Judith Rock - Plague of Lies

In desperation, he leaned his elbows on the rail and his forehead on his clasped hands and prayed for light. For the light of healing on the souls who’d come through these last weeks with him. For the light of mercy on those who’d died. Then his silent praying fell away and he seemed to see a great throng of men and women making their way through shifting light and shadow, as though they walked in a forest whose branches moved in the wind. The dappled light was always changing. The men and women sometimes saw clearly and sometimes groped in near darkness. They helped one another up and stumbled over the fallen. And all the time a deep sighing went with them, whether the sound of the trees in the wind or the sighing of the wanderers, he couldn’t tell…

“Maître?” A hand tapped his shoulder.

Charles came back from wherever he’d been and opened his eyes.

The baker’s daughter, Marie-Ange, made a révérence to the Madonna. “We saw you go by the bakery, maître . The college bell was ringing for your supper and I didn’t want you to miss it. Maman says you’re too thin.”

Charles was on his feet now, blinking in the candlelight, which seemed now almost too bright to look at. “Thank you, ma petite . That was kind.” He hesitated as she knelt in his place. “Are you staying?”

“To pray for maman .” She looked up at him and her brown eyes were full of fear. “That she’ll have a safe delivery when her time comes. So many mothers and babies die.” She turned back to Notre Dame .

Charles looked down at the little girl’s brown curls and frayed red ribbons, remembering a time when his own mother had nearly lost her life in childbirth. “I’m praying for her, too, Marie-Ange. And I’ll tell you a secret. So is the rector.”

Marie-Ange looked over her shoulder, her face suddenly bright with hope. “He is? Oh, Notre Dame will surely listen to him!”

Treasuring that up to tell Père Le Picart, Charles left her in Notre Dame ’s care and went back to the college. When he reached the refectory, he halted on the threshold in surprise. Tables had been moved out of the vast room’s center and crowded close together around the walls. The workmen were gone, but they had begun building scaffolding in the middle of the room. Remembering his lateness, he hurried onto the dais and stood behind his chair at the far end of the long table. Le Picart said the grace and everyone sat. Charles ate with real appetite for the first time since coming back to Louis le Grand, but as he made short work of the stewed beef and mushrooms, and the lettuce salad, he kept wondering about the scaffolding.

When Père Damiot, sitting beside him, paused in talking to the man on his other side, Charles called his attention.

“Why the scaffolding, mon père ? Is the ceiling falling down?” The old ceiling painted with gold stars was Charles’s favorite thing in the college.

“No, not at all! They’re going to repaint our stars.”

“Using what for money?”

“Old Père Dainville’s niece has given the money. You know Père Dainville’s sight is weakening. Well, it seems he told her how much he loves the stars, and she wants him to see them clearly while he still can.”

Hardly daring to believe his ears, Charles looked up at the faded little stars. Some had already disappeared, leaving only the faintest of gold smudges.

“That’s wonderful news!” he said to Damiot, but Damiot had turned back to arguing points of grammar with the other Jesuit.

Starlight , Charles thought, savoring the word as he looked at the ceiling. He laughed for sheer, sudden happiness. Even a man benighted in a forest could glimpse the stars. Even painted starlight was sometimes enough to steer by.