rumble of a stove seemed to be saying something in a low and vibrant secret language, such as Come to me.
But it was going to be this way forever apparently, and I had to get myself in hand. Money must be sent by courier this very night to my father and my brothers, and to Nicolas de Lenfent, a musician with Renaud’s House of Thesbians, who was to be told only that the wealth had come from his friend Lestat de Lioncourt. It was Lestat de Lioncourt’s wish that Nicolas de Lenfent move at once to a decent flat on the Ile St.-Louis or some other proper place, and Roget should, of course, assist in this, and thereafter Nicolas de Lenfent should study the violin. Roget should buy for Nicolas de Lenfent the best available violin, a Stradivarius.
And finally a separate letter was to be written to my mother, the Marquise Gabrielle de Lioncourt, in Italian, so that no one else could read it, and a special purse was to be sent to her. If she could undertake a journey to southern Italy, the place where she’d been born, maybe she could stop the course of her consumption.
It made me positively dizzy to think of her with the freedom to escape. I wondered what she would think about it.
For a long moment I didn’t hear anything Roget said. I was picturing her dressed for once in her life as the marquise she was, and riding out of the gates of our castle in her own coach and six. And then I remembered her ravaged face and heard the cough in her lungs as if she were here with me.
“Send the letter and the money to her tonight,” I said. “I don’t care what it costs. Do it.” I laid down enough gold to keep her in comfort for a lifetime, if she had a lifetime.
“Now,” I said, “do you know of a merchant who deals in fine furnishings—paintings, tapestries? Someone who might open his shops and storehouses to us this very evening?”
“Of course, Monsieur. Allow me to get my coat. We shall go immediately.”
We were headed for the faubourg St.-Denis within minutes.
And for hours after that, I roamed with my mortal attendants through a paradise of material wealth, claiming everything that I wanted. Couches and chairs, china and silver plate, drapery and statuary—all things were mine for the taking. And in my mind I transformed the castle where I’d grown up as more and more goods were carried out to be crated and shipped south immediately. To my little nieces and nephews I sent toys of which they’d never dreamed—tiny ships with real sails, dollhouses of unbelievable craft and perfection.
I learned from each thing that I touched. And there were moments when all the color and texture became too lustrous, too overpowering. I wept inwardly.
But I would have got away with playing human to the hilt during all this time, except for one very unfortunate mishap.
At one point as we wandered through the warehouse, a rat appeared as bold city rats will, racing along the wall very close to us. I stared at it. Nothing unusual of course. But there amid plaster and hardwood and embroidered cloth, the rat looked marvelously particular. And the men, misunderstanding of course, began mumbling frantic apologies for the rat and stamping their feet to drive it away from us.
To me, their voices became a mixture of sounds like stew bubbling in a pot. All I could think was that the rat had very tiny feet, and that I had not yet examined a rat nor any small warm-blooded creature. I went and caught the rat, rather too easily I think, and looked at its feet. I wanted to see what kind of little toenails it had, and what was the flesh like between its little toes, and I forgot the men entirely.
It was their sudden silence that brought me back to myself. They were both staring dumbfounded at me.
I smiled at them as innocently as I could, let the rat go, and went back to purchasing.
Well, they never said anything about it. But there was a lesson in this. I had really frightened them.
Later that night, I gave my lawyer one last commission: He must send a present of one hundred crowns to a theater owner by the name of Renaud with a note of thanks from me for his kindness.
“Find out the situation with this little playhouse,” I said. “Find out if there