The comte was greatly amused by this and delighted in perpetuating the myth. Volnay supposed that in reality the man possessed a flair for narrating historical episodes in astonishing detail, and had mastered the art of portraying famous figures from the past. When he spoke of them, he seemed to have known them personally, and was happy to let his listeners believe that he had truly lived in those distant times, rather than telling them so outright.
Volnay pondered all this while stroking the magpie’s long, layered tail fathers with his finger, admiring their metallic sheen. That the king should write a letter to the Comte de Saint-Germain was unsurprising in itself. Louis XV considered the comte a friend and suffered no one to mock him. It was even rumoured that the king, who had an obsession with genealogy, had spoken of the comte as a person of very high birth. But now the king’s own inspector had found this royal letter, with its surprising contents, on the corpse of a faceless woman, and secretly removed it.
‘What can all this mean?’ Volnay asked the magpie.
The first man was tall, his face and head entirely devoid of hair of any kind. His skin was white as milk, and his gaunt silhouette resembled a stalk struggling to support a faded flower. He stood as if to attention, stiff and straight, and his fixed gaze was disconcerting. The second man, smaller and older, resembled a fat cat purring in front of the fire. The room they occupied was sparsely furnished with a large oak table and two uncomfortable-looking, straight-backed chairs. In front of the smaller, seated man, a psalter lay open somewhere towards the middle, richly illuminated and annotated in its margins. A shaft of sunlight shone through the only window, casting its golden rays upon a crucifix bearing the twisted form of the dying Christ, like a butterfly pinned to a board. A thin veil of dust particles floated on the air, like the harbinger of some supernatural apparition.
‘Are you quite sure it’s the girl who stepped down from the carriage you were following?’ asked the older man.
‘The same dress, Father Ofag, the same ribbons and shoes.’
He lowered his eyes and continued, with a hint of shame:
‘Black silk stockings with fine, pale pink stripes…’
Father Ofag saw the other man’s discomfort, and hid his smile behind his hand.
‘Tell me again about this mysterious letter,’ he commanded.
‘I saw it, Father,’ repeated the other, ‘with my own eyes. The inspector removed a sealed letter from one of her pockets. I was not close enough to identify the seal, but I saw the amazement on his face.’
‘And what did he do with the letter, my dear Wallace?’
‘He concealed it, Father, doubtless in order to secure himself some advantage by it.’
Father Ofag shook his head. His heavily lidded eyes gleamed with cunning.
‘Have you never heard talk of the Chevalier de Volnay? Well, I have. He is not a corrupt man.’
He paused.
‘Alas, he is not one of us, but happily, neither is he a creature of the king’s favourite, that second-rate whore who has turned the Court into a brothel—La Pompadour!’
He spat out the name like a bitter clot of blood, causing the other to take a step back in alarm. Father Ofag observed his companion’s grey eyes, so pale they seemed to have been washed of all colour. Had the light of heaven ever truly shone there? Wallace blinked briefly at the mention of the favourite’s name.
‘Do you think this letter has anything to do with La Pompadour?’ asked Father Ofag, silkily.
‘She sent one of her creatures, the girl Chiara D’Ancilla, to Volnay’s house the next morning to recover the letter.’
‘That’s bad! Very bad! An old Milanese family, the D’Ancillas, very rich, very noble—sixteen quarterings. Their ancestors accompanied the crusades to the very foot of the walls of Jerusalem. They hold the ancient right to ride into church on horseback—one they seldom find occasion to exercise, I might say.’
Father Ofag thought for a few moments.
‘Have you nothing else to tell me?’ he asked, staring into space.
‘I do, indeed! The policeman works with that heretic, the fornicating monk, a sinner spat out of hell by the Devil himself for the misery of us all!’
Ofag nodded.
‘I know the man you speak of. He’s the Devil incarnate, he must be dealt with without delay. In fact, I thought you had already taken care of him…’
‘Fear not—he is my next priority.’
For the first time since the beginning of their interview, Father Ofag seemed, almost imperceptibly, to relax.
‘Inestimable Wallace! Inestimable.’
Wallace straightened up, part anxious, part triumphant.
‘I, er… I went to search Volnay’s house for the letter, but I didn’t find it, and he surprised me there. We fought…’
He gestured to his battered lip.
‘But no one was killed, my dear Wallace?’ asked Father Ofag, quietly.
‘Not yet, not yet…’
Rue de la Corderie was a narrow street with a sharp turn that opened onto a small, dark square enclosed by tall houses. Volnay walked straight up to the oldest of these. Either side of the door, the stone figures of a crane and a cockerel, symbolizing patience and vigilance, surveyed one another.
The monk opened the door. He had pulled his hood down over his face. He stood aside to let Volnay pass, and locked the door behind him as a precaution before uncovering his head to reveal a finely featured face with a high forehead, a narrow, almost aquiline nose and a firm chin covered by a short, greying beard. His eyes were bright and penetrating. His lively features bore the traces of the many passions he had learnt to discipline and conquer over time, with considerable effort and at great personal cost. His voice was deep and warm, but tense, as he greeted his collaborator.
‘Here you are at last! Before I forget, take this sachet—you who are such a poor sleeper. It contains pills to send you to sleep. I made them myself from cynogloss root, henbane seed, myrrh and saffron. You’ll have marvellous dreams, believe me! I saw myself surrounded by the most wonderful, sensual harem any man could hope for. Quite the most wanton experience of my life!’
They stood in a narrow hallway, dimly lit by a small window. Still talking volubly, the monk led the way down a long, dark passage to a double iron door. He turned a key and Volnay, who knew this place well, followed him into a stone-walled room housing an extraordinary laboratory full of crucibles, alembics, retorts and, above all, furnaces, some cold and others snoring faintly with the muffled roar of fire. The monk danced about like an excited child, moving agilely around the cluttered room, with seemingly boundless energy.
‘It’s hot as hell in here,’ said Volnay.
‘I’ve become used to it. I don’t even sweat any more under my habit,’ said the monk. ‘I shall be hardened and ready to confront the afterlife, though of course I don’t believe anyone or anything lies waiting on the other side!’
‘Have you succeeded?’ asked Volnay, anxious to avoid a theological argument.
‘Of course, but with the greatest of difficulty.’
The monk drew him closer to the body. An amused smile fluttered at his lips. His gaze was attentive, and unshakeably confident, but frequently softened to gentle laughter, as if granting the imperfect world around him the indulgence it deserved.
‘The mask is ready,’ he said, ‘but the circumstances of her death remain a mystery. Her body shows no sign of any blows, only slight bruising to the knees and elbows, when she collapsed to the ground. I can assure you, nonetheless, that she died this night, and suffered appallingly: she writhed and twisted like a soul in damnation. It appears she suffered heart failure.’
Volnay winced in horror.
‘She was skinned alive?’
‘Probably. Though there should be traces of cuts, as she tried to defend herself. And there are none. Who could have done such a thing? My inquisitive, weasel mind took me to my records of murder from the past few years. I consulted them all, and
found two cases of flaying, but of the whole body. The first murderer was executed. There was some doubt as to his guilt, but, fortunately for his judges, he confessed after having his hands and feet immersed in boiling oil. The other died under questioning, when both of his legs were broken. People have no stamina these days!’
Impervious to his colleague’s humour, Volnay paced the length and breadth of the room, taking long, thoughtful strides.
‘With regard to the act itself,’ the monk went on, ‘I examined the body as soon as it was loaded onto my cart. I know from experience that the rigor mortis—the stiffening of the muscles—can reveal the time of death. It begins with the eyelids and jaw, in the first six hours, before spreading to the whole body in the following six hours. I can certify, therefore, that the young woman died very shortly before her body was discovered.’
The monk bent forward and, with great delicacy, took hold of one of the dead woman’s hands. He turned it over with extreme care, as if it were made of porcelain.
‘The palms of her hands have been partly stripped away. You and I have been working together for over two years now, and in all that time I have never seen so strange a corpse. I simply do not understand…’
‘Neither do I!’ growled Volnay. ‘The whole business looks like witchcraft.’
‘Ha! Indeed, witchcraft is a convenient explanation for many things.’
The monk watched Volnay for a moment. He raised one inquisitive eyebrow.
‘What if you were to tell me the whole truth?’
Volnay gave short, plaintive sigh.
‘Last night, I found a letter on the corpse, bearing the royal seal.’
The monk swore at length, and Volnay shuddered to hear it. Saints-turned-whores were involved, and a sodomite pope.
‘And what does the letter say?’ asked the monk, finally.
‘Last night, I thought it prudent not to open it,’ said Volnay. ‘I thought I might have to justify myself one day, to someone of importance.’
The monk nodded, with a thin smile.
‘But your curiosity got the better of you?’
‘Particularly after a hired killer broke into my house this morning and attacked me, in order to get it back.’
The monk started in surprise.
‘Are you hurt?’ he asked, anxiously.
‘Wounded pride, nothing more!’ sighed Volnay.
He told his story. At the description of the attacker, the monk’s face darkened.
‘Wallace, without a shadow of a doubt. A fanatical soldier-monk, wholly dedicated to the so-called Devout Party—the Company of the Holy Sacrament. His moral fibre wouldn’t stretch to cover a gnat’s wing! He is highly dangerous and stops at nothing. I have no idea how he knew you were in possession of the letter from the king, but its contents will doubtless shed some light on the nature of the danger we face…’
‘The letter is our only clue, at any rate,’ said Volnay. ‘I’m left with an unidentifiable corpse, and no witnesses. How can I possibly carry out an investigation?’
‘What does the letter say?’ his companion was impatient to know.
Volnay sat himself in an appallingly uncomfortable straight-backed chair and told his collaborator what he had read.
‘Unbelievable,’ said the monk, quietly. ‘The king might be asking the Comte de Saint-Germain to slay the poor girl, punish her, or—jokingly—to grant her a favour. You are someway nearer to discovering her identity, at least: simply find out if anyone has heard talk of an adorable Little Kitten.’
‘And who do you suggest I ask, the king or the Comte de Saint-Germain?’
Both fell silent.
‘Or La Pompadour,’ sighed the monk thoughtfully, at length. ‘She and the king share so much. And the Comte de Saint-Germain is one of her intimate circle.’
Volnay said nothing, and the monk changed the subject.
‘The dead woman is young, no more than sixteen or seventeen. The fact that she was no longer a virgin will come as no surprise. She had been intimate with a man shortly before her death. I found traces of semen.’
‘Was she raped?’
‘Not immediately prior to the murder, if that’s what you’re asking. No, I estimate the intimacy to have taken place an hour or two beforehand. Ah, and judging by her hands and nails, she must have taken great care of her person.’
‘And her appearance in general?’
The monk said nothing. Volnay was accustomed to his long silences, interspersed by flashes of ironic wit. But he was worried now.
‘What else did you find?’
The monk gave a long and heart-felt groan.
‘This was not one murder, but two. The young woman was with child.’
Volnay froze. His mind raced. What if the victim had been carrying the king’s child?
‘This might give the king’s letter a new and quite different meaning,’ said the monk, as if reading his companion’s thoughts. ‘Viz. the young woman is with child: be sure to put an end to it.’
‘The Church preaches coitus interruptus, and the use of vaginal sponges,’ said Volnay, icily. ‘But the termination of an unborn life is a crime which even the king would hesitate to order.’
The monk buried his hands in the sleeves of his habit and raised his eyes to the ceiling, talking as if to himself.
‘The king turns to evil while the cold of the tomb seeps through the Court. We may expect anything and everything of him now.’
He rose and crossed to the dead woman’s body, over which he had laid a black cloth.
‘As a rule,’ he said reflectively, ‘the king likes them younger than this. Is this one of his former mistresses? They say he tires of their bodies in the space of a few weeks. Or abandons them as soon as they are with child. It’s a thing he abhors.’
He gestured furiously, and his eyes glittered.
‘They say that at fifty, the king’s private pleasures are more and more perverse. You may have heard the same?’
‘Yes, and worse.’
The monk gave a caustic laugh.
‘Strange indeed, when you consider that our monarch was deflowered at the age of fourteen, in the palace of Chantilly, by an experienced marquise, on the orders of the regent, who feared he was exhibiting unnatural tendencies.’
Volnay glanced at him in surprise.
‘It’s unlike you to spread such gossip.’
His companion frowned eloquently.
‘You must know, my young pupil, that I never venture to assert anything unless I am absolutely certain of my sources. My remark was also intended to remind you of the nature of the man you serve—a person for whom, at base, you feel no respect whatever.’
‘I serve the king, that’s how it is.’
Another ironic laugh from the monk.
‘We’ll see about that! Your king is an incompetent fool, politically and economically—and militarily. We have just lost Canada and the Indies. And we are about to lose another campaign. Our finances are pathetically inadequate. The State’s creditors remain unpaid. The people are unaware of it, but our debts are heavy indeed. France is bankrupt!’
He stared into space.
‘And what of the freedom of religion? The Protestants suffer appalling repression: the royal troops hunt them down, the men are arrested and sent to the galleys, their women are shaved, clubbed and imprisoned in the Tour de Constance in Aigues-Mortes, with their children. There are boys and girls there, six years old, who have known nothing all their lives but one room and the bars of a cage.’
Volnay knew what was coming next, and steeled himself, as so many times before.
‘If you had not saved the king…’
And closing his eyes, Volnay remembered the evening in January 1757 when a man named Robert-François Damiens had joined the crowds entering the palace of Versailles in hopes of an audience with the king. At six o’clock, Louis XV had walked to his carriage, for the ride back to the Trianon, when Damiens broke through the line of guards, in a downpour o
f rain. With his scarlet breeches, he had doubtless been mistaken for a Court valet. The crowd was so dense that no one noticed him but Volnay. Damiens attacked the king in plain sight, but no one saw anything. The monarch was stabbed with an eight-centimetre blade, easily deflected by his thick winter clothing and leaving only a shallow wound between his ribs. Thinking he had been struck by a drunkard, Louis XV even observed to his neighbour, the Duc d’Ayen: ‘Someone has punched me with his fist!’ Then he pressed his hand to his side, and withdrew it covered in blood. Meanwhile, Volnay had flung himself forward and prevented Damiens from stabbing the king a second time. In the ensuing struggle, Damiens had slashed Volnay’s face.
The king, as morally bankrupt as he was stupid and deluded, had cried out:
‘Who would kill me? I’ve done no harm to anyone!’
The blade had left a cut just a centimetre deep between the royal ribs. After receiving the last rites, and confessing his sins, which took some considerable time, the king had made a full recovery. He became a laughing stock in certain quarters, and bills were posted all over Paris proclaiming: ‘By order of the Royal Mint: a badly struck louis must be struck a second time!’
Damiens was a person of no importance, a one-time soldier turned dealer in white clay, for the removal of stains. By way of explanation for his actions, he said merely: ‘The king is ruling his country badly, which is why I sought to kill him, for the public good.’
The king wanted Damiens thrown in a dungeon, but the Paris parliament found him guilty of attempted regicide, and he suffered an appalling end. Spectacular punishment was a pillar of the king’s justice, and Damiens’s demise was carefully staged to leave a lasting impression. He was led to the scaffold on Place de Grève, where his chest and limbs were slashed and molten lead, burning oil and pitch poured into the gaping wounds. His right hand, which had held the knife, was completely charred with burning sulphur. Damiens screamed and howled. Dozens in the crowd fainted or vomited in disgust. Some even swore at the executioner.
Casanova and the Faceless Woman Page 5
