Interesting, that no one had come to speak to me. Strangest of all that LeMerle should not have come-to justify himself, or to gloat. Seven rang, then eight. The sisters would be making their way to Vespers.
Was this, then, what he had planned? Was I to be removed from the scene until his game-whatever it was-had been played out? Was I still a danger to him? And if so, how?
I was roused from my meditations by a rattling at the door. There was a clang as the spy hole was flung open, then a clattering as something was thrust through, bouncing noisily off the hard floor as it fell. I saw no light at the spy hole, heard no voice as the metal hatch was locked again from the outside. I felt on the ground for the object that had been pushed through and had little difficulty in finding a wooden plate, from which a piece of bread had rolled.
“Wait!” I stood up, the plate in my hand. “Who’s there?”
No response. Not even the sound of footsteps receding. I concluded that whoever it was must be waiting behind the door, listening.
“Antoine? Is that you?”
I could hear her breathing behind the metal trap. Five years’ worth of nights in the dorter had taught me to recognize and identify the sounds of breathing. These short, asthmatic breaths were not Antoine’s. I guessed it was Tomasine.
“Soeur Tomasine.” My guess was correct. I heard an indrawn shriek, stifled against a forearm. “Talk to me. Tell me what’s going on.”
“I won’t-” The voice was almost inaudible, a high whimper in the dark. “I won’t let you out!”
“That’s all right,” I whispered. “I’m not asking you to.”
Tomasine paused for a second. “What then?” The high note was still in her voice. “I’m-I’m not supposed to talk to you. I’m not supposed to-look at you.”
“In case of what?” I said scornfully. “In case I fly through the hole? Or send an imp to leap down your throat?”
She whimpered again.
“Believe me,” I said, “if I could do any of those things, would I still be here?”
A silence as she digested that. “Père Colombin lit a brazier. Demons can’t pass through the smoke.” She swallowed convulsively. “I can’t stay. I-”
“Wait!”
But it was too late. I heard her footsteps recede into darkness.
“Damn.”
And yet it was enough to begin with. LeMerle wanted me hidden, had frightened poor Tomasine so badly that she did not even dare to speak to me. What was it he wanted to conceal? And from whom-the bishop, or myself?
I paced the cell after that, forcing myself to eat the bread Tomasine left me, though it was dry and I had never been less hungry. I heard the bell chime for Vigils, then Lauds. I had maybe six hours. To do what? Pacing, I asked myself the question. There was no means of escape. No one would help me, even though there was no one posted at my cell door. No one dared disobey Père Colombin. Unless-no. If Perette were going to come, she would have done so already. I had lost her the day in the barn, lost her to LeMerle and his trinkets. I was a fool to believe that she, of all people, might help me. The clear gold-ringed eyes were witless as a sparrow’s, pitiless as a hawk’s. She would not come.
Suddenly there came a scratching at the door. Shh-shh. Then a low hooting sound, like that of a baby owl. “Perette!”
The moon was up; the light from the ventilation slats was silver. In its reflected glow I saw the hatch open a crack, saw Perette’s luminous eyes through its mouth.
“Perette!” Relief suffused me so that I felt almost weak, stumbling in my haste to reach her. “Did you bring the keys?”
The wild girl shook her head. I moved closer to the hatch, close enough to be able to touch her fingers through the opening. Her skin was ghostly in the moonlight.
“No?” I forced myself to be calm, even through my disappointment. “Perette, where are they?” I spoke as slowly as I could. “Where are the keys, Perette?”
She shrugged. A speaking gesture of the shoulders, a movement of the right hand to indicate width, a round face: Antoine.
“Antoine?” I said eagerly. “You say Antoine has them?”
She nodded.
“Listen, Perette.” I spoke slowly and clearly. “I need to get out of here. I need you-to bring me-the keys. Can you do that?”
She gave me her blank look. Desperate now, my voice rising in spite of myself, I pleaded. “Perette! You have to help me! Remember what I said-remember Fleur-” I was gabbling now in my desperation to reach her. “We have to warn the bishop-”
At my reference to the bishop she cocked her head abruptly to one side and hooted. I stared at her. “The bishop?” I questioned. “Did you know he was coming? Did Père Colombin mention his visit?”
Again, the hooting sound. Perette grinned.
“Did he tell you what-” It was the wrong question. I rephrased it as simply as I could. “Are you playing another game tomorrow? A trick?” My excitement was clenching my fists, fingernails scoring my palms, knuckles cracking. “A trick to play on the bishop?”
The wild girl gave her eerie laughter.
“What, Perette? What trick? What trick?”
But she was already half turning in sudden disinterest, her attention caught by some other thought, some shadow, some sound, her head ticking to one side, then to the other as if to some unheard rhythm. One hand came up slowly to close the hatch.
Click.
“Perette, please! Come back!”
But she was gone, without a sound, not even a cry, not even a farewell. I laid my head on my knees and I wept.
51
I must have slept again, for when I awoke the moonlight had faded to a greenish blur. My head was pounding and my limbs were stiff with cold, and there was a draft at the level of my ankles, which made me shiver. I stretched out first my arms, then my legs, chafing my frozen fingers to restore the circulation, and I was so preoccupied with this that for a moment I did not realize the significance of that draft, which had not been there before.
Then I saw. The door was open a crack, allowing dim light to penetrate into the cell. Perette was standing in the doorway, a hand to her mouth. I sprang to my feet.
She gestured urgently at her mouth, to indicate silence. She showed me the key in her hand, slapped her thigh, then mimed Antoine’s lumbering gait. I applauded her soundlessly. “Good girl,” I whispered, moving toward the door, but instead of allowing me to pass, Perette motioned me frantically to let her through. Slipping past me, she pushed the door shut behind her and squatted on the floor.
“No, Perette-” I tried to explain. “We have to go-now-before they find the keys are gone.”
The wild girl shook her head. Holding the keys in one hand, she performed a series of rapid movements with the other. Then, seeing that I did not understand, she repeated them more slowly and with barely concealed impatience.
A stern countenance, a sign of the cross. Père Colombin.
A bigger sign of the cross. A quick, amusing mime of horse riding, one hand holding a miter that threatened to be blown off by the wind. The bishop.
“Yes. The bishop. Père Colombin. What then?”
She clenched her fists and hooted in frustration.
A fat woman, rolling as she walked. Antoine. Père Colombin again. Then a mime of Soeur Marguerite, twitching and dancing. Then a complicated mime, as if repeatedly touching something hot. Then a gesture I did not understand, arms outstretched as if in readiness to fly.
Perette repeated it with greater insistence. Still I did not understand.
“What, Perette?”
The flying gesture again. Then a silent grimace, miming the torments of hell beneath the fluttering movements. Then, once again, the “hot” gesture as Perette sniffed the air and wrinkled her nose, as if at a stench.