set in seventeenth-century France, against a backdrop of witch trials and religious
iren zthis is the story of Juliette, onetime rope-dancer, who is forced by circumstance to abandon the travelling life

and seek refuge among the sisters of the

remote abbey of Sainte Malrje_c]e--]aMer.	«w6gMsMteawaK»*


Juliette is able
to make a new life for her-self and her young
daughter, Fleur, under the benevolent tutelage of (the kindly Abbess. But times are changing;
the murder of the King,beecomes
the catalyst for massive social and political
upheaval in France, which soon reaches even
this remote island community.


foollowing the death of the Abbess, a
new appointment is made, and Juliette sees
her comfortable life begin to unravel. For the
new Abbess is Isabelle, the
child of a corrupt and noblle famiily fanatically
bent on reform. Worse still Isabelle has
unwittingly brought with her a ghost from
the past,Julliette has
every reason to fear and who has a
troubling agenda of his own.


Masquerading as a cleric, L eMerlle soon
begins to work the situation, to his advantage.
\s, under his malicious influence, secrets are uncovered, passions unleashed and pettv
nvalries turn to murder, Jluliette and LeMerle
'ngage in a deadly game of wits and wills in which only one of them can come out alive...


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1

JOANNH HARRIS is the- author of the
Whitbread-shortlisted Chocolat (made
into a major film starring Juliette Binoche), Klackherrv \linc, hive Qiiartcrs oj the Orange,
Coastlines and, with Fran \Varde, The French Kitchen: .\ Cookhook. She lives in
Huddersfield,Yorkshire, with her husband
and daughter.


j.ukrl imagr In StlMI'l Ha\g.ll'lh
Author phdtojjr.iplrC Paul Barker
Ako by Joanne Harris


THE EVIL SEED
SLEEP, PALE SISTER

CHOCOLAT

BLACKBERRY WINE

FIVE QUARTERS OF THE ORANGE

COASTLINERS


THE FRENCH KITCHEN: A COOKBOOK


(with Fran Warde)
HOLY FOOLS


Joanne Harris


Doubleday


LONDON . NEW YORK TORONTO SYDNEY AUCKLAND
TRANSWORLD PUBLISHERS

61-63 Uxhridge Road, London W5 5SA

a division of The Random House Group Ltd


RANDOM HOUSE AUSTRALIA (PTY) LTD

20 Alfred Street, Milsons Point, Sydney,

New South Wales 2061, Australia


RANDOM HOUSE NEW ZEALAND LTD
18 Poland Road, Glenfield, Auckland 10, New Zealand


RANDOM HOUSE SOUTH AFRICA (PTY) LTD
Endulini, 5a Jubilee Road, Parktown 2193, South Africa


Published 2003 by Douhlcday
a division of Transworld Publishers


Copyright © Joanne Harris 2003


The right of Joanne Harris to be identified as the author of this work has been
asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and

Patents Act 1988.


All the characters in this book are fictitious, and any resemblance to actual
persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.


A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN 0385 603649


All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a

retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic,

mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior

permission of the publishers.


Typeset in lO'/i/Hpt Goudy by
Kestrel Data, Exeter, Devon.


Printed in Great Britain by
Clays Ltd, St Ives pic, Suffolk.


1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2
To Serafina
r
PART ONE


JULIETTE
1

V


July 5th, 16JO


IT BEGINS WITH THE PLAYERS. SEVEN OF THEM, SIX MEN AND

a girl, she in sequins and ragged lace, they in leathers
and silk. All of them masked, wigged, powdered, painted;
Arlequin and Scaramouche and the long-nosed Plague
Doctor, demure Isabelle and the lecherous Geronte, their
gilded toenails bright beneath the dust of the road, their smiles whitened with chalk, their voices so harsh and so
sweet that from the first they tore at my heart.

They arrived unannounced in a green and gold caravan,
its panels scratched and scarred, but the scarlet inscription
still legible for those who could read it.


Lazarillo's World Players!

Tragedy and Comedy!

Beasts and Marvels!
HOLY FOOLS


And all around the script paraded nymphs and satyrs,
tigers and olifants in crimson, rose and violet. Beneath, in
gold, sprawled the proud words:


Players to the King


I didn't believe it myself, though they say old Henri
had a commoner's tastes, preferring a wild-beast show or a comedie-ballet to the most exquisite of tragedies. Why, I
danced for him myself on the day of his wedding, under the
austere gaze of his Marie. It was my finest hour.

Lazarillo's troupe was nothing in comparison, and yet I
found the display nostalgic, moving to a degree far beyond
the skill of the players themselves. Perhaps a premonition;
perhaps a fleeting vision of what once was, before the
spoilers of the new Inquisition sent us into enforced
sobriety, but as they danced, their purples and scarlets
and greens ablaze in the sun's glare, I seemed to see the
brave, bright pennants of ancient armies moving out across
the battlefield, a defiant gesture to the sheet-shakers and
apostates of the new order.

The Beasts and Marvels of the inscription consisted
of nothing more marvellous than a monkey in a red coat
and a small black bear, but there was, besides the singing
and the masquerade, a fire-eater, jugglers, musicians,
acrobats and even a rope-dancer, so that the courtyard was
aflame with their presence and Fleur laughed and squealed
with delight, hugging me through the brown weave of my
habit.


10
JULIETTE


The dancer was dark and curly-haired, with gold rings on
her feet. As we watched she sprang onto a taut rope held on
one side by Geronte and on the other by Arlequin. At the
tambourin's sharp command they tossed her into the air; she
turned a somersault and landed back on the rope as neatly
as I might once have done. Almost as neatly, in any case;
for I was with the Theatre des Cieux, and I was 1'Ailee, the
Winged One, the Sky-dancer, the Flying Harpy. When 1
took to the high rope on my day of triumph, there was a
gasp and a silence and the audience - soft ladies, powdered
men, bishops, tradesmen, servants, courtiers, even the King
himself - blanched and stared. Even now I remember his
face - his powdered curls, his eager eyes - and the deafening
surge of applause. Pride's a sin, of course, though personally
I've never understood why. And some would say it's pride
brought me where I am today - brought low, if you like,
though they say I'll rise higher in the end. Oh, when
Judgement Day comes I'll dance with the angels, Soeur
Marguerite tells me, but she's a crazy, poor, twitching,
tic-ridden thing, turning water into wine with the mixture
from a bottle hidden beneath her mattress. She thinks I
don't know, but in our dorter, with only a thin partition
between each narrow bed, no one keeps their secrets for
long. No one, that is, but me.

The Abbey of Sainte Marie-de-la-mer stands on the
western side of the half-island of Noirs Moustiers. It is a
sprawling building set around a central courtyard, with
wooden outbuildings to the side and around the back. For
the past five years it has been my home; by far the longest


11
HOLY FOOLS


time I have ever stayed in any place. I am Soeur Auguste who
I was does not concern us; not yet, anyway. The abbey
is perhaps the only refuge where the past may be left
behind. But the past is a sly sickness. It may be carried on
a breath of wind; in the sound of a flute; on the feet of a
dancer. Too late, as always, 1 see this now; but there is
nowhere for me to go but forward. It begins with the
players. Who knows where it may end?


the rope-dancer's act was over. now came juggling
and music, while the leader of the troupe - Lazarillo himself,
I presumed - announced the show's finale.

'And now, good sisters!' His voice, trained in theatres,
rolled across the courtyard. 'For your pleasure and
edification, for your amusement and delight - Lazarillo's
World Players are proud to perform a Comedy of Manners, a
most uproarious tale! I give you' - he paused dramatically,
doffing his long-plumed tricorne - 'Les Amours de I'Hermitel'

A crow, black bird of misfortune, flew overhead. For a
second I felt the cool flicker of its shadow across my face
and, with my fingers, forked the sign against malchance. Tsk-tsk, begone!

The crow seemed unmoved. He fluttered, ungainly, to
the head of the well in the courtyard's centre, and I caught
an impudent gleam of yellow from his eye. Below him,
Lazarillo's troupe proceeded, undisturbed. The crow cocked
his head quickly, greasily, in my direction.

Tsk-tsk, begone! I once saw my mother banish a swarm
of wild bees with nothing more than that cantrip; but the


1 2
JULIETTE


crow simply opened his beak at me in silence, exposing
a blue sliver of tongue. I suppressed the urge to throw a
stone.

Besides, the play was already beginning: an evil cleric
wished to seduce a beautiful girl. She took refuge in a
convent, while her lover, a clown, tried to rescue her,
disguised as a nun. They were discovered by the evil suitor,
who swore that if he could not have the girl then no one
would, only to be foiled by the sudden appearance of a
monkey, which leaped onto the villain's head, allowing the
lovers to make good their escape.

The play was indifferent; the players themselves all but
exhausted by the heat. Business must have been very bad, I
thought, for the players to come to us. An island convent
can offer little more than food and board - not even that, if
rules are strictly applied. Maybe there had been trouble on
the mainland. Times were hard for itinerants of all kinds.
But Fleur loved the performance, clapping her hands and
shouting encouragement to the squealing monkey. Next to
her Perette, our youngest novice, looking rather like a
monkey herself with her small vivid face and fluffy head,
hooted with excitement.

The act was nearing its end. The lovers were reunited.
The evil priest was unmasked. I felt slightly dizzy, as if the
sun had turned my head, and in that moment I thought I
saw someone else behind the players, standing against the
light. I knew him at once; there was no mistaking the tilt of
his head, or the way he stood, or the long shadow cast
against the hard white ground. Knew him, though I saw him


1 3
HOLY FOOLS


for no more than a second: Guy LeMerle, my very own
black bird of ill-omen. Then he was gone.


this is how it begins: with the players, lemerle, and
the bird of malchancc. Luck turns like the tide, my mother used to say. Maybe it was just our time to turn, as some
heretics say the world turns, bringing creeping shadow
to the places where once there was light. Maybe it was
nothing. But even as the dancers capered and sang, spat fire
from reddened lips, smirked from behind their masks,
tumbled and rollicked and simpered and stamped the dirt
with their gilded feet to the tune of tambour and flute, I
seemed to perceive the shadow as it crept closer, covering
scarlet petticoats and jingling tambourin, screaming
monkey, motley, masks, Isabelle and Scaramouche with its
long dark wing. I felt a shiver, even here in the midday
sunlight with the whitewashed abbey walls buzzing with
heat. The inexorable beginnings of momentum. The slow
procession of our Last Days.

I'm not supposed to believe in signs and auguries. All
that's in the past now, with the Theatre des Cieux. But why
see LeMerle, of all people, and after all these years? What
could it mean? The shadow across my eyes had already
passed and the players were coming to the end of their
masque, bowing, sweating, smiling, flinging rose petals over
our heads. They had more than earned their board for the
night, and supplies for their journey.

Beside me, fat Soeur Antoine clapped her meaty hands,
her face mottled with exertion. I was suddenly aware of the


14
JULIETTE


smell of her sweat, of the dust in my nostrils. Someone
clawed my back; it was Soeur Marguerite, her pinched
face halfway hctwcen pleasure and pain, mouth drawn down
in a trembling bow of excitement. The reek of bodies
intensified. And from the sisters lined against the heat
crackling walls of the abbey came a cry both shrill and oddly
savage, an aiiiil of pleasure and release, as if natural energies,
loosened by the heat, had brought a kind of insanity to their
applause. An.' Encore.1 AnI Encore!

Then I heard it; a single raised discordant voice, almost
lost in a fury of acclamations. Mere Marie, I heard. Reverend
Mother is ... then once again the distracted buzzing of heat
and voices, then the one voice again, higher than the rest.

I looked around for the source of the cry and saw Soeur
Alfonsine, the consumptive nun, standing high upon the
chapel steps, arms spread, her face white and exalted. Few of
the sisters paid her any attention. Lazarillo's troupe was
taking a last bow: the actors went round once more with
flowers and bonbons, the fire-eater gave a final spurt of
flame, the monkey turned a somersault. Arlequin's face was
running with greasepaint. Isabelle - too old for the part, and
with a visible paunch - was melting away in the heat, her
scarlet mouth smeared halfway to her ears.

Soeur Alfonsine was still shouting, straining to be heard
above the voices of the nuns. 'It's a judgement on us!1 I
thought she said. 'A terrible judgement!'

Now some of the nuns looked exasperated; Alfonsine was
never happier than when she was doing penance for something.
'For pity's sake, Alfonsine, what now?'


1 5
HOLY FOOLS


She fixed us with her martyr's eyes. 'My sisters!' she said,
more in accusation than grief. 'The Reverend Mother is
dead!'

And at those words a silence fell over all of us. The
players looked guilty and confused, as if aware that their
welcome had been suddenly withdrawn. The tambourin
player let his arm drop to his side in a harsh jangle of bells.

'Dead?' As if it could not be real in this iron heat,
beneath this sledgehammer sky.

Alfonsine nodded; behind me, Soeur Marguerite was
already beginning to keen. Miserere nobis, miserere nobis . . .

Fleur looked up at me, puzzled, and I caught her in my
arms with sudden fierceness. 'Is it finished?' she asked me.
'Will the monkey dance again?'

I shook my head. 'I don't think so.'

'Why not? Was it the black bird?'

I looked at her, startled. Five years old and she sees
everything. Her eyes are like pieces of mirror reflecting the
sky - today blue, tomorrow the purple-grey of a storm
cloud's belly.

'The black bird,' she repeated impatiently. 'He's gone
now.'

I glanced back over my shoulder and saw that she was
right. The crow had gone, his message delivered, and I knew
then for certain that my premonition was true. Our time in
the sunlight had finally come to an end. The masquerade
was over.


i 6
2 V

July 6th, 1610


WE SENT THE PLAYERS INTO TOWN. THEY LEFT WITH AN AIR

of hurt reproach, as if we had accused them of something.
But it would not have been decent to keep them in
the abbey, not in the presence of death. I brought their
supplies myself - hay for the horses, bread, goat's cheese
rolled in cinders and a bottle of good wine, for the sake
of travelling theatres everywhere - and bade them goodbye.

Lazarillo gave me a keen look as he turned to go. 'You
look familiar, ma soeur. Could it be that we have met
before ?'

'I don't think so. I've been here since I was a child.'

He shrugged. 'Too many towns. Faces begin to look the
same.'

I knew the feeling, although I did not say so.


1 7
HOLY FOOLS


'Times are hard, ma soeur. Remember us in your prayers.'
'Always.'


THE REVEREND MOTHER WAS LYING ON HER NARROW BED,

looking even smaller and more desiccated than she had in
life. Her eyes were closed, and Soeur Alfonsine had already
replaced her quichenotte with the starched wimple, which
the old woman had always refused.

'The quichenotte was good enough for us,' she used to say. 'Kiss not, kiss not, we told the English soldiers, and wore the
bonnet with the boned lappets to make sure they got
the message. Who knows' - and here her eyes would light
with sudden mischief - 'maybe those English plunderers are
hiding here still, and how then would I keep my virtue?'

She had collapsed in the field as she was digging potatoes,
so Alfonsine told me. A minute later she was gone.

It was a good death, I tell myself. No pain; no priests;
no fuss. And Reverend Mother was seventy-three - an
unthinkable age - had already been frail when I joined
the convent five years ago. But it was she who first made
me welcome here, she who delivered Fleur, and once
more, grief surprises me like an unexpected friend. She had
seemed immortal, you see: an immovable landmark on this
small horizon. Kindly, simple Mere Marie, walking the
potato fields with her apron gathered up peasant-fashion
over her skirt.

The potatoes were her pride, for though little else grows
well in this bitter soil, these fruit are highly prized on the
mainland, and their sale - along with that of our salt and


1 8
JULIETTE


the jars of pickled salicorne - ensures us enough revenue to
maintain our little independence. That and the tithes bring
us a prosperous enough life, even for one who has been used
to the freedom of the roads, for at my age it's time to have
done with the dangers and the thrills, and in any case, 1
remind myself, even with the Theatre des Cieux there were
as many flung stones as sweetmeats, twice as many lean
times as good, and as for the drunkards, the gossips, the
lechers, the men . . . Besides, there was Fleur to think of,
then as always.

One of my blasphemies - my many, many blasphemies is
the refusal to believe in sin. Conceived in sin, I should
have given birth to my daughter in sorrow and contrition;
exposed her, perhaps, on a hillside, as our ancestors once
abandoned their unwanted young. But Fleur was a joy
from the beginning. For her, I wear the red cross of
the Bernardines, I work the fields instead of the high
rope, I devote my days to a God for whom I have little
affection and less understanding. But with her at my side,
this life is far from unpleasant. The cloister at least is safe.
I have my garden. My books. My friends. Sixty-five of
us, a family larger and closer in some ways than any I ever
had.

I told them I was a widow. It seemed the simplest
solution. A wealthy young widow, now with child, fleeing
persecution from a dead husband's creditors. Jewellery
salvaged from the wreck of my caravan at Epinal gave me
what I needed to bargain with. My years in the theatre
served me well - in any case, I was convincing enough for


19
HOLY FOOLS


a provincial Abbess who had never ventured out of sight
of her native coast. And as time passed I realized my
subterfuge was unnecessary. Few of us were impelled by holy
vocation. We shared little except a need for privacy, a
mistrust of men, an instinctive solidarity, which outweighed
differences of upbringing and belief. Each one of us fleeing
something we could not quite see. As I said, we all have our
secrets.

Soeur Marguerite, scrawny as a skinned rabbit and
eternally twitching with nerves and anxieties, comes to me
for a tisane to banish dreams in which, she says, a man with
fiery hands torments her. I brew her tinctures of chamomile
and valerian sweetened with honey, she purges herself daily
with salt water and castor oil, but I can see from the feverish
look in her eyes that the dreams plague her still.

Then we have Soeur Antoine, plump and redfaced,
hands perpetually greasy from her cookpots, mother of a
dead child at fourteen. Some say she killed it herself; others
blamed her father in his rage and shame. She certainly eats
well for all her guilt; her stomach is perpetually swollen
beneath the seam of her wimple, her helpless, moony face
bracketed by half a dozen quivering chins. She holds her
pies and pastries to her bosom like children; difficult to tell,
in these shadows, who is feeding whom.

Soeur Alfonsine: white as bone but for the red spot on
either cheek, who sometimes coughs blood into her palm
and who lives in a state of perpetual exaltation. Someone
has told her that the afflicted have special gifts, denied to
those who are sound in body. As a result she cultivates an


20
JULIETTE


otherworldly air and has seen the Devil many times in the
form of a great black dog.

And Perette: Soeur Anne to you, but always Perette at
heart. The wild girl who never speaks, aged thirteen or a
little older, found naked on the seashore a year ago last
November. For the first three days she would not eat but sat
motionless on the floor of her cell, face turned to the wall.
Then came the rages, the smeared excrement, the food flung at the sisters who tended her, the animal cries. She
flatly refused to wear the clothes we gave her, strutting
naked about the freezing cell, occasionally giving voice to
the tongueless hooting sounds that signalled her frenzies,
her strange sorrows, her triumphs.

Now, one might almost take her for a normal child. In
her novice's whites she is almost pretty, singing our hymns
in her high wordless voice, but happiest in the garden and
the fields, wimple discarded on a bramble bush, skirts flying.
She still never speaks. Some wonder if she ever did. Her
eyes are gold-ringed, unreadable as a bird's. Her pale hair,
shorn to rid her of lice, has begun to grow back and stands
out around her small face. She loves Fleur, often warbling to
her in that high birdy voice and making toys for her from
the reeds and grasses of the seashore with quick, clever
fingers. I too am a special friend, and she often comes with
me to the fields, watching me as I work and singing to
herself.

Yes, I have a family once again. All refugees in our
different ways: Perette, Antoine, Marguerite, Alfonsine and
I; and with us, prim Piete; Benedicte, the gossip; Tomasine,
HOLY FOOLS


with the lazy eye; Germaine of the flaxen hair and ruined
face; Clemente, the troubling beauty who shares her bed,
and senile Rosamonde, closer to God than any of the saner
ones, innocent of memory or sin.

Life is simple here - or was. Food is plentiful and good.
Our comforts are not denied us - Marguerite her bottle and
her daily purges, Antoine her pastries. Mine is Fleur, who
sleeps alongside my bed in a cot of her own and comes with
me to prayer and fteldwork. A lax regime, some might say,
more like a country girls' outing than a sisterhood brought
together in contrition, but this is not the mainland. An
island has a life of its own; even Le Devin across the water is
another world to us. A priest may come once a year to
celebrate Mass and I'm told the last time the Bishop visited
was sixteen years ago, when the old Henri was crowned.
Since then, the good King too has been murdered - it was
he who declared that each home in France should have a
broiled fowl every week, and, thanks to Soeur Antoine, we
followed his command with more than religious zeal - his
successor a boy not out of short coats.

So many changes. I mistrust them; outside in the world
there are tides at work which may tear the land apart. Better
to be here, with Fleur, while all around us the dissolution
rages, and above us, the birds of malchance gather like
clouds.

Here, where it's safe.


22
3


V


July 7th, 1610


AN ABBEY WITHOUT AN ABBESS. A COUNTRY WITHOUT A

King. For two days now we have shared France's restlessness.
Louis Dieudonne - the God-given - a fine, strong
name for a child brought to the throne beneath the shadow
of assassination. As if the name itself might lift the curse
and blind the people to the corruptions of Church and
Court and the ever-growing ambitions of the Regente
Marie. The old King was a soldier, a seasoned man of
government. With Henri, we knew where we stood. But this
little Louis is only nine years old. Already, barely two
months after his father's death, the rumours have begun. De
Sully, the King's adviser, has been replaced by a favourite of
the Medicis woman. The Condes have returned. I need no
oracle to foresee uneasy times ahead. Normally, these things
do not concern us, here at Noirs Moustiers. But, like France,


23
HOLY FOOLS


we need the security of leadership. Like France, we fear the
unknown.

Without the Reverend Mother we remain in flux, left to
our own devices, while a message is sent to the Bishop
in Rennes. But our holiday atmosphere is tainted hy uncertainty.
The corpse lies in the chapel with candles
burning and myrrh in a censer, for it is high summer and the
air is foul and ripe. We hear nothing from the mainland, but
we know the journey to Rennes should take four days
at least. Meanwhile, we drift anchorless. And we need
our anchor: the laxity of our former regime has become
stretched still further until it is shapeless and without
meaning. We barely worship. Duties are forgotten. Each
nun turns to what gives her most comfort: Antoine to food,
Marguerite to drink, Alfonsine to the scrubbing of the
cloisters over and over on her knees until her skin breaks
and she has to be carried to her cell with the scrubbing
brush still clutched in her trembling hand. Some weep
without knowing why. Some have sought out the players
who have remained in the village, two miles away. I heard them coming back late to the dorter last night and caught
laughter and a hot reek of wine and sex from the opened
window.

Outwardly, little has changed. I carry on much as usual. I
tend my herbs, I write my journal, I walk to the harbour
with Fleur, I change the candles by the poor corpse in
the chapel. This morning I said a prayer of my own, without
recourse to the gilded Saints in their niches, alone
and in silence. But the trouble within me grows daily. I


24
JULIETTE


have not forgotten my premonition on the day of the
players.

Last night in the silence of my cubicle, I read the cards.
But there was no comfort for me there. As Fleur slept,
heedless, in her cot at my hcdside, again and again I drew
the same combination. The Tower. The Hermit. Death.
And my dreams were uneasy.


2 5
> <
4 V

Jul^Sth, 1610


THE ABBEY OF SAINTE MARIE-DE-LA-MER STANDS IN A PIECE

of reclaimed marshland some two miles from the sea. To the
left, marshes which flood regularly in winter, bringing
the brackish waters less than a stone's throw from our doorway
and occasionally seeping through into the cellarium
where our food is stored. To the right, the road leading into
town, where carts and horses pass and every Thursday a
procession of vendors, moving from one market to another
with their assortments of cloths, baskets, leather and foodstuffs.
It is an old abbey, founded some two hundred years
ago by a community of black friars and paid for in the only
true coin the Church accepts: the fear of damnation.

In those days of indulgences and corruption a noble
family ensured its succession to the Kingdom by giving its
name to an abbey, but the friars were dogged by misfortune
JULIETTE


from the start. Plague wiped them out sixty years after the
abbey's completion, and the buildings were abandoned until
two generations later, when the Bernardines took them
over. There must have been far more of them than there are
of us, however, for the abbey could house twice as many as
we have here, but time and the weather have done their
work on the once-fine architecture and many of the buildings
are now unusable.

Yet, there must have been wealth enough lavished upon
it once, for there is good marble flooring in the chapel and
the one unbroken window is of marvellous design, but since
then the winds across the flats have eroded the stone and
tumbled arches on the west side so that in that wing barely
any of the remaining buildings are habitable. On the east
side we still have the dorter, the cloister, infirmary and
warming room, but the lay quarters are a shambles, with so
many tiles missing from the roof that birds have taken to
nesting there. The scriptorium, too, is in sad disrepair,
although so few of our number can read, and we have so few
books in any case, that it hardly matters. A chaos of smaller
buildings, mostly of wood, has sprung up around the chapel
and the cloister: bakehouse, tannery, barns and a smokehouse
for drying fish, so that instead of the grandiose place
of the black friars' intention the abbey now appears more
like a rough shanty town.

The lay folk do much of the common work. It is
a privilege they pay for in goods and services as well as
tithes, and we repay our side of the bargain in prayers and
indulgences. Sainte Marie-de-la-mer herself is a stone effigy,


27
HOLY FOOLS


now standing at the chapel doorway on a pedestal of rough
sandstone. She was discovered ninety years ago in the
marshes by a boy searching for a lost sheep: a three-foot
lump of blackened basalt crudely carved into the semblance
of a woman. Her breasts are bare and her tapering feet are
tucked beneath a long featureless robe, which in the old
days led folk to call her the Mermaid.

Since her discovery and laborious transportation into the
abbey grounds forty years ago, there have been several
miraculous healings of folk who have appealed to her, and
she is popular amongst fishermen, who often pray to Mariede-la-mer
for protection from storms.

For myself, I think she looks very old. Not a Virgin but a
crone, head lowered in weariness, her bowed shoulders
glazed from almost a century of reverent handling. Her
sagging breasts, too, are noticeably burnished. Barren
women or those wishing to conceive still touch them for
luck as they pass, paying for the blessing with a fowl, a cask
of wine or a basket of fish.

And yet in spite of the reverence shown by these
islanders, she has little in common with the Holy Mother.
She is too ancient, to begin with. Older than the abbey
itself, the basalt looks as if it might be a thousand years old
or more, speckled with shards of mica like fragments of
bone. And there is nothing to prove that the figure was ever
supposed to represent the Holy Mother. Indeed, her bared
breasts seem strangely immodest, like those of some pagan
deity of long ago. Some of the locals still call her by the
old name -- though her miracles should long since have


28
JULIETTE


established her identity as well as her holiness. But fisher
folk are a superstitious lot. We co-exist with them, but we
remain as alien to them as were the black friars of old, a race
apart, to be placated with tithes and gifts.


THE ABBEY OF SAINTE MARIE-DE-LA-MER WAS AN IDEAL

retreat for me. Old as it is, isolated and in disrepair, it is
the safest haven I have ever known. Far enough from the
mainland, the only Church official a parish priest who could
barely read Latin himself, I found myself in a position as
humorous as it was absurd. I began as a lay sister, one of
only a dozen. But out of sixty-five sisters, barely half could
read at all; less than a tenth knew any Latin. I began by
reading at Chapter. Then I was included in the services, my
daily tasks reduced to allow me to read from the big old
Bible on the lectern. Then Reverend Mother approached
me with unusual - almost timid - reserve.

The novices, you understand . . . We had twelve, aged
thirteen to eighteen. It was unseemly for them - for any of us
- to be so ignorant. If I could teach them - just a little. We
had books hidden away in the old scriptorium, which few
were able to study. If I could only show them what to do ...

I understood quickly enough. Our Reverend Mother,
kind as she was, practical as she was in her shrewd, simple
fashion, had kept a secret from us. Had hidden it for fifty
years or more, learning long passages from the Bible by
heart to conceal her ignorance, feigning weak eyesight in
order to avoid the ordeal. Reverend Mother could not read
Latin. Could not, I suspected, read at all.


29
HOLY FOOLS


She supervised my lessons to the novices with care,
standing at the back of the refectory - our improvised
schoolroom - with head to one side as if she understood
every word. 1 never referred to her deficiency in private or
in public, deferring to her on minor points upon which I
had previously briefed her, and she showed her gratitude in
small, secret ways.

After a year I took vows at her request, and my new status
permitted me to take full participation in all aspects of
abbey life.

I miss her. Good Mere Marie. Her faith was as simple and
honest as the land she worked. She rarely punished - not
that there was much to punish in any case - seeing sin as
proof of unhappiness. If a sister offended, she spoke to her
kindly, repaying the transgression with its opposite: for
theft, gifts; for laziness, respite from daily tasks. Few failed to
be shamed by her unfailing generosity. And yet she was a
heretic like myself. Her faith skated perilously close to
the pantheism against which Giordano, my old teacher,
used to warn me. And yet it was sincere. Careless of the
more complex theological issues, her philosophy could be
summed up in a single word: love. For Mere Marie, love
overrode everything.

Love not often, but for ever. It's one of my mother's
sayings, and all my life it has been the story of my heart.
Before I came to the abbey I thought I understood. Love
for my mother; love for my friends; the dark and complex
love of a woman for a man. But when Fleur was born,
everything changed. A man who has never seen it may think


30
JULIETTE


he understands the ocean, but he thinks only of what
he knows; imagines a large body of water, bigger than
a millpond, bigger than a lake. The reality, however, is
beyond imagining: the scents, the sounds, the anguish
and the joy of it beyond any comparison with previous
experience. That was Fleur. Never, since my thirteenth
summer, had there been such an awakening. From the first
instant, when Mere Marie gave her to me to suckle, I knew
that the world had changed. I had been alone and had
never known it; had travelled, fought, suffered, danced,
fornicated, loved, hated, grieved and triumphed all alone,
living like an animal from day to day, caring for nothing,
desiring nothing, fearing nothing. Suddenly now everything
was different: Fleur was in the world. I was a mother.

It is a perilous joy, however. I knew, of course, that
children often died young - I had seen it happen many
times on my travels, of sickness, accident or hunger - but I
had never before imagined the pain of it, or the terrible loss.
Now I am afraid of everything. The reckless Ailee, who
danced on the rope and flew the high trapeze, has become a
timid creature, a clucking hen; clinging to safety for
the sake of her child, where once she would have ached
for adventure. LeMerle, the eternal gamester, would have
scorned that weakness. Stake nothing that you would not lose. And yet I can pity him, wherever he is. His world has no
oceans.

This morning, Prime was barely observed; Matins and
Lauds, not at all. I am alone in the church as dawn breaks, a
milky light brimming through the roof above the pulpitum,


31
HOLY FOOLS


where the slates are fewest. A thin rain is falling and the
overspill chimes a little three-note scale against the broken
gutter. We sold most of the lead the year we built the
bakehouse; exchanged bad stone for good metal, bread for
the heart of the South Transept, the belly for the soul. We
replaced the lead by clay and plaster mortar, but only lead
lasts.

Sainte Marie-de-la-mer looks down with round expressionless
eyes. Her other features are blunted with time; a
huge stone woman, squatting effortfully as do the gypsies in
childbirth. I can hear the sea borne across the flats and the
cries of birds through the open door. Gulls, no doubt. There
are no blackbirds here. I wonder if Mere Marie can see me
now. I wonder if the Saint hears my silent prayer.

Perhaps it is only the shriek of the seagulls that makes me
uneasy. Perhaps the scent of freedom sweeping across the
flats.

There are no blackbirds here.

But it is too late. Once invoked, my incubus is not so
easily banished. His image seems tattooed across my eyelids
so that, open or closed, I see him. I feel that I have never
ceased to see him, my Blackbird of misfortune. Awake or
asleep, he has never been truly out of mind. Five years of peace was more than I expected - more, perhaps, than I
deserved. But everything returns, as the islanders say. And
the past rushes in like the tide.


32
5 V

July 9th, 1610


MY EARLIEST MEMORY WAS OF OUR CARAVAN, WHICH WAS

painted orange with a tiger on one side and a pastoral scene
with lambs and shepherdesses on the other. When I was
good I played opposite the lambs. When I was disobedient I
was given the tiger for company. Secretly I loved the tiger
best.

Born into a family of gypsies, I had many mothers, many
fathers, many homes. There was Isabelle, my true mother,
strong and tall and beautiful. There was Gabriel the
acrobat, and Princess Farandole, who had no arms and used
her toes as if they were fingers; dark-eyed Janette, who told
fortunes, the cards flickering like flames between her clever
old hands, and there was Giordano, a Jew from southern
Italy who could read and write. Not just French, but Latin,
Greek and Hebrew. He was no relation of mine as far as I


5 3
HOLY FOOLS


knew, but he cared for me best of all - loved me, in his
pedantic way. The gypsies named me Juliette; I had no
other name, nor needed one.

It was Giordano who taught me my letters, reading to me
from the books that he kept in a secret compartment in
the body of the caravan. It was he who told me about
Copernicus, taught me that the Nine Heavens do not
revolve around the earth, but that the earth and planets
circle the sun. There was more, not all of which I understood,
about the properties of metals and the elements. He
showed me how to make black burning-powder with a
mixture of saltpetre, sulphur and charcoal and how to light
it using a length of twine. The others nicknamed him Le Philosophe, and made merry of his books and his
experiments, but from him I learned to read, to watch the
stars and to mistrust the Church.

From Gabriel I learned to juggle, to turn somersaults, to
dance on the rope. From Janette, the cards, bones and the
use of plants and herbs. From Farandole, pride and self
reliance. From my mother, the lore of colours, the speech of
birds and the cantrips to keep evil at bay. Elsewhere, I
learned to pick pockets and to handle a knife, to use my fists
in a fight or to flick my hips at a drunken man on a street
corner and lure him into shadows where eager hands waited
to strip him of purse and poke.

We toured the coastal cities and towns, never staying in
one place long enough to attract unwelcome attention. We
were often hungry, shunned by all but the poorest and the
most desperate, denounced from pulpits across the country


34
JULIETTE


and blamed for every misfortune from drought to apple-rot,
but we took our happiness where we could, and we all
helped each other according to our skills.

When I was fourteen we scattered, our caravans burnt by
zealots in Flanders amidst accusations of theft and sorcery.
Giordano fled south, Gabriel made for the border, and my
mother left me in the care of a little group of Carmelites,
promising to return for me when the danger was past. I
stayed there for almost eight weeks. The sisters were kind,
but poor - almost as poor as we ourselves had been - and
they were for the most part frightened old women, unable to
face the world outside their order. I hated it. I missed my
mother and my friends; I missed Giordano and his books;
most of all I missed the freedom of the roads. No word had
come from Isabelle, for good or for ill. My cards showed me
nothing but a confusion of cups and swords. I itched from
the crown of my cropped head to the soles of my feet, and I
longed more than anything to be away from the smell of old
women. One night I ran away, walked the six miles into
Flanders and lay low for a couple of weeks, living on scraps,
hoping to hear news of our company. But by then the trail
was cold; talk of war had eclipsed everything else and few
people remembered one group of gypsies among all the
rest. In despair I returned to the convent, but found it shut,
and a plague sign on the door. Well, that was the end of it.
With or without Isabelle, I no longer had a choice: I had to
move on.

And so it was that I found myself alone and destitute,
living perilously and poorly from theft and scavenging as I


35
HOLY FOOLS


made my way towards the capital. For a time I travelled
with a group of Italian performers, where I learned their
tongue and the rudiments of the commedia dell'arte. But the
Italianatc trend was already losing its popularity. For two
years we lived indifferently until my comrades, discouraged
and homesick for the orange groves and the warm blue
mountains of their native land, decided to return home. I
would have followed them. But maybe it was my demon
prompted me to remain, or maybe the need to stay on the
move. I made my farewells and, alone, though with money
enough now for my needs, I turned my face again towards
Paris.

It was there that I first met the Blackbird. Named LeMerle for the colour of his unpowdered hair, he was a
firebrand amongst the languid gentlemen of the Court,
never at rest, never quite in disfavour, but always on the
brink of social disgrace. He was unremarkable to look at,
favouring unadorned clothing and the simplest of jewellery,
but his eyes were as full of light and shadow as trees in a
forest, and his smile was the most engaging I had ever seen,
the smile of a man who finds his world delightful, but
absurd. Everything was a game to him. He was indifferent to
matters of rank or status. He lived on perpetual credit and
never went to church.

It was a carelessness to which I responded eagerly, seeing
in it some reflection of myself; but we were nothing alike,
he and 1. I was a little savage of sixteen; LeMerle was ten
years older, perverse, irreverent, irrepressible. Naturally, I
fell in love.


36
JULIETTE


A chick, hatching from the egg, will take as its mother
the first object that moves. LeMerle pulled me from the
street, gave me a position; most of all, he gave me back my
pride. Of course I loved him, and with the unquestioning
adoration of the new-hatched chick. Love not often, but for
ever. More fool me.

He had a troupe of player-dancers, the Theatre du
Flambeau, under the protectorship of Maximilien de
Bethune, later to become the Due de Sully, who was an
admirer of the ballet. Other performances too could be
arranged, these not so public, and unsponsored - though
not unattended - by the Court. LeMerle trod a discreet,
perilous line of blackmail and intrigue, skating the
parameters of fashionable society without ever quite falling
for the lures cast to him there. Though no one seemed to
know his real name I took him for a nobleman - certainly
he was acknowledged by most. His Ballet des Gueux - the
Beggar's Ballet that had been such a success at Court - had
been an immediate success, though condemned by some as
impious. Unabashed by his critics, his audacity even went
as far as to include members of the Court in his Ballet du
Grand Pastoral - with the Due de Cramail dressed as a
woman - and was planning even as I joined his troupe the
Ballet Travesti, which was to prove the final straw with his
respectable patron.

It flattered him at first, to have me at his feet; and it
amused him to see how hungrily men watched me as I
danced on stage. We performed, LeMerle's troupe and 1, in salons and theatres all over the city. By then, comedie-ballets


37
HOLY FOOLS


were becoming fashionable: popular romances from classical
themes, interspersed with long interludes of dance and acrobatics. LeMerle wrote the dialogue and choreographed
the routines -- adapting the script to allow for the tastes of
each audience. There were heroic speeches for the dress
circle, flimsily clad dancers for the ballet enthusiasts, and
dwarves, tumblers and clowns for the general public who
would otherwise have become restless, and who greeted our
act with loud cheers and laughter.

Paris - and LeMerle - had improved me almost beyond
recognition: my hair was clean and glossy, my skin glowed,
and for the first time in my life I wore silks and velvets, lace
and fur; I danced in slippers embroidered with gold; I hid
my smiles behind fans of ivory and chickenskin. I was
young; intoxicated, to be sure, by my new life, but Isabelle's
daughter was not to be blinded by frills and fripperies. No, it
was love that blinded me, and when our ship of dreams
struck aground, it was love that kept me at his side.

The Blackbird's fall from grace was as abrupt as his
ascendancy. I was never quite sure how it happened. One
day our Ballet Travesti was all the rage, and then the next,
disaster: de Bethune's protectorship withdrawn overnight,
players and dancers scattered. Creditors who had held back
now moved in like flies. All at once, the name of Guy
LeMerle was no longer spoken; friends were suddenly never
at home. Finally, LeMerle narrowly escaped a beating at the
hands of lackeys sent by the famously austere Bishop of
Evreux and fled Paris in haste, having called in the few
favours still outstanding and taking with him what wealth


38
JULIETTE


he could. I followed. Call it what you will. He was a
plausible rogue, with ten years more experience than I, and
with a fine coat of Court polish over his villainy. I followed;
it was inevitable. I would have followed him to hell.

He was quick to adapt to the traveller's life. So quick, in
fact, that I wondered to what extent he was not, like myself,
a soldier of fortune. I had expected him to be humiliated by
his disgrace; at the very least, a little chastened. He was
neither. From Court gentleman he transformed overnight to
itinerant performer, shedding his silk for a journeyman's
leathers. He acquired an accent midway between the refined
speech of the city and the provinces' rough burr, changing
weekly to suit whichever province we happened to be
visiting.

I realized that he was enjoying himself; that the whole
game - for this is how he recalled our flight from Paris - had
excited him. He had escaped the city unharmed, having
caused a series of impressive scandals. He had insulted
a satisfactory number of influential people. Above all, I
understood, he had goaded the Bishop of Evreux - a man of
legendary self-control - into an undignified response, and as
far as LeMerle was concerned, that alone was a significant
victory. As a result, far from being in any way humbled, he
remained as irrepressible as ever, and almost at once set
about the plans for his next venture.

Of our original troupe only seven now remained, including
myself. Two dancers - Ghislaine, a country girl from
Lorraine, and Hermine, a courtesan past her prime - with
four dwarves, Rico, Bazuel, Cateau and Le Borgne. Dwarves


39
HOLY FOOLS


come in many shapes. Rico and Gateau were of childlike
build, with small heads and piping voices; Bazuel was plump
and cherubic, and Le Borgne, who had only one eye, was of
normal proportions, with a sound chest and strong, well
muscled arms - or would have been, but for his absurdly
short-ended legs. He was a strange and bitter little half
man, fiercely contemptuous of the Tall People, as he called
us, but for some reason he tolerated me - perhaps because I
did not pity him - and he had a grudging respect - if not a
genuine liking - for LeMerle.

'In my grandfather's day it was worth your while to be a
dwarf,' he would often grumble. 'You'd never be short of
food, at least; you could always join a circus or a travelling
troupe. And as for the church . . .'

Church people had changed since his grandfather's day.
Nowadays there was suspicion where once there might have
been pity, with everyone trying to find someone to blame
for their bad times and misfortune. A dwarf or a cripple was
always fair game, said Le Borgne, and such undesirables as
gypsies and performers made good scapegoats.

'There was a time,' he said, 'when every troupe had a
dwarf or an idiot, for luck. Holy fools, they called us. God's
innocents. Nowadays they're just as likely to throw stones as
to spare a crust for a poor unfortunate. There's no virtue in
it any more. And as for LeMerle and his comedie-ballets -- well!' He grinned savagely. 'Laughter sits poorly on an
empty stomach. Come winter, he'll know that with the rest
of us.'

Be that as it may, in the weeks that followed, we


40
JULIETTE


attracted three more players, members of a disbanded troupe
in Aix. Caboche was a flautist, Demiselle a reasonable
dancer and Bouffon, a one-time clown lately turned pickpocket.
We travelled under the name of Theatre du Grand
Carnaval, performing mostly burlesque plays and short
ballets, with tumbling and juggling from the dwarves, but
though the entertainments were well received, they were for
the most part indifferently paid, and for a while our purses
were thin.

It was nearing harvest-time, and for some weeks we
would arrive at a village in the morning, earn a little money
helping a local farmer mow the hay or pick fruit, then in the
evening we would perform in the courtyard of the nearest
alehouse for what coins we could glean. At first LeMerle's
soft hands bled from the fieldwork, but he did not complain.
I moved into his caravan wordlessly one night, he accepting
my presence without surprise or comment, as if I were his
due.

He was a strange lover. Aloof, cautious, abstracted, as
silent in passion as an incubus. Women found him attractive,
but he seemed mostly indifferent to their advances.
This was not from any loyalty to me. He was simply a man
who, already having one coat, sees no reason to go to the
trouble of buying another. Later I saw him for what he was:
selfish, shallow, cruel. But for a time I was taken in; and,
hungry for affection, was content - for a time - with such
small scraps as he was able to give me.

In exchange, I shared with him what I could. I showed
him how to trap thrushes and rabbits when food was


41
HOLY FOOLS


scarce. I showed him herbs to cure fevers and heal wounds. I
taught him my mother's cantrips; I even repeated some
of Giordano's teachings, and in that especially LeMerle
showed a keen interest.

In fact, I told him more about myself than I had intended
- much more, indeed, than was safe. But he was clever, and
charming, and I was flattered at his attention. Much of what
I said was heretical, a mixture of gypsy lore and Giordano's
teachings. An earth - planets - moving about a central sun.
A Goddess of grain and pleasure, older than the Church,
her people unfettered by sin or contrition. Men and women
as equals - at this he smiled, for it was beyond outrageous,
but knew better than to comment. I assumed, in the years
that passed, that he had forgotten. Only much later did I
realize that with Guy LeMerle nothing is forgotten; everything
is set aside for the winter, every scrap of information
added to his store. I was a fool. I make no apologies. And in
spite of what happened I'll swear he had begun to care for
me a little. Enough to cost him a pang or two. But not
enough for me, when the time came. Not nearly enough.

I never learned his true name. He hinted it was a noble
one - certainly he was not of the people - although even at
the height of my infatuation I believed less than half of
what he told me. He had been an actor and a playwright, he
said, a poet in the style of the classics; spoke of misfortune,
of ruin; grew elated at the memory of thronged theatres.

That he had been an actor I did not doubt. He had
the gift of mimicry, a broad and winning smile, a certain
flourish in his way of walking, of carrying his head, which


42
JULIETTE


spoke of the stage. His skills served him well - be it selling
fake cures or bartering a winded horse, his powers of
persuasion were little short of magical. But he had not
begun his career as a performer. He must have studied; he
could read Latin and Greek, and was familiar with several of
Giordano's philosophers. He could ride a horse as well
as any circus equestrienne. He could pick pockets like a
professional, and he excelled at all games of chance. He
seemed able to adapt to any circumstance, acquiring new
skills as he went, and however much I tried, I was unable to
pierce the layers of fiction, fancy and outright lies with
which he surrounded himself. His secrets, whatever they
were, remained his own.

There was one thing, however. An old brand high up on
his left arm, a fleur-de-lys faded almost to silver over the
years, which, when I questioned him, he dismissed with a
smile and a claim of forgetfulness. But I noticed that he
took care always to cover the mark after that, and I drew my
own conclusions. My Blackbird had lost feathers in that
encounter, and did not care to be reminded of it.


43
6


V


Jul;y 11th, 1610


I HAVE NEVER BELIEVED IN GOD. NOT IN YOUR GOD ANYWAY,

the one who looks down onto his chessboard and moves
the pieces according to his pleasure, occasionally glancing
up at the face of his Adversary with the smile of one
who already knows the outcome. It seems to me that there
must be something horribly flawed in a Creator who persists
in testing his creatures to destruction, in providing a
world well stocked with pleasures only to announce that all
pleasure is sin, in creating mankind imperfect, then expecting
us to aspire to perfection. The devil at least plays fair.
We know where he stands. But even he, the Lord of Deceit,
works for the Almighty in secret. Like master, like man.

Giordano called me pagan. To him this was no compliment,
for he was a devout Jew, believing in a heavenly
reward for his earthly sufferings. To him, to be pagan was to


44
JULIETTE


be immoral, ungodly, to indulge freely in the pleasures of
the flesh, to delight too frequently in the other hazards
encountered on the road. My old teacher ate sparingly,
fasted regularly, prayed often, immersing himself for the rest
of the time in his studies. He was a good companion - our
only grievance was that on his Sabbath he refused to help
with the work around the camp, preferring to go without a
fire, even on a winter's night, than to take the trouble to
light one. Apart from this peculiarity, he was just like the
rest of us; and I never saw him eat the flesh of children,
as the Church claims his people do. In fact he rarely ate
any kind of flesh at all. Which simply goes to show how
misguided the Church can be.

Perhaps Giordano was misguided too, I told myself, as I
strove dutifully to be more like my mentor. His Jewish God
seemed so very like the Catholic God - which One True
Religion seemed to me almost indistinguishable from that of
the Huguenots or the Protestant heretics in England. There
must be something else, I told myself repeatedly; something
beyond sin and solemnity, dust and devotions; something
which loved life as indiscriminately as I did.

My thirteenth birthday brought a kind of awakening. All
that summer was a languorous procession of delights: a new
awareness, a boundless energy, a heightened sense of taste
and smell. For the first time, or so it seemed, I really noticed
the flowers along the roadside; the scent of night falling by
the seashore; the taste of my mother's new bread, baked
black in the coals but tender inside the crust of ash. I
noticed, too, the delicious friction of my clothes against my


45
HOLY FOOLS


skin, the icy splash of stream water as I bathed ... If this
was to be pagan, then I wanted more of it. The world had
become maternal almost overnight, and her mysteries were
boundless. I opened myself to her initiations. Every shoot,
every flower, tree, bird, creature filled me with tenderness
and joy. I lost my maidenhead to a fisherman in Le Havre
and the world exploded in a revelation no less momentous
to me than that of Saint John.

Giordano shook his head sourly and called me shameless.
For a while he taught me nothing but theology so that my
head span and I rebelled, demanding the return of my
history lessons, my astronomy, my Latin, my poetry. For a
while he resisted me. 1 was a savage, he told me with
disapproval, little better than the natives of newly discovered
Quebec. I stole his books and pored over Latin
erotica, my fingers following the script with agonizing
slowness. When winter came my senses froze and my
teacher forgave me, resuming our studies with his habitual
sour shake of the head. But secretly, pagan I remained. Even
in the abbey I am happier in the fields than in the chapel,
the burn of my working muscles a kind of remembrance of
that summer when I was thirteen and ungodly.


TODAY I WORKED UNTIL MY BACK ACHED. WHEN NO MORE

could be done amongst the herbs and vegetables, I moved
to the salt flats, regardless of the sun's glare, my skirt
kilted to my knees, ankles mired in rime and mud. At the
abbey we have lay folk to do the heavy work, the fishing,
slaughtering of cattle, curing of leathers and work in the salt


46
JULIETTE


fields, but I've never been shy of hard labour, and it keeps
the fear at bay.

There is no word yet from Rennes and last night my
dreams were terrible, a nightmare hand of flung cards with
LeMerle's face on every one. 1 wonder whether I have
brought these visions upon myself by writing so much about
him in my journal, but the tale, now begun, is a runaway
colt beneath my hands. Hopeless to try to break it now;
better to hang on and let it run itself to exhaustion.

Janette taught me to value my dreams. They are like
waves, she told me, of the tides which bear us, from which
strange jetsam may be gathered, strange eddies from the
deeps for those to read who can. I must use my dreams, not
fear them. Only a fool fears knowledge.


OUR FIRST WINTER WAS THE WORST. FOR TWO MONTHS

the Theatre du Grand Carnaval was forced to a standstill just
outside Vitre, a small town on the Vilaine. It had snowed
throughout December, our money was almost gone, our food
was running low, one of our caravans had lost a wheel and
there could be no hope of moving on until spring.

I think we all took it for granted that LeMerle would not
beg. He was, he told us, writing a tragedy which, when
performed, would prove to be the solution to all our
problems. Meanwhile we scavenged, scrounged, danced,
juggled and tumbled ankle-deep in the frozen refuse of the
streets. The girls earned more than the men - at times we
rivalled even the dwarves, once their novelty had worn off.
Le Borgne grumbled, as ever, and seemed to take this as a


47
HOLY FOOLS


personal affront. LeMerle accepted what money we brought
him as if he expected no less.

One day, as January thawed to rain and mud, a fine
carriage swept past our camp and beyond towards the town,
and later LeMerle gathered us together and told us to
prepare ourselves for a special performance at the castle. We
arrived freshly bathed and in the dancers' costumes we had
salvaged in our flight from Paris to find half a dozen gentlemen
assembled in the large dining hall, where a game
seemed to be under way. There were cards on the table, and
I caught the glint of gold in the candlelight. There was a
scent of mulled wine and woodsmoke and tobacco, and
LeMerle was sitting in their midst in his Court finery, a cup
of punch in one hand. He seemed on excellent terms with
the little company; we might almost have been in Paris
again. I sensed danger, and knew that LeMerle sensed it too.
But he was clearly enjoying himself.

A plump young gentleman in rose-coloured silk leaned
forward and peered at me through a lorgnette. 'But she's
charming,' he said. 'Come closer, my dear. I don't bite.'

I moved forwards, my satin shoes whispering over
the polished floorboards, and made my courtesy. 'My card,
sweetheart. Come on, take it; don't be shy.'

I was feeling vaguely uncomfortable. I had grown since
we left Paris, and my skirt was shorter, my bodice tighter
than I remembered. I regretted now not taking the time to
make the necessary adjustments. The rose-pink gentleman
smirked and handed me a playing card between finger and
thumb. I saw that it was the Queen of Hearts.


48
JULIETTE


LeMerle winked at me and I was reassured. If this was one
of his games, I thought, then I could play it with the best of
them; certainly it looked as though the others were familiar
with the rules. The Three of Spades fell to Hermine, to
Gateau the Jack of Clubs and to Demiselle the Ace of
Diamonds, until at last each of us had been given the name
of a playing card - even the dwarves - and this to ribald
laughter, though I was far from understanding why.
We danced then: first some comic acrobatics and then a
simplified version of the Ballet des Gueux.

From time to time I was aware as I danced of playing-cards
being tossed into the centre of the table, but the dance was
a strenuous one and my attention could not be spared. It
was only when it came to an end and four winners rose to
claim their prizes that I realized the purpose of the game and
the stakes. Comic cursing from the remaining players,
left with the dwarves. As I was led up the broad stairway
towards the bedchambers, feeling trapped and stupid, I
heard LeMerle behind me calmly suggesting a rubber of
piquet.

I half turned at the sound of his voice. Hermine caught
my eye and frowned - she alone of the four dancers understood
what was going on. In the golden light from the
sconce I thought she looked old, her painted cheekbones
shining with grease. Her eyes were hard and blue and very
patient. Their expression told me everything I needed to
know.

The rose-pink gentleman seemed to notice my hesitation.
'Fair's fair, sweetheart,' he said. 'I won, didn't I?'


49
HOLY FOOLS


LeMerle knew I was watching him. He'd gambled on my
reaction as well as on the turn of the card, and for a second
I was an unknown quantity to him, a thing of passing
interest. Then he turned away, already intent upon the new
game, and I hated him. Oh, not for the brief moment
of inconvenience on the couch. I'd had worse; and the
lordling was quickly spent. No, it was the game, as if I,
and the others, had been nothing more to him than the
cards in his hand, to be played or set aside as the game
allowed.

Of course, I would forgive him. 'But Juliette, do you think
I wanted to do it? I did it for you. For all of you. Do you
think I would have let you starve to safeguard my own delicacy?'

I had taken out my knife, its dark blade sharpened to a
sliver. My fingers throbbed with the urge to bleed him. 'It
didn't have to be that way,' I said. 'If only you'd told me.'
It was true; if he had told me of his plans I would have
accepted, for his sake.

His eyes fixed mine and I saw the knowledge there. 'You
could have refused,' he said. 'I wouldn't have forced you,
Juliette.'

'You sold us.' My voice was trembling. 'You tricked us and
you sold us for money!' He knew I could not have refused. If
we had withheld our favours that night it would have been
to see LeMerle in the pillory - or worse - the following
morning. 'You used us, Guy. You used me.'

I could see him measuring the situation. I was a little
overwrought, but my anger wouldn't last. It wasn't as if I


50
JULIETTE


had been a virgin, after all. Nothing was really lost. Gold
clinked between his fingers. 'Juliette, listen to me . . .'

It was the wrong time for cajolery. As he reached out
towards me I slashed at him with the knife. I only meant to
keep him at a distance, but my movement was too quick for
him to evade and my blade sliced cruelly across his outstretched
palms.

'Next time, LeMerle.' I was shaking, but the knife was
steady. 'Next time I'll take your face right off.'

Any other man would have glanced at his wounded
hands - instinct demands it - but not LeMerle. There was
no fear at all in his eyes, no pain. Instead, there was surprise,
fascination, delight, as if at some unexpected discovery. It
was a look I had seen on his face before, at the card table, or
in front of an angry mob, or flushed with triumph in the
gleam of the footlights. I held his gaze defiantly. Blood
dripped from his fists onto the ground between us, and
neither of us looked down.

'Why, sweetheart,' he said. 'I believe you would.'

'Try me.'

Now blood was the only colour about him; against his
black coat, his face was ashen. He took a step towards
me and stumbled; without thinking, I caught him as he
collapsed. 'You're right, Juliette,' he said. 'I should have told
you.'

That disarmed me, as he had known it would. Then, still
smiling, he passed out.

I bandaged his hands myself with betony and fresh linen.
Then I found him brandy and stood over him while he


5 1
HOLY FOOLS


drank it, mentally replaying the scene as I did so until it
seemed to me almost as if he had sacrificed himself for us
instead of the other way around. The greatest risk had been
his, of course. Besides the gold paid for the performance public
and private - LeMerle fleeced the young card players
with shameless expertise' whilst Bouffon and Le Borgne
searched the house for valuables, standing up fully five
hundred livres richer than when he arrived.

When his victims finally understood the imposture he
had perpetrated upon them, it was too late. The troupe
had already left town, although reports and rumours of
LeMerle's deception followed us all the way to La Rochelle
and beyond. It was the beginning of a long chain of
impostures and deceits, and for the next six months we
travelled under many colours, many names. Our notoriety
dogged us for longer than we had expected, but in spite of
the risks and the continued efforts for our capture, we felt
little anxiety. LeMerle had begun to take on an almost
supernatural character in our minds. He seemed
invulnerable - and so, by association, were we all. If they
had caught him, they would certainly have hanged him, and
probably the rest of us for good measure. But travelling
players were not uncommon in the west, and by then we
were the Theatre de la Poule au Pot, a group of jongleurs from
Aquitaine. As far as anyone could tell, the Theatre du Grand
Carnaval had vanished into smoke. And so we escaped from
the encounter - and others of the same kind - and I forgave
LeMerle for a time, because I was young, and because I
believed in those innocent days that there was good in


52
JULIETTE


everyone, and that one day perhaps even he could he
redeemed.

It has been more than five years since I saw him last. Too
long, to be sure, for me to be so deeply troubled at these
recollections. He may even be dead by now - after Epinal,
there's reason enough to believe it. But 1 do not. All these
years I have dragged the memory and the pain of him
behind me like a dog with a stone tied to its tail, and I
would know if I were free of him.

Today we must bury the Reverend Mother. It has to be
today. The sky is pitiless in its clarity, promising wide blue
spaces, scorching sun. No one wants to take responsibility, I
know, but the corpse in the chapel is already overripe,
liquefying in its bath of spices. No one wants to bury her
before her successor arrives. But someone has to make the
decision.

I have not slept since yesterday night. My herbs are no
comfort: neither geranium nor rosemary brings me any
respite, and lavender fails to clear my head. Belladonna,
brewed strong, might show me something worth seeing, but
1 have had enough of visions for the present. What I need is
rest. From the high window I can see the first sliver of dawn
as it opens up the sky like an oyster. Fleur sleeps beside
me, her doll tucked under her arm and a thumb lodged
comfortingly in her mouth, but for me, in spite of my
exhaustion, sleep is a distant land. I put out my hand to
touch her. I do this often, for my own comfort as well as
hers, and she responds sleepily, curling into the half-circle
of my body with a blurry sigh. She smells of biscuit and


53
HOLY FOOLS


warm bread dough. I put my nose into the baby hair at
the nape of her neck, which is sweetness and joy and,
now, a kind of anguish, as if at the anticipation of some
unimaginable future loss.

Arms around my daughter, I close my eyes again. But
my peace is gone. Five years of peace dispelled like smoke in
an instant - and for what? A bird, a memory, a glimpse
of something from the corner of my eye? And yet the
Reverend Mother died. What of it? She was old. Her life
was over. There is no reason to believe that he is in any way
linked to this. And yet, Giordano taught me that all life
is linked, that all terrestrial things are made from the same
elemental clay: man, woman, stone, water, tree, bird. It was
heresy. But Giordano believed it. One day he would find it,
he told me. The Philosopher's Stone that would prove his
theory right, the recipe for all matter, the elixir of the Nine
Worlds. Everything is linked: the world is in motion around
the sun, everything returns, and every act, however small,
has a thousand repercussions. I can feel them now, coming
at me like ripples from a stone flung into a lake.

And the Blackbird? We too are linked, he and I; I need
no philosophy to tell me that. Well, let him come. If he has
a part to play, let him play it soon, and quickly, because if
ever I see him again in flesh, he knows that this time I will
kill him.


54
7 V

July 12th, 1610


WE BURIED HER IN THE HERB GARDEN. IT WAS A QUIET

affair - I planted lavender and rosemary to sweeten her
body's corruption and everyone said a little prayer. We sang
the Kyrie eleison, but badly, for some were overcome with
grief. This outpouring of grief surprises me -- more than a dozen sisters have died since my arrival here, some of them
young, and not one was mourned with such fierce despair and
yet it should not. We have lost more than one of our
own. Even the murder of King Henri in Paris, only two
months ago, had less impact on our lives.

That being so, it seems wrong to bury her with such little
ceremony. She should have had a priest, a proper service.
But we could wait no longer; the news from Rennes is
slow in coming, and corruption spreads fastest in summer,
bringing disease. Most of the sisters have no idea of this,


55
HOLY FOOLS


preferring to trust to the power of prayer, but a lifetime on
the roads has taught me the value of caution. There may
well be demons, my mother used to say, but foul water, bad
meat and tainted air are the real killers, and her wisdom has
served me well.

Anyway, I talked them round to my way of thinking in
the end. I always do, and besides, this simple burial was
what the Reverend Mother would have wanted: no stone
vaulting, but a linen sheet already marbled with mould,
then the raw white earth, upon which our potatoes thrive so
sweetly.

Perhaps I'll plant potatoes above her grave, their flesh
mingling with hers in the soil so that every joint nurtures a
tuber, every bone a shoot, the salt of her flesh combining
with the salt earth to nurse the roots to pallid life. A pagan
thought, strangely lacking in solemnity in this place of
mournful secrets. And yet my gods have never been theirs.
The master of the world is surely not this stern, stony face,
this pointless sacrifice, this life without joy, this endless
fixation upon sin . . . Better to nourish potatoes than
fleshless heaven, hopeless hell. But still word does not
come.

Seven days. The Creation of the world took less time.
Our world remains in limbo, suspended in the clear indifference
of these summer days, a rose under glass. And yet
the world outside moves on without us; growth, decay, life,
death moving on at their usual pace, tide in, tide out, as if
God has his own agenda. The scent of the sea blows
through the window, already tinted with shades of autumn;


56
JULIETTE


the leaves bleached grey by the sun, the grass burnt blonde.
The land is an anvil for summer's strike, flat and shimmering.

At least I have my work in the salt field, the wooden etelle in my hands skimming the crust of rime from the mud
onto the heap by my side. It is simple work, requiring little
thought, and I can watch Fleur and Perette playing nearby,
splashing noisily through the warm brown water. These days
in the fields - such a burden to the others - are my secret
pleasure, with the sun on my back and my daughter at my
side. Here I can be myself again, or as much of myself as I
care to recall. I can smell the sea, the hot reek of the salt
flat, feel the sharp wind coming over from the west, hear
the birds. I am not one of these soft sisters, hiding in their
darkness for fear of the world. Nor am I an ecstatic like
Soeur Alfonsine, driving my poor flesh into a passion of
mortification. No, the work pleases me. The long muscles in
my thighs tense and stretch, I feel the tautening of my
biceps like oiled rope. My arms are bare; my skirt hitched up
to the waist, my wimple discarded on the mud bank.

Other than Fleur, my hair is my only extravagance. I cut
it when I arrived at the abbey, but it has grown back, thick
and red as a fox's brush and gleaming. It is my only beauty.
Otherwise I am too tall, too hard, my skin burnt brown by
the sun of many summer roads. If Lazarillo had seen my
hair, then he might have remembered me. But one wimple
is very like another. Here in the fields, I can discard the
coiffe. There is no one to see my unbound hair or my strong
bare shoulders. I can be myself; and although I know I can


57
HOLY FOOLS


never be 1'Ailee again, for a short time I can at least be
Juliette.


FOR SIX MORE YEARS 1 WAS TO REMAIN WITH THE TROUPE

that became the Theatre des Cieux. After Vitre I moved out
of LeMerle's caravan. I loved him still -- there was no
escaping that - but my pride forbade me to stay. By then
I had a caravan of my own, and when he came to me, as I
knew he would, I made him wait to be admitted, like a
penitent. It was a small enough vengeance, but it changed
the balance between us, and for the time I was satisfied.

We travelled along the coast, targeting markets and fairs
where there was money to be had. When business was bad
we sold sickness cures and love charms, or LeMerle fleeced
the unwary at cards or dice. Most often we performed;
snatches of ballets, masquerades or carnival but with the
occasional play growing gradually more frequent as time
passed. I developed a rope-dancing act with the dwarves - a
child's game, no more, but it was popular with village
audiences - and I taught my fellow dancers the simpler
moves. The act grew more ambitious as we developed it, but
it was my idea to take it to the high rope, and that was the
beginning of our success.

At first we performed over a sheet with a dwarf at each
corner, in case of accident. As our daring increased, however,
we dispensed with the sheet and took to the air, not
content merely to walk the rope, but dancing, tumbling and
finally flying from one rope to another by means of a series
of interlinked rings. Thus, 1'Ailee was fledged.


58
JULIETTE


I have never been afraid of heights. In fact, I enjoy them.
From a certain height, everyone looks the same - men,
women, villains, kings - as if rank and fortune were simply
an accident of perspective and not something ordained by
God. On the ropes I became something more than human;
at every performance more people came to watch. My
costume was silver and green, my cloak a sweep of coloured
feathers, and on my head I wore a cockade of plumes, which
exaggerated my height still further. I have always been tall
for a woman - already I overtopped everyone in the Theatre
des Cieux except LeMerle - but in my dancer's costume I
passed six feet, and when I left the gilded cage from which
I began my act, children in the crowd would murmur and
point, and their parents would wonder aloud that such a
creature could even mount the climbing pole, let alone fly.

The rope was stretched thirty feet above their heads;
below, cobbles, earth, grass. I risked broken limbs or death if
I made a mistake. But 1'Ailee made no mistakes. My ankle
was fastened to a thin gilt chain - as if without it I might
take wing and fly away. Rico and Bazuel held onto the other
end, taking care to stay as far away from me as possible.
Sometimes I growled and pretended to lash out, making the
children scream. Then the dwarves released the chain, and I
was free.

I made it effortless. Of course it was not; the smallest
move takes a thousand hours of practice. But in those
moments I was no longer myself. I danced on silken cords so
thin they were barely visible from the ground, using the
linked rings to travel from one to the other, as Gabriel once


59
HOLY FOOLS


taught me, a lifetime ago, by the orange caravan with the
tiger and the lambs. Sometimes I sang, or made wild sounds
in my throat. People looked up at me in superstitious awe
and whispered that I must indeed be of another breed, that
perhaps somewhere beyond the oceans just such a race of
fox-haired harpies swooped and soared over the endless blue
acres. Needless to say, LeMerle did nothing to discourage
this kind of thinking. Nor did I.

As months passed, and years, our act grew in popularity
until we were courted from Paris to province. It made me
bold; there was nothing I would not dare. I devised wilder
leaps, more breathtaking flights between the poles, leaving
the others far below me. I added more levels of cord to the
act: swings, a trapeze, a suspended platform. I performed in
trees and over water. I never fell.

Audiences loved me. Many believed LeMerle's fiction:
that I was of another race. There were rumours of witchcraft,
and a few times we were forced to leave a town in
haste. But those times were few; our fame spread, and at
LeMerle's orders we moved north again towards Paris.

Two and a half years had passed since our flight from
the city. Time enough, said the Blackbird, for our little contretemps to have been forgotten. Besides, he had no
ambition to re-enter society; the King was getting married,
and we were not alone in making for the celebrations. Every
troupe in the country was doing the same: actors, jugglers,
musicians, dancers. There was money to be made, said
LeMerle, and with a little imagination, a little initiative, we
could make a fortune.


60
JULIETTE


But by this time I knew him too well to believe the
simple explanation. That look was back in his eyes the
look of dangerous enjoyment he wore when planning an
outrageous venture - and I was wary from the first.

'He's hunting a tiger with a pointed stick,' Le Borgne was
wont to say. 'Finding it's the easy part, but God help us all if
he runs it to ground.'

LeMerle, of course, denied any such intent. 'No mischief,
I promise you, my Harpy,' he said, but with so much
suppressed laughter in his voice that I did not believe him.
'What, are you afraid?'

'Of course not.'

'Good. This is no time to start suffering from nerves.'


61
8 V

July 13th, 1610


IT WAS THE HEIGHT OF l'ailee's CAREER. WE HAD MONEY,

fame; crowds adored us, and we were coming home. With
the approach of the King's wedding, Paris was in perpetual
carnival; spirits were high, drinking deep, purses loose, and
you could smell the hope and the money and, behind that,
the fear. A wedding, like a coronation, is a time of uncertainty.
Rules are suspended. New alliances are made and
broken. For the most part, they mean little to us. We watch
the big players on France's stage, simply hoping that they
will not crush us. A whim could do it; a king's finger is
heavy enough to wipe out an army. Even a bishop's hand,
cleverly wielded, may crush a man. But we at the Theatre des
Cieux did not consider these things. We could have read the
signs if we had chosen to, but we were drunk on our success;
LeMerle was hunting his tigers and I was perfecting a new --


62
JULIETTE


and increasingly dangerous - routine. Even Le Borgne was
uncharacteristically cheery, and when we received word on
entering Paris that His Majesty had expressed an interest in
watching us perform, our elation knew no bounds.

The days that followed passed in a blur. I've seen kings
come and go, but I've always had a soft spot for King Henri.
Perhaps because he cheered so heartily on that day; perhaps
because his face was kind. This new Louis is different, this
little boy. You can buy his portrait in any market, crowned
with a sun halo and flanked by kneeling saints, but
he makes me fearful with his wan face and heart-shaped
mouth. What can such a little boy know of anything? How
can he rule France? But all that was to come; when I'Ailee
performed at the Palais-Royal, we had more security, more
happiness than we had enjoyed since before the wars. This
marriage - this alliance with the Medicis proved it; we saw
it as a sign that our luck had turned.

It had - but not for the better. The night of our performance
we celebrated with wine and meat and sweet
pastries, and then Rico and Bazuel went to watch a wild
beast show near the Palais-Royal while the others got even
more drunk and LeMerle went off on his own towards the
river. Later that night, I heard him return, and when I
passed his caravan I saw blood on the steps and I was afraid.

I tapped at the door, and, receiving no answer, went
inside. LeMerle was sitting with his back to me on the floor,
with his shirt wadded against his left side. I ran to him with
a cry of dismay; there was blood all over him. More blood,
in fact, than real hurt, as I discovered to my relief. A short,


63
HOLY FOOLS


sharp blade - not unlike my own - had glanced off his ribs,
leaving a shallow, messy gash about nine inches long. At
first I assumed he had been attacked and robbed - a man in
Paris by night needs more than luck to protect him -- but he
still had his purse, and besides, only a very inept footpad
would have dealt him such a clumsy blow. As LeMerle
refused to tell me what had happened, I could only conclude
that this mischief was somehow of his own making, and
dismiss it as an isolated case of ill fortune.

But there was more had luck to come. The following
night, one of our caravans was set on fire as we slept, and
only chance saved the rest. As it was, Gateau got up for a
piss and smelt smoke. We lost two horses, the bulk of
our costumes, the caravan itself, of course, and one of our
number: little Rico, who had got blind drunk during the
evening and failed to awaken to our cries. His friend Bazuel
tried to go in after him, though we could see it was hopeless
from the start, and he was overcome by smoke before he
even got close.

It cost him his voice. When he recovered, he was unable
to speak in anything above a whisper. Even after that, I
think, his heart was broken. He drank like a sponge, picked
fights with anything that moved and performed so badly in
his act that in the end we had to leave him out altogether.
When, some months later, he chose to stay behind, no
one was surprised. And anyway, as Le Borgne said, it wasn't
as if we had lost a rope-dancer. Dwarves could always be
replaced.

We left Paris furtively and in sombre mood. The


64
JULIETTE


celebrations were far from over, but now LeMerle was eager
for us to be gone. Rico's death had affected him more than I
expected; he ate little, slept less, snapped at anyone who
dared speak to him. It was the first time 1 had ever seen him
truly angry. It was not for Rico, I soon realized - nor even
for the damaged equipment - but for his own humiliation,
the spoiling of our triumph. He had lost the game, and,
more than anything else, the Blackbird hated to lose.

No one had noticed anything on the night of the
burning. LeMerle, however, had his suspicions, though he
would not speak of them. Instead, he sank into a dangerous
silence, and not even the news that his old enemy, the
Bishop of Evreux, had been waylaid by footpads a few days
before was enough to brighten his spirits.

After Paris, we made our way south. Bazuel left us in
Anjou, but we gained two more people in the months that
followed: Becquot, a one-legged fiddle-player, and his ten
year-old son, Philbert. The boy was a natural on the high
rope, but he was too reckless; he took a bad fall later that
year and was useless for months. All the same, LeMerle kept
him with us through the following winter and, although the
boy was never fit for the flying act again, fed him and found
him useful work to do. Becquot was grateful, and I was
surprised, for business had taken a bad turn and money
was short. But Le Borgne simply shrugged and muttered
something about tigers. Nothing came of it, however; the
boy remained with us for another eight months, after which
LeMerle left him with a group of Franciscans on their way
to Paris who, he said, would care for him.


65
HOLY FOOLS


We moved on. We worked markets and fairs throughout
Anjou and down into Gascony, sometimes helping with
harvests as we had done in the early days, staying in one
place over winter. The second winter, Demiselle died of a
fever, leaving us with only two dancers - at thirty, Hermine
was getting too old for the high rope, and it was painful to
watch her. Ghislaine tried her best, but never mastered the
jumps. Once more, I'Ailee flew alone.

Undaunted, LeMerle returned to playwriting. His farces
had always been popular, but his plays became gradually
more satirical as we journeyed across France. His favourite
subject was the Church, and several times we were forced to
pack up in haste as some zealous official took offence. The
public, for the most part, enjoyed them. Evil bishops, lecherous
friars and religious hypocrites had always attracted
excellent audiences, and when there were also dwarves and
a Winged Woman, the show never failed to bring in money.

LeMerle played the clerical roles himself - he had somehow
acquired a variety of religious garments and a heavy
silver cross, which must have been valuable, but which he
never tried to sell, even when times were poor. It was a gift,
he said when I questioned him, from an old friend in Paris.
But his eyes were hard as he said it, and his smile was all
teeth. I did not pursue the matter, however; LeMerle could
be sentimental about the strangest things, and if he wanted
a thing kept secret, then no amount of questioning would
loosen his tongue. All the same, I wondered a little especially
when I was hungry and food was scarce. Then,
after a while, I put it out of mind.


66
JULIETTE


Now began our drifting time. We travelled south in
winter, north in summer, always following markets and fairs.
We changed our colours in the more hostile regions, but
for the most part we were still the Theatre des Gieux, and
1'Ailee danced the high rope, and people cheered and threw
flowers. Even so I sensed that my heyday was coming to
an end - one year a torn tendon kept me in agony for a whole summer - but we knew we could always fall back on
LeMerle's plays. They were more hazardous than the rope
act, certainly; but they earned us good coin, especially in
Huguenot country.

Five more times we made the journey south. I learned to
recognize the roads, the good places, the dangerous places. I
took lovers where and when I chose, without hindrance
from LeMerle. He still shared my bed when I wanted him
to; but I had grown up a little, and my slavish adoration of
him had turned to a more comfortable affection. I knew him
now. I knew his rages, his triumphs, his joys. I knew him,
and I accepted what he was.

I knew, too, that there was much in him to hate, much to
mistrust. Twice, to my knowledge, he had murdered - once
a drunkard who struggled too violently to retrieve a stolen
purse, once a farmer who stoned us near Rouen - both deeds
committed in stealth and darkness, only to be discovered
long after we had gone.

I asked him once how he reconciled such things with his
conscience.

'Conscience?' He raised an eyebrow. 'You mean God,
Judgement Day, and that kind of thing?'


67
HOLY FOOLS


I shrugged. He knew that wasn't quite what I meant, but
rarely passed over an opportunity to tease me over my
heretical beliefs.

LeMerle smiled. 'Dear Juliette,' he said. 'If God is really
up there -- and, if we are to believe your Copernicus, that
must be a very, very long way up - then I don't trust his
perspectives. To him, I'm a speck. Down here, from where
I'm standing, things are different.'

I didn't understand, and I said so.

'I mean that I'd rather be something more than a
gambling chip in a game of unlimited stakes.'

'Even so, to kill a man . . .'

'People kill each other all the time. At least I'm honest. I
don't do it in God's name.'

Knowing him for good or ill - or so I thought - I could
still love him; believing as I did that in spite of his sins, the
essential heart of the man was good, was faithful to itself, a
thieving blackbird singing a mocking song . . . But that was
the man's talent. He could make people see what they
wanted to see, reflections of themselves as vain as shadows
in a pond. I saw my foolish self in him, that was all. I was
twenty-two, and I had not grown up half as much as I
believed.

Until Epinal.


68
9


V


July 14th, 1610


IT IS A PLEASANT LITTLE TOWN ON THE MOSELLE, IN

Lorraine. It was the first time we had come that way,
concentrating as we did mostly on the coastal regions, and
we arrived in a small village called Bruyere a few miles out
of the town. A quiet place: half a dozen farms, a church,
orchards of apple and pear trees half eaten by mistletoe. If I
felt anything unusual 1 cannot recall it now; maybe a sharp
glance from a woman by the roadside, a sly forking of the
fingers from a child at the crossroads. I read the cards, as I
did at any new spot, but I drew only a harmless Fool, a Six
of Staves and a Deuce of Cups. If there was a warning there,
I did not see it.

It was August; parched summer dragging into a premature
autumn turning dank and sweet with rot. Hailstorms a
month earlier had crushed the ripe barley, and the fields lay


69
HOLY FOOLS


spoiling in an alehouse stench. The sudden heat in the
wake of the storms was overwhelming, and the people
seemed dazed by the sun, blinking foolishly at our caravans
as they passed. Nevertheless, we managed to negotiate a
field for our camp, and that night we performed a short
burlesque around our campfire, to the sound of crickets and
frogs.

Our audience was sparse, however. Even the dwarves
barely brought a smile to the mirthless faces made bloody in
the firelight, and few seemed inclined to stay afterwards.
The only regular entertainments in that region were hangings
and burnings, said the talk in the alehouse: a sow had
been hanged a few days earlier for eating her young, a pair of
nuns in a nearby convent had set themselves on fire in
imitation of Saint Christina Mirabilis, and there was always
at least one person in the pillory, so the villagers of Bruyere,
inured to strong entertainments, were unlikely to be much
moved by the arrival of a troupe of players.

At this LeMerle shrugged philosophically. There were
good days and bad, he said, and these small villages
were unused to culture. Epinal would be better.

We arrived there on the morning of the Festival of the
Virgin to find the town in carnival mood. We had expected
as much; after the procession and the Mass the populace
would retire to the alehouses and the streets where already
the celebrations were under way. This was no time for one
of LeMerle's satires - Epinal had a reputation for piety - but
there might be good takings for a rope-dancer and a troupe
of jongleurs. I could already see a tabor-player and a flautist


70
JULIETTE


beneath the portals of the church, plus a masked Fool with
his wand and bells and, strangely out of place, the Plague
Doctor, black long-nosed mask over whitened face, his dark
cloak flapping. Other than that slight note of discord,
things seemed much as normal. Perhaps there was another
troupe in town, 1 told myself, with which we might have to
share the takings. I know I thought no more about them.
And yet 1 should have recognized the signs. The black
Doctor in his crow's garb. The sounds of excitement almost
of fear - as we passed. The look in a woman's eye as I
smiled at her from my caravan, the sly fork of the hand
repeated over and over . . .

LeMerle scented trouble from the first. I should have
known - there was a reckless gleam in his eyes as he
scanned the crowd, a broadness to his smile which should
have checked me. It was our custom at times like this to
send out the dwarves amongst the revellers, giving out
sweetmeats and invitations to the performance, but this day
he signalled for the dwarves to keep close, Le Borgne
occasionally spitting fire from the tail of my caravan like a
comet, Gateau calling out in his piping voice: 'Players! See
the players today! See the Winged Woman!'

Today, however, I could see that the crowd's attention
lay elsewhere. The procession of the Holy Mother was about
to begin, and there was already a great glut of people outside
the church. People lined the street on either side, some
carrying images and flowers, votives or flags. There were
vendors, too: sellers of pasties and cooked meats and ale
and fruit. The air was thick with the smells of candle smoke


71
HOLY FOOLS


and sweat, roasting meat, dust and incense, leather and
onions and refuse and horses. The noise was almost unendurable.
Cripples and children stood near the front, but
already there were too many people, and the crowd pressed
against the sides of our caravans, some looking up curiously
at the painted signs and bright pennants, others shouting at
us for being in their way.

I was already beginning to feel dazed; the cries of the
vendors, the heat of the sun, the many stenches were too
much for me, and I tried to turn back into some quieter
street, but it was too late. Urged forward by the mass
of worshippers, our caravans had reached the steps of
the church almost at the same time as the Virgin's Day
procession was due to leave. Unable to retreat or go forward
1 watched, curious, as the great platform carrying the Holy
Mother emerged from the main door of the church and into
the light.

There must have been fifty people underneath. Another
fifty along the sides, shoulders straining against the long
poles that supported it. It was heavy, and swayed as it came
through the doorway; and at every slow step there came a
sigh from the hooded bearers, as if the burden were almost
too much to carry. The Holy Mother stood at the top
of the structure on a mound of blue and white flowers,
her embroidered robe gleaming in the sunlight, her hands
smeared with oil and honey. A priest with a censer walked
before her; a dozen monks with candlesticks came behind,
singing the Ave to the wailing of an hautbois.

I had little time to follow the music, however. As soon as


72
JULIETTE


the procession appeared, there was a moan from the people
and we were jostled suddenly, violently, as the worshippers
surged forward. 'Misericorde!' came the cry from a thousand
throats, and the stench of oil and flesh and grime was
overwhelming, mingling with the smoke from the silver
censer, a scent of clove and holy dust. 'Pity! Pity for our
sins!'

I stood upon the axle of my caravan and peered across the
heads of the crowd. I was beginning to feel uneasy, for
although I had seen religious frenzy before, this seemed
unusually ferocious, the shrill note of zeal sharpened on
something shriller, closer to the bone. Not for the first time,
and with an almost unconscious cupping of the new roundness
at my belly, I wondered whether it was not time to
leave the life we were leading before it soured completely. I
was in my twenty-third year. I was no longer young.

The black Doctor flapped his cloak, keeping a blister of
space between himself and the crowd, a walking emptiness,
and I noticed that the cries came louder at his passage and
that some fell to their knees in his wake.

'Misericorde! Pity for our sins!' We were too close to the
procession to hope for a retreat and I steered my horse with
care, keeping him dancing gingerly on the spot against the
push of people that threatened to overturn us. The Holy
Mother passed slowly, lurching like a laden barge through
the crowd. I saw that many of the people carrying the
platform went barefoot, like penitents, although this was
not usual on the Virgin's Day. The monks were hooded like
the bearers, but I noticed that one had pushed back his


7.3
HOLY FOOLS


hood a little, and his face was red and flushed with drunkenness
or exhaustion.

We stood our ground. The platform swayed as it passed
us, and for a moment, standing on my axle, I was eye to eye
with the Virgin, close enough to see the dust of years
gleaming in the intricacies of her golden crown, the flaking
of paint across her pink cheek. There was a spider in the
hollow of one blue eye, and as I watched, it began to move
slowly down her face. No one else saw it. Then she passed
by.

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. 'Misericorde! Pity for our sins!'

A woman to my left arched backwards 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 1 had cleared. There came
a sudden lull in sound, reducing the cries to a drone above


74
JULIETTE


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 afterwards
that four people had been crushed underfoot during the
celebrations, their heads smashed into the cobbles by the
eager feet of pilgrims and revellers 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
towards the procession they were pushing away with all
their energies, the caravans rocking in the renewed counter
struggle, 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


75
HOLY FOOLS


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 onwards. But the crowd had him
from both sides, rocking against the caravan's panels, lifting
the wheels from the ground. Faces loomed 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


76
JULIETTE


screamed; 1 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.1 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 forwards, 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. Blows fell


77
HOLY FOOLS


onto him as he was dragged away. LeMerle was lost from
sight.

I would have followed on foot, although he was already
too far away, except that Le Borgiie, who had been hiding
inside the caravan as I drove through the crowd, held onto
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 dwarfs 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 favourite 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.


78
10

V


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 towards 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 whilst ensuring the
Holy Mother did not fall. I saw several bodies on the road,
worshippers who had been crushed against buildings or


79
HOLY FOOLS


trampled underfoot. LeMerle's caravan was lying there on
its side. Of its occupant, living or dead, there was no sign.

'Mon pere.' I addressed the priest as calmly as 1 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 humourless laugh. 'Where d'you
think? The courthouse. 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.

'Misericorde! God protect me!'

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


80
JULIETTE


But the Plague Doctor's hand was already on my
shoulder, and I could hear his voice in my ear, muffled hy
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 Remy 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 1 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, alchemical 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, travellers 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; 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


81
HOLY FOOLS


the sick, but in Epinal this was only the last in a series of
disasters. Dry cattle, spoiled harvest, rotten fruit, rabid dogs,
unseasonal weather -- and now this. Someone had to be
held responsible. It didn't matter that it made no sense;
plague takes over 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 1 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 towards
the courthouse.

It was already overflowing when I arrived. People were
spilling out of the doors and down the steps, scrambling
over 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


82
JULIETTE


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 a reasonable argument. At
least, I hoped so.

'Good people!' The Sergeant raised his staff and signalled
for quiet. 'In God's name let me speak!' He was a short,
plump man with a luxuriant moustache and a mournful
look. He looked to me like every other vine-grower or corn
merchant 1 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 Epinal, 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?'


83
HOLY FOOLS


Again the Sergeant appealed for calm. "I can't make the
decision!' His voice trembled like his hands. 'Only Judge
Remy can do that!'

The name of Judge Remy 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. 1 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, of a player about to begin the
performance of his life.

'Judge Remy.' 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 Remy?'

'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?'


84
JULIETTE


The Sergeant explained that the Judge was away on
business, hut was due hack 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 Epinal,' 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
Remy, 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. At the back of the room, blows were exchanged by
several parties, each of which held the other responsible for


85
HOLY FOOLS


the outburst. 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 each other 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 neighbour. 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 youl' Now he pointed to the centre of the room, clearing a
swathe 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


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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 towards 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, Prater
Colombin!'

'God forgive us!' All around the courtroom, faces turned
in wonder and disgust as people finally saw the creature that
had voiced their suspicions.

'A monster!'

The Devil's Imp!'

The one-eyed creature spat fire from its hideous mouth.
'This isn't over, Colombin!' it shrieked. 'You may have won
the battle here, but in Another Place, the war goes on!'

Then the thing was gone, leaping out of the window into
the courtyard below, leaving nothing but a reek of oil and
smoke to prove that it had been there at all.

In the stunned silence that followed, the Sergeant turned
open-mouthed towards his prisoner. 'Good God, I saw it!
With my own eyes, so help me! The Devil's Imp!'

LeMerle shrugged.

'But he knew you,' said the Sergeant. 'He spoke as if
you'd met before.'

'Many times,' said LeMerle.

The Sergeant stared at him. 'Suppose you tell me who
you are, sir,' he said at last.

'I will,' said LeMerle, beginning to smile. 'But first, I'd be


87
HOLY FOOLS


grateful if someone could find me a chair. A chair, and a
glass of brandy. I'm tired and I've come a long way.'


HE WAS A TRAVELLER, HE TOLD THEM, WHO HAD COME TO

Epinal when he heard of the reputation of their evangelical
Judge. News of his purges, said LeMerle, had reached
from coast to coast. He himself had left the seclusion of
a Cistercian cloister to seek the man out and to offer
his services. He spoke of visions and portents, of marvels
and blasphemies encountered upon his travels. Revealed
the horrors of the sabbat, of the Jews and idolaters, the
slaughtered children, poisoned wells, cursed crops, blighted
harvests, churches struck by lightning, babies withered in
the womb, stifled in the cradle. All this he had seen, he
claimed. Would any man deny it?

No one did. They had seen the Devil's Imp with their
own eyes. From its mouth they had heard his true name.
In a few sentences LeMerle wove for them the tale of
Brother Colombin, a man touched by God and driven to
wipe out the Devil's children wherever he could find them.
Travelling alone and in poverty from town to town he
uncovered the Evil One's machinations wherever he passed,
his only reward that of Satan's defeat. Not so strange, then,
that he should have been taken for a gypsy, travelling as he
was with a group of itinerant players, brief companions of
the road. Seeing the people of Epinal in disarray the Imp
had sought to trick them but had failed, praise the Lord,
revealing its malice to its own undoing.

I had, of course, recognized Le Borgne. Throwing his


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JULIETTE


voice was another of the dwarfs many skills, and he had
used it to good effect on a number of occasions. He must
have crept into the courtroom before me - like many of his
kind, he could be unobtrusive when he chose - providing
LeMerle with a secret ally in the crowd. It is a trick often
used by conjurers and carnival magicians; we had used it
ourselves in our performances. Le Borgne was a fine actor; a
pity that his short-ended legs made it impossible for him
ever to perform anything but burlesques and tumbling acts. I
promised myself to be kinder to him in future. He had a
loyal heart, in spite of his gruff manner, and in this case, his
courage and quick thinking had probably saved LeMerle's
life.

Meanwhile, it seemed that once again LeMerle might
be overwhelmed by the numbers of people wanting to
touch him. Far from howling after his blood, however, it
seemed that all were now desperate for his forgiveness.
Hands reached out from every direction, plucking at his
clothes, brushing his skin - I saw a man shake hands with
him, and suddenly everyone in the room wanted to shake
the hand of the one who had touched the holy man. Of
course, LeMerle was enjoying every minute.

'Bless you, my brother. My sister.' Gradually, almost
imperceptibly, I heard his register shift from pulpit to
marketplace. The reckless light danced in his eyes.
God help them, perhaps they took it for piety. And then,
perhaps out of mischief, perhaps because the Blackbird
could never resist a wager, he took it further.

'It's a good thing for you that I did come to Epinal,' he


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HOLY FOOLS


told them slyly. 'The air is thick with evil spirits here, the
sky leaden with sin. If the plague has come upon you, ask
yourselves the reason. You must know that the pure in heart
are safe from the manifestations of the Evil One.'

There came uneasy murmurings from the audience.

'Ask yourselves how I manage to travel without fear,'
he continued. 'Ask yourselves how a simple cleric could
withstand hell's assault so surely for so many years.' His
voice, though carrying, was persuasively soft. 'Years ago, a
holy man, my tutor, devised a philtre against all forms
of demonic aggression: evil visions, succubi and incubi,
diseases and poisons of the mind. A distillate of twenty-four
different herbs, salt and holy water, the whole to be blest by
twelve bishops and used in infinitesimal quantities . . .'
There was a pause as he studied the dramatic effect of his
words. 'For the past ten years, this elixir has kept me from
harm,' he went on. 'And I know of no place where it is
more needed than in the town of Epinal today.'

I should have known LeMerle would'not stop there. Why
did he do these things? I asked myself. Was it revenge,
contempt for their credulousness, the sheer glory of his
adopted sainthood? Was it the chance to make a profit? Or
was it just to win the game? I frowned at him from my place
at the back of the courtroom, but he was in full voice now,
and there was no stopping him. He saw my warning look,
though, and grinned.
There was one problem, however, he told the crowd.
Although he would willingly have given them the philtre at
no cost, he had only one flask with him. He could make


90
JULIETTE


more, hut the herbs were rare and difficult to come by, and
besides, the twelve bishops made such a thing impossible to
prepare at short notice. As a result, though it hurt him
to ask, he would be obliged to take a modest sum from each
person. Then, perhaps, if each of the good townspeople
were to provide a small bottle of plain water or wine,
then with an eyedropper he might create a more dilute
mixture . . .

The takers were many. They lined the street until after
sunset with their bottles and vials and LeMerle greeted
everyone with solemn courtesy as he measured out the drops
of clear fluid with a glass rod. They paid in coin and
in goods. A fat duck, a bottle of wine, a handful of coins.
Some drank the mixture straightaway, for fear of the plague.
Many came back for more, having noticed an immediate,
miraculous improvement in their health, although LeMerle
generously made them wait until all the townsfolk had had
their share before charging them a second time.

I could not bear to watch him preen any longer. Instead, I
sought out the others, and helped them set up camp. I was
angry to find that our caravans had been looted during the
day and our torn and muddied belongings strewn across
the marketplace, but told myself that it could have been
much worse. I had few valuables in any case, the most
serious loss to me being that of my casket of herbs and
medicines; the only possessions I truly prized - the Tarot
cards made for me by Giordano and the few books he left
me when we separated in Flanders - I retrieved unscathed
from an alleyway into which they had been thrown by


91
HOLY FOOLS


looters with no idea of their use. Besides, I told myself,
what were a few torn costumes against the wealth we had
collected that afternoon? LeMerle must have made enough
to buy back our finery ten times over. Perhaps this time, I
thought wistfully, my share might he enough for me to buy a
piece of land on which to build a cottage . . .

The small roundness at my belly felt very small to be
leading my thoughts in this direction, but I knew that in six
months' time 1'Ailee would be earthbound for good, and
something told me that perhaps I ought to make my bargain
with LeMerle now, while I still could. I admired him loved
him still - but trusted him, never. He knew nothing
of my secret, and he would not have hesitated to exploit the
knowledge if he had.

And yet it was difficult to think of leaving him. I had
considered it many times - I had even packed my bags once
or twice - but until now there had always been something
to give me pause. The adventure, perhaps. The perpetual
adventure. I had loved my years with LeMerle; I loved being
1'Ailee; I loved our plays and satires and flights of fancy. But
now I sensed, more urgently than ever, that it was coming
to an end. The child inside me already seemed to have a
will of her own, and I knew that this was no life for her.
LeMerle had never stopped chasing his tigers, and I knew
that one day his audacity would drag us into some final
game that would blow up in his face like one of Giordano's
powders. It had almost happened at Epinal; only luck had
saved us. How much longer would his luck hold out?

It was late when LeMerle finally packed up his baggage to


92
JULIETTE


leave. He declined the offer of a room at the inn, claiming
to prefer simpler accommodation. A clearing just out of
town served for our camp, and exhausted, we prepared for
the night. I touched the small roundness at my belly for one
last time as I curled onto my horsehair mattress. Tomorrow, 1 promised silently.

I'd leave him tomorrow.


NO ONE HEARD HIM GO. PERHAPS HE MUFFLED HIS HORSES'

hooves with rags, winding strips of cloth around his harness
and wheels. Perhaps the dawn mist helped him, deadening
the sound of his escape. Perhaps I was simply too tired, too
absorbed in myself and my unborn child to care this time
whether he stayed or left. Until that night there had always
been a link between us, stronger than the infatuation I had
once felt, or the nights we had been lovers. I thought I
knew him. I knew his whims and his games and his random
cruelties. There was nothing he could do that would surprise
or shock me.

When I realized my mistake, it was already too late. The
bird had flown, our trickery had been discovered, Le Borgne
was lying under his caravan with a slit throat, and the
soldiers of the new Inquisition were waiting for us in
the false dawn with crossbows and swords, chains and rope.
There was one thing we had all failed to take into account
in our planning, one small thing, which made all of our
winnings suddenly void.

During the night, Judge Remy had come home.


9 3
11


V


July 17th, 1610


I HAVE LITTLE RECOLLECTION OF THAT DAY. ANY RECOLLECtion
would be too much, but it comes to me sometimes in
still pictures, like a lantern show. The guards' hands as they
dragged us from our beds. The discovery of Le Borgne, his
face an open wound. Our clothes falling to the ground as
they were cut from our bodies. More than anything else,
I remember the sounds: the horses, the chink of metal
harnesses, the cries of confusion, the shouted orders as we
stumbled stupidly from sleep.

It took me too long to understand what had happened. If
I had been more alert I might have escaped under cover
of dark and the general chaos - Bouffon, especially, fought
like a demon, and some of the guards had to leave us to
attend to him - but I was still dazed, expecting LeMerle
to appear at any moment with some plan for our release,


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JULIETTE


and a moment later, the opportunity was lost.

He had abandoned us. He had saved himself, sensing
perhaps the approach of danger and knowing that if we all
fled together he would be more likely to be caught. Le
Borgne, who might have revealed the trickery, was too
dangerous to be left alive. They found the little man under
his rig, his throat slit, his features deliberately mutilated.
The rest of us - women, gypsies, dwarves, all easily replaceable
- he flung to his pursuers like a handful of coins. What
it came to, I told myself, was that LeMerle had sold us.
Again.

But by the time I realized his betrayal it was too late. We
were chained in a row with our wrists shackled, mounted
guards watching over us on either side. Hermine was
weeping noisily, her hair over her face. I walked behind her
with my head held high. Bouffon limped along painfully
at the back. The guard at my side - a fat swine of a man
with mean eyes and a rosebud mouth - muttered a lewd
comment, and put out his hand to brush my face. I looked
at him in contempt. My eyes felt hot and dry as baking
stones.

'Touch me once, even with the shadow of your little
finger,' I told him softly, 'and I'll see to it your prick falls
off. I know how to do it - a very little cantrip should be
enough . . .'

The man bared his teeth. 'You'll get yours, bitch,' he
mumbled. 'I can wait.'

'I'm sure you can, pig. But remember that cantrip.'

Foolish to threaten him, I know. But my rage was


95

HOLY FOOLS


blistering me from within. I had to say something or I would
explode.

The thought went round and round my mind, dogged and
stupid as a mule around a well-wheel, slowly building as it
went. How could he do that to me? To me? To Hermine,
perhaps. To Bouffon and Becquot. To the dwarves. But me?
Why didn't he take me?

And it was this discovery about myself - the knowledge
that if he had asked me to go with him I might have
accepted - which fixed my hatred, then and for ever. I had
assumed I was better than this, better than the others with their weaknesses and their petty deceits. But LeMerle had
held a mirror to my soul. Now I too was capable of betrayal.
Of cowardice. Of murder. In my heart I saw it as I nursed
my rage and dreamed of his blood. It rocked me as I slept. It
clothed me as I walked.

The roundhouse cells were full, and they locked us in the
cellars below the courthouse. It was cold, with a floor of
trodden earth, the walls frosted with salty residue. I knew
that mixed with a little sulphur and charcoal this white
powder would make a satisfying explosion - but in this
state, it was useless. There was no window, no way out but
the locked door. I sat down on the damp floor and considered
my position.

We were guilty. No one would dispute it. Judge Remy
could take his pick of the charges - God knows, LeMerle
had given him enough to choose from. Theft, poisoning,
impersonation, heresy, vagrancy, witchcraft, murder - any
one of these deserved death according to the law. Someone




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JULIETTE


e[se _ a person of faith -- might have found comfort in
prayer, but 1 did not know how to pray. There is no God for
the likes of us, Le Borgne used to say, for we were not made
in His image. We are the holy fools, the half-made ones, the
ones who came out hroken from the kiln. How could we
pray? And even it we could, what would we say to Him?

And so I set my back against the stone and my feet
on the baked-earth floor, and I stayed there as the dawn
approached, cradling the new life in my belly with both
hands and listening to the sounds of sobbing from the other
side of the wall.

Something woke me abruptly from my daze. The darkness
was complete, but there was no mistaking the sound of a
bolt being drawn, nor the stealthy approach of footsteps
down the cellar steps. I struggled to my feet, keeping my
back against the wall.

'Who's there?' I whispered.

Now I could hear the slow intake of a man's breath as he
moved towards me, the sound of a robe brushing against the
wall. I raised my fist in the darkness, my body trembling but
my hand steady. I waited for him to come within range.

'Juliette?'

I froze. 'Who are you? How did you know my name?'

'Juliette, please. We don't have time.'

I lowered my fist gently to my side. I knew who it was; it
was the Plague Doctor who had tried to warn me, whose
voice had seemed so strikingly familiar. And I knew that
smell, too, that dry alchemical smell. In the dark, my eyes
widened.


97
HOLY FOOLS


'Giordano?'

There came an impatient hiss in the darkness. 'I said
there isn't time, girl. Take this.' Something soft was flung
across the cell towards me. A garment. It was a robe of some
kind and smelt musty, but it was enough to cover my
nakedness. Wondering, I pulled it over my head.

'Good. Now follow me, and quickly. You haven't got
long.'

The trapdoor at the top of the steps was open. The
Plague Doctor went through first, and helped me follow
him. The light in the passageway seemed blinding to one so
long accustomed to darkness, but came only from a single
sconce. Still dazed, I turned towards my old friend and saw
nothing but the long-nosed mask and black robe.

'Giordano/' I said again, putting out my hand to touch
the papier-mache vizard.

The Plague Doctor shook his head. 'Must you always be
asking questions? I put a purgative in the guard's soup. He's
been rushing to the latrine every ten" minutes. And this
time he left his key.' He made as if to push me towards the
courthouse door.

'What about my friends/' I protested.

'There's no time. If you escape alone, we both have a
chance. Now will you go/'

I hesitated. In that moment I seemed to hear LeMerle's
voice from behind the black mask, and my own whispering
its ugly, foolish reply. Take me. Leave the others. But take me.

Not again, I told myself fiercely. If LeMerle had asked
me, perhaps I might have gone. But if is a small, uncertain


98
JULIETTE


word on which to build a future. I felt my unborn child
move inside me and 1 knew that if I followed my cowardice
now LeMerle would always be there to taint my joy in
her.

'Not without my friends,' I said.

The old man looked at me. 'Stubborn,' he hissed, as he
fumbled with the locks. 'Stubborn hussy that you always
were. Perhaps they're right, and you really are a witch.
There must be some dybbuk inside that red head of yours.
You'll be the undoing of us both.'

The dawn smelt of freedom. We drank it in furtively as
we fled, each in a different direction. I would have stayed
with the others but Giordano forbade it so furiously that I
obeyed. Through the streets of Epinal we fled, hiding in the
shadows, picking our way through back alleys knee-high
in refuse. I was in a half-dream, every sense accentuated
beyond comprehension so that our flight seemed touched
with a feverish unreality. Slices of memory: faces at an inn,
gaping in soundless song in the light of a red lantern; the
moon riding over a bank of cloud, an edge of forest black
beneath; boots, a packet of food, a coat hidden beneath a
bush in readiness, a mule tethered close by.

'Take it. It's mine. No one will report it stolen.' He was
still wearing his mask, but I knew him by his voice. A burst
of affection for him almost overwhelmed me. 'Giordano.
After all these years. I thought you were dead.'

He made a dry sound that might have been laughter. 'I
don't die easily,' he said. 'Now will you be gone?'

'Not yet,' I said. I was trembling now, half in fear, half in


99
HOLY FOOLS


excitement. "I looked for you for so long, Giordano. What
happened to the troupe? To Janette and Gahriel, to--'

'There isn't time. I could talk to you all night and still
you'd be asking questions.'

'One question, then,' I said, gripping his arm. 'Just one,
and I'll go.'

He nodded heavily. In his mask he looked like a big, sad
carrion bird. 'I know,' he said at last. 'Isabelle.'

I knew at that moment that my mother was dead. All
those years I'd kept her untouched, like a locket worn close
to my heart: her proud figure, her smile, her songs and
cantrips. But she'd died in Flanders, meaninglessly, of the
plague; now all that I had of her was fragments and dreams.

'Were you there?' I said in a broken voice.

'What do you think?' said Giordano.

Love not often, but for ever -- it might have been my
mother speaking, very quietly, behind the rasp of his breathing.
I knew now why he had followed me, why he had risked
his life for me and now could not bear to look at my face or
reveal his own behind the Plague Doctor's mask.

'Take it off,' 1 told him. "I want to see you before 1 go.'

He looked old in the moonlight, his eyes sunk so far into
his face that it looked like a different mask, eyeless still and
more tragic in its attempt to smile. Moisture leaked from
the holes and into the deep channels at either side of his
mouth. I tried to put my arms around him, but he pulled
away abruptly. He had always disliked physical contact.

'Goodbye, Juliette. Get away as quickly as you can.' His
voice was that of the old Giordano, crisp and sour and


100
JULIETTE


clever. 'For your safety and theirs, don't seek out the others.
Sell the mule when you have to. Travel at night.'

I hugged him anyway, though he was stiff and unresponsive
in my arms, and kissed his old brow. From his
clothes I caught a familiar scent of spice and sulphur, the
smell of his alchemical experiments, and I was engulfed in
sorrow. In my arms I felt a tremor go through him, almost
like a sob but deeper, from the bone, then he pulled away
with a kind of anger.

'Every moment you lose is a wasted chance,' he said in a
voice that shook a little. 'Be off with you, Juliette.' In his
mouth my name sounded like a dry caress.

'What will you do?' I protested. 'What about you?'

He gave a tiny smile, and shook his head as he had always
done when I said something he considered particularly
unintelligent. 'I've compromised my soul enough for you,
girl,' he said. 'In case you'd forgotten, recall that I don't
travel on the Sabbath.'

Then he lifted me onto the mule's back and slapped the
creature's flanks so that it leaped forward onto the forest
path, its hooves tapping smartly on the dry earth. 1 still
remember his face in the moonlight, his whispered farewell
as the mule trotted down the path, the scent of earth and
ashes in my nostrils and his voice as it pursued me with his Shalom, with the voice of my thirteenth year like that of my
essential conscience pursuing me sourly, like the voice of
God on the mountain.

I never saw him again. From Epinal I travelled across
Lorraine towards Paris, then back towards the coast as my


101
HOLY FOOLS


belly increased. I foraged for food when Giordano's supplies
gave out, and sold the mule on his advice. In the mule's
saddlebags 1 found such things as my old mentor had
salvaged from my caravan - a little money, some books,
the jewellery discarded amongst my costumes, paste
indistinguishable from real. I dyed my hair to avoid detection.
I listened attentively to the reports from Lorraine. But
still there was no news, no names, no rumours of burnings.
And yet a part of me is waiting still, five years later, as
if time has been suspended since then, a quiet interval
between two acts, a conflict unresolved which must one
day, inevitably, end in blood.

My dreams show me his face again and again. His woodland
eyes. Our passion play continues there, the stage empty
but not abandoned, waiting for the players to resume their
roles, my mouth opening to speak lines I thought I had long
since forgotten.

One more dance, he tells me as I twist and turn on my
narrow bed. You were always my favourite.


I AWAKE IN SWEAT, CERTAIN THIS TIME THAT FLEUR IS DEAD.

Even when I have checked a dozen times I dare not turn
over but stay listening to the soft sound of her breathing.
The dorter seems filled with unquiet murmurings. My jaw is
a vice clenched around my fear. Release it and my scream
will last for ever.


102
12 V

July 18th, 1610


IT WAS ALFONSINE WHO SAW THEM FIRST. IT WAS ALMOST

twelve o'clock, and they had to wait for the tide. Ours is not a true island; at low tide a broad pathway to the mainland is
revealed, painstakingly cobbled to allow for safe passage
across the flats. At least it appears safe, but there are
currents across the bland surface strong enough to drag the
cobbles free, sunk as they are in four feet of mortar. On both
sides there is quicksand. And when the tide comes in, it
sweeps the flats with terrible speed, spilling across the
road and taking with it what it finds. And yet they moved
with slow, relentless dignity across the sands, their progress
mirrored in the shallows, the distant figures distorted in the
rising column of hot air from the road.

She guessed who they were immediately. The carriage
limped across the uneven causeway, the horses' hooves


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HOLY FOOLS


struggling for purchase against the green cobbles. Before it
came a pair of liveried outriders. Behind it, a single man on
foot.

I had spent the morning alone on the far side of the
island. Waking early and unrefreshed, I left the abbey and
took Fleur for a long walk, basket in hand, to pick the tiny
dune pinks which, when infused and distilled, give peaceful
sleep. I recalled a place where thousands of them grew
undisturbed, but I was too restless for such work and I
picked only a handful. In any case, the flowers were just
another excuse to escape the cloister for a few hours.

As it was, we lost track of time. Beyond the dunes is a
little beach of sand, where Fleur likes to play. There are
broad white scars on the dune where she and I have worn
away the grass, climbing and jumping, climbing and jumping,
and the water is clear and shallow and filled with small
jewelled pebbles.

'Can I swim today? Can I?'

'Why not?'

She swims like a dog, with shouting and splashing and
great enjoyment. Mouche, her doll, watched us from the
dunes' edge as I discarded my habit and joined Fleur in
the water. Then I dried both of us with the skirt of my
habit, and picked some small, hard apples from a tree by the
side of the road, for I realized that the sun was high and we
had missed lunch. Then, at Fleur's insistence, we dug a great
hole, into which we flung pieces of seaweed to make a
monster pit, and afterwards she slept for half an hour in the
shade, Mouche under her arm, while I watched over her


1 04
JULIETTE


from the duneside path and listened to the whisperings of
the turning tide.

It was going to be a dry summer, I thought. Without rain,
harvests would be bad; forage meagre. The early blackberries
were already burnt to a grey fluff on the stems. The vines,
too, were stunted by drought, the grapes hard as dried peas. I
pitied those who, like Lazarillo's players, travelled the road
in the wake of such a summer.

The road. I saw it in my mind's eye, gilded with sunlight,
strewn with the shards of my past. Was it really such a bad
road? Had I suffered so much during those travelling years? I
knew I had. We had endured cold and hunger, betrayal and
persecution. I tried to recall those things, but still the road
ahead of me gleamed like a path over quicksand, and I
found myself remembering something LeMerle had once
told me, in the days when we were friends.

'We have a natural affinity, you and I,' he had said. 'Like
air and fire, combustion is our nature. You can't change the
element you are born to. That's why we'll never leave
the road, my 1'Ailee; any more than fire can choose not to
burn, or a bird leave the sky.'

But I had. I had left the sky, and for many years I had
barely even raised my eyes to it. I had not forgotten,
however. The road had always been there, patiently awaiting
my return. And how I wanted it! What might I give to
be free, to have a woman's name once more, a woman's life?
To see the stars from a different place every night, to eat
meat cooked over my own campfire, to dance - maybe to
fly? I did not need to answer the unspoken question. Joy


105
HOLY FOOLS


leaped in me at the thought, and for a moment I might
almost have been the old Juliette once more, the one who
walked to Paris.

But it was ridiculous. Leave my life, my comfortable
cloister, the friends who had given me refuge? The abbey
was hardly the home I had longed for, but it provided the
essentials. Food in winter, shelter, work for my idle hands.
And leave it for what? For a few dreams? For a hand of
cards?

The path, half-sand beneath my heavy boots, dragged at
my feet. I kicked at it angrily. The explanation was simple, I
told myself. Simple and rather stupidly obvious. The hot
weather, the sleepless nights, the dreams of LeMerle ... I
needed a man. That was all. L'Ailee had had a different
lover every night, choosing as she would -- smooth or rough,
dark or fair - and her dreams were scented and textured
with their bodies. Juliette, too, was a sensual creature:
Giordano scolded her for bathing naked in the rivers, for
rolling in the morning grass and for the secret hours she
spent with his Latin poets, struggling with the unfamiliar
syntax for the sake of the occasional taut glimpse of Roman
buttock . . . Either of them would have known how to dispel
this malaise. But 1 - Soeur Auguste, a man's name and an
old man, at that - what do I have? Since Fleur there have
been no more men. I might have turned to women for
comfort, like Germaine and Clemente, but those pleasures
never appealed to me.

Germaine, whose husband cut her face with a kitchen
knife fifteen times - once for every year of her life - when


106
JULIETTE


he found her with another girl, hates all men. I've seen
her watching me. I know she finds me beautiful. Not
like Clemente, of the Madonna face and filthy mind, but
enough to please her. She sometimes watches me at work in
the garden, but never says a word. Her light hair is cropped
shorter than a boy's, and beneath the ungainly brown robes
I can guess at a slim, graceful figure. Once, Germaine would
have made a fine dancer. But something else is spoiled
besides her face. Six years after the incident she looks older
than I, her mouth pale and thin, her eyes almost colourless,
like brine. She tells me she joined the convent so that she
would never have to look at a man again. But she is like the
sour apples and the dried-pea grapes, yearning to flourish
but starved of rain.

Lovely, spiteful Clemente sees it and makes her suffer,
flirting with me as I go about my duties. In chapel she
sometimes whispers words of seduction, offering herself to
me as behind her Germaine listens helplessly, stolid in her
suffering, her scarred face impassive.

Germaine has no faith, no interest in religion of any
kind. I spoke to her once about my female God - I thought
it might appeal to her, hating men as she did - but she
seemed as indifferent to that as she was to the rest. 'If such a
thing ever was,' she told me dryly, 'then men have remade
her. Why else should they want to lock us up and to make
us ashamed? Why else should they be so afraid?'

I said that men had no reason to be afraid of us, and she
gave another sharp laugh. 'Oh no?' She put her fingers to
her face. 'Then why this1.'


107
HOLY FOOLS


Perhaps she is right. And yet I don't hate men. Only one,
and even he ... 1 dreamed of him again last night. So close
I could smell his sweat and his skin, smooth as my own. I
hate him, and yet in my dream he was tender. Even with his
face in shadow I would have known him anywhere, even
without the moonlight that gilded the scorched flower on
his arm.

The sound of birdsong awoke me. For an instant I was
there again, before Epinal, before Vitre, with the blackbirds
singing outside our caravan and my lover watching me with
all of summer in his mocking eyes . . .

For a moment only. A sly incubus crept into my heart as I
lay asleep. A ghost. There can be no part of me that still
wants him, I tell myself.

No part at all.


IT WAS LONG PAST NOON WHEN AT LAST WE RETURNED TO

the abbey. I had taken off my wimple, but even so my
hair was damp with sweat, my robe clammy against my
skin. Fleur trotted beside me, Mouche dangling from one
hand. There was no one in sight. Given the heat, this was
not unusual, for many of the sisters, in the absence of
authority, had taken to sleeping at that time, leaving what
rudimentary duties they still performed until after Nones
and the cooler evening. But when I saw the fresh horse
dung by the abbey gate and the tracks of carriage wheels in
the dust I was suddenly certain that what we had been
expecting for thirteen days had finally happened.

'Is it the players coming back?' asked Fleur hopefully.


108
JULIETTE


'No, sweetheart, I don't think so.'

'Oh.'

I smiled at her expression, and gave her a kiss. 'Play here
for a while,' 1 said. 'I have to go inside.'

1 watched her as she ran duck-footed along the path, then
I turned towards the abbey, feeling as if a great weight had
been taken from me. At last, then, this uneasy, unsettled
time had come to an end. We had a new Abbess, a guiding
hand for us in our aimlessness and fear. I could picture her
already. She would be calm and strong, though no longer in
the first blush of youth. Her smile would be grave and
tranquil, but with the touch of humour necessary to lead so
many disaffected women towards peace. She would be kind
and honest, a good mainland woman, unafraid of hard work,
her brown hands calloused but deft and gentle. She would
enjoy music and gardening. She would be hardheaded;
experienced enough in the world's ways to help us fend for
ourselves and yet not too ambitious, not embittered by her
knowledge but still able to face the world with simple joy,
simple wisdom.

Looking back in amazement at my own simplicity I
realize my fanciful picture owed a great deal to memories of
my mother, Isabelle. Her remembered face has altered a
little since I last saw her, I know. Only the eye of love could
recall her as I do, so sweet and so strong, her beauty
crystallizing in my mind so that she is far lovelier than
Clemente or the Holy Mother herself, though I cannot
quite remember the colour of her eyes, or the contours of
her strong brown face. I put my mother's head onto the


1 09

HOLY FOOLS


shoulders of our new Abbess before I even set eyes on her,
and the relief I felt was like that of a child left too long in
charge of a task too great for her, who, at last, sees her
mother coming home. I began to run towards the strangely
quiet building, my hair flying and my robes pulled up
around my knees.

The cloister was dark and cool. I called out as I entered,
but there was no reply. The gatehouse was unoccupied; the
abbey seemed deserted. I ran down the broad, sunny slype
between the dorters, but saw no one. I passed the refectory,
the kitchens, the empty chapterhouse, making my way
towards the church. Sext would be long past, I told myself.
Perhaps the new Abbess had called a meeting.

As I approached the chapel I heard voices and chanting.
Suddenly wary, I pushed open the door. All the sisters
were present. I could see Perette; Alfonsine with her thin
hands clasped at her chin; fat Antoine with her moony face
and weak, excited eyes; stolid Germaine with Clemente at
her side. There was silence as 1 came in and I blinked,
disorientated by the dark and the reek of incense and the
faces reflected in the light of many candles.

Alfonsine was the first to move. 'Soeur Auguste,' she
exclaimed. 'Praise God, Soeur Auguste. We have a new--'
Her voice broke in what might have been excitement. I was
already looking beyond her, my eyes moving eagerly in
search of the wise, bright lady of my expectation. But beside
the altar I saw only a young girl of eleven or twelve, her
small, pallid face impassive beneath a neat white wimple,
her hand held out in a limp gesture of benediction. 'Soeur

110


I
JULIETTE


Auguste.' The voice was as small and cool as its owner, and
I was suddenly very aware of my hoydenish appearance, of
my flying curls, my glowing checks.

There Isahelle.' Alfonsine's voice quavered with self
importance. There Isabelle, the Reverend Mother.'

For a second, my surprise was such that I almost laughed
aloud. She could not be speaking of this child. The thought
was absurd - this child with my mother's name must be
some novice, some protegee of the new Abbess who must
even now be smiling at my mistake . . . Then our eyes met.
Hers were very light but without brilliance, as if all her
vision were turned inwards. Looking into her wan young
face I could see no gleam of humour, no pleasure, no joy.

'But she's so youngl' It was the wrong thing to say. I knew
it immediately and regretted it, but in my surprise I had
spoken my thought aloud. I saw the girl stiffen, her lips
half-open to reveal small, perfect teeth. 'Ma mere, I am
sorry.' Too late to unsay my words, I knelt to kiss the pale
outstretched hand. 'I spoke without thinking.'

I knew even as I felt the cool fingers beneath my lips that
my apology was not accepted. For a moment I saw myself
through her eyes: a sweating, redfaced island woman, hot
with the forbidden scents of summer.

'Your wimple.' Her coldness was catching, and 1 shivered.

"I - I lost it.' I faltered. 'I was in the fields. It was hot . . .'

But her attention was already elsewhere. Her pale
eyes moved slowly, incuriously across the faces turned in
expectation towards her. Alfonsine watched her with an
adoring expression. The silence was like ice.


11

HOLY FOOLS


'I was Angelique Saint-Herve Desiree Arnault,' she said
in a small, expressionless voice, which nevertheless penetrated
me to the bone. 'You may think me young for the
part God has chosen for me. But I am God's mouthpiece
here, and He will give me the strength I need.'

For an instant I felt sorry for her, so young and defenceless,
trying so hard to maintain her dignity. I tried to
imagine what her life must have been, reared in the oppressive
climate of the Court, surrounded by intrigue and
corruption. She was a thin little thing: their banquets and
sweetmeats, the guineafowl basted with lard, the pies, the pieces montees, the trays of peacocks' hearts and baked foies
gras and larks' tongues in aspic only serving to sharpen
her disgust of their excesses. A sickly child, not expected
to survive beyond her teens, drawn to the Church through
its ceremony, its dark fatalism, its intolerance. I tried to
imagine what it must be like for her, cloistered at twelve,
repeating as if by rote the pronouncements of her religious
tutors, closing the door on the world before she even understood
what it had to offer.

'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 amongst the sisters as her words
reached them. I caught sight of Antoine, her face slack with
puzzlement.

1 1 2


I
JULIETTE


'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 - amongst
some of you which I consider unbefitting to members of our
sisterhood. 1 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
towards 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 Mere 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.'

1 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

HOLY FOOLS


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,' 1 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 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
colouring her flat voice. 'Let me introduce Pere Colombin


I 14

I
JULIETTE


de Saint-Amand,' she said with a small gesture towards the
figure which 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 colours 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.


1 1 5
j
PART TWO


LEMERLE
j
1


A


July 18th, 1610


WHAT AN ENTRANCE, EH? 1 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 Ailee, 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


1 1 9

HOLY FOOLS	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	fl

appreciative audience -- a captive audience, if you'll pardon	2

the expression - before which I can really show the extent of	s

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? Epinal? 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 Ailee. 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


1 20
LEMERLE


rabble. He aimed for my heart, but I saw him coming and he
caught me in the shoulder, paralysing 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 Epinal, 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 travelling 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 before
you do. Who has the most to lose? And who is the most
HOLY FOOLS

I


convincing? Admit it, I once convinced you myself. My	]

papers are in order, you know. Their previous owner, a	It,

priest journeying by happy chance through the Lorraine,	3

was suddenly taken sick (to the stomach, as I recall) as he	«j

entered a forest at dusk. A mercifully quick end. I closed his	fi

eyes myself.

Oh, Juliette. Still so suspicious? I'll have you know that
I'm very fond of our little Angelique. 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 unrivalled skill with potatoes.

But I am forgetting my responsibilities. Ladies - or should
I say sisters, daughters, even, to set the fatherly tone?
Perhaps not. M} 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.'


122
LEMERLE


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 towards 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 Les Amours de I'Hermite was already in advance of
its time. Their eyes widen still further, 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 harboured


123
HOLY FOOLS


thoughts, which you believed secret, and revelled in your
hidden vices. But the Lord saw you.'

Pause. A soft murmur thrills through the assembly as
each enumerates her secret thoughts. '/ 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 neighbour, 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
skywards like those of a shy mare. Tics and twitches distress
your mouth. You plead silently with me, fingers clutching at
your flattened 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 some	thing
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,


1 24
LEMERLE


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 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.


1 25

2
V


Jufy 18th, !6IO


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


1 26

I


s

«

«

1
LEMERLE


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 defence against theft, and
in all the time 1 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 went 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, Clemente 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 pine cone onto a piece
of string and was dangling it in the air for the cat to jump
at.

Till 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?'


1 27
I

HOLY FOOLS

I
put my finger on my lips. 'Shh. It's a hiding game. Do	I
you think you can keep very quiet, very still, until I come	8

for you tonight?'	5

She frowned, eyes still on the cat. 'What about my	-a>

'3fl

dinner?'

Till 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 favour 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 was intending 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


1 28
LEMERLE


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 chickenhouse. 1
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.

'The poor little one! I was going to tell you but--' She
broke off, as if struggling to express several ideas at once. 'So
many changes! She came into my kitchen, Soeur Auguste -- I was making a confit for the winter stores, with goose fat
and wild mushrooms - and she looked at me in that terrible,
scornful way--'

'Who? Fleur?'

'No, no!' Antoine shook her head. There Isabelle. That
terrible little girl.'

I made an impatient gesture. 'Tell me later. I want my
daughter.'

'I was trying to tell you. She said it wasn't seemly for her


1 29
HOLY FOOLS

I


to be here. She said it would be a distraction from your	JI

duties. She sent her away.'	J

I stared at her in disbelief. 'Sent her where?'	3

She eyed me humbly. 'It wasn't my fault.'

Something in her voice told me she thought it was.

'You told them?' I grasped her sleeve. 'Antoine, did you
tell them Fleur was mine?'

'I couldn't help it,' whined the fat sister. 'They would
have found out sooner or later. Someone else would have
let it slip.'

In rage I pinched her arm through her habit so that she
almost screamed.

'Stop it! AnI Stop it, Auguste, you're hurting! It's not my
fault they sent her away! You should never have kept her
here in the first place!'

'Antoine. Look at me.' She rubbed her arm, refusing to
meet my eyes. 'Where did they send her? Was it to someone
in the village?' She shook her head helplessly and I fought
back the urge to strike at her. 'Please, Antoine. I'm just
worried, that's all. I'm not going to tell anyone you told me.'

'You ought to call me "ma soeur".' Antoine's face was
puffy with resentment. 'Anger's a sin, you know. It's that
hair of yours. You should cut it off.' She glanced at me with
unusual daring. 'Now the Reform's coming, you'll have to
anyway.'

'Please, Antoine. I'll give you the last bottle of my
lavender syrup.'

Her eyes brightened. 'And the candied rose petals?'

'If you like. Where's Fleur?'


I 30
LEMERLE


Antoine lowered her voice. 'I overheard Mere Isabelle
talking to the new confessor. Something about a fisherman's
wife, somewhere on the mainland. They're paying her,' she
added, as if I were to be held responsible for the expense.
But 1 was barely listening.

The mainland! Where?'

Antoine shrugged. 'That's all I heard.'


I STOOD DAZED, AS THE TRUTH OF IT SLOWLY SANK IN. IT

was too late. Before I had even dared raise my voice against
him, the Blackbird had outmanoeuvred me. He must have
known I would not run the risk of losing my daughter.
Without her, I was forced to stay.

For a moment I considered making the attempt anyway.
The trail was still warm, although by now I would have
missed the tide and would have to await the next day's
crossing. Everyone on the island knew Fleur; someone
must have seen where she had been taken. But my heart
knew it was useless. LeMerle would have anticipated that,
too.

My stomach clenched. I imagined Fleur confused, unhappy,
calling for me, thinking herself abandoned, taken
away without even a cantrip or a star blessing to protect her.
Who but I could keep her from harm? Who but I knew her
ways, understood that she needed a candle near her cot on
winter nights, knew to slice away the brown part of the
apple before cutting it into quarters?

'I never even said goodbye.' I spoke for myself, but
Antoine looked at me with returned sullenness.


1 31
HOLY FOOLS


'It isn't my fault,1 she repeated. 'None of us ever kept our
babies. Why should you be any different?'

I did not reply. I already knew whose fault it was. What
did he want? What could I possibly have that he still
wanted?

Returning to my cubicle I saw that the little cot had
already been removed. My own things seemed untouched,
my cache of books and papers behind the loose stone
undisturbed. I found Fleur's doll, Mouche, down the side of
my bed, half hidden by the trailing blanket. Perette made it
out of rags and scraps when Fleur was a baby, and it is her
favourite toy. Mouche's arms and legs have been stitched
back a hundred times, her hair is a bright tangle of multicoloured
wool, and her round face looks oddly like Perette's
with its shoe-button eyes and rosy cheeks. Like her creator,
too, Mouche is mute; where the mouth should be, there is
only a blank.

For a while I stood with the doll in my hands, too numb
to think. My first instinct was to find the new confessor, to
force him to tell me - at knifepoint, if need be - where he
had hidden my daughter. But 1 knew LeMerle. This was his
challenge, his opening gambit in a game for which I did not
yet know the stakes. If I went to him now, I played into his
hands. If I waited, I might yet be able to call his bluff.


ALL NIGHT 1 TURNED AND TWISTED ON MY HOT BED. MY

cubicle is the furthest from the door, which means
that although I have furthest to go if I wish to visit the
reredorter in the night, at least I have the advantage of only


1 32
LEMERLE


one neighbour. I have the window, too, east-facing though
it is, and the greater space which the end cubicles afford.
The night was heavy, promising stormy weather, and as I
watched slecplessly into the small hours I saw the storm out
at sea striding out on great silent stilts of lightning between
the red-black clouds. But no rain came. I wondered whether
Fleur saw it too or whether she slept, exhausted, her thumb
in her mouth, in a house of strangers.

'Shh, Fleurette.' In my daughter's absence, it was to
Mouche that I spoke, stroking the woolly head as if it might
have been Fleur's hair beneath my fingers. 'I'm here. It's all
right.'

I traced the star sign on Mouche's forehead and spoke my
mother's cantrip. Stella bella, bonastella. Pig Latin it may be,
but there's comfort in an old rhyme, and although none of
the ache in my heart subsided, I felt a slight diminishing of
fear. After all, LeMerle must know that he would get
nothing from me if any harm came to Fleur. I waited then,
with Mouche under my arm, as all around me my sisters
slept and lightning stalked the islands, one by one.


1 3 3

3


V


July 19th, 1610


TODAY HELD LITTLE OF REFORM. THE NEW ABBESS SPENT

much of the time in her private chapel with LeMerle,
leaving us to our speculation. By now the holiday atmosphere
had dissipated, leaving an uneasy vacuum. Voices
were hushed, as if there were sickness in the place. Duties
had been resumed, but mostly - with the exception of
Marguerite and Alfonsine - in a slipshod manner. Even
Antoine seemed ill at ease in her kitchen, her usual foolish
good nature tempered by the previous day's accusations of
excess. A number of lay workers came to inspect the chapel
and scaffolding was erected on the west side, presumably to
allow them to investigate the damaged roof.

Once again, my first impulse that morning had been
to find LeMerle and to ask for news of my daughter.
Several times I set out with this aim in mind, stopping


134

I

I

I
LEMERLE


myself just in time. No doubt that was precisely what he
intended.

Instead I spent the morning at work on the flats, but my
usually light touch was marred, and I found myself hoeing
furiously at the salt stacks, pounding the careful white
mounds into muddy sludge.

Fleur's absence is a pain that begins deep in the pit of my
stomach, digging inwards like a canker. It touches everything,
like a shadow behind bright scenery. It is stronger
than I am, but I know that my silence is the only weapon I
have. Let him be the first to reveal himself. Let him come to
me.

I returned to find that LeMerle and the new Abbess had
retired to their respective quarters early - she to the cell
vacated by her predecessor, he to the gatehouse cottage
just within the abbey walls - leaving the sisters in a state
of unusual excitement. In their absence, there had been
much whispered speculation on the nature of the intended
Reforms, some murmured revolt and a great deal of ill
informed and ill-considered gossip.

Much of this surrounded LeMerle, and I was unsurprised
to overhear a number of favourable opinions. Although
some voices amongst us were raised in condemnation of
the little chit who presumed to overturn our way of life,
there were few who failed to be impressed by the new
confessor. Alfonsine, of course, was completely overwhelmed,
enumerating the qualities of the fake Pere
Colombin with the zeal of one newly converted.

'I knew it, Soeur Auguste. I knew it as soon as I saw his


135
HOLY FOOLS


eyes. So dark, so piercing! As if he could see right through
me. Right to the very soul.' She shuddered, eyes half closed,
lips parted. 'I think he might really be a saint, Soeur
Auguste. He has that holy presence. I can feel it.'

However, this was not the first time Alfonsine had
been subject to a violent attack of hero-worship - she had
suffered one, in fact, on the occasion of a local prior's visit
which left her prostrate for a fortnight - and I hoped
that given time this fervent admiration of LeMerle might
subside. For the present she glowed at the sound of his
name, murmuring Colombin de Saint-Amand to herself like a
litany as she scrubbed the floors.

Marguerite, too, was deeply affected. Like Alfonsine, she
developed a cleaning frenzy, repeatedly dusting and polish'
ing every available surface; she twitched at sudden noises,
and when LeMerle was close by she stammered and flushed
like a girl of sixteen, though she was a dried-up thing of
forty and had never known a man. Clemente saw her
confusion and teased her mercilessly, but the rest of us held
back. Somehow Marguerite's reaction to the new confessor
went beyond humour and into a dark territory few of us
cared to explore.

Marguerite and Alfonsine - who had always been bitter
rivals - became temporary allies in the face of this joint
infatuation. Together they had volunteered to clean out
LeMerle's cottage, which was in a pitiful state, having been
abandoned since the time of the black friars. In the morning
they had gathered together what furniture they thought
might please the new confessor and brought it into the


1 36
LEMERLE


cottage, and before the day was over the place was spotless,
with fresh matting on the earth floor and vases of flowers in
its three rooms. Pere Colombin expressed his gratitude with
becoming humility, and from that moment the two sisters
were his willing slaves.

The evening meal was a meagre affair of potato soup,
which we ate in silence, even though the two newcomers
were not present. But later, as 1 prepared for bed after
Vespers, I was sure I saw Antoine crossing the courtyard
towards the little cottage, carrying something on a large,
covered dish. The new confessor, at least, would eat well
tonight. As I watched, Antoine looked up at the window,
her face a blur against the night, her mouth wide with
dismay. Then she turned abruptly, pulling her wimple to
cover her face, and fled into the darkness.

Tonight I read the cards again, drawing them silently and
carefully from their hiding place in the wall. The Hermit.
The Deuce of Cups. The Fool. The Star, her round painted
face so like Fleur's with its wide eyes and crown of curly
hair. And the Tower, falling against a red-black sky split
with jagged bolts of lightning.

Tonight? I don't think so. But soon, I hope. Soon. And if
I have to topple it myself, stone by stone, I will, be sure of
it. I will.


137
4 A

July 19th, 1610


TERRIBLE, ISN'T IT? DIVINATION; CLOSE ENOUGH TO

sorcery to scorch the flesh. The Malleus Malleficarum calls
it 'a manifest abomination' whilst insisting it doesn't
work. And yet her cards, with their painstaking detail, are
strangely compelling. Take this Tower, for example. So like
the abbey itself with its square turret and wooden spire.
This woman, the Moon, her face half turned away but so
strangely familiar. And the Hermit, this hooded man, only
his eyes visible from beneath the black cloak, in one hand a
staff, in the other a lantern.

You can't fool me, Juliette. I knew you'd have a hiding
place. A child could have found it, tucked away behind a
loosened stone at the back of the dorter. You were never
much of a dissembler. No, I'll not accuse you - not yet,


138
L E M E R L E


anyway. I may need you. A man needs an ally - even a man
like me.

For the first day, I watched. Close enough in my
cottage by the gates to see everything without offending
ecclesiastical sensibilities. Even a saint may have desires, I
tell Isabelle. Indeed, without them, where would be the
sanctity, or the sacrifice? I will not live in the cloister.
Besides, I value my privacy.

There's a door at the back of the cottage, which opens
out onto a bare section of wall. The black friars were more
concerned with grandiose architecture than with security, it
seems, for the gatehouse is an impressive facade hiding little
more than a hillock of tumbled stones between the abbey
and the marshes. An easy escape route, if it ever comes to
that. But it won't. I'll take my time over this business and
leave when it suits me.

As I was saying, today I watched from afar. She tries to
keep it from me, but I can see the pain in her, the tension
in her lower back and shoulders as she strains to appear
relaxed. When we were travelling together she never once
cut short a performance, not even when she suffered an
injury. The inevitable mishaps that occur in even the best
troupes - sprains, damaged ligaments, even fractures of
fingers and toes - never slowed her down. She always
maintained the same professional smile, even when pain
was blinding her. It was a kind of revolt, though against
whom I never guessed. Myself, perhaps. I see it in her now,
in her averted gaze, in the false humility of her movements.


39
HOLY FOOLS


There is a pain which pride moves her to conceal. She loves
the child. Would do anything to protect her.

Strange that I never imagined my Ailee bearing a child; I
thought she was too much of a savage to accept that kind of
tyranny. A pretty cub, with a look of her mother, and the
promise of grace behind that little-girl slouch. She has
her mother's ways, too: she bit me as 1 lifted her onto my
horse, leaving the marks of her baby teeth in my hand. Her
father? Some stranger of the road, perhaps, some chance
met peasant, peddler, player, priest.

Myself, even? I hope not, for her sake; there's vicious
blood in my line, and blackbirds make bad parents. And yet
I am glad that the child is in safe hands. She kicked me in
the ribs as I handed her down, and would have bitten me
again if Guizau hadn't stopped her.

'Stop that,' I said.

'I want my mamma!'

'You'll see her.'

'When?'

I sighed. 'I don't think you should ask so many questions.
Now be a good girl and go with Monsieur Guizau, who will
buy you a sugar pastry.'

The child glared up at me. There were tears running
down her face, but they were of rage and not of fear. 'Crow's
foot,' she shouted, making the forked sign with her stubby
fingers. 'Crow's foot, crow's foot, curse you to death!'

That's all I need, I thought, as I rode away. To be witched
by a five-year-old. It beats me why anyone should want a
child anyway; dwarves are much easier to deal with, and far


1 40
LEMERLE


more amusing. She's a brave little cub, though, whatever
her parentage; 1 think 1 can see why my Juliette cares for
her.

Why then this sudden sting of chagrin? Her affection,
weakness though it is, makes my position so much easier.
She thinks to deceive me, my Wingless One, like a
snipe luring the enemy from her nest. She feigns stupidity,
evading me except when there is a crowd, or working alone
on the salt flats, knowing that in that wide expanse of
unpeopled space I cannot approach her with discretion.
Twenty-four hours. I would have expected her to have come
to me before now. Her stubbornness is a characteristic
which both angers and pleases me. Perhaps I am perverse,
but I do enjoy her resistance and I feel I might have been
disappointed if she had shown any less.

Besides, I already have my allies. Soeur Piete, who dares
not meet my gaze; Soeur Alfonsine, the consumptive nun
who follows me like a spaniel; Soeur Germaine, who detests
me; Soeur Benedicte, the gossip. Any of these might do to
begin with. Or the fat nun, Soeur Antoine, nosing around
the kitchen doorway like a timid sheep. Pve been watching
her, and I think I see potential there. Under the new order
she now works in the garden. I've seen her digging, her
cheeks marbled with the unaccustomed exertion. Another
has been made cellarer in her place: the scrawny, twitching
nun with the bright, wounded eyes. No more pies and
pasties under her regime. No more unaccompanied trips to
the market, or illicit samplings of old wine. Soeur Antoine's
arms are plump and red, her feet in their narrow boots


1 4 1
HOLY FOOLS


unusually dainty for her hulk. There is something maternal
in her ample bosom, a generosity given free rein in her
kitchens among the sausages and roasts. Where will it go
now? In a single day her cheeks have already lost some of
their roundness. Her skin has a sick and cheesy sheen. She
has not yet spoken to me, but she wants to. 1 can see it in
her eyes.

Last night, when she brought me my meal, I inquired
innocently how they had dined. Potato soup, she said
without looking at me. But for mon pere, something more
substantial. A fine pigeon pie, if monseigneur pleases, and a
glass of red wine. Peaches from our own gardens, such a
shame the drought has left us so few. Her eyes darted to
mine in silent appeal. Ha, you jade! Don't think I didn't
suspect you. Potato soup, indeed. Your lips grew moist as
you spoke of peaches and wine. A creature of passions, this
Antoine; and where will they go now their outlet is closed?

A day of fasting has dulled her bright and foolish good
nature. She looks bewildered but sullen, a desperate sullenness
veering towards spite. She is almost ready for me.
Another day, I tell myself. Another day until she realizes
what she has lost. I would have preferred a sharper tool with
which to begin my work, but perhaps this one is fitting.

After all, I have to start somewhere.


142
5 V

July 20th, 1610


THE DAILY SERVICES HAVE BEEN RE-ESTABLISHED. WE WERE

awoken at two o' clock today for Vigils with the ringing of
the old bell, and for a moment I was sure some terrible
calamity had happened: a shipwreck, a gale, a sudden death.
Then I saw Mouche lying discarded on the pillow and
the pain of remembrance was suddenly more than I could
endure. I bit my pallet so that I should not be heard and
sobbed into the packed straw, sparse, angry tears, which felt
like runnels of powder on my face, ready at any moment to
ignite.

It was at this moment that Perette found me, creeping to
my bed so quietly that for a time I was not aware of her
presence. If it had been anyone other than the wild girl, I
would have lashed out like an animal in a trap. But Perette's
little face was so simple and woebegone in the dim light of


I 43
HOLY FOOLS


the cresset that I could not focus my anger.

In the last few days 1 know 1 have neglected my friend.
More pressing things concerned me, things the wild girl
could not understand. But I wonder whether I do not often
underestimate Perette. Her birdlike voice speaks no tongue
that I can understand, but there is intelligence in her bright
gold-ringed eyes, and a deep, unquestioning devotion. She
tried a smile, indicating her eyes with a speaking gesture.

I wiped my face with the back of my hand. 'It's all right,
Perette. Go to Vigils.' But Perette was already taking her
place on the mattress beside me, her bare feet curling
beneath her, for shoes are clothing she continues to refuse.
Her small hand crept into mine. For a second she reminded
me of a sad puppy, offering comfort in humble, loving
silence, and I was ashamed at the twist of contempt in the
thought.

With an effort I returned the smile. 'Don't worry, Perette.
I'm tired, that's all.'

It was true; it had taken me hours to"get to sleep. Perette
lifted her head and indicated the absence at the side of my
bed where Fleur's cot used to be. When 1 did not reply she
pinched my arm gently and pointed again.

'I know.' I did not want to talk about it. But she looked so
woeful and concerned that I had not the heart to rebuff her.
'It won't be for long. I promise.'

The wild girl looked at me. Her head was cocked to
one side and she looked more like a bird than ever. Then
she put both hands to the side of her face, changing her
expression as she did so to mimic the new Abbess with


144
LEMERLE


an accuracy that might in other circumstances have been
comic.

I gave a wan smile. 'That's right. Mere Isahelle sent her
away. But we'll get her back, you'll see. We'll get her back
soon.'
I wondered whether I was speaking to myself, or whether
Perette knew what 1 was saying. Even as I spoke, her
attention had already passed onto other things, and she
was playing with a pendant around her neck. There was
an image of Saint Christina Mirabilis on the pendant,
enamelled in orange and red and blue and white. She
probably wore it because she liked the colours. The Saint
was floating unharmed in her ring of holy fire, and Perette
held the image in front of her eyes, crooning happily. She
was still doing it when we finally arrived in the chapel and
took our places in the crowd.

Vigils lasted longer than I had expected. The new Abbess
kept the light to a minimum, passing occasionally with the
cresset so that she could ensure no one was asleep. Twice
she snapped a sharp rebuke at a lazy sister - Soeur Antoine
was one, I think, and Soeur Piete the other - for the
chanting was soft and almost soothing, and the night,
warmed by eighteen hours of daylight, was not yet cold
enough for discomfort. Almost two hours passed before the
bell rang again for Matins, and I realized that the customary
period of rest between the two services had been missed.
I was shivering now in spite of my woollen stockings,
though I could see the dawn piercing through the loose
slates. The bell rang twice again for Lauds and a murmur


145
HOLY FOOLS


went through the assembly as, once again, LeMerle made
his entrance.

In a second, all drowsiness had dropped from the air.
Around me I could teel the small, barely perceptible movements
of the sisters as they turned their sunflower faces
towards him. I think I was the only one who did not look
up. Eyes fixed firmly on my clasped hands, I heard him
approach, heard the soft familiar sounds of his footsteps
on the marble flags, sensed him standing at the lectern,
motionless in his dark robe, one hand touching the silver
crucifix he always wears.

'My children. lam lucis orto sidere. The star of the morning
has risen. Raise your voices now to greet it.'

I sang the hymn with my face still lowered, the words
resonating strangely in my skull, lam lucis orto sidere ....
But Lucifer was the Morning Star before his fall, brightest of
all angels, 1 thought, and at that 1 could not help but glance
once at LeMerle as I sang.

Too late, I averted my gaze, lam lucis orto sidere .... He
was looking directly at me and smiling, as if I had revealed
my thoughts. I wished I had not looked.

The hymn ended. The sermon began. 1 vaguely heard
some reference to fasting, to penance, but I was alone in my
circle of misery; nothing could reach me. Words droned past
me like bees - contrition -- vanity -- adornment - humility penance.
But they meant nothing to me. All I could think of
was Fleur, all alone without even Mouche to comfort her,
and how I had not even had time to wipe her nose or tie a
ribbon in her hair before they took her away.


146
LEMERLE


Tsk-tsk, begone! I made the sign with my fingers. No
more of that bad-luck thinking. Whatever his intentions,
LeMerle wasn't planning to stay in the abbey for ever. The
moment he was gone, 1 would find my daughter. Meanwhile
I'd play his game. I'd use every cantrip I knew to keep her
from harm, and if by his fault anything happened to her, I
would kill him. He knew I would; and he'd keep her safe.
For now, anyway.

I was roused from my thoughts by a movement close by,
and looked up. I had been standing near the back of the
chapel; for a time I believed it was to receive a sacrament
that we came forward one by one, heads bent in submission.
A nun was kneeling at the altar, head bowed, her wimple in
her hand. A line of sisters waited behind her, removing
their wimples as they came, and I followed with the rest, as
it seemed to be expected of me. As I came closer still, I
passed the sisters as they returned from the pulpit. Shivering
like lambs, they moved in a kind of dream, not meeting my
eyes, their faces crumpled with indecision. Then I saw the
shears in LeMerle's hand, and I understood everything. The
Reform had begun.

In front of me I saw Alfonsine take her place before the
pulpit, accepting the shears with a thrill of submission.
Then it was Antoine's turn. I had never seen her without
her wimple before, and the sudden beauty of her thick
black hair was a startling revelation. Then came the
shears and she was Antoine again, pale as a beached jelly'
fish, mouth working helplessly as LeMerle uttered the
benediction. 'I hereby renounce all worldly vanities, in


147
HOLY FOOLS


the name of the Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit.'

Poor Antoine. What vanities had she known in her
sad, fearful time but those of the table and the cellarium.''
The moment of beauty, so fleetingly glimpsed, was
gone. She looked terrified, her hair standing out in uneven
clumps, her eyes rolling and her fat hands kneading at each
other as if in longing for the comforting routine of the bread
pan.

Then it was Clemente, her flaxen hair catching at the
light as she bowed her head. Oddly enough it was dour
Germaine who cried out as the shears did their work.
Clemente simply tilted her face at LeMerle, looking even
younger than she had before the shearing; a wanton with
the face of a little boy.

But hair was not the only vanity we were to relinquish. I
saw old Rosamonde, her half-bald crown bared, reluctantly
give up the gold cross that she wore about her neck. Her
mouth moved, but her words did not reach me. She joined
me a few moments later, her weak eyes roaming the chapel
as if in search of someone who was absent. Then it was
Perette, whose hair was already cropped, sullenly emptying
her pockets of treasures. Magpie treasures, that's all they
were: a scrap of ribbon, a polished stone, a piece of rag --
those small and harmless vanities that only a child could
cherish. She was most reluctant to part with her enamelled
pendant, and had almost succeeded in palming it when
Soeur Marguerite pointed it out, and it was swept up with
the rest. Perette bared her vicious little teeth at Marguerite,
who piously looked the other way. From the corner of my


1 48
LEMERLE


eye I could see LeMerle, trying hard to keep himself from
laughing.

Then it was my turn. I watched the ground dispassionately
as my hair tell, curl hy hright curl, amongst the
mounting trophies. I expected to feel something - anger,
maybe, or shame - instead I felt nothing but the burn of
his fingers at the nape of my neck as he stretched out and
drew aside the tangle of hair, cutting with a deftness
and precision which drew the eye from the more intimate
gestures - a thumb pressed against the earlobe, a lingering
touch in the throat's hollow - which he performed upon me
in secret, without anyone noticing.

He spoke to me in two registers, the public one in which
he intoned the Benedictus, and a thin, rapid whisper during
which his mouth barely moved.

'Dominus vobiscum. You've been avoiding me, Juliette. Agnus Dei, very unwise, qui tollis peccata mundi, we need to
talk, miserere nobis. / can help you.'

I shot him a glance of loathing.

'O felix culpa, you look wonderful when you're angry. Quae
talem ac tanctum, see me in the confessional, meruit habere
Redemptorem -- after Vespers tomorrow.'

And then it was over, and I went back to my place
feeling dizzy and strange, with my heart pounding and
the ghosts of his fingers still fluttering like burning moths
against my neck.

At the end of the session, all sixty-five of us were sitting
in our places, newly cropped and demure. My face still felt
flushed and my heart was beating wildly, but I hid it as best


1 49
HOLY FOOLS


1 could, and kept my eyes downcast. Rosamonde and some
of the older nuns had been forced to exchange their old quichenotte for the crisp wimple favoured hy the new Ahhess,
and they looked like a flock of seagulls in the semidarkness.
Every cheap trinket, ring, necklace, every harmless scrap of
braid or ribbon our old Reverend Mother had tolerated was
gone. Vanity, LeMerle told us in his grave voice, was the
jewel of gold in the pig's snout, and we had fallen to its lure.
The Bernardine cross on our habits should be adornment
enough, he said - whilst all the time the light played on his
silver crucifix like a small malicious eye.

Then, after the communal blessing and act of contrition,
which I mouthed with the rest, our new Abbess stood up
and started to speak. 'This is the first of many changes I
intend to make,' she began. 'Today will be a day of fasting
and prayer in preparation for the task we will undertake
tomorrow.' She paused, perhaps to feel the impact of so
many pairs of eyes. 'The interment of my predecessor,' she
continued, 'where it best befits her, in our own crypt.'

'But we--' The protest was out before I could stop it.

'Soeur Auguste?' Her gaze was scornful. 'Did you say
something?'

'I'm sorry, ma mere. I should not have spoken. But the
Reverend Mother was - a simple creature, who disliked
the - the fanfare of church ceremony. We did what we
thought best when we buried her. Surely it would be kinder
now to leave her in peace?'

Mere Isabella's small hands clenched. 'Are you telling
me that it's kinder to leave that woman's body in some


I 50
I. E M E R L E


abandoned piece of ground?' she demanded. 'Why, I believe
the place was actually a vegetable garden, or something!
What can have possessed you?'

There was nothing to be gained in confrontation. 'We
did what we thought was right at the time,' I said humbly. 'I
see now that it was a mistake.'

For a second Mere Isabelle continued to look at me with
suspicion. Then she turned away. 'I must remember,' she
said, 'that in such a remote area of the country old customs
and beliefs still persist. There is not necessarily any sin
attached to such a misunderstanding.'

Fine words. But the suspicion remained in her voice and I
knew I was not forgiven. The safety of the abbey was
eroding every minute I remained. Twice already 1 had
attracted the critical attention of the new Abbess. My
daughter had been taken from me. And now LeMerle held
me between his careless, clever fingers; knowing perhaps
that one more accusation - a hint of heresy, a casual
reference to matters I had thought forgotten - would bring
the weight of the Church's investigation to bear upon me. It
had to be soon. I had to leave soon. But not without Fleur.

And so I waited. We repaired to the warming room for a
time. Then Prime and Tierce, interminable chanting and
prayers and hymns with LeMerle watching me all the time
with that look of mocking benevolence in his eyes. Then to
Chapter. In the hour that followed, duties were allocated,
hours of prayer, days of fasting, rules governing decorum,
dress, deportment laid down with military precision. The
Great Reform was under way.


1 5 1
HOLY FOOLS


The chapel would be renovated, we were told. Lay
builders would do much of the work on the root, though the
interior would be our own responsibility. The lay people
who had until now done most of our menial duties were to
be dismissed; it was unseemly for us to have servants to
do our work whilst we spent our time in idleness. The
rebuilding of the abbey must now be our main concern, and
everyone was expected to take additional duties until the
time of its completion.

I learned with dismay that our free time was to be
curtailed to half an hour after Compline, to be spent in
prayer and reflection, and that our excursions to the town
and to the harbour were to cease at once. My Latin lessons
to the novices, too, were to be discontinued. Mere Isabelle
did not feel that it was appropriate for novices to learn
Latin. To obey the Scripture was enough, she said; anything
more was dangerous and unnecessary. A duty rota was
established which reversed all our accustomed routines.
Without surprise I noted that Antoine ho longer governed
the kitchens or the cellars and that henceforth my herb
garden would be tended by strangers, but I accepted this,
too, with indifference, knowing that my time at the abbey
was coming to an end.

Then came the penances. Confession had never taken
more than a few minutes in Mere Marie's day; this time it
took over an hour, with Alfonsine setting the tone.

'I had impious thoughts about the new Reverend
Mother,' she murmured, with a sidelong glance at LeMerle.
'I spoke out of turn in the church, when Soeur Auguste


1 52
LEMERLE


came in.' It was typical of her, I thought, to draw attention
to my lateness.

'What kind of thoughts?' said LeMcrlc, with a gleam in
his eye.

Alfonsine shifted beneath his gaze. 'It's what Soeur
Auguste said. She's too young. She's only a child. She won't
know what to do.'

'Soeur Auguste seems rather free with her opinions,' said
LeMerle.

I stared into my lap and would not look up.

'I shouldn't have listened,' said Alfonsine.

LeMerle said nothing, but I knew he was smiling.

The rest soon followed Alfonsine's lead, initial hesitation
giving way to a kind of eagerness. Yes, we were confessing
our sins, and sin was shameful; but it was also the first time
many of us had ever received such undivided attention. It
was painfully compelling, like scratching at a nettle rash,
and it was contagious.

'I went to sleep during Vigils,' said Soeur Piete, a colourless
nun who rarely spoke to anyone. 'I said a bad word
when I bit my tongue.'

Soeur Clemente: 'I looked at myself when I was washing.
I looked at myself and I had a wicked thought.'

'I stole a p-pasty from the winter cellar.' That was
Antoine, redfaced and stammering. 'It was p-pork and
onion, with watercrust p-pastry. I ate it in secret behind the
gatehouse wall, and it gave me a b-bellyache.'

Germaine was next, intoning her list - Gluttony. Lust.
Covetousness - apparently at random. She, at least, had not


153

HOLY FOOLS


been dazzled by LeMerle -- her face wore a careful, colourless
expression 1 recognized as scorn. Then came Soeur
Benedicte, with a tearful tale of shirked duties, and Soeur
Pierre, with a stolen orange. At each new confession there
came an increased murmur from the crowd, as if to urge the
speaker onwards. Soeur Tomasine wept as she confessed
lewd thoughts; several other nuns wept in sympathy, and
Soeur Alfonsine eyed LeMerle while Mere Isabelle looked
sullen and increasingly bored. Clearly she had expected
more of us. Obediently, we gave it.

As the hour passed, the confessions grew more elaborate,
more detailed. Every scrap of material was brought out
for the occasion: tattered remnants of past transgressions,
filched pie-crusts, erotic dreams. The ones who had been
first to make their confessions now found their performance
overshadowed; resentful looks were exchanged; the
murmuring grew to a low roar.

Now it was Marguerite's turn to step forward. She
exchanged glances with Alfonsine as she passed, and I knew
then that there would be trouble. I forked the sign against
evil into my palm; around me, the anticipation was so thick
that I could barely breathe. Marguerite looked fearfully into
LeMerle's face, twitching like a snared rabbit.

'Well?' said Isabelle impatiently.

Marguerite opened her mouth and closed it again without
speaking. Alfonsine looked at her with barely concealed
hostility. Then, haltingly, and without taking her eyes away
from LeMerle's face, she began.

'I dream of demons,' she said in a low voice. 'They infest


1 54


i
LEMERLE


my dreams. They speak to me when I lie in bed. They
touch me with their fiery fingers. Soeur Auguste gives me
medicines to make me sleep, but still the demons come!'

'Medicines?' There was a pause, during which 1 felt
Isabella's eyes flick sharply at my averted face.

'A sleeping draught, that's all,' I said as the other sisters
turned towards me. 'Lavender, and valerian, to calm her
nerves. That's all it is.' Too late, I heard the edge in my
voice.

Mere Isabelle put her hand on Marguerite's forehead and
gave a small, chilly smile. 'Well, I don't think you'll be
needing any of Soeur Auguste's potions any more. Pere
Colombin and I are here to take care of you now. In
penance and humility we will expel all trace of the evil
which plagues you.'

Then at last, turning to me, she said: 'So, Soeur Auguste.
You seem to have something to say on almost every other
subject. Have you no testimony to make here?'

I could see the danger, but was at a loss at how to avoid
it. 'I - I don't think so, ma mere.'

'What? Not one? Not a transgression, not a weakness, an
act of unkindness, a wicked thought? Not even a dream?'

I suppose I should have made something up, like the rest
of them. But LeMerle's eyes were still on me, and I felt my
face grow hot in revolt. 'I -- forgive me, ma mere. I don't
remember. I - I'm not used to public confession.'

Mere Isabelle gave a smile of singularly adult unpleasantness.
'I see,' she said. 'Soeur Auguste has a right to
her privacy. Public testimony is beneath her. Her sins are


1 55
I

HOLY FOOLS


between herself and the Almighty. Soeur Auguste speaks	1

directly to God.'

Alfonsine sniggered. Clemente and Germaine grinned at
each other. Marguerite piously raised her eyes to the ceiling.
Even Antoine, who had blushed beet-red during her own
confession, was smirking. At that moment I knew that
every nun in the chapel felt the same guilty twist of pleasure
at the humiliation of one of their own. And behind Mere
Isabelle, LeMerle gave his angel's smile, as if none of this
had anything to do with him.


1 56
6


V


July 21st, 1610


MY PENANCE WAS SILENCE. TWO DAYS' ENFORCED SILENCE,

with instructions to the other sisters to report immediately
any breach of this command. It was no punishment to me.
In fact, I welcomed the respite. Besides, if my suspicions
were correct, Fleur and I might soon be gone. See me in the
confessional after Vespers tomorrow, LeMerle had said. I can
help you.

He was going to give me Fleur. What else could he
have meant? Why else would he risk a meeting? My heart
leapt at the thought, all my caution swept aside. To hell
with strategy. I wanted my daughter. No penance, however
severe, could begin to compare with the pain of
her absence. Whatever LeMerle wanted from me, he was
welcome to it.

Alfonsine, the perpetual gossip, who had been given the


157
HOLY FOOLS	j


same penance as I, was far more troubled, assuming a look of	I

deep contrition which no one - to her chagrin - appeared	5

to notice. Her cough had worsened in recent days, and	J

*£i

yesterday she refused her food. I recognized the signs	^

and hoped that this renewal of zeal would not provoke one	9.

Kj

of her attacks. Marguerite was put in charge of the clock for
a month to cure her nightly visitations; henceforth she
would be the one to ring the bell for Vigils, sleeping alone
on a box-bed suspended by ropes in the belfry and waking
every hour to ring the time. I doubted that it would
work, but Marguerite seemed exalted by her punishment --
although her tic had worsened, and there was a new stiffness
down her left side that made her limp when she walked.

Never had there been so many penances. It seemed as if
half the sisters or more were under some kind of discipline,
from Antoine's fasting - penance enough for her - and
relocation to the overheated bakehouse, to Germaine's
work digging the new latrines.

It created a strange climate of segregation between the
virtuous and the penitent. I caught Soeur Tomasine looking
at me with a kind of contempt as I passed her in the slype,
and Clemente did her best to taunt me into speech, though
without success.


TODAY PASSED WITH TERRIBLE SLOWNESS. BETWEEN SERVICES,

I spent two hours in the refectory, whitewashing the faded
walls and scrubbing a floor slick with built-up grease. Then
I helped with the repairs to the chapel, silently passing
buckets of mortar to the cheery, bare-chested workmen on


1 58
LEMERLE


the roof. Then came prayers over the potato-patch, with
LeMerle intoning with incense and solemnity the Last
Rites which the poor Reverend Mother had never received
whilst I, Germaine, Tomasine and Berthe performed the
unpleasant task of opening the new grave.

It was not yet noon, but already the sun was hot, the air
sizzling with heat as we made our way with shovels and
spades towards the burial mound. Soon we were sweating.
The earth is dry and sandy here, whitish on the surface but
becoming red at greater depth. Barely moist earth clung to
the shroud and to our robes as we cleared away the sand
from the body. It was a simple enough task, if one had the
stomach for it; the earth had not had a great deal of time to
settle and was still light enough to clear with a shovel. The
body had been sewn into a sheet, now blackened where the
corpse had rested against it so that the marks of head, ribs,
elbows and feet were clearly visible against the creamy
linen. Soeur Tomasine wavered as she saw this, but I have
seen enough bodies to be unmoved and I reached for it
myself, carefully and with as much reverence as I could
muster. Mere Marie was heavier than she had been in life,
weighted by the earth that clung to her, and I struggled to
raise her with dignity, gripping her by the shoulders though
her weight seemed strangely brittle, like that of a piece of
driftwood washed onto the shore and half buried in sand.
The shroud was badly stained on the reverse side, with the
outline of the spine and ribs clearly defined, and as I heaved
her from her unconsecrated resting place I uncovered a mass
of brown beetles which boiled away into the sand like hot


1 59
HOLY FOOLS


lead as soon as the sunlight reached them. At the sight of
the creatures, Berthe gave a big, loose cry and almost
dropped her end of the corpse. More of the beetles scattered
along her sleeve and into the pit. I saw Alfonsine watching
in appalled fascination. Only Germaine seemed unmoved,
and she helped me hoist the body out of the hole, her
scarred face impassive, her athlete's shoulders straining.
There was a light, dry smell of earth and ash, not too
unpleasant at first, and then we turned Reverend Mother
onto her front and the rankness struck us, a terrible midday
blast of spoiled pork and excrement.

I held my breath and tried to stop myself from retching,
but it was no use. My eyes streamed; I was all sweat.
Germaine had brought up a fold of her wimple to cover her
mouth, but it was not enough, and I could see distress in
her face as she lifted the body to shoulder-height.

From a distance I was aware of Mere Isabelle watching
us, a plain white handkerchief held to her nostrils. I cannot
say for sure whether she was smiling, but her eyes seemed
unusually bright, her face flushed with something more than
the heat.

I think it was satisfaction.


WE BURIED REVEREND MOTHER IN THE OSSUARY AT THE BACK

of the crypt, inside one of the many narrow grave-housings
left behind by the black friars. They look something like
stone bread ovens, each with a slab to cover the entrance,
and some bear numbers, names, inscriptions in Latin. I
noticed that some had been broken open, and I tried not to


160
LEMERLE


look too closely at these. There was dust and sand everywhere,
and a cold, damp smell. I knew Mere Marie wouldn't
have cared for it at all, but that was no longer my concern.

After the short ceremony the sisters went up to the
chapel while 1 remained to seal the vault. A candle rested
on the earth floor to light my work; there was a bucket
of mortar and a trowel at my side. Above me I could hear
the sisters singing a hymn. I was beginning to feel a
little light-headed; my sleepless nights, the noon heat, the
stench, the sudden cold of the crypt all combined with the
day's fasting to create a kind of dark stupor. I reached for
the trowel but it fell from my hand, and I realized I was
close to fainting. I leaned my face against the wall for
support, smelling saltpetre and porous stone, and for a
second I was in Epinal again, and I grew cold with sudden
fear.

At that moment, a draught from the vaults snuffed
the candle, leaving me in darkness. Now panic bloomed
horribly inside me. I had to get out. I could feel the dark
pushing at my back, the dead nun grinning from her cell
and the other dead ones, the black friars, sly in their dust,
reaching out with withered fingers ... I had to get out!

I took a shaky step in the darkness and knocked over the
bucket of mortar. The ossuary seemed to yawn around me; I
could no longer touch the walls. I felt a mad urge to laugh,
to scream. I had to get out! 1 fell, with an immense clatter,
striking my head against an angle of stone so that I lay
half-dazed, dark roses blossoming behind my eyelids. The
litany stopped dead.


161
HOLY FOOLS

I

Alfonsine was the first to reach me. By that time the	|

unaccustomed panic had left me and I was sitting up, still	fl

dazed, my hand to my bruised temple. The light from her	*

candle revealed how very small the crypt was after all, little	&

bigger than a cupboard with its neat cells and low vaulting,
killing the illusion of space. Her face was all eyes.

'Soeur Auguste?' Her voice was sharp. 'Soeur Auguste,
are you all right?' In her eagerness she had forgotten our
penance of silence.

I must have been less recovered than I thought. For a
moment the name by which she had addressed me meant
nothing. Even her face meant nothing, the features behind
the smear of candlelight those of a stranger.

'Who are you?' I asked.

'She doesn't know me!' The voice was unpleasantly
shrill. 'Soeur Auguste, don't move. Help will be here in a
moment.'

'It's all right, Alfonsine,' I said. The name had returned
to me as rapidly as it had fled, and with it the wariness of
years. 'I must have tripped on a broken slab. The candle
went out. I was stunned for a moment.'

But my words came too late. The upheavals of the last
few days, the darkness of the ossuary, the exhumation, the
ceremony and now this new excitement - Alfonsine had
always been more susceptible to these things than the rest of
us. Besides which, Soeur Marguerite had stolen the scene
the day before, with her visions of demons . . .

'Did you feel that?' hissed Alfonsine.

'Feel what?'


162
LEMERLE


'Shh!' She lowered her voice to a stage whisper. 'Like a
cold wind.'

'I felt nothing.' I got to my feet with difficulty. 'Here,
(jive me your arm.'

She flinched at my touch. 'You were down there a long
time. What happened?'

'Nothing. I told you. I felt faint.'

'You didn't feel ... a presence7.'

'No.' I could see a Number of sisters peering down
into the crypt, their faces blurred in the uncertain light.
Alfonsine's fingers were cold in mine. Her eyes seemed fixed
upon a point just behind me. With a sinking heart, I
recognized the signs. 'Look, Alfonsine . . .' I began.

'I felt it.' She was beginning to tremble. 'It went right
through me. And it was cold. Cold!'

'All right.' I agreed only to force her into motion. 'Maybe
there was something. It doesn't matter. Now move!'

I had checked her excitement. She shot me a resentful
look and I felt a sudden prick of mirth. Poor Alfonsine. It
was cruel to rob her of her moment. Since the death of the
Reverend Mother she has seemed more alive than at any
time within the past five years. It's the theatre of it all that
fires her: the tearing of hair, the penances, the public
confessions. But for every performance there is a price to
pay. She coughs more often than ever, her eyes are feverish
and she has been sleeping almost as badly as I do myself. I
hear her in the cubicle next to mine, whispering with the
rhythms of prayer or cursing, sometimes whimpering and
crying out but mostly the same soft repetition, like a litany


163
HOLY FOOLS


repeated so often that the words have lost almost all their
original meaning.

Man pere . . . Man pere . . .

I almost had to carry her hack up the steps of the ossuary.

Suddenly she stiffened. 'Holy Mother! The silence! The
penance!' 1 shushed her furiously. But it was too late. There
were sisters all about us now, unsure whether or not to
address us. LeMerle kept his distance. This performance was
for his benefit, and he knew it. Mere Isabelle stood next to
him, watching us with lips slightly parted. This was more
like it, I thought fiercely. This was what she had hoped for.

'Ma mere,' brayed Alfonsine, falling to her knees on the
floor of the transept. 'Ma mere, I am sorry. Give me another
penance, a hundred penances if you must, but please forgive
me!'

'What happened?' snapped Isabelle. 'What did Soeur
Auguste say to make you defy your vow of silence?'

'Mother of God!' Alfonsine was stalling for time. I could hear it in her voice as she became aware of her audience. 'I
felt it in the crypt, ma mere! We both felt it! We felt its icy
breath!' Her own skin was icy as if in response. I could
almost feel myself growing cold in sympathy.

'What did you feel?'

'It's nothing.' The last thing I wanted was to draw unwelcome
attention to myself, but I could not allow this to
pass. 'A draught from the undercroft, that was all. Her
nerves are disordered. She's always--'

'Silence!' snapped Isabelle. She turned again to
Alfonsine, whispered: 'What did you feel?'


1 64
LEMERLE


'The demon, ma mere. I felt its presence like a cold wind.'
Alfonsine looked at me, and I thought I saw satisfaction in
her face. 'A cold wind.'

Isahelle turned to me, and I shrugged.

'A draught from the undercroft,' I said again. 'It hlew out
my candle.'

'I know what I felt!' Alfonsine was shaking again. 'And
you felt it too, Auguste! You told me so yourself!' Her face
convulsed and she coughed twice. 'It blew into me, I tell
you, the demon came right into me and--' She was choking
now, clawing at her throat. 'It's still here!' I heard her cry.
'It's still here!' Then she sank, convulsing, to the floor.

'Hold her!' cried Mere Isabelle, losing some of her
composure.

But Alfonsine would not be held. She bit, spat, shrieked,
kicked her legs immodestly, the attack redoubling whenever
I came close. It took three of us - Germaine, Marguerite
and a deaf nun called Soeur Clothilde -- to hold her, to prise
open her mouth to stop her from swallowing her tongue,
and even then she continued to scream until finally Pere
Colombin himself came to bless her, and she lay rigid and
still against him.

At that point Isabelle turned on me. 'What did she mean,
"it's still here"?'

'I don't know,' I said.

'What happened in the crypt?'

'My candle blew out. I tripped and fell.'

'What about Soeur Alfonsine?'

"I don't know.'


165
HOLY FOOLS


'She says you do.'

'I can't help that,' I said. 'She makes things up. She likes
the attention. Ask anyone.'

But Isabelle was far from satisfied. 'She was trying to tell
me something,' she persisted. 'You stopped her. Now what
was she--'

'For God's sake, can't this wait?' I had almost forgotten
LeMerle, artfully positioned in a chance shaft of sunlight,
with Soeur Alfonsine gasping like a beached fish in his
arms. 'For the moment we must take this poor woman to
the infirmary. I presume I have your authority to lift her
penance?' Mere Isabelle hesitated, still looking at me. 'Or
perhaps you would prefer to discuss the matter in your own
good time?'

Isabelle flushed slightly. 'The matter must be investigated
and dealt with,' she said.

'Of course. When Soeur Alfonsine is in a condition to
speak.'

'And Soeur Auguste?'

'Maybe tomorrow.'

'But mon pere ..."

'By Chapter tomorrow we will know more. I'm sure you
agree that it would be unseemly to act in haste.'

There was a long pause. 'So be it. Tomorrow, then. At
Chapter.'

I looked at him then, to find his eyes on me again, bright
and troubling. For a fleeting moment I even wondered
whether he had known what was going to happen in the
crypt, had arranged it in some way in order to bring me


1 66
LEMERLE


further into his power ... I would have believed almost
anything of him then. He was uncanny. And he knew me
too well.

Well, whether he had planned it or not, this had been a
demonstration. LeMerle had shown me that without him I
was helpless, my safety as perilous as a frayed rope. Like it or
not, I needed his help. And the Blackbird, I knew of old,
never sold his favours cheap.


167
7 A

July 21st, 1610


'bless me, father, for i have sinned.'

At last. Confession. How good it feels to hold her captive
like this, my wild one, my bird of prey. I can feel her eyes on
me from behind the grille, and for a troubling moment I am
the one who is caged. It is a curious sensation. I can hear
her quickened breathing, sense the enormous effort of will
which keeps her voice level as she intones the ritual words.
Light from the window above us filters dimly into the
confessional, painting her face with a harlequin pattern of
rose and black squares.

'Well, if it isn't my Ailee, giving up her wings for whiter
ones in Heaven.'

I am unused to such intimacies as this, the casual
exposure of the confessional. It makes me impatient sends
my mind wandering down overgrown paths best left


168
LEMERLE


forgotten. Perhaps she knows it; her silence is that of a
confessor, and not a penitent. I can feel it, drawing out
reckless words I did not intend to speak.

'I suppose you still hold that business against me.'
Silence. 'That business at Epinal.'

She has withdrawn her face from the grille and the
darkness speaks for her, blank and unremitting. I can feel
her eyes on me, like irons. For thirty seconds I feel their
heat. Then she folds, as I knew she would.

'I want my daughter.'

Good. It really is a weakness in her game; she's lucky
we're not playing for money. 'I find myself obliged to stay
here for a while,' I tell her. 'I can't risk you leaving.'

'Why not?' There is a savage note in her voice now, and
I revel in it. I can deal with her anger. I can use it. Gently I
feed the flame.

'You'll have to trust me. I haven't betrayed you, have I/'

Silence. I know she is thinking of Epinal.

Stubbornly: 'I want Fleur.'

'Is that her name? You could see her every day. Would
you like that?' Slyly: 'She must be missing her mother. Poor
thing.'

She flinches then - and the game is mine. 'What do you
want, LeMerle?'

'Your silence. Your loyalty.'

That sound was too harsh to be laughter. 'Are you
mad? I have to get away from here. You've seen to that
already.'

'Impossible. I can't have you spoiling things.'


169
HOLY FOOLS


'Spoiling what?' Too fast, LeMerle. Too fast. 'There's no
wealth here for you. What's your game?'

Oh, Juliette. If only I could tell you. I'm sure you'd
appreciate it. You're the only one who would. 'Later, little
bird. Later. Come to my cottage tonight, after Compline.
Can you get out of the dorter without heing heard?'

'Yes.'

'Good. Till then, Juliette.'

'What about Fleur?'

Till then.'

She came to me just after midnight. I was sitting at my
desk with my copy of Aristotle's Politics when I heard the
door open with a soft click. The glow from the single candle
caught her shift and the copper-gilt of her cropped hair.

'Juliette.'

She had discarded her habit and wimple. Left them in the
dorter, no doubt, to avoid arousing suspicion. With her hair
cut short she looked like a beautiful boy. The next time we
dance the classics I'll have her as Ganymede or Hyacinthus.
She neither spoke nor smiled, and the cold draught from
the open doorway swept between her ankles unnoticed.

'Come in.' I put down my book and drew up a chair,
which she ignored.

'I would have thought it more appropriate for you to
study some improving work,' she said. 'Machiavelli, perhaps,
or Rabelais. Isn't Do what thou wilt your motto now?'

'It beats Thy will be done,' I said, grinning. 'Besides, since
when were you in any position to preach morality? You're as
much of an impostor as I am.'


1 70
LEMERLE


'I don't deny it,' she said. 'But whatever else I may have
done, I always stayed true to myself. And I've never betrayed
a friend.'

With an effort, I bit back a retort. She had touched me
on the raw. It was a knack she'd always had. 'Please,
Juliette,' I said. 'Must we be enemies? Here.' I indicated a
cut-crystal bottle on the bookcase beside the desk. 'A glass
of Madeira.'

She shook her head.

'Food, then. Fruit and honey cake.'

Silence. I knew she had spent the day in fasting, but she
seemed unmoved. Her face was mask-like, perfect. Only her
eyes blazed. I put out my hand to touch her face. I never
could resist playing with fire. Even as a child it was the
dangerous games that appealed to me: walking the tightrope
with a noose about my neck, firing wasps' nests, juggling
knives, swimming the rapids. Le Borgne called it hunting
tigers, and scorned me for it. But if there's no risk from the
quarry, then where's the joy of the chase?

'You haven't changed.' I said, smiling. 'One false move
and you'd take out my eyes. Admit it.'

'Get on with it, LeMerle.'

Her skin was smooth beneath my palm. From her cropped
hair I could smell the distant fragrance of lavender. I
allowed my fingers to move down onto her bare shoulder.
'Is that it?' she said contemptuously. 'Is that what you
wanted?'

Angrily I withdrew my hand. 'Still so suspicious, Juliette?
Don't you realize what I have at stake here? This is no


1 71
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ordinary game. It's a scheme of such daring and ambition
that even I--' She gave a sigh, stifling a yawn beneath her
fingers. I paused, stung. 'I see you find my explanation
tedious.'

'Not at all.' Her inflection was a precise parody of my
own. 'But it's late. And 1 want my daughter.'

'The old Juliette would have understood.'

'The old Juliette died in Epinal.'

That hurt, although I had expected it. 'You know
nothing about what happened in Epinal. For all you know I
might be completely innocent.'

'As you say.'

'What, did you think I was a saint?' There was an edge to
my voice that I could not subdue. 'I knew you'd manage
to get out of it; if you hadn't, I'd have thought of something.
Some kind of scheme.' She waited politely, eyes averted,
one foot turned out in a dancer's gesture. 'They were too
close, damn you. I'd tricked them once already, and now
they were onto me. 1 could feel it: my luck was running out.
I was afraid. And the dwarf knew it. It was Le Borgne who
set the dogs on me, Juliette. It could only have been him. In
any case he was ready enough to trade your necks for his
own, the bastard, and to deal me a foul blow with a
poisoned knife. What, did you think I'd deserted you? I
would have come back for you if I'd been able. As it was
I was lying sick and wounded in a ditch for days after your
escape. You felt a little pique, perhaps. A little anger. But
don't say you needed me. You never did.'

I must have sounded convincing - in fact, I almost


1 72
LEMERLE


convinced myself. But her voice betrayed nothing as she
repeated: 'I want Fleur.'

Once more I bit down upon my anger. It tasted metallic,
like a bad coin. 'Please, Juliette. I've already told you. I can
let you see Fleur tomorrow. Nor to bring her back, not yet
in any case, but I can arrange it. All I ask in return is a
truce. And a favour. A little favour.'

She stepped towards me then, and put her hands on my
shoulders. Again I caught the scent of lavender from the
folds of her shift.

'No, not that.'

'What then?'

'A joke. A practical joke. You'll enjoy it.'

She hesitated. 'Why?' she said at last. 'What are you
doing here? What could we possibly have that would
interest you?'

I laughed. 'A moment ago you didn't care.'

'I don't. I want my daughter.'

'Well, then. Why ask?'

She shrugged. 'I don't know.'

You can't fool me, Juliette. You care about these poor
toadstools, cowering in their darkness. They are your family
now, as once we were in the Theatre des Cieux. I have to say
it's a poor substitute, but each to his own. 'Call it a game, if
you like,' I said. 'I've always wanted to play the priest. Now
take these.' I handed her the tablets of dye. 'Don't get any of
the colour on your hands.'

She looked at me with suspicion. 'What do you want me
to do with it?'


I 73
HOLY FOOLS


I told her.

'And then I can see Fleur?'

'First thing in the morning.' Suddenly I wanted her (leave.
I was tired and my head had begun to ache.

'You're sure this is harmless? It won't hurt anyone?'

'Of course not.' Well, not exactly.

She looked again at the tablets in her hand. 'And it's jus this - little thing.'

I nodded.

'I want to hear you say it, LeMerle.'

I knew that she wanted to believe me. It's in her natur,

to do so, as it is in mine to deceive. Blame God for makir\,

^ me this way. I made my voice gentle as I put my arm aroury^

her shoulders, and this time she did not flinch.
'Trust me, Juliette,' I murmured.
Till tomorrow.


1 74
July 22nd, 1610


I MADE MY WAY BACK TO THE ABBEY IN HASTE. IT WAS NOT

truly dark; a sliver of moon lit the clear sky and the stars
were bright enough to cast shadows on the road beyond the
gatehouse. In the distance, just above the dim line of
the sea, I could see a bank of cloud darker than the sky.
Rain, perhaps. As I entered the dorter, I strained my ears for
sounds of wakeful breathing, but heard nothing.

In five years I have become familiar with the sounds of
my neighbours' breathing. I know the casual sprawl of their
limbs beneath the rough blankets, their nocturnal habits,
the sighs and whimperings of their dreams. I passed Soeur
Tomasine, first by the door, snoring in her high, whistling
manner. Then Soeur Benedicte, always on her face with
her arms outstretched. Then Piete, prim in sleep as she is
in waking; then Germaine, Clemente and Marguerite. I


1 75
HOLY FOOLS


needed all my dancer's agility to pass without alerting her; even so she stirred as I passed, one hand outflung in grasping,
blind entreaty. Then came Alfonsine's empty cubicle,
and opposite that, Antoine, hands folded demurely on her
breast. Her breathing was light, effortless. Was she awake?
She gave no sign of it. And yet she seemed too still, too
quiet, her limbs arranged with more dignity and grace than
sleep usually affords.

It could not be helped. If she was awake, I could only
hope that she suspected nothing. I slid into my own bed,
the hiss of my skin against the blanket very loud amongst
the sounds of breathing. As I turned to the wall to sleep I
heard Antoine give a sharp snore and felt some of my fear
slip away, but even as it did so, it occurred to me that the
sound rang false, too studied, too perfect in its timing.
Resolutely I closed my eyes. It didn't matter. Nothing
mattered but Fleur. Not Antoine, not Alfonsine - not even
LeMerle, alone now in his tiny study surrounded by books.
And yet it was LeMerle, and not my daughter, who followed
me into my dreams. I cared nothing for his games, I told
myself as sleep closed over me. All the same I dreamed of
him, standing on the far bank of a flood-gorged river with
his arms outstretched, calling out to me above the roar of
the water in words I could never quite hear.

I awoke with tears on my face. The bell for Vigils was
ringing and Soeur Marguerite was standing at the foot of my
bed with a cresset in one uplifted hand. I muttered the
customary Praise be! and rose in haste, feeling between my
mattress and the bed for the tablets of dye LeMerle had


1 76
LEMERLE


giv^n me> wrapped in a scrap of cloth so that my fingers
should show no tell-tale stains. It would he easy, I knew, to
dispose of the tablets ^s instructed. That done, I would see
my daughter
All the same 1 hesitatccj. I lifted the tiny package and
smtjlt it. It had a resinoUS) sweetish scent and I could detect
the smell °f 8um arabjc an pounds trie scarlet pigment Giordano
called Dragon's Blood through the weave. There was something
else- too: something spicy like ginger or aniseed.
Harmless, he had Promised.

LeMerle was not at Vigils, nor at Matins, nor Prime.
Eventually he made his appearance at Chapter, hut said that
he neede^ to attend to some business in Barbatre, and
selected two sisters - at random, or so it seemed - to assist
hirn. I was °ne. Antoine was the other.

As Pere Colombin addressed the Chapter and Antoine
saw- to the hens and ducks in the barnyard, I fetched
LeMerle's horse for the journey into Barbatre. Antoine and
I would Walk> °f course, Dut: ,-^e new confessor would ride as
befitted his noble status [ brushed the animal's dappled
flanks and strapped or\ the saddle whilst Antoine fed the
other beasts - a mule, two ponies and half a dozen cows -
frorn the tins of hay at the back of the barn. It was over an
hour before LeMerle jolnecj US) and when he returned I saw
he Had put aside his clerjca[ robe in favour of the breeches
and boots more suited to riding- He wore a wide-brimmed
hat to protect his eyes from t^e sun, and thus clad he looked
so like the Blackbird of the old days that my heart twisted.
It was rnarket day, a^j he explained as we set off that he


177
HOLY FOOLS


wanted us to arrange some food purchases and other errands
on his behalf. Antoine's eyes lit up as he mentioned the
market and 1 kept mine cautiously lowered. 1 wondered
what favour Antoine had performed - or might be called
upon to perform -- in return for this outing, or whether she
had indeed been a random choice. Perhaps it simply amused
him to see the fat nun sweat and struggle in the dust at his
horse's flanks. It didn't matter in either case. Soon I would
see Fleur.

We walked more slowly than my racing heart would have
wished, and even so Antoine suffered from the heat. I was
more used to walking, and although I was carrying a large
basket of potatoes on my back for sale at the market, I
felt no fatigue. The sun was hot and high as we reached
Barbatre, and the harbour and the square beyond were
already thronged with market-goers. The traders come
from everywhere on the island, sometimes even from the
mainland if the causeway is open, and today it was; in
the harbour the tide was at its lowest, and the place was
riotous with people.

As soon as we entered the main street we tethered the
horse next to a drinking trough, Antoine went off, basket in
hand, on her errand, and I followed LeMerle into the
crowd.

The market had been in progress for some time. I could
smell roasting meats and pastries, hay, fish, leatherwork and
the sharp scent of fresh dung. A cart half-blocked the
passage while two men unloaded cases of chickens onto
the road. Fishermen unloaded lobster pots and cases of fish


1 78
LEMERLE


from their craft. A group of women were at work with the
fishing nets, picking them clean of weed and retying hroken
mesh. Children straddled the wall of the churchyard and
gawped at passers-by. The air was hot with stench and
crackling with flies. The noise was overwhelming. After five
years of virtual seclusion I had grown unused to this press of
people, these cries, these smells. There were too many
people; too many criers and peddlers and gossips and
pamphleteers. A one-legged man behind a table stacked
with tomatoes and onions and glossy aubergines winked and
made a bawdy comment as I passed. Customers held their
noses as they queued at a butcher's stall, purple with flies
and black with old blood. A beggar with no legs and only
one arm sat on a ragged blanket; opposite him a piper
played, while a little girl in a shabby overall sold packets of
herb salt from the back of a small brown goat. Old women
seated in a close circle made lace with incredible deftness,
their grey heads almost touching over the needlework as
their withered fingers danced and twisted. What pickpockets
they would have made! I lost my bearings in
the throng; paused at a vendor of printed sheets, selling
illustrated accounts of the execution of Francois Ravaillac,
Henri's murderer, and a fat surly woman with a tray of pies
attempted to push past me. One of the pies fell to the
ground, splitting open in a startling burst of red fruit. The
fat woman turned upon me, squealing her displeasure, and I
hurried on, my face burning.

It was then that I saw Fleur. Amazing that I had not
noticed her before. Not ten feet away from me, head slightly


1 79
HOLY FOOLS


averted, a grubby cap covering her curls and an apron, much
too large for her, tied around her waist. Her face was set in
an expression of childish disgust, and her hands and arms
were stained with the leavings from the fish cart behind
which she stood. My first instinct was to call her name, to
run to her and take her in my arms, but caution halted me.
Instead I looked at LeMerle, who had reappeared at my side
and was watching me closely. 'What's this?1 I said.

He shrugged. 'You asked to see her, didn't you?'

There was a drab-looking woman standing beside Fleur.
She too wore an apron, and false sleeves over her own to
protect them from the stinking merchandise on display. As I
watched, a woman pointed out the fish she wanted and the
drab woman handed it to Fleur to gut. Her face twisted as
she slid the short blade into the creature's belly, but I was
surprised at my daughter's deftness with the unaccustomed
task. There was a bandage, now slick with a fishy residue, on
her hand. Perhaps she had not always been so deft.

'For God's sake, she's five years old! What business have
they to make her do that kind of work?'

LeMerle shook his head. 'Be reasonable. The child has to
earn her keep. They have a large family. An extra mouth
to feed is no little thing for a fisherman.'

A fisherman! So Antoine had been right about that. I
looked at the woman, trying to determine whether or not
I had seen her before. She could have been from Noirs
Moustiers, I supposed; she had that look. On the other
hand, she could easily be from Pornic or Fromentine; even
maybe from Le Devin or one of the smaller islands.


1 80
LEMERLE


LeMerle saw me watching. 'Don't concern yourself,' he
said drily. 'She's being well looked after.'

'Where?'

'Trust me.'

I did not reply. My eyes were already taking in every
detail of my daughter's transformation, each one bringing
with it a new kind of pain. Her pinched cheeks, their roses
gone. Her lank hair under the ugly cap. Her dress, not the
one she wore at the abbey but some other child's cast-off of
prickly brown wool. And her face: the face of a child with
no mother.

I turned back to LeMerle. 'What do you want?'

'I told you. Your silence. Your loyalty.'

'You have it. I promise.' My voice was rising and I was
powerless to stop it. 'I promised last night.'

'You didn't mean it last night,' he said. 'You do now.'

'I want to talk to her. I want to take her back!'

'I can't allow that, I'm afraid. Not yet, anyway. Not until
I'm certain you won't just take the child and disappear.' He
must have seen murder in my eyes then, because he smiled.
'And in case you were wondering, there are precise instructions
to be carried out in case of any misfortune happening
to me,' he said. 'Very precise instructions.'

I sheathed my gaze with an effort. 'Let me talk to her,
then. Just for a moment. Please, Guy.'

It was harder than I had expected. LeMerle had told me
that if I caused any mischief or suspicion, then there might
be no further opportunities to see Fleur. But I had to take
the risk. I moved slowly, curbing my impatience, through


181
HOLY FOOLS


the crowd to the fish cart. There was a woman on either
side of me, one demanding fifty red mullet, the other
exchanging recipes with the fishwife. At my back, more
customers jostled. Fleur lifted her eyes to mine and for a
moment I thought she had not recognized me. Then her
face lit up.

'Shh,' I whispered. 'Don't say anything.'

Fleur looked puzzled, but to my relief, nodded.

'Listen to me,' I said in the same low voice. 'I don't have
much time.'

As if to confirm this, the fishwife shot a suspicious gaze in
my direction before returning to the order of mullet. I gave
a silent prayer of thanks for the woman who wished to buy
such an unusually large quantity of fish.

'Have you brought Mouche?' Fleur's voice was tiny. 'Have
you come to take me home?'

'Not yet.' Her small face was grey with woe, and again I
fought the urge to take her in my arms. 'Listen, Fleur.
Where are they keeping you? A cottage? A caravan? A
farm ?'

Fleur glanced at the fisherman's wife. 'A cottage. With
children and dogs.'

'Did you cross the causeway?'

'Excuse me.' A big woman pushed between us, stretching
out her arms for a packet of fish. I stepped sideways into a
line of customers; someone called out in annoyance.

'Hurry up, sister! Some of us have families to feed!'

'Fleur. Listen. Is it on the mainland? Is it over the
causeway?'


182
LEMERLE


From behind the large woman, Fieur nodded. Then,
infuriatingly, she shook her head. Someone stepped into the
space between us, and once again my daughter was lost to
sight.

'Fleur!' I was almost weeping with frustration. The large
woman was wedged beside me, the crowd was pushing at my
back, and the customer who had called out had begun a
noisy diatribe on people who stood around gossiping in
queues. 'Sweetheart. Did you go over the causeway?'

For a second, then, I thought she would tell me. Puzzled,
she seemed to be trying to articulate or remember something,
to give me some clue which would reveal to me
where she was being kept. Was it the word 'causeway' that
she had not understood? Had she been taken to the mainland
in a boat?

Then the woman with the mullet turned to face me, and
I knew my chance to discover the truth was over. She
looked at me and smiled, holding out her basket of fish to
me in her meaty red arms. 'What do you think?' she said.
'Will it do for tonight's dinner?'

It was Antoine.


THE JOURNEY HOME WAS DIFFICULT. I CARRIED THE FISH ON

my back as I had the potatoes, the stench of it growing in
the sun in spite of the quantities of seaweed intended to
keep it cool. The load was heavy, too, fishy water dripping
through the weave of the basket onto my shoulders and into
my hair, soaking my habit with brine. Antoine was in
cheery mood and talked incessantly of what she had done at


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HOLY FOOLS


the market, of the gossip she had heard, the sights she
had seen, the news she had exchanged. A peddler from
the mainland had brought news of a group immolation in
honour of Christina Mirabilis, a woman had been hanged
in Angers for masquerading as a man, and there were
rumours that a man from Le Devin had caught a fish with a
head at both ends - a sure sign of disaster to come. She did
not mention Fleur, and for that, if nothing else, I was
grateful. However, I knew that she had seen her. I could
only hope that she would hold her tongue.

We followed the coastal path back to the abbey. It was a
longer route, but LeMerle insisted upon it - after all, he was
riding, and the extra mile or so meant nothing to him. It
had been one of my favourite walks in happier times,
passing by the causeway and along the dunes, but laden as I
was, lurching through the soft sand with the fish basket,
I found little enjoyment in it. LeMerle, on the other hand,
seemed to derive great pleasure from watching the sea,
and asked a number of questions about the tides and the
crossing times from the mainland, which I ignored but
which Antoine seemed more than happy to answer.

It was mid-afternoon when we reached the abbey, by
which time I was exhausted, half-blind from squinting at
the sun and heartily sick of the smell of fish. With relief I
delivered the stinking basket to the kitchens, then, my head
still ringing from the heat and my throat parched, I made
my way across the outer courtyard towards the well. I was
about to throw down the pan for the water when I heard a
cry from behind me; turning, I saw Alfonsine.


184
LEMERLE


She seemed fully recovered from the previous day's
attack; her eyes were bright and her cheeks were flushed
with excitement as she ran towards me. 'For God's sake,
don't touch that water!' she panted. 'Don't you know what's
happened?'

I blinked at her. I had completely forgotten LeMerle's
tablets of dye, and the instructions he had given me for
their use. My daughter's face seemed stamped across everything
I saw, like the afterimage one gets from looking too
long at the sun.

'The well, God save us, the well!' cried Alfonsine impatiently.
'Soeur Tomasine went down to fetch water for the
cookpots and the water had turned to Wood! Mere Isabelle has
forbidden anyone to use it.'

'Blood?' I repeated.

'It's a sign,' said Alfonsine. 'It's a judgement on us for
burying poor Mere Marie in the potato patch.'

In spite of my weariness, I tried not to smile. 'Perhaps it's
a vein of iron oxide in the sand,' I suggested. 'Or a layer of
red clay.'

Alfonsine shook her head contemptuously. 'I should have
known you'd say something like that,' she said. 'Anyone
would think you didn't believe in the devil, the way you
always try to find reasons for everything.'

No, it was demonic influence, she was sure of it. Mere
Isabelle was sure of it, and to such an extent that the
new Abbess was to order Pere Colombin to bless the well
and the entire abbey grounds if necessary. Alfonsine felt
unclean too, she said, and would not rest easy until Pere


185
HOLY FOOLS


Colombia had examined her minutely to ensure that
no taint remained in her. Following this pronouncement,
Soeur Marguerite had developed a tic in her left leg, which
the new confessor also promised to investigate. If this continued,
1 told myself, the place would soon be closer to an
asylum than an abbey.

'What about the water?' I asked. 'What are we going to
do?'

Her face lit. 'A miracle! A carter arrived near midday
with a delivery of twenty-five barrels of ale. A present, he
said, for the new Abbess. While the new well is being dug,
no one will go thirsty.'

That evening we dined on bread, ale and mullet. The
food was good, but I had little appetite. Something was
wrong - in the layout of the tables, the silence of
the assembly, the look of the food on our plates - which
made me uneasy. When we danced for King Henri at the
Palais-Royal and were led through his Hall of Mirrors I had
the same sense of things reversed, slyly reflecting an altered
truth, though perhaps the difference was in my mind only.

Mere Isabelle said Grace, and after that there was no
conversation - no sound at all, in fact, but for Rosamonde's
toothless gums sucking noisily at her food, the nervous
tapping of Marguerite's left foot and the occasional tick of
cutlery. I motioned to Soeur Antoine that she should take
from my plate what I did not eat, and she did so with gleeful
deftness, her small weak eyes bright with greed. She glanced
at me several times as she ate, and I wondered whether she
took the extra food as payment for keeping silent about


1 86
LEMERLE


Fleur. I left her most of the ale too, eating nothing hut the
hread. The smell of fish, even cooked, made my stomach
turn.

Perhaps it was that, or worry over Fleur, that made me
slow this evening, for I had been at table for ten minutes or
longer before I realized the source of my disquiet. Perette
was not at her usual place amongst the novices. LeMerle
too was absent, though I had not expected to see him.
But I wondered where Perette could be. The last time
I remembered seeing her was at the funeral yesterday, I
realized; since then, nowhere -- be it amongst the cloisters or
in the performance of my duties in the bakehouse, or later
at Sext in the chapel, or at Chapter, or now at dinner nowhere
had I glimpsed my friend.

Guilt at my disloyalty burned my cheeks. Since Fleur's
disappearance I had paid little attention to Perette - in fact,
I had barely noticed her. She might be ill - in a way I hoped
she was. That, at least, would explain her absence. But my
heart told me she was not. What plans he might have for
her, I could not guess; she was too young for his taste, and
too much of a child to be of any use to him, but all the
same, I knew. Perette was with LeMerle.


187
9 A

July 23rd, 1610


WELL, it's A BEGINNING. ACT ONE, IF YOU LIKE, OF A FIVE

act tragi-comedy. The main roles are already established noble
hero, beautiful heroine, comic relief and a chorus of
virgins in the style of the ancients, all in their proper places
- except for the villain, who doubtless will make his appearance
in due course.

The blood in the well was a poetic touch. Now everyone's
out looking for omens and prodigies - birds flying
north, double-yolked eggs, strange smells, unexpected
draughts - all are grist to the mill. The irony is that I barely
have to do anything to help it along; the sisters, cloistered
for so long with nothing to relieve the boredom, will see with
a little encouragement - precisely what I want them to
see.

Soeur Antoine is proving invaluable to me. Easily bought


1 88
LEMERLE


- for an apple, a pasty or even a kind word - from her 1 hear
rhe ahhey's gossip, its little secrets. It was Antoine, acting
on my instructions, who caught the six black cats and let
them loose around the abhey, where they wrought havoc in
the dairy and brought bad luck to no fewer than forty-two
nuns who inadvertently crossed their path. She, too, it was
who found the monstrous potato shaped like the Devil's
horns, and served it to Mere Lsabelle at dinner; and who
frightened Soeur Marguerite into a spasm by hiding frogs in
the meal bin. Her own little secret - that of her child and
its untimely death - I know from Soeur Clemente, who
scorns the fat nun and seeks to be my favourite. Of course
she is not, but she too is easily flattered, and to tell the truth
I prefer her to Alfonsine, breastless as the wooden panels in
the chapel, or Marguerite, dry as kindling and riddled with
tics and twitches.

Soeur Anne is less cooperative. A pity, that, for there are
distinct advantages in having an accomplice who will not
speak, and if I read the signs correctly, then the wild girl is
brighter than she looks. As easy to train as a good dog, in
any case, or even a monkey. And Juliette cares for her, of
course - an added bonus in case my hold on the child
should somehow slip.

Ah, Juliette. My Winged One remains unamused at
my little jokes, though she is secretly exasperated at the
commotion they have caused. That's like her; a lifetime of
spells and cantrips has done little to alter her essential
practicality. I knew she would not be fooled by tricks and
vapours, but now she is as responsible for the confusion as I


I 89
HOLY FOOLS


am myself, and will not betray me. I am tempted, sorely
tempted to take her into my confidence. But I have taken
enough risks already. Besides, she has a regrettable tendency
towards loyalty, and if she knew what 1 was planning, she
would probably try to stop me. No, my dear; the last thing I
need with me on this trip is a conscience.

Today I rode out to Barbatre and spent most of the
afternoon at the causeway watching the tides. It is a pastime
that never fails to calm my thoughts, as well as providing a
welcome respite from the abbey and the increasing demands
of the good sisters. How can they bear it? To be caged like
chickens, pecking over and over the same little backyard?
For myself, I have never been able to bear enclosed spaces. I
need air, sky, roads rushing away in every direction. Besides,
I have letters to send which are best delivered without my
IsabeUe's knowledge; a week's ride should do it, payment on
reply. The tide takes eleven hours to turn around - a fact
that few islanders have bothered to note, even though it
is useful knowledge -- leaving the causeway clear for just
under three hours every time. Some have written that
the moon draws the tide, as some heretics whisper the sun
draws the earth; certainly, the tide comes higher at full
moon, and shows less movement with the new. As a boy I
was repeatedly punished for my interest in such matters idle
curiosity, they called it, presumably to distinguish it from
the industrious apathy of my devout tutors -- but they never
quite cured me of my inquiring tendency. Call me perverse,
but God made it thus never seemed a satisfactory enough
explanation to me.


190
10 V

July 24th, 1610


TODAY AND YESTERDAY WE SPENT IN A FURY OF ACTIVITY.

Services in chapel have been officially suspended as
LeMerle deals with the special services, though we had
Vigils and Lauds as usual. I have been set to digging the new
well with Soeur Germaine, and as a result we are excused
from all but the most necessary of duties. Perette is still
absent, but no one talks of her disappearance and something
prevents me from asking too many questions; of course,
I dare not speak of it to LeMerle. As for the others,
they talk of nothing now but devils and curses. Every book
in the scriptorium has been consulted, every old wives'
tale brought out. Piete remembers a man in her village,
years ago, who was bewitched to death by bleeding.
Marguerite speaks of the sea of blood in Revelation, and
swears the Apocalypse is at hand. Alfonsine recalls a beggar


1 9 1
HOLY FOOLS


who may have muttered an incantation against her when
she refused to give him money, and tears she may have
been cursed. Tomasine suggests a charm of rowan berries
and scarlet thread. It would have been funny if it had
not also been a little frightening; although there had been
no official acknowledgement of our island Saint by the
new Abbess and her confessor, by noon there must have
been fifty tapers burning under the statue of Marie-de
la-mer, plus a little pile of offerings at her feet - mostly
flowers, herbs and pieces of fruit -- and the air was blue with
incense.

Mere Isabelle was furious. 'You have no business trying to
take matters into your own hands!' she snapped when
Benedicte protested that we were only trying to help. 'It is
completely irregular to ask for the intervention of the Saint - if indeed she is a saint - in a situation such as this. As for
these' - she gestured at the offerings - 'they are tantamount
to paganism, and I shall have them removed.'

Meanwhile, LeMerle was everywhere. Throughout the
morning I heard his voice ringing across the courtyard,
calling, hectoring, encouraging . . . instructions to workmen
here - he has three of them on the chapel roof to inspect
the damage and to estimate the cost of repairs - there to a
carter with a delivery of food, sacks of flour and grain, green
and white cabbages from the market, a case of pullets for
breeding. Soeur Marguerite is now in charge of supplies
as well as the cooking, and gloats visibly over Antoine's
envious expression. I noticed that she gloats over LeMerle,
too, pausing frequently to ask his opinion on the best


192
LEMERLE


way to store grain, the drying of herbs, and whether the
consumption of fish counts as tasting.

Then came the exorcism at the well, with prayers
and incantations befote the cover was fastened shut with
wattle and mortar. Then to the chapel again, and talk of
roofing and stacks and arch supports. Then back to the
gatehouse and Isabelle, who follows him everywhere like a
small, sullen wraith.

In the terrible heat, work on the well was slow and
laborious, and by mid-morning my habit was caked with the
yellow clay that forms a thick stratum below the surface
sand. This clay prevents the water that filters from beneath
from evaporating. Penetrate it and the water will ooze out,
brackish at first but becoming clearer and sweeter as the
well fills. It is sea water, I know, its salt content sifted out by
the banks of fine sand upon which the island sits. We are
halfway there now, and we save the clay carefully for Soeur
Benedicte, the abbey's potter, who will use it to make the
bowls and cups we use in the refectory.

Midday came and went. As manual workers, Germaine
and I lunched on meat and ale - although under Mere
Isabelle's new order our main meal is now after Sext, with
the midday meal reduced to a frugal handful of black bread
and salt - but even so I was exhausted, my hands puckered
from the brackish water, my eyes raw. My feet were peeling
painfully, and stones dug into the arch of my instep as I trod
blindly around the darkening hole. The water was deeper
now, the yellow clay giving place to a black ooze in
which fragments of mica sparkle. Soeur Germaine pulled


1 93
HOLY FOOLS


the buckets of ooze into the sunlight where they would be
used on the vegetable beds, for this evil-smelling stuff is
barely salty at all and rich as alluvial soil.

As cool evening fell and the light began to fail, I climbed
out of the well, helped by Soeur Germaine. She too was
mud-spattered, but I was many times caked with filth, my
hair stiff with it in spite of a rag tied around my head,
my face smeared like a savage's.

'The water is good here,' I told her. 'I tasted it.'

Germaine nodded. Never a woman of many words,
she has been almost entirely silent since the new abbess's
arrival. It was strange, too, I noticed, to see her without
Clemente at her side. Perhaps they had quarrelled, 1 told
myself, for in the old days they had been inseparable. It is a
bitter thought that barely three weeks after the death of
Reverend Mother, I can already think of my previous life
here as the old days.

'We'll have to shore up the sides,' I told Germaine. 'The
clay seeps and taints the water. Wood, then stone and
mortar, are the only things that can keep it out.'

She gave me a sour look that reminded me of Le Borgne.
'Quite the engineer, aren't you?' she said. 'Well, if you
think you can gain favour this way, you're likely to be
disappointed. You'd do better having a fit in church, or
tattling on someone in Confession, or better still, reporting
a monstrous potato, or thirteen magpies in a field.'

I looked at her in surprise.

'Well, that's what everyone wants, isn't it?' said
Germaine. 'All this talk - this nonsense about devils and


1 94
LEMERLE


curses. That's what she wants to hear, and that's what they
give her.'

'Give who?'

'The girl.' Germaine's words were eerily similar to those
Antoine had spoken the day they took Fleur. 'That dreadful
little girl.' She was silent for a moment, a strange smile on
her thin lips. 'Happiness is such a frail thing, isn't it, Soeur
Auguste? One day you have it, the next it's gone, and you
don't even realize how.'

It was a long, strange speech for Germaine, and I did
not know how to reply to it, or even whether I wanted to.
She must have read my expression, because she laughed
then, a sharp barking sound, turned on her heel and left me
standing by the well in the gentle dusk, suddenly wishing I
could call her back, but unable to think of anything to say.

Dinner was a solemn, silent business. Marguerite, who
had taken Antoine's place in the kitchens, had none of her
cooking skills, and the result was a meagre, oversalted soup,
with watery ale and more of the hard black bread. Although
I scarcely noticed the unappetizing fare, others were
inclined to balk at the absence of meat on a weekday,
though nothing was said openly. In the old days there would
have been animated discussion of this at Chapter, but now,
although the silence was laden with discontent, it remained
unbroken. Soeur Antoine, sitting at my right, ate with
thick, fierce bites, her black brows drawn together. She
looked different now, her flabby moon-face pinched and
sullen. Her work in the bakehouse was long and difficult;
her hands were covered in burns from the stone ovens.


195
HOLY FOOLS


A row away, Soeur Rosamonde ate her soup in happy
ignorance of the Ahbess's disapproval. The old nun's
distress at the changes in the abbey had been short-lived;
she existed now in a state of placid bewilderment, going
about her duties in a willing but haphazard fashion, called
to services by a novice specially assigned the task of
ensuring she did not stray too far. Rosamonde lived in a
half-world between past and present, cheerfully confusing
names, faces, times. Often she spoke of people long dead as
if they were still alive, addressed sisters by names that were
not their own, helped herself to others' clothes, went to
collect supplies from a barn demolished in winter storms
twenty years before. But she seemed well enough, and I
have seen this kind of thing many times before in the very
old.

Yet her behaviour irked the Abbess. She ate noisily at
table, smacking her gums. Sometimes she forgot to observe
silence or mistook the words of prayers. She dressed carelessly,
often going to church without some necessary item of
clothing until the novice was charged with her supervision.

The wimple was an especial burden to an old woman who
had worn the quichenotte for sixty years and could not
understand why it was suddenly to be forbidden. Even more
irksome to the new Abbess was her refusal to acknowledge
her authority, and her querulous calls for Mere Marie. True,
Angelique Saint-Herve Desiree Arnault had not had much
exposure to senility. Her life - what there had been of it was
a nursery where mechanical toys replaced playmates
and servants replaced family. For her there had been no


1 96
LEMERLE


clear window onto the world, her only view a procession of
priests and doctors. The poor were kept safely out of sight.
The old, the sick, the infirm were not a part of Mere
Isahellc's Creation.

Soeur Tomasine said Grace. We ate in a silence punctuated
occasionally by slurping sounds from Rosamonde. Mere
Isabclle looked up once, then her wrathful gaze returned
to her plate. I could see her mouth tightened almost to
invisibility as she ate in small, delicate jabs of her spoon.

An unusually loud smacking noise caused a ripple to
move down the novices' bench, perilously close to laughter.
The Abbess seemed about to say something, but her lips
tightened once more and she was silent.

It was to be the last time Rosamonde took a meal with
the rest of us.


i went to lemerle's cottage again that night, i am
not certain why I went except that I could not sleep and
that my need drew me, like a barb through the heart. Need
for what, I cannot say. I knocked, but there was no reply.
Looking in through the window I saw a soft glow from a
dying fire, and on the rug a shape - no, two shapes illuminated
in the firelight.

The man was LeMerle. I saw on his arm the black scarf
that hid the old brand. The girl was young, slender as a boy,
face averted, cropped hair the colour of raw silk beneath his
hands, beneath his mouth.

Clemente.

I crept back to the dorter then, and silently I returned to


197
HOLY FOOLS


my bed. Everyone sounded asleep. Even so a phantom
mutter of laughter pursued me as I fled, burning with shame,
to my place by the wall, past Clemente's cubicle ... I froze
in mid-step. Cjermaine was sitting bolt upright and motionless
in Clemente's bed. A stray strand of moonlight bisected
her scarred face and I could see her eyes shining. She did
not seem to see me, and I passed by without a word.


198
11

V


July 25th, 1610


PERETTE RETURNED THIS MORNING AS IF NOTHING HAD

happened. It was a disturbing fact of the new regimen that
no one had mentioned her absence, not even in Chapter. If
it had been any other than she, then perhaps someone
would have spoken. But the wild girl was no true sister - or
even novice - of Sainte Marie-de-la-mer. A strangeness
clung to her, an aloofness which no one had yet managed to
penetrate. Even I had been too absorbed in my own affairs
to pay any real attention to the absence of my friend. It was
as if Perette had never been there at all, her disappearance
from collective memory as complete as her removal from
every aspect of our daily life. This morning, however, she
was back: demure as a marble saint, she took her place as
usual without a glance at anyone.

But there was something about her manner that disturbed


199
HOLY FOOLS


me. She was too quiet, her face expressionless as only
Perette can be, her gold-ringed eyes as flat and bright as the
gilding on our altarpiece. 1 wanted to speak to her, to find
out where she had been for the past three days - but Soeur
Marguerite had already rung the bell for Vigils, and there
was no time for questions, even if Perette had been inclined
to reply.

LeMerle made no appearance until Prime. He never was
an early riser, not even in the old days, preferring to roll
out of bed at eight or nine, having read until midnight,
squandering candles - wax ones, not tallow - while the rest
of us had barely enough food to keep body and soul
together. It was always his way, accepted by all as if it were
his due, as if he were the master and we his servants. The
worst thing was we liked it; served him willingly and for the
most part without resentment; lied for him, stole for him,
made excuses for his most outrageous behaviour. 'It's the
way he is,' Le Borgne once told me, one day when my
exasperation had been too much to contain. 'Some people
have it, and some don't, that's all.'

'Have what?'

The dwarf gave his crooked smile. 'Grace, my dear, or
what passes for it these days. That gilding that some of us
receive at birth. That special gilding which sets his kind
apart from mine.'

I didn't understand, and I said so.

'Oh yes you do,' said Le Borgne with unusual patience.
'You know he's worthless, you know he doesn't give a damn,
and that he'll betray you some day or another. But you want


200
LEMERLE


to believe in him all the same. He's like those statues you
see in churches, all gold and glitter on the outside, plaster
on the inside. We know what they're made of really, but we
pretend we don't, because it's better to believe in a false god
than in no god at all.'

'And yet you follow him,' I said. 'Don't you?'

He looked at me with his one eye. 'I do,' he said, 'but then I'm a fool. Every circus has one.'

Well, LeMerle, I thought as all eyes turned hungrily to
watch him make his entrance, you can certainly take your
pick of fools this morning. Late nights and privations had
taken no toll on him, I noticed; he looked rested and well in
his ceremonial robes, his hair tied back neatly with a piece
of ribbon. The embroidered scapular of his office had been
flung over his black soutane and as always he wore the silver
crucifix, his pale hands resting upon it. As if by chance, he
had chosen to stand just beneath the single stained-glass
window, through which reached the first rose-gold fingers of
dawn. I guessed immediately that something was afoot.

With him was Alfonsine. Since her attack there
had been a number of rumours, though most of us knew
Alfonsine well enough to discount the wildest of these.
Even so, her presence at LeMerle's side attracted no little
attention, and she played it for all she was worth, affecting a
haunted look and a faltering step, and coughing repeatedly
into her fist. She behaved as if her fit of hysterics in
the crypt had elevated rather than disgraced her, and her
adoring eyes never left LeMerle.

Others were watching him too with varying expressions


201
HOLY FOOLS


of hope, fear and admiration; I caught Antoine staring, and
Clemente, and Marguerite, and Piete. Not all looks were
adoring, however. Germaine's face was set in a look of
dogged indifference, but I read a clearer message from her
eyes. I knew that look, and LeMerle was a fool if he failed to
recognize the threat. If Germaine had the chance, she
would do him harm.

Then silence fell, and LeMerle began to speak. 'My
children,' he said. 'It has been a testing time for us, these
past few days. The contamination of our well by means
unknown; the disruption to our services; the uncertainty of
change.' A murmur of acquiescence passed through the
crowd. Soeur Alfonsine seemed close to swooning. 'But the
testing times are over,' said LeMerle, beginning to move
from the pulpitum to the altar. 'We have survived them,
and must be strengthened thereby. And as a token of
our strength, our hope, our faith' - he paused, and I could
sense the expectation in the air -- -'we shall now take
Communion, a sacrament which has been neglected here
for all too long. Quam oblationem, to Deus, in omnibus
quaesumus, benedictam . . .'

At this Soeur Piete, who was in charge of the sacristy,
moved slowly to the tiny cabinet where our few treasures
were kept and brought out the chalice and holy vessels for
Communion. We seldom used these. I myself had taken the
sacrament only once since my arrival, and our old Reverend
Mother had been overawed by the finery of the treasures left
by the black monks, ordering them to be kept safe and
rarely allowing them to be seen at all. LeMerle broke that


102
L E M E R L E


rule, as all others. There is an oven at the back of the
sacristy for the baking of the holy wafers, but to my knowledge
it had been twenty years since it was last used. Where
he had got the wafers I can only guess; maybe he baked
them himself, or maybe Mere Isabelle had one of the sisters
make them. Bowing her head, Soeur Alfonsine carried the
Host to LeMerle, as he poured the wine into a dull-silver
chalice knuckled with polished gems.

Mere Isabelle was first at the altar, kneeling to receive
the sacrament. LeMerle put a hand on her forehead and
took a wafer from the silver plate.

'Hoc est enim corpus meum.'

At those words I felt my hackles rise, and I forked the
sign against malchance. Something was about to happen. I
could feel it. It was in the air, like a promise of lightning.

'Hie est enim calyx sanguinis mei ..."

Now for the chalice, huge in her small hands. Its rim
was blackened, the uncut gems no brighter than pebbles.
Suddenly I wanted to leap up and warn the child, to tell her
not to drink, not to trust him, to refuse the false sacrament.
But it was madness; I was already in disgrace, already under
penance; I forked the sign again and could not watch as she
parted her lips, drew the cup towards them and . . .

'Amen.'

The cup passed and moved on. Now Marguerite took
Isabelle's place in front of the altar, her leg quivering
uncontrollably beneath her habit. Then Clemente. Then
Piete, Rosamonde and Antoine. Had I been wrong? Had my
instincts deceived me?


203
HOLY FOOLS


'Soeur Anne.' Beside me, Perette flinched at the unfamiliar
name, the unfriendly voice. The Abbess's tone was
crisp, commanding. Any sweetness the Communion might
have opened in her was sealed up like honey in a bee's cell.
Perette took a step backwards, heedless of the nuns behind
her. I heard someone grunt as her bare heel stamped down
on an unsuspecting foot.

'Soeur Anne, you will come forward and take the sacrament,
if you please,' said LeMerle.

Perette looked at me in appeal and shook her head.

'Perette, it's all right. Just go to the altar.' My whisper
was hidden in the crowd. Still the wild girl held back,
her gold-ringed eyes pleading. 'Go on!' I hissed, pushing her
forwards. 'Trust me.'

Perette knelt before him, conspicuous in her novice's
habit, her nostrils flaring like a dog's. She whimpered a little
as LeMerle placed the wafer on her tongue. Then he passed
her the chalice. Her fingers closed around it and I saw her
glance backwards at me as if for comfort. Then she drank.

For an instant I thought I had been mistaken. His Amen rang clear in the bright air. He reached out to help Perette
to her feet. Then she coughed.

Suddenly I was reminded of the monk in the procession
at Epinal. The crowd drew away with just the same low sigh
of distress, the fallen monk rolling to the ground, the
chalice falling from his grasp.

Perette coughed again, leaned forward, then suddenly,
shockingly, vomited between her feet. There was a silence.
The wild girl looked up, as if for reassurance, then a new


204
LEMERLE


paroxysm of vomiting struck her, and she tried too late to
cover her mouth. An appalling blurt of red sprayed from
between her lips, spattering her white skirt.

'Blood!' moaned Altonsine.

Perctte clapped her hands to her mouth. She looked
terrified, ready to bolt. I tried to reach her, but Alfonsine
got in my way, crying: 'She defiled the sacrament! The
sacrament!' Then she too doubled up, coughing, and I was
back in Epinal, watching as the crowd drew away from the
stricken brother, hearing the human tide turn, crushing
everything in its path. For a minute I could hardly breathe
as the nuns in front of me backed me against the wall of the
transept.

Then LeMerle stepped forwards, and the sisters wavered
back into uneasy half-silence. Alfonsine was still coughing,
hectic patches of red standing out on her thin cheeks. Then
she too bent over and retched, and a terrible wad of blood spattered the marble between her feet.

That ended all hope of rational discourse. In vain I tried
to remind the nuns that Soeur Alfonsine had coughed up
blood before, that this was the nature of her illness - the
crowd heaved back just as it had in Epinal, and the panic
began.

'It's the blood plague!' cried Marguerite.

'It's a curse!' said Piete.

I struggled against it, but their excitement had reached
me too and I was drowning in it. My mother's cantrip - evil
spirit, get thee hence - calmed me a little, although I knew
that it was a man, and not a spirit, who had set this


205
HOLY FOOLS


in motion. All around me faces mooned, eyes rolled.
Marguerite had bitten her tongue and there was blood
on her lips. One of Clementc's flailing arms had caught
Antoine in the face, and she was cursing, a hand clapped
to her bloody nose. I'd seen a painting once, by a man
named Bosch, in which the souls of the damned clawed and
clutched at each other in just such an ecstasy of savagery
and fear. It was called Pandaemonium.

But now LeMerle had raised his voice, and it rolled across
the hall like the wrath of God. 'For God's sake, let us have
respect for this place!' Silence returned, filled with eddies
and small whimperings. 'If this is a sign, and the Unholy
One has dared to come upon us' - the murmur came again,
but he stilled it with a gesture - 'I say if the Evil One has
dared assail us now in the very sanctity of our church, to
desecrate God's very sacrament - then I am glad of it.' He
paused. 'As you should all be glad of it! Because if a wolf
threatens the farmer's herd, it's the farmer's duty to flush that
wolf out! And if a cornered wolf tries to bite, then what does
that farmer do/'

We watched him, eyes wide.

'Does that farmer turn and run?'

'No.' It was a thin cheer, like a splash of spray above the
rolling wave.

'Does that farmer weep and tear his hair?'

'No.1' It was stronger now, more than half the sisters
joining in the cry.

'No! That farmer takes what weapons he can - staff,
spear, pitchfork - and he takes his friends and neighbours


206
LEMERLE


and his brothers and his good strong sons, and he hunts
down that wolf, he hunts it down and kills it, and if the
Devil has made himself a home here, then I say it's time we
hunted him down and sent him back to hell with his tail
between his legs!'

They were with him now, whimpering their relief and
admiration. The Blackbird basked for an instant in that
applause - so long since he stood like this before a crowded
house - then his eyes met mine, and he grinned. 'But look
to yourselves,' he went on softly. 'If the Devil has breached
your defences, ask yourselves how you let those defences
drop. With what unshriven sins, what secret vices have you
fed him, in what shameful practices has he taken his solace
during the unclean years?'

Once more the crowd lifted its voice, touched now with a
new note. Tell us, it murmured. Guide us.

'The Unholy One may be anywhere.' His voice dropped
to a whisper. 'In the very sacraments of our church. In the
air. In the stones. Look to yourselves!' Sixty-five pairs of
eyes flicked furtively sideways. 'Look to each other.'

On that note LeMerle turned away from the pulpit, and I
knew the performance was over. It was his style - opening,
development, soliloquy, grand finale, and then, at last, to
business. I'd heard that piece -- or variations thereon -- many
times before.

His voice, so haunting and evocative before, changed
register, became the brisk, impersonal tone of an officer
giving orders. 'Leave here now, all of you. There can be no
more services until this place has been cleansed. Soeur


207

HOLY FOOLS


Anne' - he turned to Perette - 'will remain with me. Soeur
Alfonsine will return to the infirmary. The rest of you may
return to your duties and your prayers. Praise be!'

I had to admire it a little. From the beginning he had
held them in the palm of his hand, cleverly guiding them
from one extreme of feeling to another - but for what? He
had hinted at some grander motive than his usual robberies
and deceits, although I could not begin to guess at what
profit he might find in a little abbey hidden away off the
coast. I shrugged to myself. What could I do? He had my
daughter. Let me deal with that first and foremost. The rest
was the Church's business.

I



208
12


V


July 26th, 1610


WE DEVOTED THAT MORNING TO DUTIES, PRAYER AND

speculation. We held public confession at Chapter, during
which it was revealed that five other nuns had tasted the
tainted blood in their mouths after taking Communion.
Mere Isabella blames this inflammation of the senses on
strong meats and excessive drink, and has decreed that
nothing red - no red meat, no tomatoes, red wine, apples or
berry fruits - should be used in the kitchen or served at
mealtimes, and that our food should henceforth be only
of the plainest kind. Now that the new well is almost
complete, the ale too has been restricted, to the dismay
of Soeur Marguerite, who in spite of her ailments had
become almost exuberant under its nourishing influence.
Soeur Alfonsine is in the infirmary with Perette. Soeur
Virginie watches over them both, with orders to report back
HOLY FOOLS


anything unusual to Mere Isabelle. I find it impossible to
believe that any of my sisters can truly suspect either of
them of being possessed. Rumours abound, however. More
dragon's teeth of LeMerle's sowing.

After dinner today we had halt an hour to ourselves
before prayer, confession and evening duties. I went to my
herb garden - mine no longer - and ran my fingers over the
neat bushes of rosemary and silver sage, releasing their dim
sweetness into the darkening air. Bees droned from the
purple spikes of the lavender and the small fragrant blooms
of the thyme. A white butterfly paused for a moment on a
patch of cornflowers. Fleur's absence was suddenly very
immediate, very final, the memory of her orphan's face clear
as the turn of an evil card. I felt the grief which I had kept
at bay come flooding back. A few seconds stolen in a crowd,
a glimpse. It wasn't enough. And I had paid for it dearly.
Four days had passed. And still there was no sign from
LeMerle, no hint of a second visit. A cold feeling entered
me as I considered the thought that perhaps now that he
had Clemente, there would be no more visits to Fleur. I was
too old, too familiar for his tastes. LeMerle's palate was for
something younger. I had been too cold, too sure, too wilful.
I had lost my chance.

I knelt down on the path. The scents of lavender and
rosemary were heady and nostalgic. Not for the first time,
and with increasing urgency, I wondered what the Blackbird had planned. If only I knew his mind, then maybe I could
gain some hold over him. Was there gold in the abbey,
upon which he planned to lay his greedy hands? Had


2 10
LEMERLE


he somehow discovered the existence of a secret treasure,
which he hoped I would uncover during my excavation
of the well? We'd all heard stories, of course, of monks'
treasures, buried under crypts, immured in ancient walls.
But that's my romantic imagination again. Giordano
deplored it, preferring the poetry of mathematics to that of
high adventure. You'll come to a bad end, girl, he would say
in his dry voice. You've the soul of a buccaneer. And then,
with a twinkle in his eye as I seemed to approve of the
comparison: The soul of a pirate, and the mind of a jackass.
Come now, back to this formula . . .

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 for ever. 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, in 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 Clemente. But LeMerle could have had his pick
of beauties; had never lacked for success in that direction,


2 1 1
HOLY FOOLS


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. 'Misericorde!' 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 chapel 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.

'Alii/' she screeched. ThenI'

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 roofs 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:
'Who are you, young woman?'


2 1 2
LEMERLE


'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 short-sightedly at me. 'I know
I should know you, my dear,' she told me. 'But 1 can't quite
remember . . .'

I put my arm gently around her shoulders. I could see a
small group of sisters watching from the chapel door. 'Never
mind,' I said. 'Look, why don't we just go into the chapterhouse
and--'

But as I turned her to face the chapel Rosamonde gave
another shriek. 'Look!' she cried. 'Sainte Marie!'

Either old Rosamonde's eyes were not as feeble as 1 had
thought, or she had actually been in the chapel 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. One man
was positioning rollers. Two others levered the statue into
position. Two more at the rear kept her steady whilst the
foreman directed the operation. And thus, tethered like a
great beast, inch by inch on her wooden rollers came
Mariede-la-mer.

A few nuns were already watching in silence. Aldegonde
was amongst 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.


2 1 3
HOLY FOOLS


What could be more appropriate than our own chapel, our
own entrance, where she could he seen from every part of
the building, touched by anyone entering?

Rosamonde was making her way as quickly as she could
towards 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.

'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


2 14
LEMERLE


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, manoeuvred 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
colourless like its owner, and yet Rosamonde stopped
struggling and stared, her poor baffled face tugging between
hope and dread.

Mere 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 mere . . .'

'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


21 5
HOLY FOOLS


thing at our chapel! Pilgrims coming to touch it! Women
- pregnant women - scraping dust from it to brew their
charms!'

1 hegan 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 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. Angelique Saint-Herve Desiree
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 VESPERS WENT SOON AFTERWARDS, 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 Mere Isabelle's words on
the chapel 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 exorcized


216
LEMERLE


the chapel 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 rumours. Alfonsine seems quite
disappointed that she is to be given this clean hill 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 Saint Perpetua and Saint
Catherine and Christina Mirabilis, of the mystery of death
and the purity of fire, and he held us in his palm.


2 1 7
13 A

Abbaye de Sflinte-Marie la Mere,
lie des Noirs Moustiers,
July 26th, 1610


Monseigneur,

It is with the Greatest Pleasure that -1 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 Labour, and 1 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 favour of the Above. 1 add my


2 18
T.EMERT.E


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 Honoured 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?
Clemente? -- 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 colour, 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.


21 9
HOLY FOOLS


There's no heat in Clemente. Her pallor freezes my
bones. She whispers constantly in my ears tales of romance,
dreams of Belle Yolande, Tristan and Iseult, Abelard and
Helo'ise ... In any case, there's no danger of her talking.
The little fool's in love. 1 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.

Clemente 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 were unexpectedly become
one and the same, then the face at the window vanished
and 1 was left with nothing more than Clemente 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 Clemente's protests.


220
LEMERLE


Was that a pale figure half hidden in the shadows of the
gatehouse? 1 could not be sure.

'Colombin, please.' I looked over my shoulder to see
Clemente 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 / 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 Clemente 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 pere,' 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 towards her and
brushed her forehead with languid fingers.

'Very well,' I said. 'I'll overlook it this time.'


221
14

V


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 1 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.


222
LEMERLE


Last night before Vigils I heard her quarrelling with
Clemente in a low, harsh voice, though 1 could not make
out the words she spoke. There was silence from Clemente
- in the darkness I guessed she had turned her back - and
during the long hours between Matins and Lauds I heard
Germame weeping with long, harsh sobs, but 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 Clemente - 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 Clemente 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


223
HOLY FOOLS

I


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	<f\

time for games today. I have work to do.'	^jl

'Really? What a pity. And on market day, too.'	W'

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 Ailee, but your own sweet company. What
else should I desire?'

'I don't know. I daresay Clemente could tell me.' It was
out before I could stop it. I saw him flinch, and then he
smiled.

'Clemente? 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?'

Yes, that was like him. I hid an unwilling smile. But it's
hard to keep a secret in a place like this, and even Mere
Isabelle was not so besotted that she would overlook a
charge of lechery. 'They'll find out, you know. You can't
trust Clemente to keep a secret. Someone will talk.'


224
LEMERLE


'Not you,' he said.

His eyes had remained on me, and I felt uncomfortable
beneath their scrutiny. I poured more water into the vat, my
eyes stinging at the rise of steam over the lye soap. I would
have poured more - it was needed for the starch rinse - but
LeMerle took the water jug from me and set it down very
softly on the floor.

'Leave me alone.' I made my voice sharp to stop it from
trembling. The laundry won't wash itself, you know.'

Then let someone else finish it. I want to talk to you.'

I turned and faced him. 'What about?' I said. 'What can
you possibly want from me that you haven't already taken?'

LeMerle looked hurt. 'Must it always be a question of
what I want?'

I laughed. 'It always was.'

He was displeased at that, as I knew he would be. His
mouth thinned, and a gleam came into his eyes; then he
sighed and shook his head. 'Oh, Juliette,' he said. 'Why so
unfriendly? If only you knew how hard it's been these past
few months. All alone, no one to confide in--'

Tell that to Clemente,' I said tartly.

'I'd rather tell you.'

'You want to tell me something?' I reached for the baton to pound the clothes. Then tell me where you're hiding
Fleur.'

He gave a soft laugh. 'Not that, sweetheart. I'm sorry.'

'You will be,' I told him.

'I mean it, Juliette.' I had removed my wimple to do the
laundry, and he brushed the nape of my neck with his


225
HOLY FOOLS


fingertips. 'I wish I could trust you. There's nothing I'd like
better than to see you and Fleur reunited. As soon as I've
finished my business here . . .'

'Finished? When?'

'Soon, I hope. Enclosed spaces do nothing for my constitution.'

I poured another jug of hot water into the vat, sending
up a great billow of stinging steam. Then 1 pounded the
laundry some more, and wondered what his game was. 'It
must be important to you,' I said at last. 'This business.'

'Must it?' There was a smile in his voice.

'Well, I don't imagine you're here just to play practical
jokes on a few nuns.'

'You may be right,' said LeMerle.

I took the wooden tongs, fished the linens out of the vat
and dumped them into the starch bath. 'Well?' I turned
towards him again, tongs in hand. 'Why are you here? Why
are you doing this?'

He took a step towards me, and to my surprise, on my hot
forehead he placed the lightest of kisses. 'Your daughter's at
the market,' he said gently. 'Don't you want to see her?'

'No games.' My hand was shaking as I put down the
tongs.

'No games, my Ailee. I promise.'


FLEUR WAS WAITING FOR US BY THE SIDE OF THE JETTY.

Although it was market day, there was no sign today of the
fish cart or the drab-faced woman. This time there was a
man with her, a white-haired man who looked like a farmer


226
LEMERLE


in his flat hat and rough-woven jacket, and a couple of
children, both boys, who sat close by. I wondered what had
happened to the fishwife; whether Fleur had been staying
with her at all, or whether this had been a ruse to put me off
the scent. Was this white-haired man my daughter's keeper?
He said nothing to me as I walked up to them and took
Fleur in my arms. His milky-blue eyes were flat and incurious;
from time to time he chewed on a piece of liquorice
and his few remaining teeth were stained brown with its
juice. Other than that, he gave no sign of movement; for all
I knew he might have been a deaf-mute.

As I had feared, LeMerle did not leave me alone with my
daughter, but sat, face averted, on the edge of the sea wall a
few yards away. Fleur seemed a little uneasy at his presence,
but I saw that she looked less pale, a clean red pinafore over
a grey dress and wooden sabots on her feet. It was a
bittersweet satisfaction; she has been gone for little more
than a week and already she is beginning to adapt, the
orphan look fading into something infinitely more frightening.
Even in this short time she seems altered, grown; at this
rate in a month she will look like someone else's child
altogether, a stranger's child with only a passing resemblance
to my daughter.

I did not dare ask outright where she was being kept.
Instead, I held her in my arms and put my face into her hair.
She smelt vaguely of hay, which made me wonder whether
she had been kept on a farm, but then she smelt of bread,
too, so it might have been a bakery. I ventured a glance at
LeMerle, who was watching the tide, apparently lost in


227
HOLY FOOLS


thought. 'Aren't you going to introduce me to Monsieur?' I
said at last with a nod to the white-haired man.

The old man seemed not to hear. Neither did LeMerle.

'I'd like to thank him, anyway,' I went on. 'If he's the one
taking care of you.'

From his observation point, LeMerle shook his head
without bothering to look round.

'Mmm-mm. Suppose. Am I coming home today?'

'Not today, sweetheart. But soon. I promise.' I forked the
sign against malchance.
'Good.' Fleur did it too, with plump baby fingers. 'Janick
taught me how to spit. D'you want to see how I do it?'

'Not today, thank you. Who's Janick?'

'A boy I know. He's nice. He's got rabbits. Did you bring
Mouche?'

I shook my head. 'Look at the pretty boat, Fleur. Can you
see boats from where you're staying?'

A nod from Fleur -- and a glance from LeMerle from his
place on the wall.

'Would you like to go on a boat, Fleur?'

She shook her head furiously, bouncing her flossy curls.

Urgently now, seeing my chance: 'Did you come here on
a boat today? Fleur? Did you take the causeway?'

'Stop that, Juliette,' said LeMerle warningly. 'Or I'll see
to it that she doesn't come back.'

Fleur glared. 'I want to come back,' she said. 'I want to
come back to the abbey and the kitty and the hens.'

'You will.' I hugged her, and for a second 1 was close to
tears. 'I promise, Fleurette, you will.'


228
LEMERLE


LEMERLE WAS UNEXPECTEDLY GENTLE WITH ME ON THE

return journey. I sat behind him on the horse and for a time
he spoke in reminiscent tone of the old days, of L'Ailee and
the Ballet des Gueux, of Paris, the Palais-Royal, the Grand
Carnaval, the Theatre des Cieux, of triumphs and trials past.
I said little, but he seemed not to care. The merry ghosts of
past times drifted by us, brought to life by his voice. Once or
twice I found myself close to laughter, the unfamiliar smile
sitting strangely on my lips. If it had not been for Fleur I
would have laughed aloud. And yet this is my enemy. He is
like the piper in the German tale who rid the town of
rats, and when the townsfolk did not pay him his fee,
led their children dancing to hell's mouth and piped them
in, the earth covering their screams as they fell. Such a
dance he must have led them, though, and with such
a merry tune . . .


229
15

V


July 27th, 1610


WE RETURNED TO FIND THE ABBEY IN TURMOIL. MERE

Isabella was waiting at the gatehouse, looking ill and impatient.
There had been an incident, she said.

LeMerle looked concerned. 'What kind of incident?'

'A visitation.' She swallowed painfully. 'A damnable
visitation! Soeur Marguerite was in the chapel, praying.
For the soul of my p-predecessor. For the soul of M-Mere
Marie!'

LeMerle watched her in silence as she stammered out her
tale. She spoke in short, bitten-off sentences with much
repetition, as if trying to make the business clear in her
mind.

Marguerite, still greatly troubled by the events of the
morning, had gone to the chapel alone to pray. She went to
the closed gate of the crypt and knelt on the little priedieu


230
LEMERLE


which had been placed there. Then she shut her eyes. A few
moments later she was roused by a metallic sound. Opening
her eyes she saw at the mouth of the crypt a figure in a Bernardino nun's brown habit with its linen tucker, the face
hidden inside a starched white quichenotte.

Standing up in alarm, Marguerite called out, demanding
that the strange nun name herself. But her legs were weak
with terror and she sank to the ground.

'Why this dread?' asked LeMerle. 'It might have been
any of our older sisters. Soeur Rosamonde, perhaps, or
Soeur Marie-Madeleine. All have occasionally worn the quichenotte, especially in this hot weather.'

Mere Isabelle turned on him. 'No one wears it now! No
one!'

Besides, there was more. The lappets of the strange nun's
white bonnet, the tucker, even the hands of the apparition
were stained with red. Worse still -- here Mere Isabelle's
voice dropped to a whisper - the cross stitched onto
the breast of every Bernardine nun had been torn off, the
stitches still faintly visible against the bloody cambric.

'It was Mere Marie,' said Isabelle flatly. There Marie, back
from the dead.'

I had to intervene. 'That isn't possible,' I said crisply.
'You know what Marguerite is like. She's always seeing
things. Last year she thought she saw demons coming out
of the bakehouse chimney, but it was only a nest of jackdaws
under the eaves. People don't come back from the
dead.'

Isabelle cut me short. 'Oh, but they do.' The little voice
HOLY FOOLS


was hard. 'My uncle, the Bishop, dealt with a similar case in
Aquitaine years ago.'

'What case?' Impossible for me to keep the scorn from
my voice. She looked at me, no doubt concocting some
penance to inflict upon me at a later time.

'A case of witchcraft,' she said.

I stared at her. 'I don't understand,' I said at last. There
Marie was the kindest, most gentle woman alive. How could
you possibly believe--'

'The Devil may take a pleasing countenance if he
chooses.' Her tone was cold and final. 'The signs - the curse
of blood, my dreams, and now this damnable visitation . . .
How can anyone doubt it? What other explanation can
there be?'

I had to stop this. 'A person given to fanciful imaginings
may see things which are not,' I told her. 'If anyone else had
seen this - apparition . . .'

'But they did.' The small voice was triumphant. 'We all
did. All of us.'

Her pronouncement was not strictly true. When
Marguerite screamed, maybe half a dozen nuns were within
earshot, Mere Isabelle among them. Running from the
dazzling sunshine into the dark chapel, their vision unused
to the gloom, what they saw was little enough. A shape, a
white bonnet . . . The vision turned at their approach
and seemed to flee into the crypt. By then more nuns
had arrived. Later each claimed to have seen the same
apparition - even the latecomers who could only have
witnessed the ensuing disturbance. I even found so-called


232
LEMERLE


witnesses to the incident who had been working in the
fields all afternoon. But Mere Isabelle, armed with crucifix
and lantern, flanked by Marguerite and Tomasine, entered
the crypt to search for evidence of human interference,
having first unlocked the gate through which no mortal
could have passed. Their search was in vain. No sign of the
ghostly nun was found. But by Mere Marie's tomb, its seal
unbroken and the mortar still fresh, they found traces of the
same sweet-smelling red ichor that had tainted the abbey
water, a dribble of the stuff having seemingly leaked from
the stone cell containing Mere Marie's coffin . . .

LeMerle looked concerned and insisted upon going to
inspect the scene of the incident at once. I returned to my
duties. It was clear Mere Isabelle was annoyed that I had
accompanied LeMerle to Barbatre - though she grudgingly
accepted his assurance that I was needed to carry food
and medicines to a poor family there - and I was put to
work in the kitchens, peeling vegetables for the evening
meal. There I had plenty of time to think over what had
happened.

It seems too much of a coincidence. Last week I went to
Barbatre and Perette vanished for three days. This week,
Marguerite saw visions, once more in my absence. Both
times I was with LeMerle. Had he engineered this purposely
to have me out of the way? Certainly I should have tried to
intervene in both cases if I had been there. But what reason
can he have for such action? A practical joke, he told me
when he gave me the tablets of dye for the well. And a fake
vision of a hooded nun might as easily be another. I can


233
HOLY FOOLS


envisage Clemente accepting to take part. But what reason
can he have for such a cruel succession of practical jokes?
Surely the last thing he wants is to attract notice to the
abbey or to himself. And yet LeMerle is subtle, cunning. If
he planned it so, it must have been for a reason. What that
reason may be eludes me. If only I could somehow find out
who played the ghost and how she managed to escape
seemingly into thin air ... But the frenzy of interest
this prank has already ignited must be enough to still the
most voluble of tongues. Did he plan that too? And how
many other trifling favours has he granted, payment to
be deferred? And who are his acolytes here? Alfonsine?
Clemente? Antoine? Myself?


234
16


V


July 29th, 1610


A DISSOLUTION IS TAKING PLACE AMONGST US, THE SISTERhood
broken into pieces as far flung as the figure of our
patron. Clemente seems distant, banished to dig latrine
trenches for a week as penance for idleness. I find myself
wondering whether it is the stench of her work that has
given LeMerle a distaste for her, or whether this cruel
caprice is merely his nature. A blackbird may decimate the
fruit on a tree, pecking hither and thither at random,
spoiling but never finishing. Does she love him? Her dreamy
abstraction, the look in her eyes when he does not notice
her, suggests she does. The more fool she. Germaine's company
she will no longer tolerate, though the other woman
has volunteered to help her with the latrines in a desperate
measure to be close to her.

First thing this morning I eventually spoke to Perette, but


235
HOLY FOOLS


she was restless and abstracted, and I could make no sense of
her. Perhaps she is angry; with Perette it is always so
difficult to tell. I would like to tell her about LeMerle and
Fleur and the contaminated well, but my silence keeps Fleur
safe. I must believe that, or lose my mind. And so I deceive
my friend, and try not to mind if she holds me in contempt.
I miss her, but I miss Fleur so much more. Perhaps there can
be room only for one in my hard heart.

Rosamonde is no longer with us. Two days ago she was
moved to the infirmary, where the sick and dying are kept.
Soeur Virginie, the young novice entrusted with her care,
has taken vows at last and has taken over the duty of
hospitaller. A plain girl, as I recall from our Latin classes,
with little spirit and less imagination, her angular features
even now beginning to take on the coarse and ungrateful
look of so many of the island women. Mere Isabelle has,
I think, warned her against me. 1 can tell from her
sharp looks and evasive replies. She is barely seventeen.
Rosamonde is a foreign country to her. Her youth calls to
the new Abbess, whom she copies slavishly.

I saw Rosamonde yesterday over the wall of the infirmary
garden. Seated on a small bench, huddled into herself as if
by doing so she could somehow present the world with a
smaller target for its cruelties, she looked more bewildered
than ever. She looked up at me, but without recognition.
Robbed of her routine, the thin thread that bound her to
reality, she drifts in aimless anxiety, her only contact with
the rest of us the sister who brings her meals and the
bland-faced, unsmiling child appointed her keeper.


236
LEMERLE


I was enraged enough at the pitiful sight to bring up
Rosamonde's case at Chapter this morning. LeMerle is not
normally present at Chapter, and I hoped to be able to sway
the Abbess out of his presenee.

'Soeur Rosamonde is not ill, ma mere,' I explained in a
humble voice. 'It is not kind to keep her from what small
pleasures she can still enjoy. Her duties, her friends . . .'

The Abbess looked at me from the distant continent
of her twelve years. 'Soeur Rosamonde is seventy-two,'
she said. Sure enough, that must have seemed an eternity
to her. 'She barely recalls what day it is. She recognizes
no one.' Ay, I thought. That was more like it. The old
woman had not recognized her. 'And she is feeble,' continued
Isabelle. 'Even the simplest duties are too much for
her now. Surely it's kinder to let her rest than to set her to
work in her condition? Surely, Soeur Auguste,' she said, her
eyes glinting slyly, 'you do not begrudge her this well-earned
respite?'

'I grudge her nothing,' I said, stung. 'But to be shut up in
the infirmary, just because she's old and sometimes slops at
her food--'

I had said too much. The Abbess put up her chin. 'Shut
up?' she echoed. 'Are you implying that our poor Soeur
Rosamonde is a prisoner?'

'Of course not.'

'Well then . . .' She let her voice trail for a moment.
'Anyone who wishes to visit our ailing sister may do so, of
course, provided Soeur Virginie feels she is strong enough to
receive visitors. Her absence from the dinner table merely


237
HOLY FOOLS


means that she can be allowed a more nutritious diet and
more regular meals than the rest of us, at times more
agreeable to her age and condition.' She gave me a sly look.
'Soeur Auguste, you would not deny our old friend her few
privileges? If you live to be her age, I'm sure you'll be glad of
them too.'

Clever, the little minx. LeMerle was teaching her
well. Anything I said now would seem like envy. I smiled,
conceding a point, even though my heart seethed. 'I'm sure
we all will, ma mere,' I said, and was pleased to see her lips
tighten.

Well, that was the end of my attempt at rescue. As it was,
I had almost overstepped the mark; Mere Isabelle looked at
me askance throughout the rest of Chapter and I narrowly
escaped another penance. Instead I accepted a turn of duty
in the bakehouse - a hot, filthy, disagreeable task in this
sultry weather - and she seemed satisfied. For the present,
anyway.


THE BAKEHOUSE IS A ROUND, SQUAT BUILDING ON THE FAR

side of the cloister. Its windows are glassless slits, most of
the light coming from the huge ovens in the centre of the
single room. We bake in clay ovens as the black monks did,
on flat stones heated red by the heaped faggots beneath.
The smoke from the ovens escapes through a chimney so
wide that the sky is visible through its mouth, and when it
rains the droplets of water fall onto the domed ovens and
turn to hissing steam. Two young novices were making
dough as I arrived, one picking out the weevils from a stone


238
LEMERLE


jar of flour, the other mixing yeast in a basin, preparing
to make the mixture. The ovens were stoked and ready,
and the heat was like a shimmering wall. Behind the wall
was Soeur Antoine, sleeves rolled up over her thick red
forearms, hair tied into a rag that she had rolled about her
head.

'Ma soeur.' Antoine looked different somehow, her
usually kind, vacuous look replaced by something harder
and more purposeful. She looked almost dangerous in the
red light, the muscles of her wide shoulders rolling beneath
her fat as she kneaded the dough.

I set to work, kneading the bread in the huge pans and
placing the loaves on the oven shelves to bake. It is a tricky
business; the stones need to be heated perfectly even, for
too high a heat will scorch the dough whilst leaving the
inside raw, and too low a heat will bake flat, sad loaves as
dense as stones. We worked in silence for a time. The wood
in the oven crackled and snickered; someone had stoked it
with green wood and the smoke was acrid and foul. Twice I
burned my hands on the heated bakestones and cursed
under my breath. Antoine pretended not to notice, but I'm
sure she was smiling.

We finished the first batch of loaves and began the
second. An abbey needs at least three batches of baking a
day, each batch making twenty-five white or thirty black
loaves. Plus the hard biscuit for winter when fuel is less
abundant, and cakes for storing and special occasions. The
smell from the loaves was good and rich in spite of the
smoke that made my eyes sting, and I felt my stomach


239
HOLY FOOLS


growl. I realized that since Fleur's disappearance I had
hardly eaten. Sweat trickled through my hair, soaking the
rags that bound it. My face was bearded with sweat. My
vision doubled momentarily; 1 put out my hand to steady
myself and touched the hot bread-pan instead. The metal
was cooling but still hot enough to sear the tender webbing
between my finger and thumb, and I gave a sharp cry of
pain. Antoine looked at me again. This time there could be
no doubt about it; she was smiling.

'It's hard at first.' She spoke softly enough for me to hear
her, no more. The young novices were sitting near the open
door, too far to catch her words. 'But you get used to it
eventually.' Her mouth was very red, too ripe for a nun's,
and her eyes reflected the fire. 'You get used to anything
eventually.'

I shook my burned hand to cool it and said nothing.

'It would be a pity if someone found out about you,'
Antoine went on. 'You'd probably be here for good then.
Like me.'

'Found out about what?'

Antoine's lips curled wolfishly and I wondered how
I could ever have thought her stupid. There was mean
intelligence behind the small, bright eyes, and in that
moment I almost feared her. 'Your secret visits to Fleur, of
course. Or did you think I hadn't noticed?' Now there was
bitterness in her voice too. 'No one expects fat Soeur
Antoine to notice anything. Fat Soeur Antoine thinks of
nothing but her belly. I had a child once, but I wasn't
allowed to keep it,' she said. 'Why should you keep yours?


240
LEMERLE


What makes you any different to the rest of us?' She
lowered her voice, the little red light still dancing in her
eyes from the oven. 'If Mere Isabelle finds out, that will be
the end of it, whatever Pere Saint-Amand says. You'll never
see Fleur again.'

I looked at her. She seemed a thousand leagues away from
the fat soft woman of last month who wept when I pinched
her arm. It was as if some of the Saint's black stone had
entered her. 'Don't tell, Antoine,' I whispered. Till give
you--'

'Syrups? Sweetmeats?' Her voice was harsh and the young
novices looked up curiously to see what was happening.
Antoine snapped a sharp command at them and they
dropped their heads at once. 'You owe me, Auguste,' she
said in a low voice. 'Just remember that. You owe me a
favour.'

Then, turning, she went back to check her loaves as
if nothing had passed between us, and I saw nothing
but the stolid curve of her back for the rest of that long
morning.

Perhaps I should have felt reassured. It was clear Antoine
did not intend to disclose my secret. And yet her unwillingness
to be bought was unnerving; more so was the phrase
she had used - you owe me a favour - the Blackbird's
habitual coin.


THIS EVENING I WENT TO THE WELL AFTER COMPLINE TO

collect a jug of washing water. The sun had set and the sky
was a dark and brooding violet, striated with red. The


241
HOLY FOOLS


courtyard was deserted, as most of the nuns had already
retired to the wanning room or the dorter in preparation for
sleep, and I could see the warm yellow lights shining from
the unprotected windows of the cloister. The well is still
incomplete, awaiting a stone finish to its rough earthen
walls and a protective wall around. Today it is almost
invisible in the shadows, a primitive wooden fence erected
in haste around the hole to prevent anyone from falling in
by accident. A crossbar, furnished with a bucket, rope and
pulley, looks like a thin figure standing against the purple
ground. Twelve paces. Six. Four. The thin figure detached
itself from the wellside with a sudden start. I saw a small,
pale face made violet in the reflected sky, eyes wide with
surprise and - I could have sworn - guilt.

'What are you doing here?' Her voice was suspicious. 'You
should be with the others. Why are you following me?'

There was something in her hands, a bundle like wet
rags. My eyes fell to it and she tried to hide the bundle in
the folds of her skirt. In the shadows I thought I saw
staining on the linen, dark blotches which in that poor light
looked black. I held out my jug.

'I needed some water, ma mere.' I made my voice toneless.
'I didn't see you.' Now I could see the bucket of water
at her feet, its contents slopping over to form a puddle on
the trodden earth of the courtyard. The bucket also seemed
to contain rags or clothing. Isabelle saw the direction of my
gaze and seized the rags. They slapped against her skirt, but
she made no attempt even to wring them dry.

'Get your water, then,' she said curtly, pushing the bucket


242
LEMERLE


with a clumsy foot. It overturned, spreading a dark stain on
the darker ground.

I would have done as she asked, but I could feel the
tension coming from her. Her eyes were huge and strangely
brilliant, and in a stray sliver of light I noticed her face was
sheened with moisture. There was a smell, too, a bland and
sweetish scent 1 recognized.

Blood.

'Is anything wrong?'

For a second she stared me out, her face rigid with the effort of maintaining her dignity. Her chest hitched once.
The front of her skirt was dark with water from the dripping
rags.

Then she began to sob, the raking, pitiful tears of a
confused child, a child who has wept so bitterly and for
so long that she no longer cares who hears her. For an
instant 1 forgot with whom I was dealing. This was
no longer Mere Isabelle, formerly of the house of Arnault
and latterly Abbess of Sainte-Marie la Mere. As I stepped
forwards she clung to me and for a second it might have
been Fleur in my arms, or Perette, in despair over some
real or imagined sorrow such as only children endure. I
stroked her hair. 'There, little one. It's all right. Don't be
afraid.'

Against the breast of my habit she spoke, but her words
were muffled. I could feel water from the stained rags which
she still held tightly in her hand - trickling down my
back. 'What happened? What's wrong?' The swampy scent
of fever was sharp on her, like that of the marshes after rain.


243

HOLY FOOLS


Her brow was so hot that I wondered whether she were truly
ill. I asked her the question.

'Cramps,1 said Isabelle with an effort. 'Belly cramps. And
blood. Blood/'

There had been so much talk of blood in the past tew
days that for an instant I did not understand. Then it came
to me. Her words - the curse of blood - the stained rags
which she had tried to hide. The cramps. Of course. I held
her closer.

'Am I going to die?' The flat voice quavered. 'Am I going
to go to hell?'

No one had ever told her. I was lucky; my own mother
had no false delicacy. The blood was neither wicked nor
unclean, she told me. It was a gift from God. Janette told
me more as she taught me how to fold the pad and tie it
into place; it was wise blood, she whispered mysteriously.
Magical blood. Her quick hands fingered the cards, the new
game of Tarot, which Giordano had brought with him
from Italy. Her eyes were pale with cataracts, yet she had
the most piercing eyes I knew. See this card? The Moon.
Giordano says the tides follow the moon's cycle, in, out,
high, low. So are a woman's tides, dry at the wane, and full
at the waxing of the moon. The pain will pass. To receive
the gift, it may be necessary to suffer a little, a very little.
But this is the magical gem of which Le Philosophe speaks.
The fountain of life.

Of course, I could say nothing of this to Isabelle. But I
explained as well as I could until her sobs lessened and her
limp body grew rigid next to mine, and she finally pulled


244

I
LEMERLE


away. 'Your own mother should have told you,' I said
patiently. 'It's certain to be a shock to you otherwise. But it
happens to all girls when they hecome women. It's no
shame.1

She looked at me, already hardening. Her face was contorted
with disgust and rage.

'There's nothing bad about it.' For the child's sake, I had
to make her understand. 'It isn't the Devil, you see.' I tried
to smile at her but her gaze was accusing, hateful. 'It only
happens once a month, for a few days. You fold the pad like
this . . .' I demonstrated with a panel of my habit, but
Isabelle seemed barely to be listening.

'Oh, you liar!' She pulled away from me, kicking my
water jug aside with such violence that it flew through the
fence pickets and into the well. 'You liar!'

I tried to protest, but Isabelle struck out at me wildly with
her fists. 'It isn't true! It isn't! It isn't!'

1 knew then that I had committed the unforgivable sin. I
had seen her without defences. I had offered compassion.
Worse, I knew a secret now, a secret she considered shameful
enough for her to wash her soiled rags at night to ensure
privacy . . .

I read all this in her last look at me as she turned
momentarily to face me. 'You liar! You filthy witch! You're
the one! You're the Devil's whore and I can prove it!'

I tried to call her back.

'I won't listen!' Even then I could feel pity for her: her
youth, her frailty, her terrible loneliness ... "I won't listen!
You've always hated me! I see you watching me with your
HOLY FOOLS


insolence! Comparing me!' She gave an angry sob. 'Well,
I won't be deceived! I know what you're trying to do and I
won't -- I won't!'
Then she was gone.

246
I


PART THREE


ISABELLE
1

V


August 1st, 1610


THREE DAYS HAVE PASSED WITH THE SLICK CERTAINTY OF

nightmare. Since the incident at the well, Mere Isabelle
speaks to me rarely and without reference to what has
passed between us, but I sense her mistrust and dislike. Her
words on that occasion, the accusations and threats, have
not been repeated, in private or otherwise. Indeed, she
treats me with something like tolerance, which was not
her manner from the first. But she looks unwell: her face
mottled with angry-looking blemishes, her eyes purplish and
heavy.

LeMerle has twice more invited me to his cottage. He
hints at favours to be won, but I am afraid of what he may
ask me to abet this time. Already, Marguerite's apparition
has been seen in various parts of the abbey, each sighting
growing more detailed in the telling so that now the ghostly


249
HOLY FOOLS


nun sports hideous features, red eyes and all the trappings of
popular romance.

Unsurprisingly, Alfonsine has seen her too, in far greater
derail, and I wonder to what extent the ghostly nun is not
an invention of their mutual rivalry. Alfonsine, who looks
paler and more ecstatic as the days pass, even swears
that she recognized Mere Marie's kindly face beneath that
sinister coiffe, now distorted with hate and demonic glee. It
will not be long before Marguerite finds something even
more distressing to report, and thereby steals Alfonsine's
thunder once again; meanwhile, she spends her free time in
cleaning and prayer, while her rival fasts and prays - and
coughs with increasing frequency.

What is becoming of us? We talk of little else but of
blood and Visitations. Normal relations between us have
been suspended. Penances have reached a level hitherto
undreamed of, with Soeur Marie-Madeleine keeping vigil in
the chapel for two nights without sleep for having dared to
query some novice's tale. Our diet now consists of nothing
but black bread and soup, Mere Isabelle having decreed that
anything richer inflames the baser appetites. She says this
with such ferocity that the bawdy jokes to which such a
pronouncement might once have given rise in the days of
Mere Marie stick in the throat.

We thrive on gossip and whispered scandal. Clemente
has revealed herself to be a zealous informant at Chapter.
Few escape her innocent, wide-eyed spite. If Soeur Antoine
gobbles her bread before Grace, Clemente sees it. If
Tomasine closes her eyes during Vigils, if Piete shows


250
1SABELLE


ill-temper when disturbed at prayer, if Germaine speaks
slightingly of the Visitations . . . This last is especially cruel.
Words spoken in confidence are revealed in public with
bland complacency. Mere Isabella commends Clemente on
her sense of duty. LeMerle seems not to notice.

Germaine accepted her penance with cold indifference.
She looks stony now, her damaged face as rough and hard
looking as the effigy of Marie-de-la-mer, the saint who
never was. And yet it is easier for us to believe, in our abbey
buffeted by the bitter west winds, in a Goddess of the Sea, a
watchful, dangerous Goddess with stony, gouged-out eyes.
Easier in any case than in the Mother of God, that Virgin
claiming still to be the mother of us all.

Three days ago a fine marble statue of the Holy Mother
arrived by cart from the mainland, in replacement for our
loss. A gift, said Mere Isabelle, from her favourite uncle, for
whom we will say forty Masses in thanks for his generosity.
She is all white, this new Marie, smooth and bland as a
peeled potato. She sits in the doorway of the chapel where
the old Marie used to be, her lips curved in a tiny, meaningless
smile, one hand outstretched in a limp gesture of
benediction.

The morning after her arrival, however, the new Marie
was found defaced, obscene words scrawled across her
features in black grease-pencil. Germaine - who had been
doing penance in the chapel on the night of the outrage claimed
to have seen nothing during her vigil, though her
mouth curled as she said it. Perhaps a mysterious robed nun
did it, she suggested insolently, or a monkey from the Far


25 1
HOLY FOOLS	»


1 i

East, or a manifestation of the Holy Ghost. She began to	's

laugh then, softly at first. We watched her, embarrassed	1

and anxious. Patches of scarlet marbled her cheeks. For	;£.;

an instant she turned to Clemente with an expression of	"_T:

'W'

entreaty on her scarred face. Then she fell backwards, stiffly
onto the flagstones, hands clutching at air.

Germaine went to the infirmary after that. Soeur Virginie
declared that she was suffering from the cameras de sangre
and spoke of a possible recovery with noisy confidence
whilst in private she shook her head and whispered that
the patient was unlikely to live out the month. Soeur
Rosamonde, too, is causing concern. During the past week
her decline has been dramatic; now she remains in the
infirmary all day, barely moving and refusing to eat. Of
course she is very old -- almost as old as poor Mere Marie --
but until the removal of the Saint she had been a cheery
soul, sound in body if not in mind, and enjoying what small
pleasures she could with enviable simplicity.

I feel oddly responsible, and would try to intercede on her
behalf, but I know that to do so would accomplish nothing.
In fact, at this point, Mere Isabelle is far more likely to show
sympathy to Rosamonde if I seem unaware of her condition.

It is a part of his trap, of course. Every day I spend here
deepens the pit into which I have dug myself. LeMerle
knows it; doubtless he meant it so. He despises my loyalty to
the sisters, but understands that I will not leave them while
Fleur is safe and they are not. I have become my own jailer,
and although every instinct tells me with increasing urgency
that I must escape, I am afraid of what may happen if my


252
I S A B E L L E


vigilance is withdrawn. Every night I tell the cards, hut they
show me nothing hut what I already know: the Tower in
flames with the woman falling, arms outstretched, from the
fop; the hooded Hermit; the cruel Six of Swords. Disaster,
poised like a crushing rock above our heads, with nothing I
can do to prevent its fall.


253
2 A

August 1st, 1610


AT LAST, A REPLY TO MY LETTERS. MONSEIGNEUR TAKES HIS

time, it seems, and sees no reason to thank me for all my hard
work. I am privileged to be given the chance to devote my
life to the noble house of Arnault. However, the generous
gift, the marble statue which accompanied his letter, shows
his unspoken approval. Monseigneur is most gratified to hear
of his niece's reforms. As well he might - a pretty picture I
drew of the young Abbess, radiant in her innocence and
unearthly beauty; of adoring nuns; of birds flocking to hear
her speak. I hinted at marvels; showers of rose leaves;
spontaneous healings. Soeur Alfonsine will be pleased to
hear that she has been restored to health from a fatal illness.
Soeur Rosamonde, too, has regained the use of her withered
arm. One must not speak too hastily of miraculous cures, but
one must always hope, and if God wills it ...


254
ISABELLE


The lure is cast. I have little doubt but that he will take
it. I have suggested the fifteenth of August as a favourable
date. It seems appropriate, it being the day of the Virgin, to
celebrate thus our reclamation of the abbey.
Meanwhile, I must work day and night to have things
ready in time. Fortunately 1 have my helpers: Antoine,
strong, slow and undemanding; Alfonsine, my visionary
and spreader of rumours; Marguerite, my catalyst. Not to
mention Piete, who runs errands, my little Soeur Anne, and
Clemente . . .

Well, maybe that was a miscalculation. Despite her
meek appearance she is by far the most demanding of my
disciples, and I find it hard to keep up with her changes of
mood. Purring like a housecat one day, the next perversely
cold, she seems to take pleasure in goading me into
violence, only to indulge in extravagant protestations of
love and repentance afterwards. I believe I am expected to
find this appealing. Many would, I am sure. But I'm no
seventeen-year-old any more, to be ensnared by a pretty
face and some girlish simpering. Besides, I have so little
time to give her. My hours have become at least as long and
as wearisome as those of the nuns. My nights are divided
between various clandestine pursuits; my days are filled with
blessings, exorcisms, public confessions and other everyday
blasphemies.

Following the first sighting of the Unholy Nun there
have been a number of further incidents which may or may
not be of a demonic nature: crosses removed from nuns'
habits during the night; obscene writings on statues in the


255
HOLY FOOLS


chapel; red dye in the font and on the stones in front of the

altar. Pere Colombia, however, remains defiant in the face	:

of these new outrages, and spends hours each day in prayer;

an occasional catnap saves me from complete exhaustion,

and Soeur Antoine ensures that I do not starve.

And what of you, my Juliette? How far will you follow
me, and for how long? The market at Barbatre has served
its purpose. There cannot be another visit there without
arousing suspicion. Isabelle watches me with something	<

akin to jealousy, and her vigilance, assiduously honed, is a	<$.

compass needle ever pointing in my direction. Pere Saint-	;'

Amand is an innocent for all his worldly wisdom, easily	|

swayed by feminine wiles. Far harder on her own sex than	&

any man could be, she knows this my essential weakness	t

and values this proof of my humanity. If she learned of my	4

involvement with Clemente now, she would take my side,	|

assuming that the girl led me into temptation. But her eye is	I'

on Juliette. Instinct shows her where the enemy lies. My	\

Winged One works in the bakehouse - hard enough work,	*,

I'm told, but an easier task than digging the well. She does	',

not approach me, though she must long for news of her	<&

daughter, but preserves that look of stolid, almost stupid	ij

docility that goes so ill with what 1 know of her. Only once	|

she slipped and drew attention to herself when the old nun	'j

was taken to the infirmary. Yes, I heard about that. A
foolish lapse, and for what? What loyalty can such as she
have to these people? She always had too soft a heart.
Except, of course, with me.

This morning I spent two hours I could ill afford with


256
ISABELLE


Isabelle in confession and prayer. She has a study of her own
next to her bedchamber with a shrine, candles, a portrait of
herself by Toussaint Dubreuil and a silver figurine of the
Virgin taken from the sacristy treasures. Time was when I would have coveted that figurine, and the treasures too, but
the time for pilfering is long past. Instead 1 listened to a
spoilt girl's rantings with a grave, compassionate air, whilst
deep in my stomach, I grinned.

Mere Isabelle is troubled. She tells me so with the unconscious
arrogance of her breeding, an adult's pride
masking the child's fears. For she does fear, she tells me. For
her soul; for her salvation. There have been dreams, you see.
She sleeps only three or four hours a night - is the sea never
quiet? - and what sleep she finds is stitched through with
uneasy dreams of a kind she has never before known.

'Of what?' I narrowed my eyes to hide the smile within.
She may only be a child, but her senses are alert, her
instincts uncanny. In another life I might have made a fine
card-player of her.

'Blood.' Her voice was low. 'I dreamed blood flowed from
the stones of the crypt and into the chapel. Then I dreamed
of the black statue in the doorway, and blood came welling
from beneath it. Then I dreamed of Soeur Auguste' - I told
you her instincts were sound - 'and of the well. I dreamed
blood came from the well Soeur Auguste was digging, and it
was all over me!'

Very good. I never credited my little pupil with such an
imagination. I notice that her face is marked with a number
of small blemishes about the mouth and chin, indicating


257
HOLY FOOLS


ill-health. 'You must not push yourself so hard, ma fille,' I
told her gently. 'To encourage physical collapse through
self-denial is no way to ensure the completion of our work
here.'

'There's truth in dreams,' she muttered, sullen. 'Was not
the well water tainted? And the sacrament/'

Gravely I nodded. Difficult to remember that she is
twelve years old; with her pinched small face and reddened
eyes she looks ancient, used up.

'Soeur Alfonsine saw something in the crypt.' Again that
mutter, half sullen, half imperious.

'Shadows,' I told her crisply, feeding the flame.

'No!' Her shoulders hunched instinctively; she put her
hand to the pit of her stomach with a grimace.

'What is it?' My hand lingered at the nape of her neck
and she pulled away.

'Nothing. Nothing!' she repeated, as if I had contradicted
her. A cramp, she tells me. An ache, which has afflicted
her for the past few days. It will pass. She seemed about to
tell me more, the wizened mask falling for an instant
to reveal the child she might have been. Then she
recovered, and for a moment I could clearly see her uncle in
her. It's a welcome resemblance; it reminds me that this is
not a normal child that I am dealing with, but one of a
vicious and degenerate brood. 'Leave me now,' she told me
haughtily. 'I wish to pray alone.'

I nodded, hiding a smile. Say your prayers, little sister.
The house of Arnault may need them sooner than you
think.


2 58
r


3


V


August 3rd, 1610


LAST NIGHT, GERMA1NE KILLED HERSELF. WE FOUND HER THIS

morning, hanging from the crossbar halfway down the well.
Her weight had dragged down the wooden strut from which
she was suspended without dislodging it from the earth
walls. A few more feet and the corpse might have tainted
the well water more certainly than LeMerle's red dye. As it
was, Germaine's suicide was as cryptic as she was in life.
Close by, we found obscene, barely decipherable messages
on the chapel walls as well as on several statues, scrawled in
the same black grease-pencil which had been used to deface
the new Marie, and she had removed the Bernardine cross
from the front of her habit, carefully unpicking the tiny
stitches, as if to spare us the shame of seeing it on the breast
of a suicide.

I saw only a glimpse of her face as they pulled her from
HOLY FOOLS


her vertical grave, but it seemed to me virtually unchanged.
Even in death her mouth had just the same pinched and
cynical look, that look of always expecting and receiving
the worst life had to offer, which hid a heart more vulnerable
and more easily bruised than anyone knew.

She was buried without ceremony before Prime, at
the crossroads beyond the abbey grounds. I dug the grave
myself, remembering our work on the well together, and I
spoke a few silent, sorry words to Sainte Mariede-la-mer.
Tomasine wanted to put a stake through the corpse's heart,
to prevent her from walking, but I would not allow it. Let
Germaine rest as she could, I said; we were nuns, not
savages.

Tomasine muttered something sullen and indistinct.

'What did you say?'

'Nothing.'

I could sense the unrest, however. Throughout the day it
walked with me, in the abbey, in the garden and the chapel;
it worked alongside me in the bakehouse and in the fields. It
did not help that the heat had soured. Overnight the air
had become flat and humid, and the sun was a tarnished
coin behind a sheet of cloud. Beneath it we sweated; sweating,
we stank. No one spoke aloud of Germaine's suicide, or
even of the Unholy Nun, but it was there nevertheless: a
murmur of revolt, a fear that grew with every silent hour.
This was, after all, the second death in as many months and
both had occurred in unusual circumstances. A third
outrage seemed only a matter of time.

Then, this evening, it finally came. Soeur Virginie


260
ISABELLE


arrived from the infirmary with the unwelcome news that
during Chapter Soeur Rosamonde had died. Oh, it was to
he expected at her age, but it was a blow nevertheless.
Certainly it was enough to set rumours flying: Rosamonde
had died of shock following a new Visitation by the Unholy
Nun; she had been bewitched to death by the same
evil spirit that had killed Mere Marie; she had committed
suicide; she had died of the cholera, and everyone was
trying to cover it up; she had perished of an overzealous
bleeding, authorized by Mere Isabelle.

I was more inclined to believe this. Virginie's handling of
the old woman had been misguided from the start, and,
separated from her friends and cut off from the rest of
the abbey, Rosamonde had soon fallen into a fatal decline.
Her death was ill-timed, however. No amount of reasoning
could persuade the other sisters that they were in no danger.
Death is not contagious, I protested; only disease. At her
own insistence I agreed to make a medicine bag for Soeur
Piete to protect her from evil humours, and I promised
strengthening draughts for Alfonsine and Marguerite, who
had grown even thinner under Virginie's care. After the
evening meal several of the novices came to me for advice
and protection; I told them to avoid excessive fasting, to
drink only the water from the well, and to wash with soap
morning and night.

'What good will that do?' asked Soeur Tomasine when she
heard of it.

I explained that regular washing sometimes prevented
disease.


261
HOLY FOOLS


She looked sceptical. 'I don't see how it can,' she said.
'You need holy water, not soap and water, to drive out evil.'

1 sighed. It is sometimes very difficult to explain these
things without sounding heretical. 'Some evils are waterborne,'
I explained carefully. 'Some travel by air. If the
water or the air is tainted, then disease may spread.' I
showed her the scented pomander I had made to dispel foul
air and flying insects, and she turned it over suspiciously in
her hand.

'You seem to know a lot about these things,' she said.

'Only what I've heard.'


AT VESPERS TONIGHT LEMERLE SPOKE TO US, LOOKING TIRED

after a day of fasting and prayer. Exhausted and afraid, the
sisters brightened a little at the sound of his voice, but Pere
Saint-Amand seemed reluctant to mention the long day's
troubling business, and spoke of the trials of Saint Felicity
with a forced cheer which convinced no one.

Then Mere Isabelle addressed us. I had noticed that the
more LeMerle spoke to us of caution and restraint, the more
agitated she became, as if she were purposely defying the
new confessor. Today her address was longer and more
confused than ever, and though she spoke to us of the Light
of God in the darkness, her speech held little illumination.

'We must try to find the light,' she told us in a voice that
quavered a little with fatigue. 'But today it seems that try as
we might we are infested, even to the heart. Even to the
soul. Oh, we mean well. But even the best of intentions may
lead the soul into hell. And sin is everywhere. No one is


262
ISABELLE


safe. Even a hermit alone for fifty years in a lightless cave
may not be free of sin. Sin is a plague, and it is contagious.'

'There have been dreams,' she whispered, and a murmur rose from the assembly like poison smoke, 'dreams and
blood,' and the murmur echoed again like the voice of our
longings - blood, yes - 'and now the ichors of hell flow free
among us, touching us with monstrous thoughts, monstrous
cravings . . .' Yes, whispered the voice of the multitude, Oh yes, yes, yesss!

At her side LeMerle seemed to smile - or was it the
candlelight? - his face ringed in the glow from the sacristy
lantern so that a soft nimbus surrounded him.

'There have been lecheries!' cried Mere Isabelle.
'Blasphemies! Secret abominations! Can anyone deny it?'

Before her Soeur Alfonsine began to wail, arms held out.
Clemente too held out her hands in seeming entreaty.
Behind them, a dozen more joined the chorus. 'All of us,
guilty!'

Guilty, yessss! An ecstasy of release.

'All of us tainted!'

Tainted, yes!

The candles, the incense, the stench of fear and excitement.
The dark, teeming with shadows. A gust of wind
slammed the door against the wall and set the candles
guttering. A hundred shadows against the walls doubled,
trebled, becoming three hundred, three thousand, an army
from hell. Someone screamed. Such was the nervous power
of Mere Isabelle's soliloquy that the cry was echoed by a
dozen more.


263
HOLY FOOLS


'See! It comes! It comes! It is here!'

Everyone turned to see who had cried out. Set slightly
apart from the rest of the crowd stood Soeur Marguerite,
arms uplifted. She had cast aside her wimple and her head
was thrown back, revealing a face distorted with tics and
tremors. Her left leg was shaking perceptibly through the
thick folds of her habit, a vibration that seemed to pass
through every muscle and nerve in her body.

'Soeur Marguerite?' LeMerle spoke in a clear, calm voice.
'Soeur Marguerite, is anything wrong?'

With a visible effort, the thin nun turned her eyes
towards him. Her mouth opened, but nothing came. The tic
in her leg intensified.

'Don't touch me!' said Marguerite, as Soeur Virginie
moved to help her.

LeMerle looked concerned. 'Soeur Marguerite. Come
here please. If you can.'

It was clear she wanted to obey. But her limbs refused to
do so. I had seen a similar case in Montauban, in Gascony,
where several people had been afflicted by St Vitus' Dance.
But this was not the same malady. Marguerite's leg jerked
and danced as if some evil puppeteer were pulling her
strings. Her face worked frantically.

'She's faking,' said Alfonsine.

Marguerite's head twisted to face her. Grotesquely,
her body kept the same unnatural posture. 'Help me,' she
said.

Isabelle had been watching in silence. Now she spoke.
'Can you doubt it now?' she said in a low voice. 'Possessed!'


264
1SABELLE


LeMerle said nothing, but looked well satisfied with himself.

All around them, the sisters had begun to murmur. The
word - unspoken until this moment - filled the air like a
plague of moths.

Only Alfonsine looked sceptical. 'That's ridiculous,' she
said. 'It's a tic, or the palsy. You know what she's like.'

Privately, I agreed with her. There had been more than
enough excitement in the abbey during the past weeks to
provoke a frenzy in one as susceptible as Soeur Marguerite.
Besides, Alfonsine had been coughing up more blood than
ever in recent days, and it was getting hard to compete.

Isabelle, however, was not pleased. 'There have been
cases!' she snapped. 'Who are you to question this one?
What do you know about it?'

Alfonsine, abashed at the rebuke, began to cough. I could
hear her forcing it, raking at her throat. If she'd had any
sense she would have accepted the linctus I had prepared for
her, and bandaged her throat with linen. Even so I knew
that such remedies would not cure her, but would merely
slow the progress of her illness. The consumption is not an
ill that can be cured with syrups.

Meanwhile, Marguerite's affliction had not abated. The
tremor had passed to her right leg, and now both legs
were infected with the dancing sickness. Her eyes rolled
in dismay as her feet seemed to move independently of
the rest of her body, rocking her from side to side. The
word - possessssed - rolled around the vaults, picking up
momentum as it went.


265
HOLY FOOLS


Isabella turned to LeMerle. 'Well?'

He shook his head. 'It's too early to say.'

'How can you doubt it?'

The Blackbird looked at her. 'I can doubt it, child,' he
said with an edge of irritation, 'because, unlike you, 1 have
seen many things, and I know how easily judgement may be
clouded by impatience and lack of thought.'

For a moment Isabelle held his gaze defiantly, then her
eyes dropped. 'Forgive me, mon pere,' she said through her
teeth. 'What shall I do?'

He thought about it for a while. 'She should be
examined,' he decided, with a seeming reluctance.
'Immediately.'


266
4 V

August 4th, 1610


ONLY I COULD APPRECIATE HOW DEFTLY THE BLACKBIRD HAD

handled last night's scene. By seeming to hold back, by
adopting a reasoned posture at variance with the atmosphere
of fear and mistrust he had already created, he had
made it seem as if they, and not he, were making the
decisions. Soeur Marguerite was taken to the infirmary,
where she remained with LeMerle and Soeur Virginie
throughout the night and the following day. According
to the rumours, Marguerite's tic had continued for more
than an hour after the aborted service. She was bled
twice, on Soeur Virginie's recommendation, after which she
was too exhausted to be examined, and had to be put to
bed.

I listened to the reports with barely restrained impatience.
Of course I know that Soeur Virginie is a silly girl


267
HOLY FOOLS


who should never have been put in charge of the infirmary.
Already weakened by fasting and nervous exhaustion, the
last thing Marguerite needs at the moment is bleeding.
She needs rest, quiet and good, wholesome food: meat,
bread and a little red wine - all the things, in fact,
that Mere Isabelle has forbidden. Demons respond to
sanguineous humours, declares Soeur Virginie, and to
prevent infestation it is essential to thin the blood. In fact,
the colour red would have been outlawed altogether except
for the crosses stitched onto our habits, and Mere Isabelle
looks with suspicion on any sister who does not share her
own sickly pallor. Red is the Devil's colour: dangerous,
immodest, blatant. For the first time I am glad that I wear
the wimple, and hope that she does not remember the
colour of my hair.

In this sullen heat, ill-humour and suspicion breed like
the plague. There are cantrips to bring rain, but I dare not
use them; already I sense the disapproval of Soeur Tomasine
and others, and I want no more unwelcome attention.
Instead, this evening, alone by the chapel, I sat at the
feet of the new Marie, lit a candle for Germaine and
Rosamonde, and tried to compose my thoughts.

Tsk-tsk, begone! But the Six of Swords is not so easily
banished. It hangs above my head like a curse, and will not
be satisfied. I looked inside at the pew where, only the night
before, Marguerite had suffered her attack of the tremors,
and foreboding warred with curiosity in my heart. Was this
what LeMerle had intended? Was this another stage of his
mysterious plan?


268
I S A B E L L E


I tried a little prayer - a heresy, you might call it, hut the
old Saint would have understood. The new one, however,
just stood in her chilly silence and gave no sign of having
heard. She knows only good Latin, this new Marie, and the
prayers of such as 1 are of no interest to her. Once more
I thought of Le Borgne - and, too, of Germaine and
Rosamonde, and 1 began to understand the desire to attack
this clean new Saint; to bring her down, deface her, make
her more like ourselves.

Observing her more closely I could see that she was not
all white, as first I had thought. There was a slim ribbon of
gilt running around the edge of the Virgin's mantle, and her
halo, too, was picked out in gold. Carved from the finest
marble, veined in the tenderest rose, she stood on a pedestal
of the same material, engraved with her name and that of
our abbey in gilded letters. There was a crest carved underneath,
which on close scrutiny I recognized as that of the
house of Arnault, and this time I also noticed another,
rather smaller crest, modestly placed beneath, the design of
which - a white dove and the Holy Mother's fleurdelys
picked out against a gilt background - suddenly looked
strangely familiar . . .

A gift from her uncle, Isabelle had said; her favourite
uncle, for whom we must say forty Masses in thanks. Why
then should I know his emblem? Why then should I feel
myself on the brink of some revelation that would cast
light on all that had happened during the past weeks? Even
more puzzling was the half-memory which accompanied
the feeling: a scent of sweat and wax, a great light and


269
HOLY FOOLS


heat, a sensation of dizziness, the clamour which was the
Theatre-Royal, that good year in Paris . . .

Paris/ The memory locked into place with a click. I
could see him now: a tall man, gaunt with genteel self
deprivation, his eyes so light they seemed gilded, as if from
looking at too many altars. He only spoke once in my
hearing, but I remembered his words, uttered in rage on the
night of our Ballet des Gueux, as he left the hall in a surge of
applause.

A Blackbird's voice may haply be silenced, he had said. Even though such quarry is the vassal's preserve, if its song
offendeth . . .

A man of strange pride, my Blackbird, in spite of his lack
of morals; a strange marriage of arrogance and knavery. So
many things are a game to him; so few things matter in his
life. But he understands revenge. I know that path myself,
after all, and if now 1 choose to give it up it is only because
Fleur takes up a greater part of my heart than I can afford to
waste on such foolish things. LeMerle has no Fleur, and for
all I know, no heart. Pride is all he has.

I returned to the dorter in silence, my head finally clear. I
knew now why LeMerle had come to the abbey. I knew why
he had adopted the role of Pere Saint-Amand, why he had
given orders to taint the well, why he had encouraged the
frenzies in the chapel, and why he had taken such pains to
keep me from escaping. But knowing why is not enough.
Now I must discover what it is that he intends to do. And
what is to be my role in this play of travesties? And how will
it end - in tragedy or farce?


270
5 A

August 5th, 1610


WELL DONE, MY AILEE. I KNEW IT WOULD BE ONLY A MATTER

of time before you put the facts together. You remember the
Bishop, then? Monseigneur had the bad taste to disapprove
of my Ballet Travesti. To order my removal from Paris. My
ignominious removal.

My Ballet des Gueux outraged him, with its sequined
ladies; my Ballet Travesti more so, with the ape dressed
as a bishop and the Court beaux in petticoats and corsets.
To tell the truth, I meant it so. What right had he to
censure? No harm was done. A few left outraged, prudes and
hypocrites for the most part. But the applause! It seemed
never-ending. We stood for five minutes with our smiles
melting beneath the lamps and the greasepaint running
down our faces. The boards glittered with flung coins. And
you, my Ailee, too young yet to have earned your wings but
HOLY FOOLS


lovely in your scandalous breeches, hat in hand, eyes like
stars. It was our great triumph. Do you remember?

And then, more abruptly than we could understand,
came the end. Evreux's public letter to De Bethune. The
furtive glances, the mumbled excuses from those I had
counted as friends. The polite messages -- Madame has left
town. Monsieur is not at home tonight - whilst more favoured
visitors came and went with barely concealed disdain.

I was expected to leave quietly, discreetly, accepting my
disgrace. But the Blackbird's song is not so easily silenced.
As they burned me in effigy at the steps of the Arsenal I
bought a new wardrobe. I paraded with vulgar exhibitionism
about the town. I wore my women like costume jewellery,
two on each arm. Madame de Scudery's salon was closed to
me now, but there were many others not so choosy. The
Bishop watched me, enraged, but what more could he do?

I learned soon enough. A beating at the hands of lackeys,
no less, as I returned drunk from a night of revelry. Without
De Bethune as my benefactor I was defenceless, unprotected
even by the law, for who would think to take my side
against Monseigneur the Bishop? I was unarmed, without
even a dress sword at my side. There were six of them. But I
was less drunk - or more desperate - than they imagined.
I was forced to run, hiding in alleys infested with rats,
crouching in open drains, skulking through shadows, heart
pounding, head aching, mouth dry.

It could have been an Italian farce: Guy LeMerle,
running from a Bishop's flunkeys, his silver-buckled shoes
slipping in the street slops, his silk coat spattered with mud.


272
ISABELLE


Better, I suppose, than LeMerle lying in the gutter with his
ribs broken. But it was enough; I lost the game. And there
would be another time for Monseigneur. And another. My
credit had finally run out, and we both knew it.

But memory is long on the road, with only whores and
dwarves for company. And the road is a long one, crossing
and recrossing with incestuous intimacy. We met there
before, if you recall, in a village near Montauban, and after
that in a cloister just outside Agen. All roads lead to Paris,
and we met there too, several times. On one occasion there
I relieved you of a silver cross - I wear it still, you'll be glad
to know - but once again you held the aces, and retaliation
was swift. Shame on you, man pere. I lost a player, and one
of my caravans. But the Blackbird's feathers were barely
singed. And after that, our stakes were higher.

Every man has a weakness, Monseigneur Bishop. It took
me some time to find yours. But my dark star led me at
last to the cradle of your ambition. Congratulations, by the
way. Such a devout family. Two brothers highly placed
in the clergy, a sister Prioress of an abbey in the south.
Innumerable cousins in monasteries and cathedrals throughout
France. You'd have to be blind to miss the streak of
nepotism that runs through the house of Arnault. But a line
so rich in virgins must soon be doomed to sterility. Your one
regret, mon pere, must be that you never fathered a son to
carry your line. Instead you lavished what affection you
could on your dead brother's daughter: Angelique Saint
Herve Desiree Arnault, henceforth to be known as Mere
Isabelle, Abbess of Sainte-Marie la Mere.


273
HOLY FOOLS


She looks like you. She has the same suspicious face and
silver-gilt eyes. She has your contempt for the common
man, and she has your pride, too - beneath your pious
attitudes you Arnaults conceal a level of hubris worthy of
Classical tragedy. In all but name she is your daughter. You
schooled her well. She reads your letters with the devotion
of Helo'ise to Abelard; even from the nursery her piety
exceeded expectations. She eats no meat, drinks no wine
but at Communion, fasts on Fridays. She does you credit,
and such credit may be turned to good advantage -- why
not? After all, one cannot remain a bishop forever. A
cardinal's hat might sit well on Monseigneur, or at the very
least an archbishop's mitre. Cunningly, you paved her way
to Mother Church's door: spread rumours of visions, angelic
voices and unofficial but well publicized acts of healing.
Your secret wish is of a canonization in the family - without
sons, this is the only continuation your line can hope for and
with Mere Isabelle, this may not be entirely out of the
question. Although her late mother judged her too young to
take the veil, you took her in hand; encouraged the girl
to dream of an abbey in the same way that a normal child
might wish for a doll's house.

If you'd only seen her when I gave her the news! God, I
almost loved her for that, her eyes narrowed into crescents
of ill-temper, her mouth turning spitefully downwards.

'Abbess of where?' she wailed. 'But that's nowhere! Nowhere
at all!'

You spoiled her, Monseigneur. Made her believe, young
as she was, that she might look higher. Perhaps she coveted


274
ISABELLE


Paris, the minx, with its towers and conceits and worldly
whores on their knees in front of her. It would have been
her style.

Or maybe it was for the penance I made her do for her
anger, for my rebuke and the tenderness of my absolution
when she had finished, for there is a hunger in her which
I'm sure you never saw, a part of her in which sin rubs
against sanctity to form a single, bright blade. One day she'll
be sharp enough to cut with, Monseigneur d'Evreux. Till
then, beware.


JULIETTE CAME TO ME TONIGHT, AS I KNEW SHE WOULD. IT

was a risk; she must have suspected Clemente might be with
me, but having discovered my secret she could not stay
away.

It was like her, too, to confront me at once. In her place I
would have kept my counsel and played a close game; my
Winged One, as always, rushes forth in the heat of the
moment, showing all her aces in her eagerness to confront
me. It's a flaw in her play -- a beginner's flaw, at that -- and
although it serves my purpose in this case, 1 cannot help
feeling a little disappointed. I thought I'd taught her better.

'So that's why you're here,' she said, when I opened the
door. 'The Bishop of Evreux.'

'Bishop of where?' I feigned innocence, but poorly; just to
see the look of triumph in her eyes.

'And you used to be such a good liar,' she said, pushing
past me into the cottage.

I shrugged modestly. 'Maybe I'm out of practice.'


275
HOLY FOOLS


'I don't think so.'

She sat down on the arm of my chair, one leg swinging.
There was dust on the soles of her brown feet; her face was
alight with her imagined victory. 'So,' she said. 'When are
we expecting him? And what will you do when he's here?'

'Are we expecting him?' 1 said, smiling.

'If not, you've lost your touch.'

I shrugged, conceding the point. 'You can't imagine I
would have told you,' I said. 'After all, you haven't shown
much trust in me so far, have you?'

'Why should I?' she said. 'After Epinal--'

'Juliette, you're being tiresome. I explained about that
already.'

'Explained, but not excused.' Her tone was harsh, but
there was something in her manner, a kind of obscure
softening - as if her discovery, instead of increasing her
suspicion of me, had somehow brought her reassurance.
'Tell me about the Bishop,' she said in a softer voice. 'You
know I won't betray you.'

I smiled. 'Loyalty? I'm touched. I--'

'Hardly,' she said. 'You have my daughter.'

Ouch. Another hit. However, in the course of a long
game, a calculated surrender may serve as well as a victory.
'Very well,' I said, drawing her gently towards me. She did
not pull away.

I confessed enough to allay her fears and to flatter her just
a little - though she thought her face expressionless as
she listened to me in silence. Women hear so often what
they want to hear, even my Harpy - who has every reason


276
ISABELLE


to believe the worst. And a partial truth is often so much
more effective than a total lie.

She has guessed the obvious, of course. I'd accounted for
that. Perhaps she can even understand me a little - she's a
resentful piece, in spite of her assumed holiness, and she has
no more reason to love the Bishop than I have myself. All 1
want from her now is a little time; after all, good scandal,
like good wine, takes time to ferment and mellow. Chateau
d'Evreux, not a subtle vintage but with a certain brazen
charm which you, my Juliette, may find appealing. Let the
brew froth just a little longer. When he arrives I want him
drowned in a wave of suds.

Oh, I was convincing. Juliette listened first with
scepticism, then with satisfaction, then with a reluctant
kind of sympathy. When I had finished, she nodded slowly,
looking into my eyes. 'I thought it might be that. A special
performance, to make him pay for that time in Paris? A
return match?'

I managed to look rueful. 'I don't like to lose.'

'And you think this is winning?' she said. 'Have you any
idea of the harm you've done? The harm you're still doing?'

The?' I shrugged. 'All I did was set the stage. You did the
rest yourselves.'

Her mouth thinned; she knew I was right. 'And after the
show?' she demanded. 'What then? Will you ride away
again, both of you, in your different directions, and leave us
in peace?'

'Why not?' I said. 'Unless you'd like to come with me.'
She ignored that, as I expected her to. 'Come on, Juliette,'


277
HOLY FOOLS


I said, seeing her expression. 'Give me credit for some
intelligence. How far do you think I would get if I actually harmed the Bishop? Did you hear what they did to Ravillac?
And in any case, if I'd wanted to kill Evreux, don't you
think I would have found some way to do it by now?' I let
her think that over for a while. "I want him humbled,' I told
her quietly. 'Monseigneur has high ambitions; pretensions
to greatness for his line. I want them quashed. I want the
Arnaults in the dust, along with the rest of us, and I want
him to know that I was the one who put them there. A dead
Bishop is only a step removed from canonization; I want
this one to live a long, long time.'

I stopped, and for several minutes she was silent. Then,
finally, she nodded. 'You're taking a terrible risk,' she said. 'I
doubt whether the Bishop would extend the same privilege
to you.'

'I'm touched by your concern,' I said, 'but a game without
stakes is no game at all.'

'Must there always be a game?' she asked, so earnestly
that I could have kissed her.

'Why, Juliette,' I said gently. 'What else is there?'


278
6


V


August 6th, 1610


LAST NIGHT, AT LONG LAST, THE RAIN CAME, BUT IT FELL TO

the west onto Le Devin, and did not refresh us. Instead we
sweltered uncomfortably in the dorter and watched the heat
lightning as it chased its tail across the bay. The sultry
weather had brought a plague of midges from the flats, and
that night they swarmed through the windows, settling
on every inch of our unprotected flesh, drawing out our
blood. We slept poorly - or not at all - throughout that
night, some slapping at the midges in a frenzy, others lying
exhausted and resigned. I used citronella leaf and lavender
to banish the creatures from my cubicle, and in spite of the
heat I slept a little. I was one of the lucky ones; in
the morning I awoke to find myself virtually free of insect
bites, though Tomasine was in a pitiful state, and Antoine,
with her warm blood, was a quivering mass of red blotches.


279
HOLY FOOLS


To make matters worse, the chapel too was infested with
the flying creatures, which seemed unaffected by either
incense or candle smoke.

Matins passed, and Lauds. Day broke, and the midges
withdrew to their stronghold in the marshes. By Prime,
however, the air had thickened still further and the sky was
hot and white, promising worse to come. No one was still.
We were a mass of tics and itches; even I, who had escaped
the scourge, could feel my skin prickling in sympathy. It was
to this that LeMerle made his morning appearance, looking
cool and grave. Soeur Marguerite was at his left side, Mere
Isabelle at his right.

A murmur ran through the chapel. This was the first time
that Marguerite had attended a service since her attack, and
we were still awaiting an official pronouncement on the
nature of her affliction. Opinions were divided. Some said
St Vitus' Dance, others the palsy, yet more were convinced
she was bewitched or bedevilled. Certainly she looked quiet
enough - her tic was gone and her eyes were unusually dark
and wide. That would be the poppy I had slipped into her
strengthening draught, I told myself. I hoped it would be
enough.

But I could hardly dose all sixty-five of us. Alfonsine
was flushed and restive; Tomasine was so covered in bites
that she could barely keep still; Antoine scratched at her
legs continuously; even Clemente, usually so meek, looked
agitated. Perhaps Germaine's death had distressed her
more than we had thought, for her eyes were heavy and
her features drawn. I noticed that she watched LeMerle


280
ISABELLE


constantly, but he took care not to pay her any attention,
or even to meet her eye. Perhaps he really had tired of
her, then; I was annoyed at myself for the satisfaction the
thought gave me.

'My children,' he said. 'For three days you have waited
patiently for news of our sister Marguerite.'

We nodded, shifted, shuffled. Three days was long
enough. Three days of rumour and uncertainty; three days
of potions and possets. Superstition had never been very far,
not even in the days of Mere Marie; now, robbed of our
Saint's comforting presence, we turned to it more than ever.
Order was what we needed, order and authority in the face
of this crisis. Instinctively, we turned to LeMerle to provide
it.

But Pere Colombin was looking troubled. 'I have examined
Soeur Marguerite closely,' he said. 'And I have found
nothing amiss with her - body or soul.'

A whisper of revolt went through the crowd. There had
to be something, it said. He had led us to this; had fed us
such scraps as had given us an appetite for his words. There
was evil in the abbey; who could question it?

'I know,' said LeMerle. 'I understand your doubts. I have
prayed; I have fasted. I have consulted many books. But if
there are spirits in Soeur Marguerite, I cannot make them
speak. All that I can conclude is that the forces which have
infested our abbey are too powerful for me to deal with
alone. I have failed.'

No.' The murmur went through the crowd like the wind
through wheat. The Blackbird, hanging his head in fake


281
HOLY FOOLS


humility, could not resist a smile. 'I thought I could hunt
the Devil with nothing more than my faith and your trust in
me,' he said. 'But I could not. I have no alternative but to
inform the proper authorities and place the situation - and
myself - in their hands. Praise be.' And with that he
stepped down from the pulpit and motioned to Isabelle to
take his place.

The rest of us looked at each other, remembering the last
time Isabelle had addressed us, and a ripple of dissatisfaction
and revolt ran through the crowd. We could not rely
upon Isabelle to keep order, we knew. Only LeMerle could
control us.

Isabelle herself had been taken completely by surprise.
'Where are you going?' she asked, in a quavering voice.

'I'm no use to you here,' said LeMerle. 'If I catch
the morning tide, I should be able to bring help within a
week.'

Now Isabelle was close to panic. 'You can't leave,' she
said.

'But I must. What else can I do?'

'Mon pere!' Clemente, too, was looking alarmed. At her
side Antoine turned her mottled face towards him in silent
entreaty. A rumour, louder than before, swept over the
crowd. We had lost everything else; we could not lose Pere
Colombin. Without him, chaos would descend upon us like
a flock of birds.

He tried to explain above the mounting noise. If the evil
could not be located - if the culprit was not found . . . But
the thought that he might leave them at the mercy of that


282
ISABELLE


evil had taken possession of the sisters and they began to
wail, an eerie, catlike sound, which began at one side of
the chapel and swelled until it had engulfed the entire
assembly.

Mere Isabelle was almost beside herself. 'Evil spirits, show
yourselves!' she commanded shrilly. 'Show yourselves and
speak!'

The wave of sound passed over us again, and Perette, who
was standing near me, put her hands to her ears. I made the
sign against malchance behind my back. That cry had
sounded too close to a cantrip for my liking. I whispered
my mother's good-luck charm under my breath, but doubted
that it would have very much effect in such surroundings.

LeMerle, however, was watching with an air of cool
satisfaction. They were his now, 1 knew; they would perform
at his command. The only question was: who would be first?
I glanced around me. I saw the imploring face of Clemente,
the moony features of Antoine, Marguerite, already twitching
at the mouth as the draught began to wear off, and
Alfonsine . . .

Alfonsine. At first she seemed utterly still. Then the
slightest of tremors went through her, a fluttering like that
of a moth's wing. She seemed unaware of what was happening
around her; her entire body quivered. Then, very slowly,
she began to dance.

It began in her feet. With tiny steps, hands splayed as if
for balance, she might have been a rope-dancer feeling for
the measure with her bare toes. Then came the hips: a


283
HOT Y FOO! ^


scarcely perceptible, undulating motion. Then the fingers:
the sinuous arms, the rolling shoulders.

I was not the only one to have noticed. Ahead of me,
Tomasine took a sharp breath. Someone cried out shrilly,
'Look!'

Silence fell; but it was a dangerous silence, like a rock
about to fall.

'Bewitched!' moaned Benedicte.

'Just like Soeur Marguerite!'

'Possessed!'

I had to put a halt to this. 'Alfonsine, stop it, this is
ridiculous!'

But Alfonsine could not be stopped. Her body turned and
twisted to an unheard rhythm, first to the left, to the right,
then revolving round like a top, snaking and circling with
grave deliberation, her skirts flying out about her ankles.
And there was a sound coming from her mouth, a sound
that was almost a word. 'Mmmmm ..." -

'They're here!' wailed Antoine.

'Speaking to us . . .'

'Mmmmm . . .'

Someone behind me was praying. I thought I heard the
words of the Ave Maria, oddly distorted and elongated into
a mess of vowels. 'Marie.' Marie.1'

The front row before the pulpitum had begun to take up
the chant. I saw Clemente, Piete and Virginie throw their
heads back almost at the same time and begin to rock in
cadence.

'Marie.' Marie.1'


284
IS ARFU.F


It was a slow rocking, heavy as the rolling of a huge ship.
But it was contagious. The second row joined the first, then
the third. It became a wave, inexorable as a wave, bringing
each row - choir, pews, stalls - into surging motion. I felt it
myself, my dancer's reflexes returning to life, tears, sounds,
thoughts submerging in this dizzy vortex of movement. I
threw back my head; for a moment 1 saw stars in the
vaulting of the chapel roof and the world tilted enticingly. I
could feel warm bodies all around me. My own voice was
lost in a thick murmur. There was complete and unspoken
cooperation in this slow frenzy of dance; the tide dragged us
to the right, then to the left, all of us treading a measure all
seemed to know by instinct. 1 could feel the dance calling,
urging me to join it, to plunge my being into the black surf
of movement and sound.

I could still hear Mere Isabelle shouting above the crowd,
but had no understanding of what she was saying; she was a
single instrument in an orchestra of chaos, voices blending
and rising, hers a shrill counterpoint to the dark-mawed roar
of the multitude, a few cries of protest - mine amongst them
- in the howling tide of affirmation but lost as the rhythms,
the raw-throated harmonies of pandaemonium engulfed us
all . . .

And yet a part of my mind remained clear, floating coolly
above the rest like a bird. I could hear LeMerle's voice
without quite making out his words; in this shared madness
it sounded like a refrain, a reminder of steps, of cadences in
this Ballet des Bernardines.

Was this, then, to be his special performance? In
HOLY FOOLS


front of me, Tomasine stumbled and fell to her knees. The
dance shifted gracelessly to accommodate her, and another
figure stumbled over her hunched form. They fell heavily
together, and I recognized Perette, sprawling on the marble,
the other nuns now snaking and spinning, oblivious, around
her.

'Perette!' I pushed my way to my friend's side. She had
struck her head in the fall and a bruise already marked her
temple. I picked her up, and together we pushed our way
towards the open door. Our intrusion - or their exhaustion
- seemed to quell some of the dancers, and the wave
faltered and broke. I noticed Isabelle watching me, but
had no time to wonder what her look of suspicion might
portend. Perette was clammy and pale, and I forced
her to breathe deeply, to put her head between her knees
and to smell the little sachet of aromatics I carry in my
pocket.

'What's that?' asked Mere Isabelle in the sudden lull.

The noise had begun to abate. I realized that several of
the assembled nuns had broken their trance and were looking
in my direction. 'This? Just lavender, and anise, and
sweet balm, and . . .'

'What were you doing with it?'

I lifted the sachet of herbs. 'Can't you see? It's a scent
sachet, you must have seen one before.'

There was a silence. Sixty pairs of eyes now turned
towards me. Someone - I think it was Clemente - said
softly, but very clearly: 'Witchcraft!'

And I seemed to hear the murmur of acquiescence, the


286
ISABELLE


voice that came from no throat but from the small movements
of many pairs of fluttering hands as they made the
sign of the cross, the hishh of skin against cambric, of
tongues moistening dry lips, of breath quickening. Yes, it
whispered, and my heart flipped over like a dead leaf. Yes.


287
7 A

August 6th, 1610


I COULD HAVE STOPPED IT WITH A WORD. BUT THE SCENE

was so compelling, so classic in its perspectives that I had
not the heart to do so. The evil omens, the visions, the
portentous death and now the dramatic revelation amidst
the carnage ... It was magnificent, almost Biblical; I could
not have scripted it better myself.

I wonder if she was conscious of the tableau she presented:
head high, coiffe pulled back to reveal the dark fire
of her curls, the wild girl clasped to her breast. Of course it
is regrettable that tableaux should now be so out of fashion;
more so that there should be so few here present able to
appreciate it. But I have hopes for little Isabelle. An apt
pupil in spite of her stolid upbringing, I could not have
planned a more rousing performance myself.

Naturally, it was I who taught her all she knows, nurtured


288
ISABELLE


her, coaxed her from her meek obedience into this. I have,
as you see, a vocation. A sense of pride moves me as 1 recall
the tractable little girl she once was. But the good children,
we are told, are always the ones to be careful of. A moment
comes when even the most acquiescent of them may reach a
point beyond which the cartographers of the mind can map
nothing more. A declaration of independence, perhaps. An
affirmation of self.

She thinks in absolutes, like her uncle. Dreams of
sanctity, of battles with demons. A fanciful child, in spite
of everything, tormented by the visionary yearnings and
uncertainties of her youth, the rigid conventions of her line.
I suspected she'd declare herself today. You might say I
staged it: a little divertissement between two acts of a great
drama. Even so she surprised me. Not least by her perversity
in choosing as her scapegoat the one woman I should have
preferred her not to accuse.

Impossible to think that the girl suspects anything. It is.
instinctive with her, a child's love of defiance. She feels the
need to prove to me the Tightness of her suspicions - I, who
have always remained maddeningly calm, almost sceptical
in the face of her growing conviction - to earn my praise,
even my discomfiture. For there is more to her now than
submissive adoration. The declaration of self has elevated
her, bred seeds of dissent in her that I must nurture whilst
struggling to control. Her awe of me remains, coloured
now with a sullenness, a renewed suspicion ... I must take
care. Given her head she might fall upon me as easily as
upon you, my Ailee, and in this the two of you are more


289
HOLY FOOLS


alike than you know. She is a knife, which I must handle
with cunning. Perverse enough to welcome the subtle
humiliations of my erstwhile designing, the core of breeding
in her is strong, her pride obdurate.

You see, Juliette, that this changes things between us. I
must not be seen to favour you. Both our heads might roll. I
must be discreet now, or my plans will come to naught. I do
admit to feeling a pang for you, however. Maybe when all
this is done . . . But for now the risk is too great. Your
weapon against me is gone now, even if you choose to use it.
The word that stutters and hushes about the chapel must
silence all accusations you may try to voice. You know it; I
can see it in your eyes. And yet in spite of this it rankles
to submit to the Arnault girl, even if it furthers my plans.
My authority has been challenged. And as you know, a
challenge is something I can seldom resist . . .

'There is no cause as yet to cry witchcraft upon our sister.'
My voice was even and a little stern. 'You are ignorant, led
only by your fear. In its face a lavender sachet becomes an
instrument of the dark arts. A gesture of mercy takes sinister
meaning. This is foolish beyond permission.'

For an uneasy moment I sensed their revolt. Clemente
called out: 'There was a presence! Someone must have sent it
out!'

Voices joined hers in agreement.

'Ay, I felt it!'

'And I!'

'There was a cold wind . . .'

'And the dancing . . .'


290
ISABELLE


'The dancing!'

'Ay, there was a presence! Many presences!' I was improvising
now, using my voice as a bridle to rein in this wild
and spirited mare. 'The very presences that were unleashed
when we opened the crypt!' Sweat ran into my eyes and I
shook it away, afraid to show the beginnings of a tremor in
my clenched hands. 'Vade retro, Satanas!'

Latin has an authority that common tongues sadly
lack. A pity that necessity should force me to perform
in the vernacular, but these sisters are sadly ignorant.
Nuances evade them. And for the moment they were too
distraught for subtleties. 'I tell you this!' My voice rose
above the murmur. 'We sit upon a well of corruption! A
century-old bastion of hell has been threatened by our
Reform, and Satan fears its loss! But be of good cheer,
sisters! The Evil One cannot harm the pure in heart. He
works through the soul's corruption, but cannot touch one
of true faith!'

'Pere Colombin has spoken well.' Mere Isabelle looked at
me from her small colourless eyes. There was something in
her expression I did not quite like: a calculating look, a look
almost of defiance. 'His wisdom puts our feminine fears to
shame. His strength keeps us from falling.'

Strange words, and not of my choosing. I wondered
where she was leading. 'But piety may hold its own dangers.
The innocence of our holy father precludes true vision, true
understanding. He has not felt what we have felt today!'

Her eyes moved to the doorway of the chapel where the
new Marie, newly scrubbed, stood in gracious lethargy.


29 1
HOLY FOOLS


'There is a rot here,' she continued. 'A rot so deep that I
have not dared voice my suspicions openly. But now . . .'
She lowered her voice like a child exchanging secrets. I
have taught her better than I knew, for her voice was clearly
audible, a stage whisper that carried to the eaves. 'Now I
can reveal it.'

Breathless, they awaited her revelation.

'Everything begins with Mere Marie. Did not the first
Visitation appear from the crypt in which we interred her?
Did not the apparitions you have seen wear her features?
And did not the spirits speak to us in her name?'

There came from the crowd a low murmur of acquiescence.

'Well?' said Isabelle.

I didn't like it. 'Well what?' I said. 'Are you saying that
Mere Marie was in league with Satan? That's absurd.
Why--'

She interrupted me - me! - and stamped her little foot.
'Who was it gave the order to bury Mere Marie in unhallowed
ground?' she demanded. 'Who has repeatedly
defied my authority? Who deals in potions and charms like
a village witch?'

So that was it. Around her the sisters exchanged glances;
several forked the sign against evil. 'Can it be a coincidence,'
Isabelle went on, 'that Soeur Marguerite took one of
her potions just before she got the dancing sickness? Or that
Soeur Alfonsine went to her for help before she began to
cough up blood!' She blanched at my expression, but went
on nevertheless. 'She has a secret compartment next to her


292
I S A B E L L E


bed. She keeps her charms in there. See for yourself, if you
don't believe me!'

I bowed my head. She had declared herself, then, and
there was nothing I could do to prevent it. 'So be it,' I said
between clenched teeth. 'We'll make a search.'


29?
August 6th, 1610


LEMERLE FOLLOWED HER TO THE DORTER, THE SISTERS

flocking at his back like a clutch of hens. He had always
been good at hiding his anger, but 1 could see it in the way
he moved. He did not look at me. Instead, his eyes flicked
repeatedly to Clemente, trotting alongside Isabelle with
her face modestly averted. Let him draw what conclusions
he would, I thought; for myself, I had little doubt as to
the identity of the informant. Perhaps she had seen me
coming from his cottage last night; perhaps it was simply
her instinctive malice. In any case, she followed with deceptive
meekness as Mere Isabelle, looking nervous but defiant,
led us straight to the loose stone at the back of my cubicle.

'It's there,' she announced.

'Show me.'

She reached for the stone and worked at it with her


294
ISABELLE


small, uncertain fingers. The stone held fast. Mentally, I
enumerated the contents of my cache. The Tarot game, my
tinctures and medicines, my journal. That in itself was
enough to condemn me -- to condemn us both. I wondered
if LeMerle knew of it; he seemed calm, but all of his body
was tensed and ready. I wondered whether he would try to
make a run for it - he had more than a fighting chance - or
whether he would risk a bluff. A bluff, I thought, was more
his style. Well, two could play at that.

'Are we all to be searched?' I said in a clear voice. 'If
so, may I suggest that Clemente's mattress might bear investigation?'

Clemente gave me a dirty look, and a number of the
sisters looked uneasy. I knew for a fact that at least half of
them were hiding something.

But Isabelle was undeterred. 'I will decide who is to be
searched,' she said. 'For the moment . . .' She frowned
impatiently as she struggled with the loose stone.

'Let me do it,' said LeMerle. 'You seem to be having some
difficulty.'

The stone came away easily beneath his card-player's
fingers, and he pulled it out and laid it aside on the bed.
Then he reached into the space. 'It's empty,' he said.

Isabelle and Clemente turned towards him with identical
looks of disbelief. 'Let me see!' said Isabelle.

The Blackbird stepped aside with an ironic flourish.
Isabelle pushed past him, and her little face contorted as she
saw the empty cache. Behind her, Clemente was shaking
her head. 'But it was right there . . .' she began.


295
HOLY FOOLS


LeMerle looked at her. 'So you're the one who has been
spreading rumours.'

Clemente's eyes widened.

'Malicious, unfounded rumours to breed suspicion and to
bring down our fellowship.'

'No,' whispered Clemente.

But LeMerle had already moved away, searching along
the rows of cubicles. 'What might you be hiding, Soeur
Clemente, I wonder? What will I find beneath your
mattress?'

'Please,' said Clemente, white to the lips.

But the sisters around her had already begun to take up
the bedroll. Clemente began to wail. Mere Isabelle watched,
teeth clenched.

Suddenly, there came a cry of triumph. 'Look!' It was
Antoine. She was holding a pencil in her fist. A black
grease-pencil, of the type that had been used to deface the
statues. And there was more: a clutch of red rags, some with
the black stitching still visible - the crosses that had been
maliciously removed from our clothes as we slept.

There was a heavy silence, as every nun who had been
obliged to do penance for the damage turned her eyes on
Clemente. Then, they all started shouting at once. Antoine,
who had always been quicker with her hands than with
her voice, dealt Clemente a sharp slap which tumbled her
against the side of the cubicle.

'You milksop bitch!' yelled Piete, grabbing a handful of
Clemente's wimple. 'Thought it was funny, did you?'

Clemente struggled and squealed, turning instinctively to


296
ISABELLE


LeMerle for help. But Antoine was already upon her, knocking
her to the ground. There had been tension between
them earlier, I recalled; some foolishness in Chapter.

Now Isabelle turned to LeMerle in distress. 'Stop them,'
she wailed above the noise. 'Oh, man pere, please stop
them!'

The Blackbird looked at her coldly. 'You began this,' he
said. 'You drove them to this. Didn't you see 1 was trying to
calm them?'

'But you said there were no demons--'

He hissed at her. 'Of course there are demons! But now
was not the time to reveal all! If you had only listened.'

'I'm sorry! Please stop them, pleasel'

But the scuffle was already at an end. Clemente crouched
on the ground, her hands over her eyes, whilst Antoine
stood above her, redfaced and nose bleeding. Both were out
of breath; around them, sisters who had not raised a finger
to aid either party were panting in sympathy. I ventured a
quick glance at LeMerle, but he was at his most cryptic, and
his expression betrayed nothing of his thoughts. I knew I
had not imagined it, however; that moment of surprise
when he saw the empty cache. Someone had cleared it
without his knowledge; I was sure of it.


CLEMENTE AND ANTOINE WERE BOTH TAKEN TO THE

infirmary, on LeMerle's orders, and I was put to work in the
bakehouse for the rest of the day, where, for three hours, my
toils afforded me little enough time for thought. During that
time, I made the dough in batches, shaped the long loaves


297
HOLY FOOLS


on the trays, shoved them into the deep, narrow bays, so
like the dark cells in the crypt where the coffins are laid to
rest.

I tried not to recall the morning's events, but my mind
returned to them again and again. Alfonsine's dance, the
swaying bodies, the frenzied beginnings of possession. And
the moment when LeMerle's eyes met mine, even then so
close to laughter but behind the laughter a kind of fear, like
a man on a wild horse who knows he will be thrown but
who can still laugh with sheer delight at the chase.

For a time I had been certain he would not speak for me.
He had lost control somehow, though I was sure that the
madness was part of his plan. It would have been so easy for
him to allow the blame to fall upon me, to use it to bring his
followers to heel. But he had not. Absurd to feel gratitude. I
should hate him for what he has done to me, to all of us.
And yet ...

I had almost completed the morning's work. I was alone,
I had my back to the door and was cleaning out ash from
the last of the ovens with a long wooden slat. I turned at
the sound of her footsteps. Somehow I already knew who it
was.

She had taken a risk coming to me, but not such a great
one; the infirmary lay just alongside the bakehouse, and I
guessed she must have climbed the wall. The midday heat
was still blinding; most of the sisters would be indoors. 'No
one saw me,' said Soeur Antoine, as if to confirm my
thoughts. 'And we need to talk.'

The change I had begun to see in her a week ago


298
1SABELLE


was more pronounced now. Her face looked leaner, her
cheekbones defined, her mouth hard and determined. She
would never be a slender woman, but now her fleshiness
seemed powerful rather than soft; thick slabs of red muscle
sheathed in the fat.

'You shouldn't be here,' I told her. 'If Soeur Virginie finds
out you're here--'

'Clemente will talk,' said Antoine. 'I've been listening to
her in the infirmary all morning. She knows about Fleur.
She knows about you.'

'Antoine, I don't know what you're talking about. Go
back to--'

'Will you listen?' she hissed. 'I'm on your side. Who do
you think took those things from behind the loose stone?' I
stared at her. 'What?' said Antoine. 'You think I'm too
stupid to know about your hiding place? Poor, fat, stupid
Soeur Antoine who wouldn't know an intrigue if she fell
over it during the night? I see more than you think, Soeur
Auguste.'

'Where did you hide my things? My cards, and--'

Antoine shook a plump finger. 'Quite safe, ma soeur, quite hidden. But I'm not ready to give them back just yet.
After all, you owe me a favour.'

I nodded. I had not expected her to forget it.

'Clemente will talk, Auguste,' she said. 'Not now,
perhaps. She may be in disgrace today, but Mere Isabelle
believes in her. Sooner or later, she will accuse us. And
when she realizes that Pere Colombin will not defend her,
then she will bring him down.'


299
HOLY FOOLS


She paused for a moment to make sure I understood.
My head was spinning. 'Antoine,' I said. 'How did you--'

That isn't important,' said Antoine in a harsh voice.
The little girl will helieve her. I know little girls. I was one
myself, after all. And I know' - at this her red face twisted
in a painful smile - 'I know that even the sweetest and most
docile little girl will one day rise up to defy her father.'

There was a long silence. 'What do you want?' I said at
last.

'You know about herbs.' Now Antoine's voice was soft,
persuasive. 'You know what to do with them. I could - I
could slip her a dose while she's safe in the infirmary. No
one would know.'

I stared at her, incredulous. 'Poison her?'

'No one would know. You could tell me what to do.' She
sensed my disgust and gripped my arm tighter. 'It's for all of
us, Auguste! If she speaks against you, you'll lose Fleur. If
she speaks against me ..."

'What?'

There was a long silence. 'Germaine,' she said at last.
'She knew about Clemente and Pere Colombin. She was
going to tell.'

I tried to understand. But it was hot; I was tired;
Antoine's words sounded like meaningless noise. 'I couldn't
let her,' she went on. 'I couldn't let her accuse him. I'm
strong - stronger than she was, anyway. It was very quick.'
And Antoine gave a tiny smile.

It was almost too much for me to take in. And yet it
made a kind of sense. I told you: the Blackbird's skill was in


300
ISABELLE


making people see what they most wanted in him. Poor
Antoine. Robbed of her child at fourteen, her only remaining
passions those of the table, at last she had found another
outlet for her maternal nature.

A sudden thought struck me, and I turned to her in
dismay. 'Antoine. Did he tell you to do it?'

I don't know why the thought appalled me. He's killed
before, and for less reason. But Antoine shook her head. 'He
knows nothing about it. He's a good man. Oh, he's no saint,' she added, dismissing the seduction of Clemente with
a gesture. 'He's a man, with a man's nature. But if that little
girl turns against him . . .' She gave me a sharp look. 'You
see why it has to be done, don't you, Auguste? A painless
dose--'

I had to stop this. 'Antoine. Listen.' She looked at me
like a good dog, with her head to one side. 'It would be a
mortal sin. Doesn't that mean anything to you?' Admittedly
it meant little enough to me, but I had always thought her a
true believer.

'I don't care!' Her face was flushed, her voice rising
dangerously. It occurred to me that her very presence here
could be a danger to me.

I motioned her to be silent. 'Listen to me, Antoine. Even
if I knew the plants to use, whom would they suspect? All
poisons take time, you know, and any fool can recognize the
symptoms.'

'But we can't let her tell!' said Antoine stubbornly. 'If you
won't help me, I'll have to take action.'

'What do you mean?'


301
HOLY FOOLS


'I hid your treasures, Auguste,' she said. 'I can always find
them again. You'll be watched all the time, now you've
been accused. Do you think he'd speak for you again? And if
you were examined, what do you think would happen to
Fleur/'

In Aquitaine all the witch's household follows her onto
the pyre. Pigs, sheep, housecats, chickens ... I saw an
engraving once of a burning in Lorraine: the witch above
the pyre, and below her, cages in which smaller crudely
drawn stiff figures crouched, hands outstretched. I wondered
what the custom was in the islands.

Antoine watched me with a look of terrible patience.
'You have no choice,' she said. Nodding, I had to agree.


302
9 A

August 7th, 1610


SO THE ABBESS IS MINE AGAIN, IF ONLY FOR THE MOMENT.

As she mouthed her Act of Contrition, on her knees,
head bowed beneath my accusations, she wept; but they
were thin tears, tears of resentment rather than of true
repentance. She has defied me once already; never forget
she may do so again.

'This fiasco is of your doing!' My voice was harsh against
the stones of the cell. The silver crucifix gleamed in the
candlelight. A tiny silver encensoir diffused frankincense
into the dim air. 'Your refusal to ask for assistance has
jeopardized God knows how many innocent souls!'

Her mutter was almost defiant behind the Latin. 'Mea
culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima--'

'It cost Soeur Germaine her life!' I continued mercilessly.
'It may well cost Soeur Clemente her soul!'


303
HOLY FOOLS


I lowered my voice a little. Cruelty is a precision
instrument, better used to flay than to bludgeon. 'And as for
your own' - she gave me a sharp look of fear then, and I
knew I was close to reaching her - 'only you know the
depth of your sin and of your soul's defilement. The greatest
demon of all has violated you. Lucifer, the demon of Pride.'

Isabelle flinched and seemed ready to speak, but instead
put down her head and would not meet my eyes. 'Is it not
true?' I insisted in a cold, soft voice. 'Did you not think you
could solve all our troubles yourself, alone and unaided? Did
you not imagine the triumph of victory, the homage the
Catholic world would pay to the twelve-year-old girl who,
single-handed, defeated the armies of hell?' 1 drew close to
her ear and whispered in it. The hot scent of her tears was
exhilarating. 'What did the Foul One put into your mind,
Angelique?' I murmured. 'With what lures did he blind
your eyes? Did you hope for fame? Power? Canonization,
perhaps?'

'I thought . . .' her whimper was "small, childish. "I
thought . . .'

'What did you think?' Coaxingly now, not unlike
the seductive voice of Satan as imagined by these foolish
virgins. 'What did you think, Angelique?' She did not seem
to notice that I had reverted to her childhood name. 'Did
you want to be a saint? To make of this place a shrine for
the worldly? To have them bruise their knees before you in
awe and adoration?'

She cringed. I knew her too well, you see. I saw these
ambitions in her before she did herself, and I nurtured them


304
ISABELLE


for just such a moment. 'I didn't . . .' She was sobbing now,
the hot, heartbroken tears of the child she is. 'I didn't think
- I didn't know

I held her then, letting her weep against my shoulder. I
felt no compassion for such as her, believe me, but it was
expedient. Necessary. This might be the last time I was able
to wield such power over her. Tomorrow might bring a new
wave of self-declaration, a new revolt. Already I fancied I
could see in her small colourless eyes a measuring look, a
look almost of awareness . . . But for the present I was still
the good Father, the warm, the forgiving, the rebuking
Father . . .

'What must I do?' Her eyes were watery and, for the
moment, trusting.

I struck at once.


305
10 V

August 8th, 1610


I GROUND THE MORNING GLORY SEEDS WITH SOME OIL TAKEN

from the kitchen supplies, to which Antoine still has a key.
The result was a paste which, when mixed with food, is
difficult to detect. I flavoured it with a little sweet almond
to mask the bitter taste, and gave it to Antoine camouflaged
in a loaf of bread. She would administer the dose to
Clemente, she told me, at supper.

She seemed to have no doubt as to my mixture's efficacy,
nor any suspicion concerning my change of heart; I could
only pray that her trust would last long enough for me to set
my own defences in place. The morning glory seed, though
dangerous in use, is far from lethal. I hoped that, having
realized that, Antoine would hold her tongue. For a while,
at least.

My deceit was simple enough. The dose of ground seeds,


306
ISABELLE


even administered twelve hours in advance, would ensure
Clemente was unfit to be examined next day at Chapter.
The symptoms are severe, ranging from vomiting to visions
to complete unconsciousness over a period of twenty-four
hours. That, then, was the time I had left.

That night the dorter was slow to settle. Perette lingered
close to my cubicle, watching me - waiting, I thought, her
bright birdlike eyes glittering - until at last I motioned
her to go to bed. She seemed inclined to persist, her small
face pinched with anxiety or impatience, and I sensed she
wanted to signal something to me. But now was not the
time. I repeated the gesture of dismissal and turned away,
pretending to sleep. But for a long time after the lights were
extinguished I could still hear the small sounds of wakefulness
- sighs, turnings, the click-click of Marguerite's bead
rosary - in the darkness so that I wondered whether I dared
risk leaving at all. The small oblong of sky above my bed
glowed purplish-blue - in August here the sky is never quite
dark - and I could see a dim scatter of stars in the distance
and hear the soft sigh of the surf across the marshes. Close
by, Alfonsine moaned, and I wondered whether she was
observing me. Her moanings might be genuine sleep sounds
or a fakery of sleep to lull me into unwary action; the
thought kept me in my bed for almost an hour longer until
desperation drove me out. After all, I could not wait for
ever, I told myself, and by morning I might have lost my
only chance of escape.

Forcing myself to breathe silently, I rose and crossed the
dorter barefoot. No one moved. I ran softly down the steps


307
HOLY FOOLS


and across the courtyard, expecting at any moment to hear
cries at my back, but the courtyard remained cool and dark,
but for a shard of moon cutting across an angle of brickwork,
the windows unlit.

LeMerle's cottage too was unlit, but I could see a dim glow
from his fire reflected onto the ceiling, and I knew he was
awake. I tapped at the door; a few seconds later he opened it
cautiously, and his eyes widened. He was in his shirt, with
breeches replacing his priest's robes. From his coat, carelessly
discarded on a nearby chair, and his muddied boots, I
guessed that he too had been on the prowl about the abbey,
but he gave no indication of his business there.

'What the hell are you playing at?' he hissed, as he pulled
me in and latched the door behind me. 'Isn't it enough that
I risked my neck for you?'
'Things have changed, Guy. If I stay I may be accused.'

I explained my meeting with Antoine and her murderous
request. I told him of my compromise, of the morning
glories, the twenty-four hours. 'Do you -see now?' I asked
him. 'Do you see why I have to collect Fleur and leave?'

LeMerle frowned and shook his head.

'But you have to help me!' I sounded shrill to myself,
afraid. 'Don't think I'll stay silent if I'm accused! I owe you
nothing, LeMerle. Nothing at all.'

He sat down, one booted foot flung casually over the
chair arm. His anger was gone and now he looked tired and
- genuinely, I thought - rather hurt. 'What's this?' he said.
'Don't you trust me yet? Do you think I would stand and let
you be accused?'


308
ISABELLE


'You did it before, remember?'

'All in the past, Juliette. 1 suffered for it, believe me.'

Not half enough, I thought, and said as much.

'I'm sorry. I can't let you go.' His voice was final.

"I wouldn't betray you.'

Silence.

'I wouldn't, Guy.'

He stood up, putting his hands on my shoulders. I
was suddenly aware of his scent, a dark aroma of sweat and
damp leather, of the fact that in spite of my height he
dwarfed me.

'Please,' I said in a low voice. 'You don't need me.'

The touch of his hand was like a breath from the ovens,
crisping the hairs at the nape of my neck. 'Trust me,' he
said. 'I do.'

Ten years ago I would have given anything to hear those
words. It alarmed me a little that a part of me might still
want them, and I closed my eyes to evade his. It was a trap.
Didn't I know him by now? His skin was smooth, smooth as
my dreams.

'As what? A pawn in your game of Bishops?' I pushed him
away with my hands, but somehow my body drew him closer
so that we stood entwined, his fingers clasped at the nape of
my neck, tracing letters of fire on my raised hackles.

'No.' His voice was very gentle.

'Then why?'

He shrugged and said nothing.

'Why, LeMerle?' I cried in angry desperation. 'Why this
charade? Will you risk both our lives for your revenge?


309
HOLY FOOLS


Because a man once had you exiled from Paris? Because of a ballet':

'No, Juliette. Not tor those things.'

'Then whyT

'You wouldn't understand.'

'Try me.'

It must have been witchcraft. Or madness, perhaps. I
fought against it, scarring his wrists with my fingernails even
as 1 clung to him, sealing his mouth with mine as if by so
doing I might consume him whole. We shed our clothes in
ferocious silence, he and I, and I saw that his body was still
hard and strong, as I remembered it, and I was startled to
realize just how tenderly I recalled every mark, every scar, as
if they were my own. The ancient brand on his arm shone
silver-snakeskin-pale in the moonlight, and though some
part of me protested that I was making an irrevocable
mistake, I could hardly make it out above the roaring in my
mind. For a time I was more than flesh. I was sulphur, I was
a pillar of fire which raged and fed and thirsted. It was what
Giordano had always warned me about; the hidden savagery
in my nature that he had always taken such care to subdue -- and with so little success. It occurred to me then that
although Giordano may have been learned in the properties
of elemental substances, there were far more powerful
alchemies in the world than his: alchemies that melded
flesh and burned away the past and changed hatred back
into love with a simple cantrip.

After a time the fire slipped from us and we lay gently,
like lovers. My anger had left me, and a new languor


.3 1 0
I S A B E L L E


possessed my limbs, as if the past five years had been a
dream, nothing more, grim shadowplay on a wall which
reveals itself to be nothing more than the movement of a
boy's hand in the sunlight.

'Tell me, LeMerle,' I said at last. 'I want to understand.'

In a sickle of moonlight I saw him smile. 'It's a long tale,'
he warned me. 'If I tell you, will you stay?'

'Tell me,' I repeated.

Still smiling, he did.


3 1 1
11 *

August 8th, 1610


WELL, I HAD TO TELL HER SOMETHING, AND SHE WOULD

have worked it out in the end. A pity she's a woman; if
she'd been born a man I might almost have thought her
my equal. As it was, I still had a weapon to wield, and
the battle was sweet for a time. Her hair smelt of burnt
sugar, the scents of baking and lavender warm on her
skin. I swear this time I meant to keep my promise. My
mouth on hers, 1 could almost believe it was true. We
could take to the road again, I promised; together we could
take to the air. L'Ailee might fly again - in fact, I never
doubted she would. Sweet fantasy, my Winged One. Sweet
lies.

She wanted the tale, so I told it in words that would
please her. More than I intended, perhaps, lulled by her sly
caresses. More, perhaps, than was entirely safe. But my


3 1 2
ISABELLE


Ailee is a romantic at heart, wanting to believe the best in
everything. Even this. Even me.


'l WAS SEVENTEEN.' IMAGINE THAT. *THE SON OF A LOCAL

girl and some passing seigneur: unwanted, unacknowledged.
It was understood that as such I belonged to the Church.
No one asked me if 1 understood it. I was born a few miles
away, near Montauban, and I was sent away to the abbey at
five years old -- that was where I learned my Latin and
Greek. The Abbot was a weak but kindly man who had left
society twenty years before to join the Cistercians. His
connections remained good, however; and although he had
renounced his name, it was reputed to have once been a
powerful one. Certainly, the abbey was wealthy enough
under his direction, and it was large. I grew up in a mixed
environment, with monks on one side and nuns on the
other.'

The tale is almost true - the name of the other
protagonist eludes me but I recall her face beneath the
novice's veil, the fine spray of freckles across the bridge of
her nose, her eyes the colour of burnt umber ringed with
gold.

'She was fourteen. I worked in the gardens, too young
even to have earned my tonsure. She was a minx; she would
glance over the wall at me as I worked, laughing with her
eyes.'

As I said, almost true. There was more, my Ailee, darker,
uglier currents and cross-currents you would not so easily
understand. In the reading room I would linger over the


3 1 3
HOLY FOOLS


Song of Songs and try not to think of her whilst my masters
watched me closely for signs of rapture.

/ am the rose of Sharon, and the lily of the valleys.

I never could bear the sight or the smell of those flowers,
afterwards. A summer garden is filled with bitter memories.

'For a time it was an idyll.'

This is what she wants to hear, a tale of innocence
corrupted, of vanquished love. She is more troubadour
than buccaneer, my Winged One, in spite of her sharp
claws. You'd understand that, Juliette, with your sweet and
sheltered childhood amongst the painted tigers.

For myself the idyll was a darker thing, the scents of that
summer's flowers coloured with those of my solitude, my
jealousy, my imprisonment. I neglected my lessons; I did
penance for what sins they could discover, and on the rest I
brooded in growing resentment and longing. I could hear
the sound of running water beyond the abbey walls, and
wondered where the river led.

'It was summer.' I'll let you believe it was love. Why not?
I almost convinced myself. I was drunk on moonlight, on
sensations: a curl of her hair, cut in secret and passed to
me in a missal, the imprint of her feet on the grass, the
imagined scent of her as I lay on my pallet, looking up at
that tiny square of stars . . .

A garden enclosed is my sister, my spouse; a spring shut up; a
fountain sealed.

We met in secret in the walled gardens, exchanged shy
kisses and tokens like lovers long versed in the arts of
intrigue. We were innocents . . . Even I, in my way.


314
ISABELLE


'It could not last.' This, my Ailee, is where our tales
diverge. 'They found us together, grown careless perhaps,
giddy with delight at our forbidden pleasures . . .'

She screamed, the little fool. They called it tape.

"I tried to explain.' I had pulled down her uncut hair; it
hung in ringlets to her waist. Beneath her robe I could feel
her small breasts. Solomon said it most sweetly: Thy breasts
are like unto two young roes that are twins, which feed among
the lilies.

How could I have known she'd be such a little prude? She
screamed and I silenced her, pinning her arms to her sides
and my hand over her mouth.

'Too late.' They dragged me off, protesting. It was no
fault of mine, I swore; if any was to blame, let it be
Solomon, with his twin roes. My convent passionflower
pleaded innocence; the fault was all mine, she hardly
knew me, had not encouraged my advances. I was locked
in my cell. My scribbled note to her was returned unopened.
Too late I realized we had misunderstood each
other. My reluctant sweetheart dreamed of Abelard, not
Pan.

'I was imprisoned for three days, awaiting judgement. For
all that time, no one spoke a word to me. The brother who
brought me my meals did so with his face turned away. But
to my surprise, I was not starved or beaten. My disgrace was
too profound for any ordinary penance.'

I have always hated being enclosed, however, and
my imprisonment was all the more painful for the
scent of the garden outside my window and the sounds of


3 1 5
HOLY FOOLS


summer beyond the walls. They might have let me out
if 1 had repented, but my stubborn lack of shame cut
me from them. I would not recant my story. I would not
submit to their judgement. Who were they to judge me,
anyway?

On the fourth day a friend managed to pass me a note,
informing me that the Abbot had sought the advice of
a visiting clergyman - a well-regarded man of noble
house -- concerning the matter of my punishment. I was not
greatly troubled by the prospect. I could take a whipping if
I needed to, although the kind Abbot had always been
lenient towards me, and rarely used such measures.

It was late that afternoon when I was finally brought from
my cell. Restless, sullen and desperately bored, I blinked in
the sudden sunlight as the Abbot led me from the dark
passageway into his study, where a tall, distinguished man of
about thirty-five was awaiting me.

He was dressed in the black town habit and cloak of an
ordinary priest, with a silver cross around his neck. His hair
was black to the Abbot's grey, but they had the same high
cheekbones and light, almost silvery eyes. Seeing them
there, side by side, there could be no doubt that the two
men were brothers.

The newcomer studied me expressionlessly for a moment.
'So this is the boy. What's your name, boy?'

'Guy, if it pleases you, man pere.'

His mouth thinned as if it did not please him at all.
'You've indulged him, Michel,' he said to the Abbot. 'I
should have known you would.'


3 1 6
1SABELLE


The Abbot said nothing, though it cost him an effort.

'A man's nature cannot be altered,' continued the
stranger. 'But it can - it must - be subdued. By your
negligence, an innocent girl has been corrupted, and the
reputation of our house--'

'I didn't corrupt her,' I protested. It was true; if anything,
she had corrupted me.

The newcomer looked at me as if I were carrion. I gave
him back his look, and his cold eyes grew colder. 'He
persists, then,' he said.

'He's young,' said the Abbot.

'That's no excuse.'

Refusing once more to acknowledge my crime, I
was taken back to my cell. I rebelled at being locked up
again; fought the brothers who had been sent to fetch
me, blasphemed, flung abuse. The Abbot came to reason
with me, and I might have listened to him if he had been
alone, but his guest was with him, and something in me
revolted at the thought of giving in to this man who had
apparently judged and detested me on sight. Exhausted and
angry, I slept; was awoken at dawn -- for Matins, I thought -- and led outside by two brothers who refused to meet my
eye.

In the courtyard, the Abbot was waiting for me, with
the brothers and the nuns standing around him in a
circle. At his side, the priest, his silver cross gleaming in
the pale light, his hands folded. Among the nuns I caught
sight of my little novice, but her face was averted, and
remained so. Others bore expressions of pity, dismay or


3 1 7
HOLY FOOLS


vague excitement; there was an atmosphere of breathless
expectancy.

Then the Abbot stood aside and I saw what he had been
concealing. A brazier, heated to buttercup-yellow under the
banked embers, and a brother, with heavy gloves to protect
his hands and arms from the heat, now hauling the iron
from beneath the coals.

A sigh rose from the ranks, almost of pleasure. Ahhhh.

Then the newcomer spoke. I don't remember much of
what he said; I was too preoccupied with the scene before
me. My eyes returned again to the brazier in disbelief; to the
small square iron heated to the colour of your hair. Dimly I
began to understand. I struggled, but was held; a brother
pulled up my sleeve to expose bare flesh.

It was at this point that 1 recanted. There's pride, and
there's stupidity, after all. But it was too late. The Abbot
looked away, grimacing; his brother took a step closer to me
and whispered something in my ear, just as the iron made its
dreadful contact.

I have occasionally prided myself on a certain turn of
phrase. Some things, however, can never be adequately
described. Suffice it to say that I feel it still, and the
words he spoke to me in that moment lit a spark that still
endures.


PERHAPS, MONSEIGNEUR, I OWE YOU SOMETHING; AFTER ALL,

you spared my life. But a cloistered life is no life at all,
as Juliette could no doubt tell you, and to be expelled
from mine was probably the best thing that could
ISABELLE


have happened to me. Not that you acted out of any
concern for me. In fact, you doubted I'd survive. What
skills did I have? Latin, reading, a certain natural perverseness.
That served me well, if nothing else; you wanted
me dead, so I decided to live. Even then, you see, I was
shameless. So was born the Blackbird, strident and indomitable,
flinging his idiot song in the faces of those who
despised him, raiding their orchards beneath their very
noses.

Years later, as Guy LeMerle I came to Court. My enemy
was a bishop now, the Bishop of Evreux. I should have
known a simple parish would not have contained him long.
Monseigneur wanted more. He wanted the Court; more
than that, he wanted the ear of the King. There were too
many Huguenots around Henri for his liking; it offended
your exquisite sensibilities. And what glory to the house of
Arnault -- in heaven and on earth -- if he were to bring a
royal lamb back to the fold!

Once burned, twice shy. Not in my case. I escaped the
second time, but narrowly. I could almost smell the reek
of burning feathers. Well, this time it's my turn. They
say Nero fiddled whilst Rome burned. Paltry fellow that
he must have been with his one fiddle. When my time
comes I'll greet Monseigneur d'Evreux with a whole damned
orchestra.


I WAS SWEATING. MY HAND WAS UNSTEADY ON HER BREAST.

My pain was scented with flowers. It coloured my tale
with truth, Juliette. I saw her eyes widen with pity and


3 1 9
HOLY FOOLS


understanding. The rest was easy. Revenge, after all, is
something we can both understand.

'Revenge?' she said.

'I want to humiliate him.' Answer with care, LeMerle.
Answer so that she believes you. 'I want him to be
implicated in a scandal which even his influence cannot
suppress. I want him ruined.'

She gave me a sharp look. 'But why now? Why now, after
all this time?'

'I saw an opportunity.' This, like the rest of my tale, is
close to the truth. But a wise man makes his own opportunities,
just as a good card-player makes his own luck. And
I am a very good player, Juliette.

'There's still time to change your mind,' she said. 'Only
harm can come of such a plan. Harm to yourself, to Isabelle,
to the abbey. Can you not leave things as they are and free
yourself from the past?' She lowered her eyes. 'I might come
with you,' she said. 'If you decided to go.'

A tempting offer. But I had invested tao much in this to
turn back. I shook my head in genuine regret. 'A week,' I
said softly. 'Give me a week.'

'What about Clemente? I can't drug her for ever.'

'You need not fear Clemente.'

Juliette looked at me suspiciously. 'I won't let you harm
her. Or anyone else.'

'I won't. Trust me.'

'I mean it, Guy. If anyone else is harmed - by you, or on
your orders--'

'Trust me.'


320
ISABELLE


Almost inconceivable, that I should be forgiven. Yet her
smile tells me that haply all might be as it was. Guy
LeMerle - if I were only he - might have taken that offer.
Next week will be too late; by then there will be more blood
on my hands than even she could absolve.


32 1
12 V

August 9th, 1610


THE AIR WAS COOL, AND THERE WERE LIVID SMEARS OF FALSE

dawn on the night's palette. Soon the bell would chime for
Vigils. But my head was too full for sleep, still ringing as it
was with LeMerle's words.

What was this? Some witchcraft, some drug slipped to me
as I slept? Could it be that I believed him now, that in some
way he could have regained my trust? Silently I berated
myself. What I had said - what I had done - was said and
done for Fleur. Whatever I had promised was for both of us.
As for the rest - I shook aside visions of myself and LeMerle
on the road again, friends again, maybe lovers . . . That
would never happen. Never.

I wished I had my cards with me, but Antoine had
hidden them well; my search of her bedroll and of her
place in the bakehouse had discovered nothing. Instead I


322
1SABELLE


thought of Giordano, and tried to hear his voice over
the pounding of my heart. More than ever I need your
logic now, old friend. Nothing discomposed your ordered,
geometric world. Loss, death, famine, love . . . The
wheels that turn the universe left you unmoved. In your
numhers and calihrations you glimpsed the secret names of
God.

Tsk-tsk, begone! But my cantrips are useless in the face of
this greater magic. Tomorrow night at moonrise I will pick
rosemary and lavender for protection and clear thinking. I
will make a charm of rose leaves and sea salt and tie it with
a red ribbon and carry it in my pocket. I will think of Fleur.
And I will not meet his eyes.


CLEMENTE WAS NOT AT MATINS THIS MORNING, NOR AT

Lauds. Her absence was not mentioned, but I noticed that
Soeur Virginie was also excused from prayers, and drew my
own conclusions. The drug was working, then. The question
was, for how long?

Such was the speculation about Soeur Clemente that
it was some hours before I noticed that Alfonsine, too,
was absent. At the time I did not give it much thought;
Alfonsine had recently become very friendly with Soeur
Virginie, and had offered to help her on a number of
occasions. Besides, LeMerle was so often in the infirmary
block that Alfonsine needed no other reason to haunt it.

But at Prime, Virginie came alone, and with news.
Clemente was very sick, she said. She had fallen into a
deep lethargy from which nothing was able to rouse her,


323
HOLY FOOLS


and she had been running a high fever since dawn. Piete
shook her head and swore she had suspected the cholera all
along; Antoine smiled serenely. Marguerite declared that
we were all bewitched, and suggested a harsher system of
penances.

But there was more unwelcome news. Alfonsine, too, was
ill once more. In her case there was no fever, but she
was unusually pale, and had been coughing fitfully for most
of the night. Bleeding had seemed to quiet her a little,
but she was still very listless and would not eat. Mere
Isabelle had been to visit her and had declared her unfit for
duties, although Alfonsine had tried to persuade her she was
quite well. But any fool could see it was the cameras de
sangre, declared Soeur Virginie; and unless the bad blood
were drained away, the patient would surely die within the
week.

That troubled me far more than the news about
Clemente. Alfonsine was already weak from overexcitement
and self-inflicted penances. Bleeding and fasting would kill
her with far greater efficiency than disease. I said as much to
Soeur Virginie.

'I'll thank you not to interfere,' she said. 'My method
worked perfectly well for Soeur Marguerite.'

'Soeur Marguerite had a narrow escape; besides, she's
stronger than Alfonsine. Her lungs are not compromised.'

Virginie looked at me in open disdain. 'If we're to speak
of being compromised, ma soeur, you should look to yourself.'

'What do you mean?'


324
ISABELLE


'I mean that although you may have got away with it last
time, there are some of us who think that your - enthusiasm
- for potions and powders might not be as innocent as Pere
Colombia thinks.'

I dared not make any comment after that, either to help
Alfonsine or to advise on the treatment of Clemente. It was
too close to the truth, and although LeMerle might speak
lightly of the possible danger, I was only too aware of
the precarious line I was now treading. Virginie had the
Abbess's ear; they are alike in some ways, as well being
closer to each other in age than the rest of us; and she has
never liked me. It would take only a little thing - words
spoken by Clemente, perhaps, in delirium or otherwise - to
ensure that I was once more accused.

I would have spoken of it to LeMerle, but he made
no appearance today, remaining in the infirmary or in
his study, surrounded by books. Very soon, if I knew my
plant lore correctly, Clemente's fever would break and she
would regain consciousness. What happened then was up to
LeMerle. He could control Clemente, he had said; I did not
share his optimism. He had chosen me publicly over her;
that was something no woman would forgive.

I slept badly, and dreamed too well. My own voice awoke
me, and after that I was afraid to close my eyes in case I
spoke again and betrayed myself as I slept. In LeMerle's
cottage, a little light burned. I had almost made up my mind
to go to him when Antoine got up to use the latrines in the
reredorter, and I had to lie back, eyes closed, feigning sleep.
She got up twice more during the night - our diet of black


325
HOLY FOOLS


bread and soup evidently disagreed with her - and so we
were both alert to the sound of the alarum as it sounded
across the courtyard from the infirmary.
Finally, Clemente was awake.


326
13


V


August 9th, 1610


ANTOINE AND I WERE THE FIRST TO REACH THE INFIRMARY.

We did not look at each other as we raced along the
slype towards the walled garden, but we could already hear
Clemente's feverish cries as we approached. There was a
light at one of the windows and we followed the light, with
Tomasine, Piete, Benedicte and Marie-Madeleine arriving
soon after.

The infirmary consists of a single, large and rather stuffy
room. There are beds lined up against the wall -- six of
them, although there is provision for more. No cubicle
wall separates the beds, so that sleep is almost impossible
here among the sighs and coughs and whimperings of the
sufferers. Soeur Virginie had made some effort to isolate
Clemente; her bed was at the far end of the room, and she
had placed a curtain screen to one side of it, cutting off


327
HOLY FOOLS


some of the lamplight and giving the afflicted girl some
privacy. Alfonsine was positioned by the door, as far from
Clemente as possihle, and 1 caught sight of her open eyes as
I passed: two points of brightness in the dark.

The Abbess was already there. Virginie and Marguerite,
who must have given the alarum at her command, were
beside her, looking fearful and excited. LeMerle stood at a
distance, grave in his black robe with his silver crucifix held
in one hand. On the bed, her ankles fastened into place by
two straps fixed to the wooden frame, sprawled Clemente.
A pitcher of water had been spilt across a small bedside
table; a stinking basin pushed beneath the bed itself. Her
face was white; her pupils were dilated so much that the
blue of her irises was almost invisible.

'Help Soeur Virginie to tie her down,' ordered the Abbess
to Marguerite. 'You - yes you, Soeur Auguste! Bring a
calming infusion.'

I hesitated for an instant. 'I - perhaps it might be better
if--'

'At once, you fool!' The nasal voice was sharp. 'A calming
drink, and a change of bedclothes! Go quickly!'

I shrugged. The morning glory seed requires an empty
stomach to avoid ill effects. But I obeyed; ten minutes later
I returned, carrying a light infusion of skullcap leaves sweetened
with honey, and a fresh blanket.

Clemente was delirious. 'Leave me alone, leave me
alone!' she screamed, flailing at the proffered cup with her
unsecured left hand.

'Hold her down!' cried Mere Isabelle.


328


ISABELLE


Soeur Virginie poured most of the infusion down
Clemente's throat as she opened her mouth again to scream.
'There, ma soeur. That will make you better,' she shouted
above the noise. 'Just try to rest--'

Her words were barely uttered when Clemente vomited
with such force that reeking liquid splattered against the
wall of the infirmary. I shrugged inwardly. Virginie, who
had been liberally showered, shrieked, and Mere Isabelle,
beside herself, slapped her smartly, as a spoiled child might
slap her nurse in a fit of temper.

Clemente vomited again, leaving a trail of slime over the
new blanket. 'Fetch Pere Colombin.' Her voice was hoarse
with shrieking. 'Fetch him now!'

LeMerle had been standing in silence. Now he moved
closer, delicately avoiding the patches of vomit on the floor. 'Let me pass.' In fact there was no one obstructing him,
but we responded to the voice of authority. Clemente too
responded; she turned her face towards him and whimpered
softly.

LeMerle held out his crucifix.

'Mon pere!' For an instant the afflicted woman seemed
quite lucid. She whispered in her hoarse voice: 'You said
you'd help me. You said you'd help . . .'

LeMerle began to speak in Latin to her, still holding
the crucifix between them as if a weapon. I recognized the
words as a fragment of the exorcism service, which he would
no doubt perform in full at some later date.

'Praecipio tibi, quicumque es, spiritus immunde, et omnibus
sodis tuis hunc Dei famulum obsidentibus . . .'


329


HOLY FOOLS


I saw Clemente's eyes widen. 'No!'

'Ut per mysteria incarnationis, passionis, resurrectionis, et
ascensionis Domini nostri ..."

In spite of everything I felt a sudden surge of guilt at her
suffering.

'Per missionem Spiritus Sancti, et per adventum ejusdem
Domini.'

'Please, I didn't mean it, I'll never tell anyone--'

'Dicas mihi nomen tuum, diem, et horam exitus tui, cum
aliquo signo--'

'It was Germaine - she was jealous, she wanted me for
herself. . .'

When Janette used the drug in ceremonies and
divination, it was in tiny doses after a long period
of meditation. Clemente had been unprepared. I tried to
imagine the depth of her terror. Now, at last, the drug
was reaching its final stage. Soon the attack would be over,
and she would sleep again. LeMerle made the sign of the
cross over Clemente's face. 'Lectio sancti Evangdii secundum Joannem.'

But his refusal to acknowledge her seemed to contribute
to her agitation. She grasped at the sleeve of his
robe with her teeth, almost knocking the crucifix from
his hand. Till tell them everything,' she snarled. 'I'll see you
burn.'

'See how she recoils from the Cross!' said Marguerite.

'She's ill,' I said. 'Delirious. She doesn't know what she's
doing.'

Marguerite shook her head stubbornly. 'She's possessed,'


3 30


ISABELLE


she said, her eyes shining. 'Possessed by the spirit of
Germaine. Didn't she say so herself?'

Now was no time to argue. I could see Merc Isabelle
watching us from the corner of my eye, and knew she had
heard every word. But LeMerle was unmoved. 'Demons who
have infested this woman, name yourselves!'

Clemente whimpered. 'There are no demons. You yourself
said--'

'Name yourselves!' repeated LeMerle. 'I command you!
In the name of the Father!'

'I only wanted - I didn't mean to--'

'Of the Son!'

'No -- please--'

'Of the Holy Spirit!'

At this, Clemente finally broke. 'Germaine!' she
screamed. There Marie! Behemoth! Beelzebub! Ashtaroth!
Belial! Sabaoth! Tetragrammaton!' She was weeping now in
fast, gasping sobs, the names - many known to me from
Giordano's various texts, but doubtless gleaned by Clemente
from Alfonsine's raptures - coming from her lips in a
desperate rush. 'Hades! Belphegor! Mammon! Asmodeus!'

LeMerle laid a hand on her shoulder, and such was her
agitation that she shrieked again and drew away.

'Possessed!' whispered Marguerite again. 'See how she
burns at the touch of the Cross! Hear the names of the
demons!'

LeMerle half turned to face the rest of us. 'Evil news
indeed,' he said. 'I was blind enough yesterday to believe
there might be another explanation for her illness. But now

HOLY FOOLS


we have it from her own mouth. Soeur Clemente has been
infested by unclean spirits.'

'Let me help her, please.' Unwise, I knew, to draw attention
to myself, hut I could hear it no longer. All the same I
was very aware of Virginic's eyes on me, and behind her,
those of our little Abbess.

LeMerle shook his head. 'I must be alone.' He looked
exhausted, the outstretched hand which held the crucifix
visibly shaking with the effort. 'Anyone who stays here puts
their soul in peril.'

Clemente, between sobs, began to recite the Lord's
Prayer.

LeMerle took a step backwards. 'See how the demons
taunt us!' he said. 'You have named yourself, demon, now
let us see your face!'

As he spoke, a cold draught blew from the open door,
flickering the flames in the candles and cressets that
illuminated the room. Instinctively I turned; others followed
my lead. Beyond the door, in the darkened hallway, a white
figure hesitated just out of the range of our light. I could
barely make out its shape. It appeared to float vaguely down
the passageway, skirting the light with delicate precision so
that all we saw of it was the habit it wore -- so similar to our
own -- and the pale quichenotte that hid its face completely.

'The Unholy Nun!'

I grabbed a cresset from Virginie and sprang forwards
with its small flame in my hand. Marguerite shrieked and
clawed at my sleeve. I paid no attention but took three
paces into the passageway, carrying my light before me.

ISABELLE


'Who's that?' I cried. 'Show yourself!'

The Unholy Nun turned, and I had time to see dark
stockinged legs beneath the robe. So much, then, for its
ghostly floating. The hands, too, were gloved in black. Then
the figure began to run down the passage, moving lightly
and quickly away from the light.

Someone at my back called out impatiently: 'What did
you see?'

Someone else tugged at my wimple, my arm. I dislodged
the grip with some difficulty, fighting to keep hold of the
cresset. When I looked back the apparition had gone.

'Soeur Auguste! What did you see?' It was Isabelle,
clutching me as if she never meant to let go. At close
quarters her complexion looked worse than ever, small
angry red sores blooming around her mouth and nose.
Janette would have prescribed fresh air and exercise. Fresh
air and sunshine, she would have said with her familiar
cackle. That's the thing for a growing child. That's what made me the beauty you see before you. If only Janette were here
now.

'Yes indeed, Soeur Auguste, what did you see?' The polite
tone was LeMerle's, touched now with a note of mockery
only I could hear.

'I...'! heard my voice waver. 'I'm not sure.'

'Soeur Auguste is a sceptic,' said LeMerle. 'Perhaps
even now she doubts the presence of demons in Soeur
Clemente.'

I kept my eyes fixed to the cresset's light, not daring to
face his smile.


3 33


HOLY FOOLS


'Soeur Auguste,' said Isabelle shrilly. 'Tell us at once.
What did you see? Was it the Unholy Nun?'

Slowly, reluctantly, 1 nodded.

A wave of questions followed. Why had I pursued her?
Why had 1 stopped? What exactly had I seen? Was there
blood on the bonnet? And on the surplice? Had I seen the
face?

I tried to answer them all. Where lies were needed, I lied.
Every word I uttered drove me further into LeMerle's power,
but I had no choice, no strength to resist it; I lied by
necessity. For in the second when the spectre turned to me,
face to face and almost close enough to touch in the dim
passageway, I had recognized the Unholy Nun. My dearest
friend, her gold-ringed eyes wide with something almost like
amusement. As if this were a game with nothing more at
stake than a handful of glass marbles.

It made perfect sense. Her innocence protected her. Her
silence was assured. And only I had heard the faint bird
laughter which followed the spectre's disappearance into
the gloom, that hooting, inhuman note which no other
throat could quite duplicate.

There could be no mistaking that sound, those eyes.

It was Perette.


334


PART FOUR


PERETTE


1 A

August I Oth, 1610


SO FAR, SO GOOD. BUT THE TASK WHICH REMAINS IS A

delicate one. I have only five days until his arrival, and the
threads of my delicate weaving become ever more twisted
and tortuous. Clemente remains in her bed in the infirmary,
quiet now, but not, I suspect, for long. I have spent many
hours at her side with Virginie in attendance, incense and
holy water in hand. A sharp needle concealed in one sleeve
ensured her cooperation throughout the final stage of her
drug's effects; with it I pricked her with scientific precision
when a scream or a curse was required, and in her dazed
condition she was unable to distinguish the pains of her
visions from those of the hidden instrument.

With becoming gravity I pronounced Clemente possessed
by two hundred and fifty demons. I spent much of the
remainder of the morning in my library, engrossed in several


3 37


HOLY FOOLS


texts on the subject, then emerged some little time before
midday with a list of their names. This I proceeded to
read to Clemente in slow, measured tones whilst Virginie
watched in slack-mouthed awe and the doomed girl on the
bed writhed and pleaded.

I knew that Juliette would refuse to administer another
dose of her morning glories, but I had enough for my
immediate needs, and as the day wore on and I saw
Clemente begin to regain her senses I began to foresee the
need for a repetition of the procedure. I knew already that
my Ailee would disapprove. But what could she do?

Mass was, of course, cancelled. I 'studied' in my rooms,
with a book of Aristotle's maxims hidden within the covers
of the Malleus Malleficarum. Services without me were a dull
affair, I gather, but I made a show of fearing another
repetition of the frenzies and the Dancing Mass.

Meanwhile, Marguerite watched over Clemente and -- in spite of strict instructions from me not to breathe a
word of the day's events -- diffused the terrible news of
her possession throughout the abbey. Of course this
had been my intention all along, and the rumours, all the
more appealing for being forbidden, were soon repeated,
expanded, embellished and otherwise disseminated as
widely as dandelion seed.

My principal source of unease lies in Juliette. Her discovery
of the identity of my Unholy Nun was perhaps
inevitable, but nevertheless troubles me a little. The wild
girl is her friend, so I'm told, and she feels loyalty to her.
Not so the wild girl, who can be bought for a trinket and


3 38


PERETTE


whose silence is beyond rubies, but if Juliette were to learn
the full extent of my plans . . .

Foolishness, of course. Perette is a primitive creature, an
unformed mind with no more intelligence than a trained
monkey. It took me a little time to break her -- indeed, I
spent two sleepless nights in the crypt curing her of her
unreasonable fear of the dark - but now she fawns on me as
trusting as a spaniel, her small hands cupped, begging for
the next treat. I'm sorely tempted, when I leave this place,
to take Perette with me. There are so many uses to which I
could put her. And Juliette-- But I must not think of
Juliette. By the Sunday she will have learned the full extent
of my treachery, and I cannot hope to be forgiven this time.
But Perette is another matter. Even untrained, she is nimble
beyond expectation. Sleight-of-hand is child's play to her.
She can move unseen and unheard in a room of sleepers
without disturbing a single one. She can run like the wind,
climb like a squirrel, curl up and hide in the tiniest of
spaces. I could even teach her to dance on a rope. No one
could hope to equal my Ailee, but perhaps with practice . . .
I could paint her face with walnut juice and pass her off as a
savage from Canada. They'd pay to see that.

Yes, amongst all the rest I might yet save Perette.


339


2 V

August 10th, 1610


OF COURSE, AFTER WHAT I HAD SEEN IN THE INFIRMARY I

went to Perette as soon as I could. That was in the morning,
after Prime. We all went to our duties a little late, for
the Abbess was with her confessor and we guessed that
discipline might be a little relaxed. I found Perette, as I
expected, in the stables where we kept our beasts. She
had taken some stale bread with her, and the place was
awash with the hens and ducks and speckled pullets
which had followed her in. She looked at me inquiringly.

'Perette.' She smiled then, a wide-open smile of delight,
and indicated the birds. She looked so happy - and so
innocent - that I felt oddly reluctant to speak of that
morning's incident. I steeled myself nevertheless. 'Never
mind the hens. Perette. 1 saw you in the infirmary this


340


PERETTE


morning.' She looked at me pertly, head to one side. 'I saw
you pretending to be the Unholy Nun.'

Perette gave the hooting cry which in her passes for
laughter.

'It isn't funny.' I took her arms and turned her to face me.
'It could have been very dangerous.'

Perette shrugged. She is clever enough at some things,
but when we broach the subject of might-have, or could
have-been, or would-be, she tends to lose interest.

I spoke slowly, patiently, using simple words she knew.
'Perette. Listen to me. Tell me the truth.' She smiled at me,
giving no sign of whether or not she understood. 'Tell
me, Perette. How many times have you--' No, that was
wrong. 'Perette. Have you played this game before/'

Perette nodded and hooted happily.

'And did - did Pere Colombin ask you to play this game?'

Again, the nod.

'Did - did Pere Colombin say why he wanted you to play
this game?'

That was more difficult. Perette thought for a moment,
shrugged, then held out a grimy palm. In it rested a small
brown object. A piece of sugar. She looked at it, licked it,
then replaced it carefully in her pocket.

'Sugar? He gives you sugar when you play the game?'

Perette shrugged again. Then, fumbling around her
neck, she drew out the small medallion I had seen LeMerle
take from her only a few weeks ago, now secured by a piece
of twine. Christina Mirabilis smiled out from the bright
enamelled disc.


341


HOLY FOOLS


Again I made my voice slow and coaxing. 'So, Perette.
You played the game for Pere Colombin.' Perette smiled and
ticked her head from one side to the other. The medallion
winked in the sunlight. 'But why did he want you to play
the game?'

The wild girl shrugged and turned the medallion over
in her fingers, catching the light. I tried to curb my impatience.
'Yes, Perette, but why did he ask you? Did he tell
you why?'

Again she shrugged. What did it matter why he wanted
it, said the shrug, as long as there was sugar and trinkets?

I gave her a gentle shake. 'Perette. What you did was a
bad thing.'

She looked puzzled at that, beginning to shake her head
in denial. 'A bad thing!' 1 insisted, raising my voice a little.
'It wasn't your fault, but it was bad all the same. Pere
Colombin was bad to make you do it.'

Perette turned her mouth down sulkily and made as if to
pull away. I held her back. 'Do you remember Fleur?' I said
suddenly. 'Do you remember when they took Fleur away?'

Perhaps she did not, I told myself. It had been almost
a month since Fleur's disappearance, and Perette might
already have forgotten her young playmate. For a moment
she looked puzzled, then raised her hand in the gesture she
had always used to indicate the child.

'It was Pere Colombin who took Fleur away,' I told her.
'He may seem very nice, he may give you presents, but
Perette, he's a bad man, and I need to know what he's
planning!' My voice had risen again, and I was gripping her


542


PERETTE


arm painfully. Her blank expression told me that I had gone
too fast, that I had lost her. 'Perette, look at me!'

But it was too late. The moment of contact was gone, and
Perette had returned her attention to the birds. As I turned
away, furious at my own impatience, I saw her sitting in a
clucking mound of them, arms outstretched, her lap a mass
of white, brown, speckled, golden, green and red feathers.

And yet I cannot give up. If there is a key to this enigma,
it is she. My sweet Perette, my innocent. Whatever he
is planning, she knows it. It may be beyond her understanding,
but his secret is there, hidden within her as
securely as in a Chinese puzzle-box. If only I knew what it
was. If only I could break your locks, my dear.


343


3


V


August 11th, 1610


I TRIED TO TALK TO LEMERLE ALL YESTERDAY, BUT HE AVOIDS

me and I cannot afford to draw attention to myself.
Last night his door was locked, the light extinguished. I
wondered whether he was in the infirmary, but dared not go
to see. Clemente is still incapable of rational speech, so
Antoine tells me, alternating long periods of lethargy with
intervals of wild, wakeful delirium. During those times she
has to be secured to the mattress for fear she injures herself.
Often she tears at her clothing, exposing herself, thrusting
violently at the air as if ridden by a demon lover. At these
times she may scream or moan in terrible pleasure, or claw
at her face in an agony of self-loathing. Better to tie her
down, though she pleads to be released, thrashing her head
from side to side and spitting with uncanny accuracy at
anyone who dares approach her.


344


PERETTE


I am not allowed to visit. Antoine, too, has been
removed from the infirmary, though Virginie remains to
care for the possessed woman. Antoine tells me this with sly
satisfaction: Clemente seems crazed, and may never regain
her sanity. So Virginie tells her. Antoine's eyes arc small
and mean as she speaks of it. She has volunteered to help in
the infirmary, washing blankets and preparing broths for the
afflicted woman, into which, no doubt, she slips a regular
dose of morning glories.

Lovely Clemente is no longer quite so lovely, she reports
in that new, sly voice; her face will be scarred by the
repeated assault of her fingernails; her hair is coming out in
patches. I would have liked to go to her, to comfort her
perhaps or to explain to her ravaged face that it wasn't my
fault . . .

What good would it do? Antoine's hand may have given
her the dose, but it was I gave her the means. I would do it
again in the same circumstances. LeMerle, wisely keeping
his distance, knows it. Again he has opened a gulf inside
me, has opened the dark budget of possibility within my
entrails.

Thou shall not suffer a witch to live.

Giordano used to say that in the original Hebrew the
word witch meant poisoner.

I wonder if Giordano would recognize his pupil now.


345


4 A

August 12th, 1610


AS EXPECTED, MY AFFAIRS PROCEED ACCORDING TO PLAN.

Mere Isabella remains docile - for the present. She spends
much of her time in prayer, heedless of her increasingly
unruly flock. Access to Clemente is limited, for even I can
hardly dose the girl continuously, and her ravings have
become increasingly violent.

Instead, I build upon my pupil's fears with lore and
nonsense culled from a hundred books both sacred and
profane. Whilst seeming to lull her terrors I artfully nourish
them with anecdotes and fancies. The world is filled
with horrors: burnings, poisonings, bewitchings and evil
enchantments - you name it, Pere Colombin knows it, and
he knows exactly how to bring the horrors to life. A
chequered career may provide useful fuel for such deceits;
after all, I even met the famous jurisconsult Jean Bodin at


346


PERETTE


one of Mme de Sevigne's soirees - and was thoroughly
bored by the lengthiness of his discourse. The rest I
borrowed from the great fictions of history. Aeschylus,
Plutarch, the Bible . . . Clemente herself is quite unaware
that the demoniac names she utters in her frenzies are for
the most part merely the secret, forgotten names of God,
reborn as blasphemies in her tortured brain.

My pupil has hardly slept for days. Her eyes are sunken
and red. Her mouth is pale as a scar. Sometimes 1 see her
watching me, she thinks in secret. I wonder if she suspects.
In any case, it is too late for her. A dose of Clemente's
morning glories would be enough to kill her revolt, though I
would only administer it in dire emergency. I want it to
come to Arnault from a blue sky. The end of his hopes.
Irrevocable.

Ironically, my pupil now takes what comfort she can at
the prospect of Sunday's treat, the long-awaited Festival of
the Virgin. Now that our abbey has been reclaimed from
the apostate saint, Marie-de-la-mer, we should be able to
count on a personal intervention from the Holy Mother in
our regrettable affairs. So she thinks, anyway; and redoubles
her prayers. Meanwhile, I work on our spiritual defences
with many Latin incantations and a great quantity of
incense. No demonic force must be allowed to penetrate on
our abbey's holiest day.


JULIETTE CAME TO FIND ME IN MY ROOMS EARLY THIS

morning. I knew she might, and I was ready for her, raising
my head from a stack of books to face her. She was fiercely


347


HOLY FOOLS


prim in her clean, starched linen, not a stray curl softening
the line of her pale, set face. This was about Perette, 1 told
myself warily, and I must tread lightly.

'Juliette. Is the sun up already? The room seems brighter
than it was a moment ago.'

Her expression told me that now was not the time for
flattery. 'Please.' Her voice was sharp, but with anxiety, I
noticed, rather than anger. 'You have to keep Perette out of
this. She doesn't understand the danger. Think of the risk,
if she were to be found out!' Then, as I said nothing:
'Really, LeMerle, you must see that she's only a child!'

Ay, that was it. That was the mother in her. I tried
misdirection. 'Isabelle is feeling unwell,' I said gently.
'While she rests in her rooms, I might arrange for you - and
Antoine - to slip out for a time. To take a basket of food to
- for example - a poor fisherman and his family/'

She looked at me for a second, and I could see the hunger
in her eyes. Then she shook her head. 'That's very like you,
LeMerle,' she said without heat. 'And what would happen
with me out of the way? Another Apparition? Another
Dancing Mass?' She shook her head again. 'I know you,' she
said softly. 'Nothing is free. You'd want something in return,
then something more, then--'

I interrupted her. 'My dear, you mistake my intentions. I
made the suggestion out of concern for you, nothing more.
You're no danger to me, Juliette; you're already as guilty as I
am.'

She lifted her chin at that. 'I?' But there was fear in her
eyes.


348


PERETTE


'Your silence alone is proof of guilt. You recognized the
Unholy Nun. And have you forgotten the business with
the well? Or the poisoning of Soeur Clemente? And as for
your vow of chastity ..." I let the phrase hang maliciously.

She was silent, her cheeks flaring.

'Believe me,' I said, 'a charge of witchcraft might
be levelled upon you for any one of these things. And we
have long since passed the point where you could have
damaged me. No one alive could turn them against me
now.'

She knew it was true.

'I am the rock,' I told her. 'The anchor in the storm. To
suspect me is unthinkable.'

There was a long pause. 'I should have spoken when I
had the chance,' said Juliette. I was not mistaken by her
tone; her eyes were almost admiring.

'You wouldn't have done it, my dear.'

Her eyes told me she knew that, too.

Terette has been very useful to me during the past
weeks,' I said. 'She's quick -- almost as quick as you were,
Juliette -- and she's clever. She hid in the crypt, you know,
the first time you saw the Unholy Nun. All the time you
were searching she was there, curled up behind one of the
coffins.'

Juliette shivered.

'But if you're so concerned about her, then maybe . . .' I
pretended to hesitate. 'No. I need her still, Juliette. I cannot
give her up. Not even to please you.'

She took the bait. 'You said there was a way.'


349


HOLY FOOLS


'Impossible.'

'Guy!'

'No, really. I should never have spoken.'

'Please!'

1 never could resist her pleading. An exhilarating
delicacy, seldom tasted. I pretended reluctance in order
to savour the moment. 'Well 1 suppose there might be . ..."

'What?'

'If you agreed to take her place.'

There. The trap swings shut with an almost audible click.
She ponders it for a moment. No fool she. She knows how
she has been manoeuvred. But there is the child . . .

'Fleur was never on the mainland,' I told her gently. 'I
placed her with a family not three miles from here. You
could see her within the hour if only--'

'I won't poison anyone,' said Juliette.

'That won't be necessary.'

She was beginning to weaken. 'If I agree,' she said, 'you
swear Perette's involvement will cease?'

'Of course.' I pride myself on my look of honesty. This is
the true, open look of a man who never cocked a card or
loaded a die in all his life. Amazing that after all these years
it still works.

'Three days,' I said, sensing her resistance. 'Three days till
Sunday. Then it ends. I promise.'

'Three days,' she echoed.
'After that, Fleur can come home for good,' I said. 'You
can have everything back as it was. Or - if you like - you
can come with me.'


350


PERETTE


Her eyes shone - with scorn or passion, I could not tell but
she said nothing.

'Would it really be so bad?' I said gently. 'To take the
road again? To be 1'Ailee -- to be back where you belong' -- I
lowered my voice to a whisper - 'back where 1 need you?'

There was silence, but I felt her relax, just a little, just
enough. I touched her cheek fleetingly. 'Three days,' I
repeated. 'What can happen in three days?'

Rather a lot, I hope.


35 1


5 V

August 12th, 1610


FLEUR WAS WAITING FOR ME, AS LEMERLE HAD PROMISED,

not three miles from the abbey. A salter's croft, built low to
the ground, with a turf roof and walls of whitened daub,
screened from view by a row of tamarisk bushes. I could
have passed by it a hundred times and not seen it. Behind
the croft, a shaggy pony cropped grass; beside it, a wooden
hutch housed half a dozen brown rabbits. All around, the
ditches of the salt marsh formed a kind of shallow moat, in
which a couple of flat-bottomed plaits were moored for
access to the fields. Herons stood in the reeds at the water's
edge; in the long yellow grass I heard the scree of cicadas.

LeMerle, knowing that I would not abandon Perette,
had seen no need to accompany me this time. Instead he
sent Antoine as my guard, eyes narrowed in sly complicity
beneath the sweat-stained wimple. I wondered if I was hers.


552


PERETTE


The poisoner and the murderer, arm in arm, like inseparable
friends.

I clasped Fleur to my heart as if by so doing I could merge
our flesh into one and so never be parted from her. Her skin
is soft and brown, startlingly dark against the flaxen hair.
Her beauty almost alarms me. She was wearing her red
dress, now grown a little short for her, and she had a fresh
scrape on one knee.

'Sunday,' I whispered in her ear. 'If all goes well, I'll be
here on Sunday. At noon, wait for me here by the tamarisk
bushes. Don't tell anyone. Don't let anyone know I'm
coming.'


OF COURSE, LEMERLE HAD TRICKED ME. AS SOON AS I

returned from my visit to Fleur I knew from the reek of
incense and burning that he had been at work on them
once again. There had been another Dancing Mass, said
Soeur Piete excitedly, more frenzied even than the first;
pressed for explanations she spoke of their raptures, of her
own possession by a lustful imp, of bowlings and animal
noises uttered by the unfortunates driven to their knees by
the army of demons unleashed in rage against the holy
sacrament.

With tears in her eyes she spoke too of Soeur Marguerite,
of how in spite of her prayers she was forced to dance until
her feet bled, and of Pere Colombin, of his purification by fire of the infested air, of his struggle with the forces of evil
until he too was brought to his knees in his attempt to
wrestle them to the ground.


353


HOLY FOOLS


Mere Isabella was with him now, revealed Piete. As
the evil spell had begun to fall from the congregation, as
the nuns, released from their frenzies by the sound of
his voice, began to turn towards each other in wonder
and bewilderment, Pere Colombin had fallen to his knees,
swooning, the pages of the Ritus exordzandi slipping from his
fingers. A minute of chaos as the bereft and panic-stricken
nuns thronged to his aid, certain he had himself succumbed
to the forces of darkness . . .

But it was merely exhaustion, explained Piete. To the
relief of the nuns Pere Colombin managed to raise himself
to his feet, held on either side by a member of his faithful
flock. Raising a trembling hand he declared himself in need
of rest, and allowed himself to be borne off to his cottage,
where even now he rests, surrounded by books and holy
artefacts, working on a further solution to the ills that
plague us.

It must have been a fine show. A rehearsal, I supposed,
for Sunday's opening performance, but why had LeMerle
arranged for me to be absent? Could it be, in spite of his
bold words, that somehow he fears what I may discover? Is
there some part of this performance that LeMerle does not
want me to see?


354


6


V


August 13th, 1610


ALFONSINE HAS BEEN OFFICIALLY PRONOUNCED POSSESSED.

So far the demons of her infestation number fifty-five,
though Pere Colombin swears there are more. The ritual of
exorcism may not be completed until every one of these has
been named, and the walls of his cottage are papered with
lists to which he is constantly adding more names. Virginie
too has acquired a pale and haggard look and has been seen
on several occasions walking in tiny circles around the
walled garden and muttering to herself. When asked to stop
and rest she merely looks up with an air of terrible calm and
says, 'No, no,' before reverting to her interminable circling.
Rumour has it that it is only a matter of time before she too
is declared a victim of the infestation.

Mere Isabelle has not left her rooms today. LeMerle
denies that she is possessed, but with so little optimism that

355


HOLY FOOLS


few of us are convinced. A brazier of coals has been li t outside the chapel, on which have been scattered sanctuar»y
incense and various powerful herbs. So far, this Has scrvctj
to protect us from renewed attack. Another burner wa s placed outside the infirmary, and yet another at the abbe'y
gates. The smoke is sweet when fresh, but turns sou r very quickly, and the air, already stifling, hangs like dust>y
curtains across the white-hot sky.

As for the Apparitions, the Unholy Nun has been seer-,
twice today and three times yesterday, once in the dorter-5 twice in the slype and twice more in the gardens. No on^
has yet commented that the Nlun seems oddly grown ir^
stature, or has noticed the large footprints she left in s^
vegetable patch. Perhaps by now such things are no longer
meaningful to us.

We spent the rest of today in idleness not unlike tha^t
which followed the death of the old Reverend Mother _
Mere Isabelle was unwell, LeMerle was studying, and robbeoj
of our direction we once more fell into the roles to whicS,
we were accustomed, our thoughts returning to the everxt^
of the last week with increasing fear and anxiety. Our ship^,
drifted rudderless towards the rocks and we were powerless^
to stop it, turning instead to gossip and unhealthy self-examination.

Soeur Marguerite scrubbed the already spotless floors oigf the dorter until her knees bled. Then she scrubbed the^
blood with increasing frenzy until she was returned to the$» infirmary for examination. Soeur Marie-Madeleine lay upor^
her bed, whimpering and complaining of itching betweer^


356


PERETTE


her legs that no amount of scratching could assuage.
Antoine left the confines of the infirmary - there were now
four sufferers there, strapped to their beds, and the noise,
she said, was driving her mad - and regaled me with
gruesome details, emhellished no douht to considerable
effect. In spite of myself I listened.

Soeur Alfonsine, she says, is very ill. The smoke from
the brazier, far from cleansing her lungs, seems to have
exacerbated her condition. Soeur Virginie takes this as a
sign of possession, for the afflicted woman has been coughing
up more blood than ever before, in spite of her cures and
LeMerle's frequent visits.

As for Soeur Clemente, reports Antoine, for three days
she has taken no food and hardly any water. So weak that
she can barely move, she looks at the ceiling with glazed,
unseeing eyes. Her lips move, but senselessly. It will be a
merciful release.

'What did she do to you, Antoine?1 The question was out
of me before I knew it. 'What harm did she do to you, that
you hate her so much?'

Antoine looked at me. I suddenly recalled the one
moment in which I thought her beautiful: the thick sheaf of
blue-black hair released from the wimple, the roundness
of her rosy shoulders, her soft nape as LeMerle reached for
the shears. She has changed beyond recognition since then.
Her face was like basalt, remote and pitiless.

'You never did understand, Auguste,' she said with mild
contempt. 'You tried to be kind to me in your way, but you
never understood.' She surveyed me for a moment, hands


357


HOLY FOOLS


on hips. 'How could you? You always had it easy. Men
looked at you and saw something they wanted. Something
beautiful.' She smiled, but the smile darkened her face
rather than illuminating it. 'I was always the dray-horse, the
fat slut, too stupid to hear their laughter, too good-natured
even to hate them in my secret heart. To the men, just
meat, just enough warmth for a quick fumble, just a pair of
legs, a pair of tits, a mouth and a belly. To the women I was
stupid, too stupid to keep a man, too stupid even to--' She
broke off abruptly. 'I never cared about the father. Never
asked myself who he was. My child was all my own. No one
even suspected the fat slut was with child at all. My belly
was always round. My tits were always heavy. I'd planned to
have it in secret, to hide it perhaps, to keep it mine.' Her
eyes were suddenly hard. 'It was going to be the one thing I
really owned. All mine. Needing me, not caring that I was
fat or stupid.' She looked at me. 'You might have known
how to carry it off. Don't think I ever believed in your tale,
Auguste. I may be stupid, but even I know you were no
more a rich widow then I was.' She smiled, not unkindly,
but without warmth. 'You kept your child, fatherless or no.
There was no one to tell you what to do, or if there was, you
ignored them. Isn't that so?'

'It is, Antoine.'

'I was fourteen. I had a father. Brothers. Aunts and
uncles. They all assumed I wouldn't know what to do. They
had it all arranged before I could say a word. They said I
wouldn't know how to care for a baby. They said I'd never
live with the shame.'


358


PERETTE


'What happened?'

'They were going to give it to my cousin Sophie,' said
Antoine. 'I was never even consulted. Sophie had three
children already, and she was only eighteen. She would raise
mine with hers. The scandal would soon be forgotten.
Laughed over. Fancy that! The stupid fat girl had a child!
But my dears, who was the father? A blind man?'

'What happened?' I said.

'I took a pillow.' Her voice was low and reflective. 'I put
it over my child's head. My little son's soft dark head. I
waited.' She gave a smile of terrible tenderness. 'No one
wanted him, Auguste. He was the one thing I'd ever had of my own. It was the only way I could keep him.'

'And Clemente?' My voice was a whisper.

'I told her everything,' said Antoine. "I thought she was
different. I thought she understood. But she laughed at me.
Just like the others . . .' Again the smile, and just for a
second 1 glimpsed once again the dark beauty of the woman.
'But it doesn't matter,' she said with a hint of malice. Tere
Colombin promised . . .'

'Promised what?'

She shook her head. 'This is mine, my secret. The secret I
share with Pere Colombin. I don't want to share it with you.
You'll know soon enough, anyway. You'll know on Sunday.'

'Sunday?' I was dancing with impatience. 'Antoine, what
did he say?'

She put her head to one side, an absurdly coquettish
gesture. 'He promised. All the women who laughed at me.
All the ones who made fun of me and made me do penances


359


HOLY FOOLS


for greed. No more poor Soeur Antoine, stupid Soeur
Antoine to blame or to bully. On Sunday we light a flame.'
And from then on she was silent and would say no more,
but folded her fat arms onto her bosom and turned away
with that maddening, angelic smile.


360


7 A

August 14th, 1610


SHE FOUND ME IN THE CHAPEL AT DAYBREAK. FOR ONCE I

was alone. The air was rancid-sweet with last night's
incense, the thin sunlight filtering through layers of floating
airborne dust. For the luxury of a moment I closed my eyes
and smelled the hot reek of smoke, the scorch of flesh . . .
But not mine, this time, Monseigneur. Not mine.

How they would dance! The habits, the virgins, the
hypocrites. What an act it would be! What a rapturous,
unholy finale!

Her voice jolted me from a reverie which had sunk me
almost into slumber. True, I had not slept in three days.
'LeMerle.'

Even half-conscious I knew that note. I opened my eyes.
'My harpy. You've worked well for me. You must be looking
forward to seeing your daughter tomorrow.'


361


HOLY FOOLS


Three days ago that ploy might still have worked. As if
was she barely acknowledged my words, shaking them aside
as a dog may shake water from its pelt.

'I've spoken to Antoine.'

Ah. A pity. I always knew my plump disciple to he a
little unstable. It was like her to let something drop without
considering the implications. A loyal slave, Antoine,
but no thinker. 'Yes? I trust she was a stimulating conversationalist.
1

'Stimulating enough.' The sequin eyes glittered. 'LeMerle,
what's happening?'

'Nothing that need concern you, my Winged One.'

'If you're planning to harm anyone, I'll stop you.'

'Would I lie to you?'

'I know you would.'

I shrugged and held up my hands. 'Forgive her, Lord, her
hurtful remark. What more can I do to make you trust me?
I've kept Fleur safe. I've asked nothing more of Perette. I
was thinking that tomorrow you could skip Mass and collect
your daughter - take the road while I'm tying up my few
loose ends - meet me, perhaps, on the mainland, and--'

'No.' Her tone was final.

I was beginning to lose patience. 'What then? What more
do you want of me?'

'I want you to announce the Bishop's visit.'

I wasn't expecting that; trust you, my Winged One, to find my weakness. 'What, and spoil my surprise?'

'We don't need any more surprises.'

I touched her face with my fingertips. 'Juliette, it's of no


362


PERETTE


importance. Tomorrow we'll he in Pornic, or in Saint JeandeMonts,
drinking wine from silver cups. I have money put
aside; we can start again, start a theatre troupe or anything
you'd like . . .'

But she was not to he cajoled. 'Announce it at Chapter,'
she said. 'Do it tonight, Guy, or I'll do it myself.'


WELL, THAT WAS MY CUE. I SHOULD HAVE LIKED YOUR COoperation,
my dear, but I had never really expected it at this
final stage. I found Antoine by the well - the spot seems to
hold a special place in her heart since Germaine's hanging
- and she reacted quickly to the signal she has been
anticipating for the past week. Perhaps she is not as slowwitted
as I take her for, for I saw her face light up in real
pleasure at the task. In that moment she looked neither
dull-witted nor ugly, and I felt a moment's unease. Still, she
follows me without question, which is what counts; she
does not have your scruples, and she at least understands
revenge.

Oh really, Juliette. You always were a simpleton despite
your learning. What do we owe to anyone but ourselves?
What do we owe to the Creator, sitting there on his golden
throne dispensing judgement? Did we ask to be created? Did
we ask to be thrown into this world like dice? Look around
you, little sister. What has he dealt you that you should take
his side? Besides, you should know better by now than to
play against me; in the end, I always win.

I knew she would wait until Chapter. Knowing that, I
struck first, or rather, Antoine struck, with the help of


363


HOLY FOOLS


Soeur Virginie. It was a rousing performance, so I hear

-	a vision led them to your cache and to the evidence
concealed therein: the Tarot cards, the poisons and the
bloodied quichenotte of the Unholy Nun. You would have
fought, but were no match for Antoine's brute strength; on
the orders of the Abbess, you were taken to the cellariutn
and imprisoned there, awaiting a decision. The rumours
took wing at once.


'is she . . .'

'Possessed?'

'Accused/'

'No, not Auguste . . .'

'I always knew she was a . . .'

It is a sigh almost of satisfaction, the whisper taken up - wishwishwish - with a coyness, a fluttering of eyelash and
lowering of lids more at home in a Paris salon. These nuns
have more feminine tricks than a battery of society prudes,
exercising their false modesty to captivate. Their desire
smells of sour lilies.

I made my voice grave. 'An accusation has been made,' I
announced. 'If this is true, then we have - we have nurtured

-	hell's catamite in our mist from the very first.'

The phrase enticed them. Hell's catamite. A good name
for a burlesque or a tragedie-ballet. I saw them squirm in
scarce disguised excitement.

'A spy, mocking our rituals, secretly in league with the
forces that seek to destroy us!'

'I trusted you,' you said as I led you to the cellar door.


364


PERETTE


And then you spat in my face, and would have gone for me
with your nails if Soeur Antoine had not pushed you into
the room and shut the door.

I wiped my brow with a Cholet handkerchief. Through
the slit in the door 1 could see your eyes. Impossible to tell
you at this time why 1 have betrayed you. Impossible to
explain that this is the one measure which may save your
life.


365


August 14th, 16JO
Nones


AT FIRST I WAS DISORIENTATED. THE ROOM - A STOREROOM

annex to the cellarium, hastily reconverted into a cell
for the first time since the black friars - was so like the
cellar in Epinal that for a time I wondered whether
the past five years had not been a dream, my mind's attempt
to play its fleeting sanity like a fish on a line, reeling
it inwards and inwards until understanding breaks the
surface.

Giordano's cards were enough to confirm their suspicions.
I wish now that I had paid more attention to their
warning: to the Hermit, with his subtle smile and cloaked
lantern; to the Deuce of Cups, love and forgetfulness; to the
Tower aflame. It is past noon now, and the storeroom is
dark except for half a dozen slices of sunlight against the


366


PERETTE


back wall from the ventilation slats; too high to reach, in
any case too small to present any hope of escape.

I have not wept. Perhaps some part of me expected his
betrayal. I cannot even say that I feel sorrow - or even fear.
Five years have sown a kind of serenity. A coldness. 1 think
of Fleur at noon tomorrow, waiting by the tamarisks.

Today this room reverts to its original function. The
black friars once did penance in such cells, hidden from
the daylight, their food pushed through a narrow slot in the
door, the air rank with the stink of prayers and guilt.

I will not pray. Besides I do not know to whom I should
do so. My Goddess is a blasphemy, my Marie-de-la-mer lost
to the sea. I can hear the surf from here, carried across the
marshes by the west wind. Will she remember me, my child?
Will she grow with my face in her heart, as I kept my own
mother's image close to my own? Or will she be the child of
strangers, unwanted, or worse -- to grow to love them as her
own, to be grateful, glad to be rid of me?

The thought is useless. I try to regain my serenity, but her
image troubles me too much. My heart aches for her touch.
Once more, I ask Marie-de-la-mer. Whatever it costs me,
once more. My Fleur. My daughter. It is not any prayer
Giordano would understand, but it is a prayer nevertheless.

Time's black rosary counts the interminable seconds.


367


9


V


August 14th, 1610
Vespers


I THINK I SLEPT. THE DARKNESS AND THE HUSH OF THE SURF

lulled me, and for a time I dreamed. Bright images pranced
by me: Germaine, Clemente, Alfonsine, Antoine . . . The
snakeskin-silvery scar on LeMerle's arm, the smile in his
eyes.

Trust me, Juliette.

My daughter's red dress, the scrape on her knee, the way
she laughed and clapped at the players in the dusty sunlight
a thousand years ago. I awoke to find the slices of sunlight
high up on the wall, reddened as the sun began its descent. I
judged it to be early evening. Feeling refreshed in spite of
everything, I rose to look about me. The room still smelt
of the vinegar and preserves that had been kept there. In
clearing space a pickle jar had been broken and a damp


368


PERETTE


patch remained on the earthen floor, redolent of clove and
garlic. I searched the floor, thinking perhaps to find a sliver
of glass overlooked in their haste, but there was nothing. In
any case I do not know what 1 would have done with it if
there had been one; the thought of my blood on the earth,
mingling perhaps with the aloes and vinegar of the spilled
pickles, revolted me. Tentatively I touched the walls of my
cell. These were stone, the good grey granite of the region
which sparkles with mica in sunlight but in shadow looks
almost black. There were indentations scratched into the
stone, I realized, short, even marks chiselled at intervals in
the granite which my fingertips discovered in the semidarkness;
five marks, then a neat cross-stroke, five marks,
then another. Some brother had perhaps tried to mark his
time in this way, covering half the wall with the orderly
down- and cross-strokes of his days, his months.

1 went to the door. It was locked, of course, the heavy
wooden panels banded with iron. A metal hatchway -- secured from the outside - might serve as a means to deliver
my meals. I listened at the door, but could hear nothing
to indicate whether or not anyone kept watch over the
prisoner. Why should they? I was safe enough.

Daylight waned until it was nothing but a purplish blur.
My eyes, accustomed to the dim light, could still make out
the shapes of the door, the twilit pallor of the ventilation
slats, a heap of flour sacks that had been left in a corner to
serve as bedding, a wooden bucket in the opposite corner.
Without my wimple - it was removed when I was led here,
as was the cross at the breast of my habit - I felt oddly


369


HOLY FOOLS


estranged from myself, a creature from a different time. Yet
this Ailee was cold, and her quick calculation of time was
like that of a mariner measuring the approach of a coming
storm, not that of a prisoner awaiting the hours to execution.
In spite of everything there was still power to be had,
to be used, if only I knew how.

Interesting, that no one had come to speak to me.
Strangest of all that LeMerle should not have come - to
justify himself, or to gloat. Seven rang, then eight. The
sisters would be making their way to Vespers.

Was this, then, what he had planned? Was I to be
removed from the scene until his game - whatever it was had
been played out? Was I still a danger to him? And if so,
how?

I was roused from my meditations by a rattling at the
door. A clang as the spyhole was flung open, then a clattering
as something was thrust through, bouncing noisily off
the hard floor as it fell. I saw no light at the spyhole, heard
no voice as the metal hatch was locked again from the
outside. I felt on the ground for the object that had
been pushed through, and had little difficulty in finding a
wooden plate, from which a piece of bread had rolled.

'Wait!' I stood up, the plate in my hand. 'Who's there?'

No response. Not even the sound of footsteps receding. I
concluded that whoever it was must be waiting behind the
door, listening.

'Antoine? Is that you?'

I could hear her breathing behind the metal trap. Five
years' worth of nights in the dorter had taught me to


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PERETTE


recognize and identify the sounds of breathing. These short,
asthmatic breaths were not Antoine's. I guessed it was
Tomasine.

'Soeur Tomasine.' My guess was correct. 1 heard an indrawn
shriek, stifled against a forearm. 'Talk to me. Tell me
what's going on.'

'I won't--' The voice was almost inaudible, a high whimper
in the dark. 'I won't let you out!'

'That's all right,' I whispered. Tin not asking you to.'

Tomasine paused for a second. 'What then?' The high
note was still in her voice. 'I'm - I'm not supposed to talk to
you. I'm not supposed to - look at you.'

'In case of what?' 1 said scornfully. 'In case I fly through
the hole? Or send an imp to leap down your throat?'

She whimpered again.

'Believe me,' I said, 'if I could do any of those things,
would I still be here?'

A silence as she digested that. 'Pere Colombin lit
a brazier. Demons can't pass through the smoke.' She
swallowed convulsively. 'I can't stay. I--'

'Wait!'

But it was too late. I heard her footsteps recede into
darkness.

'Damn.'

And yet it was enough to begin with. LeMerle wanted
me hidden, had frightened poor Tomasine so badly that
she did not even dare to speak to me. What was it he
wanted to conceal? And from whom - the Bishop, or
myself?


371


HOLY FOOLS


I paced the cell after that, forcing myself to eat the bread
Tomasine left me, though it was dry and 1 had never been
less hungry. 1 heard the bell chime for Compline. I had
maybe six hours. To do what? Pacing, I asked myself the
question. There was no means of escape, even though there
was no one posted at my cell door. No one would help
me. No one dared disobey Pere Colombin. Unless - no.
If Perette were going to come, she would have done so
already. I had lost her the day in the barn, lost her to
LeMerle and his trinkets. I was a fool to believe that she, of
all people, might help me. The clear gold-ringed eyes were
witless as a sparrow's, pitiless as a hawk's. She would not
come.

Suddenly there came a scratching at the door. Shhshh. Then a low hooting sound, like that of a baby owl.

Terette!'

The moon was up; the light from the ventilation slats was
silver. In its reflected glow I saw the hatch open a crack, saw
Perette's luminous eyes from its mouth.

'Perette!' Relief suffused me so that I felt almost weak,
stumbling in my haste to reach her. 'Did you bring the
keys?'

The wild girl shook her head. I moved closer to the
hatch, close enough to be able to touch her fingers through
the opening. Her skin was ghostly in the moonlight.

'No?' I forced myself to be calm, even through my disappointment.
'Perette, where are they?' I spoke as slowly as I
could. 'Where are the keys, Perette?'

She shrugged. A speaking gesture of the shoulders, a


372


PERETTE


movement of the right hand to indicate width, a round face:
Antoine.

'Antoine?' I said eagerly. 'You say Antoine has them?'

She nodded.

'Listen, Perette.' I spoke slowly and clearly. 'I need to get
out of here. I need you - to bring me - the keys. Can you do
that?'

She gave me her blank look. Desperate now, my voice
rising in spite of myself, I pleaded. 'Perette! You have to
help me! Remember what I said - remember Fleur.' I was
gabbling now in my desperation to reach her. 'We have to
warn the Bishop!'

At my reference to the Bishop she cocked her head
abruptly to one side and hooted. I stared at her. 'The
Bishop?' I questioned. 'Did you know he was coming? Did
Pere Colombin mention his visit?'

Again, the hooting sound. Perette grinned.

'Did he tell you what--' It was the wrong question. I
rephrased it as simply as I could. 'Are you playing another
game tomorrow? A trick?' My excitement was clenching my
fists, fingernails scoring my palms, knuckles cracking. 'A
trick to play on the Bishop?'

The wild girl gave her eerie laughter.

'What, Perette? What trick? What trick?'

But she was already half turning in sudden lack of
interest, her attention caught by some other thought, some
shadow, some sound, her head ticking to one side then to
the other as if to some unheard rhythm. One hand came up
slowly to close the hatch.


373


HOLY FOOLS


Click.

'Perette, please] Come back!'

But she was gone, without a sound, not even a cry, not
even a farewell. I laid my head on my knees and I wept.


374


10 V

August 15th, 1610
Vigils


I MUST HAVE SLEPT AGAIN, FOR WHEN I AWOKE THE MOONlight
had faded to a greenish blur. My head was pounding
and my limbs were stiff with cold, and a draught at the level
of my ankles made me shiver. I stretched out first my arms,
then my legs, chafing my frozen fingers to restore the
circulation, and I was so preoccupied with this that for a
moment I did not realize the significance of that draught,
which had not been there before.

Then I saw. The door was open a crack, allowing dim
light to penetrate into the cell. Perette was standing in the
doorway, a hand to her mouth. I sprang to my feet.

She gestured urgently at her mouth, to indicate silence.
She showed me the key in her hand, slapped her thigh,
then mimed Antoine's lumbering gait. I applauded her


375


HOLY FOOLS


soundlessly. 'Good girl,' I whispered, moving towards the
door, but instead of allowing me to pass, Perette motioned
me frantically to let her though. Slipping past me, she
pushed the door shut behind her and squatted on the floor.

'No, Perette.' I tried to explain. 'We have to go -- now -- before they find the keys are gone.'

The wild girl shook her head. Holding the keys in one
hand, she performed a series of rapid movements with the
other. Then, seeing that I did not understand, she repeated
them more slowly and with barely concealed impatience.

A stern countenance, a sign of the cross. Pere Colombin.

A bigger sign of the cross. A quick, amusing mime of
horseriding, one hand holding a mitre which threatened to
be blown off by the wind. The Bishop.

'Yes. The Bishop. Pere Colombin. What then?'

She clenched her fists and hooted in frustration.

A fat woman, rolling as she walked. Antoine. Pere
Colombin again. Then a mime of Soeur Marguerite, twitching
and dancing. Then a complicated mime, as if repeatedly
touching something hot. Then a gesture I did not understand,
arms outstretched as if in readiness to fly.

Perette repeated it with greater insistence. Still I did not
understand.

'What, Perette?'

The flying gesture again. Then a silent grimace, miming
the torments of hell beneath the fluttering movements.
Then, once again, the 'hot' gesture as Perette sniffed the air
and wrinkled her nose, as if at a stench.

Almost I began to understand. 'Fire, Perette?' I asked her


376


PERETTE


hesitantly but with growing comprehension. Perette beamed
at me, showing me her clenched fists. 'He's going to light
another fire?'

Perette shook her head and pointed at herself. Then
she motioned at the roof, a circular gesture which encompassed
the abbey, herself, everyone in it. Then the flying
gesture again. Then she took out the pendant of Christina
Mirabilis from her garment and showed me, insistently, the
miraculous virgin, ringed with fire.

I stared at her, beginning at last to understand.

She smiled.


377


11

V


Matins


YOU SEE NOW WHY I CANNOT LEAVE.

LeMerle's plan was more vicious, more implacable than
anything I could have imagined - even of him. With the
help of gestures, hootings, mimes and scratchings in
the dirt, Perette explained it, occasionally laughing, occasionally
losing interest like the innocent she was, distracted
by a piece of mica shining against the granite, or the cry of a
night bird beyond the walls. She was wholly innocent, my
sweet Perette, my wise fool; quite unaware of the sinister
implications of the favour LeMerle had asked of her.

That had been his only mistake. He had underestimated
my Perette, believing her to be under his control. But the
wild girl is no one's creature, not even mine. She is like
some bird that can be trained but not tamed; let the glove
slip, for even an instant, and she will bite.


378


PERETTE


For now, at least, I have her attention. I may lose it at
any time, but she is my only weapon as I try to devise a plan
of my own. I do not know whether my wit is a match for the
Blackbird. What I do know is that I must try. For myself, for
Fleur. For Clemente and Marguerite. For all those he has
damaged and deceived and crippled and mocked. For all
those to whom he has fed the pieces of his bitter heart and
poisoned thereby.

This may mean my death. I have faced that. If I succeed
it may certainly mean his, and 1 have faced that too.


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12 V

Lauds


PERETTE HAS LOCKED ME BACK IN THE CELL. ANYTHING ELSE

is simply too dangerous. I hope Fleur will understand if my
plan goes awry - and I hope Perette remembers her part. I
hope - I hope. Everything seems to be built upon those two
words, those two fragile syllables like the cry of some forlorn
seabird: I - hope.

Birds are singing outside. In the far distance, though not
as loud as last night, I hear the sounds of the surf on
the island's western shore. Somewhere in the breakers, the
statue of Marie-de-la-mer rolls endlessly against the fine
sand, polishing, dwindling, to be scoured by the shoreline
into slow oblivion. Never have I been so conscious of time -- of that which remains to us, of its passing, its tides.

Some minutes ago someone tried the door and, finding it
locked, went away. I shiver to think what might have


380


PERETTE


happened if Perette had left it unlocked. My breakfast, a
piece of bread and a cup of water, was pushed through the
hatchway, the trap slamming shut as soon as 1 collected
them as if I were infected with the plague. The water smelt
sharp, as if someone had fouled it, and though I am thirsty, 1
did not drink. The next hour will tell whether or not my
hopes are founded.

If she remembers. If LeMerle suspects nothing. If my skill
holds. If my one shaft hits true.

If.

Perette, do not fail me.


?81


13 A

Lauds


SINCE LAST NIGHT, THE SISTERS HAVE BEEN BUSY PREPARING

for this morning's festival. Flowers cover every surface;
hundreds of tall, white candles have been lit in the chapel,
and the altar is decked with an embroidered banner, which
I am told dates back to before the black moriks, and which
is used only for this ceremony. The chapel's holy relic - a
fingerbone of the Virgin, in a gold reliquary - is on display,
along with a selection of the Virgin's ceremonial robes and
dresses. The new Sainte-Marie has been draped in blue
and white, with lilies -- what else? -- at her feet. I can smell
the flowers from twenty yards away, even over that of the
extra braziers which have been installed at every entrance
in spite of the heat, burning frankincense and sandalwood
to dispel evil thoughts. There are torches, too, hanging
against the walls, and votives on every surface. The air is


182


PERETTE


more than half smoke; against it, the light from the stained
glass window looks almost solid, as if it might he possible to
pluck gems from the air.

I watched in secret from the opposite side of the causeway
as the Bishop's retinue approached. I could tell his
colours even at that distance - pitiful, that he should still
need so much pomp and ceremony. It speaks of a pride that
has even now not been mastered, doubly inappropriate in a
man of the cloth. Liveried soldiers, gilded harness glinting
in the sun . . . I'll make a fine blaze of all his trumpery soon
enough, but first we'll dance our little measure, he and I. I
have looked forward to it for so long.

Of course, he missed the tide. I meant him to; not
for nothing have I observed the comings and goings at
the causeway. He expected to reach us last night, before
Vespers, but on this coast, the tide takes eleven hours to
turn. There is an inn on the other side, however; conveniently
placed for such occasions, and he must have
stayed the night there - no doubt angrily berating the fool
who misinformed him. Low tide was at seven. I'll give him
two hours more to reach the abbey, and all is set. With luck
- and a little judicious planning - he should arrive just in
time for my little comedy to begin.

A Blackbird's song may haply be silenced, indeed. But
not by such a gilded scarecrow as yourself, Monseigneur.
You'll not walk out of this performance, I promise. A pity
that my Ailee cannot be among us at the finale, but that I
suppose was inevitable. A pity, nevertheless; she would
surely have appreciated it.


383


14 A

Prime


it was time; all were gathered in the chapel as i made
my entrance. Even my poor afflicted ones had been brought
to the service - though they had been given seats throughout
the long service, and were not obliged to stand or kneel.
Perette was missing, of course, but no one paid much
attention; her comings and goings had always been erratic
and she would not be missed. Good. I hoped she would
remember her part. A small role, but a pretty one; I would
be very disappointed if she failed to carry it off.

'My children.' I had coached them well; glassy-eyed with
the burning incense, they watched me as if I were their only
salvation. Mere Isabelle was standing at my right side, close
to the brazier; through the smoke, her face was ash. 'Today
we celebrate the most sacred and most dear to us of our holy
days. The festival of the Holy Mother.'


384


PERETTE


A rumour ran through the congregation, an ahhh of
satisfaction and release. Above it, I could just hear the
sound of drops beginning to fall on the roof slates; at last,
it had begun to rain. I couldn't have planned it better.
Come to think of it, a little strategic thunder would
not come amiss. Perhaps the Lord would provide some
when the time came, thereby proving that he does have a
sense of irony. But I digress. Back to the Virgin, then, before
she loses her freshness. Where was I? 'The Mother,
who watches down upon us in the presence of evil.
The Virgin who comforts us in our times of need, whose
purity is that of the dove and the white lily' - nice touch,
LeMerle - 'whose forgiveness and compassion know no
bounds.'

Ahhh. Not for nothing do we use the language of love to
seduce these foolish virgins; pulpit rhetoric is indecently
close to that of the bedroom, just as some of the more
interesting sections of the Bible echo the pornographies of
the ancients. I played now on this kinship in words they
knew well, promising raptures beyond the realms of human
endurance, ecstasies without limit in the arms of the Lord.
Earthly suffering is less than nothing, I told them, in the
face of the pleasures to come: the fruits of Paradise - I could
see Antoine beginning to drool - the joys of unending
service in the House of God.

It was a promising start. Already I could see Soeur
Tomasine grinning alarmingly; beside her, Marguerite's face
was a mass of twitches. Good. 'But today is not simply a
time of rejoicing. It is also our day of battle. Today we throw


385


HOLY FOOLb


down the final challenge to the evil that has plagued us, and
plagues us still.'

Ahhh. Wrested from their pleasant thoughts, the sisters
flinched and pranced like nervous mares.

"I do not doubt that today we shall defeat the forces of
darkness - but if the worst happens, and we are once more
tested to the limits of our faith, be of stout heart. There is
always an escape for those of true faith with the courage to
embrace it.'

Isabelle's face was set in a grimace of determination.
Saint or martyr, that look told me; this time, she was not to
be thwarted. Angelique Saint-Herve Desiree Arnault always
gets her way.

Now, outside, I could hear a distant sound of horses'
hooves on the road, and I knew that my enemy was
near; and just in time, too. Timing, the greatest tool of an
artist in my trade: good timing is a precision instrument,
coaxing comedy or tragedy to one climax after another;
bad timing is a bludgeon which kills all suspense and
ruins both drama and punchline. By my reckoning I
had maybe eight or ten minutes until Arnault's grand
entrance; time enough, anyway, to whip up the welcome he
deserved.

'Courage, my children, courage. Satan knows we await
him. We have faced him together, and we stand now united
in our faith and our conviction, ready to go to war. The
Devil comes in a thousand guises: fair-faced or foul, he may
be a man or a woman, a child or a beast, he may take the
features of a loved one, of a man of power, even, on


586


PERETTE


occasion, of a bishop or a king. The next countenance
you see will he his, my children; already the Dark One
approaches. I can hear the sound of his infernal carriage as
it thunders towards us. Satan, we are here. Show us your	J

face!'	jji|

Seldom has any audience - at Court or in the provinces ever
been so entranced by a single performer. Already, they	„

V }|

were watching me as if their souls depended upon it. The

braziers lit my face like the fires of Purgatory. Above us, the	11

rain was cathartic; after so many days of heat and drought

it exalted them, turned their faces towards the heavens,

sent them staring towards the rafters as their feet began to

move independently of their minds and my dea ex machina

prepared to take the stage ...

V

The Bishop's retinue was arriving. I could see them, half a
mile or less along the road; I could hear the outriders' horses
and the sound of the carriage wheels in the rain. It was a
large group, even for a bishop; as they approached I could
see two banners, and 1 understood that the Bishop had
brought along a colleague, perhaps a superior, to share in his
family's triumph. I looked down into the chapel and 1 saw
that Perette, with the swiftness that served her so well in
her role as the Unholy Nun, had slipped once again into the
shadows. I could only trust that she remembered all the
instructions I had given her. Her eyes were bright with birdy
intelligence, but I knew that the smallest distraction - a
flight of gulls at a window, the lowing of cows on the


387


HOLY FOOLS


marshes, the colours of the stained glass reflected upon
the flagstones - might mean our undoing.

My hiding place was high in the bell-tower, not far from
the bell itself, which hangs from an iron crosspiece in the
narrowest part of the spire. My eyrie was perilous, accessible
only from the rough scaffolding erected by the workmen
repairing the roof, but it was the only place from which I
could work. Even so I could be certain of nothing; this
performance could have no rehearsal, no second showing.
The light was poor. From a cloudy sky only a little murky
daylight filtered through the broken slates, and from below
the candlelight looked hazy beneath the pall of incense, a
necklace of fireflies in the greater dark. In my habit I was
the colour of smoke; over my head I wore a hood so that the
pale blur of my face did not attract attention. The rope - I
hoped it was long enough - was looped three times around
my waist, the end weighted with a piece of lead. My breathing
seemed to fill the whole abbey as silence fell, and
LeMerle began his performance.

Oh, he was very good. He knew it, too; and although I
could not see his face from my position, I could tell from his
voice that he was enjoying himself. The acoustics of the
chapel were ideal for his purpose; they picked up every word
to fling them unerringly to the back of the hall. The scenery
was all in place: braziers, candles, flowers, a promise of
heaven or hell. Much may be achieved, as LeMerle taught
me in our Paris days, by the artful positioning of a few
simple props: a lily in the hair or a pearl rosary in the hand
suggest purity - even of the most debauched of whores; a


388


PERETTE


flashy sword-hilt carried ostentatiously at the belt will discourage
attackers - even when there is no sword attached.
People see what they expect to see. That's why he wins at
cards, and it's why the sisters failed to identify the Unholy
Nun. That's his style: art and misdirection, and though I
could see the bales placed all around the hall, although
I could smell the oil with which he had saturated the straw
and guess at the oil-soaked rags which ran beneath every
bench and pew, the sisters were blind to them for the
moment, smelling only smoke and incense, seeing nothing
but the stage and the performance into which they had
been so carefully drawn.

But I - I could see it all from my privileged position.
Giordano had taught me something about engines and
fuses; the rest needed only a little guesswork. A spark,
correctly placed - from the pulpitum, for example - might
be enough to set it off. And then, as Antoine had said, we
light a candle.

I must be careful, I told myself. Timing was essential. I
thought I knew his mind; now I prayed that I was right. He
would not act until he had revealed himself; the temptation
to gloat a little was too much for him to pass by. Vanity is
his weakness. Above everything else, he is a performer, and
he needs his audience. That, I was hoping, would be his
downfall. I waited, then, biting my lip, as a murmur went
through the congregation and the Bishop made his long
awaited entrance.


389


HOLY FOOLS


Here he was; right on cue. Time for some music, I thought.
Music is a great enhancer of moods, lending extra pathos
and drama to a dull performance. Not that this one was
likely to be dull, but I find a little Latin always does the
trick; besides, it would buy us more time, allowing Arnault
to enter freely. Psalm 30, then; I gave the sign and the
congregation shuffled to its feet.

'In te, Doming, speravi, non confundar in aeternum: in
justitia tua libera me.' I could see Marguerite flinch at the
Latin words. Clemente's head lolled and she grinned widely.

'Inclina ad me aurem tuam, accelera ut eruas me.' Of course,
Clemente was never an apt scholar in that tongue; perhaps
she had begun to associate it in her mind with our nightly
sessions, stimulated in turn with Juliette's decoctions and
with the sly workings of my hidden needle. In either case
she began to rock nervously, her movement accelerating
in tempo as the psalm continued. Behind her, Tomasine
echoed her movements, shifting uneasily from one foot to
the other.

'Esto mihi in Deum protectorem, et in domun refugii: ut
salvum me facias.'

The unease had already spread to Virginia, who, face
upturned, was staring into the air with idiot intensity. At
the name of God she gave a tiny shriek and clutched at her
breasts. Piete giggled. I awaited the inevitable with a smile
of satisfaction as Arnault and his little retinue made their
way to the main doors.

The scent of incense was thick and muskily sexual - I

PERETTE


hope it offended his priggish nostrils! - mingling as it did
with the scent of female flesh. If I have taught them
nothing more, I thought, at least I have wrought that
change in them, that now they sweat - ooze - reck - their
fear, their appetites. I have opened something in them, a
secret garden, if you like (see how Solomon continues to
inspire me!), rank with avidness and life. I hoped he could
smell it too, most rank of all on his niece, his precious
niece, the family's pride. I hoped it would choke him.

Ah. Just in time. The stink caused him to frown a little,
his delicate nostrils flaring. He raised a scented handkerchief
to his face as if to reassert his expression of
benevolence. At my gesture - which was also a sign to
Perette - the choir began a sweet but ragged rendition of
Psalm 10, In Domino confido, and his smile returned, a
professional smile, like mine, but not nearly as trustworthy.
Behind the words of the psalm I could still hear their voices,
their one voice, the voice of their affirmation, the voice of
the demons I had awoken in them.

I had taken a step backwards. Thanks to the shadows and
the smoke from the braziers, my face was partially obscured.
In any case, Arnault did not recognize me, but moved
forward into the chapel, the Archbishop at his side. He was
visibly displeased with the situation, but could not interrupt
the psalm. His gilded eyes flicked self-consciously towards
the Archbishop, whose face was now a mask of disapproval.

Below me I could feel the sisters becoming restless, tiny,
almost imperceptible movements rippling across them like
dead leaves in a breeze. I had made sure to seat Tomasine,


391


HOLY FOOLS


Virginia, Marguerite and the other more susceptible ones in
the front rows; their faces were slack, observing the visitors
with glazed, frightened eyes as they moved slowly through
the crowd towards the altar.

I needed only to speak one word, and the trap was sprung.

'Welcome.'


V

I saw it begin. One upturned face, then another - for a
second I was certain this meant discovery, but the eyes were
blanks. Another face turned upwards, the arms outflung in
sudden rapture, then the ripple ran through the entire
congregation as, like fire, it leapt from one sister to the
other. The psalm faltered, stopped as the cries began, pleas,
incantations, obscenities. The Dancing Mass had refined
itself since I last attended. Pandaemonium unfurled new
petals in the face of this newcomer, strutting, prancing,
falling to its knees or lifting its skirts in daring lewdness . . .
In a few seconds it would be impossible to stop it. Arms
flailed the smoky air. Faces surfaced only to submerge once
more amongst hopeless cries. Clothes were rent and cast off.
Virginie, always eager to take the lead, began to revolve
madly, skirts wheeling out around her.

The Bishop was taken completely by surprise. This was so
far from what he was expecting that he was dazed, still
looking among the cries and the scenes of chaos for the
triumphant tableau he had been expecting to see. Isabelle
was watching him from her place by the brazier, her face
scarlet in the flames, but she made no move to greet him.


392


PERETTE


Instead her small fists clenched against the side of the pulpit
and her mouth dropped open as the noise redoubled and
LeMerle stepped out into the light.
'Welcome.'


A

Such a moment was meant to be savoured. Imagine this if
you can: the greatest scion of the house of Arnault, a
half-naked nun on one side, a grinning ecstatic on the
other, and all the wild beasts of this hellish circus grunting
and squealing and bellowing about him like the lowest and
most debauched of sideshows!

For a second I was afraid that he had not recognized me,
but it was rage that silenced him, not incomprehension. His
eyes widened as if they might devour me; his mouth opened,
but no sound emerged. Outrage swelled him from within
like the frog in the fable, so that his voice, when it finally
came, was a ridiculous croak: 'You here? You here?'

Even now he did not completely understand. Pere
Colombin Saint-Amand, the man with whom he had
corresponded, could not be this man. This interloper
had somehow taken the place of the holy man, and the
nuns, the nuns . . . But the nuns seemed to recognize him.
Hands outstretched, pleading, praying. Even Isabelle - poor
child, grown so wan in the past months, her face ravaged
by sickness and disquiet - even she looked to him as
to a saviour, tears silvering her small pinched face as her
hand reached out towards some object hidden behind the
pulpitum . . .


393


HOLY FOOLS


Stupid disbelief slowed all his faculties. I couldn't have
that. I signalled to Isabelle to hold back, and to Perette,
who must still be lurking out of sight, to take her place.

Meanwhile Arnault stared at me as if one or the other
of us must be mad. 'You here! How dare you? How dare you r

'Oh, I'll dare anything. You said so yourself, on one or
another of our meetings.' I addressed the sisters, who had
forsaken their raptures in curiosity and now stared at us
open-mouthed. 'Did I not warn you of how a fair face may
conceal a foul one? The man before you is not what he
appears.' I controlled my audience with a gesture as the
crowd surged forward. Already the liveried guards of
the retinue had been separated from their masters. The
Archbishop was cut off - though I was glad to see he was
well positioned to witness everything - and only the Bishop
stood between me and the congregation.

Don't let anyone tell you it isn't worth it. The longer you
have to wait, the more exquisite it is. I could see fear in him
now - only a little, for he still believed this to be some kind
of dream, but it would grow. Behind him, someone wailed
and collapsed. They were beginning to move again, restlessly;
a ripple that would soon once more become a wave. I
took off my cross by the leather thong that bound it, and
raised it in front of me. Then I laid it - negligently, or so it
seemed - by the side of the pulpitum, and waited for the
finale to begin.


394

PERETTE


¥

This must be the moment, I thought, when Perette was due
to appear. I sensed a drop in the voices below me, a slight
hesitation in his delivery that no one perceived but myself.
I could appreciate his timing: the lull during which the
Unholy Nun was to make her last and most dramatic
appearance. Unlike myself, however, he had not placed all
his trust in Perette. She was not fundamental to his plans,
but an artistic touch without which he could manage quite
well if he needed to. He would be disappointed, certainly;
but I hoped her absence would arouse no suspicion in him.
He knew Perette was too volatile to trust; I was about to
gamble my life on the hope that she was not.

The Bishop advanced, too angry for caution or curiosity.
He was a tall man, taller even than LeMerle, and from my
perch he looked more like a bird, a black crane, perhaps, or
a heron, as he marched up the steps towards the pulpitum
with his robes flapping behind him. The smoke from the
brazier stung my eyes and there was rain dripping on my
neck, but I had to see this confrontation. I had to be sure - I
had to know that there was no other way than the one I had
chosen - before I made my move.

Their voices were clear below me, only slightly distorted
by the shape of the bell-tower. LeMerle's clear tones, and
those of the Bishop, hoarse with disbelief and righteous
anger, calling out instructions to his guards which they
could not obey without cutting a swathe through a crowd of
ecstatic nuns.

I could not yet make my move. LeMerle was still too


395


HOLY FOOLS


close to the brazier, and if cornered might light the fuse and
set the terrible sequence into motion. Had I left it too late?
Was I to watch helpless as LeMerle carried out his revenge?
Then, as if in answer to my prayer, the Bishop mounted
the pulpitum and in the same moment, miraculously,
LeMerle stepped away from the brazier. Now was the time, I
thought, now - and, with a quick cantrip to ensure my safe
footing and a whispered prayer to Saint Francis of the Birds,
I took the rope in both hands and flung it out into the
smoky air.


A

'Mon pere. I'm touched.' I used my other vocal register so
that the sound would not carry. 'After last time, I'd hardly
anticipated such a warm welcome.'

Behind me, Isabelle was watching, white to the lips.
Perette had failed me - a pity, though hardly of the essence
- but now came the real test. Would Isabelle play her part
to the end? Had I broken her, or would she declare herself
against me? I have to admit the uncertainty excited me
somewhat. Besides, I thought, my escape route was safe with
Antoine to keep it clear. At this stage I could risk a little
self-indulgence.

Till see you burn for this!' Hardly original, but it fitted
the script. 'I'll finish you once and for all!' You see how
unwittingly he played my game; his emotions betrayed his
every move, as any card-player could tell you. With murder
in his silvery eyes he came striding up towards me like a
great gilded crow. For a second I was sure he would try to


396


PERETTE


strike me, but I was younger and quicker than he was, and
he dared not risk his dignity for a missed blow. Even now I
could see that he believed it to be nothing but a trick
of breathtaking impudence; he was too concerned about
Isabelle and the now-unwelcome presence of the Archbishop
to consider my deeper motives.

'This man is no priest!' he said, turning to address the
sisters in a voice that shook with rage. 'He is an impostor! A
trickster, a common stage actor!'

Less of that, Father. I'll have you know I was years ahead
of my time. 'Is that likely?' I said with a smile. 'Is it not
more believable that this - this mitred abomination - is
the real impostor?' Their voices told me they believed it,
though there were a few cries of dissent among the many.
'Certainly, there is one Deceiver in this hall,' I said. 'And
who is to say where? False priest, false bishop. Or are we all false? Can any of you say in all honesty that you have stayed
true to yourself? Tell me, Father' - here I addressed the
Bishop in an undertone - 'how true were you? How much
more worthy to wear that robe than an actor -- or a lecher -- or an ape?'

He lunged at me then, as I knew he would; laughing, I
evaded the blow. But it was a feint; instead of going for me,
he made a grab for the silver cross I had forgotten on
the side of the pulpitum, and brandished it with a cry of
triumph.

His triumph was brief, however. At once and with a cry
of pain, he dropped the cross and looked at his hand, where
even now white blisters were beginning to rise like fresh


197


HOLY FOOLS


dough. It was a simple trick: placed so close to the brazier,
the metal had become too hot to handle, but logic had long
since abandoned my susceptible sisters, and the cry went up
from the first row, spreading to the back in a matter of
seconds.

The Cross! He cannot touch the Cross!'

'That's ridiculous!' shouted the Bishop over the noise.
'This man is an impostor!' But the crowd was pushing
forward, straining in the pews; the guards were still too far
away to be of use, and Monseigneur looked about to use his
fists when he thought better of it and lowered his hands,
teeth clenched.

'Very wise,' I told him, beginning to smile. 'Lay a
hand on me - lay even a finger - and all of hell breaks
loose.'


V

The rope caught at the first try. I felt the lead connect
with the scaffolding opposite with a dull smacking sound. I
tugged gently at the rope, but it held firm. Good. There was
no time for further checks or precautions, and I secured the
rope as well as I could to the rotten structure at my back. It
was slacker than I usually like it, but I could not risk losing
more time. I dropped my cloak from my shoulders, stepped
out of the brown habit that had concealed me and stood on
the narrow platform in my white shift. A swathe of blue
cloth covered my all too recognizable hair. A moment of
terror - it was too late, too much time had gone by, I would
fall, I would fall - then the glacial cloak of the Winged One


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TERETTE


dropped over me, untouched by the passing years, and with
it a kind of joy.

Head raised high, bare feet gripping the cord, arms
slightly outstretched, 1'Ailee stepped out proudly into the
dark air.


A

I knew her at once. You don't believe that? My first and
best pupil - my only perfect achievement - of course I knew
her. Even without her sequinned wings, veiled and with
a cloth tied over her hair I knew her grace, her assurance,
her style. I was the first; seconds later others had seen her
too. I knew a moment of pride - ay, that was my Ailee, all
eyes drawn to her in envy and longing - even in my
astonishment and growing understanding.

I should have known. That was her audacity. I wondered
what had alerted her to my plan - pure instinct, perhaps,
that malicious instinct of hers to thwart me at every turn
and to lay low my pride - even doomed to failure as it was,
it was still a brave attempt.

From this low angle I could see no rope supporting her.
The muted candle glow made of her a figure of mist, a
warm, hazy apparition that seemed to shine with an inner
light. A distant rumble of thunder from across the sea
served as her introductory drum roll.

From the frenzy came a voice: 'Look! Above you! Look, I
say!'

More faces turned to watch. More voices, clamorous at
first, then falling to an awed hush as the white figure glided


399


HOLY FOOLS


across the shadowy air, seemingly to hover right above their
heads. There Marie!' wailed one voice from the depths of
the congregation.

'The ghost of Germaine!'

The Unholy Nun!'

The veiled figure paused for a moment in its passage over
thin air and made the sign of the cross. Silence, awed
silence, fell once more, as she prepared to speak.


V

'My children.' My voice sounded terribly distant, the words
resonating so far into the throat of the tower that they
seemed barely recognizable. I could hear the beating of the
rain against the wooden slats not five feet from my head
and, somewhere across the water, a growl of thunder. 'My
children, do you not recognize me? I am SainteMariede-la
mer.' The voice I had chosen was deep and resonant, like
those of the tragedians of my Paris days. A flutter went
through the sisters like a breath of wind on -the sea. 'My
poor, deluded children. You have been the victims of a cruel
deception.'

LeMerle was watching me. I wondered at what point
he would realize that all was lost for him; what he would
do.

Tere Colombin is not what you think, my children. The
man you see before you is a cruel impostor. No priest at all.
A deceiver, whose true name is known to me.'

The collective gaze moved from the man to the woman,
the floating woman to the man . . . The silence was terrible.


400


PERETTE


Then LeMerle lifted his eyes towards me and 1 could see the
challenge in his face far below.

Will it be war, then, Harpy!

No malice in the unspoken question, simply a bright look
of anticipation, the gambler's fever heightened to furnace
intensity.

I nodded, almost imperceptibly, but I knew he understood.


A

Cue thunder. That was luck, Juliette; it could just as easily
have been mine.

Did she expect me to run, I asked myself? Did she expect
me to hide in the shadows? She should know better. And
yet it pleased me in some absurd way that my pupil should
seek to outplay the master at his own game of deceit. She
looked down at me, my lovely bird of prey, and we understood
each other completely. In spite of myself, in spite of
the danger, I played your game, eager to know how well I
taught you.


V

The crowd was all faces, mouths open as if to receive honey
from the sky. Above me, the storm was approaching fast;
the rain had turned to a hail that rattled against the slates
like dice. Although I was partly shielded by the roof above
me, it was in poor condition, and I was uncomfortably aware
that a single one of those hailstones might be enough to
break my concentration and topple me from my perch. Was


401


HOLY FOOLS


this what he hoped for? I'd expected him at least to deny my
accusation, but he seemed to be waiting, almost as it he had
something else planned . . .

The realization, when it struck me, almost cost me my
footing. Of course! Even from my vantage point, with
everything laid out below me, I had been misdirected, like
the rest of them. I had been so busy watching LeMerle
that I had hardly noticed Isabelle eclipsed in his shadow.
Only now, as I scanned the little scene, did I understand his
full intent. Isabelle herself was to be the fuse. What he
wanted was not to light the flame himself, but to watch
the Bishop's face as his niece sacrificed her own life, and
who knows how many others', in a desperate attempt
to beat the Devil. She was poised to do it; a word might
trigger her reaction. Now I understood the repeated
sermons, the constant references to such martyred saints as
Saints Agatha, Perpetua, Margaret of Alexandria, or holy
miracle-workers like Christina Mirabilis who passed unhurt
through flame to heavenly bliss.

I could see it in my mind: heavily robed and anointed
with oil, she would leap into flame as quickly as summer
stubble. I'd heard of it happening on stage, in the ballet, as a
tulle skirt brushes the overheated glass of one of the footlights
and fire jumps like an acrobat from one dancer to
another, making lanterns of them all, torching their hair,
vaulting ceiling-high in a trembling tower of fire and smoke.
Whole troupes devoured in seconds, said LeMerle, who had
once seen it happen, but - my God! - what a performance!

I could feel her eyes on me, now that I was awake to her


402


PERETTE


gaze. I had to tread more carefully than ever; it was not
enough to have interrupted LeMerle's oratory or to have
liberated the others from the dancing frenzy, it was not
even enough to have thrown Pere Colombin into doubt by
endorsing the Bishop's claim against him. It was Isabelle I
had to convince - only Isabelle. The question was, how
much of the original Isabelle was left?

'There is no such saint as Marie-de-la-mer.' It was as if
she had sensed my thoughts. Around her, the sisters awaited
their cue and LeMerle observed his pupil with the smile of a
man with a hand of aces.

'As I told you before,' he said in a calm voice, 'there is at
least one Deceiver here. Which is it to be? Whom do you
trust? Who has never lied to you?'

Isabelle looked up at me, then back at LeMerle. 'I trust
you,' she said quietly, and put out her hand towards the
brazier.


A

Her rope is too slack. I saw that at once. A moment ago
I saw her change position and she swayed, gripping the
invisible rope with her toes to stop it from swinging out of
control. Where to now, my harpy? Ten seconds and the
place will be ablaze. A brave try, Juliette, but late, much too
late. The pang I feel for you is real enough, but you chose
this. I have to say I never imagined you'd really betray me,
but a wise man anticipates every eventuality. You'll fly from
your perch in flames, my bird. A better end, perhaps, than
to live, wings clipped, among barnyard geese.


403


HOLY FOOLS


'Vade retro, Satanas!'

Isabella's hand faltered an inch from the coals. Even then
it might have been enough, but for a sudden draught from
the open side door. Damn it, Antoine. I told you not to
leave your post, whatever happened. In any case, the girl
faltered, looked up in spite of herself, recognizing the
language of ancient authority. That was a foul blow, Juliette;
using my own weapons against me. But is it good enough?
And, seeing your advantage, will you play or will you fold?

'The Devil knows his Latin, too,' I reminded Isabelle
softly. I began to move, very slowly, towards the side door
and the second brazier. A wise man always covers his bets,
and if one fuse fails to light, it's safer to have a second in
reserve. But Antoine was standing at the side door, barring
my exit with her huge body, and I saw that she too was
watching the fake Virgin with a strange expression on her
face.

'Listen to me, all of you.' The Winged One speaks again,
and I can hear a hoarse note in her voice. 'Pere Colombin
has lied to you. He has deceived and tricked you since the
moment he arrived. Remember the curse of blood? That was
only dye, red dye, that he slipped into the well to frighten
you. And the Unholy Nun? That was--' She stopped then,
realizing her mistake, and I grinned and began to recite the
rite of exorcism.

'Praecipio tibi, quicumque es, spiritus immunde ..."

'Look at his arm!' cried the fake Marie, in the voice of
Juliette. 'Make him show you the mark of the Virgin on his
left arm!'


404


PERETTE


Timing, my dear, timing. If you'd thought of that at the
start, you might have hurt me badly. But we've passed
the time for signs and symbols. At this stage we need
something more visceral, something closer to the nerve.

'Name yourself,' 1 told her, smiling. 'Name yourself, because
I don't think anyone here believes you're the Mother
of God.'

'He is Guy LeMerle, he's a theatre actor and a--'

'I said name yourself!' Once more, Isabelle's hand began
to creep towards the brazier. 'In the name of the Father!'

'He's doing this for revenge--'

'In the name of the Son!'

'Against the Bishop of Evreux!'

'In the name of the--' She was going to do it; her hand
was an inch from the coals; her long sleeve had begun to
smoke--

'The Bishop, his father*.'

That was such an unexpected blow that I actually
staggered. All around me the sisters had frozen. Isabelle
was staring at me; the Bishop's face was cheesy with shock.
The liveried guards were beginning once more to push
through the crowd, swords loosened at their belts. And still
my Ailee went on. 'Admit it, LeMerle,' she cried. 'Isn't he?
Isn't he.7'

My God, I thought, she's good. Wasted on these tame
things, she should be setting stages alight in Paris theatres. I
gave her a little bow to acknowledge it, then I turned to the
Bishop, who was watching me with a look of sick horror.
'Well, Father,' I said, smiling. 'Aren't you?'


405


HOLY FOOLS


V

The storm was almost over our heads now. Through the
gaps in the roof I could watch its approach, hell's black
circus striding across the flats. Below me the candles grew
suddenly dim as a cold gust rushed in from beneath the
doors. A sound arose from the crowd below, a throbbing like
that of a rotten tooth. Eyes flicked from Bishop to Priest,
from Virgin to Bishop. My ankle began to wobble with the
strain of standing still for so long, and I shifted slightly to
ease it.

'Well?' said LeMerle, almost caressingly. 'Aren't you?'
There was a pause. Now I could see how cleverly LeMerle
had used my intervention. If the Bishop denied the Virgin's
accusation, then he validated LeMerle's imposture and
Isabelle would light the fuse. If he admitted it, he was publicly disgraced in front of the Archbishop, his retinue,
and the entire abbey full of nuns. But there was one detail
LeMerle had forgotten, though I was not yet sure how --
or if - I could turn it to my advantage. At the side door,
almost invisible in the smoke from the brazier, stood Soeur
Antoine, head lowered like a bull about to charge.


A

I suppose I should be grateful, my Juliette. How you knew, I
cannot guess - witchcraft, perhaps. But what a way to force
him into a confession! My own plan was more dramatic,
perhaps - I always enjoy a fire, you know - but I should
have guessed you'd try to protect these poor sheep you call
your sisters. Well, my dear, have it your own way. Let them


406


PERETTE


keep their lives - if you can call it life. In either case, justice
is done.

'Well, Father?'

Arnault gives a single nod.

Ahhh. The sound is like a tower of cards falling.


V
'It's a lie,' said Isabelle.

'No, my dear. It's the truth.' LeMerle, watching the
Bishop, with a sudden movement opened his priest's robe
and let it drop to the ground. A cry went up from the sisters.
Underneath the discarded robe he was dressed for travel:
booted and spurred, with a leather vest leaving bare his
branded left arm. It was the Blackbird of the old days who
stood now smiling before the assembly, and as if to complete
the tableau, lightning chose that moment to crack its bright
whip across the sky, framing him in a sudden blaze of white.

The moan from the crowd had reached a pitch I could
barely tolerate, dragging at my heels like undertow. For
a second I looked directly below me, and the world gave a
sudden lurch. I felt the beginning of a tremor in my left leg,
a tiny ticking of the calf muscle which, if left unchecked,
would jerk the rope from under me into the kicking air.

I understood that this was precisely what LeMerle was
waiting for, that the apparent recklessness of this unveiling
had been as coolly calculated as the rest of his plan. One
against sixty were odds even he might have hesitated to
play, but if I were to fall ...

Once more I shifted, uncomfortably aware of the


407


HOLY FOOLS


slackness of the rope and of their white coiffes below me,
waiting like gulls on a sea of eyes.


A

Ten more seconds and she will fall. Ten seconds more, eyes
fixed on the white figure in the air. The diversion should be
enough - the moment of flight, the broken shape on the
marble - moment enough for me to find my exit. If not that,
then to grab a weapon. Any of these sisters might buy my
escape, but I would prefer Isabelle as hostage. A sword, a
horse, and hotfoot across to the mainland. I'll maybe leave
the chit's body in a ditch for him to find, or better still keep
her with me. I could find uses enough for her where I'm
going, and every day I'd fix in her flesh the barbs of my
revenge. Not for myself- no, not this time. But for her, for
Juliette, my sweet deceiver.

That I should live to see the day when I wished my Ailee to fall! He'll pay for that too, you'll see, in full coin. The
congregation has become a chorus. The note - the long
drawn-out vowel of their despair - rises, swoops, soars again.
Some weep in confusion, some tear their faces. But all eyes
are on us both now, I watching her, she watching me. A
turn of the friendly card - Jack below, Queen above - and
our roles can be reversed once more. Even the guards
remain frozen, swords half drawn, awaiting an order which
never comes.


408


PERETTE


¥

I know what you're doing, LeMerle. You're waiting for me
to fall. Buying time. I can feel you willing me, wishing me to
slip, to stumble, the rope arcing into empty air without
me, the long slice of darkness to the ground. I can feel
your thoughts pressing against me. I am drenched with the
rain now as water spurts from the gutter into the tower.
The bell, barely three feet above me, spatters its note in
a thousand droplets of sound. 1 will not - will not fall.
But the gulf beneath draws me, and my cramping muscles
scream for respite. I feel as if I have been here motionless for
hours.

The rope jerks again in response to some involuntary
spasm. The keening of my sisters makes me dizzy. And yet I
will not--
--must--

--not--
--fall--


A

I see it happen with a dreamlike clarity. A series of
tableaux, each fixed by the lightning as it strikes nearby
- several times, in rapid succession. She slips, kicks out
against the swing of the rope and loses it - for an instant
I see her arms flung wide, embracing the dark. Strike.
Thunder, louder than ever before, so close overhead that for
a moment I almost believe the strike has hit the tower itself
. . . And in the brief interval of darkness that follows, I hear
the rope give way.


409


HOLY FCOOLS


I know I should run now, while their attention is
elsewhere. But I cannot; I have to see for myself. Soeur
Antoine is guarding the door. There is a dangerous
expression on her face, but she is surely too slow to hinder
me. As 1 glance at her, she begins to move towards me. Her
face is set in stone, and now I remember the strength in her
big red arms, the size of her meaty fists. Nevertheless, she is
only a woman. Even if she has turned against me now, what
can she do?

The sisters crowd round, no doubt to see the body on
the floor. At any moment there will come the cries, the
confusion, and in that confusion I will make my escape.
Soeur Virginia is looking at me, her small fists clenched;
beside her, Soeur Tomasine, her eyes narrowed into
crescents. I step forward once again and the nuns cluck like
frightened hens, too stupid even to move aside. My sudden
fear is absurd, I know. Ridiculous, to think that they might
try to stop me; you might as well expect barnyard geese to
attack the fox.

But something has gone wrong. The eyes that should
have been gazing at the body on the floor are turning
instead towards me. Even geese, I recall from my childhood
days, can be savage when driven. And now they dare to
block my way, to peck at me, to surround me with their
stink and their reproaches ... As I push forwards into the
space, Soeur Antoine raises a fist which I could deflect with
my arms behind my back, but already I am felled with
astonishment, stumbling even before her blow lands. What
witchcraft is this? I drop to my knees, my head ringing from


410


PERETTE


a vicious punch to the hack of the neck, hut all I feel is a
remote and silent amazement.

There is no body on the floor.

Strifce.

And the tower is empty.


41 1


15


V


September 7th, 1611

Theatre Ambulant du Gros]ean,

Caremes


SOME MEMORIES NEVER FADE. EVEN IN THE WARMTH OF THIS

good autumn, this good town, some part of me remains
there, at the abbey, in the rain. Perhaps some part of me died
there - died, or was reborn, I am not sure which. In any
case, I, who did not believe in miracles, witnessed something
that changed me - only a little, but for ever. Maybe, in that
moment, Sainte Marie-de-la-mer was with us. Sitting here
now, a twelve'month later, I can almost believe even that.

I felt the rope go. A muscular spasm, perhaps, or the
slackness of the cord, or the rotten wood of the scaffolding
as it gave way. I knew a moment of utter calm, frozen in
the lightning flash like a fly in amber. Then reaching for
nothing in a last gesture of desperation, my mind a blank


41 2


PERETTE


but for the thought // only I were a bird, my fingers splayed
but finding nothing, nothing.

And then there was something in front of my face: a
cobweb, a figment, a rope. I did not question its miraculous
presence; as I fell, it was almost out of my hands before I
had the wit to catch it. I missed it altogether with the right
hand, but my reflexes were still good and I caught fast with
the left, dangling for a second in midair with nothing in my
mind but stupid disbelief - then I saw a pale face, twisted
now in an urgent grimace as she mouthed at me from the
hole in the roof, and 1 understood.

Perette had not failed me. She must have climbed up the
scaffolding left by the workmen and watched everything
through the gaps in the slates. I hoisted myself up - the
ability to climb a rope, like that of balancing upon a line, is
not easily lost - and dragged myself like a wet fish onto the
slippery roof.

I lay there for a while, exhausted, whilst Perette
embraced me, hooting with joy. Below us I could hear a
surge of sound, incomprehensible as the tides. I think I lost
consciousness; for a moment I drifted, washed by the rain,
the smell of the sea in my nostrils. I would never fly again. I
knew it; this had been PAilee's final appearance.

But now Perette put out her small hand and shook me
urgently. I opened my eyes; saw her sketch one of her quick
hand-mimes. A horse; the sign for 'haste'; the gesture she
had always used to indicate Fleur. And again: Fleur, riding,
haste. I sat up, my head swimming. The wild girl was right.
Whatever the outcome of LeMerle's drama, it would not be


41 3


HOLY FOOLS


wise to remain. Soeur Auguste, too, had given her final
performance, and I found that, after all, I did not regret it.

Perette took my hand, guiding me deftly towards the
ladder, still in place some fifteen feet down the steep slope
below us. She seemed quite unafraid of the danger hut
climbed with catlike ease, balancing delicately upon a ridge
of broken guttering as she moved to let me pass. Rain stung
our faces and hammered on our heads, thunder rolled over
us like rocks, a hundred yards away a lightning-struck tree
was ablaze, touching everything with a dim, apocalyptic
light. And in the middle of it all we laughed, Perette and I,
like mad things; laughed with the sheer joy of the rain and
the storm, at the relief of my escape, and most of all, at the
look on his face, the look on LeMerle's face as he prepared
to receive the pounding of his life from a gaggle of angry
nuns...

I heard later that he went without a fight and with only a
token protestation of innocence, still gazing in puzzlement
at the place where I had been. It was as if the ground had
been cut from under him, I heard, his words losing their
witchcraft in the face of this new, greater sorcery. Certainly
it must have seemed to them as if I disappeared into thin
air. A miracle, came the cry, a miracle, and surely this
floating lady was indeed Sainte Marie-de-la-mer, come to
rescue her own, as in the old legends.

The discovery of a lightning-struck tree not a hundred
yards from the chapel also sparked rumours of miraculous
delivery. I hear that today there is a small shrine to the
Holy Mother of the Sea, that the new Marie has returned to


414


PERETTE


the mainland and that a new Mermaid, so like the old one
as to be almost identical, has reappeared in the abhey
chapel. Already she is said to have healing powers, and
pilgrims come from as far as Paris to see the place where she
appeared in front of over sixty witnesses.

The Bishop of Evreux was quick to corroborate the
Apparition's tale, revealing LeMerle as an impostor in
a catalogue of deceit and corruption. The miraculous
appearance of the fleur-de-lys, emblem of the Holy Virgin,
on the arm of the accused man was interpreted as definitive
proof of the Apparition's authenticity and of his own
alliance with dark powers and he was taken, dazed and
unprotesting, into the custody of the secular court.

I cannot help but grieve a little. I have hated him in the
past, but since then I think I came to know him better, and
if not to forgive, at least to understand. He was taken to the
mainland, I heard, to be examined by the judge in Rennes. I
was in Rennes myself for a time, and saw the roundhouse in
which he was being kept, and read the notices upon its
doors telling of his arrest. These announced his forthcoming
execution -- I thought I detected the vindictive hand of the
Bishop in some of the details, which rivalled the execution
of Ravillac, the King's murderer, in their ingeniousness and
brutality.

The Bishop and his niece returned to Montauban, the
ancestral home of the Arnaults. Apparently Isabelle had
expressed the wish for a simpler life, far from the coast, and
had joined a reflective order --this time as an ordinary sister,
where, I hope, she learned to live in peace and forgetfulness.


415


HOLY FOOLS


The Bishop himself fared less well. Though he protested
that his false confession in our chapel had been extracted by
fear, he never quite recovered from its effects. Rumours of
his cowardice spread insidiously; open doors were softly
closed, friendships withdrawn, ambitions quashed. 1 have
heard reports that he too is planning to retire - ostensibly
on the grounds of ill-health - to the same monastery of
which his late brother was Abbot.

As for myself, I left the abbey that day. I could not stay
and risk arrest - besides, too much had passed in that place
for it to be a home for me again. So I left, taking with me
LeMerle's fine horse as well as the money and provisions I
found in its saddlebags.

I found Fleur waiting for me in our agreed place, the
orphan look gone from her face - had it ever even been
there? - and we fled across the causeway, chased all the way
by the tide, arriving at Pornic three hours later.

I do not imagine they looked for me very far. The Bishop
already had his man, and it would not have benefited him
to blazon his Isabelle's disgrace any further. I think he let
me lose myself rather than face the story I might tell, and in
any case I had the tide between us and the island, with an
eleven-hour wait for the next safe passage across the strand.

Travelling with LeMerle had taught me to value caution.
I sold his horse as I had Giordano's mule so long ago, and
with the proceeds bought myself a caravan and a mule to
pull it. We lived well from our gold, Fleur and I, stopping
for supplies in market towns but keeping to the smaller
roads at other times for fear of the Bishop's men. Close by


416

PERETTE


Perpignan we fell in with a group of gypsies who, when they
heard my tale, welcomed us as their own. We had been
travelling with them for almost three months when we met
an Italian theatre troupe who agreed to take us both.

Since then, we have toured provincial towns all over the
district. The commedia dell'arte begins to gain in popularity
as the Italianate fashions return, and, masked, 1 need have
no fear of being recognized as the Winged One of old. We
are happy, Fleur and I, with our new friends: Fiorello who
plays Scaramouche, and Domenico, who plays Arlequin.
Fleur plays the drum and dances, and I play piety once more
with Isabelle. That I should be given that part - that name
- always fills me with a kind of laughter so close to tears
that sometimes I can hardly tell them apart. The mask hides
my smiles - and the rest - and Beltrame, who leads the
troupe, tells me he has never seen such a spirited Isabelle.

And yet there are times - many times this past winter when
I ask myself whether it is not time to have done with
it all. A floor of boards is not so sturdy as one of earth, and
the thought of a piece of earth of my own returns to haunt
me even in my present happiness. Fleur needs a safe place, a
home. A cottage by a village, a hearth, some ducks and
a goat, a vegetable garden . . . Maybe my life at the abbey
has lost me my taste for the wandering life, or maybe I begin
to feel the approach of winter. I count my gold with more
than greed in my heart and promise myself that before the
winter comes I will have my cottage, my hearth . . . Fleur
bangs her drum, laughing.

Over a year has passed since I left the abbey. I still dream


41 7


HOLY FOOLS


of it sometimes, of the friends I left there, of my sweet
Perette - how 1 wish I could have taken her with us! In
some ways I miss the abbey life; I miss my herb garden, the
companionship of the chapterhouse, the library, the Latin
lessons, the long walks across the flats to the sea. But we are
free here. Fleur's nightmares have long since stopped, and
this year has seen her grow taller, her hair darkened to
russet but still bleached at the ends by the island's sun, and
though the knowledge sometimes saddens me that minute
by minute she grows away from me into the young girl - the
adult - she will one day become, she is still the same sweet
Fleur, wilful yet trusting and filled with open wonder at the
world.

Last week a messenger, travelling with a group of players
from the north, brought me a packet. It was addressed to Juliett Ser Auguste, Dancer, in a round hand that I did not
recognize, and it bore signs of having been carried for many
months before the players came to me by chance. There was
no address upon the packet, but my messenger told me it
had been given him by a nun from Brittany some five
months ago.

I opened it. The packet contained a leaf of thick paper,
close written in the same unfamiliar round hand, plus two
printed news sheets. As I unfolded them something fell out
from between the papers and rang upon the ground. I
stooped to pick it up. It was a small enamelled medallion
that I knew well: on it was Christina Mirabilis, the miracle
worker, floating arms outstretched within a ring of orange
flame.


418


PERETTE
I read the letter. Here it is:


Dear Auguste,

1 hope this Letter findes You, as I Praye every Days than lit
will. I think of You and Remembered You in my Prayers, You and
Flore. I have kept Your Garden here, and Soeur Perpetue, who
is very Kinde to Me, teaches me how to Tends itt and the Fowles
which are My Duty. Margerit is the new Abbesse now, and does
Well enough. Itt is the Abbaye of Marie-de-la-Mer Once Again,
and I am Gladde of itt. I am Learning to Read and Write with
the Help of Soeur Perpetue. She is Very Patients, and minds nott
than I am Slow. This is the First Letter I have ever Writ, and I
Pray You will Excuse My Mistakes. I will Send itt with the
Players at Mardi Gras. I love You Juliette, and Little Flore. I
Send You Newes too of Pere Colombin. 1 hope itt is nott a Sinne
to be Gladde of Whatt has Past. 1 wish You Happinesse Both,
Your Perett


Printed Text, dated September 1610,
Rennes Roundhouse.


Marvellous and Most Dreadful Tale of Witchcrafte!

On This, Twenty-First Daye of August, at the Abbey of
Sainte-Marie Mere was Apprehended a most Fell Sorceror,
Accused, Tried and Found Guilty of Various Offences
against God and the Holy Church. Purporting to be a Holy
Cleric, the Accused, Guy LeMerle named The Blackbird,
Was Found to be in League with the Forces of Darknesse,


419


HOLY FOOLS


to Consort with Familiars in the Guise of Birdes and to
Conjure Satan, Bewitching to Death Several Holy Sisters of
the Abbey by Foulest Means, and Guilty of Various Poisonings
and Acts of Foule Desecration in the Abbey. When
Questioned the Wretch Confess! Most Wholeheartedly to
the Crimes of which he was Accused, showing a Most
Damnable Pride in his Actions and Refusing to Recant his
Allegiance to the Prince of Evil, even under Interrogation.
Guards left to Ensure the Prisoner's Safety reported most
Marvellous and Fearful Sights during that fateful Eve,
whereby Familiars, taking Several Forms of Birde or Beaste,
did Visit him in his cell and did Speak with him throughout
the Nighte, Entreating him to fly with them from the Place,
but to no Avail. The Prisoner was Kept Secure, the cell
Being Blest by His Holiness the Bishop of Evreux, and
Barred Thrice with Steele. On the Day of September Ninth
Justice Will be Done in the Market Place in the Presence of
the Bishop, of Judge Rene Durant and of the People of the
Town. In the Name of God and of His Majesty, Louis
Dieudonne.


Second Printed Text, dated September 1610,
Rennes.


Most Monstrous and Damnable Tale of a Visitation.

On this, the Seventh Day of September in Rennes,
the Criminal and Convicted Sorcerer Guy The Blackbird
Effected a Daring and most Monstrous Escape from Con420



TERETTE


finement in the Round House of this Town, Being in league
with the Spirits and Forces of Witchcraft. At midnight
Guards set to at the Gate to Keep Close Watch upon the
Prisoner were Approached by a Cloak'd Female bearing a
Lantern, who did warn them to Stand Backe, if they did
value their Souls.

Then Guards, Philippe Legros and Armand Nuillot, did
request the Name of the Strange Visitor, and were at once
render'd Powerless by Witchcrafte, and despite Prayers and
Brave Resistance did fall as if Drugg'd upon the Grounde.

Whereby Trembling with Righteous Fear they Observed
the Female enter the Round House by Demonic Means and
in the Companie of Various Imps and Familiars, and though
not Rendered quite Insensible, were by this Strange and
Hellish Magicke Prevented from all Interference.

The Female left the Round House some short Time
Later, followed by a Cloak'd Figure, closely Wrapt about,
which did then Reveal itself as Guy LeMerle, throwing off
its Disguise with Laughter and much Manifestation of Joy.
The Witch then bestrode him a Pitchforke which had been
left lying beside the Hay Stall and did Flye into the Air
upon it, with many Mocking Cries to the Unfortunates
Below, who did perceive various Spirits and Familiars in the
guise of Birdes, Battes and Owles, which did Join Him in
his Flighte. Monsiegneur the Bishop of Evreux will have
it Known that Any Man with Knowledge of this Fellow, or
of his Associates, should with all Speed Divulge this
Knowledge, or any Suspicion which may be Had of his
Whereabouts, that this Witch may be Brought to the Justice


42 1


HOLY FOOLS


of God and the Church. A Reward of Fifty Louis is offered
for any Such Information.


Well, I recall no familiars. Nor the mad flight upon the
pitchfork. Doubtless the guards invented the rest to escape
punishment. As for my part - yes, Perette, I was the Female
with the Lantern - I cannot explain it. And yet, like you, I
feel a reluctant gladness to know that he escaped. A vestige,
perhaps, of my early loyalty, or a desire for an end to this
long, long dream.

I had always known Giordano's alchemies would serve
me some day. The roundhouse, with its thick walls and
barred windows, was far from certain, even for your
explosive powders, but well placed, and with a fuse made
from a length of powder twine leading to a central bolus, I
felt sure it would serve my purpose. I approached the guards
first, offered them ale and companionship, and picked their
pockets neatly in the process. I could have cut their throats
- the old Juliette might have done just that - but I wanted
to avoid it if I could; I have seen too many cruelties to add
to the number. As it was, the guards ran away the minute
the powder blew, and my assessment of their cowardice led
me to hope for at least two minutes before they returned.

LeMerle was still half asleep when I came into the cell,
curled upon the straw with his ragged cloak around him.
Better not to look at him, I told myself. Simply leave the
lantern and the keys and let him make his own way if he
could. I saw him twitch like a wakening cat and turned to


422


PERETTE


go, afraid perhaps that if I did not, I might never find
the courage to leave him again. But it was too late; he
murmured something indistinct and held up his arm to
shield his face, and, like Orpheus, I looked back.
Of course he had been tortured; I had expected it. I know
what happens during interrogation. Even a full confession
only counts under torture. His face, half turned into the
light, was a mask of filth and bruises. His raised hand was a
talon, every finger broken.

'Juliette/' It was barely a whisper; barely a voice. 'My
God, what dream is this?'

I could not reply. Instead I looked at him on the floor of
the Roundhouse and I saw myself - in the cell in Epinal,
and the cellarium of the abbey - and remembered how I had
sworn eternal revenge, sworn I'd see him suffer. I felt a pang
of surprise that the thought of his suffering did not satisfy
me as once I had imagined it would.

'It's no dream. Hurry, if you want to be free.'

'Juliette?' He was more alert now in spite of the ravages
done to him. 'By God, is it in very truth witchcraft?'

I would not reply, I told myself.

'My Winged One.' Now I could have sworn there was
laughter in the tone. 'I knew it couldn't end this way. After
everything we were to each other--'

'No.' I said. 'You were born to be hanged, not burned.
This is destiny.'

He laughed aloud at that. They might have clipped his
wings, I thought, but my Blackbird still sang. I was startled
to realize how much the thought pleased me.


423


HOLY FOOLS


'Why do you delay?' My voice was sharp. 'Are you so
comfortable here/'

Silently he held his chained wrists to the light. I threw
him the bunch of keys.

'I can't. My hands.'

Haste made me clumsy, and I must have hurt him as I
unlocked the irons. But his eyes held me still, bright and
mocking as ever. 'It could be as it was, you know,' he said,
grinning with the anticipation of triumphs imagined. "I
have money hidden away. We could start again. L'Ailee
could fly once more. Forget carnival, forget market-day
venues - that trick of yours in the tower was worth gold ..."

'You're mad.' I thought so, too. Torture, imprisonment,
ruin, failure, disgrace . . . Nothing had yet touched that
arrogant assurance of his. That look of not-to-be-denied. He
never gave a thought to the possibility of refusal, of rejection.
I picked up the lantern, ready to go.

'You know you'd love it,' he said.

'No.' I was turning already towards the door. We had
seconds, at best, before the guards returned. And perhaps
the harm was already done, that last glimpse of his face in
the soft glow of the lamp printed in fire and forever onto my
heart.

'Please, Juliette.' At least now he was on his feet, following
me to safety. 'All those years I was travelling roads,
trying to find my way, and I never knew where until now.
All those times I worked towards something I thought I
wanted, which turned out to be nothing more than a
passing whim on the hunt for some other rainbow's end; all


(24


P E R E The The E


those women I lusted for and trifled with and ultimately
punished for being too short, or too soft, or too young, or
too pretty--'

'We don't have time for this,' I said. I shook his hand
from my shoulder, but he could not be stopped, every word
he spoke a new refinement of pain.

'Come on, admit it. Why else would you have come back
for me? It was you, Juliette. Always you. It didn't matter
whether you loved or hated me, we're two parts of the same.
We fit together. Complete each other.'

Without looking at him, and with a terrible effort, I
began to walk away.

'Stubborn! Haven't I chased you long enough?' I could
hear anger now, and a kind of desperation. My step quickened.
I could see the half-open door of the roundhouse in
the torchlight. I ran out into the cool air. I could still hear
LeMerle behind me, losing his footing, cursing in the dark.
My shadow ran before me like a wild thing.

'You fool!' He was shouting now, heedless of whom he
might alert. 'Don't you understand? Juliette! Must I say it in
as many words?'

I could not hear it. I would not hear it. I ran forwards
into the night, a rushing silence in my ears, though beneath
the pressing of my palms I fancied I still heard him, a ghost
of him, an echo of desire.

I fled fast and reckless out of Rennes. Only I knew that it
was two hunters I fled. And Perette, if it is a sin to be glad,
then we are sinners both, for the thought of a world without
LeMerle in it somewhere seems to me to be no world at all.


425


HOLY FOOLS


I will write to you, sweetheart, and send the letter on with
next season's travellers. Tend my herbs well, but grow
no morning glories among them. Chamomile brings sweet
dreams, and lavender sweet thoughts. I wish you both, my
Perette, and with them all the love you deserve.


426


EPILOGUE


IT ENDS, AS IT BEGINS, WITH THE PLAYERS. FOR A SECOND,

looking out into the sun at the scarlet caravan drawing close
to my own, I could almost believe they were the same
troupe who came to us that day. Lazarillo's World Players,
Tragedy and Comedy, Beasts and Marvels. I tell myself I
have seen enough of all of these. But the sun on their
costumes, the sequins, the furs, the lace and scarlet and gold
and emerald and madder and dusty rose, the piping of flute
and beating drums, the masks and stilts and dancers all in
greasepaint and road grime rang so sweet and so true in my
heart that I opened my caravan window a crack to listen.

Fleur was with them, her blue dress flying bravely in the
breeze, her dusty feet bare. She squealed and clapped as the
fire-eater spat flame at the sun, the acrobats somersaulted
from each other's shoulders, Geronte leering at demure
Isabelle, Arlequin and Scaramouche duelling with wooden
swords bedecked with multicoloured ribbons.
HOLY FOOLS


Fleur saw me watching. She waved at me and I saw
something white in one hand, a handkerchief, perhaps, or a
scrap of paper. I saw her speak to Scaramouche -- a tall
Scaramouche with a limp in the left leg and hair tied back
with a ribbon - and he whispered in her ear and seemed to
smile beneath the long-nosed mask. Fleur listened, nodded,
began to run towards me, the white object - I saw now that
it was indeed a piece of paper - waving in one hand. She
pushed aside the brocade curtain that serves as a door in
summer. 'Martian, the masked man said to give you this.'

Another letter? 1 reached for the sheet, warmed by the
sun and slightly crumpled from Fleur's clutching hand, and
saw that it was not a letter, but a playbill. I read:


Le Theatre du Phenix presents:

La Belle Harpie A Play in Five Acts


Beneath the cursive lettering was the drawing of a winged
woman, hair flying wildly, standing atop a tower whilst a
crowd of onlookers stared up at her in amazement. Above
the design was a crest depicting a burning bird above a
fleur-de-lys and a printed motto, which I looked at for
a long, long time:


My song endureth.


Then, a little breathlessly, I began to laugh. Who was to
doubt it? The Phoenix above the fleur-de-lys, no Blackbird


428


EPILOGUE


now, but a bird reborn from fire . . . His audacity knew no
bounds, his arrogance no limits!

Fleur looked at me in some anxiety. 'Are you crying, Maman?' she whispered. 'Are you sad?'

'It's nothing,' I said, wiping my eyes. 'The sun on this
paper, that's all. It stings.'

'The masked man said to give it to you,' she continued,
reassured. 'He said he'd wait for an answer.'

An answer? I moved slowly to the window. Looking very
closely I could see the crest, painted in gold upon the panels
of the caravan opposite: Theatre du Phenix. The players
were still at their performance, colours flying, flame, purple,
emerald and crimson. Only Scaramouche was still, plain
in his black doublet, looking towards my window, eyes unreadable
behind the mask.

'He said he'd go away if you told him to,' said Fleur from
behind me. Then, as I still did not reply: 'Why don't you ask
him in, at least? He says he's come a long way, hundreds of
leagues, to talk to you. It wouldn't be polite, would it, to
send him away?'

A pause, long as for ever. Fleur looked at me with
enquiring, innocent eyes.

'No,' I said at last. 'I suppose it wouldn't.'

My heart has joined the drumming of the tabor. My
breath quickens. I see the small blue figure run across
the grass towards the players. Scaramouche bends to hear
her message, folds her quickly in his arms and lifts her. Far
away I hear her squeal of delight. Setting her gently back on
the grass he turns again, pointing to his caravan, to the


429


HOLY FOOLS


velvet-clad dwarf sitting on the steps with a monkey upon
his knee . . . Then his eyes turn back to me, invisible behind
the mask but unbearably bright nevertheless.

I feel a desperate urge to run to meet him, and an equally
desperate longing to run far away in the opposite direction.
I do not move. I am trembling a little, my stomach tightening
with a dizziness I never felt when I walked the high
rope.

Slowly, almost casually, the masked figure makes his way
towards me. Halfway across the sward he takes off his
doublet and throws it across his shoulder. The sun catches a
mark, high up on his left arm, which shines silvery in the
light. Then he puts out his hand, a tiny smile on his lips, in
a gesture both tender and mocking.

From my window it almost looks like an invitation to
dance.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS


Many thanks to all those who have given so generously of
their time, effort and encouragement to make this book
possible. To Serafina, Warrior Princess; to Jennifer, Overseas
Warrior; to my terrific editor, Francesca, and all my
friends at Transworld; to Louise Page, for services far
beyond the call of duty; to Stuart Haygarth, for another
gorgeous jacket; to Anne Reeve, for the gift of organization;
and to my family and friends, especially Christopher Fowler,
Charles de Lint arid Juliet McKenna, for keeping me
on track. Finally, my thanks to the sales representatives,
booksellers and distributors who continue to work so hard
behind the scenes to ensure that my books make it to the
shelves.