THE VALOIS SAGA: Queen Margot, Chicot de Jester & The Forty-Five Guardsmen (Historical Novels). Alexandre DumasЧитать онлайн книгу.
do what we can. Is the chamber of sacrifice prepared?”
“Yes, madame.”
“Let us go there.”
Réné lighted a taper made of strange substances, the odor of which, both insidious and penetrating as well as nauseating and stupefying, betokened the introduction of many elements; holding this taper up, he preceded Catharine into the cell.
Catharine selected from amongst the sacrificial instruments a knife of blue steel, while Réné took up one of the two fowls that were huddling in one corner, with anxious, golden eyes.
“How shall we proceed?”
“We will examine the liver of the one and the brain of the other. If these two experiments lead to the same result we must be convinced, especially if these results coincide with those we got before.”
“Which shall we begin with?”
“With the liver.”
“Very well,” said Réné, and he fastened the bird down to two rings attached to the little altar, so that the creature, turned on its back, could only struggle, without stirring from the spot.
Catharine opened its breast with a single stroke of her knife; the fowl uttered three cries, and, after some convulsions, expired.
“Always three cries!” said Catharine; “three signs of death.”
She then opened the body.
“And the liver inclining to the left, always to the left — a triple death, followed by a downfall. ’T is terrible, Réné.”
“We must see, madame, whether the presages from the second will correspond with those of the first.”
Réné unfastened the body of the fowl from the altar and tossed it into a corner; then he went to the other, which, foreseeing what its fate would be by its companion’s, tried to escape by running round the cell, and finding itself pent up in a corner flew over Réné‘s head, and in its flight extinguished the magic taper Catharine held.
“You see, Réné, thus shall our race be extinguished,” said the queen; “death shall breathe upon it, and destroy it from the face of the earth! Yet three sons! three sons!” she murmured, sorrowfully.
Réné took from her the extinguished taper, and went into the adjoining room to relight it.
On his return he saw the hen hiding its head in the tunnel.
“This time,” said Catharine, “I will prevent the cries, for I will cut off the head at once.”
And accordingly, as soon as the hen was bound, Catharine, as she had said, severed the head at a single blow; but in the last agony the beak opened three times, and then closed forever.
“Do you see,” said Catharine, terrified, “instead of three cries, three sighs? Always three! — they will all three die. All these spirits before they depart count and call three. Let us now see the prognostications in the head.”
She severed the bloodless comb from the head, carefully opened the skull, and laying bare the lobes of the brain endeavored to trace a letter formed in the bloody sinuosities made by the division of the central pulp.
“Always so!” cried she, clasping her hands; “and this time clearer than ever; see here!”
Réné approached.
“What is the letter?” asked Catharine.
“An H,” replied Réné.
“How many times repeated?”
Réné counted.
“Four,” said he.
“Ay, ay! I see it! that is to say, HENRY IV. Oh,” she cried, flinging the knife from her, “I am accursed in my posterity!”
She was terrible, that woman, pale as a corpse, lighted by the dismal taper, and clasping her bloody hands.
“He will reign!” she exclaimed with a sigh of despair; “he will reign!”
“He will reign!” repeated Réné, plunged in meditation.
Nevertheless, the gloomy expression of Catharine’s face soon disappeared under the light of a thought which unfolded in the depths of her mind.
“Réné,” said she, stretching out her hand toward the perfumer without lifting her head from her breast, “Réné, is there not a terrible history of a doctor at Perugia, who killed at once, by the aid of a pomade,7 his daughter and his daughter’s lover?”
“Yes, madame.”
“And this lover was”—
“Was King Ladislas, madame.”
“Ah, yes!” murmured she; “have you any of the details of this story?”
“I have an old book which mentions it,” replied Réné.
“Well, let us go into the other room, and you can show it me.”
They left the cell, the door of which Réné closed after him.
“Has your majesty any other orders to give me concerning the sacrifices?”
“No, Réné, I am for the present sufficiently convinced. We will wait till we can secure the head of some criminal, and on the day of the execution you must arrange with the hangman.”
Réné bowed in token of obedience, then holding his candle up he let the light fall on the shelves where his books stood, climbed on a chair, took one down, and handed it to the queen.
Catharine opened it.
“What is this?” she asked; “‘On the Method of Raising and Training Tercels, Falcons, and Gerfalcons to be Courageous, Valiant, and always ready for Flight.’”
“Ah! pardon me, madame, I made a mistake. That is a treatise on venery written by a scientific man of Lucca for the famous Castruccio Castracani. It stood next the other and was bound exactly like it. I took down the wrong one. However, it is a very precious volume; there are only three copies extant — one belongs to the library at Venice, the other was bought by your grandfather Lorenzo and was offered by Pietro de Médicis to King Charles VIII., when he visited Florence, and the third you have in your hands.”
“I venerate it,” said Catharine, “because of its rarity, but as I do not need it, I return it to you.”
And she held out her right hand to Réné to receive the book which she wished, while with her left hand she returned to him the one which she had first taken.
This time Réné was not mistaken; it was the volume she wished. He stepped down, turned the leaves for a moment, and gave it to her open.
Catharine went and sat down at a table. Réné placed the magic taper near her and by the light of its bluish flame she read a few lines in an undertone:
“Good!” said she, shutting the book; “that is all I wanted to know.”
She rose from her seat, leaving the book on the table, but bearing away the idea which had germinated in her mind and would ripen there.
Réné waited respectfully, taper in hand, until the queen, who seemed about to retire, should give him fresh orders or ask fresh questions.
Catharine, with her head bent and her finger on her mouth, walked up and down several times without speaking.
Then suddenly stopping before Réné, and fixing on him her eyes, round and piercing like a hawk’s:
“Confess you have made for her some love-philter,” said she.
“For whom?” asked Réné, starting.
“La Sauve.”
“I,