The Lady Agnes Mystery, Volume 1 Read Free Page B

could manage to produce a son! And how she stinks of garlic, sweet Jesus! She pollutes the air from dawn till dusk. Her physic maintains that taking brews and baths made from the revolting bulb will produce a male. So she swallows it, stews in it, spews it – in short, she makes my days a living hell, and as for my nights …’
    ‘Let us pray that she will soon bear you a sturdy son, and me a handsome nephew,’ interrupted Agnès.
    She, too, opened her arms in order to seize the hands that threatened to close around her body. And then she quickly moved away under the pretext of giving orders to the farm hand, who was struggling to control Eudes’s exhausted, nervous mount.
    ‘Why don’t you get off that horse!’ Eudes barked at the page, who was nodding off astride his broad-chested gelding.
    The young lad, barely twelve years old, leapt from the saddle as if he had been kicked.
    ‘Good. Now get a move on! A pox on your sluggishness,’ Eudes roared.
    The terrified boy began seeing to the load weighing down his packhorse.
    Acting the suzerain, Eudes led his sister into the vast dining hall – so cool even the worst heatwave could barely warm its walls. Mabile had laid the table and was leaning against the wall awaiting her orders, her head bowed and her hands clasped in front of her apron. Agnès noticed that she had taken the trouble to change her bonnet.
    ‘Fetch me a ewer so I may rinse my hands,’ Eudes ordered, without so much as a glance in her direction.
    As soon as the girl had gone, he asked Agnès:
    ‘Does she please you, my lamb?’
    ‘Indeed, brother, she is obedient and hard-working. Although I suspect she misses serving in your household.’
    ‘What of it! Her opinion doesn’t interest me. Good God, I’m ravenous! Well, my beauty. What news from your part of the world?’
    ‘Not a great deal, to be sure, brother. We had four new piglets this spring, and so far the rye and barley crops are flourishing. We expect a good yield, if the continual rain of the past few years stays away. When I think that less than fifteen years ago they were harvesting strawberries in Alsace in January! But I mustn’t bore you with my farmer’s complaints. Your niece,’ she pointed to Mathilde, ‘has been bursting with eagerness to see you again.’
    He turned towards the little girl, who had been vainly attempting to attract his attention with smiles and sighs.
    ‘How pretty she is, with that little face and those honey-blonde curls. And those big dreamy eyes! What passions you will soon provoke, my beloved.’
    The overjoyed girl gave a polite curtsey. Her uncle continued:
    ‘She is made in your image, Agnès.’
    ‘On the contrary, I think she resembles you when you were a child – much to my pleasure. Although you and I, it is true, might have been mistaken for twins had it not been for your superior strength.’
    She was lying deliberately. They had never borne the slightest resemblance to one another – except for the colour of their coppery golden hair. Eudes was stocky, with heavy features, a square jaw, an overly pointed nose, and his skinny lips resembled a gash when they were not uttering some bawdy word or insult.
    All of a sudden his face grew sullen, and she wondered if shehad gone too far. His eyes still riveted on his half-sister, he said to the girl in a soft voice:
    ‘How would you like to do me a good turn, my angel?’
    ‘Nothing would please me more, uncle.’
    ‘Run and find out what has become of that good-for-nothing page. He’s taking a long time to unload his horse and bring me what I requested.’
    Mathilde turned and hurried out to the courtyard. Eudes continued solemnly:
    ‘Were it not for your goodness, Agnès, I would have resented the distress your arrival into this world caused my mother. What a slight, what an insult for such a pious, irreproachable woman.’
    Agnès was glad of the remark, for she feared he had seen through her charade. Indeed, at every visit he managed