The Lady Agnes Mystery, Volume 1

by Andrea Japp

  Noble victories or dignified defeats are only possible when confronting a noble enemy. The weak can fight a powerful villain only with cunning and deceit. He was certain Agnès had understood this even though she had still not accepted it completely. Still, in one sense Eudes’s villainy had done the Dame de Souarcy a good turn; it had silenced her remaining scruples and remorse. Eudes was an evil beast and in order to defeat him any line of attack was permissible.

  His nightly forays into the secret library at Clairets Abbey were part of this. To begin with, Clément had comforted himself with the idea that if the Abbess had a sudden wish to go in there, he could simply hide under the spiral staircase, behind the pieces of leather that formed an improvised curtain. His fears soon proved groundless. The Abbess rarely entered the library, to which she alone possessed the keys, and of whose existence only she was aware. The fact that it held so little appeal for Éleusie de Beaufort, who was renowned for her learning, had at first surprised the child. But he had gradually begun to understand why. A number of these works contained such revelations, such shocking secrets – some so upsetting they had reduced Clément to tears. To begin with he had doubted the veracity of the words that expressed them. But the evidence was so overwhelming it had finally convinced him. Thus the earth was not surrounded by a void, but by some intangible fluid within which coexisted elements and organisms so microscopic as to be invisible to the human eye. Thus the stone in toads’ brains that protected against poison was a mere fable, as were unicorns. Thus comas, convulsions, trembling and headaches were not symptoms of demonic possession but of a malfunction in the brain – if one were to believe Abu Marwan Abd Al-Malik Ibn Zuhr, called Avenzoar in the West, one of the twelfth century’s most eminent Arab doctors of Jewish origin. Thus it was not enough to spit three times in a toad’s mouth in order not to conceive for a year. Thus, thus, thus …

  Was Éleusie de Beaufort trying to hold back this tidal wave? Had she grown pale at the thought of the threat this science posed to all the stale dogmas and, more importantly, the power it gave to those who wielded it?

  A single slim volume had absorbed him for almost a whole month. It was a Greek primer for Latinists. He had even been bold enough to borrow it for a few days in order to further his learning of that strange language, which seemed to him more and more essential to an understanding of the world.

  He had then scoured the library’s interminable shelves for a similar work that would allow him to penetrate the mysteries of Hebrew and Aramaic; for during his feverish research a sort of logic had soon become apparent, an indefinable conducting thread that led him from one work to another.

  He was stunned upon carefully opening a small collection of aphorisms bound in a kind of coarse red silk. That same name. That same name written in ink at the top of the first page in the last three books he had deciphered. He had discovered the connecting thread. Eustache de Rioux, Knight Hospitaller. Was the man dead? Had he bequeathed his books directly to Clairets Abbey or through a legatee? What was it that had drawn Clément to the works in his collection those past few days?

  A sudden impulse made him go back to the shelf where he had found the book. One by one he pulled out the adjacent volumes, glancing inside them before replacing them. At last he found what he had been looking for. The large book was bound in roughly tanned leather of an unpleasant dark-purple hue that still gave off the sour smell of suint. There was no sign of any title, even on the title page, only the name of its former owner, like a code: Eustache de Rioux. From the diagrams that filled the first few pages Clément supposed it was a textbook on astronomy or astrology. The subsequent pages astonished him: in them appeared the signs of the zodiac, some accompanied by a profusion of arrows pointing to complicated calculations and annotations penned by two distinct hands. One set of writing was even and graceful, though rushed, the other more squat. It was not so much a book as a personal notebook. Did it belong to the Knight de Rioux, and to another whose name did not appear in its pages? A sentence written in italics caught his attention:

  Et tunc parabit signum Filii hominis.24

  Another arrow pointed from this proclamation to the following page. What he discovered there left him utterly bewildered.

  An ecliptic circle featuring only three of the zodiac signs – Capricorn, Aries and Virgo – was covered in the jottings and crossings-out of someone searching for answers. Comments ending in question marks bore out the impression of uncertainty. Others seemed only to be reminders for the author, or authors.

  The Moon will eclipse the Sun on the day of his birth. The place of his birth is still unknown. Revisit the words of the Viking, a bondi, a trader in walrus tusks, amber and furs chanced upon in Constantinople.

  Five women and at the centre a sixth.

  Capricorn in the first decan and Virgo in the third being variable and the consanguinity of Aries in any decan too great.

  The initial calculations were incorrect, failing to take into account the error relating to the year of birth of the Saviour. It is a fortunate blunder for it gives us a little more time.

  These comments had been penned by the more graceful hand – visibly at ease with a quill pen. But to whom did they refer? This Filii hominis, the Son of Man, Christ? If so, then the first sentence made no sense at all, and the third even less so. More time to do what? And who was meant by ‘we’? The two authors? As for the astrological reference, it was too abstruse. What was the ‘consanguinity’ of a sign? Who were the women referred to?

  Clément raised his head towards the arrow slits. Outside, the sun was setting. He had not shown his face at the manor since the previous day, and Agnès would be worried. It was almost vespers. He could slip away while they were holding the service and go back.

  He paused. He had a strong urge to take the notebook he had found back to Souarcy and study it at his leisure. But his good sense quickly dissuaded him, all the more so as the volume was unwieldy. So be it, he would return to the library after matins+ and pick up where he had left off.

  He stood up and snuffed out his little oil lamp, the benefits of which were that it smoked less than a torch and there were enough of them at the manor for one missing to go unnoticed, unlike the tallow lamps or candles, which were costly and therefore included in the kitchen inventory. He walked down to the storeroom.

  Vatican Palace, Rome, June 1304

  Cardinal Honorius Benedetti marvelled at the relief provided by the magnificent fan made of fine strips of mother-of-pearl. It had been given to him one morning, following a long and wakeful night, by a rosy-cheeked young lady from Jumièges – a pleasant souvenir over twenty years old. One of the few remaining from his brief secular life before it was touched by grace, leaving him changed and at the same time disoriented. The only son of a wealthy burgher from Verona, he had been companionable and a lover of the fair sex. Few of his qualities predisposed him to the cloth, least of all his penchant for the material things in life, at any rate when these proved pleasurable. Nevertheless, his rise through the religious hierarchy had been vertiginous. He had been helped by a towering intellect, a vast knowledge and, as he freely admitted, by simple cunning. And, no less, by a certain appetite for power – or rather for the possibilities it offered to those who knew how to manipulate it.

  The sweat was streaming down Honorius Benedetti’s face. For days now the city had been in the grip of an unbearable heatwave that seemed determined never to loosen its hold. The young Dominican sitting opposite him was surprised by his visible discomfort. Archbishop Benedetti was a small, slender, almost frail man, and it was difficult to imagine where he stored all the fluid that was drenching his silky grey hair and rolling down his forehead.

  The prelate cast his eye over the nervous young friar whose hands trembled slightly as they lay stretched out on his knees. This was not the first accusation of cruelty and physical abuse involving an Inquisitor to be brought before him. Not long ago, Robert le Bougre* had caused them a good deal of trouble and disgrace.
The then Pope, Gregory IX, had lost sleep over the horrors uncovered during the investigation ordered by the Church. Naturally he recalled only too well his own error of judgement, for he had seen in that repentant former Cathar* a valuable ‘rooter-out’ of heretics.

  ‘Brother Bartolomeo,’ continued the Cardinal, ‘what you have told me about the young Inquisitor Nicolas Florin puts me in a very awkward position.’

  ‘Believe me, Your Eminence, I regret it deeply,’ the novice apologised.

  ‘If the Church, drawing on our late lamented Gregory IX’s constitution Excommunicamus, decided to recruit her Inquisitors from the Dominican and, to a lesser extent, from the Franciscan orders, it is undoubtedly owing to their excellent knowledge of theology, but also to their humility and compassion. We have always viewed torture as the very last means of obtaining a confession and thus saving the soul of the accused. To have recourse to it from the outset of a trial is … The expression “unacceptable” that you used just now will do. For indeed, there exists a – how should I say? – a scale of penalties and punishments which can, which must be applied beforehand, whether in the form of a pilgrimage – with or without the burden of the Cross – a public beating or a fine.’

  Brother Bartolomeo stifled a sigh of relief. So he had not been mistaken. The prelate measured up to his reputation for wisdom and intelligence. And yet, having finally been ushered into the study of the Pope’s private secretary, after a three-hour-long wait in the stuffy atmosphere of the anteroom, he had felt suddenly apprehensive. How would the Cardinal respond to his accusations? And was he, Bartolomeo, clear in his heart, and in his conscience, about the true nature of what had motivated his request for this interview? Was it a noble desire for justice or was there something more shameful involved: denunciation of a feared brother? For it was hopeless to try to deceive himself: Brother Nicolas Florin terrified him. It was strange how this angelic-faced young man appeared to take a sinister delight in brutalising, torturing and mutilating. He plunged his hands into the raw, screaming flesh without even a ripple of displeasure creasing his handsome brow or clouding his expression.

  ‘Naturally, Your Eminence, since our only duty is to achieve repentance,’ ventured Bartolomeo.

  ‘Hmm …’

  More than anything Honorius Benedetti feared a disastrous repetition of the Robert le Bougre affair. A silent rage mingled with his political concern. The fools! Innocent III had laid down the rules governing the inquisitorial process in his papal bull Vergentis in senium. His aim had not been to exterminate individuals but to eradicate heresies that threatened the foundations of the Church, holding up, among others, the example of Christ’s poverty which – judging by the vast landed wealth of nearly all the monasteries – was not held in high esteem. As for Innocent IV, he had removed the final obstacle by permitting, from 1252 onwards, the use of torture in his papal bull Ad extirpanda.

  Torturers. Inept, base torturers. Honorius Benedetti did not know whether he felt more angry or sad. And yet, if he were honest, he too had accepted the bizarre notion that love of the Saviour could, at times, be imposed by means of coercion or even extreme violence. He had felt absolved by the fact that a pope had opened the way before him. Ultimately, was not the boundless joy of having saved a soul, of having returned it to the bosom of Christ, what counted?

  This young Bartolomeo and his love for his fellow man had placed him in a difficult situation, for he could no longer feign ignorance. What a fool to have received him! He should have left him mouldering in the anteroom. He might have ended up leaving, bored or annoyed. No, he was not the type to grow tired or impatient. His little mouth withered from the heat, the courage visible in his demeanour – even as his eyes were full of fear – his faltering but determined voice, all pointed to the doggedness of the pure and, in some way, evoked Archbishop Honorius Benedetti’s own distant youth. There was only one way out: punishment or absolution. Absolution would be tantamount to endorsing an unacceptable cruelty and would fuel growing criticism among thinkers throughout Europe. It would provide Philip IV of France with a rod to break their backs, even though the monarch himself had not hesitated to resort to the methods of the Inquisition* in the past. It would be – and here the childishness of this last reasoning almost brought a smile to his lips – to disappoint the young man sitting opposite him, who believed in the possibility of governing without ever being content to compromise one’s faith. So what about punishment? The prelate would be only too pleased to fight this Nicolas Florin, to make him choke on the power that had corrupted him, perhaps to demand his excommunication. And yet by sacrificing one diseased member of the flock he risked bringing disgrace upon all the Dominicans and the few Franciscans who had been named Inquisitors, and consequently upon the papacy itself. And the path from disgrace to rebellion was frequently a short one.

  These were such troubled, such volatile times. The slightest scandal would be blown out of all proportion by the King of France, and other monarchs, who were just waiting for such an opportunity.

  Just then, one of the innumerable chamberlains that haunted the papal palace crept silently into his study and, bending down towards his ear, informed him in a whisper that his next visitor had arrived. He thanked the man more effusively than was his custom. At last, the excuse he had been waiting for to rid himself of the novice.

  ‘Brother Bartolomeo, someone is waiting to see me.’

  The other man leapt to his feet, blushing. The Cardinal reassured him with a gesture and continued:

  ‘I am obliged to you, my son. I am unable, you understand, to reach any decision regarding the fate of Nicolas Florin on my own. However, I assure you that His Holiness will no more tolerate such monstrosities than I. They go against our faith and are a discredit to us all. Go in peace. Justice will soon be done.’

  Bartolomeo left the vast chamber as though he were floating on air. How foolish he had been to harbour so many doubts and fears! His daily tormentor, the man who hounded, humiliated and tempted him, would soon darken his days, and his nights, no more. The butcher of humble folk would vanish like a bad dream.

  He smiled feebly at the hooded figure waiting in the anteroom. It was only once he was outside, striding across the vast square with the euphoria of the triumphant, that it occurred to him that the person must have been very hot wearing all those clothes.

  Clairets Forest, Perche, June 1304

  The mist enveloping Clément was so thick and close to the ground that he could barely see where he was putting his feet. Mists were common in that part of the country. Agnès found them poetic. She maintained that the swirls that clung to the wild grasses and bushes softened the too-sharp outlines of things. But today this veil was heavy with the scent of death.

  The swarm of frenzied flies crawled over the evil-smelling carcass. A piece of half-torn flesh hanging from the cheek almost touched the ground, and moved to the rhythm of the tiny beetles boring below the cheekbone. The upper thigh and buttocks had been gnawed down to the bone.

  The child let the small crossbow Agnès insisted he carry for his protection in the forest fall to his feet. He took another step forward, trying with difficulty to suppress the little gulps that brought an acid saliva into his mouth.

  It was a man – a serf, no doubt, judging from his filthy rags, stained with viscid fluids and dried blood. He was lying on his side, his face turned up to the sky, his eye sockets staring towards the setting sun. The blackened leathery skin, mostly that on his hands and forearms, looked charred as if it had been exposed to naked flames. Had the man been attacked? Had he defended himself? Had he been set alight and then robbed? Of what? Beggars like him carried nothing of any value. Even so, Clément glanced around at the undergrowth and the bushes. There was no sign of any fire. Another step forward, then another. When he was less than a yard from the man, he forced himself to smell the air. The lingering odour of decaying flesh made his stomach heave. And yet he could detect no smell of burnt wood or smoke. The child recoiled sudde
nly, clasping his hand to his mouth. He was not afraid. The dead, unlike the living, were without guile and harmless. Moreover, what was spread out before him on the forest floor bore no resemblance to the descriptions he had read of plague victims.

  Lying a few yards from the corpse at Clément’s feet was a peasant’s walking stick. He picked it up and examined it. It looked like the branch of a young ash, and had the pale milky hue of freshly carved wood. It bore no traces of blood. One detail surprised him: the pointed metal tip meant to strengthen it and give it more hold on the ground. What serf would have laboured to add such a feature when he could carve as many walking sticks as he wanted? Clément pointed the metal tip at the corpse and, aiming at the hand, he poked it. The wrist broke away partially and the forefinger dropped to the floor.