“Antoine,” Le Picart said wearily, “we have finished with that. Do as your godfather tells you. Now.”
Suddenly past all restraint, Antoine turned on the rector. “I am not finished with it! Why do you always believe him? You don’t know the bad things he does, he kisses my stepmother, I was in the tree, I saw him—”
“Liar!”
In a blur of movement, Guise crossed the room and slapped Antoine’s face so hard that the boy staggered. Antoine launched himself at Guise, his arms flailing like windmill sails.
“Enough!” Le Picart thundered, leaping to his feet.
Charles grabbed Antoine just before his fists connected with Guise’s middle. The boy struggled furiously in his grasp, but Guise stood as though turned to stone.
“Maître du Luc,” the rector said through stiff lips, “take this child to the antechamber and keep him there until I call you.”
“Come, mon brave,” Charles sighed, turning the still protesting Antoine toward the door. “This battle is over.”
Chapter 19
Charles propelled Antoine across the grand salon and forcibly sat him down on the antechamber’s bench.
“I’ll kill him,” Antoine cried, trying to get up again. “I will!”
“Sit!” Keeping a tight grip on the boy’s shoulder, Charles sat beside him. “I wouldn’t kill him, you know,” he said mildly. “I hear that being hanged is very unpleasant. Even more unpleasant than having Père Guise for a godfather. And the consequences last a lot longer.”
Antoine flung himself back against the wall and swore with surprising fluency. Philippe’s competent teaching, no doubt.
“I suspect that the rector is as angry at Père Guise as he is at you,” Charles said. “But don’t go saying I told you that.”
Antoine folded his arms and glowered at the three-foot bronze of pious Aeneas on a table against the salon’s far wall. But he made no move to get up and Charles felt some of the tension go out of the small body.
“Listen,” Charles said, “don’t bring more punishment on yourself. When the moment comes, apologize nicely to the rector. And to Père Guise—no, just listen one little moment. Our rules, after all, do frown on attempted single combat with a professor. And one honnête homme does not attack another.”
“Honest gentlemen have duels! They fight wars!”
“Not in the rector’s office. So say the prayers he gave you, take whatever else you get as punishment, and then it will be over. I don’t think Père Le Picart will be too severe.”
“I don’t care,” Antoine said sullenly, kicking at one of the bench’s legs. “Whoever made the rules didn’t know old Guise. And he’s not an honnête homme.”
Inclined to agree on both counts, Charles let the boy kick. Antoine looked up anxiously.
“Maître du Luc? I didn’t break my promise to you. I only promised not to talk about the note. Marie-Ange already knew about it and you didn’t say anything about not looking for it.”
Charles rolled his eyes. “True enough, Monsieur Legalist. I see I should have been more precise. So can we have a civilized gentlemen’s agreement not to talk or take action about the note?” Charles glanced at the rector’s door to be sure it was still closed. “Think for a moment, Antoine. If Père Guise took the note, he will have gotten rid of it long ago.”
Antoine looked stricken. “Why?”
Charles frowned at a splotch of blood red in the painting of Alexander the Great on the salon wall and searched for an answer that would satisfy the child without frightening him.
“Well, do you think he would keep it as a memento of Philippe?”
“No! He didn’t even like Philippe. He doesn’t like me, either, he just pretends to.” Antoine moved closer, as though he were suddenly cold, and Charles put an arm around him. “I will do as you say, maître.”
“Thank you, mon brave. And there’s another thing. Stay away from the old stairs. And do not talk about them. Will you promise?”
“Why?”
“Do you always have to have a reason before you obey?”
Antoine returned Charles’s stern look. “Don’t you?”
Hoist with his own petard, Charles gazed down at the fierce little face. Truth deserved a measure of truth in return. “Remember where those stairs lead, Antoine. Do you really want to make Père Guise any angrier?”
Antoine shivered involuntarily and shook his head.
“Then, monsieur, will you do me the honor of giving me your word, as one honnête homme to another?”
Antoine stood up. “I give you my word, mon père,” he said gravely and bowed like a courtier.
Charles rose, bowed in return, and they both sat back down. Feeling as though he’d come slightly scathed through a duel of words, he fought the urge to question the boy about Guise kissing Lisette Douté.
“You think I lied about him kissing her, don’t you?” Antoine said, as though he’d heard Charles’s thoughts.
“Did you?”
“No! He kissed her and they laughed and he kissed her some more.”
Charles struggled briefly with himself and lost. “When was that?”
“At her birthday fête. The thirteenth of July. In our garden in Chantilly.”
“But, Antoine, everyone gets kissed on their birthday.”
Antoine shook his head so hard that his fine dark hair flew over his face. “Not like that! It was like when my father thinks they’re alone and kisses her. Long and”—he wrinkled his nose with distaste—“they wiggle and make noises. Ugh!”
Wiggling and noises? Charles’s eyebrows climbed almost into his hair. “How did you see all this?”
“I didn’t mean to. It’s base to spy and I wasn’t!”
Charles winced. Yes, it was indeed base to spy. “Where were you?”
“Philippe had chased me and I’d climbed a big tree beside the garden path. Then Père Guise and Lisette stopped right under me. They didn’t know I was there and I didn’t want them to, so I was very still.”
Guise came out of the rector’s office with a face like marble and disappeared toward the back of the house. Antoine followed him with angry eyes.
“At least he didn’t kiss old Louvois,” the boy muttered.
“What?!”
“M. Louvois was there, too. The fat pig.”
“The M. Louvois who is the minister of war?”
Antoine nodded. “After Lisette went away, Père Guise walked on down the path, and I was climbing down, but I saw Philippe coming and I threw some gravel I had in my pocket at him, and he climbed up to get me back. But then Père Guise came back with Monsieur Louvois. So we stayed in the tree because we didn’t want to talk to them. They stopped on the path beside the tree and argued for a while. Later I asked them about something they said and they said I was lying. And they were angry that I’d listened in the tree and my father sent me to bed before the cakes, like I told you after Philippe’s funeral. But I wasn’t lying! I didn’t mean to listen, but I couldn’t not hear them, could I? All I wanted was to know about dragons because they’d said that even if there aren’t any here, there might still be some in England!”
Charles stared blankly, trying to make sense out of that. Then his lips tightened as he realized that Antoine had probably heard Louvois talking about soldiers, his cursed dragoons. Charles smiled at Antoine. “Yes, I suppose there might be some dragons still in England.” When he was Antoine’s age, he, too, had explained France’s sad lack of dragons by deciding that they’d taken refuge in England, a heretical country where St. Michael and St. Mary Magdalene might not be able to fight them effectively. Suddenly another thought struck him.