Judith Merkle Riley (45 page)

“They don’t use enough garlic here,” Nostradamus grumbled. But Anael had vanished.

It was a summer night so hot even the crickets couldn’t go to sleep and the stars vibrated with the heat. The stones of the streets of Salon breathed heat back up into the dark, southern sky. In Nostradamus’s garden, the fountain splashed beneath the dark shadows of trees. The shutters of the bedrooms were open to let in whatever feeble night breeze decided to make its appearance. But high, high, in the top of the house, the shutters were latched closed, and the flickering glow of a candle could be seen between the cracks. Once again, the great prophet was summoning the ghosts of the future.

Beneath his white linen diviner’s robe, the old magician wore only his undershirt, and even in that, he was sweating mightily. But he had not neglected his doctor’s hat, nor his ring with the seven mystical symbols, nor the medal on a ribbon that he had received from the Queen of France for his extraordinary services, for even spirits require a certain level of formality at least in outward appearance. Dampening his laurel wand, he set the waters in motion, repeating the sacred words until he felt the familiar shadow rise behind him.

“So, Nostradamus, you can’t resist. I would think you would weary of knowing the future,” said the voice of Anael, whose invisible presence now vibrated in the closed, muggy room.

“O Spirit, show me a vision of the wonders of the distant future,” intoned the old prophet, as he stirred the waters in his brass divining bowl with his wand. As the waters stilled, he peered down to see a magical city, with sparkling towers and low, paneled houses with turned up roofs, stretching down to a blue-watered harbor full of immense, sail-less boats. The streets were filled with curiously dressed people, and covered coaches that moved about without horses. He couldn’t read the street signs, which were in no alphabet he had ever seen.

“This isn’t France,” he said, enchanted with what he saw.

“Be glad,” said the spirit, and Nostradamus saw a man pause and look up. High above the city, a sort of silver goose, drifting alone almost beyond view, glinted in the blue sky. What could that be? thought the prophet.

At that moment a huge and instantaneous fire swallowed the entire city so that the horrified seer saw nothing but a flash and then red, red, until he thought he had been blinded. Blinking his eyes, he saw an immense, billowing cloud rise above the city, as the goose—a winged carriage?—flew off. As the cloud cleared, he saw nothing but blackness, ruin, and scattered fires where the city had been.

“Anael, what was that?” Nostradamus could feel his voice stick in his throat.

“There are two,” said Anael. “They also poison the wind.”

“Two,” whispered Nostradamus, and his hand shook as he scratched across the page with his quill pen:

Near
the
harbor
and
in
two
cities

Will
be
two
scourges
never
before
witnessed…

A huge weight crushed the old prophet’s chest, his bones hurt, and he could hardly breathe as he pulled his gaze from the still-shifting waters.

“What’s it all
about
,’” he cried in despair. “What’s it all
for
?”

“How should
I
know?” said Anael. “I only look after it, I don’t make it. I’m considerably older and cleverer than you, and I still haven’t figured it out.” The spirit had begun to form up in the room, although he was still quite translucent, and the little twinkling things inside him were all drooping and still, with some unmentionable sorrow.

“I thought, perhaps, He might have told you.”

“He doesn’t think like we do, Michel. You’ll have to leave it at that.”

“Then show me something cheerful, Anael, my heart is breaking.”

“Oh, stir up your dish, Michel, I have just the thing. I’ve been saving it right on top for you.” Anael’s upper half vanished, and there was a rattling and a rummaging sound in the large, invisible armoire. Then silence, and Anael reappeared, looking smug. As the ripples stilled in the bowl, a rich hall appeared, all hung with garlands, and filled with strangers in fine dress. Who was that great, gaudy woman at the head table, beaming with pleasure, sharing a big silver cup with the curled-up little man in the gown and hat of an abbé? Yes, it just had to be—

“Why, it’s a wedding,” said Nostradamus, peering into the water. “It must be a very close vision in time—I can hear the music. And a
branle
—quite a lively one—a new tune I don’t recognize. I can feel my toes just tapping. Did you know how well I could dance when I was young?”

“I’m rather fond of dancing myself.”

“Spirits dance?”

“Yes, but not often. We have to be careful. It shakes the universe, you know.”

“Why look, here’s the bride. Goodness, it’s Sibille, getting married at last. Hmph. Yes. To Nicolas, as it ought to be. And just look at her dance! There she goes—the leap and turn—heavens, that girl has big feet!”

“That fellow who’s holding her waist doesn’t seem to notice.”

“They never do, when they’re in love,” said the old prophet. “Tell me, whatever happened to Menander the Undying?”

“You’ll have to quit tapping your foot if you want me to show you,” said Anael.

“I’m
not
tapping it,” said the old doctor, suddenly remembering his dignity.

“Have it your way, but just take a look at
this
—”

Nostradamus peered at the bowl, but couldn’t make sense of the image. Village people in festival dress, a holiday, a gathering of some sort—ah, a fair—there were the vendors, he could hear the cries of a woman selling pies from a tray—and a crowd. Oh, a dancing bear. Quite a good one, really—not moth-eaten looking at all, the way so many are. I’m fond of dancing bears, he thought, but what has this to do with Menander?

Now four monks, carrying a big wooden box on poles were pushing through the crowd. “Repent! Repent! The Kingdom of God is at hand!” shouted the monk who walked before them, ringing a little handbell.

“View the relic,” he could hear the monks carrying the box shout. “View the sacred relic; only a small offering and you may kiss the box.” Even before they had entered the shabby little canvas pavilion and shut the flap, people were crowding around the box, trying to touch it, trying to kiss it without paying.

A line had formed in front of the pavilion flap. Peasants in their Sunday clothes, cripples, women in wooden shoes carrying sick infants. A monk with a charity box was taking offerings almost faster than he could talk. “The head of John the Baptist, the one, the true, the only—all others are false—” he was saying.

“Anael,” said Nostradamus, “those don’t look like monks at all. That one there, I swear he’s got a brand on his hand. See how he’s smeared it with something?”

Inside the tent, on top of the wooden ark in which it had been carried, stood a battered, tarnished silver-gilt box, wide open, lit by two candles in tin holders, one placed on each side.

“I’ve seen better on pikes in the city hall square,” a big man in wooden shoes was saying. “How do I know this isn’t just some criminal’s head?”

“It’s
alive
,” said the monk in attendance. And at that, the eyelids flickered, and a groaning sound issued from the mummified head. At this, the crowd in the tent pulled back, horrified.

“Why doesn’t it speak?”

“The immortal head of John the Baptist is deep in holy contemplation. Come closer, good people, it blesses, it cures, it elevates—tell your friends.”

“Anael,” said Nostradamus, “did you know that Menander had his own
religion
when he was alive? And look at him now—”

“So did John the Baptist—”

“It’s
entirely
different, and you know it,” snapped the old doctor.

“I can
walk
, I can
walk
!” cried a man, ostentatiously throwing down his crutch. Outside, the monk taking cash cried, “A miracle! A miracle! Hurry, hurry inside—it blesses! It heals!” Inside the tent, the crutch was being hung up. In back of the tent, the miraculously healed man was accepting payment from one of the monks.

“And not a peep out of Menander all this time. She must have done it—asked him for the impossible wish—” said Nostradamus. “I take no little pride in putting that monstrous thing out of business.”

“
In
business is more like it,” observed Anael, with a cheerful grin. But Nostradamus had collapsed back on his wooden stool with a sigh.

“It’s clear to me,” said the old man, “that getting rid of Menander didn’t save the world at all.”

“I thought I’d explained it to you, Michel. History works like a river—”

“What you mean is, humanity doesn’t need sorcery to spoil the world. They can do it all by themselves,” observed Nostradamus.

“Exactly. I couldn’t have put it better myself,” said the Spirit of History.

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The Oracle Glass

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One

What, in heaven’s name, is
that
?” The Milanese ambassador to the court of His Majesty, Louis XIV, King of France, raised his lorgnon to his eye, the better to inspect the curious figure that had just been shown into the room. The woman who stood on the threshold was an extraordinary sight, even in this extravagant setting in the year of victories, 1676. Above an old-fashioned Spanish farthingale, a black brocade gown cut in the style of Henri IV rose to a tight little white ruff at her neck. Her ebony walking stick, nearly as tall as herself, was decorated with a bunch of black silk ribbons and topped with a silver owl’s head. A widow’s veil concealed her face. The hum of voices at the maréchale’s reception was hushed for a moment, as the stiff little woman in the garments of a previous century threw back her black veil to reveal a beautiful face made ghastly pale by layers of white powder. She paused a moment, taking in the room with an amused look, as if fully conscious of the sensation that her appearance made. As a crowd of women hurried to greet her, the Milanese ambassador’s soberly dressed companion, the Lieutenant General of the Paris Police, turned to make a remark.

“That, my dear Ambassador, is the most impudent woman in Paris.”

“Indeed, Monsieur de La Reynie, there is obviously no one better fitted than you to make such a pronouncement,” the Italian responded politely, tearing his eyes with difficulty from the woman’s fiercely lovely face. “But tell me, why the owl’s-head walking stick? It makes her look like a sorceress.”

“That is exactly her purpose. The woman has a flair for drama. That is why all of Paris is talking about the Marquise de Morville.” The chief of the Paris police smiled ironically, but his pale eyes were humorless.

“Ah, so that is the woman who has told the Queen’s fortune. The Comtesse de Soissons says she is infallible. I had thought of consulting her myself, to see if she would sell me the secret of the cards.”

“Her mysterious formula for winning at cards—another of her pieces of fakery. Every time someone wins heavily at
lansquenet
, the rumor goes about that the marquise has at last been persuaded to part with the secret of the cards. Secret, indeed…” said the chief of police. “That shameless adventuress merely capitalizes on every scandal in the city. I believe in this secret about as much as I believe her claims to have been preserved for over two centuries by alchemical arts.”

Hearing this, the Milanese ambassador looked abashed and put away his lorgnon.

La Reynie raised an eyebrow. “Don’t tell me, my dear fellow, that you were considering purchasing the secret of immortality as well?”

“Oh, certainly not,” the ambassador said hastily. “After all, these are modern times. In our century, surely only fools believe in superstitions like that.”

“Then half of Paris is composed of fools, even in this age of science. Anyone who loses a handkerchief, a ring, or a lover hastens to the marquise to have her read in the cards or consult her so-called oracle glass. And the damned thing is, they usually come away satisfied. It takes a certain sort of dangerous intelligence to maintain such deception. I assure you, if fortune-telling were illegal, she’s the very first person I’d arrest.”

The Marquise de Morville was making her way through the high, arched reception hall as if at a Roman triumph. Behind her trailed a dwarf in Moorish costume who carried her black brocade train, as well as a maid in a garish green striped gown who held her handkerchief. Around her crowded petitioners who believed she could make their fortunes: impecunious countesses, overspent abbés and chevaliers, titled libertines raddled with the Italian disease, the society doctor Rabel, the notorious diabolist Duc de Brissac and his sinister companions.

“Ah, there is someone who can introduce us,” cried the ambassador, as he intercepted a slender, olive-skinned young man on his way to the refreshment table. “Primi, my friend here and I would like to make the acquaintance of the immortal marquise.”

“But of course,” answered the young Italian. “The marquise and I have been acquainted for ages.” He waggled his eyebrows. It was only a matter of minutes before the chief of police found himself face-to-face with the subject of so many secret reports, being appraised with almost mathematical precision by the subject’s cool, gray eyes. Something about the erect little figure in black irritated him unspeakably.

“And so, how is the most notorious charlatan in Paris doing these days?” he asked the fortune-teller, annoyance overcoming his usual impeccable politeness.

“Why, she is doing just about as well as the most pompous chief of police in Paris,” the marquise answered calmly. La Reynie noted her perfect Parisian accent. But her speech had a certain formality, precision—as if she were somehow apart from everything. Could she be foreign? There were so many foreign adventurers in the city, these days. But as far as the police could tell, this one, at least, was not engaged in espionage.

“I suppose you are here to sell the secret of the cards,” he said between his teeth. Even he was astonished at how infuriated she could make him feel, simply by looking at him the way she did. The arrogance of her, to dare to be amused by a man of his position.

“Oh, no, I could never sell that,” replied the
devineresse
. “Unless, of course, you were considering buying it for yourself…” The marquise flashed a wicked smile.

“Just as well, or I would have you taken in for fraud,” La Reynie found himself saying. Himself, Gabriel Nicolas de La Reynie, who prided himself on his perfect control, his precise manners—who was known for the exquisite politeness he brought even to the interrogation of a prisoner in the dungeon of the Châtelet.

“Oh, naughty, Monsieur de La Reynie. I always give full value,” he could hear her saying in answer, as he inspected the firm little hand that held the tall, black walking stick. A ridiculous ring, shaped like a dragon, another, in the form of a death’s-head, and yet two more, one with an immense, blood red ruby, overburdened the narrow, white little fingers. The hand of a brilliant child, not an old woman, mused La Reynie.

“Your pardon, Marquise,” La Reynie said, as she turned to answer the desperate plea of an elderly gentleman for an appointment for a private reading. “I would love to know where you are from, adventuress,” he muttered to himself.

As if her ear never missed a sound, even when engaged in mid-conversation elsewhere, the marquise turned her head back over her shoulder and answered the chief of police: “‘From’?” She laughed. “Why, I’m from Paris. Where else?”

Lying, thought La Reynie. He knew every secret of the city. It was impossible for such a prodigy to hatch out, unseen by his agents. It was a challenge, and he intended to unravel it for the sake of public order. A woman should not be allowed to annoy the Lieutenant General of the Paris Police.