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

The reflections of ourselves that we each see in the other’s eyes.

CHAPTER TWENTY

The Lieutenant and the Prisoner

I barely have time to bask in our success at Versailles before Gabriel-Nicolas de la Reynie comes to call on me.

“It is the lieutenant general of the Paris police for you, madame,” my chatelaine informs me when she comes to fetch me from my study, three days after my return from Versailles. Though Simone is typically the epitome of composure, immaculate as the household that she runs, today she looks distinctly rattled. “He is rather insistent that you make the time for him.”

“Tell him I will be with him in just a moment,” I say weakly, trying to master my dismay, though I abruptly feel like a rabbit with a fox nosing a snout down its warren. “And see if he should like anything to eat or drink while he waits.”

Simone shakes her head, nervously licking her thin lips. “He has already declined refreshments, madame. He says to tell you that this is not, alas, a social call.”

What does he know, I think wildly as I rise, when there are so many things for which I might be caught? But if he came here to arrest me, would he not already have done so?

When Simone withdraws, I toss back a brimming glass of wine before I go attend to the lieutenant general, hoping it might curb the tempest brewing in my chest. I take my time traversing the halls, and when I reach the salon I am almost back in control.

“Monsieur de la Reynie,” I say smoothly, offering him a cool but courteous smile. Presenting a demeanor of slight inconvenience, as though he has parted me from some crucial task. “I am pleased to make your acquaintance. To what do I owe your visit?”

La Reynie surveils me from under beetled eyebrows, his fleshy mouth twisting with some vague displeasure. He perches uncomfortably on my delicate love seat, as though it might give way at any second beneath his weight. With his bold features and officer’s coat, he looks disconcertingly hawkish and masculine against the salon’s ladylike décor. As if a peregrine falcon has come to roost among all the cream-and-rose brocatelle. He sports a dark riot of hair that rivals the Sun King’s own curling mane—I have a fleeting, nonsensical thought that the Marquis de Cessac would be envious of its natural splendor—and the late-morning sunlight slanting through the window shines off his golden epaulets. At least he has doffed his imposing feathered cap.

“Madame La Voisin,” he says with a curt nod. “My apologies in coming unannounced. But per the king’s own command, my investigation into l’affaire des poisons could not wait.”

The affair of the poisons. So Adam’s and my exploits have somehow emerged from the shadows and into the light, enough to acquire an actual name.

My head tolls as if a clapper has been struck against my skull, and it is only the icy composure I have cultivated for so many months that keeps my knees from turning to water.

“I’m afraid this is the first I have heard of any such affair,” I say briskly, clasping my hands behind my back to still their sudden trembling. “Might I ask you to explain?”

The lieutenant general’s piercing glare shifts between my eyes, a touch perplexed, as though he senses that my stillness masks something untoward.

“You have heard nothing of it?” he queries, as if finding this curious. “Four members of the court have met an untimely end in the last two months alone. There is … some suspicion of the use of pernicious substances. I should think that given your somewhat unique position, word of such foul play would surely have reached your ears.”

“The marquise keeps me busy,” I reply shortly, though inwardly I am quaking. How could this have happened, when we were so very careful to leave no trace behind?

But I remember how Blessis recognized the ingredients for Aqua Tofana, even without having ever made any himself; a reminder that the poisons I have been relying on exist even beyond the pages of Agnesot’s grimoire. Rare as they are, perhaps one of the king’s more shrewd and open-minded advisers recognized their effects.

And if the cunning marquise was able to divine that something untoward was taking place, perhaps I should not be quite so surprised that it might occur to the law as well.

“Too busy to spend my time on idle rumor,” I add, biting down on the inside of my cheek to keep my teeth from chattering.

“Oh, it is rather more than idle rumor now,” La Reynie replies, puffing out his chest. “The king has appointed me commissioner and rapporteur to the newly created Chambre Ardente, to investigate and try any individuals found to have been implicated in the affair.”

Chambre Ardente—the “burning chamber.” I can almost feel a hungry tongue of fire licking at my toes.

“And has …” I clear my throat to force the faltering words out. “Has anyone been implicated thus far?”

“Oh, yes.” An unsettling expression, somewhere between professional satisfaction and a more intimate sort of malice, drifts across La Reynie’s face. “We have a suspected poisoner in custody at Vincennes at this very moment, but our efforts to draw out a confession have been unsuccessful. The king suggested that you might be of help. He believes you have some … insight, a certain innate wisdom that might be of use to us.”

From the sour skepticism in his voice, it is evident La Reynie does not share the king’s confidence in my abilities. At the thought that I am not a suspect—to the contrary, I am to serve on the side of the authorities—my trepidation lifts, to be replaced by an almost hysterical elation.

What an utter absurdity, to be summoned to weigh in on someone else’s guilt for my own crimes.

And something in me gives a strange and joyful flicker that the king did not even mention Adam’s name, nor