A black carriage stood by the open double doors of a church. Notre Dame de Bonne Nouvelle. A woman was being forced into the carriage while a half dozen archers kept the crowd away. As the man pushed her in and sat down opposite her, I saw their faces. Desgrez. And La Voisin.

"It's today," I whispered. "I must warn her. She must not go to Ma.s.s. They're waiting for her at the church." I stood up suddenly, all thought of breakfast forgotten. "Bring the carriage. Sylvie! I need to dress!"

"Madame, Monsieur d'Urbec has taken the carriage."

"Oh, d.a.m.n! Then call me anything you can find. Oh, it's Sunday! It's hopeless. Find someone; do something! I must get to Notre Dame de Bonne Nouvelle before late Ma.s.s!" Gilles disappeared out the kitchen door.

"Astaroth does not lace up women," came the impudent voice from the next room.

"Plague take you, Sylvie, and Astaroth, too!" I shouted as I hurried upstairs. I struggled into my shift and b.u.t.toned on a loose sacque of indigo wool that I wore only indoors. Then I pinned my hair back untidily and hid the mess under a white linen cap. "There," I said as I settled my wide brimmed hat over the cap, "at least that appears decent." I fastened my heavy cloak and fled to the front door, where I found a vinaigrette waiting accompanied by an apologetic Gilles.

"I told them it was a holy duty to take a poor, infirm woman to Ma.s.s," he said.

"Notre Dame de Bonne Nouvelle," I told them. "If you get me there before the late Ma.s.s, I'll double your fee."

But we reached the rue de Bonne Nouvelle just as the bells were pealing. As I paid the man and told him to wait, the doors of the church were thrown open, and the first Ma.s.s goers strolled out, talking. But as I tried to pa.s.s by them into the church, the black carriage drove up and halted in the street before the church door. I shrank back behind an immense woman in half mourning as the archers stationed themselves nearby and Desgrez and a companion strode purposefully toward the doors.

Madame was elegantly dressed in her green gown, covered by a fur-trimmed mantle and hood. Her hands were concealed in a matching fur m.u.f.f, and she wore a pair of cleverly made wrought-iron pattens to save her handsome kid shoes from the mud. She never paused when she saw Desgrez but raised up her chin and looked down her nose as a housewife might when she sees a mouse run through another woman's kitchen. The crowd had stopped to watch the scene unfolding before us.

"Madame Montvoisin, I believe?" asked Desgrez.

"I am she," responded La Voisin.

"I arrest you in the name of the King," announced Desgrez.

But the crowd began to mutter. Then a woman's voice cried, "What are you doing? She is an honest woman!"

"Yes! Yes!" shouted someone else. "She supports her old mother!"

"Arrest your own mother, police dog!" cried a man.

"Archers!" called Desgrez. "Disperse, all of you, before you are shot as rebels. You interfere with the King's justice!" As the archers forced the crowd back, Desgrez and his companion forced La Voisin into the carriage. I stood paralyzed. How could it all end so quickly, so surely? La Reynie had won. Montespan had lost. There would be human bonfires on the Place de Greve. Desgrez, his face like cold iron, would sit on horseback beside them until the blackened cinders floated away on the wind. The greatest sorceress the world had ever known was finished.

Suddenly fear seized me. The account books: the thought burned through my brain. I fought my way through the crowd and found that my conveyance had vanished at the first sign of the police. Limping rapidly through the spring muck, oblivious of my shoes, I raced for the house on the rue Beauregard. Too late. The seals had been placed. Two guards stood at the front door. As I tried to go round to the side door, someone powerful grabbed me from behind, covering my mouth and dragging me into an alley.

"Quiet, you idiot. I knew you'd be here."

"Florent," I tried to mumble, but his hand stopped me.

"Don't mention my name," he hissed. "The police are everywhere. The carriage is hidden in the next street. This way, and quietly."

We hurried through the narrow alley and out onto the rue de la Lune, where he pushed me into the carriage and swung in beside me.

"The books, Florent...the contract...I'm lost."

"Never mind. We'll leave anyway."

"I can't, Florent. The police know me; my description is at the barriers. For all I know, they have orders to arrest me already. There's only one way. Take everything, and go without me. G.o.d knows, I won't be needing any of it anymore."

"Genevieve, what are you saying?" His voice was shocked.

I clutched at him and wept. "Go right away. Don't lose your life for me. And when you marry again, name a daughter after me, and remember that I loved you-"

"Genevieve, my darling," he said tenderly, embracing me, "I couldn't, I wouldn't, leave without you. I have the contract, and the P volume of her account ledgers. I went away this morning to buy them from Antoine Montvoisin for a hundred livres. When I heard you talking last night, I knew it was my best chance."

"You bought them? You have them?" My heart began to beat hard, and I looked up at his face, unbelieving.

"Well, more or less bought. I bribed him and then broke into the cupboard. The locks weren't hard-remember, I'm a clockmaker's son, and have plenty of experience with mechanisms."

"Then Montvoisin-he's fled? And Marie-Marguerite?" He shook his head.

"Both taken, I'm afraid. He was keeping watch outside her cabinet. When I heard the knock at the front door, I tied the stuff into my shirt and dropped out the window. I barely fit-and nearly broke both legs in the bargain. But it was just as well. It turned out the police were at the front, back, and side doors. The place was surrounded. I climbed over the neighbor's garden wall and left through the alley. See here? I've ruined my breeches."

"Oh, Florent." Even hearing of his narrow escape made my heart stop.

"Then as I was about to depart, I reflected: the way you've been claiming to see things lately, you might well try to come to the house to talk her out of the contract yourself-"

"I came to warn her-I saw her taken after Ma.s.s-"

"Same thing. Two equally foolish endeavors, and both the sort of thing you'd try, if you flew into a panic. What would have happened if you'd kept her from Ma.s.s? They'd have just arrested her at home. You can't change fate-Oh, look at this; we're almost home."

Upstairs, I found Sylvie packing, while Mustapha sat in my big chair and criticized: "Too much, Sylvie, too much. We're not taking a wagon."

"Two small trunks only, and the little chest with Madame's jewels. You need to leave room for the bird cage," announced Florent.

"But Madame's dresses-"

"Leave all the Marquise de Morville's things, Sylvie. Just pack my linens, my court gowns, the rose dress, the crimson velvet, and the new one with the pretty blue stripes and flowers. I will just have to leave my old age behind me."

"Very well, Madame." She began to unpack the widow's weeds, the Spanish farthingale, the ruffs, and black veils. She shook her head; a pity, she seemed to say. All that money.

"Sylvie, has the message come from the Chevalier de la Motte yet?"

"Not yet, Monsieur." Florent began to pace and fume.

"Florent, what's wrong?" I asked him.

"Nothing, nothing. Come away and I'll explain." He took me into the antechamber and shut the door. "My plans have been disrupted, but Lamotte has vowed to do his best."

"Lamotte?"

"Yes, Lamotte, who rises in favor daily, and who owes me rather more than he can repay. Oh, he had tears in his eyes when he promised. It's just that Lamotte's tears are plentiful and dramatic, but never quite reliable-d.a.m.n! If we could have waited until Easter, it would have been easy. His new play will be presented at court. He will have to leave Paris to supervise the arrangements, and he has been granted the use of one of the carriages from the stable of the Hotel Bouillon for the trip to court."

"Why, it's perfect. Carriages with the arms of great houses are never stopped or searched like common vehicles. They wouldn't even think to ask that the window curtains be opened. They never ask who's inside."

"Exactly. But we have bought only a few days at best by absconding with La Voisin's records. We need to be far gone from here before her interrogation under torture begins."

"But it's Lent-there are no plays."