Loathsome Grace

Part 1: Le Cygne Noir

(The Black Swan)

“Even the rain here is bitter,” Noël complained, the words half-drowned out by heavy drops assaulting the dragoons’ buff coats.

“Then stop drinking it,” Bertrand called over to the youngest of the troupe. Simple wisdom from the eldest, one might say. Bertrand’s substantial mustache enjoyed only a skiff or two of black amid off-white. “Bah. Before you whine that it is hitting you in the face, tip your hat down since you cannot grow proper facial hair!”

The dragoons shared an exhausted laugh, even Noël at his own expense. Quickly faded, fatigue replaced the mirth. It wasn’t only the men who were wary, but their steeds as well. At first, this excursion away from the front lines seemed a blessing for the troupe. After two days plodding on rain-soaked roads, some of them wished they were back crossing blades with the Dutch.

Not Lieutenant Fétique. He’d had his fill of the Netherlands, of smoke, of blood. Anyone but half-wits knew that the campaign against William the Orange sat at a standstill or was turning in favor of the Dutch. Rumors swirled that the inevitable suing for an uneasy peace was already underway. For Rémy Fétique, it could not be soon enough.

Still, he had a duty to his King, his men, and his God. Rémy called back from the front of the column. “Do not be too harsh on the boy, Levasseur! He dreams of wine, cheap wine, but wine nevertheless. I myself could go for a bottle of even Dutch swill about now.”

“Heavens forfend!” Bertrand cried.

“Sacre bleu!” Jean-François, Rémy’s major, said and crossed himself. “The lieutenant has gone mad. I suppose I must take command.”

Again, the dragoons shared raucous laughter. Another of the troupe, Adrian, cleared his throat and declared. “No, he said it was bitter, my brothers. Noël dreams not of wine, but the kisses of an English maid.”

“I’ll shoot you right here, you bastard!” Noël retorted in equal jest.

Good humor completely overtook well-earned enervation, for the humans at least. The horses snorted and grumbled, their heads hung low and hooves repeatedly squelching in the mud. Rémy wondered if the animals were sharing ill-tempered jokes with one another or bitching between them. Catching sight of an approaching rider ahead, he pulled the troupe, both silent and to a stop with a commanding raise of arm. He shoved a rain-darkened curl from his equally dark green eyes and pulled the brim of his hat lower. The effort did little good; another sodden lock had already fallen across his brow.

“Lieutenant,” Matthieu, the outrider, called as he approached. “We near the château. I do not fancy the smell of it. There is a burnt-out roadhouse some distance before, a fine place to wait out the rain. Which thins back that way. With luck, this blasted storm will break soon.”

That brought cheers from the men.

“Lead on, Moineau,” Rémy directed. He rolled aching shoulders beneath his buff coat. He had always been broad through them, though the campaign had pared the rest of him down until there was considerably less lieutenant beneath the leather than when the war began.

As foretold, the storm abated, though like an unwanted and very drunk house guest, it took its time leaving. Many of the men and their horses relished the springtime sun, though a few sought refuge under the roadhouse’s roof made haphazard by a long-spent blaze. Befouled water dripped from the busted covering, spattered on the stained floor, and slowly eddied into the cannonball crater that dominated the common room’s floor. Rémy skirted the hole on his way to test the stairs, Jean-François dutifully following.

Neither the lieutenant nor major fancied the way the wood beneath their feet moaned and shifted as they climbed, but the stairs proved sturdy enough. Facing their destination, the back quarter of the second floor had been utterly demolished in the fire. This allowed them a fine view of the so-called Château d’Auberjonois and its surrounding grounds.

Rémy pulled his father’s spyglass from his pack and, after a slight adjustment, scanned the area. The first thing that struck him about the land was how sickly it appeared. Fled were the fields leading up to Château d’Auberjonois, replaced by chalky dirt gleaming and pockmarked like feverish pox flesh. Twin garden ponds lie now connected by a slapdash stream of muddy water. Rémy paused, straightened, took his eye away from the spyglass, and after a hard blink looked through it at a speck on the water.

“Mon Dieu. Will you have a look at that?” Rémy said, passing the spyglass over to Jean-François.

“Look at what?” Jean-François asked as he took a gander as directed.

“The dark spot to the left.”

“Is that?” Jean-François paused. “It is. A black swan. I’ve heard of them before but never seen one. Marvelous.”

“Some may say an ill omen, given what compels us to this God-forsaken place.” Rémy tapped his second in command until the spyglass was returned. His attention immediately returned to the black swan. An elegant creature, it floated atop the morass of bad water and rotting vegetation like a royal amid a sea of common folk. Were the beast graced with white plumage, the sight of it swimming through strips of sunlight and cloud shadow would have lifted his soul. Instead, the lieutenant considered shirking his duty, but only for a moment.

“You don’t really believe all this hogwash about poisoners and devil worship, do you?” Jean-François scoffed. He broke away and searched scattered footlockers and cabinets. The man removed his hat, scratching at thinning hair the color of a Normandy beach.

“Our king believes; that satisfies me well enough. Besides, I’ve read the reports about Marquise de Brinvilliers and her circle of diabolists,” Rémy said and forced his attention away from the bird to Château d’Auberjonois itself. Unlike the fine manor houses of France proper, Château d’Auberjonois sported a wall better suited to a castle- now partially demolished by artillery. What he could see of the house reminded Rémy of that bygone era as well, though parts of it had been replaced by modern architecture, which subsequently had been ruined when the war rampaged through this region. Not a single intact window remained in the façade.

Was that movement? He shifted the glass to one of those yawning apertures. For a brief moment, Rémy thought he caught something large slithering out of view. His mind tried to rationalize it as a sodden curtain finally sliding down the wall.

“So greedy wives are doling about inheritance powders,” Jean-François argued, meaning lethal poisons. He gasped at the contents of a drawer. “Ah! I have found a bottle of swill! Shall I save it for you or give it to the men?”

Rémy scanned the other windows before returning to the shattered ponds. The black swan was gone. He swallowed thickly.

“Rémy?” Jean-François asked, turning back to the commanding officer. The wind shifted. The major recoiled, quickly stuffing a ruffled cuff to his nose. “What is that stench?”

The miasma wafting from Château d’Auberjonois was not the mere stink of wet, rotting vegetation. Pungent with purification, the malodorous bouquet carried hints of astringent air as if barrels of vinegar had been recently ruptured and mixed with battlefield debris. Rémy’s eyes stung, watering. He gagged while slipping the spyglass away. What worried him the most was the occasional drift of sulfur. Rémy had never imagined what Hell might smell like, until now.

“Ready the men,” Rémy ordered in a hoarse voice. “The sooner we find Moïse Ménard-la-Chapelle and bring him back in irons, the sooner we can steal away from this place.”

“Yes, lieutenant,” Jean-François replied and made for the disquieting stairs. Normally, the major would have rightly argued that the men needed rest, and Rémy would have relented. However, here on the shores of Château d’Auberjonois, one instinctively understood not only that their lives were in peril but their very souls.

By the time Rémy made it downstairs, his men were already struggling with their horses. Some of the beasts twisted around in circles under their riders, trying to turn away from the stench. Others hooved violently at the ground, their eyes wild. The last barely moved, too exhausted to protest but also to move forward.

Jean-François backed away from his horse and turned toward the lieutenant. “They are not fit, nor safe to travel any closer. Should we leave some of the men here and advance on foot? Hardly a fine afternoon stroll.”

Rémy sighed. They were after one man who may or may not have a clutch of mercenaries with them. A full troupe should be necessary. He looked to his steed, Frère, who met his gaze with exhausted indifference. Rémy’s grandfather used to always say, ‘If your horse does not want to go there, neither do you.’

“Lieutenant? Rémy?”

“Agreed, major,” Rémy said with a nod. “Pick the most tired third and leave them here. The rest of us will advance on foot. I’ll wait for the rest on the road. Such that it is.”

With that, Rémy gathered his musket, pistol, saber, and axe before heading off. It didn’t take Jean-François a quarter-hour to muster the men fit to march. Rémy ordered a loose advance with muskets and bayonets at the ready.