Thief of Souls

by Ann Benson

  I turned to speak to the Bishop, but he had slipped away, seemingly in a breath.

  The crowd reacted sharply when the Terce bell began to toll. The anger emanating from this mass of malcontents was vitriolic and hateful. Insults, curses, and threats were tossed off as if there were no consequences when a peasant maligned his sovereign. Before Milord’s disgrace commenced, the crowd would have parted in deference to his position, as occurred at Pax when he came to make his confession. Today there was no deference, only sneering and jibes.

  Soldiers of God attired in holy crimson were forced to turn their swords and lances toward the surrounding morass of humanity.

  “They would tear him apart right here and now,” I whispered to Frère Demien.

  “There are those who would say that such an outcome is not undesirable.”

  Not I among them; there lived within me an unholy ache to hear him speak of what he had done.

  Now more guards spewed forth from within the courtyard. The augmented force succeeded at last in parting the grasping crowd, and the litter surged forward once again, finally into the courtyard.

  We left our balcony post hastily and proceeded toward the chapel. It lay across an open rotunda, through which the stairs rose up. As we circled around it, we heard urgent footsteps coming up the stairs. I looked down over the railing and saw Milord in the midst of his guard; the entire party was rushing up the stairs, as if in escape, though they were no longer pursued.

  The handsome, charismatic Lord Gilles de Rais, brilliantly attired in royal blue, seemed dramatically out of place amid his crimson captors. Hearing my gasp, he looked up, and our eyes met. For the time it took him to climb the stairs, we remained locked in a mutual stare of bewilderment. I turned back time in my own mind and tried to imagine him entering under different circumstances, perhaps to receive some honor, and envisioned myself gaily clad in a gown, perhaps even with some cloth of gold upon it. By my side, whole and proud, would be Etienne, my adored and cherished husband, who would be bursting with pride at the accomplishments of his liege lord and partaking of a share in his own heart. A clarion would sound, and all who stood with us, many loyal retainers, would clap and shout praises. And in Milord’s gaze I would see the regard and honor I wanted him to feel for me as a woman whose influence upon him made him worthy of the many accolades he might have received, had things gone differently.

  Instead, I saw in his expression one brief moment of guilt, one flash of shame, before a hardness overtook it. And then, as if by some conjuring, the features of my once-beloved fils de lait began to melt away, until he was faceless in my eyes.

  I heard his voice; he said, as if from a far distance, “Mère Guillemette . . .” The sound was brittle and thoroughly without the tender regard that ought to have been there—

  Had things gone differently.

  What wits I had left I gathered to myself. “Milord,” I said, as resolutely as I could manage. It sounded all too much like the plea it was. “I must speak to you, there is something I must ask you.”

  I extended my hand, but he was past me, out of my reach, beyond my grasp. But I knew as surely as I stood there that I would never entirely free myself of his.

  On this day, perhaps the most momentous in Jean de Malestroit’s dual service, he looked every bit the patrician in his robes of deep-red velvet. Friar Blouyn, who sat at his side, was similarly decorated, though the effect was not nearly so breathtaking on him as it was on my bishop, who was the sacred and secular king of this courtroom realm for as long as it would take to accomplish the Duke’s ends. Both of their names were solemnly invoked at the opening of the proceedings by the Duke’s prosecutor Guillaume Chapeillon, who thereafter did most of the speaking.

  Jean de Malestroit appeared stern-faced and impassive, but I knew the man too well to believe that dispassionate visage. His fascination was plainly evident to me, both in his expressions and in the excited posture of his body, which slanted slightly forward for better hearing. Not to be outdone, Milord Gilles appeared to be equally unfascinated, and more—he was diffident, unconcerned, seemingly bored by the tempest that was about to engulf him.

  Frère Demien whispered to me, “I cannot fathom why he would indulge in such lunatic indifference.”

  “Nor can I,” I said.

  He might have been told by an advocate or legal adviser that a noble presentation would benefit him before the court. This was not the penitent man we saw at Pax, whose troubles drew down the very skin on his face, nor the man who had sliced a cat in half at Saint-Etienne, but rather something in the middle of those two. I watched him without interruption, my eyes fixed upon him as if my life depended on maintaining contact. He never looked directly at me again but stood silently as Chapeillon accused him of attacking Saint-Etienne, of taking a priest hostage. And lest it somehow be forgotten, of the sodomitic murder of many innocent children.

  The scribes diligently made their record:

  The Monday after the feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross, in trial before the most Reverend Father, the Lord Bishop of Nantes, sitting on the bench to administer the law in the great hall of la Tour Neuve in Nantes, personally appeared the honorable Guillaume Chapeillon, case prosecutor of the said court, who reproduced in fact the summons, with the published execution, on the one side, and the aforesaid Milord Gilles, knight and baron, the accused, on the other.

  “Will you submit to an admission of doctrinal heresy?” Chapeillon asked.

  I exchanged a glance of hopeful anticipation with Frère Demien that Milord would confess and save us all the agony of a protracted and controversial trial.

  But Gilles de Rais would not acquiesce. “No, your Grace,” he said, with surprising conviction, “I will not admit to this charge. Nor any of the others that have been made. It is my desire to appear personally before you, sir, and before any other judges or examiners of heresy, so I might clear myself of these accusations that have been brought against me so falsely.”

  The quills raced furiously across the scribe’s pages as the incomprehensible words echoed in the chapel.

  Which Milord Gilles, knight and baron, after numerous accusations on the part of said prosecutor against the said Milord Gilles, to ascertain whether he would admit to doctrinal heresy, insofar as the said prosecutor affirmed, stated a desire to show himself personally before the said Reverend Father, the Lord Bishop of Nantes, and before all other ecclesiastical judges, as well as before whatsoever examiner of heresy, to acquit himself of said charges.

  It was no less a declaration of war to his Breton and French judges than his raised sword had been to an Englishman at Orléans. Few battles in history had such an assured outcome as the one into which Gilles de Rais seemed so ready to throw himself. But he had never been a coward, so we ought not to have been caught as off guard as we were. The disturbing challenge reverberated throughout the hall, and for a few seconds after it finally dissipated, the only sound that could be heard was the whoosh of the parchments on which the charges had been inscribed when they fell from the stunned Chapeillon’s hands. He, too, had been caught off guard.

  When his Eminence spoke, his voice was firm but whisper-quiet. “As you wish, Lord Gilles. That is your right and it shall be arranged.” Dagger-eyed looks of bald disdain passed between the two. There was none of the courtliness and civility that the scribe’s formal record would indicate. Certainly none of them would dare to capture Jean de Malestroit’s seething anger in words. “Gilles de Rais, baron and knight,” the bishop said, “you are hereby ordered to appear in this court on the twenty-eighth day of this month, September, in the year 1440, before myself and the Reverend Friar Jean Blouyn, at which time you will answer for such crimes and offenses as have been enumerated in the prior statement of Guillaume Chapeillon, who we appoint to continue his able prosecution of this matter. In the name of God and law, you shall answer for these evils.”

  And after a pause, he added, “May God have mercy on your soul, if such may suit His pu
rpose.”

  I sat on a stone bench situated outside a room that was primarily used to receive guests of the abbey. Though this edifice had many wonderful, less-visible hideaways where I might have had more privacy, this was my favorite spot. Here I could observe the comings and goings of visitors and petitioners, vendors, creditors, anyone who had business here, dignitaries included. But I was in my own small world at that moment, and the Holy Father himself could have passed by without my notice. When it became clear that they would not be admitted to the proceedings, the crowds of the early morning had all dispersed, leaving their detritus behind for laborers to pick up. I wondered with frank annoyance why it was necessary to leave behind such a mess, when the mess that was taking place within the walls was already so overpowering.

  The weather was inexplicably glorious, and in a better frame of mind I would have wept for the joy of a purloined summer day before the cold set in again. There was a basket of bruised apples by my side and a bowl in my lap. With a small ivory knife, I denuded the fruits one after the next, removing their flaws so they might be made into pâtisseries, whose delicate texture stood to be ruined by the intrusion of a wayward bit of fruit skin or the slightest imperfection of the flesh itself.

  I worked the knife; the skin fell away. I worked the knife harder; more skin dropped. I tossed the parings out into the dirt, for they were not of sufficient quality for further use. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust; all things that rise from the earth will be reclaimed by it in time.

  As was my son, who rose and was returned far too quickly, or so I presumed.

  On and on in dark rhythm I subjected the blameless fruit to the tumult I felt within. Confutatis, maledictus, pergatorium. If those qualities were reflected in our pâtisserie, it would be a bitter, inedible disaster. Truths I had taken to be unassailable seemed to be falling away one by one. I had always tried to believe it was God’s whimsy that my son had been taken away from me, but Gilles de Rais had been with him that day—indeed, he was the last one to see him, as his servants had been the last ones seen with so many of the missing children.

  I was in the high tower of Champtocé on that terrible day, mindlessly airing some linens, when a clamor arose outside. I rushed to the window and saw the castellan giving frantic orders to his men to raise the portcullis. When such a thing occurs, one naturally worries of an approaching force, and my son was out in the Champtocé woods with Milord, perhaps in their path. But when I saw the young Gilles come through the gate alone, my distress turned to genuine panic. I dropped my neatly folded linens, ran frantically down the stairs, skirts clutched high, and flew out into the courtyard.

  Milord, all arms and legs, on the verge of manhood, was bent over with his hands on his knees with his head down. He was panting and wheezing from the exertion of his run. Those who stood around him, ready to attend to whatever need he might voice, were perplexed and confused and trying to make him speak.

  He would speak to me: I was all the mother he had left, and he would speak to me, by all the saints. “Milord,” I said urgently, “what of Michel?”

  Pant, wheeze, pant, and then a look of sheer terror. “Madame,” he cried, “the boar . . . we came upon him—I ran as fast as I could to escape, and I thought Michel was behind me, but when I turned around and he was nowhere to be seen—”

  I cried out in anguish and swooned; the castellan Marcel caught me.

  “Where did you last see him?” Marcel demanded of the boy.

  He gasped for air. “I cannot say—”

  The castellan shook him by the shoulders. “Think—where did you last see him?”

  Cowed into submission, young Gilles blubbered, “West of the oak grove, fifty paces, in the ravine that leads down to the river.”

  “Is the boy harmed?”

  “I . . . I do not know.”

  The castellan signaled for a horse. I grasped his arm in desperation. “The midwife—if Michel has been savaged she will be needed.”

  He looked to one of his men as he pried my fingers off him. “Find Madame Catherine,” he said. “Bring her out to us.”

  I turned and started in the direction of the stable. Now it was his turn to grab me by the arm. “No,” he said, “you must not go.”

  “He is my son!” I pleaded.

  “No,” he said again, even more firmly. By then all of his company had gathered around, so there were plenty of men to do his bidding. “Hold Madame la Drappiere here,” he ordered, and one of them promptly stepped forward to do just that.

  I struggled futilely against his grip. There was so much pity on the castellan’s face; I thought if only I pleaded more, he would let me go. Wisely, he looked away, and said to another of his men, “Find Etienne and bring him out to the grove.” And then he mounted the horse that had been brought for him and rode off, bringing the animal to great speed almost immediately.

  I choked and gagged on the dust that flew up as they rode off. All these memories now choked me anew. A hand came to rest on my shoulder, startling me.

  “Guillemette,” Jean de Malestroit said, “you are torturing those apples.”

  The fruit whose skin was giving way to my savagery fell out of my hands. Together we watched as it rolled into the dirt.

  I wiped my hands on my robe, which was an unusually slovenly act for me, for I treasure fastidiousness. “You possess a discerning eye, Eminence,” I said.

  He seemed to want to sit; he had no need to ask my permission, and in truth, I ought to have stood when he appeared. But we were well past such silliness. I inclined my head slightly toward the open bench beside me, and he rustled down onto it, his judicial robes gathered in.

  “I will hear your confession, if you wish, and thus relieve you of whatever burden it is that causes you such distress as I see in you now.”

  I pushed back a wayward strand of hair and looked in his direction. My expression must have shown additional unease, because he quickly said, “Have no fear—I will not assign you a difficult penance.”

  “As you wish, then. Pater, ignosca me, ob malo dissipavi.”

  Jean de Malestroit made a small chuckle. “God may not be overly concerned with the waste of an apple just at this moment,” he assured me. “But He would know, as would I, what does burden you.”

  A weary breath escaped my lips. I looked him straight in the eye and saw there a willingness to receive me in my graceless condition. But it was not yet time to tell him what thoughts were in my mind. So I told him something that was certain to appease him. “That which haunts all of us these days is what troubles me,” I said.

  “Ah.” He sat back and considered my answer for a moment. “It is only natural, I suppose, for all of us to be troubled by the things we have begun to hear. It is all so lamentable! But others are making adequate lamentations, Sister—yours are not required just now.”

  “Nevertheless, Brother, I am troubled, and I cannot help but voice it. Look what he has become. I once thought I knew him. Well. But it appears that I did not know him at all.”

  “The Dark One takes many forms, Sister. He will slip into the world wherever he finds the slightest crack. He changes form to suit the opening and will enter without being noticed unless we are eternally vigilant against him.”

  “Are we truly so ignorant, that such a . . . a . . . thing could walk on this earth without attracting our attention?”

  “It would seem that we are.”

  “So many complained; why did we not listen?”

  “These were mostly poor children, many of them all but forgotten—”

  “They were not all poor. And some had parents who wailed loudly at their loss.”

  “Not loudly enough, it appears.”

  I did not remind him that his own ears were among those closed to the wails initially and that he had only reluctantly allowed me to pursue what I had heard. “Dear God,” I said after a brief lull, “how could this have happened?”

  “Likely this evil has taken place subtly over time and has remain
ed unrecognized until now.” He shifted slightly on the bench to fend off the stiffness that would settle in if he remained stationary for too long. “I have given much thought to the nature of evil, for God has charged me with its elimination. I will confess, that task has always seemed impossible. I struggle with my failures every day.”

  He shifted again, this time with a little grunt. “You like this bench better than I,” he said.

  I forgot my upset for a moment. “God gave me the ampleness of girth by which to tolerate it.”

  “So I have noticed. God is very liberal with His gifts.” Then his expression sobered a bit. “But we must not lose sight of the fact that evil can be one of God’s greatest gifts.”

  I stared at him. “How can that be?”

  “Consider its many forms: wars, pestilence, the shaking of the earth, and the falling of the sky—indeed, the darkness. God put evil in this world with purpose and intent. He would help us to recognize, by virtue of comparison, that which we should take to be good. We loathe the darkness and celebrate the light, because we have an understanding that one represents evil and the other good. But dark and light have always existed; since God made them, they have not become anything different than what they were. They were revealed in stages, perhaps, but they were always in this world. I suspect, Sister, that Gilles de Rais has always been something unholy and that we are just now coming to see his true nature.”

  He had given voice to thoughts I simply could not speak myself, as if he knew somehow that I had them and that they would poison me if they went unspoken.

  “I think there is yet more to be revealed,” he said quietly.

  I understood then that he knew more than he was telling me. I could not fault him for that. Bad news should sometimes be given in small portions, so as not to entirely cripple the hearer. I picked up another apple and began to peel it. “Time will tell, Eminence, as it always does.”

  I worked the knife; the skin fell away. He watched me in silence for a time, then said, “I fear that we will know much more than we want to when all is told.”