The Whispering of Bones

by Judith Rock

  “How do you feel?” Charles-François said gruffly.

  “Alive.” Charles’s head cleared enough for him to realize how astonished he was. “Charlot? What are you—how in God’s name did you know I was here?”

  Behind Charles-François, someone else leaned down into the lantern light. “He didn’t. But I did.” The goatwoman peered at Charles from her web of wrinkles.

  Charles blinked at her in confusion. “I thought I’d found my death. Like you said.”

  She picked up his hand, turned it over and gazed at the palm. Without comment, she put it down again. “Well, it’s me you can thank for feeling alive. I was looking for one of my goats. I saw the two of you pissing on the wall out there, and the man keeping watch. So I went to find the girl, and then we found His Highness here.” She jerked her head at La Reynie. “That’s why the other one’s dead, not you.”

  “The other one?” Charles’s head swam as new horror gripped him. “Maître Wing?”

  “No, no, I’m here.”

  Charles twisted, grunting at the pain, and saw Rose Ebrard sponging Wing’s battered face. Wing was gazing at her as though the battering had been worth it.

  Charles decided that he was dreaming all of this.

  “All’s well,” the girl said, smiling at Charles. “Much better than you know.”

  Thinking that if this wasn’t a dream, it must be fever, Charles sank back onto the straw. “Is the gunshot wound very bad?” he asked his cousin faintly.

  “Bad enough,” Charles-François said. “He’s dead.”

  “What? Who’s dead?”

  “The man who was about to shoot you.”

  “Alexandre didn’t shoot me?”

  “He didn’t.” Lieutenant-Général La Reynie knelt beside Charles-François. “Your cousin here shot him first. And now we have to get you and Maître Wing home.”

  Charles ignored him, staring at Charles-François, who looked everywhere but at Charles.

  “Charlot? You saved my life?” Charles thought he was going to cry, but then he started to laugh. “I would have thought you’d offer the man your pistol if he missed me the first time.”

  His cousin grunted and shrugged and said something indistinctly.

  “Thank you,” Charles said gravely.

  With the air of a man swallowing gall, Charles-François looked him suddenly in the eye. “You were trying to save me from something at Cassel. I never admitted it, but I knew it. So we’re even now.”

  La Reynie started to slip an arm under Charles’s shoulders to pick him up.

  “No, wait,” Charles said. “Richaud’s here, he’s dead. His body’s in the garden. And the books—”

  “Richaud? Well,” La Reynie said in surprise. “I kicked in the back door, but I didn’t see a body out there. We’ll look. I’ve seen the books upstairs, though.”

  “And Alexandre Lunel killed his brother, Paul.”

  “Ah.” La Reynie withdrew his arm and sat back on his heels. “That I didn’t know, either.”

  “And there’s another body. At Notre Dame des Champs, in the old well. Alexandre killed him, too.”

  “You seem to know everything. The abbess’s workmen took what’s left of a body out of the well this morning. It’s nothing but bones now. Bones wearing a Jesuit cassock.” La Reynie was quiet for a moment. “Are you sure Alexandre Lunel killed the man? He would have to have done murder very young.”

  “He said he was fifteen. The man was his tutor. His name was Grandier.”

  Charles was suddenly too exhausted to explain further, but La Reynie was no longer listening. He was looking toward what was left of the open front door. Loud male voices were approaching, but it was a boy carrying a wriggling white goat kid who came into the room.

  “I have her, Hyacinthe!” He put the little goat down beside the goatwoman. “Well done, Michel,” La Reynie said to the boy. “Come outside now and help me by keeping a watch on the carriage.” He got up and piloted Michel outside, and Charles-François went with them.

  Charles stared after them. “That was Michel Poulard, from the Novice House. What’s he doing here? I don’t understand—”

  “Let it be,” the goatwoman said soothingly, as the baby goat butted against her skirt. She gathered it into her arms and cuddled it, looking down at him. “I told you, I saw you and went to find the girl.” She nodded at Rose, who was still sitting with Wing. “She saw me earlier and said she was looking for you.”

  “You said you’d come to The Dog, maître,” Rose put in. “When you didn’t, I was worried. So I walked up the rue Saint Jacques, hoping I’d meet you, and saw Hyacinthe.”

  The goatwoman nodded. “That’s right. So when I saw you here later, I went to the bookshop and told her and the rest of them where you were. Then we saw His Highness here”—she grinned at La Reynie—“getting into his carriage down at the college. And the girl ran down the street screeching at him like a scalded cat. And so we all came to get you. In the carriage.” Hyacinth pursed her lips thoughtfully. “First time I’d been in one. I liked it.” She gently pulled a straggling lock of her hair out of the tiny goat’s mouth. “When I saw you pissing, I was looking for this little one,” she said to Charles.

  Charles struggled for words. “Then—maybe it’s the little goat I have to thank for being alive.”

  A surprised smile spread across Hyacinthe’s face. “Well. So you do see how things touch each other. I wondered.” She nodded as though he’d passed a test and leaned close to him. “So I’ll tell you something else.” She looked into his eyes for a long moment. “That’s why you can never find the beginning of a thing and close it in your hand. Or the end. Never. All’s moving, always moving, like water, like air.”

  With that, she withdrew to the side wall. She put her empty canvas bag down on the floor and settled beside it, as contented and self-contained as one of her goats. Wondering vaguely what she was waiting for, Charles put her words away to think about when he was better able to think. All he could think of now was how much he wanted someone to take him and Wing home. But not yet, he sighed to himself, as the loud voices he’d heard before came closer, and he recognized his cousin’s military bellow.

  “Hold your tongue, you cur! If you haven’t something to hide, why run from us?”

  Charles-François and a man in a floppy brown hat dragged Victor Coriot into the cottage, holding him between them as he struggled and begged. La Reynie came behind them with a shovel in his hand.

  “I didn’t kill him,” Coriot howled, as his captors shoved him across the room toward the door to the garden. “I didn’t kill anyone, I’ve done nothing!”

  “Then why were you creeping toward this house in the dark with a shovel?” Charles-François growled.

  “Would this have something to do with the body outside?” La Reynie asked Charles, holding up the shovel.

  “No doubt. Lunel ordered Coriot to bury Richaud. Coriot went for a shovel. But he’s telling the truth; he didn’t kill Richaud, Lunel did.”

  “Burying the murderer’s handiwork is a good road to the gallows,” La Reynie said grimly. On his way to the back door, he swore and kicked something aside. “Will someone pick these up? Every copy has to go with us as proof.”

  “I will.” Rose Ebrard got up from the straw. Charles closed his eyes and a short, blessed quiet fell. Then Mlle Ebrard was stooping over him. “When La Reynie comes back in, I’ll ask him to let us take you home,” she said softly.

  Charles opened his eyes. “Pick what up? What did he mean?”

  “Books.” She nodded down at the stack she’d gathered. “Those books you’ve been so worried about.”

  La Reynie, who had returned alone while Wing was speaking, stopped beside the goatwoman.

  “Hyacinthe,” La Reynie said, “can you read?”

  “What use would I have for tha
t, mon lieutenant-général?”

  “The books Mademoiselle Ebrard is holding came out of your bag.”

  “But yes, surely they did.”

  “Why?”

  “Has all this coil addled your wits? The books came out of my bag because they were in my bag. They fell out when I hit the man with it.”

  “Don’t trifle with me, ma bonne femme. Why were they in your bag?”

  “Because I must live, like everyone else. I get good money for carrying books to those that want them.”

  “Who paid you this good money?”

  “Him.” She jerked her head toward Alexandre Lunel’s body, lying now by the front door and covered, Charles thought, with the blanket from the bed upstairs. “Sometimes the one you just dragged past paid me, but mostly him.” She sucked her teeth. “They won’t pay me now.”

  “You got your books here?”

  “Not here. At the big Lunel house. I sold them milk and came away with books.” She smiled at Charles. “You saw me. Your wits aren’t working, either, but you have some excuse.”

  “I did see her,” Charles said, looking up at La Reynie. “The day we talked to Lunel. While I was downstairs, she came to the back courtyard with the goats. I told you that a young man who didn’t seem to be a servant let her in.”

  “You did?” La Reynie frowned at him and shrugged, rubbing his tired face.

  “Monsieur La Reynie,” Rose Ebrard said firmly, “do you think Maître Wing and Maître du Luc could go home now?”

  “What?” he said distractedly. “Yes, of course they can go home. I will go with them and then come back. Monsieur de Vintimille du Luc is staying here till my men arrive to take charge of Coriot.”

  The goatwoman picked up her goat and her bag and looked questioningly at him.

  “You can go, too,” he told her. “I know where to find you.”

  “Do you, Your Highness?” She laughed and shuffled out of the cottage.

  La Reynie called Michel Poulard and his coachman in, and the two of them helped Wing to his feet. La Reynie and Rose supported Charles, and they made their way slowly outside. When Charles and Wing were settled in the carriage, La Reynie went back to the cottage and the coachman climbed onto the driving box. Then La Reynie and the man in the floppy hat returned and La Reynie got into the carriage. Michel shut the carriage door and climbed onto the narrow perch at the rear. The other man handed the stack of books to Rose Ebrard, who put them with more books on the carriage floor.

  La Reynie leaned toward the window. “You and Monsieur de Vintimille du Luc will stay with the prisoner and the bodies until my men arrive?”

  “We will.” The man in the brown hat looked at Mademoiselle Ebrard. “And then I’ll be back.”

  The voice brought Charles bolt upright in spite of his weakness and bruises. “Amaury?!”

  “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.

  CHAPTER 26

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

  Maître 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 M
ichel 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.”