Judith Rock - The Eloquence of Blood

“I will see Monsieur Gilles Brion and do everything I can for him,” Charles said to Callot and Morel. “You can trust what Pere Le Picart says. He will send you a message telling you what I learned in my visit, and very soon.”

Accepting that they had no choice but to wait, the two men thanked him and started to take their leave.

“One moment, Monsieur Morel,” Charles said, remembering other, lesser concerns. “Forgive me for intruding a very different matter, but we are in need of a dancing master for our Lenten show. Maitre Beauchamps is unavailable. If you are free and will come tomorrow at one o’clock, Pere Jouvancy would like to speak with you about replacing Monsieur Beauchamps for these weeks.”

Morel gaped as though the sun had risen in black midnight. “I am-I would be-more honored than I can say, maitre. Certainly I will be here.”

“Excellent.” Charles smiled at him. “And, please, tell Mademoiselle Brion that she must not despair. The bon Dieu has her in His hand. And her brother, too.”

As Charles went to the rector’s office, though, he wondered if that was the happiest thing he could have said. It was the conventional thing to say and he believed it. But he’d rarely found God’s hand a comfortable place to be.

When he opened Le Picart’s office door in response to the command to enter, he found his superior rising from his prie-dieu. Charles was expecting a lengthy discussion, but Le Picart did not even ask him to sit down. Straight and unmoving, one hand still on the prie-dieu, he said, “Do you believe this young man is innocent of these murders?”

“On the whole, I do.”

“Then I want you to do what our guests have asked, Maitre du Luc.”

“Yes, mon pere, I will go to Monsieur Gilles Brion as soon as our rehearsal ends.”

“No, not just that. You are already watching the police inquiry and keeping me informed. Now I want you to do more. I want you to help Monsieur La Reynie find the killers of Martine Mynette and Henri Brion.”

Charles took a literal and metaphorical step backward and eyed his rector warily. Le Picart was ordering him to do what he wanted to do-what he had, in fact, already started to do. But… “Why, mon pere? Why me?”

He flinched inwardly as Le Picart’s eyebrows rose. The rector was all too familiar with Charles’s struggles over obedience.

“In part, Maitre du Luc, because the correct answer to my order is ‘Yes, mon pere,’ but your answer is ‘Why, mon pere?’ Even though I have told you to do what your heart is already driving you to do.”

“ ‘Why’ is not ‘No.’ ”

“True. I want you do to this because you have done it before and you did it well. Lieutenant-General La Reynie knows you. I think he somewhat trusts you. And he is desperately understaffed. He cannot find these killers as quickly as we need them found. He does not have enough men. And as our friends have just said, he may have stopped looking. That is the plain truth, which I think he will acknowledge himself.”

“Mon pere, of course I want to do what you ask. But-just to take one doubt I have of my ability to do this-I know nothing about commerce or finance. And this silver scheme likely has a bearing on Henri Brion’s death, at least.”

“Pere Damiot will help you there.”

“And if I fail? To find either killer?”

“The Society of Jesus is being publicly accused of murder for wealth. That calumny has been painted on our doors. You-and we, and Lieutenant-General La Reynie-have no choice but to make our best effort to find the real killers. If we fail, we fail, and God will have a reason for it. Will you do this?”

“I will, mon pere.” Charles returned Le Picart’s level gaze. “For the dead as much as for the Society.”

“And that is the most important reason why I ask you and not another to do this. Your heart is in it. So,” Le Picart said briskly, “I will tell my own superior what I have set you to do. If he tells me I am wrong, then I will call you back. If any… difficulty arises from your task, I will take it wholly on myself. You are acting on my orders and you are acting as Ignatius said a Jesuit should: as the strong stick supporting your feeble superior.”

“Feeble?” Charles snorted with unapologetic laughter.

Le Picart smiled slightly. “Our founder’s words, not mine.”

“Mon pere, am I to tell the lieutenant-general what you have asked me to do?”

“Yes. As I said before, I have told Pere Pallu that you will not, after all, be assisting in his morning classes for now. Also, I caution you again not to neglect your duties to Pere Jouvancy and the February performance, unless-God and His saints forbid-a dire emergency arises. Furthermore, hear me well-you will use violence to no one.”

“No, mon pere. Unless-”

“No ‘unless.’ You have taken first vows-which you have renewed-and you are a Jesuit, if only a scholastic. But you have also been a soldier. And what you did and saw and learned as a soldier are not far under your skin. That is very clear to me and is another reason you are suited for what I have asked you to do. But you belong to the Society of Jesus now, you are one of ours, not the army’s. Use what you know, but use violence to no one.”

“And if it is a question of life or death? Mine or someone’s whom I must protect?”

“Our Savior told us to turn the other cheek.”

“My own cheek is my own to turn. Allowing someone else to die seems to me another thing altogether.”

Le Picart looked long at Charles, who felt as though the man were seeing through his flesh and bone to his soul.

“That will have to be between you and God,” Le Picart said.

Gilles Brion sat hugging himself at his cell’s battered table. He wore a black cloak over the same brownish-black coat and breeches Charles had seen him in before, and his elegant linen was still crisp and white. A single candle lit the small chamber and a tall brazier had been brought in for heat, but it did little to dispel the cold of the ancient stone walls. Still, it showed that M. Callot had laid out more than a little money to the jailor. Brion had started up when the thick-planked, iron-bound door opened, but slumped again into his chair when he saw Charles.

“What do you want?” he said listlessly.

“To know whether you’ve killed anyone.”

“Don’t mock me.”

“I am not, I assure you. Did you kill Mademoiselle Mynette? Did you kill your father?”

“What does it matter? I am a dead man, anyway.”

Charles turned abruptly and pounded on the cell door. “Jailor, I am through here,” he shouted through the open grille.

Behind him, the chair scraped on the stones and Brion cried, “No, wait, please!”

Praying for patience, Charles turned around.

“Wait for what?” If harshness was the only thing that could penetrate this idiot’s posturing, then harshness he would have.

“I didn’t kill either of them. I own I wanted sometimes to kill my father. But I didn’t. And I would never have killed Mademoiselle Mynette. I swear by all the saints, by my hope of heaven!”

“But you went to her house before dawn on Friday morning. The morning she died.”

Gilles gasped and clutched the back of the chair. “Isabel betrayed me! Dear God, women are of the devil! Their tongues forge the chains of hell, they-”

Charles turned back to the door and raised a fist to pound on it.

“Don’t go!” Gilles clutched Charles’s arm. “Women are weak, I know that, Isabel surely didn’t mean-forgive me-”

Charles shook off Brion’s hand. The young man was swaying where he stood, his face was colorless.

“Have they fed you?”

“I don’t want anything.”