If she remembers. If LeMerle suspects nothing. If my skill holds. If my one shaft hits true.

If.

Perette, do not fail me.

Since last night, the sisters have been busy preparing for this morning’s festival. Flowers cover every surface; hundreds of tall, white candles have been lit in the chapel; and the altar is decked with an embroidered banner, which I am told dates back to before the black monks, and which is used only for this ceremony. The chapel’s holy relic-a finger bone of the Virgin, in a gold reliquary-is on display, along with a selection of the Virgin’s ceremonial robes and dresses. The new Sainte-Marie has been draped in blue and white, with lilies-what else?-at her feet. I can smell the flowers from twenty yards away, even over that of the extra braziers, which have been installed at every entrance in spite of the heat, burning frankincense and sandalwood to dispel evil thoughts. There are torches too, hanging against the walls, and votives on every surface. The air is more than half smoke; against it, the light from the stained-glass window looks almost solid, as if it might be possible to pluck gems from the air.

I watched in secret from the opposite side of the causeway as the bishop’s retinue approached. I could tell his colors even at that distance-pitiful, that he should still need so much pomp and ceremony. It speaks of a pride that has even now not been mastered, doubly inappropriate in a man of the cloth. Liveried soldiers, gilded harness glinting in the sun…I’ll make a fine blaze of all his trumpery soon enough, but first we’ll dance our little measure, he and I. I have looked forward to it for so long.

Of course, he missed the tide. I meant him to; my observation of the comings and goings at the causeway has not been in vain. He expected to reach us last night, before Vespers, but on this coast, the tide takes eleven hours to turn. There is an inn on the other side, however, conveniently placed for such occasions, and he must have stayed the night there-no doubt angrily berating the fool who misinformed him-until this morning. Low tide was at seven. I’ll give him two hours more to reach the abbey, and all is set; with luck-and a little judicious planning-he should arrive just in time for my little comedy to begin.

A Blackbird’s song may haply be silenced, indeed. But not by such a gilded scarecrow as yourself, Monseigneur. You’ll not walk out of this performance, I promise. A pity that my Ailée cannot be among us at the finale, but that I suppose was inevitable. A pity nevertheless: she would surely have appreciated it.

It was time; all were gathered in the chapel as I made my entrance. Even my poor afflicted ones had been brought to the service-though they had been given seats throughout the long service, and were not obliged to stand or kneel. Perette was missing, of course, but no one paid much attention; her comings and goings had always been erratic, and she would not be missed. Good. I hoped she would remember her part. A small role, but a pretty one; I would be very disappointed if she failed to carry it off.

“My children.” I had coached them well; glassy-eyed with the burning incense, they watched me as if I were their only salvation. Mère Isabelle was standing at my right side, close to the brazier; through the smoke, her face was ash. “Today we celebrate the most sacred and most dear to us of our holy days. The festival of the Holy Mother.”

A rumor ran through the congregation, an ahhh of satisfaction and release. Above it, I could just hear the sound of drops beginning to fall on the roof slates; at last, it had begun to rain. I couldn’t have planned it better; come to think of it, a little strategic thunder would not come amiss. Perhaps the Lord would provide some when the time came, thereby proving that he does have a sense of irony. But I digress. Back to the Virgin, then, before she loses her freshness. Where was I? “The Mother, who watches down upon us in the presence of evil. The Virgin, who comforts us in our times of need; whose purity is that of the dove and the white lily”-nice touch, LeMerle-“whose forgiveness and compassion know no bounds.”

Ahhh. Not for nothing do we use the language of love to seduce these foolish virgins; pulpit rhetoric is indecently close to that of the bedroom, just as some of the more interesting sections of the Bible echo the pornographies of the ancients. I played now on this kinship in words they knew well, promising raptures beyond the realms of human endurance, ecstasies without limit in the arms of the Lord. Earthly suffering is less than nothing, I told them, in the face of the pleasures to come, the fruits of Paradise-I could see Antoine beginning to drool-the joys of unending service in the House of God.

It was a promising start; already I could see Soeur Tomasine grinning alarmingly; beside her, Marguerite’s face was a mass of twitches. Good. “But today is not simply a time of rejoicing. It is also our day of battle. Today we throw down the final challenge to the evil that has plagued us and plagues us still.”

Ahhh. Wrested from their pleasant thoughts, the sisters flinched and pranced like nervous mares.

“I do not doubt that today we shall defeat the forces of darkness-but if the worst happens, and we are once more tested to the limits of our faith, be of stout heart. There is always an escape for those of true faith, and with the courage to embrace it.”

Isabelle’s face was set in a grimace of determination. Saint or martyr, that look told me; this time, she was not to be thwarted. Angélique Saint-Hervé Désirée Arnault always gets her way.

Now, outside, I could hear a distant sound of horses’ hooves on the road, and I knew that my enemy was near; and just in time too. Timing is the greatest tool of an artist in my trade; good timing is a precision instrument, coaxing comedy or tragedy to one climax after another; bad timing is a bludgeon that kills all suspense and ruins both drama and punch line. By my reckoning I had maybe eight or ten minutes until Arnault’s grand entrance; time enough, anyway, to whip up the welcome he deserved.

“Courage, my children, courage. Satan knows we await him. We have faced him together, and we stand now united in our faith and our conviction, ready to go to war. The devil comes in a thousand guises, fair-faced or foul; he may be a man or a woman, a child or a beast, he may take the features of a loved one, of a man of power, even, on occasion, of a bishop or a king. The next countenance you see will be his, my children; already the Dark One approaches. I can hear the sound of his infernal carriage as it thunders toward us. Satan, we are here. Show us your face!”

Seldom has any audience-at Court or in the provinces-ever been so entranced by a single performer. Already, they were watching me as if their souls depended upon it. The braziers lit my face like the fires of purgatory; above us, the rain was cathartic; after so many days of heat and drought it exalted them, turned their faces toward the heavens, sent them staring toward the rafters as their feet began to move independently of their minds and my dea ex machina prepared to take the stage…

My hiding place was high in the bell tower, not far from the bell itself, which hangs from an iron crosspiece in the narrowest part of the spire. My eyrie was perilous, accessible only from the rough scaffolding erected by the workmen repairing the roof, but it was the only place from which I could work; and besides, Ailée has no fear of heights. Even so I could be certain of nothing; this performance could have no rehearsal, no second showing.