A horse could be heard approaching at a fast trot. It frightened the hens, which squawked and fluttered their wings, and when it neighed a dog responded excitedly, barking from the end of its chain. Iron-shod boots struck the hard earth with a jingle of spurs. Steps approached and Agnes de Vaudreuil ducked her head as she came through the low door.
Seeing the young baronne arrive, Marion greeted her with a warm smile and a disapproving glance, a subtle combination which she had perfected through long practice over the years. Dressed for riding, her rapier thumping against her thigh, Agnes was covered in dust from her riding boots to the top of her breeches, and she was still wearing that infernal red leather corset which, rough and waxed and buckled on tight like armour, was as much a warrior’s talisman to her as an item of clothing. Her face glistened with sweat. As for the heavy braid which fell from the nape of her neck, it only managed to confine half of her hair, allowing the rest to hang free.
“I have left Courage tethered outside,” the young woman said breathlessly.
Marion nodded to show that she was listening.
“I pushed him a little in the lower valley and I really believe he is perfectly recovered from his injury.”
The maidservant had no reply to that either.
“Damnation! I’m dying of thirst.”
Agnes went over to the brass water tank which, set up at an angle, released water through a small tap. She leaned over it, cupping the palms of her hands, and splashing water over the stone floor slabs as she drank. Then she grabbed a crusty heel of bread lying on the sideboard and, ripping it open with her fingers, proceeded to nibble at its soft interior.
“Have you eaten anything today?” asked Marion.
“No.”
“I’ll make you something. What would you like?”
She was about to rise, but the young woman halted her with a gesture.
“Don’t trouble yourself. I’m fine.”
“But-”
“I said I’m fine.”
The servant shrugged and returned to her work.
Standing up, leaning against the door to the salting room, and putting a foot up on a bench, Agnes looked at Marion. She was still attractive, with an ample bosom and small greying locks of hair twisting themselves free between the nape of her neck and her linen bonnet. At one time she had been much courted by men, and she continued to be on occasion. But she had never married, a fact that intrigued other local inhabitants of this area of the Oise valley.
A silence settled over the room, and lingered.
Finally, when she could restrain herself no longer, Marion said: “I heard a coach leave early this morning.”
“Good. Then you’re not deaf.”
“Who was it?”
Agnes threw the piece of bread, reduced to no more than an empty crust, onto the table.
“What does it matter? I remember only that he was well built and knew what he was doing between the sheets.”
“Agnes!” Marion exclaimed.
But there was more sadness than reproach in her voice. With an air of resignation, she gently shook her head and started to say: “If your mother-”
“None of that!” interrupted Agnes de Vaudreuil.
Suddenly frosty, she became absolutely rigid. Her emerald green eyes gleamed with contained anger.
“My mother died giving birth to me and it’s futile for you to tell me that she might say this or that. As for my father, he was a pig who shoved himself between every pair of thighs he could snuffle out. Including your own, as I well know. So do not preach to me about the way in which I occasionally fill my bed. It’s only in such moments that I feel even remotely alive, ever since…”
Trembling, with tears in her eyes, she couldn’t finish the sentence.
Marion was visibly shaken by this outburst, and returned ashen-faced to her scrubbing with more energy than was strictly necessary
Now in her forties, Marion had witnessed Agnes’s birth and the accompanying agony of her mother, who had lain in labour for five days. After fighting at the side of the future King Henri IV during the Wars of Religion in France, the baron de Vaudreuil was always too busy serenading the beautiful ladies at the royal court or stag hunting with the French monarch to interest himself in the fate of his spouse. And upon learning that the child was female, he had not even bothered to attend his wife’s funeral. Entrusted-or rather abandoned-to the care of Marion and a rough soldier by the name of Ballardieu, it was seven years before the little girl met her father. This occurred during a brief stay on his domain, when he had also dragged Marion into his bed. Although she might have offered herself freely to him, if she had had any say in the matter. But the baron was not one to brook refusal from a servant, and would have dismissed her without further ado if denied. Marion could not bear the thought of being separated from Agnes, who adored her and had almost no one else in the world to look after her. The baron had been highly amused to discover that his latest conquest, although by no means a young woman, was still a virgin. Delighted, after it was done he left her to go sleep elsewhere, saying that he deserved her gratitude.
Calmer now and beginning to feel ashamed of herself, Agnes walked around the table to stand behind the woman who had raised her, and bent to embrace her, resting her chin against Marion’s head.
“Forgive me, Marion. I’m mean and stupid… Sometimes, I think I’m going mad… But it’s not you who’s making me so angry. You realise that, don’t you?”
“Yes. But who is it, then?”
“I think… I’m angry at myself. All these memories I have, that I would just as soon forget. Things I’ve seen and done… And things which were done to me…”
She straightened up, sighed, and added: “One day, perhaps, I shall tell you all.”
8
As they travelled back to Paris by coach, Nicolas Marciac and the vicomte d’Orvand enjoyed a light red wine designed to sharpen their appetites. A wicker basket filled with food and some good bottles of wine stood between them on the bench. They drank from small engraved silver goblets, half filled so that the bumps and jolts of the road, which shook them violently and without warning, soaked neither their chins nor their laps.
“You hadn’t been drinking,” said d’Orvand, referring to the duel.
Marciac gave him a wicked, amused glance.
“Just a mouthful for my breath. Do you take me for a complete idiot?”
“Then why this comedy?”
“To make sure Brevaux was overconfident and lowered his guard.”
“You would have defeated him without that.”
“Yes.”
“Moreover, you could have let me in on it-”
“But that would have been much less fun, wouldn’t it? If you could have seen your face!”
The vicomte could not help but smile. His friendship with the Gascon had accustomed him to this kind of joke.
“And who were the two charming ladies whose coach you borrowed to make your entrance?”
“Now, vicomte! I would be the very lowest of gentlemen if I told you that.”
“In any event, they seemed to have a great deal of affection for you.”
“What can I say, my friend? I am well liked-Since you are so curious, then know that one of them is the very same beauty upon whom the marquis de Brevaux, it seems, has set his sights. I’m sure he recognised her…”
“You are reckless Nicolas. No doubt the marquis’s anger grew and his skill as a fencer proportionately decreased when he saw you kiss the woman. But by doing so you gave him a reason to demand another duel. Not content to defeat him, you had to humiliate him. For you it’s a game, I know. But for him…”