1304.The Church and the French
Crown are locked in a power struggle. In the Normandy countryside,
monks on a secret mission are brutally murdered and a poisoner is at large at
Clairets Abbey. Young noblewoman Agnès de
Souarcy fights to retain her independence but must face the Inquisition,
unaware that she is the focus of an ancient quest.
Praise for Andrea Japp:
'Captivating characters … and
vivid descriptions' Le Figaro
'Enthralling, page after page' Encre
Noir
The Author:
Andrea Japp is one of the grandes dames of French
crime writing with over thirty novels published. She is a forensic scientist by
profession and weaves this knowledge into her books, giving them particular
authenticity.
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Excerpt (from Part One - The Season of the Beast):
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 briefy 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 #outed 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 of
bread, a bottle of fresh cider, a scrap
of bacon and a boiling fowl.
‘What use is this to me, pretty
one?’ the woman had hissed.
‘Why, the humblest peasant could
offer me more. It’s silver I
want, or jewels – you must surely
have some of those. Or why not
that handsome fur-lined cloak of
yours?’ she added, reaching out
to touch the long cape lined with
otter skin, Agnès’s protection.
The young girl had fought against
her impulse to draw back,
and had held the gaze of this
creature they said was a formidable
witch.
She had been so afraid up until the
woman had reached out and
touched her, scrutinised her. A
look of spiteful glee had #ashed
across the soothsayer’s face, and
she had spat out her words like
poison.
Hugues de Souarcy would have no
posthumous heir. Nothing
could save her now.
Agnès had stood motionless,
incredulous. Incredulous because
the terror that had gripped her
those past months had suddenly
faded into the distance. There was
nothing more to do, nothing
more to say.
And then, as the young girl pulled
the fur-lined hood up
over her head, preparing to leave
the hovel, something curious
happened.
The soothsayer’s mouth froze in a
grimace and she turned
away, crying out:
‘Leave here! Leave here at once,
and take your basket with
you. I want nothing of yours. Be
off with you, I say!’
The evil crone’s triumphant hatred
had been replaced by a
bizarre panic which Agnès was at a
loss to understand. She had
tried reasoning with her:
‘I have walked a long way, witch,
and …’
The woman had wailed like a fury,
lifting her apron up over
her bonnet to hide her eyes.
‘Be off with you, you have no business
here. Out of my sight!
Out of my hut! And don’t come back,
don’t ever come back, do
you
hear?’
