Ken Follett - A Column of Fire

Coligny was kneeling at the foot of the bed, wearing a nightgown, his silver hair covered with a cap, his wounded arm in a sling. He was praying aloud.

The men-at-arms hesitated to murder a man at prayer.

But they had all done worse things. Pierre yelled: ‘What are you scared of? Kill him, damn you!’

A Guise man called Besme thrust his sword into Coligny’s chest. When he pulled it out, bright blood pumped from the wound. Coligny fell forward.

Pierre rushed to the window and threw it open. He saw Henri down in the forecourt, still on horseback. ‘Duke Henri!’ he shouted. ‘I am proud to tell you that Coligny is dead!’

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 wished she 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.

As Villeneuve struggled to pull his sword out of Lagny’s guts, Sylvie ran along the hallway towards the back of the house. She threw open a door, dashed through, and found herself in a large kitchen.

In Paris, as everywhere, servants did not have the costly luxury of beds, but slept on the kitchen floor, and here a dozen staff were waking up and asking in scared voices what was going on.

Sylvie ran across the room, dodging the waking men and women, and reached the far door. It was locked, and there was no sign of a key.

She spotted an open window — letting air into a crowded room on an August night — and, without further thought, she scrambled through it.

She found herself in a yard with a henhouse and a pigeon loft. At the far side was a high stone wall with a gate. She tried to open the gate and found it locked. She could have wept with frustration and terror.

From the kitchen behind her she heard screams: Villeneuve and his men must have entered the kitchen. She guessed that they would assume all the servants were Protestants like their master — it was the usual way — and they would probably murder them all before coming after her.

She scrambled up onto the roof of the henhouse, causing a cacophony of squawking inside. Between the roof and the yard wall was a gap of only about a yard. Sylvie jumped it. Landing on the narrow top of the wall she lost her balance and fell to her knees painfully, but regained her balance. She dropped down the far side of the wall to a smelly lane.

She ran the length of the lane. It emerged into the rue du Mur. She headed for her warehouse, running as fast as she could. She reached it without seeing anyone. She unlocked the door, slipped inside, closed the door behind her, and locked it.

She was safe. She leaned on the door with her cheek against the wood. She had escaped, she thought with a strange sense of elation. A thought came into her mind that surprised her: I don’t want to die now that I’ve met Ned Willard.

Walsingham immediately saw the significance of the missing notebook, and assigned Ned and several others to call at the homes of prominent English Protestants in Paris, advising them to take refuge in the embassy. There were not enough horses for all and Ned went on foot. He wore high riding boots and a leather jerkin, despite the warmth of the night, and he was armed with a sword and a dagger with a two-foot-long sharpened blade.

He had completed his task, and was leaving the last of the houses assigned to him, when the bells began to ring.

He was worried about Sylvie. Pierre’s plan required the murders only of aristocratic Protestants, but once men started to kill it was hard to stop them. Two weeks ago Sylvie might have been safe, for her life as a Protestant bookseller had been a well-kept secret, but last week Ned had led Pierre to her home, and now she was probably on Pierre’s list. Ned wanted to bring her and her mother to the embassy for protection.

He made his way to the rue de la Serpente and banged on the door of the shop.