Conspiracy

TWENTY-EIGHT

‘He died in his sleep, about two o’clock this morning.’ Jacopo poured another glass of wine and pushed a bowl of hot chestnuts towards me. ‘I was with him. It was a blessed release. I know that is usually said to make everyone feel better, but in this case it was the truth.’

I pressed a fist against my mouth. Two days since my ill-judged confrontation at the palace and I had heard nothing from the King, until a messenger had arrived from Jacopo on the morning of the 12th, asking me to call on him. I had meant to go sooner and see the Count – I was feeling guilty that I had not thought of him with the events of the past few days – but I had not expected to arrive too late.

‘I should have acted as soon as I knew about him. I should not have left him there. Perhaps he would have had a better chance.’ Tears burned at the back of my eyes, unbidden, though they were as much for myself as for him.

‘Always so hard on yourself, Bruno,’ Jacopo said gently. ‘He was near to the end. A few days more would not have saved him. You gave him a great gift at the end of his life.’

‘He never did get to feel the sun on his face.’ I looked away, swiping my eyes with the back of my hand.

‘Because of you, he died in a warm bed, with as little pain as possible and a friend to hold his hand, instead of in that pit among the rats. It was nothing short of a miracle. He said as much. He said God would reward you.’

‘I think God will probably take it as a downpayment against my considerable deficit.’

Jacopo laughed. ‘Well, let’s consider a more quantifiable reward.’ He stood and rummaged in a dim corner of his study, returning with a small wooden chest that rang with the pleasing metallic slide of coins as he moved. ‘The King sent this for you. In recompense for your troubles.’ He shook the box for effect and placed it in my lap. ‘There should be enough there to cover your debts and keep you comfortable for a while.’

I set it on his desk. ‘Take from it what you need to pay the physician and funeral expenses for the Count.’

‘Don’t be absurd, Bruno. I am more than happy to cover the doctor’s bill. As for the burial – Catherine has that in hand. She wants him interred quietly. His family think he died years ago – there seems little sense in disabusing them.’

I took a chestnut and began to peel it. ‘She doesn’t want to have to explain how he came to be in a royal prison at Guise’s expense for thirteen years without anyone noticing.’

‘In truth, it would raise awkward questions.’ He sat down at his desk and unlocked a drawer. ‘The King gave me something else for you. Here.’ He passed over a slim rectangular object wrapped in crimson velvet.

My pulse leapt in my throat. I unfolded the cloth to reveal the dull and shabby leather bindings of the lost book of Hermes Trismegistus. I smoothed a hand over the cover as lovingly as if it were the head of a baby and looked up at Jacopo, a question in my eyes.

‘He bought it back from Catherine. I don’t know how he persuaded her – that is between them. But it is his gift to you. Because he cannot give you what he knows you really want.’

‘No royal appointment, then.’ I tried not to betray my disappointment.

‘He says it would be politic for you to stay away from the court for a while. But he has secured you a teaching position at the Collège de Cambrai, if you want it. Lecturing in philosophy and theology.’ He hesitated. ‘I know it’s not what you hoped for, but you would be paid well and I don’t suppose the hours would be too exacting. It would give you a reason to stay in Paris, if that is still what you want.’

‘I don’t know.’ I covered the book again and laid both hands flat over it in my lap. ‘I had thought of going back to England. There is business I must attend to there.’

‘Is that wise?’ His great eyebrows knitted together with concern. ‘Would you be safe there?’

‘Probably safer than in Paris.’

‘Really? Even with Simon?’

I gave him a tired smile. ‘I can’t have Simon following me around for the rest of my life.’

Simon was the bodyguard Henri had detailed to look after me, one of his own forty-five strong men and true; an affable six-footer from the Languedoc, of few words but reassuringly huge fists, who now accompanied me everywhere with his broadsword hanging ostentatiously at his side. He made me feel oddly claustrophobic, though he had charmed away the resistance of Madame de la Fosse, who had set up a temporary bed for him in the downstairs hallway so he could watch the door at night, and had taken to feeding him elaborate baked goods in return for odd jobs around the house. It amused me to see him jump up, looking boyishly guilty, whenever I came in and found him on a stool by the kitchen fire with his face full of cake.

‘Well, give it some thought,’ Jacopo said, draining his glass. ‘Don’t do anything hasty. And come for Christmas, won’t you? I will be needed at the Tuileries on Christmas Eve, but I want to keep my Christmas Day feast here, with friends. I have invited the Gelosi.’

‘Then I had better stay away. Francesco will want to give me a bloody nose for Christmas.’

‘Well, he might take a swing at you to keep up appearances,’ he said with a grin, ‘but you know Francesco – he doesn’t hold a grudge. Besides, he will have been dining out on the story all the way to Lyon and back. Though I suspect in his version, he will be the one who escaped out of a window and stole a duke’s horse.’

I flicked the chestnut shell into the fire and fell silent for a moment.

‘I’m sorry for my words before,’ I said, after a while. ‘When I accused you of conniving at murder. I should not have said that.’

‘I did not understand what she was planning until it was too late.’ He spoke quietly. ‘But you were right, in a sense – even once I realised, I could not have stopped her. I have tried, over the years, to be the voice of her conscience, but she is a Medici.’ He held his hands out, palms upward, to indicate helplessness in the face of such a legacy. ‘Sometimes I have no choice but to turn a blind eye. That does not make me proud of myself, but I am not a brave man, Bruno. Not like you.’

I stood, brushing chestnut shell from my clothes as I clutched the book to my chest in the crook of my right arm. ‘Some would say there is a very fine line between brave and foolhardy.’

Jacopo came around the desk and laid a hand on my shoulder. ‘And I would say the difference is obvious. Bravery is doing something foolhardy for the sake of others.’

I smiled and he crushed me in a paternal embrace.

‘Tomorrow is Saint Lucy’s day, Bruno. The darkest point of the year. After that, the days will grow brighter.’

‘I’ll keep that in mind,’ I said. I wished I could share his optimism.

‘I will see you for Christmas, then,’ he said, at the door, handing me my cloak that Henri had sent back from the palace, freshly laundered. ‘You can bring Simon.’

‘I will,’ I said, as my large companion lumbered amiably into view from the kitchen. ‘We’re inseparable.’

We crossed the Pont de Notre-Dame under an iron sky. Occasional flakes of snow floated down half-heartedly; a crust of ice had formed over the mud-churned drifts in the streets. The church of Saint-Séverin loomed up ahead. I told Simon that I wanted to go inside, but that he could wait for me by the door.

I stepped alone into a reverent silence. The air smelled of cold stone and incense, just as it had on the day I came here to find Paul Lefèvre. I could almost believe that nothing had changed, that I might still find him there inside the confessional in the chancel, on the bench worn smooth by generations of penitents. How different the last few weeks would have been – for me, at least – if I had not decided to seek him out that day. I approached the confessional with slow steps and a heavy heart; even though I knew now that Paul had not been murdered because he was seen talking to me, still I could not escape the sense that my visit that day had set in motion everything that followed.

I reached out and touched the wood of the confessional with my fingertips. I closed my eyes, recalling his snide tone, his pompous certainty. Then I thought of that charred scrap of the letter he had written to save a life, and felt a wave of sadness. He had not deserved his death. None of them had.

‘Are you making your confession today, Doctor Bruno?’

I spun round, startled out of my thoughts by a clipped English voice, impeccably polite. A small man with a reddish beard was standing a few feet away with his eyes closed, apparently praying to a statue of the Virgin in a wall niche. He was no one I recognised; my first thought was that Paget had sent him.

‘Should I?’

‘I think it would be a good idea,’ he murmured, still without looking at me. ‘The confessional is empty, after all.’

I glanced back up the nave to the door and jerked my head for Simon to come closer, holding my hand up to stop him when I thought he was near enough to respond if the man tried anything. Cautiously curious, I took a seat in the penitents’ side of the confessional and drew the curtain across to close myself in.

I heard a soft rustle of cloth as someone settled the other side of the partition. The smell of the wood, the dust spiralling in the slats of light – all just as it was that day with Paul, the memory so sharp it almost hurt. While I was lost in thought, a piece of paper appeared under the gap in the partition.

‘From a mutual friend,’ said the Englishman, whose profile I could just make out through the wooden grille. I picked up the letter and turned it over. In the top right-hand corner someone had inked the astrological sign for Jupiter. The wax seal was intact, though that meant nothing. I tore it open and ran my eye over the streams of letters, meaningless to anyone but me. Though I had not admitted as much to Guise, he was right; I had committed Walsingham’s complex cipher to memory and I raced through the apparent gibberish in the note as quickly as if it were a foreign language:

Bruno

This is Nicholas Berden, the only man in Paris in whom you should confide. You can trust him with your life – or at the very least your correspondence. Anything you give him he will put directly into my hands. Send to me soon.

FW

PS. My dinner table wants for wit and liveliness with you and Sidney gone. We are a sad company without you. Pray God we may see you again.

I folded the letter in my lap with a stab of anger. If Walsingham wanted to see me that badly, why wait for God to intervene when he could perfectly well make arrangements himself?

‘All in order?’ Nicholas Berden whispered, from the other side of the partition.

‘Yes. Thank you for taking the trouble.’

‘I sail for London tomorrow,’ he continued, in his low, clipped voice. ‘I’m a cloth merchant, you see. Constantly back and forth. Rather useful. So I thought, if there is anything you’d like me to take …’ He let the suggestion hang in the air.

‘There is. But I don’t have it with me.’

‘No matter. Let’s meet for a drink tonight at the Swan and Cross.’

‘But people know me there.’

‘So much the better. Hide in plain sight. They know me too, so no one will remark on our presence.’

‘I have never seen you there.’

‘I’m easy to overlook.’

‘Because you’re hiding in plain sight?’

‘Exactly.’ He let out a merry laugh and I decided I liked him. ‘Seven o’clock, then.’

I was about to reply when I realised he had already left. I rested my head against the wood behind me and closed my eyes.

As I prepared to leave the house that evening there came a knock at the door of my rooms which I knew, by its force and briskness, announced Madame de la Fosse. I cast a quick glance around to make sure I had not left anything incriminating in the open. All my dangerous papers, together with the Hermes book, were safe in my hiding place in the rafters, the boards pulled tight so that it was impossible to see there might be a cavity behind them. Inside my doublet I carried two letters in cipher: a copy of the one to Walsingham about Gilbert Gifford that I had given Stafford, that he had handed instead to Paget, and a new document, setting out what I had learned about the ambassador’s gambling debts and the secrets he was selling to Guise. I suspected the information would not come as news to Walsingham. His original letter to me had expressed a lack of confidence in the ambassador’s judgement where Paget was concerned, and the fact that he wanted me to entrust my correspondence to Berden and not the embassy courier suggested that he had further doubts about Stafford’s loyalties. I wondered what he would do now that he had confirmation: recall Stafford and accuse him of treason, or a more subtle approach – leave him in place with threats of disgrace and use his intimacy with the League to England’s advantage, playing him against Paget? That would be the riskier strategy, but it might appeal to the old spymaster. For my part, I could not help a feeling of disappointment as I prepared to meet Berden; his appearance meant that I no longer had any pretence for returning to England. Perhaps that had been a foolish dream all along; there was nothing there for me to go back to.

The knocking came again, more impatient this time. ‘Monsieur Bruno!’

‘J’arrive, madame.’ I opened the door with a flourish, so that she almost fell over the threshold.

‘What did I tell you about having women in this house?’ she said, without preamble.

‘What?’ I stepped back from the doorway and swept my arm around the room to demonstrate its emptiness. ‘No women here, more’s the pity.’

‘There’s one downstairs asking for you. I don’t like the look of her.’ She wrinkled her nose.

‘Did she give a name?’ I felt a little stab of fear. Would Guise send a female assassin? It would be a clever move; a woman could more easily gain access, slip past a bodyguard. Then, a slim blade between the ribs … ‘Where is Simon?’

‘Having his supper. It’s not the same one as last time. This one says she’s an old friend. We all know what that means.’ She leaned in. ‘Foreign,’ she confided, in a stage whisper.

I stared at her for a moment, then bounded down the stairs two at a time to find Sophia standing on the doorstep, shivering despite the fur hat she wore pulled down over her ears. She looked at me warily, her eyes bright with cold.

‘I have something for you,’ she said, matter-of-factly.

‘Come in.’ I led her up the stairs, past Madame de la Fosse and her indignant spluttering, and closed the door behind us.

‘Here.’ Sophia reached inside her cloak and took out my Damascus steel knife in its scabbard. I was so delighted to see it – and her – that I darted in and kissed her impulsively on the cheek. We both drew back, alarmed.

‘I am in your debt,’ I said, turning it over in my hands.

‘You certainly are,’ she said, walking over to the window and pulling off her gloves. ‘You don’t know what I had to do for it.’ She turned with an impish grin, enjoying my shock, leaving me hanging for a few moments. ‘You’re right to make that face. I had to walk in the gardens with the Duke of Montpensier for an hour, listening to his poetry. In this weather.’

‘I’m so sorry,’ I said, adopting a grave expression. ‘I don’t know how I can make it up to you.’

‘Oh, you can never compensate me for that.’ She leaned back against the wall and folded her arms. ‘Shall we say we are even now? For the book, I mean?’

‘Agreed. The slate is wiped clean.’ I strapped the knife on to my belt and immediately felt more like myself with its familiar weight resting against my hip.

‘To start over,’ she said thoughtfully, looking back to the window. Her reflection rippled as she moved, distorted in the bubbled glass. A long silence unfolded. Neither of us seemed to know quite what to say, but I had the sense that she was not in a hurry to leave. I poked at the edge of a rug with the toe of my boot. She looked back to me and held my gaze with a questioning look. I watched her, trying to find the right words, the ones that would make her understand without scaring her away. I thought about Jacopo’s distinction between brave and foolhardy.

The silence was broken by the bells of Saint-André striking seven. I started, glancing guiltily at the door.

‘Do you have to go somewhere?’

‘No. Well, yes.’ I rubbed at the back of my neck. ‘I’m supposed to meet someone. But it can wait.’

‘A woman?’ She raised an eyebrow.

‘No! A colleague.’

‘You’re working in Paris, then?’

‘I may be. I have the offer of a job, anyway. At the Collège de Cambrai. Lecturing again.’

She nodded. ‘Sounds like a good position.’

‘It is. The King arranged it.’

‘But you don’t sound as if you want it.’

I hesitated. ‘I’m not sure whether I should stay in Paris.’

A flicker of anxiety crossed her face. ‘Where else would you go?’

‘I don’t know. I was thinking of Prague, perhaps. The Emperor Rudolf is more tolerant of free thinkers at his court. He collects them. My friend John Dee is there now.’

‘Prague.’ She rolled the word around her mouth like a strange delicacy and gazed into the distance, as if she might glimpse new worlds beyond the black rooftops of the rue du Cimetière. ‘How lucky you are, having the freedom to travel anywhere you choose.’

‘It’s not exactly luck. More necessity. And I’m not free to travel to the one place I really wish to go.’

‘Where is that?’

‘Home.’

She looked at me as if searching for something in my face. ‘Still. If you were a woman, you would think it enviable.’

‘What about you? Will you stay in Paris?’

She shrugged. ‘For now. There are fewer options available to me.’

‘But this is not enough for you, surely? Living here, being a governess?’

It was the wrong thing to say; her expression hardened. ‘How would you know what is enough for me? There’s no shame in honest work. I came to Paris with nothing.’

‘Apart from my book.’

A faint hint of a smile. ‘Yes, all right. But things could have ended very badly for me. I have been fortunate. Sir Thomas is a generous employer, who doesn’t try to take advantage, which sets him apart from many. His daughters are pleasant enough children. I’m paid reasonably, I have a comfortable room and I am allowed to use the library. What other life is there for a woman like me, except to become someone’s wife?’

‘And that is not an option you would consider?’ I asked carefully.

‘That is a mistake I would not make again in a hurry,’ she said, in a voice like a blade.

‘But you must have suitors,’ I persisted, though I knew I should let the subject drop. ‘Young Gilbert Gifford seems keen.’

‘Gilbert Gifford?’ She let out a burst of laughter, eyes wide with incredulity. ‘Please. Such an earnest boy. He is going to save England for the Catholic faith, you know.’

‘Is he really?’

‘Oh yes.’ Her eyes danced with mischief. ‘He’s going back soon. He claims he’s been entrusted with important letters for the Queen of Scots.’

‘He told you that?’

She brushed a loose strand of hair out of her face. ‘I thought he was probably showing off. He wants me to think he’s an important player in the crusade against Elizabeth, like his hero, Paget.’

‘You’re right – it sounds like an idle boast to me,’ I said, carelessly, while thinking I would need to add a quick postscript to the letters in my pocket.

‘But in answer to your question, no,’ she said.

‘No what?’ I frowned; my mind was still on Gifford.

‘There are no suitors.’ She fixed me with a level stare, the wide-set amber eyes cool and knowing, revealing nothing but a hint of challenge. I was not sure how I was supposed to respond, so I remained silent.

‘Well, you should not keep your colleague waiting,’ she said quickly, after a pause, her gaze swerving away, and I had the sense that I had somehow missed an opportunity.

‘You could come to Prague with me,’ I said, startling myself. The words seemed to be in the air before the thought had even formed in my head.

She let out that same laugh of disbelief. ‘Are you mad?’

I tried to cover my embarrassment. ‘Why not? I saw the light in your eyes when I mentioned it. You crave adventure, you know you do. This life – it may be comfortable enough but it will stifle you in the end. Travel with me. We can leave Paris and start again.’

She put her hand on her hip, cocked her head to one side. ‘And what would I do in Prague? How would I earn a living?’

‘The Emperor Rudolf is a generous patron of philosophers and alchemists,’ I said, warming to the idea as it took shape. ‘John Dee says there is money to be gained from the kind of books I write, and prestige. I could find a place at his court, I am sure of it.’

Again, her face closed up. ‘I asked you what I would do. I have told you, Bruno – I will not be dependent on a man ever again.’ Seeing my expression, she peeled herself away from the wall and crossed the room to me, taking both my hands in hers. ‘It is one of the things I have always liked about you,’ she said, her smile edged with regret. ‘You dream something and you see no reason why it should not happen the way you dream it. But life has dealt me too many blows for me to share that view.’

‘Jesus, Sophia. You’re only twenty-one. Do you think I haven’t seen my dreams broken into pieces, over and over? But you have to believe in the possibility of a different life, otherwise you just …’ I shook my head, let the sentence drift.

‘What?’

‘Give up and get a job teaching in Paris, until you grow old and die of boredom.’

She looked offended at first, but gradually her face softened and I saw the twitch of a smile.

‘Given the state of things in Paris, growing old and dying of boredom might be considered a luxury.’

‘True.’ I thought briefly of Paul, lying on the table in the abbey infirmary, and Léonie’s limp body carried into the gallery by soldiers. I squeezed her hands. ‘We could make this work, I believe it. Don’t be afraid of being dependent. We would be equals. We wouldn’t even have to get married, if you’re set against the idea.’ My words tumbled out in a rush, but I could not read her expression.

‘Ah, Bruno,’ she said, after a pause. She bent her head forward until it was resting on my shoulder. I slipped my arms around her waist and held her, hardly daring to breathe, tense with the almost-certain knowledge of what she was going to say next. She drew her head back so that she could look me in the eye. ‘If I was going to run away to Prague with anyone, it would be you. And I don’t suppose I will ever find another man who would treat me as an equal. But …’ she paused and dropped her gaze to my chest, her fingers plucking distractedly at the buttons of my doublet. ‘It’s not about Prague, or marriage, or even you, in the end. There is a greater claim on me. You understand that. I am saving every penny I earn here. If I go on working, in a year or so I will have enough to return to England.’

‘To find your son?’ I said, my throat tight.

She nodded. ‘He will be two years old now. I need to see him, Bruno. I’m his mother. I can’t bear to think he doesn’t know me. It’s like an ache, here, that never eases.’ She balled her fist and struck the base of her ribcage. I could hear the desperation in her voice.

‘But …’ I left my objection unfinished. The son she had borne from her forbidden love affair in Oxford had been given away to a respectable family at birth; she had no way of knowing how to find him, or whether he had even survived infancy – so many children did not – but she did not need me to tell her that.

‘It’s the one thing I cling to,’ she whispered, as if reading my thoughts.

I nodded and took a deep breath, arranged my face. This is bravery, Jacopo, I thought, as I made my voice light-hearted. ‘Think, though. Another year of Montpensier’s poetry.’

She laughed again, but it did not disguise the sadness. ‘No. I only did that for you.’

Then she leaned in and kissed me, her mouth warm and yielding as I remembered it, but it was a valedictory embrace, I could not deceive myself.

‘I should go,’ I said, when she eventually broke away. ‘I hope you find what you are looking for, Sophia.’

‘And you, Bruno. I hope you find your way home.’

‘If I do, I will come back for you. And your boy. You would love the Bay of Naples.’ I could not speak through the tightness in my throat.

‘Do that, then.’ I saw the glisten of tears in her eyes. ‘Come back for us, one day.’

Sometimes, I thought, the stubborn clinging to an improbable hope is just enough to keep your head above the tide of despair. I held her a while longer, reluctant to let go.