The Whispering of Bones (26 page)

“Tell Père Le Picart to pray, too,” Marie-Ange demanded, tucking more of her mother's newly escaped curls under the cap again.

“I will. Whatever else we can do,” he said to the baker, “I trust you will ask us.” He signed a cross over Mme LeClerc. “My mother always said,
madame
, that Saint Anne is listening to every woman in childbed.”

In spite of the spasm of pain showing on her face, Mme LeClerc's dimples flashed. “Of course she is! That's what a woman needs, a little good conversation and all is well!” Then she closed her lips hard together and Marie-Ange stroked her belly, her face full of worry.

Charles and the baker backed out of the room.

“I'll go for the midwife if she's not here soon.” The baker looked back at the bed. “Please pray hard for her.”

“I will. God be with you all tonight.”

Charles went out into the street and the bar thudded back into place across the door. The wind struck cold on his face as he started toward the college postern, and he prayed that wherever Henry Wing was, he was alive and warm enough. And that the coming baby, and the woman bringing him into the cold world, would both be well.

Suddenly, the wind leaped up the rue St. Jacques like a wild thing, and the street lanterns creaked on their hooks and chains, their candles flickering, guttering, going out. Charles was suddenly back in the dream that had made him cry out and wake Père Damiot. The wind sounded like the breath of a hunting animal as it tossed and worried the one lantern still lit, making shadows spin like the leaves coming down from the trees. As the shadows closed around Charles, it seemed to him that they were full of faces: the goatwoman's face, the face of the peasant woman at Cassel, the face of his cousin Charles-François, Amaury's face and Wing's and Richaud's. Then Père Dainville's serene face flashed past him and the shadows calmed and the wind drew back. But the evil dream went on. A door opened and a man came striding out to kill him. Charles ran.

“God's tears,
maître
, what's come to you?” La Reynie shouted. “Get back here!”

Charles's feet faltered and he looked over his shoulder.
“Mon lieutenant-général?”

“Of course it's me! Come back!”

Charles went slowly to the postern. “Forgive me. I—I thought—” He shook his head. “I don't know what I thought.” He looked at the street in a daze, the wind whipping his hair into his eyes.

La Reynie led him to the postern and into the passage. He stopped under the passage lantern and peered anxiously at Charles.

“What happened out there?”

Charles shook his head. “The wind—the lanterns went out and it was like a dream I had. I thought I saw faces . . . the goatwoman and—”

“What goatwoman?” La Reynie said sharply.

“It wasn't really her, only shadows—”

“
Which
goatwoman?”

“The one called Hyacinthe. She's old and”—Charles shrugged—“just an old woman. She lives on Talking Flea Street, out beyond the wall.”

“Has she told you something?”

Charles stared at him. “How did you know?”

“She's a seer,” La Reynie said grimly.

Charles felt his skin crawl. “Surely you don't believe that!”

“I believe what I see. I've seen what she says come to pass.”

“What she said made no sense. She said, ‘Follow the dead, find your death.' She's said it twice—the first time was when I saw her in the Lunel courtyard, which I told you about.”

“You didn't tell me she'd said something to you!”

“It didn't seem important. And the other time was this afternoon by Talking Flea Street. She said it again, and shouted at me to stay away. I suppose she's just a mad old woman.”

“Who frightened you enough that you ran when you thought you saw her face just now in the street.”

“I was a little bewitched by shadows and my dream,” Charles said impatiently. “That's all.”

“
Bewitched
is exactly the word. Listen to me. The woman warned you against finding. And you
are
searching—for a killer. Everyone in the Latin quarter knows that her words are not to be brushed aside.”

The
lieutenant-général
's flat certainty about that, coming after Père Damiot's, settled over Charles like a cold mist, and he could find nothing to say.

La Reynie nodded with satisfaction. “Good. You've heard me. You've been a soldier and no matter what you are now, you haven't forgotten how to protect yourself. So be on your guard. Now. I've seen Père Le Picart and the
commissaire
and heard about your missing Englishman, and we'll search for him. I was also called to your Novice House this evening.” He eyed Charles sourly. “The Novice House rector is breathing fire at me because of
Le Cabinet
. As though I have enough men to keep every illegal book out of the city.”

Irritably, he flicked a speck of dirt from the breast of his tobacco-colored coat. Charles saw the blue shadows under his deep-set black eyes and wondered, as he often had before, when La Reynie went home and slept.

“The Novice House rector told me he suspects your friend de Corbet of bringing
Le Cabinet
into the house,” La Reynie said. “Though de Corbet swears the copy of
Le Cabinet
is not his and refuses to say anything more. I got the strong impression that de Corbet is acting more like an offended noble than a Jesuit novice learning humility.”

“The Novice House rector was going to let me be there when he talked to de Corbet,” Charles said. “But he never sent word.”

“He tells me he did, late this afternoon, but you weren't here. I wanted to take de Corbet to the Châtelet for a little talk, but the rector suddenly shifted his ground to play father hen and refused to give up his chick. I didn't press him. We agreed that you would walk with the novices tomorrow morning to their country house at Montrouge. You are to talk with de Corbet about the book during the walk. You are also to eat dinner with them there, he says, and then come back to the city on your own. He has sent a note to your rector about it.” La Reynie glowered at Charles. “I tell you now that if you don't find out what your friend knows, he
will
find himself at the Châtelet.”

Charles bristled. “And I tell you what I've already told the Novice House rector. Amaury doesn't know anything about that damned book. However lacking he may be in Jesuit humility, he's the image of the old stories' ‘perfect knight.' I didn't know him well in the army, but everyone knew that his word was his word, and that honor probably meant more to him than his hope of heaven.” He eyed La Reynie balefully. “And yes, if Père Le Picart permits, I'll walk with them and find out what I can.”

“Père Le Picart sends his permission through me.”

Charles eyed him skeptically.

“For God's sake,
maître
, even I know not to lie about a Jesuit rector.” La Reynie grinned. “Except in exceptional circumstances. No, no,” he said, laughing at Charles's look, “he really did say that. I'm
not
noble, but my word is still good.”

“It had better be,” Charles said back. “I doubt talking to Amaury at the Châtelet would be any use to you. If he says he didn't bring in the book, he didn't. What might be of more use is talking to Michel Poulard, your maid's son who's a servant at the Novice House. I think he knows a good deal about everything that goes in and out of that house.”

“And how do you know that?”

Charles didn't want to tell La Reynie about Rose Ebrard and Amaury. He smiled blandly. “Just a thought.”

La Reynie sighed. “Someone needs to have a useful thought about all this. Because I seem to have none. Your missing Englishman—would he go off on his own? Would he run away from the Society?”

“He might go off on his own for some reason that seemed good to him, but not for long. I can't imagine him running away.”

“Is he a bold man?”

“Far from it,” Charles said. “He told me straight out that he's a coward. Can you imagine a man actually saying that? And the night I was attacked in the chapel, he fainted.”

La Reynie frowned in disbelief. “What use do you have for someone like that?”

“Jesuits don't do much hand-to-hand fighting,” Charles said lightly, not wanting to talk about courage.

“Yourself always excluded. Well,” the
lieutenant-général
said, “when you return from the country tomorrow, come to my office and tell me what de Corbet said. And anything else you learn.” He sketched a bow and went to the postern. “Oh,” he said, as he waited for the porter to open the door. “I nearly forgot—Père Le Picart says you needn't go to his office. He tells you to go to your books. A
bonne nuit
to you.”

The thought of trying to digest St. Thomas reminded Charles of his interrupted supper and how hungry he still was. Thinking that even if he couldn't face martyrdom in some mission, he ought to be able to at least manage a little fasting, he started toward the stairs to his chamber. Then he turned back and went outside and across the court to the chapel. The nave was in darkness, the only light from the sanctuary lamp and a pair of candles on the altar. A lay brother sat beside the street door, and a few neighborhood people were kneeling among the benches. Charles knelt at the main altar. St. Ignatius's altar. The long day had seemed as clamorous as a battle, and the chapel's silence and the darkness washed over Charles like a baptism of peace.

But the silence didn't last long.

“Maître?”

He turned and saw Mlle Ebrard standing behind him.

“I heard that the Englishman is missing,” she said very softly. “I came to light a candle for him.”

Charles rose and crossed himself, and they moved away from the altar. “Did you see Maître Wing today, after you returned to The Dog?” he asked her.

“No. And I'm worried about Amaury. If someone is taking Jesuits . . .”

“Amaury is never out alone. I'm sure he's safe. I'll see him tomorrow.” He told her briefly about walking to the house at Montrouge to ask Amaury about
Le Cabinet
.

“Oh, I'm glad! And will you talk to him about—other things?”

“If I can.”

“Where is this Montrouge? How can I see you when you return, and hear what he said?”

“It's south from the Novice House, thirty or forty minutes' slow walking,” Charles said, remembering the somewhat indirect route. “But when I return after dinner—they eat early—I'll be coming straight up the rue Saint Jacques to the college. I'll stop in The Dog around noon or so, and we can talk a little as though you're helping me find a book. Yes?”

“Yes. Thank you,” she breathed, and withdrew into the dark nave.

With a sigh, Charles left the chapel, thinking about how much penance he was going to owe when all this was over. He had permission to help La Reynie, but he didn't have permission to talk repeatedly in private with women. And he certainly didn't have permission to persuade a novice out of the Society. But he had a vocation to help souls. And what did one do when what souls needed was not what rules demanded? Which led him to such a tangle that he went gratefully to his chamber and the relative simplicity of St. Thomas Aquinas.

C
HAPTER
22

THE FEAST OF ST. LÉONARD, THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 6, 1687

B
y morning, the wind had died, leaving Paris sunlit and cold. The college clock was striking eight as Charles huddled into his cloak and started up the rue St. Jacques. Then he turned back and pushed open the bakery door. The air was heady with the smell of fresh bread, but Marie-Ange was alone at the counter with her head on her arms.

“Ma petite?”
Charles said anxiously, going in. “How is your mother?”

She lifted her head. “Oh,
maître
, she had a terrible night.” Her small face was gray with exhaustion. “She has pains and more pains, but the baby doesn't come. The midwife came last night just after you left and she's still here.”

A long groan came from beyond the closed door into the other room. Wincing, Charles went to Marie-Ange and smoothed back her tangled, uncoifed hair. “I am praying for her, I promise you. For all of you. I'll come back later to see how things are.”

She wiped away tears and gave him a watery smile, and he went back out to the street with a heavy heart, remembering his mother's sufferings in childbed with her last child, who hadn't lived. When he turned the corner by The Dog, Mlle Ebrard was standing in the bookshop doorway. She smiled at him and he nodded, but neither spoke. He could feel her eyes on him as he passed the shop, but when he looked back, she was gone.

At the Novice House, he was taken to the Hall of St. Joseph, where the novices were waiting to set out for Montrouge. Cloaked, hatted, and carrying their small leather satchels, they stood quietly, waiting for the rector, Père Guymond, to give them the signal for leaving. When Amaury de Corbet saw Charles, he smiled uneasily but made no move to approach him. The rector immediately began assigning companions. These were mostly groupings of three, but there were a few pairings of an older Jesuit and a novice, including Charles and de Corbet.

The long line of groupings followed the rector from the hall and along the gallery to the street door. Charles and Amaury were last. Out in the rue du Pot-de-Fer, everyone lowered his eyes and lifted his long, heavy cloak to keep it from the street dirt and from tangling with his companions' cloaks, and the line set out slowly and in absolute silence. Amaury's lips were moving in silent prayer—one of the prescribed things to do while walking—and he didn't notice the gurgle of laughter behind them. Charles looked over his shoulder and saw the young and fleet-footed servant Michel Poulard pacing in their wake. Holding a bundle of kindling on his shoulder with one hand, he mimed holding his cloak away from the dirt with the other. He saw Charles watching him, returned his grin, and vanished down the passage beside the chapel.

Still smiling, Charles returned to the business at hand. There would be no talking at all, he knew, until they passed the tax
barrière
beyond the city. Not that the silence had anything to do with the toll for bringing goods into Paris, but by the time the
barrière
—a small manned booth—was reached, there would be fewer people on the road to be edified by the novices' strictly disciplined behavior. It had been much the same in his own novitiate in Avignon and, he supposed, was much the same in all Jesuit Novice Houses. But he wanted urgently to talk to Amaury and could hardly contain himself as they made their dignified way along the rue de Vaugirard. But even when they reached the
barrière
and turned left to skirt the walled gardens of the Luxembourg palace, silence was kept until the paving gave out and the road became a dirt track. Then the rector raised his hand and his flock stopped.

“You may speak quietly to each other. Remember, however, the rules of behavior you have learned.”

The group moved off again, and quiet conversation began.

Amaury said, without looking at Charles, “So are you here to question me about the book?”

“I am.”

“I told him the truth,” the novice said curtly. “I will not rub my honor in the dust, begging to be believed.” The way he shut his mouth made Charles think of a helmet's visor falling.

“I believe you,” Charles said. “I told him that. And I understand why you're insulted at being told to prove that you speak truth. Listen, Amaury—I'm sorry, I should call you Monsieur de Corbet now—the rector
wants
to believe you. Otherwise, he would not have asked me to speak with you. Do you know what
Le Cabinet jesuitique
is?”

“I know it's a forgery, a libel on the Society.”

“It's also illegal to possess or distribute in France. The head of the police is determined to find out where it's coming from this time—it shows up periodically—and stop it. He's threatening to take you in to the Châtelet for what he calls ‘a little talk.'”

“He wouldn't!” Amaury's face, already ruddy from the cold, flamed with outrage.

“He would. So think of the dishonor of
that
. You're noble, yes. So am I. But other things matter more in the world now. It's 1687 and the great knight Roland and the rest of them are dead. Long dead.”

“My father would kill you if he heard you say that!”

“So would mine, probably. But they're both dead, too. So tell me about the book.” He held the novice's eyes. “And then tell me about Mademoiselle Ebrard.”

Amaury de Corbet went as white as altar linen and then as red as a maple leaf. “She's none of your business!”

“Shhh. She's none of your fellow novices' business, either. But she thinks you are still
her
business. The book first, though.” Charles smiled dangerously. “Unless you're going to disobey your rector and refuse to talk to me. Which will mean making the acquaintance of Lieutenant-Général La Reynie.”

Amaury turned a cold stare on Charles. “How dare you threaten me! What's happened to you? You don't even sound like a Jesuit!”

“Nor do you,” Charles said. “But you have some excuse, since being a novice is only the beginning of being a Jesuit. Do you really not understand that by putting yourself in the Novice House, you've made yourself a Jesuit first and a noble second?”

Frowning blackly, Amaury watched his sturdy shoes appear and vanish beneath his cassock on the dusty track. “What do you want to know?”

“You say you didn't hide the book in your mattress, that you'd never seen it until the rector showed it to you. So tell me how it could have come there. The rector and La Reynie need another track to follow.”

Amaury shook his head helplessly. “How can I know? I make my bed every morning and have never felt anything in the mattress but straw. But I'm out of my chamber most of the day, so I suppose anyone could have come in and unpicked the stitching and put the book there.” He looked sideways at Charles. “The rector also accused me of stealing a needle and thread to stitch the end of the mattress cover after I'd put the book in.”

“Does someone in the house dislike you enough to do this?”

“If someone does, I don't know it. I can't think why they would. Whether you believe it or not, I've done my best to behave as we're told. And I barely know anyone in the house.”

Charles thought about that and they went a little way without speaking. The rector led the group to the right, onto another unpaved track that led straight south, through harvested and autumn brown fields. Pleased to be in the countryside in spite of the cold, Charles watched a wide-winged hawk soar above them as he tried to imagine a novice waiting for Amaury's chamber to be empty, leaving whatever thing he was supposed to be doing in the strictly scheduled day, finding needle and thread, unpicking the mattress cover's stitching, thrusting the book into the mattress straw, stitching the cover closed, and leaving the chamber before anyone discovered him. And getting the book out again would be just as tricky. Putting the thing in and getting it out repeatedly beggared belief. Chosen as a hiding place by anyone but Amaury, the mattress cover simply made no sense.

But beyond that certainty, Charles found he couldn't go.
Well
, he told himself,
leave it for now. Let it settle. There's still the other thing to say.
He looked at the pair of men ahead of him, a very young novice listening respectfully to a gray-haired senior. To lessen the chance of being overheard, Charles bent down and made an unnecessary adjustment to his shoe, which forced Amaury to stop and wait politely.

“There,” Charles said, straightening and seeing that the pair in front was far enough away. “Now, what about your former betrothed?”

Amaury tensed as though Charles were suddenly holding a weapon. Which in a way, Charles thought ruefully, he was.

“Mademoiselle Ebrard is a fine—a devout—young woman,” Amaury said stiffly. “She is guilty of nothing. You have no right to even speak of her.”

“You didn't know until the day at the market that she was in Paris, did you?”

“No.”

“When you saw her standing in front of you, what did you think?”

“What do you want? Why are you tormenting me? Go away!” Amaury veered angrily out of the line toward the front and the rector.

Charles caught a fold of his cloak. “Wait. Please. I beg you.”

Reluctantly and staring straight ahead, he dropped back into place beside Charles.

Offering up a quick plea for the right words, Charles said, “What I am going to say to you, I say as a man who owes you his life. And as the man who shares the memory and the guilt of that terrible day at Cassel.” With a sense of stepping off the edge of something, he finished, “And as one longer in the Society who is concerned about your vocation. And about you.”

Emotion moved across Amaury's face like wind over water, but he said nothing. Ahead of them, Charles saw rooflines coming into view and knew that his time was nearly up.

“If I'm wrong, I'm wrong and you will tell me later. Amaury, I ask you to think hard about why you're here. About the possibility that you're hiding in the Novice House.” Charles winced at the echo of what his cousin had said to him. But he made himself go on. “I think you're haunted beyond bearing by that day in the army. I think you're confusing your need for forgiveness with having a religious vocation. I think you're turning away from Mademoiselle Ebrard for all those wrong reasons.”

“And what about you? You just said you carry that day and its horrors, too. If my vocation is tainted, so is yours, and it has been for years now!”

“I didn't enter the Society because of that day at Cassel. I entered because I wanted to come as close to God as a man can—whether God forgives me for that day or not. And that's something I've rarely told anyone, in the Society or out of it. But yes, I've carried that day, and those deaths, for all these years. And with them my certainty that I am a coward. I
was
a coward that day. If I hadn't been, I'd probably be dead. But we're never allowed to know what would have happened. Only what we can choose now.” Charles had stopped in the road, and the passion of his words held Amaury motionless, listening. “Here's what I've learned,” Charles said. “Nothing is wasted. Not even death. You don't have to go on sacrificing yourself now because you didn't sacrifice yourself then.”

A tremor swept the long length of Amaury's body, but he said nothing.

“Rose Ebrard loves you,” Charles said softly. “I saw your face in the market and I know that you love her. She knows and I know—and I suspect your superiors in the Novice House will soon know—that you have come here to do lifelong penance. What good is that to God? Or those peasants at Cassel, long dead and at peace? What good is that to the Society? God is love, not guilt. And not pride.”

“Pride?” Amaury said bitterly. “I haven't the pride of a worm.”

“Wrong. You've been too proud for ten years to let anything—not God, not Mademoiselle Ebrard—come between you and your guilt. You and your soiled honor.”