The Rhetoric of Death (33 page)

Mislead him,
Le Picart had said of La Reynie. Charles thought that men who had misled the lieutenant-général must be few and far between.

“Who attacked you?” La Reynie's voice cracked like a whip and Charles jumped.

“I don't know.”

“I think you do. It was a Jesuit and you are shielding him.”

“I assure you, I like my life too much to shield anyone who wants to kill me.” Charles stirred uncomfortably on the bed. His attacker had certainly not been Guise, because Guise had still been inside the room arguing with Louvois. And Charles doubted that Guise would deign to take the role of common assassin. But most Louis le Grand Jesuits had grown up learning how to ride and use weapons. Even the poorest lay brother knew how to use a knife. “I do know what was used to kill Philippe and the porter,” Charles said, partly to redirect La Reynie's attention.

La Reynie's gaze sharpened and he leaned forward. “What?”

“Someone in the Louvre saw the porter's murder,” Charles said. “This witness never saw the killer's face, but did see the man take something from his pocket and strangle Pierre with it, then sit on the floor and do something to one of his boots. I think the killer strangled the porter with a spur garter and put it back on his boot. As he did with Philippe. A long, partially braided leather garter would fit the marks on both bodies.”

“Well done,” La Reynie said, in surprised approval.

“A woman who saw Antoine's accident said the man who rode him down wore burnt sugar-colored jackboots. On Thursday afternoon, I saw a man in the college wearing boots like that. I tried to catch him, but he eluded me. I told Père Le Picart, and we have taken extra measures to protect Antoine.”

“Were the jackboots you saw gartered?”

“Yes.”

“Too bad you let the man elude you. Now tell me what your rector forbade you to say this morning.”

“I have given you what I know.”

The lieutenant-général brought his walking stick's iron tip down sharply on the floorboards. Charles jumped.

“You have given me what you choose to give me. I know that you are caught between me and your rector, but that is your own affair. Your agreement with me stands, or you had better hope it stands. I have something to tell
you
, Maître du Luc, and perhaps it will help loosen your tongue. Early this morning, two of Père La Chaise's Friday evening guests were found floating in the river. Stabbed. One M. Lysarde and one M. Winters. The visiting Englishman. Or Dutchman.”

Charles swallowed. “Did the watch find them?”

“Interestingly enough, no. The report was brought to me by one of M. Louvois's men. One of M. Louvois's servants, out on an early errand, I'm told, found them near the Ile St. Louis, where Lysarde lived. The other man was staying with him. They never came home on Friday night. Lysarde's servants claim to know nothing. Lysarde was an avid member of the Catholic League and one of Père Guise's penitents. But I think you already know that.”

Charles crossed himself, unable to keep his hand from shaking as he remembered Louvois's fury at Winters. The war minister's rage—and fear—had been palpable, even through the door. Poor Lysarde, poor posturing little goat, whose greatest crime was stupidity. And poor Charles, perhaps, because by now Louvois and Guise had to know that Charles had overheard them.

“I ask you again, Maître du Luc, did you meet those two men? Did you talk to them?”

“I briefly met Lysarde. We discussed Spinoza.”

“So it is simple Christian compassion that makes your hand shake and has you looking more ill than when I came,” La Reynie said dryly. “Now hear me. You were attacked on your way back from Père La Chaise's soirée. Two other men were murdered after that same Jesuit-hosted evening. On your own admission, this booted horseman had previously come to the college. What did he come to do? Who did he come to see? Did he deliver a message? To your rector, perhaps? Your rector is well known in Paris as an astute politician. Or was the message for Père Montville, his almost equally astute assistant?” La Reynie's eyes bored into Charles. “Or was it, perhaps, for the illustrious and fervent Père Guise? I put it to you that what your rector so urgently wants you not to tell me is that all these murders are in the service of a Jesuit plot.” He rose and looked down at Charles. “Find out who the booted man came here to see. And why. And who he is.” La Reynie bared his teeth in what might have been a smile. “And now, I wish you a good day. By the way, I always come to the Louis le Grand show. Be sure I have a good seat.”

D
inner was garlic mutton. Charles wondered if it was as good as the sign painter's. Whether it was or not, it tasted like sawdust, since he had to eat it cheek by jowl with Père Guise. Once, as he reached for the bread, he caught Guise staring at him and the hatred in the man's eyes nearly knocked him off his chair. But, as Père Le Picart had said, surely Guise wouldn't risk another death in the college. When the meal ended, Père Dainville accosted Charles outside the refectory. His papery old face was grave, but Charles couldn't hear what he said. While he'd been in the infirmary, the Cour d'honneur had become a chaos of lumber, canvas, and rope, echoing with the hammering and the shouts of workmen and lay brothers constructing the outdoor stage. Like Charles, they were working on Sunday afternoon because time was short. Dainville put his mouth next to Charles's ear.

“Please come with me to the fathers' garden,” he said in a quavering shout. “I have something to ask you.”

Charles started to plead his injury as an excuse, but Dainville was already making for the garden and didn't hear him. Exasperated, Charles followed. Seeing Pernelle would have to wait. Dainville led him across the little expanse of turf drowsing in the sunshine and sat on a stone bench in the lee of the age-blackened west wall.

Charles exclaimed and pointed at the north wall, where ripening grapes fattened on a gnarled vine in what sun Paris had to offer. “Vines here,
mon père
? Do we make wine?” He had glanced into this garden in his search for the boots, but he hadn't seen the grapes.

Dainville laughed. “Frère Brunet tries. But he gets only a drop. Though a venerable drop, as that vine descends from Roman vines, you know. There are still vines like that one all over St. Geneviève's hill. Sadly, our winters are too cold for them to flourish. I think the old Romans brought Italy's warmth with them when they settled here, and took it away when they left. And now,
mon fils
, for what I must ask.” He peered earnestly at Charles. “I saw you come out of Père Guise's chamber a few days ago. When we collided in the passage.”

Charles nodded warily.

“Another man left the chamber just ahead of you. I happen to know that Père Guise was not there, he was in the library. I must ask what the two of you were doing, my son.”

In his excitement, Charles gripped Dainville's hand. “Did you recognize him,
mon père
? Who was he?”

Dainville snatched his hand away and stared at Charles in consternation. “You do not even know who he was?”

“No, and I must. Please,
mon père
!”

“So brazen in your sin?” Dainville crossed himself, shaking his head.

Charles suddenly realized what the old priest was saying. With so many men and boys living together, confessors worried constantly about the danger of unnatural affections. And Guise might well be spreading rumors about finding Charles in Antoine's room.

“
Mon père
, be assured that there was nothing sinful in what you saw,” Charles assured him. “More than that I am under obedience not to say. But I must know who you saw in the passage.”

“Under obedience to whom?” Dainville said suspiciously.

“To Père Le Picart. I swear it by all the saints.”

The old priest frowned and then slowly nodded. “All I can tell you is that the man was dressed as a lay brother. Not a big man, certainly smaller than you. He ran past me, and that passage is always dark. I fear I do not see so well as I used to. But he wore an apron and a short cassock. And boots, so he must have been about to ride somewhere.”

So La Reynie was right, Charles thought, trying to keep his horror off his face. The killer was a Jesuit. Or a senior student in lay brother's clothes? Hardly stopping to thank the perplexed Dainville, Charles hurried out of the garden as fast as his aching body would let him. The rector was in his office, in the act of rising from his prie-dieu. Before Le Picart could even speak, Charles launched into what he had to tell.

“—but Père Dainville only saw his back,” Charles finished. “
Mon père
, it is critical now that Antoine's tutor—or someone—keeps the boy always in sight. Always!”

A cascade of falling metal came from the courtyard, accompanied by ripe curses. With a mild oath of his own, Le Picart slammed the casement shut. Charles started to speak, but the rector held up a peremptory hand.

“Let me think, for the love of God!” Le Picart stood utterly still, staring at the floor. “I can replace Maître Doissin. I should have done it before now. And I will have the lay brothers' dormitory searched—I will say there are rats or something. When we find the boots, we will find the man. If we find nothing, I will have the students' quarters searched as well.”

“And when La Reynie makes the man talk, we will have Père Guise,” Charles said ruthlessly. “Is there any lay brother Père Guise is especially close to?”

The rector sighed. “He has sponsored one or two. That young redhead—Frère Fabre. That was a sad case, the boy is barely seventeen. He owes much to Père Guise.”

Charles's stomach felt hollow. Fabre had told him that and he'd forgotten. “Why did Père Guise want to keep him?”

“He
is
capable of simple benevolence,” the rector said angrily. “Whatever you may think!”

“Forgive me,
mon père
.” Charles bent his head in outward apology and kept his thoughts behind his face.

The rector cast a harried look toward the courtyard as the college clock chimed. “Go to your rehearsal,
maître
. I had overmuch to do and now I have more.”

Charles picked his way through the maze of construction, wondering if it was one of the half dozen lay brothers wielding hammers and saws who had tried to kill him. His steps slowed as he studied the rapidly rising stage. It would cover most of the court's east side and reach to the top of the second-story windows. The stage floor was already in place against the rhetoric classroom's windows, with space beneath for the ropes, capstans, and the massive wooden gears that worked the stage machinery and trap doors. In spite of everything, excitement about the upcoming show surged through him.

Rehearsal hadn't started, but the rhetoric classroom was a whirlwind. Two boys, in outsized papier-mâché masks with open mouths and knobby features, clung to the ladder Charles had used for the sugar snowstorm. The ladder was teetering dangerously and Maître Beauchamps was trying to steady it. A third boy was picking up pieces of his mask from the floor. Charles recognized the three masks as those portraying the ballet's hubris-crazed giants trying to climb into heaven, allegories for the Huguenots.

“Hold on, lean out, balance each other,” Beauchamps yelled to the two on the ladder. “Ah,
morbleu
, jump then, but don't let the other two masks fall!”

The boys landed on their feet and Charles lowered himself toward a bench and then had to stand up again as Jouvancy called everyone together for the opening prayer. Then Jouvancy took the actors through the tragedy with no stops while Charles and Beauchamps did the same with the ballet. In spite of the workmen hammering, shouting, swearing, and spitting sawdust just outside the windows, the dancers did so well that Charles forgot his fears and his aching body and grinned from ear to ear as he softly counted measures. Jouvancy called a break and came to sit beside him.

“Whoof ! Excellent! I think we are going to make it after all! Today, tomorrow, Tuesday, and then we're on, can you believe it? They'll finish the stage tonight and tomorrow morning the machinery will be in place. The Opera craftsmen showed me the finished Hydra yesterday and I tell you, it is glorious, painted the most deliciously horrible green and orange and purple!” Jouvancy hugged himself in anticipation. “Tomorrow afternoon is our first rehearsal on the stage. Cast, costumes, machines, musicians, everything. It will be a disaster, it always is. My only comfort is that this year we're not putting the musicians in trees.” He suddenly focused on Charles. “How are you,
maître
? I was so very sorry to learn of your injury. I have never trusted horses! You must not tire yourself,” he added vaguely, and stood up, clapping his hands and shouting for everyone's attention. “We will begin again, alternating the tragedy acts with the ballet parts, as we will on Wednesday. Place yourselves!”

Everyone—actors, dancers, and the presiding theatrical saints and goddesses—more than rose to the occasion. On Wednesday the closing Ballet Général would end with the philosopher Diogenes, played by Père Montville, descending on a painted cloud with his famous lantern to find the boys receiving the annual school prizes and bring them to the stage. Today it ended with Charles, Jouvancy, and Beauchamps kissing each other on both cheeks and Beauchamps bursting into a spontaneous gigue as everyone stamped and clapped and yelled. Charles was clapping and yelling, too, his aches forgotten, when he saw Frère Fabre at the door. Watching the brother warily, Charles pushed his way through the crowd of boys.