TWENTY-NINE

With the first days of autumn, the court returned. The weather stayed warm, golden and mellow, with that strange luminous calm that vanishes suddenly with the first rain of the season. Lamotte and d’Urbec had disappeared from my life. D’Urbec, true to his word, sent for his box but did not appear in person. I returned the furniture, threw out the soup bones, and plunged myself anew into my work. Business had never been better, for the Sun King was rumored to be in search of a new mistress, and court intrigue had multiplied accordingly.

“They’re all laughing at me, damn them!” Madame de Montespan shrilled at me in her gold-and-white salon. “Out, out, all of you! My fortune is none of your business! Leave, or I swear I’ll have you all hanged! I still have influence; don’t you forget it!” The King’s mistress whirled through the salon like a demon in brocade, took up a little bronze cupid from a table, and flung it at one of her terrorized servants. As her ladies-in-waiting vanished and I took out my glass, she pressed her hands to her temples and sat down moaning. Another of her sick headaches. “Good, they’re all out of here. Now, tell me quickly, will that fat, tasteless Madame de Soubise take my place?” Everyone at court knew about the Princesse de Soubise and the secret signal by which the Titian-haired beauty alerted the King to the absence of her husband. When she walked into a room with her emerald earrings on, the murmur of interest followed her, and all eyes went to the King. Those with malicious hearts also enjoyed watching Madame de Montespan’s eyes narrow over her fan at the sight of the celebrated earrings. La Montespan’s fall was near. Long live the new maîtresse en titre.

I assessed her face carefully. Despite the headache, her eerie, aquamarine eyes were still bright with fury. The image came up nicely in the glass this time.

“Your rival’s triumph is short-lived, Madame; you may be assured.” She leaned closer, trying to peer into the water herself, and her breath fogged the glass. “With her next pregnancy, Madame de Soubise will lose her beauty, and the King will lose interest.”

“Lose her beauty?” Madame de Montespan’s voice sounded maliciously triumphant. “Just how? Does the glass tell you that?”

“It is plain, Madame. She will lose a front tooth.”

“Ah,” sighed Madame de Montespan. “My teeth are very strong. What a pity so many women lose their teeth with children. God meant me to achieve power by giving me strong teeth.” She smiled. Her teeth looked tiny and white, like those of a child goblin, between her rouged lips.

“Your beauty and good taste are without rivals, Madame,” I said soothingly.

“I have sworn no other woman will have him, and I keep my promises.” A strange geniality was now hiding the seething cauldron of her wrath.

“Everyone respects you for that, Madame,” I assured her.

“I tell you, it is Madame de Soubise’s good fortune that she will lose that tooth. I will not have her or anyone else ever be a duchess in my place. Tell me, does your glass tell yet when I will be made a duchess?” This was a sore spot. Everyone knew, but did not dare to tell her, that the King would not give her the title with which he rewarded a royal mistress because he did not wish to make her husband a duke. It was really very simple. But, of course, she believed that it was a test of her power over him—that for love, he would break all precedence and somehow create her a duchess without elevating old Montespan, who still raged in exile in the provinces, where he had been banished by his royal rival. “The Abbess of Fontevrault says I really ought to be made a duchess soon, considering my services to the crown.” Her sister. Her only encouragement.

“The abbess is a very perceptive woman.”

“But not as perceptive as your glass. Tell me, what does it say about my tabouret?” Danger lurked in her smile.

“The glass, Madame, is clear. This is often the case when something is in the future, but not so immediate as to be read. Perhaps after Madame de Soubise’s departure.” Her eyes narrowed.

“I tell you, I shall have that tabouret, no matter what the cost.” I had no intention of telling her that I saw no duchess’s stool in her future.

“Madame, your beauty is promise enough of the future.” She arched an eyebrow and rose.

“Our interview is at an end, Madame de Morville. Mademoiselle des Oeillets will see you in the antechamber.” The fat little silk purse Mademoiselle des Oeillets handed me was still heavy despite the fact that she had already taken her cut. Excellent. At this rate, I would soon be free of the Shadow Queen.

I was the last of the witch’s protégées to arrive at the rue Beauregard that Sunday afternoon. Sitting outside the closed door of her cabinet inspecting the brass work around the door latch, I was caught by surprise when the door swung open, and I could hear the last snatch of conversation. I caught a glimpse of La Voisin, in a somber dress, white lace apron, and close-fitting lace cap, escorting La Lépère, all red-eyed and sniffling, out by the elbow.

“…enough of your whining. You should learn from the little Marquise out there. She has only been in business two years and prospers greatly from heeding my advice.” As the old woman shuffled off, looking dejected, Madame showed me into her cabinet.

“Another loan.” She sighed. “Ah, me, I support the entire world, it seems. You, at least, are doing well. I hear of you at every turn these days. Have you brought your accounting?”

“Of course, Madame.”

“My, my,”—she smiled, turning the pages of my little green account book—“you’re doing ever so much better since you stopped supporting that menagerie of Provençals. And you’re controlling your other expenses well. What nice progress! You’ll soon have the house paid for, at this rate. It’s all from following my good advice—not like that foolish La Lépère. What a weakling I am, eh, Marquise? But I always look after my people.” She’s getting ready to tell me something, I thought. “Advice” that I’d better take or else.

“I think so well of you these days.” She smiled maternally. “You have a great talent for business. My, such successes! You’ll never be a dismal old woman like La Lépère. Now, next week, I’m having a little fête to celebrate the return of the court. Outside, if the weather stays good. I still have so many lovely flowers in my garden! And the new fountain with the little statue does set off my pavilion, don’t you think?” She rose and gestured to the little cabinet window. Outside, in the garden, the fountain tinkled amid masses of ferns and the last of the summer lilies. In the center of the fountain stood a little cupid, holding a water jug that splashed water on his fat feet. The white columns of the classical pavilion glowed golden in the afternoon sun. The chimney of the crematorium stove inside was belching black smoke. “Court business has never been better,” she said, gazing fondly at the dark column rising into the blue sky above the city.

“Such a nice party,” she said in an offhand way, turning from the window, “a lot of splendid old friends. You’ll be getting an invitation in the next day or two—but the engraver has been so dreadfully slow. You’ll know most of the people there, I imagine. Many of us, some of La Bosse’s, and, of course, clients and a few select students of the occult sciences. Violins, of course, and there’ll be dancing all night long—oh, don’t look so shocked! Where do you think we’d dance? Naked on the Brocken, perhaps? Please, please”—and here she waved her hand in disdain—“I may be a witch, but I am always a Parisian first. My gown is being delivered from the embroiderers tomorrow evening; my violins will be the best—the band of Monsieur is free that evening. And my guest list—very elegant. Any number of courtiers. Brissac will be here. I do not wish you to miss the opportunity of conversing with him. You’ll find him the most elegant figure of a man—most presentable. An excellent husband for a woman who knows how to handle him.”

“With all respect, Madame, I want a husband about as much as a frog wants a valet.”

“Ha! So very witty! No wonder you’re such a success.” She laughed a little laugh as she seated herself once more in her brocade armchair, leaving me standing. Her little counterfeit of good humor made my stomach cold. “But, my dear,” she went on, looking up at me in an indulgent way, “you may not want a husband, but you need one. Come now, surely you don’t want to be reclaimed by your brother—or your uncle. Remember that I think only of your benefit.” And your own, I thought as I tried to make my face look agreeable. “Now, do be good and sit down,” she said, gesturing to the narrow, armless chair in front of her writing desk. I sat, bolt upright. “Really, husbands are no trouble at all,” she went on, leaning forward in cozy intimacy. “They sit about, they sign legal documents—so important with the laws as backward as they are for us women. I would never be without a husband. All of mine have been a great convenience. Of course, they do need to be fed. Always keep them well sated on heavy dishes. It calms them. You, of course, will have to hire a good cook. But it’s a small expense for an unassailable social position.”

“I doubt Brissac will just sit around and eat. He’s all over the place like a cockroach—popping out of dark corners, scheming, taking lovers, and splashing money all over town whenever he has any.”

“My dear,” she said, laying a hand over mine, “do you think I would propose an alliance such as this to you, my finest creation, if you were not the sort of girl who had her wits about her? One mounts cowards and old folks on dull old jades, but a thoroughbred—spirited, elegant, half mad—should be mounted by none but the most brilliant rider. Believe me, he is outmatched by you. But the pair—ah! What a pair! Dangerous, brilliant, fashionable—you two will flash across the sky of Paris like a comet! And, in the end, you will have power, which is worth everything!” Her black eyes glittered, and I felt drawn to the idea as a needle seeks a lodestone. As I watched her glowing eyes, a little smile twitch across her lips, the thought came over me: she lives her youth again through you. The Shadow Queen remade, as she would have wished to have been. No poor, failed jeweler for a mate but a titled satanist, brilliant and dangerous, a fit equal. Her growing ambition blinds her. Her scheming overreaches itself. Where will it end? Brissac, ugh, how filthy.

“I’ll do my best with him, but you know I don’t know how to flirt. I can’t look up through my eyelashes at a man and pretend he is cleverer than he is. I say what I think. Men don’t think I’m pretty.”

“Pretty is not what he’s after, dear. Just money. Simply drop the name of the last few salons you’ve been to. Show him how you can read hidden cards in a wineglass. Tell him you’re not sure you can read well if you’re not happy—that sort of thing. Let him know you’re no fool to be won with a few cheap kisses, and he must bargain hard for your skill.” I looked dubious. She closed her ledger with a contrived smile. “So clever…yes, listen to me, and you’ll do well…”

That night, my mind ground like a mill, and images, like fragments of the days past, kept me from sleep. The Shadow Queen and her ledger. The repulsive Brissac. The dashing Lamotte, beautiful beyond description in yellow silk. Father on his deathbed with Grandmother’s parrot crying out “Justice! Justice! Fire and brimstone!” Marie-Angélique weeping in luxury. The heavy steps on the stair and the echo of Uncle’s horrible laughter. And a pair of eyes, hollow, dark, and appraising. D’Urbec’s eyes, following me about the way they had in the sickroom. “You’ll regret…you’ll regret…” I could hear him saying.

In the morning, Sylvie brought a letter on the tray with my cocoa. The paper was rich and heavy, and the seal had somehow withstood Sylvie’s curiosity and remained firmly in place. I could feel her breath on my shoulder as I sat up in bed to read the familiar wide-looped, simple handwriting:

“Well?” asked Sylvie, having failed to stretch her neck sufficiently to discover the letter’s contents.

“Another fortune has come true. Cover my dressing-table mirror again, Sylvie; I’ve had a bad night.”

“So, Madame, will you be wearing the lovely rose dress to the fête tonight? You’ve never even taken it out of its muslin. And the color—Oh, it sets you off—you almost look young again, if I may say so. If it’s a proposal that I were after, I’d certainly wear it.” Sylvie set a half dozen bone hairpins on my dressing table and took up the hairbrush to attack my wild curls. There are advantages to having a dressing-table mirror draped, I thought. I can’t see the disapproving look on Sylvie’s face as she tries to create the proper little knot and side curls suited to fit under my cap. The brush seemed impatient, annoyed. I sat straight in the little gilded chair before the dressing table, pondering how best to evade both Brissac and my patroness. How much had Brissac promised her out of my savings for her part in making this match? Madame never did anything for free. And yet, I suppose, there was a certain bizarre honor in her. She never stole, either. That was more than you could say for any number of respectable people. Murder, now, that was different. There she did just as everyone else did. Except, perhaps, more neatly. She would never leave a head beneath the floorboards. It would offend her craft. That is doubtless, I mused, the way one differentiates the professionals from the amateurs in this world.

“Sylvie, the man Madame has chosen cares nothing for youth. He consumes pretty women by the dozen for breakfast. Brissac is a libertine who loves only money and whose only goal in life is to find out where the Devil lives so he can make a pact with him. For this man, I wish to look wealthy, invulnerable, and very mysterious, as if I already had the Devil’s address in my pocket. He must be forced to a hard bargain. Madame has said so. I want the gray silk—the low-cut one. Don’t get out the partlet. I’ll wear it without so my bosom shows. Then I want every jewel I own—the pearls, the ruby crucifix, the diamond earrings, and all my bracelets. Tell Gilles to carry both sword and pistol when he attends me tonight.”

“And your hair? The veil?”

“No veil tonight. I want you to do my hair in the new style of Madame de Montespan, with the curls in the back, but ornamented only with a single, blood-red rose. That ought to please Madame.”

“A perfect touch, if I do say so. On your black hair, so striking, Madame! Symbols of wealth and passion together. What man could resist?”

“Brissac, who is as conniving as they come. We have our work cut out for us, Sylvie.” Excellent, I thought, as she put down the hairbrush. She’ll carry a good report of this conversation to La Voisin. “Oh, yes,” I added, “I’ll want you to wear the yellow silk and carry my handkerchief, just behind Mustapha as he carries my train. And tell him he must wear the diamond and the egret plumes on his turban. I plan to make a grand entrance, after the theater hour, when most of the guests are there already.”

The weather held well, the day of the fête, and so it was one of the last, long violet evenings of the season when my carriage threaded its way through the maze of waiting equipages and chairs clustered around the villa on the rue Beauregard. There were carriages with the arms of ancient families on them, diabolists or simple amusement seekers, who knew that La Voisin’s suppers were always lavish and the company suited to the most jaded tastes. There were flashy carriages hired by the month, like mine, fiacres and chairs hired only for the night by petitioners desperate to make an impression. Fortunes could be made here: the right meeting, the lucky chance, and one’s troubles would vanish. We are a nation of courts, I thought: the great nobles who surround the King for favors have little nobles to wait on them; the little ones have still smaller ones to stand around them at their levées. And here at the rue Beauregard is the court of the lewd, the false, the superstitious, who are spinning on their way downward to perdition. Not so different from the great court, after all. Everyone a parasite. In just what conveyance, I wondered, had the shirtless Brissac arrived?

The queen of the witches of Paris had transformed her house for the evening. The immense double doors between the black parlor and the grandly overfurnished inner rooms had been thrown open, creating a great hall. Banks of candles glittered among the tables piled with delicacies. The sound of the violins penetrated the room from the garden beyond, where the lantern-bedecked striped pavilions sheltered a great artificial dance floor, laid for the evening in the garden between the house and the pavilion. I made a great stir as I was announced at the door. Even the most bored of the courtiers, the most familiar of acquaintances, looked up from the delicacy-heaped tables at the lush, exotic little figure with the tall, silver-tipped walking stick, her train held by a turbaned pagan, her handkerchief-bearing maid followed by a heavily armed human giant of a bodyguard. I had outdone myself.

“Marquise…you look…different,” stammered La Pelletier, the witch of the lavender-ribboned love-powder sachets. Abbé Guibourg, food dribbling from the corner of his mouth, looked up and grinned a lascivious smile. A space cleared about me as I moved through the crowd. Respect, fear, awe. For I knew the future; I dispensed fate. And, above all, I must be placated—for if I became Queen, who was to say whose fortune, whose life I might someday hold in my hand? La Voisin, brilliant in flame-colored satin and diamonds, was holding court beneath the striped pavilion roof. Her petitioners and sycophants made way for me as I approached.

“Madame,” I said, bowing low, “your evening is most delightful, and I am privileged to be here.” She nodded approvingly at my jewels, my entourage, and the red rose.

“My dear Marquise, you have never looked more radiant. I take it, you have already been introduced to the Duc de Brissac?” Brissac, his dark beard showing unshaven, clad in moth-eaten blue velvet and sporting an immense court wig of last year’s fashion, doffed his plumed hat and expressed his pleasure and surprise at meeting me again. I shall lead you a merry chase tonight, I thought, as I refused his offer to dance, opening my fan across my bosom to signal in the gesture that means, in the coded language of the fans, “be discreet.”

“It is a pleasure I renounced decades ago,” I said, closing my fan to display only one compartment, indicating “chaste amity,” as, head tilted, I looked at him out of the corner of my eye. “Dancing disperses the mental energies, and I prefer to concentrate my powers.” I tapped the fan shut, and held it to the right. “We must talk in security,” it signaled.

“Your powers are only the palest shadow of your beauty,” he murmured, as we drifted away from the Shadow Queen. Somehow, we managed to arrive at the grotto. The fountain splashed in an eerily melancholy fashion as we sat on a rustic bench positioned in front of the concealed oven. What a strange place: a white-marble, ivy-entwined crematorium for the use of Madame’s “philanthropic society.” A fit setting for a satanist’s seduction. After a number of absurd flatteries about my white bosom and ivory hands, his fingers crept onto my neck. There is something about a man’s touch when he is insincere—his fingers felt like lizards. Revolting.

I pulled away from the warm, rotten scent of his breath, snapped my fan shut, and said, “Let us be frank, Brissac. I get no pleasure from men and you, I take it, derive little from women. Cease trying to dazzle me with compliments and blind me with your expertise at love. Your rank and your person do not make me shiver with delight. I presume that for somewhat different reasons, you might say the same about me. I do not wish to be your maîtresse en titre; I am a woman who can be satisfied only with marriage and wish to know your terms.” He seemed shocked at my bluntness. The mask of gallantry fell, revealing naked avarice, snobbery, and the male rage at being thought less than charming.

“Marriage? To a monster? What leads you to think that a Brissac would stoop to such a shameful misalliance?” He looked as if he might strike me. I drew away from him and fixed him with a commanding stare.

“Why stoop to me at all, then? Surely not to gain pleasure from my seduction. Wouldn’t your reputation suffer then, too? ‘Brissac sleeps with a deformed, centuries-old woman,’ they’d say. Or were you planning that the high and mighty of the court should whisper instead, ‘Brissac has driven the ancient sorceress mad with desire—she gives him everything. What a clever fellow!’”

“You—you savage!” he exclaimed. No one likes his plans uncovered, I thought. She has mistaken him; he has deceived her. He drew himself up to his full height, which was modest, for a man, and his face froze in an aristocratic sneer.

“Evidently, Madame, no one has taken the trouble to inform you that you lack all desirable qualities for a wife: unblemished lineage, youth, that soft sweetness in the midst of innocent desires…”

“…and a handsome dowry, without which all the rest is dross,” I finished up.

“Yes, a family of standing—of fortune…”

“And perhaps, Monsieur, no one has bothered to tell you that even with rank, should you become available, you are still tarnished goods, unlikely to appeal to any family of standing. Your personal habits make you unlikely to produce heirs; add to this that rumor has it you have already tainted half the little ice sellers in town with the Italian disease—hardly an affliction one wishes to see in grandchildren. You spend money like water, especially that of other people, and have caused at least one lover to leave this earth under questionable circumstances. You have fribbled away your patrimony and alienated your connections at court. These things would weigh yet more heavily than your satanism with even the most grasping family of the petty bourgeoisie, let alone one of high lineage. No, Monsieur de Brissac, even those beneath you will not have you. I suggest you keep the wife you have. Perhaps if you are gracious, she will grant you an allowance.”

“I do not have to listen to this,” he said, rising.

“No, but before you go, you should recall that not only do I come with a fortune greater than all but a royal dowry, but that, unlike a dowry, this fortune of mine is renewed and grows daily. I wish to be a duchess; you wish to be rich—it is entirely rational to form a business partnership in the guise of marriage.”

“You—you are not a woman; you are a cold-blooded monster.”

“And you a hot-blooded one.”

“I could destroy you for these insults.”

“Why, yes, and then you’d lose your last chance at a fortune.”

“I can find a dozen better brides.”

“Good. Go try, and when you are tired of being rejected, return to me. I will of course be richer then. My terms may not be as easy.”

“Your terms? Your terms? How dare you! It is my terms you must deal with, you unnatural crone. Brissac’s terms!”

I found it hard not to laugh at him as he turned on his heel and stormed out, the very picture of deflated pomposity. An excellent outcome, I thought. I’ve made the offer that will please La Voisin and he has declined it, thus displeasing her. And while she has hope of him, she cannot rage at me. My soup remains wholesome, and I am unbothered by Brissac. An excellent outcome.

“Ah, there you are, after your little tête à tête. Tell me, how did it go?” The rustle of my patroness’s taffeta underskirts had announced her presence long before her voice did so.

“He did not want marriage; I let him know that marriage was the price of my fortune. He said I was too deformed and obscure for a duchess. He will seek elsewhere, fail, and then return. That I can predict without the glass.” Her mouth drew into a grim line.

“If he has been playing with me, I swear—”

“Oh, take into account that he is a man and, therefore, hot-blooded, illogical, and changeable. He must be handled delicately if you want him to…behave.”

“Ha! You are coming along nicely, my dear. Your brain is developing admirably.” She looked almost benign as she accompanied me out through the now-crowded dance floor.

At the refreshment table, we met La Lépère, who was putting candied fruits into the sagging pockets of the old jacket that she wore over her shabby gown.

“Do take some of the rolls, too, my dear; they will make a lovely breakfast,” said La Voisin as the old woman whirled around and tried to conceal what she was doing.

“You—you smile at me so. Your guests would not be so content with you if they knew what makes your garden so green,” she said, thrusting her hands into her pockets as if to prevent anyone from snatching back the concealed delicacies.

“So now you begrudge me my gardeners? Come, come. There was a time you thought more generously than that.”

There was a shrill laugh from a masked court lady who had overheard us. “Oh, my, yes, your gardeners are miracle workers! I begrudge you them myself. Look at those roses, still blooming so lushly, and those lilies! And chrysanthemums! Twice the size of mine! Oh, what is your secret?” The chemists of the rue Forez, La Trianon and La Dodée, who had stopped at the wine fountain, turned their heads toward us and nodded and smiled.

“It’s what you feed them,” La Voisin said archly.

“And what is that?” the masked court lady asked.

“Have your gardeners compost spoiled fish from the market. They work miracles,” replied the sorceress with her strange, pointed little smile, and she turned away. La Lépère followed us into a grape arbor lit with hanging lanterns and draped with lush vines, heavy with fruit.

“Catherine,” she said, “it was not always like this. Take my advice as an old friend—get rid of this garden full of bones.”

“Get rid of it? Ridiculous! I’m very fond of it. They keep my oven running day and night, these courtiers, in the good season, and my garden—exquisite. And I like them there—all those little marquises and counts and chevaliers and whatnot who make my flowers bloom. And how delightful a spectacle to see their high-born parents dancing on them without a care in the world—Oh, Margot, what? The wine fountain needs renewing already? Use the cheaper Bordeaux. They’ve been drinking long enough not to know the difference. Yes, do hurry along now. Where was I? Oh yes, my garden. I like it this way. I have no intention of digging it up.” Insects swarmed around the lanterns, battering themselves on the glass.

“Catherine, it cannot end well. This…this…the way you mock the world. You should give it up.”

“And be poor? Va, va, I have ten mouths to feed…and I do it rather well, too, not even counting the fact that I’m supporting people like you. My business is no different from half the world’s. I just do it better, that’s all.”

“Better—or worse—depending on how you look at it,” muttered La Lépère, as the violins struck up a pavane.

It was on the Wednesday following the party that I received a note from Monsieur Geniers, my silent partner in vengeance. My uncle, the Chevalier de Saint-Laurent, had refused, it seems, to make good on his debts and, after the appropriate legal processes, had been thrown into debtors’ prison, where he wrote pitiful letters begging Monsieur Geniers for money to pay the jailers for food and blankets. Good, I hope he stays locked up forever, I thought, and felt indescribable relief that I no longer risked crossing his path and being recognized. Things seem to be working out for me, for Marie-Angélique. Now I’ll end my day by dropping in on Marie-Angélique to see how she is. I wonder what would be a nice gift for the baby? Half daydreaming, I mounted into the carriage, hardly noticing that it had pulled out into the street. Perhaps the baby will be a girl. That will be easy to choose for. I’ll get her a dress and a little silver spoon with her name on it. The carriage paused, halted by a crowd of pedestrians, chairs, and a dray wagon at the corner of the rue de Picardie. An aunt? That will be odd, to be an aunt. All memories of Uncle flew out of my mind with the agreeable notion of aunthood. Outside, my driver was shouting insults, but I didn’t really notice. Suddenly I thought of d’Urbec’s busybody aunt and how her mind was all formed by romance novels. Perhaps the brain softens when one becomes an aunt. I’ll borrow Marie-Angélique’s copy of Clélie and see if it seems any less silly. Then I’ll know. The odd notion amused me, and I laughed out loud. I could feel the stares of strangers at the eerie old crone who laughed alone in the carriage caught in the midst of a street quarrel.