The Red Necklace Read online

  That evening the marquis was holding a supper party to thank Count Kalliovski for his continuing generosity. The guest list included the great and the good of French society—dukes, princes, counts, cardinals, and bishops. Like the marquis, they all had good reason to be grateful to the count.

  But why such generosity? What was there to be gained from it? Count Kalliovski was extremely rich, that was true, a well-traveled, cultivated, and entertaining man. His little black book contained most of the important names and addresses in French society. He was often to be seen out hunting with the king’s party, and was rumored to have helped the queen with one of her more embarrassing gambling debts. In return for his constant generosity, he simply asked for those tiny little secrets, the kind of thing you wouldn’t even say in the confessional box. All you had to do was whisper them to him and absolution was guaranteed, the money given. He kept his friends like pampered lapdogs. They never suspected that the hand that fed them had also bought their souls.

  Many rumors circulated about Kalliovski, which he encouraged. When asked his age he would say he was as old as Charlemagne. When asked about his great black wolfhound, Balthazar, he would say that he had never been without the dog. One thing, though, was certain: Many were his mistresses and no one was his wife.

  The secret of his success lay in the absence of emotion. Over the years he had learned how to empty himself of sentiment, to keep himself free of passion. Love he considered to be a blind spot on the map of the soul.

  He had an iron-clad heart. His motto was one that should have warned all who knew him of his true nature, but a greedy man only sees the purse of gold before him. Count Kalliovski’s motto was simple: Have no mercy, show no mercy.

  For the marquis’s part, he was in awe of the count, fascinated by him. If he was honest with himself, something he avoided at all costs, he was more than a little jealous of him. Tonight, though, he wanted to impress the count. Nothing had been spared to make the celebration a success. Only the finest ingredients were to be used for the banquet. The country might well be starving, but here in his kitchens there was food enough to waste.

  He had even gone to the trouble of having his daughter brought home from her convent to satisfy a whim of the count’s, who had asked to see her. Why, he could not imagine. He thought little of his only child, and might well have forgotten all about her if it hadn’t been for Kalliovski’s request. For the marquis considered Sido to be a mark of imperfection upon his otherwise perfect existence.

  The marquis’s splendid new château stood testament to his secretive nature and his sophisticated taste. Each of its many salons was different. Some were painted with scenes of the Elysian Fields, where nymphs picnicked with the gods. In others, there were gilded rococo mirrors that reflected the many crystal chandeliers. On the first floor all the salons opened up into one another through double doors with marble columns. The effect was a giddy vista of rooms, each one more opulent than the last, and each complemented by sumptuous arrangements of flowers, their colors matching the decoration, all grown in the marquis’s hothouses. It might be winter outside, but here the marquis could create spring with narcissi, mimosa, tulips, and lilacs, lit by a thousand candles.

  But behind the grand façade of smokescreens and mirrors lay what no eye saw, the narrow, dark, poky corridors that formed the unseen and unsightly varicose veins of the house. They were for the servants’ use only. The marquis liked to fancy that an invisible hand served him. And so his army of footmen and maids performed their tasks quietly in felted slippers, like mice behind the skirting boards.

  On the day of the party, the Mother Superior told Sido that she was wanted at her father’s new château near Paris.

  It had been two years since she had last seen him, and for a moment she wondered if he had been taken ill. Her memory of her father was of a cold, unloving man who had little time for his daughter. Sido had grown into a shy, awkward-looking girl who walked with a limp, an unforgivable impediment that reflected badly on the great name of Villeduval. She had lost her mother when she was only three, and for most of her twelve years she had been brought up away from her father at the convent. The marquis had handed her over to the Mother Superior at the tender age of five, with instructions to teach the girl to be less clumsy and to walk without limping, if such a thing were possible.

  Her surprise at finding that she was going to the château just for a supper party filled her with excitement and trepidation. As the coach drove away, and the convent doors closed behind her, she hoped passionately that she would never have to see the place again, that this might be the start of a new life where her father would love her at last.

  Sido’s happiness soon vanished as the coach made its way along the country roads. Peering out of the frosty carriage window, she could hardly recognize the landscape they were driving through. In the thin, blue, watery light, figures seemed to rise out of the snow like ghosts, given shape only by the rags they were wearing. They trudged silently along the side of the road with grim determination. Faces stared at her, registering no hope, all resigned to their fate. Old men, young men, women carrying babies, grandmothers, small weary children, all were ill-equipped for the bitter winter weather as they slowly and painfully made their way toward Paris.

  Sido stared at this terrible vision. She knocked on the roof of the carriage, her words sounding hollow and useless. “We should stop and help,” she called to Bernard, her father’s coachman.

  The coach kept on moving.

  “Please,” Sido called again. “We must help them.”

  “The whole of France needs help,” came the answer. “If we stop for these, there are a hundred more ahead. Best not to look, mademoiselle.” But how was it possible to turn your eyes away from such a sea of sadness?

  This was the first time that Sido had seen the château. The carriage made its way up a drive bordered by trees. The road was being swept clear of snow by men who stopped to let the coach pass, doffing their hats, the bitter cold making their breath look like dragon smoke. Others were up in the snow-laden branches of the trees, hanging little lanterns that were to be lit later that evening.

  Her father’s new château looked like a fairy-tale castle, complete with towers and turrets, floating free of the formal gardens that surrounded it.

  The coach went around to the servants’ entrance, where it came to a halt. The marquis’s valet came out to greet her.

  “How are you, Luc?” asked Sido, pleased to see a face she recognized.

  “Well, mademoiselle.” Then, feeling some explanation was due, he went on, “I have been instructed to take you up the back way to your chamber. The marquis does not wish to be disturbed.”

  Sido followed the valet up a set of cold stone stairs and through a plain wooden door into a long dark corridor. Luc lit one of the candles. It shone a shy light down what seemed a never-ending passageway.

  “Where are we going?” asked Sido.

  The valet turned around with a finger to his lips. “No talking, mademoiselle.”

  Sido followed in silence. Every now and again cat’s cradles of light shone from one wall to the other, through peepholes. Luc opened a door.

  “This will be your bedchamber. The marquis will call you when he is ready.”

  “What are the corridors for?”

  “The marquis does not like to see his servants,” said the valet, his face expressionless, and with that he closed the door behind him. It disappeared perfectly into the painted panels so that if you didn’t know it was there, it would be impossible to tell.

  This was a plain room, paneled in powder blue. The four-poster bed had thick dark blue velvet drapes, a fabric screen stood near a dressing table, and above the fireplace hung a painting of an Italian masked ball. There were no flowers to welcome her, no bowls of fruits, no sweetmeats, though these were given to all the other guests.

  For her part, Sido was just grateful to be away from the convent. She stared out of the window. The sky was
snow-laden, her breath a shadow on the windowpane, and it saddened her that she could not recall her mother’s face.

  Hours passed, so that she was wondering if she had been forgotten, when the valet reappeared. “The marquis wants to see you now, mademoiselle.”

  Sido straightened her skirt, took a deep breath, and concentrated with all her might on not limping as she was taken downstairs. Through an open door she glimpsed the dining room with its seven tall windows and polished parquet floor, its walls painted with exotic birds and vistas of undiscovered lands. The long table, with its silver, china, and cut glass, looked abundant and welcoming, waiting for the fever of conversation, the rustle of silk to bring it to life. Sido felt a shiver of excitement. Tonight she would be sitting at this very table.

  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, poi
nted 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.