KINGMAKERS PART 3 (CONTINUED)

They say my blood pooled on the white palace steps from sunrise to sunset before he came and rescued me.

At least the new bruises covered up the old. Perhaps that was his intention since he still wanted the people to think him a good man in those days.

I awoke what I now know was two weeks later. I lay on a bed of straw that smelled of piss and rot. Oh, how the King would have laughed to have seen how far I’d fallen after he chucked me from his side.

“His consort? Why would he throw out his own consort?” A woman’s garbled voice came from just outside the paddock.

“Dunno,” said a second one. “But I heard a rumor that they were never really together. Heard he won’t touch her unless it’s to strike.”

“Think it was because the people liked her so much?”

“Would make sense,” the second woman said. “They've all gone mad since he threw her out. Saw a man beaten to death in the square yesterday for taking a piss on the king’s statue.”

“Poor soul. But at least they’re taking a stand.”

“Took ‘em bloody well long enough.”

A limping stride thumped nearby.

“Ah, Mister Yanik!” Said the first woman. “Heard a rustling of hay. I think your lady’s finally waking up.”

A second later, the door to the stall I laid in swung open and my old friend limped to my side.

“Yanik,” I said, my eyes filling with tears. “Thank you. Thank you for coming for me.”

He took my hands, smiling a grandfatherly smile. “The day I left, I promised you I would come if you ever needed me. And you know I always keep my promises.”

I cried then. Long enough for the rosy light of dawn streaming through the slatted roof of the barn to turn to day.

“What happened, Marg?” He squeezed my hands. “When I left, you had him wrapped around your finger.”

I rub my forehead, wincing as I jostle the bandages there. “They love me, Yan. The people of this Kingdom. It gave me power, influence in court.” My voice grew sharp and bitter with my next words. “And you know our good King does not like when anyone’s power grows close to his own.”

Yanik’s eyes ranged down to the bruises speckled all over my arms. My hand instinctively tried to pull down the sleeves of a gown I no longer wore. I covered up the reflex with a scratch at my wrist.

“Did they know?” Yanik finally choked out. “About what that monster was doing to you?”

I open my mouth to defend him, to deny the monstrosities I knew so well. But I was no longer under his thumb. He couldn’t control my sharp tongue any longer.

“Q was the only one,” I say softly. “And he did try to stop it when he found out.”

“And Solene?”

I shook my head. “Solene’s blind to all but the monster they believe is the Christ.” I bit my lip, considering for a moment if I should tell him that I’d discovered the letters between Amelie and Solene. I held my tongue. For though I trusted Yanik, I didn’t trust the gossips who linger just outside.

“There’s something I need to tell you.” The way Yanik said it made my stomach drop. “The King put a bounty on your head.”

The midday sunlight turned to snow against my skin. “A bounty?”

Yanik’s face was grim. “It seems he intended you to die upon the steps of the palace as an example to those who wanted to see you crowned. He’s offering a bounty to whoever brings you back.”

“Dead or alive?” I whisper.

Yanik’s eyes glimmer with sorrow. “Alive.”

I turned my head and tried to vomit the contents of my stomach. But nothing came. With trembling fingers, I grabbed Yanik’s hand.

“Please. Please help me get away.”

“I can help you." Yanik seemed to choose his words carefully. "But it would be like the days before he was king.”

“No.” My tongue spoke before my mind caught up with it. But when I think back on my answer now, I know it was because I wasn’t ready. “I’m sorry Yanik, but I cannot go back to living that way. I need rest; peace.”

Even if I were blind, I would have felt the disappointment radiating from him. But sometimes, they all forgot. I was the pretty little distraction while they spied and plotted and killed.

My hands were clean.

Yes, Amelie taught me well. But I never had to use those lessons. I never did anything that kept me up at night like Amelie or made me dead inside like Q.

No, I did not yet know how to kill for a cause, even if that cause was good.

“You’ve grown into a lovely young lady, Marguerite,” Yanik said at last. “I do not blame you for wanting to hold onto a semblance of the life we could have had.” He hesitated for a moment before adding, “I do know someone else who may be able to help you.”

“Oh?" I sniff back my tears, grasping for a ray of hope in this darkness.

Yanik nodded once. “I don’t think you’ll like it. But he is your only other option.”

“I don’t care where I go or who takes me there,” I said with fervor, “as long as I’m never locked up in that palace again.”

Oh, yes. I was a foolish young woman. If only I’d known I was trading one comely cage for another.

~

I hurriedly put on a new coat of red lipstick before the lights come back up for my final bow.

The rush I get from the cheers and applause is diminished with the knowledge of what I have to do tonight. Yet I linger in the spotlight for just a while longer.

They yell my name. Well, not my real name, but the one my benefactor gave to me.

“The Rose!” They cry as the cameras flash like a hundred blinking stars. “Marguerite the Rose!”

They love me. Well, they love this persona Pierre forces me to wear.

But if tonight is the last time I am to play this role, I will give an encore my fans will never forget.

“Thank you! Thank you, my lovely rosebuds!” I call in my stage voice. The cameras continue to flash as the crowd quiets down. “I’m so grateful to have this stage. I am so grateful that all of you take time from your lives to come and watch me speak lines from someone else’s book.

“Tonight, though, I want to speak a few lines of my own.” I take a breath, ignoring the murmurs from backstage. “Nothing scripted. Just my words to you, all of whom I owe my life and love."

I take a breath to draw out the anticipation. "In this kingdom, there is a man who holds us captive. I know, for I was once his consort and captive, too.” Now the crowd begins to chatter, too. I smile. “But now I stand before you, free!”

It is a lie, but they don’t know. They think I hide on this ship of my own accord. Their applause now proves it, their love for what they wish they could be.

When the applause dies down, I say, “I stand before you free, but not happy. For I will not be happy until all of you stand beside me!”

My voice rings out over the crowd, forcing them to their feet. If I thought they cheered me before, it is nothing to the way they praise me now.

“Queen!” They call to me. “Queen Marguerite the Rose!”

I raise my arms basking not in the glow of the stage lights that are now falling dark, but in the glow of their admiration and beaconing hope.

Hands close around my arms, dragging me offstage.

This was not the plan, but I’ve always been better at improvising. Amelie and Solene will be angry I took our quickly drafted plan into my own hands, but their presence alone has granted me confidence. I don’t need their help to slay the dragon tonight.

“Unhand me you foul creatures.” I pretend to fight Pierre’s men. “Wait until I tell him of the way you’re treating me! He will have your jobs! If not your bloody heads!”

I’m dumped to the floor outside my benefactor’s door. The two surly men stomp away without a word. I pull myself up just before the door bangs open.

“What in the Lord’s name was that?” Pierre grabs my arm roughly, pulling me into his rooms and slamming the door behind me. He shoves me against the wall. “Are you bloody insane, Marguerite?”

York perks up from his nap on the couch when she hears my name.

I look at him through my lashes. “Careful, Pierre.” I raise my hand, wiggling the finger on which I wear the emerald ring. “I’m armed and dangerous, love.”

He rips the ring off my finger and tosses it behind him, tightening his grip on my arm. “You foolish little wretch.”

I suspect he is angry enough to hit me but even I do not expect it so soon.

He doesn’t slap or pinch me like that monster, our good King, used to. No, he slams his fist into my jaw. Stars explode in my eyes, but even over the ringing in my ears, I hear York whine.

Pierre grabs my throat, his tan face mottled with splotches of red. He sneers when my bottom lip begins to tremble. "You never quite understood," he hisses, not looking away from my painted mouth. "I've paid for you time and time again with my kindness. Thus, you do as I say. You belong to me ."

And then he steals a red-lipped kiss.

His lips are wet, his tongue snakes out to lick my lower lip. I keep my mouth closed tightly and wait.

It takes only moments for the poison to affect him.

Pierre freezes, his lips cold on my lips; his hands hot on my neck. His body shakes, his muscles fail; he falls forward, smothering me as he begins to cough. I push him away and wipe the poisonous lipstick I wear on my gown.

“There are many simpler, less dangerous weapons I could have used,” I begin my monologue as Pierre tumbles to his knees, holding his own throat now. “One drop of my spit mixed with this formula and I’d be dead. Yet, when I looked through my armory of womanly things, I knew it must be the red lip. What better way to end the days of Marguerite the Rose than with a rosy kiss to the very man who created her?”

I check the clock on the wall. Amelie and Solene will be arriving soon. How surprised and delighted they will be when they see I’ve done most of the work by myself. They always underestimated me before—no longer.

“You know, that was why he finally threw me out,” I tell Pierre. “’I don’t see how the people can love you when you’re just filthy tease,’ he’d said. ‘I have humbly endured your pathetic ploys to siphon some of my control. I have waited patiently for you to accept me in your bed. I have generously bought you everything you desire. I have earned this. If you will not give it, I will take what is mine.’”

I kneel beside my benefactor and, as he takes his final breath, I say my final words.

“What is it with men like you and Julien? You think you can take what is not freely given. Some say it is because you are men. Not I. I say it is because you’re rich men.

“Well.” I tuck a graying strand of hair behind his ear and smile. “Now that you no longer hold my purse strings, I am very, very rich, too. So I think I will finally take what I want.”

I check for a pulse; there’s none. York trots to my side and I scoop her up, standing over the body of our fallen master. And so I begin my soliloquy.

“And don’t worry about York. She'll come with me and I will never force her to wear a leash. She will frolic in fields of golden flowers and forever sunlight. She will be free and she will never think of you again." I smile when York licks my hand. "Besides, she always liked me better anyway.”