The Medusa Amulet (35 page)

“I am sure of it, Your Highness.”

“And I believe that I shall be in need of them here.”

She was young, but perhaps not so naïve as he’d thought.

Over the next fifteen years she had learned fast, adapting to the rites and rituals, the pomp and circumstance, of the most refined court in Europe. He had watched her grow from an awkward girl to a confident, even imperious, woman. And tonight, when he saw her at the
grand couvert—
where the king and queen dined in solitary splendor, while dozens of spectators looked on—the queen raised her eyes above the gold-and-enamel saltcellar and nodded a greeting. If only she knew, he thought, that the saltcellar, commissioned by King Francis at Fontainebleau in 1543, was from his own hand.

Waving the Princesse de Lamballe to her side, she whispered in her ear, and moments later the princesse herself drew the marquis aside and said, “The queen invites you to join her at the Petit Trianon tonight. Count Cagliostro will be there, and she thinks you might like to meet him.”

“Indeed I would,” he said.

The Petit Trianon was the queen’s private refuge—a separate, small palace on the grounds of Versailles, where no one was admitted unless by order of the queen herself. Consequently, invitations to her salons there were terribly coveted, and hard to come by; the marquis had once heard that even the king, despite the fact that he had given it to her, had to ask permission to enter its gates.

At ten o’clock, Sant’Angelo approached the neoclassical palace, so
much less ornate and extravagant than its Rococo counterparts, mounted the steps, and passed through several rooms painted a distinctively muted blue-gray. From the main
salon des compagnie
, he could hear the strains of a harp and a harpsichord, playing a song written by the queen’s favorite composer, Christoph Willibald Glück. He assumed that it was the queen herself, an accomplished musician, who was sitting at the keyboard.

And, as he entered, he saw that he was correct. Antoinette was playing the harpsichord, the Princesse de Lamballe the harp, while perhaps a dozen other members of the nobility were sprawled about on upholstered divans and gilded chairs, sipping cognac, playing cards, amusing themselves with one of the many Persian cats or small dogs that had the run of the place. The marquis, who had seen more than his share of imperial courts, had never known one to include quite so many pets. A parrot perched on the mantelpiece now, safely out of harm’s way, while a white monkey, on a long leather leash, explored the underside of a marble-topped console.

The marquis waited at the threshold to be acknowledged by the queen, but she was concentrating so hard on the score that she did not see him. He recognized the Countess de Noailles, Mistress of the Household, sitting with her dreary husband at a faro table; the high-spirited Duchesse de Polignac, reclining beside a portly man in an open frock coat (frock coats, which were considered too casual for court, were encouraged at the Trianon), and a dashing young officer in a Swedish Cavalry uniform festooned with gold braid. This was the Count Axel von Fersen, emissary to the French court, and from all accounts the queen’s lover.

When the piece was finished, Marie Antoinette looked up at the round of applause, and upon seeing the marquis, glided across the floor toward him. At Versailles, even the way women walked, their feet swishing across the floor as if barely in contact with it, was prescribed and artificial.

But there was nothing false about the warmth of her smile.

“It was such a wonderful surprise to see you tonight!” she declared. “I hope you will be spending many days with us!”

“I haven’t made my plans as yet,” he replied.

“Good! Then I’ll make them for you,” she said, taking his arm and introducing him to several of the guests he did not know. It was only here, at the Petit Trianon, that she could be so free-spirited and informal. She had made the place her private retreat, a refuge from all the stifling protocol and public display of the main palace; here, she had even arranged for the servants to be kept out of sight, and in her boudoir she had installed panels that could shutter the windows entirely with just the turn of a handle.

“Tomorrow,” she said to the marquis, “we’ll have a sleigh ride on the Grand Canal, then a performance at the theater. I’ll arrange it all! And tonight, of course, Count Cagliostro will be demonstrating his powers of mesmerism and mind reading.”

“I was hoping to find him here already.”

“Oh, he is always very mysterious,” Antoinette said. “He likes to make a grand entrance. But this gives us time to play something together!” she said, drawing him toward the harpsichord. “We keep your flute here always.”

“I’m afraid I haven’t played much lately,” the marquis demurred, but Antoinette, pouting, said, “Not even for me?”

When the Queen of France made such a remark, it was never clear, even given their friendship, whether it was a request or an order. And when she suggested that they play
“C’est Mon Ami,”
he knew she would brook no denial. The lyrics of the song had been written by the poet Jean-Pierre Claris de Florian, but the music was the queen’s own composition, and she was quite proud of it.

The flute was presented to him, with an exaggerated bow and a sly smile, by the Princesse de Lamballe; he knew she sensed his reluctance. The flute itself had been a gift from Antoinette, a way to encourage him to come to the Trianon and accompany her, and now, as she launched into the tune, singing the words in a bright contralto, he had little choice but to bend his head and play the tune from memory.

“C’est mon ami, Rendez-moi,”
she sang, her head erect,
“J’ai son amour, Il a ma foi,”
repeating the refrain. She was dressed in a gossamer peach chemise over a silk gown, with no hoops or stays, and in her hair she wore a simple aigrette of white heron feathers with a sapphire clasp. Her figure had filled out, and her Habsburg lip, with its unfortunate droop, had become more pronounced, but her grace and carriage were unchanged. Fersen, the Swedish count, watched her with a rapt gaze, and the marquis was glad that she had found someone to provide her with the passion that the king, a cold and ungainly man, with an equally dismal reputation in the bedroom, could not. (It was common knowledge that he had a physical deformity that made intercourse painful for him.)

They had no sooner finished the tune than the applause was abetted by the sound of clapping from the entryway, where a stout, swarthy man with smoldering eyes, rimmed with kohl, stood. His dark hair was swept back with pomade but no powder, and he was dressed all in black, his silk tailcoat adorned with white ivory scarabs and amber pins shaped like gargoyles.

La Medusa
, on a silver chain, hung around his neck.

Even as Sant’Angelo’s eyes were riveted on the glass, Count Cagliostro’s were drawn to him. It was as if two predators had crossed paths while hunting and did not know whether to go their own way or lock themselves in combat.

The court jewelers, however, had been right—this Medusa was the same as the one on the marquis’s ring.

And it did not bear the ruby eyes of the version he had made for Eleonora de Toledo.

This, then, was the glass that possessed the power, the one that the Pope had stolen centuries before. Sant’Angelo could not imagine by what circuitous pathway it had come down to Cagliostro … but he did know that he would reclaim it before the night was through.

“I am honored,” Cagliostro said, approaching and bowing his head, “to make your acquaintance at last.”

When he looked up again, it was with a soulful but piercing
gaze, and Sant’Angelo recognized that the man was taking his measure.

Just as he was doing in return.

“I have heard so much about you, in so many quarters, for so long,” the count went on, in a voice that seemed purposefully mellifluous … and difficult to trace. There was the hint of Italian in it, but also an intonation that seemed deliberately Eastern. “Your eye for things of beauty is celebrated everywhere.”

The marquis did not know if the count referred, obliquely, to the queen, or the famously orphaned diamond necklace. He suspected the confusion was intended.

“As are your powers in other spheres,” he added.

Sant’Angelo had no doubt, however, what this last sally referred to. He had acquired a reputation, wherever he went over the years, as a master of the dark arts. No one else, it was said, could have had the courage to inhabit the notorious Chateau Perdu, or have acquired such wealth and position with no known forebears. It was rumored that the marquis could read minds and foretell the future. It was a reputation that he neither encouraged nor dispelled.

“And your reputation, Count, certainly precedes you everywhere,” the marquis replied. “The queen tells me you’ll be doing some of your tricks tonight.”

A flash of anger crossed Cagliostro’s face, which he quickly disguised. “I will, of course, do the queen’s bidding, but tricks are the province of magicians.”

“Oh,” Sant’Angelo said, “I was under the wrong impression. I am so sorry if I have given offense.”

“Not at all.” His thick fingers touched
La Medusa
on its chain. “I can’t help but notice that you seem intrigued by my medallion.”

“I am,” the marquis replied. “Where did you get it?”

He could see a quick calculation going on in Cagliostro’s mind. “It was a gift,” he then said, “from Her Majesty.”

This news astonished the marquis. How had he known nothing of this?

“It was sent to her by His Holiness, Pope Pius VI,” the count continued, plainly having decided that the truth in this instance did more for his status than any lie might have done, “on the birth of her son, Louis-Charles. To protect the mother and child from the evil eye.”

“Il malocchio,”
Sant’Angelo said.

“You know our countrymen,” Cagliostro replied. “The queen wore it to a reception for the Pope one night, purely as a courtesy, but had very unpleasant dreams and asked me to dispose of it the next day. But it was so beautifully wrought, I could not bear to do it.”

“How fortunate,” the marquis replied.

“Besides, the queen has no use for such superstitious baubles. She had already found a nearly identical trinket in the royal coffers, but this one had ruby eyes, and she had melted it down to make a silver buckle for her shoe. The rubies became a pair of earrings for a friend.”

That anyone, even a queen of France, would make such use of his handiwork made Sant’Angelo’s blood boil.

And as if Cagliostro knew that he was pricking the count, he languidly raised one hand toward the Princesse de Lamballe and said, “You see? She’s wearing the earrings now.”

Sant’Angelo struggled to betray no emotion. This was the fate, he knew, of so much of his work—to be unwittingly disassembled or pillaged for its precious elements. But to discover that not one, but both, of his amulets should have found their way to the same place—one by way of the Medici, one from the hand of a pope—was astonishing beyond measure. It was as if the two
Medusas
had been drawn to each other, across space and time, by a force as mysterious as magnetism and unstoppable as the tides. Magic, beyond magic.

He simply thanked God that this one piece had survived.

Raising it on its chain appraisingly, Cagliostro said, “Rumor has it that it’s over two hundred years old—the work of Benvenuto Cellini, in fact.”

“Really?” the marquis replied. He had quite purposefully taken off his identical ring and left it at the Chateau Perdu. He pretended to examine the piece more closely. “I wasn’t aware that he worked in niello.”

“Cellini worked in every form and finish.”

He was right about that, Sant’Angelo thought; he had tried his skills at everything. But had the count unlocked
La Medusa
’s secret, he wondered? Of course he would have uncovered its mirror … but had he put it to its proper use? Sant’Angelo’s hand itched with the urge simply to snatch the piece free, but he could hardly start a brawl in the queen’s own palace.

“I’m so glad that you two have met,” the queen said, approaching with her Swedish lover Fersen standing close at her side. “I can’t think of two more accomplished men to add to our company tonight.”

“Not three?” Fersen said, leaning in to her, and she laughed, batting at him with her fan.

“Remember,” she confided to the marquis, “how you taught me to properly wield this weapon?”

After some cajoling from de Lamballe and Polignac, Count Cagliostro consented to display some of his powers—acquired, or so he declared, from the ancient adepts in Egypt and Malta, hundreds of years ago. But then he was full of such boasts. Reputedly, he claimed to have restored the library at Alexandria at the behest of his personal friend, Cleopatra, and to have wielded the dagger that killed her consort, Ptolemy. He had been traveling all over Europe for years, raising money and founding lodges to promulgate the lost wisdom of Egyptian Masonry. As far as the marquis could tell, however, the lodges were empty, while the count’s pockets were full.

He obliged the company now with some of the standard conjurations, making images appear in a vase of water (done, the marquis knew, with chemical reactions familiar to any alchemist worth his salt) and silverware move (with lodestones concealed in his cuff links). But the pièce de résistance, for which the count was famous from Warsaw to London, was one of his mesmerism performances. In preparation, he asked that the lamps be dimmed and that everyone arrange their chairs or cushions to face in his direction. Fersen sat at the queen’s feet, along with her other lapdogs.

Once everyone had done so, and a fair amount of nervous giggling
had subsided, he asked for volunteers for the first experiment—and Mme. Polignac’s hand went up in an instant. She came forward, grinning, and took a chair he set out. Cagliostro drew himself up to his full height (augmented, the marquis was convinced, by platforms in his boots) and carefully removed
La Medusa
from around his neck. Holding it up, he let it dangle in the air.