“If you must.” Jouvancy smiled back.
“Thank you.”
They went on sitting, listening to a fly buzz lazily in the companionable quiet.
“Cistercians,” Jouvancy said into the silence, with the air of a man reaching a conclusion. “On the eighth of August, I shall join the Cistercians.”
“What? Why, mon père?”
“No children. No Siamese delegation. No theatre.”
Charles laughed and then realized what Jouvancy had said. “Siamese delegation?”
“Père La Chaise told the rector that they arrived yesterday at Berny—just outside the city. They will stay there until their presents for the king catch up with them. The king receives them at Versailles on September first.”
“But that’s not our concern, is it?” Charles said, puzzled.
“I didn’t tell you? The Siamese ambassadors are coming to our show.”
Charles slid lower on the bench. Just what they needed. Exotic—and no doubt bewildered—strangers from the other side of the world sitting in the front row and mesmerizing the student performers. French Jesuits had been talking for months now about the delegation, which was accompanied by the famous Jesuit mathematician Père Guy Tachard. Siam’s King Narai was interested in foreign realms and foreign kings, and King Louis was very interested in elbowing the Dutch out of the center of Siamese trade. Père Tachard wanted to strengthen the Jesuit mission in Siam and make a Christian out of King Narai. If the delegation needed entertainment, Charles had to admit that the Louis le Grand performance was a natural choice.
“I cannot wait to see them!” Jouvancy said, his pique evaporating. “They’re said to be little, amber-skinned men. Wonderful clothes, lots of gorgeous silk draped just so. I hear that everywhere they stay, the ladies crowd in to watch them eat their supper.” Jouvancy smiled sideways at Charles and raised his eyebrows. “The ambassadors offer fruit to the prettiest ones.”
“If our dancers and actors are as fascinated as the ladies, our show is in big trouble.”
Jouvancy grunted in agreement. The silence lengthened and Charles fell into a near drowse. “Maître du Luc!”
“What?” Charles shot bolt upright and looked anxiously around.
Jouvancy had turned to face him, his eyes shining. “We can study the Siamese and make drawings, and have a Siamese entrée in next year’s ballet!”
But I probably won’t be here next year, Charles didn’t say. “I thought you were joining the Cistercians, mon père,” he said lightly.
“After we do the Siamese entrée.”
They both burst out laughing. Glad for even a glimmer of humor in Jouvancy’s tired face, Charles shoved away his worry about his meeting with the rector and pulled the rhetoric master to his feet. They went companionably in search of a presupper glass of watered wine.
Chapter 18
Supper was pea soup, seasoned this time with clove and endive, and poured over thick, broth-soaked bread. To Charles’s relief, Père Guise continued to ignore him, but even that didn’t help his appetite as his meeting with the rector loomed. By the time the refectory was dismissed, dread lay heavy in his belly. And weighed the more when he looked into the junior refectory to check on Antoine, and Antoine wasn’t there. As the boy’s tablemates filed out the door, Charles grabbed Maître Doissin.
“Where is he?”
“Calm yourself, Maître du Luc!” Antoine’s tutor shook his big shaggy head and gently disengaged his arm. “Antoine felt unwell, so I allowed him to stay in his chamber. The kitchen is sending something for him.”
“You left him alone?” Charles turned abruptly and pushed his way through the press of boys toward the door.
“No, no,” Doissin said, following him. “Not alone. Not really alone, the courtyard proctor promised to check on him.”
Charles made for the north courtyard, through the evening recreation hour’s games of tag and volleys of shuttlecocks. Suddenly Père Guise was in his path.
“To the rector’s office,” Guise said through his teeth. “Now.”
Charles’s stomach lurched. Were Guise’s accusations of heresy and insinuations of murder going to be part of his meeting with the rector?
“After I find Antoine.” Charles started around Guise toward the north court.
“You will not find him there.”
“Why? What do you mean? Has something happened to him?”
Guise stalked toward the main building. Charles passed him and burst unceremoniously into the rector’s office. Antoine and Marie-Ange stood side by side in front of Père Le Picart’s desk.
“Well,” Charles said, light-headed with relief, “if it isn’t Pitchin and Pitchot.” He wanted to throttle Guise for terrifying him. But what were the children doing here? Their fleeting smiles at the names of the folk tale characters vanished as Guise arrived and slammed the door behind him.
Le Picart remained expressionless. “Now,” he said, before Guise could speak, “let us clarify matters before we begin.”
His voice was flat and dust dry and he was using it, Charles realized with admiration, to soak emotion out of the air like earth soaking away rain.
“The points at issue,” Le Picart said, “are as follows. First, Père Guise has just found these children in his study, where they had no right to be. Second, on their own admission, they were searching his belongings. Third, Père Guise seems to feel that you, Maître du Luc, are responsible for this intrusion. Fourth—and attend to me, all of you—” His glance caught and held on Guise “—this conversation will be conducted courteously, or not at all.” He eyed the children. “Let us start again, now that Maître du Luc is here. Were you in Père Guise’s rooms?”
“Yes, mon père.” They nodded in unison.
“How did you get into the college, Marie-Ange?”
Charles, standing behind the children, saw Antoine kick her in the ankle. Marie-Ange kicked him harder in return and catapulted Charles back twenty years, to standing hand-in-hand with Pernelle in front of his mother, the two of them charged with some childish misdemeanor, and Pernelle’s sharp kick at his ankle bone when he’d tried to take all the blame.
“I went up the old stairs from the bakery, mon père,” Marie-Ange said.
Guise drew in his breath with a hiss. “How dare you—”
Le Picart held up a hand. “Were the staircase doors unlocked, Marie-Ange?”
“It wasn’t her fault, mon père,” Antoine burst out. “She was only helping me. I wanted to find Philippe’s note.” He pointed at his godfather. “He took it and it’s the last thing Philippe gave me and I want it back!”
“Silence!” Le Picart barely raised his voice, but Guise clamped his teeth together as quickly as Antoine did. “Marie-Ange, answer my question.”
“The doors were unlocked, mon père.”
Le Picart looked fleetingly at Charles. “I see. Now, Antoine. You say that Philippe wrote you a note?”
Antoine recounted finding the note, putting it in his breeches pocket under his scholar’s gown, trying to meet his brother, and being prevented by the accident. Marie-Ange said that she’d seen Guise search Antoine’s pockets in the street and take something. Guise shut his eyes, slowly shaking his head.
“Did you search his pockets, Père Guise?” the rector said mildly.