The Lady Agnes Mystery, Volume 1 (11 page)

T
he brambles and the long grass still trapped the early-morning mist. It was as if the earth, jealous of the sky, had formed its own clouds. Gilbert used to be afraid of it. Everybody said it was the breath of spirits, some of whom were so resentful of their fate that they would lure you into their limbo. But his good fairy had told him that was just nonsense and stories to make little children do as they were told. Mist came from the forest floor when it was full of water and the heat made it rise. That was all. Gilbert had found this explanation very reassuring and had felt suddenly superior to all the fools taken in by a lot of tall tales. For his good fairy was always right.

Gilbert chuckled with glee. His shoulder bag was already full to bursting with morels. The autumn rains and forest fires the previous year had been favourable. He would keep one large handful for himself to cook in the embers the way he liked. All the rest would go to his good fairy. For he was certain she was a fairy. One of those fairies who have grown accustomed to human ways and who make their lives more beautiful and sweet.

With the underneath of his sleeve, he wiped away the saliva running down his chin. He was jubilant.

She adored the morels he picked for her each spring. Oh! He could already imagine her feeling the weight of them in her beautiful pale hands and declaring:

‘Why, Gilbert, they look even bigger than last year’s crop! Where do you manage to find such marvels?’

He wouldn’t tell her. And yet he was prepared to do anything to please her. But he was no fool; if he showed her his secret
places for picking morels, ceps and chanterelles, he would have no more lovely gifts to bring her. And that would be sad because then she wouldn’t give him that happy smile any more. Just like the magnificent wild trout he caught with his bare hands in the icy waters of the river Huisne. Gilbert swelled with pride: only he knew where to find the tiny creeks that held the biggest fish. What is more, he took great pains when going there to make sure nobody was following him, looking back and listening out. If he stood still where the current was weakest he could almost pluck them from the water like fruit. Every Friday he brought a pair for his good fairy to brighten up her fast days.

His mood changed abruptly, and he became sullen. Of course he would give his life for his good fairy. And yet he was so afraid of death since he had lain in bed with it for two days and three nights. He could have sworn that open-eyed death was staring at him even while he slept. It didn’t smell too bad though because of the cold. It was in winter; he forgot which year. A cruel winter when many people died, even at the manor, even the old chaplain and his good fairy’s maidservant, the one who was with child. He remembered that the Dame de Souarcy had allowed hunting on her land because he had caught some rabbits. At first, he had lain close to open-eyed death, hoping in vain for some warmth. He had been too young at the time to know that dead people suck up all the heat. When they, the others, finally noticed them, death and him, they dragged open-eyed death away and flung her on top of a pile of other bodies on a cart. One of the others had said:

‘What’ll we do with the idiot now the old woman’s gone? He’s just another mouth to feed. I think we should leave him at the edge of the forest to fend for himself.’

A woman who was standing apart from the others protested as a matter of form:

‘It’s not Christian! He’s too young. He’ll perish in no time.’

‘He has no sense in his head so it’s not as bad as if it were one of us.’

‘I say it’s not Christian,’ the woman had insisted before walking away.

The nine-year-old Gilbert had watched them, hardly understanding what they were scheming, only sensing that his chances of survival were waning as his quivering mother, sprawled on top of a pile of other corpses, was drawn away on a rattling ox-cart.

Blanche, the tanner’s wife, renowned for her piety and good sense, had declared:

‘Mariette’s right. It isn’t Christian. He’s still a child.’

‘He’s a dirty little cat-killer,’ replied the man, who was in a hurry to despatch Gilbert to a better world, preferably one where he wouldn’t need feeding.

True, he had skinned a couple of the neighbours’ cats. But it wasn’t as if they were dogs, and anyway it was so he could line his clogs with their pelts. It was wrong of him to be sure. It was wrong to harm the predators of the field mice that ravaged the grain stocks, except if they were black. He could kill any number of those, for safety, for they were liable to turn into hosts of the devil.

Blanche had shot the man an angry look that had all but made him recoil. She replied in a sharp voice:

‘I think I shall bring the subject of our disaccord before our lady. I feel sure that she will see it my way.’

The man had lowered his head. He, too, felt sure.

And so it was. Agnès had ordered the simpleton to be brought before her, and had warned that anyone unjustly beating, harming or punishing the boy in any way would have her to answer to.

Gilbert the simpleton had grown in size and strength under the protection of the manor, but his mind was still that of a child. Like a child he sought his good fairy’s affection, growing gentle and meek when she stroked his hair or spoke softly to him. And like a child a wild temper could flare up in him when he feared for his good fairy or for himself. His colossal strength had not only protected the Dame de Souarcy but had also discouraged any attempts on the part of the villagers to taunt or mistreat him.

For some time, the one they so often called the idiot had been alerted by a strange premonition: the season of the beast was drawing near. It would soon be upon them. Occasionally, when night fell, Gilbert would be thrown into a panic, unable to imagine what form this beast would take. And yet he could feel it, he could smell it coming. His fear never left him and compelled him to remain by Clément’s side, even though he disliked the boy, envying him his privileged position close to Agnès. But Clément loved the good fairy, too, with a love that was true and pure, and the simpleton knew this. Clément had the brains which Gilbert lacked but in contrast possessed none of Gilbert’s extraordinary physical strength. Together they could become their lady’s knight in shining armour. Together they could fight off many dangers, perhaps even the beast itself.

The troubled mood that had overtaken him a few minutes before gave way to a burst of renewed confidence. He would pick a few more morels and then gather the medicinal herbs his fairy had requested. He knew so many plants and herbs with miraculous powers. Some healed burns while others could kill an ox. The trouble was he didn’t know their names. He recognised them by their pleasant aroma or their nauseating stench, or by their flowers or the shape of their leaves. The previous winter, he had cured his lady’s cough with a few simple decoctions. As
soon as he had picked enough he would go back. He was already feeling hungry.

He knew exactly where to find a nice crop, just beyond that bit of undergrowth that looked so much bigger than last year. He lay on his belly beside the tangle of brambles and bindweed and slid his hand between the nasty thorns. What was that touching his fingers? It felt like cloth. What was it doing there in the middle of his good fairy’s mushrooms? The snarl of weeds was so dense that he couldn’t make out much, just a vague outline almost the size of a stag, except that stags didn’t wear clothes. Gilbert pulled his sleeves down to protect his hands and tugged at the wild brambles until he had cleared a sort of tunnel through which he was able to crawl towards the shape.

Closed-eyed death. It wasn’t staring at him for there were no eyes – only two puffy slits. Inches from the soft mass that had once been a face, the simpleton was breathless with terror. He crawled backwards, twisting like a snake and whimpering, his mouth closed. Fear clouded the few brain cells he possessed. He tried to stand up, the thorns from the blackberry bush spiking the flesh on his shoulders, arms and legs.

He ran like a madman towards the village, panting and clasping his bag of mushrooms to his belly. A single sentence kept racing through his head: the beast was here, the beast was upon them.

The corpse, or what remained of it, lay on a plank resting on two trestles in the hay barn at the Manoir de Souarcy. Agnès had sent three farm hands with a cart to bring it back. Clément had taken advantage of the general commotion to go in and take a look undisturbed. It was true that the state it was in was hardly an enticement to onlookers.

It was a man, in his thirties, fairly tall and well built. There was
no sign of any tonsure to suggest he might be a friar. Clément did not trouble to go through the dead man’s pockets, certain that the farm hands would have filched anything of value he might have been carrying, and then scattered the rest to make it look as if a thief had arrived there first.

The man had not been dead long, three or four days probably, judging by the state of the flesh that bore almost no signs of decomposition. In addition, the smell he gave off was still tolerable. On the other hand, it looked as though some animal had attacked him, unleashing itself on his face until it was unrecognisable, an exposed mass of mutilated flesh. Such a sustained attack by a carnivorous animal on one part of the body was inconceivable. The face is not the fleshiest part of the body – far from it. Predators and carrion feeders go for the buttocks, thighs, belly and arms, leaving the bony parts covered in skin or a thin layer of flesh for the insects or other small scroungers.

Were his deductions the result of his previous encounter with the corpse in Clairets Forest, or of the science he had been devouring over the past few weeks? Doubtless both. In any event the corpse made no impression on Clément and he walked over to it unflinchingly.

He lifted the tattered shirt hanging from the man’s chest with the tip of his forefinger in order to examine the abdomen. The greenish hue had not yet spread over the entire stomach, although blisters filled with foul-smelling gases – a sign of putrefaction – were beginning to appear on the skin, bearing out Clément’s first speculation as to the time of death. He walked around the table so that he was standing directly behind the man’s head. It looked as though a set of talons had ripped into his face, slashing his brow, cheeks and neck so savagely that even a close friend would
have difficulty recognising him. He found one detail puzzling. How would an animal have gone about maiming its prey in this way? The direction of the wound was obvious from the way the slashes on the right cheek were neater by the nose and clogged with skin and flesh towards the ear. Examining the wounds on the left cheek, he noticed that the inverse was true. So this hypothetical creature must have lashed at one ear with its claws and ripped the flesh towards the nose and then done the opposite on the other side of the face. It couldn’t be the result of a single movement of the claws slashing from right to left because the nose was intact. Another detail caught his attention. He had read, in the introduction to a work by a renowned eleventh-century Iranian doctor called Avicenna, that wounds inflicted post mortem were easily identifiable. They neither bled nor showed signs of inflammation. Exactly like those the man presented. The bloodless edges of the elongated contusions ravaging the victim’s face cried out their truth to those who knew how to listen. The man had been attacked after he was dead.

The sound of a man’s heavy gait accompanied by a lighter step, which Clément immediately recognised as Agnès’s, interrupted his reflections. He dived behind some bales of straw stacked at the far end of the barn.

That man’s death was not the work of any animal. His wounds had been inflicted post mortem in order to conceal his identity or divert suspicion. As for his attacker, the boy would have sworn it was a beast of the two-legged variety that drank from a cup.

The footsteps drew closer and then came to a halt. The silence was broken by the sound of heavy and increasingly irregular breathing. Clément deduced from it that the man was examining the corpse. A rustic accent declared:

‘Confound it! It takes an angry beast to rip a fellow to shreds like that. Well then … I’ll go and inform my master. He has to see this for himself.’

So the man worked for Monge de Brineux, Chief Bailiff of Comte Artus d’Authon. The boy heard the Dame de Souarcy give a deep sigh. He could sense her anxiety as soon as she spoke. She was counting on the man’s stupidity and his agitation to attempt one last ploy. If she succeeded in convincing him, there was a good chance the investigation would end there.

‘Since it is the work of an animal, it seems unnecessary to trouble Monsieur de Brineux and make him come all the way here. However, you are right and I shall order my men to track it down. It must be killed without delay. Follow me to the kitchens. A goblet of our wine will refresh you.’

‘Hmm … An animal. With all due respect, Madame, I’m not so sure. An animal would have eaten more of him than that.’

A heavy sense of foreboding warned Clément that their troubles had begun, and he blamed himself for his lack of foresight.

W
hen Clément returned to the manor that morning, following another night of feverish reading and discovery, he was alerted by an unusual commotion in the courtyard. Three geldings, nearly the size of ceremonial horses, were tied to the wall-rings of the barn, and a few yards away a bay palfrey pawed the ground, snorting nervously. Clément studied the magnificent steed. It was rare in these parts to see one so fine. The exertion of galloping had left white streaks down its neck and sides. It had come a long way, and at speed. Who might ride such an animal and be accompanied by three others?

Clément slipped through the kitchens and down the passageway leading past the garderobe until he reached the small postern door the servants used to enter the great hall. He pressed himself against it in the hope of discovering who was visiting Agnès so early in the morning. He heard his lady reply:

‘What can I say, my Lord Bailiff? Up until your arrival I knew nothing of these mysterious deaths, as you have described them. One of my servants was out picking mushrooms and discovered this poor wretch in a thicket.’

Monge de Brineux, Comte Artus d’Authon’s Chief Bailiff, Clément thought.

‘And yet, rumours spread fast, Madame. Had they honestly not reached you?’

‘Indeed not. We are very isolated here. Four victims in two months, and all of them friars, you say?’

‘Three out of the four – we know precious little about the man in your barn except that he met an identical fate …’

‘Were all their faces slashed in that way?’

‘All but the second victim, an emissary of the Pope, like the first. As you can imagine, his death has caused great upset in Rome. However, it is the first two deaths that are proving to be a real puzzle. It would seem both men were burnt, or at least that is what their black shrivelled skin leads us to believe. And yet their clothes show no sign of having been exposed to flames. Were they undressed before being tortured and then dressed again? It seems improbable.’

So there was another corpse before the one he had found in the clearing, Clément deduced. And his clothes bore no trace of having been destroyed by fire, any more than his hair or body hair.

‘We were unable to find the message he was carrying. The Abbess of Clairets admits she wrote it, while not wishing to disclose the contents to us. According to her, the two other friars never reached the abbey. And as for the man lying in your barn, the brief description we gave her stirred no memory. So far we know next to nothing about any of them.’

‘And yet you maintain they are friars.’

‘That is correct.’

‘How can you be so sure?’

‘A detail that concerns only those charged with the investigation,’ replied the Bailiff in a polite but firm voice.

The tonsure, Clément thought instantly.

Agnès understood the warning. She remained silent for a few moments. When she spoke again, her changed tone alarmed the child pressed up against the other side of the door. It was sharper, almost imperious.

‘What are you implying, my Lord Bailiff?’

‘Whatever do you mean, Madame?’

‘I have a curious feeling that you are being evasive.’

The ensuing silence made Clément uneasy. Monge de Brineux was a powerful man. His office and his authority came directly from the very influential Comte Artus d’Authon. A childhood friend of King Philip, the Comte had had the good sense to refuse the royal favours he knew to be fickle, and devote himself to the running of his estate. The attention he paid to his affairs had enabled him to preserve his friendship with the monarch, who mistook Artus’s political circumspection for dignified disinterest, while making his little county one of the richest and most peaceable in France. Clément reassured himself; Agnès’s perceptiveness was equalled only by her intelligence. She must have taken the measure of her interlocutor before adopting such a strategy.

‘Whatever do you mean, Madame?’ he repeated.

‘Come now, Monsieur, have the good grace not to underestimate me. You and I both know that no animal is responsible for what happened to that poor wretch. I have not seen the others but your presence here is proof enough. At least three of these men were slain, and their slayer, or slayers, attempted to mask the crime by savagely clawing their victims’ faces.’

By clumsily clawing their faces, Clément corrected from his spy hole.

There was another, briefer silence before Monsieur de Brineux confessed:

‘I had indeed reached the same conclusion.’

‘So why this urgent visit? For surely you did not ride all this way with three of your men simply to examine a mutilated body decomposing in a barn. In what way are these murders connected with Souarcy and its mistress? Come now, the truth, Monsieur.’

‘The truth is …’ The Bailiff paused. ‘The truth, Madame, is
that we found a letter scratched in the ground under the bodies of two of the victims. My men are presently combing the thicket your man Gilbert showed us to make sure there is … no letter.’

My God! The
A
in the ground under the Pope’s emissary, which he had instinctively brushed away with his hand.

‘A letter? What sort of letter?’ asked Agnès.

‘A letter of the alphabet. An
A
.’

‘An
A
? I see …
A
as in “Agnès”?’

‘Indeed, or as in any number of words or Christian names, I grant you.’

He was cut short by an incongruous laugh. The Dame de Souarcy quickly pulled herself together before adding:

‘Plenty indeed – why, I could give you thirty without even having to think about it! Well, Monsieur? Do you really see me running through the forest armed with a claw and attacking men twice as heavy as I, if the size of the one lying in my outbuilding is anything to judge by? Moreover, you must suppose that my victims know me well enough to know my Christian name and do not hesitate to use it to incriminate me. If the situation were not so serious, your suppositions would be purely grotesque. Lastly, and if I may be permitted to say so, I would be most foolish to have proceeded in this way.’

‘I do not understand what you mean.’

‘And yet it is very simple. Now, let us just suppose that for some unknown reason I am a bloodthirsty monster. I do not know why, but I kill men. And I try to make my crimes look like the work of a wild beast. A bear perhaps; they are to be found in our forests. Would I really be so foolish as to simulate an attack by setting about the face and nothing else, not even the clothes? Why, any serf or huntsman would see through it immediately. Even your half-witted sergeant was not fooled! A five-year-old
child could see that this was no animal. And this leads to my question: is the killer a simpleton, or much cleverer than you imagine?’

‘What are you insinuating, Madame?’

‘I insinuate nothing; I suggest. I suggest that this evil criminal wanted, on the contrary, to draw attention to these murders. In fact, do you not find it strange that all four were discovered within such a short time? Two months, did you say? Many, I am sure, who are tossed into ravines, buried in caves, weighted down and thrown into rivers for the fish to colonise, or reduced to ashes will never be found. You must confess that the connecting threads in this case are glaringly obvious.’

Clément could not see the smile that played across the Bailiff’s lips. The man was astonished, not by a woman displaying the kind of intelligence and quick wits he wished more of his men possessed – after all his own wife Julienne was his most valuable counsellor – but that she did not hesitate to contradict him openly.

He rose to take his leave, remarking in an amused voice:

‘You would delight my master, the Comte d’Authon, Madame. He has reached the same conclusion as you. The fact remains that we have four bodies on our hands, three of whom are friars – who knows, perhaps even four – and a persistently recurring letter that may have been scratched by the victims or by their aggressor.’

His smile faded and his pursed lips betrayed his perplexity.

‘There is one other detail I hesitated to mention …’

He pulled a tiny pale-blue square of cloth from his leather shoulder bag and unfolded it before her.

‘Do you recognise this linen handkerchief, Madame? It bears your initial in the corner.’

Mabile, or even Eudes himself. Clément was convinced.
Agnès’s half-brother could have taken the handkerchief during his last visit. The timing was not impossible.

‘Indeed I do, it belongs to me,’ declared Agnès.

‘We found it hanging from a low branch, two yards from the second victim.’

‘So in addition to being bloodthirsty and extremely foolish I must also be very careless to run through the woods with a linen handkerchief in one hand and a set of claws in the other! What a flattering picture you paint of me, Monsieur.’

‘No, Madame, to be sure, I would be a fool myself to suggest such a thing,’ Monge de Brineux chaffed. ‘I must set off again. The journey to Authon is a long one. Believe me, this meeting has been more of a pleasure than I anticipated. I take my leave of you, Madame. Pray do not trouble yourself … I can find my own way to my horse.’

Clément listened to the Bailiff’s footsteps walking off towards the main door that opened onto the courtyard. The footsteps halted.

‘Madame. I confess I am still unsure of the facts. But if what you say is true, then I strongly recommend you to be on your guard.’

A few seconds later, Clément emerged from his hiding place and approached Agnès.

‘You were listening?’

‘Yes, Madame.’

‘What do you think of all this?’

‘It worries me. The Bailiff is right – we must be doubly vigilant.’

‘Do you think Eudes might be behind this plot?’

‘If so, I doubt he is the instigator. He is better suited to spying on you in your home. He has no head for strategy.’

‘Someone who has might be guiding him. Moreover, how did my handkerchief find its way into the forest?’

‘Mabile?’

‘Why not? She is cunning, and I think she nurses some kind of hatred towards us – the hatred of the weak who prefer attacking other prey rather than risk being caught in the jaws of the predator.’

‘I was intrigued, not to say alarmed, by the turn you gave to that … conversation, Madame.’

She looked at him and grinned.

‘Do you mean to say, assertive … Confrontational?’

‘That’s right.’

‘You see, Clément, by dint of being subjugated by them, women learn to recognise the tracks men leave behind them – similar to wild game. You will understand it better as you get older.’

‘And what species might he be?’

‘Hmm … a young boar in his prime perhaps.’

‘They are lean and muscular and prefer scaring off to attacking.’

‘But when they attack, nothing can survive their charge. Monge de Brineux was testing me. It became clear after only a few sentences. I do not know why. What I do know is that nothing I said to him came as a surprise. It remains to be seen what his true motive for coming here was. Furthermore, I could not allow him to sense my apprehension.’

‘They say the Comte d’Authon is very powerful.’

‘Indeed, he is.’

‘Your half-brother is a feudal baron and his vassal.’

‘As I am my brother’s, which makes of me the Comte’s undervassal.’

‘Have you ever met him?’

‘I remember a tall young man, serious and reserved, who came to pay the late Baron Robert a visit once. That is all. I was still a girl.’

‘Madame, could you not demand his direct protection?’

‘You know as well as I that a liege lord will not intervene directly in the affairs of another liege lord’s vassal, except in cases of injustice or wrong judgement and we have not reached that stage yet. Artus d’Authon will not involve himself in a family dispute at the risk of sparking a political row that could prove injurious to him. Eudes is admittedly only a member of the lower nobility, but he holds an important trump card: his iron mines.’

‘You mean, his iron mine, his last, which they say is almost exhausted,’ corrected Clément.

‘He extracts enough ore from it to keep the King happy. Clément …’

‘Yes, Madame?’

‘I do not like to involve you in such schemes, but …’

He understood at once what was troubling her and informed her:

‘Since her visit to the chapel, Mabile has not been out for quite some time and has encountered no one likely to take messages to your brother.’

She reached out her hand, and he closed his eyes as he laid his cheek in her palm.

Towards the middle of the afternoon a second visitor did little to lift Agnès’s spirits. Jeanne d’Amblin from Clairets Abbey was making her monthly rounds. Usually, Agnès found the jolly Extern Sister delightful. Her ready supply of stories and harmless gossip about her encounters with the wealthy burghers, merchants and farmers or even with the local nobility amused
the younger woman. The nun brought her news of the outside world, its births, marriages, deaths, pregnancies and its harvests. Today, however, the good sister’s unease was palpable. They sat in the little anteroom outside Agnès’s quarters, furnished with a small round table and two chairs. Agnès’s veil fluttered in a gentle current of air and she looked up at the high window. Several of the diamond-shaped panes were broken. By birds? When? She only ever passed through this tiny room, never stopping to sit there unless a lady visitor came, which was rare. What a day it had been! Glass was so costly and difficult to come by. The few glazed windows at the manor were the only reminder of Hugues’s extravagant tastes. When winter came, the rest would be stopped up with hemp or hides. How would she find the money to pay for the missing panes? Presently … She made an effort to attend to her visitor.

‘Would you accept a cup of hippocras?’

‘I never refuse good hippocras, and the one you make here is among the best.’

‘You flatter me.’

The nun’s smile lacked conviction, and she went straight to the point:

‘I hurried here as soon as I learnt of the Bailiff’s visit.’