The Oracle Glass Part 43

La Voisin was right. The next week was full of hopefuls, and of their mothers, their brothers, their fathers, and even husbands, all seeking information from the gla.s.s. For those who wished a more active form of intervention, I sent them to La Voisin for poudres d'amour and whatever else they thought might improve their chances. The witches of Paris did a ferocious business in wax manikins and spells in those weeks. Bold new hats and silk-lined mantles were in evidence on Sundays at Notre Dame de Bonne Nouvelle, one could hear women's voices singing raucously from the back rooms of certain taverns in less savory neighborhoods, and the black market price of abandoned infants rose to two ecus. Myself, I bought several curious old books I had long coveted and an Italian painting of Susanna and the Elders for my reception room, but I had not a moment left in the day to enjoy them. I felt as if I were in the very center of a storm of greed, my work at the gla.s.s by far the most honest undertaking in a society h.e.l.lbent on sucking away the resources of the crown through the King's philanderings. Just as the storm would abate, some new piece of news would set it off. Now the Prince de Soubise was rumored to be planning a new town residence built with the King's gifts to his wife, setting the court ablaze with envy. I glimpsed it once briefly, s.h.i.+ning in the depths of the water vase, an immense palace in the heart of the city. Not bad payment for the uncomplaining loan of a wife for a few nights' adultery.

It was at the very height of this frenzy that I encountered d'Urbec again, purely by chance, in the public rooms of an inn on the way to Versailles. As usual, I made a tremendous stir as I alighted from my carriage and made my way through the crowded room to the fireplace. Only a group of card players, hard at it, did not look up. I had barely settled myself by the fire when one of the players, with a cry of despair, stood up and threw his hat on the ground.

"What will you have of me, Monsieur, the coat off my back?"

"Your note of hand is sufficient," said a familiar voice in cool, even tones. The transaction accomplished, d'Urbec stood and turned from the table around which the players were gathered.

"Good day, Madame de Morville. I regret that we have not met on the Cours-la-Reine after all," he said.

"He knows the fortune-teller...yes, that is his secret...the Devil a.s.sists him..." The room was abuzz.

"My condolences on the death of your si-ah, Marie-Angelique," he said. He must have seen Lamotte, then. Did he know everything? He must. Yet even so, he hadn't betrayed my ident.i.ty. Why did seeing him again disturb me so?

"I tried, but I couldn't save her," I said, trying to hide my discomfort.

"People often cannot be saved from themselves," he answered, and turned on his heel, leaving without another word. Cut dead, I thought, and looked into the fire so that no one could see my eyes.

"To what do I owe this honor, Madame?" Once again, La Voisin had invaded my house. The sorceress handed her wet cloak to Sylvie to dry before the fire and then seated herself in my best armchair to warm her red boots on my hearth. It must be important, I thought, to bring her out in this weather.

"Do you still see Monsieur d'Urbec?" she asked abruptly.

"No, Madame," I answered, still trying to antic.i.p.ate what she was doing here. She disliked d'Urbec and knew that I knew it.

"Well, I wish you to take up his acquaintance again," she announced, her face firm.

"Madame, I cannot. I believe he hates me."

"After you saved his life and fed his relatives into the bargain? I hope you are not deceiving me."

"About what, Madame?" I must have looked innocent of whatever plot she suspected me of. Her face relaxed.

"Little Marquise, that no-account galerien is everywhere these days. I've made inquiries, but whatever he is up to, he's kept it well hidden. All I know is that he bought a vial of quick-acting poison from La Trianon and that he has traveled twice to Le Havre. But what is more important, he wins at cards as if he had made a pact with the Devil himself. I have had nearly a dozen clients come to me for the 'secret of d'Urbec.' What is this secret? As far as I know, he has bought no glory hand. He has visited no one I know to have a spell cast. I believe he may have developed a new way of marking the deck. Either that or he has purchased some secret abroad. I must have that secret, little Marquise, if I am to keep my reputation long in this town. I want you to get it for me."

"Madame, the man will not speak to me. He cut me in public the last time we met."

"I think, perhaps, you still do not appreciate my powers. The man confides in no one. That means he is lonely. I will cause him to fall in love with you. He will be able to deny you nothing. Not even his secret of the cards. Tell me, do you have anything he left in the house, anything he used? I will need that, and a lock of your hair." The memory of d'Urbec's public insult made up my mind for me. I'll get back at him, I thought. With La Voisin's sorcery, I'll flaunt Lamotte in his face. That will show him.

"I think I do-Sylvie, go upstairs and get the handkerchief that is folded in my dressing-table drawer." Sylvie returned with Lamotte's handkerchief, all folded and perfumed.

"A handkerchief? My goodness, fussy manners for a galerien," she said, turning it over and inspecting it. Fortunately, it had no monogram.

"Well, he was a law student before," I said.

"Then that accounts for it," she said, as she wrapped the lock Sylvie had cut off in the handkerchief and rose to depart. As she left with Lamotte's handkerchief, I felt as if I should begin a new notebook. Trial no. 1: Can La Voisin's sorcery make Lamotte love me back? We shall see.

"That ragbag! That piece of garbage! How dare she think she can threaten me!" La Montespan's shrieks of rage could be heard even through the half-opened doors of her vast twenty-room apartment on the ground floor at Versailles. I had cleared my schedule and traveled at full speed in her own heavy carriage over icy roads to wait like a lackey while she gave vent to her spleen. Oh well, I thought, better outside the room than inside it, as I heard a piece of china crash against the wall. I peered in to watch her pace the length of the blue-and-gold Savonnerie carpet like a tigress, kicking her train out of the way as she doubled back to advance toward the window. "I swear, she'll never have him," she shouted, raising her fist to the window. "Never!" Even the gla.s.s panes seemed to shudder at her wrath. Her stays looked looser to me. Her latest pregnancy was beginning to show. The brief reconciliation was over, and the King was on the prowl once more. "I'll not lose everything for that mealy-faced, conniving, simpering canoness!"

"Madame, the fortune-teller," one of her ladies announced tentatively, afraid to approach her. She turned suddenly.

"Oh, it's you! The black-clad doomsayer." Her face was distorted with rage and, beneath it, fear. "Why do I always turn to you, eh? Because you tell me the truth. The others, they all lie. It's truth I need now, to lay my plans." She seemed suddenly quiet and menacing. She advanced midway across the room and addressed her waiting lackey. "Bring a stool and water for the Marquise de Morville. Then clear the room. I want to be alone with my grief." Her maids fled as leaves blow before a storm, leaving the room silent. The light from the window caught on the immense table of solid silver that stood, flanked by elaborately cast silver chairs, in the center of the carpet. A sculptured table clock, its face supported by nymphs, ticked slowly as I unrolled my cabalistic cloth beside it. A servant brought a gilded stool with a blue-and-silver tapestry cus.h.i.+on to the table, as another filled my water gla.s.s from a silver pitcher with a long spout. Noiselessly, they retreated, sealing the great double doors behind them, and I sat to read the water.

"Madame has the honor to be expecting His Majesty's child," I said quietly, so the ears pressed to the closed door would not overhear.

"Yes, yes, of course. That's no miracle of prediction. That's when he strays, as every cur at court knows. I give him my maids, I give him my nieces, but now even that is not enough for his endless appet.i.te. He wounds me. He destroys me." I wondered if she had already turned to the rue Beauregard for a method of removing the canoness.

"No interpretation," she ordered. "Just what you see. I must know. I will not fail. If he is not mine, he will be n.o.body's. That I swear. How many years have I put up with his stinking body in the bed? I am owed, owed, I tell you. He'll not lock me away when he's done with me. I can play as deep a game as he does." She drew up one of the silver chairs and seated herself among its brocade cus.h.i.+ons. I could hear her breathing heavily, and I saw as I glanced away from the gla.s.s that her hands were shaking.

"I see Madame de Ludres entering the appartement. She is in midnight blue velvet and is wearing a heavy diamond necklace with matching bracelets-"

"My necklace, d.a.m.n him. I am the one who should have that necklace."

"The court rises-"

"d.a.m.n! d.a.m.n! The diabolical little b.i.t.c.h. What spell did she use to attain the supreme favor? I'll undo it. I'll finish her."

The King's mistress leaned forward in the silver chair and spoke low, her voice quiet and threatening. "Tell me, is she the one? Look again. Is she the one who steals my just reward, the position of d.u.c.h.ess?"

I stirred the water again. The gla.s.s bowl glinted with the reflections from the gold ribbon on Madame de Montespan's gown as she leaned forward in her armchair, trying to peer into the depths. Beyond the closed double doors I could hear the rustle of clothing and the m.u.f.fled thump of s.h.i.+fting feet. But Madame de Montespan was oblivious. Her strange aquamarine eyes glittered in her haggard face, bloated with the first signs of pregnancy.

"You are smiling. What do you see?" she whispered.

"Madame, something that will please you. Madame de Ludres is entering a convent...I can't tell which. She is before the altar, and they are clipping her hair." Madame de Montespan laughed out loud and pressed her hand to her heart.

"Then mine is the triumph," she said happily.

"It would appear so, Madame."

"You appear rather pleased yourself. Tell me, have you found the little canoness offensive?"

"Madame de Ludres is not celebrated for her graciousness."

Madame de Montespan stood, whirling about almost like a girl. "Your news has made me young again, Madame," she cried. She ran to the tall mirror that hung opposite the window and peered closely at her face. "Ah! I look younger already! Look! The lines are fading!" She stood back and turned before the mirror, twisting her hips sideways to create the greatest illusion of slenderness.

"Oh! If only I didn't grow so stout!" Madame de Montespan smoothed down her dress to make her waist look narrower. "He told me I was growing too heavy. 'Thick legs are so unattractive,' he said. Imagine how it stung me to the heart! Six living children I've borne him, and my waist as slender as ever, and he says my legs are thick! His stomach is not exactly slender, either, you know. And it's begun to droop like an old woman's b.r.e.a.s.t.s. A convent! Ha! You'll never find me locked in a convent, I tell you." She turned from the crimson stained mirror. "Open the doors, Madame. Let the air in again! I'll send for my ma.s.seuse. By the time the child is born, my legs will have regained their youth, just as my face has today!"

Servants and attendants poured in through the open doors with a suspicious rapidity. The anxiety on their faces s.h.i.+fted almost in an instant when they saw their mistress's merriment. I left richly rewarded and with the promise of a thousand favors when the fall of Madame de Ludres should come to pa.s.s. But best of all, I thought, as I sat listening to the crunch and rattle of the carriage and the steady beat of hooves on the frosty road, I can bear any slight from Madame de Ludres now. It would be a pleasant amus.e.m.e.nt to observe over the coming months exactly how her fall would be engineered by the vicious souls at court. This time, little satin slippers, you have stepped into a game too deep for you. I wished I could tell Marie-Angelique.

It was hardly a week later when a boy left a note at the door that nearly stopped my breath.

"Mademoiselle," it said, "I no longer sleep at night for the dreams that haunt me. Again and again I relive that sweet moment of sympathy we shared. I must see you again at any cost. Andre."

"Tell him yes," I said to the boy. And before the day was done, Sylvie had come from the front door with his answer.