shut and locked, but the dimmest suggestion of redness outlined the louvers; and as he passed its door he felt the glow of the stove's heat within. As warm as the day had been it must have been like an Indian sweat-bath in there. Foolish to keep it closed up, even if no supper were being cooked tonight. The rooms above it would be ovens...
He heard the soft clink of chain on bricks within. No supper, if they were at this fandango tonight. No one in the kitchen. Not the attic, the kitchen...
He pushed open the door, and, conscious of Bastien's immininent return, stepped through and closed it swiftly behind him.
"I'm not doin' nothing," whispered a voice, a broken plea out of the darkness. The smell of urine struck him, pungent and vile in the heat, half-buried under the slurry of other kitchen smells. "Not doin' nothing, just getting myself a little water. Please, Mr. Bastien, don't tell her I was bad. Don't tell her. Please."
A woman crouched on the other side of the big pine table, near the shelves and cupboards of the far wall. The open hearth, banked though it was, threw enormous heat but almost no light. Still, January could see that the woman was far smaller than Rose. An emaciated face, cheekbones stabbing through stretched skin, haunted eyes pits of shadow under a white headscarf, and a dark dress hanging baggy over bony limbs.
The dress was sweat soaked, the smell of it stinging, but it was buttoned down to the wrists and up to the woman's collarbone.
There was an iron collar around her neck. She was chained to the stove.
"Don't tell her, Mr. Bastien." Her voice was barely louder than the scrape of a hinge. She pressed her cheek to the wooden doors of the cupboards against which she crouched, trying to hide behind one blistered hand. "Don't let her know I was bad."
January's heart locked in his chest. All he could seem to see was the way the soft brick of the floor was worn in a shallow groove between the stove, the table, the cupboards, and the chamber pot in the corner-the only places where this woman was allowed to walk-and all he could smell was the stink of the dress she didn't dare to unbutton for the sake of coolness, and the piss she wasn't even allowed to pass outside. All he could think was, She has Rose here somewhere. She has Rose here.
Then as if a door opened somewhere inside him he saw Montreuil again, and Olympe's bleak eyes.
Those rumors were around before she lived next to Montreuil. Dear God, he thought. Dear God.
He opened the kitchen door a crack. Outside, Bastien shut and double-barred the gates-they would have done for a medieval city-and walked over to the stable, to check the carriage-team. Satisfied-by his step he was Satisfied-the coachman crossed back to the main house. January gave him a few moments to get away from the rear windows, then slipped out. Moving with the utmost caution to the outside stairway, he climbed warily, listening it seemed with the whole of his body and trembling with shock.
Lights came up in what had to be the rear parlor downstairs, muzzy patterns of gold on the herringbone bricks. Minutes later one of the second-floor windows bloomed with candle glow. A shadow briefly darkened the slitted louver lines.
Servants wouldn't be active in the main house at this hour. One of the family, then. Did the crippled Louise Marie attend balls? Or was she at home?
Barely breathing, he ascended the second flight. The smell that lingered on the third-floor gallery, even with the doors of the chambers shut and locked, told him he had found the place he sought.
There was a candle in his pocket, and a screwdriver. Though it froze his heart to make a light he did so, shielding it with his body, to examine the lock. It was of a simple latch kind, yielding to the removal of the the metal plate on the doorjamb. He slipped the latch free, eased the door open, then stepped through and shut it. The smell here was a thousand times worse in the thick trapped heat of spring: feces, urine, moldering blood. The strange, slightly metallic smell of maggots. Ants made trails along the walls, up the studs, across the rafters. Flies attacked the light in swarms.
The room was empty, but beyond the shut door at its far side, someone groaned.
I don't want to do this.