Goddess (9 page)

W
HAT WAS
I
SAYING
?

Must have drifted off.

I forget, sometimes, what I’m saying—what I’ve come to be.

Forgetting is quite pleasant, although I only forget
Now
, which is relatively dull anyway. I don’t forget
Then
. Not really. But I find I remember moments completely differently from day to day—my mind wanders back along its familiar paths but sometimes takes unexpected and possibly completely imaginary turns. Odd.

Oh, yes. I was telling you … that’s it. The bleakest time of my life. Or so I thought, then.

What happened? There were tales all over the country of a great confrontation—of me fighting our way out of an inn near Aix, killing three men, wounding countless others.

All rubbish.

The truth wasn’t nearly so heroic.

You asked for a confession. You want to know which events—which sins—make me sick to the stomach with bile no herbs can soothe; make me want to tear my hair from my skull, the flesh from my face with my own fingernails.

This is one of those sins—one of those few memories that pierce my skin, burn my eyes, all through these long nights.

Cowardice? Perhaps that’s what it was. I don’t know. Pragmatism, I called it then. Exhaustion, perhaps. I was weary to the bones, it’s true, but I’m strong—I could have kept running. I could have kept Clara safe for at least a few weeks more. I could have fought my way out or died trying, since that’s the story they made up anyway.

But I didn’t. I sneaked away in the night in exchange for a horse and a bag of gold. I left her there and took to the hill roads once again.

If I hadn’t, of course, I may never have become the great Mademoiselle de Maupin. I might never have got as far as Paris, certainly not onto the stage of the Palais-Royal. But what would my life have been?

We used to talk about it, plan our lives together. I’d say we could run an inn somewhere up north, and Clara would laugh at the idea of me polishing goblets and throwing drunks out the door. A little farm, I’d say. A goat or two and some hens. Fruit trees.

Can you picture it?

I couldn’t. I admit that now. I’d imagined I could be loved, even me, like the women in the old stories. Foolish. We had come to an end in the road, encircled, ambushed. I felt like one of those horses at the Écurie, walking around and around in proscribed arcs, unknowing. Powerful, but held back. Wild but always restrained. You know?

No. Silly question.

But even if there had been a way out of town, where would it lead? To the goats or the drunks? Impossible. Either way. Clara’s faith in me was betrayed: trampled under the dusty hooves of d’Armagnac’s cadets; bashed and bruised by La Reynie’s gendarmes; squandered in the taprooms of countless inns; and finally—pathetically—bribed into insignificance by a comte with a hysterical temper and a tarnished reputation.

I told myself at the time I had no choice—that I was protecting her—that nothing lay ahead of us but despair and hunger. But despair lay ahead of me anyway, wherever I go, whatever I do, and she …

I’ve dreamed ever since of telling her that I only wanted to save her, to see her fed and warm. Of course it’s true. But … but I was sixteen years old and sentenced to death. To burn. What would you have done but run? Did I sacrifice her? Us? My own heart? Perhaps. Well, yes. But I lived. I went on. Such guilt, such despair. You can’t imagine. It has almost undone me once or twice. It may yet.

They packed her off to a different convent—Carmelites, I think—miles away. Can you imagine how it would have been for her? The punishments, the judgement, the loneliness, the spying, the meaningful looks along the supper table—a prison. Always.

So we have ended as we began, both of us—she a nun, and me pretending to be. She faithful and pure, I have no doubt, if she’s still alive, somewhere.

Forgive me.

No, not you.

I can’t recall what happened next. I rode back to Marseille—that’s right. Stupid. Not sure how I got there, but I did. Then I lay low for a while. Very low.

I’m not ashamed to admit now that I curled up on a bed in a dark room somewhere. I have no real recollection of the details, but it was weeks, surely, spent without moving, without sleeping or eating or walking in the light.

I can’t explain it even now. I should have been relieved, even joyous—free of the convent, free to enjoy the city I had once known.

I must have been ill, feverish, just as I am now; for that time and this are the only days I have spent so worn out, so diminished. You see? I recovered last time, mostly, though there has been a part of me unwell—damaged, perhaps—ever since. Nobody could touch me, not really, after that. I wouldn’t let them. Until … much later.

But slowly, almost imperceptibly, the days seemed more bearable. I washed my hair, my clothes. I ate a little meat. Some bread. Opened a window. Breathed. One day, I heard someone singing: one of Lully’s airs—from
Thésée
, if I recall. Something I knew. Something I could sing. So I did. Quietly, to myself. Then louder, standing at the window, singing into the evening air. Someone shouted at me. I didn’t care.

The next day I saddled my horse, retrieved my sword and my father’s hat from my old landlord, and set off.

Nobody noticed me. All my bruises were invisible.

I headed north, away from Marseille, Avignon, Aix, never to return—until now. It was like being on the road with Séranne, but without his annoying presence.

Imagine it—my first time on the road by myself. I had d’Armagnac’s money and a good horse. I rode through the countryside, singing at the top of my voice. I can see it, even now. Feel it. One leg dangles over the horse’s neck, the other foot loose in the stirrup. I tilt my head back so that my half-closed eyelids, my face and my throat feel the gentle wash of sunshine filtering through pine branches.

I stop singing long enough to listen to the wood thrushes. All the rustles and creaks of the forest. My own heart, still beating. My horse’s hooves thudding in the mud.

I breathe pine and stale sweat. Thyme crushed on the trail, horse blankets and leather. Last night’s campfire smoke in my hair. Perhaps rain.

I feel. Everything. The ache in my chest that will never heal. A blister on a toe from new boots. The horse moving beneath me, its tired muscles and even gait. The burden of the gold, hanging in a purse around my neck. Heavy. So heavy. Forgiveness. Sorrow. The never-knowing. Clara will never know.

I will never know.

The weight of time, of infamy. The curse of solitude. The joy of it.

Now I think of it, it was the first time in my life that I was really free, though I didn’t feel it. But slowly, mile after mile, I unwound the bandages, let my wounds, my scars, crust over. They didn’t heal. But I learned to live with them, as you do. Learned how to move, talk, ride, sing, so that the pain wasn’t visible to anyone else, so that it hardly seemed to bother me. So that I seemed to be someone else. As indeed I was. No longer a nun, no longer a mistress, no longer the girl page. By then I was a singer.

I sang in cabarets and taverns in any cities and towns I passed through. The crowds, I admit, were uncivilised, but I didn’t let them faze me. Oh, no. All good practice, you see.

I learned the hard way how to captivate and touch an audience. Some singers go through an entire career never bothering to learn that. They just stand there and belt out their assigned notes with no pathos, no love. They don’t even look around them to see if anyone’s watching, if the crowd’s entertained, if it is awestruck. Then they wonder why at the end of the evening all the flowers fall at my feet.

I composed lyrics and music for some little songs, and tried them out. They were received kindly. I treated the world as my own open-air auditorium. I sang from horseback, on tables, in little stone churches. I stormed onto stages at local fairs. I hung from the rafters in taverns. Singing absorbed every moment, every thought. When I couldn’t live by my voice, I lived by my sword. But I knew by then that the voice was my future.

P
OITIERS.
L
ATE AUTUMN
. A countryside heavy with harvest. Wood smoke in the evening air. The forest floor spotted with mushrooms. Far off, the sound of an axe. In the old cabaret on the road to Paris, there’s a girl singing.

Nobody’s heard the song before—she wrote it last week, humming it to herself on horseback on the long track north. She sings of Marseille in summer, of love lost and the ocean, of crocuses and irises on the hillsides, of the coast road and darkened villages. An old fellow down the front taps his pipe on the table. Someone smiles.

A man sits alone at a table in the centre of the room, one fist clutching a bottle, the other—trembling a little—holding a glass that never seems quite empty, no matter how much he drinks. He drinks a lot.

He watches her. Julie pretends she doesn’t care, but feels his gaze on her face, her throat.

She notices the battered slippers, the waistcoat that might once have been blue velour, might once have fitted properly, might have been beaded, embroidered, perhaps even freshly washed. Long ago. She sees the slight nod of his head in time with her song, the tears that collect in a corner of his eye.

There’s one note that worries her. She feels it approach—takes a breath—reaches for it—almost gets there.

Ah, well. Perhaps tomorrow night.

The drunk laughs at her.

But when she’s done, he applauds louder than anyone else.

She wipes her mouth with the back of one hand. Reaches for a pitcher of ale. Drinks as much as she can in one gulp. It tastes of the forest. Of hard riding on a hot day. Of summer.

When she passes his table, he grabs at her arm. ‘Sit with me a moment.’

‘I’m a singer, not a whore.’

‘Did I ask you for a fuck? No. I’m too old and too drunk. Sit down.’

She does. He puts his hand over hers and whispers, ‘Listen to me. I can tell you things.’

‘What do you want?’

‘Nothing,’ he says. She can smell the wine, stale in his mouth. ‘I’m an old soldier in the field.’

‘Touch me again and I’ll slit your throat.’ She pulls her hand away from his.

‘Do not doubt me,’ he says. ‘I know about voices and talent.’

‘And?’

‘I’ll give you lessons. I don’t have anything else to do. It will amuse me.’ He smiles, all rotted gums and yellow teeth. ‘If you want it, little girl, in four or five years you’ll be the
prima donna
of the Opéra in Paris.’

‘Yes,’ Julie says. ‘I know.’

O
R SOMETHING LIKE THAT
. At any rate, I accepted. Gratefully.

It turned out Maréchal was an actor from the provinces. The city theatre had just thrown him out on his arse. You should have seen him—poor old fucker. He still wore his old costumes from years before, when he’d been famous—when he’d been paid—I suppose to remind himself, and others, that life had once been very different. Who can blame him for that? He was a good musician and a passionate actor. Dear God! Nobody knew the craft like he did—low-brow comedy, high drama, from Lully to Molière and back again. How could a man of such intelligence become a mediocre opera singer in some dump in the country? I never understood it, and nor did he. But that’s why—I see it more clearly now—he was a little mad, and more than a little drunk.

He taught me brutally, just like my father, just like my fencing masters—but during his lucid moments, when he shook off drunkenness, he gave me such an education. It was, for me, a revelation. He taught me about the breath, and how to hear the essence of the notes in each song. Most of all, he taught me about acting—how to find the spirit of a song and let it shine in your face, no matter how shitty your life, no matter how minor the part. He taught me to be a goddess, a sprite—to be Cupid one day and Pallas Athéna the next—to appear regal or playful or savage or pure. How to look into the audience and feel their heartbeats; how to bind them to me; how to astonish and amaze; how to be remembered.

But it didn’t last long. Three months or so, that’s all, we worked together—purely platonic, I can assure you, too, in case you were wondering. He was distinctly not to my taste.

Maréchal understood me, knew every crack and quiver in my voice. He was a madman, and that helped. He and I clung to one another as if we were—and I see now it was true—each other’s best hope. I absorbed him into me, or at least as much as I was able to stomach, although there was so much I still had to learn.

One day he didn’t turn up to practice. I went to his house. He was slumped on the floor, in some kind of stupefaction. He stayed that way. All of a sudden, he was an idiot, a fairground mutterer. I cleaned him up. Wiped off the vomit and the spittle. Found an asylum where the sisters were used to that kind of thing. It was an act of generosity to leave him there. I still tell myself that. It’s true, too, don’t you think?

Maréchal always told me to move to Paris and to attempt, at whatever price, to get hired at a small theatre. He’d say he was certain that, once I got in somewhere, and if I kept working at it, even if it took years, I would end up making a name for myself. So I left Poitiers for Paris—earned my keep by singing. What happened, who I met along the way, is the stuff of legend now. People sing about it in the taverns, just as I once sang of Roland and the old heroes.

A
NOTHER TAVERN
. A
NOTHER TOWN
. Villeperdue, or some such place.

The courtyard is busy—a mail coach just arrived, people everywhere. Chickens. A mottled black pig. Hay waiting to be baled up for winter. Weak sunshine. A group of young men near the stables fancy themselves as chevaliers. Perhaps they are. Their swords are bright in the daylight, hung low on their hips. Their voices are too loud, their hats on a rakish angle—so fashionable in the city just now.

A man rides in—or is it? A woman? Who knows? Slides from his—her—black mare and hands the reins to an ostler. A few copper coins, a quiet word, a grin.

The young men watch carefully.

He—she—can’t get past them—tries to push through. They elbow each other, snigger, shout out.

‘Hey! You there!’

No answer.

‘I say. You!’

The newcomer turns. Sighs. ‘I’m tired. What do you want?’

One young man, golden as Adonis, pretty as a maid, smiles and saunters forward. ‘What kind of creature are you, my pet?’ he says.

Julie knows his sort. Swaddled in silk and lace at birth, so certain the world is his—that she is his.

‘Not your pet,’ she snaps. ‘Not a creature. Leave me alone.’

‘A girl. Indeed!’

‘You are mistaken.’

‘I think not.’

The golden boy flicks back his cape so she can see the hilt of his sword. It’s golden, too. Red leather wrapped around the grip. No scratches, no dents.

‘Let me pass.’

‘Forgive me, mademoiselle, but I can’t. Not until I have the pleasure of an introduction. Such a creature—’

‘Stop saying that.’

‘Oh ho! A firefly, too.’ He laughs and his friends laugh with him. He looks around to make sure they are listening. ‘A girl in breeches, riding alone, picking fights with strange men. Who could have invented such a character?’

‘I have invented myself,’ says Julie. ‘Several times. Now stand aside. I want only my supper.’

‘All in good time, pet.’

‘Enough.’ The blade is out of her scabbard before he can even flinch, its tip at his throat. ‘Stand. Aside.’

He takes a few steps back and draws more slowly. ‘My dear, you really must be more careful. You shouldn’t unsheathe a blade unless you know how to use it.’

Julie wonders if this will be the moment when she kills for the first time. It could be worth it. ‘You shouldn’t unsheathe words unless you’re willing to die for them. Any remark may be your last—at least make it worthy of the effort.’

‘My speech offends you?’

Perhaps she should just slap his pretty, sarcastic face. ‘A fine word for paltry blather.’

‘Then there is nothing else for it but to teach you a lesson.’

‘You may try.
En garde
.’

Everyone stands back. The pair salutes. The young men laugh and shove each other sideways to make a clear space. Laugh even more when the woman assumes a duelling stance.

‘You’re in for it now, d’Albert.’

‘Watch out, Joseph! She looks fierce.’

Only one of the men notices that her stance is like that taught in the palace
salles
, in the Grande Écurie—the classic approach devised by Liancourt and devilishly tricky to master. His smile disappears. A memory from his days as a page—the girl—d’Aubigny’s daughter. It could be …

‘D’Albert, perhaps you shouldn’t—’

‘
En garde
, my pet!’

It’s too late. There is no retreat now.

The young Comte d’Albert is a genius with the smallsword. All his teachers have told him so. He knows it. Five duels so far, and only one wound. That scratch on his arm from the Englishman doesn’t count. This will be amusing.

He begins, as is customary, with a simple glide. She parries. It feels strangely gentle against his blade, although it was so fast he barely saw it.

He attacks again. And again. Laughs.

She doesn’t even smile.

He is used to being adored, to women who tremble under his gaze. But this!

‘My firefly has been taking lessons. Oh ho!’

The firefly waits.

He lunges, tries to slip under her guard but there’s no space there, somehow she closed it off without him noticing; her wrist barely moved and yet the gap—that exquisite target—vanished and instead he is off guard and low down and if she riposted right now he’d be dead.

But she doesn’t. He regains his feet. Laughs again, though not quite so convincingly.

‘Your name, mademoiselle?’

‘Shut up.’ It comes out as a snarl. ‘Fight.’

‘You are something of an Amazon, perhaps?’

There’s no answer.

She waits for him to try again.

He does. Of course he does. They always do. They can’t help it.

He tries a flashy
enveloppement
in mid-lunge that she sees coming as if it was hours in the making. She disengages, ripostes, he counters, she counters, he, she, he, she parries and attacks in one smooth movement to
septime
—and he feels the blade enter his body before he knows she’s thrust.

He smiles wide, joyful, with the blood pouring from his side. ‘You’re a genius, mademoiselle.’ Attempts a bow. ‘Allow me to … forgive me. Louis-Joseph d’Albert de Luynes, honoured to make your—sorry, I can’t—honoured to witness such a formidable
croisé
.’

She looks into his eyes as she always does. There is humility, laughter, the beginning of love. Her smile fastens on to his.

‘Come on,’ she says. ‘Let’s get you bandaged up.’

He’s pale. Still smiling as his knees fold beneath him and he falls into black, into her arms, into a friendship that will never falter. Even unto death.