by Kate Mosse
Vidal raised his hand to his right temple. The canker was the size of a fist now, his skin stretched white above his right ear. It no longer caused him pain and, though still plagued by blackouts, which stole days from him, Vidal believed God would continue to spare him until his work was done.
Six years.
He had not thought it would take so long to complete his collection. The Shroud of Antioch in 1562, a spine from the Crown of Thorns in 1572, the Sancta Camisia in 1578. Since then, with the benefit of his son’s exquisite painting of what he had seen in the Sainte-Chapelle, Vidal had commissioned a Venetian glassmaker to produce an excellent replica of the Crown of Thorns – a twist of rushes held within a crystal circle. If the people believed, and invested their faith and trust in an object, even if it might be a copy, then God’s purpose was also fulfilled.
In the casket in front of the second Station of the Cross was a phial of light-brown earth from the Via Dolorosa, where Christ had fallen for the first time and now, in the fifth casket, another vial holding a single spot of Christ’s blood, where he had fallen for the second time.
Only one casket still remained empty.
The swirl and rage of the religious wars in France, and the periods of armed peace, had helped keep Vidal out of sight of Guise’s spies. But they had also made it harder to acquire information. Vidal understood that until the final relic or copy was brought to Chartres, his ambition to establish a true Catholic Church in France, to rival the false piety of Guise’s Catholic League funded by Spain, could not be fulfilled. To do this, he needed his collection to be complete.
Feeling his age and the sickness in his bones, Vidal stood up. He walked with a cane now. The potions and treatments of the apothecaries had taken a harsh toll. His head was covered with a rough white stubble, like a winter field under a fall of snow. His distinctive hair was gone.
The silver ferrule tapped on the tiled floor of the reliquary as Vidal walked to stand before the empty casket.
The time was right.
A month ago in June, after a disastrous military campaign in Flanders, Catherine de’ Medici’s youngest son had died and the world shifted on its axis. His brother, the King – the Duke of Anjou, as Vidal had always continued to think of him – had no children, which meant that the Huguenot Henri of Navarre was now heir-presumptive to the French throne.
No one believed the Catholic League would accept a Protestant monarch, but would Guise be brave enough to stand against the lawful succession? Navarre was a prince of the royal blood. Guise had no authority to challenge him, but Vidal had no doubt he would try.
France was already descending into chaos. And Vidal sensed that, soon, he would finally be able to come out of the shadows. Harnessing the ineffable power of the relics, his organisation would honour the ancient principles of their Holy and Apostolic Church. His God was the God of the Old Testament, vengeful and tyrannical and omnipotent. It was what France needed to return to her former glory. Only might and force could now bring peace to their divided land. When his power was assured, invincible, Vidal would offer his support to Guise.
But he needed the last relic first.
CHAPTER SEVENTY-FIVE
ZEEDIJK, AMSTERDAM
Friday, 20 July
Minou put her head around the door to the War Room.
‘What is it that keeps you from me, mon coeur? You said you would accompany me to the market.’
Piet looked up from the table. ‘I lost track of the time.’
Minou slipped inside and closed the door, then kissed him. ‘You’ve been cloistered in here since first light.’
‘And I am sorry.’
She smiled. ‘No need to apologise.’ She took out her kerchief and wiped a smudge of charcoal from his face. ‘I just worry for you, cooped up in here. We’ll hear from Antoine when we do. There’s nothing we can do until then but wait.’
Over a week had passed since the Prince of Orange had been assassinated in his headquarters in Delft, shot at close quarters with a pistol by a fanatical French Catholic. The leadership of the Revolt had passed into the hands of his oldest son and most trusted general, but no one knew what might happen next. The atmosphere in Amsterdam was volatile. Tempers were running high.
Yesterday, Minou had met Cornelia and Alis in the Reydon pew at the Oude Kerk to listen to the women exchange morsels of gossip in the cool of the morning before the pastor began to preach. By the evening, there had been huddles of men gathered on the shaded street corners and beside the wharves to pass on the latest news. What would the Prince’s murder mean for Holland? What did it mean for Amsterdam?
‘Is it something else that occupies your thoughts?’ Minou asked.
Still, Piet didn’t answer.
‘You have worked long enough. Come into the garden and take the air for a while.’
‘I cannot.’
Minou rested her hand against his cheek. She knew her husband well in this mood. He was like a terrier with a bone, unable to step away – night or day, however long it took – until he had finished whatever it was that concerned him.
‘What is it you’re doing?’
Piet did not reply and Minou rubbed absently at a brown spot. The servants had scrubbed, and polished, and scrubbed again the surface of the oak table where Willem van Raay had bled to death, but that one mark would not be shifted. The blood had soaked too deep into the grain of the timber. She slid a piece of paper across the table to cover the stain.
Minou looked at the chaos of papers. ‘It might be that another set of eyes might help?’
‘It’s not that.’
‘Then what, my love?’
For a moment, Piet said nothing. Then he picked up the compass and bent over the table, cradling the instrument in his hands.
‘It puts me in mind of your father’s old box compass,’ he said. ‘The stories it might have told of its travels.’
Minou smiled. ‘You only knew him as an old man, but in the days before the wars began, he journeyed all over France in the 1550s and 1560s – even London once and here to Amsterdam – sourcing stock for our bookshop in the rue du Marché.’
‘That was where I first saw you. You sent packing the soldiers come to arrest me!’
‘I was young then and foolish!’
‘You saw an injustice and did not turn away.’ Piet put his hand on her cheek. ‘You haven’t changed, Minou.’
She leant in to his touch. ‘You are gallant to lie so prettily.’
Piet put the compass back on the table. ‘Marta loved Bernard’s compass. She was always “borrowing” it,’ he said. ‘Do you remember?’
At the unaccustomed mention of her daughter’s name, Minou caught her breath. Piet rarely – if ever – spoke of her. ‘Marta was a terrible magpie.’ She hesitated: ‘I didn’t know you thought about her still.’
‘How could you doubt it!’ Piet cried, looking at her with such anguish that it turned her heart. ‘I found speaking about her undid me, so I kept my peace. I know that hurt you, Minou – and I wish I had been a better comfort to you in those early days – but speaking her name caused me such pain. When I tried to talk to you, I only made things worse.’
Minou chose her words with care. ‘We saw things differently. It was nobody’s fault. You were grieving for a daughter you believed dead. I, for a daughter I believed lost but still alive.’
He bowed his head. ‘You blamed me for forcing you to leave Paris without her.’
Minou flushed. ‘I did. For many years, I did. It took me a long time to forgive you, but I know you did your best, Piet. We both did.’
He gave a heartfelt sigh. ‘Do you think about Marta now?’
She smiled. ‘Of course, every day. But I no longer expect to see her – in a crowded street, in church, when I say my prayers at night. Too many years have passed without word of her, Piet. Whether it’s the wisdom of age, or simply the passage of time, I have come around to your way of thinking.’
To her surprise, Piet
took something from the table, then walked to the wooden settle.
‘Minou, sit with me.’
‘What is it?’ she asked quickly, her heart skipping a beat. She felt suddenly fearful of what Piet might be about to say. There was no life without sorrow, but the home they had made for themselves here was good.
‘What is it?’ she asked again, sitting nervous and upright beside him, as if posing for an artist’s portrait.
‘Don’t be angry with me, but this morning, I received the letter from le Maistre we have been waiting for.’
‘What!’ Minou’s face flooded with hurt. ‘Why didn’t you tell me straight away? I’ve been on tenterhooks. It’s unkind.’ She tried to stand up, but he took her hand. ‘No, Piet! So many times in the past – too many – we have talked about this. Every time, I beg you to confide in me, not to keep things from me. Every time, you give me your word that next time you will and yet…’
‘I’m sorry.’
‘I don’t understand.’ Minou forced herself to take a couple of deep breaths. ‘Well, what does the letter say? Was he right? Is it Vidal?’
Piet didn’t answer directly. ‘You remember, after the Alteration, Antoine le Maistre joined the Prince of Orange’s army and travelled south.’
Minou waved her hand. ‘I know this.’
‘He was caught up in the massacre in Antwerp and only just escaped. He left Flanders and settled in Chartres, where he has relatives.’
‘Why are you telling me things I already know?’
Piet kept talking. ‘Which is where he heard the rumours about a local landowner by the name of Lord Evreux. Evreux is considered something of a recluse.’ He tapped the letter he was holding. ‘Antoine has further news.’
‘Confirmation that Evreux is Vidal?’ Minou said quickly.
‘Not definite, but three things he has further discovered that seem to support the theory: first that Evreux has a son of some nineteen or twenty years. Which would be the age of the boy I saw in Vidal’s company in Paris on the day of the wedding.’
Minou shook her head. ‘Mon coeur, as I said at the time and since, many men have sons of such an age! That’s no proof.’
‘Second, Antoine also writes that shortly after Lord Evreux first settled outside Chartres – in the autumn of 1572, which also fits with the date Vidal disappeared from view – a novitiate priest was found murdered in the cathedral. The official explanation is that he was trying either to steal – or possibly protect – the Sancta Camisia and was killed in the attempt.’
‘Surely the Sancta Camisia is still in Chartres Cathedral, is it not?’
Piet gave a ghost of a smile. ‘There is a relic on display.’
Minou understood. ‘But the fact of the murder gives weight to the idea that an exchange was made – a false relic for the true one – just as Vidal did with the Shroud of Antioch.’
‘Yes.’ He nodded. ‘And the timings fit between Vidal’s disappearance from Paris and Evreux’s appearance in Chartres.’
This was strong corroborating information, but Minou still didn’t want to rush to a conclusion.
‘You said there were three things.’
‘In the last week, a captain in the pay of the Duke of Guise – a Pierre Cabanel – is rumoured to have arrived in Chartres asking questions about Lord Evreux.’
‘A local man?’
‘From Paris. It sounds as if Guise has come to the same conclusion, that Lord Evreux is indeed his errant confessor.’ Piet turned to face her. ‘I know you counsel me against false hope, Minou, but I have a feeling in my bones. I’m certain it’s him.’
Minou felt it too. She sat back, hearing the creak of the settle, then put out her hand.
‘May I read Antoine’s letter for myself?’
For some reason, Minou felt the air in the chamber sharpen. She glanced at Piet, trying to read the look on his face, but he said nothing. Slowly, he passed the paper over.
Minou started to read, seeing no reason why Piet would have withheld news of the letter from her all day. It contained no more than he had just told her. Until she reached the postscript, scribbled in a hasty hand at the foot of the page.
She turned cold.
‘That’s why I have been cloistered in here all day,’ Piet said quietly. ‘I didn’t know what you would feel. I didn’t know what I felt.’
‘Yes, I see,’ Minou’s voice was barely a whisper. Her thoughts were roaring in her head. Her heart was thudding.
Piet reached out and took the letter gently from her shaking hand.
‘‘‘Cabanel is said to be accompanied by his daughter”,’ he read. ‘“I have not laid eyes on him, but she is a beautiful creature of some eighteen or nineteen summers. Strange to say, Reydon, there was something about her that strongly reminded me of your dear wife: the same long brown hair, the same pale skin, and an extraordinary coincidence – the girl has one blue eye and the other one brown.”’
Piet took her hand. ‘Cabanel comes from Paris. What if it’s her, Minou? What if it is Marta? Our daughter found at last.’
CHAPTER SEVENTY-SIX
CHARTRES
A single band of sunlight shone through the gap in the shutters, falling like a golden ribbon across the bed.
Marie Cabanel stood at the window, looking out over the rue du Cheval Blanc towards the north door of the cathedral. She had positioned herself precisely so the sacristan would have the most beguiling view: tall, her long brown hair hung loose over her shoulders and down her back, modest. Marie rested one pale hand on the casement, so that the white skin of her inner arm was tantalisingly visible.
‘Have I done something to offend you?’ she asked in a whisper, though loud enough to bring the cleric rushing across the room.
Marie could feel him close behind her. She felt the heat emanating from him. She could picture the precise way his hand hovered in the air, desperate to touch her. She let him wait a moment longer then, without turning round, she reached out her hand behind her, so that her sapphire ring glinted fleetingly in the light. The sacristan should be in no doubt that she was a woman of exceptional qualities. A woman much sought-after. The kind of woman over whom, in antiquity, wars might have been fought.
The young cleric grasped it, like a drowning man, and entwined his fingers with hers.
Without seeming to move, Marie let the ribbon of her cloak come fully undone. It fell from her shoulders to the ground, the pale blue material pooling like water, revealing that she was wearing nothing but a shift beneath. Marie heard him catch his breath and slowly turned, so he could see the contours of her body, the soft curve of her waist.
‘You are…’
Marie placed one finger on his mouth. ‘I should not have come, but I could not help myself.’
She leant in so that the sapphire necklace, the blue a perfect match for the ring, fell forward against his black robes. Her body pressed against his just for a moment. Then she pulled back. Marie needed him to be tortured by the memory of what he might have. Without that, she would not acquire the information she needed from him.
‘This cannot happen –’ he murmured, though the words caught in his throat. He closed his eyes and she saw his lips move.
Marie knew he was praying and she smiled. Men of God were all the same. Mind over matter was all very well when they were alone in their monastic cells at night. But when she was there, their vows were easily broken.
Her last lover, a sweet young priest serving at the Sainte-Chapelle in Paris, had told her in precise detail what went through his mind when he tried to resist temptation. He imagined himself on his knees before the grand altar, filling his head with images of the vaulted stone ceiling, the bloodied hands and feet of Jesus upon the cross. He tried to replace the beating of his pulse with the melody of the choir, voices soaring through the nave and up to the highest rafters. He forced himself to remember the promise of the resurrection and of the life to come for those who followed Him and obeyed God’s laws.
Ma
rie reached out and tenderly forced the sacristan to kneel. His breathing came faster.
‘I wish only to give you comfort. You toil so hard for the good of others.’
He rested his head against her belly and she heard him groan as he drank in the scent of her. He tried to wrap his arms around her thighs.
‘You remember those days, after we first lay together?’ she said, pulling away slightly from his reach. ‘My love, I could not sleep or eat or drink. I was sick for the lack of you.’
‘You were?’ She could hear the desperation in his voice now.
‘You were so sweet.’ She smiled. ‘My little songbird.’
He closed his eyes. ‘But I cannot. This is a sin. My vows do not permit it.’
Marie fell to her knees in front of him, so that they were facing one another.
‘Will you give me your blessing,’ she murmured, taking his hand and pressing it against her heart. ‘Or is that also contrary to your vows?’
She could see how desperately he wanted her and how hard he was trying to resist. Then she felt the slightest increase of pressure as his hand cupped her breast.
‘Thank you for your kindness.’ She slipped her expert hand beneath his robe. ‘No one need know.’
‘The Lord sees all.’
‘And forgives all those who truly repent,’ she whispered, tracing a finger up the inside of his thigh. The sacristan rocked back on his knees and Marie knew he was limed.
Suddenly, he swept her up from the floor and carried her to the canopy of the bed, dragging back the curtains so roughly that the rings rattled on the rail.
‘In Chartres, they talk of you highly,’ Marie said, allowing him to lay her down across the sheets. ‘I can teach you to be the man you were born to be.’