by Judith Rock
Damiot snorted. “And if this priest has heard that the Society is being accused of her death?”
“I don’t know,” Charles said impatiently. “We’ll know what our lines are when he says his.”
“Nothing that sounds that simple ever is.” Damiot looked glumly at the dome of the Val de Grace convent coming into sight above a line of trees. “We take the next right-hand turning. Between Val de Grace and the Port Royal convent.”
They weren’t in open country yet, but the religious enclosures were surrounded by large gardens and orchards and the private houses were fewer. The wind had grown blessedly quiet, and as the sun climbed, shortening the shadows following them along the western edge of the road, Charles could almost imagine that there was warmth in the light. Almost, but not quite. He shifted the reins to his right hand so he could warm his numb fingers under his cloak.
When they turned, just before Port Royal, the road became a dirt track with gentle vine-covered slopes on its right, and flatter fields on the south side. Beyond the fields, which would be planted with rye and barley in the spring, was a cluster of low hills.
“That’s Mont Parnasse,” Damiot said. “Quite a comedown from the Greek Mont Parnasse, home of Apollo and the Muses, wouldn’t you say?”
“I hope the Muses and Apollo are wearing more than they normally seem to.” Charles was studying the track underfoot and as far in front of them as he could see. “Père Damiot, the brother in our stable said that Flamme needs a good run. And so do I! We’ll wait for you where the track crosses the rue Vaugirard.”
“But what if this horse runs, too?” Damiot’s eyes were wide with fright. “What do I do?”
“Wrap your arms around his neck and don’t fall off,” Charles said heartlessly. “But he won’t; he knows you better than you know him.”
Charles gathered Flamme’s reins and shifted a little forward in the saddle. “Now for it, Flamme, mon brave!”
The horse leaped forward with no touch from Charles’s heels. The track poured past them like a river in flood, and wind scoured Charles’s face. The gelding’s black ears were pricked happily toward the rapidly approaching distance. Charles realized that he was laughing aloud for sheer joy at the speed, the wind, the perfect body that carried him, and his own blood was pounding in answer. He wanted to go on riding like that till the world ended. Flamme wanted to go on running like that, too, and when they reached the fortunately clear crossroad, it took all Charles’s strength and skill to pull the horse back to a canter, then a trot, and finally a stop.
Stroking Flamme’s sweating neck, he looked back along the track, where Boeuf was carefully carrying Damiot to meet them. As he waited, Charles set his horse walking up and down the Vaugirard road to cool him off. The first of the village’s hundred or so houses stood a little to the south, and the spire of the church, called St. Sauver, rose farther on, above a tight cluster of slate roofs on the left of the road. Vineyards spread out from the village in every direction, interrupted only by the little abbey of Notre Dame des Prez. Country quiet lay under the harsh cries of crows in the abbey trees, the soft lowing of village cows, and the thudding of hooves as Boeuf neared the end of the dirt track.
“You actually enjoyed that, didn’t you?” Damiot said wonderingly, as he pulled Boeuf to a willing halt. “I was terrified you would break your neck and leave me stranded out here with two horses.”
“Thank you for your pastoral concern, mon père. Yes, I enjoyed that with all my heart! And body. And soul, too, I think.” He pointed at the houses. “And there is Vaugirard. Now we find the priest and ask for Paul Saglio.”
Damiot’s eyes went from the vineyards and fields to the crows. “How do we find the priest in this wasteland?”
Charles burst out laughing. “Do you see that big thing sticking up above the houses? Even in the country, that’s called a church spire. Where there’s a church, there’s a priest. Anyone would think you’d never been out of Paris!”
“Why would I leave Paris? Why would anyone leave Paris?”
But Damiot managed to turn Boeuf toward the spire and they set off. The road became a slushy village street bordered by houses with snow-covered roofs and full of the sounds of morning chores that take no note of holidays. Doors banged, well pulleys squeaked, dogs barked, mistresses shouted at servants, and wooden shoes, the ubiquitous sabots of rural France, clacked sharply over courtyard cobbles. When they came to the church, they reined their horses in and dismounted. It was small and old, and stood in a large cemetery. Charles eyed its age-blackened walls and the statues of the apostles around its arched door, and Damiot told him that they were made from Vaugirard’s own quarry stone, as were numberless houses and buildings in Paris. “And each apostle is framed in grapevines, as though they’re all standing in a vineyard—a nice touch in a wine village.”
Charles nodded, squinting at the foot-high figures and suddenly homesick on this day when families visited everyone they knew. “A very nice touch. We have churches decorated with vines at home, too.”
They tied their horses to an iron ring in the church wall and went inside. For a moment there was nothing but darkness, and they had to stand still until the holy water font and the altar swam out of shadow. What light there was came through small windows of colored glass set high in the walls. As they dipped their fingers into the font’s frigid water and crossed themselves, Charles saw that, unlike Louis le Grand’s chapel, this church had no benches at all, only stone seats around the edge of the nave. Which meant that, as in the old days, the congregation still stood through Mass, or knelt—or sat—on the stone floor, or on cushions brought for the purpose.
The smell of incense hung in the air, evidence of an early Mass already said. Charles went to the vestry door, but it was locked and no one answered his knocking.
“The house beside the church looks too big for a single man,” Charles said.
“He may live behind it.”
Damiot led the way into the sunlight. They untied the horses and led them down a dirt lane along the church’s north side and the cemetery wall. Where the wall turned, a black cat with a white feather stuck to its face sat on the angle, watching them, and beyond the cat stood a small stone house, its front bare to the lane.
Damiot stopped short and Boeuf, half asleep, nearly knocked him over. “Thatch?” Damiot stared in horror at the roof of a small lean-to wing built onto the side of the house. “Blessed Saint Joseph, I don’t think I’ve ever seen a thatched roof. Could a parish priest so close to Paris be this poor?”
“Well, the rest of the house is roofed in good slate tiles. But the church has a poor feel about it, too. I saw thatched roofs when I was in the army in the north.” Charles grinned ruefully. “And slept under them. Do you know what lives in thatch?”
“No, and I don’t want to. Did Père Le Picart tell you this priest’s name?”
“No.”
As they approached the house door, someone moved at one of the tiny windows, but the door stayed shut. Charles knocked, waited, and was about to knock again when the door flew open. A tall elderly man in a stained cassock stared unhappily at them.
“God’s blessing,” he said, without much conviction. “What do two Jesuits want of a simple priest?”
“God’s blessing on you, mon père, and a good new year.” Charles introduced himself and Damiot. “We are looking for a man who may be in your parish. His name is Paul Saglio.”
“Saglio?” The parish priest laughed without mirth. “And why—” He broke off as wings beat over his bald head and a white dove landed on his scalp. “No, no, ma petite Fontange, that is agony to a bald man, how many times must I tell you?” He reached up and the bird walked onto his finger.
“What a superb dove, mon père!” Damiot’s eyes were shining. He dropped Boeuf’s reins and put out a tentative hand to stroke the bird. “And what a good name for her; that little tuft of feathers on her head looks exactly like a lady’s headdress.”
“Ah,
you like doves?” The priest beamed at Damiot as though at a long-lost son. “Come in, come in!”
Damiot followed the priest into the house, leaving Charles to tether the horses loosely to a small tree beside the house, where they could crop the long grass. He went inside and found Damiot holding Fontange and the priest talking steadily about doves as he poured white wine into wooden cups.
“See?” Damiot said, as Charles peered at the bird, “see how perfect her eyes are, and how bright?”
“How do you know so much about doves? I thought you never left Paris.”
“My father has a dovecote.”
The priest turned, holding out two pottery cups. “Does he, mon père? What sort of doves has he? How many?”
The low-ceilinged, sparsely furnished room was marginally warmer than the outdoors. Charles leaned against the wall to listen to the bird talk, enjoying the wine and this new side of Damiot. And thinking that the parish priest would be more willing to answer their questions after he’d talked awhile. He let twenty minutes or so pass and was about to interrupt, when the church bell began to ring. The parish priest thrust Fontange at Damiot.
“Another Mass to say, but I will return as quickly as I can. Or perhaps you would like to come? And after, you are welcome to share my poor dinner.”
“Mon père, you are most courteous,” Charles said quickly, before Damiot could accept the invitation. “But we are here on the order of our rector and must be about doing what he has asked us to do.”
The priest’s face fell. “Oh. I see. And what is that?” Regretfully, he took the bird from Damiot, carried her to a window on the other side of the room, and let her fly. “To your cote, ma petite, I will come back to you very soon.”
“We are looking for the man called Paul Saglio, mon père.”
The priest turned around with a sour expression. “He is at the big house on the right, almost at the end of the village. Anyone will tell you. But I warn you, the man is a rogue. I have tried to warn Madame Theriot, but she will hear nothing bad of him. The idiot woman has made him her cook; he feeds her on Italian messes, and the other servants are saying he plans to poison her.” He brushed uselessly at the bird stains on his cassock. “They say, too, that she will hardly let him out of the house. And that he purrs at her like a cat.” He wandered across the room and opened the door. “You are welcome to my house at any time, mes pères, at any time.” As he went out, he said over his shoulder to Damiot, “I need to rebuild my dovecote. Perhaps you can advise me, mon père, your esteemed father being such an authority . . .” They watched him go reluctantly up the lane, still talking.
Charles laughed and put his cup back on the sideboard. “Do you suppose the good man always leaves his guests the run of his house? Did he even tell you his name?”
Damiot shook his head as they went out into the lane. “I wish we could have stayed. That little Fontange is the prettiest dove I have ever seen. My father will be eaten up with envy when he hears about her.”
“I had no idea men felt such passion for doves.”
“I have tried to persuade the school bursar to build a dovecote in the fathers’ garden, but he refuses to spend the money. Especially now.” Damiot sighed. “Nothing is more beautiful in a garden than the cooing of doves.”
They mounted Flamme and Boeuf and ambled along the village street until they came to closed wooden gates with a high expanse of slate roof showing beyond them.
“This looks likely.” Charles swung his leg easily over Flamme’s back and dismounted.
Damiot struggled out of his saddle and they walked the horses to the gate. The manservant who answered the bell was courteous enough and wished them a good year, but his uneasy glances and brief answers made Charles certain that he had heard the anti-Jesuit rumors. Yes, he told them, this was Mme Theriot’s house. No, she was not at home. Yes, Paul Saglio worked here and could be found in the kitchen. He took them through the cobbled court, past a pretty girl drawing water from the well, and opened the rear door. He gestured them inside, called out to Saglio, and left them before anyone answered.
“What do Jesuits want with me?” a voice growled belatedly from the kitchen. “Tell them to go to hell.”
Charles, with Damiot behind him, followed the voice into a large, high-ceilinged kitchen with two large fireplaces, a massive worktable in the center, and every sort of pot, pan, cooking fork, sieve, ladle, spice box, and kitchen cloth overflowing the shelves and cupboards crowded around the walls.
“Hell is a long journey, Monsieur Saglio,” Charles said pleasantly. “Though the warmth might be all too appealing on a day like this.”
The small lithe man with a white cloth tied around his head turned sharply from the oven set into the wall. He held a long flat wooden paddle for putting loaves in the oven. His lip curled and his eyes traveled slowly from their hats to their boots.
“Your Society already has the Mynette goods. So I hear. I am only a poor servant; you’ll get no gold from me, my fine blackbirds.” His face darkened. “How did you find me?”
“Someone knew you were here,” Charles said vaguely, not wanting to set Saglio on the hapless priest. “So you have heard of Mademoiselle Mynette’s murder.”
“Who has not?” He began to softly beat the wooden paddle against his leg.
Charles decided not to waste time on subtlety. With an eye on the paddle, he said, “You tried to dishonor her and she turned you out of the house. Shortly before she was killed.”
Saglio’s black eyes flashed from Charles to Damiot. “What is that to you?”
“You were very angry with her.”
“Fickle bitch.” The Italian flung the paddle onto the work table. “Sweet as sugar and then acted like she was Blessed Mary herself. ‘Ooooh, don’t touch me, Paul Saglio!’ ”
Charles clasped his hands tightly together at his waist to keep himself from hitting the man. “She promised more than she gave?”
Nodding, Saglio widened his eyes and broke into a stream of furious Italian.
“Ah, monsieur,” Damiot said, his voice full of spurious sympathy, “I see, she spurned your manhood. That has moved men to kill more times than can be told.”
Saglio stared at him. “Kill her? Me? Do you think I am crazy? Why would I risk the gallows for the pleasure of strangling the little bitch?”
“Then tell us what you were doing before dawn on the Friday morning after Christmas.”
“Why not? I was running all over the house like every other servant here, trying to get old Madame Theriot on her way to Paris.” He rolled his eyes. “The old ones are worse than the young ones. But they have more money,” he leered, “and money compensates trouble taken.” Grinning at the expressionless faces of the two Jesuits, he slowly adjusted the well-filled front of his breeches. “Trouble of every kind, you understand.”
Wanting to get out of Saglio’s presence even more than he wanted to slam a fist into the man’s face, Charles said curtly, “Who can swear you were here that morning?”
“Alain in the yard, the one who came to the door. The pretty maid who’s been out at the well too long talking to Alain. My mistress herself, though she’s already left on her round of New Year’s visits.”
Charles looked at Damiot. “Mon père, will you go and speak with the maidservant and Alain?”
“With pleasure.” Damiot strode out of the kitchen, his boot heels striking like hammers on the stone tiles.
“If you want to know who killed Martine,” Saglio said, watching Charles, “look for her ex-gardener. Tried to get into her bedroom, he did.” He grinned. “Always saying she had something he wanted. Don’t we kill the ones we love? Or lust for, anyway?”
“Do you mean Tito La Rue?”
“I mean Tito La Rue, indeed.”
Charles gazed thoughtfully at a ham hanging from the ceiling, wondering if there might after all be reason to find the gardener and question him. “How old is this Tito? Describe him.”
“I don’t know hi
s age, younger than me. Middle height, hair something like mine, not as black. Well fleshed, he liked his food.”
“And where is he now?”
“Paris? Peru? Hell? Who knows?” Sniffing the air, Saglio whipped around and opened the oven. With the long paddle, he brought out four brown-crusted loaves and slid them onto the table. Charles’s mouth watered at the rich, yeasty smell.
Saglio gazed with approval at his work. “Look, mon ami, I’m busy, I have to cook dinner for all the people madame is bringing back with her.”
If the rest of the dinner measured up to the delicious-smelling bread, it would indeed be a feast. “Where did you learn to cook?” Charles couldn’t help asking.
“From my mother, in Rome.” He took a plucked chicken out of a cupboard, slapped it down on the table, and picked up a knife. “Like I said, ask my mistress where I was when Mademoiselle Mynette died. She’ll tell you the same as I have.”
“Shall I also ask her what you were doing in Paris on Monday?” Charles doubted now that Saglio was actually the man who’d tried to stab him outside the tavern that evening, but he had to put Reine’s insinuation to rest.
The man stared at him. “I haven’t been to Paris since Christmas. My dear mistress has kept me too busy here feeding her holidaying belly. What are you trying to make me guilty of now?”
“Of trying to stab me,” Charles said conversationally, watching the knife in Saglio’s hand.
“If I’d tried, you’d be dead.” Saglio scowled, flourishing the knife, whether at the chicken or Charles, Charles wasn’t sure. “Now go away and let me cook.”
Chapter 18
Charles found Père Damiot chatting amiably with the two servants at the well.
Charles nodded to the three of them. “Have you discussed Monsieur Saglio’s whereabouts last Friday morning?”
“Oh, yes,” Damiot said. “We have, and I’ve learned that he was here, though we’ve agreed that it is always preferable to have him elsewhere.”