Judith Rock - The Rhetoric of Death

“Yes, mon lieutenant-general,” Servier said smartly, and clattered away down the echoing stone stairs.

La Reynie went into Agnes’s cell, and Le Picart sat down on the other side of Charles and dropped his face into his hands.

“God help us all,” he muttered. “Lisette Doute? I can hardly make myself believe it.”

“Nor can I, mon pere,” Charles said.

The rector sat up, shaking his head. “She’s seemed to me barely capable of tying her own hair ribbons. Dear God, poor M. Doute.”

The guard brought a cup of water and Charles dipped the edge of Fabre’s cassock in it and held the wet fabric against the burn. The boy heaved a shuddering sigh. After what seemed a long time, La Reynie came out of the cell and locked the door on Agnes’s sobbing.

“Pere Le Picart,” he said, “one of my men will see the lay brother back to Louis le Grand. I would like you and Maitre du Luc to come to the Place Royale. I think you should be there while we question Mme Doute.”

Grimly, the rector agreed, and the three of them went downstairs and through the arcade that separated the prison side of the Chatelet from the law courts, to La Reynie’s waiting carriage. But when they reached the Place Royale, they found Servier taking the Montfort house apart, room by room. Lisette Doute was gone.

Monday afternoon’s first chaotic rehearsal on the new stage was blessedly over, and Charles and Pere Jouvancy were in the rhetoric classroom, checking costumes for damage and putting them ready for tomorrow’s dress rehearsal. Charles picked up Time’s stiff-skirted black tonneau and straightened quickly as a seam ripped in his too-small, borrowed cassock. His wound ached and last night’s events still swirled in his tired brain. Lieutenant-General La Reynie and M. Servier had questioned Mme Montfort relentlessly, but she’d sworn on her hope of salvation that she didn’t know how Lisette Doute had escaped the house and hadn’t helped her. Nor, she said, did she know where Lisette had gone. La Reynie had left Servier to watch the house in case Mme Montfort was lying. He had also said he would send a man to Chantilly at first light, in case she’d gone there, and to break the news to her husband.

Charles spread the tonneau neatly over a bench and picked up three long glass vials full of colored water, “poison” from the secret store of three-headed Cerberus, the hell-dog. The ballet would have a poison entree, he thought with distaste. The entree’s actualite-its real-life reference-was the poison plots that had rocked Paris and Versailles a decade ago. But for Charles, and Jouvancy, and even more poignantly for Fabre, who had been part of the stage crew today, the poison entree’s actualite could only be what had happened yesterday. Charles had gone below stage to correct the timing of Cerberus’s emergence through the trap, and found Frere Moulin juggling a chalk ball, an apple, and a knot of rope in an effort to cheer Fabre, who had stared blankly at the flying miscellany without seeming to see it. But it had been a kind thought on Moulin’s part. Praying that Fabre’s misery was only for his sister and not because he had had any part in her act, Charles put the “poison” vials away in their box and picked up a soldier’s helmet.

“Maitre du Luc?” A lay brother put his head around the door. “The porter wants you at the postern. There’s a strange boy asking for you.”

The boy was backed defiantly into the street passage’s darkest corner, a folded paper in his fist, and Frere Martin was standing over him.

“Slipped in like an eel and held up that note with your name on it. Won’t say a word.”

The youth, whose dirty face was half hidden by an oversized leather hat, glowered at Charles from under its tired brim.

“Perhaps he’ll talk more easily without an audience. Come on, you.” Charles led the way to the chapel, checked to see that no one was at their devotions, and went to a dark side altar dedicated to France’s heroine, Jeanne d’Arc. He knelt and pulled his charge down beside him. “What happened?” he hissed. “And fold your hands. If we look like we’re praying, we’re less noticeable.” He reached up and pulled off the hat.

Pernelle snatched it back and jammed it over her hair, which had been raggedly shorn. “It hides my face.”

“The dirt hides your face. What happened?”

“The head of the Paris police came back to the bakery this morning and wanted to see me. Madame LeClerc said I’d gone back home-to St. Denis, she said, she has family there-and he left. But we thought I’d better leave for real.”

Charles leaned his elbows on the altar rail and rested his head on his clasped hands. “All right. Help me come up with a story, my wits are far past working. Why you’re here, who you are, why you can stay. And where, God help us.”

When she didn’t answer, Charles raised his head. She was gazing with distaste at the chapel’s pink and gold veined marble, its glowing paintings, the lapis and gold glinting under the altar’s sanctuary lamp. With a slight shudder, she turned from the richness and looked up at the armor-clad statue of the Maid of Orleans, the bon Dieu’s blessed scourge of the English.

“Hmph,” she grunted. “If I believed in your saints-”

“She’s not a saint.”

“Well, she’s dead and she has an altar. Anyway, if I believed in your religion, I’d think she might look kindly on us. She’s not exactly wearing womanly finery, either, is she? Is she supposed to help people with something?”

A grin spread across Charles’s tired face. “Some people think she has a soft spot for those who must go against the church’s authority for a good cause.”

“Amen,” Pernelle returned piously. She stretched up to whisper in his ear. “I’ll stay in your chamber, Charles.”

“You can’t-”

“Are you all right in there, maitre?” a voice called from the courtyard door.

“Yes, Frere Martin.” Charles shot to his feet and stood between the brother and Pernelle. “I’ll see the boy out through the chapel’s street door.”

“Ah. Well. All right, then.”

Martin backed out of the courtyard door and trudged toward the neighboring court’s latrine. Charles sped to the small porter’s room off the street passage and grabbed the canvas apron kept there on a peg for the porter’s use. He shoved it under his cassock and went back to the chapel.

“Put this on,” he said, handing it to Pernelle. “And wait here.” Forcing himself to walk unconcernedly, he went to the rhetoric classroom and came back with the gown of one of the ballet’s goddesses. “Hold this in your arms, high, so it froths up and hides your face and stay behind me.”

They crossed the deserted Cour d’honneur, made it to the street passage and into the main building, only to find themselves face-to-face with Frere Moulin. His eyes went from the “boy” carrying the costume to Charles, but Charles kept walking and Moulin passed them without comment and disappeared into the street passage. Before Charles’s heart could stop thumping, Pere Montville came out of the grand salon.

“Something wrong with the costume, maitre?” he said, stopping.

“Just delivered back from being repaired, mon pere,” Charles said easily, willing Pernelle to stay behind him and keep her head down.

“Good, good. Oh-about Frere Fabre, maitre, you probably noticed that he’s been reassigned to the stage crew. We thought he should have something new to think about, poor boy. But he won’t be seeing to your rooms the next few days, you’ll have to see to yourself.”

“Good, yes, very thoughtful,” Charles gabbled, thinking that Jeanne d’Arc or someone was surely watching over them. How to deal with Fabre’s morning visits had been the next problem waiting for him.