by Andrea Japp
She felt herself slump to the floor and she put her hand on her chest. She couldn’t feel her heart. Was it even beating? She opened her mouth and tried to breathe, but the air refused to flow into her lungs.
Why had she been saved by that man, only to be poisoned a few years later? What sense was there in that?
A last prayer. May death take her quickly. Her prayer would not be granted.
For more than half an hour Adélaïde veered between pain and incomprehension. Fully conscious, the sweat running down her face, she could make out the other sisters flooding into the cavernous kitchen, frightened, shouting, weeping. She saw Hedwige du Thilay cross herself and close her eyes as she held her crucifix up to her lips. She recognised Jeanne d’Amblin’s distraught face, and saw her press her hand to her mouth to stifle a cry. She saw Annelette leaning over her to sniff her mouth and smell her breath. She felt Éleusie’s soft lips brushing her forehead and her tears dropping onto her hand. Annelette lifted a finger moist with saliva to her mouth and tasted it.
The tall woman rose to her feet, and for the first time the young girl in charge of the kitchens thought that underneath her sister’s gruff exterior was an inner warmth. She heard her murmur:
‘My poor child.’
The apothecary took the Abbess aside and Adélaïde could no longer hear what they were saying:
‘Reverend Mother, our sister has been poisoned with aconite. She is suffocating to death. Unfortunately, she will remain conscious throughout. There is nothing we can do except to gather round and pray for her.’
Adélaïde Condeau struggled in vain against the creeping paralysis that was slowly immobilising her whole body, up to her cheeks, trapping her voice in her throat. She tried with all her might to utter a single word: bread.
As the nuns knelt around her and she was given absolution, the single, precious syllable echoed in her head: bread.
When she could no longer draw breath, when she opened her mouth wide to suck in the air that was denied to her, she imagined that she had finally managed to utter the word.
Her head flopped to one side, cradled in Éleusie’s arms.
Château de Larnay, Perche, October 1304
Dressed in a sumptuous sapphire-blue robe adorned with a fur trim and embroidery as fine as that of any princess, Mathilde de Souarcy strutted up and down in front of the ladies and gentlemen of her imaginary court, alternately curtseying and putting on a coquettish air.
As she now considered herself a grown woman, she had instructed her servant to braid her hair into coils around her head.
She clucked with delight. How boring it had been stuck inside that bleak abbey where her mother had thought fit to send her after the Grand Inquisitor from Alençon had come to inform her that the time of grace had begun. How tedious to have to get up so early and go to church, and be forced to help make beds and fold linen for love of thy neighbour! And yet, there were plenty of lay servants to relieve well-born girls like her of those duties. During what she considered a scandalous imprisonment, which had lasted less than a week, Mathilde’s biggest fear had been that she might end her days amid the dreary, bustling activity of Clairets. However, she had not counted on the devotion of her dashing uncle Eudes. God only knows how relieved she had felt when she learned of his arrival at the abbey. He had immediately demanded that the Abbess hand over his niece, and Éleusie de Beaufort had been unable to resist the order for very long. Eudes was Mathilde’s uncle by blood and in the absence of her mother became her official guardian. Indeed, owing to her uncle’s generosity she had lived like a princess for the past few weeks. The bed chamber he had provided for her had been that of the late Madame Apolline. It was spacious and well heated thanks to the large hearth, which was the height of modernity, possessing as it did two small shutters, one on either side, allowing the heat to circulate more efficiently. On the bare stone walls, brightly coloured hangings depicting ladies taking their bath kept out the damp. She slept every night in the vast bed, and felt a little uneasy when she tried to imagine the activity that must have taken place there – for she could only assume that it was here Madame Apolline had received her husband. What had gone on between those sheets? She had attempted to find out by occasionally probing Adeline or Mabile. The two fools had burst into fits of giggles and told her nothing. A mirror stood on a dainty jewellery dresser with sculpted legs. Her miserable rags had been stored in two large chests flanking the hearth until, one day, her uncle had angrily demanded that they be burnt and his niece dressed in keeping with someone of her status. True, some of the finery he had given her had belonged to her late aunt Apolline. But she did not resent her uncle for having the dresses altered to fit her. What a deplorable waste it would have been to throw them away, especially since poor Apolline, who was naturally ungainly, had done them little justice. Multiple pregnancies had only increased her agonising clumsiness. She had always given the impression of being trussed up in her robes and veils, and would stand like a peasant woman with her hands supporting her back, weakened by so many swollen bellies. In contrast, when worn by Mathilde, the linen and silk fabrics floated like delightful clouds.
An unpleasant thought blighted her good mood. Her mother was now in the hands of the Inquisition, and although Mathilde was unaware of the precise nature of the task of these friars, she knew them to be unforgiving and that anyone unfortunate enough to enter their headquarters was unlikely ever to emerge again. However, they were men of God and the Pope’s emissaries. If her mother had incurred their wrath, then it must be seen as punishment for a grave sin she had committed. Indeed, now she came to think of it, Mathilde was indulging her mother by not resenting her even more than she already did, for if Agnès de Souarcy was found guilty, the scandal threatened to taint her by association and thus jeopardise her future.
At least she was free of that good-for-nothing Clément. Mathilde had often felt sickened by her mother’s weakness for that common farm hand, son of a lady’s maid. How arrogant he had been towards her, though she was the sole heir to the family name! And he was mistaken if he thought she hadn’t noticed the expression of pained sympathy on his face when she spoke to him sometimes. The fool! Now she was enjoying her sweet revenge! He had fled the manor like a thief, proving in Mathilde’s view that his conscience was not clear. She had gleaned from Adeline that, besides the draught horse his mistress had supplied him with, he had taken only some food and a blanket. He must have left his crossbow, for serfs were not permitted to carry weapons. Yet another of her mother’s stupid ideas! A gleeful thought crossed the young girl’s mind. The forest was an unsafe place full of two-and four-legged predators. What if the ugly brat had been ripped to shreds?
This happy thought was interrupted by the cautious entrance of the servant Barbe, provided for her by her uncle.
‘Well, what do you want?’ Mathilde snapped.
‘Seigneur Eudes requests the honour of being permitted to visit you in your chamber, Mademoiselle.’
Mathilde’s face lit up at the mention of her beloved uncle.
‘The honour is mine. Well, don’t stand there – go and tell him!’
No sooner had the girl left the room than Mathilde rushed over to the mirror to check her hair and the fall of her dress.
Eudes chuckled as she lifted her arms and twirled around to let him see how his gift showed off her pretty figure to advantage.
‘You are a vision of loveliness, dear niece, and your presence here brightens up my household,’ he declared, forcing a note of concern into his voice.
The young girl was flattered by the compliment and fell straight into the crude trap he had laid for her.
‘And yet you seem so serious, uncle.’
Eudes was delighted to have so easily got her right where he wanted her.
‘It concerns your mother, my little princess, whom, as you know, I love as a sister. You see, her impending trial will have unfortunate repercussions for us all. If, as I fear, Madame Agnès is found guilty of h
eresy, it will bring shame upon us both. I know you are a clever child. You will therefore understand that a verdict such as this would not favour our dealings with the King of France – not to mention the disgrace that would tarnish the family name for ever. My life is done, but yours is only just beginning, and it would be a terrible injustice if …’ He ended with a sigh of despair.
Mathilde lowered her head in dismay. So, her uncle was confirming her own fears of the past few weeks. On the verge of tears, she murmured:
‘How unfair it would be indeed for us to be associated with my mother’s sins. Is there nothing we can do, uncle …?’
‘I have mulled over the alternatives during the last few nights when I was unable to sleep. It seems to me there is only one sure way … but it pains me to tell you what it is.’
‘Pray do, dearest uncle, I entreat you. The situation is serious.’
‘It is … Oh, the suffering I am about to cause you, you whose happiness is closest to my heart …’
Mathilde did not doubt his words. Far away from Manoir de Souarcy’s cold, gloomy interior, she was at last living the life she had always longed for: fine clothes, a servant to do her hair each morning, twice-weekly baths in milk and water scented with rosemary and violets, greeted like a young lady wherever she went. No! She had been deprived of it for long enough by her mother’s stubbornness and she refused to allow what was rightfully hers to be taken away from her! Moreover, she had an equal duty to protect her uncle, her benefactor.
‘I implore you … Nothing could be more terrible in my eyes than to see you publicly disgraced as a result of my mother’s mistakes – especially after you have been so good to her – too good.’
Magnificent! The pretty little fool had fallen straight into his lap!
‘You are so good, my radiant princess. What a comfort you are to me in my hour of torment. This painful solution would seem, then, to be the only one left to us. An accusation.’
Mathilde showed no surprise, for she had already thought of it herself. Had not Pope Honorius III advised in one of his encyclicals: ‘Let each draw his sword and spare neither his fellow man nor even his closest relative’? She saw nothing wrong in obeying the orders of God’s representative on earth.
‘As you know, niece, in the eyes of the Inquisition, failure to denounce a heretic is tantamount to complicity … It pains me to torment your sweet soul with such a decision.’
‘No, uncle. If my mother had not foolishly given refuge to that … that traitor Sybille, who was pregnant to boot, then you and I would not be in this situation. And after all … perhaps that devilish fiend, that succubus, did sow the seeds of heresy in my mother’s soul, condemning her to eternal damnation, which is far more terrible than any trial. I shudder at the thought.’
Inquisition headquarters, Alençon, Perche, November 1304
The first few days of the month had been warm and exceptionally wet. The slightest shower of rain would send evil-smelling torrents of mud hurtling through the streets, and yet Nicolas Florin did not yearn for Carcassonne’s sunnier climes. He had, as he liked to think of it, ‘sown the seeds’ of some very lucrative affairs, whose crop he would harvest once Agnès de Souarcy’s trial was over. Indeed, he was at any moment expecting a visit from one of his future guarantors of wealth.
Nicolas Florin had given instructions for Agnès de Souarcy to be left alone for a week in her cell in the dungeon underneath the Inquisition headquarters. She was not permitted to wash herself, and her chamber pot was to be cleaned out only every three days. Besides water, her diet would consist of three bowlfuls of milk soup made with root vegetables,67 and a quarter portion of famine bread, which Agnan, his secretary, had ordered especially from the baker. The man, surprised by such an odd request in a year when harvests were good, had assumed it was part of a penance.
Florin had been a little disappointed for he was sure that she would refuse such lowly nourishment. And yet she had dutifully finished every last crumb. He knew why: Agnès de Souarcy was preparing to hold out for as long as she could. Good … It would only make his game more enjoyable. A week. It was a long time to spend alone in the dank gloom with only one’s own thoughts for company, thoughts that turn in circles and always end up imagining the worst. Nicolas’s plan was a simple one, and had until then proved effective. Keep the accused in wretched isolation, terrify them for a few days, interrogate them and then allow a few visitors to bring them an agonising taste of what they were missing: freedom, their loved ones’ faces, the realisation that life outside, however hard, was sweet by comparison. In fact, this strategy was aimed at breaking down the most stubborn resistance in order to obtain a confession and he did not expect a confession from the beautiful Agnès, who was guilty of nothing more than refusing to yield to her half-brother’s lust. However, these bullying tactics would give the affair the appearance of an authentic trial, and he had spent hours relishing the thought of his victim’s face already twisted with fear.
He gave a sigh of contentment as he cast his eye over the narrow room that served as his office. His small desk, made of a second-rate wood that had begun to split, was almost buried under a pile of casebooks. These were indispensable to the inquisitor, who was obliged to record in them every last action, meeting, witness accusation, punishment meted out or torture employed. The aim was not so much to ensure the thoroughness of the procedure as to make sure that no case would ever be lost. If the accused were eventually found innocent, who was to say that he might not be tried again for some other crime?
His secretary, Agnan, entered silently, his head bowed, and waited for Florin’s permission to speak.
‘Well, Agnan. What is it?’
‘Seigneur Inquisitor, your visitor has arrived.’
‘Bring her in.’
The other man slipped soundlessly out of the room.
Marguerite Galée belonged to a wealthy family of burghers from Nogent; shipbuilders who no doubt had taken their name from the vessels they constructed.68 Nicolas had carefully researched the state of their finances.
The lady cut a fine figure in her fur-trimmed coat, too warm for the time of year. She could not have been more than twenty-two. Twenty-four at the most. The perfect oval of her face was framed by the sheerest of veils. A hint of vulgarity in her eyes belied the unassuming elegance of her posture, her upper body leaning backwards slightly so as to avoid stepping on the narrow train attached to the front of her dress, as worn by ladies of the nobility. The tiny silk slippers covered in mud that peeped out at every step were additional proof of her wealth, for by evening the sludge in the streets would have irrevocably ruined them.
Nicolas stood up to greet her and, holding out his hand, guided her to the chair on the other side of his desk. She sighed and gave a pretty shrug of her shoulders as she spoke hesitantly:
‘A distant relative, Baron de Larnay, heartily recommended you to me, Seigneur Inquisitor. I find myself in a very delicate situation from which I know not how to extricate myself. I have come to you … for advice, Seigneur Inquisitor. Your wisdom, which is equalled only by your indulgence, has been remarked upon among a … discreet circle.’
How exhilarating life was becoming: this ravishing, exceedingly rich young woman lowering her gaze before him and addressing him by his title ‘Seigneur Inquisitor’ at the end of every sentence; and as for the Baron de Larnay, well, he was turning out to be more interesting than he had first thought.
‘You flatter me, Madame.’
‘No, Seigneur Inquisitor. On the contrary, I … This is such a delicate matter …’
He paused. Marguerite Galée had been testing the water ever since she arrived and caution told him that he should continue feigning an inquisitor’s disinterested observation. However, he was afraid the lady might take fright and renounce her plan, in which case he risked seeing the generous compensation he was hoping for go up in smoke. The predatory look in her eye when she first arrived encouraged him to throw caution to the wind:
‘Madame, pray look upon this office as a confessional. I have listened to many stories in here, few of which have surprised me. It is not always easy to bring about justice. Is it not my role to remedy such matters … and my reward to receive the gratitude of such pure souls as yours?’
She raised her head and a knowing smile played across her lips, as alluring as an exotic fruit.
‘What a relief, Seigneur Inquisitor … The first of my worries is that, unhappily, I have as yet been unable to conceive. The second is that my husband is very ill … the doctors fear that the pain in his chest, which has left him breathless for weeks, will grow worse …’
She paused and bit her lip. Florin encouraged her to go on with an affectionate gesture.
‘Despite his advanced age, my husband’s father enjoys such perfect health that I am beginning to find it suspicious.’
So, this was the reason for the lady’s visit. Her father-in-law must be extremely wealthy. If her husband were to die before his own father without leaving an heir, this avaricious beauty wouldn’t see a penny of the old man’s money. Florin felt a nagging doubt. There were plenty of poisons available with which to rid oneself of an old man who clung stubbornly to life, which a woman such as she would have no difficulty in procuring. On the other hand, he had witnessed it many times: it was much easier to arrange for someone else to carry out a murder than to perpetrate it oneself. Even so, he was a little disappointed in her. Admittedly, though, an inquisitorial procedure was above suspicion, whereas a case of poisoning might incriminate the beneficiary.
‘Suspicious, you say?’
‘Indeed, as is my inexplicable sterility. You see, my father-in-law … Well, I would be putting it mildly if I said that he is not overly fond of me.’
‘Do you suspect him of improper practices?’
