My Contrary Mary

by Cynthia Hand

  He isn’t well, she thought glumly as she made her way down the Place de l’Opéra, avoiding the larger cracks in the cobblestone. He hadn’t been well for some time. At first she’d thought it was simply a matter of failing eyesight, as he struggled more and more to read the labels on his mystical concoctions. But then he’d started to forget the names of things. Like, What the heck is a Galileo? she thought. (Galileo Galilei, the astronomer and physicist, had not been born yet, dear reader.) And then Nostradamus began to use a cane to walk, that is, when he did walk. And his sleeping patterns had changed, so that he was staying up half the night, frantically scribbling predictions onto random pieces of parchment and dropping off to sleep at all times of the day, sometimes in the middle of a—

  Which made Ari’s patterns of behavior change, as well. For instance, now she needed to “take a walk” more and more frequently, in order to “get some air.”

  The best air in Paris was at Le Chien Hirsute (or Shaggy Dog to non-Francophiles). Ari pushed her way inside and took a deep, cleansing breath. It smelled like ale and armpits. She claimed her regular seat by the window. After a few minutes the owner approached her with a wide smile.

  “Back again?” he boomed. “This is the third time this week.”

  “Hello, Louis,” she said. Louis, not the king, the owner always felt the need to clarify whenever he introduced himself, as if there was a chance he would be confused with one of the many former kings of France named Louis. (Reader, there were eleven former Kings Louis: Louis the Stammerer; Louis III through V; Louis the Fat; Louis the Young; Louis the Lion; Louis the Saint; Louis the Quarreler; Louis the Prudent, the Cunning, the Universal Spider; and Louis, the Father of the People.)

  The owner of Le Chien Hirsute called himself Louis the Aleslinger. Ari thought that was a little on the nose.

  “It’s always an honor to serve you, Little Nostradamus,” he said.

  “I’m not quite so little anymore,” Ari replied good-naturedly. “And please, call me Ari.”

  Louis patted her on the head. “Try the pottage.”

  “You know I love your pottage,” Ari replied.

  Louis chuckled and disappeared into the kitchen. A serving girl poured Ari a cup of ale. As she sat there, slowly drinking it, she became aware that people were staring and talking about her. They’d clearly heard Louis call her “Little Nostradamus.” It would only be a matter of time before—

  “Hello,” mumbled a tall, red-faced peasant, stepping forward. “Are you Nostradamus?”

  She swallowed her swig of ale. “I’m a Nostradamus.”

  He thrust his palm into her face. “Tell me my fortune.”

  “Um, well, you see. I don’t . . .” Ari started to explain that palm-reading was not how the Nostradamuses did their prognosticating, but the man didn’t give her a chance.

  “Is my dog an E∂ian?” he blurted out.

  This drew more looks from across the tavern.

  Ari lowered her voice. In general, it was unwise to talk about E∂ians in public. “Have you seen your dog change into a human?”

  “No, but sometimes I swear she acts just like a person.”

  “Sometimes a dog is just a dog,” Ari said sagely. “I think someone once said that about things we see in dreams.” Then she held out her hand.

  He peered into her palm. “Um, I guess you have quite a long love line?”

  “No. I meant, that will be three livres.”

  “What, you want me to pay you?” he asked incredulously.

  “You asked me a question. I answered it. Three livres, please.”

  He scratched his head. “Well, I thought that you would just tell me my fortune, and I would tell everyone what a great prognosticator you are. It would be good exposure.”

  “Nostradamuses don’t need more exposure. We need to be paid for our work,” Ari said.

  “Pay the girl for her services.” Louis appeared with the dish of pottage. He set it down in front of Ari as the peasant grudgingly put three livres into her hand. “Now let’s have some music!” Louis belted out before anybody else could ask for their fortunes to be told.

  Three men with fiddles started up a jig in the corner. Men in their britches and women in their work dresses held hands and danced in circles around the floor while others clapped with the beat. Ari felt a flash of gratitude toward Louis.

  It wasn’t that she didn’t want to tell people their futures. It was that Ari’s ability to see the future was a little substandard.

  She was the only one of Nostradamus’s many sons and daughters who’d inherited any of her father’s talents. But what Ari was truly good at was making potions, everything from tinctures to bind small cuts and scrapes, to complicated elixirs that could produce a more—let’s say—supernatural effect. This had been discovered one day when Ari was a toddler, playing in the kitchen while her mother cooked dinner. Ari had pretended to cook dinner as well, adding this and that to a bowl and stirring, until suddenly a poof of smoke shot out of the bowl, and little Ari’s straight brown hair instantly curled into ringlets. Her father had been so proud. He’d begun to refer to her as his “heir,” which was a huge deal considering that she was a girl. He taught her everything he knew about potion-making. He said that she would take his place, when the time came, as the spiritual adviser to the queen of France, Catherine de Medici. But whenever he tried to instruct Ari on seeing the future, she inevitably failed.

  “What do you see?” he’d ask her over and over, making her sit still in a quiet room and concentrate for hours.

  Ari did sometimes see things, but nothing that made sense:

  “I see a princess from the moon. She punishes all of the evildoers.”

  “I see a girl with pale hair singing in the snow. She wants to let it go, but I don’t know what it is.”

  “I see a child. He sees dead people.”

  After that, her father stopped asking her what she saw. Ari thought this was a bit unfair. After all, her father’s visions weren’t always crystal clear themselves. Take today, for example. “A frog,” she muttered. “A frog ruling France.”

  The musicians started up with a new song. Ari watched the dancers wistfully. Then her breath caught when she got a good look at the face of one of the dancing men. He was weaving his way gracefully through the twirling masses and ducking underneath raised arms.

  After the end of one such move, he bowed low, his head tilting charmingly, and a long curl of blond hair escaped his hat.

  Ari dropped her spoon into her bowl of pottage. That man wasn’t a commoner. And he wasn’t a “he.”

  “He” was Mary Livingston, also known as Liv.

  Mary’s lady-in-waiting spun around the dance floor with a smile that was its own light source. Nobody seemed to suspect that she was a woman, but Ari knew. She knew the shape of Liv’s face and each line of her features. She and Liv had once shared a look (you know the kind) across the dinner hall, many months ago. And then in the corridor as they passed each other. And again in Queen Catherine’s chambers as Ari arrived to deliver a tincture when she hadn’t expected Queen Mary and her ladies to be there. In fact, if Ari were counting the days, she would guess it had been nearly an entire year of . . . looks.

  She’d never thought anything could come of it. Ari was meant to be “the next Nostradamus,” taking over for her father, and Liv would be waiting on Mary until she was matched with a suitable nobleman to be married off to. But in this moment, in this tavern, Liv caught Ari’s eye, and without any hesitation, she sashayed closer to Ari and stopped right in front of her.

  Ari bit her lip to keep her smile from reaching all the way to the walls. Liv bowed grandly. “May I?” she said, her hand outstretched.

  Ari glanced left, then right. “Um, I’m Ari,” Ari said.

  “I know,” Liv said with a laugh. “You’re the girl who never talks to me.”

  “Because you’re a lady,” Ari said.

  Liv tilted her head in that adorable way that had given h
er identity away just moments ago. “Why should that matter?”

  Then she grabbed Ari’s hand and they were spinning and dancing and laughing and the rest of the crowd parted, including Queen Mary herself and the other Marys, who were similarly dressed as men. Funny how Ari hadn’t noticed them before. They were all watching Ari and Liv, and they were smiling and clapping. Including the queen.

  “Do you do this often?” Ari said over the music as Liv guided Ari back and forth across the floor as if she’d always led and never followed.

  “What? Dress like a man? Or dance?”

  “Both.” Ari’s head was spinning. Liv’s hands were as soft as she’d imagined, the kind of soft that hadn’t seen a hard day’s work. Liv was such a lady.

  “Sometimes a lady needs a break from all the extravagant gowns,” Liv said. “Do you realize how heavy they are?”

  “I’m sure they’re a lot heavier than what you’re wearing now.” Ari blushed, but Liv just smiled.

  As Ari lost herself in Liv’s hazel eyes, the three fiddle players began to sound like a full-blown symphony. Liv smelled of lemons and lavender. They were alone in the room. No, they were alone in the world.

  “Aristotle?”

  “Call me Ari,” Ari said, breathlessly.

  “That wasn’t me,” Liv said. She pointed toward the counter where Louis was waving at Ari. “Aristotle!” he shouted again.

  “Just a minute,” Ari said. She did not want to let go of Liv’s hands. When would she have another opportunity to hold them?

  “Your father sent a message that you are to return to the palace at once,” Louis informed her.

  “How does he even know where I—Oh.” Ari sighed and reluctantly dropped Liv’s hands.

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “I have to go.”

  “Of course,” Liv said. “It’s your father.”

  As Ari gathered her cloak, the symphony in her mind died down again to three measly fiddles, and the lights that had seemed to glow on the dance floor suddenly dimmed. She pushed out the door, but before it closed behind her, she caught one more long look from Liv.

  This time it felt different. It felt like the start of something.

  By the time Ari made her way from the tavern to the palace courtyard to the servants’ entrance to the secret pantry to the second laboratory, which was hidden below the first laboratory, she was out of breath.

  She blew through the door and was immediately shushed by Greer, the lab assistant.

  “He’s sleeping,” Greer said.

  “Why was I summoned so urgently, then?” Ari asked.

  “He had another vision while you were gone,” Greer whispered. “He’s been having them all night. He said it was important.”

  Show-off, Ari thought. She gave her cloak to Greer to put away. Then she clanged some pans and loudly set mugs upon the table. But her father didn’t stir, so she tiptoed to his desk, where he was slumped over with his cheek stuck to a piece of damp parchment.

  “What have you seen, Papa?” she whispered. She brushed a strand of his wild white hair from his face. He looked so old, so frail, that her heart gave a squeeze.

  She didn’t want to lose her father. What would happen when he was gone? Or when the queen inevitably found out that Ari’s visions weren’t exactly extraordinary?

  She’d be cast out. She’d have to find some man somewhere to marry so she could be taken care of.

  Ew, she thought. She’d much rather be dancing with Liv.

  “Queen Catherine sent you a message as well,” Greer said. She reached into her apron and produced a small folded piece of parchment with the queen’s seal on it.

  Ari tore it open, read the contents, and then went about the alchemy laboratory, gathering white fir needles, spruce needles, tendrilled fritillaria bulb, and pinellia root.

  Greer studied the ingredients. “The queen has a cough?” she guessed.

  “One of the queen’s ladies,” Ari answered. “And yes, she has a cough.” And by “cough,” Ari meant an ailment one contracts by too many close encounters with members of the king’s guard. “Will you hand me that mulberry bark?”

  Greer, who was younger than Ari but much taller, reached up to the top shelf, pushed aside some bound herbs, and brought down the requested bottle.

  “Thank you, Greer,” Ari said.

  Greer had become kind of an apprentice to Ari, in a similar way that Ari was an apprentice to her father. She lacked any of the more spiritual abilities of Ari and her father, but she could throw together easier medicinal tinctures, and she was especially great at retrieving things from top shelves.

  Across the room, Nostradamus came to with a startled snort.

  Ari rushed to his side. “Papa? You sent for me?”

  Her father looked at her with glazed eyes. She waited for recognition, which was taking longer and longer these days. “Galileo? Is that you?”

  She took his hand. “It’s me, Papa. Ari.”

  His eyes cleared. “Daughter, we must go to the queen at once.”

  “What is it?” Ari asked.

  “Traps. Betrayal. The crown in jeopardy.”

  “But it’s late,” Ari said.

  Nostradamus took her by the shoulders with surprising strength. “This is an emergency! Lives are at stake! The succession of the crown. The future of the country.”

  Ari knew he meant business. The succession of the crown was everything to Queen Catherine. Her son Francis was destined to be the next king. Catherine would sacrifice anything to make sure that happened.

  “We must go now!” Nostradamus started to rise, but Ari put a hand on his shoulder, and he sat back down.

  “Father, they are all in the middle of dinner. You will not be allowed to interrupt.”

  “But once she hears—”

  “They won’t even let you in the door. For now let’s sit and write what we know, and interpret what we don’t know.”

  Nostradamus sighed. “Very well.” He struggled to stand up and then began to ever so slowly pace the floor using his cane. Ari licked her graphite and readied herself to take notes. Her father was obviously extremely agitated, but at least he sounded like he had his senses about him.

  Nostradamus raised a finger. “The first and most immediate threat is . . . the biscuits.”

  Then again, maybe not.

  THREE

  Francis

  “Someday, son,” King Henry said, waving a hand to encompass the Louvre Palace’s grand banquet hall, where the royal court was dining. (Yes, at 10:00 p.m.! Your narrators have already gone to bed at this point.) “All of this will be yours. Everything the light touches.”

  Francis noted that the light did, in fact, touch everything. The hall shone with hundreds of candles, which burned in crystal chandeliers, golden sconces, and elaborately wrought candelabras. There were no pockets of shadow in the banquet hall—not one. Francis had a feeling that if he looked under the table, there would be candles there, too, just to prove King Henry’s point.

  “That’s impressive,” Francis said dully, but Henry wasn’t actually listening to him.

  “This is truly the best banquet we’ve had all week.” Henry gazed down the length of the long, crowded room. The feast was laid out down the center of the grand dining table, upon which lay a lace tablecloth of the finest spun silk. Bottles of wine stood like guard towers over the platters of veal, rabbit, and pies, while crystal goblets shone in the candlelight. Lords and ladies clothed in their richest velvets and silks, their faces painted with white makeup and vermillion spots on their cheeks, sat in order of importance down the table, with King Henry II (and Francis) at its head.

  All of this will be yours, the king had said. Everything the light touches. He said it regularly. He said it when it wasn’t even part of the topic of conversation, as he was proud to have a son, and even prouder that his son would one day marry a queen, and prouder still that the Valois line would last for centuries beyond his own final days.

  Fortunate
ly, his final days were a long way off. King Henry was young and healthy, which was a good thing, because every time Francis thought about becoming king, his hands got sweaty and his chest grew tight. Sometimes his eye started to twitch.

  Henry loved being king. He always said that when he’d been Francis’s age, he just couldn’t wait to be king. Francis, however, had never wanted it. He’d never felt he would be good at it, but the one time he’d voiced his concerns to his father, the king had replied that ruling was in his blood. He would know how to do it when the time came.

  “What do you call a serf in the royal palace?” Henry asked Duke Francis (Mary’s uncle, if you recall), speaking over Francis’s head to the uncles on Francis’s other side. Usually, Mary was seated beside Francis, softening the effect of the king and her uncles bellowing back and forth, but she was, ahem, indisposed tonight, leaving Francis to face the three men on his own.

  “Hmm.” Duke Francis tapped his chin. He was a war hero and had the scar on his face to prove it; he liked to tell the story of the lance piercing him through the bars of his helmet and how he’d ridden, unassisted, to his tent, where the surgeon removed what remained of the weapon. The duke claimed he hadn’t even flinched, in spite of the incredible pain. His military career had only grown more impressive from there.

  King Henry, of course, adored him.

  “I don’t know, Your Grace. What do you call a serf in the royal palace?” the duke asked.

  “A cockroach on two legs!”

  Francis cringed, but the duke guffawed and slapped the table. His brother, Cardinal Charles, gave a bawdy laugh, too. “If this king business doesn’t work out for you,” the cardinal said, “you might have a future as a court jester.”

  Henry stopped laughing and leveled a hard glare at Cardinal Charles.

  Color rose in the man’s face as he sobered instantly. “That is, I mean—you’re exceedingly funny, Your Grace, when you put your mind to telling a joke. No monarch has ever been as good-humored as you. Yet, you still maintain an air of regality. It is a delicate balance, I’m sure, but you manage it masterfully. You are a true king, truly.”