Judith Rock - Plague of Lies

“I beg your pardon, monsieur ,” Charles said in surprise. “Saw whom?”

“Fleury. Last evening.” The small spare man in tobacco-brown velvet eyed Charles sardonically from under his double-peaked wig. “How many men have you seen fall downstairs since you arrived?”

“Only the one,” Charles admitted with a smile. “I have not the pleasure of your acquaintance, monsieur .”

“Forgive me, everyone here knows everyone. I did not mean to be rude. I am the Comte de Vannes. I guessed who you were, Maître du Luc, the moment I heard your name. And your Languedoc accent. My father met yours long ago, when the court was at the Louvre. My unhappy father was in love with your mother, and you look very like his description of her. I think he still mourns that your father won her away from him. She was wondrously blond, he said, with conversation that sparkled like a diamond.”

“She’s no longer blond,” Charles said, storing up the compliment to tell his mother, “but her conversation sparkles still.”

“I will tell my father. Or perhaps I won’t, poor man.” He lifted an eyebrow at Charles. “So, tell me. Did you see old Fleury fall?”

“No, monsieur . I only heard him. By the time I reached him in the corridor, I saw only that his neck was broken.”

“A nice diversion from the fact that someone gave him his bouillon .”

“I-what? I don’t understand. You mean he didn’t make his own?”

The Comte de Vannes bayed with laughter. “Forgive me-you are from the south and perhaps you don’t have this saying there. ‘Giving someone his bouillon ’ is what we say to mean someone’s been poisoned.”

Remembering the whispers about poison in Madame de Maintenon’s antechamber, Charles studied Vannes’s face to see if he was serious and decided he was. “But why should people think Fleury was poisoned? He was sick, certainly. But there is a sickness in Paris now that takes people just that way. Half the staff at Louis le Grand have been struck down by it. Isn’t it more likely that the man was simply ill?”

“It might have been, had the Comte de Fleury not annoyed so many people.” Vannes applied himself to his chicken for a moment. “I understand that they’re doing an autopsy tonight, so perhaps that will settle the question. The king, of course, wants the rumors of poison stopped.” He smiled. “Or confirmed.” With a courteous nod signaling the conversation’s end, Vannes turned to the woman on his other side.

Charles glanced over his shoulder and gestured for something to drink from the serving men stationed along the wall, where glasses and wine waited on a sideboard. A serving man handed Charles a glass of red wine, and he drank. His eyes widened and he drank again, sighed with pleasure, and gazed into his glass as though he’d never seen wine before. As, by comparison, he hadn’t, he thought wryly, at least not lately, college wine being mostly poor quality to start with and well watered. Beside him, Jouvancy put his glass down on the spotless cloth, and Charles turned to make an appreciative comment about the wine. But Jouvancy spoke first.

“Help me out of here, maître ,” he whispered, “before I disgrace myself.” His face was white and sheened with sweat, and the words were barely out of his mouth before he clapped both hands to his mouth and pushed his chair back with his feet.

Charles sprang up, fracturing the table conversation to silence. Before the others could voice their bewildered outrage at his discourtesy, he pulled Père Jouvancy upright and half carried him toward the outer door. Behind him, La Chaise apologized on their behalf for the disturbance, and Charles heard footsteps following him. A servant touched his arm and guided them into an alcove, pointing to the chair-like closestool standing ready near the wall. The servant hurried to open its lid and Jouvancy tottered toward it. Charles held the little priest’s head while the worst happened.

“Dear Blessed Virgin, so ill again?” Le Picart said from the door, and Charles glanced up to see Montville’s equally worried face peering over the rector’s shoulder. “We will help you get him to his bed.”

“Tell the servant to bring a wet cloth, if you will,” Charles said, trying to ignore the weak-kneed feeling Jouvancy’s spewing was giving him.

He pulled Jouvancy gently upright, sat him down on a chair Le Picart pushed forward, and took the cool wet cloth from the arriving servant and wiped the rhetoric master’s face. Jouvancy’s eyes were wide with terror.

“I heard what the Comte de Vannes said to you,” he whispered. “Poison! First that old man and now me!”

“No, no,” Charles said robustly, “this is just your sickness come back because you’ve pushed yourself too far, with the riding yesterday and today’s business. We’ll go to our chamber and you can sleep. You’ll be better after that. And then we’ll-”

“What is it?” La Chaise said, coming into the room behind them. “What’s wrong with him?”

“Poison, mon père ,” Jouvancy moaned dramatically. “It must be! I felt very well before we sat down to eat, and now I’m poisoned, too. Don’t eat anything else here, I beg you, or we will all-”

“Hush!” La Chaise stood over Jouvancy, his face dark with anger and something else Charles couldn’t name. “You’re raving, mon père . In God’s name, be quiet!”

Charles put a hand on Jouvancy’s forehead. “He’s fevered. So he’s most likely not poisoned, only ill again. We must get him back to our chamber.”

Instead of answering, the other three Jesuits conferred for a moment.

“Can you manage alone, maître ? In courtesy, the rest of us should stay and finish our meal. I will explain that Père Jouvancy has simply had a return of his illness,” La Chaise said, ignoring Jouvancy’s protests. “Go now, the less fuss, the better. Follow the corridor around to your right. We will come when dinner is over.”

With last worried looks at Jouvancy, La Chaise, Le Picart, and Montville went back to the salon and the loud, excited buzz of talk around the table.

Swallowing hard and telling himself he was perfectly well, Charles helped Jouvancy stand, put his bonnet back on his head, and walked him out of La Rochefoucauld’s rooms into the corridor. The passage was blessedly empty, since most everyone was at dinner.

“Walk as best you can, mon père ,” Charles said. “But if it comes to it, I can carry you.” Though he hoped it wouldn’t, for the sake of his own oddly weak knees, as well as to lessen the gossip about Jouvancy’s sudden indisposition in case anyone saw them. Of course, as soon as he’d thought that, two men turned the corner ahead of them, walking in their direction.

“What’s the trouble?” one said, taking in the two Jesuits in surprise.

The other grinned. “Too much indulgence at dinner, I see.”

“He’s ill,” Charles snapped, adding, “It’s contagious, I think,” for the satisfaction of seeing them scuttle away.

Jouvancy was too short to rest an arm over Charles’s shoulder, and by the time they were making their way along the north side of the wing, the rhetoric master was limp, his feet barely shuffling. With a sigh, Charles picked him up in his arms like a child. Jouvancy’s head lolled against Charles’s shoulder and his eyes closed.

Peering anxiously at the rhetoric master’s deathly pale face and closed eyes, Charles muttered anxiously, “Don’t lose consciousness, mon père , please!”

“I haven’t,” Jouvancy quavered, opening one eye, “but I would like to.”