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

“The Marquise de Montespan, I regret to say,” I reply. “She fears that you mean to throw her over for the Princesse de Soubise. And she would sooner wish you dead than lost to her.”

The king closes his eyes, heaving a long-suffering sigh.

“Pardieu, can the accursed wanton not do without her melodramas for so much as a moment?” he murmurs to himself, pressing his fingertips to his temples, closed lids quivering with strain. “My gorgeous, bedamned Athenais. Ever setting her sights too high, and then overshooting her mark. And I suppose this explains why she has grown so withdrawn and dark.”

I hesitate, taken aback by this cavalier reaction, his readiness to believe me without even a desultory doubt. The king seems not only unfazed by my news but oddly unsurprised.

“I would take some air,” he says, opening his eyes again. He abruptly seems so weary, for one so gold-touched and young. “I have been cloistered in this gilded cage too long. You will join me on a stroll in the gardens, Madame La Voisin. We have some questions to consider, you and I.”

With my gloved hand tucked into his elbow just as I foresaw, I walk with the Sun King alongside the château’s frozen canal. Feathery tufts of snow whirl past our faces, as though some celestial bird is shedding its downy coat. The captains of the guard trail us at a healthy distance, far enough behind to be entirely out of earshot.

Part of me is nearly giddy, wonderstruck at being here, strolling with none other than the lord and liege of France. How inconceivably far I have come since my days of toil in the fabrique.

The rest of me is consumed with fear at the audacity of what I attempt.

“So that is it, then, between me and Athenais,” he says in a rueful tone, his breath puffing into a cloud before spinning away. “Well past time, but still. I shall miss all that unbridled passion, and her lashing wit. No one else could flay with a backhanded compliment half so well as she.”

He speaks with genuine regret, as though his maîtresse is merely leaving his side rather than scheming toward his death.

Perhaps the prospect of being surrounded by murderous intent is truly not so alien to him.

“It must be difficult,” I comment. “To know that someone once beloved wishes you so ill.”

“Oh, who wishes a king well, save for those who would curry his favor?” he replies with a shrug, ruffling his heavy cape’s ermine trim. “And even that is only ever temporary. Each time I elevate someone to a vacant position, I make one ingrate and ten new enemies. It is ever the way of things.”

“It sounds rather lonely,” I say without thinking, then clap my hand to my mouth at my presumption, horrified. “Forgive me, Sire, I did not mean to imply that your life is … inadequate in some way.”

“Do not trouble yourself over it,” he replies, casting me an amused and slightly wry half smile. “As you are not wrong. My life is well-nigh miraculous—dazzling and delicious in most respects. Having been born to its savor, I would not be content with any other. But there must always be a price. And I pay the tithe by never quite trusting anyone.”

I think of what Marie has told me of his ruthless campaigns, his willingness to resort to child espionage. Such brash cruelty is difficult to square with the reality of this refined and sharply self-aware young king.

“Tell me, what is it that she plans?” he inquires, glancing over at me with one eyebrow raised. “Something elaborately vengeful, I’m sure. She would not miss the opportunity to play the role of the scorned woman to the hilt.”

I hesitate, knowing that here I must be subtler and more cunning than I have ever been.

“She approached me to craft a deathly spell,” I lie, omitting any mention of poison. If La Reynie has not yet identified me as a suspect in the affair, I certainly will not volunteer myself. “A satanic ritual meant to strip you of your vigor and drain you of life over the course of several months. I do not have any such power, of course; I am only a gifted seer, a priestess of the Devil’s Mass. But I could see she was in earnest when she asked.”

“I see,” he says, nodding. “I imagine she must have offered you a goodly sum as well. And yet you walked away from it, and here you are instead. It would seem I am in your debt, madame.”

I suppress a relieved sigh, grateful I did not even have to broach the matter of recompense myself.

“Of course you are not, Sire,” I say, dipping my head. “You are my king. And as your loyal subject, it was only my duty to warn you.”

He waves my humility away with an impatient hand. “That is all very well, but I cannot abide the indignity of an outstanding debt. It is an unseemly position for a king to occupy. Tell me, what would you have of me?”

“I need nothing for myself, truly. But there is a young woman at Vincennes …” Again I gloss over the truth, choosing not to mention that Marie is known to me at all, much less a dear friend. “I met her when the lieutenant general requested my help in ascertaining her involvement in some sort of poison affair. She had been badly mistreated at his hands, and yet when I examined her with my sight, I found her innocent. It would please me greatly to know that she was freed, that my scrying was not in vain.”

“Easily done,” he says with a decisive nod. “You have my word that she will be released. La Reynie has made no headway with her in any case. There is little sense to keeping her jailed when she can shed no useful light