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The Shadow of Betrayal

Rollant’s thumb pressed against the top golden button of his blue-uniformed coat. Its engraved fleur-de-lis indented his flesh as if the royal symbol still branded him as its enduring servant to the king. He flicked it, but the metal bit back, mocking the vow made under duress.

He scoffed at his reflection in the long mirror.

The Justaucorps , the King’s Bodyguard’s uniform of loyalty, power, and prestige with its golden fringe, gleamed beneath the candlelight.

Flawless as the day it was issued. A perfect soldier’s attire.

It would have inspired awe in most men. But he had worn the white and the blue for six hundred years.

It was no longer a uniform. It was a cage.

He straightened the cuffs with rigid fingers.

The white waistcoat, the spotless culottes, the gleaming rapier hanging from his hip—all for show. Chainmail and a broadsword would’ve served better to protect the king.

They had taken his armor and given him embroidery.

He still bore the body of a twenty-six-year-old knight—vibrant, strong, and well-defined. But the eyes in the mirror belonged to a man who had lived too long—a man desperate to die.

On the chest of drawers lay a small glass coffin containing a delicate, dried rose Amée had given him before she willingly died in his arms. His fingers hovered over the glass top and studied the faded petals preserved in amber.

Amée’s memory had become just as fragile, but for a moment, the blurry image of her peaceful face in death etched into his mind.

He clenched his fist, hating he hadn’t been able to see her face in the last few hundred years, at least not entirely. Maybe one day, she would only be a name, and if there was anything worse than condemning himself to this life, it was forgetting the face of his beloved wife.

As he did every morning, he took his small dagger and ran it across his hand to see if he could die that day. He winced at the cut, but the small wound healed after a short while. He wiped the blood away. Six centuries of trying all options, enduring the pain, and still, death refused him.

He returned the dagger to the open drawer, laying it to rest atop his knight’s surcoat, having kept it.

Once bright white, a symbol of his honor, duty, love and righteousness, the fabric had faded to a sullen, threadbare grey.

Only duty remained, and no longer by choice.

The red stain of betrayal on its hem had blackened over time like a wound that never healed.

He stared at the reminder of the price of greed and vengeance for a moment longer.

His hand quivered with the condemnation it incurred all those years ago, then tapped the drawer shut.

The soft clink of the wood meeting its frame echoed through the room like a barrier between him and the past he couldn’t change.

He raked his lush brown curls back from his forehead before placing his powdered wig and a silver-trimmed Bicorne hat on his head. The hat’s white cockade adorned the black wool as a symbol of loyalty to the crown.

He glanced around the modest, private apartment in the attic. It was close enough to the king for him to fulfill his duties, yet far enough away to keep his immortal secret from everyone else.

The scent of old wood and candle smoke lingered in the air. He had lived in the apartment since the Palace of Versailles was first built when the wood was new and smelled of the forest.

Faint laughter floated up from below, perhaps from a courtier’s joke or some whispered scandal. Rollant stilled for a moment at the life in the palace and sighed. In another century, it wouldn’t matter. They and the subjects of their gossip would all be dead.

He straightened his back to face the day ahead and noted the perfection in his uniform before quietly descending from his isolation in the attic.

He passed through the upper levels, where minor courtiers, servants, and officials hurried, unaware of the centuries of history passing silently beside them.

A few pretty girls flashed him their best smiles.

One called to him, “Monsieur de Montvieux.” Another, “Votre Excellence. Captain of the King’s Bodyguard.”

He ignored them and the whispers that followed.

What could he offer them but ruin? The thought of anyone being drawn into his cursed existence tightened the chains of his isolation.

To their eyes, he might have been a mysterious officer with a sharp uniform and an enigmatic air who could indulge their whims, but he lacked any desire.

He was numb.

A hollow man could not return love, and love had become a poison he dared not taste again.

Entering the palace’s first floor, ornate golden columns lined the wall of windows and mirrors.

Sunlight flooded the hall, and the mirrors opposing them returned the volley of light.

The crystal chandeliers guided his path from above in sparkling succession.

The soft clack of Rollant’s black leather boots on the marble floor added to the bustle of the courtiers and noblemen whisking to and fro.

Heads turned to him, eyes lingered, but Rollant did not meet their gaze.

Chins dipped at the sight of his uniform or as a faint gesture of respect for a figure they knew only by reputation.

He walked amid them, expressionless, eyes ahead.

They all were nothing but fleeting shadows, alive one day and gone the next, just like those who had come before them.

He was not of their world anymore; he was not of anyone’s world.

The King’s Apartment loomed ahead, filled with life of courtly affairs, but Rollant’s path took him away from the crowds.

He passed the royal bedchamber and the entertainment halls and entered through tall, carved doors into the King’s Cabinet, the Cabinet de Conseil .

Two royal guards flanked each side of the entrance, signifying His Majesty’s presence within the King’s Cabinet.

The heavy gazes of the five royal ministers stared at Rollant as he entered, but he paid them no attention.

Instead, he took his silent, watchful position half in shadows behind the King—a well-fed man of thirty-three who fidgeted with a brass lock in his hand beneath the table.

The guard Rollant replaced left without a word.

The door softly clicked shut behind him.

Deep blues and gilded flourishes decorated the walls.

A grand chandelier spilled dim, steady light over the silk-covered table and its ring of high-backed oak chairs.

At the head of the table, nearest the intricately framed hearth, sat King Louis.

It was the warmest place in the room, and the most embattled.

Portraits of the Bourbon kings lined the walls. Rollant had known each one personally from cradle to coffin. King Louis XVI would one day be just another portrait on the wall—the only question was when .

The King toyed with a lock in his hand, turning it again and again.

Its repeating click echoed across the marble floors.

His round face, flushed with the indulgence of court life, betrayed none of the poise expected of a monarch.

Only his eyes, darting from minister to minister, revealed the fear creeping in from beyond the palace walls.

The king’s boyish obsessions with lock-making and mechanical hobbies mocked his vast intellect.

He was too bright to make a decision. He had been thrust beneath the royal spotlight late in life and had found himself ill-equipped for the throne.

His obsession was not so much childish as an escape of a mind overwhelmed by the unfortunate affair and the inopportune time.

étienne Charles de Loménie de Brienne, Minister of Finance, cleared his throat. “As I was saying, Your Majesty—the treasury is empty. Dismissing Calonne did not resolve the crisis. Nor did his publications help.”

Louis clicked the lock again.

The Minister of the King’s Household, Antoine-Jean Amelot de Chaillou, reached beneath the table, plucked the lock from Louis’ hands, and shoved it into his belt pouch.

“Perhaps, Sire, we begin with looking at fiscal options,” Amelot said, patting his belt bag like a chastising father. “We cannot ignore the crisis.”

Louis leaned back and pulled his hands to the top of the table. “Are you suggesting again that we raise taxes? I will not raise taxes. The people suffer enough.”

Brienne nodded. “That or another war, but one that brings coin, not just glory. We’ve only just ended the war in the Americas.” He sighed and shook his head. “I understand your willingness to help the colonies pursue liberty from the British, but its price did not benefit France?—”

“It avenged our defeat against the British in the Seven Years’ War,” interrupted César-Henri de La Luzerne, Minister of the Navy.

He turned his attention to Louis. “Your Majesty, you made a wise decision to help the Americans. The other great powers are compelled to respect us yet again. And by far, nothing brings me greater joy than to know the British are weakened by their loss overseas. I stand by the monarchy’s decision to aid the colonies. ”

Brienne sneered. “Yes, yes, but your victory and your revenge cost us one hundred million livres !” He pounded both fists on the table at the sheer amount of funds spent on the conflict. “Your war debt crippled France!”

Armand-Marc comte de Montmorin, the Foreign Affairs Minister, waved him off. “Your view is too narrow, Minister Brienne.”

Brienne sighed and settled his hands. “The people are starving. Food riots, bad harvests, bad winters,” he paused and shook his head. “Our standing with other nations will not feed them.”

Louis stayed silent and fidgeted with an imaginary lock in his fingers atop the table.

Rollant watched them grow silent. They squabbled over kindling while the house burned. Not that he cared. He’d seen it all before. Different king. Same nonsense.