The Porcelain Dove (43 page)

Certainly I did not, snubbed by my friends and neighbors, at odds with my mistress, forced to pick up rags and tags of gossip by hiding in the church-porch after Mass. That's how I heard Marie had swelled again, listening to the midwife mère Charreton talk it over with her cronies. 'Twas the feast of St. Michael, as I remember it, and Marie had not been to church in months, though her husband came as faithfully as ever with the eldest of his great brood of children.

"Seven children, all alive!" I remember Mme Pyanet saying. "And an eighth even now knocking at the gate of her womb. Best stitch her up when you deliver her, gossip Charreton, or there'll be a plague of Malatestes."

Mère Charreton shook her head and sighed. She was Jacques Charreton's wife, a woman of middle age, round and soft as a new cheese. A wise-wife, not a witch. The grannies tended to grumble at her—too young, they said, too full of ideas—but they took their aching joints to her all the same. She'd gentle hands and a tongue that wagged at both ends.

"'Tis big for a famine-got child," she said, "and she carries it low. God send it be the last."

"Twins," said mère Boudin darkly. "I hear the cows are all dropping 'em, and the sows, too. 'Tis all part of the wizard's curse, mark my words."

Now, twins didn't sound like a curse to me, more like a blessing—for the owners of the cows and pigs, at least, if not for
Marie. I didn't say so, of course. The women suffered my presence only so long as they'd no need to acknowledge it.

Mme Pyanet told Boudin to watch her tongue. "If the curé hears you," she said, "you'll hardly be off your knees before Candlemas. Haven't you heard him? Le bon Dieu tries us only to strengthen us. There are no fairies and no wizards, and therefore there are no curses and no spells."

Mère Boudin squinted up her little pig's eyes and snorted. "No curses, ye say? Hasn't him up to the château had little enough luck since a certain ragged man ill-wished him? Hasn't your grain been turning black and your cheeses sour? That bull of your husband's, Mme Mareschal, did he get any calves last spring? And just last month, didn't mère Charreton here deliver your young cousin's wife of a hedgehog? What's that, eh? A blessing?"

The women turned as one to look at the midwife, who crossed herself and shuddered. " 'Tis ill-luck to speak of it," she said, just as though she hadn't told and retold it, wondered at it and exclaimed over it a thousand times. "I vow I rejoiced when he died, for surely he was no human creature, all wizened as he was, and his backbone starting—"

She broke off as the curé descended from the bell tower. He acknowledged the women's curtsies with a vaguely-sketched blessing and, turning to enter the church, brushed against me where I had tucked myself discreetly into an alcove. He started, squinted into the shadow, and said: "Ah, Mlle Duvet! You may carry a message to M. Maindur for me. Abbot Boniface wrote last week from Baume-les-Messieurs—I think 'twas last week—and bid me tell him, what was it? Words of comfort and wisdom, anyway—I remember I was much moved when I read them. He counseled patience, patience certainly, and faith—I remember that much."

"That is sure to comfort him," I said. "Thank you, mon père."

His brow knotted to a careful frown. "Those were not his
ipsissima verba
, you understand. The letter itself . . . But wait!" The frown unhitched. "I'll give you the letter to take to him. Now I think on it, 'twas addressed to him—or rather, 'twas inside a greater letter to me, on parish matters. Because M. le duc has forbidden me to speak with M. Maindur, I could not see my way, but if
you
might, Mlle Duvet?" He bestowed upon me a look of hopeful entreaty.

"Of course, mon père."

He smiled joyfully. "I'll just go bring it, shall I? 'Tis on my desk,
waiting to be answered. At least the greater letter is, and I suppose the note to be with it. If you'll be so kind as to wait just a little moment, Mlle Duvet?"

He meant well, the curé of Beauxprés. He brought a sweet voice to the Mass and a gentle heart to the confessional. His sermons were soothing as lullabies. On the other side of the balance, the rats in the choir had more silver than he, and more courage besides, so that when a great storm destroyed the standing corn just before harvest, he did nothing for his parishioners save pray and starve with them.

The storm now, that was certainly the work of the beggar's curse, however the curé might deny it. Bien sûr, there'd been storms at harvesttime before, but not on the heels of the death of every cow in the ducal herd. One day they were grazing on the farther terrace, chewing their cuds and tail-swatting flies as usual. The next day, they were belly-bloated and dead as earth. Monsieur's cowman was at a loss to account for their deaths, unless they were fairy-struck or spirit-bit; and though Sangsue raged, he couldn't for his life find a way of blaming him. The day after
that
, the heavens opened and poured rain down upon the cornfields of Beauxprés, along with hailstones the size of pigeon's eggs, and wind and thunder grinding and groaning like the hunt of Hell.

Loud were the lamentations in the village of Beauxprés over the battered corn. It couldn't have been a natural storm, they said, not so violent, not so disastrously timed. Around the well, the women whispered of a dark figure seen riding the clouds, rain streaming from his hands and hair, spitting hail down upon the fields. In the kitchen, the lackeys muttered of a man in a cloak seen stirring the frog-fountain with a wand.

I don't know how monsieur got wind of these rumors, or indeed whether he heard them at all. Perhaps the tutors simply advised him, or he'd reasoned out on his own, that M. Justin was as ready to begin his quest as he'd ever be. In any case, a day or so later, monsieur called his remaining servants into the hall and announced that the chevalier de Malvoeux would be setting out next morning in search of the Porcelain Dove.

If he'd told us the cows had risen from the dead, we couldn't have been more incredulous. The chevalier de Malvoeux, indeed! You can't change a lamb's nature simply by throwing a gray pelt over its woolly shoulders and calling it a wolf.

Behind me, someone spat. Monsieur stiffened and glared over my shoulder. "You spoke, Dentelle? To wish my son well, perhaps?"

"No, monsieur." Dentelle's sneer—directed at his master, at least—was almost as astonishing as Brother Justin's sudden knighthood. I turned to stare at him. He was mouthing like a landed fish with rage.

"No and No, and a thousand times No, monsieur!" he gasped. "I spit upon your son. Your son is a puling worm, monsieur, a blot upon the proud name of Malvoeux. I am ashamed, monsieur, ashamed of serving a house so fallen into desuetude, so dwindled in power and honor, so . . . "

"Blot?" Monsieur shrieked. "Worm?" He wrenched his épée from its scabbard and stooped upon the little valet like a falcon on a mouse. Dentelle squealed and fled, the rest of us scattered to the four winds, and that's the last I saw of Dentelle.

If he hadn't taken a horse, I'd have watched the ornamental water for his body. As it was, I imagined him riding ventra-à-terre through the Forêt des Enfans until the wolves or the sorcerers got him. I also imagined him losing both horse and life to more ordinary brigands. What I couldn't imagine was Dentelle serving anyone other than a Malvoeux. I didn't miss him, you understand, nor was I sorry to see him go. But I give the little bantam his duc: he put his honor before his comfort, and if his honor killed him, then he died an honest man.

It rained when the chevalier Justin de Malvoeux finally set out upon his quest, just enough to dampen what little ceremony the occasion might have warranted. Fleurette, unhappy under traveling harness, a rolled blanket, and saddlebags, stood with her nose to the ground between two stolid geldings similarly accoutred. The household once gathered in the forecourt, monsieur led the reluctant chevalier out onto the front steps, embraced him formally, and released him. Justin, with a donkey's air of being too dispirited to move, stood with his hands thrust into the deep pockets of his practical buckram coat. Monsieur gestured impatiently, and the tutors bore Justin down the steps to the waiting horses, boosted him like a sack of washing onto Fleurette's back, then swung up on their own mounts, where they sat with their hats pulled down over their eyes and their pistols at their saddlebows, as villainous a pair of brigands as you'd ever wish to see.

As for Justin, he sat on Fleurette like a condemned man on a cart, his lips silently moving and his fingers caressing a rosary of black
beads. Le bon Dieu knows where he'd found it, or how he'd managed to keep it concealed, but there it was, and there he was,
pater nostering
upon it in his father's teeth.

Monsieur clenched his fists. Justin clung to his rosary. Madame wept. Linotte looked out over the fields to the forest and smiled to herself. I can't remember which of them I wanted to shake hardest.

A very dreary send-off, to be sure: almost enough to make me regret the vicomte de Montplaisir. He may have been a devil escaped from Hell, but for a moment, at least, he'd been a dashing devil. I suspect Reynaud coached him, for M. Léon would never have thought of the business of kneeling on the steps to take his sword from monsieur, or of kissing the hilt and swearing a mighty oath to find the Porcelain Dove or die in the attempt. Rising, he'd embraced his father, his mother, and his sister, then pelted down the steps and onto Branche d'Or's back, wheeling him on his haunches and galloping off down the drive with Reynaud in scrambling pursuit. The sun shone and a crowd stood by of peasants and grooms and gardeners and lackeys, all waving and cheering his departure with a good will. It didn't mean much except they were glad to see the back of him, but it looked well.

Had Mme d'Aulnoy written the scene, she'd not have changed a thing. Well, perhaps Linotte might not have turned her face from her brother's lips and run away without giving him the blessing he asked. The rest was perfect, down to the proud tears in monsieur's eyes.

There were no tears in monsieur's eyes when Justin left, only rain. "Find the Dove, my son," he said sternly. "The future of our house depends upon it."

"Yes, monsieur."

There was a pause. "Where will you ride?" asked monsieur.

"To the Forêt des Enfans, monsieur."

"Do you have any reason for your choice?"

Justin sighed. " 'Tis as good a direction as any, and better than my brother's."

Monsieur's face, which had been stone before, turned adamant. Any fool could have seen that he was feeling much, but 'twould take a greater fool than I to presume to guess what he felt. I dare say 'twas not regret, however, or pity for the son he almost certainly sent to his death.

Beside me, Linotte murmured, "Good. It took, then." Catching my eye upon her, she stiffened, then most reluctantly whispered, "He'll come to no harm, Berthe. Pompey will take care of him."

Well. You may imagine how I gaped at her, and how the speculations roiling in my head kept my attention from what was going forward. I remember vaguely that monsieur made a speech and madame clung to Justin's stirrup and wept over his boot until monsieur came down and pried her away. And I remember thinking how like an ancient martyr Justin looked, trotting away between two stolid guards to be stoned or crucified or buried alive.

The pathetic cortège disappeared among the chestnuts, came into sight again at the foot of the hill, and rode west to where the Forêt des Enfans thrust its shaggy green paw down into the ravaged meadows. Watching, I thought I saw a flash like a beacon upon the peak of the wooded hill and the horses surging forward to follow it. 'Twas far away, I know, yet I thought the tutors vanished before they were quite in the forest. Oh, and I'm sure I saw a black bird balancing on the wind below the clouds.

'Tis only fair to say that Jean swears he saw nothing like this, that there was nothing to see, that—given the rain and the distance—I couldn't have seen it even if there were, that my memory is pure, or rather impure, invention fed by hindsight and special knowledge. Well, that may be true or it may not. 'Tis equally true that I gave no further thought to Justin's fate nor pressed Linotte to explain her remark about Pompey. And if that isn't magic, I'd like to know what is.

Unlike his brother, the chevalier Justin de Malvoeux never wrote to ask his father for money. In fact, he never wrote at all. After Justin rode under the trees of the Forêt des Enfans in the rain, he disappeared as utterly as if he'd stepped into another world. We waited a month, six months, a year, and then we—or at least, I—gave up all thought of seeing him again. I don't pretend to know what hopes or fears my master and mistress may have harbored in their breasts, for they did not confide in me. I suspect they assumed him dead.

My mistress took to her bed, having—I'd almost written "enjoyed"—a rising degree of ill-health since her mother's death. She slept uneasily, demon-lulled, and suffered from constant migraines, cramps, and violent palpitations that could be relieved only by a tincture of laudanum in plain water, taken twice or thrice a day. Month by month, year by year, the tincture strengthened: six drops, twelve drops, twenty drops, forty, a hundred. She grew languorous and heavy-eyed, and her naps ran together like driblets of thick honey. Often she tossed and moaned in her dreams. When she woke, she wept; and if I asked her
why she wept, she'd only say that she was weary and her head hurt and I fretted her unbearably.

Thus my mistress. And monsieur? Well, monsieur vanished, though not as utterly as his sons. We knew where he was, after all: in the aviary. 'Twas not altogether madness, for the bird-handlers—those that were left—had quit in a body at the first sprinkling of snow. Quit, I say, though they gave no notice of their leaving and took with them a pair of showy birds-of-paradise and four souimangas. Monsieur berated Sangsue, threw things, threatened to pursue the bird-keepers and hang them, and so on in his usual manner. Then he flew off to the aviary and there spent the winter caring for the remaining birds alone.

This hermitage of my master's made nonsense of my mistress' sudden notion that her apartment must be locked at night and a chest pulled across the door.