Ken Follett - A Column of Fire

‘Let’s look.’

They walked north, away from the river.

The tension in the streets was still high. Even now Pierre could see Huguenots, in their sombre but costly outfits of black and grey, strolling along as if they owned the city. If they had any sense, they would not look so triumphant. But then, Pierre thought, if they had any sense, they would not be Protestants.

The ultra-Catholic people of Paris hated these visitors. Their tolerance was fragile, a bridge of straw holding up an iron-wheeled wagon.

Given a really good pretext, either side would run amok. Then, if enough people were killed, the civil war would start again, and the Peace of St Germain would be torn up, regardless of the marriage.

Pierre was going to provide that pretext.

He scanned the street for a vantage point from which a gunman might fire at someone walking along: a tower, a big tree, an attic window. The trouble was, the killer would need an escape route, for the bodyguards would surely go after him.

He stopped outside a house he recognized. It belonged to Henri de Guise’s mother, Anna d’Este. She had remarried, and was now duchess of Nemours, but she still hated Coligny, believing him to have been responsible for the death of her first husband. Indeed, she had done as much as Pierre to keep alive young Duke Henri’s yearning for revenge. She would undoubtedly co-operate.

He scrutinized the façade. The upstairs windows were overhung by wooden trellises bearing climbing plants, a pretty touch that surely came from the duchess. But today the trellises were draped with drying laundry, which suggested the duchess was not in residence. Even better, Pierre thought.

He banged on the door and a servant opened it. The man recognized Pierre and spoke in a tone of deference laced with fear. ‘Good day to you, Monsieur de Guise, I hope I may be of assistance to you.’ Pierre liked obsequiousness, but he always pretended not to notice it. Now he pushed past the man without replying.

He went up the stairs, and Biron followed, still carrying the long bag with the arquebus.

There was a large drawing room at the front on the upstairs floor. Pierre opened the window. Despite the laundry flapping in the breeze, he had a clear view of both sides of the street in the direction of the Louvre. ‘Hand me that gun,’ he said.

Biron took the weapon out of its bag. Pierre rested it on the windowsill and sighted along the barrel. He saw a well-dressed couple approaching arm-in-arm. He aimed the gun at the man. To his surprise he recognized the elderly marquess of Nîmes. Pierre moved the gunsight sideways and studied the woman, who was wearing a bright yellow dress. Yes, it was the Marchioness Louise, who had twice caused him to suffer humiliation: once long ago, when she had snubbed him at the Protestant service in the old hunting lodge; and again just a week ago, at the shop in the rue de la Serpente, when Sylvie had taunted him with secrets Louise had told her. He could get his revenge now, just by squeezing the trigger of the wheel-lock. He targeted her bust. She was in her middle thirties, but still voluptuous, and her breasts were, if anything, larger than before. Pierre yearned to stain that yellow dress with her bright blood. He could almost hear her screams.

One day, he thought; just not yet.

He shook his head and stood up. ‘This is good,’ he said to Biron, handing back the gun.

He stepped outside the room. The manservant was on the landing, waiting for orders. ‘There must be a back door,’ Pierre said to him.

‘Yes, sir. May I show you?’

They went downstairs and through the kitchen and the wash-house to a yard with a gate. Pierre opened the gate and found himself in the grounds of the church of St-Germain l’Auxerrois. ‘This is perfect,’ he said to Biron in a low voice. ‘You can have a horse waiting here, saddled ready, and Louviers can be gone a minute after firing the fatal shot.’

Biron nodded agreement. ‘That’ll work.’

They walked back through the house. Pierre gave the manservant a gold ecu. ‘I wasn’t here today,’ he said. ‘No one was. You saw nothing.’

‘Thank you, sir,’ said the man.

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.

On Friday 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.