The Lady Agnes Mystery, Volume 1 (10 page)

I
n a flurry of rustling fabric, a figure darted behind the pillars in the little chapel. Brother Bernard was dining with Agnès and there was only a short time between courses.

Mabile was not displeased with herself. Agnès de Souarcy had expressed her wish to thank the good chaplain and the servant had prepared a proper feast – a six-course meal, no less. Following an hors d’oeuvre of fresh fruit, whose acidity was supposed to act as an aid to digestion, there was a broth made of almond milk. For the third course the servant had plumped for roasted quail spiced with a black pepper sauce. That insufferable Agnès de Souarcy was such a stickler for table manners that the baby fowl should keep her busy for a while. Brother Bernard would no doubt follow her example, thus allowing Mabile time to move onto the attack. The chaplain was young and attractive and his tonsure gave him an air of perpetual surprise and joviality. Mabile would gladly have let herself be seduced. Thus far, her judicious attempts in that direction had ended in failure. Was he harbouring shameful feelings towards Agnès de Souarcy? The thought made Mabile’s mouth water. Eudes de Larnay would be happy to learn of it; and out of gratitude he would show her a little affection and, above all, generosity. Suddenly the girl became gloomy. Happy? Undoubtedly not. Satisfied, yes, but incensed with rage. At times he frightened her. Often. His loathing was so great it consumed him. Agnès and everything relating to her was like a knife piercing his entrails. He hounded her yet derived no pleasure from plotting his revenge. Even so, Mabile helped him, or, better still, she anticipated his murderous desires. She
did not know exactly why. For love of her master? Certainly not. She yearned for him to lie on her belly, to possess her like he would a strumpet or a lady, according to his whim. And she liked it when occasionally, after their love-making and before drifting off to sleep, he would murmur: ‘Agnès, my sweet.’ So he was not thinking of her? How wrong he was! For she was his only Agnès and he would have to content himself with her. Mabile blinked back the tears of rage welling up in her eyes. One day. One day she would have obtained enough money from her master to be able to leave him behind without a single regret. She would go to the city and set herself up as a gold embroiderer. She was patient and clever. Ultimately … Mabile rather liked the fiction of Agnès’s fondness for her chaplain, for not only would it harm Agnès’s reputation, it would also wound her master. Mabile’s bitterness was instantly replaced by a malicious glee.

The register in which the births and deaths at the manor were recorded would be in the sacristy. Mabile made her way straight there. She was trembling with rage. She enjoyed being the architect of Agnès’s doom. It was a salve to the terrible envy that consumed her. In her view, as long as the natural order of things required that the serfs laboured while the master undertook to protect them, defectors like Agnès were intolerable. She had escaped her lot through marriage. A bastard. Agnès was nothing but a bastard, the daughter of a lady’s maid just like her, Mabile. Why Agnès? If old Comte Robert hadn’t begun to fear the wrath of heaven as he neared his end, he would never have recognised her. He had sowed enough wild oats in the hovels and farms on his estate. Why Agnès? Why should Mabile, born of a sacred union and into conditions that were enviable to many, seeing as her father was a dyer from Nogent-le-Rotrou, obtain less than a
bastard – albeit a noble one? The hatred she felt for the Dame de Souarcy made her head spin at times. Regardless of whether he paid for her daily treachery, she would still have served Eudes de Larnay.

The bulky register was resting on a wooden lectern. Mabile hurriedly leafed through it until she came to the year 1294, the year that little good-for-nothing Clément, who spied on her so brazenly, was born. She searched through the columns filled in by the clumsy hand of the previous chaplain, who, judging from the fine lettering in the remainder of the register, had passed away at midnight on 26 January 1295. Mabile recalled that deadly winter when she had still been just a child. Finally her finger paused beside the entry she had been looking for: Clément, born posthumously to Sybille on the night of 28 December 1294.

She must hurry. The quail would not keep them busy forever. She should be back in the kitchen helping Adeline serve the desserts: a traditional goat’s-milk blancmange followed by black nougat made from boiling honey and adding last year’s walnuts and spices. To round off the meal she had prepared some hippocras, a mixture of red and white wine sweetened with honey and spiced with cinnamon and ginger.

She closed the register and hurried to the kitchens, declaring to the gaping-mouthed Adeline that the warm evening had made her sleepy and she had felt a sudden need to take the air.

‘Only, they finished the third course and I didn’t know what to do,’ the young girl protested feebly.

‘Serve the dessert on a fine trencher and pour the hippocras into the decanter to let it breathe, you fool! And remember Madame Agnès likes everyone to have their own trencher. This isn’t a pauper’s house, you know. I’m tired of having to tell you
the same thing over and over again!’ Mabile scolded.

Adeline lowered her head. She was so used to the other woman’s reproaches that she barely registered them.

The conversation was flowing easily in the great hall. Mabile studied the distance between her mistress and the chaplain and wondered whether the gap hadn’t closed a little. Agnès looked relaxed. And yet during her half-brother’s visit her discomfort had been palpable. Mabile listened closely in the hope of overhearing some compromising snatch of conversation, but there was nothing in their exchange that would have been of any interest to Eudes.

‘I scarcely see how castration could be a cure for leprosy, hernias and gout,’ argued Agnès. ‘They are such different afflictions, and it is well known that the wretched patients who were subjected to the operation in the leper hospital at Chartagne in the Mortagne region are none the better for it.’

‘I am no expert in medical science, Madame, though I believe it is related to the similarity between the humours of the afflictions.’

Brother Bernard’s perpetual good humour disposed him towards the pleasant things in life and so he turned from the gout and leprosy sufferers to enthuse once more about the quails he had just eaten.

Mabile returned to the kitchens. For some minutes her thoughts had been occupied by a nagging question. Why did the surname of this Sybille, her mistress’s lady’s maid, not figure in the register? Had she not received a Christian burial? Her grave was marked with a cross and had been dug at the edge of the plot reserved for the servants, which adjoined the cemetery where the lords of the manor, their wives and their descendants were buried. A few Souarcys lay buried beneath the chapel flagstones, but the limited space had necessitated the clearing of
three hundred square yards of forest a good hundred yards from the chapel. Irrespective of her hostility towards Agnès, Mabile acknowledged that the Souarcys had always treated their servants’ mortal remains with dignity. Not like a lot of others who would dump them in common graves unless a family member came to claim them. In point of fact, Eudes de Larnay showed no such compassion where his servants were concerned. She shook her head in irritation. What use had she for the Dame de Souarcy’s kindness? It had nothing to do with her mission. Another thought flashed through her mind. The boundary where Clément’s mother’s remains lay; was it consecrated ground? She must try to find out. Sybille’s having been a mother out of wedlock did not surprise Mabile. It was a common risk for girls in service. They found themselves inopportunely with child and their choice was clear: abortion, frequently followed by the mother’s death, or, if the master was decent, a pregnancy carried to full term in secret. However, it did not explain why Clément was only registered under his Christian name? Who were his godparents? Without their presence a baptism would have been unthinkable. Their Christian names and surnames should be recorded in the register beside the child’s. This baptism seemed to her altogether too clandestine for it to be completely orthodox.

Clément waited for a few moments, listening out just to make sure. Her snooping in the chapel having been successful, Mabile would not return again tonight. He crawled out of his hiding place in the honeysuckle bush. A cold sweat had drenched his shirt. It did not take a genius to guess what the fiendish woman had been trying to find out. So he was right and she did know how to read. He was annoyed with himself for not having anticipated this new piece of cunning. He should have taken the register of births
and deaths even without telling Agnès, for she would doubtless disapprove of any act that deprived Souarcy of its history.

He knew it. Eudes de Larnay was baring his teeth. His jaws were exposed, preparing to snap at their defenceless flesh.

The weather was so beautiful, so mild. From time to time Agnès caught a glimpse of the cloudless blue sky through an opening in the leaves. The boat was bobbing gently downstream. She lay with her head to the stern. She was alone, in sweet solitude. Her right hand caressed the calm surface of the water. A sudden eddy rocked the flimsy vessel. She sat up and looked around at the waves rippling out from the boat. What was it? A surprise current? A vast aquatic beast? Menacing? The shaking grew more violent and the boat jibbed, lurching dangerously from side to side. She wanted to cry out for help but no sound came from her throat. Suddenly she was aware of a small insistent voice whispering in her ear:

‘Madame, Madame, I beg you, wake up, but do not make a sound.’

Agnès sat up in bed. Clément was staring at her, his head framed by the canopy curtains. Agnès’s relief was short-lived and she demanded in a whisper:

‘What are you doing in my chambers? What time is it?’

‘It is after matins, Madame, but not yet dawn.’

‘What are you doing here?’ she repeated.

‘I waited until Mabile and the other servants were asleep. While you were dining with Brother Bernard she stole into the chapel in order to look through the register.’

Agnès, wide awake now, concluded:

‘So we know for certain that she can read.’

‘Enough to perform her misdeeds.’

‘What do you suppose? I’ll wager she was searching for details about your birth or of Sybille’s death.’

‘I am convinced of it too.’

‘What could she learn from reading those lines?’ Agnès reflected out loud.

‘I went over them again after she had left to try to imagine where her wickedness might be leading. I am registered under my Christian name only, and there is no mention of my godfather or godmother. As for Sybille, I may remind you, Madame, that her death is not recorded. She was a heretic and refused the sacraments of our Holy Church.’

‘Hush! Do not utter that word. It is over. Gisèle was your godmother, and as for your godfather, it was too much of a risk. The only person we might have trusted was my previous chaplain, but he was dying and passed away shortly afterwards. What is more, it would have meant confessing to him, which was impossible. And so Gisèle and I decided to enter no surname at all since only one would have been more harmful. At the very worst, had an examination of the register been ordered, we could have claimed it was the error of an enfeebled hand and a mind already clouded by death.’

‘So my baptism isn’t … It’s as though I had never been baptised, isn’t it?’ asked Clément in a soft trembling voice.

Her blue-grey eyes gazed into those of the child, and she gestured to him to sit down beside her.

‘God is our only true judge, Clément. Men, whoever they may be, are merely His tireless interpreters. What conceited fool can claim to know the sum of His desires, His designs, His truth? They are impenetrable and we can only glimpse them.’

Her own words troubled her. They had been intended to comfort the child. And yet, up until that moment none of her
attempts to describe her tentative search for the true path to God had seemed so sincere. Was she seriously mistaken, was this blasphemy?

‘Is that what you truly think, Madame?’

She replied unfalteringly: ‘It shocks me and yet it is truly what I believe. Your baptism delivered you into the arms of God, Clément. Two women, Gisèle and I, bore you there with open hearts.’

The child sighed and leant against her. A few seconds later he asked:

‘What are we going to do about the spy, Madame?’

‘How does she plan to warn my brother, for he is the instigator of this sinister scheme? Larnay is far from here. The journey would take her two days on foot. Could Eudes have employed someone else to carry messages to him?’

‘I doubt it very much, Madame. Eudes may be a fool but even he must realise that the more accomplices he has, the greater the risk of his secret being discovered.’

‘You are right. So how does she inform him? He seldom comes to Souarcy, God be praised.’

‘I shall find out, I promise. Rest now, Madame, I will return to my lair.’

Clément had made a little place for himself under the eaves. He had chosen the location with great care. He had built a ladder flimsy enough to deter any adult from climbing up. It gave him easy access from the end of the passageway that led to his mistress’s anteroom and chamber. In this way he could see anyone approaching. Another advantage was a tiny window that ventilated the eaves, and allowed him, with the aid of a rope, to come and go without the servants seeing him.

A
tall brown angel. Brother Nicolas Florin paused suddenly. The tonsure had not made this young man ugly; on the contrary it lengthened his pale brow, giving him the appearance of a proud chimera.

Brother Bartolomeo de Florence was standing on his right, his eyes lowered towards his clasped hands.

Nicolas murmured in his strangely soft yet cavernous voice:

‘I am at a loss to understand why they are sending me north when I proved so useful to them here in the South during the riots last August that unleashed bloodshed and destruction on our good city. I took part in foiling the devilish plot of that depraved Franciscan, the execrable Bernard Délicieux.* Never was a name more ill suited. No, I honestly do not understand, unless they mean to honour me. Yet my instinct tells me the inverse is true.’

With a willowy hand Nicolas raised the resolutely lowered chin of his victim.

‘What is your opinion, sweet brother?’ he repeated, fixing Bartolomeo’s eyes with his soft dark gaze.

The novice’s throat was dry. He had prayed night and day for a miracle powerful enough to rid him of his tormentor, and now he dreaded the consequences. However much he reproached himself, repeated to himself
ad nauseam
that he had nothing to be afraid of, that the order for the transfer was signed by Cardinal Benedetti with no more mention of his name than of the true reason for the relocation, he remained uneasy. Nicolas and his insatiable desire for power, his appetite for inflicting pain,
everything about this excessively beautiful, cunning creature terrified him.

The naive young Dominican had soon realised that faith was not the driving force behind his cell companion. For certain ambitious offspring of low birth, entry into the orders had always been a useful tool.

Bartolomeo had gathered from Nicolas’s circumspect confessions that his father had been a lay illuminator to Charles d’Évreux, the Comte d’Étampes. Although as a child he showed little interest in the task of colouring and lettering, his lively mind had, with the aid of the Comte’s splendid library, soaked up a fair amount of knowledge. He had been pampered and spoiled by an ageing mother for whom this late gift of a child was compensation for the years of suspicion about her ability to conceive. Added to the poor woman’s humiliation was fear, for she exercised the profession of midwife to the ladies-in-waiting of Madame Marie d’Espagne, daughter of Ferdinand II and wife of the Comte.

One day, when they were praying side by side, Nicolas had whispered in Bartolomeo’s ear in a voice that had made him tremble:

‘The world is ours if we know how to take it.’

One night, as Bartolomeo lay sleeping in the cool darkness of their cell he thought he heard the words:

‘Flesh is not earned, and only the feeble-minded share it. Flesh should be taken, snatched.’

Nicolas’s excesses had begun soon after he arrived in the town of the four mendicant convents,* which at the time boasted ten thousand inhabitants. Bartolomeo was convinced that they had contributed to the hatred the populace felt towards them and to their uprising against the royal and religious authorities.

One particular memory wrung the young Dominican’s heart. That poor girl Raimonde, who was touched in the head, and claimed to be visited at night by spirits. Encouraged by Nicolas, who preyed on her like a cat preys on a mouse, she attempted to demonstrate her powers, which she professed came from the Virgin. She stubbornly repeated incantations she claimed were capable of piercing rats and field mice. Despite the fact that her efforts ended in failure, Nicolas managed to make her admit responsibility for the death of a neighbour carried off by a mysterious summer fever, as well as for some cows miscarrying. The young Inquisitor’s case was weak, and yet he proved her guilt, arguing that the Virgin could not transmit a lethal power, even one used only against harmful rodents. The devil alone could do that in exchange for a soul. The poor mad girl’s insides hung from the rack. Her suffering had been interminable. Nicolas stared with satisfaction at the blood flowing from her entrails into the underground chamber’s central drain, dug out for the purpose. Bartolomeo had fled the Viscount’s Palace, loathing himself for his cowardice.

In reality, the young man was too rational to be able to turn a blind eye. He radiated faith, and love for his fellow man. He might have found the inner strength to rebel and even, why not, to defeat Nicolas. But a sort of evil curse of his own design prevented him. His excitement when Nicolas’s hand brushed against his arm. His unpardonable urge to justify what was simple debauchery and cruelty on the part of his cell companion. Bartolomeo loved Nicolas with a love that was anything but fraternal. He loved him and he hated him. He would gladly die and at the same time live for his next smile. Naturally, Bartolomeo was aware that monks practised sodomy, as they did concubinage. Not he. Not he who dreamt of angels as others dream of girls or finery.

The beautiful demon must go, he must vanish for evermore.

‘I am talking to you, Bartolomeo. What do you think?’

The novice mustered all his strength to reply in a steady voice:

‘I see in it only a sign of approval. Surely it is not a reprimand, much less a punishment.’

‘But you will miss me, will you not?’ Nicolas taunted him.

‘Yes …’

He spoke the truth and it made him want to weep with rage, and sorrow too. The firm belief that his morbid fascination for Nicolas would be the only insurmountable ordeal he must endure devastated him.