The Rhetoric of Death (42 page)

Guise vaulted onto the front of the stage with a ferocious ease that made Charles back up quickly and reassess his own danger.

“I beg you,
mon père
, calm yourself,” Charles said soothingly, as though Guise were a threatening dog. He edged upstage toward the rhetoric classroom windows. “What has angered you?”

“You,” Guise bellowed, matching him step for step. “You hell-born bitch spawn! You heretical piece of garbage! I should have killed you the first day I saw you.”

“Why should you want to kill me?” Charles kept his eyes on the priest's hands. He doubted Guise had a weapon, but the man seemed insane with rage. “What have I done?”

“You dare ask me what you've done?” Guise threw his head back and his voice boomed and echoed beneath the awning. “You killed my son, you devil from hell! My son, my only son.”

Charles shook his head in bewilderment. “What—but how—what do you mean, your son?”

“He lived only a few moments.”Tears streamed down Guise's face. “You killed him. If you hadn't terrified her and made her flee, he would have lived!”

A blaze of revelation brought Charles to a halt, and instantly Guise had him by the throat. Charles thrust his hands between Guise's arms and tried to hook the priest's feet from under him. Guise fell and Charles twisted free, throwing himself across the man's writhing body.

“Get help,” he yelled toward the trap door, “I can't hold him!”

Other hands shoved Charles aside. There was a grunt, a cry, and then the hot metallic smell of blood. Charles struggled to his feet, staring in horror at Frère Moulin sitting astride Guise's back and holding him by the hair. Neatly avoiding the spreading pool of blood from Guise's throat, the lay brother jumped up and wiped his knife on his gaping cassock, whose cincture had come loose in the struggle.

“Frère Moulin? Dear God, what—” Charles made himself breathe, searching for words. “Dear God, did you have to kill him?”

“You'd rather be dead yourself ?” Moulin moved closer. “You're not hurt,
maître
?” He peered anxiously at Charles.

“No. I—but—” Charles shook his head. “Thank God and all his saints that you were here. But could you not have—” Charles looked at Guise's body and tried to regret that the man was dead.

“No, I couldn't. He was crazed,
maître
. I heard him yelling and came running.”

“He said there was a child—his son, he said. A newborn child.”

“His woman birthed his babe a little while ago and like he said, it died. So did she.”

“His woman?” Charles whispered, staring at Moulin.

“Lisette Douté. I can see that's what you're thinking, and you're right.”

“How do you know all this?” Charles said, trying to make his shocked mind work.

“He sent for me this morning. From the Hôtel de Guise, where he'd hidden her. And now all his plans are undone. Classic tragedy,” Moulin said, with a bitter laugh. “You could make something of it for your show next year.”

Charles started to reprove Moulin for his jest, then didn't. Moulin had just killed someone—to save a life, but still, Charles knew what that did to men. “What do you mean, his plans are undone?”

Moulin put a shaking hand on Charles's sleeve. “He had great plans. But he was stupid and mad! And the Douté woman was stupid and greedy. But neither of them—”

“Frère Moulin, please—” Charles took a few steps away from him, toward the stage's edge.

Moulin followed him. “Let me speak truth for once! Neither of them was as stupid as old Douté. Thought he was the prize bull, getting her pregnant so fast. But that was Guise's work. Couldn't marry her himself, of course, so he made a quick match with Douté. Insane about blood and dynasty, Guise was. God, he wanted that babe! No Guises left now but him and the old duchesse. She has brats by a lover, I heard—but it seems they don't count as Guises. This babe couldn't be a real Guise, either, being a bastard, but he was going to be the Jesus Christ of a bigger and better Catholic League—maybe that's why Guise wanted him born in the old League chapel—”

“The chapel? Surely not,” Charles said, horrified, but Moulin ignored him.

“The Duchesse Marie couldn't leave her money to Guise, right? Him being a Jesuit. So to finance his League, he had to be sure his son would inherit all the Douté money.
Exeunt omnes
, as we say on the stage, don't we, exit the first Douté wife's two brats. And that mealymouthed Fabre helped him.”

“Are you sure?”

“Sure as shit. He's next to me in the dormitory, I know all about him.”

Charles felt sick. “If you'd told someone all this earlier,” he said angrily, “fewer people might have died!”

Rising wind made the courtyard torches flare, and Moulin's eyes gleamed blue. “I was afraid,
maître
,” he said, so close that Charles could feel his breath. “Guise was mad but powerful, and I'm only a servant.”

“Go and find Père Le Picart,
mon frère
,” Charles said wearily. “We need him here.” They did need the rector, but Charles had also remembered that Pernelle was still hiding in the understage. He had to get her away before the stage was overrun by all the people this latest death would bring.

Moulin, quiet now that he had purged himself of his terrible knowledge, had turned to look toward the street passage. As he turned toward Charles, the torches flamed brightly in the wind and teased a brilliant yellow gleam from the shirt beneath his gaping cassock. Charles's eyes widened. Time seemed to stop and his heartbeat with it. The hair rose on his neck. He raised his eyes to Moulin's and what he saw there turned him faint.

“You,” Charles breathed. He wanted to run, but couldn't move. Moulin's crow of laughter slapped him back to Père La Chaise's terrace, where the man who'd tried to slit his throat had laughed exactly the same way.

“Had you going, didn't I, feeling so sorry for me! Philippe's shirt becomes me, don't you think?” Moulin had darted between Charles and the edge of the stage and was bouncing happily on the balls of his feet, tossing his knife lightly from hand to hand. “That was fun, making you chase me out of the shit-house and over the wall that day!”

Moving with the infinite caution terror bestows, Charles took a small sideways step, trying for a clear path around Moulin. “You did Guise's killing for him. You, not Frère Fabre.” If he kept Moulin talking, the brother might not notice what Charles's feet were doing.

“Fabre winces when he crushes fleas,” Moulin scoffed. “Guise couldn't risk the street porter saying he'd been paid to keep quiet about seeing the knife in my hand, could he? And I couldn't risk it, either, could I!”

“How did you know I'd found the porter?” Charles slid his feet another few inches aside.

“You tripped over me on the quay, you clumsy piece of shit! But you're wrong about Philippe. I did Philippe for
me
, not Guise. The little cock saw my box of souvenirs and was going to be the lily-white boy and get me thrown out for thieving. Or womanizing, he couldn't quite make up his mind which. Insufferable little shit, even mealymouthed Fabre scolded him once for the way he talked to me! Pride goeth before a fall, they say, don't they? His went.”

“Souvenirs?” Charles gained another half an inch. “The box Antoine and Marie-Ange found in the stable loft?”

“The same. Mementoes of my dead sister.”

“But—surely no one would blame you for keeping those!”

Moulin chortled. “My
very
dead sister. And
much too
dear, most people would say. Oh, no, that killing's still remembered. I couldn't risk my treasures being seen, so—exit Philippe. Told him that if he'd meet me by the latrine, I'd explain where I got the things in the box and he could do as he thought best.” He shrugged a shoulder. “You could say my past is even more checkered than the pasts of most noble younger sons. And Guise knew where the bodies were buried. Literally, I'm afraid, and held what he knew over my head. That's why he gave me a new name, sponsored me as a lay brother, and in turn got himself a humble servant for his little projects. In exchange, I got entertainment, money, and a new identity. Speaking of bodies, you never would have found Philippe's if the shit collectors I paid to take it away and dump it hadn't gotten cold feet.” Moulin's voice turned sullen. “Killing Philippe should have made Guise grateful, since he'd planned to do it anyway, but did it? No, I was just the servant, never anything more, no matter if I'd brought the bastard the Holy Grail!”

“Why should he have been grateful?” As Charles risked a lightning glance at the stage edge, measuring the distance, he thought he saw shadows moving slowly along the right-hand wall of the courtyard. But he couldn't be sure in the light and dared not take his eyes from Moulin long enough to look again.

“Don't you listen? Guise was planning all along to get rid of the Douté brats, and when Philippe turned up missing, Guise took it as a sign from God. Had me go ahead and try for the other one. But the little snot-nose was too fast and I missed him.” Moulin caressed his knife as though to comfort it. “Then Guise had Lisette try, but Doissin ruined that. I told Guise the poison scheme was trouble. When he listened to me, his projects turned out, but when he didn't—see where it got him?”

They looked at Guise's body. The reek of blood from the priest's throat hung over the stage. Suddenly, out of the corner of his eye, Charles saw a brief flash of torchlight on metal where he thought he'd seen shadows moving.

“I'll tell you about one of his projects, knowing how much you'll hate it.” Moulin's eyes gleamed in a windy flare of torchlight and he leaned closer, smiling wolfishly. “Dragonnades! Not the silly English plot. The ones Guise and Louvois have been running for our saintly king. I've been their messenger to the
very
well-paid military couriers who pass orders to provincial officials. Want to know where the next one is? Metz.” Moulin lunged playfully at Charles and pricked the end of the knife through his cassock and shirt. “Don't worry, however—you won't grieve when it happens, because you'll be dead.”

“Why go on killing?” Slowly, Charles bent his knees to leap for the edge of the stage. “You could still confess and do penance, instead of damning your soul—”

“You think God cares about any of this? If he did, would the world be such a shithole? No theologian's ever explained that one and some of them are almost as smart as I am. Sorry. But I am leaving Paris.” Moulin jerked his head toward Guise's body. “Tidying up before I go. Too bad you saw my pretty shirt.”

He sprang with part of the sentence still in his mouth. As he knocked Charles to the floor, flipped him onto his belly, and straddled him, gunfire echoed off the courtyard walls.

C
harles lay rigid, not knowing who had fired the shot or which of them had been its target.

“Charles, oh, dear God, Charles, don't be dead!” Pernelle fell to her knees beside him. And jumped up with a smothered sob as someone vaulted onto the stage.

The light from a swinging lantern made Charles blink. Shoes crossed his line of vision and Moulin's weight was rolled off his back. A large hand framed in lace reached down.

“Are you hurt?” Lieutenant-Général La Reynie pulled Charles up and holstered a pistol with his other hand.

Feeling at his wound to see if it was bleeding again, Charles shook his head. Pernelle had withdrawn to the edge of a wing, a hand pressed to her mouth, her eyes enormous in her white face.

A man with a bloodied bandage around his arm held the lantern over Moulin's body.

“That's him.” The words were full of grim satisfaction.

La Reynie nodded. “Go back to the Châtelet, let them see to you,” he said to the man.

Charles stared at what had been Moulin, trying to pray for the man's twisted, violently dispatched soul and failing utterly. He looked up. “I owe you my life, M. La Reynie.”

“It was one of my men who shot him.”

“How did you know to come here?”

“When Guise left the Hôtel de Guise, two of my men followed him. This Moulin must have been watching the Guise house, too, because he followed my men. One of my officers realized he was there and doubled back to question him. Moulin killed him for his trouble and wounded the one who just left, but that one got word back to me at the Châtelet. I guessed Guise would come here and thank God I guessed right.” La Reynie gave Charles an appreciative nod. “You did well to keep Moulin talking. Did you know we were in the courtyard?”

“I knew someone was. You heard what Moulin said?”

“Most of it. Enough.”

Hurrying footsteps made them turn.

“
Maître
! Thank God!” Père Le Picart rested trembling hands on Charles's shoulders. “You are not hurt?”

Charles shook his head. “It's finished,
mon père
,” he said gently. “It's over.” He nodded toward the bodies. “Frère Moulin was behind it all, not Frère Fabre. But he was working for Père Guise, as was Mme Douté.”

Briefly, Charles and La Reynie told the rector what had happened and what they'd learned.

“It is not finished,” Le Picart said into the quiet that fell then. “Not for their souls.” He looked from Moulin's splayed body to Guise's, lying in a glistening pool of blood. “I failed them. I was their superior, I stood as their father in religion. I should have known, I should have seen . . .”