Dear Stefan,
I write in haste as I am already on board the French ship
Before your letter reached me I had drawn from our agents all that I required for the journey, and have purchased what clothing and medicines I fear I shall need.
I go to Charlotte as I can do nothing else, and this will not surprise you, and please tell Alexander for me that I know he would do nothing else were he in my place.
But Stefan, you judge me wrongly when you say that I have been caught up in the evil of this daimon. True, I have broken the rules of the order only on account of Deborah Mayfair, both in the past and in the present; but the daimon was never any part of my love of Deborah, and when I struck down the witch judge I did what I wanted to do.
I struck him down for Deborah, and for all the poor and ignorant women I have seen screaming in the flames, for the women who have expired on the rack or in cold prison cells, for the families destroyed and for the villages laid waste by these awful lies.
But I waste time with this defense of myself. You are good not to condemn me, for it was murder, nevertheless.
Let me also say in great haste that the tale of the storm of Montcleve reached here some time ago, and is much garbled. It is ascribed to the power of the witch in one breath, and put down to simple nature on the other, and the death of Louvier is judged an accident in the melee, and there is much tiresome and endless argument over what actually took place.
Now I can speak of what most concerns me and that is what I have lately learnt of Charlotte Fontenay. She is much remembered here as it was at Marseille that she arrived and from Marseille that she sailed. And what has been told me by various persons is that she is very rich, very beautiful, and very fair, with flowing flaxen locks and bewitching blue eyes, and that her husband is indeed deeply crippled by a childhood illness which has caused a progressive weakness in his limbs. He is a wraith of a man. It was on this account that Charlotte brought him to Montcleve, with a great retinue of Negroes to attend him, to appeal to her mother that she might cure him, and also detect any sign of the illness in Charlotte’s infant son. Indeed Deborah pronounced that the son was healthy. And mother and daughter devised for the husband a salve for his limbs which gave him much relief, but could not restore the feeling altogether, and it is thought that he shall soon be as helpless as his father, who is afflicted with the same malady, and though his mind is sharp and he can direct the affairs of his plantation, he is rumored to lie helpless in a splendid bed with Negroes to feed him and clean him as if he were a child. It was hoped the illness would progress with less speed in young Antoine, who was quite the figure at court when Charlotte first beheld him and accepted his proposal of marriage, though she was very young at that time.
It is commonly known here as well that Charlotte and young Antoine were enjoying their visit with Deborah, and had been with her many weeks when tragedy befell the family with the death of the Comte, and the rest you know. Except perhaps that those in Marseille do not believe so much in witchcraft and ascribe the madness of the persecution to the superstition of the mountain people, though what is that superstition without the famous witch judge to goad it on?
It is most easy for me to inquire about these two for no one here knows that I have been in the mountains, and it seems that those whom I invite to join me in a cup of wine do love to speak of Charlotte and Antoine Fontenay as the townspeople of Montcleve loved to speak of the entire family.
A great stir was caused here by Charlotte and young Fontenay, for apparently they live with much extravagance and generosity to everyone, handing out coins as if they were nothing, and they appeared at the church here for Mass with a retinue of Negroes as they did in Montcleve, which drew all eyes. It is said also that they paid very well every doctor here whom they did consult with regard to Antoine’s affliction and there is much talk about the cause of this illness, as to whether it springs from the intense heat of the West Indies, or is an old malady of which many Europeans have suffered in ages past.
There is no doubt among these people as to the wealth of the Fontenays, and they did have agents in this city for trade until very recently, but taking their departure here in great haste, before the arrest of Deborah had become common knowledge, they broke their ties with the local agents, and no one knows where they have gone.
Now, I have more to tell you. Maintaining myself at great expense as the rich Dutch merchant, I managed to discover the name of a very gracious and beautiful young woman, of fine family, who was a friend to Charlotte Fontenay, a name mentioned in connection with that of Charlotte whenever the name Charlotte is mentioned in a conversation of any length. Saying only that I had known and loved Deborah de Montcleve in her youth in Amsterdam, I managed to secure this lady’s trust, and learned more from her lips.
Her name being Jeanne Angelique de Roulet, she was at court during which time Charlotte was at court, and they were presented to His Majesty together.
Jeanne de Roulet, fearing nothing of the superstition in the mountains, avers that Charlotte is of a beguiling and sweet disposition and could never be a witch. She too lays it down to the ignorance of the mountainfolk that anyone could believe such a thing. She has offered a Mass for the repose of the soul of the unfortunate Comtesse.
As for Antoine, the lady’s impression of him is that he bears his illness with great fortitude, and indeed loves his wife and is not, all things taken into account, a poor companion to his wife. However, the cause of their long journey home to Deborah was that the young man may not now father any more children, so great is his weakness, and the one boy child now living, though very strong and healthy, may inherit the malady. No one knows.
It was further stated that the father of Antoine, the master of the plantation, was in favor of the journey, so eager is he for male children through Antoine and so disapproving of his other sons, who are most dissolute and cohabit with their Negro mistresses, rarely bothering to enter their father’s house.
This young woman by the way maintains a great devotion to Charlotte and laments that Charlotte did not take leave of her before sailing from Marseille. However, on account of the horrors in the Cevennes, all is forgiven.
When asked why no one came to the defense of Deborah in these recent proceedings, the woman had to confess that the Comte de Montcleve had himself never been to court, and neither had his mother, and that they had been Huguenots at one time in their history, and that no one in Paris knew the Comtesse, that Charlotte herself had been there only briefly, and that when the tale went round that Deborah de Montcleve was in fact the fatherless daughter of a Scottish witch, a mere peasant by all accounts, outrage over her predicament turned to pity and finally to nothing at all.
“Ah,” says the young woman, “those mountains and those towns.” She herself is eager to return to Paris, for what is there outside Paris? And who can hope to obtain favor or advancement if he or she is not in attendance upon the king?
That is all that I have time to write. We sail within the hour.
Stefan, must I make it more plain to you? I must see the girl; I must warn her against the spirit; and where, for the love of heaven, do you imagine, that this child, born eight months after Deborah took leave of me in Amsterdam, got her fair skin and her flaxen hair?
I shall see you again. My love to all of you, my brothers and sisters in the Talamasca. I go to the New World with great anticipation. I shall see Charlotte. I shall conquer this being, Lasher, and perhaps I myself shall commune with this thing that has a voice and such power, and learn from it wherefore it learns from us.
Yours Faithfully as Ever in the Talamasca,
Petyr van Abel
Marseille
Fifteen
