‘What is your solution, then?’
Clément grinned, and Agnès wondered for a split second what he would deduce if at that very moment he caught sight of himself in a looking glass.
‘My solution to fearing pain or being foolishly oblivious to danger? To tell myself that it is possible to survive pain, however bad. To convince myself that it is better to have my flesh torn asunder than to lose my soul. Flesh heals, lost souls are rarely saved.’
‘Clément … I need to ask a favour of you …’
‘Anything, Madame, unreservedly,’ he interrupted.
‘Finish what I scarcely dare envisage, Clément. I am confused and I know that my confusion is not accidental. Join all the loose strands, I implore you. Link your discovery at Clairets to the knight’s visit to my cell, the devotion that made him kneel before me in that evil-smelling mire. He spoke like a man entranced. Don’t forget Agnan, Nicolas Florin’s young clerk, his passion and how he, too, was willing to die in order to save my life. None of it makes any sense. No visible sense, unless these two men know or perceive things that remain a mystery to me.’
‘A mystery? And yet what you say makes it clear that you are nearing the answer, although we still do not possess the key to this mystery. I’ve told you all I know. I, too, am haunted by an intuition, which I have no real means of verifying.’
‘What are you talking about? What intuition and how did it come to you?’
‘I don’t know. I believe that we are – that you are – in the centre of a storm, the scope of which we are only just beginning to grasp.’
The boy’s remark stunned Agnès. So, Clément shared her exact feelings.
‘What storm?’
‘I wonder whether the first birth chart might not refer to you.’
‘It’s absurd! What? An illegitimate noblewoman, a widow with no fortune who barely manages to keep her household afloat by bartering the honey and wax she wrests from her half-brother and overlord in exchange for grain, and by rearing pigs and growing buckwheat and millet? Such a woman as I would appear in a notebook belonging to two Knights Hospitaller, one of whom fought at Saint-Jean-d’Acre? Fiddlesticks!’
‘A widow with no fortune whom a Grand Inquisitor was intent upon destroying and who was saved by a Knight of Justice and Grace who fell from the sky. Come, Madame … I am as confused as you. But you must confess that some coincidences are too great to be simple coincidences.’
Agnès was silent for a moment before confessing:
‘I know. I know and I am terribly afraid.’
‘So am I, Madame. But there are two of us.’
‘I’m behaving like a silly fool tonight,’ she began in a faltering voice. ‘Do you believe me, Clément, when I tell you that one day you will find out the truth about these charts?’
‘In order to do so I must lay my hands on the Vallombroso treatise.’
‘And return to Clairets in order to consult the notebook, too, I suppose?’
A smile flashed across the young boy’s face and he corrected her:
‘No. During my last visit to Clairets what seems like an eternity ago, before your trial, I carefully copied out the two birth charts and the prophecy, as well as some of the other notes, onto a piece of paper, which I have hidden in a safe place.’
Agnès did not know where the immense feeling of relief came from that caused her to let out a sigh. She spoke but did not understand the meaning of her own words:
‘All is not lost, then.’
‘The fact remains that I do not have the Vallombroso treatise and without it I have no hope of making any progress. I will, with your permission this time, take advantage of the approaching Nativity celebrations to slip back into the library and look for it – if it is even there.’
‘Tomorrow I will request a meeting with Madame de Beaufort. We might learn something from it.’
Clairets Abbey, Perche, December 1304
Éleusie de Beaufort had hesitated at length. The thought of having to meet Madame de Souarcy made her uneasy. And yet she could not refuse to see her without giving an explanation. She rose to her feet with a sigh and made her way to the reception room where Agnès was waiting. The young woman got up from the small bench beside the fireless hearth and stretched out her arms, a joyous smile on her face. Éleusie immediately regretted having agreed to meet her. How would she avoid answering the questions Agnès was sure to ask? Would she be capable of concealing the truth? A sudden feeling of dizziness forced the Abbess to sit down. This young woman had no idea how incredibly important she was and she mustn’t find out.
‘Thank you for seeing me at such short notice, Reverend Mother. I know how full your days are.’
‘Don’t mention it. You come and see us so rarely. Are you recovering from the ordeal of your iniquitous trial? And how is that little rascal Clément?’
‘He has been wonderful and is a great comfort to me since …’ She did not finish her sentence, certain that the Abbess would understand the allusion to Mathilde. ‘As for the trial, I am trying my best to put the whole experience behind me, although I fear I may never … I have to tell you about the astonishing visit I received in my dungeon …’
Éleusie listened attentively, pretending she knew nothing of it.
‘Your nephew, the Knight Hospitaller, came to see me.’
‘Really?’ the Abbess replied, clumsily feigning ignorance, and making it clear to Agnès that she already knew.
She went on:
‘Ah … I thought perhaps that you had sent him to comfort me. I must confess that I don’t understand how he learnt of my imprisonment. Indeed, I was unaware that he even knew of my existence.’
The Abbess’s pale cheeks became suffused with blood and she declared:
‘I may have mentioned your name and your troubles at Souarcy.’
‘I see … I thought your nephew was in Cyprus.’
‘Oh, he is. I mean, he is based at the Limassol citadel.’
Agnès was growing more and more perplexed by the direction their conversation was taking. Éleusie’s visible unease and the fact that she was clearly lying alarmed her and confirmed her intuition. Something was being hatched which concerned her, though she had no idea what it was. She paused; it would be impolite to persist as the Abbess appeared unwilling to provide an explanation. So be it! Éleusie knew something and Agnès was determined to force it out of her.
‘You spoke to me of him one day, of the bond between you, and of your motherly love for him.’
‘He is my sister Claire’s son. After her death at Saint-Jean-d’Acre, my now deceased husband and I, having no children of our own, brought Francesco up as our son. He completed our union. The three of us loved one another dearly …’ She smiled at the memory of her charmed life before entering the stout walls of Clairets Abbey.
Agnès clung to these initial confidences.
‘I … That is why I took the liberty of coming here today … Sweet Lord, how can I say this … I thought … I imagined that fever and exhaustion accounted for the strangeness I felt when I recalled my brief encounter with your nephew. And yet …’
‘Did you say strangeness?’
Something was wrong. Éleusie seemed unsurprised to learn that her adopted son had been at Alençon. And she had not asked about the knight’s reasons for visiting Agnès, and