The Fading Rose
"Your Majesty."
"Oscar."
There was then a long silence.
"Your Majesty ... once, some years gone, when you proposed to cancel
your morning audience, I advised you against it ... and despite the
fact that all those around you saw nothing wrong with doing so, you
heeded my advice."
"I remember, Oscar. You have always been a good, wise, and loyal friend
to me."
"Thank you, your Majesty." A single breath. "I ask that you please heed
my advice once more, and give orders for the armies of France to return
to their barracks."
"Oscar ... I am startled. Didn't I tell you that I fear a revolution is
in the offing? If it begins, we shall need those troops to put it
down."
"Your Majesty, <I> fear that by summoning those troops to Paris, you may
have inadvertantly provided the spark which may ignite that very
revolution. I cannot with confidence state that all of these troops are
loyal to the Crown ... or to the head on which it rests. Some ... may
join the revolution."
"I see. Tell me, Oscar ... where do your own sympathies lie?"
An even longer silence ensued.
"Oscar ... you have always been loyal to me. I have relied on you, and
trusted you. But as you of all people know, the payment for the loyal
performance of duty is the expectation of future loyalty. I need you
now, Oscar. Can I depend on you?"
"Your Majesty ... I believe that I may be forced to resign my
commission in the very near future."
It had been said that death was silent.
"I see. Well. There really is not much else that can be said, is
there?"
"Your Majesty ... it is not ... exactly for that reason. I fear that
... I have not yet spoken with a physician, but I do suspect that I may
..."
"Oscar ... you are but thirty-four. It is too early for you to think of
death."
"Death is a soldier's companion, your Majesty. Jeanne d'Arc was much
younger than I when she left this Earth."
"Jeanne d'Arc died a martyr, Oscar. Not sick in bed." There was
something else that the Queen of France most definitely did not say.
"That is true, your Majesty ... but I can no more change my
circumstances any more than the Maid of Orleans could change hers. You
were correct, earlier, when you said that there was nothing more to
say. Thus, I --"
"I believe that I was mistaken, Oscar."
"Your Majesty ..."
"It's going to happen, isn't it, Oscar? Even if I do send those
soldiers back home ... sooner or later, the mob will demand what we
cannot give them, and it will begin."
"I am not a philosopher, your Majesty. I am a soldier." "I know. A
woman soldier. Just like Jeanne d'Arc, or Bradamante."
"More the latter, your Majesty."
"Oh yes ... I remember hearing that you were to marry, but that you
short-circuited the plans by showing up at your debut ball in your
uniform." Silvery laughter.
"My father was ... oddly unamused."
"How strange, since he is the one who demanded that you be a man of
arms from your babyhood. That he should ..."
"Your Majesty?"
"... I was just remembering something that happened nearly twenty years
ago, Oscar. I was only recently come to France ... and Louis was still
so scared of me. Do you remember?"
"Yes, your Majesty."
"It wasn't until Grandfather was dying that he was finally more afraid
of being alone than he was of touching me, did you know that?"
A silence, demanding an answer.
"Of course not. How could you? I complained of it, but you didn't want
to listen to such things then. But there were others ... one countess.
I can't remember her name ... she's dead now, so it doesn't matter,
anyway. She insinuated that the real reason that he was so frightened
wasn't that I wasn't pretty. It was that I wasn't pretty in the right
way."
"Your Majesty ..."
"She basically called my husband a boylover, Oscar. The Crown Prince of
France. I was shocked beyond words. Disgusted. And oh, so frightened.
She was wrong, as it happened."
"Of course."
"But do you know something, Oscar? It occurs to me ... it is strange
beyond words, but it occurs to me that by raising you as a man's man,
and then insisting you find a husband ... your father didn't just want
a son, he wanted a boylover, as well. Isn't that strange?"
Brief silence. "It is strange."
"My son loved you, Oscar. Does that mean that he was a boylover?"
"I ..."
"I'm sorry, Oscar. Do you forgive me?"
Faintly, "Of course, your Majesty."
"You'll permit me a few more moments of caprice, before I have to go
watch my world crumble, and you have to leave me forever?"
"Yes, your Majesty."
"Thank you, Oscar ... but you know, I have never been able to seriously
think of you with a man? It always seemed ... so perverse. I can't help
but think ... I was, of course, a maiden on my wedding night -- and
long after -- but I know that that was merely a sign of my noble virtue
--"
"If not ... your pardon, your Majesty."
"No, no, that's all right. I want you to get upset with me, Oscar, like
you used to. It will remind me of better times than this. If not with a
man, then with a woman? No, of course not. I ... I suppose that I saw
you as Jeanne D'Arc, as you said earlier. The noble virgin knight, even
unto death."
Silence once more filled the chamber.
"But we were talking of noble virtue. And as we all know, noble virtue
is for nobles. One can't help but overhear things, especially in a
palace like Versailles, Oscar. Even if you don't want to. The maids
here are shameless. It's utterly their fault, I suppose that no man
could resist the temptation."
"Many men have. Many men do."
"Oscar ... when you were a `boy', and you looked at the servant girls
in your house, how did your father react?"
"He didn't ... he did not say anything the first time. The second time
..."
"Did he tell you it wasn't manly? Oh, please, tell me that he didn't
tell you it wasn't many for a growing boy to think about young girls,
or I shall laugh, and I do not want to --"
"He said it was inappropriate. And then he beat me."
Silence was not golden; it was a dull, gray colour.
"Oscar, I wish that I had known you when I was growing up. I wouldn't
feel so inclined to laugh as I do, if I had, I think."
"Then I am glad that you didn't know me, your Majesty. Your laughter is
a wonderful thing, sometimes."
"Thank you, Oscar. You are a comfort to me."
"Please, your Majesty ... I am the one who is dying, not you."
"It's not fair, Oscar. We are the same age, or nearly. And yet you've
always seemed so much older than I have -- no wonder, though -- but now
... now you seem so young."
"Your Majesty seems no older today to me than you did when first we
met."
"And when you saved me from those kidnappers. Oh, Oscar ... do you
think it would have been better if you hadn't?"
"I could never think that."
"I am still beautiful?"
"Your Majesty, I ... I must make another confession. And you will not
like this one. Von Fersen ..."
"Yes? What about Fersen?"
"He did not leave France of his own will, the first time, your Majesty.
I went to ask him to do so."
Silence was a stone.
"It was necessary. There were rumours beginning."
"I see."
"But ... but when I did, he understood. He ... it was not completely of
his will, but he saw the necessity. But he said to me, `You understand
... the Queen, she is too beautiful. I know that I shouldn't, but I
cannot help myself.'"
"Oh."
"He said, `You understand, don't you?' And I said, `Yes, Fersen. I
do.'"
"Oh. Oh, Oscar."
"He ... understood."
"I never knew. He never breathed a word of it to me."
"He would not have done so. It was bad enough for the Queen of France
to be in love with him ... how much worse for the captain of the Guard
to be in love with him as well."
"Oh. Oh."
"Your Majesty."
"Oh, Oscar. Did he return your feelings at least?"
"He said that he did, once. But I don't think ... that he truly meant
it. Or perhaps ... he meant that he loved the part of me that wasn't a
woman."
"You are such a mixture of traits, Oscar. Perhaps that is why I always
found it impossible to think of you with a man. I half wondered if your
father had found some magic to *give* you a manhood, sometimes."
"I have no manhood, your Majesty."
"Oscar ... we have known each other twenty years. When first we met, I
was only the youngest daughter of the Empress of Austria. And I don't
think ... in all that time, you have never called me by my name."
"Your Majesty ..."
"Even people who were far more formal than you are ... much less close
to me than you are, have called me Lady Antoinette ... is there a rule
that says that you cannot call me by my name?"
Quietly, "There may be."
Quietly, "When you leave here, you will have broken the rule that says
that you must obey me in all things. Shouldn't you work up to it,
Oscar?"
"... Antoinette ..."
"A good beginning. But there are other rules that we can break. Oscar
... for once ... only once ... be a man."
There were rustles, and then soft whispers too quiet even for those who
speak them to hear clearly. And then, once, a single cry of a name.
More rustles.
"Au Revoir, Oscar." She lied.
"Au Revoir ... Your Majesty." She lied.
The door closed.
The End
Bara no Bersaiyu/The Rose of Versailles <was created by historical
events that defy easy analysis and by Ikeda Ryouko. This story, while
incorporating elements of a magazine and motion picture held under
copyright by others, is copyright 1998 by Chris Davies.>
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