Juliette looked at me suspiciously. “I won’t let you harm her. Or anyone else.”
“I won’t. Trust me.”
“I mean it, Guy. If anyone else is harmed-by you, or on your orders-”
“Trust me.”
Almost inconceivable, that I should be forgiven. Yet her smile tells me that haply all might be as it was. Guy LeMerle-if I were only he-might have taken that offer. Next week will be too late; by then there will be more blood on my hands than even she could absolve.
40
The air was cool, and there were livid smears of false dawn on the night’s palette. Soon the bell would chime for Vigils. But my head was too full for sleep, still ringing as it was with LeMerle’s words.
What was this? Some witchcraft, some drug slipped to me as I slept? Could it be that I believed him now, that in some way he could have regained my trust? Silently I berated myself. What I had said-what I had done-was said and done for Fleur. Whatever I had promised was for both of us. As for the rest-I shook aside visions of myself and LeMerle on the road again, friends again, maybe lovers…That would never happen. Never.
I wished I had my cards with me, but Antoine had hidden them well; my search of her bedroll and of her place in the bakehouse had revealed nothing. Instead I thought of Giordano and tried to hear his voice over the pounding of my heart. More than ever I need your logic now, old friend. Nothing discomposed your ordered, geometric world. Loss, death, famine, love…The wheels that turn the universe left you unmoved. In your numbers and calibrations you glimpsed the secret names of God.
Tsk-tsk, begone! But my cantrips are useless in the face of this greater magic. Tomorrow night at moonrise I will pick rosemary and lavender for protection and clear thinking. I will make a charm of rose leaves and sea salt and tie it with a red ribbon and carry it in my pocket. I will think of Fleur. And I will not meet his eyes.
Clémente was not at Matins this morning, nor at Lauds. Her absence was not mentioned, but I noticed that Soeur Virginie was also excused from prayers, and drew my own conclusions. The drug was working, then. The question was, for how long?
Such was the speculation about Soeur Clémente that it was some hours before I noticed that Alfonsine, too, was absent. At the time I did not give it much thought; Alfonsine had recently become very friendly with Soeur Virginie and had offered to help her on a number of occasions. Besides, LeMerle was so often in the infirmary block that Alfonsine needed no other reason to haunt it.
But at Prime, Virginie came alone, and with news. Clémente was very sick, she said; she had fallen into a deep lethargy from which nothing was able to rouse her, and had been running a high fever since dawn. Piété shook her head and swore she had suspected the cholera all along; Antoine smiled serenely. Marguerite declared that we were all bewitched, and suggested a harsher system of penances.
But there was more unwelcome news. Alfonsine too was ill once more. In her case there was no fever, but she was unusually pale and had been coughing fitfully for most of the night. Bleeding had seemed to quiet her a little, but she was still very listless and would not eat. Mère Isabelle had been to visit her and had declared her unfit for duties, although Alfonsine had tried to persuade her she was quite well. But any fool could see it was the cameras de sangre, declared Soeur Virginie; and unless the bad blood was drained away, the patient would surely die within the week.
That troubled me far more than the news about Clémente. Alfonsine was already weak from overexcitement and self-inflicted penances. Bleeding and fasting would kill her with far greater efficiency than disease. I said as much to Soeur Virginie.
“I’ll thank you not to interfere,” she said. “My method worked perfectly well for Soeur Marguerite.”
“Soeur Marguerite had a narrow escape; besides, she’s stronger than Alfonsine. Her lungs are not compromised.”
Virginie looked at me in open disdain. “If we’re to speak of being compromised, ma soeur, you should look to yourself.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean that although you may have got away with it last time, there are some of us who think that your-enthusiasm-for potions and powders might not be as innocent as Père Colombin thinks.”
I dared not make any comment after that, either to help Alfonsine or to advise on the treatment of Clémente. It was too close to the truth, and although LeMerle might speak lightly of the possible danger, I was only too aware of the precarious line I was now treading. Virginie had the abbess’s ear; they were alike in some ways, as well as being closer to each other in age than the rest of us; and she had never liked me. It would take only a little thing-words spoken by Clémente, perhaps, in delirium or otherwise-to ensure that I was once more accused.
I would have spoken of it to LeMerle, but he made no appearance today, remaining in the infirmary or in his study, surrounded by books. Very soon, if I knew my plant lore correctly, Clémente’s fever would break and she would regain consciousness. What happened then was up to LeMerle. He could control Clémente, he had said; I did not share his optimism. He had chosen me publicly over her; that was something no woman would forgive.
I slept badly and dreamed too well. My own voice awoke me, and after that I was afraid to close my eyes in case I spoke again and betrayed myself as I slept. In LeMerle’s cottage, a little light burned. I had almost made up my mind to go to him when Antoine got up to use the latrines in the reredorter, and I had to lie back, eyes closed, feigning sleep. She got up twice more during the night-our diet of black bread and soup evidently disagreed with her-and so we were both alert to the sound of the alarm across the courtyard from the infirmary.
Finally, Clémente was awake.
41
Antoine and I were the first to reach the infirmary. We did not look at each other as we raced along the slype toward the walled garden, but we could already hear Clémente’s feverish cries as we approached. There was a light at one of the windows and we followed the light, with Tomasine, Piété, Bénédicte, and Marie-Madeleine arriving soon after.
The infirmary consists of a single large and rather stuffy room. There are beds lined up against the wall-six of them, although there is provision for more. No cubicle wall separates the beds, so that sleep is almost impossible here among the sighs and coughs and whimperings of the sufferers. Soeur Virginie had made some effort to isolate Clémente; her bed was at the far end of the room, and she had placed a curtain screen to one side of it, cutting off some of the lamplight and giving the afflicted girl some privacy. Alfonsine was positioned by the door, as far from Clémente as possible, and I caught sight of her open eyes as I passed; two points of brightness in the dark.
The abbess was already there. Virginie and Marguerite, who must have given the alarm at her command, were beside her, looking fearful and excited. LeMerle stood at her other side, grave in his black robe with his silver crucifix held in one hand. On the bed, her ankles fastened into place by two straps fixed to the wooden frame, sprawled Clémente. A pitcher of water had been spilt across a small bedside table; a reeking basin was pushed beneath the bed itself. Her face was white; her pupils were dilated so much that the blue of her irises was almost invisible.
“Help Soeur Virginie to tie her down,” ordered the abbess to Marguerite. “You-yes you, Soeur Auguste! Bring a calming infusion.”
I hesitated for an instant. “I-Perhaps it might be better if-”
“At once, you fool!” The nasal voice was sharp. “A calming drink, and a change of bedclothes! Go quickly!”