The Ruins of Lace (21 page)

I didn’t come out from behind the statue. I wouldn’t. And no amount of coaxing made me. They tried to have compline in the chapel, but I kept shouting questions.

No one came the next day. The bells still tolled the hours of prayer, but they must have been said elsewhere. As I alternated between standing and sliding myself down the wall into a squat, I was alone in the chapel all day with God. And with the novice. She was there all the time. I could hear her breathing. I could hear the rustle of her robes and her whispers as she knelt in front of altar. But I wasn’t worried. I knew no one could reach me, and no one came near.

Not until the next day.

Two sets of footsteps came down the aisle that morning.

“Katharina?”

“Who’s there?” The voice had been so faint, I wasn’t sure I had heard it at all.

“It’s me. Mathild.”

“Mathild?” But…I thought. Hadn’t they thrown her out?

“
Ja.
It’s me. They said…they said if I came back, they’d let me stay.”

“Here? After they threw you out? They
did
throw you out, didn’t they?”

“
Ja
.”

I knew it! But…“If they threw you out, then why would you want to come back?”

I heard her quiet sobs. “You don’t know. You don’t know what it’s like out there. The things they make you do…”

Vile things. That’s what Heilwich had said. I pressed myself closer to the chapel wall. “Why are you here?”

“They want me to tell you… you have to come out. You have to stop saying those things.”

“Why? They’re true. And weren’t you made to do…vile things?”

“
Ja
.”

I could scarcely hear her. “Then why can’t I say what’s true?”

“There’s no point. It won’t change anything. It will only make it worse.”

Worse? For whom? There was a whispered exchange as I stayed hidden.

“Please. Come out. Please, Katharina! For my sake. If you don’t come out, they won’t let me stay. I don’t want to leave. Don’t make me leave!” That last was directed at someone other than me. Mathild had already turned away from the Holy Mother, away from me. She was protesting. As her voice diminished, as I heard footsteps retreating, I caught a whiff of scent. And then I knew who had been her escort.

“I’m not coming out!”

Sometime that night, someone must have come into the chapel. When I woke, I smelled the scent of bread. My hand soon found its origin. Beside me, on the ledge, someone had placed a loaf.

I ate it all, brushing my hands against my skirts once I was done, to free them of crumbs. I flexed my knees. Slid down along the wall until I was almost sitting. It was sheltered there within the confines of my prison. And warm. No wind found its way into the chapel, and nothing disturbed the peace. It was not a bad place to be…much better than the workshop had been.

All I had to do was last three more days, until Tuesday. Then Heilwich would come to get me.

The very next day I went to fetch Katharina home. A Friday it was, and a good four days before I was due to visit Katharina again. I was three days early. I began my trip as the sun woke, just after they opened the city’s gates. It was a good day. A sunny day with some warmth in the wind and the promise of mild weather. But still I had to wade through the muck left by the rains. And I stood aside in mounds of it whenever a cart or a horse came along.

But I had the money now. All of it.

There was no delay in seeing the Reverend Mother; not like the last time. They let me right into the abbey and led me straight to her quarters. Didn’t even knock on her door before they let me in.

I walked toward her desk, purse heavy in my hand.

She lifted her head. Such an odd expression she had as she looked at me. When she finally spoke, it was just one word. “You!” She did not even wait for me to approach her. She met me halfway, took me by the hand, and led me back the way I’d come. She was walking so fast, we were nearly running.

“I’m here for my sister, Katharina.”

“I know it.” She pulled me out into the courtyard and then through it toward the chapel.

I paused to dip a hand in the holy water, but she tugged me forward so quickly, all reverence fled. My hand plunged to the bottom of the font, searching for balance before I was pulled along after her, splashing water out onto the floor. “Forgive me for saying, but—”

“Just take her!” We’d come to a stop right in front of the Holy Mother herself.

“Take…who?” They wanted me to take the statue? How on earth—?

“Heilwich?” The voice seemed to rise from the Holy Mother’s lips.

I crossed myself in horrified fascination and bent to throw myself at the Holy Mother’s feet before I recognized that voice. It couldn’t be…could it? “Katharina?”

“Heilwich! Is it really you?”

“It’s really me. But…where are you?”

“I thought you were going to come on Tuesday.” I saw my dear sister’s face peek out around the edge of the Holy Mother’s skirts.

“What are you doing up there? Get down this instant! Of course I was coming on Tuesday. I’m just a little…early.”

“Ask her if she’ll let me go.”

“Why wouldn’t she let you go? I’ve the money she asked for right here. All of it.”

“Ask her, Heilwich!”

There was no point in trying to talk sense into my sister. Ideas always seemed to get stuck in that funny head of hers. I turned toward the Reverend Mother and tried to take up her hand to kiss it, but she pulled it from me. “Take her and go.”

“Hear that, Katharina? She says we can go.”

The Reverend Mother leaned toward me, her veil fluttering about her face. “And don’t ever speak of this to anyone!”

I don’t know why she had to be so mean about it. I’d brought the money she wanted, hadn’t I?

I marched forward, reaching up to take Katharina’s hand. As she slid from the pedestal, her skirts rode up behind her. It’s as if she’d never stopped being a girl! I pulled them down behind her. “Let’s go home.”

I made it out the gate and into the street before I realized I hadn’t paid the Reverend Mother…but then, she’d never asked for the money, had she? And she’d told me not to speak of it to anyone. Anyone included her, didn’t it?

What was the right thing to do?

I turned from the abbey toward my sister. “You’ve a peaked look about you. When was the last time you ate?”

“Just this morning. Someone left a whole loaf of bread. Just for me!”

Just for her. As if she hadn’t ever merited one before. That decided it. If they hadn’t been in the habit of feeding my sister a decent meal, then I didn’t feel especially obligated to give them any of my money.

“Heilwich, I was wondering, can we go…?”

“Where? Home? That’s where we’re off to.” And Father Jacqmotte would just have to manage it. Manage us. In truth, he probably wouldn’t even notice her.

“
Nee
, Heilwich. There’s a man out here somewhere. He sells fish. Can I…could we…get some?”

•••

We got some herring and an eel, as well. Even though we were very nearly run down in the doing of it by Pieter, that urchin I’d paid to tell me if Katharina had been let go by the abbey. Poor boy—I’d have run, too, if I had a mother like his chasing me about!

Katharina was as good as blind. And she was hunched as an old woman. Beside me, gripping my hand in hers, she chattered on. Was there no word the child did not know? One word she could keep herself from speaking? There seemed no end to the things she said.

“Am I talking too much?”

“What?”

“Am I talking too much? We were never allowed to speak. Not in the abbey. But I don’t want to bother you.”

“What strange thoughts you have.
Nee.
You do not bother me.”

She talked nearly the length of the journey home. And then she paused. “I hope…” She squeezed my hand.

“
Ja?
”

“I hope that… it wasn’t too much trouble, Heilwich…to take me from the abbey.”

Trouble? “Do not worry yourself, child. It was no bother at all.”

Morning dawned slowly, as if it were too early for the sun to want to rise from his bed. But we were already on the move by then. I hadn’t been able to sleep, and Alexandre said my pacing had kept him awake. We’d gone quite some distance, when he stopped so suddenly the ox plowed right into his shoulder. “Do you hear that?”

I heard nothing but the drum of my heartbeat in my ears and the labored breath of the beast pulling the cart.

“There’s a stream nearby.”

It would not have surprised me. The Ardennes may have been forsaken by both God and man, but it was blessed with any number of streams.

The man cocked his head first one way and then another. “It’s over there.” He pointed off into the wood toward his dog. “I’m going to find it. It will just take a moment.”

For a man who would not be parted from his coffin for even a few hours’ sleep, it was odd he would leave it on the road, by itself, for even a few minutes. I hesitated. Should I stay, or should I follow him?

I decided to follow him. I did not want to be left alone any more than that mangy dog did. By the time I’d found the stream, Alexandre had already stripped and was standing out in the middle of it. Like a bird he was, all quick movements and angles, splashing about, managing to wet his entire body before scrubbing at it with a brush.

“Why are you doing that?”

“Doing what?”

“Bathing.”

“You should try it.”

I glanced down at my hands. Dirt rimmed my fingernails, and grease lined the turn of my cuff, but what did it matter? “I’m clean enough.”

“Can you hand me that?”

His cloak? It was flecked with straw and was coated by the dirt of our journey. “You’d stay cleaner if you dressed without drying.”

“Habits have a long life. And besides, it’s not the dirt that concerns me.”

Not the dirt? But…? I didn’t understand. Not one thing. But this man had saved my life. The least I could do was hand him his cloak.

•••

The next day, after we had passed Jolimetz, the road narrowed as it went down over a pass. The ox stopped at the top of the hill and refused to move. Alexandre talked to it. Pulled at the harness. Slapped him on the shanks.

It lifted its tail and defecated. Stamped its foot.

It wouldn’t move, and I didn’t blame him. The road was steep, and it leaned into a corner a little way after it started down off the hill.

Up there on top, I could see down into the valley. There was a suggestion, here and there, of a hamlet: some clearings in the trees. The knob of the hill we were standing on had gone bald. I walked to the edge and peered over. Rocks had tumbled from here down into the valley.

I heard Alexandre talking to his ox.

Time to start moving. I had no wish to spend another night on the road. I loaded my gun and then lifted it to my shoulder and took aim at the cloud-cobbled sky.

At the report of my musket, the dog barked and the ox jumped as if I’d shot off his tail. The wheels shifted, and the cart clipped the beast in the rear. That ox might have been a hundred years old, but it clicked its heels together and began to race down the road. With the front of the cart pressing into his hindquarters and the creature’s heels rapping it with every step he took, it was no wonder the cart slipped a wheel.

Once the wheel had come off, it was soon enough that the harness slid from the ox’s back and the cart continued down the hill on its own for a few moments. But then a freed shaft became impaled in the dirt, and the cart spun itself sideways.

The coffin, jarred by the motion, slid out and took to the air like a bird. Its flight came to an abrupt halt as one end hit against a stone. But even then, it catapulted end over end into the air before finally coming down, somewhere unseen, with a crash.

And a splinter.

“
Merde
.” Alexandre had gone pale, his hands clasped over his head.

I would have chosen a more descriptive, more particular word. The cart had come apart, the coffin had gone over the hill, and who knew how we were going to get that body to Signy-sur-vaux now?

The ox was standing down the hill near the turn, looking up at us, the lazy creature. I left Alexandre where he was and ran across the rocks toward the coffin, my boots sliding over the gravel.

As I was slipping down the hillside, he finally started after me, and in the end, it was he who reached the coffin first.

But once he reached it, he stopped. When I got there, I could see why he wasn’t moving. The lid had levered off, and the body had come out. The stench was horrendous. Birds had settled on the corpse, and they were already pecking at his throat. One of them had begun to pluck a packet away from the man’s coat.

“
Vas-y! Allez—ouste!
” I ran at them, waving my hands.

They rose with an indolent flapping of their wings, dropping the packet as they went.

I bent and took it up. It seemed to be sprouting string. I held it out so Alexandre could see it.

“Put it down.”

I was going to, but whatever was inside slid out. I dropped the packet and reached to catch the contents with my other hand. It was…a length of…lace. And it was exquisite. I flattened my hands as completely as I could, holding out that offering toward him, unwilling that I should contaminate it. “It’s…lace.”

He said nothing, though he took it from me, picked up the packet, and tucked it back inside.

“What would a dead man want with lace?”

He just stood there, looking not at his cousin, but at me. Then he threw the packet back into the coffin. Gestured for me to take the body’s legs while he reached for its arms. Once we’d returned the body to the coffin, he bent to pick up one of the boards for the top.

I picked up the other.

Lace.

What was it about lace? What made it so important that people would smuggle it? For that matter, what made it so important the King himself would forbid its import? It seemed a lot of trouble for such a flimsy thing. But more than that, what did its presence mean? That had been quite a bit of lace. Quite a bit more than any dead man would need.

I beat the nails back into place with the butt of my musket and then, each of us taking an end, we carried the coffin back up the hill. We left it on the road while Alexandre went to the fetch the ox and I retrieved the pieces of the cart.

Some of the boards on the floor had broken off, but if the coffin were placed at an angle, and if the ox didn’t make any more sudden movements, I thought it might just reach Signy without any more trouble.

Alexandre arranged the floorboards and then harnessed the ox to the cart.

There was just one thing I wanted to know. “Why did you do it?”

He slapped the ox on the shoulder to get him moving. Looked over at me. There was no surprise in his eyes, though I had expected there would be. “Do what?”

“Why did you smuggle the lace?”

“I already told you. For honor’s sake.”

“But—it’s dishonorable. And now I’ll have to have you arrested when we reach the next village.” At least I’d be able to prove to the lieutenant and everyone else I was worthy of my uniform now.

The ox was pulling the cart down the road without us. Alexandre jogged a few steps to catch up. “You don’t have to.”

Don’t have to? “It’s my job.” Or it was, in any case.

“But who will know any different? Whether you do or whether you don’t?”

I ran to catch up with the both of them. “
I
will!”

“But what does it matter? Truly?”

“What does it matter?”

“Whom does it hurt?”

“Whom does it hurt?!” Whom did it hurt? It hurt the King. It hurt the border officers. And most of all, it hurt me. I had thought he was my friend. I swung my musket from my shoulder, grabbed a cartridge from my bag, and tore off the top of it.

“Put the gun down.”

“
Non!
” I poured some of the powder into the priming pan and then poured the rest of it down the barrel.

Alexandre was still walking down the road with the ox and the cart.

I dropped a ball and the cartridge paper into the barrel. Tried to pull out the ramrod. It stuck.

“You don’t need to—”

“Stay back!”

I freed the ramrod, tamped the ball, and leveled the musket. Drawing the cock back, as I pressed my cheek against the stock, I knew in that instant I would shoot. If I had to shoot him, I would do it. The shock of that realization nearly made me drop the gun. “Stop. Right now!”

The dog beside him snarled.

He put a hand to the ox and moved so the cart was between us. “Whom will it hurt if you let me go?”

“Whom will it hurt?” What did he mean? What did he mean whom would it hurt? Why did it matter whom it would hurt? I tightened my grip on the gun.

“What will happen if you don’t arrest me?”

“I—what do you mean?” His form had begun to waver above the barrel of my musket.

“If you don’t arrest me, what happens is I will go on my way, and you will go on yours, and no one will ever be the wiser.”

“Except for you and me.”

“You will know, and I will know. But does that really harm anyone?”

“It harms the King. You shouldn’t have done it.”

“
Non.
I should not have. But will the King care if it doesn’t get confiscated? Will he even know? What do you think happens to lace like this? You must know that even if you turned it in, it would never reach His Majesty.”

“I…I don’t—” Suddenly the memory of a frill of lace at the lieutenant’s cuffs filled my head, and a remembered conversation echoed in my memory.
Do
you
know
how
old
this
lace
is? Six months old. And do you know why? It’s because you haven’t brought me any that’s newer!
Alexandre was right: It would never reach the King.

“The King doesn’t care. But the one who rescued me will. If you arrest me, it will mean his complete and utter destruction. And his daughter’s, as well.”

His daughter: a girl. Girls were such a mystery. A complete and utter riddle with no sense whatsoever. Thinking of girls made me think of Cecille and the way she hadn’t taken that flower from me. Why hadn’t she taken it? “A girl shouldn’t be ruined.”

“
Non
.”

“So if I let you go, you can rescue her. But…then who will save me?”

He blinked. “You?”

“Who will save me from my dishonor? In letting you go?”

“I already did. I saved your life. You said so yourself.”

“I’m not talking about my life.” I was talking about…I was talking about my soul. Who would save my soul? If I didn’t arrest him, then what kind of person would I be? “Who will save me?” I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t know what to do!

Alexandre approached, hands raised. “Put the gun down. You have no need of saving. You will have done a favor for a pitiful and quite undeserving man. It would be to your credit, not your dishonor, if you failed to arrest me.”

To my credit? I couldn’t quite keep up with his reasoning. “I’ll shoot you if I have to.”

“I know you will.”

“You—but how do you know?”

“You’re a soldier, aren’t you?”

Was I? Truly?

Now I understood everything. The lieutenant had thought I had no imagination, but he was wrong. Now I could imagine anyone could be a smuggler, just as anyone could be a soldier. A person didn’t have to be wicked to disregard the law, and a person didn’t have to wear a uniform to shoot someone. If I had this man arrested and confiscated his lace, then I imagined I would become just like the lieutenant. The lieutenant who had kicked a crutch away from a cripple and left an old woman sprawled in the mud. If I returned with this man to the border, I could imagine exactly what would happen. The lace would end up adorning the lieutenant’s own wrists. And how would that be right? That the cruel should be rewarded and the poor mocked?

Coffins and uniforms.

Guns and lace.

What did it all mean?

I felt as if all knowledge had passed away. As if everything I had once known had been proved to be false. But if that were the case, then what was true?

Anyone might do anything all. Perhaps…perhaps this whole journey was a sign. Perhaps I had never been meant to leave Signy-sur-vaux. Much as I had wanted to leave, destiny had conspired to bring me back. I may not have been as good a baker as my father, but fate had proved I was much less of a soldier.

“Are you…going to put down your gun?”

“Oh.
Oui.
” It had grown so heavy. Too heavy to carry. I might have left it right there on the ground if it had been my own. But it was not mine; it belonged to the King. I tucked it under my arm with sweat-slicked hands.

“Are you well?”

Was I what? “Pardon?”

“Are you well?”

Well? What did it matter if I was well? I could shoot someone. I knew now I could. But I had just discovered I didn’t want to. If I wasn’t meant to be a soldier, then what was I meant to be?

Alexandre patted my forearm, pulled the ox into a walk, and together we started around the corner. Here, the road leveled out and widened. “Perhaps you can tell me when we get to Signy-sur-vaux, where Father Lemaire lives.”

I glanced behind me at the coffin. “We are not so very big a village. We have only one church. But…does that man even belong in Signy?”

“No.”

That thought bothered me less than I might have expected. “Do you know who he is?”

“He’s an evil man who happened to die at just the right moment. It’s probably the only decent thing he ever did.”

A dead man needed a cemetery. “When we get there, I will show you the church.” And then I would forget I had ever met Alexandre or seen his coffin. As we walked along, I pondered my newfound knowledge.

I had turned into a soldier; I could shoot someone. But I had also committed treason. I had let a man go free when I had every right to arrest him.

I had done the right thing: I had done the wrong thing. But the right thing seemed so wrong, and the wrong thing had felt so right. There was no wide chasm between yes and no, between right and wrong. There was just a wide, vast plain, and I did not know how I could live there, in the middle of it, without the absolute certainty offered by either side. It was so much easier when I had thought right and wrong were two separate countries. That there was some warning, some point when one crossed from one to the other.