Gates of Gold

Royal Sled Race

The whole palace buzzes with preparations for the coming ball. Women talk of nothing but new dresses, the finest fabrics, and the seamstresses and tailors rushing to keep pace. “If only money were not so scarce,” Cécile often hears. That doesn’t stop Marie-Adélaïde’s plans for the Grand Ball from proceeding. The king declares that everyone, even the court servants, must appear in new clothing for the celebration. Madame orders a dress of powder blue. She tells the seamstress measuring Cécile’s outstretched arms to keep it simple, but graceful enough to bring a smile back to Cécile’s face. It’s true. Despite Madame’s efforts, Cécile has smiled little through weeks of grief, and all the talk of gowns only wears on her further.

Cécile’s relieved, then, when the conversation finally turns to something else: sled races. A few days before Christmas, the king declares the ice safe for skating and racing. In the afternoon sunshine, Cécile walks the dogs to the canal to watch Bretagne compete. Six sleds wait at the starting ribbon, each harnessed to a splendid pony held by an attending groom. Cécile has never dreamed of such sleds. One bears a gold angel carved into its bow. Another is shaped like a seashell with a woman’s head at its prow. Bretagne’s, carved with wooden runners, is the loveliest of all. The boy perches on a blue velvet seat atop a huge carved turtle, his little brother Anjou squarely on his lap. Anjou points at the pony ahead of them and declares, “Po-ny.” Bretagne laughs and agrees that yes, that’s a pony. Every rider descends from the king, who fathered many children in his earlier years, and not all by his first and second wives. Cécile hopes with everything in her that Bretagne wins.

The boys’ elderly governess, Madame de Ventadour, waits nearby, hands nestled in a fur muff, nose reddened by the freezing air. She tells Cécile that Anjou will have to get out in just a moment, once the race is ready to begin. Bretagne shouts to Stabdille and Cécile that he shall win, being the king’s great-grandson, and that nothing shall stop him. His governess murmurs that excessive pride might do the trick, and Cécile smiles, understanding it for the private joke it is.

When Madame de Ventadour puts her arms out for Anjou, who is nearly two years old, the boy shakes his head. He babbles a protest, and she has to remind him he’s had his turn sitting with Bretagne. She scoops him up anyway, her back arching under his weight. Stabdille barks at the ponies as though it’s his job to command them. Cécile kneels in snow that reaches the ankles of her boots to hush him, feeling his small body quiver beneath her hand.

Sunlight glints off the fresh snow, casting more diamonds about than even King Louis could accumulate in a lifetime. Cécile notices that Marie-Adélaïde wears jewels only in the king’s presence. She dresses far more plainly and comfortably than the other women whenever he’s away. Cécile wonders whether Maman had been anything like the princess. She longs to know who she’d been before she was forced to settle in Rileaux after Papa’s banishment. Passing a nearby statue of a centaur, half-man and half-horse, Cécile feels her life caught the same way. She is suspended between two worlds, neither peasant nor noble.

A hush falls as Marie-Adélaïde, pretty as a portrait in her red and white cloak, announces that the race will mark the beginning of the court’s Christmas festivities. A soldier stands to one side of the racers, who line up at the ribbon laid across the snow. Cécile keeps an eye out for Philippe, quietly her favorite page at court, though she’d never admit it.

A gunshot cracks the air, and the ponies bolt forward as the crowd cheers. Stabdille lunges so hard against his leash that Cécile has to hold him firmly. Snow rises in clouds behind each sled. She shouts for Bretagne to win, meaning it, for she’s come to truly enjoy the boy. Looking at the courtiers around her, noses red, shoulders caped, hands buried in muffs and mittens, she realizes something. They’re nothing more than a ready, constant audience for the royal family. It’s an audience the royals need as much as it needs them.

As Cécile watches the race, half of her cheers for Bretagne. The other half wishes she could race the canal herself. In Rileaux no one minded if she ran through snow, skidded across ice, or threw snowballs. She misses Papa and her own freedom, both once taken for granted.

The sleds round the canal’s end and gallop back toward the cheering crowd as trumpets sound. Cécile’s grief settles over her again until she can barely muster enthusiasm. Then a moan rises from the crowd. Just behind the finish line, a pony has stopped and righted itself beside an empty, toppled turtle sled. Its small rider lies facedown in the snow. Cécile’s heart lurches. She calls out for Bretagne, dashing forward with the leashed dogs pulling in every direction. She’s just behind Madame de Ventadour, who reaches the boy first and gathers him into her sturdy arms. She asks if he’s all right, wiping snow from his face. Bretagne orders her to put him down, a smile already spreading across his brocade jacket and round cheeks. He declares that it was fun.

Before Cécile can reach him herself, a strong hand closes on her shoulder and drags her backward so roughly that the dogs tangle and tumble through the snow behind her. She spins around, indignant, to find a soldier glaring down at her, his chin drawn back. “You are not a servant of the Bourgogne family!” he says. Cécile insists she’s only a friend, and that she only wanted to make sure he was not hurt. The soldier isn’t moved. He tells her flatly that his job is to guard the boy and that he doesn’t care about her intentions. For all he knows, she could be carrying a dagger.

Cécile searches the throng for a familiar face, for Françoise or Madame, who’d promised to watch the races. She begs the soldier to ask Marie-Adélaïde herself, certain the princess will vouch for her. The ground seems to slip out from beneath her; how was she to have known she wasn’t allowed to comfort Bretagne? She despises this world of invisible rules. The dogs bark louder, yipping at a high pitch, as the soldier finally spots the princess with her son. He recalls seeing her before, at the fountain, and tells her she clearly still doesn’t know her place. With that, he orders her to follow him inside.