The Porcelain Dove (60 page)

Upon this thought, I found I could move my hands, discovered I'd clenched them so hard over my mouth that both my palms and my lips were torn. As I wiped away the blood with my apron, the black mound upon the bed gave a heave and the beggar-wizard flopped over onto his back. Linotte dragged herself upright and put back her hair from her face. Her pale skin was flooded with scarlet, as were the
sheets and pillows beneath her. Her bleak eyes looked down upon her husband.

I followed her gaze to a corpse, shrunken and fast falling into decay; a corpse in the hollow of whose throat was thrust the pin of a round brooch improbably woven of rushes.

CHAPTER THE TWENTY-FIRST

In Which the Porcelain Dove Comes to Beauxprés

The vision of the Sorcerer Maid faded with the wizard's corpse, and in the place of his tower I saw only bare boards, a badly-painted scene, two framework trees, and a grassy knoll fashioned from a heap of green canvas. Actors there were none. The prophetically named Le Destin, Rosemont, La Grotte, Belle Étoile, L'Espérance—all were returned to their proper time and place, or translated at the wizard's death le bon Dieu alone knows where.

Though Le Destin was gone, his properties remained at Beauxprés, including the oxen and the dun horse, which increase of our stock pleased Jean greatly. He'd been snoring against my knee after the vision faded and, when I woke him, owned not the smallest memory of seeing Linotte or the beggar-wizard or Pompey. Charmant had tricked Alcendre in the end, he said, and ridden off on the Horse with the Cloak on his back, the Maid at his saddlebow, and the Dove on his fist to live happily ever after. He remembered it all perfectly, him. As for the sudden departure of Le Destin and his troupe unpaid, he'd no explanation save that actors are an unaccountable race.

Thus Jean then; thus Jean now. I do not believe he lies. What Jean wishes to see, that is the thing he sees. A comfortable magic, that has warded him against an army of horrors, not the least of them this vision of Linotte's wedding. Oh, the shame I felt, to be constrained to sit and watch the rape, powerless to look away or call out or even to throw fruit! And there is some shame, too, in having written it all
for Colette to read, lest in some sense I have served her as her father's spell served me.

Or was it her father's spell? He saw monsieur, I am sure of it, watched him watching him take his daughter's maidenhead, and unastonished to find himself so observed. The ghostly children he did not see, or at least did not acknowledge, nor did he know of Linotte's adventures anything more than she herself revealed. As Pompey was fond of saying, and the Wizard of Norroway also, the patterns of magic are as capricious as they are compelling, and not the most learned wizard on earth can cast a spell to perform only his desire and no more.

I was writing about Jean.

He would not believe me, wondered that I would care to invent such filth, and left me as I was consigning all the inhabitants of Beauxprés, servant, master, and child, to the deeps of Satan's hottest sinkhole and good riddance to them. Nor did the next day encourage me to a more charitable disposition. Jean could hardly bring himself to speak to me. Monsieur and madame made a Charenton of the library, caterwauling and raving enough for a hundred maniacs. Me, I carried on as I had before, save for a revolution in my belly that cast my food back up my throat as soon as ever I swallowed it.

I was spewing porridge into the horse trough. When Linotte returned to Beauxprés, I thought I'd never be warm again, or well, or happy. I thought I'd be dead soon, the sooner the better. And when the spasm released me, I leaned my brow on the edge of the trough and wept.

Through my weeping, I heard birds.

Birds! Only imagine the shock, after perhaps four years of silence, to hear larks, doves, nightingales, finches, linnets, singing full and liquid paeans to the sun, which, for a wonder, was warming my back as it had not been warmed since I couldn't even remember when.

My over-tried heart counseled flight. The last marvel, it told me, had not been of a particularly comforting nature; why should I be eager to greet the next? I'd be wisest to run to the kitchen, bar the door, and hide me in the chimney corner until whatever horror the birdsong heralded had run its course and departed. Thus my heart. My feet, in the meantime, carried me past the kitchen door and around the north wing to the forecourt and Latona and the long, blasted lawn to the east. And there my eyes showed me the chestnut trees blooming and leafing out like chicks hatching while a tide of gold and new green
rushed up the slope: grass shooting up and rippling in the warm wind, marguerites and cowslips and anemones hurriedly unfurling their leaves and petals.

I screamed for Jean.

As I think I've said before, pain and pleasure sound much alike. Jean came running from his garden at full tilt, hoe raised and ready for mayhem. "What's wrong now, Duvet?" he panted. "Have you run mad?"

Well, that struck me as funny, the way he'd said it, and I began laughing so hard I couldn't answer him, only point over his shoulder and sputter. He dropped the hoe, took me by the shoulders and shook me until my teeth chattered. "Shut it, Berthe Duvet! Do you hear me? Just shut it!"

Still laughing, I forced him around to face the chestnut drive, brilliant as emerald in the clear air. His jaw dropped. He put his fists to his eyes, rubbed, and looked again. A cloaked figure on a storm-gray horse emerged from the end of the drive and started up the hill.

"Who's that?" he asked plaintively. "Another sorcerer? And who's that with him? D'ye think they're dangerous? I tell you, Duvet, I don't think I can endure much more."

My turn to shake him—more gently than he'd shaken me, bien sûr—and to make soothing noises. "Now, now, Jean—'tis only Mlle Linotte, returned from her quest. Remember, she went dressed as a boy? Of course you remember. As for who's with her, I'd guess the vicomte de Montplaisir and M. Justin. The tale is told, Jean, and we've come to happily ever after. There'll be nothing more for you to endure. You'll see."

I was wrong.

If this history of mine were in truth a conte des fées, I could make an end here, with Linotte, like Persephone, bringing spring to Beauxprés. I could purloin my closing lines from Mme d'Aulnoy or even M. Perrault, some scene of restoration and reconciliation replete with tears and smiles and wedding bells, change the names to suit, and Jean at least would be satisfied that I'd ended my tale the way a tale ought to end.

Colette, on the other hand, would not be satisfied with such a romance, however elegantly composed. From a child she has always insisted upon knowing the truth. Oh, the questions she asked! What was beyond the mist? Why would Léon not come out of his room?
Where was monsieur? What happened to Pompey? And when we told her le bon Dieu alone knew the answer to
that
, why she'd stamp her little foot and vow she'd find out for herself. Which she set herself to do, with her readings and her scribblings and her magical experiments in farseeing.

How like Linotte she is. And how unlike. Colette's magic is all making and doing and knowing; Linotte's was all breaking and undoing and hiding away. And that, I think, was the wizard's parting malediction upon monsieur: that his daughter sacrifice her youth and her joy and her maidenhood in the quest of the Porcelain Dove.

Yet Linotte had her moment of triumph, and at first her return was glorious as even Jean could have wished. Like an April queen she trod the carpet of new grass and flowers that sprung up beneath her horse's feet. A rainbow of small birds arched above her and her two brothers rode behind as guard of honor. On her fist, borne high and forward like a standard, perched a bird whose feathers gave back the sunlight with a hard, polished gleam, a bird whose beak was coral, whose eyes glittered red as faceted glass. The Porcelain Dove.

The Horse's iron-shod hooves rang upon the cobbles of the fountain court, then halted by the front steps where Jean and I were standing. Through my blur of tears, I saw only a shadow crowned with flowers and haloed with light. The Sorcerer Maid spoke.

"Fetch monsieur my father, Berthe."

That was all Linotte's greeting, in a voice as hard and bright as the Dove's feathers. No sign of being happy to see us or grateful or relieved the château was still standing; just "Fetch my father, Berthe," as though I were a lackey. Bah!

"Bah!" I said. "Fetch him yourself, you. You're good at fetching things."

She'd no reply to this save silence. I tented my hand and glared up defiantly; she bent her head to meet my gaze. Her eyes were red and swollen-lidded and shadowed with pain; her face a dozen years older than the face of the girl who'd cracked the walnut and put on the gown as bright as the stars. Still angry, and ashamed now with it, I shrugged, turned, entered the château, crossed the hall to the library, and rattled the broken handle.

"Monsieur," I shouted. "Oh, M. le bougre duc de Malvoeux. Come out, O descendant of monsters. Thy daughter awaits thee, O fornicator of birds. She's brought thy thrice-cursed Porcelain Dove, and I pray to le bon Dieu that 'twill peck out thy eyes."

Silence. Then a scream worthy of madame, a great crashing, and the handle torn from my hand as he pulled open the library door and stumbled past me to a scene I'd no desire to witness: the coming together of duc and Dove. I'd had my fill of birds, me.

I slid to the floor and sat hugging myself, waiting for it all to be over. Madame stalked out of the library, trembled her feather aigrette at me, pecked at my shoe, and paced with heavy dignity across the hall to the door where she jerked a beady glance over her back and waited. I sighed; but my time for defiance was past. I hauled myself wearily to my feet and followed her.

When we reached the forecourt, Linotte was down from the Horse and standing on the steps with the Dove held high. Messires Léon and Justin had their eyes fixed on it, as did monsieur and Jean and madame. Flies in amber, all six of us—ten, if you counted the horses, the mule, and the Dove—held prisoner by perfect uncertainty. Who will make the first move? What will it be? Almost I ran upstairs to consult the
Contes des fées
, before I remembered 'twas burnt.

The Dove cooed softly, swelled its neck into a bristling ruff, fanned its tail, tucked its coral beak coyly into its breast feathers. Monsieur whimpered and stretched out his hand, and the Dove flew to it, tame as a cote-pigeon, and dug its coralline claws into his fist. And that, suddenly, was all the Porcelain Dove appeared to be—on my hope of salvation I swear it: an ordinary white pigeon, such as you may find cooing by the hundred in any seigneurial dovecote in France.

The absurdity of it all rose to my brain like mercury. So much worry and effort, so much betrayal and waste of freedom and life. So much suffering. All for an aristo's whim to possess a white pigeon. Artide, I am thy sister. Mère Boudin, I embrace thee. Were Sangsue alive again and his members intact, I would have killed him all over again, torn his eyes from his head and his tongue from his mouth, severed his hands and fed him his manhood. I was ready to do the same by monsieur, if only I could find a knife. Yes, and chop the Porcelain Dove fine and bake it in a pie.

Thus I stood fuming in a scarlet haze while the brothers alit. Madame, catching sight of the vicomte, squawked prodigiously and flurried up to his shoulder. The vicomte, seeing nothing but a peahen attacking him, swore and beat her away. Before I knew what I was about, I'd my fingers dug into his shirt-front and was pounding him with all my might. "Salopard! Unnatural! Violator of children! Did thy father teach thee to beat thy mother, eh?"

He was very thin and dirty, his flesh white as a dead fish, and weak, too, or else he'd have made short work of me. As it was, it took him a moment to detach me, and he said only, "Are you mad, whore? Beat my mother? My mother's not here. Just a fucking great bird. I hate birds."

I spat at him. "That bird
is
thy mother, Montplaisir. Wouldst thou love her the more were she in her proper shape?"

"Enough," shouted Linotte, sounding very like her father. "Berthe, you presume. And Léon, she's quite right: the peahen is our mother."

Léon laughed at that, hoarse and mirthless, his pale eyes like dirty ice above his curling lip. "A peahen! To be sure, sister. And my brother here's a moon-calf, my father an ogre, and you're the queen of the fairies. I'm grateful to you for breaking me out of the château d'If, Linotte, but my gratitude has limits."

Linotte, who was thoughtfully observing madame, did not seem to hear him. "This is a great pity," she said, and reached for madame, who screeched and pecked peevishly at her. "Peste! Will she let you handle her, Berthe?"

Well, I didn't know whether she would or not; nonetheless, I sat on the step beside her and slowly put out my hand. After bobbing at me a moment, she hopped onto my lap and folded her legs.

"Good. Now feel at the back of her head. Do you find a pin?"

Gingerly I searched among the sleek feathers, touched a hard, round, cold knob, nodded. "Bon," said Linotte. "Now. Draw it out slowly—it mustn't break. That's right. Now, you must kiss her to seal the change."

I looked up from the naked woman who was suddenly, magically, sprawled across my knees. "Surely monsieur her husband . . . " I glanced around for monsieur, found him billing and cooing with the Dove.

"'Tis best done by someone who loves her," said Linotte gently. "Quickly, now. Kiss her."

A touch on my cheek, a hoarse, parroty voice in my ear. "Yes, kiss me, Berthe. If it pleases you."

It did please me. Her mouth was very soft and her arms about my neck comforted even as they clung. I'd forgotten how loving she could be, how sweet it was to have her nestle in my bosom like a child. I kissed her lips and face, stroked her graying hair, and thanked le bon Dieu for her bony weight in my arms.

I'd have been content to go on doing those things for a while
longer, but almost at once Linotte slung the Wizard of Norroway's cloak from her own shoulders and draped it over madame.