Ken Follett - A Column of Fire

‘And we have to do whatever we can to stop it.’

‘Your terminology is precise: Whatever we can. And we now have a young king much under the influence of the Guise family. Heaven has sent us an opportunity to crack down. Look, I know how you feel: no man of sensibility likes to see people burned to death. You’ve told me about Sylvie, and she seems to be a normal girl. Somewhat too lascivious, perhaps.’ He chuckled again, then resumed his grave tone. ‘In most respects, poor Sylvie is no more than a victim of her wicked parents, who have brought her up in heresy. But this is what Protestants do. They convert others. And their victims lose their immortal souls.’

‘So you’re saying I will not be doing anything wrong by marrying Sylvie and then betraying her.’

‘On the contrary,’ said Moineau, ‘you will be doing God’s will — and you will be rewarded in heaven, I assure you.’

That was what Pierre had wanted to hear. ‘Thank you,’ he said.

‘God bless you, my son,’ said Father Moineau.

Sylvie married Pierre on the last Sunday in September.

Their Catholic wedding took place on the Saturday, in the parish church, but Sylvie did not count that: it was a legal requirement, nothing more. They spent Saturday night apart. On Sunday they had their real wedding at the forest hunting lodge that served as a Protestant church.

It was a mild day between summer and autumn, cloudy but dry. Sylvie’s dress was a soft dove-grey, and Pierre said the colour made her skin glow and her eyes shine. Pierre himself was devastatingly handsome in his new coat from Duboeuf. Pastor Bernard conducted the service, and the marquess of Nîmes was the witness. When Sylvie made her vows, she was overcome by a feeling of serenity, as if her life had at last begun.

Afterwards the entire congregation was invited back to the bookshop. They filled the shop and the apartment upstairs. Sylvie and her mother had spent all week preparing food: saffron broth, pork pies with ginger, cheese-and-onion tarts, custard pastries, apple fritters, quince cheese. Sylvie’s father was uncharacteristically genial, pouring wine into flat-bottomed glasses and offering platters of food. Everyone ate and drank standing up, except for the bridal couple and the marquess and marchioness, who were privileged to sit at the dining table.

Sylvie thought Pierre seemed a little tense, which was unusual for him: in general he was at his relaxed best on big social occasions, listening attentively to the men and charming the women, never failing to say that a new baby was beautiful, no matter what it looked like. But today he was restless. He went to the window twice, and when the cathedral bells struck the hour, he jumped. Sylvie guessed he was worried about being at a Protestant gathering in the heart of the city. ‘Relax,’ she said to him. ‘This is just an ordinary wedding celebration. No one knows we’re Protestants.’

‘Of course,’ he said, and smiled anxiously.

Sylvie was thinking mainly about tonight. She was looking forward to it eagerly, but she was also just a little nervous. ‘Losing your virginity doesn’t hurt much, and it’s only for a second,’ her mother had said. ‘Some girls hardly feel it. And don’t worry if you don’t bleed — not everyone does.’ Sylvie was not actually worried about that. She was longing for the physical intimacy of lying in bed with Pierre, kissing him and touching him to her heart’s content, without having to hold back. Her anxiety was about whether he would love her body. She felt it was not perfect for him. Statues of women always had perfectly matched breasts, whereas hers were not quite the same. And naked women in paintings had almost-invisible private parts, sometimes covered just with a faint down, but hers were plump and hairy. What would he think when he looked for the first time? She was too embarrassed to share these worries with her mother.

It crossed her mind to ask Marchioness Louise, who was only three years older, and had a conspicuously large bust. Then, just as she decided that Louise was not approachable enough, her thoughts were interrupted. She heard raised voices down in the shop, then someone screamed. Strangely, Pierre went to the window again, though the noise undoubtedly came from inside the building. She heard breaking glass. What was going on? It sounded more and more like a fight. Had someone got drunk? How could they spoil her wedding day?

The marquess and marchioness looked fearful. Pierre had turned pale. He stood with his back to the window, looking through the open door to the landing and the staircase. Sylvie ran to the top of the stairs. Through a rear window she saw some of the guests fleeing through the backyard. As she looked down the stairs, a man she did not know started to come up. He wore a leather jerkin and carried a club. She realized with horror that this was worse than a drunken brawl among the wedding guests; it was an official raid. Her anger turned to fear. Scared by the brute coming up the stairs, she ran back into the dining room.

The man followed her. He was short and powerfully built, and he had lost most of one ear: he looked terrifying. All the same, Pastor Bernard, who was a frail fifty-five-year-old, stood in front of him and said bravely: ‘Who are you and what do you want?’

‘I’m Gaston Le Pin, captain of the Guise family household guard, and you’re a blaspheming heretic,’ the man said. He raised his club and struck the pastor. Bernard turned away from the blow, but it caught him across the shoulders and he fell to the ground.

Le Pin looked at the other guests, who were trying to press themselves into the walls. ‘Anyone else got any questions?’ he said. No one spoke.

Two more thugs came into the room and stood behind Le Pin.

Then, incomprehensibly, Le Pin addressed Pierre. ‘Which one is the marquess?’ he said.

Sylvie was bewildered. What was going on?

Even more bafflingly, Pierre pointed to the marquess of Nîmes.

Le Pin said: ‘And I suppose the bitch with the big tits is the marchioness?’

Pierre nodded dumbly.

Sylvie felt as if the world had been turned upside down. Her wedding had become a violent nightmare in which no one was what they seemed.

Marchioness Louise stood up and said indignantly to Le Pin: ‘How dare you?’

Le Pin slapped her face hard. She screamed and fell back. Her cheek reddened instantly, and she began to cry.

The portly old marquess half rose from his chair, realized it was pointless, and sat back down again.

Le Pin spoke to the men who had followed him in. ‘Take those two and make sure they don’t get away.’

The marquess and marchioness were dragged from the room.

Pastor Bernard, still on the floor, pointed at Pierre and said: ‘You devil, you’re a spy!’

Everything fell into place in Sylvie’s mind. Pierre had organized this raid, she realized with horror. He had infiltrated the congregation in order to betray them. He had pretended to fall in love with her only to win their trust. That was why he had dithered so long about the date of the wedding.

She stared at him aghast, seeing a monster where once there had been the man she loved. It was as if her arm had been chopped off and she was looking at the bleeding stump — except that this hurt more. It was not just her wedding day that was ruined, it was her whole life. She wanted to die.

She moved towards Pierre. ‘How could you?’ she screamed, advancing on him, not knowing what she intended to do. ‘Judas Iscariot, how could you?’

Then something hit her on the back of the head, and the world went black.

‘One thing troubled me about the coronation,’ said Pierre to Cardinal Charles.

They were at the vast Guise family palace in the Vieille rue du Temple, in the opulent small parlour where Pierre had first met Charles and his scarred elder brother, François. Charles had bought more paintings since then, all biblical scenes but highly charged with sexuality: Adam and Eve, Susanna and the elders, Potiphar’s wife.