Ken Follett - A Column of Fire

She walked away full of new hope.

Back at the tenement, Isabelle was staring into a cold fire.

Books were costly, but to whom could Sylvie sell? Only Protestants, of course. Her eye fell on the sheet she had washed yesterday. It belonged to Jeanne Mauriac, a member of the congregation that used to worship at the hunting lodge in the suburb of St Jacques. Her husband, Luc, was a cargo broker, whatever that meant. She had not previously sold him a Bible, she thought, though he could certainly afford one. But would he dare, only six months after Cardinal Charles’s raids?

The sheet was dry. She made her mother help her fold it. Then she wrapped it around the book and took the package to the Mauriac house.

She timed her visit so that she would catch the family at the midday meal. The maid looked at her shabby dress and told her to wait in the kitchen, but Sylvie was too desperate to be thwarted by a maid. She pushed her way into the dining room. The smell of pork cutlets made her stomach hurt.

Luc and Jeanne were at the table with Georges, their son. Luc greeted Sylvie cheerily: he was always lively. Jeanne looked wary. She was the anchor of the family, and often seemed pained by the humorous banter of her husband and son. Young Georges had once been an admirer of Sylvie’s, but now he could hardly bring himself to look at her. She was no longer the well-dressed daughter of a prosperous printer: she was a grubby pauper.

Sylvie unwrapped the sheet and showed the book to Luc, who, she reckoned, was most likely to buy. ‘As I recall, you don’t have a Bible in French yet,’ she said. ‘This is a particularly beautiful edition. My father was proud of it. Take it, have a look.’ She had learned long ago that a customer was more likely to buy once he had held the book in his hands.

Luc leafed through the volume admiringly. ‘We should have a French Bible,’ he said to his wife.

Sylvie smiled at Jeanne and said: ‘It would surely please the Lord.’

Jeanne said: ‘It’s against the law.’

‘It’s against the law to be Protestant,’ her husband said. ‘We can hide the book.’ He looked at Sylvie. ‘How much is it?’

‘My father used to sell this for six livres,’ she said.

Jeanne made a sound of disapprobation, as if the price was far too high.

Sylvie said: ‘Because of my circumstances, I can let you have it for five.’ She held her breath.

Luc looked dubious. ‘If you could say four...’

‘Done,’ Sylvie said. ‘The book is yours, and may God bless it to your heart.’

Luc took out his purse and counted eight of the silver coins called testons, each worth ten sous, half a livre.

‘Thank you,’ said Sylvie. ‘And ten pennies for the sheet.’ She no longer needed the pennies, but she remembered how her hands had hurt washing it, and she felt the money was hers.

Luc smiled and gave her a small coin called a dixain, worth ten pennies.

Luc opened the book again. ‘When my partner Radiguet sees this, he’ll be envious.’

‘I don’t have any more,’ Sylvie said quickly. The rarity of Protestant books kept the price high, and her father had taught her never to let people know there were plenty. ‘If I come across another one, I’ll go and see Radiguet.’

‘Please do.’

‘But don’t tell him how cheaply you got it!’

Luc smiled conspiratorially. ‘Not until after he’s paid you, anyhow.’

Sylvie thanked him and left.

She was so weak with relief that she could not find the energy to feel exultant. She went into the next tavern she saw and ordered a tankard of beer. She drank it quickly. It eased the pain of hunger. She left feeling light-headed.

Closer to home she bought a ham, cheese, butter, bread and apples, and a small jar of wine. She also bought a sack of firewood and paid a boy ten pennies to carry it for her.

When she entered the tenement room, her mother gazed in astonishment at her purchases.

‘Hello, Mother,’ Sylvie said. ‘Our troubles are over.’

In a monumental sulk, Pierre got married for the second time three days after Christmas, 1559.

He was determined that the wedding would be a perfunctory affair: he was not going to pretend to celebrate. He invited no guests and planned no wedding breakfast. He did not want to look like a poor man, so he wore his new dark grey coat, which was appropriately sombre, fitting his mood. He arrived at the parish church as the clock was striking the appointed hour.

To his horror, Véronique de Guise was there.

She was sitting at the back of the little church with half a dozen Guise maids, presumably friends of Odette’s.

Nothing could be worse, to Pierre, than for Véronique to witness his humiliation. She was the woman he really wanted to marry. He had talked to her, charmed her, and done his best to give her the impression that they were on the same social level. This had been a fantasy, as Cardinal Charles had made brutally clear. But for Véronique to actually see Pierre marrying her maid was too excruciatingly painful. He wanted to walk out of the church.

Then he thought of his reward. At the end of this ordeal he would sign the register with his new name, Pierre Aumande de Guise. It was his dearest wish. He would be a recognized member of the lofty Guise family, and no one would be able to take that away from him. He would be married to an ugly maid who was pregnant with someone else’s child, but he would be a Guise.

He gritted his teeth and vowed to bear the pain.

The ceremony was short, the priest having been paid the minimum fee. Véronique and the other girls giggled during the service. Pierre did not know what was so funny, but he could not help feeling that they were laughing at him. Odette kept looking back over her shoulder at them and grinning, showing her crooked teeth, tombstones in an old graveyard, tightly packed and tilting in all directions.

When it was over, she looked proud to be walking out of the church on the arm of a handsome and ambitious bridegroom. She seemed to have forgotten that she had been foisted on him against his will. Did she pretend to herself that she had somehow won his love and affection?

As if that were possible.

They walked from the church to the modest house Cardinal Charles had provided for them. It was near the tavern of St Étienne in the neighbourhood of Les Halles, where Parisians did their everyday shopping: meat, wine and the second-hand clothes that all but the wealthy wore. Without invitation, Véronique and the maids followed. One of them had a bottle of wine, and they insisted on entering the house and drinking the health of the bride and groom.

At last they left, with many crude jokes about the couple being in a hurry to do what bridal couples are expected to do on the wedding night.

Pierre and Odette went upstairs. There was one bedroom and one bed. Until this moment, Pierre had not confronted the question of whether he would have normal sexual relations with his wife.

Odette lay down. ‘Oh, well, we’re married now,’ she said. She threw up her dress to reveal her nakedness. ‘Come on, let’s make the best of it.’

Pierre was utterly revolted. The sheer vulgarity of her pose disgusted him beyond measure. He was appalled.

At that moment he knew he could not have sex with her, today or ever.

Barney Willard hated being in the army. The food was disgusting, he was cold all the time except when he was too hot, and for long periods the only women he saw were camp-following prostitutes, desperate and sad. The captain in charge of Barney’s company, Gómez, was a big, vicious bully who enjoyed using his iron hand to punish breaches of discipline. Worst of all, no one had been paid for months.

Barney could not understand how King Felipe of Spain could have money troubles. He was the richest man in the world, yet he was always broke. Barney had seen the galleons loaded with silver from Peru sail into the harbour at Seville. Where did it all go? Not to the troops.