Thief of Souls

by Ann Benson

  It was some time before he wore himself down enough to abandon his battery of the door. I quivered in mortal fear inside the closet until I was certain he had departed. By the time we emerged from our stifling tomb, my bodice was stained with my own tears and those of the child. And the stink in the closet was unbearable, for as his grandfather had pursued us, my terrified little charge had soiled himself in every way possible. The shame I saw on his face as we reentered the light was heartbreaking.

  Some hours later, when the child was safely tucked into bed, I slipped into the great hall to find my husband. He had been gone all day and I wanted desperately to tell him what had happened. He was taking his evening meal at the long table with the rest of the fellows. Within this jovial group was the wicked old man who had terrorized me and his grandson earlier; his mood seemed hale and convivial as he swayed drunkenly to his feet.

  For a moment I stood paralyzed with my back against the wall. It was impossible to avoid an encounter should he take it upon his drunken self to confront me. My only hope was that he had imbibed enough hippocras to cross his eyes, and when I saw his first lurching attempt to walk, I began to think it might be realized.

  As he teetered toward me, I summoned up my courage and slipped past him with my eyes lowered. I felt his eyes upon me, though I did not look up. He dismissed me with a small, disgusted grunt and then said nothing more; he did not try to stop me or even speak to me. It was as if the entire ugly incident that took place in the nursery had never occurred.

  I wish I could say that my husband was horrified when I recounted the afternoon’s events to him, but he disappointed me: Young Master Gilles is the first son of a noble house and he must learn to accept his role as a ruler. That will require fortitude.

  I countered with conviction: He will get violence from what is being done to him.

  Violence is what will be required of him. And it is not your place to decide these things.

  That was the end of the matter. I was miserably dissatisfied.

  Gilles de Rais did not present himself to the private court that day as an unchecked child in need of sympathetic discipline, nor did he appear to be un grand grotesquerie worthy of shunning. Instead, he showed himself as precisely what the people he had wronged thought him to be before this all started: a wealthy and powerful man in his physical prime, a great lord with the power to squash his accusers—like so many insects—on a mere whim. He wore his position with glaring aplomb; one doubted that he even knew what modesty meant. He was garbed as a minor god that day in the finest red velvet mantle, all encrusted along the front with costly jewels and glittering gold. The fabric moved with indescribable fluidity, so pleasing to the eye.

  “God forgive me, but he is a splendid sight to behold,” Frère Demien breathed.

  And he was. Gilles de Rais required no beauty to fulfill his mandated role in this world, for his wealth alone would have assured success, had he not squandered it. But he had been blessed with beauty nevertheless and wore it on this day like a ruby on a maiden’s throat—one’s eyes will come to rest on it, even against the will. But something inside this man was broken to the point of inhumanity, though his potions and powders and kohl had heretofore been quite effective in disguising it. In view of the dreadful deformities that were surfacing in his character, I was doubly glad that Jean de Craon’s wicked schemes for Milord’s ascendancy had not come to fruition.

  Despite his difficulties, Gilles de Rais’s stride was sure and his air privileged. But his presence was unnerving. The longer the court carried on without him, the more comfortably theoretical his existence had become, as if he were an idea of evil and not a man who had given himself over entirely to its influence. His jolting magnificence rendered it nearly impossible to fathom that Gilles de Rais was the defendant in these matters. He looked instead to be the equal of those who sat in judgment of him.

  He stood there in silent challenge to those men. Jean de Malestroit responded first, as was proper; he cleared his throat once, then called out, “Gilles de Rais, knight, baron, lord, and Marshal of France.”

  The tales of woe, the endless Latin proofs of jurisdiction, the weeping mothers, all that went before this moment seemed suddenly insignificant. Milord stepped up to the witness stand, his chin raised high. He placed a gloved hand on the hilt of his sword and stood there in lofty silence as the charges against him were read by God’s prosecutor.

  “. . . that you have taken or caused to be taken by your adherents and accomplices a large number of children . . .”

  Their names were read. I prayed for another hundred nameless sons long gone and grievously missed.

  “. . . that you have abused them sodomitically and practiced upon them the grave and mortal sin of sodomy . . .”

  In a dream state I recalled the words that Henriet had said when questioned on arrest: And Milord disdained the natural chamber of the girls, but instead would know his pleasure with children of both sexes by placing his member between their thighs, thereupon to work it rhythmically until his lust was satisfied.

  “. . . that you and your adherents have called upon evil spirits and offered tribute to those same spirits, and have committed many other crimes against God, too numerous to name.”

  Now Prelati’s confessions rang in my memory: The words of convocation we used were as follows: I conjure you, Barron, Satan, Beelzebub, by the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, by the Virgin mother of God and all the saints in heaven, to appear among us in person and speak with us and do our will.

  “You will be given a written copy of these charges as soon as one can be made,” Jean de Malestroit said to the defendant. “Do you understand the accusations that have been made against you by these many citizens?”

  Gilles’s voice was unnaturally calm, almost quiet. He lifted his chin slightly and said, “I refute these charges and appeal for their dismissal.”

  Along with everyone else, I gasped, “Mon Dieu.” No one had anticipated a simple refusal to be tried. The judges and prosecutors gathered into a hasty têtes-à-têtes. When they broke away again, Jean de Malestroit stared at the defendant with unswerving disgust and said, “These allegations are not made lightly, Milord. Nor have they been brought forward by simpletons. There is considerable evidence, some of which appears to be beyond denial, that you are guilty of those crimes with which you have been charged.”

  “Falsehoods and slander!” Gilles professed loudly. “I swear it on my soul!”

  “Guard your oaths, sir, lest you put your soul in jeopardy.”

  “The devil, you say! These charges are completely unfounded.”

  Another unison gasp ran through us all. His Eminence regained command of the situation by saying, “The court thinks not, sir. The court will entertain the possibility that there is truth contained in the allegations. Moreover, in view of the nature of this case and the weight of the evidence against you, this court finds your appeal to be quite frivolous and wasteful of our time. And furthermore,” he added, “your appeal has not been presented in writing.”

  Gilles himself was caught unprepared and appeared flustered by this declaration. “But . . .” he sputtered, “. . . I have not been given opportunity to do so!” He turned his palms up, demonstrating his lack of parchment and quill.

  “The law requires that any appeal be presented in writing, sir.”

  “This is preposterous!”

  “Indeed not, Milord,” Jean de Malestroit said with a barely visible smile. “It is a law of many years’ duration.”

  “Then it shall all be written!” the defendant cried. “By my own hand, if necessary! I beg materials of you.”

  All of the judges were quiet for a moment. Finally his Eminence said, “I would advise you to retain the services of an advocate for such a writing, should you pursue this course. But I should further advise you that this will be wasteful of your time, for we shall not entertain an appeal, no matter how eloquently inscribed.”

  “This is unacceptable to
me!”

  Jean de Malestroit rose up slowly; in his hands I saw a slight shaking, which disappeared when he placed them firmly on the table. His voice was harsh. “It need not be acceptable to you,” he said. “It need only be acceptable to God and our lord Duke.” After a pause, he offered something of an explanation, perhaps an appeasement, in a more reasonable voice. “Rest assured, Milord, we do not overrule you out of malice or disregard—we do so because both faith and reason demand us to continue diligently on the path we have begun.”

  “But these are lies, blasphemies all—there is no cause to proceed. This is a plot by those who would destroy my reputation before God and my king. These fiends would take my property.”

  It was the simple truth, though it would never be acknowledged by any of the judges. Milord Gilles appeared ready to burst. His face reddened, and one trembling hand slipped toward the braquemard sheathed at his waist, to which gesture the guards all reacted as one by putting hands on their swords.

  “I deny the competence of this court,” he nearly shouted, “and I withdraw all my previous statements, except my avowal of Christian Baptism, which cannot be denied and gives me the right to be properly judged before God!”

  De Touscheronde rose up in anger and threw back the disdain that Milord had shown him. “Your judgment will be proper, Milord. And truthful. I swear on my hope of salvation that everything alleged in these charges is based on true testimony. Now swear by the same hope of eternal reward, sir, that your own words shall be true.”

  He was answered only by silence.

  “Swear, I say!”

  “I shall not. I do not recognize this court’s jurisdiction over me.”

  “Swear!”

  “Never!”

  “Under threat of excommunication, you are ordered to swear!”

  Gilles de Rais’s silence rang as loud as a bell.

  Jean de Malestroit rose up out of his seat and banged the gavel down hard on the board. Through its reverberations he said, “This court shall be adjourned until Tuesday next, the date being October eleventh, at which time you, sir, shall be required to swear an oath of truthfulness, or else all hope of eternal salvation shall be taken from you.”

  He pointed directly at Gilles de Rais, who responded only with a noble sneer. Guards came forward and took him away to his private suite, therein to contemplate his increasingly untenable position.

  The news of this confrontation roared like a wildfire through the encampments. Talk arose among the aggrieved of taking matters into their own hands, prompting Chapeillon to send out several hasty messages to Duke Jean, advising him of the possibility of an insurrection. There were endless meetings and discussions between his Eminence and a veritable legion of advisers over the course of the next few days; I and my sisters spent much of Monday in supplying whatever they required so their scheming for the next day’s proceedings might be completed in time and in comfort.

  Yet for all their effort—which must have been considerable for all the nourishment they required—they seemed to have accomplished little or nothing. On Tuesday next, when court was supposed to have reconvened, we gathered together again, anticipating the perhaps even more shocking drama that would unfold. Instead, we were surprised to hear this announcement by one of the scribes:

  “This court will be adjourned until Thursday, October thirteenth, at the hour of Terce, at which time we shall proceed in this case and the cases of this order, as required by law.”

  As we waited for the crowd to dissipate, I looked down from our lofty vantage point and saw their grasping upraised hands and their open, shouting mouths.

  It would swallow us all.

  When I brought Jean de Malestroit his supper that evening, our conversation was drowned out by the continued chanting, which had not abated in the least. The drapes and tapestries on the windows barely reduced the noise, even at this great height.

  I pulled one bit of a drape aside and stared down into the milling throng below. “They put me to mind of the crowd that gathered for the Maid.”

  His Eminence came alongside me and looked as well. “One would like to have all that pass out of memory.”

  There was no hope of that, of course. Mistakes will always remain in memory, whereas the pleasures are chased off by woes and cares. Thank God her execution was not Jean de Malestroit’s personal error. Nevertheless, he could not escape a common regret shared with other clerics of authority over how badly it had gone. I was only four years in his Eminence’s service then, too fresh to have the responsibilities I now have. In me Jean de Malestroit seemed to find the kind of compliant retainer he needed to assist him in the small tasks of his office, and I was nothing if not compliant then. And so on that terrible day in 1431 I found myself in a place that I ought never have been allowed, with a view generally reserved for the mighty.

  My pain over the death of Etienne was still almost constantly in my heart and mind then, but the trial and execution of Jean d’arc took me out of it, at least for a time. His Eminence swears that there was good and substantial reason to believe she had indeed engaged in the heresy of witchcraft. I am certain that this belief springs from a need for absolution from complicity in the matter. His sin, perhaps still unconfessed, was his inaction.

  But to what end had she engaged with the devil? Certainly not to obtain riches or power, nor to part some man from his property or, worse, steal his soul. If witch she was, it was warrior witch, who beat back the English and elevated the bastard Charles to the throne. We were all still smarting from Agincourt, wherein our Gallic heart was ripped from our breast by the arrogant English and stomped to a pulp like that poor cat in Saint-Etienne. If God had not supplied the Maid with the means to win, then it was fitting and right that the devil should have done so. Too many souls had already been sacrificed to that cause, including that of my own husband.

  And despite their legendary companionship, Milord was not there to save her when they tied her to that stake. Many who stood by and watched in horror as this young woman was destroyed retained the hope, as I did until the straw beneath her was finally lit, that Milord would come forward and whisk her off to safety. There has always been talk that he was conspiring to do so, for he had been in nearby Louviers and he had bought a horse, tack, and weaponry. We all took that purchase and his proximity as signs of preparation for a rescue. But it never materialized, and if a conspiracy had been formed and then thwarted, we shall never know, for no one has spoken of it since. Perhaps Milord had come to believe as many had that she was insane, and that her voices were nothing more than the rantings a lunatic heard inside her head, repeated with credible fervor on ears too willing to hear.

  Jean de Malestroit and I watched her demise from above, out of harm’s way should the crowd turn ugly. I shall never forget the swarming huddle of humanity. People slithered around the cordoned immolation platform, climbing over one another like so many ants. Dust rose up like steam from a hot cauldron. As the death cart was brought through the crowd, the chanting began: witch, heretic, sorceress. Without her stunning white armor, she looked small and so pathetically frail. Wave after wave of people parted to let her through, many of them reaching out to touch her as she passed. At the hour of her death, she was not a warrior but a child, one who understood she was about to die.

  Inside myself I screamed at God, asking how He could let this happen. This treasure, the force behind our unification, was about to be consumed in flames by the will of His servants and in His name. I wanted to shout out that we were killing the best among us, only to make it possible for the men whose hides she had preserved with her bravery to appear unassailably strong and wise.

  But God showed Himself that day—as the flames took hold of her clothing, as her flesh began to blacken and sizzle and split, as her eyes squeezed shut and her mouth tightened in exquisite pain, He brought forth a white dove to take her place at the stake. It sprang up out of the flames and flew off into the sky with its wings furiously beating the air above t
he empty platform.

  It was not until much later that his Eminence and I found the means by which we might speak of what we had each seen and hardly dared believe.

  The wails of the gathered multitude were indescribable and deafening—but were they crying in terror for their own souls in having sent Jean to her death or shrieking in joy that God had claimed her as His own?

  The crowds that milled about in the courtyard below me now, though smaller, looked much the same, with everyone shouting and crying. God’s power and influence were nowhere to be seen among them. Perhaps they were pleading with Him to allow the excitement of Milord’s ordeal to continue, just for a little longer, and He was angry with them for that deplorable wish.

  Even so, it would be granted.

  His appeals, though painfully impassioned, did nothing to sway his stern judges. Gilles de Rais had simply gone too far. We gathered at the morning hour of nine in the upper hall of la Tour Neuve on Thursday, October 13, in the year 1440, the thirty-seventh year of Gilles de Rais’s life, certainly the last.

  Though it was disruptive, observers were once again permitted in the court. Jean de Malestroit knew well the political wisdom of allowing his own judicial impeccability to be witnessed and whispered. Guards were posted every few feet along the edge of the room to maintain order, creating a complete surround through which those entering had to pass. When the room was comfortably full, no more were let in.