The Eloquence of Blood

by Judith Rock

  Montmorency looked blank, trying to work that out, but the other two boys nodded enthusiastically.

  “That will be even more worthy of you!” Chenac gazed limpidly at Montmorency. “So much more noble!”

  “Only a true courtier could bring to life the perfection of an ancient statue,” Thiers said gravely.

  “So tomorrow you will have your pedestal,” Charles said. “Here is how you will stand on it, until you come to life.” He took Montmorency into a corner and placed him firmly in a fourth position. “There. Excellent. Do not move even a muscle. I will tell you a very important secret, Monsieur Montmorency.” Charles lowered his voice. “Not moving at all is far more difficult than moving. But I know you can do it.”

  With his right foot forward, his left arm raised in a curve, and his right arm curved long at his side, Montmorency went absolutely rigid and gazed with fierce concentration into the middle distance.

  “Yes, excellent!” With a sigh of relief, Charles quickly set the rest of the dance on the other two boys, and by the end of the rehearsal their steps were nearly perfect.

  The three o’clock bell was ringing, Père Jouvancy’s actors were coming toward them down the room, and Morel had gathered the other dancers close around him, when a hoarse “maître?” made Charles turn. The noble statue was tottering but holding his pose like the last soldier defending a breached city gate.

  With a pang of conscience, Charles said, “Come out of your pose, mon ami; well and nobly done, indeed!”

  Gratefully, Montmorency dropped his quivering left arm to his side and shifted his feet. His big face was suffused with pride as he walked stiffly toward the door with his fellows.

  “Mon père?” Charles stopped Jouvancy on his way to the door. “I need to go down to the scenery cave. Do you want me to look for anything while I’m down there?”

  “Ah, yes!” Jouvancy included Morel, who was walking toward them, in his smile. “Find the street scene with houses and the Temple of Mars. It’s there somewhere. See how much retouching it needs. We’ll also need the lakeshore with pine trees; that will be perfect for the near drowning. Even without an overstage for mounting stage effects, we should be able to put you somewhere with a bellows for wind. Don’t bring them up from the cave, just place them at the front of the row of flats. But before you go, tell me how you’re managing with young Montmorency.”

  “He looks somewhat happier,” Morel put in.

  Charles grinned. “Monsieur Montmorency is going to make an excellent statue of a soldier.”

  Jouvancy gave a bark of laughter. “Brilliant, absolutely brilliant! I shall remember that little idea. Wonderful! Come, then, you can go through the rhetoric classroom to the cave.”

  “Maître du Luc,” Morel said diffidently, “if you would like help looking for the scenery, I would be glad to offer assistance.”

  Charles was ready to be quiet and alone. “I don’t really need—” he began, but Jouvancy was beaming at the young man.

  “Yes, good, very kind of you, Monsieur Morel. Come, both of you!”

  Charles sighed inwardly and followed them down the stairs. Unless he was greatly mistaken, Morel wanted to talk about something, and Charles wanted nothing more to worry about.

  “Where are the cellars?” Morel asked, as they emerged into the courtyard.

  “Hmm?” Charles was looking up at the iron-gray clouds as he walked, hoping that whatever they had in store would hold off until he could put his evening plans into action. “The caves?” He pointed at the east side of the court, opposite the street passage and the rue St. Jacques. “We keep the scenery under the rhetoric classroom there. It’s convenient, since we build the summer tragedy and ballet stage to back onto the rhetoric classroom windows. We have to haul what we use up the stairs, but at least we don’t have to carry it far. I hope the lanterns are still beside the stairs. It’s dark as sin down there, and open candle flames are too dangerous near the wood and canvas.”

  The dancers and actors had already taken their seats in the rhetoric room when Jouvancy, Charles, and Morel entered. Père Martin Pallu, pink and shy and round-faced, with almost comically big hands, had just called the students to order after a short break. When he saw Jouvancy, he stepped down from the master’s dais and went to him for a hurried consultation. Watching Pallu, Charles marveled at the rank and fame the young Jesuit had already attained. Three years younger than Charles, he was through final vows and ordination, and already a rhetoric master. He had been charged with writing the Latin script for the Celsus tragedy because of his growing reputation as a writer.

  Jouvancy answered Pallu’s question, patted him encouragingly on the shoulder, and sent him back to the dais, where Pallu took his place behind the lectern and began to set the afternoon’s Cicero translation.

  “And when all have finished, each decurion is to hear his men’s translations. All ten in a group will listen to each translation and will be prepared to say why a correction is made, if asked to do so by the decurion. Habes?” Pallu said.

  “Yes, mon père,” the students chorused, and set to work.

  The decurions, newly designated each month, earned their rank by outstanding work in their rhetoric studies. Called by the ancient Roman army title for “officer,” each was responsible for ten “soldiers.” Now, before settling to his own work, each “officer” made sure that his “soldiers” were duly settled to theirs. Pallu sat down in the master’s chair on the dais and watched them all closely, ready to offer help if he was needed.

  Jouvancy opened the door to the cellar stairs, then went to join Pallu on the dais. Charles saw that the lanterns and the little flint and tinder box were still there on the top step, and set about making light. He handed Morel one softly glowing lantern, took the other, and led the way down the worn stone stairs.

  “Close the door,” he said quietly over his shoulder, “or the draft coming up from below will freeze the classroom. I hope we find what we need quickly, before we freeze down here ourselves.”

  The stairs ended in the dank lifeless cold of ancient cellars. The lantern light seemed as feeble as a single star in a black night sky, lighting patches of gray stone wall and picking out curved vaulting as Charles led the way toward the scenery, walking quickly to forestall talk. Beside one of the squat round pillars holding up the ceiling, he stopped, lifted his lantern, and hung it on an iron hook so that its light shone along a row of stage flats leaning face outward, against the wall. “Bring your lantern with you,” he said to Morel, and started walking slowly along the line of flats. “The flats we want should be along here somewhere.”

  They quickly found the set of flats for the Roman town scene, with its tile-roofed houses, cedar trees with sharply pointed tops, an imposing Temple of Mars, and a severe-looking Roman family posing in the paved street. Morel set his lantern down and they pulled the flat away from the wall and carried it to the front of the line, so it would be easily found when they were ready to dress the stage. Finding the lake flats turned out to be another matter. They reached the end of the long line of scenery without seeing them, even though they stopped to pull out several flats that had been stacked with their blank sides outward. The clammy frigid air wrapped itself around them like a cloak, and their breath came in white clouds.

  “They’re not here,” Charles said. “Well, let’s get my lantern and Montmorency’s box and get out of this underworld. Charon’s river couldn’t possibly be colder than this.”

  Squeaks and scufflings sent them hurrying toward the stairs, but not before an enormous rat waddled across their path, glancing at them with mild interest and not in the least afraid.

  Morel shuddered as it disappeared beyond their lantern light. “I hate those things! Don’t they eat your scenery?”

  “Not the flats. The rest of the things we mostly keep in locked chests a little way beyond the stairs. That’s where the box will be.”

  Morel stayed so close he kept treading on Charles’s heels. They passed th
e foot of the stairs and walked along a line of low wooden chests. Charles knelt, dragged one of the chests aside, and pulled out a stout square box made of gold-painted wood.

  “Voilà!” Charles stood up and handed Morel his lantern. Then he picked up the box, yelped in pain, and dropped it.

  Morel jumped back. “What? Another rat?”

  “No, no, it’s my shoulder, I awoke an old wound this morning.”

  “In the attack? I heard about it.”

  “Everyone in Paris has probably heard about it. Yes, I pulled two combatants apart more eagerly than I should have, so my shoulder is telling me.”

  “I’ll carry the box, maître,” Morel said brightly, and hoisted it before Charles could object. “You want it in the salle des actes, don’t you?”

  “Yes,” Charles said. “That’s very kind of you. I’ll carry both lanterns.”

  Feeling the young man’s confidences closing in on him, Charles led the way back to the stairs, extinguished the candles, and left the lanterns where he’d found them. Morel followed him through the silent classroom where the boys were writing furiously, translating passages they’d been set. Bowing to Pallu and Jouvancy, Charles and Morel went out into the courtyard. Watching Morel stride across the snow-covered gravel with the box and climb the stairs to the salle des actes like a young goat, Charles felt suddenly old. I’ll be twenty-nine this year, he told himself, and then thirty, and thirty is certainly no longer young. Morel, on the other hand, he thought drearily, was probably only twenty-one or twenty-two, not much older than some of the students.

  In the salle des actes, Morel set the block down and turned to Charles. “Maître—I—may I—there is something—may I talk with you for a moment?”

  “Of course.” Forcing himself to look like he had all the time in the world, Charles backed up to a windowsill and leaned against it.

  But Morel only stared dumbly at the floorboards.

  “How is Mademoiselle Brion?” Charles asked, to start the stream flowing. Beyond the windows, the sky was growing steadily more leaden, and he had to get out of the college and across the river before the snow started.

  Morel looked up in relief. “You are kind to ask, maître. But I have nothing good to tell you. She is more and more distraught, so distraught that she’s thinking of entering a convent. She says that if her brother is convicted of these crimes, she will not allow anyone to marry into a family so shamed. She says she will join the Ursulines. She has even begun wondering if marriage is more sinful than being a nun.” Morel flushed and looked down. “But I should not be talking about that to you; forgive me.”

  “Monsieur Morel, I do not disdain marriage. It is a sacrament, after all.” Charles smiled suddenly. “Years ago now, our own Père Caussin wrote about marriage. He said that marriage is a mysterious sacrament. Precious in God’s eyes and full of dignity.”

  “Did he really? She will like that! And so do I. No one could disagree with that.”

  “Anyone can disagree with anything, but I hope it will help.” Charles straightened from the windowsill, but Morel stayed where he was.

  “There is another problem, too, maître. I have only been certified as a dancing master very recently, and I am still building my reputation, as you know.” He sighed and shook his head.

  “You said once before that Mademoiselle Brion is above you. But you have never mentioned your own family,” Charles prodded.

  “They are respectable people. But artisans. My father was a violin maker. He did well, but I have three older brothers and a sister and must make my own way. Isabel—Mademoiselle Brion, I should say—is used to more than I can give her. She could marry far more to her advantage.”

  “Is that what she wants?”

  “She doesn’t say so. But—”

  “And are you sure she is used to so much more?” Charles said, thinking of her father’s hapless schemes and what she had confided about the family finances. “Even if she is, do you really want her to marry someone else just because he is rich? Or because he imagines that she is rich? I like what Père Caussin said about that, too. ‘Away with these mercenary husbands, who are in love with money; they should marry the mines of Peru, not honorable girls.’ ”

  Morel laughed in surprise. “Truly, he said that?”

  “Truly. But more to the purpose than what Père Caussin thought, what does Monsieur Callot think about your suit?”

  “Oh. I—I don’t quite know. He teases us—me. But he doesn’t stand in the way. With Monsieur Henri Brion gone, though, he may begin to feel he has a father’s responsibility to Mademoiselle Brion, and perhaps that I am—well—good to tease, but not suitable as a husband for her.”

  “Is he behaving like that now?”

  “No. But—”

  “Then do not borrow trouble. The household is torn apart just now, and the best thing you can do is what you are doing. Offer to help them, comfort them as you can. Stand by them. It is not yet time to do more than that. Which I think you already know.” Charles moved firmly toward the door this time, and Morel trailed after him.

  “Thank you, maître. Will you pray for us?”

  “With all my heart.”

  A scouring wind was reaching into the Cour d’honneur as Charles walked the young man to the postern. Seeing that the porter, huddled inside two cloaks, was asleep in front of his little alcove’s glowing brazier, Charles let Morel out into the street. Wishing him a good evening, he shut the postern and stood in the doorway of the porter’s alcove, to have a little warmth from the brazier while he gave Morel time to be gone. As he stared at the small orange flames, he hardly knew whether to hope for success or failure in the coming night. There was danger for Gilles Brion either way. It all depended on what Lieutenant-Général La Reynie chose to do if Charles was successful. The rector had reacted with great distaste to this errand, as Charles had expected, but had reluctantly given permission. When the bells rang four o’clock, Charles pushed his broad-brimmed, flat-crowned hat tightly down onto his head and slipped quietly out into the rue St. Jacques on his way to the Capuchin house across the river.

  Chapter 21

  Sullen clouds hung over Paris. The day had grown so ominously dark that side streets were black tunnels pricked here and there by candle flames in rooms otherwise as dark as the streets. The street lantern lighters were not due out for an hour or so, but shops were closing and most people walked quickly, eyeing the ominous sky.

  “Snow, for sure,” Charles heard a Pont Neuf broom peddler call to a bookseller packing up his stall. “Not a little snow, either. I’m for home and the soup pot.” She hefted her armload of brooms and made off across the bridge. The first flakes started to fall as Charles turned left from the bridge and cut up the rue de L’arbre Sec toward the rue St. Honoré. By the time he reached the Capuchin monastery’s gate, north of the Tuilleries, he was brushing snowflakes from his eyelashes, and he had dumped snow off his hat twice.

  He rang the bell and then waited so long that he wondered if the friars, who rose at midnight like the Benedictines to sing Matins and Lauds, had already gone to bed. The gate offered little protection from the weather, and there were few buildings across the street to block wind. Finally, footsteps slapped over stone, the grille slid back, and a lantern was lifted to let the friar see who was there.

  “Bonsoir, mon frère,” Charles said through chattering teeth. “Forgive my intrusion, but I must speak with Père Michaut.”

  The grid closed, bolts were undone, and the gate opened narrowly. Charles went through and the silent friar, bearded and brown robed, closed and locked it behind him. With a gesture, he bid Charles follow and led the way across cobbles, the long point of his hood swinging at his back, and through a small door in a stone wall. Watching the man’s sockless, sandaled feet flash in and out below his gown of raw wool, Charles thought how decadent he must seem to a brother of this deeply reformed Franciscan order. Even in leather shoes, stockings, shirt, and two layers of good, well-woven wool, he
was shivering. They rounded the turn of the covered cloister walkway and the monk took him through another door, into a small, bare candlelit room. The monk signed to him to wait and left him there.

  New-built a hundred years ago by Catherine de Medici, the monastery was more modern than some of the old monastic houses, but because it was Capuchin, Charles knew that it would be as austere as any ancient monk could have wished. The small room had no fireplace, and Charles walked briskly up and down, rubbing his hands together and working his cold-numbed face so that he could speak when the time came. He stopped before the lifelike crucifix on one wall and prayed for words to convince Père Michaut, the Capuchin superior, that what he’d come to do was necessary. Even if Michaut would not give permission, the heavy snow might work in his favor. If it went on as it had begun, returning across the river would be dangerously difficult, if not impossible. And any return would of necessity be on foot, since Capuchin houses kept no animals of any kind, not even horses or mules. Staying the night might well prove useful, even if the superior did not.

  “God be with you, mon père,” a deep voice said behind him.

  Charles turned and saw an elderly, white-bearded Capuchin regarding him out of blue eyes sunk in a nest of wrinkles.

  “And with you, Père Michaut.” Charles bowed. “I am Maître Charles du Luc, come from Louis le Grand with the permission of my rector, Père Le Picart, to ask your help.”

  “You are welcome. How may I help you?”