One for All, page 27
Théa, in the middle of mending a dress, screeched. “Tu m’as fait sursauter!”
“Oh, je suis très désolée. I’m very sorry for scaring you,” Portia sang, arms floating as she danced to imaginary music. “I suppose you don’t want to know about the lullaby the Comtesse has written on her fans, then?”
“Portia? Tania? Is that you?” Madame de Treville popped her head into the hallway.
“A lullaby?” she said once we’d summarized our findings to her. “Let’s hear it.”
“Do I really need to sing it?” I used to like singing—nothing too showy, childhood tunes—but that was before the dizziness. Before every extended note was a potential fainting spell.
“There could be a clue in the notes,” Madame de Treville said.
Shoulders tight, fingers laced together, I took a breath.
Dors bien, mon trésor
Fais de beaux rêves
I winced at the missed note, sharp and scratchy.
Et, si tu as peur
Rappelle-toi ces paroles:
Tu iras loin
Si les petits cochons ne te mangent pas
I exhaled after the last line, winded and relieved.
Théa broke into applause. I jerked—the noise came from opposite corners of the room. At the other end, hands clapping soft together, face lifted from a stack of papers and nose smudged with ink, was Henri. As soon as he noticed me noticing him, his applause died.
“I’ll map the notes onto the coded message, to see if there’s any possible key to be found,” Madame de Treville said, humming to herself as she marked down the score. “A fairly common musical pattern. Familiar enough that even if you missed a few of the notes, we can predict the rest.”
“The lyrics seem fairly innocuous. Are we sure it’s related to the plot?” Aria’s voice was tight with contemplation.
“Obviously they’d want it to seem innocent, wouldn’t they? Perhaps it’s in code, too,” Portia said.
Théa repeated the lyrics, words a shimmer, buoyant, not singing but still sounding better than my attempt:
Sleep well, my treasure
Dream sweet dreams
And, if you are afraid
Remember these words:
You will go far
If the piglets don’t eat you
Madame de Treville tensed. “Repeat that last bit?”
“Si les petits cochons ne te mangent pas.”
Portia perked up, alert. “It’s a saying; it means ‘you’ll go far if nothing gets in the way.’ But why use it in the first place? That’s practically the opposite of a reassuring thing to sing to a child before sleep—and for that matter, going far if obstacles don’t get in your way doesn’t have much to do with dreaming at all. Why not say that the cauchemar, her nightmare, isn’t real? Or that her mother will protect them?”
“I know it’s a saying, but maybe it’s meant to signify something more literal?” Théa wondered. “Maybe some of the goods smuggled in were pigs? Les petits cochons?”
Aria frowned. “Too risky. Aside from the weapons, we think the goods are used for bribes. They’d stick to items they have control over. Fabrics, luxuries…”
“But what about the ball, the one where the host served oranges and chocolates?” Théa asked.
“Still less likely than live pigs to carry disease. Or make a ruckus when unloaded.”
We all fell silent. The quiet cloaked us. Madame de Treville sat back in her chair and surveyed the jumble. “I’ll cross-reference the lyrics with my library … maybe there’s a clue to be found.” Her tone wasn’t hopeful. A gust of air escaped between her teeth, a grimace distorting her mouth. “I’ll send a request for music-specific texts from Mazarin. Maybe send for the King’s favorite composers, and others who’ve studied music.”
“What about your visit with that Madame? Was she of any use?” Portia asked Madame de Treville.
“We didn’t have the chance to speak with her; apparently she was ‘out.’ But her attendant let slip she was at a gathering hosted by the Comtesse earlier this week. And then, when we were entering the carriage, I swear I saw her observing through one of the upstairs windows.” The masked man’s taunt echoed hollow in my ears. Mademoiselle la Mousquetaire. Perhaps he wasn’t the only one who knew our secrets. “Well,” Madame de Treville said. “While I contact Mazarin: Each of you, take an encyclopedia. Search for phrases, anything that can be linked to the lullaby. Definitions, the terms themselves—everything is fair game.” Her half smile held the weight of countless sleepless nights, of long hours studying the intricate maps on these very walls. Portia groaned as she was handed a stack of books. “Start with these. Go read them in the main library, though, so you don’t disturb me.”
We trudged into the library. As soon as I opened my assigned copy, I pressed my fingertips to my forehead at the cramped font, at words segmented by comma after comma with no period in sight.
“So, this is what they think our courses are like,” Portia quipped after a few minutes. She let out a horrified gasp as she turned the page. “Oh, now, that’s disgusting. How could anyone think our insides look like that?” She showed an illustration to Théa, who pushed her away with a shriek.
We had all of tonight, tomorrow, and then … Monday. The day Étienne promised to call.
When I felt the weight of someone’s gaze, I looked up. Aria’s eyes darted away. But not before I saw the worry lingering behind her irises.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
WE SPENT TWO days poring over every encyclopedia Madame de Treville owned. The entries were tedious. Descriptions of medical theory, the four humors, hypochóndria, so many different words and entries for women in pain that wasn’t believed. I powered through entries on bloodletting, oleum dulce vitrioli, medicinal treatments that, according to the text, resulted in dizziness more often than improvements in health. I was on the latter’s entry when Portia took note of my expression and swapped books with me, carrying on reading as if nothing had happened. This new encyclopedia’s entries were tedious. But I’d take the tediousness over the rare exceptions. The painful ones.
“Tania!” Théa rushed over to me in the library, slightly out of breath, her mass of curls going every which way. “I finished!” She thrust a bundle into my hands.
“Finished what?”
“Oh, I didn’t tell you, did I? I just went off and started sewing, I’m sorry; I tend to be like that when I’m working … you know, nothing else matters, have to get my thoughts down before they fly out of my head—that sort of thing!”
Her words jolted a memory: me trying on torn trousers, her sudden steely veneer of focus, Aria’s insistence that I didn’t disturb her. “New breeches? Merci!”
Expression keen, she smiled. “Well, I don’t think I’d use that terminology.”
“I don’t understand—”
“Try them on,” she urged with a giggle, hustling me out of the library and into the room where I’d tried on the skirt all those months ago. I laughed; it felt wonderful. Even when I had to rest against the closed door when my legs wobbled. It’d been so long since I’d actually taken time to breathe, to not worry about the mire swirling around us. Papa had his brotherhood, but I couldn’t imagine any of the Musketeers from his stories sewing him new breeches, searching for the finest materials, taking care with every stitch.
After Théa helped me unlace my gown, she turned away for me to remove my stockings, and I put on the blouse from my dock’s ensemble so I wouldn’t be standing in my underthings.
“What are these?” I choked out as I unfurled the breeches. My hands ran over the lightweight fabric. Nary a buckle or a clasp to be found.
“Try them on,” she repeated, still facing the door.
They clung to my skin, leechlike, so tight my legs compressed. I struggled them up and over my hips. “They’re nearly as tight as those breeches from the other day,” I panted.
“Exactement!” Théa whipped around, clapping her hands in delight. “But these you can actually walk in, non?” Skeptically, I took a step forward. While the initial pair of breeches was stiff, unyielding, these gave way with no resistance. “How do you feel?”
I didn’t dare answer. Only walked around the room, steps halting, trying to quell the ember of hope blistering in my chest. But when I’d completed the circuit, the spark had fanned into a full-on flame. I was still dizzy; that would not disappear anytime soon. But my balance was better. The pools of gray lingering at the edges of my vision further off. And oh, my legs: They felt steadier. “Oh, Théa, they’re better than any couture gown!”
She blushed. “It was nothing. I had a hunch after you tried on that other pair, so I researched fabrics with more give.”
When she gestured for me to look in the mirror, I shrieked and fruitlessly made to cover myself with my hands. “I can’t be seen in these! They’re so, they’re so…” I chanced another glimpse at the black stretch of fabric. They hid nothing. Absolutely nothing.
“That’s why you’ll wear them under your dress, silly!”
“But if there’s time, in the moment, I’ll tuck up my skirts to duel,” I said, unable to tear away from the fierce line of my legs. If Maman saw me now, she would be the one passed out on the ground.
“At most they’ll see the front of your legs—and besides,” Théa said, “if they’re looking at your legs then they’re not looking at your sword—there are benefits all around.”
“Théa,” I rushed at her crestfallen face, “please don’t think I’m ungrateful. It’s a lot to take in. But you’re right, of course you are.”
“Perfect! You can wear them under your gown when Monsieur Verdon comes to call this afternoon and I’ll go fetch you a necklace so you won’t have to take the pulley again and oh this is perfect, just perfect!” She beamed, upset erased in an instant, and shut the door behind her.
Did she just … was she pretending to get me to …
Henri hurried through the door, walked all the way to the lone bookcase before he noticed me standing there, horrified. Before he noticed what I was—or wasn’t—wearing.
“I—I’m sorry!” he stammered, clapping his hands over his eyes before knocking straight into the wall. “I’m so very sorry!” Books tumbled to the ground, and he scrambled to pick them up, all the while trying to shield me from his sight. “Ma tante couldn’t find a book, and there’s a bookshelf in here, and—”
“Henri!” He paused in his efforts, and I fisted my hands to keep from grabbing for my dress to hold in front of me. I was a Musketeer. And a Musketeer wasn’t afraid of someone spotting her in clothing that was, well … snug. “You’ve seen me in breeches before. Remember, when Aria and I returned from the docks and—”
“That was different.” He pulled himself to his feet. His eyes darted over my frame, the shape of my thighs, the curve of my calves. I coughed. He blinked, then straightened.
“How was that different?”
“I don’t know,” he said. “But it was different.”
I cleared my throat. Why did this feel more embarrassing than the afternoon at the éventailliste? “You said you needed a book?”
“Yes…” He hesitated, then launched into speech. “Are you planning on leaving the house like that, because it’s very cold outside and they don’t look at all warm—”
“They’ll go under my gown. Théa wanted me to try them on. To see if they fit properly.”
“Oh.” His voice cracked. “Théa made them, then?”
“Designed them and everything.” I let my fingers run down the sides, reveling in how much clearer my vision was. “To help with the dizziness.” At the sound of choking, I looked up in concern. “Is something wrong?”
“No,” Henri said. “It’s good that they help with the dizziness.”
“Right,” I said.
“Right,” he said, too.
We both stood there awkwardly, his gaze fastened on a spot above my head. But then he let out a gust of air and closed the gap between us. “Listen … there’s something I need to—well, that is—”
“Yes?”
His face was only a foot away from mine. Why was he so nervous … had Aria been right all along?
I watched his mouth. Waited for his words. And I tried to ignore how this was the first time he’d made any attempt to truly speak or look at me in weeks, and how much that hurt. Because he was still the boy who had brought me the map, the boy who made me laugh that very first morning in Paris before the city became as familiar as my sword in my hand.
“I brought the necklace…” Théa entered, examining the chain she carried. “I think it’ll work with your dress, but you should try it on to be sure—imagine if the colors clashed!” She finally looked up as Henri lurched away. “Oh, I hadn’t realized you were here!”
He flushed under her attention. What would that feel like? To blush when you saw someone, to be attracted to someone … to like someone, and for it not to be a betrayal? “I came for this,” he said shakily. He held up a book. “I should go; I’m late for work as is.”
“Be sure to leave through the back entrance; that way Monsieur Verdon doesn’t catch you on your way out,” Théa said.
“Monsieur Verdon?” His gaze slid to me as Théa answered proudly.
“Oui! He’s calling on Tania this afternoon, and you should see how he looks at her; she’s done such a magnificent job.”
Henri’s eyes never left my face. For some inexplicable reason, my lungs constricted. “Congratulations on a job well done, then.” His expression was unreadable. I waited for him to say something else, but he turned and left through the open doorway.
Théa stared after him in shock. “Did I upset him? What happened while I was upstairs?”
I blinked against the bite of tears; stress, surely—of Étienne’s rapidly approaching visit, of what I must do, how desperately we needed a direct link between the evidence and the suspects … “He was embarrassed to have barged in here. With me not having on a gown.”
Her pert nose crinkled, sending her freckles into disarray. “Oh, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, Tania, I shouldn’t have left—”
“It’s not your fault. Don’t worry. It’s not anyone’s fault.” Even as I spoke guilt bloomed in my chest, a morbid, misshapen sunflower. Unspoken for and foreign behind my breastbone.
“I don’t want to be inconsiderate—please don’t think me inconsiderate—but, Tania, it’s getting late, and, well, are you going to start getting ready?”
“Yes,” I said. “Help me, please?”
And so she helped me back into my gown, looped the necklace, all crystalline gemstone and silver lattice, over my head. At the last minute, I pulled the ring out from underneath my bodice. The chain didn’t glitter like the fine jewelry, but it hummed with something stronger. Today, Papa’s ring, the chain: They would be my anchor.
* * *
“Madame de Treville? What’s the matter?” I said immediately upon entering the parlor.
She stood near the window, twisting her hands. “It can wait until after the visit.” Portia and Aria were on a settee, conversing quietly. But at the edge in Madame de Treville’s voice they looked up with a jolt.
Dread seeped through me. “Please, tell us.”
“How are your new breeches? Do you feel better?”
“They do help some—but an item of clothing isn’t about to cure my dizziness. Now, what are you keeping from us?”
Madame de Treville went very still. Studied me before letting out a splintered breath. “It was the éventailliste. Mazarin sent a messenger to let me know.”
I gripped Papa’s ring. “What happened?”
“He never returned home Saturday night. His wife only contacted the guards yesterday; she presumed he spent the night finishing a rush order … but that was disproved this morning when a local fisherman reeled in a corpse along with the fish. His body, his face … well, from what you told me, Tania, it sounds like he was given the same treatment as your father. When officers investigated the shop, they found this,” she said, and pulled something in a handkerchief out of her tie-on pockets. When she unwrapped it, Théa gasped. Aria looked worriedly at Portia, who’d sucked in a breath she had yet to release. “Mazarin had it delivered less than an hour ago. He … isn’t pleased by the latest developments. He tried arguing with the King about the festival again, and that went as well as could be expected.”
A fan, intricate, like the ones the Comtesse had designed. But, in place of a lullaby, a different message was written. Some of the letters were difficult to read; the red ink—I couldn’t think of it as anything else—had started to flake and peel away.
Arretez-vous maintenant, et nous vous épargnerons.
Stop now, and we will spare you.
We’d visited the fan maker two days ago. Portia and I could’ve been some of the last people, besides his murderer, to see him alive.
“It’s the work of the nobles,” Madame de Treville continued. “They know we’re onto them.”
I screwed my eyes tight against the image of Papa, bloody and beaten. His face morphed into Aria, Portia, Théa. Henri. Étienne. Madame de Treville. Maman.
A rapping sound echoed from down the hall. “He’s early!” Madame de Treville gasped, bustling about, arranging the four of us around the room—fruit in a still life. Théa and Portia practiced embroidery in the corner. Aria in her usual spot at the miniature table and set of chairs. And I was in the center of it all, emerald green skirts spread across the cushions, a fan of lush leaves.
Jeanne eased through the threshold—it wasn’t usual to have a maid greet guests, but Madame de Treville wasn’t willing to hire more staff and risk exposing our secrets. And Madame de Treville had offered Jeanne extra livres for her participation today.
“A Monsieur Verdon here to call on you, Madame.”
“Send him in.”
We rose when Étienne entered, me slower than the rest as I braced for dizziness. It was muted, yes. But still there. Always there. Étienne stared intently at me. Madame de Treville coughed. He hastened to face her. “Madame, thank you for permitting me to call.”
