The Rhetoric of Death (35 page)

“When? Are you sure it was a woman?”

“An hour or two ago. I assumed it was a woman. But those mourning veils hide most everything, don't they?” She shook her head scornfully. “Those veils! If you're so much in mourning you don't even want to see where you're going, then why be out in the street? Why not stay home with the shutters closed and black bed hangings and all? Unless you just don't want to live anymore and you're trying to get run over, sin though that would be, though it's so easy to be hurt in traffic, it's hardly fair to count it as sin. But losing loved ones takes us all different ways, I suppose. Still, in that flaunting petticoat of hers, she can't have been all that deeply mourning, now can she?”

“Was the woman you saw carrying anything?” Charles asked, not daring to look at Pernelle, who was openly laughing at Mme LeClerc's observations.

Before Mme LeClerc could answer, someone coughed politely and they all turned toward the street door. A solidly built man in brown breeches and jacket stood there. He was smiling at them, but most of his smile was landing on Pernelle, who caught Marie-Ange by the hand and disappeared into the workroom. Mme LeClerc moved briskly around the counter. Taking his cue from her hurry, Charles smiled affably and stood between the man and the back of the shop. The newcomer was wigless. His hair only reached the nape of his neck and he wore both a sword and a pistol on his thick leather belt. Everything about him said police.

“Monsieur? Back again?” Mme LeClerc said sharply, demanding the man's attention. “I told you before that we are not open.”

“You did, madame,” he said, with an easy smile. “But if you sold me a little cream cake, I think no one would know.” He nodded toward the workroom door. “For not being open, you have a lot of help today. From far away, as I could tell from the young woman's voice when you gave me that magnificent brioche a while ago.”

Charles tensed. So much for La Reynie's lack of interest in the Provençal-speaking fugitive in the beggars' Louvre, damn the man. His flies there must have told him she had left. Of course he would start searching at the college door. Charles moved closer to the man.

“I always have plenty of help,” Mme LeClerc said tartly. “And my niece will not thank you for calling her a foreigner.” She waved away the man's sous and handed him a cake.
“Adieu, monsieur
.
”
A pointed “good-bye” instead of the shopkeeper's hopeful “see you soon.” She walked purposefully out from behind the counter and toward the street, forcing him backward. As he went, he studied Charles as though memorizing him. Then the man dodged among carriages and riders to lean against the bookshop wall across the street, nibbling at the cake and watching the bakery through the traffic.

“Police,” Mme LeClerc said flatly, slamming the door and shaking her head. “He keeps trying to see Mademoiselle Pernelle.”

“And you let her speak to him?” Charles demanded.

“Of course not!” She dropped the bar across the door. “I should have barred the door before, but I thought that would only convince him we had something to hide. When he walked in the first time, I had just called out to the back room that I wanted the work table scrubbed and she was answering me. The man's master had been here earlier.”

“What? Lieutenant-Général La Reynie?”

“Himself. Pretending he was only making sure we were not selling when we shouldn't. Your Pernelle was in here helping me scrub these counters. And since then, his man”—she glanced pointedly across the street—“has been making me nervous as a wet hen. I don't like it. I'm sure she's done nothing that's police business, nor you, either!”

Ignoring that, Charles went to the door to the old stairs and tried the latch. It was locked, as the rector had said. “Your key is lost, I hear, madame?”

“And our back door is bricked up. If your young lady needs a sudden way out, the only way is through a little back window into your courtyard. Unless St. Anthony takes pity and finds our key to the stairway door.”

“Madame, I fear,” Charles said slowly, “that Mademoiselle Pernelle must disappear. Can you borrow your apprentice's other set of clothes for her? Cut her hair, blacken some teeth with soot. She can be a mute so she doesn't have to speak. If the worst comes to the worst and you have to send her through the window, tell her to go to our porter and ask for me. It's the best I can think of.”

“It's well enough and well thought. We will do it. And who would expect you to think,
maître
, with people being poisoned?” She glanced across the street. “Wait, I'll give you a reason for coming here.” She clattered into the back and reappeared with a round loaf, dark with rye, tossing it from hand to hand. “If
he
asks, you can say it's a gift and I forgot to send it to you yesterday. It's hot, be careful!”

Charles wrapped it in a fold of his cassock. “Thank you for this, and for everything, madame. I will think of somewhere else your—ah—new apprentice can go. If you need me before tomorrow, tell the porter. And pray!” He went out into the street, a desperate urgency at his heels. He had to get Pernelle away from here and on the road to Geneva. Wishing he could find the entrance to her Huguenot highway, he put up his hand to ring the postern bell and froze. The policeman was still across the street, talking with another, even larger armed man and pointing at the bakery. Charles turned hastily back to warn Mme LeClerc, but two more men, one on foot and one on horseback, closed on him from both sides.

M
on père
, my master—”

“Silence, fellow!” The man on horseback raised an imperious gloved hand. “
Mon père
, a word!”

Tensed for assault, arrest, or both, Charles looked from the boy in servant's livery to the middle-aged, red-faced man on the horse. Far from laying hands on him, the two were jockeying for his attention like courtiers accosting the king. Realizing that he was holding the wheel of bread in front of him like a shield, Charles shifted it to one arm and smiled at the youngster. Then he turned to the horseman, who was slapping his tawny wool covered thigh impatiently with his riding crop.

“How may I help you,
monsieur
?” Charles said, smiling insincerely. The sooner well-dressed self-importance got its way, the faster it departed.

The man frowned and squinted at him. “I don't know you. But you are a Jesuit, surely you know who I am.”

Beyond the rider, Charles saw the two police agents walk away. In tones of heartfelt relief, he said, “I have not the pleasure,
monsieur.
”

The man drew a long, offended breath. “Your accent tells me you are not from Paris, so perhaps that excuses you. I am Monsieur Jean Donneau de Visé, editor of the
Nouveau Mercure Galant
. Are you attached to the college?”

“Yes,
monsieur.
I am Maître Charles du Luc,” Charles said, groaning inwardly. He had seen the
Mercure
, a weekly gazette reporting theatre and social news for the court and the wealthy. De Visé would no doubt be writing up Wednesday's performance. If Charles offended this well-known journalist and playwright, Père Jouvancy would probably scalp him and use the results to fix the mangy blond wig. “I sincerely hope, Monsieur de Visé, that we will have the honor of your presence on Wednesday.”

“That is why I stopped when I saw you. You can carry my request and I will not have to waste time going into the college. I want a better seat than I had last year. I could hardly see and couldn't hear a thing. And make sure I am well away from the edge of that damned awning. Rain sluices off it and I will
not
risk wetting my good beaver hat. Good day.”

Not bothering to raise the hat in question, he turned the horse and trotted away. Charles turned with relief to the boy.

“And how may I help you?” he said.

The boy dragged his eyes away from a pretty maidservant who was smiling at him and sending an extra sway of hips his way.

“I was sent from the Hôtel de Sully,
mon
—I mean—
maître
, I heard you say?”

“Yes. And your errand?”

“The duke reminds the college to be sure a poster for the tragedy and ballet is put at our gate. You forgot last year and he didn't like it. Will you carry that message for him?”

“A lot of people didn't like things last year, it seems.” Charles's wry face made the boy grin. “Yes, I will see that you get a poster. You may tell your master that the printer says we'll have them Tuesday morning.”

“Thank you,
mon père
.”The boy sketched a bow and made off after the girl.

A lay brother Charles didn't know opened the postern. Charles thrust the bread into his arms and asked him to send it to the kitchen. Then he went to Le Picart's office. Looking as though he was barely holding himself together under the news of this latest death, the rector was talking to Frères Brunet, Martin the doorkeeper, and Fabre. Brunet and Martin were listening tensely, but Fabre was staring at the floor.

“You have been very helpful,” Le Picart said to them. “For now, if anyone asks you, say only that Maître Doissin was taken suddenly and violently ill and died. Lieutenant-Général La Reynie is coming. When he gives permission, we will have a quiet funeral mass and burial across the river at St. Louis.”

He dismissed them and turned to Charles. “So now we have poison. And from outside the college.”

“
Mon père
, Mme LeClerc saw a woman in a mourning veil pass by an hour or two ago. And, as Frère Martin no doubt told you, the
gaufres
were brought by someone in a veil.”

“Would a woman do this thing? Who in God's name can she be?”

“My first thought was that it might be Antoine's stepmother,
mon père
. She
is
in mourning. But Mme Douté went back to Chantilly with Philippe's body. Didn't she?”

“I—yes—I believe so. I didn't see her go, but—” Shaking his head, Le Picart felt for his chair and sat down heavily, like an old man. “Until we get to the bottom of this, Antoine will be either with Père Jouvancy or Frère Brunet. He will not go to classes and he will sleep in the infirmary.” The rector sighed. “You were right, I was too complacent, and now I have Maître Doissin's death heavy on my conscience.”

After supper, Charles's much-tried body overruled his frantic mind and he lay down on his bed. Compline bells woke him. He hauled himself up and went to kneel in front of the painting of Mary and the infant Jesus. But before he could bow his head to say the office, his gaze caught and held on Mary's patient face.
Show me how to find the killers,
he whispered.
Before more people die.
He waited, every nerve stretched to listen beyond hearing and see beyond seeing. The evening light went on dimming, noise from the street hushed toward its night level, and that was all.

He resorted to bargaining.
Help me, Blessed Mother, and I will put my questions aside and serve you as a Jesuit all my life. Help me crush them. Guise and his hatred, Louvois and his cruelty.
The strength of his desire turned the knuckles of his clasped hands white. Mary's gaze seemed to darken. Justice? Or revenge? Her questions were loud in the stillness. Charles bowed his head and prayed for forgiveness. Prayed to want justice and not vengeance.

Slowly, heartbeat by heartbeat, the room's quiet filled with the Silence that came to him sometimes. He lifted his head. The painting was dim now. Mary's half-hooded eyes veiled her thoughts. She was so often like that in paintings. Pondering things in her heart, he supposed, as Scripture said. Worrying, probably, about those three ominous gifts to the baby. Gold, frankincense, and myrrh. The myrrh especially, that bitter funeral spice, must have haunted her as she suckled her fat, happy baby. The painter had put a little window in the wall behind her. Its curtain was pulled back and its casement stood open, showing green hills dotted with tiny white sheep. The hills were suspiciously rounded and matched in size, like green breasts. Charles wondered confusedly if the painter meant to say that Mary had to suckle all the world's poor stupid human sheep.

“Holy Queen, mother of mercy,” he prayed, imagining himself sitting beside her and talking quietly while evening filled her little room. “Hail, our life, our sweetness, and our hope. To you do we cry, poor banished children of Eve; to you do we send up our sighs, mourning and weeping in this vale of tears. Most gracious advocate, turn your eyes of mercy toward us . . .”

As he reached the “amen,” he looked again at the painting and noticed that the curtain at the painting's window was red. Blue was the Virgin's color. Did the red stand for blood? That funereal myrrh again? This red wasn't a scarlet, flaunting red. It was more rose, such a feminine color, rose . . .

Charles was on his feet and out the door, words of thanks-giving tumbling from his lips as he pelted down the stairs two at a time, hardly feeling his wound. The antechamber at the stair foot was shadowed in twilight, and he nearly didn't see Fabre at the side table, stopped in the act of putting a new candle in a copper candlestick.

“What's happened now,
maître
?” Fabre said anxiously, putting the candle down.

Charles didn't slacken his pace. “I just remembered something, that's all.”

“It's after Compline! Where are you going?” Fabre grabbed at Charles's sleeve, but Charles shook off his hand and disappeared into the street passage.

F
rère Martin was just locking the postern. He opened it again and Charles made for the river, but once through the bridge gate's torchlit passage, he slowed. The Petit Pont's narrow roadway with its tall old houses was in deep twilight and he didn't want to miss the shop. Voices and occasional music floated through open windows, a descant to the rougher music of the light traffic's wheels, hooves, and feet. Charles stopped under the apothecary's sign. No light showed in the shop or anywhere else in the house. He pounded on the door, waited, and pounded again. As he stepped back to see if a light showed in any upper window, the door grated over uneven stones. A candle flame wavered in the crack between the door and its jamb, and the barrel of a long pistol gleamed below it. Charles stepped hastily aside.