Page 201 of A Column of Fire

He walked through the guardroom of the Swiss mercenaries who formed the king’s personal protection squad, then entered a large, light room called the wardrobe. Here waited people who might or might not be admitted to the royal presence, minor nobility and petitioners.

Walsingham said grumpily: ‘You took your time with that Spanish tart.’

‘It was worth it, though,’ Ned replied.

‘Really?’ Walsingham was sceptical.

‘She’s the mistress of Cardinal Romero. I think I may be able to recruit her as an informant.’

Walsingham changed his tone. ‘Good! I’d like to know what that slimy Spanish priest is up to.’ His eye lighted on the marquess of Lagny, an amiable fat man who covered his bald head with a jewelled cap. Lagny was a Protestant and close to Gaspard de Coligny. Aristocratic Huguenots had to be tolerated at court, at least until they did something overtly defiant of the king. ‘Come with me,’ Walsingham said to Ned, and they crossed the room.

Walsingham greeted the marquess in fluent, precise French: he had lived in exile for most of the reign of Elizabeth’s Catholic elder sister, Queen Mary Tudor – ‘Bloody’ Mary – and he spoke several languages.

He asked Lagny about the topic on everyone’s mind, the Spanish Netherlands. King Felipe’s ruthlessly effective general, the duke of Alba, was mercilessly crushing the Dutch Protestant rebels. A French Protestant army led by Jean of Hangest, lord of Genlis, was on its way to help the rebels. Lagny said: ‘Coligny has ordered Hangest to join forces with William of Orange.’ The prince of Orange was the leader of the Dutch. ‘Orange has asked Queen Elizabeth for a loan of thirty thousand pounds,’ Lagny went on. ‘Will she oblige him, Sir Francis?’

‘Perhaps,’ said Walsingham. Ned thought the likelihood was small. Elizabeth probably did not have thirty thousand pounds to spare and, if she did, she could think of better uses for it.

Ned was drawn away from the conversation by a richly dressed woman of middle age who spoke to him in English. ‘Sir Ned!’ she said. ‘What a fine doublet.’

Ned bowed to Marianne, countess of Beaulieu, an English Catholic married to a French nobleman. She was with her daughter, a plump eighteen-year-old with a vivacious manner. Her name was Aphrodite: her father was a scholar of Greek. The countess had a soft spot for Ned, and encouraged him to talk to Aphrodite. The countess would never let her daughter marry a Protestant, of course, but no doubt she thought Ned might convert. Ned liked Aphrodite well enough but had no romantic interest in her: she was a jolly, carefree girl with no serious interests, and she quickly bored him. Nevertheless, Ned flirted with both mother and daughter, because he longed to get inside the Beaulieu mansion in the rue St Denis, which was a refuge for exiled English Catholics, and might well be where the next plot against Queen Elizabeth was being hatched. But so far he had not been invited.

Now he talked to the Beaulieus about the worst-kept secret in Paris, the affair between Princess Margot and Duke Henri of Guise. The countess said darkly: ‘Duke Henri is not the first man to have “paid court” to the princess.’

Young Aphrodite was shocked and excited by the suggestion that a princess might be promiscuous. ‘Mother!’ she said. ‘You ought not to repeat such slanders. Margot is engaged to marry Henri of Bourbon!’

Ned murmured: ‘Perhaps she just got the two Henris mixed up.’

The countess giggled. ‘They have too many Henris in this country.’

Ned did not even mention the more shocking rumour that Margot was simultaneously having an incestuous relationship with her seventeen-year-old brother Hercule-Francis.

The two women were distracted by the approach of Bernard Housse, a bright young courtier who knew how to make himself useful to the king. Aphrodite greeted him with a pleased smile, and Ned thought he might suit her very well.

Ned turned away and caught the eye of the marchioness of Nîmes, a Protestant aristocrat. About Ned’s age, and voluptuous, Louise de Nîmes was the second wife of the much older marquess. Her father, like Ned’s, had been a wealthy merchant. She immediately gave Ned the latest gossip: ‘The king found out about Margot and Henri de Guise!’

‘Really? What did he do?’

‘He dragged her out of her bed and had her flogged!’

‘My goodness. She’s eighteen, isn’t she? It’s a bit old for flogging.’

‘A king can do what he likes.’ Louise looked over Ned’s shoulder and her face changed. Her smile vanished and she looked as if she had seen a dead rat.

The alteration was so striking that Ned turned to find out what had caused it, and saw Pierre Aumande. ‘I guess you don’t like Monsieur Aumande de Guise,’ he said.

‘He’s a snake. And he’s not a Guise. I’m from the same part of the world, and I know his background.’

‘Oh? Do tell me.’

‘His father is the illegitimate son of one of the Guise men. The family sent the bastard to school and made him the parish priest of Thonnance-lès-Joinville.’

‘If he’s a priest, how can he be Pierre’s father?’

‘Pierre’s mother is the priest’s “housekeeper”.’

‘So Pierre is the illegitimate son of an illegitimate son of a Guise.’

‘And then, to cap it all, they made Pierre marry a servant who had been impregnated by another randy Guise.’