The Season of the Beast. Andrea Japp

      

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      THE SEASON OF

       THE BEAST

      ANDREA H. JAPP

      Translated by Lorenza Garcia

      GALLIC BOOKS

       LONDON

      Mr Feng,

       Tender and serious little soul,

       Friendly wind,

       This tale from far ago is for you.

      Contents

      1 Title Page

      2 Dedication

      3  AUTHOR’ S NOTE

      4  Manoir de Souarcy-en-Perche, Winter 1294

      5  Manoir de Souarcy-en-Perche, May 1304

      6  Clairets Forest, May 1304

      7  Manoir de Souarcy-en-Perche, May 1304

      8  Baron de Larnay’s mining works, Perche, May 1304

      9  Cyprus, May 1304

      10  Chartres, May 1304

      11  Clairets Abbey, Perche, May 1304

      12  Clairets Abbey, Perche, nightfall, May 1304

      13  Porte Bucy, Paris, June 1304

      14  Clairets Abbey, Perche, June 1304

      15  Vatican Palace, Rome, June 1304

      16  Clairets Forest, Perche, June 1304

      17  Chapel, Manoir de Souarcy-en-Perche, June 1304

      18  Carcassonne,* June 1304

      19  Clairets Forest and the Manoir de Souarcy-en-Perche, June 1304

      20  Manoir de Souarcy-en-Perche, June 1304

      21  Béthonvilliers Forest, near Authon-du-Perche, June 1304

      22  Manoir de Souarcy-en-Perche, June 1304

      23  Rue de Bucy, Paris, July 1304

      24  Environs of the Templar commandery at Arville, Perche, July 1304

      25  Vatican Palace, Rome, July 1304

      26  Louvre Palace, Paris, Guillaume de Nogaret’s chambers, July 1304

      27  Château de Larnay, Perche, July 1304

      28  Manoir de Souarcy-en-Perche, July 1304

      29  Vatican Palace, Rome, July 1304

      30  Manoir de Souarcy-en-Perche, July 1304

      31  Taverne de la Jument-Rouge, Alençon, Perche, July 1304

      32  Manoir de Souarcy-en-Perche, July 1304

      33  Clairets Abbey, Perche, July 1304

      34  Louvre Palace, Paris, July 1304

      35  Inquisition headquarters, Alençon, Perche, July 1304

      36  Château d’Authon-du-Perche, July 1304

      37  Clairets Abbey, Perche, July 1304

      38  Manoir de Souarcy-en-Perche, July 1304

      39  Château d’Authon-du-Perche, August 1304

      40  Headquarters of the Inquisition, Alençon, Perche, August 1304

      41  Louvre Palace, Paris, August 1304

      42  Clairets Abbey, Perche, August 1304

      43  Hôtel d’Estouville, Rue de la Harpe, Paris, August 1304

      44  Clairets Abbey, Perche, September 1304

      45  Manoir de Souarcy-en-Perche, September 1304

      46  APPENDIX I HISTORICAL REFERENCES

      47  APPENDIX II GLOSSARY

      48  APPENDIX III NOTES

      49  About the Author

      50  Copyright

       AUTHOR’ S NOTE

      Words marked with an asterisk are explained in the Historical References and Glossary starting on page 334.

       Manoir de Souarcy-en-Perche, Winter 1294

      AGNÈS de Souarcy stood before the hearth in her chamber calmly contemplating the last dying embers. During the past weeks both man and beast had been beset by a deadly cold that seemed intent on putting an end to all living things. So many had already succumbed that there was barely enough wood to make coffins, and those left alive preferred to use what little there was to warm themselves. The people shivered with cold, their insides ravaged by straw-alcohol, their hunger only briefly kept at bay with pellets of suet and sawdust or the last slices of famine bread made from straw, clay, bark or acorn flour. They crowded into the rooms they shared with the animals, lying down beside them and curling up beneath their thick, steamy breath.

      Agnès had given her serfs permission to hunt on her land for seventeen days, or until the next new moon, on condition they distribute half the game they killed among the rest of the community, beginning with widows, expectant mothers, the young and the elderly. A quarter of what remained would go to her and the members of her household and the rest to the hunter and his family. Two men had already flouted Agnès de Souarcy’s orders, and at her behest the bailiffs had given them a public beating in the village square. Everybody had praised the lady’s leniency, but some expressed private disapproval; surely the perpetrators of such a heinous crime deserved execution or the excision of hands or noses – the customary sentences for poaching. Game was their last chance of survival.

      Souarcy-en-Perche had buried a third of its peasants in a communal grave, hastily dug at a distance from the hamlet for fear that an epidemic of cholera might infect those wraiths still walking. They had been sprinkled with quicklime like animal carcasses or plague victims.

      In the icy chapel next to the manor house the survivors prayed day and night for an improbable miracle, blaming their ill luck on the recent death of their master, Hugues, Seigneur de Souarcy, who had been gored by an injured stag the previous autumn, leaving Agnès widowed, and no male offspring to inherit his title and estate.

      They had prayed to heaven until one evening a woman collapsed, knocking over the altar she had been clinging to, and taking with her the ornamental hanging. Dead. Finished off by hunger, fever and cold. Since that day the chapel had remained empty.

      Agnès studied the cinders in the grate. The charred wood was coated in places with a silvery film. That was all, no red glow that would have enabled her to postpone any longer the ultimatum she had given herself that morning. It was the last of the wood, the last night. She sighed impatiently at the self-pity she felt. Agnès de Souarcy had turned sixteen three days before, on Christmas Day.

      It was strange how afraid she had been to visit the mad old crone; so much so that she had all but slapped her lady’s maid, Sybille, in an attempt to oblige the girl to go with her. The hovel that served as a lair for this evil spirit reeked of rancid mutton fat. Agnès had reeled at the stench of filth and perspiration emanating from the soothsayer’s rags as she approached to snatch the basket of meagre offerings: a loaf