The Lady Agnes Mystery, Volume 1 (48 page)

T
he girl shied away in terror. Her cheek was stinging and Eudes's anger made her fear for her safety. A second blow sent her crashing into the door frame and she felt the blood streaming from her nose. She implored:

‘Master … I've done nothing wrong … kind master.'

‘Out of my sight, you whore! Vile whores, all of you!' shrieked Eudes, screwing up the letter the servant had just brought.

The young girl fled as fast as she could to get away from the madman's fists.

Eudes de Larnay was trembling with rage and regretted dismissing the servant girl. Beating her more would have brought him some relief.

The fools! The unutterable fools!

That wretch Florin had been handed this trial on a plate and had not managed to bring it to a successful conclusion. The fool had got himself stabbed by some brute – some drinking or orgy companion he had pulled from the gutter or from a cheap tavern. As for his gormless niece, who had nothing better to do than flutter her eyelids and prance about in her finery, she was too inept and stupid to have been seen fit to repeat what he had taken such pains to din into her. And as for that strumpet Mabile, who had led him on, made a fool of him, extorting his money with her lies. His entire household was useless, cowardly and stupid!

A sudden wrenching pain dispelled his anger.

Agnès … my magnificent warrior. Why must you detest me so? I hate you, Agnès, for you are always in my thoughts. You haunt me. You dog my days and my nights with your presence.
I wanted you dead, yet what is there left for me if you die? He stifled the sob that threatened to choke him and closed his eyes. I love you, Agnès. Agnès. You are my festering wound and my only remedy. I hate you, I truly hate you.

He snatched up the pitcher from the table and drank without filling his goblet. The wine trickled down his striped silk doublet. The alcohol stung his insides, reminding him that he had not eaten since the day before. But the effect of the liquor soon sated him.

I have not finished with you yet, my beloved.

He would think up some other ruse. Quite apart from his resentment and his insatiable lust, he had no choice. He had no choice. His own survival depended on it.

Y
olande de Fleury was resting in the ground. Every day Éleusie went to her grave to pay homage to her memory. Her grief was eased slightly by the thought that after a few moments of terrifying despair, the sweet Yolande had realised that her little Thibaut could not be dead. At least this is what the Abbess hoped Yolande had continued to believe until the very end.

Éleusie de Beaufort felt sure that Annelette was right. The sister in charge of the granary must have told her informant about the terrible scene that had taken place in the Abbess’s study. She must have assured her that she had not revealed her name to them. It had never occurred to her that the kindly bringer of good news was none other than the murderess. Yolande had not suspected for a moment that by relating these events she was signing her own death warrant, for the informant could not risk being denounced.

The poor little angel had joined her son, and the day Yolande’s coffin had been scattered with earth Éleusie had made a promise to herself. She would find out who had lied to Yolande and why. She felt that her daughter would not find peace otherwise. She felt that little Thibaut, whom she had never met, was pleading with her to do it for his mother’s sake and his own. Suddenly, doing God’s work in however small a measure and standing firm against the tides of evil seemed more important to her than anything else. Yolande de Fleury’s informant was none other than the murderer of Adélaïde, Hedwige, Yolande herself, and of the Pope’s emissaries. And yet, curiously, it was the lies the accursed woman had told in order to lull Yolande into a false
sense of security that had come, in Éleusie’s eyes, to represent an unforgivable sin. The Abbess had first wanted to eliminate any danger, to drive it outside the abbey’s walls, and then, if she could, to see that justice was done. Now, she demanded atonement for these sins. Nothing less than execution.

The early-morning frost crunched beneath her feet as she walked back towards the main buildings. Before, an eternity ago, she had loved the peaceful indifference of winter. She would smile at the stillness of the snow that appeared to muffle every sound. The cold had not seemed to her unrelenting as it could be warded off by sitting beside a hearth or swallowing a bowlful of hot soup. That morning, she felt the deadly chill pierce her to the bone. She thought of all the deaths, all the creatures in the nearby forests that would perish before the advent of better weather. Death. Death was sliding, creeping, slipping all around. Her existence had become a graveyard and no amount of life would ever change that. She was the sole survivor in the mortuary that had implanted itself in her mind.

A few snowflakes pricked the skin on her hands before melting. She paused. Should she go to the herbarium to see Annelette? No, she hadn’t the energy. Her study, however unwelcoming it might feel since the dreadful scene with Yolande, was still the only place where she could reflect.

The bells of Notre-Dame Church were pealing out. Sudden cries and an acrid smell made her turn her head in the direction of the guest house. She ran towards the building. Flames were rising out of the arrow-slit windows and she could hear the blaze roaring inside. Fire. A bevy of nuns was following Annelette’s instructions and racing to fetch heavy pails of water. A human chain quickly formed. Pails, pans, every sort of receptacle passed from one pair of hands to the next. Annelette finally saw the Abbess and ran over to her, crying out:

‘It’s a diversion, I am sure. She is trying to divert our attention, but to what evil end I do not know.’

It came to Éleusie in a flash: the secret library. She ran in the opposite direction as fast as her legs would carry her.

The moment she opened the door and stepped into the cold room she sensed something was wrong. Her gaze fell upon the thick tapestry obscuring the tiny passageway and the door leading into the secret place. It seemed to be moving as though the biblical scene had come alive.

Who? Who had discovered her secret? Who had entered there? Dear God, the forbidden works, the notebook belonging to Eustache de Rioux and Francesco! It must under no circumstances fall into enemy hands. So, she had been right all along. The sole intention of the poisoner was to lay her hands on these works.

She searched frantically for any object she could use as a weapon. Her eye fell upon the stiletto knife she used to cut paper. She seized it and ran towards the hidden opening. A figure dressed in a heavy monk’s habit, a cowl drawn over its face to avoid recognition, turned towards the Abbess, then made a dash for the door leading into the main corridor. Éleusie gave chase, still brandishing the knife, but the figure aimed a blow at her throat that left her fighting for breath. The Abbess struggled to seize the volumes wedged under the figure’s arm, but to no avail. Bent double and gasping, Éleusie watched as the shadowy figure vanished at the end of the corridor. A sudden rush of energy she no longer thought herself capable of roused her, and she hurtled outside as though her life depended on it. She shouted at all the sisters she encountered who were on their way to help fight the fire:

‘Go and instruct the porteress nuns
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not to allow anybody out
of the abbey under any circumstances. Failure to obey will be severely punished. This instant! Nobody must leave the abbey. That’s an order!’

She herself raced to the main door and stirred the porteress, demanding that she bolt the heavy doors at once. The panic-stricken woman obeyed.

Éleusie sighed and dug her fingers into the painful stitch in her side to try to ease it. She bent double in a fit of nervous laughter and gasped:

‘You’ll not escape, you wretch! You thought you had got the better of us, didn’t you, you vulture? I’ve got you now. I’ll crush you like the vermin you are!’ She turned towards the ashen-faced porteress and commanded: ‘I am reinstating the strict cloister without exception. Nobody is to leave here without an order signed by me and only me. Every, and I repeat every, sister whom I authorise to leave must have her body as well as her bundles and cart thoroughly searched. Without exception.’

Éleusie suddenly turned on her heel and ran towards her daughters who were busy fighting the fire, snarling to herself:

‘The manuscripts will stay in the abbey. Hide them … hide them as best you can, I will find them! You’ll take them over my dead body.’

A
gnès, who was still pallid and frail, looked at Clément and asked:

‘What are you saying?’

‘That we need to pay a visit to La Haute-Gravière, your health permitting.’

‘I shall decide whether my health permits. Stop fussing over me like a mother hen.’

A joyous smile flashed across the child’s face:

‘So, Madame, you are my baby chicken now.’

Agnès laughed and ruffled his hair. She loved him so much. Had he not constantly been in her thoughts she would never have survived her imprisonment at Alençon.

‘A big fat baby chicken, indeed!’ She grew serious again, continuing: ‘But we know nothing about the place, dear Clément.’

‘Indeed we do, Madame. I learned from my remarkable teacher, the physician Joseph de Bologne.’

‘Joseph again,’ Agnès joked. ‘Do you know, I think I am going to end up being jealous of that man?’

‘Oh, Madame, if only you knew him … You would immediately fall under his spell. He knows everything about everything.’

‘Gracious me! What a flattering description. You miss him, don’t you?’

Clément blushed and confessed:

‘Never when I am with you, for that is where I always wish to be.’ She could see him fighting back the tears. ‘I was so afraid, Madame, so terribly afraid that I would lose you and never find you again. I thought I would die of sorrow a thousand times. And
so, if I must choose, I prefer to stay here with you.’ He paused before adding: ‘Even so, Monsieur Joseph’s teaching is without parallel. The man has studied the world with his mind, Madame. He has so much knowledge of science. Is it not wonderful and incredible that he should consider me worthy of receiving it and be willing to answer so many of my questions? Moreover … he knows.’

‘What does he know?’ demanded Agnès, alerted by Clément’s sudden seriousness.

‘That I am not … I mean that I am a girl.’

‘Did you tell him?’

‘Of course not. He found it out. He claims you can already see a woman’s eyes in those of a child and that only a fool would confuse them with a man’s eyes.’

Agnès grew anxious.

‘Do you think he will tell the Comte?’

‘No. He holds his lord in high esteem, but he gave me his word that he would say nothing And you see, Madame, you and he are the only two people whose word I completely trust.’

Agnès felt relieved and quipped:

‘Don’t say it too loud. You’ll upset a lot of people.’

‘Why should I care if I make you happy? Getting back to the subject of La Haute-Gravière, which is part of your dower, plenty of nettles grow there.’

‘And little else,’ the lady agreed with a sigh. ‘Even the oxen won’t graze there. I was thinking of buying some goats at the next livestock fair. At least we could make cheese from their milk.’

‘Nettles thrive in ferrous soil.’

Agnès understood immediately what the child was implying.

‘Really? Is Maître Joseph sure of this?’

‘Yes. According to him, an abundance of nettles means the soil is rich in iron ore. We must find out, Madame. Is it the soil’s composition or do the plants point to a deposit?’

‘What must we do? How does one go about finding an ironore deposit?’

Clément pulled out of his thick winter tunic what looked like a dark-grey sharpening stone, and declared:

‘By means of this wonderful, inestimably rare object Joseph lent me in order to help you.’

‘Is it a piece of carved rock?’

‘It is magnetite, Madame.’

‘Magnetite?’

‘A very useful stone that comes from a region of Asia Minor known as Magnesia.’
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‘How can it help us, my dear Clément?’

‘This little piece of stone you see here has the power to attract iron, or soil containing iron. It sticks to it. We don’t know why.’

Rising from her bench, Agnès commanded:

‘Saddle a horse! You will sit behind me on a pillion. You are right, we must find out immediately.’

Clément left at once. A smile spread across Agnès’s lips, and she muttered to herself:

‘I have you, Eudes. If, God willing, this is an iron mine, you will soon pay for the suffering you caused me.’

She drove out the images flooding into her mind, of Mathilde; her tiny nails when she closed her baby fist round her mother’s finger; charging through the corridors at Souarcy, shrieking whenever a goose came up to her flapping its wings.

She must banish from her thoughts these happy memories that wounded her like a knife.

Where had the strange, beautiful man disappeared to, the Knight Hospitaller who had saved her, for she suspected that Florin’s death had been more than fortuitous. If the story of the ill-fated encounter with a drinking or orgy companion had convinced those who wanted to destroy the inquisitor’s already monstrous reputation, it had left Agnès sceptical. She had pondered for hours their brief exchange, attempting to reconstruct every detail, every word spoken. She had the bewildering certainty of having come close to a mystery that had then rapidly eluded her. Francesco de Leone was Éleusie de Beaufort’s nephew, or rather her adoptive son. Would the Abbess agree to tell her more, to enlighten her about him?

Had Mathilde remained at Clairets, would her uncle have been able to corrupt her like that? Had she, whose only thought had been to protect her daughter, been at fault?

Stop!

Mathilde. Her cold eyes, her pretty fingers adorned with Madame Apolline’s rings. Her lies aimed at sending her mother to the stake and Clément to the torture chamber.

No. She would cry no more. She was beyond tears.