On Thursday afternoon, I saw a man in the college wearing boots like that. I tried to catch him, but he eluded me. I told Pere Le Picart, and we have taken extra measures to protect Antoine.”
“Were the jackboots you saw gartered?”
“Yes.”
“Too bad you let the man elude you. Now tell me what your rector forbade you to say this morning.”
“I have given you what I know.”
The lieutenant-general brought his walking stick’s iron tip down sharply on the floorboards. Charles jumped.
“You have given me what you choose to give me. I know that you are caught between me and your rector, but that is your own affair. Your agreement with me stands, or you had better hope it stands. I have something to tell you, Maitre du Luc, and perhaps it will help loosen your tongue. Early this morning, two of Pere La Chaise’s Friday evening guests were found floating in the river. Stabbed. One M. Lysarde and one M. Winters. The visiting Englishman. Or Dutchman.”
Charles swallowed. “Did the watch find them?”
“Interestingly enough, no. The report was brought to me by one of M. Louvois’s men. One of M. Louvois’s servants, out on an early errand, I’m told, found them near the Ile St. Louis, where Lysarde lived. The other man was staying with him. They never came home on Friday night. Lysarde’s servants claim to know nothing. Lysarde was an avid member of the Catholic League and one of Pere Guise’s penitents. But I think you already know that.”
Charles crossed himself, unable to keep his hand from shaking as he remembered Louvois’s fury at Winters. The war minister’s rage-and fear-had been palpable, even through the door. Poor Lysarde, poor posturing little goat, whose greatest crime was stupidity. And poor Charles, perhaps, because by now Louvois and Guise had to know that Charles had overheard them.
“I ask you again, Maitre du Luc, did you meet those two men? Did you talk to them?”
“I briefly met Lysarde. We discussed Spinoza.”
“So it is simple Christian compassion that makes your hand shake and has you looking more ill than when I came,” La Reynie said dryly. “Now hear me. You were attacked on your way back from Pere La Chaise’s soiree. Two other men were murdered after that same Jesuit-hosted evening. On your own admission, this booted horseman had previously come to the college. What did he come to do? Who did he come to see? Did he deliver a message? To your rector, perhaps? Your rector is well known in Paris as an astute politician. Or was the message for Pere Montville, his almost equally astute assistant?” La Reynie’s eyes bored into Charles. “Or was it, perhaps, for the illustrious and fervent Pere Guise? I put it to you that what your rector so urgently wants you not to tell me is that all these murders are in the service of a Jesuit plot.” He rose and looked down at Charles. “Find out who the booted man came here to see. And why. And who he is.” La Reynie bared his teeth in what might have been a smile. “And now, I wish you a good day. By the way, I always come to the Louis le Grand show. Be sure I have a good seat.”
Chapter 25
Dinner was garlic mutton. Charles wondered if it was as good as the sign painter’s. Whether it was or not, it tasted like sawdust, since he had to eat it cheek by jowl with Pere Guise. Once, as he reached for the bread, he caught Guise staring at him and the hatred in the man’s eyes nearly knocked him off his chair. But, as Pere Le Picart had said, surely Guise wouldn’t risk another death in the college. When the meal ended, Pere Dainville accosted Charles outside the refectory. His papery old face was grave, but Charles couldn’t hear what he said. While he’d been in the infirmary, the Cour d’honneur had become a chaos of lumber, canvas, and rope, echoing with the hammering and the shouts of workmen and lay brothers constructing the outdoor stage. Like Charles, they were working on Sunday afternoon because time was short. Dainville put his mouth next to Charles’s ear.
“Please come with me to the fathers’ garden,” he said in a quavering shout. “I have something to ask you.”
Charles started to plead his injury as an excuse, but Dainville was already making for the garden and didn’t hear him. Exasperated, Charles followed. Seeing Pernelle would have to wait. Dainville led him across the little expanse of turf drowsing in the sunshine and sat on a stone bench in the lee of the age-blackened west wall.
Charles exclaimed and pointed at the north wall, where ripening grapes fattened on a gnarled vine in what sun Paris had to offer. “Vines here, mon pere? Do we make wine?” He had glanced into this garden in his search for the boots, but he hadn’t seen the grapes.
Dainville laughed. “Frere Brunet tries. But he gets only a drop. Though a venerable drop, as that vine descends from Roman vines, you know. There are still vines like that one all over St. Genevieve’s hill. Sadly, our winters are too cold for them to flourish. I think the old Romans brought Italy’s warmth with them when they settled here, and took it away when they left. And now, mon fils, for what I must ask.” He peered earnestly at Charles. “I saw you come out of Pere Guise’s chamber a few days ago. When we collided in the passage.”
Charles nodded warily.
“Another man left the chamber just ahead of you. I happen to know that Pere Guise was not there, he was in the library. I must ask what the two of you were doing, my son.”
In his excitement, Charles gripped Dainville’s hand. “Did you recognize him, mon pere? Who was he?”
Dainville snatched his hand away and stared at Charles in consternation. “You do not even know who he was?”
“No, and I must. Please, mon pere!”
“So brazen in your sin?” Dainville crossed himself, shaking his head.
Charles suddenly realized what the old priest was saying. With so many men and boys living together, confessors worried constantly about the danger of unnatural affections. And Guise might well be spreading rumors about finding Charles in Antoine’s room.
“Mon pere, be assured that there was nothing sinful in what you saw,” Charles assured him. “More than that I am under obedience not to say. But I must know who you saw in the passage.”
“Under obedience to whom?” Dainville said suspiciously.
“To Pere Le Picart. I swear it by all the saints.”
The old priest frowned and then slowly nodded. “All I can tell you is that the man was dressed as a lay brother. Not a big man, certainly smaller than you. He ran past me, and that passage is always dark. I fear I do not see so well as I used to. But he wore an apron and a short cassock. And boots, so he must have been about to ride somewhere.”
So La Reynie was right, Charles thought, trying to keep his horror off his face. The killer was a Jesuit. Or a senior student in lay brother’s clothes? Hardly stopping to thank the perplexed Dainville, Charles hurried out of the garden as fast as his aching body would let him. The rector was in his office, in the act of rising from his prie-dieu. Before Le Picart could even speak, Charles launched into what he had to tell.
“-but Pere Dainville only saw his back,” Charles finished. “Mon pere, it is critical now that Antoine’s tutor-or someone-keeps the boy always in sight. Always!”
A cascade of falling metal came from the courtyard, accompanied by ripe curses. With a mild oath of his own, Le Picart slammed the casement shut. Charles started to speak, but the rector held up a peremptory hand.
“Let me think, for the love of God!” Le Picart stood utterly still, staring at the floor. “I can replace Maitre Doissin. I should have done it before now. And I will have the lay brothers’ dormitory searched-I will say there are rats or something. When we find the boots, we will find the man. If we find nothing, I will have the students’ quarters searched as well.”
“And when La Reynie makes the man talk, we will have Pere Guise,” Charles said ruthlessly. “Is there any lay brother Pere Guise is especially close to?”
The rector sighed. “He has sponsored one or two. That young redhead-Frere Fabre. That was a sad case, the boy is barely seventeen. He owes much to Pere Guise.”
Charles’s stomach felt hollow. Fabre had told him that and he’d forgotten. “Why did Pere Guise want to keep him?”
