"You do not play, Madame?" the Comtesse de Soissons raised an eyebrow at me as I offered my salutation. She was dressed in pale blue satin, her decolletage ornamented by a quadruple strand of heavy pearls, set apart at intervals with diamonds. She sat at the head of the largest of the ivory inlaid gaming tables in the gilded salon, and around the feet of her brocade armchair, over a dozen little dogs slept or wrangled at her feet. To simplify the accounting, the players were using gold instead of counters, and tens of thousands of ecus lay heaped about on the tables. As the little piles changed hands, men and women wept or exulted; stoicism was not usually the fashion among gamesters. Only the Marquis de Dangeau sat quietly, his eyes lynxlike as he surveyed the players and shuffled with a practiced hand. He was one of those who made his living at the tables, although it was not a thing to be said aloud; he played with strategy, not pa.s.sion, and needed no ruses, no cards in the sleeves, no marked decks. Here and there men of lesser rank, bankers and financiers, stood beside their patrons, ready to guarantee their bets. Yet a man with good clothes and some appearance of social standing was welcome to sit at the tables if he could wager the immense sums required with the easeful insouciance of a born aristocrat.

"Oh, no, Madame, I enjoy admiring the brilliant new kinds of costumes that people wear nowadays." In the corner, a man shrieked, tore at his hair, and left the room precipitously. "In my day," I observed, "the civility of society was not so far advanced as now; there a man would call out the victor. The streets were slick with blood outside of the card salon of a n.o.bleman of rank."

"How very wise of our King to forbid dueling, in that case," replied the countess, "because in that manner the pleasure of our games is greatly enhanced and the continuity of the players a.s.sured."

"Wise, indeed," I agreed in the same bland tone.

"The marquise is being terribly discreet," the Comtesse de Longueval broke in, anxious to preserve her part in the conversation. "She who can read the future can read the cards ahead of time and wisely refrains from joining our games. Isn't that so?" She turned to me for confirmation.

"It is a point of honor with me." I nodded austerely. As if it would be for anyone else. But the gossip I heard as I wandered among the tables with the other oglers of rank was worth more than a winning bet to me. It helped me elaborate the often-meaningless images I saw in the gla.s.s.

Madame de Soissons bestowed an ironic smile on me and returned to her game. Across the room, I recognized the Duc de Vivonne, wastrel, center of my sister's life. He was resplendent in a heavy green brocade coat, playing ba.s.sette at the same table with his d.u.c.h.esse.

From the tables floated up a woman's voice: "And then the King was so angry, he called off the party-"

"All because of the favors for the ladies?"

"It was their own fault for rushing to the market stalls in the palais to find out how much he had spent on the fans. A king's favor is supposed to be beyond price-"

"Well, I heard that he got them very inexpensively, and that they were bone and not ivory." Useless. I pa.s.sed on. The tall, gilt-paneled room seemed suddenly very hot to me. I'll sweat off my powder, I thought. I can't have them see me all pink. I glanced at my reflection in one of the large mirrors that decorated the room. Something eerie made me feel sick and dizzy inside. The card players in the mirror were not the same as those in the room. The tables were arranged differently, and the men were not in baggy breeches, ribbon-bedecked jackets, and long dark wigs. The women did not have billowing, folded-back sleeves and under-sleeves. The strange company were wearing tight, rich clothing, festooned with lace, and men and women alike wore white wigs, the men's smaller than a lackey's, done up with ribbon at the back. I hadn't called this up. I hadn't felt it come. It was just there.

Shuddering, I averted my eyes from the mirror. A woman with several patches was laughing at one of the tables nearby; beside her was a gla.s.s of white wine. I could see her face partially reflected in it. Suddenly the reflection became a skull. My breath came fast. What was happening? The alien company looked down from the mirror on the wall. The skull in the winegla.s.s laughed. I felt I was smothering. s.n.a.t.c.hes of conversation came from the table beneath the mirror:

"...so Madame de Lionne had no sooner moved into the house than, one day, when she sat to have her hair done, she saw worms falling from the ceiling onto her dressing table. So she had her workmen open up the ceiling, and the mystery was solved."

"And what was it that they found?"

"A decomposing human head. So she notified the police, who paid a visit to the receveur general du clerge, the Seigneur de Penautier, who was the last person who had lived in the house."

"That was a waste of time."

"Yes, he just said it was an anatomical specimen that he was studying, and when it tired him, he just sealed it up in the floor of the room above the dressing room. So, of course, they couldn't do a thing. His word is much greater than that of a little upstart like La Reynie. But do you know what they're saying all over town?"

"Could it be...?"

"Indeed it could. When he poisoned the receveur general of Languedoc so that he could purchase his office when it came free, the valet who carried the poison disappeared-"

"It was the valet's head, then."

"It does seem probable, doesn't it? After all, the police couldn't identify a headless body, even if it floated to the surface of the river."

I felt I was choking. As I fled from the room, I glanced back: the reflection in the mirror had become a sheet of blood.

"So, Madame, you, too, have found the futility of playing without money?" The lazy sound of a man's voice drawling near me from an alcove made me start. A heavy, saturnine figure emerged from the shadowy alcove. It was the libertine, Brissac. He pushed me against the wall and leaned close. His face, prematurely lined, sagged with debauchery.

"We would make good partners, you and I." His breath smelled like rotten fish. I turned my head away from him.

"What do you mean? We have nothing in common."

"Oh, yes we do. I have a need for money, and you can read lottery numbers in advance." I tried to pull myself up and look disdainful, but I was losing my footing on the slippery marble floor of the corridor.

"If you need luck at gaming, I know a woman who can give-"

"Ha! Do you think I haven't tried it all? The Black Ma.s.s, the summoning of demonic spirits?" He laughed and sent a gust of the horrid smell over me. "I'll tell you a secret, Marquise. They are of no more use than the prayers of Pere Bossuet at the altar on a Sunday morning. G.o.d has abandoned us. So has the Devil. Even Abbe Guibourg can't conjure up the Devil for me, eh? He goes where he wants, His Satanic Majesty. But you, you are genuine. I've followed you, heard your prophecies, and seen them come to pa.s.s."

My face showed my disgust.

"Join me, and I will give you pleasure beyond that you've ever known..." He smashed me against the wall with his body and was about to try to embrace me when the cultivated, oily voice of the Duc de Nevers made him pull free and spin around.

"Madame, you have dropped your walking stick." The Duc de Nevers bowed and flourished his hat, then offered me my stick, which I had dropped during the struggle.

Brissac spoke to his patron just as blandly as if nothing at all had happened: "Madame is considering the advantages to be offered by a partnership with me under your most ill.u.s.trious patronage."

Nevers raised an eyebrow. "I am so glad, Brissac, that you do not wish to monopolize the future for yourself alone." A condescending smile flickered across the Duc de Nevers's face. His eyes, the treacherous Mancini eyes, were half hidden behind dark, sunken lids.

Brissac smiled his oily, ingratiating smile: "I have offered to resurrect the springtime of Madame's pa.s.sion, to melt her imprisoned heart with my own ardent flame."

"Monsieur de Brissac," I answered, "a life of love would end the very thing you want most, the prophetic visions. You must offer a different bargain if you wish to attract my favor. Good day and my thanks to you, Monsieur de Nevers." I stalked off haughtily, but not before I heard Brissac say softly to him, "...wouldn't want anyone else to have her..."

"No...absolutely right, Brissac. To see into other lives...secrets...better that the future remain veiled..."

Yet another powerful enemy. Suddenly the air was stifling. I went and stood by the open window, resting my elbows on the sill, trying to breathe again. Outside, in the street, a pack of dogs was foraging in the gutter. A carriage pa.s.sed, with an old man inside and two footmen clinging on behind. Across the street, standing immobile in a doorway, was a man m.u.f.fled in a black cloak, his wide, dark hat drawn down to conceal his face. The same man. I saw him glance up at my window, and for a fearful moment, our eyes met. I slammed the window shut and fled back into the gilded salle.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

That evening, as the Comtesse de Soissons's carriage left me at my doorstep, I felt an ominous pressure in the air-as if the darkness were going to close in on me. The uncalled vision in the mirror had unsettled me; I couldn't imagine what it meant. Whom was it for? One of the carriage outriders lit the doorway with his torch while the lackeys summoned my own armed groom to escort me in. The shadows seemed alive. Did I see a dark figure move in the street beyond? Someone was watching me; I was sure of it.

"You shudder so, Madame. Are you cold? Here, I'll get your winter dressing gown. You don't feel ill, do you?" Sylvie sounded anxious.

"Sylvie, I think something dreadful is going to happen. I don't know where or when, but it's a terrible disaster. Oh, my G.o.d, cover the dressing-table mirror, quickly!" Sylvie tucked one of my petticoats over the mirror's face before figures began to emerge from the sheet of blood that appeared to ooze from its surface. Gingerly, I touched the cloth, to make certain the blood was an illusion, and couldn't seep through.

"What are you doing there? What did you see?" Sylvie sounded alarmed.

"Blood. I saw strange figures at the Hotel de Soissons. I-I didn't call them. Cover up all the mirrors in the house. I can't bear to look in them. And Brissac was there. I think he has a plan with Nevers. I-I'm afraid they might steal me off, do something. And tonight, as I came in, I felt someone following me and watching me from the street..." I huddled on the bed, shaking with a strange chill, my arms around my folded knees.

"Brissac, bah! He's a sponge, but not dangerous as long as he's kept in line by someone more powerful. The time to fear Brissac is when he has money again. While he hasn't any, he'll fawn all over you. Still, I'll cover the mirrors and make certain the doors are barred and the windows sealed."

"Don't leave me, Sylvie. I'm afraid of being alone." I poured a dose of cordial into a little silver cup that I kept on my dressing table just for that purpose.

Suddenly Sylvie turned on me, her eyes suspicious.

"How much of that cordial have you had already today?"