The Sixth Key (30 page)

‘Manutius opens it and
begins reading the German words:

The
Holy Apostolic Chair, unto which the keys of the Kingdom of Heaven were given
by those words that Christ Jesus addressed to Saint Peter: I give unto thee the
Keys of the Kingdom of Heaven, and unto thee alone the Power of commanding the
Prince of Darkness and his angels, who, as slaves of their Master, do owe him
honour, glory and obedience, by those other words of Christ Jesus: Thou shalt
worship the Lord thy God, and Him only shalt thou serve – hence by the
Power of these
Keys the
Head of the Church has been made the Lord of Hell
. . .

‘The first time Manutius
had heard mention of this book had been from his pupil and friend, Pico della
Mirandola, the young humanist who had worked for Lorenzo the Magnificent in
Florence. He had whispered to him something of a terrible book, which had come
into his hands and which he would one day translate into Italian; a book spoken
of only in whispers. By chance, or maleficent providence, the book had somehow
escaped the purifying flames of that infamous monk, Savoranola, who inspired
the people of Florence to throw into the Bonfires of the Vanities many
heretical books, jewellery, and even works of art. Now, Manutius cannot believe
what he holds in his hands. He looks up to the man who has brought it. “Is this
. . . Le Serpent Rouge?”

‘“Yes, the original penned by Pope Honorius
himself, with an interpolation added at a later date.”

‘“Dear Lord . . . what shall I do with it?”

‘“Lock it up and guard it with your life. Do
not read further than you have. You will soon hear from us again.”’

I looked at the Writer of Letters. ‘Let me see
if I have it right. There are three copies of the Theban magician Honorius’s
book, and one fell into the hands of a pope, who called himself Pope Honorius
– is this the one that fell into the hands of Manutius, Le Serpent Rouge,
the book Rahn is looking for?’

‘Indeed.’ His eyes gleamed.

‘But I’m confused – what about the
treasure of the Cathars?’

‘There are two aspects to this mystery: Le
Serpent Rouge and the treasure of the Cathars, in which Rahn suspects he will
find the missing key that completes it. To know what happened when the key of
the Cathars and Le Serpent Rouge came together at the same time and in the same
space, we need to go to the gallery called Chavigny. There we shall find those
happenings at the court of Francis, son of Catherine de Medici . . .’

The night was tempestuous. The moon was in Scorpio and it was a
terrible omen, but Chavigny, drenched to the bone, did not know this and so he
walked into the grand apartment panelled in oak unperturbed.

Neither the torches nor the light of a hundred
candles flickering in their silver stands could pierce the darkness of this
room. Nor could they cheer the mood, for screams and moans could be heard
coming from a four-posted bed canopied in black silk.

A number of men stood around the bed, arguing.
The air reeked of incense mingled with the smoke from a monstrous fire and the
sickly smell of corrupted flesh. Chavigny had to stifle a cough. He looked to
his master, whose face was silhouetted beneath his physician’s cap, and noted
that his features betrayed no disgust or concern. This did not surprise
Chavigny, for in the past ten years he had come to know the most foundational
aspect of his master’s character – that he could be expected never to
behave in a way one expected, even if one expected the unexpected.

‘The king dies?’ he asked into his master’s
ear.

‘You realise this only now, and you want to be
a physician?’ his master said, staring at a woman standing among various
physicians and monks. She was dressed in black and her pale, round face was
like the reflection of a moon cast upon the waters of a dark lake.

‘No, I will not allow it.’ Her tone was
emphatic and regal.

‘Who is she?’ Chavigny whispered again.

‘The Queen Mother.’

‘Madame . . .’ said one of the doctors
unrolling his sleeves. ‘My mind is decided – this is the only course.’

‘Why do you prolong my husband’s suffering?’
another woman spoke now. She was seated by the bed, her back to them. Chavigny
guessed that she was Mary, Queen of Scotland and France.

‘It is only a device to relieve the pressure,’
the doctor offered. ‘Without it, your son will die, madame!’

‘Maitre Pare,’ replied the Queen Mother, ‘it
seems to me that to cut into my son’s head will only relieve him of his life.’

‘Madame!’ The physician was affronted. ‘As the
master of the king’s wellbeing, I will take charge of his health as I see fit!’

‘You want to cut into my son’s skull as if it
were a watermelon – I will not allow it! As a member of the council of
the regency, I order you to stop. For I have requested the attendance of
another physician. A man of great reputation and worthy accomplishments . . .
And he is just arrived,’ she said, pointing
to Chavigny’s master.

The room erupted in a shiver of whispers.

‘Maître Michel de Notre Dame, come into the
light,’ she said, with a welcoming hand.

In a moment, Chavigny’s master was standing
before the Queen Mother and was taking off his physician’s cap. Chavigny
observed him with affection: a gnome-like man, with a flat, unwrinkled face
framed by white hair cropped short, and a beard that grew long over his chest.
His nose was straight, his cheeks ruddy, and his expression taciturn, even when
he smiled.

‘Your servant has come as requested, your
majesty. Nostradamus at your service,’ he said.

Her face seemed to soften at the sight of him;
she offered her hand and he kissed it. Her tone turned grave. ‘This is our son,
monsieur, you have met him before, in better days.’

‘I remember it, your majesty,’ he said.

‘He is gravely ill, and we are, as you can
see, at your disposal.’

Nostradamus looked at the Queen Mother, and
Chavigny could see he was thinking. ‘May I speak plainly, your majesty?’ he
said, finally.

‘I expect it, Master Nostradamus.’

‘If we are to do anything—’ he looked
about him, ‘—we must have fresh air. No more candles, no incense and all
men and women, priests and doctors must go. They suck the goodness out of the
air.’

Another round of indignant whispers circulated
the room.

A cardinal standing nearby said, ‘Madame, this
man’s work has been called into question by the Holy Inquisition on numerous
occasions. He is a sorcerer, a necromancer . . . a—’

Catherine, the Queen Mother, raised a hand and
cut in with an imperious tenor: ‘Nostradamus is a doctor who saved thousands
from the plague in many diverse places. He is renowned for his remedies and for
bringing the near dead back to life. I have summoned him and he has come in
haste. If he says all men should leave for the king’s sake . . .’ She paused,
fixing this man with her pointed eyes. ‘Then, Monsignor Cardinal de Lorraine,
how could those of us who love France do otherwise?’

Ambroise Paré, the surgeon, flew into a rage.
‘I will not allow a charlatan maker of jams to touch the king! I am master of
this room!’

Another man countered, saying, ‘I say all of
you have had ample time to perform a miracle, and you have not done so! It will
not hurt to add another voice to your choir of physicians.’

Ambroise Paré moved his incredulous and
angered gaze from the Queen Mother to this man. ‘Monsieur de l’Hospital, you do
not know anything about medicine!’

Another now stepped into the light. This had
to be the Duke of Guise, for Chavigny had heard tell of the scar on his face,
received at the siege of Calais, which had earned him the nickname Le Balafre,
the scarred. Catholic to the marrow, he was tall and dark of eye and when he
spoke his voice made inroads into the heart. ‘The king dies, madame. Will you
give orders to arrest the Prince of Navarre? He will dethrone your son before
he is yet cold.’

‘I know,’ she said.

‘Will you give the order, then, madame?’

‘No, I will not,’ came her firm reply.

‘Then I must surmise,’ the duke said, ‘that
you are an enemy of the crown and that the king is in this bed by your own
doing because you are in league with the Protestant princes of the blood.’

‘How dare you! The King of France is first and
foremost my own son! In any case, why would I need to arrest the Prince of
Navarre? I have another son waiting to take the king’s place if he dies,’
Catherine said, with utter calm.

‘Charles is too young,’ said the Duke of
Guise, smiling affectedly. ‘You know this yourself. Your behaviour forces us to
consider that you have become infected with the heresy of the Huguenots and
that you now wish to see your son, who was a loyal Catholic, dead, and replaced
by a heretic.’

Catherine’s face grew blank, studied and hard.
‘Us? When you say us, you mean yourself and the cardinal, your brother! It is
well known that both of you have something to gain from my son’s death, namely
the throne, which the house of Lorraine covets through an ill-conceived notion
that it is the rightful heir of the house of Charlemagne! I warn you, you had
best take care that the court does not hear how it is in this room! For how
many are faithful to you? How many will run to the princes of the blood when
they learn that Orleans is arming itself against you and your brother? You
might find yourselves stepping onto the scaffold that you have so hastily
prepared for Louis of Conde!’

A tremble seemed to pass through the entire
party. The doctors and nobles left the room one by one, and this meant that
Chavigny and his master were alone with the Queen Mother, Catherine de Medici.
When she noticed Chavigny hanging in the shadows, she said to Nostradamus, ‘Who
is that young man? Is he yours?’

‘Oh!’ His master turned around, as if Chavigny
were an afterthought. ‘That is my secretary Jean-Aymes de Chavigny of Beaune.
Chavigny, come, let the queen get a look at you!’ Nostradamus waved an
impatient hand in his direction, and Chavigny walked reluctantly into the light
and dropped down to his knees before the Queen Mother. He realised that he was
shaking a little, for his heart was pounding. He was conscious of his
road-soiled attire, of his unruly hair dripping rainwater on the flags at his
feet, his possibly bleary eyes and undoubtedly scrubby jaw.

‘Your majesty,’ he said.

‘Get up, sir! You look pale from your long and
arduous journey. The question is,’ she said to Nostradamus, ‘is he discreet?’

Nostradamus nodded. ‘He has a doctor’s degree
in law and theology and his small time as the Mayor of Beaune, in Burgundy, was
salubrious. He is learned and vain like all young men and stubborn-minded at
times. I tell him he should drink more to loosen himself and I do what I can to
encourage him to enjoy life a little, for he is far too serious. He has a good
hand for writing though – and, I think, a heart to match. He thinks he is
a poet, but his poems are clumsy.’

Thus was his life summarised for the Queen
Mother in five easy sentences. Chavigny made the best of it and bowed his head
even lower. His poems were clumsy?

But the Queen Mother had already turned away
from him and returned to her son’s bedside. ‘You heard what Ambroise Paré
proposes,’ she said. ‘He means to cut my son’s head open.’

‘This is often done in battle, madame, when
there is fluid in the brain. But if I may, it will do nothing to prevent the
course of this disease.’

She passed a hand over her rounded face, over
those bulging eyes. She was not a beautiful woman and yet she was graceful in
her gestures and this affected an image of beauty. ‘I think I read it in one of
your quatrains.’ She looked at him with a sudden frailty. ‘The first son of the
widow of an unhappy marriage . . . before the age of eighteen will die. Tell
me, were you speaking of my son, the king? Tell me plainly.’ She cried
suddenly, ‘Do not spare me!’

Nostradamus shook his head and made a squint,
for his eyes were bad. ‘The future is not set like . . . like quince jam, your
majesty. I only see one possible outcome out of many alternatives. Like a
garden where there are many divergent paths . . .’

She turned away, thoughtful. It was long
before she spoke again, and when she did, her words were quiet. ‘When my son
dies, France will hang in the balance. He fell to the charms of the Catholic
Guises and married that woman, but the Cardinal de Lorraine, her uncle, uses
black magic to kill him because he wants the throne. I know this because Cosimo
Ruggieri, my own sorcerer, has turned against me. He is in possession of a copy
of the book of Pope Honorius, which he brought with him out of Florence.’ She looked
at Nostradamus with a significant eye. ‘Surely you must know what this means?’

Nostradamus faltered. He put a hand to his
chest absently, as if such a thought had seized his heart and made it pause.
‘The grimoire, written by that black pope, the pope who made a pact with the
Devil?’

‘Yes. I need not tell you that there is no
hope for my son. But Francis must not die before de Montmorency arrives, do you
hear me? Did you not see how keen the Guises are to put me in a dungeon? It was
I, you see, who alerted de Montmorency of my son’s condition and of his
Protestant nephew’s imprisonment.

When he arrives to fetch him from the
dungeon,’ she said, her eyes shining, ‘all will be put to rights. That is why I
pray that you delay my son’s dying as long as possible . . . Use the magic in
the grimoire of King Solomon to counteract the poison of Pope Honorius.’

Chavigny’s master was long quiet. ‘If I am
successful in using white magic against black it will only work for a time. The
king will suffer, your majesty: terrible headaches; vomiting; fevers;
diarrhoea; convulsions – all of these will visit him before the madness
takes him. It is a horrible thing to behold. Not even the plague makes a man
suffer more.’

She observed his words. ‘And yet, he is a
king,’ she said, looking at Nostradamus a little too dispassionately, ‘and
kings are born to suffer, is this not so? Do what you can to keep him alive.’
She considered her words and nodded. ‘Tonight we celebrate his improving
health. After all, he is sitting up and is eating a bowl of gruel . . .’ She
looked about her as if she had misplaced something of herself in this
conversation. ‘Tonight, Master Nostradamus, you must use all your powers and I
pray that your magic works.’ She left the royal chamber in a rustle of black
silk.

Nostradamus rolled up his sleeves. He put a
hand to the king’s brow.

‘What will you do?’

The old man squinted to look at Chavigny.
‘Do?’

‘Will you prolong the king’s agony with
magic?’

He shook his head. ‘It is not always
successful, and we must retire to our chamber to consult the books.’

Later, in the apartment provided for them,
Nostradamus sat down, impassive, anxious. Chavigny had never seen him like
this.

‘What was that book the Queen Mother
mentioned, master?’

Nostradamus looked up from his thoughts.
‘What? Oh, yes, that book. It is the most infamous of all grimoires. Now, be
quiet and unpack those bags. Perhaps you can prevent yourself from disturbing
my thoughts.’

Chastened, Chavigny went to the great trunk
and took from it firstly the great brass astrolabe by which one could calculate
the position of celestial bodies, some charts, and those Arabian instruments
used for mathematical calculations, which he lay carefully one beside the other
on a table. There was a great collection of simples in small bottles that were
stoppered with wax, as well as glass ampoules for alchemical experiments, and
his master had not forgotten his mirouer ardent, nor that other treasure he
never spoke of, which Chavigny knew lived inside a red velvet bag encased in a
box of polished wood.