The Whispering of Bones Read Online Free PDF Page A

to its door and helped Marie-Ange out. As he stooped to gather Dainville into his arms, something smacked against his back and raucous laughter came from across the street. Leaving Dainville in the chair, Charles whirled furiously, blocking the door from whatever was being thrown.
    Two students in short black University gowns stood jeering at him across the street. “So Jesuits are taking chairmen’s money now,” one of them called. “Your piles of gold aren’t enough for you?”
    â€œYou gutless sons of gelded pigs!” Marie-Ange picked up the rotten fish they’d thrown at Charles and hurled it back with deadly aim. As it hit one of the students—with a satisfying
splat
square in the chest—the college postern opened and a portly, elderly lay brother in the brothers’ short black cassock and canvas apron surged into the street. Heedless of traffic, he put himself between Marie-Ange and the students, who had started toward her.
    â€œYou leave her alone, you hear me?” Frère Martin shook his big fists at them. “Bothering a little maid, shame on you, you milk-livered whelps!”
    The students, who seemed to recognize Martin, backed up. The brother nodded with satisfaction and advanced on them. Charles caught him by his cassock.
    â€œLet them go, Frère Martin, I need your help here!”
    â€œOh, it’s you,
maître
, I didn’t really see you. I heard Marie-Ange and came to see that she was all right.” He smiled at the little girl. “I take it you threw the fish,
ma petite
—and a very nice aim you have!” He swept a puzzled glance over the sedan chair and the waiting gardener. “But Père Dainville went out with you,
maître
, where is he?”
    â€œHere.” Charles turned back to the chair and gathered Dainville in his arms, then straightened.
    â€œOh, blessed Mary! Ah, his poor face—struck!” Martin exclaimed, using the old word for apoplexy.
    â€œYes, I’m taking him to the infirmary.” Charles nodded toward the Carmelites’ gardener. “Will you please give this man something for carrying the chair and find someone to help him take it back to Notre Dame des Champs?”
    â€œOf course!” Calling to the gardener to wait, Martin, whose usual job was watching the postern door, hurried back through it toward the main college courtyard.
    Marie-Ange picked up her basket and ran to open the postern wider for Charles and Dainville. “Will you come and tell me how he does,
maître
?” Her round face was furrowed with worry. “I’ll pray for him.”
    â€œPlease do. Thank you for your help, Marie-Ange. I’ll come when I can.” She pushed the door closed after him, and he lengthened his stride through the street passage. He was half running by the time he reached the main courtyard.
    The last classes of the afternoon were in session and the vast main court, the Cour d’honneur, was mostly empty. A bored courtyard proctor taking his ease on a stone bench looked up when he heard Charles crunching across the gravel and then leaped to his feet in dismay.
    â€œWhat’s happened,
maître
? Is it Père Dainville?”
    â€œHe’s ill,
mon frère
. Please find the rector and ask him to come to the infirmary.”
    The proctor ran toward the main building, and Charles strode through the archway on his left. The infirmary stood beyond the student court, in the midst of a small physic garden. The year’s last sweet and pungent scents rose as his cassock skirts swept past fading herbs and flowers to the infirmary door. He carried Dainville into the small vestibule and shouldered open the door into the Jesuits’ infirmary. The long room with its two rows of beds was full of late-afternoon quiet but empty of patients.
    â€œFrère Brunet!” Charles made for a bed at the far end of the row, near the tiny chapel and the infirmarian’s