The Eloquence of Blood Read Free Page B

spitting torches. Two stopped at street level and two climbed to stand wide apart just below Pinette.
    The sound of slowly rolling carriage wheels, the rattle of harness, and the slow beat of scores of hooves drew all eyes to the west. Along the street, people hurrying to get out of the early-evening cold stopped and crossed themselves, and the men took off their hats. Black and slow under the last slash of crimson in the clouds of Christmas Eve’s sunset, the Great Condé’s procession came. The first riders passed St. Catherine’s well, a score of black-caparisoned horses carrying noblemen so blackly clad they were only white faces in the dusk. Behind them rolled two black-plumed carriages, the first with the heraldic arms of the Bishop of Autun, the second with those of the Prince of Condé. Behind the carriages rode yet more men-at-arms. The first carriage drew up at the church steps and a lackey sprang down to lower the carriage step and open the door. Two clerics emerged and together helped a slow-moving mass of sable and silver to descend. The Bishop of Autun stood stiffly upright and straightened his mitre as one of his attendants pulled the episcopal crozier from the carriage. The second carriage disgorged three more clerics, one of them bearing a small box of pale gold. They paced gravely to their bishop, and the box bearer set his burden on the bishop’s upturned, black-gloved palms.
    The bishop mounted the stairs, one cleric going before him with his crozier, the other four coming behind. Jewels on the gleaming box flashed red, blue, and green in the torchlight. Père Pinette bowed deeply to the bishop and kissed his ring. In clouds of silver frost, the bishop spoke and Pinette replied. Then Pinette received the box, which held the Great Condé’s mummified heart, and the bishop gave his blessing. From their places on the steps and inside the church, the Jesuits began a sonorous Te Deum. The bishop descended majestically down the church steps, back to his carriage.
    â€œAllez, allez, mon cher évêque,” Charles thought toward the bishop behind his singing. “Achieve your carriage and get us out of this wind, or you’ll send us all to join the Condé before our time!”
    But the bishop, warm in his sable, knew good liturgical theatre when he met it, and he paced solemnly on. When the episcopal posterior finally disappeared and the carriage door was shut, Pinette turned with equal majesty and bore the box into St. Louis, toward the gated altar where it would stay until its April interment behind the high altar. Still singing, the Jesuits who had stood on the steps followed him in double file, trying not to shove each other to get out of the wind. Those in the nave parted neatly before Pinette and his burden, allowed those who had been outside to pass, then closed behind them in procession toward the gated side altar bright with wax candles and covered with cloth of gold.
    The twinkling box had almost reached its temporary resting place among the side altar’s blazing candles when a man reared, bellowing, out of the shadows. He launched himself at Pinette, the singing shattered into chaos, and the box went bouncing end over end into the darkness, clanging on the stone floor like an out-of-tune bell.
    Charles lunged for the attacker, saw that Damiot and others were already grabbing him, and instead changed course to go after the box. He prayed that it hadn’t broken open. Or, if it had, that he wouldn’t step on its contents. His first prayer went unanswered. A faint whiff of death overlaid with spices led him toward the side wall. A fast-thinking novice brought a torch, whose light showed them the box lying open on its side. A little way beyond the gleam of its sapphires and rubies lay a misshapen thing the size of a large apple, tightly wrapped in dull gold silk. As Charles bent to pick it up, the attacker broke partly free of his captors and limped a