The Collector of Dying Breaths (21 page)

“Money,” Melinoe said, “has amazing properties too. Institutions and collectors often want items they don’t have and are willing to deaccession one in order to purchase another. You don’t need great quantities of any single item, do you?”

“No, but even an ounce of ancient ambergris could be worth hundreds of thousands of dollars if you actually could find it.”

Melinoe shrugged as if the amount were as insignificant as the dust on the shelves. “You leave the acquisitions to me. Just figure out what we need and make a list.” She walked toward the door and then stopped.

The low light exaggerated the wing-shaped white streaks of hair on either side of her forehead. She was wearing all black. A tight-fitting sweater. A long pencil skirt made of black lace. High-heeled black boots with stiletto heels. Today her fingers were stacked with diamond and emerald rings, and she had a pair of pear-shaped emeralds hanging from her earlobes. She emanated energy and resolve. A diminutive lightning bolt.

Jac was certain that Melinoe meant every word she said. If the ingredients existed, she would find them and pay for them. But first they had to know what they were searching for.

Once Melinoe left, Jac and Griffin returned to their research, and it was more than forty-five minutes before either of them found a mention of what they were looking for—the most obscure ingredient on the perfumer’s list.

“You aren’t going to believe this,” Griffin said in a voice that belied his excitement.

“What?”

“Wait—let me just cross-reference it.”

“Don’t make me wait.”

He ignored her as he flipped back to a page in another book. Jac glimpsed an illustration of an Egyptian mummy.

“You mean ‘momie’ as in ‘mummy’? Really?”

“Yes. This is amazing, Jac. First from Pegolotti. He lists momie as a medicinal spice collected from the tombs of the dead. Collected from embalmed but not totally dried-out corpses. According to him, it was imported from Egypt and the Eastern regions. And here is another mention in the
Livre des Simples Médecines
, written in the fifteenth century . . .”

Momie is a spice or confection found in the tombs of the people who have been embalmed, as they used to do in ancient times, and as the pagans near Babylon still do. This momie is found near the brain and the spine. You should choose that which is shining, black, strong-smelling, and firm. On the other hand, the white kind, which is rather opaque, does not stick, is not firm and easily crumbles to powder, must be refused.

Momie has binding qualities. If a compress is made of it and the juice of shepherd’s purse herb, it stops excessive nasal bleeding. Furthermore, to treat spitting of blood through the mouth because of a wound or a malady of the respiratory organs, make some pills with momie, mastic powder, and water in which gum Arabic has been dissolved and let the patient keep these pills under the tongue until they have melted, then let him swallow them.

Jac shivered. “An ingredient taken from the spines and brains of mummies . . .” she whispered, almost afraid to say it out loud. Where and how would they ever collect such a thing?

Chapter 24

MARCH 20, 1573

BARBIZON, FRANCE

In Paris the members of Catherine’s flying squadron flit about the court and its environs like butterflies. When she was princess, there were only a handful of them; now there are dozens. These women are not at all the salacious whores that the enemies of the court like to suggest. I have known many of them to be the most intelligent and clever women in Paris, culled and cultivated by Catherine. She gathers them around her for their stimulating conversations, educates them in certain arts, dresses them, houses them and otherwise cares for them—not only out of the goodness of her heart but also to engender their loyalty to her.

The queen needs her supporters and she needs to trust them.

It’s not unusual for some of these women to visit my shop to buy a fragrance or pick up supplies for Her Majesty. Sometimes they bring straightforward requests; sometimes they carry notes that ask for more clandestine concoctions.

The woman who entered my store that morning on May 16, 1569, was masked, which was not usual. But that mask couldn’t hide her scent, deeply redolent of a garden at dusk. And the mask didn’t conceal her luxuriant hair, the warmest brown of cherrywood, twisted into a spiral except for the few escaped tendrils that curled fetchingly and framed her long neck. Her pale-green satin gown accentuated a narrow waist. The bodice was cut very low, as was the style, especially for ladies of the court, and her honey-colored flesh was abundant above the tight bustline.

It was a curious thing about Catherine’s court: despite the suggestive and revealing clothes, her ladies were highly chaperoned and expected to be chaste unless Catherine asked otherwise of them. I had befriended many members of the squadron, and they talked freely with me when they came to the shop. Over wine, I was privy to their stories of how they danced with and seduced noblemen in order to gain secrets for their queen and how they were rewarded by her. It was an enviable life compared to some of the alternatives, but I knew how these women feared what would happen to them when they grew old and wrinkled. When the bloom was off their cheeks and their breasts sagged, would Catherine still care for them? How would they fare without families to tend to them in their dotage?

“Maître René, I have a note from the queen,” my visitor said as she reached into the pocket of her frock and pulled out a letter for me.

The queen was at Fontenay-sous-Bois, where the court had moved for several weeks, and it was not unusual for one of her ladies to return to Paris if there were things the queen needed.

Dear René,

The bearer of this note is Isabeau Allard . . .

I looked up at the woman. “Isabeau Allard?”

She nodded.

“You were married to the comte Allard?”

Again she nodded.

Allard had been a customer of mine for several years prior to his death. He was a young man killed in a battle two years before. I wasn’t sure if I should mention this to the woman who stood in front of me, but Allard had been a favorite of mine. He always took his time in my shop and praised my goods generously.

“I knew your husband,” I told Isabeau. “He was a fine gentleman.”

She nodded, and for one very small moment the slits in the mask went dark as she shut her eyes. When she opened them again, they were clear but held a trace of sadness.

“It’s kind of you to tell me, Maître René.”

“Were you married long?”

“Only little more than two years.”

“I’m sorry.”

“I was luckier than many. To marry someone who you actually enjoy was a blessing. My father chose well.”

I returned to the letter and read the rest of it.

Dear René,

The bearer of this note is Isabeau Allard. I have need of your lotion, the one with the apple base. Two bottles should suffice. As well I would like a bottle of my fragrance, and find something for Isabeau that suits her, as she will be part of the dinner party we are holding for an important nobleman whom I want her to impress. I will also need scent for two other of my ladies who will be at the dinner. All different scents that complement one another and do not compete.

And it was signed in familiar slanting handwriting I knew as well as my own.

Catherine

“It’s clear?” Isabeau asked. “You understand? Catherine said you would.”

I looked up—she had removed her mask. She was very lovely, with a high forehead, strong cheekbones and full lips. It wasn’t just beauty; there was something impish and mischievous about her that caught me off guard and, I would have to say, made me curious about her right away.

“Yes, very.”

“The queen wanted me to tell you that I read the note and know what’s in it and what it refers to. In case you had any questions.”

“That was wise. This is a dangerous business.”

“But a necessary one,” she said with a meaningful lilt to her voice. “There are so many intrigues at court.”

“As your husband must have shared with you.”

“It’s why what I do for the queen is so important to me. I can’t put on armor and go fight for my husband’s honor the way his brother did, but I can fight this way.”

As she spoke she squared her shoulders and in fact took on the stance of a soldier. Allard, I thought, had been a lucky man.

“It will take me a few minutes to prepare the apple lotion,” I said. “Would you like wine while you wait? Or drinking chocolate?”

“Chocolate, please.”

As I set to preparing her drink, I engaged her in small talk. She had a lilting, almost musical voice, and it was pleasing to listen to. “Have you been traveling all day?”

“Yes, I came straight here.”

I glanced back. She didn’t look as if she had been traveling for five hours. But even more curious she didn’t smell as if she had been traveling. There was no scent of horses or sweat about her. Had I been asked, I would have guessed she’d bathed within the last two hours.

When I brought her the cup of chocolate, I leaned closer than warranted and sniffed.

“Are you wearing a fragrance?” I asked.

It was the custom to apply fragrances liberally, and indeed many women were too liberal with them. “Just lemon rose water. My husband used to buy it for me. From your shop I believe?”

I remembered. “Ah yes, he did.” It was curious that I’d been selling Allard my fragrant water for this woman to wear to please him. But she smelled of a much more complicated scent than the simple citrus water.

“I still have the last bottle that he gave me, though there’s not much left. That’s why I was volunteered to come into Paris today. In addition to the perfume the queen wants me to wear to the party, I wanted to ask if I could buy more of your lemon rose water.”

“Of course. But first I have a favor to ask you.”

“What is it?”

“Tell me what you are mixing with my water.”

“Nothing. I use it from the very same bottle that you sold my husband.”

“May I approach so I can smell it on your skin?”

Isabeau looked surprised but smiled and agreed.

I stepped closer and leaned forward. Sniffing her neck. The fragrance was immediately intoxicating and like nothing I had ever smelled before. Her skin did something to my scents that was new to me.

Now, recalling that moment, I can still feel my shock.

“What is it, Maître René?”

“Rose essence has a certain aroma . . . It’s one of the most powerful and lovely of all the scents a perfumer can use, but it’s the scent of a rose past its bloom. The day after it is at its most perfect, if you will. It has to be, for the rose has been plucked and is on its way to dying . . . but something about the scent on you . . .”

I watched her as she listened to me. Up close her sparkling blue eyes had the depth of pools of water. As if, I thought, a man might literally be able to swim in her eyes.

Inhaling her scent and staring into her fathomless eyes . . . Something was happening to me. I was coming awake after a long sleep. Becoming aware after being ignorant.

“What is it about the fragrance?” she asked, breaking the spell.

“Yes, yes, on you the scent smells different. I smell something impossible—I can smell the roses blooming. I don’t know how or why. That’s the reason I asked if you had mixed my water with anything. Perhaps you have been walking in a garden today? Did you pick any flowers?”

“No, I’ve spent the day in the coach. There were strong winds, but I didn’t get out and I haven’t been around flowers.”

I shook my head. It was so curious, but there was work to do so I dragged myself away from the wondrous aroma of blooming roses, left her in the anteroom and went into my laboratory to mix up the poisons that the queen had requested.

It had been years since that first time, while she was reading the bowl of water, that Catherine had asked me to assist in her nefarious deeds. I’d now helped my lady dispose of many of her enemies with poisons. But each time, I still tried to build up a wall around each request. I never asked the names of the men or the few women who she had wanted to rid the world of. The first time she offered that information I refused it.

“I thought you were harder than that, René,” she said when I stopped her. “So do you have a soft heart after all?”

She laughed and I with her, but I couldn’t answer. It wasn’t so much a soft heart as a guilty soul. If I knew their names, I would have to think about their families. I might one day be forced to meet one of their wives in my shop or at court and have to look into her eyes, knowing I had been responsible for her husband’s death.

But my queen didn’t care that I didn’t want to know who she planned on killing with my poisons. She needed an ally, a partner, and so in the end, each time, I had no choice but to listen to the names of the men and women who together we did away with.

As I mixed up these new elixirs, I tried not to think of Allard, but I couldn’t think of anything else. The knight had been one of Henry’s closest allies, but the queen had suspected him of being a spy. And so she did what she often did to spies. Unfortunately, after the man’s death, she discovered she’d been wrong about him and out of guilt had brought Allard’s wife to court.

Catherine had mourned her mistake and vowed to change her tactics. In fact for a full year after the “Allard Incident,” as she referred to it, she asked me for nothing but soaps and lotions, candles, scented gloves, pomades and perfumes.

But then the day came when she once again took up her old ways. “As much as I don’t want to, René, I have to protect France. I have to protect the Crown. And this is the only war I can wage and win.”

And so she had gone back to choosing who should live and who should die, and I went back to aiding her when she needed me to.

Carefully, while Isabeau sipped the chocolate, I prepared the lotion Catherine had asked for, mixing ground apple seeds and almonds. As I always did when working on this formula of Brother Serapino’s, I thought again how his lessons had been so very instrumental to me in serving my queen. A blessing? Or a curse? That afternoon I still didn’t know. But today I do. Sadly, today I do.

I made two bottles of the lotion Catherine had requested.

With care I secured the stoppers, wrapped the bottles in cotton and slipped each into a leather pouch stamped with my mark. Then, items in hand, I returned to Isabeau. She was sitting on the couch, delicate china cup in hand. Smiling, she greeted me.

“That didn’t take long. This chocolate is so delicious. What makes it so much better than what we have at the court?”

“I add vanilla that comes from an orchid plant grown and cultivated by the Aztecs. The fruit ripens almost a year after the flower blooms. Since it’s imported, it’s quite expensive. Too dear for the castle to use in cooking for so many.”

“Do the chefs use them for Her Highness?”

“I wouldn’t be surprised.”

“Could I see what they look like?”

I pulled out a drawer and withdrew one of the long skinny beans, and Isabeau ran her finger down its dark-brown wrinkled bark. Then she lifted it to her nose, inhaled and after a moment sighed. “What a wonderful aroma. Do you grind this up? What else do you use it for?”

“Chefs use it in custards.” I took a knife and slit the pod open, scraped off some of the sap and offered her the knife. “In addition to chocolate, I also use it as an ingredient in some of my perfumes. It mixes especially well with roses.”

Her curiosity was appealing. I watched her sniff the brown seeds and then rub them between her fingers and taste them.

“They need to be mixed with sugars,” I said, laughing at her wrinkled nose.

She finished her drink and put the cup down.

“So now that I’ve made the apple lotion”—I gestured to the two pouches down on the table—“let’s prepare a scent for you.”

“Something to make me impossible to resist,” she teased.

“That’s already been taken care of by your maker.”

Charmingly, she blushed. “Wonderful enough to ensure that the duc de Vendôme not only has a delightful time but finds himself compelled to answer all my questions so the queen can use them to her political advantage.”

“Spying is a dangerous game.” I was suddenly angry at my patron but not sure why.

“Not for us, Maître René. Catherine has schooled us in the ways we can endear ourselves to the men she entertains. We don’t always have to compromise our virtue.”

“Always?”

She smiled coyly. For a moment I found Isabeau almost repulsive. I was seized with an urge to grab her and shake her and chastise her for what she was doing. It was wrong. It went against nature. She was sullying her soul. And then the moment passed, and I wondered at my odd reaction.

“Don’t you find it unpleasant work?”

“It can be . . .” She nodded. “But what work is not sometimes unpleasant? Who has a life of all pleasure and no pain?”

I saw the evidence of what she’d suffered in the way she shrugged her shoulders and in the tone of her voice, and for a moment felt a new pang of guilt knowing that I had inadvertently been partly responsible for it. Although I knew that was foolish. If I had not made the poison the queen used, someone else would have. If I had refused, there would have been another to step into my place and provide what she wanted. Back then, that was how I justified my deeds. And how I thought I would be able to go on justifying them for all of my days. But I’d only just met Isabeau.