Thief of Souls

by Ann Benson

  Would I recognize the pivotal clue when I tripped over it in this mess? Keep an open mind, Erkinnen had told me; good advice, but it was a lot easier to give than to follow.

  The division mailboxes were conveniently located just outside the locker room. A number of the full files were waiting for me already; they must have felt like hot coals to the guys who’d handed them over. I stood there for a moment with my arms full of detective stuff and recalled the bad old days when my job, however defiling, was pretty much over at the end of my patrol shift. I pushed the swinging door open with my rear end and went into the locker room. The benches had been replaced since my last visit; the new ones had that nonskid emery surface and were quite a bit wider. Were female cops getting broader in the behind, and did they need traction on their benches? Not like my time in patrol, when we had to meet specific physical limits.

  No one was in there—it was hours away from shift change, when the place would fill up with overlapping arrivals and departures. There was always a gabfest going on in there when I was still on the streets—we would brag about our kids, complain about our boyfriends and husbands, crow over a bargain. I heard from one of the new girls—a daughter of one of the guys who was already a cop when I came on—that there was a lot of gossip, some of it pretty nasty. Things do have a bad habit of changing.

  One thing that hadn’t changed, though, was the mid-shift solitude. No telephones—if someone wanted to reach me, they’d have to page me. I sat down on one of the benches and placed the stack of envelopes next to me, thinking I would just look at a couple of them and then go back to the division room.

  It was almost four hours before I got back upstairs.

  Every time I opened another envelope, it was like reading the same script over and over again. A young white boy had disappeared suddenly and without explanation. This boy would be slight of build, with blond or light brown hair, a sweet face, and very fair skin. Eyewitnesses would report seeing him in the company of an intimate immediately before the abduction, but the intimate (except the esteemed Mr. Garamond) would always seem to have an irrefutable alibi. I was ready to bet my pension that when the rest of the files showed up, the same pattern would surface.

  Doc’s interest was beginning to make more sense to me. You always want to feel outrage over these horrors, but when things fall into place like they were just now, a guilty excitement creeps in. I pass GO pretty quickly and head straight for the revenge is mine sayeth the detective square. I become the huntress in lion skins; I am sharpening my spear. I am setting out at a trot with the spear in my hand. I am hungry. I will eat.

  eleven

  It came to pass as I feared it would—during the course of our inquiries, which took far more time than I thought prudent, more children vanished. Even before Pentecost, a boy was lost. The widow of Yvon Kerguen, who was a mason of great skill in the parish of Saint-Croix in Nantes, put her son in the charge of the insidious Poitou, whose reputation ought to have been well-established by then, yet somehow it continued to be ignored. The boy was never seen again.

  They eat small children there.

  And why on earth did people keep giving their sons to him?

  We were promised benefits. The same story was told over and over again. I cannot understand why any would believe him—was there some insane hope that one boy would not fall prey to the same fate as all the others, that one child would be spared by virtue of some intangible quality that all parents hope they have bred into their children but rarely do? It would have to be immortality, for nothing short of that seemed to protect them.

  The Kerguen lad was fifteen and supposedly quite comely for a boy on the verge of manhood. He was said to have been small and very young-looking. He was nearly as fair as a girl, they said, and soft-spoken.

  My Michel had been comely but far from small—he had long, straight legs and all the grace such favored limbs can bring. It was always a pleasure to behold him, this creature that God had seen fit to bring into the world through me. He was making his entry into manhood with far more dignity than most boys do; he had none of the ropy clumsiness that marks his sex so cruelly in the years when voices deepen and shoulders broaden. He would often slip his arms around me and hug me tightly with unconditional adoration—the lucky woman he took to wife would not lack for affection. To this day I can remember how it felt to have his arms around my neck; I need no exotic Italian conjurer to bring to mind the tightness of his grip, the warmth of his cheek on mine, the pure joy of having him close, of just having him.

  But of course I could not keep him—no mother ever keeps a son, though I gave mine up much earlier than most, and with far more pain.

  In the beginning of May another boy was taken, again near Machecoul; he had gone with many children of his village seeking alms at the castle there, the parents thinking there would be safety in numbers. Always the girls were given alms first and then they would depart, leaving the boys to try for themselves. On the day in question, a son of the pauper Thomas Aise and his wife, who lived in Port-Saint-Pere, went to the castle with the group but for some reason was passed over time and again as donations were made. Finally, when everyone else had already received, they gave him alms.

  But this time there was a witness to his taking. A young girl by the name of Dominique had remained behind to wait for Aise’s son because she was sweet on the boy and hoped to walk home with him. Her aunt had come forward to the Magistrate with the story she had been told by her confused little niece, who had walked all the way home by herself in the darkness when the boy did not return. She was too young to understand the dangers she might face, and I must admit that she seemed a bit simple—not feebleminded, precisely, but slow.

  I freely confess, may God forgive me, that I took advantage of this weakness of hers. She was brought to us one afternoon, delivered discreetly through the Magistrate, after a request by his Eminence that she appear before us. We had already decided that it would be better for me than for the Bishop himself to speak with her, for she was a shy child in the presence of adults, or so her mother claimed. I wondered how she had been forward enough to wait for an older boy.

  When her mother presented her, I understood.

  “Move forward, Dominique,” the mother scolded, literally shoving her daughter forward to stand before us. I wondered if it had been at the suggestion of this domineering mother that the girl had waited for the boy. He was young, but not so young that he would ignore a girl’s flirting. I took her to be perhaps thirteen or fourteen, a bit older than the lad. To get with child might be such a girl’s only hope of securing a husband.

  Jean de Malestroit stayed well back in the room while I spoke to her. If I failed to get from her what we needed, he could step in.

  “Bonjour, ma chérie,” I said.

  The mother tapped her on the shoulder, quite hastily. The girl curtsied and said, “Bonjour, Mère.” Then she clasped her hands together in front of her white apron, which looked to have been soundly laundered for the occasion of this visit to the Bishop’s palace.

  “Thank you for coming here today.”

  “Oui, Mère,” she said, dipping again.

  “I am told that you know something of what happened to the son of Thomas Aise. You saw him enter the castle at Machecoul, your aunt says.”

  “That is true, Mère.”

  “Did he enter alone, or in the company of anyone else?”

  “In the company of a man.”

  “Do you know this man yourself?”

  “No. But I have seen him before in Machecoul. They say he is called Henriet.”

  I had to be careful not to allow my distress to show. Nor my unholy and shameful excitement! I had not yet told Jean de Malestroit of my thoughts regarding Milord de Rais and these disappearances.

  “Did you hear what this man Henriet said to the Aise boy?”

  “His name is Denis, Mère.”

  “Denis, then. Did Monsieur Henriet say anything to him?”

  “Oui,
Mère,” Another hasty but unnecessary curtsy was performed before she could continue. “He said that if Denis had not had any meat, he could enter the castle and be given some.”

  Meat would be a powerful enticement to a hungry child. “Did Denis say anything in return?”

  “No, but he went directly inside.”

  “Did he speak to you before doing so?”

  Her head drooped slightly. “No.”

  She said further that she saw him led away. She was the last person who saw him outside the castle.

  We gathered all of this new information together and put it to parchment along with that pertaining to the earlier disappearances. Sheaves lay everywhere in stacks and folios; I wondered why they did not burst into flame with the heat of what was inscribed upon them.

  One day we stood among them, and it all came to roost.

  “Guillemette.” He said it with great resignation.

  “Yes, Eminence . . .”

  “A pattern emerges.”

  “Indeed, Eminence. I have been thinking so myself as well.”

  A moment passed while each of us dwelled on the trouble we had uncovered. “What shall we do about it?” he said finally.

  I cannot describe the thoughts that traveled through my heart and soul at the time, for they are too diffuse and jumbled. I did not want them to take greater form within my mind. But they did anyway, against my will. “I am not the one who ought to be asked that question,” I said quietly. “I cannot make an untainted judgment.”

  There was no need for me to explain myself further. He knew what was in my heart well enough. But there was no way he could understand the true nature of my anguish—it cannot be comprehended by anyone who has not raised a child with all good intent and patience, only to watch that child’s character waver terribly from the true path.

  “It seems obvious that Milord de Rais is stealing these children, or at the very least that someone in his service is doing so. Could he be so blind to the activities of his retainers that he does not know?”

  “One hopes that he is,” I said.

  I breathed several times before his observation reached my ears. “But you do not think that.”

  “I do not know what to think,” I cried, almost plaintively. “They may be taking advantage of their positions of trust with him to offer enticements without his knowledge. There is always that possibility, Eminence.”

  Jean de Malestroit gave me a very troubled look.

  “Well, it is possible, and it cannot be discounted.”

  I could see the Bishop straining to hold himself in check. But I placed no such restrictions on myself. “I am loath to believe this of him,” I went on. “My intellect tells me one thing, my heart another.”

  It was a lie. In my heart, I knew the truth. Even then.

  His Eminence then stunned me with a nearly vicious declaration. “As for me,” he fumed, “my own intellect has little difficulty with the notion that Gilles de Rais could so easily disregard all decency in pursuit of unclean pleasure.”

  I stood speechless for a few moments, then folded my arms over my chest in defense of my heart. “Eminence, he is a nobleman—he is not expected to comply with the rules of ordinary life. You know his history—you have known him all his life.”

  “As have you. Far more intimately than I. Though my lesser knowledge gives me a clearer eye than yours—it seems that you are blinded by your emotions in a most feminine mode. I had hoped for better from you in this matter.”

  The insult stung, but I let it pass, understanding that people sometimes use such mockery as a weapon in defending a difficult position. “You cannot deny that his life, even beyond his nobility, has been far more than ordinary.”

  “That I will admit, Sister, both to the good and the bad. But he is no more or less ordinary than any other man in the eyes of God. Still, he behaves as if he were the law unto himself. He answers to no one.”

  Though the acts we were investigating were worthy of such disdain, our certainty was far from absolute that the man on whom he bestowed it was truly deserving thereof. It surprised me greatly to hear such ranting from a man whose unblemished intellect I so admired, upon whose friendship I could always depend. I felt compelled to refute those rantings, right or wrong. “I know him well, Eminence. I saw him pray at Pax. His prayers are far more sincere than my own, truth be told.”

  “Guillemette—”

  I raised a hand, rather more boldly than was prudent. “Hear me,” I insisted, “though it may displease you. He answers to God, Eminence, as do we all. You yourself were present when he gave his sins to God and was absolved. We cannot know what sins those were, what deeds he—”

  I had to stop speaking in mid-phrase—there was such a sudden and stark change in Jean de Malestroit’s expression that it caught me short. His eyes shifted guiltily back and forth beneath the eyebrow. Somehow he must have gotten Olivier des Ferrieres to reveal the utterings of the confessional to him, and thus knew all Gilles de Rais’s transgressions. I could only imagine by what means he had pried those private revelations out of the lesser priest.

  I turned to leave; such was my indignation at this turn of events. He caught my sleeve in his hand.

  “Guillemette, there is much you do not know about this man.”

  I shook off his grip and walked slowly to the window. Young boys, some of whom I recognized as sons of important noblemen, were being led across the courtyard stones by one of our teaching brothers. The first few walked in quiet single file behind the brother, who hugged some treasured volume to his chest and stared resolutely ahead. Those toward the end of the line engaged in far less decorous behavior; they were skipping about and swatting at one another with open hands. Gilles de Rais would have worked his way to the end of the line so he could partake in such friskiness; he would not have tolerated the austerity forced on those in the front positions. He would not have had to. But Milord Guy would not allow his son to be schooled in a group; he would only sanction the presence of my sons Jean and Michel, so this was all speculation on my part. But it was speculation based on deep knowledge, as were all my assumptions about him.

  “Eminence,” I said quietly, “I know the contents of his soul better than anyone alive, his wife perhaps included. I shaped him.”

  “I understand that this pains you,” he said slowly. “But you before anyone else should know that the man defies the rules that are set out for him. There will come a time when he will try to defy even God Himself, and that will be his ultimate undoing. Mark my words—it will come to pass as I predict.”

  In the middle of May, on a warm sunny day when the world should have been a finer place than it turned out to be, Milord Gilles did as was predicted. He rode out of Champtocé to the abbey at Saint-Etienne-de-Mer-Morte, accompanied by perhaps sixty men-at-arms with full armor and weaponry, as if a small country were to be taken rather than an abbey and church. Milord himself was said to have brandished a long pointed pike, though few soldiers can use such a weapon as lethally as those of a more innocuous appearance, or so my husband once said. It is the fierce look of such things that frightens opponents into submission, Etienne claimed. He must have been right, because Gilles de Rais met no resistance at all, not that there was any to be encountered—the “commander” of the castle was a tonsured cleric, Jean le Ferron, a man known for the generosity and mildness of his character.

  The news was brought by a swift rider, whose lathered horse fairly dropped when the man dismounted. Frère Demien and I were in the garden at the time, engaged in a bit of conspiracy over the location of certain plantings, which discussions were always dominated by my brother in Christ by virtue of his expertise and passion. But passion or not, when my gossip-loving brother saw the messenger fairly run into the Bishop’s palace, he excused himself, after a glance that promised a quick return when intelligence on this budding mystery was properly had.

  The tale he came back with sent me running, skirts in hand, to Jean de Malestroit, who q
uickly confirmed what Frère Demien had already revealed.

  “But why should he take by force a property that he inherited?” I said, my bewilderment genuine.

  “He no longer owns it.”

  “He would never sell Saint-Etienne!”

  “It appears that he would. He sold it to Geoffrey le Ferron.”

  Duke Jean’s treasurer, no lover of la famille de Rais. “Dare you say . . .”

  “Temper yourself, Guillemette—I know this to be true. It was all arranged at Machecoul.”

  Affairs of state was all Jean de Malestroit would say when I asked about his mission on a journey we had made there the previous autumn. The meetings that took place behind closed doors were discreet and, judging by the expressions of the departing participants, somber. Now it all made sense; of course Milord’s representatives would be somber upon having to give up such a gem as Saint-Etienne.

  “Le Ferron should have put troops there instead. His brother is man enough to keep watch over the doings of the place, but certainly not to defend it. Of course, he never expected such double dealing from Lord de Rais, or he would not have left it so exposed.”

  One cannot imagine what a ludicrous scene this must have been—Gilles de Rais, bold and armored atop his huge mount, insulting and threatening this timid man with bodily harm, but only after he had first been dragged out in chains by the Marquis de Ceva and thrown to the ground. A desperate and confounding move.

  “But why would he part with Saint-Etienne?” I fairly moaned. “He was baptized there.”

  “Apparently he, too, believes it was a mistake, Sister. He has ruthlessly stolen it back. The sale was made in a desperate attempt to raise funds because his expenditures have so depleted his stores.”

  “Has his situation become that dire?”

  “One sells what one can, Sister, when there is no other means of bringing in gold. But—common brigandage?”