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Being in the queen’s service is not what Constance expected.
She spends most of her time at the palace, and for that alone she is glad to have the position. Much as she hates having to accept charity from D’Artagnan, it is an immense mercy to be away from her husband for the days, not to mention the stench of ale and human waste that permeates the city nearly every time she ventures outside. For that, she bears accepting help from D’Artagnan, and the queen’s French ladies snickering at her dress and the courtiers looking through her as though she is a statue or a chair.
What she did not expect was Anne.
The musketeers have always spoken well of the queen, and Constance has always believed her to be a good woman (it is practically her duty to do so) but she could hardly imagine them calling each other friends. Anne is a Spanish Infanta, queen of France, the mother of the dauphin. Anne is Spain’s most valued daughter, France’s queen, while Constance is only one of thousands of women in Paris with stilted manners and almost-fine dresses. She could be traded for another and sometimes she wonders if anyone would know the difference.
Since Constance has been engaged at the palace, Anne has always requested her nearby and when they are in each other’s company, Constance almost (never wholly, never exactly) can forget the difference between them. Anne is familiar with her, natural. They laugh together, over shared jokes and pompous courtiers and Anne lends her dresses and jewels, as casually as though she were offering them to a duchess.
Anne seems almost incognizant of the difference between them, at least in how she approaches Constance. In her first days in the queen’s service, she was nervous, stumbling over her courtesies and terrified of making a mistake. She wonders what her mother would think if she knew of Constance’s position, her mother who was always scolding and hissing. You’ll never find a husband this way. No man will take you. What have I done to be given a boy for a daughter?
But Anne doesn’t seem to care about Constance’s stiff curtsies or stilted pleasantries. She has treated her like an equal, impossible as that may seem. Constance is always at Anne’s side, during walks through the garden, royal dinners, sitting in their chambers in the evening. Sometimes Constance wonders if it is only a favor to D’Artagnan, or aristocratic courtesy but she has not experienced any form of kindness in so long that she feels cannot bear to turn this away. Anne smiles and laughs with her. She asks Constance’s opinion and genuinely listens to the answers. Constance doesn’t realize how much she’s missed that. She hasn’t spoken to anyone who doesn’t consider her an annoyance or a chore since the Musketeers, and for most of the last year, they’ve been away, soldiering. Besides, she expects, they’ve probably taken D’Artagnan’s side above her own. Soldiers and brothers in arms and all of that. She envies them how easily they can rely on one another, the bonds between them. She can barely imagine what it is to be so bound to someone without being possessed by them.
Anne is curiously still, in a way Constance barely understands. Even when Constance has tried to be good, to sit still, to speak quietly, something in her nature will not allow her. Her voice is always loud, her hands always move when she speaks. She cannot be the daughter her mother wanted, or the wife her husband wishes she was. They would have loved a girl like Anne (though it is still strange to think of Anne as a girl and not a queen), still and beautiful and calm. A woman like a painting.
But Anne is not a painting, Constance thinks. She is alert, constantly watching everyone around her, never quite at ease. With her husband, Anne is tense, as though she’s always waiting for something to go wrong, though Constance doubts most people would notice. There is a bitter, dissatisfied restlessness in her that Constance sees only glimpses of, and then it fades as quickly as it appeared.
Constance soon discovers just how little the queen actually sees of the king. Louis comes frequently to see his small son and Anne and Constance trail along during those visits but in the rest of the day, the king usually leaves to do his own business elsewhere. Anne seems hardly bothered by this, which barely surprises Constance. She would never speak a word against the king, but privately, he seems like a constant source of increasingly petulant needs and demands. She supposes it’s just the way kings and queens are.
Not Anne. Anne is different.
She’s been two weeks in the queen’s service when the king is brought home drunk by his most valued musketeers.
They practically have to drag Louis into the hall, his arm around Porthos’ back for support, while Athos walks ahead. Aramis is at Louis’ right, wearing a slight grimace that’s unusual for him. D’Artagnan isn’t among them and Constance feels a slight relief. She’d rather not face him, not tonight, not after their last altercation.
“Ah,” says Anne, “my husband returned to me and I did not even know he had been gone. Once again, I am in the debt of the King’s Musketeers.”
There’s a wry edge to her voice. The king is probably too drunk to notice, but Constance does, and so, it seems, do the musketeers, though they seem to be endeavouring to hide it.
Athos bows deeply, all manners, and Porthos follows suit, though his mood seems a little less serious. Aramis is stiff, not his usual self and his eyes seem to shift around the room, as though he’s not sure where to look.
“We were, ah, requested by his majesty to bring him back to the palace safely and unharmed and we have now done so,” says Athos. There’s more he’s not saying, Constance is sure of it, but Anne doesn’t seem to press the issue. She doesn’t want to know how the evening was spent, Constance thinks, or she already does.
“Were you with him for the evening?” she asks, a little sharply.
“Not for the majority of it,” says Athos, “Our assistance was requested in returning him home, and we were in a convenient place to do it.”
“Soon,” says Louis, who has been silent up to now, “We can’t forget the plan, can we? But perhaps not - perhaps not in front of my wife.”
Anne smiles.
“As always, I can rely on the King’s musketeers. If you would deliver my husband to his bedchambers, I would be most grateful.”
“Of course, your Majesty,” says Athos, and the four of them disappear down the corridor.
“Constance,” says Anne, “I would like to retire. Will you keep me company?”
“Of course, your Majesty,” says Constance, and Anne takes a hold of her wrist, gripping it a little too tightly, and begins walking.
Once they’re in Anne’s bedchamber, the queen sinks onto the chair opposite her dressing table. Constance doesn’t think she’s ever seen Anne look so tired.
“Are you all right?” Constance asks, after a minute, unsure what to say.
“Well, it’s hardly the first time he’s visited a brothel,” Anne says quietly, matter of factly. She looks into the mirror, avoiding Constance’s eye.
Constance speaks without thinking.
“He is a fool for that.”
Anne turns. Constance’s cheeks flash red and she instantly thinks she has forgotten her place, that she will be chastised for insulting the king. No matter what Anne herself thinks, a lady in waiting cannot call the king a fool.
“He isn’t,” Anne says, but it doesn’t seem as though she’s scolding, “he is temperamental. Difficult to please. Stubborn. Which means, of course, that we all must only try harder to please him.”
A high, pained little laugh escapes her.
“I’m sorry,” Constance says, and means it.
“There is no need, Madame Bonacieux. You’re very kind to me but I’m used to these things by now.”
Constance smiles but says nothing, unsure what response to offer. There is a wall around Anne, even with her unfailing kindness. Perhaps one is necessary in a place like this. She wonders what kind of secrets Anne keeps, what she hides underneath her slight smiles and good manners. She has seen glimpses but not all of it, she doesn’t think. Not close.
“I don’t mind,” Anne says, “not the visits. We’ve been married since we were children, you know, and it’d be hardly reasonable to expect anything else. I am not a wife of his choosing.” She pauses. “I suppose I only wish he could think to not humiliate me.”
“I am sorry,” Constance says, careful as she can be, “I should not have said what I said earlier. But I am sorry for this as well.”
“Don’t apologize for speaking frankly,” Anne says, “I hope that you will always be honest with me, Constance, and that I will prove myself worthy of your trust.”
“You don’t need to prove anything to me,” Constance says, a little stiffly.
“Of course I do. My only hope is that you see me as a friend, and like a friend, do not hesitate to say if I displease you, or if you disagree with me. I do not want to be elevated to the point where I am feared by those closest to me.”
“Of course,” says Constance, slowly. She isn’t sure how to respond, if she should keep up barriers even while Anne is ready to discard them. But it has been so long since she had any sort of friend. She isn’t sure she can turn one away.
Anne stands up from the dressing table and moves forward to clasp both of Constance’s hands in hers. A small shock runs up Constance’s spine.
“I hope to be your true friend, Constance. Not your employer or your queen. And you are under no obligation to accept my friendship.”
Constance nods. Anne smiles, and drops her hands.
“What sort of man is your husband, Constance?”
“Didn’t D’Artagnan tell you?” Constance struggles to keeps the resentment out of her voice, but she doesn’t think she quite succeeds.
“A little. But I would hear it from you.”
“D’Artagnan--he may have told you things that aren’t true. Not that he’s a liar, only that he tends to take a certain view. My husband is not a bad sort of man. Not really.”
“They rarely are,” says Anne softly, and Constance thinks she understands too well for comfort.
“He was my father’s business partner,” she explains, “my father was a merchant as well. It was considered a good match.”
“And are you happy?”
Constance knows there can hardly be consequences for speaking her mind here. A merchant’s pride means almost nothing in the king’s palace.
Still, she hesitates. It’s almost as though her husband has bound up her tongue, made her silent to the point where she cannot speak even when she knows it is safe.
(She was never this way, she was loud and wild as a girl, her mother said she should have been a boy, sometimes with affection and sometimes without. What has happened to her?)
“As much as any woman can be,” she says, and hopes Anne understands, which from her nod and the look on her face, Constance thinks she does.
“If there is ever anything you wish to request of me, Constance, that would help you - “
“You have done more than enough. I am very grateful.”
For a moment, neither of them speak.
“My husband’s mother lives far from here,” Anne says slowly, “in a place where nobody troubles her. But she yearns for court. And me, often I wish to be away. But I am here.” Her lips form a small smile, which fades.
“You wouldn’t want to live in the country, your Majesty,” says Constance, with a laugh, “nothing but sheep out there and dirt roads. Or so I’m told.”
“Anne. Please.” She turns and clasps Constance’s wrist for a slip of a second and Constance shivers a little.
“Well, the point stands,” Constance says.
They both laugh, for a moment.
“I suppose you’re right. I’ve been to the country, of course, but never for long, only the cities. Not that I ever saw much of Madrid, or Paris.”
“Well,” Constance says, “I can’t say you’ve missed much when it comes to Paris, at least.”
Anne laughs.
“So I’m told. Still, I suppose I’d like to be able to see for myself.”
“I’d take you if I could. I don’t know that I know any place fit for a queen to visit.”
“I wouldn’t mind,” says Anne.
“Don’t tell me you have a fancy to become a commoner,” Constance says, “you can’t really envy the rest of us.”
“No,” Anne says, “I know that my complaints are only too common and my advantages are not.”
Constance doesn’t argue.
“Still,” says Anne, “sometimes there are things I wish. And I never speak them aloud, because they cannot be spoken. Sometimes I speak so much of what others want to hear that I forget what I really think.”
She smiles, but looks so miserable that Constance can’t help pitying her. She had never thought that she would end up feeling sorry for the queen, the idea seems almost ridiculous, coming from a merchant’s wife.
Constance places a hand on her shoulder.
“I loved a man,” says Anne, “or I thought I did. I suppose I can’t really say what it is to be in love. Nobody taught me. But it can’t be.”
Constance wonders if she means the Comte de Rochefort. Anne seems to smile around him more than usual and he is a handsome man, she supposes, if you like that sort of thing. But there’s something about him that sets her on edge, something cruel and sharp behind his charm and clever words. He simpers and bows but behind it, there is something else, the working of machinery. Jacques has played this game for years with buyers and superiors. Constance knows it too well to fail to recognize it.
She wonders if Anne sees it too. The Queen is a clever woman, but he is an old friend and maybe she is blinded. It is so easy to accept any affection when you have none.
“There are many things that can’t be,” says Constance, “I wish it weren’t so.”
Anne draws back, as if remembering herself.
“I’m sorry to make you listen to my prattling. I must sound a sentimental fool.”
“No. Not at all.”
“Thank you, Madame Bonacieux. I’m too grateful to you.”
Anne sits down on the bed and Constance sits beside her.
“I hope,” says Anne, “that your time at the palace has made things better for you.”
“It has.”
“I am glad. You are not obligated to stay within my service unless you desire it. I only want your well being.”
“Anne,” Constance says, and then breaks off, unsure what to say.
Anne’s hair is loose and fair, the neckline of her gown exposing her shoulders. In this light, she does not look like a queen, only a woman, lovely and lonely and clever. (Constance has thought of women in this way before, but she’s always pushed the thoughts out of her mind. She remember the neighbor girl when she was young, Therese and how she would dream about her but it was not allowed, it was not permitted, it could not even be thought of.)
Anne leans forward and kisses her, tentatively, carefully. It is so long since she has been kissed, really kissed, that she forgets her husband and the court and what people will think. There is nothing but her and Anne and this room.
Then the kiss is less tentative. Anne’s fingers snake into her hair and her grasp becomes tighter (there is so much need in both of them, she can feel it).
Anne breaks away first.
“I’m sorry if - “
“You shouldn’t be,” Constance says, “Not a bit.”
It’s almost too much to take in, how quickly her life has changed, and she knows she will have to never fully believe it. She will need to hold this at as far a distance as possible, will need to pretend even to herself that she is nothing but a dutiful wife. It cannot be how it was with D’Artagnan. There is far more at stake.
(But perhaps, she thinks, there will be times when she can forget all of this.)
“Your husband will be wanting you home,” Anne says, “I will have one of the carriages deliver you home.”
Constance nods (she’ll be lambasted for being home late, and she almost forgot that too, it is so easy to forget here).
Constance rises and starts towards the door but Anne clasps her wrist and pulls her back.
She kisses her once more.
“I cannot wait to see you next,” says Anne, and just for a moment, Constance thinks she sees her entirely, the woman, not the one the court sees.
She kisses Anne’s cheek and goes.