by Judith Rock
Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication
Acknowledgements
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Epilogue
Author’s Note
READERS GUIDE
Teaser chapter
Berkley titles by Judith Rock
PRAISE FOR
The Rhetoric of Death
“Amazing . . . Ms. Rock takes you back to fascinating and dangerous seventeenth-century Paris so well that I suspect her of being a time-traveler who’s been there.”
—Ariana Franklin, national bestselling author of Mistress of the Art of Death
“Rich with telling detail and a deep feeling for time and place.”
—Margaret Frazer, national bestselling author of The Witch’s Tale
“Rock skillfully builds her suspense plot, all the while incorporating splendid detail of seventeenth-century Parisian monastic and street life and the relationship between church and Crown, along with the intricate political and religious conflicts of the era. She proves herself a promising new talent by creating this powerful, absorbing, complex, and thoroughly satisfying novel.”
—Historical Novels Review (editor’s choice)
“[A] superb historical debut . . . With an experienced writer’s ease, Rock incorporates details of the political issues of the day into a suspenseful story line. Fans of Brother Cadfael, another military man turned priest sleuth, will be pleased.”
—Publishers Weekly (starred review)
“Rich with historical detail . . . meticulously researched. [Rock] captures a city and time that is lively, dangerous, and politically charged, and makes it sing.... [Her] fine eye for historic detail and well-drawn characters will continue to engage readers.”
—Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
“Rock brings firsthand knowledge of dance, choreography, acting, police investigation, and teaching to what is hopefully the beginning of a mystery series . . . [A] fascinating historical mystery . . . Plenty of derring-do and boyish mischief sprinkled into the plot make this a fun read, and Charles’s thought-provoking struggles as he questions his vocation lend added depth. A fine counterpart to S. J. Parris’s suspenseful historical mystery novel, Heresy, which dramatizes religious strife in an earlier era, and similar in theme to P. D. James’s Death in Holy Orders, Rock’s novel boasts a style all its own and is sure to satisfy those eager for a great new historical mystery.”
—Booklist (starred review)
“Rock is an exciting new discovery. Her plotting holds your interest, her characters are real, and her attention to details of the time period is extraordinary. Highly recommended for fans of historical thrillers and readers who enjoy Ellis Peters, Edward Marston, and Ariana Franklin.”
—Library Journal (starred review)
Berkley titles by Judith Rock
THE RHETORIC OF DEATH
THE ELOQUENCE OF BLOOD
THE BERKLEY PUBLISHING GROUP
Published by the Penguin Group
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This book is an original publication of The Berkley Publishing Group.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.
Copyright © 2011 by Judith Rock.
“Readers Guide” copyright © by Penguin Group (USA) Inc.
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PRINTING HISTORY
Berkley trade paperback edition / September 2011
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Rock, Judith.
The eloquence of blood / Judith Rock. p. cm.
ISBN : 978-1-101-54419-8
1. Collège Louis-le-Grand (Paris, France)—Fiction. 2. Jesuits—Fiction. 3. Young women—Crimes against—Fiction. 4. Murder—Investigation—Fiction. 5. France—History—17th century—Fiction. I. Title.
PS3618.O3543E56 2011
813’.6—dc22 2011014289
http://us.penguingroup.com
For John Padberg, S.J.
Charles’s godfather
Fountain of knowledge about all things Jesuit
And best of all, friend
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Though writing is solitary work, it takes many people to create a book. Heartfelt thanks to all of them: Patricia Ranum and John Padberg, S.J., historians who helped with research and set me straight on many seventeenth-century questions; my hawkeyed team of readers who vetted the manuscript-in-progress: Lydia Veliko, Damaris Rowland (my incomparable agent), John Padberg, and my husband, Jay, who also created the map of Paris; Shannon Jamieson Vazquez (my incomparable editor), who takes what I think is a finished manuscript, finds the holes, and fixes them. Any errors that remain are mine alone.
And thanks especially to all who read The Rhetoric of Death, Charles’s first adventure, and told me they wanted more!
Chapter 1
CHRISTMAS EVE 1686
Under a sky the gray of slushy puddles, the afternoon was fading to an early dusk. Silence lay like a glaze of ice over the college of Louis le Grand and its motley façade of stone, plaster, and brick, its honeycomb of courtyards, its slate-roofed towers and gables. Then a door banged open and a flood of boys poured into the Cour d’honneur, the school’s vast main courtyard, followed by two black-cloaked Jesuits. Most of the students started warming game
s of chase, but two fourteen-year-olds, trailed by a younger boy, sped to the chapel.
“I somehow doubt that those three have been struck by an urge to prayer,” Maître Charles du Luc said dryly to his companion. “Shall I go and see?”
Père Thomas Damiot nodded, laughing. “I think you will find them searching diligently for an answer to prayer.”
Huddling into his cloak, Charles crossed the windy courtyard to the always-open chapel door and stopped unnoticed on the threshold. A little way inside, the three boys were gathered around the stone clamshell that held holy water.
“It’s frozen!” one of the older boys said jubilantly. “Oh, thank the Blessed Virgin!” He bent his knee hurriedly toward the altar and crossed himself.
But the other was poking a skeptical finger at the skim of ice on the water. “It’s not frozen enough.”
The first speaker turned and stared at the shattered ice skim. “Oh, Venus’s bosoms!”
Round-eyed at the daring oath and shivering so hard his teeth chattered, the smallest boy stood on tiptoe to peer into the shell. “Quid—quem—um—” Giving up trying to speak Latin, as the older boys were doing and the college rules required, he whispered in French, “When is it frozen enough?”
Allowances being admissible for the as yet un-Latined, the oath swearer descended to French. “When you can skate on it. Then we stay indoors for recreation.”
“Skate on that?” The little one stared in bewilderment at the holy water. “How?”
“Figure of speech, dunce!”
“He hasn’t had rhetoric,” the other fourteen-year-old said mildly. “And anyway, what you said isn’t a figure of speech.” He frowned. “Is it?”
“Who cares? It’s Christmas vacation! Come on, race you!”
Deciding that he hadn’t heard the oath, Charles swallowed his laughter, stepped quickly aside from the doorway, and pretended to study the complex set of sundials on the tallest tower. A pointless exercise under the cloud blanket, but he was well aware that students expected professors to do pointless things. The older boys ran past him with barely a glance. The little one plodded after them, absorbed in pulling his wide-brimmed hat down over his ears, and went to join a game of tag.
“I take it their prayer is still unanswered,” Damiot said, joining Charles.
“Is that the rule? They can’t stay indoors until the holy water freezes solid?”
“Certainly it is the rule. Ah, there they are.” Damiot nodded toward the pair of courtyard proctors arriving to oversee this first recreation for students spending the Christmas break in the college. “Now we can go. And we’d better make speed to St. Louis, or Père Pinette will have our heads.”
“Who is Père Pinette?”
“Rector of the Professed House—our house near the church of St. Louis. For fully professed Jesuits who work in Paris but aren’t connected with Louis le Grand.” Damiot started toward the vaulted stone passage leading from the Cour d’honneur to the street. “Our Père Pinette takes ceremony as seriously as a general takes battle.”
“Well, it is the Prince of Condé’s ceremony,” Charles said, following him into the dank, echoing passage, “and he was France’s greatest general.” He caught up with Damiot and lowered his voice. “I know we’re all deeply honored that the Condé has left us—um—part of himself, him being a Prince of the Blood. But I confess that dead royalty leaving their hearts and entrails and so on to churches and monasteries has always seemed to me a little bizarre. Why is it done?”
Damiot looked at Charles as though he’d asked why the sun rose. “Because it’s always been done.” He shrugged. “Surely it’s obvious. A man’s heart is the most important earthly part of him, so to leave that to a monastery or a church is to confer a very great honor.”
“Yes, I suppose I can see that. About what the heart means.” Charles assumed a puzzled frown. “But what does it mean if he leaves you his—um—bowels and so on?”
Damiot’s mouth twitched. “Fortunately, the Condé left us only his heart, so restrain your thirst for knowledge. Seriously, Maître du Luc, a royal personage gives an incomparable gift when he leaves his heart in the keeping of those who will pray for his soul and honor his life. Such a gift is a mark of the greatest honor and can only enhance the reputation of the community chosen. Which is another reason we cannot be late.”
Charles forced his numb feet to move faster. “I’ll be frozen to death before we get there, so it won’t matter if I’m late.”
“Don’t be so dramatic, it’s not really cold at all for Christmas Eve. You should have been here last year.”
“Dear Virgin of Sorrows,” Charles muttered under his breath, reaching under his cloak to rub the old war wound in his left shoulder, which minded the weather even more than the rest of him did.
This winter was his first in Paris and he was hating the cold. He tried to remind himself that this was only Paris, and they were only going to the church of St. Louis across the river, not setting out over snowy wastes for a frozen Jesuit mission in New France. Nevertheless, Charles suspected that if the devil appeared out of the street passage’s chill shadows and offered him sunbaked warmth in trade for his soul, he’d have a sharp spiritual struggle on his hands. Not that winter wasn’t cold in his native south of France. It snowed there, too, but less, and at least the sun showed itself. This endless northern gray threatened to sink deeper into his soul than the cold had sunk into his bones. But when he’d made the mistake of saying so, his fellow Jesuits had only laughed and told him darkly to wait until January.
The sniffling lay brother who had drawn the day’s duty as porter opened the narrow postern door and let them out into the rue St. Jacques. Wind whipping merrily up from the Seine hit them full in the face.
“If you’re so warm, Père Damiot,” Charles said through his chattering teeth, “you can give me your cloak!”
“That was Saint Martin who gave away his cloak, Maître du Luc, not our blessed Saint Ignatius.” Damiot grinned at Charles. “Besides, I am a priest, and you are a lowly scholastic.” Charles, though a teacher, was still in what was called the scholastic phase of the long Jesuit training, still studying as well as teaching, and years from priesthood and final vows. Which was why his title was maître, which meant master, and not père, Father. “So if there is any cloak-giving,” Damiot said, in the pious tones of a novice seeing himself in line for the papal throne, “it should go the other way. For the good of your soul, of course.”
Happily trading mild barbs, they went down St. Geneviève’s hill. Charles, twenty-eight, with wide shoulders and his Norman mother’s thick, straw-colored hair, was taller than most Frenchmen. But the thin, dark, thirty-five-year-old Damiot was only half a head shorter and their long strides matched well enough. Their love of words and the stage also matched, Charles being a rhetoric teacher and producer of college ballets, and Damiot being the author of this year’s holiday farce—for Louis le Grand Jesuits only—to be done the day after Christmas.
The rich smell of roasting chestnuts sweetened the air around them and they caught an occasional flare of warmth from the street vendors’ small fires. Though the rue St. Jacques was the Latin Quarter’s main street, it was emptier than usual. Many students from the University of Paris and the quarter’s teeming colleges—secondary schools for boys from ten to twenty or so—had left for the holidays. A handful of servants were hurrying home from the Petit Marché, the market a little up the hill beyond the college. Tools on their shoulders, men working on an old College of Les Cholets building that now belonged to the Jesuits were heading for the warmth of taverns. Charles saw one of them—likely a master carpenter, given his better clothes—break away from his fellows and make for the Necessity Man, who stood in the shadow of a gateway. The Necessity Man saw him coming and held out an old theatre mask from his assortment. The carpenter put it on, and the Necessity Man took off his voluminous cloak and held it up while his customer settled himself on a large bucket. Then he wrapped
the cloak around both man and bucket and turned his back, leaving his masked customer to answer nature’s call in disguise, if not in privacy.
A clattering of wheels and the ring of horseshoes on stone made Charles and Damiot leap aside and press themselves against a wall, the rue St. Jacques being wide enough for two carriages to pass and not much more.
“I am battling the sin of envy, Maître du Luc,” Damiot shouted in Charles’s ear, as carriages hurtled in opposite directions.
“Why?” Charles shouted back.
“Because our Louis le Grand confrères who teach theology and philosophy have nine days for their Christmas break. Their classes don’t start again until the second of January.”
They started walking again, brushing at the mud the carriage wheels had thrown onto their cloaks.
“While you,” Damiot went on, “a martyr to rhetoric, and I, even more of a martyr to grammar, have a bare four days.” He cast his eyes up at the unprepossessing heavens. “Why, oh ye saints and fates, was I set on Lady Grammar’s stony way instead of the easy path of Lady Philosophy?”
“Lady Philosophy probably decided not to trust your slippery way with words. As for your sense of injustice, it’s the twenty-fourth and our vacation started at noon. We have till the morrow of Holy Innocents, the twenty-ninth. That’s four and a half days. Five and a half till we teach, since the morrow of Holy Innocents is a Sunday, which means our classes start again on Monday the thirtieth.”
“Oh, don’t split hairs, that’s the worst of you rhetoricians. Just imagine the peace if we could send them all home, rhetoric and grammar classes along with theology and philosophy. Think about it, no boys in the college till after the Feast of the Circumcision!” January first, the Feast of the Circumcision, commemorated the ritual circumcising of the baby Jesus eight days after his birth. “With a few more days added to the break,” Damiot went on, “most of them could go home or to some relative nearby.”