The Rhetoric of Death Read online

  “The rider swerved and went after the boy? Are you sure, madame?”

  “As sure as I stand here and hope for salvation!”

  Charles turned to stare at the place where Antoine had fallen. “You say the man reached for him—Père Guise saw that, too. He said the rider was trying to push the boy out of the way.”

  “Then why didn’t he try to stop the horse or turn it?” She frowned and her eyes opened wider. “Unless he was reaching out for the boy because he was trying to snatch him up and ride off with him!” She stepped closer, her eyes avid. “Another thing I can tell you, he wore a mask!”

  “A mask, madame?” Charles quickly reassessed his informant, remembering Guise’s sneer at what he’d called her “lurid tale.”

  She crossed her arms over her straining bodice. “I see you don’t believe me. But I saw what I saw. I swear it. It was the kind of mask ladies wear when it’s cold. Or at Carnival. But—” She looked expressively up at the sky. “—it is not cold, not today, anyway. And it is not Carnival. And he was not a lady.” She eyed Charles triumphantly, as though she’d just bested him in a rhetorical display.

  “Did the porter also see the mask?”

  “Is he blind? Of course he did. And so did your mignon. But the porter will never tell you he saw it, now that your mignon has got hold of him.” She held a hand under Charles’s nose and rubbed thumb and fingers together in the age-old sign for money.

  Charles’s head was beginning to spin. “Père Guise gave him money?”

  Her shrug nearly took her ears off. “Why did the porter run away before you could talk to him? And Guise does not like my version of the story at all, you heard him.”

  “Did he offer you money to change your story, madame?”

  Mme LeClerc spat again. “That object knows better than to try his tricks with me.”

  “Madame, Père Guise is Antoine’s godfather. Why would he pay the porter to lie about what happened?”

  “Why would the masked man ride the child down?”

  Charles opened his mouth, then shut it. It was not the moment for a logic lesson. “Did you notice anything else about the man, madame? What was his horse like?”

  “A rangy chestnut. Missing his manhood, if you know what I mean, poor thing.” She dimpled and Charles suddenly realized that she wasn’t much older than he was. “The horse was. About the man, of course, I couldn’t say.”

  Charles struggled to keep a straight face, thinking that the baker was a lucky man.

  “The rider’s hat was pulled down low.” She paused, watching the air, obviously seeing the whole thing happen again. “Plain and flat the hat was, a floppy brim, no feather. His hair I didn’t notice. He looked wiry—not thin or reedy, though, he looked strong. A good rider. Not so tall, not nearly so tall as you.” She looked Charles up and down approvingly. “His coat and breeches were ordinary brown. Like this.” She touched her worn bodice. “The only thing good was his boots. A blackish color like burnt sugar, and they folded over at the top.”

  “Which way did he ride?”

  She pointed toward the rue St. Jacques. “I was looking at the child, I didn’t see which way the man turned.”

  “Do you know the street porter’s name, madame? Or where I could find him?”

  “I never saw him before. But you might find him on the quays, they wait there for the boats to unload.”

  “And you, madame, can you be found in your shop?”

  “But of course. You can’t miss it, as I said, it’s beside your chapel door. Which is beside your little postern, in case you don’t know yet. Our bakery and the bookbinder farther along are the only shops left in your frontage now.”

  Charles thanked her and began his farewells before he remembered that she didn’t know his name.

  “Forgive me, Madame LeClerc, I have not introduced myself. I am Maître Charles du Luc.”

  She nodded her approval of his manners and made him a small reverence. Then she frowned. “Why are you not père? What did you do?”

  Charles burst out laughing. She sounded exactly like his mother. “Nothing, madame—at least, not in the way you mean. It takes a long time to become père in the Society of Jesus.”

  “That Guise is père and you’re not? Pah. It’s the same in the church and out, the bad ones get everything, the good ones go begging.” Her face softened. “I will pray for our Antoine, maître.”

  “As we all will. Au revoir, madame.” Head down, he walked toward the college, thinking about what he’d learned and scrutinizing the paving stones as though he’d lost a handful of gold.

  Chapter 7

  Instead of making speed back to the classroom, Charles went in search of Père Le Picart. A lay brother directed him to the infirmary, in a small court with a tidy garden of herbs and flowers, above the workroom where the infirmarian prepared what medicines weren’t bought from apothecaries. Le Picart answered his tap at the infirmary door.

  “Maître du Luc?” The rector frowned. “Has something else happened, God forbid?”

  “No, please forgive my intrusion, mon père, I came because a woman in the street, the wife of the baker LeClerc, told me she saw the accident. But perhaps Père Guise has already told you . . . ?”

  “He told me what he saw. He has just gone. But come in, the more we know, the better.”

  The big square room was dim and herb-scented, with wooden shutters half-closed over the windows and rush matting on the floor to muffle footsteps. The infirmarian, a bear of a man with hands the size of soup bowls, sat on a stool beside one of the dozen narrow beds, busy with a cloth and pitcher.

  “Maître du Luc, this is Frère Brunet, who sees to our health.”

  Brunet glanced up and nodded.

  “How is the boy?” Charles asked him softly.

  “The head wound seems to be the only injury,” Brunet said. “Except for bruises. If he wakes soon, he’ll do well enough.”

  “Mother of God, let him wake,” Charles murmured and crossed himself, watching Brunet sponge wine into the gash on Antoine’s forehead to help against infection. Wine stung an open wound, but the boy’s eyes stayed closed and he lay ominously still. Charles peered over the infirmarian’s beefy shoulder.

  “A sharp slice, mon frère,” Charles said. “Though in the place where he fell, what cobbles there are, are rounded. And where the cobbles have come up, there’s only mud. Nothing sharp that I could see.”

  “Perhaps the horse’s hoof caught him,” Brunet said, spreading a foul-smelling unguent on the cut.

  “But wouldn’t the injury be worse? And the flesh more bruised?”

  Charles had seen men horse-kicked in battle, and most of them had gotten not only cuts and bruises, but their skulls broken in the bargain. The infirmarian’s hands stilled for a moment as he considered.

  “Maybe not, if it was a glancing hit.”

  Charles held his peace. The injury could have happened like that. He looked up to find the rector watching him narrowly.

  “The baker’s wife?” Le Picart prompted him. “Père Guise told me that Mme LeClerc was there, but he dismissed what she said.”There was a fractional pause. “Myself, I have always found her reliable.”

  Charles repeated what she’d said about the masked man riding straight for Antoine and reaching out for him. But he left out her insistence that Guise had bribed the porter. He needed to be very sure of his ground before he made an accusation that serious.

  “Well,” Le Picart said, “the mask sounds like a tale. But if three people see a thing, especially if it is frightening, they see three different things. But could the man have been trying to abduct the child, I wonder? Rather than trying to shove him aside, as Père Guise thinks?”

  Charles shrugged. “It must have happened so fast, mon père, both efforts might look the same.”

  “Yes. Well, the child’s father will want to know as much as possible. I should tell you that Père Jouvancy—uncle to the Douté boys as I’m sure you’ve been told—
has already left for Chantilly to fetch him.” The rector’s face was grim. “We sent a message about Philippe yesterday, of course. And we are still hoping he has made his way home, but we have no word yet.”

  Brunet finished bandaging Antoine’s head, tucked the blanket snugly under the boy’s chin, and sat back on his stool. “That’s all there is to do for him now. Except to pray he wakes soon.”

  “And to pray that Philippe is safe in Chantilly.” Le Picart gave Charles a brief and wintry smile. “And if he is, to pray that his father rewards him appropriately for putting us all through this!”

  “I cannot understand Philippe,” Brunet said mournfully, turning on his stool to look up at them. “All he’s ever wanted, ever since he came here, was to be the star of the ballet! Why would he—”

  Another tap at the door made them turn, and Jacques Douté’s worried face appeared around the door’s edge.

  “What are you doing here, Monsieur Douté?” The rector strode to the door as though to shut it in the boy’s face. “Go back to your classroom, we have had enough Douté disobedience!”

  Jacques bowed awkwardly to Le Picart and Charles. “No, mon père. I mean, yes, mon père. Maître Beauchamps gave me permission, mon père. I was worried about my cousin.”

  “Come in, then. But quietly, do not trip over anything!”

  Wavering on tiptoe, Jacques approached the bed. “He’s not dead?”

  “Now, now, don’t be foolish, it’s just a bump on the head,” Brunet said robustly.

  “They say he fell down in the street?” Jacques made the question sound as though Antoine was reported to have flown. “And a horse went over him?”

  Charles’s attention sharpened. “You are surprised at that, Monsieur Douté?”

  Jacques nodded, chewing his lip as he gazed at his unconscious cousin. Before Charles could ask more, Jacques glanced at the rector, bowed his head, and prayed silently. When he finished, Le Picart drew him away from the bed, though not out of Charles’s hearing.

  “I asked you yesterday, Monsieur Douté,” the rector said, “and now I ask you again. Do you know where Philippe has gone?”

  The boy’s eyes were instantly wary. “No, mon père, I swear it! I told you, he just disappeared from our rehearsal.”

  “Could Antoine have known where he went? Perhaps Antoine was going to Philippe when he was hurt?”

  “I don’t know, mon père.”

  “Do you know what has been troubling Philippe lately?”

  Jacques’s face flushed and he looked down. “Not really.”

  “Which means?”

  Jacques brightened, as though with sudden inspiration. “Antoine, perhaps? Antoine has been homesick, you know,” he said earnestly. “He’s not yet even nine. Philippe was angry when his father let his stepmother send him to school, so maybe ...”

  The rector was staring at Jacques like an unimpressed cat, and the boy’s words trailed into silence.

  “So perhaps Philippe ran away because he is worried about his little brother here in the college? If you are going to make up a tale, do yourself—and me—the honor of making sense, M. Douté. Understand this. We are very worried about Philippe. If you develop any ideas about where he has gone or why, or if he sends you any word, you are to come straight to me, do you understand? Failure to do so will mean severe penance. Expulsion from the ballet. Perhaps expulsion from the college.”

  Jacques bowed his head. “Yes, mon père.” There was a short silence. Then he raised pleading eyes to the rector’s face. “But if Antoine is worse, you will tell me?”

  “But yes, of course.” Le Picart’s face softened and he put an arm around Jacques and turned him toward the door. “You heard Frère Brunet, we think Antoine will do well. All the same, Père Jouvancy has gone for your uncle. M. Douté will no doubt want to see you when he comes.”

  Jacques looked sideways at the rector. “Antoine’s stepmother is already in Paris, mon père. If you want her, too.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “Philippe said so. At dinner yesterday.”

  “Then might Philippe have gone to her? Why haven’t you told us this? Where is she staying?”

  “Where she is staying, I don’t know, mon père. But Philippe would never go to her!”

  “Why?”

  “He hates her!”

  “And why is that?”

  “Because Mme Douté—he said she—” A new tide of red crept up the boy’s neck. “He just doesn’t like her. You know.”

  “No, I don’t.”

  Sweat had broken out on the young man’s face. “She—well—she kisses him,” he said, keeping his eyes on the floor. “And she tries to make him kiss her back. And other things. He told her just a few days ago, at her birthday fête, that if she didn’t stop, he was going to tell his father. He wouldn’t really tell his father, though, because it would make M. Douté feel like a cuckold.”

  Le Picart’s frown was showing a new kind of worry. “Are you so sure Philippe doesn’t like what she does? Some boys would, I fear.”

  “He hates it!”

  “That is to his credit, then.” Le Picart turned Jacques toward the door. “Go back to your rehearsal now,” he said briskly. “Maître du Luc will come shortly.” When Jacques had gone, Le Picart shook his head in exasperation. “I pray that Jacques is right and that Philippe has not run off to his very young and very pretty stepmother. I will have to talk seriously to him when we find him. That wretched girl—she’s no more than that, twenty this last birthday. And Philippe will soon be seventeen. And poor M. Douté, whether Jacques is right or not! I must find out where Mme Douté is staying and make certain Philippe is not with her. And send her a message about Antoine.” He grimaced. “Like Philippe, I prefer to avoid her. Truth to tell, she flirts with every man she sees!”

  “You could let her husband fetch her when he arrives,” Brunet said. “Because of her condition. She expects a child in the autumn, you know.”

  “A child? Dear Blessed Virgin, and trying to entice her stepson even so?” Le Picart sighed heavily, but a measure of relief showed on his face. “I will make her condition my reason for letting her husband fetch her. How do you come to know about the child, mon frère?”

  “This little one was chattering one day when I mended his skinned knee.” He put a hand on Antoine’s forehead, grunted, and got heavily to his feet. “So, Maître du Luc,” he said, “it seems you and Mme LeClerc are not the only ones wondering about this accident.” His voice grew muffled as his head disappeared into the depths of a cupboard. He came back to the bed with another clean cloth and a blue pottery bowl. “My feverfew infusion,” he said, resuming his seat. He dipped the cloth in the bowl and wrung it out. “He’s heating a little—which is only to be expected.” He loosened the blanket, sponged Antoine’s face, and dipped the cloth again. “These cousins,” he said, with a glance over his shoulder at Charles and the rector, “know each other very well.”

  “Yes, they do, Frère Brunet,” Le Picart said. “And so?”

  “And so Philippe is graceful, agile beyond the ordinary,” the infirmarian murmured. “I’ve heard this little brother is the same.”

  Le Picart glanced at Charles, cast his eyes up at the ceiling, and folded his hands in an attitude of patience. “Yes?”

  “Jacques, now, he might fall like that. Under a galloping horse. Our Jacques falls off the carpet. But I think he finds it hard to believe that Antoine simply fell.”

  “And you are saying what, mon frère?”

  “I am not saying. Only wondering.”

  “On the contrary. You are saying that perhaps Mme LeClerc is right and this was not an accident. But why? Why would anyone want to harm Antoine?”

  Brunet ducked his head. “I only wondered.”

  “Keep a rein on your imagination, mon frère,” the rector said, moving toward the door and motioning Charles ahead of him. “Send me word of how Antoine does before the bedtime bell.” He shepherded Charles bris
kly downstairs. “Thank you for coming to tell me what you learned from Mme LeClerc,” he said, as they walked through the infirmary garden. “And I am sorry that this sad accident thrusts all the responsibility for rehearsals on your shoulders so soon, Maître du Luc.”

  Charles smiled and bowed. “I will do my best, mon père.” But his smile faded as he hurried back to the classroom, thinking about what Jacques and Brunet had said. Too many people were “wondering.” The accounts of Antoine’s accident, taken together, seemed even further from making sense.

  Chapter 8

  The next day, there was still no word of Philippe. Antoine was said to be better, alternately waking and sleeping. Père Jouvancy and M. Douté were presumably on their way back to Paris, less than a day’s journey in dry weather. Charles and the dancing master rehearsed the two casts as best they could, Maître Beauchamps taking the dancers and Charles the actors. Beauchamps still had no new Hercules, and insisted despairingly that there was no one—but no one—who could take the role. Suspecting a dramatic buildup to the discovery of the perfect Hercules, Charles ignored him and concentrated on the tragedy.

  When they dismissed both casts at the end of the afternoon, the third act of Clovis was a little smoother and Beauchamps had coerced miracles of order and memory from the dancers, even the musically dense Beauclaire. Charles was exhausted. The night before, he had ignored the bell for going to bed and stayed up until his candle burned itself out, rereading Clovis and planning how he would direct the actors. Then he’d lain awake wondering how Antoine had gotten the cut on his forehead. And how to reconcile the discrepancies between Mme LeClerc’s report of the accident and Guise’s. It seemed that he had hardly closed his eyes before the waking bell announced a new and unwelcome day.