Holy Fools

29

Three days have passed with the slick certainty of nightmare. Since the incident at the well, Mère Isabelle speaks to me rarely and without reference to what has passed between us, but I sense her mistrust and dislike. Her words on that occasion, the accusations and threats, have not been repeated, in private or otherwise. Indeed, she treats me with something like tolerance, which was not her manner from the first.

But she looks unwell; her face is mottled with angry-looking blemishes, her eyes purplish and heavy. LeMerle has twice more invited me to his cottage. He hints at favors to be won, but I am afraid of what he may ask me to abet this time. Already, Marguerite’s Apparition has been seen in various parts of the abbey, each sighting growing more detailed in the telling, so that now the ghostly nun sports hideous features, red eyes, and all the trappings of popular romance.

Unsurprisingly, Alfonsine has seen her too, in far greater detail, and I wonder to what extent the ghostly nun is not an invention of their mutual rivalry. Alfonsine, who looks paler and more ecstatic as the days pass, even swears now that she recognized Mère Marie’s kindly face beneath that sinister coiffe, now distorted with hate and demonic glee. It will not be long before Marguerite finds something even more distressing to report, and thereby steals Alfonsine’s thunder once again: meanwhile, she spends her free time in cleaning and prayer, while her rival fasts and prays-and coughs with increasing frequency.

What is becoming of us? We talk of little else but of blood and Visitations. Normal relations among us have been suspended. Penances have reached a level hitherto undreamed of, with Soeur Marie-Madeleine keeping vigil in the church for two nights without sleep for having dared to query some novice’s tale. Our diet now consists of nothing but black bread and soup, Mère Isabelle having decreed that rich foods inflame the baser appetites. She says this with such ferocity that the bawdy jokes to which such a pronouncement might once have given rise in the days of Mère Marie stick in the throat.

We thrive on gossip and whispered scandal. Clémente has revealed herself to be a zealous informant at Chapter. Few escape her innocent, wide-eyed spite. If Soeur Antoine gobbles her bread before grace, Clémente sees it. If Tomasine closes her eyes during Vigils, if Piété shows ill-temper when disturbed at prayer, if Germaine speaks slightingly of the Visitations…This last is especially cruel. Words spoken in confidence are revealed in public with bland complacency. Mère Isabelle commends Clémente on her sense of duty. LeMerle seems not to notice.

Germaine accepted her penance with cold indifference. She looks stony now, her damaged face rough and hard-looking as the effigy of Marie-de-la-mer, the saint who never was. And yet it is easier for us to believe, in our abbey buffeted by the bitter west winds, in a Goddess of the Sea, a watchful, dangerous Goddess with stony, gouged-out eyes. Easier in any case than in the Mother of God, that Virgin claiming still to be the mother of us all.

Three days ago a fine marble statue of the Holy Mother arrived by cart from the mainland, in replacement for our loss. A gift, said Mère Isabelle, from her favorite uncle, for whom we will say forty masses in thanks for his generosity. She is all white, this new Marie, smooth and bland as a peeled potato. She sits in the corner of the church where the old Marie used to be, her lips curved in a tiny, meaningless smile, one hand outstretched in a limp gesture of benediction.

The morning after her arrival, however, the new Marie was found defaced, obscene words scrawled across her features in black grease pencil. Germaine-who had been doing penance in the church on the night of the outrage-claimed to have seen nothing during her vigil, though her mouth curled as she said it. Perhaps a mysterious robed nun did it, she suggested insolently, or a monkey from the Far East, or a manifestation of the Holy Ghost. She began to laugh then, softly at first. We watched her, embarrassed and anxious. Patches of scarlet marbled her cheeks. For an instant she turned to Clémente with an expression of entreaty on her scarred face. Then she fell backward, stiffly onto the flagstones, hands clutching at air.

Germaine went to the infirmary after that. Soeur Virginie declared that she was suffering from the cameras de sangre, and spoke of a possible recovery with noisy confidence whilst in private she shook her head and whispered that the patient was unlikely to live out the month. Soeur Rosamonde, too, is causing concern. During the past week her decline has been dramatic; now she remains in the infirmary all day, barely moving and refusing to eat. Of course she is very old-almost as old as poor Mère Marie-but until the removal of the saint she had been a cheery soul, sound in body if not in mind, and enjoying what small pleasures she could with enviable simplicity.

I feel oddly responsible and would try to intercede on her behalf, but I know that to do so would accomplish nothing. In fact, at this point, Mère Isabelle is far more likely to show sympathy to Rosamonde if I seem unaware of her condition.

It is a part of his trap, of course. Every day I spend here deepens the pit into which I have dug myself. LeMerle knows it; doubtless he meant it so. He despises my loyalty to the sisters but understands that I will not leave them while Fleur is safe and they are not. I have become my own jailer, and although every instinct tells me with increasing urgency that I must escape, I am afraid of what may happen if my vigilance is withdrawn. Every night I tell the cards, but they show me nothing but what I already know; the Tower in flames, with the woman falling, arms outstretched, from the top; the hooded Hermit, the cruel Six of Swords. Disaster, poised like a crushing rock above our heads, with nothing I can do to prevent its fall.

30

At last, a reply to my letters. Monseigneur takes his time, it seems, and sees no reason to thank me for all my hard work. I am privileged to be given the chance to devote my life to the noble house of Arnault. However, the generous gift, the marble statue that accompanied his letter, shows his unspoken approval. Monseigneur is most gratified to hear of his niece’s reforms. As well he might-a pretty picture I drew of the young abbess, radiant in her innocence and unearthly beauty; of adoring nuns; of birds flocking to hear her speak. I hinted at marvels; showers of rose leaves; spontaneous healings. Soeur Alfonsine will be pleased to hear that she has been restored to health from a fatal illness. Soeur Rosamonde too has regained the use of her withered arm. One must not speak too hastily of miraculous cures, but one must always hope, and if God wills it…

The lure is cast. I have little doubt that he will fail to take it. I have suggested the fifteenth of August as a favorable date. It seems appropriate, it being the day of the Virgin, to celebrate thus our reclamation of the abbey.

Meanwhile, I must work day and night to make things ready in time. Fortunately I have my helpers: Antoine, strong, slow, and undemanding; Alfonsine, my visionary and spreader of rumors; Marguerite, my catalyst. Not to mention Piété, who runs errands, my little Soeur Anne, and Clémente…

Well, maybe that was a miscalculation. Despite her meek appearance she is by far the most demanding of my disciples, and I find it hard to keep up with her changes of mood. Purring like a housecat one day, the next perversely cold, she seems to take pleasure in goading me into violence, only to indulge in extravagant protestations of love and repentance afterward. I believe I am expected to find this appealing. Many would, I am sure. But I’m no seventeen-year-old anymore, to be ensnared by a pretty face and some girlish simpering. Besides, I have so little time to give her: my hours have become at least as long and as wearisome as those of the nuns. My nights are divided among various clandestine pursuits; my days are filled with blessings, exorcisms, public confessions, and other everyday blasphemies.

Following the first sighting of the Unholy Nun there have been a number of further incidents that may or may not be of a demonic nature; crosses removed from nuns’ habits during the night; obscene writings on statues in the church; red dye in the font and on the stones in front of the altar. Père Colombin, however, remains defiant in the face of these new outrages and spends hours each day in prayer; an occasional catnap saves me from complete exhaustion, and Soeur Marguerite ensures that I do not starve.

And what of you, my Juliette? How far will you follow me, and for how long? The market at Barbâtre has served its purpose. There cannot be another visit there without arousing suspicion. Isabelle watches me with something akin to jealousy, and her vigilance, assiduously honed, is a compass needle ever pointing in my direction. Père Saint-Amand is an innocent for all his wordly wisdom, easily swayed by feminine wiles. Far harder on her own sex than any man could be, she knows this is my essential weakness and values this proof of my humanity. If she learned of my involvement with Clémente now, she would take my side, assuming that the girl led me into temptation. But her eye is on Juliette. Instinct shows her where the enemy lies. My Winged One works in the bakehouse-hard enough work, I’m told, but an easier task than digging the well. She does not approach me, though she must long for news of her daughter, but preserves that look of stolid, almost stupid docility that goes so ill with what I know of her. Only once she slipped and drew attention to herself when the old nun was taken to the infirmary. Yes, I heard about that. A foolish lapse, and for what? What loyalty can such as she have to these people? She always had too soft a heart. Except, of course, with me.

This morning I spent two hours I could ill afford with Isabelle in confession and prayer. She has a study of her own next to her bedchamber with a shrine, candles, a portrait of herself by Toussaint Dubreuil, and a silver figurine of the Virgin taken from the sacristy treasures. Time was when I would have coveted that figurine, and the treasures too, but the time for pilfering is long past. Instead I listened to a spoilt girl’s rantings with a grave, compassionate air whilst deep in my stomach, I grinned.

Mère Isabelle is troubled. She tells me so with the unconscious arrogance of her breeding, an adult’s pride masking the child’s fears. For she does fear, she tells me. For her soul; for her salvation. There have been dreams, you see. She sleeps only three or four hours a night-is the sea never quiet?-and what sleep she finds is stitched through with uneasy dreams of a kind she has never before known.

“Of what?” I narrowed my eyes to hide the smile within. She may only be a child, but her senses are alert, her instincts uncanny. In another life I might have made a fine cardplayer of her.

“Blood.” Her voice was low. “I dreamed blood flowed from the stones of the crypt and into the church. Then I dreamed of the black statue in the chapel, and blood came welling from beneath it. Then I dreamed of Soeur Auguste”-I told you her instincts were sound-“and of the well. I dreamed blood came from the well Soeur Auguste was digging, and it was all over me!”

Very good. I never credited my little pupil with such an imagination. I notice that her face is marked with a number of small blemishes about the mouth and chin, indicating ill health. “You must not push yourself so hard, ma fille,” I told her gently. “To encourage physical collapse through self-denial is no way to ensure the completion of our work here.”

“There’s truth in dreams,” she muttered, sullen. “Was not the well water tainted? And the Sacrament?”

Gravely I nodded. Difficult to remember that she is twelve years old; with her pinched small face and reddened eyes she looks ancient, used up.

“Soeur Alfonsine saw something in the crypt.” Again that mutter, half-sullen, half-imperious.

“Shadows,” I told her crisply, feeding the flame.

“No!” Her shoulders hunched instinctively; she put her hand to the pit of her stomach with a grimace.

“What is it?” My hand lingered at the nape of her neck and she pulled away.

“Nothing. Nothing!” she repeated, as if I had contradicted her. A cramp, she tells me. An ache that has afflicted her for the past few days. It will pass. She seemed about to tell me more, the wizened mask falling for an instant to reveal the child she might have been. Then she recovered, and for a moment I could clearly see her uncle in her. It’s a welcome resemblance; it reminds me that this is not a normal child I am dealing with, but one of a vicious and degenerate brood. “Leave me now,” she told me haughtily. “I wish to pray alone.”

I nodded, hiding a smile. Say your prayers, little sister. The house of Arnault may need them sooner than you think.

31

Last night, Germaine killed herself. We found her this morning, hanging from the crossbar halfway down the well, her weight had dragged the wooden strut from which she was suspended without dislodging itself from the earth walls. A few more feet and the corpse might have tainted the well water more certainly than LeMerle’s red dye. As it was, Germaine’s suicide was as cryptic as she was in life. Close by, we found obscene, barely decipherable messages on the church walls as well as on several statues, scrawled in the same black grease pencil that had been used to deface the new Marie, and she had removed the Bernardine cross from the front of her habit, carefully unpicking the tiny stitches, as if to spare us the shame of seeing it on the breast of a suicide.

I saw only a glimpse of her face as they pulled her from her vertical grave, but it seemed to me virtually unchanged: even in death her mouth had just the same pinched and cynical look, that look of always expecting and receiving the worst life had to offer, which hid a heart more vulnerable and more easily bruised than anyone knew.

She was buried without ceremony before Prime, at the crossroads beyond the abbey grounds. I dug the grave myself, remembering our work on the well together, and I spoke a few silent, sorry words to Sainte Marie-de-la-mer. Tomasine wanted to put a stake through the corpse’s heart, to prevent her from walking, but I would not allow it. Let Germaine rest as she could, I said; we were nuns, not savages.

Tomasine muttered something sullen and indistinct.

“What did you say?”

“Nothing.”

I could sense the unrest, however. Throughout the day it walked with me; in the abbey, in the garden and the chapel; it worked alongside me in the bakehouse and in the fields. It did not help that the heat had soured; overnight, the air had become flat and humid, and the sun was a tarnished coin behind a sheet of cloud. Beneath it we sweated; sweating, we stank. No one spoke aloud of Germaine’s suicide, or even of the Unholy Nun, but it was there nevertheless; a murmur of revolt; a fear that grew with every silent hour. This was, after all, the second death in as many months-and both had occurred in unusual circumstances. A third outrage seemed only a matter of time.

Then, this evening, it finally came. Soeur Virginie arrived from the infirmary with the unwelcome news that during Chapter Soeur Rosamonde had died. Oh, it was to be expected at her age; but it was a blow nevertheless. Certainly it was enough to set rumors flying: Rosamonde had died of shock following a new Visitation by the Unholy Nun; she had been bewitched to death by the same evil spirit that had killed Mère Marie; she had committed suicide; she had died of the cholera, and everyone was trying to cover it up; she had perished of an overzealous bleeding, authorized by Mère Isabelle.

I was more inclined to believe this: Virginie’s handling of the old woman had been misguided from the start, and separated from her friends and cut off from the rest of the abbey, Rosamonde had soon fallen into a fatal decline. Her death was ill-timed, however. No amount of reasoning could persuade the other sisters that they were in no danger. Death is not contagious, I protested: only disease. At her own insistence I promised to make a medicine bag for Soeur Piété to protect her from evil humors, and strengthening drafts for Alfonsine and Marguerite, who had grown even thinner under Virginie’s care. After the evening meal several of the novices came to me for advice and protection; I told them to avoid excessive fasting, to drink only the water from the well, and to wash with soap morning and night.

“What good will that do?” asked Soeur Tomasine when she heard of it.

I explained that regular washing sometimes prevented disease.

She looked skeptical. “I don’t see how it can,” she said. “You need holy water, not soap and water, to drive out evil.”

I sighed. It is sometimes very difficult to explain these things without sounding heretical. “Some evils are waterborne,” I explained carefully. “Some travel by air. If the water or the air is tainted, then disease may spread.” I showed her the scented pomander I had made to dispel foul air and flying insects, and she turned it over suspiciously in her hand.

“You seem to know a lot about these things,” she said.

“Only what I’ve heard.”

At Vespers that night LeMerle spoke to us, looking tired after a day of fasting and prayer. Exhausted and afraid, the sisters brightened a little at the sound of his voice, but Père Saint-Amand seemed reluctant to mention the long day’s troubling business, and spoke of the trials of Saint Felicity with a forced cheer that convinced no one.

Then Mère Isabelle addressed us. I had noticed that the more LeMerle spoke to us of caution and restraint, the more agitated she became, as if she were purposely defying the new confessor. Today her address was longer and more confused than ever, and though she spoke to us of the Light of God in the darkness, her speech held little illumination.

“We must try to find the light,” she told us in a voice that quavered a little with fatigue. “But today it seems that try as we might we are infested, even to the heart. Even to the soul. Oh, we mean well. But even the best of intentions may lead the soul into hell. And sin is everywhere. No one is safe. Even a hermit alone for fifty years in a lightless cave may not be free of sin. Sin is a plague, and it is contagious.”

“There have been dreams,” she whispered-and a murmur rose from the assembly like poison smoke-“dreams and blood”-and the murmur echoed again like the voice of our longings-blood, yes-“and now the ichors of hell flow free among us, touching us with monstrous thoughts, monstrous cravings”-yes, whispered the voice of the multitude, oh yes, yes, yesss!

At her side LeMerle seemed to smile-or was it the candlelight?-his face ringed in the glow from the sacristy lantern so that a soft nimbus surrounded him.

“There have been lecheries!” cried Mère Isabelle. “Blasphemies! Secret abominations! Can anyone deny it?”

Before her Soeur Alfonsine began to wail, arms held out. Clémente too held out her hands in seeming entreaty. Behind them, a dozen more joined the chorus. “All of us, guilty!”

Guilty, yessss! An ecstasy of release.

“All of us tainted!”

Tainted, yes!

The candles, the incense, the stench of fear and excitement. The dark, teeming with shadows. A gust of wind slammed the door against the wall and set the candles guttering. A hundred shadows against the walls doubled, trebled, becoming three hundred, three thousand, an army from hell. Someone screamed. Such was the nervous power of Mère Isabelle’s soliloquy that the cry was echoed by a dozen more.

“See! It comes! It comes! It is here!”

Everyone turned to see who had cried out. Set slightly apart from the rest of the crowd stood Soeur Marguerite, arms uplifted. She had cast aside her wimple and her head was thrown back, revealing a face distorted with tics and tremors. Her left leg was shaking perceptibly through the thick folds of her habit, a vibration that seemed to pass through every muscle and nerve in her body.

“Soeur Marguerite?” LeMerle spoke in a clear, calm voice. “Soeur Marguerite, is anything wrong?”

With a visible effort, the thin nun turned her eyes toward him. Her mouth opened, but nothing came. The tic in her leg intensified.

“Don’t touch me!” said Marguerite as Soeur Virginie moved to help her.

LeMerle looked concerned. “Soeur Marguerite. Come here, please. If you can.”

It was clear she wanted to obey. But her limbs refused to do so. I had seen a similar case in Montauban, in Gascony, where several people had been afflicted by Saint Vitus’ dance. But this was not the same malady. Marguerite’s leg jerked and danced as if some evil puppeteer were pulling her strings. Her face worked frantically.

“She’s faking,” said Alfonsine.

Marguerite’s head twisted to face her. Grotesquely, her body kept the same unnatural posture. “Help me,” she said.

Isabelle had been watching in silence. Now she spoke. “Can you doubt it now?” she said in a low voice. “Possessed!”

LeMerle said nothing but looked well satisfied with himself.

All around them, the sisters had begun to murmur. The word-unspoken as yet until this moment-filled the air like a plague of moths.

Only Alfonsine looked skeptical. “That’s ridiculous,” she said. “It’s a tic, or the palsy. You know what she’s like.”

Privately, I agreed with her. There had been more than enough excitement in the abbey during the past weeks to provoke a frenzy in one as susceptible as Soeur Marguerite. Besides, Alfonsine had been coughing up more blood than ever in recent days, and it was getting hard to compete.

Isabelle, however, was not pleased. “There have been cases!” she snapped. “Who are you to question this one? What do you know about it?”

Alfonsine, abashed at the rebuke, began to cough. I could hear her forcing it, raking at her throat. If she’d had any sense she would have accepted the linctus I had prepared for her, and bandaged her throat with linen. Even so I knew that such remedies would not cure her but would merely slow the progress of her illness. The consumption is not an ill that can be cured with syrups.

Meanwhile, Marguerite’s affliction had not abated. The tremor had passed to her right leg, and now both legs were infected with the dancing sickness. Her eyes rolled in dismay as her feet seemed to move independently of the rest of her body, rocking her from side to side. The word-possessssed-rolled around the vaults, picking up momentum as it went.

Isabelle turned to LeMerle. “Well?”

He shook his head. “It’s too early to say.”

“How can you doubt it?”

The Blackbird looked at her. “I can doubt it, child,” he said with an edge of irritation, “because, unlike you, I have seen many things, and I know how easily judgment may be clouded by impatience and lack of thought.”

For a moment Isabelle held his gaze defiantly, then her eyes dropped. “Forgive me, mon père,” she said through her teeth. “What shall I do?”

He thought about it for a while. “She should be examined,” he decided, with a seeming reluctance. “Immediately.”

32

Only I could appreciate how deftly the Blackbird had handled this scene. By seeming to hold back, by adopting a reasoned posture at variance with the atmosphere of fear and mistrust he had already created, he had made it seem as if they, and not he, were making the decisions. Soeur Marguerite was taken to the infirmary, where she remained with LeMerle and Soeur Virginie throughout the night and the following day. According to the rumors, Marguerite’s tic had continued for more than an hour after the aborted service. She was bled twice, on Soeur Virginie’s recommendation, after which she was too exhausted to be examined and had to be put to bed.

I listened to the reports with barely restrained impatience. Of course I know that Soeur Virginie is a silly girl who should never have been put in charge of the infirmary. Already weakened by fasting and nervous exhaustion, the last thing Marguerite needs at the moment is bleeding. She needs rest, quiet, and good, wholesome food: meat, bread, and a little red wine-all the things, in fact, that Mère Isabelle has forbidden. Demons respond to sanguineous humors, declares Soeur Virginie, and to prevent infestation it is essential to thin the blood. In fact, the color red would have been outlawed altogether except for the crosses stitched onto our habits, and Mère Isabelle looks with suspicion on any sister who does not share her own sickly pallor. Red is the devil’s color: dangerous; immodest; blatant. For the first time I am glad that I wear the wimple, and hope that she does not remember the color of my hair.

In this sullen heat, ill humor and suspicion breed like the plague. There are cantrips to bring rain, but I dare not use them; already I sense the disapproval of Soeur Tomasine and others, and I want no more unwelcome attention. Instead, this evening, alone in the chapel, I sat at the feet of the new Marie, lit a candle for Germaine and Rosamonde, and tried to compose my thoughts.

Tsk-tsk, begone! But the Six of Swords is not so easily banished. It hangs above my head like a curse and will not be satisfied. I looked across the pew where, only the night before, Marguerite had suffered her attack of the tremors, and foreboding warred with curiosity in my heart. Was this what LeMerle had intended? Was this another stage of his mysterious plan?

I tried a little prayer-a heresy, you might call it, but the old saint would have understood. The new one, however, just stood in her chilly silence and gave no sign of having heard. She knows only good Latin, this new Marie, and the prayers of such as I are of no interest to her. Once more I thought of Le Borgne-and too of Germaine and Rosamonde, and I began to understand the desire to attack this clean new saint; to bring her down, deface her, make her more like ourselves.

Observing her more closely I could see that she was not all white, as first I had thought. There was a slim ribbon of gilt running around the edge of the Virgin’s mantle, and her halo too was picked out in gold. Carved from the finest marble, veined in the tenderest rose, she stood on a pedestal of the same material, engraved with her name and that of our abbey in gilded letters. There was a crest carved underneath, which on close scrutiny I recognized as that of the house of Arnault, and this time I also noticed another, rather smaller crest, modestly placed beneath, the design of which-a white dove and the Holy Mother’s fleur-de-lis picked out against a gilt background-suddenly looked strangely familiar…

A gift from her uncle, Isabelle had said: her favorite uncle, for whom we must say forty masses in thanks. Why, then, should I know his emblem? Why, then, should I feel myself on the brink of some revelation that would cast light on all that had happened during the past weeks? Even more puzzling was the half-memory that accompanied the feeling: a scent of sweat and wax, a great light and heat, a sensation of dizziness, the clamor that was the Théâtre-Royal, that good year in Paris…

Paris! The memory locked into place with a click. I could see him now-a tall man, gaunt with genteel self-deprivation, his eyes so light they seemed gilded, as if from looking at too many altars. He only spoke once in my hearing, but I remembered his words, uttered in rage on the night of our Ballet des Gueux as he left the hall in a surge of applause.

A Blackbird’s voice may haply be silenced, he had said. Even though such quarry is the vassal’s preserve, if its song offendeth…

A man of strange pride, my Blackbird, in spite of his lack of morals; a strange marriage of arrogance and knavery. So many things are a game to him; so few things matter in his life. But he understands revenge. I know that path myself, after all, and if now I choose to give it up it is only because Fleur takes up a greater part of my heart than I can afford to waste on such foolish things. LeMerle has no Fleur, and for all I know, no heart. Pride is all he has.

I returned to the dorter in silence, my head finally clear. I knew now why LeMerle had come to the abbey. I knew why he had adopted the role of Père Saint-Amand, why he had given orders to taint the well, why he had encouraged the frenzies in the chapel, and why he had taken such pains to keep me from escaping. But knowing why is not enough. Now I must discover what it is that he intends to do. And what is to be my role in this play of travesties? And how will it end-in tragedy or farce?

33

Well done, my Ailée. I knew it would be only a matter of time before you put the facts together. You remember the bishop, then? Monseigneur had the bad taste to disapprove of my Ballet Travesti. To order my removal from Paris. My ignominious removal.

My Ballet des Gueux outraged him, with its sequined ladies; my Ballet Travesti more so, with the ape dressed as a bishop and the Court beaux in petticoats and corsets. To tell the truth, I meant it so. What right had he to censure? No harm was done. A few left outraged, prudes and hypocrites for the most part. But the applause! It seemed never ending. We stood for five minutes with our smiles melting beneath the lamps and the greasepaint running down our faces. The boards glittered with flung coins. And you, my Ailée, too young yet to have earned your wings but lovely in your scandalous breeches, hat in hand, eyes like stars. It was our great triumph. Do you remember?

And then, more abruptly than we could understand, came the end. Évreux’s public letter to de Béthune. The furtive glances, the mumbled excuses from those I had counted as friends. The polite messages-Madame has left town. Monsieur is not at home tonight-whilst more favored visitors came and went with barely concealed disdain.

I was expected to leave quietly, discreetly, accepting my disgrace. But the Blackbird’s song is not so easily silenced. As they burned me in effigy at the steps of the Arsenal, I bought a new wardrobe. I paraded with vulgar exhibitionism about the town. I wore my women like costume jewelry, two on each arm. Madame de Scudéry’s salon was closed to me now, but there were many others not so choosy. The bishop watched me, enraged, but what more could he do?

I learned soon enough. A beating at the hands of lackeys, no less, as I returned drunk from a night of revelry. Without de Béthune as my benefactor I was defenseless, unprotected even by the law, for who would think to take my side against Monseigneur the bishop? I was unarmed, without even a dress sword at my side. There were six of them. But I was less drunk-or more desperate-than they imagined. I was forced to run, hiding in alleys infested with rats, crouching in open drains, skulking through shadows, heart pounding, head aching, mouth dry.

It could have been an Italian farce: Guy LeMerle, running from a bishop’s flunkeys, his silver-buckled shoes slipping in the street slops, his silk coat spattered with mud. Better, I suppose, than LeMerle lying in the gutter with his ribs broken. But it was enough; I lost the game. And there would be another time for Monseigneur. And another. My credit had finally run out, and we both knew it.

But memory is long on the road, with only whores and dwarves for company. And the road is a long one, crossing and recrossing with incestuous intimacy. We met there before, if you recall, in a village near Montauban, and after that in a cloister just outside Agen. All roads lead to Paris, and we met there too, several times. On one occasion there I relieved you of a silver cross-I wear it still, you’ll be glad to know-but once again you held the aces, and retaliation was swift. Shame on you, mon père. I lost a player, and one of my caravans. But the Blackbird’s feathers were barely singed. And after that, our stakes were higher.

Every man has a weakness, Monseigneur Bishop. It took me some time to find yours. But my dark star led me at last to the cradle of your ambition. Congratulations, by the way. Such a devout family. Two brothers highly placed in the clergy, a sister prioress of an abbey in the South. Innumerable cousins in monasteries and cathedrals throughout France. You’d have to be blind to miss the streak of nepotism that runs through the house of Arnault. But a line so rich in virgins must soon be doomed to sterility. Your one regret, mon père, must be that you never fathered a son to carry your line. Instead you lavished what affection you could on your dead brother’s daughter: Angélique Saint-Hervé Désirée Arnault, henceforth to be known as Mère Isabelle, abbess of Sainte Marie-la-Mère.

She looks like you. She has the same suspicious face and silver-gilt eyes. She has your contempt for the common man, and she has your pride too-beneath your pious attitudes you Arnaults conceal a level of hubris worthy of classical tragedy. In all but name she is your daughter. You schooled her well; she reads your letters with the devotion of Héloïse to Abelard; even from the nursery, her piety exceeded expectations. She eats no meat; drinks no wine but at Communion; fasts on Fridays. She does you credit, and such credit may be turned to good advantage-why not? After all, one cannot remain a bishop forever. A cardinal’s hat might sit well on Monseigneur, or at the very least an archbishop’s miter. Cunningly, you paved her way to Mother Church’s door: spread rumors of visions, angelic voices, and unofficial but well-publicized acts of healing. Your secret wish is of a canonization in the family-without sons, this is the only continuation your line can hope for-and with Mère Isabelle, this may not be entirely out of the question. Although her late mother judged her too young to take the veil, you took her in hand; encouraged the girl to dream of an abbey in the same way that a normal child might wish for a doll’s house.

If you’d only seen her when I gave her the news! God, I almost loved her for that, her eyes narrowed into crescents of ill temper, her mouth turning spitefully downward.

“Abbess of where?” she wailed. “But that’s nowhere! Nowhere at all!”

You spoiled her, Monseigneur. Made her believe, young as she was, that she might look higher. Perhaps she coveted Paris, the minx, with its towers and conceits and worldly whores on their knees in front of her. It would have been her style.

Or maybe it was for the penance I made her do for her anger, for my rebuke and the tenderness of my absolution when she had finished, for there is a hunger in her that I’m sure you never saw, a part of her in which sin rubs against sanctity to form a single, bright blade. One day she’ll be sharp enough to cut with, Monseigneur d‘Évreux. Till then, beware.

Juliette came to me tonight, as I knew she would. It was a risk; she must have suspected Clémente might be with me, but having discovered my secret, she could not stay away.

It was like her too to confront me at once. In her place I would have kept my counsel and played a close game; my Winged One, as always, rushes forth in the heat of the moment, showing all her aces in her eagerness to confront me. It’s a flaw in her play-a beginner’s flaw, at that-and although it serves my purpose in this case, I cannot help feeling a little disappointed. I thought I’d taught her better.

“So that‘s why you’re here,” she said, when I opened the door. “The bishop of Évreux.”

“Bishop of where?” I feigned innocence, but poorly: just to see the look of triumph in her eyes. “And you used to be such a good liar,” she said, pushing past me into the cottage.

I shrugged modestly. “Maybe I’m out of practice.”

“I don’t think so.”

She sat down on the arm of my chair, one leg swinging. There was dust on the soles of her brown feet; her face was alight with her imagined victory. “So,” she said. “When are we expecting him? And what will you do when he’s here?”

“Are we expecting him?” I said, smiling.

“If not, you’ve lost your touch.”

I shrugged, conceding the point. “You can’t imagine I would have told you,” I said. “After all, you haven’t shown much trust in me so far, have you?”

“Why should I?” she said. “After Épinal-”

“Juliette, you’re being tiresome. I explained about that already.”

“Explained, but not excused.” Her tone was harsh, but there was something in her manner, a kind of obscure softening-as if her discovery, instead of increasing her suspicion of me, had somehow brought her reassurance. “Tell me about the bishop,” she said in a softer voice. “You know I won’t betray you.”

I smiled. “Loyalty? I’m touched. I-”

“Hardly,” she said. “You have my daughter.”

Ouch. Another hit. However, in the course of a long game, a calculated surrender may serve as well as a victory. “Very well,” I said, drawing her gently toward me. She did not pull away.

I confessed enough to allay her fears and to flatter her-just a little-though she thought her face expressionless as she listened to me in silence. Women hear so often what they want to hear, even my Harpy-who has every reason to believe the worst. And a partial truth is often so much more effective than a total lie.

She has guessed the obvious, of course. I’d accounted for that. Perhaps she can even understand me a little-she’s a resentful piece, in spite of her assumed holiness, and she has no more reason to love the bishop than I have myself. All I want from her now is a little time; after all, good scandal, like good wine, takes time to ferment and mellow. Château d‘Évreux, not a subtle vintage but with a certain brazen charm that you, my Juliette, may find appealing. Let the brew froth just a little longer. When he arrives I want him drowned in a wave of suds.

Oh, I was convincing. Juliette listened first with skepticism, then with satisfaction, then with a reluctant kind of sympathy. When I had finished, she nodded slowly, looking into my eyes. “I thought it might be that. A special performance, to make him pay for that time in Paris? A return match?”

I managed to look rueful. “I don’t like to lose.”

“And you think this is winning?” she said. “Have you any idea of the harm you’ve done? The harm you’re still doing?”

“Me?” I shrugged. “All I did was set the stage. You did the rest yourselves.”

Her mouth thinned; she knew I was right. “And after the show?” she demanded. “What then? Will you ride away again, both of you, in your different directions, and leave us in peace?”

“Why not?” I said. “Unless you’d like to come with me.” She ignored that, as I expected her to. “Come on, Juliette,” I said, seeing her expression. “Give me credit for some intelligence. How far do you think I would get if I actually harmed the bishop? Did you hear what they did to Ravillac? And in any case, if I’d wanted to kill Évreux, don’t you think I would have found some way to do it by now?” I let her think that over for a while. “I want him humbled,” I told her quietly. “Monseigneur has high ambitions; pretensions to greatness for his line. I want them quashed. I want the Arnaults in the dust, along with the rest of us, and I want him to know that I was the one who put them there. A dead bishop is only a step removed from canonization; I want this one to live a long, long time.”

I stopped, and for several minutes she was silent. Then, finally, she nodded. “You’re taking a terrible risk,” she said. “I doubt whether the bishop would extend the same privilege to you.”

“I’m touched by your concern,” I said, “but a game without stakes is no game at all.”

“Must there always be a game?” she asked, so earnestly that I could have kissed her.

“Why, Juliette,” I said gently. “What else is there?”

34

Last night, at long last, the rain came, but it fell to the west onto Le Devin, and did not refresh us. Instead we sweltered uncomfortably in the dorter and watched the heat lightning as it chased its tail across the bay. The sultry weather had brought a plague of midges from the flats, and they swarmed through the windows, settling on every inch of our unprotected flesh, eking out our blood. We slept poorly-or not at all-throughout the night, some slapping at the midges in a frenzy, others lying exhausted and resigned. I used citronella leaf and lavender to banish the creatures from my cubicle, and in spite of the heat I slept a little. I was one of the lucky ones; this morning I awoke to find myself virtually free of insect bites, though Tomasine was in a pitiful state, and Antoine, with her warm blood, was a quivering mass of red blotches. To make matters worse, the chapel too was infested with the flying creatures, which seemed unaffected by either incense or candle smoke.

Matins passed, and Lauds. Day broke, and the midges withdrew to their stronghold in the marshes. By Prime, however, the air had thickened still further and the sky was hot and white, promising worse to come. No one was still; we were a mass of tics and itches; even I, who had escaped the scourge, could feel my skin prickling in sympathy. It was to this that LeMerle made his morning appearance, looking cool and grave. Soeur Marguerite was at his left side; Mère Isabelle at his right.

A murmur ran through the chapel. This was the first time that Marguerite had attended a service since her attack, and we were still awaiting an official pronouncement on the nature of her affliction. Opinions were divided: some said Saint Vitus’ dance; others the palsy; yet more were convinced she was bewitched or bedeviled. Certainly she looked quiet enough-her tic was gone and her eyes were unusually dark and wide. That would be the poppy I had slipped into her strengthening draught, I told myself. I hoped it would be enough.

But I could hardly dose all sixty-five of them. Alfonsine was flushed and restive; Tomasine was so covered in bites that she could barely keep still; Antoine scratched at her legs continuously; even Clémente, usually so meek, looked agitated. Perhaps Germaine’s death had distressed her more than we had thought, for her eyes were heavy and her features unusually drawn. I noticed that she watched LeMerle constantly, but he took care not to pay her any attention, or even to meet her eye. Perhaps he really had tired of her, then; I was annoyed at myself for the satisfaction the thought gave me.

“My children,” he said. “For three days you have waited patiently for news of our sister Marguerite.”

We nodded; shifted; shuffled. Three days was long enough. Three days of rumor and uncertainty; three days of potions and possets. Superstition had never been very far, not even in the days of Mère Marie; now, robbed of our saint’s comforting presence, we turned to it more than ever. Order was what we needed: order and authority in the face of this crisis. Instinctively, we turned to LeMerle to provide it.

But Père Colombin was looking troubled. “I have examined Soeur Marguerite closely,” he said. “And I have found nothing amiss with her-body or soul.”

A whisper of revolt went through the crowd. There had to be something, it said. He had led us to this; had fed us such scraps as had given us an appetite for his words. There was evil in the abbey; who could question it?

“I know,” said LeMerle. “I understand your doubts. I have prayed; I have fasted. I have consulted many books. But if there are spirits in Soeur Marguerite, I cannot make them speak. All that I can conclude is that the forces that have infested our abbey are too powerful for me to deal with alone. I have failed.”

No! The murmur went through the crowd like the wind through wheat. The Blackbird, hanging his head in fake humility, could not resist a smile. “I thought I could hunt the devil with nothing more than my faith and your trust in me,” he said. “But I could not. I have no alternative but to inform the proper authorities and place the situation-and myself-in their hands. Praise be.” And with that he stepped down from the pulpit and motioned to Isabelle to take his place.

The rest of us looked at one another, remembering the last time Isabelle had addressed us, and a ripple of dissatisfaction and revolt ran through the crowd. We could not rely upon Isabelle to keep order, we knew. Only LeMerle could control us.

Isabelle herself had been taken completely by surprise. “Where are you going?” she asked in a quavering voice.

“I’m no use to you here,” said LeMerle. “If I catch the morning tide, I should be able to bring help within a week.”

Now Isabelle was close to panic. “You can’t leave,” she said.

“But I must. What else can I do?”

“Mon père!” Clémente too was looking alarmed. At her side Antoine turned her mottled face toward him in silent entreaty. A rumor, louder than before, swept over the crowd. We had lost everything else; we could not lose Père Colombin. Without him, chaos would descend upon us like a flock of birds.

He tried to explain above the mounting noise. If the evil could not be located-if the culprit was not found…But the thought that he might leave them at the mercy of that evil had taken possession of the sisters, and they began to wail, an eerie, catlike sound, which began at one side of the chapel and swelled until it had engulfed the entire assembly.

Mère Isabelle was almost beside herself. “Evil spirits, show yourselves!” she commanded shrilly. “Show yourselves and speak!”

The wave of sound passed over us again, and Perette, who was standing near me, put her hands to her ears. I made the sign against malchance behind my back. That cry had sounded too close to a cantrip for my liking. I whispered my mother’s good-luck charm under my breath but doubted that it would have very much effect in such surroundings.

LeMerle, however, was watching with an air of cool satisfaction. They were his now, I knew; they would perform at his command. The only question was: who would be first? I glanced around me. I saw the imploring face of Clémente, the moony features of Antoine, Marguerite, already twitching at the mouth as the draught began to wear off, and Alfonsine…

Alfonsine. At first she seemed utterly still. Then the slightest of tremors went through her; a fluttering like that of a moth’s wing. She seemed unaware of what was happening around her; her entire body quivered. Then, very slowly, she began to dance.

It began in her feet. With tiny steps, hands splayed as if for balance, she might have been a rope-dancer feeling for the measure with her bare toes. Then came the hips, a scarcely perceptible undulating motion. Then the fingers, the sinuous arms, the rolling shoulders.

I was not the only one to have noticed. Behind me, Tomasine took a sharp breath. Someone cried out shrilly. “Look!”

Silence fell; but it was a dangerous silence, like a rock about to fall.

“Bewitched!” moaned Bénédicte.

“Just like Soeur Marguerite!”

“Possessed!”

I had to put a halt to this. “Alfonsine, stop it, this is ridiculous-”

But Alfonsine could not be stopped. Her body turned and twisted to an unheard rhythm, first to the left, to the right, then revolving round like a top, snaking and circling with grave deliberation, her skirts flying out about her ankles. And there was a sound coming from her mouth, a sound that was almost a word. “Mmmmm…”

“They’re here!” wailed Antoine.

“Speaking to us…”

“Mmmmm…”

Someone behind me was praying. I thought I heard the words of the Ave Maria, oddly distorted and elongated into a mess of vowels. “Marie! Marie!”

The front row before the pulpitum had begun to take up the chant. I saw Clémente, Piété, and Virginie throw their heads back almost at the same time and begin to rock in cadence.

“Marie! Marie!”

It was a slow rocking, heavy as the rolling of a huge ship. But it was contagious; the second row joined the first, then the third. It became a wave, inexorable as a wave, bringing each row-choir, pews, stalls-into surging motion. I felt it myself, my dancer’s reflexes returning to life, fears, sounds, thoughts submerging in this dizzy vortex of movement. I threw back my head; for a moment I saw stars in the vaulting of the church roof and the world tilted enticingly. I could feel warm bodies all around me. My own voice was lost in a thick murmur. There was complete and unspoken cooperation in this slow frenzy of dance; the tide dragged us to the right, then to the left, all of us treading a measure all seemed to know by instinct. I could feel the dance calling, urging me to join it, to plunge my being into the black surf of movement and sound.

I could still hear Mère Isabelle shouting above the crowd but had no understanding of what she was saying; she was a single instrument in an orchestra of chaos, voices blending and rising, hers a shrill counterpoint to the dark-mawed roar of the multitude, a few cries of protest-mine among them-in the howling tide of affirmation but lost as the rhythms, the raw-throated harmonies of pandaemonium engulfed us all…

And yet a part of my mind remained clear, floating coolly above the rest like birds. I could hear LeMerle’s voice without quite making out his words; in this shared madness it sounded like a refrain, a reminder of steps, of cadences in this Ballet des Bernardines.

Was this, then, to be his special performance? In front of me, Tomasine stumbled and fell to her knees. The dance shifted gracelessly to accommodate her, and another figure stumbled over her hunched figure. They fell heavily together, and I recognized Perette, sprawling on the marble, the other nuns now snaking and spinning, oblivious, around her.

“Perette!” I pushed my way to my friend’s side. She had struck her head in the fall and a bruise already marked her temple. I picked her up, and together we pushed our way toward the open door. Our intrusion-or their exhaustion-seemed to quell some of the dancers, and the wave faltered and broke. I noticed Isabelle watching me but had no time to wonder what her look of suspicion might portend. Perette was clammy and pale, and I forced her to breathe deeply, to put her head between her knees, and to smell the little sachet of aromatics I carry in my pocket.

“What’s that?” asked Mère Isabelle in the sudden lull.

The noise had begun to abate. I realized that several of the assembled nuns had broken their trance and were looking in my direction. “This? Just lavender, and anise, and sweet balm, and-”

“What were you doing with it?”

I lifted the sachet of herbs. “Can’t you see? It’s a scent sachet, you must have seen one before.”

There was a silence. Sixty pairs of eyes now turned toward me. Someone-I think it was Clémente-said softly, but very clearly: “Witchcraft!”

And I seemed to hear the murmur of acquiescence, the voice that came from no throat but from the small movements of many pairs of fluttering hands as they made the sign of the cross, the hishh of skin against cambric, of tongues moistening dry lips, of breath quickening: Yes, it whispered, and my heart flipped over like a dead leaf.

Yes.

35

I could have stopped it with a word. But the scene was so compelling, so classic in its perspectives that I had not the heart to do so. The evil omens, the visions, the portentous death, and now the dramatic revelation amid the carnage…It was magnificent, almost biblical: I could not have scripted it better myself.

I wonder if she was conscious of the tableau she presented; head high, coiffe pulled back to reveal the dark fire of her curls, the wild girl clasped to her breast. Of course it is regrettable that tableaux should now be so out of fashion; more so that there should be so few here present able to appreciate it. But I have hopes for little Isabelle. An apt pupil in spite of her stolid upbringing, I could not have planned a more rousing performance myself.

Naturally, it was I who taught her all she knows, nurtured her, coaxed her from her meek obedience into this. I have, as you see, a vocation. A sense of pride moves me as I recall the tractable little girl she once was. But the good children, we are told, are always the ones to be careful of. A moment comes when even the most acquiescent of them may reach a point beyond which the cartographers of the mind can map nothing more.

A declaration of independence, perhaps. An affirmation of self.

She thinks in absolutes, like her uncle. Dreams of sanctity, of battles with demons. A fanciful child, in spite of everything, tormented by the visionary yearnings and uncertainties of her youth, the rigid conventions of her line. I suspected she’d declare herself today. You might say I staged it: a little divertissement between two acts of a great drama. Even so she surprised me. Not least by her perversity in choosing as her scapegoat the one woman I should have preferred her not to accuse.

Impossible to think that the girl suspects anything: it is instinctive with her, a child’s love of defiance. She feels the need to prove to me the rightness of her suspicions-I who have always remained maddeningly calm, almost skeptical in the face of her growing conviction-to earn my praise, even my discomfiture. For there is more to her now than submissive adoration. The declaration of self has elevated her, bred seeds of dissension in her that I must nurture whilst struggling to control. Her awe of me remains, colored now with a sullenness, a renewed suspicion…I must take care. Given her head she might fall upon me as easily as upon you, my l’Ailée, and in this the two of you are more alike than you know. She is a knife, and I must handle it with cunning. Perverse enough to welcome the subtle humiliations of my erstwhile designing, the core of breeding in her is strong, her pride obdurate.

You see, Juliette, that this changes things between us. I must not be seen to favor you. Both our heads might roll. I must be discreet now, or my plans will come to naught. I do admit to feeling a pang for you, however. Maybe when all this is done…But for now the risk is too great. Your weapon against me is gone now, even if you choose to use it. The word that stutters and hushes about the church must silence all accusations you may try to voice. You know it; I can see it in your eyes. And yet in spite of this it rankles to submit to the Arnault girl, even if it furthers my plans. My authority has been challenged. And as you know, a challenge is something I can seldom resist…

“There is no cause as yet to cry witchcraft upon our sister.” My voice was even and a little stern. “You are ignorant, led only by your fear. In its face a lavender sachet becomes an instrument of the dark arts. A gesture of mercy takes sinister meaning. This is foolish beyond permission.”

For an uneasy moment I sensed their revolt. Clémente called out: “There was a presence! Someone must have sent it out!”

Voices joined hers in agreement.

“Ay, I felt it!”

“And I!”

“There was a cold wind-”

“And the dancing-”

“The dancing!”

“Ay, there was a presence! Many presences!” I was improvising now, using my voice as a bridle to rein in this wild and spirited mare. “The very presences that were unleashed when we opened the crypt!” Sweat ran into my eyes and I shook it away, afraid to show the beginnings of a tremor in my clenched hands. “Vade retro, Satanas!”

Latin has an authority that common tongues sadly lack. A pity that necessity should force me to perform in the vernacular, but these sisters are sadly ignorant. Nuances evade them. And for the moment they were too distraught for subtleties. “I tell you this!” My voice rose above the murmur. “We sit upon a well of corruption! A century-old bastion of hell has been threatened by our Reform, and Satan fears its loss! But be of good cheer, Sisters! The Evil One cannot harm the pure in heart. He works through the soul’s corruption but cannot touch one of true faith!”

“Père Colombin has spoken well.” Mère Isabelle looked at me from her small colorless eyes. There was something in her expression I did not quite like, a calculating look, a look almost of defiance. “His wisdom puts our feminine fears to shame. His strength keeps us from falling.”

Strange words, and not of my choosing. I wondered where she was leading. “But piety may hold its own dangers. The innocence of our holy father precludes true vision, true understanding. He has not felt what we have felt today!”

Her eyes moved to the back of the church where the new Marie, newly scrubbed, stood in gracious lethargy. “There is a rot here,” she continued. “A rot so deep that I have not dared voice my suspicions openly. But now-” She lowered her voice like a child exchanging secrets. I have taught her better than I knew, for her voice was clearly audible, a stage whisper that carried to the eaves. “Now I can reveal it.”

Breathless, they awaited her revelation.

“Everything begins with Mère Marie. Did not the first Visitation appear from the crypt in which we interred her? Did not the apparitions you have seen wear her features? And did not the spirits speak to us in her name?”

There came from the crowd a low murmur of acquiescence.

“Well?” said Isabelle.

I didn’t like it. “Well what?” I said. “Are you saying that Mère Marie was in league with Satan? That’s absurd. Why-”

She interrupted me-me!-and stamped her little foot. “Who was it gave the order to bury Mère Marie in unhallowed ground?” she demanded. “Who has repeatedly defied my authority? Who deals in potions and charms like a village witch?”

So that was it. Around her the sisters exchanged glances; several forked the sign against evil. “Can it be a coincidence,” Isabelle went on, “that Soeur Marguerite took one of her potions just before she got the dancing sickness? Or that Soeur Alfonsine went to her for help before she began to cough up blood!” She blanched at my expression but went on nevertheless. “She has a secret compartment next to her bed. She keeps her charms in there. See for yourself, if you don’t believe me!”

I bowed my head. She had declared herself then, and there was nothing I could do to prevent it. “So be it,” I said between clenched teeth. “We’ll make a search.”

36

Le Merle followed her to the dorter, the sisters flocking at his back like a clutch of hens. He had always been good at hiding his anger, but I could see it in the way he moved. He did not look at me. Instead, his eyes flicked repeatedly to Clémente, trotting alongside Isabelle with her face modestly averted. Let him draw what conclusions he would, I thought; for myself, I had little doubt as to the identity of the informant. Perhaps she had seen me coming from his cottage last night; perhaps it was simply her instinctive malice. In any case, she followed with deceptive meekness as Mère Isabelle, looking nervous but defiant, led us straight to the loose stone at the back of my cubicle. “It’s there,” she announced.

“Show me.”

She reached for the stone and worked at it with her small, uncertain fingers. The stone held fast. Mentally, I enumerated the contents of my cache. The tarot game; my tinctures and medicines; my journal. That in itself was enough to condemn me-to condemn us both. I wondered if LeMerle knew of it; he seemed calm, but all of his body was tensed and ready. I wondered whether he would try to make a run for it-he had more than a fighting chance-or whether he would risk a bluff. A bluff, I thought, was more his style. Well, two could play at that.

“Are we all to be searched?” I said in a clear voice. “If so, may I suggest that Clémente’s mattress might bear investigation?”

Clémente gave me a dirty look, and a number of the sisters looked uneasy. I knew for a fact that at least half of them were hiding something.

But Isabelle was undeterred. “I will decide who is to be searched,” she said. “For the moment-” She frowned impatiently as she struggled with the loose stone.

“Let me do it,” said LeMerle. “You seem to be having some difficulty.”

The stone came away easily beneath his cardplayer’s fingers, and he pulled it out and laid it aside on the bed. Then he reached into the space. “It’s empty,” he said.

Isabelle and Clémente turned toward him with identical looks of disbelief. “Let me see!” said Isabelle.

The Blackbird stepped aside with an ironic flourish. Isabelle pushed past him, and her little face contorted as she saw the empty cache. Behind her, Clémente was shaking her head. “But it was right there-” she began.

LeMerle looked at her. “So you’re the one who has been spreading rumors.”

Clémente’s eyes widened.

“Malicious, unfounded rumors to breed suspicion and to bring down our fellowship.”

“No,” whispered Clémente.

But LeMerle had already moved away, searching along the rows of cubicles. “What might you be hiding, Soeur Clémente, I wonder? What will I find beneath your mattress?”

“Please,” said Clémente, white to the lips.

But the sisters around her had already begun to take up the bedroll. Clémente began to wail. Mère Isabelle watched, teeth clenched.

Suddenly there came a cry of triumph. “Look!” It was Antoine. She was holding a pencil in her fist. A black grease pencil, of the type that had been used to deface the statues. And there was more: a clutch of red rags, some with the black stitching still visible-the crosses that had been maliciously removed from our clothes as we slept.

There was a heavy silence as every nun who had been obliged to do penance for the damage turned her eyes on Clémente. Then they all started shouting at once. Antoine, who had always been quicker with her hands than with her voice, dealt Clémente a sharp slap, which tumbled her against the side of the cubicle.

“You milksop bitch!” yelled Piété, grabbing a handful of Clémente’s wimple. “Thought it was funny, did you?”

Clémente struggled and squealed, turning instinctively to LeMerle for help. But Antoine was already upon her, knocking her to the ground. There had been tension between them earlier, I recalled, some foolishness in Chapter.

Now Isabelle turned to LeMerle in distress. “Stop them,” she wailed above the noise. “Oh, mon père, please stop them!”

The Blackbird looked at her coldly. “You began this,” he said. “You drove them to this. Didn’t you see I was trying to calm them?”

“But you said there were no demons-”

He hissed at her. “Of course there are demons! But now was not the time to reveal all! If you had only listened-”

“I’m sorry! Please stop them, please!”

But the scuffle was already at an end. Clémente crouched on the ground, her hands over her eyes whilst Antoine stood above her, red-faced and nose bleeding. Both were out of breath; around them, sisters who had not raised a finger to aid either party were panting in sympathy. I ventured a quick glance at LeMerle, but he was at his most cryptic, and his expression betrayed nothing of his thoughts. I knew I had not imagined it, however, that moment of surprise when he saw the empty cache. Someone had cleared it without his knowledge; I was sure of it.

Clémente and Antoine were both taken to the infirmary, on LeMerle’s orders, and I was put to work in the bakehouse for the rest of the day, where, for three hours, my toils afforded me little enough time for thought. During that time, I made the dough in batches, shaped the long loaves on the trays, shoved them into the deep, narrow bays, so like the dark cells in the crypt where the coffins are laid to rest.

I tried not to recall the morning’s events, but my mind returned to them again and again. Alfonsine’s dance, the swaying bodies, the frenzied beginnings of possession. And the moment when LeMerle’s eyes met mine, even then so close to laughter but behind the laughter a kind of fear, like a man on a wild horse who knows he will be thrown but who can still laugh with sheer delight at the chase.

For a time I had been certain he would not speak for me. He had lost control somehow, though I was sure that the madness was part of his plan. It would have been so easy for him to allow the blame to fall upon me, to use it to bring his followers to heel. But he had not. Absurd to feel gratitude. I should hate him for what he has done to me, to all of us. And yet…

I had almost completed the morning’s work. I was alone, I had my back to the door and was cleaning out ash from the last of the ovens with a long wooden slat. I turned at the sound of her footsteps. Somehow I already knew who it was.

She had taken a risk coming to me, but not such a great one; the infirmary lay just alongside the bakehouse, and I guessed she must have climbed the wall. The midday heat was still blinding; most of the sisters would be indoors. “No one saw me,” said Soeur Antoine, as if to confirm my thoughts. “And we need to talk.”

The change I had begun to see in her a week ago was more pronounced now; her face looked leaner, her cheekbones defined, her mouth hard and determined. She would never be a slender woman, but now her fleshiness seemed powerful rather than soft, thick slabs of red muscle sheathed in the fat.

“You shouldn’t be here,” I told her. “If Soeur Virginie finds out you’re here-”

“Clémente will talk,” said Antoine. “I’ve been listening to her in the infirmary all morning. She knows about Fleur. She knows about you.”

“Antoine, I don’t know what you’re talking about. Go back to-”

“Will you listen?” she hissed. “I’m on your side. Who do you think took those things from behind the loose stone?” I stared at her. “What?” said Antoine. “You think I’m too stupid to know about your hiding place? Poor, fat, stupid Soeur Antoine who wouldn’t know an intrigue if she fell over it during the night? I see more than you think, Soeur Auguste.”

“Where did you hide my things? My cards, and-”

Antoine shook a plump finger. “Quite safe, ma soeur, quite hidden. But I’m not ready to give them back just yet. After all, you owe me a favor.”

I nodded. I had not expected her to forget it.

“Clémente will talk, Auguste,” she said. “Not now, perhaps. She may be in disgrace today, but Mère Isabelle believes in her. Sooner or later, she will accuse us. And when she realizes that Père Colombin will not defend her, then she will bring him down.”

She paused for a moment to make sure I understood. My head was spinning. “Antoine,” I said. “How did you-”

“That isn’t important,” said Antoine in a harsh voice. “The little girl will believe her. I know little girls. I was one myself, after all. And I know”-at this her red face twisted in a painful smile-“I know that even the sweetest and most docile little girl will one day rise up to defy her father.”

There was a long silence. “What do you want?” I said at last.

“You know about herbs.” Now Antoine’s voice was soft, persuasive. “You know what to do with them. I could-I could slip her a dose while she’s safe in the infirmary. No one would know.”

I stared at her, incredulous. “Poison her?”

“No one would know. You could tell me what to do.” She sensed my disgust and gripped my arm tighter. “It’s for all of us, Auguste! If she speaks against you, you’ll lose Fleur. If she speaks against me-”

“What?”

There was a long silence. “Germaine,” she said at last. “She knew about Clémente and Père Colombin. She was going to tell.”

I tried to understand. But it was hot; I was tired; Antoine’s words sounded like meaningless noise. “I couldn’t let her,” she went on. “I couldn’t let her accuse him. I’m strong-stronger than she was, anyway. It was very quick.” And Antoine gave a tiny smile.

It was almost too much for me to take in. And yet it made a kind of sense. I told you: the Blackbird’s skill was in making people see what they most wanted in him. Poor Antoine. Robbed of her child at fourteen, her only remaining passions those of the table, at last she had found another outlet for her maternal nature.

A sudden thought struck me, and I turned to her in dismay. “Antoine. Did he tell you to do it?”

I don’t know why the thought appalled me. He’s killed before, and for less reason. But Antoine shook her head. “He knows nothing about it. He’s a good man. Oh, he’s no saint,” she added, dismissing the seduction of Clémente with a gesture. “He’s a man, with a man’s nature. But if that little girl turns against him-” She gave me a sharp look. “You see why it has to be done, don’t you, Auguste? A painless dose-”

I had to stop this. “Antoine. Listen.” She looked at me like a good dog, with her head to one side. “It would be a mortal sin. Doesn’t that mean anything to you?” Admittedly it meant little enough to me, but I had always thought her a true believer.

“I don’t care!” Her face was flushed, her voice rising dangerously. It occurred to me that her very presence here could be a danger to me.

I motioned her to be silent. “Listen to me, Antoine. Even if I knew the plants to use, whom would they suspect? All poisons take time, you know, and any fool can recognize the symptoms.”

“But we can’t let her tell!” said Antoine stubbornly. “If you won’t help me, I’ll have to take action.”

“What do you mean?”

“I hid your treasures, Auguste,” she said. “I can always find them again. You’ll be watched all the time, now you’ve been accused. Do you think he’d speak for you again? And if you were examined, what do you think would happen to Fleur?”

In Aquitaine all the witch’s household follows her onto the pyre. Pigs, sheep, housecats, chickens…I saw an engraving once of a burning in Lorraine; the witch above the pyre, and below her, cages in which smaller crudely drawn stiff figures crouched, hands outstretched. I wondered what the custom was in the islands.

Antoine watched me with a look of terrible patience. “You have no choice,” she said. Nodding, I had to agree.

37

So the abbess is mine again, if only for the moment. As she mouthed her Act of Contrition, on her knees, head bowed beneath my accusations, she wept; but they were thin tears, tears of resentment rather than of true repentance. She has defied me once already; never forget she may do so again.

“This fiasco is of your doing!” My voice was harsh against the stones of the cell. The silver crucifix gleamed in the candlelight. A tiny silver encensoir diffused frankincense into the dim air. “Your refusal to ask for assistance has jeopardized God knows how many innocent souls!”

Her mutter was almost defiant behind the Latin. “Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima-”

“It cost Soeur Germaine her life!” I continued mercilessly. “It may well cost Soeur Clémente her soul!”

I lowered my voice a little. Cruelty is a precision instrument, better used to flay than to bludgeon. “And as for your own-” She gave me a sharp look of fear then, and I knew I was close to reaching her. “Only you know the depth of your sin and of your soul’s defilement. The greatest demon of all has violated you. Lucifer, the demon of Pride.”

Isabelle flinched and seemed ready to speak but instead put down her head and would not meet my eyes. “Is it not true?” I insisted in a cold, soft voice. “Did you not think you could solve all our troubles yourself, alone and unaided? Did you not imagine the triumph of victory, the homage the Catholic world would pay to the twelve-year-old girl who, single-handed, defeated the armies of hell?” I drew close to her ear and whispered in it. The hot scent of her tears was exhilarating. “What did the Foul One put into your mind, Angélique?” I murmured. “With what lures did he blind your eyes? Did you hope for fame? Power? Canonization, perhaps?”

“I thought-” Her whimper was small, childish. “I thought…”

“What did you think?” Coaxingly now, not unlike the seductive voice of Satan as imagined by these foolish virgins. “What did you think, Angélique?” She did not seem to notice that I had reverted to her childhood name. “Did you want to be a saint? To make of this place a shrine for the worldly? To have them bruise their knees before you in awe and adoration?”

She cringed. I knew her too well, you see. I saw these ambitions in her before she did herself, and I nurtured them for just such a moment. “I didn’t-” She was sobbing now, the hot, heartbroken tears of the child she was. “I didn’t think-I didn’t know-”

I held her then, letting her weep against my shoulder. I felt no compassion for such as her, believe me, but it was expedient. Necessary. This might be the last time I was able to wield such power over her. Tomorrow might bring a new wave of self-declaration, a new revolt. Already I fancied I could see in her small colorless eyes a measuring look, a look almost of awareness…But for the present I was still the good Father, the warm, the forgiving, the rebuking Father…

“What must I do?” Her eyes were watery and, for the moment, trusting.

I struck at once.

38

I ground the morning glory seeds with some oil taken from the kitchen supplies, to which Antoine still has a key. The result was a paste that, when mixed with food, is difficult to detect. I flavored it with a little sweet almond to mask the bitter taste, and gave it to Antoine camouflaged in a loaf of bread. She would administer the dose to Clémente, she told me, at supper.

She seemed to have no doubt as to my mixture’s efficiency, nor any suspicion concerning my change of heart; I could only pray that her trust would last long enough for me to set my own defenses into place. The morning glory seed, though dangerous in use, is far from lethal. I hoped that, having realized that, Antoine would hold her tongue. For a while, at least.

My deceit was simple enough. The dose of ground seeds, even administered twelve hours in advance, would ensure Clémente was unfit to be examined next day at Chapter. The symptoms are severe, ranging from vomiting to visions to complete unconsciousness over a period of twenty-four hours. That, then, was the time I had left.

That night the dorter was slow to settle. Perette lingered close to my cubicle, watching me-waiting, I thought, her bright birdlike eyes glittering-until at last I motioned her to go to bed. She seemed inclined to persist, her small face pinched with anxiety or impatience, and I sensed she wanted to signal something to me. But now was not the time. I repeated the gesture of dismissal and turned away, pretending to sleep. But for a long time after the lights were extinguished I could still hear the small sounds of wakefulness-sighs, turnings, the click-click of Marguerite’s rosary-in the darkness so that I wondered whether I dared risk leaving at all. The small oblong of sky above my bed glowed purplish blue-in August here the sky is never quite dark-and I could see a dim scatter of stars in the distance and hear the soft sigh of the surf across the marshes. Close by, Alfonsine moaned, and I wondered whether she was observing me. Her moanings might be genuine sleep sounds or a fakery of sleep to lull me into unwary action; the thought kept me in my bed for almost an hour longer until desperation drove me out. After all, I could not wait forever, I told myself, and by morning I might have lost my only chance of escape.

Forcing myself to breathe silently, I rose and crossed the dorter barefoot. No one moved. I ran softly down the steps and across the courtyard, expecting at any moment to hear cries at my back, but the courtyard remained cool and dark, but for a shard of moon cutting across an angle of brickwork, the windows unlit.

LeMerle’s cottage too was unlit, but I could see a dim glow from his fire reflected onto the ceiling, and I knew he was awake. I tapped at the door; a few seconds later he opened it cautiously, and his eyes widened. He was in his shirt, with breeches replacing his priest’s robes. From his coat, carelessly discarded on a nearby chair, and his muddied boots, I guessed that he too had been on the prowl about the abbey, but he gave no indication of his business there.

“What the hell are you playing at?” he hissed as he pulled me in and latched the door behind me. “Isn’t it enough that I risked my neck for you this morning?”

“Things have changed, Guy. If I stay I may be accused.”

I explained my meeting with Antoine and her murderous request. I told him of my compromise, of the morning glories, the twenty-four hours. “Do you see now?” I asked him. “Do you see why I have to collect Fleur and leave?”

LeMerle frowned and shook his head.

“But you have to help me!” I sounded shrill to myself, afraid. “Don’t think I’ll stay silent if I’m accused! I owe you nothing, LeMerle. Nothing at all.”

He sat down, one booted foot flung casually over the chair arm. His anger was gone and now he looked tired and-genuinely, I thought-rather hurt. “What’s this?” he said. “Don’t you trust me yet? Do you think I would stand and let you be accused?”

“You did it before, remember?”

“All in the past, Juliette. I suffered for it, believe me.”

Not half enough, I thought, and said as much.

“I’m sorry. I can’t let you go.” His voice was final.

“I wouldn’t betray you.”

Silence.

“I wouldn’t, Guy.”

He stood up, putting his hands on my shoulders. I was suddenly aware of his scent, a dark aroma of sweat and damp leather, of the fact that in spite of my height he dwarfed me.

“Please,” I said in a low voice. “You don’t need me.”

The touch of his hand was like a breath from the ovens, crisping the hairs at the nape of my neck. “Trust me,” he said. “I do.”

Ten years ago I would have given anything to hear those words. It alarmed me a little that a part of me might still want them, and I closed my eyes to evade his. It was a trap. Didn’t I know him by now? His skin was smooth, smooth as my dreams.

“As what? A pawn in your game of bishops?” I pushed him away with my hands, but somehow my body drew him closer so that we stood entwined, his fingers clasped at the nape of my neck, tracing letters of fire on my raised hackles.

“No.” His voice was very gentle.

“Then why?”

He shrugged and said nothing.

“Why, LeMerle?” I cried in angry desperation. “Why this charade? Will you risk both our lives for your revenge? Because a man once had you exiled from Paris? Because of a ballet?”

“No, Juliette. Not for those things.”

“Then why?”

“You wouldn’t understand.”

“Try me.”

It must have been witchcraft. Or madness, perhaps. I fought against it, scarring his wrists with my fingernails even as I clung to him, sealing his mouth with mine as if by so doing I might consume him whole. We shed our clothes in ferocious silence, he and I, and I saw that his body was still hard and strong, as I remembered it, and I was startled to realize just how tenderly I recalled every mark, every scar, as if they were my own. The ancient brand on his arm shone silver-snakeskin-pale in the moonlight, and though some part of me protested that I was making an irrevocable mistake, I could hardly make it out above the roaring in my mind. For a time I was more than flesh; I was sulfur, I was a pillar of fire that raged and fed and thirsted. It was what Giordano had always warned me about; the hidden savagery in my nature that he had always taken such care to subdue-and with so little success. It occurred to me then that although Giordano may have been learned in the properties of elemental substances, there were far more powerful alchemies in the world than his, alchemies that melded flesh and burned away the past and changed hatred back into love with a simple cantrip.

After a time the fire slipped from us and we lay gently, like lovers. My anger had left me, and a new languor possessed my limbs, as if the past five years had been a dream, nothing more, grim shadow play on a wall that reveals itself to be nothing more than the movement of a boy’s hand in the sunlight.

“Tell me, LeMerle,” I said at last. “I want to understand.”

In a sickle of moonlight I saw him smile. “It’s a long tale,” he warned me. “If I tell you, will you stay?”

“Tell me,” I repeated.

Still smiling, he did.

39

Well, I had to tell her something, and she would have worked it out in the end. A pity she’s a woman; if she’d been born a man I might almost have thought her my equal. As it was, I still had a weapon to wield, and the battle was sweet for a time. Her hair smelt of burnt sugar, the scents of baking and lavender warm on her skin. I swear this time I meant to keep my promise; my mouth on hers, I could almost believe it was true. We could take to the road again, I promised; together we could take to the air. L’Ailée might fly again-in fact, I never doubted she would. Sweet fantasy, my Winged One. Sweet lies.

She wanted the tale, so I told it in words that would please her. More than I intended, perhaps, lulled by her sly caresses. More, perhaps, than was entirely safe. But my l’Ailée is a romantic at heart, wanting to believe the best in everything. Even this. Even me.

I was seventeen.“ Imagine that. ”The son of a local girl and some passing seigneur; unwanted; unacknowledged. It was understood that as such I belonged to the Church. No one asked me if I understood it. I was born a few miles away, near Montauban, and I was sent away to the abbey at five years old-that was where I learned my Latin and Greek. The abbot was a weak but kindly man who had left Society twenty years before to join the Cistercians. His connections remained good, however; and although he had renounced his name, it was reputed to have once been a powerful one. Certainly, the abbey was wealthy enough under his direction, and it was large; I grew up in a mixed environment, with monks on one side and nuns on the other.“

The tale is almost true-the name of the other protagonist eludes me but I recall her face beneath the novice’s veil, the fine spray of freckles across the bridge of her nose, her eyes, the color of burnt umber flecked with gold.

“She was fourteen. I worked in the gardens, too young even to have earned my tonsure. She was a minx; she would glance over the wall at me as I worked, laughing with her eyes.”

As I said, almost true. There was more, my Ailée, darker, uglier currents and crosscurrents you would not so easily understand. In the reading room I would linger over the Song of Songs and try not to think of her whilst my masters watched me closely for signs of rapture.

I am the rose of Sharon, and the lily of the valleys.

I never could bear the sight or the smell of those flowers, afterward. A summer garden is filled with bitter memories.

“For a time it was an idyll.”

This is what she wants to hear, a tale of innocence corrupted, of vanquished love. She is more troubadour than buccaneer, my Winged One, in spite of her sharp claws. You’d understand that, Juliette, with your sweet and sheltered childhood among the painted tigers.

For myself the idyll was a darker thing, the scents of that summer’s flowers colored with those of my solitude, my jealousy, my imprisonment. I neglected my lessons; I did penance for what sins they could discover, and on the rest I brooded in growing resentment and longing. I could hear the sound of running water beyond the abbey walls and wondered where the river led.

“It was summer.” I’ll let you believe it was love. Why not? I almost convinced myself. I was drunk on moonlight, on sensations; a curl of her hair, cut in secret and passed to me in a missal, the imprint of her feet on the grass, the imagined scent of her as I lay on my pallet, looking up at that tiny square of stars…

A garden enclosed is my sister, my spouse; a spring shut up; a fountain sealed.

We met in secret in the walled gardens, exchanged shy kisses and tokens like lovers long versed in the arts of intrigue. We were innocents…Even I, in my way.

“It could not last.” This, my Ailée, is where our tales diverge. “They found us together, grown careless perhaps, giddy with delight at our forbidden pleasures…”

She screamed, the little fool. They called it rape.

“I tried to explain-” I had pulled down her uncut hair; it hung in ringlets to her waist. Beneath her robe I could feel her small breasts. Solomon said it most sweetly-Thy breasts are like unto two young roes that are twins, which feed among the lilies.

How could I have known she’d be such a little prude? She screamed and I silenced her, pinning her arms to her sides and my hand over her mouth.

“Too late.” They dragged me off, protesting. It was no fault of mine, I swore; if any was to blame, let it be Solomon, with his twin roes. My convent passionflower pleaded innocence; the fault was all mine; she hardly knew me, had not encouraged my advances. I was locked in my cell; my scribbled note to her was returned unopened. Too late I realized we had misunderstood each other. My reluctant sweetheart dreamed of Abelard, not Pan.

“I was imprisoned for three days, awaiting judgment. For all that time, no one spoke a word to me. The brother who brought me my meals did so with his face turned away. But to my surprise, I was not starved or beaten. My disgrace was too profound for any ordinary penance.”

I have always hated being enclosed, however, and my imprisonment was all the more painful for the scent of the garden outside my window, and the sounds of summer beyond the walls. They might have let me out if I had repented, but my stubborn lack of shame cut me from them. I would not recant my story. I would not submit to their judgment. Who were they to judge me, anyway?

On the fourth day a friend managed to pass me a note, informing me that the abbot had sought the advice of a visiting clergyman-a well-regarded man of noble house-concerning the matter of my punishment. I was not greatly troubled by the prospect. I could take a whipping if I needed to, although the kind abbot had always been lenient toward me and rarely used such measures.

It was late that afternoon when I was finally brought from my cell. Restless, sullen, and desperately bored, I blinked in the sudden sunlight as the abbot led me from the dark passageway into his study, where a tall, distinguished man of about thirty-five was awaiting me.

He was dressed in the black town habit and cloak of an ordinary priest, with a silver cross around his neck. His hair was black to the abbot’s gray, but they had the same high cheekbones and light, almost silvery eyes; seeing them there, side by side, there could be no doubt that the two men were brothers.

The newcomer studied me expressionlessly for a moment. “So this is the boy. What’s your name, boy?”

“Guy, if it pleases you, mon père.”

His mouth thinned as if it did not please him at all. “You’ve indulged him, Michel,” he said to the abbot. “I should have known you would.”

The abbot said nothing, though it cost him an effort.

“A man’s nature cannot be altered,” continued the stranger. “But it can-it must-be subdued. By your negligence, an innocent girl has been corrupted, and the reputation of our house-”

“I didn’t corrupt her,” I protested. It was true; if anything, she had corrupted me.

The newcomer looked at me as if I were carrion. I gave him back his look, and his cold eyes grew colder. “He persists, then,” he said.

“He’s young,” said the abbot.

“That’s no excuse.”

Refusing once more to acknowledge my crime, I was taken back to my cell. I rebelled at being locked up again; fought the brothers who had been sent to fetch me; blasphemed; flung abuse. The abbot came to reason with me, and I might have listened to him if he had been alone, but his guest was with him, and something in me revolted at the thought of giving in to this man who had apparently judged and detested me on sight. Exhausted and angry, I slept; was awoken at dawn-for Matins, I thought-and led outside by two brothers who refused to meet my eye.

In the courtyard, the abbot was waiting for me, with the brothers and the nuns standing around him in a circle. At his side, the priest, his silver cross gleaming in the pale light, his hands folded. Among the nuns I caught sight of my little novice, but her face was averted, and remained so. Others bore expressions of pity, dismay, or vague excitement; there was an atmosphere of breathless expectancy.

Then the abbot stood aside and I saw what he had been concealing. A brazier, heated to buttercup yellow under the banked embers, and a brother, with heavy gloves to protect his hands and arms from the heat, now hauling the iron from beneath the coals.

A sigh rose from the ranks, almost of pleasure. Ahhhh.

Then the newcomer spoke. I don’t remember much of what he said; I was too preoccupied with the scene before me. My eyes returned again to the brazier in disbelief; to the small square iron heated to the color of your hair. Dimly I began to understand; I struggled, but was held; a brother pulled up my sleeve to expose bare flesh.

It was at this point that I recanted. There’s pride, and there’s stupidity, after all. But it was too late. The abbot looked away, grimacing; his brother took a step closer to me and whispered something in my ear, just as the iron made its dreadful contact.

I have occasionally prided myself on a certain turn of phrase. Some things, however, can never be adequately described. Suffice it to say that I feel it still, and the words he spoke to me in that moment lit a spark that still endures.

Perhaps, Monseigneur, I owe you something; after all, you spared my life. But a cloistered life is no life at all, as Juliette could no doubt tell you, and to be expelled from mine was probably the best thing that could have happened to me. Not that you acted out of any concern for me. In fact, you doubted I’d survive. What skills did I have? Latin; reading; a certain natural perverseness. That served me well, if nothing else; you wanted me dead, so I decided to live. Even then, you see, I was shameless. So was born the Blackbird, strident and indomitable, flinging his idiot song in the faces of those who despised him, raiding their orchards beneath their very noses.

As Guy LeMerle I returned to Court. My enemy was a bishop now, the Bishop of Évreux. I should have known a simple parish would not have contained him long. Monseigneur wanted more. He wanted the Court; more than that, he wanted the ear of the king. There were too many Huguenots around Henri for his liking; it offended his exquisite sensibilities. And what glory to the house of Arnault-in heaven and on earth-if he were to bring a royal lamb back to the fold!

Once burned, twice shy. Not in my case. I escaped the second time, but narrowly. I could almost smell the reek of burning feathers. Well, this time it’s my turn. They say Nero fiddled whilst Rome burned. Paltry fellow that he must have been with his one fiddle. When my time comes I’ll greet Monseigneur d‘Évreux with a whole damned orchestra.

I was sweating. My hand was unsteady on her breast. My pain was scented with flowers. It colored my tale with truth, Juliette. I saw her eyes widen with pity and understanding. The rest was easy. Revenge, after all, is something we can both understand.

“Revenge?”

“I want to humiliate him.” Answer with care, LeMerle. Answer so that she believes you. “I want him to be implicated in a scandal that even his influence cannot suppress. I want him ruined.”

She gave me a sharp look. “But why now? Why now, after all this time?”

“I saw an opportunity.” This, like the rest of my tale, is close to the truth. “But a wise man makes his own opportunities, just as a good cardplayer makes his own luck. And I am a very good player, Juliette.”

“There’s still time to change your mind,” she said. “Only harm can come of such a plan. Harm to yourself, to Isabelle, to the abbey. Can you not leave things as they are and free yourself from the past?” She lowered her eyes. “I might come with you,” she said. “If you decided to go.”

A tempting offer. But I had invested too much in this to turn back. I shook my head in genuine regret. “A week,” I said softly. “Give me a week.”

“What about Clémente? You can’t drug her forever.”

“You need not fear Clémente.”

Juliette looked at me suspiciously. “I won’t let you harm her. Or anyone else.”

“I won’t. Trust me.”

“I mean it, Guy. If anyone else is harmed-by you, or on your orders-”

“Trust me.”

Almost inconceivable, that I should be forgiven. Yet her smile tells me that haply all might be as it was. Guy LeMerle-if I were only he-might have taken that offer. Next week will be too late; by then there will be more blood on my hands than even she could absolve.

40

The air was cool, and there were livid smears of false dawn on the night’s palette. Soon the bell would chime for Vigils. But my head was too full for sleep, still ringing as it was with LeMerle’s words.

What was this? Some witchcraft, some drug slipped to me as I slept? Could it be that I believed him now, that in some way he could have regained my trust? Silently I berated myself. What I had said-what I had done-was said and done for Fleur. Whatever I had promised was for both of us. As for the rest-I shook aside visions of myself and LeMerle on the road again, friends again, maybe lovers…That would never happen. Never.

I wished I had my cards with me, but Antoine had hidden them well; my search of her bedroll and of her place in the bakehouse had revealed nothing. Instead I thought of Giordano and tried to hear his voice over the pounding of my heart. More than ever I need your logic now, old friend. Nothing discomposed your ordered, geometric world. Loss, death, famine, love…The wheels that turn the universe left you unmoved. In your numbers and calibrations you glimpsed the secret names of God.

Tsk-tsk, begone! But my cantrips are useless in the face of this greater magic. Tomorrow night at moonrise I will pick rosemary and lavender for protection and clear thinking. I will make a charm of rose leaves and sea salt and tie it with a red ribbon and carry it in my pocket. I will think of Fleur. And I will not meet his eyes.

Clémente was not at Matins this morning, nor at Lauds. Her absence was not mentioned, but I noticed that Soeur Virginie was also excused from prayers, and drew my own conclusions. The drug was working, then. The question was, for how long?

Such was the speculation about Soeur Clémente that it was some hours before I noticed that Alfonsine, too, was absent. At the time I did not give it much thought; Alfonsine had recently become very friendly with Soeur Virginie and had offered to help her on a number of occasions. Besides, LeMerle was so often in the infirmary block that Alfonsine needed no other reason to haunt it.

But at Prime, Virginie came alone, and with news. Clémente was very sick, she said; she had fallen into a deep lethargy from which nothing was able to rouse her, and had been running a high fever since dawn. Piété shook her head and swore she had suspected the cholera all along; Antoine smiled serenely. Marguerite declared that we were all bewitched, and suggested a harsher system of penances.

But there was more unwelcome news. Alfonsine too was ill once more. In her case there was no fever, but she was unusually pale and had been coughing fitfully for most of the night. Bleeding had seemed to quiet her a little, but she was still very listless and would not eat. Mère Isabelle had been to visit her and had declared her unfit for duties, although Alfonsine had tried to persuade her she was quite well. But any fool could see it was the cameras de sangre, declared Soeur Virginie; and unless the bad blood was drained away, the patient would surely die within the week.

That troubled me far more than the news about Clémente. Alfonsine was already weak from overexcitement and self-inflicted penances. Bleeding and fasting would kill her with far greater efficiency than disease. I said as much to Soeur Virginie.

“I’ll thank you not to interfere,” she said. “My method worked perfectly well for Soeur Marguerite.”

“Soeur Marguerite had a narrow escape; besides, she’s stronger than Alfonsine. Her lungs are not compromised.”

Virginie looked at me in open disdain. “If we’re to speak of being compromised, ma soeur, you should look to yourself.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean that although you may have got away with it last time, there are some of us who think that your-enthusiasm-for potions and powders might not be as innocent as Père Colombin thinks.”

I dared not make any comment after that, either to help Alfonsine or to advise on the treatment of Clémente. It was too close to the truth, and although LeMerle might speak lightly of the possible danger, I was only too aware of the precarious line I was now treading. Virginie had the abbess’s ear; they were alike in some ways, as well as being closer to each other in age than the rest of us; and she had never liked me. It would take only a little thing-words spoken by Clémente, perhaps, in delirium or otherwise-to ensure that I was once more accused.

I would have spoken of it to LeMerle, but he made no appearance today, remaining in the infirmary or in his study, surrounded by books. Very soon, if I knew my plant lore correctly, Clémente’s fever would break and she would regain consciousness. What happened then was up to LeMerle. He could control Clémente, he had said; I did not share his optimism. He had chosen me publicly over her; that was something no woman would forgive.

I slept badly and dreamed too well. My own voice awoke me, and after that I was afraid to close my eyes in case I spoke again and betrayed myself as I slept. In LeMerle’s cottage, a little light burned. I had almost made up my mind to go to him when Antoine got up to use the latrines in the reredorter, and I had to lie back, eyes closed, feigning sleep. She got up twice more during the night-our diet of black bread and soup evidently disagreed with her-and so we were both alert to the sound of the alarm across the courtyard from the infirmary.

Finally, Clémente was awake.

41

Antoine and I were the first to reach the infirmary. We did not look at each other as we raced along the slype toward the walled garden, but we could already hear Clémente’s feverish cries as we approached. There was a light at one of the windows and we followed the light, with Tomasine, Piété, Bénédicte, and Marie-Madeleine arriving soon after.

The infirmary consists of a single large and rather stuffy room. There are beds lined up against the wall-six of them, although there is provision for more. No cubicle wall separates the beds, so that sleep is almost impossible here among the sighs and coughs and whimperings of the sufferers. Soeur Virginie had made some effort to isolate Clémente; her bed was at the far end of the room, and she had placed a curtain screen to one side of it, cutting off some of the lamplight and giving the afflicted girl some privacy. Alfonsine was positioned by the door, as far from Clémente as possible, and I caught sight of her open eyes as I passed; two points of brightness in the dark.

The abbess was already there. Virginie and Marguerite, who must have given the alarm at her command, were beside her, looking fearful and excited. LeMerle stood at her other side, grave in his black robe with his silver crucifix held in one hand. On the bed, her ankles fastened into place by two straps fixed to the wooden frame, sprawled Clémente. A pitcher of water had been spilt across a small bedside table; a reeking basin was pushed beneath the bed itself. Her face was white; her pupils were dilated so much that the blue of her irises was almost invisible.

“Help Soeur Virginie to tie her down,” ordered the abbess to Marguerite. “You-yes you, Soeur Auguste! Bring a calming infusion.”

I hesitated for an instant. “I-Perhaps it might be better if-”

“At once, you fool!” The nasal voice was sharp. “A calming drink, and a change of bedclothes! Go quickly!”

I shrugged. The morning glory seed requires an empty stomach to avoid ill effects. But I obeyed; ten minutes later I returned, carrying a light infusion of skullcap leaves sweetened with honey, and a fresh blanket.

Clémente was delirious. “Leave me alone, leave me alone!” she screamed, flailing at the proffered cup with her unsecured left hand.

“Hold her down!” cried Mère Isabelle.

Soeur Virginie poured most of the infusion down Clémente’s throat as she opened her mouth again to scream. “There, ma soeur. That will make you better,” she shouted above the noise. “Just try to rest-”

Her words were barely uttered when Clémente vomited with such force that reeking liquid splattered against the wall of the infirmary. I shrugged inwardly. Virginie, who had been liberally showered, shrieked, and Mère Isabelle, beside herself, slapped her smartly, as a spoiled child may slap her nurse in a fit of temper.

Clémente vomited again, leaving a trail of slime over the new blanket. “Fetch Père Colombin.” Her voice was hoarse with shrieking. “Fetch him now!”

LeMerle had been standing in silence at a safe distance. Now he moved closer, delicately avoiding the patches of vomit on the floor. “Let me pass.” In fact there was no one obstructing him, but we responded to the voice of authority. Clémente too responded; she turned her face toward him and whimpered softly.

LeMerle held out his crucifix.

“Mon père!” For an instant the afflicted woman seemed quite lucid. She whispered in her hoarse voice: “You said you’d help me. You said you’d help-”

LeMerle began to speak in Latin to her, still holding the crucifix between them as if as a weapon. I recognized the words as a fragment of the exorcism service, which he would no doubt perform in full at some later date.

“Praecipio tibi, quicumque es, spiritus immunde, et omnibus socüs tuis hunc Dei famulum obsidentibus…”

I saw Clémente’s eyes widen. “No!”

“Ut per mysteria incarnationis, passionis, resurrectionis, et ascensionis Domini nostri-”

In spite of everything I felt a sudden surge of guilt at her suffering.

“Per missionem Spiritus Sancti, et per adventum ejusdem Domini.”

“Please, I didn’t mean it, I’ll never tell anyone-”

“Dicas mihi nomen tuum, diem, et horam exitus tui, cum aliquo signo-”

“It was Germaine-she was jealous, she wanted me for herself-”

When Janette used the drug in ceremonies and divination, it was in tiny doses after a long period of meditation. Clémente had been unprepared. I tried to imagine the depth of her terror. Now, at last, the drug was reaching its final stage. Soon the attack would be over, and she would sleep again. LeMerle made the sign of the cross over Clémente’s face. “Lectio sancti Evangelü secundum Joannem.”

But his refusal to acknowledge her seemed to contribute to her agitation. She grasped at the sleeve of his robe with her teeth, almost knocking the crucifix from his hand. “I’ll tell them everything,” she snarled. “I’ll see you burn.”

“See how she recoils from the Cross!” said Marguerite.

“She’s ill,” I said. “Delirious. She doesn’t know what she’s doing.”

Marguerite shook her head stubbornly. “She’s possessed,” she said, her eyes shining. “Possessed by the spirit of Germaine. Didn’t she say so herself?”

Now was no time to argue. I could see Mère Isabelle watching us from the corner of my eye and knew she had heard every word. But LeMerle was unmoved. “Demons who have infested this woman, name yourselves!”

Clémente whimpered. “There are no demons. You yourself said-”

“Name yourselves!” repeated LeMerle. “I command you! In the name of the Father!”

“I only wanted-I didn’t mean to-”

“Of the Son!”

“No-please-”

“Of the Holy Spirit!”

At this, Clémente finally broke. “Germaine!” she screamed. “Mère Marie! Behemoth! Beelzebub! Ashtaroth! Belial! Sabaoth! Tetragramma-ton!” She was weeping now in fast, gasping sobs, the names-many known to me from Giordano’s various texts, but doubtless gleaned by Clémente from Alfonsine’s raptures-coming from her lips in a desperate rush. “Hades! Belphegor! Mammon! Asmodeus!”

LeMerle laid a hand on her shoulder, and such was her agitation that she shrieked again and drew away.

“Possessed!” whispered Marguerite again. “See how she burns at the touch of the cross! Hear the names of the demons!”

LeMerle half turned to face the rest of us. “Evil news indeed,” he said. “I was blind enough yesterday to believe there might be another explanation for her illness. But now we have it from her own mouth. Soeur Clémente has been infested by unclean spirits.”

“Let me help her, please.” Unwise, I knew, to draw attention to myself, but I could bear it no longer. All the same I was very aware of Virginie’s eyes on me, and behind her, those of our little abbess.

LeMerle shook his head. “I must be alone.” He looked exhausted, the outstretched hand that held the crucifix visibly shaking with the effort. “Anyone who stays here puts her soul in peril.”

Clémente, between sobs, began to recite the Lord’s Prayer.

LeMerle took a step backward. “See how the demons taunt us!” he said. “You have named yourself, Demon, now let us see your face!”

As he spoke, a cold draft blew from the open door, flickering the flames in the candles and cressets that illuminated the room. Instinctively I turned; others followed my lead. Beyond the door, in the darkened hallway, a white figure hesitated just out of the range of our light. I could barely make out its shape; it appeared to float vaguely down the passageway, skirting the light with delicate precision so that all we saw of it was the habit it wore-so similar to our own-and the pale quichenotte that hid its face completely.

“The Unholy Nun!”

I grabbed the cresset from Virginie and sprang forward with its small flame in my hand. Marguerite shrieked and clawed at my sleeve. I paid no attention but took three paces into the passageway, carrying my light before me.

“Who’s that?” I cried. “Show yourself!”

The Unholy Nun turned, and I had time to see dark-stockinged legs beneath the robe. So much, then, for its ghostly floating. The hands, too, were gloved in black. Then the figure began to run down the passage, moving lightly and quickly away from the light.

Someone at my back called out impatiently, “What did you see?”

Someone else tugged at my wimple, my arm. I dislodged the grip with some difficulty, fighting to keep hold of the cresset. When I looked back the apparition had gone.

“Soeur Auguste! What did you see?” It was Isabelle, clutching me as if she never meant to let go. At close quarters her complexion looked worse than ever; small angry red sores were blooming around her mouth and nose. Janette would have prescribed fresh air and exercise. Fresh air and sunshine, she would have said with her familiar cackle. That’s the thing for a growing child. That’s what made me the beauty you see before you. If only Janette were here now.

“Yes indeed, Soeur Auguste, what did you see?” The polite tone was LeMerle’s, touched now with a note of mockery only I could hear.

“I-” I heard my voice waver. “I’m not sure.”

“Soeur Auguste is a skeptic,” said LeMerle. “Perhaps even now she doubts the presence of demons in Soeur Clémente.”

I kept my eyes fixed to the cresset’s light, not daring to face his smile.

“Soeur Auguste,” said Isabelle shrilly. “Tell us at once. What did you see? Was it the Unholy Nun?”

Slowly, reluctantly, I nodded.

A wave of questions followed. Why had I pursued her? Why had I stopped? What exactly had I seen? Was there blood on the bonnet? And on the surplice? Had I seen the face?

I tried to answer them all. Where lies were needed, I lied. Every word I uttered drove me further into LeMerle’s power, but I had no choice, no strength to resist it; I lied by necessity. For in the second when the specter turned to me, face-to-face and almost close enough to touch in the dim passageway, I had recognized the Unholy Nun. My dearest friend, her gold-ringed eyes wide with something almost like amusement. As if this were a game with nothing more at stake than a handful of glass marbles.

It made perfect sense. Her innocence protected her. Her silence was assured. And only I had heard the faint bird laughter that followed the specter’s disappearance into the gloom, that hooting, inhuman note no other throat could quite duplicate.

There could be no mistaking that sound, those eyes.

It was Perette.