Paul Doherty - The poisoned chalice

'But what's the use?' I asked.

'Oh,' Benjamin jibed, 'his name's Michael, the name of an archangel, his sister was Gabriel, the name of another, and Raphael's the name of a third!'

'But…'

'Shush!' Benjamin raised a finger to his lips. 'Please, Roger, just do it. But make sure they are all there.'

I wandered down to the great hall and sat making idle conversation until the rest joined us. I turned the talk to the Abbe Gerard.

'When I was at his house,' I lied, 'I saw his list of Masses for the dead. Sir John, your late wife was the Lady Catherine Stout?'

Well, old Dacourt's eyes immediately brimmed with tears.

'Yes, yes,' he mumbled, tipping his nose into his cup of watered wine. 'She died five years ago. The old abbe and she were friends.'

'And you, Michael? I see you also paid for masses for your sister Gabriel?'

Millet looked self-conscious.

'Yes, she died about eight months ago when the sweating sickness visited Lincoln.'

'Michael and Gabriel,' I smiled. 'The names of archangels.'

Oh, I tell you this, I felt as if I had put a noose round that young man's neck. He writhed in embarrassment. Dacourt looked up sharply, Clinton became agitated, whilst Peckle's eyes narrowed. I saw the cloud of suspicion grow.

'It was a conceit of my father's,' Millet blurted out as if he couldn't stand the silence and unspoken accusations. He laughed. 'We cannot be responsible for what our parents do, eh, Shallot?'

I let the subtle insult pass and changed the conversation to other matters. Yet, whatever my master had intended, his arrow had struck home. I left the hall and went back to report what had been said. Benjamin finished shaving himself, washed his hands carefully in the pewter bowl on the lavarium and grinned as he dried himself.

'Soon, my dear Roger, a new game will begin. Or, as we say in Ipswich, you have shaken the tree, let's see what falls out.'

The first real change was Millet's exclusion by the rest of the embassy staff as if he was already marked out. Dacourt gave him more menial tasks and, when these were finished, the dandified fop spent most of the time in his own chamber. The real game, however, began two days later when Dacourt summoned Benjamin and myself to his chamber. The old soldier glared at us accusingly.

'It would appear,' he began, 'you have made great friends at the French court.'

'We have no friends at the French court,' Benjamin quietly replied.

'Well, sir, it appears that you have.' Dacourt waved a small piece of white parchment with a purple seal on the end. 'An invitation from His Most Christian Majesty, despatched under his signet seal, inviting you to his palace at the Tour de Nesle in Paris to discuss the matter of a certain ring.' Dacourt glanced at the parchment. 'Of course, this was not written by the king but his creature, Vauban.'

Benjamin snatched the parchment from his hand and, with me peering over his shoulder, studied it carefully. Dacourt had not given us the full message. King Francis said he wished to discuss the matter of the ring: 'As well as other matters attendant upon it, which could ease the ring's speedy return to His Most Christian Majesty's royal brother, King Henry of England.'

'What does it mean?' Dacourt snapped.

Benjamin handed the parchment back. 'I suggest, Sir John, you keep this matter to yourself. And whilst we are gone, be most careful what happens here at Maubisson.'

We left the ambassador standing open-mouthed. Benjamin hustled me back through the corridors to our chamber.

'Pack now!' he snapped. 'We leave for Paris immediately. And we go well armed. Roger, I urge you to eat or drink nothing, to touch nothing, and to stay close by me until we are out of the chateau.' He raised one bony finger to his lips. 'Trust me, Roger, and be most careful, for we are to face a most ruthless and skilful enemy.'

'Then why are we going?' I asked.

'My dear Roger, we have no choice. If we stay we are in great danger. You must realise that. And how can we face our own master if there is a letter on record, held by the English ambassador in Paris, that King Francis offered to negotiate over King Henry's ring and we refused?'

Benjamin dragged our saddle-bags from their peg on the wall.

'A clever plan,' he murmured. 'We don't control the game yet, Roger, so we must dance to the tune that's being played.' He started pushing clothes into one of the bags.

'Do you think King Francis wishes to negotiate?'

Benjamin made a face. 'God knows. He may well do. Francis is like our own master, duplicitous. On the one hand he declares Henry is his brother. On the other, Uncle told me that the French king has even consulted an astrologer on how to kill Henry. Francis has already sent assassins to England who, by careful and crafty means, tried to kill the king but were caught and summarily hanged.' Benjamin threw the saddle-bag on to the bed. 'This may be a trick or Francis could be trying to save his master spy, Raphael.' He smiled thinly. 'Be well armed and remember, Roger, when you go to sup with the devil you always take a long spoon!'

We entered Paris just before curfew and made our way through its streets, smelling even fouler after a violent summer thunder storm, to a comfortable tavern near the Latin Quarter. We dined in silence, Benjamin in one of his withdrawn moods, mumbling to himself as if I wasn't there. The following morning, as the church bells were clanging the hour for lauds, we presented ourselves at the ornate gateway to the king's palace at the Tour de Nesle on the right bank of the Seine. A strange building, towers and turrets soaring into the sky, it was half-fortress, half-palace with extensive gardens and orchards all enclosed by a high-bricked, crenellated wall. (A place cursed, or so Benjamin told me, for it was here two hundred years earlier that Philip IV's three daughters-in-law secretly met their lovers. I mean, it's rare enough for a princess to put the cuckold's horns on her husband but these three beauties successfully duped each of Philip's sons with their secret assignations with young knights of the court. But at last Philip found out and the princesses were bricked up in cells and allowed to starve to death; the young men were pulled apart by wild horses in the very courtyard we crossed.)

I thought of the story Benjamin had whispered to me as we followed an arrogant chamberlain into the palace proper, along silk-draped corridors to a small audience chamber where, of course, Master Lucifer himself, Monsieur Vauban, was awaiting us. He was dressed in his usual ostentatious finery: lace ruffs and cuffs, high-heeled boots, a short gown which fell to just beneath his knees, and those bloody bells which tinkled every time he moved. His hair was oiled. I am sure he had some cosmetic on his face and he reeked of perfume. Mind you, the bastard could be charming. He rose from behind his desk and clasped our hands.

'Monsieur Daunbey, Monsieur Shallot, I am so pleased. Come! Come!'

He waved us through another door, I thought we were going to see the king. Instead, he took us into a small chamber, the walls and ceiling painted completely blue and decorated with silver crescents and stars. On the small dais at the far end a veritable banquet had been laid out for us. A collation of cold meats, breasts of chicken, slices of lamb, jellies, quince tarts, and a jug of chilled white wine. Like some devil inviting us to temptation, Vauban bowed and mockingly gestured.

'Come, Messieurs, you are our guests.'

We heard a sound. I turned and froze in terror: seated in the far corner of the room was the great, black mameluke. He just squatted there on a stool and, crouching before him, their gold chains wrapped round one of his muscular hands, were those two damned cats, cool amber eyes studying us lazily.