“It’s alive! And it’s ugly-dirty! Mama!”
“That’s it! That’s the magic head!” cried Laurette.
“I know,” said her father. But instead of grabbing up the box, he grabbed Sibille instead, turning her arm behind her, and twisting it in an iron grip. “At last, you stuck-up, sapless old maid, you’re good for something. Wish for me, Sibille.”
“Wha–what do you mean, Father?”
“I heard what it said. Do you think I want to lose my soul wishing? No, you do the wishing for me. First, I want a fortune and a palace on the Loire. Hurry now, or I swear, I’ll break your arm!”
“But Father, the poison—” Laurette cried, her voice between a sob and a shriek.
“Later, later. First things first. Sibille, wish for me, my dutiful daughter. Take the curse on yourself.”
“Father!” cried Sibille, her voice full of shock at his unnatural demand. “That’s wicked! I won’t!” She tried to pull away, but he pulled her harder, making her cry out in pain. “You can’t make me!” she shrieked in despair.
“Oh, can’t I? Think again, you thief of inheritances—wish yourself to Hell for me. Wish me back the fortune you stole from me. I would happily cut your throat for what you’ve done. It’s justice.” There was the sound of a gasp from the women in the room, as the Sieur de La Roque pulled his hunting knife and held it to Sibille’s throat. “Who will stop me?” he cried, the sweat shining on his brow. “I tell you, I deserve these wishes—this thing is mine by right!” His eyes glittered with the madness born of greed. “And what good has she ever been to me, this scheming old maid? Useless, vicious, bad from birth—At last I’ve found a use for you—Wish for me, Sibille, wish, or you won’t be wishing for anything in the future.” No one dared move. Even Aunt Pauline, huge in the doorway, paused in horror. In the unnatural quiet of the crowded room, it was almost as if you could hear the sound of Sibille’s heart breaking. Somehow, secretly, she had always thought that beneath his hard shell of cruelty and scorn, her father loved her. Now she had seen within his depths—and there was nothing. Nothing at all. As the castle of a lifetime’s illusions crumbled into dust, she began to weep. Everything was gone. There was nothing left, not love, not home, not family, not anything. Could Menander’s hell cause any more pain than this? “By Agaba—sniff—” The magic words were scarcely audible beneath her sobs.
“And don’t weasel word it. Make it clear the palace is for me.”
“I wish for you—sniff—to give to my father, Monsieur Hercule de La Roque—sniff—a very large fortune and—and—a palace on the Loire—”
“In the new style—in good repair—with an excellent hunting preserve—”
“In—in the n—new style—in good repair—with an excellent hunting preserve—”
“Well, at last, Sibille,” said Menander. “And what a job it was—one of my hardest in a thousand years. You really won’t miss your soul much. Not that many people have them these days anyway. And most of the time, a person doesn’t even feel it.”
“Hercule, you unnatural monster. The sooner you are dead and buried, the better for your family,” said Aunt Pauline, even paler beneath her white powder than usual.
“But Father, the poison—” said Laurette. She was sweating in terror.
“Not just now; I want eternal youth, too,” said her father, never loosening his grasp on Sibille or upon his knife. “Go ahead, Sibille, wish for me.”
“So sorry,” interrupted Menander. “I’m still working on the first wish.”
“Well, just put it on a list and do the second,” said Hercule de La Roque, his voice impatient.
“It doesn’t work that way,” said Menander. “First I have to figure out how to do it, then I set Fate in motion, and then I can do the next wish—”
“It ought to be easy. Aren’t you magical enough to give me a simple palace?”
“Oh, I’ve given kingdoms in my time. And right now, I’m engaged in fuddling Philip of Spain’s mind to delay the entire Imperial army from invading Paris. I do great things, I’ll have you know.”
“Well, then, hurry up, I want eternal youth, and then absolute powers of command over all living creatures—why, once I have that, I think I’ll keep you after all, Sibille. You can keep up the good work for me. At last, a dutiful daughter. Why, I’ll be able to command the King, the Emperor, even the Pope!”
“Not just yet, you greedy old man. I told you I have to finish thinking about the first wish. I can’t do any more of them until I’ve got that one figured out. You’ll just have to wait,” said Menander.
“What’s so hard, thinking about a castle with a hunting preserve?”
“It’s not the palace, it’s who it’s for—”
“It’s for me, you damned fool head! For me! Hercule, Seigneur de La Roque!”
“Well, not quite. It’s for Sibille’s father, as well as for you. Hard to give a palace to two people, especially when one of them’s dead—”
“What do you mean?” asked Hercule de La Roque, letting go of Sibille’s arm, his face suddenly deeply suspicious.
“I told you, I have to think about it…” said Menander the Deathless, closing his eyes.
“Wake up, wake up, you damned piece of rubbish—don’t you dare close your eyes on me!” Hercule de La Roque, insane with fury and the sudden realization of what had happened, rushed to the bed, and grabbed the box to shake it. The head rolled out on the ground and he picked it up by the ear, which came off in his hand. To the shrieks of the women, he kicked the head, then stamped it flat. But even he drew back in horror, when, from the flattened mass, the head began to re-form itself and said, “Can you never leave a man alone to think? I told you, don’t bother me while I’m busy.”
“Where’s Sibille?” Hercule de La Roque cried, looking frantically around him. “Damned bitch! She’s done this to me.” But the women had all fled. Only his sister Pauline, a vast mountain of flesh, leaning on her walking stick, remained in the room.
“Well, Hercule, you seem to have done it again. What a stupid question to ask. If you’d done your own wishing, you might be sitting in a nice palace at this very moment. And in my opinion, this was all a waste—you’ve been soulless for at least three decades, by my calculation.”
“Pauline, I knew there was a reason I despise you.”
“Maybe if you keep Menander a long, long time, he will wake up,” said Pauline, her voice sarcastic.
“I always thought that girl was none of my getting. But the birthday, the christening date—when I came home, I saw the proof—”
“I slept with the priest to get the church records changed, Hercule.”
“You? Ugly?”
“I was beautiful then, if you care to remember, and married off in haste to a man I didn’t love for the sake of money. The priest was handsome, Hercule, and brilliant—and…and he absolved me—”
“You don’t deserve absolution, Pauline.”
“For one thing that I did, yes. And he said God would forgive me if I made amends.”
“Amends, for what? For sleeping with him?”
“No, for betraying my best friend, because I, too, loved the man who chose her. You sneer? Don’t dare. I was capable of great love, of great passion in those days—and you, our father—on account of your greed—it was all, all wasted—” Pauline shook her head at the memory, her strange, pallid face a mask of sorrow and regret.
“When they planned to run away and marry in secret, it was I who carried the notes between them. How poisoned I was with envy! That was the sin, Hercule. Envy. Her father blessed me when I betrayed their plans, and then slaughtered him like a dog. Dead! I never thought he would be dead! And me the cause—”
“If it’s so, Pauline—then it’s the only honest thing you’ve ever done—”
“My life has been poisoned by that deed, poisoned. I still wear an amulet containing a handkerchief dipped in his blood, and for many years I had his Book of Hours—”
&n
bsp; “The book you gave Sibille! That’s what that was! You despicable hag!”
“But I have bent my whole life to make up for it—a lifetime of regret—yes, I arranged to conceal the birthdate when you were away at war—I would have adopted her as a baby, if you’d let me—”
“She didn’t deserve it—”
“But she is mine now, and I will spend everything I have to make her happy—”
“Pauline, you bitch—”
“You would have done anything to marry an heiress, wouldn’t you? Even conspiracy and murder. You and Hélène’s father stripped him and threw the body in the river that night. Don’t tell me you didn’t, because I know. But you didn’t know you were taking leftovers.”
“That damned old man—he lied, too. You all lied.”
“The servants sold his clothes, you know. I found his books, his belt, the little amulet he used to wear at his neck. I used to read every day from his Book of Hours. How many tears I poured into that book! Selfishness, it is the worst crime—”
“Your deceit has cost me the chance of my lifetime—”
“You’ve had your chances, Hercule, and you’ve lost them. And I have mended what could be mended. And how it’s worked out for you—ha! It’s a joke—a cosmic joke—”
“You put a cuckoo’s egg in my nest—I could kill you for that—”
“I think not, Hercule. The world will know if I die here, and my cousin, the Abbé, is very well connected indeed. To say nothing of the good priest who absolved me. He has risen high, Hercule—I do not think you want to know how high. Did you imagine I would ever accept your hospitality without witnesses?” As she turned and marched out of the room, her brother, bitter with rage, picked up the box with the head in it, and gave it a last hard shake.
“Go away, I’m busy,” it said.
“Damn you,” said Hercule de La Roque. “Are you too stupid to know that wish was for me—me, Hercule de La Roque?”
“That’s not what the girl said—if you don’t like it, go settle with her,” replied the malicious, leathery little voice.
“Sibille,” said Hercule de La Roque, his rage rising. “Yes, Sibille—I’ll settle with her all right.” Arteries throbbing, heat and fury staining his face deep crimson, he tore out of the room like a madman toward the stairs, deaf to the evil laughter of the thing in the box under his arm.
But halfway down the stairs, still clutching the magic coffer, he saw that someone was waiting for him at the foot, with sword drawn. The man’s face was haggard and haunted, his clothes sweat-stained from the hard ride. It was Thibault Villasse.
“Hercule, give me that box,” said Villasse. There was a desperate edge in his voice. Was the poison already at work? Already he thought he could feel a certain shooting pain—or was it burning? Had the sorcerer said it burned? Or was it the eyes? Something. There was no time. No time for explanations, for discussion. “Give it over, hurry!” repeated Villasse, his voice somewhat shriller.
“No. Never. It’s mine,” said the Sieur de La Roque, his fury redoubling. “I have unfinished business with Sibille. Now get out of my way, you peasant oaf.”
“Beggar! How dare you stand in my way!” cried Villasse, his face distorted with rage. With a single motion, he lunged forward and cut down the Sieur de La Roque on his own staircase. As the box tumbled down ahead of the body, and blood ran in spurts from a severed artery, Villasse grabbed up the bloody trophy and ran to the door. His hands were shaking as he recited the magic words, and sweat poured down his forehead.
“By Agaba, Orthnet, Baal, Agares, Marbas, I adjure thee Almoazin, Membrots, Sulphae, Salamandrae. Open the Dark Door and heed me—Give me that which I desire. Remove the poison from my body.”
“Don’t bother me now, I’m thinking.”
“Give me my wish, you damned thing,” said Villasse, shaking the box.
“I told you, quit bothering me. I’m thinking. When I’m done thinking, I’ll see about your wish. But right now, there’s another one ahead of it. A fortune and palace, for Sibille’s father. Or maybe for this La Roque personage. You’re just going to have to wait your turn.”
“Quit talking, you devil, and give me what I’ve asked for!” cried Villasse, and so intent was he on the box that he did not see the burly farmhands who were quietly coming up behind him with ropes and pitchforks.
“Can’t,” said the head, and Villasse gave a cry as six men leaped on him at once.
“Tie him up!”
“Kill him!”
“No, don’t touch him. Why should we pay? It’s him that killed the master. Tie him up for the magistrate.”
All that night, locked in a windowless granary, and waiting for the arrival of the bailli, Thibault Villasse tried, over and over again, to calculate which was the worst death, the one the law required, or the one that God’s justice had decreed for him. And which, which one would come first?
Twenty
Hundreds of rush lights gleamed in the dark like glowing orange eyes. Lights on the staircase, where the maids were mopping up the worst of the blood, lights flickering in the salle, on tables and sideboards, while mother and Aunt Pauline washed and laid out father’s body on a trestle table in the center of the room. And I, I wandered like a ghost through the darkened rooms, up and down the stairs, among the eyes that seemed always to be watching, watching. It was father’s last gift—to leave me soulless. I could feel the empty coldness inside, where before warm voices spoke, argued, made poetry, and marveled over nature. Somewhere in the night I overheard Isabelle and Françoise ask the Abbé in tremulous voices if father’s soul was in heaven, and heard Abbé Dufour cluck his tongue and say it was certainly somewhere, but they must consult a higher spiritual authority than he. But mine, where was mine?
The next morning, the bailli and his servants came and took away Thibault Villasse, who had chaff all over his clothes and was for some reason too weak to walk. He had to be slung over a mule, muttering and talking to himself like a madman. Laurette had taken to her bed, out of shock I supposed, but mother and Auntie insisted she lie alone on a cot in mother’s room instead of in the big bed we shared. They barred the door to Clarette and me, and when I saw them come out, Auntie was wearing a pair of heavy gloves and carrying something I couldn’t see, and mother was carrying scissors.
“I do hope it’s not catching,” said Madam Montvert, with some fear in her voice.
“No,” sighed mother. “It’s not catching. Pray for my daughter, Madame; only another mother’s heart can understand how I am suffering.”
“You are very brave,” said Madame Montvert. “When she is recovered and this dreadful war is over, I beg that you both come and visit me awhile in my own house, to help you through this time of tribulation and loss.”
But it was when I passed the maids scrubbing the bloody spots off the brass banister the next day that the heavy, iron feeling that encased my body and heart broke open, and waves of shock and fear coursed down me, and I trembled, and wept, both for my loss and the fear that God would strike me dead on the spot for my terrible crime. I had brought the loathsome Menander to my father’s house and caused his death.
“I’ve killed him, my own father, and it was all my fault. I am the wickedest, most unnatural person alive, and even my soul is gone.” I wept, collapsing in tears at the foot of the dreadful staircase. Behind me, there was the sound of slow footsteps and the tap-tap of a cane.
“My dear,” said Auntie, drawing me up and putting her arm around me. “It’s time I told you something—you are not a parricide, not even close. And as for your soul, it is quite safe inside your body still.”
“What do you mean? I’ve wished on Menander—my soul has been taken—father made me, and now he’s dead—”
“Let’s start at the beginning, my dear. Your true birthday has been concealed from you, as it was from my brother. You were born on that blessed eve, when no soul can be lost—”
“Christmas? Not February?” I said, stiff with
shock. I began to count backward on my fingers—
“Yes, Christmas at midnight, in the convent of Saint-Esprit that you love so, where my brother locked up his new, young wife while he was away at war—”
“But, but—” I stammered “—how?” Wasn’t my father my father? Wasn’t I the daughter of a hero of Pavia after all?
“It is obvious, dear. My brother is not your father. Your father—” And here Aunt Pauline broke off, unable to speak, and looked away from me while tears crept down her pale face.
“But was my father—a—a—gentlemen?” I could feel the me that I’d made all these years, the warrior’s daughter, the pallid poetic rose, vanishing, and it terrified me.
“Well, I suppose—if you count foreigners. Foreigners who are baptized, but are not of Christian descent—”
“What?”
“I’m afraid, dear, that knowing the truth, you must never tell. You would live a terrible life, between two worlds, accepted in neither—But your father was brilliant, beautiful, a scholar who could quote from all sacred texts, who studied the secrets of anatomy, of astrology—I—I mean, your mother—loved him beyond all description, and wanted to make her life with him, no matter what the cost.” Aunt Pauline’s voice sounded as if it came from one of the spirits that haunted her house.
“The bloody flux of the lungs—she had it, her brother had it, that is what brought it all about. Her father sent them both south for the cure with a celebrated physician, with me as her companion. The summer nights—Montpellier, the city of learning—we sat on the roof beneath the stars—yes, the roofs are flat there, not steep like here, to shed the snow—and on the roof of the pharmacist’s house next door were medical students, who sang in their own language, to the music of lutes. Those were beautiful evenings, looking across the rooftops of the city, all bathed in moonlight, and hearing strange music in the jasmine-scented air—”
Judith Merkle Riley Page 36
