by M. J. Rose
“I can’t understand. What about Robbie?”
She only got two words back. “Tests showed . . .” Then more of the crackling, and the connection went dead.
Twice she tried to call back but failed. Where was he? Why couldn’t he get a signal? But more importantly, what had he been trying to tell her? Griffin had sounded concerned. Why had he mentioned Robbie?
Jac walked up the uneven steps and sat on a cracked stone bench. There were clouds in the sky, but every few seconds the sun peeked through and shone down on her, warming her. She’d thought escaping the château and the laboratory might relieve some of her free-floating anxiety, but the opposite was happening.
Jac closed her eyes and tipped her face up to the sky. She took several deep breaths. Let them out slowly. Forced herself to use the relaxation technique Malachai had taught her.
The wind blew through the trees. She still had her eyes closed, and the wind sounded like weeping. It was unnerving. Jac had known heartache, but had never known what sound someone’s heart makes when it breaks. She knew it now. She was hearing it. And it reached inside of her and pulled her out of her time and place.
Chapter 39
MARCH 25, 1573
BARBIZON, FRANCE
I did not see Isabeau for the next week. Soon she would be released from her duties as a member of the squadron, but not until the queen devised a plan for shifting the duke’s attention away from Isabeau.
Whenever she was with him, I lived a kind of half life. My thoughts would wander from my work as I pictured them together. Wondered what she was saying to him. How he was responding. What he asked of her. Torturing myself, I imagined him touching her, kissing her, smelling her.
When I had first met Isabeau and we had begun to spend time together, she had been more open with me about her spying and how she conducted her affairs. In time, she had become reticent to discuss the details. Isabeau claimed she couldn’t bear to watch my face while I listened or tolerate the barrage of questions I asked.
“Why do you punish yourself, wanting to know these things? This is what I have to do for Catherine. Soon it will be over, but until it is, be kind to me and to yourself, René. Let us talk of other things.”
But I would insist.
“Did you entertain him with stories and dine with him last night?”
“Yes, and I made him laugh and flattered him.”
“And did he become aroused?”
“Yes.”
“Easily?”
“Yes.”
“And did you look at him when he was in that state? Does he like you to see him undressed, the way I do?”
“No, I told you, he doesn’t luxuriate in it. He isn’t sensual like you are.”
“Did he touch you?”
“My breasts.”
“Did he hurt you?”
“No. I told you. He’s never interested in me, only in himself. What I provide is just a momentary reminder of his own power and prowess.”
Once she had answered my questions I would descend into a dungeon. No torture chamber was worse that the one I concocted for myself. No whip or rack could compare to the pain I felt as I imagined this woman with another man. Imagined his hands on her shoulders, gripping her. Imagined the jolts going through his body as his orgasm gathered and readied. Imagined his face thrown back in ecstasy.
In those moments I wanted to cut off Isabeau’s hair. Smear dirt on her face. Anoint her with a perfume made from rotten eggs. Make her unappealing to other men so that Catherine couldn’t use her anymore.
They were fleeting fantasies that shamed me then and shame me more now. But I am a man. And I didn’t want another man soiling my garden. I feared every time she came back to me that I would smell him on her.
I never did. Never saw a finger mark or scratch on her skin. Sometimes I pretended that she only told me these stories to incite my jealousy. That she really never ventured out of the palace to see anyone but me.
But I knew I was lying to myself.
She was gone for a week, and then on the next Friday she arrived with much fanfare, rushing into the shop, full of excitement and delight. Catherine had just spent the last hour working with Isabeau, explaining the plan for replacing her.
“There is to be a dinner party, and the queen is going to offer the duke a virgin who is much admired,” Isabeau gushed.
So taken was I with her news that I didn’t notice anything unusual at first. Here was Isabeau telling me she was going to be free of the duke!
“No man is going to touch you ever again but me,” I said, my words laced with my lust as I imagined it.
“And that makes you happy?” she teased.
“Oh yes.”
“You look happy, René.”
“I am.”
“Would you like to be even happier?” She laughed.
I knew that tone, and it stirred me. “Yes, yes. Please.”
And so she began to play her games with me. Isabeau turned her back and began to undress for me. First she unbuttoned her dress, dropping the green silk to the floor. Stepping out of it, she took off the chemise beneath it. Her bare shoulders inflamed me.
Then, slowly, she turned around. Her corset fitted right beneath her breasts, pushing them up, showing them off. The entire rest of her body was covered by underskirts, stockings, shoes, gloves.
All that was bare were her neck, her shoulders and her beautiful ripe breasts.
The sight literally took my breath away. I went to her and buried my face between her breasts. They were warm and smelled of the most fragrant apple blossoms I’d ever inhaled.
Teasing, she pushed me away and continued to strip. Taking off one layer and the next until her breasts and her pudenda were bare, but her legs were in their stockings and her arms were still covered by her gloves.
The gloves!
What was it? The way the candlelight fell? The way the sun shone through the windows as it set? What was it that suddenly pulled all the breath out of my lungs and clenched around my heart, squeezing the very life force from me?
It wasn’t possible, but her gloves looked so much like that other pair. I grabbed her wrist and inspected the stitching.
“Where did you get these?” I screamed as I started to rip the right glove off her.
Startled, she fought me.
“They were a gift.”
“From whom?” I continued ripping.
“Not from the duke. Stop it, René. They were given to me by a woman.”
The right glove came apart, and the upper portion fell away, but her fingers were still covered with leather. I began to pull her hand out. “From whom? From whom?”
“One of the other ladies-in-waiting. She said she’d been given them but they didn’t fit her. She asked if I wanted them.”
“Tell me her name.” I had gotten the whole right glove off and now was working on the left. Still Isabeau struggled with me, pushing me off.
“What is wrong with you?”
“Who gave you the gloves? What is her name?”
“Bernadette de La Longe.”
“Oh no, oh good Lord no. Isabeau, how many days have you been wearing them? When did she give them to you? Tell me! Isabeau! Tell me!” I was trying to rip the left glove off, but she fought back, treating me as if I’d gone mad. And I had. I had.
“For the last three days, I’ve worn them, yes.”
“Each day?”
She didn’t answer. Didn’t have to. I knew it was already too late, but still I worked at the glove, pulling and ripping until all that was left were the fingers of her left hand, covered still in the fine soft kid that I had soaked in poison.
Chapter 40
THE PRESENT
Still reeling from the scenario she’d seen playing like a movie inside her mind, Jac b
linked in the afternoon light. Weak-kneed, she struggled to stand.
There was more to understand. More she was meant to learn. She wasn’t alone here. But it wasn’t Robbie’s spirit guiding her. Not this time. It was René le Florentin’s. And she had to meet him in the shadow realm where he was waiting for her so he could show her the rest of his story. But how to force another memory lurch? She’d tried that several times and never managed. Maybe if she didn’t try but just continued to explore the ruin—doing what she had set out to do . . . maybe . . .
Chapter 41
MARCH 25, 1573
BARBIZON, FRANCE
Isabeau became ill the following day. Her skin erupted with boils and lesions that caused her to scream out in agony. I never left her side except to mix up more of the poppy elixir to ease her pain.
On the second day of Isabeau’s illness, Catherine visited. The queen told me how terribly sorry she was. She said she believed the duke had discovered Isabeau was a spy and had punished her.
“I will find out who he hired to do this for him,” she said.
“I already know.” I told Catherine the name.
Hearing it, the queen became even more distraught and shortly thereafter left.
Several hours later, Catherine returned, dragging her daughter with her. Several of the court’s ladies-in-waiting were there, worried, trying to help, spending these last hours with one of their own. They moved aside as Catherine shoved her daughter toward Isabeau’s sickbed with so much force that Margaret tripped and fell.
“This is what you have done, you slut, you whore!” Catherine shrieked at her daughter. “Your handiwork. Look on it. Remember it. May it haunt you forever.”
It is one of the few moments of clarity that I have from those last days.
The princess was wearing a gown the color of rubies, with rubies in her hair and her ears. Her cheeks were rouged, but the effect was ruined by streaks of tears that washed away all enhancements. Margaret got up off the floor and turned away to walk out of the room, but Catherine grabbed her by the arm and kept her there.
“Speak to her,” Catherine ordered.
Margaret pursed her lips tighter together.
Catherine’s fingers gripped her daughter’s arm so hard they whitened. “How dare you take this woman’s life because she was looking out for my interests? She was not the one fornicating with de Guise, you were. What Isabeau did allowed me to protect you and your future and the future of this country. She is a hero, and this is not how she deserved to be rewarded. Make your peace with her, Margaret, or I swear you will live to regret it.”
The princess refused to speak.
Catherine demanded again.
Margaret remained silent.
Catherine slapped her, the sound echoing in the chamber like a cannon.
Margaret turned on her mother. “This lady betrayed me. She spied on me. And this is how one treats spies, Mother. Where do you think I learned that? From you. You dare call me a murderer? Well, if I am, so are you. And I will not apologize for doing what she deserved to have done to her.”
Margaret wrested her arm from her mother and stormed past her and out of the room. The door slammed behind her.
For a moment Catherine just stared at the door; then she turned and looked at me. Her eyes were full of unshed tears. “I will deal with her, I promise you.”
But it didn’t matter to me what she did or didn’t do to Margaret. Nothing mattered to me anymore.
For the next two days I did not eat or sleep or drink except when Catherine brought me goblets of fortified wine. She tended to me the way I and her ladies-in-waiting had tended to her in those terrible days when her beloved husband, the king, had lain dying.
Finally, on the fourth day, late in the afternoon, Catherine took my hand and told me it was time. “Now, René, I’ll stay here but you must go and get your bottles and capture Isabeau’s breaths.”
“It doesn’t matter. I’ll never find the solution.”
I had forgotten Catherine was my queen and my savior. She was just my friend in a moment when there was nothing any friend could do or say to ease the horror of what was happening.
Isabeau was being consumed, and all I could do was give her draughts of poppy syrup to make her sleep. Her slumber was so deep it was as if she had already died. I could not bear to lose her any sooner than I would have to, and so I would hold the syrup back every few hours so that I could talk to her. But then she could only speak a few words until the pain took hold again, and the only sounds she could make were moans that tore straight through me.
Hours later, while I sat watching Isabeau sleep, Catherine returned to my chamber followed by two of her ladies. I paid little attention until the women placed my breath-collecting apparatus on the bedside table.
I stared with surprise. The queen had gone to my laboratory and brought the tools I needed.
“You have to do this, René. There is a formula, and you will find it, and when you do, you’ll be able to bring her back . . . and bring my Henry back . . . and all the others whose breaths you have confined to the glass bottles.”
I hadn’t realized until that moment how much faith she had put into my laboratory experiments. Hope shone in her eyes. After all these years, despite his mistress, despite all that he’d withheld, Catherine loved her husband still.
“You must return to solving this puzzle, René. We’ve come so far and been together so long. I know how this hurts you. Believe me, I know how you feel, but you alone have the knowledge to beat back death. You must summon your strength and fight. You are one of my soldiers, and these”—she pointed to the bottles—“are your spears and lances, your shields and your armor.”
She was my queen. I knew I should obey, but I didn’t have the strength. I didn’t care anymore about the endless effort that in my heart I knew was futile. I’d worked on the experiments for years to no avail. There was no way to bring someone back from the dead through their breath. It was as ludicrous as the magic spells Ruggieri cast. Perfume and medicine were sciences, but this? It was just Serapino’s dream.
As if she could read my mind, Catherine shook her head. “It’s not a dream, René. It’s possible, and you are the only one who can make it happen. I saw it in the bowl of waters. You will figure it out.”
When I did not make any effort to work the bottles, it was Catherine who picked one up, held it close to Isabeau’s mouth, and then corked it and picked up the next bottle.
I reached out and, God forgive me, pulled it from her hand. “No, it’s too soon. She is not ready.” My voice was harsh, but Catherine didn’t chastise me for talking to her without the usual respect.
“She is, René, she is.”
I looked down at Isabeau, then leaned over her. I inhaled, expecting to smell flowers blooming, to smell that magical garden that was my lover’s body. But the scent was no longer of fresh flowers. I was smelling the stench of decaying flowers left to rot.
What was the secret to her body? How did she smell of flowers? Blooming when she was alive, dying when she was leaving this earth. What was the alchemy involved? I would have thought it was a trick of my grief had Catherine not mentioned it. She’d sniffed the air. Then looked around, searching for but not finding any source. Finally she’d asked one of her ladies to see if there were any bouquets of rotting flowers in the chamber.
I didn’t bother to tell them they wouldn’t find any. I didn’t want to share that secret about Isabeau, not with any of them.
“René?”
I turned to Catherine. She was holding out a bottle.
“You need to capture her breaths.”
But that would mean accepting that her end was near. I took Isabeau’s hands and held them. I whispered to her, “Wake up, please wake up. You have to live. For me . . . for us. Oh please.”
Isabeau didn’t open her
eyes.
“My fault, all my fault,” I uttered.
Catherine put her hand on my shoulder and handed me a bottle. “It is not your fault. How were you to know that you were being tricked? It was a terrible thing that my daughter did to you, and she will be dealt with. But you can’t blame yourself, my dear friend. You mustn’t.”
The words floated around me. I heard without listening. I was too focused on the rise and fall of Isabeau’s breaths. Hard fought, every one. The queen had forced my fingers around the bottle. My hand was frozen in my lap. To reach out and hold the bottle in front of Isabeau’s lips would be to admit the most terrible thing I could imagine.
She had to recover. I had given her every antidote I could think of. Every formula the doctors said might cure her. None seemed to be working. Maybe more mercury?
Being alone had never frightened me, but that was before I had known Isabeau. I had gone a lifetime without grieving. Now I would spend the rest of my days mourning my loss.
Isabeau’s breathing demanded I listen. Refused to allow me any illusion. It was growing more and more shallow. The stench of dying flowers was growing in intensity.
Beside me, Catherine took another bottle and held it up to Isabeau’s lips, and after she exhaled, Catherine quickly corked the bottle and replaced it with another. Four times I watched in a stupor as she did the job I had once done for her father-in-law, then her husband and lastly her eldest son. Four times I cried out to her that it was too early—that she was wrong—that Isabeau was recovering.
The fifth time I tried to grab the bottle away, and it fell to the floor and broke. Surely the sound of shattering glass would awaken Isabeau. Surely she would open her eyes now and smile at me and show us that she was going to get better.
Catherine reached for another bottle and waited for the exhalation and then corked it and reached for a sixth.
There was no color in Isabeau’s face anymore. I couldn’t see her chest rising or falling.
She had stopped breathing. Which was her last breath?
But then I saw Catherine cork that bottle and reach for a seventh.