The Eloquence of Blood cdl-2

by Judith Rock

  “Willingness to learn is everything,” Charles said politely.

  Bon sidled out of the little salon and stumbled down the stairs, looking over his shoulder at them, and they went in. Charles, as a Jesuit scholastic, should not have been alone with a woman, especially a young woman. And the young woman should not have been alone with him. But both of them had much to say, Charles told himself, and none of it threatened their virtue. The window’s light was welcome, but the little salon had no fireplace and the chill struck through Charles’s cloak and cassock. Several chairs were set against the walls. Two of them flanked the carpet-covered table where the servant had put the tray.

  “Please sit.” She went to the table and gestured Charles toward the cushioned and fringed chair on its other side. When they were both seated, she stripped her black gloves from her hands and Charles sniffed appreciatively at the scent of jasmine her hands’ warmth had released into the air from the soft leather. She untied the strings of her manteau, pushed her veil farther back from her face, and held a glass out to Charles. “As Bon said, it’s only local, from Suresnes, but it will serve to warm us.”

  When they had drunk in silence for a moment, she said, “I want to tell you something about Martine. Perhaps it doesn’t matter, but it troubles me. And it may help you find her killer.”

  “The police are searching for the killer, mademoiselle,” Charles said gently. “My rector has only ordered me to keep track of what is done, because of what is being said in the streets about Jesuits having a part in her death.”

  “But you care that justice is done for her. I see it in your face, I hear it in your voice when we speak of her.”

  “Yes. I care very much about justice for her. What is it that you want to tell me about her, mademoiselle?”

  Isabel Brion set her glass down. “When her maid and I were caring for her body-” She bit her lip and picked up her gloves from her lap, smoothing their soft leather and sending more sweetness into the air. “When we had undressed her and started to wash her, I saw that the little necklace she always wore was gone. It was nothing valuable, just a little red enameled heart on a pretty embroidered ribbon. But it was the most precious thing in the world to Martine. I looked everywhere-where we were working, in her chamber, and at the foot of the stairs where she was found, but it wasn’t there.”

  Trying to hide his disappointment that the great secret was only a lost keepsake, Charles said, “Perhaps the ribbon broke one day when she was in the street and the necklace dropped without her notice.”

  “No! She was so careful of it and she wore it under her clothes. It couldn’t have fallen all the way to the ground, you know.” She blushed suddenly. “No, I don’t suppose you do.”

  Charles felt himself blush, too-ex-soldiers did know these things. “But if she wore it under her clothes, how can you be sure that she still had it?”

  “She would have told me if she’d lost it. And when she came here with my father the day you met her, I untied her manteau for her and I saw the outline of the heart under the high neck of her bodice. Someone must have taken it; I think she would have parted with her life before she parted with that little heart!” Isabel Brion gasped and put her hand over her mouth, hearing what she’d said.

  “Tell me about the necklace,” Charles said, more because he saw that Isabel needed to talk than because he thought her story would be any help to him. He drank a little more of his wine, which was surprisingly good, and settled himself to listen.

  “You can only understand if I tell you where the heart came from,” she said. “I swore never to tell another soul. But now that both Mademoiselle Anne and Martine are gone, I will tell you, if you swear to tell no one else. Their memories must not be tarnished.”

  Charles nodded his acquiescence, with the mental reservation that should the story tell him something about the murders, he would have to use it.

  Isabel Brion glanced at the open door and leaned toward him across the table. “Maitre du Luc, everyone knows that Mademoiselle Anne Mynette adopted Martine after old Monsieur Simon Mynette died. But what no one but me knows now is that Martine was Mademoiselle Anne’s own daughter.”

  Charles’s eyes widened in surprise. No wonder Mademoiselle Anne had suddenly “adopted” a child. “But did Mademoiselle Martine resemble her mother? Would that not have given their secret away?”

  “It would. But Martine somewhat resembled her father, her mother told her. Still, though Mademoiselle Anne’s hair was reddish and her eyes were gray, she and Martine both carried themselves with the same elegance. They had truly identical airs. But that was easy enough for people to dismiss as simply how Martine had been raised. Maitre, you must not think ill of Mademoiselle Anne Mynette. Her miserable old father refused to dower her, because she had a misshapen foot and limped badly, and he said that no man of quality would have her. The real reason was that he was too miserly to dower her.” The girl lifted her chin and said defiantly, “I think that if she sinned, it was her father’s fault, not hers.”

  Sidestepping that tangled question, Charles said feelingly, “She must have suffered.”

  Isabel Brion looked at him in surprise. Her brown eyes were full of questions, but when he said nothing more, she went on with her story. “There was a man Mademoiselle Anne had hoped to marry-so Martine told me-but he left Paris when he realized there would be no dowry. Then, when Mademoiselle Anne was about thirty, there was someone else. They met secretly and her maid helped her. Not that Renee, the maid Martine had-an older woman who died soon after. Mademoiselle Anne’s father was ill by that time, too ill to know whether she was at home or not. And soon-well-Anne Mynette realized that she was with child.”

  “What did she do?” Charles said, absorbed in the unfolding tale.

  “Until near the end, she was able to hide her condition. With her bodice more loosely laced and those little embroidered aprons some women wear-well, women know things can be hidden. For a time, anyway. Near the end, she arranged to go and stay with her maid’s sister on the Ile de la Cite, and the baby-Martine-was born there. While Anne Mynette’s father lived, of course, she could not bring the baby home. So she found a wet nurse on the Ile and left the baby with her. But first, she put a little red enameled heart on a ribbon around Martine’s neck as a token of her love. Not long after, only about a month later, old Monsieur Mynette finally died. As soon as he was buried, Mademoiselle Anne went to get her daughter from the nurse, but Martine was gone and the house was in an uproar. The nurse had two children of her own, and they had fallen ill a few days before. The younger child had just died when Mademoiselle Anne arrived. A neighbor who was there told Mademoiselle Anne that the nurse had taken Martine to the Hopital des Enfants Trouve-the Foundling Hospital nearby, you know-hoping to keep the baby from falling ill, too. But the poor woman was so distraught over her own children that she hadn’t sent Mademoiselle Anne any message. Well, Mademoiselle Anne was terrified, thinking that Martine might also be ill, or even dead, and she ran to the Foundling Hospital. When the nun there brought the baby, the ribbon with the little red heart was still around Martine’s neck, so Mademoiselle Anne knew that Martine was her own.” Isabel sighed deeply. “Then she took Martine in her arms and they went home, the mother and her beloved child. Mademoiselle Anne hung the heart on new ribbons as Martine grew up, and Martine wore it for the rest of her life, because it was a sign of how much her mother loved and watched over her. Is that not a wonderful story, maitre?”

  Charles nodded and smiled. He was touched and warmed by the tale of loving, losing, and finding. “I see how deeply Mademoiselle Anne Mynette loved her daughter.” But the story was of no use in pointing him toward that daughter’s killer. And, he reminded himself, drinking the last of his wine, he should probably not take the story as unadorned fact. As Isabel Brion had told her tale, her voice had taken on the ritual cadence of myth. He could easily imagine Martine’s mother telling her this story. And he could almost hear Martine’s high sweet voice tell
ing her friend this tale of her beginnings as she grew up, telling it always in the same words, rejoicing that she was the cherished child of a beloved mother. And they all lived happily ever after…

  “Though she was Mademoiselle Anne Mynette’s natural daughter,” Charles said, “she still needed the donation in order to have what her mother left, is that not so?”

  “Yes. If Mademoiselle Anne had told the truth about her child, she and Martine would both have been socially ruined. Besides, illegitimate children cannot inherit like children born of legal marriage, you know. So Mademoiselle Anne told everyone that she hadn’t wanted to live alone after her father died, and had adopted an orphan of respectable parents being cared for by a wet nurse on the Ile. And then she used the donation to make sure Martine would get the Mynette patrimoine.”

  “Did Mademoiselle Anne Mynette’s lover know that she had a child? Did he ever see Mademoiselle Martine?”

  “I don’t know. Martine said her mother would never talk about him.” She glanced over her shoulder at the open door. “Martine thought he was a great noble,” she whispered, leaning closer to Charles. “A noble who dared not risk having his dalliance known!”

  “I see,” Charles said gravely. Well, the two girls must have had an exciting time whispering together as they grew this dazzling paternal family tree for Martine. But whatever his quality, a father there had certainly been. Charles gazed into his wineglass. Could Martine’s father have known her? It didn’t sound likely, but it was not impossible. After all, in some of the old tales-as in life-everyone did not live happily ever after, and fathers could be ogres. But those were tales, and how could a gentle girl like Martine have been a threat to her unknown father, especially after so many years? Charles abandoned that shadowy father for an all-too-real one.

  “Mademoiselle, did your father often receive letters from abroad? Had he, perhaps, had letters from abroad recently? From the New World-Mexico, perhaps?”

  She blinked at the abrupt change in the talk. “Not from Mexico, but he often had letters from New France. We have relatives there. He had a letter a few weeks before Christmas-an Ursuline sister returning from their mission there brought it.” Mlle Brion smiled sadly. “After my mother died, my father put me with the Ursulines in the Faubourg St. Jacques for schooling. I loved it there. I still visit them sometimes, and they often bring us family letters when they come back from New France.”

  “Did you read the letter that came before Christmas?”

  “No. My father always told us what they said, just family matters-there was a betrothal under discussion, I think. And a cousin was safely delivered of a child. That sort of thing.”

  Another dead end, Charles told himself, New France being a wildly unlikely port of origin for a shipment of silver. But there was a much harder question he needed to ask.

  “Mademoiselle, I must ask you a difficult question and I ask your pardon for it. On the day I met your brother, the day Mademoiselle Martine was killed, your great-uncle said angry things to your brother. You and your brother left the salon and went downstairs. You talked together there. Your uncle and I could hear your voices, but not your words.”

  Seeming to shrink into herself, Isabel Brion shook her head.

  “You are telling me ‘no,’ mademoiselle? I have not yet put my question.”

  She stiffened and looked away. “Ask, then.”

  “When your brother left the house, you came back upstairs. You passed the salon, and Monsieur Callot and I both heard you crying. I want to know what your brother said that made you cry.”

  “Martine was dead,” she said angrily, “of course I was crying.”

  Charles watched her and said nothing.

  “I tell you, I was crying for Martine. I don’t even remember what Gilles said. Or-” She smoothed her skirt. “Yes, I do remember. He said something kind, trying to comfort me, and my tears overflowed. As will happen, you must know that.”

  “Yes, mademoiselle, I know that. But I do not think that is what happened when you talked with your brother.”

  “I thought you were trying to help us, but now you talk as though you hate Gilles, too, just as my great-uncle does. You want to see him arrested for killing Martine! Well, he didn’t, he wouldn’t; Gilles is as timid as a doe, he couldn’t kill anyone!”

  “I do not think it likely that your brother killed her. But I need to know what he said to you.”

  Her tears were falling freely now, and she put both hands to her face. Gulping back sobs, she said, “You don’t think Gilles did it? Truly?”

  “Truly. I may be wrong, of course. But I do not think he killed her.”

  She dropped her hands into her lap. “Why not?”

  “I think your brother has his faults, but not the faults of a man who kills.”

  She released her held breath and silently studied his face. “I have been so frightened,” she said, almost whispering. “What Gilles told me when you heard us talking is that he’d gone to see Martine very early the morning she died. He’d spent Thursday night at the Capuchins, praying-he often does. He told me he went to her house when it was still dark and called up to her window. She went down to the garden gate-it opens from a little side street-and let him in. He said he’d been shown in prayer that he should ask her to tell my father that she would never marry him, so that my father would stop making him court her.”

  “And did she agree?”

  Isabel Brion swallowed and looked down. “Gilles said she told him to stand up for himself and went back inside and left him there. Martine could be harsh when she thought someone was not acting honorably. But don’t you see, he is terrified that if anyone knows he was there, before dawn, alone with her, and that they quarreled, he will be as good as hanged!”

  Charles tried to keep his thoughts from showing on his face. Gilles Brion would certainly be arrested if the police learned of this early-morning meeting. It would have been so easy for him to follow Martine into the house, so easy to fall into a rage at her refusal and her disgust, so easy to kill her there at the foot of the staircase.

  “Maitre? You still don’t think he did it, do you?”

  “On the whole, I do not. But the police will surely think so, if they hear what you have told me.”

  She bristled. “And are you going to tell them?”

  “As I said, I doubt he killed her,” Charles said, hoping that would be answer enough. He could not make promises, and in truth, this new knowledge was damning. Gilles Brion had been desperate to have Martine out of his life. What was it La Reynie had said about him? Even a would-be monk may strike back, if you push him too far. With a sigh, Charles stood up.

  “Mademoiselle, forgive my suddenness, but I must go back to the college. Thank you for your frankness.” He wanted to say that if her brother was innocent, he had nothing to fear. But they both knew that innocent people were too often hanged. “Will you do one more thing for me? Will you ask your brother if he saw anyone else on the Place or in the side street that morning? Anyone at all.”

  Hope flared in her face. “Why?”

  “If he saw anyone, that person may be able to help prove his innocence.”

  “Oh.” It was a small chance, and her face showed that she knew it. “I will ask him. And Maitre du Luc, please pray for us. For Gilles.”

  “Of course I will, mademoiselle. For all of you.” He bowed and took his leave.

  He was nearly at the rue St. Jacques when a new unwelcome truth hit him. Gilles Brion had probably known Martine all her life, which made it more than possible that he knew about her necklace. Though why he would have taken it, Charles couldn’t imagine. But Gilles was much more likely to know about it than anyone else Charles could imagine as her killer. Unless his father was the killer. But if that was true, Henri Brion had been killed almost immediately after he himself had done murder. And how likely was that? Unless, of course, someone had seen her killed. But why would a witness not simply come forward and accuse Brion?

 
Chapter 13

  With a heavy heart, Charles wrote an urgent note to Lieutenant-General La Reynie after dinner, telling him that Gilles Brion had seen Martine Mynette on Friday morning. He gave the note to a lay brother to deliver, then caught the man before he reached the postern and tore up the note. He would tell La Reynie, he decided, but face-to-face so that more than the bare facts could be told. Gilles Brion deserved at least that.

  Before the clock had chimed the beginning of Monday afternoon’s classes, Charles was in the salle des actes trying to concentrate his thoughts on the first rehearsal of the February show. The students were not there yet, but Pere Jouvancy and Maitre Pierre Beauchamps, the college ballet master, were standing on the stage, arguing. Charles’s resigned first thought was that nothing had changed since August’s ballet and tragedy. The two men were standing toe-to-toe, not quite shouting at each other. Charles could not help but hear what they said, and his second thought was that this time Beauchamps was going to win.

  “I tell you, you cannot do this, maitre!” Jouvancy was swelling with fury. “We have a show in only six weeks!”

  “At which time, I tell you, I will be in Rome.” Beauchamps smiled down at him. The dance director of the Opera, former dancing master to King Louis, legendary dancer in his own right, was an elegant man in his fifties. His stylish shoes, heeled and high-tongued, made him look taller than he was, and his dark shoulder-length wig, which rose high on either side of its center part, added to the effect. His linen was embroidered, and his coat, waistcoat, and breeches were all of fine cinnamon broadcloth.

  “Then who is going to teach and direct the dances in our musical tragedy?” Jouvancy hissed through his teeth. “We have engaged Monsieur Charpentier to write the score for Celse, and the man does not come cheap! Do we waste all this effort because you have a-whim-to go to Rome?”