A Column of Fire (79 page)

That phrase on its own would have aroused instant suspicion in an experienced courtier, but Le Charron was overwhelmed by Pierre’s apparent closeness to the monarch, and he was desperately eager to please. ‘Anything, of course,’ he said.

‘If the king’s life is in danger, the bell of Saint-Germain l’Auxerrois will ring continuously, and other churches with trustworthy Catholic priests will follow suit, all over Paris. That will be the alarm signal to you that the Huguenots have risen up against the king, and you must attack them.’

‘Could that really happen?’ Le Charron said, rapt.

‘It could happen tonight, so be prepared.’

It did not occur to Le Charron to doubt Pierre. He accepted what he was told as fact. ‘I will be ready,’ he vowed.

Pierre took the book with the black cover from his saddlebag. He ripped out the leaves bearing the names of noble assassins and victims. The rest of the pages were devoted to ordinary Paris Huguenots. He handed the book to Le Charron. ‘Here is a list of every known Protestant in Paris, with addresses,’ he said.

Le Charron was amazed. ‘I had no idea that such a document existed!’

‘I have been preparing it for many years,’ Pierre said, not without a touch of pride. ‘Tonight it meets its destiny.’

Le Charron took the book reverently. ‘Thank you.’

Pierre said solemnly: ‘If you hear the bells, it is your duty to kill everyone named in that book.’

Le Charron swallowed. Until now he had not appreciated that he might be involved in a massacre. But Pierre had led him to this point so carefully, by such gradual and reasonable stages, that he nodded agreement. He even added a suggestion of his own. ‘In case it comes to fighting, I will order the militia to identify themselves, perhaps with a white armband, so that they know each other.’

‘Very good idea,’ said Pierre. ‘I’ll tell his majesty that you came up with that.’

Le Charron was thrilled. ‘That would be a great honour.’

‘You’d better get going. You have a lot to do.’

‘Yes.’ Charron mounted his horse, still clutching the black book. Before leaving he suffered a troubled moment. ‘Let us hope that none of these precautions proves necessary.’

‘Amen,’ said Pierre insincerely.

Le Charron trotted away.

Biron mounted his horse.

Pierre paused a minute, looking back at the Italian-style palace he had just left. He could hardly believe he had fooled its royal occupants. But when rulers were this close to panic, they were desperate for action, and eager to agree to any plan that was halfway promising.

Anyway, it was not over yet. All his efforts in the past few days had failed, and there was still time for tonight’s even more complicated scheme to go awry.

He lifted himself into the saddle. ‘Rue de Béthisy,’ he said to Biron. ‘Let’s go.’

Coligny’s lodging was close. The king’s guards were outside the gate. Some were standing in line with arquebuses and lances; others, presumably resting, sat on the ground nearby, their weapons to hand. They made a formidable barrier.

Pierre reined in and said to a guard: ‘A message from his majesty the king for the lord of Cosseins.’

‘I will give him the message,’ said the guard.

‘No, you won’t. Go and fetch him.’

‘He’s sleeping.’

‘Do you want me to go back to the Louvre and say that your master would not get out of his bed to receive a message from the king?’

‘No, sir, of course not, pardon me.’ The man went off and returned a minute later with Cosseins, who had evidently been sleeping in his clothes.

‘There has been a change of plan,’ Pierre said to Cosseins. ‘The Huguenots have conspired to seize the king’s person and take control of the Government. The plot has been foiled by loyal men, but the king wants Coligny arrested.’

Cosseins was not as naïve as Le Charron. He looked sceptical, perhaps thinking that the duke of Guise’s advisor was an unlikely choice as the king’s messenger. ‘Is there some confirmation of this?’ he said worriedly.

‘You don’t have to arrest him yourself. The king will send someone.’

Cosseins shrugged. That did not require him to commit himself to anything. ‘Very well,’ he said.

‘Just be ready,’ said Pierre, and he rode off.

He had done everything he could. With a whole raft of plausible small deceptions, he had smoothed the way for Armageddon. Now all he could do was hope that the people he was trying to manipulate, from the king all the way down to the priest of Saint-Germain l’Auxerrois, would behave in accordance with his calculations.

The crowd in the Vieille rue du Temple had diminished with nightfall, but there were still enough angry Huguenots to cause Pierre and Biron to enter the palace by the side door.

The first question was whether Duke Henri would be prepared. The young duke was usually eager for action, but he had lost faith in Pierre, and it was possible that he had changed his mind and decided not to muster his men.

Pierre was relieved and thrilled to see fifty armed men assembled in the inner courtyard, grooms holding their saddled horses. He noticed Rasteau, the man with no nose, and his perennial companion Brocard. Blazing torches glinted off breastplates and helmets. This was a disciplined group of gentry and men-at-arms, and they remained quiet while they waited, in a scene of hushed menace.

Pierre pushed through the crowd to the centre, where Duke Henri stood. As soon as he saw Pierre he said: ‘Well?’

‘All is ready,’ Pierre said. ‘The king agreed to everything we wanted. The provost is arming the militia and deploying the city artillery as we speak.’ I hope, he thought.

‘And Cosseins?’

‘I told him that the king is sending someone to arrest Coligny. If he doesn’t believe me, you’ll have to fight your way in.’

‘So be it.’ Henri turned to his men and raised his voice. ‘We leave by the front gate,’ he said. ‘And death to anyone who gets in our way.’

They mounted up. A groom handed Pierre a sword belt with a sheathed weapon. He buckled on the belt and swung himself up into the saddle. He would try not to get personally involved in the fighting, if he could, but it was as well to be equipped.

He looked through the arch to the outer gateway and saw two servants swinging the great iron gates back. The mob outside was momentarily nonplussed. They had no plan for this situation: they were not expecting open doors. Then Duke Henri kicked his horse and the squadron pounded out with a sudden earthquake-rumble of hooves. The mob scattered in terror, but not all could get away. Amid screams, the big horses charged the crowd, the riders swinging their swords, and dozens fell wounded or dead.

The killing had begun.

They thundered through the streets at dangerous speed. Those few people out this late scurried out of the way for fear of their lives. Pierre was thrilled and apprehensive. This was the moment he had been working towards ever since King Charles had signed the disgraceful Peace of St Germain. Tonight’s action would show everyone that France would never tolerate heresy – and that the Guise family could not be ignored. Pierre was scared, but full of desperate eagerness.

He worried about Cosseins. Pierre wished he had been able to win a pledge of cooperation from him, but the man was no fool. If he resisted now, there would be a fierce skirmish – which might give Coligny time to escape. The whole scheme could founder on that detail.

The Guise palace was on the east side of town, and Coligny’s lodging was on the western edge, but the distance was small, and at that time of night there were few obstructions in the streets. In a few minutes the horsemen were in the rue de Béthisy.

Cosseins’s men must have heard the hoofbeats at a distance, and now, as Pierre picked out Coligny’s residence in the starlight, the guards presented a more orderly and formidable picture than they had half an hour ago, lining up in rows in front of the gate, lances and guns at the ready.

Duke Henri reined in and shouted: ‘I am here to arrest Gaspard de Coligny. Open the gate in the name of the king!’

Cosseins stepped forward, his face lit fiendishly by the torches of the Guise men. ‘I’ve had no such instructions,’ he said.

Henri said: ‘Cosseins, you are a good Catholic and a loyal servant of his majesty King Charles, but I will not take no for an answer. I have my orders from the king, and I shall carry them out, even if I have to kill you first.’

Cosseins hesitated. He was in a difficult position, as Pierre had calculated. Cosseins had been assigned to protect Coligny, yet it was perfectly plausible that the king had changed his mind and ordered the arrest. And if Cosseins now resisted Henri, and the two groups of armed men came to blows, much blood would be shed – probably including Cosseins’s own.

As Pierre had hoped, Cosseins decided to save his own life now, and take any consequences later. ‘Open up!’ he shouted.

The gates came open, and the Guise men charged jubilantly into the courtyard.

The main entrance to the house had a large double door of heavy timber with iron reinforcements, and as Pierre rode into the courtyard he saw it slam shut. Coligny’s personal bodyguards would be on the other side of it, he presumed. The Guise men began to attack the door with swords, and one shot out the lock. Pierre thought frustratedly how foolish they had been not to bring a couple of sledgehammers. Once again he fretted that the delay might allow Coligny to escape. No one had thought to check for a back entrance.

But the door yielded to force and burst open. There was fierce fighting up the stairs as half a dozen guards tried to keep the Guises back, but Coligny’s men were outnumbered and in minutes they all lay dead or dying.

Pierre leaped off his horse and ran up the stairs. The men-at-arms were throwing doors open. ‘In here!’ one of them yelled, and Pierre followed the voice into a grand bedroom.

Coligny was kneeling at the foot of the bed, wearing a nightgown, his silver hair covered with a cap, his wounded arm in a sling. He was praying aloud.

The men-at-arms hesitated to murder a man at prayer.

But they had all done worse things. Pierre yelled: ‘What are you scared of? Kill him, damn you!’

A Guise man called Besme thrust his sword into Coligny’s chest. When he pulled it out, bright blood pumped from the wound. Coligny fell forward.

Pierre rushed to the window and threw it open. He saw Henri down in the forecourt, still on horseback. ‘Duke Henri!’ he shouted. ‘I am proud to tell you that Coligny is dead!’

Henri shouted back: ‘Show me the body!’

Pierre turned into the room. ‘Besme,’ he said, ‘bring the body here.’

The man put his hands under Coligny’s arms and dragged the corpse across the floor.

Pierre said: ‘Lift it up to the window.’

Besme complied.

Henri shouted: ‘I can’t see his face!’

Impatiently, Pierre grabbed the body around the hips and heaved. The corpse tumbled over the windowsill, fell through the air, and hit the cobblestones with a smack, face down.

Henri dismounted. In a gesture stinking with contempt, he turned the body over with his foot.

‘This is he,’ he said. ‘The man who killed my father.’

The men around him cheered.

‘It’s done,’ said Henri. ‘Ring the bell of St-Germain l’Auxerrois.’

*

S
YLVIE WISHED
she had a horse.

Dashing from house to house, speaking to members of the congregation that met in the loft over the stable, she felt frustrated almost to the point of hysteria. Each time she had to find the right house, explain the situation to the family, persuade them that she was not imagining things, then hurry to the next nearest Protestant household. She had a logical plan: she was moving north along the rue St Martin, the main artery in the middle of the town, turning down side streets for short distances. Even so, she was managing only three or four calls per hour. If she had had a horse it would have been twice as quick.

She also would have been less vulnerable. It was hard for a drunk man to pull a strong young woman off a horse. But on foot and alone in the dark on the Paris streets she feared that anything could happen and no one would see.

As she approached the home of the marquess of Lagny, not far from her warehouse near the city wall, she heard distant bells. She frowned. What did that mean? Bells at an unexpected moment usually signified some crisis. The sound grew, and she realized that one church after another was joining the chorus. A city-wide emergency could mean only one thing: the apprehension that she and Ned had shared, when they found that Pierre’s book was missing, was coming true.

A few minutes later she came to the marquess’s house and banged on the door. He opened it himself: he must have been up, and his servants asleep. Sylvie realized this was the first time she had seen him without his jewelled cap. His head was bald with a monk’s fringe.

He said: ‘Why are they ringing the bells?’

‘Because they’re going to kill us all,’ she said, and she stepped inside.

He led her into the parlour. He was a widower, and his children were grown and living elsewhere, so he was probably alone in the house apart from the servants. She saw that he had been sitting up reading by the light of a wrought-iron candle tree. She recognized the book as one she had sold him. There was a flask of wine beside his chair and he offered her some. She realized she was hungry and thirsty: she had been on the go for hours. She drank a glass quickly, but refused a second.

She explained that she had guessed that the ultra-Catholics were about to launch an attack, and she had been racing around the town warning Protestants, but now she feared it had begun, and it could be too late for warnings. ‘I must go home,’ she said.

‘Are you sure? You might be safer to stay here.’

‘I have to make sure my mother is all right.’

He walked her to the door. As he turned the handle, someone banged on it from the outside. ‘Don’t open it!’ Sylvie said, but she was too late.

Looking over Lagny’s shoulder she saw a nobleman standing on the doorstep with several others behind him. Lagny recognized the man. ‘Viscount Villeneuve!’ he said in surprise.