The Book of Duels (19 page)

A Prediction Come to Pass: Gabriel, Comte de Montgomery v. King Henry II

On the Grounds of the Place Royale in Paris, France,

June 30, 1559

Gabriel, Comte de Montgomery, 29,

French Nobleman & Captain in Henry II’s Scots Guards

 

I
n my heart I have already converted—what use have I of pope or any other intercession—I love the king, I swear I do, but I do not love his ban—I bite my tongue and hear my heart pound under this armor—sweat runs in sheets down my back and my hair mats against my skull, my mouth dry and my wineskin empty—I ask my squire for the wooden-tipped lance, the kind they used in olden days—the banners of peace are blowing about us and they are in riotous celebration, musicians and dancers, a makeshift abattoir where oxen and lambs are slaughtered—hawkers and draught pourers, jugglers and dove sellers—so it should be, King Henry has restored peace to all of Europe and his daughter will wed King Philip of Spain—the Catholics are smug as ever and raise their glasses, while the Protestants scurry in shadow and fear—I close my visor and mark the holy cross against my chest and the king returns the gesture—I salute him and the audience roars and I heft my shield with the golden lion painted ’cross it and my horse runs his hoof through the dirt and I understand what needs be done—the flag is dropped and we charge—I bring the lance down late and, catching the king by his mask, it splinters into a thousand pieces, and so he is undone—

I know this will be my undoing—I will be forced from this land, but I will return like Jesus with my army, prepared to beat this palace to dust and rebuild it within three days’ time.

Henry II, 40,

Duc d’Orleans & King of France

 

M
y mare has ridden strong today and sweat froths on her hide and I lean into her neck and whisper,
This is your last run, mi amour
, and I stroke her mane that some servant has perfumed, the odor of lilacs and roses rises into my face, and I am a small child again in the royal garden tossing a red ball high in the air and catching it and rolling it down the lanes and running after it and catching it up again and darting through that labyrinth of hedges and fleeing from my nurses and guards until they could no longer find me and still I ducked through bushes and ran around great rock piles and fountains and statues of my king father and statues of my queen mother and I laughed to myself as they called my name and I ran into a clearing, a sight I’d never seen, hundreds of rosebushes all blooming reds and yellows and pinks and again I tossed my ball, red as the red roses, higher than ever, and as I watched it rise like a bleeding sun, I stumbled back into one of the bush’s thorny arms and it caught me and bit my skin and burned and would not let me go—and no matter how loud I cried for my nurses and for my guards and for my king and for my queen no one came and I was bloodied and burning, alone—

I lower my golden visor and heft my lance and call,
Alle anon
, and we are off, galloping as if pulled by Dame Fortune herself, and my lance is level so that my shoulder burns and my captain’s weapon takes me in the head and I lose my mount and mind, my horse no longer between my thighs, the
perfume gone forever, and I am in utter whiteness and the weight of my armor holds me supine to the earth and for a wretched second I think to cry for my queen and to cry for my mistress but I am once more bloodied and burning, alone—

Michel de Nostredame, 55,

Physician & Seer, Astrologer & Occultist

 

T
wo months ago as I sat in the darkness of my room, well past midnight, a candle burned and the mandrake root burned and the call of an owl in the woods burned my ears—the folio was set before me on the hardwood table that a man made for me many years ago when I cured his child of plague, the same disease that, like a thief in the night, stole my wife and two babes—a strong wind blew through my open window and the candle bent and righted itself again and I dipped the old quill and waited for the vision to come, brief but fully realized before me—I witnessed that scene as surely as I see my good king now, grounded, and I wrote as I saw:

 

The Lion shall overcome the old

On the field of war in a single combat;

He will pierce his eyes in a cage of gold

This is the first of two lappings, then he dies a cruel death
.

I know His Majesty surely will die of these wounds and that ten days hence, his loyal subjects will come to my home with pitchforks and strong rope and demand my life, and I know too that my patron, Queen Catherine, will protect me, her special seer—just as I know that Gabriel will be fled from Paris to Normandy and there gather a rebel army that will fail and he will be captured and, just before the axe kisses his neck, the executioner will bend to his ear and whisper that his wife and children will be removed from their lands and made to be beggars—I will continue to pen these prophecies, envisioning even my own death, because all I ever see, cruel necromancer
I am become, is darkness, death, and disease—where go the beauties and loves and lusts, the little graces and foibles by which to laugh? Still, I will see farther and farther into the future, five hundred years and more, and I know that in that far-off time, long after the ways of the Habsburgs and the Medicis and the House of Valois have passed into the ether, I will be remembered and studied and considered—perhaps that is all the beauty I need, and so I write of the twenty-first century:

 

The Son of Nazareth is no more,

The Son of the Sun is no more,

Yet the seer is seen by those who see,

And the sun will drown the land with sea
.

Old Hickory: Dickinson v. Jackson

Stemming from a Welched Bet and a Challenge of Infidelity, near Harrison’s Mill on the Banks of the Red River, Logan County, Kentucky, a Full Day’s Ride from Nashville, Tennessee,

May 30, 1806

Charles Dickinson, 26,

Attorney & Winner of Twenty-Six Previous Duels

 

G
overnor Sevier has given me to understand I could no longer postpone this interview—I spent the last month on Mississippi riverboats practicing my pistol till I could bury four shots in a row through the king card’s eye—this last week I woke each dawn howling in bed, begging Charlotte to cool the burning in my throat, the fire in my heart—my stomach hollow as a chicken skull, my hands so bloody a-tremble I could not even pen apologies if I’d pleased—Sevier cajoled me to this purpose with a promise to appoint me chief magistrate and so surpass my father’s mere assessment of me—his sneer forever wrapped ’round that meerschaum pipe, the odor of his Cavendish tobacco lingering in my clothes and hair, the incessant clicking of his teeth on clay as he marked my legal opinions—where is he now, that man who sent me to this wilderness, gone broke on his own speculations, driven mad down to debtors’ prison—where too my father-in-law, whose horse came up lame and lost—my thoughts run about heedless as a headless pullet—because of my steady hand, I’ve been coaxed to wrangle this ruffian’s honor for months, yet now as I stand just twenty-four feet from him—his hair a red tornado, his lipless mouth like an axe mark hacked into rough-hewn wood, his wild gray eyes themselves the color of lead, which say clear that he will be king and not Sevier nor Jesus nor Satan himself can refute his course—I can’t steady the shake in my wrists, the pistol’s weight grown too great to handle—I can taste vomit on the back of my tongue and my cheeks blanch and my breath
catches throatwise—I regret the black mark I’ve checked against his wife’s good name and not because theirs is a lawful marriage—God knows it is not—rather, because that besmirch may have me meet the Elect before the next election ever comes.

On his man’s word, I raise my arm and release my bullet first and it passes through his oversized coat and he does not flinch—a miss, by God!—now I know I am doomed—I suck in my gut and turn completely sideways but I stagger-swoon backward, dumbstruck—I would beg forgiveness if I thought it would soothe this scoundrel’s soul—I hear his gun misfire, a mere tap like my father’s teeth clicking clay, but this sound is the sweetest, loudest one I’ve ever known.