by Kate Mosse
* * *
But after half an hour’s searching, there was still no sign of Marta.
‘Would she have left the house?’ Piet suggested.
Minou shook her head. ‘She knows not to go anywhere alone.’
‘The child is disobedient.’
‘Salvadora, please,’ Piet said. ‘My love, if she had taken it upon herself to explore, where might she have gone?’
Minou raised her hands. ‘She was enamoured of the numbers upon the doors of the houses on the Pont Notre-Dame,’ she replied, struggling to think. ‘And she wanted to go back to Saint-Jacques-de-la-Boucherie before we left Paris to collect the shells the pilgrims drop.’
Salvadora shut her fan with a snap. ‘The child will have gone to the Sainte-Chapelle. She was most put out by having been left behind.’
‘Of course.’ Minou’s heart eased just a little. ‘You’re right, we should start there. Will you stay here, Aunt, in case she comes back in the meantime?’
‘I have no doubt the wilful girl will stroll in here, as bold as brass, without any mind for the trouble she has caused.’ Salvadora paused, then added: ‘Do not worry, Niece.’
* * *
Some few minutes later, Minou and Piet were outside in the rue des Barres.
‘We should separate,’ she said.
‘I don’t like the idea of you—’
‘I’ll come to no harm at this time of day,’ Minou said firmly. ‘We’ll cover more ground, and more quickly. You start with the Sainte-Chapelle. If you have no luck there, head to Saint-Jacques or the Boulevard Saint-Germain on the left bank. Marta is entranced with the Duke of Anjou’s mignons and their perfumed pet animals.’
‘I still think it would be wiser—’
Minou wasn’t listening. ‘On second thoughts, Piet, go first to Notre-Dame. It is closest and you did promise to take her. It might be uppermost in her mind.’
Piet made to protest again, then stopped. ‘Where will you go?’
‘To seek Aimeric’s help. He knows the city better than do we; he has men at his disposal. His position in de Coligny’s high regard confers upon him the authority to ask questions.’
Piet nodded. ‘It is some half an hour after two. Whatever we discover, shall we meet back here at the five o’clock bells?’
‘I hope to be back well before then,’ Minou said, injecting a confidence into her voice she did not feel. ‘And how I shall scold her!’
Piet found a smile, but Minou knew he was as worried as she was.
‘Until five o’clock,’ Piet said, then he kissed her hand and took his leave.
Minou watched until he was out of sight, trying to stop her worst imaginings from taking hold. Then she turned in the direction of the rue du Béthisy.
As she made her way through the crowded boulevards towards Aimeric’s lodgings, the scale of the task overwhelmed her: the sheer impossibility of finding one seven-year-old girl in a city of hundreds of thousands of people. Minou stopped in every shop they had ever visited, at the carts and stalls of street sellers along the way, asking if anyone had seen a little girl with long brown hair and a blue dress, but no one had.
With each step she took on the dry Parisian streets she felt her breath was being squeezed from her. The further west Minou went, the more she sensed a growing tension in the air, a sharpness, as if the whole city might erupt into conflict at any moment.
As she passed the Pont aux Meuniers, the water singing beneath the wooden wheels of the mills, Minou came to a halt. With an awful and heart-pounding clarity, she suddenly saw herself years from now, looking back on this day as a sequence of missteps and errors, each leading to the next wrong turn until it was too late. Inevitable, irreversible. A tragedy written in blood.
Minou held her hand to her chest and felt how fast her heart was racing. Then, the shout of a stevedore down on the river caught her attention, and the present rushed back.
She shook her head. She could not allow her own thoughts to make a prisoner of her. She was not a silly girl, easily startled, seeking out the words of necromancers or astrologers to make a decision. This was not the time to give in to self-pity or premonition. Her task was to find her daughter and bring her home.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
RUE DE BÉTHISY
Marta didn’t know what to do. She had been hiding forever and, worse, she urgently needed to answer a call of nature. She wasn’t sure she could hold on much longer.
She’d thought to slip away as soon as things were quiet. But there were now soldiers everywhere and both ends of the street had been barricaded and cordoned off. No one was allowed to pass.
Marta squeezed her legs together, and tried to think of nice things: her little chestnut pony with the white blaze in Puivert, the rose-water biscuits Maman bought for them at the market in Carcassonne, her beautiful embroidered hood that so well matched her eyes, her mother’s blue-and-gold enamelled box from Limoges, which glinted in the light.
‘What are you doing?’
Marta spun round at the sound of the voice. ‘You shouldn’t creep up on people,’ she snapped, cross to have been caught out.
‘Are you lost?’ the boy asked.
She stared at him. He was perhaps a little older than her, but he behaved as if he had every right to be here.
‘No, why? Are you?’
‘We live in the rue du Louvre,’ he replied, a smile touching his lips. ‘I came out to see what all the noise was. Would you like to see?’
Marta tossed her head. ‘I would not dream of going with you, my parents would not approve.’
The boy looked around with exaggerated interest. ‘I don’t see your parents.’
For a moment, Marta faltered. ‘With the commotion, we became separated.’
‘The King’s personal guard are on their way. They will arrest anyone who doesn’t belong here.’ He leant closer. ‘You see, the admiral is not expected to live.’
Marta’s eyes grew wide. ‘Is that true?’
‘Wouldn’t you like to know!’
‘My uncle is of his household.’
The boy pulled back. ‘I took you for one of us.’
‘I am as French as you,’ she said, suddenly ashamed of her southern accent.
‘No.’ He pointed to the chaplet in her hand. ‘One of us.’
‘Oh.’ Marta blushed. She hadn’t even realised she was holding her mother’s rosary beads.
‘We have many servants. There is food and drink. You can eat, then rest while you wait for your parents to come.’
Marta looked at the mass of people thronging the street. She didn’t think she could hold on any longer and she was hungry. She shouldn’t go with strangers, but this boy seemed pleasant and well bred. As he said, she could rest a while in his house, regain her strength, then go home as soon as the streets were clear again.
‘We haven’t even been introduced!’
‘If that is all that concerns you, it’s easy enough to remedy.’ He took off his hat and bowed. ‘Louis, at your service.’
‘Marta,’ she said, giving a curtsey in reply. ‘Why is your hair white down the middle? It’s strange.’
‘Why are your eyes different colours? That’s stranger.’
Marta raised her chin. ‘I was born like this.’
‘So was I.’ Louis held out his hand. ‘Come. It’s not far.’
* * *
In his bedchamber, Admiral de Coligny sat propped up on pillows, while his attendants continued to fuss.
His left elbow was shattered and one of the fingers of his right hand had been taken clean off by the force of the bullet, but the Lord had been watching over him. If he had not thought to show the document to Aimeric at that moment and turned, the shot would have hit his heart.
God had spared him.
Everything seemed to be happening in slow motion. He could hear the stomp of endless boots going up and down the stairs, the shouted orders in the courtyard below his window, the cries in the rue de Béthisy
beyond as his men questioned and sought witnesses to what had happened. He knew it barely mattered now.
The house where the assassin had lain in wait was owned by the Duke of Guise. The gate leading out from it to Saint-Germain-l’Auxerrois had been left open, where a horse was waiting. This was no opportunist attack. He knew it and his men knew it. The question was what might happen next.
De Coligny closed his eyes and saw the face of his young wife, picturing her in the orchards of their estate in Châtillon, and prayed he would live to see their child come into the world. He thought of his older daughter and sons, his grandchildren.
‘My lord,’ said a familiar voice in his ear. ‘Forgive me for disturbing you.’
‘What is it, Joubert?’
He was so tired and bruised from the hours of poking and prodding. How much time had passed? An hour? Several? The broken bones in his arm were throbbing and he feared his right hand was already swollen with fever.
‘My lord, his Majesty the King has sent his personal physician to tend to you.’
‘I have no need of more attention. I need only to rest.’
‘Forgive me, sire, but his Majesty and the Queen Mother have accompanied him in person.’
De Coligny opened his eyes. ‘In that case, I will be honoured to receive them.’ He spoke wearily. ‘Bid them forgive my being unable to rise.’
As Joubert went to withdraw, he grasped the young man’s arm.
‘Tell your men – and make sure the message is clearly heard beyond the walls of this house – that there is to be no retaliation. Leave it in God’s hands. No tit-for-tat reprisals, do you understand? Guise wants an excuse to move against us. Make sure we do not give it to him.’
RUE DU LOUVRE
Marta stood at the virginals set upon a table and picked at a tune.
‘Are you a servant?’ she asked, tilting her head. The surface was polished so brightly she could see her face reflected in it.
The boy had led her through a sequence of the most beautiful rooms Marta had ever seen, golden gilt mirrors above white marble fireplaces, and silver candlesticks and porcelain on each mantel. Long pale-blue silk curtains, the colour of forget-me-knots, framed the tall windows.
In this chamber, the music room, a vivid wall hanging covered the entire wall – a breakfast scene before a summer’s hunt – depicting a table laden with victuals and ale, a goshawk, cinnamon brown, hooded on the wrist, alaunt hounds in the care of the valets de limiers, a horn raised and weapons clean, a bay and a grey horse ready for a medieval sire and his lady.
Marta struck a last note, then turned back to Louis.
‘Well, are you a servant or not?’
He crossed his arms. ‘What do you think?’
She considered. ‘You seem to have the run of the house – and it is a very fine house – so I think you cannot be. At the same time, the maids pay no heed to you.’
His eyes narrowed. ‘What do you mean?’
‘They do not bow when you pass, which they would if you were important. In fact, they do not pay any attention to you at all.’
He scowled. ‘Do you always speak so plainly?’
‘Maman says it is wrong to lie.’
‘Even if speaking the truth would lead to a whipping?’
‘No one would ever beat me!’ Marta replied scornfully. ‘I am beloved.’
‘If that’s true, why were you wandering the streets on your own? That speaks of neglect, not love.’
Marta took a step towards him. ‘Take that back.’
‘Why should I?’
She raised her hands. ‘Take it back.’
He raised his in answer. ‘I won’t!’
‘Boys are foolish. You’re a fool.’
For a moment, they stood facing one another, fists ready, eyes blazing. Then Marta couldn’t help herself, and she giggled. ‘You look so cross.’
Louis grabbed her wrist and twisted. ‘Don’t mock me.’
Marta tried to shake herself free. His grip tightened, then, as quickly as his temper had come, he released her. The storm was over.
‘How old are you?’ he asked.
‘Nearly eight,’ she said proudly. ‘The same as you, I’ll wager.’
‘Guess again.’
‘Perhaps nine summers,’ Marta suggested, rubbing her wrist. She could see the angry red mark of his fingers on her skin and wondered how she would explain it away. ‘I must take my leave. My parents, who dote upon me, will worry.’
He laughed. ‘Do you know the way back to your devoted family?’
‘Why do you not think I belong in Paris?’
‘I can hear the mountains in your voice!’
Marta raised her chin. ‘Your accent is no better!’
Suddenly, the sound of talking outside in the corridor interrupted them. Louis put his finger to his lips and steered her towards a pass door at the far end of the chamber.
‘You’re pinching again,’ she said, shaking her arm free.
‘Do you want me to show you the way or not?’ he hissed.
Marta didn’t want to be indebted to this strange boy, whose mood changed like quicksilver, but she did need help to find her way home. The adventure had lost its bloom.
‘All right,’ she replied.
‘Where are you lodging?’
‘In the rue des Barres. It’s in the quartier Saint-Gervais.’
‘I know. What’s your father’s name?’
Marta stared. ‘Why do you want to know?’
‘Because I have an idea. If I go to your father and tell him where you are, he could fetch you home in a carriage.’
‘Oh.’
‘You do have a carriage, I suppose.’
‘Of course,’ she answered indignantly. ‘But is it not better if I come with you?’
He shrugged. ‘I was only thinking to save your shoes – there’s a pretty room, all blue, where you could wait – but it’s no odds to me either way. I don’t care.’
Marta hesitated. She didn’t want to be left on her own, even in such a beautiful house, but the thought of not having to walk any more was pleasing. Her plan had been to slip back into their lodgings without anyone noticing, but she’d been gone too long for that. Since Papa would not be able to scold her in front of strangers, this way might be best.
‘My feet are sore,’ she admitted.
‘Tell me something – for proof – so your father knows to trust me.’
‘I’ll give you this.’ She touched her head. ‘Oh, I forgot. I dropped it in the street.’
‘What are you talking about?’
‘My cap. It was my favourite, with my initials – M R J – stitched in red thread. I was going to give it to you to show to my father.’
‘All right. Well, tell me where your family comes from?’
‘Languedoc. We have a castle, with a separate keep, and lots of land and woods with good hunting,’ she boasted. ‘Though I confess our house is not so fine as this, we have our own coat of arms above the door – a lion rampant with a forked and knotted tail and a capital B and P – for Bruyère and Puivert.’
Louis stopped so suddenly that Marta bumped into him.
‘Watch what you’re doing,’ she complained.
‘What do the letters embroidered on your cap stand for?’ he asked casually, as if the answer was of no matter.
‘M for Marta, of course, R for Reydon and J for Joubert. That was my mother’s name before she was married.’
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
RUE DES BARRES
Minou was still in her outdoor clothes, the dust of Paris thick on her boots and cloak.
Having been turned back by an armed guard at the Grand Rue Saint-Honoré, she had tried to approach the rue de Béthisy from the north. But every road in that quartier appeared to be blocked. There were rumours that someone had been shot – wounded or killed, no one was certain – and there were certainly hundreds of armed men on the streets.
With a wild despair, her stomach twiste
d with fear for her daughter, Minou had tried to slip through the cloisters of Saint-Eustache but, if anything, more soldiers were guarding the northern perimeter. She had been forced to give up her hope of speaking to Aimeric. She would have to be patient until he came for dinner this evening. God willing, by then it would not be necessary. For all she knew, Piet had found Marta already.
Instead, Minou had visited all the places she knew Marta liked, not caring if she was walking in Piet’s footsteps or not: the flower market and the Pont du Change, Notre-Dame and over to the boulevard Saint-Germain. The Sainte-Chapelle had been closed. No one anywhere admitted to having seen a little girl in a blue dress and white cap.
In the end, she had been forced to return home, praying all the while she would find Piet and Marta waiting for her. But when she had stepped into the house, and seen Salvadora’s face grey with worry, Minou had thrown herself into a chair and sobbed. She was so exhausted she could barely think. The brandy Salvadora had pressed upon her was burning in her throat, she didn’t even have the strength to swallow.
Below, there was a knock on the front door.
‘Is it them?’ Salvadora said, rising in her chair.
Minou leapt to her feet and ran from the chamber.
* * *
Cornelia van Raay tidied her hair beneath her hood and looked up at the Reydon house, waiting for someone to come.
It was past five o’clock. She could not believe how the day had gone. Wave after wave of nausea had stolen the hours. Now, finally, it was over.
Cornelia raised her hand to knock a second time just as the door was opened. Startled by the sight of Pieter Reydon’s wife standing there, she involuntarily stepped back.
‘Mevrouw Reydon!’ she cried in Dutch. She gathered her wits. ‘Madame Reydon, forgive me for calling on you unannounced, but I would speak to your husband on a matter of urgency. Is he at home?’
Madame Reydon was staring as if she wasn’t there, then her expression changed. Cornelia thought she looked drawn and pale, nothing like the lady she’d watched at Notre-Dame on the day of the wedding.
