60
Rue Saint Jacques de la Boucherie
March 21, 1355
The doctor stared at the torturer’s empty eye sockets and the rest of his mutilated face.
“An amateur! The man who did this knew nothing about anatomy. Milord de Pareilles, you can eliminate anybody who has studied medicine.”
“Unless they did it on purpose to mislead us,” Pareilles responded.
“Impossible. Look how he cut the eyes out. Even my novice students know how to remove an eyeball without damaging the surrounding tissues. And look at how the optic nerve is severed. Butchery.”
“So maybe the killer was mad with anger when he attacked him. Do you think the torturer was alive when it happened?”
The doctor examined the man’s wrists. “Do you see these markings?”
Pareilles nodded.
“It’s proof that the torturer was immobilized, undoubtedly while he was being blinded.”
“So there were two men,” Pareilles concluded. “Or at least two.”
“It could have been two women, or a man and a woman,” the doctor suggested as he used a razor to scrape the face.
Flamel shuddered when he heard this.
“Never would a woman commit such an abomination. It’s the work of a man,” Guy de Pareilles countered. “A madman.”
The king’s doctor took his time to answer. He was collecting the liquid running down the torturer’s face from each eye socket.
“Do you have a son?” the doctor asked.
“Yes. He’s six. A strong lad who does me honor.”
“What would you do if someone killed your son in the prime of his life?”
Flamel saw the blood drain from Pareilles’s face.
“For the love of God, I would hunt down the dog who killed the flesh of my flesh and avenge his death.”
“Would you kill the murderer?”
“Worse than that, I would—”
“And you aren’t a madman, are you,” the doctor said.
Pareilles looked away.
“You see, when faced with the unacceptable, you would fall prey to the demon of vengeance,” the doctor said. “The demon would remove any sense of morality or compassion. You would become an animal thirsting for blood, like those who committed this horror.”
Flamel stopped writing. The exchange had taken a private turn that he was sure neither of the men wanted to have recorded. He decided to wait.
The search of the house continued. Bernard de Rhenac’s men were knocking on the walls and listening for any hollow spaces. They had already cut open all the furniture.
The doctor didn’t say anything for a few seconds. He seemed to be listening. “I see your friends are also looking for the truth. Their methods are odd: first the furniture and now the walls.”
Guy de Pareilles didn’t answer. He, like all other officers of the king, wasn’t happy about the fact that the minister’s secret police were investigating.
The doctor took out two bowls and poured the first liquid collected from the sockets into one, and the second liquid into the other. He continued to press Pareilles. “I’m just a humble doctor, but I must admit that I don’t understand why they’re tearing this house apart.”
“The minister carries out his own investigation, milord, and neither you nor I have any business getting involved.”
“Of course, but one would think they believe the Devil is at work here. They’re searching as if their souls depended on it.”
“Never say such words in the house of a dead man.” Pareilles made the sign of the cross. “Scribe, erase that last sentence.”
Flamel, who had started writing again, did as he was told, using a sharp blade to scrape the parchment. Meanwhile, the doctor added a granular powder to each bowl. The substances in the bowls flashed in reaction. One gave off an acrid vapor, while the surface of the other liquid took on a sparkly gray sheen.
Flamel put down his pen and just stared.
“Mercury and sulfur. That’s what was put in the torturer’s eye sockets,” the doctor said.
“Mercury and sulfur,” Pareilles repeated.
“Looks like alchemy,” the doctor said as he stood up.