The Collector of Dying Breaths

Chapter 34

MARCH 24, 1573

BARBIZON, FRANCE

“Is that a new perfume, René?”

Catherine was back in Paris. She’d been meeting with Protestants in Navarre, and she looked exhausted. We were no longer young, she and I, and the toll of the political burdens she carried was aging her.

“Yes, Your Highness. Not as floral as what you’ve been wearing. I’ve been experimenting with woods and spices from the Far East.”

I handed her an elaborately carved box that I had purchased in anticipation of giving her this gift. Her eyes lit up as she took it. Despite my ulterior motive, I cared about Catherine and was glad I was able to please her.

The queen opened the box, and smiled when she saw the small vial encrusted with pink-tinged pearls nestled in velvet.

“How very lovely-” She’d found the chain tucked behind the bottle. “What is this?”

“A scent bottle to wear like a piece of jewelry.” I’d gone to the court jeweler with the idea, and he’d created the bottle to my specifications. Isabeau and I had talked of how best to ask the queen to release Isabeau to marry me, and the gift had been her idea. I’d thought it inspired. Now I was sure it had been.

“How clever you are, René. The women of the court will all besiege you now for their versions.” Catherine unscrewed the top-one large pink pearl. Attached was a small wand studded with minuscule rubies that gleamed with the oil it brought up. At the very tip was a teardrop-shaped diamond, wet with my newest scent.

“You and the jeweler Charpitier have outdone yourself,” she exclaimed with delight.

“He has for sure, Your Majesty, but you haven’t even smelled the perfume. Allow me.”

I took the wand from her and drew it across her wrist. How different this gesture was than when I applied perfume to Isabeau’s skin. That was a seduction; this was a privilege.

Catherine lifted her hand to her face and sniffed. Once, and then again. “How curious this is, René. I’ve never smelled anything like it. It’s very exotic, very foreign, yes?”

“Exactly. I was thinking of ancient Egyptian queens and Indian maharajas when I was mixing it. Picturing deserts and oases.”

“Thank you, it’s a very charming presentation.” She recapped the bottle, lifted it and hung it around her neck. The glow from the pearls helped soften her haggard complexion.

“I’m glad it pleases you,” I said.

She studied me for a moment and then asked, “What is troubling you then?”

Catherine knew me too well.

“I wanted to ask a favor of you.”

“Of course. You know I will do anything I can for you.”

“I’d like you to release one of your ladies-in-waiting and allow me to take her as my bride.”

Catherine’s eyes grew wide. She tilted her head to one side and stared at me as if she had never really seen me before.

“I thought you were a satisfied bachelor. Over the years it’s been said that you tire of your women quickly and prefer variety to companionship.”

“Over the years I have.”

“It occurs to me once again that there is much I don’t know about you. It’s not that I don’t care for you, René; it’s just the reality of being in this position.”

“I know that.”

“But it’s not right. There are so many things I should know… What is your favorite food? Do you like to read? What music do you prefer? Do you miss Florence even now as much as I do?”

“You shouldn’t trouble yourself with such questions, Your Highness. I have never expected you to waste time on trivialities about whether or not the Seine had replaced the Arno in my dreams. I am only talking about my personal life now because I need you to release the woman I wish to wed.”

“Who is it?”

“Isabeau Allard.”

“Oh, René,” she said after a moment. Her voice was tinged with regret, and her eyes gazed on me with sadness. Then she got up and walked over to the window that faced the river. There was a strong breeze blowing in, and it carried the scent of the new fragrance that I’d made toward me.

Now whenever I open a bottle of cinnamon, I feel a rush of anger. A scent memory connected forever to that terrible moment when I realized she was not going to grant my request.

“I wish that it were that easy, but she is one of the most important women I have in my court. A better spy than any man who’s ever tried to glean information from the enemy. To release her would be to destroy more than a year of hard work. I rely on her, René. No, more than I, the country relies on her.”

I could see that my queen was indeed torn. But Catherine, the woman who said The Prince by Machiavelli was her favorite book, never let her personal feelings interfere when it came to ruling.

“If you had asked for the hand of any other woman, not one as entrenched in the political intrigue that is so critical to France’s well-being, I would have not only granted it but given you a lavish wedding as my gift…” She shook her head. “But I cannot release Isabeau now. In fact, I am afraid I am going to make this even more difficult because I have to send her away again. And I implore you to let her go without making her departure any more painful than it will already be. She has work to do, and I need her mind sharp and her heart unburdened.”

I wanted to grab Catherine by her shoulders and shake her, get down on my knees and beg her. I wanted to do whatever I could to change her mind even though it was impossible. No one ever came between Catherine and her plans for France. And if she believed Isabeau was essential to those plans, I knew there was little I could do.

She reached for the necklace, and I saw that I had made a mistake in bringing a gift. “So what was this, René? A bribe?”

“Not at all. It is a gift in honor of your return. And you wound me to suggest anything else. You know where my loyalty lies. I am your liege. We have traveled a long road together, my queen.”

She looked off into the distance. Was she, like I was, remembering the awful dungeon where she had come to rescue me?

“Back there in Florence, did you poison your monk, René?”

All these years and she had never asked me before.

“Not in the way you mean, no. He was in agony and asked me to administer the poison, and I could not deny him release for all that suffering.”

I was picturing Serapino’s deathbed and the pain that lined his face.

“So when you poisoned for me, it was your first time?”

I nodded.

“I have asked a lot of you, haven’t I?”

“You asked nothing of me. You saved my life.”

She walked to me and took both my hands in hers. Her skin was dry and cool. The skin of a woman who had turned herself into a queen, who focused on the affairs of her country and ignored her own heart. Since Henry had died, a part of her had died too. I wished for her what I had found. Another human soul to lay with her and bring that buried part of her back to life.

“There are so many other women in court-find someone else and I will give you a fine wedding and fill your house in Barbizon with gifts,” she said.

I smiled at her. “I can’t do that, Your Majesty.”

Had she really forgotten how the human heart worked? Or was she just trying to convince herself that my request could be so easily fulfilled?

“Why Isabeau? What is it about her?”

“Except for Your Majesty, who is on another level, when other women wear my perfume it complements them by making them smell more lovely. Isabeau is the only woman who complements my perfumes by making them smell more beautiful.”

I did not do as Catherine asked. I got a message to Isabeau straightaway and asked her to meet me in the Tuileries.

“I will refuse to work for her anymore. I will take my own release,” Isabeau said after I’d explained.

“So that we can run away and be fugitives?” I asked. “We don’t want to live like that.”

“I don’t care how we live. I want to be with you. To belong to you. To spend every night by your side, not sleeping by myself in the palace, dreaming of being in your bed.”

“Please don’t speak so loudly. Don’t look as if you are so distraught.”

“I know she has spies everywhere. I can’t forget that. I am one.”

“And she values you. She is not going to let you go.”

We walked on, not speaking. The complicated future that we faced was as rock-strewn as the path we were on. The days and nights of furtive meetings and long absences stretched out before us, bend after bend.

“So what are you suggesting?” she asked.

“That we wait for your current assignment to be concluded and then, when you have fulfilled her needs…”

“No! I can make the duke tire of me and then-”

“She’s too smart, Isabeau, you know that. If Catherine suspected that you had manipulated him and became angry at you, our fate might be even more miserable. What if she decided to punish you?”

“So I am to be her prisoner?”

“No. You aren’t a prisoner.”

“But if I leave, I leave in disgrace. With nothing. Can you give up your position?”

“Yes, yes, of course.”

“So we can go to Florence. You can take me home with you.”

Home? Paris was home. Barbizon was home. The magistrates in Florence had been clear with Catherine that if I returned, I would return as a prisoner. In their eyes I had murdered a man, and they didn’t want me on their soil. But that had been decades ago. Would it still matter? Would anyone remember?

“I need to tell you about Florence. And why I left,” I said.

As we walked down the sandy allée lined with chestnut trees, under the dappled shade they offered, I told Isabeau the story of my childhood. How I was orphaned and taken in by the monks of Santa Maria Novella. How Serapino had made me his apprentice and taught me everything he knew. I told her about his dying breath theory and his experiments and how he’d taken ill and what he had asked me to do for him. I explained how I never questioned what I owed him or worried about the ramifications. And finally, I recounted the details of my trial and sentence-which to that day I had never spoken of to a living soul-and how Catherine had come and plucked me out of the jaws of danger.

“So I can’t go back. We would have to find someplace new.”

“Can you leave your store?”

“It’s just a building made of wood and stone,” I said, but she must have heard some hesitation in my voice. “And, yes, endless bottles of priceless essences and spices and herbs and hundreds of wonderful scents that clients come from far away to purchase. But I have my notes, and I can re-create everything.”

“What if Catherine heard of your plans to defect and destroyed your shop and your notes before we were able to depart?”

“Catherine is determined but not cruel.” Even as I said it, I knew I didn’t believe it. She was ruthless, and I had no doubt that despite her loyalty to me all these years, like everyone else, I was dispensable. If it suited her, she would turn on me.

“I can’t let you give up everything you have worked for,” she said.

“It’s not your choice, Isabeau.”

“But it is. It’s my choice. And I choose to stay at court and do what Catherine wants until we figure out another way.”

It was because of me she was saying we should stay. I’d intimated I was loath to leave. I was the coward, and yet she shouldered the blame. I was about to speak, to protest, but she reached for my hand and lifted it to her lips and pressed her mouth against my palm. She kissed me and then quickly dropped my hand and ran back to the palace.

I sat on a stone bench in Catherine’s great and grand gardens, under the shade of the trees, and rested my head in my hands, thinking through what Isabeau had said and not said. I had feared she’d find me suddenly monstrous after hearing how I’d helped Serapino to die. Instead she’d been understanding.

Catherine had forbid me to see Isabeau anymore. But how could I give her up? I closed my eyes. Suddenly, all around me, a garden blossomed. Roses and camellias and gardenias. Except it was not yet the season for such flowers. We had weeks to go.

I opened my eyes, expecting some extraordinary event to have occurred and that there would be blossoms and beds of riotous color surrounding me. But I saw nothing but the same trees and grasses of a few moments ago.

And then I realized-it was my hand, where Isabeau had kissed me. She’d left her breath, and in her breath was the garden.