Father nodded. "Indeed they did. He has been forced to leave the country. Other ministers have followed. There will be unrest, Elise, you mark my words."

I said nothing.

"Which brings us to the matter of your behavior here at school," he said. "You're a senior now. A lady. And you should be behaving like one."

I thought about that and how wearing the seniors' uniform of the Maison Royale didn't make me feel like a woman. All it did was make me feel like a pretend-lady. When I felt like a real woman was after school, when I discarded the hated bone-stiff dress, unpinned my hair and let it drop to where it met my newly acquired bosom. When I gazed into the looking gla.s.s and saw my mother staring back at me.

"You're writing to Arno," he said, as though wanting to try a different approach.

"You're not reading my letters, are you?"

He rolled his eyes. "No, Elise, I am not reading your letters. For G.o.d's sake, what do you think of me?"

My own eyes dropped. "I'm sorry, Father."

"So busy rebelling against any available authority you've forgotten your true friends, is that it?"

At her desk Madame Levene was nodding sagely, feeling vindicated.

"I'm sorry, Father," I repeated, ignoring her.

"The fact remains that you have been writing to Arno and-going purely on what he has told me-you have done nothing to fulfill the terms of our agreement."

He cast a significant look toward the headmistress, eyebrows ever so slightly raised.

"What agreement would that be, Father?" I asked innocently, the devil in me.

With another brief nod in the direction of our audience, he added meaningfully, "The agreement we made before you left for Saint-Cyr, Elise, when you a.s.sured me you would be doing your utmost to convince Arno of his suitability for adoption into our family."

"I'm sorry, Father, I'm still not quite sure what you mean."

His brow darkened. Then with a deep breath he turned to the headmistress. "I wonder, Madame, if I might speak to my daughter alone."

"I'm afraid that runs contrary to the policies of the academy, monsieur." She smiled sweetly. "Parents or guardians needing to see pupils in private must provide a request in writing."

"I know, but . . ."

"I'm sorry, monsieur," she insisted.

He drummed his fingers on the leg of his breeches. "Elise, please don't be difficult. You know exactly what I mean. Before you came away to school we agreed that the time was right to adopt Arno into our family." He gave me a meaningful look.

"But he is a member of another family," I said, as though b.u.t.ter wouldn't melt in my mouth.

"Please do not play games with me, Elise."

Madame Levene gave a harrumph. "We are well used to that at the Maison Royale, monsieur."

"Thank you, Madame Levene," said Father irritably. But when he returned his attention to me our eyes met, and some of the frostiness between us evaporated in the face of Madame Levene's unwelcome presence, the corners of his mouth even twitching as he suppressed a smile. In response I gave him my most beatific, innocent look. His eyes grew affectionate as we shared the moment.

He was more measured when he spoke. "Elise, I'm quite certain that I don't need to remind you of the terms of our agreement. Simply to say that if you continue to fail to abide by them, then I shall have to take matters into my own hands."

We both stole a look at Madame Levene, who sat with her hands clasped on the desk in front of her, trying her level best not to look confused but failing miserably. It was the moment I came closest to simply bursting out laughing.

"You mean you will attempt to persuade him of his suitability, Father?"

He became serious, catching me in his gaze. "I will."

"Even though by doing that, you would lose me Arno's trust?"

"It's a risk I would have to take, Elise," replied Father. "Unless you do as you have agreed to do."

And what I had agreed to do was indoctrinate Arno. Bring him into the fold. My heart grew heavy at the thought-the thought of somehow losing Arno. Yet it was do that or have Father do it himself. I imagined Arno, furious, confronting me at some unspecified point in the future-"Why did you never tell me?"-and couldn't bear the thought.

"I will do as we agreed, Father."

"Thank you."

We turned our attention to Madame Levene, who scowled at Father.

"And make sure your behavior improves," he added quickly before slapping his hand to his thighs, which I knew from years of experience meant that our meeting was over.

The headmistress's scowl deepened as instead of admonishing me further, Father stood and gathered me in his arms, almost surprising me with the force of his emotion.

There and then I decided that, for him, I would improve. I would do right by him. Be the daughter he deserved.

8 JANUARY 1788.

When I look back to the diary entry of 8 September 1787, it's to wince with shame at having written, "I would do right by him. Be the daughter he deserved," only to do . . .

. . . absolutely nothing of the sort.

Not only had I neglected to persuade Arno of the joys of converting to the Templar cause (a situation at least partly informed by me disloyally wondering if in fact there were any joys in converting to the Templar cause), my behavior at the Maison Royale had failed to improve.

It had really failed to improve.

It had got a lot worse.

Why, only yesterday Madame Levene called me into her office, the third time in as many weeks. How many times had I made the trip across the years? Hundreds? For insolence, fighting, sneaking out at night (oh, how I loved to sneak out at night, just me and the dew), for drinking, for being disruptive, for scruffiness or for my particular favorite, "persistent bad behavior."

There was n.o.body who knew the route to Madame Levene's office as well as I did. There can't have been a beggar alive who had held out their palm more than I had. And I had learned to antic.i.p.ate the swish of the cane. Even welcome it. Not to blink when the cane left its brand upon my skin.

It was just as I expected this time, more repercussions from a fight with Valerie, who as well as being our group leader was also the star drama pupil when it came to productions by Racine and Corneille. Take my advice, dear reader, and never pick an actress as an adversary. They are so terribly dramatic about everything. Or, as Mr. Weatherall would say, "Such b.l.o.o.d.y drama queens!"

True, this particular disagreement had ended with Valerie in receipt of a black eye and a b.l.o.o.d.y nose. It had happened while I was supposedly on probation for an act of minor revolt at dinner the month before, which is nothing worth going into here. The point was that the headmistress claimed to be at the end of her tether. She had had "quite enough of you, Elise de la Serre. Quite enough young lady."

And there was, of course, the usual talk of expulsion. Except, this time, I was pretty sure it was more than just talk. I was pretty sure that when Madame Levene told me she planned to send a strongly worded letter home requesting my father's attention at once in order that my future at the Maison Royale should be discussed, this was no longer a series of idle threats and that her mind was indeed at the end of its tether.

But still I didn't care.

No, I mean, I don't care. Do your worst, Levene; do your worst, Father. There's no circle of h.e.l.l to which you can consign me worse than the one in which I already find myself.

"I have been sent a letter from Versailles," she said. "Your father is sending an emissary to deal with you."

I had been gazing out of the window, my eyes traveling past the walls of the Maison Royale to the outside, where I longed to be. Now, however, I switched to looking at Madame Levene, her pinched, pruny face, her eyes like stones behind her spectacles. "An emissary?"

"Yes. And from what I read in the letter, this emissary has been given the task of beating some sense into you."

I thought to myself, An emissary? My father was sending an emissary. He wasn't even coming himself, he was sending an emissary. Perhaps he planned to isolate me, I thought, suddenly realizing how horrific I found the idea. My father, one of only three people in the world I truly loved and trusted, simply shutting me out. I'd been wrong. There was another circle of h.e.l.l into which I could be cast.

Madame Levene gloated. "Yes. It appears that your father is too busy to attend to this matter himself. He must send an emissary in his place. Perhaps, Elise, you are not as important to him as you might imagine."

I looked hard at the gloating face of the headmistress and for a brief second imagined myself diving across the desk and wiping the smirk off her face myself, but I was already fomenting other plans.

"The emissary wishes to see you alone," she said.

"I expect you shall listen outside the door."

Her lips thinned. Those stony eyes glittered. "I will enjoy knowing that your impertinence has come with a price, Mademoiselle de la Serre, you can be sure of that."

21 JANUARY 1788.

And so the day came when the emissary was due to arrive. I had stayed out of trouble the week prior to his arrival. According to the other girls I was quieter than usual. Some were asking when the "old Elise" would return; the usual suspects were crowing that I had finally been tamed. We'd see.

Actually, what I was doing was readying myself, mentally and physically. The emissary would be expecting meek acquiescence. He would be expecting a frightened teenager, terrified of expulsion and happy to take any other punishment. The emissary was expecting tears and contrition. He wasn't going to get that.

I was summoned to the office, told to wait, and wait I did. With my hands grasping my purse in which I had secreted a horseshoe "borrowed" from above the dormitory door. It had never brought me any luck. Now was its chance.

From the vestibule outside I heard two voices, Madame Levene with her obsequious, ingratiating welcome to Father's emissary, telling him that "the miscreant awaits her just deserts in my office, monsieur," and then the deeper, growling voice of the emissary as he replied, "Thank you, Madame."

With a gasp I recognized the voice, and still had my hand to my mouth in shock as the door opened and in came Mr. Weatherall.

He closed the door behind him and I threw myself at him, knocking the breath out of him with the force of my emotion, shoulders wracked with sobs that came before I had a chance to stop them. My shoulders heaved as I wept into his chest and I tell you this-I've never ever been as pleased see anyone in my life as I was at that moment.

We stayed like that for some time, with me silently sobbing into my protector until at last I was able to gain control of myself and he held me at arm's length to gaze into my eyes, then, first putting his finger to his lips and moving in front of the keyhole.

Over his shoulder he said loudly, "You may well cry, mademoiselle, for your father is too furious with you to attend to the matter himself. So full of emotion that he has asked me, your governor"-he winked-"to administer your punishment in his place. But first, you shall write to him a letter of abject apology. And when that is done I shall administer your punishment, which you may expect to be the most severe you have ever experienced."

He ushered me to a school desk in one corner of the office, out of view from the keyhole, where I perched with writing paper, quill and pen just in case the headmistress should find an excuse to walk in on us. Then he pulled up a chair, put his elbows to the surface of the desk and, whispering, we began to talk.

"I'm pleased to see you," I told him.

He chortled softly. "Can't say I'm surprised. After all, you were expecting to have seven shades of s.h.i.t knocked out of you."

"Actually," I said, opening my purse to reveal the horseshoe inside, "it was the other way around."

He frowned. Not the reaction I wanted. "And what then, Elise?" he whispered crossly, his forefinger jabbing the top of the desk for emphasis. "You would have been expelled from the Maison Royale. Your education-delayed. Your induction-delayed. Your ascendance to Grand Master-delayed. Exactly what would that path have achieved, eh?"

"I really don't care," I said.

"You don't care, eh? You don't care about your father anymore?"

"You know d.a.m.n well I care about Father."

He sneered at my cursing. "And I know d.a.m.n well you care about your mother, too. And the family name, come to that. So why are you so intent on dragging it through the mud? Why are you seeing to it that you never get as far as Grand Master?"

"It is my destiny to be Grand Master," I replied, realizing with an uncomfortable twinge that I reminded myself of May Carroll.

"A destiny can change, child."

"I'm not a child anymore," I reminded him. "I am twenty years old."

His expression saddened. "You'll always be a child to me, Elise. Don't forget I can remember the little girl learning sword fighting in the woods. Most able pupil I ever had, but also the most impulsive. Bit too full of herself." He looked sideways at me. "You been keeping up your sword fighting?"

I scoffed. "In here? How would I manage that?"

Sarcastically, he pretended to think. "Oh, let's see. Um, how about by keeping a low profile so your every move wasn't watched. So you could sneak away every now and then instead of always being the center of attention. The sword given to you by your mother was for exactly that purpose."

I felt guilty. "Well, no. As you know I haven't been doing that."

"And so your skills have been neglected."

"Then why send me away to a school where that was bound to happen?"

"Point is, it wasn't bound to happen. You shouldn't have let it happen. You're to be a Grand Master."

"Well, that could change, according to you," I retorted, feeling like I'd won the point.

He didn't miss a beat. "And it will change if you don't knuckle down and mend your ways. That lot you call the Crows-Messieurs Lafreniere, Le Peletier, Sivert, and Madame Levesque-are just dying to see you slip up. You think it's all cozy in the Order, do you? That they're all strewing flowers ahead of your coronation as their 'rightful queen,' like in the history books? Nothing could be further from the truth. Every single one of them would like to end the reign of de la Serre and make it so their family name carries the t.i.tle Grand Master. Every single one of them is looking for reasons to depose your father and s.n.a.t.c.h the t.i.tle for himself. Their policies differ from those of your father, remember? He hangs on to their confidence by a thread. Having an errant daughter is the last thing he b.l.o.o.d.y needs. Besides . . ."

"What?"

He glanced to the door. No doubt Madame Levene had her ear pressed hard against it, and it was for her benefit that Mr. Weatherall said loudly, "And just you make sure you use your very best handwriting, mademoiselle."

Quietening, he leaned closer toward me. "You remember the two men who attacked you, no doubt?"

"How could I forget?"

"Well," continued Mr. Weatherall, "I promised your mother I'd find the fella who wore the doctor outfit, and I think I have."

I gave him a look.

"Yeah, all right," he admitted, "so it's taken me a while. But I've found him is the important thing."

Faces so close they were almost touching. I could smell wine on his breath.

"Who is he?" I asked.

"His name is Ruddock, and he is indeed an a.s.sa.s.sin, or was, at least."