The Book of Shadows

by James Reese

  As priest, Father Louis asked himself did he take Madeleine to be his wife; as bridegroom he answered in the affirmative and slipped a thin band of ivory onto her finger. As priest he invoked a blessing; as groom he knelt to receive it.

  Madeleine giggled and cried through the ceremony, said in defiance of law and custom, Church and state. She was scared, and excited.

  Yes, in her heart and mind she was married.

  Sweeter still the memory of how, the ceremony said, the impassive faces of the glass saints staring, he had carried her into the sacristy and taken her for the first time, slowly, smoothly, on the stony floor, not fifteen paces from the sacrament…. How it had hurt…How Louis had held her, whispered words about her most beautiful rose…How she’d bled onto the stones, and how he’d wiped up her blood with the whitest cloth…

  Yes, she must save him. Do whatever she had to do to save him.

  And so, when her Keeper came to her one morning shortly thereafter, to lead her to that putrid bath, Madeleine took the woman’s hand and sucked hungrily, wildly at her fleshy fingers—“as my devils suck at my teats,” said she—and averred, sotto voce, that she was indeed bedeviled, and that her devils had turned against their brother and instrument, the parish priest of Q——, “that goat in a biretta, that cassocked Priapus.”

  By midday, Madeleine had had an audience with the cabal—all save her father; and that night she was slipped unseen into the Capeau home.

  The cabal convinced the Prosecutor to let Madeleine testify. She was the perfect witness, they said. She’d rid them of the confessor once and for all, and wasn’t that their goal? It was indeed. She, the Prosecutor’s daughter, could help them achieve it, especially if her Keeper would attest to what she’d seen the girl do, especially if Madeleine’s resident devils could be coaxed into a second appearance. Yes, said the cabal, the girl ought to be brought in to testify. To be trained to testify. Clearly she was willing. And vengeful. The Prosecutor relented. Madeleine would testify, but he would not see her outside of court, and at the conclusion of the trial she would be “dealt with,” sent away. Somewhere. He didn’t care where. The cabal swore they would see to it.

  Canon Mignon was, at first, careful with Madeleine. He knew what he’d achieved with Sabine—though just how he’d achieved it he could not have said—but what had he here, in Madeleine? Her state—she was enceinte, seven months into her term—added to the priest’s fear. Still, he played his part: tutor to the possessed.

  They sat sequestered in the Capeaus’ library. They read aloud accounts of other trials—the testimony and detailed descriptions of how the possessed had behaved. They prayed aloud that they would be able to prove what the curé and his demons had done to them.

  Of course, this was all more than Madeleine had expected. The crowds. The court already in session, she carried on: she had no choice. She did what the Canon said, and he was pleased. Yes, everything he said was true. Yes, she would swear to it. The descriptions of the possessed might have been written of her. Yes, yes, and yes again. Her tongue was slick with lies, and her limbs grew slack from the acrobatics. She was ready to spout the cabal’s truths, ready to scamper about the court as they wished. Ready, indeed. She begged to speak against the Devil. She begged to be taken to the trial.

  While Madeleine made of herself the perfect pawn, Sabine grew ever more difficult:

  She ended each session by falling into fits, by demanding in top-voice that her demons take their leave, by condemning the Devil-devout curé to an eternity in heaven. The Canon pleaded with the girl: wouldn’t she do better to save her strength for the trial? She said the decision was not hers. Her demons had her.

  Canon Mignon reported to the cabal that Sabine had become too much for him. He was aging at double-speed. She’d even knocked him over once as he’d tried to calm her, and he’d fallen head first onto the hearth. Had badly cut his head. He worried that the girl would be the death of him. He needed help.

  But the cabal, knowing well the Canon’s vanity, only commended him on a job well done; this worked: the Canon returned to the Capeaus’ the very next afternoon. “Ah, but I’m afraid all credit goes to the child,” he demurred. “She took over some time ago,” adding in a whisper, “now she believes herself!”

  Monsieur Adam mixed some more of Sabine’s soporific. He’d concocted so many variations of the original that there was no longer a recipe. Still, Sabine would not sleep, and so the apothecary threw in a little of this; she grew constipated, and so in went a little of that. She began to rave. Mannoury bled the girl, to no effect. The Canon kept a store of dried blood gathered by the Visitandines of Annecy from the tomb of St. Francis de Sales; he gave up a cherished clot for the girl to eat. Nothing. No improvement at all. The Canon was at a loss. Monsieur Adam had mixed his best. Mannoury reported that there was nothing in Aristotle or Augustine, nothing in Gallen or the Arabians that might explain away Sabine’s behavior. They knew not what to do.

  The trial of the Curé of St. Pierre of Q——convened on 2 September, 16—.

  The monitory had ensured that there would be no shortage of testimony. The townspeople of Q——vied for a chance to speak against the curé; for them, the trial was a mere extension of the games they’d been playing all summer long in the pubs, over tankards of rotgut and ale. Their testimony—lies and tales—was reported to the thousands who gathered in the square, too poor to pay their way into court.

  Of course, some few told the truth. Far less damning, and wholly believable. In this number were the curé’s spurned lovers and their spouses.

  The secondary priest of St. Pierre was all cooperation. Throughout the testimony he sat in the front row, in full view of the magistrates, and watched Canon Mignon; when the Canon rubbed the cross pendant from his neck with his left hand (the agreed-upon sign), the aspirant would rise and vehemently affirm the testimony. After all, as second in command at St. Pierre, who’d know better than he what atrocities Father Louis had committed? Meanwhile, in a locked box beneath his bed, the priest kept a postdated letter appointing him curé upon the condemnation of the accused.

  More witnesses, one after another.

  Old Madame Épouse, widow of the cooper, attributed her infestation with lice “big as your fist” to Father Louis, whom she’d never met. A young wife brought her dim-witted husband before the court, complaining that he had been “unhusbandly” since their wedding night. Father Louis was accused of ligature, and was ordered to tell the court where he’d hidden the leather strip that he’d tied into knots to thus afflict the oaf. Louis, stupefied, could not speak. And so his Second rose to say that he’d seen such a knotted cord in the sacristy. (The next day it was introduced as evidence; at day’s end it was untied and returned to the boot of the priest’s younger brother.) The wife, hell-bent on satisfaction, led her mate from the courtroom by the ear, much to the amusement of all assembled—

  “He’d best come up with another excuse…”

  “He’d best come up with something!”

  “And quickly too, as that bitch of his looks ready to ride!” Et cetera.

  There were days and days of such testimony, till it seemed that every petty grievance of Q——had been aired in open court.

  The Prosecutor had, upon his daughter’s “return” to Q——, thrown himself even deeper into the trial. He neither saw nor mentioned Madeleine. He’d consigned her to the care of the Canon, the Apothecary, and the Surgeon. But it was he who finally decided on the cabal’s course of action: they would hurry both girls to trial.

  13

  Creatura Ignis: The Condemned

  “WHO HAS done this to you?”

  Sabine and Madeleine sat side by side on a bench in the witness box. The question was posed by Father Tranquille, the ancient exorcist sent by the bishop, and each girl answered in turn, in Latin as was the custom, and pointed at the accused.

  “Dic qualitatem,” commanded the Exorcist. Tell his rank.

  “Sacerdos.” Priest.


  “Cujus ecclesiae?” Of what church?

  The Church of St. Pierre, they said.

  These were the first questions asked of Sabine and Madeleine at the trial of Father Louis. Sabine responded well, and the cabal was relieved. As for Madeleine, when first she’d been ushered into court to see her Louis, her lover…Mon Dieu, what they’d done to her beloved Louis.

  As a matter of law, Father Louis had been searched for signs of dark commerce; for all fiends, it is said, betray the touch of their Prince. The Dark Touch leaves either a visible mark, or invisible spots on the flesh that are impervious to pain.

  The Prosecutor and Mannoury, the Surgeon, went to the prisoner’s attic cell one afternoon early in the trial. The curé was stripped and restrained by three convicts freed for this mission by the Prosecutor. His rich black curls were shorn, and it was with little care that the curled hairs on his sex and scrotum were scissored away. The Surgeon passed a razor carelessly over the curé’s soaped skin, and in no time the priest was hairless and bleeding.

  “The eyebrows as well,” directed the Prosecutor, and the Surgeon complied. Both men, in shirtsleeves, stood over the accused as he, naked, struggled vainly against the three men who held him—a murderer and two cattle thieves.

  Father Louis was bound to a large board held by the convicts. The ropes that restrained him must have come from Marseilles: they were thick and rough, stained with seawater and oil, and looked as though they’d been gnawed by rats; the ropes tore the priest’s flesh each time he moved, so he kept as still as possible, praying, feeling his blood pulse, feeling the sting of his sweat as it slid between the fresh red lips of the razor cuts.

  As no Devil’s Mark was found, it stood to reason that the priest had been favored with spots insensible to pain, fleshy portals for the passage of his demons. The Canon had asked Sabine where they should search for the priest’s devil-spots. The curé bore one such spot on his shoulder, said she; prodded by the Canon, she added that there were two spots on his buttocks, very near the fundament, and yes, one on either testicle.

  “This may take some time,” said the Surgeon.

  “Good,” replied the Prosecutor, taking to a three-legged milking stool in the attic’s corner. He rolled his sleeves higher and cooled himself with a fan sewn of sea grape leaves.

  The Surgeon spread his tools on a low bench. A worn leather kit contained all the needles he’d need. On the dark wood of the bench, each silver needle shone in its place; they glinted in the sunlight shafting into the attic through the same openings in the warped boards used by the bats, rats, and swarming insects that plagued the curé night and day. “Yes, this may take some time,” mused the Surgeon, arranging the needles—short and thick to his left, longer ones to his right. Some were as short as his thumb, others were as long as his arm from elbow to wrist.

  The Prosecutor sent one of the cattle thieves down to a tavern off the square for two tankards of ale. “And if you so much as sip from the bucket,” cautioned the Prosecutor, “I will see you swing.”

  In the still, stifling air of the attic, stinking of waste, hay, and sweat, the Surgeon began.

  The shortest and sharpest needles were used on the scalp, the back of the hands, the top of the feet, and around the joints of the arms and legs. Mid-length needles were used on the chest, the upper- and forearms, and the back. The fleshier parts of the priest—the legs, buttocks, et cetera—called for the longest needles. The very longest pierced the tough muscle of the priest’s left leg; the Surgeon, with some difficulty, shoved it through.

  It was not until the fourth needle that Louis screamed: of medium length and width, the Surgeon shoved it up into the arch of his left foot. Pain shot like a spark up his spine, seemed to set the back of his neck ablaze. Yes, only then did the first scream tear itself from his throat, despite his prayers and all his summoned will. As the shortest needles were slipped sideways into his scalp—blinding pain!—Louis let loose scream after scream till finally the littered square was loud with applause.

  On and on it went. Twice the cattle thief descended for more ale; he also briefed the crowd in exchange for coin. He returned to the attic the final time bearing a tray of cheeses sent up courtesy of Monsieur Colombel, owner of the aforementioned tavern.

  The Surgeon worked himself to near exhaustion. The criminals lazed in the shadows, for Father Louis no longer struggled. And the Prosecutor came to the side of the accused, directing the Surgeon. Here. There. Deeper.

  Each time Father Louis fainted he was subjected to salts, or had slaps dealt him by the Prosecutor. He couldn’t speak. Couldn’t think. There was only pain; and the blood that seeped from a hundred holes in his flesh.

  Finally the Surgeon stopped. Those in the square who’d bet that the session would last one and one-quarter hours gathered in their winnings. The Surgeon was drenched with sweat, too tired to continue. He passed the salts under his own nose, once, quickly.

  The Surgeon reported to the court that he’d only found two insensible spots, and they’d been two of the five described by Sabine Capeau—on the left testicle and lower right buttock, the rim of the anus. He had tried ninety-one spots in all, from scalp to sole, and all but these two had brought pain. (The priest was, of course, unconscious when the two spots in question were tried.) “Such a clever devil,” opined the Prosecutor in open court. “Able to hide his spots so well.”

  Upon quitting the attic, the Prosecutor and Surgeon were hailed in the square. Moments earlier, the Prosecutor had handed a small bag of sea salt to the murderer—along with a fistful of coin—directing the man to work the coarse salt into the priest’s wounds. He said too that he’d send up some ale for the three men.

  The Prosecutor waited half an hour before sending seven jailers into the attic with shackles and orders to seize the criminals and recover his coin. He’d never intended to set the men free, as agreed. He’d only needed their services for a short while; now he signed warrants for their execution. He prided himself on the plan: he could clear Q——of three renowned criminals, do away with three witnesses to the surgeon’s work, and slake the crowd’s bloodthirst all at once. Brilliant.

  And so by sunset, the three men swung above the city gates. That night they were the talk of every tavern; for days after they were the sport of birds.

  Three days after the search for the Devil’s Mark—it was the thirteenth of September, though Father Louis had grown uncertain of the date—two men came to the attic at dawn to ready the curé for trial.

  Father Louis was fevered. He still bled from a puncture in his side: the Surgeon had pierced an organ. Infections sprouted and began to spread. Other wounds had begun to heal. The salt, despite the sizzling pain it had caused, stanched the bleeding.

  Dressed in a long soiled nightshirt and worn slippers, the curé was led down from the attic. He was placed in a trundle cart, thrown over with a tarp to keep him from the mob, and led through the crowded square to the courthouse.

  Only the rich or otherwise favored had been able to secure a seat in court. The first benches were filled with officials of the Church and state, men of rank, various nobles, and well-connected cardinalists. Silks rustled in the gallery. There was a rich glow of velvet. The ladies wore summery pastels of every shade. In the heat, beads of sweat vied with gems for position on every bosom. Fans of bamboo and lace were in constant motion. The air was thick with civet and ambergris, as well as the very human odors those scents could not conceal. The finest families had their servants in tow.

  The magistrates had been the first to file into court, sitting shoulder to shoulder in two tiers near the witness stand, their full red robes spreading one into another like seeping blood. Next came the exorcist: Father Tranquille, nearly three times the age of the accused, thickly spectacled and nearly deaf, dressed in black robes of worsted wool, took up his consecrated whisk and scattered holy water over the court and the crowd. There followed the Prosecutor and the Canon, and (for no official reason) Messieurs Adam and
Mannoury. Various and sundry officials came quite socially into court, taking their seats with great show. Finally, Father Louis was escorted to the high and backless stool by two clerks of the court.

  The curé, a skullcap on his shaven, scabbed head, was made to kneel before the magistrates as the exorcist sprinkled the stool. With his hands tied, Father Louis could not bare his head as directed. At a sign from the Prosecutor, a clerk snatched the skullcap off. Some in the gallery giggled, others sneered or fell silent at the sight of the abused priest on his knees. A few women betrayed themselves with tears. Ushers in the gallery called for silence.

  Charges were read. Prayers said.

  It was on the fifth day of the second week of the trial that the Prosecutor presented the possessed: Sabine Capeau and Madeleine de la Mettrie. It was shortly thereafter that the exorcist’s voice rang out, rhythmic and brittle, clogged with the cadence of the Church: “Who has done this to you?” And the girls began to testify. One desperate with hate, the other with love.

  Madeleine, overwhelmed with grief, futility, anger, and remorse, and still plotting to save her Louis, found herself party to his certain condemnation. No one would listen to her, not to her truths—they wanted only to hear the lies she continued to tell in court, biding her time, waiting for a way to open before her.

  But that never happened.

  With the exorcist at the ready, the Prosecutor and Canon Mignon began to offer proof that Sabine and Madeleine were riddled with demons, each and every one introduced to them by the accused, the Curé of St. Pierre. The bishop sent word that he awaited proof of possession, and that the inquisitors were to apply, in open court, tests in the four areas long ago set forth by the Church: tests of language—or the ability of the possessed to speak and understand tongues unknown to them; tests of preternatural strength; tests of levitation; and tests of clairvoyance, or prevision.