Knepper answer the question I had never asked:
“There’s no need to hide anything from a dead man.”
Mathilde’s Foot
Von Knepper seemed a little embarrassed by the chain of betrayals that would lead to my death.
“My daughter told me about you and your visit to the cemetery. Don’t blame her; she wanted me to know she’d gone out, that she could lead a normal life. The poor thing has been so cloistered in our world, she believes these nightly forays are normal. When I found out, I told Abbot Mazy of your recent actions. They don’t know your name, but they know to look for one of Clarissa’s suitors. Why get you killed? That wouldn’t make me happy.”
“What can I do to save myself?”
“Leave Paris and my daughter. It’s love that causes her condition. I have to protect her from love.”
“That’s impossible. I can go, but someone else will come along, or Clarissa will decide to live her own life.”
“Anything could happen. My profession has taught me a lesson in humility: even the most perfect machines fail, and mechanisms that seem infallible stop working for no apparent reason. No one has yet invented
“Let me see her one last time.”
“Last times never accomplish anything.”
“I want to tell her that if I go, it’s not of my own free will.”
“She knows. Clarissa knows why you’re fleeing. I’ve told her about your colleague, the abbot’s calligrapher. Although that might not be such a bad end: your blood could become his ink.”
“That’s just part of the legend around Silas Darel.”
“I saw it with my own eyes: the mute calligrapher, the thick book, the red ink. Your name and mine are written there, as well as everything we do, maybe even what we’re saying now.”
With a wave of his hand, Von Knepper threw me out of his study and his world. He hurried to slide the bolts shut, as if locking me in a prison made of cities and countries and continents.
I left the house wondering just how grave the danger was. It was a restless night, every sound heralding the abbot’s men coming for me. The next morning I set out for Siccard House to collect my pay and thus have the means to leave Paris. I walked hand in hand with fear: I would look from side to side and see a foe in every face. It didn’t have to be a uniform or a cassock to scare me; an old woman’s glance out of the corner of her eye, a hungry dog following on my heels, a boy waving a wooden sword was enough.
Several customers were waiting for their merchandise at Siccard House: an usher, the legal sheets bearing the watermark of blind justice; a priest, a sheaf of parchment; a musician, staff paper tied with blue ribbon. The trafficking of messenger women had served as veiled publicity for the legal, public face of young Siccard’s business. I ran into him on the second floor, always industrious and in a hurry, as if fearing his dead father might suddenly appear and demand to see the balance sheet. He asked me about Dussel, but I had nothing to tell him. Dussel and I never spoke; he rushed home after work every day, though no one was ever waiting for him in his rented room. Before heading into the office at the end of the hall, where Juliette was waiting for me, I asked Siccard for the last few days’ pay.
“Can’t you wait until next week?”
“No. I have an urgent expense.”
“What about tomorrow?”
“It has to be today. The shop downstairs is full of customers. One of them will pay in cash.”
We were repeating a little scene that dated back to the start of the business itself, long before he was born. Young Siccard always paid, but he felt morally obliged to resist a little. That’s what his father had done for decades. Aristide walked away with his head bowed, as if he’d been hurt by my words. I went into the last office, said hello to the messenger, and was starting to prepare my inks when Juliette interrupted me.
“The message is for you today.”
She undressed with professional leisureliness. I began by looking for the signature and found the initial
I never did read the final lines. There was banging on the adjacent door and the sound of splintering wood, then Siccard’s scream, or rather his moan, because he tried to scream but couldn’t. I went out into the hall, and Dussel came charging at me, his shirt stiff with dried blood. I thought he’d been hurt and tried to stop him, but he broke free of my grasp and ran toward the stairs. That was the last time I saw him; as usual, he was rushing nowhere.
I looked into the office, impelled by the curiosity that arrives before fear. Siccard had knelt down in front of Mathilde’s dead body. Her throat had been slit. For a moment it seemed as if she were covered in ants; tiny letters filled every inch of white skin, including her lips and eyelids, even the spiral of her ears. Customers were coming up the stairs, drawn by the screams and the blood.
Under normal circumstances I would have fallen to my knees, but terror had numbed me to pain or surprise. If I wanted to escape the abbot’s men, I would have to leave before the police arrived to interrogate the employees- those on and off the books. Siccard was still holding the bills he had set aside for me. Wordlessly, I tore them from his grasp. He accepted without protest, as if his hands were no longer his own.
Before I set off running, I covered Mathilde’s body with a blanket. Only the sole of her foot was left bare. Siccard took it in his hands and gently turned it from side to side, as if afraid he might break it. Then, in a quiet voice, for all of us who were there (for the others who had suddenly fallen silent, as well as for me as I made my way out), he read the final lines from the Book of Revelation.
Flight
I had the money in my hands, and I would leave Paris as soon as I gathered my things. Apart from losing my pursuers, I needed distance from Siccard House. As big as Paris may have been, Mathilde’s body lay in the office right next door.
I went to my uncle’s and began to prepare my inks, making sure the tops were secure so as not to stain my clothes or worse. Hearing footsteps on the stairs, I thought it must be marechal Dalessius, invigorated by the news of my imminent departure. While arrivals make some people happy, my uncle liked only departures. Then I heard the sound of keys, like bells announcing a funeral, and grew uneasy.
The giant figure of Signac filled the doorway. Even when he stood still, his keys continued to jangle, shaken by his breath or the beating of his heart. Behind him was another of the abbot’s men, as tall and thin as the dagger he was now drawing from its sheath.
Neither one bothered to beat me or threaten me. All they did was ask who had sent me. I didn’t say a word: instinct says that if we can only stay quiet enough, we’ll be forgotten in a corner. But the dagger remembered and timidly approached my neck. I knew silence was much less dangerous than the truth: they would slit my throat the minute I opened my mouth. All they were waiting for was a word, a name, a signature at the bottom of the document spelled out by my actions.
I coughed, pretending to try and find my voice, and signaled that I wanted a quill and ink. They understood my terrified gestures and were calmed, assuming that anyone willing to write would have to forego babbling and lies. I chose a purple bottle that smelled of mandrake. In his book on the power of plants, Paracelsus asserted that touching a word freshly written in this ink would kill you. According to him, some words were more susceptible to the venom than others. Instead of words, I chose punctuation: I plunged my quill into the liquid and full stop into the neck of my nearest foe.
The pain was so fierce that as he brought his hands to the wound, he cut himself with his own dagger; the thirsty metal was finally satiated. Signac lunged at me, brandishing two sharp keys, but missed. The weight of his
