The Lady and the Unicorn

by Tracy Chevalier

  As we talked about the commission I sketched a falcon's wings and tail. Then I threw down my charcoal and sat back. ‘With the weather better I may go away when I've finished this design. I'm bored of Paris.’

  Léon Le Vieux also sat back. ‘Where?’

  ‘I don't know. A pilgrimage, perhaps.’

  Léon rolled his eyes. He knew my church-going was not regular.

  ‘Truly,’ I insisted. ‘South, to Toulouse. Maybe all the way to Santiago de Compostela.’

  ‘What do you expect to find when you get there?’

  I shrugged. ‘What one always finds on a pilgrimage.’ I didn't tell him I'd not been on one before. ‘But that's not something your kind know much about,’ I added, to tease him.

  Léon didn't bother with such a gibe. ‘A pilgrimage is a long journey for possibly little reward. Have you thought of that? Think of all the work you will give up to go and see — well, very little. A tiny part of the whole.’

  ‘I don't understand you.’

  ‘These relics you go to look at. Doesn't Toulouse hold a splinter of our Saviour's cross? How much of a cross can you see in a sliver of wood? You may see it and be disappointed.’

  ‘I wouldn't be disappointed,’ I insisted. ‘I'm surprised you haven't been on a pilgrimage, good Christian that you are.’ I reached over and picked up one of the silver spice boxes. The filigree was cleverly wound to make a door with hinges and a lock. ‘Where did this come from?’

  ‘Jerusalem.’

  I raised my eyebrows. ‘Perhaps I should go there.’

  Léon laughed loudly. ‘I would like to see that, Nicolas des Innocents. Now, you speak of travel. The roads between Paris and Brussels are clear now and I've had word of your tapestries from a merchant I know. He stopped in at Georges' workshop for me.’

  Léon and I had not spoken of the tapestries in months. By the beginning of Advent the roads were too poor for most to make the journey easily between Paris and Brussels. Léon had no more word of their progress and I had stopped asking. I set down the spice box. ‘What did he say?’

  ‘They finished the first two after Christmas and began the next two at the Epiphany — the two long ones. They've fallen behind on them, though. Some in the house were ill.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Georges Le Jeune and one of the outside weavers brought in for the work. They're better now, but time was lost.’

  I was relieved to hear it was not Aliénor. That surprised me. I picked up the charcoal and drew the falcon's head and beak. ‘How do the tapestries look?’

  ‘Georges showed him the first two — Sound and Smell. The merchant said they are very fine.’

  I added an eye to the falcon's head. ‘What about the two they're making now? Where have they got to?’

  ‘They were weaving the dog that sits on the train of the Lady's dress in Taste. In À Mon Seul Désir they have reached the servant. Of course you can only see a little strip of what they're working on.’ He smiled. ‘A tiny part of the whole.’

  I tried to remember the details of the designs. For a long time I knew them so well I could draw them with my eyes shut. I was surprised to have forgotten that a dog sat on the Lady's dress. ‘Léon, get out the paintings. I want to look at them.’

  Léon chuckled. ‘You haven't asked to see them in some time,’ he said as he took his keys from his belt and unlocked the teak chest. He pulled them out and laid them on the table.

  I looked at the dog in Taste and began to estimate how long it would take the weavers to reach the Lady's face. Claude's face.

  It was months since I'd seen Claude Le Viste. I hadn't been inside the house on the rue du Four after returning from Brussels in the summer. There were no other commissions for me there, and the family was at their château near Lyons. At Michaelmas I heard they'd returned, and sometimes stood near Saint-Germain-des-Prés, waiting for a glimpse of Claude. One day I saw her on the rue du Four with her mother and her ladies. As she passed I began to walk alongside on the other side of the road, hoping she would look over and see me.

  She did. She stopped then as if she'd stubbed her toe. The ladies poured around either side of her until there was just her and Béatrice left standing in the road. Claude waved on her lady and knelt as if to adjust her shoe. I let a coin drop near her and stepped over to pick it up. As I knelt next to her we grinned at each other. I did not dare to touch her, though — a man like me does not touch a girl like her in the street.

  ‘I've wanted to see you,’ Claude whispered.

  ‘And me you. Will you come to me?’

  ‘I'll try, but — ’

  Before she could finish or I could tell her where I lodged, Béatrice and the groom escorting them rushed up to us. ‘Go away,’ Béatrice hissed, ‘before Dame Geneviève sees you!’ The groom grabbed me and hustled me away from Claude, who remained kneeling in the street, her light eyes gazing after me.

  After that I saw her once or twice from a distance, but there was little I could do. She was a noblewoman, after all — I couldn't be seen with her out in the street. Though I was keen to have her in my bed, I doubted I could ever get through the guard of ladies around her. I went with other women, but none satisfied me. Each time I finished feeling I was not completely emptied, like a mug with a mouthful of beer still left at the bottom. Looking at the Lady in Taste now made me feel the same way. It was not enough.

  Léon reached over to gather up the paintings. ‘Un moment,’ I said, laying my hand on À Mon Seul Désir, where the Lady stood frozen with her jewels in her hands. Was she putting them on or taking them off? I was not always sure.

  Léon clicked his tongue and folded his arms across his chest.

  ‘Don't you want to look at them?’ I said.

  Léon shrugged. ‘I've seen them.’

  ‘They don't please you, do they, even though you speak so highly of them in front of others.’

  Léon picked up the spice box I'd been playing with and set it back on the shelf with the others. ‘They're good for business. And they will make Jean Le Viste's Grande Salle a room worth feasting in. But no, I am not seduced by your Ladies. I prefer useful things — plates, chests, candlesticks.’

  ‘Tapestries are useful too — they cover rough walls and make rooms warmer and brighter.’

  ‘So they do. But for myself I prefer their designs to be purely decorative — like this.’ He pointed at a small tapestry hanging on one wall that was just of millefleurs, with no figures or animals. ‘I don't want ladies in a dream world — though perhaps for you they are real.’

  I wish they were, I thought. ‘You're too down-to-earth.’

  Léon tilted his head to one side. ‘That is how I survive. That is how we have always survived.’ He began to collect the paintings. ‘Are you going to draw something now or not?’

  I drew quickly — falcons attacking a heron as men and ladies looked on, with dogs running along the bottom, all to be filled in with millefleurs. I had designed enough tapestries now that it all came easily to me. Thanks to Aliénor's garden, I could even draw the millefleurs accurately.

  Léon watched as I drew. People often do — drawing for them is magical, a show at a fair. For me it has always been easy, but most people who take up the charcoal draw as if they're holding a candle stub.

  ‘You've learned much over these months,’ he said.

  I shrugged. ‘I too can be down-to-earth.’

  That night I dreamt of a strip of tapestry with Claude's face on it, and woke sticky. That had not happened in some time. The next day I found a reason to go to Saint-Germain-des-Prés — a friend there could tell me more about hunting with falcons. Of course I could have asked someone on the rue St Denis, but this way I could walk down the rue du Four and look up at the Le Viste house. I had not done that in some time either. The windows were shuttered, though it was only just after Easter and I didn't think the family would have already gone to Lyons. Though I waited, no one came in or out.

  My friend was not in eit
her, and I wandered back towards the city. As I passed through the city walls at the Porte St Germain and pushed through the market stalls surrounding it, I saw a familiar woman, frowning at some early heads of lettuce. She was not so fat now.

  ‘Marie-Céleste.’ I called her name without knowing I'd remembered it.

  She turned and looked at me without surprise as I stepped up to her. ‘What do you want?’ she demanded.

  ‘To see you smile.’

  Marie-Céleste grunted and turned back to the lettuces. ‘This one's got spots all over it,’ she said to the man selling them.

  ‘Find another, then,’ he shrugged.

  ‘Are you buying those for the Le Vistes?’

  Marie-Céleste sorted through the lettuce heads, her mouth a grim line. ‘Don't work there now. You should know that.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘I had to go away to have the baby, didn't I. Claude was to put in a word for me, but when I came back there was another girl in my place and mistress didn't want to know.’

  Hearing Claude's name made me shiver with desire. Marie-Céleste glared at me and I tried to think of something else. ‘So, how is the baby?’

  Marie-Céleste's hands stopped moving for a moment. Then she began shifting the heads again. ‘Gave her to the nuns.’ She picked up a lettuce and shook it.

  ‘What? Why?’

  ‘I had to go back to my job, to keep my mother. She's too old and sick to look after a baby. It's just what I had to do. Then I didn't even have a job to come back to.’

  I was quiet, thinking about a daughter off somewhere with nuns. It wasn't what I expected of any children I might have.

  ‘What did you name her?’

  ‘Claude.’

  I slapped Marie-Céleste so hard the head of lettuce flew from her hand.

  ‘Holà!’ cried the lettuce seller. ‘You drop it, you pay for it.’

  Marie-Céleste began to cry. She grabbed her basket and ran.

  ‘Pick that up!’ the lettuce man shouted.

  I scooped up the lettuce — leaves falling from it — and tossed it on top of the others before running after her. When I caught up, Marie-Céleste was red in the face from running and crying at the same time. ‘Why did you name her that?’ I shouted, grabbing her arm.

  Marie-Céleste shook her head and tried to pull away from me. A crowd was gathering — in a market anything is entertainment. ‘You going to hit her again?’ a woman jeered. ‘If you are, wait till my daughter comes back so she can get a look.’

  I pulled Marie-Céleste away from the crowd and into an alley. Sellers had thrown their rubbish there — rotting cabbage heads, old fish, horse dung. A rat ran off as I pushed her past the festering pile.

  ‘Why did you call my daughter that?’ I said in a lower voice. It was strange using the word daughter.

  Marie-Céleste looked at me wearily. She had stopped crying. Her doughy face looked like a bun with two currants pressed into it, and her dark hair dangled loose from her cap. I wondered why I had ever wanted to bed her.

  ‘I told Claude I would,’ she said. ‘I was so grateful to her offering to set me straight with the mistress. But then she didn't — when I spoke to Dame Geneviève she swore Mademoiselle hadn't said a thing. Mistress thought I'd run off and that was that. So the baby has Mademoiselle's name for nothing, after all I done for her when she was a girl. Lucky for me I got another place, with a family on the rue des Cordeliers. The Bellevilles. Not so rich as the Le Vistes, but they'll do. They even entertain the Le Viste ladies sometimes.’

  ‘The Le Viste ladies come to you?’

  ‘I stay well out of sight when they do.’ Marie-Céleste had recovered herself now. She looked around the alley and smiled a little. ‘I never thought I'd end up in an alley again with you.’

  ‘Which Le Vistes visit? Only Dame Geneviève, or does she bring her daughters?’

  ‘Usually Claude comes with her,’ Marie-Céleste said. ‘There's a daughter her age she likes to see.’

  ‘Do they come often?’

  Marie-Céleste furrowed her brow like the old woman she would become one day. ‘What do you care?’

  I shrugged. ‘Just curious. I've worked for Monseigneur Le Viste, as you know, and wondered what his women are like.’

  A cunning look came over Marie-Céleste's face. ‘I suppose you want to come and see me there, don't you?’

  I gaped at her, amazed that she was flirting with me after all that had happened. But then, she could be useful to me. I smiled and brushed a feather from her shoulder. ‘Might do.’

  When she reached over and pressed her hand against me, my groin grew hard very fast, and her face suddenly looked less doughy and more rosy. She took her hand away just as quickly, though. ‘I've to get back. Come and see me one day.’ She described the house on the rue des Cordeliers.

  ‘Maybe I'll come when the Le Vistes are visiting,’ I added. ‘Then I can have a look to satisfy my curiosity.’

  ‘If you like. En fait, they're visiting the day after tomorrow — I heard my mistress say.’

  It was too easy. Once Marie-Céleste had left, swinging her basket as she went, I wondered for a moment what she meant to get from this, apart from a moment's pleasure between her legs. But I didn't think for long. I would see Claude Le Viste and that was enough.

  Of course it was too easy. Marie-Céleste was not as forgiving as that.

  The Belleville house was indeed not as grand as the Le Vistes'. There were two levels and glass in some of the windows, but it was squeezed in among other houses, and some of the timber was rotting. I studied it while I waited across the road for Marie-Céleste, wondering if I would see Claude go in. I didn't know how I could get her on her own. There would be her mother and Béatrice about, as well as the ladies of the house. And there was Marie-Céleste — I might have to plough her just to be rid of her. I had no plan but to keep my wits and look about. At the least I would try to see Claude for a moment to arrange another meeting. I'd even paid a man to write a note for me — Claude would be able to read it even if I couldn't. The man had smirked at my words, but he'd written it. Men will do most things if a coin or two is the reward.

  Marie-Céleste opened the front door and peeked out, then beckoned to me. I ran across and slipped inside. She led me through one room, then another where tapestries were hanging — though it was too dark to see them properly — then back through the kitchen where the cook glared at me as he squatted by a pot on the fire. ‘Don't make noise or there'll be trouble,’ he growled.

  I couldn't remember if Marie-Céleste had been noisy when she opened her legs, but I played along, leering at him as we went out the back door. ‘Idiot,’ the cook muttered.

  I didn't have time to understand the warning behind that word. As I stepped into the back garden, I heard a sound behind me and took such a blow to my head that I saw stars. I staggered, and couldn't even turn around to see my assailant before I was kicked in the back and fell to the ground. Then he began kicking me in the side and head. I managed to look up through the blood trickling into my eyes and saw Marie-Céleste standing with her arms crossed. ‘Mind the laundry,’ she said to the man I couldn't see. It was too late — the sheet behind her was spattered with blood.

  I got enough breath back to groan before the man kicked it out of me again.

  It was strangely quiet, with only the sound of thumps and Marie-Céleste's shoe crunching the ground as she shifted from one foot to the other. I was curled up in a ball, trying to protect my innards and take the blows on my back. After one or two kicks to the head everything went black for a time. When I woke I heard a high-pitched whine, like a rabbit caught in a trap. Why is Marie-Céleste making that noise? I thought. ‘Be quiet,’ Marie-Céleste hissed, and I realized the sound came from me.

  ‘Kick him in the balls,’ Marie-Céleste said to my attacker. ‘Kick him so he'll not get anyone else with child.’

  The man aimed a kick in my knees to uncurl me and flatten me on my back. As he r
eadied himself for the coup de grâce, I closed my eyes. Then I heard the creak of a window shutter swinging out. I opened my eyes and looked up into Claude's face peeking over a window sill high above me. Her eyes were wide and clear. She looked like a strip of tapestry.

  ‘Arrêtez!’ Marie-Céleste yelled. The man paused, looked up, then in a flash was gone. I had not thought someone could disappear so fast. I did see enough of his face, though, to recognize the Le Viste steward. Watch my back, indeed. He had always hated me — enough, apparently, to risk his position. Either that or he fancied Marie-Céleste himself.

  ‘What's happened? Is that you, Marie-Céleste?’ Claude called. ‘And — ’ she started — ‘Nicolas?’

  Other faces appeared by Claude's — Geneviève de Nanterre, Béatrice, Madame and Mademoiselle de Belleville. It was so peculiar seeing their heads huddled together peering down at me — like birds in a tree looking at a worm — that I closed my eyes again.

  ‘Oh, Mademoiselle, a man has attacked Monsieur!’ Marie-Céleste cried. ‘I don't know where he came from — he just jumped on him!’

  The pain of my blows suddenly struck me everywhere. Despite myself I groaned. I could taste blood.

  ‘I'll come down,’ Claude said.

  ‘No, you won't,’ her mother said. ‘Béatrice, go and help Marie-Céleste tend to him.’

  When I opened my eyes the heads were gone save Claude's. She gazed down at me. It was very quiet. We smiled at each other. Looking at her face was like seeing blue sky through the leaves of a tree. Then she disappeared suddenly, as if she had been pulled away from the window.

  ‘Don't you say a thing,’ Marie-Céleste hissed. ‘You was visiting me and he tried to rob you.’

  I lay still. I would gain nothing from telling Béatrice what had really happened — if I did Marie-Céleste might tell Béatrice we had a daughter, and she would tell Claude. I didn't want Claude to know.

  Béatrice appeared with a bowl of water and a cloth. She knelt by me, took my head in her lap, and began mopping the blood from my face. Just the moving of my head made me feel queasy and I had to close my eyes.