Philippa Gregory - Changeling

‘The witches did this! It’s their work,’ the Lady Almoner shouted. ‘They put their stolen treasure in with their victim.’

Luca shook his head, at this, her last attempt, and turned to the Lady Almoner and to Lord Lucretili, his young face grave. ‘I charge you, Lady Almoner, with the murder of this young woman, Sister Augusta, by feeding her belladonna to cause dreams and hallucinations to disturb the peace and serenity of this nunnery, to shame the Lady Abbess and drive her from her place. I charge you, Lord Lucretili, of conspiring with the Lady Almoner to drive the Lady Abbess from her home, which was her inheritance under the terms of her father’s will, and setting the Lady Almoner to steal the gold from the abbey. I charge you both with attempting to smuggle this gold, the Lady Abbess’s property, from the abbey in this coffin, and of falsely accusing the Lady Abbess and her slave of witchcraft and conspiring to cause their deaths.’

The lord tried to laugh. ‘You’re dreaming too. They’ve driven you mad too!’ he started. ‘You’re wandering in your wits!’

Luca shook his head. ‘No, I am not.’

‘But the evidence?’ Brother Peter muttered to him. ‘Evidence?’

‘The slave never sold the gold, she never left the abbey – the Lady Almoner told us so. So neither she nor the Lady Abbess ever profited from the gold-panning. But the Lady Almoner accused them, even naming the street in Rome where the gold merchants trade. The only people who tried to get this month’s gold out of the abbey were the Lady Almoner and the Lord Lucretili – right now in this coffin. The only woman who showed any signs of wealth was the Lady Almoner, in her silk petticoats and her fine leather slippers. She plotted with the lord to drive his sister from the abbey so that she could become Lady Abbess and they would share the gold together.’

Lord Lucretili looked at Brother Peter, Freize and Luca, and then at his own men-at-arms, the clerks and priests. Then he turned to the blank-faced nuns who were swaying like a field of white lilies and whispering, ‘What is he saying? What is the stranger saying? Is he saying bad things? Is he accusing us? Who is he? I don’t like him. Did he kill Sister Augusta? Is he the figure of Death that she saw?’

‘Whatever you believe, whatever you say, I think you are outnumbered,’ Lord Lucretili said in quiet triumph. ‘You can leave now safely, or you can face these madwomen. Just as you like. But I warn you, I think they are so crazed that they will tear you apart.’

The crowd of young women, more than two hundred of them, gathered closer to the coffin cart, one after the other, to see the icon that had been made of their innocent sister, and their sibilant whispers were like a thousand hissing snakes as they saw her lying there in her opened coffin, bathed in gold, and Freize standing above her like an abusing man – an emblem of all the wickedness of the world – with a crowbar in his hands.

‘This man is our enemy,’ the Lady Almoner told them, stepping away from him to put herself at the head of the women. ‘He is defending the false Lady Abbess, who killed our sister. He has broken into our sister’s consecrated coffin.’

The nuns’ faces turned towards her, their expressions blank, as if they were beyond words; and still the sibilant whispers went on.

‘They will do what is right,’ Luca gambled. He turned to the white-faced women, and tried to capture their attention. ‘Sisters, listen to me. Your Lady Abbess has been driven from her home and you have been driven half-mad by belladonna fed to you in bread from this woman’s table. Are you still so sick with the drug that you will be obedient to her? Or will you find your own way? Will you think for yourselves? Can you think for yourselves?’

There was a terrible silence. Luca could see the haunted faces of all the women staring blankly at him and for a moment he thought that they were indeed so sick from the drug that they would take him and Freize and Brother Peter and tear them to pieces. He took hold of the side of the cart with one hand, so that no-one could see it shaking, and he pointed his other hand at the Lady Almoner. ‘Get down from the cart,’ he said. ‘I am taking you to Rome to answer for your crimes against your sisters, against the Lady Abbess, and against God.’

She stayed where she was, high above him, and she looked at the nuns, whose faces turned obediently towards her. She said three short terrible words. ‘Sisters! Kill him!’

Luca whirled around, pulling his dagger from his boot, and Freize jumped down to stand alongside him. Brother Peter moved towards them, but in a second the three men were surrounded. The nuns, pale and dull-faced, formed themselves into an unbreakable circle, like a wall of coldness, took one step towards the three men, and then took another step closer.

‘St James the Greater protect me,’ Freize swore. He raised his crowbar, but the nuns neither flinched nor stopped their steady onward pace.

The first nun put her hand to her head, took hold of her wimple, and threw it down on the ground. Horridly, her shaven head made her look like neither man nor woman, but a strange being, some kind of hairless animal. Beside her the next nun did the same, then they all threw their wimples down showing their heads, some cropped, some shaven quite bald.

‘God help us!’ Luca whispered to his comrades on either side of him. ‘What are they doing?’

‘I think—’ Brother Peter began.

‘Traitor!’ the nuns whispered together, like a choir.

Luca looked desperately around, but there was no way to break out of the circle of women.

‘Traitor!’ they said again, more loudly. But now they were not looking at the men, they were looking over the men’s heads, upwards, to the Lady Almoner high on the hearse.

‘Traitor!’ they breathed again.

‘Not me!’ she said, her voice cracked with sudden fear. ‘These men are your enemies, and the witches who are fled.’

They shook their bald heads in one terrible movement, and now they closed on the cart and their grasping hands reached past the men, as if they were nothing, reached up to pull the Lady Almoner down. She looked from one sister to another, then at the locked gate and the porteress who stood before it, arms folded. ‘Traitor!’ they said and now they had hold of her robe, of her silk petticoats beneath her robe, and were pawing at her, shaking her gown, pulling at her, grasping hold of the fine leather belt of her rosary, gripping the gold chain of keys, bringing her to her knees.

She tore herself from their grip and jumped over the side of the cart to Luca, clinging to his arm. ‘Arrest me!’ she said with sudden urgency. ‘Arrest me and take me now. I confess. I am your prisoner. Protect me!’

‘I have this woman under arrest!’ Luca said clearly to the nuns. ‘She is my prisoner, in my charge. I will see that justice is done.’

‘Traitor!’ They were closing in steadily and fast; nothing could stop them.

‘Save me!’ she screamed in his ear.

Luca put his arm in front of her but the nuns were pressing forwards. ‘Freize! Get her out of here!’

Freize was pinned to the cart by a solid wall of women.

‘Giorgio!’ she called to Lord Lucretili. ‘Giorgio! Save me!’

He shook his head convulsively, like a man in a fit, flinching back from the mob of nuns.

‘I did it for you!’ she cried to him. ‘I did it all for you!’

He turned a hard face to Luca. ‘I don’t know what she’s saying, I don’t know what she means.’

The blank-faced women came closer, pressing against the men. Luca tried to gently push them away but it was like pushing against an avalanche of snow. They reached for the Lady Almoner with pinching hands.