Читать книгу Lady Agnes Mystery Vol.2 - Андреа Жапп - Страница 12

A young novice who had recently arrived looked up as Annelette Beaupré came hurtling out of one of the guest-house doors into the herb garden. She watched the tall woman stop to catch her breath and raise her hand to her chest. Esquive d’Estouville paused, waiting for her ‘mission’ to approach. She must protect Annelette and Éleusie de Beaufort and at all costs find the thief who had stolen the manuscripts before they left the abbey. She had been chosen because of her talent for disguise as much as for her expert swordsmanship. Éleusie de Beaufort was the aunt of the beautiful archangel whose life she had protected with her sword in Mondoubleau Forest, whose body she had protected from the cold by holding him close as he lay unconscious. Two months ago. An eternity it seemed to her.

Annelette walked on, stifling the urge to burst into tears, to slump to her knees and pray for forgiveness. Caught up in her sorrow and shame, she did not notice a young novice crouching down in order to turn over the earth, and tripped over her. The young woman stood up, stammering an apology:

‘Forgive me, sister. I was so busy digging the frozen earth I did not hear you approach.’

Annelette studied her, shaking her head. She didn’t recognise the beautiful face. No doubt she was a new arrival. An offering to God,5 perhaps. Her eyes lowered in a show of humility, the young woman asked:

‘Are you not Sister Annelette, the apothecary nun whose skills are much praised? I have yet to distinguish which names, faces and functions go together.’

‘It is the herbs that deserve praise, if anything. My talent consists merely in their preparation. And who might you be?’

An immense pair of pale-amber, almost yellow eyes looked slowly up at her.

‘I am new here. My name is Esquive, but when I have the indescribable joy of being received into your order, I will take the name Sister Hélène.’

‘You have chosen well. She was a remarkable woman and a true saint.’

With these words, she left the young woman and went to shut herself away in her herbarium, her world. A few yards from there, Esquive d’Estouville dropped her hoe – a tool unsuited to the season – and, unhindered by the short sword lying flat against her thigh, walked nimbly over to the scriptorium. She had attained her first goal and been prudent. She had coiled her unruly mop of wavy hair under the shorter veil worn by the novices in order to conceal it. However, her remarkable eyes were unmistakable and could give her away, for the Spectre whom she had seen off with her sword was hiding within these walls. Each time Esquive met one of the sisters – a rare occurrence since she had shrewdly requested to be assigned to the more onerous outdoor tasks – she lowered her eyes in an appropriate display of humility.

Annelette closed the shutters, bolted the door and began sobbing in the unwelcoming gloom.

How long was it since she had wept like this? How long since she had felt so deeply wounded? A lifetime.

An unbidden image broke through her despair: her father and brother sitting bolt upright behind the table in the main hall, staring at her critically, callously sizing her up. She did not feel hurt by their lack of affection, for it had never been forthcoming in her case, and she assumed that she no doubt deserved the coldness that had surrounded her for as long as she could remember.

That day, her mother had not deigned to leave her chambers where she prayed day and night, scarcely raising her eyes from her psalter, a bleak smile on her lips. The impossibly tall, lanky young woman sat with her hands clasped in her lap, awaiting the verdict of her father and brother, which was swift.

‘Are you mad, daughter? You, assist your brother in the art of medicine? You must have taken leave of your senses.’

‘But, Monsieur my father, I am well versed in the art of science and medicine.’ In a last-ditch attempt to convince them, she had said, almost imploringly: ‘You have on many occasions seen for yourself that I can be of considerable help.’

‘What impudence! How dare you, Mademoiselle! Why, you ought to be ashamed of yourself! Have you forgotten that you are a mere woman and that women understand nothing of science? Their minds are incapable of understanding such complexities. Admittedly, they are good at remembering and imitating certain procedures and gestures. But when it comes to analysis and diagnostics …’

The old physic, who considered himself an aesculapius,6 despite having more medical blunders to his name than successes, had turned with a smile of complicity to his son who was an equally lamentable practitioner:

‘If you’re not careful, Grégoire, this conceited young woman will be giving you lessons on how to bleed a patient!’

Grégoire had laughed smugly, then looked his sister up and down with disgust before declaring in a bored voice:

‘What of it … If she cares to wash dirty linen and prepare ointments, it will save me an apothecary’s wages. She can also help my wife with the children and the housework.’

‘That is a generous offer, son. What do you say to that, Mademoiselle? Remember that you aren’t getting any younger and I can’t afford to keep an ageing daughter. As for finding you a husband …’

Annelette couldn’t help but notice the look of malicious glee on the two men’s almost identical faces. What pleasure they derived from humiliating her at such little cost to themselves. Suddenly, it had dawned upon her. The enormity of the revelation had struck her like a bolt of lightning: they had been afraid of her all these years. Her keen intelligence, her capacity to learn and to use her knowledge terrified them. Thanks to her, they had been forced to face up to their own limitations and they’d never forgiven her for it.

Curiously, this painful truth had freed her. She no longer belonged there because they didn’t want her. She had no place among them. She had declared firmly yet calmly:

‘I refuse the offer.’

Her father’s mouth set in an angry grimace and he threatened:

‘Well now … We’re no monsters and we can’t force you. In which case, Mademoiselle, I see only one other solution …’ At this, he had turned to his son and sniggered before adding sarcastically: ‘Unless of course a frog miraculously appears and turns into Prince Charming!’

Grégoire had imitated his father, giggling at the unkind joke.

‘There is one other solution,’ repeated the man whom she now knew to be heartless. ‘A nunnery, my child.’

‘As you wish, Monsieur. It is my duty to obey you.’

She had been unable to stop the irony from showing in her voice and her father had exploded with rage:

‘God’s wounds, girl! You cause me to regret bitterly the education you have received …’

She had received nothing but humiliation and shame. She alone was responsible for the knowledge she had assimilated through being observant and attentive.

‘It just goes to show what an ungrateful girl you are. And as for your impudence, well, it bears out the growing doubts about the sense in educating young girls.’

She had left the room.

Four months later she became a novice at the Cistercian abbey at Fervaques,7 founded in 1140 by Sénéchal de Vermandois.

Annelette wept, gasping for breath, wiping her nose on her sleeve, smothering her mournful sobs with her hand for fear a sister or novice might pass the herbarium and hear her.

Stop. Stop this instant, you big gangling fool! Pull yourself together at once. They didn’t love you, not even your mother, whose only desire was to leave the world as soon as possible and join the angels in heaven. And what of it! Nearly thirty years have passed. They may all be dead. Will you carry these absurd regrets with you to your grave? Will you continue making a fool of yourself by trying to show them how wrong they were not to love you? They didn’t care about you and it is time you stopped battling ghosts. Death is stalking you. Fight. Fight for your quest, for yourself, for Éleusie de Beaufort, for Madame Agnès. Stop fighting a memory, people whose faces have become faded images in your mind’s eye.

She sat down on the small stone bench beneath the herbarium window and remained motionless for a long while, her mind drifting. Gradually, her sadness ebbed away and was replaced by a familiar weariness.

How long did she sit there? She could not say. When she finally stood up she thought she heard the bell for vespers.⁺

Figures, gestures, voices that she had seen, observed, heard a thousand times flashed through her mind. Blanche de Blinot, the senior nun and prioress as well as the Abbess’s second in command. Blanche, whose deafness and senility had always grated on her nerves. Curiously, the warm compassion she had felt for the old woman had gradually been replaced by a feeling of contempt. Blanche’s obsessive fear of being poisoned made her seem even more like a dying woman clinging pathetically to life. Annelette wondered whether the old nun’s hysteria when she learned of the deaths of Hedwige du Thilay and above all of Yolande de Fleury didn’t reflect her fear of being the next victim rather than her attachment to the treasurer nun8 or the kindly sister in charge of the granary. Jeanne d’Amblin who sipped her soup so slowly that it felt as if she would be there all night. The dreadful events that had taken place at the abbey in the last few months had brought Annelette closer to the extern sister, whom she had hitherto unfairly resented. It was Jeanne’s task to collect donations from charitable souls or those ordered by law to give alms as a penance for minor misdemeanours. As such, she was not subjected to the cloister – unlike, among others, the apothecary – and was allowed to savour the outside world each time she left the abbey. Berthe de Marchiennes. It was true that Berthe had lost some of her pompous arrogance and no longer wore that perpetually pious expression. Annelette had to admit that the cellarer nun9 had shown some measure of bravery when she confessed to having joined the nunnery because her family had rejected her, and she had no prospects of marriage or any future. And yet she was still suspicious of Berthe and was not entirely convinced by her willingness to help find the murderess. And what of Thibaude de Gartempe, the guest mistress? Thibaude bustled about between her beds and wore herself out sluicing the blackened walls as though in an effort to prove to them all that she was not to blame for the fire. Thibaude, whose madness lay dangerously close to the surface. Annelette could still picture the woman shortly before Hedwige’s demise, screaming hysterically and demanding to leave the abbey at once, digging her nails into the apothecary’s arm until she was forced to slap her. What if her extreme behaviour was merely a clever ploy, an act? And the stout, sullen Emma de Pathus, who Annelette suspected took out her perpetual ill temper too readily on the novices and on her students, since as schoolmistress she alone had the authority to raise her hand to them. Annelette had noticed many a tearful eye and reddened cheek bearing the mark of Emma’s hand. What had she and the infamous Grand Inquisitor been talking about when the Abbess had discovered them in conversation? And the doe-eyed sister in charge of the fishponds and henhouses, Geneviève Fournier? With whom might she have discussed her missing eggs? Geneviève, who could no longer be heard singing canticles at the top of her voice to encourage her hens to lay. Her joy had been silenced for ever, it seemed. And Sylvine Taulier, the sister in charge of the bread ovens, the tiny, stout, tireless woman who churned out loaves as if her life depended on it? And the others? What a woeful inventory. Whom could she trust? Jeanne, perhaps, or more probably Elisaba Ferron who had, at the apothecary’s insistence, replaced Adélaïde Condeau as the sister in charge of meals and the kitchens. This middle-aged widow of a wealthy merchant from the Nogent region had recently taken her final vows. Elisaba was big enough to knock out any villain attempting to meddle with her pots and pans. As for her hardened character, it befitted a strong woman who concealed a compassionate nature beneath her stentorian voice and no-nonsense shop owner’s manner.

Who? Who, then?

Annelette had started off on the assumption that the murderess was intent on stealing the Abbess’s seal. She must think again. All the same, she was not to blame for her mistakes, which were born of the Abbess’s mistrust!

Annelette gave a faint smile. Good. She was becoming angry and bellicose again.

She must now reconstruct the various elements, starting with the killer’s true motive: the secret library and its precious works. Annelette walked over to the tall cabinet and took down a bag of Ricinus communis10 whose oil she only occasionally used as a depurative, on account of its toxicity. She spread the grey seeds streaked with reddish-brown on the table she used for weighing and making up her preparations, and sat down on the little stool. She slid one seed to the left: Adélaïde Condeau, their good-natured, if rather witless, cook, who had been fatally poisoned with aconite in a cup of lavender-and-honey tea meant for Blanche de Blinot, the prioress and guardian of the Abbess’s seal. She placed a second seed beside the first: Blanche, who scarcely left the steam room and spent so much of her time snoozing that the sisters would occasionally look in on her to make sure she hadn’t died in her sleep. Curiously, the aconite used in the tea had not been taken from the cabinet in the herbarium, as Annelette had first feared. The apothecary placed a third seed above the other two: Hedwige du Thilay, the treasurer nun. Next to it she placed a fourth: Jeanne d’Amblin, whose intelligence Annelette deemed worthy of that name. Admittedly, Jeanne had been one of her main suspects up until she herself was poisoned. The fact that she had been on one of her rounds when the yew powder was stolen from the herbarium was further proof of her innocence. Had both friends been targeted or had either Jeanne or Hedwige partaken of the poisoned drink meant for only one of them? In this case Annelette was certain that the murderess had used yew powder stolen from her store in the herbarium. Hedwige’s symptoms proved it, as did the convulsions, shaking and vomiting Jeanne had suffered before falling into a semi-permanent slumber. Annelette felt a vague sense of sorrow as she placed a fifth seed beside the others: Yolande de Fleury – sweet-natured, jolly Yolande who had lived only for her dream that little Thibaut enjoyed health and happiness. Who had been lying to her for two long years by bringing her good news of the dead child? Why?

Annelette then made a little mound out of several castor-oil seeds to represent herself, Éleusie, Madame de Souarcy, the Pope’s emissary and the contaminated rye discovered by Adélaïde in the herbarium shortly before her death. She contemplated it at length then demolished it with a flick of her finger before forming it again. No. She had left out at least three seeds: Emma de Pathus, the schoolmistress who had been seen talking to the fiend Florin; Thibaude de Gartempe, for who was better placed than the guest mistress to create a diversion by setting fire to the guest house? And finally, the shard of glass which had become embedded in her shoe next to Jeanne’s bed. Glass was a precious commodity, and its presence in the dormitory was puzzling to say the least.

She fingered the seed representing Yolande. Strangely, the death of the sister in charge of the granary had affected Annelette more than she could have imagined. She missed the plump young woman’s joviality. And yet she had always considered her permanent good spirits a sign of shallowness. Most of all, she regretted her attempt to use Yolande’s dead son in order to force her to tell them who had been bringing her news of him. The bright-red streaks on Yolande’s deathly pale corpse resembled scratch marks. Annelette’s first thought had been strangulation: two hands or a strip of cloth tightening around her neck. Upon closer examination, she had concluded that strangulation had not taken place. Moreover, what woman was strong enough to strangle a healthy person like Yolande without a struggle that would have woken up the entire dormitory? No. Yolande, like the others, had been poisoned. Several other factors supported Annelette’s theory, one of which was the reddened patch extending up from the base of her neck to just below her nose. No cord or strip of cloth would have left this sort of mark.

Think. Yolande de Fleury hadn’t had the strength to leave her bed or cry for help, suggesting that she was too drowsy to move or perhaps even paralysed. She had almost certainly died of asphyxiation. Either that or heart failure. Was it aconite poisoning as in Adélaïde’s case? Think. When Adèle de Vigneux, the keeper of the granary, had discovered Yolande’s dead body, it was already stone cold, which meant that she had been dead for hours, even taking into account the freezing-cold air in the dormitory. She had lain there with her mouth open, one leg dangling out of the bed, the other tucked under her buttocks, and despite the cold her arms had been outside the covers. Had a sudden attack of fever made her want to cool down? It was possible. And yet it didn’t explain the position of the lower limbs, still less the patch of red rising from the base of her neck right up past her mouth. The stiffness of the limbs was what perplexed Annelette. It couldn’t have been due to rigor mortis, which sets in three to four hours after death, beginning in the small muscles of the neck and spreading throughout the entire body within twelve hours. However, judging from the time Yolande attended the last service, she couldn’t have died much more than four to five hours before she was discovered. And yet her corpse was cold and stiff. Few known poisons could act so swiftly. Annelette racked her brains to no avail. She had a vague recollection – something relating to an animal, she was sure. Still, one thing was certain: the murderess hadn’t taken the poison from her cabinet otherwise she would have recognised the effects.

An animal. Yes. A large animal. Dangerous. What was it! Think. She had read about it once. Why had she with her prodigious memory and ceaselessly active mind mislaid this piece of information?

With an angry gesture she swept aside the castor-oil seeds.