by Tony Moyle
But the Bible wasn’t the only place where you might find a ram. It could also be found in Aries, the first sign of the zodiac. She knew that much. But not what it symbolised. Maybe he could answer that question.
*****
The atmosphere in the square was rising. Hordes of bedraggled figures jostled for the best positions down on the ground below the balconies that surrounded the square. An ironic cheer went up every time someone ventured onto the platform sometimes to check the noose or ensure everything was in order. The occasional piece of mouldy fruit would fly out of the crowd prematurely. It was no surprise that the poor went hungry when the short supply of food they did have was thrown at corpses.
Annabelle moved into position on the balcony next to Nostradamus. Her father sat in the seat next to him. As he beckoned for someone to pull a chair out for her, he noticed the gravity of her expression.
“My child. Do not mourn those who have themselves to blame. At the end, all of us must justify ourselves in the eyes of God. I think it might take Philibert longer than most. He’s not worthy of your sadness.”
“He is worthy,” she whispered. “Father, you are a man of kind heart and strong will, you have the power to stop this. Does it make us stronger to punish those weaker than ourselves, who were not granted the same chances as we were?”
“I can’t stop it. This is the King’s order and he wants to set an example to others. It’s just the way of things.”
“Your father is right,” said Nostradamus desperately trying to keep a straight face. “Philibert knew the costs. I tried to encourage him to go another route, but alas, he did not listen.”
“You gave him no choice.”
“I gave him what he asked for. I taught him to read the cosmic energy and he repaid me by making me look like a fool.”
“Well, what do you expect from an Aries?” said Annabelle.
“Very good. I see you have been paying attention. Those born under the sign of the ram have always been independent, committed and determined to win. Philibert showed all of those traits in life. But he never fully embraced the Aries motto.”
“There’s a motto?”
“Yes. When you know yourself you are empowered. When you accept yourself you are invincible.”
Annabelle reflected on the words and smiled. “But I think he has accepted it.”
“A little late, don’t you think?”
A roar went up as a bedraggled jailor wandered onto the stage and milked his fifteen minutes of fame. Like a warm-up act to the main event, he encouraged the crowd to practise the noises and hand gestures that were appropriate for each stage. The first was a loud boo that they delivered impeccably as Phil was led out onto the stage, thankfully no longer in bedclothes. Philibert had requested simple garments to mimic what thousands of others were wearing around him. Simple leggings and a rough tunic ill-fitting and littered with holes. With the midday sun on his face he walked out with his hands tied in front of him. Even from this distance, Annabelle could see that he was smiling and making every effort to glance around in all directions to ensure everyone saw who he was.
When the crowd’s collective voice and patience had run dry he was positioned in the middle of the stage directly underneath the noose. The masked executioner read out a proclamation of crimes, each one greeted with more cheers and the occasional fruity projectile. The list was so long that it took almost fifteen minutes to read, although it was merely a fraction of the actual crimes he was responsible for. When the list came to an end the executioner breathed a sigh of relief; for one last time Philibert aimed his gaze purposefully to where Annabelle was positioned.
Or was he staring at Michel? She couldn’t be certain.
The sun shimmered off something silver worn around his neck, but disappeared as an old sack was roughly dumped over his head, extinguishing his view of the world. The noose followed immediately after and Annabelle turned away.
The door to their balcony suddenly burst open and a red-faced young man flew in hysterically. “SIR!”
“Not now, Jean,” said Michel, unmoved by the distraction. Whatever it was it could surely wait another five minutes while he enjoyed the show.
“But sir…”
“I’m sure it can wait.”
“It really can’t! If Philibert dies it might be lost forever.”
“What are you talking about?”
“The coffer. It’s not there anymore!”
“What? Please tell me you didn’t put the book in there yet.”
Jean nodded. “Yes. As you instructed me, too, only three days ago.”
“But where is it?”
“Stolen. The thief even left a note,” said Jean, passing Michel a scrap of paper that read, ‘the real prophecy dies with me’.
No one liked being conned. It created a horrible abyss in your stomach. A menagerie of emotions were simultaneously triggered as they attempted to identify which one of them was responsible for blindly walking into the trap. Pride, vengeance, jealousy, stupidity and greed were all prime suspects. Michel blamed all of them, as well as Jean, Phil and the world in general. While he had sought to limit Philibert’s reputation he was unwittingly helping it along. If the coffer had been stolen three days ago then it had happened before Michel had introduced Philibert to his past. Which meant Phil was expecting him to do just that. In fact he’d orchestrated it to fulfil his own plans. But was he really willing to die for it?
“Stop the execution!” shouted Michel at the top of his voice, drawing the crowd’s attention away from the platform and up to the balcony. On hearing the surprise request, King Charles leant over the barrier.
“Carry on, executioner, or I will be forced to throw fruit at you.” The young King turned to his mother. “Wood’s a fruit, right?”
Michel limped out of the room, bounced down the stairs ungainly and burst out into the onlookers. He pushed his way past burly men brandishing turnips, dishevelled women in strong voice and puny children hurling grapes at each other. Focused on only one outcome, he even ignored the occasional comment of ‘who’s that?’ as he barged his way closer to the stage. Metres from it a loud bang echoed off the walls of the buildings as the wooden trapdoor opened and a limp body was left dangling from the rope.
“No!”
The crowd sprang to their feet and in the surge forward Michel’s frail body was buffered to the ground.
In a vain attempt to avoiding being trampled to death he squirmed in between stomping feet as his face was squashed into mud. From that position he was unable to see what happened next, but he certainly heard it. There was an almighty snap as the rope sheared in two and Philibert’s body fell limply through the hole and into a void under the stage.
Pandemonium broke out. The crowd became unruly as they bemoaned their lack of satisfaction. The King angrily lobbed blocks of wood, most of which hit the crowd. Throckmorton gave a quiet little fist pump in celebration that someone else had beaten the odds and proved it was possible to cheat death, even when fate had demanded it. Anne heard nothing, but that was quite normal. And the Queen simply leant back in her chair bored by the barbarity of the baying mob. Annabelle watched like a hawk for the slightest sign of the unusual.
The crowd weren’t robbed of their bloodthirst for long. As soon as the executioner realised that his subject had fallen into the hole, he was soon clambering down into the stage to recover him. Two minutes later a new rope was being attached to the gallows and the noose was repositioned on the unresponsive masked body. Take two. The trapdoor fell and once again the body swung above the floor. A loud sigh of relief seeped out of the corpse as life was finally extinguished.
Michel brushed himself down and watched the final moments of Phil’s life being squeezed out of him. The location of the coffer would die with him. As he turned away from the scene almost ashamed at his part in it, he overheard a conversation between two old-timers who had managed to get a prime position at the front of the crowd.
“I’
m telling you something’s not right,” said the first through gums that had long forgotten what teeth felt like.
“But you’re never happy, are you?” replied the second. “You always complain. Not enough blood. Too much blood. Not enough screaming. Too much screaming. Should have used an axe…”
“You have to watch the establishment. Always trying to fool us, that’s all I’m saying.”
“It’s always a conspiracy with you.”
“Use your eyes. I’m telling you that Philibert Lesage was taller than that a minute ago.”
“It’s normal. Bodies do that.”
“Do what?”
“They appear shorter after a hanging.”
“Bollocks. Surely the stretching makes them longer, not shorter.”
“It’s a mystery but true. I blame witches. I’ve seen a couple today, I reckon.”
“And you say I’m always the sceptic. Look,” said the man pointing to the corpse rocking gently in the air. “Tell me that’s not a pot belly.”
*****
There was much on Michel’s mind as he and Jean de Cavigny returned home to Salon, a day’s ride north of Marseille. The grand tour had departed for its next destination, Phil’s body had been buried in an unmarked grave, and there were no clues to the coffer’s whereabouts. Its contents were much more than a collection of Michel’s work, they charted his own personal history. Mementoes from some of his assignments, his favourite pen, a medicine cabinet full of his experimental therapies, a cookbook, and many other items of sentimental value. And now, like Phil, they were gone.
In Salon the two men received a warmer welcome than they felt worthy of. People in the streets called out his name and waved in appreciation of their favourite local celebrity. It was the adulation the rest of France had not yet mirrored. At home Michel’s wife, cradling his youngest child, and the rest of his band of children rallied around him, excited to learn of his latest adventure. Unknown to them it would be his last. Age had crept up on him almost unnoticed to diminish the mental and physical strength he’d once taken for granted. When the energy of the spirit leaves, it doesn’t take the body long to notice. What life was left in him he would spend here on simpler pleasures amongst his family. It would be up to others to decide what marks he left on history.
“There was a man here to see you,” said his wife casually.
“Right,” he replied completely lacking interest.
“He had a delivery for you.”
“A delivery. I wasn’t expecting anything. Show me.”
She took him into the house and pointed at a black, oak coffer in the middle of the room.
“What did he look like?”
“I’d say late-thirties, dark, frizzy hair, fair skin. Was kind of cunning-looking,” she replied.
“Oh, he’s certainly that.”
“The coffer,” said Jean peering over his boss’s shoulder. “It’s a miracle.”
“Don’t be foolish. Even prophets don’t believe in miracles. Everything happens for a reason, you should know that from what I have taught you.”
“But why did he send it back?”
“To prove he could.”
Michel opened the door at the front and took a cursory glance at the contents. Almost everything was where he expected it to be, apart from one item.
“Why only take the book?” said Jean.
“Because now it has my name on it.”
“But you can just send another version to the printer, can’t you? You remember how the prophecy went, right?”
“There’s no point. It’s not genuine, I’m afraid. It was never meant to be. One day, far in the future, it will destroy me. Unless someone can steal it back.”
- Chapter 33 -
The Truth
“Liar!” barked Ally, slapping Antoine fiercely across his face. “You’ve used me.”
“Don’t take it too hard, Ally, conning others is in his genes,” replied Mario.
“It’s not what you think!” exclaimed Antoine calmly. “I’m on your side.”
“Of course you are,” replied Ally sarcastically. “Why did you do it?”
“I know you don’t trust me, but I can explain, just not right now. Believe me when I say it had to happen this way, there was no choice.”
“I don’t believe anything you say. You’ve dragged me on a wild goose chase, and Gabriel for that matter.”
“Is that the young woman out in my entrance hall?” asked Mario, considering his third guest for the first time.
“Yes,” replied Ally. “It’s part of some sick game.”
“It’s not a game. We both want the same thing. We both want to stop the chaos.”
“By creating more of it!”
“No. I have the answer to stop it, but it had to be like this.”
“What, by staging the whole thing?”
“I think it’s about time you told the truth,” added Mario, intrigued as to why Antoine had gone to such extreme lengths to place all of them here at this time.
“Mario isn’t the only one who has received guidance from the past. The discovery of the book was a genuine surprise to me, but since I was a very young boy my parents had told me about the prophecy and what to do when it began. To my surprise it arrived in the shape of Bernard Baptiste.”
“I’m starting to feel sorry for him,” replied Ally.
“About a month ago, Baptiste came to my home. I didn’t know who he was until that morning. He didn’t say why, but it’s obvious to me now that he was looking for the book. I certainly wasn’t the only one in the town he’d visited. He’d been to all houses in my area dating back to Nostradamus’s time, and he must have concluded that the book was hidden somewhere in one of them. When he saw the picture in the hallway of my wife wearing the locket, the same one he must have seen in your painting, then he knew he’d found the right place. I thought it was ludicrous at first when he suggested there was a book hidden somewhere in my house, but he was so convinced he offered to pay for a survey to see if it could be found. That’s when they discovered the secret wall in the basement and the book inside a commode.”
“Not a coffer, then.”
“No, which was most disappointing because the legend passed down through my ancestors was of a coffer and nothing about a book at all.”
“So why did you need me?” asked Ally.
“Because I knew Bernard was working for someone and if I wanted to work out who, I needed someone who understood how Nostradamus worked. Don’t forget at that stage I didn’t know the prophecy was a fake.”
“But why burgle yourself and destroy your own car? Oh my God, you killed a policeman!”
“No, I didn’t. It was all staged, I’m afraid.”
“Staged! Why?”
“Because I knew when I first met you at the Basilique that I couldn’t tell you what I knew, you wouldn’t have believed me. You made it abundantly clear that prophecies never came true. I knew then that I’d have to convince you to trust me. And it worked. After the explosion you believed what I told you. The explosion acted as the perfect distraction. The policeman were both actors and the body on the step was a dummy.”
“It’s a bit extreme, isn’t it?” replied Ally. “You could have just asked me nicely.”
“And what would your response have been?”
“Something about sex and travel more than likely.”
“Oh, that’s very good,” chuckled Mario, a mere interested bystander to their tiff.
“Exactly, so my approach worked as planned. You accompanied me and helped me get to this point.”
“And Gabriel, why her?”
“A lucky coincidence. It was only after we met her when I realised I didn’t need to keep trying to make anything happen anymore. It would happen anyway.”
“What would happen?”
“This. Some outcomes are just written in the stars,” replied Antoine. “Call it cosmic energy.”
“You’re mental. Prophecies never, I re
peat never, come true.”
“We’ll see, won’t we?”
“Once this is done I’m taking out a restraining order against you.”
“Very well.”
“And Bernard, what happened to him?” asked Ally.
“I don’t know,” replied Antoine. “But I would never kill anyone.”
“He had plans of his own,” said Mario. “I became suspicious that he was trying to identify the last descendants of Nostradamus, and if he succeeded he might accidentally stumble upon the true identity of the Oblivion Doctrine. I couldn’t let that happen.”
“Then you did kill him!” exclaimed Ally.
“That was not a confession. You still have no evidence to prove it. The flu would have taken him anyway, like it will everyone else. He just got a head start.”
“One day you’ll pay for your crimes,” replied Ally, pointing a finger at him. Her anger was bursting through the surface. Everyone in the room had played her and it hadn’t been a pleasant experience. Now that she’d finally heard the truth, all that was left was to find some way of revealing it to the world.
“I doubt it. You’ve seen the world burning, Antoine’s revelation doesn’t change anything. It doesn’t matter who wrote the prophecy because people believe in the Oblivion Doctrine. Nostradamus’s legacy is secure and I’m making more money than Amazon. There’s nothing you can do to stop it.”
“Just watch me!” said Ally defiantly.
“I’m afraid you won’t be leaving this room.”
Mario delivered the threat with an almost effortless calm. However harmless he might look, they were sure he meant every word, even if his means were unclear. This man had single-handedly organised Armageddon, two more casualties wouldn’t give him a sleepless night.
“Mario, before you silence us, as I’m sure you’re planning to, there’s one thing I need to ask you,” asked Antoine.
“Go ahead. I’ve waited a decade for a descendant of Philibert Lesage to beg me for their life.”
“Oh, I’m not going to beg for anything,” said Antoine, calmly rising to his feet. “All around you people are dying from N1G13, but you don’t seem concerned about catching it. Why not?”
