Charles propelled Antoine across the grand salon and forcibly sat him down on the antechamber’s bench.
“I’ll kill him,” Antoine cried, trying to get up again. “I will!”
“Sit!” Keeping a tight grip on the boy’s shoulder, Charles sat beside him. “I wouldn’t kill him, you know,” he said mildly. “I hear that being hanged is very unpleasant. Even more unpleasant than having Pere Guise for a godfather. And the consequences last a lot longer.”
Antoine flung himself back against the wall and swore with surprising fluency. Philippe’s competent teaching, no doubt.
“I suspect that the rector is as angry at Pere Guise as he is at you,” Charles said. “But don’t go saying I told you that.”
Antoine folded his arms and glowered at the three-foot bronze of pious Aeneas on a table against the salon’s far wall. But he made no move to get up and Charles felt some of the tension go out of the small body.
“Listen,” Charles said, “don’t bring more punishment on yourself. When the moment comes, apologize nicely to the rector. And to Pere Guise-no, just listen one little moment. Our rules, after all, do frown on attempted single combat with a professor. And one honnete homme does not attack another.”
“Honest gentlemen have duels! They fight wars!”
“Not in the rector’s office. So say the prayers he gave you, take whatever else you get as punishment, and then it will be over. I don’t think Pere Le Picart will be too severe.”
“I don’t care,” Antoine said sullenly, kicking at one of the bench’s legs. “Whoever made the rules didn’t know old Guise. And he’s not an honnete homme.”
Inclined to agree on both counts, Charles let the boy kick. Antoine looked up anxiously.
“Maitre du Luc? I didn’t break my promise to you. I only promised not to talk about the note. Marie-Ange already knew about it and you didn’t say anything about not looking for it.”
Charles rolled his eyes. “True enough, Monsieur Legalist. I see I should have been more precise. So can we have a civilized gentlemen’s agreement not to talk or take action about the note?” Charles glanced at the rector’s door to be sure it was still closed. “Think for a moment, Antoine. If Pere Guise took the note, he will have gotten rid of it long ago.”
Antoine looked stricken. “Why?”
Charles frowned at a splotch of blood red in the painting of Alexander the Great on the salon wall and searched for an answer that would satisfy the child without frightening him.
“Well, do you think he would keep it as a memento of Philippe?”
“No! He didn’t even like Philippe. He doesn’t like me, either, he just pretends to.” Antoine moved closer, as though he were suddenly cold, and Charles put an arm around him. “I will do as you say, maitre.”
“Thank you, mon brave. And there’s another thing. Stay away from the old stairs. And do not talk about them. Will you promise?”
“Why?”
“Do you always have to have a reason before you obey?”
Antoine returned Charles’s stern look. “Don’t you?”
Hoist with his own petard, Charles gazed down at the fierce little face. Truth deserved a measure of truth in return. “Remember where those stairs lead, Antoine. Do you really want to make Pere Guise any angrier?”
Antoine shivered involuntarily and shook his head.
“Then, monsieur, will you do me the honor of giving me your word, as one honnete homme to another?”
Antoine stood up. “I give you my word, mon pere,” he said gravely and bowed like a courtier.
Charles rose, bowed in return, and they both sat back down. Feeling as though he’d come slightly scathed through a duel of words, he fought the urge to question the boy about Guise kissing Lisette Doute.
“You think I lied about him kissing her, don’t you?” Antoine said, as though he’d heard Charles’s thoughts.
“Did you?”
“No! He kissed her and they laughed and he kissed her some more.”
Charles struggled briefly with himself and lost. “When was that?”
“At her birthday fete. The thirteenth of July. In our garden in Chantilly.”
“But, Antoine, everyone gets kissed on their birthday.”
Antoine shook his head so hard that his fine dark hair flew over his face. “Not like that! It was like when my father thinks they’re alone and kisses her. Long and”-he wrinkled his nose with distaste-“they wiggle and make noises. Ugh!”
Wiggling and noises? Charles’s eyebrows climbed almost into his hair. “How did you see all this?”
“I didn’t mean to. It’s base to spy and I wasn’t!”
Charles winced. Yes, it was indeed base to spy. “Where were you?”
“Philippe had chased me and I’d climbed a big tree beside the garden path. Then Pere Guise and Lisette stopped right under me. They didn’t know I was there and I didn’t want them to, so I was very still.”
Guise came out of the rector’s office with a face like marble and disappeared toward the back of the house. Antoine followed him with angry eyes.
“At least he didn’t kiss old Louvois,” the boy muttered.
“What?!”
“M. Louvois was there, too. The fat pig.”
“The M. Louvois who is the minister of war?”
Antoine nodded. “After Lisette went away, Pere Guise walked on down the path, and I was climbing down, but I saw Philippe coming and I threw some gravel I had in my pocket at him, and he climbed up to get me back. But then Pere Guise came back with Monsieur Louvois. So we stayed in the tree because we didn’t want to talk to them. They stopped on the path beside the tree and argued for a while. Later I asked them about something they said and they said I was lying. And they were angry that I’d listened in the tree and my father sent me to bed before the cakes, like I told you after Philippe’s funeral. But I wasn’t lying! I didn’t mean to listen, but I couldn’t not hear them, could I? All I wanted was to know about dragons because they’d said that even if there aren’t any here, there might still be some in England!”
Charles stared blankly, trying to make sense out of that. Then his lips tightened as he realized that Antoine had probably heard Louvois talking about soldiers, his cursed dragoons. Charles smiled at Antoine. “Yes, I suppose there might be some dragons still in England.” When he was Antoine’s age, he, too, had explained France’s sad lack of dragons by deciding that they’d taken refuge in England, a heretical country where St. Michael and St. Mary Magdalene might not be able to fight them effectively. Suddenly another thought struck him.
“Did you tell Philippe about this kiss you saw?”
“Yes, on the way back into the house. He got angry and said he didn’t care who kissed her. She’d been trying to get Philippe to kiss her all day, but he wouldn’t.” The boy sighed. “He was angry a lot of the time.”
“What about?”
“Oh, about her. And other things. He was angry about the treasure, but that was after the fete.”
Charles twisted on the bench to see Antoine’s face, wondering if they were back in the land of dragons. “Treasure?”
“Will you keep it secret if I tell you?”
“If keeping it secret won’t hurt anyone.”
“Oh, it won’t.” Antoine wriggled closer. “Marie-Ange and I found it,” he whispered. “In the stable hayloft. A real treasure, a knight’s treasure! Marie-Ange cried, it was so sad-jewels and a scarf and a little portrait and some golden ribbons, all from the knight’s dead lady! And we weren’t trying to steal it! I was climbing out onto a rafter and the box was wedged between the rafter and the wall and it fell out. The latch part with the lock was so rusted it broke open. We were looking at the things when Philippe came looking for me and climbed up, and Frere Moulin came with him. When they saw the box, they were so angry that Marie-Ange was scared, but I wasn’t. I’m so tired of everyone being angry at me!”
“Another good reason to stay out of the stable,” Charles said, wondering if the sad little box of memories was poor Frere Moulin’s. If so, it was prohibited for a lay brother to have, but illicit or not, Charles was certainly not going to interfere in another man’s struggles with what he’d had to leave behind.
Heavy footsteps sounded and Guise re-entered the salon, followed by Maitre Doissin. With a hangdog look at Charles, Doissin went into the rector’s office. Guise swept past Charles and Antoine as though they were furniture and climbed the stairs.
Antoine leaned his head against Charles and yawned. “Will you come and see me tomorrow?”
“I’ll at least look in at your refectory door.”
“That’s all?” Antoine sighed and kicked half heartedly at the bench.
By the time a very chastened Doissin came out of the office with Le Picart, the boy was nearly asleep. Charles shook him gently and he scrambled up from the bench. Charles hauled himself to his feet, wishing that this was the end of the day’s events. But his own session with Le Picart was still to come. Doissin smiled apologetically and shrugged at Charles, who stared back accusingly.
“Antoine,” the rector said, “Maitre Doissin will take you to your chamber now. Where I expect you to apologize to him for lying and saying you were sick. Before you go to your bed, you will complete the penance I gave you. Tomorrow morning after Mass, Maitre Doissin will bring you to my office and we will consider the rest of the matter.” His expression softened and he tilted the boy’s chin up gently. “Do not trouble too much about it for now. God grant you a peaceful night, child.”
Blinking with exhaustion, Antoine let Doissin lead him away. Charles tried a tentative step toward the stairs, but Le Picart gestured him curtly to the office, where he shut the door and pointed him to a chair beside the empty fireplace.
“Not the evening any of us wanted,” he said, going to the tall oak cupboard beside the desk. “And you and I have still not talked.”
Charles swallowed. Here it came. “No, mon pere.”
He watched in confusion as Le Picart put glasses on the table between the two chairs, set a small brown pitcher beside the glasses, and sat down. He poured a wine dark as plums and held a glass out to Charles, who took it with wary thanks.
“You are thinking that wine-especially unwatered wine-does not usually accompany a rector’s chastisement.” Le Picart drank and smiled tiredly. “You are correct. It has been a very long day and I am indulging myself.” He drank again and set the glass down. “Now for the chastisement. I ordered you to leave finding Philippe’s killer and Antoine’s attacker to others. You have disobeyed me repeatedly. Why?”
Charles put his wine down untasted. “Because Philippe was my student, however briefly, and I was sent to find him. Because I found his body. Because I have been virtually accused of killing him. Because I think that Antoine is still in danger. Because I hate killing.”
“Did you not kill men as a soldier?”
Charles nodded.
“Under obedience to your commander.”
Charles nodded again. The silence stretched until he wished Le Picart would tell him to pack his things and be done with it.
“And now I am your commander,” Le Picart said softly. “But you refuse to obey me. Why?”
Charles groped for the right words and ended up saying bluntly, “Somewhat because I feared you wanted to avoid scandal more than you wanted to find the killer. More because I can no longer obey if it means ignoring evil.”
“I dread scandal, yes. As no doubt you will, if you come to a position of responsibility. But I grieve that you think so ill of me. Do you really think yourself the only man in Paris who can do what is needed in these affairs?”
“Of course not, mon pere. And I do not think ill of you. But I must do what I can do, if I am to live with myself. I am sorry-” Charles broke off and rubbed his hands over his face. “No, I am not sorry. But I do sincerely ask your forgiveness for disobeying you.”
“Why did you become a Jesuit, knowing that obedience to superiors would be required?”
Charles’s mouth quirked. “I suppose I didn’t think there would be killing.”
“That was naive of you. Evil is always killing good, one way and another. Or trying to.”
Charles stood up.
“Where are you going, maitre?”
“You have told me I have no business as a Jesuit. And you are right, because I cannot obey your order.”
“Sit down.”
“But-”
“Sit down. I suppose you can do that much without offending your conscience?”
Charles sat.
“I have not told you that you have no business as a Jesuit. Drink your wine. You have not even tasted it. It’s good, better than usual.”
Bewildered, Charles tasted the wine, which was indeed better than usual.
“Maitre du Luc, this afternoon I was very angry. And perhaps it will turn out that you must leave the Society.” He lifted his shoulders slightly. “And what I am about to say may mean that I will be on your heels. But I am not telling you to leave, and my own superior is not here to tell me to leave. St. Ignatius said that his men must not obey any ill order. I do not believe that I gave you an ill order in telling you to leave the murder and the accident alone. But I am not God. Perhaps your conscience sees farther, by God’s grace, than I can. Obedience, ultimately, is to God’s will. Mediated, we believe, through the ordered ranks of our superiors. But any man, no matter how exalted, may be wrong.” He drained his glass and filled it again. “If you obey the order I am about to give you, I suspect that you will find more than sufficient penance for whatever was not of God in your failure to obey me so far. What human action, after all, is completely free of sin? My order is this: Find Philippe’s killer, and find the man who attacked Antoine. If they are two different men.”
Charles stared at Le Picart like the Israelites might have stared at the dry path opening before them as the Red Sea drew back.
“What is your answer, Maitre du Luc?”
Flinching at the unwitting echo of La Reynie’s words earlier that day in the Louvre, Charles said, “My answer is yes, mon pere. I will gladly obey your order.” This time he meant it.
“Then you are excused from your morning class, though not from your duties surrounding the ballet and tragedy. Those must be carried out absolutely, no matter what else happens.” He looked at Charles over the rim of his glass. “Always excepting, of course, your own demise.”
“Which would be very thorough penance,” Charles returned dryly.
“It would. In the meantime, you have my permission to come and go from the college, alone and at will. If anyone challenges that, refer him to me. You will report to me and you will tell no one else what you are doing. And when this is over, you will make a thirty-day retreat during which you will examine yourself very seriously with regard to the vow of obedience and your future as a Jesuit.”
Charles bowed his head. “Yes, mon pere.”
Le Picart suppressed a yawn. “We both want our beds. But first, I must hear all you know and suspect. Did Antoine really receive a note from Philippe?”
Charles drank down half his wine in an effort to pull himself together. “I think he is telling the truth about the note. It explains his being out in the street. But when I asked him if he recognized Philippe’s writing, he said the writing was ‘wobbly.’ I think someone wrote the note after Philippe was already dead, to lure Antoine into the street for the ‘accident.’ ”
“But you could be wrong about whoever ran from you wearing the yellow shirt. It could have been Philippe. He could have come back and left the note.”
“But why ask an eight-year-old for help? Wouldn’t Philippe more likely turn to someone at least his own age-his cousin Jacques, perhaps?”
“Unless he was asking for something only Antoine would know or could do. Though I admit, it is hard to think what that might be.”
“And there is also the question of why Philippe left the classroom in the first place, mon pere. He watched the windows that day, to the exclusion of nearly everything else. I think he was waiting for a signal to go and meet someone. And when it came, I think he went directly to his death.” Charles leaned forward in his chair. “Antoine told me more about what he saw between Pere Guise and Mme Doute. Philippe didn’t witness the kiss, but Antoine told him about it, and Philippe was angry. Antoine is too young to understand what he saw, but Philippe would have understood it all too well, especially since the woman was apparently trying to entice him, too. Hearing that Pere Guise welcomed her advances might have been the last straw for Philippe-I think he would have been outraged on his father’s behalf. What if he taxed Pere Guise with it, and Pere Guise killed him in fear of exposure?”
“No, no, after you and Antoine left, Pere Guise told me what lay behind Antoine’s accusation. He apologized for striking him, but what the child said embarrassed him so deeply, he lost control of himself. It seems that, a year or more ago, before she was married, Lisette Doute developed an unfortunate passion for him. He was her confessor while she was at court and, well, as I am sure you know, these things do happen with young girls. He admitted that that was why he’d introduced her to M. Doute in the first place. He thought marriage had solved the problem, but then she threw herself at him that day in the garden. He had no idea Antoine was there.”
“As Antoine tells it, Pere Guise did his share of the throwing.”
“How long have you been in the Society, maitre?”
“Seven years, mon pere.”
“Long enough, then, to know that God does not conveniently remove the sexual organs at first or even final vows. An oversight on His part, one is often tempted to think, but there it is.”
“Remove them?” Charles involuntarily recrossed his legs. “I wouldn’t go that far, mon pere. After all, even St. Augustine prayed that the gift of chastity might be delayed.”
The rector’s gaze was uncomfortably speculative. “But he did pray for the gift. Pere Guise would not be the first priest to have mixed feelings over the attentions of a pretty girl. That is between him and his own confessor. No, Maitre du Luc, the situation with the girl is a small thing. As for Philippe’s anger at Pere Guise, people are constantly angry at him.” He sighed. “I often am, myself. And even if we entertain your theory, it immediately becomes impossible. Pere Guise says he was with his aunt the Duchesse when Philippe disappeared, and the brother who was keeping the door that day confirms that Pere Guise left by the postern immediately after dinner and was gone all afternoon.”
“But the old stairs make the doorkeeper’s statement meaningless. Pere Guise could have returned to the college and left again unseen. Strangling doesn’t take long, mon pere.”
The rector’s eyebrows lifted. “I will not ask how you know that-I am beginning to suspect that you learned much as a soldier that I have no wish to know. Yes, Pere Guise could have used those stairs, but so could any one of us. You will not be of use to me-or to the truth-if you let your dislike of the man blind you.”
Charles bowed his head in acknowledgment. “Forgive me, mon pere.”
“I wish we had blocked that staircase when we took back the rooms above the bakery,” Le Picart said, “but there was no money. No one is supposed to have the key to the doors but myself and the head proctor.”
Charles looked up, his gaze sharpening. “The head proctor?”
“Frere Chevalier is seventy-three, the soul of honor, and too arthritic to climb stairs.”
“But could Pere Guise-or someone else-have taken his key and copied it?”
Le Picart frowned. “Frere Chevalier doesn’t see as well as he used to. I will ask him, but-could anyone really come and go through the bakery without being spotted? Or heard?”
“I did.” Charles drained his glass. “The door hinges have been greased. You have only to watch your moment, when the LeClercs are in the back of the shop, and then be quick. I think it could be done even at night, if you had a key to the bakery door. And I would wager that Pere Guise has one. The baker is deaf, his wife says. Though she certainly is not! Mon pere, even without the Mme Doute complication, we come back again and again to Pere Guise. He searches for the note, the hidden stairs lead to his rooms, he is close to the Doute family, he-”
“He could have been looking for a handkerchief, as he says. When Mme LeClerc came to see me, she said nothing about his searching the boy’s clothes.”
“Marie-Ange says her mother was talking to the street porter and didn’t see.”
The rector rubbed his forehead as though it hurt. “The street porter. Do you think you could find the man and talk to him?”
Charles put down his glass. “I found him. This morning.”
“This morning? Ah, yes. I trust your toothache has miraculously recovered,” the rector said dryly. “What does the porter say?”
“Nothing. I found him strangled in the beggars’ Louvre. With the same marks on his neck that we saw on Philippe.”
Le Picart jerked his head back as though Charles had struck him. “Jesu, have mercy.” He crossed himself.
“The porter’s friend told me that Pierre-that was the dead man’s name-thought he was being followed. He ran from me yesterday, but-”
“Yesterday?”
“I originally found him on the quay yesterday when Pere Jouvancy sent me to buy sugar, mon pere.”
“Go on.”
“Pierre’s friend arranged a meeting for this morning. I think that someone saw our encounter yesterday and silenced the porter before we could talk.”
“And you feel his death cannot have been a private matter, or part of a simple robbery, because he was marked in the same way Philippe was.”
“You have it.”
The rector shook his head sadly. “God keep the poor man’s soul. Do you have any thought of what he might have said about the accident?”
“A bare guess, yes. Mme LeClerc said that the horseman leaned far down toward Antoine. Pere Guise insists that the man was trying to push Antoine out of the way. But the cut on the boy’s head was made by a sharp edge. As I said the day it happened, I went over every inch of the street where he fell and saw nothing that could have made that cut. It’s possible, as Frere Brunet said, that the horse’s hoof could have caught him. But such a wound is usually more bruised and leaves a worse head injury. I think that the horseman was trying to stab Antoine. The porter may have seen the knife, and been bribed to keep quiet about it. The one thing he did say yesterday before he ran was ‘I told the other one. You’ve no cause to hound me.’ ”
“ ‘ The other one.’ The other Jesuit?” Le Picart said reluctantly.
“That was my thought.”
“But-you found this man dead in the beggars’ Louvre. Can you really imagine Pere Guise going there to kill him?”
Charles shrugged. It wasn’t easy to envision. “But if someone is helping him? The man whose boots I saw today knew how to find the stairs to Pere Guise’s rooms.”
“But why? Why any of it?” Le Picart closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose as though his head hurt. “I think you are being too quick to accuse Pere Guise. I already told you that what has happened to these boys might be tied-through their father-to the old Prince of Conde.”
“Could Pere Guise be acting for the Conde?”
“I doubt that. The Prince of Conde was the king’s enemy forty years ago in the Fronde revolution, fighting on the side of the rebels, and the very mention of the Fronde still makes Pere Guise froth at the mouth. Even worse, the Conde has a long reputation as a free thinker. Though he’s become a good Catholic again in his old age. No, I was thinking more of someone in the Conde’s household who might be trying to use the boys to force their father to something-Monsieur Doute keeps some of the Conde accounts, which means he has access to a great deal of money.” Le Picart emptied the wine pitcher into his glass. “I want the truth of these murders and the accident. But neither the college nor the Society can stand a public scandal. People still remember Jean Chatel, our deranged student who tried to kill Henri IV at the end of the Wars of Religion. And that a Louis le Grand professor who had taught him was hanged and burned and the Society banished from the realm for years. Part of my reason for laying this task on you is selfish, in that the faster the killer is found, the less damage there will be to the Society of Jesus and Louis le Grand.”
“And if Pere Guise turns out to be… involved, shall we say?”
“Then we will endure what we must endure.”
“Until we know, can you confine him to the college?”
“Perhaps. I will think on it.”
Charles opened his mouth to argue and then closed it. “I am also very worried about Antoine’s safety, mon pere. Can you not send him home till this is over?”
“I could. But I think he may be safer here, where there are more of us to watch him. After what we heard and saw tonight, if anything further happens to Antoine, Pere Guise will be the first person you and I will think of. He knows that. I have also spoken sternly to Maitre Doissin. A good enough man, but lazy. And I will see that others also keep an eye on the boy.” Le Picart frowned, fingering the rosary hanging from his cincture as he gazed at Charles. “Has anyone told you of our house east of town, maitre?”
“No, mon pere.”
“Our Pere La Chaise, the king’s confessor, often uses it. Because he guides the king’s conscience, he has to know what is afoot in the world and what the powerful are saying about it. To that end, he frequently hosts gatherings of influential men. He is holding one of his soirees tomorrow evening, and I want you to go. Pere Guise has been invited, and someone from the Conde house here in town usually attends as well. Fall into conversation with the Conde’s representative; see if you can find out the gossip in his household. And see who Pere Guise talks to. I know that the thought of spying on a brother Jesuit is distasteful. But if he is-involved-I want to know it first.”
“How am I to spy in a salon?” Charles said in dismay. “And on a man who knows me!”
“It will be a large gathering, you will be just one more Jesuit there. I will tell Pere Guise that you are doing an errand for me and paying your respects to Pere La Chaise.” Le Picart smiled. “Your official errand will be to take him the plan I have made for our reception of the Siamese. I am gambling on your acting being as good as your dancing, Maitre du Luc. Oh, yes, I heard all about your classroom gigue. I wish I had seen it myself.” He stood up and Charles rose with him. “I will give you a letter of introduction to Pere La Chaise. He knows what has been happening here. And now, bed.”
“How do I get to this soiree, mon pere? Shall I take a horse from our stables?”
The rector frowned, thinking. “They may be spoken for. I will tell you tomorrow and give you directions.” He looked up, suddenly just a tired, worried, aging priest. “May the Holy Virgin protect you, Maitre du Luc. If what you are doing for me becomes known, you will look to someone like Nemesis. Do not forget that for a single moment.”