The Orphan's Tale (16 page)

Larouche stood quietly behind the pillar and watched the celebration that had been going on since just past 4:00 a.m., when the news had hit the streets.
The monsters were dead, and one of Barouche's particular nightmares had been laid to rest.

The uproar, centered in the huge market of Les Halles, was incredible.
High-class courtesans mingled with street-walkers and pimps of the lowest type. Crippled old soldiers and beggars laughed and slapped each other on the back, and children ran here and there, shrieking with joy and filling their faces with the free food that the shopkeepers were handing out.

Larouche was feeling a little ill, since he had eaten four large cooked sausages, half a loaf of bread, and a great fistful of sweets, but he was still smiling.
Sitting still by his pillar helped, and he only needed to remember that the monsters were dead to feel very well, indeed.

"
Who killed them?" someone demanded.

"
It was Malet!" shouted the man with the gin bottle. "Their gig was up the minute they set foot on his territory! Didn't I say all along they were goners from that moment? And now see where they are!"

Malet's name brought a moment of silence.
It was a name to conjure with. All the people gathered there knew of Malet, even if they had never encountered him. He loomed large in their imaginations, a being as inscrutable as a sphinx and as terrible as an avenging angel. They feared him if they strayed on the side of crime, and blessed him if they were one of the helpless ones who sought refuge in the safety of his arrondissement. But not even his name could keep down the noise for long.

"
Did anyone see them?" demanded a pimp with a dripping nose. He was smiling widely.

"
Aye, Constable Gruel said he did! He was there when Malet brought them in, he and his troop of Sergeants de Ville! Three of them dead and two others well on the way, and two more gone off the devil knew where - but Malet found out! They're gone, all of them, and good riddance to them! We're safe!"

Larouche
hiccupped and tasted sausage. He should have saved two for later, but he had thought that if he ate them now, he wouldn't stand a chance of losing them later and going without. He shivered and folded his arms about himself. His clothing was threadbare and the weather was getting cold, but he would rather be cold than tortured and then slashed to ribbons, like the victims of the monsters.

Someone shouted,
"Here's to Malet! I say long life to him!"

"
Amen," said a woman's voice beside him.

Larouche looked up and saw a courtesan named
Tate Dessau, the mistress of the Duc D'Aillard, the Minister of Finance. She was elegantly dressed, and had obviously only strolled to Les Halles to purchase some delicacies and greet other strollers. She often gave treats to Larouche; she was smiling down at him now.

"
Hi," said Larouche.

"
Hi," she said. "Why are you here, you little scamp?"

"
It's warm," said Larouche. "Besides, everyone's happy."

"
And well they might be," said TiTi. "Those demons are dead and we can all breathe easier."

"
They say Malet did it," said Larouche.

"
He did," said TiTi. "He's good at fighting monsters..." She was smiling at a memory, but she turned to Larouche after a moment. "I knew him years before he came here," she said. "He was Chief of Police in a city in Picardy. That was long before you were born. He wasn't too high and mighty to keep a whore from being attacked by a solid citizen, and I will never forget it."

Larouche
hiccupped again.

TiTi eyed his ragged clothing and suddenly smiled.
"Here, child," she said, opening her reticule. "I am giving you twenty francs. Get yourself a warm coat and some shoes. Run along and do it now. You're safe now, and you may as well be warm - and you don't need to hear these ghouls go on about those monsters."

             
**  **  **

An
hour later Larouche was wearing warmer clothing and had enough money left in his pocket to buy food for a week. Meat and bread and maybe even a sweet, if he hoarded his money.

He skipped happily along despite the remains of a severe stomach ache and the unaccustomed weight of a heavy pair of shoes.
Life was good, the monsters would never trouble anyone again, and it was time to go seek out Monseigneur and inquire into the state of his hat

MALET AT POINT NON PLUS

Malet walked along almost reluctantly with his head down and his hands tucked behind him.
His slowness was not due to the latest attack of the stone-thrower, who had been dogging him for the past week, though he was bare-headed and holding his hat in his right hand. He had decided that the stone-thrower meant him no physical hurt. He had had ample opportunity to prove otherwise. The attacks had been limited to his hat, and Malet had to admit that the stone-thrower was certainly skillful.

He had considered staking out the Prefecture and the Rose d'Or in order to catch the culprit, but he had decided against it.
This was a private matter and Malet preferred to fight his own battles. The attacks on his hat, annoying though they were, did not trouble him. He had fought worse foes in his life and emerged the victor.

Nor was the hesitation due to fatigue, although Malet had slept all of three hours during the past night.
He had single-handedly killed three criminals in the cemetery, wounded two more, and been slightly wounded himself. It had been a stroke of good fortune that he had personally made the kill, though it had not been in his territory. He had spent the afternoon writing up his report and conferring with Chief Inspector Clementel of the 9th arrondissement, where the attack had taken place. Clementel had been very complimentary. He had received an excited account from his people, and when Malet had arrived to give his testimony and view the corpses, he had greeted him with a warm smile and the dry comment that if Malet wished to clean out the 9th single-handedly, Clementel would certainly not stand in his way.

The identities of the corpses had come as the final triumphant touch, and the afternoon had been the wrap
-up of a successful hunt. Now he was returning to the Rose d'Or.

"
Good afternoon, Chief Inspector!" called a passerby.

Malet jumped, looked up, recognized Blaise de L'Aulnes, his banker, and returned the greeting with apparent suavity while silently cursing himself for being abstracted.

He noticed his surroundings for the first time. He had only reached the western end of the Île St. Louis. He strolled to the bridge connecting the western part of the island with the shore and went to its middle, stopping there to rest his folded arms on the balustrade and gaze back toward the Île de la Cité and the soaring spire that marked the cathedral.

Dusk was falling.
The sky had deepened to a blue that was almost purple, touched here and there with scattered stars. The western sky was still light, and the river, calm in the late afternoon stillness, mirrored the sky and the lights along the quays. Strollers walked arm in arm, exchanging quiet greetings while children ran ahead, laughing and chattering in the last flare of light. It was a soothing sight, and he relaxed a little as he gazed. He drew a deep breath, released it, and turned from the contemplation of Paris to the contemplation of the past evening.

How could he have let his guard down so disastrously?
To voice the pain that he had barely been able to put into words in the stillness of his own heart, and to voice it, moreover, to Elise de Clichy!

He should have been more careful, but the supper had been good, the room had been warm, and he had been worn out from a long and exhausting day.
There had been that city-wide sweep of the sewers that he had ordered, which had turned up eight corpses in varying stages of decay. Seven of them appeared to be the result of foul play, and all of them had had to be viewed and identified. Then there had been the knifing victim left by the river near the Pont d'Iena. That corpse had turned even Malet's stomach! Poor little child, lying in the icy chill of the Police morgue!

And
there had been a host of other distractions, as well. The spies that he had assigned to watch Dracquet from a distance were sending in confusing reports, and he was considering sending in one of his very best operatives as well as questioning a witness he had hoped to avoid using. He had been too tired and preoccupied to think properly.

He growled silently at himself.
Excuses! He had been thinking aloud, a careless and stupid trait that he deplored. Appalled at his slip, he had badly bungled his attempt to shrug the comment off. Mme. de Clichy had been willing to drop the matter, but what did he do but crown his blunder by confiding further, and in such a way as to make it sound as though he were confessing to a crime and not admitting something that was common knowledge on the force.

He had been clumsy and careless and he had made himself vulnerable.
He couldn't pretend to be the man others seemed to think him. She knew better. She had heard his loneliness and his shame. How could she ever - how could anyone ever - view him as one to respect after such a revelation?

But was respect what he wanted from her?
He rested his chin on his hands and, gazing at the spire of Notre Dame de Paris, admitted to himself that it was not.

He turned and looked up into the sky.
His gaze fastened upon a large square of stars just above the eastern horizon: Pegasus was rising. He remembered the story that the old sailor in the prison had told him of Pegasus, one bright evening when they had been watching the stars.

Did you ever hear of the man who saddled up the wind, Pippin?

No, Papa, he had said, in English, his eyes wide with delight. He had loved the old sailor's stories.
can
you saddle the wind?

One man did, the sailor had said.
I will tell you the story...

Malet smiled, remembering.
He sometimes had dreams even now of riding Pegasus, soaring and swooping among the clouds, laughing in the wind...

Thinking of the old sailor eased some of the perplexity.
The man had always said, when young Paul had been hurt or unhappy, Well, then, Pippin, what can you do to mend matters? Can you go back? No? Then what is there to do but go forward?

Malet lifted his face into the wind and looked back over his shoulder at Notre Dame cathedral.
There was no unsaying what had been said. And what, after all, had been so terrible about it? He had confessed to loneliness and bewilderment, that was all. And Mme. de Clichy had heard and understood.

He realized that he was only trying to fool himself.
How could he pretend nothing had changed? For something had happened that night, and it was useless to deny it. He had been betrayed by his own clumsiness, and yet she had accepted him as a equal and a friend without the slightest hesitation. And he had fallen in love with her in that moment of understanding. It was no more complicated than that.

He had seen her quality at their first meeting.
Where he had expected a coarse, stolid woman of the town, capable of running an inn, he had instead found a lady. She shone among the many women he had known in the course of an eventful lifetime like a golden coin in a pile of coppers. Their friendship had touched a responsive chord in him. She was a delightful companion in every possible way, and completely safe. He knew she felt the same about him. And then in one mad moment he had fallen in love with her and all was now chaos.

The hope that she might love him in return was almost too painful for one of his birth and breeding to consider.
As a suitor he was beyond the pale of acceptability. He had been aware of this from the first, and, since it was unchangeable, he had accepted it as a part of his condition. And yet he could not help feeling a little like one standing guard outside a great feast, hearing the music and seeing the light pool like warm gold along the cracks in the door while he kept watch in the black, bitter night, hoping that someone might open the door and let him come in. And, for a wonder, it had happened after years of waiting.

Elise had listened to him instead of turning her back. It was as though he had seen the door swing open, just a little, to find her standing on the threshold, holding out her hands to him and smiling.

But had she really meant it? Or was it simply the gratitude and emotion of the moment, soon and easily forgotten? He had encountered it often enough in his years in the Police. Gratitude was easily forgotten and heroes faded fast. The years had armored him against that truth.

But not against her.
Hearing the appalling echo of his own words and seeing himself reflected in her eyes, he had known that she had managed to disarm him. He had unwittingly given her the power to hurt him.

He pushed away from the balustrade and crossed back to the Quai des Celestins, his walk brisk once again.
He couldn't go back, he would have to go forward.