The Whispering of Bones (29 page)

“A cleric,” Victor Coriot whispered. “You've shot a cleric. Oh, God, what—”

“What God? The one in whom you don't believe? Stop acting like a child and help me get him out of here. And you can thank me that there's one less Jesuit.”

The two men dragged Richaud out the back door of the cottage. Charles felt Wing quivering on the edge of hysteria.

“Keep quiet,” he hissed. “Pray. For Richaud's soul and for us. I'm going upstairs. And when you hear our captors coming back, if I'm not here, keep them out somehow.”

The Englishman clasped his hands so tightly they were bloodless, rested his face on them, and began the prayers for the dead. Hoping Wing had taken in what he'd said, Charles braced his back hard against the wall and rose to his feet. He forced himself quickly up the stairs. There were two small rooms, one unused and stinking of mice. The other stank almost as much, but it had a straw pallet and blanket on the dusty floor. A large leather satchel lay empty by the pallet, a small, tapped wine barrel stood in a corner, and a stack of
Le Cabinet jesuitique
stood on the floor under the shuttered window. Wishing his hands were loose so he could pick up a book and hide it in his cassock, Charles did the next best thing and kicked a copy into the darkest corner where there was already a small pile of refuse. If he and Wing died, at least there would be evidence, a book here to be found. If, of course, anyone looked. He was barely back downstairs and on the straw before Lunel came in from the overgrown garden.

Wing cocked an eye at Lunel and started talking. Trying, Charles thought gratefully, to keep him from noticing Charles's breathlessness.

“Well,
monsieur
, did you see more demons out there? Go and look again, then. The devil usually sends at least a dozen to take killers to hell. You don't really deserve a chance to save your soul, but I suppose I'm honor bound to tell you that if you change your mind about killing us, the demons will go away.”

Lunel, wiping his hands on the cloth from his pocket, paid no attention. Wing ran out of words as Coriot came back, sweating and white with fear.

“Alexandre,” Coriot said, “are you mad? We can't just leave him hidden out there. He'll be found; we have to bury him.”

“Then bury him.”

Coriot stood openmouthed for a moment and then went back outside. Lunel went back to the fire. Charles began to murmur his own prayers for Richaud, and Wing joined him.

“Shut up!”

They flinched and opened their eyes to see Lunel standing over them. He struck them both across the face and backhanded them for good measure. “Why are you praying for Richaud? Especially you, du Luc. Didn't he tell you that you owe your knife wound to him?” Lunel went to his chair and sat, staring into the fireplace.

Charles lay still. Wing groaned and was sick into the straw. The back door opened and Coriot burst in.

“Come and help me, damn you! There's no shovel.”

“Get one,” Lunel said, without looking at him. “We have three graves to dig.”

Shaking his head and close to tears, Coriot went out by the front door.

Lunel, haloed by the firelight, turned his pistol this way and that, making the light flicker redly along the silvery barrel. Charles watched him, aching all over and half wishing the man would just shoot them and finish this.

“Why do you hate Jesuits so much?” he said.

A visible tremor went through Lunel's body. “Because I'm a good, free-thinking Gallican noble of the Robe. Why else?”

“Few Gallicans hate Jesuits to the point of torturing and killing them.” Charles felt Wing move convulsively beside him and leaned gently on him to keep him quiet.

Lunel turned his head and looked at Charles. Even in the tricky firelight, his eyes looked dead. “Torture? You don't know the meaning of the word.” The even, flat hopelessness of his words were like a miasma of death spreading on the air.

Charles waited. “You've been tortured?” he said carefully.

The dead eyes stared through him. “Oh, yes.” Lunel lifted the pistol and laid it alongside his cheek as though to comfort himself.

Charles swallowed. “When?”

“Do you want to gloat over me, Jesuit?” Lunel made to rise, but his body sagged and he sank back onto the chair. He raised the pistol and pointed it at Charles. “I was tortured by day and I dreamed it all over again at night. I turned into a puling little wraith. But everyone thought I was only more sickly than before.” His arm dropped and the pistol hung from his hand as he picked up the jug and drank, turning it nearly upside down to drain it. Then he slammed it down onto the hearth, and pottery shards sprayed around the fire.

Charles tried to get enough spit in his mouth to speak again.
Shut up, keep quiet, are you mad? Leave him alone, do you want to die here and now?
Charles felt almost sorry for his terrified inner voice.
No, I don't want to die
, he told it.
But at the very least, if he's talking, he's not shooting. And if he talks long enough
, Charles thought,
something may change, something . . .

He said, “I think you're telling me that a Jesuit tortured you.”

Lunel spat on the floor. “The good Père Grandier. My tutor. Oh, yes, my tutor, he was certainly that.” His raucous laughter bent him double so that his face rested on his knees.

“What did Père Grandier do?”

Lunel stared furiously at Charles. “Don't mock me. You
know
what he did! You do the same, they all do, that's why I had to save Paul! He wouldn't listen, he didn't believe me. Oh, God, he wouldn't listen. He was so young, so beautiful, and he didn't believe me.” Lunel struggled for breath, as though he'd been running.

Charles felt sick. “And what happened?”

Lunel wrapped his arms around himself. “Grandier was big. Like his name. Bigger than you. Too big to fight. I was small, not very well, not strong.”

“What did he do to you?” Charles asked again. He was sure he knew, but if the man would say it, he might be somehow eased and less dangerous.

“He used me. He used me like a girl.” Lunel turned his head from side to side like a tormented beast. “And when I was big enough, I killed him.”

“
Killed
him?” That Charles had not expected. “But—you were a child. How could you hide his body? Or was he found? Did your parents know?”

As Lunel straightened and looked at Charles, a log broke in the fire, and new flames leaped behind him. Seeing the man outlined in the halo of flame removed Charles's last doubt. But his certainty brought no triumph, only a leaden sadness.

“I was fifteen,” Lunel said, “big enough to hide him. No one knew. No one
will
know, because I'm going to kill you, too. I have to.”

“Alexandre.” Charles held his gaze. “Tell me what happened to Paul.”

Something like a sob escaped the man and he looked away.

“Tell me.”

Lunel looked defiantly at him. “Why not, then? You'll be telling no one. Paul wouldn't listen. Don't you see? I had no choice! I made him think I'd left Paris, that I wasn't going to stand in his way any longer. But I went after him and I caught him before he got to that cursed Novice House. I brought him here. I thought if I talked enough, if I told him everything, he'd understand. I showed him
Le Cabinet
, I read it to him, I told him he could help us. But nothing made any difference. Then he got free somehow. He'd guessed where we stored the books, because he knew they weren't here in the cottage. I thought he'd go there and that's where I found him, in the well chamber in Notre Dame's crypt.”

“What made him think the books were there?”

Lunel laughed harshly. “Because I myself had taken him there. Oh, God knows I didn't want to, but my father made me. He knew that my strangely vanished tutor had taken me there often, to see the old paintings still visible on the wall. That was the reason Grandier gave my father, but he really took me there to use me—a deep, deserted chamber, thick walls, thick door.” Lunel shuddered. “So my father made me take Paul there to see the paintings. Paul liked them, but he was fascinated by the old well.” Lunel put the pistol in his lap and covered his face with his hands. “We agreed it was a good place to hide things,” he said through his fingers. “Paul said that if he ever had a treasure to hide he'd take out the rubble and put his secret treasure in the well and no one would ever find it.” Lunel laughed hysterically. “But there was already a secret there!”

“You put your tutor's body in the well.”

“It was the only place. I told you, he was big. I was fifteen, but I couldn't carry him up the stairs.”

“And Paul?”

“I only wanted to save him.” Lunel spoke so softly that Charles could hardly hear him. “He was too angry about the books to listen. I—I shook him.” Lunel looked beseechingly at Charles, as though trying to make sense of his own words. “I shook him and his neck snapped—I heard it and let go and he fell back against the wall. I didn't mean to kill him.”

Charles was racked with pity and horror. But he made himself go on. “And then you went to get a shovel. Something to help you clear rubble from the well and hide Paul's body there.”

Lunel jumped to his feet. “No, not in the well, there are other places in the crypt!” He began to shake. “You think I would put Paul with that evil Jesuit? Curse you, I'll kill you for saying that!” He grabbed his pistol and lunged unsteadily at Charles. Wing screamed and rolled to the wall. Charles drew both knees to his chest and kicked Lunel in the groin. Lunel howled and bent double. With his last strength, Charles got to his knees between Lunel and Wing.

Lunel, still clutching himself, leveled his pistol at Charles. Both cottage doors thundered against the walls and the apparition from the garden wall flew at Lunel, wailing like something out of hell, a swarm of creatures shouting and crowding behind her. She raised both arms and a swarm of black things flew through the firelit air. Lunel went down, but his pistol was still trained on Charles and a shot cracked and roared. Charles toppled gently into the straw, wondering why there was no pain.
Follow the dead, find your death
, he heard or thought he heard. His last thought was that his death was easier than he'd expected.

C
HAPTER
25

T
he face hovering over him when he next opened his eyes was not God's, or at least not any face of God his imagination had ever conjured. This face was scowling and yelling orders, and its plumed hat was awry.

“Bring more light, damn you! Now!”

A lantern swam into view and Charles squeezed his eyes shut against its glare. God gave orders. But He was unlikely to need a lantern. Or a hat, for that matter.
Ergo
, this loud, angry man could not be God. Given that every part of his body hurt, this seemed to Charles an admirable feat of logic.

An ungentle hand brushed his hair back from his face. “Look at this,” a different voice said with quiet menace. “May Lunel's soul feed all the devils of hell.”

“Lunel—” Charles couldn't follow a thought very far, but far enough to find a welter of feelings about Alexandre Lunel. “He told me—”

A cold wet cloth sponged his face and cut off his words. A cup of water was held to his lips. Charles opened his eyes. His cousin Charles-François de Vintimille du Luc was down on one knee in front of him, holding the cup like a one-armed worried mother. Lieutenant-Général La Reynie was peering anxiously over his shoulder at Charles.

“How do you feel?” Charles-François said gruffly.

“Alive.” Charles's head cleared enough for him to realize how astonished he was. “Charlot? What are you—how in God's name did you know I was here?”

Behind Charles-François, someone else leaned down into the lantern light. “He didn't. But I did.” The goatwoman peered at Charles from her web of wrinkles.

Charles blinked at her in confusion. “I thought I'd found my death. Like you said.”

She picked up his hand, turned it over and gazed at the palm. Without comment, she put it down again. “Well, it's me you can thank for feeling alive. I was looking for one of my goats. I saw the two of you pissing on the wall out there, and the man keeping watch. So I went to find the girl, and then we found His Highness here.” She jerked her head at La Reynie. “That's why the other one's dead, not you.”

“The other one?” Charles's head swam as new horror gripped him. “Maître Wing?”

“No, no, I'm here.”

Charles twisted, grunting at the pain, and saw Rose Ebrard sponging Wing's battered face. Wing was gazing at her as though the battering had been worth it.

Charles decided that he was dreaming all of this.

“All's well,” the girl said, smiling at Charles. “Much better than you know.”

Thinking that if this wasn't a dream, it must be fever, Charles sank back onto the straw. “Is the gunshot wound very bad?” he asked his cousin faintly.

“Bad enough,” Charles-François said. “He's dead.”

“What? Who's dead?”

“The man who was about to shoot you.”

“Alexandre didn't shoot me?”

“He didn't.” Lieutenant-Général La Reynie knelt beside Charles-François. “Your cousin here shot him first. And now we have to get you and Maître Wing home.”

Charles ignored him, staring at Charles-François, who looked everywhere but at Charles.

“Charlot? You saved my life?” Charles thought he was going to cry, but then he started to laugh. “I would have thought you'd offer the man your pistol if he missed me the first time.”

His cousin grunted and shrugged and said something indistinctly.

“Thank you,” Charles said gravely.

With the air of a man swallowing gall, Charles-François looked him suddenly in the eye. “You were trying to save
me
from something at Cassel. I never admitted it, but I knew it. So we're even now.”

La Reynie started to slip an arm under Charles's shoulders to pick him up.

“No, wait,” Charles said. “Richaud's here, he's dead. His body's in the garden. And the books—”

“Richaud? Well,” La Reynie said in surprise. “I kicked in the back door, but I didn't see a body out there. We'll look. I've seen the books upstairs, though.”

“And Alexandre Lunel killed his brother, Paul.”

“Ah.” La Reynie withdrew his arm and sat back on his heels. “That I didn't know, either.”

“And there's another body. At Notre Dame des Champs, in the old well. Alexandre killed him, too.”

“You seem to know everything. The abbess's workmen took what's left of a body out of the well this morning. It's nothing but bones now. Bones wearing a Jesuit cassock.” La Reynie was quiet for a moment. “Are you sure Alexandre Lunel killed the man? He would have to have done murder very young.”

“He said he was fifteen. The man was his tutor. His name was Grandier.”

Charles was suddenly too exhausted to explain further, but La Reynie was no longer listening. He was looking toward what was left of the open front door. Loud male voices were approaching, but it was a boy carrying a wriggling white goat kid who came into the room.

“I have her, Hyacinthe!” He put the little goat down beside the goatwoman. “Well done, Michel,” La Reynie said to the boy. “Come outside now and help me by keeping a watch on the carriage.” He got up and piloted Michel outside, and Charles-François went with them.

Charles stared after them. “That was Michel Poulard, from the Novice House. What's
he
doing here? I don't understand—”

“Let it be,” the goatwoman said soothingly, as the baby goat butted against her skirt. She gathered it into her arms and cuddled it, looking down at him. “I told you, I saw you and went to find the girl.” She nodded at Rose, who was still sitting with Wing. “She saw me earlier and said she was looking for you.”

“You said you'd come to The Dog,
maître
,” Rose put in. “When you didn't, I was worried. So I walked up the rue Saint Jacques, hoping I'd meet you, and saw Hyacinthe.”

The goatwoman nodded. “That's right. So when I saw you here later, I went to the bookshop and told her and the rest of them where you were. Then we saw His Highness here”—she grinned at La Reynie—“getting into his carriage down at the college. And the girl ran down the street screeching at him like a scalded cat. And so we all came to get you. In the carriage.” Hyacinth pursed her lips thoughtfully. “First time I'd been in one. I liked it.” She gently pulled a straggling lock of her hair out of the tiny goat's mouth. “When I saw you pissing, I was looking for this little one,” she said to Charles.

Charles struggled for words. “Then—maybe it's the little goat I have to thank for being alive.”

A surprised smile spread across Hyacinthe's face. “Well. So you do see how things touch each other. I wondered.” She nodded as though he'd passed a test and leaned close to him. “So I'll tell you something else.” She looked into his eyes for a long moment. “That's why you can never find the beginning of a thing and close it in your hand. Or the end. Never. All's moving, always moving, like water, like air.”

With that, she withdrew to the side wall. She put her empty canvas bag down on the floor and settled beside it, as contented and self-contained as one of her goats. Wondering vaguely what she was waiting for, Charles put her words away to think about when he was better able to think. All he could think of now was how much he wanted someone to take him and Wing home. But not yet, he sighed to himself, as the loud voices he'd heard before came closer, and he recognized his cousin's military bellow.

“Hold your tongue, you cur! If you haven't something to hide, why run from us?”

Charles-François and a man in a floppy brown hat dragged Victor Coriot into the cottage, holding him between them as he struggled and begged. La Reynie came behind them with a shovel in his hand.

“I didn't kill him,” Coriot howled, as his captors shoved him across the room toward the door to the garden. “I didn't kill anyone, I've done nothing!”

“Then why were you creeping toward this house in the dark with a shovel?” Charles-François growled.

“Would this have something to do with the body outside?” La Reynie asked Charles, holding up the shovel.

“No doubt. Lunel ordered Coriot to bury Richaud. Coriot went for a shovel. But he's telling the truth; he didn't kill Richaud, Lunel did.”

“Burying the murderer's handiwork is a good road to the gallows,” La Reynie said grimly. On his way to the back door, he swore and kicked something aside. “Will someone pick these up? Every copy has to go with us as proof.”

“I will.” Rose Ebrard got up from the straw. Charles closed his eyes and a short, blessed quiet fell. Then Mlle Ebrard was stooping over him. “When La Reynie comes back in, I'll ask him to let us take you home,” she said softly.

Charles opened his eyes. “Pick what up? What did he mean?”

“Books.” She nodded down at the stack she'd gathered. “Those books you've been so worried about.”

La Reynie, who had returned alone while Wing was speaking, stopped beside the goatwoman.

“Hyacinthe,” La Reynie said, “can you read?”

“What use would I have for that,
mon lieutenant-général
?”

“The books Mademoiselle Ebrard is holding came out of your bag.”

“But yes, surely they did.”

“Why?”

“Has all this coil addled your wits? The books came
out
of my bag because they were
in
my bag. They fell out when I hit the man with it.”

“Don't trifle with me,
ma bonne femme
.
Why
were they in your bag?”

“Because I must live, like everyone else. I get good money for carrying books to those that want them.”

“Who paid you this good money?”

“Him.” She jerked her head toward Alexandre Lunel's body, lying now by the front door and covered, Charles thought, with the blanket from the bed upstairs. “Sometimes the one you just dragged past paid me, but mostly him.” She sucked her teeth. “They won't pay me now.”

“You got your books here?”

“Not here. At the big Lunel house. I sold them milk and came away with books.” She smiled at Charles. “You saw me. Your wits aren't working, either, but you have some excuse.”

“I did see her,” Charles said, looking up at La Reynie. “The day we talked to Lunel. While I was downstairs, she came to the back courtyard with the goats. I told you that a young man who didn't seem to be a servant let her in.”

“You did?” La Reynie frowned at him and shrugged, rubbing his tired face.

“Monsieur La Reynie,” Rose Ebrard said firmly, “do you think Maître Wing and Maître du Luc could go home now?”

“What?” he said distractedly. “Yes, of course they can go home. I will go with them and then come back. Monsieur de Vintimille du Luc is staying here till my men arrive to take charge of Coriot.”

The goatwoman picked up her goat and her bag and looked questioningly at him.

“You can go, too,” he told her. “I know where to find you.”

“Do you, Your Highness?” She laughed and shuffled out of the cottage.

La Reynie called Michel Poulard and his coachman in, and the two of them helped Wing to his feet. La Reynie and Rose supported Charles, and they made their way slowly outside. When Charles and Wing were settled in the carriage, La Reynie went back to the cottage and the coachman climbed onto the driving box. Then La Reynie and the man in the floppy hat returned and La Reynie got into the carriage. Michel shut the carriage door and climbed onto the narrow perch at the rear. The other man handed the stack of books to Rose Ebrard, who put them with more books on the carriage floor.

La Reynie leaned toward the window. “You and Monsieur de Vintimille du Luc will stay with the prisoner and the bodies until my men arrive?”

“We will.” The man in the brown hat looked at Mademoiselle Ebrard. “And then I'll be back.”

The voice brought Charles bolt upright in spite of his weakness and bruises.
“Amaury?!”