In the Presence of Evil

by Tania Bayard

  She sloshed through the mud toward the sound of his voice. The darkness abated, and she could see him, hitching his habit up to his knees and stamping his soggy feet. Her boots were waterlogged, too. ‘I’m safe, but I’m wet and cold, and I’m going home,’ she wailed. ‘I’ll speak with the duke first thing in the morning.’ Something moved in the shadows. Christine grabbed the monk’s arm. ‘We have to get out of here!’

  ‘Are you afraid of me, too?’ Marion said, as she stepped up to them.

  Christine let go of Michel’s arm. ‘What are you doing here, Marion?’

  ‘Looking for you, of course. You’re easy to find, you make so much noise.’

  I should have known, Christine thought, remembering the Hôtel Saint-Pol was not fortified, and there were many ways to get in. And in any case, the girl probably knew most of the guards.

  Marion said, ‘You seemed awfully scared of those old lions.’

  ‘Of course we were scared,’ Michel huffed.

  ‘Of those old things? They’re so fat and lazy they can hardly move.’ Marion slapped her thigh and laughed. ‘They get out all the time. I’d be more afraid of the woman who looks after them.’

  ‘Do you know Loyse?’ Christine asked.

  ‘Nobody does. But I’ve seen her with the lions.’

  ‘How did you know we were here?’

  ‘You were in such a rush, you didn’t see me standing at the corner of the rue Tiron. You didn’t even know you were being followed.’

  ‘What’s that you’re saying?’ Michel asked. Alarmed, he lowered his voice. ‘Somebody’s following us?’

  ‘Henri Le Picart. He was behind you all the way to the palace. He went in just after you did.’

  ‘Did he come out again?’ Christine whispered.

  ‘I stood by the main entrance for a long time, and he didn’t come out there. Then I went around another way and saw you two wandering through the gardens. Somebody was behind you. I think it was Henri, but it was so dark all I could see was a black cape.’

  THIRTY-SEVEN

  Remember, dear ladies, how deceptive flatterers think you are weak, fickle, and easily swayed, and how they try to catch you, using all kinds of outlandish and deceitful wiles – just as they lay traps for wild animals. Flee, flee, my ladies. Have nothing to do with these men, for their smiles hide agonizing, virulent poisons.

  Christine de Pizan,

  Le Livre de la Cité des Dames, 1404–1405

  The rain stopped, the wind died down, and the moon floated through scattered clouds. The earth was deathly still, awash in the moon’s light and mysterious shadows.

  ‘Where did the person in the black cape go, Marion?’ Christine asked.

  ‘Along another path. That path turns back this way, so you should come away from here.’

  ‘Let’s go to the rue de Pute-y-Muce,’ Christine said. By the light of the moon, she could see Michel’s face, and she could tell from his expression, he’d had enough of her directions. Nevertheless, she started out, calling back over her shoulder, ‘From there we can easily get to my house.’

  ‘I’ll stay close to you,’ Marion said, as she hurried after her. ‘If you two milksops are afraid of those old lions, you’ll go all to pieces if someone’s really after you.’

  ‘There is nothing to jest about. Three people have been murdered. We don’t want Christine to be the fourth,’ Michel called out as he reluctantly followed. When he caught up to them, he drew himself up to his full height, as if to show he was perfectly capable of providing all the protection they needed. He was still shorter than Marion, and Christine was glad to have the girl’s company.

  They walked quickly to the rue de Pute-y-Muce, a narrow, muddy street behind the palace where Marion, much to Michel’s disgust, waved to some of the prostitutes for which the street was named. Then they turned down the rue Saint-Antoine and made their way to Christine’s house. Marion stayed close to her companions all the way to the door, but she hid in the shadows while they went in. They could hear her laughing and muttering to herself, ‘Saint Matthew’s ulcer! Afraid of those old lions!’

  When Christine and Michel went into the hallway, Francesca emerged from the kitchen and fussed at them. ‘Where have you two been? Do you not have enough sense to take cover from the rain? Go and put on dry clothes, Cristina. You come into the kitchen, Michel.’

  Christine lit a candle and went upstairs. Goblin was there, guarding the sleeping children, and he jumped up and raced around while she changed, then danced along beside her as she went back down to the kitchen. Michel sat before the fire with his boots off and a blanket around his shoulders, rubbing his hands together to warm them. As soon as Christine appeared, he went to the table and looked hungrily at steaming bowls of soup Francesca had set out. But before he had a chance to eat, someone banged on the front door. Francesca went into the hall. Michel and Christine hurried after her.

  ‘Don’t unlatch it, Mama,’ Christine said.

  ‘I knew it! They have come to murder us!’ Francesca cried.

  A voice shouted, ‘Christine! Merde! Open the door!’

  ‘It’s all right, Mama,’ Christine said. ‘It’s Marion. It must be important if she’s willing to face you.’

  ‘Murderers. Prostitutes. Why have you not invited all the criminals in Paris?’ Francesca marched back to the kitchen.

  Christine opened the door and was surprised to find that Marion was nowhere in sight. Instead, she found Gillette and a woman she had never seen before.

  Gillette said, ‘I’ve brought Macée. She has something to tell you.’

  ‘Where’s Marion?’

  ‘Is that her name? We were wandering around looking for your house, and she jumped out at us and wouldn’t let us go until we told her we had come with information that will help Alix.’

  Christine saw a movement in the shadows. ‘It’s all right, Marion. They’re friends,’ she called out.

  ‘Shut the door!’ Francesca shouted from the kitchen.

  Christine drew the two women into the house. It was cold in the hallway, and she could see that Gillette was shivering, so she led them into the kitchen.

  ‘Who are these people, Christine?’ Francesca asked impatiently.

  ‘This is Gillette, Alix de Clairy’s nursemaid. And this is Macée, the midwife who delivered Alix.’ Christine took Gillette’s arm and drew her over to a bench by the fireplace. The midwife stood to one side, not looking at anyone. She was a tall, thickset woman with a face so disfigured by pockmarks, it was impossible to guess her age. Christine put her hand up to the pockmark on her own face and shuddered.

  Michel touched Christine’s arm, and whispered, ‘I saw that woman years ago, in Amiens. She was pretty then, but she was involved in things that – well, I don’t want to speak about them.’

  ‘She’s a midwife, Michel. I know about all the things midwives do. We can’t concern ourselves with that. She may be able to tell us something that will help Alix.’

  Macée stood twisting her hands together, and Francesca kept her distance on the other side of the room.

  ‘What have you to tell us, Macée?’ Christine asked. The woman just tugged at her thin gray hair.

  Christine looked at Gillette. ‘Why doesn’t she speak?’

  ‘She’s afraid.’

  Christine suddenly grew angry with the woman with the pockmarked face who stood hunched, staring at her with dark, sunken eyes. ‘Why should we care about your fears, Macée, after the suffering you’ve caused?’

  Macée cringed and turned away. Gillette rose from the bench and went to Christine’s side. ‘We must try to forgive her. Drink made her says things she shouldn’t have, many years ago.’

  Christine could picture how it had happened – the lusty countrywoman, shrewd at her work as a midwife but ignorant of the ways of gentlefolk, sitting in a smoky tavern with a dashing young knight, her tongue loosened with wine. The knight was Hugues de Précy, sleek and cunning, hoping to hear something he could use to
his advantage.

  ‘She wants to make amends,’ Gillette said. ‘She thinks she knows who poisoned Hugues de Précy.’

  ‘If she knows, why hasn’t she said something before this?’

  Gillette crept back to the bench and sat down. ‘She will tell you.’ She held her trembling hands clasped in her lap.

  Macée strode to the fireplace and stared into the flames. Then she turned and faced Christine defiantly. In the flickering light, the pits in her face became ugly craters, and her eyes seemed to be set in deep sockets. ‘I found out today who the lady in the dungeon is.’ Her voice was loud and grating. ‘I want to help her.’

  Out of the corner of her eye, Christine saw Michel start toward her, but she waved him away.

  The midwife looked into the fire again. Keeping her eyes on the flames, she began her story. ‘Two weeks ago, a lady came to me. She’d discovered she was going to have a child. She didn’t want the baby, and she was in agony, because she’d tried to do away with it by herself. I could do nothing to help except give her something for the pain. The herbs put her to sleep, and in her dreams she cried out her secret. The baby’s father was not her husband. She said the real father’s name. I knew that name.’

  The room was quiet except for the occasional crackle of a flame. ‘Who was this lady?’ Christine asked.

  ‘The wife of a knight, Guy de Marolles.’ Christine pictured Guy’s ugly face and couldn’t help thinking it was no wonder his wife had found a lover.

  ‘After the woman went home,’ Macée continued, ‘she was very ill. She feared she would die, and she confessed her sin to her husband. But she refused to tell him who her lover was. So he found out where I lived and came to me. I told him I had nothing to do with the injury his wife had inflicted on herself, but he didn’t believe me. He knew about certain things I’d done in the past, and he said he’d have me thrown into prison if I didn’t tell him who the father of the baby was.’

  ‘So Guy de Marolles learned from you who had seduced his wife?’

  ‘Yes.’ She spat into the fire. ‘He swore he would kill that man, and I was glad.’

  Macée turned and looked at Christine. Her face was ghastly, but Christine dared not avert her eyes, for fear she would stop speaking. She knew that her mother and Michel were standing like statues near the table; she knew that the soup she and Michel had not eaten was cooling in the bowls; she knew that Gillette sat on the bench holding her trembling hands together; she knew that no one breathed. Even Goblin sat perfectly still.

  ‘Who was the wife’s lover?’

  ‘The knight Hugues de Précy.’

  ‘When did Guy de Marolles come to you and learn his name?’

  ‘The day Hugues de Précy died.’

  Christine felt a wave of relief sweep over her. Guy had killed Hugues because he had learned Hugues had seduced his wife. That meant Gilles was innocent. She looked over at Michel. He nodded. He’d heard.

  ‘You were right to tell me this, Macée.’

  The midwife turned away and gazed into the fire again, tugging at her hair and muttering to herself, ‘Cochon! Diable!’ Christine’s vision of a tavern where Hugues plied Macée with drink shifted to an image of a squalid room where he made love to this simple woman, to learn her secrets.

  Macée was speaking again. ‘He was very sly, Hugues de Précy, all those years ago. He deceived me with his handsome face, and I told him about Alix de Clairy’s birth. But I didn’t tell him everything.’

  Christine looked where she did, into the fire. A flame leapt up. She heard Étienne say, She must know about Alix de Clairy’s mother.

  ‘Why did Alix’s birth mother abandon her, Macée?’

  ‘She had to. So her husband wouldn’t find out there were two of them.’

  ‘Two of what?’

  Francesca was standing close now, her curiosity overcoming her aversion to the midwife. ‘You know, Cristina. Twins.’

  ‘That’s just a foolish belief, Mama!’

  ‘It may be a foolish belief,’ Macée said, ‘but her husband was a violent man. He would have killed her if he’d found out there were two babies.’

  Christine felt like murdering someone herself. Alix had been rejected because of the absurd idea that if a woman has twins she must have lain with two men.

  ‘What did the mother want you to do with the baby, Macée?’

  ‘She told me to give it away. So I asked Gillette to take it to the Lord of Clairy and his lady, because their own baby was born dead.’

  ‘And the birth mother never wanted to know what had happened to her baby?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Did you tell Hugues de Précy who Alix de Clairy’s real mother was?’

  ‘No, but he assumed that since she had been given away, she was not of noble birth.’

  Gillette crept over and stood beside the midwife. ‘There’s more.’ Her blue eyes glistened in the light of the flames.

  Macée hung her head and pulled at her hair. ‘Yes, there’s more.’ Her rasping voice sank to a whisper. ‘The birth mother kept the wrong baby.’

  ‘The wrong baby?’ Christine asked in astonishment. ‘How could there have been a right and a wrong baby?’

  ‘The one the mother kept was possessed by demons. The mother blamed me. She sent the child away for a while, but then she took her back, and for years after that she taunted me with the sight of the accursed girl. Then Hugues de Précy went to the Lord of Clairy and told him what he knew. I ran away.’

  ‘Where is the mother now?’

  ‘She’s here in Paris.’

  ‘And the baby she kept, was it a girl?’ Christine asked with a sense of foreboding.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Is she in Paris, too?’

  ‘Yes. The devil-ridden girl helps the king’s lion keeper.’

  Christine’s head felt light, and her knees buckled. She sat down on the bench. She recalled Simon telling her that Blanche had lived in Amiens after her marriage. She thought of Alix’s auburn hair, and she remembered Loyse’s auburn hair shining in the lantern light as she ran after the lions. She could believe Loyse was Alix de Clairy’s twin sister, but the thought that Blanche was Alix’s mother stunned her.

  Gillette spoke up. ‘She’s telling the truth. She wants to help save Alix.’

  Christine asked Macée, ‘How is it possible Blanche never wanted to know where her other daughter was?’

  ‘While her husband was alive, she tried to forget the second baby had ever existed. But her husband is dead now. When she saw the woman who played her harp and sang for the queen, she wondered about her, because she looked so much like Loyse. She would have come to me sooner to ask whether I knew anything about her, but it took her a while to find out where I live. A few days ago she came to my house – I live not far from the palace. And I told her. Yes, now Blanche knows for certain the lady in the dungeon is her daughter.’

  THIRTY-EIGHT

  It was generally said that the king’s strange malady was caused by witchcraft. I don’t know whether this is true. I only know that the rumor was founded on the weakening of his faculties. At first he still recognized his friends and family, the lords at the court, and all the people in his household. But eventually his mind was lost in such gloom that he forgot everything and by a strange and inexplicable oddity claimed he wasn’t married and didn’t have any children. He even forgot his own person and his title of King of France.

  The Monk of Saint-Denis,

  Chronique du Religieux de Saint-Denis,

  contenant le règne de Charles VI de 1380 à 1422

  Francesca grabbed Christine’s hands, pulled her to her feet, and hugged her. ‘Che miracolo, Cristina! Alix de Clairy is saved. It is no longer necessary for you to trouble yourself about the killer.’

  Michel wasn’t smiling. He drew his hands into the sleeves of his black habit, studied the floor, and said, ‘Alix de Clairy’s salvation is not so easily accomplished.’ He went to the fireplace and asked the midwife, �
��Are you willing to go to the Châtelet and tell the provost that Guy de Marolles swore he would kill Hugues de Précy?’

  The woman’s eyes grew wide with terror.

  Christine looked at Michel. He was frowning, and she understood why. They might know the truth, but what use could they make of it?

  The monk paced around the room, mumbling to himself, not noticing that the children, wrapped in their bedclothes, had crept into the room. Marie looked at the midwife, went to her mother, and stationed herself at her side.

  ‘She won’t harm us,’ Christine whispered to her.

  Jean lifted Goblin into his arms and held him so tightly the dog yelped. Thomas and Lisabetta hid behind Francesca. ‘Why are you children not in bed?’ their grandmother wanted to know.

  ‘How can we sleep when everyone is talking down here?’ Jean asked. ‘Who are these women?’

  ‘They’re here to help us. Or, rather, to help Alix de Clairy,’ Christine said.

  ‘Why do you want to help the lady in the dungeon?’ Marie asked. ‘She poisoned her husband.’

  ‘She didn’t poison her husband. These women think they know who did, and they are brave enough to come here and tell us about it. You children have no manners. Either be silent or go back to bed.’

  The children went to the table and sat down. Jean let Goblin lap up a bowl of cold soup. Francesca, who was staring at the midwife, didn’t notice.

  Michel stopped pacing around the room and sat with the children, resting his head in his hands, setting his hair on end around his tonsure. Goblin, who’d climbed onto the table, licked Michel’s bald spot.

  ‘What’s the matter?’ Jean asked, setting Goblin on the floor again.

  ‘Do you see that unfortunate woman by the fireplace?’ Michel asked. ‘What do you think would happen if she went to the provost and told him she knows who poisoned Hugues de Précy, and it wasn’t Alix de Clairy?’ Jean shook his head. ‘Well, that is our problem. He would not believe her, and she would be in grave danger.’