Page 233 of A Column of Fire

Pierre roared with anger. He stood up and kicked her wounded shoulder. But it was pointless: she had stopped breathing, and her eyes stared up at him sightlessly.

She had escaped.

He went back inside. His men were searching for the money. The shop was full of paper goods of all kinds. He went around pulling ledgers off shelves and emptying cupboards and drawers, piling paper up in the middle of the floor. Then he snatched a lantern from Brocard, opened it, and touched the flame to the paper. It caught immediately and flared up.

*

NED FELT THAThe and Sylvie had been lucky to reach the left bank without getting accosted. By and large the militia were not attacking people at random: they seemed to be using the names and addresses they had undoubtedly got from Pierre. All the same, Ned had been stopped and interrogated once, when he was with Aphrodite Beaulieu, and it could easily happen again, with unpredictable results. So it was with a sense of relief that he turned into the rue de la Serpente, with Sylvie at his side, and hurried towards the shop.

He saw the body on the street, and had a dreadful feeling he knew who it was. Sylvie did too, and she let out a sob and broke into a run. A moment later they both bent over the still form on the bloody cobblestones. Ned knew right away that Isabelle was dead. He touched her face: she was still warm. She had not been dead long, which explained why her clothes had not yet been stolen.

Sylvie, weeping, said: ‘Can you carry her?’

‘Yes,’ Ned said, ‘if you just help get her over my shoulder.’ She would be heavy, but the embassy was not far away. And it occurred to him that he would look like a militiaman disposing of a corpse, and consequently would be less likely to be questioned.

He had his hands under Isabelle’s lifeless arms when he smelled smoke and hesitated. He looked towards the shop and saw movement inside. Was there a fire in there? A flame flared up and lit the interior, and he saw men moving about with an air of purpose, as if looking for something; valuables, perhaps. ‘They’re still here!’ he said to Sylvie.

At that moment, Ned saw two men step through the doorway. One had a mutilated face, his nose just two holes surrounded by puckered white scar tissue. The other man had thick blond hair and a pointed beard, and Ned recognized Pierre.

Ned said: ‘We have to leave her – come on!’

Sylvie hesitated for one grief-stricken moment, then broke into a run. Ned ran after her, but they had been recognized. He heard Pierre shout: ‘There she is! Go after her, Rasteau!’

Ned and Sylvie ran side by side to the end of the rue de la Serpente. As they passed the huge windows of the church of Saint-Severin, he glanced back over his shoulder and saw the man called Rasteau pounding after him, sword raised.

Ned and Sylvie raced across the wide rue St Jacques and into the graveyard of St-Julien-le-Pauvre. But Sylvie was tiring and Rasteau gained on them. Ned thought furiously. Rasteau was in his thirties, but big and strong, and his nose had obviously been chopped off in some fracas. He was probably a practised swordsman with long experience of combat. He would be a formidable opponent. In any fight lasting more than a few seconds, his greater size and skill would tell. Ned’s only hope was to surprise him somehow and finish him quickly.

Ned knew his surroundings well. This was where he had trapped the man who had been tailing him. Turning around the east end of the church, he was out of Rasteau’s sight for a moment. He stopped suddenly and pulled Sylvie into the deep shelter of a doorway.

They were both panting. Ned could hear the heavy running steps of their pursuer. In a moment he had his sword in his right hand and his dagger in the left. He had to judge this perfectly: he could not let the man go past. But there was no time to think. When it seemed that Rasteau must be almost upon them, Ned stepped out from the doorway.

His timing was not quite right. A moment earlier Rasteau had slowed his pace, perhaps suspecting a trap; and he was just out of Ned’s reach. He could not stop, but he was able to swerve and avoid being impaled on Ned’s blade.

Ned moved fast and lunged, and his point penetrated Rasteau’s side. Momentum carried the man past Ned. The blade came out. Rasteau half turned, stumbled and fell heavily. Without conscious thought, Ned stabbed wildly. Rasteau swung his weapon in a wide sweep and knocked Ned’s sword out of his hand. It flew through the air and fell on a grave.

Rasteau was up in a flash, moving fast for a big man. Ned glimpsed Sylvie coming out of the doorway and yelled: ‘Run, Sylvie, run!’ Then Rasteau came at him stabbing and slicing. Ned retreated, using his dagger to parry a thrust, then a swing, then another thrust; but he knew he could not keep it up. Rasteau feinted a downward cut then, with surprising agility, changed the stroke into a thrust that dipped under Ned’s guard.

And then Rasteau stopped still, and the point of a sword came out through the front of his belly. Ned leaped backwards, avoiding Rasteau’s sword, but it was not necessary, for the thrust lost all momentum as Rasteau screamed in agony and fell forward; and Ned saw, behind him, the small form of Sylvie, holding the sword Ned had dropped, pulling it out of Rasteau’s back.

They did not wait to watch Rasteau die. Ned took Sylvie’s hand and they ran across the place Maubert, past the gallows, to the embassy.

Two armed guards stood outside the house. They were not embassy employees: Ned had never seen them before. One of them stepped in front of Ned and said: ‘You can’t go in there.’

Ned said: ‘I am the deputy ambassador and this is my wife. Now get out of my way.’

From an upstairs window came the authoritative voice of Walsingham. ‘They are under the protection of the king – let them pass!’

The guard stood aside. Ned and Sylvie went up the steps. The door opened before they reached it.

They stepped inside to safety.

*

I married Sylvie twice: first in the little Catholic church of St-Julien-le-Pauvre, outside which she had killed the man with no nose; and then again in a Protestant service at the chapel in the English embassy.

Sylvie was a virgin at the age of thirty-one, and as if to recover lost time, we made love every night and every morning for months. When I lay on top of her she clung to me as if I were saving her from drowning, and afterwards she often cried herself to sleep in my arms.

We never found Isabelle’s body, and that made it harder for Sylvie to mourn. In the end we treated the burned-out shop as a grave, and stood in front of it for a few minutes every Sunday, holding hands and remembering a strong, brave woman.