Gates of Gold

Table of Contents

• Runaway Horse
• An Unexpected Reward
• A Warning
• The Palace
• Madame’s Dogs
• Disaster
• Doctor Fagon
• Endless Etiquette
• A Season of Rain
• The Letter
• Doctor Revel, My Father
• The Coming Ball
• Royal Sled Race
• The Grand Ball
• Marly
• Nightfall at Versailles
• Rumors of Poison
• No Safe Place
• When Sparrows Fall
• Sleeping Child
• Beyond Gilded Gates
• Then and Now: France

Runaway Horse

Cécile is walking home through the forest near Rileaux, her basket brimming with carefully gathered mushrooms. The ground begins to tremble beneath her feet. She drops to the forest floor, and her basket topples. Mushrooms scatter across the moss between the cedar and scrub oak. Flattened against the ground, she creeps beneath the fringe of trees and studies the sunlit meadow beyond. Wildflowers bend in a light breeze, and bees lift from clover to clover. The pulse of hoofbeats grows steadily closer.

She remembers Papa’s reminder before she set out that noon. Be careful, and in times like these, don’t trust strangers or soldiers. She has heard plenty of stories about how King Louis XIV’s soldiers strip villages bare of food. The villages end up even more barren than before the soldiers arrived. Papa has vowed never to hand over mushrooms without a fight.

Pressed to the damp ground, Cécile waits, wary as a stray dog. She thinks of the homeless dogs that wander into her village, keeping their distance to survive. The ones that grow too friendly sometimes end up in a peasant’s cook pot after a poor harvest. A pack of baying hounds tears past first, noses low to the ground. Her skin prickles at the thought of them catching her scent, but luck favors her. She is downwind, and the dogs are intent on tracking their stag.

Soon after, a legion of horses gallops past, carrying riders dressed in gold, silver, and velvet. Their hats are crowned with plumes. In the middle of the throng, four ponies pull a gilded cart bearing a dark-wigged man who sits tall. His gaze stays fixed completely on the chase. Some of the riders wear black from head to toe. Even those in brighter finery carry a hint of it, a scarf, a cape, or a ribbon. All of it mourns the dauphin, the king’s son, who died only a few months earlier.

Voices call that the stag headed through here, urging the dogs on and cheering for the glory of the Sun King. Bugles sound, and cheering rises. Then, as quickly as the hunting party appeared, it fades away, the earth rumbling softly at its departure.

Cécile draws a breath. It must have been the king’s own hunting party. Who else could command such a wealth of beautiful dogs and horses, such finery? The elderly man in the cart was likely King Louis XIV himself. He is in his seventies now and still devoted to the hunt. He must have ridden out from Marly, his nearest estate. He goes there to escape the demands of court life at Versailles. The Sun King. Cécile trembles at the thought. She imagines herself a duchess, a princess, even a servant of the court. She knows in her bones that life would be heaven.

But her own life is anything but royal. Practically every day is a struggle to make do. Two winters ago, the brutal cold of 1709 froze grain in the fields and rabbits in their dens. It froze cows and chickens in their pens, goats and sheep, and even the king’s own wine at Versailles. That same winter worsened Maman’s pneumonia until it took her life. The famine that followed still has not loosened its grip. Cécile still wears Maman’s old clothes. There is an embroidered blouse gone dirt-gray, and a skirt restitched, hemmed, and patched every year to fit her growing frame. She is sick of it. Papa rarely charges his patients, and their poverty is the price of his kindness. He treats anyone who comes to him whether they can pay or not. She thinks that even so, an ox at least expects hay in return for its labor.

Lost in her fantasy again, Cécile imagines a new gown every day and a gilded coach to ride in. She pictures an overflowing banquet table glittering with candlelight, where she charms her suitors before dancing every evening. She rises to her feet and sweeps into a curtsy, bowing her head to an imaginary courtier. Her scarf slips loose, and her hair tumbles forward around her face. A loud snort startles her back to reality.

A few steps away, an ebony horse prances in an arc around her abandoned basket. Then he stops, eyeing it as though it were a coiled snake. His nostrils flare with every breath, and his eyes open wide as shutters. Sweat lathers his muscular neck, chest, and flanks. His bridle, trimmed in royal blue and gold, hangs loose along with his reins. On his back sits an elaborately carved wooden saddle.

Cécile murmurs for the horse not to be afraid and begs him not to trample her mushrooms. She uses the same soothing voice Papa uses on patients with a broken arm or leg. She tells the horse gently but confidently that she knows he wants to bolt. He paws at the ground and tosses his head, but only as far as his breast strap allows.

She needs to catch him and return him to his rightful owner. But she suspects that approaching now would only send him running. Instead she turns her back and waits, hands clasped behind her. She acts as though the meadow’s view interests her more than anything else in the world. Whose horse is this, and where did his rider fall? She scans the meadow but sees no one.

A warm nudge against her hand tells her she has succeeded. She turns slowly to find the wildness has faded from his dark eyes. She takes hold of his reins to rub his damp neck. She wonders aloud what she should do with him. For a moment, she imagines a small but bulging velvet coin pouch as a reward for returning such a fine animal. But before she can dwell on it, a woman’s voice, faint and pained, breaks from the shadows nearby. The words are French. “Au secours!” But the accent is not. “S’il vous plaît,” the woman calls. “Help! Please, help!”