A Plague of Lies Read Free Page A

summer ballet and tragedy was built each year. As Charles stood at the window, he began imagining scenery to go with the final section of his ballet
livret
. This year’s ballet was called
La France Victorieuse sous Louis le Grand
. The title, like the school’s name, was in honor of King Louis XIV. Charles knew that one reason for the trouble he was having with the
livret
was his dislike of Louis XIV’s passion for glory, which the ballet would so grandly praise. Charles especially deplored the king’s indifference to his people’s suffering under the draconian taxes that paid for the glory-bringing wars. And he particularly loathed the Most Christian King of France, as Louis styled himself, for outlawing and hunting France’s Protestants—calledHuguenots—in God’s name. Part of his own family was Protestant, and he knew their suffering all too well.
    But Holy Mother Church—the Catholic Church—had nurtured Charles all his life, and he loved her. He was certain that God was Love. Demanding, relentless, even terrifying Love, but Love nonetheless. Which meant that cruelty in God’s name was blasphemy. Which amounted to calling the king a blasphemer. Which was treason, pure and simple.
    Even as Charles grappled with that thought, King Louis XIV himself stared blindly at him from the top of the Cour d’honneur’s north wall. The recently installed bust was a copy of one shattered by a storm-felled tree the year before, and Charles had developed a teeth-gritting dislike of those sightless eyes overseeing his daily comings and goings. He turned away from Louis and watched the dripping water dig a small pool in the gravel under the window. The tiny but deepening pool comforted him a little. Small persistent forces often won in the end. He had the sudden thought that maybe he could slip something into the ballet
livret
that didn’t praise Louis, some small piece of a different truth to raise disquiet in those with ears to hear… But even as he thought it, he knew it was impossible. Père Jouvancy would never let it pass.
Of course he wouldn’t, it would be treason on the college stage
, the cool-eyed critic in him said acidly.
The king is the divinely anointed body of France. Kings preserve order. Order allows good to flourish.
Charles shook his head.
But whose good?
he thought back at it. Not waiting for its predictable answer, he turned from the window to his work.
    The ending bell finally rang. The students filed out and were met by a
cubiculaire
, a Jesuit scholastic who shepherded groups of boarding students to and from classes and saw that their chambers had sheets, candles, braziers, and the like.
    As the
cubiculaire
chivied the boys toward their living quartersin the student courtyard, Charles went gratefully out into the watery late-afternoon sunshine. But before he was halfway across the court, someone called his name, and he looked back to see the college rector, Père Jacques Le Picart, the head of Louis le Grand.
    Bowing, Charles greeted him, noting Le Picart’s muddy riding boots and spattered cloak. “You’ve had a wet ride,
mon père
.”
    “Wet enough,
maître
. The storm caught me on the way back from Versailles.”
    They walked together to the rear door of the main building where their rooms were, Le Picart asking Charles about his own afternoon and nodding in sympathy at his worry over the approaching rehearsals. But the rector seemed preoccupied, and before they reached the door, he said, “Have you visited Père Jouvancy today,
maître
?”
    Charles shook his head. “I’ve had no chance,
mon père
. But Père Montville told me as we were leaving the refectory after dinner that he’s much better and able to eat now.”
    “Good.” The rector studied Charles for a moment in silence. “Will you come with me to the infirmary? I must speak with him. The matter may concern you, as well.”
    “Of course,
mon père
.” Wondering uneasily what “the matter” was, Charles turned with Le