Judith Merkle Riley (34 page)

***

Rumors and news mingled in equal portion during this terrible time. Nevers would reinforce St. Quentin, Nevers had failed. King Philip of Spain had arrived to supervise the attack. King Philip’s troops had been beaten back by a heroic attack. But at last, just before the turning of the month, word came that the city of Saint-Quentin itself had fallen, in an orgy of blood and looting. Now the hysteria set in, and the streets of Paris were jammed with carts of furniture with panicky women clutching babies perched atop their possessions, men of wealth trying to buy more horses, crowds of people on mules, on donkeys, on foot, pushing handcarts, all trying to pass through the city gates to the south. But Auntie and the shrewd old banker had already sent the better pieces of furniture and more valuable items south to her house in Orléans, and there remained only ourselves and his wife and daughter to be removed, according to a plan they had made weeks before.

“Good-bye, my dears,” said Monsieur Montvert. “I will send news to you if the city is saved—if not, wish me a fortunate escape.” He embraced us all around as he entrusted us to the care of the Abbé for the trip south, then turned away so we could not see his face. And with that our unlikely caravan swept from our courtyard into the hysterical crowds of refugees that swept down the rue St.-Antoine like a river. Auntie’s litter, the cushions made lumpy with last-minute valuables sewed into them, swayed and jostled, causing Madame Montvert, who rode inside with Aunt Pauline, to cry out. And mounted double as we all were, we worried that our horses might panic and buck with the crowding, the sounds of shouting whips cracking over wedged-in carts and baggage mules. But it was not the fear in the streets that weighed heaviest in my heart. Rather, it was the certain knowledge that our pace must have us break our journey midway, at La Roque-aux-Bois. The thought of going home again made me feel plain and shabby; over and over again, I heard that last savage exchange between Auntie and Father in my mind. Even the thought of once more embracing my mother could not make it vanish.

Just beyond the city walls, as the crowd of refugees thinned out along the road, stretching itself into the endless dusty distance, Auntie lifted the curtain of her litter and spoke to me. “I can
feel
you moping out there,” she said, just as if she could read my mind. “Quit worrying. There are laws of hospitality, you know, and I
am
his sister. He’ll be thinking of my money the whole time. Besides, we have distinguished guests with us. He’ll be on his best behavior, I assure you.”

Home. Once it is shattered, can one ever go back? Of course, of course, I told myself over and over. It will be nice. We’ll talk, my sisters and I, and read cards and gossip, just like the old days. I’ll show them my pretty new things. I’ll tell mother the news I couldn’t write in letters. We’ll all be happy again. It will be good. It has to be good. Over and over I said it to myself, with the rhythm of the horses’ slow hooves, as the landscape gradually grew more and more familiar.

***

Two days later, a tall, heavy figure, enveloped in a gray cloak, appeared at the elegant glovemaker’s establishment that stood across from the house in the rue Cerisée. He had a gray beard and shoulder-length greasy gray hair. One eye was concealed by a black silk patch.

“Well, what news have you for me now? Any illness in the house? Have they sent for a physician yet?”

“Not a one, and I’ve had my boy on the lookout every day since you were last here.”

“Are you sure?” said Thibault Villasse, slipping a few coins into the woman’s outstretched hand.

“Absolutely sure. I am the soul of honesty. But you needn’t come anymore—the entire family left two days ago, and given this terrible war, I don’t know when they’ll be back.”

“A pity, a pity—but you didn’t see any signs of ill health?”

“Not a one. She was mounted on a big roan mule with her maid behind, and rode off as gaily as if to a ball.”

“Damn! Maybe the messenger never delivered it—” said Thibault Villasse, as he departed to inspect the locked gates across the street.

Someone else was already at the gate, a dusty fellow in rusty homespun, a common carrier, banging on the wicket door, and not getting any answer.

“No luck, fellow?” he asked, and the courier turned to him, so obviously a gentleman, with some relief.

“I’ve tried for two days to make this delivery to Madame Tournet, and they’re never home.”

“I am a friend of the family,” said Villasse, his voice silky smooth. “I’m afraid they’ve fled south. I plan to join them in the next few days. Would you like me to carry any letters?”

“Just this one is all there is—”

“Of course, it’s not fair that you shouldn’t receive your fee—tell whoever sent it that the Sieur de La Tourette will deliver it to Madame Tournet’s residence in Orléans—” Villasse jingled a little purse before the carrier’s dazzled eyes.

“Why, thank you, Monsieur de La Tourette, you are most generous—” said the carrier as he tucked Villasse’s silver into his bosom. And as he departed, Villasse flicked a thumb under the seal, which he didn’t recognize, and as he read the first sheet, a ghoulish smile gradually spread over his face.

“Why, just look at this!” A letter—and—ha! They’ve lied all these years! Her birthday is December twenty-fourth, not the eleventh of February at all, he said to himself. He counted the months backward on his fingers. That means—she was conceived out of wedlock—why, she might even be a bastard! Who’d have thought it of that righteous, mealy-mouthed mother of hers. What a secret! Too good for me, was she? Surely, a clever lawyer could do something with this to speed my case.

But as he read further, his jaw dropped in astonishment. Sorcery? The Master of All Desires? Who would want to stop up the abilities of a magical, undying head? Luckily, she does not know the secret of silencing it—I have it here—I must have possession of that thing—you won’t find
me
trying to spoil something so splendid! Desires! Ha! I could keep it busy for the next hundred years! But I’ll have to be devious; the queen owns it, it seems to imply here. But if I steal it, what can the queen do? I’ll be able to wish that she can’t get it back. Women—they’re so foolish, they never think things through.

But suppose someone else gets it? Damn! She’s bound to stop at La Roque on the way! Hercule de La Roque, you bastard, you’ll never get your hands on
my
magic head—I must intercept her—And so busy was Villasse with planning his first wish, that he never even paused to read the second page, on which was written Sibille’s horoscope.

***

Villasse returned to the stable where he had left his horse to find the stable master in the very act of selling it illicitly to a stranger who wished to flee the city. Without the slightest thought, Villasse ran the stable master through and sent the other fleeing, then mounted, and joined the throngs crushing into the routes to the city gates. Single-minded, without looking to the left or right, he hacked his way across the Pont aux Meuniers with his riding crop, pushing foot travelers aside and leaving behind him a trail of curses. Beneath the bridge the mills of Paris still rumbled and groaned; the green waters of the Seine were jammed with heavy-laden boats, crowded with people and furniture, leaving the quays. At the gates of the city, he found himself waiting, cursing and fuming, as a detachment of Swiss mercenaries, newly arrived, entered with their banners flying.

Once in the open country, he rode fast, bypassing slow-moving carts and frightening other horsemen into giving way by the blazing gaze of his single eye. No one who saw him had the least doubt that this was a madman, bent on a mission of death.

It was only half a day before he saw in front of him, around the familiar bend in the road, the outbuildings of La Roque-aux-Bois, the familiar dovecote tower over the open main gate, the dusty courtyard lying within. Chickens fled from the heavy hooves of his sweating, hard-trotting hackney, and it was little time until he had crossed the bridge and flung his reins to the lackey at the foot of the stairs of the main house. Here he found that Laurette, who had spied him from an upper window, had hastened down to greet him at the front door. My, he thought, she’s a pretty little thing, with her blond curls all damp against her pink cheeks in the summer heat. And no wonder she’s so different from her sister, so feminine, so accommodating—she’s only a half-sister. God knows what lackey or priest crawled under her mother’s skirts to get that first one.

But I really can’t marry Laurette, pretty as she is, now that I know the secret. The family is just not respectable enough for me, now that I have plans to rise higher. First, I’ll wish for rank, a place at court, then, several handsome estates with titles—oh, yes, and a nice little chateau well located for hunting—But I need Laurette for now—I need her to go through her sister’s things and find me that head. It must be in a package of some sort. And once I get the Master of All Desires, I’ll wish for a wife of rank and wealth, with a beauty more elegant…

Villasse’s face crinkled up in a benign smile, one that reassured Laurette that his infatuation was still intact, even after being in the city, with all those accomplished beauties in the latest fashions. Still mine, she thought, and it compensated her for the extraordinary irritation of having her elder sister turn up, beautifully dressed and apparently entirely unscarred, in the company of a wealthy big-city girl and her mother. Worse, the pallid, dark-haired creature with the silk underwear and diamond-drop earrings had paraded a potential engagement with
Philippe
d’Estouville
in front of her, and confided that she had a dozen love letters from him tucked into her horrid, ugly, flat bosom! It was enough to send a girl instantly to church to pray that he be killed in the next Spanish attack.

“Darling Monsieur Villasse, have you brought your little friend anything from Paris?” said Laurette, batting her eyelashes.

“Why, I have quite a treasure for you,” said Villasse.

“Is it here? In your purse? Is it big or small?”

“Why, big as big, you pretty little dolly, but it’s for afterwards, not now.”

“Not now?” Laurette pretended to pout. But what was it she saw in his face, peeping from beneath her darling curly eyelashes as she did? Something a little hard, a little distant, a little
preoccupie
d
? Had he seen someone prettier than her, more accomplished, better dressed, in the big city? Not prettier, surely—but possibly more soignée. Men’s heads are turned by things like that.

“Has you sister arrived home yet?” said Villasse. A fist caught Laurette’s heart in a tight grasp. Had he seen her sister’s new wealth, new connections, and made up with her?

“Why yes, how did you know?”

“Half of Paris has fled, and when I found her house abandoned, I thought she might be here.” That was it, that was it—he had decided to pursue her sister again, he was wooing Sibille again. What right had Sibille to steal her younger sister’s one chance at marriage and estate? Oh, why hadn’t her face been spoiled? It would have worked out so much better.

“She’s here, with half the world. They arrived yesterday, like beggars on the road, with a wrinkled up old Abbé who has dyspepsia and can’t eat anything, and Aunt Pauline who broke the chair she sat on, and a boring old Madame de Montvert and her stuck-up daughter. Father wanted to turn them away, but the disgrace of refusing hospitality to a relative was too great, so he gave in. They’ll be gone in a day or two, as soon as they’ve eaten us out of house and home.”

“Ah, how perfect,” said Villasse, and Laurette grew truly apprehensive. “Will Thibault’s dear little dolly do one favor for him?” I will
not
carry a letter, thought Laurette, her soul filled with spite.

“Your precious loves to make you happy,” she said.

“Then, my darling, there’s something I’d like you to take from your sister’s things for me—a box—it’s really mine, and I want it back. It’s an unusual box—it has something, well, something nasty inside—you’ll know it when you see it.”

“But what
is
it?” asked Laurette.

“Well, um, it’s—ah, an anatomical specimen. You know how your sister is always drawing bones—this one’s a head.”

“A
hea
d
? A
person’s
head?”

“Well, ah, yes. Just a head. An old one. Don’t worry, it’s all boxed up very neatly. But I need it back again. And when you bring it, your dear Thibault will have a lovely surprise for you—a diamond ring bigger than anything on the queen’s finger—” As he saw her eyes light up, he smiled, that special smile that a man smiles when he has perfectly judged another’s weakness. What’s a diamond to a magic head? Just a trinket, he thought. I have her—she’s my servant, I can do anything I like. “Let’s go inside so I can offer my greetings to your parents. And as for the other—meet me by the old wall behind the orchard tomorrow just after the noon dinner. You know the spot—where the brook widens and the cattle drink.”

“And will you have my darling little present?” I have him, thought Laurette. If there’s something secret about this head, and he sent it, and he needs it back, then when I know about it, he’ll
have
to marry me. If only I had a silk dress…

“That and ever so much more, dear little treasure.” Together they went in, and when Villasse had offered his greetings to her father, he departed.

“What was
that
about?” grumbled Hercule de La Roque when he had left. “I paid him his interest on the new loan last month, and here he is, grinning like a wolf, offering neighborly greetings. I thought he was in Paris.”

“
That
is doubtless about Sibille,” said his wife, continuing to stitch on a new set of pillowcases.

“She should have had better aim,” said Sibille’s father.

***

Since all the girls were sharing a room, it was a simple matter for Laurette to wait until after dinner, when everyone had gone downstairs or outdoors and then return upstairs to search for the mysterious box. The room was full of jumbled boxes and bags, both packed and unpacked, along with the litter cushions, which had been stitched lumpy with mysterious objects. A dozen beautiful silk and velvet dresses hung in the armoire, and boxes of jewelry and expensive vials of perfume had been heaped on top of the dresser with careless abandon. Clarette had hung a beautiful ivory rosary on the corner of the dim little mirror, and in an open box, in a clutter of elegant and dainty things, Laurette saw a bracelet of chased gold, set with brilliants, that made her heart ache. Sibille’s or Clarette’s? What did it matter? It was
Laurette
they would have looked prettiest on. I’ll just try the bracelet, she thought, and this pretty ring here. Would the cross with the ruby at the center look pretty on me? Yes, it looked really elegant. What a pity my ears aren’t pierced, she thought, as she opened a drawer, and then a box, and saw the coveted diamond eardrops.