The Huguenot Thief

by L. K. CLEMENT

  The prioress was shocked herself. “Marin, these are false teachings that you must renounce! I beg of you, child, repent of your wicked thoughts.” The prioress was truly distressed now and realized that none of her instructions to Marin had worked to turn the girl’s heart. With horror, she became aware that she was weeping, and, at this, Marin came to her.

  “Dear Aunt, please, do not distress yourself. I am but trying to lighten the moment.” She pulled away and held the prioress’s hands.

  “Aunt?” They both turned at this word, still holding hands, realizing that Sister Anne had heard them. The nun walked backwards towards the door, wide-eyed with alarm. The prioress recovered.

  “Dearest Sister Anne, Marin and I are from the same town. It is but an affection.” The sacristan continued to back away and hurried out the door.

  The prioress and Marin stared at each other. Finally, Sister Marie said, “You must apologize to her, Marin.”

  The girl nodded and scurried to follow Sister Anne.

  Chapter 44

  Two days passed before Marin was brought to her again. Her niece entered the room and sat down by the fire.

  “How are you, my dear?” Sister Marie looked anxiously at her niece as she spoke, seeing exhaustion and worry. “Have you spoken to Sister Anne?”

  “Yes, I apologized for leaving her class. She sat with me in the garden for a while. She believed me when I told her we were from the same village.” The girl looked up. “She told me of what she witnessed, a child cured of his lameness.” Marin scratched the fabric of her dress with a fingernail. “I cannot believe that she would lie, yet all my life I have been told that relics cannot effect such a miracle.”

  Sister Marie looked at her niece and said nothing. She knew well the difficulty of questioning childhood teachings. After her arrival at the convent, it took a full year to put her Huguenot teachings aside and another three years before the bishop allowed her to become a nun. “Is this all that troubles you?”

  “Three of the young children are very ill. One is close to death. The sisters have been helping us tend to them, but it is very grave.”

  The prioress had been told of the illnesses, but a report from the infirmarian, Sister Therese, had indicated the children were on the mend. “Have these children become worse quite suddenly?”

  “Yes.” Marin sounded exhausted.

  “Take me to them.”

  Marin looked at her and whispered, “It might be the plague.”

  Sister Marie closed her eyes and said a fervent prayer that it would not be so. “Come. Let us see what we have before

  us.”

  Marin and the prioress hurried to the south corridor, stopping at the now open, arched doorway leading to the Huguenot rooms. The prioress could see Sister Therese leaning against the stonewalls. All the doors to the rooms stood open.

  “Sister Therese, is it the plague?” asked the prioress.

  The infirmarian leaned close and whispered, “Yes, Mother. You must not come closer. We believed the children were getting well, but all of them have black swellings under their arms now. I have requested the priest, in the event that these heathens will allow the last rites. We have put all the sick children in the last room.”

  “Let me see them,” said the prioress.

  “Please, Sister Marie, you must not.” Sister Therese moved to block the way and held out both hands beseechingly to her superior.

  “Sister Therese, take me to these sick children.” The prioress did not raise her voice, but her tone was implacable and the other nun relented. Marin stood by, silently. When her aunt moved into the gloomy corridor, she followed.

  The smell of urine, vomit, blood, and unwashed bodies became stronger as the prioress walked towards the cell where the Huguenot children were kept. A Huguenot woman stood by the doorway and glared at Sister Marie. “Yer not going to say those papist words over my boy. He doesn’t need praying from some dried up old nun to get to heaven.”

  The prioress stopped and gazed from this angry, heartsick woman and realized that what had appeared to be a bundle of cloth the woman held was actually a very small child, covered with a shawl.

  “What is yer religion going to do with this one, ey? What can yer God do that mine cannot?” With this, the woman quickly parted the shawl, thrusting the bundle in the nun’s face. Sister Marie reeled back from the smell and from the horror in front of her. The child was not two years old and was covered in weeping, red sores. His hair had been shorn, and his body was so thin that it resembled an old man rather than a healthy child. He was preternaturally still now, his eyes closed, his small chest barely moving. The woman holding him, presumably his mother, moved the shawl back over his face, causing an outcry of pain from the boy that pierced her heart. Without thinking, the prioress made the sign of the cross.

  She felt herself being pulled backward out of the room, and the blow the distraught mother had attempted fell short. She turned, finding Marin and not Sister Therese had kept the strike from falling. Another Huguenot woman stepped in from the sick room and pulled the child and his mother, now wailing, further into the gloom of the sick room.

  Sister Therese stepped up to her superior and began to speak very softly. “Please, prioress, you cannot help here. These women believe that God is punishing them for not attempting to escape. I am tolerated only because I have some sleeping draft for the children who are suffering. All will die, it is certain, perhaps even me. You must leave here now. And this one,” she said, pointing to Marin, “should stay here and provide the help I require. She is one of the strong ones. I beg you, prioress, return to your rooms.”

  The prioress stood a moment longer, then nodded, and turned to make the long walk back, this time alone.

  Chapter 45

  Only the sick children and their mothers were allowed in the last cell of the south corridor, but Marin could hear murmurs from the other rooms and knew the other Huguenots were praying. She helped Sister Therese bathe the children, singing lullabies to soothe them.

  The infirmarian removed a flask she kept tied to her robe and administered small amounts of a liquid to the children and their mothers. “They all should sleep for a while,” said Sister Therese. “We have a long time before dawn. I do not believe all of these souls will still be with us then.”

  Marin felt a momentary anger at the resigned attitude of Sister Therese. Why was she not seeking the healing power of the convent’s relics? With light from a candle, Marin covered each of the children with a ragged blanket. She stood up and said, “Sister Therese, Sister Anne told me that she witnessed a child healed by the relics kept in the chapel. Why do you not bring the objects here?”

  The nun looked up, but Marin could not see her face clearly in the dark. “The bishop must decide.”

  Marin turned away. She tried again, “In our village, the relics were shown only to those that had money for indulgences. Why can’t you go to the chapel and get the reliquary?”

  The old woman sagged against the floor and remained silent, finally saying, “Go to your room and sleep. I will call you if you are needed.”

  Marin went to one of the empty rooms and lay down, careful to put her candle on the dirt floor away from the straw. Her back and knees ached from the hours she had spent on the floor. Sleep hovered, waiting for her to relax, but thoughts of the reliquary would not leave her head. Wouldn’t God forgive her if she prayed for intercession using the reliquary? These children would die.

  What if Calvin was wrong in this matter? Wouldn’t God see her heart—that her only desire was for the children to be cured? She sat up, looking outside the square window high in the wall. At that moment, she heard a dove in the rafters make a cooing noise. The bird flew down to the straw on the dirt floor and cooed again, cocking his head at her. When the bird flew out the tiny window, Marin saw the moon. She bolted upright, her decision made.

&nb
sp; Picking up her candle, the girl crept down the corridor to the sick room, where she saw Sister Therese stretched out on the straw, her hand on the chest of one of the suffering children. In the light from the candle, Marin saw that everyone was asleep. She turned and made her way towards the end of the corridor. The infirmarian had not locked the arched door that separated the prison cell’s corridor from the rest of the convent, and Marin’s stealthy passage to the sanctuary of the church was unseen.

  Marin placed her candle on the stone floor and removed the velvet cloth covering the altar. She traced the carvings on the top and tried to still her shaking hands. Grasping the top of the marble enclosure, she pushed it to the side. The scrape of the stone top echoed into the sanctuary. She stopped, her heart thumping. After a few moments of stillness, Marin reached in and felt a leather cloth covering a small box. She pulled the box and its leather covering out of the altar and put it in her apron, shoved the stone top back into place, and scurried back towards the Huguenot quarters.

  Stopping in an alcove, Marin slid down to the stone floor and placed her candle to the side. Removing the box from the leather, she moved it closer to the candle. The box was small, and plainer than Marin thought it would be. A figure was carved on the top, its two hands outstretched, one holding a baby, one a flower. Surely, the baby was a sign that she was doing God’s will. She closed her eyes, said a prayer, took a breath and removed the lid. In the dim light, what looked like seeds of corn lay in the bottom of the gold box. She pushed these with her fingers, uncertain as to how these small items, with their undistinguished appearance, could possibly be from a saint.

  Marin quickly put the top back on the box, shoved it into her apron and hurried back to the sick room. Holding the candle up to see the children, Marin gasped at the sight of the small bodies on the straw. Many of them had thrown off the blankets, and the pustules covering their shrunken bodies were readily visible. All the children were awake, the candle reflecting in their sunken eyes. One of the children, a girl, made soundless cries, her mouth opening and closing. She appeared to have grapes clustered under her arms.

  She leaned over, choking back her grief. A few short months ago, all of these small children were happily playing at the Maypole in Dieppe on May Day. Now all of them resembled shrunken, bald, old men.

  One of the women woke up, looked at the child lying next to her, and said, “Marin, what are you doing here? Nothing can be done for us. We are damned by God, and he is punishing us by taking our children first.”

  “Mistress Pepin, I only want to provide a bit of comfort.” The woman watched her, too exhausted to protest. Marin ladled water from a clean bucket. One by one, she held each child’s head and brought refreshment to their dry mouths. Each one managed a sip. None of the other mothers or Sister Therese awoke.

  Marin could not bring out the reliquary in front of Mistress Pepin, so she dawdled with her task, waiting until the watcher and the children went back to sleep.

  Chapter 46

  The prioress woke suddenly from a nightmare, waking just as the Comte she had rejected reached for her. She heard shouts and dressed quickly. Outside of her rooms, she determined that the source of the noise was the Huguenot quarters and hurried towards the south corridor. Sister Therese was bending down and standing up, then moving a bit to the side, and bending and standing again. The prioress realized that each time she did so, Sister Anne was examining one of the sick children. Two Huguenot women were actually smiling and two others knelt, audibly praying.

  “What’s this, Sister Therese?” asked the prioress.

  The infirmarian turned to face her Mother Superior. “The children are better this morning,” she said.

  The small patients were still prone, but one small boy was laughing, his arms held out to his mother to be picked up.

  One of the women, standing to the side, harrumphed. It was Mistress Pepin. She was scowling at the group. “Mistress Pepin, why are you not sharing in the joy of this moment? Is something troubling you?” asked the prioress.

  The woman shook her head and stepped back from the group.

  At that moment, Marin rushed into the room. “Get away, get away, you witch!” screamed Mistress Pepin.

  Marin shrank behind her aunt. “What is going on here? I demand that you tell me,” said the prioress.

  Mistress Pepin crept closer to the prioress, who could feel Marin pulling closer to her.

  “This one, this one here. She is the reason these children are not dead. She did something to them last night, something against nature. She has made a pact with the devil, and these children now are damned. They are no longer of God’s world, but the devil’s!”

  The other women now grasped their children. Some began to check their small, sad bodies for signs of the devil, looking in their mouths and under their arms. Sister Therese crossed herself. The prioress felt a cold dread coming up from her very stomach, rising into her face and chest. She restrained herself from genuflecting, certain that the gesture would not been seen as comforting to anyone, even herself.

  In a calm tone, she spoke again. “Mistress Pepin, we should all be rejoicing that these children are better. This is God’s will, not the devil’s. You are tired and are not yourself. Please let me provide you some wine and bread so you can rest.” Sister Marie could hear the mothers murmuring their agreement as they looked at Mistress Pepin, who still stood staring at Marin.

  “God’s will be damned. Examine the girl, prioress. She has a magic box in her apron and has always had the witch’s eyes.” At that, the woman grabbed Marin, and pulled her into the middle of the room, holding the girl’s face between her dirty hands, turning it one way, then the other, so all the others could see the two different color eyes.

  One of the other women said, “Stop this talk. We have always known that Marin had eyes of different colors. Others in her family had it too. You know the Postels. They were always a faithful, God-fearing people.”

  “Yes, I did know her family. I believe the prioress knows them as well.” The Huguenot woman looked strangely at the prioress as she said this, and with horror, Marie realized her secret was no longer.

  Sister Marie felt her knees begin to weaken, and she put her hand to her eye patch without thinking. At that moment, the Pepin woman rushed over, still holding Marin, and seized the prioress. She thrust them both down to the filthy straw, put a knee on each woman’s back, and pulled the eyepatch away from the prioress’s face. The Huguenot woman reached over, and pulled the reliquary from Marin’s apron. She stood, and held it high, turning in a circle to show the other women, many of who also began to weep. Marin and the prioress remained on the ground, their heads bowed.

  “You foolish women thought that this prioress would be different. You thought that you might be able to appease God by doing what this evil papist wanted you to do. Look at their eyes. Look at them!”

  This last utterance was screamed, and at this, Sister Therese finally moved. She shouted, “Get away from her, you heretic; get away I say!” The infirmarian moved over and pushed the Pepin woman aside as two of the other Huguenot women restrained her. Mistress Pepin began to pray, continuing to mumble that Marin was a witch and the Huguenot children were damned.

  Sister Therese leaned down and helped the prioress get up, retrieving the eye patch. She stared at the reliquary, which had also been dropped to the ground, but finally leaned over and grabbed it, pushing the box into her superior’s hand. The infirmarian pushed Marin and the prioress through the door of the sick room, whispering, “Hurry, leave here, and lock the door to the south corridor behind you.”

  Sister Marie pulled Marin and they both rushed down the corridor. The prioress locked the arched door, grabbed Marin by the shoulders, and said, “I do not know all that has happened, and you will yet tell me, but you must be strong. For your safety, I will lock you in a cell by yourself. We will need all of our wits to keep
you from the pyre, especially since it appears you have not only been accused of witchcraft but have stolen a reliquary from the sanctuary. Come, be quick.” With wide, frightened eyes, Marin nodded.

  Chapter 47

  The prioress remained in her rooms, praying. She had returned the reliquary to its leather bag, but she could not return it to the altar without a consecration ceremony. The bag sat on her desk, innocuous and small. Marin was locked in a room away from the Huguenot corridor, and the prioress dared not attempt to visit her.

  Late in the day, Sister Simone, the portress, came into the prioress’s rooms and sat down. She put a parchment on the table and sat down by the fire as the prioress stood.

  “How are the children?” asked Sister Marie.

  “They are continuing to recover.” The portress sat with her hands folded in her lap, attempting not to stare at her superior’s eye patch.

  The prioress gestured to the parchment. “Is this Mistress Pepin’s statement?”

  The portress nodded. “Sister Marie, I have been to the quarters three times. Not only has Mistress Pepin not wavered in her accusations, but also two more women who are weak willed and did not observe any of these events, now support her. Papist or Protestant, who can deny that supernatural events have occurred?”

  The prioress picked up the parchment and read,

  I saw the girl, Marin, spit into a box and mix water from the pail with her spit, which she poured into the pail. She then gave a sip to each of the children, speaking words that were not French. She touched each child and made a sign on each one’s head. I was unable to move due to the spell that the witch had cast upon me. I saw the moonlight gleam in her green eye, which moved in a different direction than the brown eye. The children began to speak in a different language.

  The Prioress spoke softly. “And what do you believe, Sister Simone?”