Conspiracy

by Stephanie Merritt

  ‘Who do you suspect would do something like that?’ I asked, into her hair.

  She drew her head back and looked at me with blank, miserable eyes. ‘Any of her enemies might.’

  ‘But – forgive me – aren’t you all sleeping with her enemies?’

  ‘That’s what makes it so frightening,’ she said. ‘We don’t know who to fear.’

  ‘Who was Léonie sleeping with?’ I asked. Her gaze sharpened.

  ‘You don’t know?’

  ‘I’m asking you.’

  Her shoulders slumped. ‘I suppose it hardly matters now. It was an open secret, anyway. The King had taken her for a mistress. I expect he fancied the novelty, with the Duke d’Epernon away at war,’ she added, in a waspish tone that belied her mask of trembling anxiety.

  ‘But did she have someone else? You can hardly suppose the King would kill her to spite his mother?’

  She frowned. ‘No – I didn’t mean …’ She stopped, rubbed her eyes, tried again. ‘We hadn’t seen much of her lately – Catherine sent her to serve in Queen Louise’s household about a month ago, so I only saw her again when we were rehearsing the Masque of Circe for the ball. Léonie wasn’t one to talk much about her business. We have all had to learn the art of discretion, but most of us have one or two close confidantes among the group – you’d go mad if you didn’t, the things we have to endure.’ She grimaced, then her mouth contorted with embarrassment. ‘Not you, obviously. But some of the others.’

  ‘I hope I wasn’t too much of a trial for you. But you were talking about Léonie?’

  She flashed me a soft smile, tracing her finger in a light circle over the inside of my wrist. ‘She didn’t seem to talk to anyone. She was always quite aloof. She had perfected discretion – I suppose that’s why Catherine favoured her.’

  ‘Did you think she was pregnant?’

  ‘What?’ She dropped my hand and sprang away from me, her face frozen in amazement. ‘No – are you sure? The King’s, you mean?’

  ‘I only wondered if it was a possibility.’

  ‘It’s always a possibility with us,’ she said frankly. ‘I had not noticed anything with Léonie, and we all have sharp eyes for the signs by now. But then, we were not living with her day to day, as I told you. Poor girl, if she was. Seems worse somehow, doesn’t it? Taking two lives, I mean.’ She cupped her hand over her mouth.

  ‘What about Guise? Was Léonie his mistress too?’

  ‘Oh, we have all had a go at Guise one time or another. Catherine keeps trying. She persists in the belief that there is one divinely gifted woman who will find his weak spot, while he uses each of us as he pleases – which is no pleasure for the girl, believe me – and laughs at his own cleverness. She sent Léonie to him years ago, when she first came to court, virgo intacta.’ She enunciated the Latin as if it were self-evidently a bad joke.

  ‘Was she in love with him, do you think?’

  ‘She never spoke of it, if she was. But it is a hazard of our situation – more so for the young ones who come straight into Catherine’s service, their first time away from home. They form attachments, especially when they’re deflowered.’ She let out a cold laugh. ‘It’s a habit one is quickly cured of.’

  ‘The rest of you are pure cynics, then,’ I said.

  ‘Names on a list, Bruno. That’s all you are, after a while.’ She gave me a sidelong look with a knowing smile. Either she had forgotten her earlier distress or she was putting a brave face on it. Her hand rested lightly on my thigh. She continued to hold my gaze, her blue eyes expectant.

  I stood decisively to pre-empt any sudden move. Though I had been tempted to revisit my liaison with her at the ball, driven by loneliness and the need for a familiar embrace, here in the fading light of the afternoon I realised what a mistake it would be – especially now that I had seen Sophia again. Not that she was any more to be trusted than Gabrielle, but at least my feelings for her went beyond a quick tumble.

  ‘I had better not keep Catherine waiting,’ I said. Gabrielle rose slowly and came to stand in front of me, snaking her arms around my waist.

  ‘Can’t we stay here a little longer?’ she murmured, sliding her hands skilfully under my doublet. ‘I don’t suppose she’ll mind.’

  I felt her lips move lightly across my jaw, her breath hot on my ear. Her tongue darted out and caught my earlobe; her small teeth nipped it gently. I held my breath for a moment, battling the sudden awakening of my senses, the usual rush of blood, thinking how easy it would be to give in.

  ‘I think she would mind very much,’ I said, prising her arms off me with some effort.

  She sucked in her cheeks. ‘Ah, the legendary self-control. Which I happen to know is, like all legends, greatly exaggerated. Or perhaps I don’t attract you any more? Now that I have had a child.’ She looked at me from under her lashes to see what effect this had.

  ‘Of course I am attracted to you. There was never any doubt about that.’

  ‘You’re right, it seems clear enough.’ She wrested one hand free and placed it purposefully over my crotch. I closed my eyes for a moment, breathed hard, moved her arm with some force.

  ‘My mind is on other things.’

  ‘That’s not how it looks,’ she said, in her silkiest voice.

  ‘Perhaps I don’t want to be left wondering if I have scattered any more children around France. Do you even know who your daughter’s father is?’

  I had not meant to sound so harsh. I heard her draw a sharp breath through her teeth just before she slapped me in the face.

  ‘Don’t you dare presume to judge me, Bruno. You don’t know what it is to live as we do.’ She glared at me, nostrils flared, eyes hard as diamond. ‘We know you think us no different from common whores when you’ve had what you wanted. But we are the ones who are laughing at you. Do you understand that?’

  ‘I only wanted you to tell me the truth,’ I said quietly, rubbing my cheek.

  ‘I have told you all I wish to say on that subject.’ Her tone was pure ice now. ‘Let us go to the Tuileries, then. Catherine will be waiting, as you say.’ She swerved past me to the door.

  ‘At least tell me her name. Your daughter’s.’

  She hesitated, her hand on the latch.

  ‘What harm can it do?’ I persisted. ‘Catherine may be about to have me arrested.’

  Gabrielle turned back, surprised. ‘Why would she do that?’

  ‘Does she need a reason?’ I thought of Gaston’s pamphlet.

  ‘That’s not why she wants you.’ She looked at me as if I were being deliberately obtuse. ‘It’s the King.’

  ‘What about him?’

  ‘He’s locked himself in his private oratory and taken no food or drink for the past two days. He refuses to speak to anyone – none of his courtiers or his bodyservants. He won’t even admit Catherine. She thinks you’re the only person who might be able to get through to him. You’re a last resort.’

  ‘I don’t doubt it,’ I said grimly. As I unlatched the door, I heard the patter of quick footsteps descending from the lower landing. Madame de la Fosse could move swiftly when she chose. She should have picked up plenty of material to keep her friends busy for the next fortnight if she overheard even half of that, I thought.

  We stepped outside into a raw December dusk, though it was not much past three in the afternoon. I glanced up at the sky; it would snow before nightfall. Gabrielle stopped and laid a hand on my arm.

  ‘Béatrice,’ she said, not looking at me. ‘Her name is Béatrice.’

  Catherine received me once again in her extraordinary cabinet de travail, sitting imperiously in her chair on the raised dais, the crocodiles looking down on us with their lidless, distant stares. Ruggieri stooped beside her, his eyes equally reptilian. The Queen Mother appeared pale but composed, her face etched with tiredness under her black hood. I did not miss the questioning glance she darted at Gabrielle as we entered. I knelt and bowed my head, hearing the door close as I waited for permission t
o rise. Three of Catherine’s young women sat listlessly playing cards on velvet cushions at her feet. She dismissed them with a word. I could feel the force of their curious stares as their satin slippers trooped past my line of sight.

  ‘Get up, then,’ Catherine commanded, in a voice that implied I was the one wasting her time with my obsequies. I noticed when I stood that Gabrielle had also discreetly disappeared.

  ‘Your Majesty.’

  ‘You disobeyed my orders two nights ago. I told you to wait until I sent for you.’

  ‘I could not see that my presence was particularly useful, in the circumstances.’

  ‘You fetched my guard a nasty injury, and then you ran away. Slipped out like a rat down a hole. This old fool is partly to blame for not keeping his eyes open.’ She nodded towards Ruggieri, who cringed and twisted his beard. ‘But those look to me like the actions of a guilty man.’

  ‘Guilty of what, Your Majesty?’

  ‘You tell me. A young woman died in my gardens. You were seen in the woods where her body was discovered. You knew she was found there. Then you escape before you can be questioned.’

  ‘But—’ I tried to stay calm, offer a logical defence – ‘I was here with you when she was found. She was still warm. And you decided she had taken her own life.’

  ‘Whereas you seemed most determined that she did not.’

  ‘I would hardly draw attention to that if I had killed her.’

  ‘Perhaps you were trying to be clever. You have a reputation for that, after all.’

  We looked at one another. Before I could speak, she held up a hand to pre-empt me.

  ‘That was not why I brought you here. I mention it only to let you see that there would be grounds to have you arrested, if at some future time I should change my opinion about the manner of the girl’s death. I dislike having my orders disobeyed. Let it not happen in future. Have I made myself clear?’

  I inclined my head. ‘Your Majesty.’

  ‘Good. Walk with me.’ She lifted an arm, Ruggieri lurched forward to help her laboriously to her feet. When she had stepped down from the dais, she extended her arm to me and told him to wait. We proceeded as before, at the same painful pace. ‘The King is indulging one of his black moods,’ she said, when we reached the gallery, in a tone devoid of sympathy. ‘He refuses all food and drink and will not speak to anyone. I fear he means to destroy himself. He is certainly wilful enough to try it.’

  ‘For love of Léonie?’

  She stopped and turned her most withering expression on me. ‘Love. God in Heaven. Henri falls in love twice a week. It is not love you are about to witness, nor grief – it is the tantrum of a spoiled boy who did not get his own way. We have seen all this before, you know.’ She resumed her halting progress along the gallery. ‘He was obsessed with another woman, before he married Louise. He became determined to make her his wife, against all my counsel, never mind that she was entirely inappropriate, not to mention married to someone else. He intended to have her existing marriage annulled but she inconveniently died of a fever before he could arrange it.’ She gave a dry laugh. ‘He responded with the same conspicuous display of mourning. Ordered silver death’s heads embroidered all over his black suits. Refused to eat, scourged himself. The physicians had to hold him down and force food into him in the end.’

  ‘Have you tried that this time?’

  ‘Not yet. I hope it will not be necessary. It irks me to acknowledge this, as you may imagine, but he has always respected you. I am hoping you will talk some sense into him where we have failed. In the present climate, we simply cannot afford for the last Valois king to starve himself to death over a courtesan.’

  ‘If she was a courtesan, you made her one,’ I said. There was a long silence while her black raptor’s eyes bored into me. Men had been executed for less insolence, I reflected.

  ‘That little theory you voiced the other night,’ she said eventually, glancing back to the far doors where Ruggieri and the guards stood waiting, out of earshot. ‘I trust you have kept your word not to repeat it to anyone?’

  ‘That Léonie was with child?’ I thought of my conversation earlier with Gabrielle, the stunned astonishment with which she had greeted the idea. ‘No. Not a soul.’

  ‘Good. Keep it that way. Above all, do not breathe a word about it to Henri.’ Her nails dug into my arm. ‘If he ever gets wind of that notion, I will know where it came from and I swear before God, I will have you locked up on the instant.’

  ‘Was it his, then?’ I stared at her, as the ramifications began to multiply and expand in my head. All of Europe had drawn the conclusion that Henri was not capable of fathering a child. But what if he had managed it, just not with his wife? Even a bastard Valois was better than nothing; Catherine had enough lawyers and theologians in her pay to make the case for legitimising a son born outside marriage. Then I recalled the Comte de Saint-Fermin’s words to me the night before: how Guise had boasted that Léonie was going to put his bastard on the throne. The idea was extraordinary – had she been pregnant with Guise’s child and tried to pass it off as Henri’s?

  ‘Close your mouth,’ Catherine said tersely. ‘You were mistaken. Two physicians examined the girl and concluded there was no sign of pregnancy. I would not expect you to have any experience in judging such matters, but you should be very careful about voicing your opinions before they are substantiated. Now you must go to the King before any more time is wasted.’

  I nodded and made a small bow. I was certain she was lying. She grasped my arm harder and pulled me close, her voice an urgent whisper.

  ‘One more thing, before you leave. My book. The one I bought from the English girl. Can you read it?’

  ‘I have not had the chance to try. Part of it is written in code.’

  ‘Why? What does it contain?’

  I hesitated. ‘It is supposed to be the lost book of the Egyptian sage Hermes Trismegistus. There are scholars who believe it holds the secret of how to recover man’s lost divinity. How to become like God.’

  She released her grip, her expression thoughtful. ‘An extremely dangerous heresy, then.’

  ‘There are men who would kill for the chance to read that book. Others for the chance to destroy it.’ Some have tried already, I thought, recalling my time in England.

  ‘I do not hold with books being destroyed, whatever lurks within them.’ She set her chin in a posture of defiance. ‘Ruggieri is trying to decipher it, with no success so far.’

  ‘He will not do it,’ I said, unable to hide my scorn. ‘The cipher is beyond his capabilities.’

  ‘You think you could do a better job?’

  ‘I am sure of it,’ I said. There seemed no point in false modesty.

  ‘Hm.’ She nodded. ‘Very well. Bring my son back from this pig-headed self-destruction and I will employ you to translate the book. On the condition that you do not mention a word of it to anyone.’

  ‘I am practised in discretion,’ I said, bowing.

  Catherine fetched up a sliver of a smile. ‘Not as much as you think, Bruno.’

  TWENTY-TWO

  She instructed Ruggieri to take me to the King. ‘Try not to fall asleep on the way and let him escape,’ she added drily.

  ‘You caused me a great deal of trouble,’ the old sorcerer snapped, as we crossed the great courtyard that separated the palace of the Tuileries from the Louvre.

  ‘Consider it payment for all the trouble you have caused me,’ I said. ‘You want to keep your wits about you, old man.’ I did not feel inclined to soothe Ruggieri’s ruffled feelings. The conversation with Catherine had lifted my spirits a little; she had been forced to acknowledge that she needed me, both with Henri and with the book. Even so, I did not doubt that, if I failed her or made a misstep, she would not hesitate to carry out her threat of having me arrested.

  ‘At least I have lived to be old,’ Ruggieri said, with a shrewish expression. ‘Somehow I doubt you will see seventy winters, Giordano Bruno, unless
you can learn to say what people wish to hear.’

  ‘Speaking of which – how is the prophecy business? Did you predict the girl’s death, I wonder?’

  ‘What?’ He stopped dead and levelled a bony finger at me. ‘Are you implying I had some knowledge of it?’

  I held my hands up. ‘I am merely asking whether, with your famous gift of divination, you foresaw this chain of events? The girl’s death, the effect on the King, your own failure to persuade him back to reason? Can you predict how it will end?’

  ‘The only thing I would venture to predict with any certainty,’ he said, loftily sweeping his cloak around him and setting off again, ‘is that you will not be in Paris for much longer.’

  ‘I look forward to proving you wrong,’ I said, but I was discomfited by the knowing curve of his smile.

  We passed under the great gate of the Louvre and into a smaller, inner courtyard.

  ‘You do realise he won’t see you?’ Ruggieri said, as we crossed to the royal apartments. ‘We have all pleaded with him, even his own mother, and he refuses to come out. I don’t see what you think you can do.’

  ‘It was not my idea,’ I said. I suspected that his own mother might be a strong reason for Henri to prefer being locked in his chapel.

  Ruggieri sniffed. ‘She is clutching at straws,’ he said, as an armed guard held open a door into the most private wing of the palace.

  As I entered, I glanced to my left at the adjacent façade and was startled to see a woman’s pale face at one of the windows on the second floor, watching me. I strained to look – the figure was distorted by the glass and the flickering lights of candles, but I was sure it was the King’s wife. Whoever it was, she jumped back when she realised I had seen her. I stood, waiting to see if she would reappear, but the guard holding the door coughed impatiently, and I hurried inside after Ruggieri.