The Rhetoric of Death (38 page)

Agnes smiled slyly at the Jesuits. “He calls himself Louis in honor of your St. Louis church. He lives by the old city wall that runs behind it.”

“Describe him,” La Reynie said.

“I'll tell you if you let me go.”

“Oh, you'll tell me, mademoiselle.” La Reynie sighed. “One way or another. For your own good, I suggest you tell me here rather than in the chamber beyond that door.”

The whites of her eyes showed as she glanced at the heavy planked door. “Young,” Agnes said sullenly. “Not tall.” Slowly, her lips curved and her eyes took on a faraway look. “Blue eyes and a voice you could listen to forever. He always wore his hood up, I never saw his hair. He wore a beautiful blue robe—I always wondered what he had on underneath.” Her dreaming tone grew venomous. “He's the one should be here, not me! It was his idea, his and Mme Douté's, never mine!”

“When did she first consult him?”

Agnes thrust her lower lip out and turned her head away. Servier started toward her. “The end of June,” she spat, before he could touch her. “And twice after that.”

“But why, Agnes?” Fabre burst out. “Why would you help her poison a child?”

She held out a fistful of her plain skirt and shook it at him. “I am a servant. Like you. I do what I am told, I didn't know what was in the package, how could I?”

“You knew,” Charles said. “You knew what the astrologer had said. You bought the poison. And you disguised yourself in the veil. Your mistress's mourning veil, wasn't it?” His voice hammered at her. “You left the
gaufres
at the college and said they were for Antoine. What did your mistress promise you that was worth his life, and your own damnation?”

“Nothing
you
would understand, you bloodless Jesuit!”

“You said it was your way out of the tannery, Agnes,” Fabre said, begging her to show them they were wrong. “But you've been gone from it four years, you're in good service, what could you need so badly?”

“You always were an idiot, Denis. Do you think I am content to be a mealymouthed servant all my life, like you? Do you think I am content to be talked at, ordered around from morning to night, hit if anyone feels like it? I won't be beaten, ever again! And don't tell me you don't remember the beatings, I know you do!”

“I remember,” Fabre whispered. “When he tried to make you marry Jules. But—”

“Yes, damn your father's ugly soul! He beat me till I couldn't stand and when you tried to make him stop, he beat you, too.”

Fabre looked at Charles. “There was an old tanner—my father tried to make Agnes marry him, to get control of the tannery when the old man died.”

“I was fifteen, even still a virgin, if you'll believe that.” Agnes rushed to the table and leaned across it, staring into her brother's eyes. “What do I need, Denis? I need a rich husband, I want a soft living, just like you do. And that's what she promised me! Don't look at me like that, you're no better than me, you damned little hypocrite!” She grabbed up the lantern and swung it at his head. Fire spilled onto the table and kindled the papers in front of La Reynie. The men jumped to their feet, and Charles smothered the flames with his cassock skirt, as Servier wrenched the lantern away from Agnes.

The rest of them fled the cell. Fabre's cheek was livid where the hot edge of the lantern had caught it, but he seemed to feel nothing. Charles sat him on a bench and asked a guard for water while La Reynie and the rector talked hurriedly. Servier came out of the cell and La Reynie spoke quietly to him.

“Yes,
mon lieutenant-général
,” Servier said smartly, and clattered away down the echoing stone stairs.

La Reynie went into Agnes's cell, and Le Picart sat down on the other side of Charles and dropped his face into his hands.

“God help us all,” he muttered. “Lisette Douté? I can hardly make myself believe it.”

“Nor can I,
mon père
,” Charles said.

The rector sat up, shaking his head. “She's seemed to me barely capable of tying her own hair ribbons. Dear God, poor M. Douté.”

The guard brought a cup of water and Charles dipped the edge of Fabre's cassock in it and held the wet fabric against the burn. The boy heaved a shuddering sigh. After what seemed a long time, La Reynie came out of the cell and locked the door on Agnes's sobbing.

“Père Le Picart,” he said, “one of my men will see the lay brother back to Louis le Grand. I would like you and Maître du Luc to come to the Place Royale. I think you should be there while we question Mme Douté.”

Grimly, the rector agreed, and the three of them went downstairs and through the arcade that separated the prison side of the Châtelet from the law courts, to La Reynie's waiting carriage. But when they reached the Place Royale, they found Servier taking the Montfort house apart, room by room. Lisette Douté was gone.

M
onday afternoon's first chaotic rehearsal on the new stage was blessedly over, and Charles and Père Jouvancy were in the rhetoric classroom, checking costumes for damage and putting them ready for tomorrow's dress rehearsal. Charles picked up Time's stiff-skirted black tonneau and straightened quickly as a seam ripped in his too-small, borrowed cassock. His wound ached and last night's events still swirled in his tired brain. Lieutenant-Général La Reynie and M. Servier had questioned Mme Montfort relentlessly, but she'd sworn on her hope of salvation that she didn't know how Lisette Douté had escaped the house and hadn't helped her. Nor, she said, did she know where Lisette had gone. La Reynie had left Servier to watch the house in case Mme Montfort was lying. He had also said he would send a man to Chantilly at first light, in case she'd gone there, and to break the news to her husband.

Charles spread the tonneau neatly over a bench and picked up three long glass vials full of colored water, “poison” from the secret store of three-headed Cerberus, the hell-dog. The ballet
would
have a poison entrée, he thought with distaste. The entrée's
actualité
—its real-life reference—was the poison plots that had rocked Paris and Versailles a decade ago. But for Charles, and Jouvancy, and even more poignantly for Fabre, who had been part of the stage crew today, the poison entrée's
actualité
could only be what had happened yesterday. Charles had gone below stage to correct the timing of Cerberus's emergence through the trap, and found Frère Moulin juggling a chalk ball, an apple, and a knot of rope in an effort to cheer Fabre, who had stared blankly at the flying miscellany without seeming to see it. But it had been a kind thought on Moulin's part. Praying that Fabre's misery was only for his sister and not because he had had any part in her act, Charles put the “poison” vials away in their box and picked up a soldier's helmet.

“Maître du Luc?” A lay brother put his head around the door. “The porter wants you at the postern. There's a strange boy asking for you.”

The boy was backed defiantly into the street passage's darkest corner, a folded paper in his fist, and Frère Martin was standing over him.

“Slipped in like an eel and held up that note with your name on it. Won't say a word.”

The youth, whose dirty face was half hidden by an oversized leather hat, glowered at Charles from under its tired brim.

“Perhaps he'll talk more easily without an audience. Come on, you.” Charles led the way to the chapel, checked to see that no one was at their devotions, and went to a dark side altar dedicated to France's heroine, Jeanne d'Arc. He knelt and pulled his charge down beside him. “What happened?” he hissed. “And fold your hands. If we look like we're praying, we're less noticeable.” He reached up and pulled off the hat.

Pernelle snatched it back and jammed it over her hair, which had been raggedly shorn. “It hides my face.”

“The dirt hides your face. What happened?”

“The head of the Paris police came back to the bakery this morning and wanted to see me. Madame LeClerc said I'd gone back home—to St. Denis, she said, she has family there—and he left. But we thought I'd better leave for real.”

Charles leaned his elbows on the altar rail and rested his head on his clasped hands. “All right. Help me come up with a story, my wits are far past working. Why you're here, who you are, why you can stay. And where, God help us.”

When she didn't answer, Charles raised his head. She was gazing with distaste at the chapel's pink and gold veined marble, its glowing paintings, the lapis and gold glinting under the altar's sanctuary lamp. With a slight shudder, she turned from the richness and looked up at the armor-clad statue of the Maid of Orleans, the
bon Dieu's
blessed scourge of the English.

“Hmph,” she grunted. “If I believed in your saints—”

“She's not a saint.”

“Well, she's dead and she has an altar. Anyway, if I believed in your religion, I'd think she might look kindly on us. She's not exactly wearing womanly finery, either, is she? Is she supposed to help people with something?”

A grin spread across Charles's tired face. “Some people think she has a soft spot for those who must go against the church's authority for a good cause.”

“Amen,” Pernelle returned piously. She stretched up to whisper in his ear. “I'll stay in your chamber, Charles.”

“You can't—”

“Are you all right in there,
maître
?” a voice called from the courtyard door.

“Yes, Frère Martin.” Charles shot to his feet and stood between the brother and Pernelle. “I'll see the boy out through the chapel's street door.”

“Ah. Well. All right, then.”

Martin backed out of the courtyard door and trudged toward the neighboring court's latrine. Charles sped to the small porter's room off the street passage and grabbed the canvas apron kept there on a peg for the porter's use. He shoved it under his cassock and went back to the chapel.

“Put this on,” he said, handing it to Pernelle. “And wait here.” Forcing himself to walk unconcernedly, he went to the rhetoric classroom and came back with the gown of one of the ballet's goddesses. “Hold this in your arms, high, so it froths up and hides your face and stay behind me.”

They crossed the deserted Cour d'honneur, made it to the street passage and into the main building, only to find themselves face-to-face with Frère Moulin. His eyes went from the “boy” carrying the costume to Charles, but Charles kept walking and Moulin passed them without comment and disappeared into the street passage. Before Charles's heart could stop thumping, Père Montville came out of the grand salon.

“Something wrong with the costume,
maître
?” he said, stopping.

“Just delivered back from being repaired,
mon père
,” Charles said easily, willing Pernelle to stay behind him and keep her head down.

“Good, good. Oh—about Frère Fabre,
maître
, you probably noticed that he's been reassigned to the stage crew. We thought he should have something new to think about, poor boy. But he won't be seeing to your rooms the next few days, you'll have to see to yourself.”

“Good, yes, very thoughtful,” Charles gabbled, thinking that Jeanne d'Arc or someone was surely watching over them. How to deal with Fabre's morning visits had been the next problem waiting for him.

When they reached his rooms, Charles pushed Pernelle through the door, shut it, and dragged the heavy carved linen chest in front of it. They collapsed onto the chest and wiped their sweating faces.

“I can't believe we're doing this,” he said in her ear. “Listen, this isn't a busy passage, but you can't let yourself be heard. When you have to talk, murmur, whisper.”

Pernelle nodded, dropped the costume on the floor and took off her hat with shaking hands.

Charles got wearily to his feet. “If anyone tries to come in—” He measured the bed's height with his eyes. “I think you can squeeze under the bed. It's not long till supper. I'll bring you something. There's water in the pitcher there.” He picked up the costume. “I'll take this back to the classroom.”

Pernelle stood up, too. “It will be all right, Charles.” She smiled at him and the knot of fear in his chest suddenly didn't matter.

When Charles reached the refectory, he saw that Père Guise, who had not been at dinner, was also not at supper. And immediately began to wonder where he was.
No,
he admonished himself. He had, as the rector had kept warning him, let his dislike of Guise lead him astray. Let La Reynie do his own work now, at least until the show was over. Charles turned his attention resolutely to the beef stew and when he was finished, wrapped bread, cheese, and a peach in his napkin and slipped it into the bosom of his cassock. On his way out of the refectory, Le Picart stopped him. For an anxious moment Charles thought he was going to be questioned about the stolen food.

“Is all well with the show,
maître
?” Le Picart said loudly, and drew Charles aside to the wall. Without waiting for an answer, he dropped his voice and said, “You saw that Père Guise has not been at meals today. In case you are trying to make too much of that, I want you to know that I had a message from him. He was called to Versailles early this morning. To confess a very ill woman who has been failing for weeks now.”

“Ah.” Charles nodded, remembering Moulin's acid portrait of Guise galloping off to save the soul of a sick old penitent at court. “Is there any news of Mme Douté?”

“None. M. La Reynie was here this morning to ask if I had heard anything. He is beside himself over her escape.”