“She’s a whore,” Laurette says, among other things. “And they say she reeks of rotting flesh from having too much sex. She’s diseased. A monster.”
I don’t want to think of my queen as a monster. I don’t think of myself as one, even though I gladly steal the flesh of my sheep. I have seen—not in real life, of course, but in drawings, the ones that aren’t so vulgar—that she is still young, and beautiful. She wears her hair in a powdered white tower. And though she’s criticized for the excess, I hear that her gowns are stupendous. Imagine, a new one each day. Sometimes more than two a day. I like to think that she is a queen like I am in this moment, bringing my sheep to the greenest grass I can provide. Caring for them the best I can. Did our queen diminish our harvest? Does she make the laws that keep us impoverished? Or, would she, on a day like today, want to tuck her skirt up and spend it in a cool, lush field, smelling the sweet refreshment of rain?
I send the dogs and the flock down into a valley and stay up on the ridge where I can sit on large, smooth, dry stones. The brim of my hat shades my face, but my bare legs are warm in the sun. Ever-present hunger gnaws at me, and I think about the drawstring pouch at my side. In it, a dry crust of bread and a small pot of milk. By now the sun is past full noon, and I tell myself I will wait one more hour, eat half the bread, drink half the milk, and finish both after one more hour. If I’d brought my needlework with me, I could have measured the time in stitches. Instead, I create stitches in my imagination, envisioning the patterns I would make given an unlimited skein. And when my mind wanders from that, I think about Laurette, walking into the village pub, eyes searching hungrily for Marcel. And then I think about Marcel. I’ve seen him with all kinds of girls around the village, shamelessly parading them at his side. One in particular, Francine, his current favorite, even let him kiss her right out in the open street. Not two weeks ago, Laurette and I came out from Madame Ledard’s bakery and there they were, his face buried in the curve of Francine’s neck. Her eyes closed to all of us who watched.
Laurette said that Marcel meant to share Francine’s bed the rainy night he came to sleep in our barn. And that they must be done with each other if she sent him away. But I remember the look on Francine’s face. Like she’d died in the street and Marcel’s lips were somehow poised to breathe life back in. Francine is beautiful in a way neither Laurette nor I can ever hope to be. Delicate of feature, proportioned in figure. On that day, when I looked over at Laurette, she looked like she had died, too, and the poor thing had only my tug on her sleeve to revive her.
I know I shouldn’t think such things about Marcel. Shouldn’t dwell on the memory of his gaze at the table. Shouldn’t touch the curve of my neck and imagine his kiss.
But I do. Alone on a rock, a monarchy of my making, I indulge my mind, bringing together Marcel, and what I know of his lovemaking, and what I’ve seen of his body, and what I infer from the images I’ve seen of our queen—all of this I imagine with my own awkward, half-starved self. For a while, I feel no hunger.
A sound catches my attention, and in the distance I see a carriage emerging where the road cuts through a corner of forest. It’s a road that winds to Mouton Blanc, but is longer and less-traveled than the one we usually take. Once free of the trees, the driver whips at the horses and sets them at a fast pace—too fast for the road that is still stained dark with rain.
The sheep sense the intruder, though they are nowhere near its path. Still, I whistle for the dogs to bring them closer to the ridge to be sure. Once they’ve cleared, I see a dark rut in the road, and from this angle, I can imagine its depth. The driver, though, I’m sure, cannot. But the horses can. They balk at the ridge of it, rear up, veer, and turn the carriage on its side, throwing the driver clear from his seat. His wig flies from his head, landing like a tiny lamb in the grass.
It takes the last of my wits and my breath to give the dogs the signal to take the flock home, praying I remembered to leave the gate to the corral open. If not, they’ll just have to congregate in the muddy yard. I run through a sea of fast-moving sheep, making my way toward the man lying prone next to the carriage and the woman screaming from within.
L’épisode 3
Laurette
* * *
MOUTON BLANC, LE COCHON GROS
* * *
Laurette watched until Renée was well out of sight before strolling back into the house. Even though she knew she was alone, she glanced over her shoulder before lifting the key for the second bedroom from its place on the ledge above the door and turning it in the lock. The room was no mystery to her as she ran a cloth across the surface of the dressing table, along the door of the armoire, and round the bedposts. She bent close and smelled the ticking, worried that it might have absorbed the dampness of the past few days, but found the stuffing to smell nearly as sweet as it did that day months ago when she’d stolen in with a sack of straw to freshen that which had gone flat. For good measure, she livened the fallow feathers in the pillows.
She worked with both the speed of a thief and the ease of a mistress, humming a cheerful tune, talking out loud to the furniture. “Such a shame,” she said to the tall, narrow bachelor, running her cloth over each brass handle, “to lock you away. Fine bit of craftsmanship you are.”
By now she’d memorized the contents of the drawers. Handkerchiefs, mostly, and garters. A few ladies’ stockings that must have been tucked away in here for some sentimental purpose, because everything else was decidedly masculine. Gagnon’s refuge for his meager belongings. There were coins in the top drawer which Laurette had carefully re-scattered after counting them on the day of her discovery. She had the exact amount memorized, ready to jog Gagnon’s memory should their finances reach that desperation. There were notes, too, bundled together and tied with a strong red string. These Laurette left unmolested, not because she would never be able to replicate the intricate knot, but because she was utterly unable to read them.
Every bit of Laurette’s housewifery was a prayer of thanks. To Gagnon. She took the folded linens from the armoire, snapped them free, and refolded them, saying, “Thank you, Gagnon, for the bed you provide for me.” She never spoke any of this aloud, knowing Renée would chastise her for thanking Gagnon rather than God himself. Gagnon would, too, as he was never slow to give thanks for every bit of their meager existence. In this, her perception of the world and her place in it, Laurette felt utterly alone. Cared for, but not belonging. Fed, but not nourished. Covered, not held. And so she saw in Marcel a kindred spirit, he too having nothing from God to call his own. They could run off together and leave nothing behind.
Having finished her secretive task, Laurette turned the key in the lock and found its place above the door, marked with a tiny notch in the wood. She brought in the linens now crisp and dry, and made up Gagnon’s narrow bed. This she did without tune or conversation, simply performing the task, tucking the corners, and leaving with a turn of the heel. She took the others up to the loft, made her bed, leaving Reneé’s bare with the sheet folded at the foot.
Humming resumed, she stepped out of her work dress, took off her cap, and released her hair from the pins that held it in place. Unlike her cousin, Laurette had no trouble indulging in personal vanity. Her hair was the color of red oak leaves in autumn, and almost too thick to be contained in her encircled hand. Once loose, she brushed it, doubling the volume before smoothing it back and replaiting it. Now, she pinned it without thought to convenience, expertly drawing out a few strands to frame her face.
“Where are you when I need you, Cousine?” she said before taking a deep breath and pulling the strings of her stays, bringing a new flatness to her torso and pushing her ample bosom just a little higher. Breathless and satisfied, she wrapped the cords and tied them around her waist. She donned a new, clean vest, deep green and embellished with stitching of peacock feathers—Reneé’s gift to her last winter—and tied a bright-red kerchief around her shoulders.
This was Laurette as nobody had ev
er seen her, and without a glass, she could not see herself. Instead, she judged her appearance by the swelling pride she felt within. The strength behind the breath that filled her figure, the curling tendrils at the corner of her sight. Surely she hadn’t imagined the hooded glances Marcel sent those past two evenings by the fire. She jangled the few coins in her small purse. Enough, as she’d said, for a first drink.
The village of Mouton Blanc was laid out as a single, large square, with a raised platform at its center. In better times, times that formed her childhood memories, farmers would parade the finest of their flocks for auction. Now, the shops surrounding the square were largely abandoned, their owners having realized the futility of trying to wring blood from the stone-empty pockets of their customers. The once-thriving commercial community had been reduced to a struggling bakery, a few rag shops, a shabby apothecary, a one-eyed tailor, and a near-empty dry goods.
Even the church, l’église du Mouton Perdu, offered less to the lost sheep of its congregation. When the girls were little, Father Pietro always gave them slices of bread and cups of milk while they endured his catechism along with the other children in the front pews of the chapel. Endured, because the priest’s French was so thickly accented with his native Spanish as to be barely intelligible.
Laurette gave her first Confession wondering if the man on the other side of the screen had as much difficulty understanding her, secretly hoping that he did. She had much to confess. How a secret part of her was glad to see her father hang. How she hated her mother for being too weak to throw him out, and her aunt for being too selfish in her grief to care for them properly.
Laurette took her first Communion understanding nothing, as Father Pietro spoke in Latin. She knew that the bread was the broken body of Christ and the wine his blood, but felt no change after consuming it. Just as she’d felt no change having confessed her sins, or speaking the prayer of contrition that followed. Thus, her first Communion was her last, which explained why, when the starving girls presented themselves at the church in need of permanent shelter, Father Pietro sent them away with suspicion and prayers. In spite, Laurette took them straight to the pub, and straight to Gagnon.
Le Cochon Gros. The Fat Pig. The pub remained the only unchanged, thriving life in Mouton Blanc. Though the establishment was as old as the town itself, it created a home for a new idleness, brought on by poverty, and given over to a population still uncomfortable with empty days and emptier stomachs.
Laurette was well aware of the attention she sparked as she walked through the wide, sparsely populated street. A few scraggly chickens scattered out of her way, and more than one skinny dog engaged in a hopeful gait beside her, but it was the gaze of the men that brought a flush to her cheeks. She was no stranger to the village, but even these wastrels seemed to sense her renewed purpose. She walked through their comments as she would a familiar forest, their words fluttering behind her like dry, dead leaves. Her bright face, her fine figure. Crude insinuations and unflattering propositions. Gagnon was a well-enough respected man in the community to keep any of them from getting too close or speaking too loud. They murmured and whispered and buoyed her along with laughter that scratched like straw at the back of her neck. Uncomfortable, but not unwelcome.
Le Cochon Gros sat on the northeast corner of the square. A moment’s hesitation, a final deep breath, and she stepped over the threshold into the darkness. A hush of a moment fell. She was far from the only woman in the room; in fact, each of the long, warped tables hosted at least one on its bench. Dressed in stained shifts, open at the front, with frizzled curls springing from beneath dirty caps, these women emitted the first cooing noise at Laurette’s arrival. Not a noise of affection, but a warning to the fresh young face that dared show itself in their nest.
“What do you want here, mademoiselle?” The question came from a tall, bird-thin man, Alain Saumon, proprietor. He spoke from behind the bar, his question tinged with deference and warning.
“I’m looking for a friend,” Laurette said with a touch more confidence than she actually felt.
“You won’t find a friend in here,” Saumon said, followed by an immediate squelching of the comments that suggested she was welcome to be a friend to one and all. “There’s business to attend to. Best you go take your refreshment someplace more suited.”
No doubt he knew who she was, and that knowledge gave her some status.
“I’ll choose for myself what suits me,” she said, eliciting a cackling approval from the women.
“Now, listen, girl—” A new man stood up, taller than the proprietor. Jacques Dubois, trusted to monitor the scales when the bundles of wool were brought to market. He’d personally held the fortune or loss of nearly every family in the community in his hands and had been revered for his unfailing honesty and precision. “Do as the man says before—”
“Let her in. She’s here to see me.” An undeserved pride gripped Laurette’s heart when she saw how the room responded, all heads turning, leaving both Saumon and Dubois listless and silent. Marcel’s words propelled Laurette through the maze of tables, and when she reached him, he gripped her shoulders and pecked two kisses—one on each cheek—whispering, “What in all of heaven are you doing here?” between each embrace.
“I came to find you,” she said, despite the myriad of excuses she had rehearsed on the road. “When you were gone this morning, I was afraid, somehow, that we’d offended you. That Gagnon had made you feel unwelcome.”
“Since when have I ever felt the need to feel welcome?” His smile wrapped her even closer than the arm that drew her to him. “My fellows, let me introduce you to Mademoiselle Laurette Janvier. Is she not a bloom of beauty?”
Laurette felt pure joy churn upon itself within her, and even more so when one of his fellows asked, “Is this the one you were talking about?”
Then all was swept away when Marcel replied, “Mais non! Does she look like she is starving? No, it is her little cousin, Renée, who embodies the health and vigor of our people being ripped away. This one—” he tightened his grip, and she could feel his fingers splayed against her waist—“she is our résistance. Our resilience. Our refusal to die under the yoke of the oppression of the monarchy. Or to waste away in the void of its neglect.”
The crowd, or at least those gathered at the nearest tables, roared in appreciation and raised their pewter mugs in her direction. Marcel stepped away, until only his fingertips touched hers, and he curled them in a grip. “Look at her. Like a goddess who abandoned the empty promise of eternity. I know her to work miracles, my friends. Miracles that have filled my stomach. And how? Not because she waits.” He spit the word like an action despised. “And not because she begs. But because she takes.” At this, he gripped her wrist, pulled her close, and kissed her full on the mouth.
A goddess. That’s what he’d called her, never mind that she understood little of the rest. As he opened her mouth and breathed life into her, she felt immortality take its hold. She closed her eyes against the darkness of the room and felt only the lightning of Marcel’s touch. And then, with the same unexpected swiftness, it was over.
“Stay close to me,” he whispered before pulling away. “And speak to no one else, understand?”
She nodded, bringing the back of her hand to her lips as a gesture of promise.
“And you will tell no one of what you hear in this place today. Oui? Not even Gagnon. Above all, not Gagnon. Entends?”
“Oui, Marcel.”
He drew her close again, pressing his lips to her brow, and she wondered that he did not pull away at her fever.
Marcel possessed her in this place, always keeping a hand on her shoulder, her waist, her arm. She didn’t know if he meant to claim her, or protect her, or remind her that she remained only at his behest. Her ears roared with the rushing of her own blood, the echo of her very pulse, drowning out most of the surrounding conversation. Bits and pieces seeped through—the weakness of King Louis, the inexcusable waste at
court, the odiousness of the queen, and the questionable paternity of her children. All of this she’d heard before, even in talk at Gagnon’s table. But here, there was no voice to interject reason. No opinions to temper the flaring anger. They spoke in circles, each accusation igniting a new, more heinous one.
Marcel had summoned the tavern keeper to bring Laurette one cup of wine after another, and though even her uneducated palate could taste the water, the excitement of the surroundings heightened its effect. She felt herself growing warm, flushed from beneath her skin. Soon she contributed her own witticisms, and was rewarded not only with laughter, but with Marcel drawing her even closer. He buried his face in the curve of her neck, and she inclined her head to hold him until a deep, sneering laughter tore him away.
“Do you see, Moreau, why you could never be fit to lead us? How easily you are distracted from our cause?” Jacques Dubois had returned, scattering Marcel’s audience.
“I am distracted by nothing,” Marcel said. Already Laurette’s flesh had cooled.
“I don’t blame you entirely. You are too young to be decisive. Quick to temper but slow to action, as much as you seem to admire that very trait in this girl. Weakness can only hide behind words for so long, my boy. Revolutions might begin with the tongue, but they live in our arms. Our fists. We lost a great opportunity today.”
“We lost nothing.” He moved away from Laurette—just an inch—but she felt a new valley of distance between them.
“A carriage with a royal crest? Nothing?”
“Without so much as a single guard.” Marcel stood, and though Dubois was the taller by far, Marcel’s confidence bridged the distance. “What good would it have done for us to waylay a member of the court too insignificant to warrant protection?”
“They could have had money,” Dubois said, garnering tepid support from those gathered at the table.
The Seamstress Page 4