The Bee and the Orange Tree

by Melissa Ashley

  Nicola

  19 June

  A seam of orange through the bars of the cell, a tear in the horizon, bittersweet; the beginnings of a fire; molten lava; a burning wick, the fuse lit, the flare travelling along its length.

  Resting on the meal hatch was a drawstring pouch. Nicola Tiquet picked it up, pulling open the cords. Inside lay a cloth-tied bundle of letters. The first note was written in Marie Catherine’s script. Placing her hand above her heart, she muttered a silent prayer of thanks to God. Of her many connections in Paris, Marie Catherine was the only one to remain unsevered. Her dear friend had continued to fight for her, believing in her cause, honouring the suffering that forged the bond between them. Nicola allowed herself a moment to take comfort in the simple fact of receiving her correspondence. Upon reading her friend’s words, she discovered that at the very last hour, her husband had retracted the charges he had laid against her.

  Ha! she thought, Why, just imagine that!

  She found it difficult to accept Marie Catherine’s message; the information seemed as distant as the contents of a dream, or a passage from a favourite book. This was the news she had been waiting to hear every miserable day of her imprisonment. But it was too late. Jean Paul and Claude had been advised to leave Paris to protect the family name from the shame of her conviction.

  Nicola let the letter slip to the floor of the cell. Staggering, she leaned against the wall, exhaling a slow, shuddering breath. Closing her eyes, she pictured Jean Paul holding his father’s hand, walking with him in a quiet, mossy wood, many miles from Paris.

  Her fingers trembled opening the bundle of intricately woven Italian lace. The white veil had belonged to her mother, wrote Matthias, the author of the next letter. She was to wear it. Her brother had petitioned the Crown for her release, but the King had been steadfast. He would not interfere. A shred of paper fell out of the letter, and she bent down to pick it up. Folded inside was the signet ring she had gifted Montgeorge, but no accompanying note, no words of love, no confession of his thoughts and feelings.

  Furious, she seized the ring and the piece of paper it had been wrapped in and threw them against the flagstones of the cell floor. Curse him to hell. She would never think of his name again, nor his face, his hands, his words, so long as the blood moved through her veins.

  A small box, shaped like a shell, sat at the very bottom of the bag. Strange. She opened it carefully, unsure what to expect. Inside were two communion hosts and an unsigned note stating that she should affix the hosts to her body. She was to do this before being subjected to the questions ordinary and extraordinary. They would bring her strength. She looked carefully at the wafers again: they were discoloured and acrid-smelling. She felt a quaking shock deep inside her skin. Who had cast a spell for her?

  Removing the hosts from their casing, she broke them into pieces and hid them under her arms and beneath her breasts. A makeshift cross. She would use whatever relief was offered.

  She had grown accustomed to the routine of being removed from her cell and marched along the corridors of the Grand Châtelet for questioning by the court’s officials. When the prison guards unlocked her door and commanded her to hold out her wrists for shackling, she was prepared. Mercifully, the guards walked her without force. They did not hurry her feet, tripping in their ill-fitting clogs. The spiral staircase loomed, torchlight flickering on the stone walls. She was taken to a level beneath the pistole cells, somewhere in the bowels of the ancient jail, where the questions ordinary and extraordinary were read to the condemned.

  A key was turned in the lock of an iron gate, hinged to an arched stone doorway. The guards drew open the heavy hatch and she was marched over the threshold to enter the dungeon. Old as the prison’s foundations, the room’s ceiling was ragged, chipped bedrock, its foot-thick stone walls the colour of bone, ash, and charcoal. She concentrated her gaze on the fire smouldering in its brick hearth. She would not look at the posts with iron rings, nor the rack on which the prisoner was chained, the shelf of iron tools nor the masked figure of the torturer moving in the shadows as he prepared his instruments.

  ‘Madame Tiquet,’ said a male voice.

  She glanced up from the fire. Father Étienne in black vestments, his hair silver, his grey eyes pools of compassion, walked towards her. ‘I’m to be your servant today.’

  ‘Thank you, Father.’ She had hoped the priest would attend her, though she had not made an enquiry, nor attached her mind to the idea. She had learned that whatever her wishes and desires, some ill force always conspired to ensure they were not met. How many of her friends, her loved ones and casual acquaintances, had shown her the thin material they were made of, turning their backs on her in her time of need – or worse still, though it was the exception rather than the rule, used their personal connection to gloat over her suffering. Defitter, the lieutenant criminal; Monsieur Lapin, chief lieutenant of police.

  ‘Before we begin,’ said Father Étienne, ‘I’m to inspect you for spells and charms. Do you have any such items on your person?’

  Nicola felt her bowels loosen. She shook her head, unable to speak.

  ‘Are you sure?’ asked Father Étienne. He stood within inches of her face, she smelled his warm breath. His voice lowered to a whisper. ‘A communion host, perhaps?’

  She met the priest’s gaze, a flicker of hope warming her breast. She shut her eyes and ran her tongue over her lips to moisten them.

  ‘I don’t understand,’ she whispered. Had the priest a plan? Was she to be freed? Was he intervening?

  ‘You were sent a package?’ whispered Father Étienne.

  She nodded.

  ‘Lift your arms,’ he instructed, ‘and I shall remove the hosts. Remain still. The guards mustn’t see. Do you understand?’

  She gave a small nod of acquiescence, and spread her arms out at her sides, Christ readying himself to be nailed to the cross. She didn’t flinch as the priest moved his hands under the fabric of her blouse.

  ‘Where else?’

  She told him where she’d put the charms, as instructed in Angelina’s note.

  The priest worked quickly, picking the broken pieces of wafer from beneath her clothing. ‘Open your mouth.’

  She obeyed. The priest put his hand into her mouth – to check that she hadn’t concealed anything inside, she thought. But it was not that at all. Instead, he delivered one of the wafers onto her tongue, but without the Eucharistic blessing.

  ‘No Amens,’ whispered the priest, briefly closing his eyes. ‘It’s not the flesh of Christ. Let it dissolve on your tongue, do not let them see you’ve taken something.’

  Am I being poisoned? She searched the priest’s eyes. Though she found only kindness. There was no time to ask for anything more. The iron gate was unlocked a second time, permitting the entrance of three officials; the clerk who would record her responses to the question, and two magistrates. Father Étienne stepped to the side.

  She was unsure how much time had passed, but when she was next aware she was being unchained from the post and moved towards a sloping wooden bench. One of the magistrates announced that she had been sentenced to seven pots of water. After each pot, she would be given the opportunity to confess to her crime. For the salvation of her everlasting soul. She must name her co-conspirators; it was her last chance to cooperate.

  The masked man helped her to lie down on the bench, which sloped so that her head fell lower than her feet. The fetters were removed from her wrists, the clogs taken off her feet. Thick rope was wound across her chest, over her arms, looped to rings on the bench, preventing her from sitting up, turning over, resisting. Her head pillowed on a stone plinth.

  The torturer forced open her mouth. She did not have the will to struggle. Indeed, a deep calm had begun to spread throughout her body. The room seemed to have changed shape, elongating, the flames of the fire so very far away. The instructions of the masked man did not concern her. She grew limp, falling back against the stone bench. She submitte
d, the rope tightly binding her chest should hurt, but the ties were no bother.

  My Lord, she thought, do not forsake me.

  The magistrate repeated the first question: ‘Admit that you conspired to take the life of your husband, Monsieur Claude Tiquet, on not one, but several occasions. That you arranged, with Jacques Mouer and Auguste Cattelain to ambush and attack Monsieur Claude Tiquet with the said purpose of taking his life.’

  She opened her eyes. What was the correct manner in which she should hold herself? The disgusting magistrate leaned over her, tried to look at her, but she screwed her eyes shut. Burn in hell. Though she could not speak. If she could spit she would, straight into his smug face.

  She was strapped to the contrivance. Her jaws were held open, a leather funnel placed between her teeth. It was best not to struggle. Her mouth was being filled with water, she could not breathe, someone had pinched their fingers around her nose.

  She thought of the first time Claude had slapped her cheek. How she had once admired his hands. Soft. The gold ring she had presented him with on their first anniversary. She had been pregnant, radiant. The blossoms, plucked from a neighbour’s tree, that he had given her; the following day, lopping the heads in fury, crushing them beneath his boots like an angry child.

  She swallowed the first pot. The question was put to her again. She shut her eyes. Her mouth was forced open.

  She was drowning. Claude had tried to drown her. Not three months earlier. He had held her under the water in the bath, until she began to gag.

  The funnel emptied, she struggled until the fingers pinching her nostrils released their hold. Father Étienne wiped her forehead. ‘No, not like this!’ she said, railing against the belts tied over her chest and legs. She coughed, breathing in gulps of precious air, the water irritating her throat. The reality of choking on the torturer’s cups – she had five more to come – made her quake in horror, her body trembling all over.

  But there was a way she could stop the disgusting leather funnel from being forced between her lips over and over until the pail was empty. She must cooperate.

  ‘No!’ she began, her voice firm and calm. She would face the judgements made against her. ‘I confess,’ she said. ‘It’s true. It was me. I arranged to take my husband’s life. No more water. I am guilty as charged. I admit to the wrongful plan I am accused of authoring.’

  ‘Is this your final testimony?’ asked the magistrate.

  She nodded.

  The clerk glanced up from his ledger. Dipping his pen, features furrowed in concentration, he wrote a lengthy entry. The magistrate leaned over her and looked into her eyes. ‘Very good, Madame Tiquet.’

  The torturer loosened the ties around her arms and legs. Someone gripped her by the ankles and moved her so that she was sitting up on the bench. She was passed a cloth.

  ‘Take your time,’ instructed the magistrate. ‘And when you are finished, you may order supper, whatever you care to eat. Some wine even.’ He paused, his lips drawn in a tense line. ‘Madame Tiquet, if you will, please state your confession.’

  She confessed that she had given twenty Louis d’or to her servant, Monsieur Jacques Mouer, to arrange for Monsieur Auguste Cattelain to carry out the assassination of her husband. She did not know the names of the other parties.

  ‘Was the King’s guard Monsieur Gilbert Montgeorge involved in the plot to take Claude Tiquet’s life?’ asked the magistrate.

  Nicola paused, considering the question. ‘I am the wicked one,’ she said eventually. ‘He was not involved in the conspiracy.’

  ‘You have done well,’ said Father Étienne.

  She nodded, shivering. Her confession recorded, she was led to the fire and her clothes were dried off. ‘Please, Father Étienne,’ she said, ‘Ask the Lord God’s forgiveness of my husband, for I shall remember the sentiments we felt for one another when we were first married as I meet my death.’

  She returned to her cell, where her rosary and bible awaited. Father Étienne did not leave her side, summoning guards to record the order for her last meal. At two in the afternoon, a tray arrived loaded with wine, a plate of asparagus, peas, roast duck, orange sauce and two chocolate bonbons. Several hours had passed and the strange calm that had descended upon her in the torture room was lifting. She found herself hungry and nervous. She had imagined she would not be able to eat the banquet, but discovered a formidable appetite.

  She ate until she could no longer swallow. This was her final meal, and she would devour each last crumb. She made sure she tasted the wine, the sauce, the roast duck and seasoned asparagus. She burped, she did not care, and wiped her greasy hands on the coarse prison skirt.

  ‘Shall we pray?’ asked Father Étienne.

  She wanted to throw her head back and laugh in his face. ‘What have we to lose? Let us pray.’

  Father Étienne winked, a smile playing at the edges of his mouth. ‘You are bearing up,’ he said. ‘You are bearing up very well.’

  He had prepared a private mass for her. She knelt at the small table before the window in her cell, the priest close by her side. He lit incense, and brought out a flask filled with wine and a box of communion hosts. He performed the mass, administering the sacraments, her last rites.

  They prayed, holding hands. She looked at the kind priest. ‘Had I only the sense to leave Paris when you suggested it. Forgive me.’

  ‘It is passed. There’s nothing to forgive.’

  Father Étienne attended her with full concentration. She closed her eyes, saw Jean Paul, Clotilde, Claude, Gilbert, Marie Catherine, her home, her staff. A trickle of fear, like water seeping through a crack in the stone, cold and wet. There was nothing for her to do except wait. She had comported herself with dignity. But a lumpen horror was shifting awake, its huge, misshapen form stretching its limbs, opening its toothless maw to draw in a breath. Her fingers pricked, stabbed by a thousand tiny thorns. She could no longer ignore it, the truth of her condemnation rising to full strength, staring her down.

  ‘I cannot go through with it,’ she whispered, grasping Father Étienne’s hand. ‘I’m innocent. Help me. Please.’

  Father Étienne moved his hand under the folds of his vestments. He drew out the foul-smelling communion hosts, consecrated by a witch, soaked in poison, and held them out in his palm.

  ‘You are to eat this. Take one now, it shall calm you. When we reach the scaffold—’

  Nicola sobbed, cried out.

  Father Étienne held her. ‘When we reach the scaffold, I shall come forward to bless you. There will be a moment. You are to allow me to put another in your mouth. It will take away your fears, your pain. Do you understand?’

  ‘Yes, Father.’ Nicola obediently nodded her head.

  The wafer was unimaginably bitter. The taste was like gnawing upon a branch of hemlock. Though something in it was familiar. For a moment she feared she would begin to gag, her throat revolting at the substance the priest was trying to feed her. But she was determined. Clenching her teeth and closing her mouth and breathing through her nostrils she swallowed the wafer down.

  Father Étienne extinguished the candle and led her to the bed. He helped her to climb onto the mattress and lie down. ‘Sleep. They’ll be back soon. Look out for me.’

  ‘Are you to leave?’

  ‘I shall return. I’ll ride with you in the tumbrel. I shall be by your side, as our Lord’s representative, until the very last moment. But for now you must rest. Let sleep take you.’

  Her cell began to change shape, blurring at its edges. She felt a conviction that she would be able to face the executioner. Listening to the noises outside her cell, she became aware of them transforming into a softer pitch. She unclenched her fingers, allowing the tension to drain from her limbs. Whatever terrors lay in wait, she would withstand them. The face of her daughter, a pink, pale peony, fluttered before her eyes. She reached out her hand, to caress her cheek. ‘Clotilde,’ she whispered. ‘Meet me, meet me at the gates.’

&nb
sp; Her daughter smiled, her eyes black as coals, a fire behind their gaze. She spread her arms, a ministering angel, and Nicola reached out, let her fall into her embrace.

  She was woken by a pounding on her cell door. She opened her eyes. She had a foul, sticky taste in her mouth. Vomit dried on the front of her undershirt. What was happening? She heard Father Étienne’s voice, felt his hands beneath the wet flannel that was being applied to her burning forehead. ‘My veil,’ she said, sitting up. ‘My rosary.’

  She must have held her daughter for a long time, for she had been shackled, and was now being drawn, gently but firmly, between the bodies of two uniformed guards, perfumed and brushed, as if for a wedding or a funeral.

  No, it was for an execution, with the eyes of all of Paris upon her.

  She walked upright and proud, she did not need them to guide her, to propel her or to restrain her; she moved of her own volition.

  She was taken past the cells, a sack with holes for her eyes over her face. Was the covering to protect her dignity? Or was it for the benefit of the prisoners, to enable them to harden their hearts against her?

  The walls shimmered, like the surface of the river. An exquisite tension. She walked up the spiral staircase, out into the courtyard. Away from the fortified hell that was the Grand Châtelet.

  Up ahead, an apparition. Her daughter’s form shone and wavered, moving several feet in front of her face. She did not take her eyes from Clotilde. She was dressed in the smock she had worn on the day of her burial. White gloves on her tiny hands, embroidered with roses. Clotilde held out her hand for Nicola to hold. There was a gap between the glove and the sleeve of her dress and she saw that the skin beneath was rotted, a bone showing through. Ah, but it was a trick. She settled her gaze back on her daughter’s face; she met her eyes, smiling, beatific.