League of Spies

by Robert Merle

  “Markby,” she said, smiling at her friend, “what shall we do with this nice little Frenchman? Marry him off to one of our English beauties so we can keep him here at court?”

  “If it please Your Majesty, marry him off to me!” laughed Lady Markby. “I like those hungry eyes, which seem to eat you right up!”

  “But Markby,” laughed Elizabeth, “have you forgotten that you’ve got a husband at home in Shropshire?”

  “Would that I could forget him!” said Lady Markby pouting.

  “Then let’s marry him right off to our Lady T.,” continued the queen, “since she’s a widow.”

  “Your Majesty,” I laughed, joining in, “nothing would please me more, given the affection and respect I feel for Lady T., but I’m already married in Paris.”

  “Oh, what a pity!” cried the queen, who was certainly already aware of my situation. “Well then, Markby, if we can’t marry him at least let’s give him a nickname! That way we’ll make him ours, capturing his essence in the word we choose for him!”

  Her Majesty seemed very pleased with this idea, since she shared Henri’s delight in the verbal games that were all the rage in both her court and ours—and also in Italy, where this craze for linguistic games, metaphors and alliterations had originated.

  “Markby! Mundane! Walsingham!” cried the queen petulantly, clapping her hands. “Lend me your ideas! Let’s find a nickname for the Chevalier de Siorac! My Moor,” she said, smiling at Walsingham, who seemed quite out of sorts at all this attention being paid to a Frenchman, “a nickname for Monsieur de Siorac!”

  “‘The Fox’,” said Walsingham disagreeably.

  “No, no!” laughed Lady Markby. “If he got in our henhouse, he’d caress all the chickens instead of eating them!”

  “How about ‘the Frog’?” offered Mundane.

  “Well, Mundane,” returned the queen, laughing, “You lack imagination. We already used that on the Duc d’Alençon, who was so small, twisted and charming. But we’re not going to call all the Frenchmen ‘frogs’. Let’s reserve the name for poor Alençon, whom I would have married if my ministers hadn’t objected so strenuously.”

  “Well, I’m not so sure of that,” objected Walsingham. “Your Majesty never followed any advice but her own will!”

  “Indeed,” confessed the queen. “Markby, a nickname, quickly, for Monsieur de Siorac!”

  “‘The Ferret’!” proposed Markby.

  “That’s better,” agreed Elizabeth. Ferrets are fairly pretty, supple, alert and valiant. But they’re too bloodthirsty. And I can’t imagine Monsieur de Siorac taking the life of another, except in self-defence. No, Monsieur de Siorac is not a cruel animal. He flies! He flies!”

  “Then let’s call him ‘the Lark’!” proposed Lady Markby.

  “‘The Lark’!” cried the queen, clapping her hands. “You win the prize, Markby! The Lark is a great find, I find! Monsieur, I name and consecrate you henceforth my little French Lark to the end of time. Aargh!” she winced. “I hurt my thumb again clapping! By God! This thumb is a traitor thumb, and I’ll have it tried and cut off tomorrow!”

  At this Walsingham smiled in such a knowing and formidably sinister way that I was amazed.

  “Tom,” cried the queen, “bring a stool for Monsieur de Siorac!”

  The gigantic usher hurried forward, carrying a stool as if it were as light as a feather, and so I stood (having been on my knees all this time in front of Her Majesty) and then sat down, my temples throbbing, and feeling almost intoxicated by the incredible kindness that the queen was displaying for me—which, even though I knew very well it was ultimately directed to my master, Henri, I found quite overwhelming; I almost felt that I was sprouting wings, as my nickname would have me do!

  “My Lark,” cooed the queen in French, sitting very straight on her throne, her two hands on the armrests, and suddenly adopting a grave and imposing tone, “sing me your song of France and let it be as pleasant to my ears as the singer is to my eyes!”

  This was too much for me! For my heart was beating like a cathedral bell; my legs went weak and my throat went dry and tightened up, and I stood there dumb as a lamp post—the beautiful speech that I’d prepared and polished, just as Pomponne had, suddenly went straight out of my head like water out of the cask of the Danaids.

  “Well now!” said the queen, who, like my master Henri, loved using terms of endearment. “Has my little lark lost his voice?”

  At this Lady Markby and Mundane had a good laugh, and even Walsingham smiled, though in a different way this time—his ferocious and swarthy face suddenly took on a much more tender indulgence than I’d seen so far, which led me to believe that he secretly idolized this queen whom he served so zealously, confusing this love with the great and exigent love that he bore the state. Would that God had only provided us with ministers in France who were as honest and resolute as this man, more devoted to maintaining the grandeur of the kingdom than to his own life!

  “Mundane,” laughed the queen, “give my own little French Lark a beakful of wine in order that the nectar might free his voice!”

  Oh, how avidly I emptied that cup, which restored my courage and my voice—both of which had been overwhelmed by the patience, goodness and astonishing display of friendship that this queen had proffered me!

  “Your Majesty,” I said, “everything I’m about to tell you was told me in secret by my master Henri III without any witnesses, charging me to repeat what he said word for word without adding or omitting anything, to his beloved sister the queen of England.”

  “Did he really say ‘beloved’?” asked Elizabeth, arching her perfectly trimmed eyebrows in surprise.

  “That’s exactly what he said, Your Majesty.”

  “Oh, how charming these French are!” laughed the queen, her eyes shining with pleasure. “They sprinkle love everywhere! But let’s hear the rest.”

  “My master,” I continued, “believes that Your Majesty is the sole judge of her security and of the measures she must take to preserve her person and her kingdom from the attacks of her enemies, whoever they may be.”

  “Did my beloved brother,” asked the queen, “really say ‘whoever they may be’?”

  “Yes, that’s what he said.”

  “This is,” remarked Elizabeth, “a most Machiavellian diplomacy! After Pomponne, the anti-Pomponne. Which one should I believe?”

  “The second, Your Majesty,” I replied emphatically.

  “My Moor,” said Elizabeth, “what do you think?”

  “That the king of France is so hard-pressed on all sides that he cannot help but be Machiavellian.”

  “My Lark,” the queen continued, “am I to believe that the king approves of the trial?” (And I had to admire the way that, once again, although Mary Stuart was continuously present in this conversation, she was never named.)

  “Not at all!” I replied.

  “Not at all?” cried the queen. “Where is your Gallic logic? My Lark, your conclusion refutes your premises!”

  “No again, Your Majesty! My master believes that, touching crimes of lese-majesty, the execution should precede the sentence and not the inverse.”

  “That the execution should precede the sentence,” repeated the queen. “My Moor, what is does this jargon mean?”

  “That we must dispatch the traitor without giving her a trial.”

  “But that’s an assassination!” exclaimed the queen with indignation. “And very repugnant to the customs of my people, who believe that the guilty party must be tried according to form, even if the sentence be not in the least in doubt.”

  I smiled somewhat at this, but said not a word, for I could not see any difference between the pike that killed Coligny and the executioner’s axe, when it was responding with such docility to the will of the sovereign.

  “The French,” observed Walsingham, who had noticed my smile, “have very different customs from ours, and have less respect than we do for the letter of the law. When the
sovereign and his advisors have decided that a vassal is a traitor, they condemn him to death without trial or judges, and leave the execution to the king’s killer.”

  “The king’s killer!” cried Elizabeth. “Is there such an office in France?”

  Since I did not wish to answer, Walsingham answered yes with a nod of his head.

  “Continue, my Lark,” urged the queen, who, however much she’d questioned the French system, did not wish to pursue the point for fear of appearing to criticize her “beloved brother”.

  “Meanwhile,” I said, “my master also believes that you are better positioned than anyone else in the world to decide how best to maintain your own security and preserve the peace in your state.”

  “One could never claim, after listening to you,” said the queen with a smile, “that subtlety was the French king’s weak point. Continue, my Lark.”

  “What I will now say,” I continued, not without some emotion, “has no relation to the person we’ve been discussing, but is, instead, a secret of such immense consequence that my master recommended that I share it only with Your Majesty.”

  “Sing, my Lark, sing!” urged the queen. “All of the ears in this room, though they may belong to different heads, are mine—and I have every bit as much confidence in them as I do in myself for forgetting or remembering what we shall hear.”

  “Your Majesty,” I continued, though with some difficulty in recovering my breath given the enormous strangeness of what I was about to say, “my master has learnt that his brother-in-law and friend, the king of Navarre, against whom he has waged war most half-heartedly and only when absolutely forced to, has asked Your Majesty for some subsidies, monies and subventions that would enable him to recruit in Germany an army to support him in this fratricidal conflict. Your Majesty, what I am about to tell you is so surprising that I scarcely dare say it for fear of being disbelieved.”

  “I believe I have a good idea of what you’re going to tell me,” said the queen, her nostrils quivering. “Go on, my Lark.”

  “My master,” I continued, trying to strengthen my voice, “believes that if the refusal Your Majesty has made to these requests up until now is based on her fear of alienating the king of France, this monarch would not be take umbrage if this fear were to be overcome by Your Majesty’s government.”

  “My Moor,” gasped the queen, “did you hear that?”

  “Yes, Your Majesty,” whispered Walsingham as if he were holding his breath.

  “Go on, go on!” urged the queen.

  “My master believes, in fact, that such an army would effectively counterbalance the forces of the Duc de Guise, and that if…”

  “And that if…” urged the queen…

  “…that if this army, having crossed the border, were to occupy Lorraine and ravage that area without moving farther into France, it would infallibly provoke a counter-attack by the armies of the Duc de Guise, which, God willing, would be weakened or defeated, leaving the king of France free to make a pact with the king of Navarre, with whom he has always enjoyed a good relationship, and whom he has already recognized publicly as his successor to the throne of France.”

  A pregnant silence followed my explanation, during which the queen and Walsingham exchanged very animated looks, as did Mundane and Lady Markby behind them.

  “Despite the total madness of such a scheme,” observed Elizabeth, “there is, indeed, method in it, since the same worm that is gnawing at your throne is also munching on mine.”

  Making a sign for Lady Markby to lean over to her, she whispered something in the lady’s ear, but it seemed to be an agreeable message, for she smiled upon hearing it and went forthwith to repeat it to Walsingham, who, though he did not smile, gave a nod of his head and made a sign to Mundane, who, bowing to Her Majesty, left the room.

  “Sweet Siorac,” said Elizabeth, seeming suddenly to have forgotten my nickname and preferring this alliteration, “please give your master, my beloved brother, 10,000 million thanks for the reassuring friendship that he has shown me in my present predicament. Tell him that I hope wholeheartedly and will pray to the Lord God every day for the preservation of his life and his continuance on the throne, as I try to continue on mine. And lastly—touching his last message, which is of the greatest consequence—tell him that I am going to discuss it with my council and that he will soon see from our response what was decided.”

  This said, she held out her fingers; I knelt before her and placed a devout kiss on them, and then presumed to articulate the words that were burning my mouth:

  “May it please Your Majesty, regarding the fate of Mademoiselle de Montcalm—”

  “Monsieur!” broke in Lady Markby. “Etiquette forbids that you address the queen after she has presented her hand.”

  I rose, silent, ashamed, my lips sealed shut by this sharp remonstration, and backed from the room, making three humiliating bows to Elizabeth on my way out. Lady Markby, imitating my bows, followed me into the antechamber, and, once we were outside, took my arm and whispered:

  “Sweet Siorac, be patient. Give the queen and Walsingham time to think about this and the matter will resolve itself.”

  “But why?” I asked, as she handed me the mask I had worn on my way to my appointment. “What need is there for it in here?”

  “Because we never know,” she replied, “whether some agent of Felipe’s has slipped in here.”

  “In the queen’s palace?!”

  “Why not? Money can accomplish anything. Would we be tasting every dish set before the queen if we didn’t live with this fear?”

  Before arriving at the lodgings of my affectionate hostess, Lady Markby again put her hand on my arm and said:

  “There is a gift waiting for you at your lodgings that the queen had brought there. Which is why you saw Mr Mundane leave the room before we did.”

  “Ah, Lady Markby,” I replied, “I am infinitely grateful to Her Majesty for her gracious liberalities, but, being in the employ of my master in France, I could not accept anything from the hands of a foreign sovereign, however much love and reverence I bear her.”

  At this, Lady Markby laughed, being of a naturally gay and sprightly nature, and whispered teasingly in my ear:

  “Just wait a moment before refusing the gift that’s awaiting you in Lady T.’s drawing room.”

  When I attempted to kiss her hands as I descended from her coach, she directed my lips to a more delectable target. These caresses, though very brief, led me to believe that, in order to spare my conscience undue trouble, the queen had asked for me to be placed with Lady T. and not a lady who might have conveniently forgotten that she had a husband in Shropshire…

  Wondering what the queen’s gift could possibly be, I headed to Lady T.’s drawing room, where, looking around as I entered, I saw nothing that I hadn’t seen the previous evening. I felt a strange pang of disappointment, though I was quite resolved not to accept any gifts from Her Gracious Majesty. A bright fire burned in the fireplace and I spied in the mirror above it my hostess standing to my left, holding a fan open in front of her face, as if cooling herself before the heat of the fire. I thought, naturally, that it was Lady T., given her blonde hair and the pale-blue brocaded dress that she’d been wearing the day before. Wondering whether I shouldn’t simply withdraw from the room in order not to disturb her reverie, I was about to retrace my steps towards the door when the lady lowered the fan, caught sight of me in the mirror, leapt with a cry of joy from the couch where she’d been sitting and threw her arms around my neck.

  “Ah!” I cried, my voice strangled with emotion. “Larissa!”

  I was unable to say another word, for she held me to her and covered my face with kisses, and I could only hug her to me in silence, overwhelmed by the immense joy of finding her healthy and free. I was struck anew by her extraordinary resemblance to her twin, not just in her features, hair and build, but also in her skin, which was, like Angelina’s, fine, smooth and perfumed. My heart swelled with gr
atitude for the delicatezza* of Queen Elizabeth, which wasn’t simply in her granting Larissa her freedom, but also in the way she’d turned it into a surprise, at the very moment I’d given up hope.

  Nothing multiplies as marvellously as joys do, for scarcely had I felt the immense relief of recovering this sister after so many months of worry before I was suddenly filled with concomitant pleasure at the idea of returning to Angelina the sister she’d so worried about, and to Giacomi the woman he’d so long adored and desired.

  From what I was told, Monsieur de Bellièvre intended to remain in London until the condemnation of Mary Stuart, in order to attempt to influence the queen’s decision; but, knowing what I knew after my secret meeting with Elizabeth, he had no more chance of succeeding than if he were attempting to throw a rope around the horns of the moon, and so I asked the ambassador’s permission to return to France without waiting for the outcome of the trial (which threatened to take a long time, given the English people’s attachment to the forms and formalities of the law). I told him that it had been evident ever since our first meeting with her that Queen Elizabeth spoke such excellent French that my services were no longer needed. For his part, Pompous Pomponne was not sorry to see me go, since he’d no doubt got wind, from a certain member of the League, whose English was quite good, that my simultaneous interpretation of his speech had included many unfortunate softenings and attenuations. He was quick to grant my request, believing, no doubt, that this other gentleman would render him more faithful service than I.

  We parted company nevertheless with a few forced expressions of friendship, which, for his part, sounded more like venom than honey, but which he enveloped in the usual court “varnish” and his inevitable verbosity. And Lady T. was nice enough to bring me to Dover in her coach with a large escort (English roads being as unsafe as ours, and frequently interrupted by toll booths operated by local landowners, who stopped us to exact remuneration for maintaining their section of the route). My Lady insisted on seeing me embark at Dover with Larissa before she left, and our parting brought tears to her eyes and a knot to my throat.