Charles’s head was beginning to spin. “Pere 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, Pere 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 Maitre Charles du Luc.”
She nodded her approval of his manners and made him a small reverence. Then she frowned. “Why are you not pere? 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 pere in the Society of Jesus.”
“That Guise is pere 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, maitre.”
“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 Pere 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.
“Maitre du Luc?” The rector frowned. “Has something else happened, God forbid?”
“No, please forgive my intrusion, mon pere, I came because a woman in the street, the wife of the baker LeClerc, told me she saw the accident. But perhaps Pere 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.
“Maitre du Luc, this is Frere 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 frere,” 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. “Pere 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 Pere Guise thinks?”
Charles shrugged. “It must have happened so fast, mon pere, 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 Pere Jouvancy- uncle to the Doute 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 Doute’s worried face appeared around the door’s edge.
“What are you doing here, Monsieur Doute?” 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 Doute disobedience!”
Jacques bowed awkwardly to Le Picart and Charles. “No, mon pere. I mean, yes, mon pere. Maitre Beauchamps gave me permission, mon pere. 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
