Free The Whispering of Bones by Judith Rock Page B

stopped and turned around.
    â€œYou said we were going to be late,” he called disapprovingly. “And you shouldn’t be listening to a woman singing,” he added, when Charles caught up with him.
    â€œI should put my fingers in my ears? And she’s not singing now.”
    As they walked along the rue des Cordeliers and past the Sorbonne church, Charles wasn’t thinking about the woman singing, but about a book he’d seen on the table beside the shop door. It was called
Conversations on the Plurality of Worlds
, by someone named de Fontenelle, and piqued his curiosity. He wished they were going to spend the rest of the morning talking about it instead of St. Augustine’s
Confessions
. As they passed through the old St. Michel gate and out into the St. Germain suburb, Charles stopped and picked up a handful of turnips for a pretty street vendor who’d spilled them from her basket. Which, of course, earned him a frown from Richaud. But Charles saw out of the corner of his eye that Richaud’s head swiveled in a near half circle to watch the girl’s hip-swaying retreat along the road. Charles started to comment in retaliation for Richaud’s chiding about the singer, but then he realized that it was the first time he’d seen Richaud show appreciation of anything, and he kept quiet. They walked in silence until they turned right onto the rue du Pot-de-Fer.
    â€œThere it is,” Charles said. He pointed to the cross on the stone bell tower of the Novice House church, which showed above the neighboring roofs. Tall trees bright with autumn leaves leaned over garden walls along the street and gave the place almost the feel of country. They passed the church and stopped at arched double doors just beyond. Charles pulled the bell rope and a middle-aged lay brother opened the door, swept shrewd eyes over them, and stepped aside to let them in.
    â€œI was told you’d be coming,” the brother said. “Père Quellier will see you in his antechamber.”
    He led them along a gallery whose windows looked into a garden. At the gallery’s end, a novice, wearing cloth slippers and a loose black robe to protect his cassock from dust, was industriously sweeping the floor at the bottom of a staircase. For a moment, Charles wondered if he was Amaury de Corbet, then saw that he was the age Amaury had been when Charles last saw him—Amaury, like Charles, would be ten years older now, of course. The young man stepped aside, eyes modestly lowered, and the lay brother led Charles and Richaud up to the next floor, which had been the “noble floor” when the building was the private townhouse of the Mèzieres family. He tapped at an oak door halfway along the corridor.
    â€œEntrez.”
    A lean, youngish priest was seated at a table in the center of a small anteroom. It was much like any other Jesuit room, with plain white walls, bare floor, beamed ceiling, and a wooden crucifix hung opposite the door. The priest’s narrow, light eyes darted between his new students.
    â€œMaître Richaud?”
    As Richaud bowed, his satchel swung forward and hit the table, making it slide a little on the floor. The priest sighed audibly, pushed the table back into alignment, and turned to Charles.
    â€œAnd you must be Maître du Luc.”
    Charles clamped his satchel between his arm and his side and bowed.
    Something between approval and relief showed on the priest’s face. “I am Père Quellier. Sit. Take out your quills and paper.”
    They sat, took what they needed from their satchels, put the satchels on the floor, and waited.
    â€œYou are here to learn something of Saint Augustine. So let us begin.” He pointed at the thick volume before him. “The saint’s
Confessions
were written in the fourth century after Christ. They are the extraordinary record of a man’s search for God. Saint Augustine is far more forthcoming than most men