Conspiracy

by SJ Parris

  I said nothing, though I pulled my face back from his hot breath. I was embarrassed to admit that I had panicked; I had hoped to frighten the printer into giving something away and instead I had only succeeded in destroying the evidence. We glared at one another for a long moment, eyes locked – I determined not to look away first – until eventually he made a noise of contempt and let me go.

  ‘All you have achieved is to put Brinkley and all his associates on their guard,’ he said, pouring the wine. ‘They will go to ground now, or find another meeting-place. That hardly serves us well. Any of us.’

  ‘You will forgive me if I express some doubts about who exactly you mean by us,’ I said. ‘I find it hard to believe we are working to the same ends.’

  He leaned his head back against the wooden panelling, took a sip of his wine and laughed softly. He was a handsome man, I could not help noting, with a pinch of envy; chestnut hair swept back and barely touched with grey, a strong jaw framed by a neat beard and curling moustaches, lively brown eyes implying an impish spirit that belied his years. A most dangerous instrument, Walsingham had said. I must remind myself of that.

  ‘Well, you are right to question my feelings towards you, Bruno,’ he said, stretching out along the bench, a half-smile still playing around his lips. ‘A number of my closest comrades have suffered greatly as a result of your actions. Two of them cruelly executed. Others jailed, lost everything. Years of planning turned to dust in our hands. Men I counted on fled into hiding, scattered through France and Spain, including my own brother. I freely confess there was a time I would gladly have disembowelled you myself.’ He raised his tankard to me.

  ‘Where is your proof that any of this was my doing?’

  ‘Oh, come now – we’re beyond such delicate pretence, surely? Guise had his spies in the French embassy too, you know. Nothing you did there was as secret as you thought.’ He took another drink, watching me over the rim. ‘I heard you tried to seduce the ambassador’s wife.’

  ‘She tried to seduce me, in fact.’ I lifted my cup and put it down again, untouched; better to keep a clear head around Paget.

  ‘I’m sure she did. You can spare me the details. The point is that I recognise a worthy adversary when I see one. Since your victory two years ago I have been curious to meet you. Walsingham imagines he has a nose for ingenious men, but in truth many of his informers are no better than hired hands, easily won over with a better coin. You are a different prospect, I think. You are motivated by higher aims.’ He ran a finger along the edge of his cup, smiling as if he found the idea charming and quaint.

  ‘You concede we are adversaries, then.’

  ‘Times change, Bruno, and a wise man bends with them. I spend a good deal of time at the English embassy now. Stafford has finally accepted that I am well placed to be useful to England.’

  I thought again of Walsingham’s letter. ‘And what do you gain from it?’

  He heaved a long sigh and his shoulders slumped as he peered into his drink, as if it might hold the answer. ‘Eventually, I hope, a pardon, if I can prove my worth to Her Majesty. I am sick of exile. Aren’t you?’ He raised his head and fixed me with a frank look. ‘You must be nearing forty. We are of an age. The time of life when a man wants a home, a hearth, a sense of his place in the world, not this rootlessness. Wouldn’t you choose to go back, if they would pardon you?’

  I glanced away to the early dusk, the grey November street. A sudden image of sunlight on lemon trees flashed through my memory. ‘You are guilty of treason.’

  ‘You are guilty of heresy. And yet here we both are, begging to be taken back, any way we can. You hope to petition the Papal nuncio, I understand.’

  I tried not to show any reaction. ‘Did Paul tell you that?’

  ‘Doesn’t matter how I know. Just reminding you again that your secrets don’t stay hidden for long. Well, we shall see. Walsingham has pardoned worse offenders than I, if they make sufficient amends. And I’m sure His Holiness has pardoned greater heretics than you.’ He paused, stroking a drop of wine from his moustache with a swipe of his forefinger. ‘Can’t think of any at present, but one must always live in hope.’ Another calculated hesitation. ‘And have I not proved that I can also be useful to you, Bruno, these past days?’

  ‘What is it you want from me, Paget?’ I folded my hands around the tankard and concentrated on the rough wood of the table, its whorls and gouges.

  ‘It seems to me,’ he said, pouring more wine for me, though I had not yet touched what I had, ‘that we are both looking for the same thing. We want to know who killed Paul Lefèvre, and why. I’m assuming Henri has set you to find out.’

  ‘What is your interest?’ I took a slow sip, keeping my eyes on his face.

  ‘Paul was a significant conduit between the Catholic League and the English émigrés. He was entrusted with a great deal of confidential information from both sides. Naturally, a number of people have a stake in discovering who ordered his death.’

  ‘Try asking Joseph de Chartres. Or your friend the Duke of Guise.’

  ‘Guise was keen that I ask you.’ He flashed a wolfish smile.

  I took another small draught of the wine to cover my reaction. ‘So you still work for him?’

  ‘I would not be much use to England if I did not maintain the appearance of intimacy with Guise and his faction,’ he said, not meeting my eye. ‘You see, at first it was supposed by the League that the King was behind Lefèvre’s death, because of his preaching. It seemed the most obvious explanation.’

  ‘Not to the King.’

  ‘He would hardly admit to it. But since it became known that the priest asked for you on his deathbed, the Duke has naturally become curious to know what he so urgently needed to impart to your ears.’

  ‘If Guise has cause to fear what Paul might have said, that surely suggests he had an interest in keeping him silent.’

  ‘You might be forgiven for thinking so. But as far as I can see, the Duke is deeply alarmed by this murder. More so since he learned that your enquiries had led you to Frère Joseph de Chartres.’

  ‘I imagine he would be, given that Joseph writes pamphlets for the League.’

  ‘It’s more embarrassing than that. De Chartres is a cousin of the Duke of Montpensier, who is the stepson of Guise’s sister.’ He arched an eyebrow to convey the difficulty.

  ‘Then the connection seems obvious.’

  ‘But Guise is adamant that he has had no direct contact with Joseph over League business, much less given him orders to kill anyone. I have known the Duke for some years now, and I would swear he is telling the truth. He is therefore keen to know who else Joseph might be involved with.’

  ‘Then he should probably address that question to Joseph himself.’

  ‘Joseph has disappeared, as you know.’

  ‘Perhaps Guise should ask around among his relatives.’

  ‘I imagine he is making enquiries. But he fears that any day the King will press some wretch into declaring publicly that he, Guise, was behind it.’

  I gave a dry laugh. ‘Has he not planned to do the same to the King?’

  ‘I dare say. But he would prefer to find out the truth. From what I can see, he is worried.’

  ‘So he thinks it would be quicker to threaten me.’

  ‘Has anyone threatened you?’ He held up his hands to prove his innocence. ‘I admit, that would likely have been his preferred method, if I had left you in the Conciergerie last night. I felt that was not the most effective way to proceed with a man like you. I would guess you are stubborn enough to make it a point of honour to resist hard questioning.’

  I looked away. Wouldn’t we all like to believe we have the strength to maintain our firmness of purpose in the face of rigorous interrogation? Though I had been roughed up and imprisoned for my public teachings in Rome and Geneva, I had chosen to flee rather than test my resolve at the hands of the Inquisition. I fear pain like any man.

  ‘So,’ he said, in a bri
sker tone, ‘why don’t you thank me for sparing you the Duke’s methods by telling me what Paul Lefèvre confided to you before he died? That is what everyone wishes to know.’

  I turned my cup between my hands, nodding slowly. ‘So you can pass the information to Guise? Though you now say you are working for England’s interests.’

  ‘It is in England’s interest.’ He clicked his tongue. ‘Let us say rather it is a question of trading information with Guise. I am only of use to England so long as Guise and his people have confidence in me. Just as your value to Walsingham lies in your intimacy with Henri. This is all one great game, Bruno – all of us playing one another off against the others. The trick is choosing which cards to hold and which to show. I should not have to explain that to you.’

  He sat back and tipped the dregs of the jug into his own cup, watching me with an expression that hovered between amusement and anticipation. Born to double-dealing, murmured Walsingham’s voice in my ear.

  ‘Paul said nothing intelligible. I already told the friars that.’

  His face tightened, all traces of humour vanished. ‘Of course you told the friars that. I want you to tell me the truth. You are doing yourself no favours.’

  ‘There is nothing to tell.’ I looked him in the eye as I drained my cup and stood. I never had the patience for the gaming table, to Sidney’s enduring disappointment, but I did at least have the face for it. Paget was furious, I could see, though he too was trying to show nothing; it was concentrated in the way he pressed his nails into the wood of the table, the ends of his fingers white. I threw down the gold écus on the table. ‘There is a downpayment on your trouble. I will bring the rest as soon as I possibly can. Then I will be out of your debt.’

  Paget laid a hand over the coins and contemplated this. ‘I wish it were that simple, Bruno. Very well then – but you cannot complain later that I did not ask you nicely. I wonder which of us will find Frère Joseph first?’ He made it sound as if he were declaring a contest. I offered him the briefest bow and turned my back, though I could swear I heard him chuckling as I left. Somehow he always managed to give the impression that I had behaved exactly as he had predicted, that I was playing a part he had written for me in advance.

  EIGHT

  I returned to the Left Bank, breath clouding in angry puffs around me as I stamped home, as if I might outpace the humiliations of the past hour. My face burned against the cold air, flushed with wine and fury as I counted again all the ways in which I had been a fool. I had lost the papers that would have linked Joseph to Paul Lefèvre; I had set the printer Brinkley on his guard and gained nothing by it, and I had made an enemy of Paget – not that I now supposed him to have been anything else. I did not believe for a moment in his change of heart, his declaration of loyalty to England, nor his surprising willingness to make an ally of me, who he still held responsible for the ill fortunes of his friends and fellow conspirators. And yet part of me had responded when he spoke of the yearning for home with a frankness that struck such a familiar echo in me; I could almost have been duped into trusting him by the desire to believe that he too understood my particular loneliness. But Paget was clever; he had recognised that tender spot and aimed straight for it. At least I had not allowed myself to be flattered into giving him anything useful.

  I wondered again who could have confessed to Paul and what they could have said that had made him break the seal of the confessional. It must be this that the Duke of Guise feared he had confided to me. The key surely lay in whoever or whatever Circe might be, but I could think of no one in Paris I trusted enough to ask, except Jacopo Corbinelli. Working as secretary to Catherine de Medici offered him a comprehensive grasp of court intrigue, and he was the only one I could count on to keep a confidence; I had left it too long to share this business with him. I determined to visit him that evening. The decision raised my spirits; at least with Jacopo I could lay out the whole story, rather than the partial truths I had been dealing to Stafford or Paget.

  * * *

  It was dark by the time I reached rue du Cimetière, though still too early to find Jacopo at his home on the rue des Tournelles, even supposing he were to return there today; he usually stayed at the palace until Catherine had taken her supper, and she often called on him for company in the evenings, increasingly so these days as she grew more troubled by her son and her gout. Frequently Jacopo stayed in his own rooms near her apartments at the Tuileries in case she summoned him. I would try his house later; in the meantime, I decided to take my filthy clothes to the laundress in the rue Macon who had helped me to hide from the men searching Paul’s lodgings, one of whom I was now certain must have been Frère Joseph de Chartres. It occurred to me that she alone had seen the two men close to, and that, since she had seemed well disposed to me, she might be able to give a more detailed description. I also realised that it would likely take flattery or bribery to persuade any laundress to touch those clothes, such was the general fear of plague or gaol fever, and that as the woman had helped me once she might be convinced to repeat the favour.

  She appeared disconcerted when she opened the door to me, but she patted her hair into place and smiled, pulling the door to behind her and wrapping her thin shawl tighter around her shoulders against the night air.

  ‘Monsieur. Dwarves after you again tonight?’

  ‘Not this time. I am sorry to disturb you so late, madame, but I have some items here that urgently need washing. They may require more effort than usual,’ I added. ‘For which I will pay extra, of course.’

  Lips pursed, she took the sack from my hand and opened it to peer inside; she recoiled, suppressing a slight retch.

  ‘Mother Mary! Did you fall in a privy?’ From the look on her face, I guessed whatever appeal I might once have held was rapidly diminishing.

  ‘Something like that.’

  She rubbed her nose with the back of her hand; the skin on her fingers was cracked and raw.

  ‘I will pay well,’ I said, again, wishing now that I had not thrown those gold écus to Paget.

  She considered, then gave a brief nod. ‘I’ll need to look at them in daylight. Give me a few days – they won’t dry quick in this weather anyway.’ She hesitated, tucking a loose strand of hair back into her ragged bun, and darted another glance into the house.

  ‘Thank you. There was something else I wanted to ask you. Those men you saw – the ones who were looking for me. You said one was a cleric.’

  She frowned. ‘He wore a black robe. Looked like a religious. I saw him again today.’

  ‘The same man? You are sure? Where was this?’

  ‘Here, in the street. Around noon – I was on my way home to give the children their dinner. I wouldn’t have paid any attention but I recognised his face under his hood. He was going into one of the buildings.’

  ‘Which one?’

  ‘The house you asked me about before. Where the curé lived, the one from Saint-Séverin.’

  I ran a hand through my hair. So Joseph – for it must have been him – had been back to Paul’s lodgings today. He must still be looking for whatever he had come in search of the first time, when he and the dwarf had almost caught me, and it had to be important, for him to risk being seen here again now that he knew he was suspected of Paul’s murder, despite his powerful friends. Some evidence, then, which might connect him with Paul or with a bigger plot. Perhaps he would have left traces behind that might indicate what he needed to find.

  ‘Did you see him leave again?’

  She shook her head. ‘I was out delivering laundry all afternoon. You could ask the old widow who lives downstairs in that building, she might remember.’

  I thanked her and walked down a few houses to the door of Paul’s lodgings. The bells had not yet struck six but the street was empty; a few windows showed the glow of candlelight through gaps in shutters, and voices carried from inside, the noises of evening meals ending and families settling for the night: a clatter of plates, an infant’s thin wa
iling, a woman’s voice singing, the words indistinct. Frost crunched under my boots in the ruts left by carts. The houses were sunk in shadow; only a thin rind of moon and a scattering of stars behind drifting clouds offered light and there was no one but the circling gulls to watch me slip my knife into the lock of the street door. At least, so I hoped.

  I closed it behind me as soundlessly as I could manage but was certain I caught the click of a latch from inside. The small entrance hall by the stairs was darker than the night outside, but I sensed a tension, as if someone were holding his breath. I could not see if the door into the ground-floor room was open. I paused briefly, wondering if I would do better to knock and speak to this old woman the laundress had mentioned, rather than risk being caught breaking in like a thief, but decided against it; with so many people interested in Paul’s death, it was quite possible she had already been suborned by somebody to report on anyone prowling around the dead priest’s rooms. I climbed the stairs slowly, wincing at every creak and groan of the old wood that echoed around the ceiling. Unless the woman was stone deaf, I might as well have flung the door wide and announced myself.

  The door to Paul’s rooms was locked, suggesting that Frère Joseph had been in possession of a key and sufficient time to have conducted his search without being disturbed. I strained to catch any sound but could hear nothing from within the room, and when I peered through the keyhole I saw, to my relief, that the key had not been left in the lock. After some work with my knife, the bolt yielded and I slipped inside the room once more. The air was cold; a sharp draught chased around my legs and the curtain closing off the bedchamber billowed as I closed the door behind me. I rummaged in my bag for a candle stub and tinder-box; once it was alight, I kept it shielded with my hand and turned slowly so that I could take in anything that struck me as different from the last time I had seen this room.