But this morning was special in many ways, for one, because Maurice Talleyrand, at nearly seventy, dearly loved spending time like this with his nephews' children, two-year-old Charles-Angelique, Charlotte's child by his nephew Alexandre, and Edmond and Dorothee's daughter Pauline little 'Minette' who was nearly three and whom he called his guardian angel.

Maurice had no legitimate children of his own. Charlotte herself, mother of little Charles-Angelique, was the beloved adopted daughter of 'unknown parentage' whom Maurice had mysteriously brought back, nearly twenty years ago, from his annual trip to the spa at Bourbon-l'Archambault, and whom he and Madame Talleyrand had subsequently raised, treating her as their own and spoiling her as best they could. They dressed Charlotte in fancy costumes, Spanish, Polish, Neapolitan, gypsy attire, and threw fancy bals d'enfants that were all the talk of Paris, where the children learned to dance boleros, mazurkas, and tarantellas.

But in these twenty years, how everything had changed Maurice himself most of all. In those years of royalty, revolution, negotiation, diplomacy, and flight, he'd served so many governments: the French parliament under Louis XVI, the Directory, the Consulate and the Empire under Napoleon. He'd even served as Regent of France himself, until the restoration of Louis XVIII.

Meanwhile, the Game itself had had as many fluctuations of fortune. Maurice's erstwhile wife, the Princesse de Talleyrand, the former Catherine Noel Worlee Grand the White Queen was by now long gone. Nearly eight years ago, at a time when Talleyrand himself had been taken by surprise, stranded at the Congress of Vienna with other heads of state, all believing they were dividing up Europe, Napoleon had escaped from Elba and returned in triumph to Paris to rule for his infamous Hundred Days. Catherine herself had fled from Paris to London with her Spanish lover. Maurice now paid her a stipend never to return closer than twenty kilometers to Paris.

The Game was over, and with Maurice's help the Black Team had captured the preponderance of pieces. Napoleon was deposed and dead. And the Bourbons a family, as Maurice said, that had learned nothing and forgotten nothing was now restored to power under Louis XVIII, a king who was himself seduced and ruled by the Ultras, that party of sinister men who wished to turn back the clock and revoke the const.i.tution of France and all that the Revolution had stood for.

And now Maurice himself was put out to pasture, too paid off with the meaningless t.i.tle 'High Chancellor' and a stipend, but removed from politics, living here a two days' journey from Paris, at his palatial forty-thousand-acre estate in the Loire Valley, a gift, so many years ago, of the emperor Napoleon.

Put to pasture, perhaps but not alone. Dorothee de Courland, the former d.u.c.h.ess of Dino and one of the richest women in Europe, whom he'd married to his nephew Edmond when she was just sixteen, had remained Maurice's life companion ever since Vienna. Except, of course, for her brief public reconciliation with Edmond only months before Pauline was born.

But Maurice had come here to the kitchen gardens with the children this morning for another, more important, reason: desperation. He sat in the pony cart between the two children his natural daughter Pauline, 'Minette,' by his beloved 'Pet.i.te Marmousin,' Dorothee, the d.u.c.h.ess of Dino. And little Charles-Angelique, the child of his other natural daughter, Charlotte. And he experienced an emotion that he felt hard-pressed to describe, even within the confines of his own mind.

He'd felt it for days now, as if something frightening were about to happen, something life-altering, something strange: a feeling that was neither joy nor bitterness, a feeling more like a sense of loss.

And yet, it might prove to be exactly the opposite.

Maurice had felt pa.s.sion in the arms of many women, including his wife. And he felt a caring, almost avuncular love for Pauline's mother, Dorothee, now thirty, who'd shared his life and his bed these past eight years. But the sense of loss Maurice felt, as he knew very well, was for the one woman he'd ever deeply loved: Charlotte's mother.

Mireille.

He'd had to conceal from his darling Charlotte her mother's very existence, due to the dangers ever present even now that this round of the Game was over. He had only the vaguest sense of what it might have meant if Mireille had stayed, if she'd abandoned that mission that had so consumed her. If she'd forgotten all about the Montglane Ser-vice, and that b.l.o.o.d.y, horrible, life-destroying Game. What might his life have been like, if only she'd remained beside him? If they'd married? If they'd raised their two children together?

Their two children. There. It was out at last.

That was why Maurice had insisted, this morning, upon taking little Charles-Angelique and Minette for a drive in their pony cart to look at the plants and flowers. An ordinary outing with one's family something Maurice had never experienced, even when he himself had been a child. He wondered what it would feel like if these children were their children his and Mireille's.

He'd only felt an inkling of it once that single night, twenty years ago now, when Mireille had met him in the steamy baths at Bourbon-l'Archambault. That night of radiant joy for Maurice, when he'd seen their two children together for the very first time.

That night, twenty years ago, when Mireille had agreed at last to give over little Charlotte to Maurice, so the child might be raised by her natural father.

That night, twenty years ago, when Mireille had departed with their ten-year-old son, a boy whom Maurice had come to believe he would never see again on this earth.

But that belief had now been irrevocably dispelled, just two nights ago, when he'd received that letter by midnight post.

Maurice reached into his blouse and extracted the paper a letter dated three days ago, from Paris.

Sire: I must see you on a matter of extreme importance to us both.

I have just learned that you are not in residence at Paris.

I shall come to you at Valencay in three days' time.

Yours obediently, Charlot Here at Valencay, the lavish house with its many domes was built into the back of the hill so that the kitchens, instead of being dungeons, were flooded with light and looked out upon the rose gardens, the billowing branches laden with pastel petals.

Maurice Talleyrand sat there in a garden chair, just out-of-doors, where he could enjoy the scent of the roses and still observe the process under way inside. Though he'd seen Carme perform this magic so often in the past, he could almost describe it blindfolded. It had always been his favorite.

Maurice himself had spent many hours with many chefs in many kitchens. One of his greatest pleasures had always rested upon the planning and enjoyment of a meal, especially in his profession. For Maurice considered a well-planned meal the greatest lubricant to successful and well-oiled diplomacy. At the Congress of Vienna, his only message to his new master, Louis XVIII, back in Paris, had been, 'Here, we have more need of ca.s.seroles than of instructions.' And Carme had provided them all.

But tonight's meal, as Maurice well understood, might prove the most difficult and delicately balanced of his own long and distinguished career. Tonight for the first time in nearly twenty years he would see his son. He and Charlot, no longer a boy, would have many critical questions to ask, many things to reveal to each other.

But the only one who might have all the answers to even the most vital of their questions, as Maurice knew, was the man he himself had insisted upon bringing here to Valencay, the very moment he'd received that letter: A man who'd been close to Maurice's heart, had earned his trust, and knew many of those secrets. A man who, as a child, had been rejected by his own family yet gone on to stellar success just as Maurice had, on both counts. A man who'd carried out Maurice's missions behind the scenes these many years throughout the courts of Europe. A man who'd been closest to being Maurice's son in spirit, if not in flesh.

This was the man who was now entertaining the kitchen staff in the cuisine just beyond these windows, while preparing what they'd planned for the children's dinner.

He was the only one living, except Maurice himself, who knew the entire story.

It was the famous chef, Marie-Antoine, 'Antonin,' Carme.

The copper pot of melted sugar bubbled on the stove. Carme swirled it gently before the attentive eyes of the children and the kitchen staff of more than thirty, all riveted by the aura of the great matre d'htel, the master chef. With the aid of only young Kimberly, his apprentice from Brighton, Carme proceeded. He sprinkled a bit of tartar into the boiling molten sugar, and the bubbles grew large and porous, as if made of gla.s.s.

It was nearly ready.

Then the matre did something that always astonished those who were unfamiliar with the art of the ptissier. He plunged his bare hand into a nearby bowl of ice water that had been prepared for the occasion, then quickly plunged the hand into the volcanic sugar, then back once more into the ice water. The children squealed in horror, and many among the crowd of scullions gasped.

Then he took his sharp knife as well, plunged it into the molten sugar, then into the ice water, and it cracked from the knife. 'Bien!' Carme announced to his astonished audience. 'We are ready to spin!'

For more than an hour, the group watched in silence as the matre, with young Kimberly quickly handing him his implements, performed the work of a skilled surgeon, a master stonemason, and an architect all in one.

Scalding sugar flew from the copper spout to the waiting mould. It swirled around the inside of the mould, which had been precoated with fragrant nut-oil so that it would later release its cooled form. Then, when all the various moulds had been filled and the requisite shapes created, the master using the spinning forks he'd designed himself threw sparkling ribbons of sugar into the air like a Venetian gla.s.sblower, twisted them into the plaited ropes called cheveux d'anges, angels' hair, and cut them into long, columnar pieces.

Talleyrand watched through the windows from the rose garden. When Carme had finished the most difficult and dangerous part of the process, from which he must not be distracted, and the pieces were all hardened like rock crystal, Maurice entered the kitchen and took a seat near the children.

He knew so well, after Carme's years in his service, that the garrulous chef would not be able to resist this large audience for much longer, pontificating upon his skills and knowledge, despite the strain this exercise had already taken upon his clearly fragile health. And Maurice wanted to hear what he would say.

Maurice watched with the others as Carme began his a.s.sembly by melting the tips of each section against hot coals from the brazier, so it would stick to the other parts with its own sugary glue. But each time he bent over the coals and breathed the smoke, he could hardly suppress his coughing, the curse of his profession: black lung from constant enclosure with charcoal fumes. Kimberly poured some champagne, which Carme sipped as he worked. And as he a.s.sembled his myriad pieces, and little by little a complex and fascinating structure began to emerge, the chef at last cleared his throat to speak to the prince and his staff.

'You have all heard the tale of my life,' Carme began, 'how, like the story of Cendrillon, my journey went from the ashes of obscurity to the palaces of Europe. How, as a ragged child who'd been abandoned by my father at the gates of Paris, I was first discovered and put into the service of the noted ptissier, Bailly. And how I eventually came to serve beneath Prince Talleyrand's chef, the great Boucher, formerly of the house of Conde.'

The very mention of the name Boucher had always struck awe throughout the kitchens of Europe. For all knew that Boucher was once the renowned matre d'htel to the Prince de Conde, scion of one of the most powerful families in France.

Following in a long line of Conde chefs beginning with the almost legendary Vtel, who'd committed suicide by falling on his sword when the seafood failed to arrive in time for a banquet Boucher himself had for years trained apprenticed scullions and sous-chefs in the Conde kitchens at both Paris and Chantilly. These men later went on to become master chefs in the great houses of Europe and America including Thomas Jefferson's enslaved chef, James Hemings, who'd studied under Boucher's tutelage during the American diplomat's five-year tenure in France.

Then, when Louis-Joseph, the reigning Prince de Conde, had fled the country to lead an Austrian army against revolutionary France, it was Talleyrand who'd rescued his chef, Boucher, from the depredations of the mob and given him employment.

And then it was Boucher who'd discovered the young tourtier, the tart-maker, in Bailly's pastry shop and brought him to the attention of Monseigneur Talleyrand.

'Cinderella, yes indeed,' added the master chef. 'And with a name like mine, Carme short for quarantime, the forty days of Lent that begin with dies cinerum, Ash Wednesday one would imagine that I'd have been more interested in ashes and sackcloth, that is, in the ancient tradition of fasting, rather than the art of feasting!

'But from each of my great tutors and my patrons, I've discovered something most mysterious about the connection between these two things feasting and fasting and of their connection with fire. However, I get ahead of myself. First, it is of this creation that I am building now, for the prince and his guests and family tonight, that I wish to speak.'

Carme glanced toward Talleyrand, who nodded for him to continue. The chef rolled out a parchment with strange designs drawn upon it of arcs and lines, and he unmolded one of the sugar forms upon it, in the shape of an octagon perhaps one meter in diameter. Then one by one, he unmolded progressively smaller octagons and placed each atop the last, like stair steps. Lastly, with his tongs, he plucked up one of his twisted columns and touched it briefly to the coals, before resuming both his a.s.sembly process and his story.

'It was from Bailly, the master ptissier, that I first learned the wonderful art of the architecture of cuisine,' he said, 'for he let me study by night and copy those designs of ancient buildings he'd borrowed from the print rooms of the Louvre. I came to understand that the fine arts are five in number, to wit: painting, sculpture, poetry, music, and architecture, whose highest expression is confectionary. I learned to draw, with the steady and skilled hand of a seasoned architect and geometrician, those structures of the ancients Greece, Rome, Egypt, India, China that one day I would create as architectural masterpieces in spun sugar, like this one.

'This is the greatest of the early structures, seminal to all that inspired Vitruvius. It is called the Tower of Winds, a famous tower of eight sides in Athens, containing a planetarium and an elaborate water clock, which Andronicus of Cyrrhus built one hundred years before Christ, and which is still standing today. Vitruvius tells us, "Some have held that there are only four winds... But more careful investigators tell us that there are eight." Eight: a sacred number, for it lies at the root of the most ancient temple designs of Persia and India in deep antiquity.'

Everyone watched closely, as the matre's fingers flew back and forth across the board with those architectural components he'd miraculously crafted himself. When he had finished the structure, it stood two meters high from the table and towered over all, an octagonal tower with astonishing detail, including grillework at the windows and the designs of frescoes around the top, representing the personae of the eight winds. Everyone in the room applauded, including the prince himself.

When the staff had returned to their duties, Talleyrand escorted the master chef into the gardens. 'Yours is truly a remarkable achievement, as always,' Talleyrand said. 'But I have missed something, I fear, my dear Antonin. For just before you began your magical architectural reconstruction of what must surely be one of the most remarkable structures of early Greece, you'd mentioned some mystery that prompted you to build the Tour des Vents. It was something, I recall, to do with feast and famine with Lenten sackcloth and ash? Though I confess, I still do not make the connection.'

'Yes, your highness,' said Carme, pausing only for a moment to look his patron and mentor in the eye. For they both knew what Talleyrand was secretly asking. 'Vitruvius himself shows us how by erecting a gnomon to track the sun and by using a compa.s.s to construct a simple circle we can give birth to the octagon, the most sacred structure, as the ancients knew, for it is the divine intermediary between circle and square.

'In China, the octagon is the Ba'gua, the oldest form of divination. In India, the square of eight is called the Ashtapada 'the spider' the oldest board game that we know of. It is also the base of the mandala upon which they construct the Hindu and Persian fire temples. Less known, but surely known to Vitruvius, is that these represent the earliest forms of the altar where the sacrifice was made, where things could be 'altered' where heaven was brought down to earth in ancient times, like lightning from the sky. During the eight fire festivals that took place each year, the fire sacrifice to G.o.d and the feast of the people were both one.'

He added, 'That is why the center of the house, the center of the temple, and the center of the city itself were called the focus that is, the hearth. We chefs are all blessed. For to be a chef or magus, a master of fire, of the feast and sacrifice, was once the holiest profession.'

But Carme could not go on. Despite the fresh air in the garden, or perhaps because of it, his chronic cough had returned to grasp him by the throat once more.

'You sacrifice yourself to that holy profession and those coals of yours, my friend,' observed Talleyrand, raising a hand to call for a steward, who ran from the house with another coupe of champagne and gave it to the chef. When the servant had left, Talleyrand added, 'You know why I have brought you here, of course?'

Carme nodded, still sipping the champagne as he tried to recover his breath.

'That's why I hastened to come, sire though perhaps I ought not to have, for as you see, I am ill,' he managed to choke out at last. 'It's the woman, is it not? She has come back, somehow the woman who came to Paris late that night, so many years ago, when I was first sous-chef under Boucher at your palace, the Htel Galliffet on the rue de Bac. That woman who later appeared at Bourbon-l'Archambault, with Charlotte. It's the woman for whom you've had me collect all those pieces. Mireille-'

'We must not speak of it openly, my trusted friend,' Talleyrand interrupted. 'You and I are the only people on earth who know the story. And though we must share it with someone quite soon tonight, in fact I wish you to save your strength for that encounter. You are the only one who may be in a position to help us, for as you are aware, you're the only one I have trusted to know the entire truth.'

Carme nodded to indicate that he was once more prepared to serve the man he had always referred to as his greatest patron. And much more.

'Is the woman herself expected at Valencay tonight?' asked Carme.

'No. It is her son who arrives,' said Talleyrand, placing his hand upon the chef's shoulder with unaccustomed familiarity. Then, after a long breath, he added softly, 'That is her son and mine.'

Maurice wanted to weep as he regarded his son for only the second time in his life. In a rush, it brought back the memory of all the bitterness that had followed their parting, so many years ago, at Bourbon-l'Archambault.

Now that the household had been fed and the children put to bed, Maurice sat and watched until the sunset had seeped into lavender twilight his favorite time of the day. Yet his mind was filled with a thousand warring emotions.

Carme had left them alone to speak, but agreed he would soon rejoin them, along with a small cask of the aged Madeira and some of the answers they both were seeking.

Now Maurice gazed across the small garden table that the chef had provisioned for them beneath the boughs of an enormous linden tree within the park. He studied the romantic-looking young man that his own pa.s.sion had produced more than thirty years ago. It was an astonishingly painful experience.

Charlot, just come from Paris and still in his riding clothes, had only taken time to brush off the dust from the road and to put on a clean shirt and cravat. His coppery hair was pulled back onto his nape in a tidy queue, from which only a few unruly wisps had managed to escape. Even this small thing was so evocative of his mother's sweet-smelling ma.s.s of strawberry locks, in which Maurice could still remember burying his face whenever they had made love.

Before she'd left him.

But in all other details, as Maurice forced his thoughts back, he saw that Charlot more closely resembled his natural father: Those cold blue eyes that seemed to a.s.sure one that they would reveal none of their owner's innermost thoughts. That high brow, the strong cleft chin and retrousse nose were all marks of the long, n.o.ble line of the Talleyrands of Perigord. And those surprisingly sensual lips it was a mouth that bespoke the born connoisseur of fine wines, beautiful women, all the voluptuary arts.

But his son, as Maurice had quickly discerned, could be none of those things.

When it came to bloodlines, that was why Maurice had followed Charlot's earlier request when as a mere boy Charlot had suggested that his father arrange to marry Charlotte into Talleyrand's own family that she might not share her brother's fate. Thanks largely to the folly of his parents in not marrying, as an illegitimate child Charlot would never hold rights of primogeniture, even to inherit his father's own estates. Indeed for there was little Maurice could do about it under French law Charlot's physical features would likely be his chief inheritance through the n.o.ble line of Talleyrand-Perigord.

But even Charlot's features themselves, Maurice realized, seemed to rebel against their inborn disposition. His mouth might suggest overt sensuality, but the set of it showed that inner determination that had manifested itself in bringing him here, from whatever distant land, for some critical purpose, a purpose that, from Charlot's expression, was clearly not his mother's, but his own.

And those eyes that at first glance had seemed so icy and self-contained. At their indigo depths Maurice discerned some secret, a mystery that, it was also clear, he'd traveled this distance prepared to share with his father, and no one else.

It was this alone that gave Maurice his first glimmer of hope that this visit, this reunion, perhaps after all would not prove to be what he'd been imagining and fearing, these past twenty years. And Maurice knew it was time for him to disclose something, too.

'My son,' he began, 'Antonin Carme will soon return to join us, as he must. For during those years when I had to perform certain critical tasks for your mother, Antonin was the man I trusted with my very life with all our lives.

'Before he returns, though, while we are alone, let us speak frankly. It is long overdue. In my capacity as your natural father, I seek and beg your forgiveness. If I were not of the age I am, nor the disposition, I would go down upon one knee, at this very moment, and kiss your hand to implore you-'

But he stopped, for Charlot had leapt up and come around the table. He drew his father to his feet and kissed his two hands instead. Then he embraced him.

'I see what you are feeling, Father,' he told him. 'But you may rest in a.s.surance, I am not here for what you believe.'

Talleyrand looked at him, at first in shock, then with a guarded smile. 'I'd quite forgotten that skill of yours,' he admitted, 'your ability to read thoughts or to prophesy.'

'I'd nearly forgotten it myself,' Charlot said, returning his smile. 'But I've not come hither to seek my sister Charlotte, as you seem to be fearing at this moment. No, as far as I am concerned for I can see that you love Charlotte dearly and want to protect her she needn't know anything about us at all. Nor need she, in future, ever have anything to do with the Montglane Service, or the Game.'

'But I thought that the Game had ended!' cried Talleyrand. 'It cannot begin again. To prevent it, Mireille permitted little Charlotte to be raised by me, where she'd be safe. Away from the service, away from the pieces away from the Game! And away from the Black Queen her mother for that was the prophecy.'

'The prophecy was wrong,' said Charlot. He was no longer smiling, though he still held his father's hands in his own. 'It appears that the Game has begun again.'

'Again!' cried Talleyrand in horror. Then he lowered his voice, though there was no one about to hear. 'But it was you, Charlot, who first told the prophecy. "The Game will only begin again," you said it had been foretold, "when the opposite is born from the ashes." How can you still claim your sister is safe if it's begun anew? You know that Charlotte's birthday, October 4, is just opposite that of your mother's the Black Queen. Does that not mean, if a new Game should begin, that Charlotte would become the White Queen just as we've all believed these many years?'

'I was mistaken,' said Charlot softly. 'The Game has begun again. White has made the first move and an important Black piece has surfaced.'

'But...' muttered Talleyrand. 'I don't understand.'

As he saw Carme head back across the lawn, Talleyrand sank to his seat once more, looked up at Charlot, and added, 'With the a.s.sistance of Antonin Carme inside those households and palaces, we'd collected nearly all of the pieces from Russia and Britain! My wife, Madame Grand, the White Queen, is decommissioned, her forces disbanded or dead! Mireille's been in hiding for years, where no one can find her or the pieces. Yet you say it's begun again? How could White make a move, and yet Charlotte still be safe? What important Black piece could the other team possibly possess that we haven't captured?'

'That is precisely what I've come here to discover from you and Carme,' said Charlot, kneeling beside his father on the gra.s.s. 'But I know it's true, for I have seen it myself. I've seen the new White Queen, just a slip of a girl, but with great power behind her. I've held in my hands the valuable chess piece the White Team has captured, and which she now possesses. That piece is the Black Queen of the Montglane Service.'

'Impossible!' cried Talleyrand. 'That's the piece that Antonin brought back with his own hands from Alexander of Russia! It belonged to the Abbess of Montglane herself. Alexander had promised to secure it for your mother, Mireille, long before he ever became tsar. And he kept that promise!'

'I know,' said Charlot. 'I helped my mother hide it when it was first retrieved from Russia. But the one the White Team has seems to have been hidden longer. That's what I've come hither to discover in hopes that Carme might help us find a clue as to how there could possibly be two Black Queens.'

'But if the Game has begun anew, as you say,' said Talleyrand, 'if the White Team has suddenly surfaced with this powerful piece and made their first move, why did they take you into their confidence? Why did they show it to you?'

'Don't you see, Father?' said Charlot. 'That's what was wrong with my interpretation of the prophecy. The White Team has arisen from the ashes of its opposite. But not in the way I'd imagined. I couldn't see it, for it involved me, myself.'

When Talleyrand still looked mystified, Charlot added, 'Father, I am the new White King.'

The Four Seasons.

Seminate aurum vestrum in terram albam foliatum. "Sow your gold in the white foliated earth." Alchemy (often called "Celestial Agriculture') borrows numerous a.n.a.logies from farming...the epigram...stresses the need to observe "as in a mirror" the lesson of the grain of wheat...the excellent treatise (Secretum) published in Leyden in 1599...compared the operations of wheat farming in detail to the operations of the alchemical Work.

Stanislas Klossowski de Rola, The Golden Game.

We were out of time, according to Nim. The enemy whoever he might be now had the inside track. I'd placed my missing mother and the rest of us in danger. And all because I'd been a complete nitwit and ignored the warning signals, though they'd been flashing as brightly as semiph.o.r.es on the tarmac, as Key would say.