised a questioning eyebrow. “To no one?”
“If M. de Chrétien has no nominee, Your Majesty, the position and the revenue might best be given to —”
Lucien interrupted Father de la Chaise. “It suits my family for the appointment to remain empty.” He finished his wine; Quentin poured again.
“Sir, you’re trading the spiritual health of Brittany for a few bits of gold,” de la Chaise said. “Your people need direction. Your family is sufficiently wealthy, and Brittany already bears the reputation —”
“Enough, sir. I asked for M. de Chrétien’s suggestion, and he has given it. About my decision, I will see.”
A new bishop would send much of the revenue from his lands to Rome. Without a bishop’s household and responsibilities to support, the parishioners would pay their taxes to His Majesty, and be left with something to eat after what threatened to be a poor harvest.
You’re too proud for your own good, Lucien said to himself. You neglect to explain yourself to His Majesty because you think Mme de Maintenon will give herself credit for your decision, because she might believe she shamed you into unaccustomed acts of charity.
Explaining himself to His Majesty was unnecessary. Lucien’s sovereign possessed great political astuteness; His Majesty often understood the motives of his subjects and his advisers before they understood themselves.
“What have you for me today, M. de Barbezieux?”
“Orders, Your Majesty, for quartering troops among the Protestants.” Barbezieux drew papers from his campaign desk.
“Very good.” Louis signed the documents. Barbezieux and de la Chaise looked on with approval. Already busy with another bit of needlework, Mme de Maintenon smiled.
Lucien said nothing, for nothing he could say would make Louis change his mind. He had already tried, harder than was prudent. The proposal was meant to hasten the conversion of the heretics, but as far as Lucien had seen, it had caused only disaster and treason and the enrichment of men who did not deserve any rewards. Yet instead of withdrawing the failed orders, the King extended them. His Majesty’s intolerance — Mme de Maintenon’s, as Lucien preferred to believe — prevented him from seeing how severely the draconian measures against Protestants damaged France and His Majesty himself.
It’s easier to be an atheist, Lucien thought. And less dangerous. The King’s troops do not have permission to quarter themselves in my house, to loot it, to abuse without limit the members of my household.
“Is that all? Good day, then, gentlemen,” the King said to Barbezieux and de la Chaise. “M. de Chrétien, you will stay for a glass of wine.”
Barbezieux and de la Chaise bowed and withdrew.
Quentin refilled His Majesty’s goblet, and Lucien’s. Mme de Maintenon refused refreshment. Lucien sipped the wine; it was too fine a vintage to gulp even for medicinal purposes.
His Majesty closed his eyes, revealing for a moment his exhaustion, his age.
“Give me some simple task, M. de Chrétien,” His Majesty said. “Nothing to do with statecraft or religion. Something I may grant with a purse, with a wave of my hand.”
“There’s the matter of Father de la Croix, Your Majesty. The dissection.”
“Did he not complete it?”
“He completed the important part, Your Majesty. Apparently some few small muscles and sinews remain for him to observe.”
“His first attention must be to the matter we investigated last night.”