by Judith Rock
“No, no, it’s my shoulder, I awoke an old wound this morning.”
“In the attack? I heard about it.”
“Everyone in Paris has probably heard about it. Yes, I pulled two combatants apart more eagerly than I should have, so my shoulder is telling me.”
“I’ll carry the box, maitre,” Morel said brightly, and hoisted it before Charles could object. “You want it in the salle des actes, don’t you?”
“Yes,” Charles said. “That’s very kind of you. I’ll carry both lanterns.”
Feeling the young man’s confidences closing in on him, Charles led the way back to the stairs, extinguished the candles, and left the lanterns where he’d found them. Morel followed him through the silent classroom where the boys were writing furiously, translating passages they’d been set. Bowing to Pallu and Jouvancy, Charles and Morel went out into the courtyard. Watching Morel stride across the snow-covered gravel with the box and climb the stairs to the salle des actes like a young goat, Charles felt suddenly old. I’ll be twenty-nine this year, he told himself, and then thirty, and thirty is certainly no longer young. Morel, on the other hand, he thought drearily, was probably only twenty-one or twenty-two, not much older than some of the students.
In the salle des actes, Morel set the block down and turned to Charles. “Maitre-I-may I-there is something-may I talk with you for a moment?”
“Of course.” Forcing himself to look like he had all the time in the world, Charles backed up to a windowsill and leaned against it.
But Morel only stared dumbly at the floorboards.
“How is Mademoiselle Brion?” Charles asked, to start the stream flowing. Beyond the windows, the sky was growing steadily more leaden, and he had to get out of the college and across the river before the snow started.
Morel looked up in relief. “You are kind to ask, maitre. But I have nothing good to tell you. She is more and more distraught, so distraught that she’s thinking of entering a convent. She says that if her brother is convicted of these crimes, she will not allow anyone to marry into a family so shamed. She says she will join the Ursulines. She has even begun wondering if marriage is more sinful than being a nun.” Morel flushed and looked down. “But I should not be talking about that to you; forgive me.”
“Monsieur Morel, I do not disdain marriage. It is a sacrament, after all.” Charles smiled suddenly. “Years ago now, our own Pere Caussin wrote about marriage. He said that marriage is a mysterious sacrament. Precious in God’s eyes and full of dignity.”
“Did he really? She will like that! And so do I. No one could disagree with that.”
“Anyone can disagree with anything, but I hope it will help.” Charles straightened from the windowsill, but Morel stayed where he was.
“There is another problem, too, maitre. I have only been certified as a dancing master very recently, and I am still building my reputation, as you know.” He sighed and shook his head.
“You said once before that Mademoiselle Brion is above you. But you have never mentioned your own family,” Charles prodded.
“They are respectable people. But artisans. My father was a violin maker. He did well, but I have three older brothers and a sister and must make my own way. Isabel-Mademoiselle Brion, I should say-is used to more than I can give her. She could marry far more to her advantage.”
“Is that what she wants?”
“She doesn’t say so. But-”
“And are you sure she is used to so much more?” Charles said, thinking of her father’s hapless schemes and what she had confided about the family finances. “Even if she is, do you really want her to marry someone else just because he is rich? Or because he imagines that she is rich? I like what Pere Caussin said about that, too. ‘Away with these mercenary husbands, who are in love with money; they should marry the mines of Peru, not honorable girls.’ ”
Morel laughed in surprise. “Truly, he said that?”
“Truly. But more to the purpose than what Pere Caussin thought, what does Monsieur Callot think about your suit?”
“Oh. I–I don’t quite know. He teases us-me. But he doesn’t stand in the way. With Monsieur Henri Brion gone, though, he may begin to feel he has a father’s responsibility to Mademoiselle Brion, and perhaps that I am-well-good to tease, but not suitable as a husband for her.”
“Is he behaving like that now?”
“No. But-”
“Then do not borrow trouble. The household is torn apart just now, and the best thing you can do is what you are doing. Offer to help them, comfort them as you can. Stand by them. It is not yet time to do more than that. Which I think you already know.” Charles moved firmly toward the door this time, and Morel trailed after him.
“Thank you, maitre. Will you pray for us?”
“With all my heart.”
A scouring wind was reaching into the Cour d’honneur as Charles walked the young man to the postern. Seeing that the porter, huddled inside two cloaks, was asleep in front of his little alcove’s glowing brazier, Charles let Morel out into the street. Wishing him a good evening, he shut the postern and stood in the doorway of the porter’s alcove, to have a little warmth from the brazier while he gave Morel time to be gone. As he stared at the small orange flames, he hardly knew whether to hope for success or failure in the coming night. There was danger for Gilles Brion either way. It all depended on what Lieutenant-General La Reynie chose to do if Charles was successful. The rector had reacted with great distaste to this errand, as Charles had expected, but had reluctantly given permission. When the bells rang four o’clock, Charles pushed his broad-brimmed, flat-crowned hat tightly down onto his head and slipped quietly out into the rue St. Jacques on his way to the Capuchin house across the river.
Chapter 21
Sullen clouds hung over Paris. The day had grown so ominously dark that side streets were black tunnels pricked here and there by candle flames in rooms otherwise as dark as the streets. The street lantern lighters were not due out for an hour or so, but shops were closing and most people walked quickly, eyeing the ominous sky.
“Snow, for sure,” Charles heard a Pont Neuf broom peddler call to a bookseller packing up his stall. “Not a little snow, either. I’m for home and the soup pot.” She hefted her armload of brooms and made off across the bridge. The first flakes started to fall as Charles turned left from the bridge and cut up the rue de L’arbre Sec toward the rue St. Honore. By the time he reached the Capuchin monastery’s gate, north of the Tuilleries, he was brushing snowflakes from his eyelashes, and he had dumped snow off his hat twice.
He rang the bell and then waited so long that he wondered if the friars, who rose at midnight like the Benedictines to sing Matins and Lauds, had already gone to bed. The gate offered little protection from the weather, and there were few buildings across the street to block wind. Finally, footsteps slapped over stone, the grille slid back, and a lantern was lifted to let the friar see who was there.
“Bonsoir, mon frere,” Charles said through chattering teeth. “Forgive my intrusion, but I must speak with Pere Michaut.”
The grid closed, bolts were undone, and the gate opened narrowly. Charles went through and the silent friar, bearded and brown robed, closed and locked it behind him. With a gesture, he bid Charles follow and led the way across cobbles, the long point of his hood swinging at his back, and through a small door in a stone wall. Watching the man’s sockless, sandaled feet flash in and out below his gown of raw wool, Charles thought how decadent he must seem to a brother of this deeply reformed Franciscan order. Even in leather shoes, stockings, shirt, and two layers of good, well-woven wool, he was shivering. They rounded the turn of the covered cloister walkway and the monk took him through another door, into a small, bare candlelit room. The monk signed to him to wait and left him there.
New-built a hundred years ago by Catherine de Medici, the monastery was more modern than some of the old monastic houses, but because it was Capuchin, Charles knew that it would be as austere as
any ancient monk could have wished. The small room had no fireplace, and Charles walked briskly up and down, rubbing his hands together and working his cold-numbed face so that he could speak when the time came. He stopped before the lifelike crucifix on one wall and prayed for words to convince Pere Michaut, the Capuchin superior, that what he’d come to do was necessary. Even if Michaut would not give permission, the heavy snow might work in his favor. If it went on as it had begun, returning across the river would be dangerously difficult, if not impossible. And any return would of necessity be on foot, since Capuchin houses kept no animals of any kind, not even horses or mules. Staying the night might well prove useful, even if the superior did not.
“God be with you, mon pere,” a deep voice said behind him.
Charles turned and saw an elderly, white-bearded Capuchin regarding him out of blue eyes sunk in a nest of wrinkles.
“And with you, Pere Michaut.” Charles bowed. “I am Maitre Charles du Luc, come from Louis le Grand with the permission of my rector, Pere Le Picart, to ask your help.”
“You are welcome. How may I help you?”
With a last hurried inward prayer, Charles told him about Gilles Brion’s danger, his own certainty that Brion was innocent, and the pressure on Lieutenant-General La Reynie to extract a confession. Then he asked Michaut if he remembered Gilles Brion coming to the monastery as a guest a week earlier, on Thursday, December twenty-sixth.
Michaut nodded, but said nothing.
Nerving himself, Charles said, “Might young Monsieur Brion have spoken to someone else in your house during that night? Someone who could tell us for certain about his frame of mind?”
Michaut shook his head, his eyes never leaving Charles’s face.
“A man may have need for spiritual counsel in the night hours, mon pere,” Charles said softly.
“We sleep early, we rise for the midnight offices, and we sleep again. We are a very silent fraternity, maitre.”
“Gilles Brion needs your help, mon pere. I know that he wants to join your house.”
“He is very young.” Michaut smiled slightly. “Even for a young man.”
“Mon pere, are there other young men just now who mean to join you, young men Gilles Brion may have talked to that night about their mutual hope? Was there another young man staying as a guest that night?”
Michaut studied the plain stone tiles at his feet. In the utter silence of the monastery, the wind whining around the building was almost indecently loud.
“No one else was a guest here on the Thursday night after Christmas.” He sighed and looked at Charles. “Maitre, a Capuchin monastery is not for the faint of heart or spirit. Only a few find the vintage of our vineyard sweet. But God knows better than I who those few shall be. He brings them to us in His own time. Until then, judging is not my business. Nor is breaking my own peace over the matter. I will pray that if the young man is innocent, he will be delivered.”
By which Charles understood that Michaut was not going to tell him anything about Gilles Brion or any friend of his. He made one last try.
“But if breaking your own peace might save his life, mon pere? Is that not your business?”
Instead of answering, the Capuchin looked at the room’s small window, which shook a little in its frame as the pitch of the wind rose.
“Let me offer you our hospitality tonight, Maitre du Luc. I doubt you could see your way home safely. Even if the lanterns have been lit, they will not stay lit in this storm.” He turned his gaze on Charles, his blue eyes suddenly sharp with intent. “You may have our guest cell, where Monsieur Brion sometimes stayed.”
“You are very kind, mon pere. I accept most gratefully,” Charles said politely. He was grateful not to have to brave the weather. But he thought wryly that trying to find his way through blowing snow couldn’t be any harder than trying to pierce this man’s determined silence.
Because he counted as a monk, even if a sadly decadent one, Charles was invited to share the friars’ meager supper. Seated at the bottom of a long table bare of cloth, he silently ate the dark bread, young cheese, and boiled vegetables. Outside the refectory windows, the storm had grown louder and drafts made the flames of the two tallow candles on the table jump and bow. When thanks had been said, the friars filed out of the rectory and Michaut gestured to Charles to follow.
They went to the church and into the candlelit choir for Compline, the last office of the day. Charles withdrew into the blackness of the nave. Not wanting to stumble over anything looking for a bench, he stood still and composed himself to pray with his hosts. Murmuring under their monotone chant, which was not quite singing and not quite speaking, he felt as though the Compline prayers washed through and over him, carrying away his worry and his fear. For the first time, he found himself wishing Jesuits did this, even wondering whether he should be a Capuchin, to have this vast healing silence as his home.
When the office ended, he moved toward the choir and followed the friars out into a passageway. The Capuchins turned toward their cloister. The friar who had brought Charles from the gate, now carrying a lit candle, made a sign and led him a different way. Stopping at a low door, the friar went into a tiny guest cell, lit a candle in an iron holder on the stone wall, bowed, and left Charles on the threshold.
Looking around the cell with a sense of shock that threatened to become shame, Charles’s thoughts about becoming a Capuchin died a quick and permanent death. He could cross this cell in three strides. There was one narrow, shuttered window high up in the stone wall. There was no furniture whatever. The bed was a bare board with one rough blanket folded on it. No wonder Capuchins get up at midnight and go to church, an irreverent part of him said silently.
He sat down on the board. Did this austere nest have anything to tell him? His eyes went to the window. Gilles and his friend could not have come and gone that way. The window was too high to reach without something to stand on, and too narrow to go through, even if reached. He got to his feet, already glad to be off the bed, and took the candle from its iron ring. Huddling his cloak around him, Charles opened the low door and looked out. This guest cell was far away from the friars’ cells, he guessed, nearer the front court and worldly comings and goings. But it wasn’t far from the church. If the church was not only for the friars, but also a parish church, then it would have a door on or near the street. Germain Morel had heard Gilles thanking God that his friend lived “close to the house.” The Capuchin house, Charles thought he’d probably meant. Perhaps Gilles had simply slipped out of the church door in the night and gone to visit his friend. Charles took the candle out of its holder and stole out of the cell into the dense silence and darkness of the house.
He found the door into the friars’ choir and went from there down into the nave. Shielding his candle flame, which was writhing and dancing from the drafts under doors and around windows, he walked the length of the nave to the wide west door. It opened easily, into a courtyard smaller than the one he’d entered by. The falling snow was blinding, as heavy a snow as he’d ever seen, but as it swirled and shifted in the wind, he glimpsed a gate that had to lead to the rue St. Honore.
Charles withdrew into the church again and leaned all his weight on the door to shut it against the wind. Now he knew for certain that leaving and returning to the enclave at night was possible. All Brion would have had to do was avoid coming and going during the midnight office. And if, by some chance, he was discovered in the passage between the church and his cell, he could easily claim prayer as his excuse. So going out to the friend who lived nearby was possible. And surely more pleasant than the bare, cold guest cell. How, though, to find out where the friend lived?
His candle was out now, but Charles found his way back to his cell with only one false turn and huddled on the straw-covered board, wrapped in his cloak and the blanket. He tried to think out what to do next. He was certain that the Capuchin superior knew who Brion’s friend was. But he doubted he could make any more headway through th
e silence of these famously silent monks. He would have to scrutinize everyone who came to Prime and early Mass and afterward try to talk to any young men. Or at least follow the one who mostly closely fit the bare description Morel had given him of Brion’s friend. Shivering and dissatisfied, Charles fell uneasily asleep.
He woke what seemed like hours later with his left shoulder aching with cold and shrieking its disapproval of the board. He sat up, looking for any sign of light around the cell’s window, but there was only thick darkness. The wind seemed to be less, though. Telling himself that the cell was at least out of the weather and no worse than places he’d slept in the army, he thought about going again to the chapel to see if it was time for the midnight office, though he hadn’t heard any bell. But before he could make up his mind, a bell’s clanging split the night.
Thinking that such frantic clanging had to be more than the signal for prayer, Charles leaped up and went into the passage. He had no way to relight his candle and could see nothing. When the bell fell silent, he heard running feet and started toward the sound, feeling his way along the passage wall. Moving light sprang up ahead of him, and a line of silently hurrying friars carrying lanterns, a ladder, and enormous buckets crossed the passage and disappeared through the door he had entered when he first arrived. Charles ran to the door, but the friars were already pushing through the court’s deep snow. The snow had nearly stopped falling and the big gates stood open. Beyond them and along the street to the left, an orange glow lit the night. Fire. And all too near.
Remembering that Lieutenant-General La Reynie had once told him that the Capuchins were the city’s firefighters, Charles made his way into the street to offer help. A gang of robed and hooded Capuchins had just come through a smaller monastery gate, pushing and pulling what looked like a monstrous wheeled pot toward the fire. Others with shovels were clearing snow as fast as they could in front of the wheels. Silhouetted against the blaze, people were gathering along the street. Charles grabbed part of a rope and threw his weight into dragging the wheeled water cistern. He could hear the roar of the flames now and saw that the fire was in the ground floor of a modest house standing alone, between two vacant lots. A weeping, wild-haired woman stood in the street, struggling in a man’s hold.