A Plague of Lies Read Free Page B

Picart toward the infirmary court.
    Most of the previous month had been blessedly warm after the hard winter, and the physick garden in the infirmary courtyard was already blooming. The afternoon’s rain had left the blossoms somewhat bedraggled, but the air was drenched in fresh sweet scents. Charles filled his lungs eagerly. Which was a good thing, because the fathers’ infirmary, below the student infirmary and beside the ground-floor room for making medicines, smelled pungently of sickness. Frère Brunet, the lay brother infirmarian, turned from a bed at the room’s far end as Le Picartand Charles entered and bustled toward them, his soft shoes whispering along the rush matting between the two short rows of beds. All but two beds were empty. Before he reached them, Père Jouvancy called out, “Ah,
mon père
,
maître
, welcome, come in, come in!”
    His bed was in the left-hand row, between two windows, and he was sitting up among his gray blankets, the fitful sunshine warming the new color in his face.
    “I would ask you how he is, Frère Brunet,” Le Picart said to the infirmarian, “but I see for myself that he really is better.” He smiled affectionately at Jouvancy. “You’ve had a hard time of it,
mon père
. But if you feel as much improved as you look, you will soon be back among us.”
    “Oh, he will, certainly he will,” Brunet said, surveying his patient with satisfaction.
    “And Père Pallu?” Le Picart asked, looking toward the other bed.
    Brunet shook his head. “Poor man, he seems to be in for the same hard time. Oh, he will no doubt do well enough, but for now he is suffering fever, chills, aches in his body, sore throat.” Brunet glanced ruefully over his shoulder. “And he can keep nothing down.”
    “Sit,
mon père
, if you have the time,” Jouvancy said hopefully, and Le Picart pulled the only stool nearer and sat down. As befitted a lowly scholastic, Charles remained standing at the foot of the bed.
    “Visit, then,” Brunet said, laying a hand on Jouvancy’s forehead and nodding approvingly. “But see you don’t tire him.” Behind him, the sound of retching began and he hurried away to Père Pallu.
    Charles swallowed hard. In several years as a soldier, he’dhelped care for bloody wounds without turning a hair. But spewing—his own or anyone else’s—turned him weak-kneed.
    Jouvancy beamed at Le Picart and Charles. “Thank you for coming, both of you! I only need to get my strength back now.” He shook a finger at Charles. “So do not become too fond of your independence,
maître
, I will be back before you know it.”
    “
Mon père
,” Charles said fervently, “I will give thanks on my knees when you are back! I fear I am a poor substitute.”
    Jouvancy eyed him shrewdly. “Greek today, was it?”
    “Greek indeed.”
    “Yes, on Greek days, I often find myself moved to volunteer for the missions.” His blue eyes grew dreamy. “Less use for Greek in the missions. And I understand they do theatrical pieces, operas, even.”
    Le Picart laughed. “That is as good an opening as any for what I have come to say. Because I do want you to go somewhere.”
    “I will, of course, go wherever you bid me,
mon père
. To Tibet, if you say so!”
    “Somewhere much closer to home. As soon as you’re well enough to travel, I want you to go to Versailles.”
    Jouvancy blinked. “And what might a lowly rhetoric professor do at court?”
    “You are a connection of the d’Aubigné family, I believe.”
    “D’Aubigné?” Charles looked in surprise at Jouvancy. That was Madame de Maintenon’s name, the king’s second wife, who was born Françoise d’Aubigné. “That makes you nearly a relation of King Louis,
mon père
!”
    “Yes, I suppose it does. My father’s mother was a cousin of the d’Aubignés. But that makes me as distant as China from the trunk of the family tree,” Jouvancy said. “For which I am thankfulwhen I think of how worthless Madame de Maintenon’s