The marquis was waiting in his study. He had a large, needy, greedy face that gathered itself into a weak, undefined chin and had about it the promise of perpetual disappointment. He stared down his aristocratic nose at his daughter as if summing up a work of art and finding it wanting.
“I see, Sidonie, that you are not much changed since last we met. A little taller, maybe? Unfortunate. Tallness is unattractive in a girl.”
The abruptness of the criticism and the use of her full name made all Sido’s skills of navigation abandon her. She felt clumsy and out of place in the marquis’s study, which was paneled with gold leaf and filled with valuable objects. She was so fearful of putting a foot wrong that she stepped back, narrowly avoiding a table displaying the marquis’s latest acquisition, a collection of scientific instruments.
“Look where you’re going!” His voice was sharp and cold, his lips pursed together as if they had just tasted something sour.
Sido felt herself blush. Blown backward by his words, she bumped into another table, sending it and its arrangement of leather-bound books crashing to the floor. The noise was shocking in the quiet room.
“In heaven’s name, are you as stupid as you appear? And I see you still have that unpleasant limp. It seems not to have improved in the slightest,” said the marquis irritably.
Sido stood there wishing with all her heart that the floor would open and swallow her up.
At that moment Count Kalliovski was shown into the chamber. At his heels was a large black wolfhound, his famous dog, Balthazar.
Sido had not seen him since she was small, and her first impression was that she would not like to be left alone with either the man or his dog. She dropped her gaze and curtsied as she felt his sharp inquisitive eyes upon her. Glancing up quickly now and then for a discreet look, she saw a tall thin man, elegantly dressed, his skin smooth and ageless, without lines, as if it had been preserved in aspic. He had the perfume of wealth about him.
“That,” said the marquis abruptly, “is my daughter. Why I went to the expense and inconvenience of bringing her back here, I cannot imagine.”
“To humor me, I do believe,” said Count Kalliovski, setting the table to rights but leaving the books where they had fallen. He sat himself in a chair and stretched his long legs out before him, placing his hands together to form a steeple in front of his mouth. They were large, ugly hands that somehow didn’t seem to go with the rest of him. The dog settled near his master. Sido saw that the pattern on the count’s embroidered silk waistcoat was of little black skulls intertwined with ivy leaves.
“Charming,” said the count, studying Sido with an expert eye. “But is there no food at your convent?”
“Not much, sir,” Sido replied.
The count smiled. “Tell me then, are the nuns all as pale and thin as you?”
“No, sir.”
“I thought not. Do they eat at their own table?”
Sido nodded.
“And which convent is this?”
When Sido told him, the count laughed out loud.
“I know the cardinal. I have lent him money in the past to settle his gambling debts.”
The marquis looked most uncomfortable.
“My dear friend, I may not have your eye for art, or the finer details of architecture, but I do consider myself to be a connoisseur of women. Your daughter has the most bewitching blue eyes. Give her a few more years and you will find her to be ravishing.”
The marquis stared at Sido. He looked like a spoiled overgrown child who is being asked to play nicely. “With respect, my dear count, plain she is and plain she will remain. I fear you have been taken in by the beauty of my study and the afternoon light.”
“Not in the slightest. I am just concerned to hear that your daughter has been sent to such an indifferent school. Tell me, Marquis, what use is a dull and charmless wife? No, to make the most of your daughter I suggest that from now on she should be educated at home.”
Sido stood there, surprised to find that she had an ally in the count.
The marquis rang for his valet.
“The girl is to be bathed and the dressmaker summoned,” he said grudgingly. “She will be dining with us this evening.”
It took Sido a moment to realize what her father had just said. Perhaps she might be allowed to stay here after all. She wondered if just for once fate was smiling kindly on her.
chapter three
It was eleven thirty, and the guests had just finished eating. It had been a feast to be savored, and glasses clinked as the wine flowed. Upstairs the gaming tables had been laid out and a group of musicians played in the long sitting room.
On their arrival, Topolain, Têtu, and Yann had been shown into the library, where a small stage had been erected, with a makeshift curtain. The only light in the room came from the fire and the candles on the mantelpiece. When the candles blazed up you could see that this was a large semicircular room. The walls were lined from floor to ceiling with bookshelves, divided halfway down by a wooden walkway. At each end was a spiral staircase. It was hard to fathom where the ceiling began or ended; the books looked as though they might go on to eternity.
Topolain was not in a good mood. When they reached the house he had been in a deep sleep and he had stumbled badly as he got out of the coach, making a fool of himself in front of the footman.
“Shouldn’t have let me nod off,” he snapped at Têtu, who deliberately ignored him. He stood near the fire doing his best to get some warmth back into his frozen limbs, for in spite of all the fur rugs in the coach, he still felt chilled to the marrow.
Only Yann was alert and excited enough to explore. He moved away from the fire into the dark recesses of the library. He had never seen so many books. He took one out of the shelf. It was brand-new, some of its pages still uncut. He put it back and took out another, smiling to himself. Whoever owned the château used this room more to impress than for the knowledge it held.
It seemed extraordinary to Yann that a château should be owned by one man, and it made him feel insect-small. Still, for all its grandeur, there was something uncomfortable about the place, as if the foundations were having an argument with the earth. A bad omen, he thought, for tonight’s show.
The large double doors at the end of the room opened and in the draft that followed, the candles flared up. Yann turned to see a tall man enter the library. He was dressed in black, his hair powdered white, and he walked with an assured step, the red heels of his shiny buckled shoes clicking loudly on the parquet floor. A black wolfhound followed him. He was holding something that Yann couldn’t quite make out. Now in the firelight he saw clearly what it was—a human skull carved in wood.
The sight of it madeYann move farther back into the darkness of the bookshelves. There was something sinister about this man. He supposed him to be the Marquis de Villeduval.
Count Kalliovski ignored Topolain and Têtu, and he hadn’t seen the boy. Turning his back on the fire, he put the wooden skull on the table, opening it up to reveal a magnificent timepiece. On its face was the image of the Grim Reaper.
Topolain rushed forward, accidentally tripping and making nonsense of his low bow. Balthazar growled, showing a perfect set of sharp, pointed fangs. Topolain hastily moved back. Kalliovski didn’t look up.
“It is an honor, Count Kalliovski, to be called to your splendid residence,” said Topolain. “May I congratulate you on your fine taste?”
“This is not my residence. It belongs to the Marquis de Villeduval. Let us hope your magic shows more skill than your words do.”
Topolain was still not fully awake. How could he have forgotten what he had already been told? He attempted some more toe-curling flattery, making matters worse. Balthazar snarled again, a low menacing rumble of a sound like the coming of thunder, his ears pinned back, his eyes shining yellow, watching every move the magician made, longing for one word from his master to tear him to pieces. Topolain took another step backward. He was terrified of dogs.
Têtu, watching this, had a sense of rising panic. His mind whirled as he tried to remember exactly where and when it was he had last seen this man.
It was the sight of the count’s hands that finally loosened Têtu’s memory. He knew now with a dreadful certainty that they were all cursed. For all Kalliovski’s airs and graces, he still had the hands of a butcher, the hands of a murderer.
Yann had never been able to read Têtu’s mind, though tonight that didn’t stop him from realizing that something was wrong with the dwarf, and it wasn’t just his usual tiredness after the show. It was something altogether more worrying. He listened as the count began to speak.
“I called you here tonight because I was impressed by your performance at the Theater du Temple. I too have a great interest in automata,” said the count.
Topolain smiled feebly. He was only half listening. He was positive he had met this man before, though where, for the life of him he couldn’t remember.
“Do you know who first came up with the idea of man as a living machine?” said the count. “It was the philosopher Descartes. It might interest you to know that he even had a replica of his dead daughter Francine constructed for him.”
“I didn’t know that,” said Topolain. He realized with a start that Kalliovski was staring at him intently. He had never heard of Descartes, and knew nothing of philosophy. Nervously, he took out his handkerchief and blew his nose.
“And then there was Jacques de Vaucanson,” continued the count musingly. “You may remember that he came up with that wonder of the world, the defecating duck.”
Now Topolain felt safer. Everyone in France knew about the defecating duck. He coughed and drew himself up.
“I never had the privilege of seeing the duck. It must have been most amusing to see it take the grain from your hand, appear to eat it, and then expel it just like a real duck.”
“Quite,” said Count Kalliovski dryly. His face was expressionless. “And do you know that it was nothing more than a clockwork toy? The Age of Enlightenment, and all it brings us is a defecating duck! I trust your Pierrot holds more magic than that.”
“Oh yes, sir, much more,” said Topolain. Then, without thinking, he inquired, “Forgive me for asking, but haven’t we met before? I never forget a face and yours is one that—” He stopped, realizing too late that his tongue had run away with itself. He knew it was a fatal mistake.
Kalliovski’s eyes narrowed to scrutinize the man in front of him. He turned to look at the dwarf, a spark of recognition showing on his face. Only then did the poor magician remember when and where he had last seen the count. Under his blotched white makeup all the color drained from his face. The count smiled inwardly.
He turned on his red heels and left the room. Têtu and Topolain listened to his footsteps retreat into the distance. They were well and truly trapped.
“What have I done?” said Topolain.
Yann could suddenly feel Topolain’s fear, though his thoughts were jumbled together and made no sense at all.
“Quiet,” Têtu grunted. “The boy is here. You’d better leave the pistol out of the show.”
Topolain poured himself a generous glass of cognac from a decanter, his hands shaking. He drained the cognac in one gulp. “No pistol. I think that’s wise. But we’re dead, aren’t we?”
The memory of the voice early that evening began to haunt Yann again. There must, he thought, be a way to escape.
Above him on the wooden walkway came the sound of footsteps. A footman appeared as if from nowhere, and started to walk down the spiral staircase with a dish of sweetmeats. Quickly Yann made for the staircase at the opposite end of the room. He watched the footman leave the dish beside the decanters on the table before returning the same way he had come, through an invisible door in the bookshelves. Yann, catlike, went up the stairs after him and caught hold of the door before it fully closed.
“See if you can find a way out of here. I’ll keep the door open. Go!” hissed Têtu.
Yann found himself standing in a dark, musty-smelling passageway. Up ahead he could see the flicker of candlelight as the footman disappeared down the rabbit warren of corridors. It reminded him of walking between the painted flats in the theater. But why did the château have this hidden labyrinth of corridors? What was it trying to hide? What illusion was it hoping to create?
Sido had been dressed and ready for hours, but no one had come for her. She could hear music and laughter wafting up the stairs as doors down below opened and closed. It was late. Supper must be over. She had been forgotten. Hungry and disappointed with waiting, she lay down on the four-poster bed and closed her eyes.
This was how Yann first saw her. He had discovered that there were peepholes in all the doors, and by looking through them he had a good idea by now of the layout of the château. It was like watching different scenes from a play, with guests getting ready and putting the final touches to their finery. He felt drawn to this girl, certain that she wouldn’t cry out if he were to venture in. He pushed against the door and it opened silently. Not wishing to wake the girl up, he sat down and waited for her to stir.
There was something about her that fascinated him, and he was curious to know why she had been left up here all alone. She reminded him of a china doll, with long eyelashes that fluttered like a butterfly’s wings, and an abundance of dark hair that cascaded across the pillows.
Sido woke up with a start, then, seeing the boy, sat bolt upright in bed.
“Who are you? What are you doing here?”
She pulled the curtains around her and peeked out, wondering if she should call for help.
“Even if you did, no one would come,” said Yann.
This was very unsettling. Had she been talking aloud and not known it?
“What is your name?” she asked.