Lesage walked in the direction of Les Enfants Rouges, brooding on his conversation with Catherine. Her words echoed about in his skull as if it were a cavern. You have blood on your hands. One cannot return home after the nest has been fouled. The damned woman was so adept at turning anything to her own advantage. For good reason was she feared throughout the city. Over the years Lesage had seen her bend all sorts of people to her will – and not only illiterate merchants and greedy soldiers and their ilk. No. There had been duchesses and dukes, and now it seemed that Madame de Montespan herself was the King’s official mistress thanks to their diabolical intercession. Catherine had spies in virtually every quarter of the city, people over whom she held great influence, mostly thanks to some shard of compromising gossip she wouldn’t hesitate to leverage for her own purposes. After all, someone was always fucking someone they shouldn’t be or generally up to mischief. She probably wouldn’t rest until she had been installed in her own apartments at Saint-Germain.
The streets were busy with all sorts of merchants and carriages and idlers and animals. Horses, a flock of geese, a herd of pigs. He paused at an oyster stall and quaffed several with a sprinkling of lemon and salt. Unpleasant things they were – like warm dollops of coagulated sea water – and yet he invariably felt compelled to eat them if the opportunity arose.
Nearby a blind beggar woman crouched in the shadows with her hand out, murmuring prayers and imprecations. The woman was ancient and her scalp and cheeks were dotted with blisters. In an Italian church many years ago Lesage had seen a saint who had been dead for several centuries, but who looked more likely to rise up and walk than this old woman. Consideration of the beggar – and of the saint – prompted in him thoughts of Madame Picot and he experienced an unfamiliar spasm of guilt. Should he have done something for the poor woman, offered some further sort of – what? – assistance? She had no husband, no children. She was not old, certainly, and quite pretty – but she wasn’t young enough to attract a husband of great quality. And she was so provincial, not suited to the city. Paris swarmed with unscrupulous and calculating rogues. This he knew better than most; after all, he was one of them. The fate he had hastily predicted for her when they encountered the family of troubadours in the forest might yet prove to be accurate. Perhaps he truly was possessed of clairvoyant abilities? How else to explain Madame Leroux’s drowning, not to mention the money he’d seen in Madame Picot’s tarot cards? Unaccountably moved by the beggar’s sordid fate, Lesage took a few sous from his pocket and dropped them into her outstretched claw.
He turned into Rue Pavée, its fancy paving stones underfoot like turtle shells, and skirted around a stinking pile of fresh ordure. A rat darted past and vanished into the shadows. Soon he became aware that the cacophony of children playing and babies squalling was louder than the general noise of the street. He had arrived at the orphanage of Les Enfants Rouges. He adjusted his hat and straightened his wig.
When he rang the bell, the peephole set into the door slid across, revealing a pair of eyes as dark and as oily as olives. ‘Yes?’
‘I am here to see Monsieur Vicente,’ Lesage told the concierge.
‘For what purpose, monsieur?’
‘He has something for me.’
‘What is your name, please?’
‘My name is Lesage.’
The eyes bobbed out of sight, then returned. ‘We have no record of an appointment for anyone by that name, monsieur.’
‘Catherine Monvoisin sent me.’
‘Ah. I see.’ A puzzled pause. ‘You are Monsieur du Coeuret?’
Lesage sighed. ‘Yes. That’s me.’
The peephole closed, then the bolt was retracted and the door swung open, releasing the institutional whiff of the orphanage. He hesitated, but the concierge gestured impatiently for him to come inside, so he muttered a prayer and crossed himself before covering his nose with one hand and stepping into the courtyard full of children.
The concierge – waddling with arms akimbo like a duck drying its wings – led Lesage across a courtyard and through the swarm of orphans, most of whom were dressed in red in accordance with the name of the orphanage. Children of all ages, and in varying states of health and disrepair, eddied about. A group of girls perched on a nearby bench darning, while some younger boys at their feet played a game with pebbles. Others were engaged in lessons.
They passed through a dim colonnade into a passage and then down a flight of stairs until they entered a high-ceilinged ward. Several lanterns and candles cast a greenish light over the dozen or so beds arranged haphazardly on the floor. It was cooler and calmer down here. Young women sat on benches nursing babies, while others glided as serenely as mermaids through the shadows. Female murmurs and the squawk of a newborn, glimpse of a pale young breast. The world of women. So lovely.
‘Through here, Monsieur du Coeuret,’ said the concierge, and he ushered Lesage into an office on the far side of the ward.
Monsieur Vicente was a portly man who wore a pale wig and a grey apron spattered with blood. He shook Lesage’s hand and whispered some instructions to a midwife, who glanced at Lesage before bustling from the room. Although it was many years since Lesage had been engaged in such a transaction, the procedures were depressingly familiar. It was a secret, this kind of arrangement, but really no secret at all. Everyone knew what occurred, even if they didn’t acknowledge that they knew. Besides, the babies were bastards, unwanted and delivered of whores – what did anyone expect? At least this way they would be of use to someone.
‘Please, Monsieur du Coeuret. Sit down. You must be hot. Would you like a drink? Some chicory water, perhaps?’ Monsieur Vicente poured a cup of the water from a clay jug and handed it to him.
‘It’s Lesage.’
‘Pardon, monsieur?’
‘My name is now Lesage.’ He raised the cup to his lips and drank. It was refreshing, but at that moment he wished for something stronger.
Monsieur Vicente ran his tongue over his lips as he considered this, but declined to respond. ‘And how is Catherine?’ he asked.
‘Pardon?’
‘Madame Monvoisin?’
‘Oh. She seems well. The same as ever, I suppose. Little truly changes . . .’
A chuckle, a steepling of the fingers beneath his chin. ‘Indeed. A formidable woman. Now. I trust you have the money for this baby?’
Lesage pulled the purse from his satchel and placed it on the table. The midwife returned with a bundle in her arms. Lesage stood and the woman moved to give the baby to him but, evidently reconsidering this course of action and, momentarily confused, she opted instead to place it in a cradle by the door before leaving the room. Monsieur Vicente stood and opened his mouth to call after her, but faltered.
‘Ah,’ he murmured, manoeuvring somewhat awkwardly around his desk. ‘She’s gone already.’ He opened the door and summoned a boy walking past carrying a bucket. ‘You there. Boy. Come here a moment.’
The dark-haired boy flinched when he was addressed, as if he apprehended Monsieur Vicente’s words as blows, but he shuffled into the room and listened as Monsieur Vicente instructed him to escort Lesage to the side entrance of the orphanage.
The boy looked at Lesage and, at that moment, in the light entering through the barred window set high into the wall, Lesage saw the boy had a thick scar along the side of his jaw. He started in disbelief. Could it be true? He rose from his chair and pushed past Monsieur Vicente to inspect the boy, who cowered further under his scrutiny. Lesage tilted the boy’s head to one side. Yes, there could be no doubt. Along the left side of his jaw was a thick scar, exactly as Madame Picot had told him.
‘How did you get this scar here?’
‘I fell off a fence when I was a child, monsieur.’
‘You are Charlotte Picot’s son, are you not? Nicolas Picot?’
The boy shrank away and stared at him. ‘How did you know that, monsieur?’