Oh, I was convincing. Juliette listened first with skepticism, then with satisfaction, then with a reluctant kind of sympathy. When I had finished, she nodded slowly, looking into my eyes. “I thought it might be that. A special performance, to make him pay for that time in Paris? A return match?”
I managed to look rueful. “I don’t like to lose.”
“And you think this is winning?” she said. “Have you any idea of the harm you’ve done? The harm you’re still doing?”
“Me?” I shrugged. “All I did was set the stage. You did the rest yourselves.”
Her mouth thinned; she knew I was right. “And after the show?” she demanded. “What then? Will you ride away again, both of you, in your different directions, and leave us in peace?”
“Why not?” I said. “Unless you’d like to come with me.” She ignored that, as I expected her to. “Come on, Juliette,” I said, seeing her expression. “Give me credit for some intelligence. How far do you think I would get if I actually harmed the bishop? Did you hear what they did to Ravillac? And in any case, if I’d wanted to kill Évreux, don’t you think I would have found some way to do it by now?” I let her think that over for a while. “I want him humbled,” I told her quietly. “Monseigneur has high ambitions; pretensions to greatness for his line. I want them quashed. I want the Arnaults in the dust, along with the rest of us, and I want him to know that I was the one who put them there. A dead bishop is only a step removed from canonization; I want this one to live a long, long time.”
I stopped, and for several minutes she was silent. Then, finally, she nodded. “You’re taking a terrible risk,” she said. “I doubt whether the bishop would extend the same privilege to you.”
“I’m touched by your concern,” I said, “but a game without stakes is no game at all.”
“Must there always be a game?” she asked, so earnestly that I could have kissed her.
“Why, Juliette,” I said gently. “What else is there?”
34
Last night, at long last, the rain came, but it fell to the west onto Le Devin, and did not refresh us. Instead we sweltered uncomfortably in the dorter and watched the heat lightning as it chased its tail across the bay. The sultry weather had brought a plague of midges from the flats, and they swarmed through the windows, settling on every inch of our unprotected flesh, eking out our blood. We slept poorly-or not at all-throughout the night, some slapping at the midges in a frenzy, others lying exhausted and resigned. I used citronella leaf and lavender to banish the creatures from my cubicle, and in spite of the heat I slept a little. I was one of the lucky ones; this morning I awoke to find myself virtually free of insect bites, though Tomasine was in a pitiful state, and Antoine, with her warm blood, was a quivering mass of red blotches. To make matters worse, the chapel too was infested with the flying creatures, which seemed unaffected by either incense or candle smoke.
Matins passed, and Lauds. Day broke, and the midges withdrew to their stronghold in the marshes. By Prime, however, the air had thickened still further and the sky was hot and white, promising worse to come. No one was still; we were a mass of tics and itches; even I, who had escaped the scourge, could feel my skin prickling in sympathy. It was to this that LeMerle made his morning appearance, looking cool and grave. Soeur Marguerite was at his left side; Mère Isabelle at his right.
A murmur ran through the chapel. This was the first time that Marguerite had attended a service since her attack, and we were still awaiting an official pronouncement on the nature of her affliction. Opinions were divided: some said Saint Vitus’ dance; others the palsy; yet more were convinced she was bewitched or bedeviled. Certainly she looked quiet enough-her tic was gone and her eyes were unusually dark and wide. That would be the poppy I had slipped into her strengthening draught, I told myself. I hoped it would be enough.
But I could hardly dose all sixty-five of them. Alfonsine was flushed and restive; Tomasine was so covered in bites that she could barely keep still; Antoine scratched at her legs continuously; even Clémente, usually so meek, looked agitated. Perhaps Germaine’s death had distressed her more than we had thought, for her eyes were heavy and her features unusually drawn. I noticed that she watched LeMerle constantly, but he took care not to pay her any attention, or even to meet her eye. Perhaps he really had tired of her, then; I was annoyed at myself for the satisfaction the thought gave me.
“My children,” he said. “For three days you have waited patiently for news of our sister Marguerite.”
We nodded; shifted; shuffled. Three days was long enough. Three days of rumor and uncertainty; three days of potions and possets. Superstition had never been very far, not even in the days of Mère Marie; now, robbed of our saint’s comforting presence, we turned to it more than ever. Order was what we needed: order and authority in the face of this crisis. Instinctively, we turned to LeMerle to provide it.
But Père Colombin was looking troubled. “I have examined Soeur Marguerite closely,” he said. “And I have found nothing amiss with her-body or soul.”
A whisper of revolt went through the crowd. There had to be something, it said. He had led us to this; had fed us such scraps as had given us an appetite for his words. There was evil in the abbey; who could question it?
“I know,” said LeMerle. “I understand your doubts. I have prayed; I have fasted. I have consulted many books. But if there are spirits in Soeur Marguerite, I cannot make them speak. All that I can conclude is that the forces that have infested our abbey are too powerful for me to deal with alone. I have failed.”
No! The murmur went through the crowd like the wind through wheat. The Blackbird, hanging his head in fake humility, could not resist a smile. “I thought I could hunt the devil with nothing more than my faith and your trust in me,” he said. “But I could not. I have no alternative but to inform the proper authorities and place the situation-and myself-in their hands. Praise be.” And with that he stepped down from the pulpit and motioned to Isabelle to take his place.
The rest of us looked at one another, remembering the last time Isabelle had addressed us, and a ripple of dissatisfaction and revolt ran through the crowd. We could not rely upon Isabelle to keep order, we knew. Only LeMerle could control us.
Isabelle herself had been taken completely by surprise. “Where are you going?” she asked in a quavering voice.
“I’m no use to you here,” said LeMerle. “If I catch the morning tide, I should be able to bring help within a week.”
Now Isabelle was close to panic. “You can’t leave,” she said.
“But I must. What else can I do?”
“Mon père!” Clémente too was looking alarmed. At her side Antoine turned her mottled face toward him in silent entreaty. A rumor, louder than before, swept over the crowd. We had lost everything else; we could not lose Père Colombin. Without him, chaos would descend upon us like a flock of birds.
He tried to explain above the mounting noise. If the evil could not be located-if the culprit was not found…But the thought that he might leave them at the mercy of that evil had taken possession of the sisters, and they began to wail, an eerie, catlike sound, which began at one side of the chapel and swelled until it had engulfed the entire assembly.
Mère Isabelle was almost beside herself. “Evil spirits, show yourselves!” she commanded shrilly. “Show yourselves and speak!”
The wave of sound passed over us again, and Perette, who was standing near me, put her hands to her ears. I made the sign against malchance behind my back. That cry had sounded too close to a cantrip for my liking. I whispered my mother’s good-luck charm under my breath but doubted that it would have very much effect in such surroundings.