resting my hand on her shoulder for the barest second before retracting

it again.

Her voice follows me out of the room. The old voice, brief ly reasserting itself.

"Hector, I've been after you for weeks about that newel post. It's

not going to fix itself. I don't know why you can't . . ."

And then, as I walk back up the stairs, I hear:

"Never mind."

CHAPTE R 3 9.

The Dire Fate of Charlotte's Chickens I don' t read it right away. I settle myself in bed first, I place the candle just so on my nightstand. For several long minutes, I hold the letter in my hands, unopened. At last, a little shy of midnight, I unfold the paper and find . . .

My dear Beatrice,

If you are reading this, I have failed in my task.

The precise nature of that task I will not divulge, for fear of

incriminating you further. I will say only this. There was a creature who needed my help.

If it were our own dear son in peril, I could only hope that someone else's father would do as I am doing. And when Hector is himself a man, I trust and believe he will stand ready to do the same.

Much will be imputed to me, Beatrice. I will be called a devil, a royalist agent, an enemy to the people, etc. I am none of these things. I am a physician, whose highest calling (or so I have always believed) is to heal-to comfort-not to sit by and watch a Life be extinguished.

The thought of placing you and little Hector in danger on my account pains me beyond measure. How I wish I could have spared you! Please know-please believe-if I could have found another course, I should have taken it.

Know this, too, my dear wife. I love you, more than is healthy for anyone. You will be a good mother to our son, and if he should ever ask about me, tell him that until the very last second of my life, I was thinking of him.

Farewell, Hector I read it a good dozen times-maybe more-struggling to reconcile the man I knew with the largeness of this letter, the rashness of this act. To smuggle a young boy out of a fortress guarded by two hundred men! What combination of principle and courage and sheer insanity would that require?

And did he succeed?

All is well, he told my mother. Did that mean he had carried off his improbable feat? That even now the dauphin was being spirited to Switzerland? And what of the death notices? Were the Temple commissaries simply trying to cover up the boy's disappearance? Was anyone really buried that night in the Madeleine churchyard?

Questions, a blizzard of questions. And gathering beneath them a mission. I can see now there's a reason Charles was dropped into my world. There's a reason this letter was spared from the fire. For the first time in my life, my father is speaking directly to me.

And when Hector is himself a man, I trust and believe he will stand ready to do the same. . . .

Again and again I read that line. And in my heart, I say: I am ready. To finish the work you began.

No surprise : I d ream of my father that night. Except that Charles Rapskeller's voice is coming out of him. He's playing quoits with Chretien Leblanc, and no one can agree about what to call the King, and as they argue, they begin to melt round the edges-until a voice from the waking world breaks through.

"Doctor! "

I peel my eyes apart.

"You must wake up! "

The image of Jeanne-Victoire. Panting and purposeful. Shaking me by the collar.

"What are you-"

"Watching over you," she snaps. "As usual. Come, we haven't a moment to lose ! "

She grabs my arm and guides me down the steps like a nurse leading a convalescent.

"Charles," I mutter.

"The old man's got him. Come along! "

But why? I want to ask. Why do I have to come along?

And then I reach the ground f loor and I know why.

Fire.

I feel it first as a blast of heat emanating from the rear courtyard, transforming the air into something both solid and liquid. Timbers crackle and shriek above our heads. The remains of the kitchen ceiling gust toward us in a shower of confetti, and the air is choked with a strange and savory aroma.

Chickens, I realize as Jeanne-Victoire drags me out the door. The chickens that Charlotte keeps in the rear courtyard. Roasting alive.