"But the King-your great triumph...surely you must pa.s.s out of the city if you are called to court again..."

"He knows if he lets me out of the city to follow the court, I'm as good as gone. And I'm sure he has seen the King. After all, he reports to him daily. My ident.i.ty was established too quickly for him not to have seen the King. And I'm allowed to use the gla.s.s again, providing I report all requests for political readings to him and make no political predictions of my own."

"Thus the King keeps the letter of his word," muttered La Voisin.

"Exactly," I agreed.

I did not dare to tell her what information the police had asked me to bring them: information about people in debt, people desperate for a legacy, who might turn to poison to improve their situation. Their questions had led me to suspect that the confessors of Paris had done their job all too well and that the police had at last discovered the trade in "inheritance powders." It was only a matter of time until some other informer led them to La Voisin. My plan was to drown them with trivia until such a time as I could flee safely. I would not betray the queen of the witches. Ghastly as she was, I owed her that much.

CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE

There is something depressing about cleaning up a house that the police have searched. Papers, books, and clothing were strewn everywhere. The wine cellar was a jumble and half the bottles missing. We threw out the broken china and sent the slashed tapestries out to be rewoven.

"Don't sigh so, Madame. The chair can be reupholstered."

"I think I'll just have it patched, Sylvie. And I'm going to sell my paintings. We aren't going to be nearly as well off, now that I can't travel with the court." The gray day suited my gray mood. The year had already turned, but spring seemed very far away. I'd managed to sell my ivory-inlaid end table and the biggest pieces of silver and convert them into two diamond bracelets. But La Reynie, when I had visited him in the gown of a fishwife from Les Halles, had wrinkled up his nose and said, as he read my report, "Ah, excellent, just what I wanted. So tell me, what does a fishwife want with diamond bracelets? I do hope you aren't thinking of leaving us. My Desgrez is a bloodhound who laughs at borders." Sylvie, I thought, as I watched him fan away the scent of dead fish with his hand. She's on the police payroll, too. I must be more careful.

"Oh, look, Madame, a carriage is stopping before the house. It's a sign. Your grand clientele is returning." I looked out the window and saw a familiar figure in a heavy, gold-braided cloak and wide plumed hat descend from the carriage.

"No-It's Florent! He's back!" I cried joyfully as I rushed to open the door for him. His face lit up at the sight of me, and he embraced me so tightly that my feet didn't even touch the ground.

"Oh, G.o.d, I was so hungry for you," he said. "It's been so long, and I thought you might not..."

"...not wait for you? Florent, how could you? There's no one for me but you..." His rough cheek against my face felt so good. His warmth went through me. The sunshine of the south seemed to fill the house. He sat me down and sent Gilles upstairs with his trunk.

Then he looked around, quietly noting the vanished silver and furniture, and remarked mildly, "Things seem to have changed around here, haven't they? Ah well, they are changing throughout Europe as well. Have you heard the news about the Prince of Orange's wedding to Mary, the English princess? Quite unexpected. Now he is heir to the English throne. They say that they hurried to the chapel with only a few witnesses. But it makes sense. The King had launched a plot to have the Princess kidnapped, brought to France, and forcibly wedded to the Dauphin."

"Actually, Florent, I predicted that wedding ages ago. That's what started all my troubles." D'Urbec looked indulgent, as if he didn't believe a word, but he owed me a hearing anyway.

"You know," he said, "what surprised half of Europe was how calmly the King took the news, almost as if he knew already. 'The beggars are well matched,' he said, and that was all. Quite astonishing, really, considering how disappointed he must have been. He had planned to gain favor with the Holy Father by reconverting England to Catholicism. Amazing"-and here d'Urbec shook his head-"the King must have spies everywhere. The Prince of Orange hiccups in his own cabinet, and the King gets the news within the week."

"That's part of the problem, too, Florent. The King has taken my living, and the police are after me." Florent looked deeply troubled, but I put my finger across his lips to silence him. "Not here, not here," I whispered. "Let me tell you all about it over supper."

In one of the curtained a.s.signation rooms in the back of a fashionable restaurant, I laid out the problem over supper. The very mention of my predicament cost me my appet.i.te, but Florent ate like a wolf, finishing my portion, too, while he listened.

"...so you see, Florent, I've never been in more of a mess. La Reynie has threatened to have me condemned for freethinking, lese-majeste, treason, and G.o.d knows what else if I don't turn police informer. If La Voisin finds out that's what he wanted, snap! She'll get rid of me just like that! Poison in the soup, an accident, who knows what? Besides, I don't earn enough money to tempt her to leave me alive, now that the King has undercut my business for fear my political predictions could be used in plots against him. And oh, Florent, I hated jail! I was all alone...I thought you'd think I left you...and La Reynie locked me up with nothing but a horrid book of...sermons!" I started to cry, remembering, but Florent just tipped his head back and began to laugh.

"A feast of moral masterworks? Now there's what I call real torture."

"It's not funny, Florent; they were ghastly," I said, wiping my eyes.

"So," he announced cheerfully, polishing off the last bones of the capon and wiping his fingers on the napkin, "there is really only one way out of your problem."

"Yes, out of Paris, and I'm trapped here like a dog on a leash."

"No," he said, "first of all you need to get married-preferably to me."

"How would that solve anything? I thought you were brilliant, Florent, but now you turn out to think just like a man."

"And very good thinking it is, too." He laughed. "Consider my reasoning. First point: If you are married, your brother, as head of the family, no longer has a claim on your property-nor does he have the right to confine you in a convent for a scandalous way of life, which, by the way, you lead. So La Reynie loses this implicit threat over you. Second point: As your spouse, I can pursue your inheritance, since it becomes mine. In France, this would mean years of litigation and bribery. But abroad, it would be much simpler, because your brother does not have possession-indeed, he does not even know about Cortezia et Benson."

"But...but-"

"No, hear me out. There's a third point. The officers at the barriers give their chief attention to goods being smuggled in, not criminals being smuggled out. You could flee the city anytime if you were content to go in disguise with only what you could carry concealed on your person. It is Madame de Morville, her carriage, her servants, that are notorious. Genevieve Pasquier on foot would be almost invisible, especially if she could restrain her desire to wear two rings on every finger. But you shrink from the gypsy life, Athena; you entertain a most understandable fear of dying in a ditch in some foreign country."

"So what if I do?"

"Love of material things has closed your escape route, Athena. You should have considered more closely the excellent spiritual materials offered you by Monsieur de La Reynie."

"It's not that...but my books, my silver...why, the furniture alone is worth-" Here he shushed me by putting a finger across my lips.

"Point proven, my sweet. Now, you must remember that I am a specialist in transferring resources abroad in secret. I am exactly what you require. I cannot make a move, however, unless I have a legal right to handle your property." He c.o.c.ked his head sideways and looked out of the corner of his eyes at me, his face amused.

"Florent..."

"Yes, I know what you meant to say. You'd have to trust me. And it's one thing to love a man but quite another to trust him, especially in your book-not so, little sorceress?" He smiled, finished off the last of a half-empty wine goblet, and waited to hear what I would say.

"No, that's not it. It's that you'd risk your life..."

"Risk? That's nothing to me. Genevieve, I have trusted you, even though you tell me you are a police informer." He saw the shocked look on my face and went on. "What you do not know is that I have a vial of poison sewn in the hem of my coat. In my work, it is best not to be taken alive. The risk to me, these days, is being in Paris at all, and the main reason I am here is you. But with you...life seems...too precious to throw away. I have high connections abroad these days. We could start again overseas, have a home together, everything we can't have here. So you see? I have just trusted you with my life. The least you can do is trust me in return."

"Florent, you're trying to trick me into marriage." I could feel my hands shaking.

"Of course I am. And what is your answer?" I looked into the bottom of my wine goblet, trying to decide, and I could feel the fear welling up in me like a fever.

"I...I need to think. Let me tell you tomorrow."

"And I knew that would be what you would say. Send me word when you have made up your mind, won't you? But don't delay too long; we don't know how long you have. Weeks, months-think about that when you ponder the terrifying issue of marriage."

That night I woke up what seemed like dozens of times, trembling all over.

It was Grandmother's parrot that made up my mind for me. The damp thaws that come just before spring had given it a chill, and it sat huddled up on its perch, its feathers all fluffed up in a dismal ball, its black eyes mournful. As I set it by the fire to warm, it gurgled unhappily.

"Lorito, you and I feel the same," I told it.

"h.e.l.l and d.a.m.nation," it croaked dolefully.

"Exactly. What a mess. Tell me. Should I leave or stay?"

"Sodom and Gomorrah," announced the bird, poking his head up hopefully.