town for bread and cheese and a little pot of wine. And—
voilà
—
le souper
!”
Bouchel took a copper pot from the cupboard, carried it into La Chaise’s antechamber, brought it back half filled with water, and set it on a solid iron trivet at the edge of the fire. Then he pulled the square table out from the wall and brought over a round loaf of bread, a little cloth-wrapped cheese, and a sadly small pottery pitcher of wine, which he set on the table next to the silver pitcher that was already there.
“There,” he said, adding a candle in a brass holder to the table array. “Père La Chaise will take over from here when he comes back.”
Bouchel made as if to go, but Charles said, “I thought I heard the Guard go by.”
“You did. They took the Comte de Fleury’s body away, but we’ve not heard the end of it, you can be sure as rain of that.”
“Why do you say so?”
Bouchel’s harsh, damaged laughter filled the darkening room. “This is Versailles,
maître
. Drop dead from anything, including a broken neck, and before Mass tomorrow, the whole palace will be saying it was poison.” He shrugged, bowed, and became again the well-trained royal footman. “With your permission,
maître
. I wish you a good night.”
“And God give you a good night, also,” Charles said absently, his thoughts gone to poison. Poison was often suspected whena death came suddenly, and not just at court. But Fleury’s death seemed so obvious—sickness, a rush to the privy, a wet floor, a headlong fall down marble stairs. He eyed the unpromising pot of water on the hearth. On the other hand, perhaps it was just as well to cook over one’s own fire here.
The door opened again to admit La Chaise, who walked heavily to the fire, shaking his head. “A terrible thing to happen. But marble stairs are slippery at the best of times, and if the floor upstairs was wet… And it clearly was not the best of times for the Comte de Fleury.” He shrugged as though to shrug off his thoughts. “Is Père Jouvancy resting?”
“He’s asleep,
mon père
. May I help you with the supper?”
“Yes, thank you.” La Chaise glanced down at the simmering water, then out the window at the densely clouded sky visible above the roofs across the courtyard. “Light the candle on the table, if you will. Rain brings the dark sooner, even in June.” He took a long wooden splinter from a box beside the hearth, lit it, and handed it to Charles, who used it to light a short, stubby candle.
“Wax?” Charles said. “That’s pleasant, instead of tallow.”
“Yes, Bouchel saves me from the evil smell of tallow. He gathers wax candle ends from courtiers’ servants and keeps them aside for when I have to stay the night. A good servant, and a pleasant one. And he knows everything about the town, he was born in the village here.”
“Village? Most of the buildings I saw riding in look as new as the palace.”
“They are. But yes, there was a village. Small, but it had been here time out of mind. The king demolished it when he decided to turn his father’s old hunting lodge into this palace.”
Charles shook his head. “And how did the villagers take that?”
“Not well. But the king employed them in the building, so they got something out of it. If I remember correctly, Bouchel said once that his father was one of the masons.”
“Oh? And now Bouchel works in the palace his father helped to build. Do you know what happened to his voice?”
“No, but I do know that while the palace was being built, there was an enormous camp for the workers. During the work, the whole place, including the old village, became very wet and unhealthy because of massive digging and rerouting of water. I suppose anyone who lived here—villagers as well as incoming workmen—risked chest and throat sickness.” La Chaise went to the cupboard and brought out a tall pitcher covered with a white linen cloth. Crouching down, he removed the cloth and poured the
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