Conspiracy

by Stephanie Merritt

  ‘It will be assumed that you are working for me, of course. The Abbé will make sure the Montpensiers believe that. Christ, Bruno – I thought I could rely on you to be discreet.’ His voice was tight; he picked up his glass and for a moment I feared he might crush it in his fist, or dash it to the ground. Instead he took a sip, winced and shook his head. I lowered my eyes and tried to look contrite.

  Henri wrapped his arms around himself and stared out over the frosted garden, his face sombre beneath the gaudy make-up. From somewhere beyond the reach of the torches came the staccato moans of a woman copulating. He nodded towards the sound. ‘Not even eight o’clock yet. At it like foxes. No wonder my court has a reputation. What can you expect, when my mother deploys a squadron of harlots to spy for her?’ He lifted his head as if to pick up the scent. ‘Did you ever succumb, Bruno, when you were here before? I do recall they took a keen interest in you.’ He turned and gave me an enquiring look. I did not reply. A triumphant smile spread slowly across his face, causing his white paint to crack as he wagged a finger in affirmation. ‘You did! I remember now – the de la Tour girl, wasn’t it? That was the talk anyway. The one who broke down your iron resolve. Was there truth in it?’ He jabbed me again in the shoulder, playfully this time. ‘I command you as your sovereign to tell me.’

  ‘Only the once,’ I said, looking away. ‘The flesh is weak. But there was very little conversation. I knew what she really wanted from me, and she didn’t get it.’

  ‘Huh. She wanted to find out if you were teaching me magic, I suppose? My mother was determined to know.’ Henri laughed. ‘They have talent, those women, no denying it. They know ways to loosen a man’s tongue far more efficient than anything dreamed up in my prisons. You look at my mother and you think, what could that desiccated crone in her widow’s weeds possibly know of such matters? But I tell you, Bruno, she is the subtlest and shrewdest madam in France, as well as the greatest intelligencer. Not an image one would wish to have of one’s mother, but we must be pragmatists. She knows men’s weaknesses better than we could hope to understand ourselves.’ He picked up his glass and turned it by the stem, considering. ‘You should tell that to your friend Francis Walsingham,’ he added, with a sideways look. ‘Tell him he’d learn more by employing nubile young women than men like you.’

  ‘What makes you think he doesn’t?’

  He smiled. ‘Get him to send some over here, then. I’m sure we’d relish the challenge of resisting them. What’s that look for, Bruno – you didn’t think that would be my taste?’ He leaned against the balustrade. ‘I took a mistress recently. Does that surprise you?’

  I was glad he could not see my face behind the mask. ‘A little.’

  ‘Don’t believe everything you read in street pamphlets. All that “King of Sodom” – it’s a convenient stick for my enemies to beat me with. Which is something else I’d enjoy, if you believe the pamphlets. But in truth, you know, my tastes are far more catholic.’ He paused to chuckle at his own joke, as if it were expected of him, then looked thoughtful. ‘It’s more that, once the business is over, I would choose the company of men over that of women. Would not you? Would not any man?’

  ‘Surely that depends on the woman, sire.’

  He lifted his chin and grunted a grudging acknowledgement. We stood a moment in silence, considering.

  ‘Is she still at court?’ I asked, after a while.

  ‘Who? My mistress?’

  ‘Gabrielle de la Tour.’

  ‘Ah.’ A sly look crossed his face. ‘Thinking of trying your luck again? Yes, I believe she came back last year.’

  ‘Back?’

  ‘Retired discreetly to the country for an interval. Usual business – got herself a full belly and my mother sent her away before it started to show. Catherine likes to preserve the appearance of decorum, at least.’ He added this with a brief, dry laugh.

  ‘When was this?’ An odd tightness had crept into the base of my throat.

  ‘After you’d gone.’

  ‘How long after?’

  ‘I don’t know, Bruno, you can’t expect me to remember every – oh. I see.’ He glanced at me, understanding. ‘You’d have to ask her. She’ll be dancing in the masque later on. But try to keep your presence quiet – my mother will have you stuffed and hung from the ceiling with her crocodiles if she finds you.’

  Female laughter gusted out behind us; I glanced back to see a group of costumed revellers emerge from the door to the Grande Salle, jostling one another and shrieking. The King pulled his mask down and nudged me further along the terrace, lowering his voice.

  ‘You had better find this killer before the Duchess of Montpensier has you arrested for de Chartres’s murder and tries to bring me down with you. Whoever he is, I will make him talk. I will expose the Duke of Guise before all of Paris as a man who murders loyal Catholics to serve his own ends.’ He gripped my cloak in his fist, his masked face eerie as it loomed close to mine. As he stared into my eyes, his resolve seemed to falter. ‘What is it, Bruno? What are you not telling me?’

  ‘There is always the possibility, Majesty, that it was not the Duke of Guise who ordered the murders.’

  ‘What?’ He let go of me abruptly and I stumbled back. ‘What makes you say that? Who else would be plotting against me?’

  I held out my hands, empty. ‘I only say that we should keep an open mind. I have made contact with some of Guise’s associates, as you suggested. It seems the Duke is also concerned to find out who was behind the death of de Chartres.’

  Henri grunted. ‘A bluff on his part, no doubt. You be careful, hanging about with his people. Nest of vipers. They’ll tear you apart in a heartbeat if you give them the slightest cause, and I won’t be able to protect you.’

  ‘I am well aware of that,’ I said, giving him a pointed look, but the effect was lost behind the mask. I thought again of the burned scrap of paper in Paul’s hearth, and of something Jacopo had said earlier, about messages disappearing inside the palace gates. ‘Who takes care of your letters these days?’

  ‘Writing them?’

  ‘Delivering them. Any letters that arrive for you at the Louvre, I mean. Whose hands must they pass through to reach you?’

  Henri made a face that implied he had never given any thought to such procedures. ‘Official correspondence is usually sent by private couriers, who are instructed to put it directly into the hands of my secretary or his representative. As for unsolicited petitions and the like, I suppose they would come to the guards at the gatehouse, in the first instance. Then I imagine some household official collects them and passes them on to my secretary, who decides which are significant enough to warrant my attention. Why?’

  ‘And your secretary has never mentioned seeing any letter warning you of a plot against your life or your throne in the past month? It would almost certainly have been unsigned, but clearly written by an educated man.’

  He pursed his lips. ‘As I understand it, my secretary burns scores of communications every day from righteous Parisians predicting my imminent downfall and informing me that I am bound for Hell to join the rest of my family. We heat an entire wing of the Louvre with them.’ His tone grew serious. ‘But anything that spoke of a specific danger he would have brought to my attention immediately.’

  ‘You are certain? You trust him?’

  The mask twitched as he frowned. ‘Are you impugning the loyalty of my household? What is this, Bruno? Do you know of such a letter?’ His voice had risen; I held up a hand to calm him and dropped my voice to a whisper.

  ‘I found a burned draft of some correspondence in the priest Lefèvre’s lodgings, warning of danger to Your Majesty. That a fair copy never reached you does not mean one was not sent. Any number of people along the way might have intercepted it and decided to find their own solution without your knowledge.’

  ‘Including people close to me, you’re implying.’ Henri pressed a palm over his mouth under the mask, trying to compose himself. ‘People who
chose to keep it from me.’

  ‘Not necessarily. As a League supporter Lefèvre would likely not have risked being seen near the Louvre himself – he could have sent a messenger who read the contents and thought to profit by putting it into other hands. But it may be that it came as far as the Palace and was read by someone there. I only wondered if there was anyone with access to your letters whose integrity you were not entirely sure of.’

  ‘Christ, Bruno – is one ever entirely sure of anyone’s integrity?’ He reached under his hairnet and scratched at the back of his neck. ‘Everyone has his price. I dare say Guise makes it his business to find out what will buy those nearest to me. So, no – I cannot vouch for all my household servants. But I can vouch for my secretary. His loyalty to my family is undisputed.’

  ‘Who is your secretary now?’

  He laughed. ‘Of course – you have been away. I appointed Balthasar de Beaujoyeux. He serves both me and my wife as valet de chambre. My mother thought it politic to surround me with her people. She hasn’t always approved my choice of confidants.’

  I thought of the handsome young mignons that Henri had appointed to positions of power over the years, many of them unfit for the job and several of them actively working against him, it had later turned out. Small wonder Catherine had decided to assert her control.

  ‘Of course, it may be that Lefèvre never sent that letter at all,’ I said. ‘I have no way of knowing. But somebody surely found out he was thinking about it – I’m certain that’s why he was killed.’

  ‘What about this de Chartres?’ Henri looked into his glass, as if the answer might be divined in its depths. ‘Since you believe he killed Lefèvre. Suppose the priest confided in him, or asked him to carry the letter to me – he read it, decided to make sure the priest didn’t talk.’

  ‘But then who did Joseph tell? Who decided – at considerable risk – that he could not be trusted either?’

  ‘Well, you know my answer to that. Our friend Le Balafré.’

  ‘Perhaps. But the Duke of Guise did not kill de Chartres with his own hands, I am certain of it. Whoever did that is the link in our chain. He – or she – will lead us to whoever is conspiring against you.’

  ‘Then find him – or her, if you insist,’ Henri hissed. ‘Because until you do, this plot may still be active. Suppose it is meant to unfold tonight?’ He reached out for my arm again. ‘All my enemies are here, at my mother’s invitation. She calls it diplomacy – but a masked ball? What possessed her? Anyone could approach me – I wouldn’t know them. What better place to put a blade or a bullet in me and disappear?’ He whipped around as if an assassin might be lurking behind the nearest ornamental shrub, but we saw only the gaggle of women, defeated by the cold and retreating, still shrieking with laughter, back to the hall, pulling their fur capes around them. When they had cleared, I noticed a tall man standing further off along the terrace, looking out over the darkened lawns, his silhouette in profile against the light of a torch. He wore a tricorn hat and a dark red floor-length cloak. When he turned his head for an instant, I saw that he wore a blank white full-face mask, such as the chorus would wear in a Greek tragedy. The effect was unnerving. He turned back; though he was too distant to have heard any of our conversation, and he kept his gaze fixed straight ahead, I had the sense that he was aware of us, and that we were the reason for his presence.

  ‘You should be on your guard tonight, sire,’ I whispered. ‘Drink only from the common bowl. Do not go walking in the gardens alone.’

  ‘If I take a turn in the gardens, Bruno, I would hardly bother to go alone.’ He smiled, but it died on his lips. ‘What did it say? That letter you found. What danger did he want to warn me of?’

  ‘There was almost nothing left of it,’ I said. I laid my hand over his; he was trembling, or perhaps just shivering, it was hard to tell. ‘He wrote only of possible harm, from …’ I hesitated, taking a deep breath. I had carried this name in my head for eleven days, since Paul had rasped it out with his death rattle, not knowing what further danger I might unleash by repeating it. But Henri was right: if the threat of which Paul had written remained imminent, I had no choice but to see if he understood the dead priest’s mythical allusion.

  ‘From whom, damn you?’ Henri rubbed his hands together, impatient, his breath clouding in the cold.

  ‘Someone called Circe.’

  ‘What?’ He pushed the mask back on to his head and stared at me as if I had slapped him. ‘How would he—?’ He broke off and continued to gape at me, his jaw working soundlessly as if to form words.

  ‘Majesty? You know who this is?’ A curious sense of relief washed through me; if the name meant something to Henri, perhaps the mystery was solved, and he would know how to deal with it without my further involvement. The changing expressions on his face – from shock to fear to anger and back – suggested that my revelation had not improved the situation. He looked like a boy sledging across a frozen lake who had just been told the ice was not strong enough to hold him.

  ‘That is not possible,’ he said, after a long pause, though he sounded uncertain, and it was no longer clear whether he was speaking to me or thinking aloud. His gaze roamed the air behind me for a moment before his eyes snapped on to mine again. He grasped me by both shoulders and shook me. ‘Where did he get this name?’

  ‘It was written on a letter he subsequently burned. He spoke of the confessional. That is all I know.’

  Henri lowered his head, still leaning on my shoulders for support, breathing hard as if he had been running. When he looked up again, his expression was bewildered. Hairline cracks had appeared in the white lead of his face.

  ‘He said that Circe confessed the intention to do me harm?’ His eyes searched mine for reassurance. ‘I don’t understand. What else?’

  ‘Nothing else, sire. I understand no more than you. Less, it seems.’ I recalled what Jacopo had said – that Henri always wants someone to solve his problems for him – and briefly pitied him. ‘Who is Circe, sire?’ I prompted, gently, but at that moment I felt him start, just as a presence materialised out of the dark at our side. I looked down to see a dwarf in a black mask bowing discreetly. The same one who had approached me earlier? It was impossible to tell behind his disguise.

  ‘To the Devil with you – what is it?’ Henri barked at the man.

  ‘Your lady mother wishes to speak with you urgently, Your Majesty.’ His voice was thick and guttural. It reminded me of the man I heard in Paul’s rooms, but I could not be certain – perhaps it was a quality particular to dwarfs, like the rolling gait. I stared at him and he acknowledged me with an insolent glance.

  Henri clicked his tongue. ‘Tell her I will be there presently.’

  The dwarf did not move. ‘She has instructed me to return with you in person, sire.’

  The King threw his hands up. ‘Does she think I need a nursemaid?’ It was not clear whether he expected an answer; the dwarf and I remained silent. ‘Very well. But there is someone I must see first.’ He pulled the mask down over his face and turned back to me. ‘Do not leave here tonight without my permission. We will speak further on this matter.’ He patted me absently on the shoulder and walked away, his steps pinched and awkward in his woman’s slippers, the dwarf compact and silent at his side. I glanced along the terrace; the man in the tricorn hat had disappeared. Henri had left his glass behind; shivering, I picked it up and raised it to my lips before recalling my own advice. I replaced the glass on the balustrade without drinking, pulled my cloak around me and returned to the Grande Salle.

  TWELVE

  The song of the castrati rose up to the canopy of the heavens in layers of shifting harmonies, fluting, unearthly – unnatural, to my ears. I had always been disturbed by the sound of those soft-bodied, hairless creatures, trapped in perpetual limbo between boy and man. Under cover of their music I slipped between masked guests at the back of the hall, behind the raised dais with the thrones – still empty – in search of a vantage
point where I could watch both the stage and the crowds unobserved. As I passed behind two women talking in strident, aristocratic voices, I caught a phrase in their conversation which caused me to slow my step and hover, straining to listen.

  ‘The Fury of the League,’ said one, letting a snigger escape behind her fan. ‘Who’d have thought?’

  ‘Fervour like that, you can always be sure it’s hiding something,’ her companion remarked. ‘Wanting the world to think she’s some kind of saint. And all the while – incest and murder!’

  ‘Hardly incest, chérie,’ said the first. ‘He was her husband’s cousin, not hers.’

  ‘Family by marriage, it’s all one,’ the second woman said, adjusting her lace shawl over bare shoulders. The general noise of conversation in the hall was so great she had to lean in and shout. ‘And he was still a man in holy orders, cousin or no. I wouldn’t be surprised if she did it herself.’

  ‘Stabbed through the heart, I heard.’

  ‘Really? Henriette said his throat was cut.’

  ‘How would Henriette know?’

  ‘She knows people.’

  ‘Could a woman do such a thing, do you think? A duchess?’

  The second woman rippled her fan and shuddered. ‘That one could. She’d stab you with a look if she had the chance.’

  ‘Keep your voice down – I heard she’s here tonight. Could be right behind us, for all we know.’ She glanced around; I looked quickly at the floor and shuffled a few paces away. The woman’s gaze slid over me without interest behind her scarlet mask. ‘Anyway, she’s a Guise by blood, what do you expect?’ she continued, when she was satisfied that their subject was not within earshot. ‘Her brother the Duke’s had most of the women in this room. Apart from me,’ she added, in case of doubt.