The Collector of Dying Breaths

Chapter 24

MARCH 20, 1573

BARBIZON, FRANCE

In Paris the members of Catherine’s flying squadron flit about the court and its environs like butterflies. When she was princess, there were only a handful of them; now there are dozens. These women are not at all the salacious whores that the enemies of the court like to suggest. I have known many of them to be the most intelligent and clever women in Paris, culled and cultivated by Catherine. She gathers them around her for their stimulating conversations, educates them in certain arts, dresses them, houses them and otherwise cares for them-not only out of the goodness of her heart but also to engender their loyalty to her.

The queen needs her supporters and she needs to trust them.

It’s not unusual for some of these women to visit my shop to buy a fragrance or pick up supplies for Her Majesty. Sometimes they bring straightforward requests; sometimes they carry notes that ask for more clandestine concoctions.

The woman who entered my store that morning on May 16, 1569, was masked, which was not usual. But that mask couldn’t hide her scent, deeply redolent of a garden at dusk. And the mask didn’t conceal her luxuriant hair, the warmest brown of cherrywood, twisted into a spiral except for the few escaped tendrils that curled fetchingly and framed her long neck. Her pale-green satin gown accentuated a narrow waist. The bodice was cut very low, as was the style, especially for ladies of the court, and her honey-colored flesh was abundant above the tight bustline.

It was a curious thing about Catherine’s court: despite the suggestive and revealing clothes, her ladies were highly chaperoned and expected to be chaste unless Catherine asked otherwise of them. I had befriended many members of the squadron, and they talked freely with me when they came to the shop. Over wine, I was privy to their stories of how they danced with and seduced noblemen in order to gain secrets for their queen and how they were rewarded by her. It was an enviable life compared to some of the alternatives, but I knew how these women feared what would happen to them when they grew old and wrinkled. When the bloom was off their cheeks and their breasts sagged, would Catherine still care for them? How would they fare without families to tend to them in their dotage?

“Maître René, I have a note from the queen,” my visitor said as she reached into the pocket of her frock and pulled out a letter for me.

The queen was at Fontenay-sous-Bois, where the court had moved for several weeks, and it was not unusual for one of her ladies to return to Paris if there were things the queen needed.

Dear René,

The bearer of this note is Isabeau Allard…

I looked up at the woman. “Isabeau Allard?”

She nodded.

“You were married to the comte Allard?”

Again she nodded.

Allard had been a customer of mine for several years prior to his death. He was a young man killed in a battle two years before. I wasn’t sure if I should mention this to the woman who stood in front of me, but Allard had been a favorite of mine. He always took his time in my shop and praised my goods generously.

“I knew your husband,” I told Isabeau. “He was a fine gentleman.”

She nodded, and for one very small moment the slits in the mask went dark as she shut her eyes. When she opened them again, they were clear but held a trace of sadness.

“It’s kind of you to tell me, Maître René.”

“Were you married long?”

“Only little more than two years.”

“I’m sorry.”

“I was luckier than many. To marry someone who you actually enjoy was a blessing. My father chose well.”

I returned to the letter and read the rest of it.

Dear René,

The bearer of this note is Isabeau Allard. I have need of your lotion, the one with the apple base. Two bottles should suffice. As well I would like a bottle of my fragrance, and find something for Isabeau that suits her, as she will be part of the dinner party we are holding for an important nobleman whom I want her to impress. I will also need scent for two other of my ladies who will be at the dinner. All different scents that complement one another and do not compete.

And it was signed in familiar slanting handwriting I knew as well as my own.

Catherine

“It’s clear?” Isabeau asked. “You understand? Catherine said you would.”

I looked up-she had removed her mask. She was very lovely, with a high forehead, strong cheekbones and full lips. It wasn’t just beauty; there was something impish and mischievous about her that caught me off guard and, I would have to say, made me curious about her right away.

“Yes, very.”

“The queen wanted me to tell you that I read the note and know what’s in it and what it refers to. In case you had any questions.”

“That was wise. This is a dangerous business.”

“But a necessary one,” she said with a meaningful lilt to her voice. “There are so many intrigues at court.”

“As your husband must have shared with you.”

“It’s why what I do for the queen is so important to me. I can’t put on armor and go fight for my husband’s honor the way his brother did, but I can fight this way.”

As she spoke she squared her shoulders and in fact took on the stance of a soldier. Allard, I thought, had been a lucky man.

“It will take me a few minutes to prepare the apple lotion,” I said. “Would you like wine while you wait? Or drinking chocolate?”

“Chocolate, please.”

As I set to preparing her drink, I engaged her in small talk. She had a lilting, almost musical voice, and it was pleasing to listen to. “Have you been traveling all day?”

“Yes, I came straight here.”

I glanced back. She didn’t look as if she had been traveling for five hours. But even more curious she didn’t smell as if she had been traveling. There was no scent of horses or sweat about her. Had I been asked, I would have guessed she’d bathed within the last two hours.

When I brought her the cup of chocolate, I leaned closer than warranted and sniffed.

“Are you wearing a fragrance?” I asked.

It was the custom to apply fragrances liberally, and indeed many women were too liberal with them. “Just lemon rose water. My husband used to buy it for me. From your shop I believe?”

I remembered. “Ah yes, he did.” It was curious that I’d been selling Allard my fragrant water for this woman to wear to please him. But she smelled of a much more complicated scent than the simple citrus water.

“I still have the last bottle that he gave me, though there’s not much left. That’s why I was volunteered to come into Paris today. In addition to the perfume the queen wants me to wear to the party, I wanted to ask if I could buy more of your lemon rose water.”

“Of course. But first I have a favor to ask you.”

“What is it?”

“Tell me what you are mixing with my water.”

“Nothing. I use it from the very same bottle that you sold my husband.”

“May I approach so I can smell it on your skin?”

Isabeau looked surprised but smiled and agreed.

I stepped closer and leaned forward. Sniffing her neck. The fragrance was immediately intoxicating and like nothing I had ever smelled before. Her skin did something to my scents that was new to me.

Now, recalling that moment, I can still feel my shock.

“What is it, Maître René?”

“Rose essence has a certain aroma… It’s one of the most powerful and lovely of all the scents a perfumer can use, but it’s the scent of a rose past its bloom. The day after it is at its most perfect, if you will. It has to be, for the rose has been plucked and is on its way to dying… but something about the scent on you…”

I watched her as she listened to me. Up close her sparkling blue eyes had the depth of pools of water. As if, I thought, a man might literally be able to swim in her eyes.

Inhaling her scent and staring into her fathomless eyes… Something was happening to me. I was coming awake after a long sleep. Becoming aware after being ignorant.

“What is it about the fragrance?” she asked, breaking the spell.

“Yes, yes, on you the scent smells different. I smell something impossible-I can smell the roses blooming. I don’t know how or why. That’s the reason I asked if you had mixed my water with anything. Perhaps you have been walking in a garden today? Did you pick any flowers?”

“No, I’ve spent the day in the coach. There were strong winds, but I didn’t get out and I haven’t been around flowers.”

I shook my head. It was so curious, but there was work to do so I dragged myself away from the wondrous aroma of blooming roses, left her in the anteroom and went into my laboratory to mix up the poisons that the queen had requested.

It had been years since that first time, while she was reading the bowl of water, that Catherine had asked me to assist in her nefarious deeds. I’d now helped my lady dispose of many of her enemies with poisons. But each time, I still tried to build up a wall around each request. I never asked the names of the men or the few women who she had wanted to rid the world of. The first time she offered that information I refused it.

“I thought you were harder than that, René,” she said when I stopped her. “So do you have a soft heart after all?”

She laughed and I with her, but I couldn’t answer. It wasn’t so much a soft heart as a guilty soul. If I knew their names, I would have to think about their families. I might one day be forced to meet one of their wives in my shop or at court and have to look into her eyes, knowing I had been responsible for her husband’s death.

But my queen didn’t care that I didn’t want to know who she planned on killing with my poisons. She needed an ally, a partner, and so in the end, each time, I had no choice but to listen to the names of the men and women who together we did away with.

As I mixed up these new elixirs, I tried not to think of Allard, but I couldn’t think of anything else. The knight had been one of Henry’s closest allies, but the queen had suspected him of being a spy. And so she did what she often did to spies. Unfortunately, after the man’s death, she discovered she’d been wrong about him and out of guilt had brought Allard’s wife to court.

Catherine had mourned her mistake and vowed to change her tactics. In fact for a full year after the “Allard Incident,” as she referred to it, she asked me for nothing but soaps and lotions, candles, scented gloves, pomades and perfumes.

But then the day came when she once again took up her old ways. “As much as I don’t want to, René, I have to protect France. I have to protect the Crown. And this is the only war I can wage and win.”

And so she had gone back to choosing who should live and who should die, and I went back to aiding her when she needed me to.

Carefully, while Isabeau sipped the chocolate, I prepared the lotion Catherine had asked for, mixing ground apple seeds and almonds. As I always did when working on this formula of Brother Serapino’s, I thought again how his lessons had been so very instrumental to me in serving my queen. A blessing? Or a curse? That afternoon I still didn’t know. But today I do. Sadly, today I do.

I made two bottles of the lotion Catherine had requested.

With care I secured the stoppers, wrapped the bottles in cotton and slipped each into a leather pouch stamped with my mark. Then, items in hand, I returned to Isabeau. She was sitting on the couch, delicate china cup in hand. Smiling, she greeted me.

“That didn’t take long. This chocolate is so delicious. What makes it so much better than what we have at the court?”

“I add vanilla that comes from an orchid plant grown and cultivated by the Aztecs. The fruit ripens almost a year after the flower blooms. Since it’s imported, it’s quite expensive. Too dear for the castle to use in cooking for so many.”

“Do the chefs use them for Her Highness?”

“I wouldn’t be surprised.”

“Could I see what they look like?”

I pulled out a drawer and withdrew one of the long skinny beans, and Isabeau ran her finger down its dark-brown wrinkled bark. Then she lifted it to her nose, inhaled and after a moment sighed. “What a wonderful aroma. Do you grind this up? What else do you use it for?”

“Chefs use it in custards.” I took a knife and slit the pod open, scraped off some of the sap and offered her the knife. “In addition to chocolate, I also use it as an ingredient in some of my perfumes. It mixes especially well with roses.”

Her curiosity was appealing. I watched her sniff the brown seeds and then rub them between her fingers and taste them.

“They need to be mixed with sugars,” I said, laughing at her wrinkled nose.

She finished her drink and put the cup down.

“So now that I’ve made the apple lotion”-I gestured to the two pouches down on the table-“let’s prepare a scent for you.”

“Something to make me impossible to resist,” she teased.

“That’s already been taken care of by your maker.”

Charmingly, she blushed. “Wonderful enough to ensure that the duc de Vendôme not only has a delightful time but finds himself compelled to answer all my questions so the queen can use them to her political advantage.”

“Spying is a dangerous game.” I was suddenly angry at my patron but not sure why.

“Not for us, Maître René. Catherine has schooled us in the ways we can endear ourselves to the men she entertains. We don’t always have to compromise our virtue.”

“Always?”

She smiled coyly. For a moment I found Isabeau almost repulsive. I was seized with an urge to grab her and shake her and chastise her for what she was doing. It was wrong. It went against nature. She was sullying her soul. And then the moment passed, and I wondered at my odd reaction.

“Don’t you find it unpleasant work?”

“It can be…” She nodded. “But what work is not sometimes unpleasant? Who has a life of all pleasure and no pain?”

I saw the evidence of what she’d suffered in the way she shrugged her shoulders and in the tone of her voice, and for a moment felt a new pang of guilt knowing that I had inadvertently been partly responsible for it. Although I knew that was foolish. If I had not made the poison the queen used, someone else would have. If I had refused, there would have been another to step into my place and provide what she wanted. Back then, that was how I justified my deeds. And how I thought I would be able to go on justifying them for all of my days. But I’d only just met Isabeau.

“I think I will need to try some essences on your skin and see how they react-would you be willing?”

“If you think that it’s necessary.”

“I do, especially because the lemon rose water smells so different on you than it does on anyone else. I want to test what I prepare for you.”

It was late afternoon. The shadows in the shop lengthened. The cacophony of smells became intoxicating. And I became absorbed by the phenomenon that occurred with every essence I tried on her skin.

Isabeau’s chemistry accentuated and changed each one. What I smelled on her was not what was in the bottle but instead the aroma of that particular flower in bloom. Before it was picked! Before the effleurage process had begun.

I had never heard of such a thing; never before had it occurred.

“I don’t understand,” I said as I stroked jasmine absolute on her wrist, waited a few moments and then lowered my nose to her hand. The aroma was of a fresh sprig of the white flowers, ripe and ready to be plucked. This was not an oil-based residue of pressed petals-it was blooming flowers.

She lifted her wrist to her nose and smelled.

“Have you ever noticed this before?”

“I was not aware of it, Maître.”

I tried essence of lavender next, putting a drop of the tincture on my forefinger and then stroking it against a clean spot higher up on her arm.

“Again,” I said to her. “It’s happened again.”

She lifted her arm to her face.

“Can you smell it?” I asked.

“Fresh lavender from a garden. Is it not the quality of your ingredients?”

“They are the same ingredients I used yesterday and the day before.”

Next I lifted the bottle of lily of the valley and repeated the process to the same end.

“There is no more room on your arms,” I said to her finally after I’d tested another four scents.

With a provocative gesture, she lifted her chin, offering me her neck.

I wet my finger with the scent of violet, then slowly dabbed her skin. Leaning in, I breathed deeply.

“You are becoming a garden.” I smiled as I next applied orange blossom to the other side of her neck. My finger lingered even longer as it made its way down the elegant column.

She didn’t pull back. Nor did she comment, but she did close her eyes. With pleasure, it appeared.

I leaned in to smell the orange blossom and was overwhelmed with desire.

“I still have heliotrope to try, but the skin on your neck is all scented.”

Without saying a word she pushed out her chest, inviting me to anoint the tops of her breasts and cleavage.

I tipped the bottle over, wet my forefinger and traced the swell of her breasts with the oil. Her breath quickened. I leaned down toward her glistening skin and inhaled. Fresh heliotrope, smelling of pepper and licorice and sweetness, mingled with all the other flowers that were blooming on her skin, and then, without forethought, I pressed my lips to her flesh.

She moaned and thrust herself toward me.

I grabbed her around the waist and pulled her closer, bruising her neck with kisses as I undid the twist of her hair. The thick dark ropes fell around my face like a velvet curtain, and I was enclosed within her.

Isabeau tasted sweet. I can no more explain this than I can explain how perfume turned to living flowers on her skin. But as I pressed my lips to this spot behind her ear and that spot in the hollow on her neck, and then when I finally lifted her face and kissed her mouth, I tasted liqueur. All I could think of was that she was a creature made by bees from nectar collected from flowers and turned into honey.

My kiss was returned with a surprising joy and playfulness that inflamed me all the more. There are women who want sex to reassure themselves they are desirable. Others who use conquest as currency and allowed me to take them to ensure their ability to obtain the special scents that supposedly only the queen wore. I had a shelf of those-none of them truly worn by Catherine, of course-that I would sell for either favors or exorbitant sums as long as the wearer promised she would never tell anyone she was wearing one of the queen’s originals. But often they bragged about their exclusive scents, and word got back to Catherine, who teased me about how I was becoming rich off her.

Isabeau was not reacting like a woman who wanted anything from me. She seemed to revel in my touch and enjoy my lips and my tongue in a way that was unfamiliar to me. Few women I’d known got this much pleasure from the act.

And then, in the evening shadows, as small waves from the river slapped against the foundation of my shop, Isabeau took my face in her two hands and kissed me, pushing my lips apart with her tongue and exploring my mouth.

Her gown was a complicated affair made even more so by her undergarments, but she undressed as if putting on a show. Doing a small dance, twirling this way and that as she disrobed.

“Is this what Catherine has taught you to do?” I asked as she slipped out of the first layer of silk.

She searched my face, wondering how to answer.

“The truth, Isabeau. I am most intrigued by the truth.”

“Yes, then.”

“Does she have you do this for many men?”

“Not for many.”

“How many have there been?”

“Why do you want to know?”

“I don’t know except I want to know you. All of you. I need to understand what about you makes the perfume blossom. What secrets you have. So tell me how many have there been?”

“There have been five men.”

“And you spied on all of them?”

“Yes.”

“And did you bed each?”

“Four of them.”

“For how long?”

She hesitated. I went to her and took over the job of undressing her, unlacing her corset, smelling roses and lemons, smelling my scent on her clothes. My own skin was burning, my desire making it more and more difficult for me to proceed slowly. I was overcome with the need to rip off her clothes and take her quickly, but something warned me that I would be forgoing great pleasure if I rushed.

“It’s all right. I won’t be shocked,” I reassured her.

“I was with the first for almost a year. Only a few months each with the others.”

“And were you a good spy?”

She threw back her head proudly, defiantly. “I was.”

Her bravery incited me. I finished unlacing the corset, releasing her full breasts and with them a new infusion of the rose scent.

Reaching over to the table, I pulled the bottle of lily essence forward, uncorked it, wet my fingers and then very gently painted circles around her dark nipples, making her skin glisten with the oil.

“Did any of them do this to you?” I asked.

“No,” she whispered.

I could barely hear her voice.

As if she were a fragile glass bottle, I unwrapped the rest of her body oh so carefully until she was standing before me, in the twilight, completely naked. And then I anointed every inch of her skin with oils of flowers until she glistened.

“My garden,” I whispered to myself as much as to her.

Her eyes were heavy lidded, her lips moist and parted, her cheeks flushed.

“Has any man ever made you want him?” I asked.

“No,” she moaned.

“No one has ever pleased you without pleasing himself?”

She shook her head.

I got down on my knees and pushed her legs apart slightly and then buried my face between her thighs. Here was the only part of her body I had not anointed, but it glistened on its own. And here was the only part of her body that did not smell of my flowers but of her own sweet honeyed essence. The odor was neither sour nor stale-Isabeau’s essence was a perfumed liqueur, and as I licked her I became drunk.

Everything about that late afternoon is emblazoned on my mind. I can remember how the candles sent red highlights dancing through her hair and how her throaty laugh of pleasure sounded like nothing I had ever heard. I thought I had pleased women before. Thought I had understood passion. But this was a thing of itself. I had never known a woman who enjoyed sex the way Isabeau did. Who luxuriated in our coming together the way I had seen others luxuriate in ermine cloaks and jewels. She gorged on it the way I had seen men gorge on food. She drank it in the way I had seen partygoers imbibe. She was joy and felt joy and made me feel it too. And with that joy, for the first time that I could remember, I felt a lightness about the world. I ceased to worry, to be anxious.

When she put her hands on either side of my head, her fingers weaving through my hair, and held me, I felt a pressure inside that I could not control. So this was being wanted, I thought. Every moment of my lonely life came pouring out of me, and I wept. With my head between her thighs, sucking on her nether parts, listening to her rapture, tears poured out of my eyes. That I had lived so long and not known this! That I was only finding it now-with someone who was above my station and as impossible a partner as the queen herself would be. A cruel joke.

And then Isabeau pulled me up with her beautiful little hands and kissed my mouth that was wet with her own juices. Together we fell back against the couch, and as I slid inside of her, my very life exploded.