Unaccustomed to wearing it, Lesage adjusted the hat he had purchased in Marseille. The boy Armand’s dagger was wedged snugly beneath his doublet. A lovely knife it was, too, and the boy had not been nearly as tough as he thought he was – although he put up a fair struggle. No match for a man who’d spent several years in the galleys, however. No. Not that he had harmed the boy in any serious fashion – such violence was not really in his nature. A twisted ankle and a few threats were more than enough for him to get what he needed. He tugged at his collar. Mustn’t fidget, he told himself. Mustn’t fidget. It marked one out as suspicious. But the truth was that he felt most conspicuous indeed, as if his years in prison were written upon his skin – which, in a way, they were. His weathered face identified him as, if not a convict, then at least a sailor. Not to mention the galley brand on his arm, which he took great pains to cover with his sleeve. Instinctively, Lesage pressed a hand to his left forearm, where the brand had been seared into his skin, and he shuddered to recall the sickening stink of coals, and of sweat and sizzling flesh. GAL. There was the sheer dread of the red-hot iron, of course, but also – and this was perhaps the most terrible detail – the gradual realisation that this initiation would merely be the first of countless terrors he would need to endure; in the galleys, there was always worse to come. The rough sleeve scratched his skin. This certainly didn’t help matters. Again he straightened his jacket, again he reproached himself for doing so.
‘What’s that?’ his table companion asked. A red-faced fellow he was, gruff of voice, with a felt cap pulled low over his forehead.
‘Pardon, monsieur?’ Lesage asked in return.
‘I thought I heard you say something.’
‘No. I don’t think so. Perhaps it was someone else. That fellow over there?’
The man looked at him and shrugged. ‘No matter.’
Lesage’s soup and wine was delivered by the woman who rested her hand (but, oh, so briefly) on his shoulder. She smelled of peeled vegetables, of tepid water and vinegar. The soup was tasty, certainly better than any fare he’d been forced to eat in recent years. And it was steaming hot! The woman waddled, had a slight limp, but was a woman nonetheless – not terribly old and, presumably, with the requisite soft and fragrant parts tucked beneath her skirts. What wouldn’t he give to put his cock inside her for a while. Any hole would do, really. He was amazed to be alive. He watched her saunter into the kitchen, dip a finger into a pot and suck gravy from it. Glorious, terrifying.
‘Indeed she is,’ said Lesage’s companion.
‘What?’
‘She is a terrifying woman. This I know for a fact. For that woman’ – he pointed with a stubby finger – ‘is my wife.’
Lesage laughed uneasily. Was the fellow mocking him? He put a hand to where his dagger was hidden, but the man had returned to consideration of his ledger. It was a joke. Merely a joke.
‘I see,’ said Lesage. ‘Yes. I see. Still, the soup she makes is excellent.’
The man raised his tumbler and tossed the last of his drink into his mouth. ‘And the wine is good, too. My name is Pierre Scarron. I am the tavern keeper. And you, monsieur?’
Lesage made his little bow – awkwardly, on account of being seated – and introduced himself. In this fashion, they meandered into conversation. Monsieur Scarron was a former soldier who now ran the tavern with his wife – the woman in question. He puffed at a clay pipe, unleashing pungent clouds of smoke that settled over his shoulders as fog might about a mountain. His hands were wide and scarred.
It grew late. The two men traded tales and grievances, talked of women and money. They shared a jug of wine. The tavern was not a successful business, Scarron lamented, gesturing at the accounts on the table in front of him, and his wife was something of a scold. And what’s more, he said, although she was satisfyingly bosomy, she had not allowed him anywhere near her (here he nudged Lesage conspiratorially in the ribs) in months.
‘It is fortunate there is another woman nearby who sometimes grants me access to her secret parts,’ the tavern keeper boasted, ‘or my cock might explode, you know what I mean?’ He became contemplative. ‘Her breasts are not as big, but she is younger – and quite a good deal richer.’
Lesage wondered what, exactly, Scarron was telling him. The man was drunk, that was certain. And drunks almost never lied; they lost the facility.
‘Then perhaps you should marry her,’ Lesage suggested with a grin, ‘and solve the problems of both your ledger and your cock.’
The tavern keeper laughed. ‘Did you see my wife, monsieur? She is as healthy as a monk and twice as tough. No. She will live forever, I fear.’
Lesage paused. ‘Nobody lives forever,’ he ventured. ‘I’ve heard there is plague about. Any number of ruffians must pass through here, monsieur. People have accidents. I’ve heard of women who fall and bang their heads and die. A common thing. Yes. Terrible. They go to the privy and fall down the stairs in the night.’
There followed an odd silence. Scarron stared at the glowing coals in the grate and Lesage feared he had misjudged him; perhaps his ability to read the characters of men had eroded while he had been imprisoned? Had people changed so much in the years he had been in jail? Had he? He had begun to formulate excuses in his mind, to make light of it, when the tavern keeper, with his face still averted, asked quietly: ‘And what do you do, monsieur?’
Relieved to move on to other subjects, Lesage told the tavern keeper he was a wool merchant and that he had been journeying in foreign lands for some years, but was now heading home to his own dear wife Claudette in Normandy. He scrabbled through his memory for tales he had heard during his time in prison, and regaled the tavern keeper with some of the more lurid examples that presented themselves. He told his companion of the strange habits of the Moors, of encounters with bandits and whores, a brutal shipwreck off the Italian coast. He told him of other things, too. True stories of his former life as a wool trader – of the man he’d met in Madrid with six fingers on each hand, of the splendours of the French court. The food, the women . . .
‘I have been all over,’ Lesage said, gesturing expansively, then adding – because he could never resist, also because he was slightly drunk – ‘almost to the ends of the known world. I came through Marseille only a few days ago. Across the oceans. My God, what a world. Africa. In Africa, you know, they eat the little finger of their firstborn child because they believe it brings them luck. Yes, yes. They do. Off the coast there I also saw monkeys riding on the backs of dolphins, many dozens of them at once. This is true. And laughing, too. Most incredible. I saw also the Monster of Ravenna. Oh, hideous it was . . . I can hardly bear to tell you of it. The size of a child. Wings on its back, an eye on its knee, one single horn in the middle of its head . . .’
Scarron was wide-eyed, appalled. ‘You actually saw this creature?’
‘Of course. Well, no. I saw illustrations. Very fine they were, too. Done by a fellow who had seen her. I think the vile monster was a girl. No matter; they starved it to death on orders of the Pope, thankfully. No place on God’s earth for such things, is there?’
Lesage paused to sip his wine. He was pleased. Yes, he could manage again among free men, could talk and act as they did. His mood had begun to lift and he realised he was enjoying himself immensely. The unexpected camaraderie of a new friend, embers glowing in the grate, the pleasing smells of wine and tobacco smoke. How he had missed this! He felt like Lazarus raised unexpectedly from the dead. The other patrons had departed into the night long before, the tavern keeper’s wife was not in sight. The old woman dozed in her seat, chicken feathers at her feet like drifts of bloodied snow. Still. Here he was. Free. Yes, free. He gazed down at his two feet, moved them apart. No chain. How had this happened? Remarkable, a miracle of some description. He belched and wiped his mouth.
‘Well,’ Scarron announced, ‘no such marvels in this part of the world, mons
ieur, although they say there is a witch nearby who can fly. Some people have seen her floating above the forest, although I’ve not seen it myself. Once she cursed a farmer’s cow and it died, and she –’
‘There is a witch near here?’
‘Oh yes.’ Scarron lowered his voice. ‘The Forest Queen, they call her. Quite famous in these parts. Hundreds of years old. A shapeshifter. Her appearance changes now and again. But she has a very powerful black book, one of the most powerful there is, or so I’ve heard. A special knife, too.’
‘What else can she do, this witch?’
The tavern keeper paused. ‘I think she does various things with herbs and leaves. Prayers, talismans. She can perform all sorts of magic, locate treasure. Even summon demons.’
Unnerved and intrigued in equal measure, Lesage glanced around the tavern. ‘Treasure, you say? Truly?’ He hesitated for a few seconds (so crucial when attempting to distance oneself from a question, to make any interest sound as casual as possible). ‘And have you met this – what is she called? – this Forest Queen yourself? Or does she have another name, by chance?’
Pierre Scarron shook his head so determinedly that he had to grasp the table to steady himself. ‘Me? Seen her? No, no, no, no.’
Like so many skilled liars, Lesage was expert at detecting even the slightest deception in the words of others. He paused to sip his wine. ‘So you don’t know where the woman lives?’
By now clearly quite drunk, the tavern owner gazed around, still shaking his head. He ran his hands over his greying beard, licked his lips. He regarded Lesage with his glistening, well-dark eyes before looking away with a shrug. ‘I think my wife has been to see her, maybe once or twice, nothing more. For medicinal purposes, you understand. Illness . . .’
‘Ah.’
Scarron gestured vaguely towards his lap. ‘Womanly concerns, if you know what I mean.’
‘Yes. Babies and the like?’
A tipsy pause, a belch, warm waft of wine in the air between them. ‘Babies and the like, yes. Why do you think my wife won’t let me near her anymore at night? This tavern is not profitable enough to feed more mouths. She says she’s had enough of children. But nothing further. No . . . you know, magic.’
‘I see,’ said Lesage. ‘Well. There is no real harm in that.’
‘Of course there isn’t!’
They lapsed into contemplation of the dying fire. Lesage was excited and slipped a hand inside his jacket to pat his purse containing the treasure map pocketed there. Still there, safe. A witch was exactly the kind of person he needed to help him retrieve his treasure. But how to proceed? It was dangerous – after all, he had been imprisoned for dealing with such people. But there was the not inconsiderable problem of his declining funds. He had enough money, perhaps, to get to Paris, but not much further. Once there, he could unearth the treasure and never have to work again. Yes. He needed time to think. He needed also to piss. He stood and took up a candle.
‘The privy, Monsieur Scarron? Will I find it out the back?’
Scarron nodded and gestured towards the rear door.
Lesage wove his way outside. In the tavern’s rear yard was a rickety barn with a straw roof, under which a mournful donkey stood. The candle in his hand flickered and spat, its light revealed now to be feeble in the greater darkness of the night. He located the privy – a shitty, reeking shack; abrupt movement of rats – and placed the candle saucer on a shelf in order to relieve himself. Ah. There. Much better. He pondered what the tavern keeper had told him of the witch. It was most intriguing. There was no harm, surely, in finding the woman, this Forest Queen, was there? He knew many witches in Paris, of course, some of them really quite powerful, but, if truth be told, their magic was occasionally wayward and unpredictable. There was that time, for instance, when Catherine Monvoison had placed a curse on a man’s mistress who had become too demanding, and instead the wife had fallen into a fever and almost died. None of them, that he knew of, had ever had success with treasure and its attendant demons – not even Catherine. Much better, surely, if Lesage could find a woman who was more reliably proficient. And better, also, if he had someone with him who was unknown to the authorities – and to the other witches. Why, there was a chance he could simply arrive in the city, claim the treasure and leave with his fortune before anyone knew he’d even been there. Yes. It was dangerous, certainly, but what reward was won without risk?
Then a presence at his shoulder. It was Scarron himself, breathing like a hog, probably come to beat him – or worse – for Lesage’s ill-considered suggestion about his wife. Lesage’s breeches were still undone. He fumbled and moved to draw his dagger, staggered in the gloom and almost fell. Scarron’s grip upon his shoulder steadied him.
‘Whoa there,’ the tavern keeper boomed. ‘Be careful, monsieur. Trust me, you do not want to fall over in here.’
Lesage righted himself. ‘Yes, thank you. Of course not. Thank you, Monsieur Scarron.’ Fearing he had splashed himself with his own piss, he retreated.
The tavern keeper unleashed his own lengthy stream. Once he had finished and reordered his breeches, he shuffled outside and stared up at the sky. Lesage, who had waited for him, followed his gaze. The night was beautiful and clear. The moon a glowing shard, the stars spattered like quicksilver. As they watched, a bright, thin streak fell across the darkness and was gone. Both men gasped with the wonder of it. A sign from the heavens, Lesage thought. He took heart, for surely such a rare and glowing phenomenon was a good omen.
‘What does such a thing mean?’ Scarron asked, and he spat clumsily on the ground, leaving a gleaming thread of spittle swinging from his chin. Truly, the man was a pig. ‘They say the stars reveal our futures,’ he went on ruminatively, ‘and who wouldn’t wish to know something of their future? How long one will live. How the summer will be. How long to wait for one’s wife to die! Eh? Eh?’
The tavern owner doubled over in a fit of chortling, making a joke of his comments, but in the man’s voice Lesage recognised a tone he knew well – an effort to express a heartfelt wish while, simultaneously, mocking such desires as outlandish lest he find himself tied to a stake for soliciting magic.
Lesage hesitated before speaking. ‘Well. It is only natural to wish to know of such things, isn’t it? To know something of our fates? Yes. But I suspect that making our desires known only to men is not always the most reliable way to bring them about.’
‘Of course, monsieur. That is why I say my prayers night and day.’
‘Indeed. I could tell right away that you are a most pious man. But . . . has that been effective, Monsieur Scarron? Do you have all you wished for?’
Pierre Scarron snorted again and grasped one of the poles supporting the shelter. He appeared, for a moment, to be preparing to vomit, but managed, thankfully, to suppress the impulse.
Lesage realised the tavern owner was much drunker than he had first thought. Perfect. He glanced up at the heavens. The stars had been right. The moment was indeed ripe and the fellow ready to be plucked. He clapped a hand on the tavern keeper’s shoulder, partly to steady him, partly to draw him closer to prevent anyone from overhearing what he was about to say.
‘The world is truly a wondrous place,’ he said. ‘Full of such riches! Have you visited Paris, monsieur?’
An exclamation of disgust. ‘Paris. Of course not.’
‘Oh, Monsieur Scarron. The things I have seen. You know, there are men in that city who seem to have everything. Such women, fine clothes, carriages, silks and grand houses. Incredible. And most of them, I am sure, have not prayed for such things, nor have they worked hard for them. As we all know, wealth and happiness have not been evenly distributed. There is much greed and trickery and deceit. There is a pattern to things, of course, but it is a pattern from which good, hard-working, honest people like me and’ – here a jab in Scarron’s chest with his finger – ‘you have been exc
luded. Rich families, with all the luck in the world . . .’
Lesage eyed Scarron closely. In the buffoon’s eyes he could discern an intimation of movement comparable with that of a curtain ruffling prior to the opening of a theatrical performance. Doubtless the tavern keeper was assembling backstage the very characters Lesage was describing: the beautiful, scornful women; men in their feathers and finery; their warm houses; their sleek horses. The resentment was clearing its throat, too, and – most importantly – the envy.
‘I’m sure they have stopped by your tavern on occasion, have they not? Perhaps on the way to their vast estates . . . ?’
Scarron nodded. ‘Oh yes. They have, monsieur.’
‘Ordered you around, ogled your wife as if she were a maid, expected a man of your standing to water and tether their horses? Did they care you had fought for your country while they sat around drunk in their grand houses? No. Did they recommend you for honours? No. Appreciate your hard work? No.’ Lesage paused and shook his head sadly, as if overcome by his own little speech. ‘But you’ – another judicious prod – ‘you deserve so much more. So much better. Why, Monsieur Scarron, I can tell this by looking at you. There is God’s plan, monsieur, but that plan resembles a river or stream. It has its natural course, but sometimes this might be altered in order to help another man’s crop. Another man who might deserve it even more . . .’
Before pressing on, Lesage paused to allow all he had said to ferment within the tavern keeper’s gut. It was, he thought with sudden insight, a form of alchemy in itself; add a drop of this, a pinch of that, then bring to a low but determined simmer.
City of Crows Page 8
