A Column of Fire by Ken Follett (19)

19

Sylvie was busy – dangerously so.

Paris was full of Huguenots who had come for the royal wedding, and they bought a lot of paper and ink at the shop in the rue de la Serpente. They also wanted illegal books – not just the Bible in French, but the inflammatory works of John Calvin and Martin Luther attacking the Catholic Church. Sylvie was run off her feet going to the warehouse in the rue du Mur and delivering the contraband books to Protestant homes and lodging houses all over Paris.

And it all had to be done with total discretion. She was used to it, but not at this level of activity. She was risking arrest three times a day instead of three times a week. The increased strain was exhausting.

Spending time with Ned was like resting in an oasis of calm and security. He showed concern, not anxiety. He never panicked. He thought she was brave – in fact, he said she was a hero. She was pleased by his admiration, even though she knew she was just a scared girl.

On his third visit to the shop, her mother told him their real names and asked him to stay for midday dinner.

Isabelle had not consulted Sylvie about this. She just did it, taking Sylvie by surprise. Ned accepted readily. Sylvie was a bit taken aback, but pleased.

They closed and locked the street door and retired to the room behind the shop. Isabelle cooked fresh river trout, caught that morning, with marrow and aromatic fennel, and Ned ate heartily. Afterwards, she produced a bowl of greengages, yellow with red speckles, and a bottle of golden-brown brandy. They did not normally keep brandy in the house: the two women never drank anything stronger than wine, and they usually diluted that. Obviously Isabelle had quietly planned this meal.

Ned told them the news from the Netherlands, which was bad. ‘Hangest disobeyed Coligny’s orders, walked into an ambush, and was soundly defeated. He’s a prisoner now.’

Isabelle was interested in Ned, not Hangest. ‘How long do you think you’ll stay in Paris?’ she asked.

‘As long as Queen Elizabeth wants me here.’

‘And then I suppose you’ll go home to England?’

‘I’ll probably go wherever the queen wants to send me.’

‘You’re devoted to her.’

‘I feel fortunate to serve her.’

Isabelle switched to another line of enquiry. ‘Are English houses different from French ones?’ she said. ‘Your home, for example?’

‘I was born in a big house opposite Kingsbridge Cathedral. Now it belongs to my elder brother, Barney, but I live there when I’m in Kingsbridge.’

‘Opposite the cathedral – that must be a pleasant location.’

‘It’s a wonderful spot. I love to sit in the front parlour and look out at the church.’

‘What was your father?’

Sylvie protested: ‘Mother, you sound like the Inquisition!’

‘I don’t mind,’ Ned said. ‘My father was a merchant with a warehouse in Calais, and after he died, my mother ran the business for ten years.’ He smiled ruefully. ‘But she lost everything after you French took back Calais from us English.’

‘Are there any French people in Kingsbridge?’

‘Persecuted Huguenots have sought asylum all over England. Guillaume Forneron has a factory making cambric in the suburb of Loversfield. Everyone wants a shirt from Forneron.’

‘And your brother, what’s his living?’

‘He’s a sea captain. He has a ship called Alice.’

‘His own vessel?’

‘Yes.’

‘But Sylvie said something about a manor?’

‘Queen Elizabeth made me lord of a village called Wigleigh, not far from Kingsbridge. It’s a small place, but it has a manor house, where I stay two or three times a year.’

‘In France we would call you Sieur de Wigleigh.’

‘Yes.’ The name was difficult for French people to pronounce, like Willard.

‘You and your brother have recovered well from your father’s misfortune. You’re an important diplomat, and Barney owns a ship.’

Ned must have realized that Isabelle was establishing his social and financial status, Sylvie thought, but he did not appear to mind; in fact, he seemed eager to prove his respectability. All the same, Sylvie was embarrassed. Ned might think he was expected to marry her. To bring the interrogation to an end she said: ‘We have to open the shop.’

Isabelle stood up. ‘I’ll do that. You two sit and talk for a few more minutes. I’ll call you if I need you, Sylvie.’ She went out.

Sylvie said: ‘I’m sorry about her prying like that.’

‘Don’t apologize.’ Ned grinned. ‘A mother is entitled to know all about a young man who becomes friendly with her daughter.’

‘That’s nice of you.’

‘I can’t possibly be the first man who has been questioned by her in that way.’

Sylvie knew that she had to tell him her story, sooner or later. ‘There was someone, a long time ago. It was my father who questioned him.’

‘May I ask what went wrong?’

‘The man was Pierre Aumande.’

‘Good God! Was he a Protestant then?’

‘No, but he deceived us in order to spy on the congregation. An hour after the wedding we were all arrested.’

Ned reached across the table and took her hand. ‘How cruel.’

‘He broke my heart.’

‘I found out about his background, you know. His father’s a country priest, an illegitimate child of one of the Guise men. Pierre’s mother is the priest’s housekeeper.’

‘How do you know?’

‘The marchioness of Nîmes told me.’

‘Louise? She’s in our congregation – but she’s never told me this.’

‘Perhaps she’s afraid to embarrass you by talking about him.’

‘Pierre told me so many lies. That’s probably why I haven’t trusted anyone since then . . .’

Ned gave her an enquiring look. She knew it meant: What about me? But she was not yet ready to answer that question.

He waited a few moments, then realized she was not going to say any more. He said: ‘Well, that was a lovely dinner – thank you.’

She got up to say goodbye. He looked crestfallen, and her heart leaped in sympathy. On impulse, she went around the table and kissed him.

She intended it to be a friendly peck, but it did not work out that way. Somehow she found herself kissing his lips. It was like sweet food: one taste made her desperate for more. She put her hand behind his head and pressed her mouth to his hungrily.

He needed no more encouragement. He put both arms around her and hugged her to him. She was swept by a sensation she had forgotten, the joy of loving someone else’s body. She kept telling herself she would stop in another second.

He put both his hands on her breasts and squeezed gently, making a little sound in his throat as he did so. She thrilled to the feeling, but it brought her to her senses. She broke the kiss and pushed him away. She was panting. ‘I didn’t mean to do that,’ she said.

He said nothing, just smiled happily.

She realized she had given him the message she had wanted to withhold. But now she did not care. All the same she said: ‘You’d better go, before I do something I’ll regret.’

That thought seemed to make him even happier. ‘All right,’ he said. ‘When will I see you again?’

‘Soon. Go and say goodbye to my mother.’

He tried to kiss her again, but she put a hand on his chest and said: ‘No more.’

He accepted that. He went into the shop, saying: ‘Thank you, Madame Palot, for your hospitality.’

Sylvie sat down heavily. A moment later she heard the shop door close.

Her mother came into the back room, looking pleased. ‘He’s gone, but he’ll be back.’

Sylvie said: ‘I kissed him.’

‘I guessed that by the grin on his face.’

‘I shouldn’t have done it.’

‘I can’t think why not. I’d have kissed him myself if I were twenty years younger.’

‘Don’t be vulgar, Mother. Now he will expect me to marry him.’

‘I’d do it quickly, if I were you, before some other girl grabs him.’

‘Stop it. You know perfectly well that I can’t marry him.’

‘I know no such thing! What are you talking about?’

‘We have a mission to bring the true gospel to the world.’

‘Perhaps we’ve done enough.’

Sylvie was shocked. Her mother had never talked this way.

Isabelle noticed her reaction and said defensively: ‘Even God rested on the seventh day, after he made the world.’

‘Our work isn’t finished.’

‘Perhaps it never will be, until the Last Trump.’

‘All the more reason to carry on.’

‘I want you to be happy. You’re my little girl.’

‘But what does God want? You taught me always to ask that question.’

Isabelle sighed. ‘I did. I was harder when I was young.’

‘You were wise. I can’t marry. I have a mission.’

‘All the same, regardless of Ned, one day we may have to find other ways of doing God’s will.’

‘I don’t see how.’

‘Perhaps it will be revealed to us.’

‘It’s in God’s hands, then, isn’t it, Mother?’

‘Yes.’

‘So we must be content.’

Isabelle sighed again. ‘Amen,’ she said, but Sylvie was not sure she meant it.

*

AS NED STEPPED out of the shop he noticed, across the street, a shabby young man lounging outside a tavern, on his own, doing nothing. Ned turned east, heading for the English embassy. Glancing back, he saw that the shabby man was going the same way.

Ned was in high spirits. Sylvie had kissed him as if she meant it. He adored her. For the first time, he had met a girl who matched up to Margery. Sylvie was smart and brave as well as warm and sexy. He could hardly wait to see her again.

He had not forgotten Margery. He never would. But she had refused to run away with him, and he had the rest of his life to live without her. He was entitled to love someone else.

He liked Sylvie’s mother, too. Isabelle was still attractive in a middle-aged way: she had a full figure and a handsome face, and the wrinkles around her blue eyes gave character to her appearance. She had made it pretty clear that she approved of Ned.

He felt angered by the story Sylvie had told about Pierre Aumande. He had actually married her! No wonder she had gone so long without marrying again. The thought of Sylvie being betrayed like that on her wedding day made Ned want to strangle Pierre with his own hands.

But he did not let that bring him down. There was too much to be happy about. It was even possible that France might be the second major country in the world to adopt freedom of religion.

Crossing the rue St Jacques, he glanced behind and saw the shabby man from the rue de la Serpente.

He would have to do something about this.

He paused on the other side of the street to look back at the magnificent church of St Severin. The shabby man came scurrying across the road, avoiding Ned’s eye, and slipped into an alley.

Ned turned into the grounds of the little church of St-Julien-le-Pauvre. He walked across the deserted graveyard. As he turned around the east end of the church, he slipped into a recessed doorway that concealed him. Then he drew his dagger and reversed it so that the knob of the hilt stuck up between the thumb and forefinger of his right hand.

As the shabby man drew level with the doorway, Ned stepped out and smashed the knob of the dagger into the man’s face. The man cried out and staggered back, bleeding profusely from his nose and mouth. But he recovered his balance quickly, and turned to run. Ned went after him and tripped him, and he fell flat. Ned knelt on his back and put the point of the dagger to his neck. ‘Who sent you?’ he said.

The man swallowed blood and said: ‘I don’t know what you mean – why have you attacked me?’

Ned pushed on the dagger until it broke the dirty skin of the man’s throat and blood trickled out.

The man cried: ‘No, please!’

‘No one’s looking. I’ll kill you and walk away – unless you tell me who ordered you to follow me.’

‘All right, all right! It was Georges Biron.’

‘Who the devil is he?’

‘Lord of Montagny.’

It rang a bell. ‘Why does he want to know where I go?’

‘I don’t know, I swear to Christ! He never tells us why, just sends us.’

This man was part of a group, then. Biron must be their leader. He, or someone he worked for, had put Ned under surveillance. ‘Who else do you follow?’

‘It used to be Walsingham, then we had to switch to you.’

‘Does Biron work for some great lord?’

‘He might, but he doesn’t tell us anything. Please, it’s true.’

It made sense, Ned thought. There was no need to tell a wretch such as this the reasons for what he was doing.

He stood up, sheathed his weapon and walked away.

He crossed the place Maubert to the embassy and went in. Walsingham was in the hall. Ned said: ‘Do you know anything about Georges Biron, lord of Montagny?’

‘Yes,’ said Walsingham. ‘He’s on a list of associates of Pierre Aumande de Guise.’

‘Ah, that explains it.’

‘Explains what?’

‘Why he’s having you and me followed.’

*

PIERRE LOOKED AT the little shop in the rue de la Serpente. He knew the street: this had been his neighbourhood when he was a student, all those years ago. He had frequented the tavern opposite, but the shop had not existed then.

Being here caused him to reflect on his life since then. That young student had yearned for many things that had since become his, he thought with satisfaction. He was the most trusted advisor to the Guise family. He had fine clothes and wore them to see the king. He had money, and something more valuable than money: power.

But he had worries. The Huguenots had not been stamped out – in fact, they seemed to grow stronger. The Scandinavian countries and some of the German provinces were firmly Protestant, as was the tiny kingdom of Navarre. The battle was still being fought in Scotland and the Netherlands.

There was good news from the Netherlands: the Huguenot leader Hangest had been defeated at Mons, and was now in a dungeon with some of his lieutenants, being tortured by the brutal duke of Alba. Triumphant Paris Catholics had devised a chant that could be heard every night in the taverns:

But Mons was not decisive, and the rebellion was not crushed.

Worst of all, France itself was lurching, like a drunk trying to go forwards but staggering back, towards the disgusting kind of compromise that Queen Elizabeth had pioneered in England, neither firmly Catholic nor Protestant but a permissive mixture. The royal wedding was just a few days away and had not yet provoked the kind of riot that might have caused it to be called off.

But it would. And when it did, Pierre would be ready. His black book of Paris Protestants had been augmented with visitors. And, in recent days, he and Duke Henri had made additional plans. They had worked out a matching list of ultra-Catholic noblemen who could be trusted to do murder. When the Huguenot uprising began, the bell of the church of Saint-Germain l’Auxerrois would ring continuously, and that would be the signal for each Catholic nobleman to kill his assigned Protestant.

All had agreed, in principle. Pierre knew that not every man would keep his promise, but there would be enough. As soon as the Huguenots revolted, the Catholics would strike. They would slay the beast by chopping its head off. Then the town militia could dispose of the rank and file. The Huguenot movement would be crippled, perhaps fatally. It would be the end of the wicked royal policy of tolerance towards Protestantism. And the Guises would once again be the most powerful family in France.

Here in front of Pierre was a new address for his black book.

‘The Englishman has fallen in love,’ Georges Biron had told him.

‘With whom? Anyone we can blackmail?’ Pierre had asked.

‘With a woman stationer who has a shop on the left bank.’

‘Name?’

‘Thérèse St Quentin. She runs the shop with her mother, Jacqueline.’

‘They must be Protestants. The Englishman would not dally with a Catholic girl.’

‘Shall I investigate them?’

‘I might take a look myself.’

The St Quentins had a modest house, he saw now, with just one upstairs storey. An alley the width of a handcart led, presumably, to a backyard. The façade was in good repair and all the woodwork was newly painted so presumably they were prospering. The door stood open in the August heat. In a window was an artistically arranged display: fanned sheets of paper, a bouquet of quill pens in a vase, and ink bottles of different sizes.

‘Wait here,’ he said to his bodyguards.

He stepped into the shop and was astonished to see Sylvie Palot.

It was definitely her. She was thirty-one, he calculated, but she looked a little older, no doubt because of all she had been through. She was thinner than before, having lost a certain adolescent bloom. She had the beginnings of wrinkles around her strong jaw, but her eyes were the same blue. She wore a plain blue linen dress, and beneath it her compact body was still sturdy and neat.

For a moment he was transported, as if by a magic spell, to that era, fourteen years ago: the fish market where he had first spoken to her; the bookshop in the shadow of the cathedral; the illegal church in the hunting lodge; and a younger, less knowing Pierre who had nothing but wanted it all.

Sylvie was alone in the shop. She was standing at a table, adding up a column of figures in a ledger, and at first she did not look up.

He studied her. Somehow she had survived the death of her father and the confiscation of his business. She had taken a false name and had begun a new enterprise of her own – which had prospered. It puzzled Pierre that God permitted so many blasphemous Protestants to do well in business and commerce. They used their profits to pay pastors and build meeting rooms and buy banned books. Sometimes it was hard to discern God’s plan.

And now she had an admirer – who was a detested enemy of Pierre’s.

After a while he said: ‘Hello, Sylvie.’

Although his tone had been friendly, she gave a squeal of fright. She must have recognized his voice, even after all these years.

He enjoyed the fear on her face.

‘Why are you here?’ she said in a shaky voice.

‘Pure chance. A delightful surprise for me.’

‘I’m not afraid of you,’ she said, and he knew, with pleasure, that she was lying. ‘What can you do to me?’ she went on. ‘You’ve already ruined my life.’

‘I could do it again.’

‘No, you couldn’t. We have the Peace of St Germain.’

‘It’s still against the law to sell banned books, though.’

‘We don’t sell books.’

Pierre looked around the room. There were no printed books for sale, it seemed; just blank ledgers like the one she was writing in and smaller notebooks called livres de raison. Perhaps her evangelical zeal had been stifled by the sight of her father burning to death: it was what the Church always hoped for. But sometimes such executions had the opposite effect, creating inspirational martyrs. She might have dedicated her life to continuing her father’s mission. Perhaps she had a store of heretical literature somewhere else. He could have her followed, night and day, to find out; but, unfortunately, she was now forewarned, and would take extra precautions.

He changed his line of attack. ‘You used to love me.’

She went pale. ‘May God forgive me.’

‘Come, come. You liked kissing me.’

‘Hemlock in honey.’

He took a threatening step forward. He did not really want to kiss her – never had. It was more exciting to frighten her. ‘You’d kiss me again, I know.’

‘I’d bite your damned nose off.’

He had a feeling she meant that, but he kept up his banter. ‘I taught you all you know about love.’

‘You taught me that a man can be a Christian and a foul liar at the same time.’

‘We’re all sinners. That’s why we need God’s grace.’

‘Some sinners are worse than others – and some go to hell.’

‘Do you kiss your English admirer?’

That really did scare her, he saw to his gratification. Evidently it had not occurred to her that he might know about Sir Ned. ‘I don’t know who you’re talking about,’ she lied.

‘Yes, you do.’

She recovered her composure with an effort. ‘Are you satisfied with your reward, Pierre?’ She indicated his coat with a gesture. ‘You have fine clothes, and I’ve seen you riding side by side with the duke of Guise. You’ve got what you wanted. Was it worth all the evil you had to do?’

He could not resist the temptation to boast. ‘I have money, and more power than I ever dreamed of.’

‘That wasn’t really what you longed for. You forget how well I know you.’

Pierre suddenly felt anxious.

She went on remorselessly: ‘All you wanted was to be one of them, a member of the Guise family that rejected you as a baby.’

‘And I am,’ he said.

‘No, you’re not. They all know your true origins, don’t they?’

A feeling of panic began to creep over Pierre. ‘I am the duke’s most trusted advisor!’

‘But not his cousin. They look at your fancy clothes, they remember that you’re the illegitimate child of an illegitimate child, and they laugh at your pretensions, don’t they?’

‘Who told you these lies?’

‘The marchioness of Nîmes knows all about you. She comes from the same region as you. You’ve married again, haven’t you?’

He winced. Was she guessing, or did she know?

‘Unhappily, perhaps?’ she went on. He was unable to hide his feelings, and she read his face accurately. ‘But not to a noblewoman. To someone low-born – which is why you hate her.’

She was right. In case he should ever forget how he won the right to use the Guise name, he had a loathsome wife and an irritating stepson to remind him of the price he had paid. He was unable to restrain the grimace of resentment that twisted his face.

Sylvie saw it and said: ‘The poor woman.’

He should have stepped around the table and knocked her down, then called his bodyguards from outside to beat her up; but he could not summon the energy. Instead of being galvanized by rage he found himself helpless with self-doubt. She was right, she knew him too well. She had hurt him, and he just wanted to crawl away and lick his wounds.

He was turning to leave when her mother came into the shop from the back. She recognized him instantly. She was so shocked that she took a step backwards, looking both fearful and disgusted, as if she had seen a rabid dog. Then her shock turned, with startling rapidity, to rage. ‘You devil!’ she shouted. ‘You killed my Giles. You ruined my daughter’s life.’ Her voice rose to yelling pitch, almost as if she had been seized by a fit of insanity, and Pierre backed away from her towards the door. ‘If I had a knife, I’d rip out your stinking guts!’ she screamed. ‘You filth! You discharge of an infected prostitute! You loathsome stinking corpse of a man, I’ll strangle you!’

Pierre hurried out and slammed the door behind him.

*

RIGHT FROM the start, there was a bad atmosphere at the wedding.

The crowd gathered early on Monday morning, for Parisians would never actually stay away from such a spectacle. In the square in front of the cathedral of Notre Dame an amphitheatre had been constructed, made of timber and covered with cloth-of-gold, with raised walkways to the church and to the neighbouring bishop’s palace. As a minor dignitary, Ned took his seat in the stand hours before the ceremony was due to begin. It was a cloudless day in August, and everyone was too hot in the sun. The square around the temporary construction was packed with sweating citizens. More spectators watched from windows and rooftops of neighbouring houses. All were ominously quiet. The ultra-Catholic Parisians did not want their naughty darling to marry a Protestant rotter. And their anger was stoked, every Sunday, by incendiary preachers who told them the marriage was an abomination.

Ned still could not quite believe it was going to happen. The crowd might riot and stop the ceremony. And there were rumours that Princess Margot was threatening a last-minute refusal.

The stand filled up during the day. At around three in the afternoon he found himself next to Jerónima Ruiz. Ned had planned to talk to her again, after their intriguing conversation at the Louvre palace, but he had not had the opportunity in the few days since. He greeted her warmly, and she said nostalgically: ‘You smile just like Barney.’

‘Cardinal Romero must feel disappointed,’ Ned said. ‘The marriage appears to be going ahead.’

She lowered her voice. ‘He told me something that will interest you.’

‘Good!’ Ned had been hoping that Jerónima might be persuaded to leak information. It seemed she did not need any persuading.

‘The duke of Guise has a list of names and addresses of leading Protestants in Paris. One reliable Catholic nobleman has been assigned to each. If there are riots, the Huguenots will all be murdered.’

‘My God! Are they that cold-blooded?’

‘The Guise family are.’

‘Thank you for telling me.’

‘I’d like to kill Romero, but I can’t, because I need him,’ she said. ‘But this is the next best thing.’

He stared at her, fascinated and a little horrified. The Guises were not the only cold-blooded ones.

The conversation was interrupted by a rumble from the crowd, and they turned to see the bridegroom’s procession, coming from the Louvre palace, crossing the Notre Dame bridge from the right bank to the island. Henri de Bourbon, king of Navarre, wore a pale yellow satin outfit embroidered with silver, pearls and precious stones. He was escorted by Protestant noblemen including the marquess de Nîmes. The citizens of Paris watched in sullen silence.

Ned turned to speak to Jerónima, but she had moved away, and now Walsingham was next to him. ‘I just learned something chilling,’ he said, and repeated what Jerónima had told him.

‘Perhaps we shouldn’t be surprised,’ Walsingham said. ‘They have made plans – of course they have.’

‘And now we know about their plans, thanks to that Spanish tart.’

Walsingham gave a rare smile. ‘All right, Ned, you’ve made your point.’

King Charles came out of the bishop’s palace with the bride, his sister, on his arm. He wore the same pale yellow satin as Henri de Bourbon, a sign of brotherhood. However, he had larger jewels, and more of them. As they approached, Walsingham leaned towards Ned and said disdainfully: ‘I’ve been told that the king’s outfit cost five hundred thousand ecus.’

Ned could hardly believe it. ‘That’s a hundred and fifty thousand pounds!’

‘Which is half the annual budget of the English government.’

For once Ned shared Walsingham’s disapproval of lavishness.

Princess Margot wore a velvet robe in a luminous shade of violet, and a blue cloak with a long train carried by three ladies. She was going to get hot, Ned thought. Every princess was said to be beautiful, but in her case it was true. She had a sensual face, with big eyes marked by dark eyebrows, and red lips that looked as if they wanted to be kissed. But today that lovely face was set in an expression of stubborn resentment. ‘She’s not happy,’ Ned said to Walsingham.

Walsingham shrugged. ‘She’s known since childhood that she would not be allowed to choose her own husband. There is a price to pay for the obscenely extravagant life led by French royalty.’

Ned thought of Margery’s arranged marriage. ‘I sympathize with Margot,’ he said.

‘If the rumours about her are true, she won’t let her marriage vows constrain her behaviour.’

Behind the king came his brothers, all wearing the same yellow satin. They were making sure the crowd got the point: from today on the Valois men and the Bourbons were going to be brothers. The bride was followed by at least a hundred noblewomen. Ned had never seen so many diamonds and rubies in one place. Every woman was wearing more jewels than Queen Elizabeth owned.

Still no one cheered.

The procession moved slowly along the raised walkway to the amphitheatre, and there the bride took her place beside the groom. This was the first time a Catholic had married a Protestant in a royal wedding, and a complex ceremony had been devised to avoid offending either side.

In accordance with custom, the wedding was performed outside the church. The cardinal of Bourbon administered the vows. As the seconds ticked by and the words were spoken, Ned felt the solemnity of the moment: a great country was moving, inch by painful inch, towards the ideal of religious freedom. Ned longed for that. It was what Queen Elizabeth wanted, and it was what Sylvie Palot needed.

At last the cardinal asked Margot if she would accept the king of Navarre as her husband.

She stared back at him, expressionless and tight-lipped.

Surely, Ned thought, she would not sabotage the whole wedding at this point? But people said she was wilful.

The groom shifted from one foot to the other impatiently.

The princess and the cardinal stared at one another for a long moment.

Then King Charles, standing behind his sister, reached forward, put his hand on the back of her head, and pushed.

Princess Margot appeared to nod.

This clearly was not consent, Ned thought. God knew that, and so did the watching crowd. But it was good enough for the cardinal, who hastily pronounced them man and wife.

They were married – but if something went wrong now, before the marriage was consummated, it could yet be annulled.

The bridal party went into the cathedral for the wedding Mass. The groom did not stay for the Catholic service, but emerged again almost immediately.

Outside the church he spoke to Gaspard de Coligny, the Huguenot general. They may have intended no offence, but their casual manner gave the impression that they were disdaining the service going on inside. That was certainly what the crowd felt, and they began to shout protests. Then they started their victory chant:

This was infuriating to the Huguenots whose leaders were being tortured in the dungeons of the duke of Alba.

The notables in the stand were milling around, chatting, but as the chanting grew, their conversations tailed off and they looked around anxiously.

A group of Huguenots on the roof of a nearby house retaliated by singing a psalm, and other voices joined in. In the crowd on the ground, a few young toughs began to move towards the house.

The scene had all the makings of a riot. If that happened, the pacific effect of the marriage could be reversed.

Ned spotted Walsingham’s friend the marquess of Lagny, in his jewelled cap, and spoke to him urgently. ‘Can’t you stop those Huguenots singing?’ he said. ‘It enrages the crowd. We’ll lose all we’ve gained if there’s a riot.’

Lagny said: ‘I could stop the singing, if the Catholics would stop chanting.’

Ned looked around for a friendly Catholic and saw Aphrodite Beaulieu. He buttonholed her and said: ‘Can you get a priest or someone to stop the crowd doing the Hangest chant? We’re heading for a nasty disturbance.’

She was a sensible girl and saw the danger. ‘I’ll go into the church and speak to my father,’ she said.

Ned’s eye lit on Henri of Bourbon and Gaspard de Coligny and he realized they were the root of the problem. He went back to Lagny. ‘Could you tell those two to make themselves scarce?’ he said. ‘I’m sure they don’t mean it, but they’re provoking the crowd.’

Lagny nodded. ‘I’ll speak to them. Neither of them wants trouble.’

A couple of minutes later, Henri and Gaspard disappeared into the archbishop’s palace. A priest came out of the cathedral and told the crowd that they were disturbing the Mass, and the chanting subsided. The Huguenots on the rooftops ceased their singing. The square became quiet.

The crisis was over, Ned thought – for now.

*

THE WEDDING WAS followed by three days of lavish celebrations, but no riots. Pierre was bitterly disappointed.

There were street fights and tavern brawls, as exultant Protestants clashed with furious Catholics, but none of the affrays turned into the city-wide battle he was hoping for.

Queen Caterina did not have the stomach for a violent confrontation. Coligny, like all the more cunning Huguenots, believed his best strategy was to avoid bloodshed. Together, milk-and-water moderates on both sides kept the peace.

The Guise family were desperate. They saw power and prestige slipping away from them permanently. Then Pierre came up with a plan.

They were going to assassinate Gaspard de Coligny.

On Thursday, as the nobility attended the tournament that was the climax of the festivities, Pierre stood with Georges Biron in one of the medieval rooms in the old part of the Louvre palace. The floors were dirt and the walls were rough stone.

Biron moved a table to a window for better light. He was carrying a canvas bag, and now he took from it a long-barrelled firearm.

‘It’s an arquebus,’ said Pierre. ‘But with two barrels, one below the other.’

‘So if he misses Coligny with the first ball, he has a second chance.’

‘Very good.’

Biron pointed to the trigger mechanism. ‘It has a wheel-lock firing action.’

‘Self-igniting, then. But will it kill him?’

‘At anything up to a hundred yards, yes.’

‘A Spanish musket would be better.’ Muskets were bigger and heavier, and a shot from one of them was more likely to be fatal.

Biron shook his head. ‘Too difficult to conceal. Everyone would know what the man was up to. And Louviers is not young. I’m not sure he can handle a musket.’ It took strength to lift one: that was why musketeers were famously big.

Pierre had brought Charles Louviers to Paris. Louviers had kept a cool head in Orléans: the assassination of Antoine de Bourbon had failed through the dithering of King Francis II, not by any fault of Louviers’s. Some years later, Louviers had assassinated a Huguenot leader called Captain Luzé and won a reward of two thousand écus. And Louviers was a nobleman, which – Pierre thought – meant that he would keep his word, whereas a common street thug would change sides for the price of a bottle of wine. Pierre hoped he had made the right decisions.

‘All right,’ he said. ‘Let’s have a look at the route.’

Biron put the gun back in the bag and they stepped out into the courtyard. Two sides of the square were medieval castle walls, the other two modern Italian-style palaces. Biron said: ‘When Gaspard de Coligny walks from his lodging to here, and from here back to his lodging, he is accompanied by a bodyguard of about twenty armed men.’

‘That’s going to be a problem.’

Pierre walked the way Coligny would have to go, out through the medieval gateway to the rue des Poulies. The Bourbon family had a palace immediately opposite the Louvre. Next to it was the mansion of the king’s brother Hercule-Francis. Pierre looked along the street. ‘Where does Coligny lodge?’

‘Around the corner, in the rue de Béthisy. It’s just a few steps.’

‘Let’s look.’

They walked north, away from the river.

The tension in the streets was still high. Even now Pierre could see Huguenots, in their sombre but costly outfits of black and grey, strolling along as if they owned the city. If they had any sense, they would not look so triumphant. But then, Pierre thought, if they had any sense, they would not be Protestants.

The ultra-Catholic people of Paris hated these visitors. Their tolerance was fragile, a bridge of straw holding up an iron-wheeled wagon.

Given a really good pretext, either side would run amok. Then, if enough people were killed, the civil war would start again, and the Peace of St Germain would be torn up, regardless of the marriage.

Pierre was going to provide that pretext.

He scanned the street for a vantage point from which a gunman might fire at someone walking along: a tower, a big tree, an attic window. The trouble was, the killer would need an escape route, for the bodyguards would surely go after him.

He stopped outside a house he recognized. It belonged to Henri de Guise’s mother, Anna d’Este. She had remarried, and was now duchess of Nemours, but she still hated Coligny, believing him to have been responsible for the death of her first husband. Indeed, she had done as much as Pierre to keep alive young Duke Henri’s yearning for revenge. She would undoubtedly co-operate.

He scrutinized the façade. The upstairs windows were overhung by wooden trellises bearing climbing plants, a pretty touch that surely came from the duchess. But today the trellises were draped with drying laundry, which suggested the duchess was not in residence. Even better, Pierre thought.

He banged on the door and a servant opened it. The man recognized Pierre and spoke in a tone of deference laced with fear. ‘Good day to you, Monsieur de Guise, I hope I may be of assistance to you.’ Pierre liked obsequiousness, but he always pretended not to notice it. Now he pushed past the man without replying.

He went up the stairs, and Biron followed, still carrying the long bag with the arquebus.

There was a large drawing room at the front on the upstairs floor. Pierre opened the window. Despite the laundry flapping in the breeze, he had a clear view of both sides of the street in the direction of the Louvre. ‘Hand me that gun,’ he said.

Biron took the weapon out of its bag. Pierre rested it on the windowsill and sighted along the barrel. He saw a well-dressed couple approaching arm-in-arm. He aimed the gun at the man. To his surprise he recognized the elderly marquess of Nîmes. Pierre moved the gunsight sideways and studied the woman, who was wearing a bright yellow dress. Yes, it was the Marchioness Louise, who had twice caused him to suffer humiliation: once long ago, when she had snubbed him at the Protestant service in the old hunting lodge; and again just a week ago, at the shop in the rue de la Serpente, when Sylvie had taunted him with secrets Louise had told her. He could get his revenge now, just by squeezing the trigger of the wheel-lock. He targeted her bust. She was in her middle thirties, but still voluptuous, and her breasts were, if anything, larger than before. Pierre yearned to stain that yellow dress with her bright blood. He could almost hear her screams.

One day, he thought; just not yet.

He shook his head and stood up. ‘This is good,’ he said to Biron, handing back the gun.

He stepped outside the room. The manservant was on the landing, waiting for orders. ‘There must be a back door,’ Pierre said to him.

‘Yes, sir. May I show you?’

They went downstairs and through the kitchen and the wash-house to a yard with a gate. Pierre opened the gate and found himself in the grounds of the church of St-Germain l’Auxerrois. ‘This is perfect,’ he said to Biron in a low voice. ‘You can have a horse waiting here, saddled ready, and Louviers can be gone a minute after firing the fatal shot.’

Biron nodded agreement. ‘That’ll work.’

They walked back through the house. Pierre gave the manservant a gold ecu. ‘I wasn’t here today,’ he said. ‘No one was. You saw nothing.’

‘Thank you, sir,’ said the man.

Pierre thought for another moment and realized that money was not enough. He said: ‘I don’t need to tell you how the Guise family punish disloyalty.’

The servant looked terrified. ‘I understand, sir, I really do.’

Pierre nodded and walked away. It was better to be feared than to be loved.

He went farther along the street until he came to a small graveyard behind a low wall fringed with trees. He crossed the street and looked back. He had a clear view of the Nemours house.

‘Perfect,’ he said again.

*

ON FRIDAY MORNING, Gaspard de Coligny had to go to a meeting of the royal council at the Louvre palace. Attendance was not optional, and absence was regarded as an act of disobedience offensive to the king. If a man were too sick to rise from his bed, and sent an abject apology, the king might sniff and say that if the illness was so bad, why had the man not died of it?

If Coligny followed his usual routine, he would walk past the Nemours house on his way back from the Louvre.

By mid-morning Charles de Louviers was installed at the upstairs window. Biron was at the back gate, holding a fast horse already saddled. Pierre was in the little graveyard, screened by trees, watching over the low wall.

All they had to do was wait.

Henri de Guise had given ready consent to Pierre’s plan. Duke Henri’s only regret was that he did not have the opportunity himself to fire the bullet that would kill the man responsible for his father’s murder.

A group of fifteen or twenty men appeared at the far end of the street.

Pierre tensed.

Coligny was a handsome man in his fifties with a head of curly silver hair, neatly trimmed, and a beard to match. He walked with the upright bearing of a soldier, but right now he was reading as he went along, and in consequence moving slowly – which would be helpful to Louviers, Pierre thought with mounting excitement and apprehension. Coligny was surrounded by men-at-arms and other companions, but they did not seem notably vigilant. They were talking among themselves, glancing around only cursorily, appearing not to fear greatly for the safety of their leader. They had become slack.

The group walked along the middle of the street. Not yet, Pierre thought; don’t fire yet. At a distance, Louviers would have difficulty hitting Coligny, for the others were in the way; but as the group approached the house, his vantage point on the upstairs floor gave him a better angle down.

Coligny came closer. In a few seconds the angle would be perfect, Pierre thought. Louviers would surely have Coligny in his sights by now.

About now, Pierre thought; don’t leave it too late . . .

Coligny suddenly stopped in his tracks and turned to speak to a companion. At that moment a shot rang out. Pierre stopped breathing. Coligny’s group froze in their positions. In the instant of shocked silence, Coligny roared a curse and grabbed his left arm with his right hand. He had been wounded.

Pierre’s frustration was intense. That sudden unexpected stop had saved Coligny’s life.

But Louviers’s arquebus had two barrels, and a second shot came immediately afterwards. This time Coligny fell. Pierre could not see him. Was he dead?

The companions closed around him. All was confusion. Pierre was desperate to know what was happening but could not tell. The silver head of Coligny appeared in the middle of the throng. Had they lifted up his corpse? Then Pierre saw that Coligny’s eyes were open and he was speaking. He was standing up. He was alive!

Reload, Louviers, and fire again, quickly, Pierre thought. But some of Coligny’s bodyguard at last came to their senses and started to look about them. One pointed to the upstairs storey of the Nemours house, where a white curtain flapped at an open window; and four of them ran towards the house. Was Louviers even now cool-headedly loading his gun? The men ran into the house. Pierre stood looking over the graveyard wall, frozen to the spot, waiting for another bang; but none came. If Louviers was still there they must have overpowered him by now.

Pierre returned his attention to Coligny. He was upright, but perhaps his men were supporting him. Though only wounded he might yet die. However, after a minute he seemed to shake them off and demand some room, and they stopped crowding him. This enabled Pierre to get a better look, and he saw that Coligny was standing unaided. He had both arms clutched to his body, and blood on his sleeves and doublet, but to Pierre’s dismay the wounds seemed superficial. Indeed, as soon as his men gave him space he began to walk, clearly intending to get home under his own power before submitting to the attentions of a doctor.

The men who had gone into the Nemours house now re-emerged, one of them carrying the double-barrelled arquebus. Pierre could not hear what they were saying, but he could read their gestures: head-shaking negation, shrugs of helplessness, arms waving in signs indicating rapid flight. Louviers had escaped.

The group came nearer to Pierre’s hiding place. He turned around, hurried out of the graveyard by the far gate, and walked away, bitterly disappointed.

*

NED AND WALSINGHAM knew, as soon as they heard the news, that this could be the end of all they and Queen Elizabeth hoped for.

They immediately rushed to the rue de Béthisy. They found Coligny lying on a bed, surrounded by some of the leading Huguenots, including the marquess of Lagny. Several doctors were in attendance, notably Ambroise Paré, the royal surgeon, a man in his sixties with a receding hairline and a long dark beard that gave him a thoughtful look.

The usual technique for disinfecting wounds, Ned knew, was to cauterize them with either boiling oil or a red-hot iron. This was so painful that the patient sometimes died of shock. Paré preferred to apply an ointment containing turpentine to prevent infection. He had written a book, The Method of Curing Wounds Caused by Arquebus and Arrows. Despite his success, his methods had not caught on: the medical profession was conservative.

Coligny was pale, and evidently in pain, but he seemed to have all his faculties. One bullet had taken off the top of his right index finger, Paré explained. The other had lodged in his left elbow. Paré had got it out – an agonizing procedure that probably accounted for how pale Coligny looked – and he showed it to them, a lead sphere half an inch across.

However, Paré said that Coligny was going to live, which was a huge relief. Nevertheless, the Huguenots would be outraged by the attempt on the life of their hero, and it would be a challenge to prevent them running riot.

There were several around the bed itching for a fight. Coligny’s friends were thirsty for revenge. They were all sure that the duke of Guise was behind the assassination attempt. They wanted to go to the Louvre right away and confront the king. They were going to demand the immediate arrest of Henri de Guise, and threaten a national Huguenot uprising otherwise. There was even foolish talk of taking the king prisoner.

Coligny himself urged restraint, but it was the weak voice of a man wounded and supine.

Walsingham made an effort to hold them back. ‘I have some information which may be important,’ he said. He was the representative of the only major country in the world that was Protestant, and the Huguenot nobility listened to him attentively. ‘The ultra-Catholics are prepared for your rebellion. The duke of Guise has a plan to put down any show of force by Protestants following the wedding. Each person in this room . . .’ He looked around significantly. ‘Each person in this room has been assigned his own personal assassin from among the more fanatical Catholic aristocracy.’

This was shocking news, and there was a buzz of horror and indignation.

The marquess of Lagny removed his jewelled cap and scratched his bald head. ‘Forgive me, ambassador Walsingham,’ he said sceptically, ‘but how could you know a thing like that?’

Ned tensed. He was almost completely sure that Walsingham would not reveal the name of Jerónima Ruiz. She might come up with further information.

Fortunately, Walsingham did not give away Ned’s source. ‘I have a spy in the Guise house, of course,’ he lied.

Lagny was normally a peacemaker, but now he said defiantly: ‘Then we must all be prepared to defend ourselves.’

Someone else said: ‘The best defence is attack!’

They all agreed with that.

Ned was a junior here, but he had something worth saying, so he spoke up. ‘The duke of Guise is hoping for a Protestant insurrection to force the king to breach the Peace of St Germain. You would be playing into his hands.’

Nothing worked. Their blood was up.

Then King Charles arrived.

It was a shock. No one was expecting him. He came without advance notice. His mother, Queen Caterina, was with him, and Ned guessed that this visit was her idea. They were followed in by a crowd of leading courtiers, including most of the Catholic noblemen who hated Coligny. But the duke of Guise was not with them, Ned noticed.

Charles had been king for eleven years, but he was still only twenty-one, and Ned thought he looked particularly young and vulnerable today. There was genuine distress and anxiety on his pale face with its wispy moustache and barely visible beard.

Ned’s hopes rose a little. For the king to come like this was an extraordinary act of sympathy, and could hardly be ignored by the Huguenots.

Charles’s words reinforced Ned’s optimism. Addressing Coligny, the king said: ‘The pain is yours, but the outrage is mine.’

It was obviously a rehearsed remark, intended to be repeated all over Paris; but it was none the worse for that.

A chair was hastily brought, and the king sat down facing the bed. ‘I swear to you that I will find out who was responsible—’

Someone muttered: ‘Henri de Guise.’

‘—whoever he may be,’ the king went on. ‘I have already appointed a commission of inquiry, and even now investigators are questioning the servants in the house where the assassin lay in wait.’

This was cosmetic, Ned judged. A formal inquiry was never a genuine attempt to learn the truth. No sensible king would allow independent men to control an investigation whose result could be so inflammatory. The commission was a delaying tactic, intended not to discover the facts but to lower the temperature – which was good.

‘I beg you,’ the king went on, ‘to come to the Louvre palace, and be close to our royal presence, where you will be completely safe from any further harm.’

That was not such a good idea, Ned thought. Coligny was not safe anywhere, but he was better off here, among friends, than he would be under the dubious protection of King Charles.

Coligny’s face betrayed similar misgivings, but he could not say so for fear of offending the king.

Ambroise Paré saved Coligny’s face by saying: ‘He must stay here, your majesty. Any movement could reopen the wounds, and he cannot afford to lose any more blood.’

The king accepted the doctor’s ruling with a nod, then said: ‘In that case, I will send you the lord of Cosseins with a company of fifty pikemen and arquebusiers to reinforce your own small bodyguard.’

Ned frowned. Cosseins was the king’s man. Guards who owed loyalty to someone else were of highly doubtful value. Was Charles simply being naively generous, desperate to make a gesture of reconciliation? He was young and innocent enough not to realize that his offer was unwelcome.

However, one conciliatory gesture by the king had already been rejected, and etiquette forced Coligny to say: ‘That is most kind of your majesty.’

Charles stood up to go. ‘I shall revenge this affront,’ he said forcefully.

Ned looked around the assembled Huguenot leaders and saw, by stance and by facial expressions, that many of them were inclined to believe in the king’s sincerity, and at least give him a chance to prevent bloodshed.

The king swept out of the room. As Queen Caterina followed him, she caught Ned’s eye. He gave the tiniest of nods, to thank her for keeping the peace by bringing the king here, and for an instant the corners of her mouth twitched in an almost imperceptible smile of acknowledgement.

*

NED SPENT MUCH of Saturday encoding a long letter from Walsingham to Queen Elizabeth, detailing the events of a worrying week and Queen Caterina’s struggle to keep the peace. He finished late on Saturday afternoon, then left the embassy and headed for the rue de la Serpente.

It was a warm evening, and crowds of young men were drinking outside the taverns, jeering at passing beggars, whistling at girls, no different from boisterous lads in Kingsbridge with money in their pockets and energy to spare. There would be fights later: there always were on Saturday night. But Ned saw no conspicuous Huguenots. They were sensibly staying off the streets, it seemed, probably having supper at home behind locked doors. With luck, a riot would be avoided tonight. And tomorrow was Sunday.

Ned sat in the back of the shop with Sylvie and Isabelle. They told him that Pierre Aumande had visited them. ‘We thought he had forgotten about us,’ Isabelle said anxiously. ‘We don’t know how he found us.’

‘I do,’ Ned said, feeling guilty. ‘One of his men has been following me. I must have led him here when I came for dinner last week. I’m so sorry. I didn’t know I was being watched, but I found out after I left here.’

Sylvie said: ‘How do you know the man following you worked for Pierre?’

‘I knocked him down and put my knife to his neck and said I’d cut his throat unless he told me.’

‘Oh.’

The two women were silent for a minute, and Ned realized that until now they had not pictured him involved in violent action. Eventually, he broke the silence by saying: ‘What do you think Pierre will do?’

‘I don’t know,’ Sylvie said. ‘I’ll have to be extra careful for a while.’

Ned described the scene when the king visited the wounded Coligny. Sylvie immediately focussed on the notion of a list of Protestants with their assigned killers. ‘If the duke of Guise has such a list, it must have been made by Pierre,’ she said.

‘I don’t know, but it seems likely,’ said Ned. ‘He’s obviously the duke’s chief spy.’

‘In that case,’ said Sylvie, ‘I know where the list is.’

Ned sat up. ‘Do you?’ he said. ‘Where?’

‘He has a notebook he keeps at his house. He thinks it’s safer there than at the Guise palace.’

‘Have you seen it?’

Sylvie nodded. ‘Many times. It’s how I know which Protestants are in danger.’

Ned was intrigued. So that was where she got her information.

Sylvie added: ‘But it has never included a list of murderers.’

‘Could I see it?’

‘Perhaps.’

‘Now?’

‘I can’t be sure, but Saturday evening is usually a good time. Let’s try.’ Sylvie stood up.

Isabelle protested: ‘It’s not safe on the streets. The city is full of angry men, and they’re all drinking. Stay home.’

‘Mother, our friends may be murdered. We have to warn them.’

‘Then, for God’s sake, be careful.’

It was not yet dark when Ned and Sylvie left the shop and crossed the Île de la Cité. The dark mass of the cathedral brooded over the troubled city in the evening light. Reaching the right bank, Sylvie led Ned through the close-packed houses of Les Halles to a tavern next to the church of St Étienne.

She ordered a tankard of ale to be sent to the back door of a house in the next street – a signal, Ned gathered. The place was busy, and there was nowhere to sit, so they stood in a corner. Ned was full of nervous anticipation. Was he really about to get a look at Pierre Aumande’s secret list?

A few minutes later they were joined by a plain, thin woman in her twenties. Sylvie introduced her as Nath, Pierre’s housemaid. ‘She belongs to our congregation,’ she said.

Ned understood. Sylvie had subverted Pierre’s servant and thereby gained access to his papers. Clever Sylvie.

‘This is Ned,’ Sylvie said to Nath. ‘We can trust him.’

Nath grinned. ‘Are you going to marry him?’ she blurted.

Ned smothered a smile.

Sylvie looked mortified, but passed it off with a joke. ‘Not tonight,’ she said. She hastily changed the subject. ‘What’s happening at home?’

‘Pierre’s in a bad mood – something went wrong yesterday.’

Ned said: ‘Coligny didn’t die, that’s what went wrong for Pierre.’

‘Anyway, he’s gone to the Guise palace this evening.’

Sylvie said: ‘Is Odette at home?

‘She’s gone to see her mother and taken Alain with her.’

Sylvie explained to Ned: ‘Odette is Pierre’s wife, and Alain is his stepson.’ Ned was intrigued by this glimpse into the private life of such a famous villain. ‘I didn’t know about the stepson.’

‘It’s a long story. I’ll tell you another day.’ Sylvie turned back to Nath. ‘Ned needs to look at the notebook.’

Nath stood up. ‘Come on, then. This is the perfect time.’

They walked around the block. It was a poor neighbourhood, and Pierre’s home was a small house in a row. Ned was surprised by its modesty: Pierre was conspicuously affluent, with costly clothing and jewellery. But noblemen such as the duke of Guise sometimes liked to keep their advisors in humble quarters, to discourage them from getting above their station. And a place such as this might be useful for clandestine meetings.

Nath discreetly took them in through the back door. There were just two rooms on the ground floor, the living room and the kitchen. Ned could hardly believe that he was inside the private home of the dreaded Pierre Aumande. He felt like Jonah in the belly of the whale.

On the floor of the living room was a document chest. Nath picked up a sewing bag and took from it a pin that had been carefully bent into a hook shape. With the pin she unlocked the chest.

Amazing, Ned thought. Just like that. So easy.

Nath opened the lid of the chest.

It was empty.

‘Oh!’ she said. ‘The book has gone!’

There was a moment of stunned silence.

Then Sylvie spoke. ‘Pierre has taken it with him to the Guise palace,’ she said thoughtfully. ‘But why?’

Ned said: ‘Because he’s going to use it, presumably. Which means he’s about to implement his plan of murdering every Protestant nobleman in Paris – probably tonight.’

Sylvie’s face showed fear. ‘God help us,’ she said.

‘You have to warn people.’

‘They must get out of Paris – if they can.’

‘If they can’t, tell them to come to the English embassy.’

‘There must be hundreds, including all the visitors who came for the wedding. You can’t get them all into the embassy.’

‘No. But in any event you can’t warn hundreds of people; it would take you days.’

‘What can we do?’

‘We must do what’s possible, and save as many as we can.’