Chapter 33

Sidonie wrapped her cloak tightly around her body, making sure her face was covered by the hood. At her side, Apolline was also hooded, staring fixedly at the stake. Antoine and Fabien stood behind them, their presence strong and reassuring.

Heaviness weighed on Sidonie’s heart and mind. When the sun had risen that morning, she’d greeted it with dread coupled with relief that the day had finally arrived. Sleep had eluded her, for every time she closed her eyes her mind conjured up images of Gilles Garnier burning. Sometime in the night, her door had opened with a creak, Apolline’s bare feet padding across the room. ‘I don’t want to be alone,’ she had muttered as she crawled into the big bed beside her, before turning her back to Sidonie and curling in tight around herself.

Her friend spoke very little over breakfast, refusing so much as a single morsel. Later, she rode silently in the cart beside Sidonie on the road to Dole, the dark smudges beneath her eyes betraying her exhaustion.

They’d left the cart outside the gate and walked to the market square where the execution would take place. Antoine and Fabien had steered both women to the back of the rapidly assembling crowd, putting as much space between them and the stake as possible. Gone were the market stalls overflowing with crisp, fragrant produce, the mingled aromas of freshly baked breads and roasted meats, the jovial chatter between townsfolk and merchants. Now there was a tall wooden stake rising from the centre of the square – an abhorrent thing, defiling the space, an object that encouraged hatred and fear. It lured the townsfolk with its siren song, promising nothing but pain and death. They formed a semicircle around the stake, those nearest to the front jostling one another for the privilege of position.

Off to the right-hand side of the stake, the representatives of the Church were assembled, near identical in their black cassocks and black spherical caps. A more youthful half-dozen stood sentinel behind three seated elder members of the clergy. Their faces were pinched, mouths pursed, eyes narrowed. They were here as witnesses only, for this was a victory for the court of the Parliament of Dole and one the court did not intend to share with the Church. In the centre of the row behind the seated priests stood Father Ignace. The priests to his left and right leaned away from him, each speaking to the man on his other side. Father Ignace rather resembled the stake himself, but where the stake attracted, he repulsed.

Sidonie tucked her hood self-consciously, making sure her face was hidden from sight.

To the left of the stake stood about twenty or so members of parliament. Where the clergy were uniform in dress, the men of parliament were as diverse as the assembled crowd in clothing and expressions. They huddled in small groups, many with their backs to the stake. As if it were so easy to turn from their role in this court-sanctioned murder.

‘I don’t like this, mademoiselle,’ Fabien said, his voice barely above a whisper.

‘Nor do I,’ Antoine agreed.

‘We shall be safe enough if we remain away from the main crowd,’ Sidonie insisted.

Apolline said nothing. A gust of icy wind cut through the air like a sword, tearing loose a lock of Apolline’s dark hair. She paid it no heed.

It seemed as if every citizen of Dole was in that market square. But where was Pierre de Lancre? Sidonie had expected to see him standing smugly among the members of parliament, yet he was nowhere to be found. Prickles formed on her skin at the thought that even now, he could be watching them.

The crowd surged forward. A cart pulled by a donkey appeared from the direction of the conciergerie. Apolline drew in a sharp breath as Gilles Garnier came into view.

Murmurs spread through the crowd, first whispers, then shouts. The werewolf of Dole had arrived.

He rode in the back of the cart. This condemned man had little in common with the large yet gentle man Sidonie had first met at the hermitage. His head hung low, as if he lacked the strength to lift it. Gone were his coarse hair and beard, leaving behind only filthy, bleeding scabs – evidence of the careless shears that had hacked the dark strands away. Beside him stood a man, his features concealed by a black hood. He need not have bothered concealing his identity, for everyone knew the executioner. But the attempt at anonymity at least offered his friends and neighbours a welcome pretence.

The cart rolled to a stop at the edge of the crowd. Gilles fell hard onto his hands and knees, causing the cart to shake.

‘Get up, get up,’ Apolline pleaded in a hushed whisper.

Sidonie reached for her hand; it was stiff and cold as ice. Warmth at her back told her that Antoine and Fabien had moved in closer.

The familiar figure of Capitaine Jean-Luc Vasseur pushed through the crowd. A group of uniformed gendarmes accompanied him, and together they moved to stand in front of the stake.

‘Order!’ he shouted at the crowd. ‘Settle down, you lot, or I’ll be forced to clear the square. If you have no respect for the law, at least have some for the families of the dead.’

The shouts turned back into whispers, a murmur of hatred spreading like poison through the assembled crowd.

It was all directed at one man.

Gilles was led, stumbling, from the cart, the executioner holding his arm in a vice-like grip. The people closest to him surged forwards, their skin mottled with rage, flecks of frothy spittle flying from their mouths as they knocked him off his feet.

‘You killed my son! Murderer!’ a woman screamed.

Capitaine Vasseur and his gendarmes rushed forward to break the group apart, and Gilles was half dragged and half carried the short distance to the base of the stake. Even in such reduced circumstances, it took four gendarmes to carry him. Two men held him upright while the other two bound his ankles and tied his wrists behind his back.

Sidonie turned to face Apolline who muttered something to herself, over and over again. It sounded like ‘see me, see me’. Her eyes stared, fixed and unblinking, as she snatched glimpses through the crowd of the figure tied to the stake.

‘Is he dead already?’ Fabien asked.

‘God willing,’ Antoine murmured.

The crowd cheered at the sight of men carrying bundles of dry sticks and wood. They piled them at the base of the stake, covering the existing wood that had been dampened by the frost. More and more, until the pile reached past Gilles’s feet.

And there he was: Pierre de Lancre. Having been previously concealed from Sidonie’s view by the crowd, he seemed to materialise like a phantom in a dream. He approached the stake with another man dressed in the formal clothing of an official, who Sidonie did not recognise.

‘I, Henri Camus, procureur général of the court of the Parliament of Dole, pronounce the following sentence.’ His voice rang out over the din of the crowd, authoritative and firm. One by one, the assembled men and women lapsed into silence, until his voice was the only sound other than the whistling winter wind. ‘Seeing that the man known as Gilles Garnier of Lyon has, by the testimony of credible witnesses and by his own spontaneous confession, been found guilty of werewolfery, this court condemns him to be tied to a stake and burned alive, and his ashes scattered to the winds. Given at Dole, on this eighteenth day of January in the year 1573.’

Pierre de Lancre and Henri Camus stepped back to be replaced by the executioner and three gendarmes carrying lit torches.

‘See me, see me,’ Apolline muttered again.

Sidonie inhaled, catching the scent of rosemary, sage and something she could not identify, something deep and earthy, like the air before a storm.

Gilles raised his head and looked directly at them. His mouth moved, forming a word Sidonie could not hear. The gesture did not escape the crowd, who followed his eyes. As did Pierre de Lancre, the one man whose attention Sidonie did not want to draw.

Apolline held Gilles’s gaze intently, refusing to break eye contact even when it became apparent she was drawing attention.

‘Witch.’

The disembodied word froze Sidonie’s blood. She squeezed Apolline’s hand tighter, which seemed to rouse her from her trance.

‘Farewell, sweet man,’ Apolline whispered. ‘May you find peace. Go now. Go to your little one. Find her and Apolline.’

Gilles held her eyes for several long seconds. Then he choked, gasping for air before slumping forward, kept on his feet only by his bindings. The executioner shook him twice, but Gilles Garnier did not move. The murmurs of witchcraft were replaced by a collective roar from the crowd as the executioner dropped the torches onto the kindling.

‘It’s done,’ Apolline said. ‘We can go.’

The scent of herbs gently faded away, as had the shadows beneath Apolline’s eyes. Something had happened here, something Sidonie did not entirely comprehend. The condemned man had been spared any further pain and suffering – a mercy. Could it have been an intervention by God? Or perhaps a gift from someone of this world?

The pyre was engulfed in flames reaching as high as Gilles’s waist. Sidonie took a step back. She could feel the heat. Could almost feel the flames on her own skin. She clenched her scarred hand tightly. But Gilles did not move, not even as the flames burned through his roughly woven garments, exposing bruised skin that was now turning black.

The crowd shifted and rocked, like a boat adrift at sea, all straining to watch the spectacle. Although robbed of the pain-filled cries of the werewolf of Dole, they were sated by the pop and crackle of his rupturing flesh and blackening bones. Through the bodies, Sidonie spied Pierre de Lancre once more. He was scanning the crowd, looking for something. Or someone. His eyes locked on hers.

‘We must go, now,’ Sidonie said to her companions.

A gust of wind appeared as if from nowhere, flinging sparks from the pyre onto those nearest. Some of the embers caught, and although quickly extinguished, the cries of witchcraft began anew.

As the crowd surged, Sidonie was pushed aside and separated from the others. She fell to the ground, covering her head as she was knocked from all directions, unable to stand. Finally, a firm hand gripped her shoulder and pulled her to her feet. Expecting to see Antoine or Fabien, she was surprised to be looking into the eyes of Olivier Chéreau instead.

‘Mademoiselle Montot!’ he said. ‘I shall get you to safety.’

Holding her tight to his body, Olivier began pushing through the crowd, taking her further away from her friends.

‘Stop, I beg you!’ She pulled against his grip. ‘I need to go back!’

Apolline had become separated from the others as well. Sidonie caught a glimpse of her as the crowd parted around her like water. Her friend’s hood was thrown back, her head covering lost, white snowflakes gently falling from the sky to land on her dark hair. Her gaze fixated on the spot where the clergy had congregated, her eyes widening in confusion and disbelief. Lips parted, she uttered a word that Sidonie could not hear. Was that a flash of a black cassock that had caused her friend to reel back in shock?

Before Sidonie could be sure, something struck Apolline from behind and she fell forward into the waiting arms of Pierre de Lancre. He held her up with one arm, sliding the other down her chest, over her breasts. A moment of surprise flickered over his face as his hand lingered on her belly before gesturing to two gendarmes, who carried her away.

‘Please!’ Sidonie begged. ‘I have to help her.’

‘You will not help her by being taken yourself,’ Olivier said.

‘I must do something! Please, I beg you.’

‘As you wish.’

Olivier reluctantly released her, and she forced her way through the rapidly dispersing crowd to where Pierre conferred with the two gendarmes who were holding Apolline. Her eyes were now open, staring around her in confusion.

Sidonie didn’t hesitate. She charged at Pierre and knocked him onto his side. The gendarmes dropped Apolline, who crumpled to the ground. Sidonie kicked at the men but one of them caught her leg and she fell to the ground too. She reached for Apolline, shaking her, telling her to get up, to run, but all Apolline could do was struggle ineffectually to push herself to her feet.

Pierre’s jaw clenched in a visible effort to maintain a semblance of control. ‘Pick up the witch!’ he yelled, pointing at Apolline, his cheeks flushed with a sudden surge of heat. ‘I’ll bring this one.’

He tried to grab Sidonie by the hand but only succeeded in pulling off her glove. He recoiled at the sight of her scars, but rather than shame she felt only anger. When he tried to grab her again, she caught his hand in her mouth and bit down, hard enough to draw blood. He pulled back his arm with a yelp and she felt a moment of deep satisfaction, relishing the metallic taste in her mouth, before she felt something strike the side of her head.

‘Have you taken leave of your God-cursed mind?’ the capitaine shouted, slamming his fist heavily onto his desk.

Pierre had never seen Capitaine Vasseur so angry. The man was apoplectic with rage, his face a dangerous shade of red and little bits of spittle flew from his mouth as he spoke.

It had been so satisfying for Pierre to throw those two females into the cells of the conciergerie. Not that there had been anyone of note to witness his latest triumph. Everyone was still at the execution of the werewolf. He had thought it likely the wife would make an appearance and had watched the crowd carefully for any sign of her. When the werewolf had raised his head and looked directly at a fixed point in the crowd, Pierre had felt witchcraft at play. If it hadn’t been for the crowd becoming agitated, he would have reached her sooner. He looked at the teeth marks on his hand. Mademoiselle Montot had bit hard enough to break the skin. He didn’t like that. His own pain brought him no pleasure.

They were not alone in Capitaine Vasseur’s office. The prosecutor Henri Camus, fresh from his moment of glory at the execution – glory that should have been Pierre’s – was also present at this haranguing.

‘Monsieur de Lancre, what have you done?’ Henri asked, brow furrowed in concern.

‘I will tell you what this fool has done,’ Capitaine Vasseur said. ‘He struck two women – one of them the niece of Baroness Eloise de Montargent. He was seen carrying her into this building. Two of my gendarmes were attacked by Mademoiselle Montot’s escorts – who I’m sure will return shortly to Baroness de Montargent with the news that her niece is now in a cell. And I am still waiting for him’ – he jabbed a furious finger in Pierre’s direction – ‘to account for his actions!’

‘I had to arrest Mademoiselle Montot,’ Pierre said. ‘She attempted to obstruct my arrest of the witch Apolline Garnier. And she attacked me. I could not lose face in front of my men.’

Capitaine Vasseur rose to his feet. ‘They are my men! You had no authority to arrest anyone – man or woman. After I have set right this cursed mess, I shall be speaking to the chancellor to have you thrown out of this town.’

They were interrupted by a knock on the door. Gendarme Nicolas Soret informed the capitaine that his presence was urgently required. Baroness Eloise de Montargent had arrived.

‘Tell her I shall be with her soon,’ the capitaine said.

Gendarme Soret hesitated. ‘You may want to make haste. She’s come with four servants, capitaine. Headed straight for the cells.’

‘Damn it all!’ Capitaine Vasseur slammed his fist against the table before pointing at Pierre. ‘You wait here. I’m not done with you.’ He stormed out of the room, Gendarme Soret at his heels.

‘Monsieur de Lancre,’ Henri said once they were alone. ‘This is a truly confounding way to end your career. You know I have the greatest respect for you but what were you thinking?’

‘It was justified, damn it!’ Pierre said. ‘Father Ignace instructed me to root out—’

‘That interfering priest? Do you not have a solid grasp of the political situation in this town? The president and half the councillors of Dole were replaced due to gross inefficiency and mishandling, in part due to interference from the Church in matters of secular law, and what do you do? You bring the Church back in! When Capitaine Vasseur informs the chancellor of your latest actions, he will evict you from the town. I shall be sorry to see you go. I also regret that I shall have to write to Monsieur Jacques Fontaine about this.’

Pierre would not stand there and be chastised like a disobedient child. Not when he had done all the hard work in capturing the werewolf. He’d finally done enough to earn the respect of his father, and he was not about to let Henri steal that from him too. Perhaps he had erred in arresting Sidonie Montot, but he had brought in the witch. Odd how neither Capitaine Vasseur nor Henri Camus had bothered to mention that when they were taking him to task. He’d had enough.

‘Where are you going?’ Henri asked as Pierre turned to leave. ‘Capitaine Vasseur bid you wait.’

‘Tell him he need not bother removing me. I shall remove myself,’ Pierre said, slamming the door behind him. He would not remove himself from Dole, though – not when there was work that still needed doing.