I awoke with tears on my face. The bell for Vigils was ringing and Soeur Marguerite was standing at the foot of my bed with a cresset in one uplifted hand. I muttered the customary Praise be! and rose in haste, feeling between my mattress and the bed for the tablets of dye LeMerle had given me, wrapped in a scrap of cloth so that my fingers should show no telltale stains. It would be easy, I knew, to dispose of the tablets as instructed. That done, I would see my daughter.
All the same I hesitated. I lifted the tiny package and smelt it. It had a resinous, sweetish scent and I could detect the smell of gum arabic and the scarlet pigment Giordano called dragon’s blood through the weave. There was something else too: something spicy like ginger or aniseed. Harmless, he had promised.
LeMerle was not at Vigils, nor at Matins, nor Prime. Eventually he made his appearance at Chapter but said that he needed to attend to some business in Barbâtre, and selected two sisters-at random, or so it seemed-to assist him. I was one. Antoine was the other.
As Père Colombin addressed the Chapter and Antoine saw to the hens and ducks in the barnyard, I fetched LeMerle’s horse for the journey into Barbâtre. Antoine and I would walk, of course, but the new confessor would ride as befitted his noble status. I brushed the animal’s dappled flanks and strapped on the saddle whilst Antoine fed the other beasts-a mule, two ponies, and half a dozen cows-from the bins of hay at the back of the barn. It was more than an hour before LeMerle joined us, and when he returned I saw he had put aside his clerical robe in favor of the breeches and boots more suited to riding. He wore a wide-brimmed hat to protect his eyes from the sun, and thus clad he looked so like the Blackbird of the old days that my heart twisted.
It was market day, and he explained as we set off that he wanted us to arrange some food purchases and other errands on his behalf. Antoine’s eyes lit up as he mentioned the market and I kept mine cautiously lowered. I wondered what favor Antoine had performed-or might be called upon to perform-in return for this outing, or whether she had indeed been a random choice. Perhaps it simply amused him to see the fat nun sweat and struggle in the dust at his horse’s flanks. It didn’t matter in either case. Soon I would see Fleur.
We walked more slowly than my racing heart would have wished, and even so Antoine suffered from the heat. I was more used to walking, and although I was carrying a large basket of potatoes on my back for sale at the market, I felt no fatigue. The sun was hot and high as we reached Barbâtre, and the harbor and the square beyond were already thronged with market-goers. The traders come from everywhere on the island, sometimes even from the mainland if the causeway is open, and today it was; in the harbor the tide was at its lowest, and the place was riotous with people.
As soon as we entered the main street we tethered the horse next to a drinking trough. Antoine went off, basket in hand, on her errand, and I followed LeMerle into the crowd.
The market had been in progress for some time. I could smell roasting meats and pastries, hay, fish, leatherwork, and the sharp scent of fresh dung. A cart half blocked the passage while two men unloaded cases of chickens onto the road. Fishermen unloaded lobster pots and cases of fish from their craft. A group of women were at work with the fishing nets, picking them clean of seaweed and retying broken mesh. Children straddled the wall of the churchyard and gawked at passersby. The air was hot with stench and crackling with flies. The noise was overwhelming. After five years of virtual seclusion I had grown unused to this press of people, these cries, these smells. There were too many people; too many criers and peddlers and gossips and pamphleteers. A one-legged man behind a table stacked with tomatoes and onions and glossy aubergines winked and made a bawdy comment as I passed. Customers held their noses as they queued at a butcher’s stall, purple with flies and black with old blood. A beggar with no legs and only one arm sat on a ragged blanket; opposite him a piper played, while a little girl in a shabby overall sold packets of herb salt from the back of a small brown goat. Old women seated in a close circle made lace with incredible deftness, their gray heads almost touching over the needlework as their withered fingers danced and twisted. What pickpockets they would have made! I lost my bearings in the throng and paused at a vendor of printed sheets, selling illustrated accounts of the execution of François Ravaillac, Henri’s murderer. A fat surly woman with a tray of pies attempted to push past me. One of the pies fell to the ground, splitting open in a startling burst of red fruit. The fat woman turned upon me, squealing her displeasure, and I hurried on, my face burning.
It was then that I saw Fleur. Amazing that I had not noticed her before. Not ten feet away from me, head slightly averted, a grubby cap covering her curls and an apron, much too large for her, tied around her waist. Her face was set in an expression of childish disgust, and her hands and arms were stained with the leavings from the fish cart behind which she stood. My first instinct was to call her name, to run to her and take her in my arms, but caution halted me. Instead I looked at LeMerle, who had reappeared at my side and was watching me closely. “What’s this?” I said.
He shrugged. “You asked to see her, didn’t you?”
There was a drab-looking woman standing beside Fleur. She too wore an apron and false sleeves over her own to protect them from the stinking merchandise on display. As I watched, a woman pointed out the fish she wanted and the drab woman handed it to Fleur to gut. Her face twisted as she slid the short blade into the creature’s belly, but I was surprised at my daughter’s deftness with the unaccustomed task. There was a bandage, now slick with a fishy residue, on her hand. Perhaps she had not always been so deft.
“For God’s sake, she’s five years old! What business have they to make her do that kind of work?”
LeMerle shook his head. “Be reasonable. The child has to earn her keep. They have a large family. An extra mouth to feed is no little thing for a fisherman.”
A fisherman! So Antoine had been right about that. I looked at the woman, trying to determine whether or not I had seen her before. She could have been from Noirs Moustiers, I supposed; she had that look. On the other hand, she could easily be from Pornic or Fromentine, even maybe from Le Devin or one of the smaller islands.
LeMerle saw me watching. “Don’t concern yourself,” he said dryly. “She’s being well looked after.”
“Where?”
“Trust me.”
I did not reply. My eyes were already taking in every detail of my daughter’s transformation, each one bringing with it a new kind of pain. Her pinched cheeks, their roses gone. Her lank hair under the ugly cap. Her dress, not the one she wore at the abbey but some other child’s castoff of prickly brown wool. And her face: the face of a child with no mother.
I turned back to LeMerle. “What do you want?”
“I told you. Your silence. Your loyalty.”
“You have it. I promise.” My voice was rising and I was powerless to stop it. “I promised last night.”
“You didn’t mean it last night,” he said. “You do now.”
“I want to talk to her. I want to take her back!”
“I can’t allow that, I’m afraid. Not yet, anyway. Not until I’m certain you won’t just take the child and disappear.” He must have seen murder in my eyes then, because he smiled. “And in case you were wondering, there are precise instructions to be carried out in case of any misfortune happening to me,” he said. “Very precise instructions.”
I sheathed my gaze with an effort. “Let me talk to her, then. Just for a moment. Please, Guy.”
It was harder than I had expected. LeMerle had told me that if I caused any mischief or suspicion, then there might be no further opportunities to see Fleur. But I had to take the risk. I moved slowly, curbing my impatience, through the crowd to the fish cart. I was vaguely aware of the women on either side of me, one demanding fifty red mullet, the other exchanging recipes with the fishwife. At my back, more customers jostled. Fleur lifted her eyes to mine and for a moment I thought she had not recognized me. Then her face lit up.