Ken Follett - A Column of Fire

He was still doing so when he heard the voice of Duboeuf behind him. ‘What are you doing?’

The tailor looked pale and scared. So he should, Pierre thought: he had made a dangerous error in leaving the book on the table. Pierre closed the book and smiled. ‘Idle curiosity. Forgive me.’

Duboeuf said severely: ‘The notebook is private!’ He was unnerved, Pierre saw.

Pierre said lightly: ‘It turns out that I know most of your customers. I’m glad to see that my friends pay their bills!’ Duboeuf did not laugh. But what could he do?

After a moment, Duboeuf opened the new ink bottle, dipped his pen, and wrote down Pierre’s name and address.

The wife came in. ‘Your wine, sir,’ she said, handing Pierre a cup.

Duboeuf said: ‘Thank you, Françoise.’

She had a nice figure, Pierre noted. He wondered what had attracted her to the older Duboeuf. The prospect of a comfortable life with a prosperous husband, perhaps. Or it might even have been love.

Duboeuf said: ‘If you would be so kind as to come back a week from today, your new coat will be ready for you to try on. It will be twenty-five livres.’

‘Splendid.’ Pierre did not think he would learn much more from Duboeuf today. He drank the wine and took his leave.

The wine had not quenched his thirst, so he went into the nearest tavern and got a tankard of beer. He also bought a sheet of paper and borrowed a quill and ink. While drinking the beer he wrote neatly: ‘René Duboeuf, tailor, rue St Martin. Françoise Duboeuf, wife.’ Then he added all the names and addresses he could remember from the notebook. He dried the ink and put the sheet inside his doublet. He would transfer the information to his black book later.

Sipping his beer, he wondered impatiently when Cardinal Charles was going to make use of all this information. For the present, the cardinal seemed content to accumulate names and addresses, but the time would come when he would swoop. That would be a day of carnage. Pierre would share in Charles’s triumph. However, he shifted uneasily on his tavern stool as he thought of the hundreds of men and women who would be imprisoned, tortured and perhaps even burned alive. Many of the Protestants were self-righteous prigs, and he would be glad to see them suffer — especially Marchioness Louise — but others had been kind to him, made him welcome at the hunting-lodge church, invited him into their homes, and answered his sly questions with a frank honesty that made him wince when he thought how he was deceiving them. Only eighteen months ago, the worst thing he had ever done was sponge off a randy widow. It seemed longer.

He emptied his tankard and left. It was a short distance to the rue Saint-Antoine, where a tournament was being held. Paris was partying, again. The treaty with Spain had been signed, and King Henri II was celebrating the peace, and pretending he had not lost the war.

The rue Saint-Antoine was the widest street in Paris, which was why it was used for tournaments. Along one side was the massive, ramshackle Palace of Tournelles, its windows crowded with royal and aristocratic spectators, the colours of their costly clothes making a row of bright pictures. On the opposite side of the road the common people jostled for space, their cheap garments all in shades of faded brown, like a ploughed field in winter. They stood or sat on stools they had brought with them, or perched precariously on window ledges and rooftops. A tournament was a grand spectacle, with the added attraction of possible injury or even death to the high-born competitors.

As Pierre entered the palace he was offered a tray of cakes by Odette, a maid of about twenty, voluptuous but plain. She smiled flirtatiously at him, showing crooked teeth. She had a reputation for being easy, but Pierre was not interested in girls of the servant class — he could have got one of those back in Thonnance-lès-Joinville. All the same he was pleased to see her, for it meant that the adorable Véronique was nearby. ‘Where is your mistress?’ he said.

Odette pouted and said: ‘Mademoiselle is upstairs.’

Most of the courtiers were on the upper floor, which had windows overlooking the jousting ground. Véronique was sitting at a table with a gaggle of aristocratic girls, drinking fruit cordial. A distant cousin of the Guise brothers, she was among the least important family members, but nevertheless noble. She wore a pale green dress made of some mixture of silk and linen, so light it seemed to float around her perfect figure. The thought of having such a high-born woman naked in his arms made Pierre feel faint. This was who he wanted to marry — not the bourgeoise daughter of a Protestant printer.

Véronique had treated him with mild disdain when he had first met her, but she had gradually warmed to him. Everyone knew he was only the son of a country priest, but they also knew he was close to the powerful Cardinal Charles, and that gave him a special status.

He bowed to her and asked if she was enjoying the tournament.

‘Not much,’ she said.

He gave her his most charming smile. ‘You don’t like watching men ride too fast and knock each other off their horses? How strange.’

She laughed. ‘I prefer dancing.’

‘So do I. Happily there’s a ball tonight.’

‘I can hardly wait.’

‘I look forward to seeing you there. I must speak with your Uncle Charles. Excuse me.’

Walking away, he felt good about that brief encounter. He had made her laugh, and she had treated him almost as an equal.

Charles was in a side room with a small boy who had the blond hair of the Guises. This was his nephew Henri, aged eight, eldest son of Scarface. Knowing that the boy might one day be the duke of Guise, Pierre bowed to him and asked if he was having a good time. ‘They won’t let me joust,’ Henri said. ‘But I bet I could. I’m a good rider.’

Charles said: ‘Run along, now, Henri — there’ll be another bout in a minute and you don’t want to miss it.’

Henri left and Charles waved Pierre to a chair.

In the year and a half that Pierre had been spying for Charles, their relationship had altered. Charles was grateful for the names and addresses Pierre had brought him. The cardinal’s file on clandestine Paris Protestants was far better than it had been before Pierre had come along. Charles could still be scornful and patronizing, but he was like that with everyone, and he seemed to respect Pierre’s judgement. They sometimes talked about general political issues and Charles even listened to Pierre’s opinion.

‘I made a discovery,’ Pierre said. ‘Many of the Protestants use a tailor in the rue St Martin who keeps a little book with all their names and addresses.’

‘A gold mine!’ said Charles. ‘Dear God, these people are getting brazen.’

‘I was tempted to pick it up and run off down the street with it.’

‘I don’t want you to reveal yourself yet.’

‘No. But one day I’ll get hold of that book.’ Pierre reached inside his doublet. ‘Meanwhile, I wrote down as many of the names and addresses as I could memorize.’ He handed the sheet to Charles.

Charles read the list. ‘Very useful.’

‘I had to order a coat from the tailor.’ Pierre raised the price. ‘Forty-five livres.’

Charles took coins from a purse. He gave Pierre twenty gold ecus, each worth two and a half livres. ‘Should be a nice coat,’ he said.

Pierre said: ‘When will we pounce on these deviants? We have hundreds of Paris Protestants in our records.’

‘Be patient.’

‘But every heretic is one less enemy. Why not get rid of them?’

‘When we crack down, we want everyone to know it’s the Guises who are doing it.’

That made sense to Pierre. ‘So that the family wins the loyalty of the ultra-Catholics, I suppose.’