In the Presence of Evil

by Tania Bayard

Marion led the drunken students, who held torches in their unsteady hands and brayed bawdy drinking songs, to the other side of the river and along the streets to the old wall near Christine’s house. Henri Le Picart was nowhere in sight, so she took one of the torches, sent the young rowdies back to the tavern, and hurried on by herself.

  Christine and her mother were upstairs preparing for bed when they heard a sound at the front door. ‘It’s probably the wind,’ Christine said as she went down to investigate. But when she opened the door, Marion jumped out of the shadows and ran past her into the house. ‘I’ve found your bookseller,’ she said breathlessly.

  ‘You?’

  ‘Don’t look so surprised. Do you want me to tell you about it?’

  ‘Of course I want you to tell me.’

  ‘Who is there?’ Francesca called from the top of the stairs.

  ‘Only the wind, Mama. Go to bed.’ Christine took Marion’s arm and dragged her into the kitchen. ‘I’ve suspected all along you haven’t been telling me everything you know.’

  ‘Well, listen then. One of the girls at the brothel stole that book from a customer. He came to the brothel and stole it back, just before he went to the palace and got murdered. I saw the markings on the cover.’

  ‘But how did you know which bookseller had it?’

  ‘I know many things. But what’s important is this: the bookseller told me a little boy with a lot of tawny hair and a red jacket and a red cap brought it to him. Do you know such a boy?’

  ‘I do. A boy who looks like that comes to the palace with his grandmother, a seamstress who sews for the queen and her ladies.’

  Christine remembered Simon telling her Renaut and his grandmother lived on the rue de la Harpe. The murderer must have enlisted Renaut to sell the book. ‘I’ll go to the palace at once and speak with the boy,’ she said.

  ‘Surely he won’t be there at this hour.’

  ‘The portier knows where he lives. I’ll find him.’

  ‘I forgot to tell you. Henri Le Picart is out there somewhere.’

  ‘Then come with me. If we stay together, we’ll be safe.’ She lit a taper, went into the hall, and put on her cloak. Whispering to Marion that she should not make a sound, she drew her out the door before Francesca could call down to her again.

  There was no sign of Henri Le Picart in the street. ‘That doesn’t mean he isn’t here,’ Marion said. ‘It’s dark, and he’s very cunning.’ There was no moon, but by the light of her taper and Marion’s torch, they made their way along the deserted streets to the palace. Christine left Marion at the queen’s stables, where she hoped she would be safe, and hurried across the street to the queen’s residence. As soon as she entered the courtyard she heard the king’s lions roaring. ‘What’s wrong with them?’ she asked Simon, who, to her relief, was still there.

  ‘They’re hungry. The lion keeper is away. Loyse should be looking after them, but she has disappeared.’

  ‘Doesn’t her mother know where she is?’

  ‘Blanche was here early this morning, but I haven’t seen her since. The Duchess of Orléans is dying. Brother Michel is with her. Why are you here at this hour?’

  ‘I’m looking for Renaut.’

  ‘He should be home in bed, but he’s still here, in the guards’ room, waiting for his grandmother. She seems to have forgotten him.’

  Occupied with something on the floor, the boy didn’t look up when she came into the room. She stood in the doorway for a moment, wondering how to question him about the book without frightening him. Torches in brackets on the wall lit the room, and she could see that he was in tears.

  ‘What’s the matter?’

  ‘My top. It’s broken.’

  She looked at the floor. Something red that sparkled like glass lay in pieces on the boards. What kind of a top would break like glass? she wondered. She bent down and picked up the pieces. They were glass. She fitted them together, and she held in her hand an object the color of blood – the color of the flask the king had shaken in her face, the flask with the poison that had killed Hugues de Précy.

  ‘This isn’t a top!’ she cried. ‘It’s a stopper for a flask! Where did you get it?’ At the sound of her agitated voice, the boy wept bitterly.

  She remembered she’d seen him hide his toy in his sleeve when Blanche entered the room. She knelt on the floor beside him. ‘It’s your grandmother’s, isn’t it?’

  ‘I just borrowed it.’

  She got up, staggered to a bench, and sat there, stunned, while Renaut stared at her, his eyes full of tears. Now she knew what the duchess had been trying to tell her with the illustrations in the Book of Hours. The snow, the Cistercian monk dressed in the habit of his order, the horse of the first horseman of the Apocalypse. All were white, like the name Blanche. The murderer wasn’t Guy de Marolles, or Ludwig, or Henri Le Picart. The murderer was Blanche.

  Renaut came over and stood in front of her, sobbing. ‘Please don’t be angry with me. I was going to put it back.’

  ‘You’re not the one I’m angry with,’ she whispered, and she pulled him down on the bench, took him into her arms, and held him close, as if to protect him from the woman who had poisoned Hugues de Précy and who was willing to let her own daughter die for the murder. Then she leapt up, told Renaut to stay where he was, and flew from the room, still holding the pieces of the stopper in her hand. She ran past Simon, crying, ‘It was Blanche! I have to tell Michel!’ and tore across the courtyard. She plunged through the first entrance she came to and was immediately lost.

  She raced blindly down a dimly lit passageway, and burst into a cloister where everything was dark except for torchlights flickering in the hands of two people who stood arguing. She went toward the lights, thinking she could ask whomever it was to tell her which way to go to the duchess’s chambers. As she drew closer, the voices grew louder, and she recognized them. It was the queen’s brother Ludwig. And Blanche! She stepped behind a column and listened.

  Ludwig was shouting at Blanche in his halting French. ‘I will tell no more lies for you. You have made me say to the king that I saw Alix de Clairy poison her husband, but that is the last time I will do such a thing. And I will report to the queen that it is you who stole her ring.’ Blanche started to protest, but he continued, more vehemently than before, ‘The boy, Colin, knows. He saw you take it. He will not keep silent. You thought it was clever to say lies about him, to make my sister send him away. I do not know what is your purpose, but I will have no more part in it.’

  Blanche growled, ‘I know you stole the sapphire the king cares so much about. I will tell him.’

  ‘I will give it back. My sister will make it right.’

  There was a sharp sound as Blanche struck Ludwig across the face with such force that he fell, dropping his torch. ‘We made a bargain,’ the woman shouted. ‘And you’re going to keep it, or I’ll kill you, just as I killed Hugues de Précy and the old woman at the brothel.’

  Christine heard Ludwig gasp, and she realized he hadn’t known it was Blanche who’d murdered Hugues. He retrieved his torch and struggled to his feet. Christine heard him come stumbling toward her, panting and crying with fear. Blanche cursed and began to hunt for him. She came near the column where Christine was hiding. Without thinking, Christine leapt out at her, shouting, ‘Monster!’

  Blanche screamed and raised her torch. Christine shrank back behind the column, but Blanche had recognized her. ‘What are you doing here?’ she snarled.

  Christine thrust out her open hand. The pieces of the red stopper glittered in the light from the woman’s torch.

  Blanche backed away. ‘Where did you get that?’

  ‘Where I got it is of no importance. What signifies is that it was you who poisoned Hugues de Précy.’

  ‘He had to die,’ Blanche rasped, moving close to the column again. ‘Because of Jehanne.’

  Who was Jehanne? Christine thought the woman must be demented. She remembered what she’d done to Hugues and Margot,
and she trembled. Ludwig seemed to have escaped, but she might not be so lucky. Her fingers curled tightly around the pieces of the stopper, and the broken glass dug into her hand as she moved farther back into the shadows. Blanche came near her again. There was nowhere for Christine to run: everything behind her was black.

  Blanche held her torch close to her face. ‘You think you know everything, haughty lady. But you don’t know about my daughter Jehanne. I’ll tell you. Hugues de Précy killed her.’ Her voice seemed to come from a great height.

  Christine remembered then what Simon had told her about Renaut’s mother. ‘I thought she died when Renaut was born,’ she said.

  ‘She did. Because Hugues de Précy raped her. He made her pregnant, and she died giving birth to Renaut. That is how Hugues de Précy killed my daughter.’ Her voice grew louder and more shrill, and then horrible sounds penetrated the darkness, great gasping sobs that reverberated through the cloister as she stumbled back and forth, bumping into columns, cursing, falling to her knees, pulling herself up, falling again.

  Christine put her hands over her ears to block out the noise and counted. Hugues had gone to Amiens with the king eight years ago. Renaut was seven. It must be true. Hugues was his father.

  ‘Didn’t Hugues know you were Jehanne’s mother?’

  Still sobbing, Blanche reached out for her, but her hand came up against the column instead. ‘He never saw me in Amiens. But I knew who he was, and when he came back last year I recognized him.’ The sobbing stopped, and her voice became as cold as ice. ‘I followed him here so I could punish him for what he did to Jehanne.’

  Christine felt the heat of the torch. The woman may kill me, she thought, but I have to know everything. ‘You mourn that daughter, yet you care nothing for the daughter you gave away.’

  ‘How do you know about that?’ Blanche asked, growling like an animal.

  ‘The midwife told me.’

  ‘These things are not your affair.’

  Christine heard the woman’s labored breathing, felt her cloak brush against her. She moved back into the darkness. If she wants to kill me, why doesn’t she do it? she asked herself. Frightened as she was, she persisted with her questions. ‘When you gave Hugues the poison, what did you tell him it was?’

  ‘I told the fool it was a love potion.’

  ‘And then you put the flask under your own daughter’s hand!’

  Blanche moved close to her, grabbed her wrist, and held it firmly. ‘It was dark. I didn’t know it was my daughter.’ The torch was so close to Christine’s face, she could smell her hair scorching. Still she raged at the woman.

  ‘You killed old Margot, didn’t you?’

  ‘I had to. You were going to find out she sold me the poison.’

  ‘And you pushed the duchess down the stairs. She realized what Renaut’s top was, and she confronted you.’

  Blanche gripped her wrist so tightly, she cried out in pain. ‘The old lady was going to die anyway.’

  ‘And you put the mandrake in my fireplace.’ She struggled to pull away, but the woman’s fingers were like a vise.

  ‘No. It was that stupid boy, Colin. One of the queen’s ladies told him to do it, to punish you for being so superior.’

  Christine cried out as Blanche gave her wrist a violent twist, sending a wave of pain through her body. Then everything went black as the seamstress raised her torch and brought it down on her head.

  FORTY-THREE

  In Isabella of Bavaria, reigning at present by the grace of God, there is no cruelty, greed, or any other vice. She has only sincere love and kindness for her subjects.

  Christine de Pizan,

  Le Livre de la Cité des Dames, 1404–1405

  Christine awoke in darkness. Her hands and feet were tied, and she was sitting on a cold, damp surface with her back against a large object she couldn’t see. She struggled against the ropes binding her, but the effort only drove them more deeply into her flesh. Her head throbbed and exhaustion overwhelmed her.

  After a while, she realized that someone was sitting next to her – a woman, barely discernable in the gloom. At first she was too frightened to cry out. Then the woman leaned toward her. She felt her breath on her cheek, and she found her voice. ‘Get away!’ she cried. She fought the ropes, but they held fast.

  The woman touched her forehead gently and said, ‘Christine.’

  The voice was so weak she didn’t recognize it. ‘Don’t be frightened. Smell this. You gave it to me.’

  Something brittle brushed against Christine’s nose, and the acrid odor of rue burned her nostrils. ‘Alix!’ she cried.

  ‘I thought you’d never wake up.’

  ‘Where am I? How did I get here? Why are you here?’ Christine asked, amazed and confused.

  ‘I don’t know where we are. Somewhere near the palace, I think. The seamstress who works for the queen and her ladies brought me here this morning. Later, she brought you.’

  Now she remembered – the dark cloister, Blanche’s hand gripping her wrist, the raised torch, the pain. Christine supposed she was fortunate to be alive: she’d been certain Blanche was going to kill her.

  ‘I don’t understand, Alix. How did you escape from the Châtelet?’

  ‘The seamstress came and took me away. I’ll tell you about it, but first I must rest.’ For many minutes Alix’s shallow breathing was the only sound Christine could hear in that dark place. It was very cold. She pulled her knees up toward her chest and put her arms around her legs in an effort to keep warm.

  Then Alix said, ‘The seamstress has lost her reason, just like the king. She thinks she’s my mother.’

  Now is not the time to tell her it’s true, Christine thought. She asked, ‘How did Blanche get you out of the prison?’

  ‘She went to the queen and told her she was my mother and she should be allowed to see me before I died. The queen believed her, and she wrote a letter to the provost, telling him to let her into the prison.’

  Alix coughed and seemed to be choking. But she managed to catch her breath, and she continued, her voice so low and hoarse that Christine had to strain to hear it, ‘The seamstress brought a woman into the prison with her. The woman must have been given some kind of potion, because she seemed half-dead. The seamstress gave me something to drink, and after that I felt the same way. I was awake, but I was helpless.’

  Christine remembered that doctors used the juice of the mandrake to numb their patients. She thought of the mandrake in her pouch, the mandrake that had disappeared from the guards’ room. Blanche had taken it, and she had known exactly what to do with it.

  Alix’s voice trembled as she said, ‘The seamstress put the woman’s clothes on me, and my clothes on her, and she took me out of the prison and left the other women there to die.’ She slumped over against Christine and wept.

  Christine longed to put her arms around her and comfort her, but her hands were tied. All she could do was ask, ‘You have no idea who the woman was?’

  ‘She was dressed in rags and her hair was so disheveled, it covered her face. But I know her name, because as she was leaving, the seamstress said, ‘Goodbye, Loyse.’

  Christine gasped and was, for once, speechless. After a long while, she said, choosing her words carefully, ‘Listen to me, Alix. That woman did not die. She got away.’

  ‘How is that possible?’ Alix gasped.

  ‘No one knows. But I’m telling you the truth. She did not die.’

  Her body shaking with sobs, Alix rocked from side to side, saying to herself over and over, ‘Thank God. Oh, thank God.’

  I’ve told her enough, Christine thought. Someday she’ll find out that Loyse is her sister, but not now.

  She waited until Alix was calmer, and then she asked, ‘What is Blanche planning to do with you?’

  ‘She says she wants to take me to a place far away. She has gone to get her grandson.’

  ‘What is she going to do with me?’ Christine asked.

  ‘She told
me she brought you here so you could write some documents that will allow us to get to another country where no one will accuse me of poisoning Hugues.’

  She has no idea it was Blanche herself who murdered Hugues, Christine thought. She doesn’t know anything. And it’s better that way.

  Alix’s breathing was labored, her voice almost inaudible. Christine knew that she was very weak, but she thought there was something she might be able to do.

  ‘Can you untie my hands, Alix?’

  Alix leaned over and fumbled with the ropes, but she had no strength. Christine despaired. And then she heard footsteps and saw torchlight coming toward them. Objects took shape in the darkness, and she realized that she was surrounded by weapons of war, and that she was leaning against the carriage of a large battering ram. Blanche, carrying several large sacks, was picking her way through the engines of death, dragging a terrified Renaut behind her. She stood over her. ‘So, Madame, you will now have a chance to put your learning to good use. I am going to take my daughter and my grandson away. You will write the necessary documents for me.’

  Perhaps this is my chance to escape, Christine thought. She held up her fettered wrists.

  ‘I don’t suppose even you could write like that,’ Blanche said. She bent down and undid the ropes binding Christine’s wrists, but she did not untie the ropes around her ankles.

  ‘What will I write with?’ Christine asked in desperation.

  ‘You’re not the only one who is privileged to have these things,’ Blanche said as she reached into one of the sacks and brought out a quill, some pieces of parchment, and an inkhorn. Christine wondered from which of the secretaries who worked for the king and his brother she had purloined them. The woman had thought of everything; she’d even brought a small board for her to write on. And something else. Blanche was holding before Christine’s eyes a piece of sealing wax and the queen’s ring so she could stamp the documents with the royal seal.

  Blanche leaned down and placed the writing materials and the board on Christine’s lap. Then she rose, backed away slightly, and stood holding her torch so Christine could see to write.