The Whispering of Bones (30 page)

“Yes, it's me,” Amaury de Corbet said back, laughing. “No, no more questions now. Rose will tell you.”

But Charles was beyond asking anything more. It seemed only a moment later that someone touched him gently on the arm. Beside him, Wing was stirring and making complaining noises as he moved. The carriage had stopped, and in the glow of a street lantern Charles saw Frère Martin and Père Le Picart at Louis le Grand's open postern door. La Reynie got out and went to them.

“These two will mend,” Charles heard him say. “But I grieve to tell you that Richaud is dead.”

Then Wing and Charles were helped from the carriage and set on their feet. Rose helped Charles to the postern.

“Yes, Amaury has left,” she said softly, in answer to Charles's half-framed question. “He'll come and see you.” Her eyes were shining in the lantern light. “Thank the Blessed Virgin that you and Maître Wing are safe. And that Amaury is safe.” Reaching up, she gently touched his bruised cheek. “Thank you.” She walked briskly toward the bookshop.

In the street passage, Frère Martin exclaimed over the scholastics' battered faces and sent a younger lay brother running ahead to warn Frère Brunet. Then he picked up a lantern and led them to the infirmary, the rector helping Wing and La Reynie keeping a tight hold on Charles. Brunet met them at the door. He put the scholastics to bed, bathed and salved their cuts and bruises, and fed them watered wine and hot broth. Through it all, La Reynie and Le Picart got in his way, made urgent suggestions, and exasperated him with questions until he shooed them out. Then he extinguished the candles, leaving only the infirmary altar lamp and the sconce candle beside his own room alight, and went to his bed.

Wrapped in peace, Charles sank gratefully into sleep to the rough music of Wing's contented snoring.

C
HAPTER
26

THE FEAST OF ST. THÉODORE, SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 9, 1687

M
aître Henry Wing was sleeping. Frère Brunet had given him something to ease the pain of his bruised face, and he was once again snoring peacefully. Charles was sitting up against pillows, watching his cousin Charles-François stride martially toward the infirmary door. Charles-François looked back, lifted his arm in a half salute, and was gone. Charles closed his eyes. Of all the astonishments of the last few days, his reconciliation with Charles-François came close to astonishing him the most. He had never expected the two of them to come to any mutual acknowledgment of what had happened at Cassel. Had never expected his cousin to stop blaming him for the loss of his arm. Charles lay savoring the lightness of having that accusation lifted from him. And, of course, Charles-François was no longer angry about Amaury de Corbet. That story Charles had not yet heard in full, but he thought he was about to, because Frère Brunet had told him that another visitor was expected.

He drifted back to sleep and was half in a dream, laughing as he watched his cousin Pernelle playing with her little girl Lucy, when he realized that someone was standing by his bed.

“Charles? How are you?”

“Better, Amaury,” Charles said, opening his eyes. “I hoped you would come. Sit down.”

Amaury de Corbet pulled a stool close to Charles's bed and sat. “You were right,” he said.

“Was I?”

“You know you were. And I think this is the first time I've ever been truly glad to be proven wrong.” He grinned ruefully at Charles. “As the Novice House rector would tell you, humility seems to be a virtue whose acquaintance I have yet to make.”

Charles started to laugh, but it hurt too much. “Well, don't expect me to instruct you. My rector might say much the same thing about me.” Charles studied the man beside him. Amaury was carrying the same floppy brown hat he'd worn the evening before, and his brown coat and breeches were shabby and ill-fitting.

“Not a sartorial success, am I?” Amaury said. “The clothes belonged to Monsieur Cheyne, Rose's aunt's dead husband. As you see, he was fatter than I.”

“You left the Novice House in nothing but your shirt?”

“I left in my cassock.”

“What made you leave so suddenly?”

Amaury's face reddened. “The rector called me into his office again,” he said, not looking at Charles. “The martyred Saint Laurence was not more thoroughly grilled over his fire than I was with questions about that cursed book. And he'd asked me all of them before! No matter what I said or swore or explained, Père Guymond kept at me, refused to believe me, refused to take my word of honor that I knew nothing about it.” He shook his head helplessly. “It went on and on, and finally, I knew that if I didn't leave, I was going to hit him. So I left.”

“Just walked out?”

“I went to The Dog and told Rose I'd been an idiot and asked her if she'd still marry me.” He grinned suddenly and looked at Charles. “She said she couldn't accept a proposal from a man in a cassock. She fetched her aunt, and the old dragon rooted through a chest and found me some clothes. Then I asked Rose again, and she said yes. And I sent my cassock back to the Novice House. By little Michel Poulard. He'd followed me to The Dog, trying to get up his courage to tell me that he'd put the book in my mattress.”

“Michel put it there?” Charles gaped at Amaury.

“Yes. That goatwoman supplies goat's milk to the Novice House infirmary. Michel said she was in the kitchen courtyard when he was refilling mattresses with new straw. A book fell out of her bag, and he picked it up. It seems he loves books and, well, he stole it without even looking at it. He had to hide it quickly, so he pushed it into the mattress cover, as far down into the new straw as he could. But then he was told to go and work in the garden and had no chance to take the book out before the mattress cover was sewn shut again. Michel heard the rector accusing me—Père Guymond's accusations and my denials got louder and louder—and he saw me leave. He was very upset that I'd been accused of his crime. But even more upset, I think, about losing a book he never even got to read. So he was there at The Dog when the goatwoman arrived, and he came with us to rescue you.”

“And my cousin—I couldn't believe it when I opened my eyes in that cottage and saw him looking so worried about me.”

“Yes,” Amaury said, laughing, “he arrived at The Dog when I was down on my knees before Rose. It was one of the few times I've ever seen him speechless. He'd come to tell Rose he could do nothing more and was going back to his ship.” Amaury's expression sobered. “I was glad to have a chance to make things up with him.”

Charles nodded. “When you all burst into that cottage, it was like the armies of heaven descending on evildoers.”

“A rather ragtag army of heaven.”

Charles grew grave. “That's twice you've saved my life, Amaury. How am I ever going to repay you?”

“Ever since you tried to do what I failed to do at Cassel—bring my men back under control and save those wretched peasants—I've been in your debt past ever getting out.” Amaury swallowed hard and looked down at his clasped hands. “You seem somehow to be able to live with what happened that day. But I still don't know what I'm going to do with my guilt about it.”

A stillness gripped Charles.
Tell him
, the Silence said.

“What is it, Charles?” Amaury said anxiously. “Are you in pain?”

Charles shook his head slowly. “No. No, it's—” He pulled himself farther up on his pillows. He opened his mouth to do as he'd been told and then shut it. Waiting, just in case.
In case of what?
his blunt inner voice said.
In case the Silence changes its mind.
His inner voice laughed so loud, Charles thought that Amaury must be able to hear it.
Liar
, it said.
You're afraid Amaury won't believe you. You're afraid he'll think you're crazy.

“Shut up!” Charles said out loud.

Amaury looked at him in bewilderment. “I didn't say anything.”

“No, sorry, I know you didn't.” Charles sighed. Amaury was going to think he was crazy. But Charles knew he had no choice. “Listen,” he said. “I'm going to tell you something I've only told one other person. You asked me how I manage my guilt about Cassel. It's haunted me, as it does you. I've tried to bury it. And to bury my certainty that I was a coward that day and am maybe a coward at heart. Then Charles-François came. He accused me of all of that, and of bearing the blame for your entry into the Novice House.” Amaury opened his mouth to protest. “No, please, just listen.” Charles looked away and fixed his eyes on the crucifix across from his bed. “Sometimes, not often, something I call the Silence speaks to me.”

“Do you mean God?”

Charles held the question off with a raised hand. He'd never wanted to answer that question, lest he seem to claim too much. “A few days ago, in the street, I had one of those strange waking dreams of being back on the Cassel battlefield. And in the midst of it, this Silence said, ‘Charles. Nothing is wasted. Not even death.' Not even death, Amaury. Not even the terrible deaths of those peasants we failed to save. Or the death of the soldier they killed. God wastes nothing.”

Amaury was holding his breath, and his deep-set dark eyes seemed to burn as he stared at Charles. He reached out and gripped Charles's hand so hard that Charles nearly cried out. “Do you swear that what you tell me is true? It happened? You heard those words?”

“It's true. And I told you because just now the Silence said, ‘Tell him.'”

Amaury bowed his head onto their linked hands. He made no sound, but Charles felt his tears like a tiny river running through his fingers. A deep and silent peace wrapped both of them.

That evening, long after Amaury had gone, Wing woke up, seeming much restored, though his bruised face was painful to look at. Brunet brought their supper of boiled beef and bread, and as they ate, sitting up in their beds, they talked. “There's something I haven't told you,” Wing said, looking across at Charles. “About what happened in the cottage, at the end.”

Charles, who had a mouth full of bread, raised his eyebrows. He wondered if it was something about the medicine Brunet had given him that made the Englishman look so bright-eyed.

“Remember that you thought you'd been shot? When you came to yourself after everyone had come into the cottage?”

Charles nodded.

“That was because, just when Alexandre Lunel was about to shoot you”—Wing tried to suppress a grin and failed—“you fainted.”

Charles's mouth opened, and he dropped his spoon into his soup. “I did not! I've never fainted in my life!”

“You have now. It made me feel better about fainting in the chapel.” Wing smiled sweetly.

Charles scowled at the wall. Then his indignation crumbled and he fell back on his pillows in a fit of helpless laughter and spilled his soup. When he could speak, he said, “So you and I are even. And I'll tell you something, as well. When I was first in the army, an older man said to me, ‘Only stupid men are never afraid.'”

“Neither of us is stupid,” Wing said seriously, and came to help him mop up the soup.

Two days later, on Tuesday, the feast of the soldier St. Martin of Tours, they were released from the infirmary, their faces still garishly colored by healing bruises. Late that afternoon, they went to the college's
grand salon
, where Père Le Picart had summoned a council. They stood quietly aside on the faded rug, watching the last comer, Père Paradis, assistant Provincial of the Paris Jesuit province, settle himself in the circle that already included the Novice House rector Père Guymond, Père Pinette the Professed House rector, and Lieutenant-Général La Reynie. Père Montville was busily making sure that the offices around the
grand salon
were empty, and that the doors leading out of the
salon
were shut and guarded by proctors. Then he nodded to the rector of Louis le Grand, who took his own seat and gestured Charles and Wing forward.

Le Picart's sea-gray eyes went slowly around the circle. “I have summoned you,” he said, speaking in French for La Reynie's sake, “with the approval of our Paris Provincial, whose assistant represents him today.” He nodded politely to Paradis. “The recent deaths of Paul Lunel, intended Jesuit novice, and Louis Richaud, former Jesuit scholastic, concern all of us. As does the coming to light of a Gallican conspiracy against us, and the appearance in Paris of that troublesome forgery, the so-called Jesuit Secret Instructions—this time as
Le Cabinet jesuitique
. The more we understand about how these unhappy events are related, the more vigilant we can be in the future. To better protect our men, and to prevent the so-called Secret Instructions from circulating.

“I have said that this matters to us. But it matters also to those who come after us.” Le Picart's face was as somber as the November afternoon's gray light. “Lies may be silenced. But lies once heard—or read—are always repeated. As they are repeated, more people believe them and they grow louder. We know, of course, that our enemies are always ready to believe lies. But the simply credulous and ignorant are easily convinced. For the sake of the Society of Jesus and for the sake of truth, the Secret Instructions' lies must be stopped from spreading.”

He looked at La Reynie and then at Charles and Wing. “These two scholastics nearly lost their lives in this affair. You see from their faces how ill-used they were in their captivity. Thanks to their courage, and to Lieutenant-Général La Reynie and several others, they are alive and can tell us much we would not otherwise know. They will speak and Monsieur La Reynie will also speak. Then these three will withdraw and leave us to consider as Jesuit heads of houses what should be done to lessen the risk of the so-called Secret Instructions appearing again in Paris. Maître du Luc, you may begin.”