The Oracle Glass (19 page)

“Ah, none whatsoever, Madame. That I know for a fact; I bribed a clerk of the court. They had nothing but the book itself, which was banned by the order of the Lieutenant General of Police, a fellow named La Reynie, and a denunciation from a paid informer who lives in taverns. The informer is known to be an untrustworthy fellow, and even the magistrate on the case doubts his word, the clerk informed me. But suspicion is enough, Madame, in cases of treason. And the work, I hear, would merit this. It predicts the fall of the state from fiscal corruption—not, of course, that I have read it, mind you,” he added nervously, looking around. Then he looked at me, his face troubled, and went on: “This Lamotte tells me that he managed to see him once in prison. My son never confessed during the interrogation. And Lamotte swears they never found a copy, a note, anything in his possession. So my case is proven. Mistaken identity!”

“No confession? Then perhaps there's hope. Continue with your petition, Monsieur d'Urbec, and I have an idea that I will pursue. And my suggestion is this: take up a position where the King's Apartment connects with the Salle des Gardes, for the Salle des Gardes is wide and long, and the crowd around the King will disperse somewhat, so that you will be able to approach him there.”

“A wonderful idea! Why did no one else suggest it to me? A thousand thanks, Madame! Is there some consideration I may make for your kind intervention?”

“Hardly. I imagine my mercenary little Sylvie has already done you sufficient damage. For myself, I act in the name of justice served.” He bowed again deeply and left, trudging through the spring mud, while Sylvie summoned the bearers of my chair, who had been throwing dice only a few paces beyond the domed pavilion.

All that afternoon I was in a kind of dreamy daze. André Lamotte and I were sitting at an intimate little supper table, drinking wine.

“That was terribly clever, the way you saved d'Urbec. It's a pity I didn't think of it myself. I admire a brilliant woman. And brains so rarely are combined with beauty. Lackey, pour the Burgundy I've been saving. Geneviève, let's drink to our future.” And as we raised glasses, I shook off the dream. Enough of this stupidity, Geneviève Pasquier, I said to myself. Girls who daydream end badly, Grandmother always said. But then, who was she to talk? Hadn't she wept over
Astrée
in her own day?

April
5, 1675. What madness makes me want Lamotte, who will never have me? It's enough to make a person believe in demons that can seize the soul. Is it because he's beautiful, or because he was Marie-Angélique's, and having him would make me as beautiful as she? It certainly isn't his mind. No, it has to be his charm. Even the memory of it warms me through. And he makes the world seem deliciously simple. I want to be part of his easy simplicity
—But as I wrote, I started, as if something cold had touched me. I looked up into the dark beyond the candle and saw something hollow eyed and mocking, staring at me. It looked like the ghost of Florent d'Urbec.

That evening in the town of Versailles, as Sylvie brushed off my clothes in our tiny little rented room under the eaves, I looked up from writing in what she chose to call my “account book.” “Sylvie, I want you to take this letter into Paris tomorrow and put it in the confessional box of the Jesuit church on the rue Saint-Antoine.”

“What's in it?” she asked impudently.

“What's in it is a silver louis for you. But if you wish, you may read it. I haven't sealed it yet.” Sylvie took the letter and worked her way slowly through it, making her mouth work with each word.

“
Ooo
. This is nasty. A denunciation to the police. Who is this Cato fellow who promised you marriage and absconded with your silver spoons? And you traveled all the way to Paris to find him, and he'd taken up with another woman? He seems pretty villainous—‘tall, reddish hair with a beard that grows brown, scar on one cheek, makes his living writing
libelles
under false names and takes money from William of Orange.' Nasty work!”

“Whoever he is, he is the exact opposite of Monsieur d'Urbec, who is dark and of medium height.”

“Oho, you're the sly one. Case of mistaken identity, eh? Delays matters a bit. And if they haven't tortured him to find out who the printer was, why, they might even let him go. That is, if it doesn't hurt their pride too much.” She looked at me shrewdly. “But I didn't know you knew this fellow d'Urbec. Are you soft on him?”

“I don't know him at all,” I answered hurriedly.

“Then how'd you know what he looks like?”

“Why, I suppose he looks like his father, that's all.”

“Too bad for him if he's red headed, then,” she answered before she blew out the candle. But her voice sounded cynical.

The dispatch rider from Paris set out from Fort Saint-Jean early in the morning. Even in the chill air, the stench of the wintering galleys bobbing at anchor almost overpowered him as he rode the length of the Quai du Port to the Arsenal. The pride of the French fleet, the choice assignment for the sons of the highest aristocracy, the low, narrow ships looked nothing like their summer incarnations. The bands of musicians were dispersed, the silk pennants in storage. The gilt and crimson scrollwork was invisible beneath huge canvas tents that stretched from the bow to the stern over the rowers' benches, giving the ships the air of monstrous cocoons. The rider could read the names on the bows:
L'Audace
,
La
Superbe
,
L'Heroïne
…

As the icy pink dawn faded from the sky, the cocoons appeared to hatch hundreds of galley slaves who been released from the chains that held them to their benches all night. Now chained in pairs, surrounded by armed escorts of halberdiers, they were herded across the quay to various workplaces in the city of Marseilles, to earn their winter keep. The rider hardly noticed this everyday sight, and having made his first delivery at the Arsenal, he headed to the more fashionable section of Marseilles, where the Captain of the
Superbe
had his winter residence.

Breakfast had just been cleared when the lackey showed in the messenger, and the captain was still clad in his quilted silk dressing gown, his wigless head protected by a fur-lined, embroidered cap.

“Well, well,” he said, almost to himself as he read the letter from the Captain General of the Galleys, “it looks as if someone has a friend at court. Remind me, Vincent. Who is this Florent d'Urbec? Have I seen him?” Vincent, whose shaven head and eyebrows proclaimed him also to be a wintering
galérien
, thought a moment and answered.

“I think it's that new one on number seven, the one who weeps.”

“Oh, yes, the fellow who mends clocks. I like to have skilled trades among my rowers; I've made a good deal of money from him this winter.” He squinted again at the dispatch. “
Pah!
These courtiers—they don't understand necessity. Do they expect me just to throw away the men I need? I must have a full complement for the campaign this summer; I see no reason to let a perfectly good one go just now. Later is good enough to satisfy the captain general.” The captain refolded the offending paper and opened the seal on the next dispatch. He waved his hand to dismiss his lackey. “Go see his
comite
, Vincent, and tell him to inform this fellow that when he can provide me with the price of a Turkish slave to replace him, I will let him go.”

***

The
Superbe
spent the first weeks of spring in maneuvers designed to break the new men to the oar, then joined the fleet on campaign against North African corsairs for the remaining months of summer. Chained around the clock to the benches, the
galériens
sometimes rowed for ten to twelve hours at a stretch, the
comites
feeding them bread dipped in wine to keep them from dropping. Even so, by the summer's end, thirty-six had died and were pitched overboard.

D'Urbec began by assuring himself that in defiance of the galley masters he would at least keep his mind as his own. But as the first week ran into the second and then the third, he realized that pain and hunger, systematically applied, had done their work. His brain could no longer hold more than a minute at a time in focus; his concerns had shrunk to the size of his bread ration. At night he shivered in the open air, sleepless from the rattle of chained men scratching their vermin. And when at last he saw that he had become little more than a beast with arms, no different than the thieves on either side of him, his heart broke. The fever that haunted the oarsmen's benches took possession of him. He had decided to die.

Images moved through his brain randomly. Paris. His friends. A stable yard at home. He could hear voices talking about him.

“Another one with fever, Lieutenant…”

“…the hospital weakens them. Just move him to the end of the oar. He'll harden up…”

The rattle of chains and someone saying “Move, you.” Other images. A sign over a door, “
D'Urbec et fils, Horlogers
.” His father waving good-bye as he left on the diligence for Paris, wearing a secondhand suit. A frail girl with gray eyes, clutching a Latin book. The frightened look on the maid's face at the back door of the great house as she said, “Monsieur, she is dead.” “…but she was well when I saw her last…” “Monsieur, she drowned herself.” Let it all go, said his mind as it left him.

The captain increased rations to combat the fever and had meat issued to the rowers. D'Urbec, wasted, blistered by the sun, his eyes burned deep into their sockets, rowed on at the easier end of the oar, his shoulders and arms gradually acquiring the abnormal strength of the
galérien
.

“You speak well,” said the ship's
tavernier
when he measured out d'Urbec's watery wine ration. “What were you before?”

“A law student,” said d'Urbec, his eyes dull and desperate.

“Ah, just what I could use,” replied the
tavernier
, who was also a fence of stolen property when the ship docked for the winter at Marseilles. “I have a client who needs a marriage certificate for his daughter—dated last year, if you know what I mean. Could you draw one up, nice and legal, if I got the right parchment and seals for it?”

“It would not be hard.”

“What about wills, deeds? I know people who'll pay well.”

“Of course,” answered the law student who had once wanted to reform the state.

***

It was not until the following spring that a filthy, hollow-eyed man in worn, badly fitting government-issue clothes left Marseilles on foot for Paris. A black, shapeless hat hid his shaven head, but nothing could conceal that his face was without eyebrows. A short jacket, sprung out at the seams, and a coarse, patched shirt concealed the G A L branded deep into his shoulder. He was filled with bitter knowledge: how much wine diluted with seawater could be drunk before illness set in, how to bribe a
comite
to spare the lash, how much more easily money could be made secretly forging legal documents than mending clocks, and the exact price of a Turk. Hidden inside his shirt was the document that gave him freedom and a much-refolded, grimy letter from his father that he had paid a considerable bribe to receive. One passage, puzzled over again and again, was burned into his mind: “…a generous and titled widow with great influence at court has helped me secure this miracle…” Who? Who? he mumbled silently to himself. Those who passed him on the road thought he was insane.

I left court shortly before Easter and returned to Paris, for while the fortune-telling business vanished during Holy Week at Versailles, it remained as good as ever in the city, where the austerities of the season had never interfered with the main business of life, which was to have a good time. The night that we packed, Sylvie got a glimpse of the heap of gold louis in my locked coffer and sucked in her breath.

“Oh my,” she said, in her sharp little voice. “That's a fortune. I could retire on that.”

“It goes to La Voisin,” I replied, locking the box.

“And not a bit to us, for some nice new clothes, or a trip to Vichy to take the waters and meet some good-looking men? She sure has a racket, she does. I wish I was her. I been figuring. I been watching. I calculate, just from what I know about who works for her, she must bring in maybe a hundred thousand écus a year—straight profit.” Sylvie's eyes narrowed as she savored the sum. A greater income than all but the mightiest noble families in the kingdom. It dwarfed the modest sum in the box, the annual income of an ordinary family of the provincial aristocracy.

“A contract is a contract,” I said, as we departed down the rickety outer staircase.

“Sometimes I think that for an old lady you're kind of simple,” she answered, puffing beneath her burden of bundles as she followed behind me.

We arrived after Mass on Easter Sunday at the villa on the rue Beauregard. The mingled smell of a dozen meat dishes to break the long season of fasting penetrated every room from the inner fastness of the kitchen. The whole house had been newly cleaned for the holiday. The heavy silver plate, all freshly polished, glinted down from the sideboard. The carpets were beaten, the rich, dark furniture dusted, down to the last knob and carving. Marie-Marguerite bustled by in a new dress and cap, with a fresh little linen-and-lace apron that once would have sent my sister into an ecstasy. Only Antoine Montvoisin was not to be seen in new clothes. He was upstairs, sick in bed. Sylvie followed me into La Voisin's little cabinet, carrying the locked coffer.

“You look sour this week. Come, wasn't life pleasant? Imagine, you might live like that always if you are guided by me. Remember that I made you,” the sorceress added, counting up the money on her writing desk and opening her great ledger. The little cat's face winked up at me from atop a sheaf of papers with cabalistic drawings on them. “Is it all here?” she asked in a suspicious voice.

“Everything. I have an accounting, if you wish.” Sylvie held out the open coffer. A sudden look of concern crossed La Voisin's face as she snatched up the top notebook, to be replaced with one of relief as she glanced through the pages.

“All in code. Excellent,” she said. “Occasionally, you have a sensible instinct after all. I never let my books leave this cabinet, and it is steel lined, with the finest locks in the kingdom. Remember, our first duty is to protect our clients. We go silent to the grave. That is what protects our business.”

“The business of fortune-telling or the business of abortions?” I asked.

“My, a taste of the great life, and we become Frondeurs and rebels, don't we? Those who are raised the highest are the most ungrateful, aren't they? Consider this, you are young and without obligations: I support ten mouths.”

“You make more than most ministers of state.”

“But with much more difficulty and struggle, my dear. Learn from me, and I'll teach you how to become mistress of great enterprises. One day, you'll be as wealthy as I am.” She closed her ledger and stood to lock up the money in her strongbox. One of her big cats rose from dozing by the fire and rubbed at her ankles. It was odd, I reflected. She didn't have any black cats. You'd think a witch would have all black cats. Instead she had tabby and tortoiseshell, orange, gray, white, and even one that was sort of pinkish. But the black ones seemed to have vanished, if they had ever been there at all. Then she turned to me, as if she'd just thought of something, but somehow, the gesture seemed contrived. “Now, I've been thinking,” she said in a somewhat forced-sounding voice. “You are rising and need a better address. The front room of a cheap boarding house is hardly the place for the sensation of Versailles to operate her business. What about a splendid little apartment? Or better, a town house? So private, you know. The higher clients like privacy. The greatest of my clients are only content with my little garden pavilion. There is a charming little house coming free in the Marais…” So soon, a house? I thought. This is not entirely beneficence. Is she afraid I'm flying so high that I may soon leave her?

“Now the house is a bit narrow,” La Voisin was saying, “but it's the best of addresses, and a very private back way out. And a footman—yes, you'll need a footman, and I'm sure I could find you a splendid one. Why, you're almost ready to move up! I'd planned to wait a year, but you're so talented! And Easter, that's sort of the start of a new year, isn't it? So, now, you'll celebrate your new elevation with us, by having dinner here.”

Something about her manner sent a shudder through me. I've offended her, I thought. She's angry. I'll never live to see that town house. The whole story is just a ruse to get me to eat here. Didn't old Montvoisin warn me? Why didn't I control myself better and bide my time? Why did I have to blurt out that I knew about those abortions, like a fool? A few years, and I'd have been free. Now, dinner. A cold sweat broke out on my temples as I answered, “Oh, yes, let's celebrate.” Easy, easy. Smile and don't show you know anything, Geneviève. Maybe it will go by. Maybe she'll forget what I said, and her anger will pass.

By then the guests had begun to arrive, crowding into the black reception room and the richly furnished dining room beyond, exclaiming and greeting one another. Le Sage, the magician, wrapped in his gray cape, the pharmaceutical specialists La Trianon and La Dodée in bright new gowns that sprouted ribbons at every seam, La Lépère complaining and wiping her nose with a spring cold, the Abbé Mariette, an elegantly dressed young society priest, La Pelletier all in violet taffeta, the same stuff she used for her love sachets, La Debraye, La Delaporte, La Deslauriers, witches all, and more: men and women, priests, tradesmen,
nouvellistes
, diabolists, alchemists, and all sorts of titled folk of dubious origins. Last of all, a strange, hunched-over old man in a cassock, with a debauched face and a swollen nose covered with purple veins, was shown in. He was accompanied by his mistress, a woman with a lined face and hollow eyes. It was the Abbé Guibourg, Master of the Black Mass, who paid in gold for abortionists' fetuses and newborn infants from the orphanages of Paris. At the sight of him, people drew back in the crowded rooms to let them both pass, as if some mysterious cold wind had accompanied them in.

“Has Madame Brunet come to you yet?” La Pelletier said, and laughed. “She wants Philibert, the flute player, at any cost!”

“He's in great demand in this city—I have two clients who want him as well; I imagine we've sold all three the same
poudre
d'amour
. Oh well, someone will be happy out of it, so between us, we'll retain partial credit.” La Trianon chuckled.

“Either that, or mine will be proved definitively the most powerful,” said La Pelletier with a certain professional calm.

“As long as you depend so much on essence of cock's testicles, you needn't count on it,” sniffed La Trianon.

“But, my dear, he should have worn a glass mask…it's no surprise he was asphyxiated…that process creates so many fumes…” I could hear from across the room.

“She does such a business in
poudres
de
succession
, but I don't imagine for long. She is careless. And so vulgar…” The words flitted through my head, barely making sense as the terror mounted.

“Well, La Bosse is slipping, you know…she really should retire…”

“…and so it all goes to show, that strategy is everything, my dear. It's everything—” I realized with a start that La Trianon was addressing me.

“Oh yes, oh yes, I can see that. It's very clever,” I answered, hoping I made sense. My voice was thin with fright, and I was sure everyone in the room could hear the pounding of my heart.

The soup was clear. It must be all right. Wouldn't it be cloudy if something were in it? Margot brought it in from the kitchen and served it from a big tureen on the sideboard. How close she was to her mistress. Did I see her hand hover a moment over one of the soup bowls as it passed by her?

“Do eat your soup, dear. You look pale. Soup is good for the pallor,” remarked my hostess. Yes, good for it. Eliminates it entirely, along with any other health worries you might have. I took a spoonful.

“Delicious,” I said. My sense of taste was abnormally active. Was that a metallic aftertaste? Was it salt?

The first ragout came from the kitchen ready served. Rabbit poached in wine sauce. Onions. And—I could see them—mushrooms. Wasn't there a Roman emperor poisoned by a mushroom? Messalina, that's who did it.

“Oh, the flavor is exquisite,” sighed the Abbé Mariette from across the table. “Your cook is truly an artist.” I started. La Voisin cast a piercing look at me. All but the mushrooms, I thought. The acute flavoring that fear gives a dish is indescribable. Never in my life have I tasted with such precision the delicately mingled flavors of garlic and herbs, the subtle aromatic savor of wine. The brilliant, heightened flavor was unbelievably delicious. Almost intoxicating. Intoxicating? Something in the sauce? Never mind, it was done now. Enjoy the flavors, Geneviève; you might as well. It's your last dinner on earth.

“The mushrooms…chanterelles…so delicate…” someone was saying. Death's heads. Are they what had imparted the subtle and unique flavor to the sauce? No wonder I had never tasted it before.

“Do try the mushrooms, dear Marquise. They are especially in your honor.” Did I hear a hint of sly amusement in her voice? Was the little smile too fixed?

“Oh yes, they are lovely.” Definitely. It had to be the mushrooms. The taste was exquisite, elegant, incapable of being described. What were those prayers I'd daydreamed through at Mass? They'd flown out of my mind. The Paternoster, was that the right order? It didn't work if it wasn't in the right order. Did I even have a soul? Oh, I wished I had one now, or even that I believed I had one, even if I didn't. I didn't want to die. Wine. A toast. To the arts of Le Sage. To my triumph. Drink, drink. It's your last night on earth.

“My, success has quite gone to your head, Madame. Le Sage, Mariette, carry her upstairs.” I was deposited on the bed in the great room with the sinister tapestry. The heavy canopy, draped in rich green and gold brocade, swam in circles above my head. The dark red wall swayed and whirled. Good. Let death come here. I couldn't pick up my head. As my eyes closed and I drifted away, I said the only prayer I could muster. God, if you are, take my soul, if I have one.

I drifted in and out of consciousness as the late afternoon faded into dusk. In a far corner of the now dim room, I could make out whispers.

“Quiet. Is she listening?” A bare scratch of a voice.

“She's dead drunk. She won't hear a thing.” Le Sage.

“He grows weaker by the day. His eyes are sunken in. He coughs. I can't bear it.”

“Only a short while, then, until we marry, my love.”

“I tell you, I can't stand it. It's tearing me apart.”

“Love and yearning for me, O sublime queen, or regrets for that miserable weakling you married? What's wrong? Why do you turn coward now? You wanted it; I cast it.”

“The spell. It's too ghastly. You must reverse it.” At last, I recognized the voice. Hers. La Voisin's.

“Reverse the spell on a ram's head? It's never been done.”

“Dig it up, dig it up, I say. I can't stand it anymore, seeing him waste so terribly!” The shriek of despair made my eyes fly open. Luckily I had the presence of mind to close them again and lie there, stiff, without moving.

“You don't love me if you dare not risk even this little. I have been loved by greater women than you. Together, we could rule Europe. By yourself, what have you got?”

“Far more than you have ever achieved, you ungrateful, inconsequential man. Whose influence rescued you from the galleys? What convict ever left the galleys except in a shroud? Only you! My high influence at court saw you put ashore at Genoa. Did you think it was an accident? I created you, I can destroy you! Go, go now and dig it up, wherever you buried it out there, and bring it to me in this room! I'll reverse the spell myself. What has he ever done, that man you despise so, but fail me? It's you, you who have betrayed me, time and again—and I come back and beg to be betrayed again. Isn't that love? Love to the point of blindness? Don't try me, Adam, or you'll pay dearly for it.” I could hear the scraping of a chair and the sound of footsteps.

“Very well. If you think so little of me, I'll bring it to you. But don't expect cooperation from my associates for your…little supplies.”

“There are other alchemists in this city…I don't need you, you…mountebank.” My mind was still foggy. The walls turned gray and vanished.

I awoke in the dark. A candelabrum at the opposite end of the room shed a feeble light that did not fill the dark corners. The smell of something rotten being burned came from the oven behind the tapestry. On the table beneath the candelabrum lay an open
grimoire
, the witches' book of spells.

“So, you're finally stirring, are you? I've never seen a human being drunker. You thought I was going to poison you, didn't you? Never fear. The day I decide to poison you, you'll never know it.” La Voisin was wearing a somber black gown that I'd never seen before. The light flickered across her face where she sat beside the candles. Her even features had a frightening beauty beneath the dark coils of her hair.