Fiennes bowed. “Enchante, mon pere.”
“The pleasure is mine, Monsieur Fiennes. But I am only maitre. Maitre Charles du Luc. Our Jesuit formation is long, and I am still a scholastic.”
“I hope I will be as faithful in my own vocation.” The young man’s smile was sweet. “I am Aubin d’Auteuil de Fiennes, but Monsieur Fiennes is enough name to call me by.”
“You do me honor. But after what I have seen tonight, my choice seems a far easier one than yours.”
“God puts us where our souls need to be,” Fiennes said with a little shrug, as though murderous fire, bare boards, scant food, and wicked cold were things of no account.
Charles studied the boy. “Will you speak with me for a moment, Monsieur Fiennes?”
“With pleasure.” The youth looked back at the fire with a sigh. “At least the wind has died and it will not spread. Thank God the house stands by itself. There is not much more we can do. It is so often like that. If only God would show us some better way to fight fire.” Fiennes looked down at his feet. “Shall we move farther away? The water is nearly over our shoes.”
Charles’s cloak and cassock were wet against his back, and his shoes squelched audibly as he went with the young man toward a townhouse where a knot of servants clustered beside the lantern-lit gate.
“You seem to know something about fires,” Charles said, as they made their way into the courtyard.
“With God’s help, I am going to be a Capuchin, and Capuchins are the firefighters of Paris. But I hear from your accent that you are not Parisian, so perhaps you didn’t know.”
“I did, but I had never seen them at it. I am much impressed by their bravery and effort.”
“They impress devotion on my heart in every way. Please come inside, maitre, you are welcome.”
Inside the townhouse, a maid took them to a small salon where fire, reduced to the role of good servant, crackled welcomingly in the fireplace. A basin of warmed water and towels were brought, and when they had cleaned their soot-blackened faces and hands, Fiennes bade Charles sit beside the fire and served him wine and cakes from a side table. Charles looked at the salon’s sumptuous carpets and tapestry, at the rich red wine in his gold-veined Venetian glass, at the upholstered chairs fringed with gold. He, too, had given up some comfort, but nothing compared to what Fiennes was about to leave. Yet seeing him in the light, Charles realized that this son of wealth was dressed very differently from Gilles Brion, with his frothing lace and up-tothe-minute suit. Fiennes’s coat and breeches were of plain, even rough, brown wool, with only a glimpse of coarse white linen at the throat and wrists.
Charles ate and drank gratefully, but also guiltily. If Fiennes was who Charles thought he must be, then God- or Michaut-or the fire-or all three together-had delivered him into Charles’s hands. And what Charles needed to ask was not going to be easy.
But he was wrong. The youth was so radiantly happy that nothing seemed to trouble him.
“Yes, maitre,” he said simply, in response to Charles’s question, “Gilles Brion is my dear friend. Dearer than life itself to me.” His soft brown eyes were the most guileless Charles had ever seen. “I pray for him day and night. I have gone to the Chatelet, but the guards will not let me see him. He has done no murder, of that I am certain. Why God has put him into prison, I cannot understand.”
“I think you may be able to help get him out, if you will answer what I have to ask.”
“I will.”
“Monsieur Henri Brion was killed early on the Friday morning after the Nativity. And Pere Michaut says that on Thursday night, Gilles Brion was a guest at the Capuchin monastery.”
“Yes.”
“Did he come to this house during that night?”
Fiennes looked down. “Yes.” He looked up again, and Charles was disconcerted to see his smile.
“How long did he stay with you?”
“He came just after Compline and he stayed until an hour or a little less before Prime. He left me then to go and do something we’d been praying about during the night.”
“What was that?” Though Charles thought he knew, he wanted to be sure.
“We prayed that the young woman his father was forcing on him would agree to tell Monsieur Brion that she would not marry Gilles.”
“And how long was he gone on this errand?”
“Perhaps three-quarters of an hour. It was still dark when I met him in the Capuchin church for Prime. We were there well before the Prime bell, so no one knew that Gilles had left the monastery.”
Whether or not Pere Michaut knew that Gilles had been out on that particular night, it was clear to Charles that the Capuchin superior was aware of the pair’s mutual devotion. Though whatever doubts it may have given him about Brion, he seemed to have none about Fiennes. If only Gilles had not left Fiennes to go and plead with Martine. Because that three-quarters of an hour’s absence was plenty of time to do murder. To do both murders, in fact, since Henri Brion’s body had been found so near the Mynette house. And Fiennes’s story also confirmed Gilles’s presence at the Mynette house that morning. Still, though Gilles Brion seemed weak and self-regarding, he was not mad. Charles could not believe that he could pray all night with Fiennes, leave to go murder two people, and then return to Prime as though nothing had happened.
“How did Gilles seem when you joined him for Prime?”
Fiennes sighed. “Very upset. His errand had not sped. In spite of all our prayers.”
Very upset. A detail that would not help convince La Reynie that Gilles had done nothing but talk at Martine’s house. Charles was staking everything on the hope that La Reynie would be swayed by Fiennes’s guileless innocence and demeanor. “Is there anyone here in your house who saw Gilles Brion come and go?” Charles said. “And could swear to the times?”
“Oh, yes.”
“Who?” Charles asked skeptically. It was not the answer he had expected.
“My mother’s maid. She has been here for years and knows all about Gilles; she lets him in when he comes. And she’s a very early riser and opened the door for him when he left to go across the river.”
Charles blinked. “Well, what you’ve told me may help your friend. But if you agree to also tell the police, you will be risking hard questions about your connection to Monsieur Brion.”
“There is nothing wrong in our connection, Maitre du Luc. We love each other, yes. We consider ourselves spiritual brothers. Gilles has been tempted to a baser connection with me. But I have persuaded him that it would be grave sin. Now he wants only for us to be near one another and be truly brothers, Capuchin brothers, serving God together. We have nothing to hide.”
“Still, it may not be easy to convince the police of that. They may well be merciless in asking what you did that night.”
Fiennes’s face shone. “We prayed for Gilles. And talked about God. What else would we do?”
Charles found himself speechless and rebuked. The young man’s words rang with truth. He only hoped La Reynie would hear what he heard, and that it would weigh against that damning three-quarters of an hour’s absence. “Will you go to the Chatelet with me when it’s light? If we can get through the snow.”
Fiennes jumped up and went to a window. “It’s not snowing anymore. Though the snow is deep. I will ask my father for horses.”
“Thank you, monsieur. The sooner we get there, the better.” Charles was hoping that Gilles Brion’s long, dark night in the prison had been no more than lonely and uncomfortable, hoping that La Reynie was still holding out against Louvois.
Chapter 22
ST. GENEVIEVE’S DAY, FRIDAY, JANUARY 3
Without the horses, they would never have made it to the Chatelet. Even with them, a ride that should have taken a few minutes took nearly an hour. People wrapped in coats, cloaks, and shawls were wielding brooms and shovels to clear drifted snow from doors, gates, church porches, and streets. It was the Feast of St. Genevieve, the patron saint of Paris, a day full of processions through the city, coiling lines of laymen and clergy chanting and carrying relics and candles. Today, though, the saint’s processions were going to be late beginning, because in most
