A Plague of Lies Read Online Free PDF Page B

anything you hear. Gossip, who Conti talks to, everything. It would be a great favor to me if you would do this.”
    “Why do I think you’re not going to tell me why you’re asking this?”
    “Because you’ll listen more acutely if you’re not trying to hear what you think I want you to hear. Send me word when you return to Paris, and I will come to the college to hear what you have to tell me.”
    Charles hesitated, his interest piqued and his conscience protesting. On the Friday just past, his confessor had reminded him—yet again—that he must learn to live quietly within the bounds of his lowly place in the Society.
On the other hand
, his logical self said,
isn’t Père Le Picart sending you to Versailles for the good of the king?
    “Very well. If I hear anything, I will certainly tell you—though you know that I will have to tell Père Le Picart first. And I will not be free to come and go on my own at court.”
    La Reynie laughed. “I don’t recall that that has ever stopped you,
maître
.”
    The shot went home, and Charles winced. “Anyway, I cannot imagine that a lowly Jesuit scholastic like myself will hear or see much of use to you.”
    “Oh, come, surely you know that it is in the presence of those who don’t count that people are careless.”
    “You flatter me,” Charles said, straight-faced, and they both laughed.
    La Reynie’s eyes went to the bookshop again, and Charles, watching him, thought about how much his opinion of the man had changed. Something he would have sworn would never happen when they were first thrown together. The early sun was strong on the
lieutenant-général
’s face, and Charles saw how deep its lines were growing. Well, the man was sixty-one, more than twice Charles’s own twenty-nine. Sixty-one was a full age for working day and night, as La Reynie did. He turned back to Charles, reaching to steady a radish seller who stumbled beside him. The woman glanced up at him, mumbled her thanks, and walked on a few paces. Then she stared, round-eyed, over her shoulder as she realized who had helped her. La Reynie’s courtesy to the lowly street vendor made Charles respect him all the more.
    “When you return,” La Reynie repeated, “send for me.”
    “I will. Monsieur La Reynie—please—how is it with Reine?” Reine was a beggarwoman whose mysterious past was intertwined somehow with La Reynie’s own, though he refused to say much about how and why.
    La Reynie’s chin came up and his eyes turned wary.
    Having good reason to know that this man’s secrets were inviolable, Charles said quickly, “It’s only that I think of her sometimes and hope she’s well.”
    The wariness softened and the older man smiled fleetingly. “She’s well. Growing older. Like me. But well. She’s asked about you, too.”
    Charles smiled, inordinately pleased by that. “She’s in my prayers.”
    “As, I hope, am I. I wish you a good ride. And that you will go about your court business looking as lowly as possible and letting your ears flap.” He looked toward Jouvancy. “I wish you both a good journey.”
    Charles called Jouvancy’s attention, the priest signed a blessing toward La Reynie, and the two Jesuits rode on. Telling himself that whatever trouble came of what he’d just been asked to do, it would be La Reynie’s trouble and not his, Charles nudged Flamme into the lead. They passed the Convent of St. Michel and the line of the old walls, and the road angled southwest, past the Prince of Condé’s townhouse and toward the village of Vaugirard. Beyond Vaugirard they would join the royal Versailles road, which left Paris on the Right Bank and crossed the Seine at the village of Sevres. The ride from Paris to Versailles was a short one for a man in a hurry, but Charles had strict orders to take the journey slowly for Jouvancy’s sake, stopping often, and they did not expect to arrive until the afternoon.
    “How far is it to Versailles, exactly?” Jouvancy asked,