The Shadow Queen by Sandra Gulland

Author:Sandra Gulland [Gulland, Sandra]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
ISBN: 9781443409384
Publisher: HarperCollins Canada
Published: 2014-09-10T04:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 35

I put down my bag: a room of my own—a bed of my own. I pried open the shutter and looked out the window: between two buildings, I could see the glittering river.

Already I wanted to go home, hear Gaston’s infectious giggle, Mother murmuring her lines. I was thirty now—an old maid by any account—and for the first time in my very long life, I was alone.

I turned at the sound of the door opening. The hag tossed a skirt, apron, bodice, and cap onto the narrow bed and slammed the plank door shut.

I held the bodice to my chest. The fabric was an ugly shade of brown. It looked to fit a girl, certainly not a woman, not even a small-breasted one. The tips of two of the bones—made of crude wood slats, not whalebone—had worn through. I picked up the skirt, which was stained at the hem. Even with the laces fully out, I couldn’t get it on over my hips. I felt like a giant in a circus show.

The apron was ridiculously frilly and not perfectly clean, but at least it had a patch pocket. I emptied it of its contents: lint, a soiled nose cloth, a small, rusty nail. I examined the enormous cap for vermin before slipping it on over my coiled braids and pulling the ties. If this were a play, I would be the clownish servant, the one everyone mocked.

Athénaïs burst into unrestrained laughter when I entered the room. “Mort Dieu,” she gasped, bolting the door and taking off her mask. “You look like a half-wit.” She could hardly speak for laughing.

“Damnation!” the parrot squawked.

“Take that apron off … and the cap too. Was this the wench’s idea?” She wiped tears from her cheeks with her sleeve.

“I’m relieved, I confess,” I said, smiling now myself. The brocade drapes had been drawn back to let in light, but even so, ten scented beeswax candles were alight. (Such extravagance!) “I was preparing to run away.”

“Over an apron and cap? That will never do. Come, sit, join me for some wine and sweetmeats. I promised my confessor I would not imbibe spirits—at least not alone.”

Served in a crystal goblet, the pale pink liquid had bubbles in it, which alarmed me.

“It won’t hurt you,” Athénaïs said, perceiving my concern. “Dom Pérignon, the Benedictine monk I order it from, keeps trying to get rid of the bubbles, but I rather like it this way,” she said, taking one of the little cakes that circled a pyramid of bonbons set on a gilded platter. “He gives me an excellent price because of the flaw.” She pushed the plate across to me.

“Thank you.” My mouth watered at the sight of the delicacies, but my rough hands shamed me.

After three goblets of the strange wine, I felt more at ease. Athénaïs liked to chatter, and it was easy enough to be a good listener. Her father had recently sold his post as First Gentleman of the King’s Chamber for a

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