City of Crows

by Chris Womersley

  ‘And did you . . . ?

  She shook her head. ‘No, no, no, no. It was nothing to do with me. Her lover cooked up the mixtures. A cavalry captain called Sainte-Croix. He poisoned himself accidentally, the fool.’

  Catherine gripped Lesage’s hand more firmly and lowered her voice to a growl. ‘Let me ask you again, Adam: you have not brought any trouble to my door?’

  ‘Pardon? No. Of course not. Do you think I am a spy of some sort? Catherine!’

  Catherine didn’t answer. Instead, she scrutinised him for a moment longer before closing her eyes and arranging her features into her most genial expression. Summoning the muse, she called this. Then she opened her eyes and inspected his palm. ‘Your lines have grown prominent, Adam.’

  ‘Lesage.’

  ‘Oh yes – Lesage.’

  ‘Great suffering, that is easy to see. Your years on those boats must have been difficult. Hardship. Yes. But here, this is interesting. The line of wealth has grown much stronger. How could that be?’

  Lesage peered at his palm. She was right. His money line had grown much clearer.

  She pressed him in creamy tones. ‘Is there anything you’re not telling me? Did you become rich?’

  Such probing disturbed Lesage. La Voisin had always been able to see the truth behind what people said. This, after all, was part of her gift. He thought of the treasure map folded in the purse in his pocket. Already that morning he had sauntered past the site in Rue Saint-Antoine where the money was hidden. He had, in fact, intended all along to share the fortune with her, but his circumstances had changed in the past few days and he thought it wiser to keep this particular secret for a while longer. It was a skill, wasn’t it? Knowing when to divulge certain things. Speak too soon and the advantage was often lost. For one thing, there was Madame Picot, who – despite her apparent naivety – seemed more powerful than Catherine. He sensed, also, that Madame Picot could be more easily swindled once she had helped him retrieve the money. Besides, he was as yet unsure if he wished Catherine Monvoisin to share in his good fortune. So he shook his head and hoped neither his manner nor his tone of voice would betray him, for if La Voisin was a formidable ally, she was a deadlier foe.

  ‘No,’ he said as lightly as he could, ‘of course there is nothing I’m not telling you. One cannot make money in the galleys, Catherine.’

  Still with his hand in hers, she leaned closer until their foreheads almost touched and he was enveloped in her fragrant female humidity. A storm of memory sprang up; she had always generated her own weather. So many happy afternoons had he spent with Catherine at the wooden table here beneath the linden tree – drinking wine, flirting, spinning their vast and intricate web. Her ambition, Lesage often thought, was to gather a compromising scrap of information about every man and woman in the capital to use as leverage for her own success. The department of births, deaths and marriages, they called themselves, to roars of laughter.

  ‘I have missed you,’ she murmured. ‘Paris has not been the same without you.’

  His throat was so thickened with desire he was unable to speak for a moment. He coughed. ‘And I have missed you, Catherine. But what of your husband? Is he . . . ?’

  ‘Antoine is still alive,’ she said ruefully, ‘but knows enough to stay out of my way. I barely see the man. But I thought of you often. Said so many prayers for you, lit candles at Bonne Nouvelle. Yes, perhaps it was my magic that freed you?’

  ‘I only wish it were so,’ he said. And regretted it instantly.

  She cast aside his hand and fell back into her chair. ‘You think this woman of yours is more powerful than me, is that it? This Madame Picot? This fucking peasant?’

  ‘No, no. It’s not that, Catherine. I only meant that it would, of course, be preferable to be under your spell. I would – willingly, of course – fall under your power. I’m sorry. My God. I didn’t mean anything by it. Please . . .’

  He reached for her hand, which she surrendered – but only after a display of reluctance. Her mouth creased into a shy smile.

  ‘I’m sorry, Adam –’

  ‘It’s Lesage now, remember.’

  ‘Oh, yes. Lesage. I’m sorry. But pay me no heed. I am a foolish woman, sometimes. Jealous. It’s only because I have missed you so much. I’ll find a way to release you from this woman.’ She smiled, this time coquettishly. ‘And where are you staying?’

  ‘We have rooms in Rue Françoise, with Madame Simon. A widow.’

  ‘I see.’ She paused. ‘And this peasant? Has she beguiled you in other ways?’

  ‘No. No. It’s nothing like that. To be honest – and I know this sounds absurd – I am afraid of her.’

  Catherine brushed his cheek with her finger. ‘But you are afraid of me, and that has not stopped you from enjoying my company on many occasions.’

  Lesage opened his mouth to speak then hesitated, unsure if he could articulate a denial with adequate conviction. ‘Well,’ he said at last, ‘love makes fools of us all, Catherine. Is that not so?’

  She smirked, appreciative of his wit, then rummaged in her robes to produce a purse that chinked when hefted in her palm. ‘Here. I told you your money line had grown prominent and, of course, I was right. Here’s a start.’ She held out the bag of coins by its tied-off neck, but mockingly, as one might dangle a parcel of sweetmeats before an ungrateful beggar. A fresh smile formed on her lips. Or, rather, not quite a smile but, at the same time, so much more. ‘And meanwhile, I will seek a solution to your dilemma, Adam. I’m sure we can think of something. Come and see me again tomorrow. And why don’t you bring Madame Picot? I would very much like to meet Paris’s latest witch.’

  He paused. How best to phrase this? ‘I’m not sure, Catherine. At the moment, she knows no one in Paris. She doesn’t know the city at all. She’s afraid and I think that the fewer people she knows, the better it is for me – for us. Wouldn’t you agree?’ He cupped his hands, as if cradling a bird. ‘Then I can keep her contained, at least.’

  Catherine appeared dissatisfied with his answer but nodded nonetheless. ‘Very well. Off you go, then. I have clients waiting already. But please – buy some new clothes before you come back here. You look like a bear handler.’

  Lesage accepted the pouch. He loved money, of course – its very sound and smell – and yet this particular bag of coins did not make him feel as cheerful as it ordinarily would, for it seemed he was now indebted to not one witch, but two.

  19

  Charlotte’s room contained a lumpy straw mattress in one corner, a low stool, a candle holder with a glob of old tallow and a chamber-pot. It was late afternoon and her odd companion, Lesage, had been out all day seeking word on Nicolas’s whereabouts. A wedge of sunlight slunk across the dusty floor. Perched on the stool, she watched the portion of the street the window afforded her.

  Her stomach groaned with hunger. Although she had watched bread and cheese sellers passing in the street below, she had been too afraid to leave her room. Carriages, people, beggars, cats. It was a peculiar feeling to be in such proximity to so many strangers, these people whose names or relations or professions were utterly mysterious to her. Who were their brothers or fathers or wives? How on earth might she situate them in her imagination? Hundreds of them going about their business, gossiping with acquaintances, speaking in their foreign languages, laughing and cursing. And all of them at home in this place. To her it was sheer chaos. She ran her thumb idly along a groove in the wooden window ledge. Back and forth, back and forth, back and forth, expecting – half hoping for – a splinter to lodge beneath her nail at any moment.

  Household sounds drifted up from the courtyard downstairs. Madame Simon with her voice like that of an old door – chastising tenants, arguing with merchants. People came and went. Foreigners. Mysterious tongues, murmurs, the clatter of tools. Charlotte smelled the neighbourhood’s muddy, shitty drains and heard the thick s
lap of washerwomen beating wet clothes in the courtyard. Soot from the city’s greasy fires stained the skin of her cheek, dust gathered in her hair, and through the floor she sensed vibrations from passing carriages. A brandy seller had set up his cup and flagon in the street. A man called out something to his animal or wife before his laughter shattered like glass into ever smaller pieces and trailed away. In the courtyard a chicken clucked. Somewhere a woman wept. It seemed there was always a woman weeping. Always a child crying, always a peddler singing out: ‘Qui veut de l’eau? Qui veut de l’eau?’ ‘Fromage d’Hollande . . .’

  Her husband Michel had been to Paris when he was young and had described the city to her many times. He was excited, as if he had encountered a wondrous beast, and his voice took on a note of wary admiration as he told her of its buildings and streets, of the people loitering in doorways, its water sellers and thieves. ‘They have as many people living in one street as we have in the entire village,’ he’d claimed. But for Charlotte, Paris resembled a dark and horrible labyrinth of blind alleys and grime. Lesage had been right; it was a frightening place indeed. Where the worst in all of France come together. She had not been able to sleep the previous night, and had instead lain awake wondering at the voices of strangers out in the darkness, listening for her son. Now she was exhausted.

  Where in this terrible warren of a city could Nicolas be? It seemed hopeless. Unwillingly, Charlotte thought of her other children. She closed her eyes. She heard their whispers around her shoulders, smelled their little sour exhalations, almost sensed their trusting hands in her palm; that tender weight. Oh, how she had prayed for them, over and over, shuffling the words as if they might accidentally transform into a secret cure; the terrible sense, when no such cure materialised, that the failure was her own. The gaze of a child preparing to die – so fearful, so forlorn – was surely the cruellest sight imaginable. They would remain children forever, people said, as if that might offer some consolation. We must have done something terrible to be visited by such things. Perhaps Nicolas had been right?

  She shook her head to free herself of the cobweb of memories, then stood and paced about the dim room. Idleness was no friend to sorrow.

  There were voices on the landing, a soft knock at the door. It opened and a woman’s smiling face peered in. ‘Ah. You are Madame Picot?’ the stranger asked.

  Charlotte stood. Instinctively her hand moved to the book in the pocket of her dress. ‘Yes. Who are you, madame? I do not know you, do I?’

  The woman eased inside, shutting the door behind her. She was short and plump, kindly-looking. She wore a deep green dress with lace cuffs and a grey bonnet on her head. She looked around the room. ‘I understand you are looking for your son, Madame Picot?’

  ‘Yes! Have you seen him? Do you know anything, madame?’

  The woman shook her head sadly. She hesitated before crossing to where Charlotte stood by the window and taking her hands. ‘I am afraid not. But such a frightening thing to happen. I heard that someone took him? You poor woman. I am a mother myself, of course.’ She shook her head and squeezed Charlotte’s hands with an intense maternal affection. She appeared to be on the verge of tears herself. ‘I can’t even imagine such events. How old is your boy?’

  ‘He is nine.’

  ‘Nine?’ The woman clucked her tongue sympathetically and released Charlotte’s hands to steer her over to the stool. ‘Here, Madame Picot. Sit, sit, sit. Please, madame. You must be terribly worried.’

  Grateful to have someone – even a stranger – take her wellbeing in hand, Charlotte sat on the stool. ‘I have someone helping me. He is out looking right now. Finding out what he can.’

  ‘A man is helping you?’

  Charlotte didn’t answer for a moment. How to describe Lesage? ‘Yes. A man of sorts,’ she said eventually. ‘But, madame, please tell me: how did you know about us? About Nicolas?’

  The woman glanced out the window, then hoisted her dress and squatted beside Charlotte, so close that she could sense the warmth of the woman’s shoulder. She smelled earthy, of spices, of lemons and washed linen. ‘Oh, there is not much that happens in Paris I do not know about, Madame Picot. The comings and goings. Who does what with whom. I’m like a . . . a mother to the city.’ She tapped Charlotte conspiratorially on the arm. ‘You know there’s a baker in Rue du Lour – not so far from here, actually – Monsieur Balon. He has three mistresses. Three! His wife has no clue. I know many other things. Even secrets from those at court. Some people are amazing. Yes. Many sorts of people come to me with their problems. This city is overflowing with rogues. A very dangerous place.’

  And at that moment – as if summoned by this woman to underscore what she was saying – there came from the street outside the voices of men brawling. ‘Scoundrel, you fucking thief, I’ll kill you . . .’

  The voices died away. From her voluminous clothing, the woman drew forth a shiny cross attached to a chain around her neck. This she placed in her mouth. Wet clink of gold against teeth. ‘I cannot help everyone, but I might be able to help you. I shall pray for your son. Light some candles at my church. Yes. As if he were my own child. I will do this for you, madame. And who knows? Perhaps the Lord will listen to our entreaties?’

  Charlotte was overcome with emotion. Warm tears ran down her cheeks. ‘Thank you, madame,’ she said when at last she could speak.

  The woman leaned in closer still. ‘But tell me, madame,’ she whispered. ‘I understand you have particular skills?’

  Charlotte wiped her eyes. ‘What do you mean? How would you know such a thing about me?’

  The woman chuckled. ‘As I told you: there is not much that happens in Paris without my knowing of it. Don’t worry, Madame Picot. I have quite some expertise in that area myself. Some spells and things. Remedies of one sort and another. Simple charms.’ She dropped her voice. ‘But you must be very careful in Paris with that particular knowledge, madame. You know, they are hanging some people any day now. Justine Gallant and her lover Monsieur Olivier, who attempted to contact the Devil. A nasty business. If the authorities found out about your abilities, you might find yourself in grave trouble . . .’

  Charlotte was unsure if this was intended as a warning, but before she could formulate a response, the stranger continued, ‘But I’m sure it won’t come to that, will it?’ Then, after a moment, she said, ‘Tell me: where did you learn your craft, Madame Picot?’

  ‘It was passed along to me by an old woman in my country.’

  ‘Ah. An old woman? Charms? Healing? Women’s special business?’

  Charlotte nodded.

  ‘Anything else? Darker magic?’

  ‘No, madame. Nothing like that.’

  ‘I see. And do you have a particular book that helps with these things?’

  ‘Yes, madame.’

  ‘Does the book have a name?’

  ‘A name? No.’

  ‘Is the book with you now? Perhaps you might show it to me?’

  The woman’s manner was making Charlotte most uneasy. She was aware of the book in the pocket of her dress but made no move to draw it out. ‘The book is only useful if it has been freely given, madame. It cannot even be bought or sold –’

  The woman removed the cross from her mouth and tucked a stray curl of hair beneath her bonnet. ‘Yes. But it surely wouldn’t hurt to show it to me, would it? I’m most curious. I –’ She stopped speaking and peered towards the door. ‘Who are you?’

  Charlotte followed the woman’s startled gaze to the doorway, where someone hovered. It was Marguerite, the troubadour girl. Charlotte was suffused with tenderness for her; she would not have considered herself lonely until the sight of a single familiar face. She stood, as did the stranger – who seemed disgruntled to have been interrupted.

  ‘This girl’s family helped bring us to Paris,’ Charlotte explained.

  The woman appeared unimpre
ssed. ‘I see. And what do you want, girl?’

  Marguerite blinked, said nothing. There followed an odd silence, broken only when the stranger muttered some excuses and slipped from the room, forcing Marguerite against the doorframe to allow her past.

  Charlotte strode to the passageway and called out after her. ‘Madame? Madame?’ But the woman was gone.

  ‘Who was that?’ Marguerite asked.

  ‘I don’t know,’ Charlotte said, looking out to the dim landing. ‘She knew about what happened to Nicolas. She said she would pray for us . . .’

  ‘You have been crying, madame?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘There is no word of your son, then?’

  ‘Lesage is searching for him. I would not know where to begin. This city frightens me.’

  Marguerite edged more fully into the room and Charlotte saw that in one hand she carried a small wooden cage in which a shape cooed and bobbled about. It was a dark-feathered pigeon with eyes like glittering black seeds. The girl held up the cage. ‘I want you to make me a charm, Madame Picot.’

  ‘What sort of charm?’

  The girl told Charlotte that she had met a handsome fellow the previous summer when she was working in Paris with her family. It seemed that romantic words had been exchanged. ‘He said he loved me,’ the girl said, ‘and wanted to marry me. He does not even mind about my eye.’

  ‘Then you are most fortunate. What is his name?’

  ‘His name is Francis Bernard. He is one of the King’s musketeers. He is very witty.’

  Charlotte nodded. She sat again on the low stool while the girl squatted on the straw mattress with the birdcage beside her on the floor.

  Marguerite fumbled through her pockets and held up a dark vial, similar to what an apothecary might use to store his unguents. In it was a dark liquid, faintly red against the afternoon light. ‘I have some of my blood,’ she said. ‘Woman’s blood. The malady started for me recently. And here is a lock of hair he gave me last summer. These – and the pigeon – are what you said you need to make a love charm. That’s what you told me. Do you remember, madame? Only a few days ago.’