them, realizing that God was angry at this attempt to harm them. They were set free and returned to Milan-where the Romans beheaded them. Many years later, Saint Ambrose found their bodies buried in a garden outside Milan. He also found a vial of blood beside the body of Saint Nazarius, and the blood was still bright red and liquid. So their holy remains were kept in honor and treated with the reverence they had earned in life.”
Montmorency yawned widely, a very rude act in company, which Charles ignored for the deliberate provocation it was. Beauclaire put up his hand.
“Yes, Monsieur Beauclaire?”
“Maitre, why was the blood already in a vial? Who put it there if no one had dug Saint Nazarius up before Saint Ambrose?”
“A very good question. Some tellings of the story say only that Saint Nazarius was bleeding when they dug him up, and that his blood was still liquid and bright red.”
Beauclaire was shaking his head. “My brother told me dead bodies don’t bleed. He saw a body dissected and it didn’t bleed.”
“No, no,” Bertamelli cried, shaking a finger at Beauclaire. “They bleed! If they were murdered and the guilty one touches them, they bleed and that is how you know the murderer!”
“People used to believe that,” Charles said. “But now-”
“No, no, I saw it, maitre, I saw it myself, my uncle was murdered by his cousin and when his cousin turned the body over, it bled on his hands and made them as red as the devil’s tongue to accuse him!”
Several of the boys were round-eyed with interest, but Beauclaire and Connor looked at each other and shrugged. Montmorency just looked confused.
To avoid another international dispute, Charles said firmly, “There are many unexplained things in God’s world. We must go on with our purpose here. Our dancing space today will be from the wall to where I am standing. Mark it out, please.”
The boys took off their hats and began placing them to indicate a rectangle, deeper than it was wide. Montmorency haughtily handed his hat to little Bertamelli, who bowed ironically and added his own hat and Montmorency’s to the rectangle.
Charles, watching, nodded thoughtfully. “Now, the first dance is a sarabande for Saint Perpetua.” He let his gaze drift over the waiting dancers and come to rest on Montmorency. “Monsieur Montmorency, let me see your demi-coupe, two pas marches, and a balance.”
Montmorency stared in horror. “Saint Perpetua? Me?”
“Why not?”
“In a gown?”
“But of course.”
The rest of the group was convulsed with silent laughter.
“I want to be a Roman soldier.”
Charles raised his eyebrows.
“Please,” Montmorency added grudgingly.
Charles waited.
“Please, maitre.”
Having extracted the required courtesy due a teacher, Charles graciously inclined his head. “Perhaps you are somewhat large for Saint Perpetua.” He turned to the light and wiry Walter Connor. “Monsieur Connor, could you manage Saint Perpetua?”
Connor grinned all over his face. “With pleasure, maitre. As long as she doesn’t wear a clock.” Charles had saved Connor from having to dance in the summer ballet while wearing a three-foot chiming clock on his head.
“My thanks, Monsieur Connor,” Charles said, grinning back. “Show us your demi-coupe, two pas marches, and a balance.”
Connor took the female position for making a reverence, heels together, feet turned out, hands clasped palm up and palm down at his waist, bent both knees and straightened them. Then he stretched one leg back, the toe of his shoe on the floor, arranged his arms in the fourth position, and turned his head slightly toward the upraised arm. Charles drew his time-keeping stick from his cassock and set the tempo, beating a slow triple meter on the floor. Connor executed his steps and ended in an effortless balance on the ball of one foot.
“Excellent! You are our Saint Perpetua, Monsieur Connor.” Charles looked at his list and then at the remaining six boys. “Monsieur Beauclaire, let me see your pas de bourree, forward, backward, to both sides, and emboite with the heel beat. All at a slow tempo.”
Again he set the tempo, and Beauclaire went effortlessly and beautifully through his steps. He was perhaps the school’s best dancer, though he had bitter difficulty telling right from left.
“You are our Saint Nazarius,” Charles said, smiling at him.
Beauclaire bowed. “I will write to my mother, maitre, and tell her I have been made a saint,” he said piously, laughter dancing in his eyes. The other boys groaned.
“Now we need a Celse.” Charles would have liked to give the part to the quiet, anxious Charles Lennox, but Celse had to be small, and the English boy was as tall as Beauclaire. The Italian was the smallest and youngest of the group. Poised on his toes, Bertamelli was watching Charles with the eagerness of a fledgling hoping for a worm. Charles nodded at him. “Monsieur Bertamelli, show us all the hopping, jumping steps you know. I want to see how fast and light you are.”
“Like the swallow skimming the clouds, like the eagle racing the wind, like-”
“Just show us, please, Monsieur Bertamelli.”
The boy leaped to the center of the dancing space and, without waiting for Charles’s stick, launched himself into a blur of aerial steps. His scholar’s gown billowed and rippled through pas de rigaudon, pas de sissonne, pas assemble, and some steps Charles suspected Bertamelli’s feet of inventing on their own.
Laughing for sheer pleasure at the boy’s exuberance-and raw talent-Charles called, “Thank you, Monsieur Bertamelli, well done.” Bertamelli kept dancing. Charles clapped his hands. “Mon brave, come back to earth!”
Bertamelli stopped, panting and sweating, and waited anxiously.
“The part is yours; you will be our Celse, Monsieur Bertamelli.”
Bertamelli flung out his arms, and for a moment Charles thought the boy was going to rush at him. “I thank you, maitre! My mother will be so proud. All Milan will be so proud!”
He bowed and marched back to his confreres, a triumphal procession of one.
Cutting off Montmorency’s scornful laughter with a look, Charles swallowed his own grin and consulted his list. St. Ambrose was to express his joy at finding the holy bodies by dancing a forlane, a fast dance only a little calmer than a gigue. Which Charles thought a little extreme for an elderly saint, but no doubt the miraculous discovery had renewed his youth.
“Monsieur Lennox.”
The English boy flinched a little, his blue eyes anxiously fixed on Charles. He was of middle height, not as dark as his royal father and seemingly with none of Charles II’s legendary selfassurance.
“I would like you to be our Saint Ambrose, Monsieur Lennox. If I remember correctly, you do not yet know the forlane steps, but your dancing is clean and clear, and you can learn it. I think you will do it well.”
“Oh. Thank you, maitre. No, I don’t know that dance. I will try, but-I mean, I hope I can. If-” He broke off, red-faced and sweating in the cold room, though he’d only been standing still.
“You will do it admirably, I am sure, monsieur.”
Which left Andre Chenac and Olivier Thiers. And Henri Montmorency.
“The rest of you,” Charles said briskly, “will play a variety of roles as Roman soldiers, sailors, and so on. Everyone will dance in the final chaconne.” He swept the group with a sober glance. “Now, hear me. Remember that this is our pre-Lenten show and its intent is to direct the thoughts of the audience toward keeping a holy Lent. The action of this lyrical tragedy is much the same as the action of the Latin tragedy. But lyrical tragedy is not simply action, it is also spiritual tragedy. You must make your characters’ emotions-not only their good and devout feelings, but their other feelings, too-clear to your audience through your bodies. Do you understand?”
They all-including Montmorency-nodded somberly, and even with a certain eagerness, Charles was moved to see. He never stopped being surprised at the depth to be found in the souls of teenage boys. When he wasn’t wanting to throttle them, he was often brought near tears by their innocent fervor. As he started to tell the boys what to do next, a lay brother opened the door.
