Ken Follett - A Column of Fire

He had not tired of the game, and he felt he never would. He did not often beat her, because it hurt his hands. He did not even fuck her much. There were more exquisite ways to give her pain. What he liked most was to destroy her dignity.

She had run away from him once. He had laughed: he knew what would happen. Her few friends and relations were terrified that if they took her in they, too, would come under suspicion of heresy, so she had nowhere to go. Born to privilege, she was utterly incapable of making a living on her own. Like so many destitute women, she had ended up prostituting herself to avert starvation. After one night in a brothel she had asked him to take her back.

Just for fun, he had pretended reluctance, forcing her to go down on her knees and beg. But of course she was too good to lose.

Today he was mildly surprised to see his stepson, Alain, at the apartment, sitting close to Louise on a sofa, talking intimately. ‘Alain and Louise!’ he said.

They both sprang up.

‘What are you doing here?’ he asked Alain.

Alain pointed to a gown draped over a chair. ‘You told me to bring her that dress.’

That was true, Pierre recalled. He said: ‘I didn’t tell you to spend the afternoon gossiping here. Go back to the palace. Tell Duke Henri that I’m on my way to see him and I have learned the king of Spain’s battle plan for the invasion of England.’

Alain raised his eyebrows. ‘Who told you that?’

‘Never mind. Wait for me outside the duke’s apartment in the palace. You can take notes.’

He went up to Louise and casually fondled her breasts.

Alain left.

Both Alain and Louise were scared of Pierre. In moments of self-awareness he knew that was why he kept them around. It was not because of Alain’s usefulness as a dogsbody, or Louise’s sexual appeal. Those things were secondary. He liked their fear of him. It gave him a boost.

Did he care if they were friends? He saw no harm in it. He could even understand why Alain might sympathize with Louise. She was an older woman, a mother substitute.

He squeezed her breasts harder. ‘These were always your best feature,’ he said.

She made a grimace of distaste. The expression was fleeting, and she suppressed it immediately, but he saw it, and he slapped her. ‘Take that look off your face,’ he said.

‘I’m so sorry,’ she said humbly. ‘Would you like me to suck you off?’

‘I don’t have time. I came to tell you that I’ve invited someone to dine here tomorrow. I want to reward the man who told me the Spanish battle plan. You will serve us dinner.’

‘Very well.’

‘In the nude.’

She stared at him. ‘Nude,’ she said. ‘In front of a stranger?’

‘You will act perfectly normally, except that you will have no clothes on. I think it will amuse him.’

Tears came to her eyes. ‘None at all?’

‘You can wear shoes.’

She managed not to cry, but it was a struggle. ‘Do you have any other requirements?’

‘No. Just serve us.’

‘Very well.’

Her distress made him horny, and he was tempted to stay longer, but he wanted to see Duke Henri as soon as possible. He turned away and left the room. As he closed the door he heard her sob, and smiled with pleasure as he went down the stairs.

Ned was elated to receive a letter from Alain de Guise in Paris giving the battle plan of the king of Spain.

The Spanish armada would sail through the English Channel and anchor off Dunkirk. There they would rendezvous with the Spanish army in the Netherlands, led by Alessandro Farnese of Parma, the most successful general ever sent to the Netherlands by the king of Spain. Then the reinforced armada would turn around and sail due west, straight into the estuary of the river Thames.

Ned also got a letter from Jerónima Ruiz saying the Spanish armada had one hundred and twenty-nine ships.

Jerónima was in Lisbon, and she had seen the armada with her own eyes and counted the vessels in the harbour. She had gone there with the cardinal, who was one of a large contingent of priests needed to bless the ships and individually absolve each one of the twenty-six thousand sailors and soldiers for the sins they would commit in England.

Queen Elizabeth was devastated. Her entire navy consisted of thirty-eight ships. She did not see how she could defeat the invasion, and nor did Ned. Elizabeth would be destroyed, King Felipe would rule England, and the ultra-Catholics would dominate Europe.

Ned was mortified. He felt it was all his fault, for encouraging the execution of Mary Stuart.

Jerónima’s information was corroborated by other spies. The numbers changed only a little from one message to the next.

Elizabeth wanted to know how many troops the duke of Parma had in the Netherlands, and how he planned to get them across the Channel. Ned had reports from several spies, but they disagreed, so he decided to go and see for himself.

He would be risking his life. If he were caught, and discovered to be an English spy, then hanging would be the best fate he could look forward to. But he had helped to create the catastrophe that loomed, and it was his duty to do what he could to avert it, including risking his life.

He took a ship to Antwerp. He found it a lively, cosmopolitan city: anyone was welcome, he guessed, as long as he paid his debts. ‘And there’s no nonsense about usury being a sin,’ said Carlos Cruz.

Ned was intrigued to meet Carlos, the distant cousin about whom he had heard so much. He was fifty-one and heavy, with a bushy beard going grey. Ned thought he looked like a jolly peasant in one of those Dutch paintings of yokels merrymaking. It was hard to imagine that Carlos and Barney had killed a sergeant in a fight over a card game.

Carlos lived in a large house near the waterfront with a huge ironworks in the backyard. He had a pretty wife, Imke, with a big welcoming smile. A daughter and son-in-law lived with him, plus two grandchildren. The men dressed sombrely but the women were draped in gorgeous colours, bright blue and scarlet, peach and lavender. The house was full of costly objects: framed oil paintings, musical instruments, mirrors, decorative jugs and bowls and glassware, leather-bound books, rugs and curtains. The Netherlands people seemed home-centred, and they showed off their wealth in a curiously domestic way that Ned had not seen elsewhere.

Ned needed Carlos’s help for this mission, but he was not sure of getting it. Carlos was Spanish and Catholic. On the other hand, he had been forced by the Church to flee his homeland. Would he work against the armada? Ned would soon find out.

On the day Ned arrived, Carlos’s long-time business associate, Ebrima Dabo, came to supper with his wife, Evi. Ebrima was seventy, and his curly hair was white. Evi wore a gold necklace with a diamond pendant. Ned remembered Barney saying that when Ebrima was a slave, he had been the lover of Aunt Betsy. What a life that man had led: first a farmer in West Africa, then a soldier, a prisoner of war, a slave in Seville, a soldier again in the Netherlands, and at last a rich Antwerp iron maker.

Carlos poured wine generously and drank a great deal of it himself. As they ate, it emerged that both Carlos and Ebrima were apprehensive about the Spanish armada. ‘It’s partly because of Queen Elizabeth that the Spanish have failed to pacify the Netherlands,’ Carlos said, speaking French, which they all understood. ‘Once the king of Spain has conquered England, he’ll be free from her interference here.’

Ebrima said: ‘When priests get to run the government, it’s bad for business.’

Carlos said: ‘And if our independence movement is defeated, there will be nothing to stop the Holy Inquisition.’

Ned was encouraged. It was good that they were worried. He judged this was the moment to make his proposition.