Conspiracy

NINETEEN

‘I could scream,’ she said, her voice low. ‘There was a groom over there just now.’

Before she could attempt it, I had whipped the knife from my belt and pressed the tip against her stomach. ‘You would be dead before he could cross the courtyard.’

It pleased me to see that she flinched, though she held her nerve, jaw clenched. It was I who was trembling.

‘You are still angry with me, then,’ she said, after a pause. I thought I could detect a faint smile hovering about her lips, which only enraged me more.

‘What did you expect?’ I pressed the blade home a fraction and heard her gasp.

‘You were always a man of strong feeling.’

‘You have no idea.’

We held each other’s gaze, so close I could feel the heat of her breath on my mouth; I searched her eyes for some sign of remorse, affection – any nuance of emotion would do, anything beyond the calculating pragmatism I now feared had always coloured her dealings with me. Her face seemed to soften; slowly she reached up and brushed the back of her fingers against my cheek. Our breath clouded and dissolved together in the raw air. I let the arm holding the knife slacken. A horse whinnied across the courtyard and the moment was broken; I slapped her hand away and she dropped her gaze.

‘I thought I would run into you sooner or later,’ she murmured. ‘I did not expect it to be in this place, though. I had thought you might come looking for me.’ I was almost sure I heard a wistful note in her voice that suggested she had hoped so.

‘You knew I was in Paris?’

She gave a brief nod. ‘Charles Paget is a neighbour of my employer, Sir Thomas. He speaks of you often.’

‘With great affection, I suppose. Paget found you the position, didn’t he?’ When she didn’t answer, I put my face closer to hers. ‘You must be greatly in his debt.’

‘Seems I owe everybody,’ she said, with a studied carelessness.

‘And how do you repay him? On your back?’ I could hear the rising pitch of my voice; I seemed unable to rein in my anger and jealousy, and that only made me more furious with myself.

Sophia blinked calmly. ‘How does anyone barter with Paget? I keep my eyes open for him. Not that it’s any of your business,’ she added.

‘Then you have not – with Paget?’

She gave a mirthless laugh. ‘I assure you, Charles Paget sets his sights higher than an English governess.’

‘And you? Where do you set your sights? This is pretty.’ I flicked the jewelled choker at her throat. ‘What did you do in return for this? Do you have hopes of being a duchess now? Or is being his mistress profitable enough for you?’ Stop now, stop yourself, the voice of reason clamoured in the back of my head, but I seemed powerless to heed it.

‘Jesus, Bruno. Now I know you have lost your senses.’ She looked at me with an expression that was hard to read, but might have been disappointment. ‘If you mean Montpensier, he is a flatulent idiot. I only came out here to escape him for a few minutes. I tolerate his attentions because Sir Thomas needs his goodwill, and I need Sir Thomas’s goodwill to keep my position. And if you really think it is my ambition to become a rich man’s wife again, you have a short memory.’ She said this last with a flash of anger. She too had buried a great deal of feeling below the surface in order to survive; I should pity her for what she had suffered at the hands of her wealthy older husband in Canterbury, the man her father forced her to marry, but I was struggling to look beyond my wounded pride.

‘Perhaps I have had to erase my memory,’ I said, in a tight voice.

‘Well, you would do well to remember this.’ She drew herself up a little taller here, to fix me with a direct stare. ‘I do not have to account for myself to you. You have no right to make those accusations about men. I owe you nothing.’

I risked my life for you, I wanted to say. I was the one you came running to when you were accused of your husband’s murder, begging me to find the real killer; I saved you from the gallows then, and almost ended up there myself for my trouble. And you took me to your bed; you let me believe you loved me in return, while all along you always knew you would be leaving. Don’t try to tell me there is no debt between us.

Instead I said, stubbornly, ‘Apart from the fifty écus for the book you stole from me.’

She made a small noise of contempt. ‘If it will make you feel better, I’ll find half the money, and then we are even. Not that it was actually your book in the first place, was it?’ I did not reply. She sighed, relenting. ‘Look, I’m sorry I took it. But you understand that I had to leave England. It was all that was to hand of any value. I thought only of surviving.’

‘Well, you appear to have survived and thrived admirably,’ I said icily. ‘And I see you are a good Catholic now, Mary. I suppose you attend Mass dutifully every day.’

‘I am whatever it is expedient for me to be in the circumstances,’ she hissed in my face, her eyes flashing. ‘I thought you of all people would understand that.’

‘Then you are mistaken,’ I said, through my teeth. ‘You and I are not the same. I am at least true to myself.’ Even as I spoke, I knew I sounded ridiculous; I could hear the disdain in her laughter.

‘Well, how noble you are. I congratulate you on your unshakeable integrity. Except that’s not even true, is it? Paget told Sir Thomas you were trying to get your excommunication lifted. So don’t preach to me about pretending to be Catholic. You’re not a travelling player either,’ she added, as if this proved her case. ‘And if you are, why are you jumping off balconies?’

We glared at one another, defiant, until I realised that a smile was twitching at the corners of her mouth. I would not give her the satisfaction of returning it, I thought. She raised an eyebrow. I pressed my lips together into a hard line. Eventually I could not help it; I laughed, despite myself, and she laughed with me. I held her gaze until the laughter faded and we were left, still looking into each other’s eyes, the embers of something long-buried stirring into life.

‘Mary? Are you out here? The players are about to begin.’ A woman’s voice, calling in English. Sophia started and glanced guiltily towards the house.

‘Lady Fitzherbert. I should go.’

‘Wait. Will you-’ I left the question hanging; I could not quite bear to hear her tell me she would not see me again.

‘I will get your money, never fear,’ she whispered, the hard edge returned to her voice.

‘That wasn’t-’ I let it pass. ‘You live in the rue Neuve, I believe.’

Her eyes widened in horror. ‘For God’s sake, you can’t come to the house, are you mad?’

‘Mary?’ Lady Fitzherbert called again.

‘She will come looking for me if I don’t go in.’

‘Listen, I don’t want the money. But there is one favour you can do me by way of compensation.’

Her face grew guarded; I could see what she was thinking. I shook my head to pre-empt her objection.

‘Your admirer, Montpensier. He likes to give you gifts, yes?’

Her fingers strayed to the choker at her throat. ‘What of it?’

‘He has a dagger that belongs to me. Guise stole it and gave it to him. It’s valuable. I want it back.’

I could see her weighing it up. ‘Why would Montpensier give me his dagger?’

‘I saw his manner with you. He’d give you the bells of Notre Dame if you asked him charmingly enough. Use your womanly arts. You’re happy enough to use them when it suits you,’ I could not help adding, with venom.

She pulled away, her mouth tight. ‘I will not promise.’

‘Rue du Cimetière,’ I hissed, as she stepped out of the doorway. ‘The far end from the Swan and Cross. Ask for the house of Madame de la Fosse.’

She registered this without comment. ‘Coming, my lady,’ she replied aloud, into the courtyard. She turned back and gave me a long look. For a heartbeat it seemed she was about to add something, but the moment passed and she was gone. I heard her footsteps quicken and fade as I leaned against the wall with my pulse hammering.

My immediate difficulty was how to get back into the house without advertising my absence. The only options were to try the servants’ door where we had entered and pretend I had slipped out for a piss, but that might make it obvious I was lying. Or I could hide outside by the players’ cart until they left, though that would mean avoiding the stable boys and anyone else moving around. I stuck my head out of the archway and looked around. I could see no movement in the stripes of shadow that lay across the courtyard. Over by the stable block, the only sound was the stamping of hooves and the occasional snort from the horses. I slipped out into the open and picked my way towards the far side of the yard. As I neared the stables I saw the boy I had spoken to earlier; he was lolling against the upright post of a covered shelter, talking to one of the serving girls. I froze, but the boy had his back to me and the girl, her arms piled with firewood, was laughing up at him; she had not seen me, but they were between me and the house, and I could not reach the servants’ door without attracting their attention. I would have to wait until they moved. The cart stood in front of the stables. I decided to take my chance and dashed across the last few yards of open space just as I heard a pounding on the wooden gate in the outer wall. The stable boy and his girl whipped around in the direction of the noise; I barely had time to duck behind the cart, out of sight.

Crouching in the cart’s shadow, I watched as the side door of the house opened and a figure with a lantern moved briskly down the steps and across to the gates. As the person drew nearer I realised it was a woman, wearing a hooded cloak. A servant followed her, carrying a wooden chest in his arms, which gave a metallic rattle with each step. I could not see the woman’s face, but from her build I guessed it could only be the Duchess of Montpensier. The stable boy hastened after her towards the gate with mumbled apologies – I heard him call her ‘my lady’ – but she snapped back, shooing him away. The Duchess unbolted the gate and drew it open a fraction to admit a man, his features obscured by the brim of a hat worn low over his brow. Her lantern swung between them; by its lurching light I saw him draw out a packet from inside his cloak and pass it to her. She tucked it away out of sight and motioned for the servant to pass the chest to him. It was evidently heavy; the man staggered back a pace under its weight. They exchanged a few muttered words I could not hear and she turned to leave; as she did so, the man tilted his head and the light caught his face long enough for me to recognise him as Sir Edward Stafford’s steward, Geoffrey.

The gate closed again and the Duchess strode back towards the house while I let my breath escape slowly and tried to piece together what I had just seen. I had been so thrown by the conversation with Sophia that I had hardly had time to process what I had overheard on the balcony between Guise and his sister. The three thousand écus he had mentioned, promised by the Duchess in return for papers containing information they intended to sell on to the Spanish ambassador. A deal brokered by Paget, but when she had said he owed too much to risk cheating them, I had assumed it was Paget she meant. Now, with the appearance of Geoffrey, I began to see the greater picture: Catherine de Medici’s reference to Stafford’s gambling habit; Paget’s sly remark that I would not be the first to gamble on credit at his card table; Stafford’s reaction when I joked about his losses; the exchange I had just witnessed. It was hard to find any other interpretation – Stafford was selling secrets to England’s enemies to pay off gambling debts Paget was encouraging him to incur. Dio porco. Walsingham would have to be told – but how? Even with our sophisticated code, I could not risk sending that information by the diplomatic courier; there was always the chance Stafford’s people would find a way to read it somehow, and then they would need to silence me. There was no knowing when this messenger Walsingham had promised was likely to turn up, if at all. Perhaps I would have no choice but to go to London myself. The thought of leaving Paris lifted my spirits briefly.

I was jolted from my thoughts by the sudden snort and stamp of a horse, close by; I turned and saw two handsome mounts tethered to a post a few feet away. The torches in the wall brackets gave out enough light for me to recognise the nearest one as Charlemagne, Guise’s horse, the one I had seen at the English embassy that night. No wonder Stafford had been skittish about his secret visitor. I wondered how long the ambassador had been brokering deals with the Catholic League and the Spanish. The horse regarded me with disdain, mist rising from its flared nostrils. I straightened up and glanced around for the stable boy, but could see no sign of him; perhaps he was still skulking in the shadows with the girl. It was only as I leaned against the cart, debating what to do, that another snatch of Guise’s conversation returned to me, with such a force of shock that for a moment my legs buckled and my stomach twisted with a pang of fear. Get rid of the husband, the Duchess had said. She had called him Saint-Fermin, and mentioned the Conciergerie; that poor blind wretch I had found in the oubliette must be Léonie de Châtillon’s husband, the Comte de Saint-Fermin. He had told me Guise had been keeping him alive; now the Duchess wanted him dead. What did he know that was so important to them?

My pulse was racing. Whatever the Count knew, by tomorrow it would be too late to find out. There was still time to save him, and only one possible way of doing it. I looked back at Guise’s horse. It had lost interest in me and returned its attention to the bale of hay that had been placed on the ground by the post, but it was saddled and harnessed; Guise must have given the boy instructions to have it ready in case he wanted to leave early. I peered once more around the courtyard for any sign of movement, but could see no one nearby. Crouching low, I crept the few paces out from the shelter of the cart and tried to untie the horse’s reins from the post, my fingers clumsy with cold. It whinnied loudly in protest; I hushed it with a whisper, fumbling with the knot until, to my surprise, it came loose. I gripped the reins, jammed my foot into a stirrup and hauled myself up into the saddle with some difficulty as the beast reared backward. The clatter of its hooves brought the stable boy running from his dark corner, shouting for me to stop, but I had already wheeled the horse around. I leaned down – not easy, it was an impatient creature and did not like standing still – and unlatched the gate, trying to pull it open; the horse was in the way and for one terrible minute the boy was on us, lunging for the bridle, but the horse lurched back, almost trampling him, a gap opened up and I kicked the beast hard in its flanks, causing it to take off out of the gate so fast I was almost flung out of the saddle backwards. I could do nothing but cling on as we bolted down the rue Saint-Antoine, the boy’s outraged cries giving way to the sound of the wind rushing past my ears and my own manic laughter at my audacity. It was only when it showed no inclination to slow down that I remembered I had relatively little skill or experience as a horseman, particularly with a strong-willed animal like this one.

‘Come on, Charlemagne, do me this favour,’ I muttered, pulling the reins and concentrating on remaining upright, one foot still flailing around for the other stirrup. Perhaps he responded to pleading, or perhaps he had lost interest in his dash for freedom, but he gradually dropped to a trot just as we neared the turning for rue des Tournelles. He seemed to have his own ideas of where he wanted to go, but I managed to wrench his head around and point him in the direction of Jacopo’s house. As we approached, I could only offer a silent prayer that Jacopo was at home; if he were still at the palace, I had no hope. I did not dare risk showing my face there.

An armed watchman, freezing and bored, snapped to attention as I rode up the path, lowering his pike and demanding my business. I slithered down from the saddle, insisting I was a friend, and handed him the horse’s reins while I hammered on the door. The watchman seemed too surprised to protest. Jacopo’s steward answered. He was also startled to see me in a state of evident desperation.

‘Is he home?’ I said, without a greeting.

‘He has only just come back from the Tuileries,’ the steward began, ‘and he has not yet eaten-’

‘Thank God. I must see him. Please tell him it is a matter of life and death.’

The man hesitated, but behind him I could see Jacopo’s silhouette move forward into the light. I almost wept with relief at the sight of him.

‘It’s all right,’ he said, ushering his servant inside, ‘I can always make time for Bruno. Now then. What has happened?’ In the flame from his candle he looked drawn, as if he had not slept since the ball.

‘Do you have the King’s seal?’ I blurted.

He frowned. ‘No, not here.’ He must have read my expression, because he stepped forward and laid a hand on my arm. ‘I have Catherine’s, though. I require it sometimes when I am sent on her business. Why do you need a royal seal?’

‘You must come with me, right now. Bring the seal, and some money. We have to save a life.’

He hesitated; I could see he wanted to ask me more, but after a moment he merely nodded and turned back. ‘Wait inside. I will fetch it, and a warm coat.’

I could have embraced him. ‘Fetch a spare too, if you have one. And ask your steward to send for a physician, to be waiting when we return.’

‘A physician?’

‘I will explain on the way.’

When he returned, I gestured for him to mount. He turned to me, brow creased with concern.

‘Where did you get this horse?’

‘I borrowed it.’

‘From whom?’ He peered more closely at the saddlecloth. A spasm of alarm crossed his face, but he mastered it. ‘Dear God, Bruno – these are the Guise arms. Please don’t tell me you have stolen the Duke of Guise’s horse?’

‘Borrowed,’ I repeated firmly. ‘Come on – we can’t waste time.’

‘Where are we going?’ he asked, clinging around my waist as we set off at a more sedate pace towards the river.

‘The Conciergerie. We have to prevent a murder.’

I felt him tense behind me. ‘Whose?’

‘The Comte de Saint-Fermin.’

‘But – that is absurd. He was killed thirteen years ago, on Saint Bartholomew’s night.’

‘No, he wasn’t. But he will be killed tomorrow morning by Guise if we don’t reach him first, and I believe he may hold the key to all the murders – including his wife’s.’

Jacopo fell silent then, and did not ask me anything more until we arrived at the gates of the prison.

He showed Catherine’s seal to the soldiers on the gates and we were waved through. The squalid gaoler was fetched, the growth on his face looking more malignant in the light. He squinted at me for a moment before recognition dawned. A curdled laugh escaped from his throat.

‘I remember you. Homesick, were you? Missing the old place?’

‘You will recall I mentioned my friends at the palace,’ I said calmly. He blanched, and the laughter died on his lips. I gestured to Jacopo. ‘This is Signor Corbinelli, secretary to the Queen Mother.’

Jacopo held out Catherine’s seal again. ‘You have been taking bribes to keep a prisoner here illegally. We have orders from the Queen Mother to release him.’

The mockery in his eyes gave way to fear. ‘But – I can’t allow-’

‘We are also commanded to arrest anyone who tries to obstruct us, in the name of Queen Catherine,’ Jacopo said, with the same steady air of authority.

‘He’s dead,’ the man said, panicking.

‘You’re a poor liar,’ I said.

‘Honest to God – he died this morning.’

‘I’d like to see for myself.’ I tried to shoulder past him but he blocked me, barring the entrance with his outstretched arms.

‘Look, I’ll lose my head if I let you take him.’ His voice was shrill with fright now.

‘You’ll lose it quicker if you don’t,’ I muttered.

‘No, he won’t,’ Jacopo said, behind me. ‘Beheading is for the nobility. He won’t be granted anything like that kind of dignity in the manner of his death. There’ll be nothing quick about it.’

‘Oh, Jesus.’ The man crossed himself as he stepped aside. ‘I only did as I was ordered, you understand – I didn’t know he wasn’t supposed to be here.’

‘You can save that for later. Just show us where he is.’

He led us back through the warren of passageways leading through the old Palais, until we stopped at the hatch of the dungeon. A shudder passed through me at the memory of it.

‘He’s in no fit state to be moved,’ the gaoler said, as he lowered a ladder down into the stinking darkness. His manner had turned ingratiating, as if he thought that cooperation was his best hope of immunity. ‘You’ve seen him, monsieur. You take him through the streets this cold night, it’ll kill him.’

‘Because he is so warm and comfortable now?’ I gave him a hard look. ‘It will be better for his health than staying where he is, I assure you.’

I took the lantern, filled my lungs and climbed down into the oubliette, trying to hold my breath against the stench. I had not forgotten those minutes of blind terror when I had believed I might be here for good; the fetid air stung my eyes, sharp with ammonia, bringing the memory back all the clearer. The dungeon was freezing, a bone-deep, damp cold that seeped in through the skin. From a corner, a scuffling noise alerted me to the presence of the prisoner, somewhere in the shadows beyond the reach of the lantern. I held up the light and picked out the wasted figure of the Count, cowering in a corner and making that strange inhuman whimpering sound I had heard before. He looked even more like a corpse than the last time I had seen him, if that were possible. Fighting my instinctive revulsion, I approached him slowly. He lifted his sightless sockets and appeared to sniff the air.

‘Who is there?’ he said, in that cracked voice.

‘Monsieur. Don’t be afraid. I have come to help you.’ I reached out and laid a hand on his arm. He shrank away from me. It was like touching dead flesh. ‘We are going to take you away from here, my lord.’

He tilted his head towards me. ‘Why do you call me that?’

‘You are a count, my lord. You are the Comte de Saint-Fermin.’

‘No longer. I am a dead man.’

‘Not if I can help it,’ I said grimly. ‘Do you remember me? I was with you here a few days ago. The Italian.’

He made an empty noise that might even have been laughter. ‘Days, years. I cannot distinguish one from another. It is all just darkness. The mind longs for oblivion, but the body stubbornly endures, beyond all reason.’

I should have realised he would have no concept of time passing. After a pause I felt his bony fingers clutch at my sleeve. ‘There was an Italian boy here,’ he said, lifting his chin as if listening for some prompt from the past. ‘He spoke to me of Circe.’

‘Your wife,’ I prompted, folding my hand over his.

‘In name, perhaps. But she was never mine, in her heart.’ I wanted to press him further, but he fell into a coughing fit that threatened to tear his fragile frame apart. When it subsided, I hooked an arm under his.

‘Come with me. You will have food and warmth, and rest. You will be free.’

‘Free.’ That dusty laugh again. To my surprise, I felt him resist with what little strength he had. ‘I am dying, boy. It no longer matters to me where I do it.’

‘It matters to me, my lord. If I leave you here, you will be dead by tomorrow.’

‘Then it cannot come soon enough.’

‘Please, my lord.’ I slackened my grip and bent closer to him. ‘What do you dream of, in here, when you remember your old life?’

‘The sun on my face,’ he said, without hesitation. He lifted his ravaged eyes upward. ‘Birdsong.’

‘Would you not like to feel that again, before you die?’

The claws around my arm tightened their grip.

‘I believe you would,’ I persisted. ‘I’m afraid it is December, so there are limits, but we will do our best. I can probably rustle up a seagull.’

He did not speak, but he stopped trying to pull away and I thought I saw him incline his head.

‘This journey will hurt you,’ I said, draping his skeletal arm around my shoulder. ‘I cannot help that, and I’m sorry for it. But at the end, there will be a soft bed, and hot food, and rest.’

‘Come, then,’ he said, in a voice so thin it was barely the ghost of a whisper.

I do not know how he endured the journey without screaming; thirteen years in that dungeon must have taught him a stoicism I could not begin to imagine. His limbs were so wasted he could not stand on his own, much less walk; though he weighed less than a child when I lifted him, it set my teeth on edge to feel how I was jolting him in trying to climb the ladder and hand him up to where Jacopo and two of the Palais guard were waiting to haul him through the hole. It was Jacopo who cried out in horror when he saw the emaciated figure. We wrapped him in the spare cloak and with the help of a mounting block he was lifted into the saddle in front of me, where he slumped in my arms without a sound as we made our slow way back over the river to the rue des Tournelles, Jacopo walking beside us with the guards as escorts. I heard the chink of coins as he dismissed them at the door and sent them on their way, with instructions to return the horse to the Hotel de Montpensier and explain that they had found it running loose in the street. I watched them guiltily while they led Charlemagne away, his hooves ringing on the iron-hard ground as the blur of their lantern gradually faded into the night, and hoped that Francesco and his friends were not being punished for my rash decision to abscond with Guise’s horse. After I had specifically promised him I would not steal anything of value.