Ken Follett - A Column of Fire

He stood in a bookshop in the shadow of the Cathedral of Notre Dame. The shop had once been owned by Sylvie’s father. Ned had not known Sylvie at the time, but she had pointed out the place to him in 1572, when they were courting. Now the shop was owned by someone else, and Ned was using it as a convenient place to loiter.

He studied the titles on the spines of the books and, at the same time, kept an anxious eye on the great west front of the church with its twin towers. As soon as the tall church doors opened he abandoned his pretence of shopping and hurried outside.

The first person to emerge from the cathedral was Henri III, who had become king of France when his brother, Charles IX, died nine years ago. Ned watched him smile and wave to the crowd of Parisians in the square. The king was thirty-one. He had dark eyes and dark hair already receding at the temples to give him a widow’s peak. He was what the English called a ‘politician’ — in French un politique — meaning that he made decisions about religion according to what he thought would be good for his country, rather than the other way around.

He was closely followed by his mother, Queen Caterina, now a dumpy old lady of sixty-four wearing a widow’s cap. The queen mother had borne five sons, but all had suffered poor health, and so far three had died young. Even worse, none of them had ever fathered a son, which was why the brothers had succeeded one another as kings of France. However, this bad luck had made Caterina the most powerful woman in Europe. Like Queen Elizabeth, she had used her power to arbitrate religious conflict by compromise rather than violence; like Elizabeth, she had had limited success.

As the royal party disappeared across the bridge to the right bank, there was a general exodus from the three arched doorways of the cathedral, and Ned joined the crowd, hoping he was inconspicuous among the many people who had come to look at the king.

He spotted Jerónima Ruiz in seconds. It was not hard to pick her out from the mob. She wore red, as usual. She was now in her early forties: the hour-glass figure of her youth had thickened, her hair was not so lush, and her lips were no longer full. However, she walked with a sway and looked out alluringly from under black eyelashes. She still radiated sex more powerfully than any other woman in sight — although Ned sensed that what had once been carelessly natural was now achieved with conscious effort.

Her eyes met his. There was a flash of recognition, then she looked away.

He could not approach her openly: their meeting had to look accidental. It also had to be brief.

He contrived to get close to her. She was with Cardinal Romero, though for the sake of appearances, she was not on his arm, but walking a little way behind him. When the cardinal stopped to speak to Viscount Villeneuve, Ned casually came alongside her.

Continuing to smile at no one in particular, Jerónima said: ‘I’m risking my life. We can talk for only a few seconds.’

‘All right.’ Ned looked around as if in idle curiosity while keeping a sharp eye out for anyone who might notice the two of them.

Jerónima said: ‘The duke of Guise is planning to invade England.’

‘God’s body!’ said Ned. ‘How—’

‘Be quiet and listen,’ she snapped. ‘Otherwise I won’t have time to tell you everything.’

‘Sorry.’

‘There will be two incursions, one on the east coast and one on the south.’

Ned had to ask: ‘How many men?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Please go on.’

‘There’s not much more. Both armies will muster local support and march on London.’

‘This information is priceless.’ Ned thanked God that Jerónima hated the Catholic Church for torturing her father. It struck him that her motivation was similar to his own: he had hated authoritarian religion ever since his family had been ruined by Bishop Julius and his cronies. Any time his determination weakened, he thought of how they had stolen everything his mother had worked for all her life, and how a strong and clever woman had seemed to fade away until her merciful death. The pain of the memory flared like an old wound, and reinforced Ned’s will.

He glanced sideways at Jerónima. Close up, he could see the lines on her face, and he sensed a hard cynicism below her sensual surface. She had become Romero’s mistress when she was eighteen. She had done well to maintain his affection into her forties, but it had to be a strain.

‘Thank you for telling me,’ he said. His gratitude was heartfelt. But there was something else he needed to know. ‘The duke of Guise must have English collaborators.’

‘I’m sure.’

‘Do you know who they are?’

‘No. Remember, my source of information is pillow talk. I don’t get to ask probing questions. If I did, I would fall under suspicion.’

‘I understand, of course.’

‘What news of Barney?’ she said, and Ned detected a wistful note.

‘He spends his life at sea. He has never married. But he has a son, nineteen years old.’

‘Nineteen,’ she said wonderingly. ‘Where do the years go?’

‘His name is Alfo. He shows some signs of having his father’s aptitude for making money.’

‘A clever boy, then — like all the Willards.’

‘He is clever, yes.’

‘Give Barney my love, Ned.’

‘One more thing.’

‘Make it quick — Romero is coming.’

Ned needed a permanent channel through which to communicate with Jerónima. He improvised hastily. ‘When you get back to Madrid, a man will come to your house to sell you a cream to keep your face young.’ He was fairly sure he could arrange that through English merchants in Spain.

She smiled ruefully. ‘I use plenty of that kind of thing.’

‘Any information you give him will reach me in London.’

‘I understand.’ She turned away from Ned and beamed at the cardinal, sticking out her chest as she did so. They walked away together, Jerónima wiggling her ample behind. Ned thought they looked sad: a no-longer-young prostitute making the most of her tired charms to retain the affection of a corrupt, pot-bellied old priest.

Sometimes Ned felt he lived in a rotten world.

The illness of Odette excited Pierre even more than the invasion of England.

Odette was the only obstacle on his path to greatness. He was the duke’s principal advisor, listened to more carefully and trusted farther than ever before. He lived in a suite of rooms in the palace in the Vieille rue du Temple with Odette, Alain, and their long-time maid Nath. He had been given the lordship of a small village in Champagne, which permitted him to call himself sieur de Mesnil , a member of the gentry though not of the nobility. Perhaps Duke Henri would never make him a count, but the French aristocracy had won the right to appoint men to high clerical office without approval from Rome, and he could have asked Duke Henri to make him abbot of a monastery, or even a bishop — if only he had not been married.

But perhaps now Odette would die. That thought filled him with a hope that was almost painful. He would be free, free to rise up in the councils of the mighty, with almost no limit to how high he might go.

Odette’s symptoms were pain after eating, diarrhoea, bloody stools, and tiredness. She had always been heavy, but her fat had melted away, probably because the pain discouraged her from eating. Doctor Paré had diagnosed stomach fever complicated by dry heat, and said she should drink plenty of weak beer and watered wine.

Pierre’s only dread was that she might recover.

Unfortunately, Alain took good care of her. He had abandoned his studies and rarely left her bedside. Pierre despised the boy, but he was surprisingly well liked by the staff of the palace, who felt sorry for him because his mother was ill. He had arranged to have meals sent to their suite, and he slept on the floor of her room.