Chapter Five: Such Disguise
After muster, Captain Duval called the two tragically disheveled cadets aside. He had seen them sneak in late, but was inclined to sympathize rather than censure in the face of Jacqueline's swollen mouth and barely concealed sling, and Siroc's lacerated face.
"I don't want to hear that you two were fighting," he began, once the office door closed.
The two exchanged glances. "Well, it was a fight, sir," Siroc said, careful with the truth.
"But not between us," Jacqueline was quick to add.
The Captain rolled his eyes. "Explain, Lepont."
Jacqueline did, slowly, to save her lip and because she and Siroc hadn't had time to collaborate on a story. She began with the trick plea for help, skirting the ambush, and ended with her at the thug's mercy. "And that's when Siroc came in," she finished, glancing at him.
His Adam's-apple bobbed painfully as he swallowed, and the tale of the rest of the rescue came out in a barely controlled flow of words, simple and wrenchingly honest. 'He doesn't think he did anything heroic,' Jacqueline realized. 'He doesn't like to kill people.'
'Do I?' she wondered. She had run her father's murderer through, in shock and feral rage, had fought and killed the Cardinal's Guards, and would certainly kill Mazarin himself if presented with an opportunity. But would she enjoy it? 'Perhaps,' she decided. She'd have to wait and see.
Captain Duval absorbed their stories, expression unreadable, and then sat back in his chair. "What happened to your arm, Lepont?"
Jacqueline cleared her throat. "Just a sprain, sir. It'll be back to normal in no time." She cut her eyes at Siroc, daring him to contradict her.
"It did get sprained, sir," he confirmed, and Jacqueline relaxed. But then he went on. "He dislocated it in the melee, though. I've set it, but it needs to be immobilized for at least a month."
The Captain, to Jacqueline's horror, seemed inclined to take Siroc's word on this. "Then I'm relieving you of duty for that period of time, Lepont. Not a punishment, you understand, just a precaution. I need someone here to keep d'Artagnan humble."
Jacqueline managed a pained smile. "Thank you, sir."
"And both of you get some sleep. You look terrible." He dismissed them with a wave and, bowing slightly in acknowledgement, the two took their leave.
Once out in the corridor, Jacqueline turned on her erstwhile rescuer and physician. "Why did you do that?" It was the kind of thing she'd have expected from d'Artagnan.
He shrugged. "If you use your arm before it's healed you'll damage it permanently, or at least weaken it. Do you want it to pain you whenever you fence for the rest of your life?"
Jacqueline opened her mouth to say that she didn't care, but shut it abruptly, because she did; a part of her knew she should be grateful. "I'm going to bed," she muttered, and pushed past him, stalking down the hall to her room. Siroc stared after her until the door slammed, then shook his head and turned into his lab.
The bed protested as Jacqueline dropped onto it, kicking her boots off and groaning. "Relieved of duty for a month," she muttered, trying to pull her jacket off around the sling. She hadn't thought to ask whether she'd be paid during that time. Sighing, prepared for the worst, she calculated how long it'd be before she had to dip into her savings, or pawn part of the lady's wardrobe she was slowly collecting.
Private Lepont had acquired a reputation as quite a ladies' man with the dressmakers around Paris- ladies about his size and measurements. The lace cloak had been Jacqueline's first purchase. It was a delicate, ethereal garment so utterly beyond a farmer's daughter that the thought of owning it had shocked her at first. But she had gone into the shop to ask the price. That had shocked her too. Feigning disinterest, she had returned to headquarters and counted out her savings. She had gone back to the shop and haggled with the tailor until the price paid was nearly half of what he'd quoted her before. And now the cloak lay locked away in her trunk, a talisman of her femininity.
Thinking of the cloak, Jacqueline threw her tangled jacket into the corner with more force than necessary. She knew she should undress and sleep, but didn't want to bother, or to see the barely faded contusions covering her body beneath newer, blossoming bruises from the activities of the night before. She hurt everywhere with a dull, throbbing ache that pounded at her bones with every heartbeat.
Something she had said, half-jokingly, to Siroc the afternoon before floated to the top of her mind. The memory of his serious answer made her lever herself off the bed and pad barefoot down the hall to his lab for the second time that day.
As she had thought, he was there, tinkering with the distillation apparatus. He looked up as she leaned against the doorframe. "Captain Duval told you to get some sleep."
"He told you the same thing," Jacqueline retorted, and then decided she'd better be nicer. "How's the, um, miracle pain reliever coming along?"
"It's not." He frowned at the length of copper tubing in his hand. "The distillery isn't efficient enough to reduce the tincture of willow bark and allow me to isolate the nerve-deadening compound."
Jacqueline latched on to the part of the sentence she'd understood. "Willow bark tea? Is there any left?"
"It's over there. Help yourself." He pointed to a container simmering over a blue alcohol flame and went back to his adjustments.
Jacqueline limped over and peered into the pot, where bits of twig bobbed gently in a murky brown liquid. It appeared to be the same stuff her mother had drunk for headaches and cramps. Slightly suspicious, she looked around for something to drink out of. Checking to make sure Siroc wasn't looking, she grabbed an empty beaker, wiped it on her shirttail, and dipped it full of tea, trying to avoid the bits of bark while not scalding her fingers.
Taking her makeshift teacup, she sat down a companionable distance from Siroc, not wanting to make off with both his tea and his equipment. He didn't notice. Jacqueline had noticed that he seemed to go somewhere else when he worked, forgetting everything around him except the task at hand, yet able to reach into the mess of tools on the workbench and find the correct one without ever taking his eyes from the machine. Looking around, she realized that he'd probably never leave the lab if not dragged out by his friends or patrol duty.
Jacqueline sipped her cooling tea, grimacing at the bitterness. It tasted odd, sweeter than her mother's, and she hoped he hadn't kept arsenic or another poisonous chemical in the beaker. But if she died at least she wouldn't have to worry about not being able to get up out of the chair. She took another long drink, feeling better already.
A warm, floating sensation suffused her entire body, spreading from her stomach upwards, erasing aches and pains in its wake. Not unlike, Jacqueline thought, almost giggling, the time she and ten-year-old Gerard had sampled vintages from their grandfather's wine cellar. She was so tired…
Siroc looked up, to add a belated postscript to his offer of the tea. "I've included a mild sedative—oh." Putting down a section of the dismantled steam chamber, he took the empty beaker from her limp hand before it could drop and smash. He crossed to the corner by the door and retrieved the coverlet folded there, the one she had covered him with, the one he had not returned, and spread it over her.
He did not look closely at his sleeping comrade. Or, if he did, Siroc saw only what he expected to be therenot what truly was, not what he would have seen if he'd examined the sleeping woman as he did his books and machines. If he had, he would have seen to her heart, as he did to theirs, and he would not have gone back to tinkering with the distillery.
Bright midmorning sun shone through the windows, waking Jacqueline and making her squint. Siroc, she noticed, was gone. Stiff but rested, she pushed herself out of the chair. The tea and whatever else had been in it had worked; she thought she might possibly be able to walk and perhaps fence without pain now.
Her stomach growled as she stretched experimentally. Heading to her room to wash up and dress, she decided to visit the cafe, where she could both have breakfast and seek out Noret, for whom she had some questions.
She felt that stepping into the kitchen and asking for him might not be the most prudent course of action, so, after ordering coffee and pain (shouldn't it be 'pan?') au chocolat, she sat where she could watch the kitchen door, ready to accost the baker should he appear.
She didn't have to wait long. Jacqueline had consumed half the coffee and most of the pastry, and was absorbed in fiddling with her sling in an attempt to make it marginally more comfortable, when she felt someone slide into the booth opposite her. Looking up, she saw Noret, flour on his cheek and batter on his jacket. "I thought you'd be back," he said, grinning. "Mind if I join you?"
Jacqueline, her mouth full, shook her head. He went on. "I owe you an apology for yesterday. Chef can be…temperamental." Large gray eyes twinkled at Jacqueline. "He came in this morning, stinking of brandy, and started snoring as soon as he sat down. I saw you come in, but I had to wait for my éclairs to finish. What happened to your arm?"
"A fight," Jacqueline said shortly. "What did you mean, yesterday, that you were glad there was another one?" She had decided that bluntness was both masculine and expedient.
"Oh, yes." Noret looked down a moment. "Has that been worrying you?" He leaned across the table, straight-faced. "I meant, of course, that I'm glad there's another girl."
Jacqueline's heart paused, and then began to thud again, pretending along with the rest of her that she did not know what he meant. "Where?"
Noret heaved a theatrical sigh. "Here," he said, proffering a small cylindrical package. "A token of my faith and good will."
Jacqueline looked down, nonplussed. "Socks?"
"Must I explain everything?" he muttered. "Look," Noret lowered his voice, though in the busy café no one could overhear them, "you're pretty good. You don't bulge where you shouldn't bulge. But you don't bulge where you should bulge, either. Lower down. So, the socks."
Feeling her face grow warm, Jacqueline blinked. Was he guessing, or certain? Did he mean to blackmail her, or was he, possibly, trying to help? "I beg your pardon, m'sieur"
"'M'sieur?' 'M'sieur!' Are you blind?" Eyes closed either in disbelief or desperation, Noret slouched in the booth, raking a hand through his hair so that it stood up in soft whorls, making him resemble nothing so much as a ruddy-faced, blond hedgehog.
Jacqueline stared at him for a moment, and as she did the world seemed to move around her, taking a quarter-turn and falling neatly into place. She saw the face before her graced with rouge, framed with longer hair, and smiling sweetly instead of grimacing at her. She blinked, and the mirage disappeared. The femininity, however, remained in the eyes and the structure of the face- reminding Jacqueline of what she saw in the mirror every morning.
Noret saw the realization dawn in her eyes. "I'm glad," she said, voice heavy with irony, "that there's another one."
"Oh," said Jacqueline faintly. "Yes. I thought I was the only one." But now it seemed silly to assume there could not be other women who lived as men, for protection or opportunity.
"You're not." Noret smiled slightly. "There aren't many. But there are some."
"Oh," Jacqueline said again, feeling naïve beside this girl who must be three years her junior. "How long have you-" she flicked her hand, not wanting to voice something as bald as 'pretended to be male.'
"Two years." Jacqueline suppressed a whistle. "My name is Marthe. I've heard the others call you Jacques. Is it Jacqueline, then?"
Jacqueline nodded and, unwilling to give her true surname, lest Noret be perceptive concerning things such as wanted posters, stuck a hand across the table, saying in her best baritone, "Jacques Lepont."
Grinning broadly now, she took it. "Etienne Noret."
If the café hadn't been so noisy, someone would surely have heard them giggle.