Judith Rock - The Eloquence of Blood

“Don’t worry, maitre,” he said hoarsely. “Marin has ridden my Little White Paternoster straight to paradise; he is already walking in the meadows with the Blessed Virgin.”

Charles moved slowly out under the stone-ribbed roof. “Give me the knife, Jean,” he said quietly. If he could get the knife, at least there would be no more deaths. Not here, anyway. “You don’t need it anymore.”

“I do need it.” Jean kissed Marin and smoothed the white hair back again. “Reine knows.”

Charles stopped. “What does Reine know?”

“She saw. But she didn’t tell Marin. That was good. But when he came to himself-he did sometimes-he remembered that she’d had it.”

“Reine had it? Had what?”

“Not Reine.” Jean held out his left hand and showed Charles the little heart resting on his palm. “Martine stole it.” He closed his fist tight around the heart. “She stole it years and years ago, but now I have it back.”

Charles gaped at him. “Martine? You knew Martine?”

Jean began to cough again, doubling over until his forehead rested on Marin’s body. Realization washed over Charles and nearly turned him sick. Understanding came, but not like light, only deeper and more mournful darkness.

“You killed Martine,” Charles whispered. “You’re Tito.”

“I didn’t mean to kill her! The heart was mine, not hers! They beat me when I tried to take it back. Then I wanted to give it to Marin. And God wanted it, too. I went to Martine’s house and the angels unlocked the door and took the bar away. I went up to her chamber, but she wasn’t there and I couldn’t find my heart. Then I heard her outside, talking to someone. So I waited, and when she came in, I asked her for it. She said terrible things and hit me. I was only trying to cut the ribbon, but-” He shuddered and his fever-bright eyes pleaded with Charles to see the right of his complaint.

“Reine recognized the heart,” Charles said relentlessly. “She knew you took it from Martine.”

“It was mine! I took it for him, I loved him, he called me his son. He wore it around his wrist because the ribbon was too short for his neck. But when he remembered he’d seen it on Martine”-tears glistened in Jean’s cavernous eyes-“he called me a murderer and beat me with his stick. I thought he was going to kill me. I won’t let anyone take it away from me, not ever again!”

Keeping his eyes on the knife Jean still held, Charles moved a little nearer.

Jean brought the knife up, pointing at Charles. His eyes glittered, but with rage now, not tears. “I’ll kill you if you try to take it. Like I had to kill the other man. I was sorry. But he saw her dead. I knew he’d tell someone and they’d take my heart again.”

“Who saw you kill her?” Charles kept his tone quiet and even. He thought he heard a rustling sound in the passage to the cave but didn’t dare take his eyes from Jean.

“He didn’t see that. If he’d seen that, he would have known it was an accident, he only saw her fall down when I cut her. But he ran away. I had to chase him and it made me cough so hard I thought I would die, too.” Jean began to cough again, and blood from his mouth spattered Marin’s chest.

Charles moved almost quicker than sight, circling to come behind Jean and take the knife. But a new scream, one that might have risen from hell, filled the cave and spun him toward the entrance. Reine burst from the darkness, pulling her own small knife from the scarves wound around her waist, and flung herself on Marin’s killer.

“He loved you, he loved you like a son!”

The man who had arrived with her tried to grab her, but he was too late. Jean lurched sideways and Reine’s thrust went over his head, sending her off-balance. Jean sliced upward with his own blade and ripped through her layered clothes as she fell. Then he reared onto his knees, gripping his knife in both hands, ready to stab downward, but Charles and the other man caught his wrists. Charles jerked him backward, away from Reine, who was lying across Marin’s legs, and twisted his arms until the knife dropped from his hand. Charles was pulling at the cincture around his cassock, thinking to restrain Jean with it, when the other man dropped to his knees beside Jean.

“See to Reine,” he cried, “I’ll manage this one.”

Recognizing the man as Richard, the beggar with the fleur de lys branded on his cheek, Charles left Jean to him and went to Reine. She was struggling to sit up, feeling herself for wounds.

He knelt beside her. “Are you hurt, Reine? Can you walk?”

She shook her head. “I am not hurt. Not my body. He only tore my finery.” Her face crumpled and she tenderly folded Marin’s hands across his breast. “My poor Marin, my poor old darling.” She bent and laid her cheek on his veined, dirty hands. “He loved his damned Jean, he called him his angel. God forgive me!” She straightened, crooning and rocking, lost in tears, stroking Marin’s hands and smoothing his hair.

Leaving questions for later-or never-Charles said the prayers for the dead. The other beggars, still hanging back in the safety of the shadows, drew closer and joined him where they could, filling the cave with murmuring echoes. It seemed to Charles that he’d done little else these last days but pray for the dead and those in danger of death. But then, who was not in danger of death? And what was his business, if not to pray? When he finished, he went back to Jean. The beggar Richard was sitting beside him, and the boy was shaking with fever now, coughing and exhausted. Charles took off his cloak and covered him.

Richard said, “He’s had the lung sickness awhile now. I think it won’t be long until he goes where he’s going.”

Charles nodded and watched the other beggars slip away, glad to have them gone before he summoned La Reynie.

Reine wiped her face on her skirts. “Get Nicolas, Richard,” she said, holding something out to him. “Take this, he’ll know it. Bring him here. Only him, do you understand?”

Richard jumped up and took the square of wood she held out. He peered at it and shook his head in wonder. “It’s exactly like Marin. It’s your best, I think.”

“He was my best. My mark is on the back. Give it only to Nicolas.”

“No, Reine, I’ll go,” Charles said. “They won’t let Richard in.” He moved so that he could see what Reine had given the man and caught his breath. The face carved in a few inches of heavily grained wood was Marin to the life. “It’s beautiful,” he said, marveling at her skill.

Reine took a deep, steadying breath. “When they see my mark, they will let Richard in. I want you to stay here, maitre; I have things to say before Nicolas comes.”

Richard took a last look at Jean, who was shivering and murmuring to himself under Charles’s cloak, and put the carving inside his jacket and went. Charles poked at the nearly dead fire with his foot and took refuge for the moment in the mundane.

“Where do you get wood?” he said. “From the workmen’s store?”

Reine pointed to the place where Charles had entered the cave. “There is kindling there, beside the archway from the passage. And a few bigger pieces, too.”

Charles went to the archway and returned with an armload of wood. “All from the workmen?” he said, putting the wood down near the makeshift hearth.

She smiled a little, one hand resting gently on Marin’s still chest. “The workmen leave much that is useful. When things disappear, they accuse the apprentices of taking them to sell. When the apprentices swear that we are the thieves, the masters hit them for lying. But we usually stay here only when the men are not working. With fire, it’s none too bad. They even leave buckets and there is water down at the Saint-Severin fountain.”