Read Chapter 25: The King's Decree

The candle had burned down to a stub of wax when the knock came, three sharp raps against the postern gate. Marguerite’s hand flew to the pistol at her waist—Armand’s pistol, taken from his study the night before—but Dr. Beaumont’s voice came low through the wood before she could draw.

“It’s me. And I bring ill news.”

The Duchesse rose from the armchair where she had been staring at the fire for the past hour, her face pale but composed. “Let him in.”

Marguerite slid the bolt and pulled the gate ajar. Dr. Beaumont slipped through, his coat dusted with road grime, his wig askew. He looked from Marguerite to the Duchesse, then back, and something in his expression made Marguerite’s stomach clench.

“The trial was this morning,” he said, stripping off his gloves. “Secret, as we feared. The Comtesse was condemned in under an hour.”

“Condemned to what?” the Duchesse asked, her voice barely above a whisper.

Beaumont’s jaw tightened. “Death. By poison, fittingly enough. They’ll make a spectacle of it—she’s to drink the very elixir she sold, in the courtyard of the Bastille, before the public.”

Marguerite felt a cold thread run down her spine. The Comtesse, who had recommended her for her position, who had smiled at her in the corridors of Versailles, who had traded in lives like sugar and silk—she would die as her victims had died. There should have been justice in that. All Marguerite felt was the chill of a system that punished the obvious while the true architect remained in shadow.

“And what of us?” the Duchesse asked. “The Comtesse named us as the ring’s leaders. Did she recant at the trial?”

Beaumont shook his head slowly. “She did not. She maintained her accusation to the last, though she offered one curious detail.” He paused, drawing a folded paper from his inner pocket. “She claimed the Duchesse poisoned herself to win sympathy, and that you, Marguerite, provided the elixir under the guise of a beauty treatment.”

“That’s monstrous,” Marguerite breathed. “We have the ledger copies. We can prove—“

“The ledgers are not in the King’s hands,” Beaumont cut in. “The Comtesse’s testimony is all he has, and it suits him well enough. The King issued a decree this morning, before the trial even concluded. A general crackdown on all poison sellers and practitioners of the dark arts across Paris and Versailles. Houses are being searched as we speak. Anyone found with suspicious substances—even common herbal remedies—will be arrested and questioned.”

The Duchesse’s hand went to her throat. “They’ll find nothing in my chambers. I’ve never—“

“It won’t matter,” Marguerite said quietly, understanding dawning like a cold sunrise. “They don’t need to find anything. They have the Comtesse’s word, and the King has a mandate now to purge the court. We’re not merely accused. We’re enemies of the crown.”

Silence fell over the small room. Somewhere beyond the postern gate, a bell began to toll—the evening bell from the chapel, marking the hour. How strange, Marguerite thought, that the world should continue its rituals while hers was collapsing.

“We cannot flee yet,” the Duchesse said finally, her voice steadier than Marguerite could have managed. “If we run now, it confirms our guilt. The King will send guards to Versailles before dawn. If we’re here, we’ll be taken. If we’re gone, we’ll be hunted.”

“Then we must not be taken, and we must not be hunted,” Marguerite said. “There has to be a middle path.”

Beaumont shook his head. “There isn’t. Not unless you can produce the original ledgers and convince the King that the Comtesse lied—and even then, you’d be admitting to breaking into a safe house and stealing from the very ring you claim to be innocent of leading.”

“Then we retrieve the ledgers and we don’t go to the King,” the Duchesse said. “We go to someone he trusts more than he trusts his own judgment.”

Marguerite frowned. “His mistress?”

“The Marquise de Maintenon is devout, not foolish. She’s risen further than any woman at court without a title to her name. She knows the value of useful information, and she knows the King’s mind better than his ministers do.” The Duchesse turned to Marguerite, and there was something new in her eyes—a hardening, a resolve that had been missing since the accusations began. “But she will not see me. I’m compromised. You, however—”

“Me?” Marguerite’s voice pitched higher than she intended. “I’m a lady’s maid. She wouldn’t give me the time of day.”

“She watches everyone, Marguerite. And she’s heard of you.” Beaumont’s voice had a strange edge to it. “There was talk this morning, after the decree was read. The Marquise asked about the maid who had exposed the Comtesse’s dealings—who had broken into a safe house and escaped armed men. She was impressed.”

Marguerite stared at him. “How would she know about the safe house?”

“Because everyone knows now,” Beaumont said grimly. “The story has spread through Paris like fire through dry reeds. The scandal of the century, they’re calling it. Poison at Versailles, a lady’s maid playing detective, a duchess accused of poisoning herself. The broadsheets are already printing versions.”

The Duchesse swore under her breath—a word Marguerite had never heard her use. “We didn’t want notoriety. We wanted proof.”

“What we want and what we get have diverged,” Marguerite said, her mind racing. The Marquise de Maintenon. If she could get an audience, if she could present the copied ledger pages and make a case for the Duchesse’s innocence—but no. She had refused to leave the Duchesse before, and she would not leave her now, even for a chance at salvation.

“I can’t go alone,” she said. “If the King’s men come while I’m gone—“

“They won’t come tonight,” Beaumont said. “The decree was issued at noon. They’ll search the most prominent houses first, make a show of it. Versailles is hours away, and they’ll want to do it in daylight, where the court can see the authority of the crown being exercised.” He paused. “You have until dawn.”

The Duchesse crossed to Marguerite and took her hands. Her skin was cold, but her grip was firm. “Go to the Marquise. Take the copies. If she can intercede with the King before his guards arrive, we have a chance. If not—” She didn’t finish, but she didn’t need to. If not, they would spend the rest of whatever lives they had running from the longest arm in France.

Marguerite looked down at their joined hands. She thought of the letter in her pocket, her mother’s letter, still unread. She thought of Claire, vanished in the night, whose note had set this whole chain into motion. She thought of Armand, sent to the country in disgrace, ready to testify against his own sister if it saved his skin.

“I’ll go,” she said. “But I need you to promise me something.”

“Anything.”

“If I don’t return by dawn, take the back roads to Amiens. There’s a house on the Rue de la Cathédrale run by the Sisters of Saint Claire. They take in women fleeing trouble. Wait there for word from me.”

The Duchesse’s eyes glistened, but she nodded. “I will.”

Marguerite retrieved the ledger copies from beneath the loose floorboard where she’d hidden them, wrapped them in oilcloth, and tucked them into her bodice. She buckled on Armand’s pistol, checked that it was loaded, and moved toward the door.

A knock came at the front of the house—four heavy strikes, official in their rhythm.

The three of them froze.

“That’s too soon,” Beaumont said, his voice barely audible. “The decree was noon. They can’t have reached Versailles in—“

The knock came again, louder.

“I know that knock,” the Duchesse whispered, her face going white. “It’s the King’s guard.”

Marguerite’s hand went to the pistol, but Beaumont caught her wrist. “No. You go out the back—the postern gate. Now.”

“But the Duchesse—“

“I’ll stay,” the Duchesse said, squaring her shoulders. “They’ll find nothing here, and I can talk to them. Delay them. Buy you the time you need.” She reached out and touched Marguerite’s cheek—a gesture so maternal that Marguerite’s throat tightened. “Go. Find the Marquise. Save us both.”

The knock came a third time, and through the window Marguerite caught a glimpse of harness leather stamped with the fleur-de-lis.

She pressed the Duchesse’s hand once, then slipped through the back passage toward the postern gate, the oilcloth-wrapped papers digging into her ribs with every step.

Behind her, she heard the front door open, and the Duchesse de Montfort’s voice, steady and aristocratic, greeting her captors like unwelcome guests at a ball.

Marguerite slipped into the night and ran.