Book of Souls

Nostredame nodded. He darkened the room by closing the curtains, then filled his bowl from a pitcher of water. He lit a candle, sat before the bowl and pulled up the hood of his robe, pulling it forward until his face was hidden under its tented fabric. He lowered his head over the bowl and began to move his wooden stick over the surface of the water. In a few minutes, Edgar heard the same low vibratory hum emanating from the man’s throat he had heard the night of his feverish state. The humming became more urgent. While he could not see the doctor’s eyes, he imagined they were wild and fluttering. The stick was moving furiously over the bowl. The throaty sounds were building to a crescendo, growing louder and more frequent. Edgar grew anxious at the grunting and panting and regretted sending him down this fearful path. And then, in an instant, it was over.

The room was silent.

Nostredame lowered his hood and looked at his patient with awe. “Edgar Cantwell,” he said slowly. “You will be an important man, a wealthy man, and this will happen sooner than you think. Your father, Edgar, will meet a foul and terrible fate and your brother will be the instrument. That is all that I see.”

“When? When will this happen?”

“I cannot say. This is the full extent of my powers.”

“Thank you for that.”

“No, it is I who should thank you, sir. You have given me a history of my origins, and now I know I must not fight my visions as if they were demons but use them for greater good. I know now I have a destiny to fulfill.”

Edgar gradually recovered his strength and his health, and the plague soon burned itself out in the University district. He sat for his examinations and was passed from the Sorbonne as a baccalaureate. On his last full day in Paris, he spent the morning sitting in the Cathedral of Notre Dame, admiring its grandeur and majesty for the last time. When he returned to his boardinghouse, his friend, Dudley pressed him to go to the college tavern for a last drink but there, lying against his bedroom door was a letter, left by his landlady.

He sat on his bed, broke the seal and read with horror:

Dearest Son,

A mother should never be suffered to write such a letter, but I must inform you that your father and brother are dead. The tragic circumstances have overwhelmed me, and I pray you to return at the earliest to take charge of your father’s estate as the next Baron of Wroxall. Your father and William argued over some matter, and there was a violent struggle whereupon your father fell into the fire in the Great Hall and was burned on his shoulder. The burn healed not and led to a fever from which he died. William was much grieved, and by his own knife he took his own life. I am stricken with woe and misery and beg you to speed yourself back to my bosom,

Elizabeth

Twenty-three years later, in 1555, the old plague doctor sat in his attic study composing a letter. It was after midnight, and the streets of Salon-de-Provence were quiet, allowing him full concentration. This was his special time, when his wife and six children were in bed and he could happily work as long as he liked or until sleep overtook him, sending him tottering over to his study cot.

He had long since Latinized his name to Nostradamus as he imagined it sounded weightier and indeed, he had a reputation to nurture. His Almanacs were selling in large numbers throughout France and neighboring countries, and his fortune was growing. He no longer practiced his apothecary skills or medicine, instead turning his full attention to the more profitable life of an astrologer and seer.

Now, he held in his hand a copy of his new work, one which he hoped would bring him more notoriety, more accolades, and more money. The book had been printed in Lyon and would soon go on sale. His publisher had delivered a crateful of copies, and he took one of them and with his sharpest knife, cut away the title page: LES PROFITIES, DE M. MICHEL NOSTRADAMUS.

He dipped his quill and continued his letter.

My dear Edgar