Chapter VIII
VIII
Chateau d’Ocerne
Gévaudan, France
The parterre grounds of Chateau d’Ocerne were all but overrun with the hunters of France.
It was impossible to move without bumping into some hopeful nobleman or tripping over another’s animals.
I was enveloped in a soft crush of velvet greatcoats, curled horsehair wigs and dogs of every hunting breed, from formidable Norwegian elkhounds to piebald English setters.
Everything was expensive. Waistcoats and britches were trimmed with embroidery and glinting with silver buttons.
Every cuff and lapel foamed with lace. Even the dogs were brushed and clipped and wore burnished collars for their presentation to the baron.
Situated atop a forested rise in the Margeride Mountains, the chateau was a grand provincial estate, extravagantly appointed in rococo style.
A legion of carved angels, lions and swans clung to every crevice of the portico, flanked by towering arched windows.
From their lofty position, the Ocernes enjoyed a spectacular view across the valley: a bucolic patchwork of farms and villages laid out along the glistening ribbon of the river.
I’d been queuing for hours in the grand forecourt.
I was one among hundreds of men who had flocked to Gévaudan in recent weeks—so many, in fact, that the Baron d’Ocerne had been forced to receive them in the courtyard rather than the parlor.
We jostled among the hedges and fountains in a line that ran halfway back down the mountainside.
We were all there for the same reason: the Beast. A mysterious creature had been terrorizing the hills and pastures of the region for months, taking workers in the fields and travelers on the roads.
Intriguingly, there had been numerous witnesses, but nobody could ever quite describe the creature beyond its enormous size and monstrous aspect.
The whole continent was afire with the news, and when the king’s call went out, it had attracted my attention immediately.
The Baron d’Ocerne watched over the proceedings from the shade of the portico in his (entirely unearned) military dress.
Beside him were his wife and son—a stylish and rather handsome young libertine—along with a number of dignitaries and a royal delegation from Versailles.
Everyone looked very tired beneath their curled wigs and pale cosmetics.
My attention was divided between three people.
The first was Bishop Fontaine of Mende—the real star of the proceedings—who fronted the king’s delegation in a glittering clerical confection of red silk and cloth-of-gold.
An ox of a man with a voice to match, Bishop Fontaine comfortably outranked everyone for a radius of several hundred miles.
There was a distant, sleepy quality to his beatific smile, but behind the rosy jowls his eyes were keen and searching.
The second was a small man standing beside the bishop—Lord Bauterne, the Royal Lieutenant of the Hunt.
He was dressed entirely in black: black leather, black wig, black furs, black gloves.
He had even blacked his boot buckles and the metal parts of his weapons.
Across his back was an impressive musket, taller than the man himself, and at his waist he wore two of the small blunderbuss pistols the French called “dragons.” He had arrived with King Louis XV’s personal endorsement for the bounty, and he was already something of a local celebrity.
And the third.
The third was the baron’s son, Antoine Avenel d’Ocerne.
I would have placed him around twenty years of age.
He wore a waistcoat of honey-colored velvet, trimmed with sable and gold thread, and black britches that were distractingly snug.
Beneath the white curls of his wig, his blond hair was combed back and tied neatly at his nape with a black satin bow.
He tipped his head very slightly when he caught me watching him, a sardonic gesture that somehow conveyed both amusement and profound boredom.
“Professor Sebastian Grave, Thrice Laureate of the University of Modena, Engineer Emeritus to the King of Cyprus, come to assign himself before God to the hunt for the Beast,” announced the herald.
Finally! said Sarmodel. This had better be worth it. I hope we haven’t come all this way for a minnow.
I stepped up to a lectern that had been erected in front of the magnificent portico.
On top of it was a weighty ledger decorated with the royal seal and the swan-and-staff heraldry of Ocerne.
The document outlined a staggering bounty from King Louis XV himself—six hundred livres for the head of the terrible Beast of Gévaudan.
Beneath the official proclamation were the signatures of those who had joined the hunt before me, including Lord Bauterne and the baron’s son.
It will be more than worth it if we win that money, I said. We haven’t had a decent commission in months. And this Beast will make a decent meal, I am certain—it has attracted the attention of the Bishop of Mende. It’s certainly no minnow.
I reached for the quill to sign my name but found it had suddenly moved out of reach.
The bailiff leaned in close to my ear. “I believe you have made an error, Professor,” he said, taking hold of my elbow with an usher’s grip. Insultingly, he used the informal “tu” to refer to me, rather than the polite “vous.”
“An error?”
I looked up from the ledger. It seemed I had failed to notice the change in mood under the portico. The official party, who had been quite disinterested as the other hunters signed the ledger, were now exchanging stern glances.
“The bounty is open only to His Majesty’s subjects; Frenchmen of good and noble standing,” said Bishop Fontaine, in a voice that was somehow quite serene but also came out of him like an organ blast. He did not address me directly but rather spoke over me to the crowd in the forecourt. “You will withdraw.”
The holy man did not need to elaborate; my academic credentials could not hide the fact that I was a commoner. My humble origins aside, I suspected I was also a shade too brown to be considered a “Frenchman of good and noble standing.”1
“Your Eminence, there are other men here without lands or titles,” I objected, as the bailiff’s hand tightened around my arm. “I have studied with the finest minds on the continent and beyond. It is my hope that the edicts of science may help us better understand and capture this Beast—”
“The Beast will be vanquished by the grace of the Church, not by the decadence of foreign academies,” said Fontaine soothingly, as though calming a willful child. “I say again, you will withdraw.”
“I see.”
Fontaine inclined his head to the bailiff, who began to pull me away from the lectern.
What? Sebastian, get your name on that contract!
It’s no use, Sarmodel. We’ll just have to find another way to—
“Hold, gentlemen, please,” said a new voice. “This man is in my employ. He will assign himself in my name.”
Antoine Avenel d’Ocerne stepped down from the portico to shake my hand.
“Professor Grave, I am delighted to finally make your acquaintance,” he said. The quick double squeeze of his gloved hand told me to play along. “I had not expected you to arrive until next week.”
“The pleasure is mine, sir,” I answered smoothly. “I made good time across the mountains from Aosta.”
“Your Eminence, Professor Grave and I have been corresponding over the matter of the Beast. He is here to assist me in the hunt. I apologize for the confusion,” said Antoine, with a collegial smile.
The official party watched stony-faced as the young lord ushered me back to the lectern. I picked up the pen and quickly signed my name beneath his signature with flowery, illegible script.
“Please, Professor, kneel for the blessing,” said Antoine.
I dutifully knelt before the official party and presented my weapons. Bishop Fontaine did not hesitate for even a second; to those watching, he would have appeared gracious and unruffled. But behind the placid smile, he was attempting to slay us both with his eyes.
“The Lord Almighty watch and guide you, that you may acquit this righteous charge in His name,” sang the Bishop of Mende, his voice still full of theatrical timbre after a hundred or more such displays, “and in the name of His Majesty Louis XV, by the Grace of God, King of France and of Navarre, and our patron in the hunt, the Baron d’Ocerne. ”
“My thanks, sir,” I whispered to Antoine as I stood.
He replied with that same sardonic nod, his eyes dancing as we joined the baron’s retinue under the portico.
I did my best to disappear among the other dignitaries and hangers-on as the next candidate stepped up to the lectern.
But I could not escape the gaze of the royal huntsman.
The black-clad Lord Bauterne watched me from the other side of the portico, standing so still I could barely tell he was breathing.
Sarmodel, it looks like we’ve found our chief competition, I said nervously. And I doubt the bishop is going to forget this. We should get away from here as soon as we can and start looking for this Beast. What do you think?
What do I think? Let’s see. In less than a minute on the job, you’ve fallen foul of the bishop, got involved with some fancy young twit and attracted the attention of a man with the biggest gun I’ve ever seen, he replied. Even for you, this is remarkable. That’s what I think.
1. Never mind that I had lived in France, at various times, for centuries before anyone present was born.