The Lady Agnes Mystery, Volume 1 (18 page)

N
icolas Florin, the Inquisitor, had swapped his robe for breeches, a chemise, a fustian doublet
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and a rather old-fashioned long dark-grey tunic that would help him to go unnoticed. A taupe-coloured cowl, the pointed end of which was wrapped round his neck, concealed the tonsure that would have drawn attention to him the moment he entered the tavern on Rue du Croc. There were few customers seated at the tables that early afternoon.

He identified the man who had requested the meeting by his affluent appearance, and walked over to his table. The man greeted him without a smile and invited him to sit down, beginning as soon as the innkeeper had served them another jug of wine.

‘As my messenger told you yesterday, this is a delicate matter and requires the utmost discretion.'

‘I understand,' Nicolas nodded, sipping his wine.

Something struck his knee under the table. He grasped hold of it. A nice full purse, as agreed.

‘There is a hundred pounds, and a hundred more will follow when the trial is over,' affirmed Eudes de Larnay in a murmur.

‘I am interested to know how you came to me.'

‘There are only three appointed Inquisitors in the Alençon region.'

‘This does not explain how you ruled out the other two candidates.'

‘It hardly matters,' retorted Eudes, uneasily. ‘What matters is that the information I was given turns out to be correct. However,
if you are not interested in the … affair, we shall let it rest,' he concluded weakly.

Nicolas was not fooled. The other man needed him or he would never have risked arranging such a meeting. And he was not about to let go of two hundred pounds – a small fortune. He agreed wholeheartedly:

‘Indeed, you are right. Let us return to business.'

Eudes took what he hoped was a discreet gulp of air, before commencing the little speech he had rehearsed a dozen times.

‘My half-sister Madame Agnès de Souarcy is a wanton woman of loose morals. As for her devotion to the Holy Mother Church … the least I can say is that it lacks conviction …'

Nicolas did not believe a word of Larnay's preamble. He had become very gifted at detecting liars and, aided by his own extraordinary talent for deception, was clever at discovering other people's motives. What a fool the Baron was! Did he really believe Nicolas needed a good reason for dragging somebody before an inquisitorial court? Money more than sufficed. As for evidence and witnesses, he was perfectly capable of providing or procuring these himself. Yes, the wine was good and Baron de Larnay was the first real client on a list he trusted would be long and lucrative. There was no shortage of impatient heirs, vengeful or jealous vassals, or even ambitious or bankrupt merchants. It was worth spending a little of his time listening to this man spout his nonsense.

‘She indulges in carnal relations with a man of God, whom she has no doubt led astray through witchcraft. The man in question is her young chaplain – a certain Brother Bernard. The poor fool is so in her thrall that he has betrayed his faith. Moreover, for some years she has carried on unspeakable dealings with a simpleton who is as faithful to her as a dog.'

Well, well. Here was somebody who might help him. His patience had been rewarded.

‘Really? And what is the nature of these dealings?'

‘Potions, poisons and philtres in exchange for her favours.'

‘Do you have any evidence or witnesses to support this charge?'

‘The testimony of a very devout person who lived in Agnès de Souarcy's household, and I'll wager we can find others.'

‘I do not doubt it. Demonology is becoming more and more bound up with the pursuit of heretics. It is understandable – for what is the worship of demons if not the supreme form of heresy, an unforgivable offence against God?'

Eudes, who was uninterested in these finer points, continued:

‘A number of friars have met their deaths under strange and terrible circumstances near to her estate.'

‘Indeed! But is murder not a matter for the high justice of Seigneur d'Authon and his Bailiff?'

‘They have made precious little progress since the bodies were discovered.'

‘Are you suggesting that this lady might have cast a spell on Comte Artus and Monsieur de Brineux?'

‘The possibility cannot be ruled out – though it would be difficult to bring the matter to light given the rank and reputation of the two men.'

‘Indeed.'

Since his arrival at Alençon, Nicolas, who was a judicious manipulator, had spent part of his time familiarising himself with the powerful people of the region. It was out of the question for him to make an enemy of the Comte d'Authon, a friend to the King, and this reticence applied equally to Monge de Brineux. He continued his enquiry:

‘Madame de Souarcy, then, enjoys the backing of influential men even if she obtains it by demonic means?' asked Nicolas Florin in a hushed voice.

Eudes realised he had made a tactical error. But his desire to drag Agnès through the mud blinded him. He tried to reassure the Inquisitor, correcting himself over-emphatically:

‘She is only another of my father's bastard offspring. Why did he have to recognise her so late in life?'

His violent outburst caused some heads in the tavern to turn. He lowered his voice:

‘She has almost no property of her own, and I doubt whether Comte Artus and Monsieur de Brineux would defend her if she were found guilty of witchcraft. They are pious men of honour.' Eudes paused suddenly. He had for some moments had a niggling suspicion, but his thinking was clouded by resentment and emotion.

‘Pray continue,' urged Nicolas.

The Inquisitor's soft voice made Eudes uneasy. However, he kept going:

‘The final and, no doubt, most serious charge, my Lord Inquisitor, is that Agnès de Souarcy once offered her protection to a heretic and with such zeal that one wonders whether she herself did not espouse the same theories. Moreover, she brought up the woman's posthumous son whose devotion to her is such that he would lay down his life.'

A greedy smile formed on the Inquisitor's exquisite lips.

‘The facts, for pity's sake … you are keeping me in suspense.' The sentence terminated in a sigh.

‘In the chapel register there is no surname entered for the child, Clément, or his mother, Sybille, for whom no funeral mass was held. Nor is there any mention of the name and status of
the child's godparents. Notwithstanding the cross planted on her tomb, Sybille was buried just outside the consecrated ground reserved for the servants of the manor.'

‘That is extremely interesting,' Nicolas observed. Heresy remained the ideal grounds for accusation. The charges of witchcraft or demonic possession, which were more difficult to substantiate, suddenly seemed incidental.

Nicolas continued:

‘In accordance with your wishes the lady will be tried for heresy and complicity in heresy. Do you wish her confession to be … drawn out?'

At first, Eudes did not understand the precise meaning of the words. And then it struck him with full force and the blood fled from his face:

‘Let us be clear … it is out of the question for … for her …' His voice had become so choked that Nicolas was obliged to lean over. ‘… Flogging will be sufficient. I want her to be afraid, to believe she is lost. I want her whipped until her pretty back and belly turn black and blue. I want her estate and her dower to be confiscated according to the law and to revert to her daughter, who will become my ward. I do not want her to die. I do not want her maimed or disfigured. The two hundred pounds are contingent upon this.'

The pronouncement dampened Nicolas's enthusiasm. The affair was already losing its appeal for him. He comforted himself with the thought that he would soon have plenty of other toys to play with. It was better to take the money – the cornerstone of his fortune.

‘Everything will be done according to your wishes, Monsieur.'

‘Let us part company now. It is better for us not to be seen together.'

He wanted to be alone, away from the seductive presence he found so disquieting.

Nicolas stood up and took his leave with a radiant smile.

The nagging doubt the Baron had begun to feel earlier was growing stronger. Something was not right – something was very wrong. He placed his hands on his temples then swigged down the rest of his wine.

How had it come to this? True, he wanted Agnès to grovel and beg. He wanted to terrify her and make her swallow the contempt she felt for him. He wanted her dower. But at such a cost?

Was it he or Mabile who had first thought of delivering her into the hands of the Inquisition? He could no longer be sure.

Mabile had told him of her encounter with a friar who had refused to let her see his face and whose few words had been disguised by his thick woollen cowl. Was it this monk she had barely glimpsed who had suggested the name Nicolas Florin and the plot that was beginning to make Eudes increasingly uneasy?

M
athilde hurled her dress to the floor at the foot of the bed.

‘What’s all this now, young miss?’ bleated Adeline, rushing to pick up the discarded garment.

‘Out, you fool! Out of my room at once! That oafish girl will be the death of me!’

Adeline did not wait to be asked twice, fleeing the chamber of her young mistress whose tantrums she knew from experience to be fearful. Mathilde had already slapped her on several occasions, and without the slightest compunction had one day thrown a hairbrush in her face.

Mathilde was seething. She felt she could burst into tears at any moment. Rags were what she was forced to wear. What good was it everybody thinking her pretty if she was made ugly by shapeless tatters? She couldn’t even bring herself to wear the beautiful hair comb her dear Uncle Eudes had given her, it would have clashed so horribly with the few unfashionable shoddy garments she possessed. Her sweet uncle … at least he treated her like a young lady.

All that filth, the insufferable smells, the dirty uncouth farm hands she was forced to mix with … Life at the manor was an ordeal. Only that beggar, the conceited Clément, could endure it. What a half-breed he was. And he had the impudence to stick his nose in the air when she gave him orders, as if he only received them from the Dame de Souarcy, her mother.

Madame – her mother. How did Agnès de Souarcy put up with this life? What a disgrace to have to watch her go and collect honey dressed as a man, worse still, as a serf. How degrading to
be reduced to counting newborn piglets like a common peasant. True ladies did not deign to perform such tasks. Her mother’s hands would soon be as rough as those of a farm hand!

Why had her mother not accepted Baron de Larnay’s generous offer of going to live at his chateau? The two of them would have enjoyed a life befitting their position. Her Uncle Eudes gave myriad parties where beautiful ladies and gallant knights mingled. He even hired troubadours to delight his guests during meals made up of delicacies and exotic dishes. There was dancing and merriment to the music of
chifonies
,
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chevrettes
30
and
citoles
,
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and the subject of love was discussed openly, though chivalrously.

No, Agnès de Souarcy had flatly refused, thus depriving her daughter of the happiness that was her birthright.

The young girl was filled with bitterness. Thanks to her mother, she would never wear magnificent furs and sumptuous robes. Thanks to her obstinacy, that life of sophistication would forever remain a mystery. Thanks again to her stupid resolve, her daughter Mathilde would no doubt also be deprived of the kind of marriage to which she aspired.

Her eyes became moist with tears and she trembled at the thought of the future that awaited her in that miserable pigsty, Souarcy. A peasant’s life spent rummaging in the soil with her bare hands for food, and dressing like a beggar to go and collect honey! What misery! She did not deserve such a fate. She hurled herself onto the bed in despair. The life she had been forced to put up with for years was a dishonour. Just because the mother was prepared to wither and die because of some inexplicable pride, it did not mean the daughter had to share the same fate.

Her sorrow gave way to rage.

Mathilde was born within the sanctity of marriage, and of
noble blood – the Larnays’ on her grandfather Robert’s side and the Souarcys’ on her father’s.

She did not intend to fade away within Souarcy’s damp, grey walls. She refused to count pigeons’ eggs as if her life depended upon it. She would not stoop to bartering cords of wood for a few yards of linen. Never. Not like her mother.

As for Clément, Mathilde couldn’t care less what became of him. He could die with his good lady if he wished. She had had enough of his superiority all these years!

C
lément was overwhelmed by an almost painful anguish. Each passing hour weighed on him like a curse. Agnès’s silence had not fooled him. He knew that if Eudes chose to believe in an unpardonable liaison between the Dame de Souarcy and her chaplain and if he guessed the truth about Sybille, he could request the intervention of one of the Inquisitors at Alençon.

The boy shuddered.

Clément recalled the scene as if it were yesterday. He was five years old. Gisèle, the nursemaid who looked after him, had taken him one evening to his lady’s chamber before putting him to bed. For a long moment, the two women, whom he knew were very close, looked questioningly at one another. Agnès had murmured:

‘Do you not think it is premature?’

And Gisèle had retorted:

‘We cannot delay any longer. It is too dangerous. All the more so since she suspects the truth, even though she doesn’t understand. I watch her closely and I know.’

At the time Clément had wondered who the two women were talking about.

‘But she is still so young … I’m afraid that …’

The nursemaid cut across her in a firm voice:

‘There is no place for such fears now. Think what would happen if anyone discovered our secret.’

Agnès de Souarcy had begun with a sigh. She had told him what it was he needed to know about his birth in order to understand that only complete secrecy could save them. At the tender age
of fifteen, his mother, Sybille Chalis, had been seduced by the evangelical purity of the Waldensian Church. She had run away from her family, wealthy burghers from the Dauphiné region, in order to join her brothers and sisters in hiding and to be ordained a priest. Their tiny congregation had been denounced, but the young girl had just managed to escape. She hid, travelling by night, hardly knowing where she was headed, begging for bread in exchange for a few hours’ labour. It was only a matter of time before disaster struck in the form of two drunken brutes who raped and beat her and left her for dead. Sybille already knew she was pregnant by the time she arrived at the manor one evening. Agnès took her in, oblivious to the fact that in doing so she was harbouring a heretic. But even had the young woman revealed the truth about her faith, the Dame de Souarcy would not have ordered her men to throw her out. Agnès had paused briefly before relating what for Clément had been the worst: his mother could not tolerate the idea of her soul being trapped in a defiled body and had let herself die of starvation and cold during the deadly winter of 1294.

Sensing that her mistress was unable to go on, Gisèle had concluded:

‘She pushed you from her womb as she lay dying – that was on 28 December.’

Clément was overcome, great tears rolled down his cheeks. He could see from Agnès’s staring eyes that she was reliving those nightmarish scenes. She had stroked his brow with a trembling hand before continuing in a choked voice:

‘Clément, you are not a boy. That is why we insisted you never bathe with the servants’ children and that you stayed away from them and did not join in their games.’

He – she – already suspected, having noticed that his body had more in common with those of little girls.

‘But … why?’ he had stammered.

‘Because I could not have kept a motherless girl in my service, and you would have become one of the many offerings to God who end up in convents. Eudes de Larnay would have demanded it and I would have been in no position to refuse.’ At this point Agnès had closed her eyes for a brief moment and when she spoke again her voice was firmer: ‘Orphans of low birth have no other choice but to enter servitude – or worse, but you are still too young for that. They have no access to knowledge and their lives are harsh. I wanted to spare you. If my brother and his breed were to learn your true sex … That can wait. What you need to realise now, dear Clément, is that nobody must ever discover the truth about you. Never … Well … the day might dawn when … Your fate would be cruel. Do you see?’

Afterwards he – she – had cried all night long, wondering whether the mother he had so often imagined, so often pictured as a beautiful star or a gentle ray of sunshine had also wished him dead before he was born. What use was a life so worthless that even his mother had rejected it? The question had haunted him for weeks before he had had the courage to put it to his lady. She had gazed into his eyes, tilting her head to one side so that her veil brushed her waist, and smiled such a beautiful, desperate smile:

‘Your life is terribly precious to me, Clément … Clémence. I swear on my soul.’

He had Agnès. His whole life depended on his lady. After all, she fed him and protected him like a mother. He knew she loved him. And he adored her.

As for the rest – this inversion of his sex – it hardly mattered to him in the end. His lady was right. A low-born girl, the orphan of a heretic mother, was nothing or worse than nothing. He would
continue thinking of himself as a boy for his own and Agnès’s protection. And besides, a boy’s life was so much more exciting than that of a girl.

Clément wiped away the tears that had wet his lips and chin with his sleeve. Enough! Enough memories! The past was over. He must devote himself to the future. He must concentrate on living even as so many dangers were stacking up against them.

Why, whence the need he felt to penetrate the mystery of the diary belonging to the Knight Eustache de Rioux and his co-author? How might the crossings-out, question marks, blind searchings of these men, who were perhaps dead, help them – Agnès and him? And yet he was driven on by an instinct he found difficult to analyse. This astrology and astronomy, these mathematical calculations, furious or fervent jottings and hinted-at secrets were a nonsense to him:

What were these words? Where did they come from?

A geometrical shape? A metaphor? What?

Was this a reference to a past or future birth, and if so, whose? And what did ‘consanguinity’ mean in relation to a zodiac sign?

Could some error have been made concerning the date of Christ’s birth? And more time for what? Clément leafed through the long notebook, fighting back his feelings of frustration and despair.

He must read it through from the beginning, pushing aside his impatience and his looming sense of panic.

What was the drawing with a line through it which he had been struggling for hours to comprehend? It was shaped like some sort of disc. In the margins on either side of it were columns of Roman numerals, preceded by some initials and symbols. The same sequence of letters –
E, Su, Me, Ma, V, J, Sa, GE1, GE2, As
– reappeared in various places next to the signs of the zodiac. It did not take a genius to work out that some of these initials referred to the planets – except for
GE1, GE2
and
As
, which meant nothing to him.
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As for the Roman numerals, they represented the different astrological houses. Clément compared the two columns depicting astral or birth charts. They were almost identical except for the two planets Jupiter and Saturn. In one column they were in Pisces and Capricorn respectively and in the other in Sagittarius and Pisces. Capricorn. That was between 22 December and 20 January. Had it not been for the gravity of the situation the coincidence might have amused him. He was born on the night of 28 December.

The first time he had examined the scored-through drawing he had been devastated by the writing below it:

God in heaven! Was such an aberration possible? How could the Earth be anything but stationary? And if so, where was it going?

The Greek astronomer and mathematician Ptolemy had affirmed that the universe was finite and flat and that the Earth was at its centre, fixed. The nearest planet to Earth was the Moon, followed in an almost straight line by Mars, Venus and the Sun. Everyone recognised the truth of this system – in particular the Church, and thus the schoolmistresses at the convent praised its importance. How, then, could Eustache de Rioux and his fellow author describe it as illogical? And yet the Knight – or whichever of the two wrote in a bolder, less flowing script – had reiterated at the bottom of the page:

Clément could find no other mention of this Vallombroso, despite having trawled through the notebook several times.

On the back of the sketch that had given rise to Monsieur de Rioux’s (or his co-author’s) rage was a sentence they had been so keen to obliterate they had scraped away the letters with a knife. The paper still bore the marks, and Clément had carefully
examined it, holding the page up to the oil lamp to see whether the light might expose its secrets. He had been able to make out some speech marks framing the scratched-out letters. So it was a quotation. The ink that had seeped into the layers of pulp revealed a few letters, but not enough to give any real clue as to the meaning of the words: ‘b…me…re…au…per…t.’ Below the sentence was another drawing, of a rose in full bloom.

Were these the words of the Viking merchant which the Knight had earlier quoted?

Clément discovered something he had missed on his first reading of the journal: the bold script disappeared completely a few pages on, where some strange drawings the size and shape of almonds in the form of a cross had been traced by a fine hand. The words ‘Freya’s cross’ at the top of the page provided no clue, since Clément did not know who or what Freya was. At the centre of each almond was one of the indecipherable cuneiform letters he had already come across in other works. These strange signs were transcriptions of ancient languages. Each had an arrow pointing from it to a strange word.

The almond on the left branch was called – or signified – ‘Upright-Lagu’ and the one on the far right ‘Reversed-Thorn’. The almond at the centre of the cross was described as ‘Upright-Tyr’
and the one on the top branch ‘Upright-Eolh’. The bottom branch was given as ‘Reversed-Ing’. Although the actual names meant nothing to Clément, the alternation of ‘upright’ and ‘reversed’ was implicit: it was some sort of prophesy, since fortune tellers used similar terms for their cards.

Clément paused. He could memorise the letters and their corresponding names, as well as the two charts. However, he sensed that their precision was of paramount importance and was afraid of making a mistake when trying to reproduce them back in his eaves. He felt a strong temptation to go over to the lectern and make use of the hollow quill pen and ink pot standing there. He did not resist for long, promising himself he would take great care not to move anything, and above all to leave nothing behind that might draw attention to his intrusion. All he needed now was a piece of paper. He searched the library in vain. Paper was a luxury that was kept carefully locked away in cabinets. He struggled for a few seconds with a thought that kept going through his head. Why not tear out one of the last two pages of the diary – blank because the co-author’s notes stopped before the end of the notebook? The gesture seemed to him so sacrilegious that it took him three attempts to pluck up the courage.

Satisfied with his copy, he removed all trace of his labours, cleaning the tube of the quill pen and his fingers with a corner of his tunic moistened with saliva.

In order to turn the calculation on its head and discover a date that would show him whether these combinations referred to a birth or a forthcoming event, he needed to find out which system the Knight and his companion had used – in other words: Vallombroso’s theory. As for the cuneiform letters, their meaning must be recorded somewhere.

The child spent the last remaining hours of darkness consulting
every manual on physics, astronomy and astrology and every glossary in the library, without finding anything resembling that name or that shed light on the symbols in the almonds.

Vallombroso, Vallombroso … He resumed the search. It was the small hours of the morning before he came across what he considered to be a sign from God. He had stumbled upon a copy of Gui Faucoi’s
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Consultationes ad inquisitores haereticae pravitatis
, accompanied by a slim manual detailing a series of blood-curdling procedures.