Ken Follett - A Column of Fire

‘We’ve sold all our French Bibles and I have to buy more.’

‘God bless you,’ he said. ‘I do admire your guts.’

For the second time that morning, Sylvie was thrown off balance by unexpected admiration. She was not brave, she was scared. ‘I just do what has to be done,’ she said.

‘But you can’t do this,’ Luc said. ‘There’s no safe route, and you’re a young woman who can’t afford a bodyguard of men-at-arms to protect you from bandits, thieving tavern-keepers and randy peasants armed with wooden shovels.’

Sylvie frowned at the image of randy peasants. Why did men so often speak of rape as if it were a joke? But she refused to be distracted. ‘Humour me,’ she said. ‘How do people get to Geneva?’

‘The quickest way is to go up the Seine from here as far as Montereau, which is about sixty miles. The rest of the journey, another two hundred and fifty miles or so, is mostly overland, all right if you have no goods to transport. Two to three weeks, with no serious delays, although there are always delays. Your mother will go with you, of course.’

‘No. She needs to stay here and keep the shop open.’

‘Seriously, Sylvie, you can’t do this alone.’

‘I may have to.’

‘Then you must attach yourself to a large party at every stage of the journey. Families are safest. Avoid all-male groups, for obvious reasons.’

‘Of course.’ All this was new to Sylvie. The prospect was terrifying. She felt foolish for having spoken glibly of going to Geneva. ‘I still want to do it,’ she said, trying to sound more confident than she felt.

‘In that case, what’s your story?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘You’ll be in company. Travellers have nothing to do but talk. They will ask you questions. You’re not going to admit that you’re on your way to Geneva to buy illegal books. In fact, you’d better not say you’re going to Geneva at all, since everyone knows it’s the world capital of heresy. You need a story.’

Sylvie was stumped. ‘I’ll think of something.’

He looked thoughtful. ‘You could say you’re on a pilgrimage.’

‘To where?’

‘Vézelay, which is halfway to Geneva. The abbey has relics of Mary Magdalene. Women often go there.’

‘Perfect.’

‘When do you want to go?’

‘Soon.’ She did not want to spend too long worrying about the trip. ‘This week.’

‘I’ll find a trustworthy captain to take you to Montereau. At least you’ll get that far safely. Then just keep your wits about you.’

‘Thank you.’ She hesitated, thinking she should say something polite after picking his brains. ‘How is Georges? I haven’t seen him for a while.’

‘Fine, thank you, and opening a branch of our business at Rouen now.’

‘He was always clever.’

Luc smiled wryly. ‘I love my son dearly, but he was never a match for you, Sylvie.’

That was true, but embarrassing, so Sylvie let it pass without comment, and said: ‘Thank you for your help. I’ll call at your office tomorrow, if I may.’

‘Come on Tuesday morning. By then I will have found you a captain.’

Sylvie extracted her mother from a group of women. She was impatient to get home and start making preparations.

On the way back to the rue de la Serpente, she found a cheap draper’s store and bought a length of coarse grey cloth, ugly but hard-wearing. ‘When we get home, I need you to sew me a nun’s costume,’ she said to her mother.

‘Of course, though I’m almost as bad a seamstress as you.’

‘That’s fine. The cruder the better, as long as it doesn’t fall apart.’

‘All right.’

‘But first I need you to cut off my hair. All of it. It must be less than an inch long all over.’

‘You’re going to look hideous.’

‘Exactly,’ said Sylvie. ‘That’s what I want.’

In Orléans, Pierre was planning a murder.

He would not wield the knife himself, but he would make it happen.

Cardinal Charles had brought him to Orléans for that purpose. Charles was still angry with Pierre over his attempt to get rid of Odette’s baby but, as Pierre had calculated, his usefulness saved him.

In other circumstances he would have drawn the line at murder. He had never committed such a terrible sin, though he had come close: he had been sorely tempted to kill baby Alain, but had not seen how he could get away with it. He had been responsible for many deaths, including that of Giles Palot, but they were all legitimate executions. He knew he was about to cross a dreadful line.

However, he had to win back Charles’s confidence, and this was the way to do it. And he hoped that Father Moineau would agree it was the will of God. If not, Pierre was damned.

The intended victim was Antoine de Bourbon, the king of Navarre. And the assassination was the key element in a coup that would at the same time neutralize the two other most important enemies of the Guise family: Antoine’s younger brother Louis, the prince of Condé; and the Bourbons’ most important ally, Gaspard de Coligny, admiral of France and the most energetic member of the Montmorency family.

These three, who rarely went anywhere together for fear of exactly this kind of plot, had been lured to Orléans by the promise of a debate about freedom of worship at a meeting of the Estates-General. As leaders of the tolerance faction they could not possibly be absent from such an important occasion. They had to take the risk.

Orléans was on the north bank of the Loire. It was two hundred miles from the sea, but the river was busy with traffic, mostly flat-bottomed boats with fold-down masts that could negotiate shallow waters and go under bridges. In the heart of the city, across the street from the cathedral, was a newly built palace called Château Groslot, whose proud owner, Jacques Groslot, had been turfed out of his gorgeous new house to make way for the royal party.

It was a splendid building, Pierre thought, approaching it at daybreak on the morning of the murder. Its red bricks were mixed with black in a lozenge pattern around rows of tall windows. Twin flights of steps swept up in mirror-image curves to the main entrance. It was clever and innovative in a conservative way that Pierre admired.

Pierre was not staying there. As usual he was lodged with the servants, even though his name was now de Guise. But one day he would have a palace like this of his own.

He went in with Charles de Louviers, the assassin.

Pierre felt strange in de Louviers’s company. Louviers was well dressed, and his manners were courtly, but, all the same, there was something thuggish about the set of his shoulders and the look in his eye. There were many murderers, of course, and several times Pierre had watched such men hang at the place de Grève in Paris. But Louviers was different. He came from the gentry, hence the ‘de’ in his full name, and he was willing to kill people of his own social class. It seemed strange, but everyone agreed that a prince of the blood such as Antoine could not be slain by a common criminal.

The interior of the palace gleamed with new wealth. The panelling shone, the rich colours of the tapestries had not had time to fade, and the massive candelabra were untarnished. The elaborate paintwork of the coffered ceilings was vividly fresh. Monsieur Groslot was a local politician and businessman, and he wanted the world to know he had prospered.

Pierre led Louviers to the suite occupied by the queen. Once there, he asked a servant to tell Alison McKay that he had arrived.

Alison was very grand indeed, now that her close companion Mary Stuart had become the queen of France. Pierre had watched the two girls, draped in priceless dresses and glittering with jewellery, acknowledging the deep bows and low curtsies of the nobility with a casual nod or a condescending smile, and he had thought how quickly people could get used to lofty status and universal deference; and how badly he himself longed to be the object of such veneration.