Thief of Hearts

by Leda Swann

  Jean-Paul hoped that this was the Cardinal’s usual demeanor, not the one reserved specially for those he knew were about to betray him. “I hear you have no great love for the Marquise de Montespan.”

  The Cardinal examined his fingernails with an abstracted air. “Whoever told you so is mistaken,” he said, his voice not changing in the slightest. “The Marquise and I understand each other perfectly.”

  So perfectly that the Cardinal was willing to murder innocent men to ruin her. He bowed again. If the Cardinal would not admit his dislike of Francine openly, he would have to try to call his bluff. “Then I can only apologize for my intrusion and bid you goodnight.”

  The Cardinal looked up from his fingernails. “There’s no need to be so hasty,” he said, as if he were conferring a gracious favor on Jean-Paul out of the goodness of his heart, and not in the least anxious to hear what he had to say. “Come tell me what is bothering you and I will do all I can in my power to help you.”

  Jean-Paul breathed a sigh of relief that the Cardinal had not called his bluff and sent him on his way without hearing him out. Their plan depended on him talking to the Cardinal and convincing him of his earnestness. “I know a few tales about the Marquise,” he said craftily, “which I thought might be worth something to the right person.”

  “Tales about the Marquise?” The Cardinal shrugged. “Any poor fool can make up a tale. Such tales are not worth the breath used to tell them.”

  “Even if the tale is true?”

  “True? False? What does it matter? A tale is still only a tale.”

  “Even if the tale can be proven?”

  The Cardinal’s eyes gleamed with a spark of interest which he quickly hid behind half-closed lids. “Proof would be another matter. Depending, of course, on what was to be proven.”

  Jean-Paul paused for just the right amount of time, until the air in the chamber grew heavy with expectation. “The Marquise has a new lover,” he said at last into the waiting silence.

  The Cardinal sat back again, disappointed with the news. “So it is often rumored. I pay no heed to such rumors myself. She is too canny a woman to risk the affections of the King on a mere whim.” He ran the palm of his hand over his wispy beard in a thoughtful manner. “Even were your tale to be true, she is as slippery as an eel. Catching her in the act would be no easy matter.”

  “I know who her new lover is. I know where they meet, and when.”

  The Cardinal grew suddenly still with suspicion. “Why are you telling me this?” he asked. His voice was light, as if the answer was of no moment, but his face was watchful.

  “I was her lover once.”

  The Cardinal dismissed his claim with a wave of his hand. “Pshaw. Any fool can claim as much. Have you any proof of what you say?”

  “We became lovers when she was banished to the South of France. I fell in love with her, and I thought she loved me in return. The King recalled her to Court and I followed her soon after, thinking she would be as glad to see me as I was to see her.”

  The Cardinal’s face wrinkled awkwardly into a rusty smile, brimming with malice. “And when you arrived you found out how mistaken you were?”

  “I came to see her at her levee. She disclaimed all knowledge of me, dismissed me as though I were a bad-mannered puppy. She shamed me in front of the whole Court.”

  “Ah, so you are the man who tried to make love to her in public, the man she swore she’d never seen in her life before.” He gave a wheezy chuckle. “Anyone could see you were a newcomer to Paris, expecting a courtier like the Marquise to take notice of you in public. You were lucky she did not have you whipped.”

  Jean-Paul shrugged. “Men in love often do foolish things.”

  “Jean-Paul Metin, are you not?”

  Jean-Paul nodded.

  “I have heard of you.” The Cardinal paced up and down the room. “Did the Marquise not write you some letters? Letters that she might not want the King to know about?”

  He shrugged again. “She did write me some affectionate letters, true, but they were stolen from me weeks ago when I first came to Paris. It saved me from the trouble of burning them, I suppose. I would not want to keep any remembrances from such a whore as she.”

  The Cardinal’s pacing came to an abrupt halt. “Who took them?”

  “Common thieves and cut-throats from the gutter, I suppose. I was lucky to get away with my life.”

  “Interesting.” The Cardinal did not look interested so much as he looked murderous. “Very interesting.”

  Jean-Paul had to fight to keep his grin from showing. Without even planning to, he had dropped the men who had tried to kill him in even more trouble. A night naked in the stocks would be as a flea bite to the punishment that the Cardinal would hand out to them, if the look on his face was anything to go by. “The Marquise shamed me,” he said, returning to the point of his visit. “I am a soldier and a Musketeer. No woman should shame me so.”

  “So now you want revenge.” The Cardinal nodded as if he could well understand Jean-Paul’s motives now. “You want revenge on both her and her new lover.”

  “She cast me off as if I were of no account. I would have given my life for her and she treated me with nothing but contempt. She is a worthless, faithless woman, and deserves to be punished for her fickleness.”

  “She is a whore at heart,” the Cardinal agreed, “as all women are. Tell me, when will she next meet with her new love?”

  “He will be there tonight.”

  “Tonight? So soon? How do you know?”

  Jean-Paul drew his dagger and tossed it spinning into the air. “I intercepted the messenger,” he said with a grin, as he caught the glittering blade by its handle and tucked it back into this belt again. “He talked fast enough with my blade held at his throat.”

  The Cardinal had drawn back a few paces at the sight of the blade. “Who is he then, this new lover of the Marquise’s?”

  Jean-Paul shrugged. “He’s a Musketeer in the King’s Guard like myself. Scarcely more than a boy – I doubt if he is even old enough to shave his chin yet – and slightly built. Long, black hair that he keeps tied at the nape of his neck, and a crafty, malicious face. As quick on his feet as a deer - not a comrade I would trust to fight by my side in battle.” He gave a snort of disgust. “I dare say he and the Marquise deserve one another.”

  “It seems she has a penchant for uniforms.” The Cardinal went to his desk and drew out a heavy-looking purse. He handed it to Jean-Paul. “Your news has pleased me well. Take this for your pains.”

  Jean-Paul hesitated, his hands held firmly behind his back. “I did not tell you for the sake of a reward. I told you for the sake of my revenge.”

  “I know you had no thought of a reward for your information. It was freely given, and received with gratitude.” The Cardinal pressed the bag into his hands so he could not refuse to take it. “In my eyes that makes you even more deserving of a reward than one who thinks only of his fee.”

  Jean-Paul left the Cardinal’s apartments and sauntered back to his chamber, the bag of pistoles giving his pocket an unaccustomed weight. He could not wait to see Miriame again. How she would appreciate such a grand jest. The Cardinal had paid him royally for the news he had brought him. Little did the prelate know just how royally he was about to be cozened in return.

  Miriame kept a wary eye out for spies as she knocked on the door at the western gate. A figure moved in the shadows to one side of her and her whole body tensed, her hand moving to the dagger at her side of its own volition. She could feel a stranger’s eyes on her, watching and waiting. The very air smelled of tenseness and danger.

  The maidservant Berthe opened the door and Miriame scuttled inside, glad to be inside. Any attack on her now would come face on in the light, and not at her back in the dark. If Jean-Paul Metin had delivered his message to the Cardinal, no doubt she would be left to enter the Marquise’s chamber undisturbed. If he had delivered his message, and if the Cardinal had taken
the bait... There were too many ifs for her to feel quite comfortable.

  The figure behind her had already melted away into the shadows again. One of the Cardinal’s spies, she was sure of it. No thief would dare to ply his trade so close to the royal walls, and no one else would be hanging around the streets at such an hour. How she hoped that Jean-Paul had carried out his mission well and primed their target ready to strike.

  The corridors were equally quiet as she and Berthe padded their way along, but their very silence made the hairs on the back of her neck stand up. Not even the merest rustle of clothes or a creaking of hinges disturbed her ears. That in itself was eerie. Berthe plodded along as stolidly as ever, not seeming to notice the sense of danger hovering in the air. Miriame followed her, every sense on the alert.

  The Cardinal must have well-trained spies on his payroll who knew how to observe their prey without making a sound, but Miriame could still feel the weight of their eyes on her. Not until she had reached the Marquise’s chamber and Berthe had shut the door behind her did she lose the feeling of being watched.

  A fire burned merrily in the grate. Miriame strode over to it and stood with her back to the flames. If the Cardinal had taken the bait that Jean-Paul had offered him on a platter, it would not be long before a much larger conflagration than this simple fire broke out. She crossed herself nervously, praying that both she and Jean-Paul would avoid getting singed.

  The Marquise did not keep her waiting for long. She barely had time to collect herself before the Marquise was upon her with a flourish of perfume and curtseys.

  “My dear Jean-Paul,” she cried, sweeping gracefully up to Miriame and taking her hands in her own. “How have you been keeping these long weeks?”

  Miriame extracted her hands, swept her hat off her head, and made a low bow. “Very well, I thank you, Madame.” She was too much on edge to be overly eloquent.

  The Marquise pouted and batted her eyelashes. “I thought we were friends, you and I, but you have neglected me most shamefully these past weeks.”

  “I have had much to keep me busy. As have you, Madame, or so I have heard.”

  Her fan fluttered swiftly about her face. “You are talking of the King, I suppose?”

  “Of course. Who else would I give up the pleasure of your company for without so much as a murmur of complaint?”

  She gave a delighted laugh. “Yes, dear Louis has been paying me far too much attention of late. He is so fond that it positively bores me. I am so glad that I have a few friends that I can call on to entertain me when I simply have to escape his company before I scream.”

  Miriame took the Marquise’s hand and raised it to her lips. “I am at your service, as always, Marquise.”

  The Marquise pressed Miriame’s hand with her own and pulled her over to the sofa. “Come sit beside me and entertain me,” she simpered, showing as many white teeth as she could possibly display at one time. “The King has been boring me silly all day with tedious talk of his even more tedious hunting parties. I am positively dying for the company of a real man.”

  Miriame grinned as she sat down beside her. The Marquise would just have to keep on dying for a real man for a while longer. “I would be pleased to do so.” The closer the pair of them were when the Cardinal and his men burst in on them, the funnier would be the eventual unmasking.

  Francine leaned back into the corner of the sofa and closed her eyes. “The life of a courtier is so hectic,” she said, throwing her arms behind her head and thrusting out her breasts in a theatrical yawn. “I am sure being at Court is turning me into an old woman. I can feel the wrinkles forming on my face and my hair turning gray with worry as I just sit here at my ease. I am getting so old.”

  Miriame looked idly at the woman’s pearly-white complexion. She could wish for such clear, white skin tinged with pink herself. Francine was an unwrinkled as a young girl. “I hardly think you have anything to worry about.”

  Her voice came out as sarcastic rather than flattering, as she had intended. Francine pouted.

  “I mean, you are still so young. You can hardly be more than fifteen, I swear.”

  “Indeed, I am older than you suspect,” she said, her pout vanishing and a smile returning to her red-painted lips at this arrant flattery. “And I am sure I have a wrinkle forming on my forehead, and another one right here, by the corner of my eye,” Francine said, half opening her eyes again and gazing at him from under her eyelashes.

  Did she hear a noise from the far side of the door? She couldn’t be entirely sure, but she thought she heard the sound of muffled footsteps, the noise of heavy men unused to softening their tread. “I cannot see a thing,” she answered, all her attention on her ears.

  Francine gave her hand a gentle tug. “You cannot see anything from that great distance. Come a little closer. I’m sure I have a wrinkle there.” She was leaning right back into the corner of the sofa, her skirts showing more than a little of her ankles and her breasts just about escaping from the low-cut bodice that pretended to cover them.

  For Miriame to get any closer to look at these phantom wrinkles, she would have to be half lying on top of her. No doubt that was Francine’s intention all along.

  She definitely heard noises now, the sound of a door quietly being unlocked and pushed open. She did not so much as turn her head to look at the intruders as she leaned over Francine. “We have visitors, it seems,” she hissed in the Marquise’s ear.

  Francine’s eyes grew wide and her face paled under her layers of rouge. “Who?” she croaked in a tiny voice.

  “Hold your tongue and follow my lead if you want to get out of this unscathed,” Miriame whispered in a tone that brooked no dissent. “Do you understand?”

  Looking as if she was going to be ill, Francine gave the tiniest of nods.

  “No, Madame,” Miriame continued in a loud voice. “Not the smallest wrinkle that I can see---”

  She was not able to finish her sentence. “The Cardinal spoke true, we see,” came the cry from the door. “You are a vile fornicator, committing indecencies with our own Guards while our back is turned.”

  Miriame sat back on the sofa and turned to face the speaker. Jean-Paul had primed their target well. The Cardinal in his red robes of office was there, an unholy glee pasted all over his wrinkled face. With him was King Louis himself, his royal robe draped over his bony shoulders and his royal face purple with rage.

  Miriame rose to her feet and squeaked in a high voice. “Your Majesty,” before sinking to her knees in a rather awkward curtsey.

  The King ignored her, focusing all his rage on the Marquise. “What is the meaning of this?” he thundered. “What is this young pipsqueak of a soldier doing in your chambers with you, alone and at night?”

  Francine’s face had gone a sickly shade of green that no rouge could hide. “We m...meant no harm by it.”

  “No harm? You call cuckolding your King no harm?” The King’s eyes looked close to popping out of his royal head in his royal rage. “We would rather call it treason.”

  Miriame giggled, the sound loud in the quiet that followed the King’s furious outburst.

  Finally he noticed her and turned his rage on her. “You think it is funny to cuckold your King? You think that the hot blood of your youth will protect you from the wrath of the mightiest King in Europe, of the Sun King himself?” he thundered, in a voice that threatened an evil death to anyone who crossed him. “We will see how funny you find it to be tossed into an oubliette until your once hot blood is frozen in your veins.”

  Miriame gave another giggle, though inside her stomach was churning with discomfort. She hoped the King’s anger would not last, but vanish as quickly as it had been summoned. “You think I am a man?” she squeaked, in the most girlish voice she could muster. “You really think I am a man?”

  The King looked confused for a moment. “You are not a man, you are a boy,” he replied at last. “But boy or not, you will not live to boast of your misdeeds with our chose
n mistress.”

  “Oh, a boy is good enough,” Miriame giggled, bouncing up and down on the sofa as if she found the jest too funny to sit still. “Come now, Francine, you must pay me now. Fifty gold pistoles we bet that I could not pass myself of as a man and have anyone believe me. I think you should pay me a hundred pistoles at least, for my disguise has fooled the King himself.”

  The King looked momentarily confused. “What do you mean? You are not a boy?”

  He winced as she giggled again and clapped her hands in a transport of delight. “Oh, Francine, I am sure I should demand one hundred pistoles at least.”

  The Cardinal’s face was growing red now. “Enough of this tomfoolery,” he barked. “Anyone can see the boy is playacting to escape the punishment that he and his whore richly deserve. Just look at his breeches. Whenever did you see a girl who looked like that?”

  Miriame gave another giggle. “Oooh, yes, that was a good trick, wasn’t it.” She reached one hand down into her breeches and drew out the pair of rolled-up stockings she kept there to make her disguise more realistic. “I knew no one would suspect me of being a girl if I looked like a man down there.”

  She pulled off the leather thong that kept her hair tied back and shook her curls over her face to emphasize the femininity of her face, taking the opportunity to look at each of them in turn.

  Francine sat on the sofa, her mouth agape, looking as if she had just been delivered from the devil himself and couldn’t quite believe her good luck. Her painted face, now back to its usual pink and white, was the very picture of astonishment and disbelief.

  The King’s rage was dying down and being replaced with bewilderment. Confusion and affronted dignity warred in his sallow face, but it looked at least as though the oubliette would be forgotten for the moment.

  The Cardinal was a red as a turkey cock, his Adam’s apple bobbing up and down as he swallowed convulsively. “Pah, what does that prove,” he spat, as Miriame dropped the stockings at her feet. “Any boy could do as much.”