Anne knocks on the door of Ameline, the most outspoken fishwife. “Greetings, my good lady. I am Louise Marie Anne de Bourbon, Mademoiselle de Tours.” She lowers into an impeccable curtsy that would have made Madame Lemaire coo with delight.
“And I am Louise Françoise de Bourbon, Mademoiselle de Nantes,” Françoise says, bobbing a curtsy of her own. “We are here to deliver medications and beseech your help in reclaiming our city. We hear you and your colleagues are most proficient in the kitchen, and we were hoping you might assist us in brewing antipoison.”
“Well, I’ll be damned!” Ameline crows, wiping tears from her laughing eyes. “Your cock-and-bull story was true,” she says to me and Desgrez.
“We’re not supposed to say damn!” Anne looks at me with worried eyes. Ameline laughs harder, her black hair shaking like a waterfall.
“Let them in already.” Ameline’s husband, Étienne, appears behind her in the doorway. “It isn’t proper to keep the king’s daughters waiting in the cold.”
The only dark spot to our otherwise extraordinary progress is that I’m forced to spend far more time with my beloved brother than I’d prefer. Which isn’t surprising, since the amount of time I’d prefer to spend with him is none.
He passes his days either skulking around the sewer complaining about being left behind, or hovering over Mirabelle’s shoulder in the millinery, pretending to take an interest in alchemy. A poorly veiled ruse to nettle me. I wish Mirabelle hadn’t suggested he assist her. The millinery was our safe haven. Where this rebellion began. Where we began. And now Louis is there every waking moment. Driving me within an inch of my sanity.
“It turns out I’ve a natural proficiency for healing,” he tells me late one afternoon when I come to collect the curatives to be delivered to Les Halles that night. He’s working a pestle and mortar, and a sheen of sweat coats his face, making his golden hair stick to his forehead. His real hair. The wig has been tossed to the corner like a wet rag. And he seems oblivious to the smears on his doublet.
I scowl at his insipid act. He may fool the others, but not me. “The only thing you’ve a natural proficiency for is irritating everyone around you.”
“You’re both irritating me.” Mirabelle slams her father’s grimoire down on the counter. “Would it kill you to be civil to each other?”
Louis and I both respond with a zealous “Yes.” The first time in our lives we’ve agreed.
When I return hours later, I’m eager to tell Mirabelle of the rumors swirling through Les Halles: tales of the angel, La Vie, whose phials of antipoison are said to raise the dead; how La Voisin can be heard howling with rage from the Louvre each night; and—most shocking of all—that Shadow Society heralds have been crying from the crowded square of the Palais de Justice, condemning anyone found brewing, distributing, or using antipoison.
Our plan is working. The Shadow Society is losing control.
But before I can utter a word of this good news, Louis launches into an interrogation: “Describe the exact expression on the peasants’ faces when you said my name … Did they seem inspired? Uplifted?”
“If they were inspired and uplifted it was due to the curatives, not you,” I say.
“Yes, but they must have some opinion of me. If only I could go before them—”
“Absolutely not. Even if it wasn’t too dangerous, you would sway them from the cause entirely.”
Louis sets his pestle down and says in a pathetic, warbling voice, “Am I that unbearable?”
“You are worse than unbearable.”
Mirabelle pins us both with an imperious look. “Will the two of you please stop? Or take your quarrels elsewhere. I’m trying to concentrate.”
“I’ll stop squabbling as soon as he stops being …” I can’t even think of the proper word to describe how annoying Louis is so I settle for, “… himself!”
He’s quiet for so long, I silently congratulate myself for winning this bout, but then he speaks, his voice low and hard. “For all you complain about me being insufferable and difficult, you’re just as impossible. I was a selfish, mule-brained puttock when I was blind to the needs of the people. Now, when I am actively trying to help, I’m bothersome and unnecessary. No matter what I do, it’s never good enough for you.”
A punch of disbelieving laughter bursts from my mouth, and the more Louis insists it isn’t funny, the harder I laugh. “Do you expect me to feel sorry for you? I’ve felt that way every minute of my life! You made certain I felt that way! So excuse me if I don’t take pity on you after a few paltry weeks of dithering.”
“When are you going to open your eyes and realize it wasn’t I who ostracized you? Nor Father nor his ministers nor even the courtiers. We didn’t need to. You sabotaged yourself! You made certain no one would ever see you as anything more than a worthless bastard.”
“That’s all I was permitted to be! Father despised me. I had no opportunity—”
“Wrong!” Louis shouts with more vehemence than I’ve ever heard. “In the beginning, he preferred you.”
“No one believes your lies.”
“It’s true. You were more like him in every way—confident and full of swagger, loud and brash and physically capable. Everything I’m not. I overheard him once, when we were twelve years old, complaining to the Grand Condé that he wished you’d been born legitimate, as you’d have made a better king—notwithstanding your rakish ways and boorish behavior.”
I slap both hands down on the table. “Stop! Lying!”
“Stop blaming me, and everyone else, for not living up to your potential. You’ve no one to blame but yourself!”
A high-pitched ringing fills my ears. Dark spots bloom across my vision, devouring the counter and phials and herbs until all I see is black. Until I’m certain I’ll rip the millinery down board by board and bury Louis in the wreckage if I don’t leave this instant.
“Josse—” Mirabelle takes a cautious step toward me.
I stumble back, growling a slew of profanities, and slam out into the night. I gulp back the chilly air and run down one street and up another without a care for where I’m going. Faster, faster. Farther, farther. But I can’t outrun those bedamned words:
He preferred you.
You sabotaged yourself.
Lies. They have to be. But the sobs in my throat are so thick now, I have to stop to catch my breath. I reach out to steady myself on a tree, but my shaking hand misses its mark and I crash to the mucky ground, melting into a pathetic puddle of tears. Every interaction I ever had with my father flashes through my mind, colored by this horrifying new revelation. What if his pinched expression wasn’t born of disgust, but dismay? What if he sent me to work in the kitchen not to hide me away or punish me, but to reform me?
He wanted me to be something more. He waited patiently, giving me chance after chance to prove myself, and I was so indignant and impatient that I squandered every opportunity.
I gave him no choice but to push me away.
I lie beneath the tree like a boneless, vacant-eyed drunkard, thankful for the deepening sky that hides my tear-streaked face. Finally, when I haven’t a tear left in my eyes nor a heart in my chest, I stagger to my feet and continue down the road. Not hearing, not seeing, just floating along like a ghost.
I stumble into scores of people, but one of them is so tall and solid, it feels like I’ve dashed my head against the city wall.
“Princeling!” Gris shouts, gripping my shoulders and shaking me. “I know you heard me. I’ve called your name a dozen times.”
“Leave me be,” I grumble. I try to push away, but Gris tightens his grip until I yelp and look up—into eyes that are as bloodshot and bewildered as mine. He’s gasping for breath as if he ran all the way from the Louvre.
“What’s wrong with you?” I ask.
He releases me and folds in half, bracing himself on his knees. “I came … to warn you …” he pants. “La Voisin is planning something terrible. We haven’t much time.”<
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21
MIRABELLE
A familiar prickle of pain grips my chest as I watch Josse tear down the rue de Navarine. He vanishes into the violet-stained twilight, and the tether between us pulls taut. My mind screams to go after him. I know precisely how he feels. His entire world—everything he thought he knew—came crashing down around him. But I also know there’s nothing I can say to ease his pain. Not yet.
“Is it true? What you said about your father?” I ask Louis after we’ve spent a full minute staring at the door in silence.
He wipes his hands on his smudged doublet and turns to the counter. “What reason would I have to lie?”
“You saw Josse storm out of here. It destroyed him.”
“I assure you, if I was lying, the story would have painted me in a better light.” He picks up a pestle and mortar bowl and resumes crushing fennel seeds with frightening intensity.
“That must have been a difficult conversation to overhear.”
“It wasn’t difficult in the least,” Louis snaps, making it clear it most certainly was difficult. “That’s where I and my bastard brother differ. Father thought I was ill-suited, so I did everything in my power to prove him wrong. Josse assumed he was ill-suited and proved himself right.”
“And I’m sure you did nothing to reinforce his beliefs?” I shoot the dauphin an accusatory glare. “I have an older sister. I know how it goes.”
Before Louis can respond, the door flies open and a handful of orphans parade into the shop bearing a scaled smoke beast atop their shoulders. “Special delivery for Madamoiselle La Vie,” Gavril sings.
This smoke beast has a long serpentine body covered in blood-red scales. The orphans coil what they can atop the board, leaving a good ten lengths trailing across the floor.
“Dead, I see.” I try not to sound disappointed as I circle the table inspecting the creature. I lift one of its short, clawed forearms and let it fall with a thump. This is the third beast they’ve brought me. I feel horrible asking for more, but I’ve had no luck controlling the creatures, no matter how I mince or boil or combine the dead with my blood.
To find the secret link to my alchemy, I need a live specimen. I don’t know how else to proceed. I’m no closer to understanding how the beasts function, and with our rebellion gaining traction, the day looms ever nearer when our success or failure will hinge upon whether or not I can stand against Lesage and the unnatural power I gave him.
“We tried to capture it live, honest we did,” Gavril says, “but the battle got rather heated.” He points his thumb at a boy whose pants are singed at the knee and a girl whose thigh-skimming braids are now blunt, uneven locks.
“Don’t apologize, this is fine,” I say. “I’ll make it work.”
Somehow.
I roll up my sleeves, seize a knife, and bury it in the silver underbelly of the smoke beast. The orphans scream and scatter to the far side of the room to avoid the midnight spray of blood and I presume the dauphin will do the same, but he steps closer, leaning over to inspect its innards.
“Fascinating. May I try?” He holds out his hand for my knife, and I laugh with surprise. He is pompous and tedious, without question, but he’s also gritty and determined and unflinching. Josse has been unfair to him. But Louis hasn’t exactly been fair to Josse either.
“You and your brother are more alike than you think,” I say.
“Since you’re fond of the bastard for some unknown reason, I shall take that as a compliment. But in truth, I’m horribly offended.”
He takes up the knife and I show him where to make the incision, but before the blade breaks skin, the door opens once again and Josse trips across the threshold. He’s still panting and wild-eyed, but now, instead of looking like a raspberry, his face is completely drained of color.
I dart out from behind the counter and place myself between the brothers. “If you’ve returned to fight… .” I warn Josse, but my voice falls away because Gris barges in on Josse’s heels. His golden curls are plastered to his sweaty forehead and he’s gasping so hard, he has to steady himself against the wall. Both boys look near about to faint.
“What happened? Are you hurt?” I rush to Gris and begin inspecting his arms and chest for wounds. “Did Mother do this to you?”
He shakes his head and puffs out, “It isn’t me … you need … to worry about.”
“Who, then?” I spin to Josse. “You?”
“Tell them what you told me,” Josse says.
Gris draws a deep breath and straightens, but his eyes widen at the absolute pandemonium of the overcrowded millinery, and he lurches back.
“No need to worry,” I tell him. “These are people I’ve healed. They’re trustworthy.”
He nods, but continues to back away. “The princeling will tell you. I can’t stay.”
“But you ran all this way, surely another minute—”
“They’ll notice I’m gone.” He shakes his head and takes off down the street, even though he’s hardly caught his breath.
“What was that about?” I turn to Josse.
“La Voisin is growing desperate,” he says. “She plans to raze the fields in the Faubourg Saint-Germain once Gris has brewed more of Lesage’s blood draught. Gris says the longest he can pretend to struggle and dither is three days.”
I feel as if I’ve plunged into the icy Seine. Why the devil would she do such a thing? If the barley and rye are lost, the people will starve before the year’s half through. “Mother cares for the common people. She would never …” Gavril and the children fall eerily quiet, making my voice sound high and shrill. “How does she plan to win back the people’s support if they’re starving?”
“She no longer plans to win their support,” Josse says. “She plans to take it. By decreasing the food supply and controlling what remains, she can choose whom she distributes rations to. The rebels will have no choice but to come crawling back and fall at her feet.”
“No.” I whisper at first, but my anger is a live and coiled thing, slithering up my throat. I pound my fist against the counter. “NO! Thousands will perish. Our uprising will crumble.”
“Can we head them off on their way to set the blaze?” Louis asks. “Engage the Shadow Society in battle?”
“Only if we wish to lose.” Josse says it as if Louis’s suggestion is the daftest thing he’s ever heard.
“But their ranks are composed of inexperienced soldiers just like ours,” Louis says.
“Hey!” Gavril puffs out his chest and gestures to the smoke beast on the table. “I’d hardly call us inexperienced.”
“You’re definitely experienced,” I agree, “but they have magic. Not even you could contend with a dozen beasts at once.” The thought makes guilt rise up my throat like a sickness, and I wrap my arms around my stomach. Perhaps the orphans would be able to contend with that many beasts if I could decipher how to seize control of them, even partway.
“So we trap the poisoners in their palace somehow,” Louis suggests. “As they did to us at Versailles. Or we poison them, the way they’ve been poisoning half the city.”
I rub my arms and begin pacing back and forth behind the counter. “I’ll not stoop to their level. There must be another way.” My heartbeat quickens with my steps. The air is hot and thick and it is hard to breathe. I cast around the millinery for something, anything, and like always, my eyes are drawn to Father’s grimoire, half buried beneath a sack of feverfew.
You will be a great alchemist one day.
Of course.
I grapple for the book and flip furiously through the pages, a tiny ember of hope reigniting in my chest. When I find the recipe I’m looking for, I squeal and tap my finger excitedly on the page. “Gavril, do you think you can collect Ameline and Étienne, as well as one or two representatives from the rue du Temple and Les Halles? And Josse, go drag Desgrez from whatever gambling den he’s hiding in, and fetch the Marquis de Cessac. We’ll reconvene here in an hour. I have an idea.”
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I have never seen a more unlikely grouping. Duchesses stand beside beggars. Fishwives rub elbows with royalty. No one looks particularly comfortable, and they all attempt to keep to their own, but they’re here. Together. And the dinginess of the cramped shop has given them something to commiserate about. They frown at the explosion of herbs on the counter and bemoan the smears of black smoke-beast blood coating the floor and sticking to their boots. I stand off to the side, clutching Father’s book and collecting my thoughts. Convincing the nobility and commoners to work together in theory is one thing, but saving the crops will require everyone’s cooperation. And I haven’t an alternate plan if they refuse.
“You get the most adorable little wrinkle between your eyebrows when you’re anxious,” Josse says, nudging my shoulder with his.
I swat him with the book. “Focus, princeling! The wrinkle between my eyes is the last thing you should be thinking about.”
“Second to last. Because I also like the way you twirl your finger through that curl above your ear.”
I immediately drop my hand. His goading smile is so devilishly handsome, I either want to kiss him or punch him—I’m unsure which. “You’re impossible,” I hiss.
“Or am I a genius? For a moment, you forgot to be nervous.”
I blink up at him. I suppose I did.
“Whatever you’re planning, I’m sure it’s brilliant. And even if it’s not, I’ll fight anyone who disagrees.” He puts up his fists, and a smile steals across my lips. “Come on.”
After taking a deep breath, I stride to the front of the group and call them to attention. “Thank you for coming. We’ve recently learned of the Shadow Society’s plans to raze the fields in the Faubourg Saint-Germain. By greatly diminishing the rye and barley, the people will be forced to turn to my mother and the royal stores for support. Our rebellion will die—and thousands of starving souls along with it—unless we save the crops and reveal the Shadow Society’s plan. Then we shall be the saviors of the city, and hopefully those who have remained loyal to my mother will be turned to our cause instead. With the entire city behind us, we may have the strength to stand against them.”
An Affair of Poisons Page 22