Judith Merkle Riley (24 page)

***

That morning Nicolas Montvert had awakened from a dream that his father stood over his bed, lecturing him on the virtues of early rising, the expense of the waste of candles in late nights, the expense of the education and travel showered upon him, all of which was wasted, his advancing age and failure to show himself responsible, and he was, in the dream, just preparing to answer, “But I don’t
want
to be a banker,” when his eyes popped open, and he saw his father, his somber silk gown, gold chain, and flat hat, his long beard wigwagging over him even as the words,

“—shameless waste—your grandfather is turning in his grave—your mother weeps—even the angels weep—sloth is one of the seven deadly sins—”

“Uff, oof,” said Nicolas, who was deeply entangled in the sheets.

“—and pretending to be asleep, it is insulting! How many burdens must an old man bear? Soon I’ll be in my grave, and you will be the cause of it, yes, you, your ingratitude—”

“I’m up, I’m up,” said Nicolas. His hair was sticking every which way, and the previous late night had left dark circles under his eyes.

“I want you to survey accounts with me, then this afternoon I take you to meet the keeper of the queen’s household accounts, you have no idea the time I’ve waited for this appointment; you should be grateful for such an opportunity—”

“I am, Father, I am. I swear I’ll be there—what time?”

“And
where
are you going, that you are dressing in such a hurry?”

“Ah, um, to mass, father. I—I’ve been feeling a need to worship in a more wholesome fashion, more profoundly, lately—”

“Weekday mass, and not Sunday mass? Oh, I am a foolish old man, to believe you once again—go, go—ah, God, God, how does it happen in a family that one child gets all the virtue, and the other collects sins like loose dog hairs?”

After all, it’s a kind of worship, said Nicolas to himself, as he walked through the narrow streets of the Marais, emerging at the rue St.-Antoine, and found himself, almost without effort, at the doorstep of the house on the rue Cerisée. This doorstep, it’s the altar of Venus. Every day, Sibille’s beautiful foot touches this doorstep. And today—today’s the day my watching will pay off. I’ll discover the identity of the wicked Spaniard and then, why, I’ll insult him, and cause him to challenge me, and when he’s dead on the field of honor, it will erase the stain—

At that very moment, the door opened, and his heart gave a leap when he saw it was her, her alone, her without the litter, the duenna, the huge, slavering dog, the lackeys. On foot, in a plain, dark cloak, clutching a mysterious package to her bosom. Carefully, she looked both ways, and assuming the street was empty, sped away with swift and determined steps. Taking care to stay on the shadowy side of the street, Nicolas followed as quickly and quietly as a cat—no, a tiger, or perhaps a lion—well, he followed swiftly, while deciding on a suitably becoming image for himself, finally settling on a gigantic, silent, slithering serpent. This time, the Spaniard will not escape me. But suppose it is the second lover she is meeting clandestinely? One or two? Well, what does it matter: I’ll challenge them both, and fight them on successive days, he thought. It will make me famous. He imagined her old, sunning herself in a convent garden, and someone saying, “
Her?
The famous double duel of Montvert was fought over her?” and then the answer, “But, my dear, that was long ago. You cannot imagine her beauty in those days. But all wasted. After the victory, the Chevalier Montvert refused ever to speak to her again on account of her dishonor, and here she has been since, simply numb with grief for fifty years.”

But he had hardly got to the best part of his daydream when she passed the Swiss guards at the courtyard gates of the Hôtel de Sens and when he tried to follow, they most rudely demanded his standing, and his business there. Quickly it ran through his mind: what could he say? Nicolas Montvert, Philosopher and Observer of Life? Nicolas Montvert, quarreler in student taverns through half of Italy and France, hanger-on with the rogues at cheap fencing studios, and author of an as-yet-to-be-published treatise on
The
Secrets
of
the
Italian
Art
of
Fencing
? Nicolas Montvert, banker’s son, but no banker? None of it was a worthy enough description of his special and higher relationship to the ordinary run of mankind, the glorious but unspecified future that he intended for himself. I need a title, he thought sulkily, as he lurked by the gate, waiting for her to come out again. I need something grand enough that I don’t get turned away from courtyard gates by hired Swiss guards, like some peddler of trinkets.

***

Then he noticed he had a fellow lurker, a dreadful figure of a demobilized soldier in filthy old rags, quite drunk even early in the day. He’s the sort that gives a bad name to people who lurk for legitimate purposes, thought Nicolas. The sinister man was also eyeing the gate, watching the visitors, priests, merchants and petitioners go in and out, waiting for somebody. A hired bravo, decided Nicolas. I’ve run into enough of them here and there. How desperate—or how well paid—to attempt an assassination in broad daylight. A woman with a tray of meat pies came by and the lurker bought one, and as he munched, Nicolas remembered he hadn’t had breakfast, and this led him to a contemplation of his father’s extreme stinginess, which had left him entirely without funds for a similar purchase and this in turn led him to ponder how misers never end well, and just as he was imagining his father on his deathbed repenting, and begging forgiveness from his long-suffering son, who was reduced to a pitiable human skeleton,
she
came out of the gate, looking unhappy, and without the package.

“Demoiselle Sibille de La Roque?” asked the sinister fellow, blocking her way. Then she nodded, looking puzzled, and everything happened at once.

“
This
from the Sieur Villasse!” cried the man, raising his arm, at the very moment that Nicolas leaped upon him, sending the object in his hand flying. As the shower of vitriol spewed harmlessly between them, acid drops ate unnoticed into his sleeve, while Sibille screamed, “My hand! My hand! Oh, God, it burns!” and Nicolas hammered the assassin’s head into the cobblestones shouting, “The Spaniard! Tell me where he lives or I’ll kill you here! Who is Señor Alonzo?” and the Swiss tried in vain to claw them apart. “Insanity! No, a fit! No, a murder attempt!” cried the strangers who began to run to the struggling mass of bodies.

“Assassin!” he cried, as they separated him from the ragged man. Behind him, someone was saying, “Oil of vitriol—it’s everywhere—look at it eat into the stone—” while behind him he heard his beloved screaming.

“She’s fainting, the demoiselle is fainting!” he cried, turning and scooping her up. “Quickly, where is a doctor?”

“No—no—don’t touch me—my arm, my hand—” she cried, shaking all over. “Water, for God’s sake, water!” But then she looked up and saw Nicolas. “You! You’ve been following me again. But I saw you—you knocked his hand away—”

“You’re burned—you’ve lost your mind—quickly—we must have a doctor—” They were inside the gates now, and swarms of people were running up.

“You are acquainted with the demoiselle?”

“Her cousin is my best friend—” A tiny exaggeration, justified by circumstances.

But Sibille was crying over and over, “It’s burning—it’s burning! Oh, bring water! Help!” Someone splashed water onto the hand she clutched to her, wetting them both, but not stopping the terrible burning as skin and flesh dissolved. “It still burns, Jesus, it’s burning me away!” There were cries and the sound of footsteps as servants ran into the vast old building to find aid. Then there was a tap-tap-tapping of a malacca cane, but the sound was lost in the general commotion.

“We have to cut away the sleeve, Demoiselle, here, into the bucket, yes, the whole arm—” Nicolas found himself kneeling on the hard stones of the courtyard, supporting in his arms the body of his Divinity as an old man in a doctor’s gown dipped her burned arm in a bucket of water mixed with wood ash to neutralize and wash away the searing acid. He could feel Sibille’s pulse, he could feel her breath, which came in quick gasps, and he could feel her tremble.

“He was aiming at my face—my eyes—”

“You are lucky,” the doctor was saying. “Léon, more water, and stir in plenty of wood ash—we have to dissolve every trace away or it will burn deeper. Lucky that he missed, lucky that I know that water alone will not stop oil of vitriol’s evil work.”

“We have the man, Demoiselle,” said one of the Swiss. “This fellow here saved you.”

“Ah, yes,” said the old doctor, looking directly at Nicolas. He had a beard almost like Nicolas’s father, but somehow it didn’t quite look the same. The eyes above it, that was the difference, perhaps—they were shrewd with understanding.

“Sun in Leo,” he said. “You’ll do nicely.”

“Wh–what do you mean? A fiend has tried to throw oil of vitriol on the demoiselle, and you are telling me my birth sign?”

“Young man, I am Michel de Nostredame.”

“The
astrologe
r
?” Nicolas could only gape. Did that mean that Sibille had not been on an assignation, but consulting a
fortune-telle
r
? How terribly weak-minded. A flush of relief and disappointment—for the famous double duel had blown away like smoke—washed right through him. But Maistre Nostredame was busy saying:

“—and you really should not walk home unescorted after a dreadful shock like this. Have this young man take you home, and greet your aunt for me. Remember, water and wood ash, should the burning recur, and then a poultice of honey and eggs, to make the scarring less—keep it very clean, the skin is gone—but even so you are fortunate—the hand and arm are saved—”

But now the archers had come to remove the attacker, and the crowd departed to follow the better spectacle, the howling prisoner who was proclaiming his innocence. “The effrontery of that criminal,” Nicolas heard one of them say.

“Ha! What fool hired a drunk to throw vitriol? He missed,” said another.

“Probably the idiot paid him first, and he got drunk before the job.”

“
And
she can still see, so she can identify him—”

As Nostradamus’s back receded from them, Nicolas made his heartfelt plea: “Ma Demoiselle, do you see where all this has gotten you? Leave this terrible life, leave that despicable Spaniard—”

“What Spaniard?” she said.

“Oh, don’t play the innocent. I know all, but I forgive. But you understand, I cannot with honor pay my addresses to you until I have killed him.”

“Killed who?”

“The one who has led you into this dreadful life, the one who debauched your innocent beauty, the odious Señor Alonzo—”

“Señor
Alonzo
?” she said. “When you come home with me, I’ll introduce you to him—” How could I have so misjudged him? She was thinking. I thought he was a trailing pest—another fortune hunter. But no, his was real devotion, and he was sent by God to save me, a miracle—and, and—

All the way to the rue de Cerisée, one word he had spoken resonated in her mind, mingling with the pain, the confusion, the sorrow and shock. It grew bigger and bigger, and it threw an even bigger halo around the tall, dark-haired young man who escorted her, one arm protectively about her shoulder. It hyphenated the sorry “Montvert” with a dozen noble chivalric lines, and made his bony, intense face handsomer than that of Apollo.

The word was “beauty.”

***

It was almost midnight, and Nostradamus’s candle was burned down nearly flat. Léon was snoring on the trundle bed that pulled out at the foot of the great, canopied bed that stood against the wall. Servants had quit stirring and hustling in and out through the doors of the room, which served also as a corridor in the curious old palace, and even the mice had at last gone to sleep. But the old prophet was still up, doggedly struggling with a horoscope that contained many crossings out and several ink blots representing pure frustration.

“Still it doesn’t come out, Anael,” he said, consulting a little volume of astronomical calculations. “It’s driving me mad. Look, here is the hour and the birthdate she gave me, six o’clock in the morning on February eleventh, and here is the character and the future, and none of it fits that girl, or what I read in her aura, in the least.”

“
Hmm
,” said Anael, folding his arms across his bare chest. “I see what you mean.”

“You don’t see at all. You’re not even looking,” said Nostradamus.

“You forget. I don’t
have
to look in order to see things,” said Anael, sounding superior. The old prophet grunted, and went back to work.

“Just look at this, just look. According to this, she is a frail, sensitive, poetic girl destined to die two years ago, before she reached her twentieth birthday, in childbirth. And here she’s a great, healthy horse who isn’t even married.”

“She does, however, consider herself sensitive and poetic.”

“Her poetry is awful, and as for her sensitiveness—well, she has the skin of a dragon when it comes to pushing herself into places she doesn’t belong. And all the while she carries on about being a tragic, drooping lily, she conceals a sarcastic wit that could grace a comedy on the stage. It’s all pretense, Anael.”

“Maybe she lied about her birthday. She’s a little sensitive about her age,” observed Anael, in a tone of false helpfulness.

“No—I know from her aura she was telling the truth, at least this once. She said she checked it with her godmother, just to make sure,” said the prophet, running a hand through his hair until it stood almost upright on one side. Anael chuckled. The prophet rolled back his sleeves so the ink wouldn’t stain them and fussed again with the chart. “It’s almost as if she’s
trying
to be the person that this horoscope describes,” he muttered to himself. “It just doesn’t make sense.”

“Perhaps you should sleep on it,” suggested the Angel of History.