Poison Priestess, Lana Popovic [romance novel chinese novels .txt] 📗

over the wedding jewel on her left hand, her joy dimming a shade with guilt. But, I think wryly, only a shade. The man is not her husband, then, which comes as no great surprise. As I have heard it told, court is a den of vice and infidelity, in which romance flourishes most unabashedly between those not wed to each other.

“What more can you see of him?” she demands. “Does he love me, too?”

I frown, sifting the obscuring mists for a clearer picture.

“It seems he does, though with some trepidation,” I allow. “But should he choose to forge ahead nevertheless, the love between you will grow into the stuff of legend. It will elevate you far above your station, set you high above your envious peers.”

Every word is true, though not quite so clear as I make it sound. Visions of the future often unfold like a gauzy dream rather than any concrete depiction. In this one, I see the marquise standing on some high-flung battlement gilded by fiery sunrise, a towering headpiece akin to a crown set upon her head. A grand habit sewn from cloth-of-gold billows around her like a royal pennant.

And she looks triumphant, overjoyed, glutted with newfound power.

A newborn queen in all but name.

When a gasp tears free of her lips, I realize I have said the last aloud.

“A queen in all but name,” she repeats, awestruck, having shed the last of her nonchalant veneer. “Yes. That is it, that is what I want! And now you must help me seize it, make certain that it comes to pass.”

I cock my head in question, unsure what she means. “But I have seen all that I can. What further help would you have of me?”

She leans across the table, flinty determination hardening her delicate face. “You said that Lou—That he has some trepidation,” she replies. “About loving me. Alors, we must sweep any such hesitation to the side, ensure that he becomes just as besotted as he wishes. Surely there are draughts for such things, non? Philtres d’amour and the like?”

Ah. I sit back against my chair, crossing my arms over my chest. So the marquise is angling for a love potion, an aphrodisiac. Thus far I have summarily refused all such requests. Though love philters are a far cry from poison, I have steered studiously clear of tangling myself in my clients’ affairs by offering anything that might demand a guarantee of certain success.

“I’m afraid I am no quacksalver, madame,” I reply, shaking my head. “I do not claim to influence the future, only to bespy it.”

“And why ever not?” she demands, her nostrils flaring with consternation. “You are obviously a sorceress of considerable power, else you could never have known what you just told me. Surely if anyone could craft the future, it would be a skillful divineress such as yourself.”

“Meddling with love is a risky business, madame,” I warn. “Perhaps it would be best if you allowed these matters of the heart to unfold of their own natural accord.”

“Hang what’s best,” she snaps, her eyes glittering with fervor. “We are meant to be, he and I, I know it in my bones. And I deserve his love, Madame Monvoisin—for all I am, and all that I can offer him.”

She places both palms flat on the table, lips pursing with conviction. “I will not falter now, not when I am so very close. Not when I have more than earned his love.”

It is this that sways me, the high esteem in which she holds herself. It appeals to me, somehow, that she should be so convinced of her own worth. And if a love philter is evil at all, it is certainly only the small sort of evil Agnesot instructed me to nurture, nowhere near the league of deathly poison. I think of one of the love concoctions detailed in the grimoire: a disturbing little mélange of dove’s blood, ground peacock bones, and crushed iris petals. I have never had the cause or inclination to test it, so I cannot be certain of its potency. But even if it promotes ardor only weakly, its very presence may bolster the marquise’s efforts to win the luminous man’s heart.

And given the fever pitch of her desire, I’ve no doubt I can charge her an exorbitant sum for its preparation.

“There is something,” I concede. “I will have it ready for you two days hence.”

“Oh, marvelous,” she purrs as she settles back in her seat, aglow with satisfaction. “And tell me, have you any suggestion on how I should dose him with it? He is … often surrounded by a fawning entourage. A great many attentive eyes that rarely stray from him. The delivery must be a subtle thing.”

I think of the magician Lesage, his nimble hands and engaging face, and of Marie’s hollow rings. Surely I could procure one such for the marquise.

“I’ll send a clever little trinket along with the philter, and instructions on how to use it,” I say. “All you must do is ensure that his attention is occupied elsewhere when you doctor his drink. If you practice enough to do it deftly, he won’t notice a thing.”

“Oh, I think I can manage as much,” she muses, trailing idle fingertips over her collarbone, her eyes sparkling like polished gems with anticipation. “Thank you, Madame Monvoisin. And I assure you, you will have no cause to regret this. To the contrary—I believe you have made the future a great deal brighter for us both.”

When I come home from Les Halles the following day with fresh flowers for the marquise’s potion, the repossession men have returned en masse.

They troop past me as if I scarcely exist, lugging our paintings and fine furniture out the door like a conquering army’s spoils, heaving them into dray carts that await on the street. Swarming over our maison like corpse beetles over carrion.

“Antoine!” I cry out, dropping my basket as I rush into a sitting room picked down