“Why look, here’s the bride. Goodness, it’s Sibille, getting married at last. Hmph. Yes. To Nicolas, as it ought to be. And just look at her dance! There she goes—the leap and turn—heavens, that girl has big feet!”
“That fellow who’s holding her waist doesn’t seem to notice.”
“They never do, when they’re in love,” said the old prophet. “Tell me, whatever happened to Menander the Undying?”
“You’ll have to quit tapping your foot if you want me to show you,” said Anael.
“I’m not tapping it,” said the old doctor, suddenly remembering his dignity.
“Have it your way, but just take a look at this—”
Nostradamus peered at the bowl, but couldn’t make sense of the image. Village people in festival dress, a holiday, a gathering of some sort—ah, a fair—there were the vendors, he could hear the cries of a woman selling pies from a tray—and a crowd. Oh, a dancing bear. Quite a good one, really—not moth-eaten looking at all, the way so many are. I’m fond of dancing bears, he thought, but what has this to do with Menander?
Now four monks, carrying a big wooden box on poles were pushing through the crowd. “Repent! Repent! The Kingdom of God is at hand!” shouted the monk who walked before them, ringing a little handbell.
“View the relic,” he could hear the monks carrying the box shout. “View the sacred relic; only a small offering and you may kiss the box.” Even before they had entered the shabby little canvas pavilion and shut the flap, people were crowding around the box, trying to touch it, trying to kiss it without paying.
A line had formed in front of the pavilion flap. Peasants in their Sunday clothes, cripples, women in wooden shoes carrying sick infants. A monk with a charity box was taking offerings almost faster than he could talk. “The head of John the Baptist, the one, the true, the only—all others are false—” he was saying.
“Anael,” said Nostradamus, “those don’t look like monks at all. That one there, I swear he’s got a brand on his hand. See how he’s smeared it with something?”
Inside the tent, on top of the wooden ark in which it had been carried, stood a battered, tarnished silver-gilt box, wide open, lit by two candles in tin holders, one placed on each side.
“I’ve seen better on pikes in the city hall square,” a big man in wooden shoes was saying. “How do I know this isn’t just some criminal’s head?”
“It’s alive,” said the monk in attendance. And at that, the eyelids flickered, and a groaning sound issued from the mummified head. At this, the crowd in the tent pulled back, horrified.
“Why doesn’t it speak?”
“The immortal head of John the Baptist is deep in holy contemplation. Come closer, good people, it blesses, it cures, it elevates—tell your friends.”
“Anael,” said Nostradamus, “did you know that Menander had his own religion when he was alive? And look at him now—”
“So did John the Baptist—”
“It’s entirely different, and you know it,” snapped the old doctor.
“I can walk, I can walk!” cried a man, ostentatiously throwing down his crutch. Outside, the monk taking cash cried, “A miracle! A miracle! Hurry, hurry inside—it blesses! It heals!” Inside the tent, the crutch was being hung up. In back of the tent, the miraculously healed man was accepting payment from one of the monks.
“And not a peep out of Menander all this time. She must have done it—asked him for the impossible wish—” said Nostradamus. “I take no little pride in putting that monstrous thing out of business.”
“In business is more like it,” observed Anael, with a cheerful grin. But Nostradamus had collapsed back on his wooden stool with a sigh.
“It’s clear to me,” said the old man, “that getting rid of Menander didn’t save the world at all.”
“I thought I’d explained it to you, Michel. History works like a river—”
“What you mean is, humanity doesn’t need sorcery to spoil the world. They can do it all by themselves,” observed Nostradamus.
“Exactly. I couldn’t have put it better myself,” said the Spirit of History.
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The Oracle Glass
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One
What, in heaven’s name, is that?” The Milanese ambassador to the court of His Majesty, Louis XIV, King of France, raised his lorgnon to his eye, the better to inspect the curious figure that had just been shown into the room. The woman who stood on the threshold was an extraordinary sight, even in this extravagant setting in the year of victories, 1676. Above an old-fashioned Spanish farthingale, a black brocade gown cut in the style of Henri IV rose to a tight little white ruff at her neck. Her ebony walking stick, nearly as tall as herself, was decorated with a bunch of black silk ribbons and topped with a silver owl’s head. A widow’s veil concealed her face. The hum of voices at the maréchale’s reception was hushed for a moment, as the stiff little woman in the garments of a previous century threw back her black veil to reveal a beautiful face made ghastly pale by layers of white powder. She paused a moment, taking in the room with an amused look, as if fully conscious of the sensation that her appearance made. As a crowd of women hurried to greet her, the Milanese ambassador’s soberly dressed companion, the Lieutenant General of the Paris Police, turned to make a remark.
“That, my dear Ambassador, is the most impudent woman in Paris.”
“Indeed, Monsieur de La Reynie, there is obviously no one better fitted than you to make such a pronouncement,” the Italian responded politely, tearing his eyes with difficulty from the woman’s fiercely lovely face. “But tell me, why the owl’s-head walking stick? It makes her look like a sorceress.”
“That is exactly her purpose. The woman has a flair for drama. That is why all of Paris is talking about the Marquise de Morville.” The chief of the Paris police smiled ironically, but his pale eyes were humorless.
“Ah, so that is the woman who has told the Queen’s fortune. The Comtesse de Soissons says she is infallible. I had thought of consulting her myself, to see if she would sell me the secret of the cards.”
“Her mysterious formula for winning at cards—another of her pieces of fakery. Every time someone wins heavily at lansquenet, the rumor goes about that the marquise has at last been persuaded to part with the secret of the cards. Secret, indeed…” said the chief of police. “That shameless adventuress merely capitalizes on every scandal in the city. I believe in this secret about as much as I believe her claims to have been preserved for over two centuries by alchemical arts.”
Hearing this, the Milanese ambassador looked abashed and put away his lorgnon.
La Reynie raised an eyebrow. “Don’t tell me, my dear fellow, that you were considering purchasing the secret of immortality as well?”
“Oh, certainly not,” the ambassador said hastily. “After all, these are modern times. In our century, surely only fools believe in superstitions like that.”
“Then half of Paris is composed of fools, even in this age of science. Anyone who loses a handkerchief, a ring, or a lover hastens to the marquise to have her read in the cards or consult her so-called oracle glass. And the damned thing is, they usually come away satisfied. It takes a certain sort of dangerous intelligence to maintain such deception. I assure you, if fortune-telling were illegal, she’s the very first person I’d arrest.”
The Marquise de Morville was making her way through the high, arched reception hall as if at a Roman triumph. Behind her trailed a dwarf in Moorish costume who carried her black brocade train, as well as a maid in a garish green striped gown who held her handkerchief. Around her crowded petitioners who believed she could make their fortunes: impecunious countesses, overspent abbés and chevaliers, titled libertines raddled with the Italian disease, the society doctor Rabel, the notorious diabolist Duc de Brissac and his sinister companions.
“Ah, there is someone who can introduce us
,” cried the ambassador, as he intercepted a slender, olive-skinned young man on his way to the refreshment table. “Primi, my friend here and I would like to make the acquaintance of the immortal marquise.”
“But of course,” answered the young Italian. “The marquise and I have been acquainted for ages.” He waggled his eyebrows. It was only a matter of minutes before the chief of police found himself face-to-face with the subject of so many secret reports, being appraised with almost mathematical precision by the subject’s cool, gray eyes. Something about the erect little figure in black irritated him unspeakably.
“And so, how is the most notorious charlatan in Paris doing these days?” he asked the fortune-teller, annoyance overcoming his usual impeccable politeness.
“Why, she is doing just about as well as the most pompous chief of police in Paris,” the marquise answered calmly. La Reynie noted her perfect Parisian accent. But her speech had a certain formality, precision—as if she were somehow apart from everything. Could she be foreign? There were so many foreign adventurers in the city, these days. But as far as the police could tell, this one, at least, was not engaged in espionage.
“I suppose you are here to sell the secret of the cards,” he said between his teeth. Even he was astonished at how infuriated she could make him feel, simply by looking at him the way she did. The arrogance of her, to dare to be amused by a man of his position.
“Oh, no, I could never sell that,” replied the devineresse. “Unless, of course, you were considering buying it for yourself…” The marquise flashed a wicked smile.
“Just as well, or I would have you taken in for fraud,” La Reynie found himself saying. Himself, Gabriel Nicolas de La Reynie, who prided himself on his perfect control, his precise manners—who was known for the exquisite politeness he brought even to the interrogation of a prisoner in the dungeon of the Châtelet.
“Oh, naughty, Monsieur de La Reynie. I always give full value,” he could hear her saying in answer, as he inspected the firm little hand that held the tall, black walking stick. A ridiculous ring, shaped like a dragon, another, in the form of a death’s-head, and yet two more, one with an immense, blood red ruby, overburdened the narrow, white little fingers. The hand of a brilliant child, not an old woman, mused La Reynie.
“Your pardon, Marquise,” La Reynie said, as she turned to answer the desperate plea of an elderly gentleman for an appointment for a private reading. “I would love to know where you are from, adventuress,” he muttered to himself.
As if her ear never missed a sound, even when engaged in mid-conversation elsewhere, the marquise turned her head back over her shoulder and answered the chief of police: “‘From’?” She laughed. “Why, I’m from Paris. Where else?”
Lying, thought La Reynie. He knew every secret of the city. It was impossible for such a prodigy to hatch out, unseen by his agents. It was a challenge, and he intended to unravel it for the sake of public order. A woman should not be allowed to annoy the Lieutenant General of the Paris Police.
Acknowledgments
As always, I am grateful for wonderful libraries, in particular, the libraries of the University of California system, the Huntington Library, and the Honnold Library of the Claremont Colleges. I owe special thanks to the librarians of the Interlibrary Loan Desk at the Honnold, who managed, among many other things, to get hold of the more exotic and obscure works of Nostradamus for me. I have also had the blessing of supportive friends and family; the Tea Ladies, Deborah and Susan; my husband, Parkes; my son, Marlow; and my daughter Elizabeth, who read the manuscript with her usual shrewd insight. I am deeply appreciative of the work of my editors, Pam Dorman and Susan Hans O’Connor. And to my agent, Jean Naggar, my awe and gratitude for her astonishing ability to remain serene and reassuring in the face of the manic ups and downs of the writing life.
About the Author
Judith Merkle Riley (1942–2010) held a PhD from the University of California at Berkeley, and she taught in the department of government at Claremont McKenna College in Claremont, California. From 1988 to 2007, she wrote six historical novels: The Oracle Glass, The Master of All Desires, A Vision of Light, In Pursuit of the Green Lion, The Water Devil, and The Serpent Garden. Visit her website at www.judith.com.
Judith Merkle Riley Page 45