by Ann Benson
“Tomorrow.”
“And the posting?”
He looked down at his empty plate. “There is time yet,” he said.
My own plate had disappeared, and a beautiful crème appeared before me as if by magic but in reality by the hand of a young novice so quiet one would hardly know she had entered the room. I could not recall seeing her at the convent, though she was assuredly installed there; she wore the same habit and wimple as all the other novices and was equally invisible.
I admired the beautiful dessert for a moment, but had no more appetite. Feeling suddenly watched, I looked up; Jean de Malestroit’s eyes were upon me so intensely that I could feel the burn of them. On this night, I was not invisible.
Two days of rain kept us all indoors, but Frère Demien still watched carefully over his ripening fruit. From the safety of an upper window, I would see him from time to time shaking water off the heavy limbs, thus to keep the branches off the ground. There were dozens of trees, and hours worth of rain to be shaken off. An impossible task, except for those who are divinely inspired to success.
As the light was nearing its retirement for the day, I watched him walk back to the abbey for what I thought might be the last time before sunset. He was himself in need of a shaking, for he was drenched to the skin. On the road that passed between the orchard and the episcopal edifices, he crossed paths with a rider, one who must have known him, for the man stopped and spoke with the young brother for a few moments. When they parted in opposite directions, I thought I saw Frère Demien’s pace pick up.
He came straight to me, breathless, still in his wet robes.
“There is news,” he said, dripping and panting. “De Sille and de Briqueville are gone. They have left Lord Gilles’s service and run off.”
Who could fault them, in truth? These scoundrels must have known that their master and cousin was no longer in a position to defend them. But what unholy ingrates—they had departed with some of his fortune. They had been responsible for the acquisition of building materials for his chapel, for the purchase of clothing and gifts for his victims, for the procurement of the supplies required for transporting a bloated entourage. Had these rogues added a sou or two to each item on a bill and presented it to Milord for payment with his own share added in? It was as certain as the rain that fell outside the window.
One hoped Milord was not dullard enough to expect better of them; if so, he was proving himself to be the duped fool I had begun to think him. These thoughts were troubling, but other notions regarding Milord Gilles—some even more disturbing—were slipping into my mind as well, one in particular that would not let go but at the same time refused to allow itself to be identified. Try as I might, I could not make it surface in my mind. In time I knew it would.
Despite Frère Demien’s efforts, the lower branches in our orchard were finally skimming the ground. Horrified, our good brother conscripted us all, from the lowest novice to myself. En masse, we went out into the still-wet grounds and tied the offending branches up with such ropes and cords as we could put our hands on quickly—in one case, a frayed cord from a monk’s robe. We picked off all fruit that showed the potential for later imperfection and propped the lightened stems up on Y-shaped sticks gathered from the nearby woods. The necessity for this massive effort escaped more than one of us, but we adored our prodigious brother and tolerated his quirky anxieties with what amusement we could manage.
Toward the end of the morning, as I labored among my daughters in Christ, a movement in the far distance caught my eye. I came out of the shelter of the trees and peered into the west. An entourage of some sort approached. As the column advanced, I saw Duke Jean’s familiar standard billowing in the wind. Mud rose up behind them like so much dust on the roads, and in what seemed less than a heartbeat the entire party disappeared through the gate into the courtyard. I excused myself, though I need not have done so, being the highest among the workers, and started in a trot toward the castle, rolling my sleeves down as I made my way through the garden and across the road. In the main courtyard I managed to untie my apron and tossed it into the kitchen as I passed, which elicited a look of surprise from the scullery maid, who was quick-witted enough to catch it. As I wound my way up the staircase, I tried to straighten my veil and cap.
All of which proved fruitless in the end, for the first thing Jean de Malestroit said when he saw me was, “You are disheveled, Guillemette. One would think you had rushed here from someplace . . . feral.”
“The orchards,” I explained. “Frère Demien—”
He sighed in resignation. “When does the young man manage to find time for his devotions?”
“Those are his devotions, Eminence,” I said breathlessly. “But enough of this chatter. I saw Duke Jean’s riders.”
“Yes,” he said. “They have just left me with his messages. Not a minute ago.” He placed his hand on the sheaf of pages that lay on his table. “I have just begun to read them.”
Uninvited, I sat, to wait.
“He would finish him with one swift blow,” the Bishop said to me before he was completely done. “Take hold of all his properties, here and in France, to cripple him completely.”
“But he cannot assume control of the estates in France. . . .”
“Not legally.”
The pages landed with a soft thwump on the table where he tossed them. I ached to read them for myself but contained the urge.
“Duke Jean may do whatever he wishes to do,” he mused, “but such a seizure will have consequences, one of which would no doubt be the loss of King Charles’s favor. The King is in no way indebted to or enamored of Lord Gilles—more likely he would as soon be rid of him as the Duke is. But there is still rancor between Charles and the Duke in the wake of that failed rebellion, which the Duke supported—against my advice, of course.”
Of course, I thought. “But surely that has been resolved between them.”
“The King has a long memory, I fear.”
“He seems to have a short memory for the support of those who put the crown on his head. Milord Gilles among them, lest you forget also.”
I suppose it was for my benefit that he made himself look chastised. “No one forgets that, Guillemette. But these matters transcend the memory of Milord’s bravery. He behaves as the worst of cowards now.”
“Even a coward has rights where his own land is concerned.”
“A coward who has committed unspeakable crimes may be forced to forfeit his rights. Now, if you will allow me . . .”
He went back to the pages; I watched him read. His concentration was intense and unbroken. After turning the last page over, he sat back in his chair, folded his hands together in his lap, and sat very still. He might have been in prayer. When he opened his eyes again, it seemed that he had reached a conclusion.
“I shall advise Duke Jean to proceed very carefully in these matters. Whatever trial takes place, whatever charges are brought, there must be no doubt of their fairness.”
“Such perfection would require cooperation between Duke Jean and the King,” I said, “for their interests are at odds with each other.”
He paused and regarded me for a moment. “By all the saints, Guillemette, I believe you are wasted as an abbess. You should be a diplomat. Why have I not seen these qualities in you before?”
It was because they had only just begun to emerge.
To me it seemed that fairness was the best Gilles de Rais could hope for, as exoneration in any form was no longer possible. To Jean de Malestroit, it was the means by which he could preserve the dignity of all the players in the legal battle as well as the integrity of its outcome. We spoke a bit longer of strategies toward the end of fair justice; I knew that his Eminence would have many such conversations with the men who would stand with him at the table of judges, and it occurred to me that he was practicing in our discourse for what would surely come.
“I am beginning to think it would be best,” the Bishop concluded aloud in o
ne of his musings, “for King Charles to give over control of Milord’s properties in France to Duke Jean. But he will chafe at making so public a concession to his rival.”
“Then a liaison might work, one who will shield both parties from embarrassment. Perhaps the Duke’s brother Arthur,” I offered. “He is Constable of France and as such is an intimate of the King.”
“There is yet a childish rivalry between the Duke and Arthur. One hopes this brotherly intrigue will turn out better than that which transpired between Cain and Abel, should it be advanced.”
I had my doubts. I wondered briefly if there would be such a rivalry between my sons now if Michel were still with us. There was nothing over which they might quarrel, really; no estate, no money or inheritance. The only thing they had in common was an alliance with Gilles de Rais—Michel as a child, Jean as a young man. Many times in my secret heart I have wondered why Gilles had gone out of his way to help Jean, to see him so well placed in Avignon. Perhaps it was because he needed some true brotherhood; his still-running rivalry with his own brother, René, had started when Jean de Craon bequeathed his sword to René, not Gilles as was expected. Thereafter it was all tit-for-tat between the blood brothers.
“Brotherhood is often a difficult state of kinship, though one would hope it might be otherwise,” I said. “Surely the Duke and Arthur can overcome their differences under the circumstances. With some guidance, of course.”
“One hopes. It would be greatly beneficial to all concerned.”
His Eminence conferred later that day with his advisers, who agreed that it was a brilliant course of action. A letter was composed suggesting to Duke Jean that he meet with his powerful Frère Arthur to discuss his intentions toward Milord.
If you are intent upon confiscating Tiffauges and Pouzages as settlement for the fine imposed upon Milord Gilles, you must first prevail upon your brother to convince the King to allow you to do so without interference. It is the wisest path for all involved.
Of course, all of this brilliance would go for naught should Charles suffer a sudden tumor of conscience over his debt to Gilles for his support of Jean the Maid, without whose victories he would not have been crowned. But it had been nearly a decade since the incurrence of that debt, nearly a decade since she had been put to death. Long memory or no, Charles would not pay his debt unless its repayment was directly solicited. It seemed to me that peasants always know when their debts are due, yet kings rely on their creditors to remind them.
We sat on our horses and regarded the fortress at Vannes. How many of these monstrous edifices had I encountered in my days on this earth? Far too many, I think. Often I think the lowborn can only imagine the intrigues that take place on the other side of the murky moats. As a woman mid-born, I had seen enough to know that too much of it was unholy.
Inside these walls, above which flew Duke Jean’s standard, there occurred a meeting between brothers, wherein an accord was reached under the guidance of His Eminence Jean de Malestroit, by divine ordination Bishop of Nantes. Arthur de Richemont, Constable of France, friend and ally of King Charles, would occupy Gilles de Rais’s properties in France, including Tiffauges and Pouzages. Duke Jean would be spared the embarrassment of doing so himself. King Charles would be spared the appearance of acquiescence and the shame of having his treachery regarding Gilles de Rais made public. In return for all this, de Richemont would receive Milord’s Breton estates when they could be legally confiscated.
We traveled from Vannes to Tiffauges, where de Richemont met up with us. The confiscation of Tiffauges was bloodless and quick. The priest Jean le Ferron, who was still imprisoned there after his humiliation at Gilles’s hands in the assault on Saint-Etienne, was finally released into our safekeeping. The poor man still bore the angry red scars of his beatings, though he rode over the drawbridge with his head raised high in dignity and triumph. He spoke not a word as we escorted him back to Nantes, where we gave him into the hands of his brother, Geoffrey.
There could no longer be any doubt that Gilles de Rais would tumble from his high wall of glory and that he would not rise again, ever.
A chill wind from the west nipped at my ankles as I stood on a wood platform and reached up into the branches to retrieve the highest of the apples. Jean de Malestroit was so preoccupied with preparations for Milord’s undoing that he required less of me, a situation I either liked or disliked depending on my mood. Simple harvest tasks brought me peace: I carried boxes for some of my elderly sisters, whose willingness exceeded their strength, and I was thereby blessed with an illusion of youth. I steadied ladders while young brothers climbed toward heaven to retrieve God’s bounty. I consoled a novice who had unwittingly consumed half a worm by telling her that the slimy things had hidden medicinal benefits and were often disguised in elaborate potions—so a learned midwife had told me. In these small services I found the means to concentrate on the joys of the moment without dwelling on the terrors that surely lay ahead. But contentment will always be subject to God’s whimsies, and so it was on this day. Up high on my picking box, I was the first to see the young monk who came out of the Bishop’s palace and into the orchard. I watched with curiosity as the boy/priest approached Frère Demien, who listened for a few moments and then glanced in my direction.
I stepped down from my box and selected from my basket the most perfect apple I could find, then polished it vigorously on my sleeve. When Frère Demien arrived at my side, I presented it to him with inordinate ceremony.
“We are blessed this year, I think,” he said as he accepted it.
“We are,” I concurred. “I am enjoying these calm moments of bringing in this harvest.”
“Then I fear I must interrupt your enjoyment. His Eminence wishes to speak with you.”
“Ah, Guillemette,” Jean de Malestroit said when I arrived. “What frown is this?”
“Does it not seem unnatural to be inside stone walls on such a glorious day?”
“Perhaps Frère Demien’s excessive love of gardening has taken hold of you as well.” He hesitated for a moment, as if he were rethinking something, then said, “Forgive me for taking you from your serenity. But I thought you might appreciate seeing this before it is seen by others.”
He handed me a parchment inscribed in an unfamiliar hand. As I lowered myself into a chair, I skimmed over the greetings and salutations, as they were always the same in any legal document, which is to say confusing and plagued with frivolities. In the name of, by the grace of, under the auspices of. These words did nothing but delay my arrival at the only part of the missive that mattered:
We, not desiring that such crimes and heretical sickness, that grows like a canker unless it is torn out immediately, should be ignored in silence, by neglect or dissimulation, and further desiring to bring the required remedies with efficiency, in the name of these present, we request and require you, one and all, without any placing blame on the other or excusing himself at the expense of another, by this one binding edict, to cause to show yourself before us or our representative in Nantes, on the Monday that follows the Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross, to whit, the 19th day of September, the nobleman Gilles de Rais, knight, our subject and under our jurisdiction, whom we summon accordingly by the terms of the present letters before Us as well as before the case prosecutor of Our court in Nantes, charged with proceeding in the affair, in order to answer for its protection in the name of faith, as well as law, and for this, it is Our wish that our present letters be duly executed by you or by another among you.
Given the preceding Tuesday, the 13th day of September, in the year of our Lord 1440.
Which day it happened to be, though early still, so the document could not yet have been delivered to its intended recipient. The page was transcribed by order of the Lord Bishop Jean Guiole, a man not ordinarily among our familiars. I set the parchment on my lap. “You did not sign it yourself.”
“Others have the authority to do so.”
Another legal no
tice would follow the next day:
I, Robin Guillaumet, cleric, notary public in the diocese of Nantes, was careful to render executory as intended these letters promulgated against the said Gilles, knight, Baron of Rais, named as principal in this same writ, and executed by me in my own right this September 14th, in the year 1440, according to the form and manner mandated by the same letters.
“Again, my Bishop, you did not sign.”
“It is not required that the signature be mine,” he said.
He would try to keep his distance.
Nor did Jean de Malestroit accompany the arresting party when they arrived in Machecoul two days later on the fifteenth of September—he sent another avocat in his stead to accompany Duke Jean’s captain of arms. The party of legal representatives and soldiers presented themselves, well-mounted and heavily armed, at the gate of Milord’s castle.
These were Gilles de Rais’s peers and familiars, among them men who had gone to battle with him against the English at Orléans. I tried to imagine the hardness of spirit it would require to arrest one’s own brother-in-arms. Somehow, in an act of incomprehensible manhood, Captain Jean Labbé, who once rode among Gilles’s own forces, read the warrant of arrest and demanded that Gilles de Rais surrender to his party immediately.
We, Jean Labbé, captain of arms, acting in the name of my lord Jean V, Duke of Brittany, and Robin Guillaumet, Lawyer, acting in the name of Jean de Malestroit, Bishop of Nantes, enjoin Gilles, Comte de Brienne, Lord of Laval, Pouzages, Tiffauges and other such places, Marshall of France and Lieutenant-General of Brittany, to grant us immediate entry to his castle and to make himself our prisoner so that he may answer to charges of witchcraft, murder and sodomy.
As always, we removed ourselves from the chapel after Vespers and returned to the abbey. Jean de Malestroit was no master of verbiage that evening, nor I its mistress; we said barely a word to each other as we passed under the arches that surrounded the outer edge of the church.
