by Jane Feather
Mathilde bustled around putting the room to rights as Christian stood listening with a pained frown to the girls' plunking. Mathilde's expression was placid, showing none of the grimness of her internal monologue. Leaving Cordelia alone again in the clutches of that monster had been one of the hardest things she had ever done. But she too was in the viscount's confidence, and she knew that Cordelia could not disappear too early from her husband's roof. Not until the duel was an established fact would it be safe for her to go. Weak as she was now, she couldn't have left her sickbed this afternoon without arousing suspicion.
Mathilde's mouth tightened. She knew of only one thing that could bring on early and severe menstruation: savin. The prince had forced Cordelia to take the juice of the herb savin.
Mathilde had attended many a miscarriage and there was usually some sign of the lost embryo. She had found nothing in the detritus that morning, but Prince Michael would pay a hefty price for that act of pointless brutality.
Cordelia stood in the darkness at the back of the theater that Madame de Pompadour had built in the palace to entertain her royal lover. She leaned against a pillar, wishing she could sit down, but if she was to keep her presence a secret then she had to keep to the shadows of the auditorium. The play itself no more interested her than it did the courtiers, jaded after the week of wedding festivities and in need of something more stimulating than a play to amuse them. Even the king was seen to nod off now and again, and the bridal couple appeared bored and dissatisfied.
Cordelia moved forward a little so that she could see more of the audience. Her husband sat with friends in a box in the first tier, opposite the royal box. He had his eyes closed and was clearly indifferent to the stage. Cordelia wondered if she would ever again be able face him without fear. Last night he had broken her and he knew it. The recognition brought a fresh wave of weakness, and her knees turned to water. She grabbed hold of the pillar, resting her cheek against the cold stone, until the wave passed. As soon as the play was over… as soon as she discovered why she wasn't supposed to be here… she would be able to return to bed.
She had seen Leo sitting in the pit, in the front row, laughing and talking in the interval to his companions. He didn't glance once in the direction of Prince Michael and behaved as if he hadn't a care in the world. Did he know what had happened to Cordelia? Or did he assume she was with the girls in Christian's lodgings as he'd directed? She was beginning to feel queasy with an anticipation tinged with premonition.
The play's finale received desultory applause and the audience was preparing to leave when Leo made his move. He rose in an almost leisurely movement, then sprang lightly onto the stage.
Cordelia's heart banged wildly against her ribs, and for a dreadful minute she thought she would faint. She clung to her pillar, her eyes fixed almost painfully on the lean, dark-clad figure on the stage.
Leo walked to the very edge of the stage and bowed to the king in the royal box. "Your Majesty, I make petition according to the law." His voice was clear and carrying. The audience stopped fidgeting, was riveted. The king looked astounded. Courtiers petitioned him constantly, for favors, pensions, advancement for relatives, but always in private, and always through his ministers.
"You puzzle us, Viscount Kierston." He rested his beringed hands on the blue velvet rail of the box. "Are we to be treated to a third act of the play?" He smiled at his little pleasantry and those around him politely chuckled.
"In a manner of speaking, Your Majesty," Leo responded, without so much as a flicker of an eyelid, a twitch of a muscle. "I claim the ancient right of a brother to avenge the murder of a sister by public trial of arms."
The gasp that went around the audience was almost synchronized. People turned to look at each other, but no one said a word. It was for the king to speak.
"Surely you jest, Viscount." His voice was heavy with displeasure. Lack of harmony at Versailles was forbidden by royal decree.
"No, monseigneur. I do not." Leo turned and looked directly up at Prince Michael. "With a warrant for search and seizure, I can lay hands on evidence that Prince Michael von Sachsen poisoned Lady Elvira Beaumont, his first wife."
The collective gasp this time reverberated from the rafters. All eyes swiveled to Prince Michael's box. He was deathly pale, unmoving.
In the shadows, Cordelia struggled to clear her mind. What did Leo mean? What was a public trial of arms?
"What does this evidence consist of, Lord Kierston?"
"Prince von Sachsen's own words, taken from his daily journals."
At these words Michael jerked as if he were a puppet on a string. Involuntarily, he stared, horror-struck, at the king, who looked across at him, the royal expression cold with distaste.
"If such a warrant were issued, sir, would you have any objection?" the king demanded harshly in the deathly hush. All eyes remained fixed upon Michael. He had the attention of everyone in the theater; people unaccustomed to paying attention to the most sublime music, the most eloquent poetry, the most majestic prose, were stunned to silence.
Michael half rose from his chair. He moistened dry lips. He fought for words. On the stage below him, his accuser remained still against the scarlet and gold backdrop of the theater.
The silence in the theater was absolute. Then the king said with the same cold anger, "You could direct our investigators to this evidence, Lord Kierston?"
"I could, monseigneur. But I claim the ancient right of trial by combat."
Once more Leo looked up at Michael, and the icy triumph in his golden eyes chilled the prince to the bone.
"Prince von Sachsen?" The king spoke crisply now. "Do you accept Viscount Kierston's challenge?"
Michael rose. He bowed to the king. He bowed to Leo. "I will prove my innocence according to ancient law, Your Majesty."
"As the defendant, the choice of weapons is yours." "I choose rapiers, monseigneur."
Cordelia gripped her hands tightly together, the nails biting into her palm. Her head buzzed. She wanted to scream. She wanted to fall on Leo and pummel him to the ground. How could he do such a thing? Risk everything? His life, their future. The children. What kind of vengeance was it when the sword could as easily be turned upon the avenger?
No wonder he hadn't wanted her to witness this suicidal, prideful challenge.
"The public trial of arms will take place in the town square at sunrise tomorrow," the king announced. "You will both remove yourselves beyond the gates of Versailles until such time as this affair is settled and we make our pleasure known."
The king swept from his box, the dauphin and
his bride on his heels. The silent court stood bareheaded until the royal party left.
Cordelia, still numb with shock and horror, stumbled blindly to the exit amid the tumult erupting in the auditorium after the king's departure. She had to get back to her own chamber, back into bed, before Michael returned. For the moment, she had to play the innocent whatever he suspected, while she tried to decide what to do.
Leo was abandoning her. If he died at Michael's hand, she was condemned. But as she hurried on shaking legs through the corridors to her own apartment, the angry turmoil of betrayal began to smooth out. Leo had wanted her and the children out of the palace before this whole business exploded. That way they were poised for flight. But what good was flight to her if there was no end to it? She could contemplate waiting for Leo for a year is she had to. But if he was dead on the dueling ground, there would be no future. By issuing this challenge, he was abandoning her. He was abandoning their own happiness for a personal vendetta.
Her mind was filled with the image of Leo's body limp on the ground, bleeding from her husband's rapier. Maybe Leo would win. But she could tolerate nothing but certainty, and there was no certainty in a duel.
She entered the apartment, breathless with haste and weakness. Monsieur Brion looked at her, first in astonishment and then in concern. "Madame… is something the matter?"
"Send Elsie to me." She stumbled across the salon and into her own chamber. She caught sight of her image in the glass and understood why Brion had looked so shocked. Her eyes were almost wild in her white face, her hair tumbling from its pins. She looked as if she'd seen and run from a ghost.
She began to undress with feverish haste, her fingers, slippery with sweat, fumbling with the hooks and buttons.
Elsie hurried in. "Oh, madame, I knew you shouldn't have got up," she said, wringing her hands. "You're not well enough. Shall I fetch the physician?"
"No, just help me back into bed."
In five minutes Cordelia was lying back against the pillows, praying her heart would slow its painful, nauseating banging against her ribs. She was exhausted, still conscious of the steady flow of blood from her body. But mercifully, it didn't seem to have worsened despite all the standing and running.
The door to the salon banged shut, and Michael's voice, harsh, savage, rent the waiting quiet. "Brion, pack a valise and send Frederick with it to the Coq d'Or in town. He's to await me there. At once, man! Don't stand there looking at me like a half-wit."
Cordelia held her breath, waiting. Then the door burst open and Michael strode in. "Get out!" He jerked a hand at Elsie, who, with a frightened gasp, curtsied and ran from the room.
Michael came over to the bed. His face was white, with a whiter shade around his drawn mouth. He looked at her, through her, with his cold pale eyes. "What do you know of this, whore?" His voice was surprisingly soft.
Cordelia said nothing. She turned her head away.
With a foul oath, he bent over her, wrenching her face back toward him. "Did you plot this with him? How did he know about the journals?"
His fingers squeezed her chin and it was all she could do not to cry out. But she was determined she would not show him her fear. "I don't know what you're talking about, my lord. I have been abed. You made certain of that."
"You can't fool me with your deceitful tongue," he spat, bringing his face very close to hers, so that she could smell the sourness of his breath, the muskiness of his skin. "I will kill your damned lover, and then, by God, whore, you will never escape me until I decide it's time for you to meet your death. Do you understand me!" His mouth was almost touching hers now in a vile simulation of a kiss. "Do you understand?" His spittle showered her face.
"I understand you," she managed to say through the waves of disgust. "And you understand, husband, that you will never break me. I will die first."
He laughed and abruptly released her chin. "I've broken you already, my dear wife. Don't you realize it?" He stood up. "You and my daughters will journey immediately to Paris. You will await me in the rue du Bac. When I have killed your lover, I will come to you."
Cordelia pulled herself up against the pillows. She wiped her face with a corner of the sheet. "And just how do you plan to kill him, my lord?"
He stared at her with an arrested expression. "You don't know?"
"How should I, my lord?" She met his stare calmly and had the satisfaction of seeing uncertainty scudding across his countenance.
"At sunrise tomorrow I will spit him on the end of my rapier," Michael articulated slowly. "I'm sorry you won't be there to see it, my dear, but I want you safely put away. Thanks to your damnable lover, we will be persona non grata at court after the duel until the king is prepared to forget this distasteful disruption." Michael's lip curled as he mimicked the king's austere euphemism for the duel unto death that would take place in his presence. "The dauphine will offer you no protection now, madame."
He waited to see if she would react, but she remained still, regarding him almost indifferently until his uncertainty grew. Then he spun on his heel and left by way of her dressing room.
Cordelia wouldn't have believed it possible to feel such hatred for a fellow human being. But Michael did not fall into that category, she thought. He was a devil, a monster from the pits of hell. And he would return to the fires that had given him birth. Leo would pitchfork him right back into the inferno. She would not allow herself to consider the alternative. She had to plan. She had to prevent Michael from sending her back to Paris. She had to stay here. She had to be here when it happened. And the children. They must be taken to safety tonight. Mathilde would have to go with them because she couldn't go herself. Not now.
She was running through her plans when Elsie returned, her eyes reverently fixed to the letter reposing on a silver salver. The wax bore the dauphine's seal. "A messenger brought this from Her Highness, madame." She proffered the salver, too awed to touch the august paper herself.
Cordelia took it and slit the wafer. The message was short and she knew that Toinette had written it at dictation. Presumably by the Noailles: Dear Princess von Sachsen, I very much regret that I will be unable to receive you until His Majesty permits. Maria Antonia.
Cordelia nibbled her lip, gazing at the cold words that meant the official end of friendship. Then she saw that a corner of the paper had been folded over. She opened it. Dearest, I can't help it. But I will always love you. T.
Cordelia touched the message to her lips in a brief, symbolic farewell. When this was over, she would find a way to 'correspond with Toinette. There were always unofficial channels.
Elsie still stood by the bed, wide-eyed with the momentousness of events. Her gaze was filled with sympathy for her poor mistress.
To lose a pregnancy and then face the prospect of being widowed in the morning. It was a dreadful thing. "Everyone says what a magnificent swordsman the prince is, madame," she offered in misguided reassurance. "They say he's never been defeated in a duel before and he always fights to the death. He killed ten men in ten months once… although he was a lot younger then."
That presumably explained Michael's confidence, Cordelia thought bitterly. How many duels had Leo fought? How many men had he killed?
"Bring me some tea, please, Elsie." She had to get rid of the girl with her inarticulate sympathy and hand-wringing before she burst into tears.
Monsieur Brion was her next visitor. He stood awkwardly in the doorway of the chamber. "The prince has instructed me to escort yourself and Mesdames Sylvie and Amelia back to Paris immediately, madame. Would you be good enough to instruct your maid to help you rise?"
"Monsieur Brion, I am not returning to Paris tonight," Cordelia declared. "And neither are the children."
"But, madame!" He looked astounded.
"You will not suffer, I promise you," she said. "If the prince survives this duel, then I will give you sufficient funds to free you from his service." She pushed aside the covers and rose somewhat shakily to her feet. She went to the dresser and opened her jewel casket. "Here. Payment in advance, monsieur." She held out to him a sapphire ring. "You will know how to sell it?"
Brion nodded, slowly taking the ring. He had contacts in Paris who would give him a good price and ask no questions. He could get enough for the bauble to set himself up in a snug inn in the little village in Cognac, where he'd grown up. He'd be set for life.
"What would you have me do, madame?"