Chapter 60
LX
My strange calm persisted as we rode into the chateau courtyard. I was not unduly ru?ed as they dragged me from my horse. I made no protest even when they stripped off my outer clothing, with a few gratuitous fondles.
I had done this all before, you see.
It’s ended this way many, many times. Too often, my best efforts to help people with their troubles earn me only their suspicion.
Friends, colleagues and benefactors—and yes, lovers—find they are suddenly not quite so comfortable with a warlock by their side once the terms of a Contract have been met.
A witch trial is a wonderful way for them to absolve themselves of any Arcane dealings—and to avoid disbursing any rewards I am owed at the same time.
Bound, beaten, neutralized, betrayed and put on trial by Michael and the Almighty, said Sarmodel. You know, I have been wondering how this could possibly be worse, but I am at a loss.
Thank you, Sarmodel. That’s enough.
Do you remember, back in Corvano, when I recommended we feed the boy to the succubus? I’m sure you do. This is exactly the situation I was trying to avoid.
It’s a witch trial. As you said, we’ve done it before.
Of course, the prospect was a little daunting, as always. But it was not a surprise. I found I was even grateful for the speedy turnaround; generally, I would languish in a cell for days before the proceedings began.
Not this time.
Antoine spoke to me again before it began.
The guards left me in only my undershirt and breeches, without benefit of even my belt or boots. My hair had come loose and I must have looked quite the scarecrow. He stood over me, looking at me with genuine pity in my shameful state.
“This is the only way,” he said, his fist wrapped around the pectoral cross. “If you wish to help Jacques, then do not resist—the bishop has promised me you will not be harmed.”
“Do you really believe that?”
“I do. I have confessed and given him stewardship of my soul. My heart is glad for it. I suggest you do the same.”
He nodded for the soldiers to take me inside. He looked not at all like a man with a glad heart.
The sumptuous parlor of Chateau d’Ocerne had been transformed into a makeshift ecclesiastical court. A lectern and a brazier stood before the grand western windows, flanked by Fontaine’s soldiers.
To my surprise, I was not the only prisoner at the trial.
Lorette was there too, kneeling on the marble floor. Her wrists were bound in front of her, bloody from the coarse ropes they had used to tie her. Her face was bruised, the left eye swollen and streaming. She looked at me with barely controlled fear as the guards dragged me across the floor.
Our “witness.” The bishop is in an inquisitorial mood, it seems, I said.
A single row of seats had been arranged to the left, providing a gallery for the o?cial witnesses to the proceedings: the bailiff, Père Arnaud and a few of the local noblemen.
To the right was the seat of the Baron d’Ocerne, with his wife and son on either side of him. Antoine made the required genuflections and took his place, the Archangel’s wings resting like a feathered mantle on his shoulders.
Jacques was on his feet the second I arrived.
“Professor! This is not my doing, I swear it!” The boy looked as though he were ready to set himself on fire, clammy with sweat and fidgeting like a schoolboy. “They . . . they said they would hurt her if I tried to reach you!”
He pointed to Lorette and I suddenly understood.
Oh no. Jacques, how could you be so careless?
The guards had deprived the girl of her pinafore and she was dressed only in her rough chemise.
Without her voluminous skirts, Lorette’s condition was very much apparent.
She held her hands protectively in front of her belly, but there was no disguising it.
Jacques stared at her wild-eyed, but she would not meet his gaze; this was clearly the first he knew of the matter, too.
“Sit down, Jacques!” said Antoine. “None need be harmed, you will see.”
She is carrying the young lord’s child. You know what that means, said Sarmodel.
I do.
We were all in for an eventful evening.
Almost everyone’s here, I said. They’ll be starting soon. If you’ve got any advice, now is the time.
Oh, now is the time? Not twenty years ago, when you had the chance to prevent all this?
Never mind, then.
Do you have a plan?
I chewed my lip. I wish Livia were here.
I’m going to pretend you didn’t say that.
When Bishop Fontaine finally arrived, he was announced not by the usual fanfare, but by the clunking of armored boots across the floor. The soldiers moved into position around the room, guarding the various entrances to the chamber.
Then came Fontaine himself, no longer in his choir dress but rather in his silken bishop’s vestments.
A number of the chateau’s attendants followed him, carrying various goods which they placed on the floor before the lectern.
I recognized my confiscated belongings, including my physician’s valise, my weapons, my flask of Armagnac and the pouches of herbs Cecile had given me.
The leather bag containing my money was absent from the pile. It was only a small portion of the sum I had locked away in my trunk, but it still rankled.
Sarmodel, they took my money. I haven’t even been convicted yet!
We’ll take it from their corpses, don’t worry. Just get your hands on that brandy and I’ll show them a real unholy misdeed.
That . . . may be our only option.
I eyed the silver flask, only a few paces away at the bishop’s feet. It was, as always, a last resort, but I could think of no other way to overcome the Choking Braid. My odds of reaching it were slim, but the alternatives were all very unpleasant.
“Children of God!” said Fontaine, raising his gold-tipped crosier above the lectern.
His beautiful voice filled the dim parlor like song; the volume was entirely excessive for such a small gathering.
“You are the true flock, come to witness the most miserable of tragedies and the grandest of triumphs: the scourging of a soul, and its return to the light of righteousness. We begin with the words taught to us by our Holy Father . . .”
The trial commenced—as ever—with a lot of bastardized Latin.1 The prayers lasted almost half an hour. Edicts and holy proclamations took us well past bedtime. Finally, the bishop got around to the case against me. The bailiff picked up his quill with a glad sigh.
“. . . Professor Sebastian Grave of Larnaca, brought here to answer charges of witchcraft and sorcery; for the a?iction of these lands with the creature known as the Beast; and for the murder of Mademoiselle Cecile Desmarais.”
Oh—really? Cecile?
Lorette simply closed her eyes in quiet fury. Her fists clenched within the binding manacles. What else had they made her confess?
The bailiff’s quill scratched frantically at the ledger, trying to keep up with the bishop’s litany of sins.
“. . . and Mademoiselle Lorette Desmarais, come as a witness to the murder of her mother, and to confess her own crimes of witchcraft, abortion and infanticide.”
There were cries of shock from the gathered o?cials.
Lorette’s head snapped up suddenly, her lips pulling back in a sneer. “Oh, yes, my lords—weep and curse! As though not one of you had ever sent a maidservant to the sage-femme with money for pennyroyal tea!”
“You will be silent until you are asked to speak,” said the bishop, his voice somehow still rich with compassion. The guard standing above Lorette swatted her much-abused face with the back of his hand. She grunted and collapsed to the floor.
“Monseigneur!” protested Jacques, rising to his feet. “No more! This is disgraceful—Lorette, I am sorry!” Jacques interjected again. The young man gripped Antoine’s shoulder. “Father! You said she would not be harmed! Will you allow this under your roof?”
“Sit down, Jacques,” said Antoine softly. “Please be calm. She must be here and this must be done, you will see. It will be over soon.”
“Have faith, young sir,” said the bishop sternly. “This is what it means to be lord.”
Jacques sat down reluctantly, flushed with rage and wet with sweat. The Mende soldier placed the toe of his boot on Lorette’s neck and drew his rapier, pressing it into the soft hollow beneath her chin.
“Speak again, witch, and I’ll make you a new mouth,” said the guard. Lorette began to cry, but she said nothing more. She met my gaze and I shook my head very slightly; best she ended her valiant protest there. Jacques would not be able to save her if she tested the bishop’s patience again.
“Is it an accident, then, that the people of Gévaudan are again being taken by some hellish monster, and again we find this ‘professor’ here?” Bishop Fontaine went on.
“No. See the face of a man unnaturally immune to age. See the evidence of his own arcana, which lay bare the nature of his unholy work.” He motioned to the pile of goods on the floor.
I tried not to look too obviously at the glinting silver flask of brandy.
Père Arnaud splashed my possessions2 with holy water and moaned tunefully over them. The bailiff’s scribbling only intensified.
“And finally, the testimony of a witness. The young woman before us has sworn under the sight of our Lord that she saw Professor Grave call forth the Beast from a whirlwind, and thence commanded it to kill the midwife of Saint-Julien,” the bishop continued.
There was more murmuring from the o?cials and quiet sobbing from Lorette.
“Further, the witness has confessed that she, her mother and the accused dealt with the Beast on numerous occasions, calling it by the names of the Devil—Lucifer, Satan and Beelzebub—and that she carries his very child in her womb,” said Fontaine.
By the Rift—Lucifer? Again?! fumed Sarmodel. Sebastian, I give up! Are we never to get any of the credit for anything?
We are being framed, Sarmodel. Are the names important?
“. . . offering it the blood of their neighbors in exchange for their sorcerous powers.”
I shrugged. It was as likely a version of events as any other; the truth was no less outrageous.
“What have you to say in your defense, Sebastian Grave of Larnaca? Know that even one of these crimes warrants a sentence of death. In the face of this evidence, will you offer your confession?” asked Fontaine, hefting the gold-tipped crosier in my direction.
From every side, they stared back—guards, nobles and clergy.
The only ones not looking at me were Antoine and Jacques, who were in that moment uncanny in their resemblance, with their eyes downcast and jaws clenched.
The Choking Braid was cold around my wrists, and the brandy flask was tantalizingly close.
“I will, Monseigneur.”
It was time.
Immediately, the Archangel’s wings flexed high over Antoine’s shoulders. Michael had been waiting for me to say those words for over a thousand years.
Sarmodel stirred in my mind, suddenly distracted. There was a faint sound from outside, like voices raised in greeting.
Are we ready? I asked.
We’ll have to be, he answered.
“Come! Speak, and be received by the Lord! Will you now confess?” pressed the bishop. Michael’s radiance began to grow, suffusing me with a reassuring warmth.
“Very well, Your Excellency. My crimes are many, but I wish to say only one thing,” I said. I raised my voice so they could all hear me.
“Listen carefully: Everyone in this room is about to die. Your only chance to survive is to release me and do exactly as I say—and quickly.”
1. The bishop was, unsurprisingly, a staunch traditionalist. His chosen liturgy for the trial was a particularly laborious order of proceedings that I hadn’t seen since the 1600s.
2. It is not lost on me that there was actually nothing explicitly Arcane in the “arcana” the soldiers of Mende had gathered.
My sword was (to Mundane eyes) quite ornate but otherwise unremarkable.
My valise contained very ordinary medical tools, and the herbs were available in every village in the realm.
My true Arcane supplies—which would have been far more damning—were still sitting in my locked trunk in the guest room upstairs.