Judith Rock - Plague of Lies

“I am not,” a voice said weakly. Père Vionnet was standing unsteadily in the study doorway.

“Where is Monsieur Montmorency?” Charles and La Reynie demanded in concert.

“How do I know?” Vionnet went waveringly to the bed and sank onto it, holding his head. A bruise was purpling on his cheek. “How could he do this to me? I ought not to have been left alone with him!” he said indignantly, glaring at Charles and the proctor.

“Speak plainly,” Charles said back. “And quickly. What happened?”

“The boy grew more and more upset. Beside himself over that girl. I called for the proctor to come and help me with him, but Monsieur Montmorency attacked him the moment he came in. I tried to pull him off, but-well, you see I failed. Then the cursed boy-”

“You came at me, too,” the proctor said angrily. “You helped the boy!”

“I did not! You only saw me behind him. I was trying to pull him away from you! After he hit you, he chased me into the study and threw me against the wall with such violence that I knew nothing else, nothing at all, until just now.” Vionnet put a shaking hand to his head. “Please, I need Frère Brunet!”

Charles and La Reynie exchanged a look, and Charles turned a speculative gaze on the tutor. “You say that Monsieur Montmorency was upset about the girl. Did he go after her?”

Vionnet’s shoulders nearly hid his ears as he shrugged. “Perhaps. Wherever she is. If he even knows.”

“He knows.” La Reynie helped the proctor to his feet. “How was he dressed?”

“Cloaked,” the proctor said, wincing as he talked. “And hatted.” He looked helplessly at Charles. “I’m sorry, maître .”

“It wasn’t your fault. I’ll tell them it wasn’t. Go to Frère Brunet.” He turned to Vionnet. “You. Come with us to Père Donat.”

“No! I am worse hurt than-”

La Reynie took his arm, turned him around, and parted his hair to look at the back of his head. With a glance at Charles, he said, “Not as hurt as you might be, mon père . Come.”

He marched Vionnet down the stairs, across the student court, and toward the main building.

“Through there,” Charles said, when they reached the grand salon . He pointed to a door in the alcove where writing materials were kept.

Donat was sitting behind the desk in his small dark office, apparently doing nothing. Behind his head, Charles could just see the painted head of St. Laurent, eyes meekly raised to heaven as he roasted on his gridiron.

“Monsieur Montmorency is gone from the college, mon père ,” Charles said bluntly.

“Gone? But how?” Donat’s face blanched. “He can’t be gone!”

“I don’t know how. We found the proctor guarding his door knocked witless. And Père Vionnet says Montmorency also attacked him before he fled.”

“I was attacked,” Vionnet said shrilly. “I am injured and in pain and this man”-he pointed at La Reynie-“would not let me seek help!”

“Tell Père Donat what Monsieur Montmorency said to you,” Charles said. “Before he attacked you, of course.”

“Said? Only that he was desolate about this daughter of the king. The one marrying the Polish prince. The stupid boy thinks he is in love with her. Women drive men insane. You cannot hold him responsible; he is out of his mind over the little witch. And so I shall tell his noble mother and urge her to forgive him,” Vionnet finished righteously, looking as unconvincingly meek as St. Laurent in the painting behind Donat.

La Reynie advanced on Donat, who was still sitting behind his desk. “You said you were charged with keeping Henri de Montmorency in the college. You have signally failed. He’s almost certainly gone to Marly, where the king-and the girl-are tonight. I am going after Montmorency, and I want Maître du Luc with me. He handles the boy well, and he knows the situation. Knowing what I know of Père Le Picart, I would not advise you to stand in the way of saving whatever can be saved of this situation. Which you have helped to create by your lax supervision. My carriage is in the street,” he said to Charles, and was gone.

Vionnet slipped out behind him, paying no attention to Donat’s sputtering command to stay.

Charles stayed where he was in front of Donat. “Mon père?”

Donat’s color deepened, and he shook his head like someone with a palsy.

“I beg you,” Charles said quietly, “give me leave to go. For yourself. For the college. And for Montmorency. I may be able to help pull him-and us-out of the worst of this tangle.”

“He brought it on himself,” Donat spat at Charles. “Let him take his punishment.”

Charles wanted to follow La Reynie without wasting more words on Donat. But he told himself that Donat was his superior and held himself where he was. “ Mon père , the ancients wrote of three Fates, not just one. Do you really think anyone comes to his fate without the doing of others? We were all charged with keeping Montmorency here and safe. We all failed. Do you want to tell the rector that, after that failure, you made no effort to find him? That you did nothing to prevent the damage he may do? Nothing to help his soul, when helping souls is our reason for existing?”

Donat swelled like something gone bad at the market. But he finally got out a single, strangled word. “Go.”

La Reynie’s carriage was rolling before Charles could pull the door shut.

“I almost left you,” La Reynie snapped.

“I had to make Père Donat tell me to go with you. If he hadn’t, I’d be in nearly as much trouble as Montmorency is.”

“What did you threaten him with?”

“Me, threaten? Only with failing Saint Ignatius. How long will it take to get to the king’s chateau at Marly? Have you sent a message to Père La Chaise about Montmorency?”

“While I waited for you, I sent one of my officers, on horseback. It will take the carriage two hours to get there, perhaps less. It’s very close to Versailles, but the terrain is more hilly near the chateau. Going uphill, the horses will have to walk. Assuming Montmorency is mounted, he will be there long before us. God send that, he-and the girl-will still be there when we arrive.”

“There are half a dozen places near the college to hire a horse,” Charles said over the noise from the street and the rolling of the carriage wheels.

“Let’s hope all of them were out of horses this afternoon.”

They were silent as the coach made its way through the crowded summer evening streets, until Charles said, “I don’t understand why the Grand Duchess of Tuscany would endanger her position by passing letters to Conti, now that the king has let her return from Italy. She’d have to be a fool! And she didn’t strike me as one.”

La Reynie’s mouth quirked. “The duchess is a lady of many sides. And one side is always in debt. I assume she’s doing it for money, just like your Bertamelli.”

“Well, it would explain why Père La Chaise and I found her and Montmorency and Mademoiselle de Rouen together in an alcove at Versailles after the ball for the Polish ambassadors.”

The carriage stopped suddenly and the driver began to shout at someone. La Reynie swore and put his head out the window. “What is it?”

“Accident, mon lieutenant-général . Someone’s cast a wheel and the way’s blocked.”

Charles looked out from his side and saw that they’d reached the square beyond the Sorbonne church and that the narrow way into the rue de la Harpe was full of bellowing men, neighing horses, and a gilded carriage on its side, one of its high back wheels spinning slowly in the air. He craned his neck and looked over his shoulder. Behind La Reynie’s carriage was a solid line of carriages and carts, all the drivers standing on their driving boxes and demanding to be let through.