Ken Follett - A Column of Fire

He had not thought of romance for a year. His disappointment over Véronique and his revulsion for the ghastly Odette left no room in his heart for feelings about other women.

For a moment he was unable to think how he should respond to Alison. Then he realized that Alison’s talk of working together was not merely empty chatter to cover romantic interest. More likely it was the other way around: she was being flirtatious in order to lure him into a working partnership. Normally it was Pierre who pretended to be in love with a woman in order to get something out of her. He smiled at the irony, and she mistook that for encouragement. She tilted her head back a fraction so that her face was slightly turned up to his. The invitation was unmistakable.

Still he hesitated. What was in this for him? The answer came immediately: control of the queen of France. If Mary Stuart’s best friend was his paramour, he could become even more powerful than Duke François and Cardinal Charles.

He leaned down and kissed her. Her lips were soft and yielding. She put her hand behind his head, pressing him closer, and opened her mouth to his tongue. Then she pulled away. ‘Not now,’ she said. ‘Not here.’

Pierre tried to figure out what that meant. Did she want to go to bed with him somewhere else, later? A single girl such as Alison could not sacrifice her virginity. If it became known — as such things usually did at court — it would forever ruin her prospects of making a good marriage.

However, an upper-class virgin might well permit liberties with a man she expected to marry.

And then it struck him. ‘Oh, no,’ he said.

‘What?’

‘You don’t know, do you?’

‘What don’t I know?’

‘That I’m married.’

Her face fell. ‘Good God, no.’

‘It was arranged by Cardinal Charles. A woman who needed a husband in a hurry, for the usual reason.’

‘Who?’

‘Alain de Guise impregnated a maid.’

‘Yes, I heard about that — oh! You’re the one who married Odette?’

Pierre felt foolish and ashamed. ‘Yes.’

‘But why?’

‘My reward was the right to call myself Pierre Aumande de Guise. It’s on the marriage certificate.’

‘Hell.’

‘I’m sorry.’

‘I’m sorry, too — though I might have done the same, for the sake of such a name.’

Pierre felt a bit better. He had rapidly gained and lost a remarkable opportunity to get close to the queen, but at least Alison did not despise him for marrying Odette. Her contempt would have been agony.

The door opened, and Pierre and Alison moved apart guiltily. Louviers came in and said: ‘All is arranged.’ He picked up the knife from the table, reattached the sheath to his belt, and drew his coat about him to cover the weapon.

Alison said: ‘I’m going to dress. You two should wait in the reception room.’ She left by the inner door.

Pierre and Louviers walked along a corridor and through a lobby to an ornate room with gilded panelling, richly coloured wallpaper and a Turkish carpet. This was only a waiting room. Beyond it was the presence chamber, where the king would actually give audiences, and a guard room occupied by twenty or thirty soldiers, then finally the royal bedchamber.

They were early, but a few courtiers had already gathered. Louviers said: ‘He’ll be an hour or two — he’s not even dressed.’

Pierre settled down to wait, brooding. Reflecting on his conversation with Alison, his stomach burned with the acid thought that the best friend of the queen of France might have married him if he had been single. What a team they would have made: both smart, good-looking, ambitious. He might have ended up a duke. He felt the lost opportunity like a bereavement. And he hated Odette all the more. She was so vulgar and low-class, she took him all the way back down to the social level he had worked so hard to escape from. She defeated his entire life mission.

Gradually the room filled up. Antoine de Bourbon arrived at mid-morning. His face was handsome but weak, with heavy-lidded eyes and a downturned moustache that gave him a look of sulky lethargy. With his brother imprisoned and Coligny effectively under arrest, Antoine had to know there was a serious plot against him. Watching him, Pierre got the feeling he knew he could die today. His manner seemed to say Do your worst, and see if I care.

Duke Scarface and Cardinal Charles arrived. Nodding to acquaintances, they passed into the inner rooms without pausing.

A few minutes later, the waiting courtiers were beckoned into the presence chamber.

King Francis sat on an elaborately carved throne. He was leaning sideways, as if needing to support himself on the arm of the chair. His face was pale and moist. ‘He’s never well,’ Alison had said, but this seemed worse than his usual frailty.

Cardinal Charles stood next to the throne.

Pierre and Louviers positioned themselves at the front of the crowd, making sure the king could see them clearly. Antoine de Bourbon was a few steps away.

Now they just needed the king to give the signal.

Instead, Francis beckoned to a courtier, who stepped forward and answered a desultory question. Pierre could not take in the conversation. The king should have ordered the execution immediately. It was bizarre to deal with minor business first, as if the murder were merely one item on a full agenda. But the king went on to ask a second courtier about another equally routine matter.

Cardinal Charles whispered in the king’s ear, presumably telling him to get on with it, but Francis made a dismissive gesture with his hand, as if to say, I’m coming to that.

The bishop of Orléans began to make a speech. Pierre could have strangled the man. The king leaned back on his throne and closed his eyes. He probably imagined that people thought he must be concentrating hard on what the bishop was saying. It looked more as if he was going to sleep... or even fainting.

After a minute he opened his eyes and looked around. His gaze fastened on Louviers, and Pierre felt sure this was the moment; but the king’s regard moved on.

Then he started to shiver.

Pierre stared in horror. The shivering fever was a plague that had ravaged France and other European countries for three years. Sometimes it was fatal.

He thought: Give the signal, for God’s sake — then you can collapse!

Instead the king started to rise. He seemed too weak to get up, and fell back into a sitting position. The bishop droned on, either not noticing or not caring that the king seemed ill; but Cardinal Charles was more quick-witted. He murmured something to Francis, who shook his head feebly in negation. With a helpless expression, Charles assisted him to his feet.

The king moved towards the inner door on the arm of the cardinal.

Pierre looked at Antoine de Bourbon. He seemed as surprised as anyone else. Clearly this was not the result of some elaborate plot of his. He was out of danger, for the moment, but he evidently did not know why.

Charles beckoned to his brother, Duke Scarface; but, to Pierre’s astonishment, the duke looked thoroughly disgusted and turned his back on Charles and the king — a discourtesy for which a stronger king would have thrown him in jail.

Leaning heavily on Charles, King Francis left the room.

The weather became colder as Sylvie climbed through the foothills of the Alps towards Geneva. It was winter, and she needed a fur coat. She had not anticipated this.

There were many things she had not anticipated. She had had no idea how fast shoes would wear out when she was walking all day, every day. She was shocked by the rapacity of tavern-keepers, especially in locations where there was only one such establishment: they charged exorbitant rates, even though she was a ‘nun’. She expected unwelcome advances from men, and dealt with them briskly, but was surprised one night to be mauled by a woman in the communal bedroom of a hostelry.