Ask and You Shall Be Deceived
In ‘The Shepherdess: Artifice’ by JM Landels, answers lead to more questions for our indefatigable heroine, Toinette.
Previously in ‘The Shepherdess’: On her ascent through the social circles of seventeenth-century France — from shepherdess, to maid, to physician’s apprentice, to lady-in-waiting — a dangerous object has fallen into Toinette’s hands: a letter opener housing a hidden stiletto with a poisoned blade. Having discerned its maker, she now needs to know whom it was designed to kill.
Join Toinette in Paris, in this excerpt from Issue 34, Spring 2022.
The Shepherdess: Artifice
by JM Landels
It was strange to be back in Paris again, away from the bizarrely formed intrigue of Versailles. Dressing as a boy made sitting Marteau’s trot more convenient but no less comfortable, and I wished for Madame’s carriage, no matter how stuffy and stiffly sprung the ride in the other direction had been. Henri and I had set out at dawn, he on a livery mare I insisted he hire to spare Marteau his great weight. I wished now that I had taken the mare instead, as she clearly had an amble far easier to ride.
We didn’t go to the house — it would take too long to wake it up from its cold and shuttered state. Instead we took two rooms on rue St Antoine. The following morning over bread and warm wine — how I missed Ahmed’s Turkish coffee already — I informed Henri that he would accompany me to the Ile de la Cité.
This morning I was dressed as a girl once again, which seemed to give the innkeeper no pause. I left Henri holding the horses on the main thoroughfare. The workshop entrance was on a tiny ruelle west of Nôtre Dame. The sign on the door simply read ‘Van Nuyens’.
I knocked. A dog yipped from inside. I waited, knocked again, and tried the handle.
“M’sieur Van Noyen?” I called, sticking my head through the door.
“Van Nuyens,” a voice corrected me irritably, before mumbling “damned French” as a small white dog galloped to the door, yapping frenetically. Its owner appeared from the same back room. His hair was shorn as if for a wig, but it was not shorn recently or well. Whitish tufts stuck out in all directions, like a half-blown dandelion. The dog and he were much of a pair.
“I am closed,” he said in heavily accented French. “No commissions till the new year. At least.” He grabbed the dog by the scruff of its neck to prevent it from leaving and pushed the door with his other hand.
I put my sabot in the way. “No commission, m’sieur.”
“Then I certainly don’t want to see you.” He gave the door a little slam, which made a satisfying clack against the sabot.
“Just a question, m’sieur.” I jingled the small purse I held. “It won’t take a minute of your time.”
To find out what happens next, pick up your copy of Issue 34, Spring 2022 today!
Available now for preorder, the eagerly anticipated finale in the Allaigna’s Song Trilogy: Allaigna’s Song: Chorale by JM Landels!
In the six years since Allaigna left home, killed her betrothed, and joined the Brandishear Rangers, she has hidden her family name and her ability to sing music into magic. Confronted with the dire implications of her grandfather’s exploration into long-forbidden arcana, Allaigna must swallow her pride and summon her courage to return home with the ashes of her cousin to prevent yet another war, or worse, an arcane catastrophe to rival that of the legendary Cataclysm.
JM Landels is torn between travelling the world to teach writing and swordfighting, and never leaving her idyllic farm in Langley, BC. Her debut series, fantasy bestseller Allaigna’s Song: Overture, and the sequel, Aria, are available from Pulp Literature Press and Amazon. The third book, Chorale, is due out soon. You can follow her adventures with pen and sword at jmlandels.stiffbunnies.com
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