The servant who opened the Hotel de Louvois’s gate was as brusque as the war minister himself. He waved Charles across the cobbles to the house door and disappeared into one of the ground-floor outbuildings. Charles picked up the iron fist that served as a knocker and let it fall.
“I am Maitre Charles Matthieu Beuvron du Luc,” he said to the surly footman who answered, putting several generations of Provencal noblemen into his voice. “Please tell M. Louvois that I must speak with him. About last night’s events at the college of Louis le Grand.”
“Wait here.”
He waited in an antechamber done in rich red, listening to the early-morning stirrings of the household. The footman returned as quickly as Charles thought he would and led him upstairs to a large room whose glowing parquet was an expanse of eight-pointed golden stars. Across the room, in front of long windows, Louvois sat writing behind a massive black desk. Ebony, Charles thought. The room was so padded and plump with luxury that Louvois’s plum brocade house robe and turbanlike head wrapping made him seem like just one more piece of costly decor.
“Monsieur.” Charles nodded to him slightly.
Louvois glanced up. “What do you want? It is barely day.”
“You will have heard, I think, in spite of the hour, of last night’s deaths at the college.”
“Of course,” Louvois said, still writing. “It is all over Paris. Pere Guise was my confessor,” he added accusingly, as though Charles were disturbing his mourning.
“Before Pere Guise and Frere Moulin died, they talked.”
Louvois’s hands stilled. “I did not know this Moulin.”
“On the contrary, Monsieur Louvois. Last night Frere Moulin talked much about his usefulness to you. As your errand boy for the dragonnades you and Pere Guise have run these last years. I know the king knows about them. I know he wants them to go on. I also know that if they are forced publicly on his notice, you will be the scapegoat. He will accuse you of usurping his authority and you will likely die a very public traitor’s death to save his face.”
“The man who forces such knowledge on Louis will also die,” Louvois said, purple with fury. “He will see to that, make no mistake.”
“Nevertheless, I am here to give you notice, monsieur, that if the dragonnades continue, I will force all that on the king. The next dragonnade is planned for Metz, I understand.”
Louvois’s eyes bulged. “You are insane. You are a rogue Jesuit. Do you expect me to believe that Jesuit policy toward heretics has changed?”
“I expect you to believe that I will do what I have said.”
Louvois surged to his feet and bellowed for his servants. Charles ran. Halfway down the stairs, he straight-armed a man over the banister and into the path of more men coming behind him. Charles gained the front door, covered the courtyard in a few long strides, and was through the gate, just opened for a carriage coming in. He took a twisting path away from the rue de Richelieu and when he passed the open door of a tiny church, he ducked inside.
Hidden in a corner’s shadows, he gasped for breath, sweating with fear and holding on to the wall because his legs threatened to collapse under him. What in God’s name had he just done? Had he truly gone insane? A priest came out of the sacristy and started toward him, and Charles went back outside, wary and watchful, but no one paid him any attention. He walked toward the river, gulping rain-washed air, still asking himself what he’d done. As he crossed the Petit Pont, the utterly simple answer came: He had done what he could.
He had also guaranteed that he would be looking over his shoulder for as long as he lived. As long as Louvois lived, anyway. Rogue Jesuit, Louvois had called Charles. In a way, he supposed he was. Yesterday he had helped Louis le Grand to a public triumph. But this morning he had kissed his lover good-bye. Just now, he had struck a blow against what many Jesuits applauded. And before any of that, he’d already had penance coming. For the lies that had bought him time to solve the murders, for acting as La Reynie’s spy, for breaking his vow of chastity. But not for loving. Never for loving. If that made him a rogue, then rogue he was.
Dodging the rivulets of mud sliding down the rue St. Jacques, he climbed toward the college. When he reached it, he stopped in the street and looked up at the words carved over the double doors. Collegium Magni Ludo. The College of Louis the Great, the king’s college. But not only the king’s. It was also Le Picart’s, Jouvancy’s, Dainville’s, Fabre’s, God’s…
“God’s thorn bonnet, mon pere!” A cart driver pulled his horse nearly onto its haunches to keep from hitting Charles. “Are you going in or out? Make up your mind!”
“In,” Charles said. “I’m going in.”