And what if this upheaval did not occur? What if it was destined to light up not their lives but the lives of those who came after?
Viancourt sighed. He was a mere link in a chain. What did his role matter? It did not. His name would be added to the secret list of those who’d gone before him. He had no interest in personal glory and in this he resembled their most implacable enemy, the camerlingo Benedetti. In reality, tragically, he loved this man whose destruction he was nevertheless intent upon. He recognised in him one of his own. They belonged to the same race. A race that nothing – neither reward nor fear – can discourage. A race that is capable of putting aside its own interests in order to accomplish its mission.
I will crush you, Honorius. I will crush you, but I will mourn your loss. I know you as well as I know myself, Honorius. We are twin souls, even though yours is damned by virtue of your mistakes. I feel as if I have only ever been truly close to you. Do you feel as I do?
Honorius? How can we both be convinced of serving Him with all our might and all our love when our actions are opposed?
Alençon, Auberge de la Jument-Rouge, Perche, December 1304
An almost suffocating silence. The cold, grey light of a late winter’s afternoon. The acrid smell of altar candles. Footsteps echoing on the brown flagstones.
Francesco de Leone glided through the interminable ambulatory of the church. His black coat, ornamented with a cross, its eight branches fused together in pairs, flapped around his leather boots.
He was following a silently moving figure, her presence betrayed only by the soft rustle of fabric, a yellow robe of heavy silk. A woman, a woman hiding. A woman almost the same height as he. The candle flames cast an intermittent glow on her undulating hair. A silky wave descending below her knees and merging with her dress. Hair with a copper sheen, like honey. A sudden breathlessness made Leone gasp with pain, even as the icy chill froze his lips.
With his left hand he tried to wipe away the sweat running down his brow, stinging his eyes, and scratched his face with his gauntlet. Why was he wearing it? Was he about to go into combat?
Gradually he had become accustomed to the semi-darkness. By the dim light filtering in through the dome and the flickering candlelight, he strained to see into the enveloping gloom obscuring the columns and engulfing the walls. What church was he in? Did it matter? It was a smallish church, and yet he had been circling inside it for what seemed like hours.
He was chasing the woman, without urgency. Why? She did not try to run away, but maintained an equal distance between them. She kept a few steps ahead of him, as though anticipating his movements, staying on the outside of the ambulatory while he moved along on the inside.
He paused. A step, one step, and then she stopped. The sound of steady breathing. The woman’s breathing. As he moved off again so did his shadow.
Francesco de Leone’s hand reached slowly for the pommel of his sword even as a feeling of tenderness made him gasp. He looked down incredulously at his right hand clutching the metal sphere. He had aged terribly. Great veins bulged beneath the wrinkled skin.
Suddenly he was aware of a third presence hiding in the darkness. A bloody, murderous presence. A ruthless presence. The woman had stopped. Had she sensed the ferocious shadow? A voice murmured: ‘Help me, knight, for the love of God.’ A pale feminine hand brushed the sleeve of his long tunic, causing him to tremble with almost intolerable delight. The other hand disappeared into the folds of her dress and emerged clutching the handle of a glinting short sword. He hadn’t noticed that she was armed. He whispered, ‘I will give my life for you, Madame,’ then turned slowly towards her. The saffron yellow of her silk dress was stretched tightly over her belly. She was with child.
Francesco awoke with a start, his mouth open, gasping for breath. The dream, the recurring dream. It was becoming clearer, he was drawing closer. He knew now that the dream was the future. He lay doubled up, sobbing uncontrollably, on the straw mattress in his lodgings at the tavern at Alençon where he’d been since Florin’s execution. Dry sobs, sobs of gratitude, sobs of immeasurable relief. He had been so afraid that he was chasing the woman in order to kill her. He was simply following her in order to protect her – her and the child she was carrying. The difference in their ages in the dream proved that, contrary to what he had long believed, the young woman was not Agnès de Souarcy. And yet she resembled her like a sister.
Was this quest that had for so long driven him, borne him, exhausted him nearing its end? What was the exact meaning of the dream?
He got up and stood, naked, in the middle of the murky room. He moved slowly over to the tiny window and lifted the piece of oiled hide, stiff with frost. He came out in goose pimples as a blast of icy air filled the room. He slumped to his knees, savouring every moment of his prayer of obedience and unending gratitude.
The woman. He would give his life for the woman with child. Without demur, without fear, without reward. His life belonged to that woman who had raised her sword in an unknown church to protect her unborn child. It was the child.
Clairets Abbey, Perche, December 1304
Jeanne d’Amblin had returned from her rounds a few days before, exhausted, trembling with fever and racked by terrible fits of coughing. She had tried in vain to resist Éleusie de Beaufort’s injunction to rest a little in order to aid her swift recovery. Owing to her state she had been apportioned two thick blankets, and Annelette had brewed a succession of curative decoctions and chest balms. The apothecary was well aware that the extern sister’s symptoms were as common to severe illness as they were to more minor afflictions, and that she must do her utmost to stop the infection spreading to the other nuns.
Jeanne handed her the empty bowl that had contained a chest remedy of cabbage water, beech wood and borage.34 She screwed up her face, protesting:
‘Why do all your remedies taste so foul?’
‘Even though I added spices and honey to improve the taste,’ Annelette remarked. ‘I will leave you to rest for a while. After that … you must agree to a few inhalations.’
‘Oh no, not one of your fumigations with nettle and lovage, please!’
‘They work best.’
‘But it’s for horses!’35
‘And for humans too. Decidedly, you are not a good patient, dear Jeanne.’
The other woman replied with an apologetic smile: ‘Forgive me, kind Annelette. I’m bored of being in bed. There’s nothing wrong with my legs; it’s my head that feels as if it’s in a vice and my lungs are roaring like a furnace!’
‘I sympathise. However, you must understand that an untreated cough can turn into something more serious, and besides you’re contagious. Isn’t it curious how diseases spread … Is it only the breath that is infectious? I’m not so sure. We are all aware, for example, that one can become infected by wearing a sick person’s underclothes. A fascinating problem.’
Jeanne, who otherwise had little interest in science, said in a concerned voice:
‘Are you saying that I might infect you?’
‘Not this big old lanky carcass! But if you do, I will lie in the bed next to you and we can keep each other company,’ the apothecary retorted.
She plumped up her patient’s