The Rhetoric of Death

by Judith Rock

  “Yes, mon brave, he is. I’m sorry.” Charles was sorry, and not just because an innocent man had been murdered. For all his laziness, Doissin had given Antoine warmth and kindness, and Antoine had liked him.

  The other boys erupted in questions. “Why? How? Was he sick? That old lay brother said it was demons!”

  Deciding that a modicum of truth was better than demon rumors, Charles led Antoine back to his desk, sat him down, and addressed them all.

  “Maître Doissin was suddenly very sick and died of it.”

  Antoine whispered, “We should pray for him, maître.”

  Charles led them in prayers for the suddenly dead. Then he waited a moment and said, “You are all to stay here until someone comes for you. I see that you have books and work to do, yes?”

  All four of them looked with distaste at the quills, paper, Ciceros, and Latin grammars in front of them.

  “Good,” Charles said briskly. “To your books now.”

  The other three made at least a show of settling to work under Charles’s stern eye, but Antoine sat motionless.

  “Maître?” His voice was so small that Charles had to squat on his haunches to hear him. “Did he die because of me? Like Philippe?”

  Charles took the boy’s cold hands. “Look at me, mon brave.”

  The child brought his eyes up fleetingly and then looked down at his desk again, studying its scarred and initialled surface as though it were an examination text.

  “Philippe and Maître Doissin died because a grown-up person did evil things,” Charles said softly. “None of it is your fault. Do you understand?”

  A tiny nod—in which Charles did not believe at all—was all his answer.

  “Your uncle Jouvancy is coming for you, mon brave. You won’t be left alone.”

  Charles patted his shoulder, murmured stern encouragement to the others, and went back to the chamber, where Brunet was praying beside the body. Charles took a towel from Antoine’s cupboard, covered his hand with it, and collected the spilled gaufres. As he laid them on the thick paper they’d come in, he wondered whether, if he’d killed the booted man in Père La Chaise’s garden, Maître Doissin would be alive. And whether, in the divine economy of sin, one outcome would have been better than the other.

  Chapter 26

  Père Jouvancy arrived a few minutes later and led Antoine away, holding his hand as though he would never again let the child out of his sight. Frère Fabre returned, and he and Charles spoke at the head of the stairs, empty now of gawkers. Fabre’s freckles stood out sharply against his blanched skin as he tried not to look at the rewrapped package of gaufres in Charles’s hand.

  “What did you learn from the porter, mon frère?”

  “He—he said—maybe a woman left them. Maybe an hour ago. He didn’t see her face because she wore a long veil. Or a big shawl, maybe. Maître, it could have been a man dressed in woman’s clothes.”

  “Did she—or he—sound young or old?”

  “Young. But some people sound young when they’re not. She—he—just said that the package was for Antoine.”

  “Did the porter say anything else?”

  “The gaufres might have come from the bakery next door. He said the little girl brought him one yesterday.”

  Charles’s heart sank. If the LeClercs had sold them, the rector and the police would descend on the bakery, which was the last thing Pernelle needed. Not that he thought for a moment that the LeClercs had poisoned the gaufres. The bakery wasn’t even open today, it being Sunday, but the gaufres could have been bought yesterday and then poisoned. But what poisoner would be stupid enough to buy the gaufres next door?

  “Do you have any cuts or scratches on your hands, Frère Fabre?”

  The boy gaped at him. Charles grabbed one cold clammy hand and then the other. Finding stage scenery paint stains but no grazes, he thrust the package at Fabre.

  “Stay here and give these to the rector when he comes. Do not put them down or give them to anyone else. Tell the rector to keep them wrapped. Frère Brunet will tell him the rest. Then wash your hands. Thoroughly. With soap. I’m going to see Mme LeClerc. I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

  Leaving Fabre holding the package at arm’s length as though it might explode, Charles went to the street passage. The porter got up from his stool.

  “Frère Martin,” Charles greeted him, “tell me again about whoever brought the gaufres.”

  “I told it all to the boy. Poor cabbage, you’d think he’d never seen death.” Martin repeated his story, but it wasn’t quite the story Fabre had told. Martin was certain that the person under the mourning veil was a woman. Small, he said, and by the voice, young.

  “Little hands, maître. Gloved. Hot weather for that, but carrying poison, that explains it.”

  “Who else has come and gone in the last hour or so? Professors, students? They may have seen something, if I can find them.”

  The porter shook his head. “No one at all. Did young rooster head tell you those gaufres maybe came from next door? Little Marie-Ange brought me one yesterday. But it wasn’t poisoned, as you see!” He laughed heartily as he opened the postern for Charles.

  Life, Charles thought sourly, was much less harrying for the unimaginative . To his relief, the bakery door stood open, no doubt to let out the strong smell of burned pastry that met his nose. Mme LeClerc, arranging cream cakes behind the counter, whirled when she heard him and her hard, unwelcoming expression stopped him in the doorway.

  “Oh, it’s you,” she said, with a relieved smile. “But you should still be resting, maître!”

  He managed a smile. “I’m well enough. Forgive me for startling you, madame.” His eyes went toward the back of the shop, where he heard Pernelle’s voice.

  “Yes, maître, she is there, helping clean up our ass-brained apprentice’s mess. Roger would insist on letting him practice pastry on Sunday. Are you come to see your lady?”

  “One small moment. Madame, did you sell gaufres yesterday to a woman in a mourning veil?”

  “I did not. Why?” She finished arranging the cakes on their wooden tray and stepped back to look critically at them, her head on one side.

  “But you did make gaufres?”

  She looked up. “How did you know?”

  Not wanting to get Marie-Ange in trouble, Charles didn’t reply. Instead he said, “We’ve had another tragedy in the college. Someone left poisoned gaufres for Antoine.”

  “Mon Dieu!” She pressed both hands to her mouth. “Is he—?”

  “He didn’t eat them, madame, he’s well. Sadly, however, his tutor did. And died.”

  “St. Benedict protect us! As I hope for salvation, maître, I never poisoned any gaufres!”

  “Calm yourself, madame, I never thought you did. But I wondered if someone might have bought them here and then poisoned them.”

  “Poison?” Marie-Ange burst out of the workroom, towing Pernelle behind her. “Who is poisoned?”

  “Marie-Ange, no, I told you to keep mademoiselle out of sight!” Madame flapped her apron at them and Pernelle stopped, smiling at Charles. Marie-Ange ran to him and pulled anxiously at his sleeve.

  “Is it Antoine, maître?”

  “Not Antoine, his tutor,” Charles said. “Antoine is fine.”

  The little girl’s worried frown relaxed. Pernelle ignored Mme LeClerc’s clucking and walked quickly down the shop to him.

  “More murder? You look terrible, Charles.”

  “More murder, yes.” But he was smiling. The shadows under her eyes were gone and the pink in her cheeks contrasted prettily with the shabby gray kirtle and bodice she wore, which were clearly Mme LeClerc’s. A flour-dusted apron bunched the wide gown in thick folds around her waist, and the skirt barely covered her white-stockinged calves.

  “Veiled, you said, maître?” The baker’s wife was frowning and staring at nothing. “I did see a woman in mourning pass by today.”

  “When? Are you sure it was a woman?”
>
  “An hour or two ago. I assumed it was a woman. But those mourning veils hide most everything, don’t they?” She shook her head scornfully. “Those veils! If you’re so much in mourning you don’t even want to see where you’re going, then why be out in the street? Why not stay home with the shutters closed and black bed hangings and all? Unless you just don’t want to live anymore and you’re trying to get run over, sin though that would be, though it’s so easy to be hurt in traffic, it’s hardly fair to count it as sin. But losing loved ones takes us all different ways, I suppose. Still, in that flaunting petticoat of hers, she can’t have been all that deeply mourning, now can she?”

  “Was the woman you saw carrying anything?” Charles asked, not daring to look at Pernelle, who was openly laughing at Mme LeClerc’s observations.

  Before Mme LeClerc could answer, someone coughed politely and they all turned toward the street door. A solidly built man in brown breeches and jacket stood there. He was smiling at them, but most of his smile was landing on Pernelle, who caught Marie-Ange by the hand and disappeared into the workroom. Mme LeClerc moved briskly around the counter. Taking his cue from her hurry, Charles smiled affably and stood between the man and the back of the shop. The newcomer was wigless. His hair only reached the nape of his neck and he wore both a sword and a pistol on his thick leather belt. Everything about him said police.

  “Monsieur? Back again?” Mme LeClerc said sharply, demanding the man’s attention. “I told you before that we are not open.”

  “You did, madame,” he said, with an easy smile. “But if you sold me a little cream cake, I think no one would know.” He nodded toward the workroom door. “For not being open, you have a lot of help today. From far away, as I could tell from the young woman’s voice when you gave me that magnificent brioche a while ago.”

  Charles tensed. So much for La Reynie’s lack of interest in the Provençal-speaking fugitive in the beggars’ Louvre, damn the man. His flies there must have told him she had left. Of course he would start searching at the college door. Charles moved closer to the man.

  “I always have plenty of help,” Mme LeClerc said tartly. “And my niece will not thank you for calling her a foreigner.” She waved away the man’s sous and handed him a cake. “Adieu, monsieur .” A pointed “good-bye” instead of the shopkeeper’s hopeful “see you soon.” She walked purposefully out from behind the counter and toward the street, forcing him backward. As he went, he studied Charles as though memorizing him. Then the man dodged among carriages and riders to lean against the bookshop wall across the street, nibbling at the cake and watching the bakery through the traffic.

  “Police,” Mme LeClerc said flatly, slamming the door and shaking her head. “He keeps trying to see Mademoiselle Pernelle.”

  “And you let her speak to him?” Charles demanded.

  “Of course not!” She dropped the bar across the door. “I should have barred the door before, but I thought that would only convince him we had something to hide. When he walked in the first time, I had just called out to the back room that I wanted the work table scrubbed and she was answering me. The man’s master had been here earlier.”

  “What? Lieutenant-Général La Reynie?”

  “Himself. Pretending he was only making sure we were not selling when we shouldn’t. Your Pernelle was in here helping me scrub these counters. And since then, his man”—she glanced pointedly across the street—“has been making me nervous as a wet hen. I don’t like it. I’m sure she’s done nothing that’s police business, nor you, either!”

  Ignoring that, Charles went to the door to the old stairs and tried the latch. It was locked, as the rector had said. “Your key is lost, I hear, madame?”

  “And our back door is bricked up. If your young lady needs a sudden way out, the only way is through a little back window into your courtyard. Unless St. Anthony takes pity and finds our key to the stairway door.”

  “Madame, I fear,” Charles said slowly, “that Mademoiselle Pernelle must disappear. Can you borrow your apprentice’s other set of clothes for her? Cut her hair, blacken some teeth with soot. She can be a mute so she doesn’t have to speak. If the worst comes to the worst and you have to send her through the window, tell her to go to our porter and ask for me. It’s the best I can think of.”

  “It’s well enough and well thought. We will do it. And who would expect you to think, maître, with people being poisoned?” She glanced across the street. “Wait, I’ll give you a reason for coming here.” She clattered into the back and reappeared with a round loaf, dark with rye, tossing it from hand to hand. “If he asks, you can say it’s a gift and I forgot to send it to you yesterday. It’s hot, be careful!”

  Charles wrapped it in a fold of his cassock. “Thank you for this, and for everything, madame. I will think of somewhere else your—ah—new apprentice can go. If you need me before tomorrow, tell the porter. And pray!” He went out into the street, a desperate urgency at his heels. He had to get Pernelle away from here and on the road to Geneva. Wishing he could find the entrance to her Huguenot highway, he put up his hand to ring the postern bell and froze. The policeman was still across the street, talking with another, even larger armed man and pointing at the bakery. Charles turned hastily back to warn Mme LeClerc, but two more men, one on foot and one on horseback, closed on him from both sides.

  Chapter 27

  Mon père, my master—”

  “Silence, fellow!” The man on horseback raised an imperious gloved hand. “Mon père, a word!”

  Tensed for assault, arrest, or both, Charles looked from the boy in servant’s livery to the middle-aged, red-faced man on the horse. Far from laying hands on him, the two were jockeying for his attention like courtiers accosting the king. Realizing that he was holding the wheel of bread in front of him like a shield, Charles shifted it to one arm and smiled at the youngster. Then he turned to the horseman, who was slapping his tawny wool covered thigh impatiently with his riding crop.

  “How may I help you, monsieur?” Charles said, smiling insincerely. The sooner well-dressed self-importance got its way, the faster it departed.

  The man frowned and squinted at him. “I don’t know you. But you are a Jesuit, surely you know who I am.”

  Beyond the rider, Charles saw the two police agents walk away. In tones of heartfelt relief, he said, “I have not the pleasure, monsieur.”

  The man drew a long, offended breath. “Your accent tells me you are not from Paris, so perhaps that excuses you. I am Monsieur Jean Donneau de Visé, editor of the Nouveau Mercure Galant. Are you attached to the college?”

  “Yes, monsieur. I am Maître Charles du Luc,” Charles said, groaning inwardly. He had seen the Mercure, a weekly gazette reporting theatre and social news for the court and the wealthy. De Visé would no doubt be writing up Wednesday’s performance. If Charles offended this well-known journalist and playwright, Père Jouvancy would probably scalp him and use the results to fix the mangy blond wig. “I sincerely hope, Monsieur de Visé, that we will have the honor of your presence on Wednesday.”

  “That is why I stopped when I saw you. You can carry my request and I will not have to waste time going into the college. I want a better seat than I had last year. I could hardly see and couldn’t hear a thing. And make sure I am well away from the edge of that damned awning. Rain sluices off it and I will not risk wetting my good beaver hat. Good day.”

  Not bothering to raise the hat in question, he turned the horse and trotted away. Charles turned with relief to the boy.

  “And how may I help you?” he said.

  The boy dragged his eyes away from a pretty maidservant who was smiling at him and sending an extra sway of hips his way.

  “I was sent from the Hôtel de Sully, mon—I mean—maître, I heard you say?”

  “Yes. And your errand?”

  “The duke reminds the college to be sure a poster for the tragedy and ballet is put at our gate. You forgot last year and he didn’t like it. Will yo
u carry that message for him?”

  “A lot of people didn’t like things last year, it seems.” Charles’s wry face made the boy grin. “Yes, I will see that you get a poster. You may tell your master that the printer says we’ll have them Tuesday morning.”

  “Thank you, mon père.”The boy sketched a bow and made off after the girl.

  A lay brother Charles didn’t know opened the postern. Charles thrust the bread into his arms and asked him to send it to the kitchen. Then he went to Le Picart’s office. Looking as though he was barely holding himself together under the news of this latest death, the rector was talking to Frères Brunet, Martin the doorkeeper, and Fabre. Brunet and Martin were listening tensely, but Fabre was staring at the floor.

  “You have been very helpful,” Le Picart said to them. “For now, if anyone asks you, say only that Maître Doissin was taken suddenly and violently ill and died. Lieutenant-Général La Reynie is coming. When he gives permission, we will have a quiet funeral mass and burial across the river at St. Louis.”

  He dismissed them and turned to Charles. “So now we have poison. And from outside the college.”

  “Mon père, Mme LeClerc saw a woman in a mourning veil pass by an hour or two ago. And, as Frère Martin no doubt told you, the gaufres were brought by someone in a veil.”

  “Would a woman do this thing? Who in God’s name can she be?”

  “My first thought was that it might be Antoine’s stepmother, mon père. She is in mourning. But Mme Douté went back to Chantilly with Philippe’s body. Didn’t she?”

  “I—yes—I believe so. I didn’t see her go, but—” Shaking his head, Le Picart felt for his chair and sat down heavily, like an old man. “Until we get to the bottom of this, Antoine will be either with Père Jouvancy or Frère Brunet. He will not go to classes and he will sleep in the infirmary.” The rector sighed. “You were right, I was too complacent, and now I have Maître Doissin’s death heavy on my conscience.”

  After supper, Charles’s much-tried body overruled his frantic mind and he lay down on his bed. Compline bells woke him. He hauled himself up and went to kneel in front of the painting of Mary and the infant Jesus. But before he could bow his head to say the office, his gaze caught and held on Mary’s patient face. Show me how to find the killers, he whispered. Before more people die. He waited, every nerve stretched to listen beyond hearing and see beyond seeing. The evening light went on dimming, noise from the street hushed toward its night level, and that was all.