Enchantée

by Gita Trelease

  “Why is it so quiet?” she asked. “What’s happened?”

  Again the bird sang out, its call echoing as if over open ground.

  “Where are we? Where have you taken me?” Camille reached for the curtain but Séguin caught her hand.

  “In such a hurry to see your sister? I understand, ma chère, I truly do.” He brought her hand to his mouth and kissed the inside of her wrist. “There’s just one bit of business I need to attend to before we can go see her. It shouldn’t take long.” Séguin knocked on the ceiling of the carriage and the coachman opened the door. Camille tried to see past him, but he filled the doorway as he got out.

  Camille dug her fingers into the pile of the seat cushion, steadying herself. Carefully, she reached into her pocket and took out the shard of mirror. It glinted in her hand as she closed her fingers around it. As she stepped down, she gave her other hand to Séguin, who stood waiting by the door.

  They were not in Paris.

  Instead they stood at the edge of a cow pasture. Mist rose, wraithlike, off the damp ground. At the field’s far edge, a grove of trees made a screen against the sky. Close by, under a spreading oak, several horses were hobbled, rhythmically cropping grass. A few people stood near them, their silhouettes vague against the flat grays of dawn. One of them wore the bright blue of a cavalry officer’s uniform. As the fog wavered and thinned, he looked her way.

  Foudriard.

  Her breath came in short, shallow gasps. She could not think why he would be here.

  Close by in the long grass, a divan chair, and in it a reclining figure. Chandon.

  No.

  There was no other word in her mind, no other sound, as a lanky boy rose smoothly from a crouch to stand next to Foudriard. She knew him, too. His back was toward her, and in his hand he held a sword, a silver slash in the mist. His hair was midnight, and as Foudriard put his hand on the boy’s black coat and said something to him, he turned around.

  Lazare.

  Helplessly, she watched as he took in the carriage, Séguin, her hand in his—all of it. In his deep brown eyes flashed pain and bewilderment. He tried to take a step forward, but Foudriard held him back.

  “Camille?” he faltered.

  “What is this?” she said to Séguin. “What are you doing?”

  “Come, madame, you are cleverer than that. This is the duel Sablebois demanded, don’t you remember?”

  It was as if he’d hit her. She stepped back, trying to understand. “You cannot—”

  “I can. And I will.”

  Above Séguin’s cravat, a strip of bare skin showed. A tender, vulnerable place. She closed her hand more tightly around the shard. “I forbid it. I won’t—”

  His clipped laughter rang across the field. “You have no choice. You will sit and watch. Do you know how a duel plays out? It is nothing like two boys drawing swords by a shrubbery in the gardens at Versailles. We will choose our weapons and face off. One of our seconds—the Baron de Foudriard for him or the Chevalier Lasalle for me—will call for us to start. Then we will fight, and one of us will win.”

  The warning came back to her once more, unbidden: Séguin cheats.

  “There are rules, of course,” he went on, “because what is a nobleman without rules and honor? He who draws first blood is the winner. He may stop the fight then, if he chooses. Or if he allows, the duel goes on, until one of us yields.” Séguin closed his hand around Camille’s, the one that held the shard.

  “And if he does not yield?”

  He squeezed Camille’s hand. Tight, tighter, until the shard bit into her palm. Pain raced from her hand through her arm to her shoulder. With an effort, she forced her hand open. The shard fell to the ground. Blood limned its edges.

  Camille’s hand oozed scarlet, and underneath the smear of blood ran a deeper, wine-dark gash where the glass had cut her. She pressed it to her skirts to stop the bleeding. In response, the dress rippled against her palm.

  Séguin leaned closer, his voice slippery as silk. “And if he does not yield? I will kill him. Just think of all the sorrow I will take from you then. It could last years. A lifetime.”

  Over Séguin’s shoulder, she saw Foudriard throw his arm around Lazare’s shoulders and walk him away. He glanced back at her, his face anguished.

  “Go stand with the others,” Séguin told her. “I need to choose my weapon.” With a smile of satisfaction, he stepped on the mirror shard and ground it underfoot. He then strode through the grass ten or fifteen paces to where his second, the Chevalier Lasalle, stood waiting beside a stack of black sword cases.

  Her hand had stopped bleeding, but it ached. Worse was the damage to the shard of glass. She stooped and tentatively parted the grass. Most of it was gone, smashed into pebble-sized fragments, but one or two longer pieces remained. As she picked the largest one up, it flickered in her hand, like silver.

  Something from nothing.

  Slowly, she made her way to where the other people stood. They took in every detail—readying it for court gossip, Camille guessed, and she could just hear, among the whispered words: magician.

  Chandon could not rise from his chair when she approached. Less than two days had passed since Séguin’s party, but Chandon was already much, much worse. Whatever Séguin had done to him—was doing to him—had blanched his skin and carved the flesh from under his cheekbones. Once impeccably fitted, his pearl-gray suit hung painfully loose, though he still wore his sword on a flamingo-orange sash. His hair was streaky with stale powder and greasy pomade. And his smile, when he saw Camille, was sad, the stretched smile of an old man.

  “How quickly things have changed, madame, in just a handful of hours,” he said without his usual spark. “I fear congratulations are in order?”

  Camille fell to her knees by his chair. “I have married him,” she choked. “To save my sister. I fear it was the wrong thing to do.”

  “Oh, ma petite. We do our best, don’t we? You his wife, and I his sorrow-well, one dance-step from the grave, and all to protect—as best we can—those we love. How low the mighty are fallen. Both of us pawns, and—apparently—neither of us very good at chess.”

  Camille threw her arms around him and pressed her face against his shoulder. “I don’t know what to do.”

  “We’re gamblers, aren’t we?” He coughed. “We’ll find something to turn to our advantage.” He did not sound certain.

  “But Lazare is the finer swordsman, isn’t he?” Camille said, hoping that by saying it she made it true.

  “Everyone knows it but Séguin. He’s too blinded by the color of Lazare’s skin to recognize how much his superior our boy is.” Chandon gestured across the field to the trees. “Here he comes now.”

  * * *

  There was not much time.

  Lazare stood so close that their bodies almost touched, the air between them charged, like a living thing. His beautiful face was utterly razed. “You came here with him?”

  “Yes,” she managed.

  “Was it our fight at Versailles? You could not forgive me?” He clenched his hands into fists. “I cannot forgive myself.”

  “Hush,” she said, softly. She glanced to where Séguin and Lasalle were examining the sword-cases. “Séguin convinced Sophie to agree to marry him. She believed it was love, but it was his way to control me. I’ve only made things worse. He will be able to torture us both, to get what he wants.” She wanted to embrace him, feel the safety of his arms around her, but instead, she squared her shoulders.

  “And what does he want?”

  “Me.” Her voice was flat. “I told you. He’s a magician.”

  “But not like you?”

  Camille heard the hope in his voice. “A magician—even I—needs sorrow to work magic, either the magician’s sorrow or someone else’s. To save himself the pain, Séguin used Chandon. By threatening to have Foudriard sent away, he inflicted misery on Chandon so he could use his sorrow. That’s what they fought over, that time when we played cache-cac
he. Chandon is nearly dead from it. He’ll use me next, until I become a husk.” A sob gripped her throat. “Until I am gone.”

  Lazare took her face in his hands. “Look at me, Camille. You are not next. I swear it. Do you hear me? I swear it.”

  Lazare’s honor was fierce and righteous, but how could it mean anything against someone like Séguin?

  “You must go,” Camille said. “He will see—it will be worse for both of us—”

  Lazare’s eyes were nearly black with emotion. “I will not let this happen.”

  She thought of Sophie, hidden somewhere, waiting to be married; Séguin’s lips and teeth on her own cheek as he drank her tears; the altar boy with the marriage contract in his hand vanishing into the shadows. “But how, Lazare? He is a magician. He cheats at everything. He wants to kill you.”

  “Not if I kill him first.” That easy smile.

  Oh, Lazare. “You’ll do this for me? Even though I am a magician? If the king finds out, you will be outlawed, punished, your reputation ruined—”

  Slowly, lovingly, he traced the line of her cheekbone with his thumb. “Since that night—when we fought—I’ve learned I never cared for those things. I only thought I did.”

  He was about to say something more when Foudriard called him. They were waiting.

  65

  For a moment, all was stillness.

  Not even a bird sang.

  Lazare and the Vicomte de Séguin faced one another, one fair, one dark. Ten brief paces between them.

  An impossible distance.

  Yet nothing at all.

  The seconds—the Baron de Foudriard and the Chevalier Lasalle—waited apart, each at one end of the field. A soft dawn wind tugged at their raven cloaks. Next to them on the ground, sword cases lay open, gleaming blades nestled against red cloth. In each one, an empty space.

  Séguin’s face was statue-still, a mask of poise. With the slightest of gestures, he indicated Camille should cross the field to stand on his side.

  She gave a fierce shake of her head: no. He would have to come over and drag her if he wanted her to leave her friends. When he saw her refuse, he set his shoulders back, nothing more.

  Unlike Séguin, Lazare had stripped off his coat. Dressed in his waistcoat and white chemise, he seemed young and somehow small. Camille always thought of him as so grown-up, but beneath the wide sky, he looked his seventeen years. Vulnerable. The breeze played in his hair; his face was alive with intent as he raised his sword. With a terrible pang, Camille realized that this was not simply an act demanded by aristocratic rules of behavior. For centuries aristocrats fought duels to settle conflicts. It had been their way of being above the courts, above the law. But this was something else. This was a fight to the death.

  Didn’t you hear what Séguin called me?

  Sauvage.

  Behind the two still figures, fog lifted off the lake in loose gray skeins. Drops of water pattered from the leaves. Séguin raised his sword. Camille clenched her fingers around Chandon’s arm.

  “Allez!” shouted the Chevalier Lasalle.

  The world was sliced open.

  Lazare ran, swinging his sword. Séguin leaped forward to meet him.

  The blades rang out as they parried, each boy cutting and blocking, stabbing at the soft places that opened up: a rib cage under a coat, an arm. Lunging forward, Lazare caught Séguin’s blade with his and wrested it to the ground. For a moment, the blades were almost still, grinding against one another. With a grunt, Séguin threw off Lazare’s sword and paced away, unconcerned about turning his back to Lazare. As always, there was no discomfort in his face—only an absolute and terrifying certainty.

  He pivoted on his heel and they charged again, each of them slashing, striking. Séguin swung at Lazare’s head—Foudriard shouted—and Lazare ducked. The blows kept coming, steel on steel.

  But there was something wrong with Lazare’s sword. Deep notches appeared in its edge, as if it were made of some lesser metal. Worried, Camille said, “Chandon, what’s happening to his blade?”

  “I don’t know.” He sounded bewildered. “A cheat of Séguin’s, some magic I have never seen.”

  As Séguin ran at him, Lazare feinted and sliced through Séguin’s coat, but drew no blood. Over and over again, Lazare slashed at his opponent. Each time, Séguin slipped away like fog. Then he moved in, methodically cutting at the places that Lazare, in his fury, left exposed.

  Throat.

  Heart.

  Flank.

  But his blade did not meet flesh or bone and Séguin got no closer to Lazare. The next time Séguin raised his sword, Lazare jumped to the side, and struck, his blade hissing through Séguin’s sleeve and slicing the palm of his hand. Séguin put it to his mouth to stop the bleeding.

  “Arrêtez!” the Chevalier Lasalle shouted. “First blood!”

  Breathing hard, poised on his toes, Lazare waited to see Séguin’s reaction. But Séguin did not listen to Lasalle calling for him to stop. He did not even hesitate. Taking advantage of the pause in the action, he lunged forward again, cutting Lazare across the chest. Lazare pressed his hand against his torn chemise; his fingers came away sticky, crimson.

  “Stop!” shouted Foudriard as he ran toward them, pulling his own sword.

  But Lazare rushed at Séguin as if the world and its rules were nothing now. Wielding his sword like a whip, Lazare struck Séguin’s weapon so violently it fell from his hand. Séguin stumbled backward and slipped in the wet grass, his hands out behind him.

  His face went white with rage.

  Ten paces away, Lazare paused, sword in hand, smoldering.

  They stared at one another, tense as wires. Lazare—bright, fearless, bloody—had bested Séguin.

  It was over. Lazare was alive, safe.

  On the other side of the lake, in front of the green wall of trees, the mist brightened.

  The Chevalier Lasalle stepped between the duelists. “Marquis de Sablebois, you drew first blood. The duel is finished. Still, I must ask: do you consider your grievance settled?”

  Lazare ignored Lasalle. Instead, he pointed his notched sword at Séguin’s upturned face. “Get up, cheater,” he growled. “Stand up so I can kill you.”

  As he climbed to his feet, Séguin’s face twitched in a horrible smile.

  “Wait, Monsieur de Sablebois.” The chevalier’s face creased with confusion. “The rules say you must put down your sword and declare yourself: are you satisfied?”

  Somewhere, a blackbird sang out. Lazare held his sword upright, his left arm curved up behind him for balance. Ready.

  In Lazare—proud, determined, brave—she saw worlds of shadow and pain and heartbreak. His father, his divided self. And Séguin, who had cheated them both. He had denied them the happiness they wanted. He had denied them one another.

  Sensing her sorrow, the dress embraced her. Its memories streamed through Camille: other duels, other men, young and old, handsome and rich, grievances and hate and love and warm blood pooling around still bodies—all the dress had witnessed. And the shiver of its voice in her mind: I am armor. It is not over.

  Camille met Lazare’s eyes, trying to say silently everything she was thinking. He nodded and lowered his sword. “I am satisfied, Monsieur Lasalle.”

  A sigh rippled through the observers; someone clapped.

  “As far as my own honor is concerned,” he continued. “But I cannot leave Camille Durbonne and her sister Sophie in the Vicomte de Séguin’s keeping. If I’m to be satisfied, he must free them. Before all these people.”

  Against Camille’s skin, the dress stirred. Agitated. Camille tensed, waiting.

  Lazare cleared his throat. “Release them and this is finished.”

  Séguin looked pityingly at Lazare. “Madame gave herself willingly to me. Is that not so?”

  Lazare’s face filled with confusion, disbelief. Camille moved her head a fraction: no.

  “She did,” Séguin purred. “She is my wife and there is no law in
France that will let her leave me. She is bound to me utterly, in body if not yet in soul. Imagine that, Sablebois. My hands on her. She always by my side, in my bed. You thought she loved you? You have lost her forever.”

  Séguin’s dangerous smile was a weapon. But it was something else, too. With a sharp stab of understanding, she suddenly knew: Séguin needed her.

  Lazare swayed, as if uncertain about where he might go next, and then sank to one knee in the slick, crumpled grass. He dropped his head into his hand.

  Behind his back, Séguin’s bronze stare brightened, the way a knife does when it is honed.

  She saw it and understood: there was no world in which Séguin would let her go.

  From inside his waistcoat Séguin pulled a dagger, its hilt heavy with jewels, the blade’s tip forked like a serpent’s tongue. The acrid scent of magic poured off it like smoke.

  Camille reached in her pocket for the piece of glass.

  She remembered Alain putting his knife to her throat, how she held still to save herself and Sophie, and all the things that came after that, sorrows unspooling like thread into endless night. She refused to go back to that place where she had nothing.

  Magic was not something apart from her, something she could give up. It was the power of her deepest feeling. The power of who she was. And from nothing, she would make something.

  She uncurled her fingers. In her palm lay a glass knife, nearly invisible, its edges already bright with her own blood.

  Séguin sprang at Lazare.

  Everything slowed.

  Camille wrenched forward, racing for the closing space between them. Her shoes slid on the wet grass. To the left, blurry, she sensed Lazare stand up. Foudriard running, both of them shouting.

  As she flung herself between Lazare and Séguin, her glass knife outstretched, she hazarded one last bet, based only on the look on Séguin’s face: he would not kill her.