Judith Merkle Riley (23 page)

One by one he inspected the throne heirs, four boys, each worse than the next. After thirteen-year-old François, came six-year-old Charles, with a ratty, narrow little face and malicious eyes that reminded the old man of an infant Caligula. Ah, here was another—pretty, but something twisted within his soul. She thinks this one, Henri, is normal, the old man thought. Then there was the infant, Hercule, with the telltale big head and even uglier features. There was a girl, Elisabeth, with an elfin face and intelligent eyes, but marked all the same, and a younger daughter, Claude, already twisted and crippled. Then a baby girl in leading strings, merry and flirtatious. Barren from birth, said her aura. No man will ever get an heir from her.

Ah, but here is the exception, said the old man to himself, as he was introduced to a tall, titian-haired fourteen-year-old, with a rose-and-white complexion, and clear, sparkling eyes. The Queen of Scots, the intended bride of François, the Dauphin, is whole, and well formed. I see in her the Guise blood, brightened by the ruddy-gold strength of the Scottish line. No wonder the king favors her. He thinks her health will renew his line. “Too late,” sighed the voice of Anael in his ear, but the old prophet dissembled, told them all a glorious future awaited, beamed and bowed at the crowd around him, then spent much time ostentatiously taking notes in a shorthand of his own invention that none could decipher. And all the while, a voice echoed in his inner ear, the king will have no other marriage for his son, no matter what anyone says, and from this marriage will flow the sorrow that will rend France to the bone. War and death, brother against brother, the Guises trampling their enemies to be trampled in their turn.

“So tell me, Anael,” said Nostradamus to the angel of history, “what if a cruel future hinges on the life of a pretty little innocent? What would happen if I spoke the truth?” It was night, but the shutters of the prophet’s little room with the bad view were thrown open. Six stars, no, eight winked down at him from above the dark shadow of the roof opposite his window. Anael sat on the windowsill, his shadowy blue body with its twinkling lights only slightly lighter than the night sky. A single candle illuminated the complex diagram of a horoscope beneath Nostradamus’s hand. He made a series of notations at one corner, near the sign of Mars, then set down his pen with a sigh.

“You mean, could you abort history?” Anael grinned, ruffling the feathers on his raven-black wings. “You? A mortal old man? You don’t need your divining rod to know the first thing that would happen is that someone from one of the factions would murder you.”

“Are you implying that my silence isn’t purely moral?” Nostradamus had been up too late, finishing all those horoscopes, and when he’d sent to the kitchen for a little snack, there wasn’t anything left and they sent word the fires were out. As a consequence, he sounded rather testy.

“Oh, don’t get so huffy. It’s just mixed, like all you people make.” Anael lounged there, his legs crossed and swinging, looking so content with himself that it irritated the old prophet even more.

“Well, if you’re so perfect, why don’t you make history better?”

“Not my job. I just keep the cupboard. Besides, it doesn’t matter what any of us do at this point. A big thing like a religious civil war—why, it’s like water rolling downhill. You can’t stop it; it’s going to go by one path or another, so you might as well leave things alone and get out of its way.”

“Was there a time it could have been stopped?” Nothing interested Nostradamus more than a serious philosophical argument. He cheered up at the prospect of debate.

“You mean, by assassinating someone like M. Calvin, who is not half as attractive as that pretty little Guise girl?”

“Well, I didn’t say
that
—”

“Or perhaps you had in mind going back farther, M. Luther, for example? I assure you, sooner or later, that old, corrupt institution would have cast up its own ruin—”

“Well, what about the corruption then? Couldn’t that have been stopped? What about the inventor of the plenary indulgence?” Anael laughed, and Nostradamus brought his fierce eyebrows together in a frown. He felt he was, after all, of an age to be taken more seriously. Sometimes he forgot that to an immortal like Anael, he was hardly newborn.

“You think only one person would have had a bright idea like that? The seeds were there. When something is ready to be corrupt, it’s ready to be corrupt—”

“Yes, yes, like water running downhill, you’ve already said that,” said Nostradamus, irritated at being condescended to.

“And besides, just think of the art and beauty all those indulgences purchased. Would the world be better off without them? The rose is most beautiful just before it decays, you know. And all by means of a transfer of funds from the artless and gullible to the artful and crafty—who’s to say that isn’t appropriate—”

“Anael, you are the most profoundly amoral creature I have ever encountered—”

“You expect History to be moral? Michel, I never expected your depths concealed such shallowness—” There was a timid knock on the door, and Anael concealed his tall, graceful form among the shadows in the corner opposite Nostradamus’s candle.

“Come in,” said the prophet, wishing it was his snack after all, but knowing better, all at the same time.

Two little girls in nightgowns and caps, all wrapped up in heavy, furry
robes
de
chambre
, stood in the doorway, while behind them stood their governess, Madame de Humières, with her gray hair in a night braid beneath her cap, the lady of the castle that he had met that day in the great
salle
. Behind them were four sturdy armed guards, two of them bearing torches. A conspiracy, thought Nostradamus. They shouldn’t be up at all, let alone here, but he was touched all the same. He fussed and smoothed down his gown and tried to make his table look a little neater. After all, if one is the object of a child’s secret night adventure, one must live up to the part.

The youngest of the little girls had the big brown eyes and receding chin of her mother. Tight, dark curls peeped from beneath the white ruffles of her nightcap. It was the little Valois princess, Elisabeth, daughter of Queen Catherine. With her was her taller, older friend, with whom she shared a room and a big, canopied bed. The unmistakable titian hair flowed in two heavy braids over her shoulders, her porcelain complexion had turned pink with excitement at their daring nocturnal excursion. Mary, the girl-queen of Scotland, who had not set foot in her homeland since infancy. They stared at the instruments and charts he had laid out on the table. Mystery and magic, that’s what they’d come to see. Strange vessels, with imps sealed in them, perhaps. Nostradamus could tell he was a bit of a disappointment.

“Maistre Nostredame, we have come to know more about our futures,” the little dark-eyed girl spoke up boldly. Nostradamus, with a gesture, had swept away the chart he was working on, just in case one of them might catch a glimpse of the figures on it, and be able to decode any of them. On it was written the future the stars had ordained for the auburn-haired girl who stood before him: widowhood, exile, betrayal, imprisonment, and execution. All of it unfolding in the shadow of her uncles’ ambition, from blood heritage, just as surely as disease was the inheritance of the dark little pixie-faced girl who stood beside her.

“Yes, we want to know about our lives when we are queens; what palaces we shall have.”

“And our jewels; will we have splendid ones?” Nostradamus sighed, and they took it for impatience.

“We will reward you when we are great,” said the auburn-haired girl, her tone very grand and condescending, as if imitating someone else.

“We would not have come so late, but they said you were leaving soon, maybe tomorrow,” added the dark-haired one.

“It’s quite all right,” said the old man. “Just don’t give the others the idea, will you? I’ll read your fortune in your palms. Stand here, by the candle, while I look first at yours.”

“No, you must look at Mary’s first. She is a born queen, and father says she must go first in everything, even through doors.”

“Very well then. Hmm. Hum. Yes. You shall be a queen of two realms.” Above her head he saw hovering the black-hooded shadow of the executioner.

“Two, not three? I am queen in Scotland, shall marry France, and inherit England.” Her assured little voice resonated in the silence.

“No, not three. The signs say two. But you shall beget a line of kings—and…and you shall excite the passions of men wherever you go.”

“Oh,” sighed the girl-queen. “That will be splendid.” Not if you knew how selfish and how full of hatred some of those passions shall be, thought the old man to himself. Damn that Menander for making every prophecy an agony. How he laughed when I made my wish, and how cruel wisdom is.

“Now my turn,” said the dark-haired eleven-year-old, extending her little palm.

“Ah, what interesting lines,” said the old man, pretending to pore over them. “You shall be a very, very great queen, with closets full of splendid dresses, and more and greater jewels than you could wear in a lifetime—the riches of a great empire.” Her chart lay rolled in a drawer of the desk before him. He intended to revise it sufficiently to please her mother in the finished version. In it, he saw the bleak, ornate palaces of the Spanish king, marriage to a loveless old man, the frigid stares of rivals, and, young, so young, poison.

“And will I be the mother of kings, too?”

“Of daughters, my dear, but you will not regret it. You will be so beloved by your people they will call you the queen of peace and bounty.”

“Is there more?” said Elisabeth, who was very clever and her mother’s favorite, for she had caught an unusual look in the old man’s eye.

“Why no, nothing more,” said the old prophet. “That’s all the lines say, except that you are a very intelligent young lady, and good at your studies.”

“But I knew that already.”

“Exactly, which is why I don’t have to tell you,” said Nostradamus. When the girls had made their farewells, he saw Anael stretch himself in the corner, then fold his arms and snort.

“Change history, ha! You haven’t the heart to blot out anyone. You haven’t even the heart to tell those two little girls they will be murdered.”

“What would it do for them? Nothing but steal whatever pleasure they can find in their days,” said the old man, his voice sorrowful.

“And so you hide your predictions in code. Can’t bear to tell, can’t bear not to tell. Has anyone told you you’re an odd bird, Michel?”

“A large number of people, Anael. Oh, God, how ignorant, how accursed I was when I craved to read the future.”

“It’s all your own fault, you know.”

“Yes, and knowing it only makes it worse.” He sighed. “I was young, I was foolish, I was crazed with a lust for the mysteries of the East. But at least that damned mummy in the box didn’t belong to me. And I was fortunate indeed that somebody stole it from its keeper in Constantinople before I had a chance to make another wish.”

“And so you were saved from yourself. But really, I should consider your regrets an insult. Is it that bad making my acquaintance?” said the Spirit of History.

“No, Anael, it’s had its points. But tell me, how can we get rid of Menander the Deathless before he destroys France?”

“Really, Michel, you are transparent. Do you actually think repairing history is as easy as that?” The angel grinned, showing lovely, even, white teeth, and unfurled his raven wings, so that their glistening feathers shone iridescent in the candlelight. Nostradamus heaved a great sigh. “Don’t be so downcast, old mortal. I’ll give you a hint. It’s in that girl’s horoscope.”

“Her? The little queen?”

“No, the girl whose godmother poured hex powder into Menander’s box.”

“Her? Her dog ate my slippers. I never want to see her again.” The angel shrugged his shoulders, and the little twinkling things inside his dark, translucent body whirled and danced.

“Have it as you will. Slippers or France,” he said.

“Well, if you put it that way. But, Lord above, what irritation! The social climbing, the chattering, the snooping, the
know-it-all-ness
. And that awful poetry—did you know she sent me a villanella of her own composition? The rhymes—ugh—they put my teeth on edge.”

“The horoscope, Michel, don’t forget,” said the Angel of History, as he faded from view.

Monsieur:

This Saturday, the 29th of November, 1561, I received your letters sent from Paris on the 12th of October of this year. And it seems to me that your letters are full of spleen, quarrel, and indignation that you have against me for I know not what reason. You complain that when I was in Paris paying reverence to Her Majesty the Queen you lent me two rose nobles and twelve crowns, which is right and true…As for writing me that I left Paris ungrateful for your hospitality…it is totally outside my nature. As for my fine reward I had from the court, when I got sick, His Majesty the King sent me a hundred crowns. The queen sent me thirty, and that’s the lovely sum I got for having come two hundred leagues and spent a hundred crowns—thirty crowns. But that’s not the point: after I returned to Paris from Saint-Germain, an honorable great lady whom I did not know came to see me…and told me that the Gentlemen of the Justice of Paris were coming to interrogate me about what methods I used to make my predictions. I said…that they needn’t bother, that I planned to return to Provence the next morning, and I did…But you’ll think that with all these words that I write that I intend to put you off without paying. Not so. I send you in this letter two little notes, which, if it pleases you to deliver them, I am sure that your money will be repaid promptly…

Excerpts from a Letter of Nostradamus to Jean Morel

Fonds latin No. 8589, French National Library

Another cushion, Léon, before I perish of the Cardinal’s luxury.” Having returned to Paris from his trip to Blois, Nostradamus had settled himself into the overwhelmingly large, dark, carved wooden chair, entirely devoid of comfort, which was provided in his room in the Cardinal de Bourbon’s palatial establishment. Nostradamus’s days as a houseguest were beginning to pall; the food and company were excellent, but the open, high-ceilinged stone rooms, so chill and drafty, the constant annoyance of strange servants, the busy carved faces of grotesques and beasts that peered at him from every piece of malignant, hard-edged furniture made him long for his own cozy house, his sweet-tempered wife, and the joyful sound of his own children. Then there was the matter of his books, from which long parting annoyed him, and the nattering of the ignorant, who hadn’t yet paid him enough to return his loan to the trusting Maître Morel. “Don’t let a soul in; I want to finish the dauphin’s horoscope.”

“I thought you’d finished it already,” said Léon, looking at the mass of annotated papers that lay on the lion-footed table before the large, ugly, hard-edged chair in which the old prophet sat.

“I did. This is the new, improved version. I need the queen’s fee to get home, and I see no reason to put her gratitude in jeopardy.”

“In short, you are taking out a fatal illness and substituting a period of great risk—”

“You presume upon your long service, Léon. The dauphin will be the greatest king in Europe once he has passed the period of great risk.”

“Exactly,” said Léon, settling another cushion behind his master’s back, and rearranging the footstool for his gouty foot. “Will you be wanting your dinner brought up to you here?”

“Of course. But no more cream sauce. It unsettles my digestion.” As Léon departed, Nostradamus dipped his pen back in the inkwell and wrote, “In his seventeenth year, the Lord Dauphin must give up hunting entirely if he wishes to pass by a period of great risk successfully.” It’s just as well Léon can’t read, thought Nostradamus, or he’d throw me off with his snickering. We both know well enough the dauphin will never give up hunting…

There was a rustle and a snort of amusement behind him. Without turning his head, Nostradamus said, “Anael? You should be ashamed, snooping like this. I didn’t even call you.”

“I told you, Michel, I go where I want.”

“
Doctor
Nostradamus, please.”

“You call me by my first name, I call you by yours.”

“You have other names?”

“Of course. Dozens. And titles, too. I’m just not vain, like some people.”

“Always, criticism. A man can’t get anything done without someone offering irritating suggestions—”

“—or snickering at the sight of the great Prophet doctoring a horoscope for money to get out of town.”

“Go away, you pest, and come back when I call you.”

“Oh, I wouldn’t think of it. You wished for the spirit of prophecy, and you get the spirit of prophecy, my own self, whether you like it or not.” Here Anael nodded his head mockingly and made a flourish, as a gentleman would when introduced. But somehow it did not look the same when the gentleman had no hat and plumes, or even any clothes, and, in addition, filled the entire space from floor to fourteen-foot ceiling. “Besides, I was feeling a bit of that ennui of eternal existence, and something amusing is going to happen, so I dropped in.” Nostradamus, who had studiously evaded the angel’s gaze, in order to avoid giving him any additional satisfaction, now glanced up from his papers and realized that Léon had left the door open. In the door frame stood the gawky, tall, bony figure of the most annoying, pretentious poetess in the whole world, clutching a package tied with a fancy ribbon to her bosom. Oh, God, thought Nostradamus, an entire package of poems, and I’m probably expected to read every one of them. But she was standing stock still, not saying anything, for once. And suddenly the prophet realized, she is seeing Anael. He is not invisible to her.

“Um—I didn’t realize you had a guest,” she said, inspecting the towering, raven-winged, unclad figure. “I’m sorry, Monsieur—ah—Anael, I believe—I will return when you have finished your toilette.”

“Oh, no, don’t go just yet,” said Anael. Addressing Nostradamus, he added, “You see? There’s someone who knows about polite address.”

“And just how did you know Anael?” said Nostradamus. “And how did you see him?”

“Oh—I often see—things,” she said, still rather wide-eyed with shock. “And I do
read
, you know.” She hesitated. “Monsieur Anael, dark blue, very good-looking—the Angel of Venus—” She blushed. “I didn’t know about the little twinkling sparks. Like the night sky. And they move about—” While she was distracted by staring, the prophet suddenly came to himself, and covered up the draft horoscope with some blank paper, then weighed it down with a book and his inkwell.

“Have you brought that—hound of yours?”

“I know you don’t like Gargantua, so I left him at home.”

“And the interfering aunt?”

“She’s having the furniture rearranged in a nice little apartment we’ve just rented. It’s really not so far from here. I’ve brought you—”

“Just leave them here,” said the defeated prophet. “I’ll read them later. You haven’t gone and dedicated them to me, have you? I simply can’t have that—”

“It’s—it’s your slippers. We had them made up from the old ones—exactly alike—” Nostradamus suddenly felt very mean and small when he noticed her eyes had started to swim. “My father never liked them either—but I thought—the queen said they were very admirable, and M. Montmorency, too, especially the one I wrote about you—pardon—” She wiped away a tear and shook her head so that no more would come.

“Do sit down here, Demoiselle Sibille,” said Anael, sitting his huge figure on the big, canopied bed that stood in one corner of the room and patting the place beside him. “Not everyone has every gift, you know. And your prose dialogues have many passages that are very sharp and witty. I know many consider them your best work.”

“You think so?” she said, hesitating to sit down.

“Absolutely,” said Anael. “The secret of being truly admired is to write where your strength is. You need to know who you are before you take up the pen—” Sibille looked at up at Anael’s vast, shadowy bulk, and her face seemed troubled.

“—and you should try history. I’ve a knack for that, myself. I could help you out, there. Michel, you are a rude oaf. You never even offered the lady a seat.”

“Oh, umph, so sorry. Don’t know what I was thinking about. Don’t mind sitting next to Anael. He may not be clad in the fashion, but he’s very mannerly.” When Sibille hesitatingly sat down next to the immense, bare figure, Nostradamus noticed that she carefully arranged her hem to conceal her generously sized feet, and he felt sorrier than ever for what he had let slip. There is nothing sadder than an old maid who knows it, he thought.

“I thought—perhaps—this was the time for my Art to be recognized—I mean, my readings have done so well, and even—you don’t suppose it was all that horrible Menander’s doing, do you?”

“Have you made your wish?” said the old doctor, horrified.

“No, but half the world would do it if they could get at him. The queen keeps me close by, and you wouldn’t believe who courts me for a peek at him. I was thinking—maybe—some of it was sincere. But I guess he was right. It’s all flattery.”

“What do you mean, he told you? You mean Menander? And where is he, anyway? I thought he followed you about. He should be materializing about now.”

“Menander told me that he was giving up on me until I realized that the only way I wouldn’t turn out a lonely old maid was to wish for a rich, good-looking husband. And then he said he had better people to associate with—”

“Better people?” The old prophet could feel the hair standing up on the back of his neck.

“A man broke in and stole him two days ago, and I’ve heard the Duchess of Valentinois has him now. It’s been such a relief, even if the queen
is
frantic. He—he talks to me at night, you know, and I can’t sleep. He—he says if I won’t wish, at least I should get out of his way, because he has much more important people to belong to than me. And just when I’m happiest, he’ll come back and spoil everything—”

“Demoiselle Sibille, don’t you realize he’s just working on you?” said Anael.

“I know, but it hurts anyway.”

“He always works on weak spots,” said Nostradamus. “And, being deathless, he has all the time in the world to do it. You shouldn’t underestimate how sly and nasty he can be.”

“That’s what Auntie says, and she says I should be happy in order to spite him, but he steals all my pleasure. He’s worn me out ’til I hardly feel like living.”

“And he will keep it up until you’ve wished, and he’s stolen your soul into the bargain. It is clear that if he can’t have that, he’ll try to wear you down until you perish. Your will must stay powerful! Sages and seers have given in, but
you
must withstand him!” Nostradamus felt himself aflame with indignation, with sympathy, with the desire to defeat Menander the Deathless at his own dirty game. He never noticed Anael’s quiet smile as he spoke.

“First he said my pretty new dresses were unbecoming, and then they looked all plain and dowdy to me. Then he told me I was ugly anyway, and I didn’t want to look in the mirror anymore, because every time I did, all I could see was a flaw—my nose, this eyebrow, a pimple—you know.” Sibille’s face was pale and sad. She smoothed the wrinkles out of her skirt, looking down as she spoke.

“Then I thought, well, at least I’m healthy, and he reminded me that health never lasts, and the most sinister diseases start with the tiniest signs. Now every time I get a cold, he says he knew someone who died from it, and then I feel worse than ever. When I became popular and got invited to the queen’s cultured afternoons to read, he said it was all flattery because they wanted to get to
him
and they were laughing behind my back.

“Then, I swear, Maistre Nostredame, I could hear whispering behind me wherever I went, and I could never hear anyone say anything good or kind without listening for some hidden slight. But still I didn’t wish, you see. I didn’t wish for beauty, I didn’t wish for eternal youth and health, I didn’t wish for everybody to admire my writing—I was strong.”

“I see, I see. You’ve held out longer than anyone I’ve ever heard of—”

“Then M. d’Estouville came to pay court to me, and hired men to play viols and lutes beneath my window. Can you imagine? The most handsome, dashing man I’ve ever met! Rank and fortune, and admired by my brother and my father! I was ecstatic! Menander sat on the cupboard and gloated that he was only after the money Auntie was going to leave me and told me exactly how many debts he has, and how his rich uncle is too healthy to die just now—” All true enough, thought Nostradamus, who had drawn up the dashing M. d’Estouville’s horoscope.

“You see? Auntie won’t have Philippe in the house because of it, and even you know it’s true,” said Sibille. “Then when I decided that at least I had my Art, Menander told me it was awful, and I’ve lost all my inspiration. My muses have flown, and I’m going to die of starvation in an attic and they won’t find my body until it’s mummified, just like he said—”

“That’s nonsense!” said the prophet.

“I said so, too. I have Auntie, I told him. And he said she only bought me from father to spite him, and my own family didn’t even love me, so what did I expect—”

“Your father
sold
you?”

“Well, in a manner of speaking. He let Auntie adopt me when she offered to pay his debts. Don’t you think a father who really loved me would have said, ‘Never!’ or perhaps maybe just loaned me for a while? It’s all so awful, you see—and when I told that awful mummy that the great Nostradamus said I had an important future, he said you were a quack—”

“That does it!” said Nostradamus, leaping up in such a fury that he forgot to favor his bad foot. “I swear, I’ll see that wretched piece of garbage in a box destroyed if it’s the last thing I do!” He pounded with his fist on the table, and the lid rattled on his inkwell. “Take heart, Demoiselle! Do you think I can read so little of the human essence that I think you will end as he said? That evil, sneaking, creature takes speckles of truth and distorts them until they are huge stains. He works on your will, and he has had a thousand years to learn how to do it! Can’t you see what he wants? If he drives you to despair, you’ll take your own life and he’ll have your soul without even having to do the work of carrying out a wish! It’s nothing but a new game for him! After all these centuries, he’s bored, and this is the way he amuses himself! But I, the infallible Nostradamus, will draw your horoscope entirely gratis, without charge, and show to you that all his evil prophecies are false! Quack, indeed! I’ll grind that despicable Menander into dust!” The old prophet was so furious the arteries in his neck stood out and his hair stood on end, and he never even noticed Anael’s broad, triumphant smile.