In the Presence of Evil

by Tania Bayard

  ‘What do they say about Hugues de Précy?’ Christine asked.

  ‘Poor man. They’ve arrested his wife. God’s bones, she must be an evil woman.’

  ‘Georgette!’ Francesca cried. ‘I will not allow a servant of mine to take the Lord’s name in vain!’ She was about to give the girl a slap, but Georgette dodged the blow, sniffling and wiping her eyes with the back of her hand.

  ‘Don’t cry,’ Christine said. ‘Tell us what else you’ve heard.’

  ‘They say the queen is very angry. She liked the wife, and now she’s sorry she was so kind to her. But mostly everyone’s talking about the fire. The king and his brother and his uncles are making a procession of repentance to the cathedral.’

  ‘They have no concern for those unfortunate men who burned,’ Francesca said. ‘But they must pretend.’ She went into the hall and came back with two cloaks. ‘It will be a great spectacle. We will go and see, Cristina. You will stay here with the children, Georgette.’

  And so it was that Christine and her mother and hundreds of other Parisians stood in the cold and watched as the king, dressed in black and riding a black stallion, approached the cathedral. The horse danced along the street, drops of bloody foam flying from his mouth as he strained at the bit, trying to pull away from two grooms who held his bridle. The king, oblivious to everything, slumped in the saddle and looked at the ground, while his uncles limped along behind him, barefoot to show they were penitent. The crowd watched in silence until the Duke of Orléans appeared. Then someone shouted, ‘Devil’s scum!’ and others took up the cry. Francesca joined in, adding her own cry, ‘Diavolo! Diavolo!’ She shook a fist at the duke as he passed. Everyone thought the fire was his fault. Christine didn’t want to believe he’d intended to harm his brother, but she wasn’t sure. She remembered the agonized look on his face as he watched the burning men. She also remembered the lighted torches he’d held.

  The king stumbled as he dismounted. He seemed truly distraught. His uncles, however, looked cold and in a hurry to be done with the performance. Christine took her mother’s arm and led her away. ‘We’re going home,’ she said. ‘I have no patience for this.’

  At the house, they found the children in the kitchen with Georgette. They hadn’t finished dressing, because there was no school that day, and they crowded around the girl, hanging on every word as she regaled them with details Colin had provided about the fire. Then she told them what she’d heard about Hugues de Précy. ‘His eyes were hanging out. His lips and tongue were all swollen. There was vomit everywhere.’ The children’s eyes sparkled, and they moved closer to the girl.

  ‘I don’t think it’s necessary for them to hear how he looked, Georgette,’ Christine said.

  ‘But it’s important! Because his eyes and his lips and his tongue were like that, the doctor knew what kind of poison it was, and that was the only way he could tell because there wasn’t any more poison in the flask, and the stopper was gone, too, and Colin said the sergeants at the palace searched all over for it, and they couldn’t find it.’ Georgette said all this without pausing to catch her breath, so caught up in her story she was nearly unintelligible.

  ‘I don’t see what the stopper has to do with it,’ Christine said.

  ‘Never mind that,’ said Francesca. She drew Georgette away from the children. ‘Calm yourself, Georgette. You may now tell us what kind of poison the doctor said it was.’

  ‘Wolfsbane,’ Georgette announced as if she’d made the discovery herself.

  ‘That is a bad plant.’ Francesca tended a small garden behind the house, and she knew about herbs; she used them for cooking, and for the potions she administered to the children at the slightest hint of a cold or a stomachache. ‘You can make a very bad poison from wolfsbane.’

  ‘Everyone says the wife knows how to make poisons, because she’s a witch,’ Georgette announced.

  ‘Why do they say she’s a witch?’ Christine asked.

  ‘Because she brought the queen a mandrake.’

  At the mention of the disgusting root, Christine shuddered. ‘Where is Alix de Clairy now?’ she asked.

  ‘They’ve locked her up at the Châtelet.’

  ‘The dungeon, the dungeon,’ Thomas chanted when he heard the name of the notorious prison.

  ‘They’ll ask her a lot of questions, and then they’ll burn her at the stake,’ Georgette said, raising her hands over her head and flapping them to imitate flames.

  ‘The dungeon, the dungeon, the lady’s in the dungeon,’ Thomas cried.

  ‘That’s enough!’ Christine cried. Vexed by the mindless chant and irritated by all the talk of poison and witches and dungeons, she felt ready to lash out at everyone. But just then Goblin crept out from under the table where he’d been hiding to get away from the excitement, and she remembered a little white dog going up in flames. She remembered the burned men lying in agony at the palace. She thought of Alix de Clairy, imprisoned in the Châtelet, probably being tortured.

  She drew Thomas to her and whispered, ‘There’s an old proverb that says, “It’s better to let the foot flip than the tongue trip.” Try to remember that when you’re tempted to say foolish things.’

  Then she swept out of the kitchen, pleased that, for once, she’d been able to control her temper.

  THIRTEEN

  To make a poison for killing a stag or a wild boar, take the root of wolfsbane, pound it in a mortar, put it in a sack or a small cloth, and squeeze out the juice. Put this juice in a dish in the sun, and keep it dry at night. When it is like thickened wax, put it in a tightly closed box. When you want to shoot an arrow, put some of it between the barbs and the iron socket, so the beast will be struck down when it hits and makes contact with the flesh.

  From a book of moral and practical advice

  for a young wife, Paris, 1393

  Christine went upstairs, sat at her desk, and thought about the burned men. She’d learned their names from people in the street, and she realized that the man who had saved himself by jumping into a vat of water had been one of her husband’s friends. She also recognized the name of Huguet de Guisay, the supposed instigator of the masquerade, who was still barely alive, lying in pain in the king’s apartments at the Hôtel Saint-Pol, cursing everyone around him. Of the others she knew very little except that she had seen them in their moment of agony.

  Then her thoughts turned to Alix de Clairy. She remembered her song, and how kind she had been to the dwarf. Surely she was not a murderess. The thought of the young woman locked away in a dungeon was so dreadful that she sprang to her feet, hitting her leg against the side of the desk and sending the pages the duchess had given her flying to the floor. As she gathered the leaves together, she remembered something she’d seen there, and she hunted through the manuscript until she found it: a page where the man told his wife how to extract juice from the root of wolfsbane and apply it to arrowheads to kill wild stags and boars.

  She flew back down to the kitchen.

  Francesca had a fish stew simmering over the fire, and she was making little tarts to cook in the gravy. Thomas and Lisabetta were poking their fingers into the dough, while Goblin sat under the table, waiting for scraps to fall.

  ‘Tell me what you know about wolfsbane, Mama,’ Christine said.

  Francesca took a long-handled spoon, jabbed it into the stew, and stirred impatiently. ‘Why do you want to know?’

  ‘It’s mentioned in the manuscript the duchess gave me to copy. Do you grow it in your garden?’

  ‘Certainly not! I do not need to make poisons. Not like the young woman who murdered her husband.’

  Georgette, who’d been out buying bread, ran in and held up the loaf triumphantly. Francesca snatched it out of her hand and squeezed it. ‘This is not baked in the middle. Where did you get it?’

  ‘The bread shop just on the other side of the old wall.’ The girl shuffled her feet and looked at the floor. ‘I was afraid to go all the way into the city. All those angry people.’


  ‘Cretina! That baker is a criminal. Last week the other bakers pulled him through the street in a wheelbarrow, to show everyone what a bad man he is. They hung some of his bad bread around his neck.’ She thrust the loaf back into the girl’s hand. ‘You must return this to that cafone and make him return the money. And after you do that, go and buy another loaf at the shop on the rue des Rosiers. It is nearby, and that baker is honest.’

  Thomas asked, ‘Does she have to wear bread around her neck, too?’ Lisabetta giggled.

  Francesca raised her hand and stamped her foot, sending the children scuttling out of the kitchen, followed by Goblin with his crooked tail between his legs.

  In tears, Georgette turned to go, but Francesca called her back and handed her a coin. ‘From the honest baker you may buy for yourself one of those little white rolls you like.’

  The girl wiped her eyes with her sleeve and went into the hall to put on her cloak again. The front door closed with a bang. Francesca made a face, returned to her tart dough, and began working it furiously.

  Christine put her hand over her mother’s to keep her still for a moment. ‘Do you think a woman like Alix de Clairy could make poison from wolfsbane?’

  Francesca pushed her hand away. ‘You said the old man tells his wife how to do it.’

  ‘Yes, but I can’t believe he wants her to do it herself. He probably wants her to teach her servants.’

  ‘He just wants to show how much he knows,’ her mother sniffed, breaking off pieces of dough and shaping them into tarts.

  ‘If you intended to poison someone, would you grow wolfsbane?’

  Francesca threw down the dough. ‘I would not. If there is a cut on your hand and the juice of the wolfsbane gets into it, you will die very quickly.’

  ‘So where would you get some if you needed it?’

  ‘Apothecaries sell it. Your midwife who thinks she is a doctor probably has it. There are old women in Paris who know how to make poisons.’

  Christine ignored the remark about her midwife. But she couldn’t help thinking of the old woman who’d given Alix de Clairy a mandrake – her nursemaid.

  At dinner, Christine tried to turn the conversation away from the burned men and the lady in the dungeon, but to no avail. Thomas made Georgette repeat many times everything she’d heard from Colin about the men burning in their hairy costumes. Then he wanted to hear again all the details of how Hugues de Précy had looked as he lay dead in the street outside the palace. And after that, Jean assailed Francesca with questions about the poisonous qualities of wolfsbane, and Marie wanted to know where it grew so she could avoid going near it. Only Lisabetta, leaning against Jean, was quiet. Christine’s head ached, and when she tried to savor the fish stew she’d watched her mother prepare that morning, the food seemed to stick in her throat. Tired of all the morbid chatter, she left the table and went up to her study to work on her copying.

  But instead of working, she sat at her desk thinking about Hugues de Précy. Everyone seemed to believe his wife had poisoned him, and she had to admit she could understand why, since the flask had been under her hand. But she suspected there were many people at the court who would not be sorry Hugues de Précy was dead. She was trying to remember something she’d heard about Hugues when her thoughts were interrupted by Georgette, who staggered in with a pile of logs. Filthy apron askew and hair covered with bits of wood bark, she wobbled to the fireplace, dumped the logs onto the fire, and started out the door.

  ‘Come back here,’ Christine called after her.

  Georgette turned and walked slowly to the desk.

  ‘Do you really believe Alix de Clairy is a witch?’ Christine asked.

  ‘All my friends say so. And Colin knows, because he’s always at the palace and he hears things.’

  ‘Colin has a very long tongue! You and your friends would be wise to have compassion for the lady. She’s no more a witch than you or I.’

  ‘Only a witch would poison such a husband.’

  ‘He was an adulterer. And he abused his wife.’

  ‘But he was so handsome! Just last week, I saw him in the street, riding a black stallion. He wore a green jacket, pleated down the front, with padded shoulders and a fur collar. And he had a lovely hat with peacock feathers, blue and green, blowing in the wind. Like this.’ The girl waved her hand over her head.

  ‘While you were busy admiring his clothes, did you happen to notice his shoes?’ The points of Hugues’s poulaines had been so long, Christine doubted he would have been able to mount a horse while wearing them, though she supposed he might have been vain enough to try.

  Georgette, who didn’t understand the question, looked puzzled.

  ‘Never mind,’ Christine said, making an effort to control her temper. ‘Colin told you something about Hugues de Précy. I heard you and my mother gossiping about it the other day. What was it?’

  ‘Hugues wrote love letters to one of the ladies at the court. I don’t know which lady it was.’

  ‘How did Colin know about it? Did he deliver the letters?’

  ‘No. He never saw them.’

  ‘So how did he know?’

  ‘Georgette blushed and bounced up and down on her toes, trying not to look Christine in the eye. ‘Somebody told him.’

  ‘Who?’

  The girl turned away and walked over to the fireplace. ‘I’ll put more logs on,’ she said.

  ‘The room is too warm already.’ Christine had reached the limit of her patience with the girl. ‘Listen to me, Georgette. Last week you dropped my mother’s best saltcellar, the silver one shaped like a seashell.’

  Georgette was about to cry. ‘I did what you told me. I put it at the back of the cupboard so she wouldn’t notice the dent. You promised not to say anything.’

  ‘I’ll keep the promise if you tell me how Colin learned about the love letters Hugues wrote.’

  Georgette stared at her feet for a moment, then blurted out, ‘It was the queen’s brother, Ludwig. He wanted Colin to go to the lady’s husband and tell on Hugues.’

  Christine knew about Ludwig, who’d come to Paris several years earlier to be with his sister. A handsome man who dressed in the latest French fashions and was excessively proud of his beard, which he combed into two sharp points, he’d ingratiated himself with some of the king’s advisers. Most people were wary of him, however, because he had a violent temper. It was well known that the queen gave him expensive jewelry and a great deal of money so he would stay in Paris.

  ‘Do you know why Ludwig wanted to make difficulties for Hugues?’

  ‘Hugues discovered something bad Ludwig had done. Colin knows what it was, but he won’t tell anyone, not even me. Ludwig gave him a new knife so he’d keep the secret.’

  Georgette shuffled her feet, twisted her hands together, and gave Christine a pleading look that said ‘please don’t ask me any more questions.’ She was saved by Francesca, who called up the stairs for her.

  Ludwig could have poisoned Hugues, Christine thought, to prevent him from revealing something he didn’t want anyone to know. And then there was the husband of the woman who’d had a liaison with Hugues. Surely he would have wanted to rid himself of his rival. But since Alix de Clairy had been found with the flask, people assumed she was the poisoner. Her plight was made worse by the fact that she’d brought the queen a mandrake.

  Christine shuddered as she thought about all the trouble caused by superstitions and belief in witchcraft. She remembered hearing one of the queen’s ladies tell a pregnant chambermaid that if she had twins, it would prove there were two fathers. The poor girl had rushed from the room in tears, and she’d had a miscarriage the next day. Christine had longed to admonish the lady for repeating such a vile superstition, but she knew it would have done no good.

  All afternoon, she thought about the murder, and about Alix de Clairy. She didn’t join the family for supper. She couldn’t endure any more talk of the lady in the dungeon and her possible fate. She’d begun
to think of Alix as a friend, the only friend she had at the court. The thought that she might never see her again saddened her greatly.

  FOURTEEN

  The world is a forest replete with lions, a mountain replete with serpents and bears, a battle replete with perfidious foes, a dark valley replete with tears, and nothing there is certain.

  From a book of moral and practical advice

  for a young wife, Paris, 1393

  The Châtelet, the seat of the provost of Paris, stood on the banks of the Seine near the Grand Pont, casting a pall over that part of the city. A hideous, fortress-like structure with mismatched towers, surrounded by slaughterhouses and the shops of fishmongers, skinners, tanners, and butchers, it was a place of foul air, putrefying carcasses, and the cries of terrified animals. Not even the sweet sound of bells peeling at the nearby church of Saint-Jacques-la-Boucherie, the parish church of the butchers, could lessen its sinister aura.

  Everyone knew what lay behind the thick walls of the prison: cells where prisoners were crowded together like cattle, sleeping on floors with only the thinnest layer of straw to protect them from the cold; dungeons with air so thick with dirt no candle would stay lit; and, most feared of all, a pit in the shape of an inverted funnel where those accused of heinous crimes were forced to stand in water up to their knees, unable to sit or lie down.

  It was to this dreaded prison that Alix de Clairy was brought on the night of Hugues de Précy’s murder. At the Hôtel Saint-Pol, the palace guards had found her lying on the ground next to the body of her husband, dazed and confused, and they had summoned the sergeants from the Châtelet, who had carried her to the prison. She was brought before the jailer, who asked her for her name and wrote it in a large register. He looked at the sergeants and asked, ‘What charge?’ One of the men stepped forward. ‘Arrested for the murder of her husband.’ The jailer wrote that in a second register. Then she awoke from her stupor.