Chapter Text
Everything in him appals me.
His outrageous flexibility, his reckless arrogance.
Cunning snake, tainted priest.
The Red Beast of my palace.
I hear his name everywhere, in every praise, in every blame. I sense his shadow in every salon, every boudoir, and even when my courtiers speak, their loud voices are nothing more than the echoes of his whispers.
Barely clear, never simple, he is no one’s enemy, no one’s friend.
He doesn’t walk, he slides.
He doesn’t speak, he hisses.
Cunning snake, tainted priest.
There isn’t a single corridor of the Louvre where he hasn’t caused a quarrel, and yet, as he walks into the Council Room, gently hiding behind my mother’s fracas, silence falls as twilight does. Even the oldest and bravest of my ministers, La Rochefoucault, bites his lips and averts his eyes.
They all freeze, they all stare.
The Red Beast has entered the Council.
Mother, wearing a brand-new dress so heavy with gems and silver thread it hurts the eyes more than morality itself, is laughing in the way she laughs only when she wants to be watched. Of course, she wants to be watched all the time. Only, not by me.
Not by me.
She barely nods towards my chair, skimming a bow, her glimmering eyes and rolling shoulders meant only for him.
Her shadow in red.
He follows, suave and distant, but his bow is flawless and, though he made sure it didn't last too long, I think I saw a gleam of joy in his dark eyes as his gaze crossed mine. He sits next to her, his head low, his hands quiet.
He doesn’t speak.
I didn't want to name him for Council. I wanted anyone, anyone but him.
But we live in the darkest of times, and men I can trust are a struggle to find. Condé hates my bloodline with every heartbeat, and Sillery is already so old. No name seems to last long enough to earn my attention. The moment a worthy man emerges in my sight, Gazettes and Pamphlets rise from the Earth to uncover his dirty deeds, his gruesome secrets, sneer at his words and mock his face. I am the King of France, and still, I have no idea which of those papers are written by a self-thinking man, or by that devil in red in front of me.
He did everything in his power, a hard, exhausting effort, I am sure, to ensure he ended up as my only option. And when I named him, swallowing my pride and ten years of hatred, the bastard had the nerve to look burdened, and bow with the slightest frown, whispering in a strained voice that he would “if Your Majesty insists.”
I realised, at that moment, that although he's been working night and day to crush his rivals with intrigues and propaganda, though he's been crawling into my own mother's bed to whisper his will to her sated ears, the clever snake had made sure never to actually ask for it.
And because he was doing me the favour of accepting the charge, he demanded, a trembling smile upon his face, to be relieved of most of his clerical duties to focus on his ministerial work concerning the renewing of France's past glory, as his weak health would not stand any further strain.
What could I do? I was the one to call on him.
Filthy beast.
He doesn’t speak.
I shake the rest of the Council out of their shock by pouring too much anger into my voice as I declare the discussion open.
As always, mother talks first, in empty yet solemn words, babbling of her anguish concerning the traitors to the Crown, or the way plots and intrigues corrupt the reputation of our Court. I huff, unsurprised and bored to the bone. Mother’s vision has barely reached outside the gates of the Louvre. She lives in a short-sighted world beginning and ending with her own boudoir. Every week, she hates another name, blames another family, invokes the righteous fury of God upon another wing of the Palace. Every week, the rest of the counsellors keep meticulously neglecting the real matters at hand, terrified to upset Juno's temper.
This table is cursed-the one I need the least is the one I hear the most.
I listen to their speeches as they lose themselves in useless circles and though I have a few nods for La Ville aux Clercs’ brave remarks on the dangers of the Hapsburgs, I find my eyes drawn to the silent snake to my right far too often.
Paying my mother’s absurdly high-pitched laughs with faint smiles, he keeps his eyes upon his hands and his hands upon his lap. Anyone would just think him shy, devoted and restrained like all men of the Church. Anyone, of course, who didn’t know the meaning of his name, and couldn’t see the radiant glint in his wide, focused eyes.
Anyone who’d never heard of the Red Beast. He doesn’t speak, but God, how he listens.
I watch with growing unease the slight twitching of his eyebrows as he takes in every word. Though he doesn’t once raise his gaze higher than his red gloves, I sense him observing, organising, labelling and storing everyone in that devilishly intricate mind of his.
After one hour of this, more upset than I’d ever care to tell, I lift a hand to demand silence and tear him from his hiding to draw him into broad daylight.
I swear that if I could cut him open to see what is brewing inside him, I would do it with my own sword.
“Cardinal, we have to hear from you.” I throw at him. “What would you propose to introduce some order to my concerns?”
He doesn’t look at me right away. His eyes seem to contemplate the void between the table and his hands for two more seconds as if that nightmare machine of a brain needs time to slow down. But eventually he looks up, and I almost gasp once more at the dreadful, inhuman intensity of his eyes. Dark but glistening, resolute but delicate, they’ve always been burning embers of anthracite. I pity the fool who would be deceived by his pale skin and long eyelashes. This thin, poised man is chaos in motion. He sweeps a polite stare around the table, gently nods towards Mother, towards me.
And he very quietly stands, his eyes lost somewhere beyond the high window, into the blossoming gardens.
“Many a trouble were left unattended during the office of Monsieur de Luynes.” His gentle voice rises. “Everywhere from Roussillon to the frontiers of Provence, Huguenots are gathering wealth and protectors flowing in from beyond our borders. Our borders, weak and undefended, are left open with too much effort lost to domestic schemes. These schemes, petty and sinful, are blurring the terms of our alliances, undermining the treaties our King's armies fought and died for. Order must be brought about and without further delay. Greedy middlemen diverting the wealth of royal tax income must be punished, their treasures seized. They must be replaced by trusted men in every province. Strongholds of the Grands must be brought back under the Crown's authority. Then, and only then, we will have the resources and strength to turn our attention to the restoration of the glory that is this Kingdom's rightful heritage.”
He turns to me then, with a hint of a smile, bows elegantly and sits back down.
In the minute that follows, the only thing to be heard around the cursed table is Vieuxville's ragged breath and La Rochefoucault's muffled swearing. Richelieu's face is bent low again, but he isn't trying to fool anyone anymore. An unbearable fire of resolve is burning in his eyes, and the way his lips twitch in satisfaction make me want to grab his throat.
Insufferable, complacent filth.
But God is he clever. Is he skilful, that animal.
He is right, down to the last word, his impeccable sentences hitting the Council walls like bullets. None dare to speak up after that, and I might as well declare the Council closed because none ever will.
I am enraged, I am disgusted.
I am furious, and I am sick, but I need this man.
What is God's plan, what could it be to put everything my Kingdom needs in that sly, soiled beast?
I close my eyes, breathe in, breathe out.
“Very well.” I sneer, pouring as much contempt as I can into a few words. “To work, then, Monsieur le Cardinal.”
Again, one quick, fierce stare, making my breath hitch, like a gust of wind to my face.
My hands flex against my will. I want this man out of my sight now.
I dismiss the Council with a snap of my fingers.
Mother, standing up in a clamour of giggling and praise, circles around Richelieu like a cat around a mouse, bathing him in a hungry stare that is an insult to my bloodline.
“Didn’t I tell you he was extraordinary?” she gloats at the retreating ministers, and I think I see Vieuxville roll his tired eyes. She sways closer to him, then, opening her wide, thick arms. She's not facing me, I cannot see her face, but I can see his and what I read there, clear as daylight, is a sudden flash of pure misery.
I frown. Did I see it right? Maybe my eyes are tired too.
No, it's there again as he accepts her embrace with gentle grace, though his smile is still the most charming sight the Palace could hold.
“My Cardinal.” she purrs. “You have been everything I expected you to be.”
He murmurs something I cannot hear, his eyes fixed upon the floor.
With that, Mother positively clucks, and I cringe at the undignified sound. Growling in hatred, I move to leave when I pick up her voice, breathing something about “rooms” and “favours”. I spin around with the coldest of shudders, opening my mouth to order her to save this shameless defiling for her own apartments.
But I only see his face, trapped as he is by the arms of the huge horse my dear Mother has become, and for the last time today, his anthracite eyes nail my feet to the floor.
There are so many things, so many words in the pools of night sky his pupils can be, all of them desperate, all of them urgent, all of them so loud my ears hurt.
Everything in him appals me.
The Red Beast of my palace.
Yet, as I turn to walk away, all I can do is quietly nod to him, trying to blame my nervousness on the intolerable sight the pair of them make.