by Leda Swann
Berthe was still kneeling by the fireplace. Francine snapped her fingers at the girl. “Come, leave the grate be, and attend to my hair. I have to be in my best looks today.”
The girl brushed the ash off her hands on to her apron and hurried to Francine’s side. “Yes, Madame.”
Francine seated herself in front of the dressing table once more, smoothing out the frown on her forehead with her fingertips. She could not afford to frown – it gave her wrinkles.
Her haste to return to the King’s side and regain her position had been all for naught. In her absence, the King had all but forgotten her. Last night was the first night he had come to her bed, and she had been back at court for six weeks and more.
The King’s words that morning had made the reason for his neglect of her clear. He was obsessed with Henrietta, the Duchesse of Orleans, and had eyes for no other woman.
Henrietta, pah! She stuck her tongue out at her reflection, wishing she could dismiss her rival that easily. The woman had nothing that she didn’t have herself, and better. The King only wanted her because she was forbidden to him by laws of both Church and State. She was his brother’s wife. He ought never touch her.
The King coveted what belonged to his brother, even down to his wife. He wanted to show himself to be above the law by making her his mistress, and having made his point clear, he would doubtless cast her off again.
In the meantime, her own position was not to be envied. Those courtiers who had always been her friends were deserting her in droves to seek a new object of their affection, whose ear was closer to the King’s than hers now was. Their desertion rankled against her spirit as her crowd of hangers-on grew gradually fewer in number and of less importance.
Even more worrying were the snide sneers of those she had always hated and who hated her in return. Their knives were out and being sharpened ready for the kill. Chief amongst her enemies was the Cardinal, a close friend of Colbert’s. Now that the King was no longer in thrall to her, the Cardinal would surely be seeking a way to discredit her for good, to have her banished from the court for ever. She was sure he was working against her this very moment, poisoning the King against her with lies and innuendoes. She knew exactly how the game worked - it was exactly what she would do if the situation was reversed.
She couldn’t live if she were banished from the Court. The Court was her life – the only life she wanted. She would rather die than be exiled forever.
At least the Count Colbert knew that the King had returned to her – if only for the night. The King was right to trust in her silence. How she hoped no one would ever know that he had come to her chamber only to sleep.
If she could not have the King, she would not be denied her other pleasures. She remembered with a fond smile the young man she had spent such a pleasurable few months of her exile with. What a contrast to the King. He was all a lover should be – a pretty face with chestnut brown curls that hung naturally past his straight shoulders, white teeth and sweet breath when he kissed her, a firm back, hard thighs, and even harder in between them. Mmmmm. She felt herself grow aroused and wet just at the thought of him. She had not been so well pleasured in a long time as he had kept her. What had his name been again?
She racked her brain for a few moments. Metin, that was it. Jean-Paul Metin. He had sworn to follow her to Paris, though she had counseled him against it. In the end, she had written him a note to the Captain of the Musketeers, asking for a post to be given him. If he were to come to Paris, he would need a fitting occupation that would keep him busy enough so that he would not dance attendance on her all day.
She had thought about asking for him to be made a Gentleman of the Royal Bedchamber, but having him around the Court all the time would be tiresome and might irritate the King. All things considered, having him out of the way in the barracks most of the time would be far preferable.
She wondered if he had made use of his letters of introduction, or if he had stayed in the country on his farm and forgotten his lover from the court. He had sent her a pretty note a while ago about how he had been wounded in the heart but was now recovering apace. She hoped he was not trying to tell her that he no longer cared for her. That would be a bother. She had not worked off her fancy for him quite yet.
Berthe had finished her hair now. She glanced at herself in the looking glass. For all her four and twenty years, she was a beautiful woman still. She would remind the court that she was not yet ready to take her place among the ex-mistresses of the King.
And in the meantime...She took up a piece of paper and dipped the end of her quill into her inkpot. Berthe curtsied and began to withdraw. “Don’t go yet.” It was high time she discovered what had happened to young Metin and whether or not she could make him dance to her tune once again. There was no one presently at Court that she liked better.
The King was no longer interested in her. She would see if introducing a rival on to the scene would pique his pride and rekindle the flame he had once had for her.
“Take this,” she said to Berthe, handing her the letter, “and have it delivered to Metin of the King’s Guard. Make sure that he gets it today.”
The boy was young and gullible and her note should bring him running. If she could not enchant the King once again, she would at least amuse herself in secret between Metin’s strong young thighs.
Miriame gazed with mingled horror and astonishment at the young man leading his horse into the stables. She knew that man – she knew that pretty face with the bright green eyes and the golden brown ringlets curling around his ears. It was the face of her doom.
How had he survived? God himself must have sent down a miracle from Heaven to cure him. She would have staked her life that the wound on his chest was a mortal one – that he would have died before the week was out. Men just did not take such a blow to their chest and live.
Come to think of it, she had staked her life on his death. She had joined the Musketeers under his name, riding his horse, jingling his money in her pockets, even wearing his boots. He would be sure to find her out as soon as he realized that she had stolen his name. If nothing else, he could easily have her hanged as a horse thief.
She shut her eyes for a second, imagining the feel of the hangman’s rope as it tightened about her neck, cutting off her air, slowly strangling her as her body twisted and jerked in its death throes. She made a choking noise and put her hands to her neck to claw away the rope.
Her companion looked at her strangely. “Are you all right?”
Her breath was shallow with panic. Her chest felt constricted, as though she could not breathe. She felt as though the hangman’s noose was already around her neck, choking off her life. There was no help for it. She would have to run. Without a word, she turned her back on her companion and walked away, almost stumbling in her hurry to be gone.
Snow crunched under her boots as she strode out of the yard. She would not risk taking the pretty black mare with her, for all that she had grown very fond of the beast. The mare was the one thing that marked her without fail as a thief.
There were the letters, too, of course, but no one knew about them. She had not shown them to anyone – not even to the Captain. They would not betray her.
The rings on her fingers that she had taken from what she thought was as near as damnit to a corpse? She slid them off her fingers and into her pocket. She would take them to a pawnbroker and have them turned into money as soon as could be, or swap them for others that would not mark her instantly as a thief.
She would run back to the slums and be safe.
The slums. She stopped dead in her tracks. Was she really going to run back to the slums? The very thought of them filled her with horror. She had grown soft during her time as a Musketeer. She could not face going back to sleeping on a pile of rags on the floor, sharing body vermin with whatever derelicts flopped next to her. She wanted to keep her tiny apartment that served as her refuge from the world. She did not want to be cold, so cold, when
ever the winter wind blew or the snow fell. She wanted to live in a chamber that did not leak, with a fire to warm her in the winter and a casement window to open for a cooling breeze in the heat of summer. She wanted to earn a decent living as a soldier, not to pick up the crumbs discarded by those richer than her. She was tired of stealing and sneaking. She wanted to fight, not beg. Was running away really safer than staying to brazen it out?
She had been a Musketeer for longer than the real Metin. Who was to say that she had stolen his identity along with his horse? Who would her fellow soldiers believe anyway if it were ever to come to that – the comrade who had proved his worth among them already, or the newcomer?
She had friends and supporters among the Musketeers already, and Sophie and Courtney would support her to the last. Well, Sophie might not support her if she ever realized that Miriame had stolen the real Metin’s money and horse, but Miriame would simply leave that bit of her story out in the telling. The brigands who had tried to murder the real Metin would come in handy as a scapegoat for all the thievery of which she had been guilty.
She would sell the horse and buy a new one right away. The pretty black mare once gone, what could the real Metin prove? Metin was a common enough name. So was Jean-Paul. It was not impossible that there could be two Musketeers of the same name. Unlikely, to be sure, but not impossible. The name she had adopted alone would not be enough to hang her. If she took care, she would not give the black-hooded executioner any further reason to come after her with the fateful rope in his hands.
At least hanging was a quick death. Faster and cleaner than starving or freezing. As a Musketeer, she had a chance for survival.
She turned on her heel and started to walk back to towards the barracks. She would dispose of her horse this instant, and prepare herself to brazen out the lie she had adopted. She would not give up all she had won through her hard work. She would not go back to the slums to die by degrees. She was a soldier now, and a soldier she would stay.
She was heading cautiously towards the stables when a grimy lad from the streets ran up to her. “You the Musketeer Metin?” he asked in a hoarse voice.
Miriame stared at him, not knowing what she might be admitting to. “What’s it to you?”
The lad pointed back over his shoulder. “Them soldiers over there said as you were the Musketeer Metin. I have a message for the Musketeer Metin.”
She wasn’t sure she liked the sound of this. She knew of no one who would be wanting to send her any message that she might want to hear. “What is it?”
The lad dug into a pocket in his tattered breeches and drew out a piece of paper. “It’s a letter. A lady gave me three whole sous to bring it here to you.”
A letter for her? She took it with a curious hand and slid open the seal. There was nothing but a few cryptic words written on it. “Tonight. Eight o’clock at the westernmost door of the palace. I shall count every minute until then.” The note was not signed.
The lad was still waiting expectantly, hugging his ragged jacket to his chest with thin arms. She knew only too well how he felt, desperate for another sou or two to buy bread, yet too proud to beg for it. She dug in her pocket for a handful of precious francs and tossed them at the lad. “Buy yourself a warm coat or you’ll freeze to death before the spring comes.”
He snatched the coins out of the air and then ran for it as fast as he could scarper, before she could change her mind and take them off him again, laughing with delight at her generosity.
She tucked the note into her pocket. She would think more on it before she ventured to decide whether she would keep this odd appointment or no.
The bells had tolled seven of the clock before she had the leisure to think about the strange note at all. The hours before then had been filled to capacity and more in disposing of everything that could link her with the thief who had stolen the real Metin’s belongings. She had traded in the pretty black mare at the horse market for a chestnut gelding with a sweet temper and an easy stride. The rings had been exchanged at the pawnbrokers for a handful of gold. The letters she had hidden behind the loose brick along with her growing pile of wealth – they might yet be worth something to her and she was loath to dispose of them until she had to. She’d kept nothing that could incriminate her – nothing but several suits of linen, a pair of breeches and a fine waistcoat, and the boots.
She could not get new boots made at the drop of a hat, certainly not boots as fine as the ones she had taken from Metin. Besides, what harm was there in keeping the boots? No man could tell his apart from another’s. She would never hang for a pair of boots.
Her mind freed from anxiety now that she had disposed of the last of the jewelry and seen her new gelding bedded down for the night in the stables of the barracks, she stopped at a cook shop and bought a hot meat pasty. It burned her fingers as she walked along, nibbling at a tasty corner.
Should she keep the appointment? For all she knew, the note was meant for the real Metin and not for her at all. It could be a ruse to lure the real Metin out into the open so his would-be assassins could try their luck once more.
She shook her head at the idea. She didn’t really think so. It would be unlike that evil man’s usual way of operating. He was more likely to shadow his prey, jump on him from the dark with a quick flick of his knife and then be gone again. Writing a note to his intended victim to lure him into a trap was a subtlety that would be beyond him.
More likely, the real Metin had friends in Paris who wished him well. After all, why would anyone write a note to someone he wished to harm?
Besides, she had been a Musketeer for longer than the real Metin, who had only arrived this very day. The note could well be meant for her. She must know far more people in Paris than he did. Of course, she doubted that many of her acquaintances had ever learned to write...
Still, what had she to lose by keeping the appointment? Nothing, as far as she could see. If the note turned out to be meant for the other Metin, she would simply apologize for the mix-up and take her leave. She would keep her wits about her and take her knife with her in case of any trouble.
On the other hand, what had she to gain, either? She crammed the last bite of her meat pasty into her mouth and licked the rich gravy from her fingers. Maybe he had a wealthy uncle he had never met who wanted to make him his heir. Maybe, maybe...her invention failed her. She didn’t know what she might stand to gain, but she was prepared to find out.
Busy as he was with getting settled into the barracks, it was not for some hours that Metin reflected on the words he had heard the Captain say as he walked his gelding to the stables. “Metin the first is a magician with a knife.” The words haunted him, taunted him with their unspoken meaning.
Had he joined the Musketeers at last only to find his would-be killer there before him, masquerading as himself? He shook his head as if to shake the idea away, but it refused to leave him altogether.
He had been wounded by a man with a knife – that much was clear by the marks left behind on his chest. His recollection of the attack was very dim, but he seemed to remember that there had been more than one attacker. Two or three of them perhaps, if not more. His black mare had been stolen, his papers had been taken, the thieves had not left him so much as a change of linen to call his own.
Then he arrived at the barracks this morning only to find another man of the same name having joined some scant weeks before him – and with a fine black mare.
The whole affair was more than a coincidence. It had to be more than a coincidence. Thinking him dead, the other man must have tricked his way into the Musketeers using Francine’s letters of recommendation. The other Metin could be none other than the man who had tried to kill him.
Either he was born under an unlucky star, or else some one must bear him a very powerful grudge to set a hired killer on to him. He could not think that he had offended anyone so deeply that they would wish him dead, but he supposed it were possible. It was a wise man who knew all t
hose who would do him an ill turn if they could.
At any rate, he would keep a close and watchful eye on Metin the first. His very life may yet depend upon it. He would start that very evening – after he had paid a secret visit to his dear Francine, of course. Francine came first in his life, and always would.
Miriame stared in wonderment about her as her guide opened a door and showed her into an antechamber of incredible richness. A fire roared in the grate, thick rugs covered the floors, and the air was redolent with the scents of spices and mystery.
The servant, for such her guide evidently was, despite the fine gown she wore, bowed her head. “Madame will be with you shortly,” she whispered, and she scuttled into the inner chamber and closed the door behind her.
`Madame’ would see her shortly. That was one of her questions answered. A woman, not a man, had made the appointment with her.
She paced along the wall, examining the chamber with a thief’s eye. The tapestries were rich and beautiful, but too cumbersome to carry. The paintings were glorious to look at, but she doubted they would be easy to sell and would only fetch a fraction of their true worth. The intricately blown glass decanter full of wine was less easily traceable, but it was too fragile to be easily stowed away about her person. Indeed, there was little she could even consider using her expertise on. Unless, of course, she were to abscond with a couple of the leather bound volumes laying on the table. Books were hardly a great interest of hers, but they fetched a fair price. She could easily slip a couple of the smaller books inside her jacket, and no one would suspect a thing.
She strode over to the window and looked out into the darkness. She was in a place she did not know, in the very palace of the King himself – two good reasons not to risk a theft. She had mounted several flights of stairs on their way here from the small door on the western side – the window would be too high off the ground to risk a jump if she were caught with stolen gold up her sleeves. Only the very brave or the very foolish would attempt to steal aught in such a perilous situation.
