The Rhetoric of Death (30 page)

“Calm yourself,
mon fils
, he is not—”

“If we do this, King Louis will have only two choices! To admit that he lied to the pope about stopping the dragonnades—which he will never admit—or to take the only other way out. To quickly “discover” that you and I have, as Winters so elegantly put it, poached the king's authority. Louis will cover himself by accusing us of usurping his sovereignty. He will swear that anything to do with dragonnades is against his will and without his knowledge, and he will charge us with treason.
Us
.” Louvois spit the word out like a piece of bad meat. “Even your name will not save you, Père Guise.”

“You dare threaten me?” Guise thundered.

“For the good God's sake, I am trying—”

Wood grated over stone. Charles reacted a heartbeat too late as a hand was clamped over his mouth, an arm tightened around his throat, and someone dragged him backward.

C
harles fought as though his last battle had been yesterday. But his assailant, with two good shoulders, surprise on his side, and no cassock skirts, had him through the open door and belly down on the terrace in the space of a few breaths. Straddling him, the man pulled Charles's head up sharply to expose his throat. A dagger gleamed in front of Charles's eyes and the man laughed. Charles twisted, threw the man onto his dagger hand, and rolled free. He got his feet under him, but the man was up and rushing him, thrusting for his heart. Charles threw himself sideways and backward over the terrace balustrade. The man kept coming and landed half on top of him. Charles grabbed his assailant's dagger wrist, brought his other elbow up under the man's chin, and hurled him aside.

Then he was on his feet and running. As he ran, some detached part of him wondered what had seemed wrong about his pursuer's face. He needed to see the man in the light, but without dying for the privilege. The man fell behind as Charles's long legs ate up the ground. Charles was running now through a formal garden, jumping low hedges and flower borders in fitful moonlight. The garden was long and narrow, bounded by stone balustrades like those around the terrace, but beyond them on his left, trees showed against the night sky. Leaping over a gravel path and its betraying crunch, he vaulted the railing. And fell farther than he'd wanted to, onto tree roots. Swallowing a grunt of pain, Charles kilted his entangling skirts with his cincture and made his way deeper into the trees, thankful for soft, tended turf underfoot instead of last year's crackling leaves.

He stopped and listened. Running feet slowed and he saw his pursuer outlined against the sky, standing halfway down the garden and slowly turning his head as he searched for his quarry. Feeling his way among the trees, Charles followed the line of the balustrade toward the far end of the garden, where a massive chestnut tree filled the angle of the balustrade's turn across the garden's end. With the chestnut's trunk between himself and the man, Charles climbed silently back into the garden and stood invisible in the tree's inky shadows.

A little more moonlight filtered through the clouds and showed him his pursuer walking toward the tree. The man was middling tall and hatless, and his head was curiously smooth. Bald, perhaps, or shaven, Charles thought. Then moonlight poured through a rip in the clouds and he saw what had seemed wrong about the face. Its upper half was masked, not with an ordinary half mask, but with a mask that covered the top and back of the head, almost like the mask executioners wore. Which was fitting enough, Charles thought grimly. The silvery light shone on the knife in the man's hand, splashed into the high folded tops of his boots, and then dimmed before Charles could tell the color. But Charles would have bet his life—maybe was about to bet his life—that the boots were the color of burnt sugar. And that under a hat pulled low, the mask would look like the half mask Mme LeClerc had insisted Antoine's attacker had worn.

The man was nearly at the tree. Charles crouched and gathered himself, waiting for his moment. A night bird called, a gust of wind flurried the branches, and he used the sounds for cover as he launched himself low at his quarry and knocked him off his feet. He brought his fist down like a hammer on the man's knife wrist, and the numbed fingers relaxed and dropped the knife. Charles meant to gag the man, tie him, take him to La Reynie. But certainty that this was not only his own would-be killer, but Philippe's and the porter's, certainty that this was Antoine's attacker, boiled into rage. His hands reached for the man's throat, trying to find skin under the padded doublet's high collar.

The moon hid its face. The two men thrashed together like desperate lovers, rolling over and over in the grass. Through the bloodlust singing in him, Charles felt his enemy's life going. Then the heavens intervened. Laughing, talking men surged out of the house, and their noise and the light of their approaching lanterns cut through Charles's rage. His grip loosened and his victim rolled away retching, staggered up, and was gone. Charles struggled to his feet. The oblivious newcomers at the garden's entrance were pointing upward, too engrossed in the sky and their chattering to notice him, a black shadow among shadows. Muffling his panting breath, he slipped over the balustrade again.

“Ah, there's one!” he heard someone say. “And another!”

“Magnificent! How often do the astronomers say these showers happen, did you say?”

Charles looked up through the trees and saw a shooting star streak across the sky. Giving thanks for this bright deliverance from the murder he'd nearly committed, he stumbled toward the stables. The grooms and men at arms had taken their dice elsewhere and the stable was quiet. As far as he could tell, only the boy who looked sleepily over the loft's edge saw him lead his horse out of the stable and ride away.

Now that he wished the moon would stay hidden, it shone steadily. He kept glancing over his shoulder, expecting to see the killer behind him, but the road stayed empty. Charles rode as quickly as he dared, but the tree shadows were deep as pools and his horse was unsure on the rutted surface. He tried to make sense of the attack. The man must have jumped him because he'd found him listening outside the door. But why had he been allowed to listen so long? Guards needed to piss like anyone else, the explanation might be that simple. When the attack came, it had been in earnest. And with what he'd heard, he doubted he'd be left alone just because the first attack had failed. He had to get to Père Le Picart, and quickly.

He reached the St. Antoine gate with no sign of pursuit. But there would be tracks through woods and fields a horseman could follow to the city. He decided that the Petit Pont was his best way to the college, rather than the way he'd come. Crossing the river, with no side streets and nowhere to take cover, would be his most vulnerable point, and the Petit Pont was short. After it, he'd have only a brief ride up the rue St. Jacques to Louis le Grand.

Half of Paris seemed to be out enjoying the fitfully bright night, going from tavern to tavern or just strolling in the small streets and lanes. His horse stepped over snoring drunks, and a pair of loud prostitutes emerged from a doorway to grab at his cassock. A few streets over, he heard the night watch making its noisy passage north, away from the river. He was nearly at the Hôtel de Ville and beginning to relax when galloping hooves sounded behind him. He jerked his horse through an opening between houses, a gap so narrow his toes grazed the walls. Cornering like a madman, he rode for the Petit Pont, trying to keep a course that paralleled the river. A shot cracked past him and slammed into a wall. Charles kicked the horse harder and flattened himself on its neck. Praying that the pistol had only one barrel and that the man would have to fall back to reload, he kept on through the lanes. His horse skidded on rubbish and as it regained its feet, another shot ripped through the night. Pain seared Charles's ribs. Behind him, a horse screamed and a human cry turned into curses. Lying along his horse's neck, Charles made for a church tower gleaming above house roofs. He thought the other horse might have gone down, but he wasn't sure, and another accurate shot would be the end of him. If he could find grass, it would muffle his horse's hooves and let him put silent distance between himself and the shooter.

Luck was with him. The churchyard gate was open and the ground was uneven but soft going under old trees as he picked his way around the edge of the little enclosure. There was no sound behind him now. He reached back cautiously to feel his left side and tried to gauge how bad his wound was. Gritting his teeth, he pulled his cassock tight and was twisting it into a knot against the bleeding when something white flashed between his horse's hooves. A cat yowled and the horse jumped sideways and broke into a frenzied gallop.

Charles hauled uselessly on the reins and quickly decided that his only hope was to hang on. The terrified horse plunged out of the churchyard and along a winding street. Then it was running over rough ground, slowing and stumbling. Fighting weakness, Charles hugged the horse's neck. His hip was wet with blood now. A man ran toward him through the moon shadows and he tried desperately to turn the horse before the man could take aim. Then he was falling, trying to pray before he died, and then there was nothing.

“
Morbleu, mon père
, wake up, you have to walk, come on, now!”

The face looming over Charles disappeared. Strong hands gripped his armpits and hauled him to his feet, and an arm went around him. He groaned as it brushed against his wound.

“I know, I can feel it,” the man gabbled, “you're bleeding, but we'll both do worse than bleed if you don't walk! I heard the shot, and the devil that fired it can't be far away, that's right, keep walking now . . .”

“My horse,” Charles mumbled.

“I'm leading your horse, never mind, just keep putting one foot, then the other, that's it. We're not far.”

The voice and the hillocked, rubble-strewn ground seemed familiar, but Charles couldn't remember why. His side felt like someone had sharpened a dagger on it. After what felt like days, he was allowed to collapse facedown on straw.

“I can't see your side,” the man said. “We have to get your priest gown off. It's either rip it, which you surely don't want, or it's flip you and untie your belt.”

There was an unpleasant interval in flickering candlelight before the voice faded into dark and painful dreams. Then the thin light of early morning was seeping into the room and someone had an arm around his shoulders and was holding a cup to his mouth. He opened his eyes, gasped at the face looking down at him, and choked on the sour wine.

He was dead and this was an angel. A dirty, bedraggled angel whose eyes glittered like wet onyx with unshed tears. Greasy black curls hung over her tired face and she was beautiful beyond words. His bewildered gaze strayed around the ramshackle room. Heaven couldn't be this filthy. Though hell might be. But hell had no angels. Especially not Provençal-speaking ones.

“Softly, now, softly, slowly. The wound is not deep, but you bled like a pig and you're weak.” The angel settled herself beside him on the floor and gently stroked his hair back from his forehead. “I was just as surprised to see you, believe me.”

Charles stared, wine dribbling down his chin. “Pernelle?”

H
ello, Charles,” Pernelle said gravely, easing him back onto the thin pallet.

He groped for her hand, feeling with dismay how thin it was. “In God's name, Pernelle, what—how did you come here?” Wherever here was. A baby began to cry and she withdrew her hand and turned quickly toward the wailing.

“Lucie?” he croaked, realizing as he said it that the baby sounded too young.

The crying stopped abruptly and she turned back, shaking her head. The slowly growing light glazed her jutting cheekbones and showed him the gray shadows under her eyes.

“Where is she?” he said, speaking Provençal to her and realizing how much he'd missed it.

“Safe, I pray God every moment. Oh, Charles, I thought we'd never get anywhere, at the rate the widow's coach traveled. We were weeks on the road and when we reached her house, we had to stay a little because Julie was unwell. Then a soldier caught me as we were fording a stream in sight of Switzerland. Julie and Lucie were on the horse and they got across and away.” Her mouth trembled. “I pray they are in Geneva.” She looked down, smoothing the skirt of her stained blue gown and trying to steady her lips.

“I pray so, too. But how did you get
here
?” He looked around at the dirty floor, the makeshift brazier, the thin partitions and half-boarded window and realized that “here” was the murdered porter's room in the beggars' Louvre and he was lying on the dead man's pallet.

“I will tell you, Charles—but then it will be your turn to explain what
you
are doing here! Me, I was packed into a coach with seven other women and sent here. To a penitential convent over the river. I escaped two nights ago.”

“How, in the name of God's holy angels?”

“Out a third-floor window, along a ledge, down a tree, and over a wall. Thank God men always underestimate women. The back garden was unguarded.”

“Male stupidity is good for something, then,” he tried to joke. But the risk she had taken turned him sick. “And you ended up here.”

“Barbe brought me.”

“Who is Barbe?”

“The mother of the crying baby.” Pernelle nodded toward the partition. “When I saw you last night, I thought I had finally gone mad with worry and was seeing things. I still half believe I'm seeing things.” She fixed her black gaze on him and waited.