League of Spies

by Robert Merle

  “Which you haven’t seen fit to share with me,” replied Miroul bitterly, “as though you don’t trust me.”

  “You must be kidding, Miroul,” I cried, “I have total confidence in you! But I’ve discovered some secrets which, if you knew them, would put you in the gravest danger.”

  “All the more reason,” objected Miroul, “that I should share these dangers with you, as I’ve done for these last twenty years, offering you advice and help—which you used to appreciate!”

  “But, Miroul, these secrets do not belong to me!”

  “Monsieur,” moaned Miroul, standing up with an air of great sadness, “it is you who must be kidding! These secrets are yours because you know about them! You’re just spouting false reasons because you no longer trust me as you did before you became so high and mighty and the king’s confidant. Well, Monsieur, this is too much and I won’t tolerate it! I’m leaving your service! First, you suspect me of wasting my time and make a face at me that would freeze the Devil! Second, you hide things from me. It would be understandable if you’d hide things from Angelina to avoid putting her in danger! But from me, Monsieur, me! Who have been practically your shadow for these past twenty years!”

  At this I stepped over to him, took him by the shoulders and, pulling him up from his stool, gave him a powerful hug.

  “Ah, Miroul, you’re not a shadow, you’re a beacon who’s lit my way with your wise counsel.”

  “Which you disregard!”

  “Which is always wise, even if I don’t always follow it. Ah, Miroul, don’t leave me! What would I do without you and all the scrapes and difficulties I get myself into?” I continued in this vein even though I pretended a degree of alarm I didn’t exactly feel, knowing full well that he wasn’t going to leave our household, given how much affection he felt for me and I for him. “My Miroul,” I continued, “other than Madame my wife, who in this house holds a higher position, or is closer to me than you? Aside from being my secretary and major-domo, aren’t you my friend and practically my brother?”

  “What a shameful captatio benevolentiae,” countered Miroul, though with a softer tone and as though calmed. “What is a brother from whom one hides so many things?”

  “Well, tonight I’m going to think about how much I can tell you tomorrow, though I can’t now promise to tell you everything. Does that satisfy you?”

  “It satisfies me in proportion to your confidence. But, Monsieur, don’t you want to know who I found to rent the needle shop?”

  “Of course!”

  “Mérigot.”

  “What, my assassin?”

  “Ipse.* Monsieur, he loves you so much for having saved his neck from the noose that in his devotion to you he’d walk right into the jaws of death.”

  “But will he leave his post as ferryman on the Seine?”

  “Well, his post has left him! He fell from the mast of his boat and broke his left leg, and since it didn’t heal properly he now hobbles about with a limp. So he’s out of work.”

  “How much does he want?”

  “All the gold in Peru: five écus per month for him and his wench to live on, and two arquebuses, so his wench can be loading one while he’s firing the other.”

  “Five écus,” I laughed, “is a lot! Ah, Miroul did you have to put me to such trouble for such a miserable little sum?”

  There was a knock on the door, and, at my invitation, Angelina appeared, looking very graceful in her nightgown, her blonde hair cascading over her round shoulders and her sweet doe’s eyes looking at me with their usual candour.

  “Monsieur my husband,” she said, “what are you doing up so late? If your business is concluded, please don’t delay any longer. Your bed is yearning for you!”

  * “The very one.”

  9

  AS THE KING had announced, Quéribus came to see me the following morning, not on horseback, but instead in his carriage, in which, to my surprise, he requested entry into my courtyard. Once inside, he had me close the gates to the street, and, having greeted me—and even before we embraced—he said, with a certain amount of pomp, that he had a small chest to give me on behalf of his king, and asked where he should have it brought.

  “But Monsieur my brother,” I said in surprise, “just bring it into my little study and place it on my desk!”

  I meant the small secret cabinet where I’d placed the king’s previous gift of the beautiful comfit box. At this, a robust lackey, dressed in Quéribus’s brilliant livery, brought the coffer quickly into the study. It was about as long as my forearm and as wide as half its length, but beautifully worked in polished wild cherrywood, with hinges and fastenings in gilded bronze, representing women whose faces and breasts were visible but whose bodies faded into the bronze work. The handle on top represented a naked couple, who held each other in a close embrace, the man on top and the woman beneath him, so that when you grasped the handle, your palm touched the man’s back and your fingers his obliging companion.

  “Here’s the key to the chest,” announced Quéribus, with great ceremony. “But before I give it to you, and you put it to use—which you must not do in my presence—His Majesty wished me to inform you that he would have elevated your rank to baron had he not feared bringing the wrath of Guise down upon your head, and so, having by necessity to delay this honour until less troubled times, he begged you to receive from his hands this present, which he would have made less modest if the war had not so depleted his treasure. Monsieur chevalier,” Quéribus continued, giving me the feeling that he was here more as herald and messenger of the king than as my brother-in-law, “I am your humble servant, and beg to take my leave of you.”

  “Well, my brother,” I objected, as I placed the key in the pocket of my doublet, “don’t rush off! Stay and dine with us, I beg you!”

  “Monsieur chevalier,” said the baron with all the stiffness that protocol required, “I thank you a thousand times and shall return here at eleven.”

  And then, without a hug or kisses, he made a deep bow, and, as he did so, I could see that he was wearing the collar of the Order of the Holy Spirit, which the king had conferred on him on 1st January 1584, but I’d never seen him wear until now.

  Having accompanied him to his carriage to say goodbye, I passed Miroul, who announced that his missions had been successful and that he’d received the key to the needle shop from its owner and given it to Mérigot with orders to move in this very day.

  “Miroul,” I whispered in his ear, since the chambermaids who were cleaning our lodgings were buzzing around us like a swarm of bees, “follow me. You’ll no longer accuse me of hiding things from you. And at the same time I’ll show you what the king has given me.”

  “Ah, Monsieur,” gasped Miroul, once we’d entered my study and closed the door behind us, “what a beautiful chest… one that,” he added with a knowing smile, his finger running across the sculpted handle, “matches much more closely the disposition of him who receives it than that of him who gives it!”

  I took from my pocket the beautifully worked and finely chiselled key, which was also made of gilded bronze, and unlocked the chest and threw open the cover. Well, I can only say that the king of the fairies, who, it is said, possesses a treasure of 25 million, could not have been happier than I was at the sight of all of these écus heaped in shining profusion against the black silk lining of this golden chest. With tremulous hands and scarcely able to breathe, I immediately began counting this treasure, assisted by Miroul, who, though normally so articulate and voluble, was silent as the grave. Neither of us had ever set eyes on such an enormous quantity of money since the day we had counted the plunder gleaned from the child murderer on St Bartholomew’s eve. But here it seemed like we’d never finish the job, and the top of the desk was entirely covered with piles of coins, as we doubled then tripled the size of each stack, and still couldn’t seem to exhaust the chest’s contents. And although one never tires of counting one’s own money, I was ultimately exhausted by t
his delicious labour, and my eyes dazzled by its brilliance.

  But my astonishment hadn’t yet reached its zenith. At the bottom of the chest I found a small sack of black leather, tied with golden thongs, and upon opening it I discovered three diamonds of the most beautiful purity, one of them surpassing in size the one that the Duc d’Épernon had offered me as payment for having cured the cankers in his throat, and two others that seemed to me nearly as large the first. The jeweller on the Pont au Change later offered me 1,500 écus for the first, and 1,000 for each of the other two. And although the total value of the coins surpassed 10,000 écus, a sum that surpassed the value of all my wealth, and made my temples throb for joy, the present of gems, though less of less consequence, I found incredibly moving, since the king, whom I’d told about the ring that Épernon had offered me and that had so delighted Angelina, had remembered this story and, in his customary generosity and benevolence, clearly wished to embellish the beautiful hands of my beloved with these new shining jewels.

  That evening, after I presented this gift to my Angelina, I took Miroul aside in my little study, and provided him with the complete story of the adventures that I’d had, with but two exceptions: my travels from Paris to Boulogne with Alizon, which I’d happily enjoyed but suffered for in my conscience, and the morning’s sport with the Duchesse de Montpensier, which I’d not enjoyed in the least but had in no way troubled my conscience.

  Miroul listened to all of my adventures, his varicoloured eyes focused intently on mine with the worried and anxious expression of a mother (though we were the same age); and, when I’d finished, he immediately thanked me for having the confidence in him I’d displayed, and then said:

  “Well, Monsieur, how many dangers you’ve been exposed to, and still are as we speak, for we know that Guise is trying to instil terror into every one of the king’s allies in order to force them to quit his service, and surely they cannot doubt that you’re among his most faithful servants, and are certainly planning your demise. So you’re living on borrowed time, and we must be on guard day and night. During the day, you risk being shot in the street or being drawn into a fight, or getting knifed in a crowd. At night there’s the danger of an assault on your lodgings, as there always is in Paris, without the watch or the royal guards ever seeming to arrive on time. So, as we did in Mespech, we must fortify your lodgings so as to be able to repulse such a nocturnal attack.”

  “But Mérigot is guarding me and is posted at the windows of the needle shop.”

  “Mérigot might sound the alarm and delay the assault for a while. But one man with an arquebus cannot do more than that. Monsieur, you need to raise the wall of your courtyard above ladder reach, since any miscreant could scale it. Put some corbels in the wall, and some slits so that you can fire on anyone trying to put an explosive device in front of your gate. Reinforce the shutters in all the windows that look out on the street. Double the thickness of the doors and plan some secret escape routes for Angelina and your children and all the servants.”

  “Secret escape routes!” I said, amazed.

  “Well, Monsieur, we saw this only too well during our flight through the city on St Bartholomew’s eve. The strongest house is only a mousetrap when you can’t escape from it through a secret passage!”

  “Miroul,” I laughed, “your imagination’s run away with you! How on earth are we going to construct a secret door out of here when all our doors give onto the rue du Champ-Fleuri?”

  “Monsieur,” replied Miroul with great pride, “I’ve always thought that what you consider my biggest fault—that is, my delight in strolling around—is in fact my greatest asset.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Having observed that our neighbours on the right of the rue du Champ-Fleuri do not have a carriage gate giving onto our street, I realized that they must have one at the back of the house, exiting onto the rue du Chantre, which is parallel to this one. So, one day when you sent me to deliver a message—a task well beneath my station, as you know, but one that I was weak enough to agree to—I took it upon myself to explore the rue du Chantre and verified that our neighbours’ courtyard and stables give onto that street.”

  “But this neighbour is a Guisard and would never allow us to flee, if necessary, through his house and courtyard!”

  “This neighbour, however,” Miroul pointed out, “is old and infirm, and planning to retire to the country, and hopes to sell his house in Paris…”

  “Ah, Miroul! You’re my eyes and ears, the first as precious as the second! But how on earth did you discover all of this?”

  “But you know very well, Monsieur—by strolling around!”

  Having landed this blow, Miroul fell silent, his lids half closed, a half-smile on his lips and having a modest air about him of one whose merits have finally been recognized.

  “Go on, Miroul,” I said gravely, but feeling dumbfounded by his astuteness, though he’d exhibited it at my expense.

  “This would a very judicious use of your 10,000 écus,” observed Miroul. “Buy this house anonymously, install Giacomi there and then engage a mason from Mespech to cut a secret passage between the two houses.”

  “Miroul, that’s incredibly ingenious! You’re more a mentor than a secretary! And I shall be forever grateful for the way you keep your eyes as open as your tongue is eloquent. From now on I swear that you can stroll to your heart’s content! I won’t stand in your way. And the only row you’ll hear will be from Florine.”

  “Which is quite enough row for anyone to put up with,” he laughed.

  That evening, Quéribus and Catherine joined us for supper, and knowing that my sister would put on her finest gown, even for visiting her family, I suggested to Angelina that she purchase a new gown with the proceeds from our recent compensation to go with her new jewels.

  “The king,” said Quéribus, after we’d supped our fill, “is more liberal than any king in history. He seems to feel an almost irresistible impulse to give what he has, an impulse that some find strange, but that, for my part, I find marvellous and rare. I remember when I was with him in Poland—”

  “Far from me!” broke in Catherine.

  “Alas! Far from you, my dear!” echoed Quéribus. “And very sad to be so, not yet knowing whether the Baron de Mespech would give me your beautiful hand!”

  “Monsieur,” cooed Catherine, “you always say things I love to hear. And, as for me, believing that acts should always follow one’s words, I very much hope that I should always be the only one in your heart and in your bed.”

  “Madame my wife,” said Quéribus, though he blushed, it seemed to me, at this implicit faith, “you cannot possibly doubt it. ’Twould be to question my faith! But let me continue. When Henri was crowned king of Poland according to the custom of the church of St Stanislaus in Cracow, during the interminable rites and ceremonies that were unfolding, the king—clothed in his heavy robes and seated on his throne waiting to be anointed and to receive the sceptre and the globe—watched as his turbulent and magnificent subjects placed before him some rich, golden vases, full to overflowing with coins bearing his effigy: a gift from the Polish people to their king who had come from France. And seeing these vases, but not understanding a word of what was being said around him in a language entirely foreign to him, Henri, as he told us later, was seized, and almost tortured, by a frenetic desire to stand up and grab handfuls of these coins and throw them to the immense crowd of nobles and dignitaries who were attending his coronation. But he decided to resist this temptation for fear that it might mortally offend his new subjects, and cause them to consider him a scandalous madman; however, he had to exert such great pain and labour to remain seated and immobile that, despite the terrible cold in the church of St Stanislaus, in this month of February, he began perspiring profusely from head to foot, and huge pearls of sweat could be seen dripping down his forehead and flowing down his cheeks. Of course, those of us gentlemen who had accompanied him and who, though warmly dressed, we
re shivering with cold, believed that he was having a seizure when we saw how pale and sweaty he was, and were immensely relieved when, in the sacristy, where Henri withdrew after the ceremony, he explained to them the cause and motive of his indisposition, as if it were a commonplace.”

  “Well now,” said Catherine, “that’s very beautiful! Liberality becomes a king and whoever displays such generosity,” she added, looking at Quéribus, “becomes, to a certain extent, a king in his own little kingdom and will be beloved by his subjects.”

  I frowned a bit at this statement, which I found a little too pointed, and unjustly so, since Quéribus was never stingy in dressing and bejewelling his wife. But, alas, my little sister Catherine was too haughty not to take advantage of such occasions to bite and scratch.

  My dear friend L’Étoile, who was aware of everything that was happening in the capital at the time, from the deaths of octogenarians to the details of all the Parisian executions, likes to tell me I’m rather hazy with my dates, but I think it was in November 1586 that I was approached on the Pont Saint-Michel by a lady, who led me to a carriage nearby. After I climbed in, the valet closed the curtains so that I could hardly see a thing through the gloom within the carriage, but immediately recognized the melodious English accent of Lady Stafford, who said:

  “Monsieur chevalier, you have so faithfully served your king and my queen in the affair of Navarre’s letter that, if I could, I would like to serve your private and personal affairs. Have you heard of Babington?”

  “Not very much, but what I’ve heard is not good.”

  “Well, this Babington is a young madman, who conspired with six other zealots to assassinate Queen Elizabeth and free Mary Stuart from her prison in the Tower. This plot was planned to coincide with the invasion of England by Guise and Felipe II. Fortunately, Babington, his six friends and the three Jesuits who were behind this plot, were all arrested, tried and executed on the twentieth of September. One of the Jesuits was named Samarcas.”