The Breath of the Rose. Andrea Japp

trust I have not interrupted you in mid-experiment, revered doctor.’

      ‘No, indeed. We had just finished a demonstration.’

      ‘My Lord Artus has asked to see young Clément.’

      ‘Well, run along, my boy. The Comte wishes to see you. You mustn’t keep him waiting.’

      ‘Thank you, master.’

      ‘Come straight back whenever it pleases His Lordship. We have not finished for today.’

      ‘Very good, master.’

      The Comte was working in his beloved rotunda. When Clément came in, he looked up from his ledgers and nodded gratefully to Ronan.

      ‘Zounds! What a thankless task is that of a paymaster. It puts me in a most foul mood,’ he muttered. ‘And yet I should be overjoyed and grateful that we have avoided disaster. The harvests were good and the calving season more encouraging than last year.’

      As he finished writing a sentence, Clément could not help noticing the elegance of his cursive script.5 It was then that he recalled the bold handwriting in the notebook – the rotunda lettering reserved for scientific, legal or theological treatises; in brief, for scholarly works in Latin. If, as he had always suspected, it was the knight Rioux’s script, could this mean he had been a theologian in the Hospitaller order? And if he had been, how would that knowledge further Clément in his investigation? He did not know, but he felt instinctively that it was important.

      The Comte replaced his quill in the beautiful silver inkwell shaped like a ship’s hull that was sitting in front of him. His face, already pensive, became tense, and the child was filled with apprehension. Why this hesitation? What news was he holding back? The Comte spoke in a faltering voice which he tried unsuccessfully to control:

      ‘Madame de Souarcy has arrived at the Inquisition headquarters at Alençon where she is being held in murus strictus.’

      Clément leaned against a bookshelf, trying to catch his breath. His whole body seemed to tremble. A firm hand grasped his tunic just as he felt his legs give way under him. The next thing he knew he was sitting in one of the small armchairs dotted around the circular room.

      ‘Forgive me, my lord,’ he stammered as he regained consciousness.

      ‘No. It is I who should apologise. I fear that keeping the company of men and farmers has left me wanting in manners and consideration. Stay seated,’ he insisted as Clément tried to stand up. ‘You are still young, my boy … And yet you must be aware that some people are obliged to leave behind childish things sooner than others. I must ask you as a matter of urgency to search your memory. You told me how that rascal Eudes de Larnay and his loyal servant plotted to have Agnès arrested by the Inquisition. It would appear that she unwittingly gave refuge to a heretic, a certain …’

      ‘Sybille.’

      ‘Yes.’

      Clément bit his lip before blurting out:

      ‘She was my mother.’

      The Comte looked at him and murmured:

      ‘Now I understand why Madame Agnès was so keen to send you away from her entourage.’

      A curious tenderness welled up in Artus, who for days had been gripped by fear. He had known men, soldiers, who would willingly have denounced a child to the Inquisition in order to spare themselves the threat of a trial. And yet she, a helpless woman, or so she thought, had stood up to them. She must know of the conflict that raged in the minds of certain friars. Torn between their carnal desire and their vow of chastity, they feared or loathed women and their seductive powers, and absolved themselves of the temptation they felt in their presence by holding the devil responsible. However, having met Florin, Artus did not believe he was the sort to be troubled too much by self-denial. Yet, indeed, this loathing of women, this need to exercise a destructive power over them, was itself a form of carnal desire.

      The Comte felt sickened and angry by turns. Ever since he had first seen Agnès dressed in peasant’s breeches calming the bees as she harvested honey, he had dreamed in the early mornings of that long pale neck, of breathing its scent, of brushing its flesh with his still-slumbering lips. He dreamed of her long, fine hands holding the reins gently but firmly, like a true rider. He dreamed of them holding his belly and his loins. The image had become so vivid, so inappropriate, that he would banish it from his thoughts, knowing that it would creep back the moment he lowered his guard.

      ‘In the letter you brought with you, Madame de Souarcy suggested a hidden influence far greater than that of her scheming half-brother.’

      ‘Indeed, my lord. We came to that conclusion. Eudes de Larnay could pay the inquisitor but not guarantee him any influential backing. His power extends no further than his tiny estate and is far less than your own. It stands to reason that someone intervened to reinforce Florin’s position.’

      Artus walked over to one of the windows with their tiny asymmetrical leaded panes, unusual for the time. Hands clasped behind his back, he stood gazing out at the gardens ablaze with the russet browns and ochres of autumn. In the distance, a pair of swans floated on the pond, so perfectly elegant in their watery element and yet so ungainly on land. One day he would walk there with her, holding her arm. He would introduce her to the capricious swans, the proud peacocks and the albino deer who would peer at them shyly with their big brown eyes as they approached. One day he would recite to her: ‘I love to walk among this fragrance and behold the marvel of these flowers,’6 and she would reply, imbuing the words of Monsieur Chrétien de Troyes* with all the strength of her feeling: ‘I was testing your love. Be sad no more, for I love you even more as I know you love me from the very depths of your heart.’7 One day. Soon.

      Defeat Florin. Kill him if necessary.

      He found himself speaking to the child as though he were a man of his own age:

      ‘And yet Florin must be aware of my childhood association and friendship with the King of France. His impudence, his … immunity must come from Rome. Remember, though, that the Pope is dead and we do not know who his successor will be. It comes as no surprise, then, that it is not a pontiff, but somebody who wields great influence in the Vatican. The late Benoît* was a merciful man, a reformer. He might have advocated compassion and clemency in our case. They gave him no time. His reign lasted but eight months … I am convinced that its brevity was intentional. And … I sense that his enemies are also ours.’

      ‘But who?’ Clément asked.

      ‘We will find out, my boy, I promise you. Go now.’

       Templar commandery at Arville, Perche-Gouet, October 1304

      THE Templar commandery at Arville was situated in the middle of what had once been the land of the Carnutes on the pilgrim’s way to Santiago de Compostela, and was one of the first of its kind to be established, thanks to the generous donation of almost two and a half acres of woodland by Geoffroy III, a noble from Mondoubleau. A small band of knights, together with a few equerries and lay brethren8 – mostly shepherds and herdsmen – had settled there from 1130 onwards.

      The commandery served a triple purpose: as a farm estate that provided meat, grain, wood and horses for the crusaders in the Holy Land; as a recruitment centre and training camp for the Templars waiting to leave for the crusades; and finally it re-established the religious life that had vanished from the once-thriving Gallic community formed by the three towns of Arville, Saint-Agil and Oigny after it had been razed by the invading Romans.

      Further donations by the Vicomtes de Châteaudun, the Comtes de Chartres, de Blois, and even the Comtes de Nevers, of woodland and arable land, as well as the right to harvest timber, bake their own bread and trade, had transformed the commandery into one of the richest in the kingdom of France.