The torture, she thought. She tried to respond in an impassive voice:
‘You are too kind, my lord.’
Agnès closed her eyes again in order to end the conversation, whose only aim was to frighten her. Her heart was pounding in her chest and it took a supreme effort of will for her to control her breathing. The only way she could control or stifle her mounting terror was by clinging to the thought that she had managed to place Mathilde and Clément out of harm’s way.
Half an hour later, Florin shouted: ‘Stop!’ causing Agnès to start.
‘We shall make a brief halt, Madame. Would you like to use the opportunity to stretch your legs?’
Despite her determination not to give in, she needed a moment to herself. After a second’s hesitation she replied:
‘Gladly.’
He leapt nimbly to the ground and refrained from offering to help her down. One of the guards hurried over and handed him a package, probably containing food and refreshment. The inquisitor studied her for a moment and asked:
‘Do you require a little privacy, Madame?’
Stifling a sigh of relief, she accepted:
‘Indeed, my Lord Inquisitor.’
‘I think we all do. Hey, you over there, escort Madame.’
A big brute with a squashed face walked up to them. Agnès was on the verge of changing her mind, of saying that she preferred to wait until they reached Alençon. She was dissuaded by the smirk on Florin’s face and the pain that had been searing her belly for hours. She spotted a thicket of bushes and walked over to it. The brute followed.
Once she was out of view of the others, she waited for the man to turn away, but his eyes were glued to her. His moist lips spread in a lecherous smile as she lifted her skirts. Agnès squatted, her anger eclipsing any embarrassment she might have felt, and stared straight at her escort. The man’s smile dissolved and he lowered his gaze. This small victory comforted the young woman. It was a sign that she could prevail.
She did not remain outside enjoying a little more fresh air, but climbed straight back into the clumsy wagon. She could smell through the crack in the door the faintly acrid odour of bracken and the soothing forest air, heavy with humidity.
Florin glanced down at the hem of her dress as he sat down opposite her. Agnès fought back the urge to point out that she had not wet her gown. She had hitched up her skirts and if his man-at-arms had glimpsed her calf or her knee then much good might it do him. She was beyond such foolish concerns, though at other times and in other places they would have seemed of the utmost importance to her.
When they finally reached Alençon, Agnès’s lips were parched with thirst.
The wagon rattled over the cobbled courtyard of the Inquisition headquarters. Florin announced in a hushed voice:
‘We have arrived, Madame. You must be exhausted after the long journey. I will show you without delay to what will be your … lodgings over the coming weeks.’
Agnès was in no doubt as to his motives. He wanted to see the distress on her face, and she prepared for the worst – or so she thought.
Despite the enveloping gloom, the inquisitor strode confidently towards a small flight of steps leading up to a heavy door reinforced with struts. She followed, aware of two guards some yards behind her.
An icy cold pervaded the hallway. Florin ordered a few candles to be lit, and in the flickering light it occurred to Agnès that he resembled a beautiful vision of evil.
‘Come along,’ he chivvied, the excitement becoming evident in his voice.
They crossed the low-ceilinged room, which was devoid of any furniture except for a vast table of dark wood flanked by benches. Florin walked over to a door on the right of the enormous room.
Suddenly, a young man appeared as if from nowhere and stood at Agnès’s side.
Florin declared in an alarmingly gentle voice:
‘Why, Agnan, you look only half awake. Could it be that while I was crossing hill and dale for the greater glory of the Church you were sleeping?’
Out of all the clerics, Nicolas had chosen Agnan to be his secretary because the young man’s unredeemed ugliness suited him to perfection. Ugliness. What a splendid example of injustice. Agnan was the sweetest, gentlest creature, honest and pious, and yet those beady close-set eyes, that bony protruding nose and receding chin were deformities that inspired immediate mistrust in the onlooker. On the other hand, who would have believed that Nicolas’s long slender frame, his gentle slanting eyes and full lips concealed a soul whose darkness would have struck fear into the heart of any lay executioner? And so Agnan suited Nicolas down to the ground, and moreover he was easily intimidated.
‘Indeed not, my Lord Inquisitor. I have been busy assembling the various pieces of evidence for the forthcoming trial in order to further you in your task,’ explained the other man timidly.
‘Good.’ Nicolas gestured towards Agnès without looking at her, and added: ‘Madame de Souarcy is to be our guest.’
Agnan glanced nervously at the young woman then quickly lowered his head. And yet she could have sworn she saw a flicker of compassion in the secretary’s eyes.
‘Very good, run along now and keep up the good work.’
The other man bowed, stammering his agreement, and left with a rustle of his dowdy habit made of homespun wool.
One of the men-at-arms rushed to open the low door. A stone spiral staircase plunged into the murky blackness. The guard went ahead to light the way. As they descended into the cellars, the damp, acrid air caught in Agnès’s throat and soon combined with the lingering odour of mud, excrement, pus and rotting flesh.
The staircase opened onto a floor of beaten earth that had turned into sludge with the first rise in the water level of the river Sarthe. Agnès breathed through her mouth in an attempt to quell her feeling of nausea. Florin declared cheerfully:
‘After a few days one grows accustomed to it and the stench is no longer noticeable.’
The underground chamber seemed vast; bigger, Agnès thought, than the surface area of the Inquisition headquarters. The supporting pillars were joined up by bars that demarcated the cells. They walked alongside the cages, which were too cramped for a man to stand up in. Occasionally, the flickering light from Florin’s candle briefly illuminated an inert figure huddled in a corner, asleep perhaps, or dead.
‘We are not accustomed to receiving ladies of your standing,’ Florin said ironically. ‘Although I am a monk, I am still a man of the world and as such have reserved one of the three individual cells for you.’
Agnès was perfectly aware that this gesture was not motivated by any consideration for her wellbeing. His aim was to deprive her of all contact – even with her fellow prisoners, who admittedly were in no position to offer her any solace. For the first time she found herself wondering whether he might not be afraid her. Nonsense. What could he possibly fear from her?
The floor sloped gently downwards, and they passed beneath the vaulted ceiling and alongside the remaining cells enclosing the poor tortured, terrified souls. Agnès’s shoes sank into the thick mud. They were certainly close to the river. A damp, unhealthy chill caused her to shiver, and the idea that she would soon be alone, shut in with this foul odour, undermined her resolve not to allow her fear to show. Strangely, even Florin’s evil presence felt preferable to this void full of horrors that awaited her. All of a sudden something slippery gripped her ankle and she screamed. A guard rushed over and, pulling her roughly to one side, stamped his heavy wooden clog onto a hand … A bloodstained hand drooping through the bars of one of the cages. There was a wail, then whimpering ending in a sob.