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.”
“Yes, mon pere.”
Charles and La Reynie bowed and turned to leave. Before the door shut behind them, though, the rector called Charles back.
“I say this only to you, but I think you will want to know. It was one of our own from Louis Le Grand who spoke carelessly, outside the college, about the Mynette patrimoine coming to us.”
Charles remembered his first walk to the Place with the dour Maitre Richaud and the gossip Richaud had heard in the chandler’s workshop. “And this Jesuit talked about the patrimoine?”
“Yes. But that is all that needs to be said. The rest is not your business.”
The “rest” meaning consequences, including penance. You should order him to go and see a comedy every day, Charles thought irreverently, remembering Richaud’s dislike of laughter.
“Before you go to the Couche,” Le Picart said briskly, “take food to the cave. And blankets.”
Charles bent his head in acquiescence.
“And Maitre du Luc?”
Charles looked up.
“My thanks to you. You have done well what I ordered you to do.” He gave Charles a small, wintry smile. “When I gave you this task, I said that a Jesuit’s obedience should be his superior’s supporting staff. You have upheld me, and also Louis le Grand.”
Charles felt himself flushing with pleasure at the unexpected thanks. Jesuit obedience-no matter how hard he himself found it-was regarded as simply a given, not an occasion for thanks. “I only wish I could have prevented this morning’s death,” he said.
“I wish so, too. But that death and its sin are not yours to carry.” Le Picart’s smile reached his cool gray eyes this time. “What would be the point of growing in obedience only to fall into overscrupulosity?”
Charles found himself smiling, too, and remembering the Christmas Farce of Monks. If the end of a scholastic was to be kicked, the frequent function of a superior was to douse the scholastic with cold water for the good of his soul. “Point taken, mon pere.”
Charles collected blankets from the central store of bedding, and soup and bread from the kitchen. With some difficulty, he made his way back into the Les Cholets courtyard and down to the cellar. Nothing had changed. Reine still held Marin’s body on her lap, and Jean was still tossing and shivering with fever. Charles gently unwrapped his cloak from the boy and wrapped him instead in layers of blankets. He put another blanket around Reine’s shoulders and set the soup and bread beside her.
“Where is Richard?” Charles asked, seeing that the beggar was gone.
“He went to tell the others not to return tonight.”
“Where will they stay?”
“There are other places.”
The sound of voices and footsteps announced La Reynie, followed by two sergents with a litter. Reine gathered Marin to her and kissed him.
“Good-bye, mon coeur, my heart, my life.” She looked up at La Reynie, her eyes full of pleading. “Treat him gently, Nicolas,” she whispered.
“You know I will.” He called the two men forward with a look. “You will do this as though for your fathers,” he said curtly, and stepped aside.
Obviously bewildered by so much care for a filthy beggar, but just as obviously flinching from the steel in La Reynie’s voice, his men placed Marin on the litter with the care they might have given a marquis. They covered him with the blanket they’d brought, bowed to La Reynie, and bore the litter away to the Chatelet’s mortuary chapel.
As their footsteps died away, Richard emerged from the passage and sat down beside Reine. “I will take care of her, Monsieur La Reynie.”
