The Season of the Beast. Andrea Japp

or guile? Whatever the case, he was wise to keep away from Eudes’s prying eyes.

      ‘I am right behind you, Madame.’

      She turned towards the soft voice, amused and at the same time intrigued. She had not heard him arrive. Clément would come and go, disappearing for days at a time without anyone knowing where he was, only to reappear suddenly as if by magic. She really should order him to stay by her side, for the surrounding forest was an unsafe place, especially for one so young, and indeed Agnès was constantly afraid that someone might come upon him bathing in a pond or a river. On the other hand, Clément was cautious, and his independence inspired Agnès – perhaps because she herself felt spied upon, trapped.

      He followed noiselessly a few steps behind her, flanked by the two guard dogs, and only drew closer when Agnès, confident that they were out of earshot of the inquisitive Mabile, enquired gently:

      ‘Where do your roamings take you?’

      ‘I do not roam, Madame, I watch, I learn.’

      ‘Whom do you watch? What do you learn?’

      ‘You. Many things – thanks to the sisters at Clairets Abbey. And thanks to you,’ he added.

      She looked down at him. His strange blue-green almond-shaped eyes stared back at her gravely, and with a flicker of suspicion. She said in a hushed voice:

      ‘Clairets Abbey is so far from here. Oh, I don’t know whether it was right of me to insist that you attend lessons there. It is almost a league away – too far for a child.’

      ‘Half that if you go through the forest.’

      ‘I don’t like to think of you in that forest.’

      ‘The forest is my friend. It teaches me many things.’

      ‘Clairets Forest is … Well, they say it is sometimes visited by creatures, evil creatures.’

      ‘By fairies and werewolves? Tall stories, Madame.’

      ‘You mean you don’t believe in werewolves?’

      ‘No more than I believe in fairies.’

      ‘And why not?’

      ‘Because if they existed and were so powerful, Madame, at worst they would have already killed or eaten us and at best made our daily lives a hell.’

      He smiled, and for the first time it occurred to Agnès that he only ever allowed himself to express amusement or joy with her. Clément and Mathilde’s relationship was restricted to a good-natured selflessness on his part and an ill-tempered arrogance on hers. It was true that her daughter considered him a sort of privileged servant, and on no account would she have lowered herself by treating him as an equal.

      ‘Upon my word, you have quite convinced me. And I am greatly relieved for I would have hated to come face to face with a werewolf,’ she exclaimed jovially and then, growing serious again, she added in a worried voice, ‘Will you be careful about what we have discussed, Clément? No one must know. Your life, and mine, depends on it.’

      ‘I know that, Madame. I have known it for a long time. You need have no fear.’

      They continued their dialogue in silence.

      The village of Souarcy was built on a small hill. The alleyways leading up to the manor were lined with dwellings that twisted and turned, making it difficult for the hay-carts to manoeuvre without damaging the roofs of the houses. The positioning of the higgledy-piggledy buildings was entirely random, and yet they appeared to be huddled together as though seeking warmth. Souarcy, like a good many other manors, had no right to hold weaponry. At the time it was built, the English threat weighed heavily over the region and defence was the only option – hence its raised position in the middle of a forest. Indeed, the thick outer walls, within which peasants, serfs and craftsmen dwelled, had resisted many an attack with calm impudence.

      Agnès replied with a perfunctory smile to the greetings, bows and curtseys of those she encountered as she made her way up to the manor via the muddy pathways, slippery with yellow clay after the recent rains. She stopped at the dovecote, but did not draw any of her usual pleasure from it. Eudes and his possible machinations were constantly on her mind. Even so, the magnificent birds welcomed her with a torrent of gently excited warbling. She glanced at the large, puffed-up male whose proud strutting always brought a smile to her lips. Not today. She had baptised him Vigil – the Watchful One – because at first light he liked to perch on the ridge beam of the manor house, cooing and watching the day break. He was the only bird who had a name. Yet another gift from her half-brother, who had brought the animal from Normandy the year before to inject new blood into her dovecote. He stretched out his muscular dark-pink neck, flecked with mauve, and she favoured him with a brief caress before leaving.

      It was only after she had returned to the great hall at the manor that she realised Clément had cleverly avoided answering her question. It was too late now. The boy had disappeared again, and she would have to wait to ask him to explain the nature of what was increasingly keeping him away from the manor.

      Eudes, too, was exhausted. He had only slept for an hour between Mabile’s thighs. The strumpet was unstinting when it came to taking her pleasure. Happily – since her engagement in Agnès’s household had yielded precious little else of any interest to her master. Unable to trap the mistress, he had tupped the servant. Scant compensation for the handsome piece of silk and the morsel of sweet salt, which alone had cost a small fortune, but it would have to do for the time being.

      God, how his half-sister detested him! In Agnès’s eyes he was insufferably conceited, boorish and depraved. He had come to realise that she loathed him some years before when she believed herself finally rid of him thanks to her marriage. The passion, the corrupt desire he had conceived for her when she was just eight and he ten had changed into a consuming hatred. He would break her and she would grovel at his feet. She would submit to his incestuous desire – so repugnant to her that sometimes it made the colour drain from her face. He had once hoped to conquer her love and that it would be strong enough to make her commit the unpardonable sin, but this was no longer the case. Now he wanted her to submit, to beg him.

      He took out his vicious ill humour on his page, who had fallen asleep and was threatening to topple forward onto his gelding’s neck.

      ‘Wake up! Why, anyone would think you were a maid! And if indeed you are a maid I know how to make a woman of you.’

      The threat had the desired effect. The young boy sat bolt upright as if he had been whipped.

      Yes, he would break her. Soon. At twenty-five she had lost none of her beauty, although she was no longer a girl. And anyway, she had given birth, and it was well known that pregnancy spoiled a woman’s body, in particular her breasts – and he preferred them pert, as was the fashion at the time, like little rounded apples, their skin pale and translucent. Who was to say that Agnès’s had not been ruined by purple stretch marks? Perhaps even her belly was withered. In contrast, Mathilde was so pretty, so slim and graceful, just like her mother had been at her age. And Mathilde adored her extravagant uncle. In a year’s time she would come of age and be ripe for the taking.

      The thought cheered him no end, and he gave a loud guffaw: two birds with one stone. The worst revenge he could imagine taking on Agnès was called Mathilde. He would caress the daughter and destroy the mother. Of course, she would not leave the way clear for him. Despite his general lack of respect towards the fairer sex, Eudes was forced to acknowledge his half-sister’s intelligence. She would strike him with all her might. A pox on females! All the same, the challenge could be exciting.

      Upon further reflection, this particular stone would kill not two birds but three, since the Larnay mine, which assured his wealth and relative political safety, would soon be exhausted. Certainly, the earth’s depths contained more hidden riches, but to get at them would require deep mining and neither his finances nor the geological conditions were favourable. The clay soil would give way at the first attempt to dig.

      ‘Agnès, my lamb,’ he murmured through his