Musketeer's Daughter:Unanswered Riddle

Chapter 9: Indignation

Ysabeau nodded, afraid of the crowding tears that threatened for whatever ominous reason her brother hid regarding what Andrién hid from them both. His fear became her fear.

“Swear!” Like a feral beast, he bent forward, his hands like claws wrapping around hers.

Her head bobbed, and she squeaked. “I swear, I swear!”

He stared into her eyes for a long moment, most likely weighing whether he should tell.

“Mathieu!”

He relaxed, his hands sliding free of their powerful grip. She rubbed the pain away. “I was surprised how I managed to sneak in—you know his reflexes—and I read what I could from the missive.” Mathieu inhaled a quivering breath, his eyes intense through his locks. “Let me say this now, ma chérie, that the letter was partway folded and all I could make out were only a few words.” He reclined with a harsh toss of his hair, his eyes free. “They said”—Ysabeau leaned forward, her nails biting into her legs—“‘ . . . the death of Marguerite's bastard child is dully noted . . . ’”

Mathieu fell silent.

She splayed her hands betwixt her knees, her nails hardly denting the floor. Ysabeau waited. The sounds of their strained breaths rasped the air. The crickets sang joyously outside the windows and through the thick shutters. Could he hear the thundering sound of her heart?

“Oui?”

He shook his head, raised his shoulders, and huffed. “Oui what? Oui nothing. That was all.”

“That was all?” Ysabeau echoed, her brain struggling to anchor its thoughts to those very few words he read. “The death of Marguerite's bastard child is dully noted.’” She tasted each word. Let it slide around her tongue, tickle her tonsils, hide in her pallet. Again, she spoke them, earning her a glare from Mathieu. She did not want to puzzle this out within the quietude of her thoughts, rather, outwardly with the assistance of her brother. “Marguerite, as in my mother?”

His lip curled and he lifted his hands.

“Bastard child as in . . . I do not understand, Mathieu. Who is this bastard child? My mother never took on another lover.” She cringed at another and suddenly felt every bit of the word disgraced as Andrién had been the first. Ysabeau recalled her mother’s dismay about stolen beauty. Perhaps that was the key as well.

“Perhaps this child is you and she never took on another lover, mon ange.”

Though it disquieted her as well as relieved, the conflicting emotion left her vulnerable and angry. “Will you stop calling me those things? And how could I be dead if I am right here?” She lifted her arm and pinched the tender side of her flesh until raw. Her body quaked and she longed to retrieve her beloved sword once more. “See? I am alive. More than that.” She leaped to her feet, aware that he watched her. “I am furious!”

“Ysabeau, we are only trying to pretend that we know what it means.” He stood with her, his hands useless at his sides, his face open and confused and pained.