Meanwhile, Marguerite’s affliction had not abated. The tremor had passed to her right leg, and now both legs were infected with the dancing sickness. Her eyes rolled in dismay as her feet seemed to move independently of the rest of her body, rocking her from side to side. The word-possessssed-rolled around the vaults, picking up momentum as it went.
Isabelle turned to LeMerle. “Well?”
He shook his head. “It’s too early to say.”
“How can you doubt it?”
The Blackbird looked at her. “I can doubt it, child,” he said with an edge of irritation, “because, unlike you, I have seen many things, and I know how easily judgment may be clouded by impatience and lack of thought.”
For a moment Isabelle held his gaze defiantly, then her eyes dropped. “Forgive me, mon père,” she said through her teeth. “What shall I do?”
He thought about it for a while. “She should be examined,” he decided, with a seeming reluctance. “Immediately.”
32
Only I could appreciate how deftly the Blackbird had handled this scene. By seeming to hold back, by adopting a reasoned posture at variance with the atmosphere of fear and mistrust he had already created, he had made it seem as if they, and not he, were making the decisions. Soeur Marguerite was taken to the infirmary, where she remained with LeMerle and Soeur Virginie throughout the night and the following day. According to the rumors, Marguerite’s tic had continued for more than an hour after the aborted service. She was bled twice, on Soeur Virginie’s recommendation, after which she was too exhausted to be examined and had to be put to bed.
I listened to the reports with barely restrained impatience. Of course I know that Soeur Virginie is a silly girl who should never have been put in charge of the infirmary. Already weakened by fasting and nervous exhaustion, the last thing Marguerite needs at the moment is bleeding. She needs rest, quiet, and good, wholesome food: meat, bread, and a little red wine-all the things, in fact, that Mère Isabelle has forbidden. Demons respond to sanguineous humors, declares Soeur Virginie, and to prevent infestation it is essential to thin the blood. In fact, the color red would have been outlawed altogether except for the crosses stitched onto our habits, and Mère Isabelle looks with suspicion on any sister who does not share her own sickly pallor. Red is the devil’s color: dangerous; immodest; blatant. For the first time I am glad that I wear the wimple, and hope that she does not remember the color of my hair.
In this sullen heat, ill humor and suspicion breed like the plague. There are cantrips to bring rain, but I dare not use them; already I sense the disapproval of Soeur Tomasine and others, and I want no more unwelcome attention. Instead, this evening, alone in the chapel, I sat at the feet of the new Marie, lit a candle for Germaine and Rosamonde, and tried to compose my thoughts.
Tsk-tsk, begone! But the Six of Swords is not so easily banished. It hangs above my head like a curse and will not be satisfied. I looked across the pew where, only the night before, Marguerite had suffered her attack of the tremors, and foreboding warred with curiosity in my heart. Was this what LeMerle had intended? Was this another stage of his mysterious plan?
I tried a little prayer-a heresy, you might call it, but the old saint would have understood. The new one, however, just stood in her chilly silence and gave no sign of having heard. She knows only good Latin, this new Marie, and the prayers of such as I are of no interest to her. Once more I thought of Le Borgne-and too of Germaine and Rosamonde, and I began to understand the desire to attack this clean new saint; to bring her down, deface her, make her more like ourselves.
Observing her more closely I could see that she was not all white, as first I had thought. There was a slim ribbon of gilt running around the edge of the Virgin’s mantle, and her halo too was picked out in gold. Carved from the finest marble, veined in the tenderest rose, she stood on a pedestal of the same material, engraved with her name and that of our abbey in gilded letters. There was a crest carved underneath, which on close scrutiny I recognized as that of the house of Arnault, and this time I also noticed another, rather smaller crest, modestly placed beneath, the design of which-a white dove and the Holy Mother’s fleur-de-lis picked out against a gilt background-suddenly looked strangely familiar…
A gift from her uncle, Isabelle had said: her favorite uncle, for whom we must say forty masses in thanks. Why, then, should I know his emblem? Why, then, should I feel myself on the brink of some revelation that would cast light on all that had happened during the past weeks? Even more puzzling was the half-memory that accompanied the feeling: a scent of sweat and wax, a great light and heat, a sensation of dizziness, the clamor that was the Théâtre-Royal, that good year in Paris…
Paris! The memory locked into place with a click. I could see him now-a tall man, gaunt with genteel self-deprivation, his eyes so light they seemed gilded, as if from looking at too many altars. He only spoke once in my hearing, but I remembered his words, uttered in rage on the night of our Ballet des Gueux as he left the hall in a surge of applause.
A Blackbird’s voice may haply be silenced, he had said. Even though such quarry is the vassal’s preserve, if its song offendeth…
A man of strange pride, my Blackbird, in spite of his lack of morals; a strange marriage of arrogance and knavery. So many things are a game to him; so few things matter in his life. But he understands revenge. I know that path myself, after all, and if now I choose to give it up it is only because Fleur takes up a greater part of my heart than I can afford to waste on such foolish things. LeMerle has no Fleur, and for all I know, no heart. Pride is all he has.
I returned to the dorter in silence, my head finally clear. I knew now why LeMerle had come to the abbey. I knew why he had adopted the role of Père Saint-Amand, why he had given orders to taint the well, why he had encouraged the frenzies in the chapel, and why he had taken such pains to keep me from escaping. But knowing why is not enough. Now I must discover what it is that he intends to do. And what is to be my role in this play of travesties? And how will it end-in tragedy or farce?
33
Well done, my Ailée. I knew it would be only a matter of time before you put the facts together. You remember the bishop, then? Monseigneur had the bad taste to disapprove of my Ballet Travesti. To order my removal from Paris. My ignominious removal.
My Ballet des Gueux outraged him, with its sequined ladies; my Ballet Travesti more so, with the ape dressed as a bishop and the Court beaux in petticoats and corsets. To tell the truth, I meant it so. What right had he to censure? No harm was done. A few left outraged, prudes and hypocrites for the most part. But the applause! It seemed never ending. We stood for five minutes with our smiles melting beneath the lamps and the greasepaint running down our faces. The boards glittered with flung coins. And you, my Ailée, too young yet to have earned your wings but lovely in your scandalous breeches, hat in hand, eyes like stars. It was our great triumph. Do you remember?
And then, more abruptly than we could understand, came the end. Évreux’s public letter to de Béthune. The furtive glances, the mumbled excuses from those I had counted as friends. The polite messages-Madame has left town. Monsieur is not at home tonight-whilst more favored visitors came and went with barely concealed disdain.