Holy Fools (4 page)

Arms around my daughter, I close my eyes again. But my peace is gone. Five years of peace dispelled like smoke in an instant-and for what? A bird, a memory, a glimpse of something from the corner of my eye? And yet the Reverend Mother died. What of it? She was old. Her life was over. There is no reason to believe that
he
is in any way linked to this. And yet, Giordano taught me that
all
life is linked; that all terrestrial things are made from the same elemental clay; man, woman, stone, water, tree, bird. It was heresy. But Giordano believed it. One day he would find it, he told me; the philosopher’s stone, which would prove his theory right; the recipe for all matter, the elixir of the Nine Worlds. Everything is linked; the world is in motion around the sun; everything returns, and every act, however small, has a thousand repercussions. I can feel them now, coming at me like ripples from a stone flung into a lake.

And the Blackbird? We too are linked, he and I; I need no philosophy to tell me that. Well, let him come. If he has a part to play, let him play it soon, and quickly; because if ever I see him again in the flesh, he knows that this time, I will kill him.

We buried her
in the herb garden. It was a quiet affair-I planted lavender and rosemary to sweeten her body’s corruption and everyone said a little prayer. We sang the Kyrie Eleison, but badly, for some were overcome with grief. This outpouring surprises me-more than a dozen sisters have died since my arrival here, some of them young, and not one was mourned with such fierce despair-and yet it should not. We have lost more than one of our own. Even the murder of King Henri in Paris, only two months ago, had less impact on our lives.

That being so, it seems wrong to bury her with such little ceremony. She should have had a priest: a proper service. But we could wait no longer; the news from Rennes is slow in coming, and corruption spreads fastest in summer, bringing disease. Most of the sisters have no idea of this, preferring to trust to the power of prayer; but a lifetime on the roads has taught me the value of caution. There may well be demons, my mother used to say, but foul water, bad meat, and tainted air are the real killers, and her wisdom has served me well.

Anyway, I talked them round to my way of thinking in the end. I always do; and besides, this simple burial was what the Reverend Mother would have wanted: no stone vaulting, but a linen sheet already marbled with mold, then the raw white earth, upon which our potatoes thrive so sweetly.

Perhaps I’ll plant potatoes above her grave, their flesh mingling with hers in the soil so that every joint nurtures a tuber, every bone a shoot, the salt of her flesh combining with the salt earth to nurse the roots to pallid life. A pagan thought, strangely lacking in solemnity in this place of mournful secrets. And yet my gods have never been theirs. The master of the world is surely not this stern, stony face, this pointless sacrifice, this life without joy, this endless fixation upon sin…Better to nourish potatoes than fleshless heaven, hopeless hell. But still word does not come.

Nine days. The Creation of the world took less time. Our world remains in limbo, suspended in the clear indifference of these summer days, a rose under glass. And yet the world outside moves on without us; growth, decay, life, death moving on at their usual pace, tide in, tide out, as if God has his own agenda. The scent of the sea blows through the window, already tinted with shades of autumn; the leaves bleached gray by the sun, the grass burnt blond. The land is an anvil for summer’s strike, flat and shimmering.

At least I have my work in the salt field, the wooden
ételle
in my hands skimming the crust of rime from the mud onto the heap by my side. It is simple work, requiring little thought, and I can watch Fleur and Perette playing nearby, splashing noisily through the warm brown water. These days in the fields-such a burden to the others-are my secret pleasure, with the sun on my back and my daughter at my side. Here I can be myself again, or as much of myself as I care to recall. I can smell the sea, the hot reek of the salt flat, feel the sharp wind coming over from the west, hear the birds. I am not one of these soft sisters, hiding in their darkness for fear of the world. Nor am I an ecstatic like Soeur Alfonsine, driving my poor flesh into a passion of mortification. No, the work pleases me. The long muscles in my thighs tense and stretch, I feel the tautening of my biceps like oiled rope. My arms are bare; my skirt hitched up to the waist, my wimple discarded on the mud bank.

Other than Fleur, my hair is my only extravagance. I cut it when I arrived at the abbey, but it has grown back, thick and red as a fox’s brush and gleaming. It is my only beauty. Otherwise I am too tall, too hard, my skin burnt brown by the sun of many summer roads. If Lazarillo had seen my hair, then he might have remembered me. But one wimple is very like another. Here in the fields, I can discard the
coiffe
. There is no one to see my unbound hair or my strong bare shoulders. I can be myself; and although I know I can never be l’Ailée again, for a short time I can at least be Juliette.

For six more years
I was to remain with the troupe that became the Théâtre des Cieux. After Vitré I moved out of LeMerle’s caravan. I loved him still-there was no escaping that-but my pride forbade me to stay. By then I had a caravan of my own, and when he came to me, as I knew he would, I made him wait to be admitted, like a penitent. It was a small enough vengeance, but it changed the balance between us, and for a time I was satisfied.

We traveled along the coast, targeting markets and fairs where there was money to be had. When business was bad we sold sickness cures and love charms, or LeMerle fleeced the unwary at cards or dice. Most often we performed-snatches of ballets, masquerades, or carnival but with the occasional play growing gradually more frequent as time passed. I developed a rope-dancing act with the dwarves-a child’s game, no more, but it was popular with village audiences-and I taught my fellow dancers the simpler moves. The act grew more ambitious as we developed it, but it was my idea to take it to the high rope, and that was the beginning of our success.

At first we performed over a sheet with a dwarf at each corner, in case of accident. As our daring increased, however, we dispensed with the sheet and took to the air, not content merely to walk the rope, but dancing, tumbling, and finally
flying
from one rope to another by means of a series of interlinked rings. Thus, l’Ailée was fledged.

I have never been afraid of heights. In fact, I enjoy them. From a certain height, everyone looks the same-men, women, villains, kings-as if rank and fortune were simply an accident of perspective and not something ordained by God. On the ropes I became something more than human; at every performance more people came to watch. My costume was silver and green, my cloak a sweep of colored feathers, and on my head I wore a cockade of plumes that exaggerated my height still further. I have always been tall for a woman-already I overtopped everyone in the Théâtre des Cieux except LeMerle-but in my dancer’s costume I passed six feet, and when I left the gilded cage from which I began my act, children in the crowd would murmur and point, and their parents would wonder aloud that such a creature could even mount the climbing pole, let alone fly.

The rope was stretched thirty feet above their heads; below, cobbles, earth, grass. I risked broken limbs or death if I made a mistake. But l’Ailée made no mistakes. My ankle was fastened to a thin gilt chain-as if without it I might take wing and fly away. Rico and Bazuel held on to the other end, taking care to stay as far away from me as possible. Sometimes I growled and pretended to lash out, making the children scream. Then the dwarves released the chain, and I was free.

I made it effortless. Of course it was not; the smallest move takes a thousand hours of practice. But in those moments I was no longer myself. I danced on silken cords so thin that they were barely visible from the ground, using the linked rings to travel from one to the other, as Gabriel once taught me, a lifetime ago, by the orange caravan with the tiger and the lambs. Sometimes I sang, or made wild sounds in my throat. People looked up at me in superstitious awe and whispered that I must indeed be of another breed, that perhaps somewhere beyond the oceans just such a race of fox-haired harpies swooped and soared over the endless blue acres. Needless to say, LeMerle did nothing to discourage this kind of thinking. Nor did I.

As months passed, and years, our act grew in popularity until we were courted from Paris to province. It made me bold; there was nothing I would not dare. I devised wilder leaps, more breathtaking flights between the poles, leaving the others far below me. I added more levels of cord to the act: swings, a trapeze, a suspended platform. I performed in trees and over water. I never fell.

Audiences loved me. Many believed LeMerle’s fiction: that I was of another race. There were rumors of witchcraft, and a few times we were forced to leave a town in haste. But those times were few; our fame spread, and at LeMerle’s orders we moved north again toward Paris.

Two and a half years had passed since our flight from the city. Time enough, said the Blackbird, for our little contretemps to have been forgotten. Besides, he had no ambition to reenter Society; the king was getting married, and we were not alone in making for the celebrations. Every troupe in the country was doing the same: actors, jugglers, musicians, dancers. There was money to be made, said LeMerle, and with a little imagination, a little initiative, we could make a fortune.

But by this time I knew him too well to believe the simple explanation. That look was back in his eyes-the look of dangerous enjoyment he wore when planning an outrageous venture-and I was wary from the first.

“He’s hunting a tiger with a pointed stick,” Le Borgne was wont to say. “Finding it’s the easy part, but God help us all if he runs it to ground.”

LeMerle, of course, denied any such intent. “No mischief, I promise you, my Harpy,” he said, but with so much suppressed laughter in his voice that I did not believe him. “What, are you afraid?”

“Of course not.”

“Good. This is no time to start suffering from nerves.”

It was the height
of l’Ailée’s career. We had money, fame; crowds adored us, and we were coming home. With the approach of the king’s wedding, Paris was in perpetual carnival; spirits were high; drinking deep, purses loose; and you could smell the hope and the money and, behind that, the fear. A wedding, like a coronation, is a time of uncertainty. Rules are suspended. New alliances are made and broken. For the most part, they mean little to us. We watch the big players on France’s stage, simply hoping that they will not crush us. A whim could do it; a king’s finger is heavy enough to wipe out an army. Even a bishop’s hand, cleverly wielded, may crush a man. But we at the Théâtre des Cieux did not consider these things. We could have read the signs if we had chosen to, but we were drunk on our success; LeMerle was hunting his tigers and I was perfecting a new-and increasingly dangerous-routine. Even Le Borgne was uncharacteristically cheery, and when we received word on entering Paris that His Majesty had expressed an interest in watching us perform, our elation knew no bounds.

The days that followed passed in a blur. I’ve seen kings come and go, but I’ve always had a soft spot for King Henri. Perhaps because he cheered so heartily on that day; perhaps because his face was kind. This new Louis is different: this little boy. You can buy his portrait in any market, crowned with a sun halo and flanked by kneeling saints, but he makes me fearful with his wan face and heart-shaped mouth. What can such a little boy know of anything? How can he rule France? But all that was to come; when l’Ailée performed at the Palais-Royal, we had more security, more happiness than we had enjoyed since before the wars. This marriage-this alliance with the Médicis-proved it; we saw it as a sign that our luck had turned.

It had-but not for the better. The night of our performance we celebrated with wine and meat and sweet pastries, and then Rico and Bazuel went to watch a wild-beast show near the Palais-Royal while the others got even more drunk and LeMerle went off on his own toward the river. Later that night, I heard him return, and when I passed his caravan I saw blood on the steps and I was afraid.

I tapped at the door and, receiving no answer, went inside. LeMerle was sitting with his back to me on the floor, with his shirt wadded against his left side. I ran to him with a cry of dismay; there was blood all over him. More blood, in fact, than real hurt, as I discovered to my relief. A short, sharp blade-not unlike my own-had glanced off his ribs, leaving a shallow, messy gash about nine inches long. At first I assumed he had been attacked and robbed-a man in Paris by night needs more than luck to protect him-but he still had his purse, and besides, only a very inept footpad would have dealt him such a clumsy blow. As LeMerle refused to tell me what had happened, I could only conclude that this mischief was somehow of his own making and dismiss it as an isolated case of ill fortune.

But there was more bad luck to come. The following night, one of our caravans was set on fire as we slept, and only chance saved the rest. As it was, Cateau got up for a piss and smelled smoke: we lost two horses, the bulk of our costumes, the caravan itself, of course, and one of our number: little Rico, who had got blind drunk during the evening and failed to awaken to our cries. His friend Bazuel tried to go in after him, though we could see it was hopeless from the start, but he was overcome by smoke before he even got close.

It cost him his voice: when he recovered, he was unable to speak in anything above a whisper. Even after that, I think, his heart was broken. He drank like a sponge, picked fights with anything that moved, and performed so badly in his act that in the end, we had to leave him out altogether. When, some months later, he chose to leave us, no one was surprised. And anyway, as Le Borgne said, it wasn’t as if we had lost a rope-dancer. Dwarves could always be replaced.

We left Paris furtively and in somber mood. The celebrations were far from over, but now LeMerle was eager for us to be gone. Rico’s death had affected him more than I had expected; he ate little: slept less: snapped at anyone who dared speak to him. It was the first time I had ever seen him truly angry. It was not for Rico, I soon realized-nor even for the damaged equipment-but for his own humiliation, the spoiling of our triumph. He had lost the game: and more than anything else, the Blackbird hated to lose.

No one had noticed anything on the night of the burning. LeMerle, however, had his suspicions, though he would not speak of them. Instead, he sank into a dangerous silence, and not even the news that his old enemy, the Bishop of Evreux, had been waylaid by footpads a few days before was enough to brighten his spirits.

After Paris, we made our way south. Bazuel left us in Anjou, but we gained two more people in the months that followed: Bécquot, a one-legged fiddle player, and his ten-year-old son, Philbert. The boy was a natural on the high rope, but he was too reckless; he took a bad fall later that year and was useless for months. All the same, LeMerle kept him with us through the following winter and, although the boy was never fit for the flying act again, fed him and found him useful work to do until he was finally able to place him with a group of Franciscans who, he said, would care for him. Bécquot was grateful, and I was surprised, for business had taken a bad turn and money was short. Le Borgne simply shrugged and muttered something about tigers. But, as I said, LeMerle could be sentimental about the oddest things.

We moved on. We worked markets and fairs throughout Anjou and down into Gascony, sometimes helping with harvests as we had done in the early days, staying in one place over winter. The second winter, Demiselle died of a fever, leaving us with only two dancers-at thirty, Hermine was getting too old for the high rope, and it was painful to watch her. Ghislaine tried her best but never mastered the jumps. Once more, l’Ailée flew alone.

Undaunted, LeMerle returned to playwriting. His farces had always been popular, but his plays became gradually more satirical as we journeyed across France. His favorite subject was the Church, and several times we were forced to pack up in haste as some zealous official took offense. The public, for the most part, enjoyed them. Evil bishops, lecherous friars, and religious hypocrites had always attracted appreciative audiences, and when there were also dwarves and a Winged Woman, the show never failed to bring in money.

LeMerle played the clerical roles himself-he had somehow acquired a variety of religious garments and a heavy silver cross, which must have been valuable, but which he never tried to sell, even when times were poor. It was a gift, he said when I questioned him, from an old friend in Paris. But his eyes were hard as he said it, and his smile was all teeth. I did not pursue the matter, however; LeMerle could be sentimental about the strangest things, and if he wanted a thing kept secret, then no amount of questioning would loosen his tongue. All the same, I wondered a little-especially when I was hungry and food was scarce. Then, after a while, I put it out of mind.

Now began our drifting time. We traveled south in winter, north in summer, always following markets and fairs. We changed our colors in the more hostile regions, but for the most part we were still the Théâtre des Cieux, and l’Ailée danced the high rope, and people cheered and threw flowers. Even so I sensed that my heyday was coming to an end-one year a torn tendon kept me in agony for a whole summer-but we knew we could always fall back on LeMerle’s plays. They were more hazardous than the rope act, certainly; but they earned us good coin, especially in Huguenot country.

Five more times we made the journey south; I learned to recognize the roads, the good places, the dangerous places. I took lovers where and when I chose, without hindrance from LeMerle. He still shared my bed when I wanted him to; but I had grown up a little, and my slavish adoration of him had turned to a more comfortable affection. I knew him now. I knew his rages, his triumphs, his joys. I knew him, and I accepted what he was.

I knew, too, that there was much in him to hate, much to mistrust. Twice to my knowledge, he had murdered-once a drunkard who struggled too violently to retrieve a stolen purse, once a farmer who stoned us near Rouen-both deeds committed in stealth and darkness, only to be discovered long after we had gone.

I asked him once how he reconciled such things with his conscience.

“Conscience?” He raised an eyebrow. “You mean God, Judgment Day, and that kind of thing?”

I shrugged. He knew that wasn’t quite what I meant but rarely passed over an opportunity to tease me over my heretical beliefs.

LeMerle smiled. “Dear Juliette,” he said. “If God is really up there-and if we are to believe your Copernicus, that must be a very,
very
long way up-then I don’t trust his perspectives. To him, I’m a speck. Down here, from where I’m standing, things are different.”

I didn’t understand, and I said so.

“I mean that I’d rather be something more than a gambling chip in a game of unlimited stakes.”

“Even so, to kill a man-”

“People kill each other all the time. At least I’m honest about it. I don’t do it in God’s name.”

Knowing him for good or ill-or so I thought-I could still love him, believing as I did that in spite of his sins, the essential heart of the man was good, was faithful to itself, a thieving blackbird singing a mocking song…But that was the man’s talent. He could make people see what they wanted to see, reflections of themselves as vain as shadows in a pond. I saw my foolish self in him, that was all. I was twenty-two, and I had not grown up half as much as I believed.

Until Épinal.