The Oracle Glass (38 page)

“Madame, it is a crime to jump, and a waste to merely stand still in the cold. Send away your carriage, and I will see you home.” I turned. A man in a crimson wool coat cut in the new style and a heavy mantle faced with gold embroidery stood behind me, studying me. Beneath a blazingly new plumed hat, a dark wig fell to his shoulders. Familiar dark eyes were looking at me with a mixture of distaste, pity, and some hidden grief. It was d'Urbec.

“Monsieur d'Urbec, I cannot walk that far in these clothes,” I said.

“I have an equipage these days—hired by the month from the same establishment yours comes from.” His voice was ironic as he swept off his hat in formal greeting.

“Did you follow me here?” I asked suspiciously.

“Follow you? No. But admit that a woman dressed in widow's weeds of the period of Henri Quatre does draw the eyes of the curious. Especially when she looks to be throwing a rather expensive perfume bottle to the fishes and then stands staring morosely at the water for rather longer than is decent. Tell me, had you planned to drink it yourself?” His voice was quiet.

“No, the scent was too vulgar to bear, that's all.”

“There are better ways to escape the contract of the Queen of the Shadows.”

“The Shadow Queen? Then you call her that, too?”

“It's a term that occurs naturally to the intelligent observer. The Goddess of the Underworld. The Empress of the Witches. The Queen of the Sorceresses. This realm of the Sun King has its dark places, and I am well acquainted with them. How many years did she demand of you for this…ah…prosperity?” He gestured to my black silk dress, the waiting carriage. “Twenty? Seven?”

“Only five, and it's fair, considering what she's done for me.”

“Five? And what happens at the end of five?”

“You think, perhaps, that she collects my soul, like Beelzebub? No—this is a business relationship. We're done, and we go our own ways.”

“Are you so sure? All over town
parfumeuses
, hairdressers, fortune-tellers, and even less-savory occupations are tied to one or another of the powerful ladies of the underworld, of whom yours appears to be the chief. And they give every sign of being tied for life.”

“That's just friendship and mutual assistance. These are business friendships, no different than that of the King's pastry maker. Powerful patronage is a convenience in business just as it is at court.”

“Hey, there—move that carriage. You are blocking the equipage of Cardinal Altieri.”

“So,” he said, handing me into his carriage and turning to offer a tip to my driver for returning home without me, “we must continue our discourse on business methods elsewhere or risk dismemberment for the convenience of the cardinal.” In very little time we were entangled in a mass of drays, laborers, and market women near the Quai de Gèvres.

“Tell me, now that we are alone, while you look me in the face, that that vial was not poison.” He leaned back on the carriage seat to look at me, where I sat opposite him, through half-closed eyes.

“It was,” I said simply. He looked quiet and grim. “I didn't want to have it anymore,” I added. Seeing the look on his face, I tried to be light. “It's simply not the appropriate thing for philosophers.”

“Just how much of you is still philosopher, and how much is witch, these days?” he asked, in a deceptively lazy tone of voice.

“Too much philosopher, too little witch,” I answered.

“In short, small witch, nothing has changed.”

“I suppose you could say so.”

“Except that you are having an affair with Lamotte.” I must have looked surprised. “Come now, you didn't expect me not to know immediately the secret that half of Paris is trying to guess? How flattered you must be to be such a Muse of inspiration, and how pleased he must be when applying his moustache wax in the morning to look in the mirror and exclaim, ‘Who's cleverest now, d'Urbec? Even philosophy pays homage to charm.'” His bitterness frightened me.

“But you…you've changed too. You're so…so prosperous.”

“Merely an application of science to the art of card playing. Having suddenly seen the necessity of becoming extremely rich, I decided to apply a geometric formula I once devised concerning the likelihood of a given card coming into play. I bet accordingly. Sometimes I lose, mostly I win. The ignorant think I have made a pact with the Devil.”

“So your Devil is Reason. How disappointed they would be if they knew.”

“Even if I were to publish the formula on the front page of the
Gazette
de
France
, there are only a half dozen men in Europe intelligent enough to use it, and the majority of them are not interested in cards.”

“You still set a rather high value on intelligence, Monsieur d'Urbec.”

“As well I ought to. The world, society, all are amenable to geometric analysis. I now climb high in society by the simplest of formulae: high-stakes gamblers are welcome everywhere. When I have accumulated enough I shall purchase a couple of tax-farming offices and then enter the greatest gambling salon of all: high finance.”

“I thought you hated people like that.”

“Hate or love will not change the fate of this nation. In the meantime, I know every low byway where the quick money hides. That seems to be the chief advantage of the study of political economy.” He sounded so hard and bitter that even I was shocked.

“Something is wrong with you, Florent. Has something happened to you? What has become of your brother Olivier?”

“As perceptive as ever, Mademoiselle.” His face looked hard. “Olivier is dead. The cleverest of us all. Executed in Marseilles this week past despite every appeal I could mount. His legacy, a cabinet full of plans for new inventions in clockwork, including a new self-lighting fuse for infernal machines. They hanged him like a peasant.” I put my hand to my mouth.

“Oh, I'm sorry.” I could understand now the circles under his eyes, the new gauntness in his face. He sat silently for the rest of the trip, his thoughts in some faraway place, while I looked at my knotted hands. As the carriage drew to a halt before my door, I asked, “Will you come in? Is there something you'd like?” His calculating eyes fixed on me for what seemed like an eternity. His gaze seemed to go straight through me and bite into my backbone.

“There
is
something I'd like, and you've made up my mind for me. I'll not come in. I'm off to the south for a while. Mother needs me. Father has become useless, work flounders without Olivier to direct it, and the entire family is in turmoil. Enjoy Lamotte—at least until you become bored with that turnip he calls a mind.” With cold certainty, I knew that once d'Urbec was gone, Lamotte's interest in me would vanish. Vain, selfish, changeable, charming Lamotte. He had cut his friend to the bone to avenge a slight, and he had used me to do it. My weakness, my foolishness, my illusions. And d'Urbec saw it all.

Silently, he handed me out of the carriage. “Please…please don't think ill of me…” As I looked up at his grim face, I could feel my eyes pricking.

“Surely, Mademoiselle, you who have known so much despair could not fail to recognize it in another.” He ducked his head away from me without a farewell. I stood a long time at the doorstep, watching while his carriage slowly vanished down the rue Chariot.

***

That evening Sylvie brought my books to me as I sat in bed.

“You left these on the seat of your coach this afternoon, Madame, and the stableman's boy brought them over. Do you want me to put them on the shelf?”

“No, give them here, Sylvie. I'll put them on my nightstand.” I picked up the Petronius, but as I began to leaf through it, my eyes began to sting again, and I sniffled.

“Oh, they
are
dusty old things. Here, let me fix them so they won't make you sneeze.” Sylvie picked up Grandmother's Bible and brushed off its covers with the edge of her petticoat. Then she shook it so the pages spattered open and a cloud of dust flew up from the abused book.

“Oh—
Achoo!
—What's this that's come out?”

“Sylvie, plague take you, you've dropped a page out of my grandmother's Bible.”

“Oh no I haven't, Madame. It's got writing on it, not printing.” She handed it to me, and I saw a sheet of Grandmother's letter paper. In her shaky hand, written across the center in black ink, were the words “Cortezia et Benson, Banquiers à Londres.”

“Aha, my dear Marquise, come in, come in—there is someone here I would like you to meet,” the witch queen's voice called from the depths of her brocade armchair. Nanon, wearing a fresh new apron and house cap, had shown me through the front door into Madame's black parlor. The curtains let the pale winter sunshine in through the windowpanes, to impose little rectangles of light upon the fanciful gargoyles in the dark crimson carpet. The entire cabinetful of china angels and cherubs, all freshly dusted, observed the scene with rank upon rank of painted eyes. Two magnificent armchairs, all gold fringe and brocade, were pulled up at the gilded table where Madame read cards, opposite her own dark, carved armchair. The sickly, heavy smell of incense overpowered the pale, sweet beeswax of the eternally lit candles in front of the statue of the Virgin in the corner. Two lanky men in blond wigs and expensive, provincial-looking clothes were seated in the armchairs opposite her gilded table, their legs crossed, sipping wine from silver goblets. What rustics, I thought. Swedish, perhaps—or English. Fresh off the boat, or surely they would see a tailor and have something decent made for their court appearance.

“Milord the Duke of Buckingham and Milord Rochester, allow me to present the Marquise de Morville.” The odd pair rose and bowed in acknowledgment of the introduction.

“The immortal marquise, eh? I heard of you by reputation on my last visit, Madame. I am enchanted to meet you in the flesh. Let me compliment you on the remarkable state of your preservation.” As Buckingham's head rose from bowing over my hand, he inspected my face with a pair of ravaged, debauched blue eyes. I could not determine his age: his own face was a ruin of premature decay, ghost white, lined, set off by a moustache so thin as if drawn on by a child with a pen. His companion took out a lorgnon with which he inspected my complexion. I was careful to remain serious at the droll sight of one peering blue eye, immensely magnified, at the end of a stick. My face never even twitched. Madame smiled maternally all through this process.

“Remarkable! Remarkable!” He walked entirely around me for a better look. “Pity the secret of that compound was lost with the alchemical abbé. You might re-create it in your chemical laboratory, my lord.” Milord, who had seated himself again in the largest armchair, nodded thoughtfully.

“Milord is an alchemist and seeker of some renown,” explained La Voisin to me, looking as contented as the cat that twined itself around her ankles. “He extends his patronage and protection to the most distinguished alchemists and herbalists of Europe.”

“Of whom Madame Montvoisin is one,” observed the duke's companion in a flattering tone, bowing slightly from the waist in her direction.

“I say, we must be going,” observed the duke, rising, as Nanon hastened to bring his heavy mantle and stick. “And you, Madame, do give consideration to my proposal.” Standing, he looked about the black parlor appreciatively, with the eye of a connoisseur. Madame Montvoisin rose with a rustle of silk.

“I have indeed considered and could not fail to accept such a gracious and generous offer of patronage,” she said. “However, I have business I must complete here first”—the two men eyed each other knowingly—“after which, well, I have long craved a healthful sea voyage and a change of climate. Then I will be delighted to reestablish myself in England under your sponsorship.” The duke turned then to me, with a look of polite interest.

“And you, Madame de Morville, are a curiosity of the first order. Should you ever journey to England, be assured of my favor and patronage.” I thanked the duke as graciously as I knew how, as he left in a flurry of courtesies. After all, he meant well. Foreigners never seem to understand how little attraction an island of damp fogs, cut off from civilization, and a provincial little court has for us Parisians, who inhabit the most cultivated, powerful monarchy in the world. The English, after all, know so little of how things are done properly and are so backward in dress and manners. Besides, it is hardly safe there, among those turbulent regicides. Absolutely anything could happen. But then, the thought flashed through my mind, What a delightfully perverse place to conceal good French gold from Colbert, the King's ever more greedy finance minister. A dismal little island where one couldn't even get a proper loaf of bread. It suited Father's sense of humor. Yes, it all made a certain kind of sense. Cortezia et Benson, Banquiers à Londres. When he lay dying, he told Grandmother, expecting she'd outlive him and tell me, no doubt. But she had died first, and the news had been kept from him. I wondered if anything was left of his hoard. Doubtless confiscated or embezzled by now. A joke. Fate is always a joker.

“So that's that until the next visit,” announced La Voisin, turning from the door. “Come into my cabinet, Marquise, I have business with you that must not be overheard. Tell me, how did you get Lamotte to come to you instead of d'Urbec? Have you seen someone else in secret?”

“No, Madame. And I saw d'Urbec last week. He stopped his carriage for me.” I could see her searching my face, trying to tell if her potion were working.

“And I suppose you haven't asked him for the secret of the cards?”

“No, Madame, he boasted about it right away—the secret is mathematical. He says only six men in Europe can understand it, and they aren't interested in cards.” La Voisin looked relieved, as if her supernatural powers still acted with the same force. Then she frowned.

“Mathematical. Damn. Then it is closed to us. I always knew I distrusted that man. Well, never mind. I shall tell my clients it is a pact with the Devil and sell them a Black Mass instead.” As she closed the door of the black parlor door behind us, she turned and squinted suspiciously at my heavy, satin-trimmed velvet dress, my new shoes, and the new sapphire ring that nestled next to the heavy, carved gold one on my right hand. “And has your income fallen off with all this scandalous romancing of yours?” she asked, like some shrewd housewife assessing the fat on a chicken in the market. She took my little account book from my hand, pausing beneath the tapestry of the repentant Magdalen to leaf through it. “I see here a new court dress. New gloves. A velvet cloak. Hat and plumes—rather costly ones—to match. I do hope they are black.”

“My income is better than ever, if you're worried about your share. Besides, I have to keep up appearances, with the sort of people I'm seeing these days. Nobody believes the advice of a poor-looking fortune-teller. It's as if she can't even predict her own fortune.”

“I'm concerned about more than that, my dear,” she said, suddenly leading a rapid pace through the great room behind the parlor. Antoine Montvoisin sat at the dining table in his dressing gown working over a necklace with a pair of tweezers and tiny pliers, removing the stones. With a “click” he dropped one into a tiny metal box. His fat son stood beside him, eating a bun. Marie-Marguerite, his daughter, visibly pregnant, sat knitting, her feet propped up on a stool. She hadn't bothered to marry the magician; that wasn't how things were done in this household.

“Don't breathe on me,” Montvoisin snapped at the boy, who bit into the bun again.

“And now,” said La Voisin, shutting her cabinet door, “the real business.” I didn't like the look on her face as she sat, then motioned me to the stool.

“The Duchesse de Bouillon has paid a visit to me,” she said significantly.

“So? What did she want? A fortune? A love powder for the King?”

“Don't be pert. She wants poison for a rival: the mysterious inspiration of the Chevalier de la Motte's new play. And she is coming to you for a reading to help her determine who the woman is. This time, my dear, you are in even deeper trouble than when you insulted the Duc de Brissac in this very house.”

“Insult? I was very polite. But I did speak the truth.”

“You
are
a fool, then. To Brissac, the truth of his situation from the mouth of a woman is an insult. It was a great deal of trouble restraining him from having you assassinated after that trick. And now, you flaunt one of the duchesse's little toy lovers all over Paris. I tell you, you do not need an enemy of this power.” She stood up suddenly and stared down at me with hard eyes. “She will finish you with no more emotion than she would squash a bug. Remember this, Marquise, that for all you mix in the grand world, you count for nothing in it. No one would even inform the police if you were to vanish tomorrow.” I could hear the blood beating in my ears.

“He's mine. I won't give him up to that pretentious old cow.”

“Listen to me, for a change.” She sat back down again and looked at me intently, as if her black eyes could command my secret will. “You must give him up. Now. And when she comes to you, give her the description of Mademoiselle de Thianges. She knows La Thianges's ambitions lie at the throne. Therefore the duchesse will assume the whole affair is one of Platonic devotion. A certain amount of flattery of the ladies is expected from a man in his position. You will be saved—and so will he. And if you don't care for yourself, at least give a thought to his career, and the perpetuation of those celebrated calves you appear to be so fond of.”

“I'll think about it.” Give André back to the duchesse? When it was
I
who was his inspiration? La Voisin was just jealous, too, now that I was an important beauty.

“You'll
think
about it? Jesus and Mary, you are even stupider than that idiot stepdaughter of mine! I tell you, you'll do it! I won't have my investment spoiled for a ridiculous love affair!” She stood again and went to the locked cabinet where she kept her great green ledgers and her grimoires. “And now, for your accounts—and quit looking at me that way. You can't out plot a Mancini, any more than that English milord can.”

“He's plotting?” She took my curiosity for acquiescence. Good. André would stay mine.

“Oh, he schemes constantly. Ever since he fell from favor with the English king, he plots with the French court. Now here, now there. He flits all over Europe, trying to get his power back.” She turned and fluttered her fingertips as if they were bird wings and she were a disgraced courtier fluttering like a migrant swallow over the cities of Europe. Madame did have a sense of humor, even if it was not the ordinary sort. “Every so often, he stops by for a Black Mass to assist him. This morning I read his cards and told him he'd land in jail if he didn't restrain himself. But of course, dukes don't listen to good advice any more than girls do.” She took the
P
ledger from the cabinet, set it on her desk, and sighed. “But I keep him happy. He's my retirement, if things become uncomfortable here. Though they'd have to be uncomfortable indeed for me to wish to live in such a damp, backward place as England.”

I left with my accounts settled and my mind made up. I had not the slightest intention of giving up Lamotte. After all, I'd gotten him the hard way, by sacrificing my honor on several levels altogether, and he was mine at least until he found out d'Urbec had left town. The more I thought about it, the more reasonable it seemed. He made my insides race. I'd wanted him for years, and there was no reason to cut it off now. I would defy the world with my passion. That was, after all, what Théodora would have done. Who knows? Perhaps some trace of the blood of the ancient empress really did run in my veins.

***

“Your mask again, Madame? Don't you ever grow weary of defying fate? I saw in the cards that you are crossed by the Queen of Swords. Give up this insane passion. A man who makes love to older women for their money is not a proper lover for you.”

“Fortune-telling again, Sylvie? I thought that was my specialty. Or does Madame pay you to issue dire warnings at two-week intervals? Hand me my walking stick. Did you call my carriage, or must I ask Gilles?” My toilette was magnificent. Amber silk pulled back to expose a petticoat of deep brown taffeta whose folds glittered with a somber gold light. A wide-brimmed hat in the cavalier's style, lavishly trimmed with green and brown plumes sat rakishly above my dark curls. I didn't look in the least like the Marquise de Morville in her antique black brocade and tiny veiled widow's cap. The stiff, domineering little lady couldn't be seen at all in the glass before me. Even through the crimson stain across the mirror's face, the masked woman in the glass looked young, elegant, rich and raffish. I liked the look.

“At least have Mustapha follow you at a distance. If you are slain, there'll be hell to pay with Madame.”

“Slain?
Phoo!
Who'd assassinate a woman in the street? Queens of Swords are more subtle than that. Besides, if I'm dead, I'll hardly have to worry about Madame, will I?”

“Then at least use a taster at your rendezvous. Powerful women have friends everywhere, especially in kitchens.”

“I'll think about it. Now, the carriage?”

Sylvie sighed. “It's at the door, Madame.”

Her warnings only increased my zest for the adventure. My skin tingled; my pulse drummed in my ears. Twisted motives, madness, danger—none of it mattered. A moment's pleasure snatched with the handsomest man in Paris made me feel like the most beautiful woman in the world. I loved that feeling. I cared about nothing else.

My equipage rattled past the flickering lamps of the Marais and onward, then plunged into the maze of narrow, unlighted streets near l'église de la Merci, a district of all-night gambling dens, flashy bordellos, and home of every vice for a price. Here the members of the Shadow Queen's philanthropic society plied their trades without hindrance. Here also, the silent partners of great financiers and nobles operated money-making establishments in a totally discreet fashion. Lamotte, who understood almost nothing of this world, had made arrangements for our meeting in one of the private upper rooms of Mademoiselle la Boissière's fashionable establishment at the corner of the rue de Braque and the rue du Chaume. Here, in what the police so unkindly called “
un lieu de débauche
,” out-of-town dandies, businessmen and officers on the prowl, and the slumming sprigs of the aristocracy could find music, women, and cards at any hour of the day or night. And among all the mysterious, beautiful women, I felt myself the most beautiful and mysterious of all. It was intoxicating.