“Thank you, Deputy Secretary,” she said, and opened the door into a small but surprisingly elegant salon, with a fire burning and two branches of candles lit. The walls were covered with watered silk the color of pomegranates, and there were two small, scroll-armed sophas upholstered in wine-colored brocade flanking a low, claw-footed table with a brass top, where a bottle filled with an opalescent liquid stood, with two small glasses and a bowl of sugar beside it. “What a charming room,” she said, and went to warm her hands at the hearth; she could feel his gaze following her, and for the first time since she entered the house, she began to relax, certain she would be able to persuade him to release Enee to her if only she mixed her appeal to him with a little flirtation and hid the desperation that possessed her.
“It is one of my few indulgences, this room,” he said with pride that bordered on smugness. “It has taken me four years to bring it to this state.”
“You have done a splendid job, Deputy Secretary.”
“You’re most kind, Madame. I confess I take pride in what I have accomplished here.” He closed the door and moved to the center of the room, next to the table, where the light was brightest. “So few have enjoyed it that your praise means a great deal to me, for you must have seen many elegant rooms in the course of your work.”
She made the most of the cue he offered her, ignoring the snide undertone in his remark. “Then I am doubly pleased—first, that you have agreed to talk to me, and second, that you do so in this lovely room. Thank you again for receiving me. I hadn’t dared to hope until I received your invitation.”
He made a sound that might have meant agreement. “Then complete your gesture of courtesy: if you will sit down, and allow me to pour you a little liqueur of wormwood”—he used the German word for wormwood—“we can get down to discussion.” Seeing her hesitate. “Take whichever sopha suits you best,” he urged.
Photine chose the sopha nearer the door, reclining against the rolled arm with a languor she did not feel. “You’re most gracious, Deputy Secretary.”
“Your company makes it easy for me to be so,” he responded with a gallantry that astonished her; so this very ordinary man fancied himself a chevalier, she realized, and determined to use that understanding to her advantage.
“Then we should be able to manage our business without difficulty,” she said, wanting to keep him on point.
“I think that’s possible,” he said, strolling to the table, picking up the bottle, and pouring a small amount of the liqueur into each of the glasses. “This is remarkable stuff. Are you familiar with it?”
“Liqueur of wormwood? I don’t believe so,” she said,
“You will find it most unusual,” he said, a bit remotely. “I know I do.”
Photine stared at the glass handed to her. She took it from him, saying, “Then I thank you in advance.”
“To you, Madame,” Charlot said, lifting his glass before touching the rim to his lips. “And your mission of mercy.”
The taste, Photine thought as she sipped the liqueur, was not entirely pleasant, but she took a second nip. “It’s … interesting.”
“Some poets say it provides them visions,” Charlot informed her. “You, as an actress, may find it does the same for you.”
“Then I should probably wait until our business is finished. It would be unhelpful for me to become lost in a vision when we should be talking sensibly.” She spoke in a level voice as she put the little glass down, still half-full, but the alarm she had felt as she made her way from the Jongleur to this house returned.
“You had best finish the glass—it goes off rapidly once poured, not the usual thing for a liqueur, but there it is,” said Charlot. “I dislike seeing anything so rare go to waste.”
Now Photine was torn: did she refuse Charlot’s hospitality and lose what good opinion he had of her, or did she risk drinking the liqueur of wormwood and hope that she kept her wits about her? After a silence of a dozen seconds or so, she reached for the glass and took another, very small sip. The taste was almost musty, with underlying bitterness that made her wonder if she should put some sugar into the glass with the drink. The vapors wound their way into her skull and slunk into her keyed-up nerves. She realized she had to treat the liqueur with a great deal of respect. “Most unusual, Deputy Secretary.”
“Thank you, Madame. For an instant it seemed that you did not trust me,” he said, putting his own glass on the mantel, where he rested his arm, his ordinary features changing in the flickering light from the fire, lending him a certain air of danger that she found disconcerting. “Tell me about your son—he is your son, I presume? Not a nephew or the by-blow of one of your company?”
“Oh, yes, he is mine,” she said, not letting his insinuation stop her from answering his first question. “He’s fifteen. He was born in Beauvais, the son of my first patron, who provided for him—for his education and his livelihood—until he was thirteen, then settled a trust upon him that ended last year when his property was seized by the Revolutionary Tribunal there. He cannot continue to support him.” She looked up at Charlot. “Enee’s father has left the country, or so I’ve been told.”
“He has actually left the country? Are you certain?” Charlot asked with minimal interest.
“I have been told that he has,” she repeated, imbuing her words with certainty. “His banker sent word to Enee that there would be no more money for him unless he came to Jamaica, where there is a family estate, and where he would be provided for. So far, Enee has had no interest in joining his father—assuming that’s where he has gone—but now, who knows? He might be more than willing to live there.” It was difficult to gauge how much to tell this bureaucrat, for his expression revealed nothing of his thoughts. “It angered Enee to be so cruelly cut off. He didn’t grasp the gravity of his father’s situation, but I believe in time he will.”
“A harsh reality for your son,” Charlot mused aloud, then brightened. “So tell me what his childhood was like—did your son know his father at all?”
“Until he was nine, my son spent time with him fairly frequently, a week in his company four times a year, and a month in the winter. Enee always enjoyed himself, for his father shamelessly indulged him. After he turned nine, his father’s wife finally gave him a son instead of daughters, and so he lessened the amount of time they—”
Rather absent-mindedly, Charlot topped off Photine’s glass of wormwood liqueur. “It must have distressed Enee.”
“He came to travel with me in that year, and that eased his suffering.” She shifted on the sopha so that she could lean toward Charlot. “I was thrilled to have his company, and the actors in the troupe appointed themselves his family, as troupes do.” This was not quite true, but she solaced herself with the certainty that the company would agree with her claim if they were ever questioned in that regard.
“Had he traveled with you before?”
“No; I traveled little while Enee was growing up. Why are you asking me so many questions? Shouldn’t we be talking about my son?”
Charlot stared at her, nothing amicable in his eyes. “If you want to see your son released, you will answer any question I put to you.” He waited until she nodded. “How much did your son travel with you?”
Stilling her increasing qualms, Photine took a deep breath. “My patron kept the troupe as his own and was most generous with us. We were housed and fed at his major country estate, with three houses for our own use, and a small theater for us to rehearse in, and present occasional farces for my patron’s guests.” Most of those scenarios had been bawdy and satiric, and nothing whatever like what she liked most to do. “For the most part, we mounted three or four full productions a year for him, and occasionally took a play to Paris; once we played at Versailles. That was some years ago, of course. I was an ingenue then.” Without thinking, she drank a little more of the liqueur of wormwood, finding its effect on her soothing. “He had a taste for the classics, did Jean-Raoul, and encouraged us to pro
duce those plays often, especially the Greek tragedies.”
“Then I take it you’re classically trained—an unusual thing in a commedia leader, I’d have thought.” He seemed slightly surprised.
“Yes, it is unusual; the aunt who raised me was a renowned actress and taught me the craft.” She wondered why he asked, and if she ought to have dissembled in her response. “I didn’t learn Commedia del’Arte until I was twenty-five.”
“Um. So your present troupe is new to you?”
“No; these are members of my company. Just now we are doing our Commedia della Morte because there are few theaters in France where the classics are played, and we must eat.” She tried for a whimsical note, and very nearly succeeded.
“You have a patron now, or are you without support?”
“I have a patron.” Before she could stop herself, she added, “He is traveling with us now: Ragoczy Ferenz. He’s an Hungarian in exile.”
“A nobleman.”
“In exile,” she reiterated. “He has a house in Padova.”
“This is the man your son stabbed,” Charlot inquired as if he knew the answer.
“It is most unfortunate, but yes.”
Charlot said nothing for almost half a minute. “You have no family to whom you can turn on your boy’s behalf?” He paused, adding, “Someone who might provide for him?”
“I have a brother and a half-sister. Both are married. One lives … lived in Nancy, the other in Rouen. They have families, and are not in any position to take Enee into their households, or as an apprentice. My half-sister’s husband is a mercer, and my brother was a printer.” I’m telling him too much, she thought, and tried not to panic; she realized the liqueur had loosened her tongue more than she had supposed. Color mounted in her face and only her long training gave her the poise she needed to continue without revealing her agitation. “I’m afraid I don’t know where my brother and his family have gone.”
“A pity. Should either of them be able to offer him a position, perhaps the Revolutionary Tribunal would be willing to release your son to his aunt or uncle. But…” He went to the sopha opposite Photine and sprawled upon it, untying the sash on his robe so that the front of the garment fell open. “We will find another way.”
This display bothered her, but not enough to keep her from pursuing her mission; she almost offered to remember him in her prayers, but stopped herself in time: the Revolution had put an end to the rites and rituals of religion. “That is most kind of you, Deputy Secretary. I have to tell you that I have been nearly at my wits’ end, worrying about Enee. I know he has done a great wrong, but it is my duty, as his mother, to protect him from all dangers, including those he creates himself.”
“It is good to know you remain firm in your conviction,” he said, his eyes lingering on the slope of her breasts longer than was seemly. “I hope you will continue to keep that duty in mind.”
Photine sat up straighter, trying to pull her scattering thoughts to order. “Deputy Secretary,” she said with all the dignity she could summon, “it would be better if you were to sit up.”
“Oh, very good,” Charlot said through his predatory laughter. “You might try indignation next. Protest that you do not do such things, or tell me you’ll complain to the Revolutionary Court. No doubt you could make an admirable scene. It would cost you your son, of course, but it would be a glorious performance.”
“Monsieur!”
“Citizen,” he corrected her, so condescendingly that she longed to slap his face.
“Deputy Secretary,” she said punctiliously, “if you have no intention of helping Enee, then I must thank you for giving me your time, and leave you to your own thoughts.”
He got up from the sopha, his movement deliberate as he approached her: he unbuttoned the front of his unmentionables. “Don’t pretend you are a chaste miss, Madame, that you don’t know how this game is played. Your son proves you know the ways of men well enough.”
Photine turned her dread to outrage, forcing herself to face him. “You have insulted me profoundly, Deputy Secretary. You have been derogatory regarding my profession and the nature of my connection to my son’s father. You have treated me like the lowest harlot, and offended me deeply.” She felt a first hint of courage flicker within her. “I will leave now and say nothing about any of this.”
“No, woman, you will not,” Charlot said, taking hold of her hair.
“Release me!” She used the voice that could stop crowds and bend them to her will, but all Charlot did was grin.
“When I am done with you,” he said in a silky voice. “But I have not yet begun.”
She could feel a knot form in her vitals, and she cursed herself for a gullible dupe, thinking that this man would ever extend himself on behalf of another without requiring recompense for it. “I can give you money.”
“I have money—more than anyone knows,” he told her before bestowing a ferocious kiss on her mouth, one that pressed his teeth into her lips, forcing them apart for the invasion of his tongue. “I want other compensation from you.”
She resisted the impulse to wipe her mouth with the back of her hand. “You disgrace your office, Deputy Secretary.”
He laughed again, though it came out more like a growl. “Power is to be used, Madame. That’s what it’s for.”
The fear she had held at bay flared within her, and she started to rise. “I’m going to leave. You cannot keep me here.”
“Stay where you are. Unless you want Enee to be answerable for your petulance with his head.” He countered her turmoil with an increasing tranquillity. “I am giving you a chance to keep your son alive. I will abide by my word if you’ll obey me.”
Distressed and confused, Photine took a hasty step toward the door, half-stumbled, and swore.
From his place on the sopha, Charlot laughed, holding up a key. “The door’s locked, Madame.” He put the key back in a pocket in his dressing-robe, then reached to the opening in his unmentionables, wriggling as he worked to lower his underdrawers. “Come back and sit down while I explain matters to you.” He tugged his penis free from his undergarment and fondled it, smiling as it began to rise. “Like a sail filling with wind,” he murmured.
“You are insulting, Deputy Secretary,” said Photine, matching his coldness with her own; she could see the red, blister-like sores on his organ and on his lower abdomen where some of his hair had fallen away from the pustules. “Cupid’s Measles,” she said with as much fear as contempt.
“Yes, I have them,” he agreed with a lupine smile. “But doubtless you will know how best to manage me. Actresses are adaptable, aren’t they?”
“Cochon!”
“What a fine representation of revulsion,” he approved, amused by her distress. “You’re beginning to sense what I like.” He pulled at his foreskin, then rolled it back, exposing the broad red head of his penis. “You’ve noticed the sores, of course, and you know what it means.”
“You seek to pass your disease to me,” she said.
“A small price to pay for the life of your son,” he countered, motioning her to approach him. “You are going to do what I ask you, everything I ask you, until I order you to leave, or your son will go to the Guillotine by the end of this month, as he should. Or didn’t you mean it when you wrote to me that you would do anything to secure his freedom?” Charlot’s voice was sharp, like the blade of the Guillotine itself. “Drink the liqueur—it will make this easier for you, and you won’t remember most of it—and then come and suck my organ. I’ll tell you what to do while you satisfy me.”
“You’re obscene,” she said, but moved toward him, her mind reciting For Enee, for Enee, as she went.
“The liqueur, Madame,” he said, pointing to the glass of liqueur of wormwood on the table next to her. “You will find it easier to accommodate me with its effects to soothe you.” His penis was standing out from his body now, its tip dark-red and marked by developing pustules. “And don’t think you will bite me and
subdue me. If you try such a sluttish trick, your son loses his head in three days.”
“You cannot order me to—”
“I can order you to do whatever I like. For now, I would like you to suck my member dry. Later I have more questions for you, and then perhaps I will have you do other things as well.” His gaze flicked lazily over her, as if assessing possibilities for later. “Open your corsage, Madame. I want to see your breasts as you service me.”
Photine drank the liqueur as if it were poison, letting the muzziness it imparted claim her. She reached to unfasten her sash, dropping it before she loosened the lacing of her corsage, exposing her breasts. “Since you order,” she said with icy contempt. She knelt in the narrow space between the sopha and the table, and leaned forward, disgusted with herself and nauseated by the odor coming from Charlot’s body—the man had not washed in several days and his disease imparted a sweetish aroma of rotting meat to the sweat. As she took his penis into her mouth, she felt his hand in her hair again.
“You will swallow what I give you, then beg me for more,” he said through clenched teeth.
She could not speak and would not have known what to say if she had made the attempt. For an instant, she thought of da San-Germain and his way with her when they lay together, but banished the memories as quickly as she thought of it: this was going to be a long night, and she had Enee to think about, not the man who had brought her into danger for no purpose but to save his beloved blood relative; she could hope for nothing from him tonight. Nor could she convince herself that Theron Heurer would seek her out, for he, too, was looking to aid that unknown noblewoman who was the cause of all that had transpired. As she began her efforts, she heard a clock somewhere in the house begin to sound eleven; the night was stretching out ahead of her like a road into hell.
Charlot was right about the liqueur of wormwood—it provided a dream-like state that allowed her to view all that would be required of her for the next four hours as a kind of nightmare, one that would end in forgetfulness, and reward her with her son’s freedom.
Commedia della Morte Page 37
