“He has noticed that my name crops up frequently, of late, in letters written by those at Court who style themselves Alchemists.”
“Why are the chymists watching you?”
“I believe it has to do with what Monsieur le duc d’Arcachon has been up to in the south,” said Eliza. “Assuming that you have been discreet, that is.”
Oyonnax laughed. “You and I associate with two entirely different sorts of chymists! Even if I were indiscreet-which I most certainly am not-it is inconceivable that a brewer of poison, working in a cellar in Paris, should have any contact with a noble practitioner of the Art, such as Upnor or de Gex.”
“I did not know that Father Edouard was an Alchemist as well!”
“Of course. Indeed, my divine cousin perfectly illustrates the point I am making. Can you phant’sy such a man associating with Satanists?”
“I cannot even phant’sy myself doing so.”
“You aren’t.”
“What are you then, if I may inquire?”
Oyonnax, in a strangely girlish gesture, put a gloved hand to her lips, suppressing a laugh. “You still do not understand. Versailles is like this window.” She swept her arm out, directing Eliza’s eye to a scene in stained glass. “Beautiful, but thin, and brittle.” She opened the casement below to reveal the street beyond: a wood-carrier, looking like a wild man, had dropped his load to have a fist-fight with a young Vagabond who had taken offense because the wood-carrier had bumped into a whore that the Vagabond was escorting into an alley. A man blinded by smallpox was squatting against a wall releasing a bloody phlux from his bowels. “Beneath the lovely glaze, a sea of desperation. When people are desperate, and praying to God has failed, they begin to look elsewhere. The famous Satanists that Maintenon is so worried about wouldn’t recognize the Prince of Darkness if they went down to Hell and held a candle at his levee! Those necromancers are just like the mountebanks on the Pont-Neuf. You can’t make a living as a mountebank by offering to trim people’s fingernails, because the clientele is not desperate enough. But you can make a living as a tooth-puller. Have you ever had a tooth go bad, mademoiselle?”
“I am aware that it hurts.”
“There are people at Court who suffer from aches of heart and spirit that are every bit as intolerable as a toothache. Those who prey on them, are no different from tooth-pullers. The emblems of the devil are no different from the pliers brandished by tooth-pullers: visual proof that these people are equipped to ply their trade, and satisfy their customers.”
“You are so dark! Is there anything you believe in?”
Oyonnax closed the casement. The gruesome images outside were gone. “I believe in beauty,” she said. “I believe in the beauty of Versailles, and in the King who created it. I believe in your beauty, mademoiselle, and in mine. The darkness beyond has power to break through, just as those people out there could throw rocks through this window. But behold, the window has stood for centuries. No one has thrown a rock through it.”
“Why not?”
“Because there is a balance of powers in the world, which can only be perceived by continual attention, and can only be preserved by-”
“By the unceasing and subtile machinations of persons such as you,” Eliza said; and the look in the green eyes of Oyonnax told her that her guess was true. “Is that why you have involved yourself in my vendetta against the Duke?”
“I am certainly not doing so out of any affection for you! Nor out of sympathy. I don’t know, and don’t wish to, why you hate him so, but the stories told about him make it easy to guess. If le duc were a great hero of France-a Jean Bart, for example-I should poison you before suffering you to harm him. But as matters stand, Monsieur le duc is a poltroon, absent for months when he is most needed. Wise was le Roi in subordinating him to Monsieur le marquis de Seignelay. But now that de Seignelay is dying, the duc d’Arcachon will try to reassert his former eminence, which shall prove a disaster to the Navy and to France.”
“So you see yourself as doing the King’s work.”
“I see myself as serving the King’s ends.” Madame la duchesse d’Oyonnax removed from her waistband a pale-green cylinder, scarcely bigger than a child’s finger, and displayed it on the palm of her gloved hand. She was standing several paces away, which forced Eliza to approach her. Eliza did so in spite of a sudden horripilation that had spread over her scalp like a slick of burning oil. Her hands were clasped together in front of her stomach, in part to keep them warm-but in part to keep them close to a slim dagger that she was in the habit of hiding at the waist of her dress. Which was a queer thing to be thinking about, here and now; but she would not put anything past the Duchess, and wanted to be ready in the event that Oyonnax tried to throw something in her face or jab her with a poisoned needle.
“You’ll never appreciate how easy this is going to be compared to a typical poisoning,” said Oyonnax in a light conversational tone, as if this would set Eliza at ease. Eliza had now drawn close enough to see the green thing: a tiny phial such as might be used for perfume, carved out of jade, bound in bands of silver, with a silver stopper on a fragile chain. “Don’t dab this behind your ears,” said the Duchess.
“Is it one of those that is absorbed through the skin?”
“No, but it smells bad.”
“Then le duc will certainly notice it in a drink.”
“Yes-but not in his food. You know of his peculiar tastes?”
“I know more than I should care to of that.”
“This is what I mean when I say it is going to be easy for you. Normally an ingested poison must be tasteless, and such are frequently ineffective. This stuff is as deadly as it is foul-yet le duc will never notice it when it is mixed with a meal of rotten fish. All that you need to do is to find some way of getting into the private kitchen where his dreadful repast is prepared. This will not be a trivial matter-yet it will be much easier than the machinations most people must go through.”
“Most poisoners, you mean…”
Oyonnax did not respond to-perhaps did not even understand-the correction. “Take it, or don’t,” she said, “I’ll not stand here like this any longer.”
Eliza reached out to pluck the phial from Oyonnax’s palm. As she did so, the other’s larger hand closed around hers, and then Oyonnax brought her other hand over and clamped it on top, so that Eliza’s fist, clenched around the green phial, was swallowed up between the Duchess’s hands. Eliza was staring fixedly at this, having no desire whatever to see the Duchess’s face, now so close to hers. But Oyonnax would not let go; and so finally Eliza turned her head that way, and, with some effort, raised her eyes to gaze directly into those of Oyonnax. She could not bear to do so for more than a moment; but it seemed that this was enough for the Duchess to be satisfied. Satisfied of what, Eliza did not know. But Oyonnax gave Eliza’s fist one last squeeze and pushed it towards Eliza’s breast, then released her. “It is done,” said the Duchess. “You shall accomplish it tonight, then?”
“It is already too late-I must get ready.”
“Soon, then.”
“It can never be soon enough for me.”
“People will talk, after it happens,” said the Duchess. “Pay them no mind, and have patience. It is not whether this or that person believes you to be a murderer, or even can prove it, but whether they have the dignity necessary to level such an accusation.”
BRITTLE DISJOINTED HOURS FOLLOWED. Monsieur le comte de Pontchartrain, and later the King himself, did not leave off sending messengers around to inquire as to the whereabouts of the duc d’Arcachon. For some reason these all wanted to speak to Eliza-as if she were expected to know things that the Duchess of Arcachon did not. This in no way simplified preparations for the soiree. Eliza had to get coiffed and dressed while holding at bay these inquisitive messengers, who, as the afternoon wore on, were of progressively higher rank. Finally, near dusk, a coach and four rattled into the court, and Eliza called out “Hallelujah!” She could not run to the window because a pair of engineers were braiding extensions into her hair; but someone else did, and disappointed them all by reporting that it was merely Etienne d’Arcachon.