The Lady Agnes Mystery, Volume 1

by Andrea Japp

  ‘We think so … but we are not entirely sure. All of Francesco’s research and calculations point to it being her.’

  ‘Why is her life so precious?’

  ‘We still do not know despite our endless speculations. Madame de Souarcy has no link with the Holy Land … Therefore she does not belong to the holy lineage as we had first supposed. Come and sit down here next to me, Annelette.’

  The towering woman moved a few paces from the door with what seemed a heavier step than usual. Éleusie enquired:

  ‘Are you afraid?’

  ‘Of course I am, Reverend Mother. And yet doesn’t human greatness lie in the ability to conquer that inborn fear which makes us want to hide in a hole and never come out, and carry on fighting?’

  Éleusie gave a wistful smile.

  ‘You might be describing my life. I have always been afraid. I have tried hard to be brave and have failed more often than I have succeeded. I increasingly regret that death spared me and not one of my sisters. Any one of them would have been so much stronger and more resolute than I.’

  Annelette sat down beside her on the edge of the bed and said softly:

  ‘How can you be sure of that? Who knows where or to what end we are being moved on the chessboard of which you spoke?’

  The apothecary nun let out a sigh. The two women sat in silence for a moment. Éleusie was the first to speak:

  ‘I feel as if I am surrounded by an impenetrable fog. I have no idea what to do or which way to turn.’

  Annelette sat up straight, declaring in her usual commanding tone:

  ‘We are not alone now. There are two of us, and I have no intention of allowing that evil snake to strike again with impunity. No! She will have me to contend with, us, and we will show her no mercy!’

  The Abbess felt some of the same self-assurance – the same anger even – that she detected in Annelette. She too sat up straight and asked:

  ‘What can we do?’

  ‘Firstly, we must increase our vigilance in order to guarantee our own safety. As I told you, Abbess, our lives are no longer ours to do with as we please, and certainly not to make a gift of to any murderess. Secondly, we shall conduct an investigation. Benoît is dead. We are therefore on our own and can expect no more timely help from him. The criminal is cunning. I suspect that she pilfers my remedies from the cupboard in the herbarium, which proves that she is well versed in the art of poison. I plan to remove the contents of certain bags and phials. We will need to store them in a safe place …’

  Éleusie immediately thought of the library. No, she would keep the knowledge of that secret place even from Annelette.

  ‘Then I will lay a little trap of my own for that snake.’

  ‘What trap is that?’

  ‘I prefer it to remain a surprise, Reverend Mother.’

  Annelette’s caution reassured Éleusie: the apothecary nun would not be taken in by anybody. So she did not insist upon being told her plan and simply nodded.

  ‘And now,’ her daughter continued, ‘we must turn our thoughts to Blanche de Blinot. Why would anyone want to murder a senile old woman who is going deaf and forgets everything she says or does from one moment to the next?’

  The portrait was scarcely a charitable one, but Éleusie was beyond the customary petty reproofs it had been her task to mete out before.

  ‘Blanche is our most senior nun,’ the apothecary continued, ‘and your second in command, as well as acting prioress during her moments of lucidity, which are becoming few and far between.’

  Annelette jumped up. A sudden thought had occurred to her. She pointed an accusatory finger at the Abbess and all but shouted:

  ‘And she is guardian of the seal!’

  ‘My seal!’ Éleusie cried out in horror, also jumping up. ‘Do you think somebody might have taken it? A seal breaker!72 My seal can be used to send secret messages to Rome, to the King, to sign deeds, even death sentences … and any number of other things …’

  ‘When Blanche is not using the seal to authenticate minor documents in your name in order to lighten your chores, where is it kept?’

  ‘In my safe with my private papers.’

  No sooner had she spoken than it dawned on her. Annelette appeared not to notice her unease for she insisted:

  ‘And is it there now?’

  ‘No … I mean, yes, I am certain it is,’ confirmed the Abbess, touching her chest to make sure that the key she always wore on its heavy chain was still there.

  The sudden change in her voice alerted Annelette, who studied her attentively and waited for her to continue.

  ‘As an extra precaution, every abbey safe has three keys. The lock will not open without the combination of all three. It is the custom for the Abbess to have custody of one, the guardian of the seal another and the prioress the third.’

  ‘Am I to understand that as guardian of the seal and prioress Blanche keeps two keys?’

  ‘No. Our senior nun’s waning faculties induced me to take one back and entrust it to the cellarer nun, who answers directly to me and whose position in the abbey hierarchy makes her the obvious next choice.’

  ‘That spiteful creature Berthe de Marchiennes! I wouldn’t trust her with my life.’

  ‘You go too far, my child,’ Éleusie chided half-heartedly.

  ‘And what of it? Have we not gone beyond polite pleasantries? I don’t trust the woman.’

  ‘Nor do I,’ the Abbess confessed, ‘and she is not the only one.’ Éleusie paused for a moment before recounting the curious scene she had stumbled upon some weeks before: the exchange between the schoolmistress, Emma de Pathus, and Nicolas Florin, whom she had been obliged to lodge at the abbey.

  ‘Emma de Pathus actually spoke to the inquisitor whose presence we were forced to endure?’ echoed Annelette Beaupré, stunned. ‘The man is evil. He is one of our enemies. What could they have been talking about? Where might she know him from?’

  ‘I have no idea.’

  ‘We must keep a close watch on her, then. But firstly we must ensure that nobody has stolen the key from Blanche.’

  ‘The safe cannot be opened without my key.’

  She could read in her daughter’s strained expression the thoughts that she was keeping to herself. Éleusie voiced them for her:

  ‘Indeed … If Berthe de Marchiennes … I mean, if the murderess is already in possession of the other two keys, then I am the last remaining obstacle,’ she concluded. ‘Let us go and question Blanche … Dear God, poor Blanche … what easy prey.’

  They found the old woman in the steam room as they had expected. Blanche de Blinot sought relief for her aching bones in the only room that was heated at that time of year. She had made a little niche for herself in the corner where, with the aid of a lectern, she was able to sit and read the Gospels instead of standing up on painful limbs. The senior nun looked up at them, her eyes red from crying, and stammered:

  ‘I would never have believed that I might one day live through such a terrible thing, Reverend Mother. Poor little Adélaïde, a poisoner in our midst, and one of our own. Has the world come to an end?’

  ‘No, dear Blanche,’ Éleusie tried to comfort her.

  ‘Everybody is convinced that I am gradually losing my faculties and no doubt they are right. But my mind hasn’t stopped working entirely. That tea was meant for me, wasn’t it?’

  The Abbess paused for a moment before admitting:

  ‘Yes, dear Blanche.’

  ‘But why? What have I done to make anyone wish to kill me? I, who have never offended nor harmed even the smallest of creatures?’

  ‘We know, sister. Annelette and I have considered this atrocity from every angle and have gradually come to the conclusion that it wasn’t a personal attack on you. Do you still have the key I gave you? The key to the safe.’

  ‘The key? So this is about the key?’

  ‘We think it might be.’

  Blanche sat up straight on her lectern, trying not to wince with pa
in.

  ‘What do you take me for!’ she exclaimed in a voice that brought back to Éleusie some of the woman’s former determination. ‘My mind might wander sometimes, but I am not senile yet, contrary to what some say.’ She shot Annelette a withering glance. ‘Of course I still have it. I can feel it all the time.’

  She pulled a leg out from under the lectern and thrust an ungainly leather shoe at the apothecary nun.

  ‘Come on. Since you’re still young, take off my shoe for me and roll down my stocking.’

  The other woman obeyed. She discovered the tiny key under the sole of Blanche’s foot. The metal had left its indentation in the pale flesh.

  ‘This can only add to your aches and pains,’ Annelette remarked.

  Intent upon scoring a victory, Blanche retorted:

  ‘That may be so, but I can be sure I’ll never mislay it. Do you really think you are the only one in this abbey with an ounce of common sense?’

  The apothecary nun stifled a smile she deemed incongruous in these perilous circumstances, and confessed:

  ‘If indeed I did entertain such thoughts, you have proved me wrong.’

  Blanche acknowledged her sister’s rejoinder with a nod of satisfaction and declared:

  ‘Your honesty does you credit.’ A sudden sadness extinguished the old woman’s fleeting contentment. ‘You are right about one thing, though. I am very old and prone to falling asleep. No. I do not resent any remarks you might have made about my enfeebled state.’ Turning to the Abbess, she concluded: ‘Reverend Mother, you are aware of the friendship, esteem and affection I feel for you. Pray relieve me of the burden of this key. If I found this painful hiding place, it was because there were times when during my too frequent naps I felt something brush against my neck or waist. Perhaps it was merely an impression, as in a dream. But I took it seriously enough to choose … my shoe.’

  ‘And it was very wise of you, Blanche,’ Éleusie praised her. ‘Let us entrust the key to our apothecary. We will publicly announce that you have been disencumbered of it at your own request without revealing who its new keeper is and in this way …’

  ‘No one will try to kill me in order to steal it,’ the old woman finished the sentence for her.

  ‘What a shrewd idea of yours, sister, to keep it in your shoe. I shall do the same,’ Annelette lied.

  She had already decided upon a hiding place. She regretted lying to poor Blanche but continued to believe that the old sister’s advanced age had weakened her faculties and was concerned lest she give herself over to idle and dangerous chatter. Only she and the Abbess would know where she planned to keep the key.

  They left Blanche de Blinot, safe in the knowledge that she would sleep more easily.

  Back in her study, the Abbess said:

  ‘Lend me your key for a few moments. I am going to ask the cellarer nun for hers, too. I want to make sure that my seal is safe. I shall see you afterwards, Annelette.’

  The other woman understood that she was being dismissed and did not take offence. No doubt the safe contained private documents. Moreover, she had to prepare her little trap, as she had chosen to refer to it.

  Éleusie de Beaufort found Berthe de Marchiennes, the cellarer nun, by the hay barn. She was overseeing the counting of the hay bales being stacked in a pile by four serfs. Éleusie was instantly puzzled by Berthe’s expression. She could detect no hint of sorrow on her face, or indeed any emotion whatsoever. Éleusie stifled a growing feeling of hostility. Berthe had not been close to Adélaïde, nor was she to any of the sisters. The cellarer nun was muttering under her breath:

  ‘For goodness’ sake! What idlers! At this rate we’ll still be here at nightfall.’

  ‘The bales are heavy.’

  ‘You are too charitable, Reverend Mother. The men are slothful, that’s all. All they think of is eating their fill at our expense. My father was right to …’

  Berthe stopped in mid-sentence. Her father had beaten the living daylights out of his serfs, blaming them for all his own mistakes. He had starved them and left them to die like animals and the Abbess knew it. Just as she knew that the late Monsieur de Marchiennes had taken one look at his newborn baby girl before declaring her ugly as sin, without prospects, and never giving her another thought. Berthe clung to a dream she knew to be impossible. She still aspired to the life she felt she had been deprived of, a life in which she would have been beautiful, the life her name predisposed her to, had it not been for her father’s indifference and stubborn foolhardiness, which had been the ruin of the family.

  ‘My dear Berthe, would you please lend me the key to the safe which I put in your charge.’

  Éleusie thought she saw a flicker of hesitation on the cellarer’s face, and was surprised by the woman’s sudden awkwardness as she stammered:

  ‘Why, naturally … I … I always keep it with me. Why … Of course it is not for me to question your reasons for opening the safe, but …’

  ‘Quite so,’ interrupted Éleusie sharply. ‘The key, if you please.’ The Abbess was becoming uneasy, on edge. Was Berthe going to tell her she had lost it? Had her silent reservations about the cellarer nun been justified? She held out her hand.

  The other woman’s crumpled, embittered little face creased up even more. She unbuttoned her robe, pulled out a long leather thong and lifted it over her veil. On the end of it hung the key.

  ‘Thank you, daughter. I shall return it to you the moment I have finished with it.’

  *

  A quarter of an hour later Éleusie was shaking so much as she jiggled the three keys into position in the lock that it took her two attempts. She scarcely glanced at the seal, but let out a loud sigh of relief as her hand alighted on the pergamênê73 containing the plans of the abbey. It was the only record of the existence and location of the library, and the Abbess was no longer in any doubt that this was what the murderess was looking for.

  Château de Larnay, Perche, November 1304

  Eudes de Larnay reread for the fifth time the brief summons signed by the inquisitor, Nicolas Florin.

  What was the meaning of this new development? When Florin had advised him to produce a written statement from Mathilde de Souarcy, he had understood that the young girl would not be required to appear before her mother’s judges. It was not so much that the baron wished to protect his niece, but that he was afraid that the tissue of lies he had filled her with might begin to unravel during a cross-examination.

  And what of it! Florin had enough evidence to keep Agnès rotting in prison for a few months and to dispossess her of her dower! Since he was now Mathilde’s legal guardian, her inheritance belonged to him for the time being. Time enough for him to achieve his aim. That flighty little madam wouldn’t have a penny left to her name once he had finished with it. And when her uncle had tired of her youthful charms, he would send her to a nunnery whether she liked it or not. After all, girls there were fed and clothed and at least no one could hear them lamenting their fate.

  He felt that the inquisitor was treating him very lightly. He even appeared to make barely veiled threats. Eudes reread the note aloud:

  ‘… You will bring your niece to the Inquisition headquarters at Alençon without further ado and leave her alone in our company so that we may determine the reliability of her suspicions and grievances regarding Madame her mother …’

  There was no entreaty, no polite phrasing.

  Eudes was seething. It meant taking Mathilde all the way to Alençon. No doubt they would have to arrange a wagon since the foolish girl was terrified of horses and slumped over the neck of her mount like a straw doll hanging on to the reins. Agnès was like a centaur in comparison, undaunted even by the perilous ladies’ side-saddles. The fastest, most spirited destriers responded to the pressure of her calf as though they had at last found their true master. It was Eudes, no one else, who had taught her to sit in a saddle from the age of five. She had shrieked with laughter, ducking to avoid low branches, fearlessly fording river
beds, clearing hedges and was often the victor when they raced each other.

  Suddenly, he felt aghast at the stupidity of his plan. What had he been thinking! Besides money and the power it brings, all that had ever mattered to him was Agnès. How had it come to this? What did he care for that foolish, heartless girl strutting about in cast-offs while her aunt, who had died giving birth, was barely cold in the ground? Agnès would rather have put on the clothes of a beggar than accept such unseemly gifts. She would have held her head up high, a queen among queens clothed in rags, and all would have bowed before her. She would have slept on bare boards like a dog rather than occupy the deserted conjugal bed. Dear God, how had it come to this?

  Was it him or their blood ties that repulsed her so? It must be their blood ties. If he believed otherwise, it would drive him mad. Yet what did she really know of her true origins? Agnès’s mother might have lied in order to force the late Baron Robert to recognise her child. In any case, his father Robert, his grandfather, and now Eudes himself, the last in the male line of the de Larnay family, had sired so many bastards that he sometimes wondered whether he might not be bedding his sisters, nieces, cousins, aunts, even his own daughters. And what of it? In the end were they not all descended from Adam and Eve? Had not Adam and Eve borne two sons, one of whom had killed the other? They all shared the same blood.

  A thought was slowly forming through his rage and jealousy, through the pain of his unrequited love and frustrated desire. Until then he had believed he was the sole originator of his plan, but had he not in fact been manipulated? True, he had for years dreamed of wreaking his revenge on Agnès, of making her pay for her arranged marriage to Hugues de Souarcy by robbing her of her dower. But never of handing her over to the Inquisition. He trawled his memory.

  Incapable of admitting that he was an animal driven by his passions and brutalised by his lack of intelligence, Eudes discovered the one person he could blame: Mabile.