League of Spies

by Robert Merle

  “Good lord!” I shouted joyfully. “But what about Larissa?”

  “She was shut up in a convent and has been named by Walsingham as a co-conspirator in Samarcas’s plot.”

  “Well,” I cried, “I don’t believe a word of it! She’s half-crazy and Samarcas was too astute to dare involve her in anything serious.”

  “Except as an unwitting tool,” replied Lady Stafford, “and, unwitting or no, it’s all the same thing to Walsingham, who’s got the instincts of a bulldog. Once he’s sunk his teeth into the flesh of a conspirator only Her Majesty can make him let go.”

  “But My Lady, couldn’t you write to Queen Elizabeth and explain things?”

  “Certainly I could,” she replied, placing her hand on my forearm in sympathy, “but Walsingham receives all of my dispatches, and he is so fanatically devoted to his mistress that he likely wouldn’t show her any letter of mine in which I was pleading the cause of Mademoiselle de Montcalm, who is a confirmed Catholic, and therefore would likely as not have supported the assassination plot.”

  I had no response to this, and my temples began to throb and the sweat drip down my back, due to both the anxiety I felt and my frustration at my inability to act.

  “And what if I were to hurry to London and request an audience with the queen?”

  “You’d still have to get by Walsingham, who’s already learnt that you’re the son-in-law of Montcalm, so you wouldn’t get anywhere.”

  I could think of no answer to this and, feeling very downcast at the nearly insurmountable obstacles that seemed to bar my path, I began to imagine the wall that separated me from Larissa, and could almost hear her plaintive voice as she surrendered to years of captivity—or, worse, the scaffold and the tortures that were inflicted on traitors, which, from what I’d heard, were even worse in England than here.

  However, as my eyes adjusted to the darkness inside the coach, I noticed a look that her lady-in-waiting threw at Lady Stafford, which seemed so pregnant with meaning and so conniving that it led me to surmise that they’d only cast me into my present despair in order to lead me insensibly to do what they wanted. “Well,” I thought to myself, “these English ladies with their clear eyes and their musical voices are craftier than one would suspect at first glance! Indeed, I’ll wager that, however noble and beautiful she may be, Lady Stafford is as politically savvy and acquainted with the affairs of state as her husband the ambassador, and that this lady-in-waiting beside her is not just a glorified chambermaid! I’d swear that there’s some bargain being hinted at here that could well serve my own ends as much as it serves the English crown. Let’s see what we can find out!” I thought. “If what they want does not thwart the interests of my king, but helps him as well in some way, why not see where it takes me?”

  “Madame,” I said, turning to look the lady directly in the eye, “counsel me in this predicament. I will obey you, knowing full well that you would never ask me to betray my king.”

  “I would never dream of such a thing!” she gasped, this time in French, her accent adding to her natural charm. “I could never stomach such a thing! But my suggestion does have a connection with your king’s business, as your French finesse has already discerned. We know, Monsieur chevalier, that your master will soon send a special ambassador to my queen, in the person of Monsieur Pomponne de Bellièvre, to plead for Mary Stuart’s life and try to prevent her execution. May I ask what the king thinks of this Pomponne?”

  “My Lady,” I replied coldly, “you’re asking me to reveal information about the government of this kingdom that I cannot honourably impart, however much I may dislike this Pomponne fellow.”

  “Monsieur,” she soothed, placing her hand on my forearm and leaning gracefully on my shoulder, her long neck bending towards me to look up at me more closely, “your point of honour is too delicate. You’ve reacted too quickly. Allow me to take up my cards and replay them in a way that will take account of your sensitivity.”

  I could not help smiling at this figure of speech, which struck me as much more English than French, and replied:

  “As you wish, My Lady.”

  “Monsieur,” she continued in her fluty, sing-song French, “I’m going to put my cards on the table and turn them over. I have reason to believe that your king does not like Monsieur Pomponne de Bellièvre, that he makes fun of his doltish eloquence and calls him ‘Pompous Pomponne’, that he believes he’s Catherine de’ Medici’s creature and doesn’t trust him, believing him to be secretly an agent of the League. Are my cards good, Monsieur?”

  “As far as I can tell, yes.”

  “I also believe,” said Lady Stafford, “that the king has no choice but to send Monsieur de Bellièvre to London. First, because Mary Stuart was his sister-in-law. Second, because the League would scream bloody murder if he didn’t! But…” Here she broke off and squeezed my arm hard, looking at me searchingly with her blue eyes; then she continued, “But if Mary Stuart were to be condemned and executed, the king of France would make no effort of any kind to save her…”

  “Well now!” I thought, lowering my eyes and falling silent for a long time. “That’s the essence and substance of this business completely exposed in a single sentence. All Queen Elizabeth wants is to be assured of Henri’s neutrality if Mary Stuart were condemned.” Now I had a thousand reasons for believing that the king nursed very little tenderness for this princess, who was from the house of Lorraine on her mother’s side, a cousin of the Guises, a fanatic papist, an idol of the League and a friend of Henri’s worst enemies. What’s more, Henri was far too occupied here in France with Guise and Navarre to be able to attempt any action across the Channel. But I realized I had a strong interest in not showing my cards right away, for I undoubtedly had the information these ladies desired but did not know what they were prepared to offer in return.

  “My Lady,” I proposed, after some hesitation and in the most circumspect tone, “this is a question that I must ask the king directly to be certain of his answer.”

  “Well then, Monsieur chevalier,” replied Lady Stafford with a kind of ebullient gaiety in her voice and look that suggested that she was very happy with our interview, “let us make a few suppositions together, if you will. Let’s suppose the king answers in the way we hope: that he wants to communicate his position privately to our queen; that he dispatches you for this purpose in the retinue of Monsieur de Bellièvre; that the queen, after the official communications given by my official ambassador, sees you in secret and hears from your mouth the assurances that I’ve just suggested. Don’t you think that you’d then be in a remarkably strong position to serve the interests of your king, of my queen and of whatever private concerns you may have in this matter?”

  “My Lady, there are a lot of ‘ifs’ in your proposal!”

  “But all of them depend only on the first principle! So if, Monsieur, the king sends you to London, then all the rest of the ‘ifs’ will become deeds rather than guesses and cannot help but be realized! Monsieur, before leaving for London, you must come see me at the Maréchale de Joyeuse’s salon, where, starting today, I’ll be going every afternoon to bore myself to death!”

  This said, she extended her gloveless hand, which I seized without kissing, instead looking at My Lady Stafford with delight for having unburdened my mind of this grave circumstance, and left me free to admire her beautiful Venetian-red hair, her imperious, yet oddly sweet look, her chiselled features, the dazzling pink glow of her skin and the pout which seemed naturally to round her lips. Finally, I said:

  “My Lady, may I respectively and humbly suggest to Your Ladyship that this is not the way she last parted from her humble servant when he had the honour to be at her side in this coach.”

  To which Lady Stafford looked at me wide-eyed, unsure whether to laugh or to scold, and replied in English:

  “Oh, you Frenchmen! Jane! Did you hear that?! This man is asking for a kiss! How impertinent! How mad! How French!”

  “My Lady,�
�� smiled Jane, “after all, the man is well born and the son of a baron. And I’ve heard it said that his mother came from a very ancient family. And you know Her Majesty herself is very sweet to her servants, and teases her ministers, and goes so far as to kiss old Walsingham, who to my mind is remarkably ugly.”

  All of this was spoken in front of me as if English were completely incomprehensible to me, and they continued their disputation for a full ten minutes as the two weighed the pros and cons of the morality of such a “gift”, and finally decided that the “pros” had carried the day, after which the kiss was ultimately granted—with, I’m happy to say, a good deal of ardour, since Her Ladyship never did things half-heartedly once she’d made up her mind.

  The king nearly threw his arms around me when I reported this conversation to him the next morning.

  “Ah, my good Siorac!” he cried. “It’s Providence who always seems to put you right where you need to be! I’ve been worried about what this Pompous Pomponne would say to my cousin Queen Elizabeth, given that he takes his orders more from my mother than from me, and leans towards the League like a weeping willow over a muddy pond! He’s a poor, snivelling braggart, who gossips like 100,000 chatterboxes. Ah, my good Siorac, I can already hear his pious, erudite ejaculations in London on behalf of Mary Stuart, whom I could tolerate well enough when she was the wife of my poor brother François, but whom I now abhor since she married the assassin of her second husband after having been complicit in his murder! She’s a madwoman, and dared to write to Mendoza that she was bequeathing her kingdom of Scotland and her right to the English throne to Felipe II! Good heavens! Can you imagine more abject treachery? Her religious zeal has so entirely blinded her that she has delivered the valiant English people to the Spanish inquisitor!”

  Here Chicot opened his mouth to voice one of his silly witticisms, but Henri raised his hand to shut him up and continued his monologue:

  “When all is said and done, Mary Stuart is a Guise, a rebel and a traitor to her queen, just as Guise is to his king. Siorac, if you will consent, I propose to send you to London in the retinue of Pompous Pomponne. You will be his interpreter in the English language.”

  “But sire,” cautioned Du Halde, “you’ve already ordered Hébrard to fill this function and he’s packing his bags!”

  “Then he’ll unpack them!” laughed the king. “He’s suddenly going to fall ill! I can sense it! I wish it! Within the hour, he’s going to start feeling poorly and complain bitterly of his malady! Did you hear me, Du Halde? And please distribute 200 écus to the poor fellow to help with his cure. Let him keep to his chambers! He should not so much as take a step outside! Chicot, go wipe your runny nose! Siorac, off you go to London, and don’t for one second trust my ambassador. Do you know his name?”

  “Sire, isn’t it Monsieur L’Aubépine de Châteauneuf?”

  “The same. He’s a bungling mischief-maker. He’s in cahoots with the League. He’s trying like the Devil to free Mary. Elizabeth communicated her displeasure with him through Lord Stafford, whom I greatly esteem, and to whom I’ll not report your carryings-on with his wife in her carriage, Siorac, you devil!” And then, abruptly changing his tone, he added, “Is it not amazing that I can’t even exile the prickly Aubépine to his estate without the League getting up in arms about it, and Guise sending me threats! Heavens! The knave has me by the throat and is practically strangling me!”

  And, in a trice, Henri had switched from wild happiness to his most choleric disposition, turning pale, frowning, his dark eyes shooting sparks. Clenching his fists, he began walking back and forth across the room, casting mistrustful and suspicious looks every which way.

  “Du Halde,” he barked, “take these écus to Hébrard; and you, Chicot, go wipe your nose in my antechamber.”

  Stung to be thus dismissed from this saint of saints, but even more upset to see a return of the king’s dark mood, they withdrew.

  “My son,” said Henri, taking my arm and inviting me to walk with him as he had done with the Cardinal de Bourbon, but this time with great seriousness, “what I have to confide in you is destined for your ears only, and for those of my cousin, Queen Elizabeth.” And thereafter he gave me very precise directions in a voice lowered to a whisper (as if he feared that the tapestries in his chamber had ears, though these hangings were examined inch by inch every single day). And if some of the things he told me did not surprise me in the least, since his earlier monologue had prepared me for them, his final recommendation (which I will not relate here, since I want Queen Elizabeth to be the first to hear it in my account) left me almost dumbstruck, so unexpected and redoubtable was the secret imparted to me, and so much did I feel its burden on my fragile shoulders (whose adjacent head would be so easy to lop off), given the very humble rank Fortune had assigned me and how very close I was being brought to the great and powerful of this world.

  Of course, I knew that kings often place more trust in their barbers than in their noble ambassadors, and that Henri, to return to him, had often used the venerable Dr Marc Miron to carry messages that he never would have trusted to the queen mother or Pompous Pomponne, or to any of his ministers. But I nevertheless stood there, stupefied and trembling to think that I was the one he’d chosen among all of his subjects (none of whom, it’s true, had such easy access to him as I did) to be the means of his most secret project, which even Guise, had he learnt of it, would have termed monstrous, since it so thoroughly contradicted the politics this arrogant vassal had thought to impose on his master, but to which the king paid only lip service, while secretly despising and refusing to obey this ugly pretender from Lorraine.

  Meanwhile, as I took my leave of Henri and left the Louvre, I began to regain my courage, telling myself that Guise’s politics aimed at nothing less than the total extermination of the Huguenots—and already some of the most zealous of the League’s supporters were writing tracts that argued that they hadn’t finished the job begun on St Bartholomew’s eve—and that in this work I was about to do, I was serving both my prince and my people, helping to thwart these bloody projects, especially since I’d always had, and would always maintain, a frightful horror of all kinds of persecution, and had always professed, like Henri himself, who has more intelligence and humanity than the entire Guise family put together, this inviolable axiom: fides suadenda, non imperanda.*

  Immediately after my midday meal, I hurried over to Madame de Joyeuse’s salon, where, after listening stoically to her whining jeremiads on the excesses of power, riches and glory that the king lavished on her sons, I finally saw the Venetian-red hair of Lady Stafford appear across the room, and managed to move towards her gradually and as if accidentally, with an eye out for any Guisards who might be present. Luckily there were so many people amassed here that I could “bump into” Lady Stafford without seeming to have sought her out, and manage a quick conversation on a window seat. Speaking in English and so softly that I could scarcely hear her, she said:

  “So, Monsieur, you’re on your way. Is your message of a satisfactory nature?”

  “Indeed so! Beyond anything you dared hope!”

  At this I saw her complexion redden and her body shudder so visibly that you would have thought she’d just seen a man enter the salon whom she was greatly attracted to—so much did the great affairs of state that she was managing displace and replace in her the feelings normally devoted to love.

  “Monsieur,” she said, “you have an eye for jewels. Do you see this ring I’m wearing? Can you describe it for me?”

  “Yes, of course! It’s an oval onyx stone with a heart-shaped ruby at its centre flanked by two pearls.”

  “When you arrive in London, you are to obey the orders of the person, be it a man or a woman, who is wearing this jewel.”

  “I will not fail to do so. My Lady,” I continued, “may I, as well, hope to be as well satisfied in my own affairs as you are?”

  “I hope it may be so,” she replied, closing her eyes. “But I can promi
se nothing, since Walsingham is so harsh and obstinate.”

  And at this, she extended her hand for me to kiss. Though utterly crestfallen inside, I managed to smile, just as I would with the five or six other noblewomen to whom I would subsequently play the gallant—not out of any desire on my part, but rather to pull the wool over their eyes. I also wanted that smile to convince Lady Stafford that only her charms had led me to her.

  When I thought over her last sentence, which had fallen like a heavy stone on my heart, I was persuaded that I needed to clip the wings of my hope of delivering Larissa from her jail, and though I had thought perhaps to inform Giacomi of the situation and bring him with me to London, I now decided against such a plan, not wishing to expose him to the cruellest of disappointments if I failed. So it was that I was accompanied only by Miroul, who was extremely vexed not to be in on the secret that necessitated this trip, but nevertheless greatly excited to be crossing the Channel and to be able to visit the great city of London, where, I had no doubt, he would be very excited to stroll about.

  Not that our passage was easy. Quite the contrary. I’d never seen any sea other than glimpses of the Mediterranean from the hills of Montpellier, and that was in summer when she presented her most serene and happy visage. The body of water that separated us from England, however, seemed to me excessively tempestuous, grey and windy on the November day we set sail at daybreak from Calais, battered by a glacial rainstorm, in a great confusion of waves so violent as to make you cough up your guts right off, and a wind so bitter that it ripped one of our sails right in two. Things were so bad that after only an hour at sea we had to return to port and venture out only the next day, when the violent winds had died down a bit, but were now blowing directly against our course. As a result, we had to “tack” most of the way across, and so it took us no less than five hours to reach Dover. By land, this voyage would have been much faster and a thousand times more gentle on our intestines, which suffered so horribly on this occasion that Bellièvre, seeing the pitiable state of his retinue—and of their horses—upon our arrival, and being himself surprised at the quince yellow of his complexion as he looked in the little mirror he always carried with him (being so enamoured of his majestic appearance), decided we should rest for two days before heading out onto the highway from Dover to London.