The Rhetoric of Death (19 page)

“Whiter sugar,” Jouvancy snapped at Charles. “I want whiter sugar! It's supposed to be snow. Not mud oozing from Olympus.”

Charles wiped his sleeve across his face again. “
Is
there mud on Olympus?” he murmured and smiled down at Jouvancy. “Shall I get whiter sugar now,
mon père
?”

“Of course not now, don't be absurd.” Jouvancy rounded on the new Hercules. “And you, try to dance like a hero, for the love of God! Hercules is not a lovesick girl in a garden!”

De Lille turned helplessly to Beauchamps. Beauchamps abruptly stopped looking as though he wanted to smash his violin over de Lille's beautiful head and bore down on Jouvancy like a sow defending her one piglet.

“
I
am the dancing master, Père Jouvancy, and
I
and no one else will correct him!”

“
I
am the livret's author and I will not see my ballet spoiled by this—this—”

“You only hate him because he is not Philippe!”

“I don't care who he is not, he dances like a lovesick girl!”

Charles yawned and leaned on the top of the ladder to wait out the squabble. He'd lain awake far into the night, wrestling with his conscience and the order he'd been given to leave the murder and the accident to Père Le Picart and Lieutenant-Général La Reynie. It wasn't only Charles's desire for justice that was pushing him to disobey now, but fears for his own safety. His heart had nearly stopped yesterday when La Reynie mentioned Nîmes. Louvois and La Reynie had been in close talk with Père Guise before they accosted him, and Guise had already accused Charles to the rector as a “heretic lover.” Charles was fairly certain, though, that Guise didn't know he'd rescued his Protestant cousin. Guise would have trumpeted that knowledge to the skies. But he'd insinuated to the faculty that Charles might have killed Philippe, and yesterday Louvois had virtually accused Charles of the murder while La Reynie had stood back and watched, like someone at a mildly interesting play. If any of the unholy trio started digging for damning information, what Charles had done in Nîmes might well come to light. If it did, reprisals would fall not only on him, but on his family, both Catholics and Protestants alike.

A new thought made him catch his breath. Le Picart had duly turned the murder over to La Reynie. But had he done it planning to side-step the spectre of scandal by making a scapegoat of the “foreigner” from the heretic-tainted south? Charles shook his head involuntarily. However much Le Picart feared scandal, he seemed too honest for that kind of lie. But that didn't solve Charles's problem of the triumverate of Guise, Louvois, and La Reynie and their ominous scrutiny.

At the foot of the ladder, Jouvancy and Beauchamps were still muttering furiously at each other. Except for de Lille, who was happily and obliviously practicing graceful little jumps, the college was dangerously on edge. Too many were relishing Guise's titillating insinuations and looking sideways at Charles. Jouvancy, by all accounts usually the mildest and best loved of teachers, was grieving and exhausted, his temper shorter than Charles's thumb. Half the students were also grieving for Philippe, while the other half were pleasurably frightened over who might be next.

Beauchamps, whose mind was not on Philippe at all, turned abruptly from Jouvancy, ordered de Lille back to earth, and led him away to the windows, pouring a stream of instruction into his ear. Jouvancy snorted in disgust and pushed the remains of the offending sugar cone and its plate toward Charles with a disdainful toe.

“Take this—this”—Jouvancy clamped his lips together and tried again—“sugar to the lay brothers' kitchen. At least they can get some good out of it.”

“Now?” Charles said.

“Of course now!”

Jouvancy stalked back to the silent
Clovis
cast, who stood huddled together like a flock of anxious sheep. Charles, thankful to escape the charged atmosphere, picked up the plate and held it out to the two sugar scrapers, who eagerly took last pinches of sweetness. Everyone needed whatever small comfort he could get just now.

The lay brothers' kitchen and refectory were in the same courtyard as the outdoor latrine and next to the stable court. If he was quick about his errand, he might be able to settle another question about Antoine's “accident.” He hurried through the archway between the courtyards, toward the kitchen and the savory smell drifting from its open door. Startling a flutter of sparrows away from a crust of bread, he poked his head into the big room, where a cauldron bubbling in the huge fireplace poured steam into the oven-hot air. Two red-faced brothers with their cassock sleeves folded back to their shoulders were slicing bread at a scarred table, while another brother, whose age had spread an old-fashioned tonsure over most of his freckled scalp, piled peaches onto a tray.

“Trust me,
maître
, you don't want to come into our nice little hell here,” the old man called to Charles.

“Not this or any other hell, I hope,
mon frère!”
Charles held out the plate. “Can you use some sugar?”

“But yes, of course, always!” He wiped his sticky hands down his canvas apron and came to the door. “Where did you get it?”

“It was meant for snow. But now Père Jouvancy says it's too brown.”

The old brother laughed heartily as he took the plate. “Yes, we usually get a good bit of his snow. Very picky about snow, Père Jouvancy is. We could use some real snow in here today, I'll tell you!”

Still laughing, he went back to his peaches. Charles turned toward the stable court and nearly collided with another lay brother, who danced aside, grinning, and stuck his head inside the kitchen.

“Frère Tricot, one more little one! Come on,
mon frère
, you have Lady Automne's cornucopia there—and it's not even quite August yet!”

A peach flew out the door. The newcomer caught it, nodding enthusiastically, and held up his other hand. A growl from the kitchen followed another peach through the air. The brother caught it, bit into it, and turned to Charles, who had stopped to watch.

“We should always admire the abundance of the
bon Dieu
,” the brother said around his bulging mouthful. “Should we not?”

“Nice to be able to accommodate so much of the abundance at once,” Charles laughed.

“Ah, I must stretch to it, whenever Lady Abundance deigns to visit me.” He dropped the second peach into his apron pocket. “She's a woman, after all, and they always turn on you in the end, don't they?”

“Do they?”

“Mine do.”

“Do?” Charles looked pointedly at the short cassock under the man's canvas apron and then added hypocrisy to his mental list of sins for his next confession. Who was he these days to admonish anyone for thinking about women?

“Oh dear, what is wrong with my tongue?
Did
turn on me, I mean, in my far distant past!”The brother's sapphire eyes danced like light on water as he held out his cassock skirt. “But even leaving this aside—and leaving women sadly aside—I suppose I should never predict what anyone will do. Mere sinful men are forbidden to predict the future, are we not?”

Standing at ease, he finished his peach and looked Charles over. Charles was visited by a vision of this wiry, taut-muscled man—who seemed neither to know his place nor care about keeping it—wearing velvet in a grand salon, appraising the company and finding it wanting.

“What is your name,
mon frère
?” Charles said, realizing suddenly that he'd seen the man before. “I saw you juggling in the Cour d'honneur on my first day here.”

The brother sketched Charles an ironic bow. “Ah, my one poor talent. I am Frère Moulin,
maître
.” He made an ironic fuss of straightening the regulation high shirt collar just showing above his cassock.

He took three peaches from his apron pocket and began to juggle, spinning them into a golden blur. Charles watched, enjoying the man's skill and thinking that his speech and manner—and juggling, for that matter—consorted ill with the apron and cassock. Lay brothers were the Society's servants, mostly peasants or the sons of poor artisans, as Frère Fabre was. Charles thought that he would eat juggling balls before he'd believe that this Moulin sprang from a peasant's cottage.

“Very impressive,
mon frère
,” he said. “I am Maître Charles du Luc, newly come from Carpentras to teach rhetoric.”

“I know.” Moulin sent the peaches fountaining higher, spilling their fragrance into the air. “I have heard all about you.” He tossed a peach at Charles and caught the other two in one hand.

“All?” Charles plucked the peach out of the air and bit into its warm succulence. “Only the
bon Dieu
knows all, Frère Moulin.”

“Alas, too true. Rest assured I will be confessing arrogance next time I go to my confessor. Too true, indeed. ‘No man knows even the day or the hour,' so it says in Holy Scripture. But the real truth is, no man knows anything worth a piss. Least of all me.” He fixed Charles with a look like a strike of blue lightning and his voice went flat. “Or you.”

Then the easy brilliance was back, and with a wide smile and a bow that would have done Versailles credit, Moulin disappeared toward the stable. Charles swallowed the last of the peach and followed. Except for doves pecking around the well, the stable court was empty. Charles stopped in the stable's broad entrance, gazing at the straw-strewn floor and listening to the horse noises—tails switching to keep off flies, soft snorts, the occasional stamp of a hoof, and high-pitched swearing. His eyebrows lifted and he peered into the dimness redolent of hay and dung and leather. No horse he'd ever known swore.

The three stalls on his left were empty. A restless black horse in the first stall on the right thrust its nose over the half door and pricked its ears at him. The next stall was untenanted, but in the third, a stocky little figure astride a placid dappled gray swore steadily as she struggled to kilt her rough brown skirts and blue petticoat above her knees. Her bare legs and feet stuck nearly straight out from the gray's broad back.

“Bon jour, mademoiselle.”
Charles leaned his arms on the stall's half door. “Where are you riding to today?”

Marie-Ange gave a last tug at her skirts and brandished a wooden sword at him, scowling anxiously. “I am Jeanne d'Arc, going to kill the English! Do not get in my way!”

“I wouldn't think of it,” he said, scratching the gray's nose. “Does your mother know you're here,
ma chère
Jeanne?”

She pointed the sword at him again. “What if Jeanne's mother had made her stay home?”

“A very good point,” Charles said gravely. “I never thought of that.”

She studied him. “I guess Antoine's right about you. He says you're not like grown-ups.”

Charles burst out laughing, remembering Jouvancy's assessment of him on his first morning. Overly enthusiastic, perpetually young. Perhaps he should find another wooden sword and join Marie-Ange on the horse. At least then he wouldn't be earning endless penance by covertly hunting Philippe's killer. Or pretending enthusiasm for Louis's allegorical exploits. And he could always use the sword to defend himself if Louvois and La Reynie came after him again.

“You are not listening,
maître
! Maman says you still haven't found that man who hurt Antoine. Why
not
?”

“I am not the police,
ma petite
. It is not easy to find just one man in all Paris.”

She sniffed. “Well, you should at least make that old Père Guise give back Antoine's note. Priests shouldn't steal,” she added severely.

“What note is that,
ma chère
?” Charles said casually, wanting to hear her version.

“That priest looked through Antoine's pockets, I saw him, and the note Philippe sent Antoine is gone. Antoine asked him very nicely to give it back, but Père Guise says he's imagining things because his head got hurt. But he isn't!”

“Your mother didn't mention seeing Père Guise search Antoine's pockets.”

“She didn't see, she was—”

“My queen of victory!” Moulin was marching quickly toward them between the stalls, carrying a shovel as though it were a battle standard. “Here's reinforcements and we'll bury the English yet!”

Marie-Ange drew herself up and pointed the wooden sword at him. “Kneel, Sieur Moulin!”

He planted the shovel martially and sank to his knees.

She pointed her sword at the shovel. “Bury the English devils, because they're all dead. I will marry Antoine and we will be the queen and king of France and you will be our loyal servant!”

Queen and king, Charles noted, grinning, not the other way around
.

Humbly, Moulin bowed his head. “I thank you, my liege lady!”

Then he jumped smoothly to his feet, opened the stall door, and held out his arms. Marie-Ange launched herself at him, sword and all. Moulin stepped back into the aisle and swung her around, making her skirts fly. Then he put her down and looked anxiously over his shoulder.

“You must be on your way, my queen,” he whispered. “Else your lady mother will find you and we'll be undone before you ever come to the throne. The back gate's open for you.” He swatted her smartly on the seat of her skirts. “Off with you!”

She dimpled, ran back into the stall, and emerged wearing sabots and carrying a basket loaded with bread. Leaning to one side to balance the basket's weight, she clomped away toward the gate.

“I didn't expect to see you again so soon,
maître
,” Moulin said, shutting the stall door and shaking his thick black hair back from his face.