by Kate Mosse
‘What manner of a woman?’ he asked quickly.
‘I don’t know. I didn’t see her.’
‘Was she in her later years? Did she give her name?’
Minou held his gaze. ‘Piet, do you know who she is?’
Piet flushed, then hesitated. ‘I may do. Was she a nun?’
‘A nun!’
‘Someone in religious orders, at least.’
‘As I say, I did not see her, though I tend to think if she had been so the maid would have said.’ She took a breath. ‘Aimeric counselled me to be patient, but I have waited for weeks for you to confide in me. It has put a wall between us, you on the one side and I on the other.’
‘Minou.’
She kept talking. ‘All I would say is this. If the reason you hold your peace is because you are trying to protect me from something, or trying to shield me from distress, I beg you – as always – to reconsider. There should be nothing you cannot share with me.’
Piet stood a moment, swirling the wine in his cup. ‘Might Salvadora be kept waiting a moment longer?’
Minou’s heart skipped a beat. ‘She will understand.’
He gave a sharp nod of his head. ‘Very well, you have the right to know.’
Now the moment had come, Minou was suddenly anxious about what Piet might tell her. Then, she felt the slightest shifting of the light. It was better to know and face the truth head on than always to be wondering. Imagination had a habit of painting the world darker than it truly was, wasn’t that what the philosophers said? And what her own pernicious thoughts in those dark hours between midnight and dawn taught her?
‘Let us repair to our chamber,’ Piet said. ‘I would not be overheard.’
CHAPTER TWENTY
Marta stormed down the stairs, still in a fury about the scolding she had received from her mother.
‘If I was not so dismissed, I would have no need to ask the servants,’ she complained. ‘It’s not fair. Aunt Alis would have answered me.’
The portrait upon the wall kept his silence.
Marta stopped at the small window on the half-landing, her heart full of injustice, just in time to see their carriage pull away at the end of the rue des Barres. Marta’s hands balled into fists. She had not thought for an instant her mother would make good on her threat to go to the Sainte-Chapelle and leave her behind.
She had been going to ask if they might detour via the street where all the glove makers had their shops. All being well, she had even intended to suggest they might return from the Île de la Cité via the other side of the river. She’d overheard the scullery maids talking about how the mignons of the Queen Mother’s youngest son – men who were half-girl and half-boy – paraded along the Boulevard Saint-Germain carrying lapdogs, even monkeys, in little waistcoats and hats.
Now she was to be denied all of these astonishing sights.
Marta pressed her face against the glass. In the bright world beyond the confines of the house, she could see people walking in rich and lavish clothes. ‘All for show,’ Maman would say, ‘speaking nothing of a man’s true worth.’ But what harm was there in colourful things? If a person was favoured by wealth or fortune, Marta did not understand why they should not be allowed to display it.
And here she was, stuck inside, with the prospect of another dull day, closeted within the four walls of the house. And Jean-Jacques constantly shrieking and the nurse fussing over his every move.
Marta sighed. She was so neglected. Even when everyone was at home, time hung heavy on her hands. There was nothing to do. Papa was mostly absent, doing whatever it was he did. Uncle Aimeric spent his days in the company of Admiral de Coligny and never came to visit, Maman was always distracted and Great-aunt Boussay was, well, herself. If only Aunt Alis had come with them. She was amusing. Alis would have taken Marta on a new trip every day, had she wished it.
Then she had a thought. Marta raised her head from the window, feeling a flutter of excitement in her stomach. She would be told off again, if she was caught, but since the nurse would be occupied with Jean-Jacques and everyone else had gone to the Sainte-Chapelle, who was there to catch her?
She walked as quietly as she could, up the stairs to the family sleeping quarters on the third floor, then along the corridor towards her parents’ chamber. She knocked, just in case, though she had no expectation there would be anyone in there at this time of day. She knocked again, a little louder, to be certain. Then, she pushed open the door and stepped inside.
Every corner of the chamber shimmered with the presence of her mother: her scent, her shoes and clothes. Her hairbrush and glass on the dresser, heirlooms of the Carcassonnais grandmother Marta had never met, the blue-and-gold enamel box given as a gift in Limoges, her green travelling cloak hanging on the wardrobe door.
Of her father’s presence, there was less evidence. Just a faint smell of the sandalwood oil he used upon his hair and his riding gloves, lying one on top of the other on the nightstand beside the canopy bed.
Marta closed the door and went straight to her mother’s wooden casket, which contained her most precious possessions. Feeling the thrill of transgression, every sense heightened by the promise of wrongdoing, Marta opened the box. She had no plan beyond discovering what sort of trinkets her mother had brought with her from Puivert. It was curiosity, not avarice, that tempted her to look.
Marta dismissed the plain old Bible her mother kept always with her, as well as her journal, tied with a leather cord and filled with scraps of paper and parchment, the shabby map of Carcassonne drawn in chalk. Her fingers rummaged around in the casket, prying and shifting. She found a ring – tourmaline, her mother’s birthstone, set in silver. It was pretty enough, and the pink and speckled shards within it glistered in the morning light, but too big to fit her finger. Several lace cuffs were neatly folded, nothing exceptional. Then her fingers touched some beads. They rattled against the side of the casket as she drew them out.
It was a wooden rosary with a plain silver cross. Marta was bewildered. Prayer beads were for Catholics. Gran’père Bernard and Great-aunt Boussay followed the old ways, but Maman was a Huguenot, like Papa.
Without warning, the door opened and a servant walked in with a tray of drinks. In a fluster, Marta slammed shut the casket lid and thrust the chaplet into her pocket.
‘Mademoiselle Marta!’
‘I was waiting upon my mother,’ she stammered, guilt loosening her tongue. ‘I thought to find her here.’
The maid’s eyes narrowed. ‘My lady is downstairs with your father.’
Marta was horrified. ‘But Maman went to the Sainte-Chapelle. I saw the carriage pull away…’
‘Madame Boussay went alone.’ The servant’s eyes swept around the room, as if looking for something out of place, then returned to Marta. ‘Will you wait for her, mademoiselle?’
‘No!’ Marta gave her prettiest smile. ‘I had something to tell her, but it can wait.’
She walked out of the room with as much dignity as she could muster, the purloined beads heavy in her pocket. As soon as she was out of sight, she started to run, hoping the servant would hold her tongue. Marta had been denied her promised visit to the Sainte-Chapelle. She would die if she was forbidden to go to the wedding, too.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
LA SAINTE-CHAPELLE, ÎLE DE LA CITÉ
Salvadora Boussay stood in the crowd, breathless with awe, in the upper chapel of the Sainte-Chapelle, and thanked the good fortune that had brought her to stand here in God’s presence.
She had memorised every detail and learnt all there was to know about the provenance of the building, but the glory of it surpassed even her expectations. The Sainte-Chapelle had been completed in the year 1248. A labour of grace, commissioned by the greatest of the medieval Christian kings, Saint Louis, to house the treasures of Christ’s Passion brought back from the Holy Land via Constantinople – pieces of the True Cross, the Holy Lance that pierced Christ’s side when he was crucified, a vial cont
aining drops of Christ’s blood and the Crown of Thorns, the biggest prize of all. The King himself had, barefoot and penitent, accompanied the precious relics on the last stage of their journey into Paris.
Diamonds of multi-coloured light, from the flamboyant rose window in the western wall and the stained-glass windows in the vaulted apse, flooded the chamber. Each of them, soaring to some ten times the height of a man, illustrated a scene from the Bible. From Genesis to the Apocalypse, the images changing by the hours of the day with the passage of the sun across the Parisian sky.
Statues of the twelve apostles stood on pillars beneath the exquisite rib-vaulted ceiling. Salvadora looked, and found the particular niches set into the wall intended in the past for the royal families of France and, there beyond, was the Oratory, added some two hundred years after the foundation stone had been laid, allowing later kings and queens to observe Mass privately through a grille in the wall.
But more beautiful than all this was the grande châsse, the guilded reliquary box, enshrined atop the tribune at the east end, and built to house the royal relic collection: a casket of gold, enamel, rock crystal, pearl, ruby and sapphires. A symbol of Christ’s suffering, of his willingness to lay down his life so that mankind could live for ever. Salvadora felt quite giddy with the miracle of God’s love made manifest.
Then, she blinked.
Perhaps it was the heat tricking her senses, or the trial of standing looking up for so long, but she could have sworn she saw movement at the top of the Gothic tribune, behind the screen. Or perhaps the sheer wonder of being present in this holiest of places was more than she could bear.
Salvadora felt a wave of nausea. She flapped her fan, but it did not help. She felt quite faint, both cold and hot at the same time. She stumbled back from the reliquary and turned away, looking desperately for somewhere to sit until the dizziness passed.
* * *
High above the chamber, Louis edged his way round the narrow platform until he was in a perfect position, then he crouched on the ledge and peered through the gaps in the screen at the preparations below.
The morning service was over. All that remained were the smell of polish and beeswax and incense grown cold. Motes of dust floated in the air. There was the unmistakable air of abandonment after a celebration was over. Everything seemed a little less bright, a little less special.
In the milling mass of faces and ecclesiastical robes, Vidal – Cardinal Valentin – stood out. Louis took off his cap to cool himself. Though Xavier took spiteful pleasure in blackening Louis’s hair each morning with coal tar to disguise the white strip that matched Vidal’s, when he thought himself unobserved, Louis saw in his father’s eyes a desire to acknowledge him as his son. Though nothing had yet been spoken out loud, the physical similarities and mannerisms were evident to all. Louis knew the steward dripped poison in his ear about Louis’s behaviour and that a whipping awaited him if he ever went out with his head uncovered. Xavier had punished him once – with great ferocity – and if he was discovered hiding in the reliquary itself, he would be beaten again even more savagely.
Then again, he did not intend to be caught.
Louis put his cap back on and looked down. Some days previously, he had watched preparations for the feast day of the Crown of Thorns in this cavernous upper chapel. He’d observed the churchmen checking and double checking, the servants running to and fro. The hot morning had been filled with a sense of purpose. With this most Catholic of celebrations, there was no need to compromise or adapt to the requirements of the time. Louis believed no more in this superstition than in any other – it was ridiculous to believe that such an object might have been worn by Christ upon the Cross and survived its journey across continents and centuries – but he understood that the symbolic value of the Crown of Thorns outweighed common sense. The mass of people, the superstitious and the slow-witted, believed such relics could transform their lives. What interested Louis was why his father had given the arrangements such attention and why Xavier, usually such a permanent malignant presence within their lodgings, had spent the days both before and after the ceremony here in the Sainte-Chapelle.
In the event, the ceremony on 11 August had passed without note, yet Louis was certain that it was not an end to the matter. The wedding was tomorrow and he had a suspicion that while all other eyes would be on Notre-Dame, his father’s attention would be set here.
Louis had a stillness and a patience that belied his years. He could stay here, hidden in his cramped eyrie, for as long as it took. All day and all night, if need be. Years of staying in the shadows, especially during the treacherous darkness of the boys’ bedchamber at night when the priests came, had taught Louis to take up no space in the world.
Once he knew what Xavier’s purpose was, it would be another morsel of information with which to bargain. Everything had a value. Everything could be used for advantage or harm.
Louis finally located Xavier in the throng below. On Vidal’s business, or his own? He watched the steward take a purse from his pocket. A hireling’s filthy hand shot out, quicksilver fast, to seize it. Xavier did not let go. For a moment, the two men stood there, as if swearing an oath upon a Bible, then, finally, the steward released the coin. The ruffian slipped it beneath his cloak, bowed and left through the small wooden door in the far corner of the soaring chapel.
The steward glanced around, as if to satisfy himself no one had witnessed the transaction, then he slunk back to stand close to Vidal.
The adoring congregation had formed a crowd around his father after Mass was over. Louis watched person after person kiss his ring and ask for his blessing. A rich old woman, in a black hood, seemed suddenly to stumble in front of him, and had to be helped away.
Stupid, superstitious fools.
Louis knew how piety masked depravity, how those who shouted loudest about God’s work were often those with the blackest hearts.
The disturbance over – the fat widow had gone – Louis leant back against the side of the narrow tribune platform. He did not care what, if anything, Xavier was planning, only that the steward stood in the way of his own advancement. But he had to play his hand carefully. Vidal relied upon Xavier and seemed to have no suspicions of his loyalty.
Time would tell. Louis would say nothing yet, but he would continue to watch and gather evidence. Xavier would betray himself eventually. Men like him always did.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
RUE DES BARRES
Minou sat patiently in an oak armchair in their bedchamber, sipping her wine and watching Piet pace to and fro. She knew he was trying to find the courage to begin.
‘Just talk, mon coeur. The story will tell itself.’
Piet looked over at her, his face desperate with indecision. Minou patted the tapestried seat of the companion armchair. ‘As soon as you start, the words will come. I promise you.’
Piet hesitated a moment longer, then refilled his goblet.
‘Very well,’ he said, and it seemed to Minou that in that instant the air in the chamber grew sharper, expectant.
Piet took a deep breath. ‘At the end of May last, I received a letter. It purported to come from Mariken Hassels, a woman from the Beguine community, who had known me in my childhood in Amsterdam.’
Minou’s mind flew to the tapestry gracing the walls of the solar in the château de Puivert.
‘Begijnhof,’ she said.
He nodded. ‘It was Mariken who saved me. She found me, when my mother was dying, and looked after me until she could find a family to take me in. I spoke French passing well, so they brought me to Languedoc and all remnants of my Dutch past were lost.’
Minou realised she was holding her breath, her heart weeping at the thought of Piet, a bereaved child, left orphaned and alone.
‘Seeing Mariken’s name at the foot of the page after all these years, it brought back such dark memories, Minou. Memories I’d not thought had the power still to harm me.’
‘I understand.’ Sh
e paused. ‘What did the letter say?’
Piet took another breath. ‘That this last spring, a French cardinal had been asking questions about me. Asking if any documents pertaining to my birthright had been left in her possession.’
‘What! Why now, after so long?’
‘She did not say, only that she was delaying answering the cardinal until she knew if I lived. She wanted to warn me, I suppose.’
Minou frowned. ‘How did she find you?’
‘She wrote a letter and gave it into the hands of a Dutch merchant she trusted, in the hope that he might be able to get it to me.’
‘It’s extraordinary that it did,’ Minou said.
‘I found it rather alarming.’
‘That your name is well-enough known in Amsterdam?’
‘Yes. Though I have made no secret of my support of the Calvinist rebels, it concerns me I was easily found.’
Minou stared at him. ‘Do you know what the documents might be? Did Mariken say?’
‘No. I suspect she feared the letter might be intercepted. I imagine it is something to do with my father’s identity.’
‘He was a French merchant, isn’t that what your mother told you?’
‘The story changed,’ Piet said, blushing at the memory of it. ‘Sometimes he was a merchant, sometimes he was a nobleman, even a prince! I learnt not to ask when I realised my questions made her sad.’ He paused. ‘Looking back, I realise she might not…’
‘Even have known who he was.’
Piet nodded. ‘Yes, God forgive me. For so long, I tried to blot out everything about the day my mother died: the sound of her ragged breathing, each gasp more painful than the last; feeling her skin growing colder beneath my hand; the damp of the room and the rotting smell of fish bones in Kalverstraat below…’
‘You must have been so frightened.’
‘I was weak with terror. Even now, the horror of being left alone in the dark as the light faded –’ he pressed his hand to his stomach – ‘I can still feel it here. Then Mariken came, and she took care of me. Found me somewhere to live, people who would be kind to me. I held my mother’s face close to my heart, but I tried to forget everything else about Amsterdam. It was too distressing. So you can imagine, receiving the letter from Mariken was like an old wound being violently ripped open.’
