Angelique - Part 5. The Court of Miracles Chapter 15 - Read online

IT WAS BUT A FEW STEPS from the rue de la Vallee-de-Misere to the Chatelet. From ‘The Brazen Cock’ one could see the pointed roofs of the big tower of the fortress.
Angelique soon found herself in front of the main gate of the prison, flanked by two turrets and surmounted by a bell-tower and a clock.
As on the previous night, the arched gateway was lit by torches. Angelique walked up to the gate, then shrank back and began to wander around in die neighbouring streets, hoping that a miracle might destroy the sinister casde whose thick walls had already withstood the onslaught of half a dozen centuries. The adventures of this last day had almost erased from her memory the promise she had given to the captain of the watch. But Barbe’s words had recalled it to her mind. Now the hour had come for her to keep her word.
‘Come on,* she said, ‘lingering here won t help. I have to go through with it.’
She turned back towards the prison and, under the arch, stepped aside to make room for a funeral procession that was coming out. In the lead walked a man holding a smoking torch. Two porters carrying a bier marched behind him. Two more stretchers followed, and in their wake the air was permeated with cadaverous odours so strong that they sur¬passed the fetid stench of the adjacent streets.
The stretchers, by order of the Lieutenant of Police, were transporting three drowned men who had been deposited in the lower jail for several •days and who had not been identified. They would be passed on to the nuns of the Hospital of Saint-Catherine, at a few hundred steps’ distance from the Chatelet; these nuns were called upon by their statutes to wash, shroud and bury this sad human carrion in a special grave.
Angelique shuddered and hastened into the guard-room.
“Ah! there you are,” said the captain.
He was seated, smoking, his two feet on the table.
“I didn’t believe she’d come back,” said one of the men.
“I did,” the captain asserted. “I have seen men go back on their word, but a skirt never. So, my sweet? . . .”
She lowered an icy glance on the flushed face. The captain reached out with his hand and heartily pinched her backside.
“You’ll be taken to the surgeon so that he can give you a wash and see that you aren’t sick. If you arc, he’ll apply some pomade. I am a finicky fellow, you know. Off you go!”
A soldier escorted Angelique to the surgery. They found the surgeon in amorous conversation with one of the prison matrons.
Angelique had to lie down on a bench and submit to the revolting examination.
“You can tell the captain that she is clean as a whistle and fresh as a daisy,” the surgeon shouted after the disappearing soldier. “We don’t often come across the likes of her in this place!”
The matron took her to the captain’s room, pompously christened his ‘apartment’. She remained alone in this room, which had barred windows like a jail, and thick walls ill-concealed by frayed, threadbare tapestries. A torch on the table, placed next to a sabre and an inkstand, did little to dispel the shadows under the vaulted ceiling. The room smelled of old leather, tobacco and wine. Angelique remained standing by the table, unable to sit down or do anything, sick with nervousness and gradually, as the time passed, completely frozen, for the place exuded a chilly moisture.
At last she heard the rumbling noise of the captain in the corridor, and he walked in, uttering a stream of curses. He flung his sword and pistol on the table, sat down panting and commanded, as he held out his foot to Angelique:
“Take my boots off!”
Angclique’s blood gave just one turn.
“I am not your servant!”
“Well, I’m damned!” muttered the captain, putting his hands on his knees to take a better look at her.
Angelique told herself that she was mad to provoke the Ogre’s wrath at the very moment when she was completely at his mercy. She tried to soften her answer.
eTd do so gladly, but I don’t know anything about military dress. Your boots are so big and my hands are so small. Look.”
“It’s true they are small,” he conceded. “You have the hands of a duchess.”
“I can try to . . .”
“Never mind, sparrow,” he growled, pushing her back.
He seized one of his boots and began to pull at it, writhing and grimac¬ing. There was the sound of steps on the flagged corridor, and a voice called:
“Captain! Captain!”
“What’s the matter?”
“They’ve brought in a corpse, fished out near the Petit-Pont.”
“Put him in the morgue.”
“Yes . . . only he’s got his belly slashed. You’llhavc to make a report.”
The captain blasphemed enough to make the near-by church-tower come crashing down, and rushed out.
Angelique waited again, more and more chilled. She was beginning to hope that this whole night would pass in this way, or that the captain would not come back, or—who knows?—might himself get knifed, when the Chatelet echoed once more with the roars of his mighty voice. A soldier accompanied him.
“Remove my boots,” he told him. “All right. Now out! And you, wench, hop into bed instead of standing there, stiff as a ramrod, with your teeth chattering.”
Angelique turned away and walked over to the alcove. She began to undress. There was a big lump in the pit of her stomach. She wondered whether she ought to take off her shift, and finally decided to keep it on. She climbed into the bed and, despite her apprehension, had a feeling of well-being as she slipped under the blankets. The feather-bed was soft, and she gradually began to warm up. With the sheet up to her chin, she watched the captain undress.
He was something of a phenomenon: he creaked, panted, groaned, grumbled, and the shadow of his enormous figure covered an entire wall- panel.
He removed his superb brown wig and placed it carefully on a wooden stand. Then, after energetically scratching his skull, he proceeded to take offhis other clothes. .
Deprived of his boots and wig and stark naked, the captain of the watch was still an imposing figure. She heard him splash in a pail of water, then he emerged again, with a towel modestly tied around his loins.
At that moment, there was again a knocking at the door.
“Captain! Captain!”
He went to open it.
“Captain, it’s the watch come back saying that a house has been burgled in the rue des Martyrs and . .
“Damn and blast you!” the captain thundered, “when will you realise that if there’s any martyr about, it’s me! Can’t you see that I have a warm little chicken in my bed who’s been waiting for me for three hours!”
He slammed the door, shot the bolt resoundingly and stood there for a moment, naked and colossal, reeling off curses and abuse. Then, some¬what mollified, he tied a scarf around his skull, making the two ends puff coquettishly over his forehead.
Finally, picking up the torch, he stepped gingerly towards the alcove.
The cowering Angelique, with the sheet up to her chin, watched the advance of this ruddy giant whose homed head threw a grotesque shadow on the ceiling. Relaxed by the warmth of the bed, numbed by the long wait and already close to sleep, she found this apparition so ludicrous that she suddenly could not help giggling.
The Ogre stopped, gazed at her with surprise and a jovial expression split his merry face.
“Ho! Ho! The baby’s giving me a smile! Why, that’s unexpected! For you certainly know how to freeze a fellow with icy glances! But I see you’re not averse to a bit of fun either. Hey! Hey! You’re laughing, sweetheart! That’s fine! Нее! Нее! Нее! Нее!”
Не began to laugh heartily, and he looked so funny with his cap and his candlestick that Angelique positively choked in her pillow. At last, with streaming eyes, she managed to control herself. She was furious with herself, for she had promised herself to be dignified, indifferent, granting just what had to be, and here she was laughing like a trollop trying to put a customer at ease.
“That’s fine, sweetie, that’s fine,” the captain repeated, well pleased. “Now move over to make a little room for me.”
The ‘little room’ he asked for almost released a fresh outbreak of mirth on Angelique’s part. But at the same time she was gripped by the thought of what she was about to submit to. While he was hoisting himself into the bed, she shrank back to the other side, curled up and stayed there, mute with revulsion.
The mattress sagged under the enormous bulk which slumped on it. The captain had blown out the candle. His hand pulled the curtains of the alcove, and in this fusty darkness the strong smell of wine, tobacco and boot-leather became unbearably intense. He was breathing hard and
muttering indistinct curses. At last he groped on the mattress near him and his big paw came down on Angelique, who stiffened.
“There! There Г he said. “You re like a wooden puppet. This is no time for that, my beauty. However, I don’t want to rush you. I’ll talk nice to you, because it’s you. A while ago, just from the way you looked at me as if I was no bigger than a pea, I could tell you didn’t much fancy the idea of going to bed with me. And yet I am a good-looking man and generally the ladies like me. But it’s hopeless trying to understand women. . . . I like you, though, and that’s a fact. I’m really smitten! You’re not like other girls. You’re ten times prettier. I’ve been thinking of nothing but you ever since yesterday. . . .”
His podgy fingers were pinching and patting her affectionately.
“You aren’t used to it, it looks like. And yet, pretty as you are, you must have had hundreds of men! Anyhow, as far as we two are con¬cerned, I’ll be frank with you. Earlier this evening, when I saw you in the guard-room, I thought to myself that with your high and mighty airs you might get me all tied up in a knot. That sort of thing can happen to the best of us. So, to be sure not to let you down and be caught short, I downed a whole pitcher of spiced wine. But woe and alas! ever since that moment I’ve been bedevilled with all this business of thieves and corpses. As if all these people were getting themselves murdered on purpose to annoy me.
“I have spent three hours running from the records to the morgue, with this damned cinnamon-wine heating my blood. So now I’m right and ready, I’m making no bones about it. But still, it would be nicer for both of us if you’d show a little good will too, don’t you think?”
This speech had a calming effect on Angelique. Unlike most women, even her physical reflexes and reactions responded to reason. The cap¬tain, who was no fool, had guessed it intuitively. You don't take part in sacking a number of towns and raping heaven knows how many women and girls of all races and nationalities without collecting a little ex¬perience! . . .
He was rewarded for his patience by finding a beautiful, supple body against him which, though in silence, offered itself docilely to his desire. With a grunt of pleasure he took hold of it and possessed it with great vigour but without brutality.
Angelique had no time to feel revulsion. Buffeted by this embrace as if by a fierce whirlwind, she found herself free almost instantly.
“There, that’s done,” sighed the captain.
With the flat side of his big hand he rolled her like a log to the other side of the bed.
“Now sleep your fill, my pretty slut. We’ll have another go in the morning, and then we’ll be quits.”
Two seconds later, he was snoring noisily.
Angelique thought that it would take her a long time to fall asleep, but this supreme exercise coming after the fatigues of the last hours, added to the comfort of a soft, warm bed, plunged her at once into a deep sleep.
When she woke up in the darkness, it took her quite a while to realise where she was. The captain’s snores had become less loud. It was so hot that Angelique removed her shift, as the rough linen irritated her delicate skin.
She was no longer frightened, but she felt vaguely troubled. She was uneasy, and it wasn’t on account of the Ogre’s big, sleeping hulk, but because of something else . . . something indefinable and frightening.
She tried to fall asleep again and tossed from side to side. At last she pricked Up her cars. Then she became aware of the dim, diffused sounds which had drawn her from her slumber, despite herself. They were like the sound of voices, very distant voices which had all fallen into a single plaintive moan. It never stopped. When one sound receded, another one took its place. And suddenly she understood: they were the prisoners.
What had reached her ears through the floor and the massive walls were the muffled moans, the cries of despair, of the unfortunates who were fettered, freezing, fighting off the jail-rats with their shoes, fighting against the water, against death. Criminals were blaspheming against the name of God, the innocent were praying to Him. Others, broken by the torture of the ‘question’, half asphyxiated, exhausted by hunger and cold, were gasping in the throes of death. These things accounted for the grim, mysterious noises.
Angelique shivered. The fortress of the Chatelet weighed upon her with all its centuries and all its horrors. Would she ever find the open air again? Would the Ogre let her go? He was sleeping. He was strong and mighty. He was the master of this hell.
Very softly she drew closer to the huge mass that snored at her side and was surprised to find some charm in this thick hide as she put her hand on it.
The captain moved and almost crushed her as he turned over.
“Hi! Hi! the little quail is awake,” he said in a thick voice.
His outstretched arm pulled her towards him, and she felt submerged in this welter of muscular flesh that rippled under his skin. The man yawned noisily. Then he drew the curtains aside and saw a grey light dimly paling behind the window-bars.
“You arc an early bird, my kitten.”
“Those noises—what are they?”
“They are the prisoners. They're having less fun than we are.”
“They are suffering. . . .”
“They aren't put there to have fun. You're lucky, you know, to have been let off. Why, you’re better off in my bed than on the other side of the wall on the straw. Isn’t that true?”
Angelique nodded with so much conviction that the captain was delighted.
He seized a pint of red wine from the bedside table and took a long draught. His Adam’s apple rose and fell in his powerful throat. He offered the tin pot to Angelique.
“Your turn.”
She accepted, for she felt that this alone could save her from despair between the sinister walls of the Chatclct: the brutal well-being of drunkenness and lust which produce oblivion. ^
He encouraged her:
“Drink, kitten, drink, my beauty. It’s fine wine, it'll do you good.”
When she finally sank back, her head was spinning; the strong, pungent liquor fogged her brains. Nothing mattered any more except being alive.
He turned towards her heavily, but she no longer feared him. She even felt a ripple of pleasure when he stroked her with his big hand, not very gently, but in an energetic, experienced way. Those caresses, which were more like a rough massage than a zephyr’s breath, gave her a genuine feeling of relief. He kissed her in peasant fashion, with big, greedy, noisy smacks, which surprised Angelique and made her want to giggle.
Then he took her in his hairy arms and calmly laid her out across the bed. She realised that he was determined this time to take full advantage of his windfall, and she closed her eyes. She was determined, anyway, not to remember the moments that followed.
Still, it was not quite as dreadful as she had imagined. The Ogre was not vicious. He behaved rather like a man who is unaware of his weight and size but, despite this burden which left her half crushed and flattened,- she had to admit that she had not been far from experiencing a certain pleasure at finding herself the prey of this colossus, full of strength and drive. Afterwards, she felt as light as a feather.
The captain was dressing and humming a military march.
“By Jove,” he kept repeating, “you gave me no end of pleasure. And I’d been so afraid of you! . . .”
The surgeon of the Chatelet came in, armed with his shaving-dish and his razors. Angelique finished dressing while her cumbrous lover-for-a- night let the barber tie a towel round his neck and lather his face. He continued to display much satisfaction.
“You were jolly well right, barber: fresh as a daisy!”
Angelique did not know how to take her leave. The captain suddenly Hung a purse on the table.
“That’s for you.”
“I have already been paid.”
“Take it,” roared the captain, “and go!”
When Angelique found herself outside the Chatelet, she had not the courage to return straightway to the rue de la Vallee-de-Misere, which was too close to the terrible prison. She walked down to the Seine. On the Quai dcs Morfondus the boatmen’s wives had set up ‘baths’ for women during rhe summer months. The ‘baths’ consisted of some wooden posts holding up a canvas covering and driven into the mud. The women would climb down to them in shift and bonnet.
The bargeman’s wife to whom Angelique paid her fee, exclaimed:
“Are you crazy to want to take a dip at this hour? It’s chilly, you know.”
“Never mind.”
The water was cold indeed, but after a moment, Angelique found it very pleasant. Since she was the only customer, she swam around a little among the posts. When she had dried and dressed herself, she walked for a while along the banks, enjoying the warm autumn sun.
‘It’s over,’ she said. ‘I want no more poverty, no more dreadful things like killing the Great Coesre, or difficult ones like sleeping with a captain of the watch. It’s not my kind of life. I like fine linen, beautiful clothes. I want my children never to know hunger or cold again. I want them to be well-dressed and respected. I want them to have a name again. I want to have a name myself. ... I want to become a great lady again. . . .*