Page 202 of A Column of Fire

‘Fascinating.’ Ned turned again and studied Pierre for a moment. He was richly dressed in a lavender doublet pinked to show a purple lining. ‘It doesn’t seem to have held him back.’

‘He’s a horrible man. He was rude to me once, so I told him off, and he’s hated me ever since.’

Pierre was talking to a tough-looking man who seemed not quite sufficiently well-dressed to be here, Ned saw. He said: ‘I’ve always found Pierre a bit sinister.’

‘A bit!’

Walsingham beckoned, and Ned left Louise and joined him as he moved to the doorway that led to the last and most important room, the king’s private chamber.

*

PIERRE WATCHEDWalsingham pass into the private chamber with his sidekick, Ned Willard. He felt a wave of revulsion almost like nausea: those two were the enemies of everything that kept the Guise family powerful and wealthy. They were not noble; they came from a poor, backward country; and they were heretics – but, all the same, he feared and loathed them.

He was standing with his chief spy, Georges Biron, lord of Montagny, a little village in Poitiers. Biron was a minor peer with almost no income. His only asset was his ability to move easily in noble society. Under Pierre’s tutelage he had become sly and ruthless.

Biron said: ‘I’ve had Walsingham under surveillance for a month, but he isn’t involved in anything we can use against him. He has no lovers, male or female; he doesn’t gamble or drink; and he makes no attempts to bribe the king’s servants, or indeed anyone else. He’s either innocent or very discreet.’

‘I’m guessing discreet.’

Biron shrugged.

Pierre’s instinct told him the two English Protestants had to be up to something. He made a decision. ‘Switch the surveillance to the deputy.’

‘Willard.’ The surname was difficult to pronounce in French.

‘Same procedure. Twenty-four hours. Find out what his weaknesses are.’

‘Very good, sir.’

Pierre left him and followed Walsingham into the audience chamber. He was proud to be one of the privileged. On the other hand, he remembered, with bitter nostalgia, the days when he and the Guise brothers had actually lived in the palace with the royal family.

We will return, he vowed.

He crossed the room and bowed to Henri, the young duke of Guise. Henri had been twelve when Pierre had brought him the news of the assassination of his father and assured him that the man responsible for the murder was Gaspard de Coligny. Now Henri was twenty-one, but he had not forgotten his oath of revenge – Pierre had made sure of that.

Duke Henri was very like his late father: tall, fair, handsome and aggressive. At the age of fifteen he had gone to Hungary to fight against the Turks. All he lacked was the disfigurement that had given Duke François the nickname Scarface. Duke Henri had been taught that his destiny was to uphold the Catholic Church and the Guise family, and he had never questioned that.

His affair with Princess Margot was a sure sign of courage, one court wit had said, for Margot was a handful. Pierre imagined they must make a tempestuous couple.

A door opened, a trumpet sounded, everyone fell silent, and King Charles came in.

He had been ten years old when he became king, and at that time all the decisions had been made by other people, mainly his mother, Queen Caterina. He was twenty-one now, and could give his own orders, but he was in poor health – they said he had a weak chest – and he continued to be easily led, sometimes by Caterina, sometimes by others; unfortunately, not by the Guise family at present.

He began by dealing with courtesies and routine business, occasionally giving a hoarse, unwholesome cough, sitting on a carved and painted chair while everyone else in the room remained standing. But Pierre sensed he had an announcement to make, and it was not long coming. ‘The marriage between our sister, Margot, and Henri de Bourbon, the king of Navarre, was agreed in August the year before last,’ he said.

Pierre felt Henri de Guise tense up beside him. This was not just because he was Margot’s lover. The Bourbons were bitter enemies of the Guises. The two families had warred for supremacy under the French king since before either of these two Henris was born.

King Charles went on: ‘The marriage will reinforce the religious reconciliation of our kingdom.’

That was what the Guises feared. Pierre sensed the peacemaking mind of Queen Caterina behind the formal words of the king.

‘So I have decided that the wedding will take place on the eighteenth of August next.’

There was a buzz around the room: this was big news. Many had hoped or feared that the wedding would never happen. Now a date had been set. This was a triumph for the Bourbons and a blow to the Guises.

Henri was furious. ‘A blaspheming Bourbon, marrying into the royal family of France,’ he said with disgust.

Pierre was downcast. A threat to the Guise family was a threat to him. He could lose everything he had won. ‘When your Scottish cousin Mary Stuart married Francis it made us the top family,’ he said gloomily to Duke Henri.