Commedia della Morte

by Chelsea Quinn Yarbro

  “Understandably,” said da San-Germain, unperturbed.

  “If you have weapons with you, you must surrender them to me,” the Guard said.

  “I have a pistol in my boot; any night-traveler does. There are robbers about,” said da San-Germain, bending down to remove the elegant weapon; he handed it to the Guard. “Have a care: it is charged.”

  “No robbers venture here.” The Guard took the weapon gingerly and stepped back into the warder-gatehouse. “I have it here, and will return it if Warden Loup allows it, when you leave.” He moved back so that da San-Germain could enter. “I’ll watch your horse for you, in case there is trouble.”

  “Thank you,” said da San-Germain; he realized that this meant he would not be allowed to bring his horse inside the monastery walls—probably a precaution against attempted escapes. He secured the reins to the largest cleat on the outside of the main gate, then returned to the warder-gate and went through.

  “You’d better go to the warden. He is expecting you.” This reiteration came with a lugubrious sigh.

  “Where will I find him?” da San-Germain asked.

  “Go through the cloister all the way to the main door on the ambulatory—the one with the brass hinges. It leads to his quarters.” He sat down on a small round stool as if his efforts had exhausted him.

  “Through the cloister to the door with brass hinges,” da San-Germain repeated, and saw the Guard nod. “Very good.”

  The cloister was empty but for a pair of Guards standing in front of a flight of stairs that at one time had led up to the monks’ cells; now the prisoners were kept there. Neither Guard did more than glance at the stranger, preferring instead to smoke their long-stemmed pipes while drawing their coats closely around them. The brass-hinged door was at right angles to the stairway. Lengthening his stride, da San-Germain headed toward it. He knocked twice on the door and waited to be summoned inside.

  “Good morning, Citizen Ragoczy,” said the man behind the imposing desk, his face illuminated to an uneven and sinister gold in the light from six brass lamps, two of which had untrimmed wicks and therefore sputtered and spat, darkening their glass chimneys with oily smoke. “You have come in good time.”

  “Good morning, Warden Loup,” he responded with a slight bow. “I thank you for giving me this opportunity to visit my relative.”

  “You’ve expressed your thanks generously already,” Loup said, and, as an afterthought, rose and offered his hand. Although clean-shaven, he was remarkably hirsute, with thick dark hair sprouting on the backs of his fingers and palms, and poking out from his ears; his eyebrows were thick as caterpillars, and a shadow of stubble on his jaw. He was dressed to keep out the chill in a heavy woolen knee-length coat of dark-blue over a long waistcoat of double-thick fustian and a shirt of super-fine wool; the fire in the hearth was smoky but not very warm, what little heat it provided extending no more than an arm’s-length into the room.

  Taking Loup’s hand in his own, da San-Germain offered him two louis d’or. “I believe you have some questions to ask me,” he said, wanting to make the most of his limited time.

  “I do,” said Loup, indicating an old-fashioned X-shaped chair, which da San-Germain refused. “You’re in a hurry to see your relative, aren’t you. Then I’ll be brief.”

  “Thank you,” said da San-Germain, resisting the urge to pace.

  “You are most welcome,” Warden Loup deftly slipped the gold coins into his waistcoat pocket as he sat down once more. “You are here to see Madelaine de Montalia, I recall.”

  “Yes. She and I are related by blood, as you have remarked; it was in the material I provided you.” He kept his tone mannerly, but his purpose was clear: he would get what he had paid for.

  “Um. Your request was most instructive.” He considered da San-Germain with curiosity. “Yet, according to your missive, you are Hungarian and she is French.” Loup’s statement rose at the end, more like a question.

  Da San-Germain shrugged. “Among the old nobility, such alliances have been common enough.”

  “That is true,” said Loup, folding his hands atop a stack of papers; he looked up. “Do you have a title?”

  There it was again, the issue of title. “Technically, you might see it that way,” he answered smoothly, “in that I am the son of a … a prince”—this was the closest he could come to approximating the title his long-dead father had claimed, more than three thousand eight hundred years ago, when he fell in battle, and what seemed princely then now appeared more to be a regional warlord—“and I, for want of a clearer word, might be called a comte, were I not an exile.”

  “Oh, yes, an exile: you mentioned that.” He pursed his lips as if caught up in cogitation. “Yet from the request you sent me, I must surmise that your other noble relatives still have their titles and holdings?”

  “Some do, others are not so fortunate.” This stretched the truth a little, but that did not trouble him.

  “And you travel with a troupe of players.”

  “An exile must do something to … live.”

  “But a troupe of actors? Isn’t that a come-down from what you had before?”

  “It is preferable to being an impoverished pensioner to some other noble. I have my liberty with the players.” The nod that Loup gave told da San-Germain that he had guessed correctly in providing his explanation.

  Loup sat back and scrutinized da San-Germain, then said, “You are what?—forty-five?”

  “Somewhat older,” he said, reckoning that time in millennia.

  “A wife? Children?”

  Thinking back to Xenya and the Court of Ivan Grosny, he said, “I am a widower. We had no children.”

  “That’s unfortunate. Still, given how things have turned out, it might be for the better.” He rang a bell that stood on the corner of his desk. “Have you brought anything for her?—your relative?”

  “I have a short cloak, if that is permissible?” He patted the side of his cloak.

  “It is cold, and the cells are damp. We’ve already lost three prisoners to the chill, and another is failing.” He weighed the matter as the door opened again. “I suppose it is to be expected. You may give it to her.” He sighed and gestured acquiescence. “Montaube will guide you to her cell and escort you from it.”

  “He will listen?”

  “Yes. He knows some Italian and a little German, so don’t think to confuse him; I should probably tell you that there is a peep-hole in the door, as well, and he may use it if he thinks it necessary,” Loup warned as an angular man of perhaps twenty-five in a broad-skirted, threadbare coat answered the summons of the bell. “I doubt I will see you before you leave, Ragoczy, so I will wish you bon chance now.”

  “Most appreciated,” said da San-Germain before he turned to Montaube. “Citizen?”

  “Come this way,” said Montaube, turning the color of mulberries as he pointed to the door. Once out of the room, they passed between the two Guards with no more acknowledgment than a half-hearted salute. The steps up to what had been the monks’ cells were lit by old lanthorns, making them appear more steep and narrow than they actually were, and had a trip-stair two steps from the stop. Montaube pointed it out silently. “The fourth on the left. I’ll open the door for you.”

  “Thank you,” said da San-Germain, his composure masking turmoil and anticipation. He nodded to Montaube as he watched the young man take out a ring of heavy keys from his coat-tail pocket. It was tempting to urge him to hasten, but that would arouse suspicions, so he stood silently while the wards in the lock grated.

  Montaube took hold of the lock, worked the hasp, pushed the door open a short way. “I’ll be here. You have forty minutes.”

  Da San-Germain handed him a golden Bohemian Emperor as he went past him into the cell, then stood just inside the door, his whole attention on the figure sitting on the side of the narrow bed, a worn shawl around her shoulders, in a scuffed dress of damask silk. The bed, covered by a single blanket, showed no sign of
being slept-in, but there was a slight indentation in the pillow at the far end. Pausing for a moment to permit Montaube to close the door, da San-Germain remained transfixed by Madelaine’s presence: in this small, dank stone chamber with a single clerestory window, she was exotic as a jeweled bracelet in a coal-scuttle.

  Lit by a solitary candle, it was hard to read her features as she turned toward da San-Germain, rising slowly to her feet. “Saint-Germain. You have come.”

  The sound of her voice stirred him to action; he took three uneven steps toward her and drew her into his arms, taking in the shape and texture and character of her, holding her more tightly than he realized, as if to leave the impression of her imprinted upon him. “Madelaine. My heart.”

  She returned his embrace, her hands shaking, and not from cold. “Oh, why can’t I cry? It would feel so good to cry,” she murmured to his shoulder.

  He let her go enough to be able to look into her face. “You know the answer.”

  “We lose our tears when we lose our lives,” she said as if reciting an unwelcome lesson. With a faint sigh, she moved a step back from him, unable to hide the sadness this admission brought. “How long have you been here in Lyon?”

  “A few days; I wanted to come as soon as we arrived, but I had to get permission to come here, and that took time.” He assumed she knew this, but that Montaube would expect to hear such an explanation.

  “And money, no doubt.” She lowered her voice. “Along with liberty, equality, and brotherhood, they ought to have added profit to their Revolutionary battle-cry.”

  “There are things more valuable than money,” he said with a warning glance toward the door.

  “I know they listen; they listen to everything.” She sighed. “And they look. They don’t see much, but they still look.”

  Closing the distance between them, he took her hand in his. “I bring you the greeting and concerns of our blood, and their hope that you might soon be free.”

  “How good of you, and of them,” she said for Montaube’s benefit.

  “They encourage you to keep up your hope. They will want to hear that you haven’t lost heart in gaining your freedom.”

  She was aware of what was expected of her. “Thank them for me, and tell them I do hope to be exonerated of the charges laid against me.”

  He reached under his cloak and pulled out a flat package, which he handed to her. “This is from your uncle at Lecco. He believes it will help keep you warm.” He hoped this sounded much the same as other visitors to these cells, for its hidden message would be dangerous if discovered.

  She felt the package, giving him a dejected smile. “Not a book, I take it? I’ve been longing for something to read.”

  “I doubt it would be allowed,” he said, sympathy softening his words.

  “You’re probably right.” She examined the package. “At least this may help keep out the damp.” She, like the rest of his blood, was not very sensitive to changes in temperature, but humidity was another matter.

  “That, I believe, was his intent.”

  “You must tell him how grateful I am,” she said, her violet eyes fixed on his. She pulled the string and paper off the soft-violet garment, and smiled. “Very nice.”

  “When I return to Lecco, I will let him know you welcomed it; he will be most pleased,” he said, relieved that she understood what he had told her—that she would be taken to Lecco when they left France.

  She removed the shawl and donned the cloak he had given her. “It’s much warmer than the shawl.”

  Aware that he must not forget that Montaube was listening, he went on to another topic. “Everyone has asked: have you got an advocate to plead your case? Your cousin in Cadiz has offered to cover the expenses if you require one.”

  She almost smiled at this oblique reference to Roger, who had been born in Cadiz when it was still a Roman port called Gades. “No. We’re told there is one appointed for all of us, but that may change if the rumors we hear are true.” She gave a little shake of her head.

  Da San-Germain had heard many of the same rumors—that there would soon be a law that would make accusation commensurate with guilt. “But surely that won’t happen before spring, and you are supposed to appear in—what?—five, six days is it now?”

  “I’ve lost count, there have been so many postponements,” she said. “Who knows? it may be spring by the time we’re taken to the Revolutionary Court, when defense will be moot.”

  “Until the law is passed, if it is passed, you will have to have an advocate,” he said.

  “If you can discover who it is, I would be grateful.”

  “I can certainly make the effort.” He bent and kissed her hand, its chill matching his own hand’s. “Or would you prefer I seek out other counsel for you?”

  “No. That would distinguish me too much, and that could lead to certain assumptions that might go against my interests. But tell my Cadiz cousin that I thank him for his generosity.” She stared into his dark eyes. “I have missed you, Saint-Germain. I should have taken your advice, and remained in Italy, but…”

  He finished her trailing thought for her. “But the advice of an exile is not always suitable.”

  “Oh, no,” she protested, then saw him gesture to her; she collected her thoughts. “Not in the way you mean. I was certain that the Revolution would bring the justice it promised, and that those of us who have been responsible to our people would be able to lose only our titles, not our heads.” She went back to his side. “But you’ve been through this kind of upheaval before, and your warnings were prudent.”

  “This is what the soldier should hear; it is what Warden Loup is expecting,” he said in Turkish, a language she had recently learned in anticipation of a journey there. “You’re doing well. I am sorry we cannot talk without anyone listening.” He allowed himself a moment to touch her coffee-colored hair, so lightly that he might have been caressing the wings of butterflies.

  “You know I can’t speak Hungarian,” she protested, a ghost of a smile on her lips at her deliberate misidentification.

  “I apologize,” he said in French. “It is the circumstances here—they remind me of what I endured, and I lapse.” The oubliette had been long ago, when he had been regarded as a demon; there had been other prisons, in China, in Roma, in the New World, in Poland … He held her hand more tightly.

  “Small wonder,” she said, then added quietly, “Do you remember the old chapel, the one you showed me when I had been hunting?”

  “Yes,” he said, his mind going back to the dreadful pursuit of Saint Sebastien and his Circle that had brought her to an ancient chapel where he sheltered with her for the night, and the passion that brought her closer to becoming like him. “It was … some years ago, was it not?”

  “A shame we can’t return there,” she said, her voice echoing the force of his memories, moving next to him. “Those elegant, vile men, trying to waylay me; were it not for you, I tremble to think what might have happened to me at their hands.”

  “Alas,” was as much as he trusted himself to say.

  She held up her hand, motioning him to silence. “Those days are gone.”

  “It is one of my dearest recollections of you,” he told her gently.

  “And mine of you,” she said, leaning against his arm, then stepping back. “How long do you think you will be here?”

  Da San-Germain felt her yearning as if it were the heat from a bonfire. “It depends upon the Commedia della Morte. I’m still with the troupe, you see. We were in Avignon not so many days ago, and decided to come north before winter set in.” It was difficult to keep talking of such commonplace things when he wanted to embrace her, but since that would be fruitless as well as dangerous, he made himself continue. “If the play is received well we could be here for two weeks or more; we have five more performances licensed, and may be granted more if there is a demand for them.”

  “Then you will remain with the players?” She stood beside him, both of the
m facing away from the door.

  “Yes.” He paused. “I wish you could see them.”

  “I would like to, but—”

  “Of course: but.”

  She took a deep breath. “Well, I shall content myself with imagining you on the stage.”

  “I am not on the stage: I provide the music.” He paused. “But I wear a costume, and a mask.”

  “Very gallant,” she said, laying her hand on his.

  He bowed slightly. “I am content to remain in the shadows.” His tone was playful but his expression was not.

  “Do any others share those shadows with you?”

  He wanted to enfold her in his arms again, to feel her presence and her emotion with all of his being, but he restrained his impulse. “No; I hope that will change before long. It would enhance the play to have more music than what I can provide on the cimbalom; a flute-player, perhaps.” He saw her start, and very nearly smile: she had learned to play the flute when she was alive, and had not entirely lost the touch of the instrument.

  “I wish you good luck in finding such a person,” she said, squeezing his fingers in acknowledgment of his message. Seeking some less precarious subject, she asked, “How was Theron when you left him?”

  “Closeted with Madame d’Auville when I last saw him,” said da San-Germain. “That was last evening, immediately after supper.”

  “Madame d’Auville?”

  “The leader of the troupe,” he said, wondering if this were unwelcome news. “She is an actress of broad experience. I saw her do Phaedre, not so many months ago.”

  Madelaine was only half-listening. “You mean he’s here?”

  “Oh, yes. He wrote the play the troupe is performing.”

  “I thought he’d have more sense than I did, and remain in Italy,” she said, and caught her lower lip in her teeth.

  “He insisted on coming with us, and Madame d’Auville could not refuse him.”

  “And how is he?”

  Da San-Germain thought about his answer. “For the most part, he is well. He misses you.”

  “I wish I could see him,” she said, her face showing the esurience that had become keen during her imprisonment. “Will you tell him I asked about him?”