She was so young at the time that she didn’t exactly know what the old king was telling her, but she found out soon enough. When his health began to fail, Charlemagne’s eldest son, Pippin (whose posture was so poor that his father referred to him as “the hunchback”), summoned Veronique to a council meeting where a bunch of sweaty, belching warrior chiefs looked her over to decide whether or not she would make a suitable bride for a recalcitrant Saxon noble.
“Charlemagne’s child-queen should be recognized as quite a prize, even to those barbarians,” Pippin said. The others agreed.
“How dare you!” Veronique answered, her eyes blazing with fury. “Your father, not you, is king of the Franks. It is his wishes that must be followed, not yours. And it is not his wish to send me to the frozen land of the Saxons to live like a dog!”
Pippin shrugged in his usual lackadaisical manner. “What my father wishes is of no import any longer, as he will be dead within the week. If you are a prudent girl, you will pack your possessions quickly, because at the hour of Charlemagne’s death”—with this he stuck his finger near Veronique’s face—“you will be on your way to Saxony!”
As the men laughed at her evident dismay, she ran to her dying husband, who lay in a deathlike slumber. “Charlemagne,” she whispered into his ear, “husband and friend, please hear me, I beg you.” Then, blowing a soft stream of air across the old king’s face, she willed him to consciousness.
The sensation Veronique had always experienced during her healings was physical, as if pinpricks of light were coming through her body into her hands, and then out through her slender fingers. Now, clasping Charlemagne’s liver-spotted hands, she concentrated on sending the light within her into him, sensing her life force traveling from the center of her being into his, until at last the king’s eyes opened as he gasped in surprise.
“Veronique!” he exclaimed. “By God, girl, how long was I asleep?”
“Four days,” she said, almost weeping with relief.
He reached his hand up to touch her face. “Only four days? Yet in such a short time, you have grown to full womanhood.”
“I have?” She looked into a mirror. Indeed, she had changed. Her face had lost its childish roundness, and her bosom had grown fuller. “I . . . I think I gave you some of my life,” she confessed.
The king looked at her, uncomprehending, and then burst into hearty laughter. “If so, ’twas the greatest of gifts,” he said.
When she explained what his son had planned for her after Charlemagne’s death, the king called for his valet to dress him in his finest robes. Placing the royal crown upon his head, he walked to the chamber where Pippin and his cronies were still plotting, and burst through the doors like a bear surveying a herd of sheep.
“Make my wife the property of the Saxons, will you?” he roared.
Pippin was completely flummoxed by his father’s unexpected appearance. “My king, I—”
“Be silent!” Charlemagne bellowed. “I am here to tell you, unworthy spawn, that you will never occupy the throne of Gaul!” He turned on the others in the room. “As for the rest of you, I expect you to forswear any allegiance to this creature”—he cast a disgusted look at his son—“or else fight me here and now.” He unsheathed his magnificent sword from its scabbard and held it aloft, as if he were about to charge into battle.
The assembled nobles looked from one to the other as the aged king stood prepared to fight them all.
“Subdue him!” Pippin shouted in desperation. “Don’t you see, the old man’s bluffing! He’ll be in his grave by spring. You have your swords. Use them!”
“If you dare,” Charlemagne said with quiet deadliness. He wore his favorite battle cloak, clean but still stained with the blood of his enemies. Beneath the crown that had been forged for him alone, his mane of white hair fell over his shoulders like a cloud. His large blue eyes burned fiercely in his florid face. The heavy sword remained poised over his head, held by a powerful arm that never trembled under its weight.
One by one the nobles, casting a wary eye toward Pippin, fell to their knees before Charlemagne. “My liege,” they said, ignoring the would-be usurper. “My king.”
His son tried to leave the room, but the old king stopped him with the tip of his sword at Pippin’s throat. “Send in your brother Louis,” he commanded.
Pippin scowled, but he knew that, firstborn son or not, the old man would not hesitate to run him through if he disobeyed him. “Certainly,” he said smoothly. “May I ask why?”
“Tell him I’m going to change his name. To Pippin.”
Pippin whirled around. “What?”
“I like the name. It should not be wasted on a cretin like you.”
The young man sputtered. “But . . . but . . . what shall I call myself, then?”
The old man’s eyes glinted. “Call yourself Dorcas, after the Saxon family I’ll be sending you to,” he said. “You’ll marry a fine, strapping Teutonic maiden, and live out your life in the Saxon hinterlands, where I won’t have to kill you.”
“This is madness!” Pippin hissed.
“Sealing a treaty with the Saxons through marriage was your idea, and it was a good one. King Dorcas would rather have my son than my wife, anyway, even if that son arrives without title. I’ll give you a nice chest of gold as a dowry.”
“A dowry?” Pippin shouted, despite his father’s threatening sword. “Are you saying I am to be banished to the Saxons like some woman?”
Charlemagne blinked in feigned surprise. “But wasn’t that what you were planning to do with my wife?”
“Your eleventh wife, Father.”
“My only wife, at the moment,” Charlemagne said. “And my friend. But you wouldn’t understand that.”
Pippin groaned in disgust. The very idea of friendship with a woman was repulsive to him.
“That is why, to broaden your thinking, you will take the name of your Saxon wife, to perpetuate King Dorcas’s line.”
Tears of rage shone in Pippin’s eyes. “I will never be subjected to such humiliation!” he spat through clenched teeth.
“Then go to a monastery,” Charlemagne said. “Wherever you live is of no importance to me, so long as I never have to see your face again.” He turned his back on the young man and crossed his arms.
As Pippin stomped out of the room muttering, Charlemagne laughed the familiar booming laugh that had set his men at ease during the fiercest battles. Still on their knees, the former followers of his now-banished son tittered nervously, awaiting their fate.
“Oh, get up, you craven dogs,” Charlemagne said. “Tonight we shall drink together, and you shall entertain no more idiot ideas if you want to keep those empty heads of yours.”
To a man, they roared their approval, then bowed low to their king in relief and gratitude.
• • •
Charlemagne had won a decisive battle that night. Pippin was banished, and a new Pippin placed at the top of the list to inherit the kingdom. But as time went by, the king fell ill more and more often. And each time after he recovered, he saw that his young wife had aged beyond her years.
“By God, you’ve the look of someone nearer to thirty than twenty,” he observed as he came out of his fifth bout with death.
“They were years I gave willingly,” Veronique answered.
Before, he had treated her response as a joke, but this time he could not deny the proof of his own eyes. “Then it is true,” he said. “You have given me your years to replace my own.”
She looked away. She had known for some time that, although she did not understand how it happened, she had indeed been sending her life into him.
“They will call you a sorceress.”
She smiled. “But you will protect me,” she said.
“If I can.” It was the first time she had ever heard him speak with even a hint of uncertainty. “But I cannot allow you to squander that gift on an old man who has already lived more than seventy-two winters.”
> She took his hand. “I’ve told you, I give it willingly,” she said.
He smiled at her. “And it is with gratitude that I decline,” the great king answered.
• • •
It was only a matter of weeks before he fell ill again. Dismissing his physicians, he called for Veronique, as he had for the past two years. The medical men, as well as many members of the court, whispered that the young queen was a witch. The new heir did not permit such accusations, but when the priests joined in the gossip, Charlemagne became truly worried for Veronique’s safety.
“The jackals are circling,” he said. “They say that you are keeping me alive through witchcraft.”
Veronique pressed a cold cloth against his brow. “Just give yourself to me, sire. Allow me—”
“No.” He withdrew his hand from hers. “Listen to me.” His eyes glistened with fever. “If you remain here, my court and family will surely kill you,” he said. “You must leave this place, Veronique. Now. Tonight.”
“My king, I cannot—”
“Obey me!” He struggled to remain lucid. “Beloved, my time is short. Take the treasures I have given you and seek sanctuary in the abbey of Auvergne. I will provide a trustworthy escort.”
Again she tried to object, but he silenced her. “Do not speak further of this,” he said, gasping, hanging onto the last threads of his life. “And please, spare me the indignity of watching me wither.”
Veronique could only look into the old king’s face and weep.
“Go, my darling,” Charlemagne commanded.
Those were his last words to her.
CHAPTER
•
TWENTY-TWO
For the past few pages, I’d been dimly aware of a sound crowding into my consciousness. I finally recognized it: a woman weeping.
Sobbing. And it was coming from Marie-Therèse’s room.
I remembered what Peter had said about her having to leave the house on her birthday. She probably knows, I thought. It was a terrible thing to be kicked out of your home for no reason other than the fact that you got old. What kind of stupid rule was that, anyway?
I closed the book and went to her room. “Marie-Therèse?” I called, knocking on the door. “It’s Katy. Can I come in?”
There was a brief scuffling before she appeared in a brocade dressing gown, a lace-edged handkerchief held to her nose. “Please,” she said, gesturing for me to enter. Marie-Therèse still spoke English to me, even though no one else besides Peter did.
“Are you all right?” I asked.
“It’s just a sniffle,” she said, turning away from me. “Probably the weather . . .”
“Is it about your birthday?” I asked timidly.
She sank down onto her bed, her shoulders slumped and trembling. “After all this time . . . ,” she sobbed. “They’ve voted me out, Katy. Like an old dog they are putting out on the street.”
“Anyone who’d do that to a dog would be pretty repulsive,” I said. “But to you. . . . It’s unforgivable. I’ll bet we could get a lawyer to—”
“No, no, no!” she exclaimed, alarmed. “We must never do such a thing.”
“Why not?” I asked. “That’s what lawyers are for.”
“No,” she repeated, shaking her head emphatically. “This was our agreement. If I contact the authorities, they will . . .” She threw up her hands.
“They will what?”
“Please,” she whispered, looking at the door. “I have already said too much.”
“But Marie—”
“I told you, I agreed to this!” She subdued her shaking hands into fists. Then, with a weary sigh, she sat down and buried her head in her arms. “We all do, before we ever come here.” Her voice was ragged. “And I was far older than most when I agreed, so I cannot use my youth as an excuse. I just never thought this day would really come.”
I sat down beside her and took one of her hands in my own. “What . . . exactly . . . is going to happen?” I asked as gently as I could.
She shrugged. “There will be a big party at which Sophie and the other women will pretend to be saddened by my departure, after which I will be taken to a house in the country, where I shall live out my life in pampered luxury.” She waved the thought away. “At least, that’s what I was told when my so-called ‘friends’ decided that this birthday would be my last spent in this house.” She walked over to her bureau and took out a brochure titled The Poplars.
“Is this it?” I asked, reading through it. She nodded. “Actually, this place doesn’t sound bad,” I said. “I mean, fireplaces in every room? Ongoing maid service? I could think of a lot worse places to live.” My mind flashed back to my room in the Rue Cujas, with its falling ceiling and perennial stink. “A lot.”
“I suppose,” she said resignedly.
“Plus, you wouldn’t have to live with them.” I inclined my head toward the door and the Evil Queens who lived on the other side of it.
Marie-Therèse laughed halfheartedly.
“Do you know anyone at the Poplars?” I asked.
“Not anymore. There used to be three elderly women—we called them the three blind mice, because they were always misplacing things—who all left this house within a few weeks of one another. They were looking forward to it.”
“See?” I said encouragingly. “That worked out.”
“Not really. When I called to see about visiting them, I was told that visitors weren’t permitted for three months. By that time, they were all dead.” She shook her head.
I knew that a lot of old people died suddenly, but I didn’t think that was the best thing to say to an eighty-year-old woman. “So you’ve never been to this place?” I asked instead, waving the pamphlet.
“No, but there’s a map.” She pointed to a page in the brochure. “It’s in Vincennes, a suburb east of here.” Suddenly she looked up at me with a glint of hope in her eyes. “Would you consider seeing it with me?”
“Sure,” I said. “We could go this Saturday, if you’re free.”
She laughed. “Of course I’m free,” she said. “I haven’t been invited outside this house in years.” She looked around the room. “I just hate to leave it.”
“They say that change is good for the soul,” I said stupidly. Actually, I had no idea what “they” said about anything. And as for change, I was starting to regret being here instead of back in Whitfield. If I’d stayed home, I might have gone to Japan with Gram and Aunt Agnes (and with Agnes’s teleporting capabilities, the travel would have been free!). Or gotten a cool job in a movie theater or something, and hung out with my friends. Or just worked full-time at Hattie’s Kitchen, the way I’d planned, where I’d have learned the same things I was learning at the Clef d’Or, except without the fancy names.
But I realized those thoughts were just me being scared of everything I didn’t know, and that the same kinds of thoughts were probably going through Marie-Therèse’s head right now. If there was one thing I’d learned from doing magic with adults like Gram and Agnes and Hattie, it was that nobody, no matter what their age, knew everything. And that everybody was scared of something.
“How long have you lived here?” I asked.
Her eyes darted around the room, as if she were afraid to answer the question. “A very long time,” she said finally. “Perhaps too long. A change in my living circumstances might be good for me after all.”
I nodded in agreement.
“Not that I can do anything about it, anyway.”
“Sometimes that’s a good thing,” I said, remembering that I’d come to Whitfield kicking and screaming before finding that it was the one place on earth where I really belonged. “Sometimes what you think will be horrible turns out to be the best thing that ever happened.”
“Perhaps you’re right,” she said, clasping my hands. “You are quite wise for your years, Katy.” She smiled. “No wonder your young man loves you so.”
I felt myself blushing as I stood up to leave. “
Do you really think so? I mean about Peter.”
“Peter?” She laughed. “I was talking about Belmondo, dear.”
“What?”
“Such a nice young man. He’s our landlord, you know.”
“Er . . . yes, I think someone told me.”
“The two of you make such a lovely pair.”
It took me a minute to get over that. To tell the truth, I don’t know if I really did get over it, but I left Marie-Therèse’s room at that point and shot into my own like a bullet.
There was a note from Peter on the floor that I must have missed when I’d first come in. It said, Sorry, had to go. Back by nine, I think. P.
I took the towel off my head and shook out my wet hair. Then, clasping my bathrobe tightly around me, I got into bed with Azrael’s manuscript and found chapter four.
Belmondo, I thought. That was ridiculous. How could Marie-Therèse even think such a thing? He wasn’t interested in me. He couldn’t be.
Absently, I folded Peter’s note into a tiny triangle. And even if he were—interested, that is—I wasn’t. Not in Belmondo. Not at all.
A.D. 1154
The Abbey
Veronique did as her husband had asked, and spent the next twenty years at the abbey at Auvergne, watching the other nuns and guests there grow old while she herself remained relatively unchanged. When her situation became too uncomfortable and her fellow residents too curious, she moved on to another convent, and another, for the next 341 years.
Occasionally during her travels, she would encounter some young girl or other who possessed a special gift as strange as her own, though different in its nature. The families of these girls were generally more than happy to be rid of their freakish daughters, and allowed them to go with the mysterious noblewoman on her way to some holy place or other. In time, though, her collection of acolytes had grown too large to pass unnoticed, and the older ones among them had been around Veronique long enough to know her secret.
“To everyone who sees us, we appear to be nuns,” Veronique’s friend Béatrice told her. “And so, as nuns, we must establish our own abbey.”
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