The Lady Agnes Mystery, Volume 1 (36 page)

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ight was falling. A sharp wind had risen and was rattling the wooden shutters on the herbarium door. A pensive Annelette examined the contents of her tall medicine cabinet. She enjoyed these peaceful moments of solitude, this feeling of using her intelligence to rule over a domain that might be limited to the stout walls of the tiny building, but was hers.

Her fear had abated, as had her concern for the Abbess’s life. They had discussed the threat; now it was time to act. She was faced with a cunning enemy, clever as well as crafty – in short a worthy adversary. What had begun as a mission to protect the Abbess had turned into a personal challenge, a sort of wager with herself. Would she turn out to be the stronger, wilier opponent? Annelette’s foe, unbeknownst to her, had provided her with the chance to prove her ability. Annelette had waited all these years for an occasion to test the extent of her superiority, but had lacked any objective yardstick. Deep down, she was convinced that she was confronted with a creature whose brain worked exactly like hers, with the enormous difference that her opponent had chosen to serve evil. The apothecary nun had submitted fairly easily to the monastic rules of this community of women whom she mostly despised – just as she would a community of men. For her it was the lesser of two evils. And yet the thought of doing battle with another mind thrilled her. She would leave the prayers and supplications to others and make use of the intelligence God had given her. This was the most glorious mark of appreciation, the most complete form of allegiance she could show Him.

Annelette let out a sigh of contentment: the battle was about to begin and she would show no mercy. She would bring to bear all her scientific knowledge, her intellect and her loathing of superstition in the bid to combat her enemy’s cunning wickedness. She experienced a frisson of elation: when had she ever felt this free, this strong? Probably never.

She began by taking down all the bags of dried, powdered plants, the phials and jars containing the solutions, decoctions, spirits and extracts she had prepared during the spring and summer seasons. On the edge of the stone slab, she set aside for later use a small ampoule with a brown wax seal and then sorted the other remedies into two separate piles on the larger table. On the left, she placed those preparations which could not prove fatal in the tiny quantities a poisoner would use if adding them to food or drink: dried sage, thyme, rosemary, artichoke, mint, lemon balm and a host of others used to flavour food, as well as for treating minor ailments. On the right, she put the toxic substances that she would give to Éleusie to put in a safe place. Curiously, the phial of distilled Aconitum napellus root, which she used to treat congestive inflammations, general aches and pains and gout, did not appear to have been tampered with. Where, then, had the murderess procured the aconite that had killed poor Adélaïde? Unless she had been planning this for some time and had stolen the liquor the year before. Annelette then carefully examined the embroidered red lettering on the bags whose contents were toxic, and wondered which of them she might have chosen had she harboured evil intentions. Her gaze lingered on the crushed
Digitalis purpurea
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leaves she used for treating dropsy and heart murmurs, the
Conium maculatum
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she prescribed for neuralgia and painful menses, and the powdered
Taxus baccata
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she
mixed with handfuls of wheat in order to exterminate the field mice that attacked their granary. She was startled by how light the last bag felt. She hurried to the lectern where she kept her bulky register. In it she recorded the details of every prescription and what each bag weighed at the end of the week. She should have ten ounces
⁺
of
Taxus baccata
. She rushed over to the scales. The bag weighed just over nine ounces. Nearly an ounce of yew was missing – enough to kill a horse, and therefore a man or a nun. Who would be the next victim? She scolded herself. She was looking at the problem from the wrong angle again. There were two possibilities. One was that their enemy was allied to the forces of darkness struggling to put an end to their quest. If this were the case, the poisoner would run into two obstacles in the form of her and Éleusie de Beaufort. The other possibility was more mundane but no less lethal. The poisoner was motivated by hatred or jealousy, in which case the next victim’s identity would be far more difficult to predict. Another thought occurred to her and she checked her register again for the date when she had last weighed the bag. She could now completely rule out one of her least likely suspects: Jeanne d’Amblin. The powdered yew could only have been stolen during the two days preceding Adélaïde’s murder – that is to say during one of the extern sister’s rounds. In any event it was a clever choice for there was no antidote. The symptoms of yew poisoning were nausea and vomiting followed by shaking and dizziness. The victim would quickly plunge into a coma before dying. The discovery confirmed Annelette’s suspicions: the murderess was knowledgeable about poisons … Or else she had been advised by someone who was, but who?

She must reflect, find a method of counter-attack. The bitter taste of yew could only be disguised in something very sweet and heavily spiced. In a cake. Or – and this would be the height of
criminal ingenuity – in another bitter-tasting medicinal potion.

Thus whoever drank the nasty-tasting brew would not suspect that it contained poison.

It took Annelette a good hour to finish stacking the lethal substances in a big basket and replacing their phials and bags with harmless ones. She swapped aconite for sage, digitalis for milk thistle and filled with verbena the bag marked
Daphne mezereum
,
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that beautiful red-flowering plant, three berries of which were enough to kill a wild boar. The murderess could pride herself on having alleviated her next victim’s cough, colic or cramp if she decided to use it.

A smile spread across Annelette’s lips. She had come to the final stage of her plan. She removed the piece of cloth covering the crate of eggs she had filched from under the nose of the sister in charge of the fishponds and the henhouses. Poor Geneviève Fournier would probably have a fit when she discovered that fifteen of her beloved hens had not laid. She saw in the number of eggs she collected each morning proof of her good ministering to her birds and of the Lord’s munificence in her regard. The more eggs they laid, the more puffed up with pride she became, until she took on the appearance of a plump, contented mother hen. Annelette frowned at herself for thinking such uncharitable thoughts. Geneviève Fournier was a charming sister, but her harping upon the necessity of singing canticles to her hens, geese and turkeys in order to fatten them up for eating bored the apothecary sister as rigid as the necks of the ducks Geneviève crammed with grain.

She looked up as she heard a muffled sound coming from outside. It was well after compline.
⁺
Who was up at this time of night? She lowered the covers of the two lighted sconce torches and walked towards the herbarium door. The sound started
up again: cautious footsteps on the pebble paths that formed a cross separating the herb beds. She pulled open the shutter and found herself face to face with Yolande de Fleury, the sister in charge of the granary and one of her prime suspects, for who could obtain contaminated rye more easily than she? The plump woman turned white with fright and clasped her hand to her chest. Annelette demanded in an intimidating voice:

‘What are you doing here at this time of night, sister, when all the others are in bed?’

‘I …’ the other woman stammered, her cheeks turning red.

‘You what?’

Yolande de Fleury gulped and seemed to spend a long time searching for an explanation as to why she was there:

‘I … I felt an attack of acid stomach coming on just after supper … and I …’

‘And you thought you might find the right remedy yourself.’

‘Blackthorn usually …’

‘Blackthorn can be used for a range of ailments. It possesses diuretic, laxative and depurative qualities, as well as being very good for curing boils. You aren’t suffering from boils or acne by any chance, are you, sister? As for acid stomach … Milk thistle, centaury and wormwood are preferable. In short, any number of medicinal herbs other than blackthorn. I will therefore ask you again: what are you doing here?’

‘I confess that my excuse was a clumsy one. The truth is that I am upset about what has been happening, about poor Adélaïde’s terrible death, and I needed to take the air, to think …’

‘I see. And despite the hundreds of acres of land around our abbey you felt it necessary to “take the air” outside the herbarium?’

The other woman appeared even more distraught, and
Annelette thought she might burst into tears. And yet something in her manner, although secretive, convinced Annelette that Yolande de Fleury was not prowling around in the hope of stealing poison from her medicine cabinet. Moreover, the murderess must already be in possession of the powdered yew.

‘That’s enough, sister! Go back to your dormitory this instant.’ Yolande then astonished the apothecary by clutching the sleeve of her robe and whispering nervously:

‘Will you report my presence here to the Abbess?’

Annelette pulled her arm free and, stepping back, retorted:

‘Naturally.’ She felt suddenly angry and scolded the other woman sharply: ‘Have you forgotten, sister, that there’s a monster in our midst? Don’t you realise that the murderess may have procured the poison from my cabinet, the poison that caused the horrific death of the sister in charge of the kitchens and meals? Or are you simply hare-brained?’

‘But …’

‘No buts, sister. Go back to the dormitory straight away. The Abbess will be duly informed.’

Annelette watched the young woman’s hunched, weeping figure vanish into the darkness. What had the foolish woman really been doing there? Her inept excuses had made Annelette frankly doubt that she could be the poisoner. And yet … What if her clumsiness were a clever façade?

She went back into the herbarium to finish preparing her masterstroke. She replaced the bags containing the switched contents in the cabinet, and pulled a face as she picked up the tiny ampoule with the wax seal that she had set aside earlier. Cracking the eggs one by one, she separated the slippery whites into an earthenware bowl before adding a few drops of the almond oil which she had had sent from Ostia and used for treating chilblains
and cold sores. She stirred the mixture vigorously then sighed as she held her breath and opened the phial. The foul stench of rotten teeth or stagnant marshes filled her nostrils instantly. The substance was essence of
Ruta graveolens
– commonly known as fetid rue or herb of grace. Annelette suspected that the plant’s alleged effectiveness as an antidote to bites from poisonous snakes or rabid dogs
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did not explain the appellation herb of grace, choosing to give credence to a more mundane explanation: despite the Church’s condemnation, humble folk for whom another mouth to feed would spell disaster used fetid rue as an abortifacient. In a more concentrated or wrongly administered dose it could prove fatal. She quickly emptied the contents into the foamy egg whites and stirred the mixture vigorously again with her spatula, trying hard not to retch. Finally, when she was satisfied, she spread a layer of the mixture on the floor directly in front of her medicine cabinet. The oil would prevent it from drying too quickly and make it stick better to leather or wooden soles. She then heaved the big basketful of lethal substances onto her hip and left without locking the door behind her.

The Abbess was expecting her. Annelette Beaupré listened attentively as she walked through the darkness, guided only by the feeble light of a sconce torch. In fact, she did not really feel afraid. The murderess was almost certainly not endowed with the kind of physical strength that would enable her to carry out a direct attack, certainly not on somebody her size.

M
athilde de Souarcy had arrived an hour earlier escorted by Baron de Larnay, who Nicolas Florin thought was in a lamentable state. His purple-streaked face suggested he had been drinking. The inquisitor was delighted. The signs of human weakness always put him in a good mood. The young girl's sumptuous fur-lined coat, more suitable for a married woman, was evidence that her uncle treated her like an elegant kept woman. Agnan had left them waiting in a tiny, freezing-cold room.

Eudes de Larnay was growing increasingly uneasy, despite the outward display of calm he had affected in order not to scare his niece. He had gone out of his way to be charming to her during the long journey to Alençon, complimenting her on her figure, her appearance, her melodious voice. He had gone through her accusation with her and done his best to point out any possible pitfalls it contained. Finally, he had reminded her that at the slightest sign of any retraction the inquisitorial tribunal had the power to declare her a false witness, which would have dire consequences for them both.

The repulsively hideous young clerk who had shown them into the room reappeared. Eudes stood up as though to accompany his niece, knowing full well that she had been summoned alone. Agnan blushed and stammered:

‘Pray remain seated, my lord. Mademoiselle de Souarcy has been requested to appear alone before the tribunal.'

Eudes slumped back in his chair and cursed under his breath. The anxiety he had managed to suppress throughout the voyage
was beginning to gain the upper hand. What if Mathilde let herself be intimidated by this Grand Inquisitor? What if he caught her out with clever arguments, on the finer points of doctrine? No. Florin would receive a generous payment once Agnès had been found guilty. The young girl's claims were a godsend and it was not in his interests to cast doubt upon them. But who were these other judges? Had Nicolas Florin guaranteed their complicity out of his own pocket? After all, Mathilde might be desirable but she was a halfwit.

He had no reason to be alarmed. Mathilde was determined not to do anything that might send her back to that pigsty, Souarcy.

How appealing indeed was the pretty young damsel who was feigning coyness for their benefit; quite the little lady in her sumptuous dress of purple silk, set off by a diaphanous veil of shimmering azure. She stood with her head slightly bowed and her graceful hands clasped over her belly in an admirable show of false modesty. Florin silently approved Eudes de Larnay's taste and wondered whether he had bedded her yet.

He walked over to the young girl and declared in a mellifluous voice:

‘Mademoiselle … Allow me firstly to praise your courage and unwavering faith. We are all able to imagine just how agonising this must be for you. Accusing a mother is a most painful thing, is it not?'

‘Less painful than witnessing her transgressions, it must be said.'

‘Quite so,' said Florin ruefully. ‘I must now ask you to state your Christian name, surname, status and domicile.'

‘Mathilde Clémence Marie de Souarcy, daughter of the late Hugues de Souarcy and of Agnès Philippine Claire de Larnay,
Dame de Souarcy. My uncle and guardian, Baron Eudes de Larnay, kindly took me in after my mother's arrest.'

At this point the notary stood up to give his little recital:

‘In nomine Domini, amen. On this the eleventh day of November in the year of Our Lord 1304, in the presence of the undersigned Gauthier Richer, notary at Alençon, and in the company of one of his clerks and two appointed witnesses, Brother Jean and Brother Anselme, both Dominicans of the diocese of Alençon, born respectively in Rioux and Hurepal, Mathilde Clémence Marie de Souarcy does appear before the venerable Brother Nicolas Florin, Dominican, Doctor in Theology and Grand Inquisitor appointed to the region of Alençon.'

The aforementioned inquisitor thanked him with a perfunctory smile and waited for him to sit down again on the bench. He glanced at the two Dominicans. Brother Anselme was staring at the young girl. As for Brother Jean, whose hands rested on the table before him, he appeared lost in the contemplation of his fingernails. Nicolas stifled his amusement: none of them had the slightest idea of the little tragedy he had arranged, which was about to be played out before them.

Nicolas Florin picked up the big black book that lay on the table and walked up to Mathilde until he was almost touching her:

‘Do you swear upon the Gospels to tell the whole truth, to conceal nothing from this tribunal and that your testimony is given freely without hatred or hope of recompense? Take heed, young lady, for by swearing this oath you commit your soul for eternity.'

‘I swear.'

‘Mademoiselle de Souarcy, you declared in a letter written by your own hand and dated the twenty-fifth of October, I quote:
“My soul suffers at the thought of the constant abominations committed by Madame de Souarcy, my mother, and her persistent sinfulness and deviance make me fear for her soul,” and then, “The young chaplain, so devout the day he arrived, oblivious to this shadow of evil hanging over us, has much changed under her influence.” While reassured in your regard, our concern for your mother grows when we read your words: “God granted me the strength to resist living with evil despite my mother's constant example, but my heart bleeds and is in pain.” Are these your exact, unaltered words?'

‘Indeed, my Lord Inquisitor,' Mathilde acknowledged in an infantile voice.

‘Do you wish to retract, tone down or in any other way modify your accusation?'

‘It is an exact reflection of the truth. Any change would be mistaken and a terrible sin.'

‘Very good. Scribe, have you recorded the witness's consistency?'

The young man nodded timidly.

‘You are still so young, but I implore you to try your best to help us by remembering. When did you first notice that Madame de Souarcy's soul was being contaminated by evil, and what were the signs?'

‘I cannot give a precise date … I must have been six, possibly seven. I …' Mathilde lowered her voice to a whisper as though the enormity of the words she was about to pronounce made her breathless: ‘On several occasions I saw her spit the host into her handkerchief during Mass.'

A horrified murmur rose from the men seated around the table. Florin secretly praised Eudes de Larnay. He could hardly have thought up a better idea himself.

‘Are you certain your eyes were not playing tricks on you? It is so … monstrous.'

‘I am certain.'

The grate of a bolt, less rasping than usual. Agnès, exhausted and trembling from lack of food, mustered all her strength and stood up. The slightest effort left her breathless. She had spent the past few nights in a fever and the rancid smell of sweat, mixed with the stench of excrement from the latrine, made her feel sick. Fits of coughing had left her throat raw and she shivered uncontrollably. Her scalp itched so much that she could no longer tell whether it was simple dirt or if her head was crawling with lice. Her dress hung loosely from her body and, despite the coat Florin had given her in a show of kindness, the icy cold pierced her to the bone.

She immediately recognised the gaunt, unsightly face of Florin's clerk, but could not recall the name Florin had used to address him on the evening they had arrived at the Inquisition headquarters – an eternity ago.

‘What …'

Her teeth were chattering feverishly and she was unable to end her sentence. The words seemed to elude her, like faint sparks flickering in her mind.

‘Hush, Madame. I am not supposed to be here. If he ever found out … I have been going over the evidence for your trial … It is a stain on our Holy Church, Madame, a parody, worse still, a wicked deception; every witness statement in your favour, including that of the Abbess of Clairets, my lord the Comte d'Authon, your chaplain Brother Bernard and many more, has gone missing. To begin with I thought they must have been mislaid, and I duly informed the Grand Inquisitor, only to be
rewarded with his anger and contempt. He insisted that he had no recollection of them and made it clear that, if any evidence had gone missing, I was to blame …'

A remote feeling of relief. Agnès swayed; her head was spinning. It took all her strength of mind to comprehend what the young man with the weaselly face was telling her. And yet she had not forgotten the flicker of compassion that had rendered him almost beautiful.

‘He cleverly insinuated that, if I mentioned this loss to anyone, I would be held accountable and punished for my incompetence, adding that out of his compassion and affection for me he would say nothing. I do not fear punishment. My soul is free from sin. Do you know that I was afraid when this beautiful man chose me to be his clerk? I believed … I believed him to be an angel come down to earth. I believed that behind the repulsive façade others see he had sensed my purity and devotion. I believed that he had seen my soul as only angels can. Poor fool that I was. He delights in my ugliness for it makes him appear even more beautiful. He has a wicked soul, Madame. He threw out the testimony in your favour. Your trial is a tragic farce.'

‘I don't … What is your name?' she asked in a dry, hoarse voice.

‘Agnan, Madame.'

She cleared her throat:

‘Agnan. I am so weak that I can barely stand. He is … He is more than just a wicked soul. He is an incarnation of evil. He has no soul.'

She felt herself topple forward and just managed to steady herself by holding onto one of the wall rings used to chain the prisoners' arms above their heads.

Agnan retrieved a lump of bacon and two eggs from his sleeveless cassock and handed them to her.

‘Eat these, Madame, I implore you. Gather your strength … And clean your face. What you are about to endure is … villainous.'

‘What …'

‘I can tell you no more. Farewell, Madame. My thoughts are with you.'

All of a sudden he had gone and the door was bolted so quickly after him that Agnès was unsure of having even seen him leave the cell. She stood trembling, clutching the precious bacon and eggs to her chest, unable to make any sense of his parting advice. Why should she wash her face? What did it matter if she appeared dirty and stinking before her judges, before Florin's paid puppets?

The cross-examination had been going on for over an hour. Florin and Brother Anselme had alternated points of doctrine with questions of a more personal nature in an improvised duet.

‘And so,' Florin insisted, ‘Madame de Souarcy your mother considered that Noah's inebriation after the flood was sinful, even though he was pardoned for not having known of the effects of wine upon the mind, having never tasted it before?'

‘My mother thought him guilty anyway and managed to convince Brother Bernard.'

‘Did Madame de Souarcy believe the wisdom of her judgement to be above that of God? That constitutes blasphemy,' the inquisitor concluded.

‘Yes,' Mathilde acknowledged, adding ruefully, ‘but there is so much more, my Lord Inquisitor.'

Brother Anselme glanced at his fellow Dominican, who had raised his head for the first time since the beginning of the cross-examination and now prompted Anselme to speak with a blink of his eyes:

‘Mademoiselle de Souarcy, you write, and I quote: “The young chaplain, so devout the day he arrived, oblivious to this shadow of evil hanging over us, has much changed under her influence. During Mass he utters strange words in a language I cannot understand but which I know is not Latin.” Do you recognise these words as your own?'

‘I do. They are an exact description of the truth.'

‘You are aware that those who have turned from God and gone the way of the devil are sometimes rewarded with the power to speak in strange tongues in order to assist them in their dealings with the devil,' Florin emphasised.

‘I did not know,' Mathilde lied convincingly, her uncle having already stressed its importance.

‘It is a significant point, which may result in the arrest of Brother Bernard. In your opinion did the two accomplices engage in sinful invocations?' the inquisitor insisted.

Mathilde pretended to hesitate before confessing in a tremulous voice:

‘I fear they did.'

‘Pray, be more precise, Mademoiselle. Your testimony must help us to shed light upon the true extent of their corruption. We will then be in a position to determine whether your mother is guilty of latria
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or of dulia,
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for we do not consider these two heresies in the same light, a further example of our extreme tolerance.'

Mathilde stifled a sigh of relief; two days ago she had no idea
what these terms meant and would have been at a loss for words. Her uncle, fearing she might be questioned on this point, had explained them to her, emphasising the extreme seriousness of the crime of latria and insisting that her mother must be accused of it along with the other charges laid against her.

‘It pains me greatly to have to tell you. They invoked devils during Mass and recited loathsome prayers in a sinful language, as I wrote in my accusation, then they knelt and sang their praises.'

‘In front of you?'

The young girl trembled, seemingly on the brink of tears, as she stammered:

‘I believe my mother wished to lead me down the path to hell.'

More shocked gasps rose from the men seated on the bench.

Mathilde heaved a sorrowful sigh before adding:

‘One day … the servant whom my uncle had been kind enough to give us came to find me. She was so upset she could barely speak. I followed her to the little sacristy in the chapel. A pile of chickens lay there with their throats cut.'

‘So, they offered sacrificed animals!' exclaimed Florin, who had been enjoying himself immensely since the cross-examination had begun.