The Eloquence of Blood (9 page)

The clerk swung around, not so much stopping as hovering, and regarded Charles across the ledger. “What is it,
mon père
?”

Charles had mostly given up trying to explain to laymen that, though he looked like a fully professed Jesuit, he was only a scholastic and not yet a “
père
.”

“I am seeking a notary, one Monsieur Henri Brion.”

“Brion?” The little man's heels came to rest on the floor and he shifted the ledger to one arm. “Haven't seen him. Notaries are usually wall to wall here, and even today I can find you one, a much better one if—”

“No, I thank you,
monsieur
, it is Monsieur Brion I need.”

“Then your best chance is the coffeehouses. Try The Saracen's Nose. Just beyond the other end of the Pont au Change.”

The clerk had risen onto his toes again, poised for flight, and Charles put out a hand to stop him. “When did you see Monsieur Brion here last? I was told he has been here daily, searching for a document.”

“Him? Hah! That one's never here,
mon père
. Can't remember when I saw him last. And I see most who come in, my
bureau
is just there.” He pointed at the big littered table. “How they expect me to work in such a dismal excuse for an office, I couldn't say. Ah, well. We're the law here, things aren't supposed to make sense!” With another bark of laughter to mark his joke, he shot through the arched door.

Charles, grim-faced, made for the outer door. So Brion had lied to Martine. If, of course, the clerk was telling the truth and hadn't simply failed to notice Brion. But the man's obviously low opinion of the notary matched old Callot's, and Charles saw no reason not to accept it. Seething with anger, he went back through the passage and across the Place to the bridge, walking so fast he nearly missed The Saracen's Nose. It was the run-down ground floor of a house with a timber lower story. Its old window glass was thick and grimy, and the whole building seemed to be leaning tiredly toward the river. Inside, tallow candles reeked, firelight flickered, and the ceiling was black with smoke. A half dozen men were ranged on benches at two long trestle tables with small coffee bowls in front of them, but the sounds from a back room made it clear that coffee was not the Saracen's primary business. The clatter of dice, the whirring of shuffled cards, anguished cries, and raucous laughter announced high-stakes gambling. Taking off his clerical hat to make himself somewhat less noticeable, Charles slid into the shadows and along the walls, scanning the benches for someone who looked like he might be Brion, but not finding any candidates. When he reached the back room's closed door, he pushed it open and called affably, “Henri Brion?”

Most of the men didn't even look up. “Not here,” someone yelled back, shaking his dice.

Standing slightly aside from the door, Charles yelled back, “Seen him?”

Heads shook and a few men glanced vaguely toward the door. “Not today.”

Charles slid back along the walls, but now the stout woman who had been behind the counter was coming toward him, watching him narrowly. Charles put his hat on, smiling benignly, sketched a cross in the air, and left her staring after him as he let himself out again into the snow.

He crossed the Île, making for the rue Perdue. The snow was slacking, but it was ankle deep and the footing had grown even more treacherous. By the time he reached the Place Maubert, his shoes were soaked. Remembering what had happened to the lay brother a few hours ago, he crossed the Place warily, watching the doorways. But few people were out, and he reached the Brion house without incident. The same awkward footman answered the door, still trying to pull his faded sleeves down to meet his wrist bones and seeming even more uneasy than he had yesterday.

“Oh. My lady is not—that is—no one is—”

“I have come to see your master,” Charles said.

“Oh. No, he—I mean, I already told your lay brother who came earlier. My master is not here.”

“Yes,” Charles said, thinking about that brother's cut and bruised face, “I know you told Frère Guiscard. When is Monsieur Brion likely to return?”

The footman shook his head, looking everywhere but at Charles. “He—ah—went out—very early. No one has—but we're not supposed—I mean, we never—I don't know!” He jerked a bow and closed the door in Charles's face.

Charles raised a fist to knock again, then shrugged and started back toward the Place, wondering how many coffeehouses there were in Paris, and how many he would have to search before he found Brion. Enough, probably, that he should warn Père Le Picart not to count on seeing Brion this afternoon.

The snow had stopped. Apprentices were beginning to sweep the paving stones in front of shops, and a few shivering maids with pitchers and jugs were picking their way to the Place's fountain. A church bell struck the hour. Charles was counting the strokes, thinking he was going to be late for dinner, when someone hissed behind him. He swung around and a glaring apprentice raised his broom like a shield.

“There may be snow serpents somewhere,” Charles drawled, knowing even as he said it that the boy was not going to laugh. “But there are none in Paris. Speak.”

The boy backed away, but his glare lost none of its malevolence.

Charles sighed. “Hear me,
mon ami
. I, too, am grieving for Mademoiselle Martine Mynette. You would do better to pray for her soul than make witless accusations.”

“Not so witless! Convenient for you she's dead, now you'll get the Mynette money!”

“The money will go by law where it is supposed to go.” Charles advanced on the boy. “Who is spreading this slander about Jesuits?”

Swinging the broom wildly at Charles, the boy ducked into a baker's shop and slammed the door. Charles turned away, sick at heart. Who
was
spreading this anti-Jesuit slander?

From what he'd been told, the University of Paris was usually the first answer when that question had to be asked. But this poison seemed to be spreading from the Place Maubert, not the rue St. Jacques. Jansenists were always a possibility, and there were no doubt Jansenists among the artisans of the Place Maubert. The Jansenists, though Catholics, were so strict and sober minded they seemed more Protestant than the Protestants, and they thoroughly disapproved of the more tolerant and worldly Jesuits. Such an incendiary word
worldly
could be. Yet the world was where everyone lived, even those in monasteries and Jesuit houses. As far as Charles could see, that included even saints, because when mystical ecstasies ended, where else was there to come back to? For beings of spirit and flesh, the world then was inescapable, as long as life lasted. And if God was
not
to be found in the world He had made, then where? Absorbed in his theological argument, Charles turned down a narrow lane, hoping to cut a little distance from his walk to the college. Jesuits were called worldly because—at their best, anyway—they used whatever seemed good and innocent in God's world to help people toward God. But what could be wrong with that? He shook his head in exasperation. Of course, distinguishing between goodand-worldly on the one hand, and sinful-and-worldly on the other, involved thinking. And how many people chose to think, rather than enjoy pleasantly horrified and self-righteous feelings?

Charles stumbled over a loose paving stone, skinned his hand against a wall trying to recover his balance, and swore aloud. No one was in sight—just as well, considering his worldly swearing—but he had the sudden sense that the air around him was listening intently. His scalp tingled. The Silence had not visited him in a long time. During the autumn, he'd longed for the comfort of it, but it had not come. The secret Charles kept even from his confessor was that he'd become a Jesuit because he wanted to come as close to God as a man could, wanted to reach God's heart. And wanted to do that while solidly rooted in God's good world, not from behind cloister walls. In his hunger for the Silence, he'd promised himself that if it ever visited him again, he would fall on his knees—on his face, even—in utter gratitude, no matter where it found him. Instead, he did what he usually did when it came. He argued. Which was just as well, considering that he was standing in snow to his ankles.

How could You allow Martine's death?
he demanded.
Why? She was so young. She was innocent, good, beautiful.

The air itself seemed to bite back at him.
No one young and innocent and good ever dies?

This was murder
, Charles flung silently back.

For a long moment, nothing moved at all. Then the air seemed to sigh.
I know something of blood
, the Silence said.

Chastened, Charles bowed his head.
Yes. But Your blood was for healing. What can be worth this girl's death?

Worth?
the Silence said.
Life and death are a bargain?

Not a bargain
, Charles thought back.
But does death mean nothing?

A small cold wind breathed along the lane.
Nothing is wasted
, the Silence said. And added,
Unless you waste it
. And was gone.

Charles stumbled out of the lane, breathing as though he'd been running and wondering why he'd longed so desperately for the Silence to come back when it only gave him answers he didn't want.

W
hen Charles reached Louis le Grand, he took his turn at overseeing dinner for the
pensionnaires
and their tutors who hadn't gone to the country house in Gentilly. During the holidays, the fully professed Jesuits usually ate separately, in the fathers' refectory, leaving the scholastics like Charles to take turns overseeing student meals. It was a small group, and both younger and older boys ate together in the older
pensionnaires'
dining hall. Today's dinner, for which Charles had little appetite, was a savory mutton
gallimaufrée
. A half dozen braziers had been brought in as an extra holiday treat, though in the vast room, no one sitting more than a few feet from one felt any warmth. But at least their orange glow was pleasant to see on a dark, snowy day and made the ceiling's faded gold stars shine between its dark beams.

When dinner was over and the refectory empty, Charles went to Père Le Picart and told him what he'd learned at the Châtelet and the Brion house. The rector demurred at the idea of Charles scouring the city's coffeehouses and reluctantly decided to give the notary one more day to appear on his own.

“I have thought of something else I could do this afternoon in regard to this,
mon père
, if you permit,” Charles said. “I keep thinking about the classes beginning on Monday and all that will then be upon us.”

“What do you want to do?”

“I would like to talk to Maître Richaud. He went with me to the Place Maubert yesterday to call on a chandler from the artisans' Congregation of the Sainte Vierge. He may have heard something about the Mynette household, or about Henri Brion.”

“That is well thought.” Le Picart frowned briefly. “I believe—yes, I am sure you will find him just now in the first house on the right in the student court, in the bedding closet.”

Startled—not for the first time—at Le Picart's minute knowledge of who was doing what in his domain, Charles went through the Cour d'honneur and through an archway into the next courtyard to the north, the student court. The bedding closet was a small, windowless room on the ground floor, where sheets and blankets were kept in old wooden chests and newer cupboards with tall doors. Maître Richaud was indeed there, muttering to himself with his nose nearly touching a heavy linen sheet.

“Holes? How am I supposed to see holes in pitch dark?” He lifted the sheet higher and turned slightly toward the open door.

“You could light a candle,” Charles said mildly from the doorway. “Unless, of course, you
prefer
to curse the darkness . . .” A strong scent of lavender and wormwood, specifics against moths—and probably also unwelcome to nesting mice—came from a chest whose lid stood open.

“We're told to save candles.” Richaud looked up irritably. “Oh. It's you. Well, stand out of the light, if you can call it that.” He went back to examining the sheet.

“Want help?”

Richaud grunted, and Charles pulled a sheet from the open chest. “The other morning, when we went to the Place Maubert,” Charles began, “did you—”

“Look at this! The entire middle is gone! What do they do, stick swords through them?”

“Can't it be mended?”

“Oh, I suppose so.” Richaud threw the sheet into a pile on the floor and picked up another. “What about the Place Maubert?”

“While you were with your chandler,” Charles said patiently, “did you hear any talk about the Brion family on the rue Perdue? Or about a Mademoiselle Martine Mynette?”

“The one who's dead?”

“So you know that. How?”

“Probably everyone in the college knows it. Once the porter at the postern door hears, everyone knows. Of course, I don't listen to gossip,” Richaud added repressively, and nodded with satisfaction—whether at the sheet he held or his own uprightness, Charles couldn't tell.

Keeping a firm grip on himself, Charles said mildly, “If someone gossiped beside you—in the chandler's shop on the Place Maubert, say—how could you help hearing it?”

“You're the one who went to the Brion house, Maître du Luc. And they knew the Mynette girl, so I heard, and knew her very well. Why are you asking me about these people?”

Charles cast his eyes up, glad of the dim light. “Because gossip and what people say of themselves and their closest friends are not often the same thing. And because I've been directed to ask, if that salves your conscience.”