I nodded. I had not expected her to forget it.

“Clémente will talk, Auguste,” she said. “Not now, perhaps. She may be in disgrace today, but Mère Isabelle believes in her. Sooner or later, she will accuse us. And when she realizes that Père Colombin will not defend her, then she will bring him down.”

She paused for a moment to make sure I understood. My head was spinning. “Antoine,” I said. “How did you-”

“That isn’t important,” said Antoine in a harsh voice. “The little girl will believe her. I know little girls. I was one myself, after all. And I know”-at this her red face twisted in a painful smile-“I know that even the sweetest and most docile little girl will one day rise up to defy her father.”

There was a long silence. “What do you want?” I said at last.

“You know about herbs.” Now Antoine’s voice was soft, persuasive. “You know what to do with them. I could-I could slip her a dose while she’s safe in the infirmary. No one would know.”

I stared at her, incredulous. “Poison her?”

“No one would know. You could tell me what to do.” She sensed my disgust and gripped my arm tighter. “It’s for all of us, Auguste! If she speaks against you, you’ll lose Fleur. If she speaks against me-”

“What?”

There was a long silence. “Germaine,” she said at last. “She knew about Clémente and Père Colombin. She was going to tell.”

I tried to understand. But it was hot; I was tired; Antoine’s words sounded like meaningless noise. “I couldn’t let her,” she went on. “I couldn’t let her accuse him. I’m strong-stronger than she was, anyway. It was very quick.” And Antoine gave a tiny smile.

It was almost too much for me to take in. And yet it made a kind of sense. I told you: the Blackbird’s skill was in making people see what they most wanted in him. Poor Antoine. Robbed of her child at fourteen, her only remaining passions those of the table, at last she had found another outlet for her maternal nature.

A sudden thought struck me, and I turned to her in dismay. “Antoine. Did he tell you to do it?”

I don’t know why the thought appalled me. He’s killed before, and for less reason. But Antoine shook her head. “He knows nothing about it. He’s a good man. Oh, he’s no saint,” she added, dismissing the seduction of Clémente with a gesture. “He’s a man, with a man’s nature. But if that little girl turns against him-” She gave me a sharp look. “You see why it has to be done, don’t you, Auguste? A painless dose-”

I had to stop this. “Antoine. Listen.” She looked at me like a good dog, with her head to one side. “It would be a mortal sin. Doesn’t that mean anything to you?” Admittedly it meant little enough to me, but I had always thought her a true believer.

“I don’t care!” Her face was flushed, her voice rising dangerously. It occurred to me that her very presence here could be a danger to me.

I motioned her to be silent. “Listen to me, Antoine. Even if I knew the plants to use, whom would they suspect? All poisons take time, you know, and any fool can recognize the symptoms.”

“But we can’t let her tell!” said Antoine stubbornly. “If you won’t help me, I’ll have to take action.”

“What do you mean?”

“I hid your treasures, Auguste,” she said. “I can always find them again. You’ll be watched all the time, now you’ve been accused. Do you think he’d speak for you again? And if you were examined, what do you think would happen to Fleur?”

In Aquitaine all the witch’s household follows her onto the pyre. Pigs, sheep, housecats, chickens…I saw an engraving once of a burning in Lorraine; the witch above the pyre, and below her, cages in which smaller crudely drawn stiff figures crouched, hands outstretched. I wondered what the custom was in the islands.

Antoine watched me with a look of terrible patience. “You have no choice,” she said. Nodding, I had to agree.

So the abbess is mine again, if only for the moment. As she mouthed her Act of Contrition, on her knees, head bowed beneath my accusations, she wept; but they were thin tears, tears of resentment rather than of true repentance. She has defied me once already; never forget she may do so again.

“This fiasco is of your doing!” My voice was harsh against the stones of the cell. The silver crucifix gleamed in the candlelight. A tiny silver encensoir diffused frankincense into the dim air. “Your refusal to ask for assistance has jeopardized God knows how many innocent souls!”

Her mutter was almost defiant behind the Latin. “Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima-”

“It cost Soeur Germaine her life!” I continued mercilessly. “It may well cost Soeur Clémente her soul!”

I lowered my voice a little. Cruelty is a precision instrument, better used to flay than to bludgeon. “And as for your own-” She gave me a sharp look of fear then, and I knew I was close to reaching her. “Only you know the depth of your sin and of your soul’s defilement. The greatest demon of all has violated you. Lucifer, the demon of Pride.”

Isabelle flinched and seemed ready to speak but instead put down her head and would not meet my eyes. “Is it not true?” I insisted in a cold, soft voice. “Did you not think you could solve all our troubles yourself, alone and unaided? Did you not imagine the triumph of victory, the homage the Catholic world would pay to the twelve-year-old girl who, single-handed, defeated the armies of hell?” I drew close to her ear and whispered in it. The hot scent of her tears was exhilarating. “What did the Foul One put into your mind, Angélique?” I murmured. “With what lures did he blind your eyes? Did you hope for fame? Power? Canonization, perhaps?”

“I thought-” Her whimper was small, childish. “I thought…”

“What did you think?” Coaxingly now, not unlike the seductive voice of Satan as imagined by these foolish virgins. “What did you think, Angélique?” She did not seem to notice that I had reverted to her childhood name. “Did you want to be a saint? To make of this place a shrine for the worldly? To have them bruise their knees before you in awe and adoration?”

She cringed. I knew her too well, you see. I saw these ambitions in her before she did herself, and I nurtured them for just such a moment. “I didn’t-” She was sobbing now, the hot, heartbroken tears of the child she was. “I didn’t think-I didn’t know-”

I held her then, letting her weep against my shoulder. I felt no compassion for such as her, believe me, but it was expedient. Necessary. This might be the last time I was able to wield such power over her. Tomorrow might bring a new wave of self-declaration, a new revolt. Already I fancied I could see in her small colorless eyes a measuring look, a look almost of awareness…But for the present I was still the good Father, the warm, the forgiving, the rebuking Father…

“What must I do?” Her eyes were watery and, for the moment, trusting.

I struck at once.