CHAPTER TEN
BROTHER MALACHI LEANED OVER THE seething mass of molten metal, holding his breath against the hideous fumes rising from the crucible. The firelight glistened on his face, making it all ruddy; sweat ran in great rivulets down his forehead and trickled down his cheeks almost like tears. He was wearing a great leather apron to prevent his gown from going up in flames. Heavy gauntlets, drawn almost to the elbow, protected his hands. His left hand held the leather sack, now open, that contained the Red Powder; his right held his black iron stirring rod.
“Almost ready,” he said, pulling his head back from the intense heat.
“Sulfur. You haven’t added the sulfur yet. Villanova says it must be at the beginning of the process.” The glancing light from the inferno made Messer Guglielmo’s eyes blaze unnaturally.
“But Lull says that it can only be now. Unless, of course, you think as little of Lull as you think of Magister Salernus, who says that the process must take place during the full moon, if it is to multiply correctly.”
“And where, pray tell, does he say that?” Messer Guglielmo’s voice was all sarcasm.
“You think he’d give away a secret like that? It’s in the seventh illustration on the twenty-first page. He has them encoded in multiples of seven. It distinctly shows the peacock under the full moon, just after the Green Lion.”
“Not in my copy, it doesn’t.”
“Your copy is corrupted. Did you see the error on the page of the descent of the dove?”
“Well, that I’ll grant—but the full moon signifies the presence of silver, whereas carrying out the process under the full moon should be depicted as a pregnant queen, in his system, and I see no such thing.”
Even the dumb assistants, taken in by the argument, leaned forward to inspect the process. Brother Malachi ceased stirring, drew the tall stool beside the athanor to the wall, and sat down. He leaned his back against the cool stones and sighed, lifting an arm to wipe the sweat from his forehead with the crook of his elbow, never letting go of the precious little sack. His rod lay across his lap, still clutched in a gauntleted hand.
“Now,” the waspish voice of Messer Guglielmo broke in, “you can’t go further without the fixative. You must have it prepared before you now, fresh, or you will destroy the process.”
“I don’t use that fixative. It’s not necessary. It’s evil. The power that created the universe and transforms it is good. The Red Powder won’t work—besides—”
“Excuses again. Cowardly excuses, unfit for a scientist. You can’t evade anymore, you overrated excuse for an alchemist. That kind of talk might fool an amateur, but you have to deal with a professional this time. Do you hear?” Messer Guglielmo paced nervously, his voice rising to a raspy screech. Brother Malachi leaned against the wall, drawing long, shaky breaths, his eyes glazed.
“I can’t imagine how you ever got as far as you did, without the daring required for true investigation—without the willingness to take risks. It’s I who have the Secret almost within my grasp. I didn’t need you. But oh, no, the famous Theophilus, or someone who claims he’s him, must be given everything.” He pulled several hairs from his beard with a nervous gesture as he paced back and forth.
“Tonight is your night, Theophilus, and you cannot dream how greatly I crave your failure. Irritation. Irritation! You infuriate me. Fail, Theophilus, fail! And when Asmodeus has brought me the triumph, I’ll have the pleasure of watching you die slowly, slowly—” He looked up with a start. Fray Joaquin, having entered silently, stood before him like a shadow.
“Fail? He’s failed?” the Dominican asked with a faint, ghoulish smile.
“The process is at the point of change. The next step is the sulfur, at the peak of the heat. Then, as it changes color, the Red Powder must be added. But I haven’t my full moon, so it won’t multiply as much as it should—” Brother Malachi explained wearily.
“Do you hear him making excuses already? He’s trying to save himself ahead of time. I told you, I know his type.”
“You are to call Asmodeus,” said the black-cloaked friar.
“Call my Asmodeus to rescue this fool from his mess? Give this amateur here credit for my success? After all I’ve been through? If I run the risk of calling Asmodeus, it will be for my own triumph.”
“You are under orders.”
“I haven’t the offering. The Count hasn’t sent it down yet. Besides, it takes time to lay out the circle. We can’t afford to make a mistake with it this time.” The memory of the towering demon beating his powerful wings against the frail barrier made even the waspish Messer Guglielmo turn a little pale.
Brother Malachi bowed his head and crossed himself. His lips were moving in silent prayer. The stirring rod lay across his knees.
“Then start laying it out now, you jackass!” Fray Joaquin picked up a large ladle from the broad wooden table in the corner and began to batter the unfortunate Messer Guglielmo about the head. He threw up his hands to protect his head and backed into the corner, crouching until the storm of blows abated.
“But—the sacrifice?”
“You know perfectly well that I don’t do them. He always wants to do them himself. He’ll be a bit late tonight. You’ll have to hold the process until he brings the woman’s body down.”
“Woman? I thought he had an infant left.”
“He does. This is something else. He has a woman in his chambers now, and when his pleasure is done, he’ll break her neck and have her brought down with the sacrifice.”
“That doesn’t sound alchemical. Asmodeus doesn’t like women.”
“No—he says it’s something about art.”
Malachi’s eyes started, but his body remained slumped against the wall, as if he’d heard nothing. He took a deep breath.
“The time is now,” he said, getting up carefully, and making a great show of inspecting the equipment. “The process is ripe. I will produce gold.”
“Now?” Fray Joaquin turned on him. “This soon? Take care what you promise.” But his eyes were shining with greed.
“He’ll fail,” snapped Messer Guglielmo. “I’m looking forward to it.”
“No I won’t,” said Brother Malachi, and he leaned over the crucible and emptied the Red Powder into it, stirring it in with the iron rod in the shape of overlapping triangles, the star of Solomon, chanting unintelligibly at each angle the dark rod made in the flaming mass.
“I WANT HIM RELEASED tonight. Not tomorrow after the joust.” My voice sounded firm as I stood a few paces from the open door to the Count’s bedchamber, but my knees were shaking and my stomach queasy. Little Brother Anselm had accompanied me to the door, remonstrating the whole while about Ursula and her virgin martyrs.
“The crown of virtue is preferable to the muck of sin,” he preached. “Besides, I have come to the considered conclusion that this count is not a trustworthy man. No indeed. He may very well try to trick you, once he has what he wants. After all, he should have brought forth your husband rejoicing, and crowned him with laurel leaves, and had a feast of song. That’s what a nobleman would do. But him? He’s a poor sport and a bad loser. He makes excuses, he wants jousts. I think he’ll cheat you, and then where will you be? Minus your virtue, and minus your husband, too, who will be required by his honor to renounce you, once he hears what’s happened.”
“I’ve thought of that already,” I told him. God, his chatter was getting tiresome! There’s nothing more annoying than someone who’s slower than you are to figure out the obvious.
“I tell you, you’re a fool. Women are. It’s why they should only act with the advice of men.”
“Have you ever considered that maybe that’s what I’m doing? And you yourself say it’s stupid,” I turned on him. “So tell me which man is right, and then I’ll do my duty, eh?”
“Our Lord Jesus Christ,” he said, rolling his eyes heavenward and crossing himself.
“Oh! Easy to say!” I turned on my heel in a fury, but he followed me to the threshold anyway. The door was wide open. The room was lit with dozens of flickering candles. There were sconces on the wall, between the perches where his nasty big satin doublet and huge hose with pointed leather soles were hung. A silver candelabrum with a dozen candles sat on a little round table that was covered with an embroidered cloth and set with a jug of wine, a single goblet, and a little rere-supper—a cold fowl in some sort of sauce, a covered dish, and bread. On a vast gilded bed at the center of the room, an immense figure lounged, clad only in the night napkin around his head and a great, fur-lined robe de chambre that he had allowed to fall open suggestively.
“I knew you’d come.” His deep voice rose from the shadows.
“I want him now, not tomorrow,” I said firmly, staying close to the open door.
“I intend to take you to him, once we have finished our little—talk—here—” The figure uncoiled itself from the bed. “Jean, you may go. And close the door after you.” The valet left, and the door made a heavy sound as it shut. I felt suddenly cold all over, and shuddered.
“Cold? Perhaps a little wine will warm you.” He gestured to the table. Beneath the supper dishes, the gold and silver threads of embroidery on the cloth shone in the candlelight. There was a little bench with a back on it behind the table.
“I’m—not thirsty. I want him back. You’ve already sworn—”
“Don’t be so nervous. You doubt my good faith? Look—here’s the ring.” He had to twist it to get it off, it was so wedged on. It marred the gesture, which seemed to annoy him briefly. “I put it on the table, so, as a pledge.” He moved as carefully and smoothly as a trainer with a wild horse—his eyes never leaving mine, as he set it on the table.
“And the sealing wax too. You see it there?” he said in the soothing voice that animal trainers use. “Sit down, and have some wine.”
“It could be poisoned,” my mind sang silently in a cool little voice.
“You’re afraid of the wine. Look. It’s a single cup. The goblet of lovers. Tonight we shall both drink from it. You see? I drink first.” He swallowed the wine in a single great gulp and then renewed it from the silver jug.
“The wine already poured was good. Beware the wine in the jug.” My mind’s silvery trilling seemed to come from far away.
“Now, sit down,”he said, in that same even, terrifying tone.
“I’m not tired,” I answered. “I came to talk about Gilbert de Vilers. I want horses, I want your ring. I want to be far from here as soon as possible. A gentleman would have offered these things, without all this—charade.”
“Sit down!” he roared, and the suddenness of his anger terrified me. I sat.
He crowded himself onto the little bench beside me, and his bulk filled it all up to overflowing. I could feel all those rolls of flesh pressing against me, beneath the robe, which fell open to reveal his curiously hairless chest—no, not hairless. Shaved. Ugh. How revolting. And he smelled of something sickly sweet. What was it? Phew. Lilac water. If I ever get out of this, I thought, I’ll never be able to stand lilacs again. Mind, mind—think of something. Make me quick.
“You’re not thirsty? Try—a wing of capon.” He gouged his fingers into the flesh of the dead bird and came up with a morsel, which he held between his thumb and forefinger near my lips. I could feel my eyes growing wide, and my stomach churning.
“I—I’m not hungry.”
“Not hungry?” he said, feeding himself the morsel and wiping his lips on the napkin. “It’s delicious.” He smacked his curiously red lips. “The sauce—I am a connoisseur of sauces.”
“I want Sir Gilbert now.”
“Now? That hairy, barbaric ape?” He saw my eyes sneak, with a kind of fascinated horror, to the billowing rolls of naked flesh revealed by the open robe.
“Women tell me it’s fascinating,”he said, looking at my face. “I am this way all over. You should try it yourself. The pain—is—delicious.”
I was so disgusted, I couldn’t stop my tongue.
“It’s just like a great big ugly baby” popped out of my mouth, and then I shrank back, waiting for the blow.
But he was pleased, and his horrid red lips glistened with spit as he smiled.
“Exactly. A lovely, lovely baby. How would a sweet baby harm you? You will love it entirely. The ultimate moment of your life—”
God assist me, God assist me, I prayed silently. Get me and Gregory out of this in one piece. I didn’t know they made people this repulsive in the whole wide world. Time. I need time.
“I—um—thought your ‘Ode to Summer’ was very beautiful,” I ventured. I could feel the odious body relax slightly.
“Which part did you like best?”
“The—ah—summeriness of it. It was so very—summery.”
“And—?”
“The birds part—it was very lovely—um, the ‘tirilay.’ And the flowers. I like flowers.” All except lilacs, I thought. I never want to smell one again.
“Flowers—lovely little flowers like marguerites,” he said, and he took the pins out of my headdress. I shuddered again as I felt him caress my hair.
“Sip the wine,” he said as he offered the goblet with the other hand. “It will take the chill off.”
“Do—do you write a lot of poetry? I—I like poetry. Beautiful expression is—ah—very—very nice—in a man. Some say it’s—the most attractive thing—”
“Poetry? Has no one told you, I am the greatest trouvère in the history of trouvères, the greatest trouvère that ever lived in six kingdoms? Those formerly accounted great—Count Raymond of Toulouse, Guilhem de Poitou, and the other riffraff—everyone agrees I excel them as the hawk soars above the sparrow. I am called ‘The King of Troubadors,’ by many. Have you never heard of my ‘Ode to My Lady’s Tiny Foot’?”
“N-no. I come from a very backward place.”
“That you do, let me assure you.” He was beginning to be distracted. Now, if I could just get him deep in this poetry thing.
“You have a very tiny foot, I imagine.” He was looking at my neck. It made it feel all itchy.
“Well, not so tiny.”
“You must imagine that I wrote it especially for your lovely little foot. I would have, if I had seen it.”
“I’d—really like to hear it.”
“Ah, my lovely little flower, only if you promise to bare your precious little white foot for me as my reward.”
This was getting more disgusting with every moment that passed. “Time, take time,” sang the sweet little voice within.
“Maybe I’ll drop him the foot first,” I could hear him mutter to himself. “It would be appropriate.”
“Your beautiful ode?” I prompted him.
“Oh? Oh, yes.” He cleared his throat and began. Midway I interrupted him, by way of encouragement.
“That bit about the pearly toenails, that’s very nice,” I said. Stupidest verse I could ever have imagined, I thought.
“Now, we mustn’t interrupt, must we?” He wagged his finger at me. He’s getting mellow, I thought. A little more of this and maybe I can talk him out of his dirty little plan, and get Gregory back. “Never interrupt an artist,” he went on, in a special rolling tone that he appeared to reserve solely for reciting verse. But it was all too soon he finished the ridiculous thing.
“It’s very crowded sitting here. It’s hard to get to—if you just moved away a bit—”
“It will be much easier, I assure you, on the bed.”
Oh, my, so much for poetry. I’m worse off than ever.
“The bed? I haven’t finished eating yet.” I stuffed some bread into my mouth. It was as dry as dust.
“Have a little wine to wash it down. Lovely spiced wine.”
Again the wine! The back of my head hurt as he grabbed it to force the cup to my lips. The wine had an odd smell. That certainly isn’t a spice, I thought. But I know it from somewhere. What is it?
“Drink,” he said, and pressed the cup hard against my clenched teeth.
There was a banging at the sealed door.
“Go away!”he shouted. “I’m busy, and not to be disturbed.”
“My lord, my lord. Fray Joaquin sends a message, ‘He’s done it,’ he says. You told him to notify you, no matter what else you were doing.”
“Done it! By Fortuna!” He let me go as he leapt up to the door and shouted through it. The moment he turned his head, I splashed the wine into the corner and set the goblet back on the table.
“Bring him here—hooded. I want no one to recognize him, and above all—not to hear the slightest word from him.” He turned back to me, rubbing his hands. “My double triumph, all in one night. Thus does the Black Master keep his bargains.”
Black Master? No wonder the Burning Cross buzzed so. I’d wrapped it up in a cloth to muffle the sound. As I watched his figure stride back to the table, I seemed to see its outlines fade and shrivel, and a shapeless mass, stinking of sulfur mingled with the sickly odor of lilacs, took its place. The world seemed to slide away, and I could see it there very clearly, hiding beneath the ordinary surface of human flesh. Evil. Consummate evil. The visitors in the hall had never dreamed what lay beneath the everyday shining facade. They saw the surface—the banners, the gilded roast peacocks, the lordly life—and I suppose if they were worldly, they assumed he had a little vice or two on the side. What lord doesn’t, after all? But who, who on earth, could even guess the unspeakable thing that lay beneath this wicked man’s foolish pretenses? And then I knew that it wasn’t love the Count was after, or even the shabby travesty of love. It was my life, and my soul. Mine, Gregory’s, Malachi’s, everybody’s. His own was long gone, if he’d ever had one, and he wouldn’t rest until he could suck away the soul of every decent person who came within his reach.
“Ah, you’ve drunk the wine. Good.” And to my surprise, he poured the rest of the jug into the goblet and tossed it off.
“Enough of poetry. Are you feeling hot yet? No? A little warm in the face, perhaps?”
“What on earth was in that wine?” I asked, standing up in alarm.
“Enough canthatides to put an entire kennelful of bitches in heat. Come here.” So that’s what it was! I’d seen the stuff in my father-in-law’s house. He used it for breeding hunting hounds. I ran behind the bed as nimbly as a deer. He followed, blundering, but even so, he was faster than I was. I leapt back across the bed—he leapt after me. I grabbed the candelabrum from the table and held it, flaming, before me.
“Back, Satan, or I’ll set you on fire!” I cried.
He laughed and swatted the thing out of my hand with a single blow from his great paw. The candles spluttered and went out as he kicked it into a corner.
“Not—hot—yet?” He was panting. His face had gone all red. He stumbled and I leapt past him, racing around the bed to the window.
“Threatening to jump?” His breath was coming hard—too hard. The stuff he’d drunk was working. The napkin was all askew on his head. I clambered onto the windowsill.
“You haven’t got the bowels for it,” he gloated, doubled over to recover his breath. I looked down. Endless miles it seemed, down into the dark, with nothing but the sharp rocks of the mountainside below. A wave of pure fear rippled through me. I must. I have to, I thought. My mind was racing. But that look below had cost me my chance. He grabbed my foot and I toppled down hard into the room, shrieking and bruised. I kicked and tore at him with my fingernails, screaming horribly as he scooped me up and flung me onto the bed.
“Lovely—”he gasped. “Just the way I like them—”but he could hardly speak. His whole body had gone all crimson and blotchy. Let him die, God, let him choke and die on the damned stuff, I prayed. He paused and bent over, breathless and retching for a moment, and I thought my prayers had been answered. I jumped from the bed and raced to unbar the door, but he was on me like a wild beast. He didn’t even feel me batter at him with the door bar as he began to tear at my clothes.
But he was slowing. I could feel his breath coming in great gasps, like air from a bellows, as he pinned me to the floor. The odor of lilacs mingled with that of vomit as he suddenly rolled off, all huddled over, and shudderingly gave up the witches’ brew he’d drunk.
“He’ll never make it,”my mind’s voice sang. I’ll be wanting a new dress after this, I thought. He raised his ugly head and stared into the corner. He seemed suddenly paralyzed, his head frozen and staring into the dark. “You’ll get out of this one, Margaret. Aren’t you the lucky one?” chirped the little voice. Lucky? I’ll have to burn this dress as soon as possible.
“In the corner. There—”he said, and his voice was full of horror.
And a bath. I’ll be wanting a nice bath. I crawled away from the door. My hair was all unbound, and my clothes hung about me in tatters. I felt myself. Bruised here and there, but substantially unhurt. No damage, really. The baby started to roll again. We’re both fine, I thought. That’s got to mean something good. “Joy,” sang the baby, as it rolled and rippled. You foolish little thing, I told it in my mind. Don’t you ever understand when you’re in trouble? And we’re not half out yet. But I loved it suddenly so much, with a fierceness that claimed me totally.
The Count let out a horrible scream. What on earth was wrong with him? Why didn’t God just strike him with lightning and get it over with? You’d think He’d know how to do it right.
It was then that I saw it, standing in the corner. A child. A pretty blond child, just as real as could be, standing there and pointing at him with an accusing finger. She was unclothed, and eyeless, and her little chest gaped open, where the heart was gone.
“I didn’t do it,” the Count said. “I had to—they made me.” The child was joined by another, a little boy, similarly marred, and then another, who held a mangled head in his arms. “It wasn’t me, Fray Joaquin, you want him. He did it. He told me how, and once I called Asmodeus, he wanted more, more. You see? It wasn’t my fault, not mine at all. They forced me to do it—” He was crouching, now, retreating from the little figures that were crowding around each other, multiplying in the corner. He tried to smile convincingly as he argued with them, but his mouth twisted grotesquely, and his eyes were full of terror. But the little creatures never answered. Oh, even now I can’t bear to tell it all, it was so frightful. One by one, the silent specters filled the room around him, deathly quiet, pointing, while he crawled about the floor with excuses, excuses …
He was screaming and gurgling now. “Not me, not me!” he shrieked as he picked himself up and dashed to the door to escape them. But his way was barred by a fierce, whistling cloud like a storm cloud, a seething mass of poison. He rolled his eyes like a frightened horse as he prepared to try to dash through it.
“Why do you wait, little ones?”A ferocious woman’s voice could be heard through the stormy mass. “Destroy him now. He is the one.” My breath turned cold and stopped in my chest as I stared up at the raging, billowing cloud. It was the Weeping Lady!
“To me, to me!” the Count cried, and with the answering rattle and crash at the door, I scuttled under the bed. I could hear the fierce whistling, and something like chattering from all sides of the room as the Count thrashed on the floor, as if under attack by invisible hands. I could see the booted feet of his guards, and hands trying to pick him up as he writhed and fought away from them, gripped by some invisible force. I saw him roll and scream on the floor so close by my hiding place that I could have almost reached out and touched him. And the most curious thing was that his naked body was mottled with thousands of tiny welts, exactly like the marks of babies’ teeth….
“Help me, get them off!” he shrieked, and I heard his feet race to the window, a horrible prolonged scream, followed by the faint sound of a thud on the rocks below. There were curses and the clatter of feet as the men raced out the door and down to the sharp crags beneath the window.
“Well done, my little ones.” The sighing mass of the fast dissipating cloud drifted across the room. I poked my head out from under the bed in the abandoned room to hear a ferocious whisper in my ear.
“I’ve found there are worse things than marrying beneath oneself.”
“Yes, Madame Belle-mère,” I answered, still breathing hard against the cold stone floor.
“HE WANTS YOU.” Fray Joaquin stood at the door and looked about the laboratorium. Everything seemed unchanged. Messer Guglielmo was still bristling with irritation and envy as he inspected the metallic stuff in the crucible, while Brother Malachi, still pale with fatigue, was sitting on the stool against the wall with his feet tucked up, looking more like a sack of turnips than a Master of the Great Work.
“Wants me? Whatever for?” Brother Malachi feigned surprise. He was slumped against the wall, grateful for its cool stones, and mopped his brow with his sleeve. The gauntlets and rod lay forgotten in a corner.
“That’s what I say too.” Messer Guglielmo’s testy voice was heard from among the heads crowded around the rapidly cooling crucible. “It’s damned little gold you got, after all the bother you’ve made for me.”
“It is gold, though, and the best quality. That’s better than you’ve done with your quintessence of two thousand eggs. You’re a parasite, and he’s genuine,” snapped Fray Joaquin.
“There’d have been more, if we’d had the full moon,” Malachi added in a complaining voice. “The moon expands the action of the powder.”
“Well, I’ve certainly never heard of that. It’s not in Geber, it’s not in Villanova. And as for Magister Salernus—”
“Your Geber has never made you so much as a dot of gold.” Already Fray Joaquin’s mind was racing. Why give this valuable fellow to the Count? It’s a long way from the cellar to the tower bedroom. If I can get rid of this blabbermouth Messer Guglielmo and his worthless devils, I can just bundle this Theophilus down to the stables and be off. I’ve done enough secret business for the Count so that no one will suspect a thing until it’s too late. I can sell him practically anywhere for a tidy sum—or no, better yet, find somewhere I can put him to work myself. Quick, decisive. That’s the way.
“Tie him up. Hood him. The Count awaits.”
“Really, hooded? Isn’t that a bit melodramatic? Besides, I might trip and injure my brain. My brain is sensitive, like a delicate plant—”
“The mutes will hold you up. It’s orders. That way you can’t divulge the Secret to anyone en route.” Or see where you’re going, either, when I take you off with me. What a good idea.
He’ll probably kill me, thought Brother Malachi, as soon as he thinks he’s got the recipe. At least I’ve bought Margaret some time. Now I think I need some myself. A good thing Messer Guglielmo doesn’t write down his experiments.
“You’ve—ah—memorized the steps?” asked Brother Malachi as the mutes tied his hands behind him.
“Of course I have. Do you think I’d trust an important secret like this to writing?” I’ll leave in the morning, Messer Guglielmo was thinking. Someone else will pay a lot better than the Count for this secret. Why, he might even kill me once he knows it. Perhaps I’d better just leave tonight, as soon as this Theophilus fellow is taken to the Count.
“Now you remember that you add the sulfur exactly at the point that the struggle of the red dragons becomes visible.”
“Nonsense. I distinctly saw you wait until the second color change of the lion.”
“You have it wrong. Didn’t you see? Do I have to teach lessons to babies?” Malachi drew himself up to his full height between the two mutes. His voice dripped with arrogance.
“Do you think I’m a fool? I know the red dragon when I see it.”
“Shut the man up,” Fray Joaquin addressed the mutes. “I must speak to Messer Guglielmo alone.” Brother Malachi bowed his head as an ox does for slaughter while they finished the job.
Fray Joaquin drew the rageful alchemist into the dark little inner chamber where the familiars were summoned. “Are you sure you’ve memorized the formula?”he asked.
“Of course,” responded Messer Guglielmo.
“Absolutely? This man’s a trickster. You heard him trying to mix you up. The Count must have a reserve, in case this weakling gives up the ghost under questioning.”
“Understood.”
“Good,” said Fray Joaquin, and plunged the wicked little stiletto, as sharp as a needle, in between Messer Guglielmo’s ribs.
And as the alchemist lay on the floor, the blood bubbling in a bright pink froth through his lips, Fray Joaquin addressed the new-made corpse: “Now only one man has the Secret.” Utterly calmly, he wiped his stiletto off and replaced it, stepping out into the workshop.
BROTHER ANSELM HAD MADE himself as small as possible outside the door of the Count’s chamber. He’d done his duty: he’d remonstrated with the woman. Now he was debating with himself which was the most reasonable course of action: go to bed, or wait to see what happened? There was a third course, the most dramatic, perhaps, but unwise. He could burst in on the scene, brandishing a cross in the air, loudly denouncing their sin like an Old Testament prophet. Of course, it would mean sure death, but it would be a glorious one. Why, one might even go directly to heaven, like a blessed martyr—briefly, he toyed with the idea. One of the guards at the door glared evilly at him, and he thought better of it right away. After all, he hadn’t seen Compostela yet, and it would be very sad indeed to have come this far to miss out on the best part. If they could just leave this place, it was only a day’s march to Port de Cize, that extraordinary mountain covered with thousands of pilgrim crosses, the gate to Spain and first station on the road to Compostela itself. It was counted a very blessed thing even to get just that far, if one had the misfortune of dying before reaching the ultimate shrine.
He shrank back into the shadows. It was then that he spied another figure lurking about the door. The old nurse-companion who’d come with the widow—the one who was too friendly with the widow’s confessor—it was her, hiding behind a bend in the corridor in the dark. And was there someone else with her? The ill-favored little boy?
Not long after, he heard a woman’s terrible shrieks, and the sound of a scuffle inside. It seemed wiser not to make inquiries. After all, she should have known better. The guards chuckled and looked at each other. Then there was the Count’s frightened voice, crying, “à moi, à moi!” and the two guards sprang into action, battering open the door with a single heavy blow, and rushing inside to try to grab hold of the Count’s thrashing, convulsing body, as he appeared to have a bout of the falling sickness. Brother Anselm found himself drawn to watch. Two figures stood silently behind him in the dark. Then the Count dove out of the window with a terrible cry, as if pursued by something invisible and demonic. The figures at the door prudently withdrew as the guards turned from staring out the window to raise the alarm and gather searchers to go out into the dark after the body.
The old woman peered into the room. “Margaret? Margaret?” he could hear her saying, and a muffled voice from under the bed responded in that barbaric, incomprehensible tongue. The woman scurried into the room, with the boy behind her. Margaret emerged from under the bed, her dress torn and her hair all exposed, without any proper head covering. Brother Anselm averted his eyes from the indecency of spying her long, half-unraveled braids.
“Get thee behind me, Satan,” he muttered. Perhaps now was the time to burst in and remonstrate, since they appeared to be rifling the room.
“Get the seal ring from the table, Mother Hilde, and the sealing wax too.” Margaret was going through the garments on the perches systematically.
“What are you doing there, Margaret?”
“I’m going in search of Gregory, and I know he’ll be cold down there.”
“Hungry too,” said Sim, who tied the capon and the bread up in a napkin. And if he isn’t, I’ll eat it later myself, he added silently in his mind.
“Humph. Look at all this gaudy stuff.” Margaret wrinkled up her nose. “And most of it stinks of lilac water. Oh, here’s something nice—Sim, do you know where Malachi is?”
“Course I do. I followed him to the door.”
Margaret took the candelabrum from the floor, and refitted it with lit candles from the wall sconces. With the clothes heaped over one arm, and the candelabrum held high, she marched to the door. There, she was stopped by the little figure of Brother Anselm, puffed up to its maximum height. He had one hand upraised.
“Stop!”he cried in French. “Consider your sins, and repent!”
“Oh, bother,” said Margaret in English, and then spoke firmly in French to the little friar. “Come with us.” Something about her eyes convinced Brother Anselm to comply. It was the way they flashed in the light of the upraised candelabrum in her hand, exactly like a falcon’s on the hunt.
As they wound down the stairs toward the hidden chambers, the spreading sound of scurry and bustle as servants were awakened, and the first keening wail of mourning echoed through the dark corridors of the chateau.
“Good riddance,” said Margaret as she set her jaw stubbornly and redoubled her pace. At the end of a long, open stair set down the inner wall of the so-called New Tower, which was only newer than the Old Tower, she came to a low iron door cast with the figures of monsters on it. Mother Hilde pulled at her sleeve, but she hardly noticed it.
“Margaret, be careful. Remember that Malachi said the place is full of sinister folk,” Mother Hilde cautioned. “Don’t rile them up. Suppose they harm him because you’ve angered them.”
But Margaret was so enraged, she pounded on the door without a thought for the consequences.
Inside, Fray Joaquin was wondering just how to keep the mutes from getting suspicious when they found they were headed for the stables and not the Count’s chambers. They’ll know it’s not right, and they might just strangle me. I’ll take the alchemist by myself. A ruse may be needed to escape them. I’ll tell them I don’t want to share the honor with them….
“Open, open right away, Brother Malachi. The Count is dead.” He heard a woman’s voice crying at the door in English. Now, he didn’t really understand English, but he knew the words for death and money in more than a dozen languages. And he heard Count and dead and the sound made his heart leap with hope. Perfect, perfect. His fondest wish come true, and at the perfect moment. But suppose he’d heard wrong? He pulled his stiletto and opened the door.
“Count—dead?” he asked, but the sight at the door stopped him short, and his voice faltered. There in the open door stood a woman holding a candelabrum. The light from a dozen candles glittered in her wild eyes and caught the silky river of her unbound hair. The white flesh of a bare shoulder glistened through her torn gown. He could see nothing more. Women. Yes. It was women he’d have with the gold. He’d been deprived too long. He’d change his name—dress like a lord. Live among dozens of perfumed, bare-breasted women …
“Malachi. I want Malachi—Theophilus, you call him.”
Devil take that little man. Maybe he’d summoned the woman, all undressed like this, with the magic that made the gold. He recognized her with a start. It was the little English widow, all transformed and shining with madness. He must do it often, cast this terrifying spell to bring women to his bed and men to do his bidding. That’s why he’s been so docile. He’s been planning to bewitch me. Power—power is more than gold. He’d known it all along, the dangerous little man. No wonder he was so careless with the gold secret. He had a greater one in reserve.
Margaret saw the knife. She also saw the look in Fray Joaquin’s eyes, and knew that in his madness, he could strike without warning. How was she to get past him?
“The ring.” Mother Hilde’s voice was softer than a whisper in Margaret’s ear. “Get him to take the ring.”
Margaret chose her words carefully.
“Theophilus—requires me—to bring his ring—his secret ring—the ring of power.”
It was clear she was under a spell. The way she spoke, each word so careful and so slow. He would deceive her.
“Theophilus wishes me to take the ring,” he said softly and persuasively. Women under spells are stupefied, and easily taken in. “Do you have it?”
Margaret saw that the knife still glinted wickedly in his hand. If she said she had it, he might well stab her and search her. She answered, in what she hoped was a mystical-sounding fashion, “It is with me and not with me. Call Theophilus.”
“Theophilus is engaged right now. Give me the ring and I’ll take it to him.”
“No one but Theophilus must wear the ring.” Margaret spoke in an oracular voice. She was warming to her task. The man was a first-rate ass. “Now, let us see if we can get him to put it on,” the silvery little voice of her working mind hummed in her head.
“The-power-is-too-great. No one else must hold it. He—who—puts—it—on—and—turns—three—times—will—”
“Yes, yes?” He couldn’t restrain himself.
“Rule—the—world.” She watched his eyes light up with greed. And if you thought it worked, why don’t you imagine I’d put it on myself and rule the world, you stupid man, you, she thought. Why is it that women always have to lug around magic rings and guard magic springs and sacred books of wisdom, and all the rest of that silly stuff, and never get the good of it for themselves? Bite, bite, you bloody, blind, ridiculous ghoul.
“Give it to me,”he whispered.
“Prepare—yourself—master,” Margaret said portentously. Fray Joaquin tucked his knife up his sleeve.
“The box.” Margaret gestured magisterially to Hilde. Hilde, her face perfectly blank, took out the box, opened the lid, and extended it to him. The jewels on the ring glittered in the flickering light.
“Ouroboros. The snake swallowing its tail. The universe—master.” With trembling hands, he seized the ring and put it on his middle finger and turned it three times.
“Bow—to the—Master of the Ring,” said Margaret, and knelt upon one knee, as if for a king. Work, work, you beastly ring. Or did the Dark Lady fool me? Mother Hilde and Sim were quick to follow Margaret’s example.
“What is your command, O Master of the Ring?” Margaret couldn’t resist laying it on thicker and thicker. It just came over her. “This is what they all want,” the little voice sang. “Give him his fill of it.”
“Women—” he whispered. “First, I want you—and then bring more.” No, first he’d better kill Theophilus, who knew the secret. He turned from the kneeling women in the direction of the bound alchemist. No—wait, wasn’t he master of everybody now? Theophilus could be his slave, and make gold day and night. Why should he get himself all hot and singed? He was going to live like a lord—lords don’t toil in laboratoria. No, no, he shouldn’t kill a valuable slave. But suppose the ring worked only on women? He looked out the open door. He hadn’t even heard Sim whisper fiercely to Brother Anselm, “Kneel, you nit,” as he gave him a vicious kick in the shins so that he’d understand the English. Brother Anselm, who was so quick at responses in the choir, saw that kneeling was the thing to do. Perhaps there was a relic of great power in the little box. He joined the kneeling figures.
Fray Joaquin addressed Margaret hoarsely: “The ring—commands everyone?”
“Everyone,” said Margaret. How long is this going to take?
“Theophilus too?”
“His power is gone—he does not have the ring.”
“Stay right there—I must see—”
“Yes, O Master.”
Fray Joaquin turned and went into the laboratorium, and for the first time the watchers at the door could make out the bound figure of Brother Malachi, in the light from behind the grating of the tall brick athanor, standing between two muscular, black-clad figures. They watched as the black-cloaked Dominican cut the ropes and removed the hood. I do hope he’s heard everything, thought Margaret. As Fray Joaquin finished loosing Brother Malachi, Margaret intoned, just to be on the safe side, “Bow to the Master of the Ring.”
“Master of the wha—?” said Malachi, blinking, but stopped when he saw the ring on the hand that Fray Joaquin extended before him.
“O Master, I surrender,” said Malachi, kneeling extravagantly.
“You are my slave, Theophilus.” Oh, good grief, what next? thought Malachi.
“Kiss the hem of my garment.” I suppose I’ve done worse, thought Brother Malachi to himself. But when he gingerly lifted the hem of Fray Joaquin’s rather grimy black cloak to the vicinity of his lips, the garment was tugged from his hand as Fray Joaquin fell to his knees.
“Sick—sick,”he gasped.
“Hmm. Powerful ring,” said Brother Malachi, arising. Indeed, a powerful transformation was taking place in Fray Joaquin. His limbs were rigidly extended, he was shaking all over, and his face—pulled into a hideous grimace—had turned all dark.
“Oh, Malachi,” said Margaret, “that’s horrible stuff.”
“It was entirely too good for him,” said Brother Malachi bitterly. “Did you know that he was the procurer of the little ones that were used in his master’s Devil worship?”
“What’s happened, what’s happened?” Brother Anselm’s querulous voice broke in.
“The ring of power—I’m afraid it was too strong for him,” said Brother Malachi lightly. “It takes years of purification with the proper prayers to wear it without danger.” He nudged the corpse with his toe, to assure himself it was really dead. “Let that be a lesson to you on the vanity of human wishes,” he couldn’t resist adding rather sententiously.
“All is vanity,” agreed Brother Anselm as he crossed himself.
“Malachi, where is my Gregory? Can you take me to him?”
“Nothing easier. But it’s damp and slippery. We’ll need torch-bearers. We’ll have to ask these mutes to help out.” He glanced about him. The mutes were squatting on the floor in a circle. In the center was Mother Hilde, sitting on her heels. They were all rapidly gesturing with their hands. Malachi noticed one of them make a strangling motion about his neck, and then a little house with his hands, and fingers walking like little feet.
“Hmm,” said Brother Malachi. “They don’t understand a word of English and dear Hilde there can’t pronounce a syllable of any foreign language, but they all seem to be communicating quite well without that.”
“Devil’s symbols,” said Brother Anselm nervously. “I saw the Sign of the Devil.”
“Nonsense, they’re talking. Hilde, dear, what are they saying?”
“This one says it’s no fun being a mute and living in the dark down here and strangling people. He wants to go home to his uncle’s farm where there’s a nice apple orchard.”
“He said all that?”
“Of course. The other one says the fellows here were all as mean as the Devil, except you. He wants to know where we come from.”
Brother Malachi smiled. He made ocean waves with his hands, then a little boat, and then what he thought looked like an island.
The mutes threw back their heads and shook, as if they were laughing. One of them even made a sort of little barking cough.
“They say you have a terrible accent, Malachi,” said Hilde.
“Tell them the Count’s dead, and they can quit and go home if they like. Ask them if they will help us get Gilbert out of the oubliette first.”
“They say nobody ever comes out of the oubliettes, at least not in their time here. They’re too deep. They lower them in, then cut the rope. Then the man’s in forever.”
“Tell them, what goes in must come out.”
“They’re dubious, but they say they’ll go with us.”
“HE’S DEAD? REALLY DEAD?” I asked, surveying the black-clad figure stretched out on the tiles of the hidden alchemical workshop. I could feel the rage leaving me and a strange light-headed giddiness taking its place.
“Most assuredly, Margaret. The final transformation but one. With him the last, which is decay, does not concern me.” Brother Malachi spoke lightly, so as not to frighten me, I’m sure. But his face was still haggard and stubbly from his imprisonment and from whatever he’d seen going on in that room. Even Mother Hilde’s passionate embrace and tears of joy had not totally erased the unmistakably ravaged look of a person who has stared directly at the true face of evil.
“Gregory? You’re sure he’s down there?” I asked, pointing to the open door into the darkness below.
“Yes, he’s there.” Brother Malachi detached an arm from around Mother Hilde and gestured with it to the mutes, who lit new torches from those in the wall brackets for the descent.
I don’t think I’ll write about everything I saw down in the horrible cellars beneath the laboratorium because it was altogether too morbid and depressing. It reminded me of the inside of the Count’s head—or at least the gruesomer parts of his imagination that he reserved for special occasions. Really, you can never be too careful in examining ahead of time the character of those you stay with as houseguests. But, of course, the place made my heart pound for fear we had come too late for Gregory.
As we approached the great pits, the mutes put the torches in the brackets above the last of them and pointed to the pulley above the grating. At the first flicker of light, I could hear a voice reverberating from down below. Tired and hoarse, but his.
“What is it this time? Heroic couplets? Yours should be called cowardly couplets, you perfumed baboon.” The familiar sound made my heart leap.
“Gregory!” I flung myself on the grating. “It’s me, it’s me! We’ve come for you.” My joyful shout echoed and vanished into the deep stone pit.
“Oh, Jesu,” I heard the hollow mutter from below. “I’m hallucinating again. The end can’t be far.”
“It’s Margaret! Answer me! How deep is it to the bottom? We need to get a rope long enough to get you out.”
“Oh, Margaret, how many times I’ve called to you in the dark. And I heard you answer too. But this is the first time we’ve carried on such a complex conversation. I suppose it’s a mercy my mind is going at last.” The voice seemed to fade as it came up from the dark.
“For God’s sake, I’m real, Gregory. Give me the depth.”
“Between three and four times the height of a man, Margaret.” He sounded lost, as if he were in a dream.
“If we lower a rope, can you climb up it?”
“I don’t think so, Margaret. It’s—rather cramped down here at the bottom. I’ve lacked my usual exercise, I fear: my arms and legs are quite numb. I haven’t the strength.”
“Then tie it about you, and we’ll use the pulley to haul you up.” I stood and the mutes loosened the grate and heaved it aside with a practiced gesture.
As it was removed, I heard him say: “If it’s not real, it’s certainly the best one so far.” But as the rope reached him, he gave a cry of despair.
“What’s wrong?” I called down to him.
“Blasted cold—can’t get my fingers to work—can’t tie it properly.” His voice was lost in the dull, echoing sound of racking coughing that rose from the pit.
I knelt by the hole as one of the mutes held a torch for me to see. Sim, who loved all things lurid and gruesome, had tired of inspecting the apparatus in the Count’s torture chamber and had come to kneel beside me to peer in.
“Phew. Stinks down there, don’t it? Hey, what’s that stuff down there? Bones?” Sim sounded pleased.
Gregory was curled at the bottom of the hole, without even a shirt to keep him warm. I could just barely make out his figure in the dim, flickering light.
“Of course it’s bones. What d’you think’s down here? Roses?” The waspish tone in his voice renewed my hope.
“Any skulls?”
“Several.”
“I sure could use one of them.”
“Sim! You’re horrid! We’re supposed to be getting him out—not collecting souvenirs.”
“Use your thinker, Margaret. You just lower me down on the rope—I tie it under his arms—then I get my skull and ride up on the rope with him. It’s easy. Wimmen!” He snorted in imitation of a grown-up male.
It was not long before we heard Sim’s voice echoing up from the pit, alternating with inarticulate spluttering noises from the object of his attention.
“Move yer arm, will you? My goodness, you’ve got a long beard!—How long did it take you to grow it that way?—Hey, look, I didn’t mean to pinch—quit grumping.—So why’d Margaret ever go and marry you?—What do you think of this one? The jaw’s still on it, but it ain’t got many teeth.—No, this one’s better. Maybe I’ll take both.—You’ll hold ’em for me, won’t you? I’ll need at least one hand for the rope.—Come on, be a sport and help me out.—Hey, Margaret! Grab my skulls as he comes up before he rolls on ’em and smashes ’em!”
Soon enough, Gregory was gasping above ground beside the grated holes like a newly landed fish, and Sim was happily polishing his acquisitions with his sleeve. Gregory seemed as weak as a kitten as I wrapped him in the Count’s big fur lined cloak and rubbed his hands between my own to warm them.
“Oh, Margaret, it really is you,” he said, but his voice sounded terrifyingly frail. “I thought of you—I saw you—I heard you calling.” His skin was stretched tight across his bones like parchment. I’ve never imagined that anyone alive could be so thin. But the eyes that stared out of the tangle of long hair and beard were blazing and alive. I could see him staring at me, looking, looking, as if he could not get enough. Then a lazy half smile crossed his lips. And that old look, half tenderness and half mischief, glinted in his eyes.
“Why, Margaret,” he said mildly. “You’ve been putting on weight.”
“Me? I have not!”
“Come now, you can’t deny you’re rather thick in the waist. You’ve been living well since I left.”
“Living well! I’ve been pining away! Pining away and making your baby! Do you think that’s easy? I got seasick! I walked and walked! I had to trick that horrible man! At the very least, you might have considered telling him you liked his blasted poetry and sparing yourself and me all this trouble!”
He slumped on his back and his smile was weak, but triumphant.
“I’ve got standards, Margaret.”
“Carry him up!” I told the mutes. And two of them gave their torches to Brother Malachi and Brother Anselm, taking Gregory up and swinging him between them as easily as if he were a sackful of cabbages.
Laid out on a bench in the alchemical workshop, he scarcely protested as I washed his face and trimmed his hair and beard. I could see his eyes travel from my face to my spreading waistline, back and forth, and a look of wonder growing on his face. It was as if the idea couldn’t get through his head that there would soon enough be three of us.
“You shouldn’t be so hard on him,” I could hear Mother Hilde saying behind me. But I just said, “I’m not being hard at all!” and went on clipping silently. Then I passed to bandaging his open sores, and wanted to weep. But I certainly wasn’t going to let him know that.
“I suppose you told him you loved his poetry,” he said. His voice was terribly weak, and he ended with a spasm of coughing that squeezed my heart.
“Of course I did. What else? And let me tell you, it wasn’t easy.” The remembrance of lilac water made my stomach all queasy.
“He recited ‘Ode to Summer’ to you, I suppose.” I went on sponging him off and began dressing him. He was too weak even to assist putting his arms into the sleeves of the heavy tunic.
“Oh, yes. That horrid one with the birds and plants. The man knew nothing about summer. He hadn’t an ounce of feeling in him.”
Gregory smiled, and coughed again. Then an odd look crossed his face.
“Hadn’t? He’s dead?”
“Yes, of course. Why else do you think I’m here? He had nasty designs on me, but when I went to see him about you, he jumped out the window.”
“Oh, really? You pushed him?”
“No. I didn’t. He drank too much aphrodisiac and turned all purple—and then, well, then he jumped. I was very relieved, you may imagine.” I sat back on my heels to drink him in with my eyes.
“I’m relieved too. But you still have a sin on your conscience.”
“I do not!” I was indignant. But he doubled over coughing, and I could see that he was laughing.
“You told him you liked ‘Ode to Summer.’ And that, Margaret, was a lie.”
“At least I know how to stay out of trouble.”
“You think I’d have got out if I told him I liked his preposterous versification? Oh no. The moment I agreed with him, I would have been a dead man. I worked on my insults, Margaret. They kept him coming back. And as long as he came back, they kept me alive. The minute he lost interest, it would have been over. I had plenty of time to think up good ones—but I was wearing down some. I couldn’t have kept it up much longer.”
“Bless you, you’ll never change.” I knelt down and put my arms around him. But it was when I put my head on his chest that I could hear the rattle with each breath that he drew. God in heaven, I wept to myself. The Gift is too weak to help him. Spare him. I’ve suffered too much.
“Sim,” I could hear Brother Malachi’s voice intoning behind me, “it strikes me that for my pains I am owed—now—hmm—Marcus Graecus, The Book of Fires, that looks nice, I’ve always wanted that one. Aristotle’s De lapidibus—I have that, and this one’s ill copied. Goodness, yes, the Mappae Clavicula—I’ve never had more than an excerpt. And a most satisfying copy—with illuminations, too. Arnoldus Villanova, of course I’ll have that. Opus de chemia, lovely, lovely. Now—this thing—hmm. ‘On the Secret Art of Calling Devils’—I’ll leave that for the Inquisition, which will probably be called in to clean up this mess. Geber, the Summa Perfectionis, rather spotty from use, but better than my copy. I’ll have that. Yes, this is just about right.” I turned in the direction of the sound to see several volumes disappearing into the bosom of Brother Malachi’s capacious gown. Gregory’s eyes followed mine. He could barely turn his head.
“Theophilus. It really is you there, after all. I thought I’d imagined you. What stupidity led you into this hellhole?”
“Me?” said Brother Malachi. “I’m traveling in search of a translator for a rare work I’ve acquired. And, incidentally, helping out Margaret here.”
“Theophilus, you old rascal. I didn’t think you liked me.”
“I don’t, Gilbert, I don’t. You are a hopeless, bad-tempered, thorny-tongued, arrogant young troublemaker. Wherever you go, disasters occur, despite my frequently offered—and entirely ignored—wise advice. Most days, I simply can’t abide even the thought of you. Today, however, I like you. You are in a state too weak to annoy me. And then there was the day you composed ‘Ode to My Lady’s Large Shoe,’ and I laughed until I wept. That day I liked you too. And, of course, the day you gave me your last sou so that I might flee from Paris, and as you turned to go back out into the snow, I saw that you had sold your cloak. That day, Gilbert, I loved you, and I wept as I tucked my manuscripts into my pack. But on the whole, you are unendurable.”
“I suppose now I’ll have to say I like your poetry too.” Gregory’s voice was reduced to a whisper.
“How typical of your promises, Gilbert, since you know I don’t write any.” Brother Malachi paused to look regretfully about the laboratorium. He shook his head. “What I’d like to take with me is the glassware. Do you know how hard it is to get a proper philosopher’s egg made in London?”
“Who’s the dead man, Theophilus?”
“That, Gilbert? Just another monster who wanted to rule the world—he is no loss, no loss at all. Now, where’s my rod?”
As Brother Malachi knelt, puffing, beneath the wide table full of curious glass and copper vessels, Mother Hilde remarked, “We really ought to be going, Malachi, dear. The morning light will be here soon, and I, for one, have never wanted to be out of a place more.”
“Morning!” I exclaimed. “Good heavens! Hugo probably still thinks he’s meeting the Count in single combat! Knowing him, he’s slept like a log through all of this. Someone really ought to go and let him know.” How easy it was to forget Hugo. And what a pleasure.
“Hugo who?”
“Hugo your brother.”
“Hugo meet the Count? He wouldn’t last a minute. The man’s twice his size, and a better swordsman to boot.”
“Was.”
“Oh, yes—was. But Hugo, here? In mortal combat with the Count? Not on my account, surely.”
“Not directly, no. It’s over an insult to his blood. But he did come here for you.”
“For me? He must have gone soft in the head.”
“I suppose he did. But he probably wants to talk to you about that himself.”
“In my current state, Margaret, Hugo is very nearly the last person in the world I want to see.” He curled over, convulsed with coughing. “The absolutely last is Father. Stay with me, Margaret, your hands are nice and warm.”
“You were always the one with warm hands.”
“Not anymore.”
“I’ll never leave you; you know that, don’t you?” I knelt next to him and pulled the Count’s heavy cloak around him as I embraced him. He reached out a hand and pulled mine to him beneath the cloak as he closed his eyes. In the warmth of the dying fire in the athanor, he fell asleep, his breath coming in long, rattling sighs.
IT WAS LONG BEFORE matins. The stars were still brightly shining when Hugo got up in the night. Traveling had been good to him; he’d ceased his agonized night wanderings and had his first real sleep in months. But now he’d had nightmares of the vast bulk of the Sieur d’Aigremont coming at him in the lists. Just as the Count had unhorsed him and dismounted to finish him off, he woke with a horrible start: he remembered he was a man under a curse. He was stained with a horrible sin—God could not favor him on the morrow, even if he was so clearly the better man in every other respect. “The curse, the curse,” he mumbled as he paced the floor among the straw palliasses where his men slumbered contentedly. Robert, his squire, turned on the mattress at the foot of the bed. He was snoring. “God, even to be a man at arms—a nobody—with an unstained heart,” Hugo whispered enviously. “Save me, Lord, save me. Forgive me. I’ll reform. I swear. Gilbert can tell me how to do it, to break this curse. There’s a holy man somewhere he knows about. Maybe there’s a shrine for the accursed—some saint. I’ll do a penance, God. Anything.” Prayers. Maybe prayers would do it. Beads, that was it. But who had any? Cis, that was who. “Damned slut! What does she need them for?” he muttered as he leaned to stare out the window at the dark dome of the sky. She’d vanished with that old dandy, the Sieur de Soule, the so-called ambassador. Snuck off without a hint of gratitude or loyalty. Who did she think she was anyway?
The cold night wind pushed banks of icy clouds across the face of the waxing moon. Come out of the sky, God! cried Hugo in his mind. Show Yourself and tell me that You hear me….
There was a clattering in the courtyard below. Hugo looked down and saw a familiar figure, huge and menacing, in the moonlight, mounted on a tall black horse. He was entirely enveloped in an immense black cloak that fell on either side of the saddle and whipped about his horse’s legs in the icy night wind. Hugo heard his deep voice calling,
“Come! I hunt tonight.” And from the shadows, two more cloaked horsemen joined him. One had a tightly curling black beard and immense eyebrows. The other Hugo recognized as the friar who had leaned against the Count’s great chair to whisper in his ear the night before. They pulled their little black cobs in behind the Count’s immense stallion. As Hugo watched, a parade of solemn figures on tall black palfreys, black without even a patch of white on them, seemed to emerge from nowhere to escort the first three figures. They, too, were cloaked in black, but their hoods were up so that their faces could not be seen—that is, if they had any faces at all. As they rode slowly to the inner bailey gate, Hugo noted with a start that there were thirteen of them.
“Open!” the Count’s deep voice cried, and the bailey gate swung wide without the aid of a gatekeeper.
“Coward!” shouted Hugo from the tower window. “Coward! You’re running out on me!”And those who were roused to look out the windows by his cries all saw the Count raise his bloodless face to the tower window and stare long, long, up at Hugo before he turned wordlessly to ride out of the gate.
“You damned coward, come back!” Hugo was racing down the stairs in a rage, all wrapped in his bed quilt, his night-napkin still on his head. Below, he saw unaccustomed lights, and heard sounds from the chapel. He heard chanting and, without a thought for his state of disattire, followed the rising swell of the notes. He paused at the door, which was already flung open, and shrank back in horror. There, on a high black-draped bier before the altar, lay the mangled body of the Comte de St. Médard.
Not a soul who saw the black cavalcade on that icy Saint Crispin’s night ever doubted that it was the shade of the Count himself, on his last ride to the gates of hell.