The Whispering of Bones Read Online Free PDF

chamber. “Are you here?”
    He put Dainville down on the bed and was untying the old man’s sash with shaking hands when Brunet hurried in from the vestibule.
    â€œI was upstairs in the student infirmary. Who’s ill,
maître
?” He bustled down the room to the bed. “Oh, dear.” Shaking his head at Dainville’s twisted face, Brunet pushed Charles gently aside. “See to his shoes.”
    With deft fingers, the infirmarian finished untying the sash, set it aside with its long wooden rosary, and peeled Dainville’s cassock off him, leaving him in his long white linen shirt. Charles unbuckled the priest’s worn black shoes and dropped them on the floor’s rush matting.
    â€œNow,
mon père
,” Brunet murmured, lifting Dainville’s knees so he could pull the blankets up, “we’ll just get you under the covers and nicely warm, that will be better, won’t it? There you are.” He pulled the blankets up to Dainville’s chin, put his forehead to Dainville’s to check for fever, and laid his fingers against the old man’s neck. “His blood’s not beating as strong as I’d like. Tell me exactly what happened.”
    He listened wide-eyed to Charles’s account, exclaiming in horror at the murder. “Whoever killed that boy bears the guilt for this as well, and I hope he hangs!” He stared down at the old man. “Père Dainville would have been—maybe still will be—eighty on Saint Martin’s Day. But that’s a month away.”
    Charles swallowed hard. “May I watch with him?”
    Brunet eyed him. “Don’t you have a class to teach? Or somewhere you should be?”
    â€œNo class,” Charles said, ignoring the rest of the question. “I’ve started my theology study.”
    â€œHave you?” The infirmarian’s face was as sympathetic as if Charles had said he had gout. “Well, I know you have to, going toward your priesthood as you are. Yes, stay with him while I make a tisane. I might be able to get it into him with a spoon.” He went to a tall cupboard beyond the bed. “Theology,” he muttered, shaking his head as he reached in. “Always something
there
to fight about. Me, I’m glad to be just a lay brother. But Jesuits are supposed to find God in all things, even in theology, I suppose . . .” His words trailed off and he leaned deeper into the cupboard. “Ah. Got it.” He turned with a pottery cup and a small, stoppered clay pot in his hands. “I’ll be back as quick as I can,
maître
.”
    Charles pulled a stool to Dainville’s bedside and sat holding the old man’s hand, for his own comfort as much as for Dainville’s. Worry choked his prayers and seemed to be squeezing his heart. He turned his confessor’s dry, thin hand over and found himself thinking that the tangle of lines in the palm was like a map. A map of all Dainville had done, of the twisting path that had led to faithfulness. Hoping that his own life would be as faithful, he watched the shallow rise and fall of the thin chest and willed it to go on.
    Tears stung his eyes. He thought of the young man lying dead in the deep crypt at Notre Dame des Champs and wondered who would weep for him when the terrible news came. And he thought of the man at the foot of the crypt stairs, so blackly outlined against the single candle flame, and wondered if he’d just come from praying—or killing.

C HAPTER 3
    T he door from the vestibule opened and Louis le Grand’s rector came in. Charles let go of Père Dainville’s hand and stood up as Père Jacques Le Picart hurried down the row of beds.
    â€œHow is he,
maître
?” The rector was wiry and gray-haired, and peasant Normandy still sounded in his speech.
    Charles shook his head, trying to pick through his scattered thoughts for an answer, but Frère Brunet emerged from