by Judith Rock
“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 Frère 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 Frère 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 Maître 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, “Maître 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, Maître 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 père.”
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 père. 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, maître?”
“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.
“Maître 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, Maître 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 père. 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 père.”
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 père. 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 Père Guise and Mme Douté. 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 Père 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 Père Guise with it, and Père Guise killed him in fear of exposure?”
“No, no, after you and Antoine left, Père 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 Douté 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. Douté 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, Père Guise did his share of the throwing.”
“How long have you been in the Society, maître?”
“Seven years, mon père.”
“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 père. 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. Père 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, Maître du Luc, the situation with the girl is a small thing. As for Philippe’s anger at Père Guise, people are constantly angry at him.” He sighed. “I often am, myself. And even if we entertain your theory, it immediately becomes impossible. Père Guise says he was with his aunt the Duchesse when Philippe disappeared, and the brother who was keeping the door that day confirms that Père Guise left by the postern immediately after dinner and was gone all afternoon.”
“But the old stairs make the doorkeeper’s statement meaningless. Père Guise could have returned to the college and left again unseen. Strangling doesn’t take long, mon père.”
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, Père 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 père.”
“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?”
“Frère Chevalier is seventy-three, the soul of honor, and too arthritic to climb stairs.”
“But could Père Guise—or someone else—have taken his key and copied it?”
Le Picart frowned. “Frère 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 Père Guise has one. The baker is deaf, his wife says. Though she certainly is not! Mon père, even without the Mme Douté complication, we come back again and again to Père Guise. He searches for the note, the hidden stairs lead to his rooms, he is close to the Douté 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 Père Jouvancy sent me to buy sugar, mon père.”
“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. Père 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 Frère 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 Père 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 Père 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 a
re being too quick to accuse Père Guise. I already told you that what has happened to these boys might be tied—through their father—to the old Prince of Condé.”
“Could Père Guise be acting for the Condé?”
“I doubt that. The Prince of Condé 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 Père Guise froth at the mouth. Even worse, the Condé 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 Condé’s household who might be trying to use the boys to force their father to something—Monsieur Douté keeps some of the Condé 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 Châtel, 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 Père 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 pére. 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, Père Guise will be the first person you and I will think of. He knows that. I have also spoken sternly to Maître 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, maître?”