The Lady Agnes Mystery, Volume 1 (4 page)

‘Upon my word, you have quite convinced me. And I am greatly relieved for I would have hated to come face to face with a werewolf,’ she exclaimed jovially and then, growing serious again, she added in a worried voice, ‘Will you be careful about what we have discussed, Clément? No one must know. Your life, and mine, depends on it.’

‘I know that, Madame. I have known it for a long time. You need have no fear.’

They continued their dialogue in silence.

The village of Souarcy was built on a small hill. The alleyways
leading up to the manor were lined with dwellings that twisted and turned, making it difficult for the hay-carts to manoeuvre without damaging the roofs of the houses. The positioning of the higgledy-piggledy buildings was entirely random, and yet they appeared to be huddled together as though seeking warmth. Souarcy, like a good many other manors, had no right to hold weaponry. At the time it was built, the English threat weighed heavily over the region and defence was the only option – hence its raised position in the middle of a forest. Indeed, the thick outer walls, within which peasants, serfs and craftsmen dwelled, had resisted many an attack with calm impudence.

Agnès replied with a perfunctory smile to the greetings, bows and curtseys of those she encountered as she made her way up to the manor via the muddy pathways, slippery with yellow clay after the recent rains. She stopped at the dovecote, but did not draw any of her usual pleasure from it. Eudes and his possible machinations were constantly on her mind. Even so, the magnificent birds welcomed her with a torrent of gently excited warbling. She glanced at the large, puffed-up male whose proud strutting always brought a smile to her lips. Not today. She had baptised him Vigil – the Watchful One – because at first light he liked to perch on the ridge beam of the manor house, cooing and watching the day break. He was the only bird who had a name. Yet another gift from her half-brother, who had brought the animal from Normandy the year before to inject new blood into her dovecote. He stretched out his muscular dark-pink neck, flecked with mauve, and she favoured him with a brief caress before leaving.

It was only after she had returned to the great hall at the manor that she realised Clément had cleverly avoided answering her question. It was too late now. The boy had disappeared again,
and she would have to wait to ask him to explain the nature of what was increasingly keeping him away from the manor.

Eudes, too, was exhausted. He had only slept for an hour between Mabile’s thighs. The strumpet was unstinting when it came to taking her pleasure. Happily – since her engagement in Agnès’s household had yielded precious little else of any interest to her master. Unable to trap the mistress, he had tupped the servant. Scant compensation for the handsome piece of silk and the morsel of sweet salt, which alone had cost a small fortune, but it would have to do for the time being.

God, how his half-sister detested him! In Agnès’s eyes he was insufferably conceited, boorish and depraved. He had come to realise that she loathed him some years before when she believed herself finally rid of him thanks to her marriage. The passion, the corrupt desire he had conceived for her when she was just eight and he ten had changed into a consuming hatred. He would break her and she would grovel at his feet. She would submit to his incestuous desire – so repugnant to her that sometimes it made the colour drain from her face. He had once hoped to conquer her love and that it would be strong enough to make her commit the unpardonable sin, but this was no longer the case. Now he wanted her to submit, to beg him.

He took out his vicious ill humour on his page, who had fallen asleep and was threatening to topple forward onto his gelding’s neck.

‘Wake up! Why, anyone would think you were a maid! And if indeed you are a maid I know how to make a woman of you.’

The threat had the desired effect. The young boy sat bolt upright as if he had been whipped.

Yes, he would break her. Soon. At twenty-five she had lost none
of her beauty, although she was no longer a girl. And anyway, she had given birth, and it was well known that pregnancy spoiled a woman’s body, in particular her breasts – and he preferred them pert, as was the fashion at the time, like little rounded apples, their skin pale and translucent. Who was to say that Agnès’s had not been ruined by purple stretch marks? Perhaps even her belly was withered. In contrast, Mathilde was so pretty, so slim and graceful, just like her mother had been at her age. And Mathilde adored her extravagant uncle. In a year’s time she would come of age and be ripe for the taking.

The thought cheered him no end, and he gave a loud guffaw: two birds with one stone. The worst revenge he could imagine taking on Agnès was called Mathilde. He would caress the daughter and destroy the mother. Of course, she would not leave the way clear for him. Despite his general lack of respect towards the fairer sex, Eudes was forced to acknowledge his half-sister’s intelligence. She would strike him with all her might. A pox on females! All the same, the challenge could be exciting.

Upon further reflection, this particular stone would kill not two birds but three, since the Larnay mine, which assured his wealth and relative political safety, would soon be exhausted. Certainly, the earth’s depths contained more hidden riches, but to get at them would require deep mining and neither his finances nor the geological conditions were favourable. The clay soil would give way at the first attempt to dig.

‘Agnès, my lamb,’ he murmured through his clenched jaw, ‘your end is near. Tears of blood, my precious beauty, tears of blood will run down your sweet cheeks.’

Yes, he had been worrying about the mine for some time now.

He decided to go there and check the progress of the iron-ore extraction.

‘B
ring him to me! Drag him here on his backside if you have to! He won't be needing it much longer,' bellowed Eudes de Larnay as he glowered at the tiny pile of iron ore at his feet, the meagre result of a whole week's mining.

The two serfs, heads bowed, had stepped back a few yards. The Baron's angry outbursts were well known, and could end in vicious blows, or worse.

They did not wait to be asked twice, and were only too glad to have such an excellent excuse to put the greatest possible distance between them and their master's fists. And in any case, that half-wit Jules, who was no better than they were, had done his fair share of swaggering since being promoted to overseer. He had become too big for his boots and now the boot was on the other foot.

The two men, exhausted by overwork and lack of sleep and nourishment, hurled themselves across the tiny arid plain towards the oak grove that stretched for leagues – almost as far as Authon-du-Perche.

Once they had reached the relative safety of the trees, they slowed down, stopping for a moment to catch their breath.

‘Why have we come to the forest, Anguille? This isn't where Jules ran off when the master arrived,' said the older of the two men.

‘I don't know, damn it. What does it matter? We had to run somewhere or we'd be the ones taking the beating.'

‘Do you know where Jules went?'

‘No, and I don't care,' snapped Anguille, ‘but it makes no
odds, he won't get far. The master's mad as a drunken lord, and a nasty piece of work to boot.'

‘What is it with that cursed mine? It's not for lack of digging. My legs and arms are well nigh dropping off.'

Anguille shrugged his shoulders before replying:

‘His cursed mine's dried up, hasn't it? Jules told him, but it's no good, he won't listen. It's about as useless as a dead rat and not worth all the fuss. He can cry all he likes, he'll get nothing but dust from it now.'

‘And to think it gave them bags of lovely gold for nigh on three generations. What a deadly blow for the master. He must be taking it hard!'

‘Oh yes? Well, he'll be over it before it ever bothers me. Because, you see, that cursed mine might have given him bags of gold, but what has it ever given me, or us, except aching limbs, floggings and an empty belly? Come on, let's go deeper into the forest and have a little snooze. We'll tell him we couldn't find Jules.'

‘But that's a lie.'

Anguille looked at him, flabbergasted by his naivety, and said reassuringly:

‘Yes, but if you don't tell him, he won't know.'

T
he confused nightmare. Francesco de Leone sat up with a start on his straw mattress, his shirt drenched in sweat. He concentrated on breathing slowly to try to calm his wildly beating heart. Above all he wanted to avoid going back to sleep for fear the dream would continue.

And yet the Knight Hospitaller of Justice and Grace
11
had lived so long with this fear that he often wondered if he would ever be rid of it. The nightmare was more like a bad dream that had no end and always began with the echo of footsteps – his footsteps – on a stone floor. He was walking along the ambulatory of a church, brushing the rood screen shielding the chancel, trying by the weak light filtering through the dome to study the shadows massed behind the columns. What church was this? The rotunda suggested the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem or even the bravura architecture of the dome of the Hagia Sophia in Constantinople. Or could it be the Santa Costanza in Rome, the church which he believed opened onto the Light? What did it matter? In his dream, he knew exactly what he was looking for within those colossal walls of pinkish stone. He tried to catch up with the silently moving figure, betrayed only by the slight rustle of fabric. It was the figure of a woman, a woman hiding. It was at this point in the dream that he realised he was chasing her and that the design of the church, centred on the chancel, was hindering him. The figure circled as he circled, always a few steps ahead of him as though anticipating his movements, staying on the outside of the ambulatory while he moved along on the inside.

Francesco de Leone’s hand reached slowly for the pommel of his sword, even as an overwhelming love made his eyes fill with tears. Why was he chasing this woman? Who was she? Was she real?

He gave a loud sigh, exhausted but tense at the same time. Only old women believed dreams were premonitions. And yet he had dreamt of the deaths of his sister and his mother only to discover their corpses soon afterwards.

He looked up at the tiny arrow slit opening onto the sky. The fragrant Cypriot night had no calming effect on him. He had been to so many places, known so many people that he could barely remember the town where he was born. He was from nowhere and felt like a stranger in this vast citadel, reconquered, following the siege of Acre in 1291, after a fierce battle led by the Knights Templar* and the Hospitallers. Guillaume de Beaujeu, the Grand-Master of the Knights Templar, had lost his life and Jean de Villiers, Grand-Master of the Knights Hospitaller, had been a hair’s breadth from succumbing to his wounds. Only seven Hospitallers and ten Templars had survived the siege and the ensuing battle that signalled the end of Christendom in the Orient.

Most of the Knights Templar had returned to the West. As for the Knights Hospitaller, their hurried retreat to Cyprus had taken place with the mild opposition of the ruler of the island, King Henri II of Lusignan, who had reluctantly allowed them to settle in the town of Limassol on the southern coast. The monarch was worried about what might soon become a state within a state – both orders being exempt from all authority save that of the Pope. Lusignan had imposed on them boundless restrictions. Thus, to a man, their number on the island must never exceed seventy knights plus their entourages. It was a clever way of curbing
their expansion and, above all, their influence. The Holy Knights were forced to submit while they waited for more auspicious times. It mattered little. Cyprus was a mere step, a brief respite that would allow them to recover their strength and regroup before reconquering the Holy Land. For the birthplace of Our Lord must not remain in the hands of the infidels. Guillaume de Villaret, who in 1296 succeeded his brother as Grand-Master, had had a premonition, and his attention was now turned to Rhodes, a fresh refuge for his order.

Francesco de Leone experienced a frisson of elation and joy when he imagined advancing towards the Holy Sepulchre, raised on the site where Joseph of Arimathea’s garden had once stood. It was in the crypt beneath the church that Constantine’s mother had discovered the cross.

He would fall to his knees on the flagstones, warm from the fierce desert sun outside. He envisaged the tip of his out-stretched hand brushing the strap of the sandal. He was ready to lay down his life with devotion and infinite humility for this deed; it was the Knight’s supreme sacrifice.

The time had not yet arrived. Hours, days, months, even years, lay ahead. So many things must come to pass before then. Had he lost his way? Was his faith no longer entirely pure? Was he not beginning to enjoy the scheming of the powerful, which he was supposed to thwart?

He stood up. Despite his relative youth he felt as if he were a thousand years old. The human heart held few mysteries for him; it had afforded him some rare but dazzling moments of wonder and a great many more of despair, even disgust. To love man in Christ’s image seemed to him at times an impossible ideal. And yet he would do well to conceal this chink in his faith. All the more so as man was not his mission; his mission, his many
missions were Him. It was the indescribable joy of sacrifice that sustained Francesco de Leone during his darkest hours.

He moved noiselessly through the wing containing the cells and dormitory. Reaching the outside, he slipped on his sandals before crossing to the centre of a vast courtyard where the building housing the hospital was located.

He briskly descended the steps leading to the morgue beneath the infirmary. It was in this cramped cellar that bodies were laid out awaiting burial, their decomposition accelerated by the sweltering heat. On that particular morning, it was empty – not that the Knight would have been disturbed by the sight of a corpse. He had seen so many dead bodies, had advanced among them, stepping over them and occasionally turning one to search for a familiar face, blood up to his ankles. At the far end of the cellar a small postern door led to the carp pond chiselled out of the granite rock. This fish farm, inspired by a thousand-year-old Chinese tradition, provided additional food for the residents of the citadel and represented an economy since the carp lived on chicken excrement. His ablutions in the icy water of the deep pond, and the carp – rendered blind by years of darkness – brushing against his calves, did nothing to dislodge the profound unease he had felt since he awoke that morning.

By the time he entered the chapel to join the prior, who also occupied the position of Grand-Commander, dawn was just breaking.

Arnaud de Viancourt, a small, slim man with light-grey hair and an ageless face, turned to him smiling, and folded his hands across his black monk’s habit.

‘Let us go outside, brother, and make the most of these few hours of relative coolness,’ he suggested.

Francesco de Leone nodded, certain that the early-morning
air was not the reason for the frail man’s proposition. He was afraid of the spies Lusignan had placed everywhere, perhaps even within their order.

The two men walked for a while, their heads bowed and the hoods of their cloaks raised. Leone followed Arnaud de Viancourt to the great stone wall. His relationship with Guillaume de Villaret, their current Grand-Master, was founded upon the loyalty that bound the two men, as well as their intellectual complementarity. And yet the prior was unaware that this mutual trust had its limits; Guillaume de Villaret was well acquainted with the fears, hopes and motives of his Grand-Commander – as was his nephew and likely successor, Foulques de Villaret – but the reverse was not true.

Arnaud de Viancourt stopped walking and looked around carefully to make sure they were alone.

‘Listen to the cicadas, brother. Like us they wake at dawn. What wonderful stubbornness they possess, do they not? But are they aware of why they sing? Surely not. Cicadas do not question their lot.’

‘Then I am a cicada.’

‘Like all of us here.’

Francesco waited. The prior was given to these preambles, to speaking in metaphors. Arnaud de Viancourt’s mind made him think of a gigantic universal chessboard whose pieces were constantly moving and never obeyed the same rules. He wove such a complex web and it was easy to lose sight of the individual threads. Then suddenly each element would fall into place to form a perfect whole.

The prior said in an almost detached voice, as though he were thinking aloud:

‘Our late lamented Holy Father Boniface VIII had the makings of an emperor. He dreamed of installing a papal theocracy, a Christian empire united under one sole power …’

The veiled criticism was not lost on Francesco. Boniface had ruled with a rod of iron and been little disposed to dialogue, and his intransigence had won him many critics even within the Church.

‘… His successor Nicolas Boccasini, our Pope Benoît XI,* is quite unlike him. No doubt his election surprised him more than anyone. Should I confess, brother, that we fear for his life? He wisely pardoned Philip the Fair for attempting to murder his predecessor.’

The idea that Benoît’s life might be threatened filled the Knight with silent dread. The new Pope’s purity of vision, his spiritualism even, was a cornerstone of the century-old combat which Leone had devoted himself to. He waited, however, for the other man to continue. The prior proceeded with customary caution:

‘It … It has been brought to our attention that Benoît intended to excommunicate Guillaume de Nogaret,* the monarch’s ubiquitous shadow, who only played an accidental part in that abomination, although rumour has it Nogaret insulted Boniface. Be that as it may, Benoît must be seen to respond, to hold somebody to account. Complete absolution would undermine the Pope’s already wavering authority.’ He sighed before continuing. ‘King Philip is no fool and he won’t stop there. He needs a compliant pope and will have him elected if necessary. He will no longer tolerate any forces of opposition that might interfere with his plans. If our fears are justified and the Pope’s succession is imminent, we could find ourselves on
very uncertain, not to say dangerous, ground. We are no less in the firing line than the Knights Templar. I need not go on – you know as well as I.’

Francesco de Leone gazed up at the sky. The last stars were fading. Was the newly elected Pope’s life really in danger? The prior digressed:

‘Are they not miraculous? We might fear they will fade forever, and yet each evening they return to us, piercing the blackest night.’

Arnaud de Viancourt glanced at the taciturn Knight. The man never ceased to amaze him. Leone could have become one of the pillars of the Italian-speaking world – as admiral of the Hospitaller fleet or even a Grand-Master of their order. The noble blood that flowed in his veins, his bravery and his intelligence predisposed him to it. And yet he had refused these honours, these burdensome responsibilities. Why? Certainly not for fear of not measuring up to the task, even less so out of immaturity. Perhaps it was simply pride, a gentle pure sort of pride that made him long to give his life for his faith. An implacable, terrible pride that convinced him that he alone was capable of following his mission through to the end.

The old man observed his fellow Knight once more. He was tall, his features delicate but well defined. His honey-blond hair and dark blue eyes betrayed his northern Italian origins. The shapely sensuality of his lips might have suggested a carnal nature, and yet the prior was in no doubt as to his complete chastity – imperative in their order. What most astonished him was the extraordinary versatility of his brilliant mind, a strength that sometimes frightened him. Locked behind that lofty, pale brow was a world to which no one possessed the keys.

Leone was filled with foreboding. What would become of his
quest without the private, not to say secret, backing of the Pope? He sensed that the drawn-out silence of his superior required a response.

‘Are your suspicions about this … threat to our Holy Father related to the names Nogaret or Philip?’

‘It is hard to tell the difference between the two. The critics abound: no one knows who governs France, Philip or his counsellors Nogaret, Pons d’Aumelas, Enguerran de Marigny, to name but a few. Do not be misled by my words. Philip is a stubborn, hard-hearted man and well known for his ruthlessness. Even so, to answer your question: no, King Philip is too convinced of his legitimacy to stoop to commit murder against God’s representative on earth. We believe he will do as he did with Boniface and demand his removal from office. As for Nogaret – I doubt it. He is a man of faith and of the law. Moreover, were he to conceive such a plot without the endorsement of his monarch, he would be forced to commit – or have someone commit – a devious abhorrent form of murder, and I do not see him as a poisoner. However …’ Arnaud de Viancourt accentuated his pause with a slight nervous gesture of his hand ‘… a zealous follower might interpret and carry out their desires.’

‘It wouldn’t be the first time,’ avowed Leone, feeling a frisson of horror at the idea.

‘Hmm …’

‘Should we stay close to the Pope, then, in order to safeguard his life? I would willingly defend it with my own.’

As he spoke, the Knight was certain that the prior had been leading up to something else. The palpable sorrow in the man’s eyes as he stared at Leone told him he had not been mistaken.

‘My friend, my brother, you must know how difficult, nay, impossible it is to prevent this horror, and do we still have time?
Of course Benoît’s life is our first priority. As we speak, two of our brave brothers are at his side, protecting him with their constant vigilance, tracking the would-be poisoners. However, if … If he were to pass away … In our grief we must not forget the future …’

Leone finished the sentence for him, pronouncing the painful words he knew nevertheless to be true:

‘… which we must already begin forging if we are to prevent the destruction of Christendom.’

These words applied equally to the sacred mission to which he had committed himself body and soul, and about which Arnaud de Viancourt knew nothing. About which no one must know.

‘The future, indeed. Benoît’s succession – if our desperate attempts of the last few weeks to prevent it fail.’