Clément had spent the last few days trying to decipher the coded message he had copied out. He had gone through every possible combination, varying the pattern, beginning with the first word of each psalm, then realigning his transcription by moving along a few words or lines. But to no avail. He had a nagging suspicion: what if he was wrong and Mabile had used a different book? But if so, which one? The few there were at Souarcy were mostly in Latin, and Clément was sure Mabile had no notion of that language reserved for erudite people. Given that piety was hardly the servant’s main virtue, she could have chosen something more suited to her, a work in French that would be more easily accessible. Where was she hiding it? Agnès was keeping the scoundrel occupied as they had planned earlier that morning.
When Clément walked into the kitchen, Adeline was sweeping the ashes out of the big hearth.
‘I’m looking for Mabile,’ he lied,
‘She’s with our lady.’
‘Well, in that case I’ll keep you company while I wait for her. Chatting lightens chores.’
‘That’s very true.’
‘You work hard and our lady is pleased with you.’
Adeline looked up, blushing.
‘She’s a good person.’
‘Yes, she is. Unlike … Well, sometimes I have the feeling Mabile isn’t very nice to you.’
The girl’s usually flaccid lips puckered.
‘She’s a nasty piece of work.’
‘To be sure.’
Adeline became emboldened, adding:
‘She’s like a boil on the backside, she is! Only I tell you one thing and that is you can prick a boil and it’ll stop hurting. She thinks she’s so high and mighty, with all her simpering … Just because she’s being …’
Adeline froze suddenly and her eyes darted anxiously towards Clément. She had spoken out of turn and felt afraid suddenly of Mabile’s possible retribution.
‘Just because she’s being tupped by her former master it doesn’t give her the right to lord it over the rest of us,’ Clément concluded to make the girl feel at ease. ‘This will be our secret.’
Adeline’s broad face lit up with a smile of relief and she nodded.
‘What’s more, she puts on airs and graces just because she can read a little,’ Clément continued.
‘Yes. Well, I don’t need to read to know how to prepare a dish. Whereas she … She’s always got her nose stuck in that meat recipe book of hers just to show off. She is a good cook, mind you, it’s just that …’
‘So she uses a meat recipe book, does she!’ exclaimed Clément. ‘And there I was thinking she knew it all herself …’
‘No, she cheats!’ affirmed Adeline. ‘But not me. It’s all in here, in my head, not in some book!’
‘Well! I’d be interested to know if that’s where she got the recipe for the sauce she made to go with the rack of wild boar, which so impressed the Comte d’Authon. For if she copied it from someone, then the compliments shouldn’t go to her.’
‘That’s the honest truth,’ agreed Adeline, pleased with herself. ‘Only she never lets that recipe book out of her sight in case anyone discovers her deception. She hides it in her room!’
‘By Jove she doesn’t!’
‘She does,’ Adeline assured him, puffed up by a sudden sense of her own importance, and with a glint in her eye she added:
‘But I know where she keeps it.’
‘I thought you were a crafty one!’
‘I am, too. It’s under her mattress.’
Clément stayed chatting with the girl for a while longer and then stood up to leave.
The door had scarcely closed behind him before he raced upstairs to the servants’ quarters. He only had a few minutes left before Agnès would be forced to release Mabile, who was surely astonished by the sudden interest her mistress was showing in her.
He immediately found the recipe book hidden where Adeline had told him. There was some writing on the first page: ‘Copied from Monsieur Debray, chef to his most gracious and powerful majesty Sire Louis VIII, the Lion King.’
The boy paused. Should he replace the book and wait until Mabile was absent again in order to compare it with the text of the message, or should he take it? Time was running out and he chose the second solution. If Mabile noticed it was gone before he had a chance to return it, she would no doubt accuse Adeline. Agnès would then need to protect the poor girl from the servant’s wrath.
He climbed silently back up to his eaves and set to work at once. He must be quick. The conflict was steadily becoming clearer. He must return to the secret library at Clairets Abbey to try to throw light on another mystery: the notebook of the Knight Eustache de Rioux.