Judith Merkle Riley

by The Master of All Desires

  But the queen spoke in a forthright voice, without a quaver. “At last,” she said. “At last your magic is mine, O deathless one. And tonight I will do a great deed, one that I have long craved.”

  The lady-in-waiting beside me turned away, closing her eyes and covering her ears as the revolting object in the box moved as if to speak. At last the dead thing spoke in a rusty, thin voice, as if from another world:

  “Great Queen, command me,” said the undying head of Menander the Magus.

  Carefully, firmly, Catherine de Medici repeated the words engraved over the catch of the open box:

  “By Agaba, Ornthnet, Baal Agares, Marbas, I adjure thee. Almoazin, Membrots, Sulphae, Salamandrae, open the dark door and heed me,” said the queen.

  “Speak your desire,” said the head, and the aroma of things long rotten rose from it.

  “I, Catherine de Medici, wife of the great Henri the Second, son of the mighty King Francis the First, command and desire that the influence of the Duchess of Valentinois over my husband shall be taken from her and cease forever.”

  “It is done,” said the Master of All Desires. “Time will show you the truth.”

  “At last,” said the queen, taking a deep breath. “I will have my heart’s desire, and the means to secure my son’s throne. From the Spanish—and from the Guises. All with one simple wish.” As she closed the box, she turned to me. “Seal this thing up again and take it away—oh, you are wet. Maddalena, take the demoiselle away and have her dry by the fire; get her nightclothes and a bed—it will not do to have her catch a mortal fever. I am pleased to find the demoiselle a loyal servant.” As I was bundling up the box, she asked suddenly, “Demoiselle, why have you not confided any of your desires to this magical box?”

  “Majesty,” I spoke, shivering, “it is because I am afraid.”

  “Ah,” she answered. “That is because you are not a queen.”

  ***

  That night I lay awake in my borrowed nightgown and cap, listening to the breathing of the other two ladies-in-waiting in the bed, unable to sleep for the terrifying dark that lay clustered inside the bed hangings. I thought I could hear Menander’s soft and sinister breathing from his box beneath the bed, and then his voice, a whisper like dead reeds rattling in the winter wind.

  “You should kill yourself. It would be easy. Just rise and jump out of the window.” My heart began to pound. What was this new trick of Menander’s? Wasn’t hounding me to make wishes enough to satisfy him anymore?

  “It would be far better for me if I were to belong to a great queen, instead of to a nobody like you. How much grander my scope, how much greater my conquest of souls. Who are you, an ugly old maid, to possess such a treasure as myself? You make no wishes, you acquire no grandeur, and what is more, your poetry is despicable, a joke. No one likes it. Rise and go to the window. You would be better off dead.” In the dark, tears squeezed out of my eyes. He was right. Why didn’t I? But something solid in me stood apart, watching, and said to me: Menander can’t get you to wish yourself out of the way, so he wants to drive you to suicide. He sees how much more evil he could do if he belonged to the queen instead of you. I won’t listen to you, you dried up piece of bacon in a box, I said to him in my mind.

  Oh, but you have to, said the secret voice of the Magus. You won’t let me go, so I won’t let you go.

  Menander, you’re nothing but a cheap social climber.

  If I can’t have your soul one way, I’ll have it another. Rise and go to the window.

  I won’t, I answered, grubbing the tears from my eyes with my fist. Then I pulled the covers up tight around me and began to make a noise in my head to drown out Menander’s voice, the hideous temptation. In my mind, I sang the psalms of Marot, noisier and noisier. At the sacred words, I could hear the diabolical little thing shriek, then go silent. Outside, in the real world, the breathing of my two bedmates was as steady as ever. How long was it we wrestled there, in the mind’s dark, until I fell asleep, exhausted? Perhaps minutes, perhaps hours, but it seemed like eternity. And I knew that now my nights would be full of struggle and horror, until such a time as either I or Menander the Undying had perished. Each night, every night. Nostradamus, said the observer in me. You must see Nostradamus again. He has the answer.

  ***

  The next morning, at her levée, the queen dismissed her flute player, and while Madame de Saint-André handed her her chemise, she had Madame Gondi read her an unusual dialogue on virtue from a slender volume, professionally hand-copied on vellum, and bound in very handsomely tooled morocco leather.

  “Clever, that remark the Demoiselle de La Roque has put in the mouth of Athena,” said the queen, as her hairdresser fussed over her elaborate curls. “This work seems ever so much more brilliant than the poems, which are rather ordinary. It’s quite original, too. Read again that section on the sacredness of marriage, where Hera speaks. I like the sentiment.” The queen was unusually calm and peaceful this morning, but she noticed that Madame Gondi’s hand shook as she turned the pages back. She is not fit to be a queen either, thought Catherine de Medici. Her nerves are too weak. Kingdoms are lost by the weak-nerved, and then the winning prince slaughters the heirs. That is what I learned in Florence, when the enemies of my family tried to hang me from the city walls for cannon practice. Machiavelli, who wrote for my father, what does he know of these truths? He scratches with his quill, and understands only with his mind, but I, I know these things in my heart and my stomach as well.

  “‘—and for that reason marriage is ordained as a holy sacrament—’” The queen looked about her at the richly tapestried room, the ingratiating servitors with hidden hearts and veiled eyes. Any one of them could strike from behind. To be a queen is to be different from other people: the stakes of the game are higher.

  “‘—and as children born of affection are more beautiful, even so those of married affection are superior even to them—’” read Madame Gondi, her voice somewhat quavering. There were dark circles under her eyes, and her skin was ghost white. Her sleep had been filled with nightmares of the mummified head that spoke.

  “Stop reading awhile, is that where Hera rebukes Aphrodite?”

  “N-no, it is the part after, where the Archangel explains true Christian marriage—”

  “These are elegant sentiments—I find it not an embarrassment that this little work is dedicated to me. The first printing shall have my official patronage. I think, perhaps, I will drop hints that I have in mind a reading at one of my afternoons, and perhaps a debate of ladies on some of the major points. That ought to redouble the demoiselle’s devotion and loyalty to my person, don’t you think? My, what’s wrong—do you have a fever like she does?”

  “N-no, Majesty—it’s just a little draft.” Good Saint Maria, Holy Mother, I’ll give up playing with enchantments and good-luck charms forever, Madame Gondi was saying in her mind as the horror of last night overwhelmed her again. I swear to you, Saint James, I’ll go on a pilgrimage and buy myself a hair shirt. Just keep that dreadful thing’s curse from me—

  “Good. Fernel assures me it’s nothing, but I’ve sent one of my own little home remedies that is absolutely sovereign for fevers—the plaster of rose leaves and hens’ eggs that worked so well for the Queen of Scots’s last illness—” Three ladies were lacing up the queen’s gown behind her and attaching her ruff with pins. When at last they pinned her headdress and luminous silk veil—the exact shade of yellow of her petticoat—on the hairdresser’s work, the queen turned to Madame Gondi. “What do you think of the plan of extending to her the promise of a husband of rank? I believe it would seal her to me forever. It is perfect: as guardian of the coffer, she takes all the risks, but I have it at my service whenever I want it. Don’t you think it’s just right?”

  “Oh, Majesty, what man of rank would take a woman so old without a great fortune? Why, when you were married at fourteen, not only were you an heiress, but you were at the height of your own great beauty, and the
demoiselle is already looking a little dried out, in my opinion.”

  “Ah, my dear friend and matchmaker, that is where I count on you. Find me a man who is in disgrace, who would do anything to gain my favor, or a man with confiscated property but of sufficient family—or, you know, a man of inadequate rank who wishes to rise and an expendable younger son who must make his fortune—” The queen swirled her hand in the air to indicate all the sorts of men who could be acquired cheaply. “Make me a little list, Maddalena.”

  “Any particular age?”

  “Oh, anything will do. Just so he’s compliant, bought with very little, and grateful to me alone. Perhaps I will set her a choice. It really doesn’t matter; they can live apart if they don’t like each other—ah, who is that in the outer chamber that I hear? What a dreadful commotion—tell him I cannot see him. I have letters to write this morning, and do not want to be interrupted.”

  But the man in the antechamber twisted free of the guards, and ran into the queen’s bedchamber, where he flung himself at the feet of the queen, right where she stood in front of her own canopied bed. “My queen, my queen,” cried the man in black leather as he wallowed on the carpet, “do not, I beg you, make a mistake that might cost you everything.”

  “Cosmo, you pest, get up. How did you find out that the demoiselle has come to me and brought me my little box?”

  “I tell you, it is accursed, accursed,” said the man in black leather. “It brings only ruin in its train.”

  “And exactly what is your point, Cosmo, since it was you who first proposed to get it for me?”

  “It is a danger—a terrible danger—if it is not handled by a professional. Why, just the wrong word, a careless wish—”

  “Oh, so that’s what you’re after, Cosmo. Well, I’ll have you know I am not unskilled in these matters myself. I thought of how to do everything I want with one wish only, and that most carefully worded.” The astrologer, now on his knees, gasped.

  “Then it’s done? What was it?”

  “And why should I ever tell you? I know what you want. A monopoly over my little box, knowledge of my secret thoughts, and a hand in all my business—I have better arrangements in mind. And other wishes, too.”

  “Great queen, I beg you, do not sully yourself—let one skilled in the Art—”

  “Say, Cosmo, are you still unmarried?” said the queen, looking at him with new, assessing eyes.

  “Start your list with him,” said the queen, gesturing to Madame Gondi, who put down the slim volume and took pen, paper, and a little box of sand from a drawer in the queen’s own desk. Laying the sheet out on the desk, she dipped the pen into an ornate inkwell supported by a trio of cupids, and scratched across the top of the blank page: “Cosmo Ruggieri, 43, short and dark.”

  “What is this?” said Ruggieri, newly alarmed. In his service to the Medici, he had seen many a list, drawn up by the stars, drawn up with secret, suspicious glances. Enemy lists, death lists.

  “Why, I was thinking you might like to ally yourself to a fine old French family, with perhaps a bit of money and a title thrown in.” Beads of sweat stood out on Ruggieri’s forehead, and his eyes searched frantically for an exit. It was inherited, this trick of irony, he thought, this sporting with the doomed. And now it had come out in the Duchessina at last. Why him, why him? Now he had to have that coffer. He had to wish himself off the death list that the queen was drawing up so casually as her ladies selected her jewels.

  “Ha! Just look at him run!” said the queen.

  “Are you sure he should be—?”

  “Oh, perhaps not. After all, why put the box into his hands through marriage? Think of someone else. Somebody useful to us, who needs to be tied to me more closely—an ambitious man, who knows how to be quiet—let’s see—what about the banker, Montvert? Is he married still? No? What about a son or a nephew?”

  “I think there’s a son.”

  “Good, list him, too. And get me a few others—I’ll let you know when I think of any more—”

  ***

  It was a decree of King Henri II that made fencing schools, those gathering places of riffraff and tradesmen’s sons, illegal within the walls of Paris. But in a disreputable alley off the rue St.-Jehan on the Left Bank, at the Sign of the Black Boar, there is a long room behind the tavern from which the clatter of swordplay may be heard. If a grizzled, old escrimeur from the time of King Francis just happens to be there, and if students and farriers’ sons just happen to be practicing self-defense, and if money just happens to change hands—well, it is nobody’s affair. The owner of the Black Boar, who seems to have a hearing problem, has no idea where all the noise comes from, although rent and customers for his dreadful wine and cheap beer seem to emerge regularly into his tavern through a low back door behind the casks.

  Through this dank cavern of drinkers, a tall figure moved briskly, threading his way through crowded tables and drunks lying on the hard-packed dirt floor.

  “Holà! It’s Nicolas the Italian!”

  “Nicolas, I thought you weren’t coming in today!”

  “Nicolas, how’s the lady? Still cold?”

  Something curious happened to Nicolas’s posture as he walked through the room toward the salle. He no longer slouched, half lounging, as he did in his father’s house, but walked as straight as a lance, his pace quick and collected, his glance fierce and bright, like an eagle’s. This was his place, the place where neither mother nor sister would ever dare to pray and mumble over him and call him a lost soul. This was the place where the hours he’d wasted all over Europe were not wasted. This was the place where hardened ruffians saluted when he laced on his heavy leather plastron and took up the practice foil, tipped with a big ball of cork to prevent putting out the eyes. Nicolas Montvert was a do-nothing dreamer. But Nicolas the Italian had cheerfully abandoned studies of law, philosophy, and theology at several distinguished Italian universities in the pursuit of the maestros of fencing in the new style, in lounging, practicing, and quarrel-picking among the best. As a result, he was an extraordinarily competent rapier fencer in the Italian style, still a novelty in Paris, and not at all bad with rapier and dagger, rapier and cloak, or even the old-fashioned sword and buckler. His father wouldn’t have recognized him in Maestro Achille’s fencing school. And if he had, he would have been horrified.

  “Speak my lady’s name, Jean-Claude, and you’re a dead man,” said Nicolas, but his voice was cheerful.

  “Now, now, just joking. Will you be available for practice today? The botte you showed me, I’m still slow—”

  “Not today, I’ve just come to see Achille.”

  “Does he still owe you that two crowns, Nicolas?”

  “Just as sure as I have a bill at the Four Elements,” said Nicolas.

  “A drink, then—stay with us awhile—”

  “I can’t—business—” Nicolas vanished through the door behind the casks.

  “You know what business that is?” said one of the drinkers to another as soon as he was out of earshot. “He follows some lady of the court all over town like a sick calf, trying to get the opportunity to speak to her.”

  “Nicolas? Surely, any woman should fall at his feet. He’s good-looking, his father’s rich, and he’s a damned fine fencer. That ought to be enough for any woman—”

  “Not this one. I’ve seen her, Jean-Claude—she’s very refined—tall and snooty. Stuck-up family—writes poetry—and there’s a man with a title after her. Some rich Spaniard, he says.”

  “A title? Poor Nicolas—he hasn’t got a chance.”

  “Oh, I don’t know about that. I’ve never seen him more determined.”

  “Determined? Knowing him, then, his father must have forbidden it.”

  “Haw! You’re right there! Want to make a bet on the outcome?”

  “Nicolas, five deniers, odds, two to one—”

  ***

  His gout temporarily mended, Nostradamus and his servant set out on a pair of bad-tempere
d royal post-horses for the Chateau of Blois, where the royal children were being raised in isolation from the latest infection at court. Despite the agreeable air of the fall days, and the beauty of the lazy green river whose banks he followed, he found the trip disagreeable. The innkeeper at the Three Kings in Orléans overcharged him, and a dish of boiled tripe that had tempted him at a local tavern had given him dyspepsia. Then Léon’s horse threw a shoe near Beaugency, and even the display of the queen’s orders did not hurry the stubborn local blacksmith. Standing at the door of the thatch-roofed smithy, surveying the boats passing languidly by in the river beyond, Nostradamus resolved to make no more trips, no matter who commanded him. Lauricus did his horoscopes by mail, after all, and nobody bothered him to ride bad horses and get dyspepsia and deal with dense-minded smiths just to get an entirely inadequate fee.

  His resolve redoubled itself when he presented himself to the guards in the courtyard of the chateau and was told that as a servant, he must enter up an obscure back staircase. Only after a great fuss, and several messages sent back and forth to M. de Humières, the children’s governor, did the word come that in this case, and this case only, was the celebrated Maistre Nostredame allowed to mount by the great octagonal stair. As Léon, laden with books and instruments, puffed up the steps behind him, Nostradamus appeared lost in deep philosophical speculation, his lips moving silently in some mysterious formula. If the awed servants and hangers-on could have heard the mystic words, they would have heard: “not worth it, distinctly not worth it, definitely not worth it. Waste of time. Blasted stairs. A man never gets any peace.”

  After a conference with M. de Humières and the inspection of the queen’s order for horoscopes to be drawn for all of the children, including the Queen of Scots, Nostradamus found himself assigned to a room with an obscure view of part of the roof of the chapel nave and a half-dozen curious pigeons, where the bed was of a despicable lumpiness and the candle was not beeswax but cheap tallow, the kind that always gave off a smell that gave him a headache. Never again, he resolved. Even to save France. France can be saved by mail.