6: The Hazards of Eavesdropping

'Pour ung plaisir mille doulours.'

('For one pleasure, a thousand woes.'.)

François Villon, from Le Grand Testament

Pâquette's basic constitution was tough, or else she could never have survived fifteen years in her cold, damp cell, malnourished and anæmic. Nevertheless, like the injured man in the room upstairs, her strength had been tested to its limits. She was eating more, but her sores remained painful and slow to heal. Sister Louise helped her dress them with salves and soft cloths: Agnès had grown neglectful since their quarrel.

The sisters considered her as yet too fragile to help with housework. However, once the grazes on her hands were healed, they decided to give her some sewing to occupy her. She had told them she was capable of fine and fancy work – silks, beads and metal threads – but to begin with, to regain confidence, they gave her plain mending: a priest's cassock, freshly-laundered and in need of repair. God alone knew what the owner – a tall fellow, by the look of it – had been doing to it, she thought: one of the side seams had been rent from hem to armpit, and some of the buttons had been pulled or cut off. Mind, there had once been a canon at Reims whose clothes she had damn near ripped off…

She smiled to herself at the memory, then chided herself for doing so. She wondered whether love-making, like sewing, was something you never quite forgot how to do, even if you were out of practice. It was a sin, but a sweet one, even if her body was now too ugly for any man… She knew that she was under vows for life, but her old vitality of spirit was returning, despite her aches and pains.

She thought: had Lazarus felt like this after his resurrection, suddenly hungry for life, for experience? He had been in the tomb, in his cere-cloth, only a matter of days; she had been dead to the world for fifteen years, the funeral Mass read as she was walled in. She had sinned and had been punished by the loss of her child; she had done her penance, and had been rewarded with her daughter's return. That was how it was with Our Lord and Our Lady. Now she could live again.

When Pierre chattered about all he had learned on the streets and from his master, she hung on his every word:

"I'm not boring you, am I? You can tell me to shut up! I daresay I'll sulk, but I won't hold it against you!"

"No! Not at all! I want to know everything! Just like you!"

And the boy blushed bright red, and pushed his lank, straw-coloured hair out of his eyes. "Well, I don't know absolutely everything… Well, not quite…"

At least he always seemed to find something – however strange or absurd – to fascinate him, from plays to goats to architecture. Her daughter – Agnès, Esméralda – seemed strangely incurious, by contrast. She had travelled through many towns and cities, living and working with all manner of rogues and vagabonds – but her mind seemed as virginal as her body. She seemed as much of a spectator of life as Pâquette herself had been, and with far less reason.

She worked out of doors, on a chair in the yard, partly because it was easier to sew black in the sunlight, and partly to get some fresh air. It also meant that she could watch Esméralda teach Djali new tricks, while Pierre was out juggling for coins. She was growing fond of the little goat, although at this moment, she did not wish her to get too close and leave white hairs on the good black wool she was repairing.

Djali was having another spelling lesson, interrupted occasionally by chasing the hens away from pecking at her letter-tiles.

"No, Djali," Esméralda said, "I don't think you should spell 'Phœbus' any more. Pierre doesn't think it's safe!"

"Pierre's right," Pâquette said. "I can't think why you taught her to write it in the first place!"

"Because Phœbus is – is the sun! Is my sun!"

"If you ask me, he's been more trouble than he's worth all along! You nearly got us both killed for him!"

"Don't say that!"

"It's true! I could have hidden you in my cell until the soldiers had gone, if you hadn't jumped up like that, just because you heard his voice!"

"I thought he'd save me!"

"As Captain of the Archers, on duty? How likely is that?"

"But I love him, mother! And he's a nobleman – I thought you'd approve of that!"

"Noble or not, some men are worth more than others. He didn't lift a finger when you were arrested."

"He was wounded!"

"He was better by the time you were to hang, so that's no excuse!"

"But I love him! Only for him did I come near to breaking my promise! He told me he thought I didn't love him if I wouldn't…"

"And you fell for that? It's one of the oldest lines there is! Didn't you learn anything from the gypsies about men? They'll say anything to get what they want!"

"But I wanted him as much as he wanted me!"

"So what stopped you?"

"That mad priest! The Archdeacon of Josas! He stabbed my Phœbus out of jealousy! That was why I was arrested!"

"He doesn't sound so mad to me: more likely, he did you a favour!"

"How do you mean?"

"Think about it. You're scornful of me for my sins, yet you'd have gone the same road had you lain with your pretty captain!"

"No! That was different!"

"How? You surely didn't expect him to marry you, did you?"

"At first I did – but then he explained that marriage means nothing! So I told him I'd be content if he'd use me as his servant once he tired of me, so long as he loved me now!"

Pâquette rolled her eyes. "At least I made sure I got a fine gold cross from my little vicomte! A word of advice, Agnès: if you let any man above your garter, show some pride and get something solid from him in return!"

"Where's the love in that?" Esméralda asked sullenly, stroking Djali's ears.

"Love alone's not worth a denier! It may fill your belly all right, but not with food; and one must always eat." She was beginning to appreciate food again. "You know, Pierre's a bit odd and surely no beauty, but he's clever and he may make some money one day. He just needs to get himself a proper job – not with chairs, cats and goats, I mean. You should be more grateful."

"I am grateful – well, at least I think he's repaid me, for I saved him from hanging when we met! But… I can't love him. As you said, he's no beauty."

"Beauty is all very well in a lover, but lovers and husbands aren't the same thing. Indeed, they're best kept separate."

"Which was what I was doing!"

"But a lover isn't worth having if he'll give you nothing in return. It means he thinks you're worthless, and if you accept that, he'll know you are, and that you'll put up with any nonsense from him. My God, even offering to skivvy for him!"

"Are you jealous?"

"No, just practical. I'm sure your gypsy mothers would have said the same, if you'd taken it into your head to listen to them! In my old life, I had to learn to read men – and quickly. It's a matter of life and death. If you get it wrong, at best you might get a black eye, or forced to do things that hurt – and that did happen to me, a couple of times; but at worst, you can end up with your throat cut or in the river. I know what men are: the good ones, the bad ones; the ones who'll do for an hour, and the ones you want as regulars, because they treat you well. Any man who'll take without paying is best avoided."

"But I know what I felt for him! When he saved me, and lifted me on to his horse! If only you'd seen him in his armour!"

"I've seen him ride by many a time. And many a time I've had girls come to my cell, asking for my prayers because of him – girls of my kind, of pleasure. I know his sort: if he hasn't a whole regiment of bastards to his name, it's only because the girls know how to bring the flowers down. And he looks as if he'll run to fat."

"You shouldn't speak of him that way! He's like – like a knight in an old romance!"

She shook her head. "Agnès, real men aren't Knights of the Round Table. Believe me, they don't really run mad for love through field and forest, like Tristan or Lancelot! They certainly don't cast their lives, their hearts, their very souls on the ground at your feet for you to walk upon! And if they did, well –!" And she laughed.

Esméralda knew otherwise – but it had been the wrong man. She was silent for a moment, then asked: "So what would you do, mother – if such a man existed?"

"Ask me how to cook a unicorn: it's about as likely!"

"But if he did…?"

Her mother shrugged. "Well, I wouldn't know whether to grab him with both hands, or box his ears! Box his ears, I think, for making such a damned fool of himself!"

Maître de Saint-Loup made another of his visits that afternoon. Claude grimaced as the surgeon examined his chest and side, pressing around the edges of his wounds to make sure that the pus was completely drained, and checking that the maggots, which had been applied to gnaw away festering tissue, had done their duty. But his battered ribcage ached enough without all this probing and prodding.

"Excellent! You've done very well in cleaning these up!" the surgeon told the sisters. "He should heal properly now." To Claude he said: "You're brave, monsieur, but it was foolhardy of you to let your hurts get so bad in the first place!"

He forced a half-smile.

As he regained his senses these last few days, he had been alarmed at first to realise that, bar the surgeon's visits, he was now dependent on women for every aspect of his care, however intimate. But since they were avowed widows, old enough to be his mother, he accepted that there was no moral danger or impropriety. Indeed, as they bathed and tended him, he felt as if he were seven years old again: the last time he had been so ill. He and his younger brother and sister had caught measles, which had turned to a lung inflammation. The little ones died first. As he tossed and turned in delirium, his parents had prayed all night at his bedside, dedicating his life to Our Lady's service if only he were spared. He survived the crisis, to be told that the Blessed Virgin had interceded for him so that he could live to become a priest. So his fate had been sealed, for who would defy her? Perhaps he should have died then…

"Do you recall what happened?" Saint-Loup asked.

"I'm not sure." His voice was weak, scarcely recognisable as his own.

"You were near death from wound-fever. And, perhaps in delirium, you had a bad fall, from the tower."

"I remember that…" Or had it merely been one of those dreams of falling, falling endlessly through space, to be jolted awake on landing?

"Anything else?"

His mind was a jumble of images and impressions, clouded by the bouts of delirium: the gypsy girl – Quasimodo – his brother – the gallows in the Grève – the hag in the Trou-aux-Rats… All a bad dream. He knew he had been given the Viaticum.

"The Body… I have received the Body… and the unction." That mattered, at least: his sins were absolved, and his soul was at peace for the present.

"So all you need to do now is rest, and regain your strength. It will take time. Mother Sibylle has written to the bishop, so there's no cause for you to fret about your duties."

He had been negligent lately, he knew: so much else on his mind, illness… Oh, he would think about it later, the next time his brother came begging for money…

"That's good. And Jehan?"

"You don't need to worry about him now, dear," said Mother Sibylle. He was too drowsy to notice the catch in her voice.

"Quasimodo…?"

"The other clergy are taking care of him. I hear the king's men are pleased with him."

He smiled faintly and closed his eyes, the lashes dark crescents against his ashen skin. "Good, too…"

"He's drifting off again," the vowess observed.

"He'll sleep himself better," Saint-Loup said.

"Children do that. Poor boy!" She led the surgeon to the bedroom door, and showed him out. "It's just strange that sometimes in his sleep he calls out for some dancer – la Esméralda."

"That's the gypsy they were going to hang for wounding the Captain of Archers, isn't it?"

"Yes."

"What happened there?"

"She was released in the end. It was some sort of misunderstanding." She deliberately omitted to mention that the girl was living downstairs, with her mother and husband.

"I wonder."

"What do you mean?"

"Perhaps it was just a fight: the two men fighting over her, wounding each other. He'd hardly be the first priest to – Well, it's a thought, isn't it?"

Sibylle's eyes widened. The Archdeacon of Josas brawling with an officer over some gypsy dancer? The very idea! Still, it would explain his mangled chest.

They reached the foot of the stairs.

"Whatever the cause, he's making good progress, but it'll take months for him to get strong," Rogier de Saint-Loup said. "I'd say it was most providential that he fell: otherwise…"

"Otherwise the poison from the knife-wounds would have killed him?"

"Indeed. When first I saw him, I thought he wouldn't last the day, let alone the night. But he's a fighter: quite remarkable will-power."

"He certainly has great courage, poor lad! But still… to be calling for Esméralda, of all people…"

As chance would have it, the girl herself was passing the doorway at that very moment. From what she overheard – a fall, old knife-wounds, a brave young man calling her name – she could draw only one conclusion: the gentleman upstairs was Captain Phœbus de Châteaupers. After he had ridden off from the Grève, he must have fallen from his horse and re-opened his wounds. Oh, what a chance this was!

"Pierre! Pierre!" She skipped into the yard, where he had taken charge of Djali's lessons, under the fascinated gaze of Pâquette.

"What is it? Good news!"

"Yes! The best! I know who the gentleman upstairs is! I heard the surgeon and Mother Sibylle talking about him!"

He gave a start. "And… you're happy about him being here? Under the same roof as us?"

"Of course! It couldn't be better! And she said he'd been calling my name!"

"Are you sure?"

"Yes! Isn't it wonderful?" She gave one of those excessively broad grins that he found among her less appealing mannerisms. "Despite what happened in the Grève, this proves he truly loves me!"

"Well, if it means he's going to live…"

"Just think: if I nurse him back to health, he'll know for certain how much I truly love him!"

This was a change of heart beyond Pierre's wildest imaginings. He and Djali looked at each other in astonishment.

"Pasque-Dieu! The fickleness of women! The fidelity of goats!"

Esméralda grabbed him by the hand and dragged him after her. "Please, please, please, will you come with me to see him? I fear I'll faint otherwise!"

If anyone was likely to faint, it was himself, he thought. "Are you sure this is wise? I very much doubt he's strong enough to receive visitors –"

"But Mother Sibylle said he was calling for me! Of course I must go to him!"

Pâquette shook her head, and continued re-attaching cassock buttons. "Something about that young officer of hers, I'm sure! Making a fool of herself… I sometimes think we're the only people here with any sense!" she said to Djali.

"Meh!" the goat bleated in agreement, and settled at her feet, like a lion or a hound on a monument.

"Now, be a good girl, and don't moult on my sewing! White goat and black wool are a very bad combination! And no eating buttons!"

Esméralda ran up the narrow stone stairs, Pierre following anxiously behind.

"Do you not think he'll have the most dreadful shock if you –?"

"What? No! He's been calling for me! Mother Sibylle told the surgeon! I heard her with my own ears!"

"Keep your voice down! It's a sick-room we're going into, not a tavern!"

"I know! My poor love…!"

She knocked lightly on the door, and then – without waiting for a response – flung it open. A wounded man lay asleep in the bed, the covers turned down to his waist, with two of the sisters watching over him.

"Phœbus!" she exclaimed tenderly, darting to his bedside.

The patient stirred, but did not waken.

Pierre groaned, covering his eyes with his hand: this was too much to bear. He pitied them both: the girl and the priest.

"Phœbus?"

But it was not Captain Phœbus. Indeed, at first, Esméralda did not know him at all. The adage that clothes make the man is especially true of priests: she had looked on the archdeacon not so much as a human being as some sort of malevolent animated cassock with a frowning mouth, burning eyes, and not much hair. This man was bare-chested, save for ointments and compresses, between which his flesh was bruised black and purple. Although illness had sharpened and hollowed his features, he was still young, and in health probably rather striking. He had several days' growth of dark, somewhat grizzled beard. Then she noticed his hair, or rather, his lack of it: receding from the forehead into a now slightly stubbly clerical tonsure, a few white-ish wisps framed his face on the pillows. She looked at him again, picturing him clean-shaven. She imagined him dressed in black.

She staggered back against Pierre, turned and buried her face in his doublet.

Sister Isabeau scowled, and raised a finger to her lips. Her voice was a harsh whisper: "What's the meaning of this? He's asleep! The surgeon's visits always tire him out!"

Pierre gulped, his arms around Esméralda. "Dom Claude was my tutor. My second father, almost. We both know him well," he said.

Her expression and voice became more gentle. "I see…! That would explain – Oh, I'm so sorry!"

"Well," said Sister Catherine softly, "I suggest you come up again when he's awake. He's still very weak, poor boy: we almost lost him."

"Yes – I'm sure some familiar company will do him good when he's a little stronger," Isabeau agreed. "We'll let you know!"

And she ushered them out of the room.

To be continued: A dilemma