by Kate Mosse
‘Are you Louis?’ one man asked. He was lying on his side, with his shin in a splint and his right hand bandaged. ‘From the quartier Saint-Michel?’
‘Yes,’ he said eagerly.
‘I did see your grandfather, wearing a long black coat with a tear at the back? He was asking for you.’
‘Was he all right?’ the little boy asked.
‘Cross he couldn’t find you.’
‘When was this?’ Minou asked.
He held up his arm. ‘They gave me a sleeping draught while they set my fingers, and after that, the time is hazy. I only know it was early.’
‘Where is he now?’ Louis said. ‘Has he gone without me?’
Minou hugged him. ‘We shall keep looking until we find him,’ she said.
‘Could you hold this?’ a woman said, pushing a jug at Minou and doubling back through double doors into the kitchens.
‘We haven’t tried in there,’ Louis said.
‘So we haven’t,’ Minou said. ‘Shall we go and see?’
Huge, big-bellied pans hung over an open fire, the smell of thyme and haricots filled the air, slices of rough, black bread were stacked in a line of wicker baskets along a long, scored table.
With a cry, the boy pulled his hand from hers and ran.
‘You can’t be in here,’ a woman started to say, then her voice changed. ‘Louis! Thanks be to God, you are safe.’
Minou put down the jug, and followed. In amongst the steam and rattle of the kitchen, she saw the boy standing enveloped in the arms of a broad, red-faced woman in a white bonnet and apron.
‘This is our neighbour,’ he said, his face shining. ‘She says Grandfather is quite safe. He was taken home by one of the soldiers. She promises she will take me to him as soon as she can leave here.’
‘That is wonderful news,’ Minou said. ‘There, didn’t I say it would all be fine?’
The woman looked at Minou, friendly but also cautious. ‘I don’t think I have seen you before.’
‘I have only recently arrived in Toulouse,’ Minou said carefully.
‘Oh yes? Who was it who told you about the work we do here?’
She hesitated, then decided to tell the truth. ‘A friend, Piet Reydon. It was he who—’
The wariness fell instantly from the woman’s face. ‘Oh well, if Monsieur Reydon brought you, you are most welcome. Most welcome indeed.’
‘I am?’
‘Of course,’ the woman said, waving her hand around. ‘Without his generosity, we would not be able to keep going.’
‘Piet – Monsieur Reydon – owns the almshouse?’ Minou said, unable to keep the astonishment from her voice. Nothing Piet had said gave the impression that he came from a family of means. In fact, he had led her to believe the opposite. ‘He is the owner?’
‘I don’t know about that, but certainly it is his generosity that helps keep it going. He comes here whenever he can. He works hard on behalf of those in need or who cannot speak for themselves.’ She waved her arm. ‘As you can see, there is great need.’
Minou’s head was spinning. She had not considered how Piet spent his days or how he made a living, but whatever she had expected, it was not this. How could he possibly afford to support such a place?
‘Were all these people brought here after the riots?’ she asked.
‘A few were here before – refugees from villages outside Toulouse – but most of them came in last night or today, like Louis and his grandfather from rue Nazareth. Many of the worst injured come from Daurade.’
‘What happened?’
‘You haven’t heard? A mob attacked Huguenot businesses and houses down by the river this morning. Many have been left homeless, some have lost everything. Saint-Michel was attacked also. Some two-score are said to have been murdered there. I have never had cause to fall out with my Catholic neighbours in all these years, but somehow now . . .’
Minou flushed with shame. And though she was anxious to be back in rue du Taur, she wanted to make amends.
‘What can I do to help?’ she asked.
For two hours, Piet and McCone toiled in the quartier Daurade with other Huguenot soldiers, offering their services wherever they were most needed.
They repaired splintered windows and buckled doorframes, shutters ripped from their hinges. They built defensive palisades to protect businesses and workshops overlooking the Daurade church, where the worst of the looting had taken place. The soldiers stood watch on street corners and the walls by the river, looking out for any new sign of trouble. Dazed women and old men sat in silence, contemplating the ruins of their homes.
‘Such mindless, pointless destruction,’ Piet said, hammering another nail into place with such force that he split the wood. ‘Such malice.’
McCone passed him another plank without comment, and helped secure it across the broken shutters of the small, dark shop.
‘It will serve for tonight,’ Piet said.
The owner, a shoemaker, shook his head. ‘Thieves I can understand, but this? Twenty years I have built up my business, and they’ve ruined me. Everything is spoiled.’ He held up a pair of boots, the leather ripped from the soles and the brass buckles hanging on a thread. ‘All gone. In a matter of hours, all my leather, needles, lasts, all broken beyond repair.’
Piet’s jaw tightened, but he kept his voice light. ‘You will build things up again.’
‘To what purpose? So they can come back and do such villainy to us over again?’ He shook his head. ‘I am too old, Monsieur.’
‘And the town guard stood by and let them do it,’ his wife said, as angry as her husband was defeated. ‘We’ve lived as good neighbours, served our Catholic and Protestant customers just the same, and never had any trouble beyond the occasional bad debt. Today? People I thought were our friends stood and watched, Monsieur. They stood and watched and never lifted a hand to help us.’
‘Our leaders are meeting now to negotiate a truce,’ Piet reassured her. ‘This kind of thing must not be allowed to happen again.’
She shook her head. ‘We are grateful for your assistance, Monsieur, but you are a fool if you believe it. Look around you. When ordinary men believe they can behave like this, without any fear, then it matters little what the judges and the priests have to say. It’s too late.’
She threw a furious look at Piet and McCone, then burst into tears. Her husband put his arm around her.
‘Thank you, Monsieur. There’s no more to be said.’
They went inside their shop. Piet suddenly felt exhausted.
‘Do you think everyone thinks the same as them?’ McCone asked. ‘That it is better to leave Toulouse than stay and risk this happening again?’
Piet’s jaw tightened. ‘I fear so. There are many Catholics who, though they would not take up arms against a fellow Christian, have let this happen. And for those who resent our presence in Toulouse, they reason that if all Huguenot shops are put out of business, then the Protestants will leave. No one wants to be driven from their home, but who wants to live in a permanent state of fear?’
‘The question is where can they go?’ McCone said. ‘Many are too old to begin anew.’
‘To family, friends in larger cities. That’s to say, cities where Protestants are not so much in the minority. Montauban has a sizeable Huguenot community now. Montpellier and La Rochelle the same.’
Piet looked around the square with a cold, hard anger. He had been in Daurade the previous day, looking in vain for the tailor who had copied the Shroud for him. Everything had been peaceful, tranquil. He’d seen people going about their business, the shops open, the smell of almonds roasting and soft dappled sunlight beneath the trees. Now this.
He bent down, picked up a cracked earthenware flagon and stood it on the corner of a wall. Everywhere, chairs and stools and tables, shattered beyond repair.
‘That’s odd,’ he muttered, looking across the square.
His eyes narrowed. Painted on the door of the tailor’s worksho
p was a black cross. It had not been there yesterday.
Leaving McCone, Piet ran across the square.
‘Mademoiselle, forgive me for disturbing you,’ he said to the young woman standing outside the atelier, ‘but what has happened? The tailor who works here, was he hurt?’
‘He is dead, Monsieur.’
Another death? ‘I am sorry to hear it. The looting, was he caught up in the troubles?’
Finally, she raised her dazed eyes and looked directly at him. ‘I found my father at his work bench, his needle and scissors still in his hand. A weak heart.’
‘He was your father? I am sorry. I knew him. He was a gifted man.’
‘Look around you. Look at what they’ve done. At least he did not live to see this.’
The girl wandered away, leaving Piet with his uneasy thoughts. He wanted it to be true, but he did not trust the timing of it.
‘What was that about?’ McCone had come over to see what was happening.
Piet was about to speak, then some new sense of caution stopped him. ‘Nothing,’ he said. ‘I thought I knew the girl. That’s all.’
McCone dropped his hand on Piet’s shoulder. ‘You look all in. You should rest. Let’s go to the tavern. My throat is parched.’
Piet took a final look around the square, then nodded. ‘Very well.’
‘S’il vous plaît, Monsieur,’ Minou repeated. ‘Please let me pass.’
The soldier standing guard at the outer door of the almshouse did not move.
‘No one is to leave. Orders.’
After two hours of working in the kitchen and helping with the last of the injured, Minou was exhausted and desperate to get back to Aimeric and her aunt.
‘Sirrah, let me pass.’
He tapped his ear. ‘Didn’t you hear? Are you deaf? Orders are that no one is to come in or out.’
‘My aunt will wonder what has happened to me,’ she pleaded, though she was imagining how her father would fret if he ever learnt she had been caught up in such a riot.
As she tried to step around him, her beads fell from her pocket. The soldier’s expression changed.
‘And would that be your Catholic aunt?’ he said, lifting a corner of her gown with the tip of his sword. ‘All this finery comes at a cost, does it not?’
Minou stepped back out of his reach.
‘Did they send you to spy on us? We know they use women to do their dirty work.’ His hand shot out and grabbed Minou’s wrist. ‘Is that your game?’
To her horror, he started to paw at the fastening of her cloak.
‘Come on, then, if this is what they send their Catholic whores to do, let’s see—’
Minou brought her knee up as hard as she could between his legs.
‘Bitch!’ he shrieked, as he doubled over. ‘Putane!’
Ignoring the pain in her shoulder, Minou clasped her hands together and brought a blow down on the back of his neck. As he fell forward to his knees, she jumped round him, pushed open the door, and ran, terrified, into rue du Périgord.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
The tavern was smoky and dark. A well-known Protestant meeting place, today all the shutters were closed, the atmosphere unsettled. There was a smell of leather, sawdust and spilt ale. Each time the door opened, bringing in a gust of fresh air from outside, all eyes spun round hoping for news.
While McCone and Crompton sat at a table, drinking and playing dice, Piet leant against the wall, trying to still the thoughts in his head. The scene at the atelier in Place de la Daurade had brought the Shroud back to the forefront of his mind. He couldn’t shake his suspicion that Crompton’s presence in Toulouse, with his cousin Devereux, was more to do with that, than any desire to stand shoulder to shoulder with his Huguenot brothers. For a moment, he even asked himself if Crompton could have been involved in the tailor’s death.
‘Per lo Miègjorn,’ he muttered, the password he had been asked to give in the upstairs room in Carcassonne. ‘For the Midi.’
Piet pulled himself up. He was allowing his imagination to run away with him. He and Crompton were on the same side, weren’t they? He didn’t like the man, but that didn’t make him a villain.
All the same, Piet couldn’t rid himself of the feeling he’d had in the almshouse that something was out of joint. Something said that shouldn’t have been said. He glanced across at Crompton, who was rolling his dice.
All the same . . .
The door opened again and a messenger came in. He identified the most senior of the Huguenot officers present, and reported to him. Piet moved closer to hear what was being said.
‘There are halberdiers posted at the main entrance to the monastery, the Seneschal’s own men. The judges also have a contingent of private soldiers. They assert the town guard is under Huguenot control, so cannot be relied upon to protect them.’
‘Ridiculous.’
‘It’s the reason Parliament gave.’
The captain shook his head. ‘Have the talks started?’
‘They are about to.’
‘And is Jean de Mansencal presiding, as we had heard?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘And we have men inside to report back to us what is said?’
‘We do.’
He waved his hand. ‘Very good. Bring me further word in an hour.’
Piet watched the messenger leave, then sat down next to McCone. They were speaking in English and Crompton, again, was picking a fight.
‘Your pastor preaches revolt from the pulpit,’ he said. ‘He has fire in his belly.’ He held up his hand. ‘Justified, in my humble opinion. But he is a warmonger, not a man of peace.’
‘I agree Barrelles is forthright,’ McCone said cautiously.
‘He denounces the Duke of Guise.’ Crompton swept up his dice from the table and put them in his pocket. ‘If these talks go ill, you don’t have enough men to take the city without reinforcements.’
Piet leant forward. ‘There is no plan to take the city. We want a fair peace, not war.’
Crompton laughed. ‘What do you think Hunault is doing with Condé in Orléans, planning an afternoon’s hunting trip?’
Piet flushed. ‘What have you been doing this afternoon, Crompton, while we were hard at work?’ he demanded. ‘And Devereux? Where is he? He’s not yet back.’
‘What are you implying?’
Piet held up his hand. ‘An innocent question, Crompton. Why? Have you something to hide?’
‘Damn you to hell, Reydon,’ he said, standing up. Without another word, he stormed from the tavern, leaving the door juddering on its hinges.
‘I know,’ Piet said, feeling McCone’s quizzical gaze. ‘Stupid to bait him, you don’t have to tell me.’
McCone smiled. ‘Actually, I was only going to ask what was the cause of such ill-feeling between you?’
‘He is slippery, his cousin more so. I would know why they are in Toulouse.’
‘They say they have come to give their support. You think there is some ulterior motive?’
Piet shrugged. ‘Maybe.’
‘Spies?’
‘In truth, Jasper, I don’t know. They may be, but for which side? Us or them? Devereux seems to be able to come and go at will. He is well connected in Toulouse.’
‘But you dislike Crompton more.’
Piet reached for his ale. ‘There’s something about him.’
‘Is that why he calls you by another name?’ he said mildly. ‘Reydon, is it?’
Piet turned hot with shame. ‘My friend, forgive me. I meant to tell you, once we got to know one another better.’
‘There is no need to apologise.’
‘No, there is. When I first arrived back in Toulouse in March, I had reasons not to use my own name. I took another.’
‘And that was Joubert. Or is that your real name and Reydon the alias?’
‘No, Reydon is my name.’ Piet let his shoulders drop, feeling worse because McCone was being so decent about the deceit. ‘I truly am sorry
, Jasper.’
McCone raised his hand. ‘It does not matter. Crompton, for all your distrust of him, is right about one thing. They say the Prince of Condé has raised the standard of revolt at Orléans. I know for a fact Saux received orders requesting arms and money for the prince’s campaign a week ago.’
‘Do you think there is a plan in place to take Toulouse?’
‘Do you?’
Piet lowered his voice. ‘I have heard a rumour that the keys to certain of the city’s gates, the Porte Villeneuve among them, were taken and copied.’
‘When?’
Piet looked up, surprised by the sharpness in McCone’s voice. ‘I don’t rightly know. Last week, perhaps.’
‘Who told you?’
Piet shook his head. ‘One of the Huguenot garrison at the Hôtel de Ville. It seemed wishful thinking. I paid little heed. There are so many rumours, each more outlandish than the last. All I hope is for common sense to prevail and that our leaders – and theirs – will put the good of Toulouse before their own desire for glory.’
McCone paused, then raised his tankard. ‘I’ll drink to that.’
Despite his talk of peace, Piet’s optimism was fading. He had clung to the hope that the caches of weapons hidden throughout the city, in Protestant as well as Catholic houses, were there as a deterrent. During the course of this long day he had realised he was in the minority.
He thought back to their meeting in the hot, airless house in the Bastide in Carcassonne. For the first time, he realised that more of his comrades thought – like Crompton – that the time for talking was over. The months of waiting had stirred people’s blood. They saw injustice at every turn and wanted retribution. Today of all days, after witnessing the devastation inflicted by a Catholic mob on the quartier Daurade, who could blame them?
Piet loosened the chemise at his neck, suddenly unable to bear the fuggy, expectant atmosphere of the tavern a moment longer. He stood up.
‘By your leave, Jasper.’
He went outside and filled his lungs with air. He looked up at some of the most beautiful medieval houses in Toulouse and he thought of Minou and how the city, as well as the people, needed to be protected.
A plan began to form in his mind. From where he was standing, Piet could see the red sloping roof and hexagonal bell tower of the church of the Augustinians, clear and sharp against the afternoon sky. He would no longer sit and wait, relying on third- or fourth-hand information, he would steal in and listen to the debate for himself.