strangulation had not taken place. Moreover, what woman was strong enough to strangle a healthy person like Yolande without a struggle that would have woken up the entire dormitory? No. Yolande, like the others, had been poisoned. Several other factors supported Annelette’s theory, one of which was the reddened patch extending up from the base of her neck to just below her nose. No cord or strip of cloth would have left this sort of mark.
Think. Yolande de Fleury hadn’t had the strength to leave her bed or cry for help, suggesting that she was too drowsy to move or perhaps even paralysed. She had almost certainly died of asphyxiation. Either that or heart failure. Was it aconite poisoning as in Adélaïde’s case? Think. When Adèle de Vigneux, the keeper of the granary, had discovered Yolande’s dead body, it was already stone cold, which meant that she had been dead for hours, even taking into account the freezing-cold air in the dormitory. She had lain there with her mouth open, one leg dangling out of the bed, the other tucked under her buttocks, and despite the cold her arms had been outside the covers. Had a sudden attack of fever made her want to cool down? It was possible. And yet it didn’t explain the position of the lower limbs, still less the patch of red rising from the base of her neck right up past her mouth. The stiffness of the limbs was what perplexed Annelette. It couldn’t have been due to rigor mortis, which sets in three to four hours after death, beginning in the small muscles of the neck and spreading throughout the entire body within twelve hours. However, judging from the time Yolande attended the last service, she couldn’t have died much more than four to five hours before she was discovered. And yet her corpse was cold and stiff. Few known poisons could act so swiftly. Annelette racked her brains to no avail. She had a vague recollection – something relating to an animal, she was sure. Still, one thing was certain: the murderess hadn’t taken the poison from her cabinet otherwise she would have recognised the effects.
An animal. Yes. A large animal. Dangerous. What was it! Think. She had read about it once. Why had she with her prodigious memory and ceaselessly active mind mislaid this piece of information?
With an angry gesture she swept aside the castor-oil seeds.
Château d’Authon-du-Perche, December 1304
Artus d’Authon had been in a state of extreme nervous tension for the past two weeks. This man who was known to all as even-tempered – though in particular to the household servants, who were better placed than anybody to know their master – would fly off the handle over the slightest misdemeanour, blowing up out of all proportion things that would normally have made him laugh.
The humble folk attached to the chateau kept a low profile, remaining as quiet and unobtrusive as possible. He had scolded a laundry woman for a crease in an undershirt, and one of the cooks thought his end had come when he overspiced the hippocras. As for the farrier, Artus had accused him of mistreating his beloved Ogier and pushed him roughly against the forge wall simply because the horse had shaken its mane when the man approached.
Everybody was concerned. The older servants remembered with dismay the Comte’s terrifying grief when his son and sole heir, Gauzelin, had died; they had seen murder written in their master’s smouldering brown eyes and in his every gesture. Some even went as far as to speak to Ronan, for whom their master felt a special attachment that was unusual for this undemonstrative man. The old man had known the Comte since he was born, and had virtually brought him up. He alone had dared approach Artus while he was mourning the loss of his son. Now they came to Ronan again to ask if he knew anything, if he could offer some explanation perhaps. Ronan had replied that their master was simply suffering from an attack of spleen and assured them it would pass.
*
Ronan was aware of what was eating away at the Comte, robbing him of the desire to eat, drink, even to sleep: Madame – for this was what he called the woman he knew was no ordinary lady. Ronan had never met her, but he knew of her from young Clément’s devotion and his terror when his mistress was imprisoned, from Artus’s peaks of joy and sadness, from the chief bailiff Monge de Brineux’s flattering remarks, and even from the Comte’s physician Joseph de Bologne’s enquiries about her health.
Ronan knocked on the door of the little rotunda library which the Comte used as a study. A gruff, irritable voice rang out:
‘What is it now? Must I flee to the middle of a desert in order to enjoy some peace around here?’
The faithful servant entered the room, pretending not to have noticed Artus’s foul mood:
‘The cook begs to know your requirements for supper. You have lost weight, my lord. Your breeches, even your chausses are loose on you.’
‘I’m not hungry and I don’t want any supper. The man is beginning to annoy me. And so are you, fussing over me like an old mother hen.’
Ronan lowered his head in silence.
Artus could have kicked himself. What sort of a brainless oaf was he, abusing one of the few people who formed a link in his life, a link to his past, one of the few people he truly loved? He sighed with frustration, and mumbled:
‘I’ve always had a special fondness for mother hens. I find the way they fuss over their own and other hens’ chicks utterly charming. However … I am not in the mood for company.’
Ronan looked up at the man whom he would always consider his ‘little boy’ and responded to Artus’s veiled excuses with a shy smile.
‘My Lord Monge de Brineux doesn’t understand your desire for solitude. Perhaps a talk with your faithful friend might …’
‘Brineux wouldn’t understand,’ thundered the Comte. ‘And, besides, how could I explain to him what I myself am at a loss to comprehend. God’s wounds! When I think that she refused my hospitality, which was entirely justified after her ordeal in that dungeon! It couldn’t possibly have given rise to any gossip.’
Ronan paused, aware that he was treading on dangerous ground, and then, out of love and respect for this steadfast, courageous, yet at times exasperatingly morose man, he ventured:
‘Unlike your hospitality, gossip needn’t be legitimate in order to spread. I expect Madame’s attention was required by various tasks at Manoir de Souarcy. I expect a sudden and open … association with Authon would not seem proper to a lady of her standing and distinction. I expect …’
‘Why do you all insist upon calling her “Madame” as if she were the only one,’ Artus interrupted, at once puzzled and irritated.
‘Isn’t she, my lord?’
‘In whose eyes?’
‘In yours and, as a member of your entourage, in mine.’
‘Why do I still feel like a six-year-old boy sometimes when I’m with you?’
Ronan’s face lit up as he recalled:
‘You were a mischievous, disobedient little rascal. You were already fearless then. Dear Lord, the pranks you got up to! I thought I’d die of fright the day you climbed onto the pigeon loft to see for yourself that the sun rose in the east. You gave us a terrible scare. You flatly refused to come down. And the night you went out into the forest to find the white unicorn in the fairy tale … And that time you nearly drowned yourself trying to stay underwater to see if you would grow gills. God only knows where you got all your ideas, but there was no stopping you. There were times when I thought I’d go out of my mind.’
The Comte’s mood softened a little as he recalled his childhood follies – some of which, indeed, had nearly cost him his life. He continued in a calmer voice:
‘Everybody. You, Clément, the clerk at Alençon … that Knight Hospitaller Francesco de Leone, whom I know only by name, even my physician who asks after “Madame’s” health and sends ointments for her which he makes up himself from a secret recipe.’
Ronan was no fool. His master’s sole concern was the knight. Was he angry with the man for having