Holy Fools (12 page)

Well, whether he had planned it or not, this had been a demonstration. LeMerle had shown me that without him I was helpless, my safety as perilous as a frayed rope. Like it or not, I needed his help. And the Blackbird, I knew of old, never sold his favors cheap.

Bless me,
Father, for I have sinned.“

At last. Confession. How good it feels to hold her captive like this, my wild one, my bird of prey. I can feel her eyes on me from behind the grille, and for a troubling moment I am the one who is caged. It is a curious sensation; I can hear her quickened breathing, sense the enormous effort of will that keeps her voice level as she intones the ritual words. Light from the window above us filters dimly into the confessional, painting her face with a harlequin pattern of rose and black squares.

“Well, if it isn’t my Ailée, giving up her wings for whiter ones in heaven.”

I am unused to such intimacies as this, the casual exposure of the confessional. It makes me impatient-sends my mind wandering down overgrown paths best left forgotten. Perhaps she knows it; her silence is that of a confessor, and not a penitent. I can feel it, drawing out reckless words I did not intend to speak.

“I suppose you still hold that business against me.” Silence. “That business at Épinal.”

She has withdrawn her face from the grille and the darkness speaks for her, blank and unremitting. I can feel her eyes on me, like irons. For thirty seconds I feel their heat. Then she folds, as I knew she would.

“I want my daughter.”

Good. It really is a weakness in her game; she’s lucky we’re not playing for money. “I find myself obliged to stay here for a while,” I tell her. “I can’t risk you leaving.”

“Why not?” There is a savage note in her voice now, and I revel in it. I can deal with her anger. I can use it. Gently I feed the flame.

“You’ll have to trust me. I haven’t betrayed you, have I?”

Silence. I know she is thinking of Épinal.

Stubbornly: “I want Fleur.”

“Is that her name? You could see her every day. Would you like that?” Slyly: “She must be missing her mother. Poor thing.”

She flinches then-and the game is mine. “What do you want, LeMerle?”

“Your silence. Your loyalty.”

That sound was too harsh to be laughter. “Are you mad? I have to get away from here. You’ve seen to that already.”

“Impossible. I can’t have you spoiling things.”

“Spoiling what?” Too fast, LeMerle. Too fast. “There’s no wealth here for you. What’s your game?”

Oh, Juliette. If only I could tell you. I’m sure you’d appreciate it. You’re the only one who would. “Later, little bird. Later. Come to my cottage tonight, after Compline. Can you get out of the dorter without being heard?”

“Yes.”

“Good. Till then, Juliette.”

“What about Fleur?”

“Till then.”

She came to me just after midnight. I was sitting at my desk with my copy of Aristotle’s
Politics,
when I heard the door open with a soft click. The glow from the single candle caught her shift and the copper-gilt of her cropped hair.

“Juliette.”

She had discarded her habit and wimple. Left them in the dorter, no doubt, to avoid arousing suspicion. With her hair cut short she looked like a beautiful boy. The next time we dance the classics I’ll cast her as Ganymede or Hyacinthus. She neither spoke nor smiled, and the cold draft from the open doorway swept between her ankles unnoticed.

“Come in.” I put down my book and drew up a chair, which she ignored.

“I would have thought it more appropriate for you to study some improving work,” she said. “Machiavelli, perhaps, or Rabelais. Isn’t
Do what thou wilt
your motto now?”

“It beats
Thy will be done,
” I said, grinning. “Besides, since when were you in any position to preach morality? You’re as much of an impostor as I am.”

“I don’t deny it,” she said. “But whatever else I may have done, I always stayed true to myself. And I’ve never betrayed a friend.”

With an effort, I bit back a retort. She had touched me on the raw. It was a knack she’d always had. “Please, Juliette,” I said. “Must we be enemies? Here.” I indicated a cut-crystal bottle on the bookcase beside the desk. “A glass of Madeira.”

She shook her head.

“Food, then. Fruit and honey cake.”

Silence. I knew she had spent the day in fasting, but she seemed unmoved. Her face was masklike, perfect. Only her eyes blazed. I put out my hand to touch her face. I never could resist playing with fire. Even as a child it was the dangerous games that appealed to me-walking the tightrope with a noose about my neck, firing wasps’ nests, juggling knives, swimming the rapids. Le Borgne called it chasing tigers, and scorned me for it. But if there’s no risk from the quarry, then where’s the joy of the chase?

“You haven’t changed,” I said, smiling. “One false move and you’d take out my eyes. Admit it.”

“Get on with it, LeMerle.”

Her skin was smooth beneath my palm. From her cropped hair I could smell the distant fragrance of lavender. I allowed my fingers to move down onto her bare shoulder.

“Is
that
it?” she said contemptuously. “Is that what you wanted?”

Angrily I withdrew my hand. “Still so suspicious, Juliette. Don’t you realize what I have at stake here? This is no ordinary game. It’s a scheme of such daring and ambition that even I-” She gave a sigh, stifling a yawn beneath her fingers. I paused, stung. “I see you find my explanation tedious.”

“Not at all.” Her inflection was a precise parody of my own. “But it’s late. And I want my daughter.”

“The old Juliette would have understood.”

“The old Juliette died in Épinal.”

That hurt, although I had expected it. “You know nothing about what happened in Épinal. For all you know I might be completely innocent.”

Indifferently: “As you say.”

“What, did you think I was a saint?” There was an edge to my voice that I could not subdue. “I knew you’d manage to get out of it; if you hadn’t, I’d have thought of something. Some kind of scheme.” She waited politely, eyes averted, one foot turned out in a dancer’s gesture. “They were too close, damn you. I’d tricked them once already, and now they were onto me. I could feel it: my luck was running out. I was afraid. And the dwarf knew it. It was Le Borgne who set the dogs on me, Juliette. It could only have been him. In any case he was ready enough to trade your necks for his own, the bastard, and to deal me a foul blow with a poisoned knife. What, did you think I’d deserted you? I would have come back for you if I’d been able. As it was I was lying sick and wounded in a ditch for days after your escape. You felt a little pique, perhaps. A little anger. But don’t say you needed me. You never did.”

I must have sounded convincing-in fact, I almost convinced myself. But her voice betrayed nothing as she repeated: “I want Fleur.”

Once more I bit down upon my anger. It tasted metallic, like a bad coin. “Please, Juliette. I’ve already told you. I can let you see Fleur tomorrow. Not to bring her back, not yet, in any case, but I can arrange it. All I ask in return is a truce. And a favor. A little favor.”

She stepped toward me then, and put her hands on my shoulders. Again I caught the scent of lavender from the folds of her shift.

“No, not that.”

“What, then?”

“A joke. A practical joke. You’ll enjoy it.”

She hesitated. “Why?” she said at last. “What are you doing here? What could we possibly have that would interest you?”

I laughed. “A moment ago you didn’t care.”

“I don’t. I want my daughter.”

“Well, then. Why ask?”

She shrugged. “I don’t know.”

You can’t fool me, Juliette. You care about these poor toadstools, cowering in their darkness. They are your family now, as once we were in the Théâtre des Cieux. I have to say it’s a poor substitute, but each to his own. “Call it a game, if you like,” I said. “I’ve always wanted to play the priest. Now take these.” I handed her the tablets of dye. “Don’t get any of the color on your hands.”

She looked at me with suspicion. “What do you want me to do with it?”

I told her.

“And then I can see Fleur?”

“First thing in the morning.” Suddenly I wanted her to leave. I was tired and my head had begun to ache.

“You’re sure this is harmless? It won’t hurt anyone?”

“Of course not.” Well, not exactly.

She looked again at the tablets in her hand. “And it’s just this-little thing.”

I nodded.

“I want to hear you say it, LeMerle.”

I knew that she wanted to believe me. It’s in her nature to do so, as it is in mine to deceive. Blame God for making me this way. I made my voice gentle as I put my arm around her shoulders, and this time she did not flinch.

“Trust me, Juliette,” I murmured.

Till tomorrow.

I made my way
back to the Abbey in haste. It was not truly dark; a sliver of moon lit the clear sky, and the stars were bright enough to cast shadows on the road beyond the gatehouse. In the distance, just above the dim line of the sea I could see a bank of clouds darker than the sky. Rain, perhaps. As I entered the dorter, I strained my ears for sounds of wakeful breathing, but heard nothing.

In five years I have become familiar with the sounds of my neighbors’ breathing; I know the casual sprawl of their limbs beneath the rough blankets, their nocturnal habits, the sighs and whimperings of their dreams. I passed Soeur Tomasine, first by the door, snoring in her high, whistling manner. Then Soeur Bénédicte, always on her face with her arms outstretched. Then Piété, prim in sleep as she is in waking; then Germaine, Clémente, and Marguerite. I needed all my dancer’s agility to pass without alerting
her;
even so she stirred as I passed, one hand outflung in grasping, blind entreaty. Then came Alfonsine’s empty cubicle, and opposite that, Antoine, hands folded demurely on her breast. Her breathing was light, effortless. Was she awake? She gave no sign of it. And yet she seemed too still, too quiet, her limbs arranged with more dignity and grace than sleep usually affords.

It could not be helped. If she was awake, I could only hope that she suspected nothing. I slid into my own bed, the hiss of my skin against the blanket very loud among the sounds of breathing. As I turned to the wall to sleep I heard Antoine give a sharp snore and felt some of my fear slip away, but even as it did so, it occurred to me that the sound rang false, too studied, too perfect in its timing. Resolutely I closed my eyes. It didn’t matter. Nothing mattered but Fleur. Not Antoine, not Alfonsine-not even LeMerle, alone now in his tiny study surrounded by books. And yet it was LeMerle, and not my daughter, who followed me into my dreams. I cared nothing for his games, I told myself as sleep closed over me. All the same I dreamed of him, standing on the far bank of a flood-gorged river with his arms outstretched, calling out to me above the roar of the water in words I could never quite hear.

I awoke with tears on my face.
The bell for Vigils was ringing and Soeur Marguerite was standing at the foot of my bed with a cresset in one uplifted hand. I muttered the customary
Praise be!
and rose in haste, feeling between my mattress and the bed for the tablets of dye LeMerle had given me, wrapped in a scrap of cloth so that my fingers should show no telltale stains. It would be easy, I knew, to dispose of the tablets as instructed. That done, I would see my daughter.

All the same I hesitated. I lifted the tiny package and smelt it. It had a resinous, sweetish scent and I could detect the smell of gum arabic and the scarlet pigment Giordano called dragon’s blood through the weave. There was something else too: something spicy like ginger or aniseed. Harmless, he had promised.

LeMerle was not at Vigils, nor at Matins, nor Prime. Eventually he made his appearance at Chapter but said that he needed to attend to some business in Barbâtre, and selected two sisters-at random, or so it seemed-to assist him. I was one. Antoine was the other.

As Père Colombin addressed the Chapter and Antoine saw to the hens and ducks in the barnyard, I fetched LeMerle’s horse for the journey into Barbâtre. Antoine and I would walk, of course, but the new confessor would ride as befitted his noble status. I brushed the animal’s dappled flanks and strapped on the saddle whilst Antoine fed the other beasts-a mule, two ponies, and half a dozen cows-from the bins of hay at the back of the barn. It was more than an hour before LeMerle joined us, and when he returned I saw he had put aside his clerical robe in favor of the breeches and boots more suited to riding. He wore a wide-brimmed hat to protect his eyes from the sun, and thus clad he looked so like the Blackbird of the old days that my heart twisted.

It was market day, and he explained as we set off that he wanted us to arrange some food purchases and other errands on his behalf. Antoine’s eyes lit up as he mentioned the market and I kept mine cautiously lowered. I wondered what favor Antoine had performed-or might be called upon to perform-in return for this outing, or whether she had indeed been a random choice. Perhaps it simply amused him to see the fat nun sweat and struggle in the dust at his horse’s flanks. It didn’t matter in either case. Soon I would see Fleur.

We walked more slowly than my racing heart would have wished, and even so Antoine suffered from the heat. I was more used to walking, and although I was carrying a large basket of potatoes on my back for sale at the market, I felt no fatigue. The sun was hot and high as we reached Barbâtre, and the harbor and the square beyond were already thronged with market-goers. The traders come from everywhere on the island, sometimes even from the mainland if the causeway is open, and today it was; in the harbor the tide was at its lowest, and the place was riotous with people.

As soon as we entered the main street we tethered the horse next to a drinking trough. Antoine went off, basket in hand, on her errand, and I followed LeMerle into the crowd.

The market had been in progress for some time. I could smell roasting meats and pastries, hay, fish, leatherwork, and the sharp scent of fresh dung. A cart half blocked the passage while two men unloaded cases of chickens onto the road. Fishermen unloaded lobster pots and cases of fish from their craft. A group of women were at work with the fishing nets, picking them clean of seaweed and retying broken mesh. Children straddled the wall of the churchyard and gawked at passersby. The air was hot with stench and crackling with flies. The noise was overwhelming. After five years of virtual seclusion I had grown unused to this press of people, these cries, these smells. There were too many people; too many criers and peddlers and gossips and pamphleteers. A one-legged man behind a table stacked with tomatoes and onions and glossy aubergines winked and made a bawdy comment as I passed. Customers held their noses as they queued at a butcher’s stall, purple with flies and black with old blood. A beggar with no legs and only one arm sat on a ragged blanket; opposite him a piper played, while a little girl in a shabby overall sold packets of herb salt from the back of a small brown goat. Old women seated in a close circle made lace with incredible deftness, their gray heads almost touching over the needlework as their withered fingers danced and twisted. What pickpockets they would have made! I lost my bearings in the throng and paused at a vendor of printed sheets, selling illustrated accounts of the execution of François Ravaillac, Henri’s murderer. A fat surly woman with a tray of pies attempted to push past me. One of the pies fell to the ground, splitting open in a startling burst of red fruit. The fat woman turned upon me, squealing her displeasure, and I hurried on, my face burning.

It was then that I saw Fleur. Amazing that I had not noticed her before. Not ten feet away from me, head slightly averted, a grubby cap covering her curls and an apron, much too large for her, tied around her waist. Her face was set in an expression of childish disgust, and her hands and arms were stained with the leavings from the fish cart behind which she stood. My first instinct was to call her name, to run to her and take her in my arms, but caution halted me. Instead I looked at LeMerle, who had reappeared at my side and was watching me closely. “What’s this?” I said.

He shrugged. “You asked to see her, didn’t you?”

There was a drab-looking woman standing beside Fleur. She too wore an apron and false sleeves over her own to protect them from the stinking merchandise on display. As I watched, a woman pointed out the fish she wanted and the drab woman handed it to Fleur to gut. Her face twisted as she slid the short blade into the creature’s belly, but I was surprised at my daughter’s deftness with the unaccustomed task. There was a bandage, now slick with a fishy residue, on her hand. Perhaps she had not always been so deft.

“For God’s sake, she’s five years old! What business have they to make her do that kind of work?”

LeMerle shook his head. “Be reasonable. The child has to earn her keep. They have a large family. An extra mouth to feed is no little thing for a fisherman.”

A fisherman! So Antoine had been right about that. I looked at the woman, trying to determine whether or not I had seen her before. She could have been from Noirs Moustiers, I supposed; she had that look. On the other hand, she could easily be from Pornic or Fromentine, even maybe from Le Devin or one of the smaller islands.

LeMerle saw me watching. “Don’t concern yourself,” he said dryly. “She’s being well looked after.”

“Where?”

“Trust me.”

I did not reply. My eyes were already taking in every detail of my daughter’s transformation, each one bringing with it a new kind of pain. Her pinched cheeks, their roses gone. Her lank hair under the ugly cap. Her dress, not the one she wore at the abbey but some other child’s castoff of prickly brown wool. And her face: the face of a child with no mother.

I turned back to LeMerle. “What do you want?”

“I told you. Your silence. Your loyalty.”

“You have it. I promise.” My voice was rising and I was powerless to stop it. “I promised last night.”

“You didn’t mean it last night,” he said. “You do now.”

“I want to talk to her. I want to take her back!”

“I can’t allow that, I’m afraid. Not yet, anyway. Not until I’m certain you won’t just take the child and disappear.” He must have seen murder in my eyes then, because he smiled. “And in case you were wondering, there are precise instructions to be carried out in case of any misfortune happening to me,” he said. “Very
precise
instructions.”

I sheathed my gaze with an effort. “Let me talk to her, then. Just for a moment. Please, Guy.”

It was harder than I had expected. LeMerle had told me that if I caused any mischief or suspicion, then there might be no further opportunities to see Fleur. But I had to take the risk. I moved slowly, curbing my impatience, through the crowd to the fish cart. I was vaguely aware of the women on either side of me, one demanding fifty red mullet, the other exchanging recipes with the fishwife. At my back, more customers jostled. Fleur lifted her eyes to mine and for a moment I thought she had not recognized me. Then her face lit up.

“Shh.” I whispered. “Don’t say anything.”

Fleur looked puzzled but, to my relief, nodded.

“Listen to me,” I said in the same low voice. “I don’t have much time.”

As if to confirm this, the fishwife shot a suspicious gaze in my direction before returning to the order of mullet. I gave a silent prayer of thanks for the woman who wished to buy such an unusually large quantity of fish.

“Have you brought Mouche?” Fleur’s voice was tiny. “Have you come to take me home?”

“Not yet.” Her small face was gray with woe, and again I fought the urge to take her in my arms. “Listen, Fleur. Where are they keeping you? A cottage? A caravan? A farm?”

Fleur glanced at the fisherman’s wife. “A cottage. With children and dogs.”

“Did you cross the causeway?”

“
Excuse
me.” A big woman pushed between us, stretching out her arms for a packet of fish. I stepped sideways into a line of customers; someone called out in annoyance.

“Hurry up, Sister! Some of us have families to feed!”

“Fleur. Listen. Is it on the mainland? Is it over the causeway?”

From behind the large woman, Fleur nodded. Then, infuriatingly, she shook her head. Someone stepped into the space between us, and once again my daughter was lost to sight.

“Fleur!” I was almost weeping with frustration. The large woman was wedged beside me; the crowd was pushing at my back, and the customer who had called out had begun a noisy diatribe on people who stood around gossiping in queues. “Sweetheart. Did you go over the causeway?”

For a second, then, I thought she would tell me. Puzzled, she seemed to be trying to articulate or remember something, to give me some clue that would reveal to me where she was being kept. Was it the word
causeway
that she did not understand? Had she been taken to the mainland in a boat?

Then the woman with the mullet turned to face me, and I knew my chance to discover the truth was over. She looked at me and smiled, holding out her basket of fish to me in her meaty red arms. “What do you think?” she said. “Will it do for tonight’s dinner?”

It was Antoine.

The journey home
was difficult. I carried the fish on my back as I had the potatoes, the stench of it growing in the sun in spite of the quantities of seaweed intended to keep it cool. The load was heavy, too, fishy water dripping through the weave of the basket onto my shoulders and into my hair, soaking my habit with brine. Antoine was in a cheery mood and talked incessantly of what she had done at the market, of the gossip she had heard, the sights she had seen, the news she had exchanged. A peddler from the mainland had brought news of a group immolation in honor of Christina Mirabilis, a woman had been hanged in Angers for masquerading as a man, and there were rumors that a man from Le Devin had caught a fish with a head at both ends-a sure sign of disaster to come. She did not mention Fleur, and for that, if nothing else, I was grateful. However, I knew that she had seen her. I could only hope that she would hold her tongue.

We followed the coastal path back to the abbey. It was a longer route, but LeMerle insisted upon it-after all, he was riding, and the extra mile or so meant nothing to him. It had been one of my favorite walks in happier times, passing by the causeway and along the dunes, but laden as I was, lurching through the soft sand with the fish basket, I found little enjoyment in it. LeMerle, on the other hand, seemed to derive great pleasure from watching the sea and asked a number of questions about the tides and the crossing times from the mainland, which I ignored, but which Antoine seemed more than happy to answer.

It was midafternoon when we reached the abbey, by which time I was exhausted, half-blind from squinting at the sun, and heartily sick of the smell of fish. With relief I delivered the stinking basket to the kitchens, then, my head still ringing from the heat and my throat parched, I made my way across the outer courtyard toward the well. I was about to throw down the pan for the water when I heard a cry from behind me; turning, I saw Alfonsine.