Holy Fools Page 16

  I know what Giordano would have told me. There was no gold in the abbey walls, and anything buried in that shifting soil would long since have been lost forever. Such things happened only in stories. And yet LeMerle was more like myself than my old tutor, more buccaneer than logician. I know what motivates him. Desire. Mischief. Applause. Sheer pleasure taken in wrongness, in biting his thumb at those who thwart him: the tumbling of altars, defiling of graves. I know this because we are still alike, he and I, each a small window into the soul of the other. Many passions run hot and cold in his strange blood, and wealth is only one of the lesser of these. No, this is not a question of money.

  Power, then? The idea of having so many women under his thumb, for his use and manipulation? That was more like the Blackbird I knew, and would tally with his secret trysts with Clémente. But LeMerle could have had his pick of beauties; had never lacked for success in that direction, either in the provinces, or in the Paris salons. He had never valued these things before; had never gone out of his way to pursue them. What then? I asked myself. What drives a man like that?

  There came a sudden cry from behind the wall of the herb garden close by, and I leapt to my feet. “Miséricorde!” The voice was so shrill that for a second I did not recognize it. I ran to the garden wall and hoisted myself to look over.

  The orchard and herb garden give directly onto the west side of the church so that the plants and trees may be protected from the cold in winter. As I peered over the wall I could see the west entrance barely fifty feet away and poor old Rosamonde, her hands clasped to her face, wailing fit to split.

  “Aiii!” she screeched. “Men!”

  With an effort I pulled myself to the top of the wall and straddled it. There were six men at the west entrance. A contraption of ropes and pulleys had been left at the open door, and next to it a pile of logs as if in preparation to roll something heavy.

  “It’s all right, ma soeur,” I called encouragingly. “They’re only workmen. They’ve come to mend the roof.”

  “What roof?” Confused, Rosamonde turned to look at me.

  “It’s all right,” I repeated, swinging my legs over onto her side. “They’re workmen. The roof’s been leaking, and they’re here to mend it.” I gave her a friendly nod and allowed myself to drop lightly into the long grass.

  Rosamonde shook her head in bewilderment. Then, peering shortsightedly at me: “Who are you, young woman?”

  “It’s Soeur Auguste,” I told her. “Remember me?”

  “I don’t have a sister,” said Rosamonde. “Never did. Are you my daughter?” She peered shortsightedly at me. “I know I should know you, my dear,” she told me. “But I can’t quite remember…”

  I put my arm gently around her shoulders. I could see a small group of sisters watching from the church door. “Never mind,” I said. “Look, why don’t we just go into the chapter house and—”

  But as I turned her to face the church Rosamonde gave another shriek. “Look!” she cried. “Sainte-Marie!”

  Either old Rosamonde’s eyes were not as feeble as I had thought, or she had actually been in the church when the work commenced, for I had seen nothing amiss in the group of workmen at the west entrance. But as I watched now I saw that none of the equipment that had been left at the door was for roofing. Indeed, no scaffolding had been erected up the walls, not even a ladder. And the men came from within the church, not without. With them, tethered like a great beast, inch by inch on her wooden rollers came Marie-de-la-mer.

  A few nuns were already watching in silence. Alfonsine was among them, and Marguerite. Rosamonde looked at me in baffled distress. “Why are they taking the saint outside?” she demanded. “Where are they taking her?”

  I shook my head. “Perhaps they’re going to transport her to somewhere more appropriate,” I said without conviction. What could be more appropriate than our own church, our own entrance, where she could be seen from every part of the building, touched by anyone entering?

  Rosamonde was making her way as quickly as she could toward the group of workmen. “You can’t take her!” she shouted hoarsely. “You can’t steal her from us!”

  I hurried after her. “Be careful, ma soeur, you’ll do yourself an injury.”

  But Rosamonde was not listening. She hobbled to the doorway where the men were taking pains to avoid chipping the marble steps.

  One positioned the rollers. Two others levered the statue into position. Two more at the rear kept her steady whilst the foreman directed the operation.

  “What are you doing?” demanded Rosamonde.

  “Careful, Sister,” said one of the men. “Don’t get in the way!” He grinned, and I saw the crooked line of his blackened teeth.

  “But it’s the saint! The saint!” Rosamonde’s eyes were round with outrage.

  In a way I understood her. The big saint—if saint she was—had been a part of the abbey for years. Her stony face had watched us live and die. Countless prayers had been uttered beneath her mute, impassive gaze. Her round belly, her massive shoulders, the black bulk of her tender, indifferent presence had been a comfort, a touchstone to us across changes and seasons. To remove her now, in this time of crisis, was to make orphans of us at a time when we needed her most.

  “Who ordered this?” I said.

  “The new confessor, Sister.” The fellow barely glanced at me. “Mind yourself, she’s coming down!” I thrust Rosamonde away from the steps just as the statue, supported on either side by the workmen and from beneath by the rollers, came crashing down the steps onto the path. Dust puffed up from the cracked earth. The man with bad teeth steadied the saint while his assistant, a young man with red hair and a cheery smile, maneuvered a cart into position on which to load her.

  “Why?” I insisted. “Why remove it at all?”

  The red-haired man shrugged. “It’s just orders,” he said. “Maybe you’re getting a new one. This one looks old as God.”

  “And where will you put it?”

  “Dump it in the sea,” said the red-haired man. “Orders.”

  Rosamonde clutched at me. “They can’t do that!” she said. “Reverend Mother will never let them do it! Where is she? Reverend Mother!”

  “Ma fille, I’m here.” The voice was small and flat, almost colorless like its owner, and yet Rosamonde stopped struggling and stared, her poor baffled face tugging between hope and dread.

  Mère Isabelle was standing at the church door, hands folded. “It’s time we were rid of this blasphemy,” she said. “It has been here too long already, and the islanders are a superstitious folk. They call it the Mermaid. They pray to it. It has a tail, for God’s sake!”

  In spite of myself I spoke out. “But ma mère—”

  “This object—is not the Holy Mother,” said Isabelle. “And there is no such saint as Marie-de-la-mer. There never was.” Her nasal voice rose a little. “How can you bear it here? This thing in our church! Pilgrims coming to touch it! Women—pregnant women—scraping dust from it to brew their charms!”

  I began to understand. Not the saint herself, but the use to which she had been put; the touch of fertility in the barren house of God.

  Isabelle took a breath. Now she had begun to speak it seemed she could not stop herself. “I knew it the moment I set foot here. The unconsecrated burials. The secret excesses! The curse of blood!” It was almost hysteria, but she was cold for all that. Angélique Saint-Hervé Désirée Arnault had her own formula and would stick to it no matter what.

  “And now,” she said. “It dares to attack me. Me! Taunts me with blood! My confessor locates the source and purifies it. But the evil remains. The evil remains.”

  She stayed for a minute in silence, contemplating the evil. Then, with a crisp Praise be!, she turned and was gone.

  The bell for Nones went soon afterward, and there was little time for discussion. Not that I would have dared voice my doubts in any case, for the fear of losing contact with Fleur kept me from speaking my mind. Throughout
Nones I found my mind straying to Mère Isabelle’s words on the church steps, words of which she herself seemed barely conscious.

  The curse of blood. The evil remains.

  The new well is close to complete now, its water as sweet and clear as she could have wished. LeMerle has exorcised the church itself, the font, the sacristy, and all the holy vessels, declaring them free from taint. He has intimated the same of Perette and Alfonsine too, to my relief, although there are still rumors. Alfonsine seems quite disappointed that she has been given this clean bill of spiritual health, and her visible chagrin causes Marguerite to speak slightingly of actresses and attention-seekers.

  And yet the evil remains.

  I tried to keep my eyes from wandering, but time and again found myself staring at the giant emptiness that had once held Marie-de-la-mer. A small sacrifice, I told myself, compared with the return of my daughter, for what was a statue to a living child, a frightened child?

  LeMerle was behind it, of course. What he wanted with the statue I could not guess, but its removal—that of the one symbol of our unity and our faith—had brought us one step closer to surrender. He must become our symbol now, I realized; he was to be our only salvation. During the service he spoke of female martyrs, of Sainte Perpetua and Sainte Catherine and Christina Mirabilis, of the mystery of death and the purity of fire, and he held us in his palm.

  25

  Abbaye de Sainte-Marie-Mère

  Île-des-Noirs-Moustiers

  July 26th, 1610

  Monseigneur,

  It is with the Greatest Pleasure that I am able to inform Monseigneur that Everything He has so wisely foreseen is proceeding according to Plan. My Charge shows the most Commendable Zeal in all the Reforms she has instigated, and the Abbey is almost Restored to Former Glory. The Church Roof still requires some Labor, and I regret to say that much of the South Transept has been grievously Damaged by Weathering, however we entertain Great Hopes of seeing the Whole Complete by the Beginning of Winter.

  The Original Name of our Abbey, as Monseigneur will have Noticed, has also been Restored and all Signs and Intimations of the Vernacular Name erased in favor of the Above. I add my most earnest Entreaties to those of Your Niece, Monseigneur, that if Your busy Schedule enables You to Grace us with a Visit in the Coming Months, we should be most Honored and Gratified to receive Your August Presence.

  I remain your most obedient servant,

  Blah, blah, blah.

  I have to admit I’ve a neat turn of phrase. Your August Presence. I like that.

  I’ll have it sent in the morning by special envoy. Or maybe I could ride out to Pornic myself and send it from there—anything to get out of the stink of this place for a few hours. How Juliette can bear it, I can’t imagine. I only bear it because I have to; and because I know I won’t be here for long. These cloistered ones, these toadstools, have a very special rankness, and the scent of their hypocrisy turns my stomach. Imprisoned here I can hardly breathe, hardly sleep; I must ask Juliette to make me a soothing draught.

  Sweet Juliette. The fair girl—what’s her name? Clémente?—is well enough for my needs, and touchingly eager to please too, but she’s no worthy quarry. For a start, her eyes are too large. Their color, that of a flawless summer sky, lacks that discordant note of slate and embers. Her hair too, fair as foam, is hopelessly wrong. Her skin too white, her legs too smooth, her face unmarred by sun and grime. Call me ungrateful if you like. A honey-fall like that, and I must hanker after that stiff-necked maypole with her flinty eyes. Perhaps it’s her hatred of me that gives it spice.

  There’s no heat in Clémente. Her pallor freezes my bones. She whispers constantly in my ears tales of romance, dreams of Bele Yolande, Tristan and Iseult, Abelard and Héloïse…In any case, there’s no danger of her talking. The little fool’s in love. I subject her to more and more prolonged miseries, but she seems to revel in each indignity. For myself, I enhance my pleasure how I can with dreams of red-haired harpies.

  There’s no escaping her. The other night she came to me—in a vision, or so I thought. I saw her for an instant only, her face pressed to the pane of my window, her eyes reflecting the soft glow of the firelight so that for a moment she looked almost tender.

  Clémente moved beneath me with the little bleating cries that masquerade as passion with her. Her eyes were closed and I saw her hair and flanks illuminated in fire. I felt a hot sudden surge of joy in my loins, as if the woman at the window and the one in my arms had unexpectedly become one and the same, then the face at the window vanished and I was left with nothing more than Clémente gasping like a landed fish in my hands. My pleasure—no great delight in any case—was marred by the growing certainty that Juliette’s face at the window had been no phantasm. She had seen us together. The look on her face—shock, disgust, and something that might have been chagrin or even rage—haunted me. For a second I could almost have run after her, ruinous though that would have been to all my careful plans. Wild thoughts fired me. I stood up and went naked to the window in spite of Clémente’s protests. Was that a pale figure half hidden in the shadows of the gatehouse? I could not be sure.

  “Colombin, please.” I looked over my shoulder to see Clémente crouching by the hearth, her hair still deceptively brazen in the light of the dying embers. A sudden wave of fury washed over me and in two strides I was upon her.

  “I gave you no leave to use my name.” I yanked her to her feet by a fistful of hair and she gave a stifled scream. I slapped her then, twice, not as hard as I should have liked, but enough to bring brief roses to her cheeks. “Who do you think you are, some Paris courtesan in her salon? Who do you think I am?”

  She was weeping now, in braying sobs. For some reason this enraged me still more and I dragged her to the couch, still squealing.

  I didn’t really hurt her. A red handprint or two on a white shoulder, a white thigh. Juliette would have killed me for far less. But Clémente watched me from her couch, her eyes reproachful but nevertheless bright with a strange satisfaction, as if this were how she expected things to be.

  “Forgive me, mon père,” she breathed. One childish hand cupped a breast scarce bigger than a green apricot, making the nipple pout with imagined seductiveness. My stomach revolted at the thought of touching her again. But I had perhaps given too much away. I took a step toward her and brushed her forehead with languid fingers.

  “Very well,” I said. “I’ll overlook it this time.”

  26

  JULY 27TH, 1610

  Sainte Marie-de-la-mer was taken in the stone-breakers’ wagon to the easternmost point of the island, where the coast is ragged from the eroding tides. There her remains were given to the sea. I was not present to see it—only LeMerle and the abbess were there—but we were told later that a great wind blew up from the sea where the effigy fell, that the water boiled and that black clouds obscured the sun so that day became night. Since LeMerle told us this, no one disputed it aloud, although I met Germaine’s cynical gaze during his performance.

  Of course, she has lost someone to him too. Her face seems narrower these days, the scars very prominent on her pale skin. She sleeps as little as I do; in the dorter I hear her pretending sleep, but her breathing is too shallow, her lack of movement too disciplined to be that of rest.

  Last night before Vigils I heard her quarreling with Clémente in a low, harsh voice, though I could not make out the words she spoke. There was silence from Clémente—in the darkness I guessed she had turned her back—and during the long hours between Matins and Lauds I heard Germaine weeping with long, harsh sobs, but I dared not approach her.

  As for LeMerle…He had not sought me out since my visit to the market, and I had become increasingly convinced that Clémente—who after all, shared his bed—had also stolen his heart. Not that that troubled me, you understand. I’m long past caring where he lays his head at night. But Clémente is spiteful; and she has no love for Fleur or for me. I hated to think of the power she might wield
over all of us, if LeMerle had succumbed to her charms.

  I was working in the laundry house when at last he came looking for me. I knew he was there; knew the sound of his feet against the flagstones, and knew from the clink of his spur against the step that he was dressed for riding. I did not turn round at once but plunged an armful of linens into one of the vats of boiling water, face averted, not daring to speak. My cheeks were burning, but that might have been the steam, for the laundry house was hot and the air was filled with clouds. He stood watching me for some minutes without a word, but I would not return his gaze, nor speak until he spoke first. At last he did, in the tone and style he knew had always infuriated me.

  “Exquisite harpy,” he said. “I trust I am not interrupting your ablutions. Cleanliness, if not godliness, dearest, must be the prerequisite of your calling.”

  I used the baton to pound the laundry. “I’m afraid I’ve no time for games today. I have work to do.”

  “Really? What a pity. And on market day too.”

  I stopped.

  “Well, after all, perhaps I have no reason to go to market,” said LeMerle. “Last time the stench of fish and the common folk was almost unendurable.”

  I looked at him then, not caring that he saw the pain in my eyes. “What do you want with me, Guy?”

  “Nothing, my Ailée, but your own sweet company. What else should I desire?”

  “I don’t know. I daresay Clémente could tell me.” It was out before I could stop it.

  I saw him flinch, and then he smiled. “Clémente? Let me see now—”

  “You know her, LeMerle. She’s the girl who comes to your cottage at night, in secret. I should have known you wouldn’t be here long without finding yourself a comfortable bedfellow.”

  He shrugged, unabashed. “Light entertainment, that’s all. You wouldn’t believe how tedious I find the clerical life—and do you know, Juliette, she’s begun to bore me already?”