The Whispering of Bones (22 page)

He went back to the corner of the ribbon booth. She was still there, but farther along the path now, looking at something to her left instead of at the booths and their piles of apples and onions. Charles followed her gaze. And found himself looking at Amaury de Corbet, who was carrying a deep basket and standing with lowered eyes behind an older Jesuit. Charles frowned and looked beyond Amaury, thinking that the young woman must be looking at something else. But when Amaury and the other Jesuit—the Novice House provisioner, Charles guessed—went to another booth, she followed them. When they stopped, she stopped. Charles's thoughts tumbled over each other as he tried to rearrange his assumptions. Until what sounded like a goose hissed at him and he jumped.

It wasn't a goose, but a woman, the ribbon seller whose booth he was hiding behind. “Who are you spying on, Jesuit?” she spat, leaning over the booth's side.

“Not spying,” he said vaguely, watching Mlle Ebrard. “Well, actually, yes, but—”

The woman leaned farther toward him. “Get away from here!”

Mlle Ebrard suddenly moved and Charles went after her, absently signing a blessing at the startled ribbon seller.

At the abbey's wall, the pathway turned sharply right beneath tall, ancient lime trees overhanging a short stretch of the wall. On either side of the path were smaller stalls and goods spread on the ground. Trying to stay in the trees' shadow, Charles kept the girl and the two Jesuits in sight. Then the provisioner stopped before a woman selling a rainbow of different-colored apples and pears, with Amaury behind him, his eyes still modestly on the ground as befitted a novice. Standing at a tallow chandler's booth near Charles, Mlle Ebrard watched the novice as intensely as an animal about to spring. Charles moved a little to see more of her face. Its longing abruptly enlightened him and made him catch his breath. He wondered if Amaury could possibly be unaware of her burning gaze. Or if, perhaps, he was all too aware and his stillness was meant to be his armor. Even as other people in the market turned to watch a shouting group of men chasing a fleet-footed pickpocket, Amaury went on staring at the ground, lips moving as he prayed or recited Scripture, just as novices were supposed to do when sent to carry burdens at the market.

Charles didn't see what more Rose Ebrard could do, unless she was willing to draw the anger of the provisioner and make trouble for Amaury. Whatever was going on here, Charles didn't want that kind of trouble for either of them. And he had his own grim questions for Mlle Ebrard. But as he started toward her, the provisioner turned to put his purchases into Amaury's basket and saw Charles, whom he recognized from the Novice House.

“Maître!”
The provisioner smiled eagerly and beckoned Charles to him.

Amaury de Corbet, hearing the Jesuit title of
maître
, looked up. He gave Charles a slight and surprised smile. Then he saw Mlle Ebrard, and his eyes widened to fill half his face. The provisioner saw nothing, too busy asking Charles in discreet Latin about the murder of Paul Lunel. Charles feigned avid response, willing to turn handsprings if it would keep the provisioner from noticing his novice. Because now Amaury was looking at Rose Ebrard the same way she was looking at him.

Charles fell back on what his mother called his talent for talking the horns off a brass goat. In likewise discreet Latin, he spoke in lengthy rhetorical flourishes, all the while shifting his position and forcing the other man to shift with him until the provisioner's back was turned to Amaury. Still talking, Charles saw out of the corner of his eye that Mlle Ebrard had moved face-to-face with Amaury and was talking even faster than Charles.

Charles realized almost too late that the provisioner was about to take his leave and that when he turned, he would be looking straight at his novice, who was now listening to Rose Ebrard as though she were the only being in the world. Charles twitched his leather satchel off his shoulder, twitched it again as it fell, caught his quill case as it fell out, and closed his hand around it. Everything else spilled onto the ground around the provisioner's feet.

“Oh,
mon père
, I am so sorry, forgive me!” Charles cried, exclaiming and fussing and deploring his clumsiness as he bent and tossed the quill case hard at Amaury's feet. The startled novice bent to pick it up, as Charles knew he would, since novices learned very quickly to retrieve anything that fell to the ground. Amaury picked up the case and carefully dusted it off, and the provisioner anxiously smoothed a wrinkled page in the copy of St. Augustine Charles had forgotten to take out of his satchel. Charles darted quickly aside, as though picking up something else that had fallen, and said under his breath to Mlle Ebrard, “Go! Or he'll be in trouble. Wait for me beyond the market.”

She vanished into a clutch of passing housewives. Amaury, still seeming like a man in a dream, handed the quill case to Charles and looked back where she'd been. But he found only empty air and turned in bewilderment to Charles. Before the novice could speak, the provisioner bustled up to them and handed Charles the St. Augustine. With a warning look at his friend, Charles stowed the book in his satchel, thanked the provisioner, and said good-bye. He left Amaury standing as though he'd never moved, holding the basket, eyes on the ground, lips moving silently. Whatever the man's prayers had been before, Charles was sure that now they were wrung from a divided heart. And more trouble was waiting for Amaury at the Novice House. Charles hesitated, torn between going after Rose Ebrard and returning with Amaury to face the rector. But Charles's feet seemed more decisive than his head and took him purposefully out of the market toward the city wall.

C
HAPTER
18

C
harles half suspected that Mlle Rose Ebrard wouldn't wait for him. Not after what he'd seen. And she surely wouldn't wait if she was responsible for
Le Cabinet
's presence in the Novice House. But as he neared the wall, the sun finally emerged from the clouds and poured a stripe of light down the stone, and a woman's blue scarf blossomed against the gray. Relieved that she'd waited for him, Charles hurried toward her. She watched his approach unsmiling.

“Well?” she challenged him, when he reached her.

“Not well at all, I think,
mademoiselle
. From what I saw in the market.”

The fight suddenly went out of her. “No. It isn't.”

Charles looked quickly around for somewhere more private to talk. He should not be standing in the street in talk with a woman. And he didn't want this conversation overheard, which meant they could not go to the college or The Dog. But if they went anywhere else more private and were seen, that would create worse scandal. It would have to be the street, but at least the street noise would help cover what they said.

“Shall we walk,
mademoiselle
? As though I'm simply escorting you home? If you could look as though you need escorting, that would help.”

“There's much I need, but I don't need that.” But she walked docilely enough at his side and Charles stole covert glances at her set face.

“When Maître Wing and I found you in the lane by the Novice House,” he said, “were you there because of Amaury de Corbet?”

“Yes.”

“And you were talking to Michel, the Novice House servant boy, I think.”

She frowned suspiciously. “I am not obliged to answer you. You have no authority over me.”

“None at all.”

She quickened her pace, but Charles matched it. They walked in a strained silence. Except for Charles's sharp-tongued inner voice.
You have no authority over her, that's true. But you are certainly obligated to report attempts at secret communication with a novice.

Charles rolled his shoulders uneasily under his cassock.
Fifty other people saw them just now. That's hardly secret communication.

With elaborate weariness, the voice said,
Use the brain God gave you
.

Charles looked sideways at the young woman. “I think you were asking the boy about Amaury. Perhaps asking him to give Amaury a note from you? And then, when the Novice House door opened, the boy ran to keep the lay brother from seeing him talking to you. And you ran to keep Maître Wing and me from seeing you.”

The girl sighed. “All right, if you know so much already. I did write a note. But the boy never delivered it. When I saw him again, he said he'd been too afraid of losing his place there and had put the note down the latrine. I'm only telling you this,” she went on, “because Amaury has spoken of you. Many times. I almost told you the day we met at Louis le Grand, when you said your name. And yesterday, your cousin, Monsieur de Vintimille du Luc—the one whose ship Amaury served on—came to see me at The Dog.”

“Yesterday?” Charles said in mingled surprise and dismay. “I thought he'd left Paris.”

“He'd gone to the country, to my father's house—what used to be my father's house—to look for me. Someone told him where I was and he came to the shop. He wanted to know if I'd seen Amaury.”

Hoping this didn't mean that Charles-François would come back to Louis le Grand, Charles said, “I thought that you recognized my name when we met, but I couldn't imagine why. Mademoiselle, my cousin told me that Amaury had planned to marry but withdrew from the betrothal. Was he betrothed to you?”

“Yes.” She was quiet for a moment, then surprised him by saying, “Until I met you, I hated you. Since it was your being a Jesuit that started Amaury on this mistaken path of his.”

“I knew nothing about that. Until I saw him in the Novice House, I'd seen and heard nothing of him for ten years.”

“But you lived in his mind all that time. He would have gone to be a Jesuit years ago, if his father had died sooner.” Charles started to speak, but she shook her head at him. “Wait. Last Christmas, Amaury got leave from his ship and came home and asked me to marry him. We'd grown up near each other. In the country, between Paris and Vincennes.” Her eyes flashed at him. “If you're thinking I'm not worthy to match with nobility like the de Corbets, you're wrong. They have land, but little money, and my father was a well-off and respected merchant. When Amaury asked me to marry him, I thought he'd gotten over wanting to be a religious.” Her voice sank. “Gotten over the things that haunted him.”

“Things from the army?”

“Yes. But that's his story to tell if he wants to, not mine. Then his father died suddenly in early spring, and that ruined everything. Amaury came home and broke our betrothal. He confessed to me that while his father lived, he'd been afraid to disappoint him, afraid to refuse what every nobleman is supposed to do—fight and beget sons to carry on his name. He said he loved me and that he'd thought that with me, he could put aside his wanting to leave the world and turn wholeheartedly to another life. But when his father died, he'd realized he couldn't,” she finished bitterly.

Charles snorted. “Well, if he thinks being a Jesuit is leaving the world, he's an idiot.”

“He's an idiot about a lot of things. But I love him,” Mlle Ebrard said despairingly. “I'm not giving him up without a fight; you should know that. No matter what you or anyone else says. Not just because I want him, but because I know he's wrong about himself! He's trying to give his whole life up to guilt, now that his father's gone. And he still loves me; I saw that in his face just now in the market.”

“So did I,” Charles said. “So did anyone who looked at the two of you. And so would the provisioner, if I hadn't distracted him.” He looked at her curiously. “If you'd made sure the provisioner saw what was going on between you and Amaury, you could have ended his career as a novice by nightfall. Why didn't you?”

Her look was full of disdain. “You've obviously never loved anyone.”

A small rueful sound escaped Charles, and he looked away. But he felt her eyes on him as they walked.

“Forgive me,” she said softly. “I see that you have. Then you must know that I would cut off my hand rather than harm him or cause him pain!” She wiped tears away with her scarf. “I don't suppose you'll believe me, but if he really had a vocation, if God had really called him to your Jesuit life, I would die rather than stand in his way. But he doesn't have a vocation. God hasn't called him, I'm sure of it! Amaury is only hiding in your Novice House. From his guilt about what happened in the army. What kind of offering is that to God?”

Charles flinched inwardly at that echo of his cousin Charles-François's bitter accusation.
You're a coward hiding in your safe Jesuit nest.
“One may offer suffering to God,” he said.

“But is suffering a vocation? Amaury is trying to twist his ordinary devotion into a—a shroud! That's not a vocation, that's refusing God's gift of life!”

Chastened by her blunt clarity, Charles watched a pair of ravens pecking at something squashed in the street. In the Jesuit rules, there was a list of things that barred a man from becoming a Jesuit. One thing was “An intention that is not as right as it ought to be for entrance into a religious institute but is mixed with human designs.” In Amaury's case, “human designs” might well include trying to twist guilty self-hatred into Christian humility and penance. In his own case, he'd been wrestling with his army guilt, God knew. But he'd also been sure that he had a vocation to help souls—and in doing that, to come as close to God as he could. But his cousin Charles-François's visit had forced him to see how deeply he'd buried his guilt over the peasants' deaths at Cassel—and made him wonder miserably if that guilt should perhaps have disqualified him.

Charles used his elbow to fend off a maidservant's market basket full of beets and cabbages. “If your father is so well off, why are you working for your aunt here in Paris? Did you run away to be near Amaury?”

“When we met, I told you that my father had died. He was killed in August on a trip to Italy, on the route merchants used to call the Murder Road.” She sighed and hugged her cloak tightly around herself. “After my poor father died, I found out how his affairs really stood. Everyone thought he was near to being wealthy. And he had been, but then we learned that one of his two ships had gone down on the way to New France, and that he'd had other losses, some on bonds for loans he couldn't collect. There was almost nothing left for me. When my uncles met to decide what to do with me, I persuaded them to let me come to Paris and live with my widowed aunt at The Dog. They can't marry me off profitably now that I'm poor, so they didn't really care what I did.” She smiled wryly and shrugged. “My aunt is a trial, but at least I'm in Paris.”

Charles was about to ask her what she planned to do next to get Amaury back, when three grave-faced men dressed in black, the same three he'd seen in the market, stopped beside him.

They bowed and the oldest man gazed sadly at Charles. “We are Gentlemen.” He gave the word an audible capital letter. “Think, we beg you, on what you are doing. Go quickly to your confessor.” His glance brushed Rose Ebrard, who was staring openmouthed at him, and fled back to Charles. “A Jesuit must spurn women like this one. You are somewhat young—a scholastic, I suspect, and not a priest. But that cannot excuse you. Think on this. For the good of souls and Christian society.” He and his comrades bowed and paced solemnly away.

Mlle Ebrard said angrily, “Who are they? Did you hear them? ‘Women like this one' indeed!”

Charles looked after them in disgust. “They're called Gentlemen of the Professed House. That's the name for laymen from the Congregation of the Holy Virgin overseen by Jesuits who live at our Professed House. Some of these Gentlemen see themselves as everyone's moral guardians. And some of them are terrified of women.” He sighed. “Those three will go to Louis le Grand to tell my rector that I am on my way to hell in the public street for talking alone to you.”

She tossed her head and straightened her tight-fitting, orange jacket that matched her skirt. “I know that those congregations do good things. But men like that must make God blush!”

“I hope so.
Mademoiselle
—” Charles hesitated, but he had to ask. “What are you going to do now about Amaury?”

She met his question with her own. “ Are you going to warn them about me at the Novice House?”

“I don't know. Have you sent other notes to Amaury?”

“No.” Her chin went up and her mouth was a firm, tight line.

“But you'll go on fighting us for him.”

She stepped in front of Charles, forcing him to stop. “Of
course
I will go on fighting,” she said fiercely. “No matter what you and the rest of them do. And if you accuse me to them of trying to get him out of there, I'll deny everything and say that you pursued me with talk. So be warned.”

To her further anger, Charles's mouth twitched toward smiling. “Oh, I'm feeling very warned about many things,” he said. “Between those three Gentlemen and you. Please, will you walk?” He tilted his head toward two avidly watching Franciscans who had stopped near them. “It's bad strategy to let your campaign become notorious before it has to.”

“Stop laughing at me.” She turned on her heel and walked quickly ahead of him.

He caught up with her. “Mademoiselle, we may be enemies in this.”
Though I rather think we are not
, he thought, but wasn't ready to say aloud. “But there is one thing I beg you to tell me. Did you give someone at the Novice House a copy—or copies—of
Le Cabinet jesuitique
from your aunt's bookshop? Are you distributing copies of it for her?”