20
By Saturday evening, Duke Henri was in a tantrum, possessed by the rage of a young man who finds that the world does not work in the way he confidently expected. ‘Get out of my sight!’ he yelled at Pierre. ‘You’re dismissed. I never want to see you again.’
For the first time ever, Pierre was as scared of Henri as he had been of Henri’s father, Duke Scarface. He had a pain in his guts like a wound. ‘I understand your anger,’ he said desperately. He knew his career would be over unless he could somehow talk his way out of this.
‘You predicted riots,’ Henri roared. ‘And they didn’t happen.’
Pierre spread his arms in a helpless gesture. ‘The queen mother kept the peace.’
They were at the Guise palace in the Vieille rue du Temple, in the luxurious room where Pierre had first met Duke Scarface and Cardinal Charles. Pierre felt as humiliated today as he had in this room fourteen years ago, when he was a mere student accused of dishonestly using the Guise name. He was on the brink of losing everything he had gained since then. He pictured the looks of pleasure and scorn on the faces of his enemies, and he fought back tears.
He wished Cardinal Charles were here now. The family needed his ruthless political cunning. But Charles was in Rome on Church business. Pierre was on his own.
‘You tried to assassinate Coligny and failed!’ Henri raved. ‘You’re incompetent.’
Pierre squirmed. ‘I told Biron to give Louviers a musket, but he said it would be too big.’
‘You said the Huguenots would rise up anyway, even though Coligny was only wounded.’
‘The king’s visit to Coligny’s sickbed calmed them.’
‘Nothing you do works! Soon all the visiting Huguenot noblemen will leave Paris and go home in triumph, and the opportunity will have been lost because I listened to you. Which I will never do again.’
Pierre scrambled to think clearly under the onslaught of Henri’s fury. He knew what had to be done, but in this mood would Henri listen? ‘I have been asking myself what your Uncle Charles would advise,’ he said.
Henri was struck by that notion. His wrathful expression moderated a little, and he looked interested. ‘Well, what would he say?’
‘I think he might suggest that we simply act as if the Protestant rebellion has, in fact, started.’
Henri was not quick on the uptake. ‘What do you mean?’
‘Let’s ring the bell of Saint-Germain l’Auxerrois.’ Pierre held up the black leather-bound notebook in which he had written the names of the paired assassins and victims. ‘The loyalist noblemen will believe that the Huguenots are in revolt, and they will slaughter the leaders to save the life of the king.’
Henri was taken aback by the audacity of this plan, but he did not immediately reject it, and Pierre’s hopes rose. Henri said: ‘The Huguenots will retaliate.’
‘Arm the militia.’
‘That can only be done by the Provost of Merchants.’ The title meant the same as mayor. ‘And he won’t do it on my say-so.’
‘Leave him to me.’ Pierre had only a vague notion of how he would manage this, but he was on a roll now, carrying Henri with him, and he could not allow himself to stumble over details.
Henri said: ‘Can we be sure the militia will defeat the Huguenots? There are thousands more staying in the suburbs. What if they all ride into town to defend their brethren? It could be a close-fought battle.’
‘We’ll close the city gates.’ Paris was surrounded by a wall and, for most of its circumference, a canal. Each gate in the wall led to a bridge over the water. With the gates locked it was difficult to enter or leave the city.
‘Again, only the Provost can do that.’
‘Again, leave him to me.’ At this point Pierre was ready to promise anything to win back Henri’s favour. ‘All you need to do is have your men ready to ride to Coligny’s house and kill him as soon as I tell you that all is ready.’
‘Coligny is guarded by the lord of Cosseins and fifty men of the king’s guard, as well as his own people.’
‘Cosseins is the king’s man.’
‘Will the king call him off?’
Pierre said the first thing that came into his head. ‘Cosseins will think the king has called him off.’
Henri looked hard at Pierre for a long moment. ‘You feel sure that you can achieve all this?’
‘Yes,’ Pierre lied. He just had to take the chance. ‘But there is no risk to you,’ he said earnestly. ‘If I should fail, you will have mustered your men to no purpose, but nothing worse.’
That convinced the young duke. ‘How long do you need?’
Pierre stood up. ‘I’ll be back before midnight,’ he said.
That was one more promise he was not confident of keeping.
He left the room, taking his black notebook with him.
Georges Biron was waiting outside. ‘Saddle two horses,’ Pierre said. ‘We’ve got a lot to do.’
They could not leave by the main gate, because there was a crowd of shouting Huguenots outside. The mob believed Henri was responsible for the assassination attempt, as did just about everyone, and they were baying for his blood – though not, as yet, doing anything bad enough to justify Henri’s men opening fire. Fortunately, the house was huge, occupying an entire city block, and there were alternative ways in and out. Pierre and Biron left by a side gate.
They headed for the place de Grève, the central square where the provost lived. The narrow, winding streets of Paris were as convoluted as the design firming up in Pierre’s mind. He had long plotted this moment, but it had come about in unexpected ways, and he had to improvise. He breathed deeply, calming himself. This was the riskiest gamble of his life. Too many things could go wrong. If just one part of his scheme miscarried, all was lost. He would not be able to talk himself out of another disaster. His life of wealth and power as advisor to the Guise family would come to a shameful end.
He tried not to think about it.
The provost was a wealthy printer-bookseller called Jean Le Charron. Pierre interrupted him at supper with his family and told him the king wanted to see him.
This was not true, of course. Would Le Charron believe it?
Le Charron had been provost for only a week, as it happened, and he was awestruck to be visited by the famous Pierre Aumande de Guise. He was thrilled to be summoned to the king, too much so to question the authenticity of the message, and he immediately agreed to go. The first hurdle had been surmounted.
Le Charron saddled his horse and the three of them rode through the twilight to the Louvre palace.
Biron remained in the square courtyard while Pierre took Le Charron inside. Pierre’s status was high enough for him to get into the wardrobe, the waiting room next to the audience chamber, but no farther.
This was another dangerous moment. King Charles had not asked to see either Pierre or Le Charron. Pierre was not sufficiently high-born – by a long way – to have automatic access to the king.
Leaving Le Charron to one side of the room, he spoke to the doorkeeper in a confident, unhurried voice that suggested there was no question of disobedience. ‘Be so good as to tell his majesty that I bring a message from Henri, duke of Guise.’
King Charles had not spoken to Henri, or indeed seen him, since the failed assassination. Pierre was betting that Charles would be curious to know what Henri might have to say for himself.
There was a long wait, then Pierre was called inside.
He told Le Charron to stay in the wardrobe until summoned, then he entered the audience chamber.
King Charles and Queen Caterina were at a table, finishing supper. Pierre was sorry Caterina was there. He could have fooled Charles easily, but the mother was smarter and more suspicious.
Pierre began: ‘My noble master, the duke of Guise, humbly begs your majesty’s pardon for not coming to court himself.’
Charles nodded acknowledgement of the apology but Caterina, sitting opposite him, was not so easily satisfied. ‘What is his reason?’ she asked sharply. ‘Could it be a guilty conscience?’
Pierre was expecting this question and had his answer ready. ‘The duke fears for his life, your majesty. There is a crowd of armed Huguenots outside his gates day and night. He cannot leave his house without risking death. The Huguenots are plotting their revenge. There are thousands of them in the city and suburbs, armed and bloodthirsty—’
‘You’re wrong,’ the queen mother interrupted. ‘His majesty the king has calmed their fears. He has ordered an inquiry into the shooting, and he has promised retribution. He has visited Coligny on his sickbed. There may be a few hotheads in the rue Vieille du Temple, but their leaders are satisfied.’
‘That is exactly what I told Duke Henri,’ Pierre said. ‘But he believes the Huguenots are on the point of rising up, and fears that his only hope may be to mount a pre-emptive attack, and destroy their ability to threaten him.’
The king said: ‘Tell him that I, King Charles IX, guarantee his safety.’
‘Thank you, your majesty. I will certainly give him that powerful reassurance.’ In fact, the assurance was more or less worthless. A strong king, feared by his barons, might have been able to protect Coligny, but Charles was physically and psychologically weak. Caterina would understand that, even if Charles did not, so Pierre directed his next sentence to her. ‘But Duke Henri asks if he may suggest something further?’ He held his breath. He was being bold: the king might hear advice from noblemen, but not normally in a message carried by an underling.
There was a silence. Pierre feared he was about to be thrown out for insolence.
Caterina looked at him through narrowed eyes. She knew that this would be the real reason for Pierre’s visit. But she did not reprimand him. In itself that was a measure of how tenuous was her grip on control and how close the city was to chaos.
At last the king said: ‘What do you want?’
‘Some simple security precautions that would guard against violence by either side.’
Caterina looked suspicious. ‘Such as?’
‘Lock the city gates, so that no one can come in from outside the walls – neither the Huguenots in the suburbs, nor Catholic reinforcements.’ Pierre paused. The Catholic reinforcements were imaginary. It was the Huguenots he wanted to keep out. But would Caterina see that?
King Charles said: ‘Actually, that’s quite a good idea.’
Caterina said nothing.
Pierre went on as if he had received consent. ‘Then shackle the boats on the waterfront, and pull the iron chains across the river that prevent hostile ships approaching the city. That way troublemakers can’t get into Paris by water.’ And Huguenots would not be able to get out.
‘Also a sensible safeguard,’ said the king.
Pierre felt he was winning, and ploughed on. ‘Order the provost to arm the militia and place guards at every major crossroads in the city, with orders to turn back any large group of armed men, regardless of what religion they claim.’
Caterina saw immediately that this was not a neutral move. ‘The militia are all Catholics, of course,’ she said.
‘Of course,’ Pierre conceded. ‘But they constitute our only means of keeping order.’ He said no more. He preferred not to enter into a discussion about even-handedness, for in truth nothing about his plan was neutral. But keeping order was Caterina’s main concern.
Charles said to his mother: ‘I see no harm in such plainly defensive measures.’
‘Perhaps not,’ Caterina replied. She mistrusted the entire Guise family, but what Pierre suggested made sense.
‘The duke has one more suggestion,’ said Pierre. Duke Henri had not suggested any of this, but etiquette demanded that Pierre pretend the ideas came from his aristocratic master. ‘Deploy the city artillery. If we line up the guns in the place de Grève, they will be ready to defend the city hall – or to be positioned elsewhere, if necessary.’ Or to mow down a Protestant crowd, he thought.
The king nodded. ‘We should do all these things. The duke of Guise is a sound military planner. Please give him my thanks.’
Pierre bowed.
Caterina said to Charles: ‘You’ll have to summon the provost.’ No doubt she thought the delay would give her time to mull over Pierre’s suggestions and look for snags.
But Pierre was not going to allow her that chance. He said: ‘Your majesty, I took the liberty of bringing the provost with me, and, in fact, he is outside the door, waiting for your orders.’
‘Well done,’ said Charles. ‘Have him come in.’
Le Charron came in bowing deeply, excited and intimidated to be in the royal presence.
Pierre took it upon himself to speak for the king, and instructed Le Charron to carry out all the measures he had proposed. During this recital Pierre feared that Charles or – more likely – Caterina might have second thoughts, but they only nodded assent. Caterina looked as if she could not quite believe that Duke Henri wanted only to protect himself and prevent rioting; but clearly she could not figure out what ulterior motive Pierre might have, and she did not dissent.
Le Charron thanked the king volubly for the honour of his instructions and vowed to carry them out meticulously, and then they were dismissed. Backing out, bowing, Pierre could hardly believe that he had got away with it, and every second he expected that Caterina would call him back. Then he was outside and the door was closed and he was another step closer to victory.
With Le Charron he walked through the wardrobe and the guardroom, then down the stairs.
Darkness had fallen by the time they stepped out into the square courtyard where Biron waited with their horses.
Before parting company with Le Charron, Pierre had one more deception to perpetrate. ‘Something the king forgot to mention,’ he said.
That phrase on its own would have aroused instant suspicion in an experienced courtier, but Le Charron was overwhelmed by Pierre’s apparent closeness to the monarch, and he was desperately eager to please. ‘Anything, of course,’ he said.
‘If the king’s life is in danger, the bell of Saint-Germain l’Auxerrois will ring continuously, and other churches with trustworthy Catholic priests will follow suit, all over Paris. That will be the alarm signal to you that the Huguenots have risen up against the king, and you must attack them.’
‘Could that really happen?’ Le Charron said, rapt.
‘It could happen tonight, so be prepared.’
It did not occur to Le Charron to doubt Pierre. He accepted what he was told as fact. ‘I will be ready,’ he vowed.
Pierre took the book with the black cover from his saddlebag. He ripped out the leaves bearing the names of noble assassins and victims. The rest of the pages were devoted to ordinary Paris Huguenots. He handed the book to Le Charron. ‘Here is a list of every known Protestant in Paris, with addresses,’ he said.
Le Charron was amazed. ‘I had no idea that such a document existed!’
‘I have been preparing it for many years,’ Pierre said, not without a touch of pride. ‘Tonight it meets its destiny.’
Le Charron took the book reverently. ‘Thank you.’
Pierre said solemnly: ‘If you hear the bells, it is your duty to kill everyone named in that book.’
Le Charron swallowed. Until now he had not appreciated that he might be involved in a massacre. But Pierre had led him to this point so carefully, by such gradual and reasonable stages, that he nodded agreement. He even added a suggestion of his own. ‘In case it comes to fighting, I will order the militia to identify themselves, perhaps with a white armband, so that they know each other.’
‘Very good idea,’ said Pierre. ‘I’ll tell his majesty that you came up with that.’
Le Charron was thrilled. ‘That would be a great honour.’
‘You’d better get going. You have a lot to do.’
‘Yes.’ Charron mounted his horse, still clutching the black book. Before leaving he suffered a troubled moment. ‘Let us hope that none of these precautions proves necessary.’
‘Amen,’ said Pierre insincerely.
Le Charron trotted away.
Biron mounted his horse.
Pierre paused a minute, looking back at the Italian-style palace he had just left. He could hardly believe he had fooled its royal occupants. But when rulers were this close to panic, they were desperate for action, and eager to agree to any plan that was halfway promising.
Anyway, it was not over yet. All his efforts in the past few days had failed, and there was still time for tonight’s even more complicated scheme to go awry.
He lifted himself into the saddle. ‘Rue de Béthisy,’ he said to Biron. ‘Let’s go.’
Coligny’s lodging was close. The king’s guards were outside the gate. Some were standing in line with arquebuses and lances; others, presumably resting, sat on the ground nearby, their weapons to hand. They made a formidable barrier.
Pierre reined in and said to a guard: ‘A message from his majesty the king for the lord of Cosseins.’
‘I will give him the message,’ said the guard.
‘No, you won’t. Go and fetch him.’
‘He’s sleeping.’
‘Do you want me to go back to the Louvre and say that your master would not get out of his bed to receive a message from the king?’
‘No, sir, of course not, pardon me.’ The man went off and returned a minute later with Cosseins, who had evidently been sleeping in his clothes.
‘There has been a change of plan,’ Pierre said to Cosseins. ‘The Huguenots have conspired to seize the king’s person and take control of the Government. The plot has been foiled by loyal men, but the king wants Coligny arrested.’
Cosseins was not as naïve as Le Charron. He looked sceptical, perhaps thinking that the duke of Guise’s advisor was an unlikely choice as the king’s messenger. ‘Is there some confirmation of this?’ he said worriedly.
‘You don’t have to arrest him yourself. The king will send someone.’
Cosseins shrugged. That did not require him to commit himself to anything. ‘Very well,’ he said.
‘Just be ready,’ said Pierre, and he rode off.
He had done everything he could. With a whole raft of plausible small deceptions, he had smoothed the way for Armageddon. Now all he could do was hope that the people he was trying to manipulate, from the king all the way down to the priest of Saint-Germain l’Auxerrois, would behave in accordance with his calculations.
The crowd in the Vieille rue du Temple had diminished with nightfall, but there were still enough angry Huguenots to cause Pierre and Biron to enter the palace by the side door.
The first question was whether Duke Henri would be prepared. The young duke was usually eager for action, but he had lost faith in Pierre, and it was possible that he had changed his mind and decided not to muster his men.
Pierre was relieved and thrilled to see fifty armed men assembled in the inner courtyard, grooms holding their saddled horses. He noticed Rasteau, the man with no nose, and his perennial companion Brocard. Blazing torches glinted off breastplates and helmets. This was a disciplined group of gentry and men-at-arms, and they remained quiet while they waited, in a scene of hushed menace.
Pierre pushed through the crowd to the centre, where Duke Henri stood. As soon as he saw Pierre he said: ‘Well?’
‘All is ready,’ Pierre said. ‘The king agreed to everything we wanted. The provost is arming the militia and deploying the city artillery as we speak.’ I hope, he thought.
‘And Cosseins?’
‘I told him that the king is sending someone to arrest Coligny. If he doesn’t believe me, you’ll have to fight your way in.’
‘So be it.’ Henri turned to his men and raised his voice. ‘We leave by the front gate,’ he said. ‘And death to anyone who gets in our way.’
They mounted up. A groom handed Pierre a sword belt with a sheathed weapon. He buckled on the belt and swung himself up into the saddle. He would try not to get personally involved in the fighting, if he could, but it was as well to be equipped.
He looked through the arch to the outer gateway and saw two servants swinging the great iron gates back. The mob outside was momentarily nonplussed. They had no plan for this situation: they were not expecting open doors. Then Duke Henri kicked his horse and the squadron pounded out with a sudden earthquake-rumble of hooves. The mob scattered in terror, but not all could get away. Amid screams, the big horses charged the crowd, the riders swinging their swords, and dozens fell wounded or dead.
The killing had begun.
They thundered through the streets at dangerous speed. Those few people out this late scurried out of the way for fear of their lives. Pierre was thrilled and apprehensive. This was the moment he had been working towards ever since King Charles had signed the disgraceful Peace of St Germain. Tonight’s action would show everyone that France would never tolerate heresy – and that the Guise family could not be ignored. Pierre was scared, but full of desperate eagerness.
He worried about Cosseins. Pierre wished he had been able to win a pledge of cooperation from him, but the man was no fool. If he resisted now, there would be a fierce skirmish – which might give Coligny time to escape. The whole scheme could founder on that detail.
The Guise palace was on the east side of town, and Coligny’s lodging was on the western edge, but the distance was small, and at that time of night there were few obstructions in the streets. In a few minutes the horsemen were in the rue de Béthisy.
Cosseins’s men must have heard the hoofbeats at a distance, and now, as Pierre picked out Coligny’s residence in the starlight, the guards presented a more orderly and formidable picture than they had half an hour ago, lining up in rows in front of the gate, lances and guns at the ready.
Duke Henri reined in and shouted: ‘I am here to arrest Gaspard de Coligny. Open the gate in the name of the king!’
Cosseins stepped forward, his face lit fiendishly by the torches of the Guise men. ‘I’ve had no such instructions,’ he said.
Henri said: ‘Cosseins, you are a good Catholic and a loyal servant of his majesty King Charles, but I will not take no for an answer. I have my orders from the king, and I shall carry them out, even if I have to kill you first.’
Cosseins hesitated. He was in a difficult position, as Pierre had calculated. Cosseins had been assigned to protect Coligny, yet it was perfectly plausible that the king had changed his mind and ordered the arrest. And if Cosseins now resisted Henri, and the two groups of armed men came to blows, much blood would be shed – probably including Cosseins’s own.
As Pierre had hoped, Cosseins decided to save his own life now, and take any consequences later. ‘Open up!’ he shouted.
The gates came open, and the Guise men charged jubilantly into the courtyard.
The main entrance to the house had a large double door of heavy timber with iron reinforcements, and as Pierre rode into the courtyard he saw it slam shut. Coligny’s personal bodyguards would be on the other side of it, he presumed. The Guise men began to attack the door with swords, and one shot out the lock. Pierre thought frustratedly how foolish they had been not to bring a couple of sledgehammers. Once again he fretted that the delay might allow Coligny to escape. No one had thought to check for a back entrance.
But the door yielded to force and burst open. There was fierce fighting up the stairs as half a dozen guards tried to keep the Guises back, but Coligny’s men were outnumbered and in minutes they all lay dead or dying.
Pierre leaped off his horse and ran up the stairs. The men-at-arms were throwing doors open. ‘In here!’ one of them yelled, and Pierre followed the voice into a grand bedroom.
Coligny was kneeling at the foot of the bed, wearing a nightgown, his silver hair covered with a cap, his wounded arm in a sling. He was praying aloud.
The men-at-arms hesitated to murder a man at prayer.
But they had all done worse things. Pierre yelled: ‘What are you scared of? Kill him, damn you!’
A Guise man called Besme thrust his sword into Coligny’s chest. When he pulled it out, bright blood pumped from the wound. Coligny fell forward.
Pierre rushed to the window and threw it open. He saw Henri down in the forecourt, still on horseback. ‘Duke Henri!’ he shouted. ‘I am proud to tell you that Coligny is dead!’
Henri shouted back: ‘Show me the body!’
Pierre turned into the room. ‘Besme,’ he said, ‘bring the body here.’
The man put his hands under Coligny’s arms and dragged the corpse across the floor.
Pierre said: ‘Lift it up to the window.’
Besme complied.
Henri shouted: ‘I can’t see his face!’
Impatiently, Pierre grabbed the body around the hips and heaved. The corpse tumbled over the windowsill, fell through the air, and hit the cobblestones with a smack, face down.
Henri dismounted. In a gesture stinking with contempt, he turned the body over with his foot.
‘This is he,’ he said. ‘The man who killed my father.’
The men around him cheered.
‘It’s done,’ said Henri. ‘Ring the bell of St-Germain l’Auxerrois.’
*
SYLVIE WISHED she had a horse.
Dashing from house to house, speaking to members of the congregation that met in the loft over the stable, she felt frustrated almost to the point of hysteria. Each time she had to find the right house, explain the situation to the family, persuade them that she was not imagining things, then hurry to the next nearest Protestant household. She had a logical plan: she was moving north along the rue St Martin, the main artery in the middle of the town, turning down side streets for short distances. Even so, she was managing only three or four calls per hour. If she had had a horse it would have been twice as quick.
She also would have been less vulnerable. It was hard for a drunk man to pull a strong young woman off a horse. But on foot and alone in the dark on the Paris streets she feared that anything could happen and no one would see.
As she approached the home of the marquess of Lagny, not far from her warehouse near the city wall, she heard distant bells. She frowned. What did that mean? Bells at an unexpected moment usually signified some crisis. The sound grew, and she realized that one church after another was joining the chorus. A city-wide emergency could mean only one thing: the apprehension that she and Ned had shared, when they found that Pierre’s book was missing, was coming true.
A few minutes later she came to the marquess’s house and banged on the door. He opened it himself: he must have been up, and his servants asleep. Sylvie realized this was the first time she had seen him without his jewelled cap. His head was bald with a monk’s fringe.
He said: ‘Why are they ringing the bells?’
‘Because they’re going to kill us all,’ she said, and she stepped inside.
He led her into the parlour. He was a widower, and his children were grown and living elsewhere, so he was probably alone in the house apart from the servants. She saw that he had been sitting up reading by the light of a wrought-iron candle tree. She recognized the book as one she had sold him. There was a flask of wine beside his chair and he offered her some. She realized she was hungry and thirsty: she had been on the go for hours. She drank a glass quickly, but refused a second.
She explained that she had guessed that the ultra-Catholics were about to launch an attack, and she had been racing around the town warning Protestants, but now she feared it had begun, and it could be too late for warnings. ‘I must go home,’ she said.
‘Are you sure? You might be safer to stay here.’
‘I have to make sure my mother is all right.’
He walked her to the door. As he turned the handle, someone banged on it from the outside. ‘Don’t open it!’ Sylvie said, but she was too late.
Looking over Lagny’s shoulder she saw a nobleman standing on the doorstep with several others behind him. Lagny recognized the man. ‘Viscount Villeneuve!’ he said in surprise.
Villeneuve wore an expensive red coat, but Sylvie was scared to see that he held his sword in his hand.
Lagny remained calm. ‘What brings you to my house at this time of night, Viscount?’
‘The work of Christ,’ said Villeneuve, and with a swift motion, he thrust his sword into Lagny’s belly.
Sylvie screamed.
Lagny screamed too, in agony, and fell to his knees.
As Villeneuve struggled to pull his sword out of Lagny’s guts, Sylvie ran along the hallway towards the back of the house. She threw open a door, dashed through, and found herself in a large kitchen.
In Paris, as everywhere, servants did not have the costly luxury of beds, but slept on the kitchen floor, and here a dozen staff were waking up and asking in scared voices what was going on.
Sylvie ran across the room, dodging the waking men and women, and reached the far door. It was locked, and there was no sign of a key.
She spotted an open window – letting air into a crowded room on an August night – and, without further thought, she scrambled through it.
She found herself in a yard with a henhouse and a pigeon loft. At the far side was a high stone wall with a gate. She tried to open the gate and found it locked. She could have wept with frustration and terror.
From the kitchen behind her she heard screams: Villeneuve and his men must have entered the kitchen. She guessed that they would assume all the servants were Protestants like their master – it was the usual way – and they would probably murder them all before coming after her.
She scrambled up onto the roof of the henhouse, causing a cacophony of squawking inside. Between the roof and the yard wall was a gap of only about a yard. Sylvie jumped it. Landing on the narrow top of the wall she lost her balance and fell to her knees painfully, but regained her balance. She dropped down the far side of the wall to a smelly lane.
She ran the length of the lane. It emerged into the rue du Mur. She headed for her warehouse, running as fast as she could. She reached it without seeing anyone. She unlocked the door, slipped inside, closed the door behind her, and locked it.
She was safe. She leaned on the door with her cheek against the wood. She had escaped, she thought with a strange sense of elation. A thought came into her mind that surprised her: I don’t want to die now that I’ve met Ned Willard.
*
WALSINGHAM IMMEDIATELY SAW the significance of the missing notebook, and assigned Ned and several others to call at the homes of prominent English Protestants in Paris, advising them to take refuge in the embassy. There were not enough horses for all and Ned went on foot. He wore high riding boots and a leather jerkin, despite the warmth of the night, and he was armed with a sword and a dagger with a two-foot-long sharpened blade.
He had completed his task, and was leaving the last of the houses assigned to him, when the bells began to ring.
He was worried about Sylvie. Pierre’s plan required the murders only of aristocratic Protestants, but once men started to kill it was hard to stop them. Two weeks ago Sylvie might have been safe, for her life as a Protestant bookseller had been a well-kept secret, but last week Ned had led Pierre to her home, and now she was probably on Pierre’s list. Ned wanted to bring her and her mother to the embassy for protection.
He made his way to the rue de la Serpente and banged on the door of the shop.
The upstairs window opened and a figure leaned out. ‘Who is it?’ The voice belonged to Isabelle.
‘Ned Willard.’
‘Wait, I’ll come down.’
The window was shut and, a few moments later, the front door was opened. ‘Come inside,’ said Isabelle.
Ned stepped in and she closed the door. A single candle lit the shelves with their ledgers and ink bottles. Ned said: ‘Where’s Sylvie?’
‘Still out warning people.’
‘It’s too late for warnings now.’
‘She may have taken refuge.’
Ned was disappointed and worried. ‘Where do you think she might be?’
‘She was going to work her way north along the rue St Martin and end up at the home of the marquess of Lagny. She might be there. Or . . .’ Isabelle hesitated.
Ned said impatiently: ‘Where else? Her life is in danger!’
‘There’s a secret place. You must swear never to reveal it.’
‘I swear.’
‘In the rue du Mur, two hundred yards from the corner of the rue St Denis, there is an old brick stable with one door and no windows.’
‘Good enough.’ He hesitated. ‘Will you be all right?’
She opened a drawer in the table and showed him two single-shot pocket pistols with wheel-lock firing mechanisms, plus half a dozen balls and a box of gunpowder. ‘I keep these for when a drunk comes out of the tavern across the street and asks himself how hard it can be to rob a shop run by two women.’
‘Have you ever shot anyone?’
‘No. Waving the guns was always enough.’
He put his hand on the door handle. ‘Bar the door behind me.’
‘Of course.’
‘Make sure all your window shutters are tightly closed and latched on the inside.’
‘Yes.’
‘Put out your candle. Don’t open the door to anyone. If someone knocks, don’t speak. Let them think the building is empty.’
‘All right.’
‘Sylvie and I will come back here for you then all three of us will go together to the English embassy.’
Ned opened the door.
Isabelle grabbed his arm. ‘Take care of her,’ she said, and there was a catch in her voice. ‘Whatever happens, look after my little girl.’
‘That’s what I mean to do,’ Ned said, and he hurried away.
The bells were still ringing. There were not many people on the streets of the left bank. However, as Ned crossed the Notre Dame bridge with its expensive shops, he was shocked to see two dead bodies in the street. A man and a woman in nightwear had been stabbed to death. Ned was sickened by the domesticity of the sight: husband and wife lying side by side, as if in bed, except that their nightgowns were soaked with blood.
The door of a nearby jewellery store stood open, and Ned saw two men emerging with sacks, presumably full of looted valuables. The men glared aggressively at him and he hurried past. He did not want to be delayed by an altercation with them, and they clearly felt the same, for they did not follow him.
On the right bank he saw a group of men hammering at a door. They had strips of white cloth tied to their arms in what Ned guessed was a form of identification. Most were armed with daggers and clubs, but one, better dressed than the others, had a sword. This one shouted in an educated voice: ‘Open up, blaspheming Protestants!’
The men were Catholics, then, and they formed a squad led by an officer. Ned figured that they must be part of the town militia. Jerónima’s information had suggested a mass slaughter of Protestant noblemen, but the house he was passing was an ordinary residence, that of a craftsman or small merchant. As he had feared, the killing was spreading beyond the original aristocratic targets. The result could be truly horrifying.
He felt cowardly sneaking past the scene, hoping the men with the white armbands would not see him. But no other action made sense. On his own he could not save the occupants of the house from six attackers. If he confronted them, they would kill him, then return their attention to the house. And he had to find Sylvie.
Ned followed the broad rue St Martin northwards, keeping his eyes peeled in the starlight, looking down the side streets, hoping to see a small woman with an upright stance and a brisk step coming towards him with a relieved smile. Glancing down an alley he saw another group of men with white armbands, three of them this time, rough-looking, none carrying swords. He was about to hurry past when something about the scene arrested him.
The men had their backs to him, looking at something on the ground, and Ned spotted what was horribly like the graceful shape of a young woman’s leg.
He stopped and stared. It was dark, but one of the men held a lamp. As Ned peered more closely, he saw that a girl lay on the ground, and a fourth man was kneeling between her thighs. She was moaning, and after a moment Ned made out that she was saying: ‘No, no, no . . .’
He felt a powerful impulse to run away, but he could not. It looked as if the rape had not actually begun. If he intervened in the next few seconds he could prevent it.
Or he could get killed.
The men were intent on the woman, and had not seen him, but at any moment one of them might glance backwards. There was no time to think.
Ned set down his lantern and drew his sword.
He crept up behind the group. Before fear could stop him, he stuck the point of his sword in the nearest man’s thigh.
The man roared with agony.
Ned pulled his sword out. The next man was turning around to see what was happening, and Ned slashed at him. It was a lucky stroke, and the tip of the blade gashed the man’s face from the chin up to the left eye. He yelled in pain and put both hands to his face. Blood spurted through his fingers.
The third spectator looked at his two wounded comrades, panicked, and ran away down the alley.
After a moment, the two men Ned had stabbed did the same.
The man on his knees jumped up and followed, holding up his breeches with both hands.
Ned sheathed his bloody sword, then knelt beside the girl and pulled her dress down over her legs, covering her nakedness.
Only then did he look at her face and realize she was Aphrodite Beaulieu.
She was not even a Protestant. Ned wondered what she had been doing on the street at night. Her parents would not have allowed her to wander around alone even in the daytime. Ned thought she might have had an assignation, and remembered how happily she had smiled at Bernard Housse in the Louvre. And she would probably have got away with it, had this not been the night that someone decided to let slip the dogs of war.
She looked at him and said: ‘Ned Willard? Thank God! But how . . . ?’
He took her hand and pulled her to her feet. ‘No time for explanations,’ he said. The Beaulieu mansion was not far away in the rue St Denis. ‘Let me take you home.’ He picked up his lantern and took her arm.
She seemed too shocked to speak or even cry.
Ned looked about him warily as they walked. No one was safe.
They were almost at her house when four men with white armbands came out of a side street and accosted them. One said: ‘Are you running away, Protestants?’
Ned’s heart went cold. He thought of drawing his sword, but they had swords too, and there were four of them. He had taken the last lot by surprise, and scared them, but these four stood facing him with their hands on their hilts, ready for action. He did not stand a chance.
He would have to talk his way out of this. They would automatically suspect any foreigner, of course. His accent was good enough to fool people – Parisians thought he came from Calais – but sometimes he made childish mistakes of grammar, and he prayed that he would not give himself away now by saying le maison instead of la maison.
He summoned up a sneer. ‘This is Mademoiselle Beaulieu, you damn fool,’ he said. ‘She’s a good Catholic, and the count of Beaulieu’s mansion is right there. You lay a finger on her and I’ll rouse the entire household.’ It was not an empty threat: he was within shouting distance. But Aphrodite gripped his arm harder, and he guessed she did not want her parents to know that she had been out.
The leader of the group looked sly. ‘If she’s a Catholic noblewoman, what’s she doing on the street at this time of night?’
‘We’ll get her father to answer that question, shall we?’ Ned maintained his pose of confident arrogance, but it was a struggle. ‘And then he can ask you what the devil you think you’re doing pestering his daughter.’ He took a deep breath and raised his head, as if about to shout for help.
‘All right, all right,’ said the leader. ‘But the Huguenots have risen up against the king, and the militia has been ordered to seek them out and kill them all, so you’d both better get inside the house and stay there.’
Ned did not let his relief show. ‘And you’d better be more careful how you address Catholic noblemen,’ he said, and he escorted Aphrodite past the men. Their leader said no more.
As soon as they were out of earshot, Aphrodite said: ‘I have to go in the back way.’
He nodded. It was as he had guessed. ‘Is there a door unlocked?’
‘My maid is waiting.’
It was the oldest of stories. Aphrodite’s maid was helping her mistress have an unauthorized romance. Well, that was none of Ned’s business. He walked her to the back of the house where she tapped on a high wooden gate. It was opened immediately by a young girl.
Aphrodite took Ned’s hand in a fierce grip and kissed his fingers. ‘I owe you my life,’ she said. Then she slipped inside, and the gate closed behind her.
Ned headed for the Lagny home, even more wary than before. He was alone now, and therefore more suspect. He touched the hilt of his sword nervously.
Many houses were now showing lights. The inhabitants, alarmed by the bells, had presumably got up and lit candles. Pale faces appeared at windows, staring out anxiously.
Fortunately, the Lagny place was not far. As he walked up the steps to the front door the building was dark and silent. Perhaps Lagny and his servants were pretending the house was empty, as Ned had urged Isabelle to do.
When he knocked on the door it moved. Apparently it had not been fully closed and now it swung open, revealing a dark hall. Ned smelled a disgusting odour, like a butcher’s shop. He held his lantern aloft and gasped.
There were bodies everywhere, and blood all over the tiled floor and the panelled wall. He recognized the marquess, lying on his back with stab wounds in his belly and chest. Ned’s heart stopped. He held his lantern over the faces of the other corpses, dreading that one of them would be Sylvie. They were all strangers, and by their dress he guessed servants.
He went into the kitchen, where there were more. He saw an open window leading to a yard, and hoped that some of the household had escaped that way.
He searched the house, shining his light into every dead face. To his immense relief Sylvie was not there.
Now he had to find her secret place. If she was not there, he feared the worst.
Before leaving the building he ripped the lace collar off his shirt and tied it around his left arm, so that he would look like one of the militia. There was then a danger that he might be challenged and found out to be an impostor, but on balance he thought it was worth the risk.
He was beginning to feel desperate. In the few weeks he had known her she had come to mean everything to him. I lost Margery; I can’t lose Sylvie, too, he thought. What would I do?
He made his way to the rue du Mur and located a plain brick building with no windows. He went to the door and tapped on the wood. ‘It’s me,’ he said in a low, urgent voice. ‘It’s Ned. Are you there, Sylvie?’
There was silence. His heart seemed to slow down. Then he heard the scrape of a bar and the click of a lock. The door opened and he stepped inside. Sylvie locked it and replaced the bar, then turned to him. He held up the lantern to look at her face. She was distraught, scared and tearful, but she was alive and apparently unhurt.
‘I love you,’ Ned said.
She threw herself into his arms.
*
PIERRE WAS AWESTRUCK by the result of his machinations. The Paris militia was carrying out the slaughter of Protestants with even more force and spite than he had hoped.
His cleverness was not really the cause, he knew. Parisians were furious that the wedding had gone ahead, and popular preachers had told them they were right to feel as they did. The city had been ready to explode with hatred, waiting only for someone to ignite the gunpowder. Pierre had merely struck the match.
As dawn broke on Sunday, St Bartholomew’s Day, there were hundreds of dead and dying Huguenots on the streets of the city. It really might be possible to kill all the Protestants in France. He realized, with a sense of triumph mingled with wonder, that this could be the final solution.
Pierre had gathered around him a small squadron of ruffians, promising them that they could steal anything they liked from those they killed. They included Brocard and Rasteau; Biron, his chief spy; and a handful of the street villains Biron used for such tasks as tailing suspects.
Pierre had given his black book to the provost, Le Charron, but he remembered many of the names and addresses. He had been spying on these people for fourteen years.
They went first to the premises of René Duboeuf, the tailor in the rue St Martin. ‘Don’t kill him or his wife until I say so,’ Pierre ordered.
They broke down the door and entered the shop. Some of the men went upstairs.
Pierre pulled open a drawer and found the tailor’s notebook containing the names and addresses of his customers. He had always wanted this. He would make use of it tonight.
The men dragged the Duboeufs downstairs in their nightwear.
René was a small man of about fifty. He had already been bald when Pierre first came across him thirteen years ago. The wife had been young and pretty then, and she was still attractive, even now, looking terrified. Pierre smiled at her. ‘Françoise, if I remember rightly,’ he said. He turned to Rasteau. ‘Cut off her finger.’
Rasteau gave his high-pitched giggle.
While the woman sobbed and the tailor pleaded, a man-at-arms held her left hand flat on the table and Rasteau cut off her little finger and part of her ring finger. Blood spurted over the table, staining a bolt of pale grey wool. She screamed and fainted.
‘Where is your money?’ Pierre asked the tailor.
‘In the commode, behind the chamber pot,’ he said. ‘Please don’t hurt her any more.’
Pierre nodded to Biron, who went upstairs.
Pierre saw that Françoise now had her eyes open. ‘Make her stand up,’ he said.
Biron came back with a leather bag that he emptied onto the table in a puddle of Françoise’s blood. There was a pile of assorted coins.
‘He’s got more money than that,’ Pierre said. ‘Rip off her nightdress.’
She was younger than her husband, and she had a good figure. The men went quiet.
Pierre said to the tailor: ‘Where’s the rest of the money?’
Duboeuf hesitated.
Rasteau said excitedly: ‘Shall I cut her tits off?’
Duboeuf said: ‘In the fireplace, up the chimney. Please leave her alone.’
Biron put his hand up the chimney – cold, in August – and retrieved a locked wooden box. He broke the lock with the point of his sword and tipped the money on the table, a good heap of gold coins.
‘Cut their throats and share out the money,’ Pierre said, and he went back outside without waiting to watch.
The people he most wanted as victims were the marquess and marchioness of Nîmes. He would have loved to kill the man in front of his wife. What a revenge that would have been. But they lived outside the walls, in the suburb of St Jacques, and the city gates were locked, so they were safe from Pierre’s wrath, for the moment.
Failing them, Pierre’s mind went to the Palot family.
Isabelle Palot had done worse than insult him, when he had called at the shop a few days ago; she had scared him. And perceptive Sylvie had seen it. Now it was time for them to be punished.
The men were a long time dividing up the money. Pierre guessed they were raping the wife before killing her. He had observed, in the civil war, that when men started to kill they always raped as well. Lifting one prohibition seemed to lift them all.
At last they came out of the shop. Pierre led them south, along the rue St Martin and across the Île de la Cité. He recalled the words Isabelle had used to him: filth, discharge of an infected prostitute, loathsome stinking corpse. He would remind her of them as she lay dying.
*
SYLVIE’S STASH OF books was cleverly concealed, Ned saw. Anyone entering the warehouse would see only barrels stacked floor to ceiling. Most of the barrels were full of sand, but Sylvie had shown Ned that a few were empty and easily moved to reveal the space where the books were stored in boxes. No one had ever discovered her secret, she told him.
They snuffed out the light of Ned’s lamp, for fear that a faint glow might leak through cracks and be seen outside, and sat in the dark, holding hands. The bells rang madly. Sounds of combat came to their ears: screams, the hoarse shouts of men fighting, and occasional gunfire. Sylvie was worried about her mother, but Ned persuaded her that Isabelle was in less danger at her house than Sylvie and he would be on the streets.
They sat for hours, listening and waiting. The street noises began to die away around the time that a faint light appeared around the edges of the door, like a picture frame, indicating dawn; and Sylvie said: ‘We can’t stay here for ever.’
Ned opened the door a few inches, put his head out cautiously, and looked up and down the rue du Mur in the morning light. ‘All clear,’ he said. He stepped out.
Sylvie followed him and locked the door behind her. ‘Perhaps the killing has stopped,’ she said.
‘They might flinch from committing atrocities in broad daylight.’
Sylvie quoted a verse from John’s Gospel: ‘Men loved darkness rather than the light, because their deeds were evil.’
They set off along the street, side by side, walking quickly. Ned still had on his white armband, for what that might be worth. He placed more reliance on the sword at his side, and walked with a hand on the hilt for reassurance. They headed south, towards the river.
Around the first corner two men lay dead outside a shop selling saddles. Ned was puzzled to see that they were half-naked. The corpses were partly obscured by the figure of a grey-haired old woman in a dirty coat bending over them. After a moment Ned realized she was taking the clothes off the bodies.
Second-hand clothing was valuable: only the rich could buy new. Even worn and filthy underwear could be sold as rags to paper makers. This wretched old woman was stealing the garments of the dead to sell, he realized. She pulled the breeches off the legs of a body then ran away with a bundle under her arm. The nakedness of the stabbed bodies made the sight even more obscene. Ned noticed that Sylvie averted her eyes as they walked past.
They avoided the broad, straight main roads with their long sightlines, and zigzagged through the narrow, tortuous lanes of the neighbourhood called Les Halles. Even in these back streets there were bodies. Most of them had been stripped, and in some places they were piled one on top of another, as if to make room in the road for people to pass. Ned saw the tanned faces of outdoor workers, the soft white hands of rich women, and the slender arms and legs of children. He lost count of how many. It was like a painting of hell in a Catholic church, but this was real and in front of his eyes in one of the great cities of the world. The sense of horror grew like nausea in him, and he would have vomited if his stomach had not been empty. Glancing at Sylvie he saw that her face was pale and set in an expression of grim determination.
There was worse to come.
At the edge of the river, the militia were getting rid of bodies. The dead, and some of the helpless wounded, were being thrown into the Seine with no more ceremony than would have been used for poisoned rats. Some floated off, but others hardly moved, and the shallow edge of the water was already clogged with corpses. A man with a long pole was trying to push the bodies out into midstream to make room for more, but they seemed sluggish, as if reluctant to leave.
The men were too preoccupied to notice Ned and Sylvie, who hurried past and headed across the bridge.
*
PIERRE’S EXCITEMENT grew as he approached the little stationery shop in the rue de la Serpente.
He wondered whether to encourage the men to rape Isabelle. That would be a suitable punishment. Then he had a better idea: let them rape Sylvie in front of her mother. People felt more pain when their children suffered: he had learned that from his wife, Odette. It crossed his mind to rape Sylvie himself, but that might diminish his authority in the eyes of his men. Let them do the dirty work.
He did not knock at the door of the shop. No one in Paris was answering callers now. A knock only gave people time to arm themselves. Pierre’s men smashed open the door with sledgehammers, taking only a few seconds, then rushed in.
As Pierre entered he heard a shot. That shocked him. His men did not have guns: they were expensive, and normally only the aristocracy had personal firearms. A moment later he saw Isabelle standing at the back of the shop. One of Pierre’s men lay at her feet, apparently dead. As Pierre watched, she raised a second pistol and carefully aimed it at Pierre. Before he had time to move, another of his men ran her through with his sword. She fell without firing the second gun.
Pierre cursed. He had planned a more elaborate revenge. But there was still Sylvie. ‘There’s another woman,’ he shouted to the men. ‘Search the house.’
It did not take long. Biron ran upstairs and came down a minute later. ‘There’s no one else here,’ he said.
Pierre looked at Isabelle. In the gloom he could not see whether she was alive or dead. ‘Drag her outside,’ he ordered.
In the light of day he saw that Isabelle was pumping blood from a deep wound in her shoulder. He knelt over her and yelled angrily: ‘Where is Sylvie? Tell me, bitch!’
She must have been in agony, but she gave him a twisted smile. ‘You devil,’ she whispered. ‘Go to hell, where you belong.’
Pierre roared with anger. He stood up and kicked her wounded shoulder. But it was pointless: she had stopped breathing, and her eyes stared up at him sightlessly.
She had escaped.
He went back inside. His men were searching for the money. The shop was full of paper goods of all kinds. He went around pulling ledgers off shelves and emptying cupboards and drawers, piling paper up in the middle of the floor. Then he snatched a lantern from Brocard, opened it, and touched the flame to the paper. It caught immediately and flared up.
*
NED FELT THAT he and Sylvie had been lucky to reach the left bank without getting accosted. By and large the militia were not attacking people at random: they seemed to be using the names and addresses they had undoubtedly got from Pierre. All the same, Ned had been stopped and interrogated once, when he was with Aphrodite Beaulieu, and it could easily happen again, with unpredictable results. So it was with a sense of relief that he turned into the rue de la Serpente, with Sylvie at his side, and hurried towards the shop.
He saw the body on the street, and had a dreadful feeling he knew who it was. Sylvie did too, and she let out a sob and broke into a run. A moment later they both bent over the still form on the bloody cobblestones. Ned knew right away that Isabelle was dead. He touched her face: she was still warm. She had not been dead long, which explained why her clothes had not yet been stolen.
Sylvie, weeping, said: ‘Can you carry her?’
‘Yes,’ Ned said, ‘if you just help get her over my shoulder.’ She would be heavy, but the embassy was not far away. And it occurred to him that he would look like a militiaman disposing of a corpse, and consequently would be less likely to be questioned.
He had his hands under Isabelle’s lifeless arms when he smelled smoke and hesitated. He looked towards the shop and saw movement inside. Was there a fire in there? A flame flared up and lit the interior, and he saw men moving about with an air of purpose, as if looking for something; valuables, perhaps. ‘They’re still here!’ he said to Sylvie.
At that moment, Ned saw two men step through the doorway. One had a mutilated face, his nose just two holes surrounded by puckered white scar tissue. The other man had thick blond hair and a pointed beard, and Ned recognized Pierre.
Ned said: ‘We have to leave her – come on!’
Sylvie hesitated for one grief-stricken moment, then broke into a run. Ned ran after her, but they had been recognized. He heard Pierre shout: ‘There she is! Go after her, Rasteau!’
Ned and Sylvie ran side by side to the end of the rue de la Serpente. As they passed the huge windows of the church of Saint-Severin, he glanced back over his shoulder and saw the man called Rasteau pounding after him, sword raised.
Ned and Sylvie raced across the wide rue St Jacques and into the graveyard of St-Julien-le-Pauvre. But Sylvie was tiring and Rasteau gained on them. Ned thought furiously. Rasteau was in his thirties, but big and strong, and his nose had obviously been chopped off in some fracas. He was probably a practised swordsman with long experience of combat. He would be a formidable opponent. In any fight lasting more than a few seconds, his greater size and skill would tell. Ned’s only hope was to surprise him somehow and finish him quickly.
Ned knew his surroundings well. This was where he had trapped the man who had been tailing him. Turning around the east end of the church, he was out of Rasteau’s sight for a moment. He stopped suddenly and pulled Sylvie into the deep shelter of a doorway.
They were both panting. Ned could hear the heavy running steps of their pursuer. In a moment he had his sword in his right hand and his dagger in the left. He had to judge this perfectly: he could not let the man go past. But there was no time to think. When it seemed that Rasteau must be almost upon them, Ned stepped out from the doorway.
His timing was not quite right. A moment earlier Rasteau had slowed his pace, perhaps suspecting a trap; and he was just out of Ned’s reach. He could not stop, but he was able to swerve and avoid being impaled on Ned’s blade.
Ned moved fast and lunged, and his point penetrated Rasteau’s side. Momentum carried the man past Ned. The blade came out. Rasteau half turned, stumbled and fell heavily. Without conscious thought, Ned stabbed wildly. Rasteau swung his weapon in a wide sweep and knocked Ned’s sword out of his hand. It flew through the air and fell on a grave.
Rasteau was up in a flash, moving fast for a big man. Ned glimpsed Sylvie coming out of the doorway and yelled: ‘Run, Sylvie, run!’ Then Rasteau came at him stabbing and slicing. Ned retreated, using his dagger to parry a thrust, then a swing, then another thrust; but he knew he could not keep it up. Rasteau feinted a downward cut then, with surprising agility, changed the stroke into a thrust that dipped under Ned’s guard.
And then Rasteau stopped still, and the point of a sword came out through the front of his belly. Ned leaped backwards, avoiding Rasteau’s sword, but it was not necessary, for the thrust lost all momentum as Rasteau screamed in agony and fell forward; and Ned saw, behind him, the small form of Sylvie, holding the sword Ned had dropped, pulling it out of Rasteau’s back.
They did not wait to watch Rasteau die. Ned took Sylvie’s hand and they ran across the place Maubert, past the gallows, to the embassy.
Two armed guards stood outside the house. They were not embassy employees: Ned had never seen them before. One of them stepped in front of Ned and said: ‘You can’t go in there.’
Ned said: ‘I am the deputy ambassador and this is my wife. Now get out of my way.’
From an upstairs window came the authoritative voice of Walsingham. ‘They are under the protection of the king – let them pass!’
The guard stood aside. Ned and Sylvie went up the steps. The door opened before they reached it.
They stepped inside to safety.
*
I married Sylvie twice: first in the little Catholic church of St-Julien-le-Pauvre, outside which she had killed the man with no nose; and then again in a Protestant service at the chapel in the English embassy.
Sylvie was a virgin at the age of thirty-one, and as if to recover lost time, we made love every night and every morning for months. When I lay on top of her she clung to me as if I were saving her from drowning, and afterwards she often cried herself to sleep in my arms.
We never found Isabelle’s body, and that made it harder for Sylvie to mourn. In the end we treated the burned-out shop as a grave, and stood in front of it for a few minutes every Sunday, holding hands and remembering a strong, brave woman.
Amazingly, the Protestants recovered from St Bartholomew’s Day. Three thousand people had been killed in Paris, and thousands more in copycat massacres elsewhere; but the Huguenots fought back. Towns with Protestant majorities took in crowds of refugees and closed their gates against the representatives of the king. The Guise family, as powerful Catholics on the side of the monarch, were welcomed back into the royal circle once more as civil war broke out again.
Services were resumed in the loft over the stable and in other clandestine locations all over the country.
Walsingham was recalled to London, and we went with him. Before we left Paris, Sylvie showed Nath the warehouse in the rue du Mur, and Nath took over the selling of illegal literature to Paris Protestants. However, my wife was not willing to abandon her mission. She announced that she would continue to order the books from Geneva. She would sail across the English Channel to Rouen, meet the shipments there, escort them to Paris, pay the necessary bribes, and deliver the cargo to the rue du Mur.
I worried about her, but I had learned from Queen Elizabeth that some women could not be ruled by men. Anyway, I’m not sure I would have stopped her if I could. She had a sacred mission, and I could not take that away from her. If she carried on long enough, one day, of course, she would be caught. And then she would die, I knew.
It was her destiny.