Chapter Text
She doesn’t like the Duc d’Orléans.
That’s the one thing she knows when Hébert drags her into the little building that, on the surface, doesn’t look any different from the hundreds of others that jut out into the Paris streets.
Not that she liked him before, at his party. He’d been just one more aristocrat then, enjoying himself, dancing and eating and drinking while Paris was racked with hunger pangs. (God, if she never saw one more piece of cake, it would be too soon. That was why she’d given it all away. She didn’t want it, anyway.)
For a second, she’d almost thought he would help.
When she was back on the street, bag filled with cake that was more icing than anything meant to fill a howling stomach, she’d turned and caught him watching her from the balcony, the night air faint and chilled between them.
Pale moonlight spilled over them, catching onto his silver coat as they looked at one another, analyzing, observing, waiting. She half expected him to order her out again, but instead his hand slid against the marble rails while dozens of dancers floated and fell on the other side of the window, all of them bathed in gold and shimmering from the light of the crystal chandeliers that hung down from the walls.
For a second, they were the only living things there, in the world, and she’d wondered. Hell, even if he wouldn’t help, if he at least wanted what most aristocratic men wanted when they looked at women like her.
Then, he’d turned his back, the door clicked shut again, and one more golden figure joined the others.
A hundred people in a ballroom, and not a single conscience to be found. A lot of bodies, each more gleaming than the last, with L'Autrichienne outshining all of them, but not a single soul to be found.
At the printing shop, it’s different. Brilliant chandeliers that drip diamonds from golden arms are replaced by dimmed lanterns and papers, the ink still wet, hung onto lines to dry. The large glass door is replaced with one of a cheap wood that could use a bit of oil. The heavy perfumes of hundreds of courtiers all trying to outdo one another is replaced by the subtler smell of freshly printed ink and grease and tallow wax. The Duc’s white wig has been changed for his natural hair, which hangs down his back, long and dark, laying somewhere between brown and black. (It’s better, she thinks, not so artificial. Not so neat and clean.)
But, no matter what, he still acts like a king, gesturing grandly as they come in, a broad smile on his face as if they’re guests that he’s been waiting for all day. As soon as he does, Hébert shifts. The little attempts to touch her, the “slips” where his hand went from her lower shoulder to her waist, they all disappear, all his attention locked on the man who stands on top of the stairwell.
For the first time in her life, she’s grateful to see the smug bastard. He’s good for getting Hébert off her tail, at least.
“Ah, Hébert, I see that you’re back. And this is…”
Margrid steps forward and opens her mouth, ready to remind him who he’d brushed aside as one more face in the crowd, but he fills it in himself, raising a finger, dark eyes, warm on the surface but with something
sharp
beneath them, something she can’t place, looking into hers. “Margrid Arnaud, is it? We’ve met before. At my ball on June...7, I believe it was.”
She’s able to speak through her shock. “You wanted to throw me out.”
“A necessity, unfortunately, given the company of the time. My apologies.”
It isn’t a real apology, she knows that. It’s a courtesy , the kind that come as easy to men like him as air, the kind that they’d taught her at convent school along with her prayers and her letters (of the three of them, only the last one remained.) But it’s better than nothing, she guesses. It’s better than a glass of champagne that’s all bubbles with nothing to quench her parched mouth. It’s better than stolen bread and a bayonet pointed at her back for the effort.
“Hébert said something about a job.”
He smiles, and she knows that he’s playing with her, teasing the real answer out. “You’ll have to be more specific. There are a number of jobs I’m hiring for at any period of time.”
For her part, she has no time for games.
“For L'Autrichienne .”
“That depends entirely on the material in question, of course.”
Hébert nudges the red book towards him and he takes it. His eyes scan over the handwriting, with all its loops and flourishes, and Hébert fidgets in place. At one part, a laugh springs to the Duc’s mouth. “Well done.” And then all his attention is on Margrid again. “And your part?”
“I can put them to music and sing them in the streets,” Margrid says.
“She’s very good.” She doesn’t know why Hébert bothers to add it; Orléans doesn’t spare a glance his way.
“And in exchange?”
“Two Louis d’eor per pamphlet, with me taking half the cut.”
Hébert makes a sort of muffled scream. “Careful not-”
Orléans raises a brow, voice raising slightly in disbelief. “Per pamphlet?”
“What? You want Madame Deficit exposed, I want to eat.”
Hébert’s mouth hangs open, like one of the fish that hung out in the marketplace, shaking his head. “Monsieur de Duc, I’m sure that she doesn’t-”
Orléans leans over on the table, a smile, not the broad smile from before, but something small and disbelieving, is barely held up by the muscles on his mouth, playing on his face, his voice deceptively soothing. “You’re in no position to be negotiating here.”
She mimics his motion, meeting him eye to eye across the table. She wonders how often people have tried it with him. Whether anyone’s ever thought to negotiate or just took whatever he offered. If nothing else, she’s going to give him a shock for once in his pampered aristocratic life. “And yet here I am.”
He keeps the serene smile on his face. “2 écus.”
“I’ll cut you some slack. One Louis d’eor.”
The resulting chuckle is deep and full, not mocking, but one born from sheer surprise that a woman of the lower class has the audacity to have a spine (Didn’t they know? It was mandated by law that they had it removed by the age of ten). “You seem to be forgetting that I am hiring you .” He sobers, ”This is a good offer. There are a thousand more in the city who would take it in a second.”
She finds herself smiling, feeling perfectly at home here, the rush of the bargain flowing through her. “And if you didn’t want me here, you would’ve told me to walk and hired one of them instead. You need me for something, and you’re willing to negotiate for it.”
“Margrid, I think--” But whatever Hébert’s saying doesn’t matter, it’s just background noise, like the distant shouting of vendors outside the door or the barking of dogs. Something else has her focus now, and she’s going to be damn sure she gets it.
It’s like they’re on the balcony again. Or they’re together in the ballroom again, but there’s no one else, no Marie Antoinette, no guards, no courtiers, no champagne, just the two of them going head against head and brain against brain.
But this time, she’s not going to be leaving with an empty satchel.
She’s spent a long time bargaining, begging, scrabbling for what she can get, fighting tooth and nail down to the denier if she had to. She knows money better than any aristocrat because she’s never had it. And she knows when someone needs her more than she needs him. A man like Orléans wouldn’t have kept her on for a minute more than necessary if he thought there wasn’t something to what she was saying. She has him, has had him for a while now, but it’s just how long he wants to draw it out.
He spreads out his hands beatifically, as blamelessly and innocently as one of the marble saints that Agnés had made her memorize the names of years ago. “My natural sense of charity. I’ve always had a weakness in my heart for those who didn’t grow up with the advantages that I did, simply due to an accident of birth.”
“I don’t need charity. I need a steady wage and food in my stomach, you want everyone to know what the old sow who calls herself a queen is. I know the streets and the people in them, you have the money. You hand it over and I’ll make sure that there’s no one in Paris who hasn’t heard of the latest pamphlet.”
He doesn’t respond, so she adds, turning as if she intends to leave even as she doesn’t look away from him. “Unless it’s not important enough to you.”
This time, his smile reaches his eyes, small lines appearing at the corners, and she thinks that there’s even a faint glimmer of pride there. “Very well, one Louis d’eor per pamphlet. Hébert,” he pats the man’s shoulder as he walks by, Hébert stock-still and wide-eyed, like a gargoyle in winter. “You could learn a few things from her.”
The other workers quickly turn back to their work as he strides over to her, the picture of confidence, extending a jewelled hand as he gives a nod that slants as it goes downward. “Welcome. I look forward to seeing your results.”
She’s suddenly very aware of how much taller he is than her, feeling herself pulled into his gravity. She has to crane her head upwards to shake his hand.
Her palm, calloused and broken before it had even stopped growing, meets and wraps around his own hand, impeccably smooth, not blemished by so much as a single day of hard work, and where they come in contact, there’s a burning that seems to move from the center of her palm down to her legs and toes. “I’m glad to be here.”
She still doesn’t like him, or at least that’s what she tells herself as the handshake goes first one second, then two, then three longer than usual before she remembers to pull herself away. But they’re on the same side now, and if she can break the L'Autrichienne ’s pride and fill her stomach while she’s at it, she can’t refuse.
Later, she holds the first real bit of money in her hand that she’s ever held in 28 years of life, watching the gold gleam in the moonlight despite herself (too easy, there has to be something wrong), still feeling the lingering burn of his hand on hers.
She wonders if it’s the same for him, if he’s sitting somewhere on a silk bed, his hand flexing around a touch that isn’t there, or if this is just what it feels like to make a deal with the Devil.
Maybe she has, but if so, she doesn’t care.
If Heaven’s not going to do anything, might as well see what the other side can do. She doesn’t care if that means that, when she reaches the afterlife and stretches her hands out to Saint Peter, all he’ll see is the Duc d’Orléans’ handprint burned against hers.
Still, she blames that for why, that night, her last in the gutter before she can rent out a decent apartment, she dreams of glittering eyes and flames that burn but don’t engulf her.