Poison Priestess by Lana Popovic (classic books for 7th graders txt) 📕

of my poisons. But what proof would the maîtresse-en-titre even need to plant a seed of doubt, when she has the king’s own ear? “Again, I beg pardon for my neglect, my lady. It was unintentional. I … I shall resolve to do better by you.”

“I know you will,” she says easily, her ire vanished in an instant now that she has me pinned, speared in place like a butterfly behind glass. “And you shall start by removing that simpering twit Claude de Vins des Oeillets from my sight.”

“You wish your new lady’s maid gone from your household?” I ask, perplexed by the sudden change of pace. “Surely I can find another position for her, but why?”

“I do not want her merely gone,” she responds witheringly, as if I am an abject simpleton. “I want her dead. She sashays like a strumpet in front of Louis when he comes to visit me, seeking to ensnare him. To win his favor in my place.”

“She does?” I ask, utterly disbelieving. “But she is such a sweet girl, so naive! And she credits you so highly. She idolizes you, even, styles herself after you in every way.”

“I suppose it might not be wholly calculated on her part,” the marquise concedes, shrugging, as if intentions do not matter a whit. “But either way, the fact remains that she has caught his eye. He says nothing of it, but I am not blind to how his eyes follow her about the room, like a dog tracking a bitch in heat. I will not have it, Catherine. Not when I have worked so hard to make him mine.”

“What about a love philter instead?” I attempt desperately, my entire being quailing at the notion of causing that darling girl’s death. “A new one, something more potent than what we have used for His Majesty thus far. I have a recipe for a remarkable Italian concoction of cantharides that—”

“No,” she says, slicing a hand through the air. “There is nothing for it but her death. And she must sicken first, in a way that compromises her fair looks. I will compensate you for the poison’s preparation, of course, as this goes beyond the scope of our original arrangement.”

“Compensation is not the issue, Marquise,” I say tightly.

“Then what is?” She tilts her head curiously to the side. “It is not as if I am asking for anything beyond the pale. Is murder not your latest business endeavor?”

“I do not make a habit of targeting the innocent, Marquise,” I reply, gritting my teeth.

“A murderess with scruples, how absolutely charming!” she crows, clasping her hands in mock rapture in front of her chest. “But I’m afraid you shall have to make an exception for your patroness. Whatever you have been using for poison, it is clearly both unusual and quite cleverly made to not have aroused any suspicion. A pattern I should wish to continue in this case.”

“And if I do not agree? Claude and I … you must know that we are friends.”

Though her smile does not falter, a dangerous glitter sparkles in her eyes, like light glinting off icicles dangling from an eave.

“If you do not, I shall have to reconsider your worth to me, Catherine,” she says, soft yet barbed with malice. “Perhaps I will even discover a newfound need to see you face justice for your crimes. And even if there should be no proof, well, you would still be jailed while an inquiry was carried out. How do you think it would suit you, languishing for months in Vincennes?”

My entire body suffuses with a stinging rush of adrenaline, as though I have been brushed with poison ivy from within. She would do it in a heartbeat, I know beyond the inkling of a doubt. Claude’s death is a test of my loyalty, my continued willingness to put the marquise first, just as much as it is her true desire to see an imagined rival dead.

I hate her so much, loathe her so thoroughly it beggars belief. And should I fail her, she will not hesitate to throw me to the wolves.

“And so?” she prompts. “Do we understand each other in this as well?”

“We do,” I say, though it costs me dearly to look her calmly in the eye when I wish to fly at her instead, rake my nails down her smug face. “Of course we do, my lady.”

“Lovely!” She beams at me, clear-eyed as a cherub, unaccountably beautiful for a creature so evilly made. A basilisk wearing Aphrodite’s transcendent face. “I knew someone so clever as you could be counted upon to see sense.”

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

The Summons and the Prophecy

December 2, 1667

After a debilitating decline, Mademoiselle Claude de Vins des Oeillets dies before the first snow.

And I fall headlong into a dreadful agony of remorse.

Perhaps I might have borne it better had I not been forced to witness the sweet girl’s demise, but Claude had truly considered me a friend, enough to seek the comfort of my presence during her final ravaged days, when the poison had leached the color from her bright cheeks and stolen the luster from her hair. And I did not have the heart to refuse her requests to see me, not when I was the cause of her suffering.

The least I deserved was to see what I had done to her.

“How could I do it?” I bemoan to Adam as we walk the winding path through my sparkling garden, buried under the weight of newly fallen snow. “How could I have thought to pair such an innocent with a hyena like the marquise? And then agree to poison her with something so unforgiving?”

“You had no choice, Cat,” Adam soothes briskly, tucking my hand into his elbow. “There is no use in berating yourself over it. Had you refused Athenais, she would have had us both clapped in brodequins. That harridan cannot stand being denied.”

“Perhaps we belong in brodequins,” I retort, turning bitter eyes up to