Chapter 3
Three
Don’t Look Down
Oste felt his shoulders tense even before the nurse finished telling him that someone had been by to see a patient and hoped to have a word with dear Docteur Lézin.
So, it seemed that the visitor he was expecting wasted little time.
There were still a couple of hours before Oste intended to finish the day and make his way home to his apartment—which he both dreaded and hoped Dorotèa organized.
Something needed to be done about the piles of clothes and wine bottles, but that also meant she’d see them for herself.
Curse her arrival! His work had grown even more complicated, and he’d felt humiliation besides. It could have gone so much quieter. He might have been shaken, but could have been blessed with no one there to hear the sounds.
At least she’d taken good notes. And at least she hadn’t breathed a word of concern when everything was complete. It was some solace, even though she wore it in her eyes.
Oste rose when Lieutenant Jehan de Filhou entered his office and took the chair across from him at the vigorously cleaned table.
Lieutenant Fop—Jehan—had long played a part in their childhood band of friends, and stuck around even when he ought to have been the last person to.
Jehan was a third son of nobility, but gentry was gentry, and he always looked the part.
He’d never been able to keep away from their gaggle, and grew up needing to hide his skinned knees under silken hose.
The ones Jehan had on now were as immaculate as the rest of his outfit: dark to match his hair, framed by the vibrance of the official Aix cape, and topped off with an extravagant feather plume on his hat.
Even his nails were manicured, which Oste had to hand to him as wildly impressive; his rank didn’t spare him from fights and dirty work.
“That anatomist was helpful this morning,” Jehan hummed. “Maistre al-Anezi?”
Oste linked his fingers in front of his face and stared at Jehan with a half-lidded gaze. That must have been why the old scribe had been looking for him. “You’re lucky he was in. The students would have sniffed her out if you’d stuck her in the morgue.”
Jehan shook his head. “I’d not have been so careless. I know their types.”
“This go of it was careless even with al-Anezi’s help, and that fellow is wiser than I’ll ever be.
If you expect me to see to city secrets, you’re going to have to work with me to find a better way to go about it.
Merde, let me transport them myself, and rouse me from my bed if you must. Could you not have just summoned me? ”
He bit down on his lower lip and twitched his head once before he replied. “I did send a constable to knock. You didn’t respond, and your landlord said you were likely indisposed.”
Oste’s breath caught in his throat. How many hours had he worked and wine glasses consumed the day before for him to have slept through summons? Shame colored his cheeks, and he imagined if it had been a medical emergency or some matter with his family.
“I’m… so sorry,” he mustered.
“Oh, don’t fret. I still could have sent someone in.”
Oste grimaced and decided to continue the trend of reciting unfortunate news. “Dorotèa started service for me today, and she was the one who found your package. You’re damned lucky she doesn’t have a shred of fear in her.”
Jehan’s brown eyes widened. “She saw?”
“Autopsy and all,” Oste confirmed. “And I don’t think she’ll mention it to a soul, but why don’t you tell me what all this is about?”
He peered down at the papers Oste held. “You have a report?”
“Not yet, you greedy git.”
Jehan scratched his lower lip with his thumb and looked off towards the side. His first response was a hesitant exhale, but piece by piece his words steadily came out. “She was found like that in the Cordeliers district.”
“Can’t catch a break there, clearly.”
“No. She… she was an attendant at the baths there and also engaged in… other… services. You see, she was a—she had… a relation with Conseiller Clau.”
Hot anger coursed through Oste like steam blasting through the neck of a kettle. His eyes flashed with fury when he pushed up to his feet; his palms on the table helped him balance after his leg gave way.
“Do you think so little of me that you expect me to be complacent in a cover-up like this?” he seethed.
“No!” Jehan remarked, mouth agape. He shrank into his chair, and the feather atop his velvet cap flopped pathetically over to the other side. “No, not at all. If it was a cover-up, why would I have bothered to have you do an autopsy?”
Oste stilled his tongue. Boudiou, but he has a point. Tied up, he allowed himself to slip back into his chair.
“Conseiller Clau is an idiot; let’s get that out of the way,” Jehan continued.
“But it’s not what you think, either. She wasn’t a lover, but a daughter, and no, not Madame Clau’s.
He never made the relation public when she was young, and he certainly wasn’t going to when she rejected his money and turned to the streets.
He wants to be very far away from this. He also knows that isn’t completely possible.
But we have been reminded, you see, that he’s the one supporting the piping renovations for Saint-Jacques’ Hospital, which makes compromise a lucrative idea. ”
Oste scowled. “By making her disappear?”
“No,” said Jehan. “He’ll arrange for a burial outside of the city—a decent one.
And he told me the truth as soon as we found her.
He wants the wretch responsible found, but he very much wants to do without the scandal from Parlement.
This is what the viguerie told me to do.
I don’t like it any more than you do, Oste, but resources are scant anyway with the conflicts, and it’s the nature of our jobs.
Congratulations on your commission—I find it’s miserable sometimes.
I’m happy to drink to the judgment of men like Clau and for us loyal fools to have an ordinary day. ”
“If we have the chance to toast to her.” Oste was quiet, as he’d long since become acquainted with bitterness. “Marie. Her name was Marie.”
“Yes,” said Jehan with a sad smile. “I wish everything about this had different circumstances.”
“I’d really prefer it if this didn’t become a habit.”
“I hope you can understand the discretion.”
Oste lifted his chin with a huff. “You could’ve had another civic physician carry it out. The one from Saint-Jacques’ has a private establishment.”
Jehan spread his hands. “I could have, but you’re the best at what you do.”
Oste grumbled and crudely dropped his chin onto his hands held aloft by his braced elbows. “She was obviously murdered.” He rolled his eyes. “Did it occur to you Clau could have had something to do with it?”
“Yes. But I can say with absolute certainty that it wasn’t by his hand. I was having artichokes with him and Conseiller Pauli when I was told and summoned. It was fresh. He’d not have been able to do it.”
“Someone working for him?”
Jehan shrugged. “I won’t rule anything out, quiet investigation or not.”
The physician sighed and slid the report he’d scrawled up over to him. Jehan scooped it up and started to scan the words. He hummed a little, and spoke in a murmur after some time had passed. “Are you certain you’re a physician? Your handwriting is unusually legible.”
“It’s worse than it used to be,” Oste pointed out.
After a minute, Jehan slapped the papers back down onto the table. His brows had drawn up. “Musket? She’d been shot?”
“Afraid so.”
“Boudiou! Not just anyone can get one, let alone use one. Do you know what kind?”
Oste shook his head. “I’m no expert, save for, I suppose, in what it’s like to be on the receiving end.”
“Do you want me to laugh? Will I go to hell if I do?”
“I’ll award you two chuckles. Three will send you to hell.”
“Ha, ha,” Jehan relented sarcastically.
“I extracted the bullet in case it proves useful.”
“I was about to ask. You see, my friend: you keep proving why I try to use you.”
Oste snorted. “It’s nice to be used for being helpful compared to being used because I’m available.”
Jehan set his hand over his heart and bowed from his seat. “I deeply appreciate your voyageur ass.”
“Half,” he winked, “and you might be the only one.”
Jehan loosed a hearty laugh at that. “You did good work. I’ve sent men to collect her, and I’ll have a smith look at that bullet.”
Oste rubbed his chin and squinted. “To be honest, my father will know the most. There’s no greater marksman in Aix.”
“If I go and ask him for help on a case again,” Jehan said, hushed, “then I’ll be shot.”
“I can ask him. He won’t shoot me.”
“You’ve already been a great help. You don’t need to—”
“I want to,” Oste interjected. “Call it my over-inflated sense of justice and Saint-Mitre tendencies; we owe it to that poor girl. And if you don’t believe that, then allow me to also offer that I think it would be good for me.”
Jehan opened his mouth to answer, but it slowly shut again. The previous trickle of concern that stretched his features shifted to compress them instead. His brows came down, and his eyes narrowed into a penetrating stare he held for just long enough that Oste regretted saying anything.
“I ought to learn more about such weapons and injuries,” the physician uttered, “in case I must treat more of them.”
“Oste…”
He looked down. “Don’t say anything on the matter. Just tell me yes or no.”
Jehan inhaled sharply and gazed out the distant window. He waited for too long again. Oste had a mind to tell him as much. But eventually, to his relief, the lieutenant spoke and gave him his reprieve.
“If that’s what you want. Are you sure, though?”
Oste returned a weak smile. “Not really. But what did you say? Nature of the job.”
“Did you follow my hand there?” Dorotèa asked from inside the otherwise empty room. “I’ll show you again, one more time. Knee-guards feel strange at first, but then…”