A Column of Fire (72 page)

‘If he’s a priest, how can he be Pierre’s father?’

‘Pierre’s mother is the priest’s “housekeeper”.’

‘So Pierre is the illegitimate son of an illegitimate son of a Guise.’

‘And then, to cap it all, they made Pierre marry a servant who had been impregnated by another randy Guise.’

‘Fascinating.’ Ned turned again and studied Pierre for a moment. He was richly dressed in a lavender doublet pinked to show a purple lining. ‘It doesn’t seem to have held him back.’

‘He’s a horrible man. He was rude to me once, so I told him off, and he’s hated me ever since.’

Pierre was talking to a tough-looking man who seemed not quite sufficiently well-dressed to be here, Ned saw. He said: ‘I’ve always found Pierre a bit sinister.’

‘A bit!’

Walsingham beckoned, and Ned left Louise and joined him as he moved to the doorway that led to the last and most important room, the king’s private chamber.

*

P
IERRE WATCHED
Walsingham pass into the private chamber with his sidekick, Ned Willard. He felt a wave of revulsion almost like nausea: those two were the enemies of everything that kept the Guise family powerful and wealthy. They were not noble; they came from a poor, backward country; and they were heretics – but, all the same, he feared and loathed them.

He was standing with his chief spy, Georges Biron, lord of Montagny, a little village in Poitiers. Biron was a minor peer with almost no income. His only asset was his ability to move easily in noble society. Under Pierre’s tutelage he had become sly and ruthless.

Biron said: ‘I’ve had Walsingham under surveillance for a month, but he isn’t involved in anything we can use against him. He has no lovers, male or female; he doesn’t gamble or drink; and he makes no attempts to bribe the king’s servants, or indeed anyone else. He’s either innocent or very discreet.’

‘I’m guessing discreet.’

Biron shrugged.

Pierre’s instinct told him the two English Protestants had to be up to something. He made a decision. ‘Switch the surveillance to the deputy.’

‘Willard.’ The surname was difficult to pronounce in French.

‘Same procedure. Twenty-four hours. Find out what his weaknesses are.’

‘Very good, sir.’

Pierre left him and followed Walsingham into the audience chamber. He was proud to be one of the privileged. On the other hand, he remembered, with bitter nostalgia, the days when he and the Guise brothers had actually lived in the palace with the royal family.

We will return, he vowed.

He crossed the room and bowed to Henri, the young duke of Guise. Henri had been twelve when Pierre had brought him the news of the assassination of his father and assured him that the man responsible for the murder was Gaspard de Coligny. Now Henri was twenty-one, but he had not forgotten his oath of revenge – Pierre had made sure of that.

Duke Henri was very like his late father: tall, fair, handsome and aggressive. At the age of fifteen he had gone to Hungary to fight against the Turks. All he lacked was the disfigurement that had given Duke François the nickname Scarface. Duke Henri had been taught that his destiny was to uphold the Catholic Church and the Guise family, and he had never questioned that.

His affair with Princess Margot was a sure sign of courage, one court wit had said, for Margot was a handful. Pierre imagined they must make a tempestuous couple.

A door opened, a trumpet sounded, everyone fell silent, and King Charles came in.

He had been ten years old when he became king, and at that time all the decisions had been made by other people, mainly his mother, Queen Caterina. He was twenty-one now, and could give his own orders, but he was in poor health – they said he had a weak chest – and he continued to be easily led, sometimes by Caterina, sometimes by others; unfortunately, not by the Guise family at present.

He began by dealing with courtesies and routine business, occasionally giving a hoarse, unwholesome cough, sitting on a carved and painted chair while everyone else in the room remained standing. But Pierre sensed he had an announcement to make, and it was not long coming. ‘The marriage between our sister, Margot, and Henri de Bourbon, the king of Navarre, was agreed in August the year before last,’ he said.

Pierre felt Henri de Guise tense up beside him. This was not just because he was Margot’s lover. The Bourbons were bitter enemies of the Guises. The two families had warred for supremacy under the French king since before either of these two Henris was born.

King Charles went on: ‘The marriage will reinforce the religious reconciliation of our kingdom.’

That was what the Guises feared. Pierre sensed the peacemaking mind of Queen Caterina behind the formal words of the king.

‘So I have decided that the wedding will take place on the eighteenth of August next.’

There was a buzz around the room: this was big news. Many had hoped or feared that the wedding would never happen. Now a date had been set. This was a triumph for the Bourbons and a blow to the Guises.

Henri was furious. ‘A blaspheming Bourbon, marrying into the royal family of France,’ he said with disgust.

Pierre was downcast. A threat to the Guise family was a threat to him. He could lose everything he had won. ‘When your Scottish cousin Mary Stuart married Francis it made us the top family,’ he said gloomily to Duke Henri.

‘Now the Bourbons will be top family.’

Henri’s political calculation was correct, but his rage was undoubtedly fuelled by sexual jealousy. Margot was probably an exciting lover: she had that wild look. And now she had been taken from Henri – by a Bourbon.

Pierre was able to be calmer and think more clearly. And he saw something that had not occurred to young Henri. ‘The marriage still may never happen,’ he said.

Henri had his father’s soldierly impatience with doubletalk. ‘What the devil do you mean?’

‘The wedding will be the biggest event in the story of French Protestantism. It will be the triumph of the Huguenots.’

‘How can that be good news?’

‘They will come to Paris from all over the country – those who are invited to the wedding, and thousands more who will want just to watch the procession and rejoice.’

‘It will be a foul spectacle. I can just see them strutting through the streets, flaunting their black clothes.’

Pierre lowered his voice. ‘And then we’ll see trouble.’

Henri’s face showed that he was beginning to understand. ‘You think there may be violence between triumphant Protestant visitors and the resentful Catholic citizens of Paris.’

‘Yes,’ said Pierre. ‘And that will be our chance.’

*

O
N HER WAY
to the warehouse Sylvie stopped at the tavern of St Étienne and ordered a plate of smoked eel for her midday meal. She also bought a tankard of weak beer and tipped the potboy to take it around the corner and deliver it to the back door of Pierre Aumande’s house. This was the signal for Pierre’s maid, Nath, to come to the tavern, if she could, and a few minutes later she appeared.

Now in her mid-twenties, Nath was as scrawny as ever, but she looked out at the world through eyes that were no longer frightened. She was a stalwart of the Protestant congregation in the room over the stables, and having a group of friends had given her a modest degree of confidence. Sylvie’s friendship had helped, too.

Sylvie got straight down to business. ‘This morning I saw Pierre with a priest I didn’t recognize,’ she said. ‘I happened to be passing the door when they came out.’ Something about the man had struck her vividly. His features were unremarkable – he had receding dark hair and a reddish-brown beard – but there was an intensity in his expression that made her think he was a dangerous zealot.

‘Yes, I was going to tell you about him,’ Nath said. ‘He’s English.’

‘Oh! Interesting. Did you get his name?’

‘Jean Langlais.’

‘Sounds like a false name for an Englishman.’

‘He’s never been to the house before, but Pierre seemed to know him, so they must have met somewhere else.’

‘Did you hear what they talked about?’

Nath shook her head. ‘Pierre closed the door.’

‘Pity.’

Nath looked anxious. ‘Did Pierre see you, when you walked by?’

She was right to be concerned, Sylvie thought. They did not want Pierre to suspect how closely he was being watched by the Protestants. ‘I don’t think he did. I certainly didn’t meet his eye. I’m not sure he’d recognize me from behind.’

‘He can’t have forgotten you.’

‘Hardly. He did marry me.’ Sylvie grimaced at the loathsome memory.

‘On the other hand, he’s never mentioned you.’

‘He thinks I’m not important any more. Which suits me fine.’

Sylvie finished her meal and they left the tavern separately. Sylvie walked north, heading for the rue du Mur. Ned Willard would be interested to hear about the visiting English priest, she guessed.

She had liked Ned. So many men regarded a woman selling something as a fair target for sexual banter, or worse, as if she would suck a man off just to get him to buy a jar of ink. But Ned had talked to her with interest and respect. He was a man of some power and importance, but he showed no arrogance; in fact, he had a rather modest charm. All the same she suspected he was no softie. Hanging alongside his coat she had seen a sword and a long Spanish dagger that looked as if they were not merely for decoration.

No one else was in sight in the rue du Mur when Sylvie took the key from behind the loose brick and let herself into the windowless old stable that had served her for so many years as a hiding place for illegal books.

Her stocks were running low again. She would have to order more from Guillaume in Geneva.

Her correspondence with Guillaume was handled by a Protestant banker in Rouen who had a cousin in Geneva. The banker was able to receive money from Sylvie and have his cousin pay Guillaume. Sylvie still had to sail down the Seine to Rouen to do business, but it was a lot easier than going to Geneva. She would collect her shipment personally and bring it upriver to Paris. With the help of the cargo broker Luc Mauriac she paid all the bribes necessary to make sure that her crates of ‘stationery’ were not inspected by customs. It was risky, like any criminal activity, but so far she had survived.

She found two Bibles and packed them into her satchel, then walked to the shop in the rue de la Serpente, a narrow street in the university district. She went in by the back door and called to her mother: ‘It’s only me.’

‘I’m with a customer.’

Sylvie picked up the paper and ink ordered by Ned and stacked the parcels on a small handcart. She thought of telling her mother about the large order she had won from the charming Englishman, and found herself reluctant to do so. She felt a little foolish for being so taken with him after one short meeting. Isabelle was a strong character with decided opinions, and Sylvie always had to be ready either to agree or give good reasons for disagreeing. They had no secrets from one another: in the evening each would tell the other everything that had happened during the day. But by then Sylvie would have seen Ned again. She might not like him the second time.

‘I have a delivery to make,’ she called out, and she left the shop.

She pushed the handcart along the rue de la Serpente, past the grand church of St Severin, across the broad rue St Jacques, alongside the pale little church of St-Julien-le-Pauvre, through the crowded market of the place Maubert with its gallows, to the English embassy. It was hard work on the cobbled streets, but she was used to it.

It took only a few minutes, and when she arrived Ned had not yet returned from the Louvre. She unloaded his stationery from the cart and a servant helped her carry it upstairs.

Then she waited in the hall. She sat on a bench with her satchel at her feet. It had a strap that she sometimes fastened to her wrist, so that it could not be stolen: books were costly and Paris was full of thieves. But she reckoned she was safe here.

A few minutes later Walsingham came in. He had a hard, intelligent face, and Sylvie immediately put him down as a force to be reckoned with. He was dressed in black, and the white collar at his neck was plain linen, not lace. His hat was a simple cap without feathers or other decoration. Clearly he wanted everyone who looked at him to know immediately that he was a Puritan.

Ned came in behind him, in his blue doublet. He smiled when he saw her. ‘This is the young lady I told you about,’ he said to Walsingham, courteously speaking French so that Sylvie could understand. ‘Mademoiselle Thérèse St Quentin.’

Walsingham shook her hand. ‘You’re a brave girl,’ he said. ‘Keep up the good work.’

Walsingham disappeared into an adjoining room and Ned led Sylvie upstairs to the room that seemed to serve him as both office and dressing room. His stationery was on his writing table. ‘The king announced a date for the wedding,’ he said.

Sylvie did not have to ask which wedding. ‘Good news!’ she said. ‘Perhaps this peace treaty will be the one that lasts.’

Ned held up a cautionary hand. ‘It hasn’t happened yet. But it’s scheduled for the eighteenth of August.’

‘I can’t wait to tell my mother.’

‘Have a seat.’

Sylvie sat down. ‘I have some news that may interest you,’ she said. ‘Do you know of a man called Pierre Aumande de Guise?’

‘I certainly do,’ Ned said. ‘Why?’

‘An English Catholic priest using the name Jean Langlais visited him this morning.’

‘Thank you,’ Ned said. ‘You’re quite right to think that interests me.’

‘I happened to pass the house as the priest came out and I saw him.’

‘What does he look like?’

‘He wore a cassock and a wooden cross. He’s a little taller than average, but otherwise I noticed nothing distinctive about him. I only glimpsed him.’

‘Would you recognize him again?’

‘I think so.’

‘Thank you for telling me. You’re very well informed. How do you know Pierre Aumande?’

The answer to the question was personal and painful. She did not know Ned well enough to go into that. ‘It’s a long story,’ she said. To change the subject she asked: ‘Is your wife with you here in Paris?’