by Lisa Jensen
I shift uncomfortably in my chair, hiding my face in the steam from my cup. “I didn’t think anyone would be in the wood.”
“But the wood is full of life. Nothing happens here in secret.”
My humiliation is complete. All of nature has witnessed my shame. I hold my cup with both hands and stare into what’s left of its contents, rich and sweet and comforting, even with my heart in such turmoil. A tear slides off my nose and into the cup, disappearing into the dark foam.
“I know God will punish my wickedness —”
“Ptah! That’s a matter for the priests to debate,” she interrupts me with a careless wave of her hand. “It has nothing to do with the lives of women. Why should you suffer when you’ve done no wrong?”
I glance up, shocked, to see so much wisdom and understanding in her eyes — black eyes, like small, ripe olives. It’s as if she knows all the secrets of my heart. Fairy, witch, or wisewoman, she knows everything about me.
“The young Chevalier de Beaumont,” she goes on calmly, nodding at the badge on my bodice. “I know his livery. He is often spoken of in this wood, by mothers needing remedies for their hungry children. By tenants turned off their land and seeking refuge.” She leans confidingly toward me. “Do you think you’re the first woman who’s ever fled into the wood because of him?”
My gaze falls again to my chocolate.
“I carry his seed,” I whisper. And all of the desperation and despair that drove me to the river seizes me again, icy fingers clenching my heart. “It festers inside me. I can feel it! It will consume me.”
Mère Sophie reaches out one ancient hand to touch my arm with the gentlest of fingertips. “A seed need not bear fruit.”
I look up again. It is terrible to consider. It’s no fault of the thing itself that it was conceived. But even if I wanted it, what mother could willingly bring a child into such a life, knowing that only poverty, shame, and starvation would be its fate? I struggle to muster my resolve.
“Will it hurt?” My voice quakes.
She squeezes my arm very gently. “It is done.”
A part of me is fearfully alarmed, wants to leap up and dash the cup to bits in the hearth. But the wisewoman’s comforting presence gives me courage, and her reassurance is so beguiling, I cling to it, as I clung to the powerful hand that pulled me from the river. By strength of her will alone, by the serenity in those black eyes, the festering inside me eases a little. And yet, something gnaws at me still, troubles me, goads me.
“It will take time to heal your heart,” says the wisewoman. It’s as if she knows all about me, by her touch alone. “Be strong. You are not to blame for what happened, and you are not the one who deserves punishment. Arrogance, cruelty, beastliness . . . those are dark sins, more difficult to absolve.” Her fingers slide down my arm, and she takes my hand in hers. I recognize her grip from the riverside. “He has taken a great deal from you, my dear. Don’t let him have the rest. Prove you have the stronger heart and survive.”
I have no other choice. But her words give me comfort somehow, or perhaps I am simply relieved to have my story known to someone. Yet I dread the prospect of returning to Château Beaumont.
“But . . . I will have to see him,” I say. Until this moment, I never expected to go back, and now the prospect chills me. “I will have to face him. Every day.”
The memory of his smirks, his slanting glances, the callous way he used me, all come flooding back to me. I am outraged, and my rage burns off the last of my despair. In that instant, as if they were sparks leaping out of the fire, I see the face of Treville, the secretary threatened with the stocks; Nicolas, the young page so cruelly humiliated; the maimed doe torn apart for the sport of his dogs. A kind of power surges through me as my fury rises against him. Perhaps my hatred will give me the strength I need.
The wisewoman gazes at me, head cocking very slightly to one side, as if my thoughts were written in the air for her to study. She nods slowly.
“I see. Then watch and wait, Lucie.” I don’t even question how she knows my name. She sits so alert before me, her black eyes bright in the firelight. “There will be a reckoning at Château Beaumont soon enough, I promise you.”
But when I beg to know more, that is all she will say on the subject.
It must be fearfully late by now, and I know I must go back. As I get to my feet, it occurs to me that I have accepted her hospitality and her potion and have nothing for her in return.
“I can’t pay you,” I apologize. “But I will have my wage at year’s end, in silver coin, and I will bring it to you.”
“And what would you normally do with your wage?” she asks.
“Send it home to my mother.”
“No doubt she will make better use of it than I.” Mère Sophie smiles. “I have little need of coins, child. Your company is payment enough.”
She must get few visitors if she counts me as company, a mewling chit she’s had to drag from the river like a drowning cat. And yet she thinks mine is a life worth preserving. Few enough ever have before, not since I lost my father, and my mother sent me here. But now that she’s given me back the gift of my life, I suppose I must treat it with more respect.
At the door, I hesitate. Mère Sophie has restored my life, but more trouble is brewing. “It’s nearly nightfall. How shall I find my way back in the dark?” I ask her. “How can I explain where I’ve been?”
She pushes open the door with her stick and gestures outside. I see early-afternoon sunlight slanting in through the tree trunks, no later than when I first set out after dinner.
“But it’s been only a moment, a blink.” She smiles at me again. “You shall be home before you can blink again.”
I set out into the wood, then pause to turn back and thank her. But the thatched cottage is nowhere to be seen. There are only silent tree trunks and the giddy laughter of the river.
And a soft breeze that rustles in the leaves. It whispers, “Watch and wait.”
When I casually mention Mère Sophie at the château, they all claim to know something about her.
“She’s a witch!” a housemaid tells me gleefully. “I’ve seen her! Riding her switch across the moon, dressed all in cobwebs! They say the toads dance in the marsh when she flies overhead.”
Madame Montant scoffs. “She’s an old hermit who lost her reason and took to the wood.” The housekeeper narrows her eyes at me. “Don’t let me ever hear of you going down there, girl. Her foolish talk can beguile a person’s wits.”
I pretend I have only heard the name from the other servants. But I know what I’ve seen, so I watch and wait.
The floors in my chambers want scrubbing. There is no urgency today as there was the day I ran into the wood, so I decide to follow the long route to the well: out a side door in the kitchen wing and across the front courtyard to the gap between the carriage house and the main house. I’m told the main house occupies the site of the original Fortress Beaumont, and the side wings were added later as the fortune and the grandeur of the LeNoir family increased. The kitchen wing to the west connects directly to the main house for convenience, but the carriage house opposite the courtyard is a separate building. A horse track under a covered archway divides it from the main house, and this track continues over an ancient drawbridge that crosses the east side of the moat. This route circles around the east wing of the château and back to the stable yard that lies beyond the rear of the moat. The original intent was to provide a way for horses from the stables to be brought into the protection of the courtyard if the fortress were under siege. Now it’s used mostly to bring in horses for the chevalier’s carriage when he wants to make a splendid progress through his gilded gate. Or else by servants going to and from the well.
The swans are paddling lazily in the water as I round the outer edge of the moat and turn the corner for the back bridge. A great deal of water is still in the moat from the last storm, but the water is grey, like the lowering skies we’ve had of late. Behi
nd the château, I make my way to the line of sculpted hedges that screen the back of the moat from the yard and the stone well beyond. But I have to skitter off behind a hedge when I see him coming, striding out of the park with his favorite hound, heading for the well. I hear the boisterous talk and laughter of his hunting companions still some distance behind him. But he and his dog approach the well alone. He draws the water himself, laughing as his dog leaps and capers and bares its teeth in impatience. He splashes the water out of the bucket into a gilded dish and sets it on the ground, and the dog greedily slurps it up.
He’s dressed for the hunt — collar thrust open, shirtsleeves rolled up to the elbows, tan leather jerkin, over-the-knee boots. A magnificent animal, I suppose, as he goes down gracefully on one knee to stroke the hound’s withers, but I can’t think how I ever found him beautiful. Master and beast. Two of a kind.
We all three look up, suddenly, at an odd noise: soft, shuffling footfalls in the gravel pathway and a heavy wheezing on the far side of the well. I peer out between the leaves of the hedge as he rises. The dog sniffs the air and growls. I see him lace two fingers through the dog’s jewelled collar as a small figure swathed in a grey cloak approaches the well.
“Good day to you, good sir.” It’s a quavery female voice, frail with age. She leans upon her gnarled stick, and he responds with a curt nod. “Can you spare a cup of water for an old woman?”
“Use the river. It’s free to all,” replies the chevalier.
“Yes, I am going that way. But it’s a long walk for these old limbs, and I am thirsty now.”
I catch my breath, eager, for I recognize Mère Sophie’s voice.
“Please, kind sir, as an act of charity,” she goes on. “A swallow only, and I’ll be on my way.”
“Be off with you!” he retorts. “I want no beggars about the place.”
The growling dog now sets up an agitated barking, catching the scent of its master’s anger. The old woman withdraws a step, looking at the creature, then turns her gaze once more to the chevalier.
“One drop would fortify me, sir. It would be a great kindness.”
“Why should I be kind?” he cries. The dog is lunging in his grip now, up on its hind legs in a frenzy of baying. “This is my well and my land, and you are trespassing. Be off before I set the dogs on you!”
There are answering howls from the park, as other dogs and other hunters appear at the tree line. More men are emerging from the stable to see what’s amiss and do their master’s bidding. But I know the wisewoman’s strange powers. Surely she will serve him some reprimand for his cruelty!
But she shrugs deeper into her cloak. “As you wish.” She sighs and turns away. We all watch her creaky progress as she heads for the trees and the wood far beyond, keeping clear of the place where the snarling hounds are held in check.
“Crone,” mutters the grand Chevalier de Beaumont. “Witch!” Something more than impatience is in his voice. Could it be fear?
He bends over his agitated dog, petting and stroking. “Quiet there, Zeus. Good boy. Easy now,” he soothes, softening his voice, drawing deep breaths. He might as well be speaking to himself. Then he looks around to see his gatekeeper trotting toward him, alerted perhaps by one of the other servants.
“Andre!” the chevalier shouts. “How did that damned insolent hag get on my property?”
“Hag?” echoes the gatekeeper, mystified. “But . . . I saw no such person, monsieur le chevalier —”
“If you can’t do your job, I’ll find someone who can!” roars the chevalier. “Get your things and go!” And before poor Andre can utter another word in his own defense, the chevalier is marching back for the park with his hound at his heels.
But my heart is sinking. I let Mère Sophie beguile my wits, but she has no more power against him than I have. She’s just an addled old woman after all. I have no champion, no ally against the chevalier but my own hatred. I will nurse and suckle it. It is my only comfort.
Storm clouds are gathering as we clear away the dining things a few days later. The metallic scent of rain makes the dogs too uneasy to hunt, and their master is upstairs, brooding, for want of amusement. The chevalier’s nights have been restless; the upstairs servants whisper that he cries out in his sleep, waking in a fever, disturbing his gentlemen. He is more ill-tempered than ever with all of us since the day the crone came to the well. I dare to hope that Mère Sophie has visited some spell upon him after all.
I’m cleaning the windows in one of my chambers when I see a coach of astonishing finery enter the courtyard, pulled by four snow-white horses. Its gilded surface blazes like a sun, even on this grey day, as it climbs the drive between the flower beds and pulls up at the foot of the broad front steps.
From my window in the west wing, I see Monsieur Ferron, the steward, appear at the top of the steps as the coach pulls to a halt. A footman in emerald livery leaps off the back, plants himself on the bottom step, and cries up to the steward, “My lady seeks sanctuary!”
Monsieur Ferron frowns down at him. “Do you take us for a church, my good man?”
“Indeed not! The last church was miles away! But this storm will break soon, and my lady requires shelter.”
“Neither are we a house of charity,” sniffs the steward.
“Ferron!” cries the master of the house, emerging from the grand doorway behind him. “Do I dream, or are you debasing yourself on my steps arguing with a footman?”
“My apologies, monsieur le chevalier,” the steward grovels.
“You may prattle like a peasant in the streets if you must, but I caution you to have a care for the honor of my house.”
Monsieur Ferron bows nearly to his knees at this unjust rebuke, for he is second only to the chevalier himself in guarding the reputation of Château Beaumont and its master. Meanwhile, the footman has been called to the side of his coach, where an elegant gloved hand rests on the sill of a small window, and a soft female voice declares, “I shall speak to this gentleman.”
The footman bows and pulls open the coach door, then tugs down the hinged step and hands the lady out. She is beautiful beyond measure — hair upswept from her face and done up in jewels, with long golden coils trailing down her back and a pale, perfect complexion. Her throat is long and elegant, her bosom alluring above a gold-worked bodice that fits her like a second skin. Her gown and cloak are of the richest velvet in a soft shade of heather green. All eyes seek her out, and for that moment, all conversation ceases. She raises her gaze to the face of the chevalier, and something blazes between them. I can see the transformation in him. The bored, petulant knight disappears; in his place stands Jean-Loup, the predator, regal and charming.
“My lady,” he murmurs, bowing rakishly low, his fingertips all but sweeping the top step in a grand gesture of welcome. “Your presence ornaments my humble home. Pray tell me whom I have the privilege to address?”
“I am Lady Honoree D’Auria Reveaux, Comtesse Du Bois.” She inclines her perfect head, and Jean-Loup himself glides down the steps to take her hand. He rattles off his own titles to her and dares to place a chaste, obedient kiss upon her gloved hand.
“Shall I have the pleasure of entertaining Monsieur le Comte this evening?” he asks.
“Alas, the count, my late father, is beyond the pleasures of this world. I journey to meet my bridegroom-to-be but find myself at odds with nature this afternoon.”
“Then praise nature for delivering you into my care, my lady.” His eyes are earnest, his smile hopeful, not yet dazzling. He plays the components of his handsome face like a puppet master, teasing this string, nudging that, until all the pieces work in concert for maximum effect. How can the poor creature not melt at the sight of him? Indeed, she lowers her beautiful eyes. Her first gesture of surrender. “Please come inside, my lady,” he urges her. “Whatever is in my poor power to provide is yours.”
He dismisses her men to the carriage house and orders refreshment laid for them in the kitchen. He s
ends his steward to the kitchen as well, to order wine and brandy and a meal, then escorts the Comtesse Du Bois up the steps and into the hall. My stomach is churning as I watch. The Lady Honoree is a noblewoman who has declared herself en route to wed a husband; she believes the Chevalier de Beaumont’s behavior will be as gallant as his words.
How wrong she is!
I can’t bear it. Wealthy and noble she may be, but with her father dead and herself not yet under the protection of a husband, she is as vulnerable as I was. And she may be deceived and ruined, as I was, unless I try to interfere on her behalf. No one else will dare to cross the chevalier, but I can’t sit idly by; I can’t. Not if it’s at all in my power to stop him.
I tell Madame Montant I am off at the bidding of the under-housekeeper Marie, and I tell Marie I’m running an errand for Madame Montant. They are in too much of a frenzy belowstairs over the master’s houseguest to take any notice of me. In a far corner of one of my chambers is a door that leads to one of the four turrets that mark the corners of the house. Each turret encloses a hidden stairway for the use of the upstairs servants. I have never used them before, but now I open the door and slip inside.
The stone steps, worn smooth by generations of slippered feet, spiral ever upward in the narrow cylinder of stone, giving way at last to a long utility passage. I follow this until it opens onto the spacious upper hall that surrounds the central staircase.
Now I recognize my surroundings. Beyond the staircase lies the dining salon, where the chevalier entertains, and beyond, the ballroom. Servants are already bustling the plates and knives and serving platters out of the dining salon. I retreat back into the utility passage so as not to be seen by them, but they are using one of the other turret staircases. I hear no music coming from the ballroom, so I know the chevalier and the comtesse must be elsewhere.
Fighting down my anger and shame, recalling the last time I was in this place, I turn toward his private rooms. The door to his outer salon is open, and I shrink back into a shadowy niche when a figure appears in the doorway. It is Monsieur Ferron.
