Chapter Three -- Places in the Night

Chapter Three
Places in the Night

1389.

The Hundred Years War ravaged the countryside as Plantagenet and Valois and their ever-changing partisans vied for control of Normandy and Gascony. Although lack of funding for the war on the British side was allowing France to emerge the victor, the struggle had meant the death of many eligible young men and a great surplus of would-be brides. Parents unsure of what to do with so many unwanted daughters were left with one option: to give them away to the church. So it was that l’Abbaye de Femmes Notre Dame d’Étival-en-Charnie was composed not of pious spirituelles, but of fertile and restless young souls who gossiped and chattered, who spoke lustfully of their father confessor, and who giddily recalled their wickedness when, wishing for husbands, they danced disguised as men under torchlight in praise of Hymen, the transvestite pagan god of marriage.

Béatrice did not fit in with the other girls. She was sullen and anti-social, and the novices and younger nuns did not deign to include her in their naughty games. Céline, on the other hand, was much more popular. She knew how to engage in mischief and yet still endear herself to the abbess. Béatrice hated her sister all the more, and she spent each day pulled between thoughts of murder and suicide.

Life continued miserably for a little over two years, but finally there was hope of escape. The abbess had sent for Béatrice and told her she had received a message from her parents. They had found a husband for their daughter in the person of Milet de Thouars, the new seigneur of Tiffauges and Pouzauges. The other girls congratulated her—while seething with envy. “He’s probably ugly,” one said. “Or ancient,” concluded another. “He has a hump.” “Warts!” “His face is probably disfigured with leprosy!” “He stinks of fish and old cheese!” “I suppose he is so fat, he has servants hold up the rolls of lard so that it lightens him to help him get around more easily.”

Béatrice shrugged them away, their jealousy making her happier than she could remember being since her arrival there. “The abbess told me he is distinguished in battle,” she countered. “He’s coming here this Tuesday to meet me. You can please withhold telling me how hideous he is until after you’ve seen him.”

“Oh, I don’t see why you all want a husband anyway,” Céline complained. “I am planning on eventually becoming abbess.”

Béatrice stared hatefully at her.

Finally, Tuesday came and Béatrice’s chaperone, Sister Bernard, pointed out two men to Béatrice where they stood in the courtyard: one, perhaps in his early twenties, the other, his late teens. “The Seigneur of Tiffauges and Pouzauges is the younger one nearer us. The other is Pierre II d’Amboise, the nephew to the Vicomtesse de Thouars.” By sight, Milet was everything Béatrice could have hoped. He was tall and muscular. His beard was thick, his hair a lustrous black, his calves well-defined. She almost giggled. The elderly Sister Bernard chastised her. “Calm down, mademoiselle. God sees your lust.”

The two walked over to meet the young men. “Seigneur, may I introduce Béatrice de Montjean, daughter of Jean de Montjean and Anne de Sillé?”

Béatrice curtsied.

The men looked her over and Pierre d’Amboise walked around her to view the girl from the back. “She doesn’t have very good posture. It’s not scoliosis, is it? You don’t want a child with a hump.”

Béatrice straightened her back. This wasn’t quite what she was expecting.

“She’s just undisciplined, I think,” Sister Bernard excused. “She can be taught to stand up straight.”

“I don’t suppose I care so much about training,” Milet said, while Pierre walked back around to the front.

“Just so long as your offspring are healthy,” Pierre agreed. Béatrice tried to study this terrible man without looking directly at him. He was very large in all dimensions, tall, broad-shouldered with forearms the size of her thighs—all muscle. His face, contrarily, was angular, with a cruel sneer under his moustache, and his black hair was as curled as his lip.

“Her hair looks healthy, lustrous,” Milet complimented, eyeing Pierre for his approval. “She is lovely?”

Pierre shrugged. “Let’s see your nails,” he said.

Béatrice stood still.

“Go on,” Sister Bernard directed.

Béatrice held out her hand; she would slither around naked in the dust and lick their boots if it meant getting out of the abbey.

“Oui. Fine,” Pierre approved and then he whispered something in his friend’s ear.

“I’m sorry?” Béatrice asked. “Is something wrong?”

“I just said you had wide hips,” Pierre informed the girl. Béatrice looked down in dismay. “No,” Pierre smiled. “That’s good. That means a baby won’t kill you.”

Béatrice put her hand to her mouth, aghast.

In the silence, all heard the patter of little feet clipping across the flagstones. They looked over to see Céline running toward them.

“Sister Bernard,” she greeted.

“Don’t speak unless spoken to, child,” the nun admonished.

Céline looked shamefully toward the ground. But there was something manufactured in the way she did it, as though she did it because she knew people would approve of it, and not because it was natural. The calculation could be seen in the way her eyes still smiled, in the way her lips slightly pursed as if holding back amusement. Pierre took little notice, Sister Bernard did not recognize it, and Béatrice abhorred it, but on Milet it worked wonders. She seemed wild and untamed like an elf of the woods. And something about her size complemented her demeanor. The twelve-year-old girl was just becoming a woman, but was still much smaller than one. She was a miniature pixie and he wanted nothing more than to catch her and make her his pet.

“Well, what is it, child?” Sister Bernard inquired, finally.

Céline looked up again. “The Abbess has sent for you.”

“Well, she knows I’m busy.”

Céline shrugged, as though to say, “Even so...”

“Bless us. Alright. I suppose I trust you gentlemen well enough with her. Monsieurs, you may as well get to know each other without me. But I’ll warn you she’s not very well educated; you’ve already seen all there is to her.”

“I think we’ll be fine,” Milet responded.

The four stood silently until Sister Bernard was out of hearing.

“You can leave as well, Céline,” Béatrice nudged.

“Oh no,” Milet exclaimed. “It would be unfair to you, to have you ladies outnumbered by us gentlemen.”

Béatrice pressed her lips together.

“Who is your lovely friend?” Milet asked.

“She is my sister, Céline.”

“Oh yes, she is betrothed to the son of Alençon,” Pierre remembered.

“No. Céline isn’t promised to anybody. Our older sister might be. She’s always promised to someone. It’s hard to keep track.”

Milet smiled, and Béatrice smiled back. Perhaps this wouldn’t be as dreadful as it had started out, Béatrice thought.

“Monsieur,” Béatrice began. “It is unusual to hear of one so young to be distinguished in battle. To even have the chance to be.”

D’Amboise clapped Milet upon the back. “We are just returned from Calais. It’s a shame the king signed for peace before we had a chance to fight!”

“Oui,” Milet agreed. “It would have been a mass slaughter—if only we’d have figured out how to make it over the wall.”

D’Amboise laughed. “They’d have come out to play eventually.”

Béatrice also laughed, although she didn’t know quite where the joke was.

Céline, on the other hand, was not so anxious to make any particular impression upon the two men. “I think killing is evil. ‘Thou shalt not kill,’ is one of the commandments.”

Milet laughed at this as well. “God sent his army into battle many a time, little one. The Jews set upon every city they came across in the Land of Milk and Honey.”

“The Jews killed idol worshipers.”

“Hush, Céline!” Béatrice complained. “I am sorry, monsieurs, living in an abbey gives one strange thoughts. Our young king Charles VI, le Bien-Aimé, is victorious because God wills it. And you conquerors are as saints.”

“I don’t know about all that,” Pierre smiled. “As saints we’d have to give up our vices.”

“That is not how I see it,” argued Milet. “Saints cannot have vices, or they would not be saints. As saints, what are vices for others are virtues for we.”

“You’re making fun of me,” Béatrice pouted, but quickly corrected herself. “It’s all right. I’m happy to entertain you in any way I can.”

“I think God shall strike you all down to Hell for blasphemy,” Céline decided.

Milet laughed again. “Do you want to learn a secret, ma petite?”

“All right.”

Milet leaned down to her ear. “We’re all going to Hell,” and he kissed her after, causing the girl to jump back and rub her face. The three adults laughed at her reaction, albeit Béatrice did so uncomfortably.

Sister Bernard was in time to witness the indiscretion. “What goes on here?” she said as she approached. “Céline, get over here and explain to me how it is that the abbess does not recall having sent for me.”

“Well, I had to see him for myself,” Céline explained.

“Your elders know what you have to do better than yourself, mademoiselle. Now, get back inside—I shall deal with you later.”

“I think Papa could have done better for you,” she whispered loudly to Béatrice as she turned to go.

“Just how many days do you want to spend scrubbing floors, mademoiselle?”

“We should be getting on our way, Milet,” Pierre said.

“Well! Already?” Béatrice exclaimed.

“Pierre needs to get back to Amboise today.”

“It was nice to have the chance to meet you, however briefly,” Béatrice replied.

“Likewise,” Milet agreed. “And say ‘adieu’ to Céline for me as well.”

“Oui.”

“Wait,” Pierre paused. “We’ve forgotten something. Sister, we would like your assurances of Béatrice’s purity.”

Béatrice caught her breath.

* * *

It hadn’t mattered though. The test of her purity had never been required. He’d chosen Céline, taken her. Eventually, Céline died, and Béatrice was married to him now, but still he would have anyone except her. Now that Catherine was dead, would anything change? Or would he go after her daughters instead? Was hers the very last bed he would deign to share? Her posture was better now, at least. But she was fatter. Oh! She must not think about this.

Finally the carriage arrived back at the château. “Girls,” Béatrice stopped them before they opened the door. “I shouldn’t need to remind you to say as little as possible at dinner. It was just Juliette’s personal maid who died. These things happen.”

The girls nodded. They were not very talkative, regardless. Everyone else, on the other hand...

At every table there was only one topic of conversation and the guests went over it in detail. “A serving maid, and not from here.” “Not from here? Where was she from?” “Poitou. She came with the party from Pouzauges.” “So strange, then, that she should leave the château on her own.” “Perhaps her family comes from here. There must have been some reason she was in the graveyard.” “Hardly a spot for a romantic rendezvous.” “Who can explain the actions of peasants? They are illogical.” “She couldn’t have had a romantic rendezvous with someone from Champtocé if she was from Pouzauges.” “Maybe it was a servant from here, whom she just met.” “Whom she just met? Maybe she was a prostitute.” “A prostitute! I’ve heard of prostitutes getting murdered before.” “Men don’t want their sins revealed to their wives.” “The prostitutes know this, and augment their income with blackmail.”

“She wasn’t a prostitute!” exclaimed Juliette.

Béatrice gave her a silencing look, and although she had command over her daughter, she could not redirect the focus of the conversation, which continued on its morbid topic throughout the courses of the dinner:

“Look, I don’t think she was in the cemetery for a rendezvous romantic or professional. With all the dead bodies I’ve seen on the battlefield, I know that they bleed an awful lot. And there was no blood anywhere near her—or in her body. She was killed somewhere else, and dragged to the cemetery.” “Someone should be sent looking for a patch of blood.” “The killer didn’t want us to find her there. Wherever she was killed will reveal him.” “Him? Do we know it’s a him?” “Women aren’t capable of such violence.” “A woman couldn’t carry the body very easily.” “She could have had help.” “A cabal of murderers.” “A cult.” “She could have been killed in the graveyard, but her blood collected for some infernal purpose.” “I’ve heard of witches engaging in communion with the devil, and using human blood as the host.” “Oh! I’ll lose my appetite if you talk like that!” “That would be the day! If we set a entire hog in front of you, you’d finish it.”

* * *

Béatrice and her husband returned to their rooms late into the night. Milet strode past his wife to a scissor-chair facing the bed, where he sat to remove his boots.

Béatrice knew better than to speak just then, but her nervousness overruled her caution. “Oh, dinner was interminable,” she complained. “Surely there are better things for people to talk about than a dead serving maid.”

Milet finished removing one of his boots and paused to stare silently at his wife.

Béatrice shrugged. “Catherine, I mean—May God have mercy on her soul.” She pressed her lips together and glanced away from her husband. Then she thought of something positive. “The girls did quite well, though, didn’t they?”

“They lied.”

Béatrice shrugged again. “Yes.”

“Did you have her killed?” Milet asked.

“No,” Béatrice responded at once.

Milet stood up. “Béatrice.”

“No. Of course, no.” She looked upon her husband, sadly. They used to go riding together through the countryside on all the paths. When their horses were tired, they would rest by the the lake, and Béatrice would watch Milet practice swimming. That had been a long time ago. They were different people now, and it was difficult to remember each other. She walked over to him. “You know me,” she said, patting his arm. “I’m just little Béatrice.”

“Not so little, these days.” Milet was not sentimental. He bent over again to remove the remaining boot.

“Would you like me to spend the night with you?” she asked, tentatively.

“Why would I want that?” Milet replied.

Béatrice turned and walked over to the door to the adjoining room.

“I don’t know who else would want to kill her,” Milet said before she left.

“Perhaps she surprised a grave robber.”

“I heard the speculations at dinner. I just want to hear the truth from you.”

Béatrice turned back toward him. “I told you the truth.”

“Go to bed.”

“If I wanted to kill her, why wouldn’t I have done it quietly at home? Why bring her all the way here?”

“Why did you bring her all the way here?”

“I don’t know. It was stupid. I was—The girls wanted her here. I—It was a joke.”

“A joke?”

“I—A joke on everybody. A joke on her. A joke on Maman—I don’t know. A joke on Céline. I don’t know. I wasn’t thinking properly. You left home again so shortly. And we hadn’t seen you in years. I was—It was a joke on you, maybe.”

“A joke on me?”

“I was jealous.”

“What?”

“Jealous!”

Milet started laughing a big deep laugh, a forced laugh. It went on. Béatrice felt physically ill with bitterness and humiliation. She fled through the threshold to her own chamber, closing the door firmly behind her.

She turned to face the room and there lying, half-sitting up on her bed, his legs crossed casually at the ankles before him, was her brother.

“Jean,” she whispered, and ran over to him. “What are you doing here?”

Jean opened his mouth to speak, but Béatrice placed her fingers over his lips to block their sound. She leaned close to his ear. “He’s still awake. There’s only that door to mute our voices.”

She climbed onto the bed beside him, and allowed herself to be enfolded in his arms. She could stay like that forever. So safe.

Jean snuggled in to her. He leaned closer to her ear. “You must get undressed first,” he whispered.

Béatrice’s spirits fell again. “No. Jean, you must go.” She lay there a few seconds more and then sat up.

Jean sat up as well. “Why?”

“You just have to go.”

“There’s nothing I can do to fix it? I want you to be happy. We can just hold each other.”

“I’m sorry. You don’t even know what’s wrong, what’s happened.”

Jean stood, silently.

Béatrice began to cry. “We used to be the same person; now, we are just siblings.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Oh, just go!”

The door closed, and Béatrice began to disrobe, alone.

* * *

Elsewhere, the Servants’ Dining Hall at Champtocé-sur-Loire had been turned into a dormitory for the multitude of servants who had arrived with their seigneurs. The dining table had been carried off into the stables, and several long white sheets formed a curtain to separate the male attendants from the female. Agnès slept upon one mattress alongside Thérèse, and patiently waited until she heard her companion’s breath modulate into something softer than a snore, but just as unconscious. She folded back their shared coverlet and slipped out the side.

“Agnès?” Thérèse asked. Apparently Agnès’s shifting had been enough to wake her, after all. “Where are you going?”

“Just out to make water,” Agnès replied, quietly. “Go back to sleep.”

Thérèse seemed to return to sleep, and Agnès began tip-toeing toward the door, before a rustle of sheets caused her to turn round again to find her bedfellow sitting bolt upright.

“No! Agnès, you mustn’t,” Thérèse exclaimed in a whisper.

Agnès made signs for her to quiet down, before tip-toeing back to Thérèse’s side, and crouching down beside the mattress again.

“There’s a killer out there,” Thérèse whispered.

“Well, I can’t just wait all night to relieve myself,” Agnès insisted.

“Find a pot,” Thérèse suggested. “In the kitchen.”

Agnès rolled her eyes, before giving up her ruse. “I agreed to meet Girard. He’s waiting for me next to the stables.”

“Why did Catherine leave the château? Why did she go out to the cemetery?” Thérèse asked.

“I don’t know,” said Agnès. She sat down.

“Don’t go,” Thérèse pleaded. “Not for Girard. He’ll understand. Don’t risk your life.”

“I don’t think that there’s just some random person out there killing people,” said Agnès. “I think... I don’t know, but I think Béatrice probably had her murdered.”

“You’re wrong. She was surprised. They all were when they got back to the carriage. And didn’t you hear what they were saying at dinner? There wasn’t any blood. It’s some ghoul or monster, I know it.”

Agnès lifted the sheet and lay down upon the mattress again. “I can’t just leave him there,” she said.

“Have you let him...you know,” Thérèse asked. “You don’t have to answer.”

Agnès thought a while before replying. “I’m going to. I can’t keep doing this. I’m not a careful enough person to do everything right and Béatrice beats me when I’m clumsy.”

“I know.” And after a while. “I hope it works out. Has he proposed to you yet?”

“No.”

“I don’t think you should let him do it until he has. If you get pregnant, that’s really the end of you.”

Agnès held her breath for a moment. “I did let him.”

Thérèse remained still.

“Well, what? I didn’t mean to end up like Catherine is now, dead a virgin. And... he was losing interest.”

Thérèse’s voice chilled with judgment. “What if he loses interest again?”

“He just can’t,” was all Agnès could say.

Silence overtook them for long enough that Agnès thought Thérèse may have this time truly decided to return to sleep, but her voice edged in again. “I did something,” she said.

“What?”

“That I maybe shouldn’t have.” She paused. “Do you remember the woolen dress that Justine ripped and Catherine repaired?”

“Somewhat, I think.”

“Well, I found it in the trash heap behind the kitchen. I don’t know what it was doing there. I mean Catherine must have thrown it there. I can’t think what else. Maybe she wasn’t happy with her work, but it looked fine to me. I mean, you could tell, but only if you already knew where to look.”

“Yes?” Agnès asked, confused.

“So, I cleaned it and brought it along. It’s not a regular dance. It’s a masquerade. I thought, perhaps, if Catherine were wearing a mask, she could take the dress and attend, and Béatrice wouldn’t know any better.”

Agnès chuckled, quietly. “No—I mean—that was nice.”

“Well, I didn’t get to tell her. I was just thinking that maybe you could wear the dress, and the mask. And if Girard was at the masquerade, too, maybe he’d see you—I mean, it’s a once-in-a-lifetime thing, and it might be romantic. He’d see you as something other than a maid.”

“I don’t know how to dance,” said Agnès. “Not the way they do.”

“I know how to dance. I practiced with Catherine. I could teach you a few of the dances before then. I’m sure we’ll have time. I’m sure we can sneak away from the tournament, really. We could have time during the fighting.”

“I just—it’s very kind of you. But how do we know that Girard will even be at the masque?”

“I expect he will be. He arrived separately, with the rest of the soldiers, but I don’t think any of them will leave until our seigneur does. I expect they’ll all be there.” And then Thérèse laughed. “If Girard isn’t interested, somebody else certainly will be.”

Agnès smiled. “Well, I guess it does matter more that somebody marries me, rather than who does it.” And both girls laughed a bit more. Then, Agnès leaned over and kissed her companion. “Thank you, Thérèse. I mean it.”

* * *

Down in the soldiers’ camp, the remedy of pacing and muttering invective to himself had calmed Gilles down enough to leave his tent. He found his friends not far away sitting near a campfire. He uncorked a wine bottle and sat down beside them. They regarded him warily.

“I will rehabilitate myself tomorrow in the field,” he said simply.

De Sillé and de Briqueville nodded.

De Rais shrugged. “You said you had some bad luck too. Did archery not go so well? Did you lose the money we won?” He grinned broadly, an affectation which did not put his companions at ease.

“Ah, no,” said de Briqueville. “We didn’t wager it.”

“Oh, what then? Where’s my share?” asked de Rais.

De Sillé shook his head. “Well, we don’t have it either.”

De Rais furrowed his eyebrows in confusion.

“I...” De Briqueville wet his lips. “It was stolen.”

“Stolen?” De Rais half stood, putting his hand on the hilt of his long sword. “By whom? Why are we sitting around? Let’s get it back.” But his friends’ immobility returned Gilles to the bench.

“It’s, ah...” de Briqueville began, uncomfortably.

“I owe some money to this man they call la bête, Arnaud de Cholet,” de Sillé came clean. “He took it in consideration of that.”

“Well,” smiled Gilles, slapping de Sillé upon the shoulder. “At least you are free of that. No more sour-pusses then.”

“Oh, well, it’s not enough. I owe quite a bit more than that.”

“How much?”

“Two dozen livre, about. A bit more than that.”

“Oh,” Gilles absorbed. “I see. Well, I’m sorry, you came to the wrong place if you want money. I’m tapped out. I only received fifteen livre from my grand-père as an allowance for this party.”

“An allowance?” repeated de Briqueville. “But you’re of age now, and the Baron de Rais, not he! Surely you’re done with that. You should be giving him an allowance.”

“Well, I am the Baron de Rais, but I don’t really own anything until I am twenty-four, when my father’s contract with my grand-pere expires,” Gilles shrugged. “I mean I should, but there’s nothing I can do about it short of killing the bastard.”

“Out of curiosity, how much of the fifteen livre do you have left?” de Briqueville asked.

“Nothing. Maybe four or five sou.”

“What? You’ve spent it all? It hasn’t even been an entire day?”

“I have to live, don’t I?” De Rais kicked the ground indignantly. “Grand-père gets after me for not saving, as well.”

De Sillé bit his tongue and didn’t roll his eyes.

“Well, what is this la bête like?” de Rais asked more happily. “I don’t suppose we could put him off till January?”

“I don’t think he’ll take a finger before then, but he means to go to my father at the end of the week, and then I stand to lose more than a finger. But go back a bit, I don’t understand why if you’re the Baron de Rais, you don’t own the land in the barony, and its treasury.”

“I thought you said before that your coming-of-age would finally allow you to get at Jeanne la Suze’s fortune,” de Briqueville pointed out.

De Rais pulled at his moustache. “I don’t know. I guess it didn’t really work out like that.”

“What is the la Suze fortune?” de Sillé asked.

De Rais looked up. “Well, it’s a complicated story.” He paused, while he considered if he wanted to go into it, but determined he might as well. “La Suze is my great-grandmother, Jeanne Chabot the Sage. She managed to amass a great deal of wealth through her two marriages. And she even managed to keep it after her second husband died, despite relentless attacks from Brittany. The brutal and shrewd defense in maintaining what, by law, a woman isn’t allowed to have, led her enemies to call her Jeanne the Mad. Mad or not, age caught up with her eventually, and she had to make out a will. Legally, her remarriage after her first husband’s death would disinherit her first husband’s children; however she only had a daughter, Catherine of Machecoul, surviving from her second marriage, and she didn’t see the girl as capable of defending the estates as she was herself. From her first marriage, none of the children survived, but she did have a grandson, my father, Guy, by of one of her sons. She chose him to inherit her estate, but under condition that he give up his name and birthright of Montmorency-Laval and Cayalou, which he had through his grandfather and take instead the Barony de Retz, and the holdings of Machecoul, her second husband’s, from whom the majority of her wealth derived, effectively saying that the man had adopted him.

“However, Catherine’s son—that’s d’Craon—had other plans and convinced la Suze on her deathbed to change her mind and leave her fortune to his mother instead. My father was now disinherited not only of his name and title, the Seigneurie de Cayalou, but also of what he had hoped to gain by it, the Pays de Retz. He tried to marry Catherine, but they decided in Paris that he was too closely related to his aunt for it to be legal and the marriage was annulled. Lacking all other options, he would have mounted war against Catherine and her son, more than likely with the assistance of Brittany, with whom he would have divided the lands. But here, too, d’Craon had a plan. He would give my father his daughter’s hand in marriage, and thus make my father his heir. So as you can see, the title of Baron de Rais has passed to me, but everything meant by that title is in the hands of my grandfather. I suppose I am lucky his son died, or else he surely would have found a way to disinherit me.”

“You have whatever holdings were your father’s independently of the Barony of Rais,” pointed out de Sillé.

“Yes, Machecoul, but I’m not going to sell a castle so that you can keep concealing your gambling from your father.”

De Sillé chuckled. “That’s not what I meant.”

“Although...”

“What?”

“I don’t have to just sit here waiting for my grandfather to die.”

“Oui. Well, I suppose you can sit in Machecoul and wait for it.”

“No, that’s not what I mean,” de Rais said excitedly, standing again, and beginning to pace. “I could sell Machecoul and use the money to raise an army. It’s what I’ve always wanted, to be a general.”

“What you’ve always wanted?” de Briqueville repeated incredulously.

“I could retake Paris, kick Henry V out of France. I’d be a hero. They’d make me Maréchal de France.”

“Machecoul is worth far more than that,” chided de Briqueville. “It’s the seat of the Pays de Retz. You would split up your kingdom. You could lose half of it and gain nothing.”

“Oh, I won’t really sell it. You’re too short-sighted, Roger. No. This will work.” He paused in his pacing by de Sillé and grasped the man by his shoulders. “You’ll get what you want as well, de Sillé. I’ll have money by the end of the week and you shall have your two dozen livre first.”

“Well, merci. I don’t know what to say.” He looked over at de Briqueville and widened his eyes.

“Come on, get up,” de Rais commanded. “We should celebrate. No. I should go and take care of this first; when I get back we’ll celebrate. I’ll bring us champagne and a whore.” Whereupon he turned in the direction of the stables and strode off.

De Sillé looked over at his cousin a bit flummoxed. De Briqueville just shrugged. After a bit de Sillé said, “I suppose he means a whore each.”

De Briqueville chuckled. “I don’t think so.”

“Well, how can three share a whore? To the best of my knowledge they have only two ends.”

“I suppose for the sum of two dozen livre, you get to find out.”

* * *

Elsewhere, Anne de Sillé lounged in d’Craon’s chambers in a chair facing the fire. The seat was deep enough so that she could raise her feet and hold her knees to her chest. She felt at home enough to do so, as well as to remove her divided hennin and let her silver hair down her back. Anne bent over the side of her chair to pet the black poodle, Caval. It was a vicious dog and fiercely dependent upon its mistress, from whose side it never left.

“I think I need to start eating more. I am too thin to stay out in the fall air all day. I fear I may never warm up.”

“A brandy will help,” d’Craon offered.

“Oui, merci.”

D’Craon poured it and brought it to her, but didn’t, himself, sit down. Instead, he paced back and forth across the length of the room behind her, assaulting Anne’s nerves with the clap, clap, tap of his feet and cane until she felt pressed into asking what disturbed him. “It is not still Gilles you are on about?” she said pointedly.

“Gilles. Béatrix. I feel as though my entire family conspire against themselves.” Béatrix de Rochefort was d’Craon’s wife. She had been shut up in her apartment at the top of the Black Tower for nearly five years now with some illness or other which had not been made plain to Anne.

“Oh, that is where you were,” Anne acknowledged.

D’Craon came around the chairs to be able to talk to her more conveniently, but still he did not sit. “I visit her irregularly now. Her ravings and accusations weigh upon me, and it is difficult to get up there with this cane.”

“Such an excuse. You haven’t any limp without that thing. It is an affectation.”

“Very well.”

“Oh!” Anne reached up to take hold of his hands. “Now I am annoying you, too. I am sorry.”

Jean gave a partial smile.

“Come sit down. I promise never to be contrary for the rest of the night.”

Jean sat.

But Anne continued. “Why did you go and see her in the first place? You have enough distresses with la fête.”

Jean shrugged. “She summoned me. She’d heard about the body in the cemetery. I don’t know how. I expressly forbade the servants to tell her as soon as I was made aware of it. I also saw star charts and an astrolabe while I was there, which I’ve had taken away from her before. I think the servants believe she is a witch and are afraid of her, so they do what she says. Her superstitions encourage it.” He took a breath. “I’ll have her servants changed tomorrow. Hopefully new ones will show more resolve.”

The reference to the crime in the cemetery distracted Anne. “Did you see the body?” she asked.

“No,” replied Jean, with a strange disinterest.

“Would that I had.” Anne went on. “They tell me it is a servant from Pouzauges. If that is true, I am forced to believe that it must have something to do with my daughter. It is trouble....”

“The body is probably not yet buried.”

“No. It is. I asked. I was told that the priest was informed by someone who had charge over the girl that she had no family. He told the sexton to get the gravediggers right then. It is suspicious enough that I almost want to have it exhumed—except that I would prefer not to have Béatrice exposed to all the world. I only want to know so that I can help her.”

“You always tell me about what trouble Béatrice has been, but you never tell me what any of the trouble was.”

“Haven’t I? Well, someday.”

D’Craon frowned. After a bit he brought the point back round. “You probably wouldn’t recognize the body anyway. A servant? From Pouzauges? What would that mean to you? For all you know the girl might not even have been born when you were last a guest of Milet’s.”

“I shall interrogate Béatrice on the matter tomorrow … or her children, they’re such idiots, anyone could get information out of them.”

“Let’s change the subject.”

“What did your Béatrix want from you?” Anne hazarded.

“To something new.”

Anne thought for a moment and perhaps because of the freshness of one mad person to her mind, she lighted upon another. “The king believes he is made out of glass.”

“Say again?”

“It is true. I stopped in Paris a few months before the siege on my return from Brittany. I visited the queen and he was there. I was not supposed to see him; he was loose like a caged animal escaped from its keepers. I saw him again later, when he was more lucid and he apologized. They say he changes quite without warning.”

“But glass?”

“He was marching around in full plate armor, so that he would not chip, he said. I swear it. Even in his better state, there was no way he was competent to disinherit the dauphin.” She referred to the Treaty of Troyes which brokered peace between France and England by naming the eventual progeny of his daughter and King Henry V as the heir of France. “It’s an atrocious situation.”

“His son’s still young,” d’Craon said, finding himself more interested in the waxing ruler rather than then waning. “He’s made some effort to take the reins in his dealings with Burgundy—ill advised as it may have been. But I support that he’s trying.”

“Yolande...”

“What?”

“He’s not making an effort; Yolande is.” Anne explained. “The dauphin’s dealings with Burgundy were due to her influence, you must know that.”

“So? Shouldn’t she be pushing him forward? Her next move should be to marry him to her daughter. And why shouldn’t he marry her? I can’t imagine a more powerful ally.”

“Her pushing the dauphin to assassinate Jean the Fearless has pushed his son into an alliance with Henry.”

D’Craon was dismissive of the conjecture. “Burgundy was our enemy before the assassination, so what has changed? I think we should look to Brittany, strengthen our ties there, remain neutral, or … on the side the wind blows. The Duke of Brittany has an eligible niece who is attending the tournament.”

“Oh, you stick with Mademoiselle Paynel. It’s much better to have a rich wife than a connected one. Money is the greatest ambassador.”

“Perhaps, but there’s nothing saying de Hambye couldn’t still have a son.”

Anne gave half a shrug. “There is that. But still not Brittany, a traitor to both sides is not neutral. And besides, you could never get Gilles to befriend Brittany or Burgundy. He does not know a Burgundian but hates him. He has never known a time when they weren’t the enemy.”

“Oh, Gilles! Quelle douleur dans le cul! I’ve tried everything; I swear there is no way to get through to him.”

Anne laughed. “It was so much easier when a flogging was all that was wanted to get our children to behave. Now that they’re adults and we must reason with them, I begin to understand what Sisyphus has been going through.”

* * *

Meanwhile, in the soldiers’ camp, Gilles de Rais and the Duke of Brittany were conferring in the duke’s tent.

“Excuse me, but I don’t see why you would want to relinquish your claim on Machecoul,” said the Duke of Brittany after reading the contract that de Rais had brought him.

“I cannot be a great general without an army and my grandfather will not give me the money to raise one. I would rather sell a less important property, but Machecoul is the only thing I own while d’Craon is alive. Do you want it or not?”

“It is already mine. The Pays de Retz is mine. But if this means I will not have to fight you squatters off of it, I would rather pay in commerce than in battles.”

“But you do not pick up the pen.”

“I think that d’Craon will find a way to contest this document. It may come to battles regardless.”

“I could sell it to Burgundy instead.”

“To raise an army to oppose him? No. I’m the only one with both the means and the desire to buy it. You have to sell it to me if you’re going to sell it. But I just don’t think you’ll let me keep it. I need more assurances than this piece of paper.”

“I suppose you would be suspect of a man’s word, when immediately after signing the Treaty of Troyes disinheriting the dauphin, you send men in support of him!”

Brittany stood abruptly to his feet, seething. “You twist my actions to fit your own perfidious interpretation. No. I will not do business with you. Certainly not to buy what is already mine!” The duke thrust the unsigned document toward de Rais.

De Rais took it. “You will reconsider,” he said leaving.

“Perhaps. But not tonight!” the duke sat down again.

De Rais passed through the flap of the tent, but stopped before letting it drop behind him, and turned back to the nettled duke. “There is one thing that may force Grandfather’s support.”

De Rais walked to the table and took up the quill. He scribbled a few more lines on the contract.

“Marriage to my niece? Your solution to my unwillingness to sign is to ask me to pay more?”

“It would be to give the Pays de Retz over to the Breton dynasty completely. Machecoul, now. And when my son is born, the rest.”

The duke remained silent, thinking.

De Rais continued. “There are a lot of parties who believe they have some claim over the various demesnes in the Pays de Retz. With a Breton as the Baron de Rais, your claim would be absolute, you would obliterate all opposition. I will even send my son to you to raise. All this in exchange for one more army to fight against Henry.”

Brittany nodded. “All right.” He signed. “An army for a wedding present.”

 * * *

Catherine awoke to cramped blackness. She took a breath and her lungs filled with the acidic aroma of pine. She tried to rise but was fettered from doing so by boards placed above her head, at her sides, below her feet. She was so tightly enclosed, she could not struggle enough to get her hand above her head. She was in a trunk of some kind.

She beat upon its side with her fist. But the sound was dull with no echo. It was enclosed by something soft and muting.

Catherine’s heart rate quickened, her breathing increased. A coffin? Deeper and deeper inhalations and yet she could not catch her breath. “Help! Help!” she cried, but she knew there was no one to hear her. “Maman! Anyone!”

She composed herself. If she was truly in a coffin perhaps she was in the graveyard and the sexton could hear her. She called out his name, but no. She wasn’t in her graveyard. She wasn’t in the graveyard of l’Église Saint-Georges in Pouzauges. She was in Champtocé—her sexton wasn’t here. She was alone, in the dark, unable to move, deep under packed earth. She started to hyperventilate again.

No! She must just wait. She must be calm. Her maman would come. Her maman. The sexton had warned her about her maman. He had come with torch and crucifix. And her maman had been repulsed by it. Catherine had seen it before she had fainted those two weeks past in the graveyard of l’Eglise Saint-Georges....

Catherine had awakened the morning after in the sexton’s own cottage. It was her second home, but she had never slept here before. It all seemed a bit disorienting from the bed. There was the pot simmering over a kitchen fire. There the sexton’s wife knitting. There a cat grabbing at her trailing yarn. There two young children playing knucklebones.

“Excusez-moi,” Catherine had said, her voice dry.

“Oh! My poor Cendrillon!” the sexton’s wife replied, setting down her work and pushing herself up from the chair. “Let’s get you some broth. You’ve been asleep all day; you must be half-starved.”

Catherine raised herself up a bit in bed while the matron filled a bowl from the simmering pot and brought it back. Catherine accepted it and taking some up in a wooden spoon blew upon it to cool it before asking, “Is the sexton at home?”

“Oh, oui, ma chérie, he’s just outside. Let me go and get him.” The matron ushered the children with her as she left. “Come on, mes petits, your grandfather has some things to talk about not for little ears.”

Catherine waved at the children as they left, but was surprised by a slight reticence in them to wave back. After the three had left her alone, Catherine tried her broth; but although she was famished, it was not to her palate. It seemed acrid and exceptionally brackish. There was no table within arm’s reach, so Catherine set the bowl down on the floor beside her bed.

The sexton entered as she was doing so. “Oh, no, Cendrillon, you mustn’t,” the sexton exclaimed, rushing to her side. He scooped up the bowl she’d just refused and brought it to her lips. “Good food, wholesome for body and soul, is what you need.”

Catherine opened her lips and allowed him to pour some into her, but she grimaced and turned away after just enough to taste. “Perhaps some bread?” she suggested. “This is a bit rich for my stomach just now.”

The sexton shook his head. “Bread is no better for you than this and it may stick in your throat.”

Catherine kept her mouth closed.

“You have lost a lot of blood, mademoiselle; you must drink this to gain your strength back.”

“Lost blood?” Catherine asked. She looked down at her body for a wound. She didn’t feel injured.

“The creature that attacked you last night. Don’t you remember?”

“Creature? I don’t remember a creature. My maman was there....”

“That was not your maman, Cendrillon. That was a creature of Hell.”

“What? No. Maman...”

“I feel responsible. I should never have allowed you to become so comfortable in the graveyard; it can be a dangerous place. Part terrestrial, part celestial, yes, but part infernal as well.”

“No.”

“I saw it attack you. I saw it bite upon your neck. Stealing your life’s blood for itself. The life entrusted to you by God.”

“No! Maman was not attacking me! I asked for death; she was giving me life!”

“Cendrillon! Catherine! Your maman is dead. You have visited her grave every day of your life. A grave I dug and filled, myself.”

Catherine quieted.

“The devil has many soldiers in his army. Have you heard of his queen, Lilith? She, who as the limbed serpent, tempted Eve?”

Catherine shook her head. “I have heard of the serpent that tempted Eve. I did not know its name, nor even that it was a woman. I had thought, perhaps, that it was the Devil, himself, though I cannot think now as to why.”

The sexton began his story: “There are many tales recounting the last moments of Our Lord, when darkness covered the land. Included among those present to witness the greatest sin of man, were good men like Joseph of Arimathæa, who caught Christ’s blood in a dish, the Holy Grail; but also there were evil men, devils and succubi, who revel in the misery of others. Among these was the wife of Herod, the woman whom John the Baptist called incestuous for marrying her husband’s brother.”

“Papa and Béatrice,” Catherine murmured.

The sexton didn’t respond. “When Herodias saw the Messiah the Baptist had foretold hung upon the cross, she grew pleased. Before, she had been afraid of the man called the Christ, but now she saw him to be mortal, and believed it meant the Baptist’s words against her were unable to harm her. But she grew more wicked still, for when Christ called from the cross, ‘My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?’ she laughed aloud.

“At that moment Our Lord died, the ground shook, and the temple curtain was rent in twain. The graves opened up and out of them came not just the bodies of the saints as Matthew tells us, but also the henchmen of Lucifer, gleeful in their victory. Jehovah protected the good men from these fiends, but Herodias had no such fortune. The serpent, Lilith, captured the still laughing queen. It bit into her neck and emptied her body of all its wholesome blood. Then it replaced the blood with its own, so that when the angels came out and banished all the demons back to their prisons beneath the earth, the serpent remained upon the surface in the body of the accursed Jewish Queen.”

“What has this to do with my maman?” Catherine asked.

“The serpent proliferated, sharing septic blood with any men it could ensnare, mutating the unfortunates into demons like itself. And those passing their curse into others, and on, unto this day.”

“And you’re suggesting this demon has affected my maman?”

“I saw her serpent fangs at your throat.”

“It is not true. She is no monster. She did not attack me. She had returned to help me.”

The sexton stood up and walked to some shelves along the far wall. “I have no mirror in this house,” he said, returning. “But look in the reflective edge of this knife.” He turned it so that it caught her neck in its light.

Catherine took it from him so she could get a better look. Two scabbed and swollen wounds on her neck. Catherine realized they itched and put her free hand to them. They were tender as well. She handed the knife back to the sexton.

“Does that look like the work of one of God’s creatures? It wants to kill you and take your body for itself.”

Catherine was silent for a few moments fighting with herself. “It is hopeless,” she mourned. “It is cruel and hopeless. She did not lie to me. She told me she was not a creature of Heaven. She told me she would take my blood. It is all as you say.”

“But it is not hopeless,” the sexton comforted, raising Catherine’s fallen chin. “It is not hopeless; she can be stopped.”

Catherine shook his hand away. “Oh! Why should I want to stop her? It is not she who is cruel. It is God.”

“Oh, mon enfant, mon enfant, do not say that!”

Catherine looked up with tears filling her eyes. “I was going to kill myself! I had gone to the graveyard to put an end to this life. I had hope I would see Maman in Heaven, but if it was Hell so be it. Anything other than Béatrice—than this life filled with people who hate me!”

The sexton stroked her hair. “I don’t hate you, my Cendrillon.”

Catherine looked up saying, “I am selfish, as well!” before burying her head in the sheets.

“Oh, Catherine, Catherine.” He let the girl be for a bit and then laid his hand upon her arm. “We must save your maman, Catherine.”

“Save her?”

“Exorcise her of the serpent and release her soul to Heaven.”

“The serpent and maman are both still within her?”

“She is its prisoner.”

“Was it maman who talked to me?”

“It was the serpent. We must stop her heart, Catherine. Stop it from circulating the poisonous blood through her body. Then we can cut off its head and drain the vile stuff out. It is the only way to release her from its coils.”

Catherine contemplated silently for a bit. “Maybe...” she began, but stopped herself, the sexton wouldn’t like to hear those thoughts.

“But first you must get well,” he said. “Come. Sit up and drink some of this broth.”

Catherine tried it again. “Why is it so foul? What is in it?”

“Just chicken, but the serpent doesn’t like it. It prefers unwholesome food and is already at work within you.”

Catherine tried not breathe as the sexton lifted the bowl to her lips again.

She stayed with the sexton and his family for the next few days. When she left, he gave her a crucifix to wear around her neck to repulse the serpent from it. Now, in her coffin underground, Catherine moved her hand up to her neck. She had removed it. And she was trapped. Enclosed with stale air, so heavy and hard to breathe. Why hadn’t she listened? Her maman had sent a letter, “Mon enfant, if you still desire my help, come at sunset down to the large cemetery on the main street through the city. I will be waiting. Céline.”

Catherine had hidden the letter from her sisters while they argued, explaining it was from their Papa, wondering why they were not yet down to the joust. She was angry at her half-sisters, and she thought the letter so clever a thing to send, because they couldn’t read. She had accepted the message’s offer not for its own sake, but for spite. It was the devil in her maman, and invited by her sin it had killed her. Perhaps this was Hell, not a lake of fire, but being tied to your body for all eternity. The good souls escape to Heaven, but the wicked are tied for all eternity underground, slowly decomposing, feeling the worms eat through their organs. Was there something crawling on her leg? A centipede? Oh, kill it! Kill it! She smashed her leg against the side of the box. Was it dead or was it still there? Forever! Forever like this?