Page 218 of A Column of Fire

Pierre thought for another moment and realized that money was not enough. He said: ‘I don’t need to tell you how the Guise family punish disloyalty.’

The servant looked terrified. ‘I understand, sir, I really do.’

Pierre nodded and walked away. It was better to be feared than to be loved.

He went farther along the street until he came to a small graveyard behind a low wall fringed with trees. He crossed the street and looked back. He had a clear view of the Nemours house.

‘Perfect,’ he said again.

*

ONFRIDAY MORNING, Gaspard de Coligny had to go to a meeting of the royal council at the Louvre palace. Attendance was not optional, and absence was regarded as an act of disobedience offensive to the king. If a man were too sick to rise from his bed, and sent an abject apology, the king might sniff and say that if the illness was so bad, why had the man not died of it?

If Coligny followed his usual routine, he would walk past the Nemours house on his way back from the Louvre.

By mid-morning Charles de Louviers was installed at the upstairs window. Biron was at the back gate, holding a fast horse already saddled. Pierre was in the little graveyard, screened by trees, watching over the low wall.

All they had to do was wait.

Henri de Guise had given ready consent to Pierre’s plan. Duke Henri’s only regret was that he did not have the opportunity himself to fire the bullet that would kill the man responsible for his father’s murder.

A group of fifteen or twenty men appeared at the far end of the street.

Pierre tensed.

Coligny was a handsome man in his fifties with a head of curly silver hair, neatly trimmed, and a beard to match. He walked with the upright bearing of a soldier, but right now he was reading as he went along, and in consequence moving slowly – which would be helpful to Louviers, Pierre thought with mounting excitement and apprehension. Coligny was surrounded by men-at-arms and other companions, but they did not seem notably vigilant. They were talking among themselves, glancing around only cursorily, appearing not to fear greatly for the safety of their leader. They had become slack.

The group walked along the middle of the street. Not yet, Pierre thought; don’t fire yet. At a distance, Louviers would have difficulty hitting Coligny, for the others were in the way; but as the group approached the house, his vantage point on the upstairs floor gave him a better angle down.

Coligny came closer. In a few seconds the angle would be perfect, Pierre thought. Louviers would surely have Coligny in his sights by now.

About now, Pierre thought; don’t leave it too late . . .

Coligny suddenly stopped in his tracks and turned to speak to a companion. At that moment a shot rang out. Pierre stopped breathing. Coligny’s group froze in their positions. In the instant of shocked silence, Coligny roared a curse and grabbed his left arm with his right hand. He had been wounded.

Pierre’s frustration was intense. That sudden unexpected stop had saved Coligny’s life.

But Louviers’s arquebus had two barrels, and a second shot came immediately afterwards. This time Coligny fell. Pierre could not see him. Was he dead?

The companions closed around him. All was confusion. Pierre was desperate to know what was happening but could not tell. The silver head of Coligny appeared in the middle of the throng. Had they lifted up his corpse? Then Pierre saw that Coligny’s eyes were open and he was speaking. He was standing up. He was alive!

Reload, Louviers, and fire again, quickly, Pierre thought. But some of Coligny’s bodyguard at last came to their senses and started to look about them. One pointed to the upstairs storey of the Nemours house, where a white curtain flapped at an open window; and four of them ran towards the house. Was Louviers even now cool-headedly loading his gun? The men ran into the house. Pierre stood looking over the graveyard wall, frozen to the spot, waiting for another bang; but none came. If Louviers was still there they must have overpowered him by now.

Pierre returned his attention to Coligny. He was upright, but perhaps his men were supporting him. Though only wounded he might yet die. However, after a minute he seemed to shake them off and demand some room, and they stopped crowding him. This enabled Pierre to get a better look, and he saw that Coligny was standing unaided. He had both arms clutched to his body, and blood on his sleeves and doublet, but to Pierre’s dismay the wounds seemed superficial. Indeed, as soon as his men gave him space he began to walk, clearly intending to get home under his own power before submitting to the attentions of a doctor.

The men who had gone into the Nemours house now re-emerged, one of them carrying the double-barrelled arquebus. Pierre could not hear what they were saying, but he could read their gestures: head-shaking negation, shrugs of helplessness, arms waving in signs indicating rapid flight. Louviers had escaped.

The group came nearer to Pierre’s hiding place. He turned around, hurried out of the graveyard by the far gate, and walked away, bitterly disappointed.

*

NED ANDWALSINGHAMknew, as soon as they heard the news, that this could be the end of all they and Queen Elizabeth hoped for.

They immediately rushed to the rue de Béthisy. They found Coligny lying on a bed, surrounded by some of the leading Huguenots, including the marquess of Lagny. Several doctors were in attendance, notably Ambroise Paré, the royal surgeon, a man in his sixties with a receding hairline and a long dark beard that gave him a thoughtful look.

The usual technique for disinfecting wounds, Ned knew, was to cauterize them with either boiling oil or a red-hot iron. This was so painful that the patient sometimes died of shock. Paré preferred to apply an ointment containing turpentine to prevent infection. He had written a book,The Method of Curing Wounds Caused by Arquebus and Arrows. Despite his success, his methods had not caught on: the medical profession was conservative.

Coligny was pale, and evidently in pain, but he seemed to have all his faculties. One bullet had taken off the top of his right index finger, Paré explained. The other had lodged in his left elbow. Paré had got it out – an agonizing procedure that probably accounted for how pale Coligny looked – and he showed it to them, a lead sphere half an inch across.