Judith Merkle Riley

by The Master of All Desires

  With a start, Gargantua’s eyes flew open with an expression of pure horror. There was a choking, gurgling sound, and without even lifting his head, he began to vomit yellow liquid, with shreds of brown, revolting, disgusting, stinky stuff. But even as I jumped up, horrified by the hideous retching sound, and, I must admit, a certain low desire to save my silk gown, I could see the tiny shreds assembling themselves into bigger pieces, the bigger pieces joining together…

  “Ahhh!” cried Baptiste in horror. “It’s still alive!” Even the monkey stopped chattering and leaping and sat on the curtain rod, staring curiously at the sight.

  “My dog—Gargantua—oh, live, live!” I cried, my mind torn between joy at seeing my dog alive, disgust at seeing that dreadful Menander reassembling himself, and fear that Menander had reanimated Gargantua in some dreadful fashion and would send him again into death when he was done vomiting up Menander’s well chewed and partially digested fragments. Now the brown teeth, with their long, desiccated roots, were crawling across the carpet like revolting insects, blindly seeking the jawbone from which they had been scattered. The skull fragments rocked and skittered as they drew together, then locked into place. Bits of flesh adhered, a pulpy mass reassembled itself as an eyeball—never in my life do I ever wish to see such a stomach-turning sight again.

  “Never, never in eighteen centuries, have I suffered such indignity,” said Menander the Deathless, shaking his head slightly as he nested into his box, the way a person might settle into bed at the end of a hard day. “The greatest magus of all time, reassembling himself out of a dog’s stomach.” The monkey on the curtain rod bared his teeth at Menander. There had to be something good in that monkey after all, I thought suddenly, if he hated that old mummy enough to dump him out on the floor. Not, mind you, that that made Señor Alonzo any more likable.

  “My poor, sweet, brave Gargantua, are you feeling better?” I said, stroking my dog’s back and stomach as I bathed his head with my tears. As I was rewarded with first a feeble, then a joyful wag of the tail, that spiteful old mummified head said:

  “All that for a dog? You are the most birdbrained, sentimental woman that ever laid hold of a pen.”

  “What do I care for your opinion? My brave Gargantua risked himself to save me from you.”

  “He risked himself for a snack, you dumb female. He’d have done the same for a rotten ham rind in the garbage.”

  “Nonsense. You are so without honor you can’t recognize it in any other creature.”

  “Honor, ha! After all I’ve done for you, you should be weeping over me and stroking me! Where would your awful writings be without the queen’s favor, which I may point out, I secured for you, gratis? I’ve half a mind to bring about your bad fortune.”

  “Mademoiselle—” said Baptiste, his teeth chattering.

  “Nonsense. Menander can’t do a thing unless somebody wishes it, and the people who see him are too busy wishing for themselves to wish anything about me. And I’m the one person who doesn’t want him and here I am trapped with him after all.”

  “You could always wish that I’d go away—” said Menander suggestively.

  “Baptiste,” I said, stroking down my dress, “I am in shock, terrible shock. Bring me a glass of that cordial Auntie saves beneath her bed, or I shall faint away and become permanently ill. And send up Marie—I want this mess on the carpet cleaned up.” I sighed a great sigh. I couldn’t disguise myself and run off with Nicolas after all. The head would follow, and where it followed, so would the queen, the duchess, their astrologers, their relatives—a regular parade, an army, all clamoring to tell their horrid secret desires to that awful box. And, then, oh, God, the thought suddenly came over me, the worst thought of all: suppose Nicolas and I did manage to get married? Menander would be there every night in the bedchamber, making loathsome little comments about our most intimate moments. How could we ever hope for happiness? If only Gargantua had a stronger stomach—Damn, damn, and a thousand damns. “Well, Gargantua, at least you tried,” I said, sitting down on the bed, but carefully, so as not to annoy my injured tailbone. He looked up at me with his big pink tongue hanging out of his mouth and thumped his tail cheerfully on the rug, just as if he had not ever attempted to consume the most filthy dinner in the world. As Baptiste left the room, Menander called after him,

  “You could wish for a better place—” and Baptiste answered with a growl,

  “You don’t catch me wishing on no heathen, talking head—”

  ***

  The smell of dirty diapers and cabbage penetrated from the back rooms into the magician’s little reception chamber. The large man settled his body down gingerly, wrinkling his nose as if he feared contamination by the dark, low wooden chair on which he had seated himself. He had worn old clothes for this visit to the wrong part of town, anonymous dark wool trunk hose and doublet, covered by an undecorated black wool cloak, but still, he felt they would have to be laundered or given away when he returned home. He was an immense, sinister man, his plain black beaver hat pulled low over greasy, graying hair and barely skimming an eye patch that covered his left eye. He tapped a finger impatiently on the table that separated him from the magician as he spoke.

  “The oil of vitriol, Maestro Lorenzo, it did not work.”

  “Surely it did not fail to burn, Monsieur. It was of the finest quality,” answered Lorenzo Ruggieri.

  “It burned most powerfully, but some unlucky star made her dodge so as to save her face.”

  “Ah, as I warned you. Opportunity is everything with vitriol—you must get close enough not to miss the target. It is entirely different with the death-spell. It is impossible to dodge a well-cast death-spell, Monsieur Villasse, or hide from it, even at the farthest ends of the earth.”

  “A spell? I mistrust spells. How do I know that I’ve got what I paid for? No, I want something stronger, more certain. Something that will cause terrible suffering—”

  “That can always be managed. I am, after all, a master of my craft. Now tell me again all the things you wish accomplished. As I recall, it is rather complicated.”

  “She is a great heiress now, a favorite of the queen—God alone knows why—and is being courted by an officer of high rank. Once he marries her, the property I wish to possess will be beyond my grasp. The vitriol, it might have stopped that, but now—no, it is better that she die. Besides, there are—ah—others with an interest—”

  “Ah, another heir to the land.”

  “Yes. More beautiful, more agreeable to me, and anxious for marriage.”

  “Marriage? I thought you had said that a brother was next in line.”

  “One way or another, it doesn’t matter. He is in the military. Things happen.” Villasse shrugged.

  “Ah, I think I am beginning to see,” said Lorenzo Ruggieri, tapping on his forehead. “First the woman, something painful, then the man, something quiet. Am I right?”

  “Absolutely. You read my mind, Italian.”

  “I can’t help admiring a wily fellow who thinks so many steps ahead. It’s an advanced skill. So few possess it but us. But continue—would you also like a love potion?”

  “Ha, I don’t need one. Those who hate the same person must needs love one another. The woman stole her younger sister’s admirer, and when the sister heard the two would marry, we became one in our vengeance. Why, she even thought of the vitriol—”

  “I thought that sounded like a woman’s idea…” murmured the magician to himself. But Villasse went on, unhearing:

  “She needs position; a proud family, but poor. My speculations and monopolies make me more wealthy by the moment; a wife of old family would suit me well. And she is beautiful, respectful, feminine—as unlike her murderous, lunatic elder sister as it is possible to imagine—”

  “I should warn you, Monsieur, these urges to kill tend to run in families—you should be wary. Now, a proper love potion—”

  “You’d do anything to enlarge your fee, wouldn’t you? Fir
st the expense of the vitriol, and now you’re trying to sell me three jobs rather than two.”

  “That’s because I always think only for my client’s benefit. You said you wanted suffering for the first job?”

  “Yes. Slow, terrible suffering. For the second, I need only speed and undetectability.”

  “The second is easy. White arsenic—it will be mistaken for camp fever. The bowels come undone. Send it in a package of food from home. Sausage always does well. People always blame sausage…”

  Lorenzo looked dreamily into the air, remembering former triumphs. Villasse drummed his fingers impatiently on the table, bringing Lorenzo back to the present. “For the first, hmm, let’s see—” Lorenzo Ruggieri smiled sweetly and placed one hand on his heart. “Ah, yes, terrible suffering. You might consider poison of toad—not too quick acting, terrible suffering, and an inevitable end. I happen to have some on hand, so I can offer it to you for the same price as white arsenic and less than viper, which I would have to send out for.”

  “What is the—ah—type of suffering?” said the lord of La Tourette, his one eye glittering, his mouth half open in voluptuous expectation.

  “Quite superior suffering. First light becomes irritating, then blisters grow on the surface of the eyes, gradually blinding the victim. In the meantime, the intellectual ability is reduced to the level of an animal, and sharp pains rend the body, especially, um, the generative parts—”

  “Blindness and pain? Oh, splendid. Are you sure?” The stranger was rubbing his gloved hands together in greedy anticipation.

  “As if you yourself had taken your will of her with a red-hot iron.”

  “Ha, and a bargain, too. I’ll have it, if you can tell me how I can be sure that it gets to its mark.”

  “I must say, you really don’t seem to like this woman.”

  “Don’t seem to? Do you see this eye? See here?” Villasse rose to his full height, fury making the arteries stand out in his neck as his face crimsoned. “Look, look at that!” he cried, lifting up the eye patch to show a hideously defaced mass of scar tissue, marked and seared with the permanent dark stain of gunpowder fired at close range. “It is she that struck it out.”

  “A powerful blow, that. How did she manage? It will be harder to taint her with the poison if she is violent and cannot be lured close to you.”

  “She shot me in the face at close quarters with her father’s blunderbuss. But being a fool, she had not loaded it properly. She forgot the shot, and only fired the wadding.”

  “Hmm. Quite a shrew, I’d say. She won’t be inviting you in for a cup of wine, then.”

  “I should think not.”

  “Well, then, I can’t offer you this ring,” said the younger Ruggieri, pulling aside a curtain that concealed a number of shelves with boxes and bottles, and taking down an interesting, ironbound coffer. He set it on the table and opened it to reveal a number of cloth-wrapped objects of various sizes. “See this?” he said, unwrapping a little one. “A beautiful thing. It has belonged to three Dukes, an Emperor, and even a Pope. Look at this—a tiny spring, and it opens to drop the poison into a cup when you merely pass your hand across it.”

  “Charming. But not for me.”

  “Obviously. Now here are several little mechanisms that send darts across a short distance—”

  “No darts. I’ve wasted too much time hiring that rogue to trail after her and throw the vitriol. I want something that works by itself.”

  “Well, you might send her a gift—”

  “Not from myself.”

  “Why not from that generous, aristocratic fiancé of hers? Have it delivered to her door in his name.” Lorenzo Ruggieri donned a pair of gloves and unwrapped another little packet containing a crimson velvet case. He opened it and gingerly picked out of its satin-lined center an exquisite jeweled brooch with a sharp little pin at the back. Shaped with two ornate branches, almost like the upper wings of a moth, its center was formed by a great pearl, surmounted by an emerald, and then a smaller pearl. A short pendant chain formed of small pearls interspersed with carved gold beads hung from beneath the large central pearl. The golden side branches, cunningly ornamented with carved flowers, shone with brilliants and tiny seed pearls. Even Villasse gasped at the loveliness of the thing. Then he grunted.

  “Hmph. All those pearls. Beyond my price, I should think.”

  “The pearls are false, but no one who has received it has had time to discover the fact. And if you can retrieve it when it has done its work, I’ll buy it back at half price.”

  “She’d be dazzled. Any woman would. How does it do its work?”

  “See these little flowers? All sharper than knives. The pin at the back has a clasp that is hard to undo—and it is made of spring metal. So easy to prick oneself. And then, even if one is not pricked by the pin, just settling the thing on one’s gown, or into one’s hat, one is bound to be scratched by the flowers. Such a little scratch. One might put it in one’s mouth, or perhaps not. The wings, they are hollow, the holes that feed the surface too small to be seen by the eye. And then, of course, if the poison is colorless, as it was last time, even the surface of the jewel can be painted—”

  “Last time?”

  “I can assure you, it has never yet failed to do its work.”

  “Excellent. I’ll hire an old soldier to deliver it. She’ll never suspect a thing.”

  “I admire a man of decision. Now, how about the boy at the front? Will you be sending the package yourself?”

  “The problem is the letter that accompanies the gift. He’ll know the writing. Better it should be a gift from his sister.”

  “The one who shoots guns?” said Lorenzo, opening the back of the brooch with heavy gloves, and transferring several drops of a vitreous liquid from a bottle into a tiny opening, almost invisible, behind the catch.

  “No, the one who adores me.”

  “Monsieur, I must speak to you as one whose profession is deceit. You are a master of the first rank.” He sealed the opening behind the catch and replaced the brooch in its velvet case.

  “Why, of course,” said Villasse, counting out gold pieces from his purse, tucking a little glass vial into his wallet and then wrapping the velvet box in a linen handkerchief for safe transit. “An unfair life has taught me all her tricks. They have cheated me for the last time, these coldhearted people of old blood. That property was meant to be mine. This time, the goddess of revenge has made me brilliant.” As the door shut behind the black-cloaked man, Lorenzo’s wife called him to supper. Carefully, he removed his gloves and replaced the box on the shelf behind the curtain.

  “Oh, Beatrice, what work!” he said, settling down before a bowl of steaming potage. “But today alone, I’ve earned little Fortunato’s school fees for the year. But you—and Roger, too—I must warn you again: don’t open any packages that are delivered here. A man of that type, when he’s done his work, will doubtless have his miserable little lizard-brain turn to thoughts of getting rid of any witnesses. Praise Asmodeus, I am shrewder than he.”

  “Some people just have no gratitude,” said his wife, ladling out a second helping all around.

  Eighteen

  Geometrical reasoning proves that the cut is therefore in fact inferior to the thrust, for a circle has a longer path than does a straight line. The cut is preferred only by those accustomed to weapons of the old school, French and English gentlemen who do not easily come to the new Italian rapier, but whose vain words and posturings are like the blowing of wind. Meet such, then, by awaiting the attack, for they will reveal themselves and leave the defender in the superior position. Should such a one attack by a cut, you may thrust beneath his blade. Should he attack by thrust, which is alien to his nature, you may parry with the blade or with your left hand, which you must furnish with a stout leather or mail glove…

  To meet an imbroccata in low ward, beat aside the thrust with the left hand at mid-blade, then as you oppose his blade with your own, seize his rapier
guard with your left hand and in this way disarm him. This botte secrete was imparted by Maestro Francesco Altoni to very few, since if ill-practiced, it can lead to death…

  From secrets of the italian art of fencing

  Montvert, N., Sieur de Beauvoir et

  Châteauneuf-sur-Charentonne, Lyons, 1571

  In the rue de Bailleul, the rattle of drums and the crunch of marching feet rose to the windows above. A company of city pikemen, banners flying, officers on horseback, was marching to join the troops massing at the northern front. Women shouted and threw flowers down from the upper stories of houses that lined the street, and ragtag little boys ran beside and behind the booted, motley-clad soldiers, cheering and waving. But one window, a window in a square tower with pointed roof, was closed. From behind its warped, greenish little panes, a heavy-set man with a square-cut beard, gowned in silk, with a heavy gold chain, pondered the glinting steel pouring through the narrow street like a river. My boots, my pikes, my horses, and my advance on salaries, thought the banker Montvert. I wonder if the king will pay the interest. Of course, if we lose, the entire investment is moot. How much more practical to finance both sides, then one would ensure collecting from at least one of the kings. He sighed. Kings were so touchy about this sort of thing; they always seemed to think a man has to be on just one side. And, after all, one did have to choose a place of residence. He sighed again. The kings take your money, he thought, and their servants pick quarrels with your idiot son, who is blinded by their flash and dazzle and lies of chivalry. Who, who is on my side?

  But there, drifting to his side like a frail leaf of autumn, was his pallid, saintly daughter, Clarette. Her cool hand brushed his brow, and she said, “Padre mio, you have such terrible cares, confide in me and I will pray for you.”