Authors: Chelsea Quinn Yarbro
At final count, she had four of the barrels infested. She knew it meant she would have to remove the barrels themselves if the insects were to be contained in those barrels they had already reached. But the barrels were heavy, and she doubted she could move them herself. “Someone must be prepared to help me. Saunt Virge, how am I to tell them?” At that thought, her dread increased, for she knew with the convent already in the grip of fear, there was little she could do that would not increase the fears around her. If one of the Sisters discovered the loss of flour and grains and peas, they would all learn of it, and the despair that had been kept at bay would raven through them like a marauding beast.
She left the pantry and made her way back toward the refectory. If only Père Guibert were here, she thought, she might be able to confide in him and be guided by what he said to her. Properly she must inform Mère Léonie, but that was a step she wished to avoid. She braced her elbows on the table and sank her chin into her hands, her face filled with anguish as she tried to decide what was best for her to do. She felt her cheek and realized it was flushed. As she thought, she reached for the end of her tattered apron and flapped it, trying to fan herself. It was slightly cooler than it had been two weeks ago, but the room was still uncomfortably warm, which annoyed her. In a more prosperous year, she would relieve herself by sipping the juice of crushed apples mixed with honey and water, but with her supplies so precariously low, she knew she must not indulge herself in even so minor a fashion. Her mouth was parched, her throat dry, which she knew was as much from her distress as any actual thirst, yet admitting this only made it worse. She doubted she would be able to move the barrels without something to drink; no amount of prayers would make up for her thirst. She got up again, trying to decide how best to go about the work.
It took her a little while to mark the barrels that needed to go out, and another short time to determine the best order in which to move them. She shoved the others aside, grunting with the effort, and doggedly striving to pay no heed to her keen and increasing desire for water.
Finally, when she had placed the four barrels in order, she blundered out of the pantry and made her way to the garden, where the well waited, the bucket dangling just out of reach. She grabbed the handle and released the rope and listened with satisfaction as the bucket splashed into the water. She wound the handle, panting with her need and effort, shutting out the guilt that nagged at her for taking such an action.
When she was satisfied, she went back to the refectory. Her head ached fiercely, and her eyes were almost blinded by the difference between the glare in the garden where the sun struck the whitewashed walls, and this shadowed interior. Her steps were unsteady. “This is foolishness,” she said, not noticing how oddly the words came out. “I know this place."
A corner of the room lifted and she reached out, puzzled by what she sensed around her. There was no pain other than the headache that gripped her with increasing severity. Her lips drew back in a terrible grimace, and she attempted to get back onto her feet—she was able to flap her left hand, but nothing else responded no matter how urgently she commanded her limbs to move. Her eyes fluttered and she prepared to make a more valiant effort. Now even breathing was difficult, and it was almost impossible to fill her lungs enough so that she would not feel she was drowning. She had a vague notion that this was punishment for her sin of taking the water she was not entitled to have, and that God would release her as soon as she acknowledged the error.
She tried to form the words of a prayer, but none of them came to her lips; there was not air enough for her to speak them, had she thought of them. Her little movements were more erratic. The pain boiled and burned in her skull, and she could do nothing, think of nothing to stop it. As it overwhelmed her, she gave a feeble sigh, knowing that she was damned, her sins unadmitted and unforgiven.
Seur Odile found her shortly before sunset, as she came in out of the garden with an old basket over her arm. “Oh, Seur Tiennette,” she called out, “I have found berries growing wild on that fallow rye field. There are not many of them, but I have picked the ones that are ripe, and we may have them—” Her basket fell to the floor and the berries scattered across it. Slowly, numbly, Seur Odile crossed herself. “Oh, dear Mère Marie, what ...?"
Most of Seur Tiennette's face was engorged with blood, making it appear a ghastly mask that a malicious child might wear at Carnival. The room smelled of death, a penetrating ripeness that hung on the air. Seur Tiennette's habit was in disarray from her dying attempts to rise, and her vast white thighs were splayed against the grey of her habit. Flies had begun to settle on the corpse.
"Mère Léonie! Mère Léonie!” Seur Odile shrieked as she bolted from the refectory. “Mère Léonie, you must come! You must!” In her headlong flight, she nearly ran into Seur Adalin, who had just come in from the courtyard. “LET ME GO!"
Seur Adalin stumbled out of the way, irritated and troubled that Seur Odile should act in such a way. “What is wrong?” she called after the running nun.
"Terrible!” Seur Odile shouted back, continuing her run, uncaring that she was attracting the attention of the entire convent and that the whispers were starting already.
Tonight there was little revelry at Un Noveautie. The demands of a poor harvest had taken many of her companions back to their lands to administer their estates in such a way they would all come through the approaching winter. As a result, Comtesse Orienne was bored. She had been listening to her musicians for the better part of the morning, and in the afternoon she had gone out with her falcon, but now that evening was approaching, she could think of nothing that would amuse her but taking one of the servants to her bed. That had led to difficulties in the past but she was almost prepared to deal with that if it would mean she had something interesting to do in the meantime.
Jaques appeared in the door of the solar where she sat on the soft cushions looking out into the lavender sky. “There is someone to see you."
Her brows went up and her cat's face showed good humor for the first time that day. “Oh? Who?"
"A priest, mistress. I do not know him.” Jaques hesitated. “He does not mean to do well by you. It is in his eyes."
Comtesse Orienne shrugged petulantly. “You mean he will lecture me and try to convince me to repent? I have heard such before. They are predictable, but they are occasionally entertaining,” she said, then looked more closely at her servant. “Well? You looked troubled. Is there something about this priest you have not told me?"
Jaques hesitated once more. “Mistress, do not go to him. He means you ill, and men of that sort will not hesitate ... Do you recall that Chevalier, the Gascon who beat you for giving him too much pleasure?"
"How could I not recall? He left me with one eye swollen shut for three days and a bruise on my thigh that took more than two weeks to fade.” She lifted one hand in an invitation for him to continue. “What has this priest to do with that Gascon Chevalier?"
"They have the same look about them. There is a severity in the face, mistress, and a turn to the mouth that does not bode well.” He knew he had said as much as she would permit, and he lowered his head. “If you must see him, let it not be alone."
This was too much for Comtesse Orienne, who laughed easily. “Time lies as heavily on your hands as mine, does it, Jaques? You must imagine dangers behind every pillar to keep from going out of your mind with the sameness of it all."
"It is more than that,” he insisted in a mumble.
She rose and came toward him, caressing his cheek. “Your devotion pleases me, Jaques, and it touches me. You have done well to warn me, and for that I thank you and will see you suitably rewarded."
He brought his eyes up to meet hers. “I do not warn you for the chance of a reward, mistress."
"You shall have one just the same,” she said, her tone low and promising. “Now show me where you have put this priest and I will try to endure his rantings for an hour or so.” She permitted him to lead her down the corridor, using the time to adjust her old-fashioned but provocative gates-of-hell to its best advantage.
"In the smaller salon, mistress,” Jaques said, standing aside at the top of the stairs so she could descend them. “Have care."
Comtesse Orienne smiled blandly back at him. “You are good to me.” She was still smiling when she entered the smaller salon and found Padre Bartolimieu waiting for her, his face thunderous and his fury so apparent that he might have been quilled and clawed. “You are the priest who wishes to see me?"
Padre Bartolimieu ran his eyes over her. “I am the priest. You are the enemy."
Inwardly Comtesse Orienne faltered, but her smile did not change. “I am no one's enemy, mon Père. I am a creature of pleasures, which you doubtless know, but you also know that God made many of us thus.” She chose a seat some distance from him. “Pray do not stand. I prefer it that my guests be comfortable."
"So that they are unwary of the ills you do them,” he told her, though he did not sit down on one of the padded benches. For a little time they only looked each other over, measuring the degree of opposition in the other.
"You are displeased with me?” Comtesse Orienne ventured at last. “You speak as if I had compelled someone to come here against his will. Or her will.” This last was intended to needle him, and it did.
"You say that, secure in your lies and your wiles. Yet you have brought about the fall of more good men than the Greek demon Helen.” He leaned forward, his jaw thrusting. “You have brought many souls to your master, have you not?"
Comtesse Orienne shook her head impatiently. “I am without a master: it is one of the few joys of being noble and a widow, mon Père. If you are speaking of another master, then I admit I am the dutiful subject of le Roi and I am loyal to the Church in Avignon.” The entertainment she had hoped this priest would give her was disappointing. Her head began to ache once more. “You presume too much if you say otherwise."
"You have learned your work well, demon. You are gifted in the ways of the flesh and you have a soft word to those who challenge you, which disarms them, as the sight of your body and the opulence of your villa disarms them. Everything about you is calculated to cause a prudent man to forget his natural caution and to assume that you offer him no greater danger than Venus’ pox.” He sounded calmer now, though his chin jutted more emphatically.
Now Comtesse Orienne could sense what it was Jaques warned her about, and she decided to be more circumspect with her annoying visitor. “Mon Père, you doubtless believe you have suffered because of something I have done, and it may be that one of your flock has told you that he was brought here against his will or that I compelled him to do acts that he did not desire. And it may be that after leaving here, when he reflected on what he had done, he may have felt some shame—I do not say that many do, but there must be a few who have decided they cannot live as I do—and therefore confessed to you. While attempting to mitigate his sin, he may have told you he was forced to come here and was required to do things he did not like. Such coercion is repugnant to me. If a man does not choose to be here, I do not want him to remain. I am not a woman who enjoys reluctant lovers, and if that turns a man from me, then well and good; we are neither at loss in that instance.” She wished now that she had worn one of her more modest gowns, but with the weather so warm, she had selected the coolest garment she owned, and worn it without the cote beneath it. The armseyes of this cote-hardie were so deep that a man standing beside her could see most of her body. She moved in the chair so the gates-of-hell were not quite as open as they had been.
"So you say, while you are given to every voluptuous practice and every seduction. What man would not think himself willing while you are there to work your sorcery upon him and bring him to his ruin?” Padre Bartolimieu glared at her. “You are a vicious snare, made beautiful to the unwary, so that you may the more completely devour those who are your victims."
When Comtesse Orienne laughed, there was a quiver in the sound, an echo of the nervousness she felt. “You come here, mon Père, full of purpose and the need to redress a great wrong which you are convinced I have done you. If I have, I most truly ask your pardon. I wish no man ill, and if there has been wrong done in my name, I would wish to see it remedied."
"How dare you assume the mask of innocence? You, who are more dangerous than half the hosts of Rome!” He got to his feet. “You have brought a good and holy man, one who was fired with truth and zeal, to such degradation that he is without strength any more!” He began to pace, not looking at her as he nursed his rage. “You have taken the soul of a good priest and turned it from his purpose and from the defense of his faith!"
More quietly than before, Comtesse Orienne said, “I know no such priest, mon Père; I have told you already. Those Churchmen who come here do so willingly and with glad hearts. We have cause to enjoy one another as suits our natures, and when it is over, they do not curse me, but pardon me for my sins and pray that I will not repent them too soon.” She hoped her servants were not far away, for she could see that the priest would not easily be persuaded to leave.
Padre Bartolimieu halted by the window and looked out into the vast, overgrown orchard where the last of the fruit was starting to shrivel in the trees. The scent of apricots was strong, though now it was faintly tinged with the sharp sweetness of rot. “You speak of pleasures, and you will not see them as the odium they are. You defend your appetites, and say they are only to give delight rather than the damnation you instill.” He began to weep with wrath. “You, who claim to be only as God made you, you, you have taken the soul of a good priest and you have destroyed it. There was such work we might have done together. There were tasks that lay before us for the Glory of God, and you have deprived us and Our Lord of the victory, so that the forces of Hell advance in this land!"