And I, with the memory of Chantelle in my head, and exhausted with my various escapes, and in fear of being left to wander the streets at night in a strange town on my own, and frightened that I would meet Lord Thierry again, or some other band of rough young men, did what any girl might do in the circumstances. I burst into tears.
‘Come now,’ the woman said, ‘you mustn’t cry. I don’t like to see anyone cry, especially a boy. It isn’t seemly.’
‘My sister,’ I sobbed. ‘My sister died. I cannot bear the grief of it.’
‘Yes, yes, it’s very sad to lose a sister. But these are hard times we live in. Only last year the Plague took away six hundred souls from this parish. Six hundred! And many of those were children, brothers and sisters.’
‘It wasn’t an illness. It wasn’t anything like that. Her death should not have happened. She was so young and beautiful and a good person.’
‘Nevertheless’ – the woman spoke more briskly – ‘a young man of your years should not be crying. How old are you anyway?’
‘Not very old,’ I sobbed. I’d forgotten to deepen my voice. But now I did not care.
‘There’s something amiss here,’ I heard her say as I did not ease off my crying. ‘What is wrong?’
‘My sister . . .’ I said. I wanted to tell her what had happened but I could not say the words.
‘You are but a child yourself, aren’t you?’
I nodded, swallowing tears and snot.
‘I’ll give you some hot milk but that’s all, mind. Then you must go away. My lord Nostradamus is unwell today. He’s an old man, and becoming weaker and more seized by frights and fits. It’s not fair for him to be tormented with so many visitors.’ She took my arm. ‘Come this way. There is a place here where people are allowed to sit and wait for him to speak to them.’
She led me to a shed set against the wall of the garden. It contained a long bench and I went inside, rested my mandolin on the floor, and sat down. ‘I’ll summon my eldest girl to nurse my baby and I’ll return in a little while.’
After about ten minutes the good wife came back bearing a cup of warm milk.
‘Drink,’ she said. She held the cup for me and when I’d finished she said, ‘Now listen. When Master Nostradamus is well again he is in the habit of seeing common folk on the first Monday of each month. He does not charge for these consultations. As you may imagine, a long line forms from the previous day, so you must be here very early in the morning or the evening before.’
‘Do not send me away,’ I whispered. ‘I have nowhere to go.’
‘Go home to your mother.’
‘My mother is dead. She died when I was very young.’
‘Your father then. Where is he?’
I could not tell her that my father was imprisoned on the orders of the king himself, and that I was on the run from a powerful lord who had vowed to hunt me down.
I shook my head. ‘I have none.’
‘There is a lodging house at the canal bridge. I see you have a mandolin there. You may sing for your supper. There is money flowing on market day. You will do well enough to pay for bed and board.’
I saw that it was useless to plead further. I stood up.
A shadow filled the room.
The woman turned round. ‘Husband,’ she cried, ‘you are too unwell to be out of bed.’
Master Nostradamus tottered on his feet and put an arm on the door lintel to steady himself.
His wife ran to support him.
‘Bring the girl into the house,’ Nostradamus said.
‘My husband, you are confused. There’s no girl here. Just an urchin boy.’
For answer, Nostradamus pointed at me. ‘This is Mélisande, the minstrel’s daughter. I have been expecting her.’
His wife stared at me and back at her husband.
‘Let her enter the house,’ said Nostradamus. ‘It has been so decreed.’
Chapter Twenty-three
NOSTRADAMUS’S WIFE’S NAME was Anne Ponsarde and although she was unhappy and suspicious at this turn of events, she didn’t argue with her husband. ‘Follow me,’ she told me brusquely as she helped Nostradamus into the house.
I wiped my face with my hands and bent to gather up my mandolin. It was only then I realized that earlier, in my haste to escape the street brawl, I’d neglected to pick up the leather bag that protected my mandolin against the elements. I could feel tears beginning again behind my eyes. My father had paid a good sum of money for the mandolin with its bag as a gift to me for my twelfth birthday. I’d considered it a token of my maturing to womanhood and had vowed never to be parted from it. Now I had lost the bag which was of the finest chamois leather.
‘Don’t dawdle,’ the seer’s wife scolded me. ‘It’s almost supper time and I must encourage my husband to eat something. He has only taken water all day.’
We entered the house via the kitchen and, as we did so, I saw a way to be of help to her. ‘I could switch some eggs together and make a hot drink with herbs that Master Nostradamus might manage to swallow.’
She stared at me over her shoulder with a look of mistrust. Somewhere else in the house the child mewled but another voice was now trying to pacify it. ‘My eldest daughter is busy with the little one, else I would ask her—’ Mistress Anne broke off, and then I saw where her hesitation lay. In her eyes, I, as a young man, would have no household or kitchen skills. I pulled off my cap and smoothed my ruffled hair. I softened my voice as I spoke and said to her, ‘My sister taught me how to make basic herbal dishes.’
‘Very well,’ she conceded. ‘When it’s ready, bring it to the first floor. Knock on the double door at the front of the house and wait.’
‘No,’ Nostradamus interrupted. ‘The top floor, Anne. Ask Mélisande to bring the food to my study on the top floor.’
His wife groaned in exasperation. ‘You should come to our bedroom and rest, husband,’ she said. ‘You are not well enough to work.’
‘I must,’ he whispered. ‘If you could see what I do see then you would know that I cannot rest.’
There were three storeys in the house of Nostradamus. Holding the cup of warm eggnog that I had prepared, I climbed the stone spiral staircase to the top level.
The stairs giving access to this top floor were steeper and the staircase coiled more tightly. I came out upon an open landing where an arch led through to a suite of rooms. As I approached the entrance to the first room I could hear the murmured conversation of Nostradamus and his wife. He was protesting at her attentions, saying that he was feeling much better. She was scolding him, but not in an angry way, more like a mother chiding a favourite son.
Holding the drink carefully in my hand, I stepped inside the open doorway.
And stopped, utterly transfixed.
It was now heavy dusk outside but the room was bright. The reason for this was a wonderment of blazing candles. There must have been a hundred or more set about through these apartments and all were of expensive beeswax. There were hanging lamps, several tall floor-standing candelabra and a host of candlesticks. Many, many more individual flames shone from candles and lamps placed on tables, windowsills and shelves. On this floor where Nostradamus worked, the rooms led from one to the other and the doors between them were kept open. The walls were covered with inscribed scrolls, ancient texts and tapestries, but also with mirrors of every size and shape, and pieces of coloured glass placed on the ceiling, on shelves, and in corners. The whole effect was as if I had entered a moving, shifting, shimmering world where reflection upon reflection was caught up, mirrored, and sent spinning.
I swivelled slowly, mouth agape.
‘In here.’ I heard Anne Ponsarde’s voice call me from an inner room.
I took a pace forward. At the same instant a lanky figure with tousled hair moved ahead of me. A figure carrying a cup clutched to its chest. I turned my head, and it did too.
I stopped.
It stopped.
‘Oh,’ I breathed. It was
myself, seen from a side view. I regarded my image as if I were a stranger. Did I really look like that? So unkempt and bent over? I straightened up and walked more quickly as Mistress Anne called me again.
Master Nostradamus was propped up on a couch in one corner of the smaller room and Anne was tucking a blanket at his feet. I went towards them, and a dozen or so images of myself walked with me.
His wife held out her hand. ‘Give me the cup,’ she said, and she took it and held it close for him to drink.
Nostradamus’s face was grey and grooved but his great hooded eyes had lost none of their lustre. ‘Come nearer, Mélisande,’ he instructed me.
I went closer. He looked at me for a long moment. Then he raised the cup to his lips and drank the thick yellow liquid. ‘It’s good,’ he said. ‘You have more than one talent.’
His wife Anne smiled in relief that he had taken some sustenance. She was about to hand me the empty dish to take away when he prevented her.
‘Do you know why you have come to this house?’ he addressed me.
‘I came about my sister,’ I said.
‘Your sister?’
‘My sister, Chantelle.’
‘What does your sister require of me?’
I stared at him. Why did he ask me that? Did he not know that Chantelle was dead?
His wife drew in her breath. ‘This person’s sister’ – she hesitated – ‘Mélisande’s sister has recently died.’
‘And I believe that you foretold her death,’ I added. ‘Don’t you remember? In the great hall at Cherboucy, in the presence of the king?’
‘Ah, yes.’ He passed his hands over his eyes. ‘Ah, yes. The older girl, who was about to dance. I recall it now. The shadow of death was upon her.’
‘You did see something!’ I cried out. ‘I must know what it was, and why Chantelle had to die. That is why I am here.’
He shook his head. ‘No, Mélisande. That is not why you are here.’
I thought then that he must sense when all of the truth was not being told, and that he had an inkling of the circumstances of Chantelle’s death. Therefore I gave him my whole sad story. And I could not tell it without shedding tears, and even his wife, who had earlier shown me not much sympathy, put her hand to her mouth when I related what had happened to my sister, Chantelle.
‘My father is taken by the king to stand trial for these false accusations by the Count de Ferignay,’ I finished. ‘I know that you have influence with the queen regent, Catherine de’ Medici, and I hoped that you could help me in some way. These, Master Nostradamus, are the reasons I am here.’
Nostradamus shook his head. ‘No,’ he said and his voice had become remarkably stronger. ‘No, Mélisande, that is not why you are here.’
He lay back upon his pillows and closed his eyes.
I was at a loss. There was no other cause for me to seek him out other than to save my father and have justice for my sister.
‘You may think that is why you have come here,’ Nostradamus continued with his eyes closed, and speaking as if more to himself than anyone else in the room. ‘But it is not so. It is for another reason altogether that you have been sent to me.’
It was now dark outside.
Inside, the candles burned with warm light but I felt a chill in my bones.
‘What lodgings have you obtained here in Salon?’ Nostradamus came out of his half-sleeping state.
‘None,’ I replied.
‘Do you have anywhere to go?’
‘I know no one in this town.’
‘Anne,’ he said to his wife. ‘We must find room to shelter Mélisande.
His wife clicked her tongue. She was not best pleased. I wondered how many other waifs she had been compelled to give shelter by her husband’s charity.
He seemed to become drowsy so we left him to sleep and tiptoed out of the room. Downstairs Anne showed me a large cupboard in the hall. It contained some matting and old cushions.
‘This will have to do you,’ she said.
‘I am grateful for it.’ I was so exhausted that I could have lain down to sleep on the stone floor of the kitchen.
The squalling infant, whom we had not heard for a space of time, resumed its lamenting with a whining, sickly cry.
I pointed to my mandolin. ‘If you would allow me,’ I said, ‘I know a berceuse that might soothe your child.’ It was a cradle song that I’d heard in Normandy, a very simple three-chord tune.
‘You may try, if you wish.’ Mistress Anne shrugged, and led me to the family room on the first floor where the child lay in its crib, flushed, and rubbing one side of its head. She left me as I began to strum my mandolin.
‘Little child, hush
Little child, shush
Little child, don’t cry
I will tell thee why
Papa’s coming home
He’s been gone so long
He will want to see
His child upon his knee
Not crying
But smiling, laughing.
‘Little child, hush
Little child, shush
Little child, don’t cry
I will tell thee why
Mama’s making cakes
To soothe away thy aches
She will want to see
Her child upon her knee
Not crying
But smiling, laughing.’
I kept my foot on the cradle rocker and repeated the song until the child’s eyes drooped and closed in sleep. Then I tiptoed from the room, went downstairs and found my own place of rest. I’d hardly settled myself when the door of the cupboard opened and Mistress Anne thrust a blanket at me and went away.
I was left in the dark and although it was cold, even with the blanket, I slept, for I felt safer than I had felt for the last few weeks.
The house was quiet. I whispered my night prayers into the silence and asked God to allow Chantelle and Armand to find each other in Heaven, and hold my father in His hand until I could reach him and rescue him.
I began a slow slide into sleep. Within this house I felt secure. No one would attack me here, so in that respect I was untroubled. Only one thought shifted in my head to disturb my dreams – the mysterious words of Nostradamus.
‘No, Mélisande. That is not why you are here. It is for another reason altogether that you have been sent to me.’
Chapter Twenty-four
‘SWEET SISTER.’
I opened my eyes.
Chantelle stood at the door of my room. She was wearing her bridal gown. The room was filled with the smell of the fresh flowers that adorned her hair and her cheeks were blushed pink like the morning sky.
‘Sweet sister.’ She spoke again, and her melodious voice quivered in my head.
‘Chantelle!’ I gasped. I raised my head and gazed and gazed at my sister in an ecstasy of pleasure and relief.
‘Mélisande,’ Chantelle whispered. She seemed to want to take a step into the room but something prevented her from doing so.
I saw that her wedding dress was neither stained nor torn. The bodice was clean and the tiny pearls sewn along the neckline were intact. Nothing was ripped, there were no blood spatters violating the clean cloth, no scratches or bruises on her face to defile her loveliness. All my wild thoughts and the violent happenings of the last weeks had been nothing but a bad dream. Some dreadful nightmare visited upon me by an unnamed fever.
I knelt up in bed. There was a light glowing behind and around her – I was unsure of the source.
‘Where is Armand?’ I asked.
‘He is here.’
‘I cannot see him.’
She laughed in her throat. ‘He is with me, I assure you.’
I stretched out my arms to her.
‘You cannot touch me, Mélisande,’ Chantelle said gently.
I began to cry.
‘Hush, sister dear. Don’t fret. You have a life of your own to live now.’
‘I don’t want to. I want to be with you.
So that we can be happy again together.’
‘I am as happy as I can be. And you,’ she said, ‘you, Mélisande, have been given your own time to live, a path to follow, and a special destiny to fulfil.’
But I was barely listening to her. I wanted so much to hug her and have her stroke my hair like she did when I was very small and she was as much a mother as a sister to me.
I would touch her.
I blundered up from my makeshift mattress, reached out with my hands and flung myself at her. With a hard thump my body connected with the solid door of the cupboard and the figure I saw was my own, reflected in a long glass mirror pinned to the inside. It was myself, just myself, and the horrible realization came to me that I had been asleep and was now wakened. What I had just experienced was a pleasant wish-dream of my sister. The true and awful fact was that Chantelle was dead and I would never see her again as she was in this world. I began to cry in earnest and I knelt down and beat my fists upon the floor. But I soon stopped, for I thought I must cease my wild weeping or the ailing child would wake and begin to bawl, and Mistress Anne would come and tell me to quit her house.
I sat back upon my heels and it struck me then that one thing had not altered between my sleeping and waking, and that was the lovely scent of meadow flowers in the room. I looked down. Beside my knee was a crushed flower, the artema. It was from those I’d gathered to place in Chantelle’s hair on the morning of her wedding day. I lifted it into my palm. It must have attached itself to my clothing over the days when I had taken shelter where I could as I walked the road to Salon and then fallen out as I prepared for bed last night.
Where else could it have come from?
I knew I would not get any more sleep, so I placed the flower inside the hollow bowl of my mandolin. It was very early so I made sure that I was quiet as I unbarred the back door and went outside to the privy. As I washed my face and combed my hair with my fingers the words of my sister Chantelle echoed in my head:
‘. . . a path to follow, and a special destiny to fulfil.’
But I knew the particular path that I must take. I had already determined what it was. My special destiny was to find my father and save him from imprisonment or worse.
The Nostradamus Prophecy Page 11