The Ruins of Lace (18 page)

I needed inspiration, but I didn’t feel as if I could pray for any.

Maybe…I could feed him something. In his potage. But,
nee
. Who knew how long it might take to work? And how much to give him? I’d just have to…do it. But, dear God, how?

His long, raspy breaths began to grate upon my nerves. Why did he keep so busy breathing when he was supposed to be dying? And why should I have to hear him? I unfastened my apron and threw it over his head.

There.

I wouldn’t see him staring at me anymore. And maybe I wouldn’t be able to hear him quite so well.

He gasped again.

But then he breathed again, and it was such a terrible sound. If he would just shut up his mouth!

I withdrew the apron and did it for him, pushing his jaws together.

They didn’t stay.

He took another gasping breath as they fell apart.

I’d just have to tie them together. I took up my apron and knotted it at the top of Herry’s head. “There now. Much better. If you don’t mind my saying.”

With Herry quiet, I could get back to my thinking. And so I did. But soon enough there came a great snorting sound. And how was I supposed to concentrate on finding a way to kill him when he kept distracting me like that?

I turned around and knelt down to find tears trickling from his eyes. Using the hem of my skirt, I dabbed at them. “It’s not so bad, Herry. You know you’ve one foot in the hereafter already. What’s the bad in going one day sooner? Or two? I don’t think it would be more than three, if you pardon my saying.”

That sound came once more. He was trying to breathe…and having trouble with the doing of it.

“Could you just…do you mind? I have to think, Herry, I really do.” I pulled him to sitting and shoved a pot behind his head to keep it from falling back against the wall. “Better?”

It sounded better. He was breathing easier. And that set me to thinking. Breathing easier is something I wanted to do too.

I needed the money, but I didn’t need it that badly, did I? Badly enough to murder poor Herry Stuer?

I reached out and took up one of his hands. Could have sworn he flinched. “There now. I haven’t been in my right mind, Herry, and that’s the truth. How could I hurt you? You’ll live to die an honest death. And that’s the best I can do for you. I’m just going to have to tell De Grote ‘No.’”

No.

The word rang in the stillness of the room.

“Have you ever known anyone to tell the man ‘No’?”

Herry closed his eyes.

“Thought not. I haven’t either. Least no one who lived to tell about it. But why should I tell him ‘Yes’? I’ve done too many terrible things for him to agree to do one thing more.”

Herry sighed.

“I know it. Katharina’s stuck in that abbey. And they’re sure to discover her secret any day now, if they haven’t already. But if God can’t save her, then what kind of God is he? That’s what the priest says. And I find I have to agree with him. ‘On the mountain of the Lord it will be provided.’ That’s exactly what Father Jacqmotte always says. I’m just going to have to tell De Grote ‘No.’”

•••

I had the coffin for De Grote. Everything was ready. Ready as it should have been. Except I had no body. Big Jannes came. I saw his shadow flitting between the gravestones. I called him to me and told him he didn’t have to dig. He had only to drag the coffin over from the side of the church. Empty or no, it was going to have to do.

De Grote and his customer arrived soon after, their forms veiled by the clouds shifting across the moon. De Grote rapped upon the coffin. “Anyone in there?” He laughed one of his strange, silent laughs. Turned toward me. “Open it up, then.”

Big Jannes glanced at me.

I nodded.

He prized the lid off with a chink of his shovel against the nails, and then a pull that distorted his face with the effort.

I turned away. Couldn’t bear to look at De Grote’s face.

There was a hissing intake of breath. An explosion of cursing. “There’s no body!”

I shook my head.

“There’s supposed to be a body there. The one I told you I’d pay for.”

“No one died. I don’t have one.”

“You don’t—!” It was as close as I’d ever come to hearing De Grote yell. Good thing he didn’t. The priest might have woken. He stepped closer. “I ordered a body.”

Somewhere out in the darkness of the cemetery, a dog whined. A strange, rolling growl of a whine. It made the hairs at the back of my neck stand on end, and the strings in my belly tighten.

“Nobody died.”

“And yet, here we all are.”

I shrugged. There was no body. What else could I say that I hadn’t already said?

He took another step closer. So close I could feel his heat. “I asked for a body. You agreed to get me one. De Grote never gets cheated.”

“I don’t—”

“Say nothing.”

I sent a glance toward the other man, De Grote’s customer. One hand had gone inside his coat, and he was reaching toward De Grote with his other.

De Grote turned toward his customer. “Don’t even think—”

“You promised to get my lace across the border.”

“And I’ll do it! There will be a body for that coffin. One way or another.” He grabbed me by the arm and motioned to Jannes. “Bring that shovel here.”

“Don’t—! You can’t—” I tried to wrench my arm from him. When that didn’t work, I dug my heels into the ground. But the rain had turned the graveyard into a mire. My heels slid right out from under me.

“‘Can’t’ isn’t a word I use. I thought you understood that. No one crosses De Grote.”

His customer grabbed hold of his shoulder and spun him from me. De Grote dropped my arm to grapple with him. From the darkness, that strange, growling whine came again. It was followed by a bark.

“Unhand me!” De Grote pulled a glittering dagger from his waist and advanced upon the man.

As the man retreated, stumbling over a gravestone, a streak of snarling fur swept past him. It leapt at De Grote, fastening his teeth about the man’s throat. De Grote fell, arms flailing as he tried to beat off the dog. The creature tore at him as if he were an avenging angel come straight from God.

I wanted to look away, but I couldn’t. I’d never seen such a sight. The creature ripped De Grote’s throat out by the roots. And then he deposited it at his master’s feet and sat there, wagging his tail, as if he’d done some clever trick.

Big Jannes gagged.

The man bent to pat the dog on the head. “Well done,
mon
cher
.”

The dog writhed for a moment as if in delight and then trotted away into the darkness.

The man walked over to De Grote and kicked at him. “There’s your body.”

I crossed myself. Least, I tried to. The trembling of my hands made hard work of it.

Big Jannes slunk out of the shadows. “What do I do with this?” He brandished the shovel.

“There’s no need for it.” There never had been.
On
the
mountain
of
the
Lord
it
will
be
provided.
I turned toward the man.

The customer plucked De Grote’s dagger from the mud, wiped it on his coat, and then shoved it into his belt.

None of my business. I turned my attentions to the work at hand. “Move that lid away from the coffin, Jannes. So we can throw him in there.”

Big Jannes crossed himself. “What? Just like that? Without a word from the priest?”

“He never did anything worth blessing.”

“It’s a wicked thing. I don’t like it.”

“And God didn’t either. You saw what just happened to him.”

He finally did as I’d said, propping the lid against a gravestone with a mutter.

I gestured toward De Grote. “Here, Jannes. You take up his feet while I take his hands.” Before I could do it, the stranger had stepped in front of me and lifted De Grote’s hands himself. He and Jannes settled him in the coffin, the way I settled my dough into the oven. A tuck here, a poke there.

“Have you got the…lace?” I didn’t mean to be pushy, but I didn’t want to spend more time than I had to with this particular body, looking at a bloody hole where his throat ought to have been. It wasn’t natural.

The customer withdrew a packet from his doublet. “Where should I…?”

I shrugged. I’d always been charged with the bodies. Hadn’t wanted to know about any of the other business. I had usually found my way back into the kitchen by this point. “Just put it in there somewhere. Where it’s not so bloody. Someplace it won’t be discovered if those border guards decide to have a look.”

He bent over the coffin and then paused. Slipped the hand holding the packet inside. When he straightened, the lace was gone.

I motioned for Big Jannes to put the lid back on. But then I remembered something. “Wait!”

Plunging my hands inside the coffin, I patted De Grot’s doublet. First one side, then the other. Ah! There it was. I pulled the purse from its hiding place, coins inside it clinking. I gave one of them to Big Jannes. It disappeared inside his fist. The rest I left in the pouch, and then I tied it to my apron’s strings.

How about that?

De Grote was dead. I’d told the man “No,” and I’d done the city of Kortrijk a favor besides. The specter that had haunted us was gone. The wages of sin may have been death, just like the priest always said, but it was also the payment for Katharina’s life. I might have given that dog a dish of cream for his trouble…if I weren’t half convinced he was a demon come to life.

Today was the day. I was leaving for Signy. I had risen early, as had been my custom, and I had gone to say good-bye to the lieutenant. And now, as I walked back into the house where I had been billeted, the family turned from the table toward me, brows raised.

I nodded. “Please. Don’t let me disturb you.”

They turned back to their breakfast meal. All but Cecille.

I grabbed my pack, hefting it to my back.

“Denis?” Cecille’s voice had gone high with alarm.

“I’ve been ordered to Signy-sur-vaux.”

She rose from the table. “Signy-sur-vaux? Where is that?”

“To the east. And the south. A good walk from here.”

“But…for how long?”

I shrugged. Swallowed.

“But…Papa, do something!”

Her father turned round to look at me. Bit off a hunk of bread. Chewed. Glanced back toward Cecille. “What do you want me to do?”

“Say something!”

He swallowed. Nodded at me. “
Bonne route
.”

“
Merci
.” I stepped past them and went out the door.

“But, Denis—wait!”

I stopped.

She leapt from the door and flew into my arms. “What about us?” Tears had fallen from her eyes onto her cheeks. They looked like tiny drops of dew. The kind birds liked to sip from flowers of a spring morning. “What about me?”

“You’re…very pretty, Cecille.” She was. Quite pretty. She was lovely, really. She had hair the color of wheat. And she smelled like freshly baked bread. I’d always been partial to that smell.

“What am I supposed to do?”

Do? Well…what was it she normally did? I only ever saw her in the mornings and in the evenings. And she was usually doing what I did. She was eating. And then after, at night, she sometimes sat beside me while I cleaned my musket. “I don’t…I don’t know what you’re supposed to do.”

“I thought we had an understanding.” Now the tears were gliding down her cheeks like rain off a flower’s petals.

“You did?”

“You didn’t?”

Another question I didn’t know whether I should answer.
Non…non.
Definitely not. It was a question I didn’t know how to answer. There was really nothing to understand about Cecille, was there? And if there was nothing to be understood, then…I suppose…maybe we had a misunderstanding? “What was it I was meant to understand?”

“That I…that you…that one day…I thought we would be together!”

Together? When I was walking down the road that would take us apart? “I’m a soldier.”

“That’s right.”

“Soldiers get posted. And reposted. How can we be together when I’m leaving?”

“How can we be together when…?” She began to cry harder.

“I don’t understand.”

“He doesn’t understand! All these months, and he doesn’t understand!” Now she was wailing. Her family had come to stand in the door.

“I meant…I mean…” I hadn’t meant anything at all. And now it had come to this? To Cecille standing in the road, crying? I looked past her, at the door. At her father and her mother, her brother and her sister, staring at me—at us—while they ate the last of their meal. I looked off down the street in the direction I was supposed to be going. And then up the other way. That was when I saw it: a single late-season flower, poking its head out from a puddle of mud. “Look there.” I moved past her and bent to pluck it. Turned around and offered it to her.

She just stared at it.

“For you. It’s the same color as your hair. Not exactly, of course, it’s much brighter. Yours is lighter. A little duller. But it’s yellow. Here.” I offered it to her once more.

But she didn’t take it. Instead, she threw herself up at me, pressing her lips to my own. Before I could even think what to do, she pushed away and went back into the house. But she’d left the flower behind. I held it out, meaning to leave it to her family, but they had already disappeared and shut the door behind them.

What was it she had thought I understood? I stayed there for a while, trying to work it out. When I couldn’t, I started off down the road, twirling the flower between my fingers. I wished she would have taken it. She was such a pretty girl. It would have been a shame to have thrown it into the street, so I tucked it into a buttonhole instead.

As I walked, the streets began to awaken. Hands reached out toward me from darkened interiors as they parted shutters. Waterfalls of slops poured toward me as maids cleaned out the night’s chamber pots. Dogs eyed me as they sniffed at piles of refuse. I even beat some of the merchants to market. And most of the other travelers out of the city.

I had liked this place.

Liked it more than Signy-sur-vaux.

•••

I wasn’t two miles down the road before I overtook a man with a coffin. He was making slow time of it, walking beside an ox-drawn cart. And because I had nothing better to do, because it was only Signy-sur-vaux that awaited me, I slowed my pace to match his.

The dog who’d been trotting beside the man turned and snarled at me.

The man’s hand went to his waist as he looked over at me. He had the look of a man who’d traveled much and fallen upon hard times in the doing of it. His glance took in my hat. My coat. My musket. “The dog doesn’t like soldiers.”

Ah! He spoke French like a Frenchman. Not like those who crossed the border from Flanders. As he spoke, the dog was moving from the road into the wood.

I shrugged. “I don’t have anything against dogs.”

A growl rolled from the wood at my words.

“My name is Denis Boulanger.” I gestured toward my hat. “A soldier in the King’s army.”

He glanced at my hat. “I am Alexandre. Please excuse the dog. He’s had a hard time of it.”

We walked in silence for a while. The dog kept pace with us. I could see him peer out at us every now and then, his dark head a stain against the grasses.

“What’s wrong with him?”

“Who?”

“The dog.”

“Nothing.”

“He has no hair.”

“Oh. That! He had…mange. You have to shave them. If they have mange.”

We kept walking. At this pace, it would take a full five days to reach the village. “Why is that?”

“Why is what?”

“Why do they have to be shaved?”

“Because it’s what has to be done. Listen. I’m grateful for the company, but I know I must be holding you back. You must have somewhere to be, a King’s soldier like you.”

“I do.” Eventually. “Who is it?” I lifted my chin toward the coffin.

“It’s my…cousin. He’s to be buried. In Signy-sur-vaux.”

“Signy-sur-vaux? But that’s where I’m going! We can go together.”

I might have expected pleasure in the man’s face, but he sent me a look I couldn’t interpret.

We walked on. And on.

The man must have been very sad, because he said nothing at all. I began to think about that coffin. How extraordinary there were two of us who had left Signy-sur-vaux, both returning at the same time. Of course, I was alive, and the dead person was not, but still. Hardly anyone ever left the village. And that got me to wondering. “How did your cousin come to leave?”

Again I saw that odd look reshape the man’s features. “Well, he…died.”

“
Non.
I mean leave Signy-sur-vaux. Maybe I know him.”

“How could you know him? Are you from Kortrijk, as well?”

“Kortrijk?
Non.
Why would I be?”

“He was from Kortrijk…and you said you might know him.”

But I had thought he was from Signy-sur-vaux. “He’s from Kortrijk? But he’s being buried in Signy?” That didn’t seem right.

He sent me another look from beneath his brow. “
Oui.
Family plot.”

“A family plot? When he was from Kortrijk?”

“I don’t know that he was
from
Kortrijk. By birth.”

“You don’t?”

The man shrugged.

Either the dead man was from Kortrijk or he was from somewhere else. And a relation ought to know that kind of thing. “He was your cousin?”

“
Oui.
I mean…of sorts. Distant.”

We walked farther, dodging mud puddles and the sort of oozing, sliding muck the rain had brought. That dog kept pace with us from the wood.

How could a man not know where his cousins were from? Me? I even knew where all of mine were living. “I have twenty-four cousins.”

“Pardon me?”

“Twenty-four. Eighteen live in Signy-sur-vaux. That’s where I’m from. Three live in Signy l’Abbaye. And three in Dommery.”

He said nothing.

“Two of them are fourth cousins.”

“Large family.”

“
Oui.
But I know who each of them are. And where they are from. Three are Anne. Five are Jeanne. Four are Jean. Six are Pierre. Three are Jacques and two are Michel. One is Louis.” All in all, a fine, respectable group of people. Except for me, who had just been removed from my post. And one of the Pierres, who had once stolen some apples from the lord’s estate. “What was this one’s name?”

“Name?”

“His name. What was he called?”

“It was…Paul.”

“Paul…?
Non.
Non
, I know no Pauls. I would remember if I knew a Paul. It’s not so usual a name. Are you certain he was Paul?”

“Why wouldn’t I be?”

“It just seems like an odd name. For someone from Signy-sur-vaux.”

We walked along some more.

“So he is a Paul to be buried in Signy.”

“
Oui
.”

“With which family?”

“What?”

“I may not have known that Paul, but I ought to know his family.”

The man, Alexandre, stared at me for a long moment. “There’s a certain sadness I feel about this whole death. Do you mind not speaking of it?”

“Oh.
Non.
Non
. I’m a bit sad myself.”

It was several miles before the man even said anything at all. And then it was about stopping to relieve himself. I took advantage of the opportunity and joined him in the wood. “I was posted to the customs officer at the border, but now I’m being sent to Signy-sur-vaux.”

The man buttoned up his breeches.

“I’m being sent there because I couldn’t find any lace.”

“Lace?” His head snapped toward mine at the word.

“It’s being smuggled into France. By Frenchmen. Not that I ever noticed any.” I had to speak over my shoulder to make sure he heard me. He was already walking back toward the coffin. “That was the problem. I never found any.” I’d raised my voice so he could hear it.

He’d started up the ox and was down the road a ways before I was able to catch him.

“Why do you think people would do that?”

“Do what?”

“Smuggle lace. The King has strictly forbidden it.”

He shrugged.

“I don’t understand why they would do it.” I took off my hat and scratched at an itch behind my ear.

“People do many things even they themselves don’t understand.”

“What about you?”

“Me? What about me?”

“What if you were going to smuggle lace? What would make you do it?” I gave my head a final scratch and then put my hat back on. Much better! Cecille’s mother would have picked out my nits tonight, along with the rest of the family’s. Another bad thing about leaving. Ah well. I’d just have to suffer until I reached my own mother at Signy-sur-vaux.

“Honor.”

“What?”

“Honor would make me smuggle lace.”

“You would do something dishonorable in the name of honor?” That didn’t make much sense. “You know, if you were smuggling lace, I could shoot you. Or have you arrested. That would be very dishonorable indeed. And the magistrate could fine you.”

“But what if someone had asked me to do it because his very life depended upon it?”

“Why would his life depend upon it? And how could you respect someone who asked you to do something dishonorable?” That’s what the lieutenant had asked me to do: the dishonorable. And what had I done? I’d walked away. To Signy-sur-vaux. The reward for good works didn’t always come in this life. That’s what the priest in Signy had never tired of saying.

“What if I owed my very life to that person?”

“As if he…saved your life?”

“
Oui.
As if he rescued my life.”

“If he rescued your life…” I thought on that for a while. Just how much did someone owe a person who had rescued their life? Very much. Quite a bit, in fact. “So…if you were going to smuggle lace, then it would have to be at the request of someone who rescued your life.”

“
Oui
.”

“But if that person rescued your life, if they considered you were valuable enough to save, then why would they treat you so poorly?” There was something in all of this I didn’t understand.

“So poorly as…what?”

“They must not value you very much at all if they asked you to do something so bad.”

“Bad?”

“They would be asking you to disregard the King’s law.”

“
Non.
Not really. The man would be asking a favor for me in return for the one he bestowed upon me. That
I
should rescue
him
.”

“By defying the King?” That made no sense at all. “How?”

“How what?”

“How would smuggling lace allow you to do that?”

“What if he needed to do a favor for someone else?”

“A favor.” There were too many people involved in this conversation. I had wanted to know what would make
him
want to smuggle lace. Not him and…two other people. There were three of them now.

“
Oui
, a favor. And what if this favor would lead that other person to stop some action that would have ruined the man?”

“Which man?”

“The man who had rescued me.”

“A piece of lace? Would keep some man from ruin?”

“It might.”

A piece of lace. A piece of lace that was contraband. A piece of lace that was so insubstantial you could see light pour through the spaces between its threads. “And why should you entrust your reputation to some man who’s a smuggler?”

“Some man who’s a smuggler? Is that not supposed to be me?”