Paris: The Novel

older brother will inherit the estate. So I must study hard and hope to make a career in the Church.”
    As they turned upstream again, he told her about the estate. It lay to the west, on the lower reaches of the graceful River Loire on its journey toward the Atlantic Ocean. He spoke of it with obvious affection, which pleased Martine. Soon, however, they were approaching a large area of wharfs and a marketplace known as the Grève.
    The broad spaces of the Grève market on the Right Bank were always busy. Ships and barges carrying wines from Burgundy and grain from the eastern plains unloaded on the river bank. On the other side lay the old quarters of the weavers, with the glassmakers a block farther. Her uncle’s house lay on the rue du Temple that ran northward between them. Too many people in the market knew her. She didn’t want to start gossip. It was time to get rid of her aristocratic young companion.
    “Good-bye, monsieur, and thank you,” she said politely.
    “I’m studying tomorrow,” Roland remarked, “but the day after, I shall visit the Sainte-Chapelle at this hour. Perhaps,” he suggested pleasantly, “I shall see you there.”
    “I doubt it, sir,” she said, and walked away.
    But two days later, she’d gone there all the same.
    It wasn’t long since the saintly King Louis had completed his sumptuous sanctuary for the holy relics. The upper chapel was reserved for the king himself, who had a private entrance from the royal palace next door. But lesser folk could worship in a humbler chapel below. And even this was beautiful. The cryptlike space shimmered by the light of countless candles. As Martine looked at the delicate columns of red and gold and observed how they branched out into the low, blue vaults, so richly spangled with golden fleurs-de-lys, she felt as if she had entered a magical orchard. By coming to meet Roland, she had already opened the way for an intimacy between them. In the glimmering candlelight, with the soft scent of incense in every nook and crevice, it seemed only natural that she should draw close to his side.
    And in doing so and leaning, once or twice, close to his body, she noticed something else. Notwithstanding the incense, she could smell him: a faint, pleasant smell of the light sweat on his leather sandals, and something else—was it almonds perhaps, or nutmeg?—that came from his skin.
    They had been there some minutes, quietly enjoying the beauty of the place, when a priest came past them, and to her surprise her young student had addressed him.
    “I was wondering,
mon Père
, whether I might show this lady the chapel above.”
    “The royal chapel is not open, young man,” the priest replied sharply. And that, she thought, was the end of it. But not at all.
    “Forgive me,
mon Père
, my name is Roland de Cygne. My father is the lord de Cygne in the valley of the Loire. I am his second son and plan to take Holy Orders.”
    The priest paused and looked at him carefully.
    “I have heard of your family, monsieur,” he said quietly. “Please accompany me …” And minutes later, they were in the royal chapel. “We can stay only a moment,” the priest whispered.
    The sunlight was coming in through the tall windows, filling the high, blue and gold spaces with celestial light. If the lower chapel had seemed like a magical wood, this was the hallway to heaven.
    Her young student, who spoke so well and smelled so good, had the power to open the secret gardens of earthly delights and royal sanctuaries. That was the moment when she decided to try him as a lover. Besides, she’d never had an aristocrat before.

    As she stared at him now, in the early morning light, he opened his eyes. They were tawny brown.
    “It’s time to go,” she whispered.
    “Not quite.”
    “I mustn’t get caught.”
    “Don’t make a sound, then.” He grinned.
    “We’ll have to be quick,” she said, as she lay down beside him.
    Afterward he told her that he must study the following night, but could come to her the night after that. She told him yes, then led him downstairs into the yard. Like most of the better merchant’s houses in Paris, her uncle’s house was tall. The front door gave directly onto the street, but behind the house there was a yard with a storehouse, above which she slept, and a gateway to the alley that ran along the back. Drawing the bolts to the gate softly back, she pushed him through, and quickly bolted the gate behind him. From the house,