A Column of Fire (106 page)

She stepped back nimbly. ‘You fiend, it’s all over, I’m free now!’ she yelled; then she stabbed him in the neck.

With incredulity he felt the blade penetrate agonizingly into his flesh. What was happening? Why did she think she was free? A weak king had killed the duke and now a weak woman had knifed Pierre. He was bewildered.

But Louise was an incompetent assassin. She did not realize that the first thrust had to be fatal. She had bungled, and now she would die.

Rage directed Pierre’s actions. His right hand went to his wounded throat while his left knocked aside her knife arm. He was hurt but alive, and he was going to kill Louise. He ran at her, crashing into her before she could stab again, and she lost her balance. She fell to the ground and the knife dropped from her hand.

Pierre picked it up. Trying to ignore the pain of his wounds, he knelt astride Louse and raised the dagger. He paused for a moment, hesitating over where to stab her: the face? Breasts? Throat? Belly?

He was struck by a powerful sideways blow to his right shoulder that threw him to the left. For a moment his right arm went limp, and it was his turn to drop the dagger. He fell heavily, rolling off Louise and over onto his back.

Looking up, he saw Alain.

The young man was holding in his hands the wheel-lock pistols given to Pierre by King Henri, and he was pointing both at Pierre.

Pierre stared at the guns for a helpless moment. He had fired them several times and knew that they worked reliably. He did not know how good a shot Alain was, but standing only two paces away he could hardly miss.

In an instant of quiet Pierre heard the drumming of the rain. He realized that Alain had known in advance about the assassination of the duke – that was how come he had asked
where
and not
why
. Louise had known, too. So they had conspired together to kill Pierre in his moment of weakness. They would get away with it, too: everyone would assume Pierre had been killed on the orders of the king, as the duke had been.

How could this be happening to him, Pierre Aumande de Guise, the master of manipulation for three decades?

He looked at Louise, then up again at Alain, and he saw the same expression in both faces. It was hatred mixed with something else: joy. This was their moment of triumph, and they were happy.

Alain said: ‘I have no further use for you.’ His fingers tightened on the long serpentine levers protruding below the guns.

What did that mean? Pierre had always used Alain, not vice versa, had he not? What had he failed to see? Yet again Pierre was bewildered.

He opened his mouth to shout for help, but no sound came from his wounded throat.

The wheel locks spun, both guns sparked, then they went off with a double bang.

Pierre felt as if he had been hit in the chest by a sledgehammer. The pain was overwhelming.

He heard Louise speak as if from a very great distance. ‘Now go back to hell, where you came from.’

Then darkness descended.

*

E
ARL
B
ARTLET NAMED
his first son Swithin, after the child’s great-grandfather, and his second Rollo, after the child’s great-uncle. Both men had struggled bravely against Protestantism, and Bartlet was fiercely Catholic.

Margery was not pleased with either name. Swithin had been a loathsome man, and Rollo had deceived and betrayed her. However, as the boys’ own personalities began to emerge, so their names morphed: Swithin became a very fast crawler and was nicknamed Swifty, and plump Rollo became Roley.

In the mornings, Margery liked to help Bartlet’s wife, Cecilia. Today she fed Swifty a scrambled egg while Cecilia breastfed Roley. Cecilia tended to be anxious about the children, and Margery was a calming influence; probably all grandmothers were, Margery thought.

Her second son, Roger, came into the nursery to see his nephews. ‘I’m going to miss these two when I go to Oxford,’ he said.

Margery noticed how the young nurse, Dot, perked up in Roger’s presence. He was quietly charming, with a wry smile that was very engaging, and no doubt Dot would have liked to ensnare him. Perhaps it was a good thing he was leaving for the university: Dot was a nice girl and good with the children, but her horizons were too narrow for Roger.

That thought made Margery wonder what Roger himself saw on his horizons, and she said: ‘Have you considered what you might do after Oxford?’

‘I want to study law,’ Roger said.

That was interesting. ‘Why?’

‘Because it’s so important. The laws make the country.’

‘So what you’re really interested in is government.’

‘I suppose so. I was always fascinated by what father said when he came back from attending Parliament: how people manoeuvred and negotiated, why they took one side or the other.’

Earl Bart himself had never found Parliament very interesting, and had attended the House of Lords as an obligation. But Roger’s real father, Ned Willard, was a political animal. Heredity was fascinating.

Margery said: ‘Perhaps you might become the Member of Parliament for Kingsbridge, and sit in the House of Commons.’

‘It’s not unusual for the younger son of an earl. But Sir Ned is the MP.’

‘He’ll retire sooner or later.’ He would be glad to do so, Margery guessed, if he could hand over to his son.

They all heard sudden loud voices downstairs. Roger stepped out and came back to say: ‘Uncle Rollo just arrived.’

Margery was shocked. ‘Rollo?’ she said incredulously. ‘He hasn’t come to New Castle for years!’

‘Well, he’s here now.’

Margery heard glad cries down in the great hall as Bartlet greeted his hero.

Cecilia spoke brightly to her two children. ‘Come and meet your great-uncle Rollo,’ she said.

Margery was in no hurry to greet Rollo. She handed Swifty to Roger. ‘I’ll join you later,’ she said.

She left the nursery and walked along the corridor to her own rooms. Her mastiff, Maximus, followed at her heels. Bartlet and Cecilia had naturally moved into the best rooms, but there was a pleasant suite of bedroom and boudoir for the dowager countess. Margery went into her boudoir and closed the door.

She felt a cold anger. After she had discovered that Rollo was using her network to foment a violent insurrection, she had sent him one short, coded message to say that she would no longer help smuggle priests into England. He had not replied, and they had had no further communication. She had spent many hours composing the outraged speech she would make if she ever saw him again. But now that he was here she suddenly did not know what to say to him.

Maximus lay down in front of the fire. Margery stood at the window looking out. It was December: servants crossed the courtyard muffled in heavy cloaks. Outside the castle walls, the fields were cold, hard mud, and the bare trees pointed forked limbs at the iron-grey sky. She had wanted this time to regain her composure, but she just continued to feel shocked. She picked up her prayer beads to calm herself.

She heard the sound of servants carrying heavy luggage along the corridor outside her door, and guessed that Rollo would be using his old bedroom, which was opposite her new one. Soon afterwards there was a tap at her door and Rollo came in. ‘I’m back!’ he announced cheerily.

He was bald now, she saw, and his beard was salt-and-pepper. She looked at him stone-faced. ‘Why are you here?’

‘And it’s lovely to see you, too,’ he said sarcastically.

Maximus growled quietly.

‘What on earth do you expect?’ said Margery. ‘You lied to me for years. You know how I feel about Christians killing one another over doctrine – and yet you used me for that very purpose. You’ve turned my life into a tragedy.’

‘I did God’s will.’

‘I doubt it. Think of all the deaths your conspiracy caused – including that of Mary Queen of Scots!’

‘She’s a saint in heaven now.’

‘In any event, I will no longer help you, and you can’t use New Castle.’

‘I think the time for conspiracy is over. Mary Queen of Scots is dead, and the Spanish armada has been defeated. But, if another opportunity should arise, there are places other than New Castle.’

‘I’m the only person in England who knows that you are Jean Langlais. I could betray you to Ned Willard.’

Rollo smiled. ‘You won’t, though,’ he said confidently. ‘You may betray me, but I can betray you. Even if I didn’t want to give you away, I probably would under torture. You’ve been concealing priests for years, and it’s a capital crime. You would be executed – perhaps in the same way as Margaret Clitheroe, who was slowly crushed to death.’

Margery stared at him in horror. She had not thought this far.

Rollo went on: ‘And it’s not just you. Both Bartlet and Roger helped smuggle the priests. So, you see, if you betray me, you would cause the execution of both your sons.’

He was right. Margery was trapped. Wicked though Rollo was, she had no choice but to protect him. She felt mad with frustration but there was nothing she could do. She glared at his smug expression for a long moment. ‘Damn you,’ she said. ‘Damn you to hell.’

*

O
N THE TWELFTH
day of Christmas there was a big family dinner at the Willard house in Kingsbridge.

The tradition of an annual play at New Castle had fallen away. The earldom had become less and less rich through the years of anti-Catholic discrimination, and the earl of Shiring could no longer afford lavish banquets. So the Willard family had their own party.

They were six around the table. Barney was at home, flush with the triumph against the Spanish armada. He sat at the head of the table, with his wife Helga on his right. His son Alfo sat on his left, and Sylvie noticed that he was becoming plump with prosperity. Alfo’s wife, Valerie, had a baby in her arms, a little girl. Ned sat at the end opposite Barney, and Sylvie sat beside him. Eileen Fife brought in a huge platter of pork roasted with apples, and they drank Helga’s golden Rhenish wine.

Barney and Ned kept recalling episodes from the great sea battle. Sylvie and Valerie chatted in French. Valerie breastfed the baby while eating pork. Barney said the child was going to look like her grandmother Bella: that was unlikely, Sylvie thought, for only one of the child’s eight great-grandparents was African, and at present she had unremarkable light pinky-tan skin. Alfo told Barney about further improvements he planned for the indoor market.

Sylvie felt safe, surrounded by her prattling family, with food on the table and a fire in the hearth. England’s enemies were defeated, for now, though no doubt there would always be more. And Ned had heard from a spy that Pierre Aumande was dead, murdered on the same day as his master, the duke of Guise. There was justice in the world.

She looked around the table at the smiling faces and realized that the feeling that suffused her was happiness.

After dinner they put on heavy coats and went out. To replace the play at New Castle, the Bell inn had a company of actors to perform on a temporary stage in the large courtyard of the tavern. The Willards paid their pennies and joined the crowd.

The play,
Gammer Gurton’s Needle
, was a broad comedy about an old woman who lost her only needle and could not sew. Other characters included a japester called Diccon who pretended to summon the devil and a servant called Hodge who was so frightened that he soiled his breeches. The audience laughed uproariously.

Ned was in a merry mood, and he and Barney left the courtyard to go into the tap-room and buy a jug of wine.

On stage, Gammer began a hilarious fist-fight with her neighbour Dame Chat. Sylvie’s eye was caught by one man in the courtyard who was not laughing. She felt instantly that she had seen that face before. It had a gaunt look of fanatical resolve that she would not forget.

He met her eye and seemed not to recognize her.

Then she remembered a street in Paris and Pierre Aumande standing outside his little house, giving directions to a priest with receding hair and a reddish beard. ‘Jean Langlais?’ she muttered incredulously. Could it really be the man Ned had been hunting for so long?

He turned his back on the play and walked out of the courtyard.

Sylvie had to make sure it was him. She knew she must not lose sight of him. She could not allow him to disappear. Jean Langlais was the enemy of the Protestant religion and of her husband.

It occurred to her that the man might be dangerous. She looked for Ned, but he had not yet returned from the tap room. By the time he came back, the man she thought might be Langlais could have vanished. She could not wait.

Sylvie had never hesitated to risk her life for what she believed in.

She followed.

*

R
OLLO HAD DECIDED
to return to Tyne Castle. He knew that he could no longer use New Castle for any secret purpose. Margery would not betray him intentionally – it would lead to the execution of her sons – but her vigilance might slip, and she would become a security risk. Better that she should know nothing.

He was still in the pay of the earl of Tyne, and in fact still carried out legal tasks for the earl from time to time to give credibility to his cover story. He was not sure what clandestine duties there might be for him to do now. The Catholic insurrection had failed. But he hoped fervently that sooner or later there would be a renewed effort to bring England back to the true faith, and that he would be part of it.

On his way to Tyne he had stopped over at Kingsbridge where he joined up with a group of travellers heading for London. It happened to be the twelfth day of Christmas, and there was a play in the courtyard of the Bell, so they were going to see the show then set off the following morning.

Rollo had watched for a minute, but he thought the play vulgar. At a particularly uproarious moment he caught the eye of a small middle-aged woman in the audience who stared at him as if trying to place him.

He had never seen her before and had no idea who she was, but he did not like the way she frowned as if trying to remember him. He pulled up the hood of his cloak, turned away, and walked out of the courtyard.