The Silver Rose (20 page)

“Yes, but that was over a year ago. And her parents know nothing,” Simon added hastily, lest the Dark Queen be tempted to order the Paillards’ arrest. The unfortunate couple had already suffered enough on account of their daughter. “I have thoroughly examined the innkeeper and his wife myself. They are completely ignorant of their daughter’s whereabouts, have not even heard from her in over a year.”

“Unfortunately, I have.”

“What?” Simon asked sharply.

The Dark Queen heated some red wax and dripped some onto the bottom of the document near her signature. Scarce able to curb his impatience, Simon waited for her to continue, but he had a cold feeling in the pit of his stomach, a premonition of what Catherine was about to say.

“Lucie Paillard was the one sent to poison me with the rose. She appeared in the crowd outside Notre Dame, disguised as a street vendor. She would have escaped the same way, had I not the presence of mind to have her detained.”

“And where is she now?”

“She was my guest at the Bastille for a while, but the warder’s entertainment of her was a little too rigorous. The girl died while being questioned by de Varney’s men.”

No one died from merely being questioned, Simon was tempted to retort. Although he had never resorted to such methods himself, he could well imagine what the warder’s questions had involved, the rack, the boot, whips, thumb screws. Simon had despised Lucie Paillard for the callous way she had abandoned her babe, allowed Luc to freeze to death on that barren hillside. But to be slowly, brutally tortured to death . . . Did anyone deserve such a fate?

Once Simon might have believed so, or convinced himself that he did. Now all he could think of was Colette Paillard with her trembling mouth and sad eyes. He wondered where he’d ever find the courage to tell that frail woman what had become of her only child.

“So did de Varney gain any information by this—this
questioning
?” Simon asked caustically.

Catherine affixed her royal seal to the bottom of the document. She hesitated before answering, “The girl did provide one clue. Right before she died, she said that the Silver Rose has possession of . . . the
Book of Shadows.
”

Simon’s breath stilled. “The
Book of Shadows
? How is that possible?”

“You tell me. You were the one who let that book vanish the night of the fire at the inn.” Catherine lowered her lashes. “Or so I have heard rumored. Then you ransacked Faire Isle in search of it.”

“That is because I believed the Comte de Renard had taken it.”

“Obviously, you were wrong. I strongly suggest you search both your memory and any records you made of that day. Figure out who else was there at the inn, had the opportunity to steal the book, and you may well unmask our clever Silver Rose.” Catherine slowly rolled up the document. “The
Book of Shadows
is said to be a grimoire full of the most deadly spells ever conceived, but written in an ancient language, not easy to decipher. This sorceress has already learned to brew a powerful poison. If she is able to unlock any more of the book’s secrets, I need hardly tell you the kind of danger we all will face.”

“No, Your Grace,” Simon murmured. Alarmed as he was at the thought of the
Book of Shadows
being in the Silver Rose’s possession, other equally disturbing thoughts raced through his mind. For a woman who insisted she was not a witch, the queen knew a damnable lot about both the
Book of Shadows
and what had transpired at the Charters Inn that night.

Simon had always been afraid the Dark Queen might read his thoughts. He had never expected to find himself in the position of reading hers.

“Damnation,”
he thought.
“She wants that book for herself.”

Now, not only did he have the Silver Rose to defeat, he was going to have to thwart the Dark Queen as well. For a man who had already found himself on shaky ground, Simon felt as though he had suddenly sunk up to his waist in quicksand.

As Catherine bound the document neatly with a thin black ribbon, she said, “As soon as you discover who the Silver Rose is and where she is hiding, report to me. Do nothing until I give the word. This arrest must be handled properly. I want both the sorceress and that book brought straight to me. I—I will not rest easy until I see that dangerous text destroyed for myself.”

“Of course, Your Grace,” Simon said, thinking that he’d consign the
Book of Shadows
to hell before he ever surrendered it to the Dark Queen, even if he had to convey it there himself.

Catherine held the rolled commission out to him. “Keep in close contact, Monsieur Aristide. I should not like to have to send Captain Gautier looking for you again. I have many worries and difficulties weighing down upon me. If you succeed in ridding me of this one, I shall be eternally grateful. You may name your reward, ask any favor you like.”

Simon merely arched one brow at the offer. As he accepted the document from her hand, he could not refrain from reminding her. “You once made similar promises to my late master. The cold dark of a grave was his only reward for serving you.”

“That was none of my doing, but the Comte de Renard’s. Alas, I fear acquiring such deadly enemies is a hazard of the witch-hunter’s profession.” The queen smiled blandly up at him. “I trust you are better at guarding your back.”

“Oh, I will be, Your Grace,” Simon said, baring his teeth in a smile of his own. “I promise you.”

I
T WAS NEARLY MIDNIGHT
by the time the queen’s ladies helped her ready for bed. Sensing Catherine’s dark mood, the women spoke in hushed voices instead of their usual chatter. Catherine scarce noticed them, her energy focused on subduing the weakness of her own body as she eased painfully into her nightdress.

She ached and throbbed in every joint, the journey to Chenonceau having taxed her to the limits of her endurance. In her youth she had been a skilled and intrepid horsewoman. But those days were long gone. Hampered by her age and weight, she now had to suffer being jarred along on a litter for days on end.

If the journey itself had not battered her enough, she had been further drained by the meeting with Le Marle and his friends.
Huguenots,
Catherine thought with a grimace. Such a dour, serious, and persistent thorn in her side.

The St. Bartholomew’s Day massacre had been a nightmarish debacle, going beyond even what she had intended. Inflamed by her, the Catholics of Paris had gone on a rampage of riot and murder that had lasted for days and left Catherine with much blood on her hands and piles of bodies stacked along the banks of the Seine.

Her reputation further blackened and that of France as well, at least Catherine had congratulated herself that she had stemmed the rising power of the Protestants. But the Reformed religion had continued to spread like the plague. Once it was contained in the southwest corner of France, mostly within the borders of Navarre, but now there seemed to be enclaves of Huguenots everywhere.

As far as Catherine was concerned, men might worship however they pleased as long as they did it quietly and made no trouble for her. But unfortunately these Protestants provided the perfect excuse for enemies to meddle with her kingdom under the excuse of religious zeal. The pope, the king of Spain, and worst of all the duc de Guise.

The duke was demanding the king meet him to cede all control of the military to the Catholic League and to outlaw the Reformed religion completely. God rot the arrogant and ambitious man, Catherine thought bitterly. So many times she had been tempted to take care of de Guise after her own fashion. A little morsel of something slipped into his wine cup or the tip of a poisoned arrow lodged in his back. She was only restrained by the realization that if the duke met his death in any mysterious or violent manner, it would be laid at her door. He was so beloved in Paris, the entire city would rise up in revolution. Both she and her son would have to flee for their lives.

No, Catherine reflected sourly, the meeting would have to take place. Most likely her weak-willed son would retreat to his hermitage and leave Catherine to deal with the duke and she had nothing to bargain with, no weapons unless . . .

Unless she could gain possession of the
Book of Shadows.
It was a slim and desperate hope, but the only one left to her. Catherine was confident she could unlock the ancient book’s dark secrets if only she could get her hands on it. Then what unlimited power could be hers, what freedom from fear, the threats of de Guise, even the ravages of time on her own body.

She’d had some of her own agents searching ever since the incident in Paris, but her best hope of finding the Silver Rose, of recovering the
Book,
rested with that clever witch-hunter. But she trusted Aristide no further than he did her. She feared he would destroy the book the moment he found it. That was why she had commanded Captain Gautier to shadow the witch-hunter, keep close watch without Aristide being aware of his presence.

“Your Grace?”

A soft voice recalled Catherine from her troubled thoughts. She found Gillian Harcourt at her side. Catherine’s eyes were so bad tonight, the woman’s face was little more than a blur as she presented the tray with the queen’s nightly posset.

The brew was of Catherine’s own concoction, designed to take the edge off of her pain and allow her a little sleep. Quite often, it did neither. As Catherine sipped from the silver chalice, wincing at the posset’s taste, she reflected glumly that she had always been better at concocting poisons than she was at the healing arts.

Not like the Lady of Faire Isle. Catherine was surprised to feel a pang at the thought of Ariane. Enemies, they had been, but at least Catherine had always been able to depend on Ariane to be forthright and honest, her motives pure. And that was a rare quality in anyone.

Sometimes Catherine feared she had set the entire world out of balance when she had allowed the Lady of Faire Isle to be driven into exile. A great sin for any wise woman, one that had left Catherine cursed and that was why nothing had gone right for her ever since.

Draining the rest of the posset, she shivered and gave herself a brisk shake. Lord, what a superstitious fool she was becoming in her old age. As she returned the cup to the tray, Catherine was annoyed when her hand trembled.

Gillian reached out to steady the cup before it tumbled to the carpet. “Your Grace is very fatigued this evening,” she murmured solicitously. “Your meeting with the witch-hunter must have been very trying.”

Catherine merely grunted.

“I don’t know what service Your Grace requires of him, but Simon Aristide can be a very difficult man. I would be happy to—to help you with him.”

“How? By seducing him?” Catherine gave a contemptuous laugh. “My dear Gillian, you weren’t able to keep the man in your bed when your looks were at their peak. Considering the extent of your charms these days, you’d be lucky to hold his attention for five minutes up against the stable wall.”

The queen turned away, trudging wearily toward her bed. Otherwise even she could not have failed to note the courtesan’s blistering look of hatred and resentment.

G
ILLIAN GROPED
her way across the palace grounds, stealing a nervous glance over her shoulder. As near as she could tell, her stealthy journey through the gardens had gone unnoticed, her dark cloak helping her to blend with the night, the hood pulled far forward to conceal her blond hair and the pale oval of her face.

But she didn’t know why she was so anxious, Gillian reflected bitterly. Sometimes she thought she could march brazenly out the main entry instead of slipping out the kitchen door and none of the guards would remark upon it. Strange how as a woman grew older and her beauty faded, she became all but invisible.

Besides, it was not the guards who worried her. She could fob them off with some tale of a secret assignation, stealing out to meet a lover. But should the queen ever become aware of these nocturnal wanderings of hers—

Gillian stifled a squeak of terror as she blundered into something solid and the Dark Queen herself loomed before her. Pressing her hand to her thumping heart, she gazed up at the statue bathed in moonlight. An eerie and unusual likeness of the queen, it depicted her with snakes entwined about her skirts and arms.