Pyres of the Sixth Ward Read online

  Jacques tried not to listen to the chanting of the crowds assembled on the front side of the tall stone building. When he listened, he became angry, and he'd had enough of that already for one day.

  “Captain Voulon, you have returned!” said Madamoiselle Frisé from her seat at the clerk's station. “How was your morning?” she asked, leaning forward.

  “Monsieur Francois De la Cour is dead by my hand. Please send word to the ninth ward that they should send some guards to pick him up,” Jacques replied.

  “Ah, so...” Frisé marked in the ledger. “Productive then.”

  “Indeed. It was just as we were told, the man was cheating in his duels by using this,” he said, holding the rapier up.

  Frisé cocked her head. “Appears a normal sword to me.”

  “What I thought as well until he applied a powder and used it to cut my sword in half!” Jacques said, slashing at the air with his other hand.

  “Is that why you've lost a chunk of your beard?”

  Jacques grumbled. “It's that noticeable? I shall have to have that remedied!”

  “What's that you're saying? A sword with powder upon it?” said a voice from down the hall. It was Rianne, looking resplendent in her very clean new guard uniform.

  “Yes, what of it?” Jacques replied.

  Rianne's boots clapped the boards as she marched down the hall. “Does it illuminate? Show it to me!” she said.

  “How do you know that?” he asked.

  Behind Rianne, moving far more slowly, was her partner Arnault, a portly gentleman who'd been with the Saint Germayn guard for at least two decades. It was scarcely eleven o'clock in the morning, yet Arnault already had the stooped look Jacques expected to see in the waning hours of the day. It seemed Rianne had been keeping him busy. Good. Perhaps Arnault would reconsider before any further drunken escapades.

  “Let me see it!” Rianne demanded, holding out two gloved hands.

  “Fine,” Jacques replied, handing the sword over. “Do you know anything about it?”

  “Oh! It's exquisite!” Rianne replied. “The striped pattern is more visible than I imagined!”

  Jacques nodded. “Yes I noticed that also, but do you know what it is? Where it comes from?”

  Frisé waved her hand. “Monsieur Voulon, now that you have returned there is something for you to attend to.”

  Jacques held up his hand to her. “One moment please.”

  “Of course I do!” Rianne replied. “Do you have the powder?”

  “I do.”

  “May I see it?” she asked.

  Jacques narrowed his eyes. “Why?”

  “Just do it!” Rianne said as she turned to her rotund guardian with his thick salt and pepper beard. “Arnault, give me your knife.”

  Arnault grumbled, but did hand it over.

  Jacques shrugged and produced De la Cour's snuff box from his waist coat. It was gilded with gold leaf and an inlaid design in the shape of a Yugenot cross. Opening it revealed the powder which shimmered ever so slightly in the light with a purple sheen.

  “Yes! That's it!” Rianne said as she leaned forward and took a pinch of the dark material.

  “Be careful with that!” Jacques said as the girl sprinkled a small amount of the powder over Arnault's knife.

  “See? Nothing,” she said.

  “What are you doing? I like that knife!” Arnault said.

  “They call this veil powder,” Rianne said as she sprinkled it over the rapier which began to glow with a pale blue light.

  “My God!” Arnault exclaimed. “It makes light!”

  “It does more than that!” Rianne said and flicked the rapier, slicing the blade from Arnault's knife as easily as a stick of warm butter. The liberated length of metal thumped to the floor.

  “Yes! This is exactly what he did to my sword this morning!” Jacques said.

  Arnault bent over, picking up the tip of his blade.

  Frisé chuckled. “Emasculating, isn't it?”

  Jacques also laughed, he couldn't help it.

  Arnault glared at him.

  “But Rianne, how does it work?” Jacques asked. “I thought this powder was used for firearms.”

  “Haven't you been reading the printers? It's fascinating! Some company in Valendam has discovered the process to make it.”

  “Make what?” Jacques asked.

  “Why the powder, of course. And as you know ten years ago they started making firearms, five years ago they started making these.” Rianne said, holding the sword aloft. Its blue glow illuminated an astonished looking Arnault. “This one is an earlier model I think. You can see it is already beginning to dim. Still, it must be quite valuable.”

  “Valuable eh? How much do you think?” Arnault asked.

  “Why five thousand fens at least. I am sure of it!” Rianne replied.

  “For a sword? That's ten times too much!” Arnault exclaimed.

  “A sword that can cut any steel blade in half! I'd say it's worth it.”

  “My beard would agree with you,” Jacques said.

  Frisé raised her hand. “Monsieur Voulon, you really must listen, there is something-”

  “No!” Jacques held up his hand again. “I'm sure it can wait. I must go to my office and have a cognac. My poor and innocent flask is not up to today's tumult.”

  “I will be taking this for safe keeping,” he said, carefully taking the quickly dimming rapier from Rianne as he began walking down the hall toward his office door.

  Rianne followed closely, still talking.

  “There is more! The company that created these has said that there is a byproduct of the process that does amazing things. I read a treatise on it. Apparently they are expecting to introduce something spectacular next year, an invention that will change the world.”

  Jacques shrugged, pausing at his door. “Well, we'll just have to find out about that then, won't we?”

  Behind Rianne was Arnault and a very exasperated looking Mademoiselle Frisé.

  Jacques turned the knob.

  “Wait!” Frisé yelled.

  He stepped inside, to find a girl seated on his chair, going through his desk. She looked up, startled.

  “What is the meaning of this?” Jacques asked. “Mademoiselle, please vacate my chair!”

  “I've been trying to tell you. She was sent to see you. The girl seemed very scared. So I said she could wait in your office until you returned,” Frisé said.

  “I'm sorry!” the girl said. “I was bored... I've been here all morning.”

  The girl sounded to be in her teens but was quite small for her age, likely chronic undernourishment.

  Jacques grimaced. “In your time here did you at least rummage up a clean glass for my cognac?” he asked her as he gingerly placed the rapier on a side table along with its accompanying snuff box. Then he turned back. “The rest of you can go, thank you.”

  “No Monsieur, I'm sorry. I was just looking at your pictures. Did you draw them yourself?” the girl asked.

  “No, those were drawn by my brother,” Jacques said as he inspected his stockings which had collected a great deal of mud from his roll on the turf earlier. He could only imagine what his back looked like.

  “Could he draw one for me?” the girl asked.

  “My brother is dead. Six years now. If you have something to say to me girl, say it. I'm tired and this has already been a trying day,” Jacques replied.

  The girl curtsied clumsily. “I'm very sorry monsieur. I... Well... A girl I work with told me I should contact you.”

  “Where?”

  “I'm sorry?”

  “Where do you work?”

  “I'm a maid for a merchant in Cerambon,” she replied.

  Two wards away this time. Lovely. The coachmen would have half his salary by next month. Where was that glass?

  “Does he mistreat you this merchant? Does he not pay in a timely manner? You wouldn't be the first to complain of such things, believe me. Neither of these c
an I help you with, of course,” Jacques said as he finally found a serviceable glass. He took a moment to give it a quick swipe with a rag.

  “No, Monsieur Vilchambot is quite fair. I'm lucky to have found his employ,” the girl replied.

  “Please, have a seat,” Jacques suggested, pointing at the chair opposite his desk, as he poured himself a stiff glass of cognac and sat. “So if the problem is not your employer, who is?”

  The girl looked down, as if embarrassed. “It's my brother,” she said. “My little brother, Daniel.”

  Jacques went to take a sip from the glass but thought better of it and placed it to rest upon the desk, just for a moment.

  “Go on,” he said.

  “We're starving,” she said. “Our parents died of pox three years ago. We all got it... except for Daniel, but it was our parents who didn't survive.”

  “How terrible, I'm very sorry.”

  The girl nodded, looking away. “Thank you. I make enough to pay for our room but little more.”

  “Have you not thought of going to the church?”

  “We have... I do, and they give us bread when they can but it's never enough for all four of us. They are so thin.”

  So was she actually. The girl looked like she hadn't had so much as a baguette in days.

  “Well... I may be able to help,” he said.

  The girl looked up, her brows knitted together. “But I haven't even told you the problem!”

  Jacques blinked. “By all means...”

  “It happened yesterday,” she said, clasping her hands together. “I was bringing home a pair of baguettes and some butter but it was stolen from me on my way home. Some idiot with a knife...” Her eyes looked down.

  “Yes...”

  “But when I came home, feeling so terrible, so angry, and opened the door to our room... I found them running around, laughing!”

  “Children can often make light of desperate situations. It is their grace by God.” Jacques said.

  “You don't understand monsieur. When I left for work earlier that same day the two others, Isabel and Simon, they could barely walk, they were so tired, so hungry.”

  “And the other is Daniel?”

  “Yes,” she replied. “He...” she stopped, looking down.

  “Go on.”

  She looked up at him, her eyes brimming with tears. “He's such a sweet boy. So good... I.”

  “What has he done?” Jacques asked, leaning forward.

  The girl sighed. “It started weeks ago... He just looked better, healthier. He's only six you know and very small.”

  Jacques waited.

  “I don't know what he's done monsieur, but I fear the worst.”

  “Why is that?”

  “Because when I returned yesterday, our entire room was filled with food.”

  “What?” Jacques's mind searched for possibilities. “Is there some benefactor? Perhaps one with impure intentions?”

  “No monsieur,” she said. “The children cannot leave when I'm not there. I have a lock on the outside to protect them.”

  “So the room was locked all day yet when you returned it was filled with food?”

  “Exactly!” The girl said. “Exactly as you say... and what food! There was so much! Baguettes, an entire cured ham, baked chickens, patisserie of every kind I have seen. Fresh milk to drink. The children had been eating all day...” She looked down.

  “But not Daniel?”

  “He was collapsed in the corner. Isabel said she'd found him that way in the morning and around him, all the food...” The girl clenched both fists. “I fear he may be in league with the Devil!”

  “What?” Jacques said. “You're accusing your own brother of witchcraft?”

  “But what else can it be?!” she asked. “Food doesn't appear from thin air!”

  Jacques nodded. “This is true... but I'm sure there is a far more mundane explanation. Despite what Yugenot criers scream in the streets, every other person in Pallus is not a witch my dear.” He sighed. “What of the boy? Did he recover?”

  “Yes... he was asleep and at first I couldn't wake him. He slept for another two hours after I'd returned,” she said.

  “And? What did he say to you?”

  “Daniel believes it was a miracle. He said he'd prayed so hard for the food that he was sure God had heard his prayers. But God does not do this! He does not! Or he would have answered my prayers to cure our mother and father. Never have I prayed so hard!” Her face turned sour, angry. “God hates us! He must! This is why my brother has turned to the Devil! The criers in the streets say exactly this! That the deceiver comes offering succor to the weak. None are so weak as us Monsieur, none!”

  “Stop that! Don't you listen to those fools. They want us all walking on eggshells for fear our neighbors might accuse us of impiety!” He snapped at her. “Now about this food from nowhere.”

  The girl's lip quivered. “You don't believe me!” She shook her head. “I knew this was a mistake... I shouldn't have come. I'm sorry.” She leaned forward to stand.

  “STOP!” he said. “You stay right there.”

  The girl relaxed but her face remained red with frustration and something else. Fear? Surely there was more to the story and she either wouldn't tell him, or wouldn't let herself see it. Witchcraft from a six year old child. Insanity!

  He pointed at her, standing. Clean stockings would have to wait. “There is someone you should talk to. Immediately.”

  “Yes monsieur,” she said, but looked away.

  Jacques bid goodbye to his glass of cognac. Later my friend. We will be together, he thought as he grabbed his thick leather baldrick with its empty pistol holster and rapier scabbard. He decided against the gun, it was an older wheel-lock that barely worked anyway. He wouldn't leave without some protection though so he took his own steel dueling sword. If he came across another glowing weapon, this time he would simply run.

  “Come girl,” he said.

  * * *

  They walked in silence down the Rue Monge toward the river. The crowds were manageable but the girl had trouble keeping up so he stopped at a boulangerie and got her a croissant with a thick slice of cheese. Despite her hunger she would not accept it until he glared at her.

  Thus fortified they walked the rest of the way until they arrived at the square in front of Our Lady Cathedral with her gargantuan stone bell towers. The sight never ceased to impress Jacques, no matter how many times he saw it, like a grand fortress for the soul of humanity.

  “A church?” the girl asked.

  “A cathedral,” he replied. “But that's not where we're going. Come.”

  The girl followed him warily around to the left of Our Lady and down the street a short ways to an unassuming building with a tall wooden door. Jacques used the knocker, engraved with the double cross of the Ganum Tian Church, and waited. It was not long before a priest, robed in black, opened the door.

  “May I ask your business monsieur?”

  “I am here to see Gerard.”

  “The archbishop is not seeing anyone today,” the priest replied and began to close the door.

  Jacques stuck his boot in the opening. “He will make an exception for me.”

  The priest scowled. “No Monsieur Voulon, he will not.” The priest attempted to push Jacques foot from the doorway but he resisted.

  “He will! Tell him it's important, the subject is witchcraft. Tell him the life of this poor girl is at stake!”

  The priest paused, his eyes moved to the girl. “Take your foot from the door,” he said. “I will tell him. But I can't guarantee that he'll see you. Not after last time.”

  Jacques grimaced, remembering. “That is all I ask,” he said.

  The door closed.

  “My life isn't at stake!” the girl said.

  “It will be if you don't shut up!” Jacques replied.

  She glared at him. “What did you do here?”

  “It's complicated,” he replied.

  T
he door opened. The priest, radiating disapproval, stood in the doorway.

  “The archbishop has agreed to see you but I swear, the moment you ask for money, I'll throw you out myself. Leave your weapons at the door.”

  Jacques unbuckled his baldrick, leaving it on one of the many hooks to the right side of the doorway.

  “No knives?” the priest asked, raising an eyebrow.

  “Not today,” Jacques replied.

  “Hmmph,” the priest said closing the door behind them. “Follow me.”

  They were lead through the main receiving hall and up a staircase to the second floor where they were shown to a bench outside of the archbishop's study. The girl's eyes were wide the entire time. She stared at the rich dark wood walls covered with paintings framed in gold, each depicting one of the prior archbishops of the residence.

  “They all look... so angry,” she said.

  “They can be,” Jacques replied, his eyes drifting to the ceiling. “When you... anger them.”

  They waited for quite a while but were finally ushered in. The archbishop sat in his high backed chair, staring.

  “Gerard! You look well,” Jacques said.

  “Sit,” Gerard replied, pointing at the two chairs before his tall desk. “Is this the girl?”

  “What do you mean 'the girl'?”

  “The witch. She is the only reason I agreed to see you,” Gerard said.

  Jacques pointed. “What do you mean? This girl isn't a witch! I brought her here because years ago you told me there were no witches, that it was all a lie made up to scare people into their pews.”

  “If she isn't a witch, then I've no use for you. Get out. Now.”

  Jacques shook his head. “I... What?”

  “I said, leave.”

  “I'm not the witch... that's my brother!” the girl said.

  Two very large priests had appeared in the doorway. “Should we remove them your eminence?” one asked.

  The archbishop held up his hand, a hand with many rings. “Leave us,” he said.

  The door closed.

  “Now, as I said, sit.” Gerard again indicated the chairs.