Judith Merkle Riley

by The Master of All Desires

  By late afternoon he had discovered what glovemaker they preferred, three shoemakers that they favored, a draper’s, a fan maker, and two pâtissiers. He had also found that the young lady had the curious habit of reading natural history, and planned for that purpose to return to The Sign of the Four Elements on the rue St.-Jacques on Monday afternoon in two weeks’ time to see if her order of Historia Animalium had arrived. She is too good for that Spaniard, he thought morosely, as he walked back to his father’s house on the rue de Bailleul. She had a decent enough family, except for that rattle-brained Matheline. What led her to it? A man can’t marry a Spaniard’s ex-mistress, even if he kills him. What good is a duel after all? She’s ruined. It’s over. Put her out of your mind, he told himself. But the more he put her out, the more he saw her, all shining and outlined in the sun.

  ***

  “Auntie, don’t you think mother will just love the pretty bracelet we picked out? And the silver rattle, it’s just right for the baby—” The tall young woman’s face was glowing with unaccustomed happiness as she set down her purchases on the bed. The extraordinarily rotund, fantastical, dyed and painted old lady who had followed her in sighed as she lowered herself into the chair by the little table.

  “Ah! My feet! Oh, Sibille, how like the old days! Your mother and I had so much fun together when we were young! How I wish she were here now! We would spy out the best-looking young men in the street together, and dream about how someday we would each live in a castle, and pay each other visits. But my brother is such a tyrant he won’t even let her out of the house—I really don’t understand why you insisted on getting him a present, too, he really doesn’t deserve anything—oh! Look at the table! That horrible box is gone!”

  “And the window open!” said the younger woman, crossing the room to peer out. “Look at that! He climbed right up from the balcony and stole it! That Nostradamus is the greatest prophet in the world!” She closed the window and did a little dance in the middle of the room, out of pure joy, while the old woman smiled indulgently.

  “There’s only one thing I don’t understand,” said Aunt Pauline, propping up her bad foot on the footstool.

  “What’s that, Auntie?”

  “We sent notice to Saint-Germain three days ago that we were here, and ready to come for your reading. We should have heard back by now. We need to know when your audience is so that the Abbé can go ahead to find rooms in the town. I’m beginning to feel suspicious about this whole thing. Maybe the queen has changed her mind.”

  “We have the letter, ma tante, and it does say she has heard much of my poetry and desires to read it for herself and meet the authoress.”

  “Yes, but the messenger said it would not go amiss if we brought a certain box the queen was interested in, and we’d know which one. Now who did that fellow Léon say was coming to steal it? Maistre Cosme, the queen’s astrologer. I think we might be in the middle of a tangle, Sibille, and not because of your poetry.”

  “Surely, the queen does not commission thieves when we would have gladly given her Menander ourselves.”

  “Yes, but perhaps more people than the queen knew we had him. I did tell you to keep it a secret. Are you sure your gossipy cousin Matheline didn’t hear about it?”

  “Absolutely certain. I’ve never told a soul. I’m just mortified at the thought that my Art may come to its justified public acclaim only because I came into the accidental possession of a mummified head.”

  “Well then, something’s going on—I wonder how many people at court know you have it? I certainly hope they don’t find out what it will take to get it from you—”

  “You mean, if it’s truly stolen, my invitation will be rescinded, and we creep back home in disgrace with the presentation copies, and if it comes back, my life is in danger—”

  “More or less like that.”

  “Honestly, Auntie, I can’t decide which is worse. Do you know how my father will mock me? When I think about it, I’d rather be dead.”

  “Myself, I’d rather be neither. I’ll just have to think of something. I’ll consult Maistre Nostredame again. He seems to know a great deal about Menander’s habits.”

  ***

  “Back again so soon?” said the proprietor of the Four Elements. “The book’s not here yet, so neither is she.” The shop bell tinkled again as two alchemists, deep in conversation, pushed through the door. The shop window, which let down like a shelf beside the door, was open, letting in both light and air, and allowing the tempting array of books on the shelf behind the counter to be visible to the students and learned doctors of the Left Bank.

  “I—I’m looking for a fencing treatise—Marozzo’s Opera Nova,” said Nicolas Montvert.

  “To buy, or to thumb through?” said Maître Lenormand.

  “To buy, as soon as my father advances the funds,” announced Nicolas. The bookseller snorted in derision. “Don’t be so haughty,” said Nicolas. “I’m expecting a payment from Achille any time now—I may just take my custom elsewhere.”

  “After all the credit I’ve extended you? I’ve half a mind to tell your father you are partnering young dandies in an illegal fencing school for money—”

  “Then he’ll sign the orders for the Bastille, and I’ll never buy any more books from you,” said Nicolas.

  “Now, now, don’t get so testy,” said the old man. “You know I’m not that hard-hearted.”

  “You ought to be currying my favor,” said Nicolas, reaching down the coveted work on the new Italian fencing techniques from the shelf and thumbing through it. “I have every intention of becoming celebrated someday. People will flock to this very spot, all because I once read Marozzo here—”

  “Put that back, you’re wearing it out—”

  “See here? Marozzo is completely wrong when he describes the defense in low ward. My book will be much better than this—you’ll sell dozens of copies.”

  “Your book doesn’t exist yet, you puppy. And you think to outdo the celebrated Marozzo? How far are you from finished, anyway? Have you found a printer yet?”

  “Why—I’m not far from done at all—not at all—almost there, in fact—and I’m sure any good printer would just jump at the chance to publish an important new text on fencing like mine is going to be—”

  “Nicolas, Nicolas, take an old man’s advice. Learn the trade your father wants for you. Apply yourself to your studies, make him happy. He’s not a bad fellow, and he wants the best for you. The way you carry on, hanging out with those bad fellows, you’ll wind up dead in an alley and break his heart. Enter his trade, Nicolas. You can’t be in another place than the one you were born in, no matter how much you wish for it.”

  “Be a banker? But then—then I couldn’t even dare look at her. She’s so far above me, Maître. I can’t live in the mud if I want to reach for the stars. I need to become famous, right away. Famous and rich—”

  “Notorious and dead is more like it,” growled the old bookseller, as he watched Nicolas walk out into the busy, narrow street, then turned and put the book back on the shelf.

  ***

  Once again, Madame Gondi stood watch outside Ruggieri’s little attic chamber, while the Queen of France conferred with her astrologer inside. Behind the sealed door, the sorcerer whisked a silk cloth off something that stood on a long, bottle-filled table beneath the eaves. Even at noon, the little room was dark, and smelled of dust and long desiccated rats, poisoned and dead beneath the floorboards. Several astrological charts were pinned haphazardly to the wall, and the sigil of Asmodeus was written in red over the fireplace, which contained a redbrick athanor, whose chimney disappeared up the larger chimney of the fireplace.

  “My queen,” he said, “I have spared nothing to acquire this treasure for you.” Concealing her avidity, Catherine de Medici glanced at the silver-gilt box with the strange designs, then at her sorcerer’s malicious, triumphant face. A tiny smile, almost invisible, pulled up one corner of her mouth.

  “You
mean, you have stolen it from the sorceress. Ingenious, Cosmo, ingenious. She must not have any powers worth my knowing about, if you could so easily best her. So her bid for my favor fails, and you remain triumphant.”

  “Majesty, I can conceal nothing from you. You remain the most brilliant and insightful woman in the kingdom.”

  “But now I shall be the best loved. Open the box for me, Cosmo.”

  “Your Majesty must open it herself, for it to work,” said the sorcerer, averting his eyes as she fumbled with the catch.

  “Great Jesus, it’s moving! It’s alive! Oh! My God! What a ghastly, ugly thing!” exclaimed the queen. The peeling, parchment lips of the mummified head moved, revealing decayed, yellow teeth. One shriveled eyelid moved, and a glittering, evil eye, alive and shining, could be seen in the depths of the rotten, bony socket.

  “You’re not exactly so attractive, yourself,” said the head of Menander the Deathless.

  “C—Cosmo, tell it what I want,” said Catherine de Medici, who at this stage in her life was not yet far enough gone in magic to be unshakable in the face of horror. An eerie, sucking, pulsating sound seemed to resonate all around her, as if Hell itself were tugging at the hem of her dress, her long, glittering sleeves, her heart.

  “Majesty, you yourself must tell it, reciting first the words engraved over the catch of the box.”

  “I don’t want to kill the duchess, Cosmo, I want her alive to see me triumph. I want—” But the box had begun to shimmer; now it was translucent; it was in the very act of vanishing. “My coffer! Where’s my magic head going?” cried the queen.

  “I would love to oblige,” said the head, beginning to fade from sight, “but they’re missing me back where I belong—”

  “Where’s that?” cried the queen’s sorcerer, aghast at the mysterious fading of his treasure.

  “Sibille de La Roque owns me, at least for now—” said the head in a thin whisper as it and the box vanished from sight.

  “Well, Cosmo, it turns out you aren’t very clever after all. I should have known when you told me to put off receiving her that you were just jealous. She’s mightier in sorcery than you are, and you just didn’t want me to know. She’s probably foreseen your every move, and let you steal the treasure just to show you up in exactly this way.” Cosmo Ruggieri paled. What would he do? His enemies—he had so many. Without the queen’s protection and patronage he was a dead man. And it was all the queen’s fault. For whose sake had he made those enemies? He could have been cultivating a pleasant little society practice, but no, he must be the victim of ingratitude. Oh, the ingratitude of the great. How they disposed of faithful servants just for a moment of novelty, some stupid parlor trick like a mummified head that talked. It probably didn’t grant wishes anyway. It was all a deception mounted by the mysterious sorceress…

  “Don’t even imagine trying to poison her, Cosmo. If she’s tractable, I am going to arrange to keep her near, so that the head will always be at my disposal and not fall into the wrong hands. That way she will take the danger of keeping it, and no one but I will have the advantage of wishing on it. I want her, I want my magic head back, and if you kill her it might very well fly away forever—” Oh, dear, thought Cosmo, I hadn’t thought of that. I’d have to be right on the spot, when I killed her, and that could be so messy—

  “Look me in the eye, Cosmo, you worm. I can see your thoughts, did you know that? Don’t play any tricks on me. I want that head, or I’ll have yours, and just see how valid that prediction about my death is. I can get other sorcerers to change that, you know. Why, maybe I’ll just wish that prediction away on my lovely new magic coffer. Then see where you are—Now behave, or I’ll lock you up and keep you so near starvation you’ll wish you were dead.”

  “Great, merciful Majesty, pardon your wretched servant,” he said, bursting into crocodile tears and falling upon the floor to kiss the hem of her fashionable mauve taffeta and velvet dress. “I sought only to please you, oh, see my great distress and suffering, and pardon, pardon!”

  “There’ll be no pardon for you if you stain the hem of my gown, Cosmo. Cheap tears; I see better in the theater.”

  “Then you do pardon me; you are amused—yes, I, Ruggiero the Younger, have been the wretched object of your amusement—what joy that my pitiful state has brought even a moment of pleasure to the great queen, some brief distraction from her weighty cares—”

  “Stop that and quit groveling on the floor, Cosmo. I know what you’re thinking, and I don’t like it. Just understand me; I expect you to be civil to that new sorceress I’m consulting, and not sprinkle any powders about—oh, yes, and no death-spells, either.”

  “Can’t do that anyway,” he grumped. “The head puts ’em off.”

  “My goodness, it does? What a treasure! More powerful than my bezoar stones. Yes, I’ll send my guard for her at once, and have one of my most trustworthy ladies escort her. Oh, I can hardly wait—”

  Ingratitude, thought Ruggieri as he watched the stiff, dumpy little form sweep from the attic chamber, you are a bitter payment for all my loyalty, my infinite devotion…

  ***

  A tall, bulky, figure with greasy long hair, an eye patch, and a bristling gray and white beard stood in the doorway of the little apartment on the rue de la Tisarendirie. Even Beatrice, so used to seeing menacing-looking folk of all varieties, felt somewhat nervous at the sight of the sinister one-eyed man. Hidden violence seemed to roll off him in waves, like heat off a wheat field.

  “Your husband, I have heard of him. Is he at home?” said the man.

  “Why not just this moment, h–have you business with him?” said Beatrice, suddenly thinking the man could be a hired assassin.

  “I hear a man inside,” said Villasse.

  “M—my husband’s brother. The painter. The court painter, you know.”

  “I didn’t know. Let me in and I’ll wait. I’ve business with your husband. I hear he sells something I wish to buy.” Oh, what a relief. He’s going to assassinate someone else, thought Beatrice, as he pushed past her and seated himself in the best chair in their tiny front room.

  “Would you like a glass of wine while you wait?” she asked.

  “Not here,” said Villasse, with a malignant chuckle. He had scarcely begun to inspect the room, and wonder whose demonic sigil that was over the fireplace, when Lorenzo returned with his arms full of packages.

  “Maestro,” said Villasse as Lorenzo put down his load on the table and turned to his customer. “Maestro, I hear you will sell me oil of vitriol.” The sound of a baby crying came from the back room.

  “That, and a dozen other things. I take it you want revenge on a woman?”

  “How did you know?”

  “Simple. They always want vitriol for that job. A woman’s face—it’s all she has, isn’t it? Tell me, do you plan to throw it yourself? If you do, you must be sure to check the direction of the wind first—get in close and don’t let any splash on you. Water alone won’t wash it off.”

  “I don’t plan on doing it myself. Suppose there are witnesses? I intend to hire someone. Perhaps you might suggest a name.”

  “I know several fellows, but they are expensive. If you wish to be a bit more thrifty, you can try at the sign of the Black Bull, down by the river. There’s ex-soldiers there, ready for anything. Just don’t pay the man you get all at once. Offer him half, then the other half when the job’s done.”

  “An excellent idea, Maestro. I can see I’ve come to the right place.”

  “I always try to give the best quality to my clients,” said Maestro Lorenzo, taking a little brown bottle of oil of vitriol from a locked cupboard at the back of the room. “Remember, if you decide to throw it yourself, be sure to wear gloves.”

  ***

  A languid summer breeze, carrying some mysterious hint of the autumn to come, stirred the tops of the trees. Beyond the garden terrace of St.-Germain, the panorama of the river and the hazy, far distant walls and church spires
of Paris stretched out beyond them. The tall young lady paused. “Oh, it’s all just so wonderful,” she said. She walked on the arm of her brother, a bold, cheerful young man of medium height, dressed in the boots, puffed baggy breeches, and doublet of a soldier. A crimson cloak was thrown over his shoulder, and he had, since she had last seen him, grown a mustache more grandiose in its conception than in its execution.

  At her left strode an extraordinarily dashing young officer with flashing eyes and a much more successful mustache: Philippe d’Estouville, fellow officer in the service of Monsieur Damville, professional charmer and celebrated duelist. His seal-brown hair was combed quite flat beneath his narrow, plumed hat; his high-necked doublet opened to give way to a stylishly narrow ruff that sat just below his ears. An Italian rapier in the latest fashion hung at his side, its elaborately cast and gilded basket hilt advertising its owner’s wealth as well as his daring.