We present an extract from The Tarot Reader of Versailles, the new novel by Anya Bergman, bestselling author of The Witches of Vardø.
It is the early days of the French Revolution and, on the streets of Paris, terror reigns.Marie Anne Adelaide Lenormand is a young woman with an extraordinary power - through her tarot cards, she can commune with the dead, revolutionaries and the aristocracy alike seeking her out to divine their fortunes.
In this extract, Marie Anne is in her secret tarot salon at the back of her bookshop when two men arrive to have their tarot cards read. They are Irishman Wolfe Tone and French General Humbert, keen for guidance on an invasion of Ireland. However, as she reads their cards, the spirit of the dead Queen of France, Marie Antoinette materialises in the salon. She has a message for Lenormand...
27th Germinal Year VI (16th April 1798)
Paris
The spirit speaks at last: Pull the next card.
It is the Six D'Épée, six swords with golden hilts hover against a blue sky. Lenormand imagines a boat loaded with weapons crossing the sea.
'Soon, you will be embarking on a journey, crossing water,’ Lenormand tells the men, ‘bringing your swords of truth and justice with you and fixing those things that need to be fixed.’
‘An invasion by sea!’ Wolfe Tone declares. ‘Yes, yes, my friend Humbert, this time we will endure, and I shall liberate Ireland. We will have our independence.’
This card is for you, Mademoiselle Lenormand.
Lenormand’s hands shake as she takes a sip of her wine, feels the beady eye of the hooded crow upon her as if she, too, has heard the dead Queen.
‘Speak, sibyl,’ Wolfe Tone demands. ‘Pull the other cards and make your predictions.’
Find my boy; bring him back.
Lenormand nearly drops the deck of cards mid-shuffle. She feels an unfamiliar heat rising in her cheeks. She is never flustered.
She bites back brutally: Your son is dead. All of France knows it. She can do nothing to help the Queen, for she is in the thin place. Leave me be.
Adelaide, you know it is not true.
Lenormand shakes her head, because how can she help Marie Antoinette’s son, Louis Charles? He is forever lost to France, whether he is dead or alive.
But the Queen speaks again: One of these men will bring you to him.
Lenormand grips the cards to steady her nerves. This is why her Queen has returned to her. She feels such a deep longing to see her dear face again, the mother who loved nature, and the guilt is thick upon her, for she was part of her downfall.
Humbert is watching her closely, his head on one side. ‘Are you well, mademoiselle? You have become quite pale.’
She nods and pulls another card. ‘Traitre.’
She catches her breath as she looks at the wretched card in distaste. The image is of a hypocritical cleric in brown robes holding up a lantern, his back turned to the sun. The traitor, who appears benign but gives you up if you stand in the way of their beliefs. In truth, the card is no surprise, for Lenormand suspects where little Louis Charles – though not so little now – may have been taken.
Bring him back.
How can Lenormand deny her? Her way will be barbed, for the Six d’Épée is no pleasant jaunt across the sea, but after what happened, she owes her.
She pulls another card and places it on the green velvet. Pain pierces her heart, and while she remains still, the hooded crow rustles behind her as if in empathy. This is their card – Les Astres – and has fallen with Mademoiselle de Luna’s side up, La Nuit, while Le Jour for Lenormand is below. The card has no reverse position. De Luna was once night to
Lenormand’s day, the past to her future. Together they were the most powerful Tarot readers in Paris. But now . . .
Lenormand’s chest tightens. She’s dead. She has not sensed the Irishwoman’s presence since the last day she saw her, all those years ago. It is a black hole in her heart. Is she not dead?
Fetch my boy and return the kingdom of France to him. One of these men will bring you to him.
Wait. Tell me, does she live? Mademoiselle de Luna?
Do as I say, Adelaide, and restore me.
It is all the spirit Queen whispers before the candle flickers and the air warms. Marie Antoinette is gone back into the ether. Lenormand wonders if she is with her friend Princess Lamballe on the other side. She thinks of times past, playing cards with the Queen and dear Luisa Lamballe in the Tuileries Palace before the fall of the monarchy.
With an aching heart, Lenormand returns her attention to the impatient men and pulls two more cards to make up a row of seven, surveying the spread before sharing the information revealed to her.
‘You travel apart not together, and you must bring many soldiers with you,’ she tells them. ‘You sail at night by the light of the moon.’
‘But what of Traitre?’ Humbert asks. ‘Who will betray us?’
Lenormand looks at the two men. Indeed, the reek of death is close about Wolfe Tone, though his eyes gleam bright with the vision of the future he wishes so hard for. Should she tell him of his death less than a year from now? She has told men of their deaths many times before. Will she warn Wolfe Tone that his comrade Humbert will abandon him at his hour of need? She has predicted the fortunes of enough radicals – Robespierre, Marat and Saint-Just among them – to know that such men do not last long in their world of changing allegiances. Besides, Marie Antoinette has lit a fire in her heart now. Let Wolfe Tone be blissful in his ignorance, for he will never turn from his fate, even if she warns him, and she needs to get to Ireland. As Wolfe Tone the Irishman will be betrayed by Humbert the Frenchman, so she, a Frenchwoman, was betrayed by de Luna, an Irishwoman. This, then, is why she felt such dread before the men arrived. Her peace is about to be disrupted, and yet again because of her: Mademoiselle de Luna. Of course, she was behind the disappearance of the true King of France.
Hatred surges through Lenormand, and she realises that her desire for revenge is greater than her need for peace.
Humbert coughs, and she looks up at him. He is surveying her face, and she finds his expression pleasing. He doubts the truth in the cards, for he is a pragmatist. He does not trust her. This is a quality she admires. Most importantly, she doesn’t see the hand of death upon his shoulder. This is the man who will help her.
‘Strike now,’ she tells the two men. ‘Ireland must be saved.’
Wolfe Tone’s chest puffs with satisfaction. ‘It is as I told you, Humbert. The United Irishmen are rising up in a great rebellion. Are you with me?’
The Frenchman nods, although he chews his lip in thought. Lenormand wonders how she will persuade this man to take her in his warship across the ocean to Ireland – a country she heard so much about from the lips of her old fortune-telling partner, the place de Luna loved above all people, as she ultimately proved so terribly. There on that little green rock, the future King of France is hidden. She will do as her Queen bids her and bring the boy back home. Lenormand has always known there will be another King of France.
Conviction blazes through her, and she presses her hands together to stop them from shaking. She will find the boy, and together they will right the wrongs done to the Queen. But more than that, she will find out what happened to de Luna, and if she is not dead already, Lenormand will make certain her life does not last long.
The Tarot Reader of Versailles is published by Bonnier
