Beast

by Lisa Jensen

  “Yes!” she cries as my heart sinks. “Oh, yes, Sir . . . Sir . . .”

  “I am only a knight at court, my dear,” he tells her with a gentle smile. “In private life to my intimates, I am simply Jean-Loup.”

  “Jean-Loup,” she murmurs, savoring the taste of it.

  The chevalier gets to his feet with enough vigor that I realize Beast must not yet have drunk much from the bottle. Jean-Loup shakes the petals out of his cloak and throws it back over his shoulders. He stretches out both hands to Rose. She places hers eagerly in his, and he draws her to her feet. He kisses each of her hands in turn, pauses, then draws her one step closer. She does not protest. He leans forward, seeks her mouth with his, and kisses her slowly. He lets go of her hands, and his own hands reach for her waist.

  “Jean-Loup,” she murmurs, but then she presses him an inch away.

  “Rose,” he whispers urgently into her hair. “Marry me now, today!”

  “But there’s so much to do!” she exclaims. “People to invite, arrangements to be made. We must tell my family and post the banns. I must have a dress!”

  He gazes down at her and says nothing for a moment. “Of course, my dear,” he murmurs, “whatever you wish. Only let it be soon.”

  He takes her arm and turns to propel her back to the château. Only then do I realize I’m no longer free to watch in anonymity. Stripped of my own enchantment, I’m but a plain, dull girl again, a voyeur to their perfect romance. I am the intruder now.

  I stumble back for the protection of the rosebushes, keeping out of their sight. Not that Rose would likely take any notice of me; she has eyes only for her handsome chevalier. I might as well still be a candlestick, for all the difference it makes to her. Jean-Loup sweeps her to the far end of the row, out onto the gravel, and up the drive under the archway of roses. And I am left to huddle here alone, choking on my misery. I’ve regained my human heart only to feel it shatter.

  They climb the front steps and disappear together into the château. I wander down to the place where Beast so recently lay, the moss crushed flat under the canopy of blooms, almost as if he lay there still, but invisible. After turning away, I see a glittering in the gravel track nearby — the ring with the tiny red heart, forlornly cast off, its long red ribbon stretching away across the tiny stones. For Beast’s sake, I crouch down and pick up the ring that seemed to mean so much to him. It brought him comfort, he told me. I close my fist around it, squeeze it tightly, and feel warmth and courage stealing into me. There is power in this ring. I can feel it.

  But for all its power, the ring cannot bring Beast back.

  I spread open the red ribbon, slide it on around my neck, and tuck the ring into my bodice. Rising on my unsteady limbs, I gaze up one last time at the magnificence of Château Beaumont. Then I hurry to the far end of this row and up the side path until I gain the horse track that leads across the side moat and around to the back of the château. Past the well, I begin to run through the green trees of the park and deeper into the black wood beyond, away from the château, away from the happy couple. But I can’t run away from myself, my thoughts.

  Beast is gone! That noble soul, that gallant heart, gone forever. All of his wisdom, kindness, humanity, now lost.

  That foolish girl, that beauty, has won her storybook prince. But I have lost Beast.

  It’s dark night when I arrive at the side of the river; it bubbles and boils in agitation to match my own turbulent mood. But I’m no longer the ignorant, timorous chit I was the first time I came here. I know the forces that work in this wood much better now, appreciate their power and their mystery.

  “Mère Sophie,” I murmur, “show yourself.”

  And the dark little hut of thatch and bramble sprouts like a mushroom on the riverbank only a few paces away. I walk to the low, arched front door with its mysterious carvings, turn the handle, and gently nudge it open; that the cottage appeared at all is invitation enough to enter. All is as I remember inside: the same warming fire, the same tidy kitchen corner, the same calico cat purring happily among the bed pillows. Mère Sophie wears the same grey gown, tending a pot of something on a hook over the fire. Simmering meats and slow-cooking beans, a snap of thyme, a pungent hint of mustard, all release their fragrance, and my newborn human stomach responds with a twinge of longing. Mère Sophie does not look up as I enter.

  “Finished, is it?” she mutters over her pot. “Happily ever after, I suppose?”

  And all my resolve, my outrage, drains out of me in a great torrent of misery, and I burst into tears like a child.

  “Oh, hush, hush, my girl,” she clucks at me, and comes to put her arm around me and guide me to one of the stuffed chairs before the fire. “Sit,” she murmurs, and when I do, she procures from the folds of her apron an enormous handkerchief, into which I sob and sob.

  “I’ve been expecting you,” she says after a while, stroking my hair as she perches on the arm of my chair.

  “Then you should have given me legs,” I sputter between raspy gulps of air, “to do your bidding faster.”

  “My bidding?” says she. “What has my bidding to do with it?”

  “You . . . enchanted us. You should have given me the power to change back sooner!” If only I could have gotten to Beast in time.

  But Mère Sophie stands abruptly with an exasperated sigh. “Your power is yours to command, my girl, not mine!” And she stalks back to her pot.

  I fling away the last of my tears with the back of my hand. “Then why couldn’t I help him?”

  “But you did help him. Did you not call for Rose?”

  I frown at her. “How do you know that?”

  She glances at me. “My dear, who is the wisewoman here?”

  “But I didn’t want her to bring back Jean-Loup!”

  Mère Sophie stirs ferociously in her pot and shakes her head. “It’s always the same,” she mutters. “Folk pine for a thing and wish for a thing, and then they find it’s not at all what they want.”

  “But can’t you change him again?”

  She lifts her wooden spoon, dripping with thick broth. “With my magic wand?”

  “A charm!” I cry. “Another spell!”

  She lifts the pot off its hook and sets it down on the hearth to simmer. “You credit me with too much power, my dear.” She bustles over to her little kitchen corner, and I follow.

  “I saw you change Jean-Loup into Beast once,” I say as Mère Sophie takes two pottery bowls out of her cupboard. She hands them to me to set on the table. “I saw it with my own eyes. Can’t you cast another spell to make him Beast again?”

  “Oh, my poor, foolish girl, have you not guessed by now?” The wisewoman sighs. “Jean-Loup is the spell, the changeling, the figment of magic. Beast is the true chevalier.”

  The bowls slip from my hands and clatter against the table. I can’t imagine what I must look like.

  Mère Sophie sighs again. “Let me tell you a story,” she murmurs, “about a woman who gave birth to a monster.” She nods me to a chair at the table and lowers herself into another.

  “Beast’s mother, Christine DuVal, the last Lady Beaumont, was a dear, sweet girl. Her mother had been a great friend of mine. I was Christine’s godmother. She was born in the country and loved countryfolk and country ways.”

  “I saw her portrait.” I don’t mention my vision, the way she sobbed for my help, although it would not surprise me if the wisewoman knows that, too.

  “Her marriage to the seigneur de Beaumont was arranged. Her father was a wealthy merchant elevated to the office of receiver of the royal tax. He grew wealthier still in fees and bribes but was not considered noble. He set aside a vast dowry in lands and income for Christine and sold her to the seigneur.”

  “Rene Auguste,” I say, recalling the grim-faced portrait and the cast-off suit of armor.

  Mère Sophie nods. “He had fortune enough of his own, amassed over time by the cruelty of his ancestors — tactics he learned all too well. In the late
wars when the noble families of France battled one another in the streets, the seigneur sold his men-at-arms to whichever side paid most handsomely. In one conflict, he gathered together a company of disgruntled men spoiling for more rights and privileges and rode off in service to the Reformers. But Rene Auguste professed to have a change of heart on the eve of the battle and took his men home. The late king, a staunch defender of the Old Religion, granted him command of the gendarmerie of Clairvallon for his loyalty.” Mère Sophie pronounces this last word with grim precision.

  “The seigneur was a hard, cruel man born into privilege and luxury,” Mère Sophie continues. “He was eager enough to get control of the DuVal holdings Christine brought to the marriage. But he grew fond of his new bride and indulged her. He furnished the château with grand, beautiful things, copying the luxury of the Italian style so popular at court, hoping to please her.” She shakes her head a little. “The wedding present I gave her must have seemed odd amid so much splendor, a rocking chair fashioned out of bentwood from the forest.”

  “But I saw it!” I exclaim. “She had it painted into her portrait.” Mère Sophie smiles. “I believe it was her favorite thing besides her books.”

  The wisewoman nods. “Her books,” she murmurs. “It was considered a great scandal among the nobility when Christine had the tower chapel at Château Beaumont converted into a library.”

  I remember the library with a little pang of longing. What a sanctuary it was from the cold, formal beauty of the rest of the château. Beast found comfort there, too, under the image of the stained-glass princess and her dragon.

  “It was her private room,” Mère Sophie explains. “But it was prudence on the seigneur’s part as well. In those days, when men were murdering one another over which face of God they chose to worship, the seigneur was glad to remove any element that might link him to one faction or the other — the wrong edition of a prayer book or an altar too ornate or too plain. What had once been a chapel became instead a temple to folklore and fantasy and poetry and magic, for those were the things the new Lady Beaumont loved.”

  “But what has this to do with Beast?”

  “I am coming to that,” says Mère Sophie. “Christine and the seigneur tried and tried to have a child, but their efforts never came to fruition. Some folk said it was because of the chapel, a punishment from God. Others said the line was cursed by witchcraft, black arts conjured by some enemy. But I know better.” She fixes me with her black gaze. “The LeNoir bloodline has become too corrupted over the generations and will no longer prosper.” She gives a single, significant nod. “Nature wills it.”

  “But,” I whisper, “I carried the LeNoir seed. You helped me to . . . to . . .”

  She shakes her head. “I did nothing but calm your fears,” she tells me gently. “I knew the babe would never quicken. They never have; I told you you were not the first woman to flee into my wood in that condition. But their fears come to nothing. Jean-Loup is the last of the line, no matter how heroically he scatters his seed.”

  “But . . . if that is so . . . how was Beast born?”

  Mère Sophie heaves a deep sigh. “My dear Christine wanted a child with all her heart. And her heart was so large, not even Nature could resist her.” The wisewoman shakes her head slowly, ruefully, looking backward in time. “Christine wanted so much for her unborn son, as all parents do — she wanted him swift and agile, strong and generous, stouthearted, kind. But he was born Beast, monstrous and ugly, and all her other considerations vanished into the air.”

  An image swims into my memory: a christening gown like a tent, a cap large enough to conceal the misshapen head that wore it. Sewn for an infant Beast.

  “The seigneur blamed her, of course,” Mère Sophie continues bitterly. “He swore he would take holy orders in penitence. All the servants who had been present at the birthing were sent far away, but there were soon rumors of a Beaumont Curse. He hid his son within the château walls, consulted doctors, mountebanks, conjurers. An alchemist was brought into the household to effect a transformation.” The wisewoman shakes her head again. “But it was far too late for all that. Generations of LeNoir villainy had poisoned the bloodline, and poor, monstrous little Beast was the result. It was time for the LeNoir tyranny over the Beaumont seigneurie to come to its natural end.”

  “But then — where did Jean-Loup come from?”

  “Christine loved her monster son as fervently as a mother can,” Mère Sophie goes on. “She came to me, begged me to give her son a pleasing human shape. Nothing else mattered to her. She couldn’t bear to see him hurt, shunned, reviled all his life — even by his own father.” The wisewoman frowns. “There is no end to the folly of parents who wish a life without adversity upon their children. It’s adversity that shapes character and makes folk strong. I pleaded with Christine not to interfere, to give little Beast a chance to meet life on his own terms. But she was heartsick that Rene Auguste could not bear the sight of his own son. When the child did not outgrow his monstrosity by the time he could walk and talk, she begged me to make him beautiful — as beautiful on the outside as the lovely spirit that was growing inside him. Her pleas were heartrending. She was like a daughter to me. I — I could not refuse.”

  The kettle is singing on the hob, may have been doing so for this last quarter of an hour for all the notice I took of it. But Mère Sophie welcomes the distraction and goes to retrieve it, while I rise to get cups and saucers out of the cupboard.

  “But I thought you said it was the will of Nature,” I remind the wisewoman as I slide back into my chair.

  She brings a dish of ground chocolate to the table and a pinch of spice, and we pour ourselves steaming cups. Her cassoulet on the hearth is temporarily forgotten.

  “There are some forces stronger than Nature,” says Mère Sophie, “and she loved him that much. But it cost him dearly.” She nods at her worktable with its orderly rows of plants in pots, strings of herbs, and bark covered in river mold. “The forgery that was Jean-Loup became like a beautiful fungus that attaches itself to a host plant. He used up all the air and light. All the generosity of character that Beast had developed as a child, blossoming in his mother’s love, was smothered deep within.” Mère Sophie shakes her head. “Although she acted out of love, she made over her sweet beastly boy into the image of his father, of all the handsome, cruel lords of Beaumont before him. And yet, her desperate gamble did not reconcile her husband to him after all. His father did not love him any more as Jean-Loup than he ever had, and it drained away Christine’s strength and her spirit. Rene fostered the youth out to all his relations and dependents, to be rid of him, knowing what he’d been.”

  So that’s why his father’s armor lay discarded among the hay bales in the carriage house; Jean-Loup would not have had it anywhere in the house.

  “It broke her heart.” Mère Sophie sighs.

  “I have seen his mother sobbing,” I confess at last.

  Mère Sophie nods sadly. “My poor Christine. She died of it, what she’d done to him.”

  I recall the plain little room in the château, where the vision of Beast’s mother first appeared to me, rocking sorrowfully in her bentwood chair. All of her sadness comes back to me, like another rebuke. She wasn’t sobbing for Jean-Loup. It was Beast she wanted me to help, Beast she wanted me to save. And I failed her.

  “And what became of Beast’s father?” I ask her.

  “Rene made good on his threat and returned to the faith of Rome, became a zealot, and joined the Holy League in the siege of Paris. Jean-Loup gained his majority, gathered his companions, and rode in the cavalry of the prince of Navarre against the Spanish invaders. After the prince became the new king, Jean-Loup retired to Château Beaumont. His father had died during the siege — starved, diseased, or driven mad, no one knew. All of the seigneurie of Beaumont belonged to Jean-Loup, and he devoted himself to enjoying his birthright at last and to promoting the glory of Beaumont by whatever means necessary.” Mère Sophi
e sighs. “But that much you know.”

  I nod, wearied and saddened by the tale. “His mother, Lady Christine,” I say at last. “Could she never . . . wish him back?”

  Mère Sophie shakes her head. “Jean-Loup became very strong. That much willfulness, unchallenged — it’s very hard to overpower it.”

  “But . . . you did it once,” I remind her softly. “You brought Beast back.”

  She lifts her cup to her lips and takes a long, thoughtful sip. “I did not say it was impossible.”

  How had she succeeded in turning Jean-Loup back into Beast? I remember the scene as I watched it from my hiding place behind the doorway: Jean-Loup’s romantic guile as he closed on his prey, the beautiful stranger who was Mère Sophie transformed seeming to slip helplessly under his spell. I remember my heart filling up with rage. And I draw a deep, shivery breath.

  “You had me,” I whisper. “I hated him so much.”

  Mère Sophie lifts an eyebrow and offers me a wan smile. “Yes,” she agrees, “your hate, your thirst for revenge, were very useful to me in the moment. But it would have crippled you, Lucie, all that hatred, had you not made room in your heart for something more.”

  “But why did you give Jean-Loup the chance to return? Why not put an end to him once and for all when you had the chance?”

  Mère Sophie frowns into her cup. “I found that he had become too strong for me to banish him completely; I could only narrow down the means by which Jean-Loup might yet escape to a single task I thought would be impossible.” Mère Sophie shakes her head. “I did not think he would ever see another woman, let alone one who would consent to be Beast’s wife.”

  But the wisewoman reckoned without Rose, her taste for romance, her innocence. Her devotion to her father.

  Her ambition.

  “A maid of good virtue, heaven-sent to break the spell,” l mutter. “But Beast was going to die! Who else could I have called to save him?”