Three #3
Even asking the question showed a staggering lack of imagination for someone who would surely see almost as much human suffering as healers did.
And that was before you got into the sorts of stories shown at the playhouses.
Alys could think of five reasons already.
Given enough time she’d probably be able to list twenty.
“A jealous lover?” she said, when nobody else spoke. “Or perhaps she knew someone’s terrible secret and was blackmailing them?”
“Blackmail,” drawled Quentin. That smirk of his really was hateful. Alys’s face heated. “Any of you got any terrible secrets she knew and was blackmailing you about?”
“No,” said Jehan.
“But all of you know her.” Balay gestured around the room. “This is your practical exam, isn’t it? Who chose this group?”
“Exam groups are allocated at random,” said Moyna impatiently. “And yes, all of us knew her. Everyone knows Ysabel Caudotte. She was going to be Dux Scolaris.”
“And now it’ll be Estiene, probably,” said Alys.
Estiene glared. Moyna gave a wheezing cough.
Oh. They meant Estiene might have killed Ysabel to climb one spot higher in the rankings.
It was a silly idea, but Alys probably would have thought of it herself before she made it to twenty on the list. Being named Dux Scolaris meant one could walk into basically any of the coveted junior specialist-track positions at the Hospital.
“Even Marcelle doesn’t long for Papa’s approval that badly,” said Jehan. “Or perhaps he does?”
Estiene’s glare removed itself from Alys in favour of this new target.
The gendarme captain cleared his throat and deigned to join the conversation. He moved with a sort of solid, hip-swaying saunter which was startling in an older man.
“Marcelle,” the captain said. “Any relation?”
“My father,” said Estiene.
Alys found herself exchanging a stifled glance with Clement.
Perhaps they were both reliving the early months of first year, when it was hard to make your way across the quad without tripping over Estiene, shoving his hand out and introducing himself as the son of Jourdain Marcelle, yes, the man who’d just been named Head Healer of the Hospital Sieuxerr.
And who might you be? And who were your parents?
The name Jourdain Marcelle, along with several other Marcelles of previous generations, appeared on the gilt board of previous Duxes of the Academie.
The captain’s thoughtful gaze rested on Estiene for a long moment.
“There’s not much to be done until the end of the week,” he said finally. “Let’s wrap this up. Healer—what was your name? Dean Brodier, my apologies. We’ll get the next-of-kin details to do the notification visit, please, and—I suppose we’ll leave the body with you.”
Brodier nodded. The bodies of scholars and healers, without exception, became the property of the Academie and were used for anatomy classes.
“We’ll keep her—it—her frozen in the bodykeeping room until the new academic year starts,” Brodier said. “I’ll let Denise— No, I can organise that—”
“Wait,” said Clement. Softly, then more loudly. “Wait. Is that it? No more investigation? Ysabel didn’t kill herself.”
But the gendarmes had already stopped listening. Dean Brodier said, “I’m sorry, Savoye. I’m sure they will look into it further once the Grand Exam is over. I can only suggest you all concentrate on your own exam for the next few days.”
And then Alys’s exam group found themselves shepherded back out the external Rondelle door and into the sunshine, which seemed insultingly bright.
“Clement . . .” Alys started. The drop into first names was automatic, now they were out of the Rondelle and the formality of exams, but she didn’t know what to say next.
“See you all back here tomorrow morning for the next case, I suppose?” Estiene said.
Clement said, “I can’t—”
“Finally. Is one of you Scholar Jehan Fortier?”
The voice was demanding and unfamiliar. Alys turned. A girl with a satchel and the uniform of one of the messenger services stood there, a letter raised in her hand.
Alys pointed at Jehan, who said, “Yes?”
The girl shoved the letter into his hands.
“Open on delivery,” she said briskly. And stood there until Jehan had cracked the seal and unfolded the paper, at which point she gave the put-upon sigh of someone whose entire morning had been put out by their delay, and jogged off in the direction of the quadrangle.
“Fuck me up and down and fucking sideways,” said Jehan, reading.
“Not right now, thank you,” said Moyna. “What is it?”
“It’s not what—well, it is what. It’s a letter about the exam case we just did. It’s a full outline of the ideal treatment plan for hare fever, and it says that the writer is inviting me out to lunch, today, at our usual spot.”
“What usual spot?” said Estiene, just as Alys was saying, “What writer?”
But she already knew. It was like something from the playhouses. Nothing else would fit with the head-spinning mess that this morning had become.
Jehan lifted the letter to show them all the confidently looping name at the bottom.
“Ysabel Caudotte.”