* * *
I stood quite still on the threshold, blinking. My meditations on the protocol of Royal disrobing faded into sheer astonishment.
The room was quite dark, lit only by numerous tiny oil-lamps, set in groups of five in alcoves in the wall of the chamber. The room itself was round, and so was the huge table that stood in its center, the dark wood gleaming with pinpoint reflections. There were people sitting at the table, no more than hunched dark blurs against the blackness of the room.
There was a murmur at my entrance, quickly stilled at the King’s appearance. As my eyes grew more accustomed to the murk, I realized with a sense of shock that the people seated at the table wore hoods; the nearest man turned toward me, and I caught the faint gleam of eyes through holes in the velvet. It looked like a convention of hangmen.
Apparently I was the guest of honor. I wondered for a nervous moment just what might be expected of me. From Raymond’s hints, and Marguerite’s, I had nightmare visions of occult ceremonies involving infant sacrifice, ceremonial rape, and general-purpose satanic rites. It is, however, quite rare for the supernatural actually to live up to its billing, and I hoped this occasion would be no exception.
“We have heard of your great skill, Madame, and your…reputation.” Louis smiled, but there was a tinge of caution in his eyes as he looked at me, as though not quite certain what I might do. “We should be most obliged, my dear Madame, should you be willing to give us the benefits of such skill this evening.”
I nodded. Most obliged, eh? Well, that was all to the good; I wanted him obliged to me. What was he expecting me to do, though? A servant placed a huge wax candle on the table and lighted it, shedding a pool of mellow light on the polished wood. The candle was decorated with symbols like those I had seen in Master Raymond’s secret chamber.
“Regardez, Madame.” The King’s hand was under my elbow, directing my attention beyond the table. Now that the candle was lighted, I could see the two figures who stood silently among the flickering shadows. I started at the sight, and the King’s hand tightened on my arm.
The Comte St. Germain and Master Raymond stood there, side by side, separated by a distance of six feet or so. Raymond gave no sign of acknowledgment, but stood quietly, staring off to one side with the pupil-less black eyes of a frog in a bottomless well.
The Comte saw me, and his eyes widened in disbelief; then he scowled at me. He was dressed in his finest, all in white, as usual; a white stiffened satin coat over cream-colored silk vest and breeches. A tracery of seed pearls decorated his cuffs and lapels, gleaming in the candlelight. Sartorial splendor aside, the Comte looked rather the worse for wear, I thought—his face was drawn with strain, and the lace of his stock was wilted, his collar darkened with sweat.
Raymond, conversely, looked calm as a turbot on ice, standing stolidly with both hands folded into the sleeves of his usual scruffy velvet robe, broad, flat face placid and inscrutable.
“These two men stand accused, Madame,” said Louis, with a gesture at Raymond and the Comte. “Of sorcery, of witchcraft, of the perversion of the legitimate search for knowledge into an exploration of arcane arts.” His voice was cold and grim. “Such practices flourished during the reign of my grandfather; but we shall not suffer such wickedness in our realm.”
The King flicked his fingers at one of the hooded figures, who sat with pen and ink before a sheaf of papers. “Read the indictments, if you please,” he said.
The hooded man rose obediently to his feet and began to read from one of the papers: charges of bestiality and foul sacrifice, of the spilling of the blood of innocents, the profanation of the most holy rite of the Mass by desecration of the Host, the performance of amatory rites upon the altar of God—I had a quick flash of just what the healing Raymond had performed on me at L’H?pital des Anges must have looked like, and felt profoundly grateful that no one had discovered him.
I heard the name “du Carrefours” mentioned, and swallowed a sudden rising of bile. What had Pastor Laurent said? The sorcerer du Carrefours had been burned in Paris, only twenty years before, on just such charges as those I was hearing: “—the summoning of demons and powers of darkness, the procurement of illness and death for payment”—I put a hand to my stomach, in vivid memory of bitter cascara—“the ill-wishing of members of the Court, the defilement of virgins—” I shot a quick look at the Comte, but his face was stony, lips pressed tight as he listened.
Raymond stood quite still, silver hair brushing his shoulders, as though listening to something as inconsequential as the song of a thrush in the bushes. I had seen the Cabbalistic symbols on his cabinet, but I could hardly reconcile the man I knew—the compassionate poisoner, the practical apothecary—with the list of vileness being read.
At last the indictments ceased. The hooded man glanced at the King, and at a signal, sank back into his chair.
“Extensive inquiry has been made,” the King said, turning to me. “Evidence has been presented, and the testimony of many witnesses taken. It seems clear”—he turned a cold gaze on the two accused magic—“that both men have undertaken investigations into the writings of ancient philosophers, and have employed the art of divinations, using calculation of the movements of heavenly bodies. Still…” He shrugged. “This is not of itself a crime. I am given to understand”—he glanced at a heavyset man in a hood, whom I suspected of being the Bishop of Paris—“that this is not necessarily at variance with the teachings of the Church; even the blessed St. Augustine was known to have made inquiries into the mysteries of astrology.”
I rather dimly recalled that St. Augustine had indeed looked into astrology, and had rather scornfully dismissed it as a load of rubbish. Still, I doubted that Louis had read Augustine’s Confessions, and this line of argument was undoubtedly a good one for an accused sorcerer; star-gazing seemed fairly harmless, by comparison with infant sacrifice and nameless orgies.
I was beginning to wonder, with considerable apprehension, just what I was doing in this assemblage. Had someone seen Master Raymond with me in the H?pital after all?
“We have no quarrel with the proper use of knowledge, nor the search for wisdom,” the King went on in measured tones. “There is much that can be learned from the writings of the ancient philosophers, if they are approached with proper caution and humility of spirit. But it is true that while much good may be found in such writings, so, too, may evil be discovered, and the pure search for wisdom be perverted into the desire for power and wealth—the things of this world.”
He glanced back and forth between the two accused sorcerers once more, obviously drawing conclusions as to who might be more inclined to that sort of perversion. The Comte was still sweating, damp patches showing dark on the white silk of his coat.
“No, Your Majesty!” he said, shaking back his dark hair and fixing burning eyes on Master Raymond. “It is true that there are dark forces at work in the land—the vileness of which you speak walks among us! But such wickedness does not dwell in the breast of your most loyal subject”—he smote himself on the breast, lest we have missed the point—“no, Your Majesty! For the perversion of knowledge and the use of forbidden arts, you must look beyond your own Court.” He didn’t accuse Master Raymond directly, but the direction of his pointed gaze was obvious.
The King was unmoved by this outburst. “Such abominations flourished during the reign of my grandfather,” he said softly. “We have rooted them out wherever they have been found; destroyed the threat of such evil where it shall exist in our realm. Sorcerers, witches, those who pervert the teachings of the Church…Monsieurs, we shall not suffer such wickedness to arise again.”
“So.” He slapped both palms lightly against the table and straightened himself. Still staring at the Raymond and the Comte, he held out a hand in my direction.
“We have brought here a witness,” he declared. “An infallible judge of truth, of purity of heart.”
I made a small, gurgling noise, which made the King turn to look at me.
“A White Lady,” he said softly. “La Dame Blanche cannot lie; she sees the heart and the soul of a man, and may turn that truth to good…or to destruction.”
The air of unreality that had hung over the evening vanished in a pop. The faint wine-buzz was gone, and I was suddenly stone-cold sober. I opened my mouth, and then shut it, realizing that there was precisely nothing I could say.
Horror snaked down my backbone and coiled in my belly as the King made his dispositions. Two pentagrams were to be drawn on the floor, within which the two sorcerers would stand. Each would then bear witness to his own activities and motives. And the White Lady would judge the truth of what was said.
“Jesus H. Christ,” I said, under my breath.
“Monsieur le Comte?” The King gestured to the first pentagram, chalked on the carpet. Only a king would treat a genuine Aubusson with that kind of cavalier disregard.
The Comte brushed close to me as he went to take his place. As he passed me, I caught the faintest whisper: “Be warned, Madame. I do not work alone.” He took up his spot and turned to face me with an ironic bow, outwardly composed.
The implication was reasonably clear; I condemned him, and his minions would be round promptly to cut off my nipples and burn Jared’s warehouse. I licked dry lips, cursing Louis. Why couldn’t he just have wanted my body?
Raymond stepped casually into his own chalk-limned space, and nodded cordially in my direction. No hint of guidance in those round black eyes.
I hadn’t the faintest idea what to do next. The King motioned to me to stand opposite him, between the two pentagrams. The hooded men rose to stand behind the King; a blank-faced crowd of menace.
Everything was extremely quiet. Candle smoke hung in a pall near the gilded ceiling, wisps drifting the languid air currents. All eyes were trained on me. Finally, out of desperation, I turned to the Comte and nodded.
“You may begin, Monsieur le Comte,” I said.
He smiled—at least I assumed it was meant to be a smile—and began, starting out with an explication of the foundation of the Cabbala and moving right along to an exegesis on the twenty-three letters of the Hebrew alphabet, and the profound symbolism of it all. It sounded thoroughly scholarly, completely innocuous, and terribly dull. The King yawned, not bothering to cover his mouth.
Meanwhile, I was turning over alternatives in my mind. This man had threatened and attacked me, and tried to have Jamie assassinated—whether for personal or political reasons, it made little difference. He had in all likelihood been the ringleader of the gang of rapists who had waylaid me and Mary. Beyond all this, and beyond the rumors I had heard of his other activities, he was a major threat to the success of our attempt at stopping Charles Stuart. Was I going to let him get away? Let him go on to exert his influence with the King on the Stuarts’ behalf, and to go on roaming the darkened streets of Paris with his band of masked bullies?
I could see my nipples, erect with fright, standing out boldly against the silk of my dress. But I drew myself up and glared at him anyway.
“Just one minute,” I said. “All that you say so far is true, Monsieur le Comte, but I see a shadow behind your words.”
The Comte’s mouth fell open. Louis, suddenly interested, ceased slouching against the table and stood upright. I closed my eyes and laid my fingers against my lids, as though looking inward.
“I see a name in your mind, Monsieur le Comte,” I said. I sounded breathless and half-choked with fright, but there was no help for it. I dropped my hands and looked straight at him. “Les Disciples du Mal,” I said. “What have you to do with Les Disciples, Monsieur le Comte?”
He really wasn’t good at hiding his emotions. His eyes bulged and his face went white, and I felt a small fierce surge of satisfaction under my fear.
The name of Les Disciples du Mal was familiar to the King as well; the sleepy dark eyes narrowed suddenly to slits.
The Comte may have been a crook and a charlatan, but he wasn’t a coward. Summoning his resources, he glared at me and flung back his head.
“This woman lies,” he said, sounding as definite as he had when informing the audience that the letter aleph was symbolic of the font of Christ’s blood. “She is no true White Lady, but the servant of Satan! In league with her master, the notorious sorcerer, du Carrefours’s apprentice!” He pointed dramatically at Raymond, who looked mildly surprised.
One of the hooded men crossed himself, and I heard the soft whisper of a brief prayer among the shadows.
“I can prove what I say,” the Comte declared, not letting anyone else get a word in edgewise. He reached into the breast of his coat. I remembered the dagger he had produced from his sleeve on the night of the dinner party, and tensed myself to duck. It wasn’t a knife that he brought out, though.
“The Holy Bible says, ‘They shall handle serpents unharmed,’ ” he thundered. “ ‘And by such signs shall ye know the servants of the true God!’ ”
I thought it was probably a small python. It was nearly three feet long, a smooth, gleaming length of gold and brown, slick and sinuous as oiled rope, with a pair of disconcerting golden eyes.
There was a concerted gasp at its appearance, and two of the hooded judges took a quick step back. Louis himself was more than slightly taken aback, and looked hastily about for his bodyguard, who stood goggle-eyed by the door of the chamber.
The snake flicked its tongue once or twice, tasting the air. Apparently deciding that the mix of candle wax and incense wasn’t edible, it turned and made an attempt to burrow back into the warm pocket from which it had been so rudely removed. The Comte caught it expertly behind the head, and shoved it toward me.
“You see?” he said triumphantly. “The woman shrinks away in fear! She is a witch!”
Actually, compared to one judge, who was huddling against the far wall, I was a monument of fortitude, but I must admit that I had taken an involuntary step backward when the snake appeared. Now I stepped forward again, intending to take it away from him. The bloody thing wasn’t poisonous, after all. Maybe we’d see how harmless it was if I wrapped it round his neck.
Before I could reach him, though, Master Raymond spoke behind me. What with all the commotion, I’d rather forgotten him.
“That is not all the Bible says, Monsieur le Comte,” Raymond observed. He didn’t raise his voice, and the wide amphibian face was bland as pudding. Still, the buzz of voices stopped, and the King turned to listen.
“Yes, Monsieur?” he said.
Raymond nodded in polite acknowledgment of having the floor, and reached into his robe with both hands. From one pocket he produced a flask, from the other a small cup.
“ ‘They shall handle serpents unharmed,’ ” he quoted, “ ‘and if they drink any deadly poison, they shall not die.’ ” He held the cup out on the palm of his hand, its silver lining gleaming in the candlelight. The flask was poised above it, ready to pour.
“Since both milady Broch Tuarach and myself have been accused,” Raymond said, with a quick glance at me, “I would suggest that all three of us partake of this test. With your permission, Your Majesty?”
Louis looked rather stunned by the rapid progress of events, but he nodded, and a thin stream of amber liquid splashed into the cup, which at once turned red and began to bubble, as though the contents were boiling.
“Dragon’s blood,” Raymond said informatively, waving at the cup. “Entirely harmless to the pure of heart.” He smiled a toothless, encouraging smile, and handed me the cup.
There didn’t seem much to do but drink it. Dragon’s blood appeared to be some form of sodium bicarbonate; it tasted like brandy with seltzer. I took two or three medium-sized swallows and handed it back.
With due ceremony, Raymond drank as well. He lowered the cup, exhibiting pink-stained lips, and turned to the King.
“If La Dame Blanche may be asked to give the cup to Monsieur le Comte?” he said. He gestured to the chalk lines at his feet, to indicate that he might not step outside the protection of the pentagram.
At the King’s nod, I took the cup and turned mechanically toward the Comte. Perhaps six feet of carpeting to cross. I took the first step, and then another, knees trembling more violently than they had in the small anteroom, alone with the King.
The White Lady sees a man’s true nature. Did I? Did I really know about either of them, Raymond or the Comte?
Could I have stopped it? I asked myself that a hundred times, a thousand times—later. Could I have done otherwise?
I remembered my errant thought on meeting Charles Stuart; how convenient for everyone if he should die. But one cannot kill a man for his beliefs, even if the exercise of those beliefs means the death of innocents—or can one?
I didn’t know. I didn’t know that the Comte was guilty, I didn’t know that Raymond was innocent. I didn’t know whether the pursuit of an honorable cause justified the use of dishonorable means. I didn’t know what one life was worth—or a thousand. I didn’t know the true cost of revenge.
I did know that the cup I held in my hands was death. The white crystal hung around my neck, its weight a reminder of poison. I hadn’t seen Raymond add anything to it; no one had, I was sure. But I didn’t need to dip the crystal into the bloodred liquid to know what it now contained.
The Comte saw the knowledge in my face; La Dame Blanche cannot lie. He hesitated, looking at the bubbling cup.
“Drink, Monsieur,” said the King. The dark eyes were hooded once more, showing nothing. “Or are you afraid?”
The Comte might have a number of things to his discredit, but cowardice wasn’t one of them. His face was pale and set, but he met the King’s eyes squarely, with a slight smile.
“No, Majesty,” he said.
He took the cup from my hand and drained it, his eyes fixed on mine. They stayed fixed, staring into my face, even as they glazed with the knowledge of death. The White Lady may turn a man’s nature to good, or to destruction.
The Comte’s body hit the floor, writhing, and a chorus of shouts and cries rose from the hooded watchers, drowning any sound he might have made. His heels drummed briefly, silent on the flowered carpet; his body arched, then subsided into limpness. The snake, thoroughly disgruntled, struggled free of the disordered folds of white satin and slithered rapidly away, heading for the sanctuary of Louis’s feet.
All was pandemonium.
28
THE COMING OF THE LIGHT
I returned from Paris to Louise’s house at Fontainebleau. I didn’t want to go to the Rue Tremoulins—or anywhere else that Jamie might find me. He would have little time to look; he would have to leave for Spain virtually at once, or risk the failure of his scheme.
Louise, good friend that she was, forgave my subterfuge, and—to her credit—forbore to ask me where I had gone, or what I had done there. I didn’t speak much to anyone, but stayed in my room, eating little, and staring at the fat, naked putti that decorated the white ceiling. The sheer necessity of the trip to Paris had roused me for a time, but now there was nothing I must do, no daily routine to support me. Rudderless, I began to drift again.
Still, I tried sometimes to make an effort. Prodded by Louise, I would come down to a social dinner, or join her for tea with a visiting friend. And I tried to pay attention to Fergus, the only person in the world for whom I had still some sense of responsibility.
So, when I heard his voice raised in altercation on the other side of an outbuilding as I dutifully took my afternoon walk, I felt obliged to go and see what was the matter.
He was face to face with one of the stable-lads, a bigger boy with a sullen expression and broad shoulders.
“Shut your mouth, ignorant toad,” the stable-lad was saying. “You don’t know what you’re talking about!”
“I know better than you—you, whose mother mated with a pig!” Fergus put two fingers in his nostrils, pushed his nose up and danced to and fro, shouting “Oink, oink!” repeatedly.
The stable-lad, who did have a rather noticeably upturned proboscis, wasted no time in idle repartee, but waded in with both fists clenched and swinging. Within seconds, the two were rolling on the muddy ground, squalling like cats and ripping at each other’s clothes.
While I was still debating whether to interfere, the stable-lad rolled on top of Fergus, got his neck in both hands, and began to bang his head on the ground. On the one hand, I rather considered that Fergus had been inviting some such attention. On the other, his face was turning a dark, dusky red, and I had some reservations about seeing him cut off in his prime. With a certain amount of deliberation, I walked up behind the struggling pair.
The stable-lad was kneeling astride Fergus’s body, choking him, and the seat of his breeches was stretched tight before me. I drew back my foot and booted him smartly in the trouser seam. Precariously balanced, he fell forward with a startled cry, atop the body of his erstwhile victim. He rolled to the side and bounced to his feet, fists clenched. Then he saw me, and fled without a word.
“What do you think you’re playing at?” I demanded. I yanked Fergus, gasping and spluttering, to his feet, and began to beat his clothes, knocking the worst of the mud clumps and hay wisps off of him.
“Look at that,” I said accusingly. “You’ve torn not only your shirt, but your breeches as well. We’ll have to ask Berta to mend them.” I turned him around and fingered the torn flap of fabric. The stable-lad had apparently gotten a hand in the waistband of the breeches, and ripped them down the side seam; the buckram fabric drooped from his slender hips, all but baring one buttock.
I stopped talking suddenly, and stared. It wasn’t the disgraceful expanse of bare flesh that riveted me, but a small red mark that adorned it. About the size of a halfpenny piece, it was the dark, purplish-red color of a freshly healed burn. Disbelievingly, I touched it, making Fergus start in alarm. The edges of the mark were incised; whatever had made it had sunk into the flesh. I grabbed the boy by the arm to stop him running away, and bent to examine the mark more closely.
At a distance of six inches, the shape of the mark was clear; it was an oval, carrying within it smudged shapes that must have been letters.
“Who did this to you, Fergus?” I asked. My voice sounded queer to my own ears; preternaturally calm and detached.
Fergus yanked, trying to pull away, but I held on.
“Who, Fergus?” I demanded, giving him a little shake.
“It’s nothing, Madame; I hurt myself sliding off the fence. It’s just a splinter.” His large black eyes darted to and fro, seeking a refuge.
“That’s not a splinter. I know what it is, Fergus. But I want to know who did it.” I had seen something like it only once before, and that wound freshly inflicted, while this had had some time to heal. But the mark of a brand is unmistakable.
Seeing that I meant it, he quit struggling. He licked his lips, hesitating, but his shoulders slumped, and I knew I had him now.
“It was…an Englishman, milady. With a ring.”
“When?”
“A long time ago, Madame! In May.”
I drew a deep breath, calculating. Three months. Three months earlier when Jamie had left the house to visit a brothel, in search of his warehouse foreman. In Fergus’s company. Three months since Jamie had encountered Jack Randall in Madame Elise’s establishment, and seen something that made all promises null and void, that had formed in him the determination to kill Jack Randall. Three months since he had left—never to return.
It took considerable patience, supplemented by a firm grip on Fergus’s upper arm, but I succeeded at last in extracting the story from him.
When they arrived at Madame Elise’s establishment, Jamie had told Fergus to wait for him while he went upstairs to make the financial arrangements. Judging from prior experience that this might take some time, Fergus had wandered into the large salon, where a number of young ladies that he knew were “resting,” chattering together and fixing each other’s hair in anticipation of customers.
“Business is sometimes slow in the mornings,” he explained to me. “But on Tuesdays and Fridays, the fishermen come up the Seine to sell their catch at the morning market. Then they have money, and Madame Elise does a fine business, so les jeunes filles must be ready right after breakfast.”
Most of the “girls” were in fact the older inhabitants of the establishment; fishermen were not considered the choicest of clients, and so went by default to the less desirable prostitutes. Among these were most of Fergus’s former friends, though, and he passed an agreeable quarter of an hour in the salon, being petted and teased. A few early clients appeared, made their choice, and departed for the upstairs rooms—Madame Elise’s house boasted four narrow stories—without disturbing the conversation of the remaining ladies.
“And then the Englishman came in, with Madame Elise.” Fergus stopped and swallowed, the large Adam’s apple bobbing uneasily in his skinny throat.
It was obvious to Fergus, who had seen men in every state of inebriation and arousal, that the Captain had been making a night of it. He was flushed and untidy, and his eyes were bloodshot. Ignoring Madame Elise’s attempts to guide him toward one of the prostitutes, he had broken away and wandered through the room, restlessly scanning the wares on display. Then his eye had lighted on Fergus.
“He said, ‘You. Come along,’ and took me by the arm. I held back, Madame—I told him my employer was above, and that I couldn’t—but he wouldn’t listen. Madame Elise whispered in my ear that I should go with him, and she would split the money with me afterward.” Fergus shrugged, and looked at me helplessly. “I knew the ones who like little boys don’t usually take very long; I thought he would be finished long before milord was ready to leave.”
“Jesus bloody Christ,” I said. My fingers relaxed their grip and slid nervelessly down his sleeve. “Do you mean—Fergus, had you done it before?”
He looked as though he wanted to cry. So did I.
“Not very often, Madame,” he said, and it was almost a plea for understanding. “There are houses where that is the specialty, and usually the men who like that go there. But sometimes a customer would see me and take a fancy…” His nose was starting to run and he wiped it with the back of his hand.
I rummaged in my pocket for a handkerchief and gave it to him. He was beginning to sniffle as he recalled that Friday morning.
“He was much bigger than I thought. I asked him if I could take it in my mouth, but he…but he wanted to…”
I pulled him to me and pressed his head tight against my shoulder, muffling his voice in the cloth of my gown. The frail blades of his shoulder bones were like a bird’s wings under my hand.
“Don’t tell me any more,” I said. “Don’t. It’s all right, Fergus; I’m not angry. But don’t tell me any more.”
This was a futile order; he couldn’t stop talking, after so many days of fear and silence.
“But it’s all my fault, Madame!” he burst out, pulling away. His lip was trembling, and tears welled in his eyes. “I should have kept quiet; I shouldn’t have cried out! But I couldn’t help it, and milord heard me, and…and he burst in…and…oh, Madame, I shouldn’t have, but I was so glad to see him, and I ran to him, and he put me behind him and hit the Englishman in the face. And then the Englishman came up from the floor with the stool in his hand, and threw it, and I was so afraid, I ran out of the room and hid in the closet at the end of the hall. Then there was so much shouting and banging, and a terrible crash, and more shouting. And then it stopped, and soon milord opened the door of the closet and took me out. He had my clothes, and he dressed me himself, because I couldn’t fasten the buttons—my fingers shook.”
He grabbed my skirt with both hands, the necessity of making me believe him tightening his face into a monkey mask of grief.
“It’s my fault, Madame, but I didn’t know! I didn’t know he would go to fight the Englishman. And now milord is gone, and he’ll never come back, and it’s all my fault!”
Wailing now, he fell facedown on the ground at my feet. He was crying so loudly that I didn’t think he heard me as I bent to lift him up, but I said it anyway.
“It isn’t your fault, Fergus. It isn’t mine, either—but you’re right; he’s gone.”