‘That does not mean they spend their money wisely,’ replied Guil.
On entering the cloister, they found the first signs that the place was occupied. Stacks of empty crates were lined against one wall, straw trailing onto the cobbles. Smashed glass was mixed among it, still bright and gleaming. Ada picked up a large fragment, the remains of a wide-neck opening, and sniffed it.
‘I know what this is. It’s turpentine. It’s used for preserving specimens. Getting a skeleton is easy, you just boil the body until the flesh falls off. Preserving specimens is harder.’
‘Specimens?’ asked Guil.
‘Organs. Dissected animals. Deceased things. They use them in the surgical schools. It’s hard to get fresh corpses, so preserves have to do.’
‘And yet our dear duc seems to have a ready supply coming to him here,’ said Camille.
She tried the door of the chapel, which opened with a shockingly loud squeal.
A bird launched from its perch, an explosion of feathers and noise.
They froze. Anxious sparks danced between Olympe’s fingers.
But no one came.
Silence claimed the cloisters again, and Camille eased the door further open.
Inside, the milky daylight filtered through stained glass windows, casting a mottled pattern over the flagstones. Dim as it was, it was clear that the chapel had been given over to a darker purpose. The pews had been removed, replaced by two long wooden benches, and makeshift shelves of planks balanced over lumps of scrap masonry. Each was filled with jars, some murky, some bright, all with yellowy-grey objects suspended in clear liquid. By the benches was a trestle table covered in oilcloth and spread with knives and hacksaws and all manner of blades and slicing implements. The floor was dull, much sluiced but still sticky with something dark that caught in the grouting.
On each bench lay a human body. Adult, limp, splayed open by a thousand pins. Skin peeled back like the rind of an orange, bone, vein and muscle bared. On the woman to the left, both legs had been unzipped from ankle to groin, butterflied and still grisly fresh. The second was in a worse state. Smelling strongly, the man’s belly had been scooped out like a melon, intestines coiled over his ribs.
Camille let out a low whistle. Beside her, Olympe was tense as a cat, arched and ready to hiss.
‘This is it. This must be him.’
Camille covered her mouth and pushed them back outside.
‘Ada, stay here with Olympe. See what you can find out about the duc’s … studies. Guil, you’re with me. I want to discover the man behind the mutilation.’
Ada closed the chapel door behind her, and she and Olympe were alone in the dissection room. The smell was atrocious. The sweetness of rotting flesh mingled with astringent turpentine, and damp that rose from the floor. Paris in summer was never a pleasant experience, and most dissecting schools closed when neither student nor teacher could face racing to study bodies that would liquefy as they worked. Either the duc had a strong stomach, or he was desperate to keep working, whatever the circumstances.
Living with her father, she’d had her own pomander, filled with nutmeg and orange peel and spices, to brave the streets when he let her out to the opera or other amusements.
Here, she had nothing.
Ada took a deep breath – regretted it – then crossed between the benches to begin searching the scattered books and drawers and papers that had been left in the room.
Olympe didn’t follow.
She stayed by the door, eyes fixed on the two bodies.
‘Are you all right?’
‘Yes. No. I’m not sure.’
‘You don’t have to do this.’
Olympe shuddered, not taking her eyes from the bodies. ‘I keep thinking: if I had died, is this where I would have ended up? Would he slice me open to dissect my heart and liver and brain? Pickle me like a walnut for everyone to study?’
‘You’re free. That’s never going to happen now.’
She pulled her gaze from the corpses to look at Ada. ‘Just because the duc hasn’t done it yet, doesn’t mean this isn’t the fate waiting for me some day. I want to know why he did this to me.’
‘I understand, you know,’ said Ada after a long silence. ‘Not exactly, of course, but my father made choices for me that he had no right to. He didn’t like how close I was to Camille. He thought her family was dangerous, so when Camille and her father were on trial, he locked me in my room. I know it sounds silly when I put it like that – I’m hardly the first daughter to be locked in – but it was such a betrayal. I’d thought of us as inseparable after my mother died when I was ten. When he stopped me being with Camille when she needed me most, it was like meeting a new person who’d been hiding under his skin all along. He didn’t really care what I wanted. He only thought of me as another project to order and direct as he saw fit.’
