Stepsister(39)

The horse was standing in front of the stables in the shade of a tall birch tree, his head down. As Isabelle walked over to him, she noticed that he was intent upon something in the grass. He nosed at it, then raked his hoof over it.

“What have you got there, old man? Some chamomile?”

She knew he loved to eat the tiny white-and-yellow flowers that grew around the stables, but as the horse raised his head, Isabelle saw it was not chamomile flowers that had captured his interest.

Dangling from Martin’s mouth was a priceless pearl necklace.





Forty-Three


Isabelle and Martin cantered up the winding, tree-lined drive of the Chateau Rigolade.

After she’d gotten over the shock of seeing her horse about to swallow the valuable pearls, Isabelle had grabbed the necklace out of his mouth, wiped the spit off, and put it in her pocket. The necklace belonged to the marquis or one of his friends, she was certain of it. The little monkey—Nelson—had been wearing it when he shot the chicken thief.

Whoever owns it must be worried sick, Isabelle thought. Each pearl was as big as a hazelnut.

As Isabelle reached the top of the drive, she looked for the stables, thinking she could hand Martin to a groom and then ask to see the marquis, but the drive led straight to the chateau itself, with its burbling fountains, its rosebushes, oak trees, and manicured lawns.

Isabelle could see no one—not a maid or footman or gardener, not the marquis nor any of his friends. She felt awkward sitting on her horse in the middle of a nobleman’s drive, so she decided to knock on the chateau’s front door, but as she got down out of her saddle, she heard music coming from behind the chateau. It came to a slow, disorderly stop, as if one of the players had made a mistake, then it started again.

Isabelle followed the sound, leading Martin around the side of the building, to the back. The lawns there sloped down to a clearing framed by towering oak trees. At the very end of the clearing, a good distance away, was a partially constructed stage. Isabelle could just make out a man up on a ladder, his back to her, hammering boards into place.

Closer by, on the chateau’s shaded terrace, members of the marquis’s retinue appeared to be rehearsing a play. The musicians sat in chairs on one side of the terrace, wincing as their conductor angrily upbraided them. Actors roamed the other side. Some held scripts, others brandished fake swords and shields. Trunks, open and spilling costumes, stood nearby. Four monkeys chased each other in and out of them, skirmishing over glass beads and foil crowns.

Isabelle limped towards the terrace, nervously twisting Martin’s reins. Several women looked up as she approached. They were older and sumptuously dressed, and she felt dull and drab in comparison. She recognized the diva, elegant and imperious; the magician, who was biting into a peach and somehow making it look mysterious; an acrobat spinning a plate on her finger; and an actress wearing a red wig and holding a scepter.

The magician was the first one to speak to her. “Isabelle, isn’t it? You’re the one who gave us directions, no?” Her eyes flashed with mischief. “I’ve been asking around about you. I hear you’re one of the queen’s ugly stepsisters.”

Isabelle shrank at her words. These splendid women knew who she was; they wouldn’t want anything to do with her.

The magician saw her discomfort. “Now, now, child. Ugly’s not such a bad a thing to be called. Not at all!” she said, tossing the peach pit. “We’ve all been called it at one time or another, and it hasn’t killed any of us,” she added, wiping juice off her chin with her palm.

“In fact, we’ve been called far worse,” said the actress.

The others chimed in. Difficult. Obstinate. Stubborn. Shrewish. Willful. Contrary. Unnatural. Abominable. Intractable. Immoral. Ambitious. Shocking. Wayward.

“Ugly’s nothing,” said the diva. “Pretty … now that’s a dangerous word.”

“Pretty hooks you fast and kills you slowly,” said the acrobat.

“Call a girl pretty once, and all she wants, forevermore, is to hear it again,” the magician added.

She drew a long silk cord from inside her jacket, tossed one end over a high tree branch overhanging the terrace, and secured it on a lower one. Then she jumped up onto a chair under the tree and knotted a loop in the other end of the cord.

“Pretty’s a noose you put around your own neck,” she said, doing just that. “Any fool can tighten it on you and kick away your footing. And then …” She lost her balance and teetered back and forth on the chair. Arms windmilling, she fell. The cord caught with a sickening twang. Her body spun in circles. Her legs kicked wildly.

Isabelle screamed, certain the woman just killed herself, but the magician slipped out of the noose, landed on her feet with a whump and burst into laughter.

“That’s a horrible trick,” the diva scolded, as Isabelle pressed a hand to her chest. “You’ve frightened the poor girl to death.”

“What a dreadful welcome,” said the actress, scowling at the magician. She turned to Isabelle. “Can I get you a cup of tea, my dear? A slice of cake?”

“N-no. No, thank you,” Isabelle said, trying to calm her thumping heart. “I must get back. I came because I found something, or rather my horse did, that belongs to you, I think.” She pulled the necklace from her pocket and handed it to the diva. “It was lying in the grass near our stables.”