The Shadow Queen A Novel (14 page)

She gently squeezed my hand. “But you will be with me, my dear Claudette,” she said with a flitting smile. Her skin was warm and silken smooth. “After all, you still owe me.”

CHAPTER 24

T
he night watchman called out five of the clock. Taking care not to disturb my sleeping mother, I groped through the room feeling for my travesty ensemble, which I’d set out the night before: my high boots, breeches, waistcoat, and quilted cloak. A wig, a hat.

The moon was full; I had no need of a lantern. I grabbed a dagger, for protection. A rosary, likewise.

It was wrong, I knew. I should have nothing to do with an illegal duel. If foolish young noblemen wanted to risk their lives, tant pis! It wasn’t my affair. Yet I could not let it go—could not let
her
go, could not bear the thought of the danger she would be in.

I set out. The streets were deserted. Who but a madman would venture out at such a time? Who but villains, rapists, murderers, and thieves? Not even women selling relief came out at such an hour.

I marched along, my boot heels making echoes on the cobbles, a secure, fearless staccato. I was frustrated by what Athénaïs’s madcap demand was forcing me to do.

I headed toward the Cimetière des Innocents. There was often a fête going on there at full moon, common folk communing with spirits, dancing around fires in the bright night. Several times I’d seen a cab for hire on the rue de la Ferronnerie.

It was there again, but the driver was asleep, locked inside his shabby carriage. I had to bang on the shutter four times before he called out, “Leave off! I’m armed! Go away!” A church-dog, one of the wush-hounds that haunted graveyards, sniffed at my boots and slinked by.

In frustration I took the mare’s bridle and pulled, rocking the carriage forward. The driver, a one-eyed dwarf, emerged cursing, waving his whip.

“I need to go to the Abbaye de Saint-Germain,” I told him. Jumping out of the whip’s range wasn’t hard: I wondered how well the little man could see. I dared not tell him I needed to go to the Pré-aux-Clercs. The Abbaye was close enough. “I know the way.” More or less.

“You’re a woman,” he said, looking at me squint-eyed.

“I will make it worth your while.” I held up the remaining écu—the last of my earnings. Working for Athénaïs was proving not only dangerous but costful.

The driver insisted I clean my boots before he would let down the step. The interior of the coach was surprisingly tidy … and thankfully warmed by a burner, which threw off a flickering light. Clearly, this was the little man’s home: there was even a paper flower stuck in a wall bracket. A rosary and several saints’ medals swung from a shutter socket. “But first, I must collect someone,” I told him.

ATHÉNAïS WAS STANDING
at the corner of her house, bundled in fur. She seemed entirely unaware of the menacing shadows, the two men watching her from across the road.

“You look a proper gentleman, Monsieur.” She batted her eyelashes at my get-up. “It’s hot as Hades in here,” she said, slipping down her hood, her golden curls falling about her face. In the lantern light she looked like an angel—an impetuous, headstrong, but heartbreakingly beautiful angel.

I gave the driver instructions and secured the doors.

“I hardly slept at all,” she said. “I doped the ancients, but then they snored.” She smelled strongly of spirits herself. “Did you sleep?”

“A little,” I lied, watching to make sure that we were going in the right direction. I would have the driver let us down at the monastery and ask him to wait: he would assume that we were on a spiritual mission. It would be a bit of a walk from there to the Pré-aux-Clercs field behind, but otherwise we might be detected.

“I’m
so
tired,” she said, laying her head on my shoulder. And then she was asleep.

I sat frozen, warmed by her body next to mine. I breathed in her scent, a tantalizing mix of lavender and musk. As I listened to the dwarf’s whistling tune, the nag’s slow progress through the echoing silence, it seemed a moment stopped in time. I laid my mittened hand over hers: I’d been charged with her safety.
Handfasted.
I was her knight.

THE OPEN COUNTRY
behind the Abbaye de Saint-Germain was ghostly in the moonlight. The snow-dusted marsh was encircled by woods that hid it from the roadway; hence its popularity for duels. The still-frozen ground was brittle under my feet.

Athénaïs was silent behind me. “I didn’t know there were such places.”

I cracked through in one boggy spot. “The city has many secrets,” I said, my eyes slowly adjusting. I looked for a path.

“Secret vices?” she joked, but I didn’t laugh. Many a vice had occurred in this place, no doubt, vices she’d never even heard of.

I stopped. Something smelled foul in spite of the cold. I scanned the bushes and grasses as I felt my way along—looking out for something dead, but also for something moving, the wild dogs and werewolves that haunted such spheres. A sense came back to me from my childhood, a certain way of moving in the night, wary and alert.

“How far do we have to go?” Her face was deathly gray in the moonlight.

She
is
afraid of the dark, I realized. “Not far. We’ll hide in the evergreens over there,” I said, pointing. From there, we would have a view of the field.

IN THE HALF-LIGHT
of dawn, two horsemen appeared. La Frette and his younger brother Ovart (“his
bastard
half brother,” Athénaïs whispered). They walked their horses over the turf—looking for level ground, I guessed. They dismounted not far from where we were hiding.

The brothers took off their spurs and set to cutting away the timber-heels of their boots. (Smart: they would more securely stand their ground.) Then they paced in the chill air, slapping their arms for warmth. I could make out the long rapiers under their heavy cloaks.

La Frette didn’t look drunk anymore. He had the walk of a victor. He said something to his half brother, but I couldn’t make out the words.

“Where are the others?” Athénaïs whispered.

Maybe they aren’t coming, I thought hopefully. Maybe the King had been notified and had laid down the law. I prayed that it was so, but one of the horses, a big black, raised its head and whinnied as four men on horseback trotted onto the field. The sun was more fully up now; I could see the feathers in their hats.

“
Our
men,” Athénaïs whispered with a smile: her betrothed and his brother-in-law—the Prince de Chalais—together with two others.

They were all carrying rapiers.

“The one in the white hat is the Marquis de Flamarens—”

I recognized him from the Palais-Royal ball.

“—and the plump one is Henri, Marquis d’Antin, the Bishop de Sens’s nephew.”

Zounds. The Bishop de Sens was nigh on king in Paris.

“Henri is a very good friend of Alexandre’s—his closest friend, really.”

The four men dismounted opposite La Frette and tied their reins to some bushes. There was a slight difficulty with this minor matter, one horse kicking out at another, so the men tied them farther apart, making uneasy laughter.

Alexandre stood surveying the field, his gloved hand on the hilt of his rapier. He was tall, but a slight-built man, thin as a wafer—which worried me. Even with rapiers, strength was important. He walked over to his brother-in-law and put his hand on his shoulder. Chalais shook his head.

Athénaïs moved a branch, the better to see.

“It looks like the Marquis wants to attempt a reconciliation,” I whispered.

“Really?” Her tone was disapproving.

Alexandre threw open his hands to the La Frette brothers as if to say, Well, can’t we talk?

My heart sank as the younger Ovart made a rude gesture and his brother scoffed.

The horses stilled, pricking their ears. “Here come the rest of them,” I said.

CHAPTER 25

T
here were eight young men in all: Prince de Chalais and his three, La Frette with his. La Frette stood opposite Chalais, gesturing to his half brother and the others to form a line. His half brother Ovart positioned himself opposite Alexandre.

“A bastard like Ovart should never duel a man of Alexandre’s nobility,” Athénaïs said, indignant.

True, it wasn’t correct, but I was more concerned by the way they were pairing off. Did they intend to fight all at once? Surely not. “They’re going four-on-four,” I whispered. A horror, in my mind, an ancient rite of honor performed without any constraint or dignity, just a parcel of hotheaded young nobles with nothing better to do than run each other through with their grandfathers’ rapiers. There wasn’t even a doctor or an attendant present. “Mademoiselle,” I began, hesitantly, “you have the power to stop this. Step out, speak up. They will listen to you.”

She scoffed. “You must be mad! Were I to meddle, Alexandre would have nothing more to do with me,” she hissed.

“Then I will speak—”

“Claude, don’t be ridiculous. You’re an unblood. They will laugh at you—as they should.”

La Frette threw off his cloak and doublet. “Count down,” he said, loud enough for us to hear.

La Frette
was going to count down?

“Wait,” Alexandre called out, helping the Prince de Chalais struggle out of his doublet.

“Ready,” the Prince de Chalais said, drawing his blade. There was a tremor in his voice. His rapier was of an antique style, flatter and wider than most, with an elaborately carved hilt. It would be cumbersome and heavy. “We’ll both count.”

Un … deux … trois …

“Close your eyes,” I told Athénaïs as the air filled with the sound of clanging steel, grunts, threats, and curses.

“I’m not a child,” she protested angrily.

I opened my eyes at one crazed peal of laughter. It was a macabre dance I saw, the combating pairs clashing, thrusting, jabbing, and feinting—advancing and retreating, advancing and retreating.

The Prince de Chalais had been slashed across his cheek. He was bloodied, falling back, losing ground. The man fighting the Marquis de Flamarens had him in a chokehold and was ignobly hitting him over the head with the heavy hilt of his rapier.

Only Alexandre seemed to be holding his own against his opponent. He deflected a blow against the hilt of Ovart’s weapon. “Cock’s bones,” he cursed when the razor-thin tip of his rapier snapped off.

I gasped, dumbstruck, as Alexandre fell. I hadn’t even seen Ovart’s thrust. “He’s alive,” I said, swallowing. Bloodied, moaning, writhing in pain—but alive.

And then I heard something that made my heart stop: three sharp cries followed by a chilling silence. The men stood back, panting.

I could make out a still shape sprawled in the tall grass: it was Alexandre’s good friend, plump Henri d’Antin—with a rapier in his chest.

One of La Frette’s men got to his feet, wiping his eyes with his sleeve. He bent over d’Antin, withdrawing his rapier. He stood over his victim for a moment and then picked up d’Antin’s weapon in the grass as well, and hurried after La Frette, who’d already mounted his horse. Soon they’d all cantered off, whooping: the victors.

The monastery bells began to ring for early morning prayer.

Athénaïs said something, but she was drowned out. I leaned into her. “Alexandre’s hurt,” she said faintly.

Badly, I feared. I was relieved to see him start moving, crawling toward d’Antin’s still body.

The bells ceased. Alexandre collapsed over the body of his friend, his cries piercing the silence. He slumped as Chalais and Flamarens pried him off and dragged the body into a thicket.

“Henri’s dead?” Athénaïs whispered.

I should have brought salts, I thought.

THE THREE MEN
stared dumbfounded as we emerged from the woods.

Mon Dieu,
I heard Alexandre gasp. Athénaïs broke into a run and fell down on her knees beside him, gasping convulsively.

“I took you for a man,” the Prince de Chalais told me, pressing a bloody kerchief to his cheek.

I could hear a wagon rumbling on the road, a cock crowing, a goat bleating. I glanced at the bushes. I could see the soles of d’Antin’s boots—they had high red heels, like the boots the cobbler had given me long before. The strong scent of blood brought on a moment of nausea; I pressed my nose into the crook of my elbow.

“Flamarens, Chalais, make for the frontiers,” Alexandre said weakly, his teeth chattering. He was weeping still. “The King will have your heads if he finds you.”

“We can’t leave you like this,” the Prince de Chalais protested.

“Messieurs, we have a coach waiting at the monastery,” I managed to say, tilting my head in the direction of the Abbaye de Saint-Germain. “We could take the Marquis.” They regarded my offer with stunned relief.

I stooped to examine Alexandre’s wound. It wasn’t my place, but someone had to act. It was a slash across his thigh. That was better—far better—than a thrust wound, although it looked deep, possibly to the bone. “We need a linen,” I told the Prince de Chalais. “Your sleeve?”

The boy—for he was hardly more—shed his layers. He was white and thin, shivering in the cold, his ribs showing. That he had survived against big La Frette was a miracle. He tossed me his chemise and quickly put his doublet and cloak back on, his movements stiff and clumsy.

I ripped the lace off with my teeth and tore the cloth down the seam. “This will hurt,” I warned. But in truth, I didn’t care. I was furious at them all.

Alexandre clasped the saint’s medal hanging from his neck and pressed his face into Athénaïs’s bosom. “Don’t worry about me, lads,” he said gamely, but nobody laughed.

I wound the linen tight around his thigh. Quickly, it bloomed bright. I tore off another sleeve, which slowed the stain. Merci Dieu—but how to move him across the field?

“I refuse to go anywhere until you two are on your way,” Alexandre told his compatriots.

“Heft him onto his horse before you go,” I suggested curtly. It was too far for me to carry him—and Athénaïs would certainly be no help.