by Judith Rock
Wing reddened. “On the way to the Novice House, she—the girl, or young woman, I should say—came out of the bookshop, that one with the sign of the saint playing with the dog. She’d heard what happened to you in the chapel and she wanted to know how you were.”
“She did?” Charles felt warmed and pleased. “A thin young woman with very dark blue eyes?”
“Almost blue-purple, yes. Aren’t they pretty? She said she’s been praying for you. But Maître Richaud was very angry with me because I stopped and answered her question. He went on and on about how wrong I was to let a young woman talk to me in the street. But I think it would have been very rude to ignore her,” Wing said indignantly.
“It would indeed have been rude. Maître Richaud does not like women. And you weren’t talking to her alone, he was right there with you. You did nothing wrong.”
“No. I didn’t really think I had. But being scolded always confuses me.” Wing rose from the bench. “So do you think you’ll be allowed to go to the Novice House on Friday? I don’t want to go all that way alone like I did this morning! We could walk very slowly and I’d carry your satchel for you.”
“That’s kind. But it depends on Frère Brunet giving me leave.”
“I’ll pray he does! God bless your recovery.”
The Englishman left and Charles went slowly back into the infirmary, his small store of energy gone. He put his book on the table beside his bed and was asleep almost before he was lying down. When he woke, bells were ringing for Vespers and the light was fading. As shadows gathered in the long room, he thought about Richaud and hoped that somewhere the crabbed scholastic was alive to watch the evening come.
Feet thumped down the stairs from the student infirmary, and Frère Brunet came in with a candle. “Evening’s starting to rise so early now, I thought you’d like some light for your book, maître.”
Charles pushed his pillows against the white plaster wall and slowly and carefully sat up against them. Brunet put the candle in a wall sconce above the bed and laid a hand on Charles’s forehead.
“How do you feel?”
“Much better, mon frère. I was lying here wondering if there’s any news of Maître Richaud.”
“Not one little morsel. All anyone here knows is what Frère Martin’s said a thousand times now, that Maître Richaud went out the postern door just after Friday’s dinner—the boys were still playing in the courtyard. He told Frère Martin he had permission to go on an errand. But when the rector asked about that, no one had given him any permission.”
“Do you think he’s dead?” Charles said bluntly.
Brunet crossed himself. “I don’t see what else there is to think. You know how he was about breaking rules. Everybody in the college—especially us lay brothers—knows, since he was always telling everyone exactly how they were breaking them.” He gave Charles a sheepish look. “I shouldn’t speak ill of him, since he might well be dead. But the man was a sore trial.”
“You’re not the only one who thinks so, mon frère. But I hope he’s not dead.” He grinned at Brunet. “Maybe God is just seeing to it that Maître Richaud has some—um—salutary experiences.”
Brunet returned the grin. “I hope so, if he’s coming back!” He went into his herb room beyond the altar, and Charles opened his Augustine. But instead of reading, he stared at the soft, worn pages and thought about Richaud, and about Wednesday night’s attack. A dead intended novice, a nearly dead scholastic, and now a disappeared scholastic. Was it possible that someone actually was after random Jesuits? Charles gave up all pretense of reading and skeptically examined that thought. Jesuits had been hated for one thing and another almost since the Society’s founding. Charles had never really understood why, except that they were a young order created for a new time and the church’s new needs. They didn’t live like most of the older orders, safely behind cloister walls. Nor did they wander like the old friars. Jesuits lived in colleges and Professed Houses and Novice Houses, working in the world, including the social and political world. Their presence in the political world angered many people. Charles himself disliked political tangles, but political life was human life, and wherever human souls were, there Jesuits had to be, if their work was to help souls. It was only logical. If God was everywhere, shouldn’t his servants be everywhere, also?
But for more than a few Frenchmen and others, the answer to that was a resounding no. The sternly critical Jansenists, fellow Catholics, found the Society of Jesus too tolerant and lax in its teaching. The Gallicans, who wanted France and its church to be free of all non-French influence, accused Jesuits of wanting to put both church and king under the pope’s thumb, and of being in every way too international. Some Gallicans carried their thinking to such an extreme that they seemed to think God Himself was French. Charles sighed and picked up his book again.
But when the bell rang for supper, he was reading the same page for the third time. He suddenly remembered the sentences that Père Quellier, the St. Augustine teacher, had quoted on Wednesday.
“The mind commands the body and the body obeys instantly.”
Definitely true, because he’d told himself to pick up the book and open it, and he’d done exactly that.
“The mind commands itself and meets resistance.”
Even more true, because he’d read the page in front of him three times without gleaning any idea of what it said. Well, he told himself, he hadn’t read much, but he’d gotten some thinking out of his effort at studying. He looked up with relief as Père Brunet came bustling in with his supper. Brunet plunked the tray down on Charles’s lap and they said the table grace and crossed themselves. Then Brunet cleared his throat and put his hands on his wide hips.
“I don’t suppose you’ve heard the news,” he said, obviously waiting for Charles to say no.
“What news?”
“Maître Richaud, God save him.”
Charles put down his spoon and stared at Brunet. “Dead?”
“Seems so. Somebody found his cassock. Blood-soaked. The other side of the river, somewhere between the old temple and Saint Martin’s abbey.”
Looking in horror at each other, Charles and Brunet slowly crossed themselves.
“Why do they think it’s his? There are plenty of Jesuits in Paris.”
“Stands to reason, doesn’t it? It’s a Jesuit cassock and, so far as anyone knows, there’s no other Jesuit missing in Paris. A monk of Saint Martin’s found it this afternoon and took it to the Professed House. The Professed House rector knew, of course, that Maître Richaud had disappeared, and he sent the monk on here. Père Le Picart says that little tin medal of Saint Jacques Richaud wore on his rosary was with the cassock, though the other medal he wore, the little silver one of the Virgin, wasn’t there. But silver—no one would leave that, would they?” Brunet shook his head. “Well, he’s in God’s hands. Eat, now, or you’ll be on my hands for who knows how long!”
Charles started slowly on his bean and turnip soup, but he could hardly eat for thinking of Richaud. No matter how unloved, Richaud hadn’t deserved this. Frère Brunet went on standing by his bed, seemingly lost in thought.
“Now what was it?” he said suddenly. “Armand? No. Grand? It was something like that, like the college’s name.” He frowned and ran his tongue around his teeth. “Almost like it, but something else.”
“What are you talking about, mon frère?”
“What’s happened to Maître Richaud. It’s put me in mind of something else. A Jesuit that disappeared. Years ago now and I can’t quite remember the name.”
Charles broke a piece from his bread. “Do you mean Père Dainville’s nephew?”
“That’s it!” Brunet said in surprise. “How did you know?”
“Père Dainville mentioned him. That last day, on the way to Notre Dame des Champs. He said his nephew was never found.”
“He wasn’t. Went out fr
om the Professed House one day and never came back, never a bit of him found. Père Dainville hardly ever talked about it, but it haunted him, I know it did. Though it’s mostly forgotten now. I’d never have thought of him myself except for what’s happened to Maître Richaud. Ah, well.” He shook his head and turned away. “Poor old lemon face.”
CHAPTER 11
THE FEAST OF ST. FOLLIAN, FRIDAY, OCTOBER 31, 1687
Thursday was drenched in rain, but Friday dawned clear and mild and at midmorning, Frère Brunet reluctantly let Charles out of the infirmary.
“I want you back here after dinner. And mind you go slow to the Novice House. And let that Englishman carry your satchel. Understood?” He eyed the volume of St. Augustine. “Including that book under your arm. It’s as big as a wheel of cheese and as heavy.”
“Yes, mon frère.”
Charles started toward the vestibule, but Brunet fussed along beside him.
“And fasten your cloak, mild though the day is.”
Charles fastened his cloak and pulled the outer door open. “Oui, maman Brunet.”
Brunet tried to glower, but his mouth twitched toward laughter. “Go on, before I change my mind. And you’d best remember I’ve got a heavier hand on me than any maman!”
Thinking of his mother and doubting that, Charles made his way along the garden path and through the adjoining court to the Cour d’honneur. He felt almost well and heady with freedom at his escape from the sick chamber. Maître Henry Wing and Frère Martin were waiting for him at the postern door. Instead of opening it, Martin congratulated him on his recovery and showered him with admonitions to walk slowly and be warm and sit down if necessary. Wing put Charles’s Augustine in the extra satchel he carried and slung it over his shoulder with his own. As Martin finally let them out into the street, Marie-Ange LeClerc, the baker’s little girl, burst from the bakery door on the other side of the postern and nearly knocked Charles off his feet as she hugged him around the waist.
Charles winced, and Wing tried to pull her away. “No, don’t, you’ll hurt him!”
She let go of Charles’s waist and clung like a crab to his sleeve. “Oh, maître, they said someone was dead, and I knew you were stabbed, and I thought it was you!”
Charles stroked her curly hair and pulled her little coif straight. “No, ma petite, far from dead, as you see.” He gently disengaged himself. “I’m all right.”
She looked somberly up at him. “But Père Dainville died. And that monk came with the bloody cassock. Other people have died; so could you.”
Charles said in surprise, “You saw the cassock? But how? Why?”
“I didn’t see it. It was in a bag. I was at the bakery door when the monk came to your postern, and I heard him tell Frère Martin what he had. It’s Maître Richaud’s cassock?”
“Perhaps,” Charles said carefully, with a warning look at Wing.
“Do you think whoever killed him—the Jesuit who wore it—do you think he’s the same one who stabbed you?”
Charles looked at the ten-year-old in dismay. Gossip had moved even faster than he’d expected. “The police will have to find that out, Marie-Ange. It’s nothing for you to worry about.”
Her eyes told him what a stupid thing he’d just said. “Why shouldn’t I worry when—”
“Marie-Ange, what are you doing?” Mme LeClerc hurried from the bakery. She grabbed her daughter by the back of her bodice and pulled her away from Charles. “Bothering Maître du Luc in this way—you are too big to behave like this! Dear Blessed Virgin! I tell her and I tell you, too, Marie-Ange, you make the baby Jesus weep! I’m sorry, maître, she knows better, but there, what they know and what they do are as far apart as light from dark.” While Mme LeClerc talked, she retied her daughter’s coif, repinned one side of her white apron bib to her blue bodice, and wet a finger to rub a smudge of flour off the little girl’s cheek in the time-honored way of mothers. “And soon there will be another to worry about, as you know.” The baker’s wife gave a light slap to her belly, which swelled under the apron worn high beneath her breasts. “I’ve said it before and I say it again, be glad you’re a Jesuit without children to plague you.” But she hugged Marie-Ange tightly to her side as she said it.
Charles smiled at them both. “Madame, I hope you are well. We’re praying for you and the baby in the college. But now I must go on my way or we’ll be late.”
But Mme LeClerc was frowning at Wing. “I’ve seen you passing. You’re the Englishman,” she said accusingly. She eyed Charles. “I heard you had one.”
Wing, whose French was shakier than his Latin, looked uncertainly from her to Charles.
Charles didn’t want to cope with the ancient tangle of French and English relations. “Maître Wing comes from our college of Saint Omer. He can’t be trained as a Jesuit in England, you know, because they have no Catholic schools. English Catholics have a hard time now.”
Torn between suspicion of an Englishman and sympathy for a Catholic bedeviled by Protestants, Mme LeClerc said grudgingly, “Then good luck to him. But you keep an eye on him, maître. What’s his name?”
Wing understood that. “I am Maître Henry Wing, madame,” he managed to say.
New suspicion flared in her brown eyes. “Henri? Henri?! Your parents named you that? Don’t they know that Protestants are the fault of that English king Henri, the one who loved his cock more than he loved the church? If he hadn’t wanted one new wife after the other, there wouldn’t be any Protestants, now would there?”
“Oh, but, madame, yes, there would,” Wing said earnestly. “Our Protestants are King Henry’s fault, but yours here in France are the fault of a Frenchman, Jean Calvin.”
Marie-Ange had wiggled from under her mother’s arm and was squinting up at Wing, trying to understand his French. “You mean Monsieur Calvin wanted a new wife, too?”
Swallowing laughter, Charles said firmly, “No, Marie-Ange, there are other reasons for being Protestant. But we must go now or we’ll be late.”
Mme LeClerc’s face softened. “Maître,” she said to Charles, “we are all sorry you’ve lost the good Père Dainville. And that other one, whose cassock they brought to you,” she added punctiliously. “But Père Dainville—” Her eyes glistened as she smiled. “I think everyone in the quartier loved him. He was a saint. Once, years ago, just before this daughter of mine was born, he came by our shop and saw me trying to lift a basket of bread to the counter. I was so big with child I couldn’t bend over. He was already old then, but he came into the shop and set me aside without a word and lifted it for me. He was always doing things like that—oh, not just for me, for everyone.”
Charles thought of the people in the chapel on Wednesday night, watching with Père Dainville’s body and praying for him. “I know. He was greatly loved.”
Mme LeClerc nodded. “That other one, though—well, the bon Dieu alone knows the heart, but I don’t think that his heart was much use to anyone.” She eyed Charles. “Or to himself,” she said shrewdly. “For that one, women were the snakes in Eden, I am certain he never even—”
The baker’s voice drowned out whatever she was going to say. “Beatriiiice! Marie-Aaaange! Are you going to let the devil make a suburb of hell in the oven and burn the brioche?”
“Oh, holy saints, and he was finally asleep, you know how he works all night!” She ran into the shop, pulling Marie-Ange with her.
Charles and Wing went on up the hill, and Charles was shocked to find how breathless he was after the short slope between the bakery and the turn onto the rue des Cordeliers. He halted by the building wall across from The Saint’s Dog. “I need a moment to breathe, maître. I’m more unmanned than I knew.”
The narrow street was full of black gowns: short-gowned University students and long-gowned professors coming and going from the Sorbonne’s west entrance around the corner beyond where the Jesuits stood. Carriag
e drivers roared warnings to pedestrians and to carriages coming from the opposite way, Cordeliers being wide enough for only one equipage at a time. After the infirmary’s quiet, Charles felt stunned by the din of voices, feet, wheels, and hooves ricocheting off the tall stone and timber houses along the street.
Wing stood between him and the traffic, anxiously searching Charles’s face.
“It’s all right,” Charles said, grateful but feeling like he’d traded one nursemaid for another. “I’m only weak after so many days in bed.”
The Sorbonne’s chapel bell rang the quarter hour and Wing peered at Charles. “Can you walk now, maître? I don’t think Père Quellier will be forgiving if we’re late.”
Charles, who was watching the stream of short-cloaked men going in and out of The Dog, grunted agreement. “I wonder if some new book’s just out,” he said, as he made his feet start walking again. “They’re doing a brisk business over there.”
“Could we stop and see on the way back?”
“Well—we shouldn’t—” Charles looked at Wing’s eager face. “But perhaps we could. Do you have any money?”
“A little. Left from my journey from Saint Omer. Père Le Picart said I might need to buy a book or two for my studies.”
“Well, if you’ll excuse my saying so, I noticed when we spoke with Madame LeClerc, that your French is—um—a little hard to understand. There’s a new book just out, called The Art of Good Pronunciation, by a Monsieur Hindret. I saw it several weeks ago in The Golden Sun—that’s another bookshop down toward the river. We could see if The Dog has it. You might find it useful.”
“Oh, I’d like that! French is the hardest thing I’ve ever tried to learn. Why do you have so many letters no one ever pronounces? I mean, how in God’s name does anyone here ever learn to spell?”
Charles laughed. “I’m no expert, I grew up speaking mostly Provençal. But I’m told that those letters we don’t pronounce now used to be pronounced a long time ago.”
“But then, why are you saving them? Why not just drop them?”