The Nostradamus Prophecy

by Theresa Breslin

  I came out of this dream in terror and bewilderment. And I knew that I did not want to live any longer in confusion.

  And I would not, I decided.

  I would step away from a fate of fear and uncertainty, of a life filled with darkness and danger. I would not go on and try to interpret the half-told prophecy, where I might find only death and never be successful. I would not risk being subjected to torture and any other monstrous inflictions upon my body.

  Once, my sole purpose in life had been to find and rescue my father. Now I’d had a chance to rest and I was strong again, that is what I would do. Being wedded to the Lord Thierry would give me access to the court, to the king himself. We could travel to Finderre or Blois, or wherever court was currently held and, as the wife of a lord, I would petition the king.

  By the time Lord Thierry returned to Valbonnes I had made my decision. I would accept his offer of marriage.

  Chapter Fifty-two

  OUR WEDDING WAS set for midsummer.

  Marianne was overjoyed when I told her the news. She said she hoped she might soon have babies to look after again.

  I stared at her in shock.

  ‘I never thought I would see this day,’ she babbled on. ‘My Lord Thierry is a silent man, awkward, and difficult to get to know.’ She stopped, and mistaking the expression on my face, she asked in an anxious voice, ‘You would let me stay on? Please,’ she begged. ‘I am not so old that I cannot manage to nurse your children.’

  Children! I had not thought of the physical side of this union. What might be expected of me.

  Marianne understood at last. ‘He will be kind,’ she whispered to me. ‘Do not be anxious or afraid.’

  Now I appreciated Chantelle’s predicament when she was waiting to be married to Armand. In the absence of a mother how was one supposed to know what to do? My father, in protecting us from the salacious comments of the worldly wise women of the court, had given us little information on the duties of a wife.

  But the Lord Thierry wooed me in a proper manner. He brought gifts of jewellery and soft leather gloves. I hardly rewarded him with a smile or a kiss. I only enquired how soon after we were married we might travel to the royal court and see my father. His thoughts were for my wellbeing. He questioned me on how I was. I replied by asking how our marriage would be proclaimed, did he need permission, and when would be the most suitable time to declare who I really was.

  My selfish concerns meant that I neglected to notice how busy the castle had become, with messengers riding in almost daily. I assumed that a lot of the hurrying to and fro was to do with preparations for our marriage.

  Even Marianne’s comment one day did not make me realize that unrest in the domain was increasing and the situation outside the castle was becoming dangerous.

  It was the middle of May and I stood in my room while Marianne fitted me for my wedding dress. As she knelt, adjusting the hem of the gown of gold, we heard a noise in the courtyard below. She stood up to look out of the window.

  ‘More men arriving. He must think he needs all of them here, else he would not leave the other garrisons so undermanned.’

  I joined her and watched a troop of soldiers file in under the archway.

  ‘They must be early wedding guests,’ I said, unconcerned. ‘I did tell my Lord Thierry that I would be happy with only a few people present.’

  Marianne opened her mouth as if she would say more but instead said brightly, ‘Let us finish sewing this hem and you will be as a queen on her wedding day.’

  I looked in the mirror and saw myself. I did appear very grand. My dress was not the plain white that Chantelle had worn but a gown that befitted the wife of a noble lord. A stab of sadness welled up inside me but I thrust it aside. I had decided that I would not think of anything from the past. I would set my mind to the future and the clearing of my father’s name.

  ‘You are beautiful,’ Marianne told me.

  But I knew that she loved me for making her Lord Thierry happy and she would say that. I regarded myself and saw a young girl. Slim and tall with no pleasing plumpness either in figure or in face, yet even under my critical assessment I did look passably attractive.

  That night at dinner Lord Thierry gave me the headdress that had been worn by brides of his family for many generations. He placed it on my head as I sat at table with him. A circlet of thin gold, no more than a twisted wire with a veil of golden gauze attached to it.

  He brought something from behind his back. ‘I plucked this for you from the garden. It’s one of the prettiest wild flowers that bloom here.’

  He laid it beside my plate.

  I looked down. Pale pink petals.

  Artema.

  And suddenly I remembered the crushed flower inside my mandolin and my dream of Chantelle, and it was as if she was in the room with me and the bittersweet memories flooded through me.

  ‘You’re trembling, Mélisande.’ Lord Thierry leaned towards me. ‘What is wrong?’

  I rose with such violence that I knocked over my chair.

  ‘What ails you?’ he cried out in fright.

  I looked around wildly. ‘I should not be here.’

  I pulled the veil from my head. Soft and fragile as moth wings, it tore as I cast it onto the table.

  I ran into the garden and he followed me.

  I sat down on a bench and he, this wisest of men, did not approach me until my storm of weeping had passed away. When I was calmer he gave me a kerchief and wiped my face. He went away and fetched some wine mixed with water and insisted that I drink some. Then he sat down beside me.

  ‘Come to me,’ he said, and he pulled me to lean against his shoulder. ‘This is not merely an attack of nerves before your wedding day, is it?’

  I shook my head.

  He gave a long, deep sigh. ‘Then tell me now what I need to know.’

  ‘I have betrayed a sacred trust,’ I whispered.

  ‘I long suspected that you carried some secret,’ he replied, ‘for I saw how sometimes it would weigh upon your mind. You would be playing music, when without warning you would revert into a dream state and hardly be aware that you had done so. I supposed it to be you thinking of past times with your father and sister.’

  ‘Not only that,’ I said.

  ‘There is more?’

  ‘Yes. I cannot tell you. It would endanger your own life and I would not have that happen.’

  ‘Why not?’

  It was such an unexpected question that I did not know how to answer it. ‘Why not?’ I repeated his question.

  ‘Yes, why not?’ He spoke quite sharply. ‘I saved your life, it is true, but I would be obliged to seek justice for any person in my domain. You owe me no debt of gratitude.’

  ‘It is more than gratitude that I feel for you, sir,’ I replied tremulously.

  ‘What is it then?’ His tone was almost cold.

  ‘A deep affection,’ I said.

  ‘But not love?’

  ‘I do love you,’ I protested, ‘in a way . . .’

  ‘Mélisande.’ He held me very tightly. ‘Although you are young, you must know the kind of love that I want from you. Wholehearted and passionate and complete.’

  ‘I will be obedient to you,’ I said. ‘I will do all that you ask of me. I will do my best to give you children. I will—’

  ‘Oh, Mélisande, Mélisande,’ he interrupted me. His mouth was in my hair. ‘For some couples that might be sufficient, and it may be that it would do for me, for I’d take whatever crumb you might give me. But’ – he tilted my face to his and looked into my eyes – ‘I love you too much to allow you to lead an arid life. I lived such a life once, and I know how it shrivels the soul.’

  ‘I have a destiny to fulfil,’ I whispered. ‘Master Nostradamus himself told me this.’

  ‘Ah,’ he said.

  ‘It’s not some foolish whimsy,’ I assured him. ‘It is a matter of great importance. He spoke to me about it on the evening of his death.’

&n
bsp; ‘I believe you,’ he replied. ‘I will help you undertake whatever it is. I will accompany you.’

  ‘That’s not possible.’

  I knew that with Lord Thierry by my side I would have a good protector and my road would be easier, but I held back from agreeing that he might come with me.

  In doing so I truly thought that I might save his life.

  For the words of Nostradamus were in my head.

  The person who does this takes Death by the hand.

  Chapter Fifty-three

  A WEEK LATER Lord Thierry came to my room and woke me in the night.

  ‘Get up and put on these clothes,’ he ordered me. ‘Be as silent as you can and when you have dressed meet me in the library.’

  His manner was such that I did not argue. I rose and lit my bedside lamp and looked at what he had brought me. Men’s hose and a long tunic. A hat, dark jerkin and stout boots.

  I dressed and went downstairs. He stood by the fireplace and in his hand he had a pair of cutting shears.

  ‘I am informed that an army marches towards my castle and by morning we will be under siege,’ he told me. ‘Therefore you must leave tonight and I deem it safer that you go in male attire.’

  When I tried to protest he told me very brusquely that the Duke of Marcy was in command of the approaching forces. I stood with head bent as he hacked my hair into a semblance of a male style.

  ‘Not quite the wedding day I’d planned for us,’ he said grimly.

  When he had finished I said that I wanted my own travelling cloak to go with me and I ran upstairs to collect it and the precious papers it contained.

  On my return he handed me my mandolin and I slung it over my shoulder. Then he took a torch of burning pitch from a bracket on the wall.

  Down into the cellars we went. He opened door after door, and finally we walked into a long tunnel whose walls were slimy and green.

  ‘Where are we?’

  ‘Under the moat.’

  ‘Leading to . . .?’

  ‘You will see.’

  We came to a hollowed-out cave. It was of a circular shape. A stone table stood in the centre and radiating from it were six stone sarcophagi. On top of each one lay the effigy of a knight in armour. The walls were drier than those of the tunnel and were covered with designs not unfamiliar to me. I stood in the centre of the cave and with a steady drumming in my head I turned round and round and round, whirling, until the floor slipped from me.

  He caught me or I would have fallen.

  ‘Are you ill?’ he asked me.

  There was a thought, an elusive memory that I could not quite catch. As though I’d entered a room where an echo still sounded.

  ‘What is this place?’ I replied.

  ‘When the Knights Templar were banned and persecuted they needed a place to meet. My grandsire offered this hidden chamber in his castle at Valbonnes and in time the last knights were buried here.’

  I reached out to the wall and traced the intertwining loops, the carvings, the knot that unknotted and retied itself. The end I could not find. And there was something there too in my head like the aftermath of a note in the air.

  He took my arm. ‘We must go on.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘Outside the castle ramparts.’

  ‘What army is coming here?’ I asked him as we walked on.

  ‘The Duke of Marcy has ties on his mother’s side to the Duke of Guise. You know that he in turn is allied to the Count de Ferignay. Marcy’s spies found out that the girl who witnessed his murder of the priest was in the castle here and he sent to both these men for soldiers to help him raise a force against me.’

  ‘You have your own network of spies who tell you this?’

  ‘It is prudent for me to have eyes and ears in the community. And I have one expert in Salon.’ He laughed. ‘How else do you think I was able to have knowledge of your movements there?’

  ‘Berthe,’ I said with confidence. ‘The kitchen maid who listened at doors.’

  ‘Who is Berthe?’

  ‘She was a servant in the house of Nostradamus.’

  ‘I know no one of that name. Soon you will meet the person that has kept me up to date with all the happenings in Salon.’

  The tunnel curved upwards, bringing fresher air to relieve the dank smell. We arrived at a set of stone stairs. Thick tendrils of cobwebs faced us and on the floor insects, pale with living in dark places, scuttled away at our approach.

  ‘There is only one road to Valbonnes,’ I said as we passed outside through a small wooden door set in a mound on the other side of the castle moat. ‘Will I not meet the army as it approaches?’

  ‘I have arranged a guide for you. This person knows the way across the marshes where others will not tread. Mind well the path for there are sucking bogholes that would pull you under. Most travellers who venture there are never seen again.’

  Lord Thierry pointed to an old bent tree. The figure that stood there was also stooped and walked towards me with a familiar shuffling gait.

  ‘Giorgio!’ I exclaimed.

  Dr Giorgio, once apothecary to Master Nostradamus, pulled his cap from his head and made a little bow.

  So it was not Berthe who had reported the things that went on in the house of Nostradamus.

  ‘You are the one person in all of that household that I would have trusted,’ I said to Giorgio as he greeted me.

  ‘Which shows just how good a spy he is,’ remarked Lord Thierry.

  ‘I take that as a compliment,’ said Giorgio. He replaced his cap and spoke to Lord Thierry. ‘The situation is graver than you or I imagined. Both Guise and Ferignay see this as more than helping the Duke of Marcy on a personal matter. They mean to control the whole of the south of France with him as their puppet. To that end they have sent many soldiers and artillery too. You have very little time to get away.’

  ‘I am not going with you,’ said Lord Thierry.

  ‘The walls of Valbonnes are not thick enough to survive cannon balls and siege machines.’

  ‘It is my duty to defend my castle. And the longer we withhold, the more time you have to take her to safety. Marcy seeks the girl here and as long as they think she is within the castle they will remain in siege.’

  ‘Sooner or later they will ask you to bring her to the battlements and when you cannot do that then they will burn the castle with you inside it,’ warned Giorgio.

  ‘That is the point when I will sue for peace,’ replied Lord Thierry.

  ‘They will enter and find her gone. Then they will kill you.’

  ‘Perhaps not. And even so, by that time you will have had at least three clear days’ grace and the girl will no longer exist.’

  Giorgio gave him a puzzled look. ‘How so?’

  In answer Lord Thierry lowered the hood from my head and drew open my cloak.

  Giorgio looked with interest at my man’s clothes. ‘Now is explained your mysterious appearance in the house of Nostradamus.’

  ‘On your journey together this minstrel boy can tell you whatever he wishes you to know. But for now’ – Lord Thierry paused – ‘I must say goodbye.’

  It wasn’t until that moment that I realized that most likely I would never see him again.

  ‘Why can’t you escape with us?’ I asked.

  ‘If I did, it would decrease your chance of reaching freedom.’

  ‘But by staying you put your own life at risk.’

  Lord Thierry shrugged.

  ‘Why are you doing this?’ But even before he answered me I knew the answer.

  ‘Because I love you, Mélisande,’ he said. And he took my face between his hands and he kissed me full on my mouth. And his mouth was warm and he was gentle and he stirred something inside me. And I almost turned back then. For I knew that I could save this man’s life. I had something that might ensure our safety. If I told the Duke of Marcy about the Nostradamus papers he would see the huge power that ownership of these would give him. I could bargain with him
for free passage out of the country, perhaps to the New World. I would buy security for Lord Thierry and myself, and we would find a place to live out our lives. And I knew that life with such a man would be full of joyous music. We could banish sadness, he would adore me, and I should be granted any wish that he could provide.

  He broke away and he searched my eyes with his own. He’d sensed my wavering, my inclination to stay. I fell against his chest and began to weep.

  ‘It is not to be,’ he whispered into my hair. ‘I think I knew from the beginning it was not to be.’

  ‘I too have a duty to perform,’ I said.

  He set me away from him and stood me at arm’s length. ‘Let me look at you. Do not cry, Mélisande. Allow me to see you smile one last time. This is the vision I will bring to mind when my darkest hour approaches.’

  Giorgio touched his sleeve. ‘There are torches among the trees.’

  We both looked to where he pointed. The forest twinkled with the movement of hundreds of lights.

  ‘They have yet to cross the river,’ Lord Thierry said calmly. ‘But I must go back to the castle now and sound the alarm. I’ll return the way I came and will engineer a rock fall in the underground tunnel so that none may enter that way.’

  Without saying anything more he walked away from us. At the entrance to the tunnel he turned and raised his hand. ‘Goodbye and fare thee well, Mélisande.’

  PART FOUR

  THE NOSTRADAMUS PROPHECY

  Chapter Fifty-four

  THE NIGHT THAT I left Valbonnes I did not ask Giorgio where we were going. I only took his hand as he held it out to me and followed him with complete trust into the foul-smelling swamp.

  The swamp was not vast but we took several hours to cross it. Inch by inch Giorgio prodded with his stick ahead of us to find a firm path. The moon was up in a fairly clear sky, which helped, for we couldn’t risk striking a flint. It proved a circuitous snaking route that sometimes left us with no option but to jump over boggy patches to reach a safe tussock of grass. I watched and marvelled at his dexterity in doing this.