I turned into the rue des Tournelles, keeping close to the shadows where I could, and saw that there were now two armed guards outside Jacopo’s gate. I stated my business and one of them held me at bay while the other knocked at the door and exchanged a few words with the steward, who beckoned me in with a marked lack of enthusiasm.
‘Brought any more dying men for my master to tend at his own expense?’ he asked, peering past me into the night.
‘Not today.’ I ignored his tone and shook the snow off my boots. ‘How is the patient?’
‘Sleeping, mainly. He took a little broth this afternoon. One of the maids is sitting with him.’ His manner softened a fraction. ‘It would make a stone weep, to see a man reduced to that state. Signor Corbinelli is not yet back from the palace. With this weather it may be that he decides to stay. Do you want to wait?’
‘For a while. If I may.’
He showed me into Jacopo’s study and offered to bring me some warm bread and fresh candles. The fire had burned low but I threw on another log and huddled on a chair by the hearth. When the food had been brought and the steward had closed the door behind him, I took off Gabrielle’s cloak and paced the room, trying to gather my thoughts. As I passed Jacopo’s desk, my eyes fell on the heavy volume he had left open there. This was the book he had been in such a hurry to clear away when I arrived the night before. Curious, I pulled it towards me and found that it was a copy of the Summa Theologica by Thomas Aquinas, with sheets of paper poking from it at intervals. I turned to the pages Jacopo had marked with his notes and felt my throat dry as I began to see the import of what I read.
He had been underlining passages in the Supplementum Tertiae Partis where Aquinas addresses questions concerning matrimony and the legitimacy of children. I picked up one of the sheets of notes in Jacopo’s handwriting.
Aquinas clearly states that a child conceived and/or born out of legal marriage can be legitimised in one of six ways, the first two according to the canons if the man marries the mother of the child, and by special dispensation and indulgence of the Lord Pope, providing the child was not conceived in adultery, he had written. Below he had noted: He may also be legitimised if the father designate him legitimate in a public document signed by three witnesses, if there be no legitimate son.
There were further notes and jottings, half-formed sentences peppered with question marks, but the gist seemed clear enough.
I sat down at the desk, hands pressed to my temples, my thoughts racing. More than once I considered leaving and taking my chances in the streets, but I realised I had nowhere else to go. There was no one in Paris save Jacopo that I could talk to about any of this, except perhaps the King and he was in no state to discuss anything. Perhaps I could rely on the old scholar to deal frankly with me, though I was less certain of that than I had been when I arrived.
An hour passed before I heard the front door and the muffled exchange of voices in the hall. I arranged myself calmly behind the desk so that I had a clear view of Jacopo as he entered the study, brushing snow from his coat and rubbing his hands.
‘Bruno! How good to see you – what about this weather! Are you warm enough? I shall send for more logs – the snow looks as if it means to stay.’ He stopped when he saw my face. ‘What is it? Has something happened?’
I tapped the book with a forefinger. ‘You have been studying Aquinas.’
He looked down at the papers and back to meet my eye. ‘There is always fresh wisdom to be found in the writings of the good Doctor,’ he said carefully.
‘Why – are you expecting a child out of wedlock? My congratulations.’ My voice was flinty.
His brow creased; he tilted his head and looked at me a little sadly.
‘Bruno, you are always welcome as a guest in my house, you know that. But as a courtesy – my private papers…’ He gestured to the desk. ‘I would not go through your notebooks in your absence.’
‘You could, if you wished. You would not find any evidence that I had connived at murder.’ I half rose from the chair as I spoke; I saw a flash of anger in his face.
‘Think what you are saying, Bruno, before your words do too much damage. Do you not know me better than that?’
‘Tell me I am wrong, then. This is about Léonie de Châtillon, isn’t it?’ I jabbed at the book again. ‘You knew what Catherine was planning all along.’
He drew breath to speak, just as there was a knock at the door and the steward entered with a tray bearing a jug of hot wine and two glasses. He squinted from one to the other of us with mild interest, noting the tension in the room, before backing away quietly and closing the door. Jacopo lifted his head, listening for the man’s retreating footsteps before he spoke.
‘Catherine asked me to find any legal and theological precedents for legitimising a
