by Tania Bayard
‘Don’t make me more discouraged than I am already.’
‘If it weren’t for you, she’d be dead by now. That might have been the best thing, if we aren’t able to save her.’
‘That’s what she said. “Tell Gillette it’s better that way.”’
‘Who is Gillette?’
‘Her old nursemaid. She lives with her cousin Maude on the rue Beaubourg. I promised Alix I’d go and see her.’
They left the church and went down a side street. Michel pointed to a large house and said, ‘Henri Le Picart lives there.’ Christine half expected to see an angry little man in a black cape and long hood come out, but the thick wooden door, decorated with carvings of dragons and serpents, remained firmly shut. She waited until they were on the rue Saint-Martin and then asked Michel, in a whisper, ‘If Alix de Clairy dies, won’t Henri Le Picart inherit her father’s property?’
‘If Alix de Clairy is put to death for murdering a man who was a faithful knight and a royal chamberlain, her property will be confiscated by the king.’
‘Is there no way Henri could obtain it?’
‘Well, sometimes the king gives a criminal’s property to a relative, but that is unusual. Henri could ask for it, I suppose. But I doubt he would, or that the king would think he needed it. Henri already has a surfeit of money. He is a strange man, Christine, and I know you have taken a dislike to him, but I don’t think he’s a murderer. No, I don’t think so.’
Maybe he doesn’t need money, but he might want the book, Christine thought.
When they arrived at her house it was dark. Francesca was waiting at the door. ‘I cannot endure this much longer, Cristina. Something terrible will happen, I know it.’ The sound of something crashing to the floor came from the kitchen, and she rushed out to see which of her treasures Georgette had broken.
Christine asked Michel, ‘Will you go to the duke and ask him to write another letter?’
‘I do not think he will, but I will try. Tomorrow. I will come and tell you what he said.’
‘You said you’d take the mandrake and give it to your infirmarer. I’ll go up and get it. I don’t want it in the house overnight.’
Michel hesitated. ‘I’ll have to leave it with you for now. I’m not going back to the abbey just yet.’ He hurried down the street.
Disappointed, Christine went back inside, climbed the stairs to her study, and opened the door. The fire was almost out and the room was dark except for a soft glow that seemed to be coming from the chest at the foot of her bed. Georgette and her mother would have said it was the mandrake.
THIRTY-ONE
I beg you ladies, never be charmed by any man, for they are all deceivers.
Christine de Pizan, Ballade, c.1410
Christine knew the mandrake was shut up in the chest, but long after she had gone to bed she lay awake imagining it leering at her from a corner of her room. When she finally fell into a troubled sleep, she dreamed of it dancing through fire with the dragons and serpents she’d seen on Henri Le Picart’s door, swinging its hairy tail and mocking her with red eyes and a mouth full of worm-eaten teeth.
Late the following morning, Michel came with disappointing news: he hadn’t been able to speak with the duke. He tried to reassure Christine that as long as the duke believed Alix de Clairy knew the whereabouts of the book, he would make sure she was kept alive. He promised he would speak to him the next day, but Christine’s mind was not at ease.
‘Then let’s go and visit the old nursemaid,’ Michel said. ‘She may be able to tell us something about Alix that will help.’
Francesca hovered in the doorway. ‘You do not know this person, Cristina. She may do you harm.’
‘There’s nothing to worry about. She’s an old woman,’ Christine assured her, though she was not entirely confident that a nursemaid who had given her charge a mandrake presented no threat.
They walked down the rue de Paradis beside the old wall until they came to a small house at the corner of that street and the rue Beaubourg. A hunchbacked woman in a faded brown cloak dragging on the ground came out of the house and lurched toward them.
‘Gillette?’ Christine asked.
The woman shook her head.
Michel smiled. ‘Then you must be Gillette’s cousin Maude. Can you tell us where to find her? We are friends of Alix de Clairy.’
The woman gazed at the monk suspiciously. Finally she said, ‘She’ll be in the chapel of Sainte-Avoie, on the rue du Temple. There’s a shortcut – take the alley by my house to a path through the orchard.’
They turned down the alley, stumbling over stones and piles of dung. Christine looked back and saw Maude watching them. Michel turned too, tripped, and nearly fell. As he reached out to steady himself, he caught at a ledge under a window of Maude’s house, and stopped. He seemed to be examining his hand.
‘Did you hurt yourself?’ Christine asked.
‘No, no. Just steadying myself.’
They came to a grove of ancient apple trees and a muddy path leading to a cottage that Michel said was a hospice for widows. Beside the hospice stood the chapel of Sainte-Avoie, a shabby, unadorned building with a narrow bell tower. Inside they found an old woman in a patched woolen cloak kneeling before one of the altars. Christine called out softly, ‘Gillette?’
Slowly, the woman rose to her feet. She was tiny, frail, and trembling. Her pale skin was almost translucent, the strands of hair that escaped from under her grey hood were pure white, and even in the gloom of the chapel, her eyes glowed sapphire blue. Christine had been imagining Gillette as a malevolent spirit exerting an evil influence over Alix de Clairy. This woman looked like a saint.
Christine said, ‘We’ve come about Alix de Clairy. We’re her friends.’
‘She has no friends here.’
‘I know it appears so, but we want to help her. Could we speak at your cousin’s house? It’s cold here.’
‘We can’t go there.’
‘Then perhaps the sister in charge of the hospice will let us sit inside where it’s warm,’ Michel said.
Christine took Gillette’s arm, and they followed the monk to the cottage next to the church, where Michel spoke to a tall attendant who showed them to a room with a large fireplace. They sat on a bench and stretched their hands out to the flames. The warmth did not stop Gillette’s hands from shaking.
Christine looked into the woman’s startlingly blue eyes and said, ‘I’ve been to the Châtelet to see Alix.’
‘I went to see her, but they wouldn’t let me in.’ Gillette’s eyes filled with tears. ‘I’ve been told she has been condemned to die. Why? Alix wouldn’t harm anyone. How can they believe those terrible things about her?’
Christine said, as gently as possible, ‘People think her a witch, because she brought the queen a mandrake. You gave her the mandrake. Where did you get it?’
Gillette bowed her head and covered her eyes with her quivering hands. In a voice so low Christine could hardly hear, she said, ‘From my cousin, Maude. I didn’t think it would do any harm. Maude said it would restore the king to health.’
‘And you believe that?’
‘If you are kind to the little spirit in a mandrake, it will do what you ask.’
Christine sighed, sorry they had come to see a superstitious old woman, not to be feared, and not worth talking to, either. But Michel, who’d been sitting quietly, staring into the fire and seemingly paying no attention to the conversation, looked up and said to Gillette, ‘Tell us about Hugues de Précy.’
Gillette raised her head and looked at him. ‘He was cruel to Alix.’
‘Why?’
‘He knew something about her.’ She shifted uneasily on the bench. ‘I shouldn’t have told you.’ Her hands trembled violently. ‘I promised I would keep the secret. It has nothing to do with Hugues de Précy’s murder.’
‘You can’t be sure.’ Michel’s voice was gentle, and he seemed to have shrunk; his shoulders were hunched, his eyes blinked rapid
ly, and his hands were hidden in the sleeves of his black habit. Christine had never seen him look so meek. ‘You may trust us,’ he said.
On a chain around her neck, Gillette wore a small wooden crucifix. She clutched it and looked into the fire. A falling log sent a whirlwind of sparks up the chimney with a crackling noise that shattered the silence of the quiet room.
‘He was cruel because he knew that Alix isn’t who she thinks she is,’ she said.
Astonished, Christine leaned forward and was about to speak, but Michel raised his hand to stop her. ‘Go on,’ he said to Gillette.
‘I may have done a great wrong.’ She sat in silence for a long time. Then she said, in a hushed voice, ‘A lady who was about to give birth hired me as a nursemaid. I was there when the child, a girl, was born. It was dead.’ She put the wooden crucifix to her lips.
‘There was a midwife. Her name was Macée. She took me to her house and showed me a newborn baby in a basket. “It’s a girl,” she said. “She was born this morning. Give her to the lady, because she won’t be able to have any more children of her own.”’
‘Where did she get this baby?’ Michel asked.
‘She wouldn’t tell me. She just said I should give it to the lady. I felt sorry for the lady, so I agreed. I took the baby to her and placed it in her arms. Her husband, a great lord, hardened his heart and looked away, but she pleaded with him to let her keep it. I had something to say, too. I pointed out that his wife would not be able to conceive again and he needed a child to inherit his property.’
Christine realized that the old woman wasn’t as simple as she seemed.
Gillette continued, ‘Finally, the lord agreed they would raise the child as their own. But he had to make sure no one would ever know the baby was not his.’
‘To make sure she would inherit his property,’ Michel said.
Gillette nodded. ‘He secretly buried his own baby, and his wife and I were sworn to secrecy. Macée as well – the lord sent me to her with money to buy her silence. He retained me as a nursemaid, and later as a companion for the little girl, because his wife died when the child was six.’
‘And the abandoned baby was Alix?’ Christine asked.
‘Yes. She never had any reason to think the Lord of Clairy and his lady were not her true parents. They loved her as if she were their own child.’
‘No one else knew of this?’
‘No. But Hugues de Précy found out when he was in Amiens with the king. It had to have been Macée who told him. Hugues also knew the Lord of Clairy had a large amount of property and Alix would inherit it.’
Christine sighed. She knew what was coming next.
‘Hugues went to the lord and threatened to reveal the secret of Alix’s birth unless he had assurances that he could marry her when she was old enough – she was only eight at the time. He had the lord in his power. He returned eight years later and married her.’
‘Did the Lord of Clairy know it was Macée who had revealed the secret?’ Christine asked.
‘He did. But she left Amiens, and he could never find her.’
‘Do you think Macée told the secret to anyone besides Hugues?’
‘I can’t believe she would have done so. She lives here in Paris now. I see her sometimes, and I know she is truly sorry she betrayed Alix. Poor soul – she’s had the pox, and it has disfigured her face. These days, women come to her in secret, because she does things other midwives refuse to do.’
Gillette looked up with tears in her eyes. ‘Hugues de Précy never loved Alix. He only married her for the property she would inherit. Before they were married, he treated her like a princess – all smiles and kindness, giving her gifts and pretending to be gentle. Alix was completely deceived. I’m glad her father did not live to see how cruel Hugues really was.’
‘I wonder why he treated Alix so badly,’ Christine mused.
‘I suspect he despised her because he knew she was not of noble birth.’
‘All this must have caused you great sorrow.’
‘It did. God help me, I could have poisoned Hugues myself, and I’m sorry I didn’t.’ Gillette pushed herself to her feet, shaking uncontrollably, and cried, ‘I’ll tell the authorities I was the one who did it. Then I can die in Alix’s place.’ She stumbled against the side of the bench and nearly fell.
‘They wouldn’t believe you,’ Michel said, as he rose and steadied her.
‘He’s right,’ Christine said. ‘But there’s someone else who might have had good reason to poison Hugues de Précy. Do you know Alix’s uncle, the man who calls himself Henri Le Picart?’
‘I’ve seen him here in Paris.’
‘Perhaps he has discovered the secret, and now he wants to use that knowledge to his advantage.’
Out of the corner of her eye, Christine could see Michel gesturing at her, but she ignored him. ‘Preposterous,’ he said in a loud voice.
Bewildered, Gillette looked at him, then back at Christine. But before either of them could say anything more, the tall sister who had showed them in reappeared and asked them to leave, because it was time for the midday meal she served to the women who lived at the hospice.
Michel and Christine helped Gillette to her feet, and they went out. When the old woman realized they intended to walk back through the orchard with her, she said, ‘Leave me now. I can go by myself.’ She waved them away and shuffled along the path to Maude’s house. Before she had gone very far, she turned and called out to Christine, ‘I will speak with Macée. Perhaps she’ll tell me something that will help Alix. If she does, I’ll come to you. Tell me where you live.’
‘Not far from here. Outside the old wall after you pass the King of Sicily’s palace. Look for a house just beyond the first three market gardens.’
Gillette nodded, walked on, and was soon hidden by the trees.
Michel and Christine walked for a while in silence. Christine thought the monk was angry because of what she had said about Henri Le Picart, but he muttered, ‘It is strange. Very strange.’
‘If you mean what Gillette told us, it’s more than strange. It’s terrible.’
‘I mean the things I saw through the window of Maude’s house.’
She remembered how he’d tripped and steadied himself against the window ledge. ‘The window was covered with linen,’ she said.
‘The linen was torn. I could see inside. There were herbs hanging from the ceiling.’
‘That’s how everyone dries herbs.’
‘And little figures made of wax and clay. I think Maude practices witchcraft.’
‘Do you think Gillette does, too?’
‘I don’t know. But she wanted to keep us away from Maude’s house. And she believes in the power of the mandrake.’
THIRTY-TWO
Early in the morning, order your chambermaids to sweep and clean the entrances to your house – the hall and other places where people enter and stay to talk. Have them dust the footstools and shake out the bench cloths and coverings.
From a book of moral and practical advice
for a young wife, Paris, 1393
Michel left Christine at the door of her house. ‘I really do not believe the duke will write another letter, but I’ll ask,’ he said as he turned down the street. ‘I’ll come tomorrow and tell you what he says.’
Christine went to the kitchen to look for her mother and, not finding her there, climbed the stairs to her study. Michel still had not taken the mandrake, and she had the disquieting thought that perhaps he didn’t really want it. But then she discovered her fire had gone out, and she forgot about the mandrake as she ran back downstairs, planning to give Georgette a good scolding. The girl was in the front hall, where she was supposed to be sweeping. Instead she was leaning on her broom, crying. Colin was with her, and he looked about to cry, too.
‘What ails you two?’ Christine snapped. ‘Does my mother know you’re here, Colin?’
‘No,’ he muttered, not looking at her.
‘Y
our mother went out with the children,’ Georgette said, wiping her eyes with her apron.
‘She won’t be pleased to see you like this. Finish your work. And you should go back to the palace, Colin.’
‘I can’t. The queen sent me away. That seamstress, Blanche, told her I’d done something bad.’
‘What did you do?’
‘Nothing. I don’t even know what Blanche said it was.’
Christine thought about Colin’s stealthy habits, always watching, always listening. She wondered what he’d discovered about Blanche.
The hall was cold, so she took Georgette and Colin into the kitchen. The fire there was nearly dead, too, so she put Georgette to work reviving it with the bellows. Colin sat down on a bench by the table, sniffling. He picked up a knife Georgette had forgotten to put away and fingered it, his bony wrists protruding from sleeves much too short for his long, skinny arms.
‘When my mother comes home, we’ll see if we can find something for you to do here,’ Christine said. ‘I already have a job for you. The fire in my room has gone out. You can go and start it again.’
Before she could tell him which room was hers, he bounced off the bench, ran into the front hall, and clumped up the stairs. At that moment, Georgette worked the bellows too hard, sending ashes flying around the kitchen, and Christine forgot about everything except making sure the girl swept up the mess. Georgette hadn’t finished the job by the time Colin came back, so Christine gave him a broom, too, and when her mother and the children arrived, with Goblin dancing around at their heels, everyone was busy sweeping. Goblin growled when he saw Colin and ran back into the hall.
Francesca placed her basket on the table, stood with her hands on her hips, and stared at the boy. Christine took a tart from the basket and ate it while she told her about his mysterious dismissal from the palace. ‘He needs work,’ she whispered. ‘I’m earning a little more money now. Surely we can afford to hire him for small chores.’
Her mother watched Colin sweep ashes into a corner. ‘He is just like his sister!’
‘I know. But we can endure it for a while.’
