They gathered around him. Jacques Douté bowed his head, closed his eyes, and fell over his feet. Charles caught him and murmured, “Good, you got that over with in here.”
Jouvancy glanced sideways at them. “Dear Lord,” he prayed, “you took a body like ours, and our bodies are glorified in You. Please make us all, actors and their words, dancers and their movements, musicians and their music, stagehands and their work, instruments of Your truth. Let all we have made together be to Your glory.” He paused. “And, dear Lord, extra courage wouldn’t come amiss.” The “amen” was full-throated and garnished with laughter. Clovis’s opening actors scrambled for last sips of water, smoothed tunics and straightened helmets, and streamed through the windows to their places. Charles followed and settled himself and his thumping heart in the prompter’s wing.
The overture ended and Jacques Douté, blessedly sure-footed and commanding, spoke his prologue. Two lay brothers Charles didn’t know drew the curtains apart and revealed the shadowy green forest, and the stage magic began to work its will. The audience grew quiet and attentive, as though the tragedy’s sonorous Latin cast a beneficent spell. The robust swordplay drew cheers. Roars of laughter greeted the antics of comic characters. And if the tragedy cast a spell, the ballet wove a deep enchantment. The Siamese, who had watched the tragedy in polite bewilderment, came alive when the dancers appeared. Crowded close to the windows, they laughed and pointed and applauded.
When Hercules and his suite celebrated winning the Hesperides with a gravely joyous minuet, in a garden of golden fruit under a pink and gold and purple sunset, the audience breathed a collective sigh of contented wonder. Disaster threatened briefly when Armand Beauclaire went beautifully right, instead of correctly left. But, to Charles’s amazement, Beauclaire realized his mistake and pirouetted smoothly out of harm’s way. When the treasure-hunting Argonauts sailed their ship across the stage, the sea of billowing blue ribbons was so realistic that Charles saw a face or two in the audience turn faintly green. When the big-headed giants tried to scale heaven and fell thudding back to earth, even severe Carmelites held their sides laughing.
Holding his three-foot hourglass, Walter Connor danced Time’s sarabande with majestic menace. As the sparkling sands of time and life drained visibly away, people blanched and shrank back in their seats. As Hercules slew the smoke-breathing Hydra, the audience leapt to its feet, applauding and cheering. Even the sober-faced German Madame smiled and nodded happily as the red smoke drifted over her head.
And when the exuberant Ballet Général began, Charles was half afraid the audience would surge onto the stage and join in. Hercules’s long chaconne was a tour de force. Applause drowned the creaking of his pink cloud as Diogenes—Père Montville—wobbled to earth. Holding his lantern high, he brought the students receiving prizes onto the stage. To Charles’s delight, Antoine Douté won the lower grammar class’s prize, a fat Latin tome that he hugged proudly to his skinny chest. Finally, the trumpets accompanied Madame and her ladies from the courtyard and the Siamese down from their aerie. Royalty, ambassadors, and nobles went to the reception in the fathers’ refectory, and the cast and less exalted remainder of the audience surged together, hugging, kissing, bragging, and congratulating.
Giddy with relief, flooded with happiness at the beauty he’d helped to make, and moist-eyed with pride at the students’ achievement, Charles gave—and received—exuberant congratulations. Mme LeClerc made her way toward the stage, holding Marie-Ange and Antoine both firmly by the hand, and Charles jumped to the ground to greet her. He congratulated Antoine on his prize and both children forgot their manners and hugged him. Mme LeClerc was so excited that she forgot to reprove them.
“Your show was miraculous,” she cried, throwing up her hands. “The saints must be dancing in heaven!” Under cover of giving him a smacking kiss on the cheek, she said in his ear, “Is Mademoiselle Pernelle all right, is she with you?”
He jerked his head at the stage. “Below. All is well, madame. After you sent her to me, did the police return?”
“No, thank the Virgin! She can come back to us, if you think it’s safe.”
Charles hesitated. “I—no, she’ll be leaving soon.” Though how, he still had no idea.
Seeing Père Jouvancy and Maître Beauchamps bearing down on Charles, Mme LeClerc curtsied and took the children’s hands to steer them through the crowd. Jouvancy stopped to congratulate his nephew and speak briefly with Mme LeClerc. Then he and Beauchamps rained praise on Charles, who shoved away his worry about Pernelle and praised them fulsomely in return. The three of them linked arms and went to make their appearance at the rector’s reception, feeling like heroes indeed.
But before they reached the fathers’ refectory, Lieutenant-Général La Reynie appeared seemingly from nowhere, detached Charles from Jouvancy and Beauchamps, and drew him into an empty antechamber.
“I didn’t see you in the audience,” Charles said pleasantly, but his stomach lurched at the lieutenant-général’s expression.
“I was at the Hôtel de Guise—outside with the two men I’ve set to watch. The Duchesse de Guise is seeing no one and the footman who answers the door insists that Père Guise is not there and that no one there knows where he is. The only way I can get in without bringing more trouble on myself than I want is with an order from the king. Which I doubt he would give me against a Guise, with only the evidence that I have.”
“What will you do next?” Charles said.
La Reynie glared at Charles. “I came here to take Frère Fabre into custody, but Père Le Picart will not give him up. I will not force him in the presence of his guests. But tomorrow I will have Fabre, one way or the other. And you will help me get him, if it comes to that. I want an end to this.”
“He may not be guilty—”
“I will have him, and find out whether or not he is guilty. You are still my fly here, Maître du Luc. Hear me. If Fabre conveniently flits as the other two did, you and you alone will answer for it. Your ballet is over, get back to work. Convince your rector that if he doesn’t want scandal, he’d better give me his prisoner.”
He stalked away, leaving Charles fallen from the heights of his triumph to cold, hard earth.
Chapter 35
Dusk had fallen on the empty Cour d’honneur. Festive torches burned at the entrance to the street passage and beside the archway into the north court, where voices and laughter sounded from the parties in students’ rooms. Charles, who had volunteered himself and “Jean” to put away costumes and props, sat on the empty stage, dangling his feet into the open trapdoor. The front curtains had been taken down, and the flickering torchlight was just enough to let him see Pernelle, standing in the understage, and licking crumbs of a tart he’d brought her from her fingers. Her hat was on the floor, her hair was tangled, and her shirt was stained with sweat, and she looked happier than Charles had seen her since before their lives diverged.
“You did well down there,” he said, trying to ignore the catch in his voice.
“I liked it. Oh, and that Moulin who was bothering me? He wasn’t here—no one seemed to know where he was. You should be very pleased with your show, Charles. It was magnificent.”
“I thought you’d hate all the Protestant-baiting and Louis-gilding.”
“Oh, I did. But it didn’t ruin the boys’ triumph. Or yours. You’re very good at what you do, I didn’t realize how good.”