Ken Follett - A Column of Fire

Louise was evidently confused. Someone she thought of as an enemy was being generous to her. Pierre could see from her face that nothing was making sense. Good.

He closed the bedroom door, and she began to understand.

‘I remember staring at these,’ he said, and put his hands on her breasts.

She stepped back. ‘Did you expect me to become your mistress?’ she said scornfully.

Pierre smiled. ‘You are my mistress,’ he said, and the words delighted him. ‘Take off your dress.’

‘No.’

‘I’ll rip it off you.’

‘I’ll scream.’

‘Go ahead and scream. The maid is expecting it.’ He gave her a powerful shove and she fell back on the bed.

She said: ‘No, please.’

‘You don’t even remember,’ he snarled. ‘ Even in Champagne, they should teach young men to be respectful to their superiors. That’s what you said to me, twenty-five years ago.’

She stared up at him in horrified incredulity. ‘And for that, you punish me like this?’

‘Open your legs,’ he said. ‘It’s only just begun.’

Afterwards, walking to the Guise palace, Pierre felt as he sometimes did after a feast: sated but slightly nauseated. He loved to see an aristocrat humiliated, but this had almost been too much. He would go back, of course; but perhaps not for a few days. She was rich food.

When he arrived home, he found, waiting for him in the parlour of his apartment, Rollo Fitzgerald, the Englishman he had codenamed Jean Langlais.

Pierre was irritated. He wanted an hour to himself, to get over what he had just done, and let his turbulent thoughts become calm again. Instead he had to go right to work.

Rollo was carrying a canvas case which he now opened to produce a sheaf of maps. ‘Every major harbour on the south and east coasts of England,’ he said proudly. He put the maps on Pierre’s writing table.

Pierre examined them. They were drawn by different hands, some more artistic than others, but they all seemed admirably clear, with moorings, quays and dangerous shallows carefully marked. ‘These are good,’ he said, ‘though they’ve been a long time coming.’

‘I know, and I’m sorry,’ Rollo said. ‘But the arrest of Throckmorton set us back.’

‘What’s happening to him?’

‘He’s been convicted of treason and sentenced to death.’

‘Another martyr.’

Rollo said pointedly: ‘I hope his death will not be in vain.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Is the duke of Guise still determined to invade England?’

‘Absolutely. He wants to see Mary Stuart on the English throne, and so does almost every important European leader.’

‘Good. Mary’s jailers have raised the level of security around her, but I will find a way to re-establish communication.’

‘So we could begin planning the invasion for next year, 1585?’

‘Absolutely.’

Pierre’s stepson came into the room. ‘News from Picardy,’ he said. ‘Hercule-Francis is dead.’

‘Dear God!’ said Pierre. Hercule-Francis was the youngest son of the late King Henri and Queen Caterina. ‘This is a catastrophe,’ Pierre said to Rollo. ‘He was the heir to the throne.’

Rollo frowned. ‘But there’s nothing wrong with King Henri III,’ he said. ‘Why are you worried about his heir?’

‘Henri is the third brother to be king. The previous two died young and without sons, so Henri may do the same.’

‘So, now that Hercule-Francis is dead, who is the heir to the throne?’

‘That’s the disaster. It’s the king of Navarre. And he’s a Protestant.’

Rollo said indignantly: ‘But France cannot have a Protestant king!’

‘It certainly cannot.’ And the king of Navarre was also a member of the Bourbon family, ancient enemies of the Guises, which was another compelling reason for keeping him far from the throne. ‘We must get the Pope to disallow the claim of the king of Navarre.’ Pierre was thinking aloud. Duke Henri would call a council of war before the end of the day, and Pierre needed to have a plan ready. ‘There will be civil war again, and the duke of Guise will lead the Catholic forces. I must go to the duke.’ He stood up.

Rollo pointed at his maps. ‘But what about the invasion of England?’

‘England will have to wait,’ said Pierre.

Alison went riding with Mary Stuart on Mary’s forty-third birthday. Their breath turned to mist in the cold morning air, and Alison was grateful for the heat of her pony, Garçon, under her. They were accompanied by a squadron of men-at-arms. Mary and all her people were banned from speaking to anyone outside the group at any time. If a child offered the queen an apple, it would be snatched away by a soldier.

They had a new jailer, Sir Amias Paulet, a Puritan so rigid that he made Walsingham seem like a libertine. Paulet was the first man Alison had known to be immune to Mary’s seductive charm. When Mary touched his arm, or smiled winningly at him, or talked lightly of such things as kisses or bosoms or beds, he stared at her as if she were mad, and gave no reply.

Paulet made no bones about reading all Mary’s letters: he handed them to her opened, without apology. She was allowed to write to her relations and friends in France and Scotland, but under these conditions of course nothing could be said about invading England, rescuing her, executing Elizabeth and putting Mary on the throne.

Alison was invigorated by the ride but, as they turned for home, the familiar depression returned. This was the twentieth successive birthday Mary had passed in prison. Alison herself was forty-five, and had spent all those birthdays with Mary, each time hoping this would be the last for which they would be captives. Alison felt they had spent their lives waiting and hoping. It was a dismally long time since they had been the best-dressed girls in Paris.

Mary’s son, James, was now twenty-one and king of Scotland. She had not seen him since he was one year old. He showed no interest in his mother and did nothing to help her, but then why would he? He did not know her. Mary was savagely angry with Queen Elizabeth for keeping her away from her only child for almost his entire life.

They approached their current penitentiary. Chartley Manor had a moat and battlements, but otherwise it was a house rather than a castle, a timber-framed mansion with many cheerful fireplaces and rows of windows to make it bright inside. It was not quite big enough for Mary’s entourage plus the Paulet family household, so the men-at-arms were all lodged in houses in the neighbourhood. Mary and Alison did not feel perpetually surrounded by guards but, all the same, the place was still a prison.

The riders crossed the bridge over the moat, entered the broad courtyard, and reined in by the well in the centre. Alison dismounted and let Garçon drink from the horse trough. A brewer’s dray stood to one side, and burly men were rolling barrels of beer into the queen’s quarters through the kitchen entrance. Near the main door Alison noticed a little crowd of women. Lady Margaret Paulet was there with some of her maids, clustered around the figure of a man in a travel-stained coat. Lady Margaret was friendlier than her husband, and Alison strolled across the yard to see what was going on.

The man at the centre of the little crowd was holding open a travelling case full of ribbons, buttons and cheap jewellery. Mary came and stood behind Alison. The women were fingering the goods for sale, asking the price and chattering animatedly about which they liked. One of them said archly: ‘Have you got any love potions?’

It was a flirtatious remark, and travelling vendors were usually adept at charming their female customers, but this one seemed embarrassed, and muttered something about ribbons being better than potions.