Poison Priestess by Lana Popovic (some good books to read TXT) 📗

outraged glances, and I see her hand creep down toward her boot, ready to flick out a blade. My own hand hovers above my knife belt just in case.

Then the hood is twitched back to reveal the Marquise de Montespan’s fluted features, a satisfied smile hovering on her lips.

“Pardon the intrusion, mesdames,” she drawls into our bemused silence. “I went searching for you at the haven first, Madame Monvoisin. But I was told that, at this hour, I might find you here instead.”

She sweeps her gaze over the tavern’s buckling rafters and water-splotched walls, wrinkling her nose in distaste.

“Though I confess I haven’t the slightest idea why you would choose such a tasteless den of ill repute in which to while away the hours. Surely you have better choices, even in such a cesspool as the cité.”

“Cesspool,” Marie mutters under her breath. “Oh, that’s rich, coming from a strumpet of Versailles.”

Fortunately, the marquise does not hear her over the din. I glance around the room for the marquise’s armed escort, should Marie think to take even more pointed umbrage; surely a grande dame would not have ventured into the cité’s depths unchaperoned. Three flinty pairs of eyes meet mine from the corners of the room, laden with warning. Despite the deliberate insouciance she projects, the lady is clearly not so heedless as she seems.

“Had we known to expect the pleasure of your company, my lady,” I respond a trifle archly, turning back to her, “we might have arranged for a more suitable venue.”

“Oh, I know, I should have sent ahead.” She waves a dismissive hand. “But I simply could not wait another moment to share the good news with you, not when I am fairly bursting with it.”

She glances over at Marie, flicking up her eyebrows with pronounced distaste, as though she approves of Marie and her flamboyantly colored, oft-mended skirts no more than she does of our surroundings.

“Perhaps your … friend could afford us a moment alone to speak?”

At my nod, Marie rises only reluctantly, her face set in a mask of stony fury. Once she’s gone, the marquise scrapes her chair closer to mine and seizes both my hands, exuberant as a high-spirited child.

“I must tell you, it all worked beautifully,” she breathes, widening her eyes at me. “Exactly as you said! I poured the philter into his wine, and not a week later I was warming his bed. Such lust, too, as I have never seen—the man positively could not get enough of me!”

“I am pleased to hear it,” I respond quickly, hoping to spare myself the sordid details of her conquest even as my heart soars at my success. If the marquise is pleased with the philter’s performance, that means she will soon require more—which means more coin with which to line my pockets, and to build the rampart between me and ruin.

“But it gets even better! Today he acknowledged me before all the court assembled. I am no longer just the Marquise de Montespan, you see—but Athenais de Rochechouart de Mortemart, maîtresse-en-titre to le Roi himself.” She draws herself up smugly, preening, her eyes lustrous with triumph. “The official mistress of our own lord and liege.”

I gape at her, shock rolling through me like great tumbling boulders. Her lover, the shining man I spied in the vision of her future—could that truly have been Louis Dieudonné, le Roi Soleil? The Sun King himself?

“Mon Dieu,” I whisper, feeling the first flush of a crackling delight, as if her elation is catching as brushfire. “That … certainly warrants congratulations, my lady. It is quite the coup.”

“To have replaced Louise de la Vallière in the king’s affections, pried free her stranglehold on him? I should say it is.” She squeezes my hands, blinking languorously, like a cat sated with cream. “I move into the maîtresse’s apartments next week. And I owe it all to you.”

“I only shed light on what was already there, my lady,” I protest, but in a perfunctory fashion. I want to preserve her high spirits, keep her half mad with glee and indebted to me. “But I am very glad to know the philter won the day for you.”

“But what is won must be kept, n’est-ce pas? And I have no intention of ever being ousted by some upstart as poor Louise was by me.” She leans forward until her azure eyes glitter not an inch away from mine. “Not when I could have your sight to guide my every step. To ensure that my ascent continues undeterred.”

“I am always here to advise and assist you,” I respond, inclining my head demurely, though my mind teems with the potential of what else I might sell her. “The philter must be administered regularly, of course, to bolster His Majesty’s lust and guarantee his devotion. And there are helpful spells, cantrips to ensure that his eye never strays from you—”

“But surely you can see that is only the beginning for us,” she cuts me off, and I catch a sudden flash of her as I saw her in my vision. Gloriously ablaze on the ramparts, head unbowed by the weight of her extravagant almost-crown. A self-forged queen aflame with ambition. “Court is a pit of vipers beyond anything you could fathom, Madame Monvoisin. I mean to surround myself with allies, to instill those closest to me with unshakable loyalty—and for such a feat, I will require your ongoing assistance.”

As my mind whirls with the implications, she favors me with a complicit smile. So suggestive and beguiling I catch a glimpse of what the king himself must see when he looks at her.

“As my very own official sorceress, bien sûr,” she says, spreading her hands. “My devineresse-en-titre, so to speak. Shall we discuss the terms?”

“To begin, she will advance me a sum sufficient to save the house, so that my wastrel husband does not wind up without a home—but she won’t formalize our arrangement unless I agree to live at a residence of her choosing,”