Much of this surrounded LeMerle, and I was unsurprised to overhear a number of favorable opinions. Although some voices among us were raised in condemnation of the little chit who presumed to overturn our way of life, there were few who failed to be impressed by the new confessor. Alfonsine, of course, was completely overwhelmed, enumerating the qualities of the fake Père Colombin with the zeal of one newly converted.
“I knew it, Soeur Auguste. I knew it as soon as I saw his eyes. So dark, so piercing! As if he could see right through me. Right to the very soul.” She shuddered, eyes half-closed, lips parted. “I think he might really be a saint, Soeur Auguste. He has that holy presence. I can feel it.”
However, this was not the first time Alfonsine had been subject to a violent attack of hero worship-she had suffered one, in fact, on the occasion of a local prior’s visit, which left her prostrate for a fortnight-and given time I hoped that this fervent admiration of LeMerle might subside. For the present she glowed at the sound of his name, murmuring Colombin de Saint-Amand to herself like a litany as she scrubbed the floors.
Marguerite too was deeply affected. Like Alfonsine, she developed a cleaning frenzy, repeatedly dusting and polishing every available surface; she twitched at sudden noises, and when LeMerle was close by she stammered and flushed like a girl of sixteen, though she was a dried-up thing of forty, and had never known a man. Clémente saw her confusion and teased her mercilessly, but the rest of us held back. Somehow Marguerite’s reaction to the new confessor went beyond humor and into a dark territory few of us cared to explore.
Marguerite and Alfonsine-who had always been bitter rivals-had become temporary allies in the face of this joint infatuation. Together they had volunteered to clean out LeMerle’s cottage, which was in a pitiful state, having been abandoned since the time of the black friars. In the morning they had gathered together what furniture they thought might please the new confessor and brought it into the cottage, and before the day was over the place was spotless, with fresh matting on the earth floor and vases of flowers in its three rooms. Père Colombin expressed his gratitude with becoming humility, and from that moment the two sisters were his willing slaves.
The evening meal was a meager affair of potato soup, which we ate in silence, even though the two newcomers were not present. But later, as I prepared for bed after Vespers, I was sure I saw Antoine crossing the courtyard toward the little cottage, carrying something on a large, covered dish. The new confessor, at least, would eat well tonight. As I watched, Antoine looked up at the window, her face a blur against the night, her mouth wide with dismay. Then she turned abruptly, pulling her wimple to cover her face, and fled into the darkness.
Tonight I read the cards again, drawing them silently and carefully from their hiding place in the wall. The Hermit. The Deuce of Cups. The Fool. The Star, her round painted face so like Fleur’s with its wide eyes and crown of curly hair. And the Tower, falling against a red-black sky split with jagged bolts of lightning.
Tonight? I don’t think so. But soon, I hope. Soon. And if I have to topple it myself, stone by stone, I will, be sure of it. I will.
16
Terrible, isn’t it? Divination; close enough to sorcery to scorch the flesh. The Malleus Maleficarum calls it “a manifest abomination” whilst insisting it doesn’t work. And yet her cards, with their painstaking detail, are strangely compelling. Take this Tower, for example. So like the abbey itself with its square turret and wooden spire. This woman, the Moon, her face half turned away but so strangely familiar. And the Hermit, this hooded man, only his eyes visible from beneath the black cloak, in one hand a staff, in the other a lantern.
You can’t fool me, Juliette. I knew you’d have a hiding place. A child could have found it, tucked away behind a loosened stone at the back of the dorter. You were never much of a dissembler. No, I’ll not accuse you-not yet, anyway. I may need you. A man needs an ally-even a man like me.
For the first day I watched from afar. Close enough in my cottage by the gates to see everything without offending ecclesiastical sensibilities. Even a saint may have desires, I tell Isabelle. Indeed, without them, where would be the sanctity, or the sacrifice? I will not live in the cloister. Besides, I value my privacy.
There’s a door at the back of the cottage, which opens out onto a bare section of wall. The black friars were more concerned with grandiose architecture than with security, it seems, for the gatehouse is an impressive facade hiding little more than a hillock of tumbled stones between the abbey and the marshes. An easy escape route, if it ever comes to that. But it won’t. I’ll take my time over this business and leave when it suits me.
As I was saying, today I watched from afar. She tries to keep it from me, but I can see her pain, the tension in her lower back and shoulders as she strains to appear relaxed. When we were traveling together she never once cut short a performance, not even when she suffered an injury. The inevitable mishaps that occur in even the best troupes-sprains, damaged ligaments, even fractures of fingers and toes-never slowed her down. She always maintained the same professional smile, even when pain was blinding her. It was a kind of revolt, though against whom I never guessed. Myself, perhaps. I see it in her now; in her averted gaze, in the false humility of her movements, there is a pain that pride moves her to conceal. She loves the child. Would do anything to protect her.
Strange that I never imagined my l’Ailée bearing a child; I thought she was too much of a savage to accept that kind of tyranny. A pretty cub, with a look of her mother, and the promise of grace behind that little-girl slouch. She has her mother’s ways too; she bit me as I lifted her onto my horse, leaving the marks of her baby teeth in my hand. Her father? Some stranger of the road, perhaps: some chance-met peasant, peddler, player, priest.
Myself, even? I hope not, for her sake; there’s vicious blood in my line, and blackbirds make bad parents. And yet I am glad that the child is in safe hands. She kicked me in the ribs as I handed her down, and would have bitten me again if Guizau hadn’t stopped her.
“Stop that,” I said.
“I want my mamma!”
“You’ll see her.”
“When?”
I sighed. “I don’t think you should ask so many questions. Now be a good girl and go with Monsieur Guizau, who will buy you a sugar pastry.”
The child glared up at me. There were tears running down her face, but they were of rage and not of fear. “Crow’s foot!” she shouted, making the forked sign with her stubby fingers. “Crow’s foot, crow’s foot, curse you to death!”
That’s all I need, I thought as I rode away. To be witched by a five-year-old. It beats me why anyone should want a child anyway; dwarves are much easier to deal with, and far more amusing. She’s a brave little cub, though, whatever her parentage; I think I can see why my Juliette cares for her.
Why then this sudden sting of chagrin? Her affection, weakness though it is, makes my position so much easier. She thinks to deceive me, my Wingless One, like a snipe luring the enemy from her nest. She feigns stupidity, evading me except when there is a crowd, or working alone on the salt flats, knowing that in that wide expanse of unpeopled space I cannot approach her with discretion. Twenty-four hours. I would have expected her to have come to me before now. Her stubbornness is a characteristic that both angers and pleases me. Perhaps I am perverse, but I do enjoy her resistance and I feel I might have been disappointed if she had shown any less.
Besides, I already have my allies. Soeur Piété, who dares not meet my gaze; Soeur Alfonsine, the consumptive nun who follows me like a spaniel; Soeur Germaine, who detests me; Soeur Bénédicte, the gossip. Any of these might do to begin with. Or the fat nun, Soeur Antoine, nosing around the kitchen doorway like a timid sheep. I’ve been watching her, and I think I see potential there. Under the new order she now works in the garden. I’ve seen her digging, her cheeks marbled with the unaccustomed exertion. Another has been made cellarer in her place; the scrawny, twitching nun with the bright, wounded eyes. No more pies and pasties under her régime. No more trips to the market, or illicit samplings of old wine. Soeur Antoine’s arms are plump and red, her feet in their narrow boots unusually dainty for her bulk. There is something maternal in her ample bosom, a generosity given free rein in her kitchens among the sausages and roasts. Where will it go now? In a single day her cheeks have already lost some of their roundness. Her skin has a sick and cheesy sheen. She has not yet spoken to me, but she wants to. I can see it in her eyes.