by Judith Rock
“I will.”
“Monsieur Henri Brion was killed early on the Friday morning after the Nativity. And Père Michaut says that on Thursday night, Gilles Brion was a guest at the Capuchin monastery.”
“Yes.”
“Did he come to this house during that night?”
Fiennes looked down. “Yes.” He looked up again, and Charles was disconcerted to see his smile.
“How long did he stay with you?”
“He came just after Compline and he stayed until an hour or a little less before Prime. He left me then to go and do something we’d been praying about during the night.”
“What was that?” Though Charles thought he knew, he wanted to be sure.
“We prayed that the young woman his father was forcing on him would agree to tell Monsieur Brion that she would not marry Gilles.”
“And how long was he gone on this errand?”
“Perhaps three-quarters of an hour. It was still dark when I met him in the Capuchin church for Prime. We were there well before the Prime bell, so no one knew that Gilles had left the monastery.”
Whether or not Père Michaut knew that Gilles had been out on that particular night, it was clear to Charles that the Capuchin superior was aware of the pair’s mutual devotion. Though whatever doubts it may have given him about Brion, he seemed to have none about Fiennes. If only Gilles had not left Fiennes to go and plead with Martine. Because that three-quarters of an hour’s absence was plenty of time to do murder. To do both murders, in fact, since Henri Brion’s body had been found so near the Mynette house. And Fiennes’s story also confirmed Gilles’s presence at the Mynette house that morning. Still, though Gilles Brion seemed weak and self-regarding, he was not mad. Charles could not believe that he could pray all night with Fiennes, leave to go murder two people, and then return to Prime as though nothing had happened.
“How did Gilles seem when you joined him for Prime?”
Fiennes sighed. “Very upset. His errand had not sped. In spite of all our prayers.”
Very upset. A detail that would not help convince La Reynie that Gilles had done nothing but talk at Martine’s house. Charles was staking everything on the hope that La Reynie would be swayed by Fiennes’s guileless innocence and demeanor. “Is there anyone here in your house who saw Gilles Brion come and go?” Charles said. “And could swear to the times?”
“Oh, yes.”
“Who?” Charles asked skeptically. It was not the answer he had expected.
“My mother’s maid. She has been here for years and knows all about Gilles; she lets him in when he comes. And she’s a very early riser and opened the door for him when he left to go across the river.”
Charles blinked. “Well, what you’ve told me may help your friend. But if you agree to also tell the police, you will be risking hard questions about your connection to Monsieur Brion.”
“There is nothing wrong in our connection, Maître du Luc. We love each other, yes. We consider ourselves spiritual brothers. Gilles has been tempted to a baser connection with me. But I have persuaded him that it would be grave sin. Now he wants only for us to be near one another and be truly brothers, Capuchin brothers, serving God together. We have nothing to hide.”
“Still, it may not be easy to convince the police of that. They may well be merciless in asking what you did that night.”
Fiennes’s face shone. “We prayed for Gilles. And talked about God. What else would we do?”
Charles found himself speechless and rebuked. The young man’s words rang with truth. He only hoped La Reynie would hear what he heard, and that it would weigh against that damning three-quarters of an hour’s absence. “Will you go to the Châtelet with me when it’s light? If we can get through the snow.”
Fiennes jumped up and went to a window. “It’s not snowing anymore. Though the snow is deep. I will ask my father for horses.”
“Thank you, monsieur. The sooner we get there, the better.” Charles was hoping that Gilles Brion’s long, dark night in the prison had been no more than lonely and uncomfortable, hoping that La Reynie was still holding out against Louvois.
Chapter 22
ST. GENEVIÈVE’S DAY, FRIDAY, JANUARY 3
Without the horses, they would never have made it to the Châtelet. Even with them, a ride that should have taken a few minutes took nearly an hour. People wrapped in coats, cloaks, and shawls were wielding brooms and shovels to clear drifted snow from doors, gates, church porches, and streets. It was the Feast of St. Geneviève, the patron saint of Paris, a day full of processions through the city, coiling lines of laymen and clergy chanting and carrying relics and candles. Today, though, the saint’s processions were going to be late beginning, because in most of the streets the snow was still deep and uncleared. As the Châtelet’s white-blanketed roofs and towers rose before them, Charles realized belatedly that Lieutenant-Général La Reynie might well not be there. He might simply have decided to stay at home beside his fire in this weather.
The guards at the prison entrance were cold and irritable. The one Charles approached only shrugged and wiped his dripping nose on his sleeve. Cold and largely sleepless, Charles implied harm to the man’s immortal soul if he refused. The guard finally left his fellow holding the entrance and conducted them to La Reynie’s office. An even more irritable voice behind La Reynie’s door called “Come!” when the guard knocked, and Charles released his held breath in a sigh of relief. The guard stalked away. Charles and Fiennes went in.
La Reynie stood in front of a dying fire, rubbing his face. His cloak was on the floor beside one of the armchairs and his wig lay on the other chair’s seat. Startled at this state of undress, Charles wished him a good morning.
“It is not a good morning,” La Reynie growled, raking a hand through his spiky gray hair. “What do you want?” He glanced unhappily at Fiennes. “And who is this?” His frown deepened as he looked more closely at Charles. “What’s happened to you?” He reached out toward the burn holes in Charles’s cloak.
Charles smiled. “Monsieur La Reynie, may I present Monsieur Fiennes? We have been helping the Capuchins fight a fire.”
The two men bowed to each other.
“The Capuchins do well,” La Reynie said, eyeing Fiennes. “I wish we had them all over Paris. And how did you come to be helping them, monsieur?”
“He is soon to be a Capuchin novice,” Charles said, before Fiennes could answer.
La Reynie grunted, glowering at Charles. “And? Have you come to tell me you’re joining the Capuchins, too?”
Charles bit back a reply, taking in the lieutenant-général’s shadowed eyes and limp, wrinkled linen. La Reynie had apparently been up most of the night, too.
“I know now where Gilles Brion was the morning his father died. I have brought Monsieur Fiennes to tell you himself. And there is also another witness to confirm some of what he is going to say.”
La Reynie closed his eyes and swore softly. Then, still without inviting his guests to sit, he went to the door, jerked it open, and bellowed into the passage. “Guillaume! Wine! Bread! Now!” He turned back into the room, swore at the freezing air sweeping through the open door from the passage, went back and slammed the door shut, and dropped into an empty chair.
“Maître du Luc, put that wig somewhere—no, give it to me, at least it’s warm.” He jammed the wig on his head. “Forgive me, Monsieur Fiennes, please, sit down. I apologize for being somewhat en déshabillé this morning. Maître, bring a chair for yourself.”
Charles went to pull a chair away from the wall and closer to the dead fire.
La Reynie was looking morosely at the cold hearth. “Who would have thought this day could get so much worse, so quickly?” he muttered. He scowled over his shoulder and bellowed “Fire!” at the closed door.
As Charles sat down in the chair he had brought, the door opened and a cheerful, middle-aged servant edged in, carrying a bucket of kindling and balancing a small pewter tray crowded with pitcher,
glasses, and a loaf of bread.
“Here you are, mon lieutenant-général.” He put the tray on the table beside La Reynie and knelt in front of the fire. “And just so you know,” he said, poking and prodding the ashes as he looked for live embers, “you’re not here today.”
“I am very glad to hear it,” La Reynie said, sarcasm dripping from his words like melted butter. “Where am I? Am I enjoying myself, wherever it is?”
“I couldn’t say where you are, monsieur, but I’m certain you’re enjoying yourself more than you would be if I’d told Monsieur Louvois’s man you’re here.”
“Blessed saints. Thank you, Guillaume. Every day I am so much deeper in your debt, I will never be able to repay you.”
The man smiled to himself and fell to blowing on a live coal. La Reynie poured wine into the glasses Guillaume had brought, handed two to Charles and Fiennes, and took his own.
“Tell me then, Monsieur Fiennes,” he said resignedly, “this tale that may help to release Monsieur Brion from his present accommodation.”
Fiennes told him. As he talked, La Reynie’s attention sharpened. By the end, he was gazing open-mouthed at the young man.
“You are very frank, monsieur,” he said, when Fiennes had finished. “Either you are far too clever and devious an actor to waste yourself as a Capuchin, or you are so transparent that even the Capuchins may have difficulty coping with you.”
Fiennes simply smiled like a small glowing sun. Watching him, Charles almost imagined that the air grew warm. The lieutenant-général drained his wineglass and reached for the pitcher.
“However, your rather startling story changes nothing.” He glanced irritably at Charles. “You have confirmed for me that Gilles Brion was indeed at the Mynette house that morning. And in the three-quarters of an hour about which you are so certain, he had enough time to—”
“Oh,” Fiennes interrupted, “I had forgotten, there is something else! Forgive me, Monsieur La Reynie—and you also, Maître du Luc. I forgot to tell you both that when Gilles returned that morning for Prime, he told me he had barely avoided encountering his father.”
La Reynie was out of his chair and standing over Fiennes. “Saw his father where? Did they talk?”
Charles put a hand over his eyes, feeling like he’d just pushed Gilles Brion’s head the rest of the way into the noose. How could Fiennes be so stupidly naive? That guilelessness was dangerous was a thought Charles hadn’t had before.
Fiennes was looking earnestly up at La Reynie. “Gilles said that as he came out of the gate into the Mynette garden, he saw his father, hurrying across the Place Maubert.”
“It wasn’t light enough to recognize a face. How did he know it was his father?”
“Oh, he knew him from his shape and walk—it was his father, after all! But after what had just happened with Mademoiselle Mynette, Gilles didn’t want to meet his father, so he turned and ran.”
“So he told you.”
“Gilles has never lied to me.”
Charles hardly heard him, suddenly seeing Gilles’s father walking toward the Mynette house that dark morning. Was that the answer after all? That Henri Brion had killed his ward to have her money? But Henri Brion was dead, and what mattered now was keeping his son alive.
“I see,” La Reynie said to Fiennes. “Well, at least we know exactly how long he was gone from you. And that he was where both murder victims were. With time to kill them, since they were in the same place. Very valuable knowledge. Don’t you agree, Maître du Luc?”
Charles got to his feet and said doggedly, “It will be valuable. When the whole truth comes out. But there’s a bright side, even for me. Now that you’ve decided that you don’t want any more truth, you have less reason to put Brion to the question.”
Fiennes was looking in dismay from one to the other. “Put him to the question? Torture him, you mean? You must not do that, Monsieur La Reynie. Gilles is weak. He will lie to you to save himself pain. And his lie will be on your soul, surely you see that. It is for the good of your own soul that you must not torture him, monsieur.” Fiennes walked closer to the lieutenant-général. Charles was almost embarrassed by the gentleness and sadness in the young man’s face as he studied La Reynie. “Do not take your own unhappiness out on him. It will do no good.”
La Reynie’s face was like stone. Fiennes stepped away and sighed. “I will wait for you outside, maître.”
In silence, Charles and La Reynie watched him leave.
“He may talk like a saint, but he’s just handily convicted his friend.” La Reynie laughed harshly. “Not what you intended, was it?”
“No. But you’re still wrong. Gilles Brion didn’t kill anyone.”
“After what you just heard? You have more brains than that.”
“You’re not sure he’s guilty, either. I see it in your face. So did Fiennes.”
“What you don’t see is that Monsieur Louvois was here again last night, in spite of the snow. He brought a delegation from the Hôtel de Ville. The good city worthies came to demand that I formally charge Gilles Brion with the murders of his father and Martine Mynette. Then the worthies left, and Monsieur Louvois stayed behind to tell me that if I do not charge him, and the people riot because they think I am protecting Jesuits and leaving these murders unavenged, my position is forfeit.”
“But you cannot—”
“For God’s sake, let me finish! Whether or not you and Monsieur Fiennes are right, I must keep Brion here. Having someone arrested for the murders—even if not yet formally charged—is preventing worse in the streets than has already happened. I cannot release him until I am certain he is not guilty—and, by the bon Dieu, that young man’s wide-eyed statement has made me more certain that he is.”
“Have you put him to the question yet?”
“No.”
“Are you going to?”
“Are you going to find this ex-gardener?” La Reynie shot back. “This Tito you’ve been asking about? If by any chance Brion is proved innocent, I have to have someone to put in his place. Not that this Tito sounds likely. So, have you found him?”
“No.”
“Well, keep looking.”
With the slightest of bows, Charles left La Reynie and made his way to where Fiennes was waiting. Forcing himself to keep his anger and disappointment out of his face and voice, he said, “Can your father spare these horses a while longer, Monsieur Fiennes?”
“I imagine so.”
“Then I beg the favor of riding to the Couche. On the Île.”
Fiennes nodded. “I am sorry if I made things more difficult in there. But what I said was the truth and I had forgotten to tell you.”
“I cannot but wish you had continued to forget, mon ami.”
“Gilles has killed no one, maître. I do not think God will let him be hanged. Or tortured. Perhaps if he were ready to be a saint—but my poor Gilles is not ready. So there is nothing to fear.”
Charles could find nothing he trusted himself to say in response to that, so in silence they made their slow way across the Pont au Change, stopping while a belated procession in honor of St. Geneviève paced and chanted its slow way across their path. As Charles waited, he thought about the saint. Geneviève’s story said that she’d saved Paris from Attila and his marauding Huns. Deciding that if she could handle Attila, she could probably handle Michel Louvois, he prayed to her to help him save Gilles, show him the real killer.
Keeping the horses to the edge of the narrow rue de la Juiverie on the Île, to avoid the impassible center where snow dug away from doors and gates had been flung, Charles and Fiennes finally reached rue Neuve Notre Dame. Charles drew rein and caught his breath, gazing at the cathedral’s west front rising in front of him. He’d rarely seen it from this angle since coming to Paris. Its square towers rising into the clearing sky’s icy blue, its crowding sculptures frosted in snow, washed the tiredness from his body and the worry and discouragement from his mind. Beside him, Fiennes also drank in the
cathedral’s wonders.
“How did they do it?” he said. “That’s what I always wonder, maître. Wouldn’t it have been glorious to help build it?”
In spite of his anger at himself and exasperation with Fiennes, Charles found himself smiling. “It would.”
But his smile died quickly when they reached the Couche, the house where abandoned babies found alive were brought. As he stood at the gate, waiting for an answer to the bell, a booted man with a large cone-shaped basket on his back pushed past him with a muttered excuse. The man took a key as long as Charles’s hand from his coat and forced it into the gate’s frozen lock. Swearing under his breath, he worked to turn the key. Tiny cries came from the basket on his back. Charles’s heart turned over as he realized that the man was a city worker paid to search for foundlings at doors, under bridges, in churches. The Couche was getting a new delivery of infants.
When the man finally opened the gate, Charles slipped through with him, leaving Fiennes to look after the horses. The baby finder slid in the courtyard’s deep snow and Charles leaped forward, afraid the basket would upend. The cries coming from it grew frantic, but the carrier found his feet, and he and Charles reached the door together. The Sister of Charity watching the door allowed the baby finder to enter, but barred Charles’s way.
“Yes, mon père?” she said, not so much unwelcoming as openly puzzled by the Jesuit standing before her with burn holes in his hat and cloak.
“Ma soeur,” Charles began, but his voice died as he watched the man with the basket on his back disappear into a passageway. “What will happen to them?”
Her face softened and she beckoned him inside and shut the door. “They will go to wet nurses.”
“And then?”
“Those who live will be returned to our house in the Faubourg St. Antoine. A few will be adopted. By common people, you understand. Most will be placed as servants and apprentices.”
The terrified and forgotten child in the burning building’s window rose in Charles’s mind, and he nearly bit blood from his tongue to stop himself from demanding the basket and taking the infants with him.