“You unnatural man!” she shrilled. “Go and find a little boy to play with.”
“Oh-h-h! You have killed me,” he said. Swiftly he drew a dagger from his waist and plunged it into his heart. Ninon gasped in horror as he crumpled to the floor, clutching at his breast, and a crimson stain spread across his doublet.
“Name of God!” she cried, rushing to kneel at his side. “Valentin…Gaston…please! He cannot lie here! Are you all quite mad? Have you turned to statues? Will you not…” She stopped. The “corpse” had opened one eye and was now winking at her. As she stared, Marc-Antoine slowly uncurled the hand that still pressed against his bloody chest, revealing a small sponge. He squeezed the sponge and a red stream spurted forth. “You villain,” she breathed, then glanced up at the laughing faces above her. “All of you!” She laughed in spite of herself, and thumped Marc-Antoine on the chest. “And the knife, you great lout! What of the knife?”
Marc-Antoine sat up and showed Ninon how the blade of the knife collapsed into the handle. “Was it not a masterful performance?” he asked, grinning.
“Indeed,” she said, pretending anger. “You have cost me a year of my life.” She looked up at Sanscoeur smiling above her. When he forgot to frown, he could be almost human. “Val,” she said, “if ever I must kill this oaf on the stage, I wish to strangle him, not stab him. That way the job may be done aright!” She was delighted to see him laugh, as though the merriment had momentarily lifted a burden from him. She smiled back and held out her hands. “Will you help me up?”
He scowled and turned away. “If you are to make your gown fit for the stage, you had best begin! We shall be in Nevers in a day or two.”
I curse you, wretched man, she thought, hating him for robbing the moment of its joy. She rose to her feet and crossed to the large trunk, pulling out the pieces of tinsel that Chanteclair had offered. Then she threw them back again, feeling too dispirited to begin her sewing tonight. Her despondency was intensified by the arrival of Joseph and Toinette, who had (so they said) gone for a walk in the moonlight. But Toinette’s face was flushed, her bodice awry, and Joseph looked too self-satisfied for a man who had merely gazed at the moon.
Ninon sighed. Tonight she felt more at home with Sébastien and Hortense, who had bid each other a frosty “good night,” than with those cooing lovers Toinette and Joseph. Tonight her heart was heavy with yearning and grief, her thoughts dwelling on the sweetness of Philippe, the cruelty of Valentin. The one had rescued her from a life of misery; the other could not even give her his hand for aid. When she crept into bed, she turned away from Hortense, that the woman might not see her weep.
At dawn, with the sky still gray and one star lingering like a solitary diamond, she sat up in bed, startled. Something had awakened her. In the other bed Colombe still snored, her rasping voice and bulging belly directed toward heaven. Next to her, Toinette stirred and sat up, scratching her neck. Ninon turned to the pillow beside her; Hortense was gone.
Toinette yawned and went back to sleep. Ninon remained sitting in her bed, listening. Yes. There it was again. The sound of voices. Indistinct, save for what seemed occasionally to be a female voice, its sharp pitch carrying through the stillness of the dawn. Quietly Ninon eased herself out of bed and tiptoed to the door; when she opened it to the passageway, a soft breeze bellowed her chemise. The oaken staircase was cold on her bare feet; she was beginning to feel like a fool, wandering about the inn at this hour—and half-naked.
Then a woman’s shriek cut the stillness. It seemed to come from the courtyard of the inn, near the stable. She heard voices from behind, and Valentin pushed past her, tying the fastening of his breeches and hurriedly tucking in his shirt. Marc-Antoine and Chanteclair followed close at his heels, Marc-Antoine in a lace-trimmed nightgown and embroidered nightcap. Chanteclair had had time to put his shoes on his stockingless feet, but had left his room without his breeches; his shirt, which he had slept in, slapped around his bare legs as he ran.
The sight in the courtyard made Ninon shrink back, her hand pressed to her mouth. Sébastien, fully dressed, and holding a poniard, was lunging at a half-naked Gaston, while Hortense, her chemise torn from one shoulder, tried in vain to pull him back. At second look, Ninon wondered if they might merely be rehearsing a scene. It seemed too improbable for reality: the outraged lover Sébastien, the wailing Hortense, the elaborately carved dagger that surely collapsed harmlessly.
Then the men were among them, scuffling, restraining the combatants, kicking up a cloud of dust in the pale dawn. At last, breathing hard, Valentin broke from the group and leaned against a hay wagon in the yard, his arms folded tightly across his chest. “Let them fight,” he growled. “Let them kill each other!”
“No,” said Gaston, smoothing his gray beard with as much pride as he could salvage, considering his state of undress. “I have no quarrel with the man. Hortense had a right to do as she pleased.” He turned to the inn door.
“The whore!” cried Sébastien, still struggling against Chanteclair.
“And you?” Hortense planted herself before him, her eyes blazing. “You sleep with every woman you can! Will Colombe’s child have the Duvet eyes? The Duvet nose? The Duvet love of Dame Fortune? Do you think me a fool? You lost ten ecus in Autun playing piquet. Damn you!” She slapped his face as hard as she could and stormed into the inn.
In a moment the rest had followed, except for Valentin, who was still leaning against the cart with his arms crossed. Ninon was too shaken to return to her bed. Absently she crossed the courtyard to retrieve the carved dagger that had been dropped in the scuffle and now lay forgotten in the dust. She looked up.
“Sweet Madonna!” From between the fingers of Valentin’s hand, held tightly to his upper arm, seeped droplets of blood. Ninon moved quickly to him, meaning to tend the wound, then stopped as the look in his eyes curdled her benevolence.
He laughed cruelly and lifted his hand to show he held no actor’s sponge. “Yes,” he said. “Real blood. And all for a woman, nom de Dieu. Hortense is plain. You had half the men of Marival pining for you. Think of the mischief you might have caused had you stayed!”
Chapter Five
The sun was well up before they were able to continue their journey to Nevers! Shamefaced, Hortense had mended the tear in Valentin’s sleeve where the knife had gone through, and bound up the slight wound, but she could barely get a civil word from Gaston; and Sébastien, a large hat pulled well over his eyes, refused even to look at her. He took Toinette up behind him on his horse, turning his head to whisper to her from time to time, until she blushed and giggled by turns and pressed her face up against his back. To placate Joseph, Colombe pulled him into the wagon with her, where he was content to lean back, the morning sun on his face, and rest his head on her ample bosom.
Seated behind Chanteclair, Ninon waited impatiently for the rest of the men to mount their horses. Tonight they would be in Nevers, God willing, and in a day or two she would know if she was an actress or no. Hortense, who had returned to the inn for a last cup of breakfast ale, emerged into the innyard. She stopped for a moment before the mounted Gaston, then seemed to reconsider and moved on to Marc-Antoine, holding out her hand for a lift up onto the rump of his horse. His face set in a prim mask, he shook his head from side to side, and put his heel to the horse’s flank, moving some paces beyond Hortense.
She smiled uneasily. “Gaston?”
He scratched at his beard, then shook his head. “I think not.”
“Valentin, may I ride with you?”
Sanscoeur gazed down at her, his face twisted into a grimace.
“I always ride alone, Hortense.”
She laughed nervously. “It is a jest, n’est-ce pas? Gaston…Chanteclair…Damn you all! Am I to walk?”
Valentin shrugged. “You lie by night—you walk by day.”
“And what of that fat whore Colombe?” Hortense’s voice rose to a shrill pitch. “She does everything save allow a man to bed her in front
of the whole company!”
Marc-Antoine snickered. “And if there were applause…who knows?” he muttered under his breath. Ninon tried not to laugh.
“You’re right, Hortense,” said Valentin. “You should not have to walk. I have asked the innkeeper to prepare a steed, especial for you.” He clapped his hands together. Immediately there appeared from the stable the sorriest-looking donkey that ever Ninon had seen, his swayed back weighted down with a shabby and lopsided saddle. Valentin indicated the animal with a dramatic sweep of his arm. “Voilà, Madame Joubert! You have a fondness, I think, for being ridden by asses. Now ride one yourself.”
At this, Chanteclair laughed so hard that Ninon feared he would fall from his horse; Toinette and Marc-Antoine began to giggle, and even Gaston found it a cause for merriment. In a while the whole company was laughing uproariously at Valentin’s jest—even Hortense, who allowed that it was a fitting revenge for her night’s mischief, and swore she would ride the ass as far as Nevers though her rump be sore by evening.
The laughter had dissipated the ugly tensions of the morning, and they set out on their path with light hearts. Marc-Antoine recited a tirade from Artaxerce at the top of his voice, and even Valentin began to whistle softly as they moved through countryside bright with sunshine and spring flowers.
Ninon settled herself more comfortably behind Chanteclair and tapped him on the shoulder. “Are you fond of playing such tricks upon one another?”
“Indeed, yes,” he said. “It is a hard life—we have no roots, we have no home. It is a calling we all enjoy, but sometimes…sometimes…if we did not laugh, we should go mad. Is it not so, Valentin?” he said to Sanscoeur, who rode beside them.
“It is the human condition, I think, to live on the edge of madness.”
“Come!” said Ninon. “On such a lovely morning would you both lapse into gloom?”
Valentin smiled. “A fitting rebuke! ’Tis too fine a day for gloom. But I am minded…” he began to laugh, “do you remember…Chanteclair…the joke that…with the tinker…?”
“Mon Dieu, yes! The trick turned upon the tricksters!”
“Oh, tell!” said Ninon. “You must tell me.”
“You tell it, Chanteclair. Humor comes more easily to your tongue.”
“Well then,” began Chanteclair, speaking over his shoulder at Ninon. “We had set out one evening with Joseph and Gaston, leaving the rest behind. We were to perform in…Vézelay, I think it was, and wished to get the lay of the land before the rest of the company should join us. The night was cool, with a wind that blew through the trees with a mournful sound, and the full moon danced among clouds that churned and turned. ’Twas a night, my old nurse would have said, the very spirits were abroad. Val and I began to tell stories of ghosts and demons, and creatures that haunt the night, souls that would not be laid to rest. We did not plan the jest—we did not speak of it. Did we?”
Valentín shook his head. “No. It was only that Joseph and Gaston were growing uneasy…the night, the stories…”
“And then, near Vézelay, we passed a dark grove where men had been hanged. Three dried corpses, I think, and one so old it had slipped its noose and fallen to the ground. And Val, meaning nothing by it, said that the poor creature wished to travel with us, and had only waited, propped against a tree, until we should come along and bid him join us. Joseph and Gaston trembled, and spurred their horses to get out of the wood.”
Valentin laughed. “In that moment, I think, the jest was born. Chanteclair hung back on the edge of the forest. I turned about in my saddle and shouted as loudly as I could, ‘Well, dead man, are you coming? Will you travel in our company? You! In the woods! Will you join us?’ There was a moment’s silence. I thought that Chanteclair was waiting until the moon should disappear again and plunge the road into darkness. And then there was a voice: ‘Wait for me. I’m coming! I’m coming!’ Gaston and Joseph put spur to horse and did not stop until they reached Vézelay. Chanteclair rode out of the woods and guided his horse to me.”
“And I asked him,” interrupted Chanteclair, “how he had managed to speak in a voice so different from his own! ‘I did not speak,’ says he. ‘You did!’ ‘Not I,’ says I! And out of the woods came running this great deformed creature, with a hunched back, and with a sound of rattling such as ghosts in torment are said to make with their chains.”
Valentin threw back his head and roared with laughter. “And still it cried, ‘I come! I come! Wait for me!’”
Chanteclair shook his head. “I like to have wet myself at that moment,” he said. “It was all I could do to keep from following Gaston’s example, and running for my very soul!”
“But what…or who…was it?” asked Ninon, wide-eyed.
“’Twas only a poor tinker, with his pack upon his back and his tin pots rattling, who thought we meant to have him as our companion. He had fallen asleep, and Valentin’s shouts had wakened him.”
“And gave us a fright we shall not soon forget,” Valentin said ruefully.
“It serves you right!” said Ninon, giggling. “But how nice to see you laugh, Valentin. You see, Chanteclair, he is almost handsome when he smiles. Think you so?” She had meant it to twit him and nothing more, and was shocked to see how the smile froze on his face, how his eyes seemed to flicker with hatred. No. More than hatred. Fear. She remembered something that Colombe had said, mocking him for sleeping with Marc-Antoine. Useless tapette, she had called him. As unmanly as Marc-Antoine. Could that be why he hated and feared women? She laughed brightly to cover the sudden awkward moment. “Did you ever tell the others how the ‘hanged man’ had frightened you?”
Valentin relaxed. “We never had the courage.”
Chanteclair shuddered, his face suddenly serious. “I should not care to spend eternity dancing in the wind.”
“What a thought,” breathed Ninon, and made the sign of the cross.
As they neared Nevers, night was falling. They made a strange caravan: Colombe, big-bellied, perched atop the wagon and surrounded by shabby furniture and rolled-up back curtains; Hortense on the hapless donkey; Marc-Antoine tricked up in his usual laces and furbelows, as though all of life were a performance to him. Several children, bringing the cows in from the fields at dusk, had followed them for half a league; now, as they reached the outskirts of Nevers, the children began to dance and sing around them, announcing to all who leaned from their windows that here were great actors come to entertain them. And more than one housewife, opening her casement at the noise, saw the handsome Valentin and blew kisses, calling to her neighbors to come and see a man who could surely steal a woman’s heart.
By the time they drew up before an inn, Valentin was in a foul mood; it was not helped by the leering of the innkeeper, a frowsy woman who put her arm through his and invited the monsieur to come and see the room she had especially for him.
“No,” he growled, “I do not sleep alone.”
“Nor did I intend you to, monsieur,” she smirked, her coquette’s smile seeming out of place on a face that had known youth an age ago, and beauty never. For a moment Ninon thought that Valentin’s rage would get the better of him, then Chanteclair put a calming hand on Sanscoeur’s arm and turned to the woman.
“Your pardon, madame,” he said smoothly. “My friend and I have much to discuss this night—the cares of managing a troupe of strollers, you understand. ’Tis best that we share a room.”
Crestfallen, she allowed as how it mattered little to her where the monsieur slept, so long as he paid for his lodging. There was a certain amount of confusion until it was decided who should sleep where—and with whom, with a casual shifting of partners that surprised Ninon. Toinette paired off with Sébastien (Joseph having taken a fancy to a serving girl at the inn), and Colombe invited Gaston to see that her condition had not yet rendered her totally useless in bed. As usual, Ninon was to share a bed with Hortense, although the thought of sleeping anywhere in this place had begun to make her uneasy. Baugin and the
Hag had been penny-pinching innkeepers, charging too much, skimping on food and candles and firewood, but at least their inn had been clean. Now, as a table was set up for supper, Ninon prowled the room, peering under benches, stripping back the bed she was expected to sleep in. Mon Dieu! The sheets seemed not to have been aired for a month! She looked about at the rest of the company, pouring wine, preparing to sit before the supper that was being laid. Were they so used to the mean conditions of the road that they had not the wit to demand what they were paying for? She felt infinitely wiser than they, for all their worldliness. It was clear that not a one of them had ever been poor!
“Madame,” she said to the innkeeper, who was busy supervising the serving maids, “when the girls have quite finished laying out supper, you will kindly have them put fresh sheets on all the beds. And they might take a broom to the floor, while they’re about it!”
The innkeeper drew in her breath sharply. “What? Saucy miss, will you take that tone with me?”
“I will take any tone I choose,” said Ninon. “Have the linens changed!”
“My God, Ninon,” Valentin said impatiently, throwing himself into a chair and taking a long drink of wine. “Let it be. We have had a long day, and a longer one to come tomorrow. Let it be! This is not Marival…not your fancy château…and, Sweet Jesu, you are no longer a pampered mistress to a comte!”
Ninon whirled on him. “I, for one, shall not share my rest with lice and bedbugs! This slattern is taking my coins—and yours!—for those beds. Let them be clean, or we might just as well sleep out-of-doors with the field mice!”
They glared at each other for a moment, then Chanteclair’s voice broke the silence. “I’m for clean sheets,” he said. “I have no wish to scratch in the morning.” There were murmurs of agreement from the rest of the company. Finding herself defeated, the innkeeper grumbled but gave orders for the beds to be changed and aired.
Dreams So Fleeting Page 11
