Chapter 15 A Million Somedays #2
“Oh.” His father looked off into the woods and furrowed his brow. “Oh, boudiou, you just had your twenty-ninth…”
“Right, so you can’t push it off and onto my plate.”
His father pinched the bridge of his nose. “Your mother is better off figuring out the details, but I’ll go with you to have a word with Maistre Galoup. You want to do this soon, or… erm…?”
“I’d like to wrap up that case I told you about first, but…”
“Hard to plan those things.”
“Mmh.” Oste nodded.
His father frowned. “You can’t have a wedding night in that apartment of yours.”
He bit his lip and rubbed the back of his neck sheepishly. “I… yes, that was a concern of mine, too…”
His father snapped his fingers. “I know just the patch of land. The fellow who owns it is moving back to Avignon.”
“L-Land?”
“If you want those horses you’ve always talked about, you’ll have to be just outside the walls.”
“Horses? This is sounding more expensive each second.”
“Oh, please,” his father snorted. “As if I don’t know you made a fortune printing sex books.”
“Papa!”
“Your secret is safe with the snails.” His father nudged the plant in front of them, which harbored at least three. He pushed up to his feet, then offered his hand. “Come on. Let’s get back.”
Oste chewed on his lower lip when he took it and righted himself. “You’re only halfway through this route.”
“Your foot started dragging a kilometer ago.”
“I know my way back. You don’t need to—”
“You remember what I said about us waiting around to be able to do something for you?” Martin patted Oste’s shoulder and started back the way they came. “I’d like to keep an eye out for hypothetical wolves.”
He rolled his eyes. “Or you’d not be able to stand me seeing a cave bear without you.”
“You’re an arse, Oste.”
To his father’s credit, Oste had to admit that the old man saw right through him, and Oste had a medical degree.
Marriage had preoccupied his thoughts more than the exercise had, so by the time he made it back into the city, it became obvious to him that he’d overdone it.
Traipsing about the Provencal terrain so quickly removed from his cot was not, perhaps, the wisest thing he’d ever done.
He was left gritting his teeth with each step on the haphazard cobblestones even with the help of his cane, sore in more places than just his leg while he sulked across the Cordeliers quarter.
Dorotèa would probably have a thing or two to say as well. The thought almost knocked him over. Dorotèa! By God, he was planning to marry her. The gravity dizzied him all over again, and he paused to collect his thoughts and measure his breath.
Perhaps stopping for some wine at Borvo’s on the way back wasn’t such a bad idea.
But then again, she had a low opinion of how frequently he saw fit to write that prescription for himself.
Others must have it so easy, he thought, to be able to live their lives without feeling like they’ve been beset by hounds every waking moment.
“Petit-Lézin! What are the odds? I was about to send a letter.”
He tilted his head back in despair. Anything involving a letter was usually serious and required his full senses, which was a woeful thing to endure on a day off.
When he leveled himself, though, Oste saw none other than a sharply dressed Jehan walking his way.
The physician wished he could have disliked his old friend; it would have made cursing his perfectly posh appearance so much easier.
He was a companion of a peculiar sort of Provencal variety, by leaving room in the pot of fondness for derision.
“Technically speaking, I return to work tomorrow,” Oste sputtered.
“And realistically replying, you’d never wait for tomorrow to hear me out.”
“I detest you,” he answered warmly.
Jehan spread his arms. “Let’s walk. I think we’re going in the same direction.”
“Erm…” Oste narrowed his eyes at his feet and hoped Jehan wasn’t observant enough to fuss. “Very well.”
They fell in step together. Oste being away from his post hadn’t, of course, stopped him from sending in his thoughts and suggestions about the case, or other matters of public health and cleanliness when they arose during his bored stupor.
Neither had he stopped himself from sending a few Saint-Mitre boys out and about at night to watch for people up to no good.
He was mindful to draw from the notaries.
Absolutely no one liked questioning a lawyer with a license to carry a sword.
Jehan peered sideways at Oste as they made their way down Rue des Cordeliers. His attention lingered for long enough that the physician shifted uncomfortably during his already uncomfortable trip, fidgeting with his cane and the grapevine brooch pinned to his vest.
“Let me put you at ease,” the lieutenant began. “The viguerie thinks they have their man.”
Oste’s brows shot up, and the news was so unexpected that he clumsily tripped on a cobblestone. “Ow! What?”
“There was something of a mess last night. I wasn’t on duty, otherwise I’m sure I’d have gotten word to you then. But I digress. The, erm… the troubles. The conflict—”
“We can call it war, Jehan. It doesn’t offend me.”
“Yes. Which appears to be near to getting started again, if you ask me, and it’s brought some of Gouverneur Sommerive’s men inside our walls, arquebusiers and otherwise.
Now, it ends up being quite the story when, in the early hours of the evening, a slippery eel of a girl with red hair and nowhere near enough clothing throws herself into a public road, screaming.
An even better story, as it so happens, when the witnesses are both sober and fast as all hell gardians who manage to catch the accused and tie him.
Our villain had taken advantage of the girl and quite possibly meant to kill her.
Now, this is the part where you curse, because who was it other than an off-duty Monsieur Bouchier? ”
“Boudiou!” Oste remarked, then crossed his heart. “That beast! Thank God she came out of it alive.”
“If it only takes a couple gardians to round up city rats, then I’ve a mind to rebuild Aix in the Camargue proper.”
He eyed Jehan with heavy scrutiny. His frown deepened the lines of his face. “Are you convinced Bouchier is the killer, though?”
Jehan shrugged, and that, to Oste, was his indirect no.
“He hasn’t confessed to the other two murders.
And when we summoned back the old woman, she thought this one might be a little smaller than the killer she saw.
Still, when you look at the circumstances and similarities…
mmh. It’s very plausible, very plausible indeed. The viguerie will decide in the end.”
“You’re not still investigating?”
“Oh, I’m dissecting this arrest and the affairs of last night piece by piece, and a case is only closed when the court tells me so. Take heart, my esteemed Docteur Lézin. It’s only a shift of focus; if this conclusion stinks, I’ll say as much without holding my nose.”
He inclined his head. “Someone may kill you for that some day.”
Jehan laughed. “I’d be the flattered dead, important enough to be assassinated.”
“You may be the only person I know who would be delighted by someone attempting to murder you.”
“I’d be in good hands with you stitching me up again, but if you don’t mind, don’t keep me on as a lab specimen.”
“Put that in your will.”
“Dear God,” Jehan remarked, wide-eyed. “You would, wouldn’t you?”
Oste answered with a crooked smirk. “It’s alright, Jehan. I think I’m as much of a degenerate as you. I was jealous that other people got to operate on me. Merde! My bones, and I didn’t even get to see them?”
Jehan grinned. “We could be worse. We could be from Marseille.”
“Pick a new city.” Oste wagged his finger. “My sister married a Marseillais.”
“Paris?”
“My word, you’re actually asking to be shot.”
“I think I’d rather be stabbed. It did not seem to go over well for you.”
“Just don’t take it to the gut. That’s always the worst.”
“I’ll keep that in mind,” he said between chuckles. “But you just take it easy at the hospital and leave this part to the viguerie. I mean, be prudent of course, just…”
“A physician has no part to play in interrogations, unless they go very badly.”
“Quite right. Enjoy your free time.”
“I won’t have any,” said Oste as he drew his brows back together. “I’m fixing to marry, soon.”
Jehan made a strangled noise at his side.
It was his turn to stumble, and Oste wondered if he’d have to take the lieutenant’s arm to right him.
Alas, his friend mustered it on his own, halting there and widening his stance as though this reveal was the preparation for a fight.
Oste tilted his head and drank in every detail of Jehan’s shocked stupor; had he really given such a strong impression that he never would?
His friend didn’t say a word, and perhaps, Oste thought, that there might have been other times when Jehan held his tongue, and couldn’t go back to speak now.
He saw the tiny hint of a creeping fluster color the lieutenant’s cheeks that he probably didn’t even know about.
More was unsaid than what materialized just now—of that, he was sure.
“There’s some negotiation to be done, but…” Oste rubbed the back of his neck.
“I’m pleased for you,” Jehan replied, grounded again. “Is it our old friend, Dorotèa?”
Oste begrudged him. “Yes.”
“You fascinate me, Docteur.”