Leopard in Exile (19 page)

been fascinated, and slowly d'Charenton had initiated her into his more terrible pleasures.

"I had heard that the weather in Nouvelle-Orléans was unpleasant during the summer months, but I

confess I do not find it so. In fact, I would say that the weather is quite delightful. Do you not find it so,

Madame?" d'Charenton asked. Delphine giggled, a high thin sound like the death-screams of mice.

The woman the Due addressed uttered a low groan and turned her face away. Her name was Sanité

Dédé, and until last week she had sold sweetmeats in front of the Cabildo and around the Place d'Armes.

How d'Charenton had discovered that she was also the
Regina de Voudoun
for this parish was

something Corday did not know. But d'Charenton's spies were everywhere, and as soon as the

Governor possessed that information, he had Sanité arrested.

At first he had offered her money to give up her secrets.

She had laughed in his face, secure in her power.

That had been a mistake.

Broad bands of livid purple now stained Sanity's golden skin where the muscles had been torn beneath

the flesh. Delphine reached for the wheel at the head of the table, and d'Charenton swatted her hand

away, beaming avuncularly.

At first, the Due had difficulty in utilizing Father Antonio's legacy, for the engines had rusted in the humid

air of Louisianne. But he had brought with him men who understood their repair, and there had been an

unending stream of criminals and rebels to practice upon, until now every hinge and crank and pulley

moved with the satin suppleness of precision machinery. Now the wheel was delicately balanced, and

would move at a touch. Even a venerable old man like himself could operate them, once the subject was

secured to the framework, and he had many strong soldiers to perform that task.

"Madame Dédé?" he repeated. "Perhaps you do not find the weather comfortable?" Almost caressingly

he reached out to the great four-spoked wheel and tugged upon it gently. Counterweights moved, and

the iron gears at the heart of the Procrustean Bed racketed forward a notch.

The woman shackled to the mechanism threw back her head and screamed. Mademoiselle McCarty

clapped her hands, beaming.

"So, Madame. You do have a taste for conversation after all, perhaps?" d'Charenton said genially. "You

will remember the nature of our last discussion?"

The Voudou Queen moaned despairingly. The light of the lamps glittered off her eyes and her sweating

skin, and the white-crusted tracks of tears gleamed upon her cheeks.

"M'sieur Corday? You can refresh her memory, perhaps?" d'Charenton asked, turning to his secretary.

D'Charenton knew his secretary despised his pastimes, and for that reason insisted upon Corday's

attendance at his little inquisitions.

Charles Corday—who had, in another life and time, been known to a select few as "Gambit" for his

reckless bravery—hesitated. He did not wish to be here at all, either in this chamber or in the city itself,

but for many reasons he dared not disobey his latest master or interfere with the Due d'Charenton's

unspeakable notions of sport.

"You wished to know de secret of de
Voudous
, Your Grace," Corday said dutifully. He drew a silk scarf

from his sleeve and wiped his forehead. It was cold and damp here in this subterranean chamber beneath

the Cabildo, but Corday's fine French linen was already soaked with sweat.

D'Charenton regarded him with a sparkling, feverish gaze, and Corday shuddered inwardly. People liked

to consider the Due d'Charenton a madman, but Corday knew that he was not. A madman was not in

control of his appetites, and d'Charenton controlled his as a coachman might govern spirited horses.

Corday enjoyed Talleyrand's own patronage, and while that was true, d'Charenton's private secretary

was entirely safe from d'Charenton's whims… at least, so long as his true sympathies remained

unsuspected. For "Gambit" Corday was neither French nor Creole. He was Acadian, and for many years

his people—descendants of those settlers dispossessed from French Acadia when it fell into English

hands—had dreamed of a homeland of their own, a land in which they would be more than despised and

landless refugees.

Louisianne could be that homeland, if its bonds with the Emperor across the sea could be broken, and so

for years Corday had served two masters—the Black Pope, with his self-serving Imperialist ambitions,

and his fellow Free Acadian conspirators—hoping for the day that his countrymen would rise in revolt to

throw off Imperial chains.

But the lessons of the French Revolution were too bloodily recent for that. The
Occidenteaux
were

reluctant to try to cast off the yoke of tyranny, fearing wave after wave of frenzied executions in reprisal.

It had been a stroke of fortune when Talleyrand had sent him to Nouvelle-Orléans with d'Charenton.

D'Charenton's habits were notorious among Talleyrand's circle, and Corday had known that

d'Charenton's rule would be all that was needed to drive Louisianne into open revolt at last, so though he

could have struck d'Charenton down and taken his place a dozen times on the voyage here, Corday had

withheld his hand. But now he feared that in doing so he had made a pact with the Devil himself.

D'Charenton was searching for something, and whatever it was made him willing to flout the power of
les

Voudous
. D'Charenton's powers must be great indeed, that he had not already been struck dead by the

power of the Conjure Doctors and Voudou Queens against whose gods he offended.

"Very good, Corday! Delphine, isn't he the very best of servants? You see, Madame Dédé, M'sieur

Corday is eager to continue our chat, as am I. I beg you, satisfy my curiosity. You are
la reine Voudou
.

Your house has been searched. The apparatus has been found. The Church rebukes. But I do not—"

Here the Due leaned toward the woman, so that their cheeks nearly touched. Corday swallowed hard

and turned away, but try as he might, he could not shut out d'Charenton's wheedling voice, Delphine's

laughter, nor the moans of their victim.

What did he seek, here in Nouvelle-Orléans? What prize could be worth the undying enmity of the

Voudous Magnian
?

Could anything? Could freedom?

The woman screamed once more, and this time Corday heard the finality of death in her voice. He felt

sick with relief. He had gone to a conjure doctor as soon as Sanité Dédé was taken, and bought herbs to

make her heart race and fail. He had steeped them in the water he gave her, but he hadn't dared to give

her enough to kill her immediately, or d'Charenton's suspicion would have fallen upon him, and after the

last month, Corday was willing to do nearly anything not to fall into the governor's clutches. What was

done in these dungeons had even driven him back into the arms of Holy Mother Church herself, and

Corday would have been once willing to swear that no power on earth could do that.

"You faint like a woman, Corday." D'Charenton's voice was amused. "What a pity. I was told that the

Africans were of hardier stock, but this creature lasted barely a week. She told me nothing."

"Do another one,
cher oncle
," Delphine begged. "Take my servant, my Letty! She is strong, and—"

"Perhaps there was nothing to tell," Corday offered desperately, to still that terrible lisping voice.

"No. There was something. I know it. Are you a student of magic, m'sieur?"

With an effort, Corday kept his hands from the blessed saint's medal he wore against his skin. Like many

of his generation, Corday hated magic as a sly and unpredictable science. It was a way of cheating, just

as aristocracy and money were ways of cheating.

"No, Your Grace. I 'ave nevair 'ad time for such studies, me."

"That barbarous accent of yours, Corday! Before we are through, we will teach you to speak French like

a Parisian, won't we, Delphine? But first we will broaden your education." d'Charenton stepped away

from the dead woman, and took a decanter from a table beside a black cabinet. He poured a glass full of

red wine and offered it to his secretary. Corday shook his head, not trusting himself to speak.

D'Charenton drank deeply before continuing.

"In the
Art Magie
, it is commonly held that one evokes the infernal powers and invokes the angelic

powers to gain mastery over the material world. But that is to overlook the fact that this world—what

Hermes Trismegistus called the Mesocosmos—hosts powers of its own. In the barbarous days of

Royalty, did not the King upon his Coronation make pact with the powers of the land, so that the destiny

of King and Land were one?"

King Louis had been executed when Corday was only a boy, but the fact that France Herself had not

risen to her master and bridegroom's aid had been one of the factors that propelled the Corsican into

power. Reluctantly, Corday nodded. D'Charenton grunted in satisfaction and poured himself another

glass of wine.

"Well, then. This is anew land. By what ceremony shall we bind ourselves to it, so that its powers are

ours to command?"

Delphine, bored with the turn the conversation had taken, had climbed up into the red plush chair and

was cradling her doll, scolding it in a voice that was an eerie echo of d'Charenton's own.

Corday stared at him for a moment before realizing some answer was required. "But… I thought… only

the King—someone of Royal blood…"

D'Charenton laughed unpleasantly. "But this is a new age, my excellent Corday, and we must put

superstition behind us and bring the science of magic into the 19th century! A king is no different than any

other man, and so it follows that any man may approach the spirits of the land to become their vassal and

master. These ignorant savages have learned to treat with unknown spirits, and I will gain their secrets

and use them to approach the spirits of this land and bend them to my will. If not now, then soon. I have

more than one way to gain the information I seek. Always remember that I am an inventive man, M'sieur

Corday."

"I nevair forget dat, Your Grace."
And to what use will you put what you learn, my lord Due
?

Corday wondered. This was terrible news, for if d'Charenton proposed to rule Nouvelle-Orléans by

magic, even the power of guns and swords might not be enough to win her freedom.

For a long time, Louis did not know where or even who he was. He awoke in darkness, to the sick

swaying of a ship, and did not know for how many hours or days he drifted in and out of consciousness

before his mind cleared enough for him to remember why it was so wrong for him to be here.

He remembered walking down the street in Baltimore—the imposing portico of Nussman's Bank. He

was not sure, but he thought he remembered the portly smiling figure of the Director of the bank, the

scent of coffee…

Then nothing.

Drugged
. The thought floated to the top of his mind. He had been drugged, and kidnapped.

The thought was enough to galvanize him into full wakefulness. Louis groaned and rolled over, painfully

forcing open his eyes.

He wore the good linen shirt and velvet trousers he had donned to attend the banker, but his plumed

tricorne, his silk stockings with decorative clocks, his silver-buckled brogues, and his silk coat and vest

were all gone. Whether he was the victim of robbers or kidnappers, the result was so far the same, and

Louis blessed the lifetime habit of caution that had kept him from venturing out with any identifying papers

about his person. His captors would not have gained so much as the direction of his lodging from a

perusal of Louis' personal possessions.

The ship shifted again, and Louis heard the gunshot-snap of canvas above. Each movement brought a

fresh surge of nausea, though he was normally a good sailor.

At least there was light to see by. A candle in a water-filled safety lantern hung from its hook on an

overhead beam, and by its wan aqueous light Louis was able to make out his surroundings. ……

He lay on a straw-filled canvas pallet, in a stall such as was commonly used to transport horses by sea.

The scent of ancient horse was still strong, mingling with the odors of tar and brine. A tin plate and cup

lay upon the straw beside his head, and Louis recovered a confused memory of someone sitting with him

to feed him. They had undoubtedly kept him drugged so that he would be tractable… but for how long?

Where was he now?

And who this time has determined that Louis Capet will be of use to them
? he wondered grimly. For

a moment fear for Meriel consumed him—what had they done to his wife?

Perhaps nothing
—
but that is nearly as bad as what they might do
. He forced the thoughts from his

mind with an effort. There was nothing he could do to save Meriel—and the fact that she was not

confined here with him argued that the conspirators had overlooked her.

His mouth burned with thirst, and he knew his first act must be to find water. But when he tried to get to

his feet, Louis discovered that his captors had not been as negligent as they had first appeared. His

ankles were in iron shackles, a short length of chain between them. Despite this, Louis forced himself to

his feet, holding to the wall of the loose-box for balance. Just as he gained his feet, the ship heeled over

sharply, flinging him to the straw again. Through the deck above, he could hear the shouts of sailors.