Finally something was happening. The cavalry and the marines drew sabers and cutlasses respectively, and raised them up to form an arch of steel above the red carpet. Étienne nodded to a pair of servants, who drew open the ballroom’s immense doors, letting in a blast of snowy air; Étienne screwed up his face and stepped back half a pace; his mother the duchess bowed her head and reached up with her free hand to prevent her lace headdress from being sheared off. Outside, the mud-spattered buttocks of the footman could be seen emerging from the door of the white carriage, straining and jolting, as he seemed to be helping someone out who required much help.
Eliza’s view of these proceedings got better and better, for she was being impelled toward the head of the receiving-line by a kind of social peristalsis. Even Dukes and Duchesses, in this circumstance, gave precedence to Eliza, who had come to be seen as an honorary de Lavardac. No one would admit her to the line, but all insisted that she move ahead. And so she kept advancing towards the open doors, and got a very clear view of what came out of that carriage.
It was not a Duke. The word “wretch” came to mind, for this man could barely stand up, and if he owned a periwig, he’d lost it, or forgotten it in the coach. His thinning hair was short and dark, and shellacked with sweat and grease, and his face beneath it was so pale it looked almost green. He could not stand or walk without assistance, and yet he would on no account let go of some great burdensome item of luggage: a sort of strong-box. It had a handle on either end. One of the footmen supported the wretch on his right side. The wretch, then, kept his left hand clenched around one of the strong-box’s handles. The other footman had grabbed the box’s opposite handle just in time to keep it from falling out of the carriage door. And so they formed up three abreast: footman, wretch, footman, and began an ungainly progress along the red carpet.
Eliza had now come close enough to the doors that she could hear Étienne saying to his mother, “Is that Pierre de Jonzac?” Instantly she saw that the wretch was none other. For the filthy, torn, and stained clothes that he was wearing had once been a naval officer’s uniform. And if in her mind’s eye she cleaned the wretch up, mended his clothes, and endowed him with thirty pounds more weight, a few pints of blood, and a decent periwig, the result was very like Monsieur de Jonzac.
Seeing this, Eliza developed in her mind a theory of what was going on here, which was wrong; but it was not too unlike everyone else’s theories, which would govern their actions until they knew more. The theory was that the duc d’Arcachon was still inside the white carriage, getting freshened up for the party, and that he had sent his aide de Jonzac out ahead of him bearing a treasure-chest full of booty, justly and valiantly won during some dire and exhausting combat in the Mediterranean, which was about to be presented to the King of France. It even occurred to Eliza that the Duke, finding himself unexpectedly in possession of a small mass of enchanted gold, rather than a large amount of silver pigs, had galloped straight through Lyon without stopping, and brought it here directly. Risky—but fantastically dashing, and almost enough to make her admire the man. She turned round to catch the eye of Father Édouard de Gex, who was not far away; and he had come to a similar phant’sy, and his gaze was already fixed on that strong-box. Someone next to him was, however, looking back at Eliza; she glanced up to find herself spiked on the unreadable glare of Louis Anglesey, Earl of Upnor.
De Jonzac, the footmen, and the chest had covered two-thirds of the distance to the door. As they drew closer to the light, they looked more and more pitiable. The footmen had been standing on the back of the carriage for a week and their faces and livery were coated with road-grime. Beneath the gray dirt, their flesh was ruddy from cold; but de Jonzac was gray through and through. His lips had disappeared, being of the same hue as the surrounding flesh, and they moved unceasingly, as if he were trying to say something. But if any sound came forth, Eliza could not hear it from this distance. Étienne greeted de Jonzac, but got no recognition or answer. He and the duchess moved out of the way so that this unwieldy parade could fit through the door. No doubt remained in Eliza’s mind now that something was terribly awry; but most of the others in the room were still working on the wrong theory. This included even poor Étienne, who sensed that something was desperately the matter, but was nailed to his post by etiquette. He turned towards the white carriage to greet his father, who should emerge next; but the door, hanging open, revealed that the vehicle was empty. A stable-hand slammed it shut and pounded on it twice, and the driver cracked his little whip, compelling the half-dead horses to make one last, brief journey to the stable-yard.
“Father Édouard!” Eliza said, raising her voice to be heard above the murmur of astonishment running through the guests. “Please tend to Monsieur de Jonzac; he is grievously wounded.” Eliza’s nose had confirmed this, for de Jonzac and the footmen had shuffled past her by now, leaving in their wake a scent of rotting flesh. De Jonzac had gangrene. The footmen, half deranged from exhaustion, only wanted some place to lay de Jonzac out on the floor; instead they had staggered into the midst of a formal Court ball. They were dumbfounded, lost.
De Gex had got a whiff of it, too. He stepped out briskly and got in front of the footmen. “Let him down. It is all right. Gently down—” (To the majordomo:) “Monsieur! Bring blankets, and a couch, or something that can be used as a litter. Have someone else summon a surgeon.” (To de Jonzac, now lying on the polished floor, his head on the palm of de Gex’s hand:) “What is that you say? I cannot hear you, Monsieur—pray save your strength, it can wait.”
De Gex seemed to have matters so well in hand that Eliza decided to go and inform Étienne (whose view of de Gex and de Jonzac had been blocked by a moving wall of inquisitive courtiers) as to what was going on. She found him still paralyzed by an unsolvable conundrum of etiquette; for the moment the Duke’s white carriage had moved out of the way, the King’s golden one had rattled forward to take its place, and even now the door was being opened. For none of the members of the King’s entourage had the slightest idea, yet, that things had gone all wrong. And it was too late to tell them now, for Louis XIV was standing at the head of the carpet, and the Marquise de Maintenon was on his arm.
Eliza spun around and said “The King!,” which was the one word that could have dispersed the crowd around de Jonzac and de Gex. The receiving line re-formed, though it made a wide detour around the stricken man on the floor, and the two who were occupied near him: de Gex, who was kneeling on the floor and bending close to hear de Jonzac, and the Earl of Upnor, who kept undoing latches on the strong-box, only to find that there was always another.
All of this became obvious to the King in an instant as the crowd melted away from his line of sight like frost in a sun-beam. He was the only person in the Hôtel Arcachon who had the freedom to behave normally. For in the presence of the King, no one other than the King could be acknowledged. Hence, for example, the unnatural posture of Étienne d’Arcachon, who stood fixedly with his back to the scene within, as if nothing at all was happening. The King, though, had eyes only for de Jonzac. He got half a pace ahead of de Maintenon, then turned to her and said a few private words, taking his leave of her with utmost courtesy. Then he strode forward, turning to Étienne and the Duchess as he went by, and exchanging a word with each: monsieur; madame. Into the ballroom he came, sweeping his cape from his shoulders, and in the same motion he whirled it down to cover the shivering body of Pierre de Jonzac. The King then took a step back and posed there, body erect, one foot slightly ahead of the other, toe pointed and slightly turned out, head inclined toward his injured subject, and inquired of de Gex: “What does he say?”
“If you please, your majesty,” said de Gex. For some time he had been holding up a hand for quiet. But the arrival of the King had silenced the room as nothing else could have. De Gex now bent very close, so that de Jonzac’s lips were practically nuzzling his ear, and repeated what he heard:
“The deed…you are about to witness…was done for th
e love of a woman…whose name…I will not say…for she knows who she is…and it was done by…‘Half-Cocked’ Jack Shaftoe, L’Emmerdeur, the King of the Vagabonds, Ali Zaybak: Quicksilver!”
“What on earth is he talking about?” asked the King. “What deed?” And it was well that he said something, as everyone else was struck dumb, so mortified were they by the mention of the forbidden name in this, of all places!
Upnor had continued to worry at the hasps of the strong-box the whole time—somewhat improperly, but then, he was merely an Englishman. Finally he got it open. He flipped the lid back with a thud and a clatter, practically thrusting his face into the cavity in his eagerness to get at the treasure within. But in the next moment he recoiled as if a cobra had leapt out of the box. He actually let out a long, incoherent yell. A few people nearby screamed, and looked away.
“Ladies, and persons of a sensitive disposition, will avert their eyes,” said the King, who retreated a few steps.
Étienne de Lavardac, Madame la duchesse d’Arcachon, Madame la duchesse d’Oyonnax, Monsieur le comte d’Avaux, and a few others drew closer to see what it was. De Gex, who was closest, leaned over the top of the chest and reached into it with his right hand, making the sign of the cross, and muttering a sentence in Latin. Then he rose to his feet and hauled out a severed human head.
“Louis-François de Lavardac, duc d’Arcachon, has come home,” he announced. “May he rest in peace.”
NOW, AT THIS MOMENT Eliza was far from clear-headed; yet she was the most clear-headed person in the room, with the possible exception of the late duke. Though she was still in a lot of trouble—much more trouble than three minutes ago, in fact—she knew two things absolutely. One was that the duc d’Arcachon was dead. Her mission in life had, therefore, been accomplished. The other was that Jack Shaftoe was alive, had redeemed himself, and loved her. Best of all, he loved her from a tremendous distance, which made being loved by him ever so much less inconvenient. And so even as people were still gasping and screaming and fainting all around her, Eliza was moving toward the duchesse d’Oyonnax, who, aside from Eliza, was the coolest person in the room. She looked almost amused. Eliza fished the little green phial out of her waistband. She approached Oyonnax from the side, reached out with her left hand, grasped that of Oyonnax, and drew it towards her, twisting it palm up. With her right hand Eliza pressed the phial down on Oyonnax’s palm. The Duchess’s fingers curled about it involuntarily, before she knew what it was, and Eliza got clear.
Her attention—and that of almost everyone else in the room—turned to d’Avaux, who had approached the King, and received permission to speak. It was a wonder he had sought permission, for he was in such a rage that he was almost slavering. He kept looking back at Eliza, which gave Eliza the idea that it might be best for her to draw closer and listen in.
“Your majesty!” cried d’Avaux. “By your majesty’s leave, I say that while the perpetrator of this atrocious crime may be far away, the first cause and inspiration of it is close by, yea, within the reach of your majesty’s sword almost, so that your majesty may have satisfaction presently—for she, the woman in whose name L’Emmerdeur committed this murder, is none other than—” and he raised his hand before his face, index finger extended, like a pistol-duellist in the moment before he levels the weapon at his foe. His gaze was rapt on Eliza. The fatal finger began to descend toward her heart. She reached up and caught that digit, however, while it was still directed toward the magnificent Le Brun ceiling, and bent it back sharply enough to make d’Avaux inhale sharply—which meant he could not finish his sentence. “Merci beaucoup, monsieur,” she whispered, and executed a full three-hundred-sixty-degree pirouette that brought her face to face with the King while relegating d’Avaux to the background. Her hand was behind the small of her back now, still gripping d’Avaux’s finger. She had carried it off—or so she hoped—in such a manner that an observer, still in shock over the appearance of the severed head of the birthday boy, might think that d’Avaux had courteously offered her his hand, and she had gratefully accepted it.
“By your leave, your majesty, I have heard it said that the rules of etiquette dictate ladies before gentlemen; was I deceived?”
“In no way, mademoiselle,” said the King.
“I tell you, it was—” began d’Avaux; but the King silenced him with a flick of the eyes, and Eliza reinforced the message with some torque on the finger.
“Moreover, it is said that the laws of Heaven place love before hate, and peace before war; is it true?”
“Pourquoi non, mademoiselle?”
“Then as a lady who stands before your majesty on an errand of love, I beg precedence over this gentleman, my dear friend and mentor, Monsieur le comte d’Avaux, whose red and angry visage tells me he is on some errand of hateful retribution.”
“So terrible is the news to-night that it would bring me, if not pleasure, then perhaps a few moments’ diversion from what is so unpleasant, to grant you precedence over Monsieur d’Avaux; provided that his errand is not of an urgent nature.”
“Oh, not at all, your majesty, what I have to say will be every bit as useful to you in a few minutes’ time as it is now. I insist that Mademoiselle la comtesse de la Zeur go ahead.” D’Avaux finally worried his finger free and backed off a step.
“Your majesty,” said Eliza, “I grieve for le duc. I trust he has gone to his reward. I pray that L’Emmerdeur will get what he deserves for what he has done. But I cannot, I will not, allow the so-called King of the Vagabonds the additional satisfaction of disrupting the peaceful conduct of your majesty’s household, that is to say La France; and so, notwithstanding my feelings of shock and grief at this moment, I beg your leave to accept the proposal of marriage that was tendered to me earlier this evening by Étienne de Lavardac—now, duc d’Arcachon.”
“Then marry him with all the blessings a King can bestow,” the King answered.
And in this moment Eliza was startled by a most unexpected rush of sound from all about her. In any other circumstance she’d have recognized it instantly. But here, given all that had happened, she had to look about and verify it with her eyes: the guests were applauding. It was not, of course, a raucous ovation. Half of them were openly weeping. Many of the ladies had fled the room. Madame la duchesse d’Arcachon was being carried out unconscious, and Eliza’s unwitting fiancé only remained in the room because someone was obliged to greet Madame la marquise de Maintenon. But for all that, the remaining guests produced a spontaneous patter of applause. It was not that they had forgotten the Duke’s head—that was unlikely—but that they found something stirring in how this scene of shock and horror had been adroitly reversed. The applause was an expression of defiance. Eliza, understanding this belatedly, acknowledged it with a diffident curtsey. Presently Étienne drifted to her side—someone had explained matters to him—and took her hand, and then the applause welled up again, for just a moment. Then it died abruptly and was replaced by altogether more fitting sounds of sobbing, wailing, and praying. Eliza was distracted for a moment by a glimpse of a rider out in the courtyard wheeling his mount around with great panache, and galloping out into Paris. It was the Earl of Upnor.
Then she attended to the King, who was speaking: “Father Édouard. We came together here for a small celebration. But the only celebration that is fitting, on an evening such as this one, is that of the Mass.”
“Of course, sire.”
“We will observe a funeral Mass for Monsieur le duc d’Arcachon. Following that, a wedding for the new duc and Mademoiselle la comtesse de la Zeur.”
“Yes, sire,” said de Gex. “By your majesty’s leave, the family chapel has already been made ready for a wedding; shall we perform the funeral here, where there is more room, and move to the chapel thereafter?”
King Louis XIV made a tiny nod of assent, and then turned his gaze on d’Avaux, who had not yet been dismissed. “Monsieur le comte,” said the King, “you were about to voice an opinion a
s to the identity of the woman who inspired the heinous murder of my cousin?”
“By your majesty’s leave,” d’Avaux said, “If we interpret L’Emmerdeur’s statement literally, it will only amount to something banal. I have no doubt that he was merely trying to impress some whore he met once in Paris.” And he could not prevent his eyes from flicking at Eliza for just a moment as he said this; but then he returned his attention to the King. “I was, rather, attempting to make a more general statement about all the enemies of France, and what moves them.” He backed away one step, turned, and swept his arm up and out towards a corner of the painted ceiling, where Pandora was opening up her Box (in—come to think of it—an odd reminder of the box-opening scene that had just played out on the ballroom floor) to release a flood of demonic Vices. Pandora had been painted, as everyone knew, to resemble Mary, the usurper Queen of England. The foremost of the Vices rushing out of her box was green-eyed Envy, who had been made to resemble Sophie of Hanover. It was to Envy that d’Avaux now drew the King’s attention. “That, your majesty, is the lady love, not only of L’Emmerdeur—who is after all a nobody—but also of all the Dutch and English. Envy is what inspires their chivalrous acts.”