The General's Mistress (23 page)

“No,” Lisette said. “There are four Elemental Maidens, and then Clemence, who does the scrying. She tells them all they’re going to be wealthy and have beautiful women pursuing them. Sometimes she says they’re going to be glorious in war or have an affair of the heart with a woman who is far above them, that kind of thing.”

“All right. Tell your friend I’ll do it.”

I
had a page of lines to learn. There was a long, tedious speech in badly written alexandrines about rosy-fingered dawn and how I was Aurora, the dawn maiden, who spreads her saffron robe over the skies. I also had a saffron robe. It was a muslin chemise dyed yellow, but it actually would look quite nice in limited light. Lisette assured me that these things were always as dark and atmospheric as possible. I wore my sandals with it, glad that I had saved them from the ruin of my life.

On midsummer’s night, we took a hired carriage to a house
near Saint-Germain-des-Prés. We were early. It was barely nine o’clock.

Charles Lebrun was a well-dressed young man of medium height, the very picture of a junior clerk or a deputy something-or-other. The house was a neat townhouse on a quiet street. The carriages arriving could have been for a respectable party. He greeted Lisette with a kiss on the cheek.

“Hello, lovely lady! I see you brought your friend! Don’t worry, I’ll pay up afterward.”

“Before,” Lisette said, still smiling.

He shrugged and grinned at me. “Mademoiselle Bellespoir drives a hard bargain. Before, then.” He counted out our money. “Now, Madame, do you know your lines?”

I gave them for him.

He nodded absently. “Good, good. Nice and easy. No need to shout. There’s only ten of us. Me and four guests, you maidens, and Clemence. It’s not the entire Théâtre de la République. And what is your name, by the way?”

“Charmiane,” I said, and had no idea why I’d said it. Lisette shot me a quick look, but said nothing. It’s a bad idea to keep your real name, but to be protective of a name that was already an alias seemed excessive.

“Charmiane, lovely.” He was distracted by the sound of another carriage. “Oh, damn. Is that Monsieur Villiers? How can he be so early? Now I have to go take care of him. You two go on up—and for God’s sake, don’t talk loudly!”

Lisette took my hand as Lebrun hurried out to greet the first guest. “Come on, then. You can see the room.” We went upstairs to the second floor.

The room in question was clearly intended to be the dining room, but the furniture had all been removed. There were heavy scarlet drapes at the window, and the walls were painted very
nicely with imitations of classical frescoes. The doorways were also hung with heavy scarlet curtains, and an identical sconce had been hung on each wall, lit with tall beeswax tapers like the ones churches used in Italy. There were four small tables, one beneath each sconce. Mine had a heavy brass censer. It looked old. I guessed it had originally belonged to one of the churches in Paris before the Revolution. Inside was a cake of charcoal.

“You light the charcoal,” Lisette explained, “and then you open this box and drop some of it on the charcoal.” She held out a pretty little china box.

I opened it. A rich scent rushed out. There were chips of amber-colored resin, some almost the color of honey, some dark brown. “Frankincense and myrrh,” I said, bending my head and breathing deeply. The scent was warm and intoxicating, the scent of churches in Italy when I was a child. “I can do that.”

Lisette nodded. “Then you just walk around the room that way once, and come back and put it down. The tabletop is tile, so you won’t scorch it with the censer, see?”

Two more women had arrived. I assumed they were the other two Elemental Maidens, for Lisette greeted them. I said hello and then pleaded that I wanted to go over my lines. I stood quietly, my head bent over the paper. In the middle of the room there was a low table draped in black, one white candle and a blackened mirror. I kept looking away from it, but then looking back.

In a few minutes Lebrun came dashing upstairs. He closed the door carefully, then spoke quickly. “Clemence isn’t coming. She’s drunk. Anybody want to be our Sibyl tonight? You’ll have to wing it.”

“I will,” I said, and was startled to hear myself speak.

Lebrun turned quickly, smiling. “Ah, good! Let me take you aside, then. Give that paper to Lisette.” He led me over by the
window. “At first, don’t say a lot,” he said. “Just mumble and drop in some nice classical references if you can. Then when we get to the body of it, I’ll try to keep it short. Villiers is going to want to know about his investments. Tell him in vague terms that he’ll prosper, but don’t get off on any particular stocks. Too easy for him to check. Noirtier will ask about the army. Just prophesy victory after long struggle. That’s easy. Again, no specifics. You’re not a damned almanac.”

I laughed.

“Anything else, they’re lucky in love and will meet a fascinating woman. You can go on about dark or fair, but don’t give them anything about a particular person. Got it?”

I nodded.

“Good girl.” Lebrun patted my arm. “And you can ham it up a bit. Moan. Roll your eyes. Don’t make it look easy!”

“I’ll do it,” I said.

Lebrun stepped away. “All right, places, ladies! I’m going down to get our guests.”

Adele stood by the censer. I didn’t know what else to do, so I went and knelt by the little table. I didn’t touch the mirror. In the darkened room, the faint shadows of people moving reflected oddly off the silvered glass. I looked down at my hands instead.
Breathe,
I thought. My heart was beating very fast.

We are all Doves,
my mother had said.
We see things in mirrors. Elzelina would have been able to hear. . . .

The gentlemen came in. I did not look at them. I knelt quietly and did not raise my head.

Adele said the lines that had been mine. The incense filled the room. Frankincense and myrrh. The scent of time. My eyes closed, and I heard the lines around me as from far away.

“. . . for I am the Spirit of Fire, the breath of life. I am the summer sun, the golden orb of heaven. . . .”

In my mind’s eye, the sun glanced through stained-glass windows. An angel with a sword of fire glowed bright, a red cloak billowing behind him, a white tabard over his silver armor, red device on white. The window split apart in unbearable brilliance before his glory.

“. . . for I am the Spirit of Water, the depths of the ocean.” I knew it was Lisette’s voice, but it seemed very far away and strange. “I am the movement of mists, the rains of heaven. . . .”

Water beneath a leaping keel, the sound of the endless depths. Blue silence, and an octopus moving among submerged stones.

“. . . the dark places of the Earth, cold stones and lost caves . . .”

Sunrise, and a cold morning, a standing stone twice my height at my elbow, watching the sun rising out of the cold North Sea. Far overhead the faint honking of geese, great flocks of them, the children of the sun, the children of this endless day when there would be hardly any night, just the sun dipping low for an hour or two. Out across the windswept straits a ship was coming, her prow curved upwards like a swan or a dragon, a ship to bring a prince home.

“Oh, great Sibyl!” Lebrun said at my elbow. “Will you not speak to us? Will you not look into the depths of time and tell us what you see? Speak! We entreat you!”

I remembered what I was supposed to be doing and opened my eyes. The blackened mirror reflected the vague shape of my face.

“Speak,” Lebrun said dramatically to a man out of my line of sight. “Ask your question, my friend!”

“Shall my investments in the banking house of Ouvrard prosper?” he asked.

I moaned. “Ah, ah, ah!”

“Please tell me,” he said, and I could hear the note of excitement in his voice.

“Jupiter rules a man of power,” I said, trying to be both suitably poetic and obscure. “Power and prosperity are yours. Bright Jupiter ascends the heavens, and gold flows into the laps of the worthy.”

There were some small delighted sounds.

“Let Monsieur Noirtier have his turn,” Lebrun said. I assumed he was, directing traffic around the Sibyl. I did not move my eyes from the mirror. The candle flame’s reflection wavered.

A different voice: “How shall fare Bonaparte’s expedition in Egypt?”

This time I did not have to seek for the words. They were there as if they always had been. “He who would conquer Egypt must prepare to be conquered by it.” The arching sky looked back at me in the mirror, clear as faience, blue as dreams. My voice ran on, my will somewhere behind it. “There is a ship with an eagle spread upon its sail, great oars moving in unison. Caesar has come in relentless pursuit of his enemy, to conquer and to be conquered. The Black Land does not give up her secrets easily, for we are older than time. We were old when he last came here, golden warrior, son of the gods.”

There was a swift intake of breath behind me. Noirtier knelt down. “Can you tell me more?”

The light blurred, streaked like fire on water. “There will be fire on the deep, and Orient’s loss will blind the eagle,” I said. “It is not the sea that answers to his hand, but the deep-buried mysteries of the land. He has come to Alexandria now as once he came to Siwa, seeking truths that only the Black Land can show him, and there he must find his destiny, in the place where he chose it once before, when he turned away from the rest that
was offered. It is easy to descend to the underworld, but returning is the difficulty.”

Lebrun put his hand on my shoulder. “Monsieur, you must not tire her. This is very hard.” Lebrun guided him gently away. “We are tiring our Sibyl,” he said. “Gentlemen, see how she sways!”

I swayed for good measure. “I cannot . . .” I whispered.

“Rest yourself,” Lebrun said. He covered the mirror ostentatiously with a piece of silk. I sat still and almost frozen. About me I heard their voices, the Maidens again with their last lines, the gentlemen getting up as it ended. I did not move.

At last Lebrun put his hand on my shoulder again. I lifted my head. He was grinning.

“Charmiane, you are a natural!” he exclaimed. “That was well done!” He helped me to my feet. “And here’s a little bonus for you! All that blathering about Bonaparte in Egypt was perfect. You could read into it anything you like. A regular Nostradamus!”

“Thank you,” I said. I felt a little unsteady on my feet. “Do you think I might have a glass of wine?”

He fetched me one, and when we left, Lisette and I went out to eat on my bonus at a little café not far away. I thought we deserved it. It was very merry and pleasant, and I felt all the strangeness going, replaced instead by a dawning sense of triumph. Here was something I could do well.

Debuts

I
wrote to Victor again the next week.

Victor,

Since you persist in this silence, this is the last note you will have from me. I am perfectly capable of supporting myself, and will soon be doing so on the stage.

Ida

T
his received a prompt reply. I tore it open and read it by the window in Lisette’s apartment, a cup of coffee in my hand.

My dear Madame,

Knowing your imprudent and impulsive nature, I am hardly surprised by your decision to take up acting. However, I beg you to reconsider. Despite the life you have led for the past several years, you are not entirely devoid of reputation in the eyes of the world, and are a woman of some consequence and distinguished antecedents.

However, if you go on the stage you will tarnish that reputation irretrievably by allying yourself with the lowest types of men and women. Actresses lack your breeding, birth, and taste, and are engaged in the lowest forms of commerce. I beg you to reconsider this hasty decision and consider better
alternatives. It is from my abiding respect for you that I speak.

Victor Moreau

F
or a moment, I could scarcely see straight.