The Eloquence of Blood (33 page)

“Do you think I want this?” he had spat at Charles. “I have no choice. Let me remind you how the power goes in this matter. First, the king. Second, Monsieur Louvois. A poor third—me.”

“You are head of policing, how can you be a poor third?” Charles had spat back.

“If you are that naive,” the response had been, “you are no use to me. If you want to
be
of some use, go and find this thrice-damned Tito!”

“Before Monday,” Charles had said bitterly.

At that, La Reynie's misery had shown briefly in his eyes. “Please God, before Monday.”

As the day went on, the students had grown more frightened, angry, and distracted from their studies. The professors were angry and distracted, too. The lay brothers were simply angry, and secretly preparing for war. Charles heard two different groups of them fiercely planning to redeem the college honor, preferably tomorrow morning.

Now, wondering how he was going to get the dancers he was working with—and himself—through the rehearsal, he put a hand to his throbbing head and called a halt to the doomed dance. Montmorency was standing flat footed, scowling at the other two dancers.

“What is the matter, Monsieur Montmorency?”

“This is a stupid step.”

“It's not the step that's stupid,” Olivier Thiers said resignedly, but all too audibly.

Fortunately, André Chenac began laughing before Thiers finished his sentence and Montmorency did not hear. Charles gripped his time-keeping stick and prayed for patience.

“It is a simple
pas de bourrée
, Monsieur Montmorency,” Charles said, smiling dangerously. “Or a simple
fleuret
, whichever you care to call it. Look. I will show you once more.” He put the stick on a windowsill, hitched up his cassock, and spoke the step as he did it. “Bend your left knee as you put your right foot, cocked at the ankle, next to your left ankle. Like this. Then rise onto your left
demi-pointe
as you step forward onto your right
demi-pointe
, then step forward on your left
demi-pointe
, and forward again on your right
demi-pointe
, like this. Nothing could be simpler!”

“What about his arms?” André Chenac said.

“Perhaps,” Charles said sweetly, “you would like to teach him the arm positions, Monsieur Chenac?”

Chenac took an involuntary step backward. “Me? No,
maître
!”

“Then shut up!” Thiers hissed in Chenac's ear.

A new thought made Charles's eyes light with sudden hope. Refusing to think about Madame Montmorency's wish to see her son dance at the February show, he said, “Monsieur Montmorency, I am going down to the scenery
cave
after this rehearsal. To bring up the gold block you will stand on as you direct your soldiers.” He smiled. “I think we will have you in place there at the beginning of the scene. You will be a magnificent statue of a noble soldier, who comes to life to save the Romans from this Christian Nazarius. But, of course, it is really God bringing you to life, so that later Saint Nazarius and Celse can be gloriously martyred for our edification.”

Montmorency looked blank, trying to work that out, but the other two boys nodded enthusiastically.

“That will be even more worthy of you!” Chenac gazed limpidly at Montmorency. “So much more noble!”

“Only a true courtier could bring to life the perfection of an ancient statue,” Thiers said gravely.

“So tomorrow you will have your pedestal,” Charles said. “Here is how you will stand on it, until you come to life.” He took Montmorency into a corner and placed him firmly in a fourth position. “There. Excellent. Do not move even a muscle. I will tell you a very important secret, Monsieur Montmorency.” Charles lowered his voice. “Not moving at all is far more difficult than moving. But I know you can do it.”

With his right foot forward, his left arm raised in a curve, and his right arm curved long at his side, Montmorency went absolutely rigid and gazed with fierce concentration into the middle distance.

“Yes, excellent!” With a sigh of relief, Charles quickly set the rest of the dance on the other two boys, and by the end of the rehearsal their steps were nearly perfect.

The three o'clock bell was ringing, Père Jouvancy's actors were coming toward them down the room, and Morel had gathered the other dancers close around him, when a hoarse “
maître?
” made Charles turn. The noble statue was tottering but holding his pose like the last soldier defending a breached city gate.

With a pang of conscience, Charles said, “Come out of your pose,
mon ami
; well and nobly done, indeed!”

Gratefully, Montmorency dropped his quivering left arm to his side and shifted his feet. His big face was suffused with pride as he walked stiffly toward the door with his fellows.

“Mon père?”
Charles stopped Jouvancy on his way to the door. “I need to go down to the scenery
cave
. Do you want me to look for anything while I'm down there?”

“Ah, yes!” Jouvancy included Morel, who was walking toward them, in his smile. “Find the street scene with houses and the Temple of Mars. It's there somewhere. See how much retouching it needs. We'll also need the lakeshore with pine trees; that will be perfect for the near drowning. Even without an overstage for mounting stage effects, we should be able to put you somewhere with a bellows for wind. Don't bring them up from the
cave
, just place them at the front of the row of flats. But before you go, tell me how you're managing with young Montmorency.”

“He looks somewhat happier,” Morel put in.

Charles grinned. “Monsieur Montmorency is going to make an excellent statue of a soldier.”

Jouvancy gave a bark of laughter. “Brilliant, absolutely brilliant! I shall remember that little idea. Wonderful! Come, then, you can go through the rhetoric classroom to the
cave
.”

“Maître du Luc,” Morel said diffidently, “if you would like help looking for the scenery, I would be glad to offer assistance.”

Charles was ready to be quiet and alone. “I don't really need—” he began, but Jouvancy was beaming at the young man.

“Yes, good, very kind of you, Monsieur Morel. Come, both of you!”

Charles sighed inwardly and followed them down the stairs. Unless he was greatly mistaken, Morel wanted to talk about something, and Charles wanted nothing more to worry about.

“Where are the cellars?” Morel asked, as they emerged into the courtyard.

“Hmm?” Charles was looking up at the iron-gray clouds as he walked, hoping that whatever they had in store would hold off until he could put his evening plans into action. “The
caves
?” He pointed at the east side of the court, opposite the street passage and the rue St. Jacques. “We keep the scenery under the rhetoric classroom there. It's convenient, since we build the summer tragedy and ballet stage to back onto the rhetoric classroom windows. We have to haul what we use up the stairs, but at least we don't have to carry it far. I hope the lanterns are still beside the stairs. It's dark as sin down there, and open candle flames are too dangerous near the wood and canvas.”

The dancers and actors had already taken their seats in the rhetoric room when Jouvancy, Charles, and Morel entered. Père Martin Pallu, pink and shy and round-faced, with almost comically big hands, had just called the students to order after a short break. When he saw Jouvancy, he stepped down from the master's dais and went to him for a hurried consultation. Watching Pallu, Charles marveled at the rank and fame the young Jesuit had already attained. Three years younger than Charles, he was through final vows and ordination, and already a rhetoric master. He had been charged with writing the Latin script for the
Celsus
tragedy because of his growing reputation as a writer.

Jouvancy answered Pallu's question, patted him encouragingly on the shoulder, and sent him back to the dais, where Pallu took his place behind the lectern and began to set the afternoon's Cicero translation.

“And when all have finished, each
decurion
is to hear his men's translations. All ten in a group will listen to each translation and will be prepared to say why a correction is made, if asked to do so by the
decurion
.
Habes?
” Pallu said.

“Yes,
mon père
,” the students chorused, and set to work.

The
decurions
, newly designated each month, earned their rank by outstanding work in their rhetoric studies. Called by the ancient Roman army title for “officer,” each was responsible for ten “soldiers.” Now, before settling to his own work, each “officer” made sure that his “soldiers” were duly settled to theirs. Pallu sat down in the master's chair on the dais and watched them all closely, ready to offer help if he was needed.

Jouvancy opened the door to the cellar stairs, then went to join Pallu on the dais. Charles saw that the lanterns and the little flint and tinder box were still there on the top step, and set about making light. He handed Morel one softly glowing lantern, took the other, and led the way down the worn stone stairs.

“Close the door,” he said quietly over his shoulder, “or the draft coming up from below will freeze the classroom. I hope we find what we need quickly, before we freeze down here ourselves.”

The stairs ended in the dank lifeless cold of ancient cellars. The lantern light seemed as feeble as a single star in a black night sky, lighting patches of gray stone wall and picking out curved vaulting as Charles led the way toward the scenery, walking quickly to forestall talk. Beside one of the squat round pillars holding up the ceiling, he stopped, lifted his lantern, and hung it on an iron hook so that its light shone along a row of stage flats leaning face outward, against the wall. “Bring your lantern with you,” he said to Morel, and started walking slowly along the line of flats. “The flats we want should be along here somewhere.”

They quickly found the set of flats for the Roman town scene, with its tile-roofed houses, cedar trees with sharply pointed tops, an imposing Temple of Mars, and a severe-looking Roman family posing in the paved street. Morel set his lantern down and they pulled the flat away from the wall and carried it to the front of the line, so it would be easily found when they were ready to dress the stage. Finding the lake flats turned out to be another matter. They reached the end of the long line of scenery without seeing them, even though they stopped to pull out several flats that had been stacked with their blank sides outward. The clammy frigid air wrapped itself around them like a cloak, and their breath came in white clouds.

“They're not here,” Charles said. “Well, let's get my lantern and Montmorency's box and get out of this underworld. Charon's river couldn't possibly be colder than this.”

Squeaks and scufflings sent them hurrying toward the stairs, but not before an enormous rat waddled across their path, glancing at them with mild interest and not in the least afraid.

Morel shuddered as it disappeared beyond their lantern light. “I hate those things! Don't they eat your scenery?”

“Not the flats. The rest of the things we mostly keep in locked chests a little way beyond the stairs. That's where the box will be.”

Morel stayed so close he kept treading on Charles's heels. They passed the foot of the stairs and walked along a line of low wooden chests. Charles knelt, dragged one of the chests aside, and pulled out a stout square box made of gold-painted wood.

“Voilà!”
Charles stood up and handed Morel his lantern. Then he picked up the box, yelped in pain, and dropped it.

Morel jumped back. “What? Another rat?”

“No, no, it's my shoulder, I awoke an old wound this morning.”

“In the attack? I heard about it.”

“Everyone in Paris has probably heard about it. Yes, I pulled two combatants apart more eagerly than I should have, so my shoulder is telling me.”

“I'll carry the box,
maître
,” Morel said brightly, and hoisted it before Charles could object. “You want it in the
salle des actes
, don't you?”

“Yes,” Charles said. “That's very kind of you. I'll carry both lanterns.”

Feeling the young man's confidences closing in on him, Charles led the way back to the stairs, extinguished the candles, and left the lanterns where he'd found them. Morel followed him through the silent classroom where the boys were writing furiously, translating passages they'd been set. Bowing to Pallu and Jouvancy, Charles and Morel went out into the courtyard. Watching Morel stride across the snow-covered gravel with the box and climb the stairs to the
salle des actes
like a young goat, Charles felt suddenly old.
I'll be twenty-nine this year
, he told himself,
and then thirty, and thirty is certainly no longer young
. Morel, on the other hand, he thought drearily, was probably only twenty-one or twenty-two, not much older than some of the students.

In the
salle des actes
, Morel set the block down and turned to Charles. “
Maître
—I—may I—there is something—may I talk with you for a moment?”

“Of course.” Forcing himself to look like he had all the time in the world, Charles backed up to a windowsill and leaned against it.

But Morel only stared dumbly at the floorboards.

“How is Mademoiselle Brion?” Charles asked, to start the stream flowing. Beyond the windows, the sky was growing steadily more leaden, and he had to get out of the college and across the river before the snow started.

Morel looked up in relief. “You are kind to ask,
maître
. But I have nothing good to tell you. She is more and more distraught, so distraught that she's thinking of entering a convent. She says that if her brother is convicted of these crimes, she will not allow anyone to marry into a family so shamed. She says she will join the Ursulines. She has even begun wondering if marriage is more sinful than being a nun.” Morel flushed and looked down. “But I should not be talking about that to you; forgive me.”