An Affair of Poisons

by Addie Thorley

  Louis laughs. Even though nothing about this is funny. He fans his face with a gloved hand. “While my ministers think I would be better off without you, I am of a different opinion. I made a promise to my people, and it would reflect poorly on me if I ousted their champion straight away. So I’ve another proposal for you. It seems I’m in need of a new police captain, and I believe you are the man for the job. An old friend claimed it would suit you.”

  “What?” All the anger drains out of me, puddling in my boots. My eyes sting. “You want me to take Desgrez’s place?”

  “I need someone I trust patrolling the streets, and it would please me greatly if that man was you.”

  I shake my head slowly. I could never fill Desgrez’s shoes. And I don’t want to fill them. Not if it means moving on. Forgetting him. I have other responsibilities, besides.

  “I can’t. The girls …”

  “Have been placed in excellent care.”

  “What do you mean, they’ve been ‘placed in excellent care’? Where? With whom?” I look all around the room, as if somehow Anne and Françoise will appear.

  “Madame de Montespan’s elder sister, the Marchioness de Thianges, volunteered to oversee their upbringing, and I thought it a splendid idea.”

  “How could you think that? They need to be here. With me.”

  Louis steeples his hands and waits for me to stop shouting. “Be reasonable, Josse. It isn’t fitting for little girls to be raised by us. They will be happy with their aunt. And it’s not as if they’ve been sent across the sea. They’re on the other side of the city. You can visit as you please.”

  “Doesn’t the marchioness prefer to be at court?”

  “She thinks they will benefit from living somewhere quieter for a time, to recover. But they’ve a place here whenever they wish to return.”

  The thundering in my chest slows, and I grudgingly nod. “You could have at least waited until I awoke. So I could see them off.”

  “You would have never let them go. You’re allowed to be both a brother and an officer, you know. And the girls aren’t your only sibling in need of assistance.”

  Behind him, Louis’s ministers whisper at this admission. He stiffens in his armchair. “I expect an answer in the morning, Josse. Now run along.” He lifts a gloved hand and waves me away. “I’ve important matters to attend to that are far above your station. I’m sure you’ll find the company in the millinery more suited to your tastes.”

  This makes his ministers chuckle, but a ghost of a smile floats across Louis’s lips and his blue eyes twinkle with mischief.

  I manage a bewildered bow and drift out of the palace and up the streets. Toward Mirabelle and the millinery. Marveling at how everything has changed. And how everything in the world feels oddly right.

  29

  MIRABELLE

  The millinery is dark and I am alone—basking in the stillness, luxuriating in the comforting darkness that seeps around me like steam. It’s so warm and quiet. So opposite the fray at Notre-Dame.

  I sit beneath the window, legs tucked against my chest and chin atop my knees, and stare at the moonlight passing through the papered windows. It paints the floor with brushstrokes of pewter and indigo, and I twirl my fingers idly in the light.

  Mother and Lesage are dead. Marguerite and the members of the Shadow Society who surrendered are locked in the Châtelet, awaiting trial. Gavril and the orphans have already taken up residence in the Palais Royal. Ameline and the fishwives returned victorious to the wharf. And Louis and I carried Josse to the Louvre, though I left directly after administering the cure for désintégrer.

  That palace makes my skin crawl. I saw Mother’s face in every stone and tapestry. Her voice echoed down the halls and hovered in the silence of Josse’s sickroom. So I started walking, hoping to outrun the horrifying images of her writhing on the scaffold at Notre-Dame. But the memories followed me clear to the millinery—I suspect they will follow me always.

  And not just the ones of Mother.

  Gris’s warm brown eyes haunt me from the goggles resting on the table. His crooked smile shines in the glass of every phial. I hear his laugh in the belly of each cauldron. A tear slides down my cheek, and when I wipe it away, I recoil at the metallic scent of blood.

  His blood.

  Agony flays me open like the smoke beasts’ claws. He took a dagger for me. And he gave me the means to kill Mother. Even though I tricked him, and condemned him, and said so many awful things.

  “I’m sorry,” I whisper. “Forgive me.”

  After Gris comes my sister. Marguerite didn’t attempt to fight when she was apprehended and marched to the Châtelet. She didn’t even look up to say goodbye. The last I’ll ever see of her is the glass-eyed expression she wore when she sagged over Mother’s corpse.

  We may have retaken the city, but a small part of me can’t help but feel defeated.

  My entire family is gone.

  Father’s voice comes swiftly, right at my ear. I can almost feel the whisper of his breath. I’m with you always. And I’ve never been so proud.

  The door snicks open, and Josse’s beautiful, moonlit face appears through the dust and dark. Despite the shadows, I can tell his skin is glowing and golden rather than stained with Lesage’s sickness, and he stands, tall and strong, like the statues in the Tuileries. He squints across the shop, and when his gooseberry-green eyes fall on me, warmth and light and hope tingle through my body.

  He’s alive. He came for me.

  “I thought I might find you here,” he says as he pads across the millinery. “Don’t you know it’s impolite to heal someone and vanish? How am I supposed to offer my thanks?” He collapses beside me, and the shadows highlight the sharp planes of his cheeks. His hair hangs in his eyes, painted black by the darkness. He catches me staring and shoots me a mischievous grin that makes my toes curl inside my boots. “I intend to thank you for a very, very long time.”

  I try to laugh, but it catches in my throat and sounds more like a sniffle. The grin quickly slides from Josse’s face, and his brows pull together. “Mira, are you crying?”

  “No.” I wipe my tattered sleeve quickly across my eyes.

  “What’s wrong? Are you injured?” He cups my chin and sweeps his fingers below my lashes. Then he pulls me against his chest and his hands rove up and down my sides, inspecting every inch of me.

  I slip my arms around his waist and clutch his tunic. As if I am a listing ship and he is my mooring. “I’m fine.”

  “What, then?”

  “Gris.” I try to say more, but the name alone slashes through me, reopening my wounds. After several shuddering breaths, I quietly add, “My mother. Marguerite. All of it. I know it needed to end this way, but they were still my family. It was still the only life I knew.”

  Josse’s hold tightens and his lips brush feather-soft against my temple. “We’ll make a new life, you and I.”

  A few short weeks ago, I would have laughed at the impossibility of his suggestion—a princeling and a poisoner. But now it seems like the only constant point on the horizon. The brightest guiding star. “And what will that life look like?” I ask.

  Josse presses another kiss to my temple and then at my ear, trailing slowly and maddeningly down my neck. “I shall wake you every morning like this.”

  “That would be acceptable,” I say with a shiver.

  “Then I will obviously do the cooking, since we ought to take advantage of my kitchen skills.” I laugh and he continues, “After which you will spend the rest of the day ordering me about your laboratory, and I won’t once complain, because you’re brilliant and beautiful, and watching you work is like watching a master painter at the easel.”

  “I might even let you help,” I say. “And of course I’ll teach Françoise and Anne.”

  Josse stiffens and falls silent.

  “What happened? Are they injured? Or unwell?”

  “Louis sent them to live with their aunt, the Marchioness de Thianges
.”

  “Why would he do that?”

  “He says we’re in no position to raise little girls. He’s given me other duties.”

  I cock a brow.

  “He asked me to captain the police.”

  “Josse, that’s wonderful! Aren’t you happy?” I shake his shoulders to knock the somber expression from his face.

  “I think I will be once I recover from the shock. I would have liked to see my sisters before they left. To ensure they’re well. So they know I didn’t choose to send them away.”

  I lean up on my knees and press my forehead to his. Pressing my strength into him, as he just did for me. “They know you adore them. And we’ll visit them soon. Imagine how they’ll coo over your officer’s uniform. They’ll be so proud.”

  He nods and summons a small smile.

  I grip the standing collar of his doublet, crawl onto his lap, and kiss his scruffy cheeks. He traces his finger over my lips, and goose bumps ripple through my skin. Then he repeats the motion with his lips. I return his kiss with a ferocity that thrills me, exploring his jaw line, his neck, the tender area beneath his ear.

  Josse groans and lifts me up onto the counter, hitching my petticoats above my knees so my legs encircle him. My elbow knocks against a gallipot and we laugh against each other’s lips as it clatters to the ground. Camphor floats into the air, dusting us like pollen, but we don’t pull away, not even to breathe. His hands glide up my thigh, trail down my neck, and gently graze my breasts as they heave against the stays of my bodice.

  “Mira?” he breathes. His fingers hover over the laces.

  I answer with a kiss, nibbling his lower lip and dragging my hands down his chest.

  He climbs onto the counter and hovers over me. Presses into me, whispering things that make my cheeks burn. He kisses my neck and eyelids, then my shoulder as he pushes my gown aside.

  When we break apart, minutes or hours later, I lay my cheek against his chest and let out a long breath. Grief and uncertainty battle to reclaim me, but I hold tighter to the boy beside me until my resolve hardens and my skin thickens, forming a barrier so strong, not even Mother’s memory can penetrate it.

  At the end of June there is a bonfire at the Place de Grève, as is tradition for the Fête de la Saint-Jean. But I do not attend. I have no desire to dance around the roaring flames—not when I know they are fueled by my sister, as well as La Trianon and the other devineresses. Twenty-six members of the Shadow Society met their end this morning, and their ashes paint the sky a sinister shade of ochre and brown.

  We’ll all burn at the Place de Grève. La Trianon’s words echo through my thoughts as I work my pestle, grinding leaves of heather and sprigs of holly.

  Not all of us, La Trianon. Not me.

  It’s no coincidence Louis chose this day for their execution—the day of the solar Sabbat, a day celebrated by witches and sorcerers. It’s a warning and a promise, though I alone am left to hear it.

  The millinery looks nothing like it did a few short weeks ago. I stripped and scraped and scoured every corner of it, and when I hung the sign on the door—le apothicaire la vie—I’d never felt more proud. My own place. Where I belong. With my grimoires and ewers and phials.

  With Father and Gris.

  Sometimes, if I am very quiet, I can hear Father quizzing me in the bubbling of the cauldrons. When I lean forward to stir a gallipot, Gris brushes the hair from my face with a gentle breeze. And always—always—I keep Gris’s goggles on a nail beside the hearth, the worn leather and dirty lenses watching over and guiding me.

  Just after midday, when I’m half finished with a gout tonic ordered by one of the fishmongers, a sharp rap sounds at the door. Josse strides across the shop and leans against the counter. His lips curve into a wry smile as he plucks at the strap of my goggles. “Don’t you look fetching.”

  “I’m working.” I swat him with a spoon, but he still manages to peck my cheek. He looks so striking in his officer’s uniform—a black doublet with golden epaulets, the buttons shining and his rapier hilt a-twinkle at his side. His dark hair is tied back and his hat is cocked at an angle on his forehead. He would have rivaled Desgrez for the handsomest police captain in Paris.

  He tugs at my goggles again and pouts when I shoot him an exasperated look. “Can’t you take a break? Come with me to the Place de Grève.”

  “I told you, I have no interest in seeing that funeral pyre.”

  “And you shan’t. The blaze is long dead.”

  “Then why go?”

  “For the maypole.”

  I snort. “If you plan to dance about with ribbons, perhaps I do need to bear witness.”

  “Not me,” Josse says, taking my hand and tugging me across the shop. “Them.”

  The bustling square is festooned with white and yellow banners that flutter like butterflies in the summer breeze. The tables are heavy-laden with hamhocks and relish, as well as fruit tarts and buttered bread and sizzling turkey legs, for the community feast. Madame Bissette waves from behind the table, still preening over her promotion, careful to keep her royal purple uniform free from a single speck of flour. Josse and I weave through the crowd hand in hand, dodging jesters with colorful balls and flaming batons and revelers with casks of ale. Marie joins us, and we make for the maypole at the center of the courtyard, each step more eager than the last.

  Thick silk streamers of purple and blue and gold weave around the pole, guided by many hands below. I watch them parade past, a blur of laughter and color, until I spot two auburn-haired tornados. Then everything stills. Anne spins in a circle, her arms tangling in her golden streamer. Françoise tips her head back and laughs as she tugs Anne forward. Wreaths of baby’s breath crown their heads and their pink cheeks look ripe as summer berries. We’ve visited them several times at the Marchioness de Thianges’s estate—as often as Josse’s position permits—but it’s never enough.

  When the ribbons are bound and the lutes and fiddles cease, Josse cups his hands to his mouth and shouts their names.

  In a whirl of lace and satin, Françoise and Anne turn. We raise our hands, and I know the instant they spot us. It’s like the moment herbs coalesce inside a cauldron—coming together to form something greater, something stronger, something whole. Their eyes spark with recognition, and their squeals of delight are more healing than any antipoison, more fortifying than any elixir or draught. As they rush toward us, crashing into our open arms, I know I have discovered the greatest compound of all. A formula Father would be proud to have in his grimoire. A force that lifts us higher and makes us braver and sheds light into even the darkest of corners:

  The recipe for happiness.

  Author’s Note

  From the moment I first read about the infamous devineresse Catherine Monvoisin and the Affair of the Poisons, I felt a spark: this was a story I wanted to tell. While I decided to take a fantastical, alternate-history approach, I would like to take a moment to separate fact from fiction and introduce you to the true La Voisin and her involvement in one of the most notorious episodes in French history.

  Known as a Duchess Among Witches, La Voisin held an incredible amount of power and influence for a woman of her day. Taught by her mother at the age of nine to read faces and palms, La Voisin turned to fortune-telling to support her family when her husband, the jeweler Antoine Monvoisin, was ruined. At first she offered only tips and suggestions to make her clients’ wishes come to pass, but as she began to notice similarities in their requests—that someone would fall in love with them, that someone would die so that they might inherit, or that their spouses would die so they might marry someone else—she decided to supplement her suggestions with potions and deadly “inheritance powders.” La Voisin was not alone in this dubious business; by the end of the seventeenth century, there was a vast network of fortune-tellers, alchemists, and magicians providing similar services throughout all of France.

  As La Voisin’s reputation grew, she began to attract the noblewomen of Par
is, including high-profile clients such as Madame de Montespan. It’s difficult to determine the extent of Montespan’s involvement with La Voisin, as all evidence implicating the noblewoman was sealed in a coffer and burned by Louis XIV himself. It is generally agreed that La Voisin provided Montespan with aphrodisiacs and black masses, which she believed were responsible for helping her win and retain the king’s favor. When the king eventually dismissed Montespan in favor of Angélique de Fontanges in 1679, it’s rumored that she hired La Voisin and her associates to poison the Sun King and his new mistress. According to multiple testimonies, La Voisin did create a poisoned petition to be delivered into the king’s hands, but due to the overwhelming crowds that flocked to court with petitions, it was extremely difficult to gain access to the king. La Voisin attempted to deliver her petition three times to no avail. Before she and her accomplices could regroup, they were arrested, having been incriminated by a rival poisoner, La Bosse. La Voisin and 33 of her associates were executed between 1679 and 1682, and another 218 were arrested and imprisoned. The scandal ended when Louis XIV closed the investigation in order to protect members of his inner circle, and, most important, his reputation.

  While these events are scandalous and gripping in their own right, I found myself wondering what could have happened if this plot to kill Louis XIV had been successful. I was also fascinated by La Voisin—this woman of little means or consequence, who became a successful businesswoman and leader of a network of witches and alchemists, obtaining fame, fortune, and influence beyond her wildest dreams. (She truly wore a crimson cloak studded with 205 golden eagles that cost as much as garments owned by the queen!) It seemed to me that someone with such drive and ambition might have had higher political aspirations. Since I was already changing history, I decided to give La Voisin her own motivation for killing the Sun King and imagined how things might have played out had her secret society taken hold of Paris.