The Oracle Glass

by Judith Merkle Riley

  D’Urbec began by assuring himself that in defiance of the galley masters he would at least keep his mind as his own. But as the first week ran into the second and then the third, he realized that pain and hunger, systematically applied, had done their work. His brain could no longer hold more than a minute at a time in focus; his concerns had shrunk to the size of his bread ration. At night he shivered in the open air, sleepless from the rattle of chained men scratching their vermin. And when at last he saw that he had become little more than a beast with arms, no different than the thieves on either side of him, his heart broke. The fever that haunted the oarsmen’s benches took possession of him. He had decided to die.

  Images moved through his brain randomly. Paris. His friends. A stable yard at home. He could hear voices talking about him.

  “Another one with fever, Lieutenant…”

  “…the hospital weakens them. Just move him to the end of the oar. He’ll harden up…”

  The rattle of chains and someone saying “Move, you.” Other images. A sign over a door, “D’Urbec et fils, Horlogers.” His father waving good-bye as he left on the diligence for Paris, wearing a secondhand suit. A frail girl with gray eyes, clutching a Latin book. The frightened look on the maid’s face at the back door of the great house as she said, “Monsieur, she is dead.” “…but she was well when I saw her last…” “Monsieur, she drowned herself.” Let it all go, said his mind as it left him.

  The captain increased rations to combat the fever and had meat issued to the rowers. D’Urbec, wasted, blistered by the sun, his eyes burned deep into their sockets, rowed on at the easier end of the oar, his shoulders and arms gradually acquiring the abnormal strength of the galérien.

  “You speak well,” said the ship’s tavernier when he measured out d’Urbec’s watery wine ration. “What were you before?”

  “A law student,” said d’Urbec, his eyes dull and desperate.

  “Ah, just what I could use,” replied the tavernier, who was also a fence of stolen property when the ship docked for the winter at Marseilles. “I have a client who needs a marriage certificate for his daughter—dated last year, if you know what I mean. Could you draw one up, nice and legal, if I got the right parchment and seals for it?”

  “It would not be hard.”

  “What about wills, deeds? I know people who’ll pay well.”

  “Of course,” answered the law student who had once wanted to reform the state.

  ***

  It was not until the following spring that a filthy, hollow-eyed man in worn, badly fitting government-issue clothes left Marseilles on foot for Paris. A black, shapeless hat hid his shaven head, but nothing could conceal that his face was without eyebrows. A short jacket, sprung out at the seams, and a coarse, patched shirt concealed the G A L branded deep into his shoulder. He was filled with bitter knowledge: how much wine diluted with seawater could be drunk before illness set in, how to bribe a comite to spare the lash, how much more easily money could be made secretly forging legal documents than mending clocks, and the exact price of a Turk. Hidden inside his shirt was the document that gave him freedom and a much-refolded, grimy letter from his father that he had paid a considerable bribe to receive. One passage, puzzled over again and again, was burned into his mind: “…a generous and titled widow with great influence at court has helped me secure this miracle…” Who? Who? he mumbled silently to himself. Those who passed him on the road thought he was insane.

  TWENTY

  I left court shortly before Easter and returned to Paris, for while the fortune-telling business vanished during Holy Week at Versailles, it remained as good as ever in the city, where the austerities of the season had never interfered with the main business of life, which was to have a good time. The night that we packed, Sylvie got a glimpse of the heap of gold louis in my locked coffer and sucked in her breath.

  “Oh my,” she said, in her sharp little voice. “That’s a fortune. I could retire on that.”

  “It goes to La Voisin,” I replied, locking the box.

  “And not a bit to us, for some nice new clothes, or a trip to Vichy to take the waters and meet some good-looking men? She sure has a racket, she does. I wish I was her. I been figuring. I been watching. I calculate, just from what I know about who works for her, she must bring in maybe a hundred thousand écus a year—straight profit.” Sylvie’s eyes narrowed as she savored the sum. A greater income than all but the mightiest noble families in the kingdom. It dwarfed the modest sum in the box, the annual income of an ordinary family of the provincial aristocracy.

  “A contract is a contract,” I said, as we departed down the rickety outer staircase.

  “Sometimes I think that for an old lady you’re kind of simple,” she answered, puffing beneath her burden of bundles as she followed behind me.

  We arrived after Mass on Easter Sunday at the villa on the rue Beauregard. The mingled smell of a dozen meat dishes to break the long season of fasting penetrated every room from the inner fastness of the kitchen. The whole house had been newly cleaned for the holiday. The heavy silver plate, all freshly polished, glinted down from the sideboard. The carpets were beaten, the rich, dark furniture dusted, down to the last knob and carving. Marie-Marguerite bustled by in a new dress and cap, with a fresh little linen-and-lace apron that once would have sent my sister into an ecstasy. Only Antoine Montvoisin was not to be seen in new clothes. He was upstairs, sick in bed. Sylvie followed me into La Voisin’s little cabinet, carrying the locked coffer.

  “You look sour this week. Come, wasn’t life pleasant? Imagine, you might live like that always if you are guided by me. Remember that I made you,” the sorceress added, counting up the money on her writing desk and opening her great ledger. The little cat’s face winked up at me from atop a sheaf of papers with cabalistic drawings on them. “Is it all here?” she asked in a suspicious voice.

  “Everything. I have an accounting, if you wish.” Sylvie held out the open coffer. A sudden look of concern crossed La Voisin’s face as she snatched up the top notebook, to be replaced with one of relief as she glanced through the pages.

  “All in code. Excellent,” she said. “Occasionally, you have a sensible instinct after all. I never let my books leave this cabinet, and it is steel lined, with the finest locks in the kingdom. Remember, our first duty is to protect our clients. We go silent to the grave. That is what protects our business.”

  “The business of fortune-telling or the business of abortions?” I asked.

  “My, a taste of the great life, and we become Frondeurs and rebels, don’t we? Those who are raised the highest are the most ungrateful, aren’t they? Consider this, you are young and without obligations: I support ten mouths.”

  “You make more than most ministers of state.”

  “But with much more difficulty and struggle, my dear. Learn from me, and I’ll teach you how to become mistress of great enterprises. One day, you’ll be as wealthy as I am.” She closed her ledger and stood to lock up the money in her strongbox. One of her big cats rose from dozing by the fire and rubbed at her ankles. It was odd, I reflected. She didn’t have any black cats. You’d think a witch would have all black cats. Instead she had tabby and tortoiseshell, orange, gray, white, and even one that was sort of pinkish. But the black ones seemed to have vanished, if they had ever been there at all. Then she turned to me, as if she’d just thought of something, but somehow, the gesture seemed contrived. “Now, I’ve been thinking,” she said in a somewhat forced-sounding voice. “You are rising and need a better address. The front room of a cheap boarding house is hardly the place for the sensation of Versailles to operate her business. What about a splendid little apartment? Or better, a town house? So private, you know. The higher clients like privacy. The greatest of my clients are only content with my little garden pavilion. There is a charming little house coming free in the Marais…” So so
on, a house? I thought. This is not entirely beneficence. Is she afraid I’m flying so high that I may soon leave her?

  “Now the house is a bit narrow,” La Voisin was saying, “but it’s the best of addresses, and a very private back way out. And a footman—yes, you’ll need a footman, and I’m sure I could find you a splendid one. Why, you’re almost ready to move up! I’d planned to wait a year, but you’re so talented! And Easter, that’s sort of the start of a new year, isn’t it? So, now, you’ll celebrate your new elevation with us, by having dinner here.”

  Something about her manner sent a shudder through me. I’ve offended her, I thought. She’s angry. I’ll never live to see that town house. The whole story is just a ruse to get me to eat here. Didn’t old Montvoisin warn me? Why didn’t I control myself better and bide my time? Why did I have to blurt out that I knew about those abortions, like a fool? A few years, and I’d have been free. Now, dinner. A cold sweat broke out on my temples as I answered, “Oh, yes, let’s celebrate.” Easy, easy. Smile and don’t show you know anything, Geneviève. Maybe it will go by. Maybe she’ll forget what I said, and her anger will pass.

  By then the guests had begun to arrive, crowding into the black reception room and the richly furnished dining room beyond, exclaiming and greeting one another. Le Sage, the magician, wrapped in his gray cape, the pharmaceutical specialists La Trianon and La Dodée in bright new gowns that sprouted ribbons at every seam, La Lépère complaining and wiping her nose with a spring cold, the Abbé Mariette, an elegantly dressed young society priest, La Pelletier all in violet taffeta, the same stuff she used for her love sachets, La Debraye, La Delaporte, La Deslauriers, witches all, and more: men and women, priests, tradesmen, nouvellistes, diabolists, alchemists, and all sorts of titled folk of dubious origins. Last of all, a strange, hunched-over old man in a cassock, with a debauched face and a swollen nose covered with purple veins, was shown in. He was accompanied by his mistress, a woman with a lined face and hollow eyes. It was the Abbé Guibourg, Master of the Black Mass, who paid in gold for abortionists’ fetuses and newborn infants from the orphanages of Paris. At the sight of him, people drew back in the crowded rooms to let them both pass, as if some mysterious cold wind had accompanied them in.

  “Has Madame Brunet come to you yet?” La Pelletier said, and laughed. “She wants Philibert, the flute player, at any cost!”

  “He’s in great demand in this city—I have two clients who want him as well; I imagine we’ve sold all three the same poudre d’amour. Oh well, someone will be happy out of it, so between us, we’ll retain partial credit.” La Trianon chuckled.

  “Either that, or mine will be proved definitively the most powerful,” said La Pelletier with a certain professional calm.

  “As long as you depend so much on essence of cock’s testicles, you needn’t count on it,” sniffed La Trianon.

  “But, my dear, he should have worn a glass mask…it’s no surprise he was asphyxiated…that process creates so many fumes…” I could hear from across the room.

  “She does such a business in poudres de succession, but I don’t imagine for long. She is careless. And so vulgar…” The words flitted through my head, barely making sense as the terror mounted.

  “Well, La Bosse is slipping, you know…she really should retire…”

  “…and so it all goes to show, that strategy is everything, my dear. It’s everything—” I realized with a start that La Trianon was addressing me.

  “Oh yes, oh yes, I can see that. It’s very clever,” I answered, hoping I made sense. My voice was thin with fright, and I was sure everyone in the room could hear the pounding of my heart.

  The soup was clear. It must be all right. Wouldn’t it be cloudy if something were in it? Margot brought it in from the kitchen and served it from a big tureen on the sideboard. How close she was to her mistress. Did I see her hand hover a moment over one of the soup bowls as it passed by her?

  “Do eat your soup, dear. You look pale. Soup is good for the pallor,” remarked my hostess. Yes, good for it. Eliminates it entirely, along with any other health worries you might have. I took a spoonful.

  “Delicious,” I said. My sense of taste was abnormally active. Was that a metallic aftertaste? Was it salt?

  The first ragout came from the kitchen ready served. Rabbit poached in wine sauce. Onions. And—I could see them—mushrooms. Wasn’t there a Roman emperor poisoned by a mushroom? Messalina, that’s who did it.

  “Oh, the flavor is exquisite,” sighed the Abbé Mariette from across the table. “Your cook is truly an artist.” I started. La Voisin cast a piercing look at me. All but the mushrooms, I thought. The acute flavoring that fear gives a dish is indescribable. Never in my life have I tasted with such precision the delicately mingled flavors of garlic and herbs, the subtle aromatic savor of wine. The brilliant, heightened flavor was unbelievably delicious. Almost intoxicating. Intoxicating? Something in the sauce? Never mind, it was done now. Enjoy the flavors, Geneviève; you might as well. It’s your last dinner on earth.

  “The mushrooms…chanterelles…so delicate…” someone was saying. Death’s heads. Are they what had imparted the subtle and unique flavor to the sauce? No wonder I had never tasted it before.

  “Do try the mushrooms, dear Marquise. They are especially in your honor.” Did I hear a hint of sly amusement in her voice? Was the little smile too fixed?

  “Oh yes, they are lovely.” Definitely. It had to be the mushrooms. The taste was exquisite, elegant, incapable of being described. What were those prayers I’d daydreamed through at Mass? They’d flown out of my mind. The Paternoster, was that the right order? It didn’t work if it wasn’t in the right order. Did I even have a soul? Oh, I wished I had one now, or even that I believed I had one, even if I didn’t. I didn’t want to die. Wine. A toast. To the arts of Le Sage. To my triumph. Drink, drink. It’s your last night on earth.

  “My, success has quite gone to your head, Madame. Le Sage, Mariette, carry her upstairs.” I was deposited on the bed in the great room with the sinister tapestry. The heavy canopy, draped in rich green and gold brocade, swam in circles above my head. The dark red wall swayed and whirled. Good. Let death come here. I couldn’t pick up my head. As my eyes closed and I drifted away, I said the only prayer I could muster. God, if you are, take my soul, if I have one.

  I drifted in and out of consciousness as the late afternoon faded into dusk. In a far corner of the now dim room, I could make out whispers.

  “Quiet. Is she listening?” A bare scratch of a voice.

  “She’s dead drunk. She won’t hear a thing.” Le Sage.

  “He grows weaker by the day. His eyes are sunken in. He coughs. I can’t bear it.”

  “Only a short while, then, until we marry, my love.”

  “I tell you, I can’t stand it. It’s tearing me apart.”

  “Love and yearning for me, O sublime queen, or regrets for that miserable weakling you married? What’s wrong? Why do you turn coward now? You wanted it; I cast it.”

  “The spell. It’s too ghastly. You must reverse it.” At last, I recognized the voice. Hers. La Voisin’s.

  “Reverse the spell on a ram’s head? It’s never been done.”

  “Dig it up, dig it up, I say. I can’t stand it anymore, seeing him waste so terribly!” The shriek of despair made my eyes fly open. Luckily I had the presence of mind to close them again and lie there, stiff, without moving.

  “You don’t love me if you dare not risk even this little. I have been loved by greater women than you. Together, we could rule Europe. By yourself, what have you got?”

  “Far more than you have ever achieved, you ungrateful, inconsequential man. Whose influence rescued you from the galleys? What convict ever left the galleys except in a shroud? Only you! My high influence at court saw you put ashore at Genoa. Did you think it was an accident? I created you,
I can destroy you! Go, go now and dig it up, wherever you buried it out there, and bring it to me in this room! I’ll reverse the spell myself. What has he ever done, that man you despise so, but fail me? It’s you, you who have betrayed me, time and again—and I come back and beg to be betrayed again. Isn’t that love? Love to the point of blindness? Don’t try me, Adam, or you’ll pay dearly for it.” I could hear the scraping of a chair and the sound of footsteps.

  “Very well. If you think so little of me, I’ll bring it to you. But don’t expect cooperation from my associates for your…little supplies.”

  “There are other alchemists in this city…I don’t need you, you…mountebank.” My mind was still foggy. The walls turned gray and vanished.

  I awoke in the dark. A candelabrum at the opposite end of the room shed a feeble light that did not fill the dark corners. The smell of something rotten being burned came from the oven behind the tapestry. On the table beneath the candelabrum lay an open grimoire, the witches’ book of spells.

  “So, you’re finally stirring, are you? I’ve never seen a human being drunker. You thought I was going to poison you, didn’t you? Never fear. The day I decide to poison you, you’ll never know it.” La Voisin was wearing a somber black gown that I’d never seen before. The light flickered across her face where she sat beside the candles. Her even features had a frightening beauty beneath the dark coils of her hair.

  “You stand to make me a fortune. I never destroy the sources of fortune,” she said, folding her hands in her lap. “After that, we will be friends. Only women can be friends. We know how to help each other. When a man and a woman are friends, the man always uses the woman. She must feed his pride, his pocketbook. Not so with us, eh? We who have nothing must raise each other up. But then, only women can be enemies. Men, they don’t think a woman is worth the trouble. And that is their weak spot, isn’t it? That is how we rule the world of men, we witches. Through their blind spot. Do you have a headache yet?”