Paris: The Novel

her.
    “What’s your name?” he whispered.
    “Constance.”
    “You’ll be all right here. But don’t make a noise. I wasn’t supposed to open the door.”
    She lay still. She was still shivering a bit. She was watching him, still uncertain, he supposed, whether she was really safe there.
    “Do you have any brothers or sisters?” he asked.
    She shook her head.
    “Nor do I,” he said.
    For about a quarter of an hour they stayed like that. He said nothing. She watched him. Then he heard his mother’s voice, calling softly up the stairs to see if he was awake. He thought quickly. He didn’t want his parents coming up to his room.
    “I’d better go down to my mother,” he said to the little girl. “You stay here. All right?”
    She nodded.
    His parents were sitting in the kitchen. They were looking solemn.
    “I heard the bells,” he said.
    “We must stay inside today,” said his mother.
    “Are they killing people?” he asked.
    “Why do you say that?” said his father.
    “I don’t know.” He waited for a reply, but none came. “Can I have some bread and milk?” he said. His mother gave it to him. “I think I’ll take it to my room,” Simon said. “I feel sleepy.” And his parents seemed quite glad that he should go back up there.
    When he got back to his room, he gave the bread and milk to the little girl. After she’d finished it, he put his arm around her. Then she fell asleep.
    It was about an hour later that he heard a horse’s hooves outside his window. Then a rap at the door. He stole out of his room to the top of the stairs. He saw the top of his father’s head as he went to the door and called out, “Who is it?” Then he heard the door open.
    “I can’t stop, Cousin.” Guy’s voice. “Don’t go out there. They’ve killed Coligny, and all the Protestants staying at the Louvre. Every one of them. They’ve been going around every lodging where Protestants are staying. The Protestants have realized what is happening and they’re trying to leave the city. But they can’t. All the gates have been locked to keep them in. You don’t hear it here, but they’re hunting them down in the streets. I saw twenty bodies floating in the river as I came this way. There’s a dead woman in the street at the end of your alley.”
    “A woman?”
    “They’re killing all the Protestants, Pierre. Men, women, children, all of them. It’s even worse than I imagined. I don’t know if it’s part of the plan, but there are mobs out in the street now. If they think someone might be a Protestant, they butcher them. One Catholic family were sheltering a Protestant, and so they killed them as well.”
    “This is terrible. It must be stopped.”
    “By whom, Pierre? Who’s going to stop it? This is all done by royal order. It’s the churchmen who are ringing the bells.”
    “But it is evil.”
    “Don’t say that, Cousin. They’ll say you’re a heretic and butcher you too. Keep your mouth shut, I beg you. And keep your door shut too. And wear those armbands. I have to go.”
    Simon heard his father close the door and slip the bolts.
    Then he went back into his room, and sat on the bed beside the little girl, who remained asleep, and wondered what he should do.
    It was an hour later that he went downstairs into the kitchen, found his parents alone and told them what he had done.
    “You did what?” His mother was past him in a flash and up the stairs. Moments later she came down again. She looked at her husband, then at Simon. It was a look of reproach, almost of hatred, that he would never forget. “She must go, Pierre,” said Suzanne. “We must put her out.” She made a gesture of desperation. “We have to.”
    Simon shook his head.
    “Maman, Papa hasn’t told you what Uncle Guy said when he came to the door. But I heard him from the top of the stairs. They are killing the Protestant children in the street. They will kill the little girl.” He looked from one parent to the other. “How can we put her out?”
    Neither of his parents spoke.
    Just then, they heard a small bump on the staircase. Then another. The child was coming down. She reached the foot of the stairs and walked back to the kitchen doorway. She looked a little sleepy. But when she saw Simon she went to his side and took his hand.
    “I am Constance,” she said.

    They kept her for two weeks. The difficulty was where they were to hide her.
    “Nobody must know she is here,” Pierre insisted. Neither the