Holy Fools (20 page)

I could have stopped
it with a word. But the scene was so compelling, so classic in its perspectives that I had not the heart to do so. The evil omens, the visions, the portentous death, and now the dramatic revelation amid the carnage…It was magnificent, almost biblical: I could not have scripted it better myself.

I wonder if she was conscious of the tableau she presented; head high,
coiffe
pulled back to reveal the dark fire of her curls, the wild girl clasped to her breast. Of course it is regrettable that tableaux should now be so out of fashion; more so that there should be so few here present able to appreciate it. But I have hopes for little Isabelle. An apt pupil in spite of her stolid upbringing, I could not have planned a more rousing performance myself.

Naturally, it was I who taught her all she knows, nurtured her, coaxed her from her meek obedience into this. I have, as you see, a vocation. A sense of pride moves me as I recall the tractable little girl she once was. But the good children, we are told, are always the ones to be careful of. A moment comes when even the most acquiescent of them may reach a point beyond which the cartographers of the mind can map nothing more.

A declaration of independence, perhaps. An affirmation of self.

She thinks in absolutes, like her uncle. Dreams of sanctity, of battles with demons. A fanciful child, in spite of everything, tormented by the visionary yearnings and uncertainties of her youth, the rigid conventions of her line. I suspected she’d declare herself today. You might say I staged it: a little divertissement between two acts of a great drama. Even so she surprised me. Not least by her perversity in choosing as her scapegoat the one woman I should have preferred her not to accuse.

Impossible to think that the girl suspects anything: it is instinctive with her, a child’s love of defiance. She feels the need to prove to me the rightness of her suspicions-I who have always remained maddeningly calm, almost skeptical in the face of her growing conviction-to earn my praise, even my discomfiture. For there is more to her now than submissive adoration. The declaration of self has elevated her, bred seeds of dissension in her that I must nurture whilst struggling to control. Her awe of me remains, colored now with a sullenness, a renewed suspicion…I must take care. Given her head she might fall upon me as easily as upon you, my l’Ailée, and in this the two of you are more alike than you know. She is a knife, and I must handle it with cunning. Perverse enough to welcome the subtle humiliations of my erstwhile designing, the core of breeding in her is strong, her pride obdurate.

You see, Juliette, that this changes things between us. I must not be seen to favor you. Both our heads might roll. I must be discreet now, or my plans will come to naught. I do admit to feeling a pang for you, however. Maybe when all this is done…But for now the risk is too great. Your weapon against me is gone now, even if you choose to use it. The word that stutters and hushes about the church must silence all accusations you may try to voice. You know it; I can see it in your eyes. And yet in spite of this it rankles to submit to the Arnault girl, even if it furthers my plans. My authority has been challenged. And as you know, a challenge is something I can seldom resist…

“There is no cause as yet to cry witchcraft upon our sister.” My voice was even and a little stern. “You are ignorant, led only by your fear. In its face a lavender sachet becomes an instrument of the dark arts. A gesture of mercy takes sinister meaning. This is foolish beyond permission.”

For an uneasy moment I sensed their revolt. Clémente called out: “There was a presence!
Someone
must have sent it out!”

Voices joined hers in agreement.

“Ay, I felt it!”

“And I!”

“There was a cold wind-”

“And the dancing-”

“The dancing!”

“Ay, there
was
a presence! Many presences!” I was improvising now, using my voice as a bridle to rein in this wild and spirited mare. “The very presences that were unleashed when we opened the crypt!” Sweat ran into my eyes and I shook it away, afraid to show the beginnings of a tremor in my clenched hands.
“Vade retro, Satanas!”

Latin has an authority that common tongues sadly lack. A pity that necessity should force me to perform in the vernacular, but these sisters are sadly ignorant. Nuances evade them. And for the moment they were too distraught for subtleties. “I tell you this!” My voice rose above the murmur. “We sit upon a well of corruption! A century-old bastion of hell has been threatened by our Reform, and Satan fears its loss! But be of good cheer, Sisters! The Evil One cannot harm the pure in heart. He works through the soul’s corruption but cannot touch one of true faith!”

“Père Colombin has spoken well.” Mère Isabelle looked at me from her small colorless eyes. There was something in her expression I did not quite like, a calculating look, a look almost of defiance. “His wisdom puts our feminine fears to shame. His strength keeps us from falling.”

Strange words, and not of my choosing. I wondered where she was leading. “But piety may hold its own dangers. The innocence of our holy father precludes true vision, true understanding.
He
has not felt what we have felt today!”

Her eyes moved to the back of the church where the new Marie, newly scrubbed, stood in gracious lethargy. “There is a rot here,” she continued. “A rot so deep that I have not dared voice my suspicions openly. But now-” She lowered her voice like a child exchanging secrets. I have taught her better than I knew, for her voice was clearly audible, a stage whisper that carried to the eaves. “Now I can reveal it.”

Breathless, they awaited her revelation.

“Everything begins with Mère Marie. Did not the first Visitation appear from the crypt in which we interred her? Did not the apparitions you have seen wear her features? And did not the spirits speak to us in her name?”

There came from the crowd a low murmur of acquiescence.

“Well?” said Isabelle.

I didn’t like it. “Well what?” I said. “Are you saying that Mère Marie was in league with Satan? That’s absurd. Why-”

She interrupted me-
me!
-and stamped her little foot. “Who was it gave the order to bury Mère Marie in unhallowed ground?” she demanded. “Who has repeatedly defied my authority? Who deals in potions and charms like a village witch?”

So that was it. Around her the sisters exchanged glances; several forked the sign against evil. “Can it be a coincidence,” Isabelle went on, “that Soeur Marguerite took one of her potions just before she got the dancing sickness? Or that Soeur Alfonsine went to her for help before she began to cough up blood!” She blanched at my expression but went on nevertheless. “She has a secret compartment next to her bed. She keeps her charms in there. See for yourself, if you don’t believe me!”

I bowed my head. She had declared herself then, and there was nothing I could do to prevent it. “So be it,” I said between clenched teeth. “We’ll make a search.”

Le Merle followed her
to the dorter, the sisters flocking at his back like a clutch of hens. He had always been good at hiding his anger, but I could see it in the way he moved. He did not look at me. Instead, his eyes flicked repeatedly to Clémente, trotting alongside Isabelle with her face modestly averted. Let him draw what conclusions he would, I thought; for myself, I had little doubt as to the identity of the informant. Perhaps she had seen me coming from his cottage last night; perhaps it was simply her instinctive malice. In any case, she followed with deceptive meekness as Mère Isabelle, looking nervous but defiant, led us straight to the loose stone at the back of my cubicle. “It’s there,” she announced.

“Show me.”

She reached for the stone and worked at it with her small, uncertain fingers. The stone held fast. Mentally, I enumerated the contents of my cache. The tarot game; my tinctures and medicines; my journal. That in itself was enough to condemn me-to condemn us both. I wondered if LeMerle knew of it; he seemed calm, but all of his body was tensed and ready. I wondered whether he would try to make a run for it-he had more than a fighting chance-or whether he would risk a bluff. A bluff, I thought, was more his style. Well, two could play at that.

“Are we all to be searched?” I said in a clear voice. “If so, may I suggest that Clémente’s mattress might bear investigation?”

Clémente gave me a dirty look, and a number of the sisters looked uneasy. I knew for a fact that at least half of them were hiding something.

But Isabelle was undeterred. “I will decide who is to be searched,” she said. “For the moment-” She frowned impatiently as she struggled with the loose stone.

“Let me do it,” said LeMerle. “You seem to be having some difficulty.”

The stone came away easily beneath his cardplayer’s fingers, and he pulled it out and laid it aside on the bed. Then he reached into the space. “It’s empty,” he said.

Isabelle and Clémente turned toward him with identical looks of disbelief. “Let me see!” said Isabelle.

The Blackbird stepped aside with an ironic flourish. Isabelle pushed past him, and her little face contorted as she saw the empty cache. Behind her, Clémente was shaking her head. “But it was right there-” she began.

LeMerle looked at her. “So you’re the one who has been spreading rumors.”

Clémente’s eyes widened.

“Malicious, unfounded rumors to breed suspicion and to bring down our fellowship.”

“No,” whispered Clémente.

But LeMerle had already moved away, searching along the rows of cubicles. “What might
you
be hiding, Soeur Clémente, I wonder? What will I find beneath your mattress?”

“Please,” said Clémente, white to the lips.

But the sisters around her had already begun to take up the bedroll. Clémente began to wail. Mère Isabelle watched, teeth clenched.

Suddenly there came a cry of triumph. “Look!” It was Antoine. She was holding a pencil in her fist. A black grease pencil, of the type that had been used to deface the statues. And there was more: a clutch of red rags, some with the black stitching still visible-the crosses that had been maliciously removed from our clothes as we slept.

There was a heavy silence as every nun who had been obliged to do penance for the damage turned her eyes on Clémente. Then they all started shouting at once. Antoine, who had always been quicker with her hands than with her voice, dealt Clémente a sharp slap, which tumbled her against the side of the cubicle.

“You milksop bitch!” yelled Piété, grabbing a handful of Clémente’s wimple. “Thought it was funny, did you?”

Clémente struggled and squealed, turning instinctively to LeMerle for help. But Antoine was already upon her, knocking her to the ground. There had been tension between them earlier, I recalled, some foolishness in Chapter.

Now Isabelle turned to LeMerle in distress. “Stop them,” she wailed above the noise. “Oh,
mon père,
please stop them!”

The Blackbird looked at her coldly. “You began this,” he said. “You drove them to this. Didn’t you see I was trying to calm them?”

“But you said there were no demons-”

He hissed at her. “Of
course
there are demons! But now was not the time to reveal all! If you had only
listened
-”

“I’m sorry! Please stop them,
please
!”

But the scuffle was already at an end. Clémente crouched on the ground, her hands over her eyes whilst Antoine stood above her, red-faced and nose bleeding. Both were out of breath; around them, sisters who had not raised a finger to aid either party were panting in sympathy. I ventured a quick glance at LeMerle, but he was at his most cryptic, and his expression betrayed nothing of his thoughts. I knew I had not imagined it, however, that moment of surprise when he saw the empty cache. Someone had cleared it without his knowledge; I was sure of it.

Clémente and Antoine were both
taken to the infirmary, on LeMerle’s orders, and I was put to work in the bakehouse for the rest of the day, where, for three hours, my toils afforded me little enough time for thought. During that time, I made the dough in batches, shaped the long loaves on the trays, shoved them into the deep, narrow bays, so like the dark cells in the crypt where the coffins are laid to rest.

I tried not to recall the morning’s events, but my mind returned to them again and again. Alfonsine’s dance, the swaying bodies, the frenzied beginnings of possession. And the moment when LeMerle’s eyes met mine, even then so close to laughter but behind the laughter a kind of fear, like a man on a wild horse who knows he will be thrown but who can still laugh with sheer delight at the chase.

For a time I had been certain he would not speak for me. He had lost control somehow, though I was sure that the madness was part of his plan. It would have been so easy for him to allow the blame to fall upon me, to use it to bring his followers to heel. But he had not. Absurd to feel gratitude. I should hate him for what he has done to me, to all of us. And yet…

I had almost completed the morning’s work. I was alone, I had my back to the door and was cleaning out ash from the last of the ovens with a long wooden slat. I turned at the sound of her footsteps. Somehow I already knew who it was.

She had taken a risk coming to me, but not such a great one; the infirmary lay just alongside the bakehouse, and I guessed she must have climbed the wall. The midday heat was still blinding; most of the sisters would be indoors. “No one saw me,” said Soeur Antoine, as if to confirm my thoughts. “And we need to talk.”

The change I had begun to see in her a week ago was more pronounced now; her face looked leaner, her cheekbones defined, her mouth hard and determined. She would never be a slender woman, but now her fleshiness seemed powerful rather than soft, thick slabs of red muscle sheathed in the fat.

“You shouldn’t be here,” I told her. “If Soeur Virginie finds out you’re here-”

“Clémente will talk,” said Antoine. “I’ve been listening to her in the infirmary all morning. She knows about Fleur. She knows about you.”

“Antoine, I don’t know what you’re talking about. Go back to-”

“Will you listen?” she hissed. “I’m on your side. Who do you think took those things from behind the loose stone?” I stared at her. “What?” said Antoine. “You think I’m too stupid to know about your hiding place? Poor, fat, stupid Soeur Antoine who wouldn’t know an intrigue if she fell over it during the night? I see more than you think, Soeur Auguste.”

“Where did you hide my things? My cards, and-”

Antoine shook a plump finger. “Quite safe,
ma soeur,
quite hidden. But I’m not ready to give them back just yet. After all, you owe me a favor.”

I nodded. I had not expected her to forget it.

“Clémente will talk, Auguste,” she said. “Not now, perhaps. She may be in disgrace today, but Mère Isabelle believes in her. Sooner or later, she will accuse us. And when she realizes that Père Colombin will not defend her, then she will bring him down.”

She paused for a moment to make sure I understood. My head was spinning. “Antoine,” I said. “How did you-”

“That isn’t important,” said Antoine in a harsh voice. “The little girl will believe her. I know little girls. I was one myself, after all. And I know”-at this her red face twisted in a painful smile-“I know that even the sweetest and most docile little girl will one day rise up to defy her father.”

There was a long silence. “What do you want?” I said at last.

“You know about herbs.” Now Antoine’s voice was soft, persuasive. “You know what to do with them. I could-I could slip her a dose while she’s safe in the infirmary. No one would know.”

I stared at her, incredulous. “
Poison
her?”

“No one would know. You could tell me what to do.” She sensed my disgust and gripped my arm tighter. “It’s for all of us, Auguste! If she speaks against you, you’ll lose Fleur. If she speaks against me-”

“What?”

There was a long silence. “Germaine,” she said at last. “She knew about Clémente and Père Colombin. She was going to tell.”

I tried to understand. But it was hot; I was tired; Antoine’s words sounded like meaningless noise. “I couldn’t let her,” she went on. “I couldn’t let her accuse him. I’m strong-stronger than she was, anyway. It was very quick.” And Antoine gave a tiny smile.

It was almost too much for me to take in. And yet it made a kind of sense. I told you: the Blackbird’s skill was in making people see what they most wanted in him. Poor Antoine. Robbed of her child at fourteen, her only remaining passions those of the table, at last she had found another outlet for her maternal nature.

A sudden thought struck me, and I turned to her in dismay. “Antoine. Did
he
tell you to do it?”

I don’t know why the thought appalled me. He’s killed before, and for less reason. But Antoine shook her head. “He knows nothing about it. He’s a good man. Oh, he’s no saint,” she added, dismissing the seduction of Clémente with a gesture. “He’s a man, with a man’s nature. But if that little girl turns against him-” She gave me a sharp look. “You see why it has to be done, don’t you, Auguste? A painless dose-”

I had to stop this. “Antoine. Listen.” She looked at me like a good dog, with her head to one side. “It would be a mortal sin. Doesn’t that mean anything to you?” Admittedly it meant little enough to me, but I had always thought her a true believer.

“I don’t care!” Her face was flushed, her voice rising dangerously. It occurred to me that her very presence here could be a danger to me.

I motioned her to be silent. “Listen to me, Antoine. Even if I knew the plants to use, whom would they suspect? All poisons take time, you know, and any fool can recognize the symptoms.”

“But we
can’t
let her tell!” said Antoine stubbornly. “If you won’t help me, I’ll have to take action.”

“What do you mean?”

“I hid your treasures, Auguste,” she said. “I can always find them again. You’ll be watched all the time, now you’ve been accused. Do you think he’d speak for you again? And if you were examined, what do you think would happen to Fleur?”

In Aquitaine all the witch’s household follows her onto the pyre. Pigs, sheep, housecats, chickens…I saw an engraving once of a burning in Lorraine; the witch above the pyre, and below her, cages in which smaller crudely drawn stiff figures crouched, hands outstretched. I wondered what the custom was in the islands.

Antoine watched me with a look of terrible patience. “You have no choice,” she said. Nodding, I had to agree.