Enchantress of Paris (35 page)

I lived for those rides—the salt spray in my face, the rush of the ocean falling into rhythm with the cantor of Trojan's hoofs. It was the only time I felt at peace.

I kept my word to my uncle for once. I didn't write to the king. For weeks I ignored the hollow sick feeling inside. I lost myself in the seaside rides and refused to give Terron an answer. The king's letters arrived every day as his court crept south, finally settling in Provence to await the outcome of Mazarin's negotiations. The weather cooled. Gradually the tone of the king's letters changed from desperate to angry to pleading. Reading them robbed me of all hard-won peace.

*   *   *

“What is that?” cried Venelle at the doorway of our chambers after we'd been at Brouage a month.

Terron's voice sounded. “A gift from the king to Mademoiselle Mancini.” He bent to deposit his bundle on the floor. It bounded across the chamber in my direction.

“A puppy!” I cried, scooping the little fur ball into my arms. She licked my face and hands. “Is she from Frippon's litter?”

“Indeed. Just weaned.” Terron smiled proudly.

The leather collar around her neck had a silver plate engraved with the words
I belong to Marie Mancini.
I felt my heart both swell with joy and ache with longing. “Then I shall call her Frip.”

Terron knelt beside me as I inspected my new spaniel. He blocked Venelle's view with his body and slipped me a letter. “You still haven't given your answer.”

Ah, but the king hadn't
sent
for me, either.

I reached into my hanging pocket and tossed Terron a different sort of letter, one Olympia had recently written to me. “Tell me why I should believe the king loves me when he has fallen into Olympia's clutches.”

He looked the letter over. “The queen mother must have put her up to sending this.”

“Do you deny it?” I asked. “Can you honestly tell me the king doesn't frequent her chambers, dine every meal with her, dance with her, and play cards with her for hours as she claims? Have they rekindled their affair?”

He hesitated. “I … I have heard rumor of it. He even offered her the position of
dame d'honneur
of the new queen's bedchamber.”

I watched Frip gnaw the hem of my skirts. “The king keeps me hanging on to hopes, plying me with love letters and gifts, all while continuing his slow march to the marriage altar. He doesn't want me for his wife. He thinks he'll make me his mistress.” I took a breath. “But I am no Olympia. I won't be his mistress.”

“Your uncle finalized the last of the articles of his peace treaty, though it won't be ratified until the wedding. He is retiring to Provence with the court to wait.”

“The court will talk of my downfall. What humiliation.”

Terron leaned close. “Once Mazarin and his guards get to Provence, it will be more difficult for the king to arrange an elopement. Act. Tell the king you are prepared to meet him in secret.”

I shook my head. “Did my uncle tell you he offered to arrange a marriage for me? He suggested Lorenzo Colonna, prince of Paliano, Constable of Naples, the preeminent nobleman of Rome.” This match would finally ally France and Naples. A new Naples Plan that made me bitter. “Though I would prefer someone like the Prince of Lorraine so I could remain in France.”

Terron stood to go. “Decide. Before it's too late.”

*   *   *

Terron left, and I peeked at the king's letter. He longed to hold me, to kiss me, to receive a letter from me. He didn't send for me. He was waiting for me to act. I knew King Louis couldn't fulfill his destiny as a great king without peace. Did I really want to be the cause of death, destruction, pillaging, food shortages, and heartache for the poor French, whom my uncle had already extorted? Letting Louis marry Spain would heal his nation … though it would break his heart.

I carried Frip past the bastion fortifications and demilunes of the citadel, down to the shore. I walked beyond the busy port of Brouage until it looked like a harbor of model ships. I passed the interlocking salt ponds, where men stopped raking to watch me. I settled on a dune and thought for hours. Herons hovered on the breeze, and shorebirds poked the wet sand with their long beaks. Frip fell asleep in my lap, and I imagined my many cares washed away by the ebbing tide.

Though I had taught him much about how to be a noble king, my work in King Louis was not yet complete.
But I am afraid to elope.
Hadn't my father predicted I would leave my husband? Sunset brought Venelle and the soldiers out to find me. I wondered, whether I married King Louis or not, was I was destined to hurt him?

 

CHAPTER
47

November 1659

Compacts and contracts of witches with devils and all infernal spirits or familiars are but erroneous novelties and imaginary conceptions.

—REGINALD SCOT,
The Discoverie of Witchcraft

A week later, Marianne smacked her lips, eyes wide with delight as she handed a coin to the old sailor who ran a bakery within the walls of Brouage. In exchange, he handed her a few sugared candies from the holy land he'd traded for at the port.

She popped a
nebât
into her mouth. “Mmm!”

“You spend all your money on sugared candy,” said Hortense. “You're going to get a stomachache again.”

Marianne wrinkled her nose at Hortense. “Marie will give me more money.” Had I been in the mood, I'd have laughed. I'd discovered how to keep Marianne from reporting my every last word to Venelle; she was cheaply bought.

Venelle had become so comfortable with our explorations within the walls of Brouage that Marianne could gorge herself on sweets every day. Today we strolled toward the little church for mass for wont of anything better to do.

But Hortense stopped at the opening of an apothecary shop. “There's something I need.”

Curious, I followed her. Marianne trailed behind us, content with her candy. The scent of spices and tang of tinctures permeated the air. Hortense poked around the shelves, studying labels, swirling jars of liquid, and occasionally uncorking bottles to take a sniff. Finally she grabbed a jar of dried bugs and held them out to me, triumphant.

“Cochineal,” I said. “Are you going to make rouge?”

She grabbed a block of wax wrapped in parchment, shaking her head. “It is for my lips. Isn't it time I started dressing the part of a fine lady like you and Olympia?”

I studied my sister. When had she gotten so tall? Her breasts bulged at the décolletage of her bodice. Her face had lost its youthful chubbiness, and her skin glowed with vitality. I thought of Olympia's special red and searched the shelves. I grabbed a bottle of rosewood oil. “This will soften the wax, which is what you want for lip paint. And it will balance out the rather nasty taste of the powdered bugs.”

“Will you teach me how to make it?”

“You know I will.”

She grinned, taking her prizes to the shopkeeper. Marianne counted out the candies in her hand, making sucking noises and ignoring us. I scanned the shelves, studying the many powders and dried flowers. As I turned a corner, I spotted a man in a turban. He grinned at me. The Arabian from La Rochelle. How did he get into Brouage?

Moréna!

“Tell your fortune?” His French was heavily accented.

I shook my head. “I know how to read palms.”

“You read the stars, too.” He reached into the front of his tunic and withdrew an old astrological almanac. “But not your own until now.” He handed the booklet to me.

I stared at the numbers
1638,
then rifled through the pages. At last. An ephemeris from my birth year. A plan materialized. A way to find the answers I sought.

The man leaned in. “I can cast it for you.”

I studied him. “Thank you, but I must use my father's methods. They were … unconventional.”

He gave me a slight bow and left the store. I gave him time before following.

“What did you find?” asked Hortense, cradling her parcel.

“You know me,” I said, tucking the book under my arm. “Always one to find something boring to read. Let's not go to mass today. We should go back to our quarters and start mixing that lip paint.”

And prepare to redraw the horoscope I never should have burned.

*   *   *

I made Moréna undergo preparations with me. She balked at going to church. She shot me bored looks during mass. For nine days I made her receive the priest's blessing.

No one noticed I was fasting. I ate so little normally, and by moving food around on my plate enough to distract my sisters, I got away with just taking water for three full days.

I sent Moréna out for extra candles and kidskin parchment and a clay pot and clean white linen while I studied the book Mazarin coveted,
Heptameron.
She went daily to the docks looking for a ship trading sandalwood powder. I drew Solomon's star on the kidskin parchment and took it with me into confession. I managed to unburden myself of pride and vanity without giving the priest too much to gossip about, then swiped holy water from the baptistery font when he wasn't looking.

On the ninth day of daily mass, the third day of fasting, the sixteenth of November, I felt my hunger no more. Excitement coursed through my limbs. I packed a sack and told Moréna we would leave at midnight.

When the hour arrived, I donned a white linen gown and a heavy cloak with a hood that shadowed my face. Moréna pulled the sack from its hiding place beneath the bed. But not quietly enough.

Hortense sat upright. “Marie?”

“Lie back down,” I said.

She didn't. “You're going to conjure, aren't you?”

I'd assumed that she wouldn't notice, that she'd been too young when our father had prepared for conjuring to recognize what I'd been doing. I didn't answer.

“Don't go far from the citadel. A storm is blowing in from the west.” She lay back down and pulled the covers over her head.

We hurried out. Moréna paid the soldiers standing guard at the Royal Gate and told them only to come after us if we didn't return by dawn. The ocean air felt heavy. A wet breeze from the west dampened our skin and made it glisten in the waxing moon. Moréna carried a lantern, and we walked past the marshes, beyond the quiet docks, into the salt beds I'd come to know.

I put the sack at Moréna's feet. I took out my ink, quills, paper, and almanac from 1638. “You know what to do,” I said, and knelt to re-create my nativity.

With the foolscap on the salt bed and the waxing moon as my light, I drew a large square, with a smaller square inside it. In the space between them, I drew zigzagging lines until I had twelve triangles, the twelve signs of the zodiac. I consulted the ephemeris and found the true place of the sun on the twenty-eighth of August. It was in the sixth sign, the house of Virgo. I found the hour and minutes in the Table of Houses and drew the sun symbol in the sixth triangle. Working up the houses and down the columns, I tracked hours and minutes and plotted every planet. I went through it again to note each planet's degree, then sat back on my heels and studied my work.

It was much as I remembered. With Saturn well dignified in the house of Aquarius, I would be imaginative. The lunar node called Head of the Dragon was in Sagittarius, which meant happiness for me. Jupiter in Scorpio made me tenacious. Venus, well dignified in its own house of Libra, indicated my attractiveness, suggesting I might be the cause of jealousies, and that I valued my freedom. My Virgo housed three whole planets, including Mercury, well dignified and almost too strong, making me so intelligent and gifted in the art of divination, it might actually cause my downfall. Mars was not at all dignified in Leo, making me willful. With my moon on the cusp of Leo, I could be hot-tempered. Venus reinforced this in the west, masculine angle.

Had my mother considered me too smart for my own good? Too willful to be corrected? So gifted I might be dangerous? I had tried to take control of my own fate. Perhaps the world wasn't ready for such a woman.

“Did you find it?” asked Moréna.

“Not all of it.” I ran my finger over the house of Libra. The mysterious planet my father had noted there, the one indicating I'd leave my husband, simply didn't exist. Could he have been wrong? “My father must have consulted the angels.”

For the first time, Moréna seemed hesitant. “So you're going through with it?” She had started a fire in the clay pot and arranged my sandalwood powder, holy water, and kidskin with Solomon's star.

I nodded. The position of the moon indicated it was now the first hour of the Lord's Day, more than a week before the autumnal equinox. To call upon the hour's ruler, the archangel Michael, I needed to begin. Moréna took my cloak, and I kicked off my satin slippers. I stood barefoot in the salt bed wearing nothing but white linen. I grabbed a walking stick Moréna had left in the fire and studied the charred, smoking tip. Perfect for drawing on the crusty salt bed.

“How do you know what to do?”

I smiled. “I watched my father.” The necromancer. And I'd prayed every day of my fast that his method would conjure only good spirits.

Now I walked a circle, nine feet in diameter, dragging my stick, drawing a ring. I drew another circle about a hand's-width inside it. Then a third inside that, and then a fourth. In the outermost ring, I wrote names I'd memorized from the lists of
Heptameron.
The angels of the air for Sunday,
Varcan Rex—Tus—Andas—Cynabal.
The next ring was the real work. I wrote the name of the first hour of Sunday and its ruling angel,
Yayn
—
Michael.
Then I drew Michael's sigil from memory, with its sharp angles and crosses. The angel of Sunday was again
Michael,
and his ministers,
Dardiel—Huratapal.
I wrote the name of autumn,
Ardarel,
and the angels of autumn,
Tarquam—Guabarel.
I poked my writing stick in the fire for a moment, then used it again to write the sign of autumn,
Torquaret,
then the names for earth, sun, and moon in autumn,
Rabianara—Abragini—Matasignais.