"So, how do we play this game?" Richelieu's manner was open, inquiring, almost naive.
Smirks passed around the table. The business of state had finished hours ago and the guests who had remained in the Louvre to drink and gamble the night away were somewhat relaxed from the formality of occasions of state.
"Armand, you are impossible." Abel Servien, marquis de Sable, was a little more relaxed than most, laughing out loud as he spoke. Louder than most, too. It was all Mazarin could do not to wince at the way the man boomed. He actually liked the fellow, but it was a lot easier to picture him riding to hounds or spearing a boar than haggling the fine provisions of a treaty or partaking of a detailed academic correspondence. He did both the latter, to the mild puzzlement of many, who looked at the big, hearty, beefy fellow with the loud voice and the bombastic manner and assumed he was, at best, an uncomplicated soul. The missing eye, lost in a hunting accident in his youth, did nothing to detract from the image of a simple brawler from the rural nobility.
Which he was. Simply a highly intelligent, supremely educated one whose achievements off the hunting field had just won him election to the newly-formed Academie Francaise, an accolade that paled somewhat beside being regarded by Richelieu as a smart man. Mazarin also had a high opinion of his talents: he had thrashed out the Peace of Cherasco with Servien, what seemed now like a lifetime ago, and both of them had done well as a result. Mazarin had made a name that now saw him in good odor in Paris and Rome both, and Servien had ended up minister of war and able to place any number of his relatives in the cardinal's service. His fourth cousin, Etienne, was one of the more notorious of the special intendants who did the cardinal's more surreptitious work.
"Impossible, Abel?" Richelieu smiled back.
"Impossible." Servien gestured for the cardinal to be included in the deal. "If Etienne hasn't already furnished you with a complete set of rules, some other of your army of sneaks has done so, and I can't imagine it took you more than, oh, an hour or so to learn them fully and devise seventeen winning stratagems."
Richelieu quirked an eyebrow. "Why would you think I might do such a thing? A churchman, studying so disreputable an activity as cards?"
"Hah!" Servien barked. "It would be an improvement from all those grubby actors and playwrights you throw money at. And it's not as if we don't already have a cardinal taking us for every ecu in our pockets. Clearly it is an entirely reputable activity if we now have two princes of the church at table, although it will not be long before we have a beggar in my chair."
"Come, Abel," Mazarin said, "you can afford it. Can I help it if you're not as good at cards as you are at diplomacy?"
"I remain to be convinced that this 'Texas hold 'em' is quite the game of skill you claim it is." Servien grumped. "I have been dealt nothing but excrement since the evening began, and nothing seems to answer for making good the execrable luck I'm having."
At that he was doing better than Leon Bouthillier, who was to Mazarin's left; the fortunes of the comte de Chavigny were being heavily depleted and much of it had ended up in Mazarin's gratifyingly large stack of ecus. Alas, the poor fellow had learned to play poker from Harry Lefferts, and both men did not have a tell so much as consist entirely of one; one simply had to judge how excited the fellow was. Neither was much concerned to consider the odds, and had a basic instinct for unrestrained aggression. Harry did it a good deal better than Leon, but the principle was the same in either case—audacity, audacity and more audacity. Unfortunately, Bouthillier couldn't quite manage the same level of sheer single-minded sanguinity and would occasionally back down from a truly insane bluff; against Harry one played the probabilities and over time, wore him down. Against Leon, a show of force on a moderately strong hand would occasionally see him off.
The cards were going around again and this time Richelieu was being dealt in. "Could we have the door closed for some few moments?" he asked as he briefly examined his hole cards and arranged them neatly before him.
"Certainly," de Sable said, and waved at a servant to attend to the matter.
"And a moment of privacy?" Richelieu asked, prompting another wave for the assorted servants—including the fellow who was serving up the cards, at another nod and quirk of the eyebrow from the cardinal—to withdraw for the moment.
Mazarin noted the company. Himself, de Sable, Bouthillier, and Richelieu. And, now that the last of the servants had left, Etienne Servien pulling the door closed and standing by it to ensure their privacy, he raised an eyebrow.
"Yes, Your Eminence," Richelieu said, noting the gesture, "I am afraid I must interrupt you at cards with business. Tiresome, but necessary, and I do apologize."
"There is no need for Your Eminence to apologize," Mazarin said, "Since I am now fully employed here, my time is Your Eminence's."
"Can we drop the formality, please?" de Sable said. "Things were pleasantly relaxed, Jules, before you started Eminencing all over the place."
"Please excuse me, Abel," Mazarin said, realizing that he was actually at fault and grateful to the irascible war minister for the correction, "I still have a little trouble thinking of myself as a cardinal. A habit I am working on, I assure you."
"Work swiftly, if you would," Bouthillier said, speaking for the first time since Richelieu had entered. "The sense I have among Gaston's circle is that they would as soon not give you any time at all for that."
"Really?" It was Richelieu's turn to raise an eyebrow. "And how do they propose to arrange the dismissal of a cardinal who has His Holiness' favor so firmly in hand?"
Mazarin wondered too. He had successfully smoothed over the ripples that the Galileo Affair had caused, tidied up the loose ends from what had been, potentially, one of the most major upsets arising from the Ring of Fire. It hadn't been easy—the Venetian Committee of Correspondence had managed to set a record for bad luck and bad management that looked unlikely to be beaten—but it had just about been possible to maneuver the thing so that everyone got something and no one was left empty-handed. Spain was unhappy about it, but they were perennially unhappy about everything, so that wasn't much of a loss. It had taken all of Mazarin's skill as a lawyer and diplomat and, there at the end when he had to sell the thing to a sceptical curia, outright bare-faced cheek. What Harry Lefferts would call 'bafflin' 'em with bullshit.' The bluff had carried the day, and with Rome's political factions baffled into immobility and the damage to France—D'Avaux, the French ambassador to Venice, had managed to outdo himself for sheer fatheaded incompetence—was neatly contained.
Leon shrugged. "I don't think anyone has got quite so far as actual planning, although perhaps Giulio, or Jules rather—" he turned to Mazarin "—I do apologize, I've known you as Giulio for so long I keep forgetting—"
Mazarin waved it aside. If truth be told, he'd only had the new name for a couple of months and wasn't quite used to his new signature himself. Still, it did not do to take one's naturalization by half-measures.
"As I was saying before I put my foot so firmly in my mouth," Leon continued, "Jules will likely be seeing himself slandered in pamphlets before long."
Richelieu's grin was disarming. "The mazarinades are starting early, then," he said.
Mazarin couldn't help but be sarcastic. "I had so been looking forward to that," he said, "perhaps I should write a few memoirs of my time as a student in Madrid, so they can have some of the more noteworthy items to print."
"Really?" Abel asked, grinning broadly, "not quite the serious fellow I thought, are you?"
"Of course he is," Richelieu said, deadpan, "would a prince of the church have spent his student years raising absolute hell in Madrid?"
"I didn't know I was entering the church then," Mazarin said, blushing slightly. He had, in fact, taken full advantage of his time as an undergraduate to make a perfect beast of himself and honed the skills of fast talking and persuasion he had later parlayed into a career in diplomacy. Watching Harry Lefferts in action in Rome had brought back some very pleasant memories indeed. And, although wild horses would not drag the admission out of him in this company, made him wish rubber had been invented back then. Those things were a marvellous invention.
"Be that as it may," Richelieu said, before Mazarin could wander off into pleasant remembrances, "if Gaston is minded to make trouble I think we should take him seriously. We have nothing specific as yet, but there is suggestion that he has been meeting with more Spaniards lately."
"And His Majesty still won't have his brother executed?" Abel Servien's tone was arch and sneering in a way that would have surprised anyone who didn't know him well.
"Please, Abel," Richelieu said, "until His Majesty is blessed with an heir, Monsieur Gaston has to remain alive."
"I am very carefully not commenting on His Majesty's practice in that regard," Servien said, suddenly absolutely without tone or affect in his voice.
"Her Majesty has been pregnant several times, as you know, Abel," Richelieu said, his tone chiding.
Servien simply harrumphed.
Richelieu waved the issue of royal issue aside. "Perhaps something might be done to warn off Monsieur Gaston?" He opened the question to general debate with his tone and a glance around the table. "While we consider it, may I ask to whom falls the honor of opening the betting?"
The business of betting occupied everyone for a few moments; by ironclad convention there was no gossip while a hand was in play, a rule that held as well for primero and baccarat as it did for Texas hold 'em. Unfortunately, Mazarin was holding a rather nice pair of fours that turned in to three of a kind on the flop, so the preoccupation of the other three men at the table made for disappointing betting. The river gave him a full house, nines over fours, but Leon had had the other two nines, so perhaps the rather light betting had been a mercy. He would cheerfully have called Leon's bluff all the way to the hilt, and probably reversed their relative positions. As it was, Leon made a dent in the stack of ecus he'd lost to Mazarin.
"Keep playing like that, Jules," he said, "and the dark rumors Gaston's crowd want to spread about your gaming debts will come true."
"Rumors?" Mazarin felt the beginnings of a chill at that. If it got about that he wasn't good for his notes of hand, the sudden loss of welcome at Paris's gaming tables would only be the start of his troubles. A man who couldn't pay his card debts wasn't a gentleman, and therefore unfit to take his place in polite society. As such, he would be politically useless, practically and as a matter of correct protocol both.
"That you've gambled away every benefice you've had, and our patron here has hold of your 'leash' because he's settling your debts for you, or so they say. And His Eminence knows he will have you under control forever because you keep getting in trouble no matter how many times you are dragged out of the hole. I wish you'd stop it, Jules," Leon said, grinning broadly, "as the constant calls of debt-collectors grow most tiresome."
Mazarin grinned back. "What can I do? I keep losing so badly, but one day my luck will change, I am sure of it. I have a foolproof system." In fact, the only callers on Mazarin's lodgings at the Maison Chavigny were those delivering his winnings, usually with rueful notes from the assorted notables who hadn't had the sense to stop playing against him when they exhausted what they had at table and had to resort to notes of hand. He'd lost more than he sat down with exactly once in the last two months, when he'd written a note to cover the last call of the night, for the princely sum of five hundred ecus—slightly less than a week's income from the larger of his two benefices. The only delay in redeeming his note had been because he'd slept in the next day. His foolproof system was simply that he was very, very good at any game that depended on bluff; primero and, lately, poker. He would play basset, faro and baccarat to be sociable, but he had grown out of pure gambling long ago.
Everyone around the table knew it, and his remark raised a round of chuckles. "I could take it very amiss, you know, that Monsieur Gaston thinks me stupid enough to keep playing when I'm losing."
"Now, now, Jules," Richelieu said, wagging a finger, "Cardinals aren't allowed affairs of honor. And if you think you are embarrassed to learn that Gaston's crowd thinks little of you, imagine how embarrassed I should be to have you imprisoned for duelling and for killing the king's brother."
"Shame," Abel said, into the thoughtful silence that followed that. "He's given me cause a couple of times."
"Perhaps some other kind of contest," Leon added, suddenly with a 'butter wouldn't melt' expression on his face.
Servien erupted. "Arm-wrestling!" he choked out between guffaws, "Bowling! Duels will be transformed! A new fashion!"
Leon grinned. "I was thinking of, perhaps, something a little more in keeping with the spirit of the slander. Jules, Gaston has taken to playing primero rather a lot."
"Really? I had thought him a basset man, and baccarat when he feels like an intellectual challenge." Mazarin had been at Monsieur Gaston's table a couple of times, but had never found the company truly congenial. The man was perennially unhappy at not being his elder brother, and tended to attract the like-minded to his circle. They were not marked so much by a lack of talent as an inability to use it because they flatly refused to believe the world was as it was, insisting that it was as they would like it to be.
"Until recently, yes," Leon said, "but the new fashion for poker affronts him, and thus his entire circle. Apparently it is a foreign game that no true Frenchman would be seen playing."
"What patriotism." Richelieu's drawl was dry and deadpan. The regularity with which Gaston took foreign support for his schemes was notorious. Had he not been the king's brother he would have gone to the headsman along with his conspirators. "Perhaps you can show him how a foreigner plays the game, Jules? If that is what Leon is driving at?"
"How could a naturalized Frenchman teach so senior a Frenchman as Monsieur Gaston how to play a game that was invented in Italy?" It was too good to resist, Mazarin thought. Gaston, a serial traitor who frequently colluded with foreign powers was flouting his Frenchness by playing an Italian game? If that was the defining standard, Jules could prove himself easily. He'd been beating his relatives at it when he was twelve.
"The idea has merit," Richelieu said. "He will think himself presented with an opportunity to ruin you financially—what little I know tells me that over time the player with deepest pockets can win. And—forgive me Jules, but it was necessary to know—I understand that you rarely lose over the long term. The worst that will happen is that you will rise from the table with some trifling loss, and we might well see Monsieur Gaston subsidizing your new estate."
"I cannot simply walk in to his circle," Mazarin observed, "unless you want the gesture to be theatrical in the extreme."
"No, no," Richelieu said, "an outright challenge would be counterproductive for the moment. If Leon would procure you an entree, you should work your way toward playing cards with the fellow for high stakes, somewhere very public. And then, Jules, forget the rules of protocol. You rank before him as a prince of the church. You are entirely permitted, encouraged even, to take him for everything you can."
The opportunity came shortly after Christmas, at the kind of levee that Mazarin had come to look forward to immensely. Her Majesty, whatever the king thought of her, was a thoroughly charming lady and one whose company he could not get enough of. She, too, liked him. He could see Richelieu's purpose in bringing them together as much as was possible—Anne of Austria, despite the name, was quite thoroughly Spanish, despite the best efforts of her court ladies. She also corresponded frequently with her brother, Philip of Spain, and while the correspondence could not be practically intercepted, Richelieu had deep suspicions that it went beyond simple matters of family gossip. Although, for the Habsburgs, politics, statecraft and warfare were simple matters of family gossip. And Philip of Spain, faced with separations between his own throne and those of Austria and the Netherlands—the United States of Europe had not just messed things up in the Germanies—would be scrabbling for any connection he could get his hands on. And it was only a matter of time before she got drawn into the machinations of another de Chalais—Richelieu had had that one executed but there seemed to be an inexhaustible supply of traitors.
So—as far as Mazarin could reconstruct Richelieu's thinking—best to get Anne firmly attached to someone in his own party to shield her from the troublemakers. Mazarin felt fairly sure that Richelieu wasn't so cold-blooded that he would even suggest, let alone order, something so outrageous as a seduction. Not that he would say no, it had to be said, but there were limits and a prince of the church conducting an affair with the queen of France was pretty certain to be beyond them. Probably. The domestic situation of His Most Christian Majesty, Louis of France, was odder even than most monarchs.
The Louvre was host to a levee for the Feast of the Epiphany. His Majesty was away at Saint-Maur, leaving most of the court luminaries to celebrate in his absence, with the queen as hostess for the evening. And Monsieur Gaston, Duc D'Orleans, comte de Blois and comte d'Anjou was there as well.
Mazarin had wandered along with Leon Bouthillier several times to levees and soirees that Gaston had thrown over the preceding few weeks. From time to time, he had even let the man inveigle him into a game of baccarat or basset, at which Mazarin had been careful to bet injudiciously and badly, losing a modest amount each time. That had grated, somewhat. The benefices Richelieu had settled on him were handsome, and entirely adequate for his modest living expenses and to get him a seat at Paris' better card tables. The rest—and after he brought home his winnings, it was a substantial rest—was going into procuring the nucleus of a fine, fine collection of books and art. He begrudged the money he had hurled at Gaston instead of at that.
Oh, he could understand the necessity. The man was important, virtually untouchable provided he had the sense to spend occasional periods out of the country, and, within his sphere, powerful. Cultivating him was necessary, and that was part of why Richelieu ensured he had the likes of Bouthillier to act as liaison, for all that the senior de Chavigny couldn't abide Gaston. But he had to be cultivated. Flattered even.
For now, though, there was a card game in the offing. Gaston had got back to his love of primero. "Is there room for another?" Mazarin asked as he walked into the room Gaston had selected.
"But of course," Gaston said, waving to a free spot. A spot where he would have to open the betting if Gaston kept the deal, a prerogative he could claim if he so chose. Leon Bouthillier was already in the game, and had a respectable stack of coin in front of him. Clearly this was company in which Leon could win. There were four others, none of whom Mazarin more than vaguely recognized.
A servant brought a chair and Mazarin sat down. "How is this game played, them?" he asked, provoking a round of cultured titters.
"If you sit down needing the rules explained, Your Eminence," Gaston drawled, "you deserve all you get."
Mazarin nodded to acknowledge the sally. If Gaston thought that that was cutting wit, he was welcome to it. "Do deal me in," he said, "and I shall answer for my own losses, such as they are." He grinned. This was a game he knew.
Gaston crooked an eyebrow and began. Mazarin's first two cards were perfectly ordinary, and yet a surprise. The Grantville patterns, similar to the Rouen cards, were becoming widespread. What was unusual was to see Gaston using them after his public prating about the whole business not being sufficiently French. The hand itself was a four and a five of hearts and clubs respectively, worth a low numero bid at best, and neatly removing temptation to start aggressively. "Numero thirty," he said, beginning with a half-dozen or so ecus simply to bait the field, and bidding a hand he could make with just two cards. Indeed, it would be hard to manage a hand that couldn't make that with a couple of draws. Playing like an old woman for the first couple of rounds was generally worthwhile, especially if there were pigeons at table. And, nobility being what they were—basset stakes were limited by law for anyone but the nobility for a reason—there was bound to be one or two. Being able to laugh off massive gaming losses was practically a badge of nobility.
Betting started out suitably extravagant following Mazarin's lead, none of the nobility wanting to look like they couldn't afford to plunge, and plunge hard. Mazarin felt a warm, warm glow somewhere begin somewhere in his belly. Now, if he could just persuade them to start trying to take him . . .
Gaston completed the deal once there were something like four hundred ecus on the table between six players, and already a supremo bid. Mazarin had seen the bets, joking that he was already in over his head despite the fact that he knew at least two of the men around the table had seen him play before. And, when the bids and the raises got hard, he let himself look a little worried and confined himself to seeing them. With his hand complete, Mazarin had his own bid in hand—a five and a six of hearts, but the bid was supremo. He folded without further ado.
"A little rich for your blood, Your Eminence?" Gaston asked, a minor barb whose sheer crudity meant that Mazarin could do little other than ignore it.
"A little, monsieur," Mazarin allowed, nodding his deference. His acting was not entirely thespian; conceding defeat in the first rounds made good tactical sense but he hated to do it. Letting his feelings show at this stage was sensible, if distasteful. "Perhaps I will be more fortunate in the next round?"
"Perhaps."
After that, Mazarin had to sit and be calm while the pot rose over two thousand ecus on one hand, which was frankly ludicrous. It was all he could do not to get up and demand to know what the hell these clowns thought they were playing at—most of the bids were flat-out impossible. And, sure enough, no one made his bid at the end of the game.
Time to conduct a little raid, he thought. If there were two thousand on the table, it was worth a little aggressive play. He got the six and seven of spades on the opening deal, and bid a supremo on the first round, running the bidding up handsomely, with fluxus bids that there was no chance of the table by the end of the first round, which he raised with a blithe smile. There was actually a slightly better chance of his making a fluxus than a supremo, assuming an honest deal.
He put up his best annoying smile when the deal was completed, and to his amusement he actually got the ace he needed for a supremo. From here on in it was a simple business of keeping the bets and draws going until he had that fourth spade without running the fluxus bids up so high—it was all of fifty right now—that he was faced with a lot of folding before he could make his hand. He grinned broadly. "Supremo," he said, tossing in the useless heart and setting down the three cards of his hand. He didn't even trouble to look at the card Gaston dealt him. The bidding suddenly became conservative.
So I am the kind of news that gets around, he thought. It was a gratifying consideration. A quick glance showed him that everyone was watching him carefully. Just because aristocracy likes to spend heavily, one should not assume they like to lose, and he was the best prospect for that just at the moment. The bids came back to him with a modest raise to match. He checked his draw card. Two of spades, giving him a fluxus and fifty-seven points on a supremo bid; he was bust. He considered, and rejected, the possibility of bidding the plain and naked truth. "I'll see that and vie for my supremo," he said, "all in." Not, strictly speaking, a good bid. Unless someone chose to raise him with a real fluxus.
Everyone folded. Even Gaston. "I should really have seen that hand," Gaston said as he shuffled and cut for the next hand. "I think we were bluffed."
"I had a fluxus and fifty-seven," Mazarin said, deadpan. "You were."
Gaston laughed. "You know, that was very convincing? You could as well have told everyone you had forty-two and no hand."
Mazarin kept his tone exactly the same. "I did."
That got a round of laughs. I have all of you now, he thought.
The next two hands passed off without incident, and the table talk was subdued. Mazarin made conservative bids and then folded when the deal was complete, risking only a little of the money he had taken with that early coup. That Gaston was not passing the deal around made things a little more difficult. Mazarin considered his cards. Two coats in clubs. A rather small numero right there, maybe a fluxus on the deal. He'd have to see if he could provoke a raise. "Numerus, forty," he said, tossing in a vie that was frankly far too large for the hand he was bidding.
The round of chuckles was what he had been hoping for. "Surely you may bluff better than that?" Gaston observed, "I had heard you had problems, Your Eminence, but I had ascribed them to ill-fortune."
"My fortunes are as God grants they should be, monsieur," Mazarin countered, "and the run of play is how I help myself. Let us see what problems arise in this hand."
Gaston nodded for the bidding to continue. The first four—the specimens of fungible nobility of the kind that clustered around whichever of Gaston or the king happened to be most readily available—all saw his bet, content to wait and see what the second round brought up. Leon Bouthillier considered for a moment. "I shall see that," he said, pushing forward his stake, "and re-vie another hundred ecus—numerus fifty-four."
Not a serious bid, Mazarin thought, one point short of supremo. It seemed young Leon had guessed what Mazarin was up to and was deliberately provoking the table. Which was helpful in its way, but—
"Supremo," Gaston said, matter-of-factly, seeing Leon's raise and adding a couple of hundred ecus of his own. "This game is starting to get interesting."
"Monsieur always did play for high stakes," Leon said, provoking a moment of silence around the table and a few worried frowns.
"Indeed," Gaston said, "all true Frenchmen should. Do you see?"
Mazarin loved moments such as these. The play at cards was thrill enough by itself—he had his play, to simply see the raises and watch whether the other players folded. A supremo bid was a tough one to make but easy enough to beat, especially if he managed to make his fluxus. The table talk, though, was growing delightfully heated. Leon—and Mazarin wished there was some way to warn him not to prejudice his valuable position in Gaston's circle—had made a sally at Gaston's unfortunate record in committing treason, and Gaston was, apparently, counting on Mazarin's clerical status and his own royal blood to avoid being called out to answer for his insult.
"I am told our newest cardinal has made a coup?" Everyone turned around to see who had spoken, and it was Her Majesty, Anne of Austria. The existing tension dissipated and a whole new kind arose. There was no love lost between her and her brother-in-law after he had entangled her in his last, disastrous, plot.
"I have had some small success, Your Majesty," Mazarin said, rising first to kiss her hand. "And I have some hope that Your Majesty's presence will bring me more luck."
"I shall remain and watch the play, then," she said. "Pray continue, my lords, Your Eminence." She took up a position behind Mazarin, her ladies attending in her wake like a small flotilla behind a graceful ship of the line.
"Your Majesty is most gracious," Gaston said, "and I recall the action is with His Eminence?"
"Indeed, monsieur," Mazarin agreed, "and I will see the three hundred that are bid and be content to await the completion of the deal."
The four nobles—Mazarin still couldn't recall any names—all saw the raise as well, taking six fresh cards between them. Floundering for a better hand, all of them, but unwilling to back down in a sensible manner now that Gaston had raised the moral temperature of the table.
Leon stayed in as well, smiling faintly and throwing off tells in all directions. Nothing useful, knowing Leon as well as he had come to. He was simply an excitable fellow.
Gaston completed the deal without comment. Mazarin checked his cards. Seven of clubs and the four of hearts. That was his original bid made; a pity the bid was supremo. And also a pity Gaston hadn't chosen to play the English version of primero—the pirates' version of the game where bidding was not troubled with and the strongest hand won. Much more like the American's poker and a far better game for bluffing since there was so much less information passing around the table. A fellow had to be able to truly read his table mates.
"The action is with you, again, Your Eminence," Gaston said.
"I shall pass for the moment and take another card," he said, flicking the four out of his hand with a negligent gesture.
"Not riding full tilt in to the action on this round, Your Eminence?" Gaston asked, an eyebrow raised as he dealt the card. "I seem to recall Your Eminence acquired some fame for that in your youth. In Italy."
"There is a right time and a wrong time to risk all, monsieur," Mazarin said, checking his card—Ace of Clubs, yes!—"as monsieur well knows."
Gaston's face went carefully blank. Mazarin had seen Leon's allusion to Gaston's habit of treason and raised with an allusion to Gaston's incompetence in his treason. The angrier Gaston got, the better, and Gaston was fighting with both hands behind his back in a needling contest. Gaston had a truly remarkable record of stupidity and vice to hint at, whereas Mazarin could sit and listen to allusions to his own personal history all day without being upset. So he was not a natural-born Frenchman? As well insult him over the size of his shoes. It was a fact about him, nothing more. Reminding Gaston he was a known traitor when Spain was massing its armies to the south, that would sting. Nor would anyone be much surprised if Gaston transpired to have some role to play in Spain's plans.
"Is it favorable?" Her Majesty asked.
"Very much so," Mazarin said, turning in his seat to address her, which was permissible now that she herself was seated. "The game is convivial and the company has become so."
The queen's dimples deepened as she suppressed a laugh. She had a wicked and impious sense of humor among her confidants, and jokes with a sting of sarcasm always pleased her. Clearly she could sit and listen to Gaston being the butt of humorous sallies all night long. "I hope the company brings you luck?" she said, and her expression added a new layer of meaning to the simple remark. "His Eminence Cardinal Richelieu suggested I come to the table in the hope of bringing you luck."
Mazarin frankly grinned. It was a terrible quirk of fate that had left this woman married to a man with King Louis' . . . proclivities. "I am sure Monsieur Gaston will not insult Your Majesty by trying to deal me another queen."
There was a slight intake of breath around the table at that. Never mind that he had given Gaston his back, however obliquely and however permissible it was when the queen was the object of his attentions, he had made sure his remark was loud enough that everyone heard him publicly suggest he was planning lese-majesté and cheating at cards. Mazarin excused himself from the queen and turned back to the table to see that Gaston's face was perfectly still, two of the disposable nobles were growing red-faced on his behalf while the other two were as closed-faced as their patron and Leon was visibly trying to control a smirk. "Where is the action?" he asked brightly, "Please excuse my inattention, but a royal lady comes before the ladies of the cards."
"Quite," Gaston said, "it is with my lord Bouthillier de Chavigny—"
"Your pardon, Monsieur," Leon said, "I will vie for supremo, four hundred ecus." Clearly the disposables had all passed. Leon took his compulsory draw, one card only, doing nothing to give the lie to his claim.
A bold bid, Mazarin thought, I wonder if he's really holding one. He'd never actually seen Leon play primero, only poker, and so had no idea if he was as bullish at the old game as he was at the new. There was one way to find out, and hopefully Leon was not going to be mulish about getting his stake back if he was good enough to run the betting up as high as he hoped it would get.
Gaston played right to form. "Supremo," he said, "I see your four hundred and re-vie one thousand." That provoked intakes of breath from those present.
Mazarin thought briefly about which of his tells to use, and settled on smiling faintly. "I shall see the fourteen hundred on the table and vie for fluxus, forty." He stared right into Gaston's eyes as he pushed a stack of ecus forward. Gaston stared right back.
"I do believe you are showing off for me, Your Eminence," the queen whispered, her lips thrillingly close to his ear.
He leaned back over his shoulder. "If a gentleman cannot show off in front of a queen, he cannot show off in front of any lady."
She sat back, and from the whispers and giggles it sounded as if the remark was being passed around the ladies.
The first three disposables folded, having passed already. Even half their stakes were a nice addition to the pot, though. The fourth exercised his privilege of passing once after the vie, and took another card. There was a possibility the fellow had a good hand building but he had none of the tells of a good hand or even a solid bluff.
Leon was grinning. Either he had a flux of his own—about one in four of the compulsory draws on a supremo bid would bust the hand with a fluxus—making Mazarin's bid a godsend, or he was simply enjoying the spectacle of Gaston's stony-faced anger. So—"I shall see that fluxus bid and re-vie for a fluxus of forty-five. A raise of a thousand ecu of my own." Leon was not far short of all-in with that. And, clearly, simply raising the temperature. If he was holding a busted supremo the least he would have would be a fluxus and sixty-five, and a genuine play to win would start just short of that. He was leaving the bid where he could be certain Mazarin could raise it to something he could make. Well done, Leon, Mazarin thought. Richelieu had selected a good man for the work he did.
Gaston was silent when the action passed to him. Silent for a long, long moment. He could assume that Mazarin and Bouthillier were bluffing, which was all well and good and he could simply stand with his supremo bid, or he could vie with another fluxus and see if he could call their bluff. He could raise a little and see if he could break their collective nerve, or he could raise a lot and simply dump the pot with a bid that no one could make, hoping to take it in the next hand. Or he could take the sensible move and see the bet, draw in the hope he could bust the supremo he was blatantly holding, and pray the one remaining interchangeable vicomte de wherever was sensible enough to make the right bid depending on what Mazarin did. "I shall see these bets, and draw one card," Gaston said, at length. In truth, it was all he could do. Anything else was either outright cowardice or likely to result in him losing.
Mazarin smiled serenely. "Fluxus, fifty, and a raise of another thousand." He stole a glance at Leon, who was grinning broadly. It would be interesting to see if Leon stayed in at this point.
The one disposable who had stayed in saw the bet, raised to fluxus fifty-one and another hundred ecus. He drew a card and was clearly trying to stay in long enough to build the hand; if he stayed in two rounds of betting the odds shifted in his favor. Mazarin wondered if the man felt foolish making raises of a hundred ecus in a game where at least two of the other players had three months' income staked on a single hand. Certainly his fellow hangers-on were giving him pitying looks, they having had the sense to get out of the way once it became obvious that this was a grudge match.
"I'll have fluxus, fifty-two," Leon said, covering the bet. "Will the table indulge me with a note of hand for the raise?" With the bet covered, he had only a few dozen ecu in front of him.
"I'll stand for it," came Abel Servien's booming voice.
Mazarin jumped slightly. Servien was a big man, a loud man, and ought not to be able to move that quietly, he reflected. Still, the man was a dedicated huntsman, or had been in his youth, and so ought to have some skill in the stalk. And if the whispering hangers-on around the room had done their job correctly he'd have heard there was a kill to be in at.
Servien's intervention left Gaston with no choice. He might legitimately express concern for the comte de Chavigny's finances if his son Leon was writing notes on his allowance, but he could not publicly insult the marquis de Sable who had plenty of hunting estates to back his note. "Certainly, if my lord the marquis is guarantor. How much was monsieur proposing to raise?"
"Five thousand," Leon said, grinning broadly as a footman set a small writing desk in front of him and he scratched a note for the sum.
The vicomte de whoever dropped his cards with an expression of disgust on his face. There was no way he could stay in and cover that long enough to make his flux, clearly, and was going to have to fold when the action came back to him.
Gaston's face was pale. A whispered exchange with a manservant brought him more money to the table, and he saw the bet without comment. Tellingly, he drew another card. Mazarin watched him intently. Was he relieved? Terrified? Even for such as Gaston, this was insane betting.
"I am afraid to say that the best I can do is go all-in," Mazarin said, beaming cheerfully back at Leon, as he pushed his ecus forward "unless the table will indulge me as it has M. Bouthillier?"
"Only fair," Servien barked, looking steadily at Gaston the while.
Gaston waved his assent, wordlessly. Fortunately, the footman had not gone far with the writing set.
Gaston looked pleadingly at the last of his cronies. If the fellow would stay in, there was a chance of keeping the play going long enough for him to build a flux while the two maniacs from Richelieu's party raised the stakes through the roof. Shaking his head regretfully, the fellow folded.
"Then," Leon said, relish in his voice, "it is time to see whether I or His Eminence has the better flux, not so? Or whether Monsieur Gaston is able to surprise us both?"
Mazarin smiled back. "Can you beat a fifty-seven with that flux that made you grin so widely?" he said, laying his cards down.
"Alas, no," Leon said, "I had fifty-six. The supremo bid was the bluff, and I did not make it."
Gaston tossed his supremo in with a noise of disgust. "I grow weary," he said, "and shall retire." Without saying more he gave everyone, including the queen, his back and left. His cronies followed him in short order.
With them out of the room, Servien leaned on the back of Leon's chair, his eyes screwed up and shaking in silent mirth.
Leon leaned over the table. "My note, Your Eminence," he said, proffering the thing while the footman raked Mazarin's winnings over to him. Leon was grinning awfully broadly for a man who was handing over that much money.
"Really, Leon, that isn't necessary," Mazarin protested. They had, between them, stung Gaston and his cronies for better than twenty thousand on one hand, "I was morally all-in on that last, and you have the second hand. Keep it as your share."
"A noble gesture," Servien said, aloud. "Keep it as a souvenir, young Leon."
"As the marquis says," Leon demurred, accepting the face-saving formula to avoid having to redeem his note in cash.
Mazarin turned to Her Majesty, who was smiling broadly, her eyes glinting. "Your Majesty brought me luck tonight," he said. "Allow me to share it with the royal lady who brought me the boon." He grabbed a double handful of coins, worth a couple of thousand at a guess since most of the coins were livres tournois, and offered them. He was flushed with the win, and it simply seemed—right.
"Handsomely done, Your Eminence," she said, "But your winning hand—I see a king and a knave. You did not play a queen?" Her smile turned impish.
"The night is yet young, Your Majesty."