Judith Rock - The Eloquence of Blood

“Listen to me, Nicolas! He is not street dung. It is partly my fault that he killed Marin. As Maitre du Luc just told you, I knew who he was; I thought it was Marin who had killed the girl, but I said nothing. If I had, the truth would have come out. It is my fault it ended like this. If I had confronted Marin, or come to you-” Reine threw her head back and stared up into the darkness. “If I had done that, Marin would be alive.” Then she sighed and bowed her head in defeat. “Instead, I gave Jean the chance to further damn himself. Unwittingly, but I gave it to him. Now I am not going to let him die in a prison cell, in worse misery than he’s already in. He stays here. I will watch out his life with him. He has the lung sickness; he’s had it a long time. I’ve seen the end drawing near him for days,” Reine said, drowning out La Reynie’s protest. “His fever will not abate now. I think he will be dead before another morning.” She looked at Charles. “Maitre du Luc agrees that he should stay here.”

La Reynie rounded furiously on Charles, but Charles forestalled him.

“I agree with all my heart, mon lieutenant-general.”

“You are deranged, both of you, this is preposterous!” La Reynie went to the boy and nudged him with the toe of his boot. Jean’s labored breathing didn’t change. “He is a killer I’d almost despaired of finding and he is going to die where I put him. You,” he said to Richard, who stood motionless and sharp-eyed at the entrance, listening intently. “Take this and go to the police barriere.” He held out a round token bearing the outline of the city’s sign, the cathedral of Notre Dame. “Say that Monsieur La Reynie requires two men and bring them here to the cave.”

The beggar didn’t move. “I am Reine’s man, mon lieutenant-general.”

La Reynie reddened with anger. “You,” he snapped at Charles. “Help me carry him.”

“No, Monsieur La Reynie. I am not your man, either.”

“You are a cleric. Where is your sense of justice, of sin?”

“Engaged in a fight to the death with my hope of mercy,” Charles said dryly. He never after knew what made him add, “If you had a son, Monsieur La Reynie, would you not want mercy for him? No matter what he’d done?”

Behind him, Reine drew in a startled breath. La Reynie stood rigid, pressing his crossed arms against his chest as though against a wound. His eyes went to Jean, as the boy moved restlessly in his fever.

“Yes, Nicolas,” Reine said, very softly, “which would you want for Gabriel?”

“Your clever question means nothing,” La Reynie said harshly. “Gabriel is no killer. And he wants no help from me.”

“But you want much from him. Give this dying boy mercy and perhaps the Virgin will give you mercy in return, you and Gabriel.”

“Lieutenant-General La Reynie,” Charles said, appalled, “please believe that I did not know you had a son. I never intended-”

“Peace, maitre,” Reine said. “Perhaps God intended.”

The morning sun had risen high enough to fall greenly through the small window’s old glass onto Pere Le Picart’s desk. The rector sat behind the desk, his long, sinewy fingers lying in the little pool of light, tapping softly and rapidly on the desk’s scarred wood. La Reynie sat in one of the fireside chairs, which Charles had moved closer to the desk for him. Charles stood back, glad-for once-to let his superiors decide what happened next. His horror and astonishment at the morning’s revelations had given way to quiet, and beneath its surface, his mind worked at making sense of what he’d seen and heard, especially at making sense of Jean.

“I will give out that I have the proven killer of Martine Mynette and Henri Brion,” La Reynie was saying. “And then I will give out that he has died of fever.”

Le Picart said nothing, and Charles saw that he was scrutinizing the police chief as he had often scrutinized Charles himself. Some part of him was glad to see that La Reynie was equally uncomfortable under that sharp gray gaze.

“Do you think I am wrong to let him die here?” La Reynie said, shifting in his chair.

“Have I said so?” The rector shook his head. “No, Monsieur La Reynie, I think you have chosen rightly. Why add more suffering to the world than there needs to be?” He looked at Charles. “Maitre du Luc will see that he has a priest.” His fingers continued to tap, as though knocking softly at some unseen door. “I suppose that your making it known that the killer has been found will release us from the recent accusations. And from that cursed song.”

“Be assured that it will, in time. I will go on confiscating copies until the sellers and singers turn their attention to the next scandale in Paris.”

“I trust,” Le Picart said dryly, “that the Society of Jesus actually receiving the Mynette money will not be the next scandale.”

La Reynie said grimly, “The closer we get to the end of January, and the king’s visit to the city and grand dinner at the Hotel de Ville, the faster disturbers of the city’s peace for any reason will find themselves unpleasantly housed in the Chatelet.”

Charles stepped forward. “Mon pere, will you give me permission to watch tonight with the beggar woman and the dying boy? In the morning, if he dies as she predicts, I will see that… that all is attended to, and that the cave is empty.” Charles glanced at La Reynie. “Monsieur La Reynie has offered to bury the young man, as well as the old beggar he killed.”

Le Picart looked at La Reynie in surprise but said to Charles, “You have my permission, maitre. See also that this dying boy and the beggar woman have what they need for their comfort.”

“Thank you, mon pere. I will see to it.”

“When they are gone from the cave, I will send lay brothers to block the entrance.” Le Picart’s tapping fingers stilled. “Now that we will have money enough, repairs to the Les Cholets building can go forward, including a stout locked door where you say the beggars have been getting in.”

Charles nodded, remembering what Reine had told him. It was none so bad down there, she’d said. Not bad at all, with fire at hand and water nearby, especially when Paris was freezing or drowning in rain. What she hadn’t told him was where the other entrance was, and how could he tell the rector what he didn’t know?

La Reynie said, “If you will excuse me, mon pere, I must send for men to take the beggar’s body away.” He rose from his chair.

Charles took another step forward. “Before I return to the cave, will you give me permission to go to the Couche, mon pere? There is an old nun there who may know something about the killer.”

“What does that matter now?” Le Picart and La Reynie said it nearly in concert, and Charles struggled to find an answer.

“I would like to know more about who he is.”

“Curiosity is not a virtue in a Jesuit,” Le Picart said mildly, eyeing him.

The silence stretched and Charles realized belatedly that the rector was waiting for a response to what he’d said.

“Mon pere, it seems to me that the idle curiosity of distraction, which leads to meddling, is one thing. But the desire to know truth in order to see justice done and compassion given is another. It seems only right to know whom we are burying.”

Le Picart still said nothing, his eyes boring into Charles.

“And to know why he killed,” Charles made bold to say. “If we do not know why souls grow desperate, how can we help them?”

La Reynie was staring at him in open amazement. But the rector had relaxed into his chair and was regarding Charles with more than a little satisfaction.

“You may go to the Couche. But”-the satisfied look was replaced by one of unmistakable warning-“when you have asked your questions, whether or not you have your answers, the task I set you will be ended. You will then give your full and undivided attention to your duties here.”