The Cavalier of the Apocalypse

by Susanne Alleyn

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  The driver of their fiacre muttered a few sullen words at hearing their destination but made no other complaint. They clattered down Rue St. Honor?, the driver adding his cries and insults to the din of the street as they maneuvered past pedestrians, cabs, the occasional private carriage, and peddlers carrying enormous barrels or bundles on their backs and shouting wares of every description. On Rue St. Antoine, as they approached the Bastille, the congestion grew worse, as market gardeners' handcarts, tradesmen's wagons from the many furniture workshops, apprentices running errands, and countless wallowing pigs continually blocked the way.

  Aristide swallowed hard as the fortress loomed ahead of them and a chill gust of wind suddenly rattled their carriage. "You look like you're coming to stay," Brasseur muttered in his ear as they passed through the open gates of the outer courtyard. "Keep cool, lad."

  They continued unhindered to the drawbridge, where Brasseur imperiously announced to the soldiers on duty that he was a police inspector and a friend of Captain Grimaud, and wished to be taken to the captain at once.

  "Your name, monsieur?" a guard inquired.

  "Brasseur."

  "And your companion?"

  "My subinspector."

  "His name, monsieur inspector."

  Brasseur hesitated for an instant. "Joubert," Aristide said, blurting out the first name that came to mind. The guard instructed them to wait and sent a man inside. A few minutes later a smartly uniformed officer emerged from the inner courtyard and, upon seeing Brasseur, bowed slightly.

  "Brasseur, old man, I didn't expect to see you quite so soon as this-but come in, come in."

  Aristide followed them as Grimaud led Brasseur through the broad passageway into the keep. It was far less alarming than he had expected, more a military stronghold than a prison. The courtyard of the keep was busy with soldiers, servants, and carters hauling in supplies, and littered with the usual foul-smelling accumulation of straw, ashes, kitchen scraps, waste, and assorted manure that could be found on any street in Paris.

  "Your friend Signor Cagliostro is in Tower Block D," Grimaud said, breaking into Aristide's thoughts. "This way. What's the matter-want your fortune told?" He dug Brasseur in the ribs and guffawed. Brasseur politely chuckled.

  "Actually I'm here on some unofficial police business, with some questions about Madame de La Motte's doings. I'd rather ask the cardinal, but since I'm not important enough for him to see me-"

  "Oh, you'd be surprised. His Eminence has had so many visitors since he was lodged here, what's one more or less?"

  "Still, I'm not here under orders, and I doubt I'm distinguished enough to keep company with a Rohan?Cagliostro will do nicely, thanks."

  Grimaud led them into one of the eight massive towers and began to ascend a spiral staircase. Aristide was slightly dizzy by the time they emerged onto the fourth level and continued down a frigid corridor. At last the captain stopped at a barred door and peered through the spy hole.

  "He looks pretty well, I'd say. A guard's in there with him; would you rather be private?" Grimaud unlocked the door and gestured Brasseur and Aristide inside. "You there-these gentlemen want a word alone with the prisoner. Fifteen minutes!" he added to Brasseur.

  "Well, go ahead," Brasseur said, when the attending guard had left the cell and the spy hole had been shut with a hollow thump behind them. Aristide cautiously stepped forward. Though the cell had a low, domed ceiling, it was spacious-about the size of his own room on Rue de la Muette-and the walls were plastered and whitewashed. A fire crackled on the hearth, banishing much of the January chill, and the bed linens, though the mattress was of straw, seemed clean enough. Undoubtedly Cagliostro was able to pay for his comforts. Also for his distractions, Aristide realized, noticing a table at one side bearing signs of a card game suddenly interrupted, and a few silver coins.

  "Messieurs?" the alchemist inquired, turning away from the fire. He glanced over Brasseur and Aristide and tilted his head, looking faintly puzzled. "I have already spent some hours with the police, the day before yesterday. I have told you everything I know."

  "Perhaps not everything," Aristide said. He could see more clearly as he approached the hearth. For all his famous reputation, the self-styled sorcerer Cagliostro was an ordinary-looking man of early middle age, with a slight paunch and the smooth, bland face of a successful, though not entirely scrupulous, lawyer. His clothes, lacking any vestiges of the flamboyant robes and jewels that he reportedly wore during his elaborate ceremonies, were plain and neat, as was the modest wig he had donned to keep out the cold. His most remarkable features were his voice, which bore a distinct foreign lilt, and his eyes, deep, dark, and brilliant.

  "Who are you, pray?"

  "My name is?Joubert," Aristide said, remembering the alias he had adopted just in time.

  "And what may I do for you?Monsieur Joubert?" Cagliostro moved forward a step, giving Aristide a swift appraising glance.

  "You are a Freemason of high rank, Count."

  Cagliostro blinked. "I am an Egyptian Freemason," he conceded, after an infinitesimal pause. "I adhere to the Egyptian rite, far more ancient, and superior to, these bastard European offshoots."

  "But you consider yourself to be a brother to all other Freemasons, no matter what rites they may practice; don't you?"

  "Naturally."

  "And if a fellow Mason asked you to do something, something innocuous, which might bring about an outcome that would be consistent with Masonic ideals, you would do it, would you not?"

  Cagliostro shook his head. "I have no idea what you mean, monsieur."

  "We're speaking about your convincing Cardinal de Rohan to buy the diamond necklace," Brasseur said, stepping forward from the shadows.

  "No!" Cagliostro snapped, smacking a hand down on the table beside him and making the coins rattle. "For the fortieth time, no! I know nothing more about this plot, this theft, than anyone else. I have told the police, over and over again, I had no part in this. I am merely His Eminence the cardinal's mystical advisor. I looked into his future and saw great things in store for him. When he summoned me and asked me whether or not he ought to enter into this great purchase for, as he sincerely thought, the queen, I advised him to do so."

  "After first advising him not to, I believe," said Aristide.

  "But it's common sense, monsieur. I thought it over and changed my mind on the matter. What else should I have done? After all, His Eminence needed little persuading from me. Any fool knows that if you do a favor for royalty, you're likely to be rewarded. The theft, though, was all the doing of that woman, a mere swindler and adventuress, a creature with whose name I would barely soil my mouth."

  "So you had nothing to do with La Motte's plans?" said Brasseur.

  "Nothing. I have said it before, and I say it again: Nothing at all. Oh, she deceived me, I confess it, but not for long."

  "Deceived you, Count?"

  He drew himself up, and for an instant Aristide caught sight of the charismatic miracle-worker who had enthralled jaded aristocrats and played high priest at so many rumored secret rituals. "She tried every avenue that might lead her to joining my Supreme Council of the Egyptian Rite, which is open only to those, both men and women, of high birth and superior qualities. And-since she has neither fortune, breeding, nor morals, nothing more than a thin claim to the vestiges of a royal house by way of the wrong side of the blanket-naturally she failed. So she set up an elaborate little piece of theater in order to induce me to trust her. I should have seen through her when she brought forward her own niece as the virgin through whom the good spirits would prophesy."

  "Prophesy what?" Aristide said, making an effort to remind himself that, no matter how fascinating, the man was nothing more than a brilliant charlatan.

  "The happy results of the queen's pregnancy last year, of course. And when the queen was brought to bed of a healthy prince, I was?shall we say?more inclined to believe Madame de La Motte's claims." He paused, smirkin
g slightly. "She is also quite a handsome lady, and knows how to exploit her charms. But she took me in, messieurs, she took me in as she did everyone else. I was never her intentional confederate in any of her schemes, neither to hoodwink His Eminence nor to steal those cursed diamonds. And now the whore denounces me as a conspirator, or even as the author of the plot, but it is false, false, false!" He strode to the fireplace and turned his back to them. "Basta! I will say no more, messieurs."

  "You misapprehend us, Count," Aristide said, feeling it was time for a bluff. "We know, in fact, that you weren't conspiring with Madame de La Motte. Tell us, rather, about your connection with the Marquis de Beaupr?au."

  He watched Cagliostro and smiled to himself as he saw the alchemist suddenly go rigid. "I am slightly acquainted with him," Cagliostro said coldly, without turning around. "But surely that's no crime, monsieur."

  "It is if it has to do with a plot to discredit the monarchy?in short, to commit high treason. Not to mention murder."

  "Murder!" the alchemist exclaimed, jerking about. He dragged out a chair and clutched at the back of it. "I know nothing of any murder."

  "Jean-Lambert Saint-Landry, Worshipful Master of Beaupr?au's lodge, had his throat slit a week ago," Aristide said, watching Cagliostro. "Do you deny knowing anything about it?"

  "I most certainly deny it! Dio mio! Monsieur?I am a simple mystic, whom supernatural forces have blessed with certain talents. My mission is to aid and advise those who need me, not to enter into conspiracies."

  "Then tell us what happened between you, Saint-Landry, and Monsieur de Beaupr?au."

  "Beaupr?au and Saint-Landry came to me in secret," Cagliostro said, after a moment's hesitation. "At the beginning of last year. Some weeks before, I had let slip a few imprudent words to Beaupr?au about His Eminence's intention to enter into a purchase with the royal jewelers, on behalf of the queen. At that time, I had little notion that the La Motte woman was even involved with the matter, for I knew of her only as His Eminence's premier mistress, though I had heard some rumors that she claimed to be intimate with Her Majesty and sometimes took letters back and forth between the queen and the cardinal. I had not the least idea, of course, that the letters from Her Majesty were all forged, but I did believe the investment of so much money for a mere bauble to be somewhat risky, and I told His Eminence as much."

  "What did Saint-Landry and Beaupr?au say to you?"

  "Saint-Landry simply gave me to understand that I could do my brother Masons, and our sacred principles, a great service. He suggested I change my mind and prophesy a successful outcome to the Cardinal's enterprise-in short, I was to do all I could to encourage him to go along with the purchase after all. Where was the harm in that? Why would I have refused?"

  "You didn't suspect a political plot in this 'great service' he spoke of?" Brasseur demanded.

  Cagliostro slowly straightened and fixed Brasseur with the intense gaze that, Aristide thought, must have won him hundreds of adoring converts. "Monsieur, I am not a fool. I keep my finger on the pulse of the times. I never thought it would be wise for Her Majesty, given her past reputation for extravagance and selfish frivolity, to be buying a jewel worth a million and a half livres while the treasury is nearly empty and the poor go hungry. But what does it matter to me? Why should I care a jot what she does, or what calamity she brings upon herself? The movement of the stars, the influence of the spirits, the fate of nations, is my concern; not the popularity of stupid people whom chance has made kings and queens."

  "Signor Cagliostro cares about royalty and nobility only to the extent that he can dazzle them into fawning over him and showering him with gifts," said Aristide, turning to Brasseur. "He has the deepest disdain for them, otherwise. Isn't that true, Count?"

  Cagliostro glared at him with the same piercing gaze, but said nothing. "I've heard all kinds of rumors about him," Aristide continued, "that he's thousands of years old, that he's actually the Wandering Jew of legend, that he's been initiated into the darkest secrets of the occult, that he studied magic and healing with the greatest minds of history. Also that he's nothing but a fraud, and certainly not any kind of nobleman. Just a common adventurer, a smart swindler from the slums of Naples or Alexandria, who knows how to use impressive words and gestures and parlor tricks to dupe bored, empty-headed aristocrats."

  "The La Motte woman, naturally, has been disseminating slanders against me," Cagliostro said calmly.

  Brasseur snorted. "Well, 'Count,' I think the truth is closer to Madame de La Motte's version; it usually is."

  "And someone who's clawed himself up from nothing," Aristide continued, "usually harbors a deep well of resentment toward those who never had to lift a finger to get where they are. So if you deduced that Saint-Landry's and Beaupr?au's harmless little favor was actually part of a plan to allow the king and queen to make themselves look as contemptible and odious as they possibly could, I think you'd have closed your eyes and gone along with it." He paused for a moment and they exchanged level stares. "I would have."

  "You may believe what you wish," said Cagliostro, after a moment. "And I have nothing more to say. Good day to you."

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