Lesage had seen some bizarre things in his life, but as he trudged sullenly behind Madame Picot, he found it impossible to rid himself of the memory of that morning’s events – the woman’s great grey wolf emerging from the suddenly falling darkness, the way the creature glared at him, its rippling shoulders, the terrible silence after it had vanished. Even she had appeared stunned by what had occurred. He shuddered and shook his head.
At first glance she didn’t look much – merely another thin peasant – but in her eyes there burned a strange certainty. Before his sentence on the galleys, he had spent a good portion of the past years with people who claimed to be able to perform supernatural feats: talk with the dead, conjure spirits, descry a man or woman’s future in a glass ball or a bowl of water. Some of them truly had great powers, but many were no more than charlatans – fortune tellers, palm readers, abortionists, poisoners, greedy priests – preying on their rich and foolish clientele. But this Madame Picot? She was of a different order altogether. The woman was very powerful indeed, a realisation that filled him with wonderment and terror.
In the middle of the day Lesage and Madame Picot stopped by a creek in the shade, where they kneeled on the bank and scooped cool water into their mouths. He was sweating heavily. It was hot and the thick forest air was oppressive. They rested beneath a tree on a cushion of moss, beside a cluster of mushrooms that resembled a miniature village perched in a bright green field. A black beetle stepped about daintily among the stalks, then up and over the milky caps of the mushrooms. A centipede ebbed through the stalks of grass. Was this, he wondered, how God viewed the world from his perch in the heavens; everything laid out, its myriad chaotic patterns so manifest? Instinctively he glanced up between the trees as if expecting to catch a glimpse of this God, as, at that moment, the beetle seemed to register Lesage’s presence and waved its antennae in his direction. He lowered a hand towards the insect – who continued to wave feebly, as if brandishing tiny fists – and flicked it away. The crack of its shell against his fingernail. Gone. And then, for good measure, he plucked one of the mushrooms from its loamy soil (the sound and feel of it so like the tearing of a fairy’s limb) and flung the plant – tiny roots and all – into the creek. He, too, could be capricious.
The woman produced more sausage and bread from her sack and offered him a portion. The bread was hard and the sausage tough, but it was tasty and he ate gratefully.
‘And what was it you did for that tavern keeper?’ Madame Picot asked after a while.
Not eager to answer, he stalled by reaching into his mouth to dislodge some gristle from between his teeth. Eventually, he turned to face her. ‘Pardon, madame?’
‘The tavern keeper we met this morning – Monsieur Scarron. He mentioned something about a message. Did you perform an errand for him before we met on the road?’
‘Ah. Yes, yes, yes. That. Well, I . . .’ Lesage looked around and lowered his voice. ‘He wished me to deliver a message to . . . in order to help him with a problem he was having with his wife.’
‘But who was the message for?’
Normally, at this juncture in a conversation as delicate as this, Lesage might place one hand on a woman’s forearm to further enhance the intimacy these exchanges required, and he prepared to do so before thinking better of it. Instead, he raised an admonitory forefinger, glanced around again, and adopted a conspiratorial expression – mouth pursed, eyes downcast, brief shake of his head – as if fearful to gossip about someone who could be in earshot. ‘I think you know who I mean, Madame Picot,’ he whispered.
She was clearly shocked. ‘So it’s true? You can speak with the Devil himself?’
‘Shhhh, madame.’
Madame Picot crossed herself and muttered under her breath – a prayer presumably. ‘But what was the message?’ she asked.
Another display of reluctance. ‘Monsieur Scarron is seeking a new wife. He’s had enough of the woman he married and she is not – how shall I put this? – being very wifely.’
Madame Picot tore off a chunk of bread and put it in her mouth as she considered this. ‘But a man cannot have two wives, monsieur. It’s against the law.’
‘Indeed it is, Madame Picot.’ Then, seeing that the woman was still failing to comprehend what he was telling her: ‘He wished his first wife to have an accident of some sort . . .’
‘My God, what a terrible business,’ she murmured after a shocked silence. ‘What a terrible man.’
‘It’s not me,’ he protested. ‘I don’t, you know, hurt anyone. That’s not in my nature. I merely pass along the request. Besides, if the whore won’t fulfil her wifely duties, then surely the poor man is entitled to find a woman who will?’
She glanced at him as if he were a vile creature, before looking away, and while her attention was on the creek, Lesage took the opportunity to inspect the woman, this witch to whom he owed his so-called freedom. Madame Picot had removed the scarf from her head. Strands of her dark and tangled hair were pasted with sweat across her forehead and had arranged themselves into hieroglyphs: a large, sloping S swirled over one temple, along with other, less determinate symbols – a T, perhaps, and the outline of a child’s surprised face high on one of her pale cheeks. The slope of her breast was visible beneath her clothes. He shifted his position and was reminded of the dagger jammed in his belt. A dull anger surged through him. Oh, how he longed to press it to her throat.
‘Do women such as yourself have husbands, madame?’ he asked.
She looked askance at him. ‘He died of fever a few days ago.’
‘A good man, was he?’
There was a long silence. ‘Yes’ she said at last. ‘A good man. He was a horse trader. Most years he helped with the harvest. We were married for a long time.’
‘And are there other children?’
‘Two daughters and a son. The girls died of fever and the boy didn’t survive his infancy.’
‘Ah. No other family?’
‘Why would a man such as yourself wish to know these things?’
‘Curiosity, madame. Just being sociable.’
She looked perplexed. ‘I have a brother somewhere – if he is still alive. That is all I have left.’
‘I see. And if we find this Monsieur Horst, what do you propose we do? Is he not armed?’
‘That is why I have summoned you here, monsieur.’
Lesage forced a laugh. ‘And you expect me to – what? – fight with these men?’
Madame Picot stared at him. ‘Of course. What else?’
‘But I am no mercenary, madame. I was never a soldier. I think perhaps you have misjudged my abilities.’
‘Then shall I send you back where you came from?’
‘No, no, no, no. That is not what I meant. Not at all. I shall, of course, be glad to assist you. But tell me: what will be my reward? If we find your son, will you release me from further . . . duties?’
Madame Picot shook her head, not only in response to this most reasonable of queries but also, it seemed, in sheer incredulity that he should ask such a thing.
‘Well, if that’s the case,’ he went on, ‘then why should I help you at all?’
The sorceress got to her feet, wincing as she did so. ‘It is the only reason you are here, monsieur. You have to assist me, as I have already told you.’
‘So if I help, you will send me back – and if I don’t help you, you will also send me back?’
At this she appeared vexed. ‘I cannot leave you to wander the countryside at your leisure, monsieur.’
Despite himself, Lesage laughed. ‘I fail to see what might be so wrong with that.’
Madame Picot did not share his joke. He decided on a fresh approach and got to his feet also. ‘Madame! Wait, wait. I have something. I know of something you will be most interested in. It is the reason, in fact, I sought you in the first place.’
‘You did not seek me out, monsieur. I summoned you.’
‘Well, that might be a matter of perspective. In any event, I was wondering what you intend to do once you have – once we have – found your son safe and well?’
‘There is an abbey taking people in to escape the plague. My son and I will go there.’
‘But how will you survive? With what money? You have no family, no man to support you. Are you able to manufacture money in some fashion with your skills?’
Madame Picot shook her head.
‘Because I – and only I – know where there is a vast amount of money hidden in Paris. Thousands of livres. More money than you will ever see in your entire life. It could be ours. We can share it. Is it not true that you have the ability to cast aside spirits?’
Madame Picot laughed derisively. ‘Yes. As I have already warned you. A spell to conjure spirits and one to cast them back.’
‘Indeed. Well. The money is locked away in a cellar beneath the city.’ He fumbled through his pockets until he located the purse containing the much-folded map with the instructions written on it. He drew it out. ‘I have a map here showing the exact location. No one else knows where it is. The treasure is guarded by several ferocious demons, but you, with your particular abilities . . . The instructions are right here. You see here, it says –’
‘Who does the money belong to?’
‘No one. It was buried by a wealthy aristocrat during the Fronde.’
‘And what is the Fronde?’
‘A war. It was a war.’
‘Here?’
‘Yes. In Paris, mainly. A battle for power between the King and the nobles.’
‘There was a war in Paris?’
‘Oh yes. But it was some years ago. You don’t know much about the world, do you?’ Lesage said, unable to keep a note of wonder and satisfaction from his voice.
‘So I have been told.’
He tapped the map with a finger to draw her attention back to his proposal. ‘It requires a sorceress such as yourself to cast aside the demons guarding the treasure. You can mark a magic circle on the ground, as you did when we met. We could release this money and be very rich, madame.’
The witch sighed as she leaned down and picked up her sack. Then she looked at him but said nothing. It was unnerving, this silence of hers. Why would she not answer him?
‘Why do I not answer you?’ she asked in a voice thick with scorn.
Lesage flinched. ‘Yes. Why not?’
‘Because my son has been taken. I am tired. My heart is most painful.’
Madame Picot did indeed look most unwell. She was probably a bony thing at the best of times but now, with hair stuck to her face with sweat and the neckline of her green dress dark with blood, she resembled a woman recently emerged from the earth. She had removed the bandage from her left hand and he saw that her palm was also filthy with encrusted blood. Despite himself, Lesage felt a twinge of pity for her. Most likely her son had already been sold to some farmer or sorcerer for God knew what hideous purpose and was at this moment being subjected to all sort of appalling treatment. The woman had no true idea of the wickedness of the world. Lucky, perhaps, for her.
‘But do you not have some sort of magic with which you might free your son – aside from darkening the sun and summoning wolves from the forest, that is? A spell or charm of some sort? Or a curse, perhaps? Could you not . . . kill these fellows who took him?’
Madame Picot shook her head. ‘I don’t know such things. My magic is only simple. Charms and healing, spells for protection.’
‘But can you not at least conjure some assistance for our journey to Paris? It is such a long way.’
Madame Picot looked at him thoughtfully for what seemed a long time before she nodded, produced her black book and muttered something under her breath. She was making a spell, presumably, but nothing happened – even after she had returned it to her pocket.
‘Well?’ he said after a few moments. ‘Did you request something? What happens now?’
‘These things can take time, monsieur.’
‘But your wolf didn’t take long at all. That was very sudden.’
Madame Picot hoisted her sack and began to walk away. ‘Your fate does not come to you, monsieur. You must meet it halfway.’
Lesage groaned. ‘What about the treasure? I think you should at least consider my offer . . .’
‘No, monsieur,’ she said over her shoulder. ‘I have no need of such riches. Besides, I was warned not to strike bargains with creatures like you.’