‘I do not have the cipher here. It’s extremely complex.’
‘No doubt,’ he murmured. ‘But you are an expert in the art of memory, so I’m sure you have committed it to the great map of your mind. You only wrote the thing two days ago, after all.’
‘What does it matter? You are holding the only copy in your hand. All you need do is destroy it, if you fear its contents.’
‘If only we could trust you in that regard, Bruno. But you are a slippery fish. You might have made a copy, or passed on the contents to some other messenger as a safeguard. That’s why we need to verify what you have said.’
‘I will give you some time to think it over,’ Guise cut in, gesturing towards the door. I turned to see Paget open it to admit two men-at-arms. ‘If I have a full and honest translation of that letter by dawn, your actor friends will come to no harm. Paget, accompany my guest to his quarters, would you? Reunite him with his old acquaintance.’ He made a short, barking sound that might have been laughter.
I looked at him for some clue to his meaning, cold with fear at the suggestion that he had already brought in someone known to me, perhaps as another means of bargaining. Francesco, or one of the others? Sophia? Surely he would not dare detain anyone with connections, such as Jacopo or Gabrielle? But he had already returned his attention to his papers; he raised his head briefly to nod at the armed men, who closed in on either side and marched me swiftly back into the corridor. Paget followed, swirling a cloak over his shoulders.
‘I rather fear your luck has run out, Bruno,’ he murmured, in English, as we were led into a snow-shrouded courtyard lit by flickering torches. ‘You’d be wise to tell him what he wants to know voluntarily – he will have it from you one way or another. I don’t think I can help you this time.’
‘I would not expect you to,’ I said quietly, stumbling over a drift of snow as I was shoved forward. ‘I was never persuaded that we were on the same side, Paget.’
‘And yet, in a strange way we always were, despite our difference of religion,’ he mused, quickening his pace so that he walked alongside me as we approached a row of outbuildings where I could see two more armed men stamping their feet outside a door. ‘You are a spy, as I am. You should not take any of this personally—’ he motioned to the guards. ‘It’s one of the hazards of the enterprise. We court danger knowingly, you and I. But I will tell you this.’ He planted himself in front of me and pointed a finger in my face, bringing us to an abrupt halt; the guards exchanged glances, but decided to defer to his authority and waited. ‘I know how you regard me, Bruno,’ Paget said. ‘You think me a mere mercenary, with no higher motive than profit, and that allows you to believe yourself superior to me – you who grub about in the sewers of intelligence work out of a lofty sense of principle. Am I mistaken?’
I said nothing, only returned his stare, impassive.
‘I know more about honour than a man like you could ever hope to understand,’ he continued, undeterred. ‘I am the son of a baron. My father was secretary to Henry the Eighth, and since childhood I have watched my family name torn to shreds and ground into the dirt under the heels of Protestant councillors who were not worthy to empty my father’s privy. If you think me a cynic in matters of religion, you could not be more mistaken. My faith is my honour. The two cannot be separated. I am an Englishman and a Catholic, and all the work I do here is so that one day I may stand on my native soil without being forced to choose between them.’
‘I would applaud that moving speech if my hands were free,’ I said. His expression hardened.
‘Monsieur, we have to take the prisoner in,’ one of the guards said apologetically. He, at least, had given up the pretence that I was being treated as a guest.
‘Take him away. I have nothing more to say to him.’ Paget gestured towards the low brick building where the guards stamped their feet and blew on their fingers outside the door. As we approached, I heard a low, wordless moaning from within, like the bellowing of a wounded bull. The men on the door pointedly did not look in the direction of this sound, save for the occasional darting glance, tinged with fear. I looked down and saw that the snow around the door was churned up and stained pink. Paget snapped his fingers towards the guards; the one who slid back the bolts recoiled as he did so.
The noise swelled horribly as the door swung open and the reek of hot blood hit my nostrils through the clean, icy air. Inside, a lantern swung from a beam in the ceiling; though the candle inside had almost burned down, there was enough light to make out a series of shapes hanging from the rafters, swaying on their hooks as if with some slow rhythm of their own, lifeless limbs dangling like pendulums. My initial terror subsided as I saw that the room was a cold store, hung with the carcasses of deer for the winter. The channels cut into the floor showed that it was also a slaughterhouse, indeed had been used for that purpose very recently, as the drains ran scarlet with fresh blood. I clenched my teeth and prayed that it was an animal, but the sound had already led me to expect the worst.
‘Oh, sweet Jesus,’ I breathed, standing in the doorway, as my eyes adjusted enough for me to understand what I was looking at.
Hanging from
