Judith Merkle Riley (36 page)

“Well, then, hurry up, I want eternal youth, and then absolute powers of command over all living creatures—why, once I have that, I think I’ll keep you after all, Sibille. You can keep up the good work for me. At last, a dutiful daughter. Why, I’ll be able to command the King, the Emperor, even the Pope!”

“Not just yet, you greedy old man. I
told
you I have to finish thinking about the first wish. I can’t do any more of them until I’ve got that one figured out. You’ll just have to wait,” said Menander.

“What’s so hard, thinking about a castle with a hunting preserve?”

“It’s not the palace, it’s who it’s for—”

“It’s for me, you damned fool head! For me! Hercule, Seigneur de La Roque!”

“Well, not quite. It’s for Sibille’s father, as well as for you. Hard to give a palace to two people, especially when one of them’s dead—”

“What do you mean?” asked Hercule de La Roque, letting go of Sibille’s arm, his face suddenly deeply suspicious.

“I told you, I have to think about it…” said Menander the Deathless, closing his eyes.

“Wake up, wake up, you damned piece of rubbish—don’t you dare close your eyes on me!” Hercule de La Roque, insane with fury and the sudden realization of what had happened, rushed to the bed, and grabbed the box to shake it. The head rolled out on the ground and he picked it up by the ear, which came off in his hand. To the shrieks of the women, he kicked the head, then stamped it flat. But even he drew back in horror, when, from the flattened mass, the head began to re-form itself and said, “Can you
never
leave a man alone to
think
? I told you, don’t bother me while I’m
busy.
”

“Where’s Sibille?” Hercule de La Roque cried, looking frantically around him. “Damned bitch! She’s done this to me.” But the women had all fled. Only his sister Pauline, a vast mountain of flesh, leaning on her walking stick, remained in the room.

“Well, Hercule, you seem to have done it again. What a stupid question to ask. If you’d done your own wishing, you might be sitting in a nice palace at this very moment. And in my opinion, this was all a waste—you’ve been soulless for at least three decades, by my calculation.”

“Pauline, I knew there was a reason I despise you.”

“Maybe if you keep Menander a long, long time, he will wake up,” said Pauline, her voice sarcastic.

“I always thought that girl was none of my getting. But the birthday, the christening date—when I came home, I saw the proof—”

“I slept with the priest to get the church records changed, Hercule.”

“You? Ugly?”

“I was beautiful then, if you care to remember, and married off in haste to a man I didn’t love for the sake of money. The priest was handsome, Hercule, and brilliant—and…and he absolved me—”

“You don’t deserve absolution, Pauline.”

“For one thing that I did, yes. And he said God would forgive me if I made amends.”

“Amends, for what? For sleeping with him?”

“No, for betraying my best friend, because I, too, loved the man who chose
her
. You sneer? Don’t dare. I was capable of great love, of great passion in those days—and you, our father—on account of your greed—it was all, all wasted—” Pauline shook her head at the memory, her strange, pallid face a mask of sorrow and regret.

“When they planned to run away and marry in secret, it was I who carried the notes between them. How poisoned I was with envy! That was the sin, Hercule. Envy. Her father blessed me when I betrayed their plans, and then slaughtered him like a dog. Dead! I never thought he would be dead! And me the cause—”

“If it’s so, Pauline—then it’s the only honest thing you’ve ever done—”

“My life has been poisoned by that deed, poisoned. I still wear an amulet containing a handkerchief dipped in his blood, and for many years I had his Book of Hours—”

“The book you gave Sibille!
That’s
what that was! You despicable hag!”

“But I have bent my whole life to make up for it—a lifetime of regret—yes, I arranged to conceal the birthdate when you were away at war—I would have adopted her as a baby, if you’d let me—”

“She didn’t
deserve
it—”

“But she is mine now, and I will spend everything I have to make her happy—”

“Pauline, you bitch—”

“You would have done anything to marry an heiress, wouldn’t you? Even conspiracy and murder. You and Hélène’s father stripped him and threw the body in the river that night. Don’t tell me you didn’t, because I know. But you didn’t know you were taking leftovers.”

“That damned old man—he lied, too. You all lied.”

“The servants sold his clothes, you know. I found his books, his belt, the little amulet he used to wear at his neck. I used to read every day from his Book of Hours. How many tears I poured into that book! Selfishness, it is the worst crime—”

“Your deceit has cost me the chance of my lifetime—”

“You’ve had your chances, Hercule, and you’ve lost them. And I have mended what could be mended. And how it’s worked out for you—ha! It’s a joke—a cosmic joke—”

“You put a cuckoo’s egg in my nest—I could kill you for that—”

“I think not, Hercule. The world will know if I die here, and my cousin, the Abbé, is very well connected indeed. To say nothing of the good priest who absolved me. He has risen high, Hercule—I do not think you want to know how high. Did you imagine I would ever accept your hospitality without witnesses?” As she turned and marched out of the room, her brother, bitter with rage, picked up the box with the head in it, and gave it a last hard shake.

“Go away, I’m busy,” it said.

“Damn you,” said Hercule de La Roque. “Are you too stupid to know that wish was for
me
—me, Hercule de La Roque?”

“That’s not what the girl said—if you don’t like it, go settle with her,” replied the malicious, leathery little voice.

“Sibille,” said Hercule de La Roque, his rage rising. “Yes, Sibille—I’ll settle with her all right.” Arteries throbbing, heat and fury staining his face deep crimson, he tore out of the room like a madman toward the stairs, deaf to the evil laughter of the thing in the box under his arm.

But halfway down the stairs, still clutching the magic coffer, he saw that someone was waiting for him at the foot, with sword drawn. The man’s face was haggard and haunted, his clothes sweat-stained from the hard ride. It was Thibault Villasse.

“Hercule, give me that box,” said Villasse. There was a desperate edge in his voice. Was the poison already at work? Already he thought he could feel a certain shooting pain—or was it burning? Had the sorcerer said it burned? Or was it the eyes? Something. There was no time. No time for explanations, for discussion. “Give it over, hurry!” repeated Villasse, his voice somewhat shriller.

“No. Never. It’s mine,” said the Sieur de La Roque, his fury redoubling. “I have unfinished business with Sibille. Now get out of my way, you peasant oaf.”

“Beggar! How dare you stand in my way!” cried Villasse, his face distorted with rage. With a single motion, he lunged forward and cut down the Sieur de La Roque on his own staircase. As the box tumbled down ahead of the body, and blood ran in spurts from a severed artery, Villasse grabbed up the bloody trophy and ran to the door. His hands were shaking as he recited the magic words, and sweat poured down his forehead.

“By Agaba, Orthnet, Baal, Agares, Marbas, I adjure thee Almoazin, Membrots, Sulphae, Salamandrae. Open the Dark Door and heed me—Give me that which I desire. Remove the poison from my body.”

“Don’t bother me now, I’m thinking.”

“Give me my wish, you damned thing,” said Villasse, shaking the box.

“I
told
you, quit bothering me. I’m thinking. When I’m done thinking, I’ll see about your wish. But right now, there’s another one ahead of it. A fortune and palace, for Sibille’s father. Or maybe for this La Roque personage. You’re just going to have to wait your turn.”

“Quit talking, you devil, and give me what I’ve asked for!” cried Villasse, and so intent was he on the box that he did not see the burly farmhands who were quietly coming up behind him with ropes and pitchforks.

“Can’t,” said the head, and Villasse gave a cry as six men leaped on him at once.

“Tie him up!”

“Kill him!”

“No, don’t touch him. Why should we pay? It’s him that killed the master. Tie him up for the magistrate.”

All that night, locked in a windowless granary, and waiting for the arrival of the
bailli
, Thibault Villasse tried, over and over again, to calculate which was the worst death, the one the law required, or the one that God’s justice had decreed for him. And which, which one would come first?

Hundreds of rush lights gleamed in the dark like glowing orange eyes. Lights on the staircase, where the maids were mopping up the worst of the blood, lights flickering in the
salle
, on tables and sideboards, while mother and Aunt Pauline washed and laid out father’s body on a trestle table in the center of the room. And I, I wandered like a ghost through the darkened rooms, up and down the stairs, among the eyes that seemed always to be watching, watching. It was father’s last gift—to leave me soulless. I could feel the empty coldness inside, where before warm voices spoke, argued, made poetry, and marveled over nature. Somewhere in the night I overheard Isabelle and Françoise ask the Abbé in tremulous voices if father’s soul was in heaven, and heard Abbé Dufour cluck his tongue and say it was certainly
somewhere
, but they must consult a higher spiritual authority than he. But mine, where was mine?

The next morning, the
bailli
and his servants came and took away Thibault Villasse, who had chaff all over his clothes and was for some reason too weak to walk. He had to be slung over a mule, muttering and talking to himself like a madman. Laurette had taken to her bed, out of shock I supposed, but mother and Auntie insisted she lie alone on a cot in mother’s room instead of in the big bed we shared. They barred the door to Clarette and me, and when I saw them come out, Auntie was wearing a pair of heavy gloves and carrying something I couldn’t see, and mother was carrying scissors.

“I do hope it’s not catching,” said Madam Montvert, with some fear in her voice.

“No,” sighed mother. “It’s not catching. Pray for my daughter, Madame; only another mother’s heart can understand how I am suffering.”

“You are very brave,” said Madame Montvert. “When she is recovered and this dreadful war is over, I beg that you both come and visit me awhile in my own house, to help you through this time of tribulation and loss.”

But it was when I passed the maids scrubbing the bloody spots off the brass banister the next day that the heavy, iron feeling that encased my body and heart broke open, and waves of shock and fear coursed down me, and I trembled, and wept, both for my loss and the fear that God would strike me dead on the spot for my terrible crime. I had brought the loathsome Menander to my father’s house and caused his death.

“I’ve killed him, my own father, and it was all my fault. I am the wickedest, most unnatural person alive, and even my soul is gone.” I wept, collapsing in tears at the foot of the dreadful staircase. Behind me, there was the sound of slow footsteps and the tap-tap of a cane.

“My dear,” said Auntie, drawing me up and putting her arm around me. “It’s time I told you something—you are not a parricide, not even close. And as for your soul, it is quite safe inside your body still.”

“What do you mean? I’ve wished on Menander—my soul has been taken—father made me, and now he’s dead—”

“Let’s start at the beginning, my dear. Your true birthday has been concealed from you, as it was from my brother. You were born on that blessed eve, when no soul can be lost—”

“Christmas? Not February?” I said, stiff with shock. I began to count backward on my fingers—

“Yes, Christmas at midnight, in the convent of Saint-Esprit that you love so, where my brother locked up his new, young wife while he was away at war—”

“But, but—” I stammered “—how?” Wasn’t my father my father? Wasn’t I the daughter of a hero of Pavia after all?

“It is obvious, dear. My brother is not your father. Your father—” And here Aunt Pauline broke off, unable to speak, and looked away from me while tears crept down her pale face.

“But was my father—a—a—gentlemen?” I could feel the
me
that I’d made all these years, the warrior’s daughter, the pallid poetic rose, vanishing, and it terrified me.

“Well, I suppose—if you count foreigners. Foreigners who are baptized, but are not of Christian descent—”

“What?”

“I’m afraid, dear, that knowing the truth, you must never tell. You would live a terrible life, between two worlds, accepted in neither—But your father was brilliant, beautiful, a scholar who could quote from all sacred texts, who studied the secrets of anatomy, of astrology—I—I mean, your mother—loved him beyond all description, and wanted to make her life with him, no matter what the cost.” Aunt Pauline’s voice sounded as if it came from one of the spirits that haunted her house.

“The bloody flux of the lungs—she had it, her brother had it, that is what brought it all about. Her father sent them both south for the cure with a celebrated physician, with me as her companion. The summer nights—Montpellier, the city of learning—we sat on the roof beneath the stars—yes, the roofs are flat there, not steep like here, to shed the snow—and on the roof of the pharmacist’s house next door were medical students, who sang in their own language, to the music of lutes. Those were beautiful evenings, looking across the rooftops of the city, all bathed in moonlight, and hearing strange music in the jasmine-scented air—”

“But—how, I mean, why—um—”

“Her brother died there, and we had to leave at once to bring his ashes home. But they, my dearest friend—and…and—he—had found they could not do without each other. He wrote. She answered. He came and sought her out—here, at your grandfather’s house—they planned to elope. But your mother’s father found out their plans, and with the aid of my brother, murdered him.”

“I always knew I didn’t fit,” I said at last.

“I’m afraid you don’t, my dear. But your mother loved you too much to leave you with the nuns, and I loved you too much to see you cast out, or left unprovided for. You were
his
child, and for all I know, the last of that family. I think I recall that he once said he was the last remaining child of his father. So you see, for all the love I once bore him, you must live, and marry Nicolas.”

“So my father is not my father, but murdered my father?”

“Yes, I’m afraid so. So you see, you hardly can be said to have killed your father. Besides, it was my brother’s greed that killed him. That and a certain wily selfishness that at last overreached itself—I believe that God Himself would consider you entirely free of blame in his death.”

“But how did my grandfather find out the time of the elopement?”

“I—I don’t know—I think he intercepted a letter…” said Auntie, and from her voice I knew I must never ask again.

How strange, how awful—father had killed my father. Mother had returned home the sole heiress. And father’s reward for his part in the betrayal was marriage, lands, the lordship of La Roque-aux-Bois. Who couldn’t intercept a letter, when such a fortune was to be gained? Gained and spent away like water…

We moved on to Auntie’s house in Orléans a week later, but mother insisted on remaining at the farm. We left her wafting from room to room, her eyes empty as if already dead, consoling her younger children, but in a strange, absent mood. It was as if, now that her years of purgatory had been lifted, very little remained of her true self. Years of punishment, of silent resentment, of mistrust, had worn away her soul, which had become as pallid and translucent as one of Auntie’s ghosts.

Luckily, Madame Montvert and her daughter were not the type to see spirits, and they were cheered by being at last away from La Roque-aux-Bois and its dreadful deaths. They exclaimed over the barbaric luxury of Auntie’s furniture, her velvet curtains, her silver, her strange antique gowns, several of which she decreed “absolutely perfect,” to be remade for Clarette. And, of course, there was Cousin Matheline, whose husband was such a dear friend of Monsieur Montvert’s that she simply couldn’t stay away, “in spite of all the scandal, my dear. And it is simply dreadful—they say Villasse has lost his mind, and speaks nothing but rubbish about disembodied talking heads.”

“Disembodied heads? Why, certainly he must be mad,” said Aunt Pauline. “Do have another of these lovely little sugared almonds, my dear, and tell us all of yourself.”

“Oh, you do know how I hate to talk about myself. But my little cultural afternoons have become a
fixture
, yes, a fixture in the life of refinement in this city. Guests of distinction—so many! Everyone has heard of my circle! Why only yesterday, a
very
distinguished gentleman—there shall be no names—
begged
me with tears in his eyes for an invitation. And,
dear
Clarette, I
insist
that you and your mother attend my next Tuesday—imagine! D’Estouville has succumbed to Cupid’s arrows at last! What a
distinguished
match for you! And his uncle is such a favorite with the king! And Sibille, and all of you—if only I can
prevail
upon the Abbé to attend my next Tuesday and read the latest additions to his monograph on the life of the tortoise! The tragedy, the tragedy—it is on everyone’s tongue—I am sure you are much too grief-stricken to read, Sibille, but if you could just make an
appearance
—”

And satisfy the curiosity and lust for scandal of all of your friends, I thought. Matheline, you never change. There is a reason everyone within ten miles craves to attend your
cénacle
, and it isn’t
Observations
on
the
Life
of
the
Tortoise
. The Abbé bowed graciously in assent from his chair, and smiled that curious enigmatic smile he has, the one that makes me think he knows everything but just doesn’t choose to speak about it.

“Why, how can you bear up under so much success?” asked Auntie.

“I try, I try—but you must understand sometimes I am so
drained
—luckily my dear, dear husband is a saint”—at this point Clarette and her mother looked meaningfully at each other, since they were well acquainted with the “saint” in question—” and so terribly generous with me—you must both come and see the darling little fabric samples he had sent from Paris—of course it will seem ordinary to you—Clarette, dear, that wonderful cut velvet you are wearing—but the
color
, the shades, they are the very latest! Of course, if Paris falls, it will be such a pity, they won’t be able to send the fabric, such a hardship, when I am just
desperate
for something more up to date this winter—but my husband writes that something has just
paralyzed
the Imperial army—they stay in camp and haven’t moved a
step
toward Paris from Saint-Quentin—it’s been that way for
weeks
and nobody understands it—it’s as if they’re just
waiting
for the Duc de Guise to arrive from the south—they say that King Philip’s mind has gone soft—”

Now it was my turn to look meaningfully at Auntie. Menander. Whatever he’d set in motion before that last wish seemed to be grinding on, like the wheel of Fate. We’d thought that perhaps he’d stop working on everything, and at night, when we heard him breathing and muttering to himself, “No, not that way—well, what about this way? No, not that either—” we’d sit up and speculate. This particular gateway to hell had been shut, and evil forces no longer worked through him—but the old ones were still liberated. Strange, strange. But who were we to understand the operations of the infernal?

After Matheline had swept away with the rustle of silk, surrounded by the cloud-like resonance of intense gossip only partially expressed, we all looked at one another as if we had thought the same thought at the same time. Abbé Dufour shook his head unbelievingly, Madame Montvert and her daughter turned to me, then we all looked at Aunt Pauline. It was she who said what we all were thinking. “My, my,” she observed. “If Matheline ever suspected that Menander was more than a figment of Villasse’s imagination, I have no doubt that she would have invited him as guest of honor.”

***

That autumn, as the whole city, crammed with refugees from Paris, waited breathlessly for the Duc de Guise to arrive from the south, I hardly noticed any of it. The new steward’s oldest son arrived one afternoon from the farm with news that I must return at once: Laurette was dying. It was the same strange malady that had swept away Villasse in prison before the inquiry was even finished. It was an illness of hideous pain, convulsions, and open, oozing blisters everywhere. Without a moment’s hesitation, I mounted the pillion on the heavy farm horse, and the steward’s son and I rode double that late afternoon and into the night, hoping against hope that we would not be too late. How strange the trees looked that night, and how eerie the cries of owls. Our way was lit by a bright half-moon, sometimes obscured by dark clouds that scudded across it in the autumn wind. Eddies of leaves blew across the narrow, hard-packed road. Trees stretched barren arms into the black sky. At last the dark tower loomed above us, and the waiting steward, lantern in hand, opened the main gate. The farm had an eerie, haunted look that night. Old murder, dismal secrets, and grief had stained the very stones of the place, caught beneath the slate eaves, hung in the doors of the courtyard houses and granaries like shadows darker even than the night sky. How could I have ever been in such a place, and grown, and lived, and breathed?

“Demoiselle Sibille, it is so good you’ve come home. The priest is already here, and your sister has been asking for you,” said old Marthe, who stood with a shawl over her nightdress, holding a single candle. I followed her up the stairs to where Laurette lay on the little bed in mother’s room. Even in the candlelight, I could see how yellowish stuff from the open blisters had stained the sheets. Her hands, lying on the bedclothes, twitched and convulsed, and she moaned in pain. The fingers had turned black. Her face was bloated and distorted, and I saw mother, hovering over her, wipe away the blood that was oozing from her ears. Such a terrible death; it froze my heart to see. The death that Villasse planned for me. It served him right that he had been pricked with his own poison. But Laurette, charming, pretty, a bit spiteful, to be sure—certainly there was nothing she had done to merit such an end.