Musketeer's Daughter:Unanswered Riddle

Chapter 34: Spy

"Ma mère!" Ysabeau stormed through the hovel and sneered at the dilapidated walls. How could she tolerate such grossness? Sun glimmered in smoky shafts of light through the ceiling, the thatched room in desperate need of repair. "Ma mère! Where are you?" The home was empty and she rushed to the pond.

There, as predicted, sat Marguerite. Head high, back straight with a beautiful courtier's gown in a blue cloud about her. It was a change to find her calm of demeanor. No weeping. Ysabeau lost her breath. She was belle! Was this how she looked before she fled the château? Though she believed she knew her mère's reasons for destroying her face, she wanted to know the truth. A harsh glint met Ysabeau's eyes and she blinked. In her hand pressing to her bosom, was a jewel encrusted dagger made of gold.

"Marguerite, no!" she shouted, retrieving a dagger of her own. She raised it took aim. It hurled through the air with a sharp whistle and the sound of metal biting metal sent the gold dagger into the mossy pond with a splash.

Marguerite gasped, stared at her empty hand. She was dazed, her eyes wide with confusion. She lifted her gaze and regarded Ysabeau with a slack mouth. "Andrién?" Her voice shook, tears flooded down her face and she gathered her gown and stumbled. "Andrién!"

"No, ma mère, it is Ysabeau-Andrién is still at court."

She stopped suddenly. Her lip curled and her eyes darkened with loathing. "What are you doing here?"

"Saving you, apparently." Why did their meetings always meet in clashes?

"What business is it of yours is it to intrude?" She lifted her head and marched past Ysabeau as haughtily as any lady of the court.

"Oui, ma mère, you are just like them, but then again, you were once, were you not?"

Marguerite stopped, and turned. "What did you just say?"

"You heard me, Marguerite." Every emotion of resentment and fury and indignation hit Ysabeau in the gut though it was no fault of her mère. The simple fact that she held every bit of it secret festered.

Marguerite's face did not show fear as it did when Ysabeau spoke of the King, but contempt. "What do you know of court life?"

Ysabeau smiled and retrieved both daggers. Sheathing hers and lifting the gold one, she pressed the point to her finger and turned it this way and that, admiring its beauty. "The King had one just like this upon his person the night he seduced me."

There was the balking she wanted. Marguerite dropped to her knees, hands over her mouth. Eyes big with fear. "The King?"

"Oui, ma mère, the King." Ysabeau marched up to her and stared down at her with every whit of fury she bore for such deception. "I have done nothing more than love and want you to love in return. Why you bear such loathing for me, I know not. But I am not afraid of you, ma mère. You are not perfect with your secrets-but worse if you dare pass judgment to me. Shall we discuss here in the open, or inside?"

Marguerite hurried past Ysabeau and into the home. She held the door open and gestured her in. "Quick." She gave a sweep of her surroundings before bolting the door in place with a crossbeam. "Ysabeau," she whispered, bruises hugging her eyes. "I do not know what you have . . ." It was as if she could not speak, her mouth moving without voice, but she finally was able to speak, "experience you may have had with the King, but it is something you should not trifle with."

Ysabeau sat upon a stool. "As if I had any say. Andrién took me there, demanded that I taste court life and dress as a lady."

Marguerite stiffened, her gaze flying into huge globes of fear. "He has?" She gnawed upon her lip, blinking wild about the home as if the King himself would spring forth.