Victus Read online

  Unless his family was supervising him, the man never washed. When he stayed in Paris for extended periods, not under their control, his nails would grow longer than a wolf’s. And his very fine clothing was always in tatters. The moment he arrived in Bazoches, he would have to be hurried out of sight and washed and clothed, for if the marquis saw him in that state, he was quite capable of expelling him. But, this much is true, he was extremely happy, perhaps the happiest man I have ever laid eyes upon. His particular mania was the philosopher’s stone. He was constantly on the verge of discovering the final piece in the puzzle. And is any man so happy as he who finds himself on the verge of a scientific revolution? Whichever track he was on would inevitably come to naught, and he’d be depressed for several days. But come the third day, he was back to his carefree, lively, and joyous self again, for he had uncovered another secret formula in some dusty tome.

  As is so often the way, the cuckold became very friendly with his partner’s lover (unfortunately, but what to do?). I do not think he ever knew about Jeanne and me, and if he did know, he cared not a pepper. Much as I tried to avoid him, it was inevitable that sooner or later, he would collar me in some corner of Bazoches.

  “My dear Zuviría!” I heard him exclaim one day before he approached and embraced me.

  On this occasion he had been at the castle a whole week, an extraordinarily extended stay, bearing in mind the suddenness of his comings and goings. This was due to an old woman, a spirit medium in the town of Bazoches, to whom he was paying daily visits.

  “I believe I have finally alighted on the definitive path that will lead us to the philosopher’s stone,” he went on. “The path was not in this but in the next world! Thanks to that old witch, I am able to converse with superior souls who give me guidance. Yesterday I set off alongside none other than Michel de Nostradame and Charlemagne.”

  His liking for my company made a certain sense. His family had made up their minds about him already and sent him away whenever they could, while the servants were not at his level. With me, on the other hand, he could hammer on all he liked; as a student, I was somewhere between the two social extremes. For my part, it would have been highly indecorous of me to send a member of the Vauban family off to fry asparagus. So I had to bear his happy tirades, his mental raspberries, on the subject of the philosopher’s stone. Looked at with a little leniency, nor was it the heaviest load to bear. My obligations were limited to opening my eyes wide, every now and then letting out a “Can that be?,” a “How interesting!,” or even a “The world will shake with delight!” when my thoughts were: Enough now, fruitcake, I want to go and lie down with your wife.

  The true philosopher’s stone was Bazoches. Ah, yes, Bazoches, pleasant Bazoches. The best days of my life; the most tender and full of hope. Joyous. And bear in mind that it is a life of ninety-eight years of which I speak, ninety-eight times around the sun. Though, during that time, something somewhat ominous also occurred.

  Jeanne and I didn’t spend all our time together in secret dalliances. We were on occasion visited by an infantry captain, Don Antoine Bardonenche. I do not remember what the relation was between him and the marquis, but he was free to come and go at Bazoches as he pleased. A young man, supreme with the sword, he was stocky, with a jaw like an anvil and a very candid manner. His ideal was that of the knights errant, though in place of the tragic aspect, Bardonenche had an uproarious laugh. With his perfect manly deportment, he was one of the most handsome men I’ve ever seen. Charlotte, Jeanne’s older sister, was hopelessly in love with him. Sometimes on a Sunday, the four of us, Jeanne and I, Bardonenche and Charlotte, would go for picnics in the meadows surrounding the castle. The two of them would engage in pretend swordfights, armed with sticks, laughing and tumbling innocently around for hours on end. I turned my Bazoches eyes on Bardonenche, to examine him, to ascertain what was hidden beneath that soldier skin of his, at once so boyishly voluptuous. Nothing—there was nothing. All his life was taken up in passion for weaponry and serving Louis XIV of France, whom the laypeople called the Sun King and his enemies called the Beast of Europe or, simply, the Beast.

  One day when the marquis was abroad and—what news!—the Ducroix brothers were as well, we two couples made a carnival of the castle. We were still children, in spite of my studies, in spite of Jeanne’s marriage, in spite of the infantry captain’s uniform worn by Bardonenche. We played blind hen. When the blindfold was put on me, I followed the others without any difficulty. Thanks to my training in the Spherical Room, it was so easy to find them that I hardly needed eyes. I could smell their laughter, hear their smells. But, pretending I couldn’t, I let them get away for a little while. Suddenly, my hands were pushing on a hidden door behind a drape. I didn’t know why the door might be hidden like that, but with the blindfold on, it felt like less of an aberration to go ahead and enter.

  Behind this door was a thin passageway. My hands felt along some wall brackets. Certain curious figures stood on these. I took off the blindfold; before me were reproductions, to scale, of the fortifications of every one of the cities and citadels of Europe.

  Dear Lord, I knew what this place was. In Versailles the Beast had a store of designs, in miniature, of all the fortresses on the continent, toutes en relief. Should a day come when his generals needed to storm them, they had a replica so that the engineers could plan the best line of attack. Vauban, unbeknownst to the Beast, had built a similar room. Naturally, the marquis wasn’t going to show such a secret to a simple engineering cadet like me. Though my loyalty to him impelled me not to, something made me stay.

  I looked at the model nearest to hand, a star shape with twelve bastions. It was beautifully made. Out of plaster, small pieces of wood, and porcelain, reproductions of fortresses from all corners of Europe had been constructed. The scales were exact, as were the angles of inclination for each of the bastion walls, the depth of the ditches . . . Rivers, coasts, and marshes were indicated by a lighter or darker blue, depending on how deep they were and their distance from the ramparts. Elevations and gulleys in the land were depicted in brown, lighter or darker depending on the height. Numerical tables in the margins provided complementary information for the technical experts.

  I closed my eyes, as though still playing blind hen. The reproductions were of such excellent quality that they could be identified by touch. Ath. Namur. Dunkirk. Lille. Perpignan. Most of them had been erected or rebuilt by Vauban. Besançon. Tournay. And Bourtange, Copertino, too, enemy strongholds spied on by minions of the Beast. Each fortress was star-shaped, and my fingers ran across their outlines, one after another, as if a Milky Way were contained in that magical room. I heard voices. Without, Jeanne and Bardonenche were calling for me. One last maquette, I thought, one more before I go back to them.

  Eyes shut, then, I ran my fingers over one last series of medieval ramparts and ancient bastions. Everything suggested a venerable place thousands of years in the making. Interesting. More details: It was a port—no ramparts on the sea side. I pulled up. A shudder. I gulped. I knew those outlines.

  For the first time in Bazoches, I was touched by a baleful presentiment. For every single thing at Bazoches was dictated by its usefulness, and if these designs were there, it was because one day, perhaps, they could be used to plan an assault. Opening my eyes, I looked upon this last maquette. It was Barcelona.

  7

  Have you ever hated a person the moment you laid eyes on him? Throughout the course of my life, I have had dealings with enough scoundrels, knaves, and lowlifes that if the devil were to gather them all in one maleficent reunion, they would fill the whole of the Mediterranean Ocean. But only one has merited my constant hate: Joris Prosperus van Verboom. See, here, a copy of his official portrait. Lovely-looking lad, wouldn’t you say?

  When I met him, Verboom must have been a little shy of forty. His coarse demeanor and doggy cheeks put one in mind of a heartless butcher. I do not exaggerate. He had a bigoted sneer on his face, his features packed
together as though he had not had his belly purged in years. Whereas the marquis’s severe aspect conformed to ideas of order and justice—strict but ultimately just—that of Verboom spoke of his utter hostility to inferiors.

  Considering what happened later on, the world would have been a far better place had this man accepted living like what he truly was: a sausage-maker from Antwerp, with no need ever to really leave home. But leave he did, because what defined Verboom above all was that he was both sycophantic and ambitious—it fitted his demeanor perfectly. This was why so many powerful people clamored after him, and he was offered a great many cushy jobs; kings know that the vultures fly high, but never at the height of the eagles.

  He’d never learned how to laugh. A trait that was very useful in his dealings with subordinates, because he intimidated them, but catastrophic when it came to women. To see him act the gallant was a pitiful sight, not to say grotesque. His disharmony with the feminine, with the whole sphere of the world not governed by simple obey-and-command, made him timid as a doe. To qualify: He would happily act the clown provided only his love object, and not his rival, were there to see. For there was Verboom, in the middle of the parade ground at Bazoches, trying to seduce my Jeanne with that ugly butcher’s mug of his.

  I was on my way back from being out in the fields, looking a wreck, arms full of shovels and picks, when I saw them. The Bazoches observation techniques can be turned upon many facets of life, not just the engineering-based. I was a Four Points by then and needed only a look, a half-look, to surmise what this individual was after. Or, better put, whom.

  Years earlier Verboom, the Antwerp butcher, had served under Vauban at a couple of sieges. This justified what was ostensibly a courtesy visit. Good excuse to strut about in his royal engineer uniform—ha! He was after bigger game. Jeanne was beautiful and rich, Vauban’s daughter, and married to a man who was close to being locked up in the attic of some merciful institution. As I approached, that sausage seller was asking after Vauban. When Jeanne said he was not at Bazoches, he said: “A shame—I changed my route in order to come and pay my respects.”

  Spurious liar! All of France knew that Vauban was in Paris at that moment, conferencing with the ministers of the monstrous Sun King. Verboom had come to Bazoches precisely because the marquis was not at home—all the more leeway to woo Jeanne.

  I came and stood right up close to the pair, staring at Verboom with all the brazenness of a madman. He was surprised at such impertinence from a mud-spattered youngster, but being there on a visit, and in front of a lady, he preferred to pay the lout no mind. Jeanne straightaway realized what this might have led to.

  “Martí, go and get cleaned up,” she said. And then asked Verboom if he would like a light meal.

  I carried on looking at him unblinkingly. And then said: “Don’t give him a thing—he will never be satisfied.”

  In my defense, it was almost the Ducroix brothers speaking through me. Excepting Jeanne and brief talks with the servants, I spent my days with them alone and had caught their habit of thinking aloud. As the Ducroix brothers never tired of saying: “Children do not speak because they know how to think; they know how to think because they speak.” A person trained in keeping a constant grip on reality has no fear of speaking frankly. But high society, I forgot, is governed by falsity and censure.

  Verboom’s face became inflamed, and by this I mean a physical phenomenon both real and remarkable. Ire affects some people in such a way that their facial muscles dilate outrageously. The thick meaty layers of Verboom’s face blew up like red bubbles. I should have been afraid. Instead, I had to make efforts to hold myself back.

  Jeanne could see we were teetering on the edge of a disaster. “Martí!”

  I had the pick and shovel over my right shoulder, and with my dirty sleeves falling back over my elbow, it meant my bare forearm was exposed. Verboom counted the four Points, and his incredulity made his fury double. He grabbed my wrist in one of his thick hands, brought it closer to his face, and said: “There must be some mistake.”

  The pick and shovel fell to the floor, wood and iron reverberating as they struck against the stone. I, in turn, whipped around and with my left hand pushed back his right cuff. Verboom had only three Points. I clucked mockingly. “In your case, surely not.”

  “How dare you lay hands on me, dungheap gardener!” he cried. “Let go!”

  “More than happy to. When you let go of me.”

  Pride meant he could not desist. He wanted to humble me, not let me go. He had a boulderlike strength, that of men born to inhabit naturally thickset frames. My muscles were worked, catlike, not an ounce of fat. In the most absurd manner, we found ourselves locked in a body press reminiscent of Turkish wrestling. Or perhaps not so absurd, for in truth men come to blows far more often over women than over questions of money, glory, or anything else.

  It must be the time when I’ve come physically closest to the Antwerp butcher. Our noses were as good as touching. That close up, his coarse features clearly delineated his avaricious gluttony. The deep, dilated pores, and his dense sweat, like the muck a snail leaves in its wake.

  Engaging in a fight with a man like Verboom is like scaling a mountain: You think the summit will never be reached, the ascent is endless. About to give in, you push on. Until, suddenly, there you are, setting foot on the peak.

  Before caving in, Verboom let out a muffled cry. He knelt down on one knee and scanned my face in horror. I was about to lay my sapper boots across that pig’s head of his when a horde of his menservants pulled me away from him. Verboom was slack-jawed, humiliated. Jeanne tried to patch the thing up as best she could. She presented her excuses, swearing that I was nothing to her but an overly protective guardian. And a little unhinged, she had to add, because even being held back by four men, I continued to shout and struggle.

  “Martí! Beg pardon of Sir Joris van Verboom. Now!”

  Jeanne’s demand prompted the servants to loose their hold on me a little, and I took the chance to launch myself at him again. There was somewhat less swagger to Verboom on this occasion. He turned to run but, unfortunately, slipped and fell flat on the road. I grabbed him by an ankle and dragged him along as the servants tried to hold me back by the legs. Before they carried me away from there, I was able to sink my teeth into his left buttock. You should have heard him shriek.

  Youthful impetuousness is, in part, formed by the inability to see the consequences of one’s actions. But if you are a student kept according to the grace of the lord of Bazoches, under his guardianship and in his pay, when you shred the pantaloons of a houseguest with your teeth, well, my boy, it makes sense that the master of the house will want to have words.

  As if this were not enough, my brawl with Verboom had been badly timed. Vauban’s meetings with Louis XIV’s ministers had made it clear to him that he had been ostracized. It was purely a matter of form that they had invited him; every one of his suggestions—as to matters of both war and peace—had been rejected out of hand. He returned to Bazoches in a dog of a mood, and the first piece of news he heard was that his reputation as a host had been dented.

  Darkly, the Ducroix brothers said to me: “Martí, the marquis wants to see you.”

  Jeanne had gone before me. In his absence, the marquis left her to see to the running of the castle, and she was responsible for whatever went on. When I went in, they were in the midst of trading insults. I caught Jeanne saying: “But you yourself have stated a thousand times the low opinion you have of Verboom.”

  “We’re not talking about him!” shouted the marquis. “He had crossed my threshold, he should have been provided for! And instead of that, we attack him, we take bites out of him!” Seeing me, he exclaimed, “Ah, here’s the brute!”

  He marched over to me. For a moment I thought he was going to give me a slap. “What excuse can that deranged mind of yours offer?” he rebuked. “Answer! What led you to abuse a guest in my home?”

  “He was a base man,�
�� I answered.

  The truth is sufficiently powerful that it can shock the most eminent of men. The marquis lowered his voice, though not by much.

  “And have you not been taught that certain buffers exist between goodness and evil, namely manners? You left the pantaloons of a royal engineer in tatters!”

  I wanted to say something, but he cut me off, becoming extremely vexed again.”Silence! I never want to lay eyes on you again! Jamais!” he roared. “You will go to your quarters and stay there until tomorrow, when the diligence carriage arrives. You will then travel on it to your home or to wherever you please. In any case, very far from Bazoches. Now, out of my sight!”

  Up in my room, I head-butted the wall. Home! Without a qualification, with no credentials. My father would kill me. Worse, at this point I knew how lucky I’d been. Life had gifted me something no amount of money could buy: being the student, the sole student, of the greatest genius of siege warfare ever to walk the earth. At the same time, I realized how far I was from having completed my studies; I had not received even half of what Bazoches had to offer. And the hardest thing to bear was the thought of being separated from Jeanne.

  I had behaved like an idiot, a downright idiot. When it came to it, my mistake had been that of a poor student. If I had been attentive—if, as the Ducroix brothers had taught me, passion had not blinded me—I would have seen that Jeanne could never fall for a man like Verboom. But no, the Zuviría in me had gone and ruined everything.