By daybreak the following morning, Charlotte and Nicolas had tidied away their few pots and plates and cups, nailed the cottage door shut and were on their way. She had told none of the villagers of her plans, for she knew some of them viewed such departures as a kind of betrayal. They trusted in prayers and isolation, but Charlotte had placed her faith in these things before and been disappointed. Someone would see or hear them leave, of course, and it would take no time for reports of their departure to spread, but by then they would be gone. She was resolved to flee and there was nothing anyone might say to change her mind.
They took turns tugging the skittering goat along behind them on a length of rope. The animal regarded them with anger and contempt, an old creature forced against its will. Charlotte carried a cane basket with two chickens, and over her shoulder was a sack containing a few turnips and beets, a blanket, some dried fruit, bread, sausage and a flask of water drawn from the well.
It was not long before they left the village environs and entered the forest. The whistles of orioles and the skirring of finches filled the air around them, and the light from the early-morning sun spattered upon the flowers. Charlotte had never before seen a body of water as large as the ocean, let alone swum in its depths, yet she imagined this was how it was beneath its surface; it would not surprise her unduly to spy a mermaid or leviathan floating through the treetops overhead. Beneath their shoes, leaves crackled and crunched with a sound like that of damp insect shells. Lizards scurried across the rocky path. Ancient oak trees furred with green lichen, drone of huge wasps, the incessant chatter of birds. Despite the outbreak of fever, it had been a favourable start to summer and they were able to collect plenty of mulberries and plums as they walked. They ate what they could and filled their pockets with the surplus. Charlotte urged Nicolas on, eager to leave the valley. Her son was nimble on his feet but easily distracted and often had to be coaxed onwards after becoming entranced by a bee clinging awkwardly to a head of purple thistle or some martens in the undergrowth.
The only signs of human life they encountered that morning were the ancient stone crosses slumped along the path at irregular intervals, most of them worn almost to the bone by weather and time, by thousands of penitent caresses. The fields and lanes of their country were dotted with such powerful shrines: for fertility, for good crops, for protection from disease. Charlotte knew that Madame Solange from the village sometimes put the scrapings of one of these crosses in her husband’s dinner to assist him in the bedroom.
After a time, she heard voices and presently a small group of people approached from the opposite direction. None of them she recognised. The party – two women and a young man dragging behind him a stretcher or bier – waited a moment on the narrow track as silent and cautious as deer. They were dressed as pilgrims, with numerous amulets and icons slung around their necks and crosses at their belts. Charlotte clutched her husband’s knife beneath her shawl.
The woman at the head of the little procession stared at her and Nicolas until, evidently deciding they were not to be feared, she indicated for her companions to continue. She was old and walnut-faced, her grey hair wispy and only partly covered with a scarf. When they had approached to within hailing distance, the woman halted again and nodded in greeting to Charlotte.
‘Good morning, madame.’
‘Good morning.’
‘Where are you going?’
Charlotte paused. ‘To Lyon. We are escaping an outbreak of the plague in Saint-Gilles. And you, madame?’
The woman sighed and indicated the path ahead of her with her staff. ‘To the shrine of the Virgin to pray for this boy.’
Although she had never visited it, Charlotte knew of this shrine, which was on a hill some leagues from here. It had grown up at the site where, many years ago, the Virgin had appeared to a shepherd girl and given her a wooden cross. Céline, the village midwife, had journeyed there long ago to pray for the health of her own sick daughter and, on her return, had excitedly described to Charlotte how the tree near the shrine was so garlanded with flowers and icons and votive candles that it fairly trembled, even at night.
‘The plague is in this poor child,’ the old woman went on, and gestured to a boy lying on the bier attached with ropes to the young man, as if he were an ox in the field and the sick boy his plough. Charlotte and Nicolas craned to see this afflicted boy, who was bundled in a blanket with only his face, thin as a hatchet blade, visible over the coverlet. He was turned aside. His lips were dry and chalky. Charlotte shrank back, for he reminded her of Michel bound in his winding sheet.
‘The shrine is two days’ walk from here,’ Charlotte said. ‘The boy will not last long enough, I fear.’
The woman shrugged and made a face, as if agreeing with her but reluctant to speak aloud her thoughts on the matter. She crossed herself. ‘We must do what we can. He is the only boy left in his family. We have been bleeding him and he is much better for it. And we will pray, of course, casting his fate into the hands of the Lord. He may yet help us.’
The woman’s companions nodded and smiled vigorously at this and fondled their crosses and icons. Each of them had sprigs of lavender tied around their necks to ward off disease. Charlotte smiled, greatly touched by their devotion. Each soul contained an entire world, after all. At that moment, the boy on the bier opened his eyes and turned to look at Charlotte. His face showed alarm. Agitated, breathing heavily, he strained to say something. The old woman leaned over him and put her ear close by his mouth. She nodded and stood.
‘He says you must be an angel, madame,’ she said to Charlotte. ‘Because you are so beautiful. Are you an angel? Will you help us?’
Taken aback, Charlotte shook her head. ‘No, madame. It is the fever talking. They sometimes see odd things when it has hold of them.’
The old woman took a step closer to Charlotte. White whiskers sprouted from her cheeks, lending her the appearance of a strange and leathery cat. Her mouth worked away as she scrutinised Charlotte for a long time with her pale blue eyes until, finally, she turned back to the sick boy, leaned down once more and consoled him with a few words.
Charlotte tugged Nicolas back by his sleeve and the two of them stood aside on the path to allow the pilgrims to continue on their way. ‘God be with you,’ she said as they shuffled onwards.
She and Nicolas stared after the group. She crossed herself. ‘They will all die of it, I think,’ she murmured to her son.
Their last sight of the strangers was of the sick boy on the bier, of his milky face fading, becoming ever smaller as they drew away. A wood dove cooed nearby and fluttered up from the undergrowth, startling them. By the time Charlotte looked back, there was no sign of the pilgrims, prompting her to wonder if they had encountered anyone at all.