by Tim Willocks
‘How much for this baby’s smock?’
‘Sire, this is not a “smock” but, rather, a christening gown, and one that – for a garment in which to receive the most sacred of the Sacraments – would be fit to clothe a princess or a prince.’
The merchant launched into a paean to the gown’s Italian weave, its artful lace fillings and the cloth-of-silver embellishments to its collar.
‘They ship these from Venice by the bale, so spare me the performance.’
The draper named his price. Tannhauser laughed at him.
‘Make me a fair bargain and you’ll go home with some silver in your pocket. It will likely be the last you’ll earn in a good while.’
‘Why should that be, sire?’
‘Why? The Huguenot rebellion. You haven’t heard?’
‘Is it true? The Huguenots intend to cut the King’s throat and pillage the city?’
‘I am at this moment on my way to the Louvre. If I were you I’d load this stock on a mule and head south. These fanatics despise finery and bright colours, as you well know. The only use they’ll have for these silks is stringing up our priests, and perhaps us, too.’
The draper surveyed his merchandise in agony.
‘I wasn’t going to open my stall today but we were ordered to do so by the Bureau de Ville. “To maintain a semblance of normality.” I ask you. Why can’t they maintain such a semblance? The country is run by maniacs and thieves.’
‘Does that pass for news in Paris?’
‘To the Louvre, you say.’
‘I’ve already said too much. But keep it to yourself or we’ll see a panic.’
The draper glanced at his fellows who crammed the hall. He nodded.
‘Now,’ said Tannhauser. ‘Do you want to sell the smock or not?’
The bargain was so favourable that Tannhauser headed down the hall and purchased breeches, nether socks and shoes for Grégoire. As the bewildered boy was trying on the latter for size, Tannhauser spotted a man of thirty years or so, and dressed in bottle-green velvet, watching him from behind a display of shirts. There was something of the weasel about him; he seemed malformed without actually being so. The weasel turned and disappeared. His face was vaguely familiar but Tannhauser could not place him. He had seen more faces in the last hour than he had seen in the past year. The episode itched him. Before he could dwell, a throaty voice roared above the din.
‘Ho! By the hairy chin of the Prophet, can that be Mattias Tannhauser?’
At an alcove in one of the galleries stood a Spaniard, a year or two over forty, who wore a fine but understated livery. It was badged with crossed maces and crossed keys on a red and gold field. Tannhauser knew him to be an Estrameño. As if that wasn’t enough, nature had built him to inspire fear in all but the bravest; a decade of killing for the Tercio of Naples, and exterminating Waldensians for the Inquisition, had done the rest. He was armed with sword and pistol, and at least two concealed daggers that Tannhauser marked. Under the livery he wore a breastplate.
Tannhauser walked over.
‘Guzman. Why don’t they have you in the prison down below?’
Guzman laughed. They shook hands. Both spoke in Italian.
‘I’ve come up in the world. So, it seems, have you. Shopping in the Grand Hall?’
‘Something for Carla, my wife.’
‘Blessings and congratulations. I trust it is a happy match.’
‘I’ll be happy when I find her. I have just arrived. Carla’s somewhere in the city but I don’t know where.’
‘Many a wife’s been lost and found in Paris. Perhaps I can help. I’m not without a measure of influence, thanks to my master. You’ve heard of Albert Gondi, the Comte de Retz?’
Retz was a Florentine soldier who had entered the service of Henri II at the time of Henri’s marriage to Catherine de Medici, some twenty-five years before. He had remained, and survived, and risen, in the inmost circle of the royal council ever since. Tannhauser nodded.
‘I’m Retz’s bodyguard. That’s to say, he has guards by the regiment when he wants them, but I’m his shadow. It’s mine to take the bullet or the blade.’
‘How did you come into his service?’
‘I saved him from three assassins on the street, in Tours, October of ’69, just after Moncontour. I didn’t know who he was but I knew God’s luck when I saw it. Wasn’t much of a contest. But can you guess why Retz gave me the job?’
‘I would have kept one alive.’
‘The times I’ve set that riddle and never got the answer. They use a water torture here that makes the victim beg for the thumbscrews, and beg that fellow did, and so did those he named, and those that they named, until I wondered if they’d run out of rope.’
‘As long as there are necks, there’ll be rope.’
‘Retz has been the King’s personal counsellor since the King was a boy, and there’s no one closer to Queen Catherine, though if he ever swived her, as some whisper, it was before my time. Retz has worked for peace. He calculates there’s more money in it. But if war it must be, he’s the man.’
‘How badly is Coligny hurt?’
‘He turned to spit in the gutter at the moment the shots were fired, or he’d be dead.’
‘Shots?’
‘A double load. One ball smashed his right hand, the other his left arm. Paré amputated some fingers, but Coligny will live. The marksman was a member of the Guise faction. Retz and I haven’t slept since. Meetings here, soundings there, parleys galore. What was that knot Alexander cut?’
‘The Gordian knot.’
‘That’s the task fallen to Retz.’
‘Does he have the sword to do it?’
‘The King is his sword, if Retz can unsheathe him. But tell me more about this wife.’
‘She was invited to this cursed wedding.’
‘Cursed indeed.’
‘Am I right to worry for her safety?’
Guzman shrugged, as if not to overalarm him.
‘If any lady of sufficient note to be invited to the wedding had been murdered, I’d have heard of it. At the same time, the sooner she’s with you, the better. Who is she, if I may ask?’
‘A contessa of old Sicilian blood. Her fief is on the Garonne. She was invited to play music at Queen Catherine’s ball last night.’
‘There was no music. The Queen’s Ball was cancelled, because of the shooting.’
Tannhauser absorbed this irony without comment.
‘A steward at the Louvre knows where Carla is lodging. Christian Picart.’
‘The court’s attendants number over ten thousand, with this wedding even more. But stick with me.’ Guzman nodded at a door in the alcove. ‘When this cabal with the magistrates is over, that’s where we go. The inner circle is summoned to cut the knot.’
A handsome man, around fifty, emerged in a pale grey doublet. A man playing dice with history and who expected to win, whatever the throw. He sized up Tannhauser.
‘One of your old comrades, Guzman?’
‘Your Grace, may I present Mattias Tannhauser, Cavaliere di Malta, and even within that brotherhood a man amongst men. We faced the heathen Turk together on the Bastion of Castile.’
Retz bowed, ‘Albert Gondi, Comte de Retz.’
‘An honour, your Excellency. Mattias Tannhauser, Comte de La Penautier.’
‘The honour is mine. The best of us are humbled by the epic of Malta. In the Queen’s own words, the greatest siege of them all.’ His Italian, like his voice, was refined. ‘But you must excuse me for I’m expected at the palace.’
‘I’ve some business of my own to conduct there,’ said Tannhauser.
‘Ride with me. With your permission, I would take your counsel along the way.’
Tannhauser took a breath through his nostrils.
It would take a very great philosopher indeed to explain the wars that had drenched the country in woe and set kin and lifelong neighbours at each other’s throats. Tannhauser was content to wait f
or that sage to emerge, though he did not expect his arrival much before Armageddon. Nor did he expect such wisdom as might be revealed to in any way mitigate the madness and hatred certain to be swilling about the globe when that day dawned. Differences in scriptural exegesis so fine that few bishops understood them were the ostensible cause for the violence between Catholics and Protestants, but to Tannhauser such grand causes were no more than the usual devices by which the elites persuaded the gullible to die and degrade themselves, in enormous number, on their behalf, and to their advantage. Diverse political feuds and rivalries, the ambitions of provincial warlords, and the general economic disaster engineered from on high, were the stronger poisons in the brew. The wagon of War was always filled to the raves with sordid motives; and always sheeted in a gaudy banner. The faithful might fight for God, but the winnings would be reckoned in power, land and gold, and divided among the few.
Such as Retz.
Tannhauser said, ‘I’ve no particular grudge against the Huguenots.’
‘Good,’ said Retz. ‘Neither do I.’
The windows of Retz’s carriage were curtained with muslin. Bags of lavender and perfumed cushions meant that Tannhauser could breathe without clenching his teeth. He had rarely ridden in a carriage and thought them both uncomfortable and effeminate, but in Paris this was a civilised way to travel. The coachman cracked his whip and bellowed at the riff-raff in the thoroughfare. Guzman rode on a lookout platform bolted to the rear. Grégoire ran behind the carriage. Tannhauser waited to hear what price the ride would cost him.
‘The journey is short, so I’ll be brief,’ said Retz. ‘There are some two hundred Huguenot nobles in the city, the higher echelons of their movement, along with their retainers. They are lodged in the old apartments of the Louvre and in various of the nearby Hôtels Particuliers.’
He said this with the certainty of a man who possessed a list.
‘The attempt on Admiral Coligny’s life has left these noblemen shouting for justice. Some have threatened the person of Queen Catherine. Our young King is of a sensitive temperament and he holds the Admiral in very great affection and esteem. His Majesty is enraged that parties unknown should shoot his honoured guest while His Majesty was playing tennis. He smashed his racket in frustration. He wept with grief and shame at Coligny’s bedside. He has forbidden the people of Paris to take up arms. He has cleared all Catholics from the streets around the Hôtel Béthizy, so that the Admiral might be surrounded by his own men. He has sworn to avenge this crime or lose his soul. This morning a judicial inquiry, staffed at the King’s insistence with Huguenot sympathisers, concluded – but did not prove – that Henri, Duke of Guise, was behind the plot.’
He paused and studied Tannhauser.
An assassin acting in Coligny’s interest had murdered Guise’s father almost a decade before. Like the King, who loathed him, Guise was twenty-two. Some believed he coveted the throne on the basis of a bloodline to Saint Louis. Catholic militants, and the people of Paris, adored him.
‘If Guise wanted revenge for his father,’ said Tannhauser, ‘he has greater patience than I.’
‘Unrequited revenge is a potent elixir. Sip it every day and life has a meaning, a purpose.’
‘The true identity of the plotters is immaterial. The Huguenots will convince themselves that the scheme was hatched long ago – by the Queen, the King, the Guises, the Pope, and anyone else whose name they want to blacken.’
‘Would you suspect Catherine of the plot?’
‘It runs against the grain of her policy.’
The satisfaction with which Retz received this made Tannhauser wonder if he, and most others, had not been gulled precisely as the Queen intended.
‘Suppose we yield to the King’s sensitivities,’ said Retz. ‘What next?’
‘That depends on Coligny.’
‘Coligny will carry himself like Christ Resurrected and garner more power. That’s why he’s stayed in the city, instead of leaving, as his comrades have urged. Which brings us to the heart of the problem. Coligny has been pressing the King to go to war with Spain, in the Low Countries. He believes it will unite French Catholics and Protestants under a single banner.’
‘That is hard to credit in a man of sound mind.’
‘He claims such a war was the price agreed for his consent to the marriage.’
‘The wedding required Coligny’s consent? And he’s allowed to say so?’
Retz did not respond to this critique of the Crown’s diplomacy.
‘A month ago a Huguenot army crossed into Flanders. Alva crushed them at Mons. A letter from the King was found on Genlis, the leader of the disaster, promising His Majesty’s support for the Dutch rebels.’
Tannhauser grunted and left it at that.
‘The Crown is massively in debt and dependent on Italian bankers,’ continued Retz. ‘Another conflict with Spain would be a catastrophe, yet His Majesty wavers, at least when Coligny has his ear.’
‘Why is an habitual warmonger like Coligny allowed anywhere near the King’s ear?’
‘The King is only twenty-two years old.’
‘By that age Alexander was sizing up the walls of Persepolis.’
‘You are right, up to a point.’ Retz paused. ‘On the night that His Majesty first slept with a woman, I was present throughout the occasion, to help make sure that all went well. And all did go well, for to make things go well for His Majesty is my calling. So you see, beyond that point, you are wrong, for, whatever his abilities, the King is the king.’
Tannhauser gritted his teeth.
‘Tannhauser, I am surrounded by sycophants and liars. Your bluntness is gold, unaccustomed to it though I am. Now. Two days ago Coligny made an explicit threat: that the King must choose between a foreign war or a civil war.’
‘Does threatening a king no longer pass for treason?’
‘His Majesty loves Coligny, almost as the father he hardly knew.’
‘Coligny loves only war. Without war he’s just another provincial grandee. He is nothing. Hence he has nothing to lose and I’d take him at his word: the next war has already begun.’
‘A Huguenot army of four thousand men is bivouacked a day’s march from Paris. They have no intention of attacking and have no need to do so. Coligny claims they are loyal subjects, but they are not commanded by the King, and therefore their very presence is a challenge to royal authority. They are also a source of terror to the common populace.’
‘Why do you tell me all this?’
‘I would like to know what you would do in this circumstance.’
‘If I were you?’
‘If you were the King.’
Tannhauser felt a pressure in his skull. The months he had spent in the wilderness, at sea and in the desert, had cleansed him of such concerns. He had melted into the power of being alive in the world as God had made it. He had forgotten the world that humans had fashioned in its stead.
‘Please, speak freely,’ said Retz.
‘Coligny is a strongman. He knows, as does any beggar, that the King is – or is seen to be – weak. It galls strong men to take their orders from a weakling. Or worse, a weakling’s mother.’
‘Then you don’t approve of the Edict of Toleration.’
‘One tolerates an attack of the piles, not warlords like Gaspard Coligny.’
Tannhauser had so far escaped the former affliction but was familiar enough with the latter. He wished he were back in the Land of God, with the travellers of Timbuctoo.
‘Are the Huguenots not entitled to freedom of conscience?’
‘Coligny’s captains don’t sit in the taverns debating the Real Presence of Christ in the Mass. They talk of women and horses, not the nature of the Divine. They’ve no more a clue what they fight for than the Catholics. This is a war between believers who don’t understand what they believe in. It’s a question of power, not religion. Does power reside in the state, as embodied by the King? Or is power to be dispersed among the warlords a
nd their mercenaries? But you don’t need me to tell you that.’
The carriage rattled to a halt and creaked as Guzman climbed down. A rap on the door.
‘The Louvre, your Excellency.’
Retz looked at Tannhauser. ‘How would you answer that question?’
‘The King doesn’t need my advice.’
‘To the contrary. A man of the world, untainted by the intrigues of the court? A cooler mind. A man who has no cards to play in this game.’
Tannhauser grimaced.
‘The Huguenot elites defy the King, in his own palace. They speak treason. They demand wars. They threaten his kingdom. They threaten his mother.’
Tannhauser paused. Retz worked his charms well. He did not much like it.
‘I’d kill them all,’ said Tannhauser.
‘The entire Protestant aristocracy?’
‘Just their grandees.’
‘A radical solution. Can you elaborate?’
‘I doubt I’m the first to suggest the stratagem.’
‘The particulars are of interest.’
‘Decapitate the high command and the next war will be a lesser war. If the game is resolved with a modicum of political skill – a treacherous conspiracy decisively crushed, taxes will be cut, apples of solid silver will fall from the trees, etcetera and so forth – there may be no war at all.’
‘You advocate the killing of, let us say forty nobles – and their guards and retainers – who are guests in the King’s palace and under his protection.’ Retz’s voice suggested the stratagem was indeed familiar. ‘Men from many of the oldest families in France.’
