The Whispering of Bones (10 page)

He rounded the gallery's curve, wishing he'd thought to bring a candle, but sure that he must be nearly on the miscreants. The gallery's overhang cut off most of the light from the altar candles, but if the boys had escaped to the north aisle stairs, he would have heard them running. As he walked into deeper shadow, his hair prickled on his neck and a tiny whisper of breath sighed behind him. He whirled, but too late. Something hit him like a cast stone, pain ripped through the back of his left shoulder, and he cried out and fell.

For a few moments, he was aware of nothing but pain and the hot sickening feel of blood running down his back.

“Maître?”
the lay brother called. “Are you all right?”

Charles's groan was inarticulate, but it was enough to bring the lay brother pounding up the stairs.

“What happened?” he cried, bending over Charles. “Bring a candle,” he called over the gallery railing, “Maître du Luc's hurt! Where are those unblessed boys,
maître
?”

“It wasn't boys,” Charles said faintly.

Someone came with a candle, and Charles groaned as hands prodded at his back.

“You've been stabbed!” someone said. “You're bleeding like a pig!”

The next few minutes were a chaos of questions Charles couldn't answer. “But did you
see
the man who stabbed me?” he finally managed to say, looking up.

Two lay brothers were bending over him now, and a man he recognized as a courtyard proctor was holding a candle. All of them shook their heads.

Charles breathed deeply against the pain. “The street door,” he said, “who's watching it?”

“A proctor's there,” said the man with the candle.

“Then the man's hiding somewhere.” Charles tried to shrug off their hands. “Never mind me, find him!”

“Maître Wing, come up here and help us search,” one of the brothers called down to the Englishman. “Bring a candle.”

The brothers heaved Charles to his feet and one of them walked him toward the north stairs, which were on the other side of the altar and nearest to the courtyard door. The other brother called out to Wing to hurry.

When they reached the foot of the stairs, Charles saw that the women who'd been scattered through the nave praying for Dainville were gathered near the altar, in front of the coffin, and seemed to be arguing with someone.

“Stop your fussing!” an aggrieved male voice said to them. “I tell you, there's nothing wrong with him!”

The voice was Maître Richaud's, and Charles stopped. “What's happened there?” he called, but his voice was too weak to carry over the angry voice of a woman still arguing with Richaud.

“I've told you, I saw
no
one coming down those stairs,” Maître Louis Richaud's voice went on. “But I wasn't looking, was I? I came from the courtyard to put a stop to the unseemly noise in here!” The women parted in haste as he pushed his way through them. When he saw Charles, he stopped, glaring. “I suppose you started this uproar?”

“No,” Charles said through his teeth, “whoever stabbed me started it. I thought it was boys up there. But—” He caught his breath and leaned heavily against the lay brother.

Richaud snorted. “If they're hiding there, they'll be found.” He frowned. “I heard someone say you've been stabbed. Surely you don't think one of our boys did that.”

“Enough,” the brother growled at Richaud. “I'm taking Maître du Luc to the infirmary.”

“There's another man here who needs help,” the oldest of the women said back. She pointed toward Dainville's coffin and the women with her moved aside. Beyond their wide skirts, a black shape was huddled on the floor and yet another woman was bent over it.

Charles's heart jumped into his throat. “Is it Maître Wing? Did the man stab him, too?”

“He's only fainted,” Richaud said derisively. “I found him like that when I got here.”

“I saw him faint,” the older woman put in. “It was when he”—she nodded at Charles—“cried out—screamed, really—in the gallery.”

The lay brother started Charles moving again. “Stay with him,” the brother told Richaud. “If he doesn't come to himself quickly, bring him to the infirmary.”

“He can come to himself somewhere else,” Richaud snapped. “He can't stay here in front of the coffin!” With a put-upon sigh, he shooed the women aside, bent over Wing, and shook him impatiently by the shoulder. As the lay brother led Charles out the door, Wing stirred and mumbled behind them.

C
HAPTER
9

THE FEAST OF ST. SEVERIN OF COLOGNE,

THURSDAY, OCTOBER 23, 1687

“T
here were no students up in the chapel gallery,” Père Le Picart said from his stool beside Charles's infirmary bed. “All the boarding students were where they should have been. And aside from the fact that I simply cannot believe a student would attack you, no one in the college—either student or Jesuit—has any weapon, you know that. The man who stabbed you surely lured you up there by moving from place to place and giggling and whispering like boys having a prank.”

Charles, lying on his side to save pressure on his wound, looked up at the rector as best he could. “So the man just wanted to stab whoever came to find the students?” he said skeptically.

“Maître Wing thinks so,” said Le Picart. “He thinks it's the same man who killed Paul Lunel and that he's going about, trying to kill Jesuits. He says that he heard someone running very lightly along the east end of the gallery, above the altar, almost straight above him. He thought the man was making for the north stairs and coming to kill him. That's why he fainted.”

“But no one attacked him.”

“No.” Le Picart was quiet for a moment. “I've been told there were only a few people in the chapel, all women. And that you and Maître Wing and the lay brother watching the street door were the only Jesuits in the chapel. Correct?”

Charles grunted affirmatively.

“Anyone would know that the man charged with watching the door would be unlikely to leave it to round up a few students. So it would almost certainly be either you or Maître Wing who came upstairs to see to the supposed boys.”

“But where in God's name did this man go?” Charles said. “How did he get away unseen? There must be somewhere that wasn't searched!”

“We searched everywhere. There was no one in the gallery; no one saw the man in the church. My guess is that he slipped out the north door to the back court and went over the wall by the stables.” The rector smiled slightly. “Unless, of course, he was a demon.”

“What?”

“Maître Richaud has been disciplined for putting it about that you were stabbed by a demon. For your sins, he says. Which is illogical of him, since a demon would no doubt be delighted by your sins.”

Charles, outraged, tried to push himself up on his elbow.

“I was stabbed by a real man, with a very real knife. What if Maître Wing is right and this attack has to do with our dead almost-novice?”

“But why would it? Though you found him, you don't know who killed him. You can't accuse anyone.”

“But the man at the foot of the crypt stairs—I saw him. If he was the killer, he may fear I can recognize him. That's at least possible.”

“But he was only outlined against the light, you said. You couldn't see his features. And you said that he stood quietly and made no attempt to avoid you and Père Dainville.”

Charles started to protest, but Le Picart frowned and put a hand on Charles's forehead. “Hush now, lie quiet.
Mon frère
,” he called, “Maître du Luc is somewhat fevered.”

“I thought he would be.” Frère Brunet put his head around the doorway to his room beyond the infirmary altar. “I've been making him a
tisane
. I'm coming.”

The rector sat quietly. Charles lay listening to Frère Brunet humming as he finished his mixing, the soothing sounds reminding Charles of his mother brewing medicine when someone in the household fell ill.

His eyes were closing when another thought jolted him awake.

“You'll have to reconsecrate the chapel,” he said anxiously. “Since blood was spilled there. I'm sorry—”

“Shhh,
maître
, that's hardly your fault. You didn't spill your own blood. Yes, it will have to be blessed again. Meanwhile, we're using one of the small chapels. It's crowded, but it will have to do for a short time. Père Dainville's body has been moved there.”

Charles sighed and shifted restlessly on the pillow. “Has Frère Brunet told you how long I must stay here?”

“No, he hasn't,” Brunet rumbled, coming in from his room with a glass and a thick pottery bowl. “You're not going anywhere today or tomorrow, that's certain. The wound isn't so much—a slice, but not a deep one. The man's knife was sharp enough, but he didn't know much about using it.” He put the bowl down on the table. Slipping an arm under Charles's shoulders, he turned him so that he could drink and held the glass to his lips. “Drink it all, it's
eau de melisse
, same as I gave you last night. Good for shock. Other things, too.”

The sweet lemony taste was comforting and went down easily. “That's better than some of the things you've poured into me,
mon frère
.”

“Don't complain. You'll drink what I give you and be glad!” He laid Charles down on his side again, put the glass down, and stirred the contents of the bowl. “Turn onto your belly,” he growled. “This is going to hurt.”

“The wound isn't his fault, you know,” Le Picart said mildly.

“It's the one who did this I'm angry at.”

Charles yelped as Brunet started peeling the bandage away.

“Sorry,” Brunet said. “We've lost a novice—well, nearly a novice—and now some son of a pig—I'd guess the same son of a pig—has carved up Maître du Luc's back. Who's next? And what's that La Reynie doing about it?”

“Whatever he can, I assure you. He—Monsieur La Reynie—is furious.”

“Good.” Brunet poured something warm and fresh-smelling onto Charles's back, and it bit like a swooping falcon. Charles grunted. Brunet made an exasperated sound and stood up. “I forgot the fresh bandage. Don't move.” He hurried into the room beyond the altar.

When he was gone, Le Picart said quietly to Charles, “Monsieur La Reynie is furious about the attack, but he's even more furious because the man attacked you.”

“He said that?” Charles mumbled into the pillow.

“No. He said that he was going to Fontainebleau.” The rector's tone was dark with disapproval.

Before Charles could ask why La Reynie had gone to the palace where the king spent the hunting season, Brunet came back with a length of folded linen. He wrapped it briskly around Charles's back and chest and over his shoulder. Charles, gritting his teeth against the pain of being moved, suddenly wished that everyone would go away and stop talking to him. His head hurt and the light was too bright and everything suddenly seemed much too complicated to think about.

“There.” Brunet laid Charles down again on his right side and put a hand on his patient's forehead. “Oh, dear. You're getting hotter. I think I'd better . . .”

Charles's eyes closed and the rest of the sentence melted into a dream in which La Reynie was dragging him painfully down the crypt stairs, asking why he'd let the demon hide so many bodies.

The rest of Thursday and Friday passed in intermittent shivering and sweating, and a confusion of dreaming and waking. Then bells were ringing, the infirmary was dark, and Charles was listening to the bells' clamor and trying to figure out what day it was. The burning in his back and shoulder had lessened and he was blessedly cool. He was drifting away from trying to think and back into sleep when a big hand enveloped his forehead. He grunted in surprise and tried to twist away.

“No, no, it's only me. Don't twist like that and your wound will be better pleased.” Frère Brunet stood over him, nodding cautiously. “Your fever's much less, thank Our Lady for that grace. How do you feel?”

“Better. What day is it?”

“Hmmm?” Brunet was stirring something at the small table between Charles's bed and the next one. “Oh. It's Saturday. Saint Eata.”

“Who?”

“He was English,” Brunet said dismissively. “Years ago. I don't know why we bother with him.”

“A martyr?”

“You might say so. Died of dysentery, so they say.”

Charles grunted. “
That's
a horrible fate, even for an Englishman. Most martyrdoms are a lot quicker.”

“Ah, had it yourself, have you?”

“I nearly died of it my first year in the army.”

“Then that's three times—no, four times—you haven't died,
maître
. The dysentery, your army wound, that gunshot wound you got your first summer here, and now this stabbing. Not so much the wound itself this time, but the festering of it. I wouldn't push my luck any more, if I were you. God might be tired of saving you from yourself.”

“What do you mean, from myself?”

“I don't mean what happened Wednesday night. But you joined the army yourself, didn't you? I mean, you're noble, so I hear, and you didn't join like so many do—because they've no money and nothing to eat. You just wanted to fight.”

Charles said nothing, and Brunet advanced on him with the cup.

“This will help keep the fever away. The wound's festering is calming down nicely, but I want to make sure it doesn't come back. And you're going nowhere till I
am
sure.”

Charles sipped at the bitter drink. “When can I get up?”

“When I say so. When your fever stays gone. I'll bring you something to eat shortly. Meanwhile, you finish that and say your prayers.” He bustled away.

Torn between exasperation and affection, Charles watched the lay brother's broad back disappear down the room and out the door. Brunet was wrong, though, about the army; Charles hadn't gone into the army because he'd wanted to fight. He'd wanted to die, and not just any death. He'd wanted to die heroically in battle, a noble martyr to his family's refusal to let him marry his Protestant cousin Pernelle. His mouth quirked in a sad half smile. Of course, he'd been eighteen at the time, exactly the age for dramatic self-sacrifice. Well, if punishment was deserved for that, the terrible memory he shared with Amaury de Corbet had been ample penance.

Whatever he'd imagined he wanted at eighteen, he definitely did not want to die now. He wondered if La Reynie had found out anything more about Wednesday night's attack. He remembered Le Picart telling him something about the
lieutenant-général
, but now he couldn't remember what. He was still trying to remember when Brunet came back with bread, a steaming bowl, and watered wine. He put the tray down on the little table and helped Charles sit up.

“Here you are,
maître
.” He put the bowl on Charles's lap and gave him a spoon. “Eat all of this; you've hardly eaten anything these last days.”

Charles looked dubiously at the grayish mess in the bowl. “What is it?”

“Mutton broth with barley.”

“It looks like baby pap.”

“Babies have sense. Now eat.”

“Oui, maman,”
Charles murmured, and ate.

The soup was hot and thick and filling. By the time he finished it, he wanted to curl up and sleep again. Brunet said grace after eating with him, made him wash his face and hands as though he were six years old, and helped him lie down again on his side to take the pressure off his wound. Charles was sliding into sleep when Père Le Picart appeared beside his bed.

“Maître,”
the rector said, almost whispering. “Are you awake? Your cousin has come to see you.”

Charles's eyes flew open and he looked up in dismay.

Le Picart tilted his head very slightly back toward the door. “He says he's on the point of leaving Paris. He also says he went to the Novice House and—as we expected—was refused permission to see Amaury de Corbet. He asked me if
you'd
seen de Corbet, and I said you had. He knows that you are not well, but I didn't tell him you were attacked. Let that remain unsaid.” His voice rose. “And so,
maître
, I've reminded your cousin that he must speak quietly here and leave promptly. Will you see him?”

Charles sighed. “If you'll help me sit up again. When I look up from this angle, I feel as though my eyes are going to fall out.”