Читать книгу Lady Agnes Mystery Vol.2 - Андреа Жапп - Страница 18

Compline⁺ was long over by the time Agnès and Clément arrived back at the manor. A pleasant languor slowed the Dame de Souarcy’s movements. One of the farm hands rushed over to take Églantine to the stable and a well-deserved meal of hay.

Agnès detained Clément, who was heading for the kitchens to get some food:

‘Stay, dear Clément, and share my supper. I don’t feel like eating alone.’

‘Madame …’

‘Does my company displease you?’

‘Oh,’ he breathed, frowning at the mere suggestion. ‘It’s just that … It is such a privilege … What will the others think?’

‘What others? Poor Adeline? We’re virtually alone. Every day I fear Brother Bernard, my chaplain, will announce his departure.’

‘Why should he? You’ve been cleared of all suspicion.’

‘Yes, but even false accusations leave a mark. The poor young man was terrified that people would give credit to the tales of heresy and carnal dealings with me. I wouldn’t blame him for wanting to leave Souarcy.’

‘And yet he seems like a man of faith and honour.’

‘May God hear your words, for he would be sorely missed in the village, and I doubt that others would be hammering at the door to replace him.’

Adeline appeared. The sudden departure of Mabile, Eudes de Larnay’s spy and one of his numerous lovers, appeared to have jolted the stocky young girl out of her usual ineptitude. She had embraced her new post as mistress of the kitchens with enthusiasm – if only to prove that, armed with pots and pans, she was equally capable of producing marvels. Her curtseys, however, remained as clumsy as before. She curtseyed then, tottering slightly, and declared:

‘Seeing as it’s Advent and a fasting day to boot, and cold as death outside, I’ve prepared gourd23 soup with almond milk. Upon my word, it’s as smooth as mayonnaise. After that I’ve made horse bean and onion purée to go with the trout Gilbert caught to liven up your fasting day, Madame. For dessert … well, there’s a slice of dried layered fruit tart left over. Dried fruit, that’ll perk you up after a ride. I haven’t got much to finish … A goblet of mulled wine, perhaps.’

‘It all sounds very tempting, Adeline. Thanks to your talents our Advent meal promises to be as delicious as that of any feast day. Lay a place for Clément next to me.’

The young woman was so thrilled at the compliment that she appeared unsurprised by the young servant being singled out for such an honour. After all, everybody knew of Madame’s fondness for the boy.

They ate their soup in silence, a silence Agnès at first attributed to their exhaustion and the emotion of their discovery. And yet something about Clément’s demeanour and his lack of appetite intrigued her. She waited until Adeline had served Gilbert the Simpleton’s fine trout en croute and then, unable to contain herself any longer, she questioned him. The steaming pastry gave off a delicious smell of clove and ginger.

‘I sense that you are pensive, serious. You’re picking at your food. What’s the matter?’

The young boy looked down at his trencher24 in silence.

‘Come now, Clément, is it as bad as all that?’ Agnès insisted.

‘Yes, Madame,’ he whispered, almost in tears.

‘Tell me, quick – you are frightening me.’

‘I … I lied to you and I am terribly ashamed of myself.’

‘You lied to me? That’s impossible.’

‘It’s true, Madame. I was afraid you’d be angry and … the longer I kept it from you, the more difficult it became to tell you the truth.’

Agnès’s incredulity gave way to a feeling of unease. She ordered:

‘Tell me this instant. I demand that you stop shilly-shallying and confess.’

‘I … I sneaked into Clairets Abbey at night.’

‘Have you taken leave of your senses?’ Agnès whispered, stunned.

‘I discovered a secret library.’

‘Clément … Have you lost your head?’

‘Oh no, Madame, I have not. How do you think I knew about Guy Faucoi’s Consultationes ad inquisitores haereticae pravitatis and about that slim volume describing the terrible torture methods used by the Inquisition?’

‘A knowledge that helped me to survive,’ Agnès added. ‘Carry on.’

‘Nobody but the Abbess appears to know the library exists. I went back there night after night. If only you knew how many marvels, discoveries, advancements for mankind are hidden within those windowless walls!’

Overcome with panic, the Dame de Souarcy exclaimed: ‘How could you have been so foolish! The Abbess would have thrashed you if she’d found you there!’

‘I know.’

‘I should be furious with you for being so disobedient, so devious …’

‘But are you, Madame?’ asked Clément woefully.

‘I should be! However, I am unforgivably weak where you are concerned.’

The young boy stared into her eyes, and a look of immense relief appeared on his face as he saw a smile play across her lips.

‘Indeed, I find it impossible to stay angry with you for very long. Moreover … Had you not warned me about those inquisitorial ruses, I would have fallen into every single trap Florin laid for me.’ A twinkle of amusement lit up her grey-blue eyes, which were trained on him, and she said in hushed tones: ‘And, besides, I have an insatiable interest in books. Tell me. Tell me about everything you found there.’

He revealed every single one of his discoveries, and was enthralled by the changing expressions on her face: concern, surprise, awe, joy, anger and dazzlement. He told her about the earth moving round the sun; he described the marvels of Greek, Jewish and Arabic medicine; assured her that unicorns, fairies and ogres did not exist; and finally he spoke of the knight Eustache de Rioux’s journal, of the predictions and birth charts it contained and of the Vallombroso treatise, which still eluded him. She listened, leaning slightly towards him, open-mouthed, and he reflected that she was without doubt the most overwhelming, the most magnificent mortal created by God in his infinite goodness to light up the lives of others. When he had finished, she remained silent for a few moments then said:

‘It’s astonishing! I’m speechless. All of a sudden I feel cold. Ask Adeline to add a few logs to the fire.’

‘I will do it. The poor girl must be exhausted, not that she complains about having twice as much work to do since that rat Mabile’s departure.’

‘You’re right. Tell her she may go to bed and that we enjoyed her meal very much. And tell her that her cooking is as good if not better than Mabile’s.’

‘She’ll swell with pride.’

‘Pride, provided it is fleeting, can be a salve, especially to a wretched girl to whom life has not been kind. And besides, if her pride remains focused on her soups and roasts, I see no harm.’

He obeyed. During the ensuing moments of solitude, Agnès sat, the earthenware goblet of mulled wine in front of her, her mind empty. No, not empty. Far away. All of this confirmed what she had long suspected but had been unwilling to admit. What exactly was she afraid of? She couldn’t say. The truth, perhaps?

Her thoughts drifted. Mathilde, always Mathilde. The rage that had roused her, despite her exhaustion, when the young girl had tried to send Clément to the stake, had not turned to hatred, despite her prayers. More than anything else, Agnès would have liked to be able to close her heart and mind to the girl. Of course she did not blindly believe that Eudes’s villainy was entirely to blame for turning her daughter’s mind. Even so, the scoundrel had done his best to foster the bad seeds planted in Mathilde’s soul. And, indeed, Agnès herself felt responsible, at least in part, for their very existence. She blamed herself for not succeeding in stamping them out completely. She couldn’t pretend that she was unaware of their existence, their origin, their very nature. These seeds were a punishment for the sins of the mother.

Clément came back and sat down beside her, and they watched the fire stir again from its embers. The feeble warmth it dispersed through the cavernous, icy room, illuminated by resin torches fixed along the walls, did nothing to drive out the chill Agnès felt in her bones.

‘Speak to me, Madame. Scold me if you must, but say something,’ implored Clément, suddenly unnerved by the long silence.

‘Dear Clément … I’m afraid.’ She buried her face in her hands and declared: ‘A beautiful, brave lady whose Christian name you bear once told me that fear is no defence against pain. She was right, and yet … I miss her terribly. I’ve missed her for so long. I tell you I’m afraid of not living up to Madame Clémence de Larnay’s expectations of me. She was so fearless, so determined … and loving and loyal too.’

‘But you do live up to them, Madame. You live up to something that is immeasurable.’

‘They are sweet words. Forgive me for not believing I deserve them. For you see, Clément, I was so afraid in that evil dungeon. Afraid of death – or, worse still, of suffering. Afraid of giving in, of acting like a coward and denouncing others, of surrendering. Madame Clémence would have held her head high, stood her ground and ridiculed anybody who threatened her.’

‘But you didn’t give in any more than she would have. I agree that fear is no defence against pain, Madame, but fearlessness does not defeat pain either.’

‘What is your solution, then?’

Clément grinned, and Agnès wondered for a split second what he would deduce if at that very moment he caught sight of himself in a looking glass.

‘My solution to fearing pain or being foolishly oblivious to danger? To tell myself that it is possible to survive pain, however bad. To convince myself that it is better to have my flesh torn asunder than to lose my soul. Flesh heals, lost souls are rarely saved.’

‘Clément … I need to ask a favour of you …’

‘Anything, Madame, unreservedly,’ he interrupted.

‘Finish what I scarcely dare envisage, Clément. I am confused and I know that my confusion is not accidental. Join all the loose strands, I implore you. Link your discovery at Clairets to the knight’s visit to my cell, the devotion that made him kneel before me in that evil-smelling mire. He spoke like a man entranced. Don’t forget Agnan, Nicolas Florin’s young clerk, his passion and how he, too, was willing to die in order to save my life. None of it makes any sense. No visible sense, unless these two men know or perceive things that remain a mystery to me.’

‘A mystery? And yet what you say makes it clear that you are nearing the answer, although we still do not possess the key to this mystery. I’ve told you all I know. I, too, am haunted by an intuition, which I have no real means of verifying.’

‘What are you talking about? What intuition and how did it come to you?’

‘I don’t know. I believe that we are – that you are – in the centre of a storm, the scope of which we are only just beginning to grasp.’

The boy’s remark stunned Agnès. So, Clément shared her exact feelings.

‘What storm?’

‘I wonder whether the first birth chart might not refer to you.’

‘It’s absurd! What? An illegitimate noblewoman, a widow with no fortune who barely manages to keep her household afloat by bartering the honey and wax she wrests from her half-brother and overlord in exchange for grain, and by rearing pigs and growing buckwheat and millet? Such a woman as I would appear in a notebook belonging to two Knights Hospitaller, one of whom fought at Saint-Jean-d’Acre? Fiddlesticks!’

‘A widow with no fortune whom a Grand Inquisitor was intent upon destroying and who was saved by a Knight of Justice and Grace who fell from the sky. Come, Madame … I am as confused as you. But you must confess that some coincidences are too great to be simple coincidences.’

Agnès was silent for a moment before confessing:

‘I know. I know and I am terribly afraid.’

‘So am I, Madame. But there are two of us.’

‘I’m behaving like a silly fool tonight,’ she began in a faltering voice. ‘Do you believe me, Clément, when I tell you that one day you will find out the truth about these charts?’

‘In order to do so I must lay my hands on the Vallombroso treatise.’

‘And return to Clairets in order to consult the notebook, too, I suppose?’

A smile flashed across the young boy’s face and he corrected her:

‘No. During my last visit to Clairets what seems like an eternity ago, before your trial, I carefully copied out the two birth charts and the prophecy, as well as some of the other notes, onto a piece of paper, which I have hidden in a safe place.’

Agnès did not know where the immense feeling of relief came from that caused her to let out a sigh. She spoke but did not understand the meaning of her own words:

‘All is not lost, then.’

‘The fact remains that I do not have the Vallombroso treatise and without it I have no hope of making any progress. I will, with your permission this time, take advantage of the approaching Nativity celebrations to slip back into the library and look for it – if it is even there.’

‘Tomorrow I will request a meeting with Madame de Beaufort. We might learn something from it.’