Charles called the ballet cast to order and told the boys who had already been assigned roles and were learning their dances to go over their steps in silence. Those not yet cast, he called together at the side of the dancing space, and he and Beauchamps looked them over. Or rather, Charles looked them over. Beauchamps looked only at Bertamelli. The little Italian, guilt apparently forgotten, stood at the front of the group quivering with hope for good roles. Which he would certainly have, being the best student dancer. Like most of the others, Bertamelli would have several parts, since La France Victorieuse had no single star role but many small entrées in each Part. Unless, Charles thought wryly, the rector took Bertamelli’s roles all away when he found out about Bertamelli’s trip to the tower. No reason, though, to tell Beauchamps that, not yet.
Seeing that Beauchamps would be no help until Bertamelli was dealt with, Charles said, “What roles do you want to give him, maître?”
“Hmm? A pity this ballet has no star part. Though he’s too small yet to play heroes. And may always be. But, blessed Terpsichore, the talent in that small body is blinding. I’ve worked with him a great deal while you’ve been gone.” The dancing master’s eyes glowed, all his usual irony vanished. “I’ve rarely seen such a gift.” His face sobered and he sighed. “You’ll have to let him go, you know. He can’t waste himself here.”
“I know. God made him for the stage. We’ve talked about it.” Charles had once been a very good dancer himself, and he knew what he was seeing when he watched the little Italian. “I only want him to stay with us until he’s a little older and better able to manage himself in the world.”
Beauchamps grunted. “A little while. But not long.” He held out his hand for the ballet livret. “I had thought to give him Deceit in the first Part, Mercury and one of the Harlequins in the second, Eole, master of the winds, in the third, and one of the Furies in the fourth.”
“No larger role in the fourth Part?” Charles said in surprise.
“He must also learn to be one of an ensemble. And the Furies’ jumping and turning will suit his abilities.” Beauchamps handed back the livret. “Shall I take him aside and tell him?”
“Yes, do.”
With something uncomfortably near wistfulness, Charles watched Beauchamps call Bertamelli from the waiting group and walk him to the other side of the makeshift stage. One hand rested protectively on the boy’s shoulder, and Bertamelli looked up at him with worship in his huge black eyes. Well, Charles thought, he himself had had some dancing. And in a way, he still had it. But there’d been a time when he’d wanted what Bertamelli was going to have.
Putting the past back where it belonged, Charles went to work, paging quickly through the livret and casting the rest of the students. Finally, only the younger Polish boy and Montmorency were left. Alexandre Sapieha was the brother of Michel with the broken nose, who was still in the infirmary. Fifteen to Michel’s seventeen, Alexandre was already as big as his brother. As he stood waiting in front of Charles, he cast dark looks at Montmorency. Montmorency glared back with his good eye, his other being still swollen shut from his fight with Michel. So, Charles thought, Montmorency and the two Sapiehas had better be in different troops of soldiers in the ballet’s third Part, France Victorious over Her Enemies by Arms. Charles hoped that solution wouldn’t lend too much spirit to the fighting between the troops.
“Very well. Monsieur Sapieha,” he said, “in the ballet’s third Part, you will be in the first troop of French Heroes. Then you will be a German soldier and then a Dutch one.” He made quick notes in the livret and when he looked up again, Sapieha was scowling at Montmorency. “Monsieur Sapieha?”
The boy turned stolidly. “I wait, maître.”
“You are looking at Monsieur Montmorency as though you want a broken nose to match your brother’s.”
Sapieha’s white-blond brows drew together as he tried to unravel that. Latin was the required language for speaking in the college, and students were supposed to know some Latin before they came to Louis le Grand. But the Sapiehas’ Latin was shaky and, to French ears, practically indistinguishable from Polish.
“I would not have the broken nose, maître.”
“If you keep fighting, you and your brother will be sent home to Poland in disgrace. Is that what you want?”
Sapieha chewed his lip and then grinned. “My father will kill us.”
“No doubt. And is this quarrel worth such a fate?”
“Is matter of Polish honor,” the boy said grimly.
“I see.” Charles wondered if he’d been this obsessed with honor at fifteen.
“Montmorency insulted our Prince Alexandre! He called him a mewling child. He said he hoped Alexandre would die! Alexandre does not want your old French princess, he is desolate about this marriage. It is she who should die!”
“No one should die, Monsieur Sapieha, and you are not to wish it or say it. The French princess is only a year older than you, and she is very beautiful. She does not want the marriage any more than your Prince Alexandre does,” Charles said, more hotly than he meant to.
“No?”
“No. Think about that. Monsieur Montmorency is only feeling for the French princess what you feel for your prince,” Charles said, wishing that were true. “Back to our business now. In the fourth Part of the ballet, you will be a gardener. And a Fury. Furies are very angry, and you can put some of your wish to fight into your role.”
Sapieha brightened. “I hit Montmorency while I dance?”
“No,” Charles said very slowly, articulating with his whole mouth. “No fighting. None.”
“Oh. But I will still like being Fury. Being furious. I thank you. It is-” Sapieha frowned, biting his lip. “-beautiful!” he finished triumphantly.
“We shall hope so, monsieur,” Charles said wearily. “Go and wait with the others.”
Sapieha joined the group on the makeshift stage, where Charles had set Walter Connor to sort the dancers into their entrées for Part one. Charles gestured Montmorency to come, ignoring the rainbow spectacle of the boy’s bruised face.
“In Part two’s entrée of the sculptors and the statue, Monsieur Montmorency, I want you to be the statue, the statue of the king. Then, in the-”
“No.”
Charles breathed slowly in and out. “I beg your pardon?”
“I cannot be the king. I am no longer the king’s man.”
“Do not repeat that. I will do us both the favor of pretending I didn’t hear it.”
Montmorency repeated it.
Feeling a twinge of near hysteria, Charles said, “You only have to pretend to be a statue. Pretend. It doesn’t matter how you feel about whom the statue represents.”
Montmorency peered owlishly out of his good eye. “No.”
Charles’s patience evaporated along with his scruples. “Have you forgotten our interesting conversation about unpracticed headsmen, Monsieur Montmorency?”
“They won’t behead me for refusing to be a statue!”
“They beheaded your illustrious ancestor for refusing to be loyal to the king.”
The boy drew himself up to his full six feet. His brown eyes were bleak with misery. “I cannot-”
“Think of it as suffering for chivalry’s vows.” Charles said desperately. And added coaxingly, though he knew he shouldn’t, “After all, knights used to go through terrible trials. Think of Tristan and all he suffered for the love of Iseult.” He waited, hardly daring to breathe, while Montmorency laboriously thought about Tristan and Iseult.
“Oh. Yes. Then I will be the statue.”
“Good. Now in the third Part,” Charles rushed on, before the boy could reconsider, “you will be in the second troop of French Heroes. The second, remember that. And in the ballet’s fourth Part, a sea god. The chief sea god, who stands on a shell.” Whenever he could, he stood Montmorency on something and kept him still, since he was incapable of all but the simplest dance steps. He sent Montmorency to join the others. Whatever it takes, he told himself. Whatever it takes to get him quietly finished with school and gone. Then it will be up to his mother to keep him from catastrophe.