I blinked at her. I had completely forgotten LeMerle’s tablets of dye, and the instructions he had given me for their use. My daughter’s face seemed stamped across everything I saw, like the afterimage one gets from looking too long at the sun.

“The well, God save us, the well!” cried Alfonsine impatiently. “Soeur Tomasine went down to fetch water for the cook pots and the water had turned to blood! Mère Isabelle has forbidden anyone to use it.”

“Blood?” I repeated.

“It’s a sign,” said Alfonsine. “It’s a judgment on us for burying poor Mère Marie in the potato patch.”

In spite of my weariness, I tried not to smile. “Perhaps it’s a vein of iron oxide in the sand,” I suggested. “Or a layer of red clay.”

Alfonsine shook her head contemptuously. “I should have known you’d say something like that,” she said. “Anyone would think you didn’t believe in the devil, the way you always try to find reasons for everything.”

No, it was demonic influence, she was sure of it. Mère Isabelle was sure of it, and to such an extent that the new abbess had ordered Père Colombin to bless the well and the entire abbey grounds if necessary. Alfonsine felt unclean too, she said, and would not rest easy until Père Colombin had examined her minutely to ensure that no taint remained in her. Following this pronouncement, Soeur Marguerite had developed a tic in her left leg, which the new confessor had also promised to investigate. If this continued, I told myself, the place would soon be closer to an asylum than an abbey.

“What about the water?” I asked. “What are we going to do?”

Her face lit. “A miracle! A carter arrived near midday with a delivery of twenty-five barrels of ale. A present, he said, for the new abbess. While the new well is being dug, no one will go thirsty.”

That evening we dined on bread, ale, and mullet. The food was good, but I had little appetite. Something was wrong-in the layout of the tables, the silence of the assembly, the look of the food on our plates-which made me uneasy. When we danced for King Henri at the Palais-Royal and were led through his Hall of Mirrors I had the same sense of things reversed, slyly reflecting an altered truth, though perhaps the difference was in my mind only.

Mère Isabelle said grace, and after that there was no conversation-no sound at all, in fact, but for Rosamonde’s toothless gums sucking noisily at her food, the nervous tapping of Marguerite’s left foot and the occasional tick of cutlery. I motioned to Soeur Antoine that she should take from my plate what I did not eat, and she did so with gleeful deftness, her small weak eyes bright with greed. She glanced at me several times as she ate, and I wondered whether she took the extra food as payment for keeping silent about Fleur. I left her most of the ale too, eating nothing but the bread. The smell of fish, even cooked, made my stomach turn.

Perhaps it was that, or worry over Fleur, that made me slow this evening, for I had been at table for ten minutes or longer when I realized the source of my disquiet. Perette was not at her usual place among the novices. LeMerle too was absent, though I had not expected to see him. But I wondered where Perette could be. The last time I remembered seeing her was at the funeral yesterday, I realized; since then, nowhere-be it among the cloisters or in the performance of my duties in the bakehouse, or later at Sext in the church, or at Chapter, or now at dinner-nowhere had I glimpsed my friend.

Guilt at my disloyalty burned my cheeks. Since Fleur’s disappearance I had paid little attention to Perette-in fact I had barely noticed her. She might be ill-in a way I hoped she was. That, at least, would explain her absence. But my heart told me she was not. What plans he might have for her, I could not guess; she was too young for his taste, and too much of a child to be of any use to him, but all the same, I knew. Perette was with LeMerle.

Well, it’s a beginning. Act one, if you like, of a five-act tragicomedy. The main roles are already established-noble hero, beautiful heroine, comic relief, and a chorus of virgins in the style of the ancients, all in their proper places-except for the villain, who doubtless will make his appearance in due course.

The blood in the well was a poetic touch. Now everyone’s out looking for omens and prodigies-birds flying north, double-yolked eggs, strange smells, unexpected drafts-all are grist to the mill. The irony is that I barely have to do anything to help it along; the sisters, cloistered for so long with nothing to relieve the boredom, will see-with a little encouragement-precisely what I want them to see.

Soeur Antoine has proved invaluable to me during the past few days. Easily bought-for an apple, a pasty, or even a kind word-from her I hear the abbey’s gossip, its little secrets. It was Antoine, acting on my instructions, who caught the six black cats and let them loose around the abbey, where they wrought havoc in the dairy and brought bad luck to no fewer than forty-two nuns who inadvertently crossed their paths. She too it was who found the monstrous potato shaped like the devil’s horns, and served it to Mère Isabelle at dinner; and who frightened Soeur Marguerite into a spasm by hiding frogs in the meal bin. Her own little secret-that of her child and its untimely death-I know from Soeur Clémente, who scorns the fat nun and seeks to be my favorite. Of course she is not, but she too is easily flattered, and to tell the truth, I prefer her to Alfonsine-breastless as the wooden panels in the chapel-or Marguerite, dry as kindling and riddled with tics and twitches.

Soeur Anne is less cooperative. A pity, that: for there are distinct advantages in having an accomplice who will not speak, and if I read the signs correctly, then the wild girl is brighter than she looks. As easy to train as a good dog, in any case, or even a monkey. And Juliette cares for her, of course-an added bonus in case my hold on the child should somehow slip.

Ah, Juliette. My Winged One remains unamused at my little jokes, though she is secretly exasperated at the commotion they have caused. That’s like her; a lifetime of spells and cantrips has done little to alter her essential practicality. I knew she would not be fooled by tricks and vapors: but now she is as responsible for the confusion as I am myself, and will not betray me. I am tempted, sorely tempted, to take her into my confidence. But I have taken enough risks already. Besides, she has a regrettable tendency toward loyalty, and if she knew what I was planning, she would probably try to stop me. No, my dear; the last thing I need with me on this trip is a conscience.

Today I rode out to Barbâtre and spent most of the afternoon at the causeway watching the tides. It is a pastime that never fails to calm my thoughts, as well as providing a welcome respite from the abbey and the increasing demands of the good sisters. How can they bear it? To be caged like chickens, pecking over and over the same little backyard? For myself, I have never been able to bear enclosed spaces; I need air, sky, roads rushing away in every direction. Besides, I have letters to send that are best delivered without my Isabelle’s knowledge; a week’s ride should do it, payment on reply. The tide takes eleven hours to turn around-a fact that few islanders have bothered to note, even though it is useful knowledge-leaving the causeway clear for just under three hours every time. Some have written that the moon draws the tide, as some heretics whisper the sun draws the earth; certainly, the tide comes higher at full moon, and shows less movement with the new. As a boy I was repeatedly punished for my interest in such matters-idle curiosity, they called it, presumably to distinguish it from the industrious apathy of my devout tutors-but they never quite cured me of my inquiring tendency. Call me perverse, but God made it thus never seemed a satisfactory enough explanation to me.