The Dream Maker (43 page)

It was Agnès.

There are some children—most of them, to be honest—who resemble both parents, and, depending on their expressions or the particular moment, they will make us think of one parent or the other, or simply alter the features of both, according to some outside influence. Then there are others who, on the contrary, seem to come from a single source, which nothing troubles, and which makes them the reproduction of a single parent, where the only difference is that of time. Marie was Agnès as a child. If her mother had lived, this resemblance would have been merely anecdotal, a touching curiosity. But Agnès had died, and to find her again in the face of this child was like witnessing a resurrection. It was impossible not to imagine, however the mind might rebel against the idea, that the woman who had been Agnès continued to live in this tiny little girl's body.

And although I had no reason to assume that I was right, I was reinforced in my illusion by the sweet tenderness which the child immediately showed me. She held out her little hand and stroked my cheek. Then she gave a hop and with a determined step led me on a tour of the woods. She showed me a squirrel's hiding place, and the bed of dead leaves where a doe rested: she saw her almost every day. She told me gravely about the things that went to make up her life, interspersed with whispered secret references to mysterious creatures that haunted the forest and spoke to her.

We walked for a good hour through the estate right to the edge of the meadows. Once Marie's secrets had brought us closer together, I crouched down before her and dared to ask her the question that had been troubling my mind.

“Do you know where your mother is?”

There was no cruelty in my question, only a desire to find out what she knew, and I had the vague but penetrating suspicion that even if she did not know a great many things, on this subject she must know more than I did.

She looked me right in the eyes and took her time deciding whether I was to be trusted.

“Maman,” she said, never taking her eyes from mine, “is no longer in this world.”

Then, no doubt considering that I was worthy, and therefore entitled to know more, but that it was preferable not to tell everything all at once, she placed a finger in front of her lips to recommend silence.

Then she took me by the hand and we went back to the château. A bell was calling the children to their dinner. I left her outside the door to the children's dining room, near the kitchens.

Meeting Marie and, through her, her mother, had filled me with contradictory, troubling impressions. Agnès's death suddenly came back to me in all its harrowing reality, as unexpected as when I had learned about it for the first time. And at the same time, even though it had never occurred to me, the fact that she had left this child behind, and two others whom I did not know, was if not a consolation then at least a way to compensate for her absence, and to bear witness to the real world of the woman she had been.

 

*

 

I went up the great stairway, preceded by a valet, who led me to my chambers. I was ruminating over a new plan. I wondered if the Coëtivys would agree to let me contribute to Marie's education. After all, was I not her mother's executor? I liked the idea of watching the child grow up and make her start in life, and of seeing whether, even in the smallest way, she would follow in Agnès's footsteps.

It seems no small irony that these were my thoughts when Marc, who had been waiting for me at the door to my chambers, took me to one side, closed the door and, looking very alarmed, insisted on speaking to me right away. The king, he told me, had summoned him to an audience upon his arrival. After touching on various current matters, he moved on to a private council devoted to my person. There had been much vociferous slander against me over recent weeks, and several incriminating revelations had been brought this morning by two delegates from the states of the Languedoc. At that very moment, my fate was hanging in the balance.

This news cast an icy chill over my thoughts, gently warmed only moments before by my meeting with Agnès's daughter, and I exploded with rage. Without making a decision, I retraced my steps, then went down into another wing of the château and, shoving aside the guards who wanted to prevent me from entering, I burst into the council room.

The king acted embarrassed, but I could see in his eyes that the informers had gotten their way. Any affability or kindness he might have sought to express through his gaze had been destroyed by the keenness of jealousy and mistrust. Everything advised caution, but the rush of strength I felt—too late, alas, and which should have compelled me to flee—inclined me, rather, to confront him. I protested, forgetting the usage of deference, and my boldness caused the evil temptation of cruelty and baseness to shine still brighter in the king's eyes.

I could see his weapons, but this time I refused to resort to anything similar to defend myself. On the contrary, out of pure bravado, I suggested they throw me in prison until I could bring them proof that the accusations against me were false.

I do not believe the king was sincere when he said that he accepted my proposal. He let me continue my defense then, as no one put up any objection, I withdrew.

Who would ever believe that I felt reassured once I went back up to my chambers? Everything was clear. I had fended off their blows once again, but this would be the last time. That very evening, I would leave Taillebourg. The days were long at the end of July. We could ride without danger until well after nine o'clock. I figured out where we could stop, and how long it would take to reach Provence and Italy. I would write to the Coëtivys; they were greatly in my debt. There was no need for them to take part directly, but they would turn a blind eye to the abduction I would endeavor to organize so that little Marie could come with me. Like her mother before her, she would come to know Italy and enjoy its beneficial influence.

On my orders, Marc had closed our trunks. I sent for the barber and abandoned myself to the caress of the blade against my skin as he shaved me. I was about to go to supper when a detachment of five men came to my door, commanded by a little Norman nobleman whom I knew vaguely by sight.

I asked him twice to repeat his words when he informed me, his eyes to the ground, that I was under arrest.

 

*

 

I felt a surge of hope again this morning. Elvira came back from town bearing news which to her seemed unimportant and which she shared almost in passing when telling me about something else. For me, it is highly significant: my pursuers are not from Genoa but from Florence. What might seem like a detail now changes everything.

If the Genoese had been after me, it would mean that the king of France had ordered it. I still have too many friends in Genoa for anyone to want to take my life of their own accord. But if my pursuers are Florentine, that is something else, and I know who has sent them.

In any case, now I know. If someone had asked on the day of my arrest, I would have been incapable of answering. At the time, I certainly felt surrounded by envy; I had found out that the king was being told malicious slander about me; however, I could not identify a particular enemy. They showed their faces when the time came for my trial.

It is a great sorrow to lose everything and be convicted, but it is an enlightening lesson to be judged, and I might almost say it is a privilege. Those who have not experienced the ordeal of disgrace, destitution, and accusation cannot truly claim to know life. The long months spent waiting while my trial was being prepared were among the most dreadful moments I have ever experienced, and, at the same time, they taught me more about myself and others than had the prior half-century of my existence.

Never before had I been confronted to such a degree with the truth about the people who knew me. I evaluated the sincerity of those who showed me their friendship, as well as that of those who opposed me, on the basis of my own feelings toward them. But what did they really think? A certain doubt subsisted, and like most human beings I had learned to live with it. Since I had become rich and powerful, it had been even more difficult to see behind the screen of hypocrisy. I myself displayed a surface courtesy, which did not reveal my feelings, and most of the time even replaced them. I had been known on occasion to act abruptly, particularly when I was speaking in the name of the king, in the Languedoc, for example, when performing my duties as tax collector. Impatience, fatigue, and the irritation of having to intervene constantly in transactions and operations that did not interest me had, from time to time, led me to behave ruthlessly. Before my trial, I imagined that my enemies, if I had any, must be among the victims of these abuses of authority.

The investigation showed me that this was anything but the case. With a single exception, those with whom I had behaved ruthlessly had merely gained even greater respect for me. All I had done, basically, was behave the way they themselves would have behaved had they been in my position. They regarded power and wealth as a justification for intransigence and brutality. Moreover, by treating them harshly, I was giving them my attention; in short, I proved to them that they existed, even if it was to trample on them.

My worst enemies, as I would learn during my trial, were those whom I had not deigned to acknowledge.

Among them there were vicious people inflated with pride, and in any case envy would have turned such people against anyone better served by life than they were. I was not sorry that I had offended them. At most, all that one could reproach me for was having given the signal for a war that would have taken place regardless.

But others, on the contrary, were men of great loyalty, eager to serve, who wished to be part of my undertaking. My mistake was in my failure to understand this, often because I simply had not noticed them. Such was the case of a young Florentine by the name of Otto Castellani, who had come to Montpellier ten years earlier, at a time when I was embarking on great projects in the town. There were already many other Florentine merchants in the Languedoc, with whom I had excellent relations. One of them had been my fellow passenger on board the ship that took me to the Levant all those years ago, and we had remained friends.

I hardly knew young Castellani. I was told he had tried everything to come into contact with me. Perhaps he actually had, but had failed to make an impression. And although my disdain would have been quite involuntary, it aroused a hatred in him proportional to the affection he had been prepared to show me.

He was intelligent and enterprising, qualities I would have been glad to honor by employing him. Instead, he placed those qualities at the service of a solitary ambition now goaded by an inextinguishable desire for revenge. He progressed in his career in the Languedoc. His relations with his home country gave him openings for trade in the Mediterranean. But he also tried to expand his activity to the north of France, as far as Flanders. Here, too, my trial was useful in allowing me to trace the agenda of the man who was my most virulent accuser. By the looks of things, unbeknownst to me I had continued to preoccupy him. His ambition, since he could not serve me, was to imitate me, surpass me, and, to reach his goal more surely, destroy me.

He patiently allied himself with anyone in whom he felt a stirring of spite toward me. And he did whatever he could to make the seed he had planted grow and blossom. Soon he was at the center of a web of bitterness and hatred, and was able to extend its influence to the entourage of the king. Among the mediocre individuals who had infiltrated the grand Council after Agnès's death he noticed a certain Guillaume Gouffier, toward whom I had always behaved with polite indifference, and who was mortified by my attitude. Castellani also turned my former misdemeanors to his advantage, such as the business with the young Moor who had stowed away on one of our ships and converted, and whom I had sent back to the sultan. The captain of the ship, whom I had reproached for his part in the affair, had quarreled violently with me. To him, his anger might have sufficed, but Castellani knew how to rekindle it and make it burn with a steady fire, which would be extinguished only by my downfall.

I had viewed the matter of the young Moor solely from the angle of our relations with the Sultan. His friendship was the cornerstone of our trade with the Levant. It was vital not to do anything that might displease him. Castellani saw the other side of the coin: I had restored to the Mohammedans someone who had willingly embraced the Catholic faith. In other words, I had lost a soul who had asked for and obtained Christ's succor. In the ecclesiastical world where my brother's success and my son's exceptionally rapid advancement had fueled bitterness and envy, Castellani found willing allies with whom to criticize my betrayal.

I know now that the Florentine's relentless activity was one of the primary causes of my disgrace. Castellani achieved his ends so thoroughly that, not merely pleased to see me convicted, he successfully plotted to fill the position I would leave vacant. Thus, he became my successor at the Argenterie.

You would think that such a triumph would be everything he dreamed of. No such thing. So greatly did he need his hatred that he seemed unable to imagine his life without it. Long after my conviction he went on seeking revenge against me and my family. When Elvira discovered that my pursuers were Florentine, I understood what should have been obvious to me much sooner: once again it was Castellani who sent his lackeys after me to Chios. This news filled me with hope.

If my pursuers were the instruments of a private vengeance on Castellani's part, my situation would be less desperate than if these henchmen had been sent by the king of France. Thus far, I had avoided any contact with the Genoese potentate who reigned over the island, for I believed Charles had forced him to spy on me and perhaps capture me. If this were indeed the case, it was difficult to understand why I had been given so long a respite: it would have been an easy matter for the Genoese to arrest me, purely and simply. If the pursuit was being led by Castellani for his own satisfaction, this would explain why it was more difficult for my assassins to do the deed. I could make use of this knowledge. Above all, the Genose podestà, far from being an enemy as I had feared, could become an ally.