Thief of Souls

by Ann Benson

  twenty-five

  “Swear!”

  “I shall not.”

  “Brother, I shall make your life more miserable than you can imagine if you do not. You must tell no one of the things we learned.”

  It took a threat of condemnation to make him agree, albeit reluctantly. “Such things as this must be given their due,” he said, “or they will fester within and harm you. I would not have your spirit infected with a malaise whose cure is simple release.”

  The matter was closed by my words: “That shall be my worry.”

  And that is precisely what it became. I bore my painful new knowledge in solitary silence. I did not write to my son nor confide in any of my sisters, who whispered behind my back with increasing frequency as I became more distant from them. While the activities of our convent took place with reasonable consistency, I gave the place only cursory attention at best, for my interest lay elsewhere. My daily life began to feel like a wet-robed slog through a swamp. One foot before the next, I plodded heavily through my obligations as if there were no heart beating inside my chest.

  Even more significantly, I did not speak to Jean de Malestroit of the horror I had uncovered in Champtocé. It was to him that I would have made my confession, should absolution have been required of me for the guilty knowledge I had acquired. My bishop noticed the changes in me, the dark moods and spontaneous tears, and asked many times if I required unburdening.

  “I am as holy as possible,” I assured him, “under the circumstances.” I considered it a true blessing that he did not press me further. He had other matters to consider.

  All this being true, I must still confess that September passed with frightening rapidity. On the morning of the twenty-eighth, we gathered very early in the chapel/courtroom, well before Terce. Additional chairs had been brought in to supplement the rows of hard wooden pews that ran along the central path. A dais with witness bar stood front and center before the judges’ table, at which Jean de Malestroit and Friar Jean Blouyn would sit as the case unfolded before them. All of this somehow banished the sense of sanctity that usually permeated the space.

  The day had started out alive with the anticipation of forward progress, so long delayed, but as hour after hour passed without the arrival of Lord Gilles de Rais, a nervous grumbling set in. From my seat near the end of the frontmost pew, I sat in stiff silence and watched the shadows shorten as the sun made its way to apex. The morning songs of the birds gave way to those customarily sung as the day progressed. Frère Demien fidgeted next to me like a ten-year-old boy; for all his desire to see these events unfold, he deplored the waste of a day when he might have been in the orchards.

  His displeasure was such that he loosed a rare disparagement. “I had not thought Milord to be such a coward. He should be dragged out of his hiding place and thrust before these judges.”

  “Members of the nobility are not dragged out of anywhere, Brother. They must come to their humiliations with the appearance of consent.”

  His “hiding” place was a sumptuous suite of rooms in the Bishop’s own palace. There would be no escape from that confinement, but neither was it precisely an imprisonment. He could receive visitors—not that any had been reported—and live in a manner that suited his station.

  As the hours passed in waiting, I daydreamed of apples and pears and walnuts, of fine embroidery and colorful glass beads that might be added to enhance its beauty. A brief distraction was provided when a man and woman bowed their way into the chapel in apologetic haste—yet more witnesses, who had arrived well beyond the appointed hour.

  “They need not have hurried,” Frère Demien observed.

  His Eminence had been eager to proceed and had taken his place of honor at the judges’ table that morning with almost visible excitement. Now he was forced to preserve what dignity he could by stifling yawns with increasing frequency. Father Jean Blouyn, a stern-looking man of short stature, pendulous jowls, and a large, pitted nose, sat, equally bored, to his Eminence’s right. I had often wondered if he came by his red face by some more natural means than the rumored excessive drink, such as having been scalded by steam over a pot. The Lord Inquisitor did not have the look of a fellow who had ever cooked for himself, so I settled on drink as the reason. He was an otherwise remarkable man, quite learned and devout, who possessed all the necessary qualities for these proceedings and was well-suited to the task of determining heresy, for he was as righteous a man as could be found in these parts, drink or no.

  I was accustomed to seeing Friar Blouyn in his clerical garb, or occasionally attired as a teacher, but today he wore the robes of a judge and a squared-off hat of rich red velvet, which seemed on first glance a bit large for his head. He seemed to think so too, for he held it in place with one hand when he leaned toward Jean de Malestroit. On this particular occasion of incline, a tassel slipped down in front of his nose and swung back and forth, which he brushed away with his other hand, rendering himself completely unable to cover his words.

  “So many witnesses,” I heard—or rather saw—him say. “Shall more scribes be brought in?”

  Those who were there had been selected for the strength and passion of their testimony, which would be recorded by the four scribes assigned to the task, who sat before and below the judges. Their ink-stained fingers all struggled for something to occupy the hours; one patted the table, another picked at a hanging bit of skin on his nails, yet another whittled away at the points of his quills to sharpen them.

  There would be a trial and conviction to record, after all.

  Strategy, cleverness, and legal maneuverings were the weapons they would use against Gilles de Rais, not the swords and arrows against which he could fight back. Jean de Malestroit and Friar Blouyn would cut him down like a sapling when the time was right. The witnesses—the peasants and tradesmen who would comprise their ammunition—fidgeted nervously in the pews like children themselves, each one anticipating his turn at the bar with probable dread. Few of these people would dare to even speak to a nobleman, let alone besmirch him in the presence of the King’s intimates. Yet here they were, full of ready anger. It made me admire Madame le Barbier’s courage all the more. I wondered now if she’d had some understanding of the maelstrom her visit to the Bishop would unleash.

  The bailiff’s voice crashed unexpectedly through the quiet with the invocation. I nearly jumped in my seat.

  They would begin without him.

  There followed a state of silence so complete that even our breathing seemed an affront. The bailiff then continued, speaking the words that demanded an answer from Gilles de Rais, even in absentia.

  “On this Wednesday, the twenty-eighth day of September, 1440, in the tenth year of the reign of our Pontiff the Most Holy Father Monsignor Eugène, by God’s grace Pope, being the fourth such of that name, during this the general council of Basel, before our Reverend Father of God Jean de Malestroit, by God’s grace and that of the Holy Apostolic See, Bishop of Nantes, and before the male religious Friar Jean Blouyn of the order of Dominicans, bachelor of the Holy Writ and Vicar of the male religious, Friar Guillaume Merici, of the abovesaid Dominican Order, professor of theology, Inquisitor into Heresy in the kingdom of France, delegated by the authority of the same Friar Guillaume and specially appointed to the position of Inquisitor in the diocese and city of Nantes, now seated in the chapel of the episcopal palace of Nantes, and in the presence of scribes and notaries, Jean Delaunay, Jean Petit, Nicolas Géraud, and Guillaume Lesné . . .”

  The said scribes and notaries bent to their parchment and scribbled furiously, recording every word with intense diligence.

  “. . . expected to write truthfully before these same Lords Bishop and Vice-Inquisitor on each and all of the things that occur in the cases before us, and finally, charged with and entrusted to draw this up in a public manner, to which task they deputized each and every one of us present.”

  Ad infinitum, ad nauseam. I understood Jean de Malestroit’s desire for ca
ution in establishing the authority of the court as it was comprised, but it was a tedious recitation. Immediately thereafter, the witnesses were called to give evidence in support of the charges. A few raised not only their voices but their tempers as well, and those who did were admonished to remember themselves.

  Agathe, wife of Denis de Lemion; the widow of Regnaud Donete; Jeanne, wife of Guibelet Delit; Jean Hubert and his wife; the widow of Yvon Kerguen; Tiphaine, wife of Eonnet le Charpentier. I watched numbly as each one was called, arose, was sworn, and then gave witness. All spoke bitterly and at length against the accused and his accomplices; the stories varied little from one to the next. Poitou had led the child away; the old woman had appeared on the forest road and enticed their children with promises of food and other blessings; de Sille and de Briqueville had spoken of benefits. Positions in noble households were offered, clothing suitable to such honors given. Then nothing more would be heard, not a word, not a letter, not a shred of evidence that these good, devoted sons had either come to an end or had vanished for some other reason.

  But one among the witnesses painted a different picture. She had not willingly given her son away in return for promises of benefit. She was small and thin and looked terribly frail in her dusty dress; I wanted to put my arms around her and speak solace, to catch her tears as they fell, which I was certain they had, bitterly and often. But she held her head high as she spoke, belying any frailty; never once was his Eminence forced to ask her to speak up.

  “I am Jeanne, wife of Jean Darel. On the feast of Saint Peter and Paul last, I was returning home with my son. We had gone from our home in the parish of Saint-Similien to Nantes, where I had a few errands to do, and we took this opportunity to visit with my sister Angelique, who lives not far from this palace in which we are now gathered. I was also of a mind to visit Notre Dame de Nantes to make an offering there for the soul of my departed mother, which I knew would please my sister greatly.

  “We are a poor family, Milords, and have no mounts. It is a fair distance, but the weather was fine and it seemed a pleasant day for walking. We made our pilgrimage to the cathedral and then had a sweet visit with my sister; she is dear to me and is a devoted aunt, so my son never complained of the walk to her home, which to a boy of his age must have seemed very long. And as sometimes happens when the time passed is joyful, Milords, the hours got away from us and we had to make a choice as to whether we would stay the night or go back to Saint-Similien. As we had not mentioned the likelihood of staying in Nantes, I thought we might be missed, which would cause alarm in our household. So we made our good-byes and left as the sun neared the horizon.

  “My son was hungry by then, so I gave him a crust of bread to eat as we made our way. He ate a bit of it but did not finish, though what he did eat seemed to satisfy him for the moment. But by now my little boy was tired as well, for the day had been a long one for a child of such tender years. Often when we would travel I would play small games of hide and seek with him to keep him from fussing out of boredom. He would secret himself behind a tree and I would look for him. It gave him great joy to do this; he was not yet clever enough to hide himself completely every time, and it would make me smile to think he thought himself hidden from my sight. But there were times when he was maddeningly successful, enough to cause me concern. In these moments he would not reveal himself despite my pleas.

  “The last I saw of him that night was his little hand sticking out from behind a tree, still clutching the remains of his crust of bread. I pretended not to see him and turned back in the direction we were headed, relieved once again to know that he was safely with me.

  “I was aware of his continuous presence during our little game, until one moment when a cold shudder overtook me and I became very frightened for no reason I could understand. I turned to look for my boy, but I could not see him anywhere. He had not cried out to me, so I did not think him in harm’s way, only perhaps a bit lost or hiding too well. If such an unnameable fear had gone through me, might it not have done so to him as well, and might he not have reacted by hiding farther into the woods? I called his name and offered reassurances, but he did not appear. I worked my way backward along the road looking for him, then rushed forward again when I could not find him. He never reappeared, and I have no idea of what might have happened to him, only that whoever took him has kept him away from me for all of this time.”

  I heard but little of what was said by those who followed her. Her son had disappeared without so much as a whisper of distress into the velvet darkness, while she herself was nearby, and had never been seen nor heard from again.

  What is there to fear more than this? In one moment, everything is as it ought to be. But in the next, nothing that one has previously taken for God’s truth seems viable any longer. All is lost, all is shattered, naught remains to grasp for safety.

  Had he come upon La Meffraye, that old woman who prowled the woods and paths looking for lost little ones, who would show herself as kind and sweet and appear to be no threat? Godspeed, my child, the hag might have whispered from behind a tree in the darkness. I see that you have a bit of bread to eat, but here is a softer crust, not so hard on your little teeth. Yes, reach out to take it, put your small hand within my grasp, let me lead you to where there are treats beyond imagining. . . . Oh, no, do not call out to your mother, you must not alarm her, for she will be angry with you if you do. . . . I will return you to her and soothe her anger later, so you need not fear her wrath. . . .

  Little ones want to trust, especially those whom they have been taught to revere.

  The last I saw of him that night was his little hand sticking out from behind a tree, still clutching the remains of his crust of bread.

  We stayed in the chapel until all who were summoned to speak that day had indeed spoken. The witnesses were told that they could go, but few rose up to depart, for there were further proceedings. Inquisitive whispers rose when a sheaf of papers was introduced into evidence; I recognized this handsome folio, uniquely bound with a gilt leather strap, as one I had seen in Jean de Malestroit’s chamber.

  I could almost feel the evil oozing off it. Contained within its pages was the initial testimony of Henriet and Poitou. Blessedly, it was not read aloud.

  We adjourned for a while in order to refresh ourselves. When we returned to the chapel later, Jean de Touscheronde would make a few simple declarations to transform this court from ecclesiastical to secular. Gilles de Rais would be required to answer to Duke Jean V, much as he would answer to God before Jean de Malestroit and Friar Blouyn in the same room.

  But there was time before the transformation was to begin for Frère Demien and I to slip away to the kitchen, where we were almost certain to find soup and bread and, if the cook was in a pleasant mood, a sweet of some sort. On the way we were forced to pass through a crowd that had gathered outside the palace, hoping for news of the proceedings. I stopped and stood still for a moment within the milling throng, which had gripped my attention. Frère Demien went a few paces farther before he noticed I had stopped.

  “Mother?” he called to me. “It is best to come along.” He reached for my hand and began to guide me forward.

  “Go ahead,” I told him. “I will find you.”

  He sighed, shook his head, and left me there.

  The crowd’s number had grown dramatically since we had entered in the morning. The square outside the palace was a place where people gathered for all manner of reasons; usually they gathered to watch a bit of entertainment such as a juggler or minstrel, or sometimes it would be the crying of some important bit of news. With details of the morning’s testimony no doubt spreading, there had grown quite a throng. The sight of them gathered as they were, the agitated hum of their words, the sharp sounds of their activities—altogether it was enough to make me pay attention.

  I was not the only one engaged in observation; many eyes were upon me, as palpably as the touch of hands. I had come out of the great chapel, which hinted of
higher knowledge of what had transpired within. But my flowing black drapes protected me. People who were staring at me would look away as soon as my eyes met theirs, until finally only one person’s gaze was still fixed upon me. I could not help but look back, and when I did I was filled with unanticipated gladness, for there before me stood Madame le Barbier.

  She nodded respectfully; I nodded back, and smiled very slightly. It was a tempting notion to go to her and share an exchange of comradeship. But neither of us moved; there was really nothing that could be said to enhance the moment. Eventually our eyes parted, and I made my way to the kitchen, where Cook obliged me with a measure of soup for lunch, as there was no time for a larger repast. But I did not mind; Madame had given me all the refreshment I would need.

  With Jean de Malestroit sitting behind him at the jurists’ table, de Touscheronde seemed almost diminutive. In truth, his entire being was “slight.” There was a soft, almost feminine quality to his voice, but that worked to the prosecutor’s advantage—we were all forced to listen carefully, and there was absolute quiet in the chapel when he spoke. He handily persuaded a number of upset and agitated people to speak lucidly of unspeakable things while under the stares of powerful strangers.

  “And tell me, Madame, if you would be so kind, of what transpired after you gave your son over to this fellow Poitou. . . .”

  Or, “Monsieur, as clearly as you can in view of your visible distress, please tell this court what you believe happened to young Bernard. . . .”

  They recounted everything to him, confessed freely as though he were a saint, though they were not the sinners but instead those upon whom grievous sins had been perpetrated. They told him when their losses were first noticed, where the disappearances occurred, who made the initial complaints, why Lord de Rais was suspected; a more commanding inquisitor might not have managed that depth of revelation from witnesses as humble as these.