17
Sir Francis Walsingham believed in lists the way he believed in the Gospels. He made lists of who he had met yesterday and who he was going to see tomorrow. And he and Sir Ned Willard had a list of every suspicious Englishman who came to Paris.
In 1572, Walsingham was Queen Elizabeth’s ambassador to France, and Ned was his deputy. Ned respected Walsingham as he had Sir William Cecil, but did not feel the same breathless devotion. Towards Walsingham Ned was loyal rather than worshipful, admiring rather than awestruck. The two men were different, of course; but, also, the Ned who now served as Walsingham’s deputy was not the eager youngster who had been Cecil’s protégé. Ned had grown up.
Ned had undertaken clandestine missions for Elizabeth from the start, but now he and Walsingham were part of the rapidly growing secret intelligence service set up to protect Elizabeth and her government from violent overthrow.
The peace between Catholics and Protestants that had reigned in England for the first decade of Elizabeth’s rule had been thrown into jeopardy by the Papal Bull. There had already been one serious conspiracy against her. The Pope’s agent in England, Roberto Ridolfi, had plotted to murder Elizabeth and put Mary Stuart on the throne, and then marry Mary to the duke of Norfolk. The secret service had uncovered the plan and the duke’s head had been chopped off a few days ago. But no one believed that was the end of the matter.
Ned, like all Elizabeth’s advisors, feared more conspiracies. Everything he had worked for during the last fourteen years was now under threat. The dream of religious freedom could turn overnight into the nightmare of inquisition and torture, and England would again know the revolting smell of men and women being burned alive.
Dozens of wealthy Catholics had fled from England, and most of them came to France. Ned and Walsingham believed that the next plot against Elizabeth would be hatched here in Paris. It was their mission to identify the plotters, learn their intentions, and foil their plans.
The English embassy was a big house on the ‘left bank’, south of the river, in the university district. Walsingham was not a rich man, and England was not a rich country, so they could not afford the more expensive right bank where the French aristocracy had their palaces.
Today Ned and Walsingham were going to attend the royal court in the Louvre palace. Ned was looking forward to it. The gathering of the most powerful men and women in France was a rich opportunity to pick up information. Courtiers gossiped, and some of them let secrets slip. Ned would chat to everyone and chart the undercurrents.
He was just a little nervous, not on his own account, but on that of his master. Walsingham at forty was brilliant but lacked grace. His first appearance before King Charles IX had been embarrassing. A stiff-necked Puritan, Walsingham had dressed all in black: it was his normal style, but in the gaudy French court it was seen as a Protestant reproach.
On that first occasion, Ned had recognized Pierre Aumande de Guise, whom he had met at St Dizier with Mary Stuart. That had been eleven years ago, but Ned remembered Aumande vividly. Although the man had been good-looking and well-dressed, there was something creepy about him.
King Charles had pointedly asked Walsingham whether it was really necessary for Elizabeth to imprison Mary Stuart, the former queen of France, the deposed Queen of Scots, and Charles’s sister-in-law. Walsingham should have known the book of Proverbs well enough to remember A soft answer turneth away wrath. However, he had responded with righteous indignation – always a weakness in Puritans – and the king had become frosty.
Since then Ned had made a special effort to be more easy-going and amiable than his unbending boss. He had adopted a style of dress appropriate to a minor diplomat without rigid religious convictions. Today he put on a pastel-blue doublet slashed to show a fawn lining, an unostentatious outfit by Paris standards but, he hoped, stylish enough to distract from the appearance of Walsingham, who clung stubbornly to his black.
From his attic window Ned could see across the Seine river to the towers of the cathedral of Notre Dame. Beside his smoky mirror stood a little portrait Margery had given him. It was somewhat idealized, with impossibly white skin and rosy cheeks; but the artist had captured her tumbling curls and the mischievous grin he had loved so much.
He still loved her. Two years ago he had been forced to accept that she would never leave her husband, and without hope his passion had burned low, but the fire had not gone out, and perhaps it never would.
He had no news from Kingsbridge. He had not heard from Barney, who was presumably still at sea. He and Margery had agreed not to torture themselves by writing to one another. The last thing Ned had done, before leaving England, was to quash the arrest warrant for Stephen Lincoln, which had been issued on the basis of evidence invented by Dan Cobley. If Margery felt it her sacred duty to bring consolation to bereft Catholics, Ned was not going to let Dan Cobley stop her.
Adjusting his lace collar in front of the mirror, he smiled as he remembered the play he had seen last night, called The Rivals. Highly original, it was a comedy about ordinary people who spoke naturally, rather than in verse, and featured two young men, both of whom wanted to abduct the same girl – who turned out, in a surprise ending, to be the sister of one of them. The whole thing took place in one location, a short stretch of street, in a period of less than twenty-four hours. Ned had not before seen anything so clever in London or Paris.
Ned was just about ready to leave when a servant came in. ‘A woman has called, selling paper and ink cheaper than anywhere in Paris, she claims,’ the man said in French. ‘Do you care to see her?’
Ned used huge quantities of expensive paper and ink, drafting and encoding Walsingham’s confidential letters to the queen and Cecil. And the queen was as parsimonious with her spies as she was with everyone, so he was always looking for lower prices. ‘What is Sir Francis doing right now?’
‘Reading his Bible.’
‘Then I have time. Send her up.’
A minute later a woman of about thirty appeared. Ned looked at her with interest. She was attractive rather than beautiful, modestly dressed, with a determined look softened by blue eyes. She introduced herself as Thérèse St Quentin. She took samples of paper and ink out of a leather satchel and invited Ned to try them.
He sat at his writing table. Both paper and ink seemed good. ‘Where do you get your supplies?’ he asked.
‘The paper is made just outside Paris, in the suburb of Saint-Marcel,’ she said. ‘I also have beautiful Italian paper from Fabriano, in Italy, for your love letters.’
It was a flirty thing to say, but she was not very coquettish, and he guessed it was part of her sales pitch. ‘And the ink?’
‘I make it myself. That’s why it’s so cheap – though it’s very good.’
He compared her prices with what he usually paid and found that she was, indeed, cheap, so he gave her an order.
‘I’ll bring everything today,’ she said. Then she lowered her voice. ‘Do you have the Bible in French?’
Ned was astonished. Could this respectable-looking young woman be involved in illicit literature? ‘It’s against the law!’
She responded calmly. ‘But breaking the law no longer carries the death penalty, according to the Peace of St Germain.’
She was talking about the agreement that had resulted from the peace conference Ned and Walsingham had been sent to in St Germain, so Ned knew the details well. The treaty gave the Huguenots limited freedom of worship. For Ned, a Catholic country that tolerated Protestants was as good as a Protestant country that tolerated Catholics: it was the freedom that counted. However, freedom was fragile. France had had peace treaties before, all of them short-lived. The famously inflammatory Paris preachers ranted against every attempt at conciliation. This one was supposed to be sealed by a marriage – the king’s rackety sister, Princess Margot, was engaged to the easy-going Henri of Bourbon, Protestant king of Navarre – but eighteen months later the wedding still had not taken place. Ned said: ‘The peace treaty could be abandoned, and any day there could be a surprise crackdown on people like you.’
‘It probably wouldn’t be a surprise.’ Ned was about to ask why not, but she did not give him the chance. She went on: ‘And I think I can trust you. You’re Elizabeth’s envoy, so you must be Protestant.’
‘Why do you ask?’ Ned said cautiously.
‘If you want a French Bible, I can get you one.’
Ned was amazed by her nerve. And as it happened, he did want a French Bible. He spoke the language well enough to pass as a native but sometimes, in conversation, he did not catch the biblical quotations and allusions that Protestants used all the time, and he had often thought he should read the better-known chapters to familiarize himself with the translation. As a foreign diplomat, he would not get into much trouble for owning the book, in the unlikely event that he was found out. ‘How much?’ he said.
‘I have two editions, both printed in Geneva: a standard one that is a bargain at two livres, and a beautifully bound volume in two colours of ink with illustrations for seven livres. I can bring them both to show you.’
‘All right.’
‘I see you’re going out – to the Louvre, I suppose, in that beautiful coat.’
‘Yes.’
‘Will you be back for your dinner?’
‘Probably.’ Ned felt bemused. She had taken control of the conversation. All he did was agree to what she proposed. She was forceful, but so frank and engaging that he could not be offended.
‘I’ll bring your stationery then, and two Bibles so that you can choose the one you prefer.’
Ned did not think he had actually committed himself to buying one, but he let that pass. ‘I look forward to seeing them.’
‘I’ll be back this afternoon.’
Her coolness was impressive. ‘You’re very brave,’ Ned commented.
‘The Lord gives me strength.’
No doubt he did, Ned thought, but she must have had plenty to start with. ‘Tell me something,’ he said, taking the conversational initiative at last. ‘How did you come to be a dealer in contraband books?’
‘My father was a printer. He was burned as a heretic in 1559, and all his possessions were forfeit, so my mother and I were destitute. All we had was a few Bibles he had printed.’
‘So you’ve been doing this for thirteen years?’
‘Almost.’
Her courage took Ned’s breath away. ‘During most of that period, you could have been executed, like your father.’
‘Yes.’
‘But surely you could live innocently, selling just paper and ink.’
‘We could, but we believe in people’s right to read God’s word for themselves and make up their own minds about what is the true gospel.’
Ned believed in that, too. ‘And you’re willing to risk your life for that principle.’ He did not mention that if caught she would undoubtedly have been tortured before being executed.
‘Yes,’ she said.
Ned stared at her, fascinated. She looked back at him boldly for a few moments, then she said: ‘Until this afternoon, then.’
‘Goodbye.’
When she had gone, Ned went to the window and looked out across the busy fruit-and-vegetable market of the place Maubert. She was not as afraid as she might have been of a crackdown on Protestants. It probably wouldn’t be a surprise, she had said. He wondered what means she had of finding out in advance about the intentions of the ultra-Catholics.
A few moments later she emerged from the door below and walked away, a small, erect figure with a brisk, unwavering step; willing to die for the ideal of tolerance that Ned shared. What a woman, he thought. What a hero.
He watched her out of sight.
*
PIERRE AUMANDE de Guise trimmed his fair beard in preparation for going to court at the Louvre Palace. He always shaped his beard into a sharp point, to look more like his young master and distant relative Henri, the twenty-one-year-old duke of Guise.
He studied his face. He had developed a dry skin condition that gave him red, flaking patches at the corners of his eyes and mouth and on his scalp. They had also appeared on the backs of his knees and the insides of his elbows, where they itched maddeningly. The Guise family doctor had diagnosed an excess of heat and prescribed an ointment that seemed to make the symptoms worse.
His twelve-year-old stepson, Alain, came into the room. He was a wretched child, undersized and timid, more like a girl. Pierre had sent him to the dairy on the corner to buy milk and cheese, and now he was carrying a jug and a goblet. Pierre said: ‘Where’s the cheese?’
The boy hesitated, then said: ‘They haven’t got any today.’
Pierre looked at his face. ‘Liar,’ he said. ‘You forgot.’
Alain was terrified. ‘No, I didn’t, honestly!’ He started to cry.
The scrawny maid, Nath, came in. ‘What’s the matter, Alain?’ she said.
Pierre said: ‘He lied to me, and now he’s afraid of a thrashing. What do you want?’
‘There’s a priest to see you – Jean Langlais.’
That was the pseudonym Pierre had given Rollo Fitzgerald, the most promising of the exiles studying at the English College. ‘Send him up here. Take this snivelling child away. And get some cheese for my breakfast.’
Pierre had met Rollo twice since that initial encounter, and had been impressed by him each time. The man was intelligent and dedicated, and in his eyes there was the burning light of a holy mission. He hated Protestants passionately, no doubt because his family had been ruined financially by the Puritans in Kingsbridge, the city from which he came. Pierre had high hopes for Rollo.
A moment later Rollo appeared, wearing a floor-length cassock and a wooden cross on a chain.
They shook hands, and Pierre closed the door. Rollo said: ‘Is that young lady your wife?’
‘Certainly not,’ said Pierre. ‘Madame Aumande de Guise was a lady-in-waiting to Véronique de Guise.’ That was not true. Odette had been a servant, not a lady-in-waiting, but Pierre did not like people to know it. ‘She’s out.’ Odette had gone to the fish market. ‘The woman who admitted you is just a maid.’
Rollo was embarrassed. ‘I do beg your pardon.’
‘Not at all. Welcome to our humble dwelling. I spend most of my time at the Guise family palace in the rue Vieille du Temple, but if you and I had met there we would have been seen by twenty people. This place has one great advantage: it is so insignificant that no one would bother to spy on it.’ In fact, Pierre was desperate to move out of this hovel, but had not yet managed to persuade the young duke to give him a room at the palace. He was now chief among the Guise family’s counsellors but, as always, they were slow to grant Pierre the status his work merited. ‘How are things in Douai?’
‘Excellent. Since the Pope excommunicated Elizabeth, another fifteen good young Catholic Englishmen have joined us. In fact, William Allen sent me here to tell you that we’re almost ready to send a group of them back to England.’
‘And how will that be organized?’
‘Father Allen has asked me to take charge of the operation.’
Pierre thought that was a good decision. Rollo clearly had the ability to be more than just a clandestine priest. ‘What’s your plan?’
‘We will land them on a remote beach at dusk, then they’ll travel through the night to my sister’s castle – she is the countess of Shiring. She has been organizing secret Catholic services for years, and she already has a network of undercover priests. From there they will spread out all over England.’
‘How reliable is your sister?’
‘Totally, with anything that doesn’t involve bloodshed. There she draws a line, I’m afraid. She has never understood that violence is sometimes necessary in the service of the Church.’
‘She’s a woman.’ Pierre was pleased that Rollo evidently did understand the need for violence.
‘And in Paris?’ Rollo said. ‘We in Douai have been worried by the news from here.’
‘The Peace of St Germain was a major defeat for us, there’s no denying that. The policy of Pope Pius V is quite clearly to exterminate all Protestants, but King Charles IX has rejected this in favour of peaceful coexistence.’
Rollo nodded. ‘To some extent the king was forced into that by military defeat.’
‘Yes. It’s most unfortunate that Gaspard de Coligny has proved to be such a disciplined and talented general of the Huguenot armies. And the queen mother, Caterina, is another force for tolerance of vile heresy.’ Sometimes Pierre felt as if every hand was against him. ‘But we have seen edicts of tolerance before, and they have never lasted,’ he added optimistically.
‘Will Princess Margot marry Henri of Bourbon?’
Rollo asked all the right questions. Henri was the son of the late Antoine of Bourbon, and as king of Navarre he was the highest-ranking member of the pro-tolerance Bourbon–Montmorency alliance. If he married into the royal Valois family he might be able to preserve the Peace of St Germain. And the combined families of Bourbon, Montmorency and Valois would be enough to crush the Guises. ‘We’ve done everything we can to delay the marriage,’ Pierre said. ‘But Coligny lurks in the background, a constant threat.’
‘It’s a pity someone doesn’t stick a knife in his heart.’
‘Many people would like to, believe me,’ said Pierre. That included Pierre himself. ‘But Coligny’s not stupid, and doesn’t give them much chance. He rarely comes to Paris.’ He heard the bell of St Étienne’s church strike ten. ‘I have to attend court,’ he said. ‘Where are you staying?’
Rollo looked around. Clearly he had been expecting to lodge at Pierre’s house, but now realized the place was too small. ‘I don’t know.’
‘The count of Beaulieu always welcomes English Catholics. You may meet people who could be useful to you at his house. But watch out for English Protestants, too.’
‘Are there many in Paris?’
‘Some, mainly at the embassy. Sir Francis Walsingham is the ambassador. He’s a curmudgeon, but as sharp as a nail.’
‘And a blaspheming Puritan.’
‘I’m keeping an eye on him. But his deputy is more dangerous, because he has charm as well as brains. He’s called Sir Ned Willard.’
Rollo reacted. ‘Really? Ned Willard is deputy ambassador?’
‘You obviously know the man.’
‘He comes from Kingsbridge. I didn’t realize he had become so important.’
‘Oh, yes.’ Pierre recalled the young man who had pretended to be a Scottish Protestant at St Dizier. Later Pierre had read, in a smuggled letter from Alison McKay, how Willard had gone to Carlisle Castle to tell Mary Stuart that she was a prisoner. And now the man had shown up in Paris. ‘Ned Willard is not to be underestimated.’
‘I used to flog him at school.’
‘Did you?’
‘I wish I’d beaten him to death.’
Pierre stood up. ‘The count of Beaulieu lives in the rue St Denis. I’ll point you in the right direction.’ He led Rollo downstairs and out into the street. ‘Come and see me again before you leave Paris. I may have letters for William Allen.’ He gave Rollo directions to the Beaulieu palace, and the two men shook hands.
As Rollo walked away, Pierre noticed the back of a woman going in the same direction. She seemed familiar, but she turned the corner and was out of sight before he could place her.
However, she had not been richly dressed, so could not have been anyone important, and he went back inside and forgot about her.
He found Alain in the kitchen. Using a kinder tone of voice than usual, he said: ‘Alain, I have something sad to tell you. There has been an accident. Your mother has been kicked by a horse. I’m afraid she is dead.’
Alain stared at him, wide-eyed, for a long moment, then his face crumpled in anguish and he began to wail. ‘Mammy!’ he cried. ‘Mammy, Mammy!’
‘There’s no point in calling her,’ Pierre said, reverting to the irritated tone he normally used with the boy. ‘She can’t hear you. She’s dead. She’s gone, and we’ll never see her again.’
Alain screamed in grief. Pierre’s deception was so effective that he almost regretted it.
A minute later Odette came rushing in with her fish basket. ‘What is it, what is it, Alain?’ she cried.
The boy opened his eyes, saw his mother and threw his arms around her. ‘He said you were dead!’ he wailed.
‘You cruel swine,’ Odette said to Pierre. ‘Why did you do that?’
‘To teach the boy a lesson,’ Pierre said, pleased with himself. ‘He lied to me, so I lied to him. He won’t do it again in a hurry.’
*
THE LOUVRE WAS a square medieval fort with round cone-roofed corner towers. Walsingham and Ned crossed a drawbridge over a moat to enter the courtyard. Ned was alert, excited, eager. The power was here. In this building were the men who commanded armies and started wars, men who could raise their friends to high rank and destroy their enemies, men who decided who should live and who should die. And Ned was going to talk to them.
The late King Henri II had demolished the west wall of the square and replaced it with a modern palace in the Italian style, with fluted pilasters, immensely tall windows, and a riot of sculpture. There was nothing like it in London, Ned reflected. More recently Henri’s son, Charles IX, had extended the new building, making an L-shape.
As always, the court gathered in a series of interconnecting spaces that delineated a hierarchy. Grooms, maids and bodyguards remained outside in the courtyard, whatever the weather. Ned and Walsingham entered the central door into the ballroom, which occupied the entire ground floor of the west wing. In this room were superior attendants such as ladies-in-waiting. Passing through, on his way to the next level, Ned was surprised to notice a stunning woman staring at him, her expression an odd mixture of shock, hope and puzzlement.
He looked hard at her. About his age, she was a classic Mediterranean beauty, with a mass of dark hair, heavily marked eyebrows, and sensual lips. Wearing bright red and black, she was easily the most flamboyantly dressed woman in the room, though her clothes were not the most expensive on display. There was something about her that made Ned think she was not merely a lady-in-waiting.
She spoke with an accent that was neither French nor English. ‘No, you’re definitely not Barney,’ she said.
It was a confused statement, but Ned understood. ‘My brother’s name is Barney, but he’s taller than I am, and handsomer.’
‘You must be Ned!’
He placed her accent as Spanish. ‘I am, Señorita,’ he said, and bowed.
‘Barney mentioned you often. He was very fond of his little brother.’
Walsingham interrupted impatiently to say: ‘I’ll go on. Don’t be long.’
The woman said to Ned: ‘I am Jerónima Ruiz.’
The name rang a bell. ‘Did you know Barney in Seville?’
‘Know him? I wanted to marry him. But it was not in the stars.’
‘And now you’re in Paris.’
‘I am the niece of Cardinal Romero, who is here on a diplomatic mission for King Felipe of Spain.’
Ned would have heard about such a mission if it was official, so this must be something informal. Fishing for information, he said: ‘I assume King Felipe doesn’t want Princess Margot to marry a Huguenot.’ In the chess game of international diplomacy, the king of Spain supported the Catholics in France just as the queen of England helped the Protestants.
‘As a mere woman, I take no interest in such matters.’
Ned smiled. ‘Answered like a skilled diplomat.’
She kept up the pretence. ‘My role is to act as hostess at my uncle’s table. The cardinal has no wife, obviously.’ She gave him a provocative look. ‘Unlike your English priests, who are allowed to do anything.’
She was alluring, Ned found. ‘Why didn’t you marry my brother?’
A hard look came over her face. ‘My father died while being “interviewed” by the Inquisition. My family lost everything. Archdeacon Romero, as he then was, invited me to join his household. He saved me – but of course I could not think of marrying.’
Ned understood. She was not Romero’s niece, she was his mistress. The priest had taken advantage of her at a moment when her world seemed to have collapsed. He looked into her eyes and saw pain there. ‘You’ve been treated cruelly,’ he said.
‘I made my own decisions.’
Ned wondered whether her experiences had turned her against the Catholic Church – and, if that were the case, whether she might take her revenge by helping the Protestant cause. But he hesitated to ask her outright. ‘I’d like to talk to you again,’ he said.
She gave him an appraising look, and he had the unnerving feeling that she knew what was in his mind. ‘All right,’ she said.
Ned bowed and left her. He passed under the musicians’ gallery, held up by four caryatids, and went up the stairs. What a beautiful woman, he thought, though she was more Barney’s type than his. What is my type? he asked himself. Someone like Margery, of course.
He walked through the guardroom of the Swiss mercenaries who formed the king’s personal protection squad, then entered a large, light room called the wardrobe. Here waited people who might or might not be admitted to the royal presence, minor nobility and petitioners.
Walsingham said grumpily: ‘You took your time with that Spanish tart.’
‘It was worth it, though,’ Ned replied.
‘Really?’ Walsingham was sceptical.
‘She’s the mistress of Cardinal Romero. I think I may be able to recruit her as an informant.’
Walsingham changed his tone. ‘Good! I’d like to know what that slimy Spanish priest is up to.’ His eye lighted on the marquess of Lagny, an amiable fat man who covered his bald head with a jewelled cap. Lagny was a Protestant and close to Gaspard de Coligny. Aristocratic Huguenots had to be tolerated at court, at least until they did something overtly defiant of the king. ‘Come with me,’ Walsingham said to Ned, and they crossed the room.
Walsingham greeted the marquess in fluent, precise French: he had lived in exile for most of the reign of Elizabeth’s Catholic elder sister, Queen Mary Tudor – ‘Bloody’ Mary – and he spoke several languages.
He asked Lagny about the topic on everyone’s mind, the Spanish Netherlands. King Felipe’s ruthlessly effective general, the duke of Alba, was mercilessly crushing the Dutch Protestant rebels. A French Protestant army led by Jean of Hangest, lord of Genlis, was on its way to help the rebels. Lagny said: ‘Coligny has ordered Hangest to join forces with William of Orange.’ The prince of Orange was the leader of the Dutch. ‘Orange has asked Queen Elizabeth for a loan of thirty thousand pounds,’ Lagny went on. ‘Will she oblige him, Sir Francis?’
‘Perhaps,’ said Walsingham. Ned thought the likelihood was small. Elizabeth probably did not have thirty thousand pounds to spare and, if she did, she could think of better uses for it.
Ned was drawn away from the conversation by a richly dressed woman of middle age who spoke to him in English. ‘Sir Ned!’ she said. ‘What a fine doublet.’
Ned bowed to Marianne, countess of Beaulieu, an English Catholic married to a French nobleman. She was with her daughter, a plump eighteen-year-old with a vivacious manner. Her name was Aphrodite: her father was a scholar of Greek. The countess had a soft spot for Ned, and encouraged him to talk to Aphrodite. The countess would never let her daughter marry a Protestant, of course, but no doubt she thought Ned might convert. Ned liked Aphrodite well enough but had no romantic interest in her: she was a jolly, carefree girl with no serious interests, and she quickly bored him. Nevertheless, Ned flirted with both mother and daughter, because he longed to get inside the Beaulieu mansion in the rue St Denis, which was a refuge for exiled English Catholics, and might well be where the next plot against Queen Elizabeth was being hatched. But so far he had not been invited.
Now he talked to the Beaulieus about the worst-kept secret in Paris, the affair between Princess Margot and Duke Henri of Guise. The countess said darkly: ‘Duke Henri is not the first man to have “paid court” to the princess.’
Young Aphrodite was shocked and excited by the suggestion that a princess might be promiscuous. ‘Mother!’ she said. ‘You ought not to repeat such slanders. Margot is engaged to marry Henri of Bourbon!’
Ned murmured: ‘Perhaps she just got the two Henris mixed up.’
The countess giggled. ‘They have too many Henris in this country.’
Ned did not even mention the more shocking rumour that Margot was simultaneously having an incestuous relationship with her seventeen-year-old brother Hercule-Francis.
The two women were distracted by the approach of Bernard Housse, a bright young courtier who knew how to make himself useful to the king. Aphrodite greeted him with a pleased smile, and Ned thought he might suit her very well.
Ned turned away and caught the eye of the marchioness of Nîmes, a Protestant aristocrat. About Ned’s age, and voluptuous, Louise de Nîmes was the second wife of the much older marquess. Her father, like Ned’s, had been a wealthy merchant. She immediately gave Ned the latest gossip: ‘The king found out about Margot and Henri de Guise!’
‘Really? What did he do?’
‘He dragged her out of her bed and had her flogged!’
‘My goodness. She’s eighteen, isn’t she? It’s a bit old for flogging.’
‘A king can do what he likes.’ Louise looked over Ned’s shoulder and her face changed. Her smile vanished and she looked as if she had seen a dead rat.
The alteration was so striking that Ned turned to find out what had caused it, and saw Pierre Aumande. ‘I guess you don’t like Monsieur Aumande de Guise,’ he said.
‘He’s a snake. And he’s not a Guise. I’m from the same part of the world, and I know his background.’
‘Oh? Do tell me.’
‘His father is the illegitimate son of one of the Guise men. The family sent the bastard to school and made him the parish priest of Thonnance-lès-Joinville.’
‘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.
*
PIERRE 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.’
*
ON 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?’
‘I’m not married.’
She made a surprised face.
He said: ‘There was a girl I wanted to marry, in Kingsbridge, where I come from.’
‘Is she the girl in the picture?’
Ned looked startled, as if it had not occurred to him that Sylvie could see the little painting beside the mirror and draw the obvious conclusion. ‘Yes, but she married someone else.’
‘How sad.’
‘It was a long time ago.’
‘How long?’
‘Fourteen years.’
Sylvie wanted to say And you still have her picture? But she bit back the comment and opened her satchel.
She took out the two books. ‘The plain Bible is excellent,’ she said. ‘A good translation, printed clearly, perfect for a family without money to spare.’ She opened the luxury edition, the one she really wanted to sell him. ‘This edition is magnificent. It looks like what it is, a volume containing the word of God.’ She liked Ned, but she still needed to make money, and in her experience the way to do that was to make a man feel that the expensive book would mark him, in the minds of others, as a man of distinction.
Modest though he was, he was not immune to her sales talk, and he bought the high-priced Bible.
She added up the total he owed and he paid her, then he walked her to the front door of the house. ‘Where’s your shop?’ he asked. ‘I might drop in one day.’
‘Rue de la Serpente. We’d love to see you.’ She meant it. ‘Goodbye.’
She felt light of heart as she pushed the empty handcart home. A Catholic princess was going to marry a Protestant king right here in Paris! Perhaps the days of persecution really were over.
And she had found a new customer and made a good sale. Ned’s gold livres chinked in her pocket.
He was so nice. She wondered if he really would come to the shop. How much did he still love the girl whose picture he had kept for so long?
She looked forward to telling her mother the news about the royal wedding. She was not sure what to say about Ned. She and her mother were very close, no doubt because they had been together through danger and destitution. Sylvie was rarely tempted to keep anything from Isabelle. But the problem was that she really did not know how she felt.
She got home and parked the handcart in the shed at the back of the house, then went in. ‘I’m home,’ she called. She went into the shop. A customer was just leaving.
Her mother turned and looked at her. ‘My goodness, you look happy,’ she said. ‘Have you fallen in love?’