by Andrea Japp
‘Most emphatically.’
‘Of practising magic? I am referring to black magic, the use of incantations and the invocation of evil spirits. Is this what you mean?’
‘Just so. I even suspect him of having a hand in my poor dear husband’s illness.’
Whom you will dispatch the moment the old man has given up the ghost, thought Nicolas, affecting an air of deep disquiet.
‘This is a most serious accusation, Madame. Indeed, a witch resembles a heretic in his worship of demonic idols. Have you any proof?’
‘Well, he …’ She appeared to hesitate, but went on: ‘He eats meat on fasting days …’
A sensible man, for fasting days are a most tiresome invention, Nicolas thought to himself. He was going to have to help the beautiful Marguerite, for she had clearly not thought out this stage of her offensive.
‘A most valuable piece of evidence. There exist others even more damning. For example, do you suspect that your father-in-law undermined your husband’s health and prevented you from conceiving with wax figurines?’ he suggested.
She nodded.
‘Good. In your opinion, does he summon demons in a cellar or a burnt-out chapel?’
‘There is one not far from where he lives.’
‘It is common in these places to find evidence of black masses, such as inverted crucifixes and candles blackened with soot. You will need to verify this in the presence of a notary. Do you suspect him of taking part in sexual acts of a depraved and unnatural nature?’
‘I am convinced of it … with me he tried to …’
And a man of good taste into the bargain, Florin reflected approvingly, if indeed there was any truth in the accusation.
‘Why, the scoundrel! However, I had more repulsive, bestial acts in mind.’
She raised her eyebrows questioningly.
‘For example, involving animals such as goats …’
During the next half-hour, Nicolas Florin listed every piece of evidence Marguerite needed to plant so that the men-at-arms and the notary, whose testimony was crucial to the inquisitors, could find it without any difficulty.
She was beaming as she stood up to leave. She approached his desk, her hands outstretched in a gesture of gratitude. He grasped them, raised one to his lips and ran his tongue over her palm. She closed her eyes in ecstasy and murmured:
‘This affair promises to be most intoxicating, Seigneur.’
‘I am ready to intercede at a moment’s notice, Madame.’
She threw him a beguiling look as she left the room, and he unfolded the note she had slipped into his hand. Printed on it was a sum: five hundred pounds. There was no need for any contract. Who would be foolish enough to default on a debt to an inquisitor – pecuniary or otherwise?
*
The would-be Marguerite Galée walked along sedately until she turned the corner of the Inquisition headquarters, when she felt her legs give way beneath her. She leaned against the enclosure wall for a moment and took a deep breath. She heard a low voice like an instantly soothing balm, a voice she associated with a past miracle.
‘Come, there’s a tavern nearby. You look pale. Come and rest awhile, my friend.’
The tall cowled figure put his arm around the waist of the false Marguerite Galée and helped her along the few remaining streets. The young woman could not stop shaking and was unable to speak until they had sat down at a corner table of the establishment, which was almost deserted at that time of day. She nearly spilled the wine she was sipping from a goblet down her beautiful hired coat. The alcohol helped rid her of her feeling of nausea. Francesco de Leone removed his heavy cloak and asked:
‘How do you feel, Hermine?’
‘I was so afraid.’
‘You’re a brave woman. Drink some more and catch your breath.’
Hermine obeyed. How strange that this magnificent man, the only man ever to have refused her when all she had to offer by way of gratitude was her body, could calm her with a look or one of his inscrutable smiles. How strange that he alone had helped her feel at peace with her own soul – and even with those of others.
She was able to summon up that afternoon of pure terror as vividly, painfully and perfectly as if it had taken place only yesterday.
He had not judged her, the beautiful archangel; he had barely spoken. He had stood between this woman whom he did not know and an angry volley of stones. The blood had trickled down his forehead and onto his cheek. He had not protested or backed away or drawn his sword from the scabbard swinging against his calf. He had simply looked at them, and his piercing blue gaze and the cross above his heart had made even the most vehement of her tormentors bow their heads.
Stoned. They wanted to stone her to death. Hermine had belonged to a Cypriot lord – bought and paid for like a bolt of silk, a pack of hunting dogs or a censer. When he died, his frantic widow claimed that Hermine had bewitched him, had stolen him from her bed and killed him with her caresses and love potions. The ludicrous nature of these accusations had deterred no one: they were reason enough for an execution. A horde of men, women and even a few children had chased her for hours along the cliffs, shouting and jeering merrily as they passed each other bottles of wine. Finally they had cornered her in a cove. Exhausted, Hermine had curled up like a terrified animal, shielding her head with her arms. She had recognised the excitement in their eyes. The thrill of sanctioned murder. A shower of stones rained down on her. Then all of a sudden he had appeared and thrust her behind his back and they had scuttled away like crabs, those evildoers turned executioners, intoxicated by a taste of power.
It was strange. She would have travelled to the ends of the earth for her knight and yet he had only wanted her to go to the end of the street, as far as the Inquisition headquarters.
Hermine held out her hand and Francesco clasped it between his. This simple contact made the young woman close her eyes. He released his grip, and she murmured:
‘Forgive me.’
‘It is I who must ask your forgiveness for placing you in a dangerous situation.’
‘You warned me. Pleasing you is so sweet to me.’ She smiled apologetically before continuing: ‘I enjoy being eternally indebted to you. I owe you my life and you can never forget me – for the lives of those we save belong to us. We cannot change this however much we may wish to.’
It was his turn to smile now. Like Éleusie, and his mother and sister before her, Hermine unknowingly reawakened his compassion, allowed him to lower his guard, to fall asleep without clasping the hilt of his sword. Hermine and the other women who lived in his memory had the power to wash away for a moment the Giotto Capellas of this world and all the baseness he encountered.
‘What is your opinion of him?’
‘It is not a question of opinion, dear knight, but of fact. He is the worst kind of vermin. No. Vermin is not the right word. He is vile, corrupt, beyond redemption.’
‘I understand. Things have been made even easier for the likes of him since the Pope granted inquisitors the right to absolve each other of any blunders or transgressions.69 And this generosity has been extended to allow them to preside over torture sessions, which was previously forbidden. I’ll wager Florin could not have wished for a more appetising gift.’
‘They frighten me,’ murmured Hermine.
‘They frighten everybody and the fear they inspire is their main weapon. Tell me about the meeting.’
She recounted every detail of her encounter with Florin, including the moist caress he had left on the palm of her hand. He listened, nodding occasionally.
‘There is something I don’t quite understand, Francesco,’ she continued. ‘You must have already guessed all this from what your aunt told you about Florin’s dealings with Larnay.’
‘Of course, and …’ He paused, then changed his mind: ‘You see, my dear Hermine, a man is being condemned and I must know whether his cruelty is the result of a sickness of the soul or of the mind. Thanks to you, I am now certain tha
t there is nothing wrong with his reason since he sells trials for personal gain. I shall make one more appeal to him … and if he fails to respond, his time of grace will be up.’
She paused before asking the dreadful question:
‘Is he to die?’
‘I do not know. I … do not plan an enemy’s death. It either happens or it does not.’ He grew silent for a moment before continuing: ‘The landlord has agreed to let you change upstairs. My dear friend, it is time for you to return to Chartres. I have hired a horse-drawn carriage for you. I do not know how to thank you enough.’
‘By not thanking me at all. As I have already said, we are responsible for our debts whether we are lenders or borrowers. You will never be rid of me or of the memory of me, my handsome knight.’
He studied her in silence for a moment and then closed his eyes and smiled:
‘I have no wish to be, Hermine. Until we meet again, my fearless one.’
Her eyes brimming with tears, she tried to disguise her emotion, declaring in a sharp voice:
‘Don’t forget to return the fur-trim coat to the draper’s and above all to get back the outrageously high deposit. These people would suck us dry if they could! On the other hand, the shoes are in a pitiful state and they are sure to demand compensation.’
‘I knew Florin would notice them.’
Inquisition headquarters, Alençon, Perche, November 1304
The grime sticking to her hands and legs disgusted her. Her scalp itched and the stench of her dress, soiled with sweat and sour milk from the soup she ate each evening with a spoon she could not see, sickened her. She had removed her veil, dipped a corner of it in the ewer of water and tried to wash herself as best she could. How long had she been there? She had lost all sense of time. Three, five, eight, ten days? She had no idea and clung to the thought that sooner or later the inquisitor would have to interrogate her. And then … No. She must avoid thinking about what would happen then. Florin was counting on using fear to break her and make his task easier. There is nothing more destructive than despair – except perhaps hope.
Had it been night or day when she slept? The nightmares had kept coming, but she had discovered a way of keeping her waking fears at bay by reliving the most precious moments in her life. They were few and far between and she was obliged to conjure up the same ones over and over again: gathering flowers, harvesting honey, the birth of a foal, Clément’s knowing smile. She had spent hours reciting the ballads of Madame Marie de France,* starting again from the beginning when she forgot the words. She had recreated entire conversations of no import: stories Madame Clémence had told her, instructions she would give for a dinner, soothing words she used with Mathilde, a discussion on theology with the chaplain. Nothing of any import. Her life amounted to nothing of any import.
Agnès jumped. The sound of heavy footsteps on the stone stairs that she had descended she could not remember when, followed by Florin who was eager to show her her cell. She stiffened, listening hard, trying to interpret every sound. Was he coming to interrogate her?
The steps ended long before they reached her door. The sound of something sliding and the shuffle of feet. A heavy object being dragged. She rushed over and pressed her ear to the wooden panel and waited, straining to hear through the silence.
A shriek followed by a wail. Who was it? The man who had begged her to die quickly?
The shrieking began again and continued for what seemed to her like an eternity of pain.
The torture chamber was right next to the cells.
Her mind became awash with dark, screaming, bloody images. Agnès slumped to her knees in the mud and wept. She wept as though the world were about to end. She wept for that man, or another, for the weak and innocent – she wept because of the power of brutes.
She did not pray. She would have needed to invoke death for her prayer to have any meaning at all.
Was it morning when she awoke on her pallet with no memory of having dragged her body there? Had the endless torment just finished? Had she fainted? Had her mind mercifully allowed her a moment’s oblivion?
So, the torture chamber was right next to the cells. In this way the torments of other prisoners fed the fear of those still waiting in the evil-smelling darkness of their cells.
She felt a slight sense of relief in that place that tolerated none. There would be the weeks of questioning first. The intrinsic obscenity of the thought shocked her: those others she had seen crouched on the floor were being tortured, not her, not yet. The intention of Florin and the other inquisitors became clear. They wanted to break them, to reduce them to pitiful, terrified, tormented souls in order to convince them that salvation lay in siding with their executioners, in confessing to sins they had never committed, in denouncing others, in destroying their innocence.
Break. Break their limbs, their bones, their consciences, their souls.
Someone was approaching. Her heart missed a beat as the footsteps paused in front of her cell. A wave of nausea made her throat tighten as the bolt grated. She stood facing the door. Florin stooped to enter the tiny space, a sconce torch in his hand.
The inquisitor enquired directly in a soft voice:
‘Have you made peace with your soul, Madame?’
The frightened words ‘Indeed, my Lord Inquisitor’ echoed in Agnès’s head and yet she heard herself reply calmly and unfalteringly:
‘My soul was never in turmoil, Monsieur.’
‘It is my job to find that out. I consider the interrogation room more suitable for the initial cross-examination of a lady than this cell which’ – he sniffed the lingering odour of excrement and stale food in the air and screwed up his face – ‘which smells like a sewer.’
‘I have become habituated to it, as you assured me I would when I arrived. However, the other room would allow you to sit down and me to stand up straight.’
‘Do you give me your word, Madame, that you do not need shackles or a guard?’
‘I doubt that it is possible to escape from the Inquisition headquarters. Besides, I am weak from these few days of semi-fasting.’
Florin nodded then turned to leave. Agnès followed him. A fair-haired youth was waiting a few feet away, carefully holding an escritoire upon which stood an ink-horn and a small oil lamp. He was the scribe charged with recording her declarations.
As they passed the barred cells, Agnès searched in vain for the man who had grasped her ankle. Her eyes closed in a gesture of quiet relief as she realised that he must be dead. He was free of them.
The nearer they came to the low-ceilinged room, the more Agnès felt as if the air were coming alive. It felt lighter, more vibrant. They crossed the enormous room to the hallway. She felt curiously elated at the sight of a patch of sky heavy with rain clouds, seen through the tiny windows looking out onto the courtyard. They turned right and walked up another staircase made of dark wood. When they reached the landing, Florin turned to her. The effort of climbing fourteen steps had left Agnès breathless. Florin observed:
‘Fasting allows the mind to soar free.’
‘You are living proof of it.’
She bit her lip in fright. Had she taken leave of her senses? What did she think she was saying? Surely, if she angered him, he would wreak his revenge. He had all the means at his disposal.
Florin lost his composure for an instant. This was the other woman speaking, the one he had already glimpsed behind Agnès’s pretty face. He could have sworn that she was completely oblivious to the transformation. He was mistaken. An inexorable calm washed over Agnès, flushing away the seeds of terror Florin was attempting to sow; the powerful shades whose presence she had felt during her first encounter with the inquisitor had returned.
They stopped before a high door, which the young scribe hurriedly opened. Agnès walked through, looking around her as though she were a curious visitor. For the past few moments, she had been overwhelmed by an odd sense of unreality, as though her mind were floating outside her body.
>
Agnès stood in the middle of the freezing, cavernous room, her mind a complete blank. Strangely, the exhaustion she had felt when she left her cell had given way to a pleasant languor.
Four men sat waiting impassively at a long table: a notary and his clerk, as required by the procedure, and two Dominicans, besides the inquisitor. The mendicant friars sat staring down at their clasped hands resting on the table, and Agnès thought to herself that despite the difference in age they could almost be twins. It was in Florin’s power to call upon two ‘lay persons of excellent repute’, but such people were less well versed in theology and so less intimidating to the would-be heretic. Four austere-looking men dressed in black robes sitting together formed a threatening wall.
Monge de Brineux, Comte Artus d’Authon’s bailiff, would not be present at the interrogation as Florin had neglected to invite him.
The inquisitor sat down in the imposing, ornately sculpted armchair at one end of the table, while the young scribe settled himself on the bench.
She listened through a fog to Florin’s booming voice:
‘State your Christian names, surname and status, Madame.’
‘Agnès Philippine Claire de Larnay, Dame de Souarcy.’
At this point the notary rose to his feet and read out:
‘In nomine Domini, amen. On this the fifth day of November in the year of Our Lord 1304, in the presence of the undersigned Gauthier Richer, notary at Alençon, and in the company of one of his clerks and two appointed witnesses, Brother Jean and Brother Anselme, both Dominicans of the diocese of Alençon, born respectively in Rioux and Hurepal, Agnès Philippine Claire de Larnay does appear before the venerable Brother Nicolas Florin, Dominican, Doctor in Theology and Grand Inquisitor appointed to the region of Alençon.’
The notary sat down again without glancing at Agnès. Florin continued:
‘Madame, you are accused of having given refuge to a heretic by the name of Sybille Chalis, your lady’s maid, of having helped her escape our justice and of having allowed yourself to be seduced by heretical ideas. Further accusations have been made against you which we consider it preferable not to discuss here today.’