A Column of Fire (49 page)

Sylvie emptied her cup, put it down, and said: ‘I’ve got a friend who would pay ten gold ecus for a look at that notebook.’ Sylvie could find the money: the business made a profit, and her mother would agree that this was a good way to spend it.

Nath’s eyes widened. ‘Ten gold ecus?’ It was more than she earned in a year – much more.

Sylvie nodded. Then she added a moral justification to the monetary incentive. ‘I suppose my friend thinks she might save a lot of people from being burned to death.’

Nath was more interested in the money. ‘But do you mean it about the ten ecus?’

‘Oh, absolutely.’ Sylvie pretended to realize suddenly that Nath was speaking seriously. ‘But surely . . . you couldn’t get hold of the notebook . . . could you?’

‘Yes.’

‘Where is it?’

‘He keeps it at the house.’

‘Where in the house?’

‘In a locked document chest.’

‘If the chest is locked, how could you get the notebook?’

‘I can unlock the chest.’

‘How?’

‘With a pin,’ said Nath.

*

T
HE CIVIL WAR
was everything Pierre had hoped for. A year after the Massacre of Wassy the Catholics, led by Duke Scarface, were on the brink of winning. Early in 1563, Scarface besieged Orléans, the last Protestant stronghold, where Gaspard de Coligny was holed up. On 18 February, a Thursday, Scarface surveyed the defences and announced that the final attack would be launched tomorrow.

Pierre was with him, feeling that total victory was now within their grasp.

As dusk fell they headed back towards their quarters at the Château des Vaslins. Scarface was wearing a buff-coloured doublet and a hat with a tall white feather: too highly visible to be sensible battlefield clothing, but he was expecting to meet his wife, Anna, tonight. Their eldest son, Henri, now twelve years old, would also be at the château. Pierre had been careful to ingratiate himself with the duke’s heir ever since they had met, four years ago, at the tournament at which King Henri II had received his fatal eye wound.

They had to cross a small river by a ferry that took only three people. Pierre, Scarface and Gaston Le Pin stayed back while the others in the entourage led the horses across. Scarface said conversationally: ‘You’ve heard that Queen Caterina wants us to make peace.’

Pierre laughed scornfully. ‘You make peace when you’re losing, not when you’re winning.’

Scarface nodded. ‘Tomorrow we’ll take Orléans and secure the line of the river Loire. From there we will drive north into Normandy and crush the remnants of the Protestant army.’

‘And that’s what Caterina is afraid of,’ Pierre said. ‘When we’ve conquered the country and wiped out the Protestants, you, duke, will be more powerful than the king. You will rule France.’

And I will be one of your inner circle of advisors, he thought.

When all the horses were safe on the far bank, the three men boarded the little ferry. Pierre said: ‘I hear nothing from Cardinal Charles.’

Charles was in Italy, at the city of Trento, attending a council convened by Pope Pius IV. Scarface said contemptuously: ‘Talk, talk, talk. Meanwhile, we’re killing heretics.’

Pierre dared to differ. ‘We need to make sure the Church takes a tough line. Otherwise your triumphs could be undermined by weak men with notions of tolerance and compromise.’

The duke looked thoughtful. Both he and his brother listened when Pierre spoke. Pierre had proved the value of his political judgement several times, and he was no longer treated as a cheeky upstart. It gave him profound satisfaction to reflect on that.

Scarface opened his mouth to respond to Pierre’s point, then a shot rang out.

The bang seemed to come from the river bank they had just left. Pierre and Le Pin turned together. Although it was evening, Pierre saw the figure at the water’s edge quite clearly. It was that of a small man in his middle twenties with a dark complexion and a tuft of peaked hair in the middle of his forehead. A moment later he ran off, and Pierre saw that he clutched a pistol in his hand.

Duke Scarface collapsed.

Le Pin cursed and bent over him.

Pierre could see that the duke had taken a bullet in the back. It had been an easy shot from a short range, helped by the duke’s light-coloured clothing.

‘He’s alive,’ said Le Pin. He looked again at the bank, and Pierre guessed he was calculating whether he could wade or swim the few yards back and catch the shooter before he got away. Then they heard hoof beats, and realized that the man must have tethered a horse not far off. All their mounts were already on the opposite bank. Le Pin could not catch him now. The shooting had been planned well.

Le Pin shouted at the ferryman: ‘Forward, go forward!’ The man began to pole his raft more energetically, no doubt fearful that he might be accused of being in on the plot.

The wound was just below the duke’s right shoulder. The ball had probably missed the heart. Blood was oozing onto the buff-coloured doublet – a good sign, Pierre knew, for dead men did not bleed.

All the same, the duke might not recover. Even superficial wounds could become infected, causing fever and often death. Pierre could have wept. How could they lose their heroic leader when they were on the point of winning the war?

As the ferry approached the far bank, the men waiting there shouted a storm of questions. Pierre ignored them. He had questions of his own. What would happen if Scarface died?

Young Henri would become duke at the age of twelve, the same age as King Charles IX, and too young to take any part in the civil war. Cardinal Charles was too far away; Cardinal Louis was too drunk. The Guise family would lose all their influence in a moment. Power was terrifyingly fragile.

Pierre fought down despair and made himself continue to think ahead logically. With the Guise family helpless, Queen Caterina would make peace with Gaspard de Coligny and revive the edict of toleration, curse her. The Bourbons and the Montmorencys would be back in favour and the Protestants would be allowed to sing their psalms as loudly as they liked. Everything Pierre had striven for over the past five years would be wiped out.

Again he suppressed the feeling of hopeless despair. What could he do?

The first necessity was to preserve his position as key advisor to the family.

As soon as the raft touched the far bank, Pierre started giving orders. In a crisis, frightened people would obey anyone who sounded as if they knew what they were doing. ‘The duke must be carried to the château as quickly as possible without jolting him,’ he said. ‘Any bumping may cause him to bleed to death. We need a flat board.’ He looked around. If necessary, they could break up the timbers of the little ferry. Then he spotted a cottage nearby and pointed to its entrance. ‘Knock that front door off its hinges and put him on that. Then six men can carry him.’

They hurried to obey, glad to be told what to do.

Gaston Le Pin was not as easily bossed around, so to him Pierre gave suggestions rather than orders. ‘I think you should take one or two men and horses, go back across the river, and chase the assassin. Did you get a good look at him?’

‘Small, dark, about twenty-five, with a small tuft of hair at the front.’

‘That’s what I saw, too.’

‘I’ll get after him.’ Le Pin turned to his henchmen. ‘Rasteau, Brocard, put three horses back on the ferry.’

Pierre said: ‘I need the best horse. Which of these is fastest?’

‘The duke’s charger, Cannon, but why do you need him? I’m the one who has to chase the shooter.’

‘The duke’s recovery is our priority. I’m going to ride ahead to the château to send for surgeons.’

Le Pin saw the sense of that. ‘Very well.’

Pierre mounted the stallion and urged it on. He was not an expert horseman, and Cannon was high-spirited, but, fortunately, the beast was tired after a long day, and submitted wearily to Pierre’s will. It trotted off, and Pierre cautiously urged it into a canter.

He reached the château in a few minutes. He leaped off Cannon and ran into the hall. ‘The duke has been wounded!’ he shouted. ‘He will be here shortly. Send at once for the royal surgeons! Then prepare a bed downstairs for the duke.’ He had to repeat the orders several times to the stunned servants.

The duchess, Anna d’Este, came hurrying down the stairs, having heard the commotion. The wife of Scarface was a plain-looking Italian woman of thirty-one. The marriage had been arranged, and the duke was no more faithful than other men of wealth and power; but, all the same, he was fond of Anna and she of him.

Young Henri was right behind her, a handsome boy with fair curly hair.

Duchess Anna had never spoken to Pierre or even acknowledged his existence, so it was important to present himself to her as an authoritative figure who could be relied upon in this crisis. He bowed and said: ‘Madame, young Monsieur, I’m sorry to tell you that the duke is hurt.’

Henri looked frightened. Pierre remembered him at the age of eight, complaining that he was considered too young to take part in the jousting. He had spirit, and might become a worthy successor to his warrior father, but that day was far off. Now the boy said in a voice of panic: ‘How? Where? Who did it?’

Pierre ignored him and spoke to his mother. ‘I have sent for the royal surgeons, and I have ordered your servants to prepare a bed here on the ground floor so that the duke will not have to be carried upstairs.’

She said: ‘How bad is the injury?’

‘He has been shot in the back, and when I left him he was unconscious.’

The duchess gave a sob, then controlled herself. ‘Where is he? I must go to him.’

‘He will be here in minutes. I ordered the men to improvise a stretcher. He should not be jolted.’

‘How did this happen? Was there a battle?’

Henri said: ‘My father would never be shot in the back during a battle!’

‘Hush,’ said his mother.

Pierre said: ‘You are quite right, Prince Henri. Your father never fails to face the enemy in battle. I have to tell you there was treachery.’ He recounted how the assassin had hidden himself, then fired as soon as the ferry left the shore. ‘I sent a party of men-at-arms to chase after the villain.’

Henri said tearfully: ‘When we catch him he must be flayed alive!’

In a flash, Pierre saw that if Scarface died, the catastrophe could yet be turned to advantage. Slyly he said: ‘Flayed, yes – but not before he tells us whose orders he is following. I predict that the man who pulled the trigger will turn out to be a nobody. The real criminal is whoever sent him.’

Before he could say whom he had in mind, the duchess said it for him, spitting the name in hatred: ‘Gaspard de Coligny.’

Coligny was certainly the prime suspect, with Antoine de Bourbon dead and his brother Louis a captive. But the truth hardly mattered. Coligny would make a useful hate figure for the Guise family – and especially for the impressionable boy whose father had just been shot. Pierre’s plan was firming up in his mind when shouts from outside told him the duke had arrived.

Pierre stayed close to the duchess as the duke was brought in and settled in a bed. Every time Anna expressed a wish, Pierre repeated it loudly as an order, giving the impression that he had become her right-hand man. She was too distraught to care what he might be scheming, and in fact appeared glad to have someone beside her who seemed to know what needed to be done.

Scarface had recovered consciousness, and was able to speak to his wife and son. The surgeons arrived. They said that the wound did not appear fatal, but everyone knew how easily such wounds turned lethally putrescent, and no one rejoiced yet.

Gaston Le Pin and his two henchmen returned at midnight empty-handed. Pierre got Le Pin in a corner of the hall and said: ‘Resume the search in the morning. There’ll be no battle tomorrow: the duke will not recover overnight. That means you’ll have plenty of soldiers to help you. Start early and spread your net wide. We must find the little man with the tuft.’

Le Pin nodded agreement.

Pierre stayed at the duke’s bedside all night.

When dawn broke, he met Le Pin in the hall again. ‘If you catch the villain, I will be in charge of the interrogation,’ he said. ‘The duchess has decreed it.’ This was not true, but Le Pin believed it. ‘Lock him up somewhere nearby then come to me.’

‘Very well.’

Pierre saw him off with Rasteau and Brocard. They would recruit all the helpers they needed along the way.

Pierre went to bed soon afterwards. He would need to be quick-witted and sure-footed over the next few days.

Le Pin woke him at midday. ‘I’ve got him,’ he said with satisfaction.

Pierre got up immediately. ‘Who is he?’

‘Says his name is Jean de Poltrot, sieur de Méré.’

‘I trust you didn’t bring him here to the château.’

‘No – young Henri might try to kill him. He’s in chains at the priest’s house.’

Pierre dressed quickly and followed Le Pin to the nearby village. As soon as he was alone with Poltrot, he said: ‘It was Gaspard de Coligny, wasn’t it, who ordered you to kill Duke Scarface?’

‘Yes,’ said Poltrot.

It soon became evident that Poltrot would say anything. He was a type Pierre had come across before, a fantasist.

Poltrot probably had worked as some kind of spy for the Protestants, but it was anyone’s guess who had told him to kill Scarface. It might have been Coligny, as Poltrot sometimes said; it might have been another Protestant leader; or Poltrot might have had the idea himself.

That afternoon and over the next few days he talked volubly. Most likely half of what he said was invented to please his interrogator, and the other half to make himself look better. The story he told one day was contradicted by what he said the next. He was completely unreliable.

Which was not a problem.

Pierre wrote out Poltrot’s confession, saying that Gaspard de Coligny had paid him to assassinate the duke of Guise, and Poltrot signed it.

The following day, Scarface developed a high fever, and the doctors told him to prepare to meet his maker. His brother, Cardinal Louis, gave him the last rites, then he said goodbye to Anna and young Henri.