Читать книгу Lady Agnes Mystery Vol.2 - Андреа Жапп - Страница 4
ОглавлениеThe Season of the Beast
Winter 1294, Comté du Perche. The recently widowed Agnès de Souarcy takes under her wing Clément, the newborn infant of her lady’s maid, Sybille, who has died in childbirth.
Cyprus, 1304. The Knight Hospitaller Francesco de Leone is sent to France. His official mission is to gather information that will help the Hospitaller order anticipate the political machinations of France’s monarch, Philip the Fair. However, Leone is guided by a secret quest.
Paris, 1304. Philip the Fair aims to free himself of the Church’s authority. Pope Benoît XI is fatally poisoned, and the Pope’s personal guard – the twin orders of the Knights Templar and Hospitaller – comes under threat. Philip the Fair, with the help of his most influential counsellor, Guillaume de Nogaret, advances his pawns. He needs to find a docile pope.
Souarcy-en-Perche Estate, 1304. Clément has grown into a young boy with a lively intelligence. He gains entry to a secret library at Clairets Abbey. There he devours all the ancient texts forbidden by or unknown to the Church, and stumbles on a journal belonging to the Knight Hospitaller Eustache de Rioux, which refers to a mysterious Vallombroso treatise, two birth charts and a series of incomprehensible runic symbols … Is there a link between these discoveries and the Knight Hospitaller Francesco de Leone’s extraordinary quest?
The body of a man lies in Souarcy Forest. It appears to have been burnt and yet there is no trace of any fire in the vicinity. An emissary of the Pope delivers a message to the Abbess of Clairets, Éleusie de Beaufort. The message contains a reference to the divine blood that washes away all sins. More corpses are discovered, as well as a series of clues pointing to Manoir de Souarcy and Agnès.
On her estate, Agnès, Dame de Souarcy, must also cope with the incestuous desires of her half-brother Eudes de Larnay, who dreams of forcing her to submit to him and is quick to throw her into the clutches of the Inquisition and the bloodthirsty Nicolas Florin. The only person who might save Agnès is Artus, Comte d’Authon, who has fallen in love with her.
The Breath of the Rose
September 1304. Accused of heresy by her half-brother Eudes de Larnay, Agnès de Souarcy finds herself at the mercy of the wicked Nicolas Florin, Grand Inquisitor at Alençon. Florin is ecstatic: this beautiful woman, whom a mysterious shadowy figure has ordered him to kill, drives him to distraction, and he relishes torturing her and watching her suffering. And yet the source of Agnès’s greatest pain is her daughter Mathilde, who was ready to betray her, to accuse her of dealings with the devil in exchange for a few trinkets.
October 1304, the Templar commandery at Arville. The Knight Hospitaller Francesco de Leone continues his secret quest. He is searching for a scroll of papyrus – one of mankind’s most sacred texts, whose existence he learnt of through his godfather, Eustache de Rioux. The manuscript was hidden by a Knight Templar at one of his order’s commanderies.
November 1304, the Vatican Palace. Honorius Benedetti is determined at all costs to retrieve the famous Vallombroso treatise, whose contents must on no account become known. The treatise, which Clément has discovered in the secret library at Clairets Abbey, also contains a reference to Agnès de Souarcy’s birth chart.
1304, Clairets Abbey. One by one the nuns are dying by poisoning. The culprit is among them. Éleusie de Beaufort – Abbess of Clairets and Francesco de Leone’s aunt – is convinced that the killer’s motive is the manuscripts in the secret library …
What is this extraordinary intrigue in which Agnès appears to play the pivotal role? Why is she so crucial to the mysterious quest of the Knight Hospitaller Francesco de Leone that, in a bid to free her, he does not hesitate to slay her jailer, Nicolas Florin? How will Clément, her young protégé, and Comte Artus d’Authon, who has fallen in love with her, protect her from an overwhelming danger? And what is the true meaning of the reference to the Dame de Souarcy’s date of birth and astrological sign in the precious manuscripts at Clairets?
