League of Spies

by Robert Merle

  “Let’s get out of here, Miroul,” I hissed. “They’re going to cut us to pieces!”

  Unfortunately, to make our escape we had to head in the opposite direction from our lodgings and refuge, retreating back across the Pont Notre-Dame and ending up in the Île de la Cité, where I knew of no friendly haven. This we did at a walk, since the crowds were so thick we thought we might be able to escape by simply melting into the mass. But when we got to a more open space, we saw ten spadaccini sprinting after us, and we had to make a dash for it.

  “Miroul,” I cried, “these rascals are gaining on us. This next street is deserted, the mob busy shouting ‘Long live Guise!’, so let’s unsheathe our swords and wait for them!”

  “Monsieur, you can’t be serious!” whispered Miroul. “There are ten of them—ten to two is too many!”

  “All right then, let’s play Horace in the fable. At the next corner, we’ll take out our pistols and shoot the first two in the bunch. Then run for it again, and do the same again later. Six to two is much better odds.”

  “Monsieur,” replied Miroul, “I don’t know who this Horace fellow was, but he must have been pretty smart!”

  So we did what I’d suggested, which had the effect not only of diminishing their number (may the Lord pardon us for killing our assailants to save our skins) but also of slowing them down, since, after seeing what had happened to the first four, none of them wanted to be the leader of the pack, and consequently we left them for dust. However, when we left the tiny twisting streets of the Île de la Cité and came out onto the Pont Notre-Dame, which was unfortunately as straight as a carpenter’s ruler, our pursuers fanned out across the width of the bridge (which was lined with houses on each side) and had at us like winged devils. Miroul had just time to drop one in his tracks with a throw of his knife. The rest were on us in a flash; there was nothing we could do but draw our swords, and, as soon as we crossed blades, I immediately understood the immense danger we were in. This wouldn’t be a spot of light fencing—these men were professional swordsmen.

  “Use Jarnac’s thrust, Monsieur!” cried Miroul in langue d’oc. After having learnt this secret from Giacomi years previously, I’d promised him I’d never use it except in the last extremity, but I prepared to use it now on the most fearsome-looking of the three assailants who still faced me after I’d slashed the fourth on the arm. Just then, out of nowhere surged a young masked man, who called in a sweet and sing-song voice:

  “Five against two, that’s too many! I won’t tolerate it!”

  So saying, he unsheathed his weapon and ran to my side. This freed me from one of my adversaries and, with the wounded man quitting the fight, I began to regain some hope, despite the expertise of the spadaccino who now faced me. I tested his skills so slyly with a quick thrust that he leapt backwards two steps as if he’d been stung. This retreat gave me time to glance at the young gentleman at my side; I noticed in the blink of an eye his beardless cheek, his bright eyes behind the mask (which stopped at his nose) and the delicacy of his ringed hand.

  “Monsieur, I thank you!” I said, but he said not a word in response, so, seeing my spadaccino retreating again, I advanced towards him and said, “Well now, you cad, you don’t seem to have much desire to continue!”

  “Monsieur,” he said, saluting me from afar with his sword, “excuse me, but it seems to me that the way you first engaged me, you have some secret trick.”

  “Rascal,” I replied, “would it be a secret if I bragged about it? Come on then! You can see for yourself!”

  “Monsieur,” he said, suddenly bowing and calmly resheathing his sword, “my job is to kill and not to be killed. I won’t engage you further, I swear by the Blessed Virgin.”

  Hearing this, the only spadaccino still in the lists—Miroul having wounded one of his two assailants and the beardless gentleman having dropped his opponent on the pavement—didn’t wait around to be dispatched to another world by our three swords, and showed us his heels.

  “Messieurs,” said the gentleman with the sing-song voice, “I have a refuge a stone’s throw from here. Let’s head over there. It’s not a very sure thing to be for the king given the state things are in here.”

  So, off we went in a trice. I kept my eye on him as he ran beside me and noticed that he was far from being as adroit at running as he was at swordplay, and, for his part, he kept smiling at me with a genteel but somewhat humorous look from under his wide hat.

  “Miroul,” I asked as we ran along, “where are we?”

  “Quai des Bernardins, Monsieur.”

  “Monsieur,” I said to the stranger, “are you for the king?”

  “No, Monsieur,” he said with a shrill and fluty voice, “for Elizabeth Regina. Here’s the place, Monsieur. It’s a bakery that by some miracle is still open. I think you know why, and at the word ‘bakery’ you must realize where you are.”

  And even though I did indeed know where I was, the gentleman gave himself the pleasure of explaining things as soon as he’d shown his token, and I mine, and we had been ushered through a hidden door into a small room that was boarded up and lit by candles, even though it was still light outside.

  “Sir,” I said, “how can I ever repay you for the help you brought us! I owe you my—and our—lives!”

  “Repay me?” replied the gentleman with a little laugh and that sing-song voice that seemed to me so charming. “Well, certainly, you can!”

  “And how?”

  “With a kiss.”

  “With a kiss?” I said, astonished.

  “On the mouth.”

  This of course made me look at his mouth, which seemed suddenly familiar, as did his voice, even though it was disguised. And so I proceeded carefully, and then, as soon as I recognized my saviour, with great excitement.

  “So, then!” said the gentleman scornfully. “Do you like men or not?”

  “Lady Markby,” I laughed, “is it sodomy to love your pretty lips?”

  “Ha!” she cried, removing her mask. “You must truly be a Frenchman to have recognized me that way! But, Monsieur, even though you’re certainly gallant, your eyes look tired and sad to me. Wait here a moment. I’m going to ask Lord Stafford to have a chamber prepared for you.”

  As soon as she’d left the room, I threw myself on an armchair and gave full vent to my despair, my throat tied in a knot. Seeing me thus, Miroul came and sat down on my right on a stool.

  “Monsieur,” he comforted, “all is not lost! The king still has his Swiss Guards and he’s still in his Louvre.”

  “Ah, Miroul! A city is like a woman. You can’t keep her if she doesn’t want to be kept! From now on, Paris belongs to Guise. She gave herself wholeheartedly to him. Now he’s her prince.”

  “But, Monsieur, there’s still the kingdom!”

  “What good is a decapitated kingdom? Is Henri still the king of France when Guise is the king of Paris?”

  14

  THAT NIGHT I COULDN’T sleep for agonizing thoughts about my poor master, who was going to find himself besieged in his Louvre (as soon as Guise slyly threw the reins to the people), and only fell asleep at dawn as daylight was filtering through the shutters of my room. Doubtless I could have slept till evening if Lady Markby hadn’t entered my room, followed by a barber and a chambermaid carrying a brilliant new suit of clothes.

  “Zounds!” she exclaimed, using Elizabeth’s favourite swear word. “What kind of lark is this that lies in its nest sleeping instead of greeting the new day with its radiant song? My Pierre, it’s time for you to hop out of your nest and fly to your meeting with Lord Stafford, who will see you in an hour and share some news with you.”

  “Good or bad?” I cried, my heart pounding in my chest.

  “Bad and good. In a word, Henri is safely out of Paris.”

  “Thank God!”

  “Wait a moment before you thank Him. If the Invincible Armada is launched, Elizabeth and Henri will drown together. But enough about that. Every day brings its par
ticular distress. My Pierre, you cannot see Lord Stafford dressed like that. He’s very particular about etiquette and won’t even look in the mirror if he isn’t properly dressed in his collar and doublet. So I asked for a barber to shave off your merchant’s beard and curl up your poor untended hair. What’s more, I’ve borrowed a suit of clothes from one of our young gentlemen that will be more appropriate to your rank and this serious situation. Beautify yourself, my pretty fellow! ‘Truly’, as your Alizon would say, to whom I sent a messenger this morning to let her know that you’re safe. Am I not a good angel?”

  “Beautiful and beneficent!”

  “Ah, I recognize your golden tongue there! ‘Truly’, as your silly impertinent girlfriend would say, who shot me dead with her look each time she saw me, yesterday I had little interest in kissing those lips of yours hidden away in that nest of a beard. So, my Pierre, I’ll be back for you in an hour.”

  With a somewhat bloodthirsty laugh she was away, her hoop skirts sweeping out of my room, more lively and rapid than a panther in peril. But danger seemed to provide her with a kind of nourishment without which she would have starved and withered away, so that it was little wonder that her house and husband in Shropshire saw so little of her. She simply wasn’t made for domestic bliss.

  Lord Edward, Baron Stafford—to whom I was introduced in my new (though borrowed) plumage, and whom I’d only seen once before in my life, at the door to the king’s apartments—responded with but a brief nod to my bow to him. He had a natural hauteur that matched his physical height and his majestic frame—straight as a board—with square shoulders and not a trace of stomach (though he was past forty years of age); his long face encompassed a closely trimmed beard, a short moustache, cold grey eyes and a long nose. He was superbly clad, though in the English manner, the collar of his doublet extending far up his neck, and above it a thin ruff that framed his jaw. He wore no jewels other than the Order of the Garter, on which a crimson cross was surrounded by a sun, each of whose golden flames ended in a pearl.

  His doublet was of the English style, worn quite tight around the body (quite the opposite of ours at that time), and very tightly buttoned as well, which nicely set off his trim waist and athletic frame. In his carriage he was stiff and disdainful, as rugged as the Dover cliffs, but not without a twinkle in his eye that shone from time to time either in amusement or in benevolence—at least towards me, whose great love of his country and his sovereign he appreciated, but it didn’t take long to discover that he could be biting and disdainful with another, whom I will shortly name. In short, he had the appearance and the demeanour of a great lord who never forgot that he was in Paris, so hateful to his religion and his queen, who was the visible incarnation of a great kingdom of Christendom, a country justifiably proud of itself, all the more brave and intrepid now that it was threatened from without.

  “Monsieur chevalier,” he said, after I’d presented him with both my respects and my thanks for his benevolent help, “I’m pressed for time and so I must be brief in informing you of news regarding your master. The Parisians, drunk with their victory over him, which they owe only to the excessive benignity of his heart, last night put up barricades around the Louvre in an effort to capture the palace and seize the person of the king. Henri has no expectation that Guise will calm the people, since he knows that secretly he’s egging them on, and, not wishing to engage in a bloody combat (a wise decision), he decided to quit the palace with his 4,000 Swiss and French Guards and to withdraw to Chartres. He managed to do this quite dexterously yesterday afternoon, without saying anything to the two queens, since he knew he couldn’t trust either of them. Sneaking out of the Louvre through the secret door, he pretended to be taking a walk in the Tuileries, managed to reach his stables, mounted a horse and left through the Porte Neuve, the only gate that was still in the hands of his troops. Once outside the walls, they took off and left this ungrateful city behind them—a city that Henri has deeply loved, as you know. Is it not strange,” Lord Stafford continued, “that he has been a king in two countries and has had to flee his capital in both? The first time from Warsaw and the second from Paris.”

  “But,” I asked with a terrible knot in my throat, “doesn’t his departure signal that he’s lost his country?”

  “Not at all!” replied Lord Stafford. “I’ll say it again: your master was very wise. No power in the world could win a street fight in such a large city against an armed populace in revolt, supported by a powerful segment of the nobility—unless possibly they were willing to resort to cannon fire and massacre.”

  “So having lost his capital, what advantage will the king have in Chartres, apart from his Swiss Guards?”

  “His legitimacy,” answered Lord Stafford gravely, “which is an immense power. And one that the Duc de Guise cannot lay claim to at this time, something he understands only too well, since he has dispatched the Comte de Brissac to speak with me—and to what end I can easily imagine. Monsieur chevalier, the comte is waiting in my antechamber and I would like to ask you to be a witness to this conversation, so that you can repeat it verbatim to your master. If you will oblige me by going into this little room here, I’ll leave the door partly open so that you may hear our words without being seen by the comte. Would you agree to cooperate?”

  “Monseigneur,” I replied, “wholeheartedly, especially given your part in acting frankly and nobly with my poor master in the dangerous predicament he finds himself in—and in which you yourself are caught, since your embassy is situated in the midst of a people who are rioting and who are hostile to your queen.”

  “But she is protecting me even here since I am her representative,” said Lord Stafford with an expression so proud and fearless that I foresaw that Brissac was going to have more trouble than even the poor Swiss Guards, who, even under a hail of stones, were forbidden from firing on the people. “Forgive me,” Lord Stafford continued, “for enclosing you here in this dark, windowless cabinet, and for leaving the door open only a crack, but I must take my precautions, for Brissac is very fox-like and I don’t want him to get wind of you. Moreover, the darkness will allow you to put your eye to the crack and watch us without being seen.”

  Scarcely, however, had I entered the little room when a strong, finely manicured hand seized my right wrist in the darkness and a voice I recognized immediately whispered in my ear:

  “It’s me, Pierre.”

  “What?” I hissed. “Are you spying on Lord Stafford in his own house, Lady Markby?”

  “Not at all! He has the entire confidence of the queen and the Moor. I’m just here to hide you if Brissac happens to open this door for whatever reason.”

  “Hide me? Is there a hidden door or cupboard in here?”

  “No, but I’m tall and my hoop skirts are remarkably ample.”

  “What? Are you suggesting I’d hide behind a woman’s skirts?”

  “Not behind,” she corrected. “That wouldn’t be safe enough if the comte decided to walk around me.”

  “Then I don’t see where the hiding place would be.”

  “Think on it,” she murmured in my ear, nibbling on it. “You are a Frenchman. I leave it to your imagination.”

  This said, she placed her hand on my mouth—and it was a good thing she did for, despite the gravity of the situation, I nearly burst out laughing, having finally understood this rascally kitten.

  Anyone who’d seen the Comte de Brissac in profile, as he entered Lord Stafford’s house, would have thought him a very handsome fellow, since his squint-eyed and lopsided expression would have been hidden. His true face, if I may phrase it thus, could only be appreciated head-on. Which reminded me that his master, Guise, also had two very different profiles, since the scar that he had near his left eye made it water from time to time. The result was that, when he laughed, one could see him laughing on his right side and crying on his left, having, like Janus, two faces—but both of them false.

  It became quickly evident, listening to him fro
m within the cabinet, that in hypocrisy and dishonesty, Brissac was every bit Guise’s equal, since he began by heaping protestations and promises on Lord Stafford of his great friendship, which were meant to be golden but which his ridiculous exaggeration turned to lead. Meanwhile, at the end of this string of compliments you could see the fox’s ears emerging, when he proposed to Lord Stafford, on behalf of the Magnificent, to place a guard in his house to “protect” its occupants from attacks and pillaging by the angry mob outside—who were, he claimed, “running around like mad bulls” that nothing in the world could restrain but the duc’s hand.

  “Comte,” replied Lord Stafford, who understood perfectly well that they were offering him this protection solely in order to establish a diplomatic link between Guise and him (which, of course, would imply that he had officially recognized the duc’s authority in Paris), “if I were just any individual living here, I would gratefully accept the safeguard that the Duc de Guise has the generosity to offer me, and would go immediately to see him and thank him in person. But living in Paris in my capacity as minister and ambassador of Queen Elizabeth to the king of France, I could not, and would not want to, accept any guard or offer of safety and protection from any authority but the king’s.”

  This was stated courteously and in French, but had a resolute and decisive ring to it, though Brissac had spoken to him in English, a language he spoke quite passably. However, in his next response to Lord Stafford, which he delivered with some heat, the comte fell back on his native tongue.