by Anne Groß
“What family?” Thomas asked. “How can you be sure there is a family? And even if there is, how do you know they still want her? She may have shamed them to such a degree that they wish to forget her entirely. Did you see how quickly she drank her porter?”
“This lass is special, you said so yourself.”
“I said she was strange.”
“There will be a reward for finding her. Mother has placed the advert in the paper. We need only wait.”
“So it’s another gamble for you.” Thomas sighed when Richard set his mouth in a hard line. “Fine then, but if she stays, she works. Tomorrow she’ll go to the kitchen.”
“Mrs. P. will be delighted to have some help, I’m sure,” Richard smiled at having won the argument.
“Oh aye, Richard. Delighted.” Thomas’s sarcasm dripped as he got up to turn the heavy key to the front door and lock up. His expression was unreadable as he watched Richard leave the room. On his way back to the bar, Thomas pushed both chairs up under the table and then knocked his pipe on the heel of his shoe. The cold ash fell in a little pile on the hardwood floor.
“How much did you hear?” he asked Elise without looking at her.
“Nothing. I’m supposed to help Mrs. P. tomorrow.”
Thomas tucked his pipe back into his pocket as he came around the bar. He stood so close that Elise could see the buttons of his shirt more easily than the expression on his face. “It’s late. I’m heading upstairs,” he said. He touched her elbow. “I’ll walk you to your room.”
A crash came from the kitchen and Elise heard Mary scolding Johnny. They were still washing up the night’s dishes. “Should we wait for them?” The thought of being in a dark hallway with the glowering fighter made her uneasy.
“Mary will be a while yet.” His hand gripped her elbow more insistently.
Elise nodded, feeling trapped. She pushed herself up from the stool to stand, and for the second time that night, her legs gave out as she shifted her weight to her feet. This time Thomas caught her and lifted her into his arms. The buttons of his shirt scraped into her sore ribs. “God, you stink,” Elise mumbled sleepily before she rested her head against his broad shoulder.
THE BLACK QUEEN
Adelaide sat on the narrow ledge of the cold windowsill and looked down into the slick grey cobblestone street. Despite the rain, a boy was sweeping a path through the manure to the other side of the street. For his service, he held out his hand to a pair of well-dressed women who could now cross without soiling the hems of their skirts. The apartments in the building across the street were shut up tight and the iron rails that both decorated and protected the windows gleamed wetly. Today, as it had the day before, and the day before that, and the day before that, and perhaps the entire last few weeks, the rain slapped ceaselessly over Paris. Even wrapped in her thick wool shawl, Adelaide shivered. It was a cold summer and the gloom was as oppressive as her insecurity. At least she still had her home, she thought, looking around at her comfortable parlor. The fire burned cheerfully behind the grate. Her maid, Agnes, had left the café on the table near the divan and it scented the room pleasantly. Her home was bought and paid for, thanks to her many wealthy clients, and would always be there for her no matter how far she strayed from its warm familiarity. She took strength from that knowledge.
She sighed heavily and flicked her eyes over to her writing table where her cards lay scattered face down with the exception of one. The queen of spades smiled at her teasingly in profile from the top left corner of the card. Adelaide looked back through the window. She had been consistently pulling the Black Queen from the deck since that horrid night at Malmaison and was tired of thinking about it, but the card’s significance was hard to ignore. She moved back to the divan where she picked up her knitting and forced herself to start a new row. It was a simple lace pattern with an easy combination of increases and decreases, but nevertheless she had somehow managed to offset the pattern when she turned the work. She could go to the market, she thought restlessly as she began undoing her row. Agnes should go, but Agnes was unused to picking the best cuts of beef and could never get a good price from the butcher. Adelaide considered walking to the wine shop on the corner where she went to hear the latest news, since Bonaparte began censoring the opposition publications. But if she went to the wine shop she would be obliged to buy a drink and she was trying to save money. She would need new clients soon. All her well-to-do customers had started cancelling their appointments.
Somehow, the Black Queen found her way into Adelaide’s hand with her knitting piled loosely in her lap. She stood and walked to her writing desk and brushed the other cards off in irritation as though swiping crumbs from dinner table. As she had done countless times over the last week, she paced her parlor and studied the card’s many symbols, the Queen of Spades being only one of many. In the center of the card, Isis was shown discovering the body of her murdered husband Osiris. The Egyptian queen held her arms spread out from her sides in surprise to see the Pharaoh’s body half hidden under a bush. By itself, the scene suggested a woman newly widowed or abandoned, which was appropriate for Adelaide’s frame of mind, preoccupied as she was by her banishment from the Emperor.
After the botched conjuring, she had sworn again and again that she had never plotted to steal his scarab. She promised that she would find the golem and return the jewel. She begged Napoleon to be patient and allow her to stay in his home while she located the errant creature, but he would not be swayed. He was convinced their entire affair had been simply smoke and mirrors to shame him in front of all his guests. The fact that Josephine had been able to persuade Bonaparte to allow her to prove her innocence was a testament to the Empress’s feminine powers, waning though they may be. As a result, Adelaide was given a small window of time to locate the golem and make amends.
There had been no response from any of the members of La Société to the letters she had sent, but it had been foolish to hope that anyone would respond. For all she knew, the Société d’Isis was responsible for the disappearance of the golem. She looked suspiciously at Isis depicted on her card and wondered if the image intimated she was being abandoned by the powerful women she held in such high esteem.
While she had waited for a response to her letters, Adelaide spent many hours in meditation until she finally found the golem’s tether. The feeling of pulling the creature towards her, hand over fist, had been one of the most profound experiences of her life—like giving birth in reverse. When the golem came into view, she swelled with maternal pride at the sight of it and instinctively attempted spiritual contact with her progeny by psychically reaching through the black miasma. She had expected to be recognized and loved, but the creature pushed her away with a startling power. Over and over, Adelaide had tried reconnecting with the golem, but the more time passed, the more difficult the task became. The rejection stung. Adelaide sighed and gazed out the window again. The Black Queen did not lie. Fortune, her one true love, had indeed abandoned her.
The only queen she had left was Josephine. What a generous soul, thought Adelaide, what tenderness of spirit. Josephine, still clinging to the idea that they were friends, had come all the way from Malmaison to beg forgiveness for having placed her in an untenable position. Her sensibilities, so naturally amiable and true, obliged her to seek out the warmth of her friends when the warmth of her husband was no longer available to her. “No matter how beautiful the ceremony, it wouldn’t have pleased Napoleon,” the Empress said. “No one pleases him. He is intolerable.”
Sweet Josephine, thought Adelaide, her husband was neither malcontented nor intolerable. The bedroom activities were a thrilling and productive means for controlling the storm that was Napoleon. His body was compact and widening, his hair was lank and thinning, his breath rank, and his tongue probing, but there was no denying the appeal of his power. She should have known that no force of nature could be corralled for long but she had let herself get swept away with the idea that she could p
lay a part in the history of France. Adelaide gave a quick, defeated wave of her hand in the air as though she was talking to another when she thought of her embarrassing naïveté. Now she knew that while she had whispered fevered suggestions for shaping the future of mankind, the Emperor was only listening to his own heavy breathing. While all of France was still fixated on the heady novelty of greeting each other as equals, Napoleon fixated on Austria, on Iberia, on England. She berated herself for her stupidity.
She had read the cards to Josephine when she visited to calm the Empress and stop her tears. It hadn’t worked. The Black Queen had been drawn then as well. Abandoned or widowed, which would Josephine be? Perhaps both. Not wanting to further upset the Empress, Adelaide had instead concentrated on the other images shown on the card. In the bottom left hand corner, a man stood over a lantern, refilling it with oil. Darkness and solitude would ensue—the loss of a friend or confidante was inevitable. Adelaide had taken the opportunity to explain that the two of them would not be able to meet again in the future. Josephine wept anew at the news, but Adelaide had felt mostly sorry for the loss of Josephine’s influence, not her company. In the bottom right hand corner, a young woman sat with a crone. That was the crux of the problem, Adelaide had thought as she smiled thinly at the aging Empress. In the face of Josephine’s growing inability to conceive, the Emperor had become a rutting animal, bedding any woman he could in order to prove the infertility of his wife was not due to his own impotence. If only Josephine had gathered wisdom instead of quips during her marriage she might have been able to sustain her usefulness beyond her childbearing years with the provision of invaluable advice and calculated introductions. Instead, the silly woman thought she could help by introducing her husband to a fortune-teller. Adelaide snorted at the thought. It sounded ridiculous even to her.
Pressing the Black Queen to her lips, Adelaide thought again of the golem. It wasn’t too far of a stretch to think the card could also be meant for that green-eyed creature, although she hesitated to believe she could read for the supernatural. Solitude, despair for lost loves and lost lives—if the creature could emote, these would be the emotions she would surely be feeling. The fact that the card’s interpretation centered on an Egyptian myth couldn’t be a coincidence, considering the significance of Napoleon’s lost jewel. Adelaide’s situation would be entirely different had the scarab remained around the Emperor’s neck. So would the golem’s situation, for that matter.
A loud knock on the front door made Adelaide jump. She bent down and started gathering the cards from off the floor. “Agnes,” she called. “See who is there.” She knew full well who it was. She saw a flash of her little maid as she rushed through the hallway and heard her soft shoes brush down the stairs to the entrance hall. The pounding on the door grew more insistent. With her deck tucked into her apron pocket, she arranged herself on the divan and waited.
“Monsieur, s’il vous plait,” she heard Agnes squeak in surprise. Then she heard a rushed and heavy scrape of feet up the marble steps before a thin man with sharp cheekbones outlined in black sideburns darkened her parlor door.
“Ministre Fouché. Je vous en prie. Please enter.” Adelaide said. She made a graceful gesture of invitation and offered him the armchair opposite the fireplace. “Have you come for a reading? Agnes, pour our honored guest a glass of our best Madeira.” Adelaide reached into her pocket to touch her deck, drawing the cards’ strength into her.
The man smiled coldly as he seated himself and graciously took the small vial of the sticky wine. “I’ve no wish to know the future before it arrives,” he said. “Nor am I afflicted with so much self doubt that I would need to hear my own desires echoed back to me for reassurance.”
Adelaide withdrew her hand from her pocket and fought to control her emotions. If the Minister of Police knocked on her door and didn’t want a reading, then there could only be one other reason for his visit. She felt his eyes, high above his long nose, boring through her. It was just as well, even if he had been interested in her cards, he would have still apprehended her. This way she was spared the torture of reading for a prideful man. “Then you’ve come to punish me for my mistake.”
“A mistake, for a woman, is selecting the wrong color gown for the ball, forgetting one’s gloves in a lover’s boudoir, misplacing a stitch in an embroidery. This was no mistake. This was a crime. The Emperor was generous enough, given your relationship with his wife, to allow you the time to ameliorate your situation. But now your time is up. I have come to ask: have you found your errant partner?”
“Partner? I have no partner.”
Fouché’s eyes narrowed. He shifted forward in the chair as though needing to relieve the pressure of the seat from his sharp tailbone. Then he smiled slowly, pretending sympathy. “You must feel so humiliated to have been left behind, abandoned with all the problems and none of the rewards. How could she have done that to you? Partner? No, she’s no partner. That much is true.” The Minister paused to look into her eyes. Adelaide pulled her shawl closer around her shoulders as a chill shot down her spine. “If I had a partner like that, I would move heaven and earth to find her and make her pay for her betrayal. But I can see that you are a generous woman. You hesitate to give up the location of your former friend.” He waited for Adelaide to respond, then continued when it became obvious she wouldn’t. “But perhaps you protect her location from me only for the joy of punishing her yourself?”
“Oh no,” Adelaide exclaimed horrified. “I could never hurt her. But you are mistaken—she is not my partner.”
“Have you found her then? Have you even been trying?”
“Yes, yes, of course. And I almost did. I almost found her.”
Fouché stood and loomed over her. “Where? Does she still have the jewel? Tell me and all is forgiven.”
“On the astral plane. I found her on the astral plane.” Adelaide cried out in alarm when the Minister slammed his fist down next to her on the divan. “Please understand. All is not lost. The vortex did not take her out of reach. She can still be retrieved.”
“Retrieved from where?” His long fingers locked around her shoulders. “People do not reside amongst stars. Do not torture me with your ridiculous speeches. Where is the jewel?”
“I don’t know,” Adelaide gasped. “Not France. She’s not in France. I need more time, and supplies. You must give me more time to find the golem. If the Emperor refuses to have me return to Malmaison, I’ll need money so I can recreate the conjuring here in this room. Candles, mirrors, the roses, the pyramids of pastries—all of it needs to be present. I won’t be able to recall her, but I may be able to locate her if the scene is correct.”
“Now we are progressing.” Fouché sat back down in the armchair and brushed the lint off his lap. The sudden change in his countenance was heartening. “And how much do you estimate you’ll need?”
Adelaide stood excitedly. “I’ve already calculated the sums. I’ve been thinking about this for some time.” She pulled a sheet of paper with carefully marked figures from out of a collection of books stacked under her desk and handed it to the Minister.
Fouché glanced at it quickly. “This is it? Surely you will need more than this? You cannot host the ceremony here in this hovel of a room. You must rent a salon. And how will you feed your friends? You should be hosting a party for the recreation to be complete. We will need to double this sum, wouldn’t you agree?”
Adelaide felt a bit astonished by the sudden transformation of the Minister. “Having others present would help to recreate that night,” she agreed.
“Tell me, where did you first find the creature?”
“Find her? I didn’t find her. She was gifted to me like a babe is gifted to a mother.”
The Minister’s friendly countenance dissolved as he folded up the sheet of figures. He shook his head. “Not only are you unrepentant of your crime, now you attempt to fleece more from the Emperor’s coffers. I will keep this page you’ve given me as eviden
ce. I wish to know who your partner’s friends are, her lovers, where she eats, where she sleeps. I don’t care about astral planes. I don’t care about your diabolical cards. I want details. What kind of fool do you think I am? Astral plane?” The Minister scoffed and grabbed Adelaide’s arm. “I’ve heard enough. Either you don’t know where the scarab is, or you know but you refuse to say and think to con a few more sous.”
“That’s not true,” Adelaide tried to shake his grip off her arm. “I only wish to help the Emperor. A second revolution is nigh. The Bourbons will return to power if I don’t find the golem. Don’t you see?” Adelaide pulled le Valet de Piques from her pocket and waved it at the Minister. “Even you will be harmed. You will be replaced by a Duke.”
“Idiotte, my replacement will come after I choose to retire.” He opened the door and pushed her into the hallway. “Your prophecies are treasonous. Just tell me where your partner is and I will suggest to the Emperor that he use a light hand in your punishment.”
They paused at the top of the stairs and glared at each other. Adelaide clenched her fists in frustration. “Have you not heard anything I’ve been saying?”
The Minister took up Adelaide’s arm again and started marching her down the long staircase. “I’ve heard it all, Mademoiselle. I’ve heard it all,” he said wearily. “You’ll hear it too, whispered from cell to cell, and soon it will bore you as much as it bores me. But eventually the tedium of your solitude will convince you to forego telling your tired little stories.” He stopped to peel away Adelaide’s arresting grip from the staircase banister as she fought to slow their descent. “Then, you may be happier to tell the details. I like details. I’ll listen more carefully then.” He crooked her arm painfully behind her back to keep her in front of him. “Perhaps your partner’s parents live in Nantes? Perhaps she has a lover who she meets regularly on the banks of the Seine?” He grunted and lifted Adelaide back onto her feet when she tried to sit down.