The Lady Agnes Mystery, Volume 1

by Andrea Japp

  How long had the body being lying in this tiny clearing over half a league from the nearest dwelling? It was difficult to tell, especially given the state of the shrivelled brown skin. Then again he saw no sign of any bluebottles, although it was the season for them. He circled the pitiful remains and crouched a few feet away. Through a tear in the linen shirt he glimpsed a large blister covering the small of the back that was filled with a yellowy liquid. Aiming again with the end of the stick, he burst it, and turned his head just in time to avoid vomiting on his breeches. A small sea of maggots tumbled from the wound cavity. The bluebottles had had the time to lay their eggs, and the warm weather had favoured the larvae’s development. The man must have been dead for at least three weeks.

  Clément rose to his feet – in a sudden hurry to continue on his way. There was nothing more anyone could do for this poor wretch. The child had decided not to tell a living soul about his discovery, hardly eager to have to go all that way back just to show the bailiffs. He was struck by something odd. The man had mid-length hair, almost certainly light chestnut – though it was hard to tell with all the detritus, mud and parasites sticking to it. And yet, the tiny tonsure on his crown was still visible. The hair had grown back, but not enough to hide the trace of the barber’s knife. Who might he have been? A cleric? Or perhaps one of those scholars who requested the tonsure as a sign of devotion and repentance?

  His curiosity proved stronger than the queasiness he felt from his proximity to the stinking remains. He removed the crusts of bread and the plants from his shoulder bag, and thrust his right hand inside. Using the improvised glove for protection, he pulled aside the evil-smelling rags covering the man’s body. Sweat poured down the child’s face and ran into his eyes, and yet the nausea of the past few minutes had given way to exhilaration, to the extent that the putrid odour no longer affected him so strongly. He fought off the insects – exasperated by the disruption of their feast – driving them away with his gloved hand, and proceeded to inspect every inch of the corpse. Why would the man be wearing rags if he was a scholar? And if he was a friar, then where was his habit? Had he been travelling on foot? Where had he come from? What had caused his death? Had he perished in the clearing, or had somebody left him there after partially burning him somewhere else? Unfortunately, it was impossible for him to judge from the state of the hands, which were shrivelled up like pieces of old leather, whether the corpse had been a scholar or a peasant. Nothing, no object or any other particular feature, besides the tonsure, gave him any clues. Had he been robbed? If so, was it before or after he died? The obvious thought occurred to him that the hair on the man’s head, and the body hair clinging to the flesh on his forearms and on his chest ravaged by vermin, though soiled with putrefaction, was intact. There was no sign of any singeing on the torn clothes hanging in shreds, which meant the man had not been set alight, for they would have caught fire before the skin could be attacked by the searing flames.

  Clément struggled to roll the massive corpse onto its back and was almost propelled backwards by its weight. He peeled off the large piece of cloth adhering to the skin on the abdomen. The viscera were heaving with bloodless maggots. It was then that he noticed in the narrow strip of flattened grass where the man had been lying on his side a tiny hole no bigger than the size of a coin in the forest floor. It looked as though somebody had pushed their finger into the ground. Clément scraped carefully. Hidden beneath an inch or so of loose leaves and earth lay a wax seal. He cleaned the wax medallion and examined it closely. His mouth went dry. It was the ring of the fisherman! The papal seal. He was certain, having already come across it in the secret library at Clairets Abbey. But who was this man? An emissary of the Pope in disguise? Had he tried to bury the seal so that no one would find it? But what had become of the private missive the seal protected? Had he delivered it to Clairets Abbey – the only religious order of any importance in the vicinity? The child cast his gaze over the area immediately surrounding the tiny opening. What was that mark about a foot away? It looked like a letter of the alphabet. He leant closer and blew on the dried earth. There was a curved stroke like the beginning of the letter M or N or even a capital B or D. No. There was a tiny bar lower down – an E perhaps? No. There was no question: it was an A. Without knowing what motivated his gesture, he brushed the earth with his fingers, rubbing out all trace of the letter. He spent a moment longer filling in the hole that had shown him where to find the seal.

  What did the A mean? Was it a surname? A Christian name? The name of the man’s murderer? Or of a loved one who must be found and warned? Had the dead man left a sign for whoever found him? If this were the case, then he had indeed died in the clearing, and his death had been slow enough to enable him to hide the seal and to scratch the letter.

  Clément silenced the clamour of questions racing through his mind. He must leave this place, and quickly. If the messenger was really as important as he seemed, then they were most likely searching for him already – or at least for the letter he had been carrying. The bailiffs were capable of anything to please their superior and the Comte d’Authon – not to mention the Pope. Anything, even roasting an innocent boy, provided it meant being left in peace.

  Clément put the seal into his shoulder bag and hurried away.

  Chapel, Manoir de Souarcy-en-Perche, June 1304

  In a flurry of rustling fabric, a figure darted behind the pillars in the little chapel. Brother Bernard was dining with Agnès and there was only a short time between courses.

  Mabile was not displeased with herself. Agnès de Souarcy had expressed her wish to thank the good chaplain and the servant had prepared a proper feast – a six-course meal, no less. Following an hors d’oeuvre of fresh fruit, whose acidity was supposed to act as an aid to digestion, there was a broth made of almond milk. For the third course the servant had plumped for roasted quail spiced with a black pepper sauce. That insufferable Agnès de Souarcy was such a stickler for table manners that the baby fowl should keep her busy for a while. Brother Bernard would no doubt follow her example, thus allowing Mabile time to move onto the attack. The chaplain was young and attractive and his tonsure gave him an air of perpetual surprise and joviality. Mabile would gladly have let herself be seduced. Thus far, her judicious attempts in that direction had ended in failure. Was he harbouring shameful feelings towards Agnès de Souarcy? The thought made Mabile’s mouth water. Eudes de Larnay would be happy to learn of it; and out of gratitude he would show her a little affection and, above all, generosity. Suddenly the girl became gloomy. Happy? Undoubtedly not. Satisfied, yes, but incensed with rage. At times he frightened her. Often. His loathing was so great it consumed him. Agnès and everything relating to her was like a knife piercing his entrails. He hounded her yet derived no pleasure from plotting his revenge. Even so, Mabile helped him, or, better still, she anticipated his murderous desires. She did not know exactly why. For love of her master? Certainly not. She yearned for him to lie on her belly, to possess her like he would a strumpet or a lady, according to his whim. And she liked it when occasionally, after their love-making and before drifting off to sleep, he would murmur: ‘Agnès, my sweet.’ So he was not thinking of her? How wrong he was! For she was his only Agnès and he would have to content himself with her. Mabile blinked back the tears of rage welling up in her eyes. One day. One day she would have obtained enough money from her master to be able to leave him behind without a single regret. She would go to the city and set herself up as a gold embroiderer. She was patient and clever. Ultimately … Mabile rather liked the fiction of Agnès’s fondness for her chaplain, for not only would it harm Agnès’s reputation, it would also wound her master. Mabile’s bitterness was instantly replaced by a malicious glee.

  The register in which the births and deaths at the manor were recorded would be in the sacristy. Mabile made her way straight there. She was trembling with rage. She enjoyed being the architect of Agnès’s doom. It was a salve to the terrible envy that consumed her.
In her view, as long as the natural order of things required that the serfs laboured while the master undertook to protect them, defectors like Agnès were intolerable. She had escaped her lot through marriage. A bastard. Agnès was nothing but a bastard, the daughter of a lady’s maid just like her, Mabile. Why Agnès? If old Comte Robert hadn’t begun to fear the wrath of heaven as he neared his end, he would never have recognised her. He had sowed enough wild oats in the hovels and farms on his estate. Why Agnès? Why should Mabile, born of a sacred union and into conditions that were enviable to many, seeing as her father was a dyer from Nogent-le-Rotrou, obtain less than a bastard – albeit a noble one? The hatred she felt for the Dame de Souarcy made her head spin at times. Regardless of whether he paid for her daily treachery, she would still have served Eudes de Larnay.

  The bulky register was resting on a wooden lectern. Mabile hurriedly leafed through it until she came to the year 1294, the year that little good-for-nothing Clément, who spied on her so brazenly, was born. She searched through the columns filled in by the clumsy hand of the previous chaplain, who, judging from the fine lettering in the remainder of the register, had passed away at midnight on 26 January 1295. Mabile recalled that deadly winter when she had still been just a child. Finally her finger paused beside the entry she had been looking for: Clément, born posthumously to Sybille on the night of 28 December 1294.

  She must hurry. The quail would not keep them busy forever. She should be back in the kitchen helping Adeline serve the desserts: a traditional goat’s-milk blancmange followed by black nougat made from boiling honey and adding last year’s walnuts and spices. To round off the meal she had prepared some hippocras, a mixture of red and white wine sweetened with honey and spiced with cinnamon and ginger.

  She closed the register and hurried to the kitchens, declaring to the gaping-mouthed Adeline that the warm evening had made her sleepy and she had felt a sudden need to take the air.

  ‘Only, they finished the third course and I didn’t know what to do,’ the young girl protested feebly.

  ‘Serve the dessert on a fine trencher and pour the hippocras into the decanter to let it breathe, you fool! And remember Madame Agnès likes everyone to have their own trencher. This isn’t a pauper’s house, you know. I’m tired of having to tell you the same thing over and over again!’ Mabile scolded.

  Adeline lowered her head. She was so used to the other woman’s reproaches that she barely registered them.

  The conversation was flowing easily in the great hall. Mabile studied the distance between her mistress and the chaplain and wondered whether the gap hadn’t closed a little. Agnès looked relaxed. And yet during her half-brother’s visit her discomfort had been palpable. Mabile listened closely in the hope of overhearing some compromising snatch of conversation, but there was nothing in their exchange that would have been of any interest to Eudes.

  ‘I scarcely see how castration could be a cure for leprosy, hernias and gout,’ argued Agnès. ‘They are such different afflictions, and it is well known that the wretched patients who were subjected to the operation in the leper hospital at Chartagne in the Mortagne region are none the better for it.’

  ‘I am no expert in medical science, Madame, though I believe it is related to the similarity between the humours of the afflictions.’

  Brother Bernard’s perpetual good humour disposed him towards the pleasant things in life and so he turned from the gout and leprosy sufferers to enthuse once more about the quails he had just eaten.

  Mabile returned to the kitchens. For some minutes her thoughts had been occupied by a nagging question. Why did the surname of this Sybille, her mistress’s lady’s maid, not figure in the register? Had she not received a Christian burial? Her grave was marked with a cross and had been dug at the edge of the plot reserved for the servants, which adjoined the cemetery where the lords of the manor, their wives and their descendants were buried. A few Souarcys lay buried beneath the chapel flagstones, but the limited space had necessitated the clearing of three hundred square yards of forest a good hundred yards from the chapel. Irrespective of her hostility towards Agnès, Mabile acknowledged that the Souarcys had always treated their servants’ mortal remains with dignity. Not like a lot of others who would dump them in common graves unless a family member came to claim them. In point of fact, Eudes de Larnay showed no such compassion where his servants were concerned. She shook her head in irritation. What use had she for the Dame de Souarcy’s kindness? It had nothing to do with her mission. Another thought flashed through her mind. The boundary where Clément’s mother’s remains lay; was it consecrated ground? She must try to find out. Sybille’s having been a mother out of wedlock did not surprise Mabile. It was a common risk for girls in service. They found themselves inopportunely with child and their choice was clear: abortion, frequently followed by the mother’s death, or, if the master was decent, a pregnancy carried to full term in secret. However, it did not explain why Clément was only registered under his Christian name? Who were his godparents? Without their presence a baptism would have been unthinkable. Their Christian names and surnames should be recorded in the register beside the child’s. This baptism seemed to her altogether too clandestine for it to be completely orthodox.

  Clément waited for a few moments, listening out just to make sure. Her snooping in the chapel having been successful, Mabile would not return again tonight. He crawled out of his hiding place in the honeysuckle bush. A cold sweat had drenched his shirt. It did not take a genius to guess what the fiendish woman had been trying to find out. So he was right and she did know how to read. He was annoyed with himself for not having anticipated this new piece of cunning. He should have taken the register of births and deaths even without telling Agnès, for she would doubtless disapprove of any act that deprived Souarcy of its history.

  He knew it. Eudes de Larnay was baring his teeth. His jaws were exposed, preparing to snap at their defenceless flesh.

  The weather was so beautiful, so mild. From time to time Agnès caught a glimpse of the cloudless blue sky through an opening in the leaves. The boat was bobbing gently downstream. She lay with her head to the stern. She was alone, in sweet solitude. Her right hand caressed the calm surface of the water. A sudden eddy rocked the flimsy vessel. She sat up and looked around at the waves rippling out from the boat. What was it? A surprise current? A vast aquatic beast? Menacing? The shaking grew more violent and the boat jibbed, lurching dangerously from side to side. She wanted to cry out for help but no sound came from her throat. Suddenly she was aware of a small insistent voice whispering in her ear:

  ‘Madame, Madame, I beg you, wake up, but do not make a sound.’

  Agnès sat up in bed. Clément was staring at her, his head framed by the canopy curtains. Agnès’s relief was short-lived and she demanded in a whisper:

  ‘What are you doing in my chambers? What time is it?’

  ‘It is after matins, Madame, but not yet dawn.’

  ‘What are you doing here?’ she repeated.

  ‘I waited until Mabile and the other servants were asleep. While you were dining with Brother Bernard she stole into the chapel in order to look through the register.’

  Agnès, wide awake now, concluded:

  ‘So we know for certain that she can read.’

  ‘Enough to perform her misdeeds.’

  ‘What do you suppose? I’ll wager she was searching for details about your birth or of Sybille’s death.’

  ‘I am convinced of it too.’

  ‘What could she learn from reading those lines?’ Agnès reflected out loud.

  ‘I went over them again after she had left to try to imagine where her wickedness might be leading. I am registered under my Christian name only, and there is no mention of my godfather or godmother. As for Sybille, I may remind you, Madame, that her death is not recorded. She was a heretic and refused the sacraments of our Holy Church.’

  ‘Hush! Do not utter that word. It is over. Gisèle was your godmother,
and as for your godfather, it was too much of a risk. The only person we might have trusted was my previous chaplain, but he was dying and passed away shortly afterwards. What is more, it would have meant confessing to him, which was impossible. And so Gisèle and I decided to enter no surname at all since only one would have been more harmful. At the very worst, had an examination of the register been ordered, we could have claimed it was the error of an enfeebled hand and a mind already clouded by death.’

  ‘So my baptism isn’t … It’s as though I had never been baptised, isn’t it?’ asked Clément in a soft trembling voice.

  Her blue-grey eyes gazed into those of the child, and she gestured to him to sit down beside her.

  ‘God is our only true judge, Clément. Men, whoever they may be, are merely His tireless interpreters. What conceited fool can claim to know the sum of His desires, His designs, His truth? They are impenetrable and we can only glimpse them.’

  Her own words troubled her. They had been intended to comfort the child. And yet, up until that moment none of her attempts to describe her tentative search for the true path to God had seemed so sincere. Was she seriously mistaken, was this blasphemy?

  ‘Is that what you truly think, Madame?’

  She replied unfalteringly: ‘It shocks me and yet it is truly what I believe. Your baptism delivered you into the arms of God, Clément. Two women, Gisèle and I, bore you there with open hearts.’

  The child sighed and leant against her. A few seconds later he asked:

  ‘What are we going to do about the spy, Madame?’

  ‘How does she plan to warn my brother, for he is the instigator of this sinister scheme? Larnay is far from here. The journey would take her two days on foot. Could Eudes have employed someone else to carry messages to him?’