Читать книгу Lady Agnes Mystery Vol.2 - Андреа Жапп - Страница 14

Jules stood twisting his cap lined with rabbit fur between his hands. He was trying to keep as much distance as possible between himself and his terrifying master, but had been ordered by the other man in a slurred splutter:

‘Come closer! Come closer, you wretch. So, my good foreman, what have you to report?’

The serf was only foreman by default, and his title did not spare him from his master’s blows or save him from starvation.

‘Come closer, I said!’ bellowed Eudes de Larnay, hammering the table with his fist. ‘Answer me this instant or I’ll have you horse-whipped by your brothers in misery, who will be only too glad to punish you for your recent arrogance towards them. You’re nothing but a bunch of useless scoundrels intent on robbing me!’

‘No, good master, no,’ stammered the terrified man.

‘If you and your fellow scoundrels aren’t robbing me blind or idling like slugs, then where is my week’s quota of iron ore? Not in the paltry sack you brought me earlier, I hope?’

The other man just nodded.

‘Yes? Are you making fun of me or what? Why, there’s little more than a stone’s weight in there! Where is the rest? You’ve sold it, haven’t you …?’ He glowered. ‘Ah, I see … You’re robbing me blind to pay your taxes, your tallage11 or, worse still, your emancipation. Confess or I’ll skin you alive!’

‘No, my lord. You’re mistaken. That sack’s worth is all we could get out of the mine, I swear on my soul. The mine, it’s … well, it’s …’

Jules’s words petered out. He was trembling with fright. His master’s temper had already claimed several lives. It was rumoured that he’d wrung that strumpet Mabile’s throat for her. Mabile had recently returned to the chateau after spending some time with the master’s half-sister, Madame de Souarcy. She was a comely wench, that temptress, but a nasty piece of work.

‘The mine? What about it?’ Eudes growled.

‘It’s finished, exhausted, there’s nothing left in it. Not an ounce. It’s not our fault, master. We’ve dug until our hands bled. There’s no ore left. It’s finished. I swear it on my son’s life.’

Baron de Larnay leapt to his feet, overturning the bench he’d been sitting on. Jules thought his last hour had come, and stifled a cry as he crossed himself. Eudes roared:

‘Out of my sight! Out of my sight this instant before I change my mind!’

The foreman didn’t wait to be told twice and raced out of the main hall, thanking heaven for his life, which for the time being was out of danger. After all, he possessed nothing more – not even the liberty to leave.

Eudes flopped against the edge of the table. It was true. If he had flogged the men in recent weeks, it was only in a vain attempt to deceive himself that there was some ore left, enough to keep the King happy for a while.

The mine had for generations been the source of the Larnay family’s relative peace of mind vis-à-vis the royal powers, as well as their family fortune – of which only a few tawdry relics now remained. His ancestors had cleverly negotiated with the French kings while continuing to court their enemy: the neighbouring English. The implication was guarded but clear: the ore would go to the more munificent and ‘congenial’ monarch. Thus his grandfather had summed up their situation with the bonhomie of a wealthy draper: ‘A man’s wife is never as attractive as when she is pleasing to other men. And men are generous only to women who please.’ The bonhomie had run dry and the ‘attractive wife’ was barren. The mine had already begun to show signs of decline shortly before the death of Baron Robert, Eudes’s father.

With a shaking hand, he picked up the pitcher, splashing wine onto the dark wood as he filled his goblet. He staggered, grabbing the table just in time to steady himself.

Mathilde! That stupid, vicious little harlot prancing about the chateau in her aunt’s faded finery, giving orders and scolding the servants as though she were their future mistress. They all detested her. He detested her! It had all gone wrong because of her stupidity during the Inquisition trial. Mathilde … Was she expecting him to deflower her in the marital bed? Was that what she was waiting for? Strangely, although it had been his intention, the thought no longer excited him. Mathilde no longer existed if he were unable to use her to hurt Agnès. He belched then laughed raucously. What need had he to court a young maiden with tender kisses when he could mount as many girls as he wanted who would do exactly as he pleased? If Mathilde’s stupidity was to blame for the failure of her beloved uncle’s plans, then she would have to pay. She would pay for that and for everything else. In his drunken rage it didn’t matter to Eudes that a total stranger had stabbed the inquisitor to death. The fault was Mathilde’s. She was to blame for everything – even for not being more like Agnès.

Yes, the little fool must pay. Then perhaps he would be able to get some sleep.

He reflected. His face broke into a smile as he had a sudden inspiration. He called a servant, who was also careful to keep her distance.

‘Go at once and inform Mademoiselle my niece that I wish to see her.’

The girl curtseyed hastily before obeying.

Mathilde had requested a few moments to make herself look pretty before receiving her handsome, beloved uncle. She had pinched her cheeks and chewed her lips to make them pinker, and debated at length whether or not to let her hair down. No. A lady only unbraids her plaits or uncoils her hair when going to bed with her spouse or lover. She had hurried over to the little stool beside the dressing table and adopted what she hoped was a languid yet elegant pose, with perhaps even a hint of provocativeness.

One look at her uncle’s sullen face had told her that she would not be discovering any carnal secrets that night. She had sat up, frustrated. Eudes had seen through her charade, and been overwhelmed by a feeling of violent loathing. The little slut. She didn’t even have the defence of poverty, which he recognised in other women while taking full advantage of it.

‘Dear Uncle, how glad I am to see you again.’

‘I fear you won’t be for very long, my dear, sweet child.’

‘You frighten me.’

‘I’m desperate. Your mother is still blighting our lives.’

‘What!’

‘She demands your return. It is her privilege, since the outcome of her trial, however unjust, did not strip her of her rights.’ Thanks to you, you little wretch, he thought before resuming: ‘I fear she will wreak revenge on you for your bravery and your affection for me, which warms my heart. I know her well. Underneath all that innocence lies a ruthless woman. Oh dear God … When I think of you in that pigsty, Manoir de Souarcy – your pretty hands ruined by drudgery, your lovely figure swathed in rags … it wrings my heart.’

It wrung Mathilde’s equally. Indeed, the mere thought of it turned her stomach. No! She would not go back to Manoir de Souarcy, to her mother, to that filth, those evil-smelling serfs and the unbearable coldness of those ugly stone walls. She wanted merriment, fine food, lights, tapestries, servants, beautiful clothes and jewellery.

‘I won’t go! I won’t go back to that stinking Souarcy.’ Panic-stricken and near to tears, she implored: ‘Please, Uncle, I beg you to let me stay here with you.’

‘It is my dearest wish, sweet child. But how? I cannot fight your mother. Not any more.’

‘But … I will come of age soon,12 in less than five months’ time to be exact.’

‘Where can I hide you all that time so that you may come back to me afterwards?’ Eudes drew close to his half-niece, lowering his head meekly before driving home his advantage: ‘Madame, it took several goblets of wine for me to pluck up the courage to make this confession. Is it not extraordinary for a man who fears only God?’ the coward lied.

The young girl became dizzy with expectancy at his sudden submissiveness and use of the word ‘Madame’. She simpered:

‘You’re scaring me, Monsieur.’

‘And yet that is the last thing I wish to do at this moment. You … Surely, in your wisdom, you must have noticed that I have developed an … attachment to you that cannot be explained by mere blood ties, which, on the contrary … make it difficult, unthinkable even.’

Mathilde’s heart missed a beat. Finally!

‘Monsieur …’ she gasped, clasping to her mouth her hand, which bristled with rings belonging to her dead aunt, Madame Apolline.

‘I know … But it is too late now for me to turn back. I understand that our blood ties repel you. I have thought about it long and hard. I stand before you, defeated, helpless, hopeless. Do you wish me dead? I give you my life.’

Ah … What eloquence! Mathilde had spent nights on end dreaming of such a declaration. Did she harbour a guilty love for her uncle? Indeed not. She scarcely liked him. Mathilde loved nobody but Mathilde de Souarcy, whom she found more and more beguiling. Even so, he was rich – or so she believed – and she found the scene stimulating; she had become an inaccessible goddess before whom men prostrated themselves. What a delightful idea! She stretched out her hands for him to kiss.

‘Dead? Never, Monsieur. What must I do to remain always by your side?’

‘Do you mean that you …’

‘Shh,’ she cut him short. ‘One should never ask such a confession of a lady.’

‘I am an unpardonable oaf, Madame. I apologise a thousand times over. But you have stirred me to the depths, brought me back to life. What must you do? After giving it much consideration I have found only one simple solution. If your mother gets hold of you, she will make your life a misery. You are young and lovely, while she is growing old and has no other prospects than the thankless toil at Souarcy. Her jealousy will know no bounds. She senses that you have won my heart – without doing much, it is true.’

The image he evoked of her having seduced him in opposition to her mother so pleased Mathilde that she accepted it unthinkingly.

‘What is this simple solution, dear Uncle?’

‘Call me Eudes, please. Do not evoke those ties that wrench my heart.’

‘Eudes … I have practised saying your name a thousand times over, Monsieur. Tell me, what solution is this?’

‘A nunnery, my beauty. You will be a guest at a nunnery for five short months, until you come of age.’

‘I will go to a nunnery?’

‘Not as an offering to God, but as a guest. This form of religious retreat is fashionable among the grandest ladies, including the King’s daughter, Madame Isabelle herself.’

‘Madame Isabelle, really?’

‘Indeed, and many others besides.’

‘Five months is a long time … Nunneries are such deadly places.’

‘Five months and you will be free for ever. You, I … But your beauty and elegance will one day take you from me …’

‘Don’t be silly, Unc— Eudes, dear Eudes,’ she assured him, even as she reflected that Château de Larnay would soon fail to live up to the glorious future she envisaged for herself. What was more, her half-uncle would never receive dispensation from the Church to marry her. ‘Very well, sweet Eudes, I agree to go on a brief retreat. But please, I beg you, find a nunnery less dreary than Clairets!’

‘I already have one in mind,’ he lied as he racked his brains to think of a place as far removed as possible from Larnay and Souarcy-en-Perche. ‘You will need to draft a brief letter explaining your wish to leave the world13 for a spell in order to be closer to God … It will help me to defend us against Agnès’s wrath.’

Eudes’s immediate choice was Argentolles, a Cistercian abbey founded by Blanche de Navarre and her son Thibaut VI de Champagne. It satisfied his requirements perfectly: it was far away, buried in the heart of the Champagne region and the rule drafted by Saint Benoît was particularly severe, requiring extreme poverty, strict observation of the cloister and a special emphasis on manual labour.

Your pretty nails will be torn to shreds from scrabbling in the earth, my little coquette; your back will ache from stooping to collect firewood and you’ll have to break the ice in your washbowl every morning.

‘You may dictate, Eudes.’

As he carefully chose the phrasing that would best give the impression that his niece’s decision was final, he envisaged her sitting naked on a hard stool in a freezing room. He saw a nun’s razor approaching her beautiful chestnut locks and slicing them off before shaving her head. He saw them fall to the ground in long wavy clumps. He saw the tears running down Mathilde’s cheeks and dropping onto her tiny breasts. He could almost feel the roughness of the long linen shirt as it slipped over her head. The whore!

By the time her mother found her the insufferable little flibbertigibbet would have come of age and then nothing and nobody could intervene to save her from the convent. Especially since he intended to be a generous donor, and releasing her might involve having to return the money. He was counting on being able to convince the Abbess that lust was leading the young girl astray and that he as her uncle and guardian was concerned for the purity of her soul, and trusted that God and discipline would keep her on the path of righteousness. How could the good woman who was about to do him such a great favour possibly find out that he wasn’t the foolish girl’s guardian?

The whore!