When I finish, I face Erec. “Walk stealthily around to where the horsemen wait. Stay upwind. Once you are close enough to smell them, combine the liquids into one jar. I’ve also prepared this soaked cloth for you to breathe through, so you will not be affected. Even so, be careful. Once you’ve set the jar down, move away to a spot where you can watch without inhaling the fouled air. The wind will carry it their way. After they’ve succumbed and are asleep, come back to me.”
“Is it a spell?” Erec asks.
I smile, knowing that is what the uneducated call my mixtures. “Not at all. It’s a blessed balm. It works wonderfully on children to help them sleep, or on soldiers suffering from wounds to give them relief. But not for women with child because it can cause trouble with the babes.”
“Do you know who these strangers may be?” he asks.
“They come in another attempt to take my home. Sent by my loving half-brother, and his angry, deceitful wife. Go now, and do as I say.”
In less than an hour Erec returns, slightly out of breath. “All are fast asleep.”
I mount my horse and we circle to the front, past the sleeping armed men, and across the drawbridge to the gates, which are opened for my return.
Another onslaught averted.
But it will not be the last.
Chapter 5
I slipped out of the hallucination, surprised once again by both the journey and the return. The forest and the fortress had seemed so real. So had Erec. And the potion, and the sleeping armed men. I checked my watch. I’d been out about a half hour.
I found the phone and saw that Nicodème had not called. I lay on the wet ground, the corked bottle beside me. The rain had ended, but the storm still lingered out over the sea. I stared at the footpath. What was it? A ninety-minute walk down to the water. Antoine and I had traversed less than a quarter of it before we’d been ambushed. If medics had driven up to Eze, then walked down to find him I would have passed them. If they’d walked up from the bottom of the path they wouldn’t have even arrived yet.
So where did Antoine go?
I thought about Nietzsche walking the footpath, planning a book that later became misconstrued, co-opted by Nazis who exploited and twisted his message. I’d read it and saw it for what it was, a meditation on the dangers of becoming overzealous about religion. I imagined that some who walked this path thought on the philosopher’s belief in a free, passionate, chaotic life-force. One unchecked by man or rules. I wondered how many of them experienced dreams so vivid they seemed real? I’d never spent much time focused on the occult but, as I sat there, staring at where Antoine had lain, looking at the glass bottle with god-knows what inside, I wondered what was happening.
The phone hummed.
Nicodème.
“The hospital says the medics are on the way,” he told me.
So Antoine either got up and walked away or someone helped him.
“I need to find where he is,” I said.
“Why don’t you come back here and we can—”
“I don’t want to wait. The more time that passes the colder the trail gets.”
At least that’s what experience had taught me.
“What are you going to do?”
“I’ll walk down to make sure he didn’t pass out along the path. If I don’t find him, I’ll take my car and head to the hospital, then ring you.”
And that was what I did, seeing nothing of Antoine. Two hours later, I reached the hospital in Nice. He wasn’t in the waiting room, had not been admitted, nor was there anyone there matching his description. By the time I returned to Eze it was almost eight p.m. My feet and body ached and the sun was setting.
“Maybe his wound wasn’t as serious as you thought,” Nicodème said as he filled a glass with water. “For now, I want you to sit. You need to have something to eat and drink.”
“I need a bath and change of clothes.”
He chuckled. “That you do.”
“I’d also love some wine.”
“First, water,” he said, with a fatherly concern.
While I drank, he arranged a platter with cheese, olives, and a slab of pâté. He sliced a fresh baguette and tossed the bread in a wicker basket. After setting the food on the table he added plates, silverware, napkins, a pitcher of water, and finally a bottle of rosé. I reached for the wine and poured us both a glass. We ate and he questioned me in detail. I recapped the whole series of events, everything that had happened from the time I’d run from the shop chasing the thief. The only thing I omitted was the glass bottle in my pocket and the two visions. I’m not sure why I didn’t confess those too, but I’d learned to trust my instincts.
And they told me to keep silent.
“Antoine said the box belonged to his family. Is that right?”
“I have no idea. I bought it at auction years ago, as he told you.”
“What exactly is it?”
“Supposedly when witches and sorcerers gathered for rites, dancing, or feasting they brought with them their individual herbs and potions, all carried in a Sabbat Box. Usually plain wood with some carvings, this one was more elegant, which may have signaled that its original owner was a person of means.”
Like a leader’s half-sister, I thought to myself.
“Some of the bottles contain herbal extracts,” he said. “Others flower and oils. Some are identified, others are not.”
I recalled the three labels.
Belladonna. Diospyros. Henbane.
“The legend associated with this Sabbat Box suggests that, among those bottles, were three particular potions of note. My cousin, Jac L’Etoile, who runs the family perfume company, performed some chemical analysis on samples from some of the bottles. Ones that supposedly have some applicability to reincarnation. That’s what drew my interest.”
I was intrigued. “What do you mean?”
“Since ancient times, mystics and shamans have believed that the door to our past life memories lies in deep meditation. Over the centuries there have been a dozen or so memory tools that have become aids in reaching that state. Psychologists use hypnosis to achieve the same result, especially in patients whose phobias or psychoses defy other treatment. Past life memories can many times explain present day issues. A proven method that allows us to reach into past life memories would be invaluable. Think of the demand. Think of the wisdom, the lost knowledge, the treasures, the solutions to so many mysteries that could be recovered if such an aid to the past actually existed. A few years ago, a rumor surfaced that a perfume had been discovered that was just such a memory tool. My cousin, Robbie L’Etoile, was almost killed for it. My hope was that this Sabbat Box may contain another version of that same compound.”
“So when you heard it was for sale, you bought it?”
He nodded. “Then I immediately sent samples to Jac, in Paris, to see if the two formulas match.”
“According to Antoine, the box you bought at auction was not supposed to go on sale. It was put up by mistake. He was trying to reclaim his family’s heritage. And apparently so was someone else.”
“The auction house never provided me the name of the box’s owner, but I knew François Lussac was part owner in Du Lac Auctions. That’s where I bought the box. How is it possible his own items were sold there by mistake?”
“Antoine didn’t know.”
Nicodème stood and walked over to his bar, returning with a decanter of caramel-colored liquid.
“That family’s cognac is some of the finest.”
He poured us both a splash. “Do you believe what Antoine told you?”
“I didn’t at first, but now I’m not so sure.”
“There’s not much we can do,” he said. “The box is gone. The thief is gone. But I’m worried, Cassiopeia. What if the person who’s taken the box tries to use the oils, not realizing they could be toxic?”
Something told me that the second thief knew more about the Sabbat Box than anyone. But I decided to humor my old friend. ?
?That’s certainly a possibility.”
“It’s old and of some historical interest, and its connections to the aesthetic and arcane are fascinating. I want it back. Can you help me find it?”
I’d like nothing better.
For a half hour, we tossed around ideas. I also made a call to my château and asked for someone to bring me some shoes and clothes, providing a list so a bag could be packed. The time was approaching 9 p.m., but I decided to make a second call.
To Harold Earl “Cotton” Malone.
The love of my life.
I was supposed to check in with him two hours ago. He’d probably already tried my cell phone, but who knows where that was now. We’d been together a few years, our initial meeting anything but pleasant. It had taken time and tribulations for us to become a couple, our relationship sometimes as rocky as the Philosopher’s Walk. But there was no one I trusted, or admired, more. No one I’d rather spend my time with.
Or ask for advice.