The Whispering of Bones (31 page)

Charles bowed, marshaling his thoughts. He and Wing had been strictly charged to be brief.

“As you know,” he said, “three weeks ago the late Père Dainville and I found the body of the intended Jesuit novice Paul Lunel in the crypt at Notre Dame des Champs. He disappeared on the day he should have entered our Novice House. When we found him, he was newly dead but had been three weeks missing. Soon after that, I was attacked here in the college chapel. By Maître Louis Richaud, I learned later, who was himself later killed by one of his fellow Gallican conspirators. Then, when I was somewhat recovered from my wound and allowed to go out again, I happened to pick up the torn piece of a book cover from a bookshop floor.” Charles smiled at the Jesuits in the circle. “I picked it up only because Jesuits pick up trash when they see it. I meant to throw it away, but when I returned to the college, I was summoned to speak with Père Paradis, who had come because of the murder of Paul Lunel. As we talked, I happened to drop the scrap of leather. Père Paradis recognized it as being from the cover of
Le Cabinet jesuitique
. We assumed it was being sold at The Saint's Dog, the bookshop where I'd found it.

“Soon after I was attacked, Maître Richaud disappeared from here. We thought that he, too, had been murdered. And then Maître Wing disappeared.” Charles looked at Wing, who took up the narrative.

With a new dignity, the Englishman told them about seeing Richaud, following him, and being kept prisoner in the Talking Flea Street house.

“Poor Maître Richaud seemed to have lost his wits,” Wing said, speaking French slowly and carefully. “He told me he wanted to leave the Society of Jesus, but that if he left openly, we Jesuits would kill him. He said he ran away and left his bloodied cassock to be found so we'd think him dead already. He said this conspiracy about the book was his, but it was clear the others were using him. Then Monsieur Alexandre Lunel, the real ringleader, killed him.”

Le Picart looked questioningly at Paradis, who nodded slightly.

“I will tell you,” Le Picart said to the circle, “that the unfortunate Richaud was indeed unsettled in his mind. To my shame, I failed to see how deeply unsettled. He had grown very angry at the Society of Jesus and very suspicious of everyone. I knew that he was thinking of leaving and, frankly, I thought it might be for the best. I did not know that he already had
Le Cabinet
in his possession.

“Until Richaud began his theology studies last month, he was a
cubiculaire
responsible for provisioning boarding students' chambers. Another scholastic, in his second year as a
cubiculaire
, has recently come to me and said that at the end of the summer term, Richaud found a copy of
Le Cabinet
in the chamber of a boarding student. That student finished his education and left us in August, and so is no longer under our jurisdiction. Richaud confiscated the book, supposedly to turn in to me. But it's safe to assume now that he kept it and read it.
Le Cabinet
's lies about how we treat Jesuits who leave the Society inflamed his disordered feelings beyond sanity. Through two of our day students, Jacques Coriot and Louis Poquelin—both now dismissed—Richaud joined Victor Coriot's Gallican conspiracy, a conspiracy of extreme virulence. I think that Richaud fled the college when he did because he feared being discovered as Maître du Luc's attacker.” Le Picart sighed and looked at Wing and Charles. “Have you more to say?”

They told what they'd seen and learned in the cottage, and Charles wound up the tale.

“Alexandre Lunel was uncompromisingly Gallican. He was fiercely against the pope's interference in France and the French church and fiercely anti-Jesuit. But he had other reasons for hating Jesuits. Tragic reasons.” Charles sighed and shut his eyes for a moment, wishing he didn't have to tell the next part of the story.

“Alexandre was sickly as a boy. His father, who was not at all anti-Jesuit, hired a Jesuit tutor for him, Père Grandier. For years, this tutor would take Alexandre to the well chamber in Notre Dame des Champs, where he repeatedly sodomized him. Finally, when Alexandre was fifteen, he killed Grandier and hid the body under the rubble in the old well there. He was horrified when his younger brother, Paul, wanted to join the Society of Jesus. Alexandre was convinced that in a Jesuit house, Paul would suffer the same fate. So Alexandre kidnapped him and kept him prisoner in the cottage while he tried to dissuade him. He even read
Le Cabinet
to him. But Paul refused to be convinced. He also saw the comings and goings of the conspiracy, and thought he knew where the copies of
Le Cabinet
were being kept. He managed to escape and went to see if he was right. Alexandre found him there, in Notre Dame des Champs's well chamber.” Charles sighed and shook his head. “They argued and Alexandre was beside himself with rage. He shook Paul so hard he broke the boy's neck. He said he didn't mean to kill him, and I think that was the truth.”

An appalled silence fell. The noise of shouts and carriage wheels and trotting horses from beyond the antechamber's great double doors seemed to come from another world. To Charles's surprise, the famously cold Père Pinette dropped his face into his hands.

When Pinette finally looked up, his rigid control was gone, leaving his face pinched and drained of color. “I remember Étienne Grandier. He disappeared in 1672 and we never knew what happened to him. We finally assumed that he was dead.” His voice was barely audible. “I was not the Professed House rector then, but I knew him. And I wondered about him.” He looked pleadingly around the circle. “I thought he shouldn't be a tutor. But I said nothing. God forgive me.”

“Many Jesuits here at Louis le Grand knew Étienne Grandier,” Le Picart said heavily. “What most of you do not yet know is that he was our Père Dainville's nephew. He disappeared and was never found.”

Charles stared unseeingly at the floor, remembering Dainville's story of his nephew. He was glad Dainville didn't have to know why Grandier had disappeared. Then he found himself thinking that now, Dainville did know.

“I think the rest of this is mine to tell,” La Reynie said. “The workmen cleaning out the old well in Notre Dame des Champs's well chamber found a huddle of bones in a Jesuit cassock. So Alexandre Lunel's story is confirmed. And copies of
Le Cabinet
that the conspirators had not been able to remove were found in the well chamber, tucked into a long wall niche that had been blocked with a loose but very heavy stone. Victor Coriot is imprisoned in the Châtelet and has given us names of other conspirators. We don't have all of them yet, but some of those we have will hang along with Victor Coriot.” La Reynie looked at Le Picart. “Coriot's brother, Jacques, and young Poquelin, the other student you dismissed, I've left to their mothers. Who, I think, will keep them on very short leashes.”

“What about Hyacinthe, Lieutenant-Général?” Charles said.

“Oh, yes, Hyacinthe.” La Reynie snorted with laughter, and the others in the circle looked askance at him. “Hyacinthe, the goatwoman, was one of the conspiracy's book couriers. And a clever choice, because a more unlikely courier would be hard to imagine. She did it purely for money. She can't read, she wouldn't know what
Gallican
means, and she doesn't hate Jesuits. Indeed, our two scholastics here owe her their lives.” He looked at Père Guymond. “She had copies of
Le Cabinet
in her bag when she went to the Novice House with her goats. She wasn't told to leave any there, but one copy fell out of the bag and a young servant who's just learned to read picked it up. He only wanted a book to read. But he was afraid it would be taken from him, so he hid it in the new straw of a mattress he was stuffing.” La Reynie grinned. “I'm not going to arrest either him or Hyacinthe.”

Wing spoke up. “I've been thinking about her. And what a nice classical touch it was—like Fate in a tragedy, you know—that she knocked Alexandre Lunel to the ground with a bag full of
Le Cabinet jesuitique
!”

Le Picart and the other Jesuits frowned at the frivolous interruption and Charles gave Wing a warning nudge.

“What?” the Englishman said earnestly. “It
was
just like Fate!”

Charles gave up and bit his lip, and Le Picart and Paradis indulged in a fit of coughing.

The Novice House rector was trying to make himself heard. “The
boy
put it there? Oh, no. Oh, dear Blessed Virgin. And I hounded that poor young man out of the Novice House. I must see him, I must get him back—”

“No,” Charles said bluntly. “You won't get Amaury de Corbet back,
mon père
. I've seen him. He's getting married.”

Guymond stared at him in horror. “But who—how—”

“I think we must leave it there,
mon père
,” Le Picart said quickly. “Thank you, Monsieur La Reynie. Thank you,
maîtres
. You may withdraw now and leave us to talk together.”

La Reynie got up from his chair and bowed. Charles and Wing bowed in their turn and followed him through the side door. In the postern passage, La Reynie settled his hat and gazed approvingly at Charles and the Englishman.

“Well done.” He winced a little, looking at their faces. “Why do bruises always make one look recently dead just when one is, in fact, getting better? But never mind that; I thank God with all my heart that you're both alive. It took courage to keep trying to learn the truth, in spite of danger and pain. You're brave men, both of you.”

Wing fidgeted and muttered something in English.

La Reynie looked at Charles. “What did he say?”

“I think he's surprised that you called him brave.”

“He
is
brave. Tell him. My spoken Latin's deserted me long ago.”

Charles told the Englishman what La Reynie had said. And added, “He's right, you know.”

Wing looked searchingly at Charles, and then at La Reynie. Then, instead of tangling himself in the long speech of denial Charles was expecting, he drew himself up to his full unimpressive height and beamed at the
lieutenant-général
.

“You are very kind,
monsieur
,” he said in French, enunciating very carefully. “I've been using that book we got,
maître
,” he said aside to Charles. He bowed again and marched away toward the court as proudly as a military procession. La Reynie watched him go. Then his shoulders rose and fell in a sigh and he looked at Charles. “Gabriel has left,” he said abruptly.

Charles knew something of La Reynie's long struggle with his estranged son, Gabriel. “Where has he gone?”

“Rome.” The
lieutenant-général
watched a dozen teenaged boys walk past the courtyard end of the street passage. “He told me he will never come back.”

The unhappy silence grew. Looking at La Reynie's rigid face, Charles wanted to offer comfort, offer something. “Do you remember,” he said carefully, “that when we talked by the rose bushes, the night I was attacked, you said that perhaps you and I are two of a kind?”

La Reynie didn't look at him. “Yes.”

“I think you were right.”

La Reynie's mouth opened slightly, and he turned his head, staring at Charles like an actor who had forgotten his lines. Then he blinked hard and walked toward the street. “Open!” he barked, and the lay brother opened the postern for him.

Charles followed him out into the rue St. Jacques. The early November dusk had come, and people in the houses down the hill were lowering the street lanterns from their walls as the lighter with his bucket of candles worked his way up from the river.

“Do you ever miss the old darkness?” Charles said, partly to ease the other man's awkwardness. “With these lanterns, I don't notice the stars as much as before I came to Paris. I don't somehow look so far up.”

La Reynie snorted dismissively. “I can live with a few less stars if that's the price of being able to walk the streets without being robbed or killed.” He turned to get into his carriage.

“Wait, I've been meaning to tell you something. The last time I talked with Père Dainville, he told me a little about how Paris used to be. He said that you deserve an assured place in heaven for what you've done to make it safer.”

La Reynie made a soft surprised sound and looked at Charles over his shoulder. “Did he?”

Charles nodded.

A slow smile spread over the lieutenant-général's tired face. “Thank you.” He climbed into the carriage, the waiting lackey closed the door and sprang up behind, and the carriage started down the hill.

Charles went to the door of the LeClercs' bakery. Marie-Ange answered his knock and pulled him inside. “
Maître
, come in—oh! What happened to your poor face?”

“Someone hit me. But I'm all right, everything's well.”

“That's good!” She was wriggling with excitement. “We have something to show you. Papa, bring him!”

Roger LeClerc came into his shop, walking like a man escorting the king and carrying what looked like a small bundle of laundry. Solemnly, he came to Charles and peeled back the corner of the bundle's blanket. A tiny, red-faced baby stared up at Charles. Its wide, dark eyes were fringed with eyelashes as long as a doe's. Charles's heart melted and he put out a tentative finger.

“My son,” LeClerc said tremulously, and the baby grasped Charles's finger.

Charles grinned at the baker. “Well done,
monsieur
! He has a good grip on him! Have you named him?”

“He is Brice Roger Auguste LeClerc.” The father's attempt at formality dissolved and he grinned back.

“‘Brice' is after my grandfather. The ‘Auguste' part is after Père Dainville,” Marie-Ange said. “Papa, let me!” She held up her arms and Charles gently withdrew his finger from the fierce little grip. Roger LeClerc carefully gave her the baby.