Salvation

by Harriet Steel

  As far as he could tell, most of the other customers were travellers. Out of force of habit, he watched them and picked up snippets of their conversation but none of them seemed to pay him any attention.

  Eventually, his servant returned with news that the Maid of Kent sailed at eight o’clock the next morning.

  ‘Good,’ Lamotte yawned. ‘Make sure you wake me at six. After I’ve left, take the horses back to Throgmorton Street. Here’s some money for the journey. Mind they’re properly fed and stabled at night.’

  He settled his account and went upstairs. In his room, the shutters were closed and barred; he opened them and looked out onto the street. It was the main thoroughfare to the sea, but compared with what he was used to, it was very quiet. Above the rooftops of the houses opposite, a full moon sailed between rags of cloud. His elbows resting on the sill, he mused on what the next few days would bring. He was reasonably sure he would not be recognised in Paris – many years had passed since he had lived there – but it was hard not to feel apprehensive. However cautious one was, ventures into Walsingham’s murky world often involved danger.

  It had begun to rain heavily. He closed the shutters then undressed and lay down on the bed. A plague on this journey! He was not looking forward to the crossing. There was always the risk of storms in the Narrow Sea.

  And Paris: there were so many memories waiting for him there. Sadly, he thought of Amélie. She was irreplaceable of course but fifteen years was a long time to come home to a solitary hearth and a cold bed. There was no getting away from it, a wife made a man’s life more comfortable. Maybe he should find one.

  Idly, he pictured the tall woman he had seen at Newgate. She had an air about her and very fine eyes. True, he would not see forty again and his love of good food was becoming evident. His hair and beard were greying but his limbs were still well muscled and his face unmarked by the pox, not, he hoped, an entirely repulsive sight. He closed his eyes and fell to speculating on how the tall, dark-haired woman might look out of her clothes.

  *

  Contrary to his expectations, the crossing was a calm one. From the deck of the Maid of Kent, he watched the grey-green water slap and froth against the hull and felt the breeze ruffle his hair. The ship was reassuringly sturdy, built of good Kentish timber. Under sail she lumbered along like a stout laundress pegging out sheets to dry.

  At Calais, the language of his birth enfolded him as he wandered through the maze of canals and small harbours. Occasionally, he had been allowed to accompany his father when business brought him to the city. Calais had belonged to England then and the cross of St George had streamed from the mastheads of the ships riding at anchor. They had watched sailors toiling to unload vast quantities of English iron, wool and lace. English was spoken in the taverns and markets and English merchants swaggered through the streets. All that had changed now. Calais was French again and the English merchants had to hustle for trade with the rest.

  In one of the markets he bought bread and a piece of oozing, pungent cheese. Eating as he strolled around the stalls, his mouth rejoiced. The English might be less likely to plunge a knife into his Protestant belly but the French understood food. After years of instruction, his cook at Throgmorton Street served up a near-edible meal but his sauces would never match Amélie’s rich, delicious concoctions of wine, cream and herbs.

  The diligence set out early the next morning from the main square near the old watch tower. Crammed in between the side of the coach and a stout, Parisian merchant who smelt strongly of garlic, Lamotte was glad to escape during the coach’s stops to change horses and allow the passengers to eat and rest.

  Three days after they set out, the Calais road plunged into the outskirts of Paris. It had rained the previous night and the streets were still a quagmire, slowing the diligence’s progress. Lamotte cleared a circle in the steamed-up window with his finger. The narrow wooden houses with their steeply gabled roofs and upper stories jutting out over the street were as he remembered. Many were decorated with little shrines to the Virgin Mary or one of the saints, embellished with bunches of flowers and candles. Black cloth draped numerous windows. Paris mourned the Scottish queen.

  The diligence creaked around a corner and bumped over a particularly large rut. The merchant’s head jerked up; he peered out of the window. ‘Does the wretch want to shake us all to pieces? He’ll get no pourboire from me.’

  ‘Not far to the river now,’ another passenger remarked. ‘It’ll be better when the paved roads begin.’

  ‘Even then there are so many holes a coach can easily break its axle,’ complained a gaunt man with a sallow complexion. ‘Only last week, my cousin was thrown from his horse and badly injured when the animal stumbled into one the size of a cannonball.’

  The coach rumbled on past the massive walls and towers of the Palais du Louvre and soon reached the river. Lamotte stepped down and surveyed the city’s great artery. Unlike the Thames, for most of its course it flowed between banks of solid rock and its beauty was not marred like the Thames’s by a muddy strand, strewn with rotting sewage and carcasses. Among the hundreds of boats on the gleaming water, he recognised the great Burgundian barges come up from the south, loaded with wheat, timber and wine. On the far bank, the soaring towers of the Abbey of St Germain des Prés dominated the skyline.

  Shouldering his luggage, Lamotte set out to find lodgings and, when he had done so, called for something to eat. Two hours later, refreshed, he headed for the nearest of the wooden bridges leading onto the Île de la Cité.

  Dilapidated houses lined the rickety walkway and in places, through broken planks, he saw the river racing along thirty feet below. The bridge was a death trap. Clearly it had been neglected for years but no doubt neglect was a malaise he would find all over the city. It was common knowledge that Henri of France was a weak, dissolute monarch. With his resources eaten up by the need to appease and control the powerful religious factions threatening to unseat him, not much was left for poor Paris.

  Relieved to be on the far bank, he strode past the Palais de Justice, glancing at the hordes of black-clad functionaries hurrying in and out. Busy with being busy, he thought wryly. It was hard to believe he had once been among them. If he had never been approached by one of Walsingham’s agents for the information to which his work made him privy, he might still have been there.

  He found the goldsmith’s shop to which Walsingham had directed him, rang the bell and waited. A few moments passed before the wooden cover of a small spyhole in the door shot back. An elderly, bald man with a beaky nose and a prominent chin squinted at him. Lamotte showed the gold ring he wore on the fourth finger of his left hand. After a pause in which he heard the rasp of several bolts being undone, the door opened.

  In the dimly lit shop, he studied the gold plate and jewellery gleaming in the barred cabinets behind the counter while the goldsmith examined the ring through an eyeglass. At last he seemed satisfied and handed it back.

  ‘It’s a nice piece, but not worth much.’

  ‘Are you certain? When I purchased it in Genoa, I paid fifty ducats. It must be worth more now. Surely you know someone who would give me that at least?’

  A flicker of interest disturbed the goldsmith’s impassive expression. ‘I suppose I could make enquiries.’

  ‘There will be a generous commission in it for you.’

  The goldsmith nodded and lowered his voice. ‘Come tomorrow at five. Signor Manfredi will meet you. I have a room where you can talk without being overheard.’

  Outside, Lamotte scanned the street for anyone loitering to watch him leave but the passers-by all seemed intent on their own business. He was not ready to return to his lodgings so he turned towards the eastern end of the island and walked until he reached Notre Dame.

  Set off by the wide expanse Parisians called the Parvis, the cathedral’s magnificent Gothic façade reared up into the sky. The hundreds of statues decorating it were black with the dirt and smoke of generations but i
mpressive nevertheless. Lamotte looked around him and wondered why the authorities did not sweep away the ugly shanty town of wooden hovels that clustered like rotting fungi at its foot. Many of the hovels had washing lines strung between them displaying an assortment of tattered clothes. Gangs of shrieking urchins ran around or squabbled over each other’s finds in the heaps of refuse that were everywhere. Alongside this chaos of poverty-stricken lives were stalls selling fruit, vegetables, flowers, books, pamphlets and cheap trinkets. On the heels of a small party of Benedictine monks, Lamotte threaded his way through the hubbub to the cathedral and went in.

  After the noise of the Parvis, the silence was like cool water. He had forgotten how beautiful the rainbows of light falling from the tall windows were. They seemed to dissolve the walls into shimmering veils. The arcades and columns supporting the great vault of the chancel looked as insubstantial as gossamer. In this hushed miracle of stone, black-robed priests flitted about their business like ghosts. In a side chapel, he lit a candle for Amélie. He had never been a deeply religious man, that had been more in her nature, but when he knelt at the small altar, he felt strangely at peace. It had been the right thing to come.

  His knees cracked as he got to his feet. A wretched business, this ageing: in a few years he might be dead. Would you forgive me, Amélie, he asked inwardly, would you understand if I took a wife?

  *

  He returned early to the Île de la Cité and, when he was satisfied there was only one entrance to the goldsmith’s shop, stood out of sight on the opposite side of the street watching who came and went. The goldsmith’s customers appeared to be respectable-looking members of the bourgeoisie, mixed with a few gallants in fashionable dress.

  By the time the bells of Notre Dame tolled five, Lamotte’s back ached and he was glad to see the goldsmith bow one last customer off the premises before pausing to glance up and down the street and pulling across his shutters. He had been back in the shop for no more than a few minutes when a man approached from the direction of the cathedral. Dressed in a black, fur-trimmed cloak and a black doublet and breeches made of expensive-looking silk, he went to the shop door and rang the bell. The door opened and after a brief exchange with the goldsmith, the man went in. Lamotte waited briefly then followed.

  Riccardo Manfredi was as broad as he was tall with sharp, black eyes twinkling with bonhomie. His lips were fleshy and pink and his pudgy hands displayed an impressive collection of rings set with chunky gemstones. He held out a large paper cornet filled with cherries.

  ‘Signor Lamotte! A pleasure to make your acquaintance! These are exquisite, would you like one? I was lucky to find them, most of the fruit sellers are complaining of the bad weather and the poor harvest.’

  Lamotte took a cherry and smiled. ‘Thank you.’ The intense sweetness brought saliva into his mouth.

  ‘Take another,’ Manfredi held out the cherries. ‘I am glad to see you haven’t been infected with the English suspicion of fresh fruit. Most of them seem to live on meat and bread.’ He patted his paunch. ‘My dear wife, Anna Maria, is always telling me sweet things are not good for this. She complains that all the fruit I eat induces flatulence but when I am away from home, I can do as I please.’ He pulled out a fine, white linen handkerchief and dabbed away the dribble of crimson juice on his chin. ‘You are a married man, signor?’

  Before Lamotte had time to answer, the goldsmith cleared his throat. Manfredi smiled. ‘Our good friend rebukes me. Anna Maria always says I talk too much.’

  ‘Shall I show you upstairs, gentlemen?’ the goldsmith asked.

  ‘By all means, signor.’

  The room above the shop had windows looking onto the street. As the stairs creaked under the goldsmith’s retreating footsteps, Manfredi went to survey the view.

  ‘We are safe, I believe,’ he remarked, peering out.

  ‘How much does the goldsmith know?’ asked Lamotte.

  ‘Signor Albert? I told him we are arranging for the illegal import of some Venetian glass into England.’ Manfredi sat down in a battered leather armchair. ‘Well, Signor Lamotte, I believe our friend the Milord Walsingham thinks very highly of you.’

  ‘And of you, Signor Manfredi.’

  Manfredi smiled. ‘I am flattered, although I understand you have served him many years longer.’

  ‘Since I was a young man and he was the English ambassador in Paris.’

  ‘And you are French?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘But you prefer to live in England?’

  ‘My wife died and I had no family left here. Walsingham offered me work in England. My training and experience was of no use there but he helped me to fulfil a long-held desire to go into the theatre. In England, it is common for troupes of players to travel the country, with all the opportunities that affords to gather information.’

  ‘Interesting,’ Manfredi remarked. ‘Now to business. You may tell our friend, Milord Walsingham, that Cadiz will not forget Drake’s visit in a hurry.’

  ‘That was the intention.’

  Manfredi smiled. ‘But what use was it? The Spanish are already building new ships to replace the ones that were lost. Drake took Cadiz by surprise but King Philip is determined such a thing will not happen again. Some of the ships weren’t even Spanish. One was a Genoese, seven hundred tons of her, waiting in the harbour for the turn of the tide. She was bound for home laden with a fortune in cochineal, hides and wool.’ He gave a rueful smile. ‘I myself lost money there. Others were smaller merchant ships that Drake fired when he had the main prizes he wanted.’ He shrugged. ‘No doubt Queen Elizabeth will claim he acted against her orders but many do not believe it. Does she want the whole of Europe against her?’

  A burr of impatience chafed Lamotte. Had he come all the way to Paris to be lectured? Manfredi had better have something more useful to divulge.

  Manfredi lowered his voice. ‘You frown, signor, but do not be afraid. Your journey will not be in vain. An old friend of mine has been appointed to a position in the household of the Marquis of Santa Cruz.’

  Lamotte’s ears pricked up. A man with inside knowledge of what went on in the house of the admiral of the Spanish fleet was almost as valuable as an informant in the Escorial itself, perhaps more so.

  A shrewd twinkle came into Manfredi’s eye. ‘I think this is of interest to you?’

  ‘Indeed it is.’

  ‘My friend tells me the marquis is in a rage, not just at the destruction of the Cadiz fleet but also because while Drake remains off Cape St Vincent, none of the Spanish fleet in the Mediterranean can reach Lisbon to join the rest of the Armada. Santa Cruz’s main supply lines are cut off. He is short of guns and ammunition, even food for his crews. Meanwhile, Drake ravages the coast seizing any ships he happens to find. The fisherman cannot fish because they have no seaworthy boats left and coastal vessels are afraid to put to sea. Not long ago, Drake captured and burnt a cargo of staves going down to Lisbon to make barrels for the Armada’s food and water. They will have to be made of unseasoned wood now.’

  The import was not lost on Lamotte: unseasoned wood meant leaky barrels, rotting food and bad water. Walsingham would rub his hands at the thought of Spanish crews too sick to fight.

  The light caught Manfredi’s rings as he flourished a plump hand. ‘So, signor, I trust your time has not been entirely wasted. I expect more information from my friend very soon. When do you leave Paris?’

  ‘When do you expect your information?’

  Manfredi heaved himself out of the chair. ‘It is hard to say – shall we meet again in a week?’

  Inwardly, Lamotte groaned. He must not refuse, but it meant being away from London for longer than he had planned. ‘Very well,’ he said reluctantly, ‘in a week.’

  ‘I suggest you come to my lodgings. I never like to use the same place more than once.’

  ‘I understand.’

  ‘Rue des Vieux Marchands, number five.’ He held out the cherries. ‘Another?’


  ‘Thank you, but no.’

  Manfredi popped the last two into his mouth, ate them and spat out the stones. He crumpled the paper cornet into a ball and threw it in the hearth. ‘We must shake hands in the English way, signor,’ he smiled. ‘God be with you until we meet again.’

  *

  In the days that followed, boredom drew Lamotte back to the Parvis at Notre Dame. He studied the books and pamphlets at the bookstalls and bought a few. Many were so scurrilous in their abuse of the French king that if they had been written of Queen Elizabeth, those involved would very likely have lost their lives.

  Then there were the same prophecies of doom that you could find on the stalls at Cheapside. He wondered, as he often had before, if they really were just old wives’ tales. What did we truly know of the workings of the Almighty? Strange and terrible events were certainly not unknown. It must be seven years ago that the great tremor had rocked London. People said the earth had heaved like a stormy sea in other places too, bringing down church towers, chimney stacks and city walls. Some said they had seen darkness at noon and ghostly armies marching in the sky. Others spoke of a gigantic hunter crossing the heavens driving a pack of coal-black hounds.

  Lamotte shivered. There was no use dwelling on such things. What would come to pass would come to pass.

  One afternoon, he loitered on the edge of a crowd gathered around a preacher who had set up a makeshift pulpit near the cathedral. Murmurs of assent swelled as the man fulminated against all Protestants – especially Queen Elizabeth and her ministers – calling them necromancers and murdering heretics: tools of the Devil fit only to roast in the fires of Hell.

  His words sent a chill through Lamotte. Fifteen years ago, in the name of religion, hatred like this had blazed through Paris. Human nature did not need much encouragement to turn to brutality. This man had his audience in the palm of his hand, blood lust gleaming in their eyes. As he reached the climax of his tirade, a flock of pigeons feeding nearby rose into the air in a flurry of beating wings. For a moment, imagining he heard the crackle of flames, Lamotte flinched. A sudden desire to be safe at home in England seized him. As soon as he had seen Manfredi again, he would be on his way.