A Plague of Lies by Judith Rock Read Free Book Online

all laymen entering the palace, to men too low in rank to have their own. Vendors from the new town that had grown up around the palace were selling pastries and lottery tickets and
eau de vie
. Obvious palace officials attended by retinues of lesser officials walked slowly, deep in talk. Several ladies—bytheir dress and bold looks, of doubtful virtue—watched the men with practiced eyes, and one of them let her eyes linger on Charles as he passed.
    At the gilded gate, the guards on duty asked their business. While Jouvancy explained, Charles stared balefully at the golden sun as big as a carriage wheel on the gate’s top, feeling already scrutinized by the Sun King’s personal surveillance. The guards let them pass into the wide green expanse that still lay between them and most of the palace buildings. Beyond was a second gilded gate that Charles hadn’t even seen till now. He shook his head, thinking that the scale of the place was so huge that some things were simply too big to be seen.
    At the second set of gates, another guard questioned them and directed them to their right, across the smaller—but still enormous—court toward the palace’s south wing. Here there were no carriages, just strolling courtiers and clutches of pointing, gawking sightseers. When they finally reached the door, Charles dismounted and helped Jouvancy down from the saddle. Two grooms appeared seemingly from nowhere, one taking the horses’ bridles and the other removing the saddlebags. A young royal footman in a blue serge coat with red velvet cuffs and pockets hurried through the door, spoke sharply to the man with the saddlebags, bowed to the two Jesuits, and scanned the court beyond them.
    “I’ve been watching for you,
mes pères
,” he said, in a voice that rasped like an old file and consorted oddly with his comely face and warm brown eyes. “But I was told there’d be four of you.”
    “Père Le Picart and Père Montville were detained in Paris,” Jouvancy replied. “They will be here tomorrow morning.”
    “Then if you please, I will conduct you to Père La Chaise. He’s waiting in his chamber.”
    Jouvancy gently removed himself from Charles’s supportingarm and drew himself up, wavering a little as he found his feet again after the ride. “We thank you,” he said, with a relieved sigh, and they followed the footman into the palace, trailed in turn by the lower servant with the saddlebags.
    The footman led his little procession along a corridor, up a flight of marble stairs to the next floor, and to the left along another corridor. This one was so crowded with people coming and going that its black-and-white-patterned marble floor was hardly visible beneath the rustling, swinging skirts and cloaks. Stopping at a door at the courtyard end of the building, the footman scratched at the door with his little finger. A tall, solidly built Jesuit in his late middle years opened it. Charles, who had met him before, recognized him as Père La Chaise and inclined his head. Jouvancy did the same.
    La Chaise returned the gesture. “Welcome, Père Jouvancy.
Entrez
, I beg you. But where are the others?”
    Jouvancy again explained. La Chaise nodded slightly at Charles, stood aside for them to pass into a small anteroom, and turned to the footman.
    “Thank you, Bouchel, see that your man leaves the bags there.” He pointed to a table standing beside a copper water reservoir.
    The footman pointed imperiously in his turn and stood over the other servant as he deposited the bags.
    Waving his guests through the anteroom into the larger chamber, La Chaise said to Jouvancy, “Please, sit. I know that you have been ill,
mon père
.” He pulled an upholstered, fringed chair forward and turned to a small polished table that held a silver pitcher and five delicate cone-shaped, short-stemmed glasses. Jouvancy loosed his cloak, handed it to Charles, and sat, groaning audibly as his hindquarters met the chair seat.
    “It is a long