Wonders Never Cease
Chapter 1 The Sun King
THE SUN KING
Time has a particular flavour that mortals seldom notice. My first taste of it was when Louis XIV ventured far enough into the forest of Versailles to cross our borders.
I was a child then, small enough to steal glimpses from the top of the balustrade staircase that led to the ballroom, whose canopy of hawthorn branches made a lattice of silver-washed sun on the limestone floor.
Though I knew nothing of what was about to take place, I gathered that it was important, given the huddles of creatures in every corner.
Hedgehogs peeked through the wildflowers that grew between the slabs – they themselves seemed to reach taller than the day before, as if craning for a better view.
Dormice nestled in piles of leaves; foxes perked their ears behind the jagged teeth of cracked mirrors; grass snakes curled leisurely around onlookers’ wrists, as eager as myself to see the centre of the ballroom, which had been made conspicuously clear.
When the herald made his entrance, his long limbs made for grand, sweeping announcements, I pivoted to look at Glen, who was just as small as me but twice as skittish.
He was trying to hide in the shadows, but I beckoned him forth and, by my parents’ decree, he was bound to obey.
Come on, I gestured. Something big is about to happen.
A meek, confused opening of palms: What?
I repeated the gesture. Just come!
Glen was still a new arrival to our realm, and in visible need of a distraction.
He crouched by my side just as the herald announced Louis le Grand to the court with three vertical gestures to the brow – the three tines of a crown – and an arm raised high to catch beams of soft light. Behold! The Sun King.
When the small man came into view, Glen tilted his head, eyes widening with curiosity, misted over with something else. It was the first time I had seen his gaze alight upon anyone this way, but it would not be the last: the recognition of mortal kinship.
I assumed that our new changeling – brought over specially for me – was mistaken; that this “Sun King” was one of my many distant cousins on a visit from the Realm of Goldleaf.
Then my father descended the stairs, and Louis suddenly looked as diminutive and fragile as a straw poppet.
The contrast brought the significance of this meeting – its rarity – into sharp focus.
I had only ever heard of mortal kings in bedtime tales and, somewhere in my young mind, must have assumed they lived so distantly from us that they might as well be in the Astral Realm.
To have one in our realm, in my very sight-line, was unprecedented.
Now I was determined to stay, no matter how much trouble I could get in for spying on the grown-up affairs of court. I bounced restlessly on the balls of my feet, but otherwise was rather proud of my restraint and self-containment.
The king of France was canny and diplomatic enough to bow first, his leg extended, buckled shoe turned outwards.
My father mirrored him; when he opened his arm into what the mortals would later call third position, Louis did the same.
One step to the right, a few more on a diagonal, a low arabesque – the two kings danced slowly and precisely around the floor, maintaining their stately posture.
Each time the Sun King raised a foot or curved his fingers, he exhibited the kind of control afforded only to a man who has enough hours of leisure to practise daily.
My mother and her ladies-in-waiting gathered, fascinated, around the edges of the ballroom as the mortal king mirrored my father.
A barn owl settled on my mother’s shoulder, as birds of all feathers began congregating in the branches above – nightingales and magpies, robins and sparrows, starlings and ravens – in a manner that struck me, however many years later, as reminiscent of patrons in the upper circle of an amphitheatre.
To Louis, it must have felt like a mutually improvised exchange. But my father was dictating the steps, moving faster than him by a mouse’s whisker, imperceptible to a mortal eye. I concentrated hard on the course their feet charted, tracing the lines and pauses with my finger until I understood.
I turned to Glen and jabbed the air, gesturing a crude constellation: My father is mapping the stars.
Glen, who was still learning our ways, took a moment to decipher my meaning, then upturned his palms and shrugged: Why?
My uncle’s hand came between us, beckoning my attention.
I froze, unsure which of us would be punished for being where we should not.
Glen had been confined to the bottom of a wishing well more than once already for my transgressions, but even a future king was not exempt from punishment.
On numerous occasions I had been threatened with the tasks we usually gave to mortals and other, lesser beings: retrieving a tail-feather from a firebird, say, or grinding a diamond to dust with a mortar and pestle.
My uncle’s hands moved quickly, but he kept his gestures small, to ensure he would not draw attention away from the proceedings. He maps out the night of the mortal king’s birth.
I relaxed. My uncle was in a good mood, in a humour to educate rather than scold.
He pointed to the ballroom floor as the steps changed.
My father’s arabesques rose higher; the Sun King maintained his composure, but it was clear he could not match such flexibility.
His leg wobbled in a rond de jambe en l’air so low that a chicken could have hopped over it.
The planets turn, my uncle continued, his hands curved around an invisible rotating sphere. The stars their steps trace now are the stars on this day. The day of the Sun King’s fateful crossing.
Cobwebbe, a pan piper of the lesser nobility, took up their instrument and unfurled a carpet of music beneath the kings’ feet.
As their steps changed once more, so did the melody, shifting into a minor key.
The Sun King appeared to be too fixated on keeping up with my father to dwell on what this could mean.
The night his reign will end, my uncle explained, his hands turning flat as if smoothing creases out of a cloak.
He pointed to the ravens overhead, who were watching with beady-eyed interest. The ravens say he will rule longer than any mortal king ever has, or ever will.
Longer than most of his peasants’ lives. Such longevity, we must respect.
I brought my palm inwards, surprised. He was invited here?
If he had trespassed, we would have made quick— no, slow work of him.
Emboldened by my uncle’s magnanimity, I tentatively stood up and, encouraging Glen to do the same, peered over the stone banister as my father concluded the courtly dance.
With one hand clasped fully around the Sun King’s arm, he led him to a nearby pond, wherein he conjured visions of starry skies – explaining what my uncle had just told me in a way the mortal king would comprehend.
Their delight appeared to be mutual: Louis’s in the wonders of our magic, our glamour, and my father’s in the opportunity to impart wisdom to a receptive student.
Look, he said, why complicate things with your written words and bureaucracy?
Through dance, and music, the universe shares its truths with us all.
When the visions vanished and Cobwebbe lowered their flute, the Sun King nodded earnestly and brought his hands to his chest. We…
He gestured to the pond. What you have shown me.
He extended one arm behind him in the direction of the forest border, while the other took in the ballroom.
In his own, imperfect way, he was saying, We dance at court to reveal these truths, too.
‘Histoires célestes. Les dieux et les déesses. Les rois et…’
He tapered off, seeing what was plain to all: my father’s displeasure.
Glen nervously tugged at my sleeve. Bad?
I nodded. Very bad.
I had never seen a mortal executed before, but had heard enough stories to expect that I would witness it sooner or later.
I felt sad for this small, lesser king, who clearly did not know better.
To my own surprise, I silently willed him to pick up the hem of his walking cloak and run without looking back, while he had the chance.
Louis bowed deeply and pointed his foot, opening out his arm from the waist. ‘Merci beaucoup, Votre Majesté.’
Either he did not understand the gravity of his faux pas, or he was gambling on deference and a formal révérence being enough to allow him a hasty exit.
My father raised his head ever so slightly to meet my mother’s eye across the ballroom. She petted the barn owl on her shoulder, then angled her body away and made the smallest brush with her wrist. Let him go.
And so, Louis XIV returned to Versailles unscathed. He would not be invited back.
Take heed, my uncle advised with a hand on each of our shoulders. He pointed to the archway through which the Sun King had just departed. For that is the last of the great mortal kings. The ravens say it will all go downhill thereafter.
In what seemed to me a rather courageous move, given how much he feared my family, Glen made some shaky gestures until his question became clear: Will he teach the mortals how to speak through dance? What do the ravens say about that?
It was the sort of question I should have asked, as a young prince. Not that I was wholly interested in attending to my future responsibilities. Secretly, I would have much preferred Glen’s position. For my destiny to lie on both sides of the border.
My uncle wavered his hand. He will try to teach his people, but not very well. Besides, it will be for naught – a revolution is coming. Their pale imitations of our noble culture will be driven out in a bloody massacre.
I was relieved that Glen probably had not understood most of that. My uncle looked much too excited by the prospect.
Are the ravens to be trusted on this? I asked, puffing out my chest, playing the part of my parents’ advisors. Or are they just making mischief?
In response, one of the ravens swooped down with an affronted caw and ruffled my hair with its feathers.
Ravens are prophets, my uncle reminded me. They keep a watchful eye on royal affairs, in all realms. Then he turned his palm inwards to his chest. It is our job to make mischief, when mortals try to best us.
But the ravens cannot dance for us, I remember thinking. So how will they report back the steps that mortals dance? How are we to know, unless we see with our own eyes?
Questions like this are dangerous. They lift a curtain of willow reeds, push up through the earth, and offer a taste of possibility. A possible future. The elusive flavour of time.