Chapter 35

The carriage had just passed through the gates into the estate when Fabien came running down the path. He had lost his cap, and his red hair was wild, his nose swollen and streaked with blood. The skin around both of his eyes was a painful shade of purple and black. Sidonie winced at his injuries, sustained in his attempt to protect her.

‘Madame, is Lyse with you? Praise be to God if she is,’ Fabien said breathlessly as he skidded to a stop by the carriage window.

‘Whatever are you talking about?’ Aunt Eloise said. ‘I would not bring a girl to the conciergerie.’

Sidonie suddenly went cold. ‘Fabien, where is Lyse?’

‘She said she wanted to help you. That Baroness de Montargent wouldn’t be able to rescue you without her help. I thought it childish fantasy, but then I thought, what if she really did mean what she said? And she’s run into town to free you?’

‘I did not see her. Did you?’ Sidonie asked Aunt Eloise.

‘No,’ Aunt Eloise leaned her head out of the carriage. ‘Monsieur Veru?’

‘Yes, madame?’ the driver replied.

‘Did we pass Lyse on the road?’

‘No, madame.’

‘I cannot have this happen again,’ Fabien said. ‘First Léo and now Lyse.’

Sidonie stepped out of the carriage. ‘Could she be hiding somewhere on the estate? She has been distant since Léo’s death.’

‘Could be,’ Fabien said. ‘Although with the way I’ve been yelling her name, she would be cruel to keep hidden when she knows how worried I am.’

‘Lyse is never cruel, and we did not pass her on the road into town, so where could she be?’ Aunt Eloise asked.

A thought occurred to Sidonie. ‘What if she did not intend to free me herself, but went to seek help?’

‘From whom?’ Aunt Eloise said.

‘Apolline.’

Aunt Eloise frowned. ‘But Madame Garnier was with you in town.’

Sidonie shook her head. ‘Lyse did not know that. If she were looking for Apolline she would go to the hermitage. Are any horses missing?’

‘I didn’t think to check,’ Fabien said.

‘Look now,’ she said.

While Fabien ran to the stables, Aunt Eloise ordered the driver to turn around, but Sidonie protested.

‘There is a chance that Lyse is still on the estate grounds. Or that she may return. Someone should wait for her.’

‘Liane is here!’ Aunt Eloise argued, but then she furrowed her brow. ‘No, she is not. She left early this morning with two of our men. A woman in a nearby village died and left three children. There were rumours the father planned to sell them. I shall stay here.’

Fabien came running back. ‘Pooka is missing,’ he said, naming a palomino pony. ‘I’ve saddled Kelpie for you, mademoiselle.’

‘I cannot leave the estate unprotected,’ Aunt Eloise said apologetically, looking back at the four men who rode in the cart behind the carriage. ‘The two of you will have to go to the hermitage alone.’

‘I’m sure we will find her quickly,’ Sidonie said.

‘Surely there is no real danger for Lyse?’ Fabien asked. ‘Not since they caught—’

‘Something attacked those children,’ Sidonie said. ‘Whether wolf or man, Gilles Garnier was no more guilty of those crimes than you or I. Whatever killed those children is still out there.’

Sidonie and Fabien followed Pooka’s hoofprints to the edge of the forest, confirming their suspicions that Lyse had gone to the hermitage.

Sidonie glanced at the sky and the rapidly setting sun. ‘We should hurry.’

The forest felt closer, tighter, as night approached. Birds screeched as they returned to their nests, and Sidonie wished she too could return to the security of Aunt Eloise’s home. But not until Lyse was found. The girl had been acting peculiarly since Léo’s death, but Sidonie had thought giving her time and space to grieve the loss of her friend would be the best approach. When Apolline had come to the estate the day before the execution, she had shown them all that what Lyse needed was to talk about Léo. She’d had no opportunity to speak to the girl since. Now, she regretted not speaking to her, not offering what comfort she could. At the first indication that Sidonie was in trouble, Lyse had committed herself to a course of action – no matter how misguided. She vowed to make up for it if – when – Lyse was found.

The moon had not yet risen, and the horses carefully picked their hooves through the forest while Sidonie and Fabien listened hard for any sound of the girl.

When a large owl took flight, its wings brushing close to Kelpie’s head, the horse reared up on her hind legs, neighing in fright. Sidonie steadied the horse and managed to dismount, holding on to the reins to prevent her from bolting. While she soothed the mare with words and gentle strokes, she heard a faint cry in the distance. She whirled around, trying to determine the direction of the sound.

‘Did you hear something?’ Fabien asked.

Sidonie raised a hand for silence. Then she heard it again, clearer this time. Throwing the reins over a tree, she hurried towards the sound. Fabien cried out behind her, but she did not wait for him.

The moon had risen by now, and she was grateful for the silver light puncturing the tree canopy, giving her some visibility as she ran. Formless shapes transformed into branches, whipping at her clothing and skin, slowing her down. She could see something in the distance.

It was Lyse. But she was not alone.

The girl was bent over backwards, and something gripped her by the throat. As Sidonie got closer, she could see that the thing holding her was a figure dressed all in black. Before he’d been killed, Léo had told them he had seen something large and black attack that boy, Louis. A wolf was large but could not be mistaken for a man. Unless ... She pictured Gilles in her mind as she had last seen him before the execution. Huddled beneath that tree at the edge of the forest. A mountain of flesh and muscle pulled in small and tight, gently cradling Léo’s dead body. There had been tenderness and grief; here there was movement and violence.

She had no blade, no rock, no stick, no weapon of any sort. As she had done seemingly only hours before in Dole, she used her body as her weapon, throwing herself onto the back of whatever held Lyse in its hands. Her hands closed over cloth, not fur. The shout of surprise was distinctly human and male.

It dropped Lyse. And turned to face Sidonie.

Lyse lay unmoving on the forest floor, abandoned and silent. Sidonie positioned herself between the beast and its prey. She crouched, her hands fumbling for something to use to defend them both. Her hands closed on a broken tree branch, reassuringly solid. Lifting the weapon with both hands, she swung with all her strength and felt a reverberation through her body as it connected with human flesh.

Father Ignace was unsteady on his feet, dazed from the blow. He staggered towards her, blood painting dark lines down his face as his eyes burned with a savagery that made her tremble. She clenched her muscles. She would not falter.

When he was close enough, she swung the branch again, as hard as she could, this time knocking him onto his side. While he scrambled for purchase, she screamed for help. Her voice was clear and piercing in the night.

As the priest regained his footing and faced her once more, she had no doubt he meant to murder her where she stood.

‘Sidonie!’ Fabien called from a distance away.

Father Ignace was still dizzy from the blows, unsteady on his feet. But when he smiled, it was a frightening thing, filled with dark promises. Then he stumbled away into the darkness.

Sidonie dropped to her knees, her hands moving quickly over the body of the girl lying so very still on the ground. Lyse lay on her back, and even in the darkness Sidonie could see the bruises around her throat. Her chest rose and fell, but her face was devoid of colour.

‘Lyse!’ Sidonie’s voice sounded strange to her own ears, cracked from the strain of her cries for help. She tapped the girl’s cheek to try and rouse her. ‘Wake up.’ One of Lyse’s arms was twisted in an unnatural angle. Clenched tight between the girl’s fingers was her blue pouch of protection.

‘Hold on to me, Lyse. I’ll take you home.’ She tried to pick her up, but the girl was too heavy for her to hold.

That was how Fabien found them.

‘Is she ...?’ Fabien couldn’t finish the question.

‘Alive,’ Sidonie said.

‘God be praised!’ Fabien said.

Sidonie turned her head. God had not been present in this place.

Lyse’s eyelashes fluttered as soft as butterfly wings against her cheek as she slept. The blue pouch of protection once again safely rested on her chest, her small hand clasping it tight. Sidonie stroked the girl’s hair, the whorls of her scars mirrored in the shape of Lyse’s golden curls. She had left Lyse’s side only once that night to stoke the fire. Glancing over at the hearth now, she saw that the fire was little more than embers and ashes. She must have slept at some point, although she could not remember closing her eyes. Every time she did, she saw the twisted face of Father Ignace, the blood running down his face and that smile that had promised this was not the end.

There was a soft tap at the door and Cerise, the senior maid, entered the room with a light step. Normally so timid, Cerise had turned fierce the previous night when she had seen Lyse’s injuries. Only the intervention of Liane had stopped the maid from taking Lyse from Sidonie’s arms. When the surgeon had arrived to set the broken bone in Lyse’s arm, Cerise had needed to be physically restrained from launching herself at the surgeon in a vain attempt to protect Lyse from any further hurt. Liane had left the room with a bottle of brandy in one arm and the sobbing senior maid in the other. Sidonie had given Lyse a few drops of syrup of the poppy, but that had only dulled the pain. The girl had still screamed as the surgeon set her arm. When it was done, the girl had collapsed into Sidonie’s arms, whimpering until she fell asleep. Sidonie had not let her go since.

Cerise stayed by the door and gestured for Sidonie to come to her. She tried not to disturb the girl as she rolled from the bed, her muscles stiff and sore from trying to remain as still as possible through the night. She had not changed her clothing, still dressed in the same gown she had worn to the execution, now grimy and stained from her stay in the cell and her fight in the forest.

‘Baroness de Montargent wishes to see you,’ Cerise whispered. ‘I’ll stay with her.’

Sidonie took in the dark circles under the maid’s eyes and the pallor of her skin. She looked as if she had not slept all night. ‘Are you certain?’

‘Yes, mademoiselle. Please let me care for her now.’

Sidonie had not asked Aunt Eloise or Liane why Cerise had come to the estate. If she was like the other girls, pain or loss had brought her here. The way she had behaved towards Lyse made Sidonie certain that she had lost something. Or had it taken from her.

Sidonie closed the door softly and went in search of Aunt Eloise. She found her in the solar with Liane, their heads pressed close together.

‘You skipped dinner last night. We thought you might be hungry,’ Liane said, handing her a plate with thick slices of freshly baked bread, sliced ham and a large knob of yellow butter.

It had been a long time since she’d last eaten, Sidonie realised. Before she and Apolline had gone to the execution.

‘What a sorry-looking individual,’ Aunt Eloise said at the sight of her niece. ‘I have seen more cheerful dispositions on those being led to the gallows.’

The events of the previous day caught up with Sidonie all at once and she began to cry.

‘I did not mean to make you cry!’ Aunt Eloise exclaimed, looking helplessly to Liane for support. ‘I attempted a jest to alleviate the dark mood.’

‘That is what you get for jesting when the girl is distraught,’ Liane chastised. ‘Here, give me your plate and take this instead.’

A cup was pressed into Sidonie’s hands. Her tears had all but subsided when she took a drink from the cup. The liquid burned a hot path down her throat before settling in her stomach. ‘Brandy?’

‘Medicinal,’ Liane said. ‘Try to eat something; you will feel better.’

‘Yes, eat,’ Aunt Eloise said, clearly relieved that Sidonie’s emotional reaction had passed. ‘You need your strength because we have a great deal to do. Thanks to your bravery, Lyse was spared from whatever fate that man had in store for her.’

‘Father Ignace,’ Sidonie said.

‘There was always something unwholesome about that man. He arrived in town the previous summer, but he brought with him rumours of his past, unsavoury tales that should never accompany a man of the cloth. When I heard Gaston utter his name when he brought that poor girl to the estate ...’ Aunt Eloise shuddered. ‘Liane, if I must speak of that man, I shall also need a brandy.’

Liane reached for another glass, pouring a generous amount. Aunt Eloise took a large swallow. ‘There’s a reason we prefer St Mary’s, you know. I did not care for him as the local priest in Poligny. I always suspected he’d had a hand in the accusations against your father. Such a fool.’ She uttered the last statement under her breath. ‘My husband forbade me from making further enquiries, and after he died and so much time had passed, I could not see what good it would do to reopen old wounds. I should not have kept this information from you, Sidonie. But you were so young when you left Poligny, and I did not think it likely you would remember Father Ignace, nor he you, for you were only a child. I did not want to dredge up painful memories by reminding you of the association. I thought I was doing you a kindness.’

‘Father Ignace was in Poligny.’ Sidonie remembered the first and only time she had attended mass at Notre-Dame. The two women she had overheard talking about the priest and how he had burned werewolves in the past. And Apolline’s comments about a cruel priest who ran the orphanage in Poligny – a priest with a special interest in young girls with yellow hair. ‘I never told you about the time Father Ignace approached Lyse and me in the market square. I knew something was not right in the way he looked at her, but I ignored it.’

Sidonie had always known in her heart that her father was innocent. But her relief at being proven right was overshadowed by pain and anger at the realisation that Father Ignace and his baseless accusations had been behind the crimes – the deaths of so many children, and that of her own parents. All those innocent people, their lives cruelly snatched away by one man who felt he had the right to do so.

‘The fault does not lie with you,’ Aunt Eloise said. ‘Nor I, nor anyone else in this house, including Lyse. The fault lies solely with Father Ignace. Lyse will recover. She is young and healthy, and she has many people to look after her. The trauma of the attack is something she will need to work through in time. But she is resilient and strong for her age. More so than I was.’

‘It is a miracle she survived,’ Liane added.

‘Did Lyse ever tell you how she came to be here?’ Aunt Eloise asked Sidonie. ‘It was four years ago – is that correct, Liane? Lyse lived in a nearby village with her father, mother and younger sister. Liane and I used to bring food and coin to her mother. Her father was a soldier and was often away. The last time he came back, he brought with him the bloody flux. Liane and I did not know this.’

‘It had been a terrible winter, and we were snowed in,’ Liane explained.

Aunt Eloise continued. ‘When the snow finally melted, we found both of Lyse’s parents dead. And they had been for some time. I shall spare you the details but, in this instance, the winter cold had been a blessing. Her sister was but a babe and when we found Lyse, she still held on to that grey, lifeless thing. She had been like that for days, or so she told us. We brought her to the estate, and it has been her home ever since.’

Sidonie tried to marry together the Lyse she knew, who until a short while ago had been bright and full of joy, with this story. She and Lyse would have been of a similar age when they lost everything they had ever known. But where Sidonie had closed herself off, attempting to order every aspect of her life, Lyse had opened herself to others – she had bestowed love on the people around her, and they had loved her in return. That she had done so after such an unspeakable tragedy was, as Liane had said, miraculous.

‘There will be dark times ahead for Lyse,’ Aunt Eloise said.

‘She will have her family to protect her,’ Sidonie added. ‘All of us.’

‘Bless you, Sidonie.’ Aunt Eloise’s voice faltered and Sidonie knew that her aunt was thinking of Léo. With a small cough, Aunt Eloise continued. ‘The surgeon will return later today and each day until I tell him his services are no longer needed,’

‘Valerian is good for pain. It will help her sleep too. And comfrey will aid in the healing,’ Sidonie said.

‘I will let Cerise know. She shall have charge of Lyse for today,’ Aunt Eloise said. ‘We have other work.’

‘Have you sent for Capitaine Vasseur, so we can tell him what has occurred?’

Aunt Eloise shook her head. ‘He will not come. He sent one of his gendarmes, the young one, Nicolas Soret. He arrived before dawn with a message from Capitaine Vasseur. The capitaine will not leave the conciergerie at this time. A prisoner is being held—’

‘Apolline!’ Sidonie cried. How had she not asked after her sooner? In her worry for Lyse, she had almost forgotten her friend was still held captive.

‘I assumed as much. Capitaine Vasseur will not leave her unguarded. While he is certain of the loyalty of some of his men – including Gendarme Soret – he is less sure of others. He fears for her safety if he were to leave.’

‘Did you tell Gendarme Soret of Father Ignace?’ Sidonie asked.

‘While Capitaine Vasseur may trust the young man, I do not,’ Aunt Eloise said. ‘And besides, Gendarme Soret does not have the authority to act on such an accusation. No, the solution is clear. I must go to the conciergerie and speak to Capitaine Vasseur myself. Sidonie, I know you have had a terrible ordeal, but I must ask you to accompany me. Other than Lyse, you are the only witness to Father Ignace’s crime.’

The thought of entering the conciergerie again so soon after her release from that cell should have filled her with dread. But all she could think about was seeing Apolline.

‘How soon can we leave?’