Conspiracy

PART ONE
ONE

They found him face down in the Seine at dusk on November 26th, two bargemen on their way home after the day’s markets. The currents had washed him into the shallows of the small channel that ran south from the shore of the Left Bank along the line of the city wall, close to the Abbey of Saint-Victor; near enough that, being outside the wall and since he was wearing a black cassock that billowed around him in the murky water, the boatmen turned first to the friars, thinking he was one of theirs. It was only when they hauled him out of the river that they realised he was not quite dead, despite the gaping wound on his temple and the blood that covered his face.

I was reading in my usual alcove in the library that evening, a Tuesday, two days after Paul preached the sermon he had promised all Paris would remember, when a young friar flung open the door and cast his eyes about the room in a state of agitation. I watched him exchange a few urgent words in a low voice with Cotin, the librarian. They were both looking at me as they spoke; Cotin’s jaw was set tight, his eyes apprehensive. My presence in the library was not entirely official.

‘You are Bruno?’ The young man strode down the aisle between the bookcases, his face flushed. When I nodded, half-rising, he turned sharply, beckoning me to follow. ‘You must come with me.’

I obeyed. I was their guest; how could I refuse? He led me at a brisk trot across the main cloister, his habit flapping around his legs. Though it was not much past four in the afternoon, the lamps had already been lit in the recesses of the arcades; moths panicked around them and the passages retreated into shadow between the pools of light. I followed the boy through an archway and across another courtyard, wondering at the nature of this summons. I had done nothing to attract unwelcome attention since I arrived in Paris two months ago, or so I believed; I had barely seen any of my previous acquaintance, save Jacopo Corbinelli, keeper of the King’s library. At the thought of him my heart lifted briefly: perhaps this was the long-awaited message from King Henri? But the young man’s evident anxiety hardly seemed to herald the arrival of a royal messenger. Wherever he was taking me with such haste, it did not imply good news.

At the infirmary block, he ushered me up a narrow stair and into a long room with a steeply sloping timber-beamed ceiling. The air was hazy with the smoke of herbal fumigations smouldering in the corners to purify the room – a bitter, vegetable smell that took me back to my own days as a young friar assisting in the infirmary of San Domenico Maggiore in Naples. It did not succeed in disguising the ferric reek of blood, or the brackish sewage stench of the river.

Two men in the black habits of the Augustinians flanked a bed where a shape lay, unmoving. Water dripped from the sheets on to the wooden boards in a steady rhythm, like the ticking of a clock. One, grey-bearded and wearing a leather apron with his sleeves rolled, leaned over the bed with a wad of cloth and a bowl of steaming water; the other, dark-haired, a crucifix around his neck, was performing the Anointing of the Sick in a strident voice.

The bearded friar, whom I guessed to be the brother infirmarian, raised his eyes as we entered, glancing from me to the young messenger and back.

‘Is this the man?’ Before I could reply, he gestured to the bed. ‘He has been asking for you. They brought him here no more than a half-hour past – your name is the only word he has spoken. To tell the truth, it is a miracle he can form speech at all. He is barely clinging to this world.’

The other friar broke off from his rites to look at me. ‘One of the brothers thought he remembered an Italian called Bruno who came to use the library.’ His voice was coldly polite, but his expression made clear that he was not pleased by the interruption. ‘Do you know this poor wretch, then?’ He stepped back so that I could see the prone figure. I could not stop myself crying out at the sight.

‘Gesù Cristo! Paul?’ But it seemed impossible that he could hear me. His eyes were closed, though his right was so swollen and bloodied that he could not have opened it, even if he had been conscious. Above his temple, his skull had been half-staved in by a heavy blow – a stone, perhaps, or a club. It was a wonder the force had not killed him outright. The infirmarian had attempted to clean the worst of it, but the priest’s skin was greenish, the right side of his head thickly matted with blood drying to black around the soaked cloth they had pressed over the wound. Beneath it, I saw a white gleam of bone.

‘His name is Paul Lefèvre.’ I heard the tremor in my voice. ‘He’s the curé at Saint-Séverin.’

‘Thought I knew his face.’ The one with the dark hair and the crucifix nodded at his colleague, as if he had won a private wager. ‘I’ve heard him preach. Bit fire and brimstone, isn’t he? One of those priests that’s bought and paid for by the League.’

From the corner of my eye I caught the infirmarian sending him a quick glance, a minute shake of the head that I was not supposed to see. I understood; it was unwise to express political opinions in front of strangers these days. You never knew where your words might be repeated.

‘Can anything be done for him?’ I asked.

The infirmarian pressed his lips together and lowered his eyes. ‘I fear not. Except to send his soul more peacefully to Our Lord. Frère Albaric was already giving the sacrament. But if it is any comfort, I do not think he feels pain, at this stage. I gave him a draught to ease it.’

‘Did anyone see anything? Whoever found him – do they know who did this?’

The dark-haired friar named Albaric made a small noise that might have been laughter. ‘I don’t think you need look much further than the Louvre Palace.’

I stared at him. ‘No. The King …’ I was going to say the King would not have a priest killed just because that priest insulted him from the pulpit, but the words dried in my mouth. I had not seen the King for three years; who knew what he might be capable of, in his present troubles? And even if the King lacked the temperament to strike at an enemy from behind, his mother certainly did not. I wondered what Paul had been doing in this part of town; had he been on his way to see me when he was ambushed? A worrying thought occurred.

‘Did he have any letters on him?’

‘Why do you ask?’ Frère Albaric jerked his head up, his voice unexpectedly sharp.

‘I only wondered if he was carrying anything that might suggest why he was attacked. Papers, valuables, that sort of thing.’ I kept my tone mild, but he continued to fix me with the same aggressive stare. His skin had an unpleasant sheen, as if his face were damp with sweat; it gave him a disturbingly amphibious quality.

‘He had nothing about his person when he was brought here,’ the infirmarian said. ‘Just the clothes he was wearing.’

‘Robbed, one presumes,’ Albaric declared. ‘All kinds of lawless types you get, loitering outside the city walls. Waiting for traders coming home with the day’s takings. They’d have stripped him of anything worth having before dumping him in the river, poor fellow.’

‘But he’s obviously a priest, not a trader,’ I objected. ‘Street robbers would hardly expect a priest to carry a full purse.’

Albaric’s eyes narrowed. ‘He might have been carrying alms to give out. Or perhaps he was wearing a particularly lavish crucifix. Some of them do.’

I glanced at his chest; his own ornament was hardly austere. ‘Not Paul. He dislikes ostentation.’ Unless he had changed in that regard too, since joining the Catholic League, but somehow I doubted it, just as I found it hard to believe that he had fallen to some chance street robbery on his way to the abbey. Whoever struck him down had done so with a purpose, I was sure.

‘Huguenots, then. Wouldn’t be the first cleric they’ve assaulted. They’ll take any opportunity to attack the true faith.’ Albaric sniffed and turned back to his vial of chrism, as if the matter was now closed. I did not bother to argue. In case of doubt, blame the Protestants: the Church’s answer to everything. Though I could not help but notice that this Albaric seemed eager to point the finger in all directions at once.

I drew closer to the bed and leaned as near as I could to the dying man’s lips, but found no trace of breath.

‘Paul. It’s Bruno.’ I laid a hand over one of his and almost recoiled; the skin was cold and damp as a filleted fish. ‘I’m here now.’

‘He can’t hear you,’ Albaric pointed out, over my shoulder. Ignoring him, I bent my cheek closer. I remained there for several minutes, listening, willing him to breathe, or speak, to give some sign of life, while the friar shifted from foot to foot behind me, impatient to resume his office. Eventually, I had to concede defeat. I had been in the presence of death often enough to know its particular stillness, its invidious smell. Whatever Paul had wanted to tell me, I had missed it. I straightened my back, head still bowed, and as I did so, I felt the cold fingers under mine twitch almost imperceptibly. Albaric was already moving in with his chrism; I held up a hand to warn him off. Under Paul’s one visible eyelid, the faintest flicker. His fingers closed around my thumb; his chest rose a fraction as he scraped a painful breath, his frame twisting with the effort. His left eye snapped open in a wild gaze that seemed both to fix on me and look straight through me, into the next world. I gripped his hand tight; he gave a violent shiver and exhaled with his death rattle one final, grating word:

‘Circe.’