Chapter 12 The Memories of Angels
Twelve
The Memories of Angels
Oste was the greater fool, he knew, because he’d long lost count of how many patients he’d implored to get enough rest when he’d hardly ever done anything of the sort.
He could hardly discount the veritable bounty it offered now; dozing throughout the days had roused him to a degree he found shocking.
Once the fever broke, the lighter weight of his eyelids and sharpened reflexes were nothing short of embarrassing. Good Lord, he’d needed a proper nap.
He just about threw himself from the cot to get back to patients and find that damnable Jehan, but his lungs had not cleared, his body still proved sore, and the chastising glares from al-Anezi, Balac, and Dorotèa were nothing short of venomous.
They were threatening enough for him to allow himself to be a good patient for a little longer and take their tinctures, let his body be prodded and stretched, and lay about some more.
He was going to become a sleeping professional at this rate, or finally be able to recite every book by Ambroise Paré word for word.
Oste rubbed his hand over his shoulder. It was not so inflamed now, but the broken plane of flesh that ought to have been smooth made him take pause all the same.
Every pinch of pain he felt, created by stiffened wads of scar tissue and the vestiges of a musket shot, made the tips of his fingers itch and freeze.
That night loved to play itself over again when he closed his eyes.
It existed in pieces. Fragments. The sound of shots.
His restless grey horse he snatched from a guard.
The strong arms of his father. The man in red who saw him pardoned.
There was snow, he knew, and he never understood why that was what he remembered most often when he closed his eyes.
Slowly falling snowflakes, again and again.
He remembered those, but not his own fall.
Boudiou, if it had only been a fall.
Dorotèa entering made Oste jerk his hand away and straighten his back.
He’d grown intimate with her fretting, and knew full well that her seeing his fingers lingering there would invoke her fear that it was bothering him.
It was nothing he felt he could fault her for; he was far away from claiming he was without nerves, but where he internalized them—well, she did the opposite.
“I have your mail from the Palais,” Dorotèa sang, “and you’re going to like it!”
Oste inclined his head, and he glanced at the surprisingly large bundle of papers she grasped in front of a green dress.
His attention drifted upwards from that, where he couldn’t miss her rosy cheeks and sheepish smile.
He’d noticed a fluster on her part since he started to feel revived and assumed he’d acted dubiously during his fever dreams, but felt too afraid to ask about it.
That, or she’d shooed the nurse and assisted with him relieving himself during the worst of it. She’d have seen his cock. God, had she?
Oste blinked her back into focus, his cheeks now hot too.
“That looks like a bounty,” he replied, “but bounties are usually plague policies, and I find those tedious.”
She shook her head. “No plague here.”
“Research grants? Sanitation? New hospital approvals?”
Dorotèa, again, shook her head, then strode up and set them on his lap.
Her hand brushed over his thigh when she placed them, which was a firm thing; he really did walk a lot.
The little shiver that danced over them immediately following, though, saw her snatching her hand back and Oste perplexed by his immediate wish for her to leave it there.
But he was hardly in the trade of snagging wrists, save for the duelist’s, so he drew in a breath and lifted the papers instead.
He realized what the majority were at the same time as she explained.
“Copies of Lieutenant Fop’s work on the case.
He is, admittedly, in another slump about it, but thought you may be interested.
He values your– oh, what did he say, your ‘civic skillset and civic duty,’ and also offers his well wishes to your ‘funny and cranky ass,’ which he assumed was bored.
I informed him that I could speak with confidence that he was correct. ”
Oste narrowed his eyes. “Funny and cranky ass?”
“That’s what he said, yes.”
“Am I cranky?”
“Often. I do find it to be a tolerable cranky, however. A sort of endearing ‘let’s fetch you some chamomile tea’ cranky.”
His green eyes darted back to her. “I heard ‘endearing’ in all that.”
Dorotèa flushed and scowled. “Don’t make me add ‘pretentious’ to your existing titles of ‘sadist’ and ‘braggart’.”
“Mmh.” Oste looked back down at the papers. “Cranky, he said? I can think of another who fits that bill…”
Dorotèa gritted her teeth, and, in protest, gently tapped the small, unburnt candle on his nightstand.
It teetered, then fell onto the wood in a quiet, sad, and waxy thunk.
It rolled once, then stopped, and the restrained, pathetic display of anger was so absurd to Oste that he burst into laughter at once.
“Merde,” he wheezed, “you’re a terror.”
“There are more candles in this room, you knave! Don’t force my hand!”
“I’m terrified!” Oste, however, failed to get much further in his first haughty amusement in a long time when it drew out a small fit of coughs.
He didn’t mind the soreness in his ribcage at all, however.
Dorotèa’s sour expression and the twitching of the sides of her mouth made it well worth it. She patted his back and sighed.
“You’re incorrigible,” she muttered. “I’ll leave you to it.” Dorotèa straightened again and started to move towards the door, but every step was short and painfully slow. She stole glances around the space, lingering on the window and nightstand that she’d seen countless times already.
Oste gathered what she was doing, and, finding that he’d rather have her here than away, called out. “Will you help me go through these and scribe my notes again?”
Dorotèa practically jumped and spun. She was back at the bed in only two paces. “Yes! Yes, I will!”
Oste patted an open spot on the cot, where she followed his meaning and sat.
Dorotèa kicked her legs out excitedly, which led her rear to periodically lightly bump his hip.
He felt his body quiver again, responding to her presence in a way separate from his mind.
He clenched his teeth and tried to quell that small twinge of excitement his flesh and blood seemed to be getting out of it.
It was so familiar, the adrenaline he was shocked to feel from her, though he was no boy anymore, but a man.
Any reasonable man would feel something, he thought, whether from the alacrity of Dorotèa’s countenance, or the summation of the pieces of her that made up her unique divine.
She was no prim Botticelli woman, instead suited to model for a role like Jeanne d'Arc or a veritable Athena, with her sturdy frame, height, and strong nose.
There was no snatched waist, no delicate sections of her; her beauty was the warring kind, the magnificence of an incoming storm or imposing majesty of nearby Mont Sainte-Victoire.
But he couldn’t desire her—or maybe he could, but shouldn’t. He did not deem himself one of the reasonable sorts of people who were allowed to desire more than desire alone.
They started on the pile.
Oste’s idea that Dorotèa would scribe for him very quickly devolved into them both devouring the interviews and observations page by page as readily as they did l’Hostel Borvo’s honeyed nuts. They frequently interrupted each other to talk through a detail or connect one to another.
The murders felt as straightforward as they were impossible to solve. They had two women with the same general appearance and the same vocation. They occurred in the same Aixois quarter. One killed with a musket. One with a small blade. There were no true suspects.
“Let’s look at this again, assuming the killer is a soldier or constable,” Dorotèa remarked. She’d moved to the floor and leaned back against the cot. “Did Jehan rule out the one we saw when Frances was killed? He was in the area. It happened quickly.”
“He did, and easily, here,” Oste held up one of the papers.
“Her injuries would have made him staying as clean as he was impossible, which I’d written up myself.
But ignoring that, that old woman was the one who screamed.
She’d stepped outside and interrupted it, considering the dark figure who fled down one side of the alley.
And the watchman came just after from the other.
No one there could have done it. What’s more, the watchman had only just finished patrolling down that road. He had to double back.”
“Does he take the same route all the time?”
Oste nodded. “It can change captain by captain, and night by night, but largely, they do, unless something comes up.”
“Then the murderer could have been waiting for him to leave?”
“And continues to suggest the man is in service to the city. He knew where the watch would be and managed to kill two women out in the open, even one with as loud a weapon as a firearm. Constables couldn’t have been any further away from Marie, and it only went wrong with Frances because of an unexpected witness.
He either knows the patrols or is a damned good observer. ”
“He’s gotten away so quickly. I mean, yes, there were no nearby constables with Marie, but the people who heard it got there right after and didn’t see anyone. And once he was gone from Frances, he was gone.” Dorotèa bit her lower lip. “Do you suppose he could be making use of the waterways?”