To begin with, the passing of this formidable pillar of strength, who had protected and ordered Agnès’s life for so long, grieved her to the point where she lost all desire to eat. However, her grief was soon replaced by a feeling of relief – so soon, in fact, that the young woman had a sense of shame. She was alone now and in danger, but for the first time there was nothing to link her to the past besides her daughter, who was still so young. Gisèle, the last remaining witness to that night of horror in the icy chapel long ago, had gone to her grave.
Agnès sat bolt upright at the end of the long kitchen table, trying to control the anxiety she had been feeling since she learned of Eudes’s visit. Mabile, sent as a gift by her half-brother following Gisèle’s death, cast occasional glances at her. She was obedient and hard-working, but the Dame de Souarcy disliked the girl, whose presence was a constant, niggling reminder of Eudes. She suspected that the gentle Clément, despite his extreme youth, shared her misgivings. Had he not said to her one day in a mischievous voice, which his serious expression belied:
‘Mabile is in your room, Madame. She is tidying your things – again, taking them out and carefully examining them before replacing them. But how can she rearrange your registers if, as she claims, she cannot read?’
Agnès needed no clarification in order to grasp the child’s meaning: Mabile had been sent by her former master to spy on her. Not that this came as any surprise – indeed, it explained rather better than compassion her brother’s persistent generosity.
Clément’s extraordinary precocity astounded Agnès. His keen intelligence, his relentless powers of observation and his remarkable ability to learn and memorise caused her on occasion to forget how young he was in years. Scarcely had Agnès finished teaching him the rudiments of the alphabet than he knew how to read and write. In contrast, her daughter Mathilde’s indifference to the advantages of knowledge meant she was at pains to recite even the simplest prayer. Mathilde possessed the grace and delicacy of a butterfly and the complexities of life quickly bored her. Perhaps the explanation lay in Clément’s strange birth. Mathilde was still a child, whereas it seemed to Agnès sometimes that Clément was becoming more and more like a companion upon whom she could depend. To what extent had the child understood Eudes’s wicked scheming? How conscious was he of the threat hanging over the three of them? Did he know the cruel fate that awaited him if his true origin were ever brought to light? The bastard progeny of a violated servant girl, the orphan of a suicide seduced by the fables of heresy, who had escaped torture and burning at the stake thanks to Agnès’s unwitting collusion. And what if someone were to suspect what the child knew he must conceal? She shuddered at the thought. How could she have been so oblivious to Sybille’s asceticism that she attributed her compulsive behaviour to the pregnancy forced on her by a common brute? Had she been blind? And yet in all honesty, what would she have done had she known? Nothing, to be sure. She would certainly not have turned the poor wretched girl out. As for denouncing her – that was a vile, wicked act to which Agnès would never have stooped.
‘Will my good master, the Baron de Larnay, be passing the night here, Madame? If so I should send Adeline to prepare his quarters,’ Mabile observed, lowering her gaze.
‘I know not whether he intends to honour us with his presence tonight.’
‘The journey is nearly seven or eight leagues.* He and his steed will doubtless be weary. I don’t suppose they will arrive here until after none,* or even vespers,’* she lamented.
What a relief it would be if he lost his way in the forest and never came out! Agnès thought, and declared:
‘Indeed, what a tiring journey, and how kind of him to undertake it in order to pay us a visit.’
Mabile gave a little nod of approval at her new mistress’s observation, adding:
‘How true. You have an admirable brother, Madame.’
Agnès’s eyes met Clément’s and the boy quickly turned away, concentrating his gaze on the glowing embers in the huge hearth. Whole stags had been roasted there when Hugues was still of this world.
Agnès had never loved her husband while he was alive; the idea of forming an emotional bond with this man to whom she was being given in matrimony had never crossed her mind. At just thirteen, she was of age,2 and was obliged to wed the pious, courteous gentleman. He showed her the same respect as he would if her true mother had been the Baroness de Larnay rather than her lady-in-waiting. In any event, he had been gracious enough never to remind her that she was the last illegitimate child of noble birth sired by Eudes’s father Robert, the late Baron de Larnay. Robert, in a fit of remorse that coincided with a tardy devoutness, had demanded that his daughter be recognised, and even Eudes, who would not gain from such an official recognition of parenthood, had complied. And so the old Baron Robert de Larnay had quickly married the adolescent girl off to his old drinking, feasting and fighting companion, Hugues de Souarcy, a childless widower, but, above all, his most loyal vassal. He had settled a small dowry on Agnès, but her astonishing beauty and extreme youth had been enough to conquer the heart of her future spouse. For her part she had accepted with good grace this marriage that conferred upon her a certain status, but more importantly placed her beyond her half-brother’s reach. But Hugues had died without producing a son and now, at twenty-five, the position in which she found herself was hardly better than when she had lived in her father’s house. Naturally, she received a dower3 from her husband’s estate, though it was barely enough for her to run her household. It represented only a third of the few remaining properties Hugues had not squandered, comprising the Manoir de Souarcy and its adjoining land, as well as an expanse of arid grey terrain known as La Haute-Gravière where only thistles and nettles grew. However, her dower was far from safe, for if, as she feared, Eudes was able to show that her conduct as a widow was inappropriate, she would be dispossessed in accordance with an old Normandy custom stipulating: ‘A loose-living woman forfeits her dower.’ At the cost of interminable wars, the province of Normandy had remained in the realm for the past hundred years, but it conserved its customs and fiercely asserted the right to a ‘Norman Charter’ that enshrined its traditional privileges. These did not favour women, and if Agnès’s half-brother achieved his ends there would be only three ways for her to escape destitution: the convent – which would mean leaving her daughter in Eudes’s predatory hands; remarriage, if he gave his consent – which he could withhold. And death. For she would never yield to him.
Mabile’s sighs brought her back to reality.
‘What a pity it is Wednesday, a fast day.4 Were my master to stay until tomorrow he could enjoy our fine pheasants. Tonight he will have to make do with plain vegetable soup, no pork, spiced mushrooms and a dried fruit pudding.’
‘There is no place for regrets of this kind in my house, Mabile. As for my brother, I am sure that, like the rest of us, he finds great solace in penitence,’ Agnès retorted, her thoughts elsewhere.
‘Oh yes, like the rest of us, Madame,’ repeated the other woman, fearful her remark might be deemed sacrilegious.
A loud commotion emanating from the main courtyard put an end to Mabile’s discomposure. Eudes had arrived. She hurried over to fetch the whip hanging behind the door