"What do you know about marriage, anyway? Me, I know too much. Lorito, I make my living from marriages where love has turned to poison. Suppose I marry him and he quits loving me?"

"Fire and brimstone," replied the bird, agreeably.

"Oh, what help are you? I have to decide whether a fortune-teller in trouble with half the world should marry an adventurer in trouble with the other half. To marry d'Urbec-it can't work out."

"Marry d'Urbec," the bird said, peering at me with one eye. "Clever Lorito. Pretty Lorito." Something about the bird's face reminded me of Grandmother in her little cap. I took out paper and ink, sat down, and wrote a letter. It contained only one word.

Yes.

"My love!" he cried when he saw me, his face eager and boyish. "I'll arrange everything. You won't have a worry in the world." I loved to see him that way, his eyes bright, his mind busy. His embrace was rapturous, but I could feel something cold stalking my heart. It was fear. They all begin this way, I thought, with pledges of love.

"The chief thing for the moment is to keep everything secret-both from the police and from that old witch on the rue Beauregard. We don't want either of them to think the bird will fly. Don't let Sylvie know. I'll get witnesses and a priest who are on no one's payroll; that will buy us time, though how much I don't know." He looked down at me suddenly. "You are happy, aren't you? As happy as I?"

"Oh, yes, Florent," I said, as I took his hand.

"You aren't...having second thoughts, are you? Forgive me if I am terrified you might escape when I have waited so very long."

"When I give my word, it is given; my heart will never change. Remember that, and...and be kind."

"You mean if I should ever change? Don't think it of me, not ever."

The next day, under the pretext of a supper party, I dressed gaily in my rose silk gown, and we drove through the gray mist to a remote parish in the suburbs, where we were met by a half-deaf old notary and two dark-cloaked, masked witnesses. It was already dusk, but even the newly lit candles in the nave revealed the ruinously needy state of the building. In the darkening arches above, there was movement and a shrill whistle: bats had made their home in the crumbling masonry. Dust sat heavy on the chipped, ancient paint of the statues of the saints. The nicked wooden panels of the confessional had cracked with age and lack of paint. Battered iron grilles sealed off the private chapels. Clearly a parish where the priest might stand in need of ready cash.

In the side chapel, the witnesses unmasked. Lucas, the underground poet, and...Lamotte. Florent's smile was ironic, as he saw me start. There are certain things one doesn't want to remember on one's wedding day, no matter how informal the occasion.

"You'll find these to be men you can trust, Genevieve. We have been through too much together for it to be otherwise."

"...but the d.u.c.h.esse de Bouillon..." I managed to say.

"...will be delighted, should it ever come to her attention," finished Lamotte. "She loathes La Reynie and all his works."

"An old family feud between the La Reynies and the Bouillons-over taxes, I believe," added Florent, smoothly. Lamotte, his figure even fuller than I remembered but still resplendent in a vast pair of heavily embroidered petticoat breeches and a heavy blue velvet mantle with flame-colored satin lining, advanced several steps.

"And...," he said, hesitating, "I owe you an apology. Both of you. It is the least I can do to make amends. Envy, d'Urbec, it makes a man a fool. And I have paid...many times over, a terrible price, beyond even that imposed by my conscience." His face, in the fast-dimming light, looked drawn and sad. "All I ask is that when you count up my sins, don't include hard-heartedness among them."

"Enough of this soul-searching, my dear chevalier," announced Florent. "We have business under way, and Pere Tournet does not like being detained." Being detained from his bottle, I thought, as the old priest stumbled over the service. I could feel the panic rising as the words droned on. My mouth was too dry to make a sound as I mouthed the responses. The priest's odd, bulbous nose and moth-eaten vestments, Florent's dark, anxiety-ridden face in the flickering light, the glitter of candles reflected on tinsel and gilt-all seemed to whirl together in the strangest way. My stomach felt awful and my knees weak.

The next thing I remember is choking on brandy. "Ah, her eyes are open now," someone said. "You fainted, Madame d'Urbec," came the voice of the priest, "a not uncommon occurrence at weddings. Though it is of course more embarra.s.sing if it is the groom."

"Married? I'm married?"

"Of course. Completely. Legally. Every i dotted." Florent helped me from the floor. His expression was concerned. "Genevieve, are you well?" he asked softly.

"Oh, Florent...married...it can't be...I care for you too much...Now what will become of us?"

"Why, I can look after you and we'll be happy, that's all," he said, as he brushed away the curls that had fallen into my face.

"But...but that's not how it works."

"It's how it can work if you wish it to, Genevieve. Try it, won't you? For my sake, let us try to be happy." But I could only clutch his coat and weep.

And as he put his arms around me I could hear Lucas remark, "Without a doubt, my dear de la Motte, that is the oddest bride I have ever encountered."

D'Urbec's manservant set out supper for us with the neat, small movements of someone who had long been crowded in close quarters at sea and then withdrew. How quiet he was, and how discreet. The fraternity of the d.a.m.ned, I thought. One grew to recognize them by their eyes, by the way they'd lift a heavy chest or chair like a feather, without giving it a thought, by their strange and random silences.

"You still look pale," said Florent, his face knotted with worry. "And still you don't eat. Are you well?" I could hear the clocks in his room tick, each one at its own rate, like different heartbeats. My hands felt cold. "Look here," he said. "I've ordered all your favorite dishes. Try this wine-it's splendid. Fit for our wedding night." I sipped it to make him happy, but it was as dry as dust. Florent's dark eyes were troubled as he inspected my face. "What is wrong? Have I lost you by marrying you? Have I asked too much of you?"

"Too much?" I repeated, frightened suddenly at the look on his face. "What do you mean?" It's already happening, I thought. So soon after the wedding, he's stopped loving me. I could feel my eyes grow large as I stared at him. Yes, I could see it. He was already tiring of me.

"Are you frightened of me? Was my love good enough for you, but not my name?" he asked in despair.

"No, no-that's not it. That's not it at all." Tears I couldn't stop ran down my face. "You can't love me anymore, now that we're married," I said, weeping. "I knew...I knew it would happen this way. Marriage makes people cold and hateful, but...but you said I had to...and...I wanted to make you happy..." I put my head down on the table and sobbed as if my heart would break. I could hear the chair sc.r.a.pe as Florent got up from the table. I could feel his hand stroke my head. With his big handkerchief he tried to wipe my eyes.

"It's not the disgrace?" he said softly, brokenly. "It's not...what I am?"

"Never, never. You are the only man I will ever love. Your love is the only good thing I have...but now you can't love me, and I only wanted to make you happy-"

"Happy?" he said. "You mean, you thought you were sacrificing love for my happiness?" He sounded taken aback, puzzled. "You would do that? Give up everything? For me?"

"A hundred times over," I said in a low voice, clutching at his hand and holding it to my face.

"Genevieve...love," he said softly, "don't you know what you are to me? I thought..." I wiped my face and looked at him. His love was my joy, but it was his need that cried out to me.

"...that I would be ashamed to be Madame d'Urbec? Florent, I have many causes for shame, but wedding you is not one of them."

"Genevieve!" he cried out, and I could see his face shine with new light.

"Madame d'Urbec," I corrected him, my heart beginning to hope again. The curve of his cheek, the wide, strong line of his neck, his eyes, his lips, his hands were beautiful. I could see the pulse of blood beneath his ear when he turned his head away to brush a hand across his eyes.

"Madame d'Urbec," he said, turning back to me with great courtliness, "let me show you that married love is the truest of all." And with that, he scooped me from the chair as if I were no heavier than his handkerchief. I felt drunk with his body. I twined my arms around his neck and he kissed my face, my hair, my neck, as he carried me through the open bedroom door.

CHAPTER FORTY-SIX

"Gossip, t.i.ttle-tattle, and stale intrigues. That brazen girl drives me mad. The secret life of Paris turns out to be a veritable web of amorous conspiracies. Look at this stuff, Desgrez! Repulsive! There's hardly a so-called respectable name in France absent from this trash!" La Reynie, pacing before the table in his study, flung the latest report from the Marquise de Morville down in disgust. He looked out the narrow, diamond-paned window into the courtyard of the Hotel La Reynie. It was the spring of 1678. His wife's carriage was departing to take her on a call to her cousins; he could hear the shouts as lackeys opened the heavy wooden gates of the porte cochere. The architect Fauchet was getting out of his chair with yet another sewer-drainage plan rolled up under his arm for the Lieutenant General of Police to review. Inspectors of books and weights, police, servants, stable boys, and informers all mingled, coming and going across the cobblestones on their various errands. La Reynie's face was bitter as he surveyed them. He spoke so softly toward the window that Desgrez almost couldn't hear him. "Sometimes," said the Chief of the Paris Police, "I wonder just what it is that I am protecting."

"The state, and the honor of His Majesty," responded Desgrez. La Reynie turned from the window.

"Yes," he said slowly, and his eye returned to the discarded doc.u.ment on the table. "So what is that blasted female up to these days, anyway?" he asked.