The snake flicked its tongue once or twice, tasting the air. Apparently deciding that the mix of candle wax and incense wasn’t edible, it turned and made an attempt to burrow back into the warm pocket from which it had been so rudely removed. The Comte caught it expertly behind the head, and shoved it toward me.

“You see?” he said triumphantly. “The woman shrinks away in fear! She is a witch!”

Actually, compared to one judge, who was huddling against the far wall, I was a monument of fortitude, but I must admit that I had taken an involuntary step backward when the snake appeared. Now I stepped forward again, intending to take it away from him. The bloody thing wasn’t poisonous, after all. Maybe we’d see how harmless it was if I wrapped it round his neck.

Before I could reach him, though, Master Raymond spoke behind me. What with all the commotion, I’d rather forgotten him.

“That is not all the Bible says, Monsieur le Comte,” Raymond observed. He didn’t raise his voice, and the wide amphibian face was bland as pudding. Still, the buzz of voices stopped, and the King turned to listen.

“Yes, Monsieur?” he said.

Raymond nodded in polite acknowledgment of having the floor, and reached into his robe with both hands. From one pocket he produced a flask, from the other a small cup.

“ ‘They shall handle serpents unharmed,’ ” he quoted, “ ‘and if they drink any deadly poison, they shall not die.’ ” He held the cup out on the palm of his hand, its silver lining gleaming in the candlelight. The flask was poised above it, ready to pour.

“Since both milady Broch Tuarach and myself have been accused,” Raymond said, with a quick glance at me, “I would suggest that all three of us partake of this test. With your permission, Your Majesty?”

Louis looked rather stunned by the rapid progress of events, but he nodded, and a thin stream of amber liquid splashed into the cup, which at once turned red and began to bubble, as though the contents were boiling.

“Dragon’s blood,” Raymond said informatively, waving at the cup. “Entirely harmless to the pure of heart.” He smiled a toothless, encouraging smile, and handed me the cup.

There didn’t seem much to do but drink it. Dragon’s blood appeared to be some form of sodium bicarbonate; it tasted like brandy with seltzer. I took two or three medium-sized swallows and handed it back.

With due ceremony, Raymond drank as well. He lowered the cup, exhibiting pink-stained lips, and turned to the King.

“If La Dame Blanche may be asked to give the cup to Monsieur le Comte?” he said. He gestured to the chalk lines at his feet, to indicate that he might not step outside the protection of the pentagram.

At the King’s nod, I took the cup and turned mechanically toward the Comte. Perhaps six feet of carpeting to cross. I took the first step, and then another, knees trembling more violently than they had in the small anteroom, alone with the King.

The White Lady sees a man’s true nature. Did I? Did I really know about either of them, Raymond or the Comte?

Could I have stopped it? I asked myself that a hundred times, a thousand times – later. Could I have done otherwise?

I remembered my errant thought on meeting Charles Stuart; how convenient for everyone if he should die. But one cannot kill a man for his beliefs, even if the exercise of those beliefs means the death of innocents – or can one?

I didn’t know. I didn’t know that the Comte was guilty, I didn’t know that Raymond was innocent. I didn’t know whether the pursuit of an honorable cause justified the use of dishonorable means. I didn’t know what one life was worth – or a thousand. I didn’t know the true cost of revenge.

I did know that the cup I held in my hands was death. The white crystal hung around my neck, its weight a reminder of poison. I hadn’t seen Raymond add anything to it; no one had, I was sure. But I didn’t need to dip the crystal into the bloodred liquid to know what it now contained.

The Comte saw the knowledge in my face; La Dame Blanche cannot lie. He hesitated, looking at the bubbling cup.

“Drink, Monsieur,” said the King. The dark eyes were hooded once more, showing nothing. “Or are you afraid?”

The Comte might have a number of things to his discredit, but cowardice wasn’t one of them. His face was pale and set, but he met the King’s eyes squarely, with a slight smile.

“No, Majesty,” he said.

He took the cup from my hand and drained it, his eyes fixed on mine. They stayed fixed, staring into my face, even as they glazed with the knowledge of death. The White Lady may turn a man’s nature to good, or to destruction.

The Comte’s body hit the floor, writhing, and a chorus of shouts and cries rose from the hooded watchers, drowning any sound he might have made. His heels drummed briefly, silent on the flowered carpet; his body arched, then subsided into limpness. The snake, thoroughly disgruntled, struggled free of the disordered folds of white satin and slithered rapidly away, heading for the sanctuary of Louis’s feet.

All was pandemonium.

28 THE COMING OF THE LIGHT

I returned from Paris to Louise’s house at Fontainebleau. I didn’t want to go to the Rue Tremoulins – or anywhere else that Jamie might find me. He would have little time to look; he would have to leave for Spain virtually at once, or risk the failure of his scheme.

Louise, good friend that she was, forgave my subterfuge, and – to her credit – forbore to ask me where I had gone, or what I had done there. I didn’t speak much to anyone, but stayed in my room, eating little, and staring at the fat, naked putti that decorated the white ceiling. The sheer necessity of the trip to Paris had roused me for a time, but now there was nothing I must do, no daily routine to support me. Rudderless, I began to drift again.

Still, I tried sometimes to make an effort. Prodded by Louise, I would come down to a social dinner, or join her for tea with a visiting friend. And I tried to pay attention to Fergus, the only person in the world for whom I had still some sense of responsibility.

So, when I heard his voice raised in altercation on the other side of an outbuilding as I dutifully took my afternoon walk, I felt obliged to go and see what was the matter.

He was face to face with one of the stable-lads, a bigger boy with a sullen expression and broad shoulders.

“Shut your mouth, ignorant toad,” the stable-lad was saying. “You don’t know what you’re talking about!”

“I know better than you – you, whose mother mated with a pig!” Fergus put two fingers in his nostrils, pushed his nose up and danced to and fro, shouting “Oink, oink!” repeatedly.

The stable-lad, who did have a rather noticeably upturned proboscis, wasted no time in idle repartee, but waded in with both fists clenched and swinging. Within seconds, the two were rolling on the muddy ground, squalling like cats and ripping at each other’s clothes.

While I was still debating whether to interfere, the stable-lad rolled on top of Fergus, got his neck in both hands, and began to bang his head on the ground. On the one hand, I rather considered that Fergus had been inviting some such attention. On the other, his face was turning a dark, dusky red, and I had some reservations about seeing him cut off in his prime. With a certain amount of deliberation, I walked up behind the struggling pair.

The stable-lad was kneeling astride Fergus’s body, choking him, and the seat of his breeches was stretched tight before me. I drew back my foot and booted him smartly in the trouser seam. Precariously balanced, he fell forward with a startled cry, atop the body of his erstwhile victim. He rolled to the side and bounced to his feet, fists clenched. Then he saw me, and fled without a word.

“What do you think you’re playing at?” I demanded. I yanked Fergus, gasping and spluttering, to his feet, and began to beat his clothes, knocking the worst of the mud clumps and hay wisps off of him.