“Come,” Père Le Picart called, and Charles stepped into a cool, east-facing room with a high-beamed ceiling and a silky carpet in faded reds and greens on the worn wide-boarded floor. The one small casement of old, green-tinged glass stood open to the courtyard, letting in the sounds of passing feet, an occasional burst of chatter, and the faint noise of street traffic.
Charles bowed. Le Picart rose from the chair behind his desk and gestured Charles to one of a pair of chairs beside the empty fireplace.
“A little wine, Maître du Luc?” He picked up the pottery pitcher on the table between the chairs, poured pale red wine into the waiting cone-shaped glasses, and sat down facing Charles.
“Thank you, mon père.”
Though watered as usual, the wine was welcome on a hot afternoon. As they sipped, Charles studied the rector. Le Picart’s lean face was lined and strongly boned, his short thick hair was gray, and traces of peasant Normandy lingered in his voice.
As though he’d heard what Charles was thinking, he smiled over his glass and said, “This time of year at home, we’re starting to think of cider. My village is on the edge of Normandy, and my father had an orchard with good Norman apple trees.”
“I am fond of cider, too, mon père. My mother comes from Normandy.”
“Ah. I wondered. Most from the south are dark, but you have the true look of the old North raiders. How did your parents meet?”
“They met at court, at Fontainebleau. My mother was one of the Dowager Queen’s ladies and my father was making his brief and only effort to improve his fortunes by gaining the court’s notice. When I was little”—Charles laughed—“she used to tease my father, who was shorter and darker, and say that no one would believe I was his child. And he would tease her back, and say, ‘whose, then, wench?’ And we would all fall down laughing.”
“They must have been close, your father and mother! Not many men will be teased in that way.”
“Yes, they were close. We all were.”
“You were a happy child, then.” Le Picart smiled a little sadly. “Children. They should all be happy. Well, at least our Antoine is recovering. But you probably know that Philippe is still missing. The man who left just before you arrived is Nicolas de La Reynie, our Lieutenant-Général of police. I have asked him to search for Philippe. Which is why I have taken you away from your rehearsal.” The rector stared into the empty fireplace for a moment and then fixed Charles with a measuring look. “Mme LeClerc has been to see me, Maître du Luc. It seems you left Père Guise out of your story.”
Charles sipped his wine to give himself a moment to think. “Yes, mon père, I did.”
“Why?”
“She obviously dislikes him and—it seemed better to say nothing.”
“Describe for me exactly what you saw Père Guise do.”
“I saw him talking to a street porter. Mme LeClerc was watching them when I arrived. The porter seemed uneasy. I did not see Père Guise give the man money. Though I was not there all the time they talked.”
“Did you speak with the porter yourself ?”
“He was gone before I could.”
“And what do you think now of Mme LeClerc’s story?”
Gazing into his glass, Charles searched his impressions of the baker’s wife. “On the whole, I believe her.” He lifted his gaze to the rector. “Her anger at the horseman and her concern for Antoine were very convincing. And her bluntness. As I said in the infirmary, I wondered about the mask, though. And about her dislike of Père Guise.” Charles smiled ruefully. “Many people are rude about priests, but usually not to the priest’s face.”
“True. You should know that Père Guise has sometimes taken it on himself to chastise the few shopkeepers who still rent space in our building’s frontage for what he considers infractions of our rules. He has also clashed with Mme LeClerc over her small daughter, who has once or twice been found in our stable.”
“Ah,” Charles said, suddenly remembering the little girl in front of the baker’s shop the day Antoine was hurt.
For a moment Le Picart’s eyes had what Charles could only call a wicked gleam. “Mme LeClerc is one of the few people who has ever bested Père Guise, at least in volume.” He lifted an eyebrow at Charles. “The college is not Eden, Maître du Luc. Though some of us might think so, if we had only the one serpent.”
Charles laughed outright, liking this rector more and more.
“So,” Le Picart said. “I called you here because you are obviously taking an interest in what has happened to Antoine and Philippe, and I want you to understand some things. I am going somewhat beyond my writ in what I am about to say. Which you are to treat in the strictest confidence.”
“Of course, mon père.”
“Père Guise has already been to see me about you. About your heretical views.”
Charles went cold. He opened his mouth to defend himself but nothing came out. The rector held up a hand.
“Hear me out. The point—my point here, at least—is not your views, but Père Guise’s. He is a brilliant man and a fiercely devoted priest. He is also a bad enemy. His fervor outruns his charity.” Le Picart sighed. “The Guise fire from the Wars of Religion still burns hot in him. You know, of course, that his great-grandfather more or less started the wars. And led the Catholic League, paid for its army, and nearly put a Guise on the throne of France. They are themselves royal in a minor way, springing as they do from the House of Lorraine. Sadly—or not, depending on your views—Père Guise is the last male of his house. He pines for the lost Guise glory and seems to offer God a service of white-hot anger. I confess that I often do not know what to make of it. What God makes of it, I cannot imagine.”
Charles sipped wine to wet his dry mouth. “And did he convince you my views are heretical?”
The rector eyed Charles. “He convinced me that your views are compassionate. Compassionate to a fault and dangerous. Are there Huguenots in your own family?”
Charles nodded warily.
“That must cause you great pain.”
“For many reasons, mon père.”
Le Picart got up and went to the open window. “We must never forget that we are Jesuits,” he said quietly, gazing into the court. “But I have learned to be very wary of any man who is sure that he is as right as God.”
“For my part, mon père, I am sure that cruelty in God’s name is wrong.”
In the silence that followed, feet ran across the gravel and boys’ voices rose in shouts and laughter.
Le Picart turned to face him. “Many devout churchmen would argue passionately against that. And some would argue passionately for it. I do not expect us to settle that question. I do expect you to remember your vow of obedience.”
“Yes, mon père.” Charles began to breathe again.
Le Picart seemed to relax, too, and leaned back against the stone sill. “There is more I want you to understand about this college. Père Guise has no doubt told you that he is confessor to courtiers—I fear he tells everyone at the first opportunity. Although the king shuns Paris, we are only a few leagues from Versailles. This college’s links to men—and women—close to the king are, to say the least, intricate. M. Louvois, perhaps the most powerful man in the realm after the king, was educated here. As was the father of Philippe and Antoine, who is now secretary to the Prince of Condé. Condé is a Bourbon, a Prince of the Blood, close kin to King Louis. Now. In himself, M. Douté seems an innocuous man. Well-meaning. A careful secretary, no doubt, but not, I fear, particularly discerning. Witness his choice of a second wife. Nevertheless, he has been close to the old Condé for many years. Though the Prince of Condé appears not to take an active role in the world anymore, his influence has been nearly that of a king. Indeed, it would be a mistake to underestimate it even now. Even though he has long been pardoned, he was one of King Louis’s most powerful enemies forty years ago in the nobles’ Fronde revolution, as you no doubt know. I say all this, because what has happened to the boys may—just possibly—mean that someone is using them to get at their father—and, through him, at the Condé. M. Douté says that is not so. But I think he would say that, if he were caught in that kind of coil. I have begun to fear that Philippe may have been lured out of the college to be taken and held somewhere. And that Antoine’s accident may not have been an accident. Which is why I have called in the head of the police. And why I am telling you to leave these matters strictly alone.”