where is our difficulty? There is no impediment in the way of the bequest.”
Le Picart frowned at Damiot but said nothing. Charles could almost see his thoughts moving behind his eyes.
“Maitre du Luc,” the rector said, “you know Monsieur Callot. I want you to go back to him tomorrow morning-and go alone; I don’t want word of this getting out yet. For the sake of absolute certainty, find out the name of this deceased Anne Mynette’s father and whether she had a Jesuit uncle. Then find out when this alleged donation was made. When I am certain of those facts, I will confront our elusive notary Henri Brion.”
“Exactly,” Damiot said, nodding vigorously. “Alleged is exactly the word! Do we really believe that the Chatelet clerks are so careless as to lose a donation entre vifs?”
“I believe they are all too human, Pere Damiot.” The rector fixed him with a hard gray stare. “Like all of us. Are you saying we should simply disregard this Mynette girl and her claim? Assuming she can substantiate it. Are you so eager to be done with bean pottage that you would not choke on fraud? Until we know whether there was a donation-and if there was, that it is truly lost-we will do nothing.”
“No, mon pere, but if-”
“We will not defraud the girl, don’t even think it. More than that, don’t tempt me to it!” The rector rubbed a hand over his face. “Because God knows, the money means a great deal to us. A dozen more scholarships for promising boys from poor families. Finishing repairs to the old college of Les Cholets building we’ve bought for more classrooms. A doubled alms budget for the student Congregations of the Sainte Vierge. And, yes, we would eat less bean pottage. And if this money does not come to us, not only will those things not happen, the figures in the bursar’s ledger will force me to raise rents on houses we own. And the tenants cannot afford it.” Le Picart looked grimly at Charles. “Report to me the moment you return tomorrow.” Then his face softened a little and he said, “I wish this happy evening had ended more cheerfully. I thank you both again for the pleasure you gave to us.” He gave Damiot the ghost of a smile. “I should tell you that I, too, loathe bean pottage.”
Chapter 4
ST. JOHN THE EVANGELIST’S DAY, FRIDAY, DECEMBER 27
Charles went early to the Place Maubert, walking through skiffs of snow fallen in the night and under a lowering sky that promised more. Turning off the rue St. Jacques, he just managed to dodge a vinegar seller pushing his low, single-wheeled handcart to a house door, where a pretty young servant waited with her wicker- wrapped jug. As the curly-haired vendor took her jug to fill from his spigoted barrel, she dimpled and spoke teasingly to him, and he laughed and teased her back.
The hair straying from under her starched white coif was nearly as fair as Martine Mynette’s. Charles hoped fervently that Martine Mynette would find her donation. Or that she could at least prove that she was a legitimately born orphan. He wondered why her adopted mother had never married and had children of her own. A woman with family wealth would almost certainly have had marriage offers, unless there was something direly wrong with her. How could her father have been so sure that she wouldn’t marry after his death? If she had, and had borne children, his promise to the Jesuits would have been meaningless. By law, no one could will a patrimoine away from blood relatives.
But Anne Mynette hadn’t married. So now, if her adopted daughter’s donation wasn’t found, and the girl went on refusing the Brion son, her guardian could make life difficult indeed for her. Without the donation, even entering a convent would be difficult for her, since most convents required dowries. And even with a dowry, the better ones wouldn’t have her at all unless she could prove that she’d been orphaned, not abandoned. The chance of a gently reared girl like Martine descending to the shame of domestic service was unthinkable. Charles had awakened in the night worrying about her. Something about the girl’s aloneness touched an answering aloneness in himself. Though his own present loneliness came from his own choice not to marry and have children, it companioned him these days like a sad ghost. Not that he was alone in the world-he had legions of Jesuit brothers and also living blood relatives: his mother, sisters, a brother, and more cousins than he could count.
His cousin Pernelle, in Geneva, haunted too many of his restless nights. Most du Lucs were Catholic, but Pernelle, his second cousin and first love, was a Huguenot. The king’s recent decree making Huguenots outlaws had unleashed havoc all over France, and last summer, against the laws of king and church, Charles had helped Pernelle escape the king’s soldiers. Charles took his faith and his Jesuit vows very seriously. But blood was blood, and even more than that, he believed with all his heart that the beginning and end of God was love. Which made cruelty in the name of religion the worst kind of blasphemy. But helping Pernelle had rekindled both his old love for her and his vocational doubts.
At the end of the summer, he’d made an eight-day retreat with other Jesuit scholastics, and at the end of it he had renewed his first-level vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience, publicly reaffirming his vocation. The autumn had been a time of willing penance for the vows he had broken. It had also been a time full of the grieving that comes with deep choice. It was grief without the scourge of regret, thank God; but nonetheless, Martine Mynette touched the sorest place in his heart.
As Charles started across the bustling Place Maubert to the rue Perdue, he saw a small crowd gathered outside the open gates of the Sign of the Rose. He stopped and stared, and then broke into a run.
“What’s happened?” he asked urgently of the first person he reached.
The man, a baker by his apron and baglike cap, turned, his mouth open to answer, but when he saw Charles, his mouth closed with a snap and he turned away. A woman next to him glared at Charles.
“Listen to that one,” she muttered to her neighbor. “Pretending he doesn’t know what’s happened, but that’s them all over. Hypocrites, all of them.”
Charles, pushing through the crowd into the court, hardly heard her. An aproned apprentice took his arm. “Don’t pay attention to them,” he said in Charles’s ear. “The commissaire just went in-that’s all anyone knows.”
Charles nodded and made his way to the house door, which stood open, and was inside, staring at what lay on the antechamber floor, before the sergent standing guard could stop him.
“Here, mon pere,” the sergent growled, “stay out, there’s been murder here!”
Then he saw the stricken look on Charles’s face and stepped aside. Like someone in an evil dream, Charles crossed the antechamber to the foot of the stone staircase. Martine Mynette’s face was turned away, her silvergilt hair spilling from its little black coif. The blood from the wound in her neck hardly showed on her black gown. But blood stood in pools on the stone-tiled floor around her. A weeping woman knelt beside Martine. A hand gripped Charles’s shoulder, and Charles pulled roughly away, thinking it was the sergent.
“Pray for her, maitre,” M. Callot quavered. He was as sober as a gravestone, but he reached for Charles’s arm as though he might fall. “Pray for all of us. Who would do this to little Martine?”
Charles, beyond speech, shook his head.
Callot tightened his grip. “Pray, maitre!”
From somewhere, Charles dredged up the opening words of the prayers for the dead, and Callot joined him. When they finished the familiar, steadying words, Charles’s brain was working again. He realized that the weeping woman kneeling beside Martine was Isabel Brion.
“Did you and Mademoiselle Brion find Mademoiselle Mynette’s body?” Charles asked.
“We came to see how she was, after being so upset yesterday. The girls still hadn’t found Martine’s paper, of course. Nor did my lazy, useless nephew, so far as I know-I haven’t seen him yet today, he’s probably still sleeping. And when I get my hands on him-dear Blessed Virgin, if I’d known what was happening here-no servants but a kitchen boy and that drunken maid. I tell you, Henri is as guilty of her death as anyone, the miser! If she’d been properly looked after, this wouldn’t have happened, how could it? If Martine had only told us how things were, we would have taken her in. But as you heard, she didn’t want to come to us because of Gilles. I see now that Henri let this household fall apart to try to force her to come and live with us. Because he didn’t want to spend any of the Mynette money on this house and its servants!” The old man was shaking with fury. “And the servants certainly knew the donation was missing.” He sighed. “In fairness to my unspeakable nephew, I should have known they’d start leaving as soon as they heard that. What can you expect-they knew they’d be out on the street soon enough if the paper wasn’t found, so they went looking for more secure places.” Callot shook his head and breathed hard to
