A Column of Fire (35 page)

Charles looked hard at the king for a long moment then backed away. ‘He will die,’ he murmured to Pierre.

Pierre was thrown. What did this mean for the Guise family, whose future was Pierre’s future? The long-term plan that Charles had only just outlined to him was now in ruins. Pierre felt a degree of anxiety close to panic. ‘It’s too soon!’ he said. He realized that his voice was oddly high-pitched. Making an effort to speak more calmly, he said: ‘Francis cannot rule this country.’

Charles moved farther away from the crowd, to make sure they could not be overheard, though no one was paying attention to anyone but the king now. ‘According to French law, a king can rule at fourteen. Francis is fifteen.’

‘True.’ Pierre began to think hard. His panic evaporated and logic took over his brain. ‘But Francis will have help,’ he said. ‘And whoever becomes his closest advisor will be the true king of France.’ Throwing caution to the winds, he moved closer to Charles and spoke in a low, urgent voice. ‘Cardinal,
you must be that man
.’

Charles gave him a sharp look of a kind that Pierre recognized. It indicated that he had surprised Charles by saying something Charles had not thought of. ‘You’re right,’ Charles said slowly. ‘But the natural choice would be Antoine of Bourbon. He is the first prince of the blood.’ A prince of the blood was a direct male descendant of a French king. Such men were the highest aristocracy outside the royal family itself. They took precedence over all other noblemen. And Antoine was the most senior among them.

‘God forbid,’ said Pierre. ‘If Antoine becomes the principal advisor to King Francis II, the power of the Guise family will be at an end.’ And so will my career, he added silently.

Antoine was king of Navarre, a small country between France and Spain. More importantly, he was head of the Bourbon family who, together with the Montmorency clan, were the great rivals of the Guises. Their religious policies were fluid, but the Bourbon–Montmorency alliance tended to be less hard-line on heresy than the Guises, and were therefore favoured by the Protestants – a type of support that was not always welcome. If Antoine controlled the boy king, the Guises would become impotent. It did not bear thinking about.

Charles said: ‘Antoine is stupid. And a suspected Protestant.’

‘And, most importantly, he’s out of town.’

‘Yes. He’s at Pau.’ The residence of the kings of Navarre was in the foothills of the Pyrenees Mountains, five hundred miles from Paris.

‘But messengers will be on their way to him before nightfall,’ Pierre said insistently. ‘You can neutralize Antoine, but only if you act fast.’

‘I must speak to my niece, Mary Stuart. She will be queen of France. She must persuade the new king to reject Antoine as advisor.’

Pierre shook his head. Charles was thinking, but Pierre was ahead of him. ‘Mary is a beautiful child. She cannot be relied upon in something as important as this.’

‘Caterina, then.’

‘She is soft on Protestants and might have no objection to Antoine. I have a better idea.’

‘Go on.’

Charles was listening to Pierre as he might to an equal. Pierre felt a glow of pleasure. His political acumen had won the respect of the most able politician in France. ‘Tell Caterina that if she will accept you and your brother as the king’s leading counsellors, you will banish Diane of Poitiers from the court for the rest of her life.’

Charles thought for a long moment then he nodded, very slowly, once.

*

A
LISON WAS SECRETLY
thrilled by the injury to King Henri. She put on plain white mourning clothes and even managed to force tears occasionally, but that was for show. In her heart she rejoiced. Mary Stuart was about to be queen of France, and Alison was her best friend!

The king had been carried into the Palace of Tournelles, and the court gathered around his sick room. He took a long time dying, but there was little doubt about the eventual outcome. Among his doctors was Ambroise Paré, the surgeon who had removed the spearhead from the cheeks of Duke François of Guise, leaving the scars that had given the duke his nickname. Paré said that if the splinter had penetrated only the king’s eye he might have survived, provided the wound did not become fatally infected; but in fact the point had gone farther and entered the brain. Paré conducted experiments on four condemned criminals, sticking splinters into their eyes to replicate the wound, but all of them died, and there was no hope for the king.

Mary Stuart’s fifteen-year-old husband, soon to be King Francis II, became infantile. He lay in bed, moaning incomprehensibly, rocking in a lunatic rhythm, and had to be restrained from banging his head against the wall. Even Mary and Alison, who had been his friends since childhood, resented that he was so useless.

Queen Caterina, who had never really possessed her husband, was nevertheless distraught at the prospect of losing him. However, she showed her ruthless side by banning her rival, Diane of Poitiers, from the king’s presence. Twice Alison saw Caterina deep in conversation with Cardinal Charles, who might have been giving her spiritual consolation but more probably was helping her plan a smooth succession. Both times they were attended by Pierre Aumande, the handsome, mysterious young man who had appeared from nowhere a year or so ago and was at Charles’s side more and more often.

King Henri was given extreme unction on the morning of 9 July.

Shortly after one o’clock that day, Mary and Alison were at lunch in their rooms at the château when Pierre Aumande came in. He bowed deeply and said to Mary: ‘The king is sinking fast. We must act now.’

This was the moment they had all been waiting for.

Mary did not pretend to be distraught or to have hysterics. She swallowed, put down her knife and spoon, patted her lips with a napkin, and said: ‘What must I do?’ Alison felt proud of her mistress’s composure.

Pierre said: ‘You must help your husband. The duke of Guise is with him now. We are all going immediately to the Louvre with Queen Caterina.’

Alison said: ‘You’re taking possession of the person of the new king.’

Pierre looked sharply at her. He was the kind of man, she realized, who saw only important people: the rest were invisible. Now he gave her an appraising look. ‘That’s exactly right,’ he said. ‘The queen mother is in agreement with your mistress’s Uncle François and Uncle Charles. At this moment of danger, Francis must turn for help to his wife, Queen Mary – and no one else.’

Alison knew that was rubbish. François and Charles wanted the new king to turn to François and Charles. Mary was merely their cover. In the moment of uncertainty that always followed the death of a king, the man with the power was not the new king himself but whoever had him in his hands. That was why Alison had said
possession of the person
– the phrase that had alerted Pierre to the fact that she knew what was going on.

Mary would not have figured this out, Alison guessed; but that did not matter. Pierre’s plan was good for Mary. She would be all the more powerful in alliance with her uncles. By contrast, Antoine of Bourbon would surely try to sideline Mary if he gained control of Francis. So, when Mary looked at Alison enquiringly, Alison gave a slight nod.

Mary said: ‘Very well,’ and stood up.

Watching Pierre’s face, Alison saw that he had not missed that little interaction.

Alison went with Mary to Francis’s room, and Pierre followed. The door was guarded by men-at-arms. Alison recognized their leader, Gaston Le Pin, a tough-looking character who was chief of the Guise family’s paid roughnecks. They were willing to hold Francis by force if necessary, Alison deduced.

Francis was weeping, but getting dressed, helped by his servants. Both Duke Scarface and Cardinal Charles were there, watching impatiently, and a moment later Queen Caterina came in. This was the group taking power, Alison realized. Francis’s mother had made a deal with Mary’s uncles.

Alison considered who might try to stop them. The leading candidate would be the duke of Montmorency, who held the title of Constable of France. But Montmorency’s royal ally, Antoine of Bourbon, never quick off the mark, had not yet arrived in Paris.

The Guises were in a strong position, Alison saw. All the same, they were right to act now. Things could change quickly. An advantage was no use unless it was seized.

Pierre said to Alison: ‘The new king and queen will occupy the royal apartments at the Louvre palace immediately. The duke of Guise will move into the suite of Diane of Poitiers, and Cardinal Charles will occupy the rooms of the duke of Montmorency.’

Clever, Alison thought. ‘So the Guise family will have the king
and
the palace.’

Pierre looked pleased with himself, and Alison guessed that might have been his idea.

She added: ‘So you have effectively neutralized the rival faction.’

Pierre said: ‘There is no rival faction.’

‘Of course not,’ she said. ‘Silly me.’

He looked at her with something like respect. That pleased her, and she realized that she was drawn to this clever, confident young man. You and I could be allies, she thought; and perhaps something more. Living most of her life at the French court, she had come to regard marriage the way noblemen did, as a strategic alliance rather than a bond of love. She and Pierre Aumande might be a formidable couple. And, after all, it would be no hardship to wake up in the morning next to a man who looked like that.

The party went down the grand staircase, crossed the hall, and walked out onto the steps.

Outside the gate, a crowd of Parisians waited to see what was going to happen. They cheered when they saw Francis. They, too, knew he would soon be their king.

Carriages stood in the forecourt, guarded by more of the Guises’ bully boys. Alison noticed that the vehicles were placed so that everyone in the crowd would see who got in.

Gaston Le Pin opened the door of the first carriage. The duke of Guise walked slowly forward with Francis. The crowd knew Scarface and they could all see that he had the king in his charge. This had been carefully choreographed, Alison realized.

Francis walked to the carriage, went up the single step, and got inside without making a fool of himself, to Alison’s great relief.

Caterina and Mary went next. At the step, Mary held back to let Caterina go first. But Caterina shook her head and waited.

Holding her head high, Mary got into the carriage.

*

P
IERRE ASKED HIS
confessor: ‘Is it a sin to marry someone you don’t love?’

Father Moineau was a square-faced, heavy-set priest in his fifties. His study in the College des Ames contained more books than Sylvie’s father’s shop. He was a rather prissy intellectual, but he enjoyed the company of young men, and he was popular with the students. He knew all about the work Pierre was doing for Cardinal Charles.

‘Certainly not,’ Moineau said. His voice was a rich baritone somewhat roughened by a fondness for strong Canary wine. ‘Noblemen are obliged so to do. It might even be a sin for a king to marry someone he
did
love.’ He chuckled. He liked paradoxes, as did all the teachers.

But Pierre was in a serious mood. ‘I’m going to wreck Sylvie’s life.’

Moineau was fond of Pierre, and clearly would have liked their intimacy to be physical, but he had quickly understood that Pierre was not one of those men who loved men, and had never done anything more than pat him affectionately on the back. Now Moineau caught his tone and became sombre. ‘I see that,’ he said. ‘And you want to know whether you would be doing God’s will.’

‘Exactly.’ Pierre was not often troubled by his conscience, but he had never done anyone as much harm as he was about to do to Sylvie.

‘Listen to me,’ said Moineau. ‘Four years ago a terrible error was committed. It is known as the Pacification of Augsburg, and it is a treaty that allows individual German provinces to choose to follow the heresy of Lutheranism, if their ruler so wishes. For the first time, there are places in the world where it is not a crime to be a Protestant. This is a catastrophe for the Christian faith.’

Pierre said in Latin: ‘
Cuius regio, eius religio.
’ This was the slogan of the Augsburg treaty, and it meant: ‘Whose realm, his religion.’

Moineau continued: ‘In signing the agreement, the emperor Charles V hoped to end religious conflict. But what has happened? Earlier this year the accursed Queen Elizabeth of England imposed Protestantism on her wretched subjects, who are now deprived of the consolation of the sacraments.
Tolerance is spreading.
This is the horrible truth.’

‘And we have to do whatever we can to stop it.’

‘Your terminology is precise:
Whatever we can.
And we now have a young king much under the influence of the Guise family. Heaven has sent us an opportunity to crack down. Look, I know how you feel: no man of sensibility likes to see people burned to death. You’ve told me about Sylvie, and she seems to be a normal girl. Somewhat too lascivious, perhaps.’ He chuckled again, then resumed his grave tone. ‘In most respects, poor Sylvie is no more than a victim of her wicked parents, who have brought her up in heresy. But this is what Protestants do. They convert others. And their victims lose their immortal souls.’

‘So you’re saying I will not be doing anything wrong by marrying Sylvie and then betraying her.’

‘On the contrary,’ said Moineau, ‘you will be doing God’s will – and you will be rewarded in heaven, I assure you.’

That was what Pierre had wanted to hear. ‘Thank you,’ he said.

‘God bless you, my son,’ said Father Moineau.

*

S
YLVIE MARRIED
P
IERRE
on the last Sunday in September.

Their Catholic wedding took place on the Saturday, in the parish church, but Sylvie did not count that: it was a legal requirement, nothing more. They spent Saturday night apart. On Sunday they had their real wedding at the forest hunting lodge that served as a Protestant church.

It was a mild day between summer and autumn, cloudy but dry. Sylvie’s dress was a soft dove-grey, and Pierre said the colour made her skin glow and her eyes shine. Pierre himself was devastatingly handsome in his new coat from Duboeuf. Pastor Bernard conducted the service, and the marquess of Nîmes was the witness. When Sylvie made her vows, she was overcome by a feeling of serenity, as if her life had at last begun.