Chapter 36
élisabeth stared at her sister slumped against the doorframe.
She recognized the scene. In her memory, the doorframe was wider, the woman older.
Her clogs had come off, and she could see the dirt ground into the bottom of her feet.
Beyond her, a boy running down the lane, coming back with the neighbour’s wife, scattering the chickens in the yard.
But they were too late. The first baby was stuck, and the other’s passage was blocked.
The neighbour knelt down and put her hand over the woman’s eyes.
Your mother tried her best, she had said, she just couldn’t birth them both.
She couldn’t birth them both.
Marthe’s head lay on her knees. Her eyes were drifting into the distance, looking for the path to Heaven.
Just like Maman.
Barbe Poulin tutted. “Don’t be sharp with me, Lili. Marthe’s child is coming. Five or six weeks too soon, by my count, and she’s far too large for it to be Verger’s child. If I say she’s a common hedge-whore, it’s because she is!”
élisabeth could not restrain herself. She lunged forward—a demon with wings—and slapped Barbe Poulin’s face. The widow stumbled backwards.
“She’s carrying twins! That is why she is so large.”
“Do you think me stupid?” The widow’s hand flew to her cheek.
“If Marthe were carrying more than one child, the coin I put under her pillow would have turned black.” The widow swivelled to find a willing ear.
“Verger, cast your wife into the street! You’ll be landed with another man’s bastard if you do not. ”
“Verger, do not listen to her. Our mother died birthing twins. Marthe is large because she is carrying two babies. Do not drink that old serpent’s poison.”
The widow Poulin’s face twisted with fury. She drew her hand back as if to hit élisabeth but then changed her mind and turned to land the blow on Marthe. Before she could strike, Verger grabbed her hand and held it firmly.
“It’s past time for you to leave,” he said evenly. “Get out of this house.”
He released her and she staggered backwards. Verger dropped to his knees. “Marthe? Chérie, do not despair, by God and Saint Anne, I swear you will come through your ordeal.”
Marthe did not raise her head from her knees. “Lili is right. This is how Maman died.”
Verger turned to élisabeth. “What can we do?”
“We need a midwife. Marthe cannot do this alone.” élisabeth took a deep breath. “We need Jeanne Roy.”
“That witch is halfway to Hell,” the widow sneered from the corner of the room.
élisabeth bared her fangs in Barbe Poulin’s direction and the widow shrank. “Verger, lock Poulin in the outhouse so she cannot thwart us. I will run and see if I can get into the fort to speak with Jeanne.” élisabeth crouched down and took Marthe’s hand in hers. “Can you hold on?”
Her sister’s face was flushed and her jaw clenched. élisabeth took the grimace as a sign of determination and leapt up. She grabbed a loaf from the counter and checked her cloth satchel. The ragdoll’s unravelling eyes stared at her from within. She had all she needed to free Jeanne.
She burst out of the house and ran across the little bridge towards the fort.
The bells had stopped ringing; Father de Sancy and the executioner must have finished their grim task.
At the gate stood a thin man, not much older than a boy, in a stained doublet.
élisabeth recognized the executioner’s teenage son. She waved the bread in his face.
“Let me pass,” élisabeth said. “I’ve come with the prisoner’s food.”
The boy stood back. “She’s in here,” he said, gesturing to a building next to them. élisabeth stepped past him and opened the door. The room was dark, the air thick with the smell of blood. A few shards of light spilled through the cracks in the log walls to reveal a figure on the dirt floor.
“Jeanne?”
élisabeth blinked, trying to adjust to the dim light. Jeanne was lying on her side, her hair matted around her face. Her chemise was filthy and torn. élisabeth recoiled when she saw the back was shredded and covered in dried blood, the lash of the whip having ripped right through the linen.
“I brought you some bread,” she said feebly, crouching down and putting the loaf on the ground.
Jeanne Roy’s head was twisted at an awkward angle, her legs splayed out as if she had been dumped and did not have the strength to move. élisabeth could see her ankles were bruised and swollen. She squatted next to Jeanne.
“I am sorry,” she whispered. There was no reply. She glanced over her shoulder for a sign of the young jailor. But they were alone, the door shut behind her. “Does it… does it hurt?”
She cringed at her own question, but she could not think what to say. She felt sick, both at what had been done to Jeanne, and knowing she was to blame.
“Jeanne, listen. I am going to undo what I did. I will make it right. We can petition the king. We can explain that all the women on this island need you as their midwife. And that I was stupid… and a liar…”
Still Jeanne Roy’s eyes remained closed and élisabeth felt the hope drain from her. Jeanne was barely alive. They needed magic now more than ever.
“Look,” élisabeth opened her bag. “I brought you your doll. It will be able to help you—”
Jeanne Roy’s eyes flew open. “What have you done?” she croaked. She reached a bloodied hand out for the doll. “You risk everything by bringing it here.”
“I thought…” élisabeth did not want to admit that she hoped the doll was a magical creature that could somehow save her. She knew Jeanne would mock her for her faith in witchcraft. Instead she swallowed and spoke in a small voice. “I thought it would bring you comfort.”
The witch struggled to sit up. “This doll is not for my comfort. It is not a toy.” She grabbed it by its neck and brandished it at élisabeth. “This is the sum of my life’s work.”
élisabeth felt her cheeks burn. Once again, her ignorance had made her a fool. “I am sorry.”
The witch closed her eyes and tried to take a deep breath. She winced at the effort. “You were not to know its value.”
Silence enveloped them and élisabeth groped for something to say.
“I’m sorry for all that I have done,” she repeated. She could not think how to mend her mistake except by uttering the words, yet like a spell without magic it seemed to have no effect. Jeanne was already in her grave; she would not be able to save Marthe now.
“Do you see my boots?” Jeanne asked.
élisabeth looked in the direction Jeanne pointed. There were two wooden boxes cast aside by the bench. She shook her head, not understanding her meaning.
“Brodequins,” Jeanne explained. “Made especially for me, or so he says. Do you know what I think of when he ties them to my ankles and strikes them with the hammer?”
élisabeth shook her head again.
“I think of you.”
The shame rose from élisabeth’s belly to her chest, then her cheeks, turning her flesh the colour of wine. “You must hate me,” she said in a voice she herself could barely hear.
“No. I hate myself.”
élisabeth was startled by the witch’s words. She waited as Jeanne Roy gathered the strength to speak.
“Wari believes that if I had listened with more kindness to your concerns, you would not have accused me. All that I am suffering now is God’s punishment for my arrogance.”
élisabeth reached out a tentative hand. When Jeanne did not recoil, she laid it on her arm. “I admit that I was hurt when you called me ignorant. But I… I did not listen when you offered me a cure.”
Jeanne looked down at élisabeth’s hand. Perhaps it caused her pain. Outside she heard the young jailor greet a passerby.
“I should not have called you ignorant,” Jeanne whispered. “I am sorry too.”
élisabeth swallowed. The apology was a salve to her soul. She drew her hand back and smiled shyly at Jeanne.
“Wari told me a little about your past. She said your tutor accused you on the pretence of stealing his knowledge.” She paused, remembering what Wari had said. As if knowledge is something that can be owned by one man alone. “I am sorry you were so wronged.”
“But I did steal his knowledge. That is what made him so angry.”
élisabeth sat upright. “You did?”
Jeanne Roy grimaced, then flinched, as if the movement caused her pain. She touched her fingers to her broken lip. “Yes, I stole Chamberlen’s Secret. I will tell you the tale. I should have told everyone about it, the moment it was in my hands. The great tragedy is that it is a secret at all.”
élisabeth caught her breath. She felt as if she were back at the Roche d’Oetre, teetering on the edge of the cliff, the whole world at her feet. She waited for the witch to speak.
“Francois Mauriceau, my tutor, was not cruel. Not in the least. Indeed, we were… fond of each other.” Jeanne’s voice grew soft and wistful.
“A friendship developed. Some days we would step away from our work and walk together from the H?tel Dieu to Notre-Dame in the middle of the day just to take in its glory.” A bug crawled up élisabeth’s leg from the dirt floor, but she did not move lest she interrupt Jeanne’s tale.
“Paris is the heartbeat that gives life to all of France. It is as intoxicating as you can imagine: the cathedral, the hospital, the bridges, the fishermen along the river, the markets every day of the week. But what Mauriceau and I loved most were books. I read all day and every night until my candles burned to stubs: Galen, Hippocrates, Vesalius’s Fabrica, Galileo’s Two New Sciences, Paracelsus—dear Paracelsus, like a watchful parent urging me to put my books aside and turn to nature for wisdom.
I read it all and more; anything to do with medicine, chymistry, astronomy, mathematics, I devoured.
Then I would discuss all that I had learned with Mauriceau. ”
Her words wove an enchantment around them. élisabeth did not know what all of them meant, but she could see in her eyes the glamour the witch used to transport herself from the dimly lit prison back to a city on the other side of the sea.
“Two years ago, during my association with Mauriceau, he had a visitor from England. A man called Chamberlen wanted to share with him a secret—one his family had hidden for many years. Chamberlen feared the knowledge of it would see him executed, and he came to ask for Mauriceau’s counsel.
We were both intrigued and excited by what the Englishman showed us, but Mauriceau wanted time to consider what should be done with it.
I was incensed. What Chamberlen had in his possession was so…
” Jeanne hesitated and glanced at élisabeth. “You would call it magical, I believe.
“I knew it could not be kept hidden—it had to be shared with the world. So, against my nature, I took it. I did not think twice. I stole it and fled back to my estate in Normandy with it. That was what drove Mauriceau mad. That I had the Secret, and its exceptional power, and he did not.”
élisabeth could not contain herself. “But Jeanne, what is Chamberlen’s Secret? If it is magical, can we use it to free you from—”
Sudden light spilled into the shadowy room, startling them both. élisabeth jumped up as the jailor’s thin frame appeared in the doorway. Behind him stood another figure.
Father de Sancy.
“What is this woman doing here? Villagers are only permitted to bring the food, not to stay and dine.”
élisabeth’s heart began to pound so loudly she could not hear the jailor’s mumbled reply. She drew a deep breath and turned to face the priest.
“Father, I have come to recant my accusation,” she said, as firmly as her quaking body would allow. “My neighbour Dufossé died because he was drunk. His wife told me he drank a bottle of brandy the night he froze to death. This woman is not a witch, she is innocent.”
The old priest raised his eyebrows and looked her up and down. Behind her she could hear Jeanne Roy struggling to sit up.
“You are the girl with all the questions.”
“Yes, Father. I’m élisabeth Jossard. I was jealous of this woman and sought to do her harm. I am a busybody and a gossip.”
The priest gave her a piteous look. “I was never in any doubt that whoever accused this witch possessed a backbiting tongue. It’s a wonder women’s tongues aren’t forked like the Devil’s own, so much do they spread scandal.”
élisabeth dug her feet into the ground. She would not back down. “I swear to you, she is innocent.”
The priest waved her away. “You may have led me to this lady, but she is not here on your accusation alone. She has already confessed to being Angélique Aubert de Brétigny, whom I know to be the queen of the most powerful coven of witches France has ever known. She slipped away once before, but there will be no reprieve for her this time.”
The priest’s eyes drifted to the floor. “What is this?” He bent down and reached a liver-spotted hand towards the ragdoll.
“No,” Jeanne Roy said, clutching it to her chest.
“Boy, bring me the creature the witch is holding.”
The young jailor hesitated until the priest snapped his finger.
Then he stomped two paces towards Jeanne and gave her a hard kick in the hip before darting backwards.
She writhed in pain but did not drop the doll.
The boy bent down and pulled it roughly from her grasp, scampering over to hand it to Father de Sancy.
The priest received it as carefully as if it were a golden chalice.
“Heavy,” he noted, weighing it up and down. “Is this some kind of familiar? Or a replica of a child you meant to torment?” Father de Sancy turned the doll over in his hands several times, looking from Jeanne Roy to élisabeth for an answer before tucking it under his arm.
“I wish I had more time to question you, Lady Angélique. For someone of such high rank to have been seduced by the Devil is a rarity. I long to know more about you. It would be wondrous material for my treatise on maleficia…” The priest seemed lost in his thoughts, then he sighed.
“Still. This doll will give me something to study long after you’ve been burned to ash. ”
The priest turned and pushed his way out of the makeshift prison.
The jailor gripped élisabeth firmly by the arm and marched her out of the barracks and through the fort’s gate, pushing her onto the path outside.
élisabeth stumbled into the mud but did not let herself fall.
She righted herself and stared back at the fort.
She had no idea what to do next. There was no time to get a petition to the intendant. Marthe was already in labour. Even if the doll could somehow free Jeanne, she had let it slip into Father de Sancy’s possession.
She clasped her hands together and prayed to all of the angels—and all of the demons—to help her.