A Column of Fire (36 page)

Afterwards the entire congregation was invited back to the bookshop. They filled the shop and the apartment upstairs. Sylvie and her mother had spent all week preparing food: saffron broth, pork pies with ginger, cheese-and-onion tarts, custard pastries, apple fritters, quince cheese. Sylvie’s father was uncharacteristically genial, pouring wine into flat-bottomed glasses and offering platters of food. Everyone ate and drank standing up, except for the bridal couple and the marquess and marchioness, who were privileged to sit at the dining table.

Sylvie thought Pierre seemed a little tense, which was unusual for him: in general he was at his relaxed best on big social occasions, listening attentively to the men and charming the women, never failing to say that a new baby was beautiful, no matter what it looked like. But today he was restless. He went to the window twice, and when the cathedral bells struck the hour, he jumped. Sylvie guessed he was worried about being at a Protestant gathering in the heart of the city. ‘Relax,’ she said to him. ‘This is just an ordinary wedding celebration. No one knows we’re Protestants.’

‘Of course,’ he said, and smiled anxiously.

Sylvie was thinking mainly about tonight. She was looking forward to it eagerly, but she was also just a little nervous. ‘Losing your virginity doesn’t hurt much, and it’s only for a second,’ her mother had said. ‘Some girls hardly feel it. And don’t worry if you don’t bleed – not everyone does.’ Sylvie was not actually worried about that. She was longing for the physical intimacy of lying in bed with Pierre, kissing him and touching him to her heart’s content, without having to hold back. Her anxiety was about whether he would love her body. She felt it was not perfect for him. Statues of women always had perfectly matched breasts, whereas hers were not quite the same. And naked women in paintings had almost-invisible private parts, sometimes covered just with a faint down, but hers were plump and hairy. What would he think when he looked for the first time? She was too embarrassed to share these worries with her mother.

It crossed her mind to ask Marchioness Louise, who was only three years older, and had a conspicuously large bust. Then, just as she decided that Louise was not approachable enough, her thoughts were interrupted. She heard raised voices down in the shop, then someone screamed. Strangely, Pierre went to the window again, though the noise undoubtedly came from inside the building. She heard breaking glass. What was going on? It sounded more and more like a fight. Had someone got drunk? How could they spoil her wedding day?

The marquess and marchioness looked fearful. Pierre had turned pale. He stood with his back to the window, looking through the open door to the landing and the staircase. Sylvie ran to the top of the stairs. Through a rear window she saw some of the guests fleeing through the backyard. As she looked down the stairs, a man she did not know started to come up. He wore a leather jerkin and carried a club. She realized with horror that this was worse than a drunken brawl among the wedding guests; it was an official raid. Her anger turned to fear. Scared by the brute coming up the stairs, she ran back into the dining room.

The man followed her. He was short and powerfully built, and he had lost most of one ear: he looked terrifying. All the same, Pastor Bernard, who was a frail fifty-five-year-old, stood in front of him and said bravely: ‘Who are you and what do you want?’

‘I’m Gaston Le Pin, captain of the Guise family household guard, and you’re a blaspheming heretic,’ the man said. He raised his club and struck the pastor. Bernard turned away from the blow, but it caught him across the shoulders and he fell to the ground.

Le Pin looked at the other guests, who were trying to press themselves into the walls. ‘Anyone else got any questions?’ he said. No one spoke.

Two more thugs came into the room and stood behind Le Pin.

Then, incomprehensibly, Le Pin addressed Pierre. ‘Which one is the marquess?’ he said.

Sylvie was bewildered. What was going on?

Even more bafflingly, Pierre pointed to the marquess of Nîmes.

Le Pin said: ‘And I suppose the bitch with the big tits is the marchioness?’

Pierre nodded dumbly.

Sylvie felt as if the world had been turned upside down. Her wedding had become a violent nightmare in which no one was what they seemed.

Marchioness Louise stood up and said indignantly to Le Pin: ‘How dare you?’

Le Pin slapped her face hard. She screamed and fell back. Her cheek reddened instantly, and she began to cry.

The portly old marquess half rose from his chair, realized it was pointless, and sat back down again.

Le Pin spoke to the men who had followed him in. ‘Take those two and make sure they don’t get away.’

The marquess and marchioness were dragged from the room.

Pastor Bernard, still on the floor, pointed at Pierre and said: ‘You devil, you’re a spy!’

Everything fell into place in Sylvie’s mind. Pierre had organized this raid, she realized with horror. He had infiltrated the congregation in order to betray them. He had pretended to fall in love with her only to win their trust. That was why he had dithered so long about the date of the wedding.

She stared at him aghast, seeing a monster where once there had been the man she loved. It was as if her arm had been chopped off and she was looking at the bleeding stump – except that this hurt more. It was not just her wedding day that was ruined, it was her whole life. She wanted to die.

She moved towards Pierre. ‘How could you?’ she screamed, advancing on him, not knowing what she intended to do. ‘Judas Iscariot, how could you?’

Then something hit her on the back of the head, and the world went black.

*

‘O
NE THING TROUBLED ME
about the coronation,’ said Pierre to Cardinal Charles.

They were at the vast Guise family palace in the Vieille rue du Temple, in the opulent small parlour where Pierre had first met Charles and his scarred elder brother, François. Charles had bought more paintings since then, all biblical scenes but highly charged with sexuality: Adam and Eve, Susanna and the elders, Potiphar’s wife.

Sometimes Charles was interested in what Pierre had to say; at other times he would shut Pierre up with a casually dismissive flick of his long, elegant fingers. Today he was in a receptive mood. ‘Go on.’

Pierre quoted: ‘Francis and Mary, by the grace of God king and queen of France, Scotland, England and Ireland.’

‘As indeed they are. Francis is king of France. Mary is the queen of Scots. And, by right of inheritance and by the authority of the Pope, Mary is queen of England and Ireland.’

‘And they have those words carved on their new furniture and embossed on the queen’s new dining plates for all to see – including the English ambassador.’

‘Your point is?’

‘By encouraging Mary Stuart to tell the world she is the rightful queen of England, we have made an enemy of Queen Elizabeth.’

‘So what? Elizabeth is hardly a threat to us.’

‘But what have we achieved? When we make an enemy there should be some benefit to us. Otherwise we have harmed only ourselves.’

A look of greed came over Charles’s long face. ‘We’re going to rule over the greatest European empire since Charlemagne,’ he said. ‘It will be greater than that of Felipe of Spain, because his dominions are scattered and therefore impossible to govern, whereas the new French empire will be compact, its wealth and strength concentrated. We will hold sway from Edinburgh to Marseilles, and control the ocean from the North Sea to the Bay of Biscay.’

Pierre took the risk of arguing. ‘If we’re serious, we would have done better to conceal our intentions from the English. Now they’re forewarned.’

‘And what will they do? Elizabeth rules a poor and barbarous country that has no army.’

‘It has a navy.’

‘Not much of one.’

‘But, given the difficulty of attacking an island . . .’

Charles gave the flick of the fingers that indicated he had lost interest. ‘On to a more immediate topic,’ he said. He handed Pierre a sheet of heavyweight paper with an official seal. ‘There it is,’ he said. ‘The annulment of your marriage.’

Pierre took the paper gratefully. The grounds were clear – the marriage had never been consummated – but even so it could be difficult to get an annulment. He felt relieved. ‘That was quick.’

‘I’m not a cardinal for nothing. And it was gutsy of you to go through with the ceremony.’

‘It was worth it.’ Hundreds of Protestants had been arrested all over the city in a co-ordinated series of raids planned by Charles and Pierre. ‘Even if most of them have been let off with fines.’

‘If they recant their beliefs we can’t burn them to death – especially if they’re aristocrats, like the marquess of Nîmes and his wife. Pastor Bernard will die – he refused to recant, even under torture. And we found parts of a French Bible in the print shop, so your ex-wife’s father can’t escape punishment by recanting. Giles Palot will burn.’

‘All of which makes the Guise family Catholic heroes.’

‘Thanks to you.’

Pierre bowed his head in acknowledgement, glowing with pride. His satisfaction was profound. This was what he had wanted: to be the trusted aide to the most powerful man in the land. It was his moment of triumph. He tried not to show just how exultant he felt.

Charles said: ‘But there’s another reason why I was in a hurry to get you an annulment.’

Pierre frowned. What now? Charles was the only man in Paris who was as devious as Pierre himself.

Charles went on: ‘There’s someone else I want you to marry.’

‘Good God!’ Pierre was rocked. He had not been expecting that. His thoughts immediately flew to Véronique de Guise. Had Charles changed his mind about letting Pierre marry her? His heart filled with hope. Was it possible that two dreams could come true?

Charles said: ‘My nephew Alain, who is only fourteen, has seduced a maid and got her pregnant. He can’t possibly marry her.’

Pierre’s spirits fell with a painful crash. ‘A maid?’

‘Alain will have an arranged political marriage, like all Guise men except those of us who are called to the priesthood. But I’d like to take care of the maid. I feel sure you’ll understand that, having been born in similar circumstances.’

Pierre felt sick. He had thought the triumph he and Charles had enjoyed might elevate his status closer to that of a member of the family. Instead, he was being reminded of how far below them he really was. ‘You want me to marry a maid?’

Charles laughed. ‘Don’t speak as if it’s a death sentence!’

‘More like life imprisonment.’ What was he going to do about this? Charles did not like to be thwarted. If Pierre refused this demand it could blight his flowering career.

‘We’ll give you a pension,’ Charles said. ‘Fifty livres a month—’

‘I don’t care about money.’

Charles raised his eyebrows at the insolence of an interruption. ‘Indeed? What do you care about?’

Pierre realized there was one reward that might make the sacrifice worthwhile. ‘I want the right to call myself Pierre Aumande de Guise.’

‘Marry her, and we’ll see.’

‘No.’ Pierre knew he was risking everything now. ‘My name on the marriage certificate must be Pierre Aumande de Guise. Otherwise I will not sign it.’ He had never been this audacious with Charles. He held his breath, waiting for the reaction, dreading an explosion.

Charles said: ‘You’re a determined little bastard, aren’t you?’

‘I wouldn’t be so useful to you otherwise.’

‘That’s true.’ Charles was silent and thoughtful for a minute. Then he said: ‘All right, I’ll agree.’

Pierre felt weak with relief.

Charles said: ‘From now on you are Pierre Aumande de Guise.’

‘Thank you.’

‘The girl is in the next room along the corridor. Go and see her. Get acquainted.’

Pierre got up and went to the door.

‘Be nice to her,’ Charles added. ‘Give her a kiss.’

Pierre left the room without replying. Outside the door he stood still for a moment, feeling shaky, trying to take it all in. He did not know whether to be elated or dismayed. He had escaped from one unwanted marriage only to fall into another. But he was a Guise!

He pulled himself together. He had better take a look at his wife-to-be. She was low-class, obviously. But she might be pretty, given that she had enticed Alain de Guise. On the other hand, it did not take much to win the sexual interest of a boy of fourteen: willingness was the most important attraction.

He walked along the passage to the next door and went in without knocking.

A girl sat on the sofa with her head in her hands, weeping. She wore the plain dress of a servant. She was quite plump, Pierre saw, perhaps on account of the pregnancy.

When he closed the door behind him she looked up.

He knew her. It was plain Odette, the maid of Véronique. She would forever remind him of the girl he had not been allowed to marry.

Odette recognized him and smiled bravely through her tears, showing her crooked teeth. ‘Are you my saviour?’ she said.

‘God help me,’ said Pierre.

*

A
FTER
G
ILES
P
ALOT
was burned to death, Sylvie’s mother went into a depression.

For Sylvie this was the most shocking of the traumas she suffered, more seismic than Pierre’s betrayal, even sadder than her father’s execution. In Sylvie’s mind, her mother was a rock that could never crumble, the foundation of her life. Isabelle had put salve on her childish injuries, fed her when she was hungry, and calmed her father’s volcanic temper. But now Isabelle was helpless. She sat in a chair all day. If Sylvie lit a fire, Isabelle would look at it; if Sylvie prepared food, Isabelle would eat it mechanically; if Sylvie did not help her get dressed, Isabelle would spend all day in her underclothes.

Giles’s fate had been sealed when a stack of newly printed sheets for Bibles in French had been found in the shop. The sheets were ready to be cut into pages and bound into volumes, after which they would have been taken to the secret warehouse in the rue du Mur. But there had not been time to finish them. So Giles was guilty, not just of heresy but of promoting heresy. There had been no mercy for him.