Revolution - Jennifer Donnelly [79]
I stole a silver knife, palming it off the table and up my sleeve while his back was turned.
Fool. You won’t achieve much in this world if you content yourself with such low-hanging fruit, he said.
How had he seen? He was turned away from me, unstoppering a decanter.
It’s only plate, he said.
He picked up a salt dish and turned it over. I shivered. Spilled salt brings bad luck. His, I hoped. He tossed the dish at me. I caught it.
That is silver. The shine is more subtle. Can you learn to be?
He poured two glasses of wine, handed me one. I reached for it warily, like a rabbit sniffing a trap. Finally I drank it and it tasted like rubies melting on my tongue.
Sit, he told me, kicking a chair out from the table. He took a seat on the side opposite me, near the fire, and loosened his neckcloth.
It was nearly midnight, with most of Paris abed, yet before five minutes passed, a servant—an old man—carried in a feast. I ate oysters, langoustines, a mousse of smoked trout. A plate of ortolans was brought. Orléans picked one up, cracked its tiny skull between his teeth. A dish of courgettes with mint came. Tender new potatoes, no bigger than my knuckle. And then lamb. An entire leg. Rubbed with rosemary and sprinkled with salt. The cook had slit the fat and nudged slices of garlic under it. The meat, oily and sweet, tasted so good tears leaked from my eyes as I chewed it.
You are hungry, Orléans said, watching me across the table. And yet, the hunger in your gut is nothing compared to that in your soul.
I stopped eating. I, who was starving, stopped eating and stared at him, astounded that he had seen inside of me. He, who was nothing to me.
You are the street actor. The dauphin’s companion. The sparrow in the grove. You flew high, little sparrow, but now you’ve fallen back to earth. Instead of playing for the prince of France, you now play puppets for Paris urchins.
My mouth was full of food. All I could do was nod.
And when you finish with the puppets, you come here to recite lines from plays. I’ve seen you many a night. You are a changeling—a girl who can make herself into anything—boy, monster, beggar, sprite. Why do you do it?
I swallowed my food. ’Tis far easier to get along in this world as a boy or a monster than a girl, I said.
True, Orléans said. But that is not why you do it.
I looked away. All right, then, I said. I do it for money. I must eat.
If it was merely money you wanted, you could earn ten times as much singing bawdy songs. Why Shakespeare? Why Molière? Answer me truthfully now. No more lies or I shall hand you back to the guards. He had risen from his chair and walked about the room as he spoke.
I can’t help it, I said. The words…
Ah, the words. You are in love with the beauty of the words.
Yes.
More lies! If you loved words so, you would write plays, not act them. Come now, the truth! It’s the playwright’s characters you are in love with, not his words.
Yes, I said, very softly.
Because … he prompted.
Because when I am them, I am not me.
Orléans nodded. Not a sparrow in the gutter, he said. Not desperate and hungry. Not dirty. Ignored. Dismissed. Passed over.
Again I could not speak. It was not food I had in my mouth then, but my heart.
More food was brought. I ate slices of sweet melon and a dish of roquette with slivers of Parma cheese and cakes soaked in rum and chocolates flavored with clove and marchpane and sugared plums and candied peel, and like a drowning man pulled from the sea, I was only glad to be saved and never once thought to ask why.
It was only when I was so full I could barely breathe that I stopped eating. It was only then I realized the servants were gone, the music had stopped, and the candles were guttering. And then it was too late, for suddenly he was near me. Behind me. So close, I could smell the lamb