Holy Fools Read online

  “There has been enough laxity here.” She was speaking again, her nasal intonation sharpening as she strained to be heard. “I have seen the records. I have seen what manner of indolence my predecessor was pleased to tolerate.” She glanced briefly in my direction. “I intend to change this from today.”

  There was a low murmur among the sisters as her words reached them. I caught sight of Antoine, her face slack with puzzlement.

  “First,” continued the girl, “I wish to mention the matter of dress.” Another sharp flick of the eyes in my direction. “I have already noticed a certain—carelessness—among some of you, which I consider unbefitting to members of our sisterhood. I am aware that the previous abbess tolerated the wearing of the quichenotte. This practice will cease.”

  To my right, old Rosamonde turned a bewildered face toward me. Light from the window above her fell onto her white bonnet. “Who is this child?” Her thin voice was querulous. “What is she saying? Where is Mère Marie?”

  I shook my head fiercely at her, miming silence. For a moment she seemed about to continue, then her wrinkled face crumpled, her eyes moist. I heard her mumbling to herself as the new abbess continued: “Even in so short a time I cannot help but notice certain irregularities in procedure.” The nasal voice might have been reading from an ecclesiastical textbook. “Mass, for example. I find it difficult to believe that for a matter of years no mass at all has been said in the abbey.”

  There was an uneasy silence.

  “We said prayers,” said Antoine.

  “Prayers are not enough, ma fille,” said the child. “Your prayers cannot be sanctified without the presence of a minister of God.”

  I could feel laughter pressing against my belly at every word she spoke. The ridicule of the situation momentarily overturned my sensation of unease. That this sickly child should preach to us, frowning and pursing her lips like an old prude and calling us her daughters was surely a monstrous joke, like the valet dressing in his master’s clothes on Fools’ Day. Christ in the temple was surely another such travesty, preaching contrition when he should have been running in the fields or swimming naked in the sea.

  The child-mother spoke again. “Henceforth mass will be celebrated every day. Our eight daily services will be resumed. There will be fasting for all on Fridays and on holy days. I’ll not have it said that my abbey was ever a place of indulgence or excess.”

  She had found her voice at last. The reedy treble had taken on a demanding note, and I realized that behind her wan self-importance there was hidden a kind of zeal, almost of passion. What I had taken for shyness I now recognized as high-bred contempt of the type I had not heard since I was at Court. My abbey. I felt a stab of annoyance. Was the abbey her plaything, then, and were we to be her dolls?

  My voice was sharper than I intended as I spoke out. “There’s no priest but on the mainland,” I said. “How can we have mass every day? And who’ll pay for it if we do?”

  She looked at me again and I wished I had not spoken. If I had not already made an enemy of her, I thought, this scornful outburst must surely have tipped the balance. Her face was a tight bud of disapproval.

  “I have my own confessor with me,” she said. “My good mother’s confessor, who begged to come with me to help in my work.” I could have sworn that as she spoke she flushed a little, her face slightly averted and a touch of animation coloring her flat voice. “Let me introduce Père Colombin de Saint-Amand,” she said with a small gesture toward the figure that only now detached itself from the shadow of a pillar. “My friend, teacher, and spiritual guide. I hope he will soon become as dear to you all as he is to me.”

  As I stood there transfixed, I saw him with perfect clarity, the harlequin colors from the rose window illuminating his face and hands. His black hair was longer than I remembered, secured at the nape of his neck with a ribbon, but the rest was as my heart recalled him; the turn of his head into the light, the straight black brows, the woodland eyes. Black becomes him; consciously dramatic in his priest’s robe, unadorned but for the gleam of his silver cross, he fixed his gaze directly at me and gave a small, audacious smile.

  Part Two

  Le Merle

  13

  JULY 18TH, 1610

  What an entrance, eh? I was born for the stage, you know—or for the gallows, some might say, though there’s little enough to choose between the two. Flowers and the trap, curtains at the end and the short, frenzied dance in the middle. There’s a kind of poetry even there. But I’m not yet ready to tread those boards. When I am, be sure you’ll be the first to know.

  You don’t seem pleased to see me. And after all these years. My Ailée, my one and only. How you flew in your day! Invincible to the last, you never fell, never faltered. I could almost have believed your wings were real, cleverly folded beneath your tunic to carry you shrieking to the edge of the sky. My adorable Harpy. And to see you again here, wings clipped! I have to say you haven’t changed. As soon as I saw that foxy hair of yours—that’ll have to go, by the way—I knew you. And you knew me too, didn’t you, sweetheart? Oh yes, I saw you blench and stare. It’s good to have an appreciative audience—a captive audience, if you’ll pardon the expression—before which I can really show the extent of my talent. This is going to be the performance of a lifetime.

  You’re very quiet. That can’t be helped, I expect. Discretion is the better part of virtue—certainly of yours. But your eyes! Glorious! Velvet spangled with black sequins. Speak to me, my Harpy. Speak to me with your eyes.

  I know what it is. It’s that business, that little fracas—where was it now? Épinal? Shame on you. To hold that against me after so long. Don’t deny it, you had me tried, found guilty, judged, and hanged in an instant. Don’t you want to hear my side? All right, all right. In any case, I was sure you’d escape. No fortress could hold my Ailée. She opens the sky with her wings. Shatters prison bars with a flick of her tongue.

  I know, I know. Do you think it was easy for me? I was hunted, alone. Torture and death if they caught me. Don’t you think I wanted to take you? I did it for your sake, Juliette. I knew that without me you’d have a better chance. I was going to come back. I swear. Eventually.

  Is it Le Borgne? Is that what troubles you? He followed me as I prepared to leave. Pleaded with me to take him. Offered the rest of you as payment. Throats slit, he promised, nice and easy—if only I would take him with me. When I refused, he pulled his knife.

  I was unarmed, exhausted from my day’s exertions, bruised and sore from my treatment at the hands of the rabble. He aimed for my heart, but I saw him coming and he caught me in the shoulder, paralyzing my knife arm. I struggled with him, he twisting at the blade until I almost passed out with the pain. In my attempt to break free I wrenched out the knife with my left hand, slashed him in the throat, and fled.

  The blade must have been poisoned. Half an hour later I was too weak to ride, too dizzy to drive the rig. I did the only thing I could—I hid. Like a dying animal I crawled into a ditch and waited there for what might come.

  Perhaps that was what saved me. They found the caravan four miles from Épinal, looted by scavengers; wasted time in finding and questioning the thieves. Weakened by the infected wound, I hid, feeding on the roadside plants and fruits you showed me when we were traveling together. Gaining strength, I made for the nearby forest. I lit a fire and made the infusions you taught me: wormwood for the fever, foxglove for the pain. Your teachings saved my life, dear witch. I hope you appreciate the irony.

  You don’t? What a pity. Your eyes are like blades. All right. Maybe I lied about Le Borgne, just a little. We both had a knife. I was clumsy and he got to me first. Did I ever pretend to you that I was a saint? A man cannot change the element into which he was born. There was a time when you would have understood that, my firebird. Let’s hope, for both our sakes, that you still do.

  Expose me? My dear. Do you really think you could? It might be amusing to see you try, but ask yourself this be
fore you do. Who has the most to lose? And who is the most convincing? Admit it, I once convinced you myself. My papers are in order, you know. Their previous owner, a priest journeying by happy chance through the Lorraine, was suddenly taken sick (to the stomach, as I recall) as he entered a forest at dusk. A mercifully quick end. I closed his eyes myself.

  Oh, Juliette. Still so suspicious? I’ll have you know that I’m very fond of our little Angélique. You think she is too young for an abbess. Believe me, the Church didn’t think so, welcoming her—and her dowry—with an eagerness that was almost unseemly. And besides, the Church has, as always, the best of the bargain. Yet more wealth to swell her ever-glutted coffers, her ever-increasing lands, and all in exchange for a tiny concession, a remote abbey half sunk in sand, its loose ways tolerated only because of its ex-abbess’s unrivaled skill with potatoes.

  But I am forgetting my responsibilities. Ladies—or should I say sisters, daughters, even, to set the fatherly tone? Perhaps not. My children. That’s better. Their eyes glitter in the smoky air like those of sixty-five black cats. My new flock. Funny, but they don’t smell like women. I thought I knew that smell, its secret undertones, that complex of fish and flowers. Here there’s nothing but the reek of incense. My God, don’t they even sweat? I’ll change that, wait and see.

  “My children. I come to you in grief and in great joy. Grief for our departed sister”—what was her name again?—“Marie, but in a joy of anticipation of the great work we begin here today.”

  Simple stuff, I know, but effective. Their eyes are enormous. Why did I think of cats? They are bats, their faces wizened, eyes enlarged beyond recognition but sightless, black wings drawn across hunched shoulders, hands folded across flat bosoms, perhaps in the fear that I should inadvertently catch a glimpse of forbidden curves.

  “I speak of the great Reform of which my daughter Isabelle has already spoken, Reform on such a scale that very soon the whole of France will turn its eyes toward the Abbey of Sainte Marie-de-la-mer in awe and humility.”

  Time for a quote, I think. Seneca, perhaps? It is a rocky road that leads to the heights of greatness? No. I don’t think this company is quite ready for Seneca. Deuteronomy, then. Thou shalt become an astonishment, a proverb, and a byword, among all nations. Of course, the wonderful thing about the Bible is that there’s a quote to justify anything, even lechery, incest, and the slaying of infants.

  “You have strayed from the righteous path, my children. You have fallen into the ways of wickedness, and forgotten the sacred covenant you have made with the Lord your God.”

  This voice was made to declaim tragedies; ten years ago, my play L’Hermite Amoureux was already in advance of its time. Their eyes widen still farther, and behind the fear I begin to see a different light; something like excitement. The words are themselves a kind of titillation.

  “Like the people of Sodom, you have turned your faces from him. You have pleasured yourselves whilst the holy flame grew cold in your keeping. You have harbored thoughts, which you believed secret, and reveled in your hidden vices. But the Lord saw you.”

  Pause. A soft murmur thrills through the assembly as each enumerates her secret thoughts. “I saw you.”

  In the semidarkness, faces blanch. My voice rises higher, growing in resonance until it might almost shatter glass. “I see you still, though you may now hide your faces in shame. Your vanities are innumerable, lighting this place with the flames of your iniquity.”

  A good line, that. I must remember it when I come to write my new tragedy. There is promise in some of these faces. I see it already. The fat woman with the moist eyes, mouth trembling wetly on the brink of tears. You jade, I saw you flinch when the child spoke of fasting.

  And the sour one with the scarred face. What’s your vice? You stand very close to your pretty neighbor, hands just touching in the shadows. Your eyes flick to her almost unwillingly as I speak, like a miser’s to his hoard.

  And you—yes you—behind the pillar. Your eyes roll skyward like those of a shy mare. Tics and twitches distress your mouth. You plead silently with me, fingers clutching at your breasts. Every word I speak makes you itch with fear and pleasure. I know your dreams: orgies of self-abasement, ecstasies of remorse.

  And you? Flushed and panting, eyes shining with something more than religious zeal. My first disciple, face upturned to mine, hands outstretched. A single touch, she begs, a single look and I will be your slave. But I will not submit so quickly, my dear. A moment more of anticipation, a frown that darkens the room. Then the glimpse of salvation, the softening of the voice, the mellifluous hint of forgiveness in the grand soliloquy.

  “But the Lord’s mercy, like his wrath, is infinite. The erring lamb is inexpressibly more precious as it returns to the fold than its more virtuous brethren.” That’s a laugh; in my experience the erring lamb is by far more likely to become next Sunday’s roast for its pains. “Turn, o backsliding children,” says the Book of Jeremiah, “for I am married unto you, and will lead ye to Zion.” For a second I allow my eyes to meet my disciple’s. Her breathing quickens. She seems close to swooning.

  My piece is said now. Scattering platitudes like manna, I prepare to leave them to ferment. I have shown how strong I can be and how gentle; a missed step and a hand across the eyes, a quiet reference to my fatigue and to the discomforts of my long walk, now illustrate my essential humanity. The eager sister—Alfonsine, was it?—is quick to offer her arm as support, gazing worshipfully into my face. Gently I draw away. No familiarities, please. Not yet, anyway.

  14

  JULY 18TH, 1610

  LeMerle! I had immediately recognized his style, a heady blend of the stage, the pulpit, and the street-crier’s stall. The disguise too was very much his style, and from time to time his eyes met mine with the eloquent brightness I recognized, as if he were eager to share his triumph. For a while I wondered why he had chosen not to expose me.

  Then I understood. I was to be his audience, his admiring critic. Pointless to give such a performance without someone with whom to share his secret, someone who could truly appreciate the daring of this imposture…This time, however, I refused to play his game. I could not avoid my duties in the salt fields that afternoon; but as soon as I could leave without giving cause for suspicion, I would collect Fleur and escape. I could take supplies from the kitchen, and although I disliked the thought of stealing from the nuns, the coffer containing the abbey’s savings was easily accessible in a small storeroom at the back of the root cellar, the door’s lock having long since been broken and never replaced. Our old Reverend Mother was a simple soul, believing that trust was the best defense against theft, and in all the time I was at the abbey I had never known anyone to take as much as a single coin. What did we need with money? We had everything we wanted.

  He left us in a state of suppressed agitation, as no doubt he meant to, as we left to perform our various duties. As he went he shot me a comic look, as if to challenge me to come to him, but I ignored it and I was glad to see that he did not persist. The new abbess hurried to investigate her little empire, Clémente ran to see to the horses, Alfonsine busied herself in making the new confessor at home in the gatehouse cottage, Antoine returned to the kitchens to begin preparing the evening meal, and I went in search of my daughter.

  I found her in the barn, playing with one of the kitchen cats. In a few words I warned her: she was to stay out of sight for the rest of the day; wait for me in the dorter; speak to no one until I returned.

  “But why?” She had fastened a pinecone onto a piece of string and was dangling it in the air for the cat to jump at.

  “I’ll tell you later. Don’t forget.”

  “I can talk to the kitty, though, can’t I?”

  “If you like.”

  “What about Perette? Can I talk to her?”

  I put my finger on my lips. “Shh. It’s a hiding game. Do you think you can keep very quiet, very still, until I come for you tonight?”

  She fro
wned, eyes still on the cat. “What about my dinner?”

  “I’ll bring it later.”

  “And for the kitty?”

  “We’ll see.”

  It had been decided that LeMerle should attend Chapter with us but should not eat with the rest of us in the refectory. That didn’t surprise me—our new policy of abstinence was unlikely to find favor with him. Nor did it escape my attention that LeMerle’s cottage was just beside the abbey gates, giving him an ideal place to observe any traffic to or from the abbey. That made me anxious; it suggested advance planning and careful thought. Whatever his reasons, the confessor intended to stay.

  Still, I told myself, his plans were of no interest to me at present. His absence from the evening meal would offer me the ideal opportunity to prepare my escape. I would plead a stomach ache; collect my things; raid the kitchen and storeroom for supplies; and hide my bundle of valuables somewhere within the abbey’s outer walls. Fleur and I would go to bed as usual, then creep away when everyone was asleep, collect our belongings, and make for the causeway and the morning tide. When we were safely out of his reach, then I could deal with LeMerle. A note—a word to the right authorities—would be enough to expose him. The gallows would find him in the end, and maybe then, my heart would find peace.

  But when I came back to the dorter half an hour before the evening meal, Fleur was not there to greet me. Nor was she in the garden, the cloister, or the chicken house. I was annoyed, but not yet overanxious; Fleur was a lively spirit and often hid away at bedtime. I searched her secret hiding places, one by one, with no success.

  Finally I went to the kitchens. It occurred to me that maybe Fleur had got hungry, and Soeur Antoine, the cook, was fond of the children, often giving them cakes and biscuits from the kitchen, or apples from the autumn windfalls. Today, however, she looked preoccupied, her eyes unusually reddened and with a slack look to her face, as if her cheeks had been partially deflated. At Fleur’s name she gave a wail of misery, as if remembering something she had been too busy to think about, and wrung her fat hands.