Fortunes of France 4: League of Spies

  “Even if he were to swear never to reveal it?”

  “The Jesuit general would relieve him of this oath. A few signs of the cross, a few Latin words, e il gioco è fatto.”†

  “My brother,” I smiled, “you know the papal orders better than I do, but wouldn’t you be tempted to learn this famous Jesuit thrust?”

  “Of course! But not at the price that Samarcas is exacting! My conscience (and the oath I pledged my master that no one will ever learn it from me) has created an obligation never to reveal Jarnac’s thrust, which cuts my opponent’s hamstring but spares his life.”

  “And yet you taught it to me.”

  “To you alone, my brother,” replied Giacomi, throwing his long arm over my shoulder, “on condition that you never divulge it and because I have complete confidence in you. But Samarcas! Do we even know what nation this mysterious fellow hails from? This religious dagger-bearer! This monk without a monastery! This tonsured fellow who gambols from country to country and speaks in a jargon of French mixed with Spanish, Italian and English!”

  “God,” I smiled, “gave the gift of languages to the Apostles.”

  “A nice Apostle he is! Who’s he serving in all these missions to faraway places? The Pope? Felipe II? Guise? He’s just come back from London. What did he do there? Do you think he tried to convert Queen Elizabeth to Catholicism? And what are the origins, causes and powers of the control he exercises over Larissa, which is so great that she looks at him with a veneration so fearful and grovelling that you’d think he were God himself!”

  “Well, it’s because he exorcized her,” I replied, wishing to hide from Giacomi my disbelief in demonic possession and exorcism.

  “But exorcism is a public and solemn rite,” countered Giacomi gravely, “and, against all rules, Samarcas’s was private and secret, conducted in a locked room, where he remained alone with her for three days and three nights, and from which Larissa emerged quiet, subdued and angelic, according to what I’ve heard. That stinks of magic!”

  “Oh, Giacomi,” I laughed, “if the exorcist is suspected of black magic, where will the Inquisition ever end?”

  “But do you know,” Giacomi continued, “that I’ve never seen anyone so inflamed as Monsieur de Montcalm was when he swore never to marry his Larissa out of the fear Samarcas instilled in him that, if he did, the Devil would take possession of her once again on the day of her wedding? But there’s worse still! Monsieur de Montcalm has abandoned his paternal prerogatives and given Samarcas the governance and education of his daughter, to the point that, when the monk leaves Barbentane on his secret missions, he takes her with him!”

  “What! She goes with him? And Madame de Montcalm has consented to this?”

  “Indeed! She’s terrified by the thought Samarcas has planted in her that the Devil will re-enter Larissa during his absence.”

  “But Giacomi,” I replied, feeling stunned, “how did you discover all this?”

  “From Montcalm’s master-at-arms.”

  “Aha! The Florentine?”

  This Florentine had been in Montcalm’s service for ten years, and kept his eyes open, his ears pricked and his mouth closed. Even since our arrival he’d not left Giacomi’s side, so happy was he to be speaking Italian again.

  But I’m getting ahead of myself. Samarcas was hardly in my thoughts on this first night at Barbentane, where, sitting at dinner with my amiable hosts, I thoroughly neglected my plate, my eyes fixed on the door through which my beloved would appear—just as Quéribus’s had been at Mespech. The stool on my right was vacant, but it was not the only one, for the place on Samarcas’s left was also unoccupied, which should have alerted me to what was about to happen and thus prevent me from appearing so utterly at sea when the door suddenly opened and I saw not one, but two women enter the hall, so uncannily alike in every way that there was no sign on earth that would have allowed me to distinguish which was Angelina and which Larissa. The resemblance was even more pronounced since each had a small, dark stain to the left of her mouth (a feature that Quéribus had explained at Mespech), Larissa having transmuted her mole into a beauty spot and Angelina having counterfeited the same out of the goodness of her heart at her twin’s request.

  I rose from my seat, my heart fit to burst from my chest. Although my astonishment initially provoked some laughter, this merriment quickly died away, to be replaced by a growing sense of dismay: not one of us, not even their parents, could have distinguished between the two sisters as they stood on the threshold, not moving a muscle, hand in hand, each the reflection of the other, while I continued to stand dumbstruck at my place, trying desperately to guess which was my pure and stainless beloved, and which the miserable madwoman who’d allowed herself to be seduced at thirteen by a little valet, then stabbed her chambermaid and abandoned herself to delirious howling. A deathly silence gradually took possession of the hall, which only added to the malaise that reigned there, but what really shook my own nerves to the core was that both of these beauties were looking directly at me with expressions of passionate love—though assuredly one of the two was seeing me for the first time, and was as much of a stranger to me as I was to her.

  Meanwhile, I could not help noticing that, despite their smiles, there was a strange tension between the two, and that one of them was squeezing the hand of the other, holding it fast while the other tried in vain to undo her grip. And I imagined that the former must be Larissa, since it seemed unimaginable that Angelina would not want to hurry to my side and take her place on my right. And so I began to smile tenderly and confidently only at the captive, rather than at her sister; seeing this, the captor stopped smiling at me, bit her lip and cast down her eyes sadly, yet maintained her vice-like hold on her sister’s hand. I also surmised that, though Angelina was strong enough to free herself, she was prevented from doing so by her goodness and pity for her twin.

  This indecent constraint obviously signified some odious meaning. Surely Monsieur de Montcalm could not help but see it; yet he could not stop it, since he would have been too ashamed—and perhaps too horrified by the idea of a sudden return of Larissa’s demon—to dare open his mouth.

  From what Giacomi told me later, all he could do was look pleadingly at the Jesuit, who’d watched the entire scene with indifference and pretended not to meet Montcalm’s glances, so that Madame de Montcalm finally leant over to him and whispered a few words in his ear. At this, Samarcas turned on his stool and, giving Larissa a single brief look, said in the most negligent tone imaginable,

  “Larissa, come over here this instant and sit down beside me.”

  At this, trembling from head to toe, Larissa dropped Angelina’s hand, stepped forward, eyes lowered and looking quite contrite, and sat down as he’d commanded, while her liberated twin hurried to me like a goose to her gander.

  When I’d drunk my fill of her beauty and voice, on which my eyes and ears feasted with incredible delicacy, scarcely able to believe she was at last in my presence, and indeed so deliciously present to me after these two years of separation—and especially after seeing her in Paris without being able to speak to her—I couldn’t help sneaking a glance at Samarcas and his strange pupil. The latter sat quiet and subdued, her eyes lowered, her bosom heaving, while the Jesuit, his large, hairy hand pinning Larissa’s to the table and holding her imprisoned there like a cat with a mouse under its claws, whispered in her ear in a quiet but grave voice, like a muted drum, a long incantation, which the poor girl listened to, mechanically nodding her head and blinking constantly without ever daring to look in my direction. Samarcas’s voice emerged in a low humming sound that was incomprehensible to the rest of us at table but held her as if crushed under the weight of all her sins. But his intense focus on her allowed me to study him at my leisure out of the corner of my eye.

  Samarcas’s face was of a yellow-brown, sepia colour, with a long, curved nose, hollow cheeks and flesh drawn so tight over his cheekbones that you could see the muscles of his big, squa
re jaw working when he chewed on his meat. His lips were thin and pinched; his eyebrows were bushy and very dark, and met over the bridge of his nose, emphasizing the squareness of his forehead above them. His hair was still quite black, though some white was beginning to appear around his temples. His jet-black eyes were deeply set in their sockets and gleamed maliciously out from them, animated by rapid, searching, probing, ferreting movements. Indeed, though he appeared to be completely focused on Larissa, his mobile glance met mine at one point and, realizing that I was watching him, he threw me such terrible look that my blood nearly froze in my veins; but he immediately gave me such a charming, amiable and suave smile that I was dumbfounded, unable to decide what to conclude from this first skirmish: was this a declaration of war or a peace offering? Before leaving the field, however, I was able to observe that he wore moustache and beard, immaculately trimmed—as were the nails of his hairy hands. He was dressed in the latest style, with a carefully ironed ruff, and his hair suggested that its curls owed more to art than to nature.

  *

  My sister Catherine’s marriage contract had been drawn up at Mespech in a trice, Quéribus being so accommodating. It took a good week, however, for mine to be worked out at Barbentane between my father and the comte—Madame de Montcalm having been deployed to ensure that Angelina and I were never alone together, and the gorgon who was dispatched to watch us considerably hampering our liberty to exchange the kisses and innocent caresses that even the most careful parents normally allow engaged couples. Moreover, as soon as Samarcas left, Larissa attached herself to her sister like her shadow, and always sat quietly nearby, her eyes lowered but, I imagined, her ears devouring our every word, just as her eyes would have devoured me had she dared break the tablets of the law that was imposed on her.

  This gorgon was a kind of intendant in the service of the comtesse—there being twice as many servants at Barbentane as there were at Mespech, even though Montcalm was only half as rich as my father, as became obvious during the discussion of the marriage contract. Moreover, I couldn’t tell whether Monsieur de Montcalm was the one who had imposed such rigid conditions on our courtship, or whether his wife invented them out of her own bitter chastity, but whenever my face approached Angelina’s beautiful visage, as inevitably drawn to her as a horse is by the tender green grass of spring, the gorgon began to cough and repeat in the most unpleasant tones:

  “Be kind enough, Monsieur, to keep your distance!”

  Angelina would sigh at this and Larissa, an octave lower, would utter a deep groan, her eyes always lowered, but seeming to share her twin’s every pleasure in the moment and drink in my compliments and sweet nothings as if they were addressed to her.

  As for me, I was so annoyed by the tyranny of this old hag—who, though her hair didn’t harbour snakes like the original gorgon, secreted poison from her heart that made her the enemy of all life and tenderness—that I dared ask my beloved, while the monster, a heavy drinker, was away for a moment to search for some wine, if she would meet me at nightfall in the same turret of the east tower where she’d pledged her faith to me back in 1567. If at first she hesitated to agree to this illicit assignation, the memory of this earlier moment was so dear to her that she ended up by agreeing to meet me. My request, though delivered in a whisper, was, sadly, loud enough for Larissa to overhear, though Angelina trusted her implicitly, since neither sister had ever betrayed the other: they maintained such a friendship—or, rather, an incredibly unshakeable and intimate love for each other—that neither feared sharing her thoughts and plans with the other.

  Towards sunset, I took my leave of Angelina, Larissa and the gorgon, and withdrew to my room, where I remained for a while, musing and waiting for darkness to fall, at which point I hurried to my post in the turret, a small shelter in the chateau wall, pierced by loopholes from which one could fire on any assailants attempting to scale the east wall, which rose some fifteen toises above the moat. Although the night was chilly, with a north wind blowing constantly on the ramparts, the turret itself was sheltered from the wind, and its stones still warm from the day’s sun, and I rubbed my hand along their rough surface, enjoying their texture. I felt as secure in this little enclosure as a silkworm in its cocoon, protected as I was from the breeze, and my heart full with the excitement of our meeting, my limbs shaking with a crazy pleasure at the idea of finally holding Angelina in my arms.

  I heard her heels on the stones of the ramparts, and suddenly, the night being fairly clear, I saw her in the doorway of the turret, turning sideways to get her dress through the opening; as I reached out to greet her, to my great surprise she didn’t take my arms, but threw her own about my neck, pulling me close and kissing me passionately. Although I returned her kisses, I couldn’t help thinking that it was very unlike Angelina, given her natural modesty, to throw herself at me so quickly and with such tumult as I would only wish to share with her when we had exchanged rings. And this thought ultimately carrying the day against the agitation of my senses, I pulled her hands from my neck and held them at arms’ length, pushing her away and searching her face in an attempt to get a better look at her in the semi-darkness. “Angelina, what is this?” I asked.

  I don’t know whether she would have answered—I couldn’t see her eyes because her lids were closed—but, in any case, she didn’t have time to respond. A deep, sonorous voice behind her intoned: “You’re mistaken, Monsieur de Siorac. It’s not Angelina who’s here. It’s Larissa.”

  I looked up and guessed (rather than recognized him in the darkness, through which all I could make out was his lace collar) that this dark silhouette must be Samarcas, with his large shoulders practically touching both sides of the turret that enclosed us.

  “What?” I gasped, dropping her hands. “Larissa? Is that you? What trickery and dastardly pretence! Have you no shame?”

  “Monsieur de Siorac,” replied Samarcas, whose deep voice resonated strangely around the cylindrical turret, “I beg you to remember your Christian charity—Larissa, despite her age, is only a child. In her thinking and behaviour, she’s still the age she was when she was locked in that convent”—and, at the mention of this memory, I could see her begin to tremble from head to foot—“torn from Barbentane, from her loving and amiable parents, and above all, from her twin sister, without whom her being was ripped from its better half.”

  “But, Monsieur,” I answered, more touched by his words than I would have wished, “was Larissa trying to fool me and usurp the role her sister was supposed to have had?”

  “I’m afraid that she doesn’t really know if she is her sister or not, she wants so much to be her!” replied Samarcas urgently. “Which is why she’s trying so desperately to hide under her make-up the mole that alone distinguishes her from Angelina. Monsieur,” he continued, with a tone of such quiet authority that I could not but obey, “your hand!”

  Then, seizing her with his left hand, he imprisoned Larissa’s head in the crook of his arm, and, guiding my index finger between her chin and mouth, he made me touch the mole.

  “Can you feel it?” he asked. “By this little projection, which cannot be felt under Angelina’s make-up—which she paints on her face out of love for her twin—you will always be able to recognize Larissa—if you wish to.” (These last words were said in the most menacing tone imaginable.)

  “But I’m not Larissa,” Larissa cried suddenly, raising her head and stamping her foot. “I’m Angelina! Larissa is all malice and wickedness and in the sway of the Devil!”

  “Quiet, you!” snarled Samarcas, and, seizing her wrists from behind, he pulled her forcefully to him. “And that’s enough of your mischief! I won’t suffer it! Do I have to whip you? Or do you want to be sent back to the convent?”

  “Oh no! Oh no! Oh no!” begged Larissa, and suddenly, as if the air had gone out of her, she wilted and seemed to give in entirely to Samarcas. Seeing this, the Jesuit freed her hands, and Larissa, turning round to face him, encircled his waist with her hand
s and put her head on his shoulder, remaining quietly in this filial posture, as docile as a baby.

  “From now on,” soothed Samarcas with a sweetness that astonished me, and placing his hand on the head of his pupil, “remember that you are Larissa, that you must keep this body free of evil, and that if you sin, you will be pardoned as long as your confession is true and sincere.”

  “Amen,” whispered Larissa in a tiny, almost inaudible voice.

  “Monsieur de Siorac,” the Jesuit continued in his sonorous voice, which seemed to fill my head, so thoroughly did it resonate in the little turret, “you can now understand and measure by what’s happened here just how much your arrival in Barbentane has created terrible confusion in this poor head. Since there is no reason that this trouble should spread to other members of this noble family, which has already suffered so much, may I ask that you not mention what’s happened here to anyone? And may I also entreat you”—and here I heard the same menacing tone infuse this request, which was an entreaty in name only—“to swear on your honour that you will prevent any future repetition of such a mistake, now that you have the means to prevent it?”

  “Monsieur,” I replied firmly and coldly, “this ‘mistake’, as you put it, was not mine, and it is not for me to engage my honour in preventing its recurrence, since my honour was never in question in this matter—nor, for that matter, in any other.”

  At this, he bowed slightly and as stiffly as my tone seemed to warrant, and, taking Larissa by the hand, drew her after him out of the turret and onto the catwalk, and then disappeared.

  “’Sblood!” I thought, nearly unhinged. “He all but challenged me to a duel! Good God! A duel! Here! And with a Jesuit! This Samarcas must feel very secure in his famous Jesuit sword thrust! By living in the world, he’s certainly adopted worldly ways! His tone is unctuous, but ultimately he challenges, prances and defies men like the most jealous and furious of husbands!”