Page 227 of A Column of Fire

Henri shouted back: ‘Show me the body!’

Pierre turned into the room. ‘Besme,’ he said, ‘bring the body here.’

The man put his hands under Coligny’s arms and dragged the corpse across the floor.

Pierre said: ‘Lift it up to the window.’

Besme complied.

Henri shouted: ‘I can’t see his face!’

Impatiently, Pierre grabbed the body around the hips and heaved. The corpse tumbled over the windowsill, fell through the air, and hit the cobblestones with a smack, face down.

Henri dismounted. In a gesture stinking with contempt, he turned the body over with his foot.

‘This is he,’ he said. ‘The man who killed my father.’

The men around him cheered.

‘It’s done,’ said Henri. ‘Ring the bell of St-Germain l’Auxerrois.’

*

SYLVIE WISHEDshe had a horse.

Dashing from house to house, speaking to members of the congregation that met in the loft over the stable, she felt frustrated almost to the point of hysteria. Each time she had to find the right house, explain the situation to the family, persuade them that she was not imagining things, then hurry to the next nearest Protestant household. She had a logical plan: she was moving north along the rue St Martin, the main artery in the middle of the town, turning down side streets for short distances. Even so, she was managing only three or four calls per hour. If she had had a horse it would have been twice as quick.

She also would have been less vulnerable. It was hard for a drunk man to pull a strong young woman off a horse. But on foot and alone in the dark on the Paris streets she feared that anything could happen and no one would see.

As she approached the home of the marquess of Lagny, not far from her warehouse near the city wall, she heard distant bells. She frowned. What did that mean? Bells at an unexpected moment usually signified some crisis. The sound grew, and she realized that one church after another was joining the chorus. A city-wide emergency could mean only one thing: the apprehension that she and Ned had shared, when they found that Pierre’s book was missing, was coming true.

A few minutes later she came to the marquess’s house and banged on the door. He opened it himself: he must have been up, and his servants asleep. Sylvie realized this was the first time she had seen him without his jewelled cap. His head was bald with a monk’s fringe.

He said: ‘Why are they ringing the bells?’

‘Because they’re going to kill us all,’ she said, and she stepped inside.

He led her into the parlour. He was a widower, and his children were grown and living elsewhere, so he was probably alone in the house apart from the servants. She saw that he had been sitting up reading by the light of a wrought-iron candle tree. She recognized the book as one she had sold him. There was a flask of wine beside his chair and he offered her some. She realized she was hungry and thirsty: she had been on the go for hours. She drank a glass quickly, but refused a second.

She explained that she had guessed that the ultra-Catholics were about to launch an attack, and she had been racing around the town warning Protestants, but now she feared it had begun, and it could be too late for warnings. ‘I must go home,’ she said.

‘Are you sure? You might be safer to stay here.’

‘I have to make sure my mother is all right.’

He walked her to the door. As he turned the handle, someone banged on it from the outside. ‘Don’t open it!’ Sylvie said, but she was too late.

Looking over Lagny’s shoulder she saw a nobleman standing on the doorstep with several others behind him. Lagny recognized the man. ‘Viscount Villeneuve!’ he said in surprise.

Villeneuve wore an expensive red coat, but Sylvie was scared to see that he held his sword in his hand.

Lagny remained calm. ‘What brings you to my house at this time of night, Viscount?’

‘The work of Christ,’ said Villeneuve, and with a swift motion, he thrust his sword into Lagny’s belly.

Sylvie screamed.

Lagny screamed too, in agony, and fell to his knees.