by Andrea Japp
He raced up to the servants’ quarters, where his mistress and accomplice had been holding court since her return to the chateau. She had cleverly insinuated to the other servants that not only did she serve her master in his kitchen but also in his bed, thus making them respect her more, since none could be sure of the true extent of her influence.
Eudes found her sprawled on her bed, dipping her finger in a pot of honey and licking it. She greeted his arrival with a suggestive smile and opened her legs beneath her dress. Under other circumstances such an invitation would have produced an immediate effect. Not today. He seized the girl by the scruff of her neck and slapped her with such force that she moaned:
‘What …?’
‘You lied to me! You’ve been lying to me from the start,’ he exploded.
Bewildered, Mabile snapped back:
‘Well, that makes two of us.’
Another blow, this time from his fist, sent her hurtling to the floor.
The servant understood that her master’s anger was real and that he was quite capable of giving her a thrashing. Dragging herself up onto all fours, she cried:
‘My lord … what is it?’
‘The truth. I want the truth this instant. If you lie to me again, I’ll kill you.’
The girl’s fear gave way to rage. That loathsome Agnès. She should have known. She sat back, her legs folded under her, and hissed:
‘Is my lord feeling pricked by remorse? Well, it’s a little late for that.’
Eudes walked over to the crouching girl and kicked her in the chest, eliciting a cry of pain. She fell forward, and even as she gasped for breath her body shook with malicious glee as she spluttered:
‘I’ll wager the lovely Agnès isn’t quite so full of herself these days. And, if you don’t mind me saying so, I wouldn’t bother trying to save her. The punishment reserved for perjurers is scarcely better. And the same goes for that haughty little madam you treat as though she were the lady of the house. It’s too late, I tell you! That lynx Agnès de Souarcy is going to die and it serves her right.’
‘Who told you that?’
‘I found your mysterious visitor’s suggestion most appealing, a real ghoul he was … Though not unreasonable. He spoke of such punishments and abuse as I could never have dreamed of inflicting upon the lovely Agnès, and then gave me the name of the Grand Inquisitor you were to see.’
Eudes realised that Mabile’s hatred would only end when her rival was dead. He understood that he had been used, that he had fallen headlong into a trap he had wrongly believed was of his own making.
‘Why … Why do you hate her so much?’
‘Why?’ she hissed venomously. ‘Why? Because without even having to ask she received everything I begged to be given. Because she grudgingly deigned to accept what I wanted so desperately I was prepared to kill for it. Because when you bed me, you want me to be her. Need I go on?’ She let out a spiteful laugh before concluding: ‘I’m not without brains … It was I who stole her pretty little handkerchief and planted it a few yards from where the bailiff’s men found that corpse. The fools … They didn’t even realise that if they didn’t find it the first time they looked, it was because somebody had hung it on a low branch after the murder. If the bastard manages to escape the clutches of the Inquisition, which I doubt, she will fall directly into the hands of secular judges.’
Eudes felt as though a huge abyss were opening up in front of him. He enquired in a trembling voice:
‘She never really lay with her chaplain, did she?’
‘What of it? Provided people believe she did, that’s good enough for me. As for that pest Clément’s mother being a heretic, it is more than likely, but I couldn’t give a fig either.’
Eudes felt an icy chill descend on his thoughts and declared blankly:
‘You have half an hour in which to leave the chateau. You will take with you only enough food for a day’s consumption. You will be searched before you go. Should you dare to return here or communicate any of our shameful secrets, you will meet a slow and painful end.’
With these words he left the room. Mabile remained motionless for a few moments, unsure whether to cry tears of rage or sorrow. Rage prevailed for she had learned long ago that tears offered no protection.
She rose to her feet, vowing through clenched teeth:
‘You’ll pay for this a hundredfold, my master!’
Fortunately, the money she had been squirrelling away for years was hidden in a safe place at Clairets. Together with what she knew about Eudes, from whom she intended to exact a high price in exchange for her silence, it would enable her to start a new life elsewhere on a good footing. Pleased at her own foresight, she prepared to leave, putting on several layers of clothing.
‘You’ll pay for this, I swear upon my soul.’
Eudes lay slumped over the table in the main hall, his head resting in a red pool that was too watery to occasion any alarm on the part of Monsieur Manusser, Madame Apolline’s former apothecary. Furthermore, the empty pitcher lying beside him suggested that his master’s sleep was not due to tiredness. He tapped Eudes on the shoulder then quickly stepped back. Eudes groaned in his drunken stupor then sat up, his eyes half closed.
‘What is it?’ he roared.
‘Mabile left an hour ago, my lord; she took the road north. You instructed me to inform you.’
‘Is it dark yet?’
‘Almost.’
‘Was the hussy searched before she left?’
‘Your orders were carried out to the letter. Barbe searched her thoroughly, including her private parts. Mabile could not have concealed anything of value or any document about her person. We provided her with an oil lamp, as you requested, and with enough food for a day.’
‘Good. Is my horse saddled?’
‘Just as you instructed, my lord.’
Eudes stood up, a little unsteady on his feet, and said:
‘I need to clear my head. Have a bucket of cold water sent to me at once. I must … visit my mine.’
Sceptical but eager not to provoke his master’s rage, the apothecary bowed and left.
Eudes’s fist came crashing down on the table.
‘Ugly whore! Your evil scheming is over! Prepare to commend your soul to God – if indeed he does not reject it in disgust, for it must be putrid.’
He had given her an hour’s start to enable her to put a good distance between herself and Château de Larnay. The light from the oil lamp would help him find her.
Eudes rode through the forest. The sky was clear and the night air fresh and invigorating. A fine evening for an execution. Mabile had become too dangerous. Even so, he would follow her advice. It was impossible for him to retract his accusations, still less those he had put into his silly little niece’s mouth. He soon spotted her. She was following the road, keeping close to the edge of the forest, ready to sneak into the undergrowth at the slightest sound. She swung round to face the thunder of hooves, and Eudes raised his arm to put her at ease. He slowed his mount, stopping a few paces from her.
‘I let my temper get the better of me,’ he conceded gruffly.
Mabile raised her lamp so that she could see her master’s face.
Reassured, she gave a grin of triumph.
‘Let us return,’ Eudes ordered.
He dismounted and walked towards her. She wriggled coquettishly and pressed her body up against his. Two hands gripped her throat. She gasped and tried to struggle, scratching at his eyes, her legs thrashing about helplessly. He pressed as hard as he could, grunting with the effort. He felt something give in the girl’s throat. Mabile kicked one last time then went limp. He released his grip and her lifeless body slumped to his feet like a bundle of rags.
He dragged her into the bushes. Looking back one last time without a trace of sorrow or remorse on his face, he left her lying a few yards from the road with her skirts hitched up. If anybody found her before the animals got to her, they would conclude that she had been raped and left for
dead by some vagabond. Her peasant’s dress would rule out any thorough investigation.
Eudes felt relieved as he climbed back into his saddle. After all, she was just a servant, a strumpet who had turned out to be a little cleverer than the others. What’s more, she had been presumptuous and, above all, foolish enough to have lied to him about the chaplain. He should have got rid of her sooner. He had been far too indulgent. They were all the same, these harlots. Give them an inch and they take a mile!
Clairets Abbey, Perche, November 1304
Night was falling. A sharp wind had risen and was rattling the wooden shutters on the herbarium door. A pensive Annelette examined the contents of her tall medicine cabinet. She enjoyed these peaceful moments of solitude, this feeling of using her intelligence to rule over a domain that might be limited to the stout walls of the tiny building, but was hers.
Her fear had abated, as had her concern for the Abbess’s life. They had discussed the threat; now it was time to act. She was faced with a cunning enemy, clever as well as crafty – in short a worthy adversary. What had begun as a mission to protect the Abbess had turned into a personal challenge, a sort of wager with herself. Would she turn out to be the stronger, wilier opponent? Annelette’s foe, unbeknownst to her, had provided her with the chance to prove her ability. Annelette had waited all these years for an occasion to test the extent of her superiority, but had lacked any objective yardstick. Deep down, she was convinced that she was confronted with a creature whose brain worked exactly like hers, with the enormous difference that her opponent had chosen to serve evil. The apothecary nun had submitted fairly easily to the monastic rules of this community of women whom she mostly despised – just as she would a community of men. For her it was the lesser of two evils. And yet the thought of doing battle with another mind thrilled her. She would leave the prayers and supplications to others and make use of the intelligence God had given her. This was the most glorious mark of appreciation, the most complete form of allegiance she could show Him.
Annelette let out a sigh of contentment: the battle was about to begin and she would show no mercy. She would bring to bear all her scientific knowledge, her intellect and her loathing of superstition in the bid to combat her enemy’s cunning wickedness. She experienced a frisson of elation: when had she ever felt this free, this strong? Probably never.
She began by taking down all the bags of dried, powdered plants, the phials and jars containing the solutions, decoctions, spirits and extracts she had prepared during the spring and summer seasons. On the edge of the stone slab, she set aside for later use a small ampoule with a brown wax seal and then sorted the other remedies into two separate piles on the larger table. On the left, she placed those preparations which could not prove fatal in the tiny quantities a poisoner would use if adding them to food or drink: dried sage, thyme, rosemary, artichoke, mint, lemon balm and a host of others used to flavour food, as well as for treating minor ailments. On the right, she put the toxic substances that she would give to Éleusie to put in a safe place. Curiously, the phial of distilled Aconitum napellus root, which she used to treat congestive inflammations, general aches and pains and gout, did not appear to have been tampered with. Where, then, had the murderess procured the aconite that had killed poor Adélaïde? Unless she had been planning this for some time and had stolen the liquor the year before. Annelette then carefully examined the embroidered red lettering on the bags whose contents were toxic, and wondered which of them she might have chosen had she harboured evil intentions. Her gaze lingered on the crushed Digitalis purpurea74 leaves she used for treating dropsy and heart murmurs, the Conium maculatum75 she prescribed for neuralgia and painful menses, and the powdered Taxus baccata76 she mixed with handfuls of wheat in order to exterminate the field mice that attacked their granary. She was startled by how light the last bag felt. She hurried to the lectern where she kept her bulky register. In it she recorded the details of every prescription and what each bag weighed at the end of the week. She should have ten ounces+ of Taxus baccata. She rushed over to the scales. The bag weighed just over nine ounces. Nearly an ounce of yew was missing – enough to kill a horse, and therefore a man or a nun. Who would be the next victim? She scolded herself. She was looking at the problem from the wrong angle again. There were two possibilities. One was that their enemy was allied to the forces of darkness struggling to put an end to their quest. If this were the case, the poisoner would run into two obstacles in the form of her and Éleusie de Beaufort. The other possibility was more mundane but no less lethal. The poisoner was motivated by hatred or jealousy, in which case the next victim’s identity would be far more difficult to predict. Another thought occurred to her and she checked her register again for the date when she had last weighed the bag. She could now completely rule out one of her least likely suspects: Jeanne d’Amblin. The powdered yew could only have been stolen during the two days preceding Adélaïde’s murder – that is to say during one of the extern sister’s rounds. In any event it was a clever choice for there was no antidote. The symptoms of yew poisoning were nausea and vomiting followed by shaking and dizziness. The victim would quickly plunge into a coma before dying. The discovery confirmed Annelette’s suspicions: the murderess was knowledgeable about poisons … Or else she had been advised by someone who was, but who?
She must reflect, find a method of counter-attack. The bitter taste of yew could only be disguised in something very sweet and heavily spiced. In a cake. Or – and this would be the height of criminal ingenuity – in another bitter-tasting medicinal potion.
Thus whoever drank the nasty-tasting brew would not suspect that it contained poison.
It took Annelette a good hour to finish stacking the lethal substances in a big basket and replacing their phials and bags with harmless ones. She swapped aconite for sage, digitalis for milk thistle and filled with verbena the bag marked Daphne mezereum,77 that beautiful red-flowering plant, three berries of which were enough to kill a wild boar. The murderess could pride herself on having alleviated her next victim’s cough, colic or cramp if she decided to use it.
A smile spread across Annelette’s lips. She had come to the final stage of her plan. She removed the piece of cloth covering the crate of eggs she had filched from under the nose of the sister in charge of the fishponds and the henhouses. Poor Geneviève Fournier would probably have a fit when she discovered that fifteen of her beloved hens had not laid. She saw in the number of eggs she collected each morning proof of her good ministering to her birds and of the Lord’s munificence in her regard. The more eggs they laid, the more puffed up with pride she became, until she took on the appearance of a plump, contented mother hen. Annelette frowned at herself for thinking such uncharitable thoughts. Geneviève Fournier was a charming sister, but her harping upon the necessity of singing canticles to her hens, geese and turkeys in order to fatten them up for eating bored the apothecary sister as rigid as the necks of the ducks Geneviève crammed with grain.
She looked up as she heard a muffled sound coming from outside. It was well after compline.+ Who was up at this time of night? She lowered the covers of the two lighted sconce torches and walked towards the herbarium door. The sound started up again: cautious footsteps on the pebble paths that formed a cross separating the herb beds. She pulled open the shutter and found herself face to face with Yolande de Fleury, the sister in charge of the granary and one of her prime suspects, for who could obtain contaminated rye more easily than she? The plump woman turned white with fright and clasped her hand to her chest. Annelette demanded in an intimidating voice:
‘What are you doing here at this time of night, sister, when all the others are in bed?’
‘I …’ the other woman stammered, her cheeks turning red.
‘You what?’
Yolande de Fleury gulped and seemed to spend a long time searching for an explanation as to why she was there:
‘I … I felt an attack of acid stomach coming on just after supper … and I …�
�
‘And you thought you might find the right remedy yourself.’
‘Blackthorn usually …’
‘Blackthorn can be used for a range of ailments. It possesses diuretic, laxative and depurative qualities, as well as being very good for curing boils. You aren’t suffering from boils or acne by any chance, are you, sister? As for acid stomach … Milk thistle, centaury and wormwood are preferable. In short, any number of medicinal herbs other than blackthorn. I will therefore ask you again: what are you doing here?’
‘I confess that my excuse was a clumsy one. The truth is that I am upset about what has been happening, about poor Adélaïde’s terrible death, and I needed to take the air, to think …’
‘I see. And despite the hundreds of acres of land around our abbey you felt it necessary to “take the air” outside the herbarium?’
The other woman appeared even more distraught, and Annelette thought she might burst into tears. And yet something in her manner, although secretive, convinced Annelette that Yolande de Fleury was not prowling around in the hope of stealing poison from her medicine cabinet. Moreover, the murderess must already be in possession of the powdered yew.
‘That’s enough, sister! Go back to your dormitory this instant.’ Yolande then astonished the apothecary by clutching the sleeve of her robe and whispering nervously:
‘Will you report my presence here to the Abbess?’
Annelette pulled her arm free and, stepping back, retorted:
‘Naturally.’ She felt suddenly angry and scolded the other woman sharply: ‘Have you forgotten, sister, that there’s a monster in our midst? Don’t you realise that the murderess may have procured the poison from my cabinet, the poison that caused the horrific death of the sister in charge of the kitchens and meals? Or are you simply hare-brained?’
‘But …’
‘No buts, sister. Go back to the dormitory straight away. The Abbess will be duly informed.’
Annelette watched the young woman’s hunched, weeping figure vanish into the darkness. What had the foolish woman really been doing there? Her inept excuses had made Annelette frankly doubt that she could be the poisoner. And yet … What if her clumsiness were a clever façade?
