Gris nods as he lumbers through the door. I’m so relieved to see him instead of my sister or Fernand or Lesage that I let out a loud, breathy laugh. “Thank goodness you’re here. I’m anxious to begin.”
He scratches his sleep-tousled hair and studies the cluttered board. “It looks to me like you’re well under way. Since when do you rise before dawn?”
“I couldn’t sleep, so I thought I’d get started.”
He frowns at the messy table, fingering the periwinkle petals and sniffing the mortar bowl where I ground the ambergris. “Get started making what, exactly? Obviously not Viper’s Venom. And what’s this?” He reaches for Father’s small red book, but I snatch it off the table and stuff it down my bodice.
“Nothing.”
“Mira?” Gris narrows his eyes.
I lunge across the table, extract a sprig of witch’s thimble from a jar, and bat the purple flowers against his nose. “Do you remember the first time my father taught us to use witch’s thimble?”
Suspicion and hurt flicker across his features and he pushes the sprig aside. “I know the unrest has lasted longer than expected, but please tell me you don’t pity Vendôme and his army of noblemen. That you’re not secretly helping them.”
“How would I help them? There’s no antidote for Viper’s Venom.”
He eyes my bodice—more specifically the grimoire hidden within it. “They deserve this. You know what they did to me.”
I look down at the board and fiddle with a bit of twine. I’ll never forget the day Mother brought Gris home—he was two years older than me, but so skinny and frightened, he looked a good deal younger than my six years. You could see every rib protruding through his thin, filthy skin, and bruises peppered his arms and legs. He didn’t speak to any of us for months, but Mother told me what happened. He’d been beaten and left in the gutter to die by his master, the Chevalier de Lorraine, after his father, a footman, was hanged for stealing a golden button from a waistcoat. A button that was later found in the rushes of the chevalier’s bedchamber.
Mother was Gris’s savior. The Shadow Society became his new family.
Gris viciously tugs an apron over his head and mutters about merciless, cold-blooded courtiers as he ties the strings.
“I’m not helping them. I swear it,” I say, glad I can tell the truth. But guilt still squirms through my chest like a worm through a rotten apple, because part of me wants to help them. Despite how the nobles mistreated Gris, despite how they look down on us rabble, I’d pity anyone who meets their end by Viper’s Venom.
Gris studies my face, and after a long, prickling silence, he cups my cheeks in his kettle-sized palms and plants a kiss on my forehead. “If you say you’re not helping them, I believe you. But I do wonder what you’re doing… .”
“Just experimenting,” I reply, busying my hands with the herbs.
His big eyes fall. You can trust me, they say. Haven’t I earned it? And he has—a thousand times over. When Marguerite was busy clawing through the ranks of the Society and hoarding Mother’s favor, Gris offered to apprentice with Father alongside me, claiming he shared my love of alchemy. I suspect he wanted to protect me from Father’s volatile moods. When we got older, he taught me to play quinze and let me tag along with him and the other boys. And he laughed and talked with me long into the night, the way my sister used to before she abandoned me in favor of Fernand.
There’s no one I love or trust more than Gris. Which is why I keep my lips pressed tight.
It’s the only way to protect him—in case I’m found out.
The only way to keep him from hating me.
“Sometimes you’re just like your father,” he grumbles as his knife cuts across the herbs.
Oh, Gris. If only you knew.
Over the next three days, Mother sends delegations to negotiate with the Duc de Vendôme, but he and his horde of incensed noblemen refuse to swear fealty to the Shadow Society. They continue their march, turning Champ de Mars into an army encampment, so Mother sends Fernand, Marguerite, and a contingent of Society members to poison their horses and food.
“It was horrific,” Marguerite whispers when they return later that night. We haven’t slept in the same chamber for several years now—at her insistence—but she tucks herself beneath the counterpane and nestles in beside me. I stiffen, annoyed at her tears wetting my dressing gown and her hands quivering like leaves beneath the blankets.
“Go cry to Fernand,” I protest.
“Please. I can’t let him see me like this. Or Mother. I’ve nowhere else to go.”
I’m glad we can be sisters when it’s convenient for you, I imagine saying as I shove her to the cold floor. But I’m curious to hear what happened, so I let her take my hands. She responds with a faint squeeze of gratitude, and despite myself, I’m transported back to our childhood. To the nights we held each other like this, singing quietly to drown out our parents’ quarreling.
“There were so many of them,” Marguerite says in a choked voice. “Writhing like slugs across the ground—foaming and bloody and shrieking. I know they deserved to die—they were coming to attack us—but I keep thinking of the wives and children they’ll never return to.”
I gape at her through the darkness. My heart batters against my rib cage, and I tighten my grip on her clammy hands. I never dreamed my sister might be plagued by the same sliver of guilt. “Margot, do you think it’s wrong, what we’re doing?”
She stiffens, and when she speaks, her voice is careful and cold. “Of course not. Mother would never lead us astray. The massacre may have been difficult to witness, but that doesn’t mean it was wrong. Those men needed to die for the greater good of the people. Now that our hold is secure, all will be well. Mother plans to open the palace gates and welcome all to court. And there’s to be a victory procession.” She stitches a smile across her lips. Brittle and steely. Eerily similar to Mother’s.
I let out a breath and stare up at the lacy bed curtains, wondering how she can lie to herself. And whom I’m supposed to believe. And how I can possibly march in Mother’s procession when the last thing I feel is victorious.
4
JOSSE
I always imagined Hell would be hot—a lake of fire and brimstone and all that. But Hell, it turns out, is being trapped in these dank, freezing sewer tunnels, helpless to stop the eerie green specks from spreading like ink beneath my sisters’ skin. It’s hearing them cry my name and being unable to ease their suffering. It’s the feel of their brittle arms and legs withering beneath their dresses, smaller and smaller until I could snap them like twigs.
Every waking moment feels like a nightmare, and during the fleeting snatches when I accidentally nod off, I am bombarded by actual nightmares. Sometimes I’m carrying the girls through a blazing, endless forest, only to discover they’ve been dead all along, corpses clad in dresses. Other times I’m standing at the edge of the road, watching the blade sink into Rixenda’s back over and over again. But always, no matter the dream, Father’s voice taunts me, hissing and popping like the crackling flames: You wished for this. My death is on your head—as will be your sisters’.
I wake up sweating, shaking, and sometimes even sobbing. Yes, I wished for change, for acknowledgment, but never like this. Everything is twisted and wrong. I finally have access to my sisters only to watch them die. My siblings and I share the same status and accommodations, but they’re squalid and putrescent, even worse than the servants’ quarters.
The Devil must be having a good laugh.
“When can we go home?” Anne asks, as she has every morning for the past two weeks. Only today she coughs so violently between words, droplets of blood dapple her lips. Frowning, I offer her a sip of water we collected in a shoe and tug my waistcoat tighter around her shoulders, wishing, for the millionth time, we had a proper bed and blankets. A torn burlap sack in the corner of the chamber where the ceiling drips the least is the best we can manage.
The entire room is less than
twenty paces across and barely tall enough for me to stand. The floor is jagged and misshapen and sudden gusts of reeking wind threaten to strangle us—made worse by Condé’s decaying body. The wound in his side wouldn’t stop bleeding, and he died not long after we reached the tunnels that first night. I dragged him as far away as I could, but it isn’t nearly far enough.
I smooth Anne’s hair away from her clammy cheeks and adjust her dress to cover the ghastly green bruises creeping across her shoulders. “We’ll go home soon, love,” I lie. “Now close your eyes and rest.”
Marie dabs a soaked bit of satin she ripped from her petticoats across Françoise’s forehead, but her fever’s burning so hot, the cloth dries the moment it touches her skin.
“What do we do, Josse?” Marie whispers.
I don’t know, I want to cry. I don’t know how to be the steady one, the strong one. No one’s ever noticed me, let alone depended on me. The ghost of Rixenda’s wooden spoon thwacks the back of my knuckles. Her gravelly voice is close, as if she’s sitting in the puddle beside me. Quit simpering and crying. You know what to do. I taught you.
“Tear more compresses,” I say, motioning to Marie’s petticoats. “Keep them cool against the rocks and rotate them every few minutes.” It probably won’t help. Nothing has. But it’s worth a try. In two weeks, the girls have gone from round-cheeked cherubs to wasted shells. I’m afraid to imagine what will become of them if we’re trapped down here for another two weeks.
The sewer was never meant to be a permanent solution, but finding alternate lodging and arranging transportation when you’re supposed to be dead—and cannot be seen, or else you truly will be dead—is next to impossible.
But I haven’t given up.
Once the girls finally drift off into a fitful, whimpering sleep, I pull on a tricorne hat that I nicked from a market stall and creep across the chamber. Louis scowls as I pass. He badgered me relentlessly those first few days, arguing that he should accompany me up above. But I flashed a pointed look at his opulent clothes, flaxen hair, and his altogether recognizable face—with that long, straight de Bourbon nose—and he muttered an oath and stayed put.
This is the first and only time being the nameless, nobody bastard has benefited me.
It’s too dangerous to venture out the grate we entered through—smack in the middle of the bustling rue Montmartre—so night after night, I scour the stinking tunnels until I find the hatch leading up into Madame Bissette’s pâtisserie. She’s a shrewd woman of business and agreed not to hand us over to the masked intruders in exchange for a few seed pearls and sapphires, which I took great pleasure in ripping from Louis’s extravagant frock coat.
For the past week, I’ve been creeping around Les Halles marketplace, stealing carrots and tomatoes and cabbages and listening in on conversations, which is how I know the attack on Versailles was orchestrated by the devineresse, La Voisin, and her Shadow Society. A witch masquerading as a fortune-teller, aided by poisoners and alchemists and magicians, like Lesage. They’ve taken the Louvre and are murdering courtiers and police officers to secure their hold on Paris.
I haven’t a clue how to stop them, but thankfully that isn’t my responsibility. Louis can figure out how to retake his throne. My only concern is getting Anne and Françoise to safety and a physician.
With fingertips trailing either side of the tunnel, I race through the passageways. Two rights, four lefts, and another right. The blackness is so thick, it’s tangible—dense and scratchy like a wool blanket soaked in rat piss. I hold my breath until I reach the iron steps beneath the pâtisserie, where the smell of baking bread combats the stench a fraction. After rapping on the overhead hatch four times, I bounce with impatience while I wait for Madame Bissette’s ruddy face to appear. She has at least three chins and smells of yeast, but when she opens the trapdoor each night, she looks more beautiful than God’s heavenly angels, doughy cheeks all radiant and glowing in the moonlight.
“Josse, my boy, come up, come up.” She clucks and pecks around the hatch like a mother hen while I bound into the sweet shop. “Let’s have a look at you.” She brushes off my tunic and breeches. A waste of time. I haven’t anyone to impress down there, and no one gives me a passing glance up here. I look like any other street urchin.
Skirting around her, I make for the door, but she catches the tail of my tunic and pulls me back to fuss over a smudge on my cheek. I grit my teeth and count the seconds till she’s satisfied. For the girls. Think of the girls.
Madame Bissette licks her fingers and slicks back a dark strand of my hair that’s fallen from its queue. “There now, that’s better.” She straightens my collar. “If only you weren’t illegitimate. Such a handsome face and all for nothing.”
“Yes, such a pity,” I agree, straining for the doorknob.
Madame Bissette sidles her large body between me and my goal. “Can I get you something to eat? Before you go?”
I can’t steal enough cast-off vegetables from Les Halles to keep us from starving, so Madame Bissette has been selling me her day-old baked goods for the small price of another jewel. There’s also the unspoken promise that when we rise again to power, overthrow the Shadow Society, and reclaim the throne, she’ll be appointed royal pastry chef.
I grab a hunk of rye off the counter, stuff it in my mouth, and toss her a pearl as I head for the door.
“And the others?” She waddles after me. “Surely they’re hungry too?”
“I’ll purchase more when I return. To surprise Louis for breakfast.” I screw on my most dazzling smile, as if I care for frivolous things like fresh bread—or pleasing my brother—but his name is like a magic word, so I use it as often as possible.
“Oh,” she exclaims, fanning herself at the mere mention of him. “How is his Royal Highness?”
He’s trapped in the sewer. How do you think he is? I ratchet my smile a notch higher and pat her shoulder. “He’s been better, obviously, but staying optimistic. Mostly thanks to your hospitality.” I give her a wink and tip my hat. “It’s been a pleasure as always, Madame Bissette.”
“Be careful out there, Josse. This is no time to be gallivanting about. They’ve taken to the streets, readying for the procession tomorrow.”
I sweep out the door. “Thanks for the warning, ma chérie.”
Despite the late hour and pouring rain, the rue Saint-Honoré teems as if it’s midday. Everywhere I turn there are black masks and velvet capes. Shadow Society miscreants crowd the taverns and spill into the streets, and the common folk are out en masse. I had expected at least a little resistance or fear from them—the Shadow Society is murdering the courtiers and police officers, after all. But they seem delighted to see one of their own risen so high. La Voisin is something of a hero. Apparently there’s hardly a man or woman in Paris who hasn’t consulted her for some sort of remedy or tincture, upper and lower classes alike. And they’re all lining up to secure the best view of the victory procession, which will parade through the streets tomorrow afternoon.
With all eyes on the Shadow Society, it’s the perfect time to flee with my siblings. But in order to do that, I’m going to need help.
I skirt through the Place de Grève, past the pillory and old docks where grubby children try to pick my pockets. The sandy soil is so flooded, my toes damn near freeze inside my boots. It hasn’t stopped raining for weeks now. As if God is mourning the king, Louis likes to say.
He’s the only one mourning the king, I think. But my palms are sticky and my mouth feels dry, and I know I’m not being entirely honest with myself. I am mourning him too. Not a lot. Not how a child should grieve for a parent. But more than expected. And I don’t like it. I tell myself it’s only residual guilt from reading those broadsides, from his voice haunting my dreams. Or maybe a tiny part of me resents him for not teaching me how to shoulder this responsibility better.
The point is, I don’t miss him. He didn’t want to be my father, so he has no right to my pain. Rixenda is the voice insid
e my head. She is my true parent. Every time I close my eyes, I see her there on the road. Her gaze burning with determination and love. Giving me that final gift. Father never would have sacrificed himself for me, and the swell of crushing gratitude and guilt I feel for Rixenda relegates the king to his rightful place in my heart. I stomp his memory beneath my boots.
When I reach the Méchant Meriée, I pull my hat brim low and shoulder through the swinging doors. It smells of sour ale, soggy wool, and sweat. The gaming tables are crowded with exhausted laborers and dirty, unkempt thieves. A pair of sailors shoot to their feet, arguing, and when one of them overturns a table, I have to press myself against the wall to avoid the flying tankards. I like a rowdy hand of cards as much as the next lowborn, but this gambling den is too dodgy, even for my taste.
But it’s precisely the sort of place my best friend, Luc Desgrez, would come—if he’s alive. It’s a dangerous thing to be a member of the Paris Police these days.
But I have cause to hope.
For the past two days, the stationers in Les Halles have been grousing about a black-haired brigand who’s cleaning out the pockets of everyone at the lansquenet tables—boasting as he does so—which pretty much sums up mine and Desgrez’s routine for the past three years. Each night after I finished in the kitchens, we’d make our rounds of the gambling dens, leaving with stacks of silver livres that were inevitably accompanied by black eyes and busted lips—thanks to Desgrez’s big mouth.
I squint at each table, not knowing what to look for exactly. He won’t be wearing his officer’s coat with the golden epaulets, I know that much.
An enormous bearded man sporting a ruby-encrusted baldric knocks my shoulder. Another rams me from behind. I’m about to abandon my plan and slink back to the sewer when I hear a familiar whoop of laughter from the back corner table.
I spin and elbow through the crowd, a prayer on my lips. I know better than to call his name, so I cup my hands around my mouth and make the hooting noise we used as boys to signal that the palace halls were free of guards.
An Affair of Poisons Page 5