“But I must. What else can I do?”
“Mon père!” Clémente too was looking alarmed. At her side Antoine turned her mottled face toward him in silent entreaty. A rumor, louder than before, swept over the crowd. We had lost everything else; we could not lose Père 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 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.
Mère 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, I 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 Clémente, 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 scarcely perceptible undulating motion. Then the fingers, the sinuous arms, the rolling shoulders.
I was not the only one to have noticed. Behind 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 Bénédicte.
“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!”
The front row before the pulpitum had begun to take up the chant. I saw Clémente, Piété, and Virginie throw their heads back almost at the same time and begin to rock in cadence.
“Marie! Marie!”
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, fears, sounds, thoughts submerging in this dizzy vortex of movement. I threw back my head; for a moment I saw stars in the vaulting of the church 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. I 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 Mère 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 among 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 birds. 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 front of me, Tomasine stumbled and fell to her knees. The dance shifted gracelessly to accommodate her, and another figure stumbled over her hunched figure. 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 toward 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 Mère 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 toward me. Someone—I think it was Clémente—said softly, but very clearly: “Witchcraft!”
And I seemed to hear the murmur of acquiescence, the 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.
35
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 amid 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 her, coaxed her from her meek obedience into this. I have, as you see, a vocation. A sense of pride moves me as I 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 per
versity 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 rightness of her suspicions—I who have always remained maddeningly calm, almost skeptical 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 dissension in her that I must nurture whilst struggling to control. Her awe of me remains, colored 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 l’Ailée, and in this the two of you are more alike than you know. She is a knife, and I must handle it 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 favor 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 church 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. Clémente 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—”
“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!”
“Père Colombin has spoken well.” Mère Isabelle looked at me from her small colorless 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 back of the church where the new Marie, newly scrubbed, stood in gracious lethargy. “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 Mère 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 Mère 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 Mère 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 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.”
36
AUGUST 7TH, 1610
Le Merle 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 I could see it in the way he moved. He did not look at me. Instead, his eyes flicked repeatedly to Clémente, 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 Mère 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 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 Clémente’s mattress might bear investigation?”
Clémente 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 cardplayer’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 Clémente turned toward 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, Clémente was shaking her head. “But it was right there—” she began.
LeMerle looked at her. “So you’re the one who has been spreading rumors.”
Clémente’s eyes widened.
“Malicious, unfounded rumors to breed suspicion and to bring down our fellowship.”
“No,” whispered Clémente.
But LeMerle had already moved away, searching along the rows of cubicles. “What might you be hiding, Soeur Clém
ente, I wonder? What will I find beneath your mattress?”
“Please,” said Clémente, white to the lips.
But the sisters around her had already begun to take up the bedroll. Clémente began to wail. Mère 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 Clémente. Then they all started shouting at once. Antoine, who had always been quicker with her hands than with her voice, dealt Clémente a sharp slap, which tumbled her against the side of the cubicle.
“You milksop bitch!” yelled Piété, grabbing a handful of Clémente’s wimple. “Thought it was funny, did you?”
Clémente struggled and squealed, turning instinctively to 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, mon père, please stop them!”
The Blackbird looked at her coldly. “You began this,” he said. “You drove them to this. Didn’t you see I 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, please!”
But the scuffle was already at an end. Clémente crouched on the ground, her hands over her eyes whilst Antoine stood above her, red-faced 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.