Practically speaking, powerful friends could turn all but the fiercest inquisitors. And even if the Inquisition marched toward its final, glorious crusade to purify Christendom, individual inquisitors may fall in battle.
A shadow passed over Montguillon’s face. The same thoughts seemed to be passing through the prior’s mind.
“Ah, but you see,” the man said, “Giuseppe has fallen under suspicion.”
“He’s a pious man,” Lorenzo said. “Celibate since the death of his wife. He has completed pilgrimages to Jerusalem and Santiago de Compostela, and of course Rome and Assisi. Orthodox in behavior and belief.”
“We burned two witches last week,” Montguillon said. “Killed a man in a wolf’s coat, slew another that was changing from wolf to dog to hide himself. Captured two more and gibbeted them on the city walls.”
“Yes, I know. I passed beneath the gibbets on my way to the Cité,” Lorenzo said. “But what does this have to do with Giuseppe Veronese?”
“After taking the devil’s communion, the witches lay in wait on the old Roman road, where once there stood a temple to the pagan gods. For thirteen days they lured travelers into a secret grove of trees, where they placed them under a spell and performed bizarre, obscene rituals. When they were finished, they had created a pack of man wolves.
Loup-garou,
they call them in French.”
“This story sounds . . .
unusual
,” Lorenzo said. “Who told you this?”
“We put the witches to the question, right here, in this priory. I heard it with my own ears. The witches confessed.”
Yes, no doubt they had confessed to this and many other crimes. When put to the question, everyone did.
“We didn’t catch all of the wolf men,” Montguillon continued. “But with their mistresses dead, they became wild, mindless things, unable to regain human or any other form. Once they escaped into the forest, I expected them to become savage beasts, and eventually meet the end of all such creatures. Last night, however, the dead man in dog form returned to life, tore his cage asunder, and escaped. The other two escaped as well, their cages empty, but locked.”
“The gibbets are empty?”
Montguillon scowled.
Lorenzo said, “Apologies, Father, but I’m trying to understand how this could happen. You said you’d burned the witches. And yet these creatures escaped? Including the one who was a dog—who looked like a dog, I mean. Could there be some other explanation?”
“Yes, of course. There is a third witch. We did not capture her.”
“I see.”
“And now let us return to the question of Giuseppe Veronese,” Montguillon said.
“Yes, what of him? He’s alive? Is he healthy?”
“Alive, yes. Perhaps not so healthy. Right now he’s languishing in the dungeon of the Lord Gilbert de Nemours, the king’s provost.”
Lorenzo started. “And when did this happen?”
Montguillon turned toward the shadows at the heart of the chapel. His hands rested inside his sleeves, and in the flickering candlelight, his cowled face took on a dark, brooding air.
“A few weeks ago,” he said. “They caught him running naked through the woods. Nemours has a chatelet twenty-five miles north of Paris, near the royal forest.”
Something pinched his voice. Fear, Lorenzo thought. Why?
“At first, Nemours didn’t understand what had come over the man,” Montguillon continued. “Madness, perhaps. Or some virulent new plague unleashed by the Turks. The trespasser was raving about the blood of a child. Strange, wiry hair covered his chest and back. His eyes were yellowed, teeth elongated. He walked with a hunch, and his breath came in wheezing gasps. Yet he possessed an unnatural strength. It took four men to subdue him. Nemours threw him into the dungeon, then returned to Paris, giving the matter no more thought. That is, until this morning, when word spread of the escaped prisoners.”
Lorenzo stared. “And you think that Giuseppe is one of these wolf men?”
“Not yet, but almost. I believe Nemours captured the man midway into a transition to a
loup-garou
. We burned his mistress, arresting the transformation. God willing, enough remains of his mind to reveal the identity of the remaining witch. He won’t give it up easily. We’ll force it out of him.”
The prior believed this preposterous tale. That much was clear from the fervor in his voice. The fear in his tone.
“Father,” Lorenzo began, “the king is indebted to the Boccaccio for 11,000 florins. Lord Nemours is demanding we loan him another 10,000 to finance his wars. I have no doubt that should I appear at the provost’s chatelet, I will find Giuseppe starved, in a foul mood, and completely sound of mind. Nemours will no doubt agree to release him—once we have notarized a contract for 10,000 florins at favorable terms of interest.”
Montguillon removed his hands from his sleeves and steepled them in front of his face.
“My young penitent, I am not so single-minded in my pursuit of justice that I am unaware of the workings of Mammon. I was apprised of this history between the two men. Indeed, I was initially suspicious, having learned that your agent announced his very intention to stop at Nemours’s chatelet after his return from Troyes. Presumably, to negotiate another loan.
“However,” the prior continued, “the king’s provost never identified his prisoner as Giuseppe Veronese. The man’s appearance was greatly altered. To this moment, Lord Nemours has not made the connection, and I have no intention of telling him.”
“Then how do you know?”
“Because in my investigation of the Troyes road in searching for these wolf men, I came upon a destroyed wagon train, together with several bodies. Local thieves had already made off with clothing, goods, money, but left papers scattered in the mud. I was able to identify the dead men as certain merchants and their retainers who had left the city in the company of your agent.”
“Why have we heard nothing of this?” Lorenzo asked. “Giuseppe’s own servant investigated and found nothing.”
“In the interest of avoiding mass panic of the kind that sweeps through these fevered peasant minds as easily as a winter wind off the Alps, I suppressed my findings. Unfortunately, Nemours did not report his prisoner either, taking him for a madman. I only just learned of him.”
“But nobody has positively identified this madman as Giuseppe Veronese. Is that what you’re saying?”
“I am certain it is he,” Montguillon said. “But you shall have the opportunity to see for yourself. You will come with me to Lord Nemours’s chatelet.”
Lorenzo’s first inclination was to protest. He wanted away from the oppressive atmosphere of the priory, and the unpleasant memories it raised. There was business to execute, and Lucrezia to consider. He had no desire to humiliate himself in front of her again, but at the least he could stave off Marco’s advances.
“What if we reach the castle,” Lorenzo said, “and we discover that Giuseppe is normal in appearance? That he hasn’t lost his mind, and denies any knowledge of these wolf men? Denies it, that is, without torture?”
“If his appearance is unaltered, and it appears that Lord Nemours is offering us a deception, then we shall have some questions to put to the king’s provost.”
Montguillon’s lips pulled back in an unpleasant smile, as if pleased at the thought of bringing down someone so powerful as the king’s highest minister in Paris.
“Very well,” Lorenzo said, turning toward the door of the chapel. He was anxious to end this interview. “Twenty-five miles you say? Are the roads good? Do you have a swift carriage?”
“We’ll need every hour of daylight. I’d rather not be caught out on the road at night. Not with the servants of Lucifer abroad in the land.”
The two men pushed open the heavy oak doors of the chapel, passed down another corridor, and reentered the scriptorium, where the young friar was still waiting with his hands clasped together while the copyists continued their work.
“I’ll return in the morning,” Lorenzo said. “Two hours before sunrise.”
“No, you’ll stay here,” Montguillon said. “We’ve already prepared rooms for you.” He looked pointedly at the saffron cross pinned to Lorenzo’s breast. “And there is the matter of your penance.”
The friars in the scriptorium looked up from their manuscripts at this last word. They tugged at beards with their blackened fingers and rubbed at bloodshot eyes, their eyelids streaked with ink. Lorenzo flushed. He lowered his voice.
“But if I’m scourged, I’ll be weakened, and I’ll need time to recover. If you want to leave in the morning, we don’t have time for any of that.”
“You have plenty of time, my friend. Especially if you don’t repent. Nine thousand years in purgatory. An eternity in the fiery torments of hell.”
“But I confessed and repented. I really don’t think—”
“And as for temporal punishment, you may either submit willingly or struggle against your sentence. And suffer a greater purging.”
Lorenzo fell silent. His heart thundered in his chest. Every friar in the scriptorium was now staring. Some men looked afraid, others pitying. One man leered at him with a face as ugly and stony as a cathedral gargoyle. The prior, those looks promised, was not an easy taskmaster.
“Simon,” Montguillon said to the young friar. “Take Lorenzo Boccaccio di Firenze to the chamber. Present him to the devices we have prepared.”
Chapter Seven
Martin stood in the doorway and cleared his throat. He held a whip in his hand. Lucrezia looked up from where she was fastening a leather collar around Tullia’s neck. It was reinforced with iron studs and would hopefully provide some protection for her throat.
“Is the carriage ready?” she asked.
“Yes, my lady.”
His voice was pinched. The fire was dying in the hearth, the candles burned down or snuffed, and his face lay hidden in shadow behind his hood.
“And did you prepare the letters for Marco and Lorenzo?”
“They will receive them first thing in the morning. But, my lady . . . ”
“Yes, Martin?”
“The leprosarium may put off some men, but not these two. And when they visit the leprosarium and nobody there has seen you, they’ll quickly realize that you lied.”
“It will put them off for a day or two,” she said. “Before they can gather enough courage to question lepers, I’ll be back.”
Lucrezia stood and turned to let him fasten the riding cloak around her shoulders with its heavy fur lining and a silver brooch shaped like an oak to fasten it at her neck.
Tullia sat obediently on her haunches. She whined.
Lucrezia rubbed her hand along the mastiff’s powerful neck. “Yes, of course you will come with us.”
She whined again. A tremble shivered down her coat.
“You miss him, don’t you?” Lucrezia said. She took the dog’s head in her hands. “He fell defending us. We’d all be dead if Cicero hadn’t chased them from the house. There, be calm. It’s all right.”
“Maybe she’s frightened,” Martin said. “It’s like she knows. We’ll be crossing the bridge, riding through the gates at dusk. It will be a long trip with those creatures abroad.”
Lucrezia crossed the room and opened the oak chest that sat next to the hearth. She pulled out a sheathed dagger, made in Toledo of hardened Damascus steel. It was a gift from her brother Domenico upon her departure from Lucca.
“To use against those pesky Florentine brothers,” Domenico had said. “Or your husband, should he prove a scoundrel.”
She had laughed off the suggestion at the time. Rigord, a scoundrel? And yet there was blood on the sheath, and it was her husband’s after all. Torn with guilt, she hadn’t even tried to scrub it out.
As for the pesky Florentine brothers, Lucrezia didn’t
always
want to stab them. Under other circumstances than the present, she might have entertained the dream of returning with one of them to sun-drenched Tuscany, out of this dark, benighted corner of northwest Europe, to the land of Brunelleschi, Donatello, and Masolino. Petrarch and Dante.
She had history with both of them. Marco, cool-headed and sophisticated, the heir to the Boccaccio fortune. Lorenzo, the handsome, lovesick boy. Charming, but impetuous. He seemed to have matured since she’d seen him last, but maybe not. There was that troubling business with the Inquisition. Lucrezia most definitely did not want to step into the middle of that.
She pulled back the cloak and belted the dagger to her waist. “We’ll be safe, Martin. They won’t attack moving horses on the open road.”
“You let that one go. He has your scent.”
“They already had my scent, Martin. Here or in the countryside, they’ll be hunting for me. My only hope is to get to Giuseppe first.”
“The morning, then. We’ll ride out at first dawn, get ahead of Montguillon.”
“And risk the prior spotting us on the road?” she said. “No. We leave tonight. We’ll stop in Saint-Denis, and reach the chatelet by morning.”
Martin hesitated, then nodded slowly. “In that case, the carriage is ready, and we should leave at once.”
Lucrezia returned to the chest one more time. She removed a small wooden box. It was white, with a red Eye of Horus painted on the surface, and a clasp in the shape of a lapis lazuli scarab beetle with gold eyes.
✛
They left the Cité by the Grand Pont, which crossed to the right bank. They took the Rue de Saint-Denis north, and left the city walls at dusk.
A light snow fell as they gained the fields. At this hour there would normally be stragglers on the road. Peasants with carts of hay, or drovers leading sheep into folds. Riders coming in from Normandy, and Flemish wool merchants slowed by the weather and late to arrive within the protective walls of the
enceinte
. But it was quiet, not a sound on the road but the clomp of the two horses.
Martin sat on the perch, flicking his whip periodically when the horses slowed. A pair of lanterns with horn panes flickered on poles thrusting from the carriage over the heads of the two horses. Lucrezia sat in the carriage, wrapped in blankets and sharing Tullia’s warmth. The mastiff was calm at first, but grew restless as they put distance between themselves and the safe confines of Paris.