A Candle For d'Artagnan

by Chelsea Quinn Yarbro

  Niklos shook his head. “I don’t want to think about it.”

  “Neither do I,” said Olivia. “But I must. Especially now that Charles has … has learned so much. He is endangered by what he knows and what he will be.” The vertical line between her brows deepened. “What would Mazarin do if he found out that I am a vampire, and that Charles will be one as well when he dies. A member of his embassy and his personal courier—he would not take it very well, I suspect.” She gave a single, sad laugh. “We would receive more than a scolding.”

  “More than a scolding, yes, but not so much as you might have had once. It is 1646, and this is Mazarin we speak of, not the Bishop of Bilbao, or some of the others. He is not like the churchmen of even two centuries ago,” said Niklos, but with less conviction than he liked.

  “Are you hoping to convince me or yourself?” Olivia asked, and went on briskly. “No. You’re right. They probably would not pile the faggots in the Place Royale and reduce us all to ashes and cinders. But they would not welcome us, either.” She wiped her damp tendrils of hair off her face. “And it would be awkward returning to Rome if it were known that I am a vampire and you are a ghoul. We might have to go find Sanct’ Germain in the New World. Which means traveling by ship.” This last was said with real detestation.

  “None of it need happen,” said Niklos, suddenly eager to dispel her sense of foreboding. “We will make preparations and continue our usual precautions. If we are fortunate, we will not have to deal with any of these problems.”

  “If we are fortunate,” she said, tweaking the water to splash him a little.

  “Best not,” he warned her. “If the servants notice I am wet and they know you are bathing, they will become suspicious as well.” He took care to move out of range.

  “They suspect something of the sort already,” said Olivia.

  “Actually,” Niklos said, not quite able to be amused, “I have said that we are brother and sister, but that I was born on the wrong side of the blanket. The only way our father could give me a share of his wealth was to appoint me your major domo.”

  Olivia regarded him with bemused humor. “How inventive of you. How many times have you trotted out this farrago in the last few hundred years?” There was a little indignation in her hazel eyes but no anger. “You might have mentioned it to me.”

  “I might have,” said Niklos, glad that they had a language that the servants did not know: it not only provided the privacy that he and Olivia sought, it also added strength to their supposed kinship. “But the staff puts more stock by it since you do not acknowledge the tie, though you receive me as if I were one of your family.”

  “And now that you have revealed your ruse to me, what am I expected to do?” She shrugged, then indicated the large drying sheet beside him on the bench. “Give that to me. I want to get out.” She rose as she said it, the water streaming off here, the level in the tub half-way up her thighs.

  “Avisa will be horrified if she finds me here,” said Niklos as he gave her the drying sheet. “She is horrified by what she has learned of me already.”

  “If she is horrified, it also means she is curious. I had best think of something to say that will put an end to it for a while. With the Cardinal so apprehensive, I do not know who might try to suborn the servants.” She wrapped herself in the sheet and gave Niklos a careful stare. “I want to know anything that occurs that way—any attempts or rumors of attempts to get information from the servants. Don’t be obvious.”

  Niklos chuckled. “I will do as I have done before: I will say that someone offered me a bribe and I refused; I will be very outraged but also greedy, as if I might have said something else if I had been offered enough. If there have been inquiries made, I will learn of it soon enough.” He got to his feet and went toward the side door. “You had best pay no attention to these changes of plans, as if one way or another makes no difference to you.”

  “That’s sensible,” said Olivia a bit distractedly as she let her hair down from the pins that had held it in a knot on her head. “I will go to my study when I’m dressed. If there are any papers that I need to inspect, bring them to me there.”

  “Of course,” said Niklos, giving her a sudden grin of wicked amusement. “Sister mine,” he said in French.

  “Wretch,” she responded in the same language as she blew him a kiss. She waited until Niklos was gone, and then rang for Avisa to come.

  The maid arrived so promptly that Olivia was almost certain that she had been listening at the door. Avisa bobbed a curtsy and said, “What clothes am I to set out, Madama?”

  “Oh, I think the green brocade with the umber velvet will do,” said Olivia as she dragged her comb through her fawn-brown hair. “It is a bit more formal than I would like to be, but with so many messengers and couriers coming and going, I must be at my best to receive them.”

  “Certainly,” said Avisa in a toneless way. She was about to leave the room when she added, “Madama, I have had a letter from my sister. You recall I have mentioned her to you before.”

  “The one with six daughters and five sons, who married a lesser nobleman from Bologna or some such place. Is she the one you mean?” Olivia had heard sporadic tales of this sister many times, and considered Leatrice as unhappy as Avisa occasionally felt herself to be; Olivia knew far too well what it was to be sold into marriage, as Leatrice had been. She hoped that Leatrice’s husband Onorio was kinder than her own. “What has she said to you, your sister?”

  Avisa did not answer directly, but said, “I mentioned several months ago that we would probably be returning to Italy before the end of this year.” She glanced nervously at Olivia. “You told me it was all right. At the time, it was thought to be so. And you have said to me often that if I wished, I could have several months for myself, to compensate for living so far from my home and family.”

  “Yes,” said Olivia, who extended the same offer to all the Italians who had come with her, as would have been proper in her father’s household, sixteen hundred years before. “I assure you that the offer is genuine.”

  “But,” Avisa went on in agitation, “you see, I assumed we would be in Roma by now, that we would be at Senza Pari and it would be possible for me to claim that time to myself that you offered me. And now, instead, the rumor is that we are to remain here for at least a year more.”

  “It seems likely,” said Olivia, doing her best to sound indifferent to her predicament. “I have been told that the Cardinal expects us to discontinue our arrangements for traveling south, at least for the time being. We are here to assist him, not to cause him embarrassment.”

  “That means we will be here through the winter,” said Avisa. “It is impossible to move your household in winter. There are too many things, too many people to move while the roads are mired. You would be a fool to attempt it, Madama.” She had taken the dress Olivia specified out of the armoire, but now she held it as if she had no idea what to do with it or what it was for.

  “Avisa, prego, don’t dither,” said Olivia as pleasantly as she could. “Tell me what it is you want and I will do what I can to assist you.”

  “But you will be displeased,” she said miserably, “and if you are displeased, you might turn me off here, without taking me back to Roma or giving me a recommendation so that I could find employment elsewhere. I would be destitute in a foreign land.” She threw the dress onto the bed and gave way to weeping.

  Olivia stopped fussing with her hair. “Magna Mater! what is the matter with you?” she demanded, too puzzled to be angry. “Avisa, what nonsense are you talking?”

  “It … it is not … nonsense.” She went on crying in a steady, hopeless way that baffled Olivia.

  “I give you my word, no matter what you have done, I will not turn you off without a character in France.” She wondered if someone had approached Avisa, but doubted that her maid would be so undone by mere bribery. “What is it?”

  Slowly Avisa regained her self-control; between hicc
oughs and sniffs, she explained. “I told my sister—she is my half-sister, actually, as you know; we have the same father but not the same mother, my mother having died in childbed not long after I was born—I was their second child and the only one to live beyond the age of three—and my half-sister is years younger than I am—when she informed me that her oldest daughter was about to marry that when my niece—for I regard her as much my niece as any relative I might have that was not a half-sister or step-niece—was brought to bed with her firstborn, I would come and care for her, since my sister cannot do this, having children of her own to care for. When I told her, I was sure that we would be back in Roma by the time she gave birth. Fiorella—my niece—has been brought to bed with twin boys, and … I am still here and I cannot help her.”

  “Do you wish to go to her, Avisa? Do you want to go back to Italy?” Olivia asked as her maid gave way to another bout of tears. Over the years, Olivia thought, she had heard several variations on the tales of Avisa’s family; which, if any of them, were true? she wondered. “Shall we arrange it for you?”

  Avisa nodded, and finally said, “Yes, Madama; I very much want to go home.”

  Olivia sighed. “Then, of course, you shall,” she said with as much heartiness as she could assume. “I want you to send word to your sister and your niece that you will leave here in two weeks. You will go directly to your sister and you will remain as long as you believe it is necessary. You will continue to draw your pay for a year, as I have promised you before, and at the end of that time, we can arrange how we are to continue. If you decide you prefer to remain with your niece and her family, then terms can be worked out.” She motioned to Avisa. “Bring me my clothes. This drying sheet is now wetter than I am.”

  Avisa obeyed, averting her face. “My face is very red; you need not deny it, I know how it is. And my nose is the reddest of all.” She assisted Olivia into her corsets and then opened the rear lacing of the bodice so that she could lift the garment over Olivia’s head.

  While Avisa busied herself tightening the bodice laces, Olivia said to her, “I will need to find a proper replacement for you, but that will not delay your departure. Tonight I will speak to Niklos about it and tomorrow I will tell you how we will proceed.” She plucked at her skirts and watched the way the fabric fell. It was warm enough to make the garment uncomfortable, but Olivia was almost inured to it. “You will be able to write to your family tomorrow,” she said as she took her seat and let Avisa put up her hair.

  She was almost finished with arranging the crimped locks around Olivia’s face when Avisa said, “Madama, there is something I meant to tell you earlier.”

  Olivia steeled herself for whatever this might be. “Yes? What is it?” She was pleased that her voice did not betray her apprehension.

  “It’s … probably nothing. It is … well, I went to your study this morning, while the Cardinal and his party were still here?” Though she still held the comb, she had given up attending to Olivia’s hair.

  “What about them?” asked Olivia more sharply.

  “It was that secretary, the one sent by the Cardinal. The young one with the scowl.” Avisa was rubbing her reddened eyes; Olivia did not have the heart to tell her she was making them worse, not better.

  “Yes, that would be Jumeau,” she said with an expression of mild distaste. “An officious man, but what does it matter?” She had told Mazarin once that the young prelate was arrogant and autocratic; the Cardinal had spoken to him and since then Jumeau had made an effort to be pleasant.

  Avisa began to pleat the edge of her long apron as she went on. “I went to your study. I wanted to put fresh flowers in there, for your return.”

  “I saw the flowers; they are very nice,” said Olivia, not certain where all this led.

  “He was in the study. Jumeau. He was at your writing table, Madama.” She gave Olivia a sudden stare, with the shock not quite faded from her eyes. “I thought he might be … reading something of yours.”

  “He might have been getting something for the Cardinal,” Olivia said, though she was not entirely pleased with that notion. “Mazarin was conducting a meeting—”

  “A private meeting,” corrected Avisa. “And that Jumeau was upset when I found him. He told me that he was looking for a knife to trim his pen and could not find one. He said that he had looked elsewhere and would not have touched anything if he had found the penknife.” She let go of her apron and tried to smooth the pleats out of it.

  Olivia found this revelation troubling, but she knew better than to reveal her concern. She shrugged for Avisa’s benefit and said, “He probably felt as awkward about the encounter as you did. Certainly it would have been more correct had he found Niklos and asked him for a penknife, but after living here for several months, Jumeau probably did not want to be bothered. I will have Niklos speak to him about my things.”

  “As you say, Madama,” said Avisa uncertainly as she tried to put her attention on the work she had to do. “I am not one to carry tales, but when I found him at your writing table, I was afraid that he was up to no good.”

  “I’ll mention it to the Cardinal,” said Olivia, and let Avisa get on with tending her hair, all the while pondering: what was Jumeau looking for on her writing table?

  Text of a letter from Le Fouet to Pere Chape, written in code and delivered by unknown messenger.

  To that most worthy Augustinian, Le Fouet sends thanks and greetings for the labor done on his behalf and on behalf of the Kingdom of France; when order is restored you will be given praise and recognition for all you have done on our behalf.

  I have your report of August, and I note that Mazarin has ordered more guards for the Queen Regent and her bastards as well as increased protection for those in his employ. He has heard something, that is certain, but I doubt it is enough to make it possible for him to interfere with the work we have in hand. Your observations on his actions, on his concern for Anne of Austria, even while she keeps her misbegotten sons in Amiens, has given me and those who share my sentiments much to assess. Without your reports, we should have to make dangerous guesses.

  I wish to know more about the activities of these couriers of Mazarin’s. Where do they go? Who passes messages to them? We will need to have all such information before we make our final plans. I am especially eager to know where Mazarin will be sending his couriers in the next several months, and where his messengers are to go. The couriers, bearing the documents they do and having the license to cross borders, are of greater significance, but the lowliest messenger can be revealing if the material carried is properly used. Do what you can to learn more of this, I ask you, and send me word at the first opportunity. I am awaiting your communication. Use the new code I have provided you, and do not trouble yourself with apprehension for discovery. You are among friends, Pere Chape, and your friends will come to your aid if ever you need them. You need have no fear for yourself, now that you have made our cause your own.

  I require to know more about those among the nobility who have been at pains to ally themselves with Mazarin. Those nobles are the enemies of France, and they are to be treated accordingly. I have no sympathy, no emotion but contempt for these despicable men; they are the most reprehensible traitors. With your guidance, I will bring down those who have defamed the Throne by elevating a child not of the Blood Royal. They are more loathsome than maggots in a corpse. Only let me know who they are and I will see them broken on the wheel.

  Also I will require to know how much time Mazarin will be spending in Paris and how much in Amiens. This is very crucial information and I will need it to be accurate to the day, if you can obtain such specific plans. If we are to strike, it must be at a time when Mazarin will be the least prepared for such an attack, and will therefore be unable to marshall his troops to defend himself. We require the element of surprise but can only attain it if we have full knowledge of those who are opposed to us. If you cannot get such determinations, then send the plans as you find them, but
indicate which plans are set and which are not. Your preparation can tip the balance for us; I want you to appreciate that. Your actions can spell victory or defeat for our cause.

  Recent events in England have shown how precarious a thing a crown can be, and although we abhor Cromwell as the outraged peasant he is, we applaud the actions which have placed King Charles in the hands of the Scots, who will know how best to deal both with King and commoner. It will prove a fine example for us to emulate when the time comes: doubtless there will be redress of wrongs and Charles will return to the Throne with a chastened heart and a greater number of his nobility to aid and guide him in future. We can take this as our model, for there are those of the Blood Royal who are content to listen to their nobles and be guided by them, and who can understand the lesson taught by England, and hope that France is wiser than they. In sum, while we must decry the usurpation in England, we also praise the warning it gives us all, for France cannot and will not tolerate the Throne being held by despotic foreigners and base-born false heirs. Let France never forget that Spain is our enemy, and that Queen Anne is Spanish, that the children she has born are not of Louis XIII’s loins and they corrupt all they touch.

  We need an issue to arouse the people of Paris as well as the nobles against Mazarin. We need some incident that will reveal to all the extent of the perfidy of Anne of Austria and her Italian lapdog. There will have to be a single event or actions that will clearly delineate the disgrace we have suffered at the hands of the Queen Regent and her children. It is necessary to have a demonstration that all will grasp. It is of the utmost importance that this person and event catch the full emotions of all Parisians, or there will be no uprising great enough to overwhelm the King’s Guard. Therefore I ask that you take note of the plans Mazarin is making for changes in the administration of France, Paris in particular, so that when the time comes, we will be able to rouse the people at once, and have the nobles prepared to act.