Judith Merkle Riley

by The Master of All Desires

  “Of course. But no more cream sauce. It unsettles my digestion.” As Léon departed, Nostradamus dipped his pen back in the inkwell and wrote, “In his seventeenth year, the Lord Dauphin must give up hunting entirely if he wishes to pass by a period of great risk successfully.” It’s just as well Léon can’t read, thought Nostradamus, or he’d throw me off with his snickering. We both know well enough the dauphin will never give up hunting…

  There was a rustle and a snort of amusement behind him. Without turning his head, Nostradamus said, “Anael? You should be ashamed, snooping like this. I didn’t even call you.”

  “I told you, Michel, I go where I want.”

  “Doctor Nostradamus, please.”

  “You call me by my first name, I call you by yours.”

  “You have other names?”

  “Of course. Dozens. And titles, too. I’m just not vain, like some people.”

  “Always, criticism. A man can’t get anything done without someone offering irritating suggestions—”

  “—or snickering at the sight of the great Prophet doctoring a horoscope for money to get out of town.”

  “Go away, you pest, and come back when I call you.”

  “Oh, I wouldn’t think of it. You wished for the spirit of prophecy, and you get the spirit of prophecy, my own self, whether you like it or not.” Here Anael nodded his head mockingly and made a flourish, as a gentleman would when introduced. But somehow it did not look the same when the gentleman had no hat and plumes, or even any clothes, and, in addition, filled the entire space from floor to fourteen-foot ceiling. “Besides, I was feeling a bit of that ennui of eternal existence, and something amusing is going to happen, so I dropped in.” Nostradamus, who had studiously evaded the angel’s gaze, in order to avoid giving him any additional satisfaction, now glanced up from his papers and realized that Léon had left the door open. In the door frame stood the gawky, tall, bony figure of the most annoying, pretentious poetess in the whole world, clutching a package tied with a fancy ribbon to her bosom. Oh, God, thought Nostradamus, an entire package of poems, and I’m probably expected to read every one of them. But she was standing stock still, not saying anything, for once. And suddenly the prophet realized, she is seeing Anael. He is not invisible to her.

  “Um—I didn’t realize you had a guest,” she said, inspecting the towering, raven-winged, unclad figure. “I’m sorry, Monsieur—ah—Anael, I believe—I will return when you have finished your toilette.”

  “Oh, no, don’t go just yet,” said Anael. Addressing Nostradamus, he added, “You see? There’s someone who knows about polite address.”

  “And just how did you know Anael?” said Nostradamus. “And how did you see him?”

  “Oh—I often see—things,” she said, still rather wide-eyed with shock. “And I do read, you know.” She hesitated. “Monsieur Anael, dark blue, very good-looking—the Angel of Venus—” She blushed. “I didn’t know about the little twinkling sparks. Like the night sky. And they move about—” While she was distracted by staring, the prophet suddenly came to himself, and covered up the draft horoscope with some blank paper, then weighed it down with a book and his inkwell.

  “Have you brought that—hound of yours?”

  “I know you don’t like Gargantua, so I left him at home.”

  “And the interfering aunt?”

  “She’s having the furniture rearranged in a nice little apartment we’ve just rented. It’s really not so far from here. I’ve brought you—”

  “Just leave them here,” said the defeated prophet. “I’ll read them later. You haven’t gone and dedicated them to me, have you? I simply can’t have that—”

  “It’s—it’s your slippers. We had them made up from the old ones—exactly alike—” Nostradamus suddenly felt very mean and small when he noticed her eyes had started to swim. “My father never liked them either—but I thought—the queen said they were very admirable, and M. Montmorency, too, especially the one I wrote about you—pardon—” She wiped away a tear and shook her head so that no more would come.

  “Do sit down here, Demoiselle Sibille,” said Anael, sitting his huge figure on the big, canopied bed that stood in one corner of the room and patting the place beside him. “Not everyone has every gift, you know. And your prose dialogues have many passages that are very sharp and witty. I know many consider them your best work.”

  “You think so?” she said, hesitating to sit down.

  “Absolutely,” said Anael. “The secret of being truly admired is to write where your strength is. You need to know who you are before you take up the pen—” Sibille looked at up at Anael’s vast, shadowy bulk, and her face seemed troubled.

  “—and you should try history. I’ve a knack for that, myself. I could help you out, there. Michel, you are a rude oaf. You never even offered the lady a seat.”

  “Oh, umph, so sorry. Don’t know what I was thinking about. Don’t mind sitting next to Anael. He may not be clad in the fashion, but he’s very mannerly.” When Sibille hesitatingly sat down next to the immense, bare figure, Nostradamus noticed that she carefully arranged her hem to conceal her generously sized feet, and he felt sorrier than ever for what he had let slip. There is nothing sadder than an old maid who knows it, he thought.

  “I thought—perhaps—this was the time for my Art to be recognized—I mean, my readings have done so well, and even—you don’t suppose it was all that horrible Menander’s doing, do you?”

  “Have you made your wish?” said the old doctor, horrified.

  “No, but half the world would do it if they could get at him. The queen keeps me close by, and you wouldn’t believe who courts me for a peek at him. I was thinking—maybe—some of it was sincere. But I guess he was right. It’s all flattery.”

  “What do you mean, he told you? You mean Menander? And where is he, anyway? I thought he followed you about. He should be materializing about now.”

  “Menander told me that he was giving up on me until I realized that the only way I wouldn’t turn out a lonely old maid was to wish for a rich, good-looking husband. And then he said he had better people to associate with—”

  “Better people?” The old prophet could feel the hair standing up on the back of his neck.

  “A man broke in and stole him two days ago, and I’ve heard the Duchess of Valentinois has him now. It’s been such a relief, even if the queen is frantic. He—he talks to me at night, you know, and I can’t sleep. He—he says if I won’t wish, at least I should get out of his way, because he has much more important people to belong to than me. And just when I’m happiest, he’ll come back and spoil everything—”

  “Demoiselle Sibille, don’t you realize he’s just working on you?” said Anael.

  “I know, but it hurts anyway.”

  “He always works on weak spots,” said Nostradamus. “And, being deathless, he has all the time in the world to do it. You shouldn’t underestimate how sly and nasty he can be.”

  “That’s what Auntie says, and she says I should be happy in order to spite him, but he steals all my pleasure. He’s worn me out ’til I hardly feel like living.”

  “And he will keep it up until you’ve wished, and he’s stolen your soul into the bargain. It is clear that if he can’t have that, he’ll try to wear you down until you perish. Your will must stay powerful! Sages and seers have given in, but you must withstand him!” Nostradamus felt himself aflame with indignation, with sympathy, with the desire to defeat Menander the Deathless at his own dirty game. He never noticed Anael’s quiet smile as he spoke.

  “First he said my pretty new dresses were unbecoming, and then they looked all plain and dowdy to me. Then he told me I was ugly anyway, and I didn’t want to look in the mirror anymore, because every time I did, all I could see was a flaw—my nose, this eyebrow, a pimple—you know.” Sibille’s face was pale and sad. She smoothed the wrinkles out of her skirt, looking down as she spoke.

  “Then I thought, well, at least I�
�m healthy, and he reminded me that health never lasts, and the most sinister diseases start with the tiniest signs. Now every time I get a cold, he says he knew someone who died from it, and then I feel worse than ever. When I became popular and got invited to the queen’s cultured afternoons to read, he said it was all flattery because they wanted to get to him and they were laughing behind my back.

  “Then, I swear, Maistre Nostredame, I could hear whispering behind me wherever I went, and I could never hear anyone say anything good or kind without listening for some hidden slight. But still I didn’t wish, you see. I didn’t wish for beauty, I didn’t wish for eternal youth and health, I didn’t wish for everybody to admire my writing—I was strong.”

  “I see, I see. You’ve held out longer than anyone I’ve ever heard of—”

  “Then M. d’Estouville came to pay court to me, and hired men to play viols and lutes beneath my window. Can you imagine? The most handsome, dashing man I’ve ever met! Rank and fortune, and admired by my brother and my father! I was ecstatic! Menander sat on the cupboard and gloated that he was only after the money Auntie was going to leave me and told me exactly how many debts he has, and how his rich uncle is too healthy to die just now—” All true enough, thought Nostradamus, who had drawn up the dashing M. d’Estouville’s horoscope.

  “You see? Auntie won’t have Philippe in the house because of it, and even you know it’s true,” said Sibille. “Then when I decided that at least I had my Art, Menander told me it was awful, and I’ve lost all my inspiration. My muses have flown, and I’m going to die of starvation in an attic and they won’t find my body until it’s mummified, just like he said—”

  “That’s nonsense!” said the prophet.

  “I said so, too. I have Auntie, I told him. And he said she only bought me from father to spite him, and my own family didn’t even love me, so what did I expect—”

  “Your father sold you?”

  “Well, in a manner of speaking. He let Auntie adopt me when she offered to pay his debts. Don’t you think a father who really loved me would have said, ‘Never!’ or perhaps maybe just loaned me for a while? It’s all so awful, you see—and when I told that awful mummy that the great Nostradamus said I had an important future, he said you were a quack—”

  “That does it!” said Nostradamus, leaping up in such a fury that he forgot to favor his bad foot. “I swear, I’ll see that wretched piece of garbage in a box destroyed if it’s the last thing I do!” He pounded with his fist on the table, and the lid rattled on his inkwell. “Take heart, Demoiselle! Do you think I can read so little of the human essence that I think you will end as he said? That evil, sneaking, creature takes speckles of truth and distorts them until they are huge stains. He works on your will, and he has had a thousand years to learn how to do it! Can’t you see what he wants? If he drives you to despair, you’ll take your own life and he’ll have your soul without even having to do the work of carrying out a wish! It’s nothing but a new game for him! After all these centuries, he’s bored, and this is the way he amuses himself! But I, the infallible Nostradamus, will draw your horoscope entirely gratis, without charge, and show to you that all his evil prophecies are false! Quack, indeed! I’ll grind that despicable Menander into dust!” The old prophet was so furious the arteries in his neck stood out and his hair stood on end, and he never even noticed Anael’s broad, triumphant smile.

  ***

  That morning Nicolas Montvert had awakened from a dream that his father stood over his bed, lecturing him on the virtues of early rising, the expense of the waste of candles in late nights, the expense of the education and travel showered upon him, all of which was wasted, his advancing age and failure to show himself responsible, and he was, in the dream, just preparing to answer, “But I don’t want to be a banker,” when his eyes popped open, and he saw his father, his somber silk gown, gold chain, and flat hat, his long beard wigwagging over him even as the words,

  “—shameless waste—your grandfather is turning in his grave—your mother weeps—even the angels weep—sloth is one of the seven deadly sins—”

  “Uff, oof,” said Nicolas, who was deeply entangled in the sheets.

  “—and pretending to be asleep, it is insulting! How many burdens must an old man bear? Soon I’ll be in my grave, and you will be the cause of it, yes, you, your ingratitude—”

  “I’m up, I’m up,” said Nicolas. His hair was sticking every which way, and the previous late night had left dark circles under his eyes.

  “I want you to survey accounts with me, then this afternoon I take you to meet the keeper of the queen’s household accounts, you have no idea the time I’ve waited for this appointment; you should be grateful for such an opportunity—”

  “I am, Father, I am. I swear I’ll be there—what time?”

  “And where are you going, that you are dressing in such a hurry?”

  “Ah, um, to mass, father. I—I’ve been feeling a need to worship in a more wholesome fashion, more profoundly, lately—”

  “Weekday mass, and not Sunday mass? Oh, I am a foolish old man, to believe you once again—go, go—ah, God, God, how does it happen in a family that one child gets all the virtue, and the other collects sins like loose dog hairs?”

  After all, it’s a kind of worship, said Nicolas to himself, as he walked through the narrow streets of the Marais, emerging at the rue St.-Antoine, and found himself, almost without effort, at the doorstep of the house on the rue Cerisée. This doorstep, it’s the altar of Venus. Every day, Sibille’s beautiful foot touches this doorstep. And today—today’s the day my watching will pay off. I’ll discover the identity of the wicked Spaniard and then, why, I’ll insult him, and cause him to challenge me, and when he’s dead on the field of honor, it will erase the stain—

  At that very moment, the door opened, and his heart gave a leap when he saw it was her, her alone, her without the litter, the duenna, the huge, slavering dog, the lackeys. On foot, in a plain, dark cloak, clutching a mysterious package to her bosom. Carefully, she looked both ways, and assuming the street was empty, sped away with swift and determined steps. Taking care to stay on the shadowy side of the street, Nicolas followed as quickly and quietly as a cat—no, a tiger, or perhaps a lion—well, he followed swiftly, while deciding on a suitably becoming image for himself, finally settling on a gigantic, silent, slithering serpent. This time, the Spaniard will not escape me. But suppose it is the second lover she is meeting clandestinely? One or two? Well, what does it matter: I’ll challenge them both, and fight them on successive days, he thought. It will make me famous. He imagined her old, sunning herself in a convent garden, and someone saying, “Her? The famous double duel of Montvert was fought over her?” and then the answer, “But, my dear, that was long ago. You cannot imagine her beauty in those days. But all wasted. After the victory, the Chevalier Montvert refused ever to speak to her again on account of her dishonor, and here she has been since, simply numb with grief for fifty years.”

  But he had hardly got to the best part of his daydream when she passed the Swiss guards at the courtyard gates of the Hôtel de Sens and when he tried to follow, they most rudely demanded his standing, and his business there. Quickly it ran through his mind: what could he say? Nicolas Montvert, Philosopher and Observer of Life? Nicolas Montvert, quarreler in student taverns through half of Italy and France, hanger-on with the rogues at cheap fencing studios, and author of an as-yet-to-be-published treatise on The Secrets of the Italian Art of Fencing? Nicolas Montvert, banker’s son, but no banker? None of it was a worthy enough description of his special and higher relationship to the ordinary run of mankind, the glorious but unspecified future that he intended for himself. I need a title, he thought sulkily, as he lurked by the gate, waiting for her to come out again. I need something grand enough that I don’t get turned away from courtyard gates by hired Swiss guards, like some peddler of trinkets.

  ***

  Then he noticed he had a fellow lurker, a dreadful figu
re of a demobilized soldier in filthy old rags, quite drunk even early in the day. He’s the sort that gives a bad name to people who lurk for legitimate purposes, thought Nicolas. The sinister man was also eyeing the gate, watching the visitors, priests, merchants and petitioners go in and out, waiting for somebody. A hired bravo, decided Nicolas. I’ve run into enough of them here and there. How desperate—or how well paid—to attempt an assassination in broad daylight. A woman with a tray of meat pies came by and the lurker bought one, and as he munched, Nicolas remembered he hadn’t had breakfast, and this led him to a contemplation of his father’s extreme stinginess, which had left him entirely without funds for a similar purchase and this in turn led him to ponder how misers never end well, and just as he was imagining his father on his deathbed repenting, and begging forgiveness from his long-suffering son, who was reduced to a pitiable human skeleton, she came out of the gate, looking unhappy, and without the package.

  “Demoiselle Sibille de La Roque?” asked the sinister fellow, blocking her way. Then she nodded, looking puzzled, and everything happened at once.

  “This from the Sieur Villasse!” cried the man, raising his arm, at the very moment that Nicolas leaped upon him, sending the object in his hand flying. As the shower of vitriol spewed harmlessly between them, acid drops ate unnoticed into his sleeve, while Sibille screamed, “My hand! My hand! Oh, God, it burns!” and Nicolas hammered the assassin’s head into the cobblestones shouting, “The Spaniard! Tell me where he lives or I’ll kill you here! Who is Señor Alonzo?” and the Swiss tried in vain to claw them apart. “Insanity! No, a fit! No, a murder attempt!” cried the strangers who began to run to the struggling mass of bodies.

  “Assassin!” he cried, as they separated him from the ragged man. Behind him, someone was saying, “Oil of vitriol—it’s everywhere—look at it eat into the stone—” while behind him he heard his beloved screaming.