The Boat of a Million Years

XI. The Kitten and the Cardinal

Armand Jean du Plessis de Richelieu, cardinal of the Church, first minister to His Most Christian Majesty Louis XIII, who had created him duke, gave his visitor a long regard. The man was altogether out of place in this chamber of blue-and-gilt elegance. Though decently clad for a commoner, he seemed unmistakably the seafarer he proclaimed himself. Of medium height, he had the suppleness of youth, and the dark hawk face was unlined; but something about him—perhaps the alert steadiness of the look he gave back—bespoke a knowledge of the world such as it takes many years in many comers to gain.

Windows stood open to summer fragrances blowing from the fields and woodlands of Poitou. The river Mable clucked past an ancestral castle lately rebuilt as a modern palace. Sunlight, reflected off the water, danced in shards among the cherubs and ancient heroes that adorned the ceiling. At a little distance from the cardinal’s thronelike chair, a kitten played with its shadow across the parquetry.

Richelieu’s thin fingers stroked the parchment on his lap. Its age-spotted dun made his robe appear blood-bright. For this meeting he had put on full canonicals, as though to shield against demons. But when he spoke, his voice held its wonted wintry calm.

“If this be not falsified, today shall perhaps see the strangest audience I have ever granted.”

Jacques Lacy bowed with more grace than would have been awaited. “I thank your eminence for it, and assure him all is true.” His speech was not quite of the region nor of any in France. Did it still bear a lilt of Ireland, or of some land farther yet? Certainly it showed that, if not formally educated, he had read many books. Where did a skipper plying between the Old World and the New find time?

“You may thank the bishop who prevailed upon me,” said Richelieu dryly.

“After the priest of St. Felix had prevailed upon another, Your Eminence.”

“You are a bold one indeed, Captain Lacy. Have a care. This matter is dangerous enough already.”

“I humbly beg Your Eminence’s pardon.” The tone was by no means insolent, but neither was it contrite.

“Well, let us get on with your business.” Even away from Paris, hours were precious; and the future might not hold a large store of them. Nevertheless Richelieu considered for a minute, stroking the beard that brought the gauntness of his features to a point, before ordering: “Describe exactly what you said to the priest and caused him to do.”

Surprise slightly shook Lacy’s self-command. “Your Eminence knows.”

“I will compare the accounts.” Richelieu sighed. “And you may spare the honorifics hereafter. We are alone.”

“I thank Your— Well.” The mariner, drew breath. “I sought him out at his church in St. Nazaire after I heard that ... monsieur would grace these parts, no enormous distance to travel from there, with his presence for a while. I told him of the casket. Rather, I reminded him, for he knew about it in a half-forgotten way. Naturally, that caught his attention, for nobody else remembered. It had simply gathered dust in the crypt these past four hundred years.”

The kitten pounced at Lacy’s foot. A smile in its direction flickered across the cardinal’s lips. His eyes, huge and feverishly luminous, turned back to the man. “Did you relate how it came to be there?” he pursued.

“Certainly, monsieur. That was evidence for my good faith, since the story had not become part of folklore.”

“Do so again.”

“Ah ... in those days a Breton trader named Pier, of Ploumanac’h, settled in St. Nazaire. It was hardly more than a village—not that it’s major these days, as monsieur doubtless knows—but on that account a house cost little, and the location was handy for the small coastwise vessel he acquired. Men could more easily change their homes and trades then than now. Pier prospered modestly, married, raised children. At last, widowed, he declared he’d enlist in the crusade—the final one, as it turned out—that King Louis the Saint was launching. By that time he was old, but remarkably well-preserved. Many people said he still looked downright youthful. He was never seen afterward, and folk supposed he had died.

“Before he left, he made a substantial donation to the parish church. That was common when someone was about to go on a long journey, let alone off to war. However, to this gift he attached a condition. The church was to keep a box for him. He showed the priest that it contained nothing more than a rolled-up parchment, a document of some importance and confidentiality; whereupon he sealed it. One day he or an heir would return to claim it, and the parchment itself would validate that claim. Well, a request of this kind was not unheard of, and the priest duly entered it in the annals. Lifetimes went by. When I appeared, I expected I’d have to find the record for today’s priest; but he’s an antiquarian and had browsed through the books.”

Richelieu lifted the parchment and read it for perhaps the seventh time, repeatedly glancing at Lacy. “Yes,” he murmured, “this declares that the rightful heir will look just like Pier de Ploumanac’h, whatever name he bears, and describes him in full. Excellently crafted, that description.” The cardinal fancied himself a man of letters, and had written and produced several dramas. “Furthermore, there is this verse in supposed nonsense syllables that the claimant will be able to recite without looking at the text.”

“Shall I do so for monsieur?”

“No need—thus far. You did for the priest, and later for his bishop. The proof was sufficient that he in turn wrote to the bishop of this diocese, persuading him to persuade me to see you. For the document concludes by declaring that the ... heir ... will carry tidings of the utmost importance. Now why did you refuse any hint of their nature to either prelate?”

“They are only for the greatest man hi the land.”

“That is His Majesty.”

The visitor shrugged. “What chance would I have of admission to the king? Rather, I’d be arrested on suspicion of—almost anything, and my knowledge tortured out of me. Your eminence is known to be more, m-m, flexible. Of an inquiring mind. You patronize learned and literary men, you’ve founded a national academy, you’ve rebuilt and generously endowed the Sorbonne, and as for political achievements—“ His words trailed off while he waved his hands. Clearly he thought of the Huguenots curbed, yet kept conciliated; of the powers of the nobles patiently chipped down, until now their feudal castles were for the most part demolished; of the cardinal’s rivals at court outwitted, defeated, some exiled or executed; of the long war against the Imperialists, in which France—with Protestant Sweden, the ally that Richelieu obtained—was finally getting the upper hand. Who really ruled this country?

Richelieu raised his brows. “You are very well informed for a humble sea captain.”

“I have had to be, monsieur,” replied Lacy quietly.

Richelieu nodded. “You may be seated.”

Lacy bowed once more and fetched a lesser chair, which he placed before the large one at a respectful distance, and lowered himself. He sat back, seemingly at ease, but a discerning eye recognized readiness to explode into instant action. Not that there was any danger. Guards stood just outside the door.

“What is this news you bear?” Richelieu asked.

Lacy frowned. “I do not expect Your Eminence to believe upon first hearing it. I gamble my life on the supposition that you will bear with me, and will dispatch trusty men to bring you the further evidence I can provide.”

The kitten frolicked about his ankles. “Chariot likes you,” the cardinal remarked, a tinge of warmth in his voice.

Lacy smiled. “They say monsieur is fond of cats.”

“While they are young. Go on. Let me see what you know about them. It will tell me something about you.”

Lacy leaned forward and tickled the kitten around the ears. It extended tiny claws and swarmed up his stockings. He helped it to his lap, chucked it under the chin and stroked the soft fur. “I’ve had cats myself,” he said. “Afloat and ashore. They were sacred to the ancient Egyptians; They drew the chariot of the Norse goddess of love. They’re often called familiars of witches, but that’s nonsense. Cats are what they are, and never try like dogs to be anything else. I suppose that’s why we humans find them mysterious, and some of us fear or hate them.”

“While some others like them better than their fellow men, God forgive.” The cardinal crossed himself in perfunctory fashion. “You are a remarkable man, Captain Lacy.”

“In my way, monsieur, which is quite different from yours.”

Richelieu’s gaze intensified. “I obtained a report on you, of course, when I heard of your wish,” he said slowly. “But tell me about your past life in your own words.”

“That you may judge them—and me, monsieur?” The mariner’s look went afar, while his right hand continued as the kitten’s playmate. “Well, then, I’ll tell it in a curious way. You’ll soon understand the reason for that, which is that I do not want to lie to you.

“Seumas Lacy hails from northern Ireland. He can’t readily say when he was born, for the baptismal record is back there if it’s not been destroyed; but on the face of it, he must be around fifty years old. In the year 1611 the English king cleared the Irish from the best parts of Ulster and settled it with Scottish Protestants. Lacy was among those who left the country. He took a bit of money along, for he came of a mildly well-to-do seafaring family. In Nantes he found refuge with old-established Irish trading folk, who helped him regularize his status. He took the French form of his Christian name, became a French subject, and married a French woman. Being a sailor, he made long voyages, as far as Africa, the West Indies, and New France. Eventually he rose to shipmaster. He has four children alive, their ages from thirteen to five, but his wife died two years ago and he has not remarried.”

“And when he heard that I would be in Poitou for several weeks, he went downstream to St. Nazaire and opened the casket that his ... ancestor had left in the church,” Richelieu said low.

Lacy looked straight at him. “Thus it is, Your Eminence.”

“Presumably you always knew about it.”

“Obviously I did.”

“Although you are Irish? And no member of your family claimed the thing for four centuries. You yourself lived almost thirty years in nearby Nantes before you did. Why?”

“I had to be sure of the situation. At that, the decision was hard.”

“The report states that you have an associate, a redheaded man with a missing hand who goes by the name of MacMahon. Lately he has disappeared. Why?”

“No disrespect intended, Your Eminence, but I sent him off because I couldn’t foresee what would come of this, and it was wrong to risk his life also.” Lacy smiled. The kitten tumbled about his wrist. “Besides, he’s an uncouth sort. What if he gave offense?” He paused. “I took care not to know just where he’s gone. He’ll find out whether I’ve returned safely home.”

“You show a distrustfulness that is ... scarcely friendly.”

“On the contrary, monsieur, I’m putting a faith in you that I’ve put in none but my comrade for a very long time. I stake everything on the belief that you will not immediately assume I’m a madman, an enemy agent, or a sorcerer.”

Richelieu gripped the arms of his chair. Despite the robe, it could be seen how his wasted frame tautened. His eyes never wavered. “What, then, are you?” he asked tonelessly.

“I am Jacques Lacy from Ireland, your eminence,” the visitor replied with the same levelness. “The only real falsehood about that is that I was born there, for I was not. I did spend more than a centftry in it. Outside the English-held parts people have a large enough measure of freedom that it’s rather easy to change lives. But I fear they are all doomed to conquest, and the plantation of Ulster gave me an unquestionable reason for departing.

“I came back to where I had once been Pier de Ploumanac’h—who was not a Breton born. Before and after him I’ve used other names, lived in other places, pursued other trades. It’s been my way of surviving through the millennia.”

Breath hissed between teeth. “This is not a total surprise to me. Since I first heard from the bishop, I have been thinking... Are you the Wandering Jew?”

The head shook; the kitten sensed tension and crouched. “I know about rascals who’ve pretended they were him. No, monsieur, I was alive when Our Lord was on earth, but never saw him, nor knew about him till much later. Once in a while I have passed myself off as a Jew, because that was safest or simplest, but it was pretense, same as when I’ve been a Mussulman.” The mouth formed a grim grin. “For those roles, I had to get circumcised. The skin slowly grew back. On my kind, unless a wound is as great as the loss of a hand, it heals without scars.”

“I must think anew.” Richelieu closed his eyes. Presently his lips moved. They shaped the Paternoster and the Ave, while his fingers drew the Cross, over and over.

Yet when he was done and looked back upon the world, down at the parchment, he spoke almost matter-of-factly. “I saw at once that the verse here is not actually nonsense. It bears a certain resemblance to Hebraic, transcribed in Roman letters, but it is different. What?”

“Ancient Phoenician, Your Eminence. I was bora in Tyre when Hiram was its king. I’m not sure whether David or Solomon was reigning in Jerusalem just then.”

Again Richelieu closed his eyes. “Two and a half millennia ago,” he whispered. He opened them wide. “Recite the verse. I want to hear that language.”

Lacy obeyed. The rapid, guttural words rang through sounds of wind and water, through the silence that filled the chamber. The kitten sprang off his lap and pattered to a corner.

Stillness prevailed for half a minute before Richelieu asked, “What does it mean?”

“A fragment of a song, the sort men sang in taverns or when camped ashore during a voyage. ‘Black as the sky of night is my woman’s hair, bright as the stars are her eyes, round and white as the moon her breasts, and she moves like Ashtoreth’s sea. Would that my sight and my hands and myself lay upon all!’ I’m sorry it’s so profane, monsieur. It was what I could remember, and at that, I had to reconstruct it.”

Richelieu quirked a smile. “Yes, I daresay one forgets much in thousands of years. And in ... Pier’s day, clerics, too, were less refined than they are now.” Shrewdly: “Though did you expect that something like this would go a little way toward authenticating you, since it is the kind of thing that would stick in a man’s mind?”

“I am not lying to Your Eminence. In no particular.”

“In that case, you have been a liar throughout the ages.”

Lacy spread his palms. “What would monsieur have had me do? Imagine, if you please, even in this most enlightened of eras and countries, imagine I proclaimed myself openly. At best I’d be taken for a mountebank, and be lucky to escape with a scourging. I could easily go to the galleys, or hang. At worst I’d be condemned as a sorcerer, in league with Satan, and burned. Evil would befall me without my saying a word if I just stayed in one place, living on and on while they buried my sons and grandsons and I never showed signs of age. Oh, I’ve met folk—many live at this moment in the New World—for whom I could be a holy man or a god; but they’ve been savages, and I prefer civilization. Besides, civilization sooner or later overruns the savages. No, best I arrive at a new home as a plausible outsider, settle down a few decades, and at last move onward in such wise that people take for granted I’ve died.”

“What brought this fate upon you?” Richelieu signed himself anew.

“God alone knows, Your Eminence. I’m no saint, but I don’t believe I was ever an especially terrible sinner. And, yes, I am baptized.”

“When was that?”

“About twelve hundred years ago.”

“Who converted you?”

“I’d been a Christian catechumen a long time, but customs changed and— May I ask leave to defer telling how it happened?”

“Why?” demanded Richelieu.

“Because I must convince Your Eminence that I’m telling the truth, and in this case the truth looks too much like invention—“ Before those eyes, Lacy broke off, threw up his hands, laughed, and said, “Very well, if you insist. It was in Britain after the Romans were gone, at the court of a warlord. They called him Riot ham us, their High King, but mainly he had some cataphracts. With them he staved off the English invaders. His name was Artorius.”

Richelieu sat motionless.

“Oh, I was no knight of his, merely a trader who came by on my rounds,” Lacy stated. “Nor did I meet any Lancelot or Gawain or Galahad, nor see any glittering Camelot. Little of Rome lingered there. In fact, it’s only my guess that this was the seed corn of the Arthur legend. But monsieur will understand why I was reluctant to mention it at all, I was tempted to concoct a prosaic falsehood.”

Richefieu nodded. “I do understand. If you continue a liar, you are as skillful a one as I have found in a wide experience.” He forbore to inquire whether the Phoenician had embraced Christ out of expediency, the same as when he did homage to numerous other gods.

Lacy’s tone became wry. “I shan’t insult you by denying that I’ve given a great deal of beforehand thought to this interview.”

Richelieu plucked the parchment from his lap and cast it to the floor. It struck with a small rattling noise that drew the notice of the kitten. So much of a bodily gesture did the cardinal permit himself. He leaned forward, fingertips pressed together. Sunlight glistened off a great ring of gold and emerald. “What do you want from me?” he snapped.

“Your protection, monsieur,” Lacy replied, “for myself and any like me.” Color came and went in his lean cheeks, above the closely trimmed beard which had not a single silver hair.

“Who are they?”

“MacMahon is one, as your eminence must have guessed,” Lacy told him. “We met in France when it was still Gaul. I’ve encountered or heard of three more whom I wondered about, but death by mischance took them before I could be certain. And another I did feel sure of, but that person—disappeared. Our kind must be very rare, and shy of revealing themselves.”

“Vanishingty rare, as the learned doctor Descartes might put it,” said Richelieu with a flash of bleak humor.

“Some, over the centuries, may have tried to do what I am trying this day, and come to grief. No record of them would likely remain, if any was ever made.”

The kitten advanced cautiously toward the parchment. Richelieu sat back. Lacy had stayed well-nigh immobile, hands folded on the sober-hued knee breeches. “What more evidence have you to offer?” the cardinal asked.

Lacy gazed away at nothing visible. “I thought about this for lifetimes before I took the first measures.” His voice was methodical. “One gets into the habit of taking forethought and biding one’s time. Perhaps too much so. Perhaps opportunities slip by and it’s again too late. But one has learned, sometimes at a high price, monsieur, one has learned that this world is dangerous and nothing in it abides. Kings and nations, popes and gods—no irreverence meant—all go down in the dust or up in the flames, all too soon. I have my provisions, piecemeal made over the centuries, hoards buried here and there, tricks for changing identities, a tool chest of assorted skills, and ... my reliquaries. They are not all in churches, nor are they ail of them caskets containing parchments. But throughout Europe, northern Africa, hither Asia lie the tokens I planted whenever I could. My idea was that if and when a hope came along, I’d go to the nearest of those caches and retrieve what it held. That should give me my opening wedge.

“Now, if Your Eminence likes, I can describe quite a few that will be accessible to his agents. I can say exactly what the nature of each is, and where it reposes. In several cases, at least, it will definitely have been there for a long while. In every case, they can verify that Captain Jacques Lacy could not possibly have made the arrangements at any time in the half century that men have known him.”

Richelieu stroked his beard. “And meanwhile you expect to wait in custody, hostage to this material,” he murmured. “Yes. I have little doubt that if exists, for you show no signs of madness. Therefore you cannot be an impostor either, of any sort known to criminal justice. Unless, indeed, you really are a sorcerer, or an actual demon.”

A film of sweat shone on Lacy’s brow, though he responded steadily: “Holy water or exorcism won’t hurt me. You could have me put to the question. You’d find me healing quite fast from anything that didn’t kill or totally mutilate. I came here because everything I could find out made me think you are too wise—I do not say ‘merciful,’ monsieur, I say ‘wise, enlightened, intelligent’—to resort to that.”

“Others will urge me to do so.”

“Your Eminence has the power to refuse them. That’s another reason why I sought you. I’ve waited centuries for such a man at such a crux in history.”

The kitten arrived at the parchment, reached out, patted it. Curled back into a loose roll, it rustled and moved. Delighted, the kitten bounced to and fro.

Richelieu’s look smoldered. “Have you never before had a protector?”

Lacy sighed. “Once, monsieur. About three hundred years after my birth, in Egypt.”

“Tell me.”

“Like a number of Phoenicians—I’d resumed that na-_ tionality—I sailed in the service of Pharaoh Psammetk. You may have read of him under the name Psammetichus. He chanced to be strong and wise, like you, a man who saved his country from disaster and made it once more secure. Oh, I’d planned nothing, except to depart in my usual way when the tune came. But it also chanced this king lived long, reigning for more than fifty years. And I—well, it was a good service I was in; and when my first Egyptian wife died I married another and we were ... uncommonly happy. So I lingered, till the king saw past the mannerisms by which I feigned encroaching age. He persuaded me to confide in him, and took me under his wing. To him I was sacred, chosen by the gods for some purpose unknown but surely high. He set inquiries afoot throughout his realm and as far abroad as possible. Nothing came of them. As I said, my kind must be very rare.”

“What finally happened?”

“Psammetk died. His son Necho succeeded him, and had no love for me. Nor hatred, I suppose; but most of the priests and courtiers did, seeing me as a threat to their positions. It grew plain that I wouldn’t last in the royal compound. If nothing else, an assassin would get me. But the new king denied me leave to go. I think he feared what I might be able to do.

“Well, talk rose about dispatching a Phoenician crew to try sailing around Africa. I used what little influence was left me to help make that come about, and be named to it. An immortal man might prove valuable in unknown countries.” Lacy shrugged. “At the first opportunity, I jumped ship and made my way to Europe. I never found out whether the expedition succeeded. Herodotus said it did, but he was often careless about his information.”

“And I assume any record of you in Egypt has decayed, if your enemies didn’t expunge it,” Richelieu said. “Not that we can read those glyphs.”

“Please understand, monsieur,” Lacy urged, “I’ve seldom been in the presence of greatness. Psammetk, Artorius, two or three others, but usually insignificantly; and now Your Eminence. I’ve glimpsed more, but only when I was in a crowd. It’s almost always been wisest to stay obscure. Besides, I’m just an old sailor, with nothing special to offer.” Eagerly: “Except my memories. Think what I can mean to scholars. And if, under your protection, I draw other immortals to us think, my lord, what that will mean to ... France.”

Silence fell again, except for the wind, the river, a ticking dock, and the kitten that made a toy of the parchment. Richelieu brooded. Lacy waited.

At last the cardinal said: “What do you truly want of me?”

“I told you, monsieur! Your protection. A place in your service. The proclamation of what I am, and the promise that anyone like me can come to the same safe harbor.”

“Every rogue in Europe will swarm here.”

“I’ll know what questions to ask, if your learned men don’t.”

“M-m, yes, I daresay you will.”

“After you’ve made a few examples, that nuisance should end.” Lacy hesitated. “Not that I can foretell what the immortals will each prove to be like. I’ve admitted, my Mac-Mahon is a crude sort. The other whom I was sure of is, or has been, a prostitute, if she still lives. One survives as best one can.”

“But some may well be decent, or repent. Some may in truth be holy—hermits, perhaps?” Richelieu’s momentarily dreamy tone sharpened. “You have not sought for any new patron after that Egyptian king, more than two thousand years ago?”

“I told Your Eminence, one grows wary.”

“Why have you now at last let down your guard?”

“In part because of you,” Lacy answered at once. “Your Eminence hears much flattery. I needn’t go into detail about what’s the plain truth. I’ve already spoken it.

“But you by yourself wouldn’t have been enough. It’s also that I dare hope the times are right.”

The parchment jammed against a leg of the chair of state and resisted further attempts. The kitten mewed. Richelieu looked down and half reached. “Does my lord wish—?”

Lacy sprang to pick up the animal and proffer it. Richelieu took the small fuzzy form in both hands and placed it on his lap where the parchment had rested. Lacy bowed and resumed his seat.

“Continue,” the cardinal said while he caressed his pet.

“I have watched the course of things as well as a man can who’s in the middle of them,” Lacy said. “I’ve read books and listened to philosophers, and to common folk with native wit. I’ve thought. Immortality is lonely, monsieur. One has much time for thinking.

“It seems to me that in the past two or three centuries, a change has been coming upon the world. Not just the rise or fall of another empire; a change as great as the change from boy to man, or even worm to butterfly. Mortals feel it too. They speak of a Renaissance that began perhaps fourteen hundred years after Our Lord. But I see it more clearly. Pharaoh Psammetk—how far could his couriers go? How many could they find who’d understand my question that they bore, and not cower from it, ignorant and frightened? And he was as powerful a king as any in his age. The Greeks, the Romans, the Byzantines, the Persians, all the rest, they were little better as regards either knowledge or range. Nor did I ever again have access to a ruler I trusted; nor had I then thought to prepare myself for such a meeting. That came later.

“Today men have sailed around the globe; and they know it is a globe. The discoveries of such as Copernicus and Galileo—“ He saw the slight frown. “Well, be that as it may, men learn marvelous things. Europe goes forth into a whole new hemisphere. At home, for the first time since Rome fell, we begin to have good roads; one can travel swiftly, for the most part safely, over hundreds of leagues— thousands, once this war is over. Above all, maybe, we have the printing press, and more people every year who can read, who can be reached. At last we can bring the immortals together!”

Richelieu’s fingers amused the kitten, which was becoming drowsy, while his brows again drew downward. “That will take a considerable time,” he said.

“Oh, yes, as mortals reckon— Forgive me, Your Eminence.”

“No matter.” Richelieu coughed. “With none but Chariot to hear, we can speak plainly. Do you indeed believe mankind—here in France, let us say—has attained the security that you found to be such a delusion through all prior history?”

Taken aback, Lacy stammered, “N-no, monsieur, except that—I think France will be strong and stable for generations to come. Thanks largely to Your Eminence.”

Richelieu coughed afresh, his left hand to his mouth, his right reassuring the kitten. “I am not a well man, Captain,” he said, hoarsened. “I never have been. God may call me at any moment.”

Lacy’s visage took on a somehow remote gentleness. “I know that,” he said softly. “May He keep you with us for many years yet. But—”

“Nor is the king in good health,” Richelieu interrupted. “Finally, finally he and the queen are blessed with a child, a son; but the prince is not quite two years old. About when he was born, I lost Father Joseph, my closest councillor and ablest helper.”

“I know that also. But you have this Italian-born Mazarin, who’s much like you.”

“And whom I am preparing to be my successor.” Richelieu’s smile writhed. “Yes, you have studied us carefully.”

“I must. I’ve learned how, during my span on earth. And I, you too think far ahead.” Lacy’s words quickened. “I beg you, think. You’ll need a while to take this in, as well as to verify my story. I’m amazed how calmly you’ve heard me out. But—an immortal, in due course a gathering of immortals, at the service of the king—today’s king, and afterward .., his son, who should reign long and vigorously. Can you imagine what that will mean to his glory, and so to the glory ,. and power of France?”

“No, I cannot,” Richelieu snapped. “Nor can you. And I have likewise learned wariness.”

“But I tell you, Your Eminence, I can give you evidence—”

“Silence,” Richelieu commanded.

He rested left elbow on chair arm, chin on that fist, and I stared into space, as if beyond the walls, the province, the kingdom. His right hand gently stroked the kitten. It fell asleep, and he took his fingers away. The wind and the river rustled.

At last—the clock, on which Phaeton careered desperately in Apollo’s runaway sun chariot, had snipped off almost a quarter of an hour—he stirred and looked back at the other man. Lacy had gone Orientally impassive. Now his countenance came alive. The breath shivered in and out of him.

“I need not trouble myself with your tokens,” Richelieu said heavily. “I assume you are what you assert. It makes no difference.”

“I beg Your Eminence’s pardon?” Lacy whispered.

“Tell me,” Richelieu went on, and he came to sound nearly amiable, “do you, in the teeth of what you have seen and suffered, do you really believe we have won to a state of things that will endure?”

“N-no,” Lacy admitted. “No, I think instead everything is changing, everything, and this will go on and on, and nobody can guess what the end will be. But—because of it— we and the generations to come, our lives will be unlike any that ever were lived before. The old bets are off.” He paused. “I’ve grown weary of being homeless. You cannot dream of how weary. I’ll snatch at any chance of escape.”

Richelieu ignored the informal language. Perhaps he did not notice it. He nodded, and said as he might have crooned to one of his pets, “Poor soul. How brave you are, to have ventured this. Or else, as you say, how weary. But you have just your single life to lose. I have millions.”

Lacy’s head lifted stiffly. “My lord?”

“I am responsible for this realm,” Richelieu said. “The Holy Father is old and troubled and never had any gift of statecraft. Thus I am also responsible to a certain extent for the Catholic faith, which is to say Christendom. A good many people think I’ve given myself over to the Devil, and I confess to scorning most scruples. But in the end, I am responsible.

“You see this as an age of upheaval, but also of hope. You may be right, perhaps, but if so, you look on it with an immortal eye. I can only, I may only, see the upheaval. War devastating the German lands. The Empire—our enemy, yes, nevertheless the Holy Roman Empire that Charlemagne founded—bleeding to death. Protestant sect after sect springing up, each with its own doctrine, its own fanaticism. The English growing back to power, the Dutch growing newly to it, voracious and ruthless. Stirrings in Russia, India, China. God knows what in the Americas. Cannon and muskets bringing down the ancient strongholds, the ancient strengths—but what will replace them? To you, the discoveries of the natural philosophers, the books and pamphlets that pour from the printing presses, those are wonders that will bring a new era. I agree; but I, in my position, must ask myself what that era will be like. I must try to cope with it, keep it under control, knowing the entire while that I shall die unsuccessful and those who come after me will fail.”

His question lashed: “How then dare you suppose I would ever allow, yes, encourage and trumpet the knowledge that persons exist whom old age passes by? Should I— the doctor Descartes might say—throw yet another, wholly unknown and unmanageable factor into an equation already insoluble? ‘Unmanageable.’ Indeed that is the right word. The sole certainty I have is that this spark would ignite a thousand new religious lunacies and make peace in Europe impossible for another generation or worse.

“No, Captain Whatever-you-are,” he ended, glacial again in the way the world had come to fear, “I want no part of you or your immortals. France does not.”

Lacy sat equally quiet. He had had his reverses often before. “May I try to persuade Your Eminence otherwise, over the next few days or years?” he asked.

“You may not. I have too much else to occupy my mind, and too damnably little time left for it.”

Richelieu’s manner mildened. “Be at ease,” he said with half a smile. “You shall depart freely. Caution enjoins me to have you arrested and garroted within this hour. Either you are a charlatan and deserve it or a mortal danger and require it. However, I deem you a sensible man who will withdraw to his obscurity. And I am grateful to you for a fascinating glimpse of—what is best left alone. Could I have my wish, you would stay a while and we would talk at length. But that would be risky to me and unkind to you. So let us store this afternoon, not among our memories, but among our fantasies.”

Lacy sat silent for a bit, until he drew breath and answered, “Your Eminence is generous. How can you tell I won’t betray your trust and seek elsewhere?”

Richelieu chuckled. “Where else? You have called me unique. The queen of Sweden has a penchant for curious characters, true. She is still a minor, though, and when she does take power, well, everything I know about her makes me warn you most sincerely to stay away. You are already aware of the hazards in any other country that matters.”

He bridged his fingers. “In all events,” he continued, didactic, “your scheme was poor from the beginning, and my advice is that you abandon it forever. You have seen much history; but how much of it have you beenl I suspect that I, in my brief decades, have learned lessons in which your nose was never nibbed.

“Go home. Then, I strongly suggest, make provision for your children and disappear with your friend. Take up a new life, perhaps in the New World. Remove yourself, and me, from temptation, remembering what my temptation is. For you dream a fool’s dream.”

“Why?” Lacy croaked.

“Have you not guessed? Really, I am disappointed in you. Hope has triumphed over experience. Hark back. Remember how kings have kept wild animals in cages—and freaks at court. Oh, if I accepted you I might be honest in my intentions, and Mazarin might be after me; but what of young Louis XIV when he comes to his majority? What of any king, any government? The exceptions are few and fleeting. Even if you immortals were a race of philosophers who also understood how to rule me—do you suppose those who do rule would or could share power with you? And you have admitted you are only extraordinary in your lifespans. What can you become but animals in the royal menagerie, endlessly watched by the secret police and disposed of if ever you become inconveniently articulate? No, keep your freedom, whatever it costs you.

“You begged me to think about your proposal. I tell you to go and think about my counsel.”

The clock ticked, the wind blew, the river flowed.

From down in his throat, Lacy asked, “Is this Your Eminence’s last word?”

“It is,” Richelieu told him.

Lacy rose. “Best I leave.”

Richelieu’s lips contorted. “I do wish I had more time to give you,” he said, “and myself.”

Lacy approached. Richelieu extended his right hand. Lacy bowed and kissed it. Straightening, he said, “Your Eminence is as great a man as I have ever met.”

“Then God have mercy on humankind,” Richelieu replied.

“I shall never forget you.”

“I will bear that in mind for as long as is granted me. Farewell, wanderer.”

Lacy went to the door and knocked. A guard opened it. Richelieu signalled him to let the man by and close it again. Thereupon he sat with his thoughts. The sunlight lengthened. The kitten woke, scrambled down his robe, and frisked off in its own life.