The High Cost of Heat

This month’s stories are by authors Kelly Robson, Laura Anne Gilman, Meg Elison, and Ng Yi-Sheng. The first story of the month is free to read, but it’s our paying subscribers who allow us to keep publishing great stories week after week.

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In this, June’s first, free, story, Kelly Robson shows us how, at Versailles, getting old is no picnic. But sometimes there are options... ~ Julian and Fran, June 2, 2024

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The High Cost of Heat

by Kelly Robson

Someone had taken a bite out of the moon.

That’s the way it looked to Annette from her seat by the fire. She couldn’t go to the window, not easily, because she was wrapped in blankets, and she’d need her maid’s assistance to disentangle herself from all that swaddling. Winters at Versailles were frigid, and if she could spend every moment hugged close to the fire, she would. But still, there was the moon, half-eaten, poking its jagged shape through a gap in the curtains, imploring: Can’t you help me, Annette? Help me.

“You will help us, won’t you, Madame?”

Annette turned to the two little women perched like baby birds on the divan. Marie-Anne and Marie-Louise, sisters, were the new young wives of the Comte de something and the Marquis de something else. Once, she had easily cataloged all the courtiers and their thousands of connections, but her memory had been failing recently. A fact grasped one moment eluded her the next.

They were lovely creatures, fresh from the convent and still growing. New wives seemed younger every year, and these two looked like babies, chilly babies, their plump forearms stippled with gooseflesh, cheeks peach-round and pale with cold. Poor things.

Annette asked Julie to bring wraps, and watched with satisfaction as her maid settled a matched pair of snowy blankets around the girls’ bare shoulders.

“My ability to help will very much depend on the problem at hand.” Annette freed one of her arms and pulled the curtain closed, shutting out the moon. “Perhaps you could elaborate, my dears?”

“You must be aware, Madame, that the entire season of recreation has been canceled,” said Marie-Anne. Her golden wig framed her face in perfect symmetry.

“The court follows the mood of His Majesty,” said Annette. “If he buries himself in sorrow, we must follow suit.”

“Why should he be sad?” asked Marie-Louise, whose pink wig was slightly askew. “He ought to be the happiest creature in the world.”

“After burying his mistress, son, daughter-in-law, and wife in close succession?”

“Aside from that, he has anything and everything he wants. If I were him, I would live in joy.”

“And do you not, my dear?” asked Annette, very patient.

“No! When we married, we were promised balls and fêtes and concerts, but we haven’t had a single one.”

“That’s not the problem, however,” said Marie-Anne. “Every night for the past week, our husbands and admirers have been accompanying His Majesty into the gardens. So it is not that there is no entertainment, just that we are excluded from it.”

“Ladies aren’t welcome, that’s what my husband says.” Marie-Louise huffed. “Does that not outrage you, Madame?”

“At my age, the loss of a few evenings’ entertainment is no cause for complaint, especially if it’s happening outdoors.”

“If a husband ignores his wife, it’s only to be expected,” said Marie-Anne. “But when the men gather outside all night and come home chilled and nervous, something strange is afoot.”

“We thought because you are so old—”

“Venerable, Madame,” Marie-Anne corrected. “Because you are so venerable and respected, perhaps you could find out what is going on and put a stop to it.”

Julie brought chocolate on a gilded tray. The two girls claimed their cups and lowered their pouts to the froth.

“I advise you to wait.” Annette cradled the warmth of her own cup in her palms. “Soon your husbands will return to make demands, and your lovers will come back to claim their kisses.”

A draft shifted the curtains, and the bitten moon peeked through the gap.

“Perhaps you may be interested to know,” said Marie-Anne, “that Monseigneur Brassard has also been spending his nights in the gardens?”

“Guy?” The blankets fell from Annette’s shoulders.

“Indeed, your own confessor.”

“Impossible.” Annette set the fragile cup on the tippy little table at her elbow. It tinkled against its saucer.

“And yet it is so, Madame. Have you not noticed his absence of late?”

Annette stood. She shrugged off her blankets, pulled the fox stole from her shoulders, and let it dangle like a whip.

“Tell me where they meet,” she said.

#

In her youth, Annette would never have walked alone, not for any considerable distance, and certainly not in the gardens at night. When not escorted by a lover or suitor, Annette was always flanked by one of her servants, and if they were otherwise occupied, pages were always loitering about and could be counted upon to provide a safe escort for a coin or two.

She’d spent her life playing the courtier’s game, seeing the king through a succession of mistresses, both official and temporary, while narrowly avoiding falling prey to the king herself. She’d banked a variety of favors with the most powerful men at court. So many, in fact, that eventually she’d become some kind of power herself.

That power was on the wane. Now she was simply an old woman whose hips screamed at every step.

She hinged down the garden stairs supported by a diamond-topped stick—two would be ideal, but it was a sin against fashion and if she couldn’t get by with just one, she might as well climb straight into her coffin. Her spine would no longer tolerate the weight of a grand wig, so she had to make do with a little snowy pouf to add height to her curls. No powder needed to get that elegant, stark white head of hair, not anymore, and that, she supposed, was one of the blessings of age. Another was that she could walk alone, anywhere, day or night, fearing nobody but the foolish and the drunken. If either of those took a liberty, her stick was pointy on one end and weighted for swinging on the other, and she had excellent aim.

Annette made progress rather slowly down the gravel walks. Outside, at least, there was nothing to trip over, whereas inside she was endangered by every loose floorboard, every kink in a carpet. Though the paths were flat, she was soon out of breath and yet she was still cold, even under layers of cloaks and furs.

The moon seemed thinner than it had been earlier in the evening. Barely a quarter crescent, with tooth marks on the inner surface fringed in red, as if bleeding from the torn edge. Can’t you help me?

The chill, wet night drained the light from the palace windows. Mist-haloed lamps glowed faintly, giving way to torches farther into the gardens. Their flames sputtered as Annette approached the Ballroom Grove. From beyond the hedges came the murmur of a crowd.

#

Palm trees guarded the grove. Cold palms, forced from the greenhouses and cowering in the chill, their wide fronds gray and rotting. Silhouettes lined the walkways, huddling under cloaks—eighty, ninety, a hundred figures and more, but this was no revel, no fête, no carnival. Far from it.

Among the boxwood hedges, men of noble rank conferred in low voices, very grave. Annette recognized the broad nose and heavy brows of the Vicomte de Marcieu and greeted him softly.

“What do you do tonight, my dear Hector?”

He blinked, then took her elbow in his meaty grasp.

“You should not be here, Madame.”

“Indeed? Are these secret goings-on? Because if a secret between three people is no secret at all, a secret shared among a hundred must spread like butter.”

“Not here, Annette. We’re all standing in support of the Crown.”

“Might not I support him as well?”

“Go. Return to your fireside.”

When Hector tightened his grasp, Annette brought the sharp tip of her stick down hard on his foot. He folded, whimpering.

“My apologies,” she murmured. “How clumsy I am.”

Head high, she paced farther into the grove. The Marquis de Soissons accosted her, and she brandished her stick.

“Do not obstruct me, Jean-Marie,” she whispered. “I have your walnuts in the very palm of my hand.”

The marquis stepped away in a swirl of midnight velvet, the feathers of his hat waving. The other men took their cue from him, and if they didn’t step aside for Annette, neither did they try to stop her as she weaved her path among them.

In the middle of the grove, a circle of clerics gathered, praying aloud or silently, drawing beads through their fingers. Some bent their heads together, exchanging hushed comments. Annette paced behind the priests, letting the tip of her stick skim the fine gravel of the walk. Incense curled from a glinting thurible carried by a young boy. Its smoke mingled with the scent of newly sawn pine.

Circled by priests, atop a platform of bare wood, stood Cardinal du Bellay, his white beard bristling, his red robes dusky under starlight. Looming over him was the king, a mountainous figure in tall boots and layered cloaks, his tumultuous wig sparkling with diamonds. The king’s face was drawn tight with pain, as if tiny hooks had embedded themselves in his flesh and invisible filaments were pulling it downward.

In front of the two men knelt a girl, moon-pale, clothed in a drift of soft gray silk. Her skin held no more color than the mist, and her eyes were faded to dim, crater-wide shadows. When the king reached toward her, she flinched. His arm was a serpent clothed in ermine, his hand a monstrous creature with five heads, many golden rings collaring its necks. She cowered, he advanced. He plucked a flake of light from her cheek, lifted it to his mouth, and placed it on his tongue. He gagged, swallowed, gagged again, convulsed. He rested his forehead on Du Bellay’s shoulder for a moment, the damp curls of his wig trailing on the cardinal’s velvet breast.

The girl raised a hand to her head but found no purchase there. Her fingers skimmed through the misty substance of her face. She stared at her hand, wiggling her fingers, then brought the other hand up and tried to clasp them together. Her fingers shuffled through each other like a pack of cards.

Help me, said the moon, now a hair thinner. Annette, please.

Poor frail girl, not a day older than the young wives who’d just been sipping chocolate at Annette’s fireside. She was hardly the first to fall prey to the king’s appetites, though he didn’t usually involve Cardinal du Bellay in the process of divesting them of their innocence. No—Annette corrected herself. This was no erotic adventure. Nobody in the garden was titillated. Some were worried, perhaps even disturbed. Most were simply cold, bored, foot-sore, and waiting for the night to end.

Annette found her confessor among the circle of priests. Guy Brassard was a tall, heavy figure scuffing his foot on the gravel. His arms were crossed as if offended, and pearly beads spilled from his elbow. Guy was one of the dearest consolations of Annette’s waning days. She’d paid for his education, his elevation to the priesthood. She still hoped to make him a cardinal, if she managed to outlive Du Bellay. That was hardly likely now. She’d be lucky to survive the winter.

Annette tapped Guy on the shoulder.

“My dear Madame,” he whispered, clearly surprised. “Should you be out in this chill?”

“Nobody should.” She tugged on his wrist. “Come, sit with me.”

She took his obedience for granted, leading him to a marble bench in a hedge-shaded alcove. There, on quiet nights, desperate women bargained their reputation for coin, and once she would have disdained the seat, considering it very much beneath her, but that was another consolation of age—little she could do now to lose her honor. Thank goodness, because she couldn’t decide what ached more, her hips or her chest. She needed to sit.

She gathered her skirts and cloak, cushioning herself from the cold stone. Guy took his accustomed place on her left, near her good ear, and waited as she caught her breath.

“I would have thought Du Bellay was too cautious to dabble in the occult,” she said.

“You know what I think of the cardinal, Madame.”

“I suppose our dear Louis is desperate, and Du Bellay does what he must.”

He grimaced, and shadows etched his face. Annette would always think of him as young, but he had long since begun to line.

“If I could have care of the king’s soul,” said Guy, “he’d be a happier man.”

“Do you think it’s possible to dispel the grief of a man who’s recently buried so many loved ones?” Annette gave him a gentle, tolerant smile.

“Resignation is a virtue.”

“But not a virtue anyone finds particularly attractive, especially in a monarch. Above all things, our dear Louis wants to be loved and admired.” She folded her hand in the warm crook of his arm. “What exactly is he trying to do? Bring back the dauphin?” Guy shook his head. “Madame de Pompadour?”

“No.”

“Not the queen? I wouldn’t think he’d risk his soul for her.”

“He is attempting to overtake death.”

“Overtake?”

“Overcome, perhaps that’s a better word. He is taking his youth back. Just as the moon returns renewed, so shall he. For as long as God’s grace allows.”

If Annette had the strength, she would have leapt to her feet in shock.

“Has Du Bellay lost his mind?”

“It’s not a sin to work a miracle, because no miracle can happen without God’s permission. That’s what the cardinal says.”

Help me, Annette.

“And the girl? What happens to her when the king is done feasting on her youth?”

He looked surprised.

“She is Selena, the mythic huntress, drawn to earth by Du Bellay’s occult ritual. An ancient shade has no soul, so we don’t need to concern ourselves with her fate.”

“Or so says the cardinal?”

“So says the cardinal,” Guy repeated softly. He slapped his knees and stood. “In any case, it’ll all be over before dawn. You are shivering, Madame. Go home. Let Julie put you to bed with a pan of coals.” He bowed over her hand. “Forgive me if I don’t escort you?”

“Of course, my dear.” She let her fingers graze his bare head for a moment. Warmth radiated from his scalp. His hair was growing thin, yet another indicator of his increasing age—and hers.

She dismissed him, and when his broad back had turned and he was making his way to the circle of priests, she gathered her strength for a moment before folding her palms over the weighted head of her stick and hauling herself upright. It wasn’t as difficult as usual; anger gave her strength. Anger, because the girl was no ancient shade. She was likely an orphan, snatched from a convent by Du Bellay’s henchmen. Would she be dead at the end of the night, or animate but hollow, a human husk? Or would she be like Annette, hunching toward death, her years of vitality stolen?

No—that was wrong. Annette hadn’t had her youth stolen. She’d spent it freely as coins from her purse, here, in the royal zoo. She’d thought her fortune well spent, once. The idea that she might get a better bargain elsewhere hadn’t even occurred, but it was her right to spend her own life as she liked. What right had the king to spend the youth of this poor child?

Every right. The divine right. Almost a sin to doubt it.

Annette should have gone back to the palace. Returned to Julie and her pan of coals. She ought to have faded into the feathery sleep of age, so light it skirted the edge of wakefulness, and let herself dissolve into that final unending sleep.

Instead, she paced back to the circle of priests and pushed herself between two of their bulky forms to take a better look at the cardinal, the king, and the girl.

Dear Louis was cheese-green, rolling from one boot to the other, like a ship in a storm. The cardinal sweated, struggling to hold the king upright. With a frantic gesture, he called two priests from the circle, and they took the weight of the king upon themselves. An operatic tableau—Louis in his high wig, agonized and dramatic, the two younger priests embracing his royal self, holding him aloft, and the aged cardinal now collapsing on one knee before the others, his hand raised in blessing or worship.

And the girl? She was tattered like a piece of old lace, her edges fraying. Over her head, a bleeding splinter of moon hung in the bough of a dead palm tree.

Help me.

“Madame, you must go.” Guy’s voice in her ear. Strong words from her protégé. She wasn’t inclined to obey.

Something strange about the girl’s face, under the fringe of her lank and colorless hair. Perhaps it was a trick of Annette’s fading eyes, but from puckered buds above her eyebrows protruded bone-colored, moon-slender crescents, no bigger than the golden spurs on the heels of the king’s boots. Horns, really. No other word for them but horns.

“Madame?” Guy grasped her elbow. Annette shook him off.

“She is no human girl,” she whispered.

“As I said.” Guy’s warm breath huffed in her ear. “Now you must go.”

“Dear Louis isn’t simply sucking the life from a child, but truly consuming the powers of a goddess.”

“Of an ancient shade, yes.”

“What is the difference between that and a goddess?”

“You ask me that? You who made me a priest?”

Guy pulled her out of the circle. Though he was twice her size, she wasn’t helpless. She raked her stick across his shins and twisted away.

“Don’t you dare touch me,” she said.

He stepped back, hands spread wide in apology.

The girl in the pink wig who’d visited Annette earlier in the evening, Marie-Louise, she hadn’t been wrong. For decades, dear Louis had either taken or been given everything he wanted. The entire universe of courtiers had spent their lives dancing attendance upon him. And now he wanted more. He was taking more. And why? Because he could.

Help me, Annette.

“One more piece,” urged the cardinal. His mouth was at the king’s ear, and no doubt he thought he was whispering, but he was a trained orator and tensions were high. His voice rang across the grove. “Just one final bite.”

The king’s monstrous arm snaked toward the girl. He grabbed her by the face and drew her toward him, mouth gaping. One gulp devoured her head, and her body followed like a boneless thing, slithering down the gullet of the king.

The two young priests recoiled, stumbling off the edges of the platform. The king stretched, reaching for the moonless sky. His wig fell away as his brow sprouted with crescent horns, and his skin glowed ivory and silver. No wrinkles, no scars, no pouches or pockmarks of age. White hair flowed over his shoulders, and he stood straight and strong as a god.

“No,” said Annette, stumping toward the platform. “You’ve had everything you want. If it hasn’t brought you joy, it’s your own fault.”

She barely had the strength to step herself up to the king’s level, but she did manage it, and in one try. When he turned his ageless face on her, she nearly faltered. He was again the boy-king of her youth, and hadn’t she been trained since childhood to bow to him?

“You’ve had enough,” she said, and swung her stick.

The weighted head penetrated his robes and struck his gut. He folded, fell to his knees, and retched. Moonlight spilled on the raw pine planks and spread like quicksilver, tracing the pattern of a girl in its edges. The moonlight bubbled. A girl rose from its depths and stood. Selena, the ancient shade, the goddess, the immortal curves of her body veiled in a whisper of silk.

“But I haven’t,” said Annette.

She opened her mouth and took the girl in all at once, swallowed her. She slipped down Annette’s throat easily as a sip of warm chocolate.

“I’ll never have enough,” Annette said.

She grew huge. The realm encompassed by her all-seeing eye expanded, and she stood astride the gardens, looking down from an owl’s perspective. The trees were twigs at her feet, the paths just cracks, the palace simply a toy, the men no more consequential than insects, their voices less than the rustling of leaves.

Now the moon came to her, full and round and light. She tucked it into the crook of her arm, pillowed it against her hip. Her horns extended, quivering in the atmospheric gale like a hare’s nose, giving her everything, telling her everything. The mood of the seas. The destination of the winds. The direction of the continents as they drifted on the mantle of ages.

And best of all, she’d never been so warm.

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Thank you for joining our journey this week.

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Kelly Robson is a Nebula Award–winning writer of science fiction, fantasy, and horror. She’s been a finalist for many of the major SFF awards, including the Astounding Award for Best New Writer. Her first short fiction collection, Alias Space and Other Stories, was published by Subterranean Press, and she has two books from Tordotcom Publishing, Gods, Monsters and the Lucky Peach and High Times in the Low Parliament. Kelly consults as a creative futurist for national and international organizations. She lives in downtown Toronto with her wife, writer A. M. Dellamonica.

“The High Cost of Heat,” © Kelly Robson, 2024.

The Sunday Morning Transport: Selected Stories 2022 is now available at Weightless Books!