City of Crows

by Chris Womersley

  He had not intended to disclose this in such an abrupt fashion – indeed, he had not expected to see Catherine so soon and had not had the time to formulate a wiser approach to the matter.

  There followed a long, strange silence as Catherine digested this. If nothing else, Lesage had at least succeeded in deflecting the conversation away from the ghastly ceremony Catherine was planning.

  ‘She freed you?’ she asked at last.

  ‘Yes!’

  Catherine clicked her fingers again. ‘Just like that? How curious. But you didn’t find her boy?’

  He was annoyed, but hardly surprised, that she did not appear as pleased by this announcement as he had hoped. ‘No. I did my best to find her son and it was not my fault we couldn’t. The boy is dead and she finally understands this. Why would you doubt it? She is a kind woman at heart, I think.’

  ‘A kind woman, eh? The kind Forest Queen. You were not so complimentary about her when you first returned to Paris.’ She affected a whining voice. ‘Oh help me, Catherine, I have been bewitched. Help me, help me. I can’t go back . . .’ Catherine downed the rest of her wine and wiped the back of her hand across her mouth. ‘Well. What now for your friendly sorceress? Is your Madame Picot leaving Paris at last?’

  ‘I don’t know. She told me nothing of her plans. It is enough for me to be finally free of her.’

  Catherine laughed and refilled her glass. ‘Gone mute, has she?’

  Lesage bristled. ‘The woman has lost all her children, Catherine. And her husband. I think perhaps even you would be somewhat melancholy after such an experience.’

  ‘Would that I were so lucky. My children are miserable fucking whelps . . .’

  ‘Catherine!’

  ‘Catherine,’ she mocked. ‘Scandalous, I know. I think you became soft in the galleys. Soft in your cock it seems, too, eh? Where is the man I knew all those years ago? Gelded by that witch, I think. Or perhaps you acquired a taste for sodomites in there, eh?’ And she wriggled obscenely on her chair as if attending to an intimate itch.

  ‘Anyway,’ she went on. ‘That’s enough about that fucking sow. Good. Congratulations. Here’s to your health and freedom. It’s about time you got out from beneath her. Hardly manly, is it?’ She raised her glass to her mouth and gulped from it. Her gullet bobbed up and down furiously as she drank. God help any woman who’d allow Catherine to poke about inside her this evening, for she would surely damage them even more than usual.

  ‘I can’t help,’ Lesage said. ‘The risk is far too great. Madame Picot has released me from her power, and I would be a fool not to take the opportunity to get away from . . . all of this. What of the arrests of Madame Gallant and her lover? They are hanging them both tonight. What if they put her to the question and she talks? Things are changing in Paris. And they will certainly burn us alive if we are caught.’

  ‘You are afraid?’

  He paused. ‘Yes. Besides, it’s my chance to return to Normandy and see how my sons and my wife are faring. It’s been so many years since I have visited –’

  ‘I beg your pardon?’

  He drew breath. ‘I thought I would return to Normandy.’

  ‘Oh. I see. Well. Even after all I have done for you.’

  ‘Catherine . . .’

  She poured herself another glass of wine. ‘You were nothing when you first came to Paris. A wool merchant.’

  ‘Not quite nothing, Catherine. I did have a most successful business if you recall.’

  ‘Nothing!’

  He sighed again. There was no point in arguing with her. ‘I know, and I am most grateful.’

  ‘I raised you up, introduced you to fine people. Nobles, influential men. Made you a lot of money. Do you think a man such as yourself might have been able to visit the court without the assistance I have given you? Do you think you would have met any of those people while dealing in fucking wool?’

  ‘No. Nor would I have spent several years in the galleys.’

  She scoffed and straightened her hair viciously, as if this were the source of her anger.

  Lesage sagged. This was not going well. They sat in a prickly silence. He sensed her formulating some new line of attack.

  ‘Did you hear what I told you about Madame de Montespan requesting your involvement?’ she asked. ‘She believes – and God alone knows why – that you are crucial to the success of the whole thing. Crucial. You’re talented, Adam. And now I will look an utter fool, thanks to you. All you need to do is –’

  ‘No, Catherine. I will return to Normandy as soon as I can.’

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous, Adam. How will you survive? With what money?’

  ‘I shall make my way. There is no reason why I could not return to my former profession. I am not so old, Catherine.’

  She inspected him from head to foot very slowly, very suspiciously, taking in his hat, his coat, his satchel and, finally, his boots, as if tracing the progress of a falling feather visible to her alone. It made him wary. La Voisin was adept at reading people, of locating and exploiting the chink in any man’s armour. It was, after all, a large part of her success as a clairvoyant.

  ‘Phht,’ she said at last. ‘I know you too well. You can’t live anywhere but Paris. The centre of the world, you always used to say. And never has it been truer. There is everything here. You think you’ll return to the family life in Caen and live a merchant’s life on a merchant’s salary with your pathetic wife and your imbecile son – assuming she’ll even take you in after all that has happened? In the countryside? No. I’ve shown you too much. Do you think you might simply go home as if nothing had happened? After all these years? After all we’ve done together? You think you have not been implicated, but you have blood on your hands as much as I do. You imagine you are above it all, but you’re not. One cannot return home after the nest has been fouled. You have a new home – here, in Paris. Now. Enough foolishness. Sit down, man.’

  He sensed his resolve faltering, but shook his head. ‘Goodbye, Catherine.’ He stood and bent to kiss her cheek, but she recoiled, bumping a side table and sending quills and a ledger clattering onto the floor.

  She swore, then composed herself. ‘Very well, Adam, go back to Normandy – but do this one last favour for me. Madame won’t go ahead if you are not involved. One final thing. It’s all I ask. Please. With the money we will make from this, you’ll never have to work again. I’ll give you two hundred écus of it. Two hundred. That’s six hundred livres. Think about it. Don’t abandon me, Adam.’

  Lesage straightened his wig in preparation to depart.

  ‘Leave here now and I’ll curse you, Adam. I swear to God I will.’

  He hesitated with his hand on the door handle.

  ‘That got your attention, eh? Yes. It doesn’t take much to kill a man, as you well know. I, too, have become more powerful over the years. I certainly don’t wish for it to be like this, but you have given me no option. A few words is all it takes . . .’ She got unsteadily to her feet and rummaged through her pockets, heedless of her wineglass, which toppled to the ground. ‘You of all people should know what I am capable of. Now, let’s have no more of this foolishness.’

  ‘You would do that, Catherine? Truly?’

  She chuckled as she threaded her arm through his. What a question; of course she would. She held out a purse clinking with coins. ‘Now,’ she went on brightly, ‘here are two hundred livres. Go immediately to the orphanage. They are expecting you. Ask for Monsieur Vicente. He is in charge of the young mothers there now. He will have something for you. Bring it back quickly. We’ll leave for Montlhéry this evening with Guibourg. Madame de Montespan will meet us there tonight with her maid. She’ll travel in her own carriage, of course.’ She flung open the pavilion door, paused to inhale the evening air, then belched and giggled. ‘Phew. I’m a bit drunk. You have made me drunk, you sly old devil.’
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  Catherine escorted Lesage through the house to the high wooden door that led to the street outside. He succumbed, like an unmoored boat drifting on an ebbing tide. Without another word, she unlatched the heavy door, pulled it open, kissed Lesage on the cheek and propelled him gently into the street.

  32

  Charlotte hurried to the Place de Grève as the bells for vespers began to ring. A large crowd had gathered to witness the execution of Madame Gallant and Monsieur Olivier. Although it was not yet dark, lanterns burned in the windows of those who had assembled in the houses lining the square to observe the spectacle. Several guards lounged in front of the scaffold, but in general the mood was convivial, as if the crowd had gathered for a fete. A man and his wife were roasting chestnuts. There was much chatter and recounting of the crimes the pair had committed. ‘How foolhardy they were to think they might summon the Devil and not be harmed by it’; ‘The poison was supplied by an Italian, of course’; ‘I always heard she was a sorceress.’ Fervent prayers, also, from the nuns and monks moving among them with their rosaries and crosses pressed to their lips.

  Charlotte stood on the outskirts of the assembly. Some time passed without any sign of the condemned, and the crowd grew restless. There were mutterings that La Gallant had died after being subjected to the water cure, or that she had been mysteriously pardoned. Some became annoyed and wandered home. Eventually, reports were passed along that the condemned pair had left Notre-Dame, where they had completed their penance, and would arrive shortly in their separate carts.

  Charlotte saw them soon enough, moving above the heads of the crowd. They were dressed in ill-fitting white linen shifts and wore on their heads coarse hoods fastened beneath the chin. They each held a large flaming candle in one fist. Their confessors stood near to them with Bibles open, hoping for a final confession, an expurgation of every last sin.

  As they drew closer, Charlotte could make out their features more clearly. The woman, La Gallant, was tight-faced, while Monsieur Olivier was sobbing, and when he glanced up and saw the gallows he faltered at the knees and had to be supported by his priest. The crowd grew solemn, for although their crimes had been wicked and they were eager to see the criminals punished, it was terrible to die in such a public and shameful manner. Those nearest to the carts drew close in the hope of hearing something or of offering some consolation, while those who had been praying grew more fervent.

  The carts stopped beside the scaffold and the poor sinners were escorted down and taken to the platform. A clerk spoke to them and the prisoners shook their heads. Various other officials conferred among themselves and papers were signed before a guard ushered the pair to the platform and handed them over to the care of the executioner, Monsieur Guillaume. A quiver of anticipation, relief, pity and disgust coursed through the crowd. The prisoners then mounted the steps and stood in full view of everyone. ‘They look like anyone,’ a girl said. A drunk lamented they would only be hanged, for he wished to see something more theatrical. An official read out the sentence.

  Monsieur Olivier had stopped weeping but Madame Gallant’s face now contorted with barely contained terror and she glanced repeatedly up at the gallows overhead. Although she had been in prison for several months and the sentence passed some time before, she seemed unable to believe that the moment – her final moment on this earth – had actually arrived. Her mouth overflowed with prayers. The executioner and his assistant now moved swiftly, for it was growing late and the crowd, having waited for so long in the evening heat, would not be accommodating to delays.

  The prisoners’ hands were tied behind their backs. They looked confusedly out over the crowd. Their confessors stayed at their sides, praying for their eternal souls. Then, suddenly, it was time. The executioner took Monsieur Olivier while his young assistant handled Madame Gallant. They hauled their charges to the top of their ladders and fitted nooses around their necks. La Gallant moved her head around in an almost comical attempt to avoid the noose and delay her fate, but it was soon done. The crowd fell quiet. At a signal known to them alone, Monsieur Guillaume and his assistant shoved the prisoners from the ladders. They cried out, or someone cried out. Weeping, dull cheers, gasps and a ripple and hum through the crowd as many, including Charlotte, crossed themselves and offered up prayers for the poor sinners. ‘In nomine Patris, et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti. Amen.’

  Monsieur Olivier died quickly, and it was not long before his face was empurpled and a dark stain was visible at the front of his shift. Some in the crowd sniggered. Madame Gallant survived longer. With her hands secured behind her back, she bucked frantically on the rope, much to the amusement of some, who jeered her vain attempts to dislodge herself from her noose. ‘Look. As if she might escape her fate now!’ Her eyes bulged and her mouth twisted. She blinked and blinked. From her lips came a choking sound and it seemed, at times, that she was attempting to say something, whereupon some in the crowd pleaded for her to be shown mercy and be permitted to speak. But the executioner Guillaume paid no attention, merely stood by with his assistant, who sat on the back of a cart behind the scaffold staring at the ground.

  Eventually, the executioner inspected the prisoners and pronounced his work complete. The crowd dispersed and the guards drifted away. Charlotte waited. She watched the executioner stuff his pipe, light it from one of the torches and sit on the edge of the gallows platform to smoke. His assistant busied himself packing things away on their cart. The bodies swung stiffly behind them.

  She approached, but stood a respectful distance away. Guillaume didn’t see her, or chose to ignore her. Eventually, the executioner looked at her and it was clear he had been aware of her presence all along. She nodded a greeting and he nodded his own in return. He puffed several times on his pipe and his face glowed orange in its light. He was bearded, dark-eyed and broad of forehead. She glanced around. The square had emptied and even those watching from the windows had closed their shutters. The city had tired quickly of the display.

  ‘Can I assist you, madame? Did you know one of these sinners?’

  Charlotte shook her head. The executioner got to his feet and spat into the dirt at the base of the platform. He bent to pick something up.

  Charlotte drew closer. ‘I need the woman’s heart, monsieur,’ she whispered.

  Guillaume stopped what he was doing. ‘Pardon, madame?’

  ‘Her heart.’

  Guillaume glanced up at Madame Gallant, or at the body she had occupied until a short time earlier. Her cropped scalp was exposed after her hood became dislodged in the course of her struggle. The hem of the shift was frayed and the slipper on one of her feet had fallen off to reveal a foot with its sooty sole. Her tongue bulged obscenely in her mouth, but otherwise her face was impassive, slate blue, empty of life.

  The executioner retied the red scarf at his throat and flicked dust from his shoulders. ‘People come to me for all manner of things, madame. Fingers, hair, nail clippings, bones. Blood, of course. But I have never before cut the heart from a hanged woman. That is quite a job.’

  ‘I will pay you, of course.’

  ‘That is just as well, for I would not do it for free.’ He looked down at her from the platform. ‘Why would you need such a thing, madame?’

  ‘A woman’s heart contains all things, monsieur.’

  Guillaume considered this deeply. ‘I suppose that is true. Very well, but I cannot do it here. Come up to my house shortly. The price will be fifty livres.’

  *

  Monsieur Guillaume’s house was in the north of the city. A thin woman opened the door and ushered Charlotte into the kitchen where the executioner sat at his table with an empty bowl and a cup of wine. The house was orderly and clean, and in such surroundings he seemed an ordinary tradesman, no different to a furrier or boatman.

  He bade her sit. ‘I thought you might not come, madame.’

  ‘Did you think I was afraid?’


  ‘You would have reason to be, for what you have asked for is against the law.’

  ‘As it is for you, I expect.’

  Guillaume acknowledged this with a wry smile. ‘The hangman gets away with a lot, for no one else wants his job. He is not so easily replaced.’

  The woman placed a cup of wine on the table in front of her. Charlotte sensed Guillaume watching her. There were some who felt the mere presence of men who traded professionally in death, let alone the food they ate, was severely tainted. She lifted the cup to her mouth and drank. The wine was syrupy and tart. She sensed it dissolve through her body.

  Guillaume waved for the woman to leave them. When she had left the room, he fetched a bloodstained linen sack from a box and put it on the table. Charlotte averted her eyes. He watched her from beneath his heavy eyebrows. He was elegant, in his way, not as brutish – nor as handsome – as she’d feared. There was a certain kind of woman, Charlotte knew, who desired such men for the dark power invested in them, but she had no wish to be mistaken for such a woman. She produced a small bag of her own that clinked when she set it on the table. ‘Here is your payment, monsieur.’

  He nodded and a drop of wine gleamed in his beard, like a miniature bauble caught in a bush. ‘You do not appear to be like the others who come to see me for things. The other sorceresses, I mean.’ She made no answer and Guillaume, with an air of satisfaction, added, ‘But a woman’s heart contains all things, or so I have heard.’

  ‘And you do not look like a man who . . . kills people for a living, monsieur.’

  ‘How do you think such a man should look? More like a savage?’

  ‘I have not given it much thought, monsieur.’

  ‘But not like me.’

  Charlotte felt herself flush. ‘I did not mean to offend you, monsieur.’