by Ann Benson
With equal retention of wit, the Bishop straightened up again, slowly so as not to alarm our hidden observer, and turned to face one of our escort. He looked pointedly at the man’s sword and nodded his head backward very slightly.
“Behind, in the brush,” I heard him say, though his words were so soft that the intruder could not possibly have heard them. The escort closed his eyes slowly, then opened them again, indicating his understanding.
After a few seconds the man said, “By your leave, Eminence . . . might I stand down for a moment?”
Jean de Malestroit made an exaggerated nod and said, “Of course.”
The man got down off his horse and made to fool with his breeches a bit, as if he were going to relieve himself, and headed toward the brush behind me. “Mother, I beg your indulgence . . .”
“I shall not look,” I said.
Into the brush he went, his hand supposedly near his loin but closer instead to the hilt of his sword. I heard the scrape of the sword edge as it was pulled from the scabbard, and then a quiet scuffle. I turned around to see what transpired; all instinct told me to bolt out of the wood into the clearing, but that was not the action of a warrior who would remain undetected. So I sat on my mount, frightened, and watched the branches thrash about wildly. There was no shouting—instead, there was a rushed and low exchange of abrupt phrases, as if the intruder as well wished to remain undetected by Lord de Rais’s men. And then the thrashing stopped.
All was quiet for a moment until the escort emerged, his charge ahead of him with hands lashed behind his back. He shoved his captive toward us. The man stumbled a bit, then found his balance just in front of his Eminence. He looked up at the Bishop’s stern face and then bowed immediately.
It was a priest!
“Speak your business, Brother, and it had better have great import,” Jean de Malestroit ordered, his voice still low.
Still bowing, the man said, “Forgive me, Eminence.” His voice trembled slightly.
“First reveal your sin.”
“My sins are many,” the priest whispered in haste, “but I mean to say that I seek your forgiveness for surprising you thus. I did not want to reveal your position to Milord by walking through the clearing to speak with you.”
“For that we are grateful,” his Eminence said. “Now, how did you know we were here to be revealed?”
“I followed the young priest from the village.”
“He was not aware of your presence?”
“No, Eminence.”
Jean de Malestroit cast an unappreciative look in Frère Demien’s direction, then turned back to our petitioner. “What is your name?” he asked.
“La Roche,” the man answered. “Guy.”
“Well, Brother Guy, I must ask—why did you not speak directly to Frère Demien when he was in your village?”
“I had nothing to say on the matter of the church’s capture, which I understood was his purpose. I serve a much smaller parish on the other side of the village and was not present when the atrocity took place. But one of our young men saw your entourage approach from far out.”
“We saw no young men on our route.”
A thin smile appeared on La Roche’s lips. “Then I suppose he was well enough concealed after all. We wondered if that were so.”
“A spy?”
The priest nodded. “We have placed men in the woods all around here.” To the Bishop’s curious look, he explained, “We dare not leave them unwatched. Demons are taking our children.”
From Jean de Malestroit there was only silence. But the priest continued, “Our man told us that the Abbess was among you.”
Not an abbess, but a specific one—myself. He looked at me as I looked all around in bewilderment.
Jean de Malestroit’s gaze fell critically upon me. “It seems you have acquired a reputation, Sister,” he said, very hushed.
“Indeed, my lord,” I whispered back. “God forgive me.”
He grunted his displeasure, then whispered, “We shall see.”
The priest took a step closer to me. The escort reached out to pull him back, but a simple glance from Jean de Malestroit put an end to that.
“If I may speak, Mother.”
I looked instinctively toward Jean de Malestroit, who left it entirely up to me by looking away.
“You may,” I said. I sat taller in the saddle, for I was enjoying this moment of authority. “But make haste,” I admonished, “for the light wanes.”
“Word comes to us from Bourgneuf that you heard many tales of lost children there. We, too, have a tale to tell.”
“We?” I asked.
“Yes. Others await me, well back in the woods.” He pointed behind him and beckoned with a look.
“How many?” his Eminence asked warily.
“Seven,” the priest answered.
Enough to overtake us. But why reveal the number if the intent was impure? Or perhaps he had understated it to gain our confidence, unwarranted. It was too confusing, this warrior business. I glanced in Jean de Malestroit’s direction, but his face was unreadable. I made my own expression plain: Please, might we hear what they have to say . . .
Finally he nodded. We turned our horses around and followed La Roche.
It quickly became clear that we had nothing to fear; among the seven were three women, one man who looked to be quite old, and, of course, the priest. The other two were strong-looking men, but neither was armed.
Bows and curtsies were made, and then his Eminence spoke. “You have come a good distance on foot to tell your tale,” he said.
“We come in memory of a child. The distance does not seem long to us.”
Jean de Malestroit regarded the group for a moment, then asked, “Is one of you the child’s parent?”
“No,” the priest said. “He was an orphan.”
One of the women said, “His mother died in bearing him.”
It was every woman’s fear as her labors began. “What of the father?” I asked.
Again, La Roche spoke. “He died two years hence, of consumption. For a while he struggled to keep the boy, and he was doing well until his illness overtook him.”
Another woman said, “The father was my stepbrother, and when he knew that his own death was near, he asked me to look after the boy myself or to find a good family for him if I could not keep him. But I had no means to feed another mouth.” She lowered her gaze in shame.
“Our whole parish looked after him,” the priest said. “The child endeared himself to us. He was quick-witted and was beginning to take up Latin with great enthusiasm. I thought he might even do well in the priesthood himself. He was quite devout.”
Jean de Malestroit seemed to ponder all of this but did not speak.
“So we have lost a son,” La Roche said, “but God may also have lost a servant.”
“We are all servants of God, Brother.”
The priest looked at me when he continued. “I know this is most irregular for all of us to come forward, Mother, but he has no one else to speak for him.”
“Then you must do so,” I said.
They all began to speak, one atop the other.
He was a fine lad despite his disadvantages. Always a pleasure to those who knew him. A good boy, a worthy boy.
And the final line, spoken by a young woman: “We know that others have been taken. It can no longer be denied.”
They eat small children there.
“What was his name?” the Bishop finally asked.
“Jacques, by Baptism,” the priest told him. “But we called him Jamet out of affection. His father’s name was Guillaume Brice.”
“When was he lost?” he asked.
The priest looked back to me again, though it was the Bishop who had spoken. I wondered if Sister Claire had somehow let it be known that in me he would find a more sympathetic ear. “The last anyone saw of him was well more than a year ago,” he said. “In February. He liked to bring something back to those of us who pr
ovided for him. Then one day he went out to beg for alms and never returned.”
“Were inquiries made?”
The boy’s half-aunt said, “All about the area, and beyond, Mother. He was the last of our line, and it was only through him that his father’s name—also my father’s—could be preserved. We do not want to let him fade away as the others have, when no one could find them. We wish to seek some justice over his loss.”
It was the same bitter frustration I had heard in all the other complaints. But this time an entire community had come forward on behalf of a boy who was in truth no one’s son. Their hopes and expectations hung in the air like a mist, enshrouding us.
“I will look into the matter,” his Eminence finally said.
The boy’s aunt stepped forward. “When will we hear from you?”
It seemed to catch Jean de Malestroit by surprise—he was not accustomed to such forthrightness in his petitioners. But the common outrage of the people was a force whose power he understood well. He answered, “There are other more urgent matters that have been given to me to tend, but you have my promise: I shall see to it in a timely manner.”
The crowd murmured and nodded its gratitude. Then La Roche said, “Eminence, please allow me to speak to my people for a moment, and then I would speak to you again.”
“As you wish, Brother.”
They conferred quietly among themselves for a few moments. Finally the priest emerged from the group and said, “We have our suspicions as to who might be the culprit in these disappearances.”
“I am sure you do” was Jean de Malestroit’s answer. Wisely, La Roche kept his silence. After a pause, the Bishop continued, “But I will come to my own conclusion through a fair inquiry. In time, if there is a trial, you will all know what I know.”
It seemed to satisfy them. After a great flurry of appreciation, they bade us good-bye and disappeared into the woods again.
All through the journey back to Nantes, by the light of our torches, I mused quietly on the events of this long and exhausting day. As we passed through the forested area just before the city, I heard Jean de Malestroit’s voice. He was directly next to me, but it sounded as if he were calling out from a long distance.
“There is finally reason to move against Lord de Rais.”
I let that declaration hang between us for a time. It was a bitter truth that our lost children meant less to Duke Jean than the title to Saint-Etienne. Lord de Rais must have understood the folly of his attempt to regain the property—how long did he think it would be before Duke Jean sent out a larger, better-equipped force, with troops of greater loyalty, to stomp Milord into the Saint-Etienne mud?
Milord’s true crime was that he considered himself to be an equal to Duke Jean. He saw that in his grandpère, who had more wealth, more property, more retainers, more cleverness, and certainly more audacity than the Duke. It was a ludicrous blunder on Milord’s part to assume that such equality passed automatically to him. Even more stunning were the insane accusations Gilles was reported to have made when he attacked: “You thieving scoundrels,” he’d shouted at Jean le Ferron. “You have beaten my men and extorted money from them. Come outside the church or I’ll lay you dead!”
No one believed for a moment that Jean or Geoffrey le Ferron had extorted anything. And none of us could fathom how a man who had shown such humility and piety at Pax might suddenly lose control of his own soul in the crazed manner of Gilles de Rais at Saint-Etienne. He had been heard, both in his brief penance at Pax and subsequently in other situations, speaking a sincere wish to make a pilgrimage to the Holy Land, to quit his evil life, and to beg for forgiveness. Yet only his confessor and perhaps Jean de Malestroit knew the nature of the sins that required absolution. And neither would speak of it.
Jean de Malestroit knew enough already to cripple Milord Gilles on Duke Jean’s behalf. But had he not foolishly laid siege to a church, Gilles de Rais might never have been tried for anything, even after the pleas of so many parents.
You see, Milord was still too much one of us.
But he would not remain so much longer.
chapter 14
In my Minnesota Lutheran family we went to church for about eight hours on Sunday morning (at least it seemed that way to me) and then we had a big old comfortable dinner that lasted the rest of the day. I don’t live like that anymore, but I couldn’t bring myself to call any of the families of my seven documented cases on the minuscule chance that they might. I spent a quiet Sunday reading and rereading the case files, trying to formulate an overview.
It’s a strange life being a snoop. Only three of these families knew that a complete stranger was busily absorbing the intimate details of their lives and that, even though this stranger was trying her best to maintain professional detachment, she would form opinions about them based on what she learned.
It is my opinion, Your Honor, based on my training and professional experience, that if the mother had just kept a closer eye on her kid, he might still be around.
Or, I came to the conclusion, based on the preponderance of evidence, that the boy’s uncle really is a pervert, even if he did have an alibi.
You can’t help it sometimes. I want to be kind and give people the benefit of the doubt, but you see so much—too much.
A slew of questions would emerge, chief among them: Had the missing child been to the Tar Pits Museum within recent times prior to his disappearance? And if so, with whom?
And if there were such striking similarities between the victims, might there not also be a pattern to be gleaned in the intimates? So far the only visible common thread between the initial suspects, all of whom had later been cleared by alibis—including Garamond, though he wouldn’t admit it—was that they were closely associated with the victim in some trustworthy way.
Hardly a breakthrough observation.
Few of the cases had progressed to the point where there were photos of the intimates in the files, because none of them had been booked, except Jesse Garamond, who was really starting to make me mad. To rot in jail just so he could protect his brother—it was like he was living one of those Greek tragedies we had to read in high-school drama class. Of the few photos I did have, one made me feel terribly sad. The supposed perp—also an uncle—had his arm around the victim; they were standing in front of a baseball backstop and the kid was in uniform, all scruffed up like he’d spent the whole day practicing his slides. A loving amateur had to have taken the picture, because there was way too much background and the whole thing was slightly skewed. But the adoration was so obvious; the kid was happy, the uncle was happy, the photographer caught it all very honestly. I looked at this guy in the picture, and all I could think was, no way. I had no basis on which to make that assessment, but I still couldn’t shake it. So much for professional detachment.
I don’t think I was ever so happy to see my kids as I was when they came back that afternoon. It just made everything feel normal again. They’d obviously had a good time, because Kevin looked really beat when he dropped them off; that was always a good sign.
Believe it or not, one of my favorite things to do with them is laundry, because it’s such a cooperative effort. Evan found a basket in that mess he calls his room, and we all sat down on the living-room floor around a mountain of socks, underwear, sports uniforms, and T-shirts and proceeded to attempt to make sense of it. Julia pulled out the whites, Frannie the light colors, and Evan the dark—he won’t do the whites because Frannie’s little bras are in there and he doesn’t want to touch them.
“You’re such a coward,” she teased him. “Jules has to look at your stupid underwear, but you’re afraid of a little bra.”
“Yeah, little is right, Miss Flat-Chested,” he taunted back.
A lot of screaming ensued. Suddenly, laundry was flying all around the room. Not to be left out of the fun, I picked up a towel and snapped it at my son, who laughed with his cracking voice and slipped nimbly out of the way.
“In
sensitive lout,” I said, barely containing my own laughter. “You better hope she doesn’t grow up to be bigger than you.”
“Yeah,” Frannie chimed in. She flexed her biceps, Arnold-style. “You think it’s dancing I do at that studio, you dumbhead. It’s karate.”
She chopped inexpertly and Evan grabbed her wrist. Squealing in delight, Julia entered the fray by jumping on Evan’s back and starting a wrestling match, during which everyone’s hair got really messed up. It wasn’t long before we were all on our backs on the floor, grinning and panting.
Eventually we got all the laundry sorted and the first load in the machine. I put on a Beatles CD as part of an ongoing effort to pass on the reverence for sixties music that my older brother had imparted to me. It always made me feel good that my kids knew enough of the words to sing along to most of the songs. We checked the completion of everyone’s homework and made grilled cheese sandwiches.
Julia and Frannie fell asleep in front of the TV. I hoisted Frannie over my shoulder. It wouldn’t be too long before she got too heavy for this. As I was heading toward her bedroom, I had to stop for a moment and look back into the living room. There was my lovely son doing a wonderfully sensitive thing—he had picked up his baby sister, just as I had done with Frannie, and was following me down the hallway.
It was all I could do to keep from crying.
Of course I had to slime him with kisses when he went to bed himself a little while later. And naturally he was appalled by this excess of motherly appreciation. I didn’t care. When everyone was asleep, I cleaned up the kitchen, because there is something unholy about waking up on Monday morning to Sunday night’s grilled-cheese mess. That done, I stacked all my files and folders and shoved them into my thickening briefcase.
Erkinnen’s book stared up at me from the bed table when I slipped between the sheets. I looked down at it and thought, Enough already. But I picked it up anyway and started to read. After a few minutes I started making notes. I woke up the next morning with page creases on my cheek. There were so many things I needed to know.