Book of Souls by Glenn Cooper (20 page)

Jean raised his eyebrows. “You have stirred my interest, Edgar. What do you have?”

“A book. I have a book.”

“What book?”

He had crossed the Rubicon. He fell to the floor, opened his clothes chest, and pulled out his father’s large book. “This one.”

“Let me see!”

Edgar placed it on the desk and let Jean inspect it, watching as the serious young man leafed through the pages with increasing amazement. “The year of our Lord 1527. Yet, most of these dates are in the future, in the months to come. How can this be?”

“I have pondered this since I could first read,” Edgar said. “This book has been in my family for generations, passed from father to son. What was the future has become the present.”

Jean came across a sheath of loose parchments stuck into the pages. “And this? This letter?”

“I have not yet read it! I hastily took the pages from my father’s collection when I left England last month. I have long been told it bears on the matter. I had hoped to have the opportunity to study it in Paris, but I have not had the time or strength to do so. It is no favor to me it is in Latin. My head spins!”

Jean regarded him disapprovingly. “Your father does not know you have these?”

“It is not a theft! I borrowed the book and the letter and intend to return them. I have confessed to myself a minor sin.”

Jean was already reading the first page of the abbot’s letter, breezing through the Latin as if it were his native French. He devoured the first page and was on to the second without uttering a word. Edgar left him to his task, studying his face for a reaction, resisting the urge to plead, “What? What does it say?”

As Jean turned pages, his expression was indecipherable although Edgar felt he was watching an older, wiser man, not a fellow student. He read on without interruption for a full fifteen minutes and when the last page was returned to the bottom of the stack, a page marked with the date 9 February, 2027, he simply said, “Incredible.”

“Tell me, please.”

“You truly have not read this?”

“Truly. I beg you—enlighten me!”

“I fear it is a tale of madness or wicked fancy, Edgar. Your treasure undoubtedly belongs on the fire.”

“You are wrong, sir, I am sure. My father has told me the book is a true prophecy.”

“Let me tell you about the nonsense written by this Abbot Felix, then you can judge yourself. I will be brief because if Tempête catches us up so late, we will surely glimpse the gates of hell.”

THE NEXT MORNING, Edgar did not feel as cold and miserable as usual. He sprang out of bed warmed by the spirit of excitement and camaraderie. While Jean had remained derisive and skeptical, Edgar completely believed everything that was contained in the abbot’s letter.

Finally, he felt he understood the Cantwell family secret and the significance of his strange book. But perhaps more importantly—for a scared, lonely boy adrift in a foreign city, he now had a friend. Jean was kind and attentive and, above all, not scornful. Edgar was sick of scorn being heaped on him like manure. From his father. His brother. His tutors. This French lad was treating him with dignity, like a fellow human being.

Before he departed for the night, Edgar had beseeched Jean to keep his mind open to the possibility that the letter could be a true and factual account rather than the ravings of a lunatic monk. Edgar proposed a plan he had been harboring for some time, and, to his relief, Jean had not summarily dismissed it.

In the chapel, Edgar made eye contact with Jean across the pew and received the precious gift of another small wink. Throughout the morning, the two boys exchanged furtive glances at prayer, in the classroom and at breakfast until in the early afternoon they were finally permitted to speak to each other privately at the start of one of their infrequent recreation periods.

There were flurries of snow in the air, and a crisp wind blew through the school’s courtyard. “You’d better fetch your cloak,” Jean told him. “But be quick.”

They had only two hours for their adventure, and they would not have another opportunity for several days. Though Jean was serious and scholarly, Edgar could sense that he was enjoying the prospect of an escapade even if he thought it was folly. The two boys left the college gate and crossed the bustling and slippery rue Saint Symphorien, dodging horses and carts and piles of animal dung. They walked quickly with a determination and purpose, which they hoped would make them somehow less visible to the thieves and cutthroats who populated the neighborhood.

They passed through a warren of small slick streets populated with cart merchants, money changers, and blacksmiths. With the sounds of clomping horses and banging hammers ringing in their ears, they headed to the rue Danton, a short distance to the west. It was a moderately wide thoroughfare lacking the grandeur of boulevard Saint-Germain, but it was still a prosperous commercial street. Three- and four-story houses and shops crowded one another, their corbeled upper floors shouldering the road. The facades were brightly painted in red and blue, faced with ornamental tiles and paneling. Colorfully evocative signposts identified the buildings as taverns or trade shops. The shops opened onto the street, their lowered fronts doubling as display counters for all manners of goods.

They found number 15 rue Danton three-quarters of the way toward the river, the grand Seine a gray slash in the distance. Rising up from the Île de la Cité, the spire of the Cathedrale Notre Dame de Paris dominated the skyline like a spike drilled into heaven. Edgar had visited the cathedral on his first day in Paris and marveled that man could build something so magnificent. Its position on a plump little island in the middle of the Seine added to the wonder. He vowed to return as often as he was able.

Number 15 was a house over a pot and pan maker, the only building in its row that was plain black and white, simple white plaster and exposed black beams. “Monsieur Naudin said his apartment was on the second floor,” Jean said, pointing at some windows.

They climbed the cold, narrow stairs to the second floor and banged on a green shiny door. When there was no answer they banged again, louder and more insistently. “Hello!” Jean shouted through the door. “Madame Naudin, are you there?”

From above their heads they heard footsteps, and a middle-aged woman came scraping down the stairs. She accosted the boys irritably. “Why are you making so much noise? Madame is not home.”

“May I ask where she is?” Jean inquired politely. “We are from the College. Monsieur Naudin told us we could pay her a visit this afternoon.”

“She was called out.”

“Where?”

“Not far. Number 8 rue Suger. That’s what she said.”

The boys looked at each other and ran off. They could be there in under ten minutes but they had to hurry. Monsieur Naudin was the gatekeeper at the College de Marche, a coarse man with a scruffy beard who detested most of the young students who passed through his portal, with the notable exception of Jean Cauvin. During Monsieur Naudin’s years at the College, Jean was the only student who treated Naudin with respect, engaging him with “pleases” and “thank-yous” and even finding a way to pass him a sou or two at holidays. He knew from their chats that Naudin’s wife had an occupation that until today held little interest for him: she was a midwife.

Rue Suger was a street where weavers and those in the textile trade lived and worked. Number 8 was a shop that sold bolts of cloth and blankets. On the street outside, a gaggle of women were chatting and milling about. Jean approached, bowed slightly, and inquired whether the midwife Naudin was inside. They were informed she was on the top floor attending the birth of the wife of the weaver du Bois. No one stopped the young men as they ascended the stairs and they made their way all the way up to the apartment of Lorette du Bois but a woman accosted them at the door, and shouted, “There are no men allowed in the lying-in chamber! Who are you?”

“We wish to see the midwife,” Jean said.

“She’s busy, sonny.” The woman laughed. “You can wait with all the other men at the tavern.” The woman opened the apartment door and went inside, but Jean inserted his foot just enough to prevent it from closing. Through the crack they could see into the front room, which was crowded with relatives of the mother. They had a straight view into the bedchamber, where they could just make out the broad back and thick waist of the midwife tending her charge. There was an urgent duet being played out, Madame du Bois’s moans and groans against the counterpoint of Midwife Naudin’s insistent instructions. “Breathe now. Push. Push, push! Now breathe, please, madame. If you don’t breathe, your child will not breathe!”

“Have you ever seen a baby born?” Jean whispered to Edgar.

“Never, but it seems a loud affair,” Edgar replied. “How long will it take?”

“I have no idea, but I understand it can be hours!”

The piercing cry of a baby startled them. The midwife, apparently pleased, began to sing a lullaby, which was immediately drowned out by the newborn’s wailing. Edgar and Jean could only see snippets of what Madame Naudin was doing: tying and cutting the umbilical cord, washing the baby and rubbing it with salt, applying honey to its gums to stimulate appetite, then wrapping it in linens so tightly that it looked like a tiny corpse by the time she handed the bundle to the mother. When she was done, she collected the stack of coins on the table and, wiping her bloody hands on her apron, flew out of the apartment, muttering about the need to start supper for her husband. She almost bowled over the two boys and exclaimed in her hoarse voice, “What are you lads doing here?”

“I know your husband, Madame. My name is Jean Cauvin.”

“Oh, the student. He spoke of you. You’re one of the nice ones! Why are you here, Jean?”

“This baby, does it have a name yet?”

She stood red-faced, hands on hips. “It does, but why is it your concern?”

“Please, Madame, its name.”

“He is to be called Fremin du Bois. Now please, I have to pluck and cook a poulet for my husband’s supper.”

The two boys beat a hasty retreat to get back in time for their next class. The snow was falling steadily now, and their soft-soled leather boots were slip-sliding on the frozen mud and slushy roads. “I hope we have time to check the book,” Edgar said, puffing for breath. “I cannot wait until tonight.”

Jean laughed at him. “If you believe the name Fremin du Bois is in your precious book, you will also believe this snow tastes like custard and berries! Have some.” With that, Jean playfully scooped up a handful and tossed it at Edgar’s chest. Edgar reciprocated, and the two of them spent the next few minutes being carefree boys.

Within a short distance of Montaigu on the rue de la Harpe, their mood turned darker when they encountered a somber funeral procession, a ghostly entourage in the blowing snow. The procession was just forming in front of a door to a residence draped in black serge. A coffin was on a bier, hoisted by a cortege of mourners, all clad in black. At the front of the cortege were two priests from the Church of Saint-Julien-le-Pauvre, the oldest parish in Paris. The widow, supported by her sons, was loudly lamenting her loss and from the character of the procession the boys presumed a wealthy man had died. A long line of mourners was organizing itself at the rear, paupers clutching candles, all of them expecting alms at the graveyard for their service. Edgar and Jean slowed to a respectful walk but Edgar suddenly stopped and addressed one of the paupers. “Who has died?” he demanded.

The man smelled rank, probably worse than the corpse. “Monsieur Jacques Vizet, sir. A pious man, a shipowner.”

“When did he die?”

“When? In the night.” The man was anxious to change the topic. “Would you care to give alms to a poor man?” His toothless, leering smile disgusted Edgar, but he nevertheless reached for his purse and gave the wretch his smallest coin.

“What purpose was that?” Jean asked him.

“Another name for my precious book,” Edgar said gleefully. “Come, let us run the last!”

When they arrived, panting and sweating at the Pré-auxclerc, their fellow students were filing back into their classroom for the prescribed session of liturgical study. Principal Tempête, himself, was patrolling the yard in his long brown cloak, plunging his cane into the snow as if he were stabbing the earth. Plumes of hot breath indicated he was muttering to himself. “Cantwell! Cauvin! Come here!”

The boys gulped and dutifully approached the bearded tyrant. Jean decided this was not an ideal time to correct the cleric’s non-Latinate fashioning of his name.

“Where were you?”

“We left the College grounds, Principal,” Jean answered.

“I know that.”

“Was that not permitted?” Jean asked innocently.

“I asked where you went!”

“To the Cathedral de Notre Dame, Principal,” Edgar said suddenly.

“Oh yes? Why?”

“To pray, Principal.”

“Is that so?”

Jean chimed in, seemingly willing to lie for his new friend. “Is it not better, Principal, to exercise the soul than the poor body? The Cathedral is a wondrous place to praise God, and we were much benefited by the interlude.”

Tempête pumped his hand on the cane handle, frustrated that he could find no excuse to wield it like a club. He grumbled something unintelligible and trod off.

It was all Edgar could do to keep himself focused enough to avoid the whip for the rest of the day. His mind was elsewhere. He desperately wanted to get his hands on his book and find out if the snow did indeed taste like custard.

The snow had stopped falling in the evening, and as the students made their way back to their dormitory after final chapel, the bright moonlight was making the surface of the courtyard snow appear like it was studded with millions of diamonds. Edgar looked over his shoulder and saw that Jean was making a beeline to follow him. For a skeptical soul, he was certainly overcome with a zestful enthusiasm.

Jean was on his heels when Edgar entered his room, and once the candles were lit, he hovered as Edgar retrieved the book from his chest.