them to enter the temple first. Moving at Mme Doute’s slow pace, Charles ushered the bereaved couple up the steps. As he guided them through the temple, gently pointing out the compliments paid to Philippe, M. Doute wept openly. With barely a glance at each exhibit, his wife pulled on his arm to hurry him. Halfway through, she stopped and pushed her veil back. She had large brown eyes and fair hair, and would have been pretty had she not looked so fretful.
“I am hot, husband,” she said. “And my back hurts me.”
“Where is your maid?” M. Doute took a wet handkerchief from his sleeve and wiped his eyes. “Do not grudge me this last glimpse of my son, Lisette.”
She reddened and her small pouting mouth opened, but the fat man who had walked with La Reynie appeared at the bottom of the steps that surrounded the open-sided temple, looking like a dark moon in his funeral black.
“Allow me, my dear Mme Doute,” he purred. “Leave your poor husband to mourn.” He mounted the steps, bowed to M. Doute, and with a severe look at Charles, as though Mme Doute’s discomfort were his fault, led her out of the temple.
When M. Doute had thoroughly wrung Charles’s heart by weeping over each tribute to Philippe, Charles murmured condolences and turned him over to the rector. For the next half hour or so, Charles kept watch over the student guides and answered questions about the exhibits, especially about the large drawing of Philippe as a fallen Hercules, shown lying gracefully on his cloak in a cypress grove, costumed as he would have been in the ballet. Achilles, Ulysses, Virgil, Homer, Hannibal, Julius Caesar, Apollo, Terpsichore, and Minerva stood weeping over him and a cohort of winged cherubs grasped the corners of his cloak, ready to carry him to heaven, where the Virgin Mary held out her arms to him from a cloud.
When everyone had made their way through the allegories, Charles rounded up his students, thanked them, and dismissed them to their chambers and the comfort of shedding their gowns. He longed to go to his own chamber and do likewise, but too many noble mourners still lingered in slices of shade along the western wall of the courtyard, murmuring and sipping from small glasses of sweet wine that the lay brothers were offering. M. and Mme Doute had already left on the sad journey back to Chantilly with Philippe’s coffin.
Charles circulated briefly and then paused in the shade with a glass, watching men reach surreptitiously under their hats to lift their wigs and cool their sweating heads. The few women present stood whispering together, their black fans beating the air like the wings of funereal hummingbirds. Two of them drew apart and the shift of their stiff skirts and tall headdresses revealed Guise, deep in talk with the police chief and the fat man who had escorted Mme Doute from the temple. As though he felt Charles’s eyes on him, Guise glanced up. He said something to his companions, who both looked at Charles. Not wanting an encounter with any of them, Charles moved toward a group of departing guests to say his formal farewell. But the police chief and the fat man cut off his escape.
“Maitre Charles du Luc?” The westering sun scattered gold over the black plumes in Lieutenant-General La Reynie’s hat as he stopped in front of Charles.
“Yes, monsieur,” Charles said. “May I help you?”
“I am Nicolas de La Reynie, Lieutenant-General of Police.” He turned to his companion. “Monsieur de Louvois, may I present Maitre Charles du Luc?”
The little hairs stood up on the back of Charles’s neck and he nearly lost his balance as he bowed. Michel de Louvois was in charge of the king’s dragoons, the most powerful man in the kingdom after the king. And Charles had heard, since his first sighting of La Reynie, that the police chief was probably the third.
“You are new here, I understand,” La Reynie said conversationally. “Newly come from the south. Nimes, I believe?”
“Carpentras, monsieur.” The words came out in a croak and Charles drank quickly to wet his throat, studying La Reynie over the edge of his glass. “You are searching for Philippe’s killer, monsieur?” he said, hoping to turn the talk away from himself.
La Reynie inclined his head. “A shame that you arrived just in time for this terrible tragedy,” he said, studying Charles in return.
“I did not know Philippe, monsieur, but I am told he was an honor to the college in every way.”
“Did not know him,” Louvois said flatly.
“No, monsieur, I regret that I did not.”
“But he knew you.” The war minister’s little black eyes glittered with malice.
“Knew me? No, Monsieur Louvois. We met for the first time the afternoon he disappeared.”
“Perhaps he knew of you, then,” La Reynie put in helpfully.
In spite of the heat, a chill was creeping down Charles’s back. “I very much doubt it, messieurs. I have no fame.”
“Oh, I think you are too modest,” La Reynie murmured.
Louvois said curtly, “Pere Guise says that you were the last to see poor Philippe.”
“His killer was the last to see him, monsieur. When he disappeared from the classroom, I was sent to find him. I chased someone wearing a yellow shirt, thinking he was Philippe.”
Louvois’s lip curled. “Though no one else saw this convenient phantom.”
“He was no phantom, monsieur. And we would only know that no one else saw him if we could question everyone along the route he took. Which is, of course, impossible.”
Louvois’s eyes narrowed and he stepped closer. La Reynie stepped back, planted his silver-headed walking stick in front of him, and folded his hands over it, watching Charles.
“Pere Guise says you were gone too long when you went to find Philippe.” Louvois was breathing wine up into Charles’s face now. “Far longer than necessary.”
“I was gone a little more than twenty minutes. Which Pere Guise knows. But perhaps he runs faster than I do.”
“Do you think this is a jesting matter?” Louvois hissed. “We know nothing about you. Except that you come from the south. And hold heretical opinions.”
A wave of pure fury at Guise broke over Charles. “I beg your pardon, Monsieur Louvois. I am not aware that believing in the love of God is heretical. May I suggest, messieurs, that you take your questions back to Pere Guise? Unlike me, he knew Philippe well. Whatever led to the boy’s disappearance and death, Pere Guise is more likely to understand it than I.”
Charles bowed and started to walk away, but Louvois grabbed his arm and jerked him sharply back. Charles winced as pain shot through his old injury, and his glass slipped from his hand and shattered on the gravel. He wrenched himself free and what might have happened next fortunately did not, because Antoine burst from nowhere, shoved Louvois aside, and wrapped his arms around Charles’s waist, sobbing his heart out.
Chapter 13
What is it, mon brave?” Astonished, Charles swung Antoine away from the war minister’s attempt to grab him and bent over the boy. “What has happened?”
Antoine’s eyes darted sideways at Louvois, who was berating him for his intrusion. Charles saw that, in spite of the sobs, the child’s dark eyes were as dry as the gravel.
“They’ve gone,” Antoine choked, hiding his face on Charles’s cassock and pulling him toward the adjoining courtyard so urgently that Charles nearly lost his footing. “Philippe is gone!”
“Forgive me, messieurs,” Charles said over his shoulder, “but you see that I must attend to this grieving child.”
He walked Antoine across the Cour d’honneur toward the north courtyard as fast as the boy’s short legs could go. When they reached the dividing archway, Charles looked back. La Reynie had a hand on Louvois’s arm, obviously restraining him, and Louvois was arguing furiously. But La Reynie was thoughtfully watching Charles.
When they were well into the north court, Antoine pulled away. “That showed them!” he said, looking up defiantly.
“Yes,” Charles said, caught between laughter and bewilderment. “I think it did. My very sincere thanks, M.
