Holy Fools Page 6

  In her wake, the frenzy was mounting, with people falling to their knees even in the press of the multitude, dragging others with them. Others took their places, the ranks closing over their heads, their cries unheard. “Miséricorde! Pity for our sins!”

  A woman to my left arched backward into the crowd, eyes rolled up to the whites. For a moment she was held up like an effigy, floating effortlessly upon the outstretched hands, then she slid under and the people moved on.

  “Hey!” I said. “There’s someone under there!”

  Faces mooned at me without comprehension from the swell below. No one seemed to have heard me. I cracked my whip over their heads and my horse strained and pranced to stay level, eyes rolling. “There’s a woman under there! Stand back, for pity’s sake! Stand back!”

  But we had been carried too far. The injured woman was already behind us, and people were thronging forward to stare at the foolish patch of space I had cleared. There came a sudden lull in sound, reducing the cries to a drone above which the Ave was briefly audible, and I thought I read in the upturned faces a kind of hope, a new relief. Then came the catastrophe.

  If it had been any other than a member of the procession no one would have noticed him fall. I learned afterward that four people had been crushed underfoot during the celebrations, their heads smashed into the cobbles by the eager feet of pilgrims and revelers alike. But the procession was sacred, moving ponderously through a multitude held at bay by incense and adoration. I did not see him fall. But I heard the cry, a single note at first, then the chorus, rising in swift reaction far beyond that which we had previously witnessed. Leaping back onto the axle, I saw what had happened, although even then I did not understand its significance.

  The staggering monk at the tail of the procession had collapsed. The heat, I thought vaguely, or the fumes from the censer. A group of people had gathered around the fallen man; I saw the white blur of his exposed skin as they pulled open his habit. There was a gasp and a moan, then they were moving like ripples, as fast as they could back through the ranks.

  In seconds, the ripples had become a powerful undertow, reversing the flow of people so that instead of pushing toward the procession they were pushing away with all their energies, the caravans rocking in the renewed counterstruggle, some even trying to climb up out of the crowd onto the caravans in their eagerness to be gone. The procession was no longer sacred; as I watched, the line trembled and broke in several places, the Holy Mother lurching to one side, uncrowned in the burst of panic as some of her bearers deserted.

  Then I heard the cry; a high-pitched ululation of grief or terror, a single voice rising above them like a clarion: “La peste! La peste!”

  I struggled to hear, to distinguish words in the unfamiliar dialect. Whatever it was, it ran through the crowd like summer fire. Fights broke out as people tried to escape; others climbed the walls of the buildings lining the street—some even jumped from the sides of the bridge in their eagerness to flee. I stood up to see what was happening, but I had become separated from the other caravans. Some distance ahead I could see LeMerle lashing at his mare’s flanks, driving her onward. But the crowd had him from both sides, rocking against the caravan’s panels, lifting the wheels from the ground. Faces lurched at me out of the multitude; one caught my eye, and I was astonished at the hatred there. It was a young girl, her round red face distorted with terror and loathing. “Witch!” she shrieked at me. “Poisoner!”

  Whatever it was, it was catching. I heard the cry bounce ahead of me like a stone across a lake, gathering momentum as it went, looking for somewhere to strike. The outpouring of hatred had become a tide; now it swelled against me, threatening to lift the caravan from the ground.

  I was struggling with my horse; it was a quiet beast as a rule, but the girl struck it hard in the flank, and it half reared, dancing out with its heavy-shod hooves. The girl screamed; I pulled back on the horse’s harness to prevent it from trampling the people in front of me. It took all my attention and my strength—even so, the animal was panicked, and I had to whisper a cantrip into his ear to calm him—and by the time I had done with that, the girl had vanished into the crowd, and the terrible wave of hatred had moved on.

  Ahead of me, though, LeMerle was in trouble. I could see him shouting something, his voice lost in the roar of the multitude, but I was too far away to understand what it was. His horse, a nervy mare, was terror-stricken; I could hear the cries of Witch! and Poisoner! above her screaming. LeMerle tried to control her, but it was beyond his skill; he was alone, cut off from the rest of us, now lashing out over the heads of the crowd with his whip, trying to force them aside. The strain proved too much for the caravan’s axle. It collapsed, toppling the vehicle; and now many hands tugged at the caravan’s fastenings, ignoring the blows from LeMerle’s whip. They had him now; there was nowhere for him to go. Someone threw a clod of earth—it hit him in the face, and he lost his balance; hands reached to drag him from his perch. Someone else tried to intervene—an official, perhaps—I thought I could make out faint cries of Order! Order! as the two factions clashed.

  Throughout all this I had been shouting at the top of my voice, trying to divert attention away from LeMerle; now I urged my horse forward, heedless of the people in front of me. He saw me coming and grinned; but before I could reach him the crowd had closed in; LeMerle was lost from sight; blows fell onto him as he was dragged away.

  I would have followed on foot, although he was already too far away, except that Le Borgne, who had been hiding inside the caravan as I drove through the crowd, held on to my arm. “Don’t be stupid, Juliette,” he rasped in my ear. “Don’t you know what’s going on here? Haven’t you been listening?”

  I looked at him wildly. “LeMerle—”

  “LeMerle can take care of himself.” His hand tightened on my arm; in spite of his size, the dwarf’s grip was painfully strong. “Listen.”

  I listened. I could still hear that cry, now grown rhythmic, swelled with the stamping of many feet, like a crowd calling for a favorite actress. “La peste! La peste!”

  It was only then that I understood. The outburst of terror; the fallen monk; the accusations of witchcraft. Le Borgne saw my expression and nodded. We looked at each other, and for a moment neither of us said anything. Outside, the cries redoubled.

  “La peste!”

  The plague.

  10

  JULY 16TH, 1610

  The crowd was dispersing at last, leaving me still struggling to control the terrified horse. Bouffon reined in his own animal and brought it flank to flank with mine; Hermine, her caravan half overturned as she tried to cross the bridge, stood helplessly staring at the remains of a shattered wheel. Of the others, there was no sign. Perhaps they had been taken prisoner like LeMerle; perhaps they had fled.

  I barely acknowledged Le Borgne’s warning. Leaping down onto the road I ran toward the tail of the procession. Half the bearers had already gone; the rest were struggling to balance the Virgin’s platform against the big marble fountain that dominated the square while ensuring the Holy Mother did not fall. I saw bodies on the road, worshipers who had been crushed against buildings or trampled underfoot. LeMerle’s caravan was lying there on its side. Of its occupant, living or dead, there was no sign.

  “Mon père!” I addressed the priest as calmly as I could. “Did you see what happened? My friend was in that caravan.”

  The priest looked at me in silence. His face was yellow with road dust.

  “Please tell me!” I heard my voice beginning to rise. “He wasn’t doing any harm. He was trying to protect himself!”

  A woman in black—one of the bearers—glanced at me scornfully: “He’ll get what’s coming to him, don’t you worry.”

  “What did you say?”

  “Him and the rest of his brood.” The words were barely intelligible in their thick patois. “We seen you poisoning the wells. We seen the signs.”

  Behind her, the Plague Doctor stepped out
of a side alley, his cloak slapping against the wall. The woman in black saw him and I caught the sign again, forked and secretive.

  “Look. All I want is to find my friend. Where have they taken him?”

  The woman gave a humorless laugh. “Where d’you think? The courtroom. He won’t fly away from there. None of you plague-bringers will.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” I must have looked threatening then, because the woman jerked away, poking the sign at me with trembling fingers.

  “Miséricorde! God protect me!”

  I took a quick step forward. “Let’s see if he does, shall we?”

  But the Plague Doctor’s hand was already on my shoulder, and I could hear his voice in my ear, muffled by the long-nosed mask. “Be quiet, girl. Listen to me.”

  I tried to pull away, but the grip on my shoulder was unexpectedly strong. “It isn’t safe here,” hissed the doctor. “Judge Rémy burnt four witches in this square last month. You can still see the grease marks on the cobbles.”

  The dry voice seemed oddly familiar. “Do I know you?”

  “Quiet!” He turned away, his whitened mouth barely moving.

  “I’m sure I know you.” There was something about that mouth; the thin, twisted look of it, like an old scar, which I recognized. And the smell; the dusty smell from his robes…“Don’t I?”

  There came an exasperated hissing sound from behind the Plague Doctor’s mask. “Oh for pity’s sake, girl!” There it was again, that familiar voice, the clipped, precise intonation of a man who speaks many languages. He turned to me again and I could see his eyes, old and sad as a caged monkey’s. “They are looking for someone to blame,” he whispered harshly. “Leave now. Don’t even stay the night.”

  He was right, of course. Players, travelers, and gypsies have always been useful scapegoats for any misfortune, be it crop failure, famine, bad weather, or plague. I learned it in Flanders when I was fourteen and in Paris, three years later. Le Borgne knew it—Rico had learned it too late. The plague had pursued us sporadically across France, but by then, the worst of it was over. It had burnt itself out during the last epidemic, and few people died of it now except the old and the sick, but in Épinal this was only the last in a series of disasters. Dry cattle, spoiled harvest, rotten fruit, rabid dogs, unseasonable weather—and now this. Someone had to be held responsible. It didn’t matter that it made no sense; plague takes more than a week to spread its corruption, and we had barely been there an hour. Nor does it spread through water, even if we had tampered with the wells.

  But I already knew that no one here would listen to reason. Witchcraft was what they believed in: witchcraft and poisoning. It’s all there, in the Bible. Why look any further?

  I came back to my caravan to find that Le Borgne had gone. Bouffon and Hermine too had disappeared, taking what they could of their possessions. I didn’t blame them—the Doctor’s advice was good—but I could not leave LeMerle to face the mob alone. Call it loyalty or foolish infatuation; I left the caravan where it was, led my horse to the fountain, and followed in the wake of the crowd toward the courtroom.

  It was already overflowing when I arrived. People were spilling out of the doors and down the steps, scrambling upon each other in their eagerness to see, to hear. The town sergeant was standing on a podium, trying to make himself heard above the noise. Armed soldiers flanked him on either side, and between them, looking pale but self-assured as ever, was LeMerle.

  I was relieved to see him still standing. His face was bruised, and his hands were tied in front of him, but some official must have intervened before much harm was done. It was a good sign; a sign that someone was in control, someone who might listen to reason. At least, I hoped so.

  “Good people!” The sergeant raised his staff and signaled for quiet. “In God’s name let me speak!” He was a short, plump man with a luxuriant mustache and a mournful look. He looked to me like every other vine grower or corn merchant I had seen that summer, and even over the heads of the crowd, across the breadth of the courtroom and through the blur of their upheld arms I could see that he was trembling.

  There was a lull in the noise, but it did not subside completely. Instead, several people raised their voices, calling “Hang the poisoner!” and “Hang the witch!”

  The sergeant rubbed his hands together in a nervous gesture. “Good people of Épinal, peace!” he cried. “I am no more empowered to try this man than the rest of you!”

  “Try him!” came a harsh voice from the back of the room. “Who said anything about that? All you need’s a rope, Sergeant, and a branch to tie it to!”

  There were murmurs of approval at this. The sergeant waved his hands for silence. “You can’t just go around hanging people. You don’t even know if he’s guilty! Only the judge can—”

  The harsh voice interrupted him. “What about the portents, eh?”

  “Ay, what about the portents?”

  “What about the plague?”

  Again the sergeant appealed for calm. “I can’t make the decision!” His voice trembled like his hands. “Only Judge Rémy can do that!”

  The name of Judge Rémy seemed to have achieved what the sergeant could not, and the noise sank to a dissatisfied murmur. Around me people crossed themselves. Others forked the sign. I lifted my eyes to meet LeMerle’s—I stood half a head taller than most men in the room—and I saw that he was smiling. I knew that look; had seen it more times than I could remember. It was the look of a gambler as he plays his last coin: that of a player about to begin the performance of his life.

  “Judge Rémy.” His words carried effortlessly across the courtroom. “I’ve heard that name before. A man of faith, I believe.”

  “Two thousand witches across nine counties!” The harsh voice came from the rear of the hall, turning heads.

  LeMerle lost none of his composure. “Then it’s a pity he isn’t here now.”

  “He’ll be here soon enough!”

  “The sooner the better.” The townsfolk were listening, intrigued in spite of themselves. Now that he had their attention, LeMerle had a presence they found difficult to ignore. “These are dangerous times,” he said. “You’ve a right to be suspicious. Where is Judge Rémy?”

  “As if you didn’t know!” brayed the voice—but some of its heat had gone, and several people called out in protest.

  “Be quiet! Let’s hear the fellow speak!”

  “What harm can it do to listen?”

  The sergeant explained that the judge was away on business but was due back any day. When the heckler called out yet again, heads turned angrily, but no one could make out quite where he was.

  LeMerle smiled. “Good folk of Épinal,” he said without raising his voice. “I am only too pleased to answer your accusations. I can even forgive your rough treatment of me”—at this he touched his bruised face—“for did not Our Lord ask us to turn the other cheek?”

  “The devil may speak fine if he pleases!” It was the heckler, standing closer to the podium now but still anonymous in the wash of faces. “But let’s see if the holy words don’t blister your tongue!”

  “With pleasure.” LeMerle’s reply was prompt, and voices that had hitherto joined the chorus of accusations now lifted in encouragement. “Unworthy though I may be, let me remind you before whom this court must bow. Not Judge Rémy, but a greater Judge than he. Before we begin, let us join in prayer for his guidance and for his protection in these evil times.” And with these words, LeMerle took the silver cross from out of his shirt and raised it in his bound hands.

  I hid a smile. You had to admire the man. Heads bowed automatically as blanched lips mouthed the Paternoster. A tide had begun to turn for LeMerle, and when the now-familiar voice called out again, it was met with a volley of angry rejoinders, so that once again the speaker’s identity was lost. The sergeant blustered helplessly and LeMerle had to call for order.

  “I demand respect for this court!” he snapped. “Is this not the way the Evil
One works, spreading discord so that honest men turn on one another and make a mockery of justice?” The culprits subsided into abashed silence. “Is this not what happened only a few minutes ago, in the marketplace? Are you no better than animals?”

  In the silence that followed, not even the heckler dared speak. “The Evil One is in you all,” said LeMerle, dropping his voice to a stage whisper. “I can see him. You”—he pointed to a big man with a red, angry face. “He touched you with lust. I can see it, like a worm coiled behind your eye. And you”—to a sharp-featured woman near the front, one of the shrillest of his accusers before he turned the crowd around—“I see covetousness in you, and discontent. And you, and you—” His voice had risen now and he pointed to each one in turn. “I see avarice. Rage. Greed. Pride. You lied to your wife. You deceived your husband. You struck your neighbor. You doubted the certainty of salvation.”

  He had them now; I saw it in their eyes. Even so, one false move and they would be on him without mercy. He knew it too; his eyes gleamed with enjoyment. “And you!” Now he pointed to the center of the room, clearing a swath through the crowd with a sweep of his bound hands. “Yes, you, in the shadows! You, Ananias, the false witness! I see you, clearest of all!”

  For ten heartbeats there was silence as we looked at an empty space. Then we saw the heckler who had until then evaded us: a grotesque figure squatting in the shadows. Its head was large, its arms apelike, its single eye blazed. The people closest to it recoiled, and as they did so, the creature sprang toward the window and swung itself high onto the ledge, hissing with fury.

  “Ye outwitted me this time, devil take ye!” it cried in its raucous voice. “But I’ve not finished with ye yet, Frater Colombin!”