Holy Fools

by Joanne Harris

  “Help Soeur Virginie to tie her down,” ordered the abbess to Marguerite. “You—yes you, Soeur Auguste! Bring a calming infusion.”

  I hesitated for an instant. “I—Perhaps it might be better if—”

  “At once, you fool!” The nasal voice was sharp. “A calming drink, and a change of bedclothes! Go quickly!”

  I shrugged. The morning glory seed requires an empty stomach to avoid ill effects. But I obeyed; ten minutes later I returned, carrying a light infusion of skullcap leaves sweetened with honey, and a fresh blanket.

  Clémente was delirious. “Leave me alone, leave me alone!” she screamed, flailing at the proffered cup with her unsecured left hand.

  “Hold her down!” cried Mère Isabelle.

  Soeur Virginie poured most of the infusion down Clémente’s throat as she opened her mouth again to scream. “There, ma soeur. That will make you better,” she shouted above the noise. “Just try to rest—”

  Her words were barely uttered when Clémente vomited with such force that reeking liquid splattered against the wall of the infirmary. I shrugged inwardly. Virginie, who had been liberally showered, shrieked, and Mère Isabelle, beside herself, slapped her smartly, as a spoiled child may slap her nurse in a fit of temper.

  Clémente vomited again, leaving a trail of slime over the new blanket. “Fetch Père Colombin.” Her voice was hoarse with shrieking. “Fetch him now!”

  LeMerle had been standing in silence at a safe distance. Now he moved closer, delicately avoiding the patches of vomit on the floor. “Let me pass.” In fact there was no one obstructing him, but we responded to the voice of authority. Clémente too responded; she turned her face toward him and whimpered softly.

  LeMerle held out his crucifix.

  “Mon père!” For an instant the afflicted woman seemed quite lucid. She whispered in her hoarse voice: “You said you’d help me. You said you’d help—”

  LeMerle began to speak in Latin to her, still holding the crucifix between them as if as a weapon. I recognized the words as a fragment of the exorcism service, which he would no doubt perform in full at some later date.

  “Praecipio tibi, quicumque es, spiritus immunde, et omnibus sociis tuis hunc Dei famulum obsidentibus…”

  I saw Clémente’s eyes widen. “No!”

  “Ut per mysteria incarnationis, passionis, resurrectionis, et ascensionis Domini nostri—”

  In spite of everything I felt a sudden surge of guilt at her suffering.

  “Per missionem Spiritus Sancti, et per adventum ejusdem Domini.”

  “Please, I didn’t mean it, I’ll never tell anyone—”

  “Dicas mihi nomen tuum, diem, et horam exitus tui, cum aliquo signo—”

  “It was Germaine—she was jealous, she wanted me for herself—”

  When Janette used the drug in ceremonies and divination, it was in tiny doses after a long period of meditation. Clémente had been unprepared. I tried to imagine the depth of her terror. Now, at last, the drug was reaching its final stage. Soon the attack would be over, and she would sleep again. LeMerle made the sign of the cross over Clémente’s face. “Lectio sancti Evangelii secundum Joannem.”

  But his refusal to acknowledge her seemed to contribute to her agitation. She grasped at the sleeve of his robe with her teeth, almost knocking the crucifix from his hand. “I’ll tell them everything,” she snarled. “I’ll see you burn.”

  “See how she recoils from the Cross!” said Marguerite.

  “She’s ill,” I said. “Delirious. She doesn’t know what she’s doing.”

  Marguerite shook her head stubbornly. “She’s possessed,” she said, her eyes shining. “Possessed by the spirit of Germaine. Didn’t she say so herself?”

  Now was no time to argue. I could see Mère Isabelle watching us from the corner of my eye and knew she had heard every word. But LeMerle was unmoved. “Demons who have infested this woman, name yourselves!”

  Clémente whimpered. “There are no demons. You yourself said—”

  “Name yourselves!” repeated LeMerle. “I command you! In the name of the Father!”

  “I only wanted—I didn’t mean to—”

  “Of the Son!”

  “No—please—”

  “Of the Holy Spirit!”

  At this, Clémente finally broke. “Germaine!” she screamed. “Mère Marie! Behemoth! Beelzebub! Ashtaroth! Belial! Sabaoth! Tetragramma-ton!” She was weeping now in fast, gasping sobs, the names—many known to me from Giordano’s various texts, but doubtless gleaned by Clémente from Alfonsine’s raptures—coming from her lips in a desperate rush. “Hades! Belphegor! Mammon! Asmodeus!”

  LeMerle laid a hand on her shoulder, and such was her agitation that she shrieked again and drew away.

  “Possessed!” whispered Marguerite again. “See how she burns at the touch of the cross! Hear the names of the demons!”

  LeMerle half turned to face the rest of us. “Evil news indeed,” he said. “I was blind enough yesterday to believe there might be another explanation for her illness. But now we have it from her own mouth. Soeur Clémente has been infested by unclean spirits.”

  “Let me help her, please.” Unwise, I knew, to draw attention to myself, but I could bear it no longer. All the same I was very aware of Virginie’s eyes on me, and behind her, those of our little abbess.

  LeMerle shook his head. “I must be alone.” He looked exhausted, the outstretched hand that held the crucifix visibly shaking with the effort. “Anyone who stays here puts her soul in peril.”

  Clémente, between sobs, began to recite the Lord’s Prayer.

  LeMerle took a step backward. “See how the demons taunt us!” he said. “You have named yourself, Demon, now let us see your face!”

  As he spoke, a cold draft blew from the open door, flickering the flames in the candles and cressets that illuminated the room. Instinctively I turned; others followed my lead. Beyond the door, in the darkened hallway, a white figure hesitated just out of the range of our light. I could barely make out its shape; it appeared to float vaguely down the passageway, skirting the light with delicate precision so that all we saw of it was the habit it wore—so similar to our own—and the pale quichenotte that hid its face completely.

  “The Unholy Nun!”

  I grabbed the cresset from Virginie and sprang forward with its small flame in my hand. Marguerite shrieked and clawed at my sleeve. I paid no attention but took three paces into the passageway, carrying my light before me.

  “Who’s that?” I cried. “Show yourself!”

  The Unholy Nun turned, and I had time to see dark-stockinged legs beneath the robe. So much, then, for its ghostly floating. The hands, too, were gloved in black. Then the figure began to run down the passage, moving lightly and quickly away from the light.

  Someone at my back called out impatiently, “What did you see?”

  Someone else tugged at my wimple, my arm. I dislodged the grip with some difficulty, fighting to keep hold of the cresset. When I looked back the apparition had gone.

  “Soeur Auguste! What did you see?” It was Isabelle, clutching me as if she never meant to let go. At close quarters her complexion looked worse than ever; small angry red sores were blooming around her mouth and nose. Janette would have prescribed fresh air and exercise. Fresh air and sunshine, she would have said with her familiar cackle. That’s the thing for a growing child. That’s what made me the beauty you see before you. If only Janette were here now.

  “Yes indeed, Soeur Auguste, what did you see?” The polite tone was LeMerle’s, touched now with a note of mockery only I could hear.

  “I—” I heard my voice waver. “I’m not sure.”

  “Soeur Auguste is a skeptic,” said LeMerle. “Perhaps even now she doubts the presence of demons in Soeur Clémente.”

  I kept my eyes fixed to the cresset’s light, not daring to face his smile.

  “Soeur Auguste,” said Isabelle shrilly. “Tell us at once. What did you see? Was it the
Unholy Nun?”

  Slowly, reluctantly, I nodded.

  A wave of questions followed. Why had I pursued her? Why had I stopped? What exactly had I seen? Was there blood on the bonnet? And on the surplice? Had I seen the face?

  I tried to answer them all. Where lies were needed, I lied. Every word I uttered drove me further into LeMerle’s power, but I had no choice, no strength to resist it; I lied by necessity. For in the second when the specter turned to me, face-to-face and almost close enough to touch in the dim passageway, I had recognized the Unholy Nun. My dearest friend, her gold-ringed eyes wide with something almost like amusement. As if this were a game with nothing more at stake than a handful of glass marbles.

  It made perfect sense. Her innocence protected her. Her silence was assured. And only I had heard the faint bird laughter that followed the specter’s disappearance into the gloom, that hooting, inhuman note no other throat could quite duplicate.

  There could be no mistaking that sound, those eyes.

  It was Perette.

  Part Four

  Perette

  42

  AUGUST 10TH, 1610

  So far, so good. But the task that remains is a delicate one. I have only five days until his arrival, and the skeins of my delicate weaving become ever more twisted and tortuous. Clémente remains in her bed in the infirmary, quiet now but not, I suspect, for long. I have spent many hours at her side with Virginie in attendance, incense and holy water in hand. A sharp needle concealed in one sleeve ensured her cooperation throughout the final stage of her drug’s effects; with it I pricked her with scientific precision when a scream or a curse was required, and in her dazed condition she was unable to distinguish the pains of her visions from those of the hidden instrument.

  With becoming gravity I pronounced Clémente possessed by 250 demons. I spent much of the remainder of the morning in my library, engrossed in several texts on the subject, then emerged some little time before midday with a list of their names. This I proceeded to read to Clémente in slow, measured tones whilst Virginie watched in slack-mouthed awe and the doomed girl on the bed writhed and pleaded.

  I knew that Juliette would refuse to administer another dose of her morning glories, but I had enough for my immediate needs, and as the day wore on and I saw Clémente begin to regain her senses I began to foresee the need for a repetition of the procedure. I knew already that my l’Ailée would disapprove. But what could she do?

  Mass was, of course, canceled. I “studied” in my rooms, with a book of Aristotle’s maxims hidden within the covers of the Malleus Maleficarum. Services without me were a dull affair, I gather, but I made a show of fearing another repetition of the frenzies and the Dancing Mass.

  Meanwhile, Marguerite watched over Clémente and—in spite of strict instructions from me not to breathe a word of the day’s events—diffused the terrible news of her possession throughout the abbey. Of course this had been my intention all along, and the rumors, all the more appealing for being forbidden, were soon repeated, expanded, embellished, and otherwise disseminated as widely as dandelion seed.

  My principal source of unease lies in Juliette. Her discovery of the identity of my Unholy Nun was perhaps inevitable but nevertheless troubles me a little. The wild girl is her friend, so I’m told, and she feels loyalty to her. Not so the wild girl, who can be bought for a trinket and whose silence is beyond rubies, but if Juliette were to learn the full extent of my plans…

  Foolishness, of course. Perette is a primitive creature, an unformed mind with no more intelligence than a trained monkey. It took me a little time to break her—indeed, I spent two sleepless nights in the crypt curing her of her unreasonable fear of the dark—but now she fawns on me as trusting as a spaniel, her small hands cupped, begging for the next treat. I’m sorely tempted, when I leave this place, to take Perette with me. There are so many uses to which I could put her. And Juliette—But I must not think of Juliette. By Sunday she will have learned the full extent of my treachery, and I cannot hope to be forgiven this time. But Perette is another matter. Even untrained, she is nimble beyond expectation. Sleight of hand is child’s play to her. She can move unseen and unheard in a room of sleepers without disturbing a single one. She can run like the wind, climb like a squirrel, curl up and hide in the tiniest of spaces. I could even teach her to dance on a rope. No one could hope to equal my Ailée, but perhaps with practice…I could paint her face with walnut juice and pass her off as a savage from Canada. They’d pay to see that.

  Yes, among all the rest I might yet save Perette.

  43

  AUGUST 10TH, 1610

  Of course, after what I had seen in the infirmary I went to Perette as soon as I could. That was in the morning, after Prime. We all went to our duties a little late, for the abbess was with her confessor and we guessed that discipline might be a little relaxed. I found Perette, as I expected, in the stables where we kept our beasts. She had taken some stale bread with her, and the place was awash with the hens and ducks and speckled pullets that had followed her in. She looked at me inquiringly.

  “Perette.” She smiled then, a wide-open smile of delight, and indicated the birds. She looked so happy—and so innocent—that I felt oddly reluctant to speak of the morning’s incident. I steeled myself nevertheless. “Never mind the hens, Perette. I saw you in the infirmary this morning.” She looked at me pertly, head to one side. “I saw you pretending to be the Unholy Nun.”

  Perette gave the hooting cry that in her passes for laughter.

  “It isn’t funny.” I took her arms and turned her to face me. “It could have been very dangerous.”

  Perette shrugged. She is clever enough at some things, but when we broach the subject of might-have, or could-have-been, or would-be, she tends to lose interest.

  I spoke slowly, patiently, using simple words she knew. “Perette. Listen to me. Tell me the truth.” She smiled at me, giving no sign of whether or not she understood. “Tell me, Perette. How many times have you—” No, that was wrong. “Perette. Have you played this game before?”

  Perette nodded and hooted happily.

  “And did—did Père Colombin ask you to play this game?”

  Again, the nod.

  “Did—Did Père Colombin say why he wanted you to play this game?”

  That was more difficult. Perette thought for a moment, shrugged, then held out a grimy palm. In it rested a small brown object. A piece of sugar. She looked at it, licked it, then replaced it carefully in her pocket.

  “Sugar? He gives you sugar when you play the game?”

  Perette shrugged again. Then, fumbling around her neck, she drew out the small medallion I had seen LeMerle take from her only a few weeks ago, now secured by a piece of twine. Christina Mirabilis smiled out from the bright enameled disc.

  Again I made my voice slow and coaxing. “So, Perette. You played the game for Père Colombin.” Perette smiled and ticked her head from one side to the other. The medallion winked in the sunlight. “But why did he want you to play the game?”

  The wild girl shrugged and turned the medallion over in her fingers, catching the light. I tried to curb my impatience. “Yes, Perette, but why did he ask you? Did he tell you why?”

  Again she shrugged. What did it matter why he wanted it, said the shrug, as long as there was sugar and trinkets?

  I gave her a gentle shake. “Perette. What you did was a bad thing.”

  She looked puzzled at that, beginning to shake her head in denial. “A bad thing!” I insisted, raising my voice a little. “It wasn’t your fault, but it was bad all the same. Père Colombin was bad to make you do it.”

  Perette turned her mouth down sulkily and made as if to pull away. I held her back. “Do you remember Fleur?” I said suddenly. “Do you remember when they took Fleur away?”

  Perhaps she did not, I told myself. It had been almost a month since Fleur’s disappearance, and Perette might already have forgotten her young playmate. For a moment she looked puzzle
d, then raised her hand in the gesture she had always used to indicate the child.

  “It was Père Colombin who took Fleur away,” I told her. “He may seem very nice, he may give you presents, but, Perette, he’s a bad man, and I need to know what he’s planning!” My voice had risen again, and I was gripping her arm painfully. Her blank expression told me that I had gone too fast, that I had lost her. “Perette, look at me!”

  But it was too late. The moment of contact was gone, and Perette had returned her attention to the birds. As I turned away, furious at my own impatience, I saw her sitting in a clucking mound of them, arms outstretched, her lap a mass of white, brown, speckled, golden, green, and red feathers.

  And yet I cannot give up. If there is a key to this enigma, it is she. My sweet Perette, my innocent. Whatever he is planning, she knows it. It may be beyond her understanding, but his secret is there, hidden within her as securely as in a Chinese puzzle box. If only I knew what it was. If only I could break your locks, my dear.

  44

  AUGUST 11TH, 1610

  I tried to talk to LeMerle all yesterday, but he avoids me, and I cannot afford to draw attention to myself. Last night his door was locked, the light extinguished. I wondered whether he was in the infirmary but dared not go to see. Clémente is still incapable of rational speech, so Antoine tells me, alternating long periods of lethargy with intervals of wild, wakeful delirium. During those times she has to be secured to the mattress for fear she might injure herself. Often she tears at her clothing, exposing herself, thrusting violently at the air as if ridden by a demon lover. At these times she may scream or moan in terrible pleasure, or claw at her face in an agony of self-loathing. Better to tie her down, though she pleads to be released, thrashing her head from side to side and spitting with uncanny accuracy at anyone who dares approach her.