S. Parris - Conspiracy

Paul Lefèvre had intimated to me during our conversation in the confessional that he believed the King would not hold power for much longer. Though he had quickly tried to deny that he meant anything specific, it seemed likely that he had some concrete intelligence of a planned coup by the Duke of Guise and the Catholic League. But a priest like Paul would be small fry to Guise; useful while he could be persuaded to attack King Henri from his pulpit, but hardly someone to whom Guise would have confided plans for an act of treason. So Paul must have come by that knowledge another way; the burned scraps of letter in his hearth suggested that he had heard something in the course of a confession that had disturbed him so greatly he had considered breaking the holy seal of the confessional in order to warn the King. Some terrible harm planned by someone or something known as ‘Circe’. Whatever he had learned had troubled him so much that it had been the last thought to pass from his shattered brain to his lips as the life bled out of him. But here my theory foundered on a lack of certainty. There was no way of knowing whether Paul had sent a copy of that letter to the King, or whether he had changed his mind but someone had still felt he needed to be silenced.

The nature of the letter also puzzled me. Paul was a zealous supporter of the Catholic League; you would suppose that he would support any plot to topple the degenerate King and replace him with a righteous Catholic. What could be so terrible about the harm intended by ‘Circe’ that it could have induced the fervent Paul to consider betraying not only the sacrament of confession but his loyalty to the entire cause of the League? And who could have confessed such a conspiracy to him? I did not have the answers to these questions. I could only guess that, somehow, the Duke of Guise had anticipated betrayal and taken measures that he hoped would prevent it. But if so, that meant he must also know about the confession; presumably that person too would have to be silenced. Perhaps the killer would be able to shed more light on the plot once he was in the custody of the royal guard.

I was jolted from my theorising by the sound of a key in the lock. Wedged tight into the recess, I leaned across to make sure I could see through the narrow gap between the two stacks of boxes. Ignoring the pain in all my joints, I held myself still, terrified that the slightest sound would give me away and ruin my advantage. Despite what I had promised Cotin, I had no intention of allowing the killer to leave and hide his evidence. I was confident that, with surprise on my side and the help of a weapon, I could easily overcome him and force him at knifepoint to the gate, where the King’s soldiers would be waiting.

The door creaked open and a faint circle of light appeared; behind it, the outline of a figure, the cowl of his habit pulled up over his head. I heard the door click shut and the light brightened; I realised he had draped the lantern with a cloth to dim it on his way through the grounds. I held my breath, every fibre tensed. He crossed immediately to the boxes of books, set down his light and crouched to pull away the first crate. Silently, I eased out from my hiding place and drew my knife. The light from his lantern puddled on the floor; I caught a glimpse of his profile as he straightened, clasping the bundle with the statue to his breast with both hands like a Madonna holding an infant. I stepped forward; the movement startled him and he whipped around to face me, frozen with surprise.

‘Keep quiet, don’t move, and you won’t come to harm,’ I said, holding the point of the knife towards him. ‘I need you to come with me. Bring that with you.’

His face was still hidden in shadow, but I saw his eyes flick down to the statue, as if he had forgotten he was holding it. In an instant he seemed to recover his power of thought; he leaned back and, with considerable force, hurled the statue at me so that it struck me in the chin. I staggered backwards, touching my fingertips to my face, and in that unguarded moment he swung a punch that connected with the left side of my jaw. I dropped the knife; my mouth filled with blood as I struggled to recover my balance, but he reached out and pulled at the stack of crates beside us so that it toppled forwards. I managed to jump back as boxes of stone, glass and metal crashed across the floor, trapping me in the corner. I was fortunate that no flying debris struck me, but by the time I had clambered over the heap, he had already grabbed the lantern and plunged me into darkness as he closed the door behind him.

Cursing, I stumbled blindly across the room, spitting blood, relieved to find that he had not locked me in. Outside the mist was so thick now that I could not see more than four or five feet in front of me, but the lantern was just visible as a pinprick of fuzzy light between the bent shapes of trees ahead. I lurched after it, tripping on clumps of grass, branches clawing at my clothes, damp skeins of cobweb clinging to my face as trunks loomed out of nowhere and the light bobbed and grew fainter. Moonlight barely silvered the layers of vapour that hung heavy as smoke in the air. After a few paces I could no longer see the lantern at all. I thought I heard a low laugh from just behind my left shoulder, though it might as easily have been a magpie. I realised he had led me into the orchard deliberately to confuse me. There was no sound now but the stillness of the night and my own blood thudding in my chest. Turning again to what I believed was the direction of the path, I moved with caution, but before I found the edge of the trees I glimpsed the light again, jouncing up and down a few yards ahead. I ran towards it, only to see it disappear as I heard the sound of a gate slamming and the key turning in the lock.

‘ Merda ,’ I muttered. A few feet further on I found the path leading to the door in the wall; my quarry had slipped out while I was stumbling among the trees. I hesitated, trying to decide my best course. I had Cotin’s key; I could pursue him, but he might have hidden himself along the river track with the idea of ambushing me if I followed. He had already shown himself unafraid to kill a man on that path; I did not want to go the same way, and I was unarmed now. Besides, I thought, brightening – if all had gone smoothly, he would have run straight into the arms of the King’s soldiers. I hoped they would have the wit to hold him until I caught up with them. But there was still the matter of evidence; while he was away from the abbey, this was my chance to see if there was anything more than the cloak and statue that would serve to condemn him beyond doubt. Perhaps he had kept some correspondence hidden in his cell that would make explicit who had set him on to kill Paul – any such letter would be a thousand times more valuable than a bloodied statue. It was worth a try. I ran my fingers gingerly over my swollen lip; though I had still not had a clear view of his face, I could be fairly sure that punch was not thrown by a man with a crippled right hand. If Cotin was right, there was only one other friar with a key to the storeroom. At least that meant I had an idea of where to start.

I turned my steps away from the gate and followed the path back to the outbuilding. Feeling along the shelf behind the door where Cotin had found the lantern, my fingers closed over a stub of candle. I drew my tinder-box from the pouch at my belt and fumbled with frozen and trembling fingers to strike a spark from it. The room was a chaos of broken stone, metal and glass, strewn over the floor where he had pulled the crates down to slow me. Scrabbling one-handed while I tried to hold up the feeble light, I found my knife, then unearthed the statue, still tangled in its cloak, and bundled it under my arm.